Dragon Mage

by Andre Norton

  Rarely did the Old One eat.

  The scents of fish and bread held no interest.

  The sun had set, and the last twinkling bits of bronze it had painted on the Euphrates disappeared as he crossed the bridge and entered the eastern half of the great city.

  The Old One used to revere the goddess, and the gods Marduk and Shamash and Anu, too … But that was when he was younger and without power, when he believed in something divine and something beyond himself. He was called Diipanii then, a name his mother, Tattannu, had given him. He could not recall the name of his father. Neither could he remember the man’s face, though the visage of his mother still flitted in his memory from time to time.

  Those years were so very long ago that he should not be expected to recall them.

  No one living knew his birth name. The souls who did were bits of bone and hanks of hair lying beneath the earth. How many souls rested beneath Babylon? When he stepped off the bridge and found himself looking up at the Esagila, the imposing Temple of Marduk, he wondered if he stood on anyone who had been significant.

  Where would his bones rest? He shook his head. As old as he was, he had decades left, perhaps centuries; his magic would see to that. The herbs and compounds he mixed and ingested would help. He would not be able to stave off death indefinitely, but all those now living in the city, save perhaps the Hand of Nebuchadnezzar, would be dust before he breathed his last.

  A most momentous day, this!

  He passed a fisherman bringing his catch to a buyer’s hovel. The fisherman talked rapidly, wanting to move along to the temple, and not wanting to lose time in bartering.

  “It is the festival,” the fisherman told the buyer. “Do not make this difficult.”

  The Old One’s face bore a rare smile. This was a momentous day, but not because of a festival to honor a goddess that likely would never forgive his innumerable transgressions. The day—what was left of it—was significant because he would view what the Hand of Nebuchadnezzar had managed to acquire.

  The Old One could have waited until Arshaka summoned him.

  Or the Old One could have demanded that the eggs be brought to him. (He was, after all, the most respected crafter of demon bowls anywhere, and so was entitled to make such stipulations.)

  But he did not want to wait.

  He wanted to see the eggs now.

  No common chicken or duck eggs, these that would be crumbled and buried in a demon bowl. No skull-sized eggs of exotic flightless birds.

  Dragon eggs!

  What energy and magic must reside in them!

  He’d sent word ahead to Zuuth, a seer in the old quarter near the Temple of Marduk, and he would stop there before going to the Hanging Gardens. The Old One had visited Zuuth years past, and considered his counsel acceptable. The Old One had not sought the wisdom of another in quite some time, but this was indeed a momentous occasion, and so he made another exception.

  No one was on this street, everyone either eating dinner or praying to Ishtar. Zuuth’s shop was in the middle, made of baked bricks laced with straw and reinforced with lead slats. The Old One entered without knocking; Zuuth’s shop had no door or curtain.

  His senses dulled from the decades, the Old One barely registered the smell of the sheep tied in the corner, or the dung it had dropped. He nodded to Zuuth, then shuffled to a wide stool in front of a low table made of some dark wood.

  Zuuth, stoop-shouldered and wrinkled, but a child compared to the Old One, moved only a little faster than his esteemed client. He drew a knife and went to the sheep, slit its throat in a quick motion, then stretched it out along the wall and drew the blade across its belly, stepping back so not to sully his skirt. He used the knife to separate the organs that spilled out, then reached in and withdrew the liver. This he carried to the table and placed almost reverently in the center.

  He cut the liver into four roughly-equal pieces and studied them. After a few moments he turned the pieces over, then rubbed his fingers on them.

  “What you plan will stretch through the ages.” These were the first words spoken since the Old One’s arrival. “What you plan will rival any spells cast before. I see that the world will shake and that Babylon will be reborn.”

  Zuuth’s fingers trembled.

  “I see death.”

  “But not mine,” the Old One said.

  “Never yours.”

  “You see success?”

  Zuuth nodded. His fingers hovered over one of the quarters. “Horrid success, provided…” He closed his eyes and picked up the piece, squeezed it into a pulpy mass. “You must keep the future from touching the past. You must keep away the father and daughter who will try to interfere.”

