The Book of Air: Volume Four of the Dragon Quartet (25 page)

H
e’s fine for a while, cross-legged on the smooth stone, caught up in the work. One bright line of signal attracts his eye: bits of silvery chain with intervals of silence, sequences iterating with progressive changes. Music, he guesses. He wishes he could hear it, but he can only see its patterning. It seems to be searching, but it keeps running into dead ends and flowing back along itself until its lyrical orderings eddy off into chaos.

The Librarian has often imagined code as the soft and tensile cotton twine that’s best for handweaving and knotwork. In dreams, he has created magnificent tapestries of electronic macramé. So, because the place he is now feels like a waking dream, he attempts a few simple manipulations, just for the fun of it. He nudges the glimmering chain toward a less congested route. To his delight, it finds an open path and speeds along toward its destination unhampered.

By then, his pudgy body is complaining, longing for the comforts of his ergonomic desk chair, and for the back and elbow support of his streamlined, waist-level, black matte console. He can’t concentrate. He can’t fly along the retreating lines of code and signal when he’s cramped by such a vivid awareness of the strained sinews and tense muscles that anchor him to physical reality.

The Librarian sighs. He’s never had a superior body, but at least it was fit at one time, for quite a long time in fact, until he retreated into the sedentary life of a cyber-jockey. He understands this now as the careless relaxing of an appropriate if noisome discipline. He should have adopted a hobby that got him up and moving around.

In the womb-temperature darkness, the Librarian sticks his legs straight out and props himself from behind on his palms. He feels like an overgrown teddy bear, and just about as useful. Surely
somewhere
in this void-space, there’s got to be something better to sit on than the floor.

Also, action is definitely more interesting than self-pity. The Librarian looks around. The darkness is very, well . . . dark. A particularly felty darkness, stippled with textures of Brownian motion and incipient light. His gaze is drawn to an area of the darkness more mobile than the rest. More transparent. He groans to his feet and shambles in that direction. The darkness seems to have substance, a dense granulation that gives way before him in a tubular passage. He can’t put his hands on this substance. Nothing solid meets his outstretched arms. But he can feel the
idea
of it enclosing him. He senses the direction in which it’s leading him.

Then his shin whacks something hard that rolls away from him with a sharp plastic chatter. The Librarian bellows in pain and irritated surprise.
What fool left that there?
He always shoves the chair well in under the desk, in case he has to find it in the dark, as happens so often in these days of brownouts and power outages. He moves forward, finds the desk first, then fumbles for the errant chair. And then he remembers there’s no way he could be where he thinks he is.

He stands motionless for a long moment, searching out an explanation. He grips the back of the chair. It creaks under his pressure as he leans against it. Its smooth hand-worn metal frame and torn padding mended with peeling layers of duct tape are entirely familiar. Even though his hands haven’t touched them for two hundred and twenty-three years. He sees the indicator lights on the surge protectors, just where he’d expect them, pin-point eyes in the velvet darkness. The Librarian takes a breath, reaches, and switches on the desk lamp.

The cool halogen glow illuminates a beige keyboard, a bulky monitor and system case, flanked by racks of extra memory, modem, speakers, printers, tape storage, all linked by a spaghetti mass of cable. Books and manuals to right, left, and below. Above, just inside the lamp’s small circle of light, a weather radio, a row of world maps, a list of
satellite flyovers. And more books, with declarative, earnest titles and stacks of
Nature
and the
JGR
as bookends. It’s all there, even a half-filled cup of coffee, cold but not spoiled, as if he had left it yesterday.

The Librarian moves slowly around the chair without letting go of it. He’s afraid he’ll collapse if left without support. He sits, and hauls himself automatically up to the desk. He flattens his palms on it. The very desk, the very equipment that delivered up his first undisputed signal from the dragon.

What is going on?

He has never felt so rattled, so close to believing that he’s finally slipped his moorings. But there’s only one logical thing to do. Only one. His hand hovers, then flicks the toggle to power up the system.

