The Book of Water (5 page)

Then it becomes clear to him—he doesn’t know how—that
the source of the music is the silver beast herself. It’s like the music she was singing aloud a moment ago, a further development of the same theme, only this time less of a declaration . . . more of a demand. N’Doch gazes at her in wonder.

“How are you doing that?” He’s just gotta ask. She’s probably not programmed to answer questions, but if she can sing, maybe she can also speak. He does not ask, “What do you want with me?” That would be like asking, “Um, what’s the next line?” It sounds wimpy, and it’d spoil the take.

So he moves in closer to join the group, trying to look like he knows what he’s doing. The girl retreats from him a bit, into the shadow of her beast like a child into its mother’s skirts. She’s definitely on the tall side, he sees now, and her eyes, studying him so carefully, are very dark for a white girl’s, almost black. Her skin is a fine pale olive roughened by sun or wind or maybe, though N’Doch cannot truly imagine it, by actual cold. And it looks real, now that he sees her close, like she’s not even wearing makeup. He guesses her to be about fourteen.

The brown beast shrugs gently, a slow earthquake that jostles the girl sideways off her perch on his forearm. She regains her balance easily on the sand. N’Doch can see she’s no stranger to exercise. She tosses the beast what N’Doch reads as a dirty look, the first sign of spirit he’s seen in her. Then she squares her shoulders as if preparing for some onerous task, and turns to face him.

“
Mein Name ist Erde
,” she announces. “
Erde Katerina Meriah von Alte
.”

“Ummm,” says N’Doch. He recognizes the harsh gutturals of one of those white northern European languages, but does not understand a word. He can’t recall the last time he saw a vid in anything but French. Even the American ones are mostly dubbed. Are they trying to trip him up? Okay, it’s gonna be a scene about communication. He smiles. “
Comment ça va?
”

Her dark eyes narrow. She doesn’t understand him either. N’Doch is surprised. Most Europeans speak French. Will the viewers buy that she can’t? Maybe she’s supposed to be from some boondock isolationist principality. He’s heard of such things. He’s sure now she won’t speak Wolof, so he
switches to English, which he’s learned only from vids. “Hey there, how ya doin’, kid?”

She still doesn’t get it. N’Doch gets ready to try sign language. So far, he doesn’t think much of this script. He thumps his bare chest, like some guy in a bad jungle movie. “N’Doch,” he says, “N’Doch.”

The girl gives the big brown guy a quick sidelong glance, as if he’s said something she didn’t quite hear. But next she looks back at N’Doch with a gleam of understanding. She points at him and forms the sounds carefully.

“En-doche.”

He nods encouragingly. “N’Doch,” he repeats, correcting her pronunciation. He points back at her and cocks his head.

She taps her own leather-clad chest. “
Erde. Mien Name ist Erde
.”

N’Doch tries it out. “Airda?”

“
Erde
.”

“Right. Airda.” They both nod, but N’Doch is thinking,
God, this is stupid
. He’s never met anyone he didn’t share at least one language with before.

Then he notices how the two beasts are regarding them with patient indulgence, like parents whose toddlers are meeting for the first time. He relaxes a little.
Well then
, he thinks,
I guess it’s okay. Must be I’ve kept to the script so far
.

I
n her eagerness to follow the dragon’s Quest, Erde had expected to travel a goodly distance, but she hadn’t counted on finding herself in a country that was so hot and where people didn’t speak German. Never mind that she’d only recently gotten her own voice back: Just what did you do if somebody couldn’t speak your language? But she was fairly sure language would be the least of her problems—the dragons would figure it out between them. Certainly the two of them were having no problem understanding one another. She felt Earth’s relief and excitement humming through his body like a murmur of gratitude. Not since he’d woken up in that deep cold cave above Tor Alte had he been able to communicate with another being so fast and so fully, too fast for Erde to keep up. But she had snagged one astonishing revelation as it flashed by her: This new dragon from the sea was apparently Earth’s relative. She’d actually heard him call her his sister.

Erde recalled how she’d felt when Rose of Deep Moor had proved able to sense and decipher Earth’s image signals in her head. Not as clearly or as easily as Erde, certainly—the dragon had to be gentle with his sending to avoid burning Rose out. But she’d been the first since Erde and Earth had found each other and learned that they could speak in a way that did not (at first) include language. It helped that Rose was Sir Hal’s longtime beloved, and a truly remarkably power in her own right. But mostly, instead of feeling the expected jealousy, Erde was glad to have someone to share the burden of communicating with the dragon’s ferociously curious and demanding intellect.

And, even better, another dragon to help answer Earth’s
difficult questions. It wasn’t that Earth considered her ignorant or inadequate. His generous nature was not given to that sort of harsh judgment. She was still his boon companion, his Dragon Guide, and forever would be. But Erde sensed she had come to the end of her useful knowledge, at least as far as helping Earth discover the reasons for his recent reawakening. And just when she’d needed help, help had arrived. It occurred to Erde that she and the dragon had been lucky that way. Sir Hal, too, had appeared out of nowhere to aid their escape just as she was about to fall into the clutches of Fra Guill’s army of monks. It must mean that, like it or not, this hot, ugly, scary beach was exactly where they were meant to be to continue the dragon’s Quest.

