Soul of Fire (33 page)

In that spirit, he kept an eye out, and watched closely as he flew over the forest, to make sure the tigers were nowhere close. He saw them, gathered, not far from the clearing where he’d interrogated the young tiger, and he was glad to see the rug take off at the same time.

As he was collecting his luggage, he realized that he had her luggage, too. Then he realized that—worse—they’d all been so surprised and out of their minds that they’d discussed Meerut and Sofie’s intention to go there in front of the tiger. Of course the tiger that he’d let go, in his fine attempt to impress Miss Warington, would even now be telling his father where the girl—on whom his father’s hopes of world domination rested—was headed.

I blight all I touch. How could I even dare think of making her my bride?
But he’d brought this danger on her, and having done so, it was incumbent on him to save her from it.

He’d bathe and eat, and then he’d fly to Meerut. He didn’t have to worry about Sofie Warington growing too tired to hold on to his neck anymore. He could push himself to fly longer distances. He’d flown across continents in a single night before. Surely he could do it again.

In Meerut, he’d drop off Sofie’s luggage, and he’d hope with all his heart that the young captain whom she intended to marry would be worthy of her.

A BELLICOSE BOLT OF LIGHTNING; A SERVICE DONE IN HUMILITY

As Peter rose above the clouds, he saw a flash ahead
of him. For a moment he thought it was a bolt of lightning. And even after he focused and could see the thing, it took a moment for his mind to absorb it.

A dragon,
was his first thought, but it was a dragon of a type he had seen only in Chinese illustrations. A serpentine creature, with a rounded face and fins . . . This one had many tones of blue, but it had no wings at all, and yet it was here, above the cloud layer, moving in a way that suggested it was swimming on the air.

It took a moment before Peter reasoned that this was a dragon—a dragon moving in a way that had to be magic, a way that couldn’t possibly be explained rationally. The thought should not have shocked him so much. After all, there should be no way his own relatively inconsequential wings could carry such a weight as his aloft. None.

And even while Peter was thinking on the strangeness of this beast, and looking into its slanted, catlike eyes, trying to judge its mood, the dragon that was in command of his body screamed in rage and hatred. In Peter’s mind the word
Kill!
formed.

He felt his front claws open and drop the luggage, and he spared only a brief look, through the cloud layer, to see his bags fall onto a grassy clearing. And then the dragon surged forward, toward the creature that every fiber of his being believed was a foe.

Peter, in the back of the dragon’s mind, called for a halt. He felt himself reach past the reptilian mind and hold forcefully the creature’s claws and fangs.
No. No. No. We don’t kill. We have become altogether too bestial. No.

And then the blue dragon hissed. “What, leaving the pretty girl unguarded? Did she send you away?” And with an intensification of the hiss, which might be an effect of gathering magic, the creature threw itself at Peter.

Taken by surprise, Peter didn’t react, until he felt a trickle of hot fire like concentrated, liquid heat blistering his chest. This awakened Peter from his dream, from his attempt to control the beast’s nature. He saw a mouth open in a snarl before him. He saw the thing . . . swimming closer, like an aggressive lightning bolt, its cheeks puffing out in wrath.

Peter could not have controlled the dragon if he tried, and he didn’t try. It surged forward, gripping at the other dragon and flaming it. Only, the flame was repelled by what appeared to be a shield of magic, similar to that which had protected the tigers. Peter—in the dragon’s mind—felt a stab of annoyance that he’d never met other dragons, that he’d never learned how to use this defensive magic. He felt again the stab of the other dragon’s fire, and he flapped his wings and climbed, then fell, quickly, on the serpentine dragon beneath, grasping it around the neck and squeezing.

The creature didn’t appear to have any claws. Only small talons at the end of two ineffective, foreshortened arms that could not reach Peter’s clawing legs. Its head didn’t seem to turn far enough around to hit Peter’s body with its jet of blue flame. Fire flew past Peter’s leg; he felt only a distant heat.

But the dragon was mad; the dragon lusted for blood. It sank its claws deep, feeling the enemy’s flesh rend under their power. And then it bit. Once. Deeply.

The Chinese dragon screamed and drooped, and Peter’s dragon let go. The other dragon’s body fell through the cloud cover, even as Peter wondered if it was dead. He’d heard the only way to kill weres was beheading or burning. Or, of course, specially spelled powersticks.