  “What father?”

  Zuuth shook his head. “This is all I have.”

  “It is enough.” The Old One put his hands on the edge of the table and pushed himself up. “You see success and the world shaking. It is more than enough.”

  The Old One left the shop, his gait a little slower, as he was growing fatigued. He shut out the sounds of prayers spilling from open windows and the clink of dishes and mugs. He turned north, peering through the shadows and picking his way carefully and deliberately toward the Hanging Gardens.

  22

  The History Lesson

  “They have him, the guards.” Shilo shook from fear for the almost twelve-year-old Kim. She was angry at herself for leaving him, though she’d thought she had no choice; angry that he’d left this spot when she insisted he not move; furious that the dragon would pull a boy through time and throw him into what could be a deadly situation.

  “How do you know this?” Nidintulugal shared her concern. “I saw no guards carrying a boy.”

  Sigmund looked around for his friend, but stayed close to Nidintulugal.

  “They have him. I know because I saw a guard with a catcher’s mitt, not that you know what one of those are. But Kim had one, and I bet he dropped it when I hid him. And I bet he went looking for it. So they have him, and I don’t know where they would take him or how we can get him back.”

  “If the guards have him, then we cannot get him back.” Nidintulugal put on a stoic expression. “I grieve for the absence of the one you call Kim, but we do not have the time to worry over this. I take the dragon’s vision seriously.”

  “Dragon? You talk about a dragon again.” Sigmund stopped looking into corners and shadows and turned his attention to the priest. “What dragon? Not Fafnir, he’s dead. The red one on the box? No, that was Pendragon, Artie said. And not the gold or the blue. So what dragon?”

  “This talk is for another place … a place we should retreat to now. Yes, Shilo?”

  She chewed on her lower lip, still glancing this way and that, wringing her hands together and inadvertently smearing the dye. “I suppose.” Is this my fault? Should I have done something differently? Not left him? I’m fifteen years old! Fifteen!

  “The room you wanted, Shilo. Let’s talk there.”

  She turned to follow him, scuffing her sandals against the street, feeling defeated before they’d even started after the eggs.

  “Wait for me!”

  Shilo whirled. Kim rushed toward them, arms flailing at his sides. Where he’d come from she hadn’t a clue. His T-shirt was off and turned inside-out, wrapped around him like a skirt. His attempt at looking like a native was laughable, and Nidintulugal was quick to throw the robe on him.

  “No time for your dye, Shilo,” the priest said, grabbing Kim’s hand and pulling him along. Nidintulugal gestured with his head at a woman leaning out a second-floor window, watching them. “Gossip is popular here, as you know, and seeing a pale-skinned boy with such hair and odd-looking eyes will set lips moving.”

  “We had best move fast.”

  Several minutes later, the four of them were winded and looking out their own window of the rented room Nidintulugal had arranged. Shilo stayed at the sill, commanding the middle of it and propping her elbows on it. She purposely took
up most of the space, and so the priest and the two boys backed away.

  This isn’t happening, she thought. She was relieved to have Kim with them; she didn’t want to think how they would have managed to retrieve four eggs with only three people. But she still had a hard time accepting the presence of her father.

  “So what’s going on? What’s this all about?” Sigmund sat on one of two mats in the small room, arms crossed in front of his chest, and robe pulled up to his waist. “It’s nice to have company this time. When I was way far north, it was just me and some Norsemen. Hey, can I take this off? It’s hot as Kennesaw in here.”

  Kim didn’t give Nidintulugal the opportunity to answer any of Sigmund’s questions. “Tell me about the dragon!” Kim’s eyes were wide. “Is it the one on the box lid?” He’d hiked his robe up and plopped down next to Sigmund. “Wish we had a fan or a big glass of lemonade. It’s hotter than…”

  “About the dragon…” Sigmund prompted. “Tell us about it.”

  “Which one on the lid?” Kim pressed.

