Spark the Fire

by Melissa McShane

  “What is it for?” she asked.

  Manishi gently set the crystal inside the sack as if she feared it might shatter. “It wouldn’t mean anything to you.”

  “But I know you use different stones for different magical effects,” Lamprophyre said. “Surely that’s not so complicated that I won’t understand.” She wished more than ever that she could hear Manishi’s thoughts, because she was sure Manishi would lie to her if the princess benefited by it.

  Manishi set the sack down. “Most of them enhance human qualities. Turquoise can make someone more eloquent, for example. A little emerald worn as a ring or pendant makes someone luckier in gaining wealth, or shaped a different way can open them up to finding love.”

  “That’s amazing.” Lamprophyre hoped she sounded appropriately amazed. She didn’t want Manishi thinking this mattered to her beyond the abstract. “But I’ve heard humans like certain stones for their decorative value. Like emeralds, or sapphires. Are they more valuable as gems, or as magical objects?”

  “The stones humans prefer as jewelry are all ones that passively absorb magical energy,” Manishi said, “so they convey benefits without being altered by an adept. Though an adept can make a stone far more powerful than it is naturally. An emerald this size will produce five smaller cut stones, each of which has more power than the original uncut stone.”

  “So you wouldn’t use it in its natural state,” Lamprophyre said, remembering the size of the uncut sapphire in the wand.

  “I might, depending on what I wanted it for.” Manishi seemed to be relaxing. Lamprophyre wondered if she liked talking about magic so long as it was to two people who weren’t rivals. “The benefit of a larger stone is its magic has a longer range. An emerald’s magic is personal, so there’s no point in not cutting it down.”

  “So are there popular stones you would leave uncut?” Rokshan was being very quiet, and Lamprophyre thought about listening to his thoughts to see why, but she felt on edge, trying to guide Manishi to give her information, and didn’t want to be distracted.

  “I don’t care for most precious stones.” Manishi rubbed her finger over the rough surface of the sodalite in her ring. “It’s the unusual ones that have more interesting effects. But amethyst produces a calming effect—that one, you’d want in a large crystal to magnify its power. It’s really the only one I can think of. Sapphire, or ruby, those are both more localized effects.”

  Lamprophyre clasped her hands loosely to still their trembling. “What do those do?”

  “Ruby gives you physical energy, vitality, maybe. Sapphire enhances your mental focus. Scholars like it for that reason.”

  Mental focus. That wasn’t the effect it had had on Lamprophyre and Nephrite. “And each stone does only one thing?”

  Manishi’s eyes narrowed. “You planning to become an adept?”

  “No,” Lamprophyre said, trying for a casual tone, “but I’m a creature of magic, and your magic is so different from mine, I’m curious. What will you use the quartz for?”

  Manishi lifted the sack. “Quartz enhances other stones’ magic. Let me know when you intend to make another trip. I’ll have some requests.” She turned and walked away, the sack bobbing over her shoulder.

  Lamprophyre let out a deep sigh. “She’s very strange.”

  “And oddly resistant to answering certain questions,” Rokshan said. “You wanted to know about the sapphire wand, didn’t you?”

  She didn’t have to tell him the whole truth, that it was why Hyaloclast had sent her. “Of course. But I don’t know much more than I did before. Why do you think she stopped talking when I asked if stones did more than one thing?”

  “She might just have felt pressured. I told you Manishi is secretive about her magic. We’re not adepts, but she might not care about that when it comes to keeping her secrets.” Rokshan picked up the kyanite crystal. “You didn’t ask what she meant to do with this.”

  “Stones! I forgot.” Lamprophyre looked at the kyanite. “Now I’m worried. She was really excited about it.”

  “And I promised I wouldn’t ask around. I wish I hadn’t.”

  “You said Manishi isn’t evil. So we shouldn’t worry too much about what she has in mind.” So sapphire had mind-focusing powers, and Manishi wouldn’t say whether that was the only property it had. It wasn’t all that much of a leap from mind-focusing to mind-confusing. “Though I think maybe I shouldn’t bring her any more until we’re certain she isn’t plotting something,” Lamprophyre continued. “I think—” No, she shouldn’t tell Rokshan she suspected his sister of being involved in the plot against the dragons, particularly since she had nothing but a suspicion. “I think she will want to squeeze every drop of value out of this arrangement.”

