The Book of Fire Read online

  Paia glares at him. He knows the title irritates her. “Like what?”

  He makes a peace offering, water from the jug beside his chair. “It’s cool. Just up from the cellars.” Paia continues to glare. Luco shrugs, patting oil on the taut skin under his chin. “Revenues are down, you know. He says he can feel—and I quote—‘a definite sag in the intensity of the worship.’ He thought we should . . .”

  “. . . murder the High Priestess just to liven things up a little!”

  Luco lifts himself up indignantly. “He’d never let that happen! You were safe at every moment! I was right there and I was, as you may recall, quite adequately armed!”

  “Ha!” Paia moves into the shade of the surrounding portico to pace and sulk at the same time. “You could have warned me at least!”

  “He wouldn’t let me! He knows you—he said you’d never agree to it.” Luco swings his muscular legs over the chaise and sits with his elbows on his knees, regarding her as if she’s a lighted fuse he can do nothing to dampen. “You have a hard enough time with the use of animals for sacrifice.”

  “You don’t mean . . . not the poor sucker who . . .”

  He nods. “One of the kamikaze squad.”

  Paia clamps her eyes shut, mid-pace.

  “You see? He was right.” Luco shrugs, shakes his head. “They will do these things for him, you know. Sometimes their truer devotion shames me. Often, in fact. Of course I stood up for you and said you’d do anything the God deemed necessary.”

  “Of course you did.”

  “Well, I did.”

  “Maybe he should just stay around more, instead of going off on all these jaunts of his.” It always rouses Luco when she speaks of the God as if he were some sort of temperamental employer.

  “He is busy converting the Infidel. It’s important work.”

  “And vital to the Temple revenues, I know.” Paia continues pacing. “But do you know that’s what he’s doing?”

  “Of course, if that’s what he says he is.”

  Paia stops. She props herself against one of the slim marble columns. “Do you want my job, Luco?”

  The priest’s forehead tightens. He leans forward as if in pain. “NEVER! I mean, no, I . . .”

  “’Cause if you do, you can have it.” She knows he doesn’t—he’s too scared of the God, no matter how willing he is to plot with him. But she’s not ready to let him off the hook quite yet. “Maybe there doesn’t have to be a High Priestess. Maybe a High Priest. Or maybe they still do sex-change operations somewhere in what’s left of the world.”

  She’s so delighted by how badly she’s shocked him that her anger drains away like she’s pulled the plug.

  “They used to, you know,” she continues gleefully. “I read up on it in the Library.”

  His bright blue eyes grow round at this sacrilege, and instantly she regrets admitting that she’s used her most sacred and solemn privilege—access to the House Comp database, occasional and only when the God allows—for no higher purpose than her own amusement. Merely hoping that he is will not make Luco someone she can talk to this freely.

  But he doesn’t scold or lecture. He gasps and says, “Really? Did it work?”

  Paia can’t help laughing. It isn’t the sacrilege that’s bothered him after all. “I guess.” She smiles, then goes back out into the sun to lean over and kiss his cheek lightly and smooth back his long hair. “Poor Luco. Just when you thought you had everything you could possibly want . . .”

  She’s glad she’s run off most of her rage before confronting the God. He’ll have sensed her turmoil anyway, the way he always does, but by the time she faces him, it’ll have lost its grip on her. And she knows it’s unwise to be too emotional in his presence. The God will take advantage of any vulnerability.

  She’s in her rooms, dressing carefully for her scheduled evening audience with him, exposing the correct amount of skin, redoing her makeup with all the art she can muster, when he surprises her by coming whistling down her corridor in man-form. She feels him approaching, like dogs sense lightning—in the days when there were dogs—and she hears the guard detachment outside her door snap to attention with horrified alacrity. Paia sucks in a breath. At least he has the grace not to simply materialize in her bedroom. She wonders why. Probably he enjoys terrifying the guards.

