Spark the Fire

by Melissa McShane

  She turned around and came back to Rokshan’s side. “This is the Atrium?”

  “Yes. An atrium is a building either open to the elements at the top, or enclosed by glass so you can see outside easily. This is the biggest one in Tanajital.” Rokshan eyed Lamprophyre’s wings. “It would fit you if you could get through the door—”

  “That’s all right,” Lamprophyre said, though she pictured herself sticking her head through the doorway and had to control a laugh at the image. “Is your friend willing to come to me?”

  “Maybe.” Rokshan hesitated. “Sabarna is…different. Wait here.” He passed through the doorway. Lamprophyre tentatively listened for human thoughts and found they’d retreated somewhat. More of them were curious now than frightened, which was heartening.

  She heard Rokshan talking to someone whose replies were high-pitched enough to be unintelligible. Rokshan said, “To the doorway, then. You don’t have to—” and the high-pitched twitter cut him off. “You’d rather that than speak to an actual dragon?” Rokshan said. More twittering. “All right, I’ll ask,” he said, and moments later he appeared in the doorway. His face was flushed in the way that meant either physical exertion or embarrassment.

  “Sabarna asks, would you mind entering as far as you’re able?” he said.

  Lamprophyre suppressed her laughter again. “I don’t mind,” she said. “But it will look ridiculous.”

  “That’s what I told her. You don’t have to—”

  “It’s all right.” Lamprophyre’s curiosity about this human who for some reason didn’t want to leave the Atrium overcame her desire not to look foolish, as if it mattered what the unseen humans thought of her.

  She waited for Rokshan to enter the Atrium, then crouched low and stuck her head and neck inside. Her shoulders would fit as well, but that would leave her arms pinned, and she already felt an unexpected discomfort, not of physical pain but of being trapped in this glass box. She braced herself with her hands and surveyed the Atrium.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The tall room felt taller because of the glass filling it and the glass roof Lamprophyre could barely see if she craned her neck. Narrow steps more regular than any she’d seen before circled the Atrium’s interior, all the way to the top. Lamprophyre knew what steps were, but the ones she was familiar with were shaped by wind and water, and dragons avoided them because flying was always more convenient. It was obvious these were perfectly sized for human use, and explained why humans could build buildings much taller than they were.

  Standing at the foot of the steps was a human female whose long hair, piled more neatly on her head than Manishi’s, was as white as the snows on Mother Stone’s slopes. Her skin was darker than Rokshan’s and very wrinkled. Her clothing was much plainer in design than Rokshan’s, being little more than a drape of fabric covering her body loosely, but it was a vivid purple as dark and rich as Lamprophyre remembered Aegirine being. Stones set in rings and strung in a circle around her wrist sent up mingled scents of jade and copper, quartz and chlorite. She regarded Lamprophyre closely, her eyes narrowed. Lamprophyre felt free to stare back. She’d thought all humans had black or dark brown hair, and she wondered if it was polite to ask about it.

  “Lector Sabarna, this is Lamprophyre,” Rokshan said. “Lamprophyre, this is the scholar-adept Sabarna. Thank you for being willing to accommodate her.”

  Lamprophyre’s back already twinged from the uncomfortable position. “Why didn’t you want to come outside?” she asked, not caring if it was rude.

  Sabarna didn’t move beyond placing a hand on the curving pole that followed the steps up to the top of the Atrium. “You’re larger than I expected,” she said in that high, twittering voice. “Are all dragons as large as you?”

  “Most females are larger. I haven’t reached my full adult size yet.” Lamprophyre listened for Sabarna’s thoughts, but heard only the same strange hum she’d heard from Manishi. Odd. “Are you afraid of the outdoors?”

  “And you’re very bright, too,” Sabarna said. “Our legends suggest dragons blend with their environment, but your coloring would stand out for miles.”

  Lamprophyre didn’t feel compelled to explain about her concealment ability. Why Sabarna wouldn’t say anything about her strange refusal to meet Lamprophyre outdoors was a mystery. She looked at Rokshan, who made that gesture with his shoulders she was beginning to understand meant either confusion or an inability to draw a conclusion. So he didn’t know, either.

