The Book of Water Read online

  She tapped at him mentally to get his attention.

  —Has she said, Dragon, why she’s Called you?

  A flood of images burst into her head, tumbling, crowding, flashing past too fast to be made sense of. Erde slammed up a barrier of protest and sent back an image of herself drowning. Earth relayed apologies and braked reluctantly to the snail-pace of language.

  —Oh, wonder! Oh, devastation!

  —What? Dragon, what is it?

  —Wonder that I have found my sister again!

  Again? Erde puzzled at that but there was first a more pressing concern.

  —What could be bad about that?

  —Devastation that it is not she who Called!

  —Not? How do you know?

  —She, too, has heard the Call, from the depths of the sea, and has waked to answer it.

  Erde conjured images of comfort and reassurance.

  —It is another who Calls. She thinks she knows who.

  —Can she tell you your Purpose?

  —She’s hardly sure of her own. But she remembers more than I.

  —What is her name?

  Erde hoped she did not offend by asking. She knew how sensitive dragons could be about their naming. But Earth seemed to find great joy in the announcement.

  —Her name is Water.

  Water. Earth and Water. A notion began in Erde’s brain that slid away forgotten as Endoch stilled suddenly, losing his grin. He turned to stare at the narrow space of sand between the dark rusting wall and the impossible pincushion trees. Erde listened as he was listening, hard with bated breath.

  “Uh-oh,” he said, and she had no trouble understanding his meaning.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  N’Doch hears it now, an approaching throng. He’d have heard it a lot sooner if he’d been paying less attention to his chances for stardom and more to his personal safety. He can even hear the clang of the weapons—hoes, rakes, tire irons. They’ve brought whatever was to hand, and probably a raggedly lethal assortment of firearms. This’ll really give the cameras something to focus on. He’s surprised the brothers didn’t recognize a vid-shoot when they saw it, but he knows they could never have roused the bidonville with a complaint about stolen tomatoes. The bunch of them must have charged in hollering about mutant monsters attacking the beach. It’s mostly fishermen who live in the shantytown, a hard life and getting harder. They’ll be worried about their boats, and these days, they’ll believe anything bad about the water.

  N’Doch has to laugh at that. If they think his own little silver-blue critter could do damage to one of those old hard-built boats, wait till they see this big brown guy. Then he wonders if the fishermen are in on it, too. Maybe the whole town knew about the shoot except him.

  Doesn’t matter. He’s deep into it now. For at least the fifth time that day, he ponders his routes of escape. He can see the white girl has the same idea. She’s casing the nearest fishing boat with obvious intent to board.

  “Can’t hide there,” he cautions. “First place they’ll look.”

  She gazes at him uncomprehendingly.

  “Damn. Forgot.” He’d felt like they were communicating pretty well until he’d had to fall back on words. Then he gets excited all over again. This has got to be it, his big moment, where he gets to rescue the girl from the ravening horde and be the hero. He wishes he’d found more to eat today. One tomato is hardly an energy-builder. He’s not sure yet how the cybercritters fit in. The brown one, at least, is much too big for the hidey-hole N’Doch is contemplating. He thinks the blue one will just make it, but probably they’re meant to face down the crowd first as a diversion while he makes a run for it with the girl. He finds he’s not very happy about that. It means one or both of the critters will likely be torn apart by the mob, to rouse the viewer’s blood lust a little and create more sympathy for the hapless escapees. He hopes it’s not the little blue one, though her size and beauty make her the prime candidate. But he reminds himself she’s only a prop. He shouldn’t be thinking of her as his.

  Anyhow, he knows what he should do. The only question is, whether he should wait until the crowd comes into view around the landing craft, to help build suspense and give the cameras a dramatic long shot. By now, the critters have their heads high and searching. The girl is looking this way and that, especially at him. Her eyes are very clearly demanding help. He remembers she knows at least some version of the story line—probably she’s trying to cue him that it’s time to make his move. Besides, he’s hearing that weird music in his head again.

