Soul of Fire (50 page)

Peter saw the light of the ruby as he flew out to sea. It
made him turn his head in surprise. What was Sofie doing? Trying some spell to heal the ruby? He wished against all odds that she’d succeed. He knew it was impossible, wishful thinking. A fairy tale, such as people told themselves when all hope was gone.

A man in the boat was offering him fish and bread and Peter took it, lifting it gently from the man’s hand, so as not to hurt him. Then he turned back, toward the cliff.

Suddenly, the air dazzled with brilliant reddish light. He looked, in astonished terror, as too many words ran through his mind, too many words to put into sentences or even into coherent thoughts.

He flew desperately to her, and seemingly without transition—without remembering changing—he was in human form, kneeling beside her prone form on the cliff. He registered faint surprise that with all this, the dragon had not thought to eat her. But the dragon-mind rose in him, complaining that this was Sofie, not food.

Sofie should have looked grotesque or repulsive. She did not. She’d fallen back from her sitting position, with the ruby clasped to her chest. She looked like a little girl holding a favorite toy to her heart, while around her someone had splattered some particularly red dye in great profusion.

The red light escaping from between her fingers told him the ruby was now healed. A mad thought crossed his mind, of grabbing the cursed thing and flinging it out to sea. But he couldn’t. Nigel was waiting—somewhere—with Heart of Light, his life an endless race against enemies in whose hands the ruby would destroy the world. And now that Soul of Fire was activated, it, too, would bring immense power, power that the wrong people were probably tracking right now.

No, he couldn’t throw the ruby away. He couldn’t negate Sofie’s great sacrifice. He felt hot tears run down his cheeks, and lifted his hand to wipe them, only to find he was still holding the smoked fish. He let it fall and looked at Sofie. “My love,” he said, softly, pulling hair away from her face. “My love.” Now that she was dead, he could call her that. Her memory could belong to him as she never had. And yet, he’d rather have her alive. “I wish . . .”

He couldn’t say what he wished—that he were the one lying dead, exchange his worthless life for her dear one; that the world were sane and fate less cruel . . .

Instead, he reached gently for the jewel and pulled it from between her fingers—which tried to clutch it tighter! For a second he thought it was the stiffness of a corpse, but . . .

But Sofie couldn’t possibly have cooled that fast. She couldn’t be clutching the jewel with a dead hand.

He reached for her chest, blindly. An inappropriate image of how outraged she’d be at his reach crossed his mind, and he chuckled mirthlessly, even as he felt her chest and the very faint—but real, he was sure of it—beating of her heart. He frowned at the silver dagger embedded in her chest and suddenly, in a flood of warm relief, he realized that she had no idea where her heart was. She’d put the dagger a good deal too far toward her shoulder.

But then . . . why had it worked? Why was the jewel healed? Could it be that when the legend said blood was needed, it was just that, blood, and not her death? Or could it be her intention to sacrifice herself that had done it? So much of magic was intention. . . .

It didn’t matter to him. What mattered was that she was alive. For some reason, this brought a new spate of tears. He watched them fall upon her face. She was still not for him. He was still a cursed thing who could never have her. But she would live.

He smiled through his tears.

Slowly, it was born upon his mind that his love, alive though she might be, was still wounded. Very wounded. A life-threatening wound, if not immediately fatal. He must take her . . . somewhere. But he must perforce also take the ruby with him. . . .

The thought of flying into Delhi made his blood run cold. In the city there surely would be weres and half-baked magicians, all struggling to follow the ruby. Wherever he left her there, someone would know she was important to whomever commanded the power of the primeval ruby. They might not know the ruby’s name, or its legend, or even its history, but they would know it was power.

He could well imagine people hungry for that power taking Sofie hostage. Demanding he give them the ruby, somehow.

No. Not a big city.

And then the image of the cantonment in Meerut rose in his mind. There was William, and in a garrison, surely they would have surgeons used to incisive wounds. They would save her. Surely.

Of course, there were the tigers, but Peter would only be stopping for a very brief moment. William—even if he inexplicably did not wish to marry Sofie—had impressed him as an honorable man. Peter could entrust Sofie to his care. And then he would have to go find Nigel. Surely Sofie would be chaperoned by garrison wives. She wouldn’t have to marry William. And with Soul of Fire removed from the area, there would be no reason for the tigers to worry Sofie. The marahaj would not want her at all. And she could go back to her parents’ home. Back to her ordinary existence.

