The Dragon Who Didn't Fly

  “Berto, please.”

  He grabbed her arm and pulled her into the Rainbow. The air in the bar was cool and scented with lavender and the resinous odor of cactus flower. Faceted prisms reflected the colors of gel-covered lights to cast a diffused glow in the large room. Serazina could breathe again.

  “A glass of wine?” Berto asked.

  “No thanks.” In the early stages of drinking, she enjoyed the dulling of emotion. After a while, though, it had the opposite effect, opening her even more to the moods of everyone around her.

  The drug waiter came around with a tray of capsules. Berto bought some Flash; he liked to hallucinate. Serazina preferred the drugs that created a kind of mindless happiness, the feeling that she was at the bottom of a lake and would never drown.

  “I’ll take some Numbs,” she said.

  “Numbs?”

  Berto’s upset was fiery. Serazina withdrew her hand from his arm.

  “Sorry,” he said, “I was thinking about Elissia’s empty apartment. Sex is so much nicer when I don’t imagine your mother wishing I were an Etrenzian.”

  “I still feel lacerated, and I want a break from myself. I’ll only take one cap and some Dance.”

  All drugs and some other substances had a distinct taste and smell for her. More than once, a scent of wrongness had saved her from tainted substances. She sniffed the capsule. Reassured by the sweet aroma of honeysuckle, she swallowed it. A few minutes later, she touched Berto again, and he felt cool and peaceful.

  A singer stood on the platform at the end of the long room, singing a mournful tune. Many young people were devoted to Wail. A genre of music from Dolocairn that exalted feelings, whether sad or happy, it wasn’t permitted play on public airtime.

  “My mind imprisons me,” the singer howled. “How can I get free? Feelings crushed and dead, electrodes in my head.”

  Some of the singer’s emotionalism was contrived to suit the song, but Serazina sensed dark and tangled feelings like the weeds at the bottom of a stagnant pond.

  “I can’t stand Wail,” Berto said. “I imagine some Dolocairner singing it and causing an avalanche that buries an entire mountain village.”

  Apparently others agreed, because a cry rose up for some Body. The band switched to a lively beat, with heavy emphasis on Etrenzian goatskin drums. Serazina, Dance pulling her to her feet, got up with Berto.

  Except as a form of exercise to release excessive physical energy, dancing was not encouraged, especially the slow, sensuous rubbing that Serazina and Berto now began. Others were on the dance floor, so Serazina didn’t feel so conspicuous, except that she was sure she must radiate flames.

  “Let’s go,” she said to Berto.

  Elissia lived in an apartment complex for young government employees. Near the city center, its drab gray façade was unornamented, and her one-room apartment was equally austere. Serazina didn’t bother turning on the lights. She and Berto unfolded the couch into a bed and fell on it, reaching for each other with a passion fueled by drugs and desperation.

  Sex released Serazina so intensely that it was often days before her emotions built up again to the danger point. After their lovemaking, she slept peacefully, her arm around Berto.

  She woke up late the next morning and jumped out of bed. “Berto.” She shook him. “I have to go work at the House of Healing.”

  “I’ll walk around the city and do some sketching,” he said. “Meet you for dinner? At Al’asso? I feel like eating Etrenzian food.”

  As always, Serazina noticed the ugly buildings in the center of the city. In Tamaras they had turrets and wrought iron. Even Etrenzia had minarets and beautiful domes. Oasan architecture specialized in pyramids and obelisks stabbing the sky.

  Only the House of Healing was different. A verdigris dome topped it, and ivy twined up its pillars. Abstract designs in stained glass let in soft green light.

  Serazina went to her locker in the basement and changed to her laundry worker’s uniform, dyed the dull yellow of leaves about to die, and reported to the supervisor.

  “You’re up on the Feelies floor today.”

  She went up the stairs to the ward. Drugs kept the patients here relatively comatose, their emotions dulled. Those who became stable on medication were sometimes released without surgery or shock therapy. Many of them, though, stopped taking their pills once they felt better, and the cycle of hospitalization began anew. Three visits to the Feelies ward guaranteed a date with either electrodes or knives.

