City of Fire (City Trilogy (Mass Market))

by Yep, Laurence

  “You’re telling me,” Koko moaned. “I left my water wings at home.”

  Leech had said those words to Koko, but he could have spoken about his worries to anyone. They were all friends—even the goddess, after a fashion. He couldn’t let them die. Not like Primo.

  He pulled the disks from his pocket and slipped his mask down long enough to spit on it. “Change!” he said, and then pulled the mask back to cover his mouth right away.

  Instantly, the disks expanded and hovered nearby.

  “What are you doing?” Scirye asked.

  “Maybe Bayang can fly higher if I lighten her load by two people,” Leech said as he stepped carefully onto the flying disks.

  “You little idiot,” Bayang panted. “You can’t handle these air currents. You’ll just get yourself killed.”

  Leech could feel how the air tugged and pulled at them unpredictably, coming first from one direction and then the other. Bayang was probably right, but at least the others would have a better chance with her.

  “I’m going to die anyway if I don’t make it easier for you,” Leech said. “Come on, Koko. You’re coming with me.”

  Koko, though, had already figured out the odds. “Uh, no, no, goddesses first. Take Pele. I’ll stay here.”

  “Once we get off, Lady Pele’s safer with Bayang,” Leech said.

  “We’re friends to the end, right?” He pulled Koko’s forepaws tight around his waist and then swung his legs around so he could step onto the disks. Immediately, they jerked upward away from Bayang’s back.

  “I’m complaining to the management about the takeoffs,” Koko protested, wrapping his hind legs around Leech’s middle, as well.

  The winds tumbled them about as if they were inside a barrel rolling down a hill. Koko was still screaming shrilly when the winds calmed enough for Leech to right them somehow. He was glad that the disks seemed stuck to his feet as if glued there.

  Koko squeezed his limbs around Leech in protest. “You know how I hate roller coasters.”

  “Sorry,” Leech said absently as he checked on the oncoming tidal wave and then Bayang. She’d managed to rise only a bit more without them—and not enough to get above the wave’s top.

  “If you can escape, then save yourself,” Bayang gasped.

  “You don’t want Roland to win, do you?” Leech urged.

  “Of course not,” Bayang snapped in irritation. Leech noticed how Bayang managed to stroke her wings harder in just that moment.

  With a momentary pang, Leech thought of Primo again, remembering a long training session. Leech had grown tired by the second hour and had become sloppy and careless. Primo, though, had not let him use that as an excuse. “If you’re in a life-and-death battle, you can’t ask for a time-out from your opponent. You have to find something that gets your juices going—your adrenaline. It might be encouraging words. Or it might be something that makes you mad.”

  In that one instant, Bayang’s annoyance had given her just a little extra juice. What she needed now was a much bigger, stronger dose.

  It was only a short distance to Bayang, but between Leech’s inexperience as a flier and the turbulent air, their flight path was more of a crazy zigzag. The winds had picked up, and bucked and twisted like wild snakes who took cruel delight in flipping the boy and badger about like rag dolls.

  Leech twisted and wriggled, wrestled and squirmed, until he was finally in front of Bayang.

  The dragon was exhausted, her eyes filled with sorrow. “Save yourselves,” she puffed.

  As Leech struggled to keep his place, he purposely curled his lip up in a sneer. “Ha, I thought dragons were such great fliers. But look at you. You’re too pudgy and too old. A sparrow could beat you any day.”

  “Old?” Bayang spluttered. “Fat?” For a moment, her wings beat furiously, sending her upward.

  Leech’s strategy was working. “And stupid to boot.”

  In his fear, Koko was practically choking Leech. “Ix-nay on the easing-tay. Don’t you see the size of those fangs?”

  Bayang’s fangs did, indeed, seem as large and as sharp as swords, but Leech had to risk them.

  Bayang found enough breath to roar, “How dare you say those things to me!” She rose still higher through the outraged strokes of her wings.

  “Lee No Cha does,” Leech said, fighting to get above her. “I’ve come to gloat.”

  “You lying little cheat!” Bayang shouted. In her anger, she forgot how tired she was and swept her wings frantically.

