Century #4: Dragon of Seas

by Pierdomenico Baccalario

  “Like that Indian guy in New York!” Sheng says. “Quilleran, who could talk to the crows. Was he one of the Sages, too?”

  “No,” Mistral says, “he said that a friend taught him how to speak to the crows, and I think I know who it was.”

  “Who?”

  “Vladimir.”

  “The antiques dealer?” Ermete is astonished.

  “Yes, him. And do you know why? Because I’m convinced that the four masters who came before us had these powers, too. Take Professor Van Der Berger: he could talk to the Earth. And make plants grow, I think. Just like Harvey.”

  Ermete holds up both hands. “Hold on, hold on. I’m not following. Harvey has the power of Earth … like the professor, right?”

  “Exactly,” Elettra confirms.

  “And you’re saying Mistral has the power of Air, like Vladimir, the antiques dealer.”

  “What about you, then?” Sheng asks Elettra.

  “I have the same power Zoe had.”

  When he hears her name, the engineer thinks back to the day he spent with her in Paris. “Fifty-eight euros’ worth of flowers down the drain,” he grumbles. Then he turns to Sheng. “So that leaves you with the power of Water …”

  “Guys, I can’t even swim.”

  Everyone looks at Elettra.

  “Like your aunt Irene?”

  “Exactly,” the girl replies, raising her finger. “Maybe she could explain your recurring dream.”

  Sheng nods. “Yeah, maybe.”

  “Partly because I think your power is somehow connected to sleeping, Sheng. My aunt made me fall asleep with a wave of her hand.”

  “And don’t forget your yellow eyes,” Mistral breaks in, flipping through one of her notebooks.

  Sheng cringes, turning red. “You want me to strip so you can examine me better?”

  “We’re just trying to help you!”

  “In my dream there’s always a lot of water,” Sheng says, suddenly serious. “We swim over to this island. It’s just that … well, once we reach it, you guys get out, no problem, but I … I don’t. I can’t. I’m trapped.”

  “Now you see why it’s important for you to talk to my aunt? Even if she answers you with riddles, like all of them have done so far, they might be riddles that are easy to solve.”

  The four sit in silence, turning things over in their minds.

  After a while, Cecile walks over to the table, smiling. “Would you like me to take your suitcases up to the room for you?” she asks.

  Elettra stands up. “Please, don’t bother, ma’am. We’ll take care of it.” She winks at Mistral, inviting her to follow her. Then she turns to the other two and adds, “Will you wait for us down here a minute?”

  As soon as the elevator door closes, Elettra explains to her friend, “I didn’t want Sheng to hear me.”

  “What is it?”

  “In my aunt’s secret room, I found out that Sheng is a replacement for another boy, whose name is—or was—Hi-Nau.”

  “Sheng wasn’t supposed to be Sheng?”

  “Exactly. Before making me fall sleep, Aunt Irene told me that Hi-Nau’s powers were really strong, even stronger than all of ours.”

  “Then why isn’t he here?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You could ask her.”

  “I’ll try, but the thing is … this might explain why Sheng is insecure.”

  “What, you think the rest of us aren’t? I haven’t used the language of animals for weeks. I get scared even thinking of doing it.”

  “But you can do it! I was scared by my energy, too, but I used it. The same thing goes for Harvey! But Sheng … what can he do?”

  The elevator door opens, leaving the two friends agape. The hallway looks onto the lobby fifty meters below. It’s like being in a theater with a breathtaking view: a spiral of carpeted terraces, gold lamps and sparkling windows. Outside, the sky is growing dark and the city is lighting up. Millions of multicolored neon signs are getting ready for another incredible night.

  Elettra and Mistral lean against the railing, captivated.

  The elevator Cecile took has yet to arrive.

  “So did you see that boy, Hi-Nau?” Mistral asks, staring down at two colorful specks, which are Ermete and Sheng.

  “Just a photograph, but I don’t think I’d recognize him. What I’m afraid of … is that Sheng might get discouraged if he knew he was some sort of fill-in.”

  Mistral nods. “You’re right.… Oh, here’s my mom.”

  The elevator lets out a chime and opens.

  The two girls turn around.

  Cecile Blanchard is pale.

