The Book of Air: Volume Four of the Dragon Quartet (54 page)

Erde approaches alone. Fire glares down at her from his smoke-wreathed heights. Scales glint on his cheeks. She sees his whispering robe is made of chained links of gold. She’s relieved to find him decently clothed for a change. She prepares to meet him glower for glower. Yet it seems that the flames leaping in his golden eyes are fed by exasperation rather than rage.

“Do you come ready to lecture me about my sacred Duty, witch-child?”

Overhearing, Brother Guillemo cries, “His duty is to punish you! And he will, by all that’s holy!”

Erde folds her arms across her chest. “You know your Duty better than I, Lord Fire.”

Fire sighs. “You virtuous ones. Such a bore, really, but so much more reliable.”

Erde frowns. “For what have you Summoned me? Time is passing, and the Purpose requires our attention!”

Much to her discomfiture, Fire drops gracefully into a crouch before her, so that their gazes are level. His is hot and cynical, reflecting the fire behind her. She wishes she could look away. He smiles, as if to a much younger child. “So eager for it to be accomplished, are you? You’re not even sure what it is.”

“I know it is right.” Erde’s voice catches slightly, despite her efforts to hold it steady. “Whatever else it is, I’ll bear up with.”

Fire’s eyes lid shut briefly. “Ah. Heroics. Again.”

“You shall not stir me to rage with your mockery, Lord Fire.”

“Really? Then that fierce little scowl and those shoulders up to your earlobes have nothing to do with anger?”

Erde smoothes her face, and lifts her chin out of her neck.

“No, keep your anger, witchling! Nurture it. It’s a proper righteous anger, after all. You’ll need it for the task at hand.”

“The Purpose should be accomplished with a calm and glad heart, Lord Fire. I know little, but I know that much.”

“Ah, but I mean the task I have for you . . . which must be finished before the other can even be attempted.”

The frown returns. She cannot banish it. “What task is that?”

“Ask my brother Earth. He will tell you.”

“I’d rather you did.”

“So be it, then.” He straightens, shifting his glare from Erde back to Hal. “Now, sir knight. Front and center.”

Hal glares back, uncomprehending. N’Doch moves to grab hold of him, but Erde shake her head gently, and Gerrasch says, “Yes.” N’Doch shrugs and urges the knight forward. “Might as well see what he wants.”

Shrugging his tunic and mail into order, Hal hurries to Erde’s side. “Lord Fire,” he acknowledges crisply.

“I have need of your sword.”

Hal’s jaw tightens. “My sword is sworn to my king, and to the Great Purpose. I cannot . . .”

“Oh, please! No more lofty rhetoric. I wish only the weapon itself, not your undying loyalty.”

Confounded, Hal lays his hand on the sword’s gilded hilt.

“Yes, yes, that’s the one. Draw it and give it to the girl.”

As Hal hesitates, Brother Guillemo crows to his men, “Now you’ll see how he’ll punish the witch!”

“Do it, dear knight,” Erde urges. But when she holds the dragon-hilted blade, so heavy that she must use both hands to keep its tip from being fouled in the mud, she says to Fire, “I will not swear to you either.”

“Of course you won’t. I’m not that delusional. But hear this: will you accept the gift I offer, in recompense for all you’ve suffered? In doing so, you will also open the way for the accomplishment of the Purpose which has been the cause of that suffering.”

His silky tone alerts her. “I think I must know the gift first, my lord, to see if I am worthy of it.”

“Oh, take my word for it, you are.”

“Nevertheless . . .”

“By all that’s eternal!” Fire snarls, while Brother Guillemo dances his horse into a gloat behind him. “No wonder you people never get anything done!” He turns, picks the stunned priest out of his saddle by the hood of his cloak, and flings him at Erde’s feet. His terrified horse careens off into the trio of his knights who have pointedly not ridden to his aid. Resilient as always, Guillemo scrambles up, groping for his own weapon. But he has lost it in the transfer. Erde braces herself and lifts the point of Hal’s blade. She faces the priest with the same horrified fascination that he’s always aroused in her. His black eyes bore into her. His pouty red lips repel her. He is the thing that, in all of life, she comprehends least: the personification of badness. How can a being so wrong support enough life to draw breath?

