The Book of Fire (48 page)

His fist has tightened dangerously around his empty cup. N’Doch reaches over and levers it out of his grip. “That’s all past now, man, from where we stand. That guy’s long dead. You’re not. How ’bout another round?”

Köthen lets out air between his teeth, a slow hard hiss of rage and tension. Then he shakes his head. “No. I think not. It would be . . . unwise.”

N’Doch hands over his own cup, still half full. “Finish up with this, then. I like a beer like the next man, but I ain’t much for the hard stuff.”

“And you know I am.”

“Give it a rest, huh? I ain’t criticizing. I’m offering.”

Köthen eyes him, then takes the cup. He raises it in brisk salute and tosses back the contents in one swallow, then lingeringly savors the heat on his tongue and in his throat.

“You are a strange one, friend N’Doch.”

N’Doch just chuckles. He’s feeling pretty good right about now.

“But tell your . . . dragon: it’s a handsome gift. A gift of hope.”

“Tell her yourself.”

“Perhaps I will.”

A thoughtful silence settles down around the cook fires, now mostly burning low, little piles of glowing ashes scattered
across the clearing. A couple of teenagers pile up dishes for transport to the wash pool. A young mother rocks a fretful child. It’s the only infant N’Doch has seen. Among the forty or so in Blind Rachel Crew, at least ten of the women are of childbearing age, and they all look more or less healthy except for the minor physical deformities that seem common among all the Tinkers. Given the level of tech around so far, N’Doch can’t imagine there’s much available by way of birth control. So why aren’t there more babies in the camp?

Stoksie kicks a few charred log ends into his fire and lowers himself to the ground with a sigh. Sedou eases down beside him as the little man uncorks a jug and gestures Köthen and N’Doch back to the hearth for a refill of their cups. The girl has taken a first sip and is staring into her cup in shock, her mouth working soundlessly.

“Go easy on that, kiddo,” Sedou advises, laughing.

N’Doch is dying to ask what a dragon knows about getting drunk, but this is clearly not the time for it. A few hearths away, Brenda and Charlie have their heads together, muttering. Punk has already conked out nearby, with his fists wrapped around his brew cup. To N’Doch’s delight, Marley stirs in his side pocket and starts up a long, quiet, complex riff. The music drifts over the embers as tangible as smoke.

The man called Luther ambles in out of the darkness to drop down at Stoksie’s fire. “Dis heah Luta Willums,” Stoksie offers. N’Doch introduces the girl and Sedou. Luther’s a big man, for a Tinker, somewhere in his forties and by N’Doch’s estimation, smart as a whip and wily as a hyena. He’s also noticed, during the communal bath, that Luther has webbed toes.

Ysabel Dominguin, the reed player, joins them next, patting N’Doch on the head briskly, exclaiming, “Good music! Good music, na!”

“Good food, good drink!” he laughs. “You guys always live this good?”

Luther smiles. “Musta knowd yu wuz commin’.”

When Bulldog Brenda kisses Charlie lingeringly, then gets up and slouches over, alone and reluctant, to join them, N’Doch understands that what passes for something
formal among Tinkers is happening right around him. He nudges Köthen, who nods and murmurs, “Privy council.”

N’Doch isn’t sure what that means, but he knows a meeting when he sees one. Sure enough, the silence drags on for a bit, pretending to be easy and companionable but actually chock-full of unspoken tension. The girl’s on the other side of the hearth, so N’Doch readies himself to translate for Köthen.

Finally, Stoksie clears his throat. “Me ’n Luta bin tinkin’ . . .” He looks up at N’Doch, then lets his gaze drift to Sedou, then down to the dirt between his crooked knees where he’s worrying a patch of grass with a stick. “Yu nah frum Urop, ri’? Speek tru, na. Ona a da hart.”

After a split-second of inner conferencing, Sedou embraces them all with his big soft laugh. “My brother, I do honor your hearth, and I do speak truth.” He slides his thumb at Köthen and the girl. “They’re from Europe. Me and my brother? No. We’re from Africa. Like some of your people, my man.”

Truth of a sort. Just not the whole truth. N’Doch wonders if the dragon would lie.

