Rain & Fire (12 page)
Authors: Chris d'Lacey
The fifth book in the series is the darkest of them all. It deals with (obviously!) dark fire, the most destructive force in the Universe.
The weather has gone completely weird; there is a mist over the Arctic that nothing can penetrate, and natural dragons are back to recolonize the Earth. As if all this worldwide hoo-ha wasn't enough to be getting on with, things are not so straightforward back in leafy suburbia eitherâ¦.
David Rain appears unannounced one day in the Pennykettles' kitchen, where Zanna finds him sitting calmly at the table, apparently unconcerned about the upset his disappearance, and subsequent reappearance, has caused.
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“Five years you were gone.”
“I didn't know that.”
“Five Christmases, five birthdays, five Father's Days, five ⦠Valentine's.” Five letters, she was thinking bitterly, remembering how she'd always written one to him on that day in mid-February, the anniversary of his apparent “death.” “And then you just turn up out of nowhere?”
“I couldn't help it,” he repeated. “The Fain took me back. Into the world they call Ki:mera, a place where time is meaningless.”
“Not to me.” She forced her pretty face forward. “Just go, David. Disappear into your weird Fain world. Leave me alone to look after my child.”
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Zanna is doubly upset as she has just discovered a strange rash on Alexa's back while bathing her. The little girl doesn't seem to be troubled by it, but it is yet one more thing to add to the growing list of anxieties that pervade the Pennykettle household.
Liz is pregnant again, this time naturally, and Lucy is not her old self at all. Although the Ix assassin within her has gone, she is still feeling guilty and in shock about what it made her do. As if all this wasn't enough, Henry, the Pennykettles' cranky next-door neighbor, is ill, and his sister, Agatha, arrives to look after him. Agatha turns out to be another sibyl, one of many that seem to be popping up all over the world as the twelve natural dragons from the old Wearle, or colony, are being awakened from their prolonged sleep.
The whereabouts of these dragons' resting places is becoming the subject of intense interest since Arthur received a phone call from an old friend, Rupert Steiner. Rupert has been visited by a small dragon, later identified as Gadzooks, who has left a message on a piece of Steiner's best notepaper.
Arthur, with Liz and Lucy (and Lucy's special dragon, Gwendolen â along for the ride as a GPS) go to see Rupert at his home in Cambridge. There, with Gwendolen's help, they discover that Gadzooks had written the word “Scuffenbury” â but in dragontongue.
Steiner recalls that he has seen some similar marks in some photographs he was once sent, taken in a cave at a place called the Hella glacier, in the Arctic. Using Gadzooks's message as a key, he ultimately manages to decipher the writings on the wall of the cave. They turn out to be the record of a meeting between the last twelve dragons in the world (the Last Dragon Chronicles, in fact). The writings are subsequently published by Tam in his newspaper's magazine.
Lucy is thoroughly thrown by what she learns from this article. It becomes obvious that one of these twelve dragons is lying dormant at Scuffenbury, beneath a hill called Glissington Tor. David persuades Lucy to go there with Tam.
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“I've booked us in here.”
“The Old Gray Dragon?”
“It's a guesthouse,” he said. “Bed-and-breakfast. Right on the side of the Tor. It says in their blurb that on a still night you can hear the dragon snoring. I thought it might make you feel at home.”
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But “at home” is the last thing that Lucy feels. A terrifying nightmare while asleep on the first night is followed by a series of further nightmares in broad daylight. The owners of the guest house, Hannah and Clive,
seem
like perfectly pleasant people; the only other guest, a Ms. Gee, while a little eccentric and “standoffish”
appears
to want nothing more than to be left alone; and as for
the cat
â well, the guesthouse owners deny any knowledge of a catâ¦.
It all starts off innocently enough with Tam and Lucy deciding to take a walk up the hill opposite the Tor, to survey the land. Lucy, looking across the valley, spots something out of the ordinary.
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“I think there's someone on the Tor.”
His footsteps halted. She saw him squint in that scary polar bear fashion, just the way David sometimes did. “Probably a tourist. People come here all the time.” He started along the path again, almost bounding where it hollowed out into a dip.
Lucy scrabbled after him, glancing at the figure every now and then. Comparatively speaking it was nothing but a matchstick, but Lucy, blessed with the eyesight of youth, could still work out its basic movements. She saw the arms come parallel with the shoulders. Half-stretched, not full, as if the person might be cupping their hands above their eyes. Or holding a pair of binoculars.
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But things deteriorate rapidly from there, especially once they discover that the person watching them is yet another sibyl.
And speaking of sibyls, Gwilanna has gone missing, along with the isoscele of Gawain and an obsidian knife, which she had stolen from the Ix that had invaded Lucy. David is eager to find Gwilanna, not only because she is highly dangerous in her own right, but also because the knife contains a spark of dark fire. The leader of the new Wearle, a natural dragon called G'Oreal, gives David the task of recovering the dark fire, which is then to be taken north to be destroyed.
