Dragonfield (15 page)

Mouthing a small lump of unground bone out of the box, I swallowed it again. Then I turned back and crossed over the platform to the alien ship.

“Necros!” I called out as I crawled. “Come. I would talk with you.”

He came at once, though with a slight reluctance on his face, his stalks drooping and his first section slightly faded. I think he already knew what I had to say.

“The boxes are thin,” I said. “There is no time for him.” I gestured with one stalk towards the alien who raised on one side and was babbling again.

“Fe-fi-fo-fum,” spewed the translator. Nonsense in any language is still nonsense. “Be he live or be he dead, I’ll grind his bones to make my bread.”

“What in the universe is bread?” I asked.

Necros touched me, mouth to mouth, then raised his chin, showing me his neck section, the fine lumps of his heart beating a rhythm through the translucent skin. He could not have been more subservient.

“I will work long into the third work period,” he said. “Do you not see that it is such things—bread, night, seasons—that we must salvage from him.
Only with salvage,”
he reminded me,
“is growth.”

I thought of the silty boxes where we would soon lie down and mate, starting the next generation wiggling through our bodies and out our mouths. “Yes,” I said at last, “you are right this time. But still you will have to work the extra period to make up for it.”

He quivered sectionally and scurried back to the alien. At his touch, the alien fainted, though I suspected that he would revive again soon.

Necros 29 kept his word. He worked the extra load and so much salvage quickened him. He entered maturity early yet lost none of the enthusiasm of a youngling. It was delightful to see.

Once he came to me wriggling with joy. “I have come to something new,” he said. “Something not-found which is now found. It is called
haiku.”
He savored the word and gave it directly into my mouth.

I let the word slide down slowly, section by section, to my sack and the slow grinding began. Then it stopped. “I do not comprehend this word,
haiku,”
I said. “It means no more than his
fe-fi’s.”

Necros shivered deliciously. “It is a poem that is worked in sections,” he said.

“A poem in sections?” It
was
a new idea—and quite fine.

“There are seventeen sections broken into bodies of five-seven-five. And there are rules.”

“That is the first time your poet has shown that he understands order,” I said thoughtfully. “Perhaps I was right to let you salvage him.”

Necros nodded, showing his neck section for good measure. “These are the rules. First the poem must rouse emotion.”

“Well, of course. Any youngling knows that.” I turned partly away from him, to show my displeasure.

“Wait, there is more. Second, the poem must show spiritual insight.” He nodded his head and his sections moved like a wave, enticing.

“Still, that is not new.”

Necros drew out the last. “And finally there must be some use of the seasons.”

“Fe-fi’s
again.”

“I am comprehending that piece of alienness slowly. Digestion is difficult. The grinding continues.”

“Perhaps,” I replied cooly, “it should not continue.”

“But I am working triple,” Necros said, twisting his head back in such alarm that the lumps of heart pounded madly in front of my mouth. “And we have salvaged all but the ship’s shell and the room where the poet lives.” His voice was strained by his effort to show me his chin.

“It is true that the boxes grow full and my desires descend,” I admitted. “How long will this salvage take?”

He shrugged. “The poet’s voice weakens. He speaks again and again of
the night.”
He dared to lower his chin.
“Night
is, I am beginning to think, the ultimate alien season. Perhaps I will comprehend it soon.”

“Perhaps you will,” I said, turning without giving him any promises.

The next work section I was sleeping, with my body pressed along the sleek gray ship’s side, dreaming of mating. I had grown so much with the salvage that I was now nearly half the length of the alien vessel, and my movements were slow.

Necros found me there and quivered in all his sections. I heard a deep grinding in his sack which he coyly kept from my sight.

“The poet is dead,” he said, “and I have salvaged him. But before he died, I made up one of his own strange poems and sang it into the translator. He liked it. Listen, I too think it quite fine.”

We all stopped our work to listen, raising our chins slightly. To listen well is of the highest priority. It is how one acknowledges order.