“Again I am tested,” croaks Guillemo, brushing snow and mud from his cassock.

“This looks like a fair fight,” observes Fire to Hal, as if soliciting his approval. “He is the stronger, but she has the weapon.”

“But . . .” protests Hal. “You can’t . . . this is monstrous!”

Fire only laughs, though his laughter dies when Paia steps back into the glow of the firelight. “This is petty vengeance, my Fire. Do you call this a clean kill?”

The smoldering giant shrugs. “Depends on how good she is.” Hal begins another protest, but Fire waves him to silence. “Of course, I could show the further depths of my
generosity, I suppose . . .” Abruptly, he shoves Guillemo from behind so that the priest stumbles and falls flat. Before he can rise, Fire places one clawed foot in the middle of his back. “. . . by holding him down for her.”

Erde stares at the fallen man. A sudden bloodlust grips her heart, as tightly as she grips the sword. Here, under her blade, is the evil who corrupted her father, murdered her dear nurse, set the barons against their king, destroyed the country and the people with war and famine and superstition. It’s an opportunity she should welcome. It would be treason not to. And it would be easy. She has only to lift the blade, the great dragon-hilted sword, and the perfection of its edge plus the weight of it falling would sever the priest’s neck with little effort on her part. The sword will do the killing, not her.

Dragon?

She hears only disapproving silence in reply. She glances back at Hal, and his eyes are also saying no. She turns away angrily. Stupid dragon! Selfish man! He only wishes to do the deed himself! She strains to lift the blade level with her shoulders. She approaches the struggling priest.

BEFORE YOU STRIKE, ASK: IS THIS RIGHT?

Memories of her first encounter with Guillemo rush back. How he ogled her and confused her and made her feel dirty and stupid. She was too innocent then to recognize that his interest in her was sexual. He was a priest, after all. A man of God.

IS IT RIGHT?

Dragon, you were not there!

IT IS DESERVED, BUT IS IT RIGHT? LISTEN TO YOUR HEART.

Dragon, you are my heart! Tell me what to do!

I CANNOT.

But why?

IT IS AGAINST THE RULES.

The rules! How can you talk of rules? This is a mortal decision!

THE DECISION MUST BE YOURS, NOT MINE.

Erde knows that if she was going to do this thing, she would have done it already. As quickly as it came on her, the bloodlust departs, leaving her nauseous and trembling.
She lowers the sword, letting the tip sink into the mud and ash and melting snow.

Fire clicks his tongue once, irritably. “I thought you of all of them might have it in you.”

Erde looks up at him, spent and lost. “If a dragon cannot kill, then neither shall I.”

Brother Guillemo laughs under Fire’s claw. The dragon steps back, releasing him. “I give up. I’ve lost again.”

“And righteousness has won!” Guillemo shouts, leaping for Erde and the sword. Fire is there before him, snatching the sword from her shaking hands and leveling it with a smooth backhanded stroke that catches the priest full in the throat and passes through without a sound.

“
This
dragon can kill,” Fire mutters, as Guillemo topples to the ground. Paia regards her dragon with somber eyes as he casually thrusts the sword back at Erde, hilt-first. Its blade is almost clean. Cries of triumph and release erupt from the soldiers remaining in the Grove. Fire says, “Well, at least someone thought it was the right thing to do.”

Hal steps in and gently takes the sword away. The king rides up to join them as they stare down at the new freshet of red flowing between the footprints pressed into the mud and snow. Then Hal calls over two pikemen to cover the corpse and haul it away. “And treat it with due respect,” he growls, just as one of them is about to grasp Guillemo’s head by the ear and exhibit it on its own in gory triumph.

Fire braces his fists against his back as if in pain, and starts to pace.

The king watches him, a hint of awe and distaste hiding behind his glad air of relief. He turns back to Hal. “Is our business here complete?”

Hal nods. “The business of the kingdom, yes. You may declare the victory, Sire.”

