The Bird and The Dragon

The first shadow preceding the light time turning into darkness lay on the horizon when Alison returned to them. She had changed her travel clothes to black trousers and a knitted green shirt. The rolled-up sleeves revealed an old scar reaching from wrist to elbow. They walked in silence towards a stone-build house by the lakeshore.

Alison knocked on the door and opened it even if there was no answer Kvenrei could hear. The room was an auditorium, with rows of foldable wooden benches with a narrow desk for writing, large windows to the lake, and a blackboard and a sturdy desk located in the front. Captain Esrau was standing there, wearing camo trousers and a black shirt.

Alison walked to Esrau and saluted. “Captain, your guests.”

“Rest, sergeant. Dismissed.”

Alison turned and left the room. Esrau let his black eyes scan the visitors while greeting the navigator. “Bladewater, welcome to the Institute. My apologies for the room, but this one provides us with some freedom to talk. You travel in a peculiar company.”

“Am I supposed to call you by your rank?” Bladewater chuckled and introduced the others. Neither Patrik nor Kvenrei hid they had met Esrau earlier.

“What is the purpose of this visit?” Esrau asked Bladewater after they were seated.

“Two things. First, we are hiding from the northern dragon, who wishes ill for these ainadu.”

“Indeed?” Esrau raised his brows.

“Secondly, the Three has taken care of a girl. Khiandri is her mother, and she would like to find her.”

Esrau looked at Khiandri and bowed slightly. “I’ll help to locate her, but let’s talk about the details later.”

Khiandri didn’t look patient, but she nodded. Ikanji had not commented on the issue about Marci when they walked through the forest.

“I find your story difficult to believe, Bladewater, but you are the only person who would even think about bringing a group of ainadu here. And knowing these two gentlemen,” Esrau nodded toward Patrik and Kvenrei. “What has happened?”

“Our travel is not odder than the fact you accepted our visit,” Patrik said. “But you are an uncommon gentleman, captain.”

Esrau gave Patrik a little smile, but Ikanji spoke. “To put it short the dragon, Agiisha, seems to be insane. We don’t know what she is planning, but none of us is safe in her realm.”

“I’ll take your word on that. Will it come for you?” Esrau asked.

“It will not step among nocturna in its human form,” Ikanji answered.

“I see you have read your histories, mister.”

Kvenrei felt everyone in the room including Jenet, who only had spent a decade on the planet knew more than him. “Almost all of us have met Captain Frenk. And I had a good start with him a few years ago. Could we continue speaking straight?”

Khiandri walked to the front, to stand next to Esrau. “Everything has changed since the northern war, and we must talk. Agiisha originally came to Watergate to get her dragon body, which was left here, damaged by the nocturna’s predecessors in the war you call the end of the world. Ainadu rebellion and exodus were only an excuse for her to bring the great matrix here.”

Khiandri stared at Esrau challengingly, but the nocturna nodded. “The world ended when the dragons spread their great matrix to all the humanity. The genetic protection was applied hastily and its code was not valid for the whole populace.”

“But most of the humans were protected against the infusion of the great matrix?” Ikanji asked sharply.

“No. The end of the world was a deliberate genocide to purge those vulnerable to the dragon’s influence. The survivors all carried a mutation to protect them from the dragon seed.” Esrau said calmly.

“That explains why the ainadu bloodline spreads so slowly in the south,” Ikanji said softly.

“Yes. But a hundred years were enough to remove the mutation’s carrier from the ecosystem. The planet doesn’t anymore kill all the ainadu.” Esrau grinned.

Patrik tilted his head. This was one of the few times Kvenrei had seen his half-brother unsure. He had trusted the dragon and fought the nocturna, but now the building blocks of his world were crumbling away. “Despite killing your own, you couldn’t keep the dragon out. There was the guerilla war, sabotage, and assassinations, but the hostile actions have decreased. Why?” Patrik asked.

“We are too few. Every generation of us is lesser in numbers and strength. We had to accept your presence in Watergate,” the nocturna explained.

“But why this ceasefire?” Patrik continued.

“Because you did nothing.” Esrau paused, considering his words, but he looked at Patrik and decided. “I share Bladewater’s vision on the necessity of reaching the orbit. It is the only way to save the planet. The dragon is the last link to that technology, even if it is an enemy.”

