The Book of Fire (66 page)

Well, no, he isn’t. N’Doch recognizes him the minute he steps into the lantern light, mainly because he’d be impossible to disguise unless you cut his legs down and threw dirt on him. It’s the big, good-looking dude who snatched the pretty priestess out of the line of fire, only he’s shucked his gold duds for dark sweats and jeans. Except for his flowing red-gold hair, he looks more like a power-built linebacker than the overdressed fancy man he’d seemed like before. N’Doch tries to imagine Stoksie taking him prisoner, even with help. He wonders what’s been done with the priestess.
He doesn’t think the Tinkers would harm her, but she is the Temple’s main rep, after all, as Luther said back in town, “da Monsta’s t’rall.”

As the light reveals the linebacker’s face, the milling crowd stills, in a collective intake of breath. Then a sound like a billion bird wings swells in the gloom, a wave of muffled applause that goes on and on, until the big dude lifts a hand in acknowledgment, like he’s used to this kind of welcome. The soft eager patter dies into echoes. The crowd waits. N’Doch is totally confused. He was sure this guy was as much the enemy as the priestess.

The linebacker smiles. He looks weary and relieved. “We’ve done it, friends. We’re committed. It’s good to be home.”

The patter swells again, louder, as if the listeners just cannot contain their joy, and the guy holds up both hands to quiet them. He is easy in front of the crowd. His smile is wide and winning. He knows how to look at the people like he loves them. “Phase One went off without a hitch. We’ve taken the first big step on our journey out from under the thumb of the Beast!” More applause. He quiets them again. “But there’s more! For those of you who haven’t heard it already from the Crews, we have . . . astonishing news!”

N’Doch feels Köthen slide up beside him.

“Wie gehts, Dochmann?”
The baron has adapted N’Doch’s Tinker nickname to rhyme with his own.

“Damned if I know.” N’Doch settles in to translate as best he can, now that the linebacker’s got the crowd hanging on his every word and move.

“Help has arrived!” the big man announces. “Help . . . like we could only have dreamed of!” He looks down into one of the faces most intent on his own. “Luther! Tell them what you saw!”

Someone shoves an old metal crate up beside the van. Stoksie and Brenda urge Luther up on it. His head down, his back stooped, he begins as usual like a reluctant public speaker, but N’Doch knows he will give himself to the telling of the tale soon enough. Once he does, his back straightens and his rough voice gains strength and rhythm, carrying into the darkness without increasing volume. His big active hands go to work, and the whole sequence of
events in the square comes to life, the terror and chaos of the mob, the smoke and fire, lighting up the dark town, the arrival of “da Monsta.” The rapt, amazed faces around him prove the success of his eloquence. Even the linebacker is enthralled. N’Doch thinks he’s being polite until he remembers the guy was busy rescuing the priestess when the shit hit the fan. Likely all he knows is what Stoksie told him in the van.

Luther builds the tale skillfully. The wonder of new dragons, the fiery confrontation. Finally his hands fly up, flickering in the lantern light, and seem to vanish. “An’ dey’r gone, jus’ like dat!”

A predictable commotion follows, restrained by hissed reminders to keep the noise down. Everyone has a question, or an opinion about what this miracle might mean.

“Gone? Gone weah?”

“Help at last!”

“How we know dey’s help?”

“Any challenge to the Beast is help to us!”

“Who says they won’t just turn on us?”

The linebacker’s hands are in the air, pleading for quiet. “We don’t! We don’t know anything! But listen! We nearly had a disaster. The Beast showed up unexpectedly, and then a miracle happened. These new creatures drew him off, kept him from laying waste to the town! Countless lives were saved. Where did they come from? We don’t know. For now we lay low and find out all we can. Blind Rachel has . . .” He pauses, looks to Stoksie.

“New frens,” Stoksie offers enigmatically.

“New friends! With new information. And of course . . . we will consult the Librarian.” He pauses again, as if to let some big idea sink in, and apparently it does. The listeners nod sagely, and murmur their awe and agreement. “Meanwhile . . .” He tips his head toward the interior of the van. “We have our hostage.”

More excited pattering, and this time, from behind the ranks of the Tinker crews, a darker mutter of anticipatory glee. N’Doch cranes his neck to see who’s back there hungry for blood, but past the first few rows, the crowd is lost in darkness.

“What?”
Köthen demands.

