Spark the Fire

by Melissa McShane

  Lamprophyre suppressed the urge to point out that if Sabarna never left the Atrium, she was unlikely to see that even if it happened. She crawled out backwards, made her way to the edge of the trees, and leaped into the sky once more. Now, to find Harshod.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  She flew in a slow circle above the city, not caring that it made her an obvious target. She doubted General Sajan could get archers in position quickly enough to take advantage of her low flight, and it wasn’t as if they could hurt her. The general had said he hadn’t seen anyone leaving the coliseum, which might mean Harshod had left out the other side. For a moment, fear shot through her at the idea that he might have magic to make himself invisible, but then she remembered Sabarna’s words and felt calmer.

  The other side—that meant the west, heading away from the palace and toward the river. Another jolt ran through her. If Harshod reached the river, he could go anywhere. But she was faster than any boat, so Harshod must have counted on the soldiers slowing her down enough to give him a head start—and on the sheer number of people in Tanajital to conceal him from her eyes. He was right, Stones take him. There was nothing distinctive about him—

  —or was there? Humans all smelled the same unless they used Khadar’s noxious scent, but stone…stone was different, varied, and easily distinguishable by any dragon. True, in a city this size there might be thousands of a particular kind of stone, magical or not, but Harshod’s collection of artifacts had been a unique blend of scents and was strong enough to leave a trail.

  Lamprophyre examined the coliseum. It was empty. Sparing a thought for Rokshan, wherever he was, she swooped down on the west side and inhaled deeply. The smell of stones, particularly the granite and sandstone of the coliseum, cut sharply across the warm, damp scent of human flesh. She sniffed again, teasing out individual scents that normally faded into the background. Her stomachs rumbled, but she ignored them. Bitter chalcedony, the orange tang of pyrite—there. Six scents twined together, making a trail that led west.

  She sprang into the sky and followed the trail, slowly. Though the smells were distinctive, it had been several hundred beats since Harshod had passed this way, and the trail was beginning to dissipate. This didn’t make the scent weaker, but it did widen its path, and more than once Lamprophyre followed a strand of scent that came to an abrupt end. She was vaguely aware of humans beneath her pointing and exclaiming, but she needed all her concentration to follow the trail and couldn’t spare any for listening to their terrified thoughts. So long as no one attacked her, or pointed her out to the soldiers, she didn’t care if they were frightened.

  The buildings beneath her shrank the nearer she came to the river until they were all short and too small for Lamprophyre to fit into even if their doors had been big enough. The streets between them were similarly narrow, leaving Lamprophyre hoping Harshod hadn’t gone to ground there. She was willing to smash an open space for herself, but that seemed hard on the people who owned those tiny, weary-looking houses. Their roofs were dirty and stained with old water marks, and the sour smell of unwashed flesh clung to everything. Here, the humans who saw her ran to hide inside their houses, as if that would protect them. Terrible sadness came over her that she could even think that way. Those humans didn’t deserve her anger; that was all for Harshod, and she would make him pay.

  Boats lined the riverbank, tied to poles that jutted from the water like branchless, leafless trees. Lamprophyre landed on the bank downstream a bit and surveyed them. They weren’t all alike, she realized: some of them had rounded sides that rose high above the water, while others were flat, barely platforms floating on the river’s surface. She couldn’t understand how the tall ones managed not to tip over, but the flat ones made sense, reminding her of flat, palm-sized leaves that floated in the pool the dragons had created far north of here.

  She sniffed again. The trail led to the river and stopped. That couldn’t be right. She walked slowly upstream, ignoring the shouts and cries from the humans on the boats and outside the buildings sticking out over the riverbank. Harshod could be here, on this side of the river, but that made no sense. Surely he knew he had to get away as fast as possible, in case his ploy didn’t work and Lamprophyre tracked him as she was doing now?

  There. A breeze brought the bitter smell of chalcedony to her nose, mingled with the sweetness of aquamarine. It came from mid-stream, just ahead.