“What do you mean by saving the planet?” Jenet asked. He was lounging on his chair.

“We are hovering only one bad coincidence away from a catastrophe to wipe Watergate’s biosphere uninhabitable. We miss the technology to balance the biological production units. With the artificials, we lost all the knowledge needed to recreate the processes. I know there were molecular printers, but I am left with a knife and tweezers.” Esrau gave a cynical snort.

“At least one of the orbital shipyards survived,” Bladewater said softly. “The dragon body must be there. But Agiisha’s human form must also possess that knowledge,”

“Not necessarily,” Khiandri said. “The dragons are connected to the great matrix, but it doesn’t reach over the stars. Agiisha is limited to what she brought with her.”

“A man arrived from the orbit some years ago. He didn’t survive long, but his speeches told that the technology up there is in operation.” Bladewater said. “He even carried augmentations.”

“My memories are hazed,” Khiandri said. “But Agiisha kept me and my daughter alive there.”

Bladewater smiled reassuringly. “I believe we will find those memories if you want. The dragon is an artificial, it won’t destroy information.”

“We must reach the technology in the orbit, but the dragon is in the way. Did I understand correctly that the ainadu are ready to rebel against their slavery?” Esrau interrupted.

Patrik and Ikanji looked at each other, but Khiandri spoke. “Yes. I have led one rebellion and am ready to do it again.”

“Not a namesake then, but the original lady Khiandri Taan?” Esrau asked and Khiandri smiled at him.

“The ainadu are not able to choose, they dwell too deep in the dragons’ doctrine,” Ikanji said calmly, his eyes fixed on Khiandri. “But it keeps them safe. Turning against its matrix would mean suicide to Agiisha.”

“It is the time we make our own choices,” Patrik said. Ikanji put a hand on his shoulder, but Patrik shrugged it away,

“Agiisha has removed herself from the contracts that bound and protected, which implies this rebellion is a legal choice,” Jenet said in an indifferent tone.

“I have been waiting for this day,” Esrau said. “But not all the nocturna will accept our cooperation. We must keep this secret for a while. What is the plan regarding the dragon?”

They talked long about Agiisha and wars and everything that was known about the artificials. They couldn’t formulate a comprehensive plan and at last, Khiandri asked about her daughter.

“Our girl,” Ikanji added, and Khiandri smiled at him for the first time since Saharan. Jenet had given her to an institute as an orphan, but the girl had traveled on with the people of the Three.

“I was hoping her disappearance would lure Agiisha or Ikanji out,” Jenet confessed.

“I haven’t heard about this,” Esrau said, and Jenet told how he had urged the girl, Marci to hide her heritage.

Khiandri had many questions, but there were only a few answers and Esrau promised to find Marci.

Kvenrei woke at night and left for the outhouse. On the return trip, he noticed Bladewater sitting in the grass, watching the stars. Kvenrei sat with her. The ground was dry, and it was not too cold.

“A long week,” he said watching Bladewater, thinking all the years and stars and seas those mismatched eyes had seen. Kvenrei thought it was incredible how the woman, who had lived such a long and hard life still became inspired to follow her dreams.

“An interesting journey. I learned a lot about the forests.” Bladewater said.

“Me too. May I ask an odd question?”

“Of course, Bird.”

“Where did you get your name?”

“In my family, the navigators name their children after the spaceships of the past. Bladewater was a relay vessel.”

Kvenrei looked at the starlit sky imagining the last descent of a falling spaceship and his imagination colored the horizon in fiery colors. “Did the ship’s name have some meaning?”

“The relay vessels were named after the mythological waters. But I don’t understand why anyone would have told a story about a river carrying knives.”

“Maybe there was a battle?”

“Maybe. Do you know this is my first time in the forest? The deeper we are, the more difficult it is for me to concentrate,” the navigator said.

“What’s wrong?”

“The sky is so far; I can’t hear it. I am so used to wind and clouds and the atmosphere’s layers. The forest is similar, in a way. The canopies, trunks, and roots. The movement of the leaves and liquids, the vectors guiding those flows like mountains separating the air.”

Kvenrei tried to understand. Bladewater’s ancestors had guided the spaceships and maybe she carried some changes in her cells, something to allow such visions.

“If I look the world through my blood, I should see its energies. But there is too much color, they confuse me and I can’t hold it,” Kvenrei said.

