—And the money and power to make you a star, is that what you’re thinking?
If it wasn’t the dragon’s usual voice in his head, N’Doch would swear it was Sedou talking. It’s not just the good things he’s remembering now. “It’s on my mind,” he says aloud. He shakes off his brother’s hand and moves ahead, but Sedou’s voice stays with him in his head.
—We cannot be dancing to Baraga’s music! We have our Work to do. We must find Fire and learn why he’s turned against us.
N’Doch takes a breath.
—Okay. Then you go. I’ll go with Baraga and distract him, while the big guy takes you and the girl wherever you want to go. Then you’ll all be safe, and I’ll still have my chance. It’s a good plan. Think about it.
It’s a while before the dragon replies. There are bodies sprawled on the floor of the dining room. N’Doch nearly trips on one. No one is attempting to rescue them now. Broken glass is scattered everywhere, mixing with blood and a dusting of ceiling plaster. Sedou catches up with him at the door.
—It’s not a good plan. I can’t go without you.
—Sure you can. You’ll do fine.
He’s glad he’s not trying to say this aloud. He’s not sure he could do it. He’s just got Sedou back and he’s giving him up so soon?
—No, I mean, we can’t. Three is not four. You are needed.
He tries to make a joke of it.
—C’mon, it can’t matter that much. What if I died?
—We fail. Without you, without any one of us, the Quest will fail. If the Quest fails, my existence is purposeless.
—Existence is never purposeless! Life is its own purpose!
—Not for a dragon.
—So then what?
—I will cease, as will the others. You are needed, Dragon Guide.
N’Doch remembers when the realization first came on him, standing in the gym in the supertanker, of the burden this “destiny” was trying to dump on him. The same hollow panic grips him. Before, he’d thought it was rage and rebellion, but now he sees that it’s actually fear, fear of losing his freedom, of losing his self.
—No! I don’t want it! I didn’t ask for it! What about what I need? I got the chance of a lifetime here! This is my quest! You only get one chance like this one!
Sedou looks back at him steadily. N’Doch understands now why this brother’s shape suits the dragon so much better than Jéjé’s. It’s not just an issue of size. Sedou and the dragon have a lot in common: The same hard righteousness lights both their gazes.
—Remember the message offered in the wood?
—The girl’s, you mean? Yeah, so?
—Take it to heart, my brother. It was meant for you.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Erde supposed she was meant to feel safer with the giant Nikko right at her back, but she didn’t. She didn’t like how his eyes slid past her face, lingered on her body, then dismissed her altogether. Or how he used his burly body as a prod, herding herself and Lealé through the smoke and destruction in the outer room. Broken glass crunched underfoot. The long table loaded with food had been tipped over sideways in front of the ragged openings that are all that’s left of the windows. Several people huddled behind it, a few of them looking more dead than alive.
They’d almost reached the door when the light in the room flickered again, as if even this magic of electricity was subject to wind and warfare. The bodyguard barked a warning to Baraga ahead of him, and then the room went dark. Lealé moaned softly and reached for Erde’s hand. Her grip was moist and hot, like the thick damp air invading the house through its broken walls. Light fell in through the holes like light into a tunnel, enough to see by but barely, a red smoky light that raised the hair on Erde’s neck. She sent images to the dragon anxiously waiting in the grove, of the ruddy shadowed room littered with glass and bodies.
—Like our old dreams, Dragon! What does it mean?
—That we are meant to be here.
Earth would think this was offering her comfort, since being where Destiny intended him to be was all he required of life. Erde hoped for a little more, and from now until they were safe again, she’d be unable to think of quests and purpose or anything else but survival.
—Sometimes I think we’re in Hell. Are we, Dragon? Is it a punishment for my wicked deeds and unclean thoughts?
—You mustn’t fear, child. Fear is a temptation to give in to Weakness.
—Fearing and giving in are not the same. I can do one without doing the other.
—I am glad to hear it.
