His office down on the fourth level monitored the sea level rise. Next door to the left were the ozone boys. To the right, the Storm King, the scowling head of Meteorology whose office was always on high alert. The Librarian and his fellow post-docs told themselves how lucky they were to have wrangled jobs on high ground and in a secure location, away from the chaos in the cities, the food riots, the epidemics, and with all the hardware they could want. Let’s watch the planet go into the toilet on a hundred different screens in gorgeous living color! But of course, they all assumed the need would be temporary. With the horrors of the final collapse yet to come, they still thought their work had meaning, that civilization could be saved if there was somebody out there doing good science. And it could have been saved, if anyone in power had cared to listen. But Power has a very, very short view, the Librarian learned. It’s just down the block to the intersection of Profit and Job Security. Daily in his office at the Refuge, it was someone else’s turn to shove open the door and exclaim, “You’re not gonna believe what they’ve done now!”
The Librarian is sorry not to see those weary young faces around him again. Long dead, most of them, or vanished back into the maelstrom in desperate search of family and loved ones, or for a reason to continue living. The Librarian has hoped for one or another of them to resurface among the Tinker crews, but sadly, none ever has.
He pads up to the old map he’d pinned to the wall next to the door, a huge, laminated USGS composite of the Adirondack counties. His red-penciled scrawl spiders the contour lines, notating an inked-in overlay that detailed the successive backing up of the Hudson River into the flood-plain of its tributaries, and after that, into the lower valleys. New York City had gone under around the turn of the last century. The Librarian sets his toes against the base of the wall and brings his face up to the map until the tip of his nose is nearly touching the surface. The pale green-and-beige shapes blur out of focus. The thin red letters waver like splashes of blood. In his mind, he sees the machines in the city square, tearing up the patterned pavement and setting it right back down again.
“I know what you’re made of,” he murmurs to the map, suddenly willing to admit it. Not a dream. Not his imagination.
Nanotech. It has to be.
Nanotech. Still science fiction in those early days at the Refuge, but close enough to being a reality, if the resources for R&D hadn’t dried up entirely. After the Collapse, the Librarian just assumed that technological development had ceased, and it was all downhill from there. He must have been wrong.
Nanotech.
He feels a big, involuntary grin stretch his face, his body responding to the news before his brain has registered all its implications. His feet shuffle out a little two-step. He wraps his arms around his barrel chest and gives himself a hug. Somehow, somewhere, progress has continued. The reign of the God of the Temple of the Apocalypse is not the Last Days. There is a future after all.
And . . .
The Librarian stills as the last insight drops into place. There is a future, and he’s probably in it. Now. Right here.
Nanotech. How long did it take to develop? No wonder each remembered place has looked, felt, and smelled so real to him. They were real, as real as matter ever truly is. Built, then rebuilt upon the instant. A numberless submicroscopic legion of machines, working at the molecular level. A whole city created and maintained by their constant labor. Worlds of memory, remade as reality. Just add water.
The Librarian lets out a slightly mad cackle. He staggers back to his high backed, high-tech chair and throws himself into it. It absorbs the force of his weight and rebounds gently. He feels it mold obediently to the curve of his back. Creepy, but astonishing. He tries not to shiver with awe.
Nanotech.
Now that he’s sitting down again, he can ask himself the really scary question. The existence of nanotech is a minor miracle compared to the really big mystery: how do all the little nanomechs have access to his personal memories? From where or whom are they getting their building instructions?
The Librarian is fairly sure he knows.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Erde returns to the garden and slides into a seat at the stone table. Looking into Rose’s distant stare, she is convinced that a terrifying darkness lurks within. Much more than exhaustion has driven Rose of Deep Moor into retreat from the world.
“Should we bring her to him?” Raven asks.
“He says it would be better not to move her,” Erde replies.
“I’m glad to hear it. Linden thought a change of scene might help, but I’ve been resisting that.”
