Spark the Fire

by Melissa McShane

  “So, you were going to beat and rob my friend, were you?” she said, not really caring about the answer. She didn’t want to interrogate this male until Rokshan was there, and Stones knew how long that would take.

  “Let me go,” Abhimot said, his voice weak and breathless. “I swear I’ll never do anything bad again. Please.” One eye was wide and terrified. The other rolled independent of the first, never settling on anything.

  “So you have done bad things. We thought so. Thanks for confirming that.”

  Abhimot’s mouth closed in a tight, thin line. His hands groped at Lamprophyre’s ankle as if he could make her let him up. “I’ve never hurt you,” he finally said. “Never seen you before. We can make a deal.”

  “That’s true, you haven’t seen me before,” Lamprophyre said, “but you have hurt me, if indirectly.”

  “Don’t know what you mean. Please, let me go. I’ll do anything—I know where valuable magical items are—”

  She heard Rokshan running toward them and said nothing until he drew up even with her and bent over with his hands on his knees, breathing heavily. “I take flying for granted,” he said when he’d mostly recovered. “Did he tell you anything?”

  “That he’s a bad man, that he’s never hurt me, and that he can make it worth our while if we let him go.” Lamprophyre pressed down just a little more and enjoyed seeing the male gasp. “Also that he meant to beat you and take your things.”

  “Interesting.” Rokshan dropped to one knee beside Abhimot and looked him over. “I wondered why he was so ready to follow me outside. Well, Abhimot, this is your lucky day. Answer our questions honestly, and we’ll let you go.”

  Abhimot stared at him. “Questions?”

  “You made an artifact whose sole purpose is to incapacitate a dragon. Why?”

  Abhimot’s expression became one Lamprophyre couldn’t read. It was clearly one Rokshan didn’t like, because he slapped Abhimot and said, “Now is the wrong time to try to play us, Abhimot. We know what you’ve done. We just want the details. Who asked you to make that wand?”

  Lamprophyre thought this might be a bad line of inquiry, since for all they knew, Abhimot had done it on his own. But his thoughts were going like mad, almost too fast for her to hear, thinking how did they know? Damn dragon should have gone mad for weeks, no way they could trace it to me.

  “Some man,” Abhimot said. “Came to me with a proposal. A theory he wanted proved. Said I was the one to do it.” He swallowed, licked his lips, and continued, “I didn’t know if it worked, but he paid me anyway.”

  “That’s not true,” Lamprophyre said, listening to the adept’s thoughts. “You’re experienced enough you knew it would work even if you couldn’t test it on account of there being no dragons around. Don’t try to make yourself look less guilty.”

  Abhimot nodded. “It’s true, it worked. But I swear I never used it on no dragon. You want vengeance, you find that man.”

  “Did he tell you why he wanted it?” Rokshan asked.

  “Never said, and I never asked.” Abhimot swallowed again. “He was the sort you can picture getting a thrill out of torturing kittens, you know? I was just glad he never came back. Wish I’d never done business with him, but the money was too good.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “A man.” Lamprophyre pressed harder, and Abhimot gasped. “I swear! Dark hair maybe a little longer than normal, lighter skinned than you, brown eyes like most of Tanajital. Had a mole on his upper lip and his eyebrows grew together in the middle. Said his name was Harshod, but that was probably a lie.”

  “Gonjirian?”

  “I guess so. Never asked. He didn’t have an accent, so probably.”

  Rokshan glanced at Lamprophyre, his eyes wide in a now-familiar expression. She listened, and heard him think I don’t know what else to ask.

  “Who else knows how to make that artifact?” she asked.

  Abhimot actually tried to shrug. “Nobody but me,” he said. “I swear I’ll never tell anyone about it. Please don’t kill me.” I’m never coming back to Tanajital if I live through this, Jiwanyil help me.

  Rokshan’s expression changed. “Where did you meet this Harshod? At your home?”

  “No. In South District, in a house by the old academy. I always went to him. But I doubt he’s still there.”

  Rokshan nodded and stood. “Well, what do you think?” he said.

  “I think I should eat him,” Lamprophyre said mischievously. Abhimot squeaked. The scent of urine wafted through the air, making Lamprophyre’s nose wrinkle.

  “He’s too thin to be good eating,” Rokshan said with a straight face. “He’s answered our questions, I think we should let him go.”

  “Well, if we have to,” Lamprophyre said. She didn’t feel as casual as she sounded. Hyaloclast wanted vengeance on this man, but Lamprophyre couldn’t kill another person in cold blood. She didn’t care if that made her weak. Besides, he was only indirectly responsible, because Lamprophyre was sure what Hyaloclast really wanted was the person behind the plan. She didn’t let herself think too hard about whether she was making excuses.

  She leaned down until she was a handspan from Abhimot’s face. “If it turns out you lied to us,” she said, expelling a gust of burning air from her second stomach, “I’ll be back. And I won’t care how stringy you are. Now, get out of here, and don’t tell anyone you spoke with us. In fact, you might want to go into another line of work, because if the rest of the dragons find out what you did, being eaten will be the least of your worries.”

