Steadfast (36 page)

“There isn’t one—” she said—then sobbed, and threw herself into his arms. He bent
his head down beside hers, and half closed his eyes, feeling her despair along with
his own. And yet, a strange peace. They were together. At the last, they were together.
“I just—I don’t—I didn’t want—”

But at that moment, the cellar filled with a clear white light.

For a moment he was certain that the floor had given way and they were dying—they
just hadn’t felt the pain yet. But she gasped, and he blinked, and turned to look
at what she was staring at, and saw—

For a very long moment, he wasn’t certain what he was looking at. A wall of diamonds,
perhaps. Then he realized that he was staring at a chest and two massive legs that
sparkled, as if both were covered with a paving of the finest gemstones that shot
off rainbows as the chest moved. And he looked up, and up—

And a long, elegant head on the end of a graceful neck came down, and two bejeweled
eyes gazed into his. The whole creature was covered in white gems, and a soft, white
light came from it. Two great wings were held closely to its body; the webbing between
the “fingers” of the wings looked so soft he longed to touch it.

He held his breath, as Katie was holding hers.

“Do not fear,”
said a voice like the deepest of church bells in his head.
“Lie as close to the earth as may be.”

What?
he thought in confusion. He recognized the creature for what it was, of course. One
of the Great Elementals, a drake—something he, as a mere magician, had never expected
to see in his life. But—what was it trying to tell him? Had it come for them? Or was
this some hallucination their minds were creating to protect them from the hell that
was about to devour them?

“She and you are worthy. I pledged her my protection. I will protect you as well,
for she loves you. Fear not. Love, and trust.”

He turned his head, and looked deeply into Katie’s eyes. There was no fear there.
No matter what happened—no matter if this was just some dying vision—all he saw in
her eyes was love. He gathered her into his arms, and they lay down on the floor of
the cellar, and the great wings of the dragon covered them over.

And the fire roared and bellowed as it consumed everything above them.

The heat was incredible; it drove all thought out of his head, it drove even the ability
to think out of his head. All he could do was to murmur, over and over, with lips
that were dry, parched and cracking, with a tongue that stuck to the inside of his
mouth, was the litany,
“Remember Africa. Remember Africa . . .”

Was it saying it for himself, or for Katie? Or for them both?

But he remembered. He remembered, and stopped fighting the heat. Accepted it. Made
it part of himself. Became the heat; became the flame.

Became the gem-paved dragon lying over them, protecting them from the worst of the
flames.

He remembered . . .

And as if something was determined to remind him of his guilt even now, he remembered
them. The women, the children of the Boers—remembered them although he had never seen
them with his own eyes. Remembered them dying in the same heat, beneath the same sun
that was baking him and his mates—and yet, unlike him and his mates, there was no
place for them to escape from the sun, scant water, and scanter food. He bore willing
witness to their bowed heads, their thin bodies, under the punishing sun, accepting
that as he was part of the Army, the nation, that had done this to them, he was responsible
for what had happened to them.

And seeing them, he reached out to them.

“I’m sorry—”
he told them, eyes too dry for tears, as theirs were too dry for tears.
“I’m sorry. I knew, and I did nothing. I knew—”

Finally, slowly, they raised their heads; eyes as blue as the pitiless sky gazed back
at him. He shrank back into himself for a moment, then steadied himself, and waited.
Whatever came, he surely deserved it. They would surely condemn him to the fire here,
and the fires of hell afterward. How did he not deserve it?

Just save Katie,
he prayed silently.
She never harmed anyone. Just save her.

But there was no accusation in those eyes. Only peace. Only calm.

Only the one thing he had never, ever expected to receive.

And a thousand, thousand voices spoke wordlessly into his mind.

“We forgive.”

•   •   •

It was forever. It took no time at all. There was only the heat, and the strange peace,
for the longest time. And then thought came creeping back, and for another timeless
time, all he was aware of was Katie lying trustfully in his arms. His eyes were closed,
as they had been since the dragon covered them. Slowly, as thought returned, and the
ability to move again returned, he opened them.