  Serazina went down the hall to check on towels and drinking water in each room. In the first room she saw a woman who’d once been her teacher in Dolocairn literature. Citizen Whiterock had become overcome with emotion while reciting a poem about snow. She’d sobbed out the line, “The snow falls and falls and falls” for fifteen minutes before someone had gone for school security. Now she sat in a chair, bundled in blankets, her lips moving silently, her emotions a damp shroud enveloping her.

  Serazina replaced the water pitcher quickly and ran out of the room. In the next room a man huddled beneath his bedding. When Serazina tried to lift it, he clutched it more tightly about him. “Don’t want the dragon to see me,” he whispered.

  Serazina wished she could tell an administrator that sending her to the Feelies ward was a bad idea for all concerned, but that would mean admitting her sensing ability. She tried to use Mind. Three hours left. If I finish the rounds, I can go sit in the staff lounge. I’ll be seeing Berto soon.

  She managed to do everything necessary in the frightened man’s room and went to the next room, a private one. The door was closed, and she knocked on it.

  A nurse opened it a crack. “No one is supposed to come in here, but you look harmless.”

  Serazina translated that to insignificant. Any secrets beyond the door would obviously mean nothing to a worthless hybrid. She entered the room. Lying on the bed was an Etrenzian woman in her sixties. Her eyes were closed, and her chest barely moved. Her black skin was nearly gray.

  “I want to put a flotation pad beneath her,” the nurse said. “Would you lift her? She hardly weighs a thing.”

  Serazina easily lifted the woman’s body, light as a bundle of dried stalks, while the nurse slid the air-filled padding beneath her.

  “She’ll rest more comfortably now, not that she probably knows the difference, poor thing. I’ve got to go to the front desk and give a report on her condition. Get her new towels and fresh water.”

  The nurse left. After Serazina filled up the water pitcher and placed it on the bedside table, the woman opened her eyes and smiled.

  Serazina gaped at her. “You’re supposed to be in a coma.”

  “A simple matter of mind control. It serves my purposes to pretend.”

  “Why let me know?”

  “You look like a descendant of Zena, and I read you as trustworthy. Some day you’ll know the truth. In the meantime, trust the dragon.”

  “What?”

  The woman put her hands on her lips and closed her eyes. Thirty seconds later, the nurse returned.

  “Did I hear talking in here?”

  Serazina shook her head.

  “Get on with your work.”

  Serazina left the room.

  Trust the dragon? The woman was crazy.

  After work she went to Al’asso, where Berto sat with some of their classmates.

  “Hi,” he called out. “We’re complaining about our future.”

  “There’s a lot to complain about,” she said.

  “Tell me,” said Clona, a Dolocairn girl who wore her emotions on her pouting mouth. “Ninety percent of the field workers’ kids end up in the field. You’re lucky that all your parents work in the city.”

  “My father doesn’t,” Serazina said.

  “No, but Johar Clare gets no soil on his hands. He’s responsible for the production from all the fields in Oasis West. Think they’ll put you in the fields?”

  Obvious as the venom in her words was, h
er emotions were even more aggressive. Serazina tried to neutralize them. “You’re telling me that when I’ve just come from my work hauling hospital sheets full of shit and piss and wiping patients’ ulcerated bottoms? Some great connections. Clona, it’s not my fault you’re angry at the world.”

  Clona sawed at her lamb. “Sorry. It’s just that there are so few places where I can bitch.”

  The girl’s anger melted into sodden self-pity. As sometimes happened, Serazina was glad to sense the emotions of another because it reminded her that others suffered more than she. Clona, struggling against the jealousy and despair she’d been taught was wrong, sank ever deeper into them, like someone sucked down by quicksand.

  It’s better to allow emotions, Serazina told herself, even if it’s more dangerous.

  “The safest place to bitch is beyond the border,” Berto said. “And when I leave, I might spend a week getting it out of my system.”

  “You’re really leaving?” someone asked.

  “What choice do I have?”