  “I agree,” Rokshan said. “Maybe she’s not evil, but she’s certainly opportunistic. And I think I can find out why she wanted the kyanite so badly. Without asking at the market.”

  “Really? How?”

  “Manishi’s not the only adept in Gonjiri,” Rokshan said.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Lamprophyre poked at the square gold coins in Rokshan’s hand, keeping her claw sheathed. “How odd,” she said. “Why is there a dragon on your coin?” Something else was strange about the shape, but she couldn’t figure out what.

  “I think it’s because we associate dragons with gold,” Rokshan said. “That’s supposed to be Katayan. The picture on the other side is my father, though you can sometimes find older money with his father’s face on it.”

  Lamprophyre flipped over a couple of coins. “It doesn’t look much like him.”

  “Well, there’s only so much a die press can do. It’s amazing the dragon looks anything like real dragons.” Rokshan closed his hand over the coins and put them into a pouch at his side—a second pouch, hanging next to the first.

  Lamprophyre settled back on her haunches and rested her hands on her knees. For every question she had answered, five more took its place. Die press? “And that’s enough money to pay for what I need? Servants, and food?”

  “More than enough. Though we won’t need to hire servants until you move into the new embassy, and the palace will feed you until then.” Rokshan absently patted the pouch. “I’ll be back soon.”

  “You’re leaving?” Even as the words left her mouth, Lamprophyre felt ashamed. Rokshan had to be so bored, waiting on her all day.

  “I’m going to send a message to the academy, asking for a moment of the adept-scholar Lector Sabarna’s time. It’s tempting to fly right in there, but that would be disruptive, and I want Sabarna to be cooperative. Though she’ll be curious enough about you she might not mind.”

  “This is someone who knows about magic?”

  “About magic, and the history of magic. She isn’t a practicing adept like Manishi, but she has experience creating artifacts and probably understands the theory better than most. Which makes her an ideal choice for asking these questions, because she won’t care why we want to know.”

  “Be careful,” Lamprophyre said, alarmed. “What if she’s involved?”

  “I doubt it, but you’re right, we shouldn’t take chances. I’ll just tell her you’re interested in a conversation.” Rokshan gripped Lamprophyre’s hand briefly. His was cool to the touch. Hesitantly, feeling like a terrible friend, Lamprophyre listened briefly to Rokshan’s thoughts. He was thinking about Sabarna: not sure what kind of mood she’s in, might be testy no matter what I tell her.

  Relieved, Lamprophyre watched him trot away toward one of the exits. She didn’t actually think Rokshan would deceive her, or that he had only pretended to help her retrieve the egg, but she knew what Hyaloclast would say: humans, however honorable among their own kind, had no responsibility to dragons, and vice versa.

  She settled herself into the strip of shadow and tried to sleep. The day was hotter than yesterday, the sun a white disk in the sky that heated her skin unbearably, the air thick with moisture, and she remembered the customs house with l
onging. Five days. She could survive five days, particularly if one of them included a cool swim in the river.

  She thought about Rokshan’s willingness to help her, someone not even of his species, and decided it was impossible that Hyaloclast could be right about him. He was so unlike her friends and clutchmates—well, obviously, none of them were human—but it was more than the difference between human and dragon. Except for Coquina, she liked all her clutchmates, but she was always aware that they were looking at her as a potential mate, and she just didn’t feel an attraction to anyone. Not even Flint, who despite his boring name was extremely handsome.

  Rokshan, on the other hand, couldn’t be her mate, and maybe that was the difference. Maybe being free of the pressure to choose among her friends made it easier for her to relax around Rokshan. Or maybe it was something entirely different. Rokshan never seemed bored even when he had a right to be; he never grew tired of answering her questions; he was as curious about her as she was about him. She’d never had a friend she felt so happy to see, and that, more than anything, convinced her he was innocent of conspiring against dragons. She was young, but she wasn’t stupid, and she wasn’t easily deceived.