E
rde clings to the arbor post. Rose petals drift around her like fragrant snow. Voices are raised at the gate. Outside, more frantic barking. Whatever’s out there is coming in. The dogs spill through the gate again and out across the lawn in a blur of teeth and hackles. Erde grips the post so tightly, her knuckles crack. She prays that the hell-priest and his white-robed minions will not be next.

Then Lily and Margit stride in, forcibly escorting a small, dark figure by both scrawny arms. They shove their prisoner roughly to the ground. The figure curls up defensively in the thick green grass and lies there, unresisting. Erde goes up on her toes for a better view. Some captured denizen of the city?

Margit’s voice floats up from the lawn. “Caught this one skulking about!”

Erde squints to see more clearly. “Oh, my!”

She bolts across the lawn, forgetting Rose entirely, and arrives just as Luther has shoved his large body between the two snarling scouts and the hapless intruder.

“Leave ’im!” Luther shouts. The dogs mill about, barking.

“Lily! Margit! Wait!” Erde pleads. “He’s a friend!”

The women back off only enough to give her room. Erde throws herself down beside the curled-up ball and pats it urgently. “It’s all right, Stoksie. They won’t hurt you!”

“Too late fer dat!” Stoksie uncoils warily, glancing about. “Hey! Wachu doin’ heah?”

Luther bends to help his friend to his feet, gently brushing him off. “Yu okay, Stokes?”

Stoksie nods, shooting a grim look at Lily and Margit. “Yu prizners, too?”

“No, no. It’s all a misunderstanding. You’re with friends.” Erde takes his arm. “This is Stoksie, everyone. He’s one of Luther’s countrymen.”

Stoksie looks to Luther and gets his nod. “Well, den. Das diff’rent.” He straightens his clothing, then bows around, as if calling on all assembled to notice how forgiving he’s being.

Erde is seized with giggles, but swallows them. She knows how the plucky little Tinker dislikes being bested. “Stoksie, how did you get here?”

“Well, nah, I cud ask yu da same questchun.”

“Margit says you were sneaking about out in the yard.”

“I wuz lookin’ fer help!” He claps his hand to his bald head as if suddenly recalling his errand. “Hey! Doan mattah how I got heah! We gotta run help G! Dere’sa monsta afta him!”

“A what?” She’s heard this term before from the Tinkers. She beckons Raven and the scouts to listen. “You mean Fire? Is he out there?”

“Nah. Dis sum kinda vishus masheen!”

Machine. Erde pictures the elevator at the Refuge, and the sleek humming furniture in Gerrasch’s workroom. She knows these are machines, but it’s hard to imagine them being vicious. Then she remembers the flying machines of N’Doch’s time, and the wagons that rolled without horses. The one N’Doch called a
tank
truly was a monster. She saw it break down stone walls. “Is it coming here?”

“Doan know, but we gotta go afta G. Yu know how he kint run much.”

“What’s going on, sweetling?” asks Raven, less patiently than usual.

“Oh, forgive me!” Belatedly, Erde translates. She’d forgotten that none of the women would understand a word of the Tinker dialect. Nor do they know what a machine is, but they all recognize the description.

“We saw such horrors during our journey here,” Raven agrees.

“But they didn’t chase us,” says Margit. “They hardly noticed us, but we had to be on our guard all the same. They’d flatten anything in their path.”

“Often,” Lily adds, “they were fighting each other.”

“We gotta hurry!” Stoksie breaks in. “Kin yer frens help us?”

Erde passes the request to the women.

“Gerrasch?” exclaims Raven. “Our Gerrasch? Here?”

“Not quite as you remember him, but yes, it’s our Gerrasch.”

“Did he flee through the portal, too? I saw his house was destroyed, and I feared the worst!”

“I’ll explain everything! After we’ve rescued him!”

Lily and Margit agree. Lily hurries off to recruit a few of the stronger refugee women.

Dragon, should we go with them?

I MUST SEE TO ROSE. BESIDES, I’D ONLY SLOW THEM DOWN. SISTER, WILL YOU GO?

PHYSICAL STRENGTH IS NOT MY GIFT, BROTHER. AS SOON AS YOU HAVE SEEN TO ROSE, WE MUST GO AFTER N’DOCH.

