The Book of Fire (55 page)

The conversation is about the townies. Those who went into the village share out the local gossip—who’s dead, who’s married who, who’s promised what for trade. Then comes the news that’s got the village in an uproar: some big religious figure making a town-by-town tour will not be stopping by their village because it’s too small.

“Too small fer da monsta ta bodda wit’,” notes Luther. “An’ das a gud ting!”

“Das why we come heah,” Stoksie agrees.

“But dey hate dat, doncha know? Makes ’em feel bad. Like dey not gud enuff.”

“Gud enuff fer us, nah.”

General agreement runs around the fire, then talk turns to the monster god himself. War stories, N’Doch thinks of them. Disputes about the span of his wings, the size of his claws, the direness of his wrath. It takes a lot, he notes, for these folks to air their grievances. They’d rather be laughing and yarn-spinning. Old tales are trotted out to shock the visitors’ virgin ears, and everyone dutifully claims not to believe any of them, so Luther can attest loudly to the accuracy of every single one. N’Doch thinks of evenings in the bush village where he grew up, though the gossip there was mostly the bad news from the city and the stories were the familiar ancestral myths, recounted each time as if for the first time.

“But why do they call him God?” protests the girl in her polite but pained way, after Mari and Senda have shuddered their way through a fourth graphic tale of bestial cruelty, “Where is the religion in such a practice? Is there doctrine? Does he work miracles? If he’s there in the flesh and there’s no denying his presence, what are the issues of Faith?”

Köthen, leaning in to N’Doch’s quiet running translation, agrees. “More a plain tyrant than a god, it would seem.”

Luther clears his throat, and though no one actually moves, somehow the others make a respectful space for him, as they have done for Sedou since he appeared among them. “Well, der is doktrin. Summa dem belief it. But I tink mosta dem jes say so cuz dey skeerda da monsta.”

“What do they believe?” Sedou asks.

“Ina enda da wold. Any day nah. Say der’s no pint doin’ nuttin fer da future, cuz der won’ be any. Or so dey tink.”

“I take it you do not share this belief.”

“Nah.” Luther offers a wan grin. “Das too dak fer me, y’know?”

Sedou asks, “So what do you believe?”

For a moment, silence reigns around Ysabel’s fire. Again, it seems that the others, even Stoksie and Ysabel, defer in such matters to Luther. He begins slowly. “Well, summa us see it diffrint. We say it mebbe look like da enda da wold, bud it ain’t.” He pauses as if he would welcome a change of subject, but Sedou waits him out. Finally Luther shrugs and hikes his stooped body and big nose forward, his scarred hands lifting from his sides to talk along with him. “No, it ain’t. Why? Cuz der’s One comin’ ta make it right.”

“She walks in light,” Ysabel murmurs.

“Fixit all, y’know?” Luther’s arms pinwheel around him. “Alla it. Den mebbe we liff like umins again.”

“The One?” the girl breathes. “You mean, Our Savior?”

“Probably not the one you’re thinking of,” says Sedou gently.

“You think this fix up’s gonna happen soon?” N’Doch asks, for it sounds like he does. Maybe even tomorrow.

Luther rocks his head back and forth like a tired bear. “We don’ know dat, nah, cuz y’see, da One gotta big problum.
She shuddup inna dark by da Handa Chaos, waitin’ till we figure a way ta ged her out.”

“She? In the dark?” The words escape Sedou as a sigh. N’Doch is too astounded to speak, and the girl looks thunderstruck.

“She walks in light,” murmurs Ysabel again, echoed this time by Luis and one of the nameless couples. Stoksie, N’Doch notices, remains silent. The others shift uneasily.

“Like I sez,” Luther concludes, “Only
summa
us belief dis.”

N’Doch feels the deep thrum of dragon energies in the air, in the very ground beneath his feet. He wishes he was like the Tinkers, sitting there unawares. He remembers how, at Lealé’s, when the dragons decided to make their move, things started to pinball with sickening speed. The girl’s still looking stunned, but he knows she’s in furious converse with the big guy back in the woods. Despite the high voltage that Sedou’s generating for those who are plugged in to it, his surface remains calm and merely . . . interested.

