The Bird and The Dragon

Esrau left the leaking stump waiting for his men to fix it. On the return trip, Patrik and Esrau located the trespassers’ camp, which was only a few hundred meters in the neighboring forest where the trees were smaller and emitted aluminum in their leaves.

The camp was under a rocky slope, where the forest’s pattern was disturbed and the trees dwarfed, but still trying to grow on the bare rock. There were five humans; three looked like forest workers and two wore clothing that hinted at a connection to the trading companies.

“The locals earn extra money by touring the curious ones in the forests showing the wonders they understand nothing about. The trips cost good money, but most traders and crews have never seen a cultivated forest in operation.” Esrau explained.

A five-meter-tall trunk was dragged to the clearing and left leaning on the slope. Two men were working with the wood, carving it empty. The third local, a man with a large mustache was busily preparing some equipment, kindling a fire under its metal pipes. His bald head was adorned with a thick braid, and he was accompanied by two other men, their visitors.

Esrau and Patrik left silently towards the nocturna camp. “They must have used that location earlier. The burning equipment was not carried there in one go. I’ll send someone to watch them to prevent the most dramatic mistakes,” Esrau decided.

Patrik nodded. The forests here belonged to the Three, but there were many growth sites, some unsupervised and without care. He imagined all the people doing their business in the living factories and how little most of them understood of the forests. Patrik knew he had once been one of them and it had almost gotten him killed in a forest fire.

Patrik used to have nightmares of that day, but Esrau’s explanations about the processes taking place in the forests had subsided most of the fear. Now he was curious, he had never seen the drug-induced ritualistic side of the forests and the Southerners. “May I join that patrol?”

“Do you want to taste kristal by yourself?” Esrau smiled.

“Not really. I have the ainadu ways to mess my head and to talk to the people who are not present.” Patrik replied.

The nocturna chose their observation spot some distance away from the camp. The dark time was soon to start, and the human eyesight would be weak in the star-lit night. The nocturna saw in the dim light and Patrik was able to use his dragon sight, so the darkness was on their side.

In the afternoon the men cooked meat in a pit under their fire. They spent the day preparing the tree trunk and working with the burning equipment. In the evening they had eaten, and their voices betrayed their drunken state. The man with the mustache burned the gathered liquid into kristal and the gases from the process were not only burnable but also intoxicating. Finally, there was a hissing noise when the fire was extinguished and clonks, when the equipment was opened to air like the two nocturna explained Patrik.

“The next step is to make the tourists drink the hot kristal solution and after that, they get inwood,” one of the nocturna, Genhar, said. He had lived his whole life in the forests and witnessed all kinds of rituals taking place under its cover.

The man with the moustache removed his shirt revealing the Leipzig’s tree tattooed on his skin. He took the two men to the fireplace, and both were told to remove their jackets and shirts. Without the hat, the younger of the two men looked familiar and soon Patrik recognized the scar crossing his brow.

The dark-haired young man was Jiir Gattesund, airship Serenia’s navigator. Patrik didn’t truly know the man, but he had heard his story and felt that anyone who used to be Bladewater’s friend, was under his protection.

Bladewater anh Abyss had made a lasting impression on Patrik. He considered the navigator almost a dragon-like figure. Unlike Ikanji, who had stolen his dragon body, Bladewater had reached out her hand and a spaceship had accepted her touch voluntarily. Or so Patrik liked to think.

The tattooed man made a speech and with grand gestures drew the sign of the tree to the brows of the two men using a mix of ash and the distilled liquid. He hanged copper nails to their necks and gave them mugs in which he poured the steaming hot kristal. The men drank and someone took out a harmonica starting to play.

Patrik watched with growing alarm how the scarred young man staggered to the trunk and climbed inside with the help of his companion. He was just able to fit into the carved hole. Jiir was covered with the material carved from the wood and both the man and tree were wetted. Finally, the hole was covered with bark. The other visitor sat by the trunk and was given more to drink. The men started to talk.

“That looks dangerous. How long will they keep him inside?” Patrik asked Genhar.

“Half an hour or sometimes longer. Usually not for the night unless everyone passes out.”

“I know that man who is inwood. If they don’t get him out in an hour, I’ll go to check the situation.”

“You have friends in weird places, ainadu. Do you expect us to believe this meeting was a change?”

“The airships follow their schedules and routes. You know that I haven’t been in contact with anyone outside in almost two weeks.”

“That’s true. I have been the one to keep an eye on you. I overestimated your demonic tricks and forgot you are but a mortal.” The nocturna’s teeth glittered in the dark when a grin softened his words. Patrik was known to be Esrau’s friend, and the humor was a sign of fledgling trust.

