The Book of Air: Volume Four of the Dragon Quartet (42 page)

Only when she is walking away does one sneer, “’
Compound
.’ Get her, willya?”

“Likes ’em old, I guess,” mutters another.

“And crazy,” adds his friend.

“You’d be better off with me,” the third calls, now that her back is to them.

Erde lets it be that way. She can’t blame these broken soldiers for their lewd assumptions. No lady of her station would travel on foot in such weather, never mind without her lady’s maid and several stout retainers for escort. No lady would dress as she is dressed, with her short curls
unbound to the wind beneath her sheepskin hood. She tries to see herself as those men had seen her. She’s grown quite tall, she realizes, measuring her height against the soldiers, who’d seemed dwarfish by comparison, battered and underfed. She has forgotten her lady’s mincing steps, and now strides like a boy. No wonder they jump to the only conclusions they have definitions for. To them, she must be a camp follower. She’s an exotic, a freak. If she looks them in the eye, and doesn’t smile coquettishly or flinch, perhaps she is even a witch.

But the surprise is, she’s beautiful. At least, to battle-weary soldiers, she is. She can see it in their eyes. It makes her stand straighter and walk along with a more confident step, if only not to disappoint their expectations, as their stares follow her down the road.

The second round of sentries have a tent and a sputtering fire built in its lee to huddle about. These have strength enough to stop her and question her more fully about her business. There are also more of them, and they leer with more serious intent. One tries to rub his hands on her, under the pretext of searching for weapons.

“I do have a weapon,” she declares, revealing but not unsheathing the heavy dagger she’s worn since she traded her ancestral brooch for Sir Hal’s sword in a dusty market town far in the future. Köthen now carries the dragon-hilted sword. In its place, she got the dagger, which had belonged to his captain, a man called Wender. Erde thinks of Köthen now, as she says sternly, “And I will use it, in the king’s name, if you do not stand aside and let me pass!”

The soldiers laugh uproariously. Her defiance only whets their appetite. Four of them form a ring around her and smack their lips over all the “favors” they’ll extract from her, which they describe in lingering detail. She should be terrified, but she knows she can call a dragon down on them in seconds flat. She stands still, waiting with exaggerated patience while the men argue, with increasing heat and distraction, over which of them will “have” her first. Finally, she sees her opportunity. She shoves hard at the shoulders of the two loudest and shocks them into momentary recoil. In a breath, she’s past them and drawing her dagger, rounding on them threateningly. As soon as she’s done it, she’s amazed at herself. Little Erde, throwing her
weight around. For the second time that day, she tells herself:
Won’t Hal be pleased!

“The king shall hear of this,” she rebukes them haughtily, though she has never met her infirm and elderly liege, who might have little sympathy for the daughter of his enemy, Josef von Alte. “Or Baron Weisstrasse,” she adds. “If you will direct me in his way now, nothing more shall be said of this.”

A couple of the soldiers snicker.

“Yeah?” says one beefy guard, “And what’s that crazy old coot gonna do to me?”

But his smaller neighbor elbows him warningly. “Wender,” he mutters. “He’ll do it to you, and you won’t forget it.”

Some of the others nod their agreement. Erde is delighted to hear Captain Wender mentioned. It must be the same man, she’s sure of it. She can see their enthusiasm for her has dimmed. She’s looking like too much trouble to be further bothered with, and so, she presses the advantage. “Well, then, if you haven’t the decency to direct me to Baron Weisstrasse, will you tell me at least where I can find Captain Wender?”

The smaller man steps forward, but only to send her farther along the road. “You’ll want to go on down that way, milady, and take the first right.”

Erde thanks him graciously, as if no unseemly incident has passed between them. She leaves him smiling, quizzically and much against his better judgment, and continues onward, trying not to rush. There are tents and wagons rising to either side by now, and soon she is passing the taller canopies of the minor nobles, more spacious and artfully decorated, with clusters of warhorses tethered alongside. But these finer tents are as stained and many-times mended as the lesser ones, and the poor horses are hunched together against the cold and look as starved as all the men.