  “It’s hopeless, isn’t it?” Serazina asked when Berto walked her to the door of her house.

  “Pretty much.” He looked up at the sky, gleaming with a lacy pattern of stars. “I love it here, despite everything. The Tamaran sky won’t be so beautiful. What if I lose my inspiration?”

  And what will I lose? Serazina wondered.

  Chapter 5

  You want to get creeped out bad, come to the country, Emerald decided. Look at that black, black sky. Any kind of mean, ugly thing could come swooping down on you and carry you off. And those trees, all dark and leaves rustling in the wind. And what’s that bird going ‘hoot, hoot’? Makes my backbone twang. And it’s cold, not one little flower in sight. Did I just hear a scream? Tomorrow I’m taking the truck back to the city, and I don’t ever want to hear any more about The Green.

  That was all she was hearing right now. Misha was freaking. “Look at those gorgeous trees and the clean sky, the softness of grass beneath my tired paws.” If she didn’t stop, she was going to have the softness of grass above her dead body.

  Even the smooth-tongued cats who’d lured them into this disaster zone looked concerned. “Let’s find a resting place,” Bast said, “and catch something to eat. I smell rabbit nearby.”

  Rabbit? Emerald hoped that wasn’t some big bug, but she was almost hungry enough to eat a dirty roach.

  They trotted into the woods, where some of that big-assed sky got hidden, and found a small cave close to a stream. “You rest with your grandmother while we hunt.”

  Sleep helped Emerald recover from the bone-rattling journey; so did the mouth-watering smell of fresh meat wafting past her. She opened her eyes to see Orion carrying a good-sized creature with long ears.

  He put it in front of Misha. “Let the Elder eat her fill.”

  Misha sank her teeth into the flesh and ate with evident enjoyment. “Delicious,” she finally said.

  Orion ripped off a haunch and tossed it to Emerald. Misha was right; this was the tastiest hunk of meat she’d ever eaten. Maybe the Green wasn’t so bad.

  But the silence was so big, the space so huge. If she’d been alone here, she would have gone out of her head with fright. Instead, she cuddled close to Misha and, eased by the old cat’s peaceful breathing, slept again.

  She woke up to a fragrant wind ruffling her fur.

  “She looks healthier already,” Bast said. “By her next estrus she should be ready.”

  What was this, the daily medical report, with fancy words a stupid little alley cat wasn’t supposed to understand? Whatever anyone wanted to call it, the swelling and unbearable itch had gone. Good riddance. Orion still looked like one fine tom, though, and she enjoyed the way he came to her side and nuzzled her.

  “Let’s walk around,” he suggested. “You’ll want to get familiar with the pathways and know where the best hiding places are.”

  It was always smart to know your turf, so she followed him, but this hiding place business bothered her. “From what? Any humans here?”

  “We saw some last night, gathered in a circle, calling on the Mother. They sounded like lost kittens. With humans you can never be sure, but they seemed harmless.”

  “I’m in no hurry to find out,” she said.

  “No. However, we have more immediate worries—wolves, for example. They’re like dogs, but larger and stronger. Although they’ve been known to kill cats, we’re hoping to negotiate with them. Bears, who are very large and strong, usually don’t bother cats, unless you decide to rub against them.”

  “Won’t catch me rubbing against anyone I don’t know or even some I do.”

  “You also need to learn about snakes with poisonous bites and porcupines, who have dangerous quills.”

  “This is the place my grandmother has been dreaming of all these years? What else got left out of the story? You must be out of your mind to think I’m going to raise any kittens here. You forked-tongued bastards will probably blame me if they turn into bear food or get quills. What are quills, anyway?”

  “Narrow sticks with lots of tiny claws on them.”

  “Huh, sounds like something you were wanting to introduce to me last night.”

  “I only have one, and when the time comes, you’ll be glad to make its acquaintance.”

  “We’ll see about that.”

  She’d never met a tom more full of himself, but it might come from being so well fed. He couldn’t help it if he was fine.

  “Look over there; that’s a porcupine.”

  Emerald studied the strangest-looking animal she’d ever seen. “You sure that isn’t some kind of mutant?”

