Anthology of Speculative Fiction, Volume Two

by Short Story Anthology

  “Bullshit!” exclaimed the mayor. “You’re making this up! The dragon thing there, some film studio made it—”

  “No,” said the chief. “You’ll see when we wake it.”

  “There are no dragons,” said the mayor. “You said a gas main—”

  “The last time we called on the Dragonborn was thirty-three years ago,” said the chief. “You would have been what, twenty-five or so? You remember?”

  The mayor looked across to the west, to the buildings lining the river. They didn’t look sleek and new now, but none were more than thirty years old. There had been tenement buildings there before, huddled together against the mudflats. They had all burned one terrible day thirty-three years before, with tremendous loss of life.

  “Yeah,” he said slowly. He could never forget the columns of smoke boiling up, the great mantle of darkness upon the city, the ash falling like black snow . . .

  “That was a dragon,” said the chief. “One too tired and old to make it to the surface. The fires were its last attempts to get through. They would have kept burning, constantly getting hotter and more widespread, except Chief Gramowitz and Mayor Tell called in the Dragonborn.”

  “OK,” said the mayor. He knew when he had to face up to something, when it could not be swept under the carpet or smothered in spin. It was one of his virtues as a politician—he would accept tough realities when there really was no alternative. “How do we do this?”

  The chief took a folding knife out of his pocket and opened it. The mayor watched the fireman’s eyes, and instinctively turned sideways a little, ready to brawl. He’d grown up with knife fights, and the muscle programming was still there forty years after it had been necessary. He had scars to show as well, evidence of hard lessons never to be forgotten.

  The chief sliced the end of his thumb and held out the knife, handle first, to the mayor.

  “A few drops of blood from the chief and the mayor,” he said. “We drip it on the dragon’s snout.”

  “This going to give it a taste for human blood?” asked the mayor, still suspicious. “My blood?”

  “It’s ceremonial,” said the chief. He held his thumb near the dragon’s head and let the drops fall, red splashes on the gold.

  The mayor held the knife, but didn’t cut his thumb. The dragon moved, its wings flexing a little, as if it were waking from a long and restful sleep. A scarlet tongue, forked like a snake’s, flickered out of a mouth only slightly ajar and licked the blood.

  “Quickly!” ordered the chief.

  The mayor moved. The knife was much sharper than he expected, and he sliced his thumb to the bone, so deep he cried out and dropped the knife. But he repressed the pain and held his thumb against the chief’s, their nails touching, and both bled straight into the dragon’s rapidly widening mouth.

  The creature continued its yawn, gulped a few times, then closed its jaws with a sound like the harsh snap of a mousetrap, making both men jump. At the same time, it opened its eyes, bright golden eyes with no visible pupil at all.

  “We call upon the Compact,” said the chief. He sounded nervous, which surprised the mayor, till he considered this was as far outside the other man’s experience as his own.

  “Yeah, we call upon the Compact,” added the mayor.

  The dragon lidded its eyes twice, arched its back, and spread its wings. The men stepped back to give it room. The creature made a noise rather like the coughing bark of a seal, and shot a small, multicolored flame out of its crocodilian nostrils. Then it launched itself up and dove straight into the dark stone of the corner buttress. For a moment a red and gold imprint remained on the stone, a fading afterimage of its passage.

  “Where did it go?” asked the mayor. He was holding his thumb tight to stop the bleeding.

  “Into the stone, and down,” said the chief. “The firehouse is clad in sixteen-inch granite blocks, and built on foundations of stone down to the bedrock.”

  “So what happens now?”

  “A Dragonborn will come,” said the chief. “Here to the firehouse, within three days.”

  “Where from?”

  “I don’t know,” said the chief. “You’d better get your cut seen to. We’ll tell them you did it on the glass on the parapet.”

  He took a slim radio handset from under his jacket.

  “Ten thirty-seven on the roof, Connie. Nothing serious. Send someone up with an aid kit.”