  “Okay, let’s go!” N’Doch beckons hugely, then recalls how, when he did his walk-on, the director singled him out of the whole crowd of extras and told him to stop acting so hard.

  “Acting!” she’d said, as if it was some kind of dirty word.

  So N’Doch backs off his mugging and gesturing and trots up the beach to cut around the end of the fishing fleet. He expects the girl to follow, but beside the last boat he looks back and she hasn’t, though the silver-blue critter is close behind, tailing him like a big long-necked dog. Her manner isn’t doglike, however. She seems to be urging him to hurry. The mob is so close, he can distinguish individual voices and words. Any moment, they’ll be in sight. N’Doch sprints back down the beach and grabs the girl’s hand to haul her into action. She resists only briefly. Now the brown guy is moving, too. They both get the idea and hurry after N’Doch. He gestures at them to watch where they step.

  On the other side of the fishing fleet, the super-tanker awaits them, as long and high as a city block, its bow broken and sunk so deep into the sand that it looks like it grew there. Gaping holes smile darkly, scars of the harbor mines that took it out when it blundered into them during the storm. The girl stares at it horrified, as if she has no idea what she’s looking at. Even the critters seem to hesitate. N’Doch takes the girl’s hand again and races for the largest gap, but when they get there and he’s pulled her into its shadow, it’s plain the big guy will never fit.

  The one from the water, his one, checks out the ragged opening. It’s close. She’s wider than he’s guessed and the metal edges are nasty. But she heads right in. N’Doch winces, worried for her fine silky fur or her delicate fleshy crest, then blinks as she seems to thin and elongate, and slip through easily. N’Doch is sure his eyes have given out for a moment, as if his vision blurred, just for an instant, then the moment passes and the sea critter is there inside the hold with him and the girl, looking very self-satisfied. He shakes his head, wondering, but he can’t spend time on it now. The big guy is still outside in the hot sun, nosing around the sharp edges of the gap. His curving horns clank against the rusted metal, then he withdraws. N’Doch goes to help him, in case he’s been wrong about this one’s size as well.

  When he steps out into the sun, he can hear the mob just about to spill, foaming at the mouth, from behind the fishing fleet. He glances swiftly about. No sign of the big cybercritter. The wide stretch of sand is empty, but for scattered rubble and a big rock halfway toward the water. A big brown rock that wasn’t there before.

  N’Doch squints at it, frowning. For the barest instant, he can see it as the cybercritter, settling in to wait out the battle. Then it’s a rock again, and he knows the mob will also see a rock, and ignore it.

  Man, he marvels that is one amazing piece of equipment.

  Then the girl is behind him, pulling him out of the sunlight.

  “Gehen wir,” she whispers urgently.

  N’Doch holds back, pointing to the new brown boulder, but she only nods and yanks on him some more.

  “Ja, ha, gehen wir! Schnell!”

  Finally he gets it. This miracle is nothing new to her at all. Probably she does lots of these high-tech vids. Feeling obscurely put down, N’Doch shrugs and brushes past her with a sharp gesture. “This way.”

  The blue beast is waiting in the shadows. She chirps at him briskly as he nears. It sounds as much like an order as like encouragement, but for her sake, N�
�Doch chooses the widest passage into the bowels of the downed ship-giant. He leads them toward the stern, the seaward end, where the lowest holds are filled with water and hung with seaweed and barnacles and mutant starfish with too many arms. The fishermen don’t like the tanker. Not even the most destitute will live in it, though the upper decks are mostly intact and dry, above the high water mark. They claim that the rotting bodies of dead sailors wash about in the holds to rise at night and walk the shredded decks. N’Doch has found a bone or two, nothing more. After all, the fish visit the wrecks at high tide, and with food as scarce as it is, they’re not likely to leave much behind. As for any lurking ghosts, he’s grateful to them if they keep unwanted visitors from penetrating as deeply into the tanker’s wet gloom as he dares to go.