  She released him, but Abhimot didn’t rise. Rokshan pulled himself up, and she flew away, not looking back.

  “He was telling the truth, right?” Rokshan said when they were well away from the stricken male.

  “Yes, as far as he knew. He’s right that Harshod might not be a real name.”

  “It’s a clue, anyway. And he confirmed we’re looking for a Gonjirian conspiracy.” Rokshan sighed. “I’m exhausted. Let’s worry about this tomorrow. I have no idea how we’ll track Abhimot’s employer, whatever his name actually is.”

  “We got this far,” Lamprophyre said. “We’ll figure something out.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  The park at noon was cooler than the open spaces near the palace or the city streets, but that still made it warmer than Lamprophyre liked. She didn’t want to think about how hot it would be when spring became summer.

  She sprawled beneath a tree whose branches spread out horizontally, brushing up against its neighbor so between the two of them there was enough shade for her to fit into, and watched the humans setting up canopies. The brightly colored canvases had fluttering strings hanging down on all sides that reminded her of the drooping branches of the trees near the river, trees Rokshan called willows. The strings moved in the scant breeze Lamprophyre could barely feel. She wished for the first time in her life she could be blasted by the northern winds, her skin chilled until it tingled.

  “I still think this is a mistake,” she told Rokshan, who lay beside her with his arms folded back behind his head, staring up at the trees. “Half these people will only come to see what disastrous thing I’ll do next.”

  “They’re diplomats,” Rokshan said. “They’d never say that to your face.”

  “Isn’t it worse if they say it where I can’t hear? Then I don’t know who to trust. Or I wouldn’t, if I couldn’t…you know.” There were too many servants around for her to mention being able to hear thoughts.

  “Superficial politeness is better than hostility. Besides, the other half will genuinely want to know you better, and isn’t half better than none? And you’ll only get that if we host a reception.”

  Lamprophyre blew a jet of smoke through one nostril. “You make sense.” She wearily got to her feet and lumbered over to the nearest canopy. No servants remained near it, so she was able to get up close. She’d fit beneath it if she crouched, though her wings might be a problem. Better to leave the ca
nopies for her guests, though if it rained as it looked like it would—the reason for the canopies in the first place—she might get very wet. There was nothing she could do about that.

  “Akarshan was very generous in letting us use his kitchens,” she said over her shoulder. “Though I suppose it’s reasonable he didn’t want Depik taking over.”

  Rokshan let out a grunt that might have meant anything. She turned to see he’d closed his eyes and settled in to sleep. Grimacing, she walked back over to him and prodded his shoulder. “Rokshan. Don’t fall asleep. We still have planning to do.”

  Rokshan grunted again, but he opened his eyes. “We’ve done all the planning we can, and now it’s up to other people to implement those plans.”

  “I meant the other plan.”

  “Oh.” Rokshan sat up and finger-combed his hair back into order. “No one’s approached the house Abhimot told us about in the last three days, or gone to Abhimot’s house. Whoever this Harshod is—”

  “If that’s his name.”

  “Right. He’s gone to ground thoroughly. I’m not sure what else we can do to find him.”

  Lamprophyre settled beside Rokshan again. “Let’s think about what he must have done. He bought the wand from Abhimot. He gathered a bunch of humans to help him. And he traveled with his companions into dragon territory and attacked Nephrite without anyone else seeing him.”

  “That’s not entirely true,” Rokshan said, “or, rather, there’s a possibility someone did see him. If he and his men looked like bandits, which they did when we caught up with them, they could have moved through dragon territory without standing out. Also, we don’t know that he was with those men. Someone else was their leader, after all—that bandit you dropped on his head didn’t resemble Abhimot’s description of Harshod.”

  “True, but do you think he would have trusted the wand to someone else? It’s both powerful and valuable.”

  “I don’t know. I know nothing about him to make that guess. I mean, it could go either way—either he didn’t want to let the wand out of his sight, or he didn’t want to risk being caught.” He sighed. “Maybe it’s time for drastic measures.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I mean,” Rokshan said, “we should pursue the bandits directly.”

  “You mean, follow their trail down the river to Kolmira? Didn’t you and your soldiers do that already?”

  “We chased the bandits as far as the river, but I wasn’t in a position to go farther than that, given that I had to report about my encounter with you dragons. So my men and I didn’t really investigate or go into Kolmira.”

  “Can we do that? I thought we didn’t want to start a riot.”

  “We don’t, but isn’t finding the egg thieves worth scaring a few people? It’s been long enough that news of your presence here has spread throughout most of Gonjiri, so you won’t be that much of a surprise.” Rokshan stood. “Besides, like I said, there’s nothing more we can do here, and Kolmira isn’t far. We can get there, ask around, and be back before the reception starts.”

  Lamprophyre stood as well, hunched over so her head barely brushed the branches. “All right. Flying has to be cooler, anyway.”

  Storm clouds gathered as they made their way westward, adding to the coolness of flying, though the air was heavier and muggier than usual in anticipation of the coming storm. “You know,” Lamprophyre said, “if Harshod wasn’t with those bandits, he must have been so frustrated when they returned with no wand and no egg.”

