The camp is up before first light, grabbing breakfast, rounding up the mules, hitching the four needed to haul the two wagons, and keeping the others close at hand in case of an emergency.
N’Doch stands with Sedou on a rise in the road into town. The sky is a gray dome above. The valley vanishes away from them into predawn darkness. The wagon circles of the two other Crews are just visible up ahead, one to either side of the road. They, too, will send in a pair of wagons each, coasting in on Blind Rachel’s negotiations.
Sedou is more like the dragon than ever this morning. Or, if N’Doch allows himself to remember, more like Sedou before a big rally, particularly once he understood he was a marked man. He’s edgy, distracted. He reminds N’Doch twice what to do if Fire shows himself. N’Doch can see the dragon’s mind is elsewhere. His own stomach’s as uneasy as an ant nest. He wishes he could help but hasn’t a clue what would be helpful, or even how to ask.
Köthen walks out to join them when the light turns rosy. “Stoksie is ready to give the signal.”
As if by agreement, the three men stand together in silence for a moment, watching the day build. Then they shake hands solemnly and head back toward camp.
Sedou leads the way with Stoksie and Brenda. Köthen, Charlie, and N’Doch follow up the two wagons, Luther’s retrofitted delivery van—which must be at least a century old, N’Doch figures, repainted a billion times—and a canvas-topped flatbed driven by a woman named Beneatha, with Ysabel in the seat beside her. The girl rides up beside Luther, where the windshield used to be. N’Doch counts heads. Ten going out. Better be ten of us coming back.
Stoksie hails the other Crews as the wagons draw level with their camps. Their wagons are ready to roll, so they wave and pull onto the road behind Blind Rachel. N’Doch looks them over. They look a little less well-heeled than his Crew, but otherwise, there’s the same lot of recycled truck bodies and RVs, stripped down, lightened, and fitted out for mule power, the same determined faces, the same bristle of weaponry, set back but still in sight.
Charlie points left, then right. “Das Scroon der, ’n das Oolyoot. Oolyoot from furder sout’. Mebbe we eat wi’ Scroon latah, do sum trade pryvit-like.”
“You ever all get together, all the Crews? Have a big blowout?”
Charlie guffaws, hiding her piebald cheeks behind her palms. “Betcha. E’ry five yeer. Jeesh! Needa yeer to recovah!”
“I’d like to see that, all right. Bet you’d hear some good tunes then!”
“Da bes’!”
They pass some traffic heading out of town, mostly older people and a few kids toting packs or light hand carts. Maybe they’re headed out to work the fields while the day is cooler, but N’Doch doesn’t see much in the way of tools. They look like they’re just . . . leaving town. Then the gates are ahead of them, and he goes on the alert. But the six Tinker wagons file through and into town without incident, and head for the square.
The townspeople seem eager to welcome them. All along the main drag, rows of goods are arrayed on tables, on boards balanced between two chairs, laid out on ragged blankets or just plunked down in the thick dust of the street. In the market square, guys in purple robes are sweeping the paving stones. The two-level platform has been decked out along its sides with drapes of thin red cloth. A pair of priestess women are fussing with the folds, chattering excitedly. The bleachers are up and tucked away at the far end. In the exact center of the square sits a big flat dish painted a dull gold. Another purple-robed man is pouring liquid into it from a tall red urn.
Luther calls down from the seat of his yellow van. “Yu see dat t’ing? Das weah dey put da sackerfice, y’know? All tied up nise like a prezint.”
But N’Doch reserves judgment. He feels too much like he’s walking into some kind of fantasy vid.
Along the far side, the local merchants have set up their booths and stands. The Tinkers are directed to park their wagons on the opposite long side. Blind Rachel pulls up in the middle, between Scroon and Oolyoot. The buzz of anticipation blooms into action as everyone leaps down to unload.
With Brenda busy setting up security around the Tinker stalls, Charlie is being extra friendly. She works beside N’Doch, chatting away as if to make up for all the times she hasn’t. “Dis howit go, nah. Dey look aroun’, we look aroun’, but nobuddy duz a deal til afta da sun cross noon.”
“Got it.” N’Doch’s done an inventory of what he’s got to trade, and it isn’t much. The other water bottle. The clothes on his back. He shrugs. The unpacking is finished. “Think I’ll go take a look, then.” He collects Köthen and the girl. “Whaddya say we follow Stoksie around, get the hang of things?”
With his permission, they shadow the little man through the crowd, up and down the sides of the square, then up and down the main street, checking out what he passes by with just a glance, what he notes with a nod, what he studies more carefully. A lot of the booths on the town side of the square stock food items, and Stoksie is looking not only to fill Blind Rachel’s larder but also to pick up goods for trade in other villages. There are craftspeople in amongst the food stalls, offering some serviceable pottery, a line of tools and utensils that remind N’Doch of his metal shop class back in school, and of course the coveted leather goods the Tinkers have risked coming for, especially the shoes.
“This is the stuff, huh?”
Stoksie fingers a soft brown satchel with many buttoned pockets. “Lookit dis werk, nah. Da bes’! Anabuddy give good trade fer dis.”
“Nice, all right.” N’Doch admires a handsome leather vest. He’d be real interested, if he had anything to give for it.
He sees a lot of junk laid out, too. Used stuff, broken stuff, useless stuff, and stuff that might just find another life in the right hands. He can tell how random the acquisition process is. Except for the Tinkers, there’s no regular system for product distribution left intact. There’s not even much product. But wandering up and down the line of booths, every so often he comes across a sign that things are still being manufactured somewhere in the world. Not very well, or in very great quantity, but enough so that bits and pieces of it somehow find a way to the podunk town of Phoenix. He sees cheap boxer shorts stamped “Made in Tibet.” He fingers a series of small pink dolls shrink-wrapped in plastic so brittle it must be as old as he is, and he just knows some fool is going to trade something they shouldn’t for them. He sees a flashlight he could well use if there were still batteries to go with it. And he sees a lot of weaponry, whole stalls full of cudgels, knives, crossbows, and old or broken bits of guns. Nothing too impressive, but there’s obviously a market for it. Probably folks have cobbled their firearms together out of stuff just like this. He figures the dealer’s got the ammo hidden behind the counter. He spots a broad-bladed hunting knife that reminds him of his beloved fish gutter. He picks it up for a closer look, but Stoksie, with eyes in the back of his head, reaches behind him and takes it out of his hands. With a glance at N’Doch, he puts it back on the counter.
N’Doch clucks his tongue. “No touchee the merchandise, eh?”
Stoksie wags his head side to side. “Yu wanna gud blade, I show yu weah.”
“Ah, I get it. Okay, sure. Whenever you’re ready.”
By midmorning, Stoksie seems to have decided what he wants and what he’ll give for it. The crowd is thick, and high enough on a combination of religious fervor and greed to make shoving through it a sweaty and unpleasant effort. Köthen’s looking irritable, and the girl could clearly use a break. Stoksie leads them back into the shade of Luther’s van to dole out water from the big old cooler stashed in a back compartment. The Tinker booths are mobbed with grazing customers, but behind the wagons is an island of sanity.
“Got an hour, leas’, ’fore da swap-work start.” Stoksie pulls a square of cloth out of his pocket and ties it around his dripping brow pirate-style. “Yu wan’ I show yu weah da hi rollahs shop?”
N’Doch is none too eager to be back in that souped-up crowd again. He sees why the Tinkers don’t like this town. Even without a monster, it doesn’t feel quite sane. “There’s high rollers around here? Coulda fooled me.”
“Yu green heah, tallfella, aincha. Der’s still sum aroun’ got moah den dey need, y’know whad I mean?”
