She’s almost caught him this time.
N’Doch considers himself pretty much in touch with himself. He’s an artist, after all, and a good song must come from the heart. But after a few moments of feeling turned inside out and displayed raw, he lets his hand slide from the blue dragon’s brow. It’s one thing to pour all your emotion into a song—where it’s neatly packaged, safely contained by the melody. But even his sloppiest, mushiest, written-after-a-bottle-of-cheap-wine ballads never made him feel as flayed, as vulnerable, as weak-kneed in the grip of it as he feels staring into the dragon’s eyes. Is this how it’s always gonna be with her? He averts his eyes, backs away. He’s not sure he likes it very much.
The fish are an easier thing to deal with. Remembering the dead fish on the beach, N’Doch hunkers down and paws through them expertly, to sort out the ones with parasites or diseases. To his astonishment, he finds none. This has never happened. The usual ratio is one more-or-less healthy fish to three sick ones. The fishermen toss fifty percent of their catch back to the sharks and you have to check out the ones they do sell pretty carefully. But this, N’Doch can’t believe: right in front of him, dripping their salt damp and scales onto his precious polished floor, are at least two dozen fat and perfect fish.
He says, “We got an hour, maybe two, before those guys outside come to their senses. Let’s eat!” He yanks his switchblade out of his gym shorts and sets to work gutting and cleaning.
After the first three, it occurs to him what a mess of fish guts he’s going to have all over the place. He wipes his hands on his thighs and pads off to his stash in the gym’s wood-paneled locker room. He’s had many occasions already to be grateful that the Toe Bone Gang didn’t bother with mundane objects like kitchenware and janitorial supplies when they stripped the ship. Returning with a four-liter bucket and a plastic tarp, he finds the girl crouched over the pile of fish with her big knife in her hand. It’s the first time N’Doch has seen it out of its sheath, and he studies it with interest. It’s longer and heavier than he’s expected. In fact, he’s thought it might be just a prop, but the bright gleam along each edge tells him this blade means business. A man’s weapon, despite its prissy antique facade. Puts his own beloved blade to shame. He wonders if the girl knows how to use it.
He lays out the tarp, scoops the fish guts into the bucket and sets it between him and the girl. He lines up the three cleaned fish in a neat row on the blue plastic, then squats and reaches for the next one, watching the girl while pretending not to. With care and some obvious experience, she scales the fish, then slits it open and scrapes the guts into the bucket. N’Doch nods in grudging approval and picks up his pace. He’d hate to be outdone by a mere girl. Soon the tarp is covered with fresh fish fillets and N’Doch’s stomach is rumbling. The dragons have retired to the far corner of the gym. He gives them a covert look as he returns to the locker room for the two-burner stove he’s cobbled together from parts of the ship’s galley. He’s been careful to use it only when he has to, so for now it still runs on gas. He loves the little castered frame he rigged for the meter-and-a-half-tall propane tank, and his favorite find was a magnetized matchbox that stores right on the cylinder.
Well, that’s not true, he decides, blowing grit out of his one dented frying pan. My favorite is really the flipper.
He hefts the only slightly bent aluminum spatula. It’s bright and smooth, with the satisfying weight and balance of expensive cutlery. The only reason it’s in his hands is that it had fallen down behind a row of cabinets. He shows it off to the girl, but she offers only a blank expectant look, so he shrugs and gets down to work. He extracts a single kitchen match from the rusted box. When he lights it, the girl gasps and recoils. He sees her doing that crisscrossy hand thing that Catholics do when they’re upset. From Mars, he thinks again. He puts the match to the burner and turns on the gas. Thin blue flame erupts and settles soothingly as he adjusts the flow. He’s proud of this stove, proud that he could make it work without blowing up himself and everything else. He turns to the girl to soak in her admiration and finds her staring at the lighted burner like she’s never seen one before in her life. Now he’s sure he’s right about the no-tech commune. He turns the burner up and down a few times to watch her eyes widen, then scolds himself for wasting gas. He bends away to load his pan with fish and, out of the corner of his eye, he sees the girl stretch her fingers toward the flame. He grabs her wrist just in time.