  “Dragons don’t really need to blend in,” she said. “I don’t understand. All this glass—you can see through it, so it’s almost the same as being outdoors—”

  “Lamprophyre and I have some questions about magic,” Rokshan said, his tone of voice telling Lamprophyre he intended to head off any more questions about Sabarna’s peculiarities. “Lamprophyre has only just learned that stones can be made to convey magical properties, and as she eats stone as part of her diet, she was curious about how we use it.”

  “Eats stone?” Sabarna came forward until she was nearly nose to nose with Lamprophyre. “What stone?” The hum of her unintelligible thoughts grew more intense, but no clearer.

  “Um, most stones,” Lamprophyre said, wishing she could back away from the scholar-adept without giving offense. “Granite, quartz, feldspar. As well as stones you would use as gems. They all have different flavors.”

  “And what part do they play in your diet?”

  “They help us digest our food and they fuel our second stomachs. And they taste good.”

  Sabarna nodded slowly. “Interesting. But you don’t gain magical properties from them?”

  “No.”

  “Very interesting.” Sabarna turned and took a few paces to the left, then the right, with her hands clasped behind her back. “Our legends say dragons are born of stone and return to stone when they die. Is that true?”

  Lamprophyre followed her with her eyes as she paced. “It’s partly true. We’re born of eggs like anyone else, but when we die, our bones merge with Mother Stone.”

  “Um, Lamprophyre,” Rokshan murmured, “humans aren’t born from eggs.”

  Lamprophyre blinked. “You’re not? But you’re people!”

  “That’s an irrelevant aside, Rokshan,” Sabarna said. “Dragons must absorb their magical natures from their affinity to stone, whether or not it imparts particular magical properties. Or, more accurately, dragons are themselves the magic stone, and specific gemstones mean nothing to them. You were curious about our magic?”

  “Yes,” Lamprophyre said, wrenching her astonished gaze from Rokshan. “I heard that human adepts use different stones for different magical effects, and I wanted to know how that works.”

  “It’s not complicated,” Sabarna said. “You’re a dragon, so you must already know that what makes one stone different from another—what makes quartz different from diamond, for an example—is the way its structure is arranged. As stones emerge from the Immanence, they take certain shapes, and some of those shapes trap magic within their vertices.”

  Lamprophyre regarded Sabarna closely. So, she was willing to talk so long as Lamprophyre avoided that one topic. She really wished she could hear the female’s thoughts. Both Sabarna and Manishi were adepts; maybe being an adept altered their thoughts.

  “We heard there are stones that absorb magic passively,” Rokshan said.

  Sabarna shot him a narrow-eyed look. “Would you like to deliver this lecture, Rokshan?”

  “Sorry.”

  “As I was saying,” Sabarna continued, “stones capture magic, either passively or through ritual, and the shape of the stone determines the shape of the magic that emerges. Now, by ‘shape’ I mean, of course, both the natural structure of the stone and the shape impressed upon a stone by human hands. Faceting, or polishing, or carving all alter the magic a stone can produce.”

  Sabarna drew a round piece of polished bloodstone, mossy green streaked with crimson set in silver, from around her neck.
“I made this years ago,” she said, holding it out for Lamprophyre to examine. It was tiny from Lamprophyre’s perspective, but it was the size of Sabarna’s palm and proportionally very large. “It prevents me from falling ill to various diseases and infections. Bloodstone’s magical properties are related to physical health, allowing me to shape this stone to have the effects I described. Had I needed something to heal physical injury, I might have used jade or moonstone.”

  Lamprophyre waited until it was clear Sabarna was done talking, then asked, “What about the gemstones humans find desirable? Is that because they have powerful magic? Sapphire, or ruby?”

  “Most popular precious stones absorb magic at a high natural rate,” Sabarna said, “and give benefits without being shaped by an adept. And the current fashion is for stones that sparkle when faceted. But an adept can make a stone far more effective, and thus far more valuable.”

  “So you wouldn’t use, say, an uncut sapphire in a magical item,” Rokshan said.

