The Book of Fire Read online

  “I’ll say. What a major pain in the ass she’s getting to be.”

  “But there’s no apparent leader.” Köthen glanced around, inviting their response, as if to say, what am I missing?

  N’Doch was unhelpful. His head was up, listening. “Don’t think you’ll find one, Dolph. It’s not that kind of a group.”

  Erde frowned gently. “Not Stoksie?”

  “No way. He’s more like . . . an elder. Like whatsisname . . . Luther. He’s another one.”

  From across the irregular circle of fires came a few experimental notes from a pipe and the strum of a stringed instrument being tuned. Stoksie was headed in their direction, his dark face flushed with the last glow of sunset. His progress was slow, not just due to his limp, but because he stopped continually along the way with this group or that to chat or exchange a laugh. Erde was surprised how comfortable she already felt among these Tinkers, more so than she had with anyone in N’Doch’s time, except for his grandfather, Master Djawara. With that thought, she put out a mental query. But Earth had not yet decided how to try unblocking the water.

  “Lack of leadership is a fatal weakness,” Köthen observed quietly.

  “Think of it as the leadership being shared. Can you get your head around that, yer lordship?” N’Doch set his well-mopped bowl aside and unfolded his legs. “You guys hang, huh? I’m going visiting.”

  The minute he hears the music, N’Doch loses interest in food crops or issues of leadership. He lifts his long body off the ground and wanders off casually among the hearths, nodding to the men, patting the kids, and returning the smiles of the women with promising smiles of his own. He even grins at Bulldog Brenda, who scowls back. He doesn’t care. The music is what matters now.

  He finds the music makers off to one side, three of them around a small fire of their own, like a side pocket to the main table. The sweet woodwind he’d heard is a reed flute, played by a crinkly-faced woman with dark, frizzy hair. The drums are two little lap drums, and the drummer’s about his own age with big, fast hands, real eager. He’s already wearing a zoned-out glaze, N’Doch notes enviously, and he hasn’t even got himself started yet.

  But it’s the guitar player who draws N’Doch’s attention most: an old black man with no teeth left in front, and gnarled stubs of fingers. The guitar’s an ancient four-string acoustic in as bad shape as the man is, with a worn bit of glass stuck up under the strings near the top frets. But as the old man bends over it, his ear nearly flat on the box, his wrecked hands dance over the strings like butterflies, and quiet but magical music comes out. He picks his way through a little melody, trying it out, as if making it up on the spot. N’Doch is in love.

  He stands in the shadows, listening, until the old man finishes. Then he moves forward with a wave and hunkers down an easy distance away. “Hey, nice,” he says.

  The old man raises his head from the guitar and looks his way, slow and off-focus. He’s blind, or nearly so, but sees enough to read the tall stranger’s eyes. “Yu play?” His voice is like an old truck engine.

  N’Doch shrugs, which is what he’s supposed to do. “I play some.”

  When the old man hands over the guitar, just like that, and the others don’t object, N’Doch can’t believe his luck. Maybe they’re all tired of listening to themselves or something. He’s sorry when the man slips the glass shard out from under the strings and pockets it carefully, but hey, beggars can’t be choosers. He accepts the guitar reverently and settles it safely in his lap before sticking out his hand. “N’Doch. Water Dragon Crew.”

  “Yah,” huffs the old man. “Marley.”

  The drummer is Luis, the reed player Ysabel Dominguin. Though they are nowhere near the same color or body type, N’Doch understands they are mother and son. They shake hands around, but the preliminaries are brief, like anywhere he’s ever sat down with other musicians. They’re all three of them waiting to hear if he’s any good.

  He doodles around some, like he’s allowed to at first, getting the feel of the strings. He tunes a bit, thinking how raging cool it would be if he could come up with a song they know. Then he gives that up for a simple eight bar blues that he knows they’ll be able to come in on. In no time at all, they’re playing and grinning at each other, and old Marley is clapping those ruined hands on his knees and chest in complex syncopation with Luis. Soon after that, they’re attracting attention from around the cook fires. Folks are leaving off conversations that were limping along anyway, abandoning their emptied plates and bringing their filled bellies by to settle down with the music. A woman hauls in a few chunks of wood and the little fire brightens. N’Doch sees that making music means a lot to these folks. No vids or arcade games to fill their evenings. He’d bet they’re great storytellers, too. When he moves on to another old blues song, Luis and Ysa segue into it seamlessly. Stoksie brings over Köthen and the girl, then shoulders his way into the circle to drop down beside N’Doch, making the point about who it was who brought him. Even Brenda’s listening, but she’s just got to show him a frown, though her foot’s right there tapping out the time.

