The Book of Water

by Marjorie B. Kellogg

  N’Doch looks. The woman in the French-style gowns has been replaced by another slim beauty wearing bright festival robes and a high, elaborate hairdo, corn-rowed and braided and strung with glittering glass beads. Her skin is dark silk, flawless. She is breathtaking. Normally N’Doch would use this occasion to drift off into a fantasy about himself and this woman in a soft bed somewhere. Perversely, he finds himself staring at her hundreds of beads and tiny braids, thinking that both he and his mama could eat for a year on what that hairdo cost. Probably the jewel he’s stolen wouldn’t bring as much. A single hairdo!

  This is an odd thought for him, not that he hasn’t counted such things out before, but odd that he should feel angry about it, rather than merely envious. The equation is somehow shifting in his mind. He used to be glad that at least his mama had the vid and its constant diet of fantasy to distract her from being so hungry most of the time. Now there’s this vague, undeveloped notion that if the hairdo wasn’t eating up so much of the world’s money, there’d be more of it around to feed his mother and himself. The idea sighs into his head like a night breeze and out again as he loses his grasp on it, unable to apply it in any pragmatic way to his own life.

  But it leaves him looking at his mother from a new angle, actually looking at her, for the first time. She’s his mama, but she’s also a stranger, a rangy, sloppy woman who happens to resemble him, as if someone else’s skin had been wrapped around his skeleton. A woman afraid to leave her house. A woman starting to put on weight, who weaves and watches the vid and expects no more out of life. A woman who’s finished.

  It’s the resemblance that catches in N’Doch’s throat. Suddenly he sees himself, a fat old man glued to the tube. It’s the starch that puts the pounds on and stretches out the skin, swelling it up, then leaving it slack in the endless cycle of gain and loss. When the food comes, you eat as much as you can, storing up for the times when there is none. Rice, bread, yam. The relief people never send anything fresh like a vegetable, and who knows what brew of chemicals are laced into his mama’s favorite, their instant mashed potatoes? Only N’Doch’s music and the chance of fame stand between him and this horrifying vision, this endless . . . sameness. Only his music, and now the . . .

  His hand has slipped unnoticed into his pocket. The red jewel is a hard, hot lump on his palm. When he closes his fist around it, the heat is nearly unbearable. Yet it draws him, like the flame tongues of a bonfire beckoning in the darkness, and he understands he’ll never sell it. Could never. Not this, the dragon stone. He’ll keep it, then. It’ll be his secret talisman. He holds it tightly, suffering the biting heat as best he can, and hears . . .

  MUSIC.

  N’Doch’s head whips around. Where? But it’s not the television and it’s not his mother singing to him, though that’s what it sounds like, her low tuneless lullaby that soothed him when he was too hungry to sleep. He knows who it is, of course. It’s the one he’s just tried to leave behind, the other Big Chance he doesn’t want to think about, the one who’s gonna ask so much in return for what she’ll give. It frightens him that she can touch him even here.

  He stares at his mother while she stares at the vid. She’s totally absorbed. How can she not hear this music, so like her own? She’s lost to it, and probably lost to her own as well. N’Doch doubts she could sing to him now the way she used to. And suddenly, he can’t sit like this any longer, not speaking, with her locked up in her vid world. If he’d talked to her more in his life, maybe she’d be talking back. But he hasn’t, and she isn’t. He has to leave, just like he always does. But this time, he isn’t off to meet up with his boys or chase after some girl or pursue any one of the many scams he’s usually juggling.

  This time, he doesn’t know where he’s going. In town, the brothers will be after him. On the beach, there’s the mob. They won’t leave him alone as long as his supposed villainy offers them entertainment at his expense. So he doesn’t know where he’s headed and he’s not sure when he’ll be back. Abruptly, he’s tired of the runaround. It doesn’t seem as glamorous as it did when he was a kid, first getting into gangs. But he should tell Fâtime something if he’s going to be away for a while, make up a story at least, so she doesn’t worry. He opens his mouth with the beginnings of an excuse.

  “Ma . . .” He stops, stumped.

  She turns to him. She looks at him directly, for the first time since he came in, yet her gaze is fuzzed, like she’s watching something just a fraction past him, like where the back of his head might be if she could see right through him.

