The Book of Water Read online

  What did not seem to be so clear or instantaneous was Water’s communication with Endoch. But Erde remembered that it had taken her a while, several days in fact, to learn how to “talk” properly with Earth. Endoch was probably “hearing” more than he realized. It had been that way for her, and then understanding had arrived rather suddenly, like a morning fog lifting off the mountains. From then on, it had been as natural as breathing.

  For now, Endoch had fallen into nodding and pointing a lot, rather like she’d had to do when she’d lost her voice. But she guessed he had met a lot of people who didn’t speak his language, since he acted as if it was nothing odd, merely inconvenient.

  And so, with broad gestures and murmured incoherencies, he led them far across the dark lagoon to an equally dark shore. Finally, Erde heard rather than saw him let go of Water’s neck and swim several long strokes to clamber up on a bank that rang softly under the weight of his step. Water slid alongside this shore while Erde felt for stone or sand, anything solid to stand on. Instead, she found Endoch’s hand, hauling her out of the water. He drew her quickly away from the groaning edge, which was hard as stone but smelled like a smithy’s rubbish pile.

  “Come on,” he said quietly. “This way.”

  Erde’s alert ear detected familiar syllables. “Kommen?” She felt him stop short and turn in the darkness.

  “Yeah,” he said with slow surprise. “That’s right, come on.”

  “Ja,” said Erde. “Ich komme.”

  “Yeah?” He gave a little laugh of disbelief.

  “Ja.”

  “Ja,” he repeated experimentally, mimicking her with an actor’s precision. Then he slapped his forehead. “Of course! It’s German. You’re speaking German. It sounds a little different, y’know? I didn’t recognize it at first.”

  Erde was sorry to disappoint him, but her silence told all.

  “No, huh? Okay, lemmesee . . . German . . . I know that one. It’s all over those big trucks we scavenge. It’s, um . . . Deutschland!”

  “Jawohl. Deutsch.” Erde almost giggled. He was close, but how funny that he had turned a mere language into an entire kingdom. Deutschland? Didn’t he know that a whole lot of kingdoms and duchies spoke German?

  “Deutsch,” he repeated. “That’s right, Deutsch.”

  Water announced herself with a wet nudge at Erde’s shoulder. There were lanterns or torchlight flickering along the walls of the opposite shore.

  “Sei ist hier,” Erde whispered anxiously. “Gehen wir, ja?” But Endoch had spotted the approaching light and was already drawing them away from the water. Erde sensed the tunnel closing in around them again. She put out a hand and immediately jerked it back, suppressing a squeal. The wall was slimy. Cold strings of stuff gave damply under her fingers. Probably the same stuff so soft and slippery beneath her feet. A childish horror rose up in her gullet. Surely, like Jonah in the Bible, she was being swallowed alive!

  But Water was there at her back to nudge her along when she froze. The dragon’s breath was like a warm breeze beside her ear. Erde thought of her beloved horse Micha. Her terror eased, and she was able to move on. Only for the dragons’ sake would she set foot in such a terrible place.

  Soon she realized she could see again, mostly faint shapes of gray and grayer, but at least now she could make out Endoch’s tall, slim form moving along the passage ahead of her. The ground slanted upward, which Erde took as a fair and welcome sign that she might soon see the light of day again.

  At the bottom of a flight of steps, Endoch paused and glanced back. “Everyone okay so far?”

  Erde understood only his tone of concern. She nodded and picked up her pace a bit.

  “Almost there.”

  She heard anticipation in his voice now, and a hint of pride. She climbed the steps behind him thoughtfully. This place he was taking them must be something special, maybe his family stronghold, and this was the hidden entrance. Erde was surprised by his generosity. She wasn’t sure she’d reveal such a secret to someone she’d just met. But after all, it was his own skin he was saving, as well as hers.