Stoksie’s still digging in the dirt. “Nah. My ole peebles from Bruklin.”

“Before Brooklyn. Way back. We’re cousins, maybe.”

N’Doch’s not sure there is a ‘before Brooklyn’ in Stoksie’s mind.

“Africa,” he repeats, and scratches his bald head.

“Cud be, na,” Luther remarks.

Brenda snorts. She stares, not at Sedou resting back next to her on his elbows like a reclining giant, but across the fire at N’Doch. “Howyu git heah frum Africa?”

Her disbelief is contemptuous and total. N’Doch gets the hint that air travel might not be the usual thing anymore. “Boat,” he lies, and begins to spin out a relevant fantasy in his mind about stowing away on a derelict supertanker like the wreck grounded on the beach near home.

But Stoksie isn’t really interested in Africa or how they got here from there. He waves Brenda silent. “We bin tinkin’ . . .”

“Yu bin,” Brenda growls.

“Me ’n Luta ’n Ysa, den. Dat’s tree ta wun.” Stoksie
waits, but Brenda subsides, grumbling. “We bin tinkin’ mebbe yus like ta stay awhile.”

“Yeah?” asks Sedou softly. “Why’s that?”

Luther leans forward. He has a big nose and graying anglo hair that keeps falling into his face. N’Doch guesses he’s pretty seriously nearsighted. “Yu lookin’ fuh sum’un, na? We helpyu fine ’im, den yu help us mebbe. Good trade.”

When N’Doch gets this far in his murmured simultaneous translation, Köthen stirs. “What kind of help do they want?”

N’Doch repeats the question.

Stoksie grins at Köthen. “Yer kinda help, bigfella.”

“I think he means he wants some muscle, Dolph.”

Köthen looks interested. After a pause, the girl says, “Please explain.”

To Erde’s surprise, it was the musician Ysabel who answered. And her accent was another surprise, throwing off the dragon translators for at least the length of a sentence. It was rapid and musical and full of rolling vowels, as unlike her own native German as any language Erde had ever heard.

“. . . so ju zee ter esa tis town aqui . . .”

The next sentence was more coherent. If she worked at balancing it, Ysa’s accent faded away and Erde heard only the translation, running in her mind. “Dey meke ferry good shuz tere . . . very good. We get good trade for these shoes wherever we go. But it’s a big danger to go to this town.”

“Why is that?” Sedou prompted.

“Church wackos,” said Brenda with a dismissive wave.

“Wacko, huh?” Luther shoved hair from his eyes. “Yu nevah bin deah! Yu nevah seenit!”

“’Cuz I gotta be heah! Yu wan Blin’ Rachel safe, na?” Brenda retorted hotly, but Erde guessed that Luther’s accusation was true.

“Sumtimes yu be as dum as a townie, Brenda.” Stoksie
dug in the dirt again with his stick. “Look, newfellas, heah’s da ting. Trade round heah’s getting tuffer, yeah by yeah.”

Luther nods. “Tru, tru. Times is getting tuffer by da minit.”

“So dis town’s a biggun, and dey make stuff ev’rybuddy want. We need dat stuff ta make owah nut, y’know? Uddawize, we doan eat. But dey’s a problem deah.” Stoksie’s hesitation sounded less like caution than shame.

“So what’s the problem?” N’Doch prodded.

Luther fidgeted and stretched his legs. “Yu gonna laff at us.”

N’Doch did laugh, then immediately looked apologetic.

“Nah, man, I mean, c’mon. Why would we laugh, as good as you’ve been to us? It’s like, some kind of personal problem? Somebody ran off with somebody else’s woman?”

“Wudna head fer town if we did dat,” murmured Luther.

Stoksie shook his head with a wry smile. “I tink we cud deel wit dat.”

“And this other thing you can’t deal with?” Sedou asked.

Ysa pursed her lips in a silent negative. Stoksie tossed his stick into the fire. Brenda sulked.

“Okay, den. I’ll sayit if nuna yus will. Heah it is.” Luther shook his gray forelock out of his eyes and cleared his throat. “Dey’s a monsta comes deah.”

