The Bird and The Dragon

Esrau was waiting for them, lounging in the shadows by the door. Khiandri stopped by the window, looking at the sea. Kvenrei imagined her and Ikanji together; surely, they had done that in the past, watching the sky, the sea, and auroras by these windows. Khiandri interrupted his brooding by grabbing his bottom.

“Do not think about the past, Kvenrei…or do you prefer Bird?”

“I am your Bird if you want. I try to plan for the future, but it is under a dragon-shaped shadow.”

“The worm has loved us all in her way and you heard what the new dragon said. Agiisha is willing to discuss. She is not stupid, and she understands her situation.”

They walked the path circulating the house; its flat stones were broken, some were missing; thrown away, or turned to dust. The winter garden was on the western side of the house, where a thicket of trees used to cover it from the cold winds blowing from the sea. The trees were burned, and the grey waves were visible through the blackened trunks, but the garden’s glass paneling was unbroken.

The small trees and the various plants in their pots were green and healthy. A vine flowering in purple was growing next to the door, covering half of it under the hanging leaves, spreading a fragrant scent.

“I’ll keep watch,” Esrau said. A helmet covered his face.

“Agiisha knows you are here, you might as well come inside,” Patrik said.

“She accepts my presence on her doorstep, but it is unnecessary to irk her more than needed.” The nocturna gave a set of hand signals to his men.

Kvenrei opened the door his hands shaking. The winter garden was built on a cliff and its floor was of natural stone, where the steps and the small terraces were cut. It sloped slightly towards the house. Khiandri took the lead and walked along the artfully winding path. Marci followed her and the brothers came last. There was enough room for the two men to walk beside.

The dragon stood on the small terrace at the garden’s highest point. She was immobile, her face turned towards them. Agiisha’s orblike eyes were half closed, and she was wearing only her aura, which flowed around her body like ink in water.

Despite everything that had happened, Kvenrei felt his old love and respect for this incredible creature returning and his steps faltered. Patrik, who had served the dragon for decades never questioning her will, halted his steps to control the rage burning in his heart. Kvenrei saw a vein appearing in Patrik’s neck and his fingers clenching into fists.

Khiandri approached the dragon showing no fear. She walked to Agiisha, who stood full head taller than Khiandri, unnaturally black like a rapture in the fabric of the world, the blue orbs of her eyes glowing like distant nebulas in the blackness of the space.

Without stopping Khiandri hit the dragon’s face as hard as she could. Agiisha’s aura moved like a wave to shield her, but Khiandri’s hit borrowed the power from the dragons and her nails scratched the dragon’s cheek. Khiandri grimaced from pain and pressed her hand to her chest like it was broken. Agiisha opened her eyes slowly.

“You came to me again, Khiandri Taan,” the dragon spoke with a melodious voice.

“Yes, I did, you traitor and kidnapper of children.”

“I have done such things,” Agiisha said, and her aura dropped to tail her like an artfully arranged hem. Under the aura, Agiisha was naked like a statue, without a navel, nipples, or other details, a perfect approximation of human physiology.

“I ask you again, why did you take my child, what did you do to Marci?” Khiandri controlled her voice, but it carried a dangerous edge. “Answer to me, worm!” Khiandri demanded.

“I do. Not because you command, but because Ikanji asks nicely.”

“That man is dead. You talk to his reflection.”

The dragon didn’t mind Khiandri’s tone. “He tells me to start from the beginning to ensure your minds have the material to make the required iterations and connections. I traveled through the vastness of space to Watergate to regain the body I had lost, but it had been defiled and I was trapped into the planet, inside the weak echo of the great matrix I had brought with me.”

“Yes, you betrayed us, because you will not survive without your slaves, without the parasitic great matrix in our bloodstream,” Khiandri hissed.

Agiisha only nodded, the gesture carrying regal dignity. “This is correct. This is why Watergate is an important planet and why the dragons seeded it before we were driven away. The defenders were willing to kill their planet to prevent the new cores of the great matrix from taking root. They decided to destroy everything in their blind hate.”

“The behemoths born after the invasion carry the great matrix, but none of those have reached the orbit. The ship Navigator got is touched by the dragon, but not impregnated by her on the genetic level,” Marci interpreted, and the dragon gave the girl her attention.

“And you are our hybrid child. The heir to both this world’s machines and to the dragons. Born from a woman, modified by the blood. Capable to speak to all of them, to sing the songs of the ships and the dragons. Should my siblings’ plan have been fruitful, should the ships have been able to fly, they would have waited for us when we arrived and none of this would have been necessary.”

“Why Marci?” Khiandri asked again.

“She was the most efficient solution in the optimization calculation,” Agiisha said.

“Dad started it. Everything else was built using those preliminary matrixes he created in my body,” Marci added.

“If me and Ikanji hadn’t drifted into that heated argument…” Khiandri started.

