The Dragon's Tooth Part 22

"Oh, we have the list," Antigone said.

The old woman laughed. "Throw it away. You two may be the most unpopular Acolytes Ashtown has ever seen. n.o.body wants to share a room with you, let alone share a lesson. And the club masters with their little white uniforms wouldn't go near you for a triple fee."

She glanced back at Cyrus and snorted around a half smile. "You surely won't be getting any language help from the monks. But I've done my best and you should be grateful. Hop to, hop to! I'm not waiting."

She hurried back through the door. Tucking b.a.l.l.s of Quick Water into their pockets, Cyrus and Antigone jogged after her.

"Now," she said when they'd reached the main hallway, "you're on the list as having paid all dues-though I'm not sure how-so we'll start with proper clothes. Keep up, keep up. I'll explain things on the way."

Mrs. Eldridge led them out the main doors and into the muggy summer morning. Dennis Gilly, sweating under his bowler hat, grinned at them as they pa.s.sed. The far side of the lawn was busy with white-uniformed grapplers taking turns throwing and bouncing each other in the gra.s.s. On the gravel path directly at the bottom of the stairs, two boys were each working on a single bicycle with its own large umbrella propeller.

But Cyrus's eyes were in the air.

He stopped and Antigone stopped with him. No more than fifty feet off the ground, six small, football-shaped hot-air balloons were engaged in a battle. Three of the balloons were white and three were red, but each was painted with a different symbol-Cyrus saw the s.h.i.+p, the snake, and something that looked like a bear.

The baskets were tiny, barely big enough for one person but each holding two. On the back of each basket there was a large fan, like something off a swamp boat. Mounted on the front, there was a small cannon.

From one of the baskets, two people had fallen and were dangling at the end of long ropes tied around their waists. A third person, a girl, had taken over their balloon. She was running the fan and the cannon by herself.

Mrs. Eldridge stopped at the bottom of the stairs and looked back up at Cyrus and Antigone. She clicked her tongue and snapped her fingers. Cyrus didn't hear. The balloons were circling each other, ramming each other, and firing brown lumps at each other that tumbled down to the ground.

One of the lumps bounced off a balloon and spun through the air toward Cyrus, thumping onto the stairs not six feet from where they were standing. It looked like a compressed loaf of bread.

"What are they doing?" Antigone asked.

"Nothing productive," Mrs. Eldridge said. "It's quite childish, though Journeymen have been doing it as long as I can remember. It's a game of conquest. Board an opponent's balloon and hurl him from the basket. They're only supposed to fire stale bread at each other, though Sterling's kitchen tends to provide it fresh. Now come on, and watch your heads."

Cyrus and Antigone stumbled down the stairs. While they watched, two balloons collided. Bread and shouted threats were exchanged from point-blank range, and then the boarding struggle began, with fan-driven baskets spinning.

Antigone yelped as two bodies fell, bounced, and dangled-one from each balloon. The war above them raged on.

Cyrus and Antigone reached Mrs. Eldridge.

"No Keeper would agree to give you flight lessons," she said. "But there aren't many I would trust in a 1914 canvas and wood plane anyhow. Diana Boone has agreed to teach you both, but Rupe had her flying all night and she's sleeping at the moment. Your first lesson will have to wait."

Cyrus could feel Antigone looking at him. He bit his lip and fought back a smile. He was going to fly. The path began to circle the broad lawn.

"As for weaponry," Mrs. Eldridge said, "well, that was worse. The best I could do was Gunner for your shooting, and he's an Order washout-hardly ideal. But he can shoot, and no one will argue with that. Rupert Greeves will handle your fencing himself. He's a master's master, but good luck with scheduling, especially with all the trouble you've brought to his life. James Axelrotter, 'Jax' whenever he's actually seen, might help you with zoology, though those requirements are ludicrous and infeasible-I intend to speak with Mr. Rhodes about it."

"Where are we going?" Cyrus asked. They were lapping the lawn, heading for an iron gate. Beyond it, gray buildings hugged narrow streets.

"Outfitters," Mrs. Eldridge said. "As I've already told you. I have yet to find anyone willing to give you occult or medical training-particularly when it comes to instruction in amputation-and you'll have to depend on Greeves again for your fitness. Your choices are very limited in free diving, and I recommend Llewellyn Douglas-a sour old carca.s.s of a man. You'll find him on the jetty most days. I absolutely refuse to speak to him for you. I haven't yet looked into your navigational options."

