Blue Moon (4 page)

A hotel room tonight, though, he decided. He looked like a vagrant, smelled like a vagrant and was being treated with suspicion. He was starting to think homeless-looking people made desirable targets.

What did he mean, homeless-looking? Heck, he was homeless.

He'd lived in Lucille's basement in relative peace for three years, until she got sick. Then, he slept in the living room so he could help her. For two years, he helped Meg take care of her mother, and working side-by-side, the bond forged by shared pain and worry had begun to fee* * * *ike love to them. They decided to marry. He liked to think it took some worry off Lucille, believing her daughter would marry a decent man.

Last month, Lucille died, and Meg and he decided they probably wouldn't be very happy together. Thus, Alex was homeless.

The fact was, Lucille had been a magical person, and he had hoped her daughter had captured some of that magic, some of that incredible spirit her mother possessed. But when he'd had time to think, he knew Meg was not at all the way he imagined her. He grieved a little, then, for both Lucille and the Meg he'd loved.

Stupidity. Love for him was companionship, not passion. Companions were not so hard to find. He needed to move on. Perhaps he'd just find a nice place and settle there. He was good with numbers. Maybe he could get a clerk or accountant job in some nice town, get Meg to mail his things to him.

He stood and walked out the door, feeling eyes studying his back. He shifted his pack higher and turned the corner, ducking down an alley to see if anyone followed him.

"Paranoid,” he muttered under his breath, and cut across the road. He'd seen some signs at the end of town and hoped to find a clean, not too expensive room for the night.

When Zorovin began his journey up the mountain, he was a dragon, black-and-silver-scaled, fierce and strong. What continued the journey now was no longer a dragon but a man in black pants and a long black coat, with tall, heavy boots that crunched in the snow. He strode quickly, pausing only once to look back down at the glittering distant caverns of the northern frost dragons. Seeing as a human, and not a dragon king, he noted how the moon made the home caves sparkle, and realized how very precious they were.

He shook his head to clear it, not liking this feeling in his chest. The humanity was settling in already, making itself at home. He tried to push it away, for strong emotion was not a thing for dragons; they did not see or feel the way humans did. Yet his flesh was forced into human form, and therefore, human instincts and emotions were something he would have to deal with.

He rubbed his hand along his scalp, trying to loosen the skin a little. His hair was as pale as the snow around him and longer than he would have liked. He turned and continued walking. He must stay focused, remember who he was, or he would never see his son again.

At the peak, Zorovin did not rest, although he had been traveling for two days with only brief stops. What he was doing had never been done before. Dragons could reach the peak of this mountain because they could fly, but he'd had no choice but to take the risk of ascending on foot.

Years before, when his son left this world for the other, Zorovin had given him a pin that would allow him to remember the truth of himself, to know he was a dragon and not a human. In their world, such memory loss was not a problem, because magic and dragons existed. Over there, where magic and dragons did not, the world would try and negate anything that was not part of its reality.

Zorovin hoped that if he crossed over pre-changed into a human, the world would leave his mind, his memories, intact. A blue moon was coming, and its influence would soften reality, and God willing, make the recovery of his son possible.

He stood at the peak, huffing. All he could see was stone and cracked earth, bareness so complete not even snow gentled it. He stepped forward cautiously. The passage to the other world had to be here.

He looked around.
If I were still in dragon form, what would I do? Where would I be going?

Down. A straight plunge to the center.

He knelt and crept forward, tapping the ground with his fingertips, searching. It rippled beneath his fingertips like water. He let out a long breath and stood again. He held his name inside his head ... and jumped.

He fell a long way through nothingness, the cold sharp as a skinning knife. He hit a barrier then passed through, and there was light. He hit the ground and rolled.

Pushing silver hair out of his eyes, he tried to breathe. He'd found early in his trip that he could take in more breath through his mouth than through his nostrils, but only now, on this barren-feeling world, did he discover that he couldn't taste the air anymore. He sniffed, and decided that was a blessing.

