City of Fire (City Trilogy (Mass Market)) (33 page)

“Where are my manners? I forgot to thank you, goddess, for delivering Yi’s necklace to me. Be assured that I’ll use it for more than ornamentation,” Roland declared, his voice muffled by the scarf he wore against the falling ash. He shook his cane at Scirye, Kles, Leech, and Koko as they glared at him through the window. “And I hope you four have learned your lesson and won’t get involved in adult games anymore. Ah, but that’s right. You’ll never have a chance to do it again anyway.”

“You’re lucky, Bayang, that you’re going to die so quick,” Badik called. “If it was up to me, you would die slowly and painfully.”

“We’ll get out of this,” Bayang shouted back defiantly. “And then there’ll be no place you can hide from me. I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth.”

“We all will,” Leech yelled.

Roland kicked a heel against Badik’s flank commandingly. “I’m sorry, Badik, but I’m afraid we don’t have any more time for you to chat with your surly little friends,” he said. “We really must keep that appointment in Nova Hafnia now. So we mustn’t miss our ship.” Roland gave them a cheerful salute. “Ta-ta forever.” Then he rose out of sight, borne away by the mighty dragon.

Bayang spread her talons and slashed at the air in frustration. “Roland must have had a secret passage out of the mansion.”

Leech stared at the sky through the window but there was no sign of Roland anymore, only more and more ash drifting down. “Where’s Nova Hafnia?” he asked.

“It’s the capital of the former Nu Danmark,” Bayang said, “near the Arctic Circle. Nova Hafnia means New Copenhagen in Latin. I’ll bet another part of Yi’s bow is there.”

“First fire and now snow,” Kles said thoughtfully. “I wonder who’s guarding the next part? And what it is?”

Despite all the hardships that Leech had been through, he had remained an optimist at heart. He had always known he would escape the orphanage. He had always felt he would find friends. And he had done both. “We’ll find that out when we get there,” he predicted.

Scirye nodded solemnly. “Whatever it is, it’s Tumarg to help the guardian keep it away from Roland. It’s a lot bigger now than getting back a priceless treasure.”

“Or revenge,” Leech agreed.

Bayang clenched her paws, her talons clacking together. “It’s about saving the world.”

“If we ever live long enough to get out of here,” Koko said, looking mournfully out the window.

Leech elbowed his friend. “Come on, Koko. We’ve already been attacked by monsters and dunked in a volcano, and we survived, didn’t we?”

Pele’s eyes crinkled up as she grinned. “Hey,
kapua
. Try to think like maybe-maybe boy.”

The ash was making it harder to see outside so Bayang had to squint. And what she saw made her spine go to ice. “The sea’s going out.”

Through the glass panes, they could see the ocean retreating from the harbor, leaving behind a few fish flopping on the exposed rocky shore.

Pele looked frightened for the first time. Cupping her hands, she shouted into the hallway beyond the steel door. “Eleu, get out! A tidal wave, it’s coming soon!” And then she barked orders at the Menehune by the safe room.

Despite the water beginning to pool around their ankles, some continued to attack the door. But others scampered back up into the room to join the others in striking the walls and floor—all with the same electrifying effect. That did not stop the tough little men, however, who kept on striking with their tools. Though they kept getting knocked down by the shock, they kept bouncing back to try again.

Leech looked overhead. “Maybe
I
can do something about this.” Pulling off the disks from his armband, he put them in his pocket.

Then he took off the armband and spat on it. “Change!” he shouted, and drew the sign in the air. Instantly, the armband expanded and the ends fused into a solid ring.

Koko grabbed him. “I tried hitting the ceiling already, buddy. I wouldn’t recommend it.”

“With a hammer, not with this. I’ve got my own super weapon.” Pulling away, he struck the plaster wall. There was a dazzling burst of light and then he was tossed backward. His shocked hand was unable to hold onto the armband and it spun away.

Bayang caught him neatly in her forelegs. “That was a good try, but Roland could hire the best wizards. I don’t think even your ring can break their wards.”

