Köthen shifts, easing his sword sling onto one shoulder, then down to his side. N’Doch agrees. This crowd, or at least a part of it, could turn ugly at any minute. A glance about tells him that he and the baron have been quietly percolated up to the front rank beside Luther and Stoksie, with the girl and Brenda and the rest of Blind Rachel ranged behind them. Maybe this is where the hired muscle was really supposed to come in handy.
Luther says to the linebacker, “Dere’s sum heah gotta diffrint idear ’bout t’ings.”
The linebacker stands tall on the tailgate. The lanterns burnish his hair and chiseled profile with a kind of halo. N’Doch is envious. The guy sure knows how to find his light.
“Let them speak up, then.” He waits, the hostage cradled in his arms. The broken-faced woman glares but says nothing. The linebacker nods, and from over by Oolyoot’s wagons, two strapping guys still partly swathed in red and gold come forward to help lift the hostage down.
But the moment she leaves the linebacker’s arms, the crowd destabilizes, surging forward to press around the two aides and their burden, snatching back the concealing canvas, grabbing for a closer look. The aides twist and turn to get away, but they’re surrounded and the mob’s temperature is rising fast. N’Doch hears the now familiar rasp of steel being drawn. Köthen shoves forward at the same time that the linebacker leaps down from the van, shouting for everyone to back off. The skirmish is quick, and it leaves two men with blood seeping between fingers hastily clamped to a forearm or bicep. Sword at the ready, Köthen plants himself firmly in the space he’s opened up around the aides and the hostage. The crowd backs off in muttering surprise. The wounded and some of the naysayers are hustled off into the dark nether reaches of the cavern. But the stocky, broken-faced woman holds her ground as the linebacker steps forward.
She glares at him. “Why shuld we risk ouah lives fer dat reptile’s whore? An’ yers, too, mebbe, fer all I know.”
Gasps all around, but the linebacker regards her patiently, like he’s heard all this before. “She’s nobody’s whore, Sel. Not mine, not his. Let’s get that straight.”
“She ain’t done nuttin fer us!” shouts a voice from the back.
“Keep it down, Paddy. She’s his victim as much as we are.”
Derisive laughter rises out of the gloom.
“You don’t believe me? Then you go do the kind of time in that place that I have! Go on! I dare you!” The linebacker stands a head taller than the rest of the crowd, and his blue eyes compel with the light of conviction. N’Doch can see why Luther calls him “preacher.”
“This woman has been the Beast’s prisoner inside the Citadel! She knows nothing about what he does out in the villages. She has no power other than the Beast’s devotion to her. Besides, it’s not what she’s done for us before that matters. It’s what she’s going to do for us now!” He takes a step forward and leans over the broken-faced woman, so that she has to crook her neck hard to keep looking him in the eye. “We’ve been over this a thousand times, Sel.”
“An’ yu ain’t neva listened onct!”
More laughter, but thinner this time.
“I’ve listened. We’ve all listened. And most of us think this is the way to go.”
“The right way!” someone murmurs.
“’Bout da only way,” Luther seconds.
“Do we blow this opportunity just to exact petty revenge? Waste the luck of a miracle we never expected? New and powerful allies, like a sign from the One herself?” The linebacker spreads his arms in protest, but it feels more like an embrace. N’Doch feels himself getting snagged by the dude’s crowd appeal. Is he priest or politician? “Is that what you want? To throw away all our months of . . .”
“Years!” chimes in Luther.
“Yes, years! Of planning and readiness? Look what we can do when we work together! Pulled it off without a hitch, without a life lost! We’ll only get this chance once, Sel. The power of a miracle . . . on our side!”
The woman spits on the worn rock at the linebacker’s feet. “Da reptile’ll jes get isself anudda doll baby.”
“I don’t think so. But we’ll just have to take that chance.”
N’Doch glances over at the girl, listening hard at Stoksie’s side. Another coin has just dropped and he wonders if she figures it the way he does. The pretty priestess is Fire’s dragon guide. Got to be.