  A thin shaft of light from above lit the top of the steps. A glow down the passage promised a lot more beyond. Erde gazed about as details rose into visibility, like riders appearing out of a mist. She saw a long narrow corridor with a flat floor and a low, absolutely flat ceiling. She’d never encountered a place so rigorously rectangular or even imagined such a thing was possible. Yet, for all the apparent right angles, there was not a sharp edge anywhere. The walls were very light-colored and entirely smooth, without a crack or mortar line, only a seam every so often, flanked by rows of close-set little knobs, either decorative or some kind of fastener. Cautiously, she put a fingertip, then her entire palm to the surface. It was dry and faintly cool to the touch. Clearly, they had left the cave without her noticing, and climbed up into a strange sort of building. Endoch’s family must be very powerful if this was the castle they lived in.

  She was so busy studying the odd walls as she moved along them that she was unprepared for the space beyond. Passing through a doorway, she stopped short, letting her boot bundle slide unnoticed to the floor.

  A great-hall, she thought, or even a cathedral.

  But there was no altar or throne to be seen, no choir stalls or banqueting table. She stood in a tall, square room with rows of huge, many-paned windows set high up on three of the four pale walls. The ceiling above was lost behind the bright glare through the glass. Many of the panes were cracked or missing, letting currents of air into the room to swirl dust and insects about in the long thick pillars of light falling past shadowed corners toward the floor.

  The floor made her nervous. It seemed to be floating. Erde bent and laid a hand to it. It felt and looked like wood but was as seamless and smooth as pond water at dawn.

  Endoch appeared out of the shadows, grinning boyishly. “Isn’t it great? Isn’t it just mega?”

  Erde hated to dampen such luminous pride, but how long should she go on pretending she understood what he was saying? Water slipped in behind her and padded into the sunlight and smoky air. Erde watched her slim and lengthen toward the high bank of windows, and knew her for a shape-shifter. Quite astonishing to observe for the first time, really, but nothing surprising. Shape-shifting was an attribute of dragons often mentioned in the lore, one that Earth, being tied to soil and stone, did not possess. Erde hoped he would not be jealous.

  She glanced at Endoch, and found him watching the she-dragon with a narrowed eye. He, too, had noticed the shape change, but he seemed puzzled by it, as if unsure that he’d actually seen it. She wondered if his study of the dragon lore had been as complete as her own. She knew that much of a young man’s time must be spent in the armorer’s practice yard or out with the Hunt, but surely he could have picked up the basic essentials just by paying good attention to the bard tales or the old songs sung at the village festivals. If he didn’t know the lore, he’d have no idea what his duty was as Water’s dragon guide. She could certainly tell him, but Erde wondered if he’d even listen to advice from someone so much younger, and a girl.

  Whatever conclusion he’d reached, Endoch finally pulled out of his stare with a quick doglike shake of his head and went back to the entrance to yank on a piece of the wall beside it. When it began to swing forward, Erde realized it was a door, huge and rounded at the corners. Endoch pivoted it carefully into place so it settled against the opening with a heavy muffled clang. He twisted some kind of latch that squealed as he turned it, then came away, dusting his palms together with a satisfied air.

  “That’ll keep ’em guessing. No one’s ever got past the shark tank so far, but you never know. . . .”

  Erde nodded helpfully, which she thought was more polite than shrugging and pointing. The newly relaxed tilt of his shoulders did suggest that he felt they’d finally escaped their pursuers. Taking her first easy breath in a while, Erde rolled up her dripping legging and began to worry about Earth.

&nb
sp; She had no sense of how far they were from where they’d left him on the sand beside the ocean. Since finding each other two months before, she and the dragon had hardly been separated. The void his absence left inside her was an almost physical pain. When he used his gift of stillness to become rocklike, or to still even further to virtual invisibility, it took all of his energy and concentration, or at least that was his explanation for why they could not communicate while he was being invisible. Erde had been sending him a stream of images just in case, ever since following Endoch into the cave. Now that they were in a more dragon-sized room, Earth could join them if only she could send him a good image of it, for he was able to transport himself to any place he could picture clearly in his mind.