  So that meant she could trust him—but did trusting him include telling him her true mission in Gonjiri? Hyaloclast would be furious if she did, but Hyaloclast didn’t know Rokshan and, more to the point, Hyaloclast wasn’t in Tanajital to find out. And Lamprophyre was increasingly certain she needed a human ally if she was going to find the egg thieves.

  She rolled onto her side and let out a puff of smoke. It was too hot for her to sleep. She got to her feet and flapped her wings to create a cooling breeze. She didn’t dare go far if Rokshan might return at any moment, but he’d said the city knew about her, and didn’t that mean she could at least go flying for a few hundred beats?

  With a few strong strokes of her wings, she was aloft, surging into the sky with the wind caressing her scales. She spiraled up until she was higher than the tallest tower, then hovered briefly, enjoying the sight of the city spread out beneath her. It really was beautiful in an alien way.

  She glided downward, watching to see if she’d been noticed. Very few humans looked up, and those few either stopped and stared or pointed and shouted things she was too distant to make out, either with her ears or her mind. She flew over the customs house, which bustled with activity she didn’t understand. Hopefully, it was activity that would turn the place into a suitable home for her.

  High, thin clouds began to cover the sky as she glided back to the coliseum, cooling the air and blunting the sun’s rays. Lamprophyre settled into her strip of shade and managed to nap, waking when Rokshan said her name. Blinking, she sat up and said, “I never used to sleep this much. It’s this lowland heat and humidity. It’s like sleeping in soup.”

  “I suppose—you know what soup is?” Rokshan settled cross-legged beside her.

  “Of course. We sometimes make soup out of older animals that aren’t very tender. Usually that happens during the winter. Why, is soup a thing you have?”

  Rokshan nodded. “I never thought of dragons cooking the way humans do. You don’t seem to use tools.”

  “We don’t, in general. Teeth and claws are enough for most of what we need. We don’t use fabric and we don’t build with wood, but we can refine metal. Of course, we do that because it tastes better pure. That’s not why you do it.”

  “No.” Rokshan leaned back to prop himself on his hands and tilted his head back to look at the sky. “So many differences, and yet we both eat soup.”

  “That is a strange thing to have in common.” Lamprophyre got into a more comfortable position and said, “Did you deliver the message?”

  “Yes, and asked for a reply to come here. I’m sorry it took so long, but Sajan caught me as I was leaving the palace and had a few tasks for me.”

  That irritated Lamprophyre. “I thought you were my liaison.”

  “Yes, but I have a position of responsibility in the military, and some of my tasks didn’t go away when my father assigned me to you. And Sajan isn’t happy to lose me. He only has so many competent commanders.”

  “I don’t understand. Does that mean there are commanders who aren’t competent? Why would General Sajan choose incompetent leaders?”

  Rokshan chuckled. “An excellent question with a difficult answer. The military isn’t free from political maneuvering. Some noble families send their superfluous sons into the military, and they pay money for them to have military rank regardless of experience or qualifications. Half of what Sajan does is organizing his officers to keep the useless ones out of positions of real responsibility.”

  “But you were a…a superfluous son, weren’t you? And you said you were good at command.”

  “Sometimes we get lucky. Most of the nobles who join the Army in that way are at least teachable. Some of them turn out to have real skills. And there are a few who couldn’t lead a hungry man to a five-course meal. Those, Sajan finds makework for. Without implying that it’s makework.” Rokshan sat up and looked past Lamprophyre’s shoulder. “There’s the messenger. That was fast. Or maybe my duties to Sajan took longer than I thought.”

  Lamprophyre cast an eye on the sun, closing her nictitating membranes to protect herself from its light. She’d napped longer than she thought; it was late afternoon already, and the sun’s rays had lost some of their ferocity. Another couple thousand beats, and the sun would rest on the walls of the coliseum, and then it would be time for a meal. She remembered what Akarshan had said about an experiment, and curiosity stirred.

