The Book of Water

by Marjorie B. Kellogg

  The kid waits for them at the walk-in gate, then just as N’Doch is catching up, he raps on it sharply. It swings open to his touch. N’Doch can see that the gate itself is a metal detector, but the smiling guard in the bullet-proof booth waves them in like the host at some swank garden party.

  And inside the walls, that’s exactly what it looks like—the aftermath, at least, of a really big do.

  A shallow, tiled yard runs the width of the building, dotted with fancy fruit trees in big ceramic tubs. People are lying about everywhere, curled up beneath the trees, asleep on the stone benches in between. At least, he assumes they’re asleep. Smiling too peacefully to be stiffs, even on their hard beds of tile and stone. Maybe the place is a pleasure house after all. But the sleepers look to be sleeping normally, not napping off a high of some sort.

  The girl nudges him. At the far end of the yard, several slim young guys in white robes are wandering about watering the bright, lush flowers overflowing the bases of the potted trees. One is picking up scattered bits of clothing from the tiny oval of green inside the circular driveway. N’Doch stoops and rakes his fingers across its manicured velvet. “Unnh. Real grass . . .” He wants to get down and roll in it.

  But he sees the girl eyeing the white-robed guys with serious suspicion. He doesn’t think any of them looks like much to contend with, but he waits anyway, to be spotted and told to get the hell out, like all the other times he’s been told the likes of him don’t belong in someplace he’d really like to be.

  Instead, the guy scavenging the clothes bundles up his armload and comes over, smiling. “My, my, aren’t we up early? Hello, I’m Jean-Pierre. How can I help you?”

  N’Doch is tongue-tied for the split second it takes for the apparition to pipe up.

  “We’d like to see the Mahatma Glory Magdalena.”

  “Danke,” adds the girl hastily.

  The guy’s brows lift. “Oh, I’m afraid it’s much too early for that. She won’t be up for hours yet. But you’re welcome to wait. The line starts around the corner to the right. Of course, there are . . .” He waves a languid hand at the litter of sleepers. “. . . a few petitioners in front of you already, but it shouldn’t take much more than a few days. Will it be cash or credit?”

  N’Doch eases himself forward. “For what?”

  The guy takes N’Doch’s measure and pumps a little more warmth into his smile. “For your Reading, of course. You are here for a Reading?”

  N’Doch judges that the same charm he puts to work on the ladies might work with this Jean-Pierre. He smiles back, heavy-lidded. “Well, no. Actually, we’re searching up an old friend of my grandpapa’s. At the last known address, they told us to look here.”

  The guy’s warmth dims perceptibly. “Ah. An elderly gentleman, then? We have no elderly gentlemen working here. Perhaps your informant meant he is on line, awaiting a Reading. You are welcome to look around, but I do hope you won’t disturb any of our guests unnecessarily. They all need their sleep.”

  N’Doch smiles ingratiatingly, though it pains him to do so. “I’m sure they do. But it’s not a gentleman we’re looking for. It’s a lady, and not so elderly. I’d guess she’d be in her fifties.”

  “She’s here,” says the apparition suddenly.

  N’Doch turns. “Hush, now.”

  The girl catches on. She slides restraining hands onto the apparition’s shoulders. N’Doch gives her a little nod, already turning back to the young man. “Her name is Lealé.”

  The guy’s face goes briefly blank, and then his smile returns. N’Doch imagines a robot checking a data file, but he knows that look: the momentary shutdown of the bureaucrat who’s just received a piece of information he doesn’t know what to do with.

  “What was that name again?”

  Bingo, thinks N’Doch. He conjures up a pleasant innocence. “Lealé Kaimah.”

  The guy backs up a step. “Well, now. Let me see. Why don’t I just go on inside and check the records for you? Anyone waiting in line will have signed the reservations book. Perhaps your friend has already been and gone, happily enlightened.”

  “My grandfather’s friend, she is. From long ago.”

  “How lovely. And what did you say your grandpapa’s name is?”

  “I didn’t. It’s Djawara.”

  “Yes. Well, then, I’ll just go check.” The guy escapes up onto the colonnaded porch and into the house.

