City of Fire (City Trilogy (Mass Market)) (32 page)

“No thanks to you,” Koko murmured.

Pele lifted her head like a cobra getting ready to strike. “What was that,
kupua?”

Koko slipped hastily behind Leech. “No banks for you,” he lied frantically. “There ain’t a place where we were going to cash a check. I was going to make a donation to your favorite charity.”

“But where was your honor?” Scirye didn’t want to believe that the goddess could be so calculating. “Did you just bring us along to be a distraction?”

A concerned Kles began hopping from one foot to another on top of her wrist. “For Nanaia’s sake,” he hissed, “be quiet.”

The goddess’s eyes bore into Scirye until the girl felt the room drop away and all that was left was her reflection in the goddess’s pupils. Then Scirye was plunging down into those eyes themselves as if into a warm lake, and the goddess’s whisper was like a breeze inside her head. “Nanaia could have picked any hero, but she put her mark on you. And you’ve just proved that she made a good choice.”

Then the goddess blinked and Scirye was back in the room,
feeling a little scared and overwhelmed. She shook her head in disbelief. “I didn’t do much by myself. We did it together.” She motioned to her companions.

The goddess clapped her hands together in approval. “A hero has to be smart, too, and choose the right friends to help her on her quest.”

Kles spoke in a low, urgent voice to his mistress. “From what little I know, it’s not like Pele to explain her actions. I suspect that she’s being very patient with you.”

There was no keeping secrets from the goddess. “You listen to the chick-chick, smart girl,” she agreed. “I’ve taught you a bitty-bit right now because you have the mark. You can do more than you think.”

Still dissatisfied, Scirye scratched her shoulder. “You keep talking about how I’m special. But I’m just ordinary. I don’t even have magical gadgets like Leech.”

Pele pointed her index finger at Scirye and emphasized each word with a tap against the girl’s forehead. “So you don’t have magic toys. Maybe your magic’s all up here, eh?”

Scirye stepped back, rubbing the spot, which felt hot from Pele’s touch. “If I’m so smart, how come Roland keeps getting away?”

Pele’s nostrils widened as she sniffed the air. “Patience. We saw him go in here. We’ll find him.”

Bayang inspected her surroundings carefully. “There must be a hidden safe room.”

Pele nodded her agreement. “This is the one part of the mansion that my friends didn’t build.”

“Because Roland didn’t want you to know about it,” Bayang said, joining her friends.

Pele pointed to the little men inspecting the room. “They’ll find the door.”

Koko, though, still had looting on his mind rather than revenge.
Waddling over to the bed, he pulled his plump body up on top of the coverlet and headed straight toward one of the gilt eagles decorating the teak headboard. “I wonder if it’s really gold,” he mused, and pulled at it. Suddenly gears began to grind in the wall behind the bed.

“It’s not my fault,” he shouted as he plopped back on to the floor.

Pele got to her feet as the bed began to swing up so that the foot of the bed rose into the air, revealing a flight of stairs. At the bottom was a steel door as solid as a bank vault’s.

“Ha!” Pele cried. “Got you!” Her voice was deep and resonant, like footsteps echoing in a cave.

Suddenly her shape began to shimmer, and when it solidified, she was no longer the tiny old lady but a woman eight feet high, towering over everyone. Her hair had deepened from gray to black that drifted about like smoky vapor. Within the floating strands tiny red and yellow stars sparkled. Her high cheekbones gave her a proud and haughty look but her eyes twinkled with mischief. Her tan skin glowed with a soft iridescence like pearls before a fire. Scirye thought that she had never seen anyone so lovely, or so dangerous.

Bayang threw up a warning paw. “No, wait,” she said. “I finally figured out what’s been bothering me—this is the only room with sprinklers.”

The warning came too late as a lance of flame shot from Pele’s hands and splashed across the door.

Then, from up above, Scirye heard an ominous click. The next moment water began to shower down like miniature waterfalls, drenching them all.

Pele staggered and would have fallen if Scirye and Leech hadn’t caught her. “Water,” she panted, “makes me weak.”