Baraga listened at the door, then slid it open just enough to slip through. N’Doch and the new dragon-shape called Sedou followed him. Nikko herded Erde after them, his hands on her and on Lealé in places she was sure they didn’t need to be. The hall was dark, and thick with jostling, sweating bodies. Nikko palmed a small cylinder that suddenly gave forth an intense beam of white light. Erde recoiled from it, and then wished she had one. But Nikko used it as a club, flashing its brilliance into frightened eyes, forcing a path of fear down the crowded hallway.
By the little door at the end of the hall, the head acolyte Jean-Pierre was fumbling with the lock while he balanced a pile of metal boxes in his arms. He squinted into the spear of light.
“Got it all, Mr. B.”
“Good man.” Baraga grabbed the key while Nikko aimed his light. They piled through the door into the lightless narrow passage on the other side. Nikko came last, ejecting a handful of acolytes who tried to follow. He slammed the door and slid the heavy deadbolt home.
“Go dark, Nikko,” warned Baraga from the curtained antechamber. “We got a crowd in here.” Nikko doused his beam, plunging the hot little room into blackness as suffocating as the grave. But Erde felt a tickle behind her eyeballs, and grainy shapes and shadows swam up out of the black as Water extended her night vision to her human companions. N’Doch edged up on one side of her, Sedou on the other.
—Say nothing. Your safety may depend on appearing helpless.
Erde blinked, and gave her eyes over completely to the dragon’s control. By the arched entrance to Lealé’s Reading-hall, she could see Baraga and his henchman listening at the draperies. Baraga reached and drew Lealé to him.
“How many, you think, Glory?”
“Could be as many as a hundred.”
“Laying low, hoping nobody’ll notice ’em.” Nikko lifted the metal thing she knew was a gun and seemed to be weighing it. “I’ll notice ’em, if they get in our way.”
“They are my ‘guests,’” reproved Lealé’s Glory-voice. “They’ll let us pass if I tell them to.”
“Will they let us hop into a tank and leave ’em all behind?” Baraga retorted.
“Yes. I think they would.”
From what she’d seen around the compound, Erde agreed. Besides, what N’Doch would call “the Glory thing” seemed to be their only chance to get through. She didn’t really believe that Nikko’s gun could fend off a hundred people, and as far as she knew, it was their only weapon.
“Should she go first, Mr. B.?”
“Yeah, then you, with the light. Ceremonial-like, you know? Like the power’s just blown and we’re dealing with it. I’ll follow with the others.”
—Setting up the order of sacrifice.
Erde felt dragon energy thrumming through the body of the tall stranger beside her.
“Nah . . .” muttered N’Doch.
—Putting himself in the middle, where he’s covered.
—He’ll cover us, too, like he’s covering Jean-Pierre. We could make him millions.
—He’ll dump anyone he thinks is extra weight.
—There’s no extra weight here. Three isn’t four, remember.
—Baraga doesn’t know that.
—Or perhaps he does. . . .
Earth’s weighing in to the conversation signaled to Erde his acceptance of Fire’s treachery.
—What d’you mean?
—As my sister said
, he has a touch of Fire in him.
“Oh, god,” N’Doch whispered, and then told them of Baraga’s dream.
—Given up on Lealé to move on to more fertile grounds . . .
—He’s only got to get rid of one of us to satisfy his dream-lord’s demands. The rest he can keep for himself.
—No one could hold onto one of you guys by force, not even Baraga!
—You think so? Fire seems to have done it. For all we know, he’s been giving the Man lessons.
—Yeah, but look: All Baraga knows is, he’s got three people. One of them he’s suspicious about, but he’s still not sure who he needs and who he can do without. So we’re safe until he knows.
—So you’re saying: Lay low, my brother.
Erde saw the flash of N’Doch’s smile.
—Yeah. I sure am. None of your dragon pyrotechnics.
—Not me. That’s the other one.
Erde recognized the tone: the banter of men before battle. The dragon did so well in this new shape. Even for Erde, the lines were blurring between the big man beside her and the voice in her head. She could only imagine how N’Doch must feel about it, who knew them both so well.
“Ready, Glory?” Baraga chucked Lealé under the chin as if she was a child. “Show ’em your stuff.”