The aide holding the priestess shifts his burden and whispers something to the other one, who steps respectfully around Köthen and his gleaming blade. “I think she’s coming around.”
“Already? Okay.” The linebacker turns. His gaze finally takes in Köthen and his sword. “Who’s this, Luther? One of your . . . new friends?”
Luther clears his throat. “Yah. Dat’s, um, dat’s Doff. A fren frum Urop.”
“Europe?” He cocks his head dubiously.
“He wouldn’t be lying. And he doesn’t speak English, but I’ll speak for him.” N’Doch takes a step into the light. This dude’s the first since Hal at Deep Moor who’s tall enough to look him in the eye, but N’Doch’s interested to see that his cool’s finally been ruffled. Do I look that strange? He beckons the girl out from behind Luther. “There’s one more. Might as well meet us all at once.”
Stoksie murmurs, “All da viziters I tole yu ’bout, Leif. ’Cept one.”
“Um . . .?” says the aide nervously.
“Right. Coming. Luther, Stoksie, explain later. Bring your friends along. We’ll take her down. Don’t want her knowing about all this right off.” The linebacker steps up to Köthen’s warding blade, then holds out his hand. “I’m Leif Cauldwell. Thanks for the help, whoever you are.”
They share a brief measuring stare, then Köthen puts up the sword and takes the offered hand. “Schon gut.”
Cauldwell laughs softly. “I cannot wait to hear your story.”
N’Doch thinks: and I can’t wait to hear yours. The big man moves past him to take the priestess from the skittish aide. Blind Rachel opens up a protected path through their midst. Luther unhooks a lantern from the van and leads the way. Cauldwell and the aides follow. Stoksie, taking up the rear, turns back briefly. “Lady, Dockman, Doff—yu come wit’, na.”
It’s more like an order than an invitation, but N’Doch is glad for it. He guesses Köthen ain’t gonna let this priestess woman out of his sights, now he’s got her back in ’em again. As they follow Stoksie, N’Doch sees anticipation flicker in the baron’s eyes before he can hide it.
Luther leads them through more crowds, past other wagons and darkened campsites, rumpled bedrolls and cold meals hastily set aside, to a concrete wall with what looks like a big door in it. A dim light burns steadily above the doorframe. N’Doch squints at it. An electric light. Luther presses his palm to a glassy plate alongside. The plate pops open like a lid. Luther flips it back. Inside are two rows of little buttons. Luther taps out a hurried sequence, a red idiot light switches to green, and a deep hum starts up somewhere down in the depths of the rock.
N’Doch swallows the exclamation of recognition that leaps to his lips. He’s thinking, it can’t be, but sure enough, the hum stops and a crack of light appears along the floor. The big door lifts horizontally to reveal an evenly lit, square silver room. Luther and Cauldwell head right in. Stoksie and the aides wait outside, beckoning to N’Doch and his companions, herding away any others. Köthen scowls at the too-bright, too even light, but he follows N’Doch and the girl as the door starts to close and Stoksie scoots in behind them.
“Damn!” whispers N’Doch. “An elevator!” He’s near delirious to be bathed in glorious artificial light again. He slides a hand along the textured metal shell. It’s cool, hard, and so familiar. He checks for the control panel. There isn’t one visible. He’s willing to bet that Luther’s neat palm print maneuver would reveal one if needed, but apparently this car’s on automatic. The door seals soundlessly as it touches the floor. The elevator sinks, with almost no sensation of motion.
N
’Doch says, “Luther, my man, you’re just full of little surprises.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
As the floor of the bright square room fell gently out from under her, Erde suffered a flash of childhood memory, of falling once when she was five into the deep end of the mill pond. It wasn’t just the sensation of sinking slowly into the unknown. There was also this strange, increasing pressure on her eardrums, in her lungs, inside her head.
Not painful, only . . . disorienting. Erde glanced around to see if anyone else seemed to notice it.
N’Doch was looking her way. She searched his round ebony face for helpful clues. Perhaps her own face showed more distress than she felt, for he winked at her and smiled encouragingly.