  “I know it looks deformed, but I wouldn’t say that to its face—if you could find it.”

  “Orion, how do you think porcupines manage to mate?”

  “That’s a frightening thought. I wouldn’t want to be around in case the quills were flying. If you can tear yourself away from that fascinating sight, I’d like to do some hunting.”

  Emerald, determined to prove she wasn’t as ignorant as she was starting to feel, caught and killed a squirrel.

  “Delicious,” Orion said, thoughtfully saving the seed-filled stomach for her. “I’m not surprised you hunt so well, with that graceful, muscular body.”

  Flattery wouldn’t get him much, but it didn’t hurt her ears, and, after they ate, the rough tongue that groomed her did no harm to her fur. Her skin tingled from head to toe, and she purred herself to sleep.

  Every day and night they went out exploring. By the next new moon, Emerald knew all the major pathways through the forest and where the tastiest animals lived. She’d discovered how delicious grass and certain herbs were, and her coat gleamed.

  One afternoon they visited a waterfall. Emerald sat for long silent minutes on the cushiony moss, breathing in the rich, green air, watching the rainbow the spray made. She was thinking it was the most beautiful place she’d ever seen when the itch came on her again.

  Orion, who obviously had the keenest nose in the forest, began rubbing against her, and his silky fur was as soft as the moss beneath her paws. “A beautiful place to create life,” he purred.

  As a come-on, it was a lot subtler than “Senti has what you need,” and it helped that the selection committee wasn’t around. They’d probably have told Orion how to mount her, and he seemed to know how to do that just fine.

  No wonder queens screamed when they mated. Misha had been right about those barbs. Once it was over, though, Emerald noticed that the itch was gone and her agitation with it. She sank into the moss and closed her eyes. Currents she’d never noticed before, like water flowing deep in the earth entered her, carrying tiny flashes of light that sparkled through her. Maybe it had something to do with the crazy country air.

  Orion wanted to keep on mating, “just to make sure,” and they stayed at the waterfall until the next day. By the time they left, Emerald thought she’d had enough of that for a while.

  Two moon cyc
les later a different kind of pain gripped her. She tried to crawl off to the nest she’d secretly prepared, but the wicked sisters prevented her.

  Those cats were unnatural. When a queen had her kittens, she wanted to be alone, not out in the open, with Bast droning some awful chant and every damned little bird in the forest hanging from the branches to watch her. Who cared if it was a great moment for the cat world?

  “Relax,” Bast hummed.

  Right. Wasn’t this the same Bast who’d said Emerald was too young to have kittens? She’d been right, but put a pound or two on that young cat, shine up her fur, and suddenly she was in fighting condition. Or maybe they needed this so-called Chosen kitten in such a hurry that they’d thrown what few scruples they had to the winds.

  She could feel now how big the kittens were. They took after their father. Why hadn’t she thought about that by the waterfall? She’d remember next time, if she were lucky enough to have a next time. Things didn’t look promising at the moment. If a creature could survive being torn apart like this, she would have heard about it.

  Good-bye, world, she thought, looking up at the untroubled sky. At least she’d lived in the Green, and that was more than many cats could say. She’d eaten good food, had fur that didn’t smell funky, and she’d lived without hearing a human voice. The absence of that harsh sound allowed her to realize how it had terrified her. Every time she’d heard it, she’d remembered her mother shrieking in terror.

  If she had to die, at least it wouldn’t be at their hands, and no one would be throwing her stiff body into some stinking garbage can. She supposed the other cats would drag her off into the underbrush, and her body could slowly rot the natural way, becoming food for the plants eaten by the small creatures who’d fed her so well here.

  That part of her the Big Three liked to call Spirit would be at rest, in silence, no one bothering her, just peace and quiet and never having to worry about where the next mouse was coming from . . . so good, the quiet and the peace, no more pain, just the feeling of flooding open, a kind of sweetness filling her, not dying at all, but huge with life. A sound broke the silence, the tiniest mew ever, its need calling her out of the darkness and into dazzling light.