dreary group of hills. From the way their contours caught the light, she knew there would be caves amongst their slopes. And
that was not all. When she poked her disagreeable nose into the air, the elemental scent of wood smoke entered them. From then on, her new aspirant became of far greater interest.
Eliza had learned to light a fire.
With her ability to move at speed, Aunt Gwyneth was at the end of the trail in barely the time it took to imagineer it. Her sudden appearance drew several fingers of smoke from the fire and sent a pother of cinders flying into the cavemouth. A highly appropriate entrance, as it happened. When the smoke cleared, Eliza was not visible right away, but the products of her time spent waiting were. On every rock that bouldered the cave sat a sculpture of a dragon, made from clay. Each was no bigger than the size of a fist.
And though there was no colour or life inthem, their snarling jaws and graspingtalons were enough to make the Aunt rearup in disgust. All of them were pointedtowards the cave approach, guardians ofthe slope she was standing on.
“What heresy is this?” she hissed, andcast her glance further, beyond the fire.
Eliza, also surrounded by miniaturedragons, was sitting cross-legged justinside the cave, her red hair falling intoher lap. “I’m sorry, Aunt. I had no need ofyou,” she said. “I found out by myselfwhat my family’s anomaly was.” And sheheld out the bundle she’d been cradling inher arms.
It was a baby girl.
Simultaneously, on a floor of the librarium
not visited by humans for countless spins, the cream-coloured firebird – Aurielle
was her name – was pacing the length of a relic left behind by those same humans: a polished oak dining table. In the centre of the table were two wide-necked candlesticks. On top of one stick, still perfectly intact and possessing more than enough buoyancy to keep it upright, was the flame of the firebird, Azkiar, preserved in the tear drop of the boy, David. On the second stick sat an even greater conundrum: the egg, made from the clay of Co:pern:ica. Lying on the table between the sticks was the circle of violet-coloured daisies that Aurielle had
picked up with the tear drop, purely because its beauty intrigued her and its auma spoke of love.
A tear.
An egg.
A circle of daisies.
And a lot of kerfuffle.
From a nest of dust and feathers on the
bookshelf opposite (there were many such nests on the upper floors) a tired voice went
rrrrrrh
.
Aurielle stopped walking and looked across the room to see Azkiar jiggling his tail.
Would she please stop pacing? hebegged her. The scratch of her claws wassetting his ear tufts on edge.
Rrrh
, she went back. It was all right forhim. All he did was fly about and make anuisance of himself. He didn’t have tomake
sense
of things.
Blowing dust motes out of her nostrils,
she opened her wings and fluttered to her perch: a high mound of books at the far end of the table. It was not the most reliable, as perches went (books slid away if she landed too hard, or someone – not thinking of any red bird in particular – decided to pull one out of the stack), but it faced the wall upon which the great tapestry hung. In Aurielle’s opinion, there was no better post in the entire eyrie.
She looked at the woven picture and sighed. So beautiful, with its wide green hills and its dragons flying gracefully around the valley. And yet so menacing, too. It seemed to tell the story of a great battle – ‘Isenfier’ as Aurielle knew it.
Emerging from the tallest hill was a darkapparition, which firebirds down thecenturies had labelled the ‘Shadow of Ix’.
It towered over the humans on the cloth. And everyone or everything picturedbeneath it was shying away in fear,especially the white, horned horse and thedragons flying nearest its centre. Only thekneeling child, who held a small dragon inher hands, seemed unafraid. A faint whitehalo lay around the girl, marking her outas a saviour perhaps.
As for the dragon. Well, that was thebiggest conundrum of all. Aurielle wasvery familiar with dragons as a breed. They were pictured all around the eyrie (ifyou knew where to look). But the dragonin the hands of the girl was different. Spiky. Green. Slight comical, really. Andif the scale was correct, smaller than afirebird. And yet it had
paws
– anunmerited improvement on firebird
anatomy that always made her huff in
envy.
But how had it got here? When, and by whom? Why had firebirds always protected it?
And what did it
mean
?
Suddenly, her thoughts were interrupted by a squawk from the window.
A blue firebird (Aubrey) was calling urgently for help.
Azkiar was off his shelf in a moment.
Rrrh!
said Aubrey.
Portal. Come.
Andhe shimmered his feathers and entered
light speed, which would take him to Harlan Merriman’s time rip in less than a
sec.
But as Aurielle and Azkiar prepared tofollow, there was a jolt and the wholeworld turned. The last thing Aurielle
remembered of it was the sound of two identical clatters and a great flare behind her. Just as if two candlesticks had fallen over and whatever was upon them had come together in one small but significant fusion of light…
Rosa and Mr Henry would feel the jolt aswell. The whole of Co:pern:ica would. For Rosa it would come after two moredays of putting books in order andrenewing her intent, none of which wouldbring her any closer to unlocking the doorto Floor 43. Mr Henry (or rather Thorren Strømberg) had overruled Aunt Gwynethand allowed Rosa to keep the glossydragon book, which she had read fromcover to cover when Strømberg had gone,and re-read to David a dozen times
already. Despite her early uncertainty she now regarded it as a wonderful treasure, with many excellent illustrations and several vivid accounts of how dragons had lived (and died). But the remedy wasn’t working. Nothing was working. The door remained locked. The mysteries of Agawin stayed unresolved. And David, despite the occasional twitch of an eyelid, continued to sleep.
