The apparition shakes its head, puts a finger to its lips.
—You stay here at the edge and watch me. Keep in constant contact and tell me when you lose sight of me. If you lose contact . . .
—I’ll be right in there after you, don’t worry.
—No! Tell my brother Earth, if you can hold that connection, or go wake up Erde immediately and tell them both what has occurred. If you come in alone, we may both be lost.
“Easy, man. Glory ain’t gonna let the punks and muggers hang around where they could be hurting her business, y’know.”
—Do as I say!
N’Doch sulks, but when the dragon gets this tone on, he knows he’s gotta pay attention. He scuffs the gravel, looks around for something to lean against.
—I’m gonna look like some terrific kinda guy, letting my small bro wander off into the bushes by himself.
The apparition turns just inside the first row of trees and flashes him a grin.
—Just tell ’em I went in there to pee.
N’Doch watches, trying not to look like he’s watching, in case he’s the one being watched. The apparition pads off purposely through the trees, exactly like it’s looking for a likely spot. N’Doch smiles. This kid’s all right, he thinks. Maybe Fâtime won’t have a coronary when she sees him, if N’Doch prepares her right.
The trees don’t seem to be closing in around the apparition as he goes, though by now he’s already farther in than he should be able to go, judging from where the wall is everywhere else. N’Doch checks it out to either side and checks back. The kid’s still walking. N’Doch thinks maybe the wall takes a big jog out there where he can’t see it. No reason, after all, why the lot has to be square.
And then, between one step and the next, the kid is gone. Like, in a heartbeat.
“Yo!” N’Doch sputters. He takes a few long steps forward, and then remembers.
—Hey! You there? You all right?
—Yes, of course. Why?
—You disappeared!
—Really?
—You didn’t, like, step behind a tree or something?
—No. Wait a minute. Keep watching.
An instant later, he’s there again, waving through the trees like some kind of tourist. He vanishes again, reappears, vanishes, reappears.
“Awesome,” N’Doch murmurs.
—What does it look like from there?
—Like you’re switching yourself on and off like a light. What’s it look like from there?
—Come ahead and find out.
N’Doch scans the view in both directions. One flapper by the garage putting the final polish on the Glory Car’s headlights. Whole bunches of “guests” moving about in the front yard, paying him no mind whatsoever. N’Doch saunters into the trees. Before he gets to him, the apparition vanishes again.
—Hey!
—Just walk straight. You’ll get here.
He stops, glances back at the house. Hardly seems like he’s covered any ground at all. He shrugs and keeps going. Ahead of him is nothing but trees, and he’s thinking he’s gone wrong somehow when all of a sudden, he’s there.
The trees open out into a big grassy clearing, shaded by overarching branches. In the middle of it sit two dragons. N’Doch looks behind him again. The house and grounds are right there, not a hundred yards away.
“Total bizarro,” he remarks, and turns back to the dragons. It’s kind of a leap for him, seeing her in dragon form again. He was just getting used to the apparition. But he can’t help but notice all over again how beautiful she is.
“Lookin’ good, girl,” he muttered.
They’re both sorta grinning at him.
“Guess you guys figure you’re safe here. . . .”
—As safe as any place around here, and a lot more comfortable.
“You’re pretty glad to be out from underground, huh?” he says to the big guy, who flexes his muscular neck, looks around and seems to shrug in a pleasantly ironic fashion.
—My name is Earth. I was born underground.
“Oh. Right. Sorry.” N’Doch has to admit it’s about time he started calling the big guy by his actual name. It’s just, well, it sounds weird going around referring to someone as “Earth.” Of course, it’s no weirder than everyone calling him “Water.”
—You weren’t born underground.
—I was. Under the mountain.
—No, that was later. We were all born together, at one instant, out of elemental matter. You don’t find that under any old mountain.
Earth looks both interested and mournful.
—You are wise, my sister. You recall so much of our beginnings.
—Not enough, or I’d have some idea what our brother Fire thinks he’s up to.
