Excerpt

THE DRAGON QUARTET:

BOOK FOUR

THE BOOK OF AIR

Marjorie B. Kellogg

Also by Marjorie B. Kellogg:

The Dragon Quartet

THE BOOK OF EARTH

THE BOOK OF WATER

THE BOOK OF FIRE

THE BOOK OF AIR

By Marjorie B. Kellogg with William Rossow:

LEAR’S DAUGHTERS

(The Wave and the Flame | Reign of Fire)

Table of Contents

PROLOGUE

The Creation

IN THE BEGINNING,

AND A LITTLE AFTER . . .

In the Beginning, four mighty dragons raised of elemental energies were put to work creating the World. They were called Earth, Water, Fire, and Air. No one of them had power greater than another, and no one of them was mighty alone.

When the work was completed and the World set in motion, the four went to ground, expecting to sleep out this World’s particular history and not rise again until World’s End.

The first to awaken was Earth.

He woke in darkness, as innocent as a babe, with only the fleeting shadows of dreams to hint at his former magnificence. But one bright flame of knowledge drove him forth: he was Called to Work again, if only he could remember what the Work was.

He found the World grown damp and chill, overrun by the puniest of creatures, Creation’s afterthought, the ones called Men. Earth soon learned that Men, too, had forgotten their Origin. They had abandoned their own intended Work in the World and thrived instead on superstition, violence, and self-righteous oppression of their fellows. They had forgotten as well their primordial relationship with dragons—all, that is, but a few.

One in particular awaited Earth’s coming, a young girl who knew nothing of the secret duty carried down through the countless generations of her blood. Her name was Erde, and she knew her Destiny when she faced a living dragon and was not afraid.

Thereafter, Earth’s Quest became her own, and together they searched her World for answers to his questions. Some they found and slowly, along with his memory, Earth’s powers reawakened. But the girl’s World was dark and dangerous and ignorant, and the mysterious Caller who summoned Earth could not be found within it. One day, blindly following the Call, Earth took them Somewhere Else.

In that Somewhere Else, they found Earth’s sister Water, and her Companion N’Doch. N’Doch’s World was hot and crowded and full of noise, and mysterious to Erde until she understood that she had traveled to Sometime, as well as to Somewhere. It became her task to teach N’Doch about the dragons and their Quest, for he did not know his Destiny, and did not join them willingly at first.

Water, too, had heard the Caller. She could answer some of Earth’s questions about the Work, but added many of her own. Soon, the dragons were convinced that an unknown Power not only blocked their Search, but threatened their safety. Evidence pointed to the dragon Fire, but why would their own brother conspire against them?

When the dangers of N’Doch’s World, both human and inhuman, closed in around them, the four in desperation returned to Erde’s time, with nothing but N’Doch’s recurring dream of a Burning Land to tell them where to go to continue the Search.

But in Erde’s time, conditions were deteriorating. . . .

N’Doch’s nightmare vision took the four to a farther Future, where the results of Mankind’s carelessness and greed were only too evident. War, disease and ecological collapse had razed the landscape and brought human society to ruin. Here, the four found undeniable evidence of Fire’s villainy. In the planet’s final days, he ruled as a tyrannical god over a dwindling population, preaching Apocalypse and plotting against his siblings. He even boasted of how cleverly he’d hidden away their sister Air.

But the four found surprising allies in that hot and desiccated land, resourceful men and women who knew that their survival depended on a more sympathetic relationship with Nature. The most astonishing addition to the Quest was Fire’s own dragon guide, Paia. Her fated bond with her fellow guides allowed her to repudiate her dragon’s misdeeds, and join the efforts to free Air from her mysterious prison and Paia’s people from Fire’s cruel yoke.

From out of this rebellion, an old friend appeared in a new guise, and was revealed as the fourth dragon guide. But he didn’t know where his dragon was, either.

Yet, was Fire merely evil, or was there truth to his claim of knowledge that only he possessed?

At last, Earth, Water, and Fire came face-to-face. A fiery confrontation on a barren mountaintop forced Fire into temporary retreat. But not before he had threatened murder and mayhem against all that the humans knew and loved. . . .

PART ONE

The Summoning of the Hero

CHAPTER ONE

Gone. The Fire-breather is gone.

Seconds afterward, the Librarian senses a change. A difference inside. Like the twitching of muscles he’d not even known were paralyzed.

Smoke still hangs in the heated air, the Fire-breather’s sulfurous trace. It’s the same dry dawn on the same dry mountaintop. The Librarian is alive when he didn’t expect to be, but he is not the same as he was a moment ago.

His dragon has touched him, he’s sure of it. A feather-light glancing contact, almost too brief to be noticed, yet inside him now, this entire . . . what? A reordering, an enlarging—of thought, of perception, of understanding. A more outward focus.

And the connection felt deliberate this time. Not like it’s always been for him before, at the mercy of his peculiar inner circuitry, picked out by random roving beams that stun and blind, then swing away through the fog. This was . . . almost directed. Behind the walls of the dragon’s enigmatic prison, something has changed for her, too.

She knows where to find me.

The others must hear of this, immediately. But as the Librarian tries for words, none will come, aloud or otherwise. This has not changed. Besides, the others are not ready for another dose of revelation. Not yet. Though the terrifying confrontation passed within mere moments of real time, they’re as stunned and spent as if it had been hours. Distracted. Sluggish with terror and awe. Struggling with watery knees and weakened bowels. And wondering, as he is, how they managed to come through the conflagration alive. Though urgency thrills through the Librarian’s nervous system like a drug, he knows he must allow them space for recovery.

The smoke is persistent and sullen. Unnatural, like the creature that made it. Acid, like his tongue. The Librarian coughs, waving his arms uselessly. The Fire-breather’s stench is not so easily dispelled. And it’s a long time since he’s been outside in the unconditioned air. His pampered lungs have forgotten the acrid stink of combustion and the punishment of daylight. The constant dry weight of the heat, even at dawn. The arid mountain ledges still radiate yesterday’s baking. Already they’re being baked all over again. Heat upon heat. Even stone has a life that can be burned away. The Librarian sways, overcome by a moment of synchronicity with the rock.

. . . deep-anchored to slow-time, swelling sun seared, shattered, wind-battered, groaning with the revolutions of the dying planet . . .

Motion recalls him to the mountaintop, to the dawn, to the rocky plateau that was once a landing pad. Once. When men still ruled. The Librarian sees the soldier is stirring. Has it been hours or seconds since? He mustn’t let himself drift like that, not now. He must remember how to act. He must recall decisiveness, now that his eternal waiting has ended, and time suddenly matters. Events matter. The Fire-breather has come and gone. The dragon Air has touched him. Six hundred men, women, and children wait in the caverns below, anxious about the outcome of the confrontation above. His people, who have faith in him, who believe he has the knowledge to hold off the Last Days. Does he? Of course not. It’s her knowledge, the dragon’s, that he believes in, that he preaches about. Which is why he must . . . must . . . her touch . . . there is little time left . . . she is searching, too.

Drifting . . .

The Librarian struggles to get hold of himself. He wishes for the animal body of his former days, when the ability to shake one’s self vigorously was all that was needed to feel put back in order. Every hair in place. He longs for the cool darkness of his den beneath the mountain, for the remote comforts of his screens and sensors and console. When his dragon finds him there, he can almost concentrate. Reflect rather than absorb. Deflect to the machines the bright roar of her energies. Keep the explosion in his senses within the limits of sanity . . . most of the time. With the expansion of her power over the years, the danger to him has grown also. This last century or so, without the buffer of the machines, his brain would have been burned to the proverbial cinder. The Librarian shudders. Though there is power to spare in her sendings, there is little coherency. Sometimes he fears that his dragon is not entirely sane.

