The Book of Air: Volume Four of the Dragon Quartet

by Marjorie B. Kellogg

  Paia tilts her head. “What an interesting notion.” She grasps the fat arm of the sofa and levers herself up onto the seat. On a side table is a crystalline glass of iced water that N’Doch is sure wasn’t there a moment ago. Neither was the table. Neither was the gleaming acoustic guitar that’s leaning against it, like it’s been listening in on the conversation. N’Doch stops breathing. Paia drinks deeply, collecting herself. When she sets aside the empty glass, N’Doch lets his lungs fill, and waits for it to vanish. He waits for the guitar to vanish, too. But both just sit there. This magic, he decides, won’t happen while anyone’s watching. So as long as I keep this baby in my sight . . .

  He grasps the guitar casually by the neck, then drags it into his lap and thumbs the strings. It’s real and sleek, and in perfect tune. He nearly hollers for joy, but he’s wary of upsetting Paia’s delicate state of balance.

  But maybe she’s not so delicate. She allows the sudden instrument into their universe without batting an eyelash. “You must think I live my life entirely at the whim of my handlers,” she says.

  “No, I . . .” But of course, this is exactly what he’s thought. Petted, spoiled, but ultimately the dragon’s and the Temple’s tool. He picks out a quiet little riff to let himself off the hook. Cocktail music. He glances at the deserted bar. Wonder if I could sing myself up a drink.

  “To some extent, that’s been true. But I feel like I’ve been waiting for the moment when it didn’t have to be.”

  “This could be it, girl,” he says lightly, the same tone as his fingers on the singing strings. He hopes he’ll never have to choose between holding a woman and holding a guitar. He’s pretty sure he knows which way he’d go.

  Paia’s on her own sort of roll. “With all that’s happened, so much and so fast, there’s a lot I haven’t had time to really take in. Like, the existence of the other . . . dragons.” She laughs softly. “I was never allowed to say that word, you know. He was ‘the God.’ Only ‘the God.’ When he spoke of his enemies, he never hinted at them being his own kind, especially not his own . . .”

  “Family.”

  “Yes. Do they have something he doesn’t?”

  Besides a sense of decency? N’Doch shrugs, damping the guitar with his palm. “Young Erde and her dragon would say he lacks belief in the rightness of their Destiny. He’s sure made it clear he wants none of that, even if no one knows exactly what it is.”

  Paia says, “He’s always given me the impression he knows what it is. Otherwise why would he be so against it?”

  N’Doch peers at her. The café is growing shadowed, as if dusk has fallen. But on the other side of the windows, the light is as harsh and bright as ever. Best as he can, he replays the confrontation on the mountaintop in his mind. “Didn’t he yell something about humans not being worth the sacrifice? What’d he mean by that? The way he’s been living, it doesn’t look to me like he’s sacrificed much.” He shifts his lanky body within the velvety grip of the chair. Not room enough in here for himself and the guitar, plus the song that’s taking shape, even the first few bars. Or maybe it’s the notion he’s hatching that’s making him so uncomfortable. “I think we gotta find out what’s bugging him.”

  Paia laughs, eyeing him sidelong.

  “No, really.” The edge on her laugh surprises him. Bleak, like Fire. He hikes himself forward on the puffy cushion, elbows draped over the sinuous curves of the instrument.

  He’s amazed to hear his own voice sounding so earnest. He has to keep himself from turning the words into a lyric right on the spot. “Whatever’s this Big Fix the dragons are supposed to pull off, they’re convinced they can’t do it without Fire. So we got to bring him over to our side. And you know they’re looking to you to do it.”

  Paia shakes her head hopelessly. He guesses she doesn’t hear the music.

  “Well, of course you can’t do it alone. You’re too close to him. Too much of an insider. The problem is, who else is there?” His fingers go to work on the accompaniment. “Gerrasch is too busy finding his own dragon, even though we gotta have him. Earth and Erde don’t really give a shit about the whys. Their gig is doing what’s right and proper according to the Big Rule Book. And we need that, too, I guess. But nobody’s gonna get Fire to mend his ways by quoting him chapter and verse.” The ending chord is harsher than he’d intended. “You agree with that?”