But Rosa did not lose faith. She had become a minor expert in ‘dragon:ology’ by now. She knew their anatomy, their habitats, their spiritual significance (though some of the concepts confused her) and their legends. There was also a possible clue to why the red firebird had singled out the book. One of its pages showed a dragon in ‘hibernation’. She’d
had to run this term past Mr Henry and his reference books before she understood
that it meant a kind of ‘deep sleep’. More importantly, a short paragraph later in the book described how a dragon’s fire could induce a prolonged ‘stasis’ which usually wore off over a period of time. How much time the book didn’t say. But it was encouraging all the same. Mr Henry praised Rosa’s diligence and passed the information on to the counsellor, Strømberg, who sent an e:com saying,
Excellent. Keep watch
. There was a little more to the e:com than that. It was, in fact, quite a detailed composition on the possible pheno:typic associations between firebirds and dragons. But all of that was kept from Rosa (and Aunt Gwyneth), whose only real interest was
David, anyway.
There
was
something else she wasworking on, though, quite possibly themost intriguing thing about dragons, andthat was their language. Thorren Strømberg had told the truth when he hadsaid that the symbols in
The Book of Agawin
could be found elsewhere. Theywere in her book. One little squiggle inthe right hand corner of every page. Atfirst glance, every squiggle looked thesame. But a careful page by pageexamination showed that none were
completely identical. They were arranged in slightly different places, too – always within the same triangle of white just along from the page number, but definitely spaced apart.
Rosa went to sleep with those marks in
her mind. She saw them as she turned the pages in her dreams. What was it about them? Why were they important? Did they
have
any real importance? Maybe Thorren Strømberg had got it wrong. Maybe the author of the book was playing games.
Then, on the morning that Harlan Merriman was about to conduct his spatial experiment with the horizons of time, Rosa found her answer. She was sitting beside David with the book in her lap when Runcey landed in the window space.
“Oh,” she gasped. Her heartbeat doubled. The bird looked fit and well.
He poddled to the inner lip of thewindow and cast his kind eye down at theboy.
Rosa laced her fingers into a bundleand brought them up to the level of her
chin. “Can you wake him?” she whispered.
The firebird looked at the book she was holding.
And Rosa, thinking back to the day of the accident, suddenly felt guilty for having it. She said, “I’m sorry you were hurt. It was all my fault. But… the red one gave me this. Look, Runcey.”
And with that she did something she had not done before. She ran her thumb across the edge of the pages and flicked through them. She was searching for the picture of the hibernating dragon, but as her gaze fell upon the corner of the book something quite extraordinary happened. In the short time it took for sixty-four pages to roll past her thumb, the marks came together as one symbol. Three ragged lines. Parallel,
but not connected.
There was a click. The symbol not only seemed to leap from the book but its meaning entered Rosa’s head as well.
Sometimes
.
Sometimes, she thought, the rain will
fall or the sun will shine.
Sometimes, David will wake or David
will dream.
Sometimes, the door will be closed orthe door will be open…
Sometimes
.
“Mr Henry!” she cried out. “I knowhow to read dragontongue! I—”
That was the point at which the worldjolted.
Everything went dark. Co:pern:icaturned. And Rosa passed out.
She came to on the floor of the room.
Her chair had spilled over and Runceyhad gone.
But time had passed, and David wasstirring.
She went to him at once. Kneelingbeside him, she gripped his hand. His facewas turned to the window. She spoke hisname and he turned her way.
Then came the shock that neither was
expecting.
“
David?
” she said again.
“
Rosa?
” he replied. He sounded just as puzzled as she was.
She let go of his hand and ran to the only reflective surface in the room – a brass plate which titled the dictionary shelf. In the brass she saw a beautiful young woman, with large dark eyes and long dark hair.
David pushed himself onto his elbows. “How long have I been asleep?”
Rosa ran her fingers over her face. “Ata guess, about… eight spins,” she gulped.
Part Two
which has its beginnings
on
Floor 43 of the Bushley
Librarium
March 7 032
1
“Eh? How did
that
happen?” David peered at his hands as if the answer might be written in secret on his palms. “How could I have slept for
eight spins
?!”
“You kind of did and you didn’t,” Rosa said. “A few minits ago, we were both kids. Then there was this… time quake or something and suddenly we’re all grown up – and you’re awake.”
“Time quake?”
“Or something. I don’t know.”
David patted his head and face. Hair. Longer hair. Wavy. Thicker. Parted in the centre, almost down to his shoulders. He swung his feet off the bed. “What caused it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Something here? In the librarium?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is it just us, or—?”
“You know, I think I preferred you asleep,” she cut in. “I realise you must be feeling all kinds of bright and sparkly right now, but just… slow down, OK? I have no idea what caused the time jump. All I was doing before it was… ” She picked up the dragon book from the floor.
David launched an inquisitive frown. “What’s that?”
“A book – about dragons.”
“About
what
?”
“Drag— Oh, David, just trust me. A lot of things happened while you were napping.” She came over and sat beside him. “I know this must be weird for you. It
is for me, too. But don’t drive me mad with questions yet. I’ll tell you everything when it’s time, I promise. Right now, I need a moment to make sense of