She pushed through the gate and led them out. The gravel path widened.

"What about languages?" Antigone asked. Cyrus glared at her.

"I'm afraid that you'll be stuck with me and I with you." Mrs. Eldridge glanced back at them. "Which means it'll be French and Latin. They'll be the easiest. I know others, but I don't feel up to trying to communicate them to you. It will be hard enough listening to you desecrate French."

She had led them to a tall, narrow stone building. Now she pulled open the door. Cyrus and Antigone stepped into low light; cool, humming air-conditioning; and the smell of leather and oil and mold. The place was intensely cluttered. Shelves overloaded with boots, jackets, trousers, scarves, belts, and bags climbed twenty feet to the cobwebbed and vented ceiling. Dusty ladders leaned against the loads at odd angles. An old man was snoring in the center of the room, his feet propped up on a pile of leather jackets, a dead cigarette dangling from his lower lip.

Mrs. Eldridge whistled sharply and the man jerked upright, spitting his cigarette across the room.

"Two Acolytes to be outfitted," Mrs. Eldridge said. "Smith, Miss, and Smith, Mr. Everything typical 1914 or older."

The man scratched a stubbled cheek and squinted at Cyrus and Antigone. He was a man with eyebrows, or maybe they were eyebrows with a man. Owners.h.i.+p would have been hard to establish, and Cyrus couldn't focus on anything else-the two fur hedges looked like they were trying to escape his face.

"Not possible," the man muttered, shaking his head. "Heard about them two, but not possible."

"Make it possible," Mrs. Eldridge said. "I know you never throw anything away, Donald. Now get to it. They have a Latin lesson waiting."

The man stood slowly, put his hand over his right eye, and looked the two Smiths up and down. Sighing, he turned and trudged away through piles of clothes. "Twenty minutes," he said, "and you'll get what I got."

What the man got turned out to be a rather large mound of antique clothing. Mrs. Eldridge nodded and snorted her way through the pile until she'd cut it in half, sending up a storm cloud of dust as she worked. Finally, she pulled out two small bundles and handed one to Cyrus and one to Antigone.

"Get changed," she said, and turned to the man with the eyebrows. "Have the rest pressed and baled and delivered to the stairway above the Polygon."

The eyebrows bobbed. The man grunted. Mrs. Eldridge jerked open the door and stepped outside.

Hiding in a cluttered aisle, Cyrus kicked off his shoes and pulled on his new, very old pair of pants. They were brown faded to tan with large vertical flap pockets on the hips and horizontal flaps on the seat. And they fit.

Cyrus transferred his Quick Water and lightning bug out of his old pants and into his new ones, and then he moved on. He didn't like the look of the boots. They were awkwardly tall, but they fit well once they were on, and they felt lighter than he'd expected. Two leather tongues and buckles cinched them tight against his calves. The faded and wrinkled s.h.i.+rt was collared, b.u.t.toned, and extremely pocketed. He left it untucked and examined his jacket.

Leather. Ancient. Oiled almost to the point of dripping. Creased and worn. It was hard not to love, especially with the patches st.i.tched on the shoulders. On the left shoulder there was a simple round tricolor. The right held a yellow s.h.i.+eld around a black boxing monkey. Cyrus smiled, tracing the embroidered animal with his fingers-this was his symbol. He'd stick it on everything if he could. He turned the jacket over. On the lower back, part of the leather had blackened in some decades-old brush with fire. Between the shoulder blades, Cyrus's fingers found three holes. Bullet holes. Inside, the pale-blue quilted lining was stained red-brown.

"Cyrus! C'mon."

Cyrus swung the jacket on-he didn't care if it was hot outside-and hurried toward the door. Antigone was waiting for him, wearing improved boots and a jacket of her own-darker and longer than his and belted at the waist.

She smiled and put her hands on her hips. "Cool, right?"

Cyrus laughed. "Mine's cooler. I think someone died in this one."

He looked back at Eyebrows.

The old man was working on a toothpick now. He shrugged. "Good jacket to die in."

Antigone grimaced, Cyrus grinned, and the two of them barreled out the door and into the heat.