  “A different dragon,” Shilo said. “I thought I’d told you it’s a different dragon.” She leaned out the window and looked down at the street. There was an oil lamp in the room, but they’d not lit it, relying on the emerging starlight. A block away the Hanging Gardens loomed, looking like a black mountain in the twilight.

  “So … about this dragon,” Sigmund insisted.

  Nidintulugal began to describe it, and Shilo shoved all of his words to the back of her mind.

  She watched three men walk shoulder-to-shoulder to the west, and she guessed they might be priests. They must be praying, since it was a holy day for Ishtar. She thought Nidintulugal, though a priest of Shamash, would also be praying were he not occupied with Kim and her father.

  She stared at the trio, no longer seeing them. Instead she saw the image of her father in the casket in the Marietta funeral home. She’d a mind to catch some sleep, then walk all the way back to Ulbanu’s lair and tell the dragon to send her father back, that the dragon had made an unconscionable mistake, and that there must be someone else in the world who could help in retrieving the eggs.

  But there might not be time for that, as the dragon had impressed her with the need for speed. The image of her father’s face melted and she saw the wave of demons crashing over the land and melting walls and buildings.

  Still, the dragon knew that Sigmund was Sigurd Clawhand, and had repeatedly called her Child of Sigurd. So the dragon knew she’d pulled Shilo’s father back through time to Babylon.

  Taunting Shilo perhaps?

  No, Shilo shook her head. Ulbanu would not taunt, she wanted her eggs too badly.

  Shilo grabbed the sill and dug her fingernails into the wood. Why? Why? Why? If Ulbanu had to bring someone who’d touched the puzzle or dealt with dragons, why couldn’t she have brought one of her father’s other childhood friends. Meemaw had mentioned Artie and Ras. Why not them? Why her father?

  It was a cruel thing, foisting a young Sigmund on her. Torturous. Her stomach churned, she was so upset. She didn’t want to look at Sigmund. Every time she looked at the boy, she saw an older version in the back of her mind—the one who had taken her to fish frys and Disney World, who had gotten her interested in history, who had held her close the day the attorney served the divorce papers, who had died too young and relegated her to No-wheres-ville, Wisconsin.

  When tears threatened her eyes this time, she did nothing to stop them.

  Why had the dragon done this? How could Ulbanu, who needed her help, be so horribly, horribly cruel … And yet, that small part of her was pleased to have her father back—even if he was eleven or twelve years old.

  Maybe that was it. She brought a hand up and wiped at the tears. Maybe Ulbanu hadn’t meant to be cruel, maybe she’d meant it as a gift. Maybe the dragon was giving Shilo a chance to say the things to young Sigmund that she hadn’t said to her father.

  She turned away from the window, and so she did not see a very old man shuffling down the street. His back was rounded like a turtle shell, and his eyes glimmered merrily. Shilo sat on the floor, the back of her head bumping against the sill. Enough starlight spilled in through the window that she could watch the boys and Nidintulugal.

  I owe the priest a lot, she thought. More than I will ever be able to repay. He was patiently talking about the dragon and the stolen eggs, that they needed to find a way below the Hanging Gardens to find the eggs, that this would most likely be dangerous and that demons could be involved.

  “Babylon, wild. It’s still hard to believe,” Sigmund said. “Not impossible, I realize. After all, I already saw one dragon.”

  “But not a demon,” Kim said, making a face like he had eaten something sour.

  “So tell me about Babylon. Ancient history’s not my favorite subject,” Sigmund said. “Yeah, Niddy, I’ve heard of King Nebuckets, but that’s about it.”

  It was Nidintulugal’s turn to make a face when Sigmund butchered the king’s name. “History?”

  Sigmund threw his hand over his mouth, realizing the priest might not know about time travel. “Uhm, geography actually. I’m not from around here, you can tell. I really don’t know nothing…”

  “Anything,” Kim corrected.

  “Yeah, I don’t know anything about Babylon.”

  Nidintulugal closed his eyes and sighed, his breath hissing out between clenched teeth.

  A lot, Shilo thought again. I owe him an awful lot.

