The Last Dragon Chronicles: Fire World: Fire World (39 page)

Then the rain came down, like a volley of roaring drums. Rain in quantities that no-one living on the world of Co:pern:ica had ever witnessed before. A phenomenon way outside the Grand Design. The plausible impossible. A tempest.

A storm.

David was staggered. He had oncediscussed storms with Mr Henry aftercoming across some scenes in a book ofmeteorology. The curator, while admittingthat his knowledge of atmos:ferics waslimited, had reassured the boy that storms

could not happen on a world where there were no great bodies of water (he called them ‘oceans’ or ‘lakes’) and so much of the surface was devoid of plants. (The daisies, he told him, were a small miracle of   something   he   called   ‘nature’.) Nevertheless, David had carried the pictures with him and seen, on paper, what a bad storm could do. It could lead

to devastation, homelessness and fear. And the single most striking image of all.

Flood.

9

Both humans immediately ran to a roomwhere they could peer straight out of awindow. Rosa arrived half a sec before

David and was first to see the impact therain was having. Far below, at a franklydizzying drop, the daisy fields had turneddark green and sodden, their flower headsswaying in a current of rising water. Thespeed of the transition was staggering. And although it was impossible to see ormeasure, Rosa formed the idea that therain was falling considerably further thanthe limits of the Bushley librarium. Wherewas all this water
 
coming
 
from? And howhigh would it ultimately go? A greatspume suddenly erupted from the well,

spraying the southern face of the building. Rosa squealed and jumped back in shock. “What’s happening?” she cried. “David, what’s caused this?”

He truly had no idea. But he could feela growing tremor in the boards beneath hisfeet and a fundamental change in the aumaof the books. Something monumental wasabout to happen. And Penny and hismother must be right at the heart of it.

“Come on. We’ve got to find theothers,” he said.

But the librarium had its own ideas

about that.

As they dashed for the lower floors, Rosa stumbled (for the first time
 
ever
 
on the laces of her boots) and happened to look back towards the tapestry room. To her astonishment, the arched doorway had

changed. It was taller. Greener. Its frame sweetly dressed with twists of leaves. The old wooden clock had disappeared from view, replaced by a kind of rotating vent through which a dial of sunlight was passing (sunlight, yes, despite the rain). The fraying bell pull was no longer hanging from the ceiling. But in the place where it would have made a shadow on

the wall, something
 
organic
 
was moving. A small and incredibly beautiful creature with patterned yellow wings as fragile as paper was fluttering about there. Rosa beckoned David to come and see, unaware that he’d taken off in the opposite direction. Suddenly, the building lurched again and she was thrown, face down, to the floor. It seemed to take an age to complete the fall (she had the strange

impression she was gliding through a rainbow made of stars) and in the time that it did, many things changed. She would have been expecting, for instance, to collide   with   a   hard,   unforgiving

floorboard.   Instead,   the   blow   was cushioned by a thick expanse of flower petals, dried leaves, moss and twigs. Scent and taste were the first two senses

she recovered and both of them told her she had struck earth. As she rose to her

knees she understood why. The whole structure of the room – the uprights, the shelves, certain parts of the ceiling – had merged together and morphed into an area of
 
woodland
, a landscape Rosa had seen (and admired) in several books. As if this wasn’t strange enough, the marks on her arm, the scratches inflicted by the cruel

Aunt Petunia, were glowing blue anddrawing the rotating light towards them. Through the doorway, she heard aneighing sound. A spiralling breeze stirredup the leaves. From their dappled centrecame a pure white beast that tore Rosannaapart with love and wonder in equalmeasure. She cried out for David to come. But David was long gone by then.

He was calling out to her, in fact,wondering why she wasn’t at his shoulder,all the while trying to make sense of thechanges taking place around
 
him
. He hadjust burst into a room where the shelveshad formed an assembly of criss-crossingbranches. Among the finer branches, ananimal was hiding. It had a grey furrybody and a comical face. The patches ofblack around its slightly poppy eyes made

it look as if it was wearing a mask. Dropping down in a long ‘J’ shape behind it was a tail composed of equal-sized rings of black and white fur. The animal’s keen eyes took David in, then darted towards another room, in a direction he hadn’t thought to go. The sounds of heavy purring were drifting out of it. His nose was also quick to detect a strong variation of the ripe deposits that Boon left in the gardenaria   at  home   sometimes.   He stepped towards the door and looked in. Prowling a floor of sawdust and bark was the biggest katt he had ever seen. It was the colour of sand (another lesson of Mr Henry’s) and had a mane of brown hair around its head, which ran in straggles down its shoulders and back. Another katt, of similar size, but mane-less, was lying

on its side in the corner of the room, licking its paws. The katt on its feet grunted and raised an imperious gaze. It flicked its tail and allowed a low growl to escape from its throat. Then it snorted and padded towards the visitor. David stood quite still. The big katt twitched its nostrils twice, then let its head rest against his hand, pushing against his palm just as Boon would have done. David cupped a hand around its soft, warm ear. “Where did you come from, eh?” he whispered. But in some ways the question was no longer relevant. He was deeply aware by now that he was not in control of his destination or of the changes taking place in the building. He had run away from Floor 108 with the sole intention of

heading downstairs. But one glance

through the window of the room he was in told him he was being taken higher. Even the daisies had joined the transition. They were collecting into groups, describing unusual shapes in the water far below. Streamlined bodies with triangular fins. Tails as flexible as a man’s hand.

Creatures that moved as easily throughwater as firebirds did through air. Amazing. And so he acknowledged thepresence of the animals and surrenderedhis consciousness to the librarium. All hecould do now was follow its will – and

pray that Rosa and his family would be

safe.

