Or are they? Motion on the screen draws the Librarian’s gaze upward. In the spaces where he has deleted code, lines are reappearing one after the other, as the nanomechs rebuild the machina. No telling how long before it goes on-line again, but at least he’s bought his friends some time to escape. Which they’ll only do, he fears, if he can manage to let them know he’s still among the living.
They’re doing something out there. The Librarian hears a slow muffled banging, like wood on metal. The rhythm is too irregular for the Rex. He shoves back his chair and goes to peer out the high windows. The rescue party is standing about glum and bloodied, inspecting the stilled Rex. All but Stoksie, who is beating furiously at its huge foreleg with the shaft of a pike while Luther attempts to reason with him.
A pike? Where did he get a pike?
Time slippage is making the Librarian dizzy. Several dogs lie dead or dying beneath the Rex’s belly. One woman is down and another is nursing a limp arm. Luther tries to draw Stoksie away from his raging and is abruptly shaken off. Voices resonate through the glass, not clearly enough for words, but the Librarian can tell they all think he’s dead. He pounds on the window, and again jumps up and down, waving his arms. He bellows at Stoksie and Luther until he’s hoarse. No response on the other side of the glass. He might as well be watching them on television.
He decides that if he can’t open the window, he’ll smash his way through it. He whirls toward his console for a suitable weapon, a book, a chair, anything portable. But his console has vanished. No desk, no chair, no circle of light. Nothing but darkness. He turns back to the window, and it, too, has disappeared.
A small animal moan escapes him. He wraps his arms around his chest and stands swaying in the void. He’s emptied of conviction. How can he not question the reality of all he’s just seen? Did Stoksie really return with the Deep Moor scouts? Did he really manage to subdue the Rex? Is he being played with, tested, tortured? Or is he just living through the city’s version of daily random event?
He rotates slowly, arms outstretched. One full three-sixty. No sound, no break anywhere in the velvet black. The only sure and solid thing is the floor beneath his feet. And perhaps he shouldn’t be so sure about that. Yet the darkness is somehow full of meaning, of intent. The Librarian stands listening, waiting for it to speak to him.
And it does. Hurry! Hurry!
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The women gather murmuring at the library door. How odd, Erde reflects, that they don’t just come piling in. She imagines a charged aura of magic in the room that keeps them at bay, awestruck by Rose’s marvelous restoration. Or perhaps it’s the wonder of the room itself, appearing so suddenly and in all its details where it hadn’t been before, a room they all know lies in ashes in their home time. She looks down the long narrow space, past the shelves full of old books and the dark, low-slung beams and the bright slashes of sunlight from the windows. She realizes with a shock that it’s not Rose they’re staring at so searchingly.
Do I look strange to them? Erde’s hand strays up to rake at her dark scrawl of curls. She smiles at the women selfconsciously.
“May we come in?” Raven asks.
“Certainly!” Erde turns to Rose. “I mean, if . . .”
But there’s a rush through the door already. The chorus of joy and welcome overwhelms Erde’s hesitation. The women surround Rose to hug and pet her, and proclaim their vast relief until Rose laughingly shrugs them off. Raven stands aside with Erde, and gives her shoulder an encouraging squeeze.
“Well done, sweetling.”
“But I did nothing . . .”
Raven arches an eyebrow.
“. . . much.”
“Whatever it was, it was enough, and more than any of us had managed so far.”
“It was the knowledge Rose carries that broke her spirit. But she found her strength again and came back to us renewed.” Erde grips Raven’s arm. “Oh, such tidings, Raven! So terrible! But Rose must tell it in her own way.”
Raven smiles and ruffles Erde’s hair. “Do you know how lovely you’ve grown? I just realized it, standing there at the door. All this racing about dragon-back must be good for you.”
Erde blushes, confused by how delighted this compliment makes her, as it comes from the most beautiful woman she knows. Yet her delight stirs the ache beneath it. What good is being beautiful if the one she loves has already given himself to another? Köthen’s face fills her mind’s eye until she has to shake her head and blink it away.