The place Stoksie takes them is not another booth on the market square. It’s a nondescript house down a quieter side street, with a beefy woman at the door sporting a real functional looking 9-mm automatic. None of the booth security in the square were showing off their heat so boldly. But Stoksie seems to know this one by name, so in they all go.
The inside is shadowed and close, with shades pulled down over the few small windows. N’Doch bites back a whistle of surprise and admiration, for the stuff laid out on these tables is definitely not junk. It’s neatly organized by carrying size and firepower, and though none of it looks real new, you could still outfit a small European army here without much trouble. Too bad there’s no more small European countries, he tells himself. ’Cept maybe the ones on higher ground.
He tries to look nonchalant, sticking close to Stoksie’s side. The girl and Köthen don’t seem to get it. They just nose into the room curiously and start picking things up in their hands. Worried, N’Doch drifts after them, counting a table of pistols, including a few old revolvers, a table of shotguns, and a long rack of assault rifles. There are bins of ammo clips and boxed cartridges, shelves stocked with grenades and mortar shells. The wanna-be buyers speak in hushed voices in this temple of doom and destruction, and consult lists hidden in their palms. They’re being offered tiny cups of what might actually be tea, though the leaves have been recycled a few more times than they ought to. A pale-skinned boy slips one into N’Doch’s hand, then moves on to the girl, trailing an aroma of mint. The girl raises the little cup for a cautious sniff, then glances over at N’Doch with a luminous smile. Papa Dja taught her about tea drinking back in 2013. Or, last month, depending how you look at it.
The run-on scatter of his thoughts tells N’Doch the place is weirding him out. He can’t imagine why. He’s seen the like of it before, back home, especially during government crackdowns. Stoksie points him toward a display of blades, from jackknives to machetes, so he decides to get down to business, maybe actually find himself a knife. The dagger the women gave him is handy, and real aesthetic, but he’d prefer something a little less refined. Stoksie’s at the main counter giving serious consideration to a casing reloader, meanwhile trying to explain to the girl just how a bullet works. N’Doch heads for the knives, then sees Köthen picking at a small table in a corner that’s piled not so neatly. He slouches over to soak up a bit of the baron’s perspective on twenty-first century armaments, or is it twenty-second or -third? He’s still not sure, and who could tell from what’s laid out in this joint?
“Whacher doin’ at the junk pile, Dolph?”
A closer look tells him what’s drawn Köthen’s interest. It’s all repro stuff, replicas of antique guns and hand weapons, like battle-axes and Roman broadswords. Mostly it’s cheap plastic, but there’s some serious historical work in real wood and metal.
“May look familiar, dude, but it’s all fake.” N’Doch holds up a funnel-mouthed pistol that looks more lethal to the shooter than to the victim. “They don’t really work.”
“Why make a weapon that does not work?”
“You’re way too logical, my man. People used to collect ’em, for fun.”
“I see.” Köthen lifts a short, cylindrical object, turns it over in his hand in puzzlement.
“Now that is a serious weapon. That’s a light saber.”
“A what?”
N’Doch laughs. “Just a kid’s toy. Like I said, none of this shit really works.”
Köthen sets the cylinder down, then reaches to flip aside a flap of cloth covering the bottom of the pile. It doesn’t come easy and there’s a rasp of metal as he yanks on it. The ring of true steel is unmistakable.
“Listen to that.”
N’Doch helps clear away the plastic dueling pistols and chrome-plated Colt .45s. The fabric underneath is soft and heavy, and looks like someone’s used it to wipe the floor of a garage. Köthen feels through its folds for the shape of the object inside. His hand grasps, then stills. N’Doch hears his sharp intake of breath. Then Köthen is hauling on the fabric with both hands and all his strength.
“Whoa! Easy! What’s up?” N’Doch scrambles to catch the stuff that’s flung off as Köthen drags the whole bundle free of the pile. He has an odd presentiment as the baron stands there with the object cradled in both his hands, staring down at it in disbelief. It’s long and narrow, very long, and it looks heavy.
“Is that what I think it is?”
Köthen lays the bundle crosswise on the pile and slowly peels back the wrappings. The inside face of the cloth is unstained, and a deep maroon. Within its rich folds nestles a sword.
Köthen’s hands hover over it as if it might disappear if he touches it. Then he flattens the fabric away from the hilt, exposing its intricate design: a winged dragon wound around the trunk of a tree. “Um Gottes Willen!”
“Oh, nice,” approves N’Doch. “Appropriate, too. Kinda seen better days, though.”
“Yes,” says Köthen strangely. “It has.”
Slowly, as if reluctant, the baron slides his right hand under the hilt and fits his palm to the grip. He stares at it some more. “Surely I am dreaming.”
“A perfect fit, eh?”
“Fetch milady.”
It’s such a strangled kind of murmur that N’Doch finally picks up on there being something more going on here than the dude finally finding a weapon he knows how to use. “Why? What’s up?”
Köthen lifts the sword free of its velvet shroud. In the dim light, the long blade glints dully through layers of corrosion and patina. “Fetch her!”
“Okay, okay.” N’Doch goes. When he gets back, Köthen has the sword lowered, concealed at his side. There’s an odd light in his eyes, but he watches the girl’s approach like she might be bringing him news of his own death sentence.
“What is it, my lord?”
Köthen frames a reply, stumbles, falls silent. N’Doch stares at him, amazed. The man’s a wreck. Köthen starts again, hoarse and halting. “Milady, I beg you. Tell me if I have entirely taken leave of my senses . . .”
She looks up at him calmly. “Never, my lord.”
Köthen takes the sword in both hands just below the crossguard, and holds the hilt up in front of her.
Her response is the same sudden gasp. “Oh! God’s Holy Angels! But how . . .? Where . . .?”
Köthen nods once, as if the sentence has been delivered as expected, then enfolds the sword in both arms as if it was a child, and bows his head over it. “What does it mean?”
“I know not, my lord baron.”
“Is it all preordained, then? Have we no choice in the matter?”
“Perhaps some do, my lord. I know I do not.”
N’Doch shifts impatiently. “Is one of you gonna tell me what the hell’s going on?”
“A kind of miracle,” the girl sighs.
“It’s a sword, not a miracle. C’mon, what’s the deal?”
“Not just any sword. Sir Hal’s sword.”
N’Doch grins at her. “Hey, right. You think I was born yesterday?”
“It’s true, N’Doch,” she insists earnestly. “You must believe me.”
He looks from one to the other, and sees they don’t care if he believes it or not. They already know it for a fact. He wonders if the town’s undercurrent of hysteria has gotten to them. “C’mon, you guys, be real. There’s probably a hundred old swords like that.”
Köthen lifts his head. “No, though I, too, would prefer that explanation. But I know this weapon, like I know my own hands, every scar, every detail. Ten years I fetched and cleaned and honed this blade, and buckled it on the knight who was my master.”
The girl says, “That sword was laid at Lord Earth’s feet when Sir Hal first pledged fealty to him.”
And then to Sedou, that night in Deep Moor. Damn! The dragon hilt. N’Doch remembers it now, all too well.
He wants to go there with the two of them, really he does, but sometimes the moment gets so heavy, it kicks him smack into rebound. Drowning in momentousness, he swims for the opposite shore.
He laughs. “Well then, I guess we just gotta buy it for you, Dolph, so you can take care of it some more.”
Erde knew then what she needed to do. “My lord baron, if you would wait here a moment until we return . . . come, N’Doch, we must speak with Stoksie.”
OH, DRAGON, TELL ME . . . IS THIS WHAT IS MEANT TO BE?
THIS IS A GREAT AND MEANINGFUL SIGN. IT MUST NOT BE IGNORED.