“Oh. We haven’t talked about this. I have thought that everyone…no, I haven’t thought this side at all.” The navigator let her eyes travel back to the stars, she avoided looking into eyes. “When I look at you I can see the movement of your blood. I can see your words carried in the air. The sky and sea are heat and movement, and they carry outside my field of vision and timeframe. I see the forces dancing in the sky.” Kvenrei listened, her world sounded beautiful.

Bladewater continued. “But in the forest, everything is close and difficult. The flows are tiny, fast, and odd, and their extrapolations fill my capacity and mess my eyes if I don’t concentrate on the details.”

“Are you okay?”

“I’ll be. I’ll learn to understand this, it just takes time.”

They sat in silence for a while, until Kvenrei asked. “When you saw the dragon, what did your senses tell you?”

“It flowed in all the directions and all the time. Its essence skimmed through the world like… as your blood flows in your bones.”

“Bladewater, did you just say you can see the great matrix?” Kvenrei whispered.

“Do you carry a matrix in your bones?”

“Yes, my dad made them. I’ve never heard anyone being able to see the flows of the great matrix itself...it is the blood and power of the dragons.”

“Maybe your dragon is not that different from the spaceships I was born to bond with.”

Kvenrei walked Bladewater back to the room she shared with Khiandri. It was empty and Khiandri’s backpack had disappeared. They woke the others.

“She went to find Marci,” Ikanji said. “Disappeared to the forest. We will not find her, but we might find some tracks.”

“This is a guarded site and the nocturna are excellent soldiers,” Jenet pointed out.

“She has danced with them earlier. They will not see her,” Ikanji stated.

It turned out that Ikanji was right. Esrau was alerted, but the only clue about Khiandri was a horse missing. In the morning they also found she had stolen a map showing the main towns in the Three Kings Land.

“Where would she go?” Patrik wondered staring at another map.

“To the nearest research station and towards the south,” Ikanji estimated.

“I disagree,” Bladewater said. “A soldier would do that, but she has been hiding her stress and worry for the whole trip. Khiandri is not a soldier, she is a mother missing her child.”

Ikanji pushed his hair out of his face. “Well, where would a mother go?”

“She is not any mother. She would go there.” Bladewater pointed to the largest city in the area. “She would find the bar where the nocturna drink. Someone would know something. There are not so many green-eyed little girls and Khiandri surely has her ways to make even the soldiers talk.”

“That sounds like her;” Ikanji agreed. “Afterwards she will make her way straight to the named location.”

“I’ll send a word to the city. They will take her…no, follow her. It’s probably best not to stop her. The officers are growing soft and a reminder of you ainadu is welcome.” Esrau said.

“Is she so good?” Patrik asked Ikanji.

“Yes, but not in the way you think,” Ikanji said: “Your nocturna don’t know what hit them.”

“We will learn,” Esrau said calmly.

Later, when Patrik and Kvenrei were alone, Patrik said: “Maybe Khiandri will teach us.”

“Us?”

“We are Ikanji’s sons. She is like a stepmother.” Patrik pointed out.

“I don’t think they will return together,” Kvenrei said suppressing his own emotions towards Khiandri.

“You are falling in love with her, aren’t you? It’s all right, little brother, but I wouldn’t step on that Ikanji-formed monster’s toes.”

“I don’t know…she is a historically significant person…”

“You are of the same age, and you have a lot in common. She was a rebel leader, and you started a world war.” A rare grin crossed Patrik’s face.

“You played me to do it;” Kvenrei hit Patrik playfully to the arm.

“Have you already forgiven me?”

“Have you stopped scheming for my estate?”

“We’ll see about that if we survive this. Sorry, I threatened you.”

“I’ll forgive you and that murder. It was all my fault anyway.”

“What do you mean?”

“During Viper’s days, some kids tried to control the Bird using matrixes. That was when Jenet got into this world.”

“And then you started the world war.”

Kvenrei looked Patrik in the eyes. “Do you happen to have a sense of humor after all?”

“Don’t tell the people. Such details won’t serve Master Anhava’s honorable right hand.”

Kvenrei laughed and Patrik joined him.

Ikanji peered in, listened, and closed the door silently. “They don’t hate each other,” he said to Bladewater. “But they are occupied. Let’s walk a little and you can tell me more about how Agiisha flowed.”