“Sweetling? Erde?”
“Forgive me, I was just . . .”
“Thinking?”
“Yes.” She hasn’t thought about Köthen for several hours at least. Perhaps that’s a good sign.
“Such sad eyes! Must be very deep thoughts you’re having.”
Erde shrugs shyly. What a relief it would be to tell Raven everything, to be able to talk with another, more experienced woman about her unrequited passion. “It’s just . . .” She can’t make herself continue. There are so many more important things to worry about.
“There, there,” Raven soothes. “If Rose brings bad tidings, it won’t be the first time. We’ve lived through disaster before, and we can do it again. It isn’t the end of the world.”
Except that it is.
Erde chokes back a very N’Doch-like laugh. His smart-mouth graveyard humor must be contagious. Instead, she nods. These women have a true reason to celebrate. She will not dampen their joy until Rose herself decides that the moment has come.
Standing in darkness, the Librarian wonders if he should trust his senses.
HURRY! HURRY!
Is it an actual voice whispering through the void this time, from a source outside himself, or is it the old neurons firing, sparked by some inner signal?
Or does it matter?
It’s like the bet he took once, several centuries ago. For the winner’s choice of pizza and beer, he proposed to outlast a colleague in the psych lab’s sensory deprivation chamber. The Librarian won handily, understanding beforehand that the contest was essentially rigged. Who’s more comfortable with the infinite, after all, than a man who’s lived many lives? The void is not so disorienting, so soul-swallowing, if you’re willing to just sit still and listen to the universe. The music of the spheres, the ancient conceit that claims that inaudible, holy music surrounds us all our lives. It’s a lie, of course. It’s not inaudible at all. The Librarian is hearing it now.
Hurry! Hurry!
In the sensory dep box, after the first few hours, the Librarian had felt himself growing, expanding outward. Not in a defined way, like the swelling shell of a balloon, but like a dissipating gas. Space flowed into him, easing all his molecules apart. An equal opportunity expansion. Remarkably, he lost no sense of self. He did not “become one with the universe.” He had no religious epiphanies. He just lay there listening, growing and listening. And he remembers feeling—even after he climbed out of the box and toweled off, even as he wolfed down the victor’s super-large with mushrooms and extra cheese and went about his life—he recalls that he experienced no contraction. The added space remained inside him, like the air that never leaves your lungs. He was, still is, expanded matter masquerading as ordinary flesh.
And he’s never been more aware of the extra space than he is right now. Because Nature abhors a vacuum, and inevitably that space will want to be filled.
Hurry! Hurry!
He’s been listening to this appeal for hours, who knows, maybe days, and he’s not yet asked himself the obvious question: hurry up and do what? Fool, Gerrasch! It’s not hurry up and get somewhere. That’s much too simple. Or that may have been the idea once. But now the entity—the dragon, he believes—appears to have him exactly where it wants him, and is keeping him there. Hurry up and do what? Get me out of here? Hurry up and . . . understand what I’m telling you?
And suddenly, he is not alone.
If the void was to clear, and the Librarian were to find himself in the
center of an arena filled with thousands avidly watching, he would not be surprised, so profound and pressing is the sense of presence in the darkness surrounding him. So insistent the anticipation. Crowding him, demanding . . .
There’s an idea in the air. He hears it spoken.
Entrance.
Demanding entrance? The Librarian throws his head back with a gasp as understanding comes, and the panic that never touched him in the dep tank takes hold with iron fists. Entrance. In order to fill the space inside him. She, inside me. The Librarian’s integrity of self seems suddenly precious to him. The dragon is knocking at his door.
Hurry! Hurry!
This is the crucial detail he’s never intuited, never reasoned out. Has she kept it from him intentionally? It’s the explanation for his many lives, for the peculiar way his brain works, for the mystical expansion of his matter. It’s his particular destiny.
He is to be the dragon’s vessel.