  Beside her is a tallish man in a long green-gray raincoat and a baseball cap pulled down over his eyes.

  “Happy to see me?” Jacob Mahler asks, stepping out of the elevator.

  A WHITE-TILED PASSAGEWAY DIVIDED BY DARK GLASS PANELS. TO the right is a silver conveyor belt. To the left, aluminum showerheads mounted on the wall. On the floor, a layer of crystal-clear water about ten centimeters deep. It looks like the entrance to a public pool.

  A voice from the speaker on the wall tells Harvey to undress, but he thinks they must be kidding, so they have to tell him a second time. Surprised, he slips off his shoes and puts them on the silver conveyor belt.

  “And the rest,” the voice from the speaker orders.

  Nik Knife is a perfectly still mask behind him.

  “You’re kidding, right?” Harvey Miller asks, laughing nervously.

  The Chinese man simply rests the backpack on the belt. “We do not have much time. Mr. Devil is waiting for us.”

  Harvey nods. Devil’s house, devil’s rules.

  He pulls off his sweater and two T-shirts, ending up bare-chested. He sticks it all on the conveyor belt. Then come his pants.

  “Walk through there.” The Chinese man points to the middle of the passageway with the pool of disinfectant water.

  While Harvey is walking, an X-ray of his skeleton appears on the dark screens that divide the passageway.

  The aluminum showerheads spray him with a pungent-smelling jet of steam. A shower of water mixed with some kind of germicide. Then a jet of scented steam and, finally, hot air to dry him off.

  Meanwhile, six latex-gloved hands rifle through his clothes, open his backpack, pull everything out and put it back in its place. The soles of his shoes are scanned with a beam of orange light. Pants, shirts, sweater and backpack are sprayed with the same disinfectant steam.

  Harvey is given his clothes back at the end of the passageway.

  “You can get dressed now,” says the Chinese man, who now wears latex gloves on his hands and a mask over his face.

  “Really nice of you,” Harvey jokes. “Do you all have to do this when you walk into his place?”

  “Only the people he wants to see quickly,” the Chinese man replies, as stony as a statue. “We are much more careful with the others.”

  He pulls off his gloves and mask as he waits for Harvey to finish getting dressed.

  “My hair’s still wet,” Harvey complains when he’s pushed toward a second elevator with gold doors. “I could catch a cold if I go outside like this.”

  “We are not going outside,” the Chinese man growls.

  The elevator doesn’t have floor buttons. The door closes and the elevator zooms up automatically.

  Twenty-nine seconds. Thirty. Thirty-one, Harvey counts, feeling the pressure on his knees.

  Finally, they reach Heremit Devil’s office.

  “Why, look who’s here, look who’s here!” Mademoiselle Cybel exclaims the moment Harvey steps out of the elevator. “My favorite American boy!”

  He wasn’t expecting to see her here. But Nik Knife’s grip on his elbow makes him keep moving.

  “Mademoiselle Cybel,” Harvey snarls, moving toward the chair the large woman is sunk into. “Always a pleasure to see you.”

  The woman laughs, making her double chin quiver.

  “Looks like
I’m pretty good at letting myself get kidnapped at airports,” Harvey continues, annoyed. “At least I don’t see any poisonous spiders this time.”

  “Look carefully.” The woman laughs again. “Look carefully, Miller Junior.”

  Harvey’s eyes dart around the room: a breathtaking view of the city. The river to the west. A large park to the south. Other skyscrapers. The Shanghai television tower. It takes him only a few seconds to figure out the building’s location on the map of Shanghai, which he learned by heart.

  Heremit’s office is a spartan, sterile room. TV screens turned off. Shelves practically empty. Desk polished. Phone. And a series of objects, most of which are familiar to him, lined up on the desk. The Ring of Fire, the Star of Stone, the tops, a wooden ship …

  Then the man, who’s had his back to Harvey the whole time as he contemplates the city lights, turns toward him very slowly.

  The hermit devil.

  He doesn’t speak. He just fixes his gaze on Harvey from behind his thick black Bakelite glasses. His silent stare teems with ice-cold insects that crawl up Harvey’s back and sting all his nerves.

