Dragon Soul (36 page)

“Guess you can’t take a hint,” Sarah Fleet said, rolling up her loose sleeves to reveal her soft white arms. She looked a little like the pudding she’d made, which nearly made me laugh, but I was getting real good at this whole controlling-myself thing. “All right, have it your way. Bring that thing over here now and be quick about it. My boyfriend won’t stand out there waiting all night.”

“If you’re talking about Kalim—” I said, with a warning in my voice. But I picked up the scale and brought it around to her side of the table. It was hot in my hand—maybe it held the heat from the desert or something—but to me it felt like the blood pumping underneath skin and not like a part of a dead thing at all.

Sarah Fleet, the dotty old bag, winked at me with her wonky eye and pulled out a tatty old magician’s pouch. She rifled through it for a moment, and then came up with what looked to me like an ordinary old sewing bodkin.

“Ha!” she said.

“We gonna do some needlepoint for Havemercy?” I asked, unable to help myself. From the back of the kitchen, I could hear water being pumped and the clink of dishes being washed. It was just like Thom to pick up a skill like that out of all the things he could’ve learned. Probably did an ace load of laundry too. And considering how he was in charge of washing things, and how we didn’t go around smelling like cows, I guess he did. “Sew a few doilies and that’ll lead the way?”

Fleet smacked my arm with her free hand, scooting her chair closer. “Watch that smart mouth,” she said. “I’m the one holding the needle here, so don’t get cocky. Now give me your hand.”

“Why?” I asked, instantly suspicious of anyone who pointed out
that they were wielding a weapon, then asked for my hand. It sure as shit wasn’t because she wanted to shake.

“Oh, my mistake,” said Fleet. “I was under the impression that I was speaking to Airman Rook of the Esar’s famous Dragon Corps, not Sissy-man Sal of Miss Petunia’s Flower-Farting School for Pansies. You got a problem with that?”

I slammed my hand down on the table, then turned it over, palm up. In the kitchen, the water stopped running. Bastion only knew what Thom thought we were doing in here, I told myself, and grinned.

Fleet pricked my finger with the needle before I could blink—she moved fast for an old sack—and before I could tell her
exactly
where to stick that needle next, she’d pricked herself too.

“Hate doing it this way,” she muttered, pulling the scale closer and turning it over, so it made a shallow metal bowl. After that, she squeezed a few drops of her blood into the scale, then lifted my hand to do the same to me. “It’s messy as anything, but it works. Well, sometimes. Try not to faint, now; it’ll all be over soon. Besides, I just washed these floors last month.”

I wasn’t complaining. Pain wasn’t something that bothered me much. I’d been pretty well versed in it since I was a sapling, and I was too eager to get going to even feel it, really. Adrenaline always worked the same, whether you were in the air or in some grandmother’s kitchen. Nothing in the moment mattered; you were already somewhere else, in front of yourself in time.

Fleet picked up the scale real carefully, turning it slowly one direction, then the next. Mixing our blood together, I guess. Then she picked up the needle and dropped it into the center of our little puddle of combined blood. All at once, I felt a deep kind of tingling in my skin, like something in the air had changed, or the wind was picking up quick—except we weren’t outside anymore.

There weren’t any sounds of dishwashing coming from the kitchen now. I could feel Thom watching us, but I couldn’t look away from the dragonscale.

“So when’s the magic start happening?” I asked, like I couldn’t feel a thing. Fleet probably knew better than to let me make shit up.

“Shut it,” said Fleet, all her attention on the scale. “If you distract me, I could always mess up and have a compass that leads to Shirley-Sue the milk cow instead of your girl.”

I buttoned my lip.

But nothing happened.

That was usually the case with magicians. They talked big, set things up with a lot of bluster and bravado, then you sat around while the clock ticked, waiting to be impressed. Some of them had little magic shows to make idiots like me, common people without any Talent to speak of save the ones that
weren’t
blessed with capitalization, understand something was happening at all. But Fleet wasn’t like that, and I was glad she wasn’t like that, and this wasn’t some Hapenny Lane stage but an old lady’s house. All I felt was uncomfortable between my skin and my muscle, like I was getting a fever.