DO YOU KNOW WHAT IT MEANS?
PERHAPS THE VERY WEAPON THAT BARON KÖUTHEN HAS BETRAYED IS PUT INTO HIS HANDS SO HE MIGHT REDEEM HIMSELF BY THE PROPER USE OF IT.
THEN THERE WILL BE FIGHTING.
INEVITABLY.
Erde unpinned the dragon brooch, pressing the carved red stone into the curve of her palm. It was as cold as ice.
AH! THE STONE KNOWS ITS OWN PATH. IT NO LONGER WELCOMES YOU.
YET I AM SAD TO LET IT GO.
She felt as if the brooch had been with her all her life, though it was barely two months since her beloved nurse Alla had provided her with it and the means for her deliverance from Tor Alte, thus sending her off toward her meeting with Destiny.
N’Doch leaned in to cover up the big jewel glowing in her palm. He was no longer laughing. “You sure about this, girl?”
“Never more sure.”
He smiled, but not truly in jest. “I shoulda stole the damn thing when I had the chance.”
“You tried. Your own destiny would not allow it.”
“Yeah, well . . .”
Stoksie sensed the suppressed urgency waiting behind him and broke off his conversation with the weapons dealer. “Whatsit nah? Sumpin’ on yer minds?”
N’Doch dropped one long arm around the small man’s shoulder and drew him away from the counter. “Stoksie, my man . . . you think any of these high rollers might be interested in a piece of real jewelry?”
She felt naked without it, but by the end of the afternoon, the dragon brooch had given opportunity for the most inspired bargaining of Stoksie’s life. Or so he claimed. With it, he managed, without calling too much attention to his intricate manipulations, to provision Blind Rachel’s two wagons and one of Scroon’s to capacity with food, lamp oil, and trade items, including a small trinket for each of the children. He acquired several new weapons and the ammunition to fit them. For N’Doch, he bought a knife, the leather vest and a coveted T-shirt, for himself a new leather satchel. For Luther, spare wheels for the caravan and several sacks of grain for the mules. For Erde, a woven sun hat and change of comfortable clothing. Boy’s clothing, of course. Plus a small kit of items that he swore were of high trade value, to be stowed away in her pack for later use.
Most important, to her if not to the Tinkers, Baron Köthen now walked beside her with Sir Hal’s dragon-hilted sword slung across his back. The long leather sheath was made for a heavier, wider weapon, but Köthen declared in still-stunned tones that it was perfectly suitable for the way he’d be wearing it.
“Yu Blin’ Rachel Crew nah, fer shur!” Stoksie looked equally stunned by all this sudden good fortune, now that he saw it all actually being loaded into his wagons. “Mebbe we all jus’ go home nah, not hafta trade wit’ nobuddy we doan like!”
“Dear Stoksie,” Erde assured him, “It’s only right that we return to you the generosity you’ve so freely offered us.”
“We gib yu a cupla daze. Yu gib us a hafa yeer, mebbe moah.”
She noticed how careful the Tinkers were to disguise their astonishing windfall as the results of a normal day’s trade, even from Scroon and Oolyoot, who were happily packing away the overflow.
“We godda stik tagedda,” said Luther as he opened one of the grain sacks to give a portion to Blind Rachel’s mules. “But dere’s one t’ing we ain’t tole ’em yet.”
He nodded. When the other Crews’ mules caught scent of it, he sent Charlie over with a canful to keep them quiet. Though he complained bitterly about the lack of room inside his tight-packed caravan, Erde noticed that he made sure to leave a good-sized space in the back corner free of cargo. She asked him why.
He gave her an embarrassed grin. “Well, da day not ovah yet. Yu nevah know whad else I wanna pick up.”
But it was close onto dusk. Surely the Tinkers were finished trading for the day. Tall torches were being lit around the edge of the square, and Scroon Crew’s wagons had already packed up and headed out, though they were having trouble breaking a path through the milling throng. From the top of Luther’s wagon, Erde could see that the booths across the square were still busy with customers. As she helped him fasten the grain sacks to the caravan’s roof, she pointed out a scuffle that broke out around one of the stalls.
Luther nodded. “Get summa dat nah. S’hot, pebble iz tired. Dey wan’ whad dey wan’. Won’ take no fer an ansa.”
“Oh, dear . . . look!” Scroon Crew’s wagons had made it to the end of the square, then been turned back at the intersection by a cluster of robed men and women who were officiously barring all passage down the main street. Customers were leaving the stalls, hurrying toward the hubbub.
“Huh.” Luther squinted out over the slate rooftops. A dust cloud trailed from the direction of the town gates. Somewhere down the main street, a cry went up. One of the robed men snatched up a lighted torch, ran through the crowd to the huge golden bowl in the middle of the square, and touched the torch to its glimmering surface. A bright flame shot up from the center, taller than the man was. “Mus’ be her, den. Lookit dem all run aroun’. Da priestess got heah early.”
N’Doch’s on his way back from helping Scroon Crew fight their way through the crowd when Köthen grabs his arm.
He sees the wagons halted at the mouth of the square, a flurry of red-and-purple robes, and torches. He and Köthen back against a wall and sit tight to see if Scroon protests the roadblock, and if they’ll need any help.
“Must be the princess, knocking at the gate.”
“She is a priestess, I believe,” Köthen says. “Another heathen witch.”
“You got a real problem with that, doncha.” N’Doch grins. “Whatever. Helluva fuss to make over some old crone.”
The driver of the lead Scroon wagon argues a little with the Chapter House priests and their townie muscle, but meanwhile the other Tinkers hop down to lead the mules aside. Puzzled, N’Doch watches as the wagons willingly split left and right to park right next to the tall torches the priests have lit on either side of the intersection. “Maybe they just want to hang around for a good view of the parade. You hear music or anything?”
Köthen shakes his head. If there is any, it can’t be heard over the roar and rumble in the square.
N’Doch is disappointed. He’s really been missing his music lately. “A real ceremony oughta have drums at least. Let’s head back.”
“Let’s stay a bit. See what we’re up against.”
“You’re the boss, yer lordship.”
They work their way closer to the edge of the crowd. N’Doch’s height gives him a useful advantage, for once. He can see clear over the heads of these puny townies, or so he’s come to think of them already, in Tinker fashion, after rubbing elbows with too many of them all day in too little space. A few blocks down the dusty main drag, a line of marchers wavers into view through the rising heat and dusk. “Here they come. Soldiers, looks like, with big flashy helmets and . . . hey, get this! Spears!”
“A suitable weapon for infantry.”
“Maybe in your day. Won’t do much against the firepower we’ve seen around here. Okay, now there’s this big boxy gold thing coming, with four guys lugging it.”
The crowd is starting to moan and sway a little, as if a wind has come up. Köthen cranes his neck a little to see. The big sword stiffens his back like a second, crosswise spine. “A sedan chair, Dochmann. I am relieved to discover a few things that I know about the future which you do not.”
“Up yours, yer lordship. What’s a sedan chair?”
“Most likely, the priestess rides in that chair.”
“And those poor suckers gotta carry her? Probably too fat and old to walk on her own. Hey, there’s a second one coming up behind it. That one’s even bigger.”
The soldiers pass by. They’re taller, better fed than the townies he’s seen, or than any of the Tinkers, and they march in pretty good order, despite their antique weaponry. Köthen studies them with professional interest.
“Some of these men are . . . women!” he exclaims softly.
They are indeed. Tall, strapping women with steely eyes. N’Doch chuckles. “Welcome to that future you know so much about.”