  “The great city is the capital of Babylonia, the great country that rests between the Euphrates and the Tigris. King Nebuchadnezzar”—he spoke the name drawn out and with emphasis—“is responsible for the most beautiful buildings, including the Ishtar Gate. The name, Babylon, means the gate of the gods. This place is the most important city in the world.”

  Shilo could tell from Sigmund’s expression that he did not believe that. Kim, however, was being more respectful and nodded as the priest continued.

  “These lands have seen many kings, some of them foolish and unthinking toward the people. But a Babylonian soldier named Nabopolassar changed that. He had fought the Assyrian army and claimed this kingdom as his own. Nabopolassar was Nebuchadnezzar’s father. Nebuchadnezzar is in his twentieth year of ruling.”

  The longer the priest talked about Shamash, then about kings and the land and all the impressive temples and other structures, the more Sigmund became interested. He leaned forward, making sure now that he caught every word, and asking questions when he missed something.

  Nidintulugal spoke with such passion that even Shilo was caught up in his history lesson. He discussed the land around the city and events that stretched a few centuries into the past.

  “History’s pretty wild, huh, Kim?” Sigmund stifled a yawn. “Tell us more, Niddy.”

  Shilo grimaced. Niddy was worse than Nidin, which she’d sometimes been calling him.

  “Yeah, tell us more. This’ll make a great report at school in the fall,” Kim said.

  “I’m going to the library when we get home.” Sigmund beamed, the heat forgotten. “I’m gonna check out some history books.”

  Nidintulugal talked about the Hanging Gardens now, and Shilo let her mind wander. Was it possible her father’s love of history started here, by listening to the Shamash priest? Was it possible that his visit to Babylon shaped him into the man she knew?

  A shiver raced down her spine. What if they couldn’t save the eggs, let alone find them? Would they all be stuck in Mesopotamia? And if her father didn’t get back home, he’d never grow up to meet her mother, so she wouldn’t be born. And if she wasn’t born … she rocked forward and held her head with her hands. This was all too much to contemplate.

  “Tell us more, Niddy. About…”

  “It is time to sleep,” he said, stretching out on the floor and leaving the mats for the boys.

  “Sleep quickly,” Shilo said. She closed her eyes. “As soon as there’s enough light, we look for a way under that mou
ntain of green.” She’d thought about leaving now. But the starlight wouldn’t be enough, and someone might think it suspicious that four people were searching along the ground for something when practically everyone else was sleeping.

  They would find the way down in the early morning—blending in with nut paste. Shilo did not doubt that they would find the way; they would have to or they wouldn’t be going home. And then later, under the cover of shadows and darkness, they would use that way to go beneath the city in search of Ulbanu’s eggs.

  “I’m in Hades,” she whispered.

  23

  Weeping Trees

  Shilo used all but a few handfuls of nuts to dye their skin, Nidintulugal carefully helping spread the paste on their eyelids.

  “Do not scratch,” he told them. “Do not wipe off sweat.”

  “Yeah, we get it, Niddy,” Sigmund said. “Don’t smear the color.” The boy sniffed at the robe again, wrinkling his nose and pantomiming gagging. “Hope the other folks in the city don’t believe in baths, or no amount of that nut dye is gonna camouflage me.”

  Kim sniffed at his armpits and his robe. “I’m not so bad as you, Sigmund.”

  “Enough talk.” Shilo was at the window, looking out and adjusting the net bag that helped hide her red hair. “The sun’s up, and I see people moving. We should’ve been out of here a while ago.”

  She turned toward the door, noticing that the boys looked serious. Maybe they understood the importance of this endeavor. “You sure you want to help us?” Shilo asked Nidintulugal.

  “I must find out what Shamash’s test is about,” he said. He patted the knife still tucked in his belt. It looked like he intended to say something else. Instead, he gave the others one final inspection, then led them from the inn.

  They walked along the river, pretending to be interested in the fishing boats that were just leaving, but actually trying to find something like an irrigation pipe through which river water could be pulled to the Gardens. They found nothing.

  “And going in the river to look isn’t an option, huh?”