The Land Across

23 THE DEAD DRAGON

I should have guessed where we were going, but I did not. It was one hell of a long way, but we flagged down a black-and-silver and got a ride to a low gray building on the far side of the river in the oldest part of the city.

He had beaten us there and was already stretched out, face up on a slab. All the other dead people were face up, too, and I felt like I was back at the undertaker’s, only with bright lights and more bodies. I told Naala that in America we covered them up with sheets and put each of them in its own compartment on a metal slab with rollers. She said, “Here we do not,” and she was right. It was really cold in there, but not freezing.

The attendant, I do not know what you call those, was a big ugly guy about fifty who had not shaved that morning. He came over like he wanted to help, and after a minute or so he asked us, “They cannot be buried in holy ground, yes? What will they do?”

“He falls by accident,” Naala said. She was still looking at the archbishop. I think looking for bulletholes or stab wounds. Anything like that.

The big ugly guy was quiet for a minute. Then he said, “I will remember.”

After that we went to Papa Iason’s, which was maybe half a mile from there. He was still eating breakfast and invited us to sit down. We told him we had already eaten, but we got coffee anyway.

“For you we have good news,” Naala began, “also bad. Which is it you desire to hear first, Papa?”

“The bad, of course.”

“As you wish. His Excellency is climb the cathedral tower each morning for exercise. You know of this, I am sure.”

Papa Iason nodded.

“This morning he falls, Papa.” Naala’s tone made what she had not said pretty clear.

Papa Iason crossed himself, bowed his head, and began to pray. It was loud enough for me to catch a few words, but too fast for me to follow what he was saying. Naala and I sat and watched and sipped weak coffee. I wanted to whisper a little prayer for the archbishop, but I could not do it.

Finally Papa Iason looked up and said, “He will be remembered a long, long time.”

We nodded.

“I will dedicate my mass tomorrow to him. I have already said my mass for today, you understand.”

Naala said, “He was a man of many years. A man older than most men will ever be.”

Papa Iason sighed. “He should have had a rail on the steps. It could have been done easily, and many suggested it.”

Naala nodded.

I said, “He certainly should have!” I was remembering whatever it had been that had tripped me on those steps in the dark. I got scared every time I thought about it.

“There will be a mass in the cathedral with every priest in the country in attendance.” Papa Iason smiled. “We will fill all the seats and stand in the aisles. Every priest and every nun. Monks from the monasteries.”

He looked at me. “You come from the West and know nothing of this, I suppose, but our monasteries nearly failed when the communists were in charge. Things are better now, but it is a hard life. A most hard life. Few men will live as they do. I thought long about it, but in the end—well, you see what I chose.”

Naala said, “What of my good news, Papa? Would you not wish to hear also?”

Papa Iason smiled and ate a piece of bacon. “Yes, indeed! And I must eat, otherwise Mrs. Vagaros will think I am ill and make me soak my feet in the water that steams. What is your good news?”

“Your father is no longer a fugitive. He assists the JAKA against the Unholy Way.”

Papa Iason just stared at her. You do not see the color go out of somebody’s face very often, but I saw it then. Finally he said, “You know.”

“I am of the JAKA, Papa. I have not concealed this from you.”

Papa Iason nodded, really slowly. “Surely he was in great danger.”

I said, “He was. Maybe he still is. They took a shot at him last night.”

“God grant they missed.”

“Yeah. They did. He didn’t.”

Naala said, “Three he kill. Three of the evil one’s worshippers. It was brave work, but we prefer prisoners. We got ten. This, too, was the good work of your father. Of Grafton, also.”

I shook my head. “They just about had me.”

Naala said, “First you send the policeman to bring me. If you had not, we would have taken none. This I know.”

Papa Iason said, “Three he killed. It was my father who did this?”

I said, “Right. He had a shotgun.”

“I see.” Papa Iason looked troubled.

“He’s been staying with a friend in the city. Maybe we could take you to see him, if you want to go. It’s up to Naala.”

“I ask a favor instead. A great favor. You owe me no favors, I know. I ask it even so. Will you take me to the cathedral?”

So we did. There was no blood at all, just a clean spot on the pavement in front. I pointed it out to Naala after Papa Iason had gone inside. After that she wanted to see the steps to the top of the tower. I was afraid she was going to want to climb up, but she did not. We were leaving the tower when another JAKA operator ran up to us. It took me a minute to place her, but that was only because I am really pretty stupid. It was the gray-haired lady who had tried on so many hats. She told Naala, “I see a car through window. I think it may be you.” She was a little breathless.

“You have news?”

“Yes! Yes!” Then she wanted to know if I was me, so I got out my badge case and showed my badge and ID card.