  The Dragonborn arrived the next afternoon, which was earlier than expected. Though the chief had half expected someone to fly in and land on the roof, or emerge from the stone of the firehouse, the Dragonborn actually turned up in a cab and the first he knew about it was when his assistant brought in her card.

  “There’s a woman to see you,” said Connie. “Said she has an appointment, but she’s not on your schedule.”

  The chief looked at the card. It was printed in a raised, metallic red ink and simply had the name Ylane Smith on it, an e-mail address, and in the corner, a symbol. It took him a moment to realize it was a stylized version of the messenger dragon he and the mayor had sent from the pigeon house.

  “Ah, yes,” he said. “Please send her in.”

  “OK,” said Connie. “Buzz if you need rescuing. We already had to give oxygen to some of the boys downstairs.”

  “What!?” asked the chief.

  “You’ll see,” said Connie dryly, and left.

  Ylane Smith came in, and the chief realized what Connie meant. The Dragonborn—which is what he presumed she was—was very tall, strikingly beautiful, had skin the color of polished bronze, and as far as he could tell, was only wearing a long, loosely buttoned alligator-skin trench coat, with nothing underneath. She looked like an exotic model who’d just stepped off the catwalk, right up until she took off her big dark glasses and he saw her eyes.

  She had exotic eyes, too, but they did not add to her beauty. Though almond shaped and lined with long lashes, her eyes were entirely smooth, shining gold, without iris or pupil.

  “Fire Chief Erik Hansen,” said the Dragonborn. “You have called upon the Compact.”

  “Yes,” said the chief. “Yes, uh, Miss Smith.”

  “Call me Ylane,” said the Dragonborn. She crossed the room and looked at the photographs on the wall. Some were of the Causeway fires. Then she moved to the map of the city. In the old days it had been constantly replaced and updated, but since the department went electronic the chief hardly ever looked at it, and it was at least three years old. “The Smith part is just to have something on there. Where is the dragon?”

  “Let me . . . let me show you on the screen, here,” said the chief. He started to swivel his monitor around, but Ylane held up one perfectly manicured hand. Her nails were gold, too, he noted, long and sharp.

  “No. On this map. We cannot see illuminated images well.”

  “Yes, yes, of course.”

  He came out from behind his desk and cautiously approached the map, almost as if he was about to enter a burning building. In truth, he would have been glad to be wearing his protective clothing, including the breathing apparatus.

  “You need not be afraid,” said Ylane.

  The chief nodded and tapped the map. He could feel the heat emanating from her, like a sidewalk baked in the summer sun all day, and those gold, pupilless eyes, giving no indication of what she was looking at . . .

  The chief gave an involuntary shiver, one born of fear rather than cold, and tapped the map again more forcefully.

  “Here,” he croaked. “We think it’s here.”

  Ylane bent her head toward the map.

  “Oldgate,” she said. “What is the history of the site?”

  The chief retreated to his desk and poured himself a glass of water, drinking half of it down before he answered.

  “We don’t know the origin of the name,” he said. “The first house built there was for a Chinese merchant, who called himself Lin . . . uh . . . Smith. He called the house Oldgate. It had extensive grounds,
and stayed in the family up to, let’s see, ten years ago, when the last Smith died, though he’d reverted to the original name—”

  “Chuan Ren or something similar,” interrupted Ylane.

  “Yes, how did you—”

  “Never mind. The house and gardens were built over?”

  “Yes. An office block. It was entirely destroyed by the fire last week. A superintense fire, originating from below the ground. The kind my predecessor told me meant there was a dragon somewhere underneath.”

  “Yes,” said Ylane. “When last week?”

  “Friday,” replied the chief. “Day before yesterday.”

  “Then we have little time. I will need a volunteer from your department. Someone unmarried, without children or other ties. Most preferably an orphan. Also, thirty kilograms of twenty-four-carat gold, in coins, not bullion.”

  The chief dropped his glass on the desk. It didn’t break, but water spilled across the polished mahogany and ran under a pile of budget papers. He made no attempt to save them, or to right the glass.

