The Bird and The Dragon

The next morning, Greinwell smiled at Indira like he guessed what had happened and wholeheartedly approved it, but he commented nothing to Kvenrei over the breakfast. Kvenrei was feeling embarrassed although he could not point out why, maybe it was because of the old guilt and his missing feelings towards Indira. Bladewater skipped the whole subject as usual, her mind was already busy with the visit’s original purpose; the written testimonies of the man who had fallen from the orbit.

Todor had been kept in the hunting cabin in the Kanden mansion grounds. His feverish ramblings had been written down as his condition had worsened from day to day. After a hundred and seventeen days in Watergate, the man from the orbit had perished to fever. His body had been dissected with care and the remains were stored hidden among the hunting trophies. Todor’s artificial eyes were in a wooden box on Greinwell’s desk.

From the beginning, Bladewater had been extremely interested in Todor and spent as much time with him as she had been able to spare from her duties. Later the war had limited her contact with Greinwell. Finally, she had been unable to visit and Greinwell had hidden all the evidence to avoid trouble with the government and the Eastern Trading Union.

Bladewater had played with the idea of organizing the information written down, but there had never been time. She had asked Kvenrei two times to visit Khem with her, but only Jenet’s tracks had been enough for Kvenrei to risk returning to the country.

”Todor’s speeches have now been mostly transcribed and the organizing work is nearly done. I have had an excellent assistant,” Greinwell said to Bladewater.

“The woman you mentioned in your letter was a good recruitment?”

“Yes. She has an excellent understanding of how the items link to each other to form a big picture. Shall we check her improvements to the archiving cards and indexing system?” Greinwell led them to the library, where a typewriter’s mechanical sounds could be heard. The Kanden library had more maps and political journals than ordinary books, but it was organized neatly.

The material from Todor was kept locked in a cabinet. The old baron and the navigator were soon deep into the discussion. Kvenrei listened for a while but wandered into the library glancing at the few papers Bladewater had given him. They were full of rambling monologues of a man who had never lived on the planet, and it had nothing to do with this world, this life. But Bladewater was almost ecstatic over every new piece of information falling into place.

Kvenrei passed the woman working with the typewriter to observe a shelf with political speeches. He glimpsed her while skimming through the titles; an adult woman with slightly tanned skin, black hair, a small nose, and long lashes shadowing the green eyes. She was wearing a neat white shirt covered with a green shawl, looking like a competent secretary, but her bearing had nothing subdued or dull, the woman was vivacious even when seated.

“I see you come here,” she said without interrupting her work. The woman spoke the ainadu language with an old accent, pronouncing the words with meticulous ease like a trained speaker.

Kvenrei swallowed feeling sweat breaking in his back. He walked to the woman whose face was replicated in a painting in Parisya. Not the painting about Kvenrei’s grandmother in the flower garden, but a winter picture about the northern war, where a dark-haired woman was standing beside her black horse, holding an end-of-the-world rifle, the ground covered in dead people and red snow, the sky green with the auroras.

The painting was still hanging above Ikanji’s desk. Kvenrei remembered the snow stuck in the long hairs around the horse’s hooves, the tired look on the woman’s face, and the blood on her left hand. The woman belonged in history, she was not supposed to be in this place or time, not behind a typewriter sorting out Bladewater’s archiving work.

“Raise your chin, please, you look familiar.” Her words were not an order, but they carried the silent authority. “Are you of his family? Of course, you are.”

“Do we know each other?”

“I am Khiandri. Who are you to Ikanji? No…sorry, this must be incomprehensible to you. I was so focused on my work and my mind was wandering and you resembled me of someone I once knew. Please, forget what I said.”

“Strategej Ikanji was my father. I am Kvenrei.”

“His son? How old are you?”

“Thirty-six.”

“Incredible. You are the same age he was when…but that was ages ago. My head is a mess and my sense of time is no better.”

Kvenrei could only stare. Khiandri was known as one of the rebellion leaders, the first and only love his father used to have.

“Khiandri, where have you been these…eighty years? You were thought to be dead.”

“I assume it was the plan. I slept.”

“You were asleep?”

“In the orbit. That is why this text makes sense.” Khiandri pointed at the papers. “I mean I understand what this speaker talks about. But how is Ikanji?”

“He died. Nine months ago.”

Khiandri closed her eyes for a moment but seemed to gather herself immediately. “I see, I was woken because he had passed away. I grieve for his departure, more than you may believe. But why are you here?”

Kvenrei saw no deception in the woman. She was too sincere and too lost to be anyone else than who she claimed to be. And if that was the case there was no reason to lie. “I am looking for Ikanji’s murderer. Jenet of Ardara followed the rebellion as a memory in a matrix. Now he walks in the body of a young man and uses the name Aldermei Veringe.”

“Jenet killed Ikanji? Oh void. She was the eldest daughter to the spokesman Tegel, dwelled deep in her dogma, but she is dangerous. Kvenrei, this Jenet hunted down your father’s family as a punishment for your grandmother’s deeds. And in the end, she got Ikanji too.”

