The Book of Water

by Marjorie B. Kellogg

  Meanwhile, the girl is saying, “There, there,” and other meaningless stuff made even more meaningless by the fact that she’s saying it in German, like she’s forgotten that Lealé’s not a subscriber to the dragon comnet. But the apparition is translating softly in its little-kid voice, and to N’Doch’s surprise, all this fuss seems to be having some results. At least Lealé has stopped her wailing.

  “There, there,” parrots the apparition, its small hands soothing Lealé’s knee. “It’s all right.”

  Lealé takes a breath, a long shuddering one, then lets it out in an even longer sigh. “No, you don’t know . . . it’s not all right! I should never have told him about Djawara and our pact. I never expected it to come to anything, you see, but now . . .”

  “Tell us, Mother Lealé,” urges the apparition while the girl murmurs and pats. “Tell us about your dreams.”

  “I can’t!” She hunches up, whispering suddenly. “Not here! He might hear me!”

  “Seems like you got overhearing problems wherever you go,” N’Doch comments sourly.

  “Mother Lealé,” whispers the apparition, “surely if he can call you into this room, he can hear you wherever you are.”

  “Yeah,” N’Doch agrees. “So it doesn’t really matter, does it, and that’s supposing he’s listening at all.”

  Lealé eases herself back onto her heels. She looks a bit cornered but maybe a little comforted and, N’Doch could already tell, always willing to accept an excuse to talk about herself.

  “Well, okay, but I refuse to say anything bad about him.” She palms tears from her cheeks. N’Doch can see her preparing for a long recital. “Before, you see, my dreams were entirely random. I’d have one every now and then and there’d be someone in it I knew, so I’d go tell them about it and interpret it for them. And I was often helpful to them about some problem they were having, which made me feel good, like I wasn’t going through all this weirdness for nothing. Then word got around, though, and people I didn’t know came by looking for readings, and sometimes these people would offer me money, and we were poor, so I’d take it.”

  She shifts a little, her eyes wandering to the walls. N’Doch notices she’s placed herself with her back to the door and the still green grove outside. “But then I felt they shouldn’t go home empty-handed, so I looked them over as hard as I knew how, and made stuff up best as I could, to satisfy them. Yes!” She slaps her knees lightly with both palms and stares her challenge all around. “I’ve said it! I used to take money for fakery. But, children, if you understand the world at all at your tender age, you know that all people really want is an exciting performance and close personal attention to their mundane little problems. One way or another, I always gave them their money’s worth! But then . . .”

  Lealé takes another deep breath, steadier this time, and flicks a glance at the girl. “But then one night, about two months ago just like you said, I had this new kind of dream. It was a very specific dream, full of very precise information about some guy I’d never seen before in my life, like watching a vid-doc on the tube or something. I thought it was odd at the time but I didn’t worry myself too much about it until later that day, the guy himself—the exact same guy, no doubt of it, I could tell you what he looked like even now—he knocks on my gate over on Water Street asking for a Reading.

  “Well, needless to say, I gave that guy the Reading of his natural life, and he went out of my house and made a whole lot of money in some business deal, the crucial detail of which had been revealed in my dream! When I heard that, it gave me a chill. Then I had second dream like that, and again the stranger I dreamed about showed up right after, and it kept on happening. Then word really got around fast, and . . .” She stops, breathless, then looks around at each of them as if for sympathy, and shrugs.

  “And presto!” N’Doch supplies. “You’re the Mahatma Glory Magdalena.”

  Lealé nods as if she can’t quite believe it either. “Except that it’s not me doing it. Oh—I dreamed this house myself and made it so. Or rather, I learned how to make it so. He taught me.”

  “This spirit guy . . . ?”

  She laughs full-out this time. “Oh, no. Sorry. The other one. My investor. I dreamed him once and he showed up.”

  “And saw you had a gift could make you both a handsome living.”

  “Yes.”

  “Which now you don’t want to let go of.”

  “Do you blame me?”

  N’Doch stretches his legs. “No way. I’m in awe of your achievement, sister.” But it seems to him there’s one big detail missing. “So the spirit guy . . . when did he put in a personal appearance?”

  Now Lealé hesitates, licking her lips and searching the corners of the room, as if even to speak of him invited his unwelcome presence.

  “Please, Mother Lealé,” begs the apparition on cue, even though now it’s looking just as scared as she is. “Tell us.”

  “One night I dreamed about me, finding my way to this hidden place. When I woke up, I went and found it, just as the dream had told me. While I was there, I grew drowsy and must have dozed. He came to me then. It was . . .” She’s talking so quietly that N’Doch has to lean in to hear her. “. . . after my second dream about Djawara.”

  “What’d you dream about Papa D.?”

  “At first it was just . . . about him. Later, it was about the visitors he would have . . . you. Only not you, exactly. I never expected he’d be sending children. . . .”

  N’Doch thinks she’s called him a child just about once too often. “What did you expect?”

  She shrugs uneasily. “Just that there’d be more than one, and that one would be a Dreamer . . . like me.”

  The girl’s been real quiet for a long time, listening, but now she starts murmuring into the apparition’s ear.

