The Book of Water (21 page)

“A week ago.”

“After how many years?”

“Mmm . . . nearly eleven.”

N’Doch lets out a low whistle and cocks an eyebrow at the girl. “Things are getting weirder and weirder.”

“Or,” says Djawara, “things are exactly as they should be.”

E
rde worked hard to convince Earth that she needed at least one more day in the mage’s library, to absorb information that might be critical to their Quest. Then she spent her best efforts that day trying to get Master Djawara to accompany them to the City.

He talked with her tirelessly, while N’Doch practiced shape-changing with Water. He told her everything he could about the new world she’d come to, but refused again and again to go with them. She even tried tears—he remained sympathetic but steadfast.

“It is not my journey.” Djawara tossed the cushions from one of the benches and lifted the lid. Inside was a riot of pattern and color: piles and piles of neatly folded fabric. “It is your journey and dragons’ only. Others can and will help you along the way, but they cannot go along. Let’s see now . . .” He lifted out a pile and sat with it in his lap.

“But Master Djawara, it’s so much easier with you around!” Erde flopped down beside him girlishly, but somehow the fact that, even sitting, she was taller than he was undermined the effect.

“Oh, he’ll come around. He’s a good boy. You’ll see.” His round face was smooth and calm as he sorted through the fabric, pulled out a few brightly printed bundles and set them aside. “Did you ever think that perhaps you lost your voice for a reason?”

He knew her whole story by now, and it was hard to get around him. Still, Erde was embarrassed that he’d guessed so easily what she thought was so difficult. “No, I lost my voice because . . .”

“I know, I know, child. Your heart was broken. But think about it a little further. Maybe you were going to need to know how to communicate under difficult circumstances.”

Erde brightened. “You mean, it was . . . preordained?”

“A big word. Perhaps too big, but . . .” Djawara nodded and shrugged. “Who knows about such things, eh? Only the gods.”

She knew that she should think of the mage as a dangerous heretic because he always spoke of the Deity in plural terms. More than one God meant pagans and idolaters, at least in the Bible. But Djawara’s gods and goddesses sounded rather more approachable than the stern Jehovah of the Christian Church. For one thing, you didn’t need a priest every time you wanted to talk to them, and Erde had no cause to love priests after her recent experience with Brother Guillemo. And saying something was “God’s will” implied being subject to arbitrary and personal whim, like the King’s will or her father’s. Not that King Otto’s will was ever arbitrary, but her father’s certainly was. “Preordained” made things sound much more orderly and under control.

So, if it was important to the Quest that she put the skills learned through two months of being voiceless to work on getting through to N’Doch, she would accept that burden. The mage had explained that certain concepts and ideals that she grew up with, such as Honor or Duty, no longer had much currency. (On the other hand, he pointed out, being a woman no longer meant being the chattel of your closest male relative, so some of the changes over the years were positive.) The main thing was, she must learn to take nothing for granted. N’Doch would truly dedicate himself to the Quest only when he decided he wanted to.

“I understand now, Master Djawara. And though it certainly would be more pleasant if you did come, I accept that you cannot. You are very wise.”

“And you, child, are a shameless flatterer. Now, look in the book and see if you can make this piece of cloth look like the picture when you wrap it around yourself.”

She shook out the length he handed her and gave a soft gasp of admiration. The fabric was soft, with a graceful drape, and of a deep indigo printed with cream and burgundy.
She’d never been allowed to wear such rich colors as a child. “It’s beautiful! Are they snakes with wings? I can’t quite tell.”

“I don’t know. Perhaps they are dragons. Try it on.”

She gave it a few serious tries and thought she was just getting the knack of it when she head N’Doch laughing from the doorway.

“Papa Dja, when I said we oughta get her some real clothes, I didn’t mean dress her up like some hick from the villages!”

Djawara stood back from Erde at arm’s length. “Why, I think she looks wonderful! This was your grandmama’s best.”

“Yeah, Papa D., it’s cool and historical and all that, y’know, but . . .”

“And I thought it would make sense if she dressed like a villager, so the City people won’t be surprised when she doesn’t behave like they do.”

Erde watched N’Doch rein in his mockery. More gently, he said, “But Papa, she’s a white girl. She ain’t gonna fool nobody.”

“Oh.”

Even Erde had to smile. The old mage had explained to her about the different races of humans and how it mattered to some people what color your skin was. But in her case, he seemed not to have noticed, or at least to have momentarily forgotten. Now he pursed his lips, fussed a little with the folds of the material and said, “Well, I guess you’re right. She would be rather an anomaly.”

N’Doch let go a sigh of relief. “Yeah. I thought maybe let her go like a tourist—Eurotrash, y’know? Which is why she only speaks German. There are still a few brave ones coming around, especially in the City. They’re mostly really rich folk, but she should know how to play that role all right, eh? We’ll just say she’s slumming. Granmama must’ve had some town clothes, yeah?”

Djawara nodded and gave the lustrous fabric a final organizing pat. “A shame, really. It looks so good on her.”

*   *   *

N’Doch is not really happy with what they’ve dug up for her to wear. He lays it all out in the sun on the back porch: thirty-year-old jeans with no decent patches and only four
pockets, and a T-shirt so uncool it actually has sleeves and something written on it. But he figures they can barter this for something less embarrassing when they get to the City. The girl doesn’t seem to realize how dumb she’s gonna look, truly
flat
, but at least it’s more in step than what she was wearing before. He can see she likes the idea of wearing pants—apparently women didn’t do that in her day. She rejects the sensible open sandals that Djawara offers her, insisting on keeping her soft, calf-high boots. N’Doch lets her. A tourist from the colder (but not so much, these days) North might wear something silly like that without knowing any better.

