The Book of Fire Read online

  “Dey agreed. Two waggins frum each Crew. We’ll take mine ’n Ysa’s. Seems dey need da trade reel bad, too, nah.”

  “Whew! Gonna be some day tomorrow. Say, I’m dyin’! What’s to eat?” N’Doch snatched Köthen’s empty plate and filled it from the stewpot. Erde got up to fetch him water from the keg.

  “So?” asked the baron.

  “The girl? It was her, all right. Real soon after, she hooked up with those two other guys, and they went around town the rest of the day taking people aside real casual-like. I saw a lot of people pretty heavily armed, even a few not too carefully concealed rifles and handguns.” He looked to Luther, who had lingered to listen. “That how it is in this town?”

  “Dis town, alwiz. But Scroon Crew say dey see a lot moah guns aroun’ da villages nah. An’ da priests bin ev’reweah, scroungin’.”

  “The girl, and her companions?” Köthen pursued patiently.

  “Oh, yeah. Well, I did fine, till I lost all three of them in an alley. The doors were locked up tight when I tried ’em, but I know they got in one somehow. Maybe they live here, maybe they got connections.”

  “Hmmm,” muttered Köthen. “The scent of rebellion.”

  N’Doch scoffed. “You’ve got rebellion on the brain, yer lordship. Whachu say, Luther? You know anything about this?”

  “Can’t really say, Dockman,” the Tinker rumbled, moving off.

  But Erde noticed how hard he’d been listening. “She said as much, Miriam did. ‘I stand in opposition,’ she said. But she meant to this pagan church, not to any lord of the realm.”

  “The Temple is the lord around here.” N’Doch scraped at the remains of his first helping and reached for a second. “Look who we had to go to, to do business. Haven’t heard mention of any other form of government.”

  “A bad idea,” said Köthen. “To let the church run things.”

  “Well, we’ll get a chance to see it in action. Guess what else I found out.”

  “We know! Luther heard it from the woman at the Chapter House. The High Priestess of the dragon worshipers arrives tomorrow with all her retinue.”

  “Betcha! Major celebration! Folks coming in from all over, not just the Crews. The town’s gonna be a madhouse. And with everyone armed to the teeth . . . whew!”

  “I hope it won’t ruin another trade day.”

  “I have a feeling,” said Köthen with such quiet relish that they both looked at him. “We should be prepared for the worst.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  The village they stop at the next night is nearly empty, though the streets are clean and the houses scrubbed and patched. The only sign of life is at the Chapter House, where the caravan is welcomed without the usual heavy ceremony by a few overworked and anxious priestesses.

  Paia is relieved but curious. “Where have they all gone?”

  “Probably down to Phoenix to await your arrival tomorrow,” says Luco. “They’ve planned a huge celebration there in your honor.”

  She feels so tired today, so strung out. Another night of dreaming. No God to rave at her this time, but the man with the sword was there again, smiling. Paia hasn’t had much sleep.

  “I can’t wait.”

  Luco laughs. “Come, walk with me, take a look, before it gets dark.”

  They climb to the brow of the hill overlooking the village to gaze down on their most important destination. The town is many miles away to the southeast, but even from a distance, Paia can see its lights glimmering through the lavender dusk.

  “It’s big.”

  “The God’s favorite town.”

  “Really?”

  “Where all do his bidding, all live to serve him, and prosperity follows.”

  “Sarcasm is the God’s prerogative, First Son.”

  “No, I . . . actually, it’s true. He’s exactly the God they desire. Phoenix is the God’s greatest success story.”

  “Then yours as well, as the God’s Right Hand.”

  Luco shakes out his long hair to let the sweat dry in the breeze. “I’ll leave that credit to him.” Paia glances up at him, but he is turning away. “Better be heading back. We don’t want to miss whatever they’ve managed to scrape together for dinner.”

  She reaches suddenly for his sleeve, grabs at the long red folds of his robe. “Luco!”

  He stops, turns back. When he sees her face, his blue eyes narrow. “What is it, my priestess?”

  Paia isn’t sure herself. Something. A feeling. “I . . . don’t know.”

  “You look . . . terrified. There’s no need, you know. Phoenix is devoted to the God. It will welcome you with open arms. Besides, you’re as well guarded as anyone could be.”