  “Nothing in particular, sir,” Nik Knife says, resting Harvey’s backpack on the floor. “Except the printout of a reservation at the Grand Hyatt tonight.”

  Mademoiselle Cybel whistles. “Why, Miller Junior! Treating yourself well, hmm? Very well, I’d say!”

  “And this,” the Chinese man concludes.

  He’s holding the small paper and foil packet that contains the last two of the seeds Harvey found in New York.

  Mademoiselle Cybel peeks at them through her gaudy glasses. “They look like little seeds for big weeds. Seeds, weeds,” she chirps, as if she’s just come up with history’s greatest rhyme. “You certainly are a strange boy, Miller Junior.”

  Heremit Devil slowly steps toward the packet. He does so walking in a perfect circle, with Harvey as its center and the distance between them as the radius.

  “What are they?” he asks.

  Nik Knife puts the seeds on the desk.

  “Seeds for weeds,” Harvey says, on the razor’s edge.

  “Cheeky,” Mademoiselle Cybel remarks with a hint of admiration.

  Harvey tries to hold Heremit Devil’s gaze, but he can’t. He’s forced to look down at his disinfected gym shoes.

  “Destroy them,” Heremit Devil orders Nik Knife.

  The Chinese man turns to carry out the order and Harvey caves in. “You shouldn’t do that,” he says.

  Heremit Devil circles back to his favorite window, following the same path in reverse. “What are they?” he asks for the second time.

  “They’re tree seeds.”

  “Why shouldn’t we destroy them?”

  “Because they’re my good luck charm. I always plant trees when I travel.”

  “Then you’d better find a new good luck charm, my boy,” Mademoiselle Cybel interjects, laughing. “Find a new good luck charm … and fast!”

  Heremit Devil whips his head around, instantly making her fall silent.

  “Tell me about this tree.”

  “My father says it’s a really ancient species. The ginkgo biloba.”

  “Your father is an esteemed professor,” Heremit Devil observes. “And he’s very concerned, I imagine. On that ship.”

  He juts his chin toward the window, at the river below. It looks perfectly still.

  “We weren’t talking about my father.”

  “And he’s right,” Heremit continues, his voice flat and monotone. “We’re all very concerned. Strange natural phenomena. Violent tornadoes, the climate inexplicably changing, ice caps melting, sea levels rising, rivers drying up. We have good reason to be concerned.”

  No one in the office says a single word. Heremit continues his slow monologue. “The air in this city has become unfit to breathe. Seventy-five percent of the inhabitants of Shanghai suffer from chronic insomnia because of the lights from the bars and restaurants. We’re all worried. Worried enough not to sleep at night.”

  Heremit Devil clasps his hands behind his back and cracks his knuckles. “All we need … are answers. Simple answers to simple questions: Who are you? Where are you? Where did you come from? Where are you going? Why? That’s the fundamental reason we’re here: to answer these questions.”

  As he listens, Harvey lets out a nervous laugh. This guy’s insane, he thinks.

  “Let’s not waste any more time, Miller. I know all about the Pact, about the four of you, about the four masters. I know what they did, where they are now, how they chose the four of you. I know practically everything, except the reason why they chose you and the meaning behind this collection of … things.” He points at the objects lined up on his desk and continues. “I understand the mirror: look at yourself, realize who you are. Discover your true nature. And the stone that fell from the sky: know where you came from, from comets that journey through space, like the scattered seeds of a tree that seek the earth. But then we come to this ship. Knowing where you’re going? Across the waves? Down some unknown river shrouded in fog?”

  Harvey’s never seen the ship before. He imagines it’s the fourth object, the one for Water that was hidden in Shanghai. But given how nervous Mademoiselle Cybel is, he senses that something doesn’t add up.

  “I should have everything,” Heremit Devil continues, “but everything is slipping through my fingers. Including time. I’ve spent five long years making assumptions. And frankly, I’ve grown tired of it.”

  Heremit’s gaze locks onto Harvey’s. It’s a long, questioning gaze. A hard, heartless gaze but also—surprisingly—a pained one.

  “You’re telling me, Heremit my dear, you’re telling me!” Mademoiselle Cybel exclaims. It’s like crystal shattering. Ice breaking at the wrong moment. “We’re all tired. Just think, five years! Five years!”

