unhealthy sweat, Nicky looked even more helpless, as Laura Lesperitt must’ve looked to Doug Candora. He hadn’t hesitated then, either.
“We never officially met, but I’m Mother Mallory,” the woman said. “I assisted Mother Bennings on your case, goddess keep her soul. So who is this?”
“Her name’s Nicky, and that’s really all I know about her.”
“Well, we’ll do what we can,” she said, and turned away from me. I was being dismissed.
I cleared my throat. “I’m not leaving,” I said with certainty.
“You can’t help.”
“I’ll try to stay out of the way.”
She started to protest again, then nodded. “Pick her up and follow me, then.”
We went into the next room, where the apprentice had a large tub filled with water above a low-burning fire. Mother Mallory removed the skimpy loincloth and I placed Nicky, now totally nude, in the bath. The water was already hot. She looked like a deathly ill child, small and pitiful. Her eyelids fluttered and she tried to speak, but made no coherent sound.
“Keep the fire going at this level,” Mother Mallory said to the apprentice. I understood the treatment; if Nicky could sweat out enough of the poison, she might survive it, although it could still do permanent damage. If I’d gotten her here sooner, or known what the poison actually was, an antidote might’ve been provided. Under the circumstances, though, this was her only real chance.
“There’s nothing to do but wait,” Mother Mallory said sadly. “I suspect, from the smell, that she was given an extract of six-devil tea, but I can’t be sure. And if it was more than fifteen or twenty minutes ago, the standard antidote would have no effect.” She tenderly stroked Nicky’s tangled hair. “It all depends now on how large a dose she ingested, and how strong she is.”
The apprentice, her nightgown clinging translucently to her sweaty form, returned with two stools. “If you’re going to wait,” she said to me, “you might as well sit down.”
I took off my jacket and unbuckled my empty scabbard. I placed the stool in the corner where I could see Nicky’s face and settled back into the notch of the two walls. I yawned and closed my eyes for just a moment.
I snapped awake when a hand shook me. “Hey.”
The scribe looked down at me. He had a kindly, easy smile and eyes that were clear and sharp. The tight curls at his temples were white. He was at least my age, maybe older, and radiated a calm, seen-it-all demeanor. The other scribes I’d met over the years had a scholarly, chilly air befitting their isolation from the world’s concerns. This one seemed more grounded. “Sorry. Hate to wake you up, but we need to talk.”
I looked around. I couldn’t have been out long; Mother Mallory still sat beside the tub, and Nicky hadn’t moved, although the apprentice had changed into a less revealing tunic. The room’s air was hazy and smelled sickly-sweet, the same odor I’d caught on Nicky’s breath. I knew nothing about six-devil tea extract; I wondered if it was toxic in steam, too. I stood, wincing at the door-kicking ache in my leg and hip, and yawned.
“We’ll be out in the courtyard,” the scribe said. Mother Mallory nodded. I followed him outside, where the summer night air felt cool and dry compared to the sickroom.
“Come on; let’s have a smoke and exchange stories,” he said, and led me into a courtyard. Neat patches of herbs and flowers showed in the moonlight. The windows of all the other patient rooms were dark.
He reached into the shadowy space beneath a stone bench and withdrew my sword. “No one from the house showed their noses after you left. I stayed and watched until people started yelling inside.”
“I bet they did,” I said. Marantz and the others would have returned through the tunnel.
He handed me my sword. “The girl that important?”
“No,” I sighed, suddenly bone tired. My scabbard was still inside, so I leaned the sword against the nearest wall. “Just that the people who hurt her hate being embarrassed by things like me taking her out the front door.”
“Your daughter?”
I shook my head. “Just a friend.”
“Name’s Harry Lockett, by the way,” the scribe said, offering his hand.
“Eddie LaCrosse.” His grip was strong. The scribes I’d met in the past had weak grips, betraying their fear that they might injure their writing hand.
He caught my reaction. “I didn’t come up through the scribe academy,” he said with a laugh. “It was more of a mid-life career change. That’s why I don’t shake hands like a six-year-old girl.”
“And why you know where the safety is on a Shadow Slasher III.”
He laughed. “I’m more interested in what you know, Mr. LaCrosse. Like why Prince Frederick of Muscodia is living in an old whorehouse in Neceda.”
I shrugged. “I was as surprised as you. I suppose he’s a dragon worshipper, like the rest of them.”
“Then it makes some sort of sense,” he said seriously.
“It does?”
“Sure. You know anything about the history of this area?”
“No. I’m not from here.”
In a stentorian voice he proclaimed, “Long before men came to what we now call Muscodia, this whole area was the domain of the dragon.” This was how scribes recited their stories in royal courts, and even now it made me stand up straight, like I was a little boy back in the throne room with my father.
A window opened somewhere and a sleepy female voice said, “ Shut up! ”
Lockett grinned. “I know, hard to believe, but it’s true,” he said in a normal voice. “Ever wonder how the Black River Hills got their name?”
“From the Black River?”
He mock sighed in annoyance and began packing a pipe with dark, serrated leaves. “Okay, okay. How did the river get its name?”
“I heard because it’s so deep in places the water looks black.”
“No. There were originally two names, the Black Hills and the Black River. They got combined over time, and their origins were lost. Both came from a time when the river and the hills were black with accumulated ash.”
“From dragons breathing fire?”
He grinned. “Now you’re catching on.” He held the pipe in his teeth, struck a flint over it and sucked until the flame caught. “Want to hear the story?”
I looked back at the door to the hospital. I could do nothing for Nicky; going after Candora right now certainly would not help her. I really wanted to talk to Liz, but that thought sent warning hackles up my back. I felt adrift. So I said, “Sure.”
“Once, the whole world belonged to the dragons. They had tribes, territories, politics and wars, just like men. Only their great reptile hearts could not conceive of the idea of compromise. As a result, they killed each other off, until by the advent of the time of men there were only a few widely scattered dragons left.” He cut his eyes at me to gauge my reaction; I kept my expression neutral.
“Solarian and his consort, Lumina, were two of these few,” he continued. “They once ranged over this whole hemisphere, burning and pillaging as they wished. People at the time didn’t understand much about how the world really worked, so they saw these two immense, powerful beings first as harbingers of the gods, then as gods themselves. They built temples, wrote songs, made sacrifices.”
“Human?”
“Human and otherwise. When a thirty-foot flying lizard’s breathing fire down your pants, you’ll try anything once to calm him down. Finally two great men appeared: Gerard Tempcott, great-great-and-so-forth-grandfather of the man you rescued your friend from, and Charlton the Just, the founder of Muscodia. Both saw in the dragons something they wanted to possess. Tempcott the elder believed they could lead mankind into a better world, and Charlton simply wanted to use them as weapons against his enemies.”
“That would be useful. Except that I imagine dragons aren’t easy to train. Oh, and they aren’t real.”
“How do you know that for certain?”
“Because I’m not some backwoods yahoo who believes anything he’s told. Real animals can’t breathe fire; they’d burn themselves up. No animal has four legs and wings. It’s all folklore and mythology.”
His eyes narrowed and looked closely at me. “Where did you get your education?”
“The school of hard parries,” I fired back.
