Soul of Fire (19 page)

“Why?”

“I thought they might have heard something, or know something,” he said. “After all, there will always be those of us who have contact with the tigers, or who might have heard about the dragons. There will be others, like me, who can witch-sniff easily and will know if there have been dragons here, and where they might have gone.”

“And did you find anything?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said. “As I bought these clothes and . . .” He bowed and somehow, from the folds of his tunic, produced a bundle of blue-green silk shot through with gold. “This for you, Princess.”

He extended it to her, and she shook it out, to see it was a magnificent sari. “There is not much point in dressing in it,” she said, as she noticed the little lotus flowers embroidered in gold all over the fine fabric, “since we’ll have to change to continue on our way.”

“Indeed, no,” he said. “You see, I did find one of our kind that I could question. And he told me that not only have the dragon and the girl been seen—and they do seem to be traveling together with no coercion—”

“But . . . how is that possible?” Lalita asked. “How can she be traveling willingly with a dragon?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Perhaps because she thinks it will get her away from the tiger? Perhaps because she’s willing to do anything—everything—rather than marry the king of tigers?”

Lalita thought of Sofie on the veranda; Sofie looking afraid of the creature and repulsed by it, in equal parts; Sofie screaming she couldn’t marry him and trying to . . . Lalita wasn’t even sure what her friend had tried to do. She thought Sofie had wanted to climb down from the balcony, though she had no clue how the girl thought she could do that, when she had neglected to provide herself with a rope or any other means of descent. But the very fact that Sofie had forgotten how frail that railing was, and how likely that it would fall to pieces, spoke to her desperation. A dragon could be a way of escaping. But how could a dragon seem
less
dangerous to her? Lalita started—insensibly—to wrap herself in the sari. She didn’t like being naked in front of Hanuman, and even if this meant she would have to undress when she changed again, it was a risk she was willing to take. “I will not believe that Sofie had a rendezvous with the dragon, or that she meant to run away with him.”

Through her mind, fast and ridiculous, crossed the notion that William Blacklock, on whom Sofie set such store, might have been a dragon shifter. The idea almost made her laugh out loud. A sound between a giggle and a sneeze escaped her, causing Hanuman to give her a very odd look before saying, “No, milady. Undoubtedly not. But once she’d found the dragon, he might have seemed to her the least of two evils. And then, if you remember, you told me your friend wanted to go to Meerut, and they seem to be headed in that direction, from all the gossip I’ve heard.”

Meerut, where slim, elegant William Blacklock had been stationed. Still, he could not be the dragon. Lalita knew better. Even in English legends, dragons were rarely mentioned as weres. And when they were, they were always mentioned as foreign creatures, somehow trapped or lost in England. Never as native forms.

What were the chances that William Blacklock had Chinese or Indian blood? Or even blood from those distant Estern European countries where it was said some dragons also lived?

Not high. Though the man had dark hair, he had pale skin, smoky-gray eyes and his features looked English. No, the dragon wasn’t William Blacklock, but it began to seem as though Sofie had convinced the dragon to take her to Blacklock. Lalita shook her head and spoke from bitter experience. “She was always capable of convincing people to do the most insane things for her.”

Hanuman grinned at that. “Well, if she is going to Meerut, and if they are flying, it would be very poor of us to have to walk, would it not? After all, what’s the reason for that? I could take the money and buy us”—he smiled, like an adult unveiling a treat for a child—“a flying rug.” He pointed to a rolled bundle at the entrance, which he must have set down before approaching her. She was not sure how he’d managed it—so many of Hanuman’s tricks were like an illusioner’s art, the hand faster than the eye. “Just a small one,” he said. “Enough to allow us to sit on it with comfort and fly in style.”

“And be far more visible in the air,” she said. “And announce to all our passing, so that our direction and intentions in turn will be divulged to the tigers and, perhaps, to the dragons as well.”

“You think they wouldn’t be, otherwise?” he asked, and shook his head as though at her naivete. “Of course people—our people—know where we are, and probably who we are, too. You’re too high a personage to travel incognita. Surely you know that.”

“Still, traveling in a flying rug, you must admit—”

“We don’t have a choice, Princess,” Hanuman snapped. “You see, the king of tigers bought a rug also. The grapevine has it they’ll all be stopping at the sacred city of Benares. I think we must go there as soon as we can.”

FAKIRS AND BODIES; SAFETY AND DARING; TIGERS

They descended near Benares, in a patch of impenetrable
forest. Sofie wondered if he did that because he feared that whoever watched them land would call the Gold Coats, or because he was afraid of receiving the sort of embarrassing worship that the two girls had attempted to bestow on him on the mountain.

She rather thought the latter. She suspected she was starting to know St. Maur better than he perhaps knew himself. The look in his eye and the veiled pain in it as he spoke of the circumstances under which he’d left his father’s house would haunt her forever. Sofie imagined, from that glimpse, that she now knew or understood why he’d picked her up when she would otherwise have dashed her brains falling from that balcony, and why he had agreed to come with her across India. Having been, himself, cast out and lost in an uncaring world, he could not now allow anyone to be caught in the same trap. His kindness, born of pain, had earned her admiration as sheer goodness might never have.