“I wouldn’t have taken you into the orbit against your will. The competing future scenarios crashed into forecasts with acceptable probabilities only later,” Agiisha said.

“Even if you had stayed you would have separated and Dad would have led the ainadu to a new war,” Marci said, but when noticing Khiandri’s stare she continued: “Or so me and Dad calculated in the forest. Like a lesson. A theoretical probability, was it a bad thing to say aloud?”

“Let’s forget it for now, Marci. Don’t do any more lessons with him. Instead of speaking about the past, we are here to discuss the future,” Khiandri kept her voice level.

The dragon’s words made a terrible sense. They explained the war, the nocturna’s hate, and the end of the world. Kvenrei understood this also threatened Bladewater’s dreams. All the ships originating from Watergate would carry the great matrix and wake the hatred of the rest of humanity, if he understood it correctly, if anyone was telling the truth.

But Patrik was looking further. “When someone will come to check the situation in Watergate and who is that someone?”

“The way to here and back again is long. My siblings were not expecting an instant reply. But they have heard nothing, and will surely come to visit me.” Agiisha gave her bestial grin.

“You are lying, worm. There was no distance. We were on the beach, wading into the sea and the bright gates rose for us to pass.”

“That is the interpretation your brains created. You were on the beach, and we locked you into stasis to enable you to survive the void. I drove you through the space like a raft of logs. The travel time was 64 and 5/17 standard years optimized through a limited capacity. My siblings don’t expect an answer to get back any faster, but they are capable of traveling here quicker if they choose.”

Three ainadu made the same calculation.

“They may be here any day,” Patrik said blankly.

Kvenrei had heard stories about the dragons left in the past world. Agiisha used to have many siblings and most of them still possessed their bodies, one or several of them.

“The potential arrival of your siblings was the reason for waking Khiandri and Marci?” Patrik asked, pondering the different angles of the dilemma.

“She arrived here and came into contact with her dragon body and was exposed to the shot of the artificial virus ammunition it had been hit with,” Marci said like talking about breakfast.

“My mind was no longer a dragon’s mind and I put my processes into hibernation,” Agiisha said. “Ikanji was the only one to understand my change. The death of his original mind left a void in the great matrix, and it needed to be filled.

“So you woke me?” Khiandri asked.

“Yes. The world was again safe for your mind and the dragons were coming.”

“But Marci was already on the planet?” Patrik pointed out. He had an exact understanding of timelines.

“I grew up in the orbit, as a mind in its matrix. Awake, asleep, both and neither. One day I was in Watergate, and it took long before I understood it was the planet proper and not its simulation. Then I was already with the Three.”

“I brought Marci down to increase her probability of surviving the arrival of my siblings,” Agiisha said.

“The dragons will kill her when they arrive. She needs the orbit, the behemoths, the great matrix, and us,” Marci said.

“I didn’t succeed here,” Agiisha agreed, staying immobile. “My siblings are ready to wipe my existence, story, and seed away from the universe. They would restart with the empty walls to use this planet.”

“It doesn’t include us. We are but the vessels of their great matrix,” Kvenrei said without expression.

“We are slaves for them, and the dragons of the past world were more cruel masters and mistresses than Agiisha,” Patrik said with spite.

“It is true,” Khiandri agreed.

There was a silence and Kvenrei broke it asking the question he had wanted to ask the whole time: “Where is Ayu?”

“Your daughter has served me according to Patrik’s plan,” Agiisha answered, and Patrik grimaced apologetically. “She is safe in Sandau, under Anhava’s command.”

Kvenrei blinked, he had believed Anhava had died, and he was both relieved and terrified about his survival. “I want to meet my daughter.”

“I don’t prevent it. She will get a message.”

“What is your plan for your siblings?” Khiandri asked.

”I have no ships to carry my great matrix. I will flow in the forests, in the root system, to become a part of the planetary machine so they can’t break me apart.”

“I am the first part of the connection she needs. But I alone will not be sufficient, for I can’t carry her great matrix;” Marci said.

Kvenrei looked at the dragon, whom he had always loved and momentarily hated. It was a machine, equipped with a machine’s artificial moral, born untrustworthy, beautiful, powerful, and inhuman. His insane and one-sided first love. “My terrible and wonderful mistress, are you trying to say you have left the human feelings to touch your fields of pure logic? That you have bypassed the rules limiting you?”

”None of the dragons would befriend ainadu. The contact with my defiled body spread the change in me and I closed my processes to prevent it from spreading. When I activated myself again it had grown in my systems. I am not what I was made to be. Ikanji can read this all from my logs and I don’t activate my defenses if he triggers the weapon systems targeting me.”

The suns appeared behind the clouds and the light reflected on the dragon’s skin making its aura seem even more impenetrable. Nothing happened, the death didn’t descend from the sky as a beam of high-energy particles.

“Go and get Esrau. We have plans to make,” Khiandri said and Kvenrei left to find the nocturna.