Dragon Mage

  Kim . . . that was the name of her father's friend. Meemaw had talked about him. Kim . . . "Omigod!" Shilo said. Her knees gave out and she fell. Hiding in the shadows, by a northwest wall in the courtyard, she spotted a boy in a T-shirt and jeans. "Omigod. Omigod. Omigod."

  Clinging to the sides of buildings and the walls, fingers brushing the ceramic images of lions and bulls, Shilo trotted around to the other side of the courtyard, trying to make it over to him. She was panicked, her breath coming fast, as she worried that the guards might see him before she could get there. That they hadn't noticed him already was a miracle, but then they had the collapsed balcony to contend with. That they hadn't noticed her was another wonder, but then she looked like a local.

  "Please don't let my skin run."

  His blue jeans were patched at the knees, his dark high-top tennis shoes had untied, frayed laces, and his gray T-shirt had a design on it. Focusing on it, she made out the details as she got closer. It was a car, draped in an American flag, or painted to look like a flag, and beneath it were the words in cherry red: Mustang Mach I.

  "Oh, please don't let this be happening. By all that's holy, don't let this be real.' She recognized the T-shirt from an old photograph.

  It took her a few minutes to reach the boy, and a moment more to grab his arm and pull him down a side street.

  "Hey!"

  "Shut up. Just shut up." Immediately she regretted the words. God, I just talked terrible to my father!

  "Hey!" He shouted it this time, as if trying to attract someone's attention. "What are you—"

  "I'm trying to save you," she said, her voice soft but stern. "Don't make this difficult. If you call for what amounts to the cops around here, we're both screwed."

  That calmed him a little. "Save me, huh? So where are we goin'?"

  "You've got a friend named Kim?"

  "Yeah. He's here! I thought 1 saw him. Wild. The puzzle brought us both here? At the same time? What about Ras and—"

  "just you and Kim." She didn't think the dragon would bring more than two.

  "Wild. At least this place is warmer than—"

  "Shush." She noticed two men and a girl watching them, and she turned south down an alley. It was so dark here from the shadows of the buildings that she had a hard time seeing.

  "You're not going to mug me or somethin', are you, lady?''

  "I ... said ... I ... am . . . trying ... to ... save . . . you."

  There was a corner where a building jutted out, and she pressed her back against it, drawing him close, still disbelieving this. She sucked lungfuls of hot air in, nearly gagging on the scent of garbage that lay near her feet.

  Oh, God, please don't let this be happening. Let this he some horrible dream. Oh, please.

  Oh, please. Oh—

  "So where's Kim?"

  At least he whispered this time.

  She glanced to the end of the alley, looking north and hoping the two men and the girl were not there. Nothing. A glance to the south. People walked by on the street, but they didn't look in the alley. A guard hurried past, carrying a catcher's mitt. Arrrgh! When she'd grabbed Kim it must have fallen off, and she didn't think to pick it up. What would an archaeologist make of that? What would whoever is in charge of the guards think of it? What if they took it to the rich man who knew about Georgia?

  "Kim's not far from here. We've got to sneak through a few alleys to find him. You're not exactly dressed for this place, so we'll have to be careful."

  "What place?"

  "Babylon."

  "Babylon. Wow. What's the circa?"

  "Huh?"

  "The date. What year is it?" Still he whispered, his voice so soft she had a hard time hearing him.

  "I don't know. About twenty-five hundred years ago, I guess. Nebuchadnezzar's the king."

  "Cool. Very cool. So you're not from around here either, huh? I can tell by your accent. Where you from? You get here with a puzzle, too? What's your name?"

  "Shilo." She regretted answering that immediately.

  "Shilo? Wild, a great name. Parents must like Neil Diamond a lot, huh? Or dogs?"

  "Dogs?" Shilo clamped her teeth tight.

  "Don't you know nothin' about music, lady? Neil Diamond wrote a song with that name. It was about a favorite dog he had when he was a kid. Song came out in 'sixty-eight, but it didn't hit the charts until almost two years ago."

  "Two years?"

