Baraga takes up his dream narrative again, and doesn’t seem ready to end it any time soon. Eager now but still bound into the enforced idleness of his hiding place, N’Doch starts plotting out a dragon-based miniseries in his head. All he has to do is tell the story of his own adventures with the dragons, right? Featuring his shape-shifting blue beauty, of course—that’ll really wow ’em—and then he’ll write songs to go with it. A musical miniseries: a brand new concept! The Media King’ll love it!
He’s distracted as the intermittent sniper fire out in the market square changes abruptly to the chatter of automatic weapons. At the other end of the room, Baraga breaks off his recitation to listen, then grunts pensively and calls in his bodyguard.
“Nikko, send someone to check with ground security, make sure the place is fully sealed off. Sasha, get Amahl on the line, see what you can find out about this.”
“You might want to think about wrapping it up here, Mr. B.,” remarks Nikko.
“Nah. We’ll wait till we know there’s . . .”
The floor shudders, twice, like a cough. Two dull thuds sound in the distance.
“Huh,” says Baraga. “How far, you think?”
“Coupla miles,” Nikko replies smoothly. “Southwest.”
“The Presidential Palace?”
“Could be.”
“Well. That’ll teach the old bastard. Security, Nikko. The gates.”
“I’m on it, Mr. B.”
N’Doch hears the tinkle and rustle of Lealé’s robes. Her cheery bells and beads sound more anxious than seductive now. “What is it, Kenzo? What’s happening?”
“A little more than somebody expected, I’d say.” Baraga moves around restlessly. “Why wasn’t I told about this?”
“I have Mr. Kemal on the line, Mr. B.”
Listening to the secretary’s breathy uninflected voice, N’Doch pictures him in slippers and long hair neatly tied back in a bun.
“You talk to him. Glory, get me an update from PrintNews. They better be on top of this, or they’re history tomorrow.”
“Mr. Kemal says he’s getting mixed reports from the copters,” the secretary murmurs. “But there does appear to be action in the area around the Palace.”
“Don’t give me appearances,” Baraga growls, “Give me facts! Tell him to get someone in there to find out what’s going on! Jesus! What do I pay these people for?”
N’Doch gets a tingle of anxiety himself. The energy is rising in the room as Baraga moves into gear. It’s like someone turned up the volume and it’s contagious. Normally, during military actions, N’Doch just heads for the deepest ground he can find. He’s not sure if being around Baraga when the bullets are flying makes him safer or more of a target.
“We’re as sealed off as we’re ever gonna be in this place,” reports Nikko from the door. “I still think you oughta consider getting out of here, Mr. B.”
“Taken under advisement.”
“Someone might have seen us come in, y’know . . .”
“Nikko, I hear you.”
“Yessir, Mr. B.”
“Mr. Baraga!” The secretary has finally been shoved off his even keel. “Shore Patrol just intercepted mortar fire!”
“What? They’re shelling my house? Get birds in the air and clean ’em out!”
“They’re already on it, sir.”
“Shelling my house? Who the hell do they think they are?”
Lealé hurried in rattling a sheaf of facsimile. “Here you are, darling. Not very good news, I’m afraid.”
Baraga grabbed the stack. A strained silence thickened the air while he read. “So that’s it,” he muttered finally. “Glory, clear your people out of the office. I’m gonna be needing it. Right now. Nikko, Sasha, come with me.”
N’Doch waits for the silence to settle in again at the other end of the room before he peers around the back of his chair. Empty. Free at last. He hops up and goes straight for the PrintNews that Baraga’s scattered behind him as he left the room. PrintNews is expensive. He doesn’t get to see it very often. It’s also the only real source of straight news there is—all the vid news programs have evolved toward news as-you-want-it rather than news as it is. N’Doch doesn’t see any problem with this. Real news isn’t high on his priority list. Actual events in the world, or even in other parts of town, don’t affect his own life directly, and by the time they affect it indirectly, it’s too late to do anything about it anyway. He gets his news on the street.
But suddenly it seems kind of important to know who’s bombing MediaRex Enterprises in the middle of an ordinary coup attempt, and why? He gathers up the printout and scans through it. Phew! So dry! Like reading an upgrade for software he’s never laid eyes on. Names he doesn’t know, factions he’s never heard of, like the whole thing is written in code. Only he knows it isn’t, not if you’re caught up on the basic information. It makes him feel insignificant, reading about all this plotting and politics he wasn’t aware of, and that makes him huffy. He tosses the papers aside. If Baraga ever needs the latest on street barter values and local gang infighting, N’Doch knows who he can turn to.