N’Doch can’t locate the word for “hostage” in his
dragon-built data banks, but the baron seems to get the idea. He gives new attention to the dude up on the wagon, who’s honed in on the nasty undercurrent from the rear. A hint of sternness stiffens his easy manner, the iron fist within the velvet glove.

“Hey, now . . . we’ll have none of that. Remember, the only valuable hostage is a live one. And we need her cooperation. So keep it down.” He ducks back into the van. “It will be
her
,” Köthen says quietly.

“Yeah, sure looks like it.” How long, N’Doch wonders, has the handsome linebacker been leading a double life?

The voices at the back take advantage of the wait to say a few things about their preference for immediate revenge over long-term hostage maintenance. Luther climbs back up on his box and suggests they repeat their remarks when “the preacher” can hear them. This silences some, but not all.

“Betcha!” A stocky woman elbows her way to the front, and immediately, a phalanx of support forms behind her. “I’ll sure tell ’im!”

Even if her face and body language weren’t so weighted with ancient rage, this woman would still look like she’s seen major trauma. N’Doch thinks of a statue he saw once in a park, after a big shootout—the fine marble, all chipped and broken. Then the linebacker steps back into the light carrying a limp lump of old clothing, swaddled up in dirty canvas. A delicate sleeping face is just visible among the folds.

Köthen shifts, easing his sword sling onto one shoulder, then down to his side. N’Doch agrees. This crowd, or at least a part of it, could turn ugly at any minute. A glance about tells him that he and the baron have been quietly percolated up to the front rank beside Luther and Stoksie, with the girl and Brenda and the rest of Blind Rachel ranged behind them. Maybe this is where the hired muscle was really supposed to come in handy.

Luther says to the linebacker, “Dere’s sum heah gotta diffrint idear ’bout t’ings.”

The linebacker stands tall on the tailgate. The lanterns burnish his hair and chiseled profile with a kind of halo. N’Doch is envious. The guy sure knows how to find his light.

“Let them speak up, then.” He waits, the hostage cradled in his arms. The broken-faced woman glares but says nothing. The linebacker nods, and from over by Oolyoot’s wagons, two strapping guys still partly swathed in red and gold come forward to help lift the hostage down.

But the moment she leaves the linebacker’s arms, the crowd destabilizes, surging forward to press around the two aides and their burden, snatching back the concealing canvas, grabbing for a closer look. The aides twist and turn to get away, but they’re surrounded and the mob’s temperature is rising fast. N’Doch hears the now familiar rasp of steel being drawn. Köthen shoves forward at the same time that the linebacker leaps down from the van, shouting for everyone to back off. The skirmish is quick, and it leaves two men with blood seeping between fingers hastily clamped to a forearm or bicep. Sword at the ready, Köthen plants himself firmly in the space he’s opened up around the aides and the hostage. The crowd backs off in muttering surprise. The wounded and some of the naysayers are hustled off into the dark nether reaches of the cavern. But the stocky, broken-faced woman holds her ground as the linebacker steps forward.

She glares at him. “Why shuld we risk ouah lives fer dat reptile’s whore? An’ yers, too, mebbe, fer all I know.”

Gasps all around, but the linebacker regards her patiently, like he’s heard all this before. “She’s nobody’s whore, Sel. Not mine, not his. Let’s get that straight.”

“She ain’t done nuttin fer us!” shouts a voice from the back.

“Keep it down, Paddy. She’s his victim as much as we are.”

Derisive laughter rises out of the gloom.

“You don’t believe me? Then you go do the kind of time in that place that I have! Go on! I dare you!” The linebacker stands a head taller than the rest of the crowd, and his blue eyes compel with the light of conviction. N’Doch can see why Luther calls him “preacher.”

“This woman has been the Beast’s prisoner inside the Citadel! She knows nothing about what he does out in the villages. She has no power other than the Beast’s devotion to her. Besides, it’s not what she’s done for us before that matters. It’s what she’s going to do for us now!” He takes
a step forward and leans over the broken-faced woman, so that she has to crook her neck hard to keep looking him in the eye. “We’ve been over this a thousand times, Sel.”

“An’ yu ain’t neva listened onct!”

More laughter, but thinner this time.

“I’ve listened. We’ve all listened. And most of us think this is the way to go.”

“The right way!” someone murmurs.

“’Bout da only way,” Luther seconds.