Then the needle started moving.

“Bastion,” I said.

“Shut the fuck up,” Fleet replied, standing. I did the same.

She wouldn’t have to tell me a third time. Why the hell was I acting like a wide-eyed penny-parlor boy in the first place? Guess my girl always had one over on me, even from the grave.

I smiled thin and watched the needle gain momentum, spinning round in its little bowl like a clock gone crazy, a compass with no due center. Our blood—Fleet’s and mine—together, had done this. Kinda special when you thought about it. Never seen anything like that before, and I’d seen a fuck-ton of all kinds of strange things in my time.

“Patience,” Fleet said, more like she was talking to herself. I was on the edge of my seat and feeling weak in the knees like a lady from the Fans who’d just found out she was in the family way, but I kept myself up anyway. Didn’t want to embarrass myself in front of anyone.

“Ah!” Thom said from the kitchen.

The needle stopped turning, righted itself, vibrated a couple of times, complete with a low whining noise. Then it fell flat into the bowl, pointing, as far as I could tell, just a hair shy of due north.

“Huh,” Fleet said, sitting down hard. The chair beneath her groaned. I pretended like I didn’t
need
to sit and was just
choosing
to ’cause the chair was there and all, and let my knees give up.

“Huh what?” I asked.

“Seems like someone else got the same piss-poor idea into their head as you,” Fleet said. She had a thoughtful look on her face. “Direction’s pretty precise, too.”

“Okay,” I said, like that actually meant something to me. It didn’t, but maybe I’d get lucky and the old girl would elaborate.

“Don’t humor me,” Fleet snapped. “You know what this means?”

“Nope,” I told her flatly.

“That’s right, and don’t you forget it,” Fleet replied, wagging her finger. She looked tired, though, and I wondered if Thom and I were gonna have to haul her to bed after this was all over. “Means you’re not the only one who can’t let little darlin’ go, apparently. Someone in the desert’s having a go at putting her together,” Fleet explained finally, letting out a deep breath. “They’ve got the soul too, or they’re close to it, which means at least one of ’em knows their top from their tail. Just look at that needle.”

I directed my attention back to the dragonscale. Had to have something to focus on, or else I was gonna tear down this house over the idea that anyone’d try and remake my girl. It’d been my stupid idea, but I had a right to it. No one else had that right, except maybe the mad bag sitting in front of me. The needle was starting to move, not so much that you’d catch it if you weren’t looking at it, but by a hairbreadth; it clocked over to north, then stopped, then slid a little bit west after a few more seconds of me watching it.

“She’s on the move,” Fleet added. “Don’t think she’s flying herself just yet, boy, so somebody who can travel real quick through the desert’s probably transporting her. You know of anyone who can travel quick through the desert, or do we need to have a few lessons before I get you out of my hair? It’s short for a reason, you know,” she added, then looked cross-eyed at me.

“Nomads,” I said.

“Bull’s-eye,” Fleet replied.

There was only one nomad I knew, and he was standing just outside on top of a sand dune.

“Rook,” Thom called after me, but I was already out of my chair. I’d been led in so many circles by now, crossing my own bastion-damned path more than once and allowing myself to be tomfooled into all kinds of half-wit fuckery. I was taking this camel by the reins and I wasn’t letting go until someone gave me a solid answer. I’d beaten Kalim once before man-to-man, and, if necessary, I’d do it again.

The wind had picked up pretty fast since I’d last been outside, and
I sure as shit didn’t like the way the air smelled. There was something nasty and dark blowing in from not too far away, but I wasn’t a master of the desert. All I had were my instincts.

“Ah, Mollyrat Rook!” Kalim said, like butter wouldn’t melt if I shoved a whole pat into his mouth. “Did you find what you’re—”

“Listen to me,” I said, grabbing him by the front of his robes; probably a killing offense where he was from, but I didn’t care anymore. “You got something you’re hiding from me?”