  This girl, he guesses, would side with the fishermen. She looks near to panic in the close dim passages. At the raised sill of a door hatch, N’Doch puts on the charm to urge her forward. She returns him a look of offended bravado but takes his offered hand anyway, sticking close behind him as he negotiates a section of collapsed decking. The hole is filled with surging black water. N’Doch isn’t worried about his footing. He knows every nook and cranny. What’s bothering him is the cameras, now he’s disappeared inside the ship. Then he figures the girl must carry a camera with her, maybe one of those micro-implants that uses her eyes as the lens. He’s seen an infoshow about the r & d on that but he’s surprised to see it’s already in commercial use. Of course, the Media get all the good tech before anyone. They’re the ones with the real money in this world, after all.

  Past another hatch, he reaches a dry level spot where light drops through a blown-out exhaust stack. The girl looks up, as if light alone could save her life. She hugs the dank wall, breathing hard and shallow, but ready to continue. N’Doch checks back for the blue cybercritter. She’s just stepping daintily through the hatchway behind them, and again he finds himself blinking at her and staring, because she seems so much shorter and longer than she did outside, almost an entirely different shape. And if she was human, he’d say she’s preening a bit, to be sure he’s noticed. He thinks of the big guy’s gift for looking like a rock and begins to suspect this one of harboring other equally mysterious skills.

  Then he hears banging and raucous shouts echoing from the gap amidships. The mob’ll be in after them soon, worked up enough to dare coming inside a ways. He’s got to get moving again, now the girl has caught her breath. The hardest part’s still ahead of them.

  He signals the girl and moves on down the slanted passage. He wishes he could tell her how he thinks of this huge vessel as a man lying dead in the water. They’d been threading through his stove-in rib cage, and now they’ve reached his broken, sunken spine. N’Doch eases around a mass of wreckage, some vast engine or turbine hurled upward by the blast, only to fall back, crushing everything in its path. When he’s in here, N’Doch can’t help picturing the ship’s gallant last moments. He’s written songs about it, but none yet that’s satisfied him. The mammoth scale of the event as he imagines it is beyond the range of his ancient keyboard and amps. One of the reasons he wants so badly to be famous is so he can afford better equipment.

  He slows a bit, knowing what’s just ahead. They creep around a particularly dark corner—even N’Doch has his hand to the wall, feeling his way. Then, in front of them, the dark gets darker and the floor falls away. There were stairs here once. Now water laps along the base of the walls where they end in blackness. This hold was breached only below the waterline. It is lightless and vast, and the moist air is close with rank sea smells. The ebb and flow of water makes the stressed and rusting metal creak and groan. It’s this part of the ship that gives rise to tales of the walking dead.

  “And here’s the bad news,” murmurs N’Doch from the edge. “We gotta swim across.” He doesn’t mention that the local shark herd likes to hang out in this cooler, darker water. As his eyes adjust, he sees the whites of the girl’s eyes shift. She’s staring at him as if she suspects his meaning. He nods, making broad swimming motions he hopes she and her camera can pick up in the faint light.

  “Ich kann nicht.” She backs up sharply, shaking her head.

  N’Doch doesn’t blame her really. This part couldn’t have been in the script she read ’cause he’s just written it in. But she’s getting good pay for this, so he shrugs and jabs a thumb behind them, where the shouts and banging make it sound like the ship is being torn apart for salvage. He tries to sound tough and heroic.

  “No choice, babe. Sorry.”

  The girl eyes him owlishly. N’Doch likes her little glower. It makes her look brave, even if she isn’t. Except really, she is, to have come this far past the scripted action. He wonders if the story includes a big love scene where she gives herself to him in gratitude for being so manfully rescued. Usually, he’d be up for that, as it were, even on camera, though he’s never tried that before. But somehow, this is different. She is different. First, she’s so young. He knows all the hot sexpot vid stars are around her age, but somehow, she seems even younger. He can’t bring himself to undress her in his mind. He’s embarrassed to think that “innocent” might be the word he’s looking for, but there it is. He doesn’t have a sister, but this is probably what it’s like. He feels more like protecting her than making love to her.