“I am Omphala. You are to go to Central at once, both must go. First you find three people, then go. The man is Russell Rathaus. His wife, also, and the woman with her. You bring them all. At once go!”

I said, “Martya?”

“Yes, I think. She is with the man Rathaus? Her you must bring, too.”

When Naala and I were in the car on the way to pick up Russ, I asked her what was up.

She laughed, but it did not sound like she was having fun. “Everything I know. That you think. I know nothing. We must go and find the answer.”

Getting Russ was easy. As it turned out, that was the only easy part. He was at Magos X’s, and came right away, looking happier than I had ever seen him. “I’m going back to America,” he told me. It was in English, and it was the first thing he said after he got into the car.

I said, “That’s great!” and shook his hand.

Naala said, “What is it he say, Grafton?”

I told her, then I asked him how he knew. After that I told Naala his host told fortunes, but he had told me he would not tell mine when we first met.

She laughed, and this time it was for real. “You are a bad, bad young man, I think. He does not wish to spoil you. He will tell you of all the women, beautiful women. Famous women. Rich women. You hear all this and you are unbearable.”

I said I would settle just for beautiful, like her.

“Now you say this, later it is not so. Then you say rich.”

Russ laughed, and so did the cop. I did not think it was all that funny, but I grinned anyway. “Beautiful and rich.” I should have said already that I was sitting in the middle with Naala on one side and Russ on the other.

He leaned close and whispered in English, “He says the Undead Dragon’s dead.”

I nodded and said out loud, “Yeah, we know.”

Naala wanted to know what we were talking about. She did not say so, but I could see it. I just said, “He’s heard the rumor, you know?” and sort of nodded at the cop in the front seat.

When we got to Aliz’s building Naala told Russ to wait in the car. She and I went inside and up a flight to knock on Aliz’s door. Nobody came.

“They are somewhere gone.”

I said maybe they had gone to lunch, and we ought to look in the cafés.

“It is too early. We must look elsewhere.”

So instead of looking anywhere, we had the cop drive us to a police phone so Naala could call headquarters. She talked for a minute or two before she hung up and got back in the car. “They are not there. Not the Rathaus woman, not the other woman, not even Aliz.”

I said, “What do we do now?”

“The Golden Eagle. It may be they are there. It may also be they go elsewhere, but someone there may know. No one in JAKA building know.”

We went quite a ways farther, then I yelled for the cop to stop.

Naala grabbed my arm. “Them you see?”

“I saw Kleon again,” I told her, “and this time Kleon didn’t see me.” The car had stopped, and Russ was getting out so I could.

He was out of sight among the trees and bushes before I got out. I ran and looked and ran and looked, but no Kleon. Finally Naala and Russ caught up to me in the car and I gave it up. Naala was mad, and I do not blame her.

“All right,” I said, “I shouldn’t have done it. I should’ve known I could never catch a guy as scared as he is when he had a little lead.”

Russ was polite enough not to use English this time. “What did you want him for?”

“First off,” I told him, “I wanted to beat the crap out of him. He beat me awhile back and someday I’m going to get even. Second, I wanted to fix it so the cops back in his hometown won’t kill him. I was supposed to sleep at his place every night, only I got kidnapped by the Legion of the Light. You know about all that.”

Russ nodded.

“So the cops are going to shoot him for it, and that’s why he’s on the run. Only I think maybe I can fix it, and I’m going to try.”

“If you can’t, he gets shot,” Russ told me.

Naala called me five kinds of fool, which is one of the worst things you can say in her language, especially if you make the gestures. Which she did. Maybe it should have bothered me, but I was thinking about what Russ had said, and it did not.

So we went to the Golden Eagle and Aliz was not there. Neither were Rosalee or Martya. I told Naala I needed to talk to her in private. To tell you the truth, I expected her to tell me to go to hell, but she did not. She just stared.

Then she nodded and we went over to a booth in the bar and sat down. “I know where they are,” I said. “If you want I’ll go there alone. I’ll collect them and bring them to the JAKA building for you, or we can all go there. Your choice.”

“Where is it you think?”

“Papa Iason’s. You want me to explain?”

Naala shook her head. “If they are there, then you explain. Not now. We will go.”

We did, and they were there waiting for him. Naala sent the cop to find us another car, and gave me a look that made me feel ten feet tall. Then she touched her finger to her lips.

“Now you tell,” Naala whispered. “Most quiet you tell me how you knew.”

“Well, seeing Kleon like that made me think of Martya. Martya’s his wife.”

“This I knew.”

“And I remembered that somebody had sent operators to a bunch of dress shops to look for Rosalee that time. It seems like sometimes they like to help out with other people’s cases now and then. Lend a hand.”