Kalim didn’t blink, but I
had
taken him by surprise. “Do you seek to offend me?” he asked.

“Do I?” I asked. “Doesn’t matter right now, Kalim. Are you
keeping
something from me?”

So, maybe it wasn’t one of my finest moments. I probably was babbling like a madman who thought he could talk to someone special up in the heavens. Something told me I wasn’t going to be able to explain myself, either, so I dragged him down off that dune as fast as I could, yanking him back toward Fleet’s house and shoving him through the doorway. He was going along with all this, but at any moment I knew he could respond to the assault on his pride and turn on me. That didn’t matter. I was gearing for a fight. Bring it on, Prince Kalim, and all that fuckery.

“Hey, boys,” Fleet said, calm as punch.

Kalim made a sign I didn’t understand in the air in front of him, like warding off the evil eye.

“That,” I said, pointing at the scale on the table. “You seen something like that before? One of your men have it?
Are you fucking trading in shit like this?”

Kalim’s mouth was tight. “I have seen something similar to this before,” he said at last. “It was in my possession until three nights before I met with you, your brother, and the
rakhman
, when it was stolen from me.”

“Plot always thickens, doesn’t it,” Fleet said.

Our quarry had made a fatal error, which always thrilled and disappointed me.

My worries about the relative potency of my Talent in the desert had turned out to be unfounded. So long as we stuck to traveling at night—and we did, for the sake of our good health and sanity—I was as spry as a country girl and as fit as a good musician’s fiddle. The dune sands made for the most wonderful backdrop I could have asked for—all potential, lively smells burned clean out of the landscape by the midday sun. There was nothing to distract me from my prey—a group of men who stank at once of blood and dragonmetal. It was wondrous, and better than if I’d planned it myself. I would doubtless be home in no time with the Esar’s gratitude jingling in my pockets, yet I found myself somewhat unsatisfied.

If I were to be perfectly honest—as I could only be with myself—I had to admit I was missing the ecstasy of the hunt as I’d felt it when I was still in the mountains. Chasing the man whose skills so matched my own had left me nearly breathless with delight, my head spinning from the rush of blood, combined with a lack of food or sleep. But ever since the burning village, I hadn’t been able to detect the familiar tang of dragonmetal from anywhere but here: among the quarry we now
pursued. Such disappointment came with not being a free agent. I was not at liberty to choose which trails to follow and which to leave cold. What the Esar had sent me to look for was my
only
concern, and whatever had intrigued me about my chase through the mountains had been completely obliterated by what the nomads held. Chasing them was dull, unfulfilling work, but the prize they held was nearly enough to make up for that. I had never smelled the soul of a dragon before, but all my instincts were telling me that my work was going to be accomplished sooner, rather than later.

They’d stopped to rest, and very shortly my pursuit would be over as a consequence of their carelessness.

The girl Madoka called me strange, and I supposed I was, if it came to that. Everyone had their peculiarities. In truth, it was she who seemed strange to me, carrying on with that thing festering in her hand as though it wasn’t about to cause irreparable damage. As an agent of the Esar, I’d been trained to withstand certain methods that the enemy might use to extract information, but I knew instinctively that what Madoka was suffering now was something I would have never been able to tolerate. Pain unimaginable; even I was impressed.

I tried to keep her downwind as best I could, so that the scent of rot did not overcome my sensitive nose. After all, the smell of the nomad raiding party was bad enough already, but I could allow no further distractions than the ones with which I had already willingly burdened myself.

Why they’d chosen to take refuge in the oasis at such a time was unfathomable to me. Perhaps it was as simple as Badger had so eloquently stated, and they didn’t even know that they were being followed. It smelled distractingly of green things, of water bubbling up from the rock, and smooth, wet stone. The nomads had tainted it with their presence, of course, but it was easy for me to pick their stench apart from the rest, now that I knew it so well. In among the rest of these exotic little odors was the most alluring perfume, twined around the others like a complacent cat welcoming her master home and waiting for him to pour the cream.