When the first sedan chair draws level with him, N’Doch sees that the side curtains have been artfully draped and tied open, so that the occupant is regally framed by graceful folds of rich, gold fabric, made even more picturesque by the lavender dusk and the flickering torchlight. The townies cry out prayers. He’s surrounded by a forest of scrawny, reaching arms. Someone here really knows how to stage an entrance. Now he can see inside the chair.
“Hey, that’s a guy in there! Big, good-looking dude with too much hair and too much jewelry. Looks like he owns the place.”
Köthen tosses him a wolfish glance. “Perhaps he does. Such things are not unheard of, you know.”
“Right. Sorry. Forgot who I was talking to.”
A bunch of younger guys all dressed alike follow, then another squad of helmeted soldiers, then a pair of women in the same red robes as the women at the Chapter House, only these two are veiled. After them comes the second chair. This one looks like it’s really made of solid gold, though N’Doch knows that’s impossible, and it has a big red dragon right there on the side, just like the one carved on the brooch. N’Doch wonders where that stone will spend its next millennium.
Up at the entrance to the square, one of Scroon Crew’s mules suddenly objects to a particular flare of torchlight, and starts up a loud braying and shying about on his sharp, heavy hooves. The first chair gets hustled past into the square but the second soldier squad ducks sideways in confusion like they’ve never seen a spooked mule before. Scroon Crew races about trying to calm the mule, though it looks to N’Doch like they’re doing just the opposite, and the whole procession staggers to a halt. The bearers of the second chair stop and set it down right in front of Köthen and N’Doch. All around them, the townies fall to their knees, moaning and murmuring.
The gauzy, shimmering curtains are closed. Nothing is visible in the shadowed interior until a tawny, slim hand parts the drapery and the High Priestess herself peers out to see why they’ve stopped.
The two men share the same reflexive grunt of approval.
The priestess is young and she is beautiful. Really beautiful. More beautiful than any vid star N’Doch can think of, off the top of his head. He wants to whistle aloud, but he’s pretty sure it’d be considered inappropriate. She’s such a mix, he couldn’t begin to guess what her background is, but it looks like she got the very best of all of them. Her eyes are dark, her features delicate but lively, her skin that flawless espresso-and-cream that makes N’Doch wants to put his hands all over her. He nudges Köthen. The baron is transfixed.
N’Doch bends to hiss into his ear. “Hey. Dolph, didn’t your mama teach you not to stare?”
As if she feels their gaze, like some kind of magic heat ray, the priestess turns toward them, a slow haughty move like you make when you’re showing someone how little you notice them. N’Doch has the word “bitch” all ready on his tongue when the woman’s glance slides past him, past Köthen, then flickers back as if surprised, and settles on the baron in what appears to be shock. N’Doch thinks this could be getting dangerous. Everybody within ten klicks is looking at her, while she and the baron stare at each other long past what’s polite between strangers. Like, he’d have a big hole lasered through his chest if he stood between them.
He nudges Köthen again. “Whatcha trying to do, get us in trouble?”
Then the logjam clears up ahead, and the four bearers bend, grip, and hoist their golden burden to their shoulders. The procession moves forward again, carrying the High Priestess with it. But her gaze drifts back toward Köthen again, and she gives him a kind of stunned smile that transforms her face from that of a proud, self-contained aristocrat to that of an astonished girl. Then she withdraws behind her curtains, and the chair disappears behind the next infantry squad and a long train of hand-hauled supply wagons.
N’Doch is irritated. Haven’t these guys ever heard of mule power? He jogs Köthen’s shoulder brusquely. He’s pissed at him for attracting all the attention. “C’mon. We’re outa here.”
Köthen follows willingly this time, as if he’s too busy thinking to resist.
N’Doch hugs the facades of the houses fronting the square, where the going’s a little easier. The crowd is surging inward toward the center of the square, but coming up against some force or barrier he can’t see. “Hey! Watch where you’re going, man!” He hauls Köthen out of the path of a loaded hand cart. “So the ice prince has blood in his veins after all.”
“Dochmann! I have never seen a more beautiful woman. Have you?”
“Well, she wasn’t looking at me, so what does it matter?” N’Doch thinks about how the girl back at the wagon would feel if she’d seen what he’s just seen. “And you could wipe that silly grin off your face, y’know.”
Köthen laughs, a charged-up, throaty laugh. A townie shoves past him rudely and he doesn’t even notice. “You are jealous, friend N’Doch.”
He’s trying to imagine a way he can reasonably deny this. Through the shifting crowd, a face catches his eye. He stops short.
Köthen is instantly alert. “What?”
“That girl again. The one I was following.”
“Alone?”
“Couldn’t tell.” N’Doch shrugs uneasily and moves on. By the time they’re back at the wagons, he’s slick with the crowd’s close heat and the effort of plowing through it. He sees that during the pack up, the four remaining wagons have been reshuffled into an open square, with the mules all hitched and facing clockwise. Blind Rachel and Oolyoot are clustered inside, in conference. Brenda and Charlie are already perched on the roof of Luther’s van, weapons in hand. No one likes the feel of this crowd. N’Doch climbs over the traces of an Oolyoot wagon, and hears Luther sending the girl up into the driver’s seat, telling her to stay put with uncharacteristic brusqueness.
“Someone’s a little anxious,” he comments to the baron.
“You are not?”
“Well, yeah, actually I am. But I thought it was just the dragon working on me.”
Köthen reaches a hand back to stroke the hilt of the sword brushing his neck. “I feel like a dog before a thunderstorm.”
“What say we go sit with the Pit Bull . . . better view from up there.”
They scale the outside of the van, using the big steel latches as handholds. Köthen’s sword clinks against the insulated metal skin.
“Yo, Brenda!” N’Doch calls out. “Don’t shoot, it’s only me.” As his head clears the top, he finds his nose mere inches from the barrel end of Brenda’s new hunting rifle, courtesy of the dragon brooch. He frees up a palm and eases the muzzle aside. “Nice gun, huh?”
Charlie giggles. “Yo, Dockman.”
Brenda gives him a sour nod, then offers him a hand to hoist him over the edge. Köthen follows easily on his own. He finds an open spot, unslings and draws his sword, then settles with it across his lap. From a pouch on the sheath, he pulls out oil and a whetstone. N’Doch squints out into the deepening dusk. Torches flare around all sides of the square. Robed men and women are pressing back the mewling crowd, to open up a wide path from the main street and clear the center around the flaming gilt bowl, over the design of the red dragon. A phalanx of them, in red and gold, forms beside the dragon’s upraised claw.
“The reception committee,” N’Doch observes cheerfully.
Moments later, Sedou climbs up. “Almost as crowded up here as it is down there.” He hangs his legs over the outside edge and invites N’Doch to join him. They watch the doings in the square for a while, as the priestess’ entourage enters from the main drag and begins a slow ritual circuit around the outside. Then Sedou says, “I’ve told Stoksie and the others not to be concerned should I suddenly disappear on them.”
N’Doch takes a breath. “Disappearing’s the easy part. Didja tell ’em what else might happen?”
But Sedou isn’t interested in sibling banter. His eyes have a deep-well darkness in them. “I may need a new song, my brother. I may need it soon.”
There’s that ant nest stirring in his gut again. “Yeah? What sort of song?”
“Not a Sedou song. Not a people song at all.”
“Hunh?” N’Doch’s shoulders hunch over the keyboard he imagines in his lap. “You want, like, some kind of animal?”
“No.” Sedou gets real still for a moment and N’Doch just knows the dragon is struggling to hold her man-shape. Whatever thoughts she’s thinking, they’re not about being human. “Imagine it, my brother. I need . . . a song of release. Of waves breaking and rivers flowing. Of glaciers melting into the sea. Of the sky giving up its moisture as rain.”
