Steadfast

by Mercedes Lackey

  But she was pulling away from him, crawling a few feet and scrabbling with both hands at something in the floor.

  He followed her and saw what she was trying to pull up.

  A metal ring? A hatch! There was a cellar down there! Was there a way out to safety?

  He joined her, the two of them wrenching the hatch in the floor up with hysterical strength. She fell down into the darkness; he followed, letting the hatch drop down behind him, tumbling down the crude steps to land beside her on a floor that felt like ice after the heat of the fire above.

  “Where’s the cellar door?” he gasped, thinking there was a way out of here, or why else would she have come down this way. Overhead he heard the flames roaring. He could see the floorboards outlined in yellow glare.

  “There isn’t one—” she said—then sobbed, and threw herself into his arms. He bent his head down beside hers, and half closed his eyes, feeling her despair along with his own. And yet, a strange peace. They were together. At the last, they were together. “I just—I don’t—I didn’t want—”

  But at that moment, the cellar filled with a clear white light.

  For a moment he was certain that the floor had given way and they were dying—they just hadn’t felt the pain yet. But she gasped, and he blinked, and turned to look at what she was staring at, and saw—

  For a very long moment, he wasn’t certain what he was looking at. A wall of diamonds, perhaps. Then he realized that he was staring at a chest and two massive legs that sparkled, as if both were covered with a paving of the finest gemstones that shot off rainbows as the chest moved. And he looked up, and up—

  And a long, elegant head on the end of a graceful neck came down, and two bejeweled eyes gazed into his. The whole creature was covered in white gems, and a soft, white light came from it. Two great wings were held closely to its body; the webbing between the “fingers” of the wings looked so soft he longed to touch it.

  He held his breath, as Katie was holding hers.

  “Do not fear,” said a voice like the deepest of church bells in his head. “Lie as close to the earth as may be.”

  What? he thought in confusion. He recognized the creature for what it was, of course. One of the Great Elementals, a drake—something he, as a mere magician, had never expected to see in his life. But—what was it trying to tell him? Had it come for them? Or was this some hallucination their minds were creating to protect them from the hell that was about to devour them?

  “She and you are worthy. I pledged her my protection. I will protect you as well, for she loves you. Fear not. Love, and trust.”

  He turned his head, and looked deeply into Katie’s eyes. There was no fear there. No matter what happened—no matter if this was just some dying vision—all he saw in her eyes was love. He gathered her into his arms, and they lay down on the floor of the cellar, and the great wings of the dragon covered them over.

  And the fire roared and bellowed as it consumed everything above them.

  The heat was incredible; it drove all thought out of his head, it drove even the ability to think out of his head. All he could do was to murmur, over and over, with lips that were dry, parched and cracking, with a tongue that stuck to the inside of his mouth, was the litany, “Remember Africa. Remember Africa . . .”

  Was it saying it for himself, or for Katie? Or for them both?

  But he remembered. He remembered, and stopped fighting the heat. Accepted it. Made it part of himself. Became the heat; became the flame.

  Became the gem-paved dragon lying over them, protecting them from the worst of the flames.

  He remembered . . .

  And as if something was determined to remind him of his guilt even now, he remembered them. The women, the children of the Boers—remembered them although he had never seen them with his own eyes. Remembered them dying in the same heat, beneath the same sun that was baking him and his mates—and yet, unlike him and his mates, there was no place for them to escape from the sun, scant water, and scanter food. He bore willing witness to their bowed heads, their thin bodies, under the punishing sun, accepting that as he was part of the Army, the nation, that had done this to them, he was responsible for what had happened to them.

  And seeing them, he reached out to them.

  “I’m sorry—” he told them, eyes too dry for tears, as theirs were too dry for tears. “I’m sorry. I knew, and I did nothing. I knew—”

  Finally, slowly, they raised their heads; eyes as blue as the pitiless sky gazed back at him. He shrank back into himself for a moment, then steadied himself, and waited. Whatever came, he surely deserved it. They would surely condemn him to the fire here, and the fires of hell afterward. How did he not deserve it?

