by Donn Kushner
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“Indeed,” she continued, “we have a story that once all matter was much denser than gold, denser than you can imagine: so that all the universe occupied a space smaller than this fireplace. And there was a dragon who watched it all. In time, so the story goes, this dragon grew bored with so much density and let the matter expand to its present form. The results have been interesting. I suspected all this before my change and have learned much more of it since. But now we have started to grow tired of such a thin and frivolous state of matter: for we are a restless breed, we dragons, never really satisfied; we love change for its own sake. Now and then we return stars to their original compact state. Things seem more tidy that way. Soon it may be time for your galaxy as well.”
It took Nonesuch another moment to realize what she was saying. “And our earth?” he asked her.
“It is part of the galaxy, I believe,” his grandmother replied primly. * *A very small part.”
“And the humans on it too?”
“Of course.” His grandmother seemed surprised that he should ask.
“I wouldn’t like that,” Nonesuch told her.
His grandmother stared at him, concerned. “You have become too fond of them! It’s a natural reaction, I suppose;
but you’ll get over it. They’re of little account, really. Occasionally their minds seem to aim at wisdom, but they are too much creatures of the flesh ever to reach it.”
“They are often kind to each other,” Nonesuch told her.
His grandmother sniffed. “So are rabbits.”
“They help each other; they work together.”
“Usually for no good purpose.”
“But they can help each other; and the poor, too.”
“If you are thinking of your abbey, at Oddfields, or what-
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ever its name was,” Nonesuch’s grandmother replied, “it is no longer there. One of their kings turned the monks out of all the abbeys and gave their gold and property to his followers. It was his older daughter, the one they called Bloody Mary, who burned my two old men and so many others to make amends for her father’s crimes.”
Nonesuch did not answer immediately, thinking of the abbey.’ “They make beautiful things,” he said at last. Perhaps it was still true.
His grandmother did not seem to be in a mood to give humans credit for anything.’ ‘Only because they are not content with the world as it is,” she told him.’ “They want to prop up their own vanity.”
“Their church windows make the light more beautiful.”
“If you like that sort of thing,” his grandmother retorted. “Personally, I find their stained glass full of simple-minded fables and naive symbols.”
“They cut stones that hover in the air like fountains of water.”
“They should have left the stones where they belonged, in the earth. I have crawled through veins of marble, through galleries of stalactites and stalagmites, more beautiful than a hundred palaces.”
‘ “They make books,” Nonesuch told his grandmother.
She spread her wings and fanned the coal beneath her. She did not reply immediately. “Ha!” she said. “Your book, for example.”
“And many others.”
“They do that, I admit,” his grandmother said. “For what final purpose I am not sure.” She paused again, swelling and shrinking in the flames. “So you are fond of your book?”
“It is the most beautiful thing in the world,” Nonesuch told her.
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• ‘Perhaps the onfy beautiful one that humans have made,” said his grandmother. “Still, as you are so fond of it, you should keep it. I’ll pass the word that you are not to be disturbed for a time.” She looked at him for a long moment. “There is another saying: ‘A true dragon always remains with what he loves; if he can.’ “
As she sat there in the flames, thinking deeply, the door of the laboratory opened. A tall man in a long blue coat with gold buttons, wearing a thick wig and thick spectacles, entered. He looked at the bubbling flasks and opened a draft in a brazier to adjust the heat under one of them. He sniffed at the liquid in a bottle and wrote down something in a black notebook.
The grandmother watched him with close attention until he had left the room. “Your new gentleman is an amateur,” she told Nonesuch.’ ‘He will learn nothing new. But he is in for a nasty surprise. Though the terms haven’t been invented yet, he is generating hydrogen and oxygen gases in those flasks. They combine violently to make water when given the chance. They have all the chance in the world with these open flames. I think you had better be inside your box when the combination occurs.”
She left the coal bed and hovered halfway up the fireplace. ‘ ‘Definitely, you should go back to your box and stay there,” she told Nonesuch.’ ‘You may hear some noise and commotion:
stay in your box. There will be even less to see outside than there is now.”
His grandmother rose in the flames, while Nonesuch followed her lovingly with his eyes. As she reached the upper levels she began to fade. She hovered there a moment more so that he could still watch her; then, with a wink, she vanished.
CHAPTER XI
THE BOOKSHOP
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IS GRANDMOTHER HAD BEEN WISE TO INSIST THAT
Nonesuch stay in his box. The explosion occurred the very next day. The blast swept the table clean. The brazier, the flask, and all its attachments were thrown against the wall. Acrid smoke filled the room, seeped into Nonesuch’s box, and made him sneeze. He heard shouts and running footsteps. There was a sound of blows and flapping as men beat out the flames, of scraping as burning fragments of wood were gathered and tossed into the fireplace. Shutters were flung apart, and the door was opened and shut rapidly to drive away the smoke.
After a time new footsteps entered the room. Nonesuch recognized the steps of the man in brown who had carried in the books and of the bewigged man whom his grandmother had called an amateur. This one spoke first. “It was a damned near thing, Angus! I might have been in the room myself, or any of us.”