Naala nodded. “This is so.”

“Women like to talk, and I don’t remember Russ ever saying that he had sworn Martya to secrecy when he sent her to give the hand to Papa Iason. She never said anything about that either, not that I heard.”

Naala snapped her fingers. “The hand! It is in your pocket?”

“Sure.” I took it out and held it up. “Only Aliz doesn’t know that, and Martya didn’t know it, either. They probably patched her up at the hospital, gave her a tetanus shot, and sent her back to Aliz. There would have been a lot of talk about witchcraft and black magic. She would have told Aliz about the hand, and Aliz would go to Papa’s looking for it. When we told Papa about the archbishop, his housekeeper was back in the kitchen. You remember how it was? She brought us coffee. Then she went back there, probably to have some breakfast herself. He went off with us and we took him to the cathedral, but his housekeeper didn’t know where he had gone.”

“Here Aliz waits for his return.” Naala looked like she wanted to laugh. “We have made the most large arrest. She will make the great discovery, perhaps. She does not know she is most far behind us.”

“Right, and she has to keep Martya and Rosalee with her until somebody else takes them.”

So there were six of us going to headquarters: Naala and me, Russ and Rosalee, Aliz, and Martya. The driver of our car had found another police car for us, but Russ wanted to ride with Rosalee, so that was a complication. We tried to keep the seat beside the driver open when we could. Naala said there was a regulation about that. This time it meant Martya sandwiched between Naala and me. Naala had wanted me to sit there, but I would not do it. Martya was smaller than I am, curves or no curves.

I won and I was not sorry, but Martya started in on Kleon. No, she did not like him, but it was not right to kill him. Besides, he wanted her to help him but she would not even if he was her husband because she had not wanted to marry him anyway. And they were going to shoot him if they found him and they would shoot her, too, if they knew she had brought him that ham when he had been hiding in the empty building but had only brought it because he made her. He would have beaten her and he needed to find work here in the capital and she had found one he could do because he could weld, but …

And so on and so forth all the way to headquarters. When we got out there Naala told her to shut up, she would fix things for Kleon if I could ever catch him. And of course that started Martya off again, only trying to be really careful so Russ, Rosalee, and Aliz would not hear anything, particularly Aliz.

I guess it gave us something to do. We must have waited about two hours, and I kept thinking that I had a lot of money now, and why was it I did not have a watch? The answer, of course, was that I had busted the one Naala had bought for me and had not had time to shop for another one. I wanted a good one, not flashy, that would stand up to a lot of knocking around. And I knew that even in the capital that was going to take some real looking.

Baldy came in person to fetch us, saying nothing, just motioning for us to follow him. We went through a corridor and down a flight of stairs, then along another corridor, and came out into trees and shrubs that looked like they were not getting a whole lot of care. I suppose that was the back of the building, although nobody said so. A stretch limo that would have reached from the pitcher’s mound to home plate was parked and waiting for us. It had a bunch of doors, and they were all open.

All of us got in including Baldy, who sat up front with the driver regulation or no regulation. I was on one of the side benches, facing Rosalee on the other side. Russ was on one side of her, naturally, and Aliz on the other. Martya was on my left and Naala on my right. Martya and Aliz had the backseat, so they faced forward. None of this stuff is important, it is just that I remember the ride so well.

Our driver took it slow and seemed to be trying to avoid the main streets. I asked Naala about that, but she just shook her head. I decided the limo was bugged, and the JAKA knew it. Very likely JAKA had put in the bugs.

Pretty soon we were out of the city and on a road that could not have been much smoother if it had been a black silk ribbon. After a while I caught onto the fact that it was always climbing. Not steeply, but we kept getting a little bit higher. We were taking it slow, considering how good that road was and that there was hardly any traffic on it. By and by Naala whispered, “Soon we stop for ices?” She was grinning.

I was looking out the windows and seeing mountains off in the distance, big ones with white peaks. Closer to the city there had been farmhouses at first, with barns and fields and trees. We kept going and there were more and more trees and fewer houses, barns, and fields.

Then there were none, just trees, big ones, oaks at first, later some kind of spruce. Trees that always had dark green needles, summer or winter.

After quite a bit of those, sunlight and a log cabin on steroids. I could not see it well until I got out of the limo, but it was really worth seeing, four stories in places, with wings sticking out in every direction. I do not think there was a log in it that was less than four feet thick.

Nobody told me who lived there, but nobody had to. I could guess pretty easily, and I was right.

There were guards in uniforms I had never seen before, all bottle green and black, with caps that must have been designed about eighteen ten. They had bigger pistols than mine. Some had assault rifles, too.