  Just save Katie, he prayed silently. She never harmed anyone. Just save her.

  But there was no accusation in those eyes. Only peace. Only calm.

  Only the one thing he had never, ever expected to receive.

  And a thousand, thousand voices spoke wordlessly into his mind.

  “We forgive.”

  • • •

  It was forever. It took no time at all. There was only the heat, and the strange peace, for the longest time. And then thought came creeping back, and for another timeless time, all he was aware of was Katie lying trustfully in his arms. His eyes were closed, as they had been since the dragon covered them. Slowly, as thought returned, and the ability to move again returned, he opened them.

  It was dark. There was shouting. And the great, white weight that had been above them was gone. He could hear someone hoarsely calling their names in the distance.

  “Jack! Katie! They’re in there, I tell you! Jack!”

  Arguing. The sound of scuffling. And suddenly Jack knew who it was that was calling them; he let go of Katie, who stirred and pushed herself up, while he felt for and found the stairs, still uncomfortably hot, and scrambled up them on his hands and knees, and finally shoved and shoved at the place where the hatch at been until, with a groan and a strangely metallic-sounding shattering of half-burned wood, it burst apart.

  “Here!” he shouted, and coughed in the smoke that wreathed around him, further obscuring the little vision he had in the thick, dark night. “Here!”

  There was nothing left of the cottage; he was afraid to move, quite certain now that it would be dangerous to do so. It was still infernally hot; heat washed over him in waves, and Katie gasped behind him.

  “Jack!” Lionel bellowed, somewhere off in the darkness. And then there were people stumbling through the still-smoldering remains of the cottage, kicking apart pieces of wood and beams that broke to show coals still inside, making their way through the black and the smoke to where he shouted.

  He felt Katie coming up the stairs behind him, and pulled her up, thrusting her into the arms of the first to come to their side. The fireman swung her tiny body up over his shoulder and ran across the ruins to safer ground, while two of his colleagues hauled Jack out by the arms and carried him out between them.

  There was a—wagon, or a cart. Someone picked him up bodily and lifted him inside, putting him down on the floor beside Katie. Someone put a bucket of water up to his face and he drank as if he had not drunk a drop for a week, then poured water over his head, then drank again before falling back in a kind of stupor.

  He lost track of things again, for a moment. The next time he was aware of anything, he was in a brightly lit room, being cut out of his clothing.

  A hospital . . . He recognized the tiled floors and walls, the male aides surrounding him—it wouldn’t do for a female nurse to see him naked of course. Most of all he recognized the smell. This was like the hospital in Africa where they’d had his leg off, only it wasn’t in a tent. So of course, it wasn’t like the hospital in Africa at all. It was all curiously dreamlike, and he laughed. One of the aides looked a
t him as if he was mad.

  “It’s all right—” he reassured the man. “It’s all right . . . brain is just a bit baked . . . like a bit of nice cod . . .”

  And that was when he fell over sideways and didn’t have any thoughts at all for some time, as the hospital attendants marveled that he had come through all that, and was somehow, miraculously, almost completely untouched.

  • • •

  “Unbelievable,” said Lionel, as he pushed the wheelchair holding Jack out to the cab. “Absolutely unbelievable. I can’t wait to hear the whole story. I never would have believed you two would walk out of that inferno hardly touched.”

  “Act of God, I say,” Mrs. Buckthorn said, firmly, as she walked beside them. “Act of God it was! All His Holy Angels were down there in that nasty cellar, protecting you! And neither of you hurt!”

  “You will not hear me arguing with you, Mrs. Buckthorn,” Jack replied sincerely. “I’d say it was a miracle.”