Someone’s turned on the bright lights out in the hallway. Anxious flappers shuttle this way and that, plus a couple of what have to be Baraga’s security guys. One or two glance at N’Doch through the open doorway, but since no one stops or comes in after him, he decides it’s safe to mingle and move about, as long as he keeps out of Baraga’s line of sight. Or maybe the bodyguard Nikko’s.
He goes out into the hall, eyes the crowd jammed in around the door to the office, and heads the other way, toward the dining room. If the girl is awake, she won’t have a clue what all the noise is about. And, holy shit, what about the dragons? When they went off to eat did they go back to Baraga’s beach? He knows they’re magical and all, but he doubts they’re immune to a well-placed mortar shell.
He slips into the dining room, snatches a few bites as he cruises past the food table, and pushes through the drapes into the alcove. The girl is tucked away in the farthest corner, tossing and turning and gasping for breath as if she’s fighting with something in her sleep. He sits down beside her and nudges her gently.
“Wake up, girl. Easy now. You gotta wake up.”
She thrashes around, whimpering and panting, but she doesn’t wake. N’Doch remembers the first time she had this dream trouble. This time it looks like she’s losing her battle. He grabs her up in his arms and shakes her hard. She cries out and gulps in air. Her eyes pop open, and she stares at him mindlessly for a moment, then throws herself shuddering and heaving against his chest. Her arms tighten around his waist like she’s keeping from being pulled away from him.
N’Doch lets her hold on. He pats her back awkwardly. She’s talking at him in Kraut, long breathless murmurs broken by sobs. He keeps patting until finally she gets her breath back and quiets down. Meanwhile, he’s searching around his mind to see if the dragon’s come back on-line yet. Probably not, or he’d be understanding what’s all this the girl’s so unhinged about.
Suddenly . . . yes! There! In a rush, like doors and windows flying open, light flooding in. Connection, comprehension, all at once. N’Doch feels like he’s been plugged in direct to the socket.
—’Bout time, girl. Where you been?
—Are you safe?
—For now, at least. Are you?
—My brother had to fix a small wound in my side.
To N’Doch’s surprise, something like a fist tightens around his heart.
—You got hurt?
—On the beach, there was metal flying through the air. I’m fine now. But because the healing uses up his strength, we had to search for more food. But everywhere else, we found death in the water. All the fish are dying.
Another red tide washing in, N’Doch thinks. Must be a really bad one. He’s worried now. His dragon has been wounded. What if the big guy hadn’t been around? Would she have died? Maybe Baraga’s right. Maybe the world really is falling apart. He remembers now what Water had said, under the trees in Djawara’s courtyard. That she was here because something terrible is happening. N’Doch is beginning to believe it.
—The girl’s been dreaming. I think she had another bad one.
—Yes. She’s telling my brother about it now. She needs to be near him now. Can you bring her out to the Grove?
—Sure, no problem.
Actually, it is a problem, since he sure ain’t walking her out the front way, past Baraga’s eagle eyes. But N’Doch is glad for a task. He’s feeling helpless among all these high-power shenanigans, outside the gates and in Lealé’s office. He gets the girl up and mobile, though she’s refusing to let go of him for more than a few seconds at a time. So he lets her take his hand and he leads her into the outer room. Passing the food table, he thinks twice and stops.
“We ought to stock up.”
The girl is ready and willing. In fact, she’s putting as much food in her mouth as she is into the big linen napkin he hands her to tie up as a carry-sack.
“Whatcha been doing in that dream,” he kids her, “to make yourself so hungry?”
Her eyes get round. She shudders and shakes her head, and he knows when she lets it out, it’s gonna be a hell of a story.
At the big double doors, he pauses to picture the plan of the house in his mind, lining up the rooms he knows inside with the entrances he’s seen outside. He guesses the ceremonial side entrance must lead into a room that’s right across the hall, but when he cracks open one of the sliding doors, he sees only a blank wall opposite. It makes him skip at least one little breath when he notices, under the newly brightened lighting, that the wallpaper is patterned with dragons. How much, he wonders, does Lealé know that she’s not telling us about? He sticks his head out farther.
At the very end of the hall is a small door, so small it looks like a closet. N’Doch points it out to the girl and raises an eyebrow. She shrugs and nods.
“Okay. Let’s go for it.”
He makes her walk slow and steady, so she looks like she knows where she’s going. When they get to the little door, it’s locked. But it’s an old-fashioned key lock, as old as the house is and never updated. N’Doch thinks fast, scanning the list he carries in his mind of every object currently available to him and their relevant uses. He needs a shiv and doesn’t have one on him. His knife blade is too thick. He starts down the list of what he knows the girl’s got, and stops at the image of the big red jewel she’s got pinned inside her jeans. He’d wanted her to leave it at Papa Dja’s, but she wouldn’t hear of it. Good thinking, girl.
