recognize him or they didn’t care. He was merely another one of their flock.
I had never met him before, but his image was familiar from the official family portrait hanging in Gary Bunson’s office. Frederick was a tall young man, still thin but with the beginnings of a paunch. His nose and eyes were red even in this light, and a thin sheen of sweat covered his face. Marantz helped him down the aisle to a spot on the first bench evidently kept open for him. He sat with a heavy sigh.
“Forgive me, Father Tempcott,” he said with his head bowed. “I was weaker than even I knew I could be.”
Tempcott hobbled to the edge of the stage and glared at him, but there was calculation in it; clearly he knew Frederick was his meal ticket. “You have disappointed me, as well as Lumina and Solarian. You were given a simple task and you failed to see it through.”
Frederick nodded. “I know that, Father Tempcott.”
“You are the brightest hope for our future, and you seem determined to bury your light under drink and women.”
“I’m truly sorry, Father Tempcott. Discipline is unfamiliar to me.”
Tempcott knew just how far to push it. Instead of pounding on the boy some more, he moved to the podium and said, “Now that we’ve gotten all our interruptions out of the way, let’s get on with what’s important.”
Frederick hunkered down into his seat, grateful to no longer be the center of attention. He looked hungover, possibly still a little drunk, but his contrition seemed genuine. Evidently he really did care what Tempcott thought of him, which seemed odd given his reputation. The Prince Frederick I’d heard about loved only drink, women and games of chance, in that order.
Tempcott stood silently for a moment, eyes closed, composing himself and restoring the sense of sanctity. When he spoke again, he was in full high priest mode.
“Behold!” he cried, startling us as his voice echoed among the stalactites. “The day of the flame is approaching, and only a few will survive it to walk among the ashes.” He looked up at the ceiling as if seeing his vision in the air before him. “Soot will drape the hills, and the river will run black with ash. Nothing green will remain, and the sky will be as dark as the hearts of wicked men.”
Then he scowled at us poor wretches. “But you, my friends, may be saved, if you can prove yourselves worthy to Lumina and Solarian. You have completed merely the first challenge to join their service; more and greater challenges lie ahead. Only I can show you the way, for only I am left from those who once prepared the path for their great return. Long ago we were legion, and our truth was feared and honored. Now we are merely tales told to frighten children. But you will be the first of the new flames to set fire to the land.”
He placed his hands on the big box Marantz had carried down. “Just as a flame requires fuel, a believer requires divine revelation. This precious relic is our sign, the fuel to our fire of belief, the proof that Lumina and Solarian once lived, and will live again.” He unsnapped the lid, reached inside and said again, “Behold!”
It took all his strength to lift the object from the box and raise it over his head. It was nearly three feet long, jagged and blackened with age. Only when the bottom dropped open, revealing even rows of sharp teeth, did it resolve into something I recognized.
A skull.
Not a human skull, clearly. It resembled a crocodile, an animal I’d once seen far too closely when I was a younger man. They lived in the swamps and rivers of the coastal nations, and the big ones could easily take down a horse. They were ambush predators, waiting with just their eyes and noses above the surface of the water until something big enough came to the bank to drink. I had been big enough; luckily I was also faster, though it had been a near thing.
I knew what Tempcott and the others thought the skull was, though. And if I hadn’t, the chanting of, “Praise the flame!” would’ve tipped me off.
A dragon skull. The ultimate icon for these backwoods religious fanatics and their new converts.
Tempcott carefully placed it on the table in front of the box, where all could bask in its glory. It settled with a solid thunk. Then he turned to the cage beside the box.
“This holiest of relics proves our great Lumina once burned through the skies. She was no figment, no myth, no child’s bedtime tale. But for those who seek her fire now, we ask a sign of her presence among us. And she answers! Behold! ” He opened the top of the cage and reached inside.
Apparently the cage wasn’t empty. He lifted out a heavyset black lizard about two feet long. Unlike the lithe reptiles of Muscodia, this one had a short, fat tail and a wide head. Its skin was beaded, not smoothly scaled, and a blue, snake-like tongue flitted in and out of its mouth. It lay limp and heavy in Tempcott’s hands.
People gasped and whispered around me. Clearly neither these scions of privilege nor the backwoods believers had ever seen anything like this, but I had, in the deserts of Minong. They had immensely strong jaws and, once clamped on, were almost impossible to pry off. Unlike other lizards, their bite was poisonous, and their venom burned like fire or acid according to an archer I knew who’d lost three toes to one.
“Behold the spawn of Lumina and Solarian,” Tempcott said as he held the big lizard in his bony hands. Its claws moved slowly, and it turned its flat, square head seeking the source of its annoyance. “Our lack of belief has weakened it, so that the sacred flame is now a mere burning liquid. But if our faith is strong, even that holds no terror for us. See how it will not strike me? It knows I am the greatest of its followers. Who among you will dare the challenge?”
The big lizard suddenly twisted its head and tried to bite Tempcott. We all jumped; Tempcott didn’t. The lizard let out a deep, ragged hiss of disappointment.
“It can’t harm me,” Tempcott said. “Rather, it senses your fear. Who will show courage instead?”
No one made any move to join Tempcott onstage. They all thought it genuinely might be some sort of baby dragon. Tempcott held the creature aloft again, looking deliberately at Frederick. The prince gazed steadfastly at the floor. Tempcott placed a kiss atop the creature’s knobby head and returned it reverently to its cage.
“Until you can face the spawn of Lumina and Solarian, you can never embrace the true flame,” he said. For once, there was no disapproval in his words; they sounded sad and tired. But it didn’t last. “And to embrace the purest of flames, you must learn to summon the basest.”
He clapped his hands, and the drummers began again, this time a faster, more primal rhythm. The red-robed women left their position along the back wall, walked down the central aisle and lined up in front of the stage. When they were neatly in a row, they pushed back the hoods. Their faces were now hidden behind lizard-like masks.
Once we’d had the chance to appreciate this, they dropped their robes to the floor. Except for the barest of loincloths they were naked, and the room’s energy level took a sudden spike. Then they began to dance.
They were an eclectic bunch, these women. It was hard to judge age without seeing their faces, but the oldest had gray hair, while the youngest was probably barely old enough to count as a woman. Some had elaborate tattoos; others bore scars and even brandings. There were blondes, brunettes and two redheads. They danced in place with individual, untutored styles, some simply weaving while others did elaborate hand routines. The intent was blatantly sensual, and I have to admit it had its desired effect on me. But what did this have to do with dragons?
The girls undulated up the central aisle. They made no eye contact with any of the men, even though we watched them very attentively. Tempcott totally ignored them, hobbling to the side of the platform where one of Marantz’s goons helped him down the steps. I tried to see where he went without being obvious, but too many swaying breasts got in my way.
The women moved down the individual aisles directly in front of us, unashamedly displaying themselves. Most had worked up a sweat, and the room filled with sexual tension. No one made any move toward the women, though. This was some sort of test for the believers, just as the poisonous lizard had been. The young man beside me dug his fingers into his knees so hard he’d have bruises tomorrow, and the man beyond him repeatedly mumbled some sort of prayer.
One of the dancers, a supple thing with a body that could make a dying man kick a hole in a straw-paneled door, dislodged her mask during one especially emphatic combination of hand gestures. It was the girl I’d noticed earlier in the waiting room. She quickly replaced the mask and resumed her dance, but now I was doubly intrigued. She continued looking around as she danced, adding a somehow endearing distractedness to her moves. But try as I might, I couldn’t figure out what she was looking for.
Then I realized she was actually doing something else as well: keeping the other women, especially the
