Century #4: Dragon of Seas

by Pierdomenico Baccalario

He takes a step toward them and repeats, horribly transformed, “Where … were we?”

  Behind him, something moves. A metallic gleam appears between the knife thrower’s four fingers. From the ground, with his last strength, Nik Knife hurls the dagger. The blade glimmers through the air. A dull thud, like an apple being split in two.

  Heremit Devil cringes and his eyes grow wide with disbelief. He stiffens, tries to take another half step forward. But his hands freeze and the gun falls to the ground.

  Harvey kicks it, sending it flying across the floor.

  Heremit Devil coughs. Below his curled lip, his white, white teeth are streaked with red. He takes another half step forward. “Oh, yes … now … I remember …,” he gasps, staggering over to Harvey. “We were saying that I … don’t feel … anything. I’ve never … felt … anything.”

  Still staring at Harvey, Heremit collapses into the boy’s strong arms.

  “Maybe this is the answer you were looking for,” Harvey says, holding him up with very little effort. Heremit Devil’s body is light, like a child’s. It’s fragile, without experience, scratches, grazes. A body that’s never touched anything. That’s never been lashed by the rain, by the icy winter wind. A body that’s never been scorched by sunlight or parched with salty seawater. It hasn’t sweated. It hasn’t been licked by a dog, scratched by a cat, thrown from a horse’s saddle. It hasn’t danced, jumped, rejoiced. It’s never felt anything.

  “Yes,” the lord of the black skyscraper whispers. “That is the answer.”

  With this, he dies, a strange smile of satisfaction on his lips.

  * * *

  Four figures climb the twelve stairs leading out of the grotto and step outside. They look around, stare at the island, an empty shell of black rock. The helicopter is a tiny white dot, a fly far away on the horizon.

  The sea crashes down onto the rocky shores.

  And apart from the roaring, churning waves, there’s nothing and no one.

  Just perfect silence.

  WHEN THE PHONE CALL ARRIVES, PROFESSOR MILLER IS HUNCHED over the documents he’s been studying for months now. According to the data from the astronomical observatory in Pasadena, the most catastrophic theory of the location of a hypothetical Planet X headed through the solar system predicts the arrival somewhere between the years 2050 and 2110. Far enough in the future to not be his problem, Professor Miller thinks, but not far enough not to deal with it seriously.

  But with every phone call he’s made to his various astronomer colleagues, George Miller has received only sarcastic, vague or annoyed responses. No one is willing to believe that the statistical irregularities detected in the Atlantic Ocean might be due to an anomalous gravitational attraction. Like one caused by a large black body in the outer solar system heading our way. But where, exactly?

  Professor Miller has calculated an angle between Planet X’s orbit and Earth’s ecliptic orbit at around seventeen degrees … the same inclination as Pluto, the outermost planet in the solar system. And all this for what? To prove something to his colleagues? Namely, that the climatic disturbances they’ve been encountering are nothing compared to what’s in store for them?

  A planet capable of changing the data on the tides of the Pacific when it’s sixty years away from Earth could cause a serious catastrophe when it finally arrived.

  “Arrived or returned?” Professor Miller wonders, slipping the tip of his pen between his lips.

  As he’s brooding over the possible sightings of this planet by scientists in ancient times, there’s a knock on Professor Miller’s door.

  It’s Paul Magareva, his colleague from the Polynesian Oceanographic Institute, who, as always, is in a good mood. “What if it’s an island?” he asks, appearing in the doorway.

  “If it’s an island doing what?”

  “An island popping up right in the middle of the Yellow Sea, or the Bohai.”

  “Volcanic eruption?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Possible, but it would have to be a relatively large island.”

  “But the data would fit. No remote planet, no stellar phenomenon.”

  Professor Miller slumps back in his chair. Fascinating theory, but … “What kinds of seafloors are there in the area you’re talking about?”

  “Seafloors that no damn island could ever surface from, if you ask me.”

  George Miller looks at his colleague, grinning. “Then why are you telling me about it?”

  “Maybe to make you worry less about some ghost planet heading our way.” The man smiles. “Or maybe because there’s a guy on the phone telling me I’ve got to believe him.”