Part of the oddness, she knew, was being apart from the dragons, inwardly as well as outwardly. She recognized the disappointing dulling of her senses—sight, smell, and especially sound—and the loneliness of being once again remanded to the confines of her own narrow skull.
And yet . . . being entirely within herself once again made her feel peculiarly collected. Strong, and clear-minded. Grown up.
She had listened closely to the confrontation in the cavern. The dragons had planted all the necessary language in her head, but the day’s sequence of events had left her reeling with smoke and violence and revelation. The mystic reunion with Sir Hal’s dragon-hilted sword. Lord Fire denying his destiny. Her own Earth, and Lady Water, coming into the fullness of their powers. And all the human events as well.
But it wasn’t necessary, Erde decided, to understand all the complex ramifications of those events, of the relationship between the town and the Tinkers, or the Tinkers and Lord Fire’s Temple, or even the Temple and the general populace. Or of the arrival of the man Leif Cauldwell. Erde would await the dragons’ reading of him. She thought of him as a sort of beautiful giant. If she were a sculptor, she would use him to model an archangel. Not fierce Michael, with the sword. Gabriel, rather, the Messenger.
All that really mattered was knowing how any of this bore on the dragons and the furthering of their Quest.
They had found Lord Fire and confronted him. As Baron Köthen had said, the battle was joined. Erde knew she should be filled with foreboding. Instead, she was exultant with purpose. Oh, the strength of purpose that swelled within her as the white room sank into unknown depths! It had been ripening, like a secret child in her womb, all along, while she was distracted with concern for the dragon’s growth and welfare. She felt as if nothing could dismay her now, not a day of confusion and bloodshed, not the piercing eye of the hell-priest, not even the hopelessness of her love for the man standing next to her.
She wondered if N’Doch felt the same.
It was not a question to be asked out loud, not in present company. And it was complicated. She wasn’t quite sure how to put it to him. So she turned it over in her mind, forming and re-forming the question, then glanced up to find him still staring at her. Only he wasn’t smiling now. He looked both amazed and horrified.
Stop thinking so loud, his voice growled in her mind. The answer is yes!
Omigod! She knew she must not gape at him, and draw the others’ notice. What . . .?
A rueful chuckle tickled a corner of her mind. Guess it finally got quiet enough in our heads for us to hear what else is going on.
Do you . . . mind?
No. Not really. She feels his surprise. Seems sorta . . . right. Long as I know there’s places you can’t go and things you can’t know.
Erde turned away to hide her smile from the casual onlooker. N’Doch! Your thoughts are even more musical than your speech!
Oh, yeah?
Won’t they be pleased!
The dragons? You mean, ’cause we finally learned something on our own?
But we didn’t! They taught us. We just weren’t aware of it at the time.
I suppose.
But it wasn’t quite like talking with the dragons. This entire communication had been instantaneous, contained in the few seconds it took Stoksie across from her to raise his hand and scratch his head. Erde had always assumed that the dragons slowed down their thoughts to suit the more sluggish pace of human minds. What if it was the other way around?
She considered how the tiny rapid heartbeat of a bird in hand made one’s own human pulse seem inexorable and slow. Was it so with tiny humans and their dragons?
Hey, girl . . . Erde . . . lemme ask you something. I got a thought here.
She looked his way. He was studying the limp bundle in the archangel’s arms. The priestess? What about her?
Fire’s dragon guide, I’m betting. Whadda you think?
Oh. Oh, my. Well . . . perhaps so.
When she wakes up, maybe we should ask her.
Like . . . this?
N’Doch laughed, and Luther glanced over curiously. N’Doch shook his head. “Nothin’, man, nothin’. Just a thought.”
But in her head, he said, Well, yeah! If she answers, we’ll know we’re right.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Paia stirs. How curious. What has happened to her ability to tell dream from reality, or waking from sleep? Too much of that unaccustomed dreaming. She thought she’d waked cradled in Luco’s arms, not a terrible place to be. Now she feels a subtle floating sensation that calls up memories of the Citadel’s elevators. Either she’s still dreaming or . . . she drifts away, then back, suddenly awash with relief and an explanation. Luco has brought her home, through some miraculously secret back entrance!