But this time, this time . . . there was something different. Along with the usual kaleidoscope of images, there was a hint of meaning. More than a hint. As if a new circuit had opened, to run a message on an infinite loop: Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! No, it’s not so articulate as that. The Librarian supplies the words, which barely describe the imperative within. It sighs like wind. It tumbles like water. It groans like the earth. He is eager to get back down below, to see if the machines can detect it, deflect it, interpret it.

Across the circular pad, the soldier dusts soot from his bare forearms and scowls at the brightening skies, as if to assure himself that the Fire-breather is truly gone. He lays a hand on the bowed head of the Fire-breather’s guide. She who was lately so bold has slid weeping to the ground beside him. The soldier murmurs soundlessly without bending toward her, seeming to know that no mere word or gesture will console her. He is familiar with the aftershock of battles. The Librarian watches him as he quietly steps away across the tarmac to inspect the arc of scorched rock and heat-fused sand laid down around them by the Fire-breather’s wrath. He is not a big man, but sturdy, with a blunt, determined jaw and a restless glance. He moves quickly, economically, unmindful of the gathering heat. The rising sun glints off the carved and gilded hilt of the sword slung sheathed across his back. The sword. The Librarian remembers that sword and this man, in a more youthful version. But the memory is from a former life, and hazy. Most clearly, he recalls the man this man once served, an elder knight. Battle-scarred, a weary idealist. One has grown much like the other, over time—not physically, for the soldier is shorter, blonder, more intent. But maturity and ill-fortune have blunted his youthful arrogance, so the Librarian’s memories of both men blend in a tightening fabric. He follows the weave for a while, interested in the complex patterning of human lives. Then he catches himself.

Drifting again, Gerrasch. Not now, not now!

He flexes his pink-palmed hands, his clever fingers, his only sure anchor to the world. He sighs. His life is about to get very complicated.

The Earth-mover’s guide stirs next. As if waking suddenly, she starts and staggers to her feet, then pivots in an aimless circle, running down like a spinning top until she ends up gazing numbly at the Librarian. Her dark curls are frizzed with singe. Tears streak the ash dusting her pale smooth cheeks. But though she is the youngest of them all, almost a child, she does not give in to sobs. She gathers herself again quickly. She looks away to the others, counting heads, assessing their welfare. Beside her, the Water-bearer’s tall guide swears softly and at length, grinding his fists into his eyes.

In the Librarian’s gut, the wordless signal steps up its urgent thrum: Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!

The Earth-mover and Water-bearer themselves are still hunkered down in a silent conference of dragon outrage. They, most of all, must hear of the change in him, but though he’s only just met them, the Librarian knows enough of dragons to understand that they’ll not be disturbed until they’re good and ready, no matter what. He forgives them. They are dragons, after all. No matter the urgency, impatience is a lesson the Librarian has yet to learn. Not so the soldier, who has finished his inspection tour and has already begun to pace, though he attempts to disguise it as patrolling and limbering up, that is, useful movement. While the rest pull themselves together, the Librarian welcomes the chance for a moment of dragon study, his first since the pair’s sudden arrival to save their humans from the Fire-breather’s vicious tantrum. The Librarian has lived with a dragon inside him for all his life, yet he’s never seen one in the flesh. Suddenly, he’s seen three in less than half an hour.

Earth is vast, bronze, and plated. He crouches like a mountain of veined brown marble, rough-carved in the form of a beast. His neck is thickly muscled, his haunches massive. His tail is short and wide, and grounds him to the rock like an ancient tree root. His curved ivory horns and scimitar claws reflect the glow of the rising sun. In contrast to this unrelenting solidity, Water could be a swirl of a billion blue-green butterflies, ephemeral and phosphorescent, infinitely changeable. The Librarian understands this is only the shape she’s chosen for the moment. He wonders if there is a shape she calls her own, in which her own identity rests and is at home. Earth and Water are as different from each other as they are from their fire-breathing, golden-scaled, deadly-minded brother.

How will his own dragon look, the Air-bringer, once she’s set free to appear before him? The Librarian has no data to work with, only gut feeling and instinct. He’s built a picture in his imagination. When he thinks of his dragon, he sees the tall cloud towers of ancient summers, the white-topped, fair-weather spires that once brought soft air and warm breezes. Clouds. Only a memory from a time when the planet’s cycle of respiration was still normal. But the Librarian remembers them in passionate detail, as an icon in the landscape of Paradise. Of Arcadia. Of all that is lost.

Drifting, Gerrasch. Again, again. Focus on the dragon!

What else was new in this precious instant of contact? The Librarian replays it in his mind: reverse, fast forward, reverse, fast forward. The cloud image seems a bit more architectural than before, a sort of cloud city. An anomaly? The Librarian stores it for further analysis.

The pale girl and the tall young man have gathered themselves enough to turn to the older man behind them. Together, they ease him up from his knees and pat away his shudders of terror and outrage. For this man’s sake, the Librarian at last wills his big clumsy body toward an idea of motion. Stillness would be vastly easier, but this dark-skinned man is neither soldier nor dragon guide. Only his faith in the Librarian’s visions has brought him so near to death on a bleak and bitter mountaintop. He deserves some soothing and support.

No wind among the rocks, wreathed in heat and stubborn smoke, pressed down by the yellow dome of sky. No sound. Only the brittle rattle of pebbles beneath the soldier’s boots as he paces out the blackened circle for a third or fourth time. No one has said a word, the Librarian notes, since the Fire-breather vanished.

Ah, good, he muses, when his feet more or less respond to his orders, and shuffle him forward. Perhaps now the words will follow.

The pale girl finally finds her tongue. “We have to go after him!”

In her widened eyes, the Librarian sees the stark reflection of the Fire-breather’s long list of parting threats, each one pointed and personal. “Now! Before he . . . we have to warn everyone!”

Her name is Erde von Alte, and she is fourteen. The Librarian has met her before, in earlier times. The same time as the elder knight. Even then, she was given to overemphasis and passionate exaggeration, in the way of fourteen year olds, which is unsurprising since in the eleven hundred years since he first encountered her, she has aged but two months. The Librarian feels he has permission to note her overzealousness, having been a fourteen year old himself several times in his life, though never a girl. Besides, young Erde came to the present the easy way, dragon-back, while he has had to live each day and every year in between.

“Everyone! Please! If we don’t hurry, he’ll get to them first! He’ll . . .!”

“Whoa, girl, easy.” The tall youth stops rubbing his eyes and stands blinking. His lanky ebony body cuts a hard profile against the sun-splashed rock. “Can’t just race on off. Gotta figure where he’s headed.”

The Citadel, thinks the Librarian, so sure he’s spoken aloud that he’s confused when none of them react to the visions of seared flesh and broken bodies writhing so vividly inside his own eyes.

The girl shoves away the dark youth’s raised palms. “We’ll go everywhere, then! We’ll have to split up!”

“Maybe. I don’t know.” He shrugs, an uneasy dance of flatly muscled shoulders beneath his charred T-shirt. “Let’s see what they say.” He glances toward the two dragons and spots the soldier, still in restless, impatient motion. “Hey, Dolph! C’mon over! Battle conference!”

The tall youth is called N’Doch. He is West African, and from a time in the world’s history when his homeland was not yet under water. The older man is Luther Williams, a local in the present time, from one of the itinerant Tinker clans. The soldier is from the girl’s place and time. The Librarian is not yet sure about this one’s preference in a name. A different version is used by each of the dragon guides. The knight’s squire he met so long ago was Adolphus Michael von Hoffmann, heir to the sizable estates of Köthen. Germany, it was. Tenth century. A baron, he thinks. The Librarian cares little about such things.

The soldier glances up at N’Doch’s summons. He frowns, already pondering solutions as he paces across the tarmac to join them. Gently but firmly, as he passes, the baron scoops up the Fire-breather’s guide and urges her forward under the shelter of his arm. She leans into him, drying her eyes, flicking dubious and apologetic glances though damp lashes at her fellow guides. The Librarian feels shy as she approaches, uncomfortably conscious of his wild hair and his shambling, graceless bulk.

