Ah. Defensive. After only an oblique challenge.
It did tell me what he had had Penny Dreadful doing today.
‘‘Add this,’’ Algarda said. ‘‘I talked with the family on the way to the theater today. We have a collective memory that goes back several centuries. They recalled two similar occurrences, neither inside the Karentine sphere.’’
Wow! My problem at the World had turned geopolitical. And historical.
‘‘I discovered four incidents,’’ Jon Salvation said, with that snotty tone always adopted by the guy who corrects whatever you’ve just offered.
Winger knocked some of the brass off. ‘‘You and the girl. Penny.’’
‘‘Yes. Well. Everything is in theProceedings . If you can access them.’’ Smugness aimed my way. TheProceedings must be something they kept at the library. ‘‘Though the most dramatic incident may be apocryphal.’’
I asked Winger, ‘‘You going to let him use language like that?’’
Algarda considered a suite of responses. He settled on not letting his ego get in the way. ‘‘The two I know of happened in Oatman Hwy in 1434 and in Florissant about a century before that. Date uncertain. Florissant isn’t a principality blessed with an excess of literacy even today.’’
I couldn’t say. I’m not possessed of an excess familiarity with exotic geography.
The Remora preened. ‘‘The other incidents happened inside Venageta. The Venageti tried to cover them up. Both were huge disasters. The more recent happened on the boundary between their part of the Cantard and ours about two hundred years ago. This is the one that might be apocryphal. Local tribesmen were supposed to have caused it.’’
I grumbled something about Pilsuds Vilchik being worse than the Dead Man at inflating a story in order to focus attention on himself.
I’d later find out that he’d gotten into the library by confessing to be a playwright to Lindalee’s boss. That harpy was addicted to historical dramas. Salvation promised her a complementary first-class seat the night his play opened.
He sneered. ‘‘You heard of the Great Roll-Up, Garrett?’’
‘‘Of course. It brought all that silver to the surface. Where it could be fought over for most of two hundred years.’’
‘‘That was the dragon.’’
I confessed, ‘‘Thatwould explain some things about how the war got started.’’ Better than any of the propaganda. But only marginally.
Algarda agreed. ‘‘That could be true.’’ He joined me in awarding Jon Salvation an abiding look of suspicion, though.
I’m always suspicious when some dimwit shows off knowledge he has no business having. Or demonstrates skills at charming people that don’t fit my prejudices.
What happened to the dragon? Or dragons?
Do not push it, Garrett. The little man is possessed of several illusions that make him more useful deluded than ever he could be if exposed.
That was a private message. An explanation would have to wait. I asked, ‘‘So, what’s really down there?’’ The Venageti had blamed ‘‘the Great Roll-Up’’ on ferocious earthquakes. I’d never doubted them. ‘‘We don’t want something busting out in the middle of the city.’’
‘‘Dragons,’’ Jon Salvation said.
‘‘Dragons,’’ Barate Algarda agreed.
Furious Tide of Light, positioned so neither Tinnie nor her father could see, nodded—then smoked off a violet-eyed promissory wink before snapping back into gray-eyed zombiedom, dully picking at her scalp.
‘‘Come on! Dragons?’’ I glared at the Remora. ‘‘I don’t buy it. It’s a dragon, how has it stayed alive? How come it hasn’t starved?’’
‘‘There are dragons and dragons, Garrett. Stop thinking big green scaly mean things with breath so bad it’s flammable. There’s no evidence that anything like that exists. But there must be a reason for the legends. And we see living proof of other legends every day. Hell, your place here is infested with living legends.’’
You might say, since I have a dead Loghyr, a ratgirl, a murder of pixies (pleasantly unobtrusive of late), and a natural-born redhead in inventory. Not to mention the world’s greatest detective.
‘‘So this thing down under isn’t really a dragon. It just looks like a dragon, smells like a dragon, acts like a dragon, and thinks like a dragon. And might be what made people come up with the idea of the dragon.’’
‘‘Exactly. Right first go. Darling, you haven’t been giving Garrett nearly enough credit.’’
And they wonder why regular folk look askance at intellectuals.
Winger showed him a clenched fist. ‘‘I’ve got something I’m gonna give you. And it’s a long way from what you want.’’
Children!
‘‘Yeah,’’ I chimed in. Despite both beer and exhaustion I was wide awake now. One sneaky wink from the Windwalker. That woman would never need a compliance device. ‘‘So. Not a dragon. But a dragon. One that doesn’t need to eat for ten thousand years. Wow. Mystery solved.’’
Everybody stared. Even Old Bones, in his unique way.
‘‘I’m fishing for suggestions on how to lay the ghosts to rest,’’ I said. ‘‘I’m not the supergenius everybody thinks.’’
Those who had known me more than a week succeeded in restraining an impulse to disagree. So did the other two.
No other response, either. ‘‘All right. It’s a dragon. How do we talk to it?’’
The Windwalker startled us by asking, ‘‘Why make it more aware of us by trying to communicate? If the historical awakenings were all worse than any natural disaster?’’
Did anybody mention that? I never heard that. Except by implication.
People still knew things they hadn’t told me.
Something passed between the Windwalker and her father. A silent argument, the bottom line of which was that she wasnot going to be quiet.
Another bizarre angle to that relationship. Silent communication.
Not the same as us. They are just close. And, after a reflective pause,But a gap seems to be opening. I caution you, urgently, not to yield to temptation.
I glanced at Tinnie. ‘‘I don’t think you need to worry.’’
I must. I am at the mercy of human nature. Of which you demonstrate an abundant excess.
Algarda got right back on his horse. ‘‘She has a point. The best thing that could happen would be for this dragon to go back to sleep. It would seem that they do sleep for geological ages.’’
Tinnie said, ‘‘Maybe they’re waiting for something. Maybe they have a whole different sense of time and ten thousand years is like a few hours to us. Or maybe they’re booby traps. Like for gods, or something. But once in a while some idiot finds a way to trip into their trigger line.’’
That’s my gal. Escalating the whole damned thing into the realm of the divine. Me, being me, I wound up to spout something about the immorality of us passing our troubles to generations not yet born.
A dozen staring eyes brought the urge under control.
Me making the argument would be weak, anyway. The great philosophical thread tying my life together is, put off till tomorrow whatever doesn’t absolutely have to be done today.
The best course, indeed, based on the evidence available. Assuming we want to return to the situation that obtained a month ago. So we must do what we have been doing. Only more effectively. Mr. Prose.
The formal address tumbled off into limbo.
Kip!
The boy yelped. And flinched away from Kyra. Betraying a guilty conscience simply by thinking he needed to open some space. «What?» In a breathless panic.
You do understand that primary responsibility for events in the theater and its environs lies with the Faction? That it was your ill-considered experimentation that caused this dragon to stir?
Being a teen, Kip was inclined to argue. But the pressure of the eyes was too much for him, too. ‘‘Yeah. I guess.’’ He scratched his noggin.