The Book of Air: Volume Four of the Dragon Quartet

by Marjorie B. Kellogg

  “Kenzo, I need your full attention right now.”

  Paia is amazed by how reasonable the man/dragon is being. A flash of hot temper is more his style, rather than this calm insistence.

  But either Baraga does not hear the menace building in Fire’s tone, or he chooses to ignore it. “Five minutes. No more than ten. Soon as I get this shot. Time is money, y’know, and we’re in a real time crunch here. I can’t afford to have our star, ah . . . leave us . . . before we’re finished.” He walks away, waving various subordinates into line, and the crowd flows after him, opening a view into the center of the studio. What Paia sees there makes her start violently and bury her face in Fire’s side.

  A young woman, no, a girl, just a girl, lies naked on a blood-soaked mattress. The mattress is raised off the floor on a sturdy wooden platform so that the cameras can cozy in for close-ups. The platform also carries the metal rings to which the girl’s manacles are fastened, hands and feet. A big man stands beside the bed with a knife in his hand. Both hand and knife are as blood-drenched as the bedding, but the man isn’t looking at her, though she’s sobbing and moaning, and has been sliced in several awful and private places. He’s turned away to a mirror, gazing at himself intently while a makeup man blots and powders his face, and touches up his hair.

  Paia takes refuge in the assurance that it’s all make-believe, truly inspired special effects. But the cameras are currently at rest, and the girl on the bed still wears the terror-stricken glaze of a trapped animal. What did they used to call it? Method acting? And now Paia notices the two men crouching on either side of the bed, whom the first shock of revulsion had hidden from her. They’re wearing white lab coats. One applies a pressure bandage to the deepest wounds, while the other monitors the girl’s pulse and other vital signs. Well, the girl must be all right if the medics aren’t rushing her off to the nearest hospital. But the sticky-sweet smell of carnage under the hot studio lights is nauseatingly real. In her stomach-turning daze of horror, Paia can only wonder how they’ve kept their white coats so clean.

  Baraga strides over to stare down at the girl. “How much longer do we have?”

  One of the technicians shrugs. “If you hurry, you’ll get the shot.”

  “Good. Stay in tight until I tell you to clear.” He turns to the clipboard man, who is dogging his heels. “Time?”

  The man checks a stopwatch. “Commercial break ends in three minutes.”

  Baraga nods and turns to the big camera, which has been rolled up beside him. He adjusts it slightly, presses a few buttons. “Take the master from here,” he says to the operator. He crosses to the second camera, positioned for a close-up of the girl’s face. When he’s arranged it to his satisfaction, he touches the nearest white-coated medic on the shoulder. “Don’t let her die on me too soon. Let her go as slow as you can. We need the footage.”

  “Yessir, Mr. Baraga.”

  Die? Don’t let her die too soon? Paia’s elaborate rationale crumbles. Dizzy and terrified, she snatches at Fire for support, but he’s not there. He’s moving toward the circle of light, and Paia supposes with a sinking heart that he’s zeroing in to enjoy a closer look. But his back is more than usually erect, and he glides rather than walks, a reversion to less human phases of his man-form. He stops just inside the bright circle, taller than any man in the room. The light falls on him as it had on Baraga earlier, setting his red tunic and red-gold hair aglow, glinting off his golden nails and on the faint gilded profile of the scales that have risen up like hackles on his cheeks and neck.

  “Kenzo. What is this?”

  “What’s what?” Baraga barely glances away from the third camera’s view screen as he lines up the shot.

  “What are you doing here?”

  Baraga chuckles into the little screen. “I knew you’d approve. It’s kind of an underground thing from the early days of video. Used to call it a snuff flick. I figure people out there are tired of holos and sims. If this doesn’t boost the ratings, nothing will.”

  “You will stop this now.”

  “Don’t make a scene, now. You’ll throw off my actors. Don’t worry, I’ll give you all the time you want when I’m done.”

  Baraga eases the camera this way, then that, oblivious to what everyone else in the big dark room sees and is backing away from: Fire’s ominous glow, his increasingly towering height, the angry hiss of his serpentine curls. The bloody knife clatters to the floor as the big actor shoves past the makeup man and flees into the shadowed perimeter of the room.

