Fire World

by Chris D'Lacey

  But what awaited Aunt Gwyneth inside the cloud was something far stranger than condensed water vapor. As she burst through the outer layers she emerged onto a bright white 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 very plain to see. Sitting on the surface of these hostile 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 swiveled 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 realized, 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 toward 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 tantalizing 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 realized 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 them.

  “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, the Higher 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 spiraled along the length of its horn. And all around, as far as any human eye could see, there appeared a multitude of bears.

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

  The little girl sighed, as if she’d lived through this many times before. “Aunty, I think you should believe us,” she said. “I think you should be good this time. I really want to help you.”

  But, like the cold creeping into her knuckles, badness was ingrained in Aunt Gwyneth’s soul. Disregarding every warning she’d been given, she attempted to draw upon the power of dragons to destroy the solitary flake in front of her. A loud crackle of energy lit up the claw and produced a phenomenal surge of power. The impulse sent the Aunt flying backward as if she’d been hit by a speeding taxicar. Issuing a ghastly scream, she blasted through the cloud and shot into the air surrounding the ark. Several hundred tele:scopes followed her flight. They saw her go spinning beyond the first line of boats to end with a thumping splash in the water.

  And still her life was not quite done with.

  The three occupants of the boat she’d fallen nearest to hooked her toward 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 get here?” Despite the patch he now wore across one eye (a painful reminder of their clash with the Re:movers), he would know this face anywhere. “That’s the Aunt who 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 blue, wet lips. Under a nearby bench was a rolled-up blanket that 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, otherworldly 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 onlooking 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:

  I, Gwyneth, also known as Gwilanna, l

  “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?” Shaki
ng 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:

  I, Gwyneth, also known as Gwilanna, live.…

  PART FIVE

  WHICH SPEAKS OF MANY

  FUTURES — PROBABLE

  AND OTHERWISE — AND LOOKS

  BACK UPON

  TRAGEDY AND FORWARD

  ON TO CHANGE

  1.

  Via a winch on the lower decks, they brought Aunt Gwyneth’s body onto the ark and laid her out in a manner befitting a woman of her status. In a room not inhabited by any of the animals, David imagineered a suitable bier and an open casket in which to place the corpse. Around it he created an auma field that would preserve the remains and alert him to any form of tampering. As an extra precaution, he placed two able firebirds on watch. The window was shuttered. The lights kept low. Somehow, the chatter of animal noises respectfully managed to bypass this room. Only the gentle creaking of the boat accompanied the Aunt on whatever journey her soul had now taken. It was, as Harlan Merriman would comment, a most bizarre situation. Hardly the ideal circumstances in which to stage a family reunion. Yet everyone present, young Penny included, was powerfully drawn to that gray, austere face. Even in death, the Aunt Su:perior exerted an unprecedented level of control.

  Almost as an afterthought, the greetings began. First, the relief of a battle-scarred husband reunited with his adoring wife (now returned to her normal size following the demise of the Aunt’s powers). Then the slightly lost-for-words delight of an eight-year-old child meeting the father she never knew she had, and the pride of that father for the son who stood at the helm of the greatest revolution in Co:pern:ican history — an ark, transformed from a structure made of stone. Much wonder was expressed about the boat and its cargo, and the floodwater, which still continued to rise. Then there was the grateful presentation to the Merriman family of Mathew Lefarr, the brave and noticeably handsome young man who had risked his life to bring Harlan and Bernard back from the Dead Lands. Plus Bernard himself. Half-crippled. Exhausted. Not a little traumatized. But there. Forever at Harlan’s side.

  Only one person failed to find any real joy in the gathering. Rosa swept in late and was mortified to see the pale-faced corpse of their worst adversary back on the boat. Turning to David she immediately railed, “Why is she here, wetting my ark? If she’s dead, dump her in the ocean and be done.”

  “That’s not a good idea,” said Harlan.

  Rosa turned and glared at David’s father. And perhaps there was some hint of lingering angst about the way Mr. Henry had passed away that made her say, with more rancor than necessary, “This is my home. I don’t want that mangy old witch on show, thank you.”

  “I completely understand that,” Harlan said, raising a hand to keep Penny and Eliza at bay, “but we need to watch her, Rosa. She may not be dead.”

  “What?” said Eliza, covering her throat.

  Penny stood on tiptoe and peered at the body. “She looks sort of dead to me.”

  Rosa clearly agreed. She stared at Harlan Merriman as if he had just jetted in from another universe and had no understanding of the bi:ology of this world. Muttering something only she could hear, she bent down and picked up a small stake of wood and ran forward to drive it through the Aunt’s sodden heart. She would have succeeded if David hadn’t caught her and wrestled her, kicking and punching, off the ground.