Necros began:

The old poet fades.

Transfigured into the night,

Not-true becomes true.

“What do you think? Does it capture the alien? Is it true salvage?”

A small one-year shook his head. “I still do not know what
night
is.”

“Look out beyond the ship,” said Necros. “What is it you see?”

“I see our great Oneness.”

Necros nodded, letting ripples of pleasure run the entire length of his body. “Yes, that is what I thought, too. But I comprehend it is what he, the alien, would call
night.”

I smiled. “Then your poem should have said:
Transfigured into Oneness.”

Necros shivered deliciously and his sack began its melodious grinding again. “But they are the same, Oneness/Night. So Not-true becomes True. Surely you see that. Truly it is written that
with salvage all becomes One.”

And indeed, finally, we all comprehended. It was fine salvage. The best. The hollow ship rang with our grinding.

“You shall share my box this section,” I said.

But so full of his triumph, Necros did not at first realize the great honor I had bestowed upon him. He chattered away. “Next time I must try to use all the alien seasons in a poem.
Seasons.
I must think more about the word and digest it again, for I am not at all sure what it means. It has sections, though, like a beautiful body.” And he blushed and looked at me.

“They are called Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall.”

I ran them into my mouth and agreed. “They are indeed meaty,” I said. “Next time we meet such aliens we will all salvage their poems.” Then I spoke the haiku back to him, once quickly before it was forgotten:

The old poet fades,

Transfigured into the night.

Not-true becomes true.

Smiling, I led the way back across the platform to the boxes, leaving the one-years who were not yet ready to mate to finish salvaging the ship’s hull.

T
HERE WAS ONCE A
shoemaker named Jamie Green and oh, but he was a bonny man. He could measure and fit a shoe faster than you could say
Jack Derrystones,
and not another cobbler could outdo him at his last. He had fitted mayors and mistresses, and made riding boots for a baron.

He had a fine eye for the horses, too. And one for the ladies also. But best of all, Jamie Green loved to play on the fiddle and the crowth.

Of his fiddling, well, there’s nought to be said excepting he could squeak a note or three and it wasn’t
all
that unpleasing to the ear. He could pick out enough dance tunes to play along with a band, though it was better when the band was loud and the crowd three drinks past caring.

But of his playing on the crowth, this must be said: where he plucked, he should have fiddled, and where he fiddled, he should have plucked and it would be better for all if he never laid a hand to it at all, at all. But never a body would he listen to if they said ill of his notes.

“Why, my crowth sings like the birds,” Jamie would say. “It is the Irish nightingale itself you hear whenever I settle myself to play.” For of course it followed that he was prouder of his playing than of his leatherwork. And it was sad that he could not see that at the last he was a master while at the crowth he was but a poor apprentice.

It happened on a holyday that a great fair was to be held just a short way down the road. And Jamie Green was not the man to be left home by himself. After all, at a holyday fair there were sure to be horses and women and song. So Jamie closed up his shop and picked up his crowth and set his feet upon the road. The wind was fair on his face and the sun bright on his hand.

“I shall go and play with my friends on the green,” thought Jamie to himself. “And won’t they be pleased to see me coming,” for there is no liar like the one who lies to himself. He has a fool indeed for an audience.

Jamie had not gone but half the way there when suddenly what should be blocking the road before him but a giant red bull. It had horns as wide as the doorways to hell and a wicked knowing gleam in its eye. It snorted and pawed the ground, striking fire from the rocks with each blow.

Jamie looked this way and that, up the road and down, and fortunately he spied a sturdy tree but a few paces behind. He gave no more thought to the holyday fair, but putting one foot in back of the other, slowly and quietly, he crept to the tree. Then, smiling at the bull, he upped with a hand and pulled himself onto a branch. The bull roared, but Jamie scrambled higher into the tree, away from those great flashing horns.