“You need a water song,” said N’Doch quietly, and suddenly all the ants in his gut are a chill tickling the base of his spine. “I get it. You need your song. The others have all been my songs.”
“Yes.” The dragon/man’s smile outshines the torches. “And they have served me well in the world of men. But now I must be what I truly am, to the utmost of my powers. And you must help me.”
N’Doch coughs. The chill has made it all the way to his throat. “Not sure I’m up to it, bro.”
Then Sedou does the thing N’Doch’s wanted all along, ever since the song that conjured his brother as a grown man. The thing he can’t ask for, because he needs it more than he knows how to say. Sedou leans over, wraps him in the curl of his big arm, and holds him, easy and firm, as if nothing could ever go wrong again.
You’re up to it.
Release, damn it, thinks N’Doch, and while trying to grasp what he means, he does. His hands, his gut, his brain, and finally, his heart, all unclench, as he releases himself to the dragon, no longer understanding his reasons for resistance. He feels the dragon enter him, almost as a man enters a woman. But it’s his maleness that she enters, and her own female nature that he takes inside himself, like light, like a revelation, like a song. He shudders with it in his brother’s grasp, stunned by the wealth of songs within him, waiting to be born.
Then he becomes aware of himself again, a grown man cradled like a child in another grown man’s arms. He imagines Köthen behind him, watching this darkly, misapprehending. He sits up, reaching for autonomy, for a shred of distance. But he is not the same man he was just moments ago. He will never be that other man again. He has a dragon inside of him.
He grasps his brother’s shoulder and shakes it lightly, inarticulate with gratitude. “Just let me know. That song’ll be there for you.”
Down in the market square, the last of the late light seems to have settled over the dragon in the paving stones. The man-sized flame in the golden bowl makes the image dance as if it was alive. The procession of soldiers and priests and sedan chairs completes its outer circuit under the glow of the torches. The leading squad of infantry does a left face right in front of the Tinker wagons, turning in toward the center and the block of waiting clergy. The marchers split neatly around them and re-form in an honor guard behind. The sedan chairs follow and are set down side by side on the dragon’s breast. All motion swirls to a halt. Only the dust stirs, and the leaping, crackling torch flames. Köthen sets down his cleaning rag and slides over to watch, sword in hand.
The guy in the first chair steps out onto the pavement. Swathed in red and gold, he is as big as N’Doch has guessed, tall and bronze-skinned. His perfect musculature is revealed to all by an open robe, a glittery open vest and a magnificently naked chest.
“That dude’s seen some hard time in the gym,” mutters N’Doch.
Köthen sits up a little straighter. “Fighting man.”
“Nah. Pumper’s muscle, that’s all. Look at those show-off duds. Bet he spends most of his day looking in the mirror.”
“Trust me on this,” says the baron.
The muscle man accepts the many bows of the reception committee, then strides to the second chair, draws back the gold curtain and extends his hand. The High Priestess takes it and steps out of the shadow into the orange-and-lavender flicker of torchlight.
Köthen leans forward.
N’Doch says to Sedou in a stage whisper. “So. Whaddya think of the baron’s new girlfriend?”
A sharp crack explodes the silence, then another. A double echo clatters around the walls of the square. N’Doch sees shattered stone puff up right at the priestess’ feet.
“Shit! Sniper!” He ducks.
Köthen leaps to his feet, sword at ready, and glares around for the source of the sound.
Another crack.
N’Doch drags Köthen down hard as the others flatten around them and roll off the roof into cover. Köthen struggles to shake him off, but N’Doch hangs tight and yells at him.
“That’s gunfire, Dolph! Tryin’ to get yourself killed?”
Köthen stops struggling. “Where?”
“Got me. We’re sitting ducks here, but so far they ain’t shooting at us.”
A fourth and fifth shot. N’Doch hears the slugs track above their heads just before the sound ricochet drowns out the direction of fire. Down in the square, everyone’s screaming and diving for cover. The big guy in the fancy clothes has already proved Köthen’s estimation of him. He’s snatched the priestess girl around the waist and dragged her into the thickest part of the crowd. Soon N’Doch sees the golden shimmer of his robe rising like a sail, a billow of distraction, grabbed by one too many eager hands as it floats free. Immediately, there’s fighting over it, despite the hail of bullets that follows. Doesn’t matter. The big guy’s no longer inside it. He and the woman have vanished.
Now the firing is coming from more than one place. What began as panic in the square is devolving into riot and mayhem. At least one priest lies facedown on the paving stones, his blood mixing with the red of the tiled dragon. N’Doch feels the van jerk into motion.
“Dockman!” Charlie pops her head up beside him. “Gichu down nah! Gittin’ ouda heah, pronto!”
Köthen’s still staring down into the square.
N’Doch grabs his arm. “She’s okay! Gotta be. Your fast-thinking fighting man snatched her outa there. Come on!”
Across the square, the trade booths caught unpacked by the procession’s early arrival are under attack from sneak thieves and looters. Some of the gunfire’s coming from there, as townie security moves in hard, but not all. N’Doch hustles Köthen off the roof of the van, then hangs over the front to peer into the driver’s seat. Luther’s down with the lead mule, calming him, urging him. The girl’s inside, pale and wide-eyed, with the reins in her hands. N’Doch somersaults into the seat beside her.
“Shit’s hittin’ the fan again, girl! What is it with the two of us?”
He gets the barest ghost of a smile out of her. He doesn’t understand. She looks like something terrible is about to happen. He thinks it already has. The van stutters forward as Brenda slides onto the back of the second mule to growl into its ears. In Luther’s cobbled-up side mirror, N’Doch sees Charlie vault onto the lead mule of the team behind them, Beneatha’s flatbed, now heavy with stacked cargo tied down under the stained canvas top. When that wagon starts to roll, the two Oolyoot wagons turn out of formation to follow.
“Guns.” The girl bites her lips. “Where is Baron Köthen?”
“He’s fine. Look in your mirror.”
Köthen’s alongside the van, his sword sheathed across his back again. He’s taken up one of the Tinker quarter-staves to fend off looters. Several of the Oolyoot Crew are doing the same. N’Doch counts heads. Shit, Only eight.
“Where’s Stoksie and Ysabel?”
“I don’t know. Weren’t they . . .?”
“Damn!”
And then the alarm shrills through him, unmistakable as middle C.
The girl stiffens, snatching at the seat with both hands. “Oh, God, oh God! Oh, Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us now in our hour of need!” The reins snake loose in her lap until she gets a grip on herself and snatches them up again. “He’s coming, N’Doch! Oh, dear God, he’s coming!”
“I know, I know.” He looks around for Sedou. Already the song is rising in his throat.
She’s been bored and hot all day, and her premonition has faded.
Only its unusual size has promised to make Phoenix Town interesting. Until two things occur: she sees the man with the sword, and someone starts shooting at her. Her premonition has returned.
I shouldn’t have come! I should never have insisted! The God warned me! I should have known better!
Ducking away under Luco’s strong arm, Paia forces down her panic in order to concentrate on moving with him as he skillfully dodges and weaves, and not think about the outrage of being shot at. The God has told her that he outlawed the few firearms that were left after the Wars. But now she sees them everywhere in this shoving, panicked, ravening mob. Either the God lied, or the God is not as omniscient as he would like her to think.
And where is he when I really need him!
It’s hard, with the crack of gunfire and all the shouting and screaming, to concentrate on her summons. When the first shot spattered marble dust into her eyes, she called out to the God instinctively. Then Luco’s defensive maneuver distracted her. Quick, reliable Luco. How could she have ever thought this ex-soldier had gone soft?