“Get her out of here,” Bayang ordered, but too late. A sheet of steel slammed down from the doorway. Etched across its face were
runes and mystic signs. When a Menehune struck it with his hammer, there was a flash of blue light. With a cry, he leaped back. A Menehune aimed a crushing blow at the nearest wall with the same stunning effect.

“There are wards on this room,” Bayang said. “They were set to activate when the sprinklers went off.”

Grabbing a hammer from a Menehune, Koko scrambled up Bayang’s back. “Okay, the door’s not going to work. So it’s out through the penthouse.”

“Hey!” the dragon complained as he perched on top of her head like a furry hat.

“You’re the nearest thing we got to a ladder,” Koko said, and swung as hard as he could at the ceiling. Blue light exploded from the hammer head and over him.

“Argh,” he cried in pain, and would have toppled backward if Bayang hadn’t caught him in her forepaws. His dropped hammer would have hit her hind paw if she hadn’t pulled it back in time. Instead of smashing Bayang, it bounced off the wet boards with blue light shining along its bulky surface until its owner reclaimed it.

“Koko, you okay?” Leech asked, worried.

Koko opened one eye groggily. “Oog. Now I know how the electric chair feels. I don’t recommend it.”

The door at the bottom of the stairs swung open silently on its well-oiled hinges. Badik appeared in his dragon form, though he had shrunk down to the size of a human. The sprinklers had turned the staircase into a waterfall, and with the help of a cane Roland slogged up the steps behind him. He was in a raincoat and hat, down which the water dripped. On his left hand was the Jade Lady’s ring.

“It’s no use trying to break out,” Roland announced when he reached the head of the stairs. “I had my wizards place powerful charms on this room.”

Then he noticed the children, badger, and dragon beside Pele. “Ah, how delightful. You brought an entourage, goddess.” He pressed the jeweled head of his cane against his lips. “Oops. Pardon me. Could they be your menagerie instead?”

Despite the dripping water, Badik swelled up his chest and unfurled his wings as if he were trying to appear even more imposing. “I am Badik of the Fire Rings,” he called in formal challenge, “where the volcanoes are as many as the scales of my skin. Who are you, dragon?”

“I am Bayang,” Bayang announced, “of the Moonglow, where the waters shine brighter than the moon.” Her home had been named after the luminescent plankton that made the sea glow at night.

Badik’s eyes narrowed. “You curs have been hounding me for centuries, but there’ll soon be one less of you. And the world will be a far better place for it.”

With a growl, Bayang crouched, getting ready to spring. However, Pele held up a hand. “Wait! He’s mine!”

Twirling his cane, Roland sauntered the few steps over toward Pele while Badik walked by his side. “I knew you were a sporting goddess.”

“I don’t need fire, just my bare hands,” Pele growled, shrugging off the children. The wet strands of her hair hung like dank strings, and she swayed slightly on her feet.

“My associate might have something to say about that,” Roland said, using the cane to indicate Badik. “And do you really have time for a wrestling match? You know as well as I do how unstable this island is”—he pretended to admire the cane’s jeweled top—”don’t you, goddess?”

Pele raised her hands. “Of course I do. If you hadn’t been holding my friends hostage, I would have sent this place to the bottom of the sea a long time ago.”

“Well, allow me to help,” Roland said, and swung his cane against
the wooden frame of the upturned bed. The jewel at the top exploded in a yellow and red fireball.

“There,” Roland said with satisfaction, “that should send my home tumbling back to the sea floor. Satisfied?”

The next instant, the windows rattled as the volcano across the harbor thundered. Through the glass panes, they could see flames shoot upward from the crater, rising like a fiery tower.

Pele smiled when she saw the spectacle. “Fool! Even at this distance, that fire will make me stronger.”

Roland’s hand shot out and seized the pendant of her necklace. At the same time, Badik grabbed the rich man by his waist and then bounded backward toward the staircase with Roland in his arms. The necklace’s cord snapped, and as Badik and Roland disappeared down the staircase, they left a trail of puka shells behind them.