Erde was sure Lealé was more frightened than she was letting on as she squared her shoulders and tossed her head, gestures made only to herself in a lightless room. Nikko drew back a thickly embroidered drape, then flicked on his magical light and let Lealé walk majestically into its beam.
An amazed murmur rolled around the dark, cavernous hall, like a gust of wind through grass.
“Glory! Glory! Gloreee!”
Lealé smiled and lifted her arms in salute and benediction. The hard white light caught on the beads in her hair and on her robe, making her sparkle like a jewel, shooting tiny flashes into the darkness to reflect in the adoring eyes of her invisible worshipers.
“Glory! Help us! Glory! Save us!”
“Children!” The Glory-voice rang out like a bell, chasing its own echoes around the unseen dome. “My dear children! You must stay calm and quiet until this crisis has passed. The power is off for a while, but I’m sure they’ll have it back again soon.”
The ground rumbled and shook, calling her a liar. But the petitioners only sighed and called her name.
She answered them, and as she talked, she moved into the huge space, out across the polished marble as Nikko’s beam illuminated a path for her. Some petitioners were standing, most were seated in groups on the still-cool stone, pressed together for comfort. Lealé picked her way gracefully among them, bestowing a smile here and a touch there. Baraga trailed her, in the light bearer’s shadow, with Jean-Pierre behind him, clutching his precious load of boxes. Erde had no choice but to follow. She noted that Sedou took up the rear, scanning the unlit vastness with the interest of one for whom the dark is no obstacle. She hoped Baraga was too focused on his own escape to notice.
As they progressed grandly across the hall, more of the petitioners stood up. They pressed in closer and their pleadings became more desperate. Lealé’s pace slowed. She could no longer pass through them easily. Nikko began to ask, then demand that they move aside, but Erde could see he was unpracticed at the Glory-thing, and his harsh orders set off bouts of weeping and hysteria among the weakest, and angry mutters among those with more presence of mind. So Nikko shoved harder, and Lealé kept up her steady stream of Glory patter, soothing, seducing a path to open up behind the rough-handed bodyguard. Behind them, the petitioners rose up and followed, murmuring and pushing against Erde and Sedou and N’Doch, until Erde wanted to scream and lash out with arms and fists and anything to keep them away from her. But she didn’t, remembering what Earth had told her about fear.
An eternity of seconds later, Lealé was nearly at the door. Beside the towering columns that framed the ceremonial entrance, she turned back toward the crowd, a faceless, dreamlike figure outlined in brilliant white.
“Now, my brave children, my dearest brothers and sisters, you shall rest here in safety, while Glory goes out to put an end to this nonsense! For how can the Word of Light be heard with all that going on?”
Erde heard N’Doch’s brief exhalation of disgust. She laid her palm against his back to quiet him.
“Hey, girl,” he whispered.
“Hey, bro,” she answered, in his own Frankish syllables.
He laughed softly, put his arm around her and hugged her close. “This is where it’s gonna get rough. You ready?”
Erde shook her head.
* * *
N’Doch wishes he could give the girl comforting words, but he has none. At the door, big Nikko slips the lock and eases the door open just the slightest crack to give himself a view of the situation outside. N’Doch ducks around behind him to peer around his back. Before the door swings shut, he gets a glimpse of the twisted-iron wreckage of the front gate. The pseudo-colonial guardhouse is a pile of rubble. Jack-booted soldiers in camo uniforms are pouring single-file through the gap and fanning out across the front, rifles at ready. N’Doch recalls what Nikko said about the attackers being organized. Who are these guys? he wonders. Why spend so much effort on just another cult house? The city’s lousy with them. But none of this is a mystery to Nikko.
“Storm troopers, Mr. B. They know we’re here.”
The phone on Nikko’s hip beeps discreetly, like just another business call coming in to enlarge the Big Man’s empire. Nikko confers with it briefly.
“Fifteen seconds to the wall,” he reports. “Another twelve to the door.”