  Just as she was pondering what to do next, there he was, winking into existence beside Water in the middle of the room. Erde ran to him joyfully.

  —Dragon! How did you get here?

  —My sister! She showed me and I came.

  Like an excited child returned from a great adventure, he began filling her head with views of the mob milling and shouting while he’d been hiding in plain view on the beach.

  —Water can be with you even when you’re invisible?

  Assent. A proud dragon nod inside her head.

  —How wonderful.

  —Yes, she is wonderful. She is my sister.

  —I know, I know.

  Then Erde felt ashamed, for she knew she’d sounded snappish. He was still so caught up in the wonder of acquiring a sibling. She didn’t blame him, particularly since the sibling’s gifts seemed to dovetail so conveniently with his own. But she worried now that she, not he, might be the jealous one. She would just try to think of it as having two dragons instead of one. She was eager to question Water about who she thought the Caller was, and about what else she might know that Earth did not. But first, there was the question of Endoch.

  —Dragon, is Water sure this dark man is her dragon guide?

  Assent, query, puzzlement.

  —Well, I mean, he . . . I don’t think he knows very much about dragons.

  Earth looked at her, then looked across the room at Endoch, who had frozen in mid-stride and stood staring at them with his mouth open.

  —Hmmm. My sister says maybe you are right.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  N’Doch knows what he’s seen. He’s been watching the silver one since she did her growing taller thing right in front of him, and then—in a moment shorter than an eye blink—the big guy is there beside her. Three-D and substantial. Definitely not a hologram. N’Doch notes that the white girl can actually lean her whole weight against the critter’s scaly brown shoulder.

  The problem is, he can’t believe it. He wants to, but he just can’t. He’s always told himself those vid people can do anything. Hire them to put men on Mars, he’s always said. They’d get it done soon enough, and make a good show out of it, too.

  But here, in the dusty shadow and light of his favorite hiding place, his own secret kingdom, this officers’ gymnasium, his credulity is tempered by the still, sane presence of the space. Here—safe, relaxed, clearheaded—he finally has to admit that he’s been making up most of his explanations for the events of the last half hour, or at least stretching what he’s heard to fit what he’s been seeing. He’s never seen a real cybercritter, only the infoshows about the cutting edge developments in special effects, shows he realizes are no more reliable than your everyday newscast. Because he wants them to be true, somehow they become true when he needs them to. But right now, in this calm room, away from the constant hype and hustle of his daily life, those stories are no longer working.

  But he’s never been without a story, so what should the new story be? The big guy was on the beach, and now he’s here. Apparently translated through steel and plastic and wood within the space of a breath. Not an easy thing to explain in the world as N’Doch knows it. In fact, it’s a bigger stretch than cybercritters.

  And then there’s the silver one with her head-invading music. The right music. His music.

  N’Doch finds himself weak at the knees again. He’s dimly aware that his arm is hurting where the short brother slashed him. He knows he should be paying more attention to the wound, getting it cleaned and covered before any one of a billion bugs take up residence. But this other matter has him too distracted.

  “This is all a setup, right?” he asks the girl, one last chance at a rational explanation. “You know, for the vid?” If she’s not an actress, if she’s making this up as she goes along, just like he is—and her look of innocent bewilderment is almost enough to convince him she is—then what are these critters?

  If not a vid-tech special effect, then . . . what?

  To stave off the upswelling panic, he resorts to an exercise of logic. Either they’re real, these critters, or they’re not. Fine. If they’re not real, he’s seeing things. If he’s seeing things, he’s either sick or crazy. Or—he remembers the tomato—he’s been drugged.

  But he doesn’t think he’s crazy, and he doesn’t feel drugged, at least not the usual way. And except for the growing heat in his arm, he feels healthy enough. He’d managed not to drink any of the sea water drenching him, and he’d spotted both critters within moments of being cut. No bug goes to work that quick. Anyhow, the brothers saw them, too. That’s what saved his life.