  She says, “If you’re in trouble again, go visit Grandpa Djawara.”

  Then she turns back to the vid, and it’s like she’d never said a thing. It’s like smooth water closing over a sunken boat.

  N’Doch is chilled. It’s been years since she’s tried to pawn him off on his grandfather. It’s also the third time in twenty-four hours that the old man’s come to mind. Weird. And three is a mystical number. N’Doch reminds himself he doesn’t believe in omens or signs or any of that superstitious stuff. On the other hand, he didn’t believe in dragons either, until yesterday. And Papa Djawara’s would be a good place to lay low for a while.

  It would also be a good place to hide a dragon.

  The thought is in his mind before he can stop it. Once there, it digs in and will not be evicted, even though he opens his fist to let the jewel go, then snatches his hand out of his pocket. The stone is like hot lava against his thigh. N’Doch stares at his palm, amazed that it is not scorched and bubbling.

  Her eyes on the screen, tracking the woman with the exquisite hair as she weeps over a dying child, Fâtime says, “Go to Papa Djawara.”

  “Ma. How would I get there?”

  “Walk, if you must.”

  “Walk? You’re kidding, right?”

  “Just go. He will explain everything.”

  And then, the vid claims her attention entirely. Try as he might, N’Doch can get no more out of her.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Erde stirred on her mat, sensing a change in the hot stillness of the room. She sat up in bright sunlight, even though she’d shoved her pallet into a corner. The low early rays had searched out her spot exactly, as if trying to wake her. She’d been dreaming of darkness and cold, dreaming of home and horses and men marching in snow and rain. It had been very real, her dream. As real as life. The surprise of sun was disorienting.

  She glanced about groggily. What had changed? She listened for the howls and clanking of the mob outside, and heard nothing but the cries of the big white birds that wheeled in the air outside the high windows.

  She peered into the far corners of the room. Empty. Then the dragons had not yet returned from their fishing expedition. Clever Water had gone first, down and out through the great hole in the middle of what Erde now accepted to be a ship but could not yet picture in its entirety. Earth had transported after her, once she’d searched out an empty stretch of beach and imaged it back to him. Both dragons had been starving. Erde wished Water good hunting, wondering if she’d been aware from the first that she’d have to deliver Earth’s share of the catch directly to his landlocked feet. He wouldn’t venture so much as the tip of a claw into such deep and turbulent water.

  Erde sighed and stretched. After the confusion of the night and the anguish of the boy fleeing, stealing the dragon brooch, Water had sung to her and she’d slept well, except for the dreaming. She wondered if Water’s singing her into so deep a sleep had somehow prompted her dream. It didn’t matter. She felt infinitely more clearheaded. But her stomach was rumbling. She drank a little water from the strange jug that the boy had left behind. Keeping Hal’s training in mind, she rationed it carefully. Who knew when she’d find drinkable water again, in this strange country of so much water but all of it seemingly salt.

  She wondered if it was only the sun that had waked her. And the heat, though she had by now shed every layer of clothing that modesty allowed. Her woolen men’s leggings and leat
her tunic, plus her own linen stockings, lay neatly folded inside her pack. She’d taken off her oversized linen shirt but kept it beside her while she slept. From what she’d seen so far, clothing was not very important in this country. Still, Erde doubted she could bring herself to parade around in only her shift. At least it was adequate for sleeping in.

  She scanned the room again, peering into the sun-hazed shadows in the corners and under the balcony that ran along the far side. She saw nothing she hadn’t seen in her careful search before she’d gone to bed.

  Then someone spoke.

  She recognized the voice, but not the oddly strangled tone of it. Without the dragons, she understood not a word. She reached to touch her dagger, belted neatly against the small of her back, but felt no real fear. The dragons had said he would be back and that she must try to be patient with him, and understanding. Mostly Earth had said this. Water understood it and agreed, but found the necessary patience somewhat harder to achieve.

  She turned toward the voice. “Endoch! You’re back!”

  “N’Doch,” he grumped. “N’Doch. Can’t you get it right?”

  Now his tone was very clear. Erde tried again. “Nnnndochh.”

