The Last Dragon Chronicles: Fire World: Fire World (18 page)

criminal. Did he explain to you why he was running the experiment?”

Eliza shook her head. “Harlan rarely discussed his work. I’m not even sure I

want to know. Eight years of life with my children has gone. I can’t forgive him for that. Besides, I wasn’t around when he was planning the experiment. I was taken from here, to be trained as an Aunt. I was in the Dead Lands when all this was happening.”

“An Aunt? You couldn’t become an Aunt in a million spins.”

“Mmm, truer than you think. According to the one who took me in, I’m too ‘wild’ to learn their ways. She cancelled my programme and sent me home. I’m just so relieved that she let me keep Penny. I’m effectively under house arrest, here. I’m

being monitored by her. She could turn up at any moment, day or night. If she comes calling, you must give her access. I mean that. No confrontations, OK? Her name is

”

—

“Aunt Gwyneth.”

Eliza looked up.

“I met her at the librarium. She’s the one who exiled Dad. Sounds like she’s got a finger in everything.”

“She’s an Aunt Su:perior. A very powerful influence.”

“I don’t trust her,” David said. He picked up a banafruit and started to peel it.

“David, that kind of talk is going to get you into trouble.”

“I can read it in her auma, Mum. The woman’s not right.”

Once again, Eliza looked away, pained. “I hear what you’re saying and I know Ishould feel great anger towards her. She’storn our family apart, after all. But therewas a moment in the Dead Lands when I

sensed she had genuine compassion for

me.”

“Why, because of Penny?”

“No, not Penny. And that’s another story, anyway. Aunt Gwyneth wasn’t there when Penny was born. Neither was your father.   I   constructed  Penny  without Harlan’s auma – or the patronage of the Aunt. Your sister was birthed from an

egg.”

“An
 
egg
?”

“Shush. She’s got ears the size of your

librarium. I don’t understand how this

could  happen  either. Aunt  Gwyneth

described it as ‘self-propagation’. She had a few other spikier words for it as well, but I’m not going to repeat them here. You must promise me you won’t say a word of this to Penny.”

“Of course not. But an egg? Like a firebird, you mean? You found a firebird’s egg and imagineered a girl inside it?”

“No. I
 
made
 
an egg. Physically. From this.” She opened a drawer and plopped a chunk of earth wrapped in paper on the table. “It’s called clay. I brought it back from the Dead Lands. David, I saw things in that place. Things way outside the Grand  Design.  Animals   like   Boon, different from Boon. And incredible flying creatures.”

“Dragons?”   he   asked,   suddenly becoming still.

“Yes.” She looked stunned. “You know about dragons?”

He thought back to Rosa and her book. Rosa: what must she be feeling at this moment? “I learned a little in the

librarium. Tell me what happened.”

Eliza raised her shoulders. “There isn’t

much to say. One moment I was totally alone in the wilderness and the next, dragons had appeared in the skies all around me. They were transparent, almost ghostly, but they felt very real. I had a powerful instinctive memory of them. That’s how I knew what they were. At first they swooped over me as if they were checking that I wasn’t a threat. Then one of them, a really strange-looking creature, skinny and bony and not nearly as thicklyscaled as the rest, guided me to a cave –

to shelter. That’s where I began to work with the clay. As well as the egg, I made figures of the dragons I’d seen. Aunt Gwyneth destroyed them all before we left. I was lucky to smuggle this wodge of clay out.”

David pressed his thumb to it, leaving a dent.

“There’s something else you should know. They did something, David. The dragons, I mean. They were partly responsible for Penny’s birth. One night, I left the egg in a nest of dead wood at the mouth of the cave. A dragon spirit came down and immersed it in flame. It tripled in size and glowed for two days, too hot to go near. As it cooled, it cracked open. And there she was. This tiny human child. Beautiful. Fully-formed. And completely

unblemished – apart from one thing.”

“And what was that?”

Eliza picked at her fingers for amoment. “She had a small dragon’s tail.”

Tail?
 
David mouthed. He felt his gazebeing pulled towards his room. “And isit… ?”

“No.   It   shrivelled   away   almost immediately. It seemed to be absorbed inside her.”

“So she’s part dragon? She has their auma?”

“Yes. It’s possible I do, too. And you know what? The idea fills me with joy. They are amazing creatures. I felt more alive among them than I’ve ever done before.”

David finally took a bite of his banafruit, though he seemed to have lost

the will to chew. “How did Aunt Gwyneth

react?”

“She doesn’t know. I was planning to tell her. But after she destroyed the sculptures I thought it would be too dangerous.”

David nodded. That was a reasonable

assumption. “Why destroy the sculptures?

I don’t understand that.”

“She called them a heresy against the Design. And yet I’m convinced she believes in dragons.”

“She must have had her suspicions about Penny?”

Eliza nodded. “She almost collapsed when she saw her. The feeling I had

was… what’s that old word? Envious.”

“Surely Aunts can have a child like anyone else?”

“Not one like your sister.”

“Got it!” cried a voice.

David sat back, tutting. In the midst ofthe   conversation   he   had   let   his

concentration slip. Penny was pounding back towards the kitchen. He cleared his thoughts and said, “Dad’s com:puter. Is it still in his study?”

“Yes, but it’s useless. Wiped, I think. The Re:movers came and… ”

“That’s OK,” David said, raising his hand.

Penny ran in breathless. She plonked
 
Alicia in a Land of Wonder
 
on the table. “What is it?” she asked.

“A book,” David said. “You read it and… pictures come into your head.”

“What’s reading?” Penelope looked blankly at her mother.