He leaned against a tree, panting softly. I am Zorovin, he reminded himself over and over, forcing himself to remember what it meant. He hurt all over, but he welcomed it, because it kept his head clearer, didn't allow the noise and smells and textures of this place to muddle his mind and make him forget.

He pushed erect. It was time to figure out where he was, were he was going to stay. Then he could look for his son.

The dragon moved painfully on his new legs, his body not used to working this way. A human nest of habitation was near—he could smell it, feel the rumbles of it beneath his feet, see the lights of it.

As he walked, movement became smooth, liquid. Zorovin saw a group of human men, and he considered pausing to adjust his clothes to match the cut of theirs. No, this outfit would do.

He crossed the hard-covered parking lot swiftly, avoiding vehicles with their twin shining eyes and angry, mechanical purrs. His hope was that this place, which seemed to be a mass gathering point, would offer him a general idea of their society, maybe even help him find a guide to assist him in his search.

He went inside a large building, not pausing in surprise when the doors opened for him. Nothing would surprise him here because these people had had technology for hundreds of years. Anything that didn't happen was a mark of laziness and lack of ingenuity.

Zorovin paused to orient himself. The place had two stories. He looked over the railing to the floor below and tilted his head, listening, feeling, eavesdropping on the minds around him. Some people thought in both words and pictures, and he learned things by associating the two. This is how he discovered he was in a “mall,” which was a collection of shops or stores. His knowledge of the language was archaic but, thankfully, workable. He pulled away from the railing and wandered from store to store.

Even though he was an austere being, he had to admit the brightly colored lights and signs were pretty, in a way—like flowers on a cliff face. One store sold jackets slightly like his, a heavy black leather whose smell made him oddly hungry.

He finally stopped at a shop that sold glittering jewelry displayed in long glass coffins.

"May I help you, sir?” a young woman asked, smiling.

He stared at her a long moment then slowly took a pouch from his pocket. She relaxed visibly when she saw it. Feeling her momentary fear, and wanting to comfort her, he forced himself to get over his reluctance and produce the ring.

"I wish to trade this for ... money.” He checked the word in her head and was pleased he had chosen the right one.

"I don't know if we can buy things. We're just part of a chain, really. But our manager's in doing some repairs, so I could take it back and ask him."

He was loath to hand her the thick piece of gold. It sang, dimly, sadly, in his palm, as if wondering why its master was discarding it after so many years. There was no way around it, really. He would need food and shelter, and such things did not come for free.

He gave it over to her, and she closed her plump fingers around it.

He waited, stooping over the cases, pinging some of the pieces with his mind the way some would use their fingers to flick a crystal glass rim and make it sing. The gold here was not overly pure, he discovered with disappointment, and instead of singing, it mostly thudded. Some of the silver pieces were better, but not by much, and he didn't bother further with them. He'd never liked the colder songs of silver, which whispered of long, frigid nights and of the secrets beneath the sea. He liked gold, which spoke to him of warmth and good, bright things, like lush plant life and plenty to eat. Things of comfort.

The manager came out. “Where did you get this?"

Zorovin started to reply “What concern is this of yours?” But he changed it to “It's been in my family for a long time. It is my least favorite piece, and while I do not wish to sell it, it seems I have little choice."

The manager nodded and pulled some paper out of his pocket. Money, Zorovin realized, and watched as the man counted it and laid it on the glass.

"Enough?” he asked.

Zorovin had no idea. So, he looked into the mind of the manager to see what he thought of what he was paying.

"No. It is not quite enough."

The manager thought about it, and placed another few bills on the counter. Zorovin felt the man was reluctant to give any more, to the point where he might not buy the piece at all.

"That will do,” he said, gathering the paper carefully and putting it in the pouch.

"If you have more, feel free to come back.” the manager said. “This is a very pure piece of gold."

