Read Online The Book of Water by Marjorie B. Kellogg - Free Book Online

The old man once told him towns were bad for his health.
Well, yeah
, N’Doch recalls replying,
but so is being a hermit
.
    N’Doch’s fear retreats a bit before a vivid rush of childhood memories, rising like a flight of birds to distract him: the heat and red dust of the bush, the stillness at midday, the scent of parched vegetation. His mama often sent him out to stay with Papa Djawara after his father took off and she was so busy working. Jeez, the man was old even then. And weird. N’Doch feels his mouth curl in an involuntary grin. The old man did tell great stories. Sang them, really.
Probably what got me started
, N’Doch realizes, listening to all those long songs that went on verse after verse, late into the night, unbelievable yarns about powerful shamans and evil curses and spirits of the dead that enter the bodies of men and animals in order to work their will among the living. The usual old tribal stuff.
    But there was that one long tale, N’Doch recalls, one that was different from the rest and the old man’s special favorite. He always reworked it so it was about the adventures of a young man named Water. As N’Doch roots around trying to retrieve it from faded memory, he finds himself gazing up into a pair of liquid dark eyes that are focused on him with alarming intensity. He reads concern there, yes, but also rebuke and impatience. He remembers the song now, and the memory takes his breath away: a young man named Water meets up with a monster from the sea. Only she’s not a monster, she’s a magical creature, a dragon, and the whole long song is about the quest they embark on to save the world. He doesn’t recall ever hearing the ending. He always fell asleep first.
    A dragon?
    No.
    The silvery-blue critter nudges him, showing just the faintest trace of irritation. N’Doch backs away in horror.
    A
dragon?
    He blinks, he coughs, he shakes his head. He does all the requisite things, even pinches himself, but he’s been looking at this critter for over an hour and he knows she’s not going away that easy. He’s not dreaming, he’s wide awake, his arm hurts like hell and there’s a dragon in his hidey-hole.
    Two
dragons. And a weird white girl who acts like she’sdropped in from some other planet. Who knows? Maybe she has. Why should things start getting any saner? Meanwhile, he’s flat on his ass and elbows, and bleeding all over his beautiful wooden floor, the only thing in his life that’s whole and perfect. N’Doch grasps at logic again: what do you do when something you can’t believe is happening, actually is? Hey, you go with it. Like the first bars of a new melody, you just follow it out, see where it leads you.
    So he tries to get up, but his legs won’t work. And it’s hot in the gym, so much hotter than usual. He’s bathed in sweat and slipping in his own blood as he struggles to rise. The blue critter puts her forehead to his chest and presses him back to the floor. He’s surprised how gentle she is, since she’s looking so irascible. There’s music in his head again, and N’Doch decides to lie there and listen, while the blue critter noses at his arm. Her inspection hurts despite her gentleness, but the pain is somehow past the edge of his current awareness, which is filled with the music. He understands now that the bugs are in his wound, the worst bugs, the really fast-acting kind, and that means he’s got to act even faster. He’s got to get serious about moving to his stash of antibiotics, though who knows if he’s got anything here that’s recent enough to kill this bug—they all mutate so fast and his pill source is not exactly over-the-counter yesterday’s formula.
    His breath is getting short, a bad sign. He draws his knees up to his chest and turns over onto his side. Again, the blue critter stops him. N’Doch is amazed by the strength in that seemingly delicate neck. He struggles a bit, but the music swells in his head and then he can’t recall why