  Lamprophyre wished she could warn Rokshan to be careful. Sabarna glanced his way, then returned her attention to Lamprophyre as if she’d been the one to ask the question. “It would be a waste of magical power,” she said. “Sapphire focuses mental energy, giving its user better focus, better recall. It takes very little sapphire to accomplish this, and a cut stone provides a greater benefit. An uncut sapphire—you might say it leaks magic, though of course it does nothing of the sort. But it’s a useful image. An uncut sapphire, particularly a large one, would provide its magic to anyone within a given radius of the stone, but in an ineffective way. I can’t imagine anyone who would do that when they could cut the gem down and provide many people with the full benefit of its power.”

  “I understand,” Lamprophyre said. “So, one kind of stone has one specific effect?”

  “No, a stone has general properties that can be altered based on the shape forced upon the stone. For example, a diamond can be cut to radiate a pure light that never dies, or it can be cut differently to create a lens that allows someone to see something at a great distance. Both are related to a diamond’s properties of clarity and vision.”

  “But a magic stone wouldn’t work on a dragon, would it?” Rokshan said. “Since dragons are creatures of magic and stone.”

  Lamprophyre wanted to cheer Rokshan on. It was a good, roundabout way of asking the question they needed to know.

  “Of course they would,” Sabarna said. “Rokshan, you’re not thinking clearly. You should follow the example of your friend Dharan. Now there is a young man who reasons well. Dragons are part stone, correct? So they are as easily affected by magic stones as anyone. In fact, absorbing stone through their digestive system ought to grant them the benefits of that stone, if it’s been given magical properties. Obviously passive magic isn’t enough to affect them, or Lamprophyre would have noticed.”

  “That’s true,” Lamprophyre said. “But it would take more magic to affect a dragon, wouldn’t it? Because we’re bigger?”

  “Hmmm.” Sabarna fixed her narrow-eyed gaze on Lamprophyre again. “It could go either way. Either you’re susceptible because you’re made of magic, or you’re less susceptible because you’re big. We’d have to experiment.”

  “You’re not going to experiment on the ambassador,” Rokshan said.

  “Then I suppose it’s a question with no answer,” Sabarna shot back. “Was there anything else you wanted to know? I eat my supper early.”

  “No—yes,” Lamprophyre said. “I was wondering what you’d use kyanite for.”

  “Kyanite?” Sabarna sounded surprised. “Why kyanite?”

  “It’s a popular food among dragons,” Rokshan said smoothly, “and we discovered it’s hard to come by in Tanajital. But no one would say why it was rare or what it was for.”

  “Kyanite,” Sabarna repeated. “Yes, it’s rare. Rare enough I’m not sure anyone knows what to use it for.”

  “But you must know the theory,” Rokshan persisted.

  “Oh, of course. It boosts mental performance. Not as efficiently as sapphire, though oddly enough they look similar when they’re cut and polished.” Sabarna eyed Lamprophyre again. “Expensive food, if that’s what you use it for. Or do dragons have access to more of it than I think?” Her voice sounded casual—maybe too casual.

  Lamprophyre kept a straight face, though she wasn’t sure Sabarna could interpret her expressions any better than she could understand human expressions. “No, it’s a rare delicacy,” she lied. “I’d hoped humans had more of it, but it seems not.” Since she suspected Sabarna was lying, she felt not at all guilty doing the same.

  “Well, I’m happy to discuss magic any time after classes,” Sabarna said. It was a polite dismissal, and Lamprophyre was grateful for it. Her back and hips were in agony from squatting so long.

  “Thank you, Lector Sabarna, we appreciate it,” Rokshan said. “Lamprophyre?”

  “Thank you, Lector Sabarna,” Lamprophyre said, and withdrew from the Atrium as rapidly as possible.

  Free of that unnatural position, she stretched, flexed her wings as far as possible, and said, “There has to be a better way out of here. I’m sure I can’t fit back through those branches.”

  “This way,” Rokshan said.

  This time, Lamprophyre saw many humans watching her from the edges of the clearing. None of them approached, but it was easy to hear that most of them were more awestruck than terrified, which suited Lamprophyre. She followed Rokshan beneath the trees, ducking her head occasionally, until they left the clearing behind for a street lined with low buildings. It wasn’t wide enough for Lamprophyre to fit, and she said as much.

