Rrrh!
went Azkiar, urgent and loud.
Rosa looked tearfully over hershoulder. The Aunts were waking. Shenarrowed her gaze.
Good.
13
Aunt Petunia came round to find Rosasitting astride her chest.
“OK, here’s the drill,” said the girl. “Don’t try to move or use your fain. Yoursister is laid out right beside you, butshe’s got a nice big angry firebird perchedon top of her to keep her company. I’veseen him in action. Believe me, he’s mean. I’m sure you know they’re immune to yourtricks. One hint of imagineering and he’llturn poor Primrose to ash. Are we clear?”
“You will die for this,” Aunt Petuniagrowled, fury reddening her swollencheeks. “Primrose, dear, are you allright?”
“Shoes,” the twin Aunt squeaked.
“Shoes?” Petunia rolled her eyes sideways. She was slightly surprised to see her sister’s feet, not her head, beside her. What’s more, the feet were bare. “What deplorable villainy is this?”
Rosa gripped the Aunt’s chin and pulled her back. “I hope you won’t have to find out. Now, what exactly are you doing in this room?”
“It’s none of your business,” Petunia snapped.
Rosa curled her lip. “Runcey,” she said, and sent him a tongue click.
The green firebird stepped forward. In his beak was a feather, plucked from his tail.
“What’s that thing doing?” Aunt Petunia said, anxiously rolling her eyes again.
On a nod from Rosa, the firebird
dipped his head and dragged the feather
over Primrose’s feet.
Aunt Primrose screeched. Her bare toesdanced. Her feet clapped together likeshutters in a storm. Even Aunt Petunia
made an ‘o’ with her mouth and let out a kind of whistling noise.
“Oh yes, of course, you’re twins,” Rosa said. “You feel each other’s discomfort, don’t you?” She leaned down and looked Aunt Petunia dead in the eye. “Confess and I’ll let you leave. Or twinny, here, feels my feathered friend’s wrath. It’s probably worse if he turns the feather round and scratches the skin with the point of the shaft.”
“Confess!” cried Primrose.
“Be silent, Primrose. I’ll deal with
this.” Petunia tightened her immaculate
eyebrows. “You’ve nothing to gain by threatening us, girl.”
“Oh, really?” said Rosa. In a flash, she had snatched up Petunia’s bow tie. To her amusement, it was held in place by elastic. She pulled it as far from the neck as it would stretch. “This is my home. These books are my family. I’m not going to see your kind destroy them.”
“Not the tie,” Aunt Petunia begged.
“What’s she doing?” echoed Primrose. “What is the wicked girl doing with your tie?”
“Don’t make me let go of this,” Rosa
warned. For good measure, she twisted it
once.
“All right!” Aunt Petunia’s grey eyes
bulged.
Rosa relaxed and let the tie sag back,
only letting go when it was just off the neck. It snapped to, making both Aunts gurgle. “I strongly advise you to speak the truth.”
“You were
told
the truth,” Aunt Petunia said. “We were sent to assess the building. That’s it.”
“You were sent to steal its auma. Why?”
“What use is all that auma here?” piped Primrose.
“Shut up, Primrose!”
“It’s all right for you,” the twin called out. “You’ve still got your shoes and socks.”
“Well?” said Rosa, threatening to play with the tie again.
“Primrose is right,” Petunia said. “This building is an untapped auma source. It
has infinitely more than any other structure on Co:pern:ica. Its energy is wasted. The Aunts could put it to much better use.”
“One Aunt, you mean.”
Petunia wiggled her nose. “Are you implying something about Aunt Gwyneth?”
“You trust her?”
“Of course. She’s an Aunt Su:perior.”
“She’s a vile witch.”
“
You—
”
“Ah ah.” Rosa wagged a warning finger.
Suddenly, Primrose started to sniff. “What’s that… GHASTLY smell?”
Rosa glanced over her shoulder at Azkiar. “I believe he’s just urinated onyou, Aunt.”
“Ugh!” cried both the sisters at once. Aunt Petunia scraped her nails on the
floor.
“Tell me about the pad,” said Rosa.
Across the room, Aurielle was standing
over the device, consumed in concentration. She kept picking up one of her feet now and then as if she was thinking of touching the screen. Despite the impact it had suffered from the throw, it was still blinking steadily.
Aunt Petunia sneered. “A simpleton like you couldn’t hope to understand the complexity of its functions.”
“Wrong answer,” said Rosa. She clicked her tongue.
“No!” Aunt Primrose wailed. Her heels beat a loud tattoo on the floor.
“All right, stop this!” Petunia growled. “I’ll tell you what you want to know.”
Rosa clicked again and Aleron backed
off.
“The pad absorbs auma and stores it in cumulative energy cells.”
“Again, in Rosa-speak, if it’s not too much
trouble
.”
“It takes the power of each book and
adds it to the last.”
“How many have you done?”
Aunt Petunia breathed in. “This room is
almost complete.”
Rosa allowed herself a glance at the shelves. “What happens to the auma you’ve gathered?”
“That is for the Aunt Su:perior to decide.”
“I bet it is,” Rosa said, gritting her teeth. “Tell me how you reverse the process.”
“You can’t,” shouted Primrose.
“Be quiet, Primrose. I’m
concentrating
.”
There was something not right about that remark, but Rosa rather foolishly let it pass. “Is she lying?” she snarled. The woman stared deep into Rosa’s eyes, as if she was scanning her for some kind of weakness. “I said, is she
lying
?” Rosa demanded. And grasping not only the tie but the collar, she lifted Aunt Petunia’s head off the floor.