  Rokshan stood and approached the human male who ran toward him. The messenger’s eyes were on Lamprophyre, and he stumbled once or twice before coming to a halt in front of Rokshan. “Madama Sabarna asks that you meet her in the Atrium,” he panted. “You and the…the dragon.”

  “That’s going to be a tight fit,” Rokshan said, mostly to himself. “Right now?”

  “She said, at your earliest convenience,” the male said. He was much shorter than Rokshan, and Lamprophyre wondered if that meant he was younger.

  Rokshan dipped into his pouch—not the one he’d put Lamprophyre’s money into—and withdrew a couple of bright copper coins. “Thank you. And—here.” A silver coin joined the two copper ones. “Return and let Madama Sabarna know we’re on our way.”

  The male nodded sharply and darted away. Rokshan returned to Lamprophyre’s side, but instead of climbing up, regarded her with his hands on his hips. “The Atrium,” he said. “You might fit, but getting there will be a problem.”

  “Let’s go, and figure it out when we’re there,” Lamprophyre said.

  The academy was in a part of Tanajital Lamprophyre hadn’t really looked at before, on the southeastern side of the city, well away from the river and the coliseum. What drew her attention was the white roofs, steeply slanting and glittering with an unfamiliar substance that gave off a strong, unfamiliar smell, pungent like chlorite but sweeter. Having swept over many of the roofs of Tanajital and seen how dirty they were, Lamprophyre was amazed at the brilliant cleanliness of the academy roofs.

  She coasted past the buildings and wheeled around for another pass. “Where can I land?”

  “The Atrium is the one beside that thick patch of trees,” Rokshan said. “It looks crowded, but there’s actually plenty of space between the trees. Try to set down there.”

  Lamprophyre eyed the indicated spot. It didn’t look crowded, it looked impassable. She reversed course and descended feet first, keeping her wings high and tight and hoping Rokshan was right. The many fat-lobed leaves brushed her skin, tickling the sensitive spots beneath her arms and under her tail, and soon she was surrounded by foliage that smelled of wet growing things. She held her breath against a violent sneeze—she hadn’t accidentally set anything on fire with a sneeze since she was a dragonet, but no sense taking chances—and used her arms to fend off branches. Stray, frightened thoughts came to her mind, but she was too preoccu
pied with her descent to worry about what nearby humans thought of her arrival.

  Then her wings tangled in the leaves, and she fell a few handspans, flailing for something to hold onto and hoping Rokshan wouldn’t get brushed off. But it was a few handspans only, and then she was beneath the branches and spread her wings wide to catch herself and bear her gently to the ground. She crouched on all fours, breathing heavily from her momentary fear. Rokshan hopped down and put a hand on her arm. “That was tighter than I imagined,” he said. “Are you well?”

  “I’m fine.” She straightened and furled her wings along her back. There was, in fact, a great deal of space beneath the branches; the foliage started half a dragonlength above Lamprophyre’s head when she was standing, and because the branches extended horizontally, the trees stood at some distance from each other. She saw no humans other than Rokshan, but could hear their nearby thoughts, some of them frightened, others curious. Turning around would be tight, even in this space, so she held still and listened.

  Rokshan was already headed for the far side of the clearing, if you could call it that. “This way,” he said, beckoning. “I really don’t think you will fit through the Atrium door.”

  Lamprophyre followed him, and the unseen humans’ thoughts intensified so much she had to block them out to hear Rokshan say, “I never thought I’d consider the Atrium too small.”

  She came out from beneath the trees and saw Rokshan standing next to an arched doorway similar to the one in the customs house, but narrower and with a half-moon of glass set above it. More glass, long, narrow sheets of it, were set into the walls on either side of the doorway. Lamprophyre took a few steps to the side to follow the wall and found more glass sheets, so perfectly clear she would have thought them merely holes in the walls if she hadn’t smelled the sharp, cold odor of the glass. The wall curved until it met a second wall, this one blank white with a green and yellow pattern impressed upon it somehow. Lamprophyre sniffed the colors and smelled, very faintly, a nose-tickling, sharp aroma that reminded her of limestone steeped in water.