“Quick!” he whispers. “Gimme the dragon thing, you know, the jewel . . . your grandmama’s pin!”
She blinks at him. He mimes fiddling with the door, and she gives him back a steady, searching look while she pulls her right-hand pocket inside out and unpins the red stone. He sees her overcoming heavy reluctance in order to hand it over to him. He smiles at her. “You’ll have it back in a minute.”
In less than that, he’s used the pin’s long-pointed fastener to pick the lock. They’re inside a narrow inner hallway, lined with doors. The blood red stone is warm in his palm. He remembers how he’d felt sure it was alive, when it was stolen and resting in his pocket. As jewelry goes, the thing’s unnatural, but he finds that comforting now, and lets his thumb trace the miniature dragon carved into its polished surface. He hands it back without a qualm. “That did the trick, huh?”
Now her eyes are full of admiration for his cleverness. N’Doch laughs. She’s an easy mark if she’s wowed by an easy piece of juggling like that. But it makes him feel good anyway. He starts checking behind doors down the hall. Most of them are closets, filled with the long white tunics that the flappers wear, and shelves full of linens and candles and boxes of incense. But the door at the end leads them into a small antechamber, hung with soft, sound-absorbing draperies, and from there through a curtained arch into darkness.
They both stop short at the archway. They are in a huge, domed room. It’s the deep blue of the zenith just after sun-down, and it sparkles with a thousand electric stars. In the center, a big golden throne waits in a lavender spotlight.
“Oooh,” marvels the girl, turning to stare all around her.
“Look later.” N’Doch has just noticed the ring of chairs set one next to the other all around the wall. There’s a “guest” seated in every one of them, sitting, dozing, staring in meditative poses, or chatting with neighbors. He grabs the girl’s hand and makes a beeline for the outer door. He’s almost there when a “guest” rises to stop him, a youngish woman who lays a pleading hand on his arm.
“Will the Mahatma return to us soon? Will I have my Reading today, do you think?”
“Er . . . she’s busy right now,” he replies helplessly.
She grips his arm harder. “Please, ask her to hurry. I do so need her to tell me what to do about Mama.”
“Do whatever you feel like,” N’Doch wants to say, and finds that he actually has. He doesn’t know why but he’s unreasonably pissed at this woman. “Go out into the streets. See what’s really happening. Go read a PrintNews.”
The woman stares at him. Cautiously, she draws her hand away. N’Doch moves on.
Outside, the light and heat are blinding, even though it’s getting on toward late afternoon. The sky is a lurid yellow, thick with dust. He hears sirens and gunfire from several directions now. Copters race and hover like birds of prey, and off to the south, twin plumes of oily black smoke curl up from the Palace district. Another coup, no doubt of it. Since none of the past coups have ever seemed to change anything, N’Doch can’t see why this one should get Baraga in such an uproar. Can’t he just lay low like everyone else until one side or the other runs out of ammunition?
N’Doch suspects now that the answer could be found in a detailed and daily reading of PrintNews. He has that sinking feeling he gets when he’s understood something big enough to make him realize how little he knew before he understood it.
On the terrace outside the door, groups of “guests” are gathered around the vid screens built into neat stucco pillars here and there. He takes the girl over to look, certain for one insane moment that the vid stations have seen the light at the same moment that he has, and are broadcasting actual news of the coup. But the “guests” are watching one or the other of the late afternoon series with total absorption, as if completely unaware of the chaos outside the gates. N’Doch finds himself angry at them, too, and he drags the girl away quickly to avoid a scene he’s not sure he would even be able to explain to himself.
He leads her around toward the back, sticking close to the house, staying under trees and behind bushes where he can. He makes her trot briskly across the open lawn and gravel driveway between the house and the grove. A few shots ring out, but they are distant, random fire. N’Doch slows once they’ve reached the trees, but the girl runs on ahead of him, following the call of her dragon, eager to see him after so long. Of course, it hasn’t been so long, just since the morning, but even N’Doch will admit it feels like an eternity. By the time he’s made it to the clearing, she’s already got herself pressed up against the big guy between his paws, with his great horny snout bending over her protectively. But she looks up at N’Doch with a wondering gaze and exclaims, “He thinks I’ve heard the Summoner!”
Water shifts and stretches her neck.
—I think she’s heard someone else entirely.
N’Doch senses the dragons’ restless, edgy mood. Don’t want to rush this, he thinks. I gotta sell it to ’em right, or they’re not gonna buy it.
He smiles, he hopes ingratiatingly. “Well . . . when you’re done arguing about her story, I’ll tell you mine.”