The Last Dragon Chronicles: Fire World: Fire World (41 page)

Aunt Gwyneth banked to one side andturned her thoughts to the structure of thecraft. 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 longnecked giraffes were at mid-terrace level about halfway back.) Walking the main deck were two enormous beasts with wrinkled grey 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 upwards. Like the building before it, the highest storeys 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.

But what awaited her inside the cloudwas something far stranger than condensedwater vapour. As she burst through theouter layers she emerged onto a brightwhite world that bore no resemblance to

any landscape she had ever seen before. It stretched for miles in all directions, mostly flat, but with occasional knots of jagged white blocks, all made, she thought, from the same crystalline ‘matter’ as the general surface. What struck her most of all was the intense cold, which seemed to parch the blue sky of half its oxi:gen. She could feel it stinging the linings of her nostrils and tightening the feathers at the edges of her wings, hampering her ability for fine changes of direction.

But there was only one direction the

Aunt was headed in. And it was soon veryplain to see. Sitting on the surface of thesehostile surroundings was the animal David Merriman had changed into to destroy the Ix Cluster. Aunt Gwyneth circled it. Twice. It didn’t move or attempt an attack. Was it him? Was it David? Was he

imagineering all of this? The cold was biting at her legs by now, and the lubricant that  swivelled  the  raven’s   eyeballs seemed to have turned to splinters of glass. So the Aunt set down at a comfortable distance from the great white beast and transformed once again to her natural self. This, she quickly realised, might not have been wise. For if the cold felt harsh against the raven’s feet, it scratched like a katt on her exposed face. Whatever would be done here must be

done fast. She raised the claw and pointing it said, “Identify yourself. What is this place?”

“I am an ice bear,” the creature replied, in an unhurried voice so thick with pride that it seemed to curve the air around it. “These are the Icelands of the North.”

“Cut the twaddle. Are you David?”

The bear blew a stream of air from its

snout. “Sometimes,” it said. It tilted its commanding head towards the claw.

“Move and I’ll turn you to dust,” spat the Aunt. (Another poor decision: the spittle quickly hardened to a spike on her lip.)   She   whipped   around,   hearing wingbeats overhead. Aurielle had just ripped through the cloud. But instead of swooping down to strike, the dragonet just streaked by as if nothing below her even

existed.

“She cannot see us,” the bear explained. “From this time point on, the firebirds play no part in your destiny.”

Aunt Gwyneth flashed the claw again. “And what would you know about my destiny?”

The ice bear lifted its chin. Suddenly, the space in front of it was filled with flakes of twinkling ice. “It’s here. In the ‘Is’. All around you, Gwyneth. Each flake is a fire star, a portal to a probable future. Only one of them leads to your survival.”

Despite the plethora of stabbing pains it caused, Aunt Gwyneth furrowed her brow. The fire stars shimmered, each one offering a tantalising glimpse of a choice she might have made or a thought she might have had or a villainous plan she

might yet hatch in some darkened recess of her scheming mind. Fire stars. Is. Futures. Time. She risked extending her fain for a moment and realised she was standing (floating, maybe?) in a limitless matrix of pure fain. At last, she had ‘found’ the Higher. Now all she needed was to take command of it.

“For as long as I have this,” she sneered, aiming the claw at the ice bear’s forehead   (several   hundred   flakes immediately twinkled), “
I
 
will be in control of my future.” She let the threat seep into the matrix. Again it was the bear, not the Higher, that replied.

Closing its eyes to concentrate, it said, “Any act of aggression would lead to your death. The claw is about to turn against you, Aunt. Give it up with grace and you

may survive.”

“May?” she snarled.

The bear’s ears gave the tiniest of

twitches. The ice flakes flurried and one

seemed to separate out from the rest. “This star guarantees your existence. Touch the claw to it and you will be safe. The creat:or is needed at the Battle of Isenfier. Join us and it will let you live.”

“Us?” Aunt Gwyneth scoffed.

The bear opened its haunting eyes. At the same moment, the figure of a child appeared. She came from a space just beyond the bear’s head and flew down to the world of ice at its feet. Rosa emerged on the other side, sitting on the back of a stunning white horse. When the horse shook its mane, beads of white and violet light spiralled along the length of its horn.

And all around, as far as any human eyecould see, there appeared a multitude ofbears.

Aunt Gwyneth stood back. “This is atrick,” she hissed. “A clever projection,nothing more.”

The little girl sighed, as if she’d livedthrough this many times before. “Aunty, Ithink you should believe us,” she said. “Ithink you should be
 
good
 
this time. I reallywant to help you.”