He has her tight about the waist, as if he fears losing her to the heave of the mob. She has the odd impression there are strangers racing beside them, in step with their every turn, as if clearing them a path. Where are her chaperones? Where are Luco’s strong young men? Suddenly, the wall of a building looms up in front of them.
“This way, my priestess!” Luco ducks sideways along the stones, then into an alley that opens up as if it was exactly where he expected it to be. It is narrow, and choked with terrified villagers fleeing the chaos in the square. Luco jostles through them, hugging the left-hand wall, until one of the many closed doors that they pass is miraculously open. Luco hauls her inside, into darkness. The others she thought to be their companions are swept by with the mob. Luco kicks the door shut. Sunk in total blackness, she hears him lock it.
Paia can tell she’s in a very small room. Her throat and lungs constrict. “What if they find us in here? We’ll be trapped! Wouldn’t we be safer if we kept moving?”
“We will. First you need a chance to catch your breath.”
A soft flare eases her panic as Luco lights an oil lamp set on a little table in the middle of a low, square room. Shamed by the priest’s calm, Paia tries to still the heaving of her chest. She is not only breathless, she is terrified. But she doesn’t want Luco to have to slap sense into her, as he has a few times in the past. She wants to appear strong and capable, for once. She has survived assassination attempts before. Of course, then she’d had the familiar security of the Citadel to comfort her.
The room she’s in now tells Paia almost nothing about its usual occupants. Could they really own nothing but the few dishes and chairs, and the two iron cots lined up along one wall? She watches Luco as he moves briskly about the tiny space. She envies his confidence in such a dire circumstance.
He opens a few cupboards, finds cups and a stoneware jug. He fills the cups with water from the jug, and hands one to her. “Drink up, my priestess. I’m not sure when we’ll have another chance.”
Water? How convenient. She eyes him over the rim of the cup. Does she sense the God’s presence somewhere about? She thinks not, and yet, there’s just the faintest echo. “Luco, tell me the truth now. This isn’t another one of your schemes with the God . . .?”
He laughs, but with an edge to it. “No, my priestess. I assure you it is not.”
“Well, we should thank these villagers whose home we’ve invaded.”
“Easy enough.” He opens another cupboard, searches through the scant piles of clothing there, pulls out his choices and tosses them on the table. “You can leave them your expensive and conspicuous clothing. Put those on.”
She gapes at him. Is this the man for whom every Temple garment is a treasure? “Really? Just leave it here? What will my poor chambermaid say?”
Luco’s mouth quirks. “She’ll survive. If I’m to extract you safely from this tinderbox of a town, you’ll have to go incognito.”
He’s found garments for himself as well. Without even turning his back, he strips out of his golden Temple vest and belted white pants, and slips into darker, looser pants and a long-sleeved T-shirt. He folds the ceremonial glitter precisely and puts it away in the cupboard. “Come, now. We should hurry.”
Paia does turn her back. Having many times considered trying to seduce her head priest, now she is shy in front of him. The shirt and pants he has given her are patched here and there, and soft with age, but clean and comfortable. And they conceal her body as completely as her beloved sweats. Paia rather likes them. She steals a look to see if he’s watching her change, but only catches him glancing at his empty wrist, a nervous gesture that she recognizes. Her father had it. It’s the habit of a man once used to wearing a watch. She has never noticed it in Luco before.
“Ready, my priestess?”
She nods. He gathers up her Temple finery from the floor where she’s let it drop, and folds it, regarding her with bemused patience. He stows it away in the cupboard with his own. But instead of the main door, he opens the one narrow closet in the room and holds out his hand. Puzzled, Paia takes it. Luco leans back to blow out the lamp. The void surrounds them once more, but his voice is soft at her ear.
“We must be silent, my priestess. We move between walls and through spaces thought not to exist. We mustn’t call attention to our passage.”
Finally Paia understands that this room isn’t just a happy accident. “How did you know about all this?”
“Has the God not charged me with your safe return, on pain of my life? I’m a careful man, my priestess. I like to plan for any eventuality. Hush, now. Not a sound until I say so.”
He leads her through a long and complex darkness. Sometimes the walls are close on either side, sometimes an outstretched hand finds only one. Almost always, the ceiling is right above her head. There are twists and turns too numerous to count, and only occasionally a bit of dim light strays through from the rooms on the other side of the walls. When it does, she hears screams and gunfire. She wonders if the God has heard her summons, or if he’s punishing her by ignoring her. She can’t shake the sensation that he’s nearby somewhere. But even if he is, she can’t imagine him manifesting inside these tiny passages.
At last she hears the creak of another door. Luco leads her into another small, dim room, only this one has a curtained window. He goes to it immediately and peers out between the drapes. The screams and shouting are louder here, close to the street, but Paia is sure she hears the rattle of wagon wheels. She joins him at the window, but he does not move aside to let her see out.
“Are those our wagons? Have they come for us?”
“Not our wagons. But they’ll do.” He turns away from the window and looks down on her, an oddly contemplative expression abstracting his gaze. He surprises her by smoothing a stray lock of hair away from her eyes. A very paternalistic gesture for Son Luco. “Now listen carefully. We are in very grave danger. You must do exactly as I tell you. No questions, no tantrums. You must trust me absolutely. No matter how it may seem, you are safe in my hands.”
“Oh, Luco, you needn’t frighten me to make me behave. I’m there already. I’ll do as you say.”
He pats her cheek. “Good girl.” He glances through the curtains once more, then grasps her hand firmly and opens the door.
Erde guided the dragon in from his hiding place in the woods just as the shadow of vast wings swept over the square, blotting out the last whisper of dusk. She felt N’Doch’s strength beside her, steadying her as if she were a spooked carriage horse. She wanted to tell him about Fire, how she knew and what she saw, but there wasn’t time. Fire’s passage roiled the hot air, making the torches leap and flare. His shriek shattered the din of the fistfights and shouting and sent even the looters scurrying for their lives. As the great shadow passed, the priests of the Temple looked up from aiding their wounded fellows and fell down on the paving stones in terror and awe.
DRAGON, ARE YOU THERE? I CANNOT SEE YOU.
Earth had never wanted nor been able to hide himself from her before.
I AM. DO NOT ASK WHERE, FOR YOUR OWN SAFETY.
The Tinker wagons moved faster toward the intersection as the terror-stricken mob stampeded into the side streets and alleys, trampling the slower and weaker in their desperation to flee. Luther and Brenda struggled to keep the frightened mules from bolting out of control. Beside Erde, N’Doch was singing. It was a wordless, soaring sort of song, unlike any she’d ever heard him sing. Erde felt the power in it, like the surge of oceans.
The shadow passed again, like the shiver of a dream, with a metallic rattle of wings and another rending cry. The air smelled like ash and molten iron. Erde felt him up there, searching, his inhuman eyes raking the darkened ground. She made her mind go as still as she knew how.
He knows me, just as the hell-priest knows me!
At the mouth of the square, Scroon Crew’s wagons blocked the intersection. The mob broke against them like a wave and surged away to either side, scrambling for the lesser exits, or pounding on the doors of the houses along the square, begging for shelter. Others just dropped to the ground where they were and prayed. The wail of fearful believers rose to drown out the shouting. Somehow, somewhere, there was still gunfire. Thumping on the caravan’s sides drew Erde’s glance to Baron Köthen. His face was alight with grim satisfaction as he wielded his quarterstaff against a pair of men trying to climb up on the wagon. He was glad to be in action at last. They were almost to the intersection.
DRAGON! THE TINKERS ARE LEAVING! WHAT SHOULD I DO?
GO WITH THEM AND BE SAFE. YOU’VE DONE YOUR PART. NOW WE MUST DO OURS.