As it happened, his sister was more thansafe. Indeed, Penny would later come tolearn that it was
 
she
 
who’d been the

catalyst for the transformation about to rock the whole of Co:pern:ica, not merely the great museum of books at the centre of it.

Shortly after David and Rosa had lefther, she had set about finding a new bookto read. (She had looked again at
 
The Twonks
, but had left the reading dragon onthe shelf as a marker while she examined

the other books.) It was a daunting proposition. There were thousands to choose from. More than one Penelope could possibly count. So for a while she’d done nothing but roam back and forth, reading the titles of any that looked interesting. (Aleron had wisely moved off her shoulder because she banged him every time she tilted her head.) In time, not surprisingly, her neck began to ache.

The titles blurred. The sheer quantity ofthem began to overwhelm her. Thatbecame a barrier to making a choice. Shesighed, wishing David could be there todo the choosing. It was surely more fun,when you knew nothing about books, tohave one recommended by someone whodid? Strangely, as this thought driftedthrough her mind, she felt that the bookswere responding to it. Two or three timesshe glanced nervously around her, thinkingshe could hear them murmuring something. But that was just silly (
wasn’t it?
 
). Morelikely she was hearing a breeze from thewindow, stirring up the ancient dust. Shewent over to the window and leaned

forward on tiptoes, supporting her body on the deep recess of stone so she could get a good view out. A few light raindrops

were falling. Her eyes grew wide with delight. Rain was something she had never seen before, though her mother had taught her how in certain areas of Co:pern:ica water fell from the sky sometimes. Penny stretched a hand and caught a cool drop. It twinkled in the centre of her palm for a moment. Then with a gentle
 
pop!
 
it burst and its light travelled over her shoulder, flaring as it entered the darker librarium. She whipped round to see where it had gone. And there, to her astonishment, three-quarters of the way down the aisle between the shelves, stood a little girl, slightly more than half her own height.

“Hello,” said the girl, and waved a dainty hand. She was wearing a pretty white dress, white ankle socks and red, buckled shoes. Her hair was the dark

flowing colour of Rosa’s. Her eyes were the striking blue of David’s. Around her wrist was a bracelet of violet daisies. The raindrop was glittering brightly in front of her, like a star in the centre of her chest.

“Who are you?” Penny gasped.

The child tightened her lips as if she wasn’t quite sure what name might be appropriate. Her eyebrows came together in a sweet sort of frown. “I’m…Angel,” she said at last, as if she’d solved a riddle.

Penny glanced sideways at Aleron. The firebird was awestruck, barely breathing. He was perched precariously on one of the shelves, trying to get his left foot to take a hold. Eventually his balance gave out and he had to make a semi-circular

flight to regain his position. He closed his

wings in a fluster as he landed, before resuming his mesmerised pose.

“Do you live here?” Penny asked.

The girl swung her body and thought about this. “Sometimes,” she answered. “I like it here more than anywhere, I think.” She glanced along the shelves. “Are you looking for a book?”

“Yes,” said Penny. “But I don’t know which to choose.”

“I’ll help you,” said Angel.

“Have you read them?” Penny said. She couldn’t keep a mild squeak out of her voice. She was, of course, a tiny bit put out by the thought that someone much younger than herself might have more knowledge of the books than she did.

But the little girl shook her head and said, “No – but I know which one you’d

like. I’ll show you where it is. It’s been waiting for you for quite a long time.”

That was an odd thing to say, thought Penny. All the same, she gave a grateful nod.

From the centre of her back Angel putout two wings. “All you have to do isbelieve,” she said.

Penny’s mouth opened as wide as anybook. Aleron’s reaction was a little morepronounced. With a drowsy
 
rrrrrrhhhh
,he fell off the shelf and thudded to thefloor in a faint. Penny gasped and gatheredhim into her arms. To her relief, she couldstill trace air in his nostrils.

Angel seemed unconcerned. “Leave himon a shelf. I’ll look after him,” she said. She flipped her hands and set the raindropfloating. It jinked left and right in a wavy

line, before it whizzed past Penny’s head. She turned to see it sparkling at the end of

a row.

“How did you… ?” ‘get wings’ she wanted to say. But when she looked back, Angel had disappeared.

So Penny set Aleron down as requested and hurried off in pursuit of the raindrop. It wasn’t difficult to follow, but it
 
was
 
quick. She was nearly out of breath by the time she’d skidded to a halt in a section

marked ‘Animal Stories’. The drop was hovering beside a row of books where the authors’ names all began with an ‘R’. At first there seemed nothing remarkable about that. Then one name suddenly stood out from the rest.

Rain.

David
 
Rain.

Penny felt her senses whirl. The onlyfeeling she could liken it to was themoment during the
 
Alicia
 
story when sheand David had looked through the windowat the end of the tunnel and peered into theroom which had seemed so very familiarto her, yet she had never seen before. Ifher father, Harlan, had been at her side hemight, with a little more knowledge, havepostulated that the name ‘David Rain’ wasa product of the time nexus linking Co:pern:ica, Ki:mera and Earth. As potentin   its   way   as   the   dragon  word ‘sometimes’. As meaningful as anything in Penny’s life. And then there was the title:
 
Snigger and the Nutbeast
. That seemed toset off a second wave of giddiness. Pennyread it over and over until her head beganto feel as huge as a cave.
 
Snigger
.

Nutbeast
.
 
David
.

Believe
.

She shook herself and made a decision. This was the book she wanted, for sure. She hooked a finger over the spine andtilted it towards her. At the same time, justas if a switch had been thrown, thebuilding seemed to shake very gently. Penny paused. She hadn’t caused that –had she? She waited half a sec thendragged the book again. With a swish, itslotted out of its position. Once again, shefelt the librarium react. It seemed to yawn (distantly) in every direction. Somewherefar below, maybe at ground level, sheheard an almighty drawn-out creak.