  One curt warning, her name barked like an order, and he’s through the door, all aglimmer in the cloth-of-gold business suit he favors for his most casual moments. It’s the same cut Paia’s father used to wear, before there was no more business to transact. But her father preferred sedate browns and blues. The God wouldn’t be caught dead in brown or blue. She’s heard him say as much. He halts grandly in the doorway, claps his hands sharply, then steps into the room to let two acolytes whirl in past him carrying a low gilt table and a silver tray glittering with antique glass and a bottle of Paia’s father’s best champagne. They set it all down together with a hunted glance at their priestess, then at their God. The God waves them out of the room. They cower and hesitate, then scurry away when he glares at them, one of them turning back hastily to shut the door.

  Paia bows low. “My lord Fire. What a pleasant surprise.”

  The God snorts, jerks his head at the champagne. “You’ll have to pour it yourself, of course.”

  Paia raises her eyes. No wonder the servants cower. Everything about the God’s chosen man-shape is calculatedly reminiscent of his true and terrifying reality. He is tall, broad and beautiful, and supremely arrogant of bearing. His finely chiseled lip seems always poised for a snarl. His skin has a human grain and tawniness, but its surface is luminous with a faint metallic sheen. His hair is longer than her own, and the rich flame-gold that Son Luco labors so hard to emulate. Sometimes the God wears it loose, in shimmering waves across his shoulders. Tonight he has it in a neat queue down the middle of his back. Assuming his most civilized aspect, Paia notes uneasily. Unlike most of her faithful, she prefers dealing with the more obvious terrors of God’s natural shape. In man-form, he is always at his most devious.

  “The Temple has missed you, my lord. Was your journey a successful one?”

  Perhaps, if she can keep him in his present good mood, he will tell her something of what he does in his travels. She has asked before. Usually he tells of his tours among the farther-flung villages of the Faithful. Once he came home particularly sullen and flicked a finger in response. “Old business,” was all he would say. Once, he even made a joke: “Visiting a relative.” And Paia had laughed. How could a God have relatives?

  She moves obediently to the table and picks up the bottle. The heavy old glass is deliciously cold. He’s even made them chill it, probably in the Sacred Well itself. She’d like to hear what Son Luco thought about that. She pours a little into her great-grandmother’s crystal and raises it to the God in salute. He returns a mocking, courtly nod, and she drinks, savoring the trail of icy, sweet liquid down her throat, but not the shiver she feels trying to guess what the God has up his gilded sleeve this time. She sips her priceless champagne and eyes him, waiting.

  “The Temple has missed me? What about you? Have you missed me?”

  He stares her down, golden-eyed, until she must avert her glance. Then he saunters over to her bed. With a nod, he shapes her pillows more to his liking and reclines among them as gracefully as a lizard. He puts his feet up and clasps his manicured hands behind his head. His illusion of substance is flawless, and his eyes offer their usual frank invitation. Again, Paia asks herself why he bothers. Perhaps to keep her off balance, which it surely does. Perhaps because he can’t help himself. Perhaps even a little wishful thinking. She’s often wondered how different their fractious relationship would be if the God in his man-form possessed the actual material reality to carry out what his eyes always promise. It would certainly solve the Suitor problem, but would she have more power over him, or less?

  Watching her watch him, the God grins his snarkiest grin. “Well, I know. But it was a
pretty good show, you’ve got to admit.”

  Paia sips, trying for even a fraction of his self-possession. “Do I?”

  The God throws his head back in the pillows and laughs.

  “A man gave his life for your ‘show’ . . .”

  “Oh, yes. And was convinced that such an end was worth more than all the sorry rest of it put together.”

  “You bullied him! You threatened him!” Only when he is in man-form can she say these things to him. “He did it out of fear, not faith!”

  He cocks an elegant eyebrow. “Is there a difference?”

  Paia looks away. She used to think there was. Lately, she’s not so sure.

  “These people have so little to look forward to in this life. The life after is their only hope, as we race hell-bent toward Armageddon. A hope only I can offer them.” He rises up on one elbow. “Are you having another crisis of faith, my priestess? Over the life of one peon?”