  “Ha, ha, can’t catch me,” he taunted.

  Mindless with rage, with only one thought on her mind, Bayang flapped her wings, trying to reach her tormentor. The noise from the tidal wave was thundering in Leech’s ear and he was sure the dragon could not hear him. So he set his thumb against his nose and then, with his palm open, he wagged his fingers at the dragon.

  Bayang jerked farther upward.

  The next moment, the wave hit them. Leech and Koko were a couple of yards above its top, but the sheets of spray drenched them and the air became even more violent. They spun about crazily.

  As they whirled around, Leech caught a glimpse of Bayang. To his horror, he saw that despite his efforts, she wasn’t going to clear the tidal wave. Its sudsy white crest smashed against the dragon’s legs and belly and then carried her along as white foam surged all around her.

  Bayang

  Bayang knew the ocean well, from the depths where no light ever reached to the sunny surface, but she had never ridden a tidal wave.

  It swept her along as if on a giant, sudsy hand.

  “Remember what you told me about the surfers,” Scirye yelled.

  Yes, Bayang said to herself. Don’t fight the waves. Ride with them.

  Roland’s huge mansion lay far beneath them. On the roof the Menehune were waiting, tied to the makeshift rafts. From this distance, they looked like ants on discarded crackers.

  Then the little men and the mansion disappeared as the bottom of the wave engulfed them.

  Bayang got ready even though her wings were so drenched now that they felt as heavy as stone.

  “Wait, wait,” Pele cautioned.

  The giant wave rolled over the mansion’s courtyard and gardens, on and on, smashing the city’s buildings into rubble.

  In the distance, a black cloud now hid the top of the volcano. Every now and then the red light from an eruption flared within the cloud, outlining its rolling edges with a bloody glow. Lava fell down the volcano’s slopes like brilliant yellow and crimson waterfalls, and streamed on, wriggling through the rocky folds across the island as if the volcano were snatching up everything in its fiery tentacles.

  Some of the lava streams plunged into the ocean, sending plumes of steam jetting upward. Other lava flows wormed their way across the land, crushing the walls of houses and carrying away their roofs until the timbers caught fire, creating beds of flaming flowers. Cinders blown from the volcano had rained all over the island so that trees and other buildings were already burning. The whole city had caught fire; it looked like chains of bright, glowing beads.

  Beneath her, Bayang felt the sea crest begin to drop. The tidal wave was coming down.

  “Now, fly!” Pele commanded.

  Bayang brought her wings down on top of the tidal wave with loud splashes. She hadn’t been able to get a full beat so she moved forward rather than up. And now that insufferable little pest, Leech, was nearby again, but this time he was shouting encouragement rather than insults.

  Scirye and Kles joined him in urging her on, and soon Koko and Pele were doing the same. As Bayang flapped her wings determinedly, they seemed to rise with agonizing slowness.

  She felt the ocean make one last grab at her tail as if trying to yank her downward into the wave, but still she fought on. And then her tail was free, and the noise was growing softer as the tidal wave finally reached its end and began to crash down.

  She watched the sea wave smash against the land, covering the burning buildi
ngs and then flooding on in a dozen streams through the streets and leaving behind steaming blackened frames. On and on the sea charged until it collided head-to-head with the lava.

  There was a huge, hissing explosion like a thousand boilers rupturing. Steam tumbled upward like a misty hill springing from the ground. And from out of the white cloud sailed lumps and slabs of burning rock as the lava cooled and then burst like bombs.

  “Well done, mo-o,” Pele crowed excitedly. “I’ll go surfing with you anytime.”

  Leech flew in front of Bayang again. On his back was a very sick badger.

  “I’m sorry that I said the things that I did,” the hatchling said as he struggled against the winds to stay in place.

  “Yes, well, I’ve been called worse things. And I realize you were just trying to motivate me.” Bayang clashed her fangs together. “But even so, never, never do that again.”

  Koko was so dizzy that he was resting his head on Leech’s shoulder. “Yeah, buddy. That goes double for me.”