“No,” the Aunt snapped. “The books have only low-level consciousness. They’re not able to accept a contrary input. They would return as nonsense, a jumble of marks. I should warn you, girl, the pad is extremely dangerous. Think about that before you do something foolish.”
Rosa glanced at Aurielle again. Thefirebird was cautiously tapping the screen. “I’ll take my chances,” she said. “Whatcan be done with the auma that’s stored?”
That
stare
again.
Rosa tightened her grip.
“It can only be transferred.”
“To what?”
“To anything – if you know what you’redoing.”
“What does Aunt Gwyneth want withit?”
Aunt Petunia closed her eyes.
“Answer me, you freak. What wouldshe do with the auma from this building?”
Aunt Petunia’s eyes flickered open. Herface had a strangely confident look. “She’d use it to take control, I imagine. Sothe Aunts could rule over all Co:pern:ica,
without being bound by limits – or the Higher.” She flicked her gaze sideways. From the direction of the window a voice said, “Rosa?”
“David?” Rosa gasped, and turned to look.
That was her undoing.
In the moment it took to realise she’d been tricked, Rosa’s hold on Aunt Petunia was gone. With a strength well beyond the composition of her body, the old woman shifted her weight and threw Rosa across the floor, into an upright between two shelves. At exactly the same moment, guided by her twin’s tele:pathic impulse, Aunt Primrose raised her hands and
stabbed her fingernails into the soft tissue under Azkiar’s beak. The red firebird
squawked in rage. He lifted off and let out
a bolt of fire. It missed Aunt Primrose (she’d been quick to roll away) but swallowed up one of the books. The book exploded in a shower of ceiling-high sparks, igniting a therma:sol sheet on the bed. Within seconds, the bed was a raft of fire.
Aurielle, watching this, had difficultchoices. Azkiar wounded. Rosa winded.
The threat of fire raging through the eyrie,already too wild for three birds to contain.
Rrrh!
she cried urgently to Aleron. But thegreen firebird was already flying. With awhoosh he was through the window, awayto bring help from the rest of the flock.
Suddenly, Aurielle found herself caged. The bars had simply appeared fromnowhere. It took her just a fraction of asec to realise it was a temporary
construct, created by one of the Aunts. As such it had no control over her. But to be
able to pass through it and therefore escape, she needed to lock her geo:centric sensors onto a stationary part of the image. Rather cleverly, the twins had made the bars revolve. And the cage itself was turning in the opposite direction from the bars. It was impossible to get a fix. Aurielle looked in hope at Azkiar. But he was likewise trapped. Aunt Primrose had made certain he would suffer by wrapping his head in a tight metal helmet that clamped his beak shut and clanked loudly every time he crashed against the bars.
Their only chance was Rosa. She was on her feet, clutching her ribs low down. In one hand she held the auma pad. She saw Aunt Petunia’s eyes flick to it. “Let
the birds go or this gets toasted.”
Aunt Petunia smiled.
“I mean it,” Rosa shouted, finding it
hard to breathe through the heat.
Aunt Primrose came to stand beside her
sister. Behind them, a lick of flame roared up the wall, igniting another column of books. Eerily, they both held out a hand.
“Never,” said Rosa, and hurled the pad over them. It was half a sec away from hitting the bed when it stopped in mid-air and rose again. The twins had captured it, using their fain.
Rosa screamed and launched herself at
them.
Sadly, her petulance was short-lived and foolish. Aunt Petunia, always the quicker of the pair, grasped the girl’s forearm and used her momentum to twist
her to her knees. At the same time she gouged three scars into her flesh, drawing up three hot streams of blood.
For Rosa, the pain was horrendous. Her mouth opened, but she fainted in absolute silence.
“Oh, dearest, how could you?” Primrose said. “Now you’ve got her blood on the ruff of your sleeve. You’ll have to imagineer a brand new blouse.”
“Shall I finish her?”
The auma pad dropped into Primrose’s hands. “I think the fire will do that. Time
we were going.”
Aunt Petunia let go of Rosa’s arm. The girl slumped to a heap on the floor. But just when it seemed that the balance of power was firmly with the Aunts, the auma pad started beeping loudly.
“What’s that?” said Petunia, focusing her irritated gaze on the device.
“I… I don’t understand,” her sister stammered.
“What don’t you understand?” Petunia
said impatiently.
Aunt Primrose ran her thumbs across
the screen. “The pad’s been set to discharge.”
“Impossible. Only an Aunt could know the encryption code for that.”
“I’m telling you, Petunia, it’s about to unload every shred of auma we’ve gathered. And I can’t override it.”
Aunt Petunia stiffened her spine. “Have you betrayed me, Primrose?”
“Of course not, twin.”
“Then how has it been primed?”
“Dear, I don’t
know
.”
“Well, the girl couldn’t do it.”
“Then it has to be… ” Both Aunts stared
suspiciously at Aurielle.
“That’s ridiculous,” said Petunia.
“Give it to me.” She made a move to
snatch the pad from her sister’s grasp.
Primrose held it out to one side. “Why
should you have it?”
“Because I’m senior.”
“One micro:sec between our births doesn’t make you any better than me!”
“But I am, dear Primrose. I’m perfect. I’m Petunia.
You
can’t even set your tie
straight.”
“You want the auma for yourself. Well,
you sha’n’t have it!”
“I shall!”
“You sha’n’t!”
And for once, Aunt Primrose was
absolutely right. With a burst of light as powerful as the flames around them, the pad lit up and a visible ribbon of violet energy flowed out of it. But it did not go to either of the squabbling Aunts. It flew around them both and in between the cages and dissolved into the wound on Rosa’s