“It was God’s mercy, sir,” Angus replied.
The master’s footsteps walked up and down the room, crunching glass heavily. ‘ ‘I’ll tell you what, Angus,” he said at last. “Some excitement is very well, but this
has ceased to be amusing.” He sniffed at the air.’ ‘A frightful sunk—but it really wasn’t so much better at other times. They noticed it at Court. The wits have had some profit from it at my expense.” He sniffed again, loudly. “Well, they’ll profit no more!” Glass crackled under his feet as he turned to look around the room. “This chemistry is a disorderly nonsense! Nothing will come of it.”
Angus coughed politely. The master continued, “This episode has decided me on a more gentlemanly occupation.”
“Indeed, sir.” Angus’s voice was grateful.
‘ ‘But they’ll hear of it all the same,” the master said in a moment. “How they’ll laugh! I’ll have to shun my coffee-houses as well.”
Angus coughed gently. “Perhaps if you were away for a time, sir. Your friends will find some new diversion.”
There was another pause.’ “That’s true,” the master said at last. “I have been neglecting my proper concerns. I had a letter from Scotland, from the steward at Kilprankie, about repairs to die stables. I should go there myself and see to it. And you too, of course, since you understand the humdrum details better than I. You wouldn’t mind that, I imagine.”
‘ ‘Indeed, sir,” Angus said,’ ‘the country air would do you a world of good.” He paused, then coughed. • ‘And the equipment?”
“All destroyed, I should imagine.”
“There are no glass bottles intact, sir. But the flasks are only a wee bit damaged. And the balance and mortars were sheltered somewhat from the blast.”
“I have no interest in any of them now! They can be thrown into the Thames, for what I care.”
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“T
hat would be a waste, sir,” Angus said respectfully.
The master chuckled.’ ‘Hm, still clinging to your Highland ways, I see. Well, do as you like. But get them from my sight.”
Angus said, after another pause, “They’ll never be noticed in the stable storeroom at Kilprankie, sir.”’
“Whatever you want; I leave such details to you.”
“I’ll see to cleaning all this up, sir,” Angus told him.
“The sooner the better.”
Both men left the room. Others entered, and in a short time Nonesuch felt himself moving again. His box, with the flask still attached, was placed in the bottom of a large crate. A second flask, whose supporting blocks had been burned away, was also placed in the crate, together with books and other pieces of laboratory equipment. The crate was nailed shut.
While all this was going on, and later, when the crate was loaded on a wagon and taken to the gentleman’s country estate fifty miles north of Edinburgh, Nonesuch stayed inside his own box. He was aware of the wagon’s movements; he could feel the roads grow rougher and more hilly as they travelled north. He could hear the drivers talking and the voices of stable-boys in inns along the way. These voices changed from sharp London tones to slower, broader accents and later to Scots accents like that of Angus, the steward, who was riding ahead of both his master and the luggage to see that all would be proper at the Kilprankie estate.
At last, one day the crate was lifted out of the wagon. Nonesuch smelled the smoke of a peat fire and the sweat of the two men who were carrying the crate. • ‘Ach!” said the one in front, “mair o’ the maister’s London nonsense!”
“Patience there. Sandy,” an older voice from the rear replied.’ ‘He won’t bide here long to trouble us. You maun just bear it.”
The men set the crate down and walked away, chuckling
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together. The room became very still. Nonesuch left his box, crawled through the packed laboratory equipment, and looked out the side of the crate. He saw a storeroom, with farm implements and a stack of faded brown carpet from which two earwigs were advancing towards him. There seemed to be nothing outside worth examining, he thought, and he had better guard his own book.
In a short while he slept again. In the country stillness, with only the sound of wind over the fields or a distant neigh from the stables, he slept deeply.
It was long before he so much as dreamed again. Then, it was a strange dream indeed. He found himself in a large room, lit with bright hanging globes such as he had never seen before. In the center was a long table piled with objects of all kinds, including his own box with the flask still attached. A man stood at one end of the table calling out numbers. A thick crowd of people filled the room. Some waved white cards, others called out numbers too. The tones of their voices were different from those Nonesuch remembered, though some reminded him of the voice of the steward, Angus, who was not there. Nonesuch’s grandmother was in the room, though, perched happily on one of the globes, whose light shone through her.’ ‘You’ve come to the right place!” she hissed at him.’ ‘A number here or there will decide your fate!”
While Nonesuch tried to understand this strange statement, his dream changed again. Now he was flying high in the air, so high that at first he mistook the clouds beneath him for snow on the ground. Air rushed past with a smooth hiss, though he did not feel the wind on his skin. This could happen only in a dream, he thought. He could see no humans or their buildings. When the clouds cleared away, he found himself still flying, but over an endless sheet of wrinkled gray-blue water. He saw a queer boat very far below. Its wake showed it was moving
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along, but it had no sails, unlike the ships he had seen in his own early days. Far off to one side, going in the opposite direction, was a flying creature — another dragon, he thought with a thrill. But this one flew without moving its wings at all. As distant as it was, he realized it was much larger than any dragon he had ever seen. How could such a large one have survived this long?