  Paul Magareva holds the phone out to his colleague. “A guy with pretty lousy English … says he wants to talk to you.”

  Professor Miller frowns.

  “Says he’s a friend of your son’s,” Paul Magareva adds.

  When Professor Miller hears Harvey’s name, he bolts upright in his chair. He’s been expecting him for two days now.

  “Harvey? Finally!” he exclaims into the receiver. “We’ve contacted consulates halfway around the world!”

  “It isn’t Harvey!” someone says on the other end of the line.

  “Who is this? Who’s speaking?”

  “Professor Miller! It’s Ermete De Panfilis!”

  The name is almost completely unknown to Professor Miller’s analytic mind. Almost completely. The man glances at his colleague, who’s still standing in the doorway. “Jog my memory.…”

  “Are you still in Shanghai? On the ship?”

  “Yes. Why do you ask?”

  “Then you’ve absolutely got to head for the Yellow Sea, sir! Don’t wait a minute longer! You need to go get your son! I’ll explain everything on your way there.”

  “IT MIGHT NOT BE MUCH OF A CONTRIBUTION,” MISTRAL TELLS the others, looking at her notebooks, which are lined up on the ground right after the last engraved panel, the one in Spanish. “They aren’t written in stone … but it’s better than nothing.”

  Leaving Mistral’s notebooks behind, they calmly climb out of the chamber for the last time. They’ve put the stellar stone back in its place and dragged Nik Knife and Heremit Devil’s bodies outside. They left them in a hollow in the rocks so they won’t have to see them whenever they look around. Sheng wanted to throw them into the sea, but Elettra was against it. “When the island sinks down again, the sea will take them anyway.”

  Before going outside, Harvey took four seeds from one of the vases decorated with stylized trees. He figured he still needs the two he has left, to plant them in Shanghai and Rome, and he’ll need four more seeds to set up the next Pact.

  If they ever find a way to get off the island, that is.

  Then the kids closed the base leading into the underground chamber, picked up the seven tops, distractedly looked at the one with the skull, which belonged first to Hi-Nau and later to Heremit Devil, and put back the copper disk protecting the old lock.

  Only then did they sit down outside, in silence.

  Their first thought is for Ermete.

  “Who knows what happened to him,” Elettra whispers.

  “I say they didn’t kill him,” Sheng replies, hopeful. “And now that Heremit’s dead …”

  It’s a nice thought, but nobody believes it.

  Harvey gets some provisions from Nik Knife’s backpack and hands them out to the others. Nobody’s hungry, but they force themselves to eat anyway. Then they take out the Ring of Fire, the Star of Stone, the Veil of Isis and the Pearl of the Sea Dragon. They pass them around.

  When he sees the Ring of Fire, Sheng laughs.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Nothing,” the boy replies. “Remember Ermete, the first time we rang the bell at his place?”

  The image of the engineer’s bewildered face at the Regno del Dado flashes vividly through their minds. Only Mistral says nothing, staring at them. She wasn’t there then.

  “What about his disguises?”

&nb
sp; Now even Mistral laughs wistfully.

  They’re laughing, but it’s a bitter, pained laugh. Then Sheng stands up, grabs hold of imaginary handlebars and asks Elettra, “Who am I? Vroom-vroom-vroom-vroom!”

  Elettra nudges his ankle with her foot. “Cut it out!” Then she turns to the others. “Did you know Sheng has never driven a motor scooter in his whole life?”

  They talk about silly things, but they’re all thinking of painful things. Ermete, the island, which sooner or later is going to sink, the secret of the planet that sooner or later will make its way back into the solar system.

  “Harvey?” Elettra says.

  “What?”

  “Down there, when you took your hand off the wall,” the girl continues, “we asked when the mysterious planet would come back.…”

  Harvey nods. “Yeah.”

  “When will it?”

  “Soon,” he replies.

  “Meaning?” Sheng says.

  Harvey shrugs. “It’ll pass by when we need to choose our successors.”

  “You mean a hundred years from now?”

  “Sometime around then, yeah.”