“An imprisoned messiah. It’s a beautiful notion, Luther. Is it yours?”

Luther looks shocked, then embarrassed. “Na, na. I heerd it frum . . . a frien’. A greyt preecher-man, y’know? I lissen, I jus’ know he got da wold on right.”

“I’d like to meet this preacher. Does he say where the Hand of Chaos is keeping your awaited One?”

“We all lookin’ on dat. Ev’ry day, we closer to da ansa.”

“And what will it take to free her?”

Luther lowers his elbows to rest on his knees. “We ain’t figurd dat yet neider.”

“Der’s sum say da One’ll be free whenda monsta is ovahtrone.”

This is a new voice, one N’Doch doesn’t recognize, and he’s sure he knows all of Blind Rachel’s sounds, if not the names. The speaker is a young woman crouched on the other side of the fire, partly obscured by the flames.

“Sum say dat,” Luther agrees dubiously.

She’s got two other strangers with her, one on either side, two guys, youngish and serious-looking. N’Doch is ashamed how they just snuck up out of the night without
him noticing. Köthen is already watching them, probably has been for a while. But the Tinkers act like it’s nothing unusual.

He nudges Stoksie. “Who’s that?”

“Frum town.”

“You don’t mind?”

Stoksie shrugs. “Wild young’uns. Y’know?”

Luther shoves his hair back, speaking across the fire, “But dem as tink dat got no ideah how dey gonna make it happin.”

“Sum do,” says the young woman.

“Sum oughta git bettah ideahs befur dey go preechin’ ’em.”

And then it looks like that’s all anyone’s willing to say, until Sedou draws a deep and quiet breath. The hot wind that’s been fanning the embers dies back. N’Doch feels his own breath coming shorter now, and he knows for sure that his vacation’s over. Some conjunction of circumstance and subject matter has occurred. The ball is in the slot and the blue dragon’s hand is on the lever. He glances down the line of listeners, sees all the apprehension in her and catches his fellow dragon guide’s eye. He that he’s trying to keep off his own.

“Here we go,” he mutters to Köthen.

“Now, Luther, I won’t claim that my ideas are any better, but there’s one I’d like to try out on you anyway.” Sedou looks to Luther for permission.

“Yer ideahs is always welcum, tallfella.”

“My thanks. What if I say, then . . .” Sedou gazes around until he holds their attention, even the newcomers across the fire. “What if I point out an amazing coincidence. The friend my companions and I came looking for is also imprisoned in an unknown place. We believe her imprisonment is keeping her—and us—from accomplishing a glorious good. And we believe that he who imprisoned her does not want this great good accomplished.” Sedou glances down, the very image of humble self-doubt. “Do you think, my friends, that it is too much to conclude that this jailer is the same monster god you speak of?”

Murmurs build around the fire.

“A moment longer, friends.” Sedou puts out a hand as if smoothing ripples. The murmurs die into edgy silence, and N’Doch senses the lever’s twang. The ball is in motion.

“What if I say something further, something . . . oh, you who have asked our help, listen well! What if I tell you the help that I bring is far greater than you’ve supposed, and of a . . . different sort. It will shake your faith, but then surely renew it!”

The Tinkers eye him, some wearily, others with caution, like they expect him to start raving any minute. Maybe he already has. N’Doch guesses it’s like opening a box you had great plans for and finding it empty, or full of the same old garbage.

But Luther says, “Go on, tallfella.”

Sedou nods. “It cannot be mere chance that has brought us together. It cannot be! There is a great mystery here that I have not yet been able to penetrate. But I believe our shared knowledge of it will fit together like a key in a lock, that together, we can discover this prison and free my friend . . . and your awaited One.” The dragon/man drops his hand and his voice. The wind dies entirely, as if someone’s switched off the fan, and Sedou’s whisper insinuates itself into every ear. “For, you see, my friends: I believe them to be one and the same being, that is, my sister Air.”

Luther coughs gently, just once. “Tallfella, we weren’t expectin’ da One to be
umin
 . . . y’know?”