Even though he reminded himself that it was all a dream, this last thought disturbed Nonesuch greatly. Had he been wrong to grow so small? It was comforting when thick clouds came around him again and the dream left him to his deep slumber.
But the reality when he truly woke was stranger still. He opened his eyes. Bright daylight, shining through a clear window, had slipped between the pages of his book. A fresh, salty breeze was blowing between them as well. For the first time in hundreds of years. Nonesuch smelled the sea. But it was a different smell from that of the sea that had washed the beaches south of Serpent Grimsby, or that had broken on the rocky islands by the coast of Scotland. The seaweed, the dried driftwood, and the fish scales were not quite the same. And there was another smell unlike any that he had encountered before: one that he came to recognize later as motor oil from the boats in the marina just offshore.
But he had no time to sort out these odors now. There were humans close by, three of them. His book was out of its box, and one of the humans had just turned over a page! How many more were still above him? Nonesuch flattened himself down and slipped sideways so that he lay between two branches of a vine. If the page above him was lifted, he might be mistaken for a painted dragon there.
“Beautiful!” It was an old man’s voice. The accent was
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quite new to Nonesuch, but not the tone of enthusiasm, which he found strangely comforting.
A clear woman’s voice, also old, said, “And you got this at an auctforf? Did you mortgage the whole shop to pay for
it?”
‘ “Twenty-five pounds,” the old man’s voice replied proudly. “I don’t believe you. The Scots are not so stupid.” “Not for the book. For the box, and its attachments.” A young man’s voice was heard. “You should have seen Dad in action!” He waited for the older man to speak, then continued. “I wanted the flask, even though it was damaged. But someone else was bidding for it too; a little dry fellow, a pharmacist, I think. We got to ten pounds, but he still seemed stubborn. The bidding went to fifteen. Then Dad touched my elbow. He had been looking at the table and had seen something I had missed. He said, ‘I’ll add a bit for the box,’ and called out, ‘Twenty-five pounds.’ That shut the pharmacist up, and it was all ours. The pharmacist was shaking his head at this extravagance. After all, perfect specimens of these flasks were listed in catalogues for forty pounds. Who would pay more than fifteen for a damaged one? I gave Dad a look as if to say, what are you doing? He whispered, ‘You can have the flask; I’ll just take the box.’ “
The older man said,’ ‘I had noticed the ironwork around the box, under the paint. I thought, if someone had wanted to guard a box so carefully, there might be something in it.”
“We had to rush to catch the plane at Glasgow,” the young man said.
The woman sniffed. “I suppose that in your rush you didn’t have time to buy any books at the auction - books that weren’t in boxes?”
The older man said, “Peter picked up the remains of a
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treatise on alchemy - in very poor condition. They had all come out of a storeroom in some decayed manor-house. All the books were in shreds. The beetles had gotten at them. I wonder how this one escaped. It was in a box, but that probably wouldn’t have protected it from a really determined insect.”
The young man said, “There just wasn’t anything else. But Dad only had eyes for the box. He didn’t like to ship it in his suitcase. If he hadn’t been carrying the porcelain, he’d have taken it to his seat on the plane. He said he wanted to get it home before he opened it.”
“I had a feeling,” the older man remarked.
• • You opened it?” the woman asked.
“I got Bartholomew to do it. Even he had a hard time. He said, “They don’t make locks like this now. They have no respect for the dignity of labor. Where did you get it?’ But I didn’t tell him. I carried it back without an explanation. I didn’t want
to open it anywhere else but here. I hope he didn’t think I was rude. I’ll give him that Italian edition of Lenin’s letters.”
Another page of the book was turned. Nonesuch crouched lower still.’ “The pages seemed warped,” the old man remarked. “Should I press them? I’ll read about it before I do anything.”
‘ ‘And I only wanted the flask,” the younger man said.
“The flask you can have. Let it be my gift.”
“It’s eighteenth-century,” the younger man protested.
“Practically modern. This is fifteenth-century. A Book of Hours. It seems all to have been done by one hand.”
A small bell jingled. The three people stopped talking. A door swung open and a boy’s voice said, ‘ ‘Where are they?” A stronger breeze from the open door lifted the page above Nonesuch just a fraction. He raised his head and saw that his book was on a wide table that ended near a layer of shelves,
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no more than a foot away from him, filled with more books than he had imagined possible. The sunlight that filled the room still left the depths of the nearest shelf in shadow. Nonesuch crawled to the edge of the page and looked sideways. An adjoining table was covered with paperback books stacked in rows, their spines upwards.
The newcomer, a plump, cheerful boy with his hair in all directions, wore a black T-shirt with a picture of a spaceship and a satellite circling the planet Saturn. He had placed a pile ofschoolbooks on an empty part of the table and was stacking paperback books on these. The two men and the woman were standing with their backs to Nonesuch, close to the boy, as if to shield him from the sight of Nonesuch’s book.
Now! The little dragon crouched at the edge of his book and sprang into the air. In all this time, his wings had not forgotten how to fly. In a moment he was deep inside the bookcase, well hidden, and able to survey the whole room.