Another stifled laugh from N’Doch. “A what?”

“A monsta.”

“What kinda monster?”

“Shit, yu know—big teet’ ’n wings ’n all.”

“Wings?”

“Yah. Wings an’ a tail.”

Now true silence fell around the cook fire. Erde’s heart surged in her chest until she was sure everyone could hear it pounding. Sedou rose up from his elbows and fixed his inhuman eyes on Luther. For a moment, all the air went out of the world. In another second, they would be gasping like dying fish. Then she heard N’Doch muttering his translation into Köthen’s ear. She took a breath, and the world moved forward again.

Sedou said, “What does this ‘monster’ look like?”

“Big gold sum’bitch.” Luther crooked back both his elbows like a hawk stooping to the kill, then bent his fingers and worked them like claws. “Lon’ neck, lon’ tail.”

Mercifully, Stoksie mistook their sudden intense focus for disbelief. “S’trut’, I sweah. I seenit. Nevah bin close, na.”

“Lucky,” said Ysabel.

Luther laughed. “Souns crazy, na?”

“No,” replied Sedou gravely. “I don’t think it does.”

“I do,” Brenda offered. “Wacko. Alla dem.”

“Yu go deah, den!” Luther exploded. “Yu wachim come down outa da sky lika litenin’ bolt. Den yu tell me I’m wacko.”

Brenda gathered herself as if she was ready to leave right then. “Okay, den, I will! Yu take care a da camp!”

“Whoa, whoa, wait!” soothed N’Doch. “Say again? Out of the sky?”

Luther swooped one fist into the other with a resounding slap. “Nevah seen anatin’ like it. Don’ know whaddit is.”

But we do, Erde wanted to cry out. We do!

OH, DRAGON, ARE YOU LISTENING?

WITH EVERY CELL AND SINEW
.

Stoksie said, “So whachu say? Yu come wit’ us?”

Sedou laughed, barely able to conceal the exultation of the dragon within. “But if this monster’s as big and bad as you say he is, how can we protect you from it?”

Are they wondering, Erde asked herself, why we aren’t more surprised?

“Nah frum da monsta,” Luther said. “No way yu cud do dat. Frum da guys who wanda trowyu tada monsta.”

“Really?” Erde could not hide her shock. “And what does the . . . monster . . . do then?”

“Broilyu ’n eechu. Onna spot. Whachu tink?” Their stunned silence clearly puzzled Luther. “Yumin sacerfize, y’know?”

“Wait. No.” Sedou shook his head. “Surely you’re mistaken.”

“Nah. I saw ’im.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yah, betcha.”

Erde thought she felt the ground shiver, ever so gently.

Stoksie agreed soberly. “Meetu. Reel ugly bizness. Parda der religin, kin yu emagin? Jus’ like a townie, ta let sumpin li’ dat go on.”

“Man!” breathed N’Doch. “That’s no better than witch burning!”

Sedou rose suddenly, a motion as quick and fluid as water, and paced away. “Oh, my friends . . .” A soft cry of pain at the edge of the darkness, answered by a distinct shuddering from the bedrock. A shift and crack. No one but Erde seemed to notice, so she swallowed her own horror in order to send both dragons soothing thoughts. As low an opinion as Lady Water had of her other brother, she had never thought him capable of such barbarism.

Stoksie watched after Sedou a bit, then shifted his gaze to N’Doch. “He scared off, na?”

“Nah. Just, y’know . . . upset. That’s terrible news. Ought to put a stop to that right away.”

“Betcha,” muttered Luther. “If we could.”

“Well, den, whachu tink?” Stoksie asked. “Yu come wit?”

“I’m ready.” N’Doch raised his voice slightly. “What say, bro?”

Sedou turned back toward the light, reclaiming his smile with enough effort to render it defiant. “I say, sure. We’ll come. We’ll come see your monster, and offer whatever help we can. Wouldn’t miss it. Who knows? We might find this friend we’ve been looking for right there in that village.”

N’Doch snorted grimly. “Yeah. Wouldn’t that be a surprise.”

And underneath Blind Rachel, new water flowed.