The Last Dragon Chronicles: Fire World: Fire World (33 page)

“All right,” he sighed. “I’ll take it away. But it’s tired. At least let it have a sleep first.” In a blink he’d imagineered a comfortable basket. He placed it on the single bed that hadn’t been burned, where it could settle and catch the rays of the sun. He put the katt into it and told it to behave. The katt stretched, arched its back and spiralled down. Before long it was

curled up with its tail around its nose.

“If it plays up, I’ll put it in a cage,” he

said.

Rosa shook her head and carried on

sweeping.

For the first time since he’d been back, David let his gaze wander around the room. It was in a terrible state: charred shelves, smoke-stained walls, remnants of book covers everywhere. Rosa winced as he crouched down and crumbled what

remained of a once-thick paperback. “So, what happened?”

In one breath, she brought him up to speed, telling him how the fire had started and the Aunts had been stealing the auma from the books.

“So Strømberg was right,” he muttered. “He told me the Aunts were planning

something. I’ll send him a :com. He’ll want to see this. It has to be illegal, what they were doing. Aunt Gwyneth will probably be outlawed for it.”

Brr-up
, went the katt.

“What happened to the device they were using?” He walked around, sifting the debris with his feet. All of a sudden he spotted something and pushed aside the frame of the other, damaged, bed. “Is this it?” He held up the pad. The casing was warped and split along one side. At one end, its pink neural circuit boards were visible.

“Yes,” said Rosa. “Useless, right?”

He brought it over, smearing cinders off the screen. From its audio slot came a weak kind of whirr. He tapped it against his palm. Nothing happened for a sec.

Then two orange lights flickered on.

Rosa sucked in sharply and let go of thebroom. Despite the clatter as it hit thefloor, David didn’t look up right away. Hewas trying to read something off thescreen. Eventually, he turned it round andshowed it to her.

“Auma  transferred,”  he   said.   He brought his gaze level with hers.

She shrugged. “So?”

He glanced at her arm and seemed to know. “It’s gone to you, hasn’t it?”

(In the basket, the katt pricked an ear.)

Rosa gulped. She picked up the broom and started pushing again. “I didn’t know until Aurielle told me upstairs.”

“Aurielle?”

“The cream-coloured bird. That’s her name. Aurielle, Azkiar, Aleron. Cream, red, green. She saw the auma go into my scars. I didn’t tell you right away because my head was still dizzy from the input of knowledge.”

“Do you feel OK now?”

“Mmm. Fine. Ask me anything you like about furniture design in the forty-ninth spin – it was one of Mr Henry’s favourite topics.”

David smiled and looked at what was left on the shelves. “I worked in this room

with Mr Henry once. There was nothing in these books about language or the birds. So how are you able to talk to them?”

(The katt raised its other ear at that.)

Rosa tidied up the ash and put the broom aside. “I don’t know. When I came

round I was just aware that I could, as if it had been imprinted on me. But there’s more to it than just being able to talk. I’ve been picking up on something more… elemental.”

“Go on,” he said.

She shook her head. “It’s just an instinctive feeling, but I’m convinced there’s a spiritual link between the birds and the books. It’s got something to do with the history of the building. When I try to home in on it, though, all I see is fuzzy pictures flashing through my head.”

“Of what?” David asked.

She sat down on the bed with her kneesturned in. “Dragons,” she said, so quietlythat the katt arched up in its basket. “Andthere’s a name. It comes like an echoingdrum.”

“Agawin?”

“Yes. You’ve heard it too?”

He sat down beside her. “Counsellor Strømberg told me there’s a book I need tocheck.”

“I know it,” Rosa said. “He showed it to me. It’s hidden in the room where you woke up. It’s full of weird symbols. Dragontongue and stuff. I was supposed to be finding a way to translate it when it all kicked off with your dad and the Aunts.”

“Can you take me to it?”

“Yes,” she said, and was about to jump up when Azkiar appeared on the window ledge. “Uh-oh. This doesn’t look good.”

There was menace in the red firebird’s

eyes, the kind of look that suggested he held the katt responsible for Aubrey’s death. But Aunt Gwyneth was not at all

troubled. Indeed, her devious mind had swiftly conjured up a way to turn this situation to her advantage. As Azkiar flew in, the ash pile erupted and reformed into a dark-winged creature. It appeared in front of the startled firebird as a hissing, ugly, ball of venom. Before Azkiar could change course or think to draw flame, the creature had attached itself to his chest

and exposed a wide array of needle-like teeth, ready to sink into his neck.

Rosa screamed. And David was on his feet in an instant. But even before his

amazing mind could imagineer a suitable form of defence, the katt had come bounding across the room and in one leap had taken the creature down. As they hit the floor together, the creature broke free and turned to look its assailant in the eye.

What followed wasn’t pretty. With a flashof claws that saw dark-coloured blood

and minor body parts sprayed against a wall, the katt brought the fight to a swift conclusion. When it was done, it stood over the corpse for a moment, threw a dispassionate glance at Azkiar (dazed and confused, but otherwise OK) then turned and climbed back into its basket. What

was left of the strange black creature dissolved into a puddle and drained away through a knot in the floorboards.