  A shout nearly underfoot startled her. She’d just passed one of the flat boats tied up at the bank, and as she turned to see who’d shouted at her, her tail brushed the boat and set it rocking. The female at the far end of the boat shouted again and clung to the pole to keep from falling off. “Stay back!” she exclaimed. “Don’t you dare smash my ferry!”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to,” Lamprophyre began, then sniffed deeply. Harshod’s scent tangled around the woman and flowed away into the center of the river. “Did you see a man come this way?” she demanded. “Someone who was on your boat?”

  “I see lots of men,” the woman said, releasing her grip on the pole.

  Lamprophyre racked her brain for a description and settled on the thing she remembered best. “This one had a spot on his lip like a round black insect. Hurry, this is important.”

  “Why should I tell you?”

  Fear for Rokshan and anger at Harshod filled Lamprophyre to bursting. She put a foot on the boat and pressed, tipping the far end up and forcing the woman to grab the pole again. “I’ll sink your boat if you don’t talk,” she said. “I might sink you, too. Just tell me where he went and I’ll leave you alone.”

  The woman gasped and hugged the pole like it was her only salvation. “I took him across!” she said. “Please, go, just leave me alone.”

  “Took him across. Where?”

  The woman stretched out one arm, pointing, then quickly grasped the pole again. “Straight across to the landing. I don’t know where he went, I swear.”

  “Thank you,” Lamprophyre said. “You should be more polite.” She released the boat roughly, making it rock harder, and flew off in the indicated direction.

  Once past the river, trailing Harshod became easy again, as if the breezes coming off the water had dissipated his trail more quickly. She’d never been on the west side of Tanajital, and it astonished her how little it resembled the city she knew. There weren’t any tall buildings, and from her aerial perspective, what buildings there were looked like oddly geometric bumps arranged along streets that curved and meandered rather than running in straight radial lines emerging from circular plazas the way Tanajital proper had. Even the city wall seemed lower and dingier. She saw no archers, no soldiers of any kind atop it.

  She followed the scent all the way to that wall, to an arched entrance not big enough to admit a dragon, though of course with her wings, that didn’t matter. Beyond the wall, the city continued, as if it were a water barrel filled to the brim with rainfall that then spilled over the edge. There were no streets, just small, dirty houses of wood and thatching that would burn readily.

  Harshod’s trail ended at one of these houses. Lamprophyre flapped slowly to hover over it. There was nothing to set it apart from the others; it had the same roof made of dry water reeds from the riverbank, the same wooden walls covered with that strangely scented white material that made a hard crust when it dried. But he had definitely gone inside, and he hadn’t left. Lamprophyre considered the roof again. It didn’t have a ridge beam, but came to a point at the center with four sides slanting down from that peak. It smelled dusty, and there were a couple of holes in it. Lamprophyre wondered if the reeds were watertight. If not, it would be miserable come the rainy season.

  She flew down and landed neatly on the peak. It was sharp enough Lamprophyre shifted her weight to stand on two of the four sides, balancing neatly. The reed surface gave under her weight, but didn’t tear. She sat, tense at the possibility her landing might have drawn their attention, and listened to the murmur of indistinct speech comi
ng from within. There were three humans inside, none of them aware of her presence by the lack of fear in their thoughts. One of them had that singleness of thought she associated with Harshod. He was instructing the others, telling them send word back and almost time now. The other two were listening to him intently, judging by how they weren’t thinking about unrelated things. It was the perfect time to attack.

  Lamprophyre flapped once, twice, half a dozen times until she was positioned above the building’s door. She sucked in a deep breath, let the air mingle with the contents of her second stomach, and blew out a great blast of fire that struck the roof.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Flames sprang up immediately, burning lower than Lamprophyre had expected, so she breathed out again, hotter this time, and rejoiced in how the fire spread. She heard shouts from within, and the door opened.