“What’s his problem, this brother of yours?”
—He was always the most volatile.
“He’s like his name, huh?”
—As are all of us.
N’Doch considers, and has to agree. “Can’t wait to see what his dragon guide looks like.”
—If he’s awake, he must have heard the Summons. Why would he be plotting against us?
—Did I mention he was also the most devious?
—Sister! A dragon would never be devious!
Water pulls her sleek little head back as far as her long neck will allow, and stares at the big guy as if he’s from Mars.
—No wonder that girl of yours has such antiquated notions!
N’Doch just has to laugh. “She awake yet?” he asks Earth, sort of to let the pressure off him. This Water gal is beautiful, but she’s not too long on tact.
—I have not wanted to wake her. Perhaps I should . .
—We were going to make a quick food run, is what he means. You already got to eat, remember.
“Hey, go for it. I’ll take a walk back and check in on her. Listen, you think Glory . . . I mean, Lealé knows about this place, y’know, what it does in here?”
—It would explain why she thinks it’s the same as the wood outside her “Dream Haven.”
“Is it, do you think?”
—There are intriguing similarities, but until we’ve gone there . . .
“Yeah. Who can tell? Okay, you guys go eat. I’m heading back.”
* * *
He intends to check on the girl all right, but what he really has in mind is a closer look inside the house. Now he’s got himself free of all his recent encumbrances, he figures he can do it pretty quick and pretty thorough. Never know what he might find in there.
He looks for a back way in, but there’s only the front door and the big ceremonial side entrance for the “guests,” and they’re lined up two deep out there, winding all the way around the neat stone terrace a few times and ending up down on the lawn.
Got her hands full this afternoon, he thinks. He wonders if her spirit guide gives her a Dream each for every one of these poor suckers, how he could possibly have the time, especially if he’s busy plotting against his siblings. If he is this Fire guy, that is.
Another dragon. N’Doch wipes his brow on his forearm. That’s all he needs.
He finds the front door unlocked but not unguarded. Two flappers are sitting up beside the columns in lawn chairs, fanning themselves. N’Doch opts for sheer chutzpah, and strolls right by them with a smile and a little wave. They nod at him, none too graciously. Apparently the word’s gone out that he’s here at the Mahatma’s invitation.
He’s glad to be back in the air conditioning again, though the central hallway is so dark, it really does give him the creeps. Maybe the Mahatma’s trying to save money on electricity. He puts his hand to the first big brass knob he sees. He turns it quietly, expecting resistance, but it opens easily into bright, even light and the sounds of keypads, cooling fans, and drive hum. Under that, work chatter. An office. Well, if he’d had light enough out in the hall, he could’ve read the sign on the door. He backs out silently. No point disturbing the daily maintenance of the Mahatma Glory’s financ
ial empire. Now he wishes he’d had the nerve to ask Lealé how much it costs for one of these Readings of hers.
The next door down is already open. N’Doch peeks into a long dim room full of sofas and draperies and china lamp bases, sort of like the alcove off the dining room, only richer and more formal. Huge vases of flowers decorate carved ebony tables so polished you could see yourself in them. There are dark paintings with heavy gold frames and their own hidden spotlights. It smells like leather and cigar smoke and, well, money. It’s exactly how N’Doch imagines the rich people live, except this room doesn’t look much like anyone lives here. More like it’s for people to come to now and again, and pretend that they do.
He thinks he’ll just try it on for size himself, seeing there’s no one here trying to stop him. He goes in, strolls around a bit. He sees a newspaper, actual printout, sees that it’s about everywhere else in the world but here and passes it by. He picks an oblong silver box, looks it over longingly, then opens it a crack. Out flows the heady thick aroma of expensive tobacco. He’s tempted. He’s not much for smoking cigars, but the barter value on the street is astronomical. He sets down the box, exactly as he found it. It won’t do to go getting acquisitive this early in his stay. Plenty of time when he’s leaving to lift the odd little treasure or two.
