The Book of Water (7 page)

Meanwhile, here she was, running from another howling mob, hiding in another cave. Erde recalled the peace and pleasure of Deep Moor and nearly wept. She’d had such a short time in that magical valley, with Rose and the other women who guarded and nurtured its secrets, yet somehow she had come to think of it as home. She had no other, certainly not Tor Alte, not as long as her father remained under the priest’s evil sway. And now she didn’t even have
Deep Moor—she had a dark and noisy pit filled with salty, smelly water.

She caught herself whining, and didn’t at all like the sound of it. At least the water was cooler than the fetid air. And how dare she whine when they’d found another dragon, one who could understand her, even if its dragon guide could not? Erde did not feel Water in her head like she did her own dragon. Water responded via a fast relay to Earth and back again. This dragon-to-dragon communication seemed virtually instantaneous, as real magic should be. It was as good as having an interpreter standing right at your ear.

What did not seem to be so clear or instantaneous was Water’s communication with Endoch. But Erde remembered that it had taken her a while, several days in fact, to learn how to “talk” properly with Earth. Endoch was probably “hearing” more than he realized. It had been that way for her, and then understanding had arrived rather suddenly, like a morning fog lifting off the mountains. From then on, it had been as natural as breathing.

For now, Endoch had fallen into nodding and pointing a lot, rather like she’d had to do when she’d lost her voice. But she guessed he had met a lot of people who didn’t speak his language, since he acted as if it was nothing odd, merely inconvenient.

And so, with broad gestures and murmured incoherencies, he led them far across the dark lagoon to an equally dark shore. Finally, Erde heard rather than saw him let go of Water’s neck and swim several long strokes to clamber up on a bank that rang softly under the weight of his step. Water slid alongside this shore while Erde felt for stone or sand, anything solid to stand on. Instead, she found Endoch’s hand, hauling her out of the water. He drew her quickly away from the groaning edge, which was hard as stone but smelled like a smithy’s rubbish pile.

“Come on,” he said quietly. “This way.”

Erde’s alert ear detected familiar syllables. “
Kommen
?” She felt him stop short and turn in the darkness.

“Yeah,” he said with slow surprise. “That’s right, come on.”

“
Ja
,” said Erde. “
Ich komme
.”

“Yeah?” He gave a little laugh of disbelief.

“
Ja
.”

“
Ja
,” he repeated experimentally, mimicking her with an actor’s precision. Then he slapped his forehead. “Of course! It’s German. You’re speaking German. It sounds a little different, y’know? I didn’t recognize it at first.”

Erde was sorry to disappoint him, but her silence told all.

“No, huh? Okay, lemmesee . . . German . . . I know that one. It’s all over those big trucks we scavenge. It’s, um . . . Deutschland!”

“
Jawohl. Deutsch
.” Erde almost giggled. He was close, but how funny that he had turned a mere language into an entire kingdom. Deutsch
land?
Didn’t he know that a whole lot of kingdoms and duchies spoke German?

“
Deutsch
,” he repeated. “That’s right, Deutsch.”

Water announced herself with a wet nudge at Erde’s shoulder. There were lanterns or torchlight flickering along the walls of the opposite shore.

“
Sei ist hier
,” Erde whispered anxiously. “
Gehen wir, ja?
” But Endoch had spotted the approaching light and was already drawing them away from the water. Erde sensed the tunnel closing in around them again. She put out a hand and immediately jerked it back, suppressing a squeal. The wall was slimy. Cold strings of stuff gave damply under her fingers. Probably the same stuff so soft and slippery beneath her feet. A childish horror rose up in her gullet. Surely, like Jonah in the Bible, she was being swallowed alive!

But Water was there at her back to nudge her along when she froze. The dragon’s breath was like a warm breeze beside her ear. Erde thought of her beloved horse Micha. Her terror eased, and she was able to move on. Only for the dragons’ sake would she set foot in such a terrible place.

Soon she realized she could see again, mostly faint shapes of gray and grayer, but at least now she could make out Endoch’s tall, slim form moving along the passage ahead of her. The ground slanted upward, which Erde took as a fair and welcome sign that she might soon see the light of day again.

At the bottom of a flight of steps, Endoch paused and glanced back. “Everyone okay so far?”

Erde understood only his tone of concern. She nodded and picked up her pace a bit.

“Almost there.”

She heard anticipation in his voice now, and a hint of pride. She climbed the steps behind him thoughtfully. This place he was taking them must be something special, maybe his family stronghold, and this was the hidden entrance. Erde was surprised by his generosity. She wasn’t sure she’d reveal such a secret to someone she’d just met. But after all, it was his own skin he was saving, as well as hers.

A thin shaft of light from above lit the top of the steps. A glow down the passage promised a lot more beyond. Erde gazed about as details rose into visibility, like riders appearing out of a mist. She saw a long narrow corridor with a flat floor and a low, absolutely flat ceiling. She’d never encountered a place so rigorously rectangular or even imagined such a thing was possible. Yet, for all the apparent right angles, there was not a sharp edge anywhere. The walls were very light-colored and entirely smooth, without a crack or mortar line, only a seam every so often, flanked by rows of close-set little knobs, either decorative or some kind of fastener. Cautiously, she put a fingertip, then her entire palm to the surface. It was dry and faintly cool to the touch. Clearly, they had left the cave without her noticing, and climbed up into a strange sort of building. Endoch’s family must be very powerful if this was the castle they lived in.

She was so busy studying the odd walls as she moved along them that she was unprepared for the space beyond. Passing through a doorway, she stopped short, letting her boot bundle slide unnoticed to the floor.

