Read Online The Book of Fire by Marjorie B. Kellogg - Free Book Online

a better hang on all these strings. It’s another song about his dead brother Sedou, but it’s a strong and happy song, not like the last one he sang her, which gave her the shape she needed but nearly broke his heart. He hopes this one’ll work just as well, but the only way to find out is to play it. So he does.
    His resurrected voice starts off as shaky as his legs. The dragon listens through the first verse, while the big guy’s ivory horned head leans in toward her. He watches his sister steadily with huge golden eyes. N’Doch can feel her in his head, anticipating, humming a little harmony, and his voice steadies to match her. A line into the second verse, the dragon begins her change. The women sigh with wonder and admiration—no faint hearts in this valley . . . except his own. N’Doch looks away. He hates watching her shape-shift. It makes him queasy, even though it’s him singing her destination. He bends his head over his fingering and keeps on singing. Soon enough, he’s at the end and the womenare offering a round of applause. Then he looks up and into his brother’s eyes, and his heart nearly stops all over again.
    “Damn!” he says aloud. “I ain’t never gonna get used to this.”
    “Sure you will,” says Sedou’s voice. A strong dark fist pounds him on the shoulder, and N’Doch knows he’s done it. He’s sung her a younger Sedou this time, a happier Sedou, a Sedou who doesn’t yet know how short his life will be.
    And a Sedou who speaks German, apparently. Must have learned it from the big guy. N’Doch watches the dragon-as-Sedou move among the women with greetings and introductions, a handsome dark man, laughing and at ease. More at ease than N’Doch, who reaches out in confusion and shakes his brother’s hand.
    Inside his head, the dragon is still singing.

C HAPTER S IX

    A fter she thinks about it for a while, Paia understands that she’s been had.
    She goes to Son Luco first, charging full tilt down the polished steps from the vestry with her hair half-braided and her temple bracelets jangling like a box of glass tumbling down a hillside. Luco is lounging in the priests’ private cloister in nothing but a loincloth, oiling his skin.
    “You worked it out with him, didn’t you!” she accuses. “I could’ve been killed! Was it his idea or yours?”
    He leaps to his feet in alarm and reaches for a towel. Paia’s amazed how he willingly exposes himself to more uv-drenched sunlight than his job requires. Though his natural color is as deeply golden as the God’s, he’s convinced that a darker tan will help him look younger.
    “His, of course!” Luco seems disturbed by the suggestion that he might have had a thought of his own, or worse still, acted upon it. He watches Paia pace back and forth, then lowers himself back onto his chaise. “I hope you’ve not been running around the Temple looking like that,
Mother
Paia.”
    Paia glares at him. He knows the title irritates her. “Like what?”
    He makes a peace offering, water from the jug beside his chair. “It’s cool. Just up from the cellars.” Paia continues to glare. Luco shrugs, patting oil on the taut skin under his chin. “Revenues are down, you know. He says he can feel—and I quote—‘a definite sag in the intensity of the worship.’ He thought we should . . .”
    “. . . murder the High Priestess just to liven things up a little!”
    Luco lifts himself up indignantly. “He’d never let thathappen! You were safe at every moment! I was right there and I was, as you may recall, quite adequately armed!”
    “Ha!” Paia moves into the shade of the surrounding portico to pace and sulk at the same time. “You could have warned me at least!”
    “He wouldn’t let me! He knows you—he said you’d never agree to it.” Luco swings his muscular legs over the chaise and sits with his elbows on his knees, regarding her as if she’s a lighted fuse he can do nothing to dampen. “You have a hard