Koko splashed over to him. “You all right, buddy?”

Leech felt the tips of his hair, which were singed. “Yeah, but I don’t think we’re going to batter our way out of the room.”

Scirye stared at the ring, which seemed to float in a blue halo. The film of water had retreated from beneath it to form a hollow circle as the floor continued to repel the metal.

“Kles,” she wondered to her friend, “why doesn’t the floor shock us when we walk on it? Does the magic only work against metal?”

The griffin lifted his head excitedly. “Yes, that must be it. The wards would have to defend against everything, and that’s beyond the skill of even the greatest human wizards, the Arch-mages.”

“They would have to be as strong as those that guard the Dragon King’s vaults,” Bayang agreed. “It took several generations of the finest magical minds to create those spells.”

Kles nodded. “Roland assumed the tidal wave would get us long before we figured it out or fists and feet could make a hole.”

Pele smiled weakly at Scirye. “He didn’t count on smart-smart girl. See? You’ve just shown why Nanaia picked you. You’ve got brains.”

“And he didn’t count on having another dragon either,” Bayang said, setting Leech down while Koko picked up the armband.

Leech nudged Scirye. “I was wrong. You’ve got what it takes to live on the streets.”

“Yeah,” Koko agreed. “When this is done, you can come with us.”

Scirye took it as a compliment, coming from them. “Thanks.”

Pele pointed at the ceiling. “Go up toward the roof.”

Bayang nodded. “Then step back and give me room.”

Scirye and others ducked out of the way by scrambling down the staircase until they were packed shoulder to shoulder.

In the room above them, Bayang ballooned in size. Glancing
about to make sure there was no one in the way, the dragon crouched on all fours as she swung her tail at the ceiling. The thick column of bone and hide thumped like a steel club. Twice, three times, and the plaster crinkled and boards cracked as the ceiling broke.

Instantly, some of the Menehune zipped back into the room, scooting up Bayang’s back to attack the jagged opening with dozens of small hands. In the next instant, plaster and broken boards began raining down until they had created a small hole wide enough for a Menehune. Seconds later, the first group slipped through and began working from the other side while the next team left the staircase to continue widening it from below.

Bayang squirmed slightly. “You know, your feet tickle,” she called to the little men.

On the staircase, Scirye was helping to support Pele. Wet, the goddess really did seem like a frail old woman. Pele’s skin seemed to be growing cooler, and when the girl tried to feel for a pulse, it was weak and sporadic. “I think we have to get Pele away from the sprinklers real soon,” she called up to Bayang.

“I’ll finish the opening in the ceiling,” the dragon ordered the Menehune laboring above her. “You see if you can make an opening through the roof.”

The little men vanished in a blink of the eye. With a new sense of urgency, Bayang crouched on all fours so she could thrust her tail up through the hole, and with several blows widened it.

“All right, I think it’s big enough,” Bayang said as she slid her tail back out. The plaster dust mixing with the water made it look as if the tip had been whitewashed. She rose, curling her tail about her hind legs as she sat upright with her head near the hole.

Dozens of Menehune took Pele from Scirye and reverently carried the goddess back up the steps on a raft of small hands. Scirye followed, and then Koko and Leech stormed up after her along with the little men.

Leech shrank his armband and put it back on as Bayang took the goddess into her forepaws and lifted her up through the hole to the next room.

“The sea’s coming back,” Koko yelped, and pointed at the window.

Through the murky swirl of ash, Leech saw the horizon rippling. Was that the tidal wave that Pele had predicted would come?

Bayang frowned. “That’s maybe eighty, a hundred feet high,” she estimated, and then looked down at her friends. “The ocean’s my natural home, but it’s not yours. We have to get you away from here.”

Grabbing Scirye by the waist, the dragon hoisted her and the bedraggled griffin through the ceiling. Leech was next, while Koko, climbing up her back again, scrambled over her head and away.

When the last of the Menehune had left the trap, Bayang told the children, “Get ready to pull me up.”