  When the song is done, N’Doch vamps a bit, waiting for the others’ permission to solo. Ysa nods, so he slides into the simple, plaintive melody of an old Wolof love song, lingering through it once, ever so sweetly, then slamming into the jazzier version that he’d written for himself a few years back. It’s a show-off piece that he’s used to playing on a keyboard, but somehow his fingers still find a way among the strings. When he’s done, he’s worked up a sweat all over again but the moment is worth it, ’cause the little crowd goes ballistic, hooting and stamping and yelling for an encore.

  N’Doch looks at Marley. He doesn’t want to be upstaging the man completely. Marley grins and crosses his arms. As N’Doch bows his head over the guitar, thinking what to play next, he hears the dragon in his head.

  Play them Sedou. Play me down around that campfire. I’m bored of hanging out in the woods with my earnest brother . . .

  N’Doch keeps his face smooth and lets his eyes roam casually, seeking out the girl. She’s heard. She’s frowning a little, but she’s already preparing Köthen. His blond head’s bent low, listening, as he crouches beside her, very careful to keep his distance.

  Everyone okay with that? What does Dolph say?

  He says he’ll be pleased to renew our acquaintance.

  What’s the story?

  That you have better security than they ever guessed.

  N’Doch shrugs. I’m leaving that to you, then.

  Thas cool, little brother.

  The song as he’d sung it at Deep Moor is in French. He hopes it’ll add to their cover, give the Europe thing a little more depth. The dragon doesn’t sing it with him this time, at least not at first, so N’Doch is intensely aware of the sound of his own voice, husky but strong and true, soaring through the dusk-time stillness of this foreign mountaintop. There are new notes there he didn’t know he had, and new resonances. And the song. He knew it was a good song because it conjured Sedou at the highest moment of his life. But now he’s thrilled to learn that the song is a good song all on its own. In fact, it’s a beautiful song.

  By the third verse, he feels the dragon presence coalescing somewhere off in the woods. These people, he thinks fleetingly, have no idea what they’re in for. By the fifth verse, a tall black man is standing at the back of the rapt little crowd, leaning against a wagon wheel and smiling. By the last verse, he is singing along, a deep almost unheard harmony that is so natural, it’s not even noticed.

  N’Doch draws out the last few measures slowly, and holds tantalizingly before the song’s real end. Every eye is on him. He feels his listeners, each of them, as if they were touching his mouth and his eyelids and his hands with loving, grateful fingers. He flattens his picking hand to quiet the strings, and within the space of the sigh before they applaud, he stretches a welcoming arm toward the darkness behind them.

  “Folks, I’d like you to meet my brother
Sedou.”

  He knows there was bound to be a commotion, and there is. A lot of gasps and jumping up, knocking over cups and bowls, even a scream or two of fright and a bellow of outrage, more than a few. Like, where did this big guy come from? By the time the knives are out and gleaming nastily in the firelight, N’Doch has set the guitar gently in Marley’s lap and stepped through the confusion to Köthen’s side, with the girl between them and Sedou behind, like a wall. Then the thing he’s worried about happens: Bulldog Brenda swoops up that fat-barreled rifle of hers and levels it at them.

  “Call in da res’, or yer a dead man.”

  Sedou spreads his hands genially. His deep voice flows around them like a sweet, cool breeze. “There are no ‘rest,’ Brenda. I’m all there is.”

  Her eyes narrow over the gunsight. He knows her name. “Whachu dun wit’ my men?”

  “Your sentries? Four of them, right? Two women, one man, one boy. The boy hums a lot. Call them if you like. They’re fine. They’re alert. They were doing their job. They just don’t hear as good as they should.”

  “Yuh? Yu say?” Brenda whistles into the ruddy darkness. Four answering whistles come right back at her.

  The mutters rustling among the crowd tell N’Doch they’ve won already. Easier for these people to convince themselves that this dark and smiling giant slipped through the cordon, under his own clever steam and brilliant stealth, than to wonder how else he could have shown up completely out of nowhere. The truth is often the hardest answer, N’Doch muses. He sheathes his knife, relaxes. Brenda swears a blue streak and sends Charlie and Punk off into the woods to make a personal check on the sentries.

  Stoksie says, “Nah mo’, na? Speak tru?”

  “No more men,” Sedou agrees.