Dan's eyes sprung open. Sunlight was glowing through his blue curtain. He hadn't been asleep. He knew he hadn't. But his mind had stopped. Someone had stopped it. He could barely move his head, and the back of his skull felt open to the air. Rolling his eyes around the room, he could just see Phoenix in the chair near his feet. Today, the suit beneath his stained and yellowing lab coat was as black as his hair. His face was furrowed with thought, and he was drumming long fingernails on the arms of his chair.

His pale eyes drifted up into Dan's.

"A very good morning to you, Daniel Smith." His drawl was slow and flat, and he yawned into the back of his hand. "Forgive me." He straightened in his chair, and then leaned forward. "I must also apologize for entering your mind without a formal invitation. You were sleeping, and as I believed we were friends, I thought it unkind to wake you for something so trivial as permission. But Daniel Smith, I'm afraid our friends.h.i.+p is already in danger. Friends help each other, and you seem to know absolutely"-his hands became clenched, bloodless fists; his voice sank and hardened its edge-"absolutely nothing about that which I need."

Sighing, he ma.s.saged his eyelids slowly. "And now, unfortunately, I must befriend your siblings as well. Though I'm told that they, too, may not have what I need." He lowered his hands and inhaled slowly. His face was full of regret. "If that proves to be the case, Daniel Smith, I'm rather worried that I may take off this lab coat. And when I take off this coat-I won't tell a lie-things are liable to become heated."

Daniel tried to twist, to see if his mother was still in the room. He tried to open his mouth, to lick his cracked lips, to speak. But his jaw was locked and his tongue was trapped inside his teeth. Where were Cyrus and Antigone? What had happened to them?

Phoenix grimaced, and then answered Dan's thoughts. "Regrettably, they have been taken in by some rather unsavory characters. But I wouldn't worry yourself about them. I've taken steps."

Dr. Phoenix smiled-his almost pupilless blue eyes were looking directly into Daniel's. He stood up slowly from his chair, his long, thin body towering over the bed.

"On a more scientific note, I must say that it is both remarkable and unfortunate how precisely your mind is cut from the Smith mold. I did once have the opportunity to study two of your aunties-terrifyingly dull examples of the same simple mental organization and total lack of imagination that you manifest, forgive me for saying. So much potential in Smith blood and Smith bones, but never realized."

He paused, licking thin lips. His brow furrowed. "Would you expect your brother and sister to be more ... intriguing? Do say yes. After all, they seem to have far more of your feral mother in them than do you. And your mother's mind is truly a remarkable maze of striking images and animal desires-as one would expect, of course, from a woman raised as she was."

The doctor looked at Dan, at his feet, his legs, his arms and chest, and his sharp nostrils flared. "You are still my friend, Daniel Smith. And your mind is rotten with worry. Your body is malnourished and weak from pitiful sacrifice. I cannot allow this, this you, to exist any longer." He leaned forward and cracked his long knuckles. "When you wake again, you will have been renovated. Remade." He waved his fingers, studying them as he did. "As a friend, I will find you a more interesting way ... to be alive." Daniel twitched as a long fingernail traced his bare rib cage. "More interesting than you being you as you are currently being. But don't feel badly about yourself. Traditional humanity is all so ... dull."

"Dr. Phoenix?" The voice was male. The speaker was out of Daniel's view.

c.o.c.king his head, Phoenix stroked Daniel's cheek with the back of his cold, damp hand. Dan's body managed a s.h.i.+ver.

"Yes," Phoenix said. "What is it?"

"Word from Ashtown," said the voice. "Maxi's inside."

"Lovely," said Dr. Phoenix. "Dear little Maximilien should keep them busy. The twins and I will join him tomorrow. They're the only company I'll be needing." He leaned farther forward, his empty eyes pulling at Daniel's. Close, closer, and Dan's eyes watered out of focus. Tears leaked down into his ears.

"The Smiths are in need of a reunion," Phoenix whispered.

His moist breath was tinged with cinnamon. Daniel blinked it away, but reality softened and faded. His heart slowed, and darkness swallowed him.

Cyrus's first Latin lesson had consisted of being shut in a small second-story, one-window, stone-walled room with his sister and a stack of yellowed and flaking books, and then having his head slapped repeatedly by an old woman.