And lose his self in the process? If he lets the dragon in, will she erase him? Will Gerrasch cease to be anything more than the name pinned to a carcass inhabited by another?
The Librarian has waited all his lives for this moment. And yet . . . and yet. . . .
“Your only faith is in yourself, and that seems as intact as always.” Paia’s quiet scoff shocks even her. It’s the closest thing to a snarl she’s ever let out of her mouth. Fire’s lip curls, but he only looks away.
N’Doch nudges her. “Maybe we need to hear what he has to say.”
“Oh, yes,” Fire returns. “I think you do. After all, why perish in ignorance?” He adjusts his chair to put his back to Paia, facing his fellow dragon. “My tale begins with our wakening. Or mine, I should say. I was waked earlier than you or Earth, due to my den’s chance proximity to the chronological end of humankind. Or perhaps it was . . .” he grins slyly, “. . . because I was always Air’s favorite.”
Water-as-Sedou sniffs. “Certainly our sister would have trusted you to aid with whatever crisis awakened her. A trust you then betrayed.”
“Define the nature of the betrayal.”
“Subversion of our ancient duty.”
“By your terms. By mine, I’ve chosen the much wiser path. My intention was to save her, to save us all.”
Sedou crosses his arms and leans back, as if weary with incredulity. “So you locked her up?”
“Yes!” Fire bolts out of his chair. The chair teeters and topples against its neighbor as he stalks away from the table. “You’re always so sure you’re right! I see no reason to proceed with this charade!”
Paia moves after him. She’s sure Fire will slam out the door. If he can move a chair about in his newly material form, he can open a door. But N’Doch grabs her arm, and Fire’s not ready to leave quite yet. He plants himself by the window, hands on hips, gazing outward with an air of wounded dignity. The flat daylight limns his golden profile with an icy edge.
The dragon-as-Sedou rocks his chair gently. “Then why do you stay?”
Djawara clucks his tongue. He walks over to stand beside Fire as if he’s been invited to enjoy the view. “It’s the shape she’s taken, you understand. My grandson Sedou . . . you never met him, but . . .”
Fire casts a knowing eye at the old man, and Paia shivers. Either the dragon can’t bear to admit to any sort of ignorance, or he’s been interfering fatally with N’Doch’s family for longer than any of them have guessed. She’s glad that Djawara’s gaze is fixed on the street outside.
“. . . he was a magnificent man. Bravehearted. A dragon of a man. But impulsive. Rash. Headstrong. A bit like you.” Djawara clears his throat gently. “So perhaps you will pardon . . .”
“She is neither rash nor impulsive. She’s merely insufferable, and always has been. She gets no pardon from me.”
“Nor needs one,” Sedou interjects.
“Tell me your story. I’d like to hear it.” Djawara clasps his hands behind his back, his slight, erect form so vulnerable-seeming beside Fire’s towering bulk. “You were saying that you waked early . . .”
Fire sighs, not the satirical exhalation that Paia is familiar with, but a long hissing release. “I find myself in need of someone to run my temple, old man. Are you available?”
Djawara chuckles politely.
“I take that as a ‘no.’ Pity. Perhaps you’ll reconsider when you hear what I have to say.”
“Please do continue.”
But Fire is growing restless with human interaction. Paia knows the signs. At home, in this mood, he would bellow at a subordinate or two, resume dragon-form and swoop off to terrify a few villages. In a rage, he’d do much worse. He’s not in a rage, not yet, but she can see the darkness gathering in him. He turns away abruptly from the window and his moment of quasi-intimacy with Djawara, and announces flatly to the room at large, “It’s very simple, really. Our Destiny requires our death. That’s the short explanation. Air, of course, gave it to me in endless painful detail at the time, but I . . .”
“Come now,” says Sedou. “There is always risk with . . .”
“Listen to me! I said, requires. The concept of accident is not involved. But I wasn’t having any of it then, and the same goes for now.”
“But what . . .”
Fire whirls back to the table to loom over his sibling with his palms planted to either side of Sedou’s elbows. “Shut up and listen!”