  A crisis of faith? Paia stills. Could he have read her mind, as he often claims? Desperately, she blocks all thought of the heretical painting, distracting herself with how much she hates it when he mocks her for what he calls her ‘womanly compassion.’ “I see we are not to agree tonight, my lord.”

  “I hope that will not be the case . . . my love.”

  Paia’s throat tightens as the banter ends. “You wish something of me, then? What is it?”

  A smile. “You.”

  With effort, she controls a tremble. “How about something you can actually have?”

  His smile clicks off, like a light. He does not appreciate being reminded. “All right. A child.”

  Not wanting to shatter her ancestral crystal, Paia sets her glass carefully on the table. “You . . . a what?”

  “A child. You heard me.” He rises, quick as a snake strike, and crosses the room. He looms over her, traces the line of her jaw and lip with a long nailed finger. Paia feels nothing but heat, a faint current of air and electricity. Still, it requires every ounce of will she possesses to remain calm.

  “Your child, my love,” he murmurs. “As soon as you can possibly manage it.”

  “. . . uh . . . how can we . . .?”

  “Oh, not mine. Unfortunately.” He turns away, flicks a gilded fingernail. “One of those Suitors, pick one, I don’t care. It’s time.” He levels his bedroom eyes on her again. “I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how, do I?”

  “What do you mean, pick one? Any one?”

  “A healthy one, naturally.”

  “Up till now, you’ve been rejecting them as often as I have. Now suddenly any one will do?”

  “I could choose for you, if you prefer.”

  “I don’t think I’m . . .”

  “You are. Ready, that is. Or I am, which is the same thing.”

  “Wait. This is . . . I won’t do this.”

  The God laughs lightly. “Of course you will.”

  “I won’t.”

  “But I am your God, my priestess. It is your duty to serve me.”

  “Not this way.”

  “In all ways.”

  “NO!”

  He shrugs. “Must we descend to melodrama? There are ways, you know . . .”

  “You wouldn’t dare!”

  He gives her a thin, chill smile. “Choose someone you’ll tire of quickly.”

  Meaning that once he’s served his purpose, this Suitor won’t be around for long. “Are you doing this just to punish me? What could you want with a child?”

  His golden eyes blink slowly, in a time frame not her own. “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “Try me.”

  “It’s time, that’s all.”

  “Time for what? What’s different? What’s changed?”

  Without seeming to have moved, he is at the door. “You have,” he says, and vanishes.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  N’Doch can feel the girl’s eyes on him, once the song is ended and the dragon-as-Sedou is busy chatting up the women. She understands a little about him now, must be, since she’s waited until he’s done singing before bobbing up at his side to hang on him like she’s his kid sister or something. Which, he guesses, after all they’ve been through together, she sort of is. He’s surprised she seems so glad to see him, and besides, he’s grateful for a familiar face, so he can’t resist slinging an arm across her thin shoulders and giving her a hug. To his surprise, she lets him, though he knows her well enough to do it quick and back right off again.

  “N’Doch!” she beams. “We were so worried about you!”

  Her understatement makes him laugh. “Me, too. Not every day a guy gets blown to bits and wakes up to tell about it!”

  Her little nose puckers. “Not to bits, really. But it was bad. Blood everywhere! Those gun-things are a dreadful weapon, N’Doch.”

  She’s speaking French, he notices. Not Rose’s antique Frankish, but real French. His French. No more need for dragon intermediaries, then. No more excuses for silence or miscommunication between them now. There’s so much he wants to ask about what happened after, that is, after he stopped remembering. About Lealé, and Baraga—in all the confusion, did the slimy bastard get away? And how was it seeing him dead and all? But the moment’s not right, or maybe he’s not ready. Instead he says, “Been keeping up with the language lessons, huh?”

  She nods, hunching her thick woolly layers farther up around her neck like some kind of Eskimo. She has tall fur-and-leather boots on now, and the whole outfit looks as weird to him as it did back home, except he reminds himself that this is what people wear here in 913, and probably if he doesn’t get something like it pretty quick, he’s gonna freeze to death. He shivers, remembering that he’s standing barefoot in half a meter of snow, and this long shirty thing they’ve given him just isn’t cutting it.

