Read Online A Wizard of Mars, New Millennium Edition by Diane Duane - Free Book Online
Authors: Diane Duane
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Crossings.”
Carmela shrugged. “Being nice never hurts...”
“You’ve got that right, anyway,” Nita said. “Let’s get down there before we have to have that conversation with one of Mister Dragon’s buddies.”
The two of them headed downslope to where the track gave out. Shortly they were picking their way among the cracked yellow boulders toward the group on the beach. “Neets,” Carmela said, “I hate to tell you this, but there’s another dragon down there.”
“Where?”
“Under the dinosaur.”
Nita peered ahead. “It’s okay. Too busy to notice us, I think. Anyway, don’t you see someone familiar?” She took back the bag of tomatoes.
“Who?” Now it was Carmela’s turn to peer.
“Where do you— Ronan! ” Carmela took off toward where that tall, slim shape was lounging on top of a big boulder in black jeans and a black T-shirt, and doubtless paying the price for it in this weather; but he looked as casual as if he were sitting on a block of ice.
Nita grinned as she negotiated the rocky stretch between herself and the wizards sitting on the rocks by the edge of the bay. Kit was there in T-shirt and baggies, perched on an even bigger boulder than the one where Ronan Nolan had stretched himself out. Nearby, on a lower, flatter stone, a smaller shape sat cross-legged— younger, much darker, wiry, in swim trunks and a floppy white tank top: Darryl McAllister, one of the newer wizards of Nita’s acquaintance, a neighbor from over in Baldwin. The three of them were watching yet another Komodo dragon, bigger than the one Nita had spoken to, and also keeping an eye on the huge, shimmering, golden-green shape bending down over the dragon: one that, to Nita’s way of thinking, seemed much worthier of the name.
If someone had stood an African elephant next to that great shape, the elephant would have been taller, but the saurian, sheathed in a handsome, pebbly, gleaming hide, would have been much bigger. Though Mamvish’s shoulders stood no more than twenty feet from the ground, they were nearly ten feet apart, and each leg was as thick as the trunk of the forty-year-old maple in front of Nita’s house. Those legs bent twice, in a double elbow— one of them bending backward about eight feet from the ground, and the second one about four feet above it. Each leg ended in a six-toed paw, as broad compared to the leg as the foot of a cat, and each toe had a massive, metallically glinting claw retracted partly into it. The hind legs were like the front ones, though the hip joints were higher than the shoulders, and the tail that trailed away behind them lashed and coiled, gesturing more expressively than any Komodo dragon’s tail could.
At the other end, the saurian’s long, oval head peered down at the smaller one of the Komodo dragon sitting between her huge forefeet. The massive jaws in that huger head opened, exhibiting teeth that gleamed like pale metal, and a broad, black tongue. Around the words that she spoke, like the breath behind them, came a low, moaning hiss like a house’s central heating system complaining of too much pressure in the radiators. But the voice itself spoke the Speech in a surprisingly high register, like a flute’s or clarinet’s.
As Nita got closer, she could see how subtly changing colors ran and shimmered underneath the gemmy bumps and pebbles of the hide, shifting slightly with the words and the volume at which they were spoken. “Let me put it again in a way you can understand,” the voice said... while sounding as if its owner wasn’t sure this could be done. “There’s nowhere else for you to live in these seas! The two-leggers are encroaching on your territory. No matter how well the ones who come here right now are treating you, sooner or later some will come who don’t mean you anything like as well. You’ll have nowhere else to go! And there are much better places for you to be, with no two-leggers, with nothing but people like you—people
Carmela shrugged. “Being nice never hurts...”
“You’ve got that right, anyway,” Nita said. “Let’s get down there before we have to have that conversation with one of Mister Dragon’s buddies.”
The two of them headed downslope to where the track gave out. Shortly they were picking their way among the cracked yellow boulders toward the group on the beach. “Neets,” Carmela said, “I hate to tell you this, but there’s another dragon down there.”
“Where?”
“Under the dinosaur.”
Nita peered ahead. “It’s okay. Too busy to notice us, I think. Anyway, don’t you see someone familiar?” She took back the bag of tomatoes.
“Who?” Now it was Carmela’s turn to peer.
“Where do you— Ronan! ” Carmela took off toward where that tall, slim shape was lounging on top of a big boulder in black jeans and a black T-shirt, and doubtless paying the price for it in this weather; but he looked as casual as if he were sitting on a block of ice.
Nita grinned as she negotiated the rocky stretch between herself and the wizards sitting on the rocks by the edge of the bay. Kit was there in T-shirt and baggies, perched on an even bigger boulder than the one where Ronan Nolan had stretched himself out. Nearby, on a lower, flatter stone, a smaller shape sat cross-legged— younger, much darker, wiry, in swim trunks and a floppy white tank top: Darryl McAllister, one of the newer wizards of Nita’s acquaintance, a neighbor from over in Baldwin. The three of them were watching yet another Komodo dragon, bigger than the one Nita had spoken to, and also keeping an eye on the huge, shimmering, golden-green shape bending down over the dragon: one that, to Nita’s way of thinking, seemed much worthier of the name.
If someone had stood an African elephant next to that great shape, the elephant would have been taller, but the saurian, sheathed in a handsome, pebbly, gleaming hide, would have been much bigger. Though Mamvish’s shoulders stood no more than twenty feet from the ground, they were nearly ten feet apart, and each leg was as thick as the trunk of the forty-year-old maple in front of Nita’s house. Those legs bent twice, in a double elbow— one of them bending backward about eight feet from the ground, and the second one about four feet above it. Each leg ended in a six-toed paw, as broad compared to the leg as the foot of a cat, and each toe had a massive, metallically glinting claw retracted partly into it. The hind legs were like the front ones, though the hip joints were higher than the shoulders, and the tail that trailed away behind them lashed and coiled, gesturing more expressively than any Komodo dragon’s tail could.
At the other end, the saurian’s long, oval head peered down at the smaller one of the Komodo dragon sitting between her huge forefeet. The massive jaws in that huger head opened, exhibiting teeth that gleamed like pale metal, and a broad, black tongue. Around the words that she spoke, like the breath behind them, came a low, moaning hiss like a house’s central heating system complaining of too much pressure in the radiators. But the voice itself spoke the Speech in a surprisingly high register, like a flute’s or clarinet’s.
As Nita got closer, she could see how subtly changing colors ran and shimmered underneath the gemmy bumps and pebbles of the hide, shifting slightly with the words and the volume at which they were spoken. “Let me put it again in a way you can understand,” the voice said... while sounding as if its owner wasn’t sure this could be done. “There’s nowhere else for you to live in these seas! The two-leggers are encroaching on your territory. No matter how well the ones who come here right now are treating you, sooner or later some will come who don’t mean you anything like as well. You’ll have nowhere else to go! And there are much better places for you to be, with no two-leggers, with nothing but people like you—people
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