For a moment, though, Scirye glimpsed the trailing ends of the necklace’s broken cord and thought it seemed to sparkle with a life all of its own.

As Roland stepped back inside his safe room, he tipped his hat. “But not before this place tumbles back to the sea floor. And you along with it.
Adieu
, goddess.”

Shocked, Pele tried to send fire at him, but managed only some sparks that disappeared in puffs of steam from the cascading sprinkler water.

“Get that back!” the goddess ordered the Menehune.

Even as the little men sprang down the staircase, the door slammed shut again. A Menehune struck at the door as soon as it was in reach. However, by now Roland had put wards on the door, too. The Menehune bounced backward only to spring to his feet again and renew the attack. The other little men joined him, rising up each time they were knocked down to hammer at the door. The effect of the group blows created an almost constant glow of flashing blue light.

The goddess was angrily rapping her knuckle against her forehead, each time sending off fiery sparks that the sprinklers quickly turned into wisps of steam. “I’m stupid, stupid, stupid. He built this whole island just so he could trap me.”

“To capture you?” Leech wondered.

Pele pressed her hand beneath her throat mournfully. “No, to steal my necklace.” She pressed her lips together in a thin, grim line. “And now that he’s got it, he’ll finish me off by drowning me in the ocean.”

To Leech, it had looked like other cheap necklaces he had seen on sale at the souvenir shops they had passed by. “That must be some piece of jewelry.”

“Yü the emperor made it for me,” Pele said ruefully.

“He owned the archer’s ring,” Scirye gasped.

Pele’s head whipped around. “Is that what you’re trying to get back from Roland?”

Koko scratched his damp head. “Hold on a moment. I thought this Yü guy lived a long time ago. How did he get from China to here?”

“He was a powerful wizard after all,” Bayang said.

“Some kings, they want gold. Some kings, they want power. But Yü, he wanted knowledge. He was curious about everything,” Pele explained with a little smile as she remembered him. “Even though he had a bad leg and limped, he refused to let that stop him. He traveled around the world, and wherever he went, he aided people.”

Scirye helped the soggy Kles take refuge within her coveralls. “We think the ring might be magical, but we’re not sure. What about your necklace?”

“The puka shells and the pendant were souvenirs of his visit, but it was the cord that was very special,” Pele said. “It was the string from Yi’s bow.”

“Who’s Yi?” Scirye asked.

Bayang gave a shiver, but not from the cold water sprinkling down—she was used to far colder temperatures within the depths of the ocean. “I only know him by reputation. He’s an archer in China who saved the world many times with his bow. He killed monsters. For its time, it was a sort of super weapon.”

Kles had left his head poking out of Scirye’s coveralls. “Maybe the archer’s ring belonged to Yi first,” he suggested. “Now that Roland has the ring and the bow string, all he needs next is Yi’s bow and the arrows.”

“And he’ll have the super weapon again,” Leech said.

“Whatever he’s got planned for Yi’s weapon, it must be something awful,” Pele said, shaking her head.

“Maybe Yü had another reason to travel around the earth,” Scirye said, working out the possibilities. “He kept the ring, but he was scattering the other parts of that super weapon just so someone like Roland couldn’t get hold of it.”

Kles finished her thought. “With some powerful person to protect each one piece.”

“And I failed.” Pele began to berate herself again. “Stupid, stupid, stupid.”

From the hidden room came the roar of a generator; the walls and ceiling vibrated with the sound of secret machinery.

“What’s Roland up to?” Koko demanded.

The rest of his words were drowned out by a gigantic explosion that shook the whole mansion. They turned in horror to watch a whole side of the crater crumble in a cloud of smoke and fire, and the shoreline on the eastern half of the island began to disintegrate, throwing up sheets of water.

Leech

Outside, as ash from the explosion began to fall like gray snowflakes, Badik fluttered down into view, his flapping wings sending the ash whirling about. He’d grown to his regular size so he could carry Roland on his back.