The Book of Fire (10 page)

“Said he had too much important business to tend to,” says his brother’s voice, coming up beside him.

N’Doch starts, then blows out a breath and shakes his head. “Never. Never gonna get used to this.”

The dragon-as-Sedou laughs, a rich and youthful baritone. “Gotta say, though—it’s more convenient than four legs and a tail.”

“Freaks me out,” N’Doch admits, for the first time in the girl’s hearing. “You’re dead, and I oughta be.”

“Look at me, bro.”

Reluctantly, N’Doch meets his brother’s eyes. It’s like staring straight into the sun. Meanwhile, the dragon is speaking inside his head.

I am your memory of Sedou. Nothing more, but . . . nothing less.

N’Doch looks away, swallows. “Right.”

“Okay. So Papa Dja says he’ll be watching out. He sees signs of more activity back by us, he’ll let us know somehow. Says to tell you to keep your head down.”

“Too late.”

“Never too late. Let’s get on in, huh? I’m freezing my ass off!”

The girl giggles. Sedou grins at her, reaches out, and tousles her black curls. “Hey there, kiddo.”

N’Doch sees he’s got some catching up to do. “By the way, remind me to tell you ’bout this vision I had.”

When he sits down at the long wooden tables laid out for dinner in the big room with the fireplace, N’Doch realizes that he’s still the only guy in the place—not counting Sedou, who’s really a she-dragon anyway. He looks around, counts fifteen women of various ages, including the girl. Maybe the men are all out fighting this war she’s told him about. He’s got a well-used platter in front of him, like a big fired-clay plate, and a tall tapering mug of the same material grasped in one hand, already filled with some foamy dark brew. He’s floating on that cushion of unreality again, with the girl seated on one side and Sedou across from him, both ready to translate. The seat on his left is empty until the most beautiful white woman he’s ever laid eyes on plunks a big steaming dish down in the center of the table and settles in next to him. She smiles and says something he doesn’t get, then holds out her hand.

“This is Raven,” supplies the girl from his right.

“Oh. Hello, Raven.” N’Doch can feel Sedou’s eyes laughing already. He takes the proffered, lovely hand and raises it, just like he’s seen in vids, gallantly to his lips.

Later, when Raven gets up to refill the jug of ale she’s just emptied into his tankard, N’Doch no longer cares what century he’s in. These women’s homemade hooch tastes
pretty damn good to him and the company couldn’t be improved upon. Now that he’s got the chance, he leans over to the girl and whispers, “So where’s all the men at? They out fighting or something?”

She blinks at him, then wags her head in understanding. “I forgot—you wouldn’t know. There are no men at Deep Moor.”

“None?” He glances around, sees two or three young girls who’ve got to have had a father at some point.

The girl follows his gaze. “Oh, well, just the occasional visitor.”

He grins. Wow. She’s actually making a joke.

“No, really. Like Hal. I told you about him. He helped me escape from the hell-priest after I ran away from my father.” She leans in closer. “Hal is Rose’s . . . well, um, you know.”

“Her husband?”

“Oh, no. He’s her, um . . .” She gestures uselessly with one hand.

“Her brother?”

“No!”

“Her lover?”

The girl blushes and nods.

At first, N’Doch thought she was uptight. He’s come to accept that it’s actual innocence, so he tries real hard now not to let her prissiness irritate him. But he can’t help pushing her just a little. Somebody’s got to teach her the ways of the world. “Go on, say it. He’s her
lover
.”

She’s even touchier than usual. She glares at him from under her lashes, then bolts up and scurries away. N’Doch hasn’t expected quite this reaction. He’s left with empty seats on both sides of him and Sedou all the way across the room, in deep with the pale-haired healer woman, probably swapping secrets of the trade. But he decides that things are looking up. He’d had a moment of panic at the thought that no men at Deep Moor meant that these women didn’t like men. Now he feels free to entertain his fantasies of luring the spectacular and vivacious Raven into bed with him. Maybe he’s not going to mind it so much after all, being back here in 913. At least, for as long as the dragons will let him. He figures he’s gotta work fast.

Erde escaped the embarrassing conversation with N’Doch and fled to a shadowed corner of the kitchen to wait for her blush to subside. Nervously tracing the stained grout lines between the stove tiles, she wondered why—after all she’d seen of life in the ungentle world of 2013—a certain subject was still so hard for her to talk about, especially with N’Doch. For, though he was like a brother to her, he was still very much a male. In fact, here in her world, he might even be labeled lecherous. But she’d seen how it was where he came from. People just said what they felt, right out, and looked where they wanted to look. There, she’d been the odd one out.

But to be honest with herself, something she was trying harder to be lately, Erde had come to resent the extreme modesty of her upbringing. She envied N’Doch his worldly ease. She was sure he could answer just about any question she might ask about what really went on between men and women, and he’d have not the slightest qualm about filling in all the details. But she could not bring herself to have those conversations with him, no matter how curious she was, conversations she would have had with her mother, had that dear lady not died in Erde’s early childhood. Conversations her grandmother the baroness had been too busy to have. Conversations she could never have had with her father because of the way he’d begun to look at her and touch her in the months before she fled Tor Alte to escape the clutches of the hell-priest.

