And why Mathew Lefarr was too.
2
Despite the scale of the transformation thelibrarium had gone through, there were alarge number of rooms that did not houseanimals but still contained books. It wasin one of these that David eventuallytracked Rosa down.
She was sitting alone in the middle ofthe floor, forlornly clutching a book to herchest. “Look at them,” she said, as Davidstumbled in. “What are we going to doabout this?”
He crouched down among them, shakinghis head. He picked up a book, but havingnowhere to put it simply tossed it asideagain. “Is it the same in other rooms?”
“The ones with books, yes. If Mr Henry
saw this he’d be so unhappy. If someone had put this room into a sack, shaken it up and spilled out the contents it couldn’t have ended up in a worse mess. It’ll take forever to sort out. I love the animals, but the books are my life. And now… well, we don’t even have a librarium any more.”
“I s’pose not,” he said, just as his gaze was taken by a movement outside. Through the window he could see a bright orange firebird circling in the sky. Quite a number had appeared since their eyrie had changed. They were mostly seen hunched up together, perched on the deck rails or occasionally exercising their wings in flight. Like the books, their future seemed undecided. “How have the birds reacted?”
“How do you think? Aleron is
miserable. I’ve sent him looking for Strømberg, just to take his mind off it.”
“Tell me about the tapestry. When did you know it was missing?”
Rosa tilted her head. Her dark hair fell
forward in an unwashed bundle. “After
we zapped Aunt Gwyneth, I rode Terrafonne back to where I thought 108 would be. I found Aurielle flapping about in a panic. The whole floor’s been transformed into a woodland glade. It’s beautiful, but the candlesticks, chandeliers and feathers are all gone. And there’s no sign of the tapestry, anywhere. Aurielle and Azkiar are searching for it.”
“What about Agawin’s book?”
“Gone.”
David clapped his hands around his nose and sighed. “I don’t understand this.
How can we have come this far and haveboth these things go missing? This can’t bewhat Agawin intended.”
“Maybe they transformed?”
Perhaps they had. This was an outcomehe hadn’t considered. It would haveneeded some powerful auma to create theglade and its organic plant life. What ifthat was now hiding the mystery of Isenfier? Or Terrafonne, for instance, was
The Book of Agawin
?
For a moment, the only sounds thatfilled the room were the creaks of the ark
as it sliced through the water far below. Then Rosa moved the dialogue sideways, saying, “It’s Mathew on the tapestry, isn’t it?”
David took his mind off the
transformation theory and stared at the
books around his feet. “I don’t know. He looks more handsome than the image I remember.”
“Da-viiid… ” she said. “Come on-nn. Even with the fuzz on his chin he’s
clearly
the man shown standing next to Penny. Are you going to tell him?”
He shook his head. “It’s a bit pointless without the evidence in front of me. I
might tell Dad about the tapestry later.”
Rosa rocked back and forth a little, rubbing her arms. “I think it’s spooky that everyone who was in that picture is turning up on the ark. Who is Angel, David? Where did she come from? It doesn’t bother me that she flies like a bird
or talks to Aunts as if she’s known them for hundreds of spins, but it does make me weak to see her wearing the daisy chain I
made for you. She’s got your eyes.”
“She’s got your hair and mouth.”
“Err, yeah. And the
wings
?”
“Azkiar.”
“What?!”
“His fire. My tears. Your daisies – your love. She’s part human, part fain, part firebird – oh, and part clay. That was Mum’s doing. The little girl we call Angel is Agawin’s vision of the perfect species. She’s more advanced than any of us.”
“Hang on. How do you
know
all this?”
“I absorbed it – from the Higher. A lot happened between the start of the flood and us facing Aunt Gwyneth. While you were discovering Terrafonne, I was being drawn towards a perception matrix called the ‘Is’.”
“You
met
the Higher?
Here
? On the
ark?” She pointed vaguely upwards.
“The Higher can exist anywhere – here, there, the spaces in between. It’s just easier for us to think in terms of ‘up’. In Central, they massed in a dome on the roof of the librarium because the air was clear of other traces of auma.”
“What do they look like?”
“They don’t look like anything. The Higher are a strain of humans that evolved beyond the need for a physical body. They’re a collective of pure fain that oversee Co:pern:ica, and have influence in other areas of the universe as well.
Sometimes they simply call themselves ‘The Fain’. They taught me a lot ofinteresting things, mainly to prepare mefor the confrontation with Aunt Gwyneth.”
“Why did they put us in the cold like
that?”
“They imprinted the Icelands of the North around us so that I could appear in a more favourable environment.”
“You – or that bear thing?”
“Me and the bear ‘thing’ are one and the same. If it’s any consolation, I don’t fully understand it either. When I asked the Higher to explain it to me all they said was, ‘The bears are a story waiting to be written’. Maybe Dad will shed some light on it. He’s itching to tell me something. He was holding back downstairs, because of Penny. I’ll find out later. Right now, I’m going to take a look around. Let me know if Aurielle comes back or
Strømberg turns up.”
She looked him up and down andnodded. “David?”
“Yeah?”
“Can that dragon claw do anything about this?” She swept a hand across the jumble of books.
“I’ll think about it,” he said. And right there and then, he did. As his positive intent poured into the claw, an idea immediately came to him. He glanced through the window at the boats dotted on the water and said, “Don’t touch the books. Leave them where they are. They don’t need to be in order any more.”
“Why, what are we going to do with them?”
“I’ll tell you later.”
“David, you’re being annoying. Tell me now.”