A great-hall
, she thought,
or even a cathedral
.

But there was no altar or throne to be seen, no choir stalls or banqueting table. She stood in a tall, square room with rows of huge, many-paned windows set high up on three of the four pale walls. The ceiling above was lost behind the bright glare through the glass. Many of the panes were cracked or missing, letting currents of air into the room to swirl dust and insects about in the long thick pillars of light falling past shadowed corners toward the floor.

The floor made her nervous. It seemed to be floating.
Erde bent and laid a hand to it. It felt and looked like wood but was as seamless and smooth as pond water at dawn.

Endoch appeared out of the shadows, grinning boyishly. “Isn’t it great? Isn’t it just mega?”

Erde hated to dampen such luminous pride, but how long should she go on pretending she understood what he was saying? Water slipped in behind her and padded into the sunlight and smoky air. Erde watched her slim and lengthen toward the high bank of windows, and knew her for a shape-shifter. Quite astonishing to observe for the first time, really, but nothing surprising. Shape-shifting was an attribute of dragons often mentioned in the lore, one that Earth, being tied to soil and stone, did not possess. Erde hoped he would not be jealous.

She glanced at Endoch, and found him watching the she-dragon with a narrowed eye. He, too, had noticed the shape change, but he seemed puzzled by it, as if unsure that he’d actually seen it. She wondered if his study of the dragon lore had been as complete as her own. She knew that much of a young man’s time must be spent in the armorer’s practice yard or out with the Hunt, but surely he could have picked up the basic essentials just by paying good attention to the bard tales or the old songs sung at the village festivals. If he didn’t know the lore, he’d have no idea what his duty was as Water’s dragon guide. She could certainly tell him, but Erde wondered if he’d even listen to advice from someone so much younger, and a girl.

Whatever conclusion he’d reached, Endoch finally pulled out of his stare with a quick doglike shake of his head and went back to the entrance to yank on a piece of the wall beside it. When it began to swing forward, Erde realized it was a door, huge and rounded at the corners. Endoch pivoted it carefully into place so it settled against the opening with a heavy muffled clang. He twisted some kind of latch that squealed as he turned it, then came away, dusting his palms together with a satisfied air.

“That’ll keep ’em guessing. No one’s ever got past the shark tank so far, but you never know. . . .”

Erde nodded helpfully, which she thought was more polite than shrugging and pointing. The newly relaxed tilt of his shoulders did suggest that he felt they’d finally escaped their pursuers. Taking her first easy breath in a while, Erde
rolled up her dripping legging and began to worry about Earth.

She had no sense of how far they were from where they’d left him on the sand beside the ocean. Since finding each other two months before, she and the dragon had hardly been separated. The void his absence left inside her was an almost physical pain. When he used his gift of stillness to become rocklike, or to still even further to virtual invisibility, it took all of his energy and concentration, or at least that was his explanation for why they could not communicate while he was being invisible. Erde had been sending him a stream of images just in case, ever since following Endoch into the cave. Now that they were in a more dragon-sized room, Earth could join them if only she could send him a good image of it, for he was able to transport himself to any place he could picture clearly in his mind.

Just as she was pondering what to do next, there he was, winking into existence beside Water in the middle of the room. Erde ran to him joyfully.

—
Dragon! How did you get here?

—
My sister! She showed me and I came
.

Like an excited child returned from a great adventure, he began filling her head with views of the mob milling and shouting while he’d been hiding in plain view on the beach.

—
Water can be with you even when you’re invisible?

Assent. A proud dragon nod inside her head.

—
How wonderful
.

—
Yes, she is wonderful. She is my sister
.

—I know, I know.

Then Erde felt ashamed, for she knew she’d sounded snappish. He was still so caught up in the wonder of acquiring a sibling. She didn’t blame him, particularly since the sibling’s gifts seemed to dovetail so conveniently with his own. But she worried now that she, not he, might be the jealous one. She would just try to think of it as having two dragons instead of one. She was eager to question Water about who she thought the Caller was, and about what else she might know that Earth did not. But first, there was the question of Endoch.

—
Dragon, is Water sure this dark man is her dragon guide?

Assent, query, puzzlement.

—
Well, I mean, he . . . I don’t think he knows very much about dragons
.

Earth looked at her, then looked across the room at Endoch, who had frozen in mid-stride and stood staring at them with his mouth open.

—
Hmmm. My sister says maybe you are right
.

N
’Doch knows what he’s seen. He’s been watching the silver one since she did her growing taller thing right in front of him, and then—in a moment shorter than an eye blink—the big guy is there beside her. Three-D and substantial. Definitely not a hologram. N’Doch notes that the white girl can actually lean her whole weight against the critter’s scaly brown shoulder.

The problem is, he can’t believe it. He wants to, but he just can’t. He’s always told himself those vid people can do anything. Hire
them
to put men on Mars, he’s always said. They’d get it done soon enough, and make a good show out of it, too.

But here, in the dusty shadow and light of his favorite hiding place, his own secret kingdom, this officers’ gymnasium, his credulity is tempered by the still, sane presence of the space. Here—safe, relaxed, clearheaded—he finally has to admit that he’s been making up most of his explanations for the events of the last half hour, or at least stretching what he’s heard to fit what he’s been seeing. He’s never seen a real cybercritter, only the infoshows about the cutting edge developments in special effects, shows he realizes are no more reliable than your everyday newscast. Because he
wants
them to be true, somehow they become true when he needs them to. But right now, in this calm room, away from the constant hype and hustle of his daily life, those stories are no longer working.