  “So we’ve only got a hundred years to make the Earth dream again,” Sheng says, turning to look at Mistral.

  But she isn’t beside him anymore.

  The French girl has gotten up without making a noise and is walking over to the edge of the rocks.

  Sheng mumbles something and follows her.

  When he hears that the girl is singing softly, he slows down. Mistral notices him coming her way and stops.

  “I didn’t mean to bother you,” Sheng says, embarrassed.

  “You aren’t bothering me.”

  “Keep singing,” he encourages her. “If it’s okay with you, I’ll stay here and listen. Because back there, well … you know what it’s like.…”

  They turn around. Elettra and Harvey are kissing.

  “No,” Mistral says. She smiles, looking at Sheng, unusually sassy. “To tell you the truth, I don’t know what it’s like.”

  “You mean … you mean that …”

  “I mean you and I could kiss,” Mistral says.

  Sheng faces her, standing as straight as he can, but he still barely comes up to her shoulders. Mistral closes her eyes. Centimeters away from her face, Sheng keeps his open. Wide open. He stares at the French girl’s graceful features, her small, thin nose, her bobbed hair blowing in the wind, her long cat-like eyelashes, her slender lips. If he’s ever doubted he could really see other people’s dreams, right now Sheng is absolutely positive: his big dream is right here in front of him. In flesh and blood.

  But a second before he brushes his lips against Mistral’s, Sheng freezes, as if paralyzed. Having kept his eyes open, he’s spotted something moving on the horizon. A little dot. A little dot that’s puffing out smoke.

  “Hao!” he whispers.

  Mistral opens her eyes, disappointed. “Hao what, Sheng?”

  He takes her hand, turns her around and points at the little dot. “There’s a ship down there.”

  IT’S A STRANGE OCTOBER IN ROME. THERE HASN’T BEEN A SINGLE day of rain yet.

  Unpredictable climatic changes caused by the greenhouse effect, or mere coincidence? After the snow on New Year’s, when a few journalists talked about a theoretical ice age, nobody knows what side to take anymore.

  Sprawled out in a leather armchair he ordered through an Internet auction, Ermete De Panfilis switches off the television, disgusted. He’s fed up with people who are all talk and no action.

  If they really want to make a change, they need facts.

  The Regno del Dado is closed. The roller shutter pulled down. The plastic tables still covered with board games full of colorful playing pieces.

  Ermete yawns. Then he realizes it’s time to leave. He stretches, picks up the keys to his motorcycle and hurries out.

  He’s thrilled it isn’t raining in October. The motorcycle zips through the hot autumn air going at its top speed of ninety kilometers an hour, leaving the capital behind him. Then he makes his way along the Grande Raccordo Anulare heading toward Fiumicino Airport.

  When he parks on the sidewalk outside the international arrivals area and steps inside, he sees that the flight from Shanghai has arrived right on time.

  “Yet another surprise!” Ermete exclaims.

  He’s pulling a second helmet out of the sidecar’s storage compartment when he sees Sheng, in jeans, a T-shirt and sneakers. The boy is holding a giant stack of fluttering papers.

  “They lost my luggage!” he exclaims, furious.

  Ermete seems relieved. “Whew! That’s good,” he says, handing him the second helmet. “It means we’re still in Rome after all.”

  Having a conversation aboard a sidecar in the middle of traffic in the Italian capital is far from easy, but that’s no reason not to try.

  “News from home?” Ermete asks, hunched over the handlebars and zooming along.

  “Nothing big, except that they finally managed to get their hands on the Devil family’s accounting books.”

  “Great! So what happened?”

  “The accountant gave them the figures and the proof they needed to expose all sorts of dirty dealings.” Sheng laughs. “And to arrest other officials. Corrupt people on every level. Some of them agreed to explain how the family really made their fortune. And you won’t believe this, but in the aftermath they found out what Heremit Devil’s real name was. He was called John Smith.”

  Ermete turns to look at Sheng. “You’re kidding me.”

  “No, I swear. That was his name. John Smith. A mixed family, Chinese and English, like Mahler told us. The devil was hiding behind the most ordinary name possible.”