Sedou’s chin juts and his nostrils flare, but he stays seated and quiet.
“Fortunately for all of us,” Fire continues tightly, “the final fulfillment of this absurd plan demands the presence and more crucially, the cooperation of all—four dragons, four guides—within a certain time frame. Which, of course, will not be revealed by me, and is otherwise known only to the missing fourth of our number, who you have been unsuccessful at locating.”
“So far,” Sedou hisses.
“Perhaps.” Fire looks down, flicking a trace of ash from the gold braid circling his cuffs. “But the point is, like it or not, I’m saving your lives. Now tell me how that constitutes betrayal?”
. . . and yet, he must.
His genes decree it. Every atom spiraling in his cells is arranged to obtain precisely this result. His will, even if he wills otherwise, is secondary.
She, immaterial, an ephemeral impulse, a signal. He, physical. She has need of his voice, his hands, to move in the world of men. To move at all. And she is the One. There is work that must be done, and quickly. If there is hope yet for the planet, it’s her. The dragon. Air.
Hurry! Hurry!
The Librarian tells himself that he’s had more lives than any ten men could hope for. Perhaps that’s what his recent trip down Memory Lane was intended for—to remind him of that. Now it’s time to let the dragon live . . . if only he can find the courage. So hard to let go. Never once, down along the centuries, has the Librarian ever contemplated suicide.
But now he searches his overstocked data banks for images of his most beloved places. A difficult choice. He’s had so many. Though his physical body will continue without him—former occupant moved, left no forwarding address—he imagines it enshrined in earth, a final resting place, at each favorite site. He chooses one.
It’s the mirrored, dark-rimmed lake where he first met a fellow dragon guide, and got his first whiff of Destiny. He sees his stick hovel deserted, the worn plank door thrown wide, the chimney clear of smoke. He see the oblong pile of smooth lake stones that marks his grave. He lets the clear orange sun sink past the far shore, toothed by spruce and pine, and just as the moon is rising behind him, the Librarian says . . .
Yes.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
He doesn’t . . . cease, as he’s expected, as he’s prepared himself for. But very soon, the Librarian suspects that oblivion might have been easier.
His mind is eclectic, wide-ranging. It has made for him, over the centuries, a commodious and varied inner space. But the dragon is vast. Like a mighty ocean tide, she rushes in through the opened l
ocks of his consciousness, into every bay and inlet, every nook and cranny, until there’s little room left for his smaller, more finite, self. Pressed flat against the curve of his skull, he’s near to suffocation. The dragon is unpracticed at sharing even an ephemeral geography. She has no sense of how to keep her mental feet and elbows and breath and volume to herself. Crushed, jabbed, stomped on, deafened, the Librarian quails.
He could blank on her. Overstretched, overwhelmed, he could choose a painless voluntary oblivion. Put his besieged brain to sleep. But he worries that the dragon has no idea what to do with this physical body she’s so abruptly claimed. He can sense her testing its mechanisms, without any concept of its limits. She’s playing with his heart rate, speeding it up, slowing it down, dilating his pupils, stimulating his muscles into spasm, inflating his lungs past comfort or reason. Stretching him like an elastic band. Deep, primal agony. Lightning bolts of pain. The Librarian imagines a teenager climbing into his first car. The dragon could kill him out of sheer ignorance, before she has a chance to make use of his body. His miraculous serial lifetimes, wasted in a moment of clumsiness.
Stop! Stop!
But begging for mercy has no effect. The dragon isn’t listening, or can’t. Or rather, she’s listening at such a cosmic tuning that the Librarian’s faint human pleadings go unheard. Suffering, helpless as a laboratory rat, he knows he must, somehow must, resume his task of calibrating the lines of communication. But this will take time, time he may not have if he can’t wrest control of his limbs and metabolism from the dragon before she carelessly tweaks him into cardiac arrest. And this means giving himself to life again, after having made his quietus. It means rejoining the fray.
The Book of Air: Volume Four of the Dragon Quartet Page 26