  “What if it’s something you can’t guard against?” She glances again at the tightly walled town in the valley below. A moment ago, she was sure she saw it wreathed with flame. “That place scares me. Do we have to go in there tomorrow?”

  He drops all pretense of formality. “Paia, Paia, what’s this? A premonition? Do you believe in such things?”

  She doesn’t know whether to say yes or no.

  “Look, I know this trip has been hard on you, harder than you’re willing to admit. But it has served its purpose, and tomorrow’s visit is the most crucial of all. That town supplies a quarter of the Temple income. If you just hang in there for one more night, I’ll give you a rest. I promise.” He holds out his hand to her. “Now will you come down to dinner?”

  Paia throws one last shuddering look over her shoulder, then takes Luco’s hand and follows him down the dusty hill like a child.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  The camp is up before first light, grabbing breakfast, rounding up the mules, hitching the four needed to haul the two wagons, and keeping the others close at hand in case of an emergency.

  N’Doch stands with Sedou on a rise in the road into town. The sky is a gray dome above. The valley vanishes away from them into predawn darkness. The wagon circles of the two other Crews are just visible up ahead, one to either side of the road. They, too, will send in a pair of wagons each, coasting in on Blind Rachel’s negotiations.

  Sedou is more like the dragon than ever this morning. Or, if N’Doch allows himself to remember, more like Sedou before a big rally, particularly once he understood he was a marked man. He’s edgy, distracted. He reminds N’Doch twice what to do if Fire shows himself. N’Doch can see the dragon’s mind is elsewhere. His own stomach’s as uneasy as an ant nest. He wishes he could help but hasn’t a clue what would be helpful, or even how to ask.

  Köthen walks out to join them when the light turns rosy. “Stoksie is ready to give the signal.”

  As if by agreement, the three men stand together in silence for a moment, watching the day build. Then they shake hands solemnly and head back toward camp.

  Sedou leads the way with Stoksie and Brenda. Köthen, Charlie, and N’Doch follow up the two wagons, Luther’s retrofitted delivery van—which must be at least a century old, N’Doch figures, repainted a billion times—and a canvas-topped flatbed driven by a woman named Beneatha, with Ysabel in the seat beside her. The girl rides up beside Luther, where the windshield used to be. N’Doch counts heads. Ten going out. Better be ten of us coming back.

  Stoksie hails the other Crews as the wagons draw level with their camps. Their wagons are ready to roll, so they wave and pull onto the road behind Blind Rachel. N’Doch looks them over. They look a little less well-heeled than his Crew, but otherwise, there’s the same lot of recycled truck bodies and RVs, stripped down, lightened, and fitted out for mule power, the same determined faces, the same bristle of weaponry, set back but still in sight.

  Charlie points left, then right. “Das Scroon der, ’n das Oolyoot. Oolyoot from furder sout’. Mebbe we eat wi’ Scroon latah, do sum trade pryvit-like.”

  “You ever all get together, all the Crews? Have a big blowout?”

  Charlie guffaws, hiding her piebald cheeks behind her palms. “Betcha. E’ry five yeer. Jeesh! Need
a yeer to recovah!”

  “I’d like to see that, all right. Bet you’d hear some good tunes then!”

  “Da bes’!”

  They pass some traffic heading out of town, mostly older people and a few kids toting packs or light hand carts. Maybe they’re headed out to work the fields while the day is cooler, but N’Doch doesn’t see much in the way of tools. They look like they’re just . . . leaving town. Then the gates are ahead of them, and he goes on the alert. But the six Tinker wagons file through and into town without incident, and head for the square.

  The townspeople seem eager to welcome them. All along the main drag, rows of goods are arrayed on tables, on boards balanced between two chairs, laid out on ragged blankets or just plunked down in the thick dust of the street. In the market square, guys in purple robes are sweeping the paving stones. The two-level platform has been decked out along its sides with drapes of thin red cloth. A pair of priestess women are fussing with the folds, chattering excitedly. The bleachers are up and tucked away at the far end. In the exact center of the square sits a big flat dish painted a dull gold. Another purple-robed man is pouring liquid into it from a tall red urn.