Then, clapping a paw on either side of the hole, she shrank herself until she was small enough to fit. Above her, Scirye and Leech pulled at one foreleg while Koko pulled at the other. Even Kles tried to lend a claw.

Finally the five of them lay panting on what was the floor of a large attic. There were a few crates and pieces of discarded furniture lying across the broad space. But, Leech guessed, in about the spot where Roland’s hiding place had been, was a small platform.

Bayang rolled over onto all fours and got up, sprinkling water about as she shook it from her hide. “Roland had a lift. That made the humming noise we heard.”

Ash was falling through a huge opening in the roof and through the attic. Hinged doors hung down on either side. It was just perfect for a large dragon to fly through.

“He thought of everything,” Scirye said, shivering in her damp clothes. Her griffin solicitously began to rub her arms with his wings.

“Except us,” Leech grunted. “Though I don’t know what good we really did.”

“You’ll do plenty.” Pele coughed. “I’ll make sure of that.” The goddess was sitting up, steam rising from her as she murmured a spell and made passes with her hands.

Eleu padded over and bowed. “Take the Lady and your friends,” he said. “The rest of us will be fine.” He indicated the ropes that had begun to drop from the roof into the attic. “Our kin are already out there with rafts.”

“That they carried up to the roof?” Koko gasped.

The little man said smugly, “There’s nothing we can’t do. We knew we were going to have to leave so we used the chopped-down trees to make the rafts. When the word went out about the tidal wave, our kin brought some of them up to the roof when we got out. We built other rafts out of broken doors and furniture.”

“How could you be so sure we’d get free?” Leech asked.

“You were with Lady Pele.” Eleu laughed and zipped away.

With a flap of his wings, Kles fluttered into the air and over to a pile of discarded window curtains that lay folded up on the floor. “We’ll need some sort of masks. We’d better tear these up.” Catching the hem of the top one, he flew upward so he could stretch it out.

As the little men scrambled up the ropes to the roof, Scirye, Leech, and Koko tore strips from the expensive cloth. In the meantime, Bayang had retreated far enough into another part of the attic so she could grow to as large a size as she could.

From outside, the tidal wave’s roar grew louder and louder, like a locomotive thundering toward them. When the children had tied strips of fabric around their mouths, Bayang crouched on her belly to let Scirye scramble up onto her shoulder with a large cloth patch in her hand.

Kles took one corner in his beak and flew in front of the great head, around to the other side, and back to his mistress, who finished
tying the cloth in front of Bayang’s muzzle. Then she tied a small one around her griffin.

As the others scurried up behind her, Leech couldn’t help thinking that the masks made them all look like stagecoach robbers. “I could use my flying disks.” He was eager to try them out.

Bayang shook her head. “The winds will toss even a dragon around like a kite. It’s no place for an inexperienced flier.” Reluctantly, the boy joined the others.

Pele had disdained a mask since the gases were like perfume to her, so as she sat astride Bayang’s back, they could see her smiling as happily as a girl at Christmas. “I’ve never ridden a
mo-o
before,” she declared as she climbed up and sat in the rearmost place.

The dragon moved toward the hole just as the little men disappeared up the ropes. “Hang tight, everyone, and keep your heads low,” Bayang instructed, her voice muffled by the mask.

Trotting over to the opening, the dragon crawled out onto the roof. The air was murky with gray ash that pattered against their faces.

The hole had been designed for a dragon who only needed to carry one passenger. Bayang was carrying several, so she needed to increase her size.

“Whoa,” Koko said. “Warn us when you do that.”

Then, with a downward swing of her wings that sent the ash whirling about, she launched herself through the hole and into the air.

Before them, the tidal wave towered like some huge crystalline beast.

Leech

Leech clung with the others to Bayang’s back as she soared away from the roof. Beneath him, he felt the tremendous muscles that powered her great wings. They rippled rhythmically against his chest. She was such a wonderful combination of strength and beauty, and his admiration quickly changed to shame when he thought of how he had once made a dragon into a belt.