Fire World

by Chris D'Lacey

  “Hello,” said the girl, and waved a dainty hand. She was wearing a pretty white dress, white ankle socks, and red buckled shoes. Her hair was the dark flowing color of Rosa’s. Her eyes were the striking blue of David’s. Around her wrist was a bracelet of violet daisies. The raindrop was glittering brightly in front of her, like a star in the center of her chest.

  “Who are you?” Penny gasped.

  The child tightened her lips as if she weren’t quite sure what name might be appropriate. Her eyebrows came together in a sweet sort of frown. “I’m … Angel,” she said at last, as if she’d solved a riddle.

  Penny glanced sideways at Aleron. The firebird was awestruck, barely breathing. He was perched precariously on one of the shelves, trying to get his left foot to take a hold. Eventually, his balance gave out and he had to make a semicircular flight to regain his position. He closed his wings in a fluster as he landed, before resuming his mesmerized pose.

  “Do you live here?” Penny asked.

  The girl swung her body and thought about this. “Sometimes,” she answered. “I like it here more than anywhere, I think.” She glanced along the shelves. “Are you looking for a book?”

  “Yes,” said Penny. “But I don’t know which to choose.”

  “I’ll help you,” said Angel.

  “Have you read them?” Penny said. She couldn’t keep a mild squeak out of her voice. She was, of course, a tiny bit put out by the thought that someone much younger than herself might have more knowledge of the books than she did.

  But the little girl shook her head and said, “No — but I know which one you’d like. I’ll show you where it is. It’s been waiting for you for quite a long time.”

  That was an odd thing to say, thought Penny. All the same, she gave a grateful nod.

  From the center of her back Angel put out two wings. “All you have to do is believe,” she said.

  Penny’s mouth opened as wide as any book. Aleron’s reaction was a little more pronounced. With a drowsy rrrrrrhhhh, he fell off the shelf and thudded to the floor in a faint. Penny gasped and gathered him into her arms. To her relief, she could still trace air in his nostrils.

  Angel seemed unconcerned. “Leave him on a shelf. I’ll look after him,” she said. She flipped her hands and set the raindrop floating. It swerved left and right in a wavy line, before it whizzed past Penny’s head. She turned to see it sparkling at the end of a row.

  “How did you …?” Get wings, she wanted to say. But when she looked back, Angel had disappeared.

  So Penny set Aleron down as requested and hurried off in pursuit of the raindrop. It wasn’t difficult to follow, but it was quick. She was nearly out of breath by the time she’d skidded to a halt in a section marked Animal Stories. The drop was hovering beside a row of books where the authors’ names all began with an R. At first there seemed nothing remarkable about that. Then one name suddenly stood out from the rest.

  Rain.

  David Rain.

  Penny felt her senses whirl. The only feeling she could liken it to was the moment during the Alicia story when she and David had looked through the window at the end of the tunnel and peered into the room that had seemed so very familiar to her, yet she had never seen before. If her father, Harlan, had been at her side, he might, with a little more knowledge, have postulated that the name “David Rain” was a product of the time nexus linking Co:pern:ica, Ki:mera, and Earth. As potent in its way as the dragon word “sometimes.” As meaningful as anything in Penny’s life. And then there was the title: Snigger and the Nutbeast. That seemed to set off a second wave of giddiness. Penny read it over and over until her head began to feel as huge as a cave. Snigger. Nutbeast. David.

  Believe.

  She shook herself and made a decision. This was the book she wanted, for sure. She hooked a finger over the spine and tilted it toward her. At the same time, just as if a switch had been thrown, the building seemed to shake very gently. Penny paused. She hadn’t caused that — had she? She waited half a sec, then dragged the book again. With a swish, it slotted out of its position. Once again, she felt the librarium react. It seemed to yawn (distantly) in every direction. Somewhere far below, maybe at ground level, she heard an almighty drawn-out creak.

  She gulped and looked at the book. On the cover was a quirky illustration of a hunched-up figure in a long black coat. It was skulking beside a large old tree, being watched from one of its branches by a tiny gray animal with a curving bushy tail. Penny opened it using just one finger. Right away, the whole book altered its shape and the animal on the cover grew out of the pages. Penny squealed and let it go. The animal landed on all four feet, flicked its bushy tail, and with great agility climbed the shelving up to Penny’s head height. There it stopped, twitched its whiskers, and gave a happy chirrup. Then it sat bolt upright with its tail held stiff, staring at something at Penny’s back.

