The Book of Air: Volume Four of the Dragon Quartet (47 page)

Erde rests her palm on Hal’s brow. “I feel no fever now.”

“Fever? What fever?” Hal’s eyes narrow in suspicion, then clear, and he gently lifts her hand away. “I recall. I took a blade.” He looks to Wender.

“Indeed you did, milord.”

“And it went bad.”

“Aye, milord. And before that . . .” Wender reconsiders and falls silent.

“Before that, what?”

“You’ve . . . been unwell, milord. For a while.”

Hal rakes a thin hand through his hair, his habitual gesture of bewonderment. “Well, I’m fit as a fiddle now, and a good thing, too. We have much to discuss! I beg you, Kurt, help me to rise.”

“You mustn’t . . .!” Erde and the king speak simultaneously.

“But I must,” replies Hal. On his feet but tottering, he grabs the dragon’s claw for balance. He squares his starved shoulders, lifts his stubbled chin. “Lord Earth! At last I can repay you for the many favors you’ve done me and my king! I believe I have uncovered the final purpose of your Quest!”

T
he Librarian is grateful to Water for retaining her human shape while in the garden at the Ur-Deep Moor. It reflects an empathetic understanding of human sensibilities that his own dragon appears incapable of. And it gives him something to do while the two dragons greet and debrief, strolling up and down the lawn: the tall black man and the stubby bearish one, walking side by side among clusters of sober observers without speaking. N’Doch and the two Tinkers can easily imagine the silent conversation going on at light speed, but it must look peculiar to the Deep Moor ladies, who aren’t so used to dragon oddities. The Librarian listened in on the dialogue eagerly enough at first, and then with waning concentration as he realized that, despite Water’s obvious advantages, the process of communicating with Air is not a whole lot easier for her than it has been for himself. If all these avid watchers have expectations of immediate answers, they will be disappointed.

So the Librarian listens with a part of his brain, and concentrates on his balance and footing with the rest. He constantly has to counteract Air’s tendency to let her intensity spill over into his physical being. Twice he has nearly slammed his elbow into Sedou’s ribs. Without warning, any one of his limbs might be flung suddenly outward, or his head made to nod violently, as the dragon struggles to convey to her sister a certain crucial point. In sympathy, Sedou/Water now grips his arm, for support as well as gentle restraint.

So the Librarian is not the first to see it happen, though
he is the most likely to comprehend what it means. It’s the murmur that snags his attention, beginning as an ominous undercurrent to the hushed fits and starts of conversation across the lawn. Soon enough, however, it rises to a descant of wonder and dismay that can no longer be ignored by man or dragon.

Beside him, Sedou lets out an involuntary grunt of surprise.

The Librarian glances up from his stumbling toes. The women are staring and pointing. Above the sloping roof of the Deep Moor farmhouse, the background profile of barns and trees is mutating, sector by sector. Leaf, branch, and human architecture are being replaced, three dimensions by two, organic by inorganic, natural randomness by abstract symmetry. The new is no less beautiful than the old, the Librarian observes impartially. But it’s not human.

“Ask her,” he suggests to Sedou. “Would she keep the nanos in line a while longer?”

Sedou frowns, but does not say, “Why don’t you ask her?” He’s silent for a space, then his mouth draws tight in concern. “She feels it is not important.”

“But the women are frightened. They have no understanding of this.”

“I’ve little more myself. But I mentioned the ladies. And actually, my sister didn’t say it was unimportant. I said that. She just refuses to focus on anything peripheral to her central priority: gathering the eight. The only words involved in this transaction were . . .”

“I know.
Hurry, hurry
.”

Sedou nods. “Perhaps this is her way of forcing us into action. She’s going to let the city fall apart around us, and we’ll have no choice but to go where she wishes.”

The Librarian is not surprised. He’s concluded already that the dragon inside him is heartless. As in, lacking any sort of human pity. Or if she has any heart at all, it’s his. Not the physiological organ so much as the awareness of a connection to others, to life-forms that it might be one’s duty to protect. If she were human, she would be called driven, obsessive, perhaps even autistic. But Air is hardly even a dragon, in the organic sense. She is an impulse, an eternal intention housed in pure intellect. A force not entirely
immovable but requiring his constant surveillance and direction. Otherwise, she would mow down everyone and everything in her path.

The Librarian accepts this because he must, but he finds it perplexing in the extreme. He has supposed that the dragons’ great Purpose of saving the Earth inevitably involves the rescue of humanity. Yet because she has no further use for it, Air is letting the White City disassemble itself. She has withdrawn from its systems, now that she has his own organic circuitry to inhabit. Her energies no longer direct the nanos’ programming, so the nanos are taking the city back. They’re reassembling it according to nanomech standards, which will soon render it inhospitable to human survival. What need, after all, have the nanomechs for the sort of life-support systems that once served the City’s human population? Nanomechs can function quite successfully in lethal doses of ultraviolet, or in the thin and poisonous vapor which, in this far future, is all that remains of Earth’s atmosphere.

It’s a delicate line he has to walk, the Librarian reflects. He can’t allow Air to ride roughshod, but neither can he point her too boldly away from the line of her Purpose. It will seem to her like resistance or rebellion, and she has no time for that. She’ll simply hijack his body again, and get him and everyone else killed in the process.