For this is Paia, after all. The High Priestess of the Temple of the Apocalypse, the Fire-breather’s cult. The Librarian knows everything about her. His machines beneath the mountain are hooked to her machines in the Fire-breather’s lair, though she was unaware of the connection—and of him—until their meeting mere hours ago. He’s always known Fire’s priestess was a beautiful woman, but he finds the reality of her . . . go ahead, Gerrasch, say it . . . her flesh quite overwhelming. Small wonder that Dolph or Hoffmann or Baron Köthen or whatever the soldier wishes to be called soothes her along like something precious. She is that rare occurrence, especially nowadays: unblemished, unmutated, undeformed. A perfect physical specimen. Of course the soldier is in love with her. Who could blame him?

A loose circle coalesces in the center of the old landing pad. First, all of them talk at once, a burst of babble that manages to express only their relief at being still alive. Then they fall silent to gaze expectantly at the Librarian, as if an urgent meeting has been called to order, of which he has unaccountably been elected Chair.

Not so unaccountably, the Librarian reminds himself. Not a moment to waste, and there’s a major language barrier here.

He visualizes the problem as an interlinked flow chart. For him, an image is always more articulate than words, and so, words are a wonder to him. Words are his long life’s study, which is why he comes armed with a solution.

Erde, N’Doch, and Baron Köthen have been speaking tenth century German. Though N’Doch’s native languages are twenty-first century Wolof and sub-Saharan French, he’s learned the antique German recently and precipitously from the dragons, who can download entire databases into a linked human mind, the only issue being how fast the mind can accept the input. Köthen speaks German and passable Old French, but is not dragon-linked like the guides. Still, he has a quick ear and a quicker mind, so he’s fast picking up the contemporary English that is Luther’s only tongue, as it is Paia’s—except Luther speaks his own “Tinker” dialect of English, which sounds different from Paia’s. But Paia, as Fire’s guide, is mind-linked to the other guides. Translation is automatic. Maybe the worst of this chaos is N’Doch’s slang-ridden English, learned watching old twentieth century American videos. It makes the Librarian’s teeth itch.

The conundrum is, of course, what language to use in spoken conversation? Once Köthen is more fluent, English will be the obvious lingua franca. For now, only the Librarian can resolve the confusion. Hence their breathless attention.

He fishes in the deep pockets of his jumpsuit for his remote keypad and activates the translator program. He holds up his little device like a beacon, nodding around the circle. Again, they all start in at once.

“He’ll go right to . . .”

“We gotta see what . . .”

“What about the . . .”

The soldier shakes his head and backs off a step.

“He’ll go to Deep Moor first!” Erde exclaims breathlessly.

“Why would he?”

“Wait!” rumbles Luther. “Fust t’ing, we gudda tell da uddahs.”

The Librarian is still struggling to vocalize. His voice is stuck, like an unoiled hinge. “Yes,” he manages finally, grateful for any coherent sound at all.

YES.

The echo booms in his chest as well as in his head. It makes him want to cough. The dragons have ended their private conference. The Librarian feels his brain crowd up as the other guides drop into mental contact.

Earth lifts his horned head. WE MUST POSTPONE THE QUEST UNTIL OUR FRIENDS ARE SAFE.

Yes! Erde’s slim fists ball up for emphasis. We’ll go now and warn Deep Moor!

N’Doch shakes his head. Faster if we stopped by Papa Dja’s on the way!

The Citadel is closest! We should go there first!

The Librarian recalls that he must tell them about his new difference, about his true moment with his dragon, the missing sister, and the object of their Quest. But time and minds run breakneck in the Meld. So long-schooled in waiting, the Librarian is like a timid driver on a freeway ramp at rush hour. He can’t get a word in edgewise. Need info, he offers instead.

YES. WE MUST GATHER TO DISCUSS THE BEST COURSE OF ACTION.

A chorus of distress rises from the minds in the Meld, who know how long a dragon discussion can take.

Dear dragon, we haven’t time!

So many lives are in danger!

JUST HOLD ON, ALL OF YOU. Water’s music for once rings harsh. THERE ARE A LOT OF INTERESTS AT STAKE HERE, INCLUDING A FEW YOU SEEM TO HAVE FORGOTTEN ABOUT! OUR SISTER AIR STILL LANGUISHES IN CAPTIVITY, FAR AHEAD ALONG THE TIME LINE.

Where?

Farther in the future?

The Librarian recalls now what terror had pushed from his mind. In the midst of the firefight, the dragons’ hasty revelation: We know where she is!

Erde subsides with an anxious frown. She would never contradict a dragon, not even someone else’s.

But no one’s been there. We can’t go there dragon-back without an image to travel to.

Fire’s been there. Let’s send Paia to pick his brain.

WE HAVE BEEN PONDERING THIS, AND AS YET, SEE NO SOLUTION, Earth told them.

Water reluctantly agrees. YES, FOR NOW, WE’LL DO WHAT WE CAN DO. WE’LL HELP OUR FRIENDS.

ASK THOSE BELOW TO CLEAR SPACE IN THE LARGEST CAVERN. WE ARE COMING TO JOIN THEM.

The Future. An image. A future image. What if . . .?

Can’t hold on to that train of thought against the pull of a dragon imperative. The Librarian gives up and thumbs his remote, calling up the gawky boy he’s left listening at the console in the complex far below. He summons words enough to be understood. Mattias is used to supplying the ones in between. The Librarian often dreams of vocalizing his thought-images. If, when he opened his mouth, the pictures just flowed out, as detailed and coherent as they are in his head, or as words are in the mouths of others, he’d have no problem communicating with the world. But what would the response be, he wonders, to his cloud-tower image of the dragon Air?

“Wow!” squeaks the remote. “Dragons?” The receding slap of bare feet is audible over the open line as Mattias abandons the console and hotfoots it down the corridor.

“Join hands!” Erde urges. “Lord Earth will take us down!”

Baron Köthen mutters a warning to Luther about the nauseating effects of dragon transport.

Luther says, “Mebbe we ’umins shud take da elevader.”

“Too late,” N’Doch replies.

Seconds later, the hot glare of the summit has been eclipsed by the opaque weight of the mountain. They are in darkness. Wavering points of light surround them like a sea of stars. The nervous waiting silence is broken only by the resonant, far-off thump of the circulating fans. The Librarian sucks in cool air, filtered and humidified, and expels a gasping sigh of relief. He’ll be able to think more clearly now, he’s sure of it. He sees the soldier shudder just once and swallow hard. Luther groans faintly. The Librarian has felt nothing, as if traveling disembodied through tons of solid rock is perfectly natural. As if he’s been doing it for years. Sometimes he suspects he is not yet entirely “umin.”

For instance, his nose is far too sensitive. The chill air of the cavern is redolent with the smell of humans and animals, yet he can pick out familiar individuals by their scent alone. He can still read their emotions, their lingering fear, the surge of adrenaline caused by Mattias’ announcement. In the vast, high-vaulted space, the rows of wagons and carts and campsites have been hastily hauled back. The open center is ringed by lanterns and receding, dim-lit ranks of weary, worried, awe-filled faces. Hot meals and a good night’s sleep have been rare down here for several days now. Their astonishment tickles the Librarian’s nose—a tang of citrus. After all, six people have just materialized out of nowhere, right in front of them.

The most familiar scent of all steps out of the darkness. Leif Cauldwell—a mixed scent of smoke, leather, and a hint of cinnamon. Every eye follows him: tall and golden, head priest of the Fire Temple turned rebel leader. No living human has had more experience with the Fire-breather, except Paia herself. Right now, Cauldwell smells like a man trying hard to look optimistic. Behind his firmly sculpted mouth, his teeth worry the inside of his lip. The Tinker elder Reuben Stokes limps along at his side—brisk odors of salt and pine sap. Luther immediately goes to greet them. Cauldwell’s body is in its prime and powerful, and though Luther’s chin-forward stoop betrays his age, they both tower over little Stoksie. But no matter. All three clasp hands as if they’d last parted unsure of ever seeing each other again.