  “Sure lit a fire under him, didn’t we?” crows N’Doch. He’s not used to people being polite to him, for whatever reason.

  “A toady,” scoffs the apparition. The girl nods, like she knows all about it.

  * * *

  Erde sank gratefully into the shade of a column but kept herself alert. Despite the exotic and unfamiliar setting, she recognized in this white-clad man the tone and body language of a courtier. This was not like any court she had knowledge of, but instinct told her that she must not take anyone or anything at face value. Politics, flatteries, and subterfuge had ruled at Tor Alte, even during her grandmother’s more open reign. Erde wondered what the Mahatma Glory Magdalena had done to acquire the kind of power that the presence of courtiers implied. She knew it meant the woman could be dangerous. If not dealt with properly, she could stand between them and finding Master Djawara’s friend Lealé.

  When the young man in white had vanished through the broad double doors of the manor house, N’Doch said quietly, “Stay put. I’m gonna have a look around. Drink some water, huh? You look awful.” He started away, then halted. “Listen, if the guy comes back, let the kid do the talking. Speaking Kraut to ’em will only make ’em think we got money.”

  Erde nodded, uncorking her water jug. She’d finally figured out that N’Doch spoke a kind of Frankish, some future version of the language she’d heard from visitors riding into Tor Alte from west of the Germanies, in the same way that the German that Master Djawara spoke was a future version of her own. She didn’t speak much Frankish, beyond the few polite phrases of greeting and farewell that would be expected on formal occasions from the daughter of a noble house. But she was sure she could learn it.

  She watched little Wasser scuff around the white-paved driveway, and opened her conscious mind to her boon companion waiting a morning’s walk away in the war zone.

  —Dragon, how are you?

  —I am sleeping.

  —You are not. You are awake and translating.

  —The part of me that is not awake is sleeping.

  —Brilliant Dragon! Part of you can sleep while another part is awake?

  —Yes. Only now, all of me is awake.

  —Poor Dragon. I’m so sorry.

  Erde’s smile, repressed mentally, came out physically. She caught Wasser grinning at her mischievously.

  —Well, Dragon, answer my question, and then you may go back to sleep, however much of you wishes to.

  —Yes?

  —Will your sister teach me this Frankish tongue that is spoken here?

  —Ask her. She is awake.

  —Dear dragon, I cannot, unless I ask her in German, which her current boy-form does not speak. Therefore, you must stay awake to translate even if I do ask her myself.

  A giant dragon sigh rumbled through Erde’s mind like the echo of a distant avalanche. Still grinning, Wasser nodded.

  —She says, yes, she will teach you, if you will teach her.

  So, while N’Doch had his look around, the lessons began.

  * * *

  Expecting to be stopped and strip-searched at every step, N’Doch wanders the grounds in a way he hopes looks sufficiently casual. But his notion of stumbling across some secret sector proves bogus. There are people sleeping everywhere he turns.

  The right side of the mansion has a row of tall curtained French windows opening onto a wide flowered terrace. The stone is white, the flowers are pink. It’s all like some kind of vid set, except for the sleepers. Here, where there’s shade from a few ginkgo trees, they’re lined up back to back, head to to
e, like in some sort of fiendish dormitory, or like one of those makeshift morgues they throw together after some war or natural disaster. It gives N’Doch the creeps, looking at them just lying there like that.

  At the end of the row of windows is a big door with a canopy as long as the terrace is wide, all draped in gold and white fabric, something glittery with sequins. N’Doch goes up close. The sequins are shaped like four-pointed stars. He doesn’t know much about fancy fabrics, but he’s beginning to get the drift here. He tries the massive and elaborate brass handle on the shining white door. Locked. No surprise there. It’s even less of a surprise when he continues around the back, where there are more tall, curtained windows facing a graveled car park and a six-car garage. Out on the gravel, two of the white-robed young guys are hosing down the mirrored gold limousine.

  Even though it’s not a surprise, N’Doch has to work to stay casual-like. He’s gonna actually get close to the thing, maybe get a look inside. The gravel is dark with many priceless gallons of perfectly good water. He can see it’s clear coming out of the hose. Course, that doesn’t mean it’s safe. N’Doch guesses the flashy motorcycles have had their wash and are already stashed in the garages.