  “Why didn’t you listen to me when I told you to leave us?” Bayang demanded, puzzlement now replacing her anger.

  “And leave you behind?” Leech asked, surprised. “What kind of person do you think I…?” He paused. “Oh, that’s right. I do know.”

  “You’ve just proved how wrong the dragons were all those centuries,” Bayang said gently.

  Leech smiled shyly. “So we made a good start at trusting one another?”

  “I’d like to think so,” she said, hooking a talon toward her back. “So hop on board.”

  The boy laughed. “Does that invitation include one airsick badger?”

  Bayang rolled her eyes in mock resignation. “Even him.”

  Scirye reached out to clasp his forearm. “Welcome home.”

  “There’s no place like it.” Leech grinned as he eased in behind her.

  As the boy took off his flight disks, Bayang surveyed the sea. She was glad to notice there were several makeshift rafts filled with Menehune bobbing up and down on the surface where the mansion had once been. A little farther away were dozens more. On these were more of the little men, as well as their prisoners. There were even large platforms with metal sheets on which the fire giants sat, looking seasick and miserable. Already, the industrious Menehune had gotten their tools and were improving their vessels.

  Bayang tried to hold herself steady in the increasingly turbulent air. The air, heated by the inferno below, rose in strong, twisting winds. When she glanced up, she saw that they were shoving the huge black cloud westward toward the other Hawaiian islands. In those clouds were enough ash and gases to smother and suffocate thousands.

  And if that didn’t kill the poor islanders, there was more trouble. The ocean below was churning like a boiling pot as the island’s edges began to crumble and fall. New tidal waves would soon be smashing through towns and cities.

  “What do we do?” Leech gulped.

  “I’ll fix it,” Pele shrugged. “What else?”

  Throwing back her head, the goddess began to sing a series of deep clacking notes, like polished stones tumbling against one another. The music was lovely in its own way, like the streaks of black in a sheet of white marble that seemed to make a picture but never quite did.

  It was impossible not to listen to it. The song swept the mind along as irresistibly as a tide of lava carried huge boulders swiftly toward the sea.

  And then she stopped and folded her arms, tapping her heel anxiously against Bayang’s side.

  Scirye

  Suddenly sheets of water fountained upward on the horizon as a gigantic torpedo zoomed toward them. As it neared, they saw a huge dark shape as large as an automobile racing toward them through the choppy sea.

  Koko patted Bayang’s side. “Take us up higher! It’s another bad guy.”

  “Well, sometimes he’s bad-bad, all right,” Pele admitted affectionately, “but he’s also my husband, too.”

  As water rilled downward from his bony fins, the huge fish surfaced like a submarine. Yellow and black stripes streaked diagonally across his silvery sides. For such a giant fish, though, he had a tiny mouth, but small tusks stuck out from either side. His eyes, which were set high up on his head, also seemed puny in comparison to his body. The fish regarded the bobbing rafts around it, and Bayang and her passengers above it.

  “You,” the fish grunted almost like a pig. “Why you bodder me fo’?”

  “Howzit?” Pele waved cheerfully. “Long time, Kamapuaa, eh?”

  “Not long enough,” Kamapuaa snorted, blowing up showers of water.

  Pele indicated the sinking island. “We’ve got trouble.”

  “ You got trouble,” the fish corrected. “I go nap.”

  Pele jutted out her chin defiantly. “The island’s falling apart and that’s going to make more tidal waves. How are you going to sleep through all that noise?” She paused and added slyly, “And how are you going to eat, eh? Those waves are bound to wreck the reefs. If they don’t kill the fish, they’ll drive them away.”

  The water bubbled as the fish moaned. “You make mess, I clean up. Like always, yeah?”

  “I didn’t do this for fun,” Pele argued, and waved a hand below at the Menehune. “I did it for my friends. That bad man Roland stole them so I came to get them back.”

  “Hmph,” Kamapuaa said, making waves with every swish of his great tail. “Dat Roland make big island and big noise. Hard sleep. You fix him?”

  Leech assumed that eating and napping were the fish’s main interests.

  “Not yet,” Pele said, “but soon.”