  “What!?”

  Ylane turned her head from the map, and her gold eyes caught the overhead light, making them flash.

  “I need a firefighter to help me, but it will be extremely dangerous for them, so it is best to have someone who has few ties. The gold is to . . . distract the dragon.”

  The chief leaned back on the wet patch on his desk, sprang forward, almost collided with Ylane who did not move at all, and then retreated crab-like around to his chair.

  “I see. I guess . . . uh . . . we can arrange a volunteer . . . and the gold.”

  “There is something else,” said Ylane. She leaned over the desk, saw the puddle, and elegantly planted her hand palm first in the spilled water.

  The chief averted his eyes from the top of her coat.

  “Yes . . .” he said, nervously fingering his own top button.

  “The Oldgate site. It must not be built on again. Turn it into a park.”

  “I’ll talk to the mayor,” said the chief with a gulp. The puddle of water under Ylane’s hand was starting to steam, wisps of vapor coiling up from beneath her palm.

  “It must be done,” said Ylane. “That site was called Oldgate for a reason. It is a gate, a point where dragons pass from ground to sky. Your fire on the river was an aberration, a dragon too sick and old to make it to the Oldgate. Before that, even in the time the city has been here, hundreds of dragons have passed through the gardens of the Long De Chuan Ren. You have been very lucky that only one sick, old dragon has found its way blocked by steel and concrete, and was too big for any other passage.”

  “Hundreds of dragons . . .” whispered the chief, the image of a hundred fires like the Oldgate building flashing through his mind. “It will be a park . . . and I will find you a volunteer, and the gold.”

  “Good,” said Ylane. She stood back. The desk was no longer wet, and the budget papers were dry and curling at the corners. “Before midnight, if you do not want another fire. I’ll be at the Hilton.”

  “The Hilton,” repeated the chief. Somehow he thought he hadn’t heard right.

  As Ylane opened the door, the chief had another thought.

  “Uh, Miss Smith . . . Ylane . . . does it matter if it is a . . . male or female . . . firefighter?”

  Ylane looked back at him and smiled, a smile showing teeth which were not precisely reptilian, but sharper than a normal human’s.

  “I would . . . prefer . . . a man. A big strong man.”

  Lieutenant Armin Jaxon touched the silver bar on his collar as he rode up in the elevator, and wondered why his promotion had come through so quickly. He’d been expecting it some time in the next couple of years, as he’d scored extremely well in the exam, and had the time in, with a 100 percent positive record. But it was way too soon after the exam results, and he couldn’t help feeling it was some kind of weird preemptive reward for volunteering for this special mission.

  This special extremely hazardous and secret mission that the captain had acted so strange about, and then the chief had acted even stranger. Both of them asking after his parents, who’d been dead for years, and whether he was settling down or had plans for a family . . . Odd questions, which when he thought about the tone of voice and the general caution suggested that this special mission was probably going over the line of “acceptable risk” and into entirely new territory.

  But Jaxon hadn’t got where he was by avoiding trouble. He wasn’t foolhardy, but he was always ready to step in, and whatever lay ahead, he figured being made lieutenant early was worth it.

  At the top floor, he got out, stepping past a trio of armed Brink’s guards who were waiting for the elevator. Which was weird, since there was only the one penthouse suite on the floor, where the person he was to report to was staying.

  “Hey, how’re you doing?” said Jaxon.

  The guards didn’t speak. They went straight past into the elevator, not one of them meeting his eyes.

  “Well, you all have a good evening,” said Jaxon. He meant it, too. He wanted everyone to be happy on his promotion day, and he couldn’t stop himself from admiring his new badges of rank in the ornate, gilt-edged mirror on the wall opposite before he knocked on the double doors of the suite.

  A woman opened one door immediately, but not just any woman. Jaxon found himself staring at the supermodel-gorgeous woman who was looking at him through her bug-eyed sunglasses, despite the fact that the sun was down and the hotel lighting, as always, fairly dim.

