Mercedes Lackey: The Fire Rose

Jason bowed his head, momentarily choked by frustration, and looked up to see Rose gazing gravely and tenderly at him. "I do not want to admit it, but my own Salamanders are spent, and I cannot hope to control a single Elemental that is spending out its rage. You are correct. Do you have transportation?"

Master Pao clucked, and a small cart clattered into the street, pulled by a pair of donkeys. "In!" he snapped, and Cameron found enough strength to lift Rose into the back before clambering in clumsily himself. Master Pao somehow dragged himself onto the driver's seat; Master Ho climbed up beside him, and the cart bounced away, at a much faster pace than Cameron would have expected given that it was being pulled by two such tiny beasts.

He held Rose against his shoulder, and she seemed perfectly content to be there. "Was Pao right?" he asked softly.

"When have you ever known him to be wrong?" she replied, and managed to dredge up a smile for him.

And that was all that he needed. Out of the ashes, out of the pain, out of the rubble, the most precious possession of all remained intact.

Epilogue

Rose Cameron bit the end of her pen, and finished her translation. Master Ho would be pleased, she thought. She was rather pleased with it, herself.

In the past year, San Francisco had arisen from the ashes of the fires that destroyed the greater part of the city much like the legendary Phoenix. Much to the surprise of some, and the dismay of others, China-town had been rebuilt as quickly as any other part of the city. That was due, in no small part, to heavy investment by Jason Cameron.

It had been impossible to contain Simon Beltaire's angry Salamanders until their rage ran out, and by that time, the city was in ruins. What the earthquake had not shattered, the fires had consumed. So many people had been burned in the wreckage of homes and lodging-houses that in all probability the real death toll would never be known. The irony was, many of the fires had begun with purely natural origins, but when the Salamanders got done with them, they rampaged with completely unnatural ferocity.

Master Pao and Master Ho had taken refuge with Jason, and Master Pao still lived here at Jason's request. Master Ho had completed Rose's Magickal education, steering her through her Ordeal-which after the events of April eighteenth had been child's play before returning to the rebuilding of Chinatown. One other thing he had done before returning, since be was an ordained Presbyterian minister, was to formally wed Jason and Rose.

Jason would never be entirely human again-not outwardly. But inwardly, he was more human than he had ever been, except, perhaps, as a child. She teased him that all she had to do was take off her glasses and it wouldn't matter anyway-without her glasses, he was nothing more sinister than a man with an exceptional beard.

Master Pao had come through the ordeal the worst of all of them. He was much more frail than he had ever been; the Dragons had demanded much of him in exchange for sparing the countryside. Once the burst of energy was spent that had sustained him through the earthquake and its aftermath, he collapsed, and had to be tended for weeks after. But he was fit enough now to concoct his medicines, and it was his medicines that kept Jason free from pain and with his rage under control. The power of a Firemaster and of a Master of Dragons had kept the precious contents of his shop intact through all of the fury. His Apprentices, both in Earth Magick and in herbal medicine, had brought every box, cabinet, and chest to him here. Every so often, one of his Apprentices would roll up the driveway in a donkey cart with a troublesome patient. Master Pao would dispense wisdom and herbs, and the donkey cart would roll away, back to China-town.

Rose never had learned how and why Master Ho had clashed with Simon Beltaire, nor did she really want to. She knew enough of that dreadful man to know that she did not want to learn more. She rose, stretched, and went to the window. Jason was exercising Sunset, the two of them going through some complicated dressage movements. In a moment, she would go down and join them for a ride, taking her own gentle little Arab mare, Sunset's mate Sunrise.

She wondered, as she watched them, how long he would remain content to stay at home. Not much longer, she guessed. Now that he was fit again, he would talk vaguely of travel-plans.

Well, why not? According to Master Pao, he could probably even move freely among the natives of many of the South Sea islands and in the Far East. They would think him not much different from any other "white devil."

Except, perhaps, a great deal kinder than most. The beast has a truly human heart.

And in the end, that was all that mattered.