  “Of course. His only real motive is self-interest.”

  “Right. So we find out what he wants, and if there’s any way we can give it to him, we do. At least enough so’s he’ll play ball.”

  “We.”

  “Yeah. You and me.” Now the background line is ticklish. He’s thrilled by the subtle complexities of his improvisations. “You’re connected to him ’cause you’re his guide. But I might be able to help figure him out. ’Cause of my own history, I mean. I had all these grandiose plans, like he does. And I haven’t done so well by my family either, have I? Ever since that blue dragon showed up, I’ve asked myself, why’d she pick me? If it was just to bodyguard young Erde into the future, she’d have better chosen someone like Dolph, or your cousin Leif. So maybe this is why.” N’Doch grins at her. “’Your mission, if you choose to accept it . . .’”

  She gazes at him blankly.

  “From an old vid series.” He tosses off a few notes of the theme song. “Way, way before your time. Before mine, even. Anyhow, what do you say?”

  “I’d say what he wants is power, luxury, and me, probably in that order. It’s not all that complicated.”

  “But you’re back into whats, not whys. Even a dragon’s got to have his whys. And when you know a person’s whys, then you’ve got power over him.” He stops, shakes his head, then throws both hands in the air and flops backward into the chair. The guitar lies prone on his stomach like a resting limb. “I can’t fuckin’ believe this! I’m talking about making deals with my mama’s murderer.”

  Near the front, a chair leg rasps against the tile. “What sort of deals?”

  N’Doch jerks upright, cradling the instrument. “Hey, Papa! Sleep well?”

  “Not a chance.” The old man walks toward them stiffly and pulls up a straight chair from a nearby table. “There’s too many voices in the air here to get any rest. What sort of deals?”

  N’Doch just knows he means voices other than his and Paia’s. But he’ll elaborate when he’s ready. There’s never any rushing Papa Dja. “I’m telling Paia here how it’s likely our job to try to turn Fire.”

  Djawara nods gravely, approving. “Was a time, lad, that I’d have had to point out that sort of duty to you. Then grab you before you had a chance to escape.”

  N’Doch cackles. Just like Papa Dja. Always knowing better. He plays the up-tempo intro to a traditional folk tune. “So how we gonna pull it off, O Great Shaman of the Tribe?”

  Djawara crosses one knee over the other and nests his hands in front of him. “In my day, when two sides had irreconcilable differences, they met to discuss them in neutral territory, where neither could do harm to the other. Some place like the beach or the market square . . . or here.”

  “Here? How we gonna bring him here?”

  Paia clears her throat delicately. “You just told me I did.”

  “Almost. Papa, why you so sure this is neutral territory?”

  “Instinct, my boy. Intuition. Trust me.”

  The old man’s gone woo-woo on him, just like the old days. To punish him, N’Doch turns away to Paia. “So you dream him here, and afterward . . .” He leans on the word and wishes it was light enough to see if she’s blushing. The guitar is growing warm in his arms. “Afterward, I offer him that beer and say, hey, dude, just what is your problem?”

  “I don’t think I’d have to dream him here,” Paia replies steadily. “I think he would just come if I called him.”

  N’Doch looks to his grandfather. “Is this insane or what? I’d sort of had in mind sneaking up on him.”

  “And how were you planning to do tha
t?”

  He bends low over the strings, picking delicately. “Dunno. Hadn’t got that far yet.” He moves into a more familiar melody, his own this time.

  “If nothing else,” Paia adds, “we could keep him distracted while Cousin Leif takes back the Citadel.”

  “And the others go looking for Air. Oooh, he’s just gonna love that idea.” N’Doch can smell the Rive burning already. His thumb pats out the rhythm of the flames on the guitar’s polished box.

  “Negotiating with him was your idea in the first place,” she reminds him.

  “Hey, are we arguing? Ain’t gonna get nowhere if we’re arguing.” But he’s encouraged to see a flash of spirit out of her.

  “Were you thinking of attempting this on your own, without the others?” Djawara asks.