  He slouches over diffidently. “Want some help?” He knows a little lightening of the work load can often be bartered for information.

  But the guys in white stare at him like he should only dream of being allowed such a privilege. One of them smiles, though, the same even smile N’Doch has seen enough of already in this compound. It’s beginning to make his teeth itch.

  “Oh, no, sir, but thank you. The Mahatma would never wish a Guest to soil themselves for her sake.”

  N’Doch thinks: With all that water, you’d end up being cleaner than you arrived. “Oh,” he says. “I see. Okay for you to, though, huh?”

  His offer of worker solidarity falls on deaf ears. “We don’t mind, sir. As her devoted disciples, such onerous tasks are our honor and our duty.”

  “Natch,” says N’Doch. If the Mahatma Glory won’t be up for hours like the guy at the door said, who was it out parading around in her limo? He’d like to hang and check out the fabulous car, but probably it wouldn’t do to look too curious here. “Well, see ya.”

  “Our best wishes for your Reading.”

  “You bet.”

  He follows the driveway out of the car park, across the back of the house and around the left side. He finds a little grove of trees, some thick-leafed tree he doesn’t recognize, rising out of a carefully mowed square of lawn. N’Doch slows, studying it. Here, there is not a sleeper in sight. Weird. That soft grass under those heavy trees looks like the coolest, most comfortable place for a lie-down in the whole compound. He sees no fence or keep-out signs, no guard post or dogs. Somehow anyone coming here just knows to stay away from this spot. He’d expect at least a scrawny pigeon in the grass, the one or two that haven’t already been netted and eaten. This should be a perfect refuge for ’em. He gets a little chill, staring into this silent green emptiness. It reminds him of the weirdness beneath the trees at Papa Dja’s. At least there, there were birds.

  He stores his search data in a corner of his brain and goes off to find the girl and the kid. They’re hunkered down in the shade on the front steps, tight as you please, playing some sort of word game in two different languages. It takes him a while to realize it’s a two-way vocabulary lesson.

  The girl looks up. “Bonjour, monsieur N’Doch,” she chirps proudly.

  N’Doch grins. “Mais, bonjour, mademoiselle.” Pretty neat. No dragons between ’em or nothing. “Ça va?”

  She throws a quick one back at the apparition. The kid nods encouragingly, like a grown-up.

  “Oui, monsieur,” says the girl. “Ça va tres bien, merci.”

  N’Doch applauds, and she blushes. “She’s a fast learner,” he tells the kid.

  “I’m a good teacher. Sprechen Sie Deutsch?”

  “Oh, no, you don’t. Leave me outa this.”

  “But why, N’Doch?” asks the girl. The dragon translation program has kicked in again. “It’s fun!”

  “Schooling’s never fun. I know what I need to know, y’know?”

  The minute he’s said it, he hates how narrow it sounds, but he can’t take it back. It’s a show of weakness to second-guess yourself.

  The girl’s brow furrows. “No, I guess I don’t. Don’t you always want to be learning new things?”

  “If it’s useful stuff, sure I do.” He’s digging his hole deeper, he knows it. He can’t seem to stop himself. Seconds ago, he was delighted to hear her speaking his language, but something about her dead earnestness just needles him badly. “Wouldn’t want to waste my time otherwise.”

  “It’s a waste of time to be able to talk to me?”

  “Hey, we’re talking now, ain’t we?”

  Her frown is deepening. “I mean, to each other, without the dragons.”

  N’Doch looks away, yawns. “I say, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

  The girl tips a handful of white pebbles from palm to palm, says nothing. The apparition leaps up and sticks its little Jéjé nose right in N’Doch’s face, scowling.

  “You’re mean, big brother, that’s what you are!”

  “I ain’t your brother.”

  “So much the worse for you!”

  N’Doch sees the apparition’s outline waver, and panics. “No! Don’t do it! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it!”

  The girl catches at the kid’s hand. “Wasser, please. Let’s not fight. We’ve more important things to worry about.”