What is it, then, that she’s so hell-bent on saving? Is her concern only for the Earth itself and its ecosystems? If so, it seems to the Librarian that the chance for that rescue has already long gone by.

And what is he to tell the others, who are turning to him now with frightened, questioning eyes? Where will he find the words? He looks to Sedou, and breathes a sigh of relief. The engaging black man whose shape Water has borrowed is already busy soothing and explaining, revealing little that might distress, without ever seeming to conceal, all this far more articulately than the Librarian could ever manage. At last, a dragon that can speak for itself.

Meanwhile, if Air will not see to the welfare of the humans she has dragged to this fatal place, he must do it himself. According to Luther, the Grove is currently a perilous location in its own right. But if Air insists on going there, the Librarian will not be able to stop her. Still, a
little resistance is in order. He must put the dragon off long enough to prepare everyone for the journey. Then he must make sure that the portal stays open long enough for all to pass through it safely.

Most important, he must let them know that they’ll have to be ready to fight the minute they get there.

T
he sultry heat is familiar, way more humid than the Citadel. The ruddy skies are what reminded Paia of home the first time she came here, but it’s the tired, dusty palm trees that tell her for sure she’s back in Africa. The smell of dead fish and carrion is strong even this high. As the dragon soars along the curving borderline of bleached sand and ocean, Paia is assailed by the memory of N’Doch closing his dead mother’s eyes. She’d weep for them if she could, tears of rage and guilt. But a dragon has no tears. Especially this dragon.

Fire materializes in man-form in a deserted hallway of a vast marble palace, in full dress uniform, his most stunning confection of red and gold. Paia finds herself beside him, corporeal, separate, as if her moment of despising him so totally has flung them apart. She lays her fingers to her cheeks in wonder. Her own skin, her own being. A sigh of relief escapes her so audibly that Fire stares down at her and scowls.

“You’re to be gorgeous, quiet, and submissive. This will indicate my high honor and status, as well as assuring your safety. Can you manage that?”

Paia nods, distracted by the joy of being herself again.

“All right, then. Two steps behind me always. So they’ll see you as a virtuous woman, not for sale, and belonging to me. Understand?”

She makes a face, gazing up at him impudently, and curtsies. “Yes, my Fire.”

“You used to call me ‘my lord.’”

“Yes, well . . .”

He turns on his booted heel and strides off down the
hall. Paia hurries after him, but her surroundings are a distraction. Double ranks of polished marble columns support heavy gilt cornices and a long coffered vault stretching toward a distant pair of gilded doors. The marble is heavily veined in rich reds and blues, so gaudy that Paia wanders closer to see if it’s painted. This is architecture on a grandiose scale, built with one intention in mind: to impress. Paia has only seen its like in picture histories of ancient empires. Between the columns, arched panels of beveled mirror reflect the glimmer of crystal chandeliers. She’s reminded of old videos of Versailles, in her day half-submerged by the rising water. This is how it must have felt to walk its glittering corridors during the reign of the Sun King. But there’s also a lot that Louis would not have recognized. Surveillance cameras swivel to keep the intruders in sight as they pass. Hidden speakers fill the long arching hall with sound and music. Huge video screens are set into the mirrored panels between every other column, a different image playing on every screen. Paia lags behind. She hasn’t seen advertising since the earliest days of her youth, and the only actual programming she’s known is what’s archived in the House Computer’s library. Very little of it looks like this. She slows in front of a graphic battlefield scene. A cacophony of screams and explosions leaps at her in stereo from behind the columns.

“So real . . .” Paia stares, fascinated. Perhaps it’s actually a news report?

Down the hallway, Fire glances back, then stops, his tall silhouette perfectly reflected in the shine of the marble floor. He hisses at her to hurry. Paia trots dutifully after him. Along the way, she glimpses nude bodies intertwined on one screen, and some indescribable carnage involving small animals on another.

“Where are we?” she demands, catching up. Her whisper dances like soft light across the gilded coffering to join the bellows and moans of the mingled sound tracks.

Fire waves her back. “Two steps behind, remember! If anyone sees, I’ll lose face immediately!”

Paia complies, trying not to sulk. “What
is
this place?”

“You like it?”

“Not really. I think it’s creepy.”

“Get used to it. We’ll be staying a while.”

“But what is it? Did you see what’s on those screens?”

“What do you expect? We’re in the headquarters of the Media King.” Fire gestures grandly around. “A gallery of his current work, I assume. A new addition. And the decor is much improved since I was here last. My minion has obviously come up in the world. You see? There are still places where my favors can make a leader out of an ordinary man.” He pauses, irritably adjusting the high tight collar of his tunic. “It’s hot here.”

Paia stares at him. Is that sweat beading on his red-gold forehead? “What did you say?”

He looks amazed and vulnerable for about a nanosecond, then snaps, “I know, I know. Permit me the discovery of climatic discomfort, now that I’m actually embodied.”

She can’t keep the wonder from her face, and the hope from her eyes. “You actually feel the heat?”

“What’s so wonderful about that?”

“Well, it’s so . . . so human.”

“Damned inconvenient.”

Paia shakes her head, and then, very deliberately, she goes to him, slides her arm up around his neck and draws his head down to hers to kiss him deeply and lovingly. She feels his astonishment, his delight, the rising of his desire, and then his fury and resistance. He breaks the hold of her arm and pushes her roughly away. “Not here! You’ll ruin my image!”