The Book of Water (47 page)

“Hello,” she says. Her voice is warmly resonant. Immediately N’Doch is thinking how much he’d like to hear her sing. Her French is odd and deeply accented but it’s French nonetheless, and he can understand her. “My name is Rose. Welcome to Deep Moor.”

Deep Moor. He recalls the name. The girl’s back when haven with all the women. But she’d always described it as a paradise of perpetual summer. It doesn’t much feel like summer in this room.

He wonders if his own voice will work. “I am N’Doch N’Djai.”

Rose smiles. “Yes, I know. I know all about you, so you needn’t tire yourself with explanations.”

N’Doch is fairly sure now, but he could use some confirmation. “Am I alive?”

“Certainly. But there was doubt there for a while. The dragons worked long and hard. How do you feel?”

“Uh . . . okay.” But what he really feels is
different
. If he had to describe this difference, he’d say he feels bigger, not taller or fatter, but bigger
inside
. He’s been too distracted so far to search his mind for the dragon presence. Now that he does, he cannot raise them.

“The dragons,” he asks Rose. “Where are they?”

“They went back, as soon as they recovered from the great effort of the Healing. They went back to rescue the mage Erde called . . .” She stumbles over the name. “. . . Jarara?”

“Djawara?”

“That’s it. Did she say he was your grandfather?”

N’Doch nods, exhales, and lays his head back. He wonders if the old man will come. He’s been worried about Djawara ever since going off and leaving him alone out there in the bush, never mind what Lealé says about him being a man of power. . . .

Lealé.

“Excuse me, madame . . .”

“Rose. Just Rose.”

“Rose. There was a woman who helped us. Did they say . . . ?”

Rose shook her head gently. “The Dreamer was already gone when they got to her. The spark of life had fled.” For some reason, her gaze flicked outward, toward the window. “Even dragons cannot make miracles.”

N’Doch is not sure she’s right. Mostly to keep her talking so he can hear that wonderful voice whose undertones tickle the insides of his lungs, he asks, “There’s a war here, too, right? How’s that going?”

Again, her gaze drifts to the window. He sees the strain in her then, the worry and exhaustion in her eyes. “The King’s forces are in retreat, the barons are fighting among themselves and the mad priest is burning every witch in sight, and a few that aren’t. The only good news is that Baron Köthen has gone over to Otto’s side. About time, I say. But the war is the least of our problems.”

Rose seems to lose herself to the view for a moment. Then she shakes herself out of her reverie. “Still, we’re safe for a while yet, and we’ve food enough in the cellars, so you are to rest and eat and await the dragons’ return. You’re in good hands.” She reaches and draws the younger woman within the circle of her arm. “This is Linden. She is Deep Moor’s healer. Unfortunately, she speaks no Frankish, but then, she normally prefers not to speak at all.” Rose smiles at Linden as if this was some long-standing joke between them.

“How come you speak French?” Instantly N’Doch regrets his bluntness. He’s trying to recall how the girl acts with strangers, so he can do like she would at home, but he sees he just didn’t pay close enough attention.

But Rose laughs, a throaty, complex reply to the unspoken parts of his question. “I’ve . . . traveled. Now—would you like to get up and move about? Here are garments on the sill. I’d say let’s go for a walk outside, but it’s frigid with this . . . unseasonable cold. We aren’t meant to have weather like this in Deep Moor, and I doubt you’re recovered enough for it. But come downstairs and join us for supper when you’re ready.”

The women leave him to dress, but at first, even getting up is a problem. N’Doch has a moment of terror where he convinces himself he’s paralyzed. But it’s more like his body’s forgotten how to work, like he needs to apply conscious effort and teach it all over again how to sit up, stand up, and walk.

Different
, he keeps thinking.
I feel different. Newly made.
Dragon
made
.

They know. These witchy women know, and they left me alone to deal with it privately.
N’Doch appreciates their consideration. He gets the clothes on, pulling them over the longish linen shirt they’d put him to bed in. They’re odd clothes, hanging loose and heavy on his slim body, yet meant for a shorter person. When he stands up next to these women, he’s gonna tower over them. He has a hard time not thinking of the clothes as a costume, like when he first saw the girl on the beach, when he still thought this whole deal was a vid shoot. It makes him laugh now, but it’s a hard laugh, full of unaccustomed irony aimed mostly at himself. He wishes he had a mirror.

But the clothes are clean and warm and comfortable, and he knows now that to ask for his own clothes back would be indulging in the macabre. Maybe their remaining bloodied shreds would make this death and resurrection thing somehow realer to him. But he didn’t die, it seems, not quite. Because Lealé did.

He takes an experimental walk around the room. It’s a small square white room with a dark, beamed ceiling just inches above his head, and a wide-boarded floor that complains musically of his every step. There’s a wind outside
now. He hears it howling in the rough stone chimney. The light at the window has gone gray and flat, and there’s actually some of that snow flying in the air. N’Doch watches it for a while but it only makes him feel desolate. His limbs have remembered how to walk in time with each other, and he’s chilled and hungry and thinks he’d prefer the company of strange women to the burden of trying to understand what’s already happened to him, and what’s supposed to happen next. He heads downstairs.

He’s halfway down the narrow, steep steps, gripping the railing with both hands, when he feels the dragons’ return.
Her
return.

His whole being lifts toward her, and the dragon-shaped emptiness inside him fills with her welcome. But the bright joy that sweeps through him like a searchlight is still freighted with denial, and N’Doch knows he will never fully accept this role that Fate has cast him in without his approval.

But somehow, he tells himself, he’ll keep this from her. He owes them now. He owes them Big Time. So for the time being, he’ll see this dragon thing out. He’ll go off with her, with them, and find this bad dude Fire and see what they can do to settle his hash. N’Doch has a bone or two to pick with the guy himself. Then he’ll be free to think about what comes next.

The dream swims up, as vivid as a vid running right there in his mind. He knows where to go now. He doesn’t know where it is, or even
when
, but he knows how to get there.

N’Doch pulls his clumsy, new-made body together and goes on downstairs to play along with Destiny.

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