  Luther calls down from the seat of his yellow van. “Yu see dat t’ing? Das weah dey put da sackerfice, y’know? All tied up nise like a prezint.”

  But N’Doch reserves judgment. He feels too much like he’s walking into some kind of fantasy vid.

  Along the far side, the local merchants have set up their booths and stands. The Tinkers are directed to park their wagons on the opposite long side. Blind Rachel pulls up in the middle, between Scroon and Oolyoot. The buzz of anticipation blooms into action as everyone leaps down to unload.

  With Brenda busy setting up security around the Tinker stalls, Charlie is being extra friendly. She works beside N’Doch, chatting away as if to make up for all the times she hasn’t. “Dis howit go, nah. Dey look aroun’, we look aroun’, but nobuddy duz a deal til afta da sun cross noon.”

  “Got it.” N’Doch’s done an inventory of what he’s got to trade, and it isn’t much. The other water bottle. The clothes on his back. He shrugs. The unpacking is finished. “Think I’ll go take a look, then.” He collects Köthen and the girl. “Whaddya say we follow Stoksie around, get the hang of things?”

  With his permission, they shadow the little man through the crowd, up and down the sides of the square, then up and down the main street, checking out what he passes by with just a glance, what he notes with a nod, what he studies more carefully. A lot of the booths on the town side of the square stock food items, and Stoksie is looking not only to fill Blind Rachel’s larder but also to pick up goods for trade in other villages. There are craftspeople in amongst the food stalls, offering some serviceable pottery, a line of tools and utensils that remind N’Doch of his metal shop class back in school, and of course the coveted leather goods the Tinkers have risked coming for, especially the shoes.

  “This is the stuff, huh?”

  Stoksie fingers a soft brown satchel with many buttoned pockets. “Lookit dis werk, nah. Da bes’! Anabuddy give good trade fer dis.”

  “Nice, all right.” N’Doch admires a handsome leather vest. He’d be real interested, if he had anything to give for it.

  He sees a lot of junk laid out, too. Used stuff, broken stuff, useless stuff, and stuff that might just find another life in the right hands. He can tell how random the acquisition process is. Except for the Tinkers, there’s no regular system for product distribution left intact. There’s not even much product. But wandering up and down the line of booths, every so often he comes across a sign that things are still being manufactured somewhere in the world. Not very well, or in very great quantity, but enough so that bits and pieces of it somehow find a way to the podunk town of Phoenix. He sees cheap boxer shorts stamped “Made in Tibet.” He fingers a series of small pink dolls shrink-wrapped in plastic so brittle it must be as old as he is, and he just knows some fool is going to trade something they shouldn’t for them. He sees a flashlight he could well use if there were still batteries to go with it. And he sees a lot of weaponry, whole stalls full of cudgels, knives, crossbows, and old or broken bits of guns. Nothing too impressive, but there’s obviously a market for it. Probably folks have cobbled their firearms together out of stuff just like this. He figures the dealer’s got the ammo hidden behind the counter. He spots a broad-bladed hunting knife that reminds him of his beloved fish gutter. He picks it up for a closer look, but Stoksie, with eyes in the back of his head, reaches behind him and takes it out of his hands. With a glance at N’Doch, he puts it back on the counter.

  N’Doch clucks his tongue. “No touchee the merchandise, eh?”

  Stoksie wags his head side to side. “Yu wanna gud blade, I show yu weah.”

  “Ah, I get it. Okay, sure. Whenever you’re ready.”

  By midmorning, Stoksie seems to have decided what he wants and what he’ll give for it. The crowd is thick, and high enough on a combination of religious fervor and greed to make shoving through it a sweaty and unpleasant effort. Köthen’s looking irritable, and the girl could clearly use a break. Stoksie leads them back into the shade of Luther’s van to dole out water from the big old cooler stashed in a back compartment. The Tinker booths are mobbed with grazing customers, but behind the wagons is an island of sanity.

  “Got an hour, leas’, ’fore da swap-work start.” Stoksie pulls a square of cloth out of his pocket and ties it around his dripping brow pirate-style. “Yu wan’ I show yu weah da hi rollahs shop?”

  N’Doch is none too eager to be back in that souped-up crowd again. He sees why the Tinkers don’t like this town. Even without a monster, it doesn’t feel quite sane. “There’s high rollers around here? Coulda fooled me.”

