Fire World is the sixth and penultimate novel in The Last Dragon Chronicles series by Chris d'Lacey. In an interview with ThirstforFiction on the publication day, d'Lacey stated that Fire World would be set in an alternate universe, and that all of the recurring characters from the previous novels would return, but in different guises.
Plot
Part One
On the planet Co:pern:ica, Counsellor Strømberg (an auma counselor) talks with physics professor Harlan Merriman, his wife Eliza, and their son David about dreams that David has been having. On Co:pern:ica, people have commingled with Fain to make themselves higher beings, although there is a power called the Higher which governs those on Co:pern:ica.
In David's dream, he has been visited by firebirds and they have blown their special fire over him. It is later revealed that a temporal rift had opened up and the firebirds came to close it up. They come to the conclusion that someone, somewhere on another universe had been calling out to David.
Eliza and Harlan travel back to their pod where they decide to commingle their Fain and produce another child, a daughter for when David comes back. To be able to have a child on Co:pern:ica, they must be assessed by an agent of the Higher, called an Aunt. They are assigned to Aunt Gwyneth, with whom Eliza spent her childhood, and whom Harlan insults during the assessment. Gwyneth denies their request but says that Eliza could become an Aunt. She reluctantly agrees, and she is taken to the Dead Lands and begins to learn more about the world they live on.
Meanwhile, Harlan brings data from the research on David into his workplace, where he works with Bernard, and conducts research on the possibility of opening up controlled rifts that people can pass through like a teleport.
Strømberg suggests sending David to a huge Librarium, where he can be tutored by Charles Henry. At the Librarium, David meet a young girl called Rosa, who says that the Librarium is hers. David learns that to get around the Librarium, he must simply picture where he's going in his mind. David and Rose become friends while cataloguing the library for Mr Henry. While they are cataloguing they ask Mr Henry how to get to and above floor 43, because although they have searched for it they have never been able to reach it. Mr Henry says they must work hard to be able to access the secrets of the upper floors and it is revealed that there is a huge Firebird eyrie up there.
One day, Rosa's Firebird Runcey disappears, and a seemingly evil large red Firebird named Azkiar seems responsible. Rosa finds a book about Dragons, and fearing that Strømberg and Mr. Henry will take the book from her, she looks for a place to hide. Rosa manages to find the door to floor 43, but the door is locked and has no visible keyhole. Gwyneth appears, questions Rosa, and forbids her to read the book about Dragons. Then Gwyneth, who is visiting to check on David, demands to be taken to David and Mr Henry.
At first Gwyneth wants David to be destroyed but Strømberg steps in and says they should assess David as he is a very special eccentric.
Back in the Dead Lands, it begins to rain as Eliza finds clay and begins to model with it, eventually making an egg. The rain then becomes very strange as it is driving Eliza away, although when the drops fall on the ground they recreate images of dragons (long since died out on Co:pern:ica). Eliza finds them beautiful, though they scare her. Then the lead dragon, described as bony and almost human-like, breathes over Eliza, and she collapses.
Sometime later, a group of Firebirds find Eliza and they are trying to take care of her, when they discover the egg and wonder how one could have gotten out of the eyrie.
Two days later, Harlan, Bernard, and Strømberg are about to open up the rift. Meanwhile, Gwyneth finds a trail leading towards a cave, where she finds that Eliza has created many clay dragons acting almost as guardians to the area. Gwyneth furiously confronts Eliza about the heresy she has committed and Eliza shows that she has a baby daughter and cracked the family anomaly.
Back at the Librarium, a fire bird named Aurielle picks up the fire tear enclosed in one of David's own tears, a daisy chain that Rosa made for David earlier in the book, and the egg that Eliza created. Aurielle thinks about these things as she flies back to her perch and looks at a woven tapestry that she likes, called Isenfire, depicting the last scene of Dark Fire, where there are dragons, humans, the ix and darklings. Aurielle and the other fire birds know about the darklings, which they call "the shadows of ix". Meanwhile, another firebird comes along and warns them that a portal is opening somewhere and they need to be there.
Rosa and Henry and the whole of Co:pern:ica feel the rift opening. Rosa has read and re-read the book about dragons to David, after Strømberg over-ruled Aunt Gwyneth. Rosa manages to figure out how to read Dragontongue and believes she knows how to get up to the upper floors, just as Harlan switches on the machine. Suddenly Rosa passes out. When she wakes up, she finds David waking up as well. Both have aged about eight years.