The dragon wanted to follow its enemy to the ground and finish it, but Peter couldn’t do that. The other dragon might have had designs on Sofie—perhaps. Or perhaps not. What did he know about how dragons behaved when they met each other? He only knew that he didn’t like the way the beast had overpowered him. He didn’t like the way it had made him dance to its tune. He would not let it have its way. He remembered the look in Sofie’s eyes as he tortured the tiger-prince. When he thought of following the Chinese dragon and killing it, he felt as though her eyes were fixed on him again. With such reproach!

Instead, he flew back to where his undisturbed luggage sat in a peaceful glade.

He drove the dragon down, picking up the handles of the portmanteaus with its bloodied, taloned feet.

A RUDE WAKENING; DRAGONS AND MEN; THE EYE OF THE DRAGON

William Blacklock woke to the sound of wings. Wings
unfolding, beating. At first, he thought it was part of his dream—perhaps a premonition of change. But the sound was too persistent, and it was followed, close on, by a distressed wail from his sweeper.

A snake. It’s another cursed snake,
William thought as he lurched out of bed, his sword in hand, and started across to the
ghuslkhanah,
when he realized that the screams—and now, joining it, the sound of a voice speaking steadily in English—came from the veranda.

In the suffocating heat of the drought before the monsoon, it was beyond William’s power to close the door and sleep in the confines of his room, with all the air unmoving. Instead, his veranda door was open, and only a curtain at the door—and a curtain at the window—protected the room from the nocturnal insects. In truth, only the gauze tent around his bed kept him from being eaten alive.

Now he twitched the veranda curtain aside and looked out. Who could be talking out there? And why? Had one of his superiors come and violated the sanctity of his quarters? It must be a very important matter. William found himself gaping at the most incongruous of scenes.

There was a man standing there—looking perfectly composed—wearing only his pants, quite bare-chested. He was speaking to the sweeper in exact, precise sentences that, clearly, meant nothing to the man.

William recognized the stranger at a glance, and his breath caught in his throat. It was the Greek god from his vision in the crystal.

“I am a friend of Captain Blacklock’s,” he said, very carefully. “I come to speak to him, to bring him news he will be glad to hear.”

The sweeper looked up at the man out of rheumy eyes and screeched, “Sahib? Who Sahib? What Sahib want?”

The stranger had started on a repetition of his same declaration yet again, when William, still sleep befuddled, erupted through the curtain, sword in hand. His first thought was that the man was not his friend. His second thought was that the man was quite informally attired. And his third thought was that he, himself, was less than formally attired, in his underwear and carrying his sword in one hand. But all these were overridden by his need to find out who this visitor was.

The man turned to him, not at all discomposed, and said, “I don’t believe weapons are needed, Captain Blacklock.” He bowed formally. “I am not exactly a friend, but I bring you a message from a friend of yours. Indeed, one who would like to be more than a friend.”

“A. . . friend?” William asked, and ran a hand backwards through his hair. “A friend of mine?”

The man bowed again. “She would at least have me believe so. Her name is Sofie Warington.”

“Miss Warington?” Blacklock asked. “What—What message from her can be that important?” He saw a minimal look of surprise in the man’s one eye—the other eye being covered by a patch and, presumably, missing. But there was more than that to disturb him in this stranger. For one, as he spoke, and waited for William to answer, he’d resumed dressing, putting on his shirt and coat as though he wasn’t even aware of what his hands were doing. He dressed himself by touch, with ease of someone long used to dressing himself like this. But why? Why would anyone need to dress himself that way? By touch? Blindly? To do it often enough to acquire an unthinking skill at it?

And then . . . there was the man himself. Something about him made William feel very odd. The chiseled features, the square shoulders, that golden, almost hairless skin, so brazenly displayed when he’d approached. All of it made William’s blood race and his mouth go dry, and he could not explain it. And the single eye, green and deep and cold, gave him the impression he’d seen it before . . . and not just in the man in his glass. But where could he have seen it?

“Now, Mr. . . . ?”

The man smiled—just a fugitive smile—and colored a little as he said, “Peter Farewell, Lord St. Maur.”

“Milord,” William said, frowning more. In his station in life, he didn’t associate with many titled heads, and those he did associate with didn’t normally show up on one’s veranda early in the morning, when the sun was just a suspicion of pink against the darkness in the east. He still wondered how St. Maur had made it up here. Had he perhaps come in one of the staircases, walked through some unoccupied room on this floor and— But no. All the rooms on this floor were occupied just now, the company being at its fullest.