  The woman bolts up from her chair, her giant silk dress rustling. “I’ll leave you alone now! I think I’ll go try out a new relaxing massage.”

  To Harvey, Mademoiselle Cybel’s agitation is even further proof of his suspicions. “Is that the Ship of Shanghai?” he asks, deciding to go for broke.

  “What’s that, Miller?”

  Heremit Devil’s question sounds rhetorical, as if the man already knows everything. In fact, he turns to his Parisian collaborator and orders, “Cybel, wait.”

  The woman is just a few steps away from the gold elevator. Her face is covered with a layer of uncontrollable perspiration. Nevertheless, she manages to pretend she doesn’t understand. “Why would that be the Ship of Shanghai?”

  “Because Shanghai is the city of water,” Harvey says, “while Paris is the city of wind and—”

  “Heremit, dear!” Mademoiselle Cybel says. “Certainly you can’t believe the boy! Zoe found this ship right where it was hidden. Right where it was hidden.”

  “Which would be …?”

  “On Île de la Cité!”

  Harvey snickers. The only thing on Île de la Cité was the pointy spires of Notre Dame. He can tell that Heremit doesn’t believe the woman’s story but is letting her leave anyway. “Of course. You may go, Cybel.”

  “Heremit—”

  “You may go.”

  The woman snaps at Harvey. “Are you calling me a liar, boy? Mademoiselle Cybel, a liar?”

  When the silk elephant disappears into the elevator, Heremit asks, “What was in Paris?”

  “I can’t tell you,” Harvey answers.

  “Fair enough,” he says. “We’re enemies. And one should never help one’s enemy.”

  Heremit Devil steps over to his desk. He picks up the wooden ship and hurls it with incredible force against the picture window, shattering it in a thousand pieces.

  “Junk!” he screams. “Useless junk! What was she trying to do, trick me?”

  No one answers. Pieces of the ship tumble across the floor, some even reaching its farthest corners.

  In under ten seconds, Heremit Devil has already calmed down. “Take care of i
t,” he orders Nik Knife, pointing toward the trail of perfume that Mademoiselle Cybel left behind. “And when you’re done, go to the Grand Hyatt. Mr. Miller’s companions might have arrived already.”

  Nik Knife slips out of the office as swiftly as a sense of foreboding.

  “Leave my friends alone,” Harvey growls, trying to sound threatening.

  “Friends, Mr. Miller? Are you really convinced there’s any such thing as friends? Of course, you’re young … you have yet to learn what friendship is. It’s just a mask concealing envy. It’s the glove of the thief who robs you of your life and leaves no trace behind.”

  “SO WHAT’S IN THIS THING, ANYWAY?” ERMETE ASKS, PICKING UP the cookie tin and shaking it. The old Chinese coins inside of it clatter.

  “We’d better leave it alone until the girls get back,” Sheng suggests.

  “Would you at least smile?”

  Sheng smiles. “Hao!”

  “So tell me, is that a Chinese word?”

  “Who knows? But you know what? I’ve been thinking of what our names mean. Mistral is the name of a wind. Elettra, as in electricity …”

  “Uh-uh, wrong,” Ermete corrects him. “It comes from the Greek word for ‘yellow amber.’ It means ‘radiant.’ When amber is rubbed, it has the property of electricity, of attracting light objects.”

  “You’re a walking science book.”

  “Do you know what my name means? Hermes, messenger of the gods, the god of eloquence. Does Sheng mean anything?”

  “It’s a sort of wooden flute with lots of vertical shafts. Or”—Sheng flashes an all-gums smile—“it can mean victory.”

  “So you’re called Victoria, like a girl?”

  “Very funny!” Sheng says, laughing. “More like Victor, as in … the winner!”

  His cell phone rings.

  “Harvey?” Ermete asks.

  Sheng shakes his head. It’s an unknown number. “Hello?”

  It’s Jacob Mahler. “There should be a man in the lobby who’s dressed in black. Shaved head. See him?”

  Sheng mouths the name “Mahler” to Ermete and repeats in a whisper, “Man in black … shaved head … in the lobby …”

  They steal a glance around.

  “There are lots of people in the lobby.”