He backed away. “Uh-uh. Not until I’ve thought it through. Get the firebirds
together. As many as you can.”
“Firebirds? Why?”
“It’s what Mr Henry would have wanted,” he said. And he walked out of the room, whistling a tune – much as the old curator would have done.
3
Later that day, on his way to therendezvous he’d planned with his father, David had a surprise encounter with Angel. He had spent most of the afternoonchecking the animals, eventually goingright to the top of the ark where the airwas cool and the horizons were large andthe Higher were easy to commingle with. On the way back down, he found himselfbeing taken through the glade that had oncebeen Floor 108 of the librarium. And
there, beneath the canopy of a beautiful old tree, he saw her.
She was sitting on one of the exposed and mossy roots, quietly reading a book.
“Hello, Angel,” he said.
She looked up and smiled. A miniature Rosa in a plain white dress. “Have youcome to read to me, Daddy?”
“If you’d like me to,” he said. “Whatbook is it?”
“Yours, silly.”
“Mine?” he said.
She nodded freely. “One day, you’llremember.” She held it out for him to take,the daisy chain prominent on her wrist.
“‘
Snigger and the Nutbeast?
’”
“You’re the nutbeast,” she laughed.
“And who is Snigger?”
Angel thought for a moment, then snapped her fingers. A confused grey squirrel appeared at her feet. It saw David, did a double take, sat up on its fluffy tail – and smiled.
David opened the book and read the
first line. “It was a beautiful autumn morning in the library gardens… ”
From the trees, several red leaves fell.
“Yes,” said Angel, paddling her feet.
Chuk!
went Snigger.
Library. Not librarium
. David thought.
The same, but different
, Angel commingled. “Read some more, Daddy.”
David blinked and his thumb slipped off the first page. He prised the book open at a dedication.
For Lucy Pennykettle
(aged 11 today)
. “Lucy?” he muttered. He felt the dragon claw buzzing against his heart as the name began to resonate with him.
Angel pointed down the clearing. Among the falling leaves, a floating image of part of the
Tapestry of Isenfier
appeared. It was Penny, kneeling down.
The same, but different
, David thought.
Angel smiled. “Snigger’s got somethingfor you,” she said.
The squirrel was digging frantically inthe dirt, uncovering what appeared to be asmall piece of bone. Angel jumped off thetree root, picked up the bone and handed itto David in exchange for the book. Hecleaned it against the edge of his jacketand looked at the now-familiar markings. “Sometimes,” he said.
Angel put out her wings. “Sometimes itwill be Lucy,” she said.
And sometimes it will be Penny
, Davidthought. “When is it Gadzooks?” he asked.
Snigger leaped off the ground anddissolved with a spray of stars into thebook.
“When the bears come,” she said, with
a glint in her eye. “I have to go now, Daddy.”
“Angel, thank you for this.” He held up the bone. “What does it do?”
“That will help you find Zookie,” she said. “But only when you’re ready to see him.”
And in a flash of light she was gone.
A few minits later, David swept into Aunt Gwyneth’s room. It was not quite dusk,but his father was already there. “Anychange?” he asked, peering at the body.
“None, as far as I can tell,” Harlansaid.
David sent a quick
rrrh
to the firebirds. One of them reported no activity, the otherjust jolted itself out of sleep.
“Are you OK?” Harlan asked. “You
look dreadfully puzzled.”
“It’s nothing,” David said. “Where are
the others?”
“Mathew has set off on a tour with
Penny, to map the ark’s layout and log asmany species as they can. She’s found adelightful book, a guide to animals greatand small. I’ve no idea where it camefrom, but she’s thrilled with it and it’sgiven her a much greater interest in theboat. Bernard is hobbling about on themiddle decks somewhere observing themovements of some small buzzing
creatures Eliza calls ‘bees’. He
developed a fascination for them after one landed on his collar while we were
eating. A small swarm went past while he was cleaning his dish and that was it, he was away. Eliza is relaxing at the prow of
the boat, reading I think. I haven’t seen Rosa, but then I’ve been asleep for a while.”
“How’s your eye?”
“Improved, thank you.”
“Good. What is it you want to tell me?”
Harlan slipped his hands into his pockets. During the day, all the men of Alavon had changed out of their robes into more conventional clothing. For Harlan, this meant a pair of casual trousers and a white collarless shirt. The look, though relaxed and informal, appeared to have done little to stabilise his nerves. “I’m
still concerned about our corpse. On the boat, Mathew heard her say that her body was broken but not her will. She knew exactly what she was doing when she wrote that message. She aims to survive.
The last time we saw the claw before shegot it, it had been stolen by a firebirdpossessed of an alien force called the Ix. Eliza told me how you dealt with thatdanger. That must have been quiteimpressive.” He smiled wistfully, thenturned away as if he was pacing the frontof a lecture theatre. “The point is, when Iwrote with the claw the effect was
immediate. It brought the Ix firebird straight to me. So why isn’t something happening with her?”
David drew up a chair, and sat astride it with his arms resting on the back. “The wisdom from the Higher suggests that Aunt Gwyneth’s auma has been successfully reassimilated into the dark energy of the universe, where it should have no ill effect – though they still
recommend we observe her, for reasons
I’ll come to in a moment.
“Everything you’ve said about the claw is correct. It is a relic from Agawin’s time, torn from the foot of one of the most potent dragons known to the Higher, the creature you called Gawain. Strictly speaking, anyone can wield it, but the greater the individual’s resonance with dragons, the more dramatic the outcome will be. It’s capable of complex acts of creation.”