  N’Doch spreads his hands, balancing the guitar on his knee. “If we put them together with him, there’ll just be another big fight. End of discussion. You know how families are.” But it occurs to him how good it would be to have his brother Sedou at this debate. The old political hand. If the blue dragon were here, he could sing her into that uncanny transformation: half Water, half Sedou. A winning combination. N’Doch hums the tune wistfully. He can’t believe he’s about to do something this drastic without her pushing him into it. “Are you both really up for this gig?”

  Dread and eager anticipation chase each other across Paia’s face. She’s wringing her hands again.

  “There’s a time and a place to be proactive.” Djawara uncrosses his legs and places one hand carefully on each knee. “And there’s no time like the present, I suppose.”

  Paia says faintly, “This may take me a few moments.”

  N’Doch’s hum grows into a song.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  He’s fine for a while, cross-legged on the smooth stone, caught up in the work. One bright line of signal attracts his eye: bits of silvery chain with intervals of silence, sequences iterating with progressive changes. Music, he guesses. He wishes he could hear it, but he can only see its patterning. It seems to be searching, but it keeps running into dead ends and flowing back along itself until its lyrical orderings eddy off into chaos.

  The Librarian has often imagined code as the soft and tensile cotton twine that’s best for handweaving and knotwork. In dreams, he has created magnificent tapestries of electronic macramé. So, because the place he is now feels like a waking dream, he attempts a few simple manipulations, just for the fun of it. He nudges the glimmering chain toward a less congested route. To his delight, it finds an open path and speeds along toward its destination unhampered.

  By then, his pudgy body is complaining, longing for the comforts of his ergonomic desk chair, and for the back and elbow support of his streamlined, waist-level, black matte console. He can’t concentrate. He can’t fly along the retreating lines of code and signal when he’s cramped by such a vivid awareness of the strained sinews and tense muscles that anchor him to physical reality.

  The Librarian sighs. He’s never had a superior body, but at least it was fit at one time, for quite a long time in fact, until he retreated into the sedentary life of a cyber-jockey. He understands this now as the careless relaxing of an appropriate if noisome discipline. He should have adopted a hobby that got him up and moving around.

  In the womb-temperature darkness, the Librarian sticks his legs straight out and props himself from behind on his palms. He feels like an overgrown teddy bear, and just about as useful. Surely somewhere in this void-space, there’s got to be something better to sit on than the floor.

  Also, action is definitely more interesting than self-pity. The Librarian looks around. The darkness is very, well . . . dark. A particularly felty darkness, stippled with textures of Brownian motion and incipient light. His gaze is drawn to an area of the darkness more mobile than the rest. More transparent. He groans to his feet and shambles in that direction. The darkness seems to have substance, a dense granulation that gives way before him in a tubular passage. He can’t put his hands on this substance. Nothing solid meets his outstretched arms. But he can feel the idea of it enclosing him. He senses the direction in which it’s leading him.

  Then his shin whacks something hard that rolls away from him with a sharp plastic chatter. The Librarian bellows in pain and irritated surprise. What fool left that there? He always shoves the chair well in under the desk, in case he has to find it in the dark, as happens so often in these days of brownouts and power outages. He moves forward, finds the desk first, then fumbles for the errant chair. And then he remembers there’s no way he could be where he thinks he is.

  He stands motionless for a long moment, searching out an explanation. He grips the back of the chair. It creaks under his pressure as he leans against it. Its smooth hand-worn metal frame and torn padding mended with peeling layers of duct tape are entirely familiar. Even though his hands haven’t touched them for two hundred and twenty-three years. He sees the indicator lights on the surge protectors, just where he’d expect them, pin-point eyes in the velvet darkness. The Librarian takes a breath, reaches, and switches on the desk lamp.

  The cool halogen glow illuminates a beige keyboard, a bulky monitor and system case, flanked by racks of extra memory, modem, speakers, printers, tape storage, all linked by a spaghetti mass of cable. Books and manuals to right, left, and below. Above, just inside the lamp’s small circle of light, a weather radio, a row of world maps, a list of satellite flyovers. And more books, with declarative, earnest titles and stacks of Nature and the JGR as bookends. It’s all there, even a half-filled cup of coffee, cold but not spoiled, as if he had left it yesterday.

