Bayang

In the unheated hold, it was growing cold even though they had kept on their other clothes underneath the coveralls. Gratefully, they wrapped themselves in the blankets that Mugwort had provided.

With nothing else to do, they ate and then dozed off and on during the long hours of the flight. Even Leech fell asleep, slumped beneath the window, his head leaning against the wall.

Bayang was grateful to be left alone, surprised by what she had blurted out to the children. Her motives had seemed so clear to her when she was young: protect her people in any way she could. When she had been ordered to become an assassin, she put aside her reluctance and threw herself into her training. She had told herself that she was sacrificing her own life for the sake of her own clan.

Talking with the hatchlings had made Bayang wonder if she was as much of an outcast among her own kind. Oh, when she went home between assignments her kin were always polite, and yet the compliments were excessive, the service fawning, until it was almost a relief to leave.

Well, she smiled ruefully, if you were a normal person, would you want to make an assassin angry?

Long suppressed doubts bubbled up in her mind. She carried out her duties in the shadows, and it was as if her people sensed the darkness that tainted her. They needed her, but they didn’t want her. She didn’t fit in with the dragons any more than the hatchlings did with humans—which made them a match for one another. She shook her head in amazement. It seemed so strange that she had more in common with an enemy than she did with her own people.

She had no hatchlings—there had never been any time for them, assuming that she could have found a mate willing to partner with a killer—but as she watched Leech, she suddenly felt the strangest emotion. It was a tenderness she had never experienced before.

Bayang shrugged off her blanket and then opened her coveralls to the waist so she could take off her coat. Folding it into a pillow, she put it down on the floor next to Leech and eased his head onto it. When she turned, she saw Koko watching her as he lay on his side. He gave her a grudging nod and then closed his eyes again.

Sleep, though, brought Bayang little rest, for she kept having terrible nightmares in which she was a hatchling again and Badik was chasing her. When she woke the next morning, she was sweating, and she found herself staring about wildly for Badik.

“Are you all right?” Leech asked when he heard her stirring. He was already back at his station by the window.

She became aware of her coat, which had been folded up neatly beside her. “Yes,” she said shakily as she sat up.

“Sometimes I have bad dreams, too,” he said sympathetically. “I’m back in the orphanage again and the bullies are after me.”

Strange that she should have something else in common with Leech. “Bullies come in all sizes and shapes,” she agreed.

When the others got up, they finished off their remaining food. Koko made a point of grumbling again about the portions.

A few hours later, they heard the pilot’s voice dimly through the bulwark. “Aloha, folks. I thought you’d want to know that in just a few minutes, we will be coming up on the newest addition to the Kingdom of Hawaii, the island of Houlani.”

By Bayang’s watch, it was nearing eleven A.M. by San Francisco time. She thought that would be about nine A.M. by Honolulu time.

Everyone crowded around the window, trying to see. The sky outside was now a vivid blue, lit by the morning sun.

“Up ahead on the starboard side is a diamond in the rough, the island of Houlani. It’s the creation of a unique combination of magic and science. Islands are rising from volcanic activity on the sea floor all the time, but most never reach the surface. However, that great visionary, Nathaniel Roland, has sped up the normal geographical process and then shaped the island itself once it broke the surface.

“The western half of the island is the oldest where the new city is rising even as we speak. Mr. Roland is building villas and apartments with every luxury and amenity possible. The eastern half is still being created. Normally you couldn’t see it because of the smoke and steam, but the winds are blowing just right today.”

They pressed their heads together even more as they gazed down at the large, kidney-shaped island that curled about a harbor facing southwest. The eastern half lay like a black lump of obsidian, but at its heart was a huge crater in which pulsed a bright red and gold oval that was the lava. More red and gold stripes traced their way to the sea, where plumes of steam rose like a feathery fringe.

The pilot continued, “You can see the lake from which the lava is channeled to the edge of the island so Houlani can expand. The crater is about two thousand feet above sea level and measures a half mile in circumference. The lake on the crater floor is just a little under four hundred feet below the rim.”

In the center, wharves jutted out into the little harbor and behind them were long rectangular buildings that must have been warehouses and barracks. To their surprise, there was already an abundance of green foliage and blue ponds in the western half, with pink buildings dotting the surface like mushrooms. The structures varied in size from tiny dots that must have been bungalows to sprawling mansions. The morning sun painted the surface with long shadows.

“One of these days, the eastern half will be just as lush and inviting as the western half. Mr. Roland has used the same imaginative blend of the magical arts there to speed up the geological process that converts volcanic rock to rich soil, and then encouraged the trees and gardens to grow. It’s truly promising to be a paradise among paradises.”

And then the island disappeared behind them and they could feel the plane begin to descend.

Hurriedly, Bayang put the patch back over the porthole by one screw. That left it so it could be tilted slightly to the side so that the outside was still visible. “Koko, you keep watch here. Once we reach the wharf, you tell us. We’ll rush out of the hold and down to the passenger deck. The crew will be so busy docking that they won’t have time to stop us.”

“And then we get the ring back,” Scirye said.

“And get even,” Leech said grimly.