Baldy led the way into one of the wings, and walking through the doorway cut through those big logs was almost like walking through a tunnel. The room we went into was a sort of lounge, wide and roomy and bright. The brightness came from three skylights in the roof and from the floor lamps and table lamps that were scattered all over. Every one of them was turned on. Also from the furniture and rugs, pretty much all earth tones, yellow and brown and red. There were wolf pelts scattered around, and the skin of a white bear in front of the fireplace.

Baldy told everybody to sit down and relax, so we did. We also used the restrooms. Eventually, I think everybody there used them. There was some talk (I remember that Aliz and Naala talked about soccer) but not a lot. Russ and Rosalee whispered and necked like newlyweds. I tried not to look at them and pretended not to know that Martya was trying to get me to sit next to her on one of the couches. Also I got up and wandered around quite a bit. Peeking through doorways and looking out windows at the forest.

Two maids came in pushing carts, one with food and one with glasses and bottles. I ate (it was far and away the best food I ever got in that country), and drank club soda over ice. Baldy had vodka and tonic, I noticed, and everybody else drank wine. Russ’s eyes opened wide when he tasted the wine, and after that he just took tiny little sips, rolling them around in his mouth.

I am not sure what I should call the person who came in about an hour after we had finished eating. They call him “the Leader.” Mostly I have been calling him the third border guard. You could not pronounce his name at all. I could pronounce it, but it would not be exactly right. He looks like my father. That was the first thing I noticed about him when I saw him on the train, and it is the thing that still sticks with me. He is about the same height, which is maybe four inches shorter than I am. His features are about like my dad’s, especially the eyes and the nose. Also the black mustache. He looks older than his pictures on the posters, and his hair is getting gray and thin.

He was wearing a blue suit, pretty dark, that most people would not realize had cost at least a thousand bucks. White shirt open at the collar. No tie. He came striding in with a couple of generals in uniform trailing him. When he saw me his face lit up. “My young friend!” He has a great smile. “How wonderful that I should see you here!”

First thing I knew, I was getting hugged. I hugged him back, and I have always been glad I did. Okay, I have hugged a dictator. How could I not have hugged him back, when he looked so much like my dad?

“Something I have that you will most like,” he told me, “a little gift, also.”

Then he was shaking hands with Baldy, still smiling only not so wide. He said something I could not hear and Baldy said something back, then turned around and started introductions. Naala was first, and you could see she was proud enough to bust, standing very, very straight and looking very, very serious. The Leader shook her hand and put his arm around her for a moment. Then he turned to one of the generals who was carrying a flat black-leather box. The general opened his box, and the Leader got out a medal. It was on a long ribbon. (They all were.) After he had put it on her neck he said something to her and she said something to him and stepped back.

Aliz was next. She shook hands with the Leader, too, and they talked a little, but she did not get a medal. Russ was after Aliz, and he got one. It was not the same as Naala’s, but it was silver like hers.

Then Rosalee, and she was crying. The Leader put his arm around her and stood there telling her everything was all right and she should calm down, there was nothing to cry about. Still crying, she told him she had to cry. She was so happy she could not help it. I thought sure he was going to turn her over to Aliz, but he did not. He stood there with her and motioned for Russ to come over. The two of them stayed with her, sort of petting her and talking to her until she finally stopped. I could not believe what I was seeing, but that was how it was.

Martya was next. She went down on her knees to beg for a pardon for Kleon, which surprised the hell out of me. The Leader called Baldy over and they talked, the Leader wanting to know what was going on and Baldy telling him he did not know. I would have gone over, too, if I had not known they would get to me in a minute or two, which they did. I explained to the Leader and told them Naala had already promised to fix it. He smiled and told her she had his authority to do it.

Then it was Baldy’s turn. He got a medal, too. He saluted the Leader, and the Leader returned his salute. Later I found out that was a big deal.

I thought I was finished, and the gift was something somebody would deliver later. That turned out to be wrong. (And I had them turned around anyway.) I was called up, the general opened his box, and the Leader got out a gold medal. Somebody behind me gasped, but I do not know who that was. When the Leader hung it on me I stepped back and saluted the way Baldy had.

The Leader returned my salute and raised his voice enough for everybody to hear. “You do not understand why he should receive this.” That was what he said, only I knew that Naala knew. Then he said, “It is a confidential matter.”

I had sense enough to nod, but then I started to go back to where I had been standing before he had motioned for me to come forward again.

“This is yours.” The Leader (maybe I ought to call him the third border guard here) reached into his suit coat and pulled out a dark blue booklet. He handed it to me, and for a minute or two I could not believe it. Generally I do not stammer much, but I stammered then.

It was my passport.