And don’t speak to us! You can’t hide yourselves as we can. He’ll go after you, and distract us from our task.
As Lady Water’s voice faded in Erde’s head, the shrieking dragon above swooped down out of the night and settled with a sound of clashing swords in the center of the square. Erde recoiled into the shadow of the caravan’s roof. She was sure he would pick her out of the crowd. But she could not keep from easing forward just a bit to stare.
In the jittery light of the torches, Lord Fire’s scales glimmered like the fabled treasure hoard of gold and fabulous jewels. He was winged, horned, shred-eared, and clawed. His barbed tail coiled around his muscled haunches like a snake ready to strike. His eyes flamed like blown embers, bright heat in darkness. He curved his plated back, arched his long, sensuous neck, and let a curl of smoke rise from his cavernous nostrils. The very essence of Dragon. He was awesome, magnificent.
And horrific. This was Baron Köthen’s understanding of dragon. This was what he’d met in the hell-priest’s eyes.
Lord Fire himself.
Erde did not know how this could be, but now she was sure of it.
The wagons slowed and halted as the Tinkers, even the mules, stared at him, astonished. With a deep resounding crescendo, N’Doch completed his song. For a moment, the world was becalmed, as if life itself had paused on its journey to pay homage to this lordly creature, the king of ancient myth, preening himself in the village square.
“I never thought . . .” murmured Erde.
“That he’d be so beautiful?” N’Doch finished for her. “Me neither. He knows it, too. Look at him strut!”
Then the stillness ended. Lord Fire lifted his elegant head and roared. Great booming echoes beat around the building facades and against Erde’s eardrums. The priests of the town and a few who had come in with the procession scrambled into a huddle and prostrated themselves before him. The dragon seemed to be waiting. The curve of his neck tightened into an impatient arc. The barb on his tail, as tall as a man, lashed back and forth.
One of the priests, stuttering and stumbling, dragged himself onto his knees and struggled to string together enough words to explain what had just happened before Lord Fire’s arrival. “The Great God,” he called the dragon, but could get no farther. Another, facedown, tried to help him, then suddenly all of them, men and women, were up on their knees babbling hysterically, begging the “Great God’s” forgiveness. Packs of abject worshipers, huddled around the square, added their own chorus of wails and moans.
Fire snaked his head around to stare at the shivering priests. With an angry flare of his enameled wings, he reared up and roared again. Three of the priests collapsed in a faint. The rest threw themselves flat on the bloodstained stones, mumbling incoherently.
Erde sensed a momentous gathering of dragon energies. A decision. The time for confrontation had come.
I CAN TELL YOU WHAT HAS OCCURRED HERE, BROTHER.
Fire dropped to all fours, poised for battle like a cat. N’Doch and Erde shuddered as a new voice invaded their heads: deep, raw, and furious.
WHAT? YOU? HERE?
YES, BROTHER.
Earth’s presence was directionless and vast. Even Erde could not tell where he was. Fire glared around the square.
LEAVE ME ALONE! YOU’RE TOO LATE!
NEVER!
WHERE IS SHE? WHERE IS THE PRIESTESS OF MY TEMPLE?
WE KNOW NOT.
YOU HAVE TAKEN HER!
If you’d listen to those humans instead of frightening them . . .
YOU HERE, TOO!
Is this how you greet us after so long?
YOU’VE TAKEN HER!
She flees an assassin.
LIARS! WHERE IS SHE?
WHERE IS OUR SISTER AIR?
HOW SHOULD I KNOW?
Caught in the maelstrom of the dragons’ power, Erde still heard the note of petulance in Lord Fire’s tone. For some reason, it gave her courage.
WE THINK YOU DO.
FIND HER YOURSELF! I AM BUSY.
BUSY TERRORIZING THOSE YOU WERE CREATED TO SERVE. MUST WE REMIND YOU OF YOUR DUTY?
I SERVE THEM AS THEY DESERVE!
The golden dragon rose again, shrieked, and spat a bright stream of fire at the ceremonial dais at the head of the square. The draped red fabric was instantly ash. The dry wooden beams and floorboards exploded into flame with a whoosh like a thousand birds taking flight. Heat washed the Tinker wagons in rhythmic waves.
N’Doch yanked Erde back into the shelter of the caravan’s metal walls.
“The sonofabitch even breathes fire! No wonder everything around here’s built out of stone!”
She couldn’t imagine how he could complete a coherent sentence, with so much raw power coursing through his brain as it was through hers.
“Ev’rybuddy up!” shouted Brenda. The Oolyoots who’d been defending the wagons on foot each grabbed at the side of a wagon to hoist themselves upward. On Beneatha’s wagon, Charlie beat out sparks caught in the folds of the canvas. The dragon in the square screamed again. His voice in Erde’s head was like knife blades along her nerves.
LEAVE ME ALONE!
BROTHER, WE MUST FOLLOW OUR DESTINY.
THAT DESTINY DOESN’T SUIT ME. I DENY IT!
NO, YOU WILL NOT DENY IT. YOU CANNOT DENY IT.
I AM FIRE! I AM THE LORD OF THIS KINGDOM! YOU CANNOT BEND ME TO YOUR WILL!
We’ll see about that . . .
And where there had been one dragon, suddenly there were three, crouched staring at each other in the glare of the burning dais.
Erde heard Luther’s yell of exultation and terror and then stopped paying attention to anything but the dragons. She leaned out into the wash of heat, entranced. She’d let the fire consume her entirely, to be witness to so glorious a sight! N’Doch grabbed her, pulling her back. She pushed him away.
“No! No! You must look! Oh, look at them now!”
Earth loomed gigantic in the flickering darkness, as solid and towering as the side of an ancient mountain. His massive head was like a pinnacle of carved stone. His great eyes, like veined agate, glowed with the inner light of righteousness. Erde remembered the confused little dun-colored beast of two months ago, and was proud.
Lady Water stirred and rocked at her point of the triangle, a sea vision in blue and green and lavender, rising from the Deep. Her luminous crest and frills eddied around her like a dancer’s sibilant veils. Her sleek head was the shifting center of a swirl of rainbow phosphorescence. Her actual shape was no longer possible to determine.
Silhouetted against a leaping wall of flame, Fire screeched and lashed his tail. In answer, the paving stones rippled. The ground shook. The stones of the houses shivered and rattled. Lightning flashed, and the heated air of the square rose in hissing columns of steam as water fell out of nowhere to douse the flames. Fire searched about for something else to put to the torch. His glare fell on the priests groveling at his feet.
N’Doch said, “Uh-oh. Time to go.”
Baron Köthen jogged up from behind to shake Luther out of his dragon daze and slap the flanks of the mule he was mounted on. The stalled caravan lurched forward. Köthen swung up into the driver’s seat, shoved Erde over, and grabbed the reins. “The battle is joined! Would we could stay to witness it!”
“They told us to leave!” Erde regretted it as much as he. She feared leaving them, yet knew she must bow to their dragon wisdom. “They say we’ll only get in the way.”
Köthen nodded. “They fight a different sort of battle. And the Tinkers have need of us.”
Scroon Crew had lit the side lanterns on their lead wagon. With all their walkers piled on in a confusion of clinging bodies, they pulled ahead out of the intersection just as Blind Rachel reached them. But for a few scurrying villagers, the main street lay empty and shrouded in darkness. Another lightning flash. Scroon’s mules leaped forward and set a breakneck pace. Bending low over the lead mule’s neck, Luther urged his own team after them.
Erde’s head cleared as she withdrew from the dragon contact. But she kept glancing back. She was disturbed by Lord Fire’s denial of his destiny. Not only because it was outrageous and unforgivable, but because he spoke as if he knew very well what that destiny was. An exact understanding of this still eluded his siblings.