“Nor is my sister Air.”

Luther nods, like he’s been waiting for this.

N’Doch shivers, despite the heat.
Well, that certainly lays a lot of our cards on the table.
He’s not sure the other Tinkers are ready for it. But maybe they are. He looks around at the stubborn faces still protecting themselves against the rising of hope, eyes narrowing at Sedou, trying to decide exactly how crazy he is . . . or isn’t.

Because there’s a difference here: these people don’t need to be convinced of the reality of magical creatures. There’s one ravaging their countryside already. What they need is renewed faith and a weapon.

Well, one has just arrived. No, make that two.

N’Doch fills Köthen in on what’s gone down, and is unsurprised by the baron’s sudden grin of anticipation. As for himself, he’s got nothing against a good fight, but he feels a darkness creeping up on him that he cannot explain.

Sedou smiles into the uneasy silence, a glow like the full moon rising. There is power in his very calm, as if he knows
they will come to believe him and he needs offer nothing but patience while they find this out for themselves.

Damn dragon arrogance, N’Doch swears, watching the dragon/man morph into something subtly less earthly, without needing a note of his music. He’d be surprised to find a steady hand or slow heart in the house. Finally the townie woman stands. She moves stiffly around the fire until she’s face-to-face with the sitting giant. She has round Asian features and tawny pox-marked skin. N’Doch is sad for her disfigurement. Otherwise, she would be beautiful.

“Give us a sign.” Her back is rigid and her Tinker accent suddenly flushed from her voice. She’s brave but terrified.

Sedou laughs. “A sign?”

“Of this power you speak of. We’ve had our fill of messianic lunatics!”

“Of course you have.”

She glances defiantly at Luther. “Some people will believe anything if they want it bad enough.”

Agreement whispers through the gathering.

“Who are you?” she demands. “Or . . . what.”

“My name is Sedou. I am what I am. Who or what are you?”

“I am Miriam, and I . . .” She bites her lip, glances back at her two young accomplices. Their mouths hang open. Wide-eyed, they nod. “And I . . . stand in opposition to the Winged God of the Apocalypse!” She plants her hands on her hips, glaring at Sedou in challenge.

“Well, Miriam. Well spoken. So do I. So does everyone here.”

“I know that.” His gentleness has caught her off guard. “But these Tinkers do nothing about it! They oppose but do not act! Why do you come to them with your magical appearance and your gift of fish?”

“Word gets around, I see.”

Young Miriam scoffs. “Easily accomplished! Why should we listen? Why should we believe? Show us a sign that cannot be explained away!”

Just call in the big guy, thinks N’Doch. That’ll convince ’em. Or it might just send them screaming in the opposite direction, given their current expectations of dragons.

“A sign.” The dragon/man laughs again, a great booming laugh that tickles a smile or a sheepish grin onto the soberest
of disbelieving faces around the fire. He stands, towering over the young woman, but she stands her ground as he spreads his arms wide and throws his head back as if welcoming the surrounding darkness. “So be it, doubting Miriam!”

And a soft rain begins to fall, a precise zone of cooling relief that stops a step outside the circle around the fire. Miriam catches tiny drops on her outstretched palms until they run with moisture, then presses them to her eyes with a sob.

“Parlor tricks,” says Sedou sadly.

But Luther lowers himself onto his bony knees, his rough hands clasped in gratitude. “Welcome, pilgrim! Your search has ended.”

P
aia spots the odd clouds on the sunset horizon at the end of the third day out, just as she’s decided that nothing out of the ordinary will happen on this trip after all, except a near fatal overexposure to the elements. Another sweltering dusk, another dried-up town clinging to subsistence, another dull evening of ritual and routine to look forward to. Or not. Everything she sees, everyone she meets is so listless and played out. Where are the brave and busy villages she has imagined, energized by faith and the common struggle against the hostile climate?

Paia is irritable with discomfort, and the constant diet of ceremony. Plus she’s kept as isolated as she ever was in the Citadel. All of it leaves her floaty and disoriented, and vastly disappointed with her Visitation.