“Yu wudnta b’leeved it, Leif!” Luther’s murmur is heartfelt and grateful. “Dey sentim packin’, dey did!”

For the soldier’s sake, the Librarian thumbs his translator up to max.

“No, Luther. He left, in a rage!” The remote unit mimics Erde’s girlish stridency to perfection. “You know that’s nowhere near the end of it. People everywhere are in terrible danger!”

Luther nods, but her rebuke does little to dampen his enthusiasm.

Leif Cauldwell’s worried gaze flicks toward the Librarian. “So what happened up there?”

“Left, yes.” The Librarian offers his pudgy shortcut of a shrug. “Now what?” He knows what. Hurry, hurry. The message throbs in his chest like a second heartbeat. But he will not tell people what to do. He will not give orders. He’s seen far too much of that in his many lives.

N’Doch rests both hands on Erde’s shoulders, solicitous but restraining. “Yeah, that’s it, chief. We got some hard decisions to make, and we gotta do it fast.”

“But . . . he came? The Beast?” Cauldwell squints into the darkness behind them. “Is Paia with you? Did he take her? Is she all right?”

“She’s here. She’s fine,” says N’Doch.

“Yes. No.” The Librarian feels dragon pressure building behind his brow like a foul-weather headache. Not his dragon. It’s the other two. They’ve been patient so far, but silent anonymity is not their strong suit. “Not. But . . .”

“It was rough on her,” N’Doch supplies. “But she told him where to go.”

Cauldwell spies his former superior, mute and lovely, within the curve of the soldier’s arm. “Congratulations, cuz!” His smile offers both approval and awe: she has faced down the Fire-breather and lived. Then his edginess returns. “Mattias said you were bringing the other . . .”

“Draguns, Leif! Yu kin sayit.” Luther’s wide grin reflects the flicker of lantern light. “Da gud uns!” He points to a peculiar zone of darkness in the middle of the cleared area. A blue light dances at its center. “Dey’s sistah an’ brudder ta da One!”

A murmur rustles across the cavern, the very breath of hope and reverence. “The One!”

The One who will save us all. The Librarian ponders his mantra, and the tall cloud towers bloom behind his eyelids. Air, Air, Air. But now is no time for preaching on his visions, even if he could get the words out right.

Because Cauldwell needs help. This brave and seasoned warrior has backed away before he can stop himself, retreating from the mysterious looming darkness and its companion glow, though he sees Stoksie and Luther smiling and unalarmed. The Librarian smells his reflex terror, and the effort it takes for the big man to plant his feet and gaze about, as if he’d merely been making room. Leif Cauldwell has good reason to fear dragons, from his long and bitter years in the Fire-breather’s employ. The Librarian brushes away the phantoms rushing into his head—fire, smoke, human sacrifice—and shuffles over to stand close by the rebel leader’s side. Cauldwell glances down at him.

“Ah. Gerrasch.” He grips the Librarian’s soft shoulder. “Ah.”

Earth speeds up his metabolism toward visibility, and the huge cavern seems to shrink, relative to the dragon’s great, glimmering shadow. His eyes precede his solid form, appearing as disembodied oval lamps, as tall as a man and glowing like the sky before dawn. The crowd stirs and murmurs. His head alone is as big as their tallest wagons. His curved ivory claws and horns shine with his own interior gleam. Cauldwell stares, his jaw set, as the phosphorescent blue eddy drops to hover at the brown dragon’s side.

The Librarian gazes up at the rebel leader, willing him toward acceptance and calm. If it would help, he would embrace the man, and each and every one of the throng withdrawing cautiously into the deeper shadows. These are his people, who have gifted him with their faith for so long. Not all of them, to be sure, especially among the Tinkers. Stoksie, for one, has remained an unbeliever, even while accepting the more secular aspects of Cauldwell’s rebellion. But Tinkers are by nature broad-minded, and Stoksie was always open to proof, so it thrills the Librarian to at last be able to offer him some. Proof of what he’s been promising and preaching, that great Powers will appear to oppose the Fire-breather’s tyranny, to help free the One and restore the dying planet. He couldn’t warn them that those Powers would also be dragons. His visions hadn’t been that specific.

He watches an entire spectrum of loathing shiver across Leif Cauldwell’s handsome face as the man tries to come to grips.

An odd sound, half moan, half sigh, escapes the High Priestess. She slips out from under the soldier’s protective arm. He takes a step after her, then falls back as she glides forward to grasp Cauldwell’s hand.

“These are not like him,” she whispers.

Her voice is hoarse. No wonder. She’s just been shouting down the Fire-breather, inhaling the smoke and sulfur of his wrath. Her dragon. Fire. The Librarian hears grief and guilt and confusion in every word. The soldier waits, watching his woman like the hawk he very much resembles.

“Come. Meet them.” Paia leads Cauldwell across the open floor toward the dragons. He tries not to seem unwilling. The blue glow coalesces into something nearer form: wings webbed with gossamer, a long neck, a shimmering fish tail, appearing, disappearing, changeable. An impression of music hovers in the air. Earth lowers his huge head. His eyes are like lighted doorways. His nostrils flare gently. Warm, sweet breezes ruffle the rebel leader’s hair. Scents of moist loam and bruised grass. The Librarian cannot help but smile, though his heart pounds with that other urgency. Leaves. Grass. It’s been far too long since he’s inhaled such treasures. Paia lays her own hand and Cauldwell’s on the dragon’s shining claw. Cauldwell’s hand trembles, then steadies.

Behind them, Luther says, “Wuz dem dat saved uz, Leif.”

“Not a moment too soon, either,” N’Doch agrees.

Stoksie whistles softly. “Heeza big un, all ri’.”

N’Doch grins. “And getting bigger every day. When I first met him, he wasn’t much bigger than an elephant.”

“Yeah? Wuzza nelefant?”

“Yu know, Stokes,” Luther mutters. “Yu seen ’em in pitchers.”

Stoksie looks dubious.

“Later, dude, okay?” N’Doch watches Cauldwell ease a half step closer to the big dragon. “Later, I’ll sing you about elephants.”

The girl strays to the Librarian’s side. He feels like he’s being force-fed the entire world’s impatience and anxiety. He sends Erde easeful messages. If he could reach his dragon, he’d send her some, too. Cauldwell’s absolute trust must be won, or the forces for good will be a force divided.

Cauldwell lets his hand slide across the waist-high ivory curl of claw, broader than his own muscular thigh. “Is this what it was like?” he asks Paia, “With . . . him?”

Paia’s choked laugh is the most rueful sound the Librarian has ever heard. “Oh, no, cousin. Oh, no. No. Not at all.”

Cauldwell takes a breath, then lifts his head and looks the dragon in the eye: a tall, golden man caught in a benign and golden stare. Benign, but awe-inspiring. Even the Librarian finds it so. Cauldwell licks his lips. “Let’s see . . . you must be . . .”

“He is Lord Earth.” Erde has moved up on his other side. Paia steps back, into the soldier’s waiting embrace. They move in concert, these dragon guides, the Librarian muses, forgetting for a moment that he is one of them.

“Earth.” Cauldwell cannot tear his gaze away. “Ah. Yours?”

The girl wags her singed curls faintly. “Say rather, I am his. His servant, and guide in the world of men. As your cousin is Lord Fire’s, only . . .”

“Only. Only?”

“It’s my fault,” murmurs Paia from behind. “It must be. Yet Earth tells me otherwise. He says I am meant to help the Go . . . um, that is, Fire . . . see the error of his ways.”

Cauldwell’s mouth twists. “He’ll only see what’s in his own interest.”