  “And now that his empire’s falling to pieces?”

  “People are a lot more careful, and they might think twice the next time they want to authorize building a nine-lane superhighway that would be a total eyesore.”

  Ermete smiles. “Harmony,” he says to himself, taking the exit for the city center.

  The entrance of the Domus Quintilia is decorated with colorful paper festoons. Ermete parks his motorcycle in Piazza in Piscinula and, when the roar of the Ural engine dies down, he and Sheng hear music coming from the inner courtyard.

  “Sounds like the party’s already started.…”

  “Hao!” Sheng exclaims, baring his gums. “Let’s get going, then!”

  The hotel courtyard is crowded with guests, and new faces can be seen among familiar ones. A strand of blinking white lights has been wound around the arches and down to the central well. On the far end, a table covered with red-and-white-checked cloths is piled high with treats and freshly uncorked bottles.

  Ermete nudges Sheng and gestures at waiters in black tuxedo jackets and bow ties who are serving the guests. “You know where they found the catering?”

  “No, where?”

  Ermete points at what at first sight looked like a flowered tent but turns out to be a giant woman in a rustling silk gown.

  “Mademoiselle Cybel de Paris.”

  “But isn’t that dangerous?”

  “Well, Sheng, after we got out of that hole of a reservoir,” Ermete remembers, “you might just say we became good friends.”

  “Sheng!” Harvey says, leaning against a column a few steps away. “How’s it going?”

  The boy from New York has a strange bandage on his nose.

  “Hao! Harvey!” Sheng smiles and shakes his hand. “Fine, thanks. I mean, except for my luggage. How about you?”

  Harvey touches his nose. “Except for my nose … pretty good.”

  “What happened?”

  “It broke. Finally.”

  “Finally?”

  “If you practice boxing, it’s bound to happen sooner or later.

  At least now I don’t have to worry about it anymore.”

  “How did your folks take it?”

  “Let’s just say we made a compromise: if I want to go on boxing, I have
to get tutoring and keep my grades up.”

  “And you agreed?”

  As his answer, Harvey points at a corner of the courtyard.

  Olympia and two other people from the gym are there.

  “You been here long?” Sheng asks.

  “Got in yesterday. I planted my last seed here in Rome.”

  “Where?”

  Harvey raises a finger to his lips to say it’s a secret. “I’ll tell you once it’s grown.”

  “Ermete, do you know?” Sheng asks, but he finds that the engineer has slipped away without saying a word, so he turns back to Harvey. “Then will you tell me where you planted the one in Shanghai, too?”

  “I promise.”

  Sheng spots Mrs. Miller on the other side of the courtyard, deep in conversation with Vladimir Askenazy.

  “Come on,” Harvey says, pushing his friend toward them. “You can say hi.”

  “Harvey!” the woman exclaims as though she hasn’t seen her son in ages. “I didn’t know you had a friend like Vladimir! What a delightful person. He has such wonderful taste!”

  The boy grins. “Well, Sheng’s a friend of mine, too,” he jokes.

  Vladimir shakes Sheng’s hand and welcomes him. Harvey and Sheng leave him in Mrs. Miller’s company and go over to the refreshments table.

  “The others?”

  “My dad’s over there, talking to those big-shot professors,” Harvey says. “He’s instilling a bit of healthy environmental panic in all of them. Without overdoing it, naturally.”

  “Like by telling them that in a hundred years a planet’s going to come wipe us off the face of the universe?”

  “Something like that.”

  Among the various smiling faces in the courtyard, Sheng recognizes Cecile Blanchard, Mistral’s mom, who’s surrounded by Parisian friends from the world of fashion, as well as Madame Cocot, who wears a flashy dress with peacock feathers. The music teacher has cornered a smartly dressed, arrogant-looking man: François Ganglof from the Conservatoire de Paris.

  As Sheng watches them, Fernando Melodia appears, carrying two flutes of champagne. He hands one to Cecile.

  “Hmm … so how’s it going between those two?” Sheng asks.

  “Mistral and Elettra won’t say much about it … but they seem to be getting along great,” Harvey replies.