  Rokshan laughed. “I wish I could have seen his face.”

  “Me too.” She twisted her long neck to try to look at Rokshan. “It was his best chance to incite the dragons. Everything else he’s done has been so small by comparison.”

  “I wouldn’t call poisoning you small.”

  “I’m only one person. It’s small scale, at least.” She watched the ground roll past beneath her. “Where should I go?”

  “Let’s start where we attacked the bandits and go downstream from there. There might be settlements that saw them. Damn, but I wish we could have done this immediately.”

  “There was no way to do that. It was a twelveday before you returned to the flight, and we couldn’t have gone before that.”

  “I know. It’s just going to be difficult, searching for them nearly a month later. But it shouldn’t be impossible.” Rokshan leaned forward. “I think it’s down there.”

  Lamprophyre didn’t know how he could be so sure, given that all the clumps of trees along the wide river looked the same to her, but he was the experienced one. She swooped down to alight on the west bank of the river. “Here?”

  “Close enough.” Rokshan slid down and walked a few paces southward. “It doesn’t matter if we find the exact location, so long as we don’t miss any settlements they might have passed. Are you ready?”

  “To possibly scare people? I’ve been ready for that for the last couple of twelvedays.” She crouched for Rokshan to mount up again, then took to the skies.

  She rose high enough to get a good look at the river. Three clots of dark, angular growth clung to the riverbanks, two of them much smaller than the most distant one. “That’s Kolmira,” Rokshan said when she pointed. “I hope we learn what we need from those other two settlements, but I have a feeling we’re going to need to enter the city.”

  Lamprophyre suppressed a sigh and glided southward to the first settlement. She swept over it, circled around to find a landing spot, and set down south of the farthest buildings. “Is this close enough?”

  “It’s not bad. I’ll be back.” Rokshan ran toward the settlement, heading for the shore and the wooden platforms sticking out into the river. There were no boats visible, and no people running and screaming. If this was going to be their pattern, Lamprophyre landing well away from human buildings and Rokshan doing all the talking, it was going to be a very boring day.

  After about a hundred beats that in her boredom felt more like a thousand, Rokshan returned. “A fisherman remembered seeing a boat with a scorch mark down its side pass about a month ago,” he said, pulling himself up. “They don’t get a lot of traffic in either direction, as far north as they are, so it stood out. He said the boat didn’t stop.”

  “Then we move on?”

  “Right.”

  The second settlement proved disappointing. Rokshan couldn’t find anyone who remembered seeing the bandits’ boat. Discouraged, Lamprophyre said, “Does that mean they stopped somewhere upstream?”

  “No, or we would have seen the boat tied up along the shore,” Rokshan said. “They came through, probably without stopping, and I’ll wager they stopped in Kolmira. Finding them there might be impossible, but we have to try.”

  Lamprophyre nodded, and took to the sky once more.

  Kolmira looked nothing like Tanajital, though both cities were bisected by their rivers and both were packed with buildings set close to one another. Unlike Tanajital, Kolmira sprawled, its buildings rarely taller than a couple of dragonlengths and unchecked by a city wall. Its two halves were about the same size, and both were darker than Tanajital, with roofs that were either dirty or made of some dark material and walls that didn’t gleam with whiteness. Lamprophyre saw very little glass, just empty window holes. The place depressed her, and she couldn’t believe she’d gotten so used to anything human she could think of Tanajital fondly by comparison.

  The riverbank was wide, with the nearest buildings set well back from the edge, and Lamprophyre was actually able to set down near the largest one. It couldn’t be more than one story tall, but it was more than two dragonlengths on each side and had several doors Lamprophyre could fit head and neck and shoulders through. This one did have glass windows, which Lamprophyre suspected meant its owner was prosperous.

  Humans gathered around the building, some emerging from within, and while their thoughts were fearful, none of them screamed or fled. She crouched to let Rokshan off and furled her wings to make herself look smaller and, s
he hoped, less threatening. “This isn’t so bad,” she said.

  “Wait here. I’ll talk to the dock master. If we’re lucky, he knows the names and faces of every bandit on that boat and will think them clearly enough for you to hear.”

  “Wait!” Lamprophyre said. “If they’re bandits, would they really stop here like legitimate sailors?”

  “The line between bandit and legal is very fine,” Rokshan said. “A legitimate sailor might become a bandit by sailing beyond a certain point. And I can’t think where else to start. I’ll be right back.”

  Lamprophyre settled in to wait. The humans watched her warily. She amused herself by trying to pick out individual thoughts from the mass, but most of them were either frightened or uncomplimentary, so she stopped doing that after a few dozen beats. At least no one had attacked her.

  She realized the crowd had shifted just as a female detached herself from the crowd and made her way down the bank to Lamprophyre. Lamprophyre sat up and regarded her as warily as the humans had her. “Hello,” she said when the female was close enough for speech. “Can I help you?”

  “What are you doing here?” the female said. Her tone was aggressive, but her thoughts were uncertain: had a rider, wonder what it wants, knowledge I can sell. She wore her long, light brown hair gathered high, fountaining out from the crown of her head like a muddy waterfall.