There’s a third chair at the stone table under the apple tree, directly opposite Rose. Erde can’t recall it being there before, but Raven takes it without comment. Rose’s uncanny stillness doesn’t mar the compassion and intelligence in her features. She is not a beautiful woman, like Raven, but certainly the one you would turn to in a crisis. Now, the crisis is hers. Though Rose’s face is suffused with calm, it’s the calm of withdrawal, not of being alert and in command of one’s self. Erde is sure that some terrifying darkness lurks within that distant stare. Much more than exhaustion would be needed to drive Rose of Deep Moor into retreat from the world.
Erde seats herself, then signals Raven to join her at the table.
“Are you sure?” Raven has been holding back in the fragrant leaf-shadow of the rose arbor. “I won’t be in the way?”
“Of course not. The more support we offer, the better, wouldn’t you think?” She wonders if Raven expects a grand gesture of some sort. Whatever healing the dragon can manage, it will be a very quiet event.
Now, dragon . . . how shall we proceed?
I WILL NEED SOME BODILY CONTACT WITH HER IN ORDER TO DETERMINE IF THERE IS ANYTHING PHYSICALLY WRONG.
Erde is utterly certain that Rose’s healing will not be so easily accomplished, but she is equally certain that things done properly must be done as the dragon requests. So she takes Rose’s strong, mute hands in her own and quiets her mind to give the dragon room to do his good work. She pictures Rose busy and smiling, and lets the music of the garden fill her awareness: the birdsong, the hum of passing insects, Raven’s shallow, anxious breathing. But all too soon, Earth has completed his exploration.
THE DAMAGE TO HER BODY IS NOT THE CAUSE.
But there is damage?
I MADE A FEW . . . ADJUSTMENTS THAT MIGHT BETTER NOURISH HER HEART AND MIND. BUT I DARE GO NO FURTHER.
Erde sets Rose’s hands back on the table, side by side.
“What does he say?” Raven whispers.
“That the problem is in her mind.”
“Can he heal that?”
“Do you remember at the Seeing, when I first came to Deep Moor and was still mute, how Rose could hear the dragon in her head?”
“I remember it was very painful for her.”
“Exactly so. He worries that he’ll make matters worse if he intrudes upon her thoughts, whatever they may be.”
“So . . .?”
“It will require a human touch to help her.”
“A human touch in her mind?”
Erde nods. She is reaching her own understandings seconds before she must convey them to Raven.
“Would that be . . . yours?”
Erde nods again, less confidently. “So he says.”
Raven settles back a bit, throwing one arm over the back of her chair. “I also recall Rose commenting on the power you would come into, once you found your voice.” She tilts her dark head playfully, though her tone is serious. “I assumed she meant the voice you speak with.”
“So did I. And so when I could speak again, and I didn’t feel very different, I guessed she had misjudged, and put the whole thing from my mind.”
“And now?”
“And now, I think it was I who misjudged. If only I could ask her. I feel that I should know, that I need to know.”
Raven smiles. “Why so worried? I’m sure she meant your self, when yo
u find your self. There’s nothing wrong with growing up, even if you have been forced into it a bit prematurely.”
“There is if you’re not sure you like what you’re growing into.”
The terror comes at her in a wave, not like the surf of the African beach where she first faced an ocean, but as she’s always dreamed of it, sudden, towering, inexorable, and cold. “Oh, Raven, I’m so frightened!”
Raven leans forward. “Sweetling! Why so?”
“I feel like there’s something . . . coming. Something I have to do.”
“Then power will be a useful attribute.”
Erde takes a long, slow breath. She is inches from hysteria and has no idea how it’s caught her so unawares. She loves Raven, but Raven is cheerfully fatalistic, rather like the dragon. What happens, happens . . . and then one copes as best one can. Rose’s insight is the sort Erde needs to help interpret this lowering cloud of portent. “When have you ever seen power put to use where it didn’t hurt someone?”
“Power is a good thing when it’s properly employed.”
“No. No, it isn’t.”
“When your dragon heals someone, that’s power put to a good use.”