David pushed Boon off his lap andstood up. “I’ll teach you,” he said. Hepicked up the book and tapped Penny onthe head with it. “I’ll read it
 
to
 
you. Tonight. At bed time. Would you like that,little sister?”

“Read it now!” she said excitedly.

“Not now,” said David. “Too manythings to do.”

“Oh! Like
 
what
?”

David smiled and tousled her hair.

Com:puter. Micro:pen. Answers
 
, he wasthinking.

He put the last of the banafruit into hismouth and made his way to his father’sstudy.

7

Harlan Merriman’s private room was justas David had remembered it: pale bluewalls (plain, for calmness, his fatheralways said), vertical blinds (half open)at the window, a purple
 
frondulus
 
to adda sweet breath of contrast to the blue, adesk in the centre of the wood-effect floor.

A model of minimalism, the study hadalways been neat and uncluttered, thoughthe ornamental constructs that usuallydecorated the alcove shelves had gone –possibly taken by the Re:movers, morelikely faded away. A material construct, ifuncared for or left untended for a while,would eventually begin to disassemble,and the fain required to make it would be

returned to the Higher. An individual’s

power   to   imagineer   could   quickly diminish in this way. In extreme cases it could be lost for good. For that reason, the shrewd Co:pern:ican did not create excessive possessions, but managed their fain at comfortable levels and learned only to construct what they needed, when they needed it. A true appreciation of the world around them was one of the greatest Co:pern:ican virtues. Harlan had been a wise exponent of the practice, but had always liked to gather real artefacts too. David picked up a light-grey pebble, the only thing left lying on the shelves. It was shaped like a cloud and had yellow striations across its surface. There was no

telling where his father had found it, but that was just part of Harlan’s enigma.

David  dropped  it  into  his  pocket,exchanging it for the micro:pen. He wentand sat in his father’s chair.

“Begin,” he said.

The com:screen pinged into life.

“Explore.”

The com:puter reported no softwareavailable. Wiped, as Eliza had said.

David   inserted   the  pen.   It  wasrecognised immediately. As data pouredinto the molecular drive he tapped hisknees in appreciation. His father, forwardthinking as ever, had downloaded all therun:time software the com:puter neededonto the pen. It wasn’t long before themachine was up to full efficiency. As itreached that status, a window opened and Harlan Merriman’s face appeared on the

screen.

“One to one,” David said. The sound of Harlan’s voice would now be digitally reshaped so that it fell only within David’s envelope of hearing.

In a whisper, the image of his father said, “David, if you’re watching this, then I managed to reach you before they tracked me down. I didn’t have long to make this :com, so if I’ve missed anything or I’m repeating what I’ve already told you, forgive me.

“There are two films on the drive. One is of you in a sleep facility at Thorren Strømberg’s therapy centre. We took you there when you were twelve spins old because   you   were   experiencing nightmares you couldn’t recall the next day. You were sent to the librarium on Thorren’s advice. He did it to protect you.

He’s a good man, David. Trustworthy. Clever. He’s gone into hiding to avoid the Aunts. He didn’t betray me; I asked him todo this because he was present when thesecond film was shot. That was done at

my lab, where we were trying to recreate the conditions of your dreams. You’ll know about the time distortion by now. I haven’t had time to analyse the footage, but I believe that whatever caused the quake is not of this world. You possess extraordinary talents, David. Something, somewhere, knows it and wants to track you down. I don’t know why. Watch the film – I can hardly stop you now – but if anything becomes apparent, I beg you not to attempt anything. Find Strømberg. Show him. Take it to the Higher. And please, don’t come looking for me. They’ll send

me to the Dead Lands. You could spend an eternity trying to find me. I want you instead to take care of your mother. But most of all, take care of yourself.”

The window closed. Without waiting for a verbal command, the com:puter began to play the film ‘Project 42’. David sat forward. For the first time he saw what his father had seen – the disturbed sleep, the rift, the firebirds coming. But what made him tilt forward on the edge of his chair was the sight of himself morphing into…

“Reverse 20 secs,” he said. “Replay till command.”

The section played over and over. David sat back again, shaking his head. What was happening to him? What was he becoming? What kind of creature had

curving yellow teeth and brown eyes that slanted back like that? And what was that

creature attempting to fight? A burst of laughter distracted his thoughts. Glancing sideways, he saw Penny in the garden, playing with Boon. Penny, who looked just as human as he did. If his sister had dragon auma inside her, was it possible that he had something unusual as well?
 
I saw things in that place. Things way outside the Grand Design. Animals like Boon, different from Boon
 
. His mother’s words tripped through his head again. What if the animal he’d become in his

dreams was once alive and well in the Dead Lands? He swung his chair back to the screen again. “Stop. Next film.” The com:puter cleared the image. Up instead came the darker environment of Harlan

Merriman’s laboratory. David recognisedhis father and Thorren Strømberg andguessed that the third man was Bernard Brotherton, the tech:nician who hadvisited his father at home several times.

The camera was pointed at the horseshoeof lights, giving roughly the same viewthat   the   scientists   had   from  theirobservation platform. Their conversationwas hard to pick out, but David heard hisfather make a bold announcement before

he activated the horseshoe device.
 
Behold

the universe in microcosm
 
.

At first, there was nothing. No obviouseffect. Then the airspace described by theframe of the shoe began to stretch andfold, and crackling bolts of elec:tricalenergy emerged from nodes all around itsinner surface. Where they met, at the

centre   of  the   airspace,   a  vertical shimmering line appeared, just like the one in David’s dream. The two scientists briefly congratulated each other. Then David saw Bernard Brotherton turn to the