“Do we blow this opportunity just to exact petty revenge? Waste the luck of a miracle we never expected? New and powerful allies, like a sign from the One herself?” The linebacker spreads his arms in protest, but it feels more like an embrace. N’Doch feels himself getting snagged by the dude’s crowd appeal. Is he priest or politician? “Is that what you want? To throw away all our months of . . .”

“Years!” chimes in Luther.

“Yes, years! Of planning and readiness? Look what we can do when we work together! Pulled it off without a hitch, without a life lost! We’ll only get this chance once, Sel. The power of a miracle . . . on our side!”

The woman spits on the worn rock at the linebacker’s feet. “Da reptile’ll jes get isself anudda doll baby.”

“I don’t think so. But we’ll just have to take that chance.”

N’Doch glances over at the girl, listening hard at Stoksie’s side. Another coin has just dropped and he wonders if she figures it the way he does. The pretty priestess is Fire’s dragon guide. Got to be.

The aide holding the priestess shifts his burden and whispers something to the other one, who steps respectfully around Köthen and his gleaming blade. “I think she’s coming around.”

“Already? Okay.” The linebacker turns. His gaze finally takes in Köthen and his sword. “Who’s this, Luther? One of your . . . new friends?”

Luther clears his throat. “Yah. Dat’s, um, dat’s Doff. A fren frum Urop.”

“Europe?” He cocks his head dubiously.

“He wouldn’t be lying. And he doesn’t speak English, but I’ll speak for him.” N’Doch takes a step into the light. This dude’s the first since Hal at Deep Moor who’s tall
enough to look him in the eye, but N’Doch’s interested to see that his cool’s finally been ruffled.
Do I look that strange?
He beckons the girl out from behind Luther. “There’s one more. Might as well meet us all at once.”

Stoksie murmurs, “All da viziters I tole yu ’bout, Leif. ’Cept one.”

“Um . . .?” says the aide nervously.

“Right. Coming. Luther, Stoksie, explain later. Bring your friends along. We’ll take her down. Don’t want her knowing about all this right off.” The linebacker steps up to Köthen’s warding blade, then holds out his hand. “I’m Leif Cauldwell. Thanks for the help, whoever you are.”

They share a brief measuring stare, then Köthen puts up the sword and takes the offered hand.
“Schon gut.”

Cauldwell laughs softly. “I cannot wait to hear your story.”

N’Doch thinks: and I can’t wait to hear yours. The big man moves past him to take the priestess from the skittish aide. Blind Rachel opens up a protected path through their midst. Luther unhooks a lantern from the van and leads the way. Cauldwell and the aides follow. Stoksie, taking up the rear, turns back briefly. “Lady, Dockman, Doff—yu come wit’, na.”

It’s more like an order than an invitation, but N’Doch is glad for it. He guesses Köthen ain’t gonna let this priestess woman out of his sights, now he’s got her back in ’em again. As they follow Stoksie, N’Doch sees anticipation flicker in the baron’s eyes before he can hide it.

Luther leads them through more crowds, past other wagons and darkened campsites, rumpled bedrolls and cold meals hastily set aside, to a concrete wall with what looks like a big door in it. A dim light burns steadily above the doorframe. N’Doch squints at it. An
electric
light. Luther presses his palm to a glassy plate alongside. The plate pops open like a lid. Luther flips it back. Inside are two rows of little buttons. Luther taps out a hurried sequence, a red idiot light switches to green, and a deep hum starts up somewhere down in the depths of the rock.

N’Doch swallows the exclamation of recognition that leaps to his lips. He’s thinking,
it can’t be
, but sure enough, the hum stops and a crack of light appears along the floor. The big door lifts horizontally to reveal an evenly lit, square
silver room. Luther and Cauldwell head right in. Stoksie and the aides wait outside, beckoning to N’Doch and his companions, herding away any others. Köthen scowls at the too-bright, too even light, but he follows N’Doch and the girl as the door starts to close and Stoksie scoots in behind them.

“Damn!” whispers N’Doch. “An elevator!” He’s near delirious to be bathed in glorious artificial light again. He slides a hand along the textured metal shell. It’s cool, hard, and so familiar. He checks for the control panel. There isn’t one visible. He’s willing to bet that Luther’s neat palm print maneuver would reveal one if needed, but apparently this car’s on automatic. The door seals soundlessly as it touches the floor. The elevator sinks, with almost no sensation of motion.

N’Doch says, “Luther, my man, you’re just full of little surprises.”