“You deserve that honor, my knight.”

“No, better you.” Hal glances quickly at Erde. Then, having answered his lord too abruptly, he looks up into the young king’s eyes, begging patience. “Your pardon, my liege. There are, ah . . . yet a few details to be settled here. If you’ll permit me . . .”

Rainer frowns, thinks better of it, and gathers up his reins. “Of course. Report to me when you’re finished.” As
he turns to go, Hal signals Wender to follow. Erde watches them canter off along the dark road through the trees, the other knights and infantry cheering as they pass, then falling gladly in behind.

Oh, yes, she tells herself again. He’ll make them a good king.

Meanwhile, Fire continues to pace.

T
he Grove is liberated! The Librarian can hear the trees sighing in relief. Or perhaps it’s his dragon, breathing into their bare, battered limbs and brittle twigs, whispering through the roughness of their bark.

HURRY, HURRY!

Ah, yes, it’s Air. The trees are in no hurry. When everything Changes, the sacred, eternal Grove will remain. But it’s no rest for the weary. The Eight are assembled. The Work must begin. It will start with the trees. The trees are Air’s work, and Earth’s. The breath of life, the healing force. The Grove will be restored.

Water has chosen to return to man-form for the debate they all know is coming. While her brother pouts and paces, Water-as-Sedou moves among the stay-behinds, those who sensed that the battle was not yet over and still wish to lend their support: the women of Deep Moor, Djawara, Stoksie and Luther, Hal. She will gather them, help them find a comfortable place around the fire. Already, she’s sent Margit and Lily off to raid the enemy tents for food, wine, extra clothing or blankets, stools or kegs to rest on.

Rose sets her women to making a meal. Erde searches out deadfall to bring to the fire, refusing to burn the fresh hewn wood while Earth moves slowly among the great trees, mending broken limbs, cracked trunks, the raw scars of cutting and dragging. Paia sits quietly, letting N’Doch and the Tinkers fuss over her. But she’s watching Fire pace.

Finally the purposeful busyness settles into quiet, and Sedou says, “If you wish to open the discussion, brother . . . we haven’t much time.”

Fire turns. “It’s too late. She’s already on about her usual
business. She’s as bad as the humans. She won’t listen. It doesn’t matter what any of us says.” He starts to pace again, then stops in front of Erde. The Librarian sees he’s not much taller now than N’Doch, as if his pacing has worn out the rage that earlier swelled his stature. But the fire lord’s gaze, as he fixes it on the weary girl, is as scornful as ever. “How do you ever expect to fix things if you can’t even take the basic steps?”

“Wha . . . what?”

“Ridding the gene pool of the bad ones.” When she stares at him openmouthed, he bends over her, articulating each syllable as if she had trouble hearing. “Kill-ing them off.”

“Which is what you’d like to do with all of us.”

“Yes. The species is hopelessly flawed.”

“You made Guillemo what he was!” N’Doch leaps to Erde’s defense, shaking his finger in Fire’s face. “You can’t blame us! You made Baraga, too!”

“And unmade him as well, which is more than you can claim. But, allow me an addendum: I made them
worse
than they already were, merely by the power of suggestion . . . to prove a point.”

“What point?” Erde asks.

“That the defective material was already there. And that humanity is incapable of policing its own ranks. It’s futile to run these cycles over and over again. We ought to either quit it completely or start over from scratch. New genes, new species.”

The Librarian feels another memory stirring. He’s been remembering things, but this is a very long and complicated one. The other dragon guides stare at Fire for a moment, then as a trio, turn questioning eyes to him. “Not yet.” He waves away their gaze. “Soon.”

Water-as-Sedou calls from beside Rose’s soup pot, “He means he hasn’t remembered enough yet. But he will. You all will, soon enough.”

“Cycles?” Paia asks.

Fire throws up his hands, exasperation on a theatrical scale. “Endless! Pointless! I keep trying to make them see it! We should just play this one out and let that be the end of it. No more cycles!” To Paia, he says more gently, “Your father used to breed dogs, do you remember?”