But her head is clearing, and logic intervenes. The Citadel is four hard days’ travel away. Even at the speed of those mad cart animals, such a distance could not be accomplished . . . unless they’ve been traveling in one big circle since they left the Citadel. But Luco said his locator was out of range. She must be dreaming. Where else could there be a working elevator? Paia ponders this muzzily as the cab continues to drop.
Further proof of the dream: she can’t seem to move or talk. Still wrapped in this tenacious drowsiness. It smoothes out any impulse to exert brain or muscle. She’s paralyzed with lassitude. Well, no worry. The God will show up soon, as he does in all of her dreams. So what if he’ll be furious.
Over the background hum of the elevator comes a soft babble of voices. In her dream, even though the words sound unfamiliar, Paia seems to understand them. One man is trying to explain to another man what an elevator is. She summons the effort to open her eyes. The first face she sees tells her she’s dreaming for sure. It’s the man with the sword, the man from her dreams, who stood in the crowd and stared at her as if he owned her. Now she begins to question that sighting. The rocking sedan chair, the soporific heat . . . had she dozed off, and dreamed in daylight? But here he is again. He’s still staring at her. She should be insulted by his boldness, then and now. Instead, Paia welcomes it. She’s never seen a more beautiful man.
There are others in this dream, as well: a tall skinny youth who looks like he’s of pure African blood. Paia recalls colleagues of her father’s who resembled him. Perhaps this dream figment is the embodiment of her survivor’s guilt. She has suffered it since childhood, since the floods and epidemics that wiped out most of the African continent.
The next figment is a younger boy, no, it’s a girl dressed as a boy. A pretty girl, but with little sense of herself. Perhaps she is the beautiful man’s child, though they look nothing alike except for the lightness of their complexions. For some reason, Paia thinks of the chambermaid, and what her inventive hands could do with this girl, with her dark curly hair and her impossibly pale skin. Then there are two older men as well, smaller, darker than herself but clearly of local stock, except for their strange accents and their very independent manner. Why would she be dreaming these people? No matter. This dream has a mind of its own.
She is about to sneak another look at the man with the sword when the elevator breathes to a stop and the door lifts. A current of blessedly cool air swirls in and around her as she rests in Luco’s strong
arms. Paia hears the quiet sigh of climate control, and has another seizure of being sure she’s back at the Citadel. Even dreaming, she’s glad of the long sleeves and the long soft pants she’s wearing. It’s cold down here.
The light outside the door is dimmer than inside. The elevator seems to pour light like a liquid into the darkened corridor. When Paia’s dream characters step out, the door closes behind them and there is just enough light in the corridor to see the way, as if half the recessed ceiling fixtures are burned out and the rest set to low power. But it’s enough light to see all the books, piles and piles of them, real books as well as the electronic kind. Not carefully shelved and catalogued like her father’s, but scattered about, right out in the open. Where are the servants, to clean the place up? There are stacks of papers and rows of storage cabinets lining the hallway left and right. They narrow it to a single lane or sometimes none, where a pile has been pushed aside into the path or simply tumbled down like a paper landslide.
The taller of the older men leads them through the mess. They pass intersections with other disordered, obstructed corridors, and many half-open doors that reveal dimly lit rooms stocked with more books, more shelving, and storage racks.
“It’s a library,” Paia says finally, and in the dream, everyone turns and looks at her. She has startled them. “It’s even bigger than my father’s.”
Luco stops, shifting her in his arms. “You’re awake.”
“I am?” Paia realizes he’s right. She’s not even sure when the transition happened between the dream and reality. “I’m not dreaming? I thought I was dreaming.”
Luco sets her down gently. “Can you walk?”
She gets her balance, but her eyes will not focus. “Where am I?”
He supports her elbow, urging her forward. “Wait.”
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