Free The Book of Fire by Marjorie B. Kellogg Page A

French.
His
French. No more need for dragon intermediaries, then. No more excuses for silence or miscommunication between them now. There’s so much he wants to ask about what happened after, that is, after he stopped remembering. About Lealé, and Baraga—in all the confusion, did the slimy bastard get away? And how was it seeing him dead and all? But the moment’s not right, or maybe he’s not ready. Instead he says, “Been keeping up with the language lessons, huh?”
    She nods, hunching her thick woolly layers farther up around her neck like some kind of Eskimo. She has tall fur-and-leather boots on now, and the whole outfit looks as weird to him as it did back home, except he reminds himself that this is what people wear here in 913, and probably if he doesn’t get something like it pretty quick, he’s gonna freeze to death. He shivers, remembering that he’s standing barefoot in half a meter of snow, and this long shirty thing they’ve given him just isn’t cutting it.
    “Lady Water is just the best teacher of all!” the girl exclaims, with the same precise and literal manner in French that she had speaking German all the while the dragon was translating in his head.
    “Nah. You’re just a good learner.” He kicks at the snow experimentally and grins when it flies weightlessly up into the air. “I guess you’re glad to be home.”
    “Yes, yes, I am, but . . . it won’t be for long, you know.”
    “No. Probably not.” The dragons would see to that. N’Doch wonders again how this young girl, with her whole life before her, could so willingly give it up to serve this infernal “Purpose” that the dragons are so obsessed with. He’s about to ask her that, when she answers one of the other questions he’s been trying to make himself ask. “They went back for Master Djawara as soon as they could, you know. He wouldn’t come with them.”
    N’Doch feels at least one of the tensions deep inside him relax a little. “But he’s okay?”
    “Yes, he’s fine.”
    “Why wouldn’t he come?” But N’Doch is not really surprised. He can’t imagine the old man willingly forsaking his beloved hidey-hole out in the bush, or his pack of mangy dogs.
    “Said he had too much important business to tend to,” says his brother’s voice, coming up beside him.
    N’Doch starts, then blows out a breath and shakes his head. “Never. Never gonna get used to this.”
    The dragon-as-Sedou laughs, a rich and youthful baritone. “Gotta say, though—it’s more convenient than four legs and a tail.”
    “Freaks me out,” N’Doch admits, for the first time in the girl’s hearing. “You’re dead, and I oughta be.”
    “Look at me, bro.”
    Reluctantly, N’Doch meets his brother’s eyes. It’s like staring straight into the sun. Meanwhile, the dragon is speaking inside his head.
    I am your memory of Sedou. Nothing more, but . . . nothing less.
    N’Doch looks away, swallows. “Right.”
    “Okay. So Papa Dja says he’ll be watching out. He sees signs of more activity back by us, he’ll let us know somehow. Says to tell you to keep your head down.”
    “Too late.”
    “Never too late. Let’s get on in, huh? I’m freezing my ass off!”
    The girl giggles. Sedou grins at her, reaches out, and tousles her black curls. “Hey there, kiddo.”
    N’Doch sees he’s got some catching up to do. “By the way, remind me to tell you ’bout this vision I had.”

    When he sits down at the long wooden tables laid out for dinner in the big room with the fireplace, N’Doch realizes that he’s still the only guy in the place—not counting Sedou, who’s really a she-dragon anyway. He looks around, counts fifteen women of various ages, including the girl. Maybe the men are all out fighting this war she’s told him about. He’s got a well-used platter in front of him, like a big fired-clay plate, and a tall tapering mug of the same material grasped in one hand, already filled with some foamy dark brew.