  He says, “Erde asks if you are sure your dreams of Djawara came from your spirit guide? If it was he who sent the dreams, then he must have known all about Djawara already. If he didn’t know, he couldn’t have sent those particular dreams.”

  “You mean, they were just . . . dreams?”

  “Perhaps,” says the kid.

  “But they were true dreams, or you wouldn’t be here.”

  “Why should that surprise you? You are, after all, a Dreamer.”

  N’Doch jumps in. “Anyhow, you haven’t betrayed Papa D. after all, so you don’t have to worry.”

  Lealé glances at him, then away. “It isn’t Djawara I’m worried about. Djawara is a man of power. He can take care of himself. It’s . . .” But she can’t quite bring herself to say it, so a silence falls in the dim little room.

  “It’s us,” says the apparition finally. It gets up and walks to look out the green, open doorway. “Isn’t it.”

  Lealé nods. “He wants you . . . done away with. And I was supposed to do it. When you got here.”

  The apparition smiles at her gently. “I thought you said he didn’t ask very much of you. . . .”

  But N’Doch’s had enough. “Who is this guy anyway? What’s he got against me? I don’t even know him!” He knows it’s nuts, taking death threats from spirits seriously when he doesn’t even believe in spirits, least he didn’t used to. But that was back when he didn’t believe in dragons either. “Sounds like a major raw deal coming my way, and for nothing!”

  “Be cool, my brother,” the apparition advises from the doorway.

  “You be cool,” N’Doch snaps back.

  The kid turns, standing taller and older, silhouetted against the livid green. “You’re surprised only because you’ve forgotten who and what you are, what I am, what we are, and what we must do.”

  Lealé watches with a mixture of awe and agitation, so that when the kid comes toward her again, she recoils, leaning back on one hand, twisting herself defensively to one side.

  “Mother Lealé,” the kid says in a soft voice that fills the room. “It is absolutely vital that you tell us everything about this ‘spirit guide’ of yours. Wh
at he says, how he looks when he comes to you, everything.”

  N’Doch is watching, too, and not real happily, ’cause the older the apparition makes itself appear, the more it looks like Sedou.

  Lealé shivers, staring up at her pint-sized inquisitor. “Who are you? What are you?”

  N’Doch thinks, Well, I guess the gloves are all off now, aren’t they?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Erde had observed Wasser’s handling of Lealé with admiration, but she did wonder how much his/her true nature the boy/dragon thought was safe to reveal. Something that Lealé had said provoked this display of strength. Apparently Wasser had decided that the woman had information he needed to know sooner rather than later.

  “What kind of spirit might this be that visits Mistress Lealé?” she asked, thinking to gentle the moment away from confrontation.

  “There are no spirits,” Wasser replied gravely, with his eyes still fixed on Lealé. He looked as though he might pin her to the ground if she but moved an inch.

  “No spirits?” Lealé managed. “But I . . .”

  “There are only Powers, and humans with a gift. I am one such, and I wish to know what other seeks my end.”

  It was a tone she had never heard out of Wasser or even Water, before. Quiet, but full of intimations of ancient strength and grandeur. Erde backed away a step and sat down along the wall. She saw N’Doch do the same, both of them leaving the floor to what both of them knew was a dragon with a serious purpose in mind.

  “First, describe this ‘spirit’ to me. Don’t leave out the smallest detail.”

  Lealé’s brow creased. “I don’t see what . . .”

  “Not the smallest detail. I do not ask without reason.”

  “What if he hears and comes after me?”

  “I will protect you.”

  Lealé grinned weakly. “I think you’ll have to grow some before you take him on.”

  “If it will make you feel more confident.” And right there in front of her, he did, each moment looking less and less like a little boy and more like a man. Erde saw N’Doch ease himself backward along the wall.

  Lealé stared, caught between terror and curiosity. But she was not undone, having already lived much of her life with the miraculous and inexplicable. “What is your gift?” she asked shakily.

  O clever dragon, Erde thought. Offer a choice of truths and let the hearer make the wrong one.

  “I have many. Tell us about your dream-giver.”

  Lealé blew air softly between pursed lips. “Well, he is very vain . . . he’ll probably love hearing me describe him. He’s very handsome, you see. . . .”

  “He’s human, a man? He comes to you as a man?”

  “Oh, yes, he surely does. He’s tall and broad-shouldered, with perfect ebony skin and the flashing golden eyes of a warrior.”

  “He’s got gold eyes?” N’Doch asked dubiously.

  Lealé was caught up in her description now. “As gold as the rising sun. And his voice is very deep and resonant.”

  “Of course it is,” muttered N’Doch. “And he’s able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.”

  “How is it that I look as I do?” Wasser reminded him quietly. “There are humans with the gift to take on the aspect most desired.”

  N’Doch glared at him. “You are certainly not what I most desired.”

  “Consider it further, my brother.”

  Erde was grateful when N’Doch folded into a thoughtful silence for a while. It was clear to her, as it would have been to any woman, that Lealé’s relationship with this “spirit guide” was rather complicated. She seemed now to be consulting her inner portrait of him, or it, and her expression had grown definitely dreamy.