  Lamprophyre pounced on the first human through the door, grabbing her around the waist and flinging her aside to strike the next building over and then fall limp to the ground. She snatched the second human, tossed him from one hand to the other, then launched him into the air, catching him by the ankle and letting him dangle upside down while he screamed.

  Something punched her in the chest, rocking her back on her heels slightly but not hurting her. She dropped the second human and made a grab for Harshod, who darted back, seeming unconcerned about the burning roof just handspans above his head. “You,” he snarled, and aimed his fist at her again.

  “Me,” Lamprophyre agreed. “You shouldn’t have hurt Rokshan without making sure I was dead.”

  Another blast struck her with no more force than a gentle slap to the ribs. “I thought you were,” Harshod said. “My mistake. It won’t happen again.”

  Lamprophyre grabbed for him again. He darted out of the way, farther into the building. She snatched some of the burning reeds off the roof and flung them at him, making him curse. “Answer my questions, and I won’t kill you,” she said.

  Harshod laughed. “You don’t have it in you to kill. I’ve been watching you. So generous. So ready to find a non-violent solution. How fitting that instead you’ve incited a war between dragons and humans.”

  “That was you. Why did you do it? Your masters told you to?”

  Harshod turned and ran deeper into the building, out of sight. Lamprophyre grabbed the sides of the door. She would bring the building down on his head if she had to. She pulled, and then felt the other humans climbing up her back, one on each side. She bucked, twisted, and flung one of the humans off just as the second one struck. Once again Lamprophyre felt a blow to the sensitive spot on her neck. This time, all it did was send a twinge of nerveless pain through her spine and arms and legs. “Ow! Stones take you!” she shouted, and slammed herself backward into the nearest building, spreading her wings as flat as she could. The human let out a grunt and slid off.

  Lamprophyre went for the building again, this time tearing up the burning roof. It came apart readily in burning chunks of reeds that smoked as if fighting her fire. She tore handfuls of it away from the wooden frame beneath and tossed them through the widening holes, hoping to hit Harshod. She couldn’t see him through the smoke and flames. She smashed the thin wood of the frame to make a hole big enough to fit her head and neck inside. The laughing fire boiled up through the opening and through another hole, this one in the wall opposite the entrance. Harshod was nowhere in sight.

  She pulled her head out to inhale fresh, clear air and saw movement on the far side of the building. Past the smoke billowing from the house, she saw Harshod fleeing westward. Cursing, she rose into the air and sped after him. He was her prey, and he would not escape.

  She ran him down only a few dragonlengths away, plucking him off the ground and carrying him off just as she’d done Rokshan all those days ago. Fleeting worry for Rokshan coursed through her, replaced by fury at the male in her hands. “Talk,” she said, “or I’ll drop you.”

  “Drop me, and you’ll never learn the truth,” Harshod said.

  “We’ll see,” Lamprophyre said, and released him.

  He fell screaming less than a dragonlength before Lamprophyre dove and snatched him out of midair. “From this height, a fall might not kill you, but it would hurt worse than anything you can imagine,” she said. “That’s assuming I don’t keep playing with you until I get bored.” She dropped him again. “I can do this all day,” she said when she’d caught him once more. “So it’s up to you. Tell me what your masters wanted, and I’ll let you go.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Harshod said.

  “I’m not the untrustworthy one here.” She tossed him this time and caught him by the ankle, raising him so his upside-down face was level with hers. “It’s true, you hurt my friend, and I want you to suffer. But it’s more important that Gonjiri not go to war. I want to know the truth, and I want to stop that happening. So I’m willing to bargain for, let’s say, the next twelve beats. After that, I stop caring what happens to you and go back to figuring it out on my own. Your choice.”

  Harshod was silent briefly. Finally, he said, “Put me down, and I’ll talk.”

  They were almost past the farthest reaches of the city’s outskirts, to where a road cut through cultivated fields just showing green with spring growth. Lamprophyre alit on the road and dropped Harshod, not roughly, at her feet. “First, I want your stones. The artifacts,” she said.

  “That wasn’t part of the bargain.”