As the wagons clattered out of the square, she gripped the edge of the caravan and leaned out for a last backward look, in time to see Fire rear up again and launch himself at Earth, spewing a stream of white heat aimed straight at the big dragon’s heart. But he only melted stone. In a blink, Earth was not there, but behind him instead. As Fire landed from his leap, the ground bucked viciously beneath him. His huge wings beat furiously as he tumbled off-balance. Shrieking his outrage, he whirled on Water, not with flame but to tear at her with his claws. Water danced and hovered, just out of his reach.
Brother Fire, where is our sister Air?
Fire lunged, snagging an edge of Water’s crest with one scimitar claw. N’Doch was singing his song again, first under his breath, then out loud, a fervent paean of anguish and prayer.
No! We shall not make this town a battleground!
As Fire lunged again, Water danced away and, as suddenly as a sound, glistening wings were born out of the rainbow hues of her frills, many-folded wings like the tails of exotic fishes. N’Doch fell back against the seat, eyes closed. A ragged gasp of relief shook his entire body.
“We did it!”
And then the blue dragon sang, a lilting, whistling taunt that drew Fire snarling in pursuit as she soared away into the darkness. The rain stopped. The ground stilled. Erde looked for Earth. The square was empty.
Paia smells smoke. She pulls on Luco’s hand as he eases head and shoulders around the cracked-open door. “We shouldn’t go out there! We should stay here and wait for the God to come get us.”
Luco peers out. “What a mess. Worse than I . . . we’re going to have to make a run for it.” He draws his head back. “Let him what?”
“Come and get us.”
“He’d have to know where we are.”
“He does. Or he should.” She shouldn’t share this secret, but the First Son is working so hard to protect her and it’s the only help she has to offer. “I summoned him.”
“That won’t work here. We’re out of locator range.”
“I have . . . a different kind.”
His brow creases faintly. “Are they somewhere other than on your clothing?”
“Yes. They . . . that is, it . . . is in me. I am the locator.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I don’t either, but you know that I always know when he’s calling me, and that I can’t ever resist his summons . . .”
Luco nods, slowly.
“Oh, Luco, don’t ever tell him I told you. He’d be humiliated.”
“Because . . .?”
“Because it’s the same for him. He hears me, and he has to come when I call him.”
The priest’s handsome face goes slack, and Paia worries that she’s miscalculated. Perhaps Luco’s devotion to the God is not only about gaining power within the Temple. Perhaps it is also about belief, and now she has shaken the foundations of his faith, by implying that the God is not entirely omnipotent.
“How could I not have known this?”
“I only learned it myself very recently.”
“And he knows where you’re . . . summoning him from?”
Paia nods faintly. She has never seen the priest look so at a loss.
He closes the door behind him and leans against it heavily. “When did you summon him?”
“When the shooting started.”
“But . . . he isn’t here.”
“No. Not yet.” This is the part Luco will really hate. It makes the God sound too much like an ordinary . . . person. “He’s probably punishing me. He hates it when I summon him. But he always comes eventually. Of course, the longer he resists, the angrier he is when he arrives.” Paia pushes dust around with the soft toe of the shoes Luco had given her to replace her gold temple sandals. “But how could he be angry when our lives are at stake? He should be . . . Luco? What is it?”
He’s pressed his palms to his eyes with a soft moan. He holds them there for the length of a breath. “He’ll lay the town to waste!”
“What? No, he . . .”
He pushes abruptly away from the door. “Oh, what have I . . . I can’t ask the . . . no, we must . . . they can . . . Damn! That’s the end of it, then!” He reaches the wall, rebounds with both hands, and strides back toward her. Outside, the rattling of cart wheels nears. He grips her elbow, guides her toward the door. “This is what we’ll do. Once we get out of town, you will call him again, as urgently as you can, to draw him away while the townsfolk get to cover. If anyone’s to survive this, we’ve got to hurry!”
Paia resists. “He won’t . . .!”
“He will!”
“He wouldn’t just kill innocent people!”
Luco grabs her by both shoulders and shakes her. “The hell he wouldn’t!” Then he collects himself and says more gently. “He will. Believe me. We must do what we can to keep down the death toll.”
The death toll? She stares at him.
“Paia, listen to me! I have relatives and friends in this town! So do . . .” He stops, monitoring the sounds outside. “They’re here. Let’s go.”
Paia has no relatives and friends in any town. “All right,” she says faintly.
Luco opens the door again, drawing her into the opening. She hears the sound of glass breaking nearby and shrinks into the shelter of his arm. Night has fallen while they’ve been in hiding. The reek of burning thickens the air. The dark street seethes with fleeting shadows, people running, ducking into doorways. But the wagon clattering toward them has lanterns swinging from the driver’s perch, like a promise of rescue. Luco hustles her out of the house as the wagon thunders past. There are others behind it. Some of the shadows swoop down on them, cluster, and move alongside. Luco is talking, hoarse and insistent. “We have to warn them! All of them! Even his own!” Paia hears a man’s voice answer, and then a woman’s, but not the words they’re saying. Fear seems to have numbed her senses. She is focused too desperately on keeping upright. Luco is dragging her directly into the path of the oncoming wagons. But the wagons slow. A man leaps off the lead mule, struggling to halt it. A shadow scuttles past Paia and yanks open a door in the rear of the wagon. Luco scoops her up and bundles her inside, then springs in behind her, reaching one hand to hoist the shadow in after them.
“Go!” the shadow hisses through the open door.
The door is slammed shut from the outside, sinking the inside into total darkness. The wagon surges forward. Paia is thrown against a wall. She reaches blindly for a steady hold. She finds only smooth metal, other people and rough, lumpy, shifting surfaces. Bags of onions? Cabbages? The wagon rocks harder as it picks up speed. Paia is pressed against sweating bodies and stinking vegetables. Luco and the shadow man whisper urgently in the darkness. The man’s odd accent blends with the din of the wagon. Paia can make no sense of it.
Abruptly, her courage shatters. She is terrified and uncomfortable, and angry with the God for not showing up when her life is truly in danger. She is used to being taken care of, not abused and ignored. “Luco!”
He hushes her and returns to his muttered conversation. “What?” she hears him exclaim. “Others? When?”
“Luco, please! I can’t bear . . .!”
“Keep still!” he hisses. “We have the gates to get through!”
“But it’s so . . .”
He swears quietly but obscenely, shocking her into silence. She feels him moving about, struggling with something invisible in the confining darkness. “Here, I want you to hide under this, in case they search the van!”
“If dey ev’n bodda ta stop us,” murmurs the shadow man.
“Can’t take the chance.” Before Paia can protest, Luco has thrown a piece of canvas over her and pressed her to the jouncing floor. “Just breathe easy and keep still!”
The canvas is heavy and she fears suffocating in its folds. Unable to shift it off of her, Paia struggles for a bit. She thinks Luco may be holding the edges down. But she has heard in his voice the same sharp alarm that spun her own senses into a blur. This time it wakes her to vague reason.
Besides, it’s cool and damp beneath the soft fabric. There’s a clean, medicinal smell that Paia finds oddly comforting. The wagon’s rocking eases. They must be slowing down for the gates. She hears the barking of sentries and the driver’s muffled reply. Paia goes still, as Luco has warned her to, and waits for the back doors to be yanked open, waits to be hauled out and exposed to her would-be assassins. Instead, she is overcome by drowsiness.
She knows she should be more startled by the brief crackle of gunfire, the shouting, and the wagon’s sudden forward jolt. But by then she is more inclined to let sleep take her wherever it will.