  It was true. Aside from being so dehydrated that he drank what seemed like gallons of water, and a few burns that looked no worse than bad sunburn, he (and, he was told, Katie) were fine. The hospital had held them until noon, then let them go since there seemed no reason to hold them any further, and the only reason he was in the wheelchair was because he felt as if he had nearly torn his stump out of his hip socket, what with the running, and catching Katie, and tumbling down the stairs. It wasn’t that bad, it was only some torn muscles, they thought, but it hurt like anything and he was very glad of the pills they had given him.

  Katie was already in the cab, leaning out, peering anxiously. She was wearing a gown borrowed from Mrs. Buckthorn that was two or three sizes too big for her, and looked like a child playing dress-up. She didn’t own so much as a penny or a scrap of clothing now. She didn’t look as if she cared. And her face lit up when she saw them finally bringing Jack.

  “Careful,” Lionel said in a warning tone, very quietly, once he was near enough that she could hear something that was just barely above a whisper. “No demonstrations. You are just friends and fellow workers. There is going to be an inquest, and we don’t want anyone deciding that Katie set fire to her husband to be rid of him. It’s just as well that the only people that know she wanted to divorce him are us and Peggy.”

  Katie had been about to rise out of her seat; she sat back down immediately and clasped her hands in her lap, looking frightened. As well she should. There was no telling if the Coroner was going to be looking for a sensational case or not. “It’s going to be hard enough to explain why you sent a cabby racing across Brighton just in time to rescue her,” Mrs. Buckthorn put in, and Katie paled and bit her lip.

  But Lionel winked. “That’s taken care of, Mrs. Buckthorn. You see, Jack and I realized she’d left without getting her pay packet, and we knew her husband would be hard on her if she didn’t hand it over. That’s the thing about my sort of magic. I’m very good at convincing people I’ve told them something, especially if they already want to believe it. The cabby will back us up.”

  Mrs. Buckthorn and Katie both heaved sighs of relief, and Lionel and the housekeeper helped Jack into the cab. “I—I don’t want to be any trouble, but I don’t know where I’m to go now,” Katie said, hesitantly.

  “That’s taken care of, dearie,” Mrs. Buckthorn said immediately, patting her knee. “You’re all set up at Mrs. Baird’s. I saw to it all while you were in hospital. Your old room was still empty and she is glad to have you back again.”

  Lionel signaled to the cabby by tapping the roof of the cabin, and the horse moved sedately off. “Now that that bastard isn’t drinking your pay, and you aren’t having to save for a divorce, you’ll be all right,” he reminded her. “And the girls all did a rummage among their things to find you some clothing that will do until you can buy some pretty things of your own. It’s all waiting for you at Mrs. Baird’s.”

  She smiled radiantly at him, and Jack watched Lionel’s eyes widen with surprise. He had to smile a little at that. It seemed that only at this moment did the magician realize what a strikingly beautiful little creature she was.

  Partly that was because Lionel very carefully did not think of his assistants as women, much less pretty, in order to keep things from getting out of hand.

  But partly it was that she’d kept all that hidden away under a veil of fear. Now, with the fear gone, she was like another girl entirely, and for the first time Lionel was seeing what Jack had seen all along.

  “I don’t know what I would have done without you,” she said, her eyes brightening with tears of gratitude. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

  “It’s not over yet,” Lionel warned them both. “There’s still the inquest. Let’s get through that, then you can celebrate. Until that’s over, we must be careful, be very cautious—and you, Katie—”

  But, full of new self-assurance, she nodded. “I think I know just what to do,” she said.

  • • •

  Jack sat stoically in the stuffy, dark little courtroom that had been set up for the inquest. He had put on his best “soldier face” for this, as inscrutable as an Egyptian statue. His patience and acting ability had been severely tried, since the balding, portly Coroner seemed to have taken a dislike to Katie, and from all Jack could tell, was doing his best to try and trip all of them up in their stories.

  But Peggy had come to the rescue in advance, by telegram at least, and wired them the name of her solicitor in Brighton. He was thin as a fence-rail, dark, fierce, and sharp. After consulting with all of them, he had managed to find several witnesses of his own.