David solicits Zanna's help in locating Gwilanna, and Zanna obliges by tracking and following the sibyl to Farlowe Island. Once there, Zanna finds she has walked into a trap. Gwilanna is in a maudlin mood, lamenting the fact that she should have been granted illumination (a spiritual merging) with the offspring of a dragon called Ghislaine, but was cheated out of it. Gwilanna has created a force field around the circle of standing stones in the middle of the island, within which Zanna, and the dark fire, are held.
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“The circle will magnify the spark behind you and the Fain will see it from here to Ki:mera. By the time they arrive, I will be gone â with the obsidian â and my terms will be written in your blood across the stones: Give me illumination â or I take the dark fire to the Ix.”
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But Gwilanna's plans go awry, and the spell that was intended to put the specter of the dragon Ghislaine to rest instead attracts the auma of a very different â and terrifying â creature. A flock of ravens roosting nearby
are also affected by the energy flow and begin to mutate ⦠with far-reaching consequences.
These raven-mutants cause mayhem and destruction wherever they go. But in the initial confusion at the stone circle, the one saving grace is that Gwilanna, although still free, has been forced to leave the dark fire behind. This Zanna gives to David, who retains it for his own purposes, rather than take it north to the Wearle, as directed. But possession of the dark fire brings interest from the Ix. Zanna is concerned that the Ix are too much of a threat in a general sense, and is worried for the family's safety specifically. David decides to tell her more about the situation.
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“[Y]ou're right, the Ix can't be defeated as such â but their negative auma can be transmuted.”
“Oh, yeah? Tell that to Lucy. She's still scared out of her wits by them.”
“I have talked to Lucy,” he said. His gaze drifted sideways, compressing into bitterness. “She was attacked by an Ix:risor, a highly intensified Ix grouping, sometimes
called a Comm:Ix or a Cluster. When they're concentrated into a conglomerate like that they become almost impossible for the human mind to resist. But that's exactly the state we need them in: one huge cluster. It's getting them there that's the difficult part.”
“And whose finger will be on the trigger when you do? I'd never seen that mangy crone Gwilanna scared until she talked about you meddling with the Fire Eternal.”
“It won't be me,” he said, and looked at her hard.
Slowly, the implication in his gaze began to register. “No,” she said, covering the scars on her arm. “If you put Alexa in any kind of danger, I'll â”
“Alexa is already in danger,” he said, with a calmness she found unsettling. To her deeper dismay, she realized she was trying hard not to cry.
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The danger for the whole family continues to increase. Even Sophie (David's first girlfriend) e-mails from Africa to say that she thinks something is amiss with
her “special” dragon, Grace. The tension builds; breaking point is imminent.
Back at Scuffenbury, Lucy succeeds in awakening the dormant dragon there, but with drastic effect and at great cost to herself and those around her. Tam is missing, several others are dead, and although David sends Grockle to help her, she finds that that help may be too little and too late.
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When she looked again, Glissington Tor had broken into four distinct mounds, and rising from its smoking center was the most terrifying dragon she had ever seen.
It was green, savage, and at least three times the size of Grockle. When it threw out its wings it blocked the sun and seemed to draw the landscape around it like a blanket. From nostril to tail it must have measured half a small field. For a moment or two it kept its head folded into its chest, but when it raised its snout and Lucy saw the redness in one eye, the bones at the base
of her spine turned to jelly. The dragon had been horribly attacked at some time. Or maybe something had failed with its fire tear? Or the eye had become diseased in some way? She couldn't tell. Nor could she bear to look at it for long. But little did she know she would soon be forced to. For just as the unicorn had sensed her presence, suddenly the dragon seemed to scent her as well. The scales around its neck came up in a frill and black smoke gushed from its long, narrow snout. Paying no heed whatsoever to Grockle, it turned its damaged gaze on Lucy. At first she told herself it couldn't have seen her. She had to be a mile and a half away, at least. But with a wallop of wings that tickled the blades of grass around her feet, the thing took off and headed their way. In mid-flight, it uncoupled its jaw and let out a squeal that sounded like a pig being forced through a grinder. Lucy saw Grockle tense. The squeal gathered force and grew into a roar, which seemed loud enough to shatter the dome of the sky. Lucy covered her ears and screamed.
Lucy meets her destiny
The arrival on the scene of darklings and hordes of Ix entities intensifies the situation even further and a full-scale battle commences in the skies over Scuffenbury.
Dun-dun-dunnnn
⦠You know what to do to find out whether Lucy â or any of the other characters â survive or not. What happens to Liz's child â if indeed it is a child? What fate has Gwilanna brought upon herself?