  “Well, well,” said a voice. “What have you done?”

  Penny gasped and flattened herself against a wall. The speaker was Aunt Gwyneth, fully grown once more. In her right hand she was holding the dragon’s claw. In her left was the cage she’d been imprisoned in. Inside it now was Eliza Merriman.

  10.

  Hhh! YOU!” Penny cried. Her eyes darted wildly toward the cage. Eliza was trying to call out a warning, but her voice was weak and did not carry far. She raised her arms and tried signaling instead, but Aunt Gwyneth shook the cage from side to side, sending its occupant crashing back and forth like the clapper of a bell.

  “What have you done?” screamed Penny. “Let my mom go!”

  “Oh, spare me your emotional blather,” said the Aunt. “Did you really think I wouldn’t get free? Your mother won’t be harmed. She’s being taught a lesson. She has to know who is in control, that’s all.”

  A lively flash of blue light paused the argument. Penny jumped a little and glanced through the window. Suddenly, the rain was pelting down. Another long, low creak rose up from below and the building swayed in a circular motion, as if it had been cast adrift from the ground. From deep at its roots came the sound of grinding stone; farther forward, the groan of stretching timber. Too confused to take it in, Penny returned her thoughts to her mother. After the battering she’d taken, Eliza was sprawled over the floor of the cage. Not injured, but very dizzy. “How did you grow big and put Mom in there?”

  “Ah, well,” said the Aunt, sounding rather smug. “I’d love to be able to claim that I did it, but it was really the influence of this little gem.” She twiddled the claw in front of her face, admiring its slender outline and strength. “Before you ask, it’s a dragon relic, put here by a seer called Agawin. Don’t pester me with questions about him; I really don’t have the time. I think he intended that your brother should find this. I propose to deliver it to David — for a price.”

  “What does it do?” Penny growled. To her relief, her mother was beginning to sit up.

  “Well, if I remember my training correctly, most Aunts would have called it a ‘wand.’ You wave it, you wish, and it performs certain magicks. Something you’re quite good at, it seems.” She circled a hand, inviting the girl to observe the changes taking place around them. The bookshelves were slowly reinventing themselves into a network of planks and ropes. A long-armed creature with drooping eyes and scratchy, golden fur swung across the room and entered a box-shaped compartment in the corner, giving a whimpering call as it went. The whole librarium was coming alive with hoots and calls and screeches and chirrs, not unlike when someone pressed the doorbell. And all the while there was the sense of movement. A slight pitch sideways. A mild tilt. Buoyancy.

  “Oh, yes, this is all your doing,” said the Aunt, picking up on Penny’s bewilderment. “The book you just transformed was a key. A trigger to a complex feat of metamorphosis. Once activated, the whole building displays its true purpose. Do you know what you’ve begun here, child? The rain should give you a clue. It’s a boat. A very large boat. A floating sanctuary called an ‘ark.’
A refuge for animals stripped from the Dead Lands during the time of the Great Re:duction. Clever, I must admit, to disguise it as a museum for books — a dreary place that no one would think to show interest in. I wonder how he worked it out? What arrangements he made? What lengths he went to? What sacrifices he endured?” Her gaze fell solidly on the claw again. “What help he had? I sense the involvement of dragons in this. And did he take in all the species, I wonder? Or did he leave out some of the uglier ones? I do hope he’s housed a giraffe. I always loved the old digi:grafs of —”

  Her musing stopped abruptly. For the last few moments of her lumbering lecture she’d been talking to the air in front of her. She was about to whip around when Penny knocked into her from behind. With a rush, the girl wrestled the cage free and set about making her escape. Ordinarily, this sort of behavior would not have troubled the Aunt Su:perior, for it was no effort for a woman of her capabilities to track down a frightened, desperate child. But the kick that Penny had administered to the old woman’s bony kneecap did madden her and hinder her response. The reprisal, when it came, was swift — and savage. A stake of wood, ripped from the still-growing edifice around them, flashed through the air and speared the floor in front of Penny. It was as tall as her chin and landed so close that she could almost scent the individual splinters as it quivered underneath her nose.