  “Let go of me,” she argued.

  “No,” he said, holding on tight (very tight). Penny looked on openmouthed. A smile lit the face of Mathew Lefarr. “Just listen to what Dad has to say, will you?”

  Harlan pulled the dragon claw out of his robe and recounted all that had happened on their boat.

  Rosa dismissed his concerns in an instant. “It hardly matters what she wrote, does it? Look at the evidence.” She pointed in the vague direction of the casket to illustrate the fact that the Aunt had clearly failed.

  But Harlan would not give up. “The claw is extremely powerful. We found it in the Dead Lands, hidden in a stone dais, guarded by a secret key. I believe it’s a relic from a dragon called Gawain, during the era of a man called Agawin —”

  “Agawin?” To everyone’s surprise it was Eliza who’d interrupted Harlan’s flow.

  “You know this name?” asked Mathew.

  Eliza said, “Aunt Gwyneth spoke of him once.”

  “We know of Agawin, too,” said David. “From Mr. Henry, the old curator.” He looked at Rosa, who kept silent, for once.

  “Anyway,” Harlan continued. “The claw is not to be taken lightly. I tried to call upon its influence myself and it brought” — he glanced at Penny and chose his words carefully — “great unhappiness upon us.” His eyes sought David’s in a clear appeal for a confidential meeting.

  Penny pushed her thumb against her upper lip and looked for the longest time at the coffin. “It is magick,” she said, wide-eyed, to David. “She used the claw to make Mom small.”

  Harlan felt for Eliza’s hand.

  “Long story,” she whispered. “I’m OK now.”

  “Let’s just finish her off and be sure,” growled Rosa. Although physically calm by now, she was still a whirlwind of vengeance. “What are you looking at?” she suddenly snapped at Mathew, though it was clear to everyone else in the room what his mesmerized gaze of admiration meant. And she, for all her puffed-up stances, had taken more than one extended glance at him.

  Mathew turned to Harlan and set his face straight. “I agree with Penny — and Rosa. She looks gone, Harlan. Not even an Aunt Su:perior cheats death.”

  “I would like to say something.” A new voice rose above the rest. Eliza approached the casket and took Aunt Gwyneth’s hand. “Everyone, this is my mother.”

  “What?” said Rosa.

  Harlan was horrified. “No. Eliza, that’s not possible. You … you can’t be part of her.”

  And Penny, growing more puzzled by the minit, looked at the adults around her and said, “So, I’ve got a grandma as well now?” A dead one, granted. And evil to boot. But a grandma all the same (who might yet return to life, apparently). She squinted at the face, looking for some family resemblance. (There was none.)

  Eliza continued, “Whatever else she is, and whatever she’s done, she brought me into this world and I owe her some small respect for that. It’s my wish that she lies here in peace, as David has arranged.”

  At this point, Bernard Brotherton stepped in. In a few hushed, well-chosen words he advised Harlan not to let doubts or prejudices come rising to the surface. Harlan should rejoice. Let him not forget what his heroics at Alavon had achieved. Even if there was a question mark about Eliza’s heritage, the fact remained that he had been returned to the woman he loved — and to his children. Let a light shine on his fortune now. It was time for the Merrimans to be as one. Turning to the rest of the room he announced, “I agree with Eliza, but for slightly different reasons. The death of an Aunt —”

  “Even a ‘mangy’ one,” said Mathew, smiling at Rosa. (She turned her face away.)

  “— needs to be properly reported and catalogued. It’s traditional to show them lying in state after death, which satisfies the needs of both sides, does it not?” “It doesn’t satisfy mine,” said Rosa. Ber
nard finished what he had to say, regardless. “Their role on Co:pern:ica is sure to be re-evaluated because of this incident. I recommend we seek professional advice. A counselor would know how best to deal with it.”

  “What about Strømberg?” Harlan said. “Do you have :coms on the boat, David?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. Since the change, everything was different. “He’s bound to see the ark and come looking, though. The firebirds could find him. What do you think, Rosa?”

  She sighed heavily. One dark, temperamental boot tapped a disgruntled rhythm on the floor. “I need to talk to you about Aurielle and Azkiar.”

  “Who?” said Penny (ears the size of …).

  “Shut up,” Rosa tutted, “I’m talking to David.”

  “You —!”

  “Penny, be quiet,” her mother said.

  “Not here,” Rosa said to him, flicking her head to suggest they meet on a higher deck.

  Where are they? he commingled, which only made her frown.

  She responded with a little guile of her own. “Rrrh!” she went. Right now, I don’t know.