Erde shakes her head. She needs to be unreasonably stubborn until this terror and confusion make sense to her. “No, that’s his Gift. Something he gives. Power is something that’s imposed on people, whether they like it or not. Like my father tried to impose his will on me. Like Fra Guill wants to on all of us. Like the dragon Fire . . .”
“Easy, child. You’re working yourself up into a state.” Raven pats her shoulder, rubs her arm. “Have better faith in your own good nature.”
“Rose didn’t say powerful, she said ‘dangerously charismatic.’ Dangerously!”
Raven laughs, a rueful tinkle entirely without mockery. “I think she was being poetical, sweetling.”
“No, I wasn’t,” says Rose. “I meant exactly what I said.”
The other two stare at her in astonishment. Raven finds her voice first.
“Rose? Are you back with us? Are you all right?”
The awful insight that Erde was just on the point of realizing flies from her mind. “Rose!” She leaps up to envelop the older woman in a hug. “We were so worried!”
“Whatever for? I’ve been right here all along. Did I doze off?” Rose smiles and shrugs, raking her fingers through her graying curls. “Well, perhaps I did. I feel quite refreshed. But a good thing you called me. It’s the first sign of age, you know. You’re in your garden, with a spare hour finally to devote to the pruning and weeding, and you sit down to take a moment’s peace in the sun, and off you go! The Land of Nod.” She laughs and plants both hands determinedly on her knees. “I’ll have to delegate one of the twins to keep an eye on me so I don’t start sleeping through supper.” Her eyes light on the sectioned apple in front of her. The edges are browning already, but Rose doesn’t seem to care or notice. She grabs one and shoves it into her mouth.
Erde’s hands have lingered on Rose’s shoulders, but she lets them slide away as she meets Raven’s sober glance.
“Supper,” says Raven hopefully. “You must be starving. You haven’t eaten since . . .”
“I had lunch, just like everyone.” Rose brandishes a second section of apple. “Don’t fuss! Why are you both fussing so? All I did was doze off. Goodness, I think I’ll survive.”
“That’s our Rosie. Get her going and you can’t shut her up.” Raven’s laugh lacks her usual contagious glee. Rising, she fans herself elaborately. “How about something cool? Oh, this heat. I’ll just run for a celebratory pitcher.”
“Wonderful,” agrees Rose. “What are we celebrating? The berry harvest? A new arrival in the barn? Is somebody pregnant? You both looked so somber a moment ago, I thought something awful had happened.” Her face brightens. “Ah! Is it Heinrich? Is he coming? Is he back from the war? You should have woken me earlier!”
Raven reaches the end of her inspiration. Her arms float upward in a helpless shrug. “Rose, darling . . . we tried.” To Erde, she says, “I’m going for food and to tell the others. You try to explain to her.”
“What? Wait. Me?”
But Raven has whirled away through the arbor, leaving Erde alone with Rose, who calmly reaches for another section of apple and offers up her wisest, most sympathetic smile. “Explain, eh? Tch, tch. Sounds dire. What mischief have you been up to now? Has Lord Earth eaten one of Doritt’s precious breeding ewes?”
Erde’s eyes widen involuntarily. In an instant, she is a child again. “He’d never do that! Never! At least, not without asking!”
“I know, I know. I’m only joking. But you’re up to something, I can see that much. Come on, out with it!”
Erde can see Rose preparing to be stern if necessary. She wonders what storybook day in her life at Deep Moor Rose believes she is living. She hates herself for being the one who must drag this smiling woman out of her dreamworld into a present where Deep Moor lies in smoking embers. “Raven wants me to explain where we are.”
Rose blinks. Her shoulders lift and tighten, as if to ward off a blow. Then she slides back her chair, rising, leaning over the table to sweep apple cores and stems into the palm of one hand. “I’ll just clear up a bit here, so Raven will have room for the tray.”
“Please, Rose . . .”
“No, no, I must. You know how Raven hates a mess, especially when there’s food around.” Rose’s hands are busy, busy at the tabletop. Her eyes dart everywhere, except at Erde.
Dragon, help me!