He strolls around a bit more. He spots a minute silver coke spoon on a tiny silver tray. This really tempts him—it’s so portable. But he moves on, feeling virtuous, until a glimmer of crystal and amber draws him toward a shadowed corner and a whole tray of decanters and glasses, the big round kind with the stubby stems. N’Doch whistles low through his teeth and selects a decanter at random. He lifts the diamond-shaped stopper, and an even headier scent curls out and around him like a finger beckoning. This summons he cannot refuse. Besides, who’s gonna know? Isn’t that what it’s here for? He pours a few inches of the golden liquid into a glass, then replaces the decanter as carefully as he did the cigar box. He carries his prize around a bit, just liking the bulbous smooth feel of the glass in his hand. Then he spots two big leathers chairs with high backs flanking a brick fireplace. There’s a coldflame log burning cheerily in the grate.
He eases himself down into one of the chairs. The leather groans under him as sweetly as a woman. He kicks off the horrible plastic sandals that Papa Djawara made him wear into the City, and digs his toes into the deep pile of the carpet. He is memorizing every sensation. He tries to convinces himself otherwise, but deep in his heart, N’Doch does not really believe he’ll be rich someday, some fantastic overnight sensation. He knows that’s a line he’s bought from the media, ’cause he had no other line available to him at the moment, no other way out he could believe in. He raises the glass to his lips and touches his tongue to the liquid, then leans back, savoring the deep bite, the honey that burns to the back of his throat and sends its sweet heat up into his nostrils.
Tears come to his eyes, and he tells himself it’s the liquor. He doesn’t brush them away. He stares at the dancing fire that produces no heat, and slowly consumes the entire glass, the finest Armagnac. When it’s gone, he carefully sets the glass down on the table beside him, and falls asleep.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
By accident of repetition, Erde discovered that the little table with the water on it was only there after she had consciously thought about it. She’d look for it and find it gone, then turn back a moment later, and there it was, the lovely slim pitcher filled once more to the brim with sparklingly clear water. And the glass was newly clean and dry each time.
There is something in this wood, she decided. Logically, it was the same something that both she and Wasser had caught just a glimpse of from the doorway to Lealé’s dream room. And it knows that I’m here, she concluded. It hears me thinking somehow. Since it offered her water when she was so thirsty, it must be a benign presence.
“Hello? Are you there?” Her voice echoed softly among the trees, less like a ricochet than as if her call was actually being repeated over and over. A faint rustle among the leaves made her turn, but there was nothing there. Would it put in an appearance, this presence? If she thought of food, would it feed her as well?—for as her strength began to return, she really was feeling hungry. Ravenous, in fact.
And lo, as she kept turning, there it was: another, larger table, full of food. But this table had a more familiar aspect, as if its mysterious conjuror had plumbed Erde’s own memories to produce a feast such as might have been laid in sunnier days at Tor Alte. For there was the lustrous pewter table service, and the dragon-embossed gold goblets that her grandmother the baroness had used on ceremonial occasions. And there, the tall gold carafe that matched the goblets, a gift of His Majesty King Otto, to whom the baroness always raised a toast whenever the wine was poured. Erde reached a tentative finger to its rim. Perhaps it would all just disappear. But the carafe remained, smooth and weighty to her touch. She stroked the crisp, brown curve of a rye loaf, still warm as if snatched mere moments ago from the bread ovens and rushed up the long stone stairs to the banquet hall. . . .
No! I am not at Tor Alte. You cannot make me think I am.
She stared around at the endless progression of copycat trees and identical blades of grass.
“Who are you? What do you want with me?”
The leaves stirred like a sigh. Erde’s short-cropped hair ruffled, as from a gentle caress, and was still. She felt an overpowering urge to eat, and could not come up with a good enough reason to resist.
What a comfort were the familiar smells and tastes and textures of home! Though it was odd that she could eat so much and not feel as stuffed as she did at home every feast day. She wondered, if the dragon was here, would the weird wood produce a brace of sheep for him, or a nice fat goat? He must be very tired of eating fish.
