City of Fire (City Trilogy (Mass Market)) (2 page)

On one side of the broad museum steps, a newsreel crew was setting up a large, cumbersome movie camera to record the momentous occasion.

Food sellers had wheeled their carts next to the line of waiting spectators. Already, enticing smells were rising from the pots and grills as frog-shaped imps heated the food. Bamboo trays of dim sum were already steaming and kebabs were sizzling on the grill so that the air was filled with delectable smells.

A vendor in fool’s motley was helping his pumpkinlike imp blow up balloons. A mountebank in rented wizard’s robes and cap had set up some boxes and was trying to interest a group of young men in a game of “Find the Pixie Beneath the Walnut Shells.”

In fact, before the spectators reached the sanctuary of the museum, they were going to have to run a gauntlet of peddlers, entertainers, swindlers, and beggars—very similar, Bayang thought, to the group running City Hall across the plaza, except that the politicians had brass name plates to separate themselves from the rabble by the museum.

She glanced down when she felt a slight tugging. A three-inch imp with purple leathery skin straddled her purse as it attempted to pry open the clasp.

The imp grinned up at her sheepishly and touched his forehead. “Morning, ma’am.”

Bayang took pride in her disguises. Any apprentice witch could change her physical appearance, but it took skill to transform what
lay beneath the skin. Bayang had become a good enough actor to go on the stage if she wished.

She had assumed the character of an office worker in her sixties, with a back slightly hunched from slaving over a desk most of her life, eyes squinting because she couldn’t afford eyeglasses on her meager salary. She appeared to the whole world as a mousy woman who thought herself extremely daring for playing hooky from her job this morning. In short, someone whom most people would ignore.

Suddenly her face wrinkled into a puzzled but kindly expression that was in contrast to her low, menacing words to the imp trying to open her purse. “Go away or I’ll feed you to the pigeons. Ones with dull beaks so it will take a long time.”

“No need to get nasty,” the imp complained as it dropped out of sight among the forest of legs.

When Bayang raised her head, she saw Primo studying her. He couldn’t have heard her warning to the imp so, still keeping in character, she spoke loudly and excitedly to her neighbor in line, a middle-aged man, about how good the nearby salamander was at juggling flaming balls, and when the salamander swallowed the balls one after another, she applauded as if she had never seen anything so marvelous in her dull, gray life. When his master held out his belled hat, she dropped a quarter into it as if she considered that a queenly award.

From the corner of her eyes, she saw that Primo was surveying another part of the crowd now, apparently having decided she was harmless.

As the great bronze doors suddenly swung open and the ripple of excitement passed through the humans, she knew that it was almost time to finish her task and once again protect her people.

Scirye

“Oh, please don’t touch my griffin, Madame,” Scirye begged in her slightly accented English. “The last person who did that lost a finger.”

The lady’s gloved hand paused uncertainly in midair. “But he’s
so
adorable.”

Scirye widened her eyes in what she hoped was an expression of worried innocence.

“Oh, that’s just to lure you close,” she said. “And before you know it, snip!” She used the fingers of her free hand like a pair of scissors. “Kles’s gobbling down your finger just like it was a worm. And there’s blood gushing all over. He’s been banned from … five countries.” The girl had been about to say ten, but even she thought that might be too much to be credible.

Scirye hid a secret smile as the lady snatched back her hand. “Oh,
dear. I had no idea he was so vicious.” She regarded the eight-inch griffin with alarm, too frightened to wonder what such a dangerous creature was doing on the gauntleted arm of a twelve-year-old girl.

Scirye could sympathize with the lady’s urge to admire her friend. Kles projected power not only in body but in mind, as well. From the neck down, he was a lion with a muscular chest and a lithe body that was lightning sheathed in tawny fur. From the neck up, he was an eagle whose intelligent eyes seemed to pierce right through you. Even his wings, which were folded at present, gave a graceful taper to his back. The fact that all this strength and wisdom was miniaturized into the size of a cuddly doll with fluffy fur and downy feathers—well, he was just too cute not to hug.

Scirye was enjoying the game she had just invented and was wondering how many other people she could trick, but then Kles had to go and spoil her fun. Though in theory a griffin owed absolute obedience to his mistress or master, sometimes, as he had apologetically informed Scirye on another occasion, even a griffin must answer to a higher authority—namely Scirye’s mother, Lady Sudarshane.

So, instead of growling menacingly, he gave a low chirrup that vibrated from deep within his throat—which Scirye regarded as far superior to a cat’s purr because it suggested a soft cushion by a warm fire. “Oh, I don’t mind…,” Kles said to the lady in a deep, silky voice, “as long as it’s you, my darling.”

The lady hesitated, glancing back and forth between Scirye and Kles as if wondering whom to believe. So while Scirye scowled at his betrayal, Kles fluffed up his fur encouragingly. Such a cuddly creature was impossible to resist. The lady stretched out her hand timidly, ready to pull it back if Kles began to open his small but powerful beak. When Kles chirruped invitingly again, the lady could not resist stroking the fine down of his throat and then the fur of his haunches.

“Oh, what a dear creature,” the lady gushed. “But I thought griffins were much bigger,” she said. “Is he a baby?”

Despite her duties as the Kushan liaison for the exhibit’s opening, Lady Sudarshane had been keeping an eye on Scirye. She glided over now, tall and regal as a queen, determined to prevent whatever havoc her daughter might be trying to create.

Lady Sudarshane had frequently sighed to her offspring that Scirye had too much imagination and too little self-control. She took hold of Scirye’s free arm in a warm but firm warning grip.

