The Book of Fire (72 page)

Their eyes meet. They smile, bashful now. A bit self-conscious.

N’Doch says:
Hey! Now wasn’t that something else?

So what do we do now?

We must find the Lady Air. She will know. She saved me, I’m sure of it, when the hell-priest came after me.

She. The One. Imprisoned.

Yeah, but where?

Lord Fire is sure to know.

He won’t tell them willingly. He’ll resist, with everything in his power! Oh, how can I betray him? How can I?

No betrayal. Greater cause.

How can I know that? How can I know?

Feel how strong we are! If we call out to Lady Air together, she is sure to hear us!

Cannot. Jamming. Zone of silence. Only protection.

Just a thought but, like, all this nature stuff in the data banks? That can’t just be coincidence, right?

T
here is no signal agreed to, yet, in unison, the four turn away from each other, directing consciousness outward into the darkened room in a show of independence.

Erde would have guessed that they’d stood in their circle for hours, but every eye is still on them, surprise still lingering. Luther is still on his knees. It’s been but an instant. She catches Stoksie’s inquiring look, then Luther’s. She glances down, away, uncertain.

Some explanation will be required
 . . .

N’Doch laughs aloud, a small explosion of release.
Hey, girl! You wanna try it?

Gerrasch unsettles the moment further by producing several complete sentences. “The circle is closed. Struggle alone no longer. The work begins.”

And still they are waiting. Standing about quietly, their eyes full of questions. The vast and quiet sighing of the air is the loudest sound. Something unexpected has occurred. Something perhaps momentous. Erde realizes they are waiting to be told what to do.

As it happens, she has a plan. One, she thinks, that fits the gravity of the situation. And yes, it is risky.

Give us a second to recover, huh? Before you spring it on ’em?

But we should tell them . . . explain
 . . .

Yeah, yeah.

The four agree that N’Doch should tell their story. All of it. The children bring cold water and plates of dried apple, and settle down around him. It takes him slightly longer than an instant.

“I coulda sung it to you faster,” he grins when he’s finished.

Stoksie and Luther nod intently, mulling over all they’ve heard. Many of the children have dozed off, curled into balls like little animals. The rest crouch among the empty desks, playing quiet games with whatever comes to hand. Köthen, having heard it all before, has eased carefully among the teetering book stacks for a close-up study of the Librarian’s console. He leans over it but does not touch.

Only the rebel leader is uneasy. The guy is no ranting rabble-rouser. He’s planned his rebellion carefully. N’Doch thinks he’d be well in his rights to feel put out by this sudden left turn of events. “Huh,” he says. “Huh.”

Paia laughs, a rueful silvery sound that makes Köthen glance up from his detailed scrutiny. Astonishment still lurks in the corners of her eyes, but the tension and terror are gone. “Oh, Luco! I mean,
Cousin
Leif. The proverbial monkey wrench! We’ve disrupted your plan, haven’t we!”

He shrugs, though it’s more of a grimace. If it bothers him not being the center of attention in his own stronghold, he’s concealing it well, even if he is wound a bit more tightly than he’d like to admit. “I’m always ready to hear a better one.”

N’Doch says, since everyone’s playing at being so casual here, “And we’ll get to that. But there’s a few things I’d like to point out first.”

He’s always had great faith in coincidence, but his faith is being sorely tried. The Librarian’s oblique response in the meld suggested he doesn’t consider anything a coincidence. It’s all one big pattern to him, or maybe an endless stream of program code.

For instance, N’Doch has just learned that this facility was originally a top secret center for climatological research. Coincidence? He puts his back to the big blue screen and lays it all out, as much for himself as for the others: the Library’s heavy focus on a combination of myth
and earth sciences, the local belief in a messiah who will regreen the planet; four dragons named after the elements of Nature.

“Dragons don’t just show up for no good reason!” He sees Erde beaming at him. He agrees. He’s on a roll, even without the blue dragon to coax him along. He jabs a thumb at the readout of disaster that the Librarian’s brought up on the big screen. Temperature levels, weather patterns, erosion where there’s land left, salinity where there’s water. “All the data his network can access—satellite instruments, ground sensors, archives, and data banks, no matter that they’re all half-broke and winding down—all of them are screaming that ole Mother Earth has just about had it.”

“We know all this,” Leif Cauldwell interjects. “That’s why we . . .”

“You know it, but you don’t know what to do about it. It’s too far gone, right? That’s why a magical fix looks like the only solution. Well, we think that’s what we’re here for. Why else would we have all ended up at this particular time, this particular place?”

