Chapter 12: CHAPTER ELEVEN

Creighton set up another shot, and Fenwick watched, arms folded across his chest. Right now, whatever the man was doing could be classified as random, totally random. So far he had miles of footage of Jhevharel flying, Jhevharel catching fish, Jhevharel eating, and maybe even Jhevharel crapping. If this kept up, he’d have to list the whistling dragon as the star of the film. Oh sure, there were other shots, like Tereskàdians standing here, sitting there, walking, talking. These aliens could all speak English, but they preferred to use their own language among themselves.

All these scenes were shot out of sequence, of course. Once they were back to California, the film would turn into something logical with the help of an editor, and his magic. Five or six or ten hours of randomness would turn into ninety minutes or two hours of motion picture that people would go see in the theaters. If Creighton was true to form, the film would be less than two hours long. The man didn’t believe in dragging things out, but diving right into the action.

The scenes he had shot showing Jhevharel flying would be shown at or near the beginning. He’d incorporate scenes of humans pointing and shouting. And the whistling dragon would breathe fire, thanks to Fenwick’s CGI magic.

“Are they starting?” a young voice asked. Several cubs stood beside him, and each had a symbiote with him... her. He didn’t know all their names, and he had no desire to know them, but he guessed one of them was Chandrha’s daughter Lhorhanha, and her whistling dragon Chenharhel.

“I’m ready.” Benita Corovelli was about to do a scene with an older actor playing her father.

“What are they doing?” one of the male cubs asked.

“Making a movie,” he said. The cub’s genitals were in full view. Even though Tereskàdian males kept their genitals inside their body, the cubs had a tendency to leave theirs out more often than the adults. Even if he had kept his inside, even if he hadn’t said a word, he could distinguish him from a female by the fine hairs around the perimeter of the ears.

“Why?”

Creighton called for silence so the cub didn’t get an answer.

“Dragon of the North, take one,” a female voice called from somewhere behind him.

“Action,” Creighton called.

Benita Corovelli, and the actor who played her father were standing in front of one of the houses.

“ ‘I shall go into town today to gather some supplies, my dear, and I want you to stay inside and watch your little brother. You know how he likes to look for the dragon’s lair.’ ” It sounded too much like ‘dragonslayer.’

The actor stopped. “I can’t believe I memorized those lines. Who the hell wrote this crap?”

“You want the money or not, Andrew?” Creighton asked.

“Sure, but...”

The actor playing Benita’s father was Andrew Delmore, sixty-something, but booze and high living had turned his appearance into seventy-something. What year did he make his last movie. 2000? 2010? Last century? How did Creighton get a hold of him? And what the hell was he doing in this piece of shit, when he was best known as first, a leading man in dramas, then a character actor in a variety of decent roles.

“Then read what I wrote,” Creighton said, “or you can take yourself back to whatever hole I pulled you out of.”

Delmore sighed. “All right, I’ll do it.” That was said with the enthusiasm of a well-beaten runner in an Olympic event.

“Dragons of the North, take two.” The same female voice who had called the first take.

Delmore read the same line, a little clearer this time, the word separated into ‘dragon’s’ and ‘lair.’ Creighton smiled, pumped his fist like a quarterback after a touchdown. When the camera focused on Benita, Delmore showed signs of wanting to puke, tried hard not to.

“ ‘Oh, father,’ ” Benita said, and her accent came shining through like the glorious light of a new sun, “ ‘must I watch Ethan?’ ” Ethan came out ‘Eten.’ “ ‘He is old enough to take care of himself, and I must study for my examination at the academy.’ ”

“ ‘It will not hurt you to mind your brother,’ ” Delmore said, wincing ever so slightly.

Fenwick’s mind was on Razzies again.

“What are they saying?” one of the female cubs asked.

“They sound funny,” the male cub beside her said.

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“Lhorhanha?” Fenwick said.

The female cub who had spoken raised her paw. “That’s me. Don’t you know me?

“You all look alike to me,” he said. “I can tell the males from the females, but—”

“Humans,” Lhorhanha scoffed.

Andrew Delmore, or rather, Sigismond the Woodsman, was getting ready to go into town to pick up supplies, and his scene was finished for now.

The old man hesitated, came over. He was wearing a tunic townspeople might have worn in the middle ages, but on him it looked out of place, like a pilot asked to wear swim trunks while flying a plane.

“You don’t like this,” Fenwick said.

“I can’t believe I signed up for this piece of shit. Sigismond the Woodsman? What kind of name is that?”

“We’re going,” Lhorhanha said. “This is boring.” She ran ahead, other cubs trying to catch up.

Fenwick watched them, running, laughing, their long, bushy tails streaming behind like banners waving in the wind. “Money?” he asked, his eyes on the cubs.

“Yeah. Nobody wanted me.”

“Except Harold Creighton.”

“I had to. I’m sixty-three years old, I haven’t done a movie in seven years. I was out of cash, I owed a lot of people.”

“But you know what kind of crap Creighton makes, don’t you?”

Delmore studied the ground at his feet, kicked absently at a stone, like a boy caught in a lie. “It’ll ruin my career,” he said under his breath.

The next scene had nothing to do with what had just been done before. In this one, Jhevharel was asked to swoop over Cal Torrence the actor playing Benita’s rescuer. As always, Chandrha stood beside her whistling dragon, watching as he soared into the sky.

“I hope this works out,” she said to no one in particular, although Fenwick was the closest.

“I hope so too.” He couldn’t think of anything else to say.

After the scene, Creighton called out that horses were needed for a few shots, not realizing where they were.

“There are no horses here,” Chandrha said.

“We’ll have to transport maybe half a dozen,” he said.

“You’ll have to do this without horses,” Chandrha said.

Creighton smacked the script against his thigh. “Damn it, this is supposed to take place hundreds of years ago. What am I suppose to do, use a plane?”

Might have to change it again, Fenwick thought.

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