“Griffins come in all sizes, Mrs. Rudenko,” Lady Sudarshane explained in her warm, polished manner. “Klestetstse is full-grown.” (Ever the diplomat, she addressed everyone by their formal name but Kles’s had presented a problem since it meant “shabby” and was rather demeaning as a word. He had solved her dilemma by informing her that since he had grown into such a magnificent specimen of griffinhood, it amused him to keep his odd name—like nicknaming a huge, hulking giant Tiny.)

“His body might have grown up but not his mind.” Scirye sniffed spitefully.

Kles’s claws were only the size of sewing needles but just as sharp. So when he pinched her through the gauntlet, she felt like wincing, but fought to keep her face blank, refusing to give him that satisfaction.

Lady Sudarshane ignored her daughter’s comment and went on explaining smoothly, “The largest griffins were capable of carrying an armored warrior, and we still ride them for sport. Aerial polo can be quite invigorating. But Klestetstse is a lap griffin, specially bred for hunting, much as a falcon is.”

“Only we do it better,” Kles said, polishing his claws against his chest.

Kles
, Scirye thought,
has all the pride of a full-size griffin squeezed into the body of a parrot.

Mrs. Rudenko clasped her hands together enthusiastically. “My granddaughter would love a lap griffin of her own. I simply must have one. Money is no object.”

Lady Sudarshane put on her most woeful look. “Alas, lap griffins are only for the royal family, who consider them as part of the royal retinue rather than pets. Klestetstse was given to my daughter, Scirye, as a special favor from the Princess Maimantstse.”

“That sounds like quite an honor,” Mrs. Rudenko said, examining Scirye for the first time. “You must be quite… special.”

Scirye’s ancestors had come from an area where many cultures and people had mingled. As a result, Scirye’s skin was a pleasingly light tan but her red hair and green eyes and dusting of freckles suggested that she should be dancing Irish jigs. “And… and…”— Mrs. Rudenko hunted for a polite bit of praise—”you look so quaint in your costume.”

Scirye’s outfit was a sore spot and the girl scowled. Before the storm could break, Lady Sudarshane took Mrs. Rudenko’s arm. “If you would like to learn more about griffins, Mrs. Rudenko, let me show you the displays in Room C.”

As her mother guided Kles’s admirer away, Kles snapped his beak at Scirye’s fingertip. “Don’t slander about the noblest race ever created.”

Scirye retaliated with a tap of her finger on his head. “Ow, that hurt, Kles.”

They glared at each other a moment, but neither could hold a grudge for long against the other. “Truce?” She grinned.

“Truce,” he agreed, and before his mistress could create more mischief, Kles suggested looking around. “I’ve never seen so many treasures displayed even in the royal palace,” Kles murmured. “They were always kept hidden in the vaults.”

Wherever they looked, there was the sparkle of gold, carnelian, garnets, turquoise, and lapis lazuli. Individually, the gems in the
other rooms had huge price tags, but the stones in this last and largest gallery were beyond price, for they had belonged to the earliest Kushan rulers. Soft light fell through the opaque panes of the skylight overhead, and from lamps with special lenses to highlight the objects beneath them.

At one end of the chamber, the mayor and the Kushan Consul, Prince Etre, were chatting behind a podium, waiting for the radio crew to do a last sound check of the microphones before the live national broadcast.

Scirye slipped by a couple of museum staff wrestling a full-length photo of Emperor Kanishka XII into place. He was dressed in the uniform of a griffin warrior, complete with winged helmet and spurs. The girl and Kles bowed their heads respectfully as they passed.

Then they made their way around the radio engineers huddled over the bulky equipment before the broadcast went on the air, Scirye nearly tripping over the long outer cloak that was part of her costume. Irritably, she dragged the hem up from the floor and then found she was standing in front of a display of ancient drinking cups made by gilding enemy skulls. “Ugh,” she said, making a face.

Seeing her revulsion, Kles skipped the history lesson he had been about to give and simply murmured, “It was long ago, and the times were different then.”

“They were savages,” Scirye declared.

“They were also your ancestors,” Kles pointed out.

“Only on paper,” Scirye argued. “I left the Kushan Empire when I was four. I’m… I’m a citizen of the world. That’s what I am,” she announced, snatching at a phrase she had overheard somewhere.

Though Kles understood English, he could not read it well so he used it as an excuse now to further his mistress’s education. “What does the display card say?”

Scirye read it obligingly in a soft voice. “For over two thousand years, the Kushan Empire in Central Asia has sat between the East
and West. The silk in this case is from China, the ivory from Siam, spices from Malaysia, diamonds from Golconda in India, and felt tapestries from the northern steppes.”

Kles nodded to the dozens of shining coins laid in rows like offerings before a statue of Kubera, the dwarf god of wealth. “And those come from China, the kingdoms of Alexander the Great’s successors, Persia, Rome, Byzantium, and on into modern times.”

Scirye, though, cared little about money. “You don’t say?” She yawned.

When he saw her lack of interest, Kles immediately dropped his lecture on the Silk Road. He glanced about and said, “I think the next case will be more to your liking.”

Scirye perked up when she saw that it contained weapons and Kles adapted his instruction. “You know, ideas as well as trade goods traveled back and forth along the Silk Road. And your ancestors were great synthesizers, taking the best from the East as well as the West.” He gestured at a gilded, jeweled matchlock. “Kushan engineers improved Chinese gunpowder and used it in iron barrels cast with Byzantine techniques to create guns that kept the Parthians, Huns, Persians, Arabs, and Turks at bay.”