Sofie realized she had forgotten he was a dragon—though she was sure it would be very improper to be sitting astride him like this in his human form—when she heard herself saying, as she looked idly over the landscape of the Ganges, with its throngs of pilgrims and its burning pyres, “Is this where they burn the corpses?”

She realized, right after asking it, that he couldn’t answer, or not with words. Though the dragon could hiss words, she doubted he could do it while flying—and so was surprised to see him dip his head in what was clearly an attempt at nodding. Confused, she patted distractedly at his neck ruffle.

St. Maur—or the dragon he became—was flying very high to avoid the traffic of low-flying rugs. He dipped suddenly toward a thick massif of trees. Landing softly on the mossy ground, he waited till Sofie dismounted.

She averted her eyes as he started twisting and writhing in his change of shape, and did not turn back even as he spoke to her in human voice, the detached manner of a tour guide. “Yes, those are the burning ghats. It is believed that anyone whose ashes are thrown in the Ganges will have a better life in their next reincarnation. So anyone who can possibly do it will come here to dispose of their beloved relatives’ bodies.” Mixed with his words came sounds of his rifling through the bags. “But I understand it’s very expensive, as they will not do the cremation out of charity, and you must pay for the fuel plus a good fee to those who burn the corpse. Who are all low caste of course, as they must be to be willing to touch dead bodies.”

“You know a lot about this?” Sofie asked, hesitantly.

“I’ve traveled here and there in India,” he said. “I’ve been here six months, after all. But surely, having grown up here . . .”

She wanted to ask him why he’d been here six months, but she didn’t. It probably sufficed to know that India wasn’t likely to call the Gold Coats on him. At least hadn’t been until recently. “I grew up here until I was ten,” she said primly. “And burning bodies are hardly what you’d consider a good subject for a child that young.”

He chuckled softly. “I imagine not,” he said. And then he added, softly, “You may turn now, Miss Warington.”

She did. He was fully dressed, holding his walking stick. “I seized the chance to land in this spot, since it seemed the farthest from any great conglomeration of people. You know, this is an important pilgrimage area, and therefore it becomes hard to find a place that’s not crowded with people.” Something like a shadow passed over his face. “It’s going to be difficult to find a place to hunt, but that’s a worry for another time. Perhaps if I eat, in human form, it will be enough to hold me for the night. Then tomorrow, when we get a little away from this heavily populated area, we can find me some place where the dragon . . . er . . . I can hunt.”

She noticed the correction and wondered if, having become aware of his split, he was trying to mend it. Trying, somehow, to make himself one. But it was not the time to ask. Nor was it the time to ask if he was sure about being able to hold off his hunger if he fed tonight only in human form.

Though nothing had been explained, she’d seen his hunger when he ate meals as a dragon. She suspected no meal consumed as a human could satiate that hunger. She suspected he knew it, too, from the worried expression on his face. But she could well imagine that in such a heavily populated area, to have the dragon hunt could cause a definite panic. “Are you afraid they’d try to worship you if you hunted as a dragon in plain sight?”

He looked at her, and his mouth quirked just a little, before returning to a more serious expression. “No,” he said, with some finality. “I’m afraid what they would do if I ate one of their prized sacred bulls.”

And while she was turned to him, she saw, just by the corner of her eye, movement amid the trees. “There,” she said, speaking before she could think. “There was someone over there.” She pointed to the green-brown forest, where a pale body was seen fleeing—it looked like an adolescent or young woman, running.

St. Maur took a few steps into the cover of trees. Then his hand went out to the trunk of a nearby tree and he came to a stop, staring. He returned to Sofie, wearing that brisk, businesslike look that he’d worn when he’d first let her walk away in Calcutta. She wondered if this time, too, he was unsure of his decision.

“Who was it?” Sofie asked.

He shook his head, shrugged. “I don’t know. Looked like a native to me. Someone slim and young, or perhaps just slim and small.”

“Oh. Did he, or she, overhear us?” She tried to locate the source of the uneasiness she sensed in him.

“It hardly matters.” He set his lips tightly. “After all, it is not at all likely that just any native will speak English well enough to understand that conversation of ours. It is even less likely that a native who overheard us would hasten to tell the Gold Coats. As we’ve seen, natives’ attitude to weres is . . . different from English attitudes. Also, if pressed, we could say the talk of my being a dragon was a joke. Who could disprove it?”

They stood in silence. Sofie could tell he wanted to go on. He took an hesitant step in the direction they’d been walking, but came back when she didn’t move.

“Is there . . . some distress on your mind, Miss Warington?” he asked.

She realized she’d been frowning, heavily. “Only that . . .” she began, and hesitated. Then took a deep breath. “I know something about all this is causing you some uneasiness.”

“How can you know that?” He looked very pale and tired, and she understood—for the first time—why they’d stopped near the sacred city of Benares despite its being one of the most heavily frequented places in India. One that anyone could tell would not offer them shelter.