The Librarian agrees. He worries that Earth’s assessment is too generous. The dysfunction seems profound, and the dragon in question entirely intractable.

“Earth,” repeats Cauldwell. His hand rests more easily on the dragon’s claw. “Earth and . . .?”

“Water,” N’Doch supplies.

As Cauldwell turns, Water settles her form still further. The Librarian watches closely. When she’s done settling, he silently applauds her cleverness. She’s become a lovely, swan-necked blue dragon, cloaked in velvet like a seal, and no bigger than one of the Tinker mules that’s whickering greetings from the far corners of the cavern. A phrase comes to his mind, from another former life: good cop, bad cop. The Librarian grins. Next to her looming, mountainous, and terrifying brother, Water is just the cutest little dragon you ever did see.

Luther’s murmur is equal parts awe and delight. “Sheez a shape-shiftah, Leif. Ain’dat sumting?”

“It’s something, all right.”

“We should . . .” Erde urges. “Isn’t it time to . . .?”

Her anxiety brims over and swirls around the Librarian like surf. This time, he agrees. With Fire on the rampage who knows where, laying waste to who knows which of their near and dear, it’s high time they got moving. He’s lingered only to savor the luxury of someone else doing the talking for him. Three someones, his fellow guides, who can tap directly into his image-driven brain and translate for him. Except about the machines. That’s beyond all understanding. The machines and his connection to them are his contribution to the four-way destiny. That much, at least, he is sure of, among so little else.

N’Doch and Erde snatch a brief reunion with Stoksie, asking after the rest of Blind Rachel, his Tinker crew. Seven out of ten of the local crews made it into the Refuge before Fire began torching the countryside. The Librarian worries about the fate of the other three.

He waves his arms. “We should. Now. The Library.”

N’Doch grabs Leif Cauldwell’s elbow familiarly. “Time to go to work, chief. See if the computers can tell us what Fire’s up to.”

Cauldwell eases free of the younger man’s grip. “Leif. Call me Leif. There are no chiefs around here.”

“Sure, sure. Whatever.” N’Doch’s round ebony face is open and guileless. He scuffs one foot along the polished stone floor. “But it’s gonna make such a cool rhyming lyric when I get to writing a song about you.”

Cauldwell stares at him.

“N’Doch . . .” Erde warns.

Cauldwell takes in the girl’s prim and disapproving frown, makes a quick assessment and lets his testiness fade. “Yeah? Can’t wait to hear it.” He turns away to the Librarian. “Who do we need downstairs?”

“All. All.”

N’Doch adds, “Everyone who can fit. All of us and all of you . . . y’know, your non-chiefs.”

Erde’s glower deepens. “He will not behave. Do not expect it.”

But Cauldwell is already in motion, heading off into darkness, along a path among the crowded wagons. He has no problem with giving orders. “Luther, Stoksie, you’re with us. Where’s Ysa? And Stanze? We’ll need Constanze.” He halts, scanning the crowd.

Luther joins him, smiling. “Sheez ovah deah, Leif. Lookit dat, willya?”

Cauldwell’s wife Constanze, with their little daughter clasped in her arms, trails a pack of children out of the throng, heading straight for the brown dragon’s tall snout, which he’s cushioned comfortably on crossed forepaws in order to greet them. Cauldwell starts. “Stanze . . .!”

“S’okay, Leif.” Luther restrains him with a raised palm. “S’awri’. We shudn’t teach ’em all owah feahs, ri’?”

“But . . .”

“But nuttin, Leif. Look fer yerself.”

One of the smallest children is already snuggled against the dragon’s rough jaw. Earth is impressive, but he is not lovely like his sister. The Librarian admits that he’s seen prettier horned toads. But the child’s eyes are only adoring. Constanze shoots a helpless glance in her husband’s direction. The child in her grasp struggles for freedom. She shrugs and sets the girl down beside the dragon’s claws. The girl crows delightedly and wraps her arms around the nearest pillar of ivory. Constanze backs away, bemused, then with another shrug, she turns and comes toward Cauldwell. The Librarian notes that the water dragon has stealthily sidestepped out of child-range.

Beside him, N’Doch chuckles dryly. “They’ll leave her alone. She’s not talking to ’em like he is. He’s still a kid despite his size, but she came into the world a grown-up. I sang her into kid-form once. My little brother. Died when he was five. Don’t think she liked it much.”

Cauldwell’s arm slides automatically around Constanze’s waist. They watch their little girl slipping and sliding as she tries to climb the dragon’s claw. “Are we just going to leave them alone together?” Cauldwell asks.

Constanze leans into his side. “She told me, distinctly and even grammatically, that the dragon had assured her he wasn’t eating children today.”

“She said that? What an imagination!”

“No. I got the impression she was relaying what he actually said. All the children say he’s talking to them.”

“Really?” Cauldwell looks to the Librarian in alarm. “Is that possible?”

“Possible. Yes.”

“Something you taught them? By the One, what are we raising?”

“The future,” says the Librarian before he’s even thought it over. And it’s true that what the children have become is as much his fault as anyone’s. He’s been their tutor and their mascot. It’s his dark den that’s their favorite place of play. If he himself is not entirely human, how can he teach the children to be?

“Lord Earth urges us to action,” Erde announces.

“We should get a move on,” N’Doch nods. “The dragons’ll listen in through us.”

“Ah, if only Sir Hal were here!” Erde mourns.

“Sure, just what we need,” N’Doch mutters. “Another chief.”

Cauldwell gives the dragons one last glance of misgiving, then expels a long breath and leads his war council toward the elevator. The Librarian trots after him, his fingers itching for his keypad. N’Doch falls in behind, beside Paia and the soldier.

“Taking up the rear as usual, yer lordship?”

“One day you’ll sass the wrong man, Dochmann.” Köthen jerks his thumb toward Cauldwell’s retreating back.

“Jeez, if you ain’t blown me away yet, no one will. The world loves a clown, Dolph, doncha know?”

“I wouldn’t bet money on it. Or your life.”

“Like I’d better not sass the Fire dude, is that what you’re getting at?”

The soldier adjusts the sword across his back to a more comfortable angle. “It wouldn’t be my first advice.”

“The God . . . I mean, Fire . . . doesn’t take well to mockery,” agrees Paia quietly. “He only knows how to give it out.”

“Then I’m gonna be in deep shit,” N’Doch predicts. “’Cause there’s one thing I just can’t leave alone, and that’s a guy who takes himself too seriously.”

Köthen groans. “I’ll rue the day I swore my sword to your safety.”

“Cheer up, Dolph. You used to be one of those too-serious guys, remember, and we worked it out okay, didn’t we?”

“It’s hardly analogous.”

“Yeah, well.” At the open door of the elevator, silhouetted against the bright light from the cab, N’Doch glances back at the big, dirt-colored dragon, besieged by a pack of noisy little children.

He laughs softly. “That’s one hell of a baby-sitter!”

CHAPTER TWO

N’Doch is pondering that song he’ll make up about Leif Cauldwell as he trails the others into the shadowed Communications Room. He lets the base rhythm of the HVAC underline the melody, and longs for an instrument to play it on.

The group piles up in front of the bright wall screen, still running feed from the helipad security camera. N’Doch stands at the back. He’s taller than any of them, except Luther and Cauldwell. Besides, the image is so large and so clear, it’s like he’s inside of it, like he’s back up there on the mountaintop, in the heat and the smoke, a sitting duck for dragon-fire. Makes him sweat just to think about it. And about what Fire might be up to. Even packed in here like sardines, it’s tough to keep still, tough to fight the worry down. His grandpa’s got power, N’Doch is sure of it, but is his magic strong enough to stand against the malign wizardry of Fire?

Papa Dja, Papa Dja, keep your head low, old man, he intones silently.