Which also meant that this dark young man—he seemed younger now than he had from a distance—this “Endoch” was meant to be also. If he was here with this sea dragon, he must be her dragon guide. But what Earth seemed to take for granted, Erde had a harder time accepting. He just didn’t look like a dragon guide, running abut half-naked and grinning, so full of himself, yet at the same time a bit too eager to please, as if there was something he thought she might give him if only he was charming enough.

Well
, thought Erde,
I have nothing, and I wouldn’t give him anything even if I had. Besides, he must have done something wrong, to have people chasing him so furiously
.

At the back of her mind, she felt the pressure of the dragon’s censure. He was not too involved with his newfound relative to remind her that people had been chasing her very recently. And what, after all, does a dragon guide look like? The image he showed her was like a mirror held up in her mind. Did a scrawny, wide-eyed, wind-roughened fourteen-year-old girl inspire any greater confidence?

Chastened, Erde reconsidered her inner tirade. The dragon was right. It wasn’t proper to take on so against an innocent stranger. It was just that, well, he was so strange. But judging from the men who’d been pursuing him, dark skin and no clothing was the way things went in this smelly, steamy country. Erde had a sudden sense of reversal, like being tossed head over heels in a torrent. The sense of it was so physical, she grabbed Earth’s neck crest for support. In this place, it could be her own pale skin and heavy clothing
that seemed unnatural. As the thick heat wore on her, she was already prepared to shed a few inappropriate layers.

So she’d better give this young man a second chance. If the sea dragon was Earth’s sister, it then followed that this Endoch should be, in a way, her brother. Erde found she could warm to that idea. She’d always wanted a brother or a sister. Someone nearer her own age to talk to. Her life in her father’s castle had been filled with adults twice her age or older. Except for Rainer. Well, Rainer had been sort of her brother, until he grew up so tall and handsome and she was dumb enough to fall in love with him. She wasn’t going to do that again. Tentatively, she smiled at Endoch and he grinned back, revealing the whitest, evenest teeth she’d ever seen, set in a round mobile face as smooth and fine as polished walnut. His grin asked, Well, what’s next? Erde hoped Earth would have an answer.

She tapped at him mentally to get his attention.

—
Has she said, Dragon, why she’s Called you?

A flood of images burst into her head, tumbling, crowding, flashing past too fast to be made sense of. Erde slammed up a barrier of protest and sent back an image of herself drowning. Earth relayed apologies and braked reluctantly to the snail-pace of language.

—
Oh, wonder! Oh, devastation!

—
What? Dragon, what is it?

—
Wonder that I have found my sister again!

Again? Erde puzzled at that but there was first a more pressing concern.

—
What could be bad about that?

—
Devastation that it is not she who Called!

—
Not? How do you know?

—
She, too, has heard the Call, from the depths of the sea, and has waked to answer it
.

Erde conjured images of comfort and reassurance.

—
It is another who Calls. She thinks she knows who
.

—
Can she tell you your Purpose?

—
She’s hardly sure of her own. But she remembers more than I
.

—
What is her name?

Erde hoped she did not offend by asking. She knew how
sensitive dragons could be about their naming. But Earth seemed to find great joy in the announcement.

—
Her name is Water
.

Water. Earth and Water. A notion began in Erde’s brain that slid away forgotten as Endoch stilled suddenly, losing his grin. He turned to stare at the narrow space of sand between the dark rusting wall and the impossible pincushion trees. Erde listened as he was listening, hard with bated breath.

“Uh-oh,” he said, and she had no trouble understanding his meaning.

N
’Doch hears it now, an approaching throng. He’d have heard it a lot sooner if he’d been paying less attention to his chances for stardom and more to his personal safety. He can even hear the clang of the weapons—hoes, rakes, tire irons. They’ve brought whatever was to hand, and probably a raggedly lethal assortment of firearms. This’ll really give the cameras something to focus on. He’s surprised the brothers didn’t recognize a vid-shoot when they saw it, but he knows they could never have roused the
bidonville
with a complaint about stolen tomatoes. The bunch of them must have charged in hollering about mutant monsters attacking the beach. It’s mostly fishermen who live in the shantytown, a hard life and getting harder. They’ll be worried about their boats, and these days, they’ll believe anything bad about the water.

N’Doch has to laugh at that. If they think his own little silver-blue critter could do damage to one of those old hard-built boats, wait till they see this big brown guy. Then he wonders if the fishermen are in on it, too. Maybe the whole town knew about the shoot except him.

Doesn’t matter. He’s deep into it now. For at least the fifth time that day, he ponders his routes of escape. He can see the white girl has the same idea. She’s casing the nearest fishing boat with obvious intent to board.

“Can’t hide there,” he cautions. “First place they’ll look.”

She gazes at him uncomprehendingly.

“Damn. Forgot.” He’d felt like they were communicating pretty well until he’d had to fall back on words. Then he gets excited all over again. This has got to be it, his big moment, where he gets to rescue the girl from the ravening
horde and be the hero. He wishes he’d found more to eat today. One tomato is hardly an energy-builder. He’s not sure yet how the cybercritters fit in. The brown one, at least, is much too big for the hidey-hole N’Doch is contemplating. He thinks the blue one will just make it, but probably they’re meant to face down the crowd first as a diversion while he makes a run for it with the girl. He finds he’s not very happy about that. It means one or both of the critters will likely be torn apart by the mob, to rouse the viewer’s blood lust a little and create more sympathy for the hapless escapees. He hopes it’s not the little blue one, though her size and beauty make her the prime candidate. But he reminds himself she’s only a prop. He shouldn’t be thinking of her as
his
.