Kvenrei listened with awe. Khiandri was of his age, but a rebellion leader and a war hero, born in another world where there had been more than one dragon, where the trees were not biological factories, where there had been flower meadows and butterflies and slavery, and cruelty beyond measure.

“I have heard about this Veringe. She...he belongs to the baron’s league of separatists and is a frequent visitor here. He deals in politics. I came here half a year ago, but we haven’t met, Jenet might even recognize me.” Khiandri said touching her straight black hair that flowed to her back.

“Is Jenet after you?” Kvenrei asked. Khiandri was both fragile and strong. She had been thrown into her future and it was not a beautiful future, but Khiandri’s green eyes had seen the other stars and the earlier wars and in her gaze dwelled the confidence of a woman who had emerged victorious from a bloodbath involving dragons and several nations.

“I don’t know. It is possible,” the woman whispered and Kvenrei touched her shoulder gently, a natural comforting gesture for her pain and bewilderment.

“It will be all right,” Kvenrei murmured.

Khiandri set her long-fingered hand on Kvenrei’s palm and squeezed hard, her fingertips pressing painfully to the bone. “It will be all right when I have hunted down that curly-haired bitch and choked the answers out from her last breath. This is not her world, it is mine.”

Bladewater buried herself in the library to continue her investigation. Indira spent her days and occasional nights with Kvenrei and they talked a lot while strolling the mansion grounds. Most of the time Indira was the one doing the talking. She was a clever woman with a keen understanding of the business, although she focused on politics.

Kvenrei had once liked her, but the spark he had felt then didn’t reappear. On the contrary, Indira’s unending interest in the Bird’s doings was a turn-off for him. He also had a nauseous feeling Indira had already played him in the past to deal some violence and bloodshed but there was no proof and Indira confessed nothing.

It was impossible to even imagine Indira in the north and Kvenrei didn’t mention his roots. Indira on the other hand was much more interested in the ways Viper had used the Bird and his reputation than in Jonathan and his thoughts. Kvenrei assumed Indira planned to use him to score some political points for the separatists and to secure a tool of violence for her aspirations. She seemed to admire some of Viper’s methods.

Meanwhile, Khiandri drew Kvenrei like a lamp called insects. He didn’t need to hide his heritage or history from her and Khiandri told him scattered parts of her life. It was a long story of fighting for the values Khiandri had felt right, peaking on the escape from the old world, followed by the northern war. Khiandri believed Agiisha had finally lifted her to orbit, but she had no memories of that time. She said speaking helped her to organize her mind after the long sleep and Kvenrei enjoyed every moment they shared.

“The separatists league will gather tonight,” Greinwell mentioned one morning. “You are our guest of honor, Jonathan.”

“I was only doing my morally questionable, although well-paid job,” Kvenrei answered. He was already planning how to avoid the situation. Of course, he was willing to meet Jenet, but preferably in a location he had trapped beforehand.

“Excellent. Your participation honors my family.”

Khiandri was in the city to get the bound versions of the transcriptions. On the first available occasion, Kvenrei dragged Bladewater to an emergency meeting. He explained the whole story to the navigator. Bladewater asked a few questions but was willing to jump into a discussion like she believed the story.

“You may either leave, lock yourself into your room, or go to the party. Jenet will in every case know about the presence of ‘Jonathan Byrd’. He sounds like someone who is good at finding people and to be honest, you are easy to recognize, Bird,” Bladewater analyzed calmly as was her habit.

“You are right. I am not afraid for myself; he has had his chance to kill me. Jenet holds all the keys to destroy the remaining cooperation between Khem and the New Freedom.”

“He can do it anyway, with or without your presence. You said he considers himself to be a servant of the state.”

“A servant of a dragon, it is not the same, but close enough.”

“We’ll get back to that later. Todor mentions the dragon over forty times... But take no impulsive actions tonight. Greinwell is my friend, and I don’t want to explain why you murder his guests.”

“I’ll take my revenge when I get the change,” Kvenrei said stubbornly.

“Blood for blood. Would it lessen your sorrow?”

“No. But it would stop Jenet from lurking around.”

“Upkeeping the circle of death needs a good reason, Bird. Focusing on revenge alone is not a good way to handle your emotions. Do you want your children to rampage revenging when someone delivers you the punishment for your numerous crimes?”

“...nope,” Kvenrei agreed.

“Will to revenge is very human, but it doesn’t solve the problems; it generates more of them. But you and wisdom seldom fit into the same head. Shall I guard your back tonight?”

“No, stay clear from this, please. Jenet is my problem.”

“Bird, you are not alone. You don’t have to carry your sorrow or murderous plans alone. If this Jenet needs to die, I’ll help you to kill him.”

“Thanks, but you are right. I can’t jump into action. The kids will need me alive and in one piece.”

Bladewater patted Kvenrei’s shoulder like a mother whose kid had for a change made a good decision.