The Book of Fire Read online

  YOUR PAINTING AND . . . YOUR PAINTING, AS YOU REQUESTED. The computer is showing a sudden onset of uncharacteristic courtesy.

  “Not those images, the one in between! Please don’t do this to me!”

  ARE YOU . . . FEVERISH, PAIA? ARE YOU FEELING UNWELL?

  At last she understands. The House Comp is not sending her the image she sees. Either that, or he is lying, and that she knows to be impossible. But it’s equally impossible to believe that he could be wrong. Unless . . . Paia recalls how preoccupied House has been lately with the deterioration of his equipment. Perhaps . . .

  The screen flashes again. But this image is not her landscape. It’s a bright blue screen cut across by bold white letters: WHAT PRICE SURVIVAL?

  Paia claps her hands to her mouth. She’s afraid she’ll scream out loud, and that will surely bring the red-clad Twelve racing up the stairs to her rescue. She stares at the words, waiting for them to vanish. They do not.

  “House?”

  The screen stares back unchanging, glowing white against sky blue.

  “House? Are you there?” Paia waves into each of the little eyes at the four corners of the room. “House, come back!” She moves away from the easel in a long curve, and around the side of the room, as if to stay out of range of the monitor’s insistent blue glare. She eases up beside it and taps the dusty box, jiggles its connections. “House?”

  No response.

  Paia fights off a creeping panic. There is no “off” switch anywhere to be found. She snatches at the folded canvas and drags it roughly over the screen, springing backward as if the entire assemblage might leap at her throat in revenge for being silenced. She stares at the shrouded bulk for a moment, then hurries back to the easel and covers the painting.

  Then she stands stock-still, breathing hard in the stream of hot red light from the window, contemplating new strategies for evading the Twelve. She has to get to the Library. Quickly, and in absolute secrecy.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Baron Köthen hurried Erde up the wide stone stairs to the first landing. He motioned her against the hard, flat wall, then stationed himself a few steps away, at the bottom of the gangway. The neat rows of rectangular stones were hot against her back. While Köthen watched the upper window into which N’Doch had disappeared, Erde thought of all the labor involved in carving each little stone so precisely and placing them all just so. The lord who’d ordered all this built must have had many estates to call upon for labor, and been very powerful indeed.

  She was conveying this insight to the dragon when Lady Water interrupted.

  He’s made contact!

  Erde reached without thinking and laid a hand on Köthen’s arm. His muscles tensed beneath the thin hard surface of his mail as he turned to glare at her.

  Two young girls, he says.

  She beckoned Köthen to bend an ear so that she could whisper the dragons’ news to him. She mimed the bow and arrow. His stance shifted immediately. His dagger was drawn, and he was already heading up the gangway.

  “Stay here,” he mouthed.

  Erde shook her head. When he frowned, she murmured, “How will you know what the dragons see?”

  His scowl deepened. He tossed his head irritably, then signaled her to draw her own blade. She followed a pace behind him up the swaying gangway. His speed and silence made her feel clumsy and slow. She caught up by the entrance window just in time to grab at his tunic and keep him from going inside. “My lord! They say he’s taken!”

  Köthen’s eyes slitted. He did not ask for the dragons to be summoned. He glanced away at the rows of dark windows facing them across the open street. “How many?” his hands asked.

  Erde raised one finger. “A man.”

  She bent and drew the layout of the rooms as Lady Water saw it, in the dust on the gangway, marking the separate positions of the enemy. Köthen studied the diagram, then flicked her a grudging glance and nodded.

  “Now you will stay here,” he insisted silently. “Sentinel.”

  She thought it fit this time not to argue. Köthen slid around the frame of the window so quickly that he barely broke the opening’s angular profile, so bright against the inner darkness. Erde crouched against the hot wall and prepared to slip in after him.

  The man’s got the drop on him, all right. And he’s got the advantage of position. He’s silhouetted in the doorway, against the faint light spreading in from the front room. He doesn’t look real big, but he’s got on a lot of loose clothing that conceals his shape. His head is shaved or bald—N’Doch can see the light reflecting off the dude’s temples—but his face is in total darkness. The only useful detail N’Doch can make out is what looks like a big old fire ax in his hands. This is marginally better than the assault rifle or the Walther P350 that N’Doch has expected, but it can still do plenty of damage.