She takes the turn as directed, narrowly avoiding being run down by a young man on horseback whose armor looks much too big for him. Finally, in the distance, above a row of shorter canvas shelters, Erde sees Hal’s silken banner stretching boldly in the hard north wind. Now she can’t help but quicken her step, with her gaze downcast as much for seeming modesty as to keep her balance among the icy
wagon ruts, which are wide and treacherously full of half-frozen mud. Surely there must be a few women of virtue among this spread of apparently lawless men! Who else, she wonders, will care for the sick and wounded? Who will say prayers for the dying?

With this mournful thought, Erde glances up to be sure of her path. Ahead of her, a tall man is flinging orders at a scurrying group of unwilling boys, squires, perhaps, or scullery lads. She is reminding herself that there is no scullery to be had for leagues about, when she realizes with a shock that the faded tunic that the big man wears over his battered mail was once the sky blue and gold of Castle Köthen. Quickly, her memory sorts out the man’s broad back and burly frame.

“Captain Wender!” she calls, though she knows it’s hardly ladylike. “Captain Wender!”

The man has been shouting at the boys. His scowl lingers as he turns, then evaporates abruptly as he recognizes her. To Erde’s surprise, an even fiercer expression replaces it, a sudden and desperate bloom of hope.

Erde quails before its brilliance.
Oh, dear. He thinks I’ve brought his baron back
.

“Milady!” Wender banishes the boys to their errands, then hurries toward her. His frown has returned. “Milady! Alone, and on foot?”

She gazes up at him for a long and helpless moment. “Alone. Yes.”

Wender’s mouth sets in something like despair. “Then how came you . . .?”

“I came. . . .” Then it comes to her. It’s the
dragon
he’s hoping for. “I left Lord Earth a ways away, so as not to frighten the soldiers.”

Wender sags as if every breath has gone out of him. “Then he is with you? The . . . the dragon?” When she nods, puzzled by his vehemence, he rushes on with little of his usual deference. “Then you must bring him, milady! Quickly! The knight has need of him!”

“Sir Hal? What? Why?”

“Cut near to death a day ago, milady, and won’t lie still! If there’s even hope of his mending, he won’t give it a chance! I beg you, milady, call in your creature!”

“I doubt even Lord Earth could convince Hal to lie still if he doesn’t wish to,” Erde says.

“I mean to heal him! Please! Quickly! He’s dying!”

“Dying?” Finally, she takes in Wender’s haggard look. She’s been so wrapped up in anticipation of a fond reunion with her elder knight that she hasn’t properly listened. “
Dying?
Oh, sweet Mother, help us! Take me to him, and we’ll summon the dragon immediately!”

T
he limo’s ride is the smoothest he’s ever known . . . not that he’s actually been inside one before, so okay, it’s smoother than he’s ever imagined. N’Doch tunes the interior lights up and down on their dimmer just for the hell of it, then lounges back on the soft, dark blue leather, so real you can smell it. Room enough for his whole body, plus the guitar. Room enough between the seats for the full stretch of his legs. He grins at his grandfather, perched opposite him.

“Okay, now, Papa, why don’t you just pop open that cooler beside you and see what’s inside?”

Djawara is still regarding his tall grandson as if he’s not sure they’re related. He glances at Sedou next to him, for support. But the man/dragon is gazing out the window, frowning in thought.

“C’mon, Papa! Maybe there’s nothing. You oughta look, at least!”

“There’ll be water,” Sedou murmurs from the depths of his brown study, as Djawara bends disapprovingly to search the compartment between their seats. And there is, but only water. Three chill blue bottles bright with tiny bubbles. Djawara passes them around. N’Doch takes his and inspects the label.

“You were expecting something stronger?”

“Nah, Papa, you know me. Not much of a drinker.” He doesn’t jump to the bait like usual. Feels like he’s done arguing over small stuff. Can’t see the point anymore.