  “Listen to me, Kenzo Baraga. You will stop this abomination now!”

  “What? What?” Baraga lifts his head from the screen at last. He sees he’s suddenly alone with a bunch of equipment in a big open space. His only companions are the bleeding girl and the medic whose hands are staunching the flow. Apparently that one fears Baraga’s wrath more than the dragon’s. Baraga seems unruffled, except for his irritation at the delay. Paia thinks he is either very dense or very confident. He plants his hands on his hips, gazing point-blank into Fire’s chill fury, and sighs. “What is the problem?”

  “Bind her wounds. Let her go.”

  “What? No way. I have a ton of money invested in this.”

  “Do it!”

  “Wait a minute!” Baraga looks incredulous. “I’m hearing this from you? My evil angel is getting squeamish? The flaming demon of my dreams is suddenly bothered by a little reality video? I can’t believe it!”

  Paia is not sure she can believe it either. Astonishment shoves horror into the background temporarily. What’s come over Fire? Is this another of his poses, or a genuine change of heart?

  “Don’t argue about it,” growls Fire. “Just stop it. Now.”

  “No.” Having moved past his surprise, Baraga is getting angry. “Absolutely not. I’ve done nothing illegal here. The girl is bought and paid for. Now her father will be able to feed the rest of his family for the next six months, maybe even a year if he isn’t reckless. She has three younger brothers who might now make it to adulthood. She’s fortunate she can offer them such a gift! Besides, who are you to object?”

  Paia hears strong echoes of the God’s rationalizing rhetoric in Baraga’s justification. She wonders if Fire hears them, too.

  “This is not a necessary death, Kenzo. She is no threat to you.”

  “She’d have died on the streets anyway before she was twenty.”

  “This is torture, for the pleasure of it.”

  “Hey, she’s not in pain. Scared, maybe, but we’ve got her on an anesthetic. What do you think I am?”

  “A monster.”

  Baraga laughs. “Oh, that’s rich. I’m the monster now. You’re going soft, I swear. Look at you all puffed up and furious. What’s going on? I’ve never known you to mind a little mayhem.”

  “I mind when you misuse the power I gave you.”

  “You didn’t call it misuse when I took care of those little odds and ends you wanted dealt with.”

  “Those deaths served a larger purpose. A kill should always be necessary. And it should be done quickly and cleanly.”

  “Oh, it’s predator’s ethics we’re talking about here? How old-fashioned. Well, this isn’t about ethics, it’s about money. My money.” Baraga goes into motion now, pacing about, shaking an angry finger at the scaled giant towering over him. “What do you know about what’s necessary? What do you know about what sells? What do you know about human tastes?”

  “More than I ever cared to.”

  “Ah, now we’re into aesthetics. Look, I’m the sales expert here, and I’ll tell you what: people don’t want a clean kill. Or a justified one. They want it the way they see it in the world: random, messy, and violent. They don’t want it noble, and they don’t want it metaphorical. They want it real and dirty. They want to see every drop of blood. They want to hear every last gasp.” Still pacing, Baraga shrugs elaborately. “Who am I to question? I just give them what they want.”

  On the shadow’s edge, Pai
a shudders in empathy. Fire cannot fail to hear the echoes now. These are his own words flung back at him.

  “And I’ve given you what you want. So bind her wounds or end it quickly. Otherwise, I’ll withdraw my patronage.”

  The Media King’s head snaps up, and his full mouth tightens. “Yeah? Terrific. You go ahead. I can manage without you just fine.”

  “Kenzo, I’m warning you. No patronage means no protection. Do not take my mercy for granted.”

  “Threats, Fiero?” Baraga folds his arms and leans against the boxy camera in a show of swagger. “I’ve got the greatest security organization around.”

  “Indeed? And where are they now?”

  Baraga waves a negligent hand. “I’ve only to raise the alarm.”

  Fire shakes his head solemnly. His bleak and implacable gaze makes the circuit of the empty room, boring into the tiered ranks of faces at the control room window, into the crowd at the half open door. “They’re watching, oh, so eagerly, but they’re not helping, are they? You’re just another thrilling episode of reality video as far as they’re concerned. The truth is, Kenzo, you’ve been deserted, as I was, in your last hour.”