  “The next one goes through your foot,” said the Aunt. “Now come back here, before I run out of patience.”

  “Penny, do as she says,” squeaked a voice.

  The girl looked down in anguish at her mother. “But you were warning me to get away,” she whispered, remembering the flapping of arms.

  “I know, but she’ll hurt you if you try again. She needs us. The claw won’t work without our auma. She tricked me into finding it and turned it against me. But I’m alive and so will you be if —”

  “What are you whispering?” snapped the Aunt.

  Penny turned around, her breathing loud and heavy in her chest. She felt the ark rock again and suddenly an idea came to her. She blurted out, “Is it true you need us to work that thing?”

  “It helps,” Aunt Gwyneth said scornfully. “Now get over here.”

  “I know something you don’t.”

  “Penny, what are you doing?” Eliza hissed.

  The Aunt sighed and tapped her fingers against the claw. “You’re deluding yourself, child — but do go on.”

  “I saw a flying girl.”

  Eliza said, “What?”

  Aunt Gwyneth’s face darkened — but with interest, not malice.

  “She brought me here,” said Penny. “She showed me the book. She said her name was Angel. I know where she is.” These last five words were an outright lie, for Penny had no idea where Angel had gone to, and would never have given the girl up if she did. Her plan was simply to make the Aunt curious and gain a little more time. The room had completed its transformation. And the chaka-chaka-chaka noises coming from next door were an indication something was happening there as well. How long could it be before David or the firebirds came to check on her? Or the magical Angel herself?

  In four strides, Aunt Gwyneth was at Penny’s side. She took the girl by the hair and yanked her closer. Penny’s face screwed up in pain.

  “I’m glad you think it hurts. It’s meant to, child. Don’t ever disobey me again. If you’re lying about this Angel girl, I’ll make you so small you’ll only be fit for spider food. Oh, silly me. You don’t know what a spider is, do you? Think of a creature with spindly legs and a hairy body and an ugly mouth that would trap you and starve you and use its saliva to soften your body before it digests you. They will be running all over this ark. There might even be one or two in this room.” She rolled Penny’s hair a little tighter in her fist. “Where is this flying girl?”

  “Be-behind you,” Penny rasped.

  There was a pause. The Aunt read her captive’s eyes. Surprisingly, the girl was telling the truth.

  Well, almost the truth.

  She threw Penny aside and spun herself around, hopeful of seeing a phenomenon that was only ever talked about in the most secretive meetings of Aunt Su:periors. Instead, she came face-to-face with another kind of wonder: three dragons. Or to give the species its correct name: “dragonets.” Each was roughly four times the size of a firebird. One green. One red. One a soft cream color. The latter was exceptionally beautiful. The sleek lines of her face, from her sweetly sculpted ears to the tips of her exquisite nostrils, were so perfect they might have been imagineered by light. She was enjoying the fact that by moving her wings far quicker than her heartbeat she could hover in midair. She seemed particularly proud of her arms, especially the dexterity of movement in her five hooked claws. By that same token, however, she looked acutely upset to see a single dragon claw in the hands of an enemy of the Ark of Agawin. Her jeweled eyes shone in the semidarkness, sparkling through a rich kaleidoscope of colors before settling on a single color: crimson. Her companions adjusted their irises likewise. On a single command (a hrrr, not a rrrh) they opened their jaws and made fire in their throats. And before Aunt Gwyneth could quicken her thoughts to imagineer an escape, she’d been doused in flame from head to toe.

  11.

  But, amazingly, it did not kill her. Her body pitched and jerked within its sleeve of fire and she screeched as loudly as any creature on the ark (setting off an echoing cacophony throughout), yet when it was done she was still standing. The only indications of any kind of burning were the crackling frizzles at the ends of her hair and the lingering smell of charred carbons (mainly motes of wood that had settled on her clothing during the transformation). She lifted her gaze toward her attackers. “Thank you,” she said to them, rolling the words together in a growl. “I feel so much better for that.” And here was a lesson for Aurielle to learn: A dragon cannot flame its own kind. All their combined assault had achieved was to energize the claw and make Aunt Gwyneth stronger. She was not slow to explore her new potential either. Aleron and Aurielle wisely backed away from her furious glare, but Azkiar, ever the impulsive one, bared his fangs and made a lunge for her. With one flick of the claw, she sent him tumbling backward. He crashed into a wooden post, bringing down a section of the structure that housed the gibbering animals. The same impact scared away a small collective of dark-colored birds that had been strutting about on one of the beams. They scattered in front of Aurielle and funneled through the window. When they had cleared, Aunt Gwyneth was nowhere to be seen.

