I stood in the front of the tiny room and gazed at the men looking back at me. So many times I've done this before, in so many places. I felt a certain deep sadness overtake me as I wondered just how many of these men, my students, would be alive just a few short years from now.
I sighed, then set my jaw. "This is our last night together, and time for our last lesson. I want each of you to look at the men to either side of you. Go ahead, look. . . .Now, why did I want you do that? Partially, because some of you will be dead not too long from now. Mostly, though, because at least one of you will one day fall victim to a horrible addiction that I consider far worse than death. It doesn't matter the reason that you are here now--whether fear, patriotism, or simple hate. It will fall by the wayside once you taste that ultimate drug called Power.
"Did all the dictators, the Papa-Docs of the world, start out as dictators? Did all of the thugs, the butchers, the warlords truly start out to be such? Some. But not all. Some simply fell in love with the power that they came to wield, for whatever reason, and it devoured them. Will it devour you?
"I spent these past weeks teaching you the keys to power in a land such as yours, and, as I said before, what you do with it is up to you. Will you save your country from itself? Or will you simply be just another wave of thugs and warlords? I don't know; you know yourselves far better than I do. I can only tell you one last thing--watch yourselves. The deadliest enemies never come from without."
I stood there for a moment more, staring at them. Again I'd tried to keep my distance, tried to pretend these men were nothing more than pawns-- paper cutouts to used and discarded. Again I'd failed. Jean-Paul. Jacques. Michel. The others. Their faces would haunt me in my dreams, just like so many before them.
Without another word I turned and walked out of the door, quickly losing myself in the night.
"This just in from the National Weather Service: A tropical depression located just off the eastern coast of Nicaragua has greatly increased in strength within the past twenty-four hours, and has been upgraded to the status of a tropical storm. It is reported that Tropical Storm Gordon, as the storm has just been named, has begun moving in a northeasterly direction at a speed of about twelve knots, and is growing in severity. We will keep you posted as news becomes available. This is CNN."
"You have heard?"
"Yes."
"It's coming right at us."
"Yes."
". . . .Did I cause it?"
". . . .I do not know. Perhaps."
"Then I will have to deal with it."
Mary turned and looked at me incredulously. "Deal? With a hurricane? What are you, Hasai, that you can even dream of 'dealing' with such a thing?"
"I am Shen-Lung." I lifted my head and stared at the southwestern sky, still tinged with the last vestiges of sunset, and already striped with broad arcs of cirrus. "I can feel this storm, Mary; it's pulling at me. It's drawn to me in turn, like so many storms before it. Never have I felt such power."
I drew in a great lung full of the evening air, then let it out in one long sigh. "To ride a hurricane. Could I actually do such a thing?"
"You would be like a feather in the wind."
I nodded, still staring at the horizon. "Yes, if I rode it physically. But what if I used what you've shown me? What if I rode it through your magic instead?"
"Do so, and you are lost."
Irritated, I turned to stare coldly down at the witch. "Old woman, I have ridden storms--"
"--And mastered them. Yes. That I do not doubt. But this one will master you. Hasai, listen to me; I have watched you. Your power is drawn from the storms, yes?"
I blinked, and the witch smiled in satisfaction. "Yes. As I thought. I saw you fade, Hasai; I saw you begin to become the magic, rather than merely controlling it. If you attempt to control this hurricane, to try to absorb its power, I think that you will fade again, and your essence join with that of the storm."
"--And this is bad?"
"Hasai, I do not think that you will come back."
"You been watchin' the weather reports, Sergeant?"
"Yes, sir."
"How bad you think it's gonna be?"
I looked at the floor for a moment. "Don't know yet, sir, but the water's pretty warm out there, so there's a lot of energy this thing can pick up. If it isn't bad, it won't be for lack of trying."
"And the aircraft? We gonna take any damage?"
"Structurally? No; the airframe's pretty strong on these critters, and I don't think that Gordon will be able to pick up steam quickly enough before it hits to do any real damage. It's the turbines I'm worried about."
"Oh? Think they'll get messed up?"
"If we get salt water into the burner cans, we'll be a week in scrubbing them out. And if the damn stuff gets into the wiring. . . .Well sir, I don't really want to think about that."
"I dunno, Sergeant; those nacelles are sealed pretty well--"
"Sir, I've seen a hurricane force water through two-inch vulcanized weather seals. What we have on the nacelles won't even slow it down."
"I see. Think we should evacuate the aircraft?"
"Yes, sir."
"Where to?"
I thought for a moment. "Well, sir, we do have a scheduled inspection coming up, and Austin wants another look at that Number Three harness, maybe even tear into the engine a bit. If we evac to the maintenance facilities up in Florida, we can use the weather downtime to take care of some stuff we need to do anyway, without it showing on our readiness stats."
CW4 Baldwell thought about that for a moment, then nodded. "Well, everything you say agrees with my thinkin'. . .let's do it. I'll tip off the CO if you'll start workin' things out with Maintenance."
"I'm on the way, sir."
"Hasai, you don't know enough of the art. You do not have enough experience to try this."
"Mary, the storm is heading straight for us. Along the way, it's going to plow right over Haiti. How many will die if I do nothing?"
"Foolish dragon! How many will die if you try this and destroy yourself? You do not even know if this storm is yours! And what do you care, dragon, for a handful of mortals?"