  He snorted from the shadows. “A little better.”

  Annoyed, she sat up straight on her mat and pointed to herself. “Erde.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  She set her jaw, squinting hard through the bright shafts into the darkness beyond. “Erde.”

  “Okay, okay. Jeez. Airda.”

  She shook her head. “Erde. Erde.”

  The shadows fell silent. Then the boy stepped out into the sunlight, one fist raised stiffly in front of him. Erde read it not as a threat but as a warding gesture. Though he was scowling ferociously, he seemed reluctant to come any nearer. He glared at her for a long frozen moment, then tossed the thing in his fist at her. The dragon brooch fell into her lap. “Erde,” he growled.

  She took up the brooch gratefully and gave him her most brilliant smile. “N’Doch. Thank you.”

  N’Doch grunted and looked away, around the room, then back again, turning his palms up in a demanding shrug.

  Erde knew who he’d come back to see. “They’re out hunting.”

  When he frowned at her, not understanding, she made exaggerated eating gestures, which seemed to satisfy him partly. Still, he did seem to need to pace, back and forth, back and forth. She wanted to tell him he needn’t feel anxious, or ashamed for having bolted. The dragons understood, perhaps better than he did. But she couldn’t, until the dragons returned to translate, so she sat quietly on her mat and smiled at him encouragingly.

  He paced past her and stopped. “They’re still out there, you know. Sleeping off all of that rotgut. But they’ll be up with the heat, and mad as piss. You can’t stay here.”

  He glared at her as if he expected a reply. All Erde could offer was an apologetic shrug. N’Doch scowled and withdrew into the shadows to pace, refusing to even look at her.

  She was relieved finally to feel the familiar quickening in her head, the sense of a void being filled, that announced the dragons’ return, both of them together this time, with Earth using his gift to bring his sister along with him. Erde jumped up to meet him, wondering at the smug satisfaction he was projecting, until he opened his jaw and spilled a slippery, silvery mass of fish onto the floor.

  Raw fish, some still living. Erde thanked him, effusively enough (she hoped) to conceal her dismay. She wished not for the first time that Earth and his sister were more conventional dragons. Then she’d be able to roast this pile of fish in the flames of their fiery breath.

  Fire. She remembered the line of thought that Water’s arrival had sparked. The dragons’ names, Earth and Water, had suggested a familiar sequence which followed with Fire and Air. The four Elements. Was it significant or just a coincidental word association?

  But once again, the matter of N’Doch was more pressing than her own mind ramblings, and the thought slipped away as her attention was called for. Both Earth and Water had settled down facing the darkened end of the room where the young man stood, stilled with renewed awe at the dragons’ sudden reappearance.

  * * *

  They’d done it again, damn it. He’d been all collected and ready to face the shit they’d no doubt deal him for snatching the jewel and bolting, ready to take it quietly, ready even to try to explain, ready for anything but being knocked off his feet again by his own wonder.

  Dragons. Real dragons, out of thin air. What else might the world hold in store, if dragons are possible?

  N’Doch thinks it’d be easier if they were pissed at him. It’s what he’s expected, but what he gets instead is a welcome.

  The feeling inside him is not a comfortable one. His head aches with unsung music. His heart feels too big for his chest. Again, he badly wants to run away, but this time he knows that he can’t run fast enough or far enough to escape this silver-blue inevitability, what the girl calls his destiny.

  It’s not just that he has nothing better to do. It’s that he can’t seem to do anything else. He’s tried it and failed. Returning to the tanker was like being hauled back by an invisible leash. All he can do is resent it furiously, which he does, but that too is getting old. He’s getting tired of himself.

  Destiny. An impossible, old-fashioned notion, like magic. In N’Doch’s world, chaos is the rule, the randomness of life and events. But in N’Doch’s world, the impossible has recently become possible, and the only thing he can see to do now is go with it. Think of it as just another random event. Follow the melody out. See where it leads.

  Once again that first step is the hardest, but then he’s easily across the floor and facing the blue dragon directly, flattening his palm on her velvet brow, letting her music flow into him like water.

  Water.

  A dragon.

  His dragon.