The boy Mattias jumps up from the console as Gerrasch approaches. N’Doch thinks the kid looks a whole lot tighter around the eyes than when they’d left him here before. No surprise, given what he’s just seen, courtesy of the video feed. But he’s trying to play it cool. N’Doch would’ve done the same at his age. Hell, he’s doing it now.

“Weah’s da dragins?” Mattias demands immediately.

Gerrasch elbows him gently aside and rolls into his padded chair, his soft pink hands working the keys before he’s even settled his bulk.

N’Doch jerks his thumb. “Upstairs.”

Mattias looks to Gerrasch, who’s already hunched down and oblivious, then to Leif Cauldwell. His entire gawky-teen body pleads. “Kin I go, Leif, huh, huh?”

Cauldwell nods. A bit grudgingly, N’Doch thinks, but he’s willing to cut the rebel leader some slack. A day ago, before all these mouthy strangers showed up out of nowhere, the dude was running his own show, the whole show, no matter what he says about chiefs or no chiefs. But his rebellion was doomed—ill-equipped and undermanned—and the man has the grace to see it, even if he won’t say it out loud. Two dragons suddenly on his side gives him and his people a serious fighting chance.

The kid practically lays rubber scooting on out of there. N’Doch shoulders his way out of the press to wander restlessly among the rows of darkened workstations while late arrivals trot in from upstairs and the Librarian fiddles with his keypad. The walls to either side of the screen are gridded with smooth-faced, rectangular units adorned with svelte pull handles and tiny green idiot lights. Probably some sort of data storage. N’Doch wonders about the people who used to live and work here, sunk so deep into the mountain bedrock. What happened to them? What did they do while the world outside fell apart around them? He slides a palm along the slick surface. What is it? Metal? Plastic? He can’t tell. For him, it’s . . . well, the future. He can’t repress a little private speculation about what all this super high-tech equipment could do if retrofitted and put to work mixing one of his songs. He doubts he’ll get the chance to find out. Too much serious shit going down.

The yellow glow bathing the racks of alien equipment flicks over to blue. N’Doch pivots and moves toward the screen. The big world map is back, with its too-great expanse of hot, empty ocean and its overlay of satellite orbits. He scans for the blinking indicators.

“Uh-oh,” he murmurs, and scans again.

There’s the one for Air, parked off the map in the lower corner, signifying her imprisonment who-knows-where, and there’s the two active signals poised over a position that looks to be right about where he’s standing, only several levels up in the big cavern. “Where is he? Where’s the fourth signal?”

He hears a weird chittering noise. It’s Gerrasch, something he’s doing with his teeth. “Gone,” he says. “Already.”

“Gone?” moans Erde. “Oh, I knew it! We shouldn’t have waited!”

“Hold on, hold on.” But N’Doch is offering comfort he doesn’t feel.

Stoksie peers at the screen. “Gone weah?”

“To another time,” says Cauldwell grimly, “If I understand this right.”

N’Doch nods. “Question is, which one? Who do we warn first?”

Again, they’re all talking at once, filling the room with more noise than there are people. Luther explains to Ysa what the blinking lights mean. Constanze asks if the indicator would change if the Beast assumed man-form. N’Doch thinks about his mama, alone in front of her vid set. Grandpapa Djawara can’t be much help to her. He’s an old man, living by himself out in the bush with only distant neighbors who fear and mistrust him anyway. He’ll need all his witchy powers to keep his own self safe.

Cauldwell lets everyone yammer out their anxiety. Meanwhile, he leans over the Librarian’s round shoulder and gets to work. “Gerrasch, call up House. What’s happening at the Citadel?”

The Librarian keys in the connection. He and Cauldwell have worked together a long time. N’Doch moves in, interested. He’s learned in the Meld how, when Fire awoke, he commandeered the Cauldwell family fortress as his temple and stronghold. But Paia’s presence in the Meld is emotional more than visual, despite her being a painter and all. N’Doch is eager for a clearer look at this place he’s heard so much about. And then there’s the Citadel’s sentient computer, this “House” that Leif’s asking about. The machine that’s been Paia’s mentor in the dragon lore, like Papa Dja for N’Doch and Hal Engle for Erde. N’Doch still can’t quite get his brain around it. There was no full-tilt AI back in his time. He always talked a lot of sci-fi, but he didn’t believe in much of it. So he’s startled by the voice that floats up from the console speakers. Doesn’t sound synthesized at all. Not like the AIs in the old sf vids, which always talked like they’d swallowed a big dose of Prozac. This sounds like just a human, and a kinda panicky one at that. N’Doch has never heard a computer whine before.

“Finally! Where have you been? I’ve been calling for hours and Mattias kept saying, ‘they went upstairs, they went upstairs,’ but he didn’t know how to patch me through, or maybe he thought, well, I don’t know what he thought! Really, Gerrasch, you have to train your people better! Is he there? He’s not here. He . . .”

“Was here,” intones the Librarian. “Gone already.”

“Gone? Gone? Where?”

“Away.”

“What do you mean, away? You mean, downtime? Is everyone all right? Is Paia all right?”

Funny how everyone keeps asking that, muses N’Doch.

“She’s fine, House.” Cauldwell leans in to be heard over the background din of questions and debate.

“Leif! You made it! I was so concerned!”

“Everyone here’s fine. A bit shell-shocked, but fine. What’s going on there? Can you put the monitors on-line?”

“Working on it. Such excitement you’ve missed, Leif! There’s been a palace coup, just as you predicted. Second Son Branfer has declared himself First Son in your absence!”

“Branfer! That clod can’t manage his breakfast, never mind the whole Temple!”

“And one of the Faceless Twelve, I forget which, has elevated herself to High Priestess.”

N’Doch detects conflict on Cauldwell’s sculpture-perfect face. There goes his other seat of authority, poof! Swept from beneath him. But he’d engineered that usurping himself. So dedicated to his cause, he gave up what had to be a real cushy job. Except for having Fire as your boss.

“Hope she and Branfer hate each other,” Cauldwell mutters darkly.

“If not now, they will soon, particularly if I have anything to say about it. The Temple is doomed. They’ll all be eating each other alive by noon!”

N’Doch marvels at the computer’s unconcealed relish for violence and intrigue. Like lots of teenagers he’s known. Proof enough for him that this machine is sentient.

Cauldwell is less gleeful. “Any injuries? Much damage? What about Christoff and Ark?”

“Safe. Holed up here in the Rare Books Room with the others. I was able to warn them in time.”

“Can you keep them safe?”

“Until he comes looking for them . . .”

“Then we’ll have to get them out of there before that happens.”

“I’ll tell them. Then we have to figure out a way to rescue me.” There’s a pause, entirely without static. The Librarian’s typing fingers go slack. Cauldwell gnaws his lip. Finally, its voice gone flat, the computer says, “Patching through the monitors.”

The big blue map on the wall is quickly papered over by a grid of smaller images: rooms, interior vistas, some populated, others not, some obscured by signal static, a few entirely blank. N’Doch sees long windowless corridors, paneled in gleaming wood, furnished with carpets and paintings and the occasional ornate, stiff-backed chair. People racing to and fro. He sees a vast, bustling kitchen, though he can’t really tell if a meal is being prepared or if the food stores are being raided. He sees a huge dining hall with the tables laid out in a blatantly hierarchical pattern. He sees sun-blasted walled courtyards and a long view down the nave of an elaborate, gilded basilica he supposes to be the Temple. A small gathering huddles in noisy prayer near what must be the altar.

“Not many signs of fighting,” notes Cauldwell. “House did the job right.”

Paia drifts over to the console with Köthen in tow. “Look! My home. Or it was . . .”

Köthen looks, with his usual intensity. N’Doch doubts the good baron knows how to do anything casual.

“And will be again,” Cauldwell insists. “We’re not surrendering the Citadel. We’re encouraging the Temple to self-destruct while the Beast is distracted.”

Paia peers at her tall cousin as if just now registering who he is and what he’s done. “You’ve planned this a long time, haven’t you, Luco.”