  The Librarian moves slowly around the chair without letting go of it. He’s afraid he’ll collapse if left without support. He sits, and hauls himself automatically up to the desk. He flattens his palms on it. The very desk, the very equipment that delivered up his first undisputed signal from the dragon.

  What is going on?

  He has never felt so rattled, so close to believing that he’s finally slipped his moorings. But there’s only one logical thing to do. Only one. His hand hovers, then flicks the toggle to power up the system.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Erde clings to the arbor post. Rose petals drift around her like fragrant snow. Voices are raised at the gate. Outside, more frantic barking. Whatever’s out there is coming in. The dogs spill through the gate again and out across the lawn in a blur of teeth and hackles. Erde grips the post so tightly, her knuckles crack. She prays that the hell-priest and his white-robed minions will not be next.

  Then Lily and Margit stride in, forcibly escorting a small, dark figure by both scrawny arms. They shove their prisoner roughly to the ground. The figure curls up defensively in the thick green grass and lies there, unresisting. Erde goes up on her toes for a better view. Some captured denizen of the city?

  Margit’s voice floats up from the lawn. “Caught this one skulking about!”

  Erde squints to see more clearly. “Oh, my!”

  She bolts across the lawn, forgetting Rose entirely, and arrives just as Luther has shoved his large body between the two snarling scouts and the hapless intruder.

  “Leave ’im!” Luther shouts. The dogs mill about, barking.

  “Lily! Margit! Wait!” Erde pleads. “He’s a friend!”

  The women back off only enough to give her room. Erde throws herself down beside the curled-up ball and pats it urgently. “It’s all right, Stoksie. They won’t hurt you!”

  “Too late fer dat!” Stoksie uncoils warily, glancing about. “Hey! Wachu doin’ heah?”

  Luther bends to help his friend to his feet, gently brushing him off. “Yu okay, Stokes?”

  Stoksie nods, shooting a grim look at Lily and Margit. “Yu prizners, too?”

  “No, no. It’s all a misunderstanding. You’re with friends.” Erde takes his arm. “This is Stoksie, everyone. He’s one of Luther’s countrymen.”

  Stoksie looks to Luther and gets his nod. “Well, den. Da
s diff’rent.” He straightens his clothing, then bows around, as if calling on all assembled to notice how forgiving he’s being.

  Erde is seized with giggles, but swallows them. She knows how the plucky little Tinker dislikes being bested. “Stoksie, how did you get here?”

  “Well, nah, I cud ask yu da same questchun.”

  “Margit says you were sneaking about out in the yard.”

  “I wuz lookin’ fer help!” He claps his hand to his bald head as if suddenly recalling his errand. “Hey! Doan mattah how I got heah! We gotta run help G! Dere’sa monsta afta him!”

  “A what?” She’s heard this term before from the Tinkers. She beckons Raven and the scouts to listen. “You mean Fire? Is he out there?”

  “Nah. Dis sum kinda vishus masheen!”

  Machine. Erde pictures the elevator at the Refuge, and the sleek humming furniture in Gerrasch’s workroom. She knows these are machines, but it’s hard to imagine them being vicious. Then she remembers the flying machines of N’Doch’s time, and the wagons that rolled without horses. The one N’Doch called a tank truly was a monster. She saw it break down stone walls. “Is it coming here?”

  “Doan know, but we gotta go afta G. Yu know how he kint run much.”

  “What’s going on, sweetling?” asks Raven, less patiently than usual.

  “Oh, forgive me!” Belatedly, Erde translates. She’d forgotten that none of the women would understand a word of the Tinker dialect. Nor do they know what a machine is, but they all recognize the description.

  “We saw such horrors during our journey here,” Raven agrees.

  “But they didn’t chase us,” says Margit. “They hardly noticed us, but we had to be on our guard all the same. They’d flatten anything in their path.”

  “Often,” Lily adds, “they were fighting each other.”