  "Nineteen seventy, you doofus. Made it into Billboard's top one hundred. Anyway, great name. Mine's—"

  "Sigmund."

  "How'd you know that?"

  "She has magic." This came from Nidintulugal. He'd appeared behind them, moving so silently neither had heard him approach. "Put this on." He passed Sigmund a robe, the one Shilo had appropriated when she was in the city, and the one she gestured to.

  "Phew!" The boy wrinkled his nose, but hesitated only a moment before putting it on.

  "Why can't I have that other one?" He pointed to the one draped on Nidintulugal's shoulder.

  "It is longer," Shilo said. "Your friend, Kim, he's taller than you. He gets the longer robe."

  Sigmund was shorter than Shilo by about a head, and so he gathered the robe up at the waist and tucked it into the waistband of his blue jeans so it wouldn't drag. Then he pulled the hood up and wrinkled his nose at the smell again.

  Nidintulugal retrieved a handful of nuts from his pocket and gave them to Shilo. She closed her eyes and felt the smoothness and the roughness of them, and envisioned them melting.

  "So who are you?" Sigmund asked.

  "Nidintulugal."

  "Definitely not a song title," Sigmund said. "You sound like a native, Niddy."

  Nidintulugal frowned at the nickname and rolled up Sig-mund's sleeves. Shilo started rubbing the dye on his arms and hands, then his face, carefully smearing it around his eyes and mouth.

  "Your robe is too high," she whispered. "They can't see your tennis shoes. Everyone wears sandals here."

  "My . . .oh." He was about to tug the robe down a little, but Nidintulugal stopped him and did it for him.

  "You do not want to smear your skin." Nidintulugal stared at him. "I only brought enough nuts for two."

  "For Kim, huh?" Sigmund said. "Gotta find him." He started to move, but Nidintulugal shoved him back against the wall. "Hey, watch it, Niddy!"

  "Nidintulugal," Shilo corrected. "This is serious, okay, Sigmund? There are people looking for me, and probably for Nidintulugal, and you and your friend Kim will stick out like proverbial sore thumbs. And so they'll be looking for you, too. Maybe they saw both of you in the courtyard and are looking already."

  "Why? What'd we do to anybody?"

  Nidintulugal shook his head.

  "You don't know, Niddy?"

  "We're not sure," Shilo said, again dropping her voice to a whisper. "Maybe cause I'm different. There's a guy, a rich one, who knows I'm from Georgia."

  Sigmund smiled. "I'm from Georgia, too. Kennesaw."

  "I know," Shilo whispered. "Stay here." She padded to the south end of the alley, watching people pass by on the street. Behind her, she heard Sigmund—her father—jabbering to Nidintulugal.

  How could Ulbanu have done this to her?

  She leaned against the corner of the building at the end, a residence, she guessed, for someone who was a little well-to-do. How could the dragon have reached through time and across the miles and grabbed her father . . . when he was eleven or twelve? Her father! Maybe the dragon could touch her father because he'd touched the puzzle, the conduit as Ulbanu had called it. Maybe that's why the dragon grabbed Kim, too.

  The dragon had no right!

  That she was here from the future was evidence that traveling through time was possible. So if she could be here, her father and his friend—at younger ages—could be here, too. But her father! A great part of her was furious that Ulbanu would do this. Shilo was having a hard enough time dealing with his death as it was.

  Now she had to deal
with his life . . . before he moved to Wisconsin, before he grew up, before he moved back to Georgia and met her mother. Before she was born and named after Neil Diamond's dog.

  But a small part of her—a part she couldn't deny—was terribly happy to see young Sigmund. At least in Babylon her father wasn't dead.

  Tears threatened at the corners of her eyes.

  "No more crying," she hissed. "No more crying ever." She sucked in a deep breath and straightened her back. "Find the eggs, save the eggs, and get out of this Hades." She motioned to Nidintulugal and Sigmund.

  The boy—her father—still chattered to the priest.

