The Bird and The Dragon

6-345 The Shallow Sea

In the starlight, the woman’s tattoos shone pale like scars on the smooth skin of her skull. Kvenrei stared at them in despair, trying to memorize every island, every story, every belief and shard of history they marked, for Bladewater’s life and travels were tattooed on her skin.

“Bird, I am not disappearing from the ranks of the living. Only traveling to space,” she said when Kvenrei hugged her tightly, pressing his head to her cheek. Parting felt unbearable, it broke his heart.

Tears flowed down his cheeks, to the grey cloth of her coat. “I will miss you. I don’t know how I’ll survive without you. I just love you.” The words escaped Kvenrei’s lips surprising even himself.

“I love you too, Bird. You used to be a broken young man, so lost, but you grew into someone I am proud to call a friend.”

“You are the only mother I have ever had. Sorry, I was drunken all the time.”

“Thank you for listening to my nagging. Sorry that I’ll take your father away.”

“You don’t have to apologize for anything. My father is dead. That man is but a reflection, a memory built by the dragon.”

“Jenet was but a memory, but still he was a real person,” the navigator pointed out gently.

“Don’t remind me of him.”

Bladewater chuckled and kissed Kvenrei’s brow. He stepped away feeling miserable. They had returned to the Shallow Sea and stood under the fragile bridge connecting Watergate and the orbit. It was time to put their plan into action.

“You were brittle but grew strong, my Bird. You will flourish,” Bladewater glanced into Kvenrei’s eyes, but as always, she quickly turned her eyes away, towards the stars.

“It is your time to follow your dream, starship navigator,” Kvenrei said quietly and stepped down the platform of the orbital elevator.

Ikanji climbed up from the other side, holding Khiandri’s hand. He had said his goodbyes earlier. Khiandri raised to her toes and kissed Ikanji’s cheek. “Do something good, dead noble boy.”

After that Khiandri went to stand between the two brothers. Marci lay in the side room between the bags, wrapped under the blankets; her mind was traveling towards the orbit in the elevator’s cables. Without Marci, there would have been no way to start the ascent. Khiandri seemed to be at peace with her personal history and it looked like Ikanji had let her go.

A door behind Bladewater opened and Ikanji guided the navigator inside, to the bright light of the elevator cabin they had fixed. She raised her hand in the last greeting when the door closed, and the elevator started its long journey to the orbit. Kvenrei, Patrik, and Khiandri stood watching the night sky long after it had disappeared and Khiandri put her hand on Kvenrei’s hips and leaned to his chest. The woman was on the verge of tears but controlled herself.

Marci opened her left eye, but the green gaze didn’t target anything. “They are up,” she whispered and dived back into the system. The three adults looked at each other. They were alone on the island. The boat was high in the ground, waiting for them to row East, where the airship would wait. Captain DeLangre had decided to keep a safe distance.

The elevator had taken almost a day to rise. The stars were bright, and Watergate had no satellites to dim them. The red glow from Abyss was visible on the horizon when the gas giant on the other side of the planet reflected the sunlight.

They had discussed the plan and its implications several times during the past months, but there was no surety of what would happen next.

The light that was the orbital shipyard was steady on top of them and the binoculars Bladewater had left showed no changes there. The sounds of sea and wind were distant behind the tower’s walls. Khiandri sat by her daughter, adjusting the blankets, touching Marci’s cheek, watching, but not touching the fingers pressed tightly against the floor where the invisible data flowed. Distant, but frequent squeaking echoed from deep below the tower’s ruins.

Patrik took out a metal box from his pocket and offered a piece of hardy toffee to Kvenrei. The brothers – neither was particular about emphasizing the half - lay on the ground looking at the sky.

“After this is done, I’ll get the kids back home,” Kvenrei said. He was missing the children and worrying over Ayu who he had heard nothing about. The three other kids were safe with Pakhui in Shibasa.

“I envy you,” Patrik surprised him. “After my divorce, I haven’t kept contact with my own. I only had my career and it’s all over now.”

Kvenrei knew about Patrik’s troubles with his ex-companion and how his oldest was about the same age as Ayu. “It is not too late to talk to them. One day you’ll find someone who loves you enough to tolerate your complacency,” he grinned to the sky.

“Maybe one day, when this is over, I know what I will do with my remaining life. What is your plan, you and…” Patrik nodded towards Khiandri, lowering his voice.

“I don’t know if we share anything or want anything from each other. She should get a good and sensible man, who stays with her, and I am not like that.”

“You can’t change your past, but her history can’t be called pure and clean either. I hope we’ll live to see a future where you are a pair and visit my estate.”

Kvenrei hit Patrik’s shoulder with a loose fist. “Father and Agiisha gave it to me.”

“Agiisha is irresponsible and Ikanji didn’t write his will. Hey…there was a light?” Patrik took the binoculars and scanned the zenith. To Kvenrei’s eyes, the dot of light brightened, but it could have been the normal disturbances in the atmosphere, as he almost heard the navigator explaining.

“Can you even use them?” Kvenrei asked.

“The other side of the station darkened.”

“It just adjusted its position.”

“Do you care to explain?”

Kvenrei noticed he had found an area where he had more knowledge than Patrik and it felt good. “You don’t see the shipyard’s lighted windows or some such. It is the light reflecting from the walls. When the position changes new parts of the construction will fall in shadow.”

A thin, vibrating sound came alive, like a distant howling. The men jumped up, scanning their surroundings. The voice deepened, gathering strength, but its source was unclear until Khiandri pointed to the sky. “The cable is vibrating. Its energy is changing, something has happened.”