  He spreads his hands a little wider. He smiles and hopes the man can see it. “Got no problem wichu, man.”

  “Mebbe no, mebbe yes.” The man shifts onto one hip, his right, as if the other pains him, and looks N’Doch over. N’Doch feels ridiculously caught short. “Wheryu frum, den?”

  N’Doch jerks his head in what he hopes is vaguely the right direction. “Up nort’.”

  “Ohya? Deadman Crew, aryu?”

  N’Doch grins. “Hope not.”

  The man grunts. N’Doch thinks he may have got the joke. “Who, den?”

  He can already tell they’re talking turf here, and him without a clue who owns what. But he’s finessed his way through worse in his time. “Way nort’,” he amends. “Water Dragon Crew.”

  The man shifts back to a two-legged stance. “Sayu?”

  N’Doch nods. “I do.” He suspects from the guy’s alert response that he’s said something meaningful without being aware of it. But now he can relax a bit, for he’s noted the brief dimming of the light from the other room, like a shadow passing, and he knows from the dragon that Köthen is in the building. His job now is to keep this guy talking and distracted. Problem is, what can he say that won’t just expose his total ignorance?

  “So, you really lay toll?”

  “Betcha. Notchu?”

  “Nah.”

  The man considers this. “Nuttin’ ta get, up nort’, ha?”

  N’Doch hears the implication. He doesn’t want to be seen as a rich prospect. He drops his head and nods diffidently. “Yah. Nuttin’ much at all.”

  The man shifts his weight again to the right, and seems to be listening. N’Doch fears he’s heard Köthen moving through the outer room. Using the unslinging of his pack as a noisemaker and an excuse, N’Doch backs up along the gangway to draw the man into the room. It works. The man’s interest focuses on the bulging pack. He moves into the doorway. “You come fer trade, den? News?”

  “Betcha,” N’Doch mimics.

  The man leans against the doorframe to relieve his hip, and an arm snakes out and slams him hard against it from behind. He lets out a pained yelp. N’Doch leaps back just as an arrow thuds into the gangway at his feet. He snatches the ax from the man’s flailing hands and dives through the doorway to fetch up against the opposite wall, hearing the chunk of a second arrow as it buries itself in the doorjamb right beside his fleeing ear.

  “Hold on, wilyu?” he yells. “Gonna kill sumbuddy!”

  “Gonna kill yu, tallman!”

  “Whafor, girliegirl? Ain’t don’ nothin’ t’yu!”

  “Yur hurtin’ da man! Lettim go!”

  “No way, til yu say truce.” N’Doch’s trying to look in two directions at once. Köthen drags the little man into human shield position, with his blade tight to the dude’s throat, like he might do him in right then and there. N’Doch worries he might. The poor sucker hardly dares breathe and doesn’t struggle, a wise rabbit in the jaws of a fox, like this encounter blew up into a lot more than he’d bargained for. Even in the dim light, Köthen’s weathered face is pale beside him. N’Doch thinks this guy’s skin might be almost as dark as his own.<
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  “Ease up, Baron K.,” he suggests, in the dragon’s German. “I think we got the upper hand here. No thanks to me, of course.” For the life of him, he can’t recall why he thought it was a bad idea to bring this good soldier along.

  Köthen lets the apology go by. “Tell him to call the girls down.”

  N’Doch does, in his best future-speak. He turns a little, hoping to let the faint light catch sincerity in his eyes. “Ain’t gonna hurt nobuddy.”

  The man sighs. “Senda! Mari! Face heah!”

  A chorus of raucous negatives bursts from the darkest corner. N’Doch and the little man suppress inappropriate grins. Köthen tightens his grip.

  “Now!” gasps the man.

  The girls climb down slowly but not because they’re clumsy. They are, with big crossbow, strapped-on water bottles and all, as slim and agile as monkeys. But they are also reluctant and disapproving. N’Doch yanks the two arrows free and moves forward to tower over the pair on the gangway. They are maybe nine years old. Girl-babies, he’d call ’em. The bones of their faces seem to fall into patterns he recognizes. He wants to get all these people out into the light where he can really look at them.