  "Niddy, I've time-traveled before. When the puzzle took me to the far north, I got to help with this huge forge. I just appeared there, but in nice warm clothes that looked pretty much like what everyone else was wearing. Too bad that didn't happen this trip. I wouldn't have to wear this smelly thing. Anyway, this dragon came . . . actually, this was just a couple of days ago . . . and—"

  "Shush. Walk casual," she whispered to Sigmund as she returned. "Follow me. Walk like you live here, like you know where you're going. Don't do anything to draw attention to yourself."

  "Same advice my maw gave me when we went to Atlanta last year," he whispered back.

  Then she stepped to the end of the alley again, then out into the street, and turned to the east, turning south minutes later when she reached the courtyard. Guards were still helping people clean up the bricks and wood from the balcony, but they were almost finished with the work. She didn't see anyone injured, nor any sign of blood, so she figured no one had been standing on it when she made it collapse.

  "Whew," she said as she lengthened her stride and heard Sigmund's and Nidintulugal's footsteps behind her.

  "What are we doing here?" Sigmund asked the priest.

  Shilo was amazed that he could communicate in the native tongue. It was magic, she knew, magic that came easier to a boy three or four years younger than she. And was there magic in her because she'd inherited it from her father? Like one inherits physical features and propensities for some diseases?

  "I don't need to be thinking about stuff like this." She turned east again, remembering the alley she'd shuffled Kim down. "I need to get us all together and to that inn." Nidintu-lugal had gotten them all a room, hadn't he? "Kim. Where did I put him?" The sun had set quickly, and the alley was darker than when she'd been here several minutes before.

  "Niddy, are you going to tell me what this is all about?"

  "Later." Nidintulugal's voice took on a hardness Shilo had not heard before. "When we are away from here and safe, across from the Gardens, boy."

  "Sigmund."

  "Sigmund, then."

  "What gardens?"

  "Later." The severe tone ended Sigmund's questions.

  "I can't find him, the boy Kim." Shilo whirled to face them, her eyes locked on Nidintulugal's, as she didn't want to look at her father right now. "I left him here—right here—wrapped in a blanket." She pointed to the very spot where she'd told him to stand. "I told him not to move."

  Shilo swore it felt like her stomach had risen into her throat. She could hardly breathe. '7 told him not to move," she mouthed. Her eyes were wide with worry.

  Nidintulugal stepped past Sigmund and Shilo. At the edge of a building, a run-down place that looked empty, he bent and picked up a blanket.

  "Did you wrap him in this, Shilo?"

  She turned and stared at the cloth in his hand. She swallowed and nodded.

  21 Dupanu

  THE OLD ONE RARELY STOOD OR WALKED, LET ALONE LEFT HIS den. But this was a momentous day, and so he did all of those things.

  Today was Akitu, the festival of the House Where the Goddess Temporarily Dwells in Babylon, one of the longer-named festivals in the city. If the Old One's memory served, this day was Ishtar's. Goddess of Goddesses, Shepherdess of the Lands, Righteous Judge, Forgiver of Sins . . . could she forgive his?

  He shuffled along the street alone, ignoring the stares of children who had not yet scurried inside for the evening meal.

  Rarely did the Old One eat.

  The scents of fish and bread held no interest.

  The sun had set, and the last twinkling bits of bronze it had painted on the Euphrates disappeared as he crossed the bridge and entered the eastern half of the great city.

  The Old One used to revere the goddess, and the gods Marduk and Shamash and Anu, too . . . But that was when he was younger and without power, when he believed in something divine and something beyond himself. He was called Dupanu then, a name his mother, Tattannu, had given him. He could not recall the name of his father. Neither could he remember the man's face, though the visage of his mother still flitted in his memory from time to time.

  Those years were so very long ago that he should not be expected to recall them.

  No one living knew his birth name. The souls who did were bits of bone and hanks of hair lying beneath the earth. How many souls rested beneath Babylon? When he stepped off the bridge and found himself looking up at the Esagila, the imposing Temple of Marduk, he wondered if he stood on anyone who had been significant.

  Where would his bones rest? He shook his head. As old as he was, he had decades left, perhaps centuries; his magic would see to that. The herbs and compounds he mixed and ingested would help. He would not be able to stave off death indefinitely, but all those now living in the city, save perhaps the Hand of Nebuchadnezzar, would be dust before he breathed his last.