  And it’s weird, feeling so responsible. N’Doch figures he’s really getting into the role now. In which case, he’d better set a strong example. He crouches at the edge, then shoves off lightly into the water with hardly a splash. No use announcing your presence to the damn sharks. If they’re here, they’ll find you soon enough. Reciting private incantations against all sea vermin, he beckons encouragingly and treads water to give the girl a moment to work up her nerve.

  But she’s still shaking her head and making big warding gestures with both her arms.

  “Nein! Nein! Ich kann nicht schwimmen!”

  She seems to be trying to explain her reluctance. N’Doch is glad she’s smart enough to keep her voice down despite her panic. He’s not too hot on strange dark places either, but all he wants right now is to see her in the water. The sooner she’s in, the sooner they’re both out. He’d like to tell her to stop acting so hard, like the director did to him. Instead, he frowns at her fiercely. She just glares right back at him.

  Suddenly there is motion in the darkness. N’Doch makes for the edge, sure it’s the sharks. But it’s the blue cybercritter, barely visible, sliding silently into the water. She glides over, nudging him insistently. She doesn’t give up until he wraps an arm around her neck to keep from being swamped. He feels like he’s just been boarded by the Harbor Patrol. Dragging him with her, the critter eases sideways against the edge of the drop-off, warbling calming music to the girl.

  “Gott sei Dank!” the girl murmurs. To N’Doch’s amazement, she starts stripping off her tall leather boots and vest. She bundles them up and, clutching them to her thin chest with one arm, she lowers herself into the water to hang on to the edge for dear life while the cybercritter coasts along beside her. With a desperate lurch and grab, the girl flings herself astride the critter’s back and holds tight with her free arm. In the dim reflected murmur of light sifting through random cracks and punctures, N’Doch sees both terror and determination sculpting her face into something as steady as stone. She doesn’t seem to care that she’s gotten wet, just that there’s something solid underneath her.

  Now N’Doch gets it at last. He’s thought it was the sharks she’s afraid of, not the water. He’s a little embarrassed, hopes he hasn’t messed up the script. But hey, how was he to know a grown-up girl like her wouldn’t know how to swim?

  But now the cybercritter is singing an impatient demand for directions. He can tell she’s not too interested in hanging out in a shark tank either. N’Doch pulls himself together and points, and the blue beast bears them secretly into darkness.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Dragons are certainly the world’s cleverest creatu
res, thought Erde gratefully as she clung to Water’s long silky neck and struggled to keep her boot bundle dry. She understood that Endoch wasn’t being cruel or stupid, trying to force her into the water. He didn’t know she was a baron’s daughter and lucky to have been taught how to read, never mind a skill so unladylike as swimming. Indeed, she envied his ease with it—to be able to glide over this fathomless black without fear of sinking would put an entire category of nightmares to rest. Hal had promised to teach her, but they’d never found the time. Besides, it had been so cold up there—she thought of home now as “up” because she knew it got warmer as you traveled farther south and surely the Germanies must be very far north of any place as hot as this. But the cold hadn’t been normal. Right in the middle of August, it had snowed. The smaller ponds had even iced over. And terrible storms and hail and too much rain. Just thinking of it made her shiver. That weird, unseasonable weather had roused the villagers to go out hunting the witch responsible for the curse. She would have been their victim, had Fra Guill had his way.

  Meanwhile, here she was, running from another howling mob, hiding in another cave. Erde recalled the peace and pleasure of Deep Moor and nearly wept. She’d had such a short time in that magical valley, with Rose and the other women who guarded and nurtured its secrets, yet somehow she had come to think of it as home. She had no other, certainly not Tor Alte, not as long as her father remained under the priest’s evil sway. And now she didn’t even have Deep Moor—she had a dark and noisy pit filled with salty, smelly water.

  She caught herself whining, and didn’t at all like the sound of it. At least the water was cooler than the fetid air. And how dare she whine when they’d found another dragon, one who could understand her, even if its dragon guide could not? Erde did not feel Water in her head like she did her own dragon. Water responded via a fast relay to Earth and back again. This dragon-to-dragon communication seemed virtually instantaneous, as real magic should be. It was as good as having an interpreter standing right at your ear.