Now that he was in the tree, Jamie’s courage returned and also his thirst for horses, women, and song. He hoped that the bull would go away, leaving him the road to the fair. But no one had told the beast of this plan. Indeed, taking a position beneath the tree, the bull settled itself down for a long, long wait. Its head rested on the ground, but the horns still flashed their invitation, and the bull’s eyes never closed.

“Go on!” shouted Jamie at last. “Get on with you.”

But the bull only blinked its eyes once, twice, and again.

And Jamie thought, “Well, what’s to be done? Surely I cannot stay in this perch all day.”

But stay he did. One minute after another, one hour after another, till his backside had got weary with sitting and his temper grown shorter as the day had grown longer.

Still the great bull did not move, but blinked its eye and stared up.

“Well,” Jamie said at last, weariness giving him ideas, “I have heard that music can charm even the wildest beast, and I have never seen wilder. Perhaps if I play this bull a soothing tune, it will leave off the winking of its eye and the flashing of its horns, give me a smile, and fall fast asleep at the foot of my tree. Then I can get down and go about my business at the holyday fair.”

So, slowly, slowly, slower than slow, so as not to annoy the great lumbering beast, Jamie got out the crowth and bow from the leather bag.

And down below the bull lay staring.

Then Jamie, without even waiting to tune, struck up his favorite song. He plucked and fiddled, he fiddled and he plucked, till the tree’s limbs fair quivered with the melody and the branches fair shook with the notes. It went so well, he even hummed as he played.

Well, it was loud. And it was long. But it did nothing to soothe the bull. Instead, with a horrible bellow and a shake of its head, the bull turned up its tail and fled.

Jamie Green looked down at his crowth and then back to the fleeing bull. He forgot that he had wanted the beast to leave and remembered only the insult to his song.

“Stop, stop,” he cried. “Come back. Come back and I’ll change the tune.”

But the bull did not stop running till it came to the farmer’s barn where it went in and kicked the gate closed after it.

And what of Jamie Green? He went on to the holyday fair. And at his coming, when they saw he was carrying his crowth, his friends bellowed loudly as any bull. But they were surprised when he played not a single note. And to this day, so they say, Jamie Green has stuck to his last and has never played another tune.

T
HERE WAS ONCE A
rich farmer named Jan who decided to expand his holdings. He longed for the green meadow that abutted his farm with a passion that amazed him. But a swift river ran between the two. It was far too wide and far too deep for his cows to cross.

He stood on the river bank and watched the water hurtle over its rocky course.

“I could build a bridge,” he said aloud. “But, then, any fool could do that. And I am no fool.”

At his words the river growled, but Jan did not heed it.

“No!” Jan said with a laugh. “I shall build no bridge across this water. I shall make the river move aside for me.” And so he planned how he would dam it up, digging a canal along the outer edge of the meadow, and so allow his cows the fresh green grass.

As if guessing Jan’s thoughts, the river roared out, tumbling stones in its rush to be heard. But Jan did not understand it. Instead, he left at once to go to the town where he purchased the land and supplies.

The men Jan hired dug and dug for weeks until a deep ditch and a large dam had been built. Then they watched as the river slowly filled up behind the dam. And when, at Jan’s signal, the gate to the canal was opened, the river was forced to move into its new course and leave its comfortable old bed behind.

At that, Jan was triumphant. He laughed and turned to the waiting men. “See!” he called out loudly, “I am not just Jan the Farmer. I am Jan the River Tamer. A wave of my hand, and the water must change its way.”

His words troubled the other men. They spat between their fingers and made other signs against the evil eye. But Jan paid them no mind. He was the last to leave the river’s side that evening and went home well after dark.

The next morning Jan’s feeling of triumph had not faded and he went down again to the path of the old river which was now no more than mud and mire. He wanted to look at the desolation and dance over the newly dried stones.

But when he got to the river’s old bed, he saw someone lying face-up in the center of the waterless course. It was a girl clothed only in a white shift that clung to her body like a skin.

Fearing her dead, Jan ran through the mud and knelt by her side. He put out his hand but could not touch her. He had never seen anyone so beautiful.