“As long as you look like you pay
some
attention to your image. Otherwise, you’ll really stick out.” He sends her inside to try it all on.

“Surely no one can afford to worry about such trifles anymore,” Djawara murmurs.

“Trifles? Cool has no price, Papa.”

But in fact, when the girl comes back outside with the whole getup on, N’Doch thinks she looks pretty good. The jeans fit her well. He can see she’s got a shape to her after all. He may be spending more time than he’s counted on just keeping the guys off of her. He glances down at his own naked torso and ragged shorts.

“Um . . . Papa Dja? You got anything I could wear?”

They settle on one of Djawara’s ankle-length tunics, a light blue one he says he doesn’t wear any more. On N’Doch, it comes to just below his knees, but the girl seems relieved when he puts it on.

“Oh, my, that looks very good on you, N’Doch.”

Already, he’s itching and feeling confined. “I’m gonna hate this.”

But he has to admit, it’ll help him blend better with the day-to-day crowds. For the first time in his life, anonymity sounds like a good idea.

The dragons are eager. The blue one is at the end of her patience, which, N’Doch is beginning to suspect, is never very long to start with. But he likes that about her. He’s impatient, too, except when it comes to making his music. Like now, he’s as ready as he’s gonna be, and he’s been hearing copters in the air again, Papa Dja says more often than usual, so maybe they better get gone before they get the old man into trouble he didn’t start.

Except, in a way, he did. But N’Doch’s not going into that again, not now at any rate.

The girl has told him about this big shed kind of place she hid out in back in her time, and he thinks it’s not a bad idea to start them out in the old industrial sector.

“There’s lots of empty buildings out there,” he explains. “Big old factories and warehouses, all closed down.”

Djawara clucks sadly. “It was a thriving district in my day.”

“Yeah, well, that was before they started getting everything from China and Brazil. It’s one big junkyard now. Our main problem’ll be finding a big enough place that don’t already belong to squatters. Papa, you got anything around by way of weaponry?”

Djawara sits up a little taller. “Only my cooking knives, my boy.”

This is what N’Doch has expected, but he thought he’d try anyway. “Never mind. I’ll manage. But here’s the hard one. You got any money?”

“You mean, cash?”

“Yeah. Only, no paper. It’s worthless, y’know?”

Djawara disappears inside for a while and comes back with a small handful of coins.

N’Doch looks them over. “Not a bad stash. I know it’ll be hard for you. Just give us what you can.”

“It won’t be hard on me. Any kind of cash is useless out here these days. If you can’t eat it, drink it, or wear it, it isn’t worth anything to anybody.”

“Okay.” N’Doch holds out his hand, then says, “No. Give ’em to her. She’ll keep ’em for emergencies. So. I guess that’s it. We’ll be on our way now.”

He doesn’t really want to leave the cool shade of the lemon tree. The night before, as he lay on the cooking porch awaiting sleep, he realized that it’d been an hour, maybe even two, since he’d last scanned for copters, or reflexively searched the shadows for the lurking knife. A whole hour of feeling safe enough not to listen—what a luxury! The thought came to him, just before he dropped off, that he could live out here and be happy enough. Certainly he’d be healthier, helping the old guy dig and carry water for the vegetables, hunting with the dogs in the evenings out in the bush. But that thought was drowned out instantly by the
habitual panic. Out here, he’d be nothing, everyone would forget about him, no big recording contract. He’d never be famous. He’d sing his songs, but no one would ever hear them, ’cept one old man and a few washed out villagers.

No, it was better to be going to the City. Life was in the City.

But, he told himself, when this dragon thing was over, he’d make sure to come visit Papa Djawara more often.

T
hey waited until midnight, then bade farewell to Master Djawara and went on to the City.

Erde thought it oddly familiar, to be dropped precipitously into the dark corridors of another strange town, so familiar that she expected (without reason) the ice and cold of the brickyard in Erfurt. Instead, the City was hotter than any place so far. There was a roaring all around them, like the rush of great winds or falling torrents, and the air smelled of . . . Erde’s only thought was that it smelled like Death.

Earth coughed, a raw convulsive sound. Erde felt Water warning them to silence. She pressed a little closer to her dragon and stroked his cheek.

—
It smells like our dreams.

—
Yes, Dragon. It surely does.

N’Doch sniffed, peered into the blackness, and murmured, “Well, folks, the honeymoon is over.”

*   *   *

He’s chosen the big parking lot beside the derelict rubber factory. He figures they can land two dragons there without running into anything, and also, it’s likely to be deserted at this time of night. There’s hardly enough working cars or trucks left in the City to fill up a lot this size, and those that there are, won’t be out here in the Wedge.

And he’s guessed right. The wide stretch of broken tarmac is clear of anything but dried weeds and rubble, with a few burned-out wrecks along the periphery. He’ll steer clear of those: even charred black, a truck cab is good cover for a single squatter, armed and dangerous. The long low warehouses
are scattered, this far out. Lots of open space between. Plenty of copters prowling the skies, but they’re all off a ways, over where he can see streetlights, where the buildings get closer together, in town toward the point of the pie-slice shape that gives this neighborhood its name. And past that, the broken profile of Downtown spreads its colored glow on the horizon as if the whole town is on fire.
And sometimes it is
, N’Doch reflects sourly.