  At that point, Penny came bounding forward and said with some urgency, “She flew away! She made herself into a bird!” She put the cage aside and flapped her arms. Aurielle, who had settled on the floor by now, blew a smoke ring and flexed her optical triggers. Although she did not understand what had happened to the aerie or the exciting transition the firebirds had gone through, the advantages of it were plainly felt. One was improved vision. She let her gaze stream into the misty sky. The birds were dark specks, not much bigger than swollen raindrops. One had separated off from the group and was spiraling up the side of the ark. Aurielle let her eyes zoom in on it. Despite reaching the limits of her sight, she was able to verify Penny’s account. The black bird had an arrogant glint in its eye — and one of its claws was colored dark green.

  “You’ve got to go after her!” Penny gabbled on. “She’s going to hurt David. I know she is.”

  “David.” The one word of human-speak Aurielle understood. She flipped a worried glance at Azkiar. He was winded and had suffered damage to a wing (one of his balancing stigs had sheared). He would not be flying anywhere quickly — at least not in a straight line. And all this time the Aunt was escaping. Aurielle knew she must act. Telling Aleron to guard the humans (and to please keep Azkiar put, for once), she lifted off and arrowed her body through the window. She rolled twice in the rain before opening her wings with a satisfying phut! And away she went in pursuit.

  Aunt Gwyneth meanwhile — or the raven she’d become (a deliberate low-level tr
ansformation to preserve the capability of the claw) — was also enjoying the wonders of flight. She was soaring through the air, angling her head both left and right, taking in the changes to the librarium. Her dialogue with Penny had not been overstated. The giant stone building had metamorphosed into a colossal floating vessel, with a bloated wooden hull and a sturdy prow. It sat upon an ocean (there was no better word) of clear blue water still being patterned by tumbling rain. A host of creatures, some in shoals, some individual giants, swam alongside as it bobbed through the water. What powered it, who could say? Where it was going, the Aunt could not tell. But it was all the while being joined by an increasing number of smaller boats, imagineered by bewildered Co:pern:icans who had adopted the ark as their template for survival. They could be seen lining the sides of their vessels, aiming eyeglasses and tele:scopes at the leviathan dominating the rising water. None of the supporting boats was any taller than the ninth row of planking in the ark’s strapping hull. And none were within the shadow of its girth. But all of them were going where its bow wave pointed. What other choice did they have?

  Aunt Gwyneth banked to one side and turned her thoughts to the structure of the craft. The “rooms” of the librarium were still plain to see, though their famous square windows were now uniformly arched and the rooms were arranged not in recurring even-sized floors, but in a series of concentric oval decks. An animal’s head could be seen poking out of a window here and there. (The long-necked giraffes were at midterrace level about halfway back.) Walking the main deck were two enormous beasts with wrinkled gray skins, huge flapping ears, and the longest nasal attachments the Aunt had ever seen. But where, she wondered, was David Merriman? Her dark raven eye swept upward. Like the building before it, the highest stories of the ark were hidden under lines of frothy cloud. Her instincts told her that this was where she would find her quarry. So she set a course for a point just above the top level of white, thinking she would swoop down and surprise any creature concealed within it. But the higher she climbed, the thinner grew the air and the thinner grew her blood and the less appealing this plan became. Of greater concern was the sight of Aurielle coming after her. The cream dragonet was gaining fast. Cursing the raven’s pitiful shortcomings, Aunt Gwyneth dipped, early, into the cloud. There was no point challenging a creature better adapted to altitude than she. But the use of guile was another matter. Inside the mist, the advantage would swing the way of the opponent most cunning. The raven gave out a condescending caarrk. The stupid dragon bird would be dead within minits.