Baraga pats the air, palms down, a silencing gesture. His eyes flick toward Lealé, still soothing the petitioner crowd. Some of them are claiming her personal attention now, and by habit, she is trying to supply them with a calming answer. N’Doch watches the bodyguard balance his maglight on the rim of a tall vase of flowers. He does it without moving the beam, so that the light continues to embrace and magnify the Mahatma Glory even as he moves away from it with Baraga and Jean-Pierre, toward the door. Baraga looks back at N’Doch and jerks his head in a wordless summons. N’Doch feels the chill seep into his gut.
He’s gonna leave her behind.
N’Doch tells himself this bothers him because he’s soft-hearted where women are concerned. But it’s also scary confirmation of the dragon’s dead-weight theory of Baraga’s escape tactics.
Nikko cracks the door open again, letting in only the slightest wisp of light as he counts down silent seconds to himself. At fifteen, N’Doch hears a grinding, tearing crunch, muffled by the heavy door. Nikko gives Baraga a slow nod.
Look behind you! N’Doch begs Lealé. He’s only ten feet away from her. He’s got twelve seconds, less now. He could warn her with a whisper, but he can’t bring himself to do it. If he does, he could blow his Big Chance. He sees fame and fortune miraculously within his grasp, after a lifetime of dreaming, and the desire for them rages in him as hotly as sex. Lealé can take care of herself, he reasons, as the tanks roar up outside the house.
With his pistol held at arm’s length, Nikko yanks open the door. Jean-Pierre hugs his boxes and runs for it. Baraga wraps an iron arm around N’Doch’s waist and propels him forward.
“Keep your head low, kid.”
N’Doch bucks back. He has to at least try. “No! You’re leaving her! You can’t . . .”
“You want to live and be famous? Two four-man tanks. There’s no room.”
N’Doch doesn’t count heads, he struggles, not even sure why he’s doing it, if he feels the way he says he does. The Media King is stronger than he would ever have imagined. The iron arm around his waist is replaced by one around his throat. Baraga drags him through the doorway. N’Doch can’t see Sedou, but he guesses the heavy drag on Baraga’s other side is his brother hauling on him.
The tanks are firing rounds into the front yard, keeping the assault force down in cover. But bullets are pinging against the
tanks’ armor and zinging past N’Doch’s ear. He’s still arguing with himself, telling himself to just relax, let the Media King toss both him and Sedou inside the goddamn tank where they’re safe. Nikko can get the girl.
“Nikko!” Baraga shouts. “Get him off me!”
The girl!
Off to the side, past Baraga’s stranglehold on his neck, N’Doch sees the girl dart out of the door. She’s got Lealé in tow, and she’s moving fast, using the tanks for cover like she should, except she’s not heading toward them, she’s . . . running for the grove!
He tries to choke out a yell, but Baraga’s got him so tight, he can only gag for breath. Now he sees Sedou, grappling with the bodyguard, unable to shake him loose.
“Which one of you is it?” Baraga hisses. “Which one of you’s the dragon handler?”
N’Doch takes a wild guess. Maybe Baraga doesn’t know. Maybe he thinks both the dragons are stashed somewhere else.
“All of us!” he gasps.
“That’s not what he told me.”
“Then he didn’t tell you much!”
The girl’s out in the open now, and the rain of gunfire intensifies.
Nikko has Sedou pinned against one of the tanks. Sedou’s struggling to fight him off, struggling to hold on to his human-form, failing . . .
—Sedou! The girl! Stop her!
The Sedou shape waves, resettles, wavers again. Nikko lets go and backs off from it in horror. He levels his pistol at its head.
“Nikko! No! Don’t hurt it! Take the other one!”
If he’d been thinking clearly, N’Doch realizes, he’d have seen the way it was going down. But then Baraga finally makes a mistake. He looses his hold on N’Doch’s throat to watch the man they’d called Sedou melt and dissolve before his very eyes and reform into a living creature out of myth. A dragon. N’Doch jerks himself free, off balance, and falls hard on his side. He rolls to his feet just as Nikko levels his pistol at the fleeing women.
“Nikko! Both of them! NOW!”
The bodyguard gets one shot off. Lealé stumbles and drops. A sudden wind has come up. Blinded by dust and outrage, N’Doch throws himself into the line of fire.
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