The thought of the dragon brought her out of her reverie. She was much better, much stronger now, really she was, even though the meal felt so strangely light in her stomach. What had made her think of Earth, when she’d been so lost in nostalgia? It was almost as if someone had called his name to remind her.
“Was it you?” she asked rhetorically.
Again came that odd, faint stirring of the leaves. Erde felt it then, the Presence. Calm, huge, unthreatening, but beyond her understanding.
“Please tell me. Who are you?”
There were no words, yet she knew she’d been answered. And what she heard was a call for help.
* * *
He wakes with a start and thinks he must still be dreaming: a fireplace, big leather chairs, rich carpet underfoot? This ain’t my life. And then he shakes off the rest of his sleep, and remembers. The empty glass is still there on the table beside him.
But it was the noise that woke him. The old, clipped “wock-wock-wock” of a copter, coming in close. Out in the hall, doors are opening. Habitually hushed voices are heating up to an anxious pitch. A whispered conference convenes right outside the door of the long parlor. N’Doch strains to catch a word over the racket of the copter, but nothing he hears makes any sense. Flappers come and go down the hallway—he hears the nervous snap of their long skirts rather than the soft pad of their footsteps along the carpeted floor.
His first, not-entirely-rational thought is that the copter is coming for him. It’s what he’s always thought, when the pursuit was on and he happened to be nearby, that he was the quarry. And sometimes he was. But he’s been taking a pretty raw look at himself, and he can’t muster that old fantasy anymore. It used to make him feel important, alive. Now he’s had a glimpse of how egotistical paranoia really is.
On the other hand, the copter is damn well coming closer. He can hear it right over the house, hovering, its rotors agitating even the air inside the room, inside his lungs, the very blood in his veins. The paranoia is an old habit. He’ll be caught in a place he does not belong. N’Doch shrinks into his chair and thinks hard about what to do. Break and run is the obvious thing, but it’s probably too late for that. And then, there’s t
he girl to think about. And the dragons.
The dragons. It’s like someone stuck out a hand with an offer of help. N’Doch lets a little of the panic go. He’s not alone in this venture. He’s got a couple of powerful friends, after all.
So he feels around in his brain for that still unfamiliar spot. It’s like when he was learning to play, how his hands had to search out the right notes, only it’s harder ’cause he can’t be looking at the inside of his brain like he could cheat and look down at the keyboard. But he knows when he’s found it now, at least. It’s shaped just right, like his inside-self is a key fitting into a lock. Only this time when he tries it, the dragon isn’t there.
Damn, he thinks. Still out stuffing her gut.
But the fact that she could be back any minute keeps him from falling back into the panic, lets him listen to the roar of the copter’s descent like he just knows it’s coming for someone else. Like, maybe Lealé hasn’t been keeping up on her protection payments, so the militia’s staging a little raid to teach her a lesson.
Outside, the copter settles, somewhere out back on the grass. The high turbine whine chokes back to a steady growl, then the engine cuts off and it’s only the rhythmic swish-swish as the rotors slow down. N’Doch thinks you could write a whole symphony with the range of sounds that a copter makes. Whoever it is out there is planning to stay for a while.
The bustle out in the hall has quieted down, too, but N’Doch expects that’s because they’ve all run outside to deal with this latest unexpected arrival. Judging from the way they treat him, he guesses the flappers don’t much appreciate random events dropping in on them. Now might be as good a chance as any for him to move around, find a better place to lay low, maybe check on the girl. And he’s just about to do it: he’s bid good-bye to the best chair he’s ever sat in and he’s up with his sandals in his hand, gliding across the dim room like the shadow he’s often been called by both his friends and his enemies, when the front doors burst open, and light and people and noise stream into the hall. N’Doch hightails it back to his tall-sided chair by the fireplace, where he makes his lanky body as small in it as he knows how to do.
The Book of Water Page 27