Ever since she’d begun to grow, men had grabbed at her in one way or another, as if it was their right to lay hands on her without her permission. And this man-right seemed to demolish all class and duty lines, even religious vows. To Erde, it was more than just disconcerting or dangerous. It overturned a very basic principle of her childhood: men were meant to protect the women in their charge. Like Hal. Having tracked her down in the deepest wilderness, he could easily have taken advantage of her. But Hal Engle was a King’s Knight, and true to the oath he’d sworn. And a decent man, besides.

N’Doch, too, had kept his hands to himself from the very beginning, though Erde could hardly call him a
gentleman
, the way he looked at every other woman who crossed his path. Erde ceased tracing the grout lines and began to pick at a particularly offensive clot of soot. And then there was . . . 
him
. The man who kept invading her dreams, as if she had no choice.

It wasn’t just the dreaming about her enemy that disturbed her, or even that she worried about his well-being. It was that she was so . . . attracted to him.

The very notion brought up her blush again. Erde was not too innocent to notice how consistently any thoughts of what men and women did together brought Baron Köthen’s bright image to her mind, to disturb and confuse her.

“Erde, dear? Are you all right?”

Raven, returning from the beer cellar with a fresh pitcher. Erde hoped the shadows would hide the evidence of her unseemly thoughts. Although, she reflected wryly, Raven would not think them unseemly. She smiled and shrugged. “Just tired. Still so tired.”

Raven circled her free arm around Erde’s waist. “Sweeting, it’s only been three days. Remember what you’ve been through.”

Erde could not think of how to reply. Raven set the pitcher down on a nearby joint-stool and wrapped her in a hug. This helped Erde banish the image of Baron Köthen and find her tongue again. “And think of what’s still ahead, when the Quest resumes.”

“Ah, yes,” Raven agreed, “but you mustn’t worry about that for now . . .”

“No. Not for now.”

Raven let her go and took up her pitcher again. “The young man seems very nice.”

“Who, N’Doch? Nice?” Erde couldn’t imagine such a thing.

“Well, then . . . charming. A little overeager, perhaps. But very lovely to look at, don’t you think? So tall and . . . exotic.”

Erde stared. Was she kidding?

“No wonder his dragon enjoys taking man-form,” Raven went on merrily. “I think she might be just the slightest bit vain, don’t you?” Then she caught Erde’s expression.
“Hmm. I see. Well, you and the boy
seem
fond enough of each other. Comrades-in-arms and all that.”

“He’s not a boy.”

Raven chuckled. “No, and I expect he wouldn’t want to hear me calling him that either. Come, tell—have you not been getting along?”

Erde felt no urge to detail every disagreement she’d had with her fellow dragon guide. After all, he had improved noticeably since she first met him. “He doesn’t know very much about dragons,” she offered instead, realizing only then that of all N’Doch’s irritating qualities, this was the one that bothered her most. “Or the duties of a dragon guide. People don’t even believe in dragons where he comes from!”

Raven smiled. “Ah, but he has a dragon who knows a great deal about men. And from what I observe, she seems to be managing him very well.”

“She does?”

“Certainly. There are other ways of turning a man to your purpose besides ordering him to follow. Lady Water discovered who in his life her destined guide was most likely to listen to seriously. Since it wasn’t her at the moment, she simply . . . became that person.”

“Oh, well . . .”

“No ‘oh, well.’ Think about it. It’s brilliant, and it works.”

“Then what does he do for her?”

“He sings her a human shape. He gives a dragon a way to work in the world of men, as you do for Earth. You just have different ideas of how to go about it. Are Earth and Water the same dragon?”

“Of course not!”

“Then why should they require the same dragon guide?” Heading for the door, Raven glanced back. “Do you think, sweeting, that it might be time to have that little chat with Rose?”

Erde thought about dragons and methodologies for a while. It was true she’d been stubborn about her own assumptions. And it was true that N’Doch had surprised her. He’d come through in the end. Perhaps she was going to have to accept the possibility that there would always be people in the world doing things that she just could not
understand. Armed with that disturbing notion, she gathered up her courage and returned to the Great Hall, where N’Doch was taking another refill from Raven’s pitcher, the redheaded twins were clearing platters and tableware, and Doritt was tossing a huge log into the fireplace. Erde prayed that the dragon was warm enough out in the big hay barn, finally getting the rest he deserved. She went to claim the empty seat beside Rose.

She listened quietly while Rose finished up a discussion with Linden, Deep Moor’s healer, about how long her supplies of herbs and physicks would hold out if the snow continued unabated into the true months of winter. Linden’s jaw-length flaxen hair draped like separate strands of spider silk around her white cheeks, hiding her worried glance in the softened shadows of lanternlight. Her long-fingered hands moved restlessly in her lap. Erde found this more worrisome than all the facts and figures of their conversation. She’d come to rely on Linden being a very calm, still person.