He has to laugh. It’s like some moldy old vid, but it’s probably true. They really are here to save the world. Or at least, give it a damn good try.

The girl agrees, but of course, she would.

“And now you’re gonna ask me how. And I’ll say we gotta leave that to the dragons.”

The Tinkers are still nodding, like they’re ready to get right on the problem whenever he says so. They’ve accepted the idea that their awaited messiah is a dragon with surprising equanimity, even, N’Doch thinks, with relief. They’re not of a seriously mystical bent. They’re more interested in actual help. And what better weapon to combat a dragon than another dragon, or in this case, three more dragons?

Nor do they seem bothered by the notion of visitors from another time.

“Whadevah,” is Stoksie’s response to N’Doch’s cautious explanation.

Luther says, “Can’t wait ta heah all da detales.”

They do not believe you
, Erde says in his head.

N’Doch knows better. He’s sure they’re the most pragmatic
and flexible folks he’s ever had the privilege of dealing with. Leif Cauldwell, however, is still an unknown. N’Doch waits for the rebel leader to be full of ideas and suggestions. He just seems like the type.

But Cauldwell raises an eyebrow and fidgets silently, waiting to see where it’s all going to lead. The source of his spiritual doctrine is the Librarian, after all, and N’Doch is speaking with the Librarian’s full support. Cauldwell may be the rebels’ spokesman and leader, but Gerrasch is their oracle and prophet. It took the arrival of the planet’s endgame to produce a population that would finally listen to him. And Cauldwell listened, reshaping the prophet’s bizarre visions into a kind of liberation theology that the frightened farmers and villagers, and at least some of the Tinkers, could accept. Thus Air, shanghaied by Fire, became the discorporate One who Comes, the Imprisoned Messiah. No mention of dragons. N’Doch suspects Cauldwell’s own belief. He knows a politician when he sees one. And right now, it’s good politics to hear the prophet—or his surrogate—out.

The Librarian, meanwhile, doesn’t think in terms of messiahs. He thinks in hardly any recognizable terms at all. N’Doch recalls some self-appointed egghead lecturing him once about hypertext. He didn’t bother much with it at the time, but now he’s glad he listened long enough to pick up the basic concept. Hypertext is a handy metaphor for the Librarian’s thought structure. Keeping it in mind helps N’Doch decipher what the dude is getting at.

“Okay, so what do we know about Air, a.k.a. the Imprisoned Messiah?” He looks to see if this gentle sacrilege bothers his audience, but it’s clear he’s already preaching to the converted. “Let’s start with the fact that someone, some
thing
, has been sending the Librarian ‘visions’ for centuries.”

“Centuries,” murmurs Luther reverently.

“And that all those aeons he put in of tireless research and analysis suggested an ageless and mystical source. Eventually, he tells us, the visions narrowed the definition for him: a dragon named Air. By now, he’s convinced that Fire kidnapped Air and stashed her somewhere because of something she knows about the reason the dragons were awakened in the first place.” N’Doch privately refers to this
as The Big Mystery, though he’s about to rename it The Big Fix. “Air can’t talk to him from her undiscovered prison, but recently, the visions have been coming in via this old semifunctional communications network. How ’bout that? A cyberdragon!”

Cauldwell asks softly, “How can she be accessing the Net?”

“Good question.”

Erde objects. “Do you ask how Lord Earth can transport, or Lady Water transform?”

“You bet. All the time. Don’t you?” N’Doch grins at her, just to let her know he’s never gonna stop teasing her at least a little. But she’s learned to take it. She smiles and shakes her head.

“What does the . . . ah, what does Fire do?” Paia asks.

“Misbehaves.”

“No. Please.” Her lovely face clouds, and N’Doch is instantly miserable. “If each of the four has a special gift, what is his?”

Cauldwell has a ready answer. “He’s a leader of men, Paia. That’s a gift like any other. It’s not only fear that makes so many follow him. Add but an ounce of compassion and the Beast could well be a god.”

Erde frowns at him. “A miracle, yes. But not God.”

“God? Singular?” Cauldwell peers at her curiously, then seems to think better of it and subsides into a tense crouch against the console. Silently, N’Doch congratulates him on his good sense and restraint. He’s glad his little lecture has finally evolved into dialogue, but this is no time to get the girl going on about religion.

“So he’s waiting and waiting, then suddenly he gets the sense something’s about to happen. Right?”

Gerrasch nods. Because he cannot predict when the visions will come on him, or in what form, he has put himself on perpetual round-the-clock duty, for a generation or more, buried in this dark hole like a giant mole in the earth.