“Leif. Luco is past.”

“Yes. I see that now.”

N’Doch decides she’s finally pulling herself together. This is the first unambiguous statement he’s heard out of her since she confronted her rogue dragon up on the mountaintop and bravely denied him. He understands how devastated that’s left her. No matter how fiercely he resisted the pull of dragon destiny at first, he’d be a hollow shell if Water was taken from him now.

Paia leans toward the console’s one visible mike. N’Doch is sure it’s an anachronism. The sensors in this room could likely pick up a mouse sneeze. Old Gerrasch must prefer the illusion of focus. Or maybe this future’s too future even for him.

“Hello, House.”

“Hello, Paia.” The computer’s voice goes deeper, calmer, like a new persona has kicked in. “How are you getting along out there in the world?”

Paia sinks into the chair that Köthen has found for her. “Oh, House! I wouldn’t know where to begin! There’s so much you never told me!”

N’Doch swallows a rueful guffaw, though it nearly chokes him. He eases over beside Köthen to study the Citadel up close. Searching for clues, both of them. N’Doch’s still struggling to encompass this world he’s landed in, how it got the way it is from the way it was in his time. Not just the rising oceans and the global drought, but the people, and how they coped, how they live now. As for Köthen, he’s even farther out of the loop, but he’s a sponge for useful information, plus he’s dead eager to learn all about this woman he’s fallen for, so hard and so suddenly.

“Big joint, huh?” N’Doch is taken by the sheer size and scope of the Citadel, at least as far as he can see from these images. “Whacha think, Dolph? Look anything like your palace at home?”

The baron snorts quietly. “Castle Köthen is hardly a palace, Dochmann. Attractively situated, comfortable enough, but modest by comparison. What it is, however, is secure and easily defended.”

“Yeah? You ever have to do that?”

Köthen cuts him a look of amused disbelief. “If not me, then who?”

“Well, I mean, I guess . . . Yeah. Stupid question.” When he first met Köthen, the man wore bloodied armor and wrist shackles. Putting a sword back in his hand was like grafting on a lost arm.

“Not stupid. Not really.” Cauldwell has been eavesdropping. “I’d like to know, too.”

“Hey, chief. Forgot you speak Kraut.” N’Doch gives way, bringing the rebel leader and Köthen face-to-face. These two alpha dudes, he figures, have some deep shit to work out if they’re gonna work together, so better sooner than later. And let them do it here, in a crowd, where nothing much can happen.

But Cauldwell’s negotiating skills haven’t gone near as rusty as his diplomat’s German. He offers Köthen a serious, collegial smile. “Here. I’ll show you around my place first.” He guides the baron along the tapestry of images to point out a long view of barren red hills. “The cameras trained on the entrance went belly-up a while ago, but these ones up on the cliff face are still working. You see, the Citadel’s a natural fortress. Dug deep into the side of a mountain.” He nods to the next image, where the camera stares straight down into the empty inner courtyard. “It’s proved impossible to take when its defense is well organized—I know. I’ve held it myself a few times.”

Köthen folds his arms, as if listening out of mere good manners.

“But now, in the midst of a power grab,” Cauldwell continues smoothly, “it’ll be chaos in there. Which is exactly the point. House, can we look at a cross section, a plan? Give me a few screens’ worth.”

“Working,” mutters the computer.

The image collage breaks down and reassembles quickly, but not before N’Doch has taken in a flash of blue overlaid with one bright word: HURRY.

“Wait! What was that? Did anyone see that? I thought I saw . . .”

But no one’s listening. Several big diagrams replace the image and whatever had followed it. As Köthen moves in to look them over, his eyes narrow with interest.

“Like what you see?” Cauldwell taps a lower-level plan, tracing out access routes.

Köthen allows him the faintest motion, more shrug than nod. “What soldier wouldn’t? Though I’d prefer to be defending it rather than taking it.”

“Of course, and when you do get inside, it’s close quarters for a fight. Hand-to-hand all the way. Which is why . . .” Cauldwell eyes the long sword sheathed across the shorter man’s back. “You any good with that thing?”

N’Doch steps between them, planting a palm against the baron’s chest. A short time ago, he wouldn’t have dared to do this. Now it’s Cauldwell he’s worried about. “He is, chief. You can take it from me.”

But Cauldwell knew that. He smiles his challenge. “Ready to use it?”

Köthen’s glance flicks back to the feed from the Citadel. “Never a better time . . .”

“That’s what I was thinking.”

“Hey, wait a minute . . .” N’Doch recognizes complicity when he hears it, and it’s caught him completely by surprise. He’d never have figured the rough medieval fighting man and the sleek high-tech warrior for such instant allies. Suddenly something about it worries him. “I mean, hold on . . .!”

Cauldwell ignores him. “I’ve got people inside, good ones, in computer contact. But I have to pull them before the Beast returns, or they’re char and cinder, every one of them. The sooner we move . . .”

Köthen nods, though N’Doch knows for a fact that he’d never heard of a computer until yesterday. “The dragons could take us. Paia could show them the way, isn’t that right, Dochmann?”

“Er . . . yeah.”

Cauldwell blinks. “All of us?”

“I don’t know. If they were horses, I could tell you their carrying capacity to the ounce.” He offers up one of his rare grins, rueful and charming. “We’ll just have to ask them.”

“Like you said, there’ll never be a better moment.”

“What, now? Now?” N’Doch’s sharp exhalation gets everyone’s attention. Even Gerrasch, intent at the console, glances up. “You can’t do this now! We’ve got relatives and friends to take care of first!” He glares from one to the other. “Dolph! Whadda you thinking?”

Köthen gazes back with that look of his that’s so much like a shrug.

“I also have friends and relatives to rescue,” Cauldwell jabs a stern finger at the screen. “In there. Men and women who’ve risked their lives to overthrow the Beast.”

“But . . .” N’Doch rubs his eyes. “Aww, shit!”

“It does not require an army to deliver a warning or conduct a spot rescue,” Köthen observes. “And the sooner you’re about it, the better.”

“Me? What about you?”

Köthen looks away, as if to check on the latest events on the wall screen. When he looks back, he says nothing, knowing he doesn’t have to.

“C’mon, Dolph! Don’t desert me, man! I need your help!”

“We all do!” exclaims a voice from behind. “My lord baron, you can’t possibly mean to . . .”

“My lady.”

Erde pushes through the crowd to face him. “Surely you will come with us to save Deep Moor! Rose and the others—they’re in terrible danger!”

N’Doch doesn’t blame Köthen for avoiding Erde’s eyes. Her pleading desperation would melt stones. Most stones, maybe. Not this one.

“My place is here. My duty is here.”

He says it to N’Doch, but really, he’s telling her, with an arch touch of vengefulness that N’Doch can’t really admire. And the girl is so appalled, she forgets to temper her preemptory tone. N’Doch hears a fight brewing.

“Our duty is where the dragons lead us!”

“Who are you to tell me where my duty lies?”

N’Doch watches Cauldwell kick back and let it happen, like he already knows which way it’s gonna go. But N’Doch can’t keep his own stupid mouth from dragging him into the middle. “You brought him, girl. You lectured him all about dragons and destiny. I guess you gotta live with the consequences.”

“But Deep Moor is in danger! Your sword is needed, my lord!”

“So you said when you hauled me away from Deep Moor. Now you wish to haul me back again?” Köthen rounds on her, and the flare in his dark eyes isn’t warm or pleasant. “What should I care for Deep Moor? Have you forgotten, my lady? Deep Moor was to be my silk-lined cell.”

“Only to keep you alive, my lord!”

“Alive for what? To win a crown for another?”

“For the rightful prince, my lord baron!” She looks entirely bewildered, like she can’t believe she has to explain such obviousness to a man of honor such as himself. Their raised voices have carried over the noise in the rest of the room. Luther and Stoksie wander over, ever so casually.