  * * *

  Erde heard an echo of herself in N’Doch’s petulance, the younger self who rebelled against her father’s arbitrary dictates. But it was Earth, now waked fully by the sharp turn of the conversation, who offered an explanation.

  —He is rebelling, too.

  —Against what? No one here’s telling him what to do.

  —In a way, you do. By setting a superior example.

  —He doesn’t think it’s superior. He thinks I’m stupid.

  —He thinks you think it’s superior. He doesn’t quite believe it’s who you are.

  —Well, this is very mixed-up, Dragon.

  —Yes. Especially since he also suspects he’s given up something in order to become as clever as he is about survival, something he suspects you still have.

  —What?

  Earth maundered about a bit, rumbling gently in her mind, as if he wasn’t so sure of this grand theory of his after all. But their philosophical reverie was broken by Wasser’s sharp little elbow digging into Erde’s ribs.

  “Hsst!”

  “Listen!” N’Doch agreed.

  There was a commotion inside the house. A woman’s voice raised in querulous demand, and a hubbub of lower voices explaining, placating, apologizing. In the tiled front yard, the young men in white set down their watering cans and eyed each other anxiously.

  “Sounds like Her Gloryship is awake after all,” N’Doch murmured.

  The front doors burst open, both of them, in a great sweep of gleaming paint and polished brass that scattered several of the young men who had gathered to eavesdrop on the argument inside. A tall, ebony-skinned woman strode out in a flurry of color and motion, yards and yards of glimmering white silk and bright, multicolored scarves and beads, hundreds of strands looped about her long neck and her bare, dark arms and woven into the intricate architecture of her hair. She halted on the top step, the back of one hand pressed to her brow, her eyes closed, her back gracefully arched. The young men in white rushed to gather about behind her like angels in the heavenly choir.

  Erde wondered if she was meant to curtsy. Out of pure habit, she almost did.

  N’Doch stared up at the woman openmouthed. “What an entrance!” he breathed.

  “They’re here!” declaimed the woman, who had to be the Mahatma Glory herself. There was no mistaking her from the images plastered on every fence and doorpost, like the Virgin Mother’s o
n her holy Feast Day. “They’ve come, as I predicted. The doubters laughed, but I said they would and they have come to me!”

  She opened her eyes and turned her fiery glance on her visitors in order of height: N’Doch first, then Erde, and lastly, little Wasser. Her gaze lingered there and narrowed. The boy-dragon shivered and shrank against Erde’s side.

  “They tried to keep you from me, said you weren’t important. The foolish ones! What do they know about the world and eternity, ah?”

  Erde thought of raving priests and white-robed henchmen in another time and place. She shifted an arm and hugged Wasser protectively.

  Then Glory spread her own arms with a tinkling of beads and little bells hidden within the shimmering folds of her robes. She offered them the blinding, beatific smile of her painted image. “Come to me, children. Your journey is ended.”

  “I hope not,” the apparition muttered, his voice muffled by Erde’s T-shirt.

  N’Doch said, “This could be interesting.”

  PART THREE

  The Call to the Quest

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Erde had been schooled in courtly manners and presentation from the earliest age. Her elders had drilled her constantly, for she would naturally be the focus of much attention, being a baron’s daughter and probable heir. She’d felt about it the way she felt about learning to dance: a series of moves designed to produce a given outcome, a collection of predetermined masks she was required to put on. She’d resisted her training, and had often been punished for it.

  The Mahatma Glory Magdalena’s presentation caught her entirely by surprise. She had never laid eyes on such a woman: so grand, so spectacular, so histrionic, all arms and hands and braided, beaded hair flying in every direction. Dignity and decorum were the basis of court behavior, seen at its best in the dignity of Erde’s beloved grandmother, the late baroness, a woman of no small presence herself. But to stand in the Mahatma’s presence was like standing in a gale. Every word she uttered, every move she made called attention to itself. A welcome from this woman was writ in capital letters, given with tears and sighs and lightning flashes of her brilliant smile. Entirely undignified. And yet, Erde admitted, her charisma was such that you gladly let it buffet you in the face, even if it threatened your balance. You just HAD to watch her, to see what outrageous thing she would do next.