They waited in the cover of darkness when the men in the clearing got more drunk. The hot kristal made the visitor’s gaze wander around; he shook his head slowly, first looking at the stars, then following something only his eyes could see, and then pressing his chin to his knees like his head had grown too heavy. The man was restless, which the nocturna mentioned to be the drug’s typical effect; he stomped his feet, touched the stones and trees and soil, and kept on changing his position.

After some time, the man stood and wandered halfway around the clearing. When he reached the tents, he froze looking at the canopy of the trees. His head swayed gently, like following the movements of the branches and his lips formed silent words.

Suddenly the man made an incoherent scream and started running. His staggering route headed straight towards Patrik and the nocturna, who all took cover. The man with the mustache barked a command and sprinted to follow the man wildly escaping the creations of his brain. The other henchman followed his leader, but the last man, who had been dozing by the fire seemed to be unconscious.

The man ran like all the ash demons were following him. He stomped one tree left from Patrik without seeing him. The two followers cursed, breathing hard when they passed the hiding men. When the three had disappeared into the darkness Patrik said: “I’ll go to check the situation.”

The man by the fireplace breathed evenly, his breath smelling of kristal, and didn’t wake when Patrik and Genhar passed him. Patrik took hold of the bark covering the hole in the trunk and moved it like a heavy blanket revealing Jiir Gattesund’s wood-covered face. The hole was narrow, hot, and smelled horrible. The odor was not the one Patrik had smelled in the forest, but a stronger, pungent stench, wafting from the loose wooden material. Jiir’s scar was very red and he was sweating heavily. There was fibrous material stuck in his skin and hair.

Jiirs’ eyes moved rapidly behind the closed lids and when they opened Bladewater’s journeyman stared straight into Patrik’s eyes.

“It could have been me. It should have been me,” Jiir said and stumbled with his numb legs in the slippery wood trying to get out of his cocoon. Patrik and Genhar helped him; the man by the fire snored.

“Take it easy, Jiir. You are all right,” Patrik said supporting Jiir’s body while using his words to drag his mind back to reality, but the young man kept on his feverish talking.

“I have only brought bad things to those around me. I found the matrix that got Granddad killed. And afterward, father was afraid and killed himself with his drinking. The ring was my idea, and I should have been the one to die, not Alder. I should have died when Serenia exploded. I should have been in the elevator when it moved.”

“Hush now. Survival is not your fault. It is a gift,” Patrik murmured.

“Yes…a gift. I saw it and understood when the forest came close and hugged me tight. I love this all so much. The forest and the sea and Odysseia and Bladewater and her ideas about space.” Jiir was smelly and sticky from the liquids when he hugged Patrik. The ainadu accepted the touch knowing the emotional outburst was a preferable reaction compared to a panicky run to the forest.

“Bladewater was right, but I never really understood. But I see it now, it is all so clear. We are as one, you ainadu and you nocturna and all that grows and moves. Everything shares a purpose to go upwards. Up-up-up to the orbit and space. Like growing trees and behemoths. Together, because we are all one.” Jiir continued smiling blissfully and Patrik tried cautiously to remove his sticky touch.

“Very good Jiir,” Patrik said.

“No, it is not good. It is the best thing in my life. I love you! And you, nocturna! And that tree, all the trees!”

“I see, you go and give this a good thinking while you go asleep, Jiir.” Patrik guided him towards the tent.

“Bladewater sang to me.”

“Sure thing.”

”I am so happy, ainadu. Of you, you have so pretty eyes! And that you survived that wound.”

Patrik got hugged again, but he managed to push Jiir to one of the tents. “Good night, Gattesund.”

“Stephanem. I don’t have to be afraid, and I don’t have to lie about my bloodline, because we all are as one and everywhere there is love. I am Stephanem Veringe and I remember Aldermei and I love him. I’ll take his memory to the stars.”

Happy muttering continued when Patrik closed the door. Genhar waited in the forest and Patrik saw how he tried to keep his composure.

“We all have been once young and done stupid things,” Patrik said while they walked through the forest.

“Luckily you were here. Without a familiar face, he might have panicked.”

Patrik nodded absentmindedly for an answer. A long time had passed since he had felt he belonged anywhere. Responsibility and ambition had for long bound Patrik, driving him forward, but all the old patterns, truths, and objectives were as broken as his shoulder.

Strategej Patrik walked through the forest without fearing it anymore. His past with its joys and fears was history, nothing to long for, nothing to dwell in. Patrik accepted what he was, and had become, and cherished the path that had led him here.

Patrik aimed his rare smile at the darkness of space. He didn’t believe in a planetary unity, not in an all-embracing love. Patrik believed in himself and that he still had good years to come. It was enough.

The End

31st December 2023

Grammar check 10th May 2024