“If he’s rightful, then let him have it!” Köthen flings up an angry fist, then collects himself. “You said yourself, my lady, that I might discover my destiny here, and so I have. It isn’t the one you had planned for me, apparently, but isn’t that just the way with destinies? They control us rather than the other way around?”

“But my lord . . . Deep Moor! All our friends . . .!”

“Go warn Hal Engle. He’ll see to Deep Moor and his witch-lady. He doesn’t need me. He’s made that abundantly clear.”

N’Doch at last takes pity on the girl’s stunned disbelief. “My guess is he’ll think different about that, Dolph, when Fire shows up on his doorstep.”

Köthen shrugs. “What’s done is done.”

“Not really. It may feel like we’re a thousand years from Deep Moor, but remember, Time’s gone all elastic on us, Dolph.”

Cauldwell clears his throat. “Listen, if the man wants to fight for us, I could sure use him. What does it matter if he’s here or there? We’re all working toward the same end, right? The defeat of the Beast.”

Luther and Stoksie murmur their agreement.

Then other murmurs rise around them, and die into sudden silence.

“Yes, but . . .!” Erde’s last syllable rings loudly, alone.

The room has turned hot with reflected yellow glare. Astonished faces stare past N’Doch to the screen behind him, lit to molten gold by the surreal glow. N’Doch knows that glow, like he knows his hands, or the sound of his own voice. He turns slowly, afraid of what he’s going to see.

It’s what he’s expected. Sun. Sand. Bright-painted fishing boats. Palm trees.

Home.

It’s like the wall’s been blown away without a scrap left, and what’s outside is not a mountain’s worth of rock, but . . . the beach. Outside the seaside African town that N’Doch always thought he’d grow old and die in . . . until he met a certain dragon.

Without thinking, he steps toward the screen.

Köthen grabs his arm. “Dochmann, no.”

“Lemme go, Dolph.”

He can feel the heat shimmering off the glistening white sand. Just past the bright curve of that hull, he knows, is a path through the palm grove to the town gates and the market. Köthen’s hard fingers bruise his flesh as he struggles to free himself. “What’s it to you? You don’t wanna go, fine, but I gotta! I can go now, and warn them!”

“No. It is not real, Dochmann, remember? It’s a wall, and moving pictures. You told me that, remember?”

“I can smell the damn salt! Can’t you? And the fish? Can’t you smell it, Dolph?” What N’Doch remembers is what Paia said, in the Meld when only the dragon guides could hear. When the wall turned up a full-screen image of Deep Moor, so real-looking you were sure you could walk right into it, she said, Well, you could.

It’s a portal, she said. A doorway. Her own dragon had told her so. Why believe anything out of the slimy renegade’s lying mouth? Because of the heat and the smell: the drying seaweed and the pungent smoke blowing off the kebob vendors’ carts. And because of the sounds: the roll and break of the surf, and the tinny distant music from the market stalls.

“Off me, Dolph! Lemme go!” N’Doch tries a quick, breaking twist, unsuccessfully. Köthen is shorter than he is, but stronger and just as fast. “Look, this’ll fix our transport problem! No dragons needed. I’m there!” He swings himself a few steps closer to the screen. “Dolph, they’re sitting ducks! Please! Lemme go!” Another jerk and twist, another step closer.

Now Paia’s hanging on his other side like her life depended on it. “It could be a trap! It’s just the sort of thing he’d do!”

Köthen is talking and Paia is talking, and Erde’s throwing her two cents in. N’Doch doesn’t listen. He’s so . . . drawn. It’s . . . home, right in front of him. Only has to step through. He’ll just be there, he knows it. Check up on his mama and Papa Dja, get them into hiding, then the dragons could pick him up on their way back from Deep Moor. He’s got it all worked out. Save everyone a lot of trouble and debate if he just did it. . . .

Now.

N’Doch feints with his body. With his mind, he calls the dragon upstairs.

I’m taking a little shortcut, kiddo. Come get me when you’re ready.

DO NOT . . .!

Too late. N’Doch leans hard into his feint, then shifts his weight and—a miracle—throws Köthen off-balance, not enough to break his grip but enough to be able to pivot toward him fast and slam in with a full body block. The baron staggers, his soldier’s fists still welded to N’Doch’s wrist and elbow. N’Doch pivots again and flings Köthen away from the screen. The force shoves Paia through it . . . and drags him after.

The passage is instantaneous. From dim cool to searing glare in the span of a heartbeat. The bright shock of the heat and the sudden grainy softness beneath them startles Paia into letting go. Both tumble headlong into hot, white sand and lie gasping for the briefest of seconds.

N’Doch looks up, and groans.

Why is it things never work out like he’s intended? There’s the High Priestess sprawled on the beach beside him, two hundred years away from the man who would do anything to keep her safe. No sign anywhere of a return portal. Just sand, palm trees, and hot, hot ocean. N’Doch’s eyes squeeze shut. All he can think of is how many pieces Köthen is going to cut him into when the dragons arrive to rescue them.

CHAPTER THREE

Wide-eyed, Erde watches N’Doch flail, stumble into searing white light, then collapse in a heap in the powdery sand with the High Priestess on top of him. Her gasp is half giggle, for they do look comical, that is, until the hot beach vanishes, she’s back in the darkened room, staring at a bright blue wall, and N’Doch and Paia are gone.

Erde shudders, her foolish half grin frozen. For between the brightness and the blue, for an instant so brief she almost doubts her senses, she’d glimpsed something else. She’d seen Deep Moor in flames.

“What . . . what happened?” Leif Cauldwell looks to Gerrasch. “Where’d they go?”

The Librarian rises in horror. Has he seen it, too? “There. Are. No!”

Erde blinks away the fiery afterimage and tries not to panic. “To Africa. It’s N’Doch’s home.” She alerts the dragons. But they know already.

What do we do?

GO AFTER THEM, OF COURSE.

To Africa? Now? But I saw Deep Moor burning!

OVERANXIOUS IMAGININGS, GIRL.

IT’S FIRE’S AFTERMATH.

How can you be sure?

Cauldwell stares at the wall of blue. “You can get them back again, right?”

“Noo, noo . . .” Gerrasch is tapping, tapping at his rows of little square buttons, making soft sounds of animal distress.

HELP THE LIBRARIAN. LEND HIM YOUR VOICE.

The dragons are right, as usual, even Lady Water, always less patient with youthful folly. Erde hurries to Gerrasch’s side. She must not give in to her terrors. “I think . . . it’s not like a door. He can’t open this portal when he wants to. It has its own . . . magic.” She hesitates at the word. Notions of magic are scoffed at in this future world, despite the obvious presence of dragons. But how else to describe her intuition about the portal, without N’Doch here to help with his knowledge of what he calls “technology?”

“Can’t open it?” Cauldwell repeats. “Well, that’s a problem.”

Baron Köthen stares tight-lipped at the empty blue expanse. “He did it on purpose.”

“No, my lord, he . . .” Erde turns to him, wary of his hot temper, now that his lady has been stolen from him.

“He did! The young whelp!”

“He didn’t mean to take Paia,” asserts Cauldwell’s wife reasonably. “Why would he?”

Erde is surprised by Constanze’s innocence. Surely it’s an obvious possibility that N’Doch abducted the High Priestess in order to entice Köthen away from Leif Cauldwell’s military preoccupations. Now the baron will have to require the dragon to take him to his lady right away, as any devoted knight would do.

But Köthen makes no such demand. He stands with his arms folded and his brows drawn down in an inward stare. A conflict of interest, no doubt. He feels honor bound, Erde decides, having already promised his sword to Cauldwell’s rebellion. If so, then Cauldwell must release him, and surely will quickly volunteer to do so.

Again, she is confounded. Both Cauldwells wait silently, observing Köthen’s inner debate.

“Is Paia in any danger there?” asks Constanze at last.

“Of course!” Erde cries. “Of course she is!”