Mrs. Eldridge had thumped him, flicked him, kicked him, and pulled on his ears. Antigone had gotten one mild cheek pat, but then she had actually been trying to make sense of the material in front of her. Cyrus had been more interested in the windows, the planes that occasionally floated past, and thoughts of hot-air balloon wars and flying bicycles and keys and a cold black shard of tooth.

And then, finally, Mrs. Eldridge had moved to the door. "If I'm not back in thirty minutes, you may as well try and find old Llewellyn Douglas. He's usually at the harbor."

"Where are you going?" Antigone asked.

Cyrus wanted to kick his sister. Who cared where Mrs. Eldridge was going so long as she went?

"To speak with Mr. Cecil Rhodes about the two of you."

That had been an hour ago.

Now Cyrus was lying on his back on a small table, his feet resting on the sill of the open window and his new jacket mounded beneath his head. He could still hear his sister turning pages.

His eyes were on green treetops, shuffling slowly, straining for the small grazing clouds above them.

Today was a day to go looking for tires-to distract himself from thinking, to hunt, collect, and explore. But that wasn't possible, and his mind was beyond distracting.

Was Dan dead? Was there blood? Had there been pain? What did he look like right now? Would Rupert find him? Would they ever get to see his body? Would there be a goodbye, or would it be like that older loss, the loss that began all of their losing-a smiling face and a door closing against the rain? That was the only goodbye. Goodbye to a father and then a mother and then a house and then an ocean. And to something inside him-he didn't know what, but something important.

Cyrus's throat tightened. The familiar ache started behind his ribs, his stomach flipped slowly, and he shut his eyes like someone fighting motion sickness. The air from the window was warm, but his skin went cold. Moisture beaded up on his nose and forehead.

He wanted to break something, to smash his knuckles into a wall and trade pain for pain. But he'd done that too many times before, and it didn't work. Still, his fists clenched, and his toes curled in his boots.

Breathing slowly, he forced his body to relax, to liquefy. His pulse slowed, and his stomach calmed. He didn't want to open his eyes. He might even sleep. Maybe he'd dream again, and this time, he'd get a look at the man in the truck, leaving with his father.

"Hey, boy genius," Antigone said above him. "Wake up. I don't think she's coming back. Let's go."

Cyrus blinked. "Go where?"

"You pick," Antigone said. "I'm tired, and I think my brain pulled a muscle. We can look for Nolan or Greeves or that Llewellyn Douglas guy."

"I'm hungry," Cyrus said.

Antigone snorted. "Good luck with that."

Cyrus sat up. He wanted to find Nolan, but that didn't seem likely-not if Nolan didn't want to be found. They should look for Rupert. Or Diana Boone. A flight lesson would be fun.

Antigone grabbed his wrist. "C'mon. I want to talk to Rupert."

"I thought I was picking."

"Yeah," Antigone said. "But then you didn't, and I did."

She pulled open the door and dragged him outside into the humid air. Dotted with doorways, the covered stone walkway overlooked the sprawling green courtyard. Three doors behind them, a stairwell would take them down to the lawn.

"What about the books?" Cyrus asked.

"Leave them," said Antigone. "We don't know where they go."

They reached the stairs and clipped down. At the bottom, they stopped. In the main building, bells had begun to ring.

Cyrus looked at his sister. This was not the slow tolling that kept time. And it wasn't celebration. This was panic. The hot-air balloons, beginning another battle, cut their fans and hung motionless. All around the courtyard, people had stopped and were looking back at the main building.

Three stories up, above a bank of sleeping gargoyles, a tall window erupted and a black shape dove to the gra.s.s below in a storm of falling gla.s.s. Tucking into a ball, the shape bounced, rolled, and found its feet.

fifteen.

AN END.

WHISTLES SCREAMED. Porters ran. White-uniformed runners and grapplers scattered. The black shape began moving across the gra.s.s. It-he-wasn't running. He was walking coolly, and he was walking straight toward Cyrus and Antigone.

Antigone squinted, trying to make out the distant face. "Who is it?"

Cyrus grabbed her by the shoulders, pulling her back into the shaded stairwell. His eyes were better. He could make out the small man's shape, his frazzled, haloing hair, his lean limbs dressed in tight black, and the heavily loaded belt around his waist.