  “What last hour? What are you talking about?”

  “If I’m finally going to destroy the monster that is humanity, I might as well start with those of my own creation.”

  “Threats again? Remember, I know what you are! You can’t pick up a glass or open your own door! What’re you gonna do to me? You’re a vision, a nonthing. Your psychic laser only hurts if the victim believes it will. You may have the rest of them pissing in their pants, but me? I know better.” He steps away from the camera and stoops for the knife dropped by the frightened actor. It leaves a puddle of blood behind as he snatches it up. “You can’t even stop me if . . .” Faster than Paia has time to comprehend and react, Baraga is beside her, has grabbed her and put the knife to her throat. “If I decide to use this pretty lady as a substitute when the first one’s gone wasted?”

  The knife is no mere prop. It’s actually done the cutting so horribly evident on the dying girl’s body. Paia feels its edge as a thin, cold line against her skin. She knows better than to struggle. She’d be terrified, but she knows something else that Kenzo Baraga does not.

  An interesting thing happens during the suspended moment while Baraga grips her tight against him, breathing hard from defiance and adrenaline, while the knife blade warms from her own nervous heat, while Fire watches and watches, each second stretching into an eternity. As he watches, the visible signs of his fury diminish. His snarl fades, and with it, his gilded glow and his scales. The wildfires of outrage die in his eyes, leaving them empty and remote, no longer golden but as black as the eternal void. It’s a look of failure, of profound defeat.

  When at last he moves, it’s like Time restarting. Only a pace or two between them, but this also seems to take forever until, with the speed of a snake strike, Fire grabs Baraga’s arm, jerks the knife clear and crushes the Media King’s wrist to pulp in his gilt-clawed fist.

  Baraga cries out in pain and shock and disbelief. The knife spins through the air, away into darkness, clattering wetly against nameless machinery. Paia is flung out of Baraga’s grasp, stumbling against the camera. Fire has him by the throat and he’s writhing, gasping for help. But those watching from the shadows are not soldiers. Their only loyalty is to their paychecks. And if a few of them are concerned enough to alert the sentries in the outer halls, it’s too late by the time those boys in uniform storm the door of the studio, automatic weapons raised before them like talismans of their faith.

  By then, Fire has already taken Baraga’s head between both hands, as if the stunned and struggling man was straw or feathers, and twisted once. The crunch is like sticks breaking. Fire holds the limp weight aloft for a moment, shakes it gently, then lets it drop. He steps over the corpse, man-sized again but no less intimidating. He stops beside the bleeding girl and pins the terrified medic with a surprisingly gentle regard. “Can you save her?”

  The man swallows. “I’ll sure try.”

  “See that you do.”

  With a deft and iron twisting of his fingers, Fire snaps the girl’s manacles, then turns away toward Paia.

  “Come, beloved,” he says with a tired sigh. “We have an appointment to keep.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  “What is it, dear knight?” Erde cannot imagine how the old man could have succeeded where the dragons so far have failed. But she’s just seen Captain Wender turn away with a grim look, and she refuses to join these men in their gloom and despair. Hal’s scholarly side has proved useful before. “What is their Purpose?”

  The wind has come up again, flinging snow into Hal’s haggard face as he stares up at the dragon and struggles to speak.

  “Milady,” Wender pleads. “Let me bring him inside, out of this damnable weather, before you get him started again with theories and explanations!”

  “Of course, Captain! Though he would be warm enough, tucked next to the dragon.”

  “And what about the rest of us?” complains Rainer, dryly amused.

  “Oh! I . . . forgive me! I . . .!” Again, Erde is too flustered to continue. It seems she will never get a full sentence out in the young king’s presence.

  “Come, Kurt,” he says briskly. “Shelter for all.”