  “Of course it was. The bargain was you do whatever I say, and I don’t turn you into a greasy pyre and eat your entrails.” This bloodthirsty show appealed to her. “You didn’t hear those words? I assure you that’s what I meant.”

  Harshod glared at her. Slowly, he removed the erythronite ring, then a similar one with a chunk of pyrite, and tossed both at her feet. The aquamarine bracelet came next, followed by a second bracelet from which dangled a polished oval of agate. Finally, he drew a pendant of chalcedony, so large Lamprophyre had to suppress a sneeze at its strong bitterness, from within the neck of his shirt.

  “Where’s the sapphire?” she asked.

  Harshod’s eyes widened slightly. “What sapphire?”

  She could smell its sweet odor, like overripe cherries. “Please,” she said. “Don’t lie to a dragon about stone. The sapphire. What does it do? Is it like the wand?”

  His lip curled, making the black dot on his face move like a living insect. He dug into the pouch at his waist and pulled out a chunk of uncut sapphire smaller than his fist. “Here,” he said, offering it to her.

  Lamprophyre shook her head. “Do you think I’m stupid? Just toss it next to the others.” She had no intention of touching it, which made her wonder how she was going to transport it back to Tanajital. Maybe the topaz would protect her from it enough that she could drop it into the river, right at the center where it was deepest.

  Harshod shrugged and tossed it into the little pile at Lamprophyre’s feet. “Fine. I’m helpless. What do you want to know?”

  Lamprophyre hooked the chalcedony pendant’s chain with her sixth claw and looped it over her wrist. This could repay Sabarna for her help. “Who wants war between Gonjiri and the dragons?”

  “Fanishkor, obviously. Even a dragon ought to understand that.” His dismissive tone of voice angered her, but she suppressed her irritation and said nothing. Maybe it was obvious to him, but he clearly hadn’t considered all the possibilities she and Rokshan had. “Gonjiri fights the dragons and loses, Fanishkor overruns Gonjiri. Simple.”

  “Except you didn’t count on two people caring about that not happening,” Lamprophyre said.

  “No. Why would humans and dragons ever make common cause? You and that whelp of a prince turned my every ploy on its head. Stealing the egg, turning Gonjiri against you…” Harshod laughed. “I thought for sure the poison would work. Kill the dragon queen’s daughter, and nothing would stop her taking her vengeance.”

  Lamprophyre decided not to point out why that wouldn’t work.
“Well, you’ve failed. And when I tell King Ekanath what you’ve done, that all of this was a Fanishkorite plot, that will be the end of it. So you can go back to your masters and tell them not to bother anymore.”

  Harshod laughed again. “Of course it worked. You’re here, aren’t you?”

  “I—what do you mean? I captured you.”

  “You fled the scene of your attack on the prince. That makes you look even more guilty than his burned body did. Once that’s reported to the king, nothing will convince him that dragons aren’t evil. He’ll order out the troops, they’ll march on the mountains, and I’ll have the war I wanted.” Harshod smiled. “There’s nothing you can do about it.”

  Lamprophyre sucked in a breath. “But Rokshan will tell them what happened when he wakes up.”

  “If he wakes. Even if he survived the blast to receive a healer’s attention, the treatment will have him unconscious for at least five days. Long enough to put the Army out of his reach. It’s too late.”

  His deep chuckle pained her more than an evil laugh would have, his eyes mocked her helplessness, and without thinking she balled up her fist and punched him in the stomach. It knocked him off his feet, and she was certain she felt something rupture. She didn’t care.

  She stood over him, fire roiling in her second stomach, and thought about setting him on fire as he’d done Rokshan. He was responsible for so much evil. She was sure Hyaloclast wouldn’t think twice about doing it. But she’d promised to let him go—or was a promise to an evil human anything worth keeping? She felt a pain in her right fist and realized she’d unconsciously let her claws extend just enough to prick her flesh. The pain woke her from her reverie. She should never have promised anything so rash, no matter what the bargain. And yet she had.