  “It just has to be wide enough for you to leap above the buildings,” Rokshan said, pulling himself up into the notch. “Hurry, though, before people stop being amazed and press you too closely.”

  Lamprophyre nodded. She crouched, furled her wings tightly, and with one powerful leap propelled herself into the sky. She had her wings open before she could fall, and beat the air, sending a gust of wind into the street below. Looking down, she saw a few humans who’d been standing too close had been knocked over by her ascent. She laughed. “I shouldn’t find that funny, but it is.”

  “It gives them something to tell their friends over supper.” Rokshan leaned forward. “I don’t know if we learned more than we gave away. Sabarna is odd, but brilliant.”

  “Brilliant enough to create that wand?” Lamprophyre asked.

  “Probably, but I don’t know why she would. Did you listen to her thoughts?”

  “I tried, but I couldn’t. It was like listening to four conversations at once and understanding none of them. Manishi’s thoughts are the same.”

  “You didn’t mention that before. That’s an extraordinary coincidence, if it is coincidence.”

  Lamprophyre nodded. “It could be that being an adept makes your thoughts hard to understand.”

  “Or they both have magical artifacts that prevent someone hearing their thoughts.”

  Lamprophyre hadn’t considered that. “But why would they? Humans can’t hear thoughts, can they?”

  “Unless there are other artifacts that give a human the mind-reading powers of a dragon. I know, you said it’s not reading. It’s just a figure of speech.”

  “That would be something people would keep secret, wouldn’t it?” Lamprophyre said. “I know it’s an advantage I don’t want humans to know I have.”

  “I wonder,” Rokshan said. “Sabarna said kyanite was a weak alternative to sapphire, but I’ve known her for years and I can tell when she’s not being completely forthcoming. She knows something about kyanite she wasn’t saying. What if that was it? Suppose kyanite is what lets someone hear thoughts?”

  Lamprophyre circled the coliseum once, then glided in for a soft landing and let Rokshan down. She stretched her back to ease the aching muscles. “That’s a big guess.”

  “I don’t know. She said dragons might absorb the magical properties of a st
one, and you said kyanite is popular among dragons. What if it’s what lets dragons hear thoughts?”

  “That’s impossible,” Lamprophyre said, but as the words left her lips, she wondered if she was wrong. “At least…no, it can’t be. If dragons got magic from the stones they eat, we’d have so many abilities.”

  “Like living for centuries? Being impossible for humans to kill? Those strong bones and teeth and claws?” Rokshan paced before her. “I’m just saying it’s possible.”

  “Yes, but how would anyone prove it?” Lamprophyre settled back on her haunches and let out a puff of smoke from one nostril. “I’m not sure we learned anything new, except that the stone in the dragon-harming wand wasn’t a typical use of a sapphire, even an uncut one.” She stretched out her aching back again.

  “Except that it almost certainly had to be that big to have an effect on a dragon. And remember, it didn’t affect me. So whoever made it knew something about dragons, or made a really lucky guess.” Rokshan sniffed. “Do you smell steak?”

  “What’s steak?” She did smell something delicious, hot, juicy cow with a tangy difference. She turned to see Akarshan leading his group of humans trundling the platform along. This time, there was no delicious cow carcass. Instead, heaps and heaps of pieces of meat, steaming even in the warm air, lay piled atop the platform.

  “My lady ambassador,” Akarshan said, “I hope you don’t mind my experiment. I was curious about your method of roasting meat, and wondered if you might not be able to eat meat prepared the human way.” He made a sweeping gesture at the platform. “If it’s not enough, or if you don’t like it, I’ll bring you something more conventional, but…”

  “Thank you,” Lamprophyre said. She picked up a slab of meat half the size of her palm. It was perfectly brown on all sides and steamed with a hot, delicious scent. She bit it in half, causing hot juices to spurt. Oh, it was magnificent, dark pink on the inside and chewy and rich and with an unexpected savory flavor. She devoured the other half and licked her fingers. “That is the best meat I have ever tasted,” she said with her mouth full. Akarshan beamed.