YOU KNOW I CANNOT. NOT WITH THIS.
Why has Raven left this awful task to me?
PERHAPS SHE BELIEVES YOU ARE BEST SUITED FOR IT.
No! Not me!
Erde longs for Raven’s speedy return. If she won’t help, she’ll at least bring Linden, who’ll know much better what to do. “Rose, please sit down and rest yourself.”
Rose carries the apple cores to a corner of the garden. “Rest?” She uses the little paring knife to scratch up a section of dirt. “I’ve never felt more rested! I wasn’t really napping just now. I was thinking, while you girls just chattered on and on.” She buries the apple cores neatly and comes back to the table, dusting her palms and still refusing to meet Erde’s gaze. “On and on.”
“What were you thinking about?”
Rose’s shoulders tighten again. She turns away, frowning. “I really must find more time to work in the garden. The weeds are positively taking over!”
Erde cannot spot even the trace of a weed. In Rose’s reconstruction of Deep Moor, there wouldn’t be any. “Tell me what you were thinking about.”
Rose’s hands weave patterns of warding in the air, but her reply is casual. “Oh, it was nothing. Just a dream I had.”
“A dream?”
“A nightmare, if you really want to know.” Rose bends to the flower pots clustered around the apple tree, deadheading barely spent blooms. “I have them all the time lately. Too much red meat, Linden tells me.”
“I’m sure she’s right,” murmurs Erde, thinking exactly the opposite. How peculiar—she has become the elder, and Rose has become the child. She recalls what her beloved nurse Alla used to say when she woke up paralyzed by night terrors. “Maybe if you tell me about it, it won’t bother you anymore.”
Rose snorts. “Maybe if I tell you about it, that will remind me what it was. Can’t really recall it now, so it can’t have been too important.”
“Are you sure? You can’t remember anything about it?” Terror beats birdlike at the inside of her ribs, roused by the recollection of childhood. Which is ending, Erde understands. It can only mean that her destiny is close at hand. But why should the very thing she’s looked forward to and fought to attain cause her such sudden palpitations? She looks up and catches Rose gazing at her. Before the older woman can glance away, their eyes meet and Erde is staring into the eyes of Death itself: raw, despairing, ravaged by horror and guilt.
“What is it?” she w
hispers hoarsely, but the moment is gone.
Rose turns away with a dismissive shrug. “No, can’t recall a thing about it. I had a book out here a while ago. Have you seen it?”
“No. I haven’t.”
“Come into the library a moment while I look for it.” Rose’s hand is already on the latch.
“Rose, you can’t . . . there isn’t any . . .”
Rose unlatches the door and swings it wide. “Might as well let some fresh air in anyway. It’s such a perfect day! Isn’t it wonderful, after all the rain we’ve had?”
“Rain?”
But Rose has disappeared inside. Erde hurries after her, and finds herself in the cool, wood-paneled shade of the book room—which, according to Raven, should not be there. Leaf-scattered sunlight filters through the manypaned windows along the outside wall. Erde glimpses the rolling spread of the valley through the branches, a glint of silver water, and the green hills beyond. She sees she will have to be extra vigilant. There’s no place she’d rather be than in this perfect vision of Deep Moor, existing first in Rose’s mind, and now all around them as Rose reconstructs it. It will not help Rose or anybody if she is drawn into Rose’s world, instead of the other way around.
Rose is at the end of the room, searching among the piles of leather-bound volumes scattered across the big reading table. Piles of them! Before arriving at Deep Moor, Erde had never seen so many books in one place that piles could be made of them. Big books, used so often that they were left lying about, instead of hidden away under lock and key. Her father’s castle had no library. It would have been unseemly for Baron Josef von Alte to be seen indulging in unmanly pursuits such as reading and study.
Rose picks up a book and leafs through it, seemingly at random.
“Did you find it?” Erde tries to sound casual. “What were you reading?”
“Oh, something about . . . something . . . I forget.”
BE FIRM, the dragon reminds silently.
The Book of Air: Volume Four of the Dragon Quartet Page 21