  PART TWO

  The Journey into Peril

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  She’s almost caught him this time.

  N’Doch considers himself pretty much in touch with himself. He’s an artist, after all, and a good song must come from the heart. But after a few moments of feeling turned inside out and displayed raw, he lets his hand slide from the blue dragon’s brow. It’s one thing to pour all your emotion into a song—where it’s neatly packaged, safely contained by the melody. But even his sloppiest, mushiest, written-after-a-bottle-of-cheap-wine ballads never made him feel as flayed, as vulnerable, as weak-kneed in the grip of it as he feels staring into the dragon’s eyes. Is this how it’s always gonna be with her? He averts his eyes, backs away. He’s not sure he likes it very much.

  The fish are an easier thing to deal with. Remembering the dead fish on the beach, N’Doch hunkers down and paws through them expertly, to sort out the ones with parasites or diseases. To his astonishment, he finds none. This has never happened. The usual ratio is one more-or-less healthy fish to three sick ones. The fishermen toss fifty percent of their catch back to the sharks and you have to check out the ones they do sell pretty carefully. But this, N’Doch can’t believe: right in front of him, dripping their salt damp and scales onto his precious polished floor, are at least two dozen fat and perfect fish.

  He says, “We got an hour, maybe two, before those guys outside come to their senses. Let’s eat!” He yanks his switchblade out of his gym shorts and sets to work gutting and cleaning.

  After the first three, it occurs to him what a mess of fish guts he’s going to have all over the place. He wipes his hands on his thighs and pads off to his stash in the gym’s wood-paneled locker room. He’s had many occasions already to be grateful that the Toe Bone Gang didn’t bother with mundane objects like kitchenware and janitorial supplies when they stripped the ship. Returning with a four-liter bucket and a plastic tarp, he finds the girl crouched over the pile of fish with her big knife in her hand. It’s the first time N’Doch has seen it out of its sheath, and he studies it with interest. It’s longe
r and heavier than he’s expected. In fact, he’s thought it might be just a prop, but the bright gleam along each edge tells him this blade means business. A man’s weapon, despite its prissy antique facade. Puts his own beloved blade to shame. He wonders if the girl knows how to use it.

  He lays out the tarp, scoops the fish guts into the bucket and sets it between him and the girl. He lines up the three cleaned fish in a neat row on the blue plastic, then squats and reaches for the next one, watching the girl while pretending not to. With care and some obvious experience, she scales the fish, then slits it open and scrapes the guts into the bucket. N’Doch nods in grudging approval and picks up his pace. He’d hate to be outdone by a mere girl. Soon the tarp is covered with fresh fish fillets and N’Doch’s stomach is rumbling. The dragons have retired to the far corner of the gym. He gives them a covert look as he returns to the locker room for the two-burner stove he’s cobbled together from parts of the ship’s galley. He’s been careful to use it only when he has to, so for now it still runs on gas. He loves the little castered frame he rigged for the meter-and-a-half-tall propane tank, and his favorite find was a magnetized matchbox that stores right on the cylinder.

  Well, that’s not true, he decides, blowing grit out of his one dented frying pan. My favorite is really the flipper.

  He hefts the only slightly bent aluminum spatula. It’s bright and smooth, with the satisfying weight and balance of expensive cutlery. The only reason it’s in his hands is that it had fallen down behind a row of cabinets. He shows it off to the girl, but she offers only a blank expectant look, so he shrugs and gets down to work. He extracts a single kitchen match from the rusted box. When he lights it, the girl gasps and recoils. He sees her doing that crisscrossy hand thing that Catholics do when they’re upset. From Mars, he thinks again. He puts the match to the burner and turns on the gas. Thin blue flame erupts and settles soothingly as he adjusts the flow. He’s proud of this stove, proud that he could make it work without blowing up himself and everything else. He turns to the girl to soak in her admiration and finds her staring at the lighted burner like she’s never seen one before in her life. Now he’s sure he’s right about the no-tech commune. He turns the burner up and down a few times to watch her eyes widen, then scolds himself for wasting gas. He bends away to load his pan with fish and, out of the corner of his eye, he sees the girl stretch her fingers toward the flame. He grabs her wrist just in time.