I opened my jaws, then closed them again, realizing that I had no answer. I turned and stared out over the ocean, and into the steadily growing darkness that loomed to the south. A breath of wind smelling of storm blew by, stronger than the last. Why was I doing this?
"Hasai, why do you wish to die?"
For a moment, it was if an icy claw had gripped my heart and squeezed. I looked down at the witch. "What did you say?"
"Why do you wish to die, Hasai? Twice you foolishly spared me, the one who would have destroyed you. You experiment recklessly with forces even a magus would fear. And your eyes." Mary paused for a moment, then slowly stepped forward and placed her hand upon my foreleg. "I have seen that look before Hasai; I've seen it in others' eyes. I saw it in my own, not so long ago. . . .Not so very long ago. . . ."
Her eyes had drifted to gaze down at the sea as she spoke, but they were seeing something far different. For long minutes we stared at the approaching storm, lost in our thoughts, our memories.
Why did I wish to die?
Finally I spoke. "I met her in the jungles of Central America. . .a Feathered Serpent, winged, Daughter of Kulkulcan. . . ." I smiled slightly, remembering, then laughed softly. "She tried to kill me the first time we met, thinking I threatened her young. But I survived," I paused, the smile fading "just like I always do."
I sighed. "It started out as a charitable gesture, bringing her food, watching over her. Then it became a fondness. Then it became so very much more. Finally, she even gave me a child of my own. Then he returned."
Was that a flicker of lightning? No. "Her former mate. He'd abandoned her, leaving her and her children to starve. I chased him off once, but. . . .But he came back one night, when I wasn't there, and. . . ." I watched, dimly puzzled as the distant stormy horizon began to waver and dissolve, like a watercolor in the rain. ". . . .And murdered my mate. And our children. And . . . and I don't know why. Why did he kill them? I tracked him down, and before I took his life I looked into his eyes, his sad, mad eyes, and found nothing there. No answer. I suspect I'll never have an answer. Just a single burning question, and a handful of fading memories of what I almost had. . . ."
I flinched at a touch on my lower jowl. Mary took her hand away, and stared wonderingly at the wetness on her fingers. Slowly a light of-- recognition?--came to her eyes. She nodded to herself, and still staring at her hand began to speak in a strange singsong.
"Once, this old woman, she had a family. A foolish family. A foolish husband, foolish sons. . . ."
She trailed off into silence and just stood there for a while, somehow looking very small. Very old. "The foolish husband, he was a teacher. You like my English, dragon? I learned it from him. And he thought he could change the world with his words. His loud words. His so very dangerous words. But the world did not hear his words, and in the night, the Tonton came. They took away this foolish man. This old woman, she looked for him. She looked for him a long time, and at last she found him . . . oh, yes, she found him . . . a little bit here, a little bit there. . . .
"The sons, they get older. They get married. They think that now the Papa-Doc and Baby-Doc are gone, everything is changed. They can speak out. When the army took over, the sons thought they could fight with their words. Their foolish words. But nobody listened, and in the night, the Tonton came. But now they called themselves attaches. They took this old woman's sons, their wives, their children, and took them into the street. Then they used the machetes."
Mary looked up then to gaze once more at the sea, her features black iron and her eyes burning with the light of Hell. I watched her silently, waiting, until she finally spoke again. "If you wish to survive this battle, you will need an Anchor--someone to pull you back. And if I am to be that Anchor, Hasai, I will need your Name."
A chill went through me. I drew a deep breath and let it out in a long slow hiss. "How long have you known?"
"Since the moment I conjured with the name Hasai, and realized the true depths of my sin."
I remembered that feeling of something blowing through and past me like a hot wind, something searching for a target that did not exist. But sin? "I do not understand."
"You lied to me, Hasai! Only a creature that must answer to a far higher Power than I can lie within the pentacle! The collar would have merely controlled one of the Soulless Ones, made it amenable to my will. But, placed upon a creature with a soul. . . ." She shuddered and looked away.
"And you want me to give my Name to you."
"Yes." She turned, and stared me in the eye. "If you wish to battle the storm, you must trust the one who would have destroyed you."
I gazed down at her suspiciously. "Why do you suddenly wish to aid me, old woman? You argued so strongly against this, and now you want to help?"
Her eyes didn't waver. "Dragon, had I known how alike we are, I would have never raised my hand against you. Alike in what crosses we bear." She sighed, and finally turned away with those burning eyes. "Responsibility--that is the demon that drives us, is it not? The thought that we have done . . . or failed to do . . . something . . . that has caused so much pain. And now? Now we try to pick up the pieces of our lives, and as we do so, we feel we must try to somehow make amends."
I found myself staring at the chalky dust between my forelegs, my thoughts deathly cold within me. Amends? How could one possibly make amends? The blood is spilled, the eggs shattered, the pattern broken. Nothing could change that. Nothing. Black despair welled up within me, and I thought once again of a fragment of blue-grey eggshell, laying next to a loaded automatic. . . .
Amends. Forgiveness. Such thin, pale, pathetic ghosts of the true redemption that we ache for. . . . But, finally, I reached out with one of my deadly talons and laid it, so very gently, on Mary's shoulder. "Old woman, my Name is Michael."
She let out a small sigh, and bowed her head in acknowledgment. Then, to my utter amazement, she actually chuckled. "Such a strange name, for a Dragon."
And then she gave me her Name.