  “Lady Water is just the best teacher of all!” the girl exclaims, with the same precise and literal manner in French that she had speaking German all the while the dragon was translating in his head.

  “Nah. You’re just a good learner.” He kicks at the snow experimentally and grins when it flies weightlessly up into the air. “I guess you’re glad to be home.”

  “Yes, yes, I am, but . . . it won’t be for long, you know.”

  “No. Probably not.” The dragons would see to that. N’Doch wonders again how this young girl, with her whole life before her, could so willingly give it up to serve this infernal “Purpose” that the dragons are so obsessed with. He’s about to ask her that, when she answers one of the other questions he’s been trying to make himself ask. “They went back for Master Djawara as soon as they could, you know. He wouldn’t come with them.”

  N’Doch feels at least one of the tensions deep inside him relax a little. “But he’s okay?”

  “Yes, he’s fine.”

  “Why wouldn’t he come?” But N’Doch is not really surprised. He can’t imagine the old man willingly forsaking his beloved hidey-hole out in the bush, or his pack of mangy dogs.

  “Said he had too much important business to tend to,” says his brother’s voice, coming up beside him.

  N’Doch starts, then blows out a breath and shakes his head. “Never. Never gonna get used to this.”

  The dragon-as-Sedou laughs, a rich and youthful baritone. “Gotta say, though—it’s more convenient than four legs and a tail.”

  “Freaks me out,” N’Doch admits, for the first time in the girl’s hearing. “You’re dead, and I oughta be.”

  “Look at me, bro.”

  Reluctantly, N’Doch meets his brother’s eyes. It’s like staring straight into the sun. Meanwhile, the dragon is speaking inside his head.

  I am your memory of Sedou. Nothing more, but . . . nothing less.

  N’Doch looks away, swallows. “Right.”

  “Okay. So Papa Dja says he’ll be watching out. He sees signs of more activity back by us, he’ll let us know somehow. Says to tell you to keep your head down.”

  “Too late.”

  “Never too
late. Let’s get on in, huh? I’m freezing my ass off!”

  The girl giggles. Sedou grins at her, reaches out, and tousles her black curls. “Hey there, kiddo.”

  N’Doch sees he’s got some catching up to do. “By the way, remind me to tell you ’bout this vision I had.”

  When he sits down at the long wooden tables laid out for dinner in the big room with the fireplace, N’Doch realizes that he’s still the only guy in the place—not counting Sedou, who’s really a she-dragon anyway. He looks around, counts fifteen women of various ages, including the girl. Maybe the men are all out fighting this war she’s told him about. He’s got a well-used platter in front of him, like a big fired-clay plate, and a tall tapering mug of the same material grasped in one hand, already filled with some foamy dark brew. He’s floating on that cushion of unreality again, with the girl seated on one side and Sedou across from him, both ready to translate. The seat on his left is empty until the most beautiful white woman he’s ever laid eyes on plunks a big steaming dish down in the center of the table and settles in next to him. She smiles and says something he doesn’t get, then holds out her hand.

  “This is Raven,” supplies the girl from his right.

  “Oh. Hello, Raven.” N’Doch can feel Sedou’s eyes laughing already. He takes the proffered, lovely hand and raises it, just like he’s seen in vids, gallantly to his lips.

  Later, when Raven gets up to refill the jug of ale she’s just emptied into his tankard, N’Doch no longer cares what century he’s in. These women’s homemade hooch tastes pretty damn good to him and the company couldn’t be improved upon. Now that he’s got the chance, he leans over to the girl and whispers, “So where’s all the men at? They out fighting or something?”

  She blinks at him, then wags her head in understanding. “I forgot—you wouldn’t know. There are no men at Deep Moor.”

  “None?” He glances around, sees two or three young girls who’ve got to have had a father at some point.

  The girl follows his gaze. “Oh, well, just the occasional visitor.”