It was dark. There was shouting. And the great, white weight that had been above them
was gone. He could hear someone hoarsely calling their names in the distance.

“Jack! Katie! They’re in there, I tell you! Jack!”

Arguing. The sound of scuffling. And suddenly Jack knew who it was that was calling
them; he let go of Katie, who stirred and pushed herself up, while he felt for and
found the stairs, still uncomfortably hot, and scrambled up them on his hands and
knees, and finally shoved and shoved at the place where the hatch at been until, with
a groan and a strangely metallic-sounding shattering of half-burned wood, it burst
apart.

“Here!” he shouted, and coughed in the smoke that wreathed around him, further obscuring
the little vision he had in the thick, dark night.
“Here!”

There was nothing left of the cottage; he was afraid to move, quite certain now that
it would be dangerous to do so. It was still infernally hot; heat washed over him
in waves, and Katie gasped behind him.

“Jack!”
Lionel bellowed, somewhere off in the darkness. And then there were people stumbling
through the still-smoldering remains of the cottage, kicking apart pieces of wood
and beams that broke to show coals still inside, making their way through the black
and the smoke to where he shouted.

He felt Katie coming up the stairs behind him, and pulled her up, thrusting her into
the arms of the first to come to their side. The fireman swung her tiny body up over
his shoulder and ran across the ruins to safer ground, while two of his colleagues
hauled Jack out by the arms and carried him out between them.

There was a—wagon, or a cart. Someone picked him up bodily and lifted him inside,
putting him down on the floor beside Katie. Someone put a bucket of water up to his
face and he drank as if he had not drunk a drop for a week, then poured water over
his head, then drank again before falling back in a kind of stupor.

He lost track of things again, for a moment. The next time he was aware of anything,
he was in a brightly lit room, being cut out of his clothing.

A hospital . . .
He recognized the tiled floors and walls, the male aides surrounding him—it wouldn’t
do for a female nurse to see him naked of course. Most of all he recognized the smell.
This was like the hospital in Africa where they’d had his leg off, only it wasn’t
in a tent. So of course, it wasn’t like the hospital in Africa at all. It was all
curiously dreamlike, and he laughed. One of the aides looked at him as if he was mad.

“It’s all right—” he reassured the man. “It’s all right . . . brain is just a bit
baked . . . like a bit of nice cod . . .”

And that was when he fell over sideways and didn’t have any thoughts at all for some
time, as the hospital attendants marveled that he had come through all that, and was
somehow, miraculously, almost completely untouched.

•   •   •

“Unbelievable,” said Lionel, as he pushed the wheelchair holding Jack out to the cab.
“Absolutely unbelievable. I can’t wait to hear the whole story. I never would have
believed you two would walk out of that inferno hardly touched.”

“Act of God, I say,” Mrs. Buckthorn said, firmly, as she walked beside them. “Act
of God it was! All His Holy Angels were down there in that nasty cellar, protecting
you! And neither of you hurt!”

“You will not hear me arguing with you, Mrs. Buckthorn,” Jack replied sincerely. “I’d
say it was a miracle.”

It was true. Aside from being so dehydrated that he drank what seemed like gallons
of water, and a few burns that looked no worse than bad sunburn, he (and, he was told,
Katie) were fine. The hospital had held them until noon, then let them go since there
seemed no reason to hold them any further, and the only reason he was in the wheelchair
was because he felt as if he had nearly torn his stump out of his hip socket, what
with the running, and catching Katie, and tumbling down the stairs. It wasn’t that
bad, it was only some torn muscles, they thought, but it hurt like anything and he
was very glad of the pills they had given him.

Katie was already in the cab, leaning out, peering anxiously. She was wearing a gown
borrowed from Mrs. Buckthorn that was two or three sizes too big for her, and looked
like a child playing dress-up. She didn’t own so much as a penny or a scrap of clothing
now. She didn’t look as if she cared. And her face lit up when she saw them finally
bringing Jack.