  A most momentous day, this!

  He passed a fisherman bringing his catch to a buyer's hovel. The fisherman talked rapidly, wanting to move along to the temple, and not wanting to lose time in bartering.

  "It is the festival," the fisherman told the buyer. "Do not make this difficult.''

  The Old One's face bore a rare smile. This was a momentous day, but not because of a festival to honor a goddess that likely would never forgive his innumerable transgressions. The day— what was left of it—was significant because he would view what the Hand of Nebuchadnezzar had managed to acquire.

  The Old One could have waited until Arshaka summoned him.

  Or the Old One could have demanded that the eggs be brought to him. (He was, after all, the most respected crafter of demon bowls anywhere, and so was entitled to make such stipulations.)

  But he did not want to wait.

  He wanted to see the eggs now.

  No common chicken or duck eggs, these that would be crumbled and buried in a demon bowl. No skull-sized eggs of exotic flightless birds.

  Dragon eggs!

  What energy and magic must reside in them!

  He'd sent word ahead to Zuuth, a seer in the old quarter near the Temple of Marduk, and he would stop there before going to the Hanging Gardens. The Old One had visited Zuuth years past, and considered his counsel acceptable. The Old One had not sought the wisdom of another in quite some time, but this was indeed a momentous occasion, and so he made another exception.

  No one was on this street, everyone either eating dinner or praying to Ishtar. Zuuth's shop was in the middle, made of baked bricks laced with straw and reinforced with lead slats. The Old One entered without knocking; Zuuth's shop had no door or curtain.

  His senses dulled from the decades, the Old One barely registered the smell of the sheep tied in the corner, or the dung it had dropped. He nodded to Zuuth, then shuffled to a wide stool in front of a low table made of some dark wood.

  Zuuth, stoop-shouldered and wrinkled, but a child compared to the Old One, moved only a little faster than his esteemed client. He drew a knife and went to the sheep, slit its throat in a quick motion, then stretched it out along the wall and drew the blade across its belly, stepping back so not to sully his skirt. He used the knife to separate the organs that spilled out, then reached in and withdrew the liver. This he carried to the table and placed almost reverently in the center.

  He cut the liver into four roughly-equal pieces and studied them. After a few momen
ts he turned the pieces over, then rubbed his fingers on them.

  "What you plan will stretch through the ages." These were the first words spoken since the Old One's arrival. "What you plan will rival any spells cast before. I see that the world will shake and that Babylon will be reborn."

  Zuuth s fingers trembled.

  "I see death."

  "But not mine," the Old One said.

  "Never yours."

  "You see success?"

  Zuuth nodded. His fingers hovered over one of the quarters. "Horrid success, provided . . ." He closed his eyes and picked up the piece, squeezed it into a pulpy mass. "You must keep the future from touching the past. You must keep away the father and daughter who will try to interfere."

  "What father?"

  Zuuth shook his head. "This is all I have."

  "It is enough." The Old One put his hands on the edge of the table and pushed himself up. "You see success and the world shaking. It is more than enough."

  The Old One left the shop, his gait a little slower, as he was growing fatigued. He shut out the sounds of prayers spilling from open windows and the clink of dishes and mugs. He turned north, peering through the shadows and picking his way carefully and deliberately toward the Hanging Gardens.

  22 The History Lesson

  'they have him, the guards, shilo shook from fear for the almost twelve-year-old Kim. She was angry at herself for leaving him, though she'd thought she had no choice; angry that he'd left this spot when she insisted he not move; furious that the dragon would pull a boy through time and throw him into what could be a deadly situation.

  "How do you know this?" Nidintulugal shared her concern. "I saw no guards carrying a boy."

  Sigmund looked around for his friend, but stayed close to Nidintulugal.

  "They have him. I know because I saw a guard with a catcher's mitt, not that you know what one of those are. But Kim had one, and I bet he dropped it when I hid him. And I bet he went looking for it. So they have him, and I don't know where they would take him or how we can get him back."