Azkiar, his pride dented, glared at the katt then left the room on a powerful wingbeat, undoing Rosa’s efforts with the broom in the process. Shaking her head at the mess he’d created she asked, rather fearfully, “What
 
was
 
that thing?”

“Our mystery fain, hopefully,” David

muttered, though there was nothing left to commingle with or probe. Even the wall stains had withered away. And how had a simple katt, someone’s long-discarded construct, been able to deal with the threat of an alien life force? He turned and walked back to the basket, running a knuckle between the katt’s ears. Its left eye was twitching. Maybe a form of battle fatigue. Once again, as he’d done on the common, he extended his fain and probed its mind. Nothing. A katt, full of vague daydreams. But of course Aunt Gwyneth had prepared herself for this. It had taken little effort for the Aunt Su:perior to cloak her true identity.

“So,” David said, “does it stay or does it go?”

Rosa watched the katt settle down as if

it had done nothing more than knock a small ball round the room for several

minits. “I guess it’s earned its place,” she murmured. “But I still don’t know what

we should do with it.” said Rosa.

Aunt Gwyneth purred. Her trick, itseemed, had succeeded.

“Well, we could give it a home – and aname.” (
 
You’d better make it a good one
 
, Aunt Gwyneth was thinking darkly.) “Ireckon it’s a male. What about Felix?”

Male? Aunt Gwyneth almost bit into hisfinger. (Though the irony of the last twoletters did amuse her.)

Rosa shuddered. “Whatever. I just wantto get out of this room now. Do you stillwant to see the book?”

“Of course.”

Miaow!
 
went ‘Felix’, reaching out a

paw.

“All right, you can come too,” David said. And resting the katt against his shoulder, he followed Rosa out of the room, Aunt Gwyneth dribbling on his jacket for good measure.

In Mr Henry’s favourite reference room,the one in which David had recovered

from his coma, Rosa slid the ladders along the shelves, riding them just like the old curator would have done. “This panel is false,” she said, banging it at roughly the same place she thought he had. After three attempts, the panel swung open.

David looked into the secret – but

empty – compartment.

“Oh,” Rosa said. Her shoulders sagged.

“That’s weird. He definitely took it from

here.”

David put the katt down and strolled around the room, running his fingers over similar panels. “He must have put it back somewhere else. There could be any number of hiding places in the building.”

“There’s one here.” Rosa went to the

cupboard that held the animal book. It was still  there,  but
 
The Book of Agawin
 
wasn’t.

David took it out and flipped through the pages. “Wow. Have you seen this?”

“Yes,” Rosa said. “Strømberg showed me. All those creatures died out ages ago. The one you’re on is called a squirrel, I think.”

David stared at the picture for thelongest time.

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

“I’ve seen these creatures before,” he muttered. He took the auma pad out of his pocket.

“David, what are you doing?!”

“I can feel the pad humming.”

“What? Well, switch it off. Just smash the thing, will you?”

He held it in the air as she tried to grab it. “No,” he said. “You don’t understand. The book wants this. I can sense it in my fain. It’s putting some of its auma into the pad so I can absorb it, just like you did. All it’s doing is… ” He blinked and cut off.

“What?” she demanded.

The auma pad buzzed. “It’s telling me

it’s coming.”

“What is? What’s coming?”

“A squirrel is going to come to the

librarium.” And he stared at the bushytailed mammal again.

And in his mind, it sat up – and smiled.

3

Aunt Gwyneth said, “Tell me about thecreature.”

The Ix Cluster swelled at the forefront

of her mind.
 
The construct we created to

deceive the humans?

“There was no ‘we’ about it. That was all  your  doing.   What
 
was
 
that vile abomination?”

A darkling
, the Cluster replied.
 
A form the Ix take on a physical plane.

“Are there darklings on the planet you called Earth?”

There was a violent pulse of energybehind the katt’s ear.
 
A colony weredefeated at the battle of Isenfier, but the Shadow will bring them back. We will

take the Earth and the fire at its core. The Ix will be victorious. The Inversion

will succeed
.

Miarrrgh!
 
went the katt and threw its head to one side as it fought to stop the Cluster surging again.

David stopped what he was doing and came over to the basket.

“Is it all right?” asked Rosa.

“Just dreaming, I think.” He put a finger

beneath the katt’s chin and coochied it.

Aunt Gwyneth responded by bubblingsaliva over his knuckles.

“Nice,” David said and wiped his hand on his jeans.

For the past two days, he and Rosa had been hard at work cleaning and restoring the burned out room. No firebird had

visited in that time. And they had still to

locate
 
The Book of Agawin
 
. Nothing more had been said about the animal book or

David’s prediction about the squirrel. Lifewas back to normal, it seemed.

None of this was sitting well with Aunt Gwyneth. Tired of her confinement in abasket, and a form which continually madeher want to kick the scruff of her neck, shehad resorted to interrogating the Ix. Thiswas a dangerous practice. For if sheopened her mind too widely to them, thestruggle to maintain dominance usuallyresulted in a physical outburst, and thatdrew David’s attention. But if she kept hermind in stasis, she learned nothing of thealien lifeform either. When they did speak,the dark beings kept no secrets. Even shewas chilled by their sweeping arrogance. So confident were they of ruling the nexus