  He orders the braziers stoked, food and wine brought, then gestures his knights into position around the pavilion. Graciously, he offers his own arm to support the protesting but still tottering Hal through the thickening snow into the comparative warmth of the tent. Inside, Wender hangs Hal’s sword back on its hook, and draws up a circle of fur-draped camp chairs. Hal stalls at the doorway, staring in dismay at the chaos of books and papers and lanterns and jumbled furniture. Erde sees him calculating the depth of his plunge into fevered unreason. He lets Rainer lower him into the nearest chair.

  “How long, Kurt?” he asks quietly.

  “Milord?”

  “How long was I . . . unwell?”

  Wender decides to play it lightly. “Depends, milord.”

  “On what?”

  “On where you think the borderline might be.” Wender gestures toward the higher, messier stacks of books. “It all sounds crazy to me, so who am I to judge?”

  “You’re a patient man, Kurt.” Hal’s shoulders relax, and he smiles, rubbing his chin. “I sure need a trim.”

  “Indeed, milord.”

  The smile and the calmer manner bring back the elder knight of Erde’s fond memory. She settles into the chair next to him once the king has indicated that he prefers to remain standing for a while. “I’m so relieved.”

  “No more than I.” He glances at his hands, sees that they’re smeared with mud and dried blood. “Kurt, some hot water, when you have the chance.” Wender has it ready, and a clean cloth, and is just clearing space on one of the tables when a boy appears with food and warmed wine. Hal washes intently, as if a proper scrubbing might scour away the shame of his madness. With dripping hands, he slicks back his unkempt hair, then turns stiffly in his chair to eye his king, who leans against a tent pole, watching.

  “You’re very quiet, my liege.”

  “I’m savoring the relief of having you back again.”

  “You’re very kind to say so. And I, of course, have no idea of how to apologize.”

  “No apologies needed.”

  “If not for the dragon . . .”

  “If not for the dragon, you’d be dead of a sword thrust, in my service. And I would have lost my good right hand.”

  “Well . . .” Hal looks down again to study his palms, clean this time, at least visibly. “It’s not all madness, you know. And I really do believe I’ve found some answers.”

  “No one doubts you, dear knight!” Erde leans toward him, her hand on his arm. “Tell us! That is, if you’re feeling well enough.”

  Her eager concern and the warm cup of wine that Wender thrusts into his fist are all the encourageme
nt the old soldier requires. He takes a long swig, then sets the cup aside. “You recall, my girl, way back when we pondered the meaning of the answers that odd fellow Gerrasch gave us?”

  Erde nods. “You’d think him all the odder if you could see him now.”

  Hal looks stunned. “You’ve seen him? I thought he’d died, or gone away. Where did you see him?”

  “When is actually the question, my knight. Very far in the future, where he has become . . . almost a man, but still very much Gerrasch. You’d recognize him. He is Air’s dragon guide.”

  “Ahhhhhhh. No wonder! A sort of . . . immortal, is he?”

  “A halfling creature. Part man, part dragon-stuff.”

  Hal’s stare goes inward for a moment, contemplating this new miracle. “But, remember, when we asked what the Purpose was, he said, ‘to fix what’s broken’?”

  “Of course.”

  “Well, I know now what’s broken.”

  Erde is too concerned for his delicate health to simply declare this mystery already solved, that it’s the Earth itself that’s broken, and the question is how to fix it. Nor is this the time to describe to him just how broken. Can these men, for whom disaster means a really bad winter, ever comprehend the devastation that Rose intuited, outside the White City? Instead, she refills his wine cup and hands it to him, putting on her listening expression, while inside she battles with the dragon’s impatience as well as her own. Now that Hal is healed to the best of his abilities, Earth wants to get back to the Grove, and it’s hard for her to disagree with him. “Tell me your theory, good knight.”

  “It’s all in the book, if only I’d read more carefully, though the understanding is a bit buried by metaphor, perhaps so that it would not fall into the wrong hands. For it is, you see, rather heretical.”

  “My whole life is heretical, Sir Hal. After all, I consort with dragons.”

  “Indeed you do.” He smiles. “Lucky girl. Anyhow, according to my study, the world was not created by God directly, as it says in the Bible, but by elemental dragons. Four dragons: Earth, Water, Fire, and Air. Whether they be His creatures or not is, I believe, an article of faith.”