Part Two
David and Rosa try to find out what has happened to the two of them and whether it is just the people inside the Librarium, or everyone, who experienced what Rosa calls a time quake. They visit the locked door, which opens when David successfully speaks a word in Dragontongue. On the other side, they find neatly ordered books which seem to parallel books in the real world (such as Alicia in the Land of Wonder, whose auma David communes with, and novels by Steven Kinge). They then see Azkiar sitting on a plaque labeled "fiction," and they run away, Rosa to go and find Mr. Henry. David is cornered by Azkiar, but Azkiar does not attack him and instead seems confused. David escapes and finds Rosa and a deceased Mr. Henry in Mr. Henry's office.
An aged Harlan arrives and shares that he started an experiment, which failed but caused everyone connected to age, which caused Mr. Henry's death. Knowing that he will be arrested, he gives David a micropen, which contains all the information that he needs. An aged Aunt Gwyneth and explains that she is taking Harlan away and that Eliza has called for David to be released and brought back, where she and his sister are waiting for him. Gwyneth explains that Rosa cannot go, because she can only leave the Librarium if she is called. Because her parents have died from the time quake, no one can call her. Gwyneth states that the Librarium is under the Aunts' control for now whilst they complete an evaluation and get a new curator. She summons two Aunts; Primrose and Petunia. Whilst David is walking away Rosa calls that if he does not stay with her, she will never let him come back. David promises that he will return.
Meanwhile, up on floor 108, Azkiar tells Aurielle that he has seen humans on the upper floors, specifically David and Rosa. The Firebirds have experienced the aging as well, and they discuss the incident. Aurielle tells him she must meditate on the matter and Azkiar, angry with her, flies up to the tapestry. Looking at it, he sees two humans and realizes that they are David and Rosa.
Back at pod 42, David is settling in with his mother and sister. Eliza warns David not to mention Harlan in front of her and tells David that Penny was born from an egg and that Eliza has brought clay back with her. Eliza says that she saw many things outside of the Great Design and that they were flawed like Boon. One of the dragons, the ugly one, guided her toward the cave. Eliza had taken the clay with her and that was how she had created an egg which she left outside the cave, and then a dragon came down and kindled it for her. When Gwyneth came back she destroyed all of the guardian dragons. Eliza only just managed to bring back a small bit of clay without Gwyneth noticing.
David goes to Harlan's study and finds his research computer wiped. Using the memory stick, he manages to find out what his father discovered, and also that Firebirds tried to close up the rift, but something else was coming through.
David is interrupted by Penny, who tells him that she has found a black Firebird feather, though both Eliza and David tell her that there are no black Firebirds. Later, as Penny is getting ready for bed, David reads Alicia in the Land of Wonder to her, imagineering the story with her so that the characters come to life. But something goes wrong and they see a mirror of another world (Liz's mirror in her bedroom) in it are clay dragons and a unicorn. Størmberg carries him to bed.
David wakes up two days later to find that Strømberg has gone and that he cannot stay in one place for too long, because he has gone into hiding. David tells his mother that to find the answers that he needs he either needs to go to the Dead Lands, which he knows she will not let him do, or go back to the Librarium. David prepares to go back to the Librarium when Penny walks in and tells him about the night he read to her. David begins to remember, and Penny shows David a picture that she drew of what the White Rabbit changed into. David knows that are no creatures like this on Co:pern:ica, and wonders how she could have gotten the detail so right for it.
Eliza tells David, before he goes that he needs to meet up with Strømberg on Bushley Common in the evening. When David asks which evening, she replies any, and that he will know how to find David. David goes to the common and plays with a katt whilst he waits for Strømberg to arrive.
Strømberg tells David that the society they are in is failing, and Aunts are plotting to overthrow the Higher and that the Higher resides in the Librarium. Strømberg and Mr Henry believed that the Higher operates through the firebirds. They talk some more and Strømberg is impressed that David and Rosa managed to get to the upper floors, whilst Stromberg and Mr Henry had tried for 20 years and failed. Before Strømberg leaves, he urgently tells David that he must go back to the Librarium and retrieve the Book of Agawin which he believes will tell the whole history of Co:pern:ica and of Dragons, and then contact him.
David tells Strømberg of the story telling, and that his adopted imagineered character turned into a black fire bird. Strømberg is confused, and then David tells him that when he slowed the video down of the experiment, he believes something came through and infected a normal fire bird and turned it black. Stromberg tells David that if this is true, then he must get to the Librarium that night, if possible and find the book.
As Strømberg walks off, David puts the katt down and walks off himself. The katt suddenly turns into Gwyneth, meaning that she has heard the whole conversation which was meant to be private.