“Are you nuts? You’ll burn yourself!”
She stares at him, then sit back on her haunches with a puzzled, considering scowl. She twists her head slightly, as if listening, toward the dragons in the corner. “Hot,” she says distinctly, in French.
N’Doch blinks. “Well, yeah. Hot.” Then he says, “You gotta understand, the worst thing is not having the choice.”
He’s got to give her one thing, she’s not stupid. She makes the leap. “Yes, N’Doch, I do understand. But you see, that’s exactly what I like about it.”
“Hunh,” he says. “Well, different strokes . . .”
He turns away and settles the pan on the burner.
* * *
Erde watched the dark-skinned youth lay two large fillets in the flat metal dish. She knew now that she had misjudged him. Why had the dragons not mentioned, when she’d questioned his qualifications as a Dragon Guide, that this Endoch was a magician?
N’Doch, she corrected, rehearsing his name silently. She rolled the foreign sounds along her tongue and thought of the mage she’d promised to find for Earth those two long months ago, the one who’d help him remember his Quest. Maybe she’d found him after all. She knew N’Doch was a mage because he’d just exhibited a mage’s most basic skill: he’d conjured fire in his bare hands, and had not been burned by it. Plus the flame burned blue, the color of magic. Now he was preparing his pots and potions. Erde settled down to observe what further alchemy this unlikely mage might produce. Soon the crispy scent of frying fish informed her that this particularly alchemy was going to be culinary, that N’Doch was cooking in that odd metal dish with the handle. Erde was not disappointed. She was hungry enough right then to prefer food to any kind of magic.
* * *
N’Doch climbs the tall fire ladder to the high windows, laying the uneaten fish out on the wide sills to dry in the sun. When he climbs down again, the girl and the dragons are gathered in the center of the gym, facing him with identical expectant stares. He’s amazed that a dragon can make the same expression as a human, that look the girl has that says, “Well, now that we’ve all eaten, it’s time for you to get on with solving the rest of our problems.”
Or that’s the way N’Doch reads it, and rebellion rises within him, swift and hot as lava, mostly for being caught up in inescapable forces that he doesn’t understand—except for knowing there’s something he’s supposed to do. But accepting the reality of this so-called destiny doesn’t mean he has to like it. He’ll go along, for a while at least, but it’s gotta be on his terms.
From the bottom of the ladder, he glares back at the dragon huddle, then slouches over and hunkers down. He is careful not to look directly at the dragon Water. He can feel her anyway, hear her inquisitive background music invading his head, but if he doesn’t meet her glance, at least he can avoid losing himself once more in her scary blue stare. He doesn’t worry about what language he’s speaking. He knows now that somehow his meaning will get through to all parties. He says, “I think . . .” then stops himself. He traces obscure patterns on the gleaming floor and starts again. “My mother says hide out at my grandfather’s. I think maybe we all could.”
Silence settles into the room along with the pale dust motes falling through the sunlight from the clerestory, and N’Doch hears sounds he shouldn’t be hearing yet.
“Someone’s in the corridor!” he hisses.
The dragons understand right off, and the girl gets it a second later. N’Doch leaps up and sprints for the door to make sure the lock is still in place. He puts his ear to the surface and listens for a moment, then pads deliberately back to the huddle.
“We are in deep shit,” he says quietly. “There’s at least ten, maybe fifteen guys on the other side of that door. It’ll take ’em a while to get through, unless they send for a cutting torch, but we can’t go anywhere either. Sooner or later, they’ll get smart and start climbing in the windows. So we’re trapped, unless . . .” He pauses, then guesses wildly, glancing up at the dragon Earth. “Unless you can get us out of here.”
More silence, and the banging and clanking out in the corridor gets a lot more aggressive. Then the girl says, “Ja. Sei kann.”
N’Doch shakes his head, but this is no time to argue the terms of the agreement. He shuts his eyes with a grimace and wills himself to allow the dragon music into his head.
“He can,” the girl repeats, “but he needs to be able to see where he’s going.”
“What?”
“Just listen! He will explain.”
N’Doch is amazed how simple and instantaneous comprehension can be when you have the right interpreter.