Then I’ll go, and call you to come when we find him
.

I WILL WANT YOUR HELP WITH ROSE.

I HEAR MUSIC. DOES ANYONE ELSE HEAR IT? MUSIC, I’M SURE OF IT!

Erde feels their attention languishing.
Dragons! Are we to desert Gerrasch? Your sister’s dragon guide? Surely not!

THESE STRONG WOMEN WILL BE HELP ENOUGH. WE MUST ALL USE OUR TALENTS ACCORDINGLY.

Guiltily, Erde relays all this to Margit, but the older woman seems unsurprised that the dragons are preoccupied with their own concerns. In fact, Erde decides, Margit is flattered that the great beasts trust her to get the job done. She nods tightly and whistles up the dog pack.

“The hounds won’t be much use against a machine,” Erde tells Stoksie. “But they know Gerrasch from the old days. They’ll help you track him down.”

Stoksie marvels over them, real living dogs that crowd around to lick his hands instead of attacking. “Dey wuz nicer ta me den doze two wimmen.”

“Those women are good fighters, Stoksie.”

“Fighters, all ri’,” the little man grumbles.

Luther negotiates the loan of two stout pikes from Margit. Erde is relieved to note that the women of Deep Moor
did not flee their burning homestead entirely unarmed. She smiles hopefully at the party assembling at the gate. “Bring him back safely!”

“Betcha!” Luther replies.

She watches them out of sight. Then, calling the dragons, she follows Raven back to the garden courtyard, assailed by the conviction that events are happening much too fast. Faster than usual, she’s sure of it. She leaves Earth to hunker down outside the rose arbor. Water joins the women inside. Raven watches her flow in and out of the corners and niches, exploring the garden.

“Like a flock of butterflies this time. But humming, like bees.”

Erde listens. The tune sounds vaguely familiar.

“Could she become Sedou again?” Raven asks. “Rose was very taken with Sedou.”

“She would need N’Doch to sing her into that shape. His memory. His song, not hers.”

“Ah.” Raven nods soberly. “A pity.”

Water completes her circuit of the garden and comes to hover over the table where Rose sits, exactly as she had been. As slowly as the petals falling from the arbor, Water settles onto the motionless woman until Rose is blanketed by a cloud of scintillating blue motes.

Erde queries the dragon.
What is she doing?

MY SISTER GREETS THE LADY ROSE AND OFFERS HER OUR AFFECTION AND SUPPORT.

Does Rose respond?

SADLY, SHE DOES NOT.

Lady Water, can you tell what’s wrong with her?

The blue motes withdraw from Rose and gather at the arbor entrance. THAT’S FOR MY BROTHER TO SAY. I ONLY WISHED TO PAY MY RESPECTS BEFORE I LEFT.

You’re leaving?

N’DOCH IS SINGING.

But he’s in Africa
.

THE MUSIC I’VE BEEN HEARING JUST NOW ORGANIZED INTO A SONG. HE’S SOMEWHERE NEARBY, HERE IN THE CITY.

But how could he be?

Erde blurts this in total disbelief. But on second thought,
it makes perfect sense that N’Doch is in the city. Symmetry demands it because Gerrasch is also here, delivered by yet another portal, to judge from Stoksie’s description. Erde believes in symmetry, especially as regards the destiny of dragon guides. Eventually, she’d have worried if N’Doch had
not
shown up.

Is Paia with him?

I’LL FIND OUT WHEN I GET THERE. I’LL KEEP IN TOUCH. CIAO.

Water doesn’t wink out as the dragons do when Earth is providing instant transport. She flutters away under the blossom-laden arbor. Peering after her, Erde sees her flit across the outer lawn and through the stone gate into the city as if heading off on an afternoon stroll. Erde sighs. The scent of flowers and bruised grass and the warm softness of the breeze belie the dire realities they all are facing. And then Earth’s deep rumble reclaims her wandering attention.

NOW LET US TURN OUR MINDS AND HEARTS TO HELPING LADY ROSE.