  He points at the taller one. “Whichu?”

  She plants one end of the crossbow on the planking and glares up at him with her mouth pulled tight as a rosebud. “Dis’un, Mari,” rasps the man over the impatient edge of Köthen’s dagger. “Senda, da udda.”

  N’Doch already feels bad about Köthen’s roughness. He leans on the ax handle, crouches in front of the girls, and thumbs his chest. “N’Doch.”

  Mari shakes her braided head. “Tallman.”

  N’Doch shrugs. “Okay, girliegirl. Have it yer way. Yu gotcha som’other blade ta pull on me?” Meanwhile, he’s looking them over with his dragon vision. Not much on them to conceal a weapon of any sort. Their clothing is scanty, and he could probably count every rib and finger bone. But he lets them see he won’t lay a hand on them even to frisk them. “Truce fer now?”

  Senda, the little one, nods. Mari screws her mouth up even tighter and steadies her glare. N’Doch gives her the thumbs-up sign, knowing approval’s the last thing she’ll be expecting. Then he stands, hands her the recovered arrows, and deliberately turns his back on her.

  Köthen eases his grip, just enough so his prisoner can stand on his own. With his head still held back from the glimmering blade, the man shifts his weight off his bad hip, and groans softly with the relief.

  N’Doch says carefully, “Y’know . . . this ain’t no war party, Baron K. The man’s clearly hurting. What say you let him go?”

  Does he see a glint of disdain in the baron’s eyes, or is it puzzlement? But Köthen lowers his knife and steps back, as if removing himself from the argument. The man sags against the doorframe, breathing hard. Behind him, just as the dragons announce her, the girl’s head swims up out of the darkness.

  The man senses her and turns. “Yu got more ou’ deah?”

  N’Doch smiles, thinking of the dragons. “Mebbe.” He lets this sink in, then adds, “But ain’t none o’ us lookin’ fer troubba.”

  “Not heah, neitha.”

  “So, good. So, whachu say, den? Let’s get easy someweah, and talk.”

  The man nods. There’s not even much resentment in him, not like the girls, for all his being tossed around a little. This guy’s got some mileage on him. He shoves off from the doorframe and moves past N’Doch on the gangway, heading into darkness and driving the kids in front of him with gentle cuffs to their heads. His limp is worse than N’Doch has expected, and he doesn’t try to hide it. Probably he can move faster in his rhythmic rolling gait than if he tried to walk straight. N’Doch follows him. Köthen and the girl fall in behind.

  Cripple or no, he leads them across the lightless room with a blind man’s confidence. N’Doch’s own hands stray to the guide rails. He sees the railings as a clue to the joint’s real purpose. It’s not a death trap like he feared. It’s an oversized tollbooth, and you can’t run a good operation if you’re killing off your customers. He knows some drug dealers oughta learn that lesson.

  They pass through one more dark room, then the night thins. N’Doch can see the man’s outline as he hauls back on a thick drape. Red light streams in through an outside opening, another window made doorlike with the liberal use of a sledgehammer. The girl-babies scamper into the light while the man stands back to hold the drape aside for the others.

  N’Doch becomes aware again of the sounds of water. Squinting, he ducks through the opening onto a brief step and a shorter, steeper gangway leading down to a floating dock. The back of the building looks onto a kind of deepwater courtyard, a harbor with tall brick walls. The dock is another jerry-built assemblage of old doors and floorboards bobbing on aging plastic canisters and rusted oil drums. N’Doch is amazed they’re still afloat. Some of them look as old as he is.

  There are a couple of little boats tied up alongside, tarred and patched six ways from Sunday, and a larger raft-thing up on pontoons like the dock. The raft has a stubby mast in the center and some shreds of a sail. There’s not a lick of paint on any surface N’Doch sees. Just keeping these tubs above water probably takes all these folks have got.

  Mari and Senda take up stations beside the two small boats. N’Doch detects a personal involvement there. He eases down the gangway and onto the float. It’s good to feel the sea beneath him again. All this started for me, he muses, because of the water. The air is thick and steamy, but the buildings across the courtyard harbor throw a welcome shadow across the dock. He finds a faded plastic crate and tests it with his foot to see if it’ll still hold weight. He sets the ax down, drops his pack beside it, and sits.