  “Yu green heah, tallfella, aincha. Der’s still sum aroun’ got moah den dey need, y’know whad I mean?”

  The place Stoksie takes them is not another booth on the market square. It’s a nondescript house down a quieter side street, with a beefy woman at the door sporting a real functional looking 9-mm automatic. None of the booth security in the square were showing off their heat so boldly. But Stoksie seems to know this one by name, so in they all go.

  The inside is shadowed and close, with shades pulled down over the few small windows. N’Doch bites back a whistle of surprise and admiration, for the stuff laid out on these tables is definitely not junk. It’s neatly organized by carrying size and firepower, and though none of it looks real new, you could still outfit a small European army here without much trouble. Too bad there’s no more small European countries, he tells himself. ’Cept maybe the ones on higher ground.

  He tries to look nonchalant, sticking close to Stoksie’s side. The girl and Köthen don’t seem to get it. They just nose into the room curiously and start picking things up in their hands. Worried, N’Doch drifts after them, counting a table of pistols, including a few old revolvers, a table of shotguns, and a long rack of assault rifles. There are bins of ammo clips and boxed cartridges, shelves stocked with grenades and mortar shells. The wanna-be buyers speak in hushed voices in this temple of doom and destruction, and consult lists hidden in their palms. They’re being offered tiny cups of what might actually be tea, though the leaves have been recycled a few more times than they ought to. A pale-skinned boy slips one into N’Doch’s hand, then moves on to the girl, trailing an aroma of mint. The girl raises the little cup for a cautious sniff, then glances over at N’Doch with a luminous smile. Papa Dja taught her about tea drinking back in 2013. Or, last month, depending how you look at it.

  The run-on scatter of his thoughts tells N’Doch the place is weirding him out. He can’t imagine why. He’s seen the like of it before, back home, especially during government crackdowns. Stoksie points him toward a display of blades, from jackknives to machetes, so he decides to get down to business, maybe actually find himself a knife. The dagger the women gave him is handy, and real aesthetic, but he’d prefer something a little less refined. S
toksie’s at the main counter giving serious consideration to a casing reloader, meanwhile trying to explain to the girl just how a bullet works. N’Doch heads for the knives, then sees Köthen picking at a small table in a corner that’s piled not so neatly. He slouches over to soak up a bit of the baron’s perspective on twenty-first century armaments, or is it twenty-second or -third? He’s still not sure, and who could tell from what’s laid out in this joint?

  “Whacher doin’ at the junk pile, Dolph?”

  A closer look tells him what’s drawn Köthen’s interest. It’s all repro stuff, replicas of antique guns and hand weapons, like battle-axes and Roman broadswords. Mostly it’s cheap plastic, but there’s some serious historical work in real wood and metal.

  “May look familiar, dude, but it’s all fake.” N’Doch holds up a funnel-mouthed pistol that looks more lethal to the shooter than to the victim. “They don’t really work.”

  “Why make a weapon that does not work?”

  “You’re way too logical, my man. People used to collect ’em, for fun.”

  “I see.” Köthen lifts a short, cylindrical object, turns it over in his hand in puzzlement.

  “Now that is a serious weapon. That’s a light saber.”

  “A what?”

  N’Doch laughs. “Just a kid’s toy. Like I said, none of this shit really works.”

  Köthen sets the cylinder down, then reaches to flip aside a flap of cloth covering the bottom of the pile. It doesn’t come easy and there’s a rasp of metal as he yanks on it. The ring of true steel is unmistakable.

  “Listen to that.”

  N’Doch helps clear away the plastic dueling pistols and chrome-plated Colt .45s. The fabric underneath is soft and heavy, and looks like someone’s used it to wipe the floor of a garage. Köthen feels through its folds for the shape of the object inside. His hand grasps, then stills. N’Doch hears his sharp intake of breath. Then Köthen is hauling on the fabric with both hands and all his strength.

  “Whoa! Easy! What’s up?” N’Doch scrambles to catch the stuff that’s flung off as Köthen drags the whole bundle free of the pile. He has an odd presentiment as the baron stands there with the object cradled in both his hands, staring down at it in disbelief. It’s long and narrow, very long, and it looks heavy.