He felt a small pang at that, but it was foolish. Her happiest life would be one away from him.

He allowed his body to become the dragon, and then he picked her up with infinite care. Clutching the ruby—which had stopped shining madly—and the far more precious cargo of Sofie’s body, he set off to Meerut. After he dropped her off, he’d touch down to briefly attract the tigers’ attention. All would be well.

Holding their luggage and the ruby in one paw, her lifeless body held like a baby against his immense, scaley chest, he lifted off, soaring above the Towers of Silence.

SUMMONS; WHEN EVERYTHING GOES MAD

“General Paitel would be very grateful,” the Gold
Coat said, with absolute correctness, “if you would give him the pleasure of an interview, Captain Blacklock.”

It has come,
William thought. He knew that he would never leave that interview a free man. And in a way, there was a sense of relief in that. He’d done what he could. He’d known the laws he was violating, the crimes he was committing when he’d let the sepoys out of their confinement. He’d known, too, that his attempts at confusing the evidence were inadequate. This was not Eton, and his crime was not stealing jam from the kitchens.

Strangely, after returning to his room, he’d fallen asleep, deeply, dreamlessly. And in the morning, he’d prepared for his arrest. He was wearing his best uniform and had taken particular care over his toiletry and the combing of his hair. He didn’t know how he would be confined, or if he would still be considered an officer and a gentleman till his court-martial, and his inevitable hanging. It didn’t matter. He had made his peace with the fact that his career was over, and probably his life with it.

The only thing he hadn’t been able to do was eat breakfast. He’d been toying with it for the last half hour, and now he pushed the plate of braised kidneys away with a great sense of relief.

“Very well,” he said. Reaching for his gloves, he put them on and prepared to follow. The Gold Coat looked mildly surprised. Had he been expecting William to fight? No such thing. He’d go, as he knew he must in the end, quietly.

They walked out through the main door of the bungalow where William Blacklock was housed, and into a world that exploded in pandemonium.

William had heard the expression before, but never seen it. All of a sudden there were shouts—screams of elephants, roars of tigers, cries of men. Powersticks erupted. Spells were cast. Counterspells were flung. Fire, smoke and movement covered the whole yard. The well-packed dirt of the parade ground was flung up by the magical force released.

Ahead of William, the Gold Coat hesitated. But William didn’t hesitate. He didn’t know what had caused this, he wasn’t sure what was happening, but he had seen this scene before, with changed sepoys and normal sepoys and even servants, all fighting the Englishmen, and the Englishmen fighting back. It was battle and madness and violence.

William looked across the parade ground, to where he knew he would find her—the young blond matron he’d seen dead in the crystal, sheltering her son. He didn’t know how she had died and he didn’t care. He just knew this one thing wasn’t going to be the same. He flung himself across the fraught expanse, flung himself in front of her.

A blast from a powerstick hit him in the chest.

Odd,
he thought.
So this is how it ends.
And then he thought no more.

BATTLE LINES

Below Peter, the garrison quarters, the parade grounds,
the whole area of the cantonment boiled in a fight, so that he couldn’t tell friend from foe. If there were either friends or foes in that confusion.

And Peter, locked in the dragon’s body, wondered where exactly he could land. Tigers were suddenly on his heels on flying carpets. He hadn’t even noticed them. He supposed they’d just now caught up with him, called by the jewel’s power.

He couldn’t safely flame them while cradling Sofie. And he couldn’t land outside the garrison. They would be on him in no time. But if he landed inside the garrison proper, he would become caught in the mayhem.

He couldn’t see any way around it. At least if he landed in the maelstrom, there was a chance, amidst all the fighting, that the tigers would miss him. A chance he would find someone with whom to entrust Sofie.

He made for a clear spot, away from the elephants—he would not and could not risk being trampled by an enraged elephant—and landed.

He set Sofie down and cradled her, casting madly about for someone, anyone, who would be sane and aware and trustworthy enough to take charge of Sofie’s unconscious body. He
must
do it, and he
must
leave before the tigers came for him. He didn’t dare change. He hunched over Sofie, clutching the ruby in his hand, still cradling her in his arms.