"I know,” Zorovin said absently. He needed to figure out how to use the little bits of green paper he'd acquired.

His wanderings took him to a bookstore. A young human approached him, her lips the color of bruised plums.

"May I help you?"

He nodded gravely, looking at the stacks of colored bindings. There were those in the lands he had come from who would have thought themselves in paradise.

She smiled up at him. Her thoughts were like silk, easy and pleasant. He caught the word
cute
, and since he associated that word with small, newly born things, he didn't get what she meant.

"I'm Tracy. What are you looking for?"

"Dragons,” he said.

"Myth or fantasy?"

Both words meant much the same thing to him, so he answered, “Whatever you have the most of."

"Follow me."

Zorovin followed her though the stacks of books. Truthfully, he knew this child could not help him, but her mind was open and friendly, and she thought of several subjects at different levels, and the things she was teaching him were invaluable.

They passed a pushy matron who stopped them to ask where the self-help books were. Tracy's mental image of the woman made him smirk. The woman forced her way past him hard enough that he knocked a stack of brightly colored paperbacks on the floor.

"I am sorry,” he said, crouching to pick them up.

The books had two covers, he was amused to see, the top a pearlescent color with roses, the second featuring humans in a scantily clad embrace.

"They're just historical romances,” she said with gentle snobbery. He saw that she read them at home but didn't want him or anyone else to think poorly of her for saying so. “Elizabeth Halstead's one of our best sellers.” She gathered them hastily and put them back on their table, and he followed her away.

"Who do you like? Knaak? Hambly? McCaffrey?” He took the books as she handed them, and he blinked at the pictures of winged lizards being fought, being ridden. The closest to reality was the cover of a book where the dragon, large and black, was holding a dark-haired female in its claws.

"These ... are dragons?"

"Oh, yes.” She nodded earnestly. “They're very popular.” She turned away. “I'll see what else we've got."

The writing seemed like so much gibberish to his eyes. If he worked he could make out some of the words, and he realized part of the problem was that he'd never really bothered to study human writing—for his needs, being able to speak was enough. So, under the guise of reading the back covers, he looked into her mind again.

She was thinking of bedding, and other things, and they involved him. He blushed as he pulled back then frowned over his reaction. When one assumed another shape, one acquired the normal thoughts, instincts and reactions of that shape. He was thinking and reacting like a human, and he was not all that certain it was a good thing.

He gave her the books back. “I thank you, but these are not what I'm looking for."

"Oh, well.” She tossed around for something clever to say.

He gave her his very first human smile, hoping it was about right, and walked away. His child was not here, among these dead trees and human maids.

It's the dreams that hurt the most, lying quietly in my head. Images I'd rather forget flickering behind my eyes and robbing me of rest.

For instance:

It's night, of course ... when is it not? All the worst things happen in the dark. I am waiting for my sister. Rita is small and redheaded and adorable. She has men lined up around the block waiting just to see her.

I'm sitting on my couch, wondering what she has to tell me that's so very important she's willing to break a two-year silence.

It's not late, but I was up very early, and the TV isn't helping me in my quest to stay awake. There's a sweet smell in the air, but apartment buildings are full of strange smells, and as long as it isn't the smell of burning, who cares?

The smell is a heady scent, though, and I find myself curling up on the couch, making myself more comfortable. My eyes close. She'll wake me, I reassure myself, when she gets here. She has the key, I remind myself, she can let herself in.

I wake to the sounds of the morning news. Downtown traffic snarls and “be sure to take your umbrella.” My neck hurts, and it sends its complaints up to my head, which has decided to throb in a show of solidarity. I groan and force myself up. That article wasn't writing itself, and I had a deadline to meet. I'm not worried about Rita. That was an occupation I'd given up years ago.

Bleary-eyed, I look to my answering machine for clues, but the little red light isn't blinking. Calling to explain why she'll be late or not there at all is not one of Rita's habits. I shrug and make my way to the bathroom.