  Eleu was floating on a nearby raft. Cupping his hands around his mouth like a megaphone, he shouted, “We could build a trap that would catch lots of fish for you.”

  “See, you could have a luau,” Pele coaxed.

  Kamapuaa spread the fins on his sides and back so that they looked like large dark sails. He jerked his snout at Kles. “Maybe chicken, too? I like drumsticks.” He smacked his lips in anticipation.

  Kles drew himself up, all eight inches. “I beg your pardon? I am not and have never been a chicken.”

  Scirye put a hand protectively on the griffin. “He’s a friend.”

  “And besides, he’d be too stringy,” Koko contributed.

  Pele put up her hands and patted the air soothingly. “You want chicken. We’ll get you chicken.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I help dem.” The great fish fluttered a fin at the Menehune and then at her. “But not you.”

  “And I’ll dance, too,” Pele offered slyly. “Just for you.”

  Kamapuaa waggled his tail, churning up the water white. “Yeah, yeah. Like old times.”

  “So you’ll stop the waves?” Pele asked.

  “Yeah, yeah.” The last word ended in a burbling sound as Kamapuaa sank beneath the surface again.

  Scirye couldn’t contain her curiosity anymore. “You were married to a fish?”

  “Sometime he takes human form, too. But human, fish, we always fight a lot. Still”—Pele sighed, brushing her hand through hair so that the strands curled around her fingers like smoky vapor—”how does he stay so cute?”

  In Scirye’s many encounters with other cultures, her mother had often informed her that there was no accounting for taste. It just seemed that a goddess’s were much broader than a human’s.

  Whatever Scirye’s opinion of Kamapuaa’s looks, the spirit was certainly powerful enough. Even as they hovered in midair, the surface of the sea seemed to be growing calmer by the moment.

  “That takes care of the sea,” Pele said smugly, and turned her attention to the sky. “And now the air.”

  Streamers of white mist were rolling toward them, and it was almost as if the black cloud cringed, shrinking away and creating a space high overhead. More and more pale ribbons streaked across the sky until they began to wheel about in a circle like the snowy threads of a giant skein of yarn. Quickly the strands tightened into an opaque, milky ball.

  Suddenl
y ivory creatures began to drop out of the milky globe. They descended so gracefully that at first Scirye thought they were angels. But instead of flying with wings, each stood with one foot in front of the other upon lemon-colored rods, riding them as easily as the surfers had ridden their boards at Waikiki.

  Their sweet voices blended with notes played on flutes of bone bleached ivory by the sun, creating a melody as gentle and welcome as a summer breeze on a hot summer day. Like dancers, they wove their way down through the air in time to their song.

  The men and women all had dark hair and pale skin and were dressed alike in white tunics and kirtles. In the arms of many were children as lovely as their parents.

  Scirye felt her shoulders relax for the first time that day, feeling sure that no creature would go into battle with their children. And the closer the fliers came, the more the winds calmed, until they died altogether and Bayang was able to hold them in one spot with gentle strokes of her wings.

  Soon the playful beings were wheeling through the air all about them so that Scirye and the others were at the center of a living, ever-spinning globe.

  Pele greeted them politely. “Heahea, welcome Cloud Folk. You follow the paths of the sky. You know the secrets of sun and wind.”

  All the Cloud Folk bowed low to the goddess, and one man descended lower on what Scirye now realized was a giant yellow stalk of some grasslike plant.

  The man’s eyes were as deep and bright a blue as a sky on the clearest day, and flecked with golden sunshine. Around his throat was a necklace of golden disks that were rayed like the sun. “Thank you, my lady, ever-changing and yet ever the same, who knows the heart of the earth. You summoned us?”

  “The air’s poisonous.” Pele wrinkled her nose as she pointed at the black clouds. “Will you fix it, Chief?”

  The chief glanced at the sky. “It’s not good to have such a thing fouling the air. We can take care of that, but there’s more coming from beneath us.”

  “I’ll fix below,” Pele said, indicating the island, “if you’ll fix above?”

  “Then consider it done,” the man with the sun necklace said, and raised a hand.