  “You are the volunteer I asked Chief Hansen to send?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Jaxon. “Presuming you’re Ylane Smith.”

  “I am,” said Ylane. She looked him up and down appraisingly. “You look big and strong enough.”

  She pointed to one of the interior doors and said, “Let’s get on with it then. Everything is waiting in the bedroom.”

  “Ah, just hold on one minute, ma’am,” said Jaxon awkwardly. “I’m not quite sure what I volunteered for, but it didn’t include any . . . You know, firefighters may have a certain reputation, but as a point of fact while you’re very attractive, I’m kind of old-fashioned—”

  “What are you talking about?” interrupted Ylane. “There is an aluminized Nomex proximity suit in there for you, and breathing apparatus. I will tell you what we are going to do while you put it on.”

  Jaxon didn’t immediately move. Instead he looked around. The penthouse sitting room looked entirely usual for a hotel. The only thing out of the ordinary was a big leather Gladstone-style bag on the floor which was padlocked at the top and sealed with tape marked “Brink’s.”

  “That is what you will need to carry when you are suited up,” said Ylane. “It contains thirty kilograms of gold.”

  Jaxon frowned. This was getting weirder, but also more interesting.

  “I think you’d better tell me what’s going on,” he said firmly, and sat down on the white leather lounge, up at the end near to the gold.

  Ylane sighed, took off her sunglasses, and looked at him.

  Jaxon jerked back, his hands instinctively curling into fists, the fight-or-flight reflex kicking in. Now he knew why the Brink’s guards had looked so cowed. She must have not been wearing her sunglasses when they made their delivery. There was something about those eyes, something that made him want to get away, to run until he couldn’t see them anymore.

  “I am Dragonborn,” said Ylane. Her voice sounded huskier and more sibilant now, as if she had been putting on some other accent before. A human accent. “That is to say . . . part human and part dragon. Long ago, my people made a Compact with this city, agreeing we would help if there was ever a problem with dying dragons causing fires. The Oldgate fire on Friday was caused by a dying dragon, who is now trapped some forty feet below the Oldgate site. Am I making myself clear? Your expression indicates a lack of comprehension.”

  “You’re clear enough, ma’am,” snapped Jaxon. “But could . . . could you put your glas
ses back on, please?”

  Ylane did as he asked, and continued. Jaxon breathed a little more easily, but he slid across the lounge, to get closer to the door. Just in case.

  “We can get quite near the dragon’s position by going down to the bottom level of the hotel car park and along a main-line sewer for some five hundred meters to a point only a few meters above and to the north of the dragon’s head. We will lay out the gold there in a particular pattern, to attract the dragon. I will then perform the mercy killing.”

  “What do you need me for?” asked Jaxon. If he hadn’t seen her eyes, and felt their power, he might have thought this was an elaborate practical joke, some kind of promotion hazing. But he knew, deep inside, this was all for real.

  “I need you to carry the gold,” said Ylane. “And arrange the pattern, under my direction.”

  Jaxon thought about this for a few seconds.

  “Why do I need the suit?”

  “The dragon will flame as I kill it.”

  “How hot is dragon fire? And how long will it last?”

  “The breath lasts only a few seconds. I don’t believe the temperature has ever been measured,” said Ylane. “But in similar situations in the past, assistants have worn nothing more than water-soaked woolen cloaks.”

  “And survived?” asked Jaxon.

  “There were survivors,” replied Ylane.

  “OK,” said Jaxon slowly. His mind felt as if it was a step behind, having difficulty processing what he was hearing. But he knew about fires, and if the suit was OK, and the chief had said to do what this woman said. . . “What are you going to do the . . . ah . . . mercy killing with?”

  “You will see,” said Ylane.

  “I take it you don’t need a suit?”

  Ylane laughed.

  “I am Dragonborn. Fire is not a problem for me. Get in the suit. We must complete our business before the next paroxysm.”

  “Paroxysm?” asked Jaxon, over his shoulder. He was already heading for the bedroom, where he could see the suit.