  But in his mind’s eye, N’Doch sees the large rock that has appeared in a little clearing not far from Blind Rachel’s pool. He squeezes the girl’s shoulder. “Good work,” he whispers. And then the mystery man seals his welcome with a gift, and not even N’Doch can imagine how the dragon got it there.

  Stooping back into the shadows under the wagon he’d been discovered by, Sedou picks up a lidded tin bucket by its looped handle and carries it forward to the hearth. Eyes still a little wide, the Tinkers make way for him, murmuring. The bucket sloshes as Sedou sets it down at Stoksie’s feet.

  “For your hospitality, my brother,” he rumbles. “For Blind Rachel.”

  Stoksie leans over, trying not to appear suspicious, and carefully lifts the lid. “Gimme a light, sum’un.” A lantern is handed along to him through the crowd. He holds it up and peers into the bucket. His glance at Sedou is sudden and amazed. “Wha’s dis, na?”

  Sedou crouches, like a mountain descending, and dips one finger to stir the surface gently. It erupts with a roil of silvery minnows, frantic to escape into deeper, chiller waters. “Breeders, my brother. I heard Blind Rachel could use some.”

  “Good uns? Hellt’y?”

  “All healthy.”

  “Whea yu gettim?”

  The big man smiles and stands back. “Can’t say. You know how it is.”

  “Trade seecrit, ha?” Stoksie accepts this, as any practiced merchant would. His expression is already speculative. How can this sudden resource be best exploited. Others press around him to lean over and stare into the bucket. More gasps and commotion, this time of a friendlier sort, especially as Charlie and Punk are back to report the sentries all well and at their posts, though smarting no doubt from a very recent tongue-lashing. An air of hopeful celebration breaks over the clearing like a summer shower. Eager debates erupt over the proper care and feeding of fish. Schedules and menus are being proposed. Big clay jugs appear and a clear liquid is doled out in judicious helpings.

  N’Doch eases away from the crowd to watch Sedou work his magic. Not all of it, he reflects, is dragon magic. Some of it is just pure Sedou. He knows. He remembers how it was, when his brother was alive. Köthen, too, is watching Sedou, his arms folded across his mailed chest and his rugged face tense with concentration, as if answers to his own dilemma might be gained from this close study.

  When the first burst of excitement has died down, Stoksie stirs up the crowd again by deputizing the girl-babies Senda and Mari to deliver the fish to their new home. He makes Sedou give them detailed instructions, then sends them off with the bucket slung between them. Two thirds of the camp, and all of the children, trail after them with lanterns and cups of home brew.

  N’Doch is thinking about Marley’s guitar again when Köthen surprises him, bringing over two half-filled cups and handing him one.

  “Here is one thing they do make here. Rather well, I think.”

  N’Doch passes the cup under his nose and feels the fumes leap up like tiny birds into his nostrils. He takes a sip. “Hooo! Fire water!”

  Köthen chuckles, deep and quiet.

  “Better watch out,” N’Doch warns. “You’re gonna slip, and start enjoying yourself.”

  But Köthen is pondering the gift of fish. “If even half those hatchlings survive, they’ll be lucky. But after a few seasons, there’ll be a fine catch in that pool. If they’re careful, it’ll lead to many years of fine catches.” He pauses, glances up. “What? What’s the matter now?”

  “Nothing.” N’Doch realizes he’s been staring. “Hey, Dolph. When you were . . . y’know, back there . . .”

  “At home?”

  “Yeah. You, like, must’ve had a big, what, a castle? With a whole lot of land? And you had to know how to take care of all that land, how to grow things, right? Raise up all your food, take care of the animals? Like the women at Deep Moor do, right? You had to know how to do all that?”

  By now, it’s Köthen who’s staring, with one cocked eyebrow.

  N’Doch laughs. “Don’t worry, I haven’t gone off or anything. It’s just a side of you I never saw before, caring about raising fish. You don’t think of a lordship caring about fish, or anything that might get his hands dirty.”

  “But I must care about fish, and crops and fruit and cattle. A landowner must know about such things. Or take on bondsmen who know what he doesn’t.” Gravely, Köthen drains his cup. “Good husbandry is a great and noble responsibility. If you abuse the land, it will not feed you or your people.”

  “Right.” N’Doch slouches back on one hip. “So tell me about your place, man. What’s it like?”

  Köthen’s gaze darkens. “Remember . . . or perhaps you didn’t know . . . I lost my estates when the hell-priest betrayed me. He will have given them to some minion, who will be wreaking the Lord knows what manner of havoc upon them. That sort care nothing for the land, only for the power it brings them. They will use it up and abandon it, and I am powerless to prevent any of it!”

  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.”