“Careful,” Lionel said in a warning tone, very quietly, once he was near enough that
she could hear something that was just barely above a whisper. “No demonstrations.
You are just friends and fellow workers. There is going to be an inquest, and we don’t
want anyone deciding that Katie set fire to her husband to be rid of him. It’s just
as well that the only people that know she wanted to divorce him are us and Peggy.”

Katie had been about to rise out of her seat; she sat back down immediately and clasped
her hands in her lap, looking frightened. As well she should. There was no telling
if the Coroner was going to be looking for a sensational case or not. “It’s going
to be hard enough to explain why you sent a cabby racing across Brighton just in time
to rescue her,” Mrs. Buckthorn put in, and Katie paled and bit her lip.

But Lionel winked. “That’s taken care of, Mrs. Buckthorn. You see, Jack and I realized
she’d left without getting her pay packet, and we knew her husband would be hard on
her if she didn’t hand it over. That’s the thing about my sort of magic. I’m very
good at convincing people I’ve told them something, especially if they already want
to believe it. The cabby will back us up.”

Mrs. Buckthorn and Katie both heaved sighs of relief, and Lionel and the housekeeper
helped Jack into the cab. “I—I don’t want to be any trouble, but I don’t know where
I’m to go now,” Katie said, hesitantly.

“That’s taken care of, dearie,” Mrs. Buckthorn said immediately, patting her knee.
“You’re all set up at Mrs. Baird’s. I saw to it all while you were in hospital. Your
old room was still empty and she is glad to have you back again.”

Lionel signaled to the cabby by tapping the roof of the cabin, and the horse moved
sedately off. “Now that that bastard isn’t drinking your pay, and you aren’t having
to save for a divorce, you’ll be all right,” he reminded her. “And the girls all did
a rummage among their things to find you some clothing that will do until you can
buy some pretty things of your own. It’s all waiting for you at Mrs. Baird’s.”

She smiled radiantly at him, and Jack watched Lionel’s eyes widen with surprise. He
had to smile a little at that. It seemed that only at this moment did the magician
realize what a strikingly beautiful little creature she was.

Partly that was because Lionel very carefully
did not
think of his assistants as women, much less pretty, in order to keep things from
getting out of hand.

But partly it was that she’d kept all that hidden away under a veil of fear. Now,
with the fear gone, she was like another girl entirely, and for the first time Lionel
was seeing what Jack had seen all along.

“I don’t know what I would have done without you,” she said, her eyes brightening
with tears of gratitude. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

“It’s not over yet,” Lionel warned them both. “There’s still the inquest. Let’s get
through that, then you can celebrate. Until that’s over, we must be careful, be very
cautious—and you, Katie—”

But, full of new self-assurance, she nodded. “I think I know just what to do,” she
said.

•   •   •

Jack sat stoically in the stuffy, dark little courtroom that had been set up for the
inquest. He had put on his best “soldier face” for this, as inscrutable as an Egyptian
statue. His patience and acting ability had been severely tried, since the balding,
portly Coroner seemed to have taken a dislike to Katie, and from all Jack could tell,
was doing his best to try and trip all of them up in their stories.

But Peggy had come to the rescue in advance, by telegram at least, and wired them
the name of her solicitor in Brighton. He was thin as a fence-rail, dark, fierce,
and sharp. After consulting with all of them, he had managed to find several witnesses
of his own.

Some of the key witnesses turned out to be the winner of the prizefight that Dick
Langford had lost the night he died, the man’s patron, and the owner of the inn where
the fight had been held.

The first to be called was the prizefighter. This surprisingly gentle man should not
have been a match for the giant Langford, but clearly his skill at fisticuffs must
have far outweighed the strongman’s size and strength.

“There was no science to him,” the man explained. “Nothing but a bully. I dropped
him three times, and the third time he couldn’t get up, so he lost the match. And
I’ve seldom seen a worse loser.” He went on at some length about Langford’s unsporting
behavior, and how afterward the strongman had gotten stinking drunk and accused everyone
of cheating.

“I threw him out of the bar,” the publican testified, shortly, when he was called.
“Drunk, trying to pick fights, bullying the patrons. I told him never to come back.”