  Some of the key witnesses turned out to be the winner of the prizefight that Dick Langford had lost the night he died, the man’s patron, and the owner of the inn where the fight had been held.

  The first to be called was the prizefighter. This surprisingly gentle man should not have been a match for the giant Langford, but clearly his skill at fisticuffs must have far outweighed the strongman’s size and strength.

  “There was no science to him,” the man explained. “Nothing but a bully. I dropped him three times, and the third time he couldn’t get up, so he lost the match. And I’ve seldom seen a worse loser.” He went on at some length about Langford’s unsporting behavior, and how afterward the strongman had gotten stinking drunk and accused everyone of cheating.

  “I threw him out of the bar,” the publican testified, shortly, when he was called. “Drunk, trying to pick fights, bullying the patrons. I told him never to come back.”

  “I had to threaten to call the constables,” said the prizefighter’s patron. “He was claiming we cheated, making all sorts of ridiculous accusations, then threatening us that he was going to get even. As soon as I sent someone for police, though, he stumbled off, blind drunk and raging.”

  Then it was Katie’s turn. She sat in the witness box, quiet, pale, wearing a black gown she had borrowed from Suzie. The Coroner strode up and down in front of her for a moment, then turned on her, and barked out his first question.

  “You perform at the Palace Music Hall, is that true?” he said, as if it were a sort of attack. Well, perhaps it was. The jury for the inquest was, of course, composed of very sober tradesmen and businessmen. They would scarcely approve of a woman who exposed herself on a stage to the eyes of strangers. Strange men. . . .

  “Yes, sir,” Katie replied quietly.

  “And you are billed as Natalya Bayonova, the Russian Ballerina!” he crowed, and pointed a long, accusing finger at her. “Yet you are not Russian, you are not a ballerina, and your name is Katherine Langford!” Jack could see what he was doing. Already Katie had a mark against her for being a music hall performer. Now the man was making her out to be a liar.

  “The playbills were already printed when Miss Bayonova canceled, sir.” Katie was not in the least rattled by the man’s belligerence, and Jack m
arveled at her composure. Then again . . . she’d had plenty of practice in dealing with worse bullies, thanks to her husband. At least the Coroner was not going to beat her into submission. “There was no time to print up more. Mr. Charles Mayhew asked if any of us dancers had an act that could replace her, and I did.”

  “You’ve been performing under this . . . pseudonym . . . for the past four weeks. That’s plenty of time to print new bills, don’t you think?” The Coroner wasn’t going to give up this particular bone without a fight.

  “I’m just a dancer, sir. I don’t know nothing about the business and all. My job is to do my acts, and do them well, and that is the end of it. No boss likes having a girl stick her nose into his business, and it wouldn’t be my place to do that. You’d have to ask Mr. Mayhew about all that.” She kept her voice steady and didn’t flinch as he got right up into her face.

  Disgruntled by the fact that he hadn’t shaken her, the Coroner stalked away, then turned. “And why were you here in Brighton all alone, taking on jobs, when you should have been with your husband, Richard Langford?” he snapped.

  “The circus wasn’t doing well, sir,” she said, steadily. “Dick and me agreed I was the weaker act for a circus. I reckoned I should go look for work here, where there were lots of places where I could get honest work. That way I could save up money.” She shrugged. “I never reckoned on being a headline act. I was just right glad when Mr. Hawkins took me on as his assistant. When Mr. Mayhew give me the headline job, I reckoned I’d fallen in the cream.”

  Oh, well done. Every word rang true, because it was true. It just wasn’t all the truth.

  “So . . . did you inform your husband of your sudden increase in good fortune?” the Coroner sneered, knowing she hadn’t.

  But she gave him a long and pitying look, the sort of look you give a child who has given you an answer so completely wrong that you know he didn’t bother to even think about it. “How could I,” she asked him, “When not even Mr. Andy Ball, the circus owner, knows for sure what the next stop will be? I do be a dancer, sir, not a fortune-teller.”