But, like the cold creeping into herknuckles, badness was ingrained in Aunt Gwyneth’s   soul.   Disregarding   everywarning she’d been given, she attemptedto draw upon the power of dragons todestroy the solitary flake in front of her. Aloud crackle of energy lit up the claw andproduced a phenomenal surge of power.

The   impulse   sent   the  Aunt   flyingbackwards as if she’d been hit by aspeeding taxicar. Issuing a ghastly scream,she blasted through the cloud and shot intothe air surrounding the ark. Severalhundred tele:scopes followed her flight. They saw her go spinning beyond the firstline of boats to end with a thumping splashin the water.

And
 
still
 
her life was not quite done

with.

The three occupants of the boat she’dfallen nearest to hooked her towards them

and hauled her in. When they turned her over, one would have gladly thrown her back.

“Harlan, what is it?” Mathew Lefarr said. “This woman’s going to die without our help – if she isn’t already gone.”

Harlan Merriman kept his distance. “How in the name of Agawin did
 
she
 
gethere?” Despite the patch he now woreacross one eye (a painful reminder of theirclash with the Re:movers), he wouldknow this face anywhere. “That’s the Auntwho sent me to the Dead Lands. She’s

evil, Mat.”

“She might be; we’re not,” said Bernard. Taking care to protect a large swelling in his ankle, he knelt down beside the Aunt and held his ear close to her grey, wet lips. Under a nearby bench was a rolled-up blanket which he yanked out and spread across the quivering body

“He’s right, Harlan,” Mathew added. “We can’t come back and put aside the spirit we found at Alavon. If nothing else, we owe our dead friends that. Whatever

this woman has done to you, we must show her some compassion in what might be her final few secs.”

Harlan swallowed hard. For a strange, other-worldly moment, his conscience wrestled with his feelings of vengeance and the entire universe seemed to turn

around him. He snapped out of it and made his decision. “I’ll find something she can rest her head on,” he muttered. (He had tried to imagineer a pillow, but the creation of the boat had sapped the last reaches of his fain.) He disappeared into the cabin at the prow.

The moment he was gone, the Aunt’s lungs gave a hideous rasp and she spat a small fountain of water over Bernard’s knees. “Please, try to be calm,” he said. He thought to hold her hands, but they

were under the blanket.

The Aunt stared, half-lidded, at death, but   still   had   time   for   one   last pronouncement: “My bo-dy is bro-ken, but…  nnn… my will… ” And it seemed to both the on looking men that a slight smile was playing across her lips as she said it.

Mathew saw her hand moving under the blanket. “Bernard, what’s she doing?”

Bernard drew the cloth back. On the floor of the boat, in a thin green scrawl,

was a message:

“Goodness,” he said. “She must be writing a will.” (One of the few times on Co:pern:ica that the traditional skills of writing were properly employed.) He looked at the unfinished word. “What is it

you want to write? Is it ‘leave’? What do you want to leave – and to whom?”

“Why is it green?” Mathew muttered. “Bernard, show me the pen.”

But Bernard, still concerned with his act of citizenship, leaned closer to the Aunt and repeated loudly: “I, Gwyneth, also known as Gwilanna, leave… what?” Shaking wildly, her hand began to echo her body’s distress. “Please, let me help you,” Bernard said. He tried to steady her wrist. All he received for this act of goodwill was a spiteful hiss and a spray of saliva across his robe. He jerked back, bumping Mathew and blocking his view.

Harlan’s  view  was  not  impeded, however. As he stepped out of the cabin he not only saw the words but what was creating them. “Mathew, stop her!” he

shouted and picked up a boat hook. For all his willingness to show the Aunt mercy, he would gladly have plunged the hook into her just then. But as the dragon’s claw at last fell out of her hand there was no

more need for violence. Aunt Gwyneth had departed the world of Co:pern:ica with a glazed look of triumph etched on her face and one last trick in her miserable

heart. Bernard had been wrong about the next word in her ‘will’. It was not ‘leave’.

The full message was this:

Part Five

which speaks of many

futures, probable and otherwise,

and looks back

upon tragedy and

forward onto change

1

Via a winch on the lower decks, theybrought Aunt Gwyneth’s body onto the arkand laid her out in a manner befitting awoman of her status. In a room notinhabited by any of the animals, Davidimagineered a suitable bier and an opencasket in which to place the corpse. Around it he created an auma field thatwould preserve the remains and alert himto any form of tampering. As an extraprecaution, he placed two able firebirdson watch. The window was shuttered. The