The car purrs forward though identical streets, and the men sip their water in silence. The driver’s head never moves. N’Doch knows this ’cause he has the forward facing
seat, and he’s been watching. The dude’s as still as glass. Like he’s a robot or something. N’Doch strums the guitar absently, picking out a mournful little tune. Finally he says, “So, I’m waiting, bro.”

Sedou stirs. “Waiting?”

“For that explanation I figure you owe me.” N’Doch shifts his gaze, which he hopes looks accusing enough to win him an answer. “Or maybe you can tell me, Papa, since you seem so tuned in on the dragon hot line.”

“Hardly, my boy. I just pay attention.”

This time the bait is hard to ignore. N’Doch shoots a look back at Sedou. “Is he in on this ‘mutual annihilation’ gig, too? ’Cause if he’s not, I think he oughta just . . .”

“Look!” Sedou leans forward, his attention caught by something outside the window.

It might be a diversionary tactic, but N’Doch checks it out anyway. Between two faceless building facades, he sees a flash of rock and darkness. Then the limo has rolled on past, and it’s just the usual bit of boredom out there.

“What was that?”

Sedou is frowning again.

“You notice how it’s never night here?” The uncanny blackness between the buildings lingers in N’Doch’s mind. “I mean, we got to have been here long enough for it to get dark out, doncha think?”

“I suspect,” says Djawara, “that if you asked for night in the right way, you would get it. If you actually
needed
night, for instance.”

Sedou nods silently.

“Like you needed your espresso?” N’Doch laughs, though none of this seems particularly funny right now. “It’s like a big hologram, isn’t it? Like, y’know, the holodeck.” He’s remembering the old vids.

“More material than that.” Sedou turns the blue bottle in his hand. “More
actual
. But my real concern is, why is it breaking apart?”

“Is it?” Djawara asks.

Sedou gestures at the buildings gliding past. “That . . . space we saw. An anomaly. Like a hole in the fabric of this particular reality.”

“A hole?” N’Doch looking hard, now, to find another one. “Where does the hole go to?”

Sedou shrugs. “To another layer of the illusion? Or, I suppose, it could be to . . . actual reality.”

“I challenge you to define that satisfactorily,” Djawara chuckles.

“You mean the world outside?” N’Doch goes for a more literal interpretation. “It looked awful . . . y’know, empty.”

“Barren. Airless, you might almost say.”

“What’s airless?”

“Lacking an atmosphere,” Sedou supplies patiently.

“I know that! I mean, why?”

“Look!”

They all stare as another ‘hole’ slides by. This one is taller and wider, exposing a brief but definitive glimpse of a raw, red landscape, dust and rock, illuminated by a hard white light. Not a single speck of relieving green.

“Sky’s a weird color,” N’Doch observes. “Not black, exactly, but . . .” He thinks of the old photos of lunar landings, ancient history in his day. “That’s what you mean by airless, huh?”

“That’s what I mean.”

The weirdest thing, N’Doch decides, is that right after the facade bordering the hole, there’s a crossing street, which extends away from the intersection as if the city had turned a corner around this “anomaly,” as the dragon called it. The contrast blows his whole perception of three-dimensional space.

No, wait, that’s not the weirdest thing
 . . .

N’Doch’s head slews around, trying to stay level with the view down the next intersection, where he’s just seen, or thinks he’s seen . . .

Nah. Can’t be. A
Tyrannosaurus Rex?
Now I’m really losing it!

It was remembering those vids, that’s what did it. Like when he first laid eyes on Water and was so sure she was a special effect. He decides not to mention this, to her or his grandfather.

The glass panel between the driver’s seat and the rear compartment whispers aside. The driver leans sideways to speak through the opening. “I beg your pardon, sirs, but I thought you’d like to know: there’s been a destination change.”

“Really?” asks Sedou. “Who says?”

“My principal, sir. Straight from headquarters.”

N’Doch rolls his eyes at his grandfather.

“And our new destination?” Sedou pursues.