What is the new species that is to be introduced into the world, according to David? Will Mother Earth herself turn against its human occupants if the Ix win the battle and an inversion occurs? Will the light of the world turn finally to an eternal dark �
Without giving too much away, the dramatic conclusion to the battle at Scuffenbury Hill sees the story take a sideways step into another dimension â literally.
Co:pern:ica, the “Fire World” of the title, is an experimental world created by the Fain using templates
of humans from Earth. Thus, the people of Earth have counterparts on Co:pern:ica, “constructs” who are similar but not identical to themselves. The Co:pern:ican versions may differ by name or relationship, but have largely similar roles to play in their respective lives. All the regular characters from the first five books are here, but not as you've known them before. For example, Anders Bergstrom, on Earth a mentor to David Rain, becomes Thorren Strømberg, a psychological counselor to David Merriman. The people who inhabit Co:pern:ica have the ability to “imagineer” â to materialize objects from thought and intention alone. The idea behind the manifestation of this world was to create a society whereby everyone had access to all they needed, within certain limits set by the Higher (as the Fain are collectively known on Co:pern:ica).
Problems first occur when David, then twelve years old, begins to imagineer outside the Grand Design. This becomes apparent during his sleep cycles, when he has nighttime disturbances so severe that he is taken by his parents, Eliza and Harlan, to see Counselor
Strømberg, who films him while asleep. The film reveals a surprising and frightening development.
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For the first few frames, David lay on his back with his hands tucked under his therma:sol sheet. Then, just as if a pin had been stuck into his foot, his head twitched away from the camera and came violently back, making an audible
whack
against his pillow. He drew up his knees. His back arched slightly. His hands began to push the sheet away.
Suddenly, the screen flashed as if a light had popped. At the same time, David jerked up in bed with his jaws wide open and his lips curled back. Two of his teeth seemed slightly extended. His eyes, normally so placid and round, slanted sideward and briefly changed color from their usual deep blue to a strong shade of brown. With both hands he clawed wildly at the space in front of him, though nothing appeared to be occupying that space. And out of his throat came an uncommon noise. A roar, not unlike the sound of an engine.
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On replaying the film at a slower speed, it becomes evident that David (morphed into a polar bear) was fighting something. Even more strangely, firebirds, the only creatures other than katts on Co:pern:ica, were involved in allaying the danger.
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This time, as the colors slipped through the blinds, it was possible to see them re-expand into the familiar long-tailed shapes of the creatures that inhabited every part of Co:pern:ica. Firebirds. Four of them. Green, cream colored, sky blue, and red. They flew to David's bed and hovered in the region of his flashing hands. It was then that Harlan witnessed something even more extraordinary. Just in front of David, over an area approximately two feet long, the air was rippling in a vertical line, as if the fabric of the universe was being torn apart.
“In the name of Co:pern:ica, what's that?” Harlan muttered, and watched in fascination as the firebirds went about sealing the rift with bursts of the white-colored fire that was sometimes seen to issue from their
nostrils. When it was done, they went back the way they'd comeâ¦.
Harlan buried his hands inside his pockets and let his worried gaze drift back to the screen. The image of David remained there for a moment before Strømberg hit a button and cleared it. “He could be a danger to us all,” he said.
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So how could a young boy morph into a polar bear? And what was he fighting? Counselor Strømberg asks David's father, who is a scientist, a Professor of Realism, to investigate. Harlan subsequently discovers that the rift is a portal to another dimension, but within the same time frame. The disturbing conclusion from this is that something from another world has tried to contact Davidâ¦.
Thus, for his own safety, it is decreed that David be taken to Bushley librarium, to help calm him down. The librarium is a huge museum of books, and the largest firebird aerie on Co:pern:ica.
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It rose out of the flowers like a great gray monolith. A single tall building with an uncountable number of floors. The upper floors were lost in wisps of cloud and the whole structure seemed to be bending backward as though it had reached a critical mass and was ready to topple over at any moment. Fine red sand (or something like it) was raining down from the joints in the brickwork and being taken away in skirts on the breeze. At ground level there was just one door. It was made of wood (unusually) and was twice Harlan's height. It was already halfway open, despite the fact that a small sign badly attached to the door frame invited visitors to
R NG THE BE L
. Harlan moved forward to do just that and stepped on something that had spilled out of the doorway. It was a large-format book. He reached down and picked it up. It must have been thirty spins since he'd seen one. He smoothed a film of the red sand off the glossy cover and handed it to Eliza.
“The Art of Baking Cakes,”
she read.
Harlan shrugged. “Welcome to the librarium.”
Eliza opened the pages and looked at several of the ancient digi:grafs. “Why do we keep this stuff? I could easily imagineer anything in this. I don't understand what use this is to anyone.”
“Historical value,” Harlan said. He took the book from her and flipped through its pages. He showed a digi:graf of a chocolate gateau to David. The boy's eyes lit up and he quickly imagineered a miniature version. He gave it to his mother.