  The girl comes into the light next, then the man, then Köthen, who has insisted on mounting a rear guard. The girl’s a bit unsteady on the gangway as it stirs to the roll of the water. She makes it down to the float, then just stands there. A weird moment of suspension settles in, as they all get a first real look at one another. Each, N’Doch decides, is a surprise to each.

  The man and the little girls are dark, as he’s guessed. But they’re all a different color, and none of them as ebony-dark as he is. Their faces are as mixed-blood as their skin tones. The man’s skin is almost red-brown, and he is absolutely hairless. The girl Mari has Asian eyes and straight black hair intricately braided to frame her full nose and mouth. N’Doch predicts she’ll be a heartbreaker when she’s grown, ’specially since she’s such a little spitfire. All of them are small. Walking behind the bald man, he’s seen how the gleam on the top of his head comes barely to the level of his own heart. And the girls are petite. Their clothes are a grab bag of cheap faded sportswear, bits of heavier duty stuff like the man’s scuffed work boots and his stained safety-orange vest, plus a lot of handmade bits, or pieces worked over so many times that their origins are unrecognizable. The plastic water bottles they all carry are scarred and scorched where heat has been used to mend them. N’Doch sees nothing on these folks that looks like recent manufacture.

  Meanwhile, the three of them are doing some serious study of their own. They eye the girl’s paleness, but her hair is dark like theirs, and N’Doch is darker and taller than them, but otherwise no big deal. It’s Köthen who snares the stares, perched like he is in lordly manner at the top of the gangway, his thick blond hair ruffling in the drafts up from the water and his mailed sleeves glinting in the late sun. The girl-babies are openmouthed. N’Doch can’t tell if they think he’s the absolute finest thing they’ve ever seen, or the butt-ugliest. Given their own complex mix, maybe they’ve never seen a real white man before.

  Finally, the bald man breaks the spell. He kicks a crate a little closer to N’Doch and lowers himself onto it. He reaches a hand across the gap between them. “Reuben Stokes. Call me Stoksie. Blind Rachel Crew.”

  N’Doch takes the hand. The man’s grip is firm but brief. N’Doch is relieved there’s no complicated shake ritual he’s supposed to know.
“N’Doch. Water Dragon Crew.” No point in dumping the fiction now. Besides, it’s not like he’s lying to the guy. He nods toward the girl, who he notices has not been offered a seat. “This ’ere’s Lady Erde.”

  The man Stoksie struggles up halfway to reach and offer the girl his hand. So he’s got no problem sitting down with women, N’Doch notes. He just don’t see a need to give up his chair for one. And the girl, it turns out, has been keeping track. She gives the man’s hand a proper shake, then looks around for her own crate.

  N’Doch sends her an approving nod. “Pull up a seat.”

  This leaves Köthen, who is watching the parley assemble down on the float like he has no part in it. N’Doch finds this irks him just a bit. If the good baron wants to think of himself as more than the muscle, he’d better act like it.

  “Hey, Baron!” he yells, with what he hopes is a really irritating grin. “How do I introduce you to these folks? Can’t ever remember all your names!” His voice echoes among the red brick walls. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the girl shaking her head in mute dismay.

  Köthen breaks off a methodical survey of those surrounding walls. He stares down at them for a moment, and N’Doch again envies the man’s total feel for the Commanding Entrance. He’s waited until he has every ounce and scrap of their attention. But as he starts down the gangway, N’Doch understands something else. Köthen’s slow grace on the bobbing walkway is also caution. The girl had staggered a little coming down. These are inlanders, N’Doch recalls. Landlubbers. Köthen doesn’t want to make a fool of himself while he’s getting his sea legs, but he isn’t gonna give up the Entrance. His balance is superb, though, and he gets the rhythm of the dance right away, so that he’s striding across the float with confidence by the time he presents himself to the man Stoksie with a small bow and a gesture to him not to rise from his seat. Nervous, N’Doch gets up, just in case. But Köthen offers Stoksie his hand. “Dolph Hoffman,” he says.