  Which means they’re real, the conclusion he’d already reached and explained away with invented technology. But if they’re real and not cybercritters, then what the hell are they?

  This time the panic will not be kept down. Rising up with it comes a notion that defies all his attempts at logic. N’Doch tries to ignore it, but he knows where it comes from. It’s the same part of him he goes to when he writes his music, where the answers have nothing to do with logic, they just appear out of his soul like magic.

  Appear like magic. That was it. That was the notion he was trying to avoid. Magic.

  N’Doch meets the great golden gaze of the larger critter and gives in. His knees buckle.

  * * *

  Erde saw the fear rush into his eyes just before he collapsed. It was like watching black water flood a ditch. Earth’s sudden arrival must have frightened him. The dragon was big, after all, though not nearly as big as she’d thought a dragon should be. And he could look terrifying if you didn’t know him. But why was Endoch scared now, when he hadn’t been before, back on the beach? Must be he was better at covering it up than she was.

  Then she noticed there was blood on the floor where he’d fallen, and recalled the vicious swipe the man with the club had delivered. She relayed the reminder to Earth, but it was Water who went to him, lowering her sleek head to nose at him, crooning gently. Endoch yelped and scrambled backward on ankles and elbows as if terrified. Erde thought Water was the least sort of dragon to be frightened of, but Endoch’s terror rang in the air like a hammered bell. Erde found herself gripping Earth’s neck crest in sympathy. She could sense the dragon’s bemused surprise.

  —He is frightened. He does not know what she is.

  Erde nodded, remembering.

  —I didn’t know who you were either, when I first saw you. I thought you were going to eat me.

  A graver negative than usual washed across her mind.

  —What, not who. He does not know what a dragon is.

  This, Erde could not imagine.

  —You mean, he doesn’t believe in dragons?

  She’d met people like that, though they were rare. They usually didn’t believe in witchcraft either, until someone laid a proper spell on them. But most people thought witches and dragons were the minions of Satan, which was why Fra Guill’s campaign against them roused such fervor throughout the countryside. But Erde knew better, about both dragons and witches.

  The question was, how to convince Endoch?

  * * *

  N’Doch’s whole world is turning upside down.

  He’s too old to believe in magic, or maybe too young. His weird grandfa
ther believes in magic, for God’s sake, and he’s so uncool and old-fashioned, it’s an embarrassment to have him in the family. Not that you ever saw anything of him, living all alone out in the bush like he does. The old man once told him towns were bad for his health. Well, yeah, N’Doch recalls replying, but so is being a hermit.

  N’Doch’s fear retreats a bit before a vivid rush of childhood memories, rising like a flight of birds to distract him: the heat and red dust of the bush, the stillness at midday, the scent of parched vegetation. His mama often sent him out to stay with Papa Djawara after his father took off and she was so busy working. Jeez, the man was old even then. And weird. N’Doch feels his mouth curl in an involuntary grin. The old man did tell great stories. Sang them, really. Probably what got me started, N’Doch realizes, listening to all those long songs that went on verse after verse, late into the night, unbelievable yarns about powerful shamans and evil curses and spirits of the dead that enter the bodies of men and animals in order to work their will among the living. The usual old tribal stuff.

  But there was that one long tale, N’Doch recalls, one that was different from the rest and the old man’s special favorite. He always reworked it so it was about the adventures of a young man named Water. As N’Doch roots around trying to retrieve it from faded memory, he finds himself gazing up into a pair of liquid dark eyes that are focused on him with alarming intensity. He reads concern there, yes, but also rebuke and impatience. He remembers the song now, and the memory takes his breath away: a young man named Water meets up with a monster from the sea. Only she’s not a monster, she’s a magical creature, a dragon, and the whole long song is about the quest they embark on to save the world. He doesn’t recall ever hearing the ending. He always fell asleep first.