Eliza smiled and de:constructed it. “Bad for your purity of vision,” she said.
“I think books are rather quaint,” said Harlan. “And they're real, of course, not constructs.” He closed the book and laid it back in the doorway. “Our ancestors would have relied on these things.”
Eliza shook her head and looked up at the building. “Is this
real,
do you think?”
Harlan touched the brickwork, feeling its roughness, though that in itself was no proof of authenticity; anyone on Co:pern:ica could imagineer a brick. “Yes,”
he said. “I'd be surprised if anyone had enough in their fain to put up something as large as this and still be able to maintain it.”
Eliza sighed and put her hands on David's shoulders, pulling him back toward her a little. “Why would Strømberg send him to a relic like this?”
“Well, let's begin the process of finding out.” This time, Harlan did press the bell.
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To their surprise, the bell is answered by a girl named Rosa, who quickly becomes David's best friend. Rosa is his age and the assistant of Mr. Henry, curator of the librarium. Her job, and now David's, too, is to put the books into order, both by subject matter and alphabetically. This sounds a thankless â and deadly boring â task, but David soon finds out that books are not only fascinating things for all the information and entertainment they can provide, but also that these particular books, along with the building itself, are alive and filled with auma â energy. The only small niggle in David's and Rosa's idyllic lives is that they can never
find a way to get beyond Floor 42, into the levels where they know the firebirds live.
All continues well until Harlan, while trying to recreate the rift in his lab, inadvertently causes a time-jolt and he and everyone connected with him ages eight years, instantly.
For this “crime” he and his assistant, Bernard Brotherton, are banished to the Dead Lands, a huge area of abandoned wasteland beyond Co:pern:ica Central's city limits. Here, they find that isolated pockets of survivors are scratching out an existence for themselves, and the two men are sheltered by one such group, calling themselves Followers of Agawin, a mythical man-dragon of legend. Near to the group's camp is a hill called the Isle of Alavon (it used to be surrounded by water). On the peak of this hill is a tower. Legend has it that the tower was the home of Agawin and is protected by a wraith. Harlan decides to investigate. Along with Bernard and two other men from the group, they reach the tower and find a large stone dais inside itâ¦.
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Suddenly, Mathew Lefarr cried out: “Harlan, look up!”
There, in the circle of light above, was the apparition they had all imagined but never made flesh. A terrifying beast with wings like giant sheets of canvas. Eyes of yellow oil. Teeth like daggered rocks. It twisted and hissed and roared at the men, all the while lashing its dark red tongueâ¦. The creature twisted its ingenious neck (every scale readjusted in one flowing arrow) and aimed its snout downward. Squeezing its nostrils tight, it sent forth a column of blue-white fire. The point of the flame struck the center of the dais. It burned for a sec in a crown of light, then was sucked back into the nostrils of the dragon. In its wake, something extraordinary followed. There was a grinding noise at the center of the dais, and the spot marked by the image of Agawin began to turn and work its way upward. At first it appeared that a plug of pure stone had lifted from the structure. But as Harlan's eyes readjusted to the light, he saw that it was a receptacle of sorts. A cylinder, about the length of a man's hand, made of a glistening,
trans:lucent matter. With cinders in his hair and uncomfortable traces of singeing in his nostrils, he took a breath and closed his hand around it. The outer structure vanished as if it were dust, but when he pulled his hand away, inside it was something from another world.
Lefarr was too awestruck to speak at first. “What is it?” he asked eventually.
Harlan ran his thumb along the curved and jagged surface. “Something beyond our reality,” he whispered. “I believe it's the claw of a dragon.”
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Meanwhile, back in Bushley, David, hearing of his father's arrest, has gone back home. To make matters worse for Rosa, two unethical “Aunts” named Primrose and Petunia, representatives of the powers-that-be on Co:pern:ica, arrive at the librarium. Under the orders of the Aunt Su:perior, Gwyneth (Gwilanna by any other name â oh, dear â¦), they attempt to steal the auma from the books to boost their powers of imagineering. Rosa finds the machine they are using to do this:
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It was a thin flat pad, about half the size of a standard book cover. It had a sleek black screen, which appeared to have a number of thumbprints on its surface. Flashing lights were jumping back and forth across the bottom, as if the device were waiting for an input. Rosa had never troubled herself with elec:tronics and hadn't sent a single :com in her life. Even so, she picked up the pad and pressed her finger to a likely area of the screen. It lit up at once. A message invited her to
SCAN OBJECT
. She looked at Aurielle. The firebird frowned.
Object?
thought Rosa.
What object?
And then it struck her: the books, of course. She picked one off the bed and slowly brought it into contact with the pad. To her horror, the pad came alive. Numbers. Lights. Menus. Colors.