Kvenrei looked at the seemingly lifeless Marci. He would have liked to leave the island when the orbital elevator lifted, but the plan depended on Marci’s involvement. They needed to stay on the island, where the weak data connection to the orbit existed.

“Could we move her?” Patrik asked. He had already accepted Marci as a little sister and a family member.

“No. The connection must not break, or she will not find back,” Khiandri said resolutely.

In the next two hours, the howling reached its maximum. A pale, curtain-like glow spread towards the east. It was like auroras, but misty and moved along the equator, not from the poles.

“Do nothing stupid this time,” Khiandri said quietly like praying Ikanji, keeping her eyes on the sky. Kvenrei thought about the dragon in its human body, it must have realized something was going on.

There was a distant rumbling sound, and they heard the waves rushing the beach taller than before. The circle of light spreading from the cable brightened and increased in intensity until it blinded the eyes. The howling stopped abruptly, and the cable started to run into the ground like a river of sand. It hit the floor and spread as a pool of transparent dust. Above the winds spread the dust covering the island in a silvery cloud.

They covered themselves and Marci under the blankets, but dust flowed under and through them. It was fine, almost weightless, and tasted of salt, electricity, and old death.

Kvenrei coughed and looked out. The dust was floating in the air like mist and the middle room where the elevator had been, was filled with a thick layer of dust, the rubbish and broken cabins visible like rocks in the sea.

Marci was still breathing slowly. The waves were crashing heavily and the ruins around them shook with their power. Odd lights flew in the sky, like shooting stars falling through the atmosphere. There were many of them and some were divided into smaller lights. A huge wave crashed the wall dropping loose material from the structures.

The next wave threw water in the room and Patrik adjusted their scarce bags to cover Marci better.

“The calm is approaching. This will be over soon,” Khiandri pointed to the sea.

“Good, maybe we still have the boat,” Kvenrei said when the largest wave hit the island and the elevator ruins. Patrik cursed and shielded Marci with his own body when water rushed inside carrying stones and material from the ruins at the bottom of the sea.

The water swept Kvenrei off his feet towards the wall. Khiandri crawled against the flow to Marci and fell on a long, slimy hose water had thrown inside.

After the wave there was silence. The water had brought wet, seaweed-covered flotsam with it. Khiandri reached for her daughter and Patrik turned away, lying in the shallow water on his side. A finger-width piece of steel was protruding out of his back around the right shoulder blade. Kvenrei kneeled to his brother.

“Is it a bad one?” Patrik hissed the words between his closed teeth. There were drops of blood on his lips and his wet shirt was soaked red.

“You have been pierced. Just keep on breathing. Khiandri?” Kvenrei felt around cautiously, it was difficult to figure out the details of the wound.

Khiandri was hugging Marci, who was awake now, lifting her head, the wet hair glued to her brow like a crown of algae. The woman set her leaning to a package and went to Patrik.

“The kind spirits of the good winds,” Khiandri said breathlessly. “You saved her. I…wait, this will hurt. Don’t move.” Khiandri pressed her hand on Patrik’s back and held the metal, slippery from blood. Her eyes shut when she opened her dragon sight. “It has penetrated the bone and is touching the lung. There is bleeding…we must remove it.”

Khiandri pulled and Patrik let out a muffled noise, but the piece of metal didn’t move.

“Help me with this,” Khiandri commanded and Kvenrei took hold of the piece while Khiandri pushed Patrik. The metal was released, and blood ran to Khiandri’s hands. “Give me a cloth!” Khiandri pressed the wound her eyes closed. The resonance was not a tool of healing, modifying the details of the living flesh was difficult; breaking it was much easier.

“It is not bleeding anymore. Wish Ikanji was here, that pretty boy was a fleshmonger if any,” Khiandri said.

“We must get ourselves warm and dry,” Kvenrei said, thinking about everything Patrik had just been exposed to, the sea spores, the dust, and whatever poison the wave had removed from the sea bottom.

They built a fire using chunks of naphtha. They smelled like they were from an unripe behemoth cocoon and the fire crackled and smoked, but there was nothing else to burn. Marci was unharmed, but she was quiet and leaned against her mother when they had the fire running and the driest clothing on. Kvenrei had made Patrik to drink a small bottle of pain killer and his brother was dozing. He looked pale and breathed shallowly, but evenly.

“What happened?” Khiandri said at last.

“The dragon was guarded, and I was hunted, and I ran,” Marci started. “And the ship was a baby as I said, but it loved the navigator and wanted to imprint on her because the ships do that to the navigators, but her shadow dwelling in was scared of the navigator and Bladewater had to fight it like a boat in a stormy sea and she got it and opened the route to the dragon.”

“Bladewater got her starship,” Kvenrei said with respect. He was sure he would never again see the woman, who now belonged in the shoreless seas of space and the thought was heavy to bear, even if he was proud and happy for the navigator.

“Ikanji is the soul of the dragon. It is an old body, broken and ill, but Dad is dragon, and blocks her away. I descended riding the echoes carried in the dust. I don’t know how to get back, not yet. But she is angry. She says we stole her body. She will avenge it.”

“You did it,” Khiandri hugged both Marci and Kvenrei. “The worm gets what was coming to her. We are holding a blade against her black throat, and she may rage and intimidate all she wants, but we have the upper hand.”

“I hope Esrau is ready,” Kvenrei said, believing the nocturna knew what he was doing. His soldiers were ready to hunt the dragon’s human body should it move and hopefully the dragon in the orbit could help them. “And I hope Ikanji is in his senses and on our side.”

“That creature was not the Ikanji I knew,” Khiandri said weakly.

“He is our dragon. And Bladewater made it to the sky,” Kvenrei looked up and waved hoping the navigator was happy and praying she knew what she was doing.