  “He has very big hands with unusually long nails, which he keeps up very carefully. In fact, he paints them.”

  “Yes,” replied Wasser softly. “Long nails. Anything else?”

  Lealé giggled briefly. “Oh, he won’t like me telling you this, but it’s his choice, so he must think it makes him look good.” She lowered her voice to a breathy gossip’s whisper. “He always wears a lot of gold jewelry. All sorts of it, anywhere you can imagine! Places even I wouldn’t have imagined!” She sat back with a pretense of offended modesty. “Isn’t that peculiar?”

  N’Doch started to chuckle but Wasser only grew grimmer.

  “Ah. Golden eyes, golden metal,” the boy/dragon said tightly, turning to gaze out on the grove again. “What color does he paint his long nails?”

  “Gold! What else?” Lealé leaned forward intimately. “And detailed with exquisite miniatures of beautiful naked women, a different one on each nail—I mentioned he was vain, didn’t I?” She grinned as if it were a great joke, but Wasser’s tense back told Erde that it was not.

  “What else?” The boy/dragon now seemed the reluctant one, and Lealé the eager raconteur, spurred on by N’Doch’s appreciative laughter.

  “He has a right to be vain, beautiful as he is, but he’s also very proud. He’s always boasting of how powerful he is. And he has a terrible temper!”

  “What does he do?” asked N’Doch.

  “Oh, he can’t actually do anything physical, but he can take my Dreams away and make my life completely miserable!”

  Wasser turned. “He cannot manifest?”

  Lealé shook her head.

  “A Power, then, surely,” Wasser concluded. “It’s as I feared.”

  But N’Doch looked enormously relieved. “Then he’s not gonna be, like, jumping out of bushes to slit my throat or anything.”

  “Not him, no.”

  “So what does it matter?”

  Lealé’s mouth tightened. “You can’t imagine how much it matters. His tongue is as lethal as any blade.”

  “. . . as corrosive as acid,” murmured Wasser from the doorway.

  “Yes,” she said to his back. “Exactly.”

  “O, I fear, I fear,” he whispered, as if to himself.

  N’Doch shook his head. “Not me, man. I’m real glad to know some spook who’s said he wants me dead can’t actually make it happen.”

  Wasser sighed, as if exhausted. “Anything more you can tell us?”

  Lealé shrugged. “Well, let’s see . . . he smokes.”

  N’Doch laughed out loud. “You got a spirit that smokes?”

  “No.” Wasser turned toward Lealé, his face darkened by shadows and foreboding. “He comes in smoke. He comes wreathed in its tendrils, as if accompanied, and perhaps here and there a touch of flame.”

  “Yes,” breathed Lealé. “How did you know?”

  “You know who this is,” Erde murmured.

  “I have an inkling now, oh, yes, I do, a terrible inkling. But perhaps this is his idea of a prank, a way to make his presence known and demonstrate his superiority at the same time.”

  “A prank?” repeated Lealé, sobering. “No, I don’t think so. Not when I tell you how many ways he’d figured out that I could murder you. If he’s who you think he is, would he want you out of the way so badly?”

  “If he’s who I think he is, he is capable of anything.”

  “Hold it . . .” broke in N’Doch. “I thought you said he couldn’t . . .”

  “If he can’t manifest a physical presence in this plane,” said Wasser impatiently, “he has only to coerce a human agent into doing his bidding. By giving them gifts, and promising great wonders.”

  Staring down at her hands, Lealé nodded.

  N’Doch snorted, scanning the dark walls, the invisible ceiling. “Wow. So maybe bringing us here is one of the ways, huh?”

  “No,” said Lealé mildly.

  “And why not?” Wasser inquired, just as mildly.

  Her bittersweet smile seemed to be admitting to a fatal weakness. “He didn’t tell me it’d be killing children. I guess I just don’t have it in me.”

  “I am glad of that, Mother Lealé.”

  “But you know, he’ll only find someone to do what he wants. And, of cour
se, I will be ruined. I should have known things don’t come this easy.” She thought for a moment, then frowned gently. “He got one thing wrong, though. He told me to expect four of you, not three.”

  This seemingly minor bit of information seemed to drain the last gleam of hopeful doubt from Wasser’s eyes. He hunched, let out a soft moan. His whole outline seemed to waver.

  N’Doch leaped to his feet. “No! Don’t do it! Not here!”

  Erde moved to comfort him, but the boy/dragon caught him/herself and steadied. “It’s time we got out of here. I must warn my brother.” He started down the receding dark passage, then threw over his shoulder angrily, “My other brother!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  When they get back to the alcove, N’Doch sees the food’s still sitting on the plates like nobody’s touched it. In fact, his coffee’s still hot, which makes him wonder about how much time they’d actually spent in that weird dark place. Maybe not as long as it seemed.

  And now there’s a lot of knocking on the door out in the main room. N’Doch checks behind him to see if they’ll have some explaining to do, how they went in with a little kid and came out with a full grown man. But the apparition has returned to kid form. N’Doch breathes a sigh of relief.