“He’s not very talkative nowadays,” Alsie said. “This is what happens to disobedient subjects of Finesia. They end up with existences not worth having at all.”
Something flew overhead, and the troops below lifted their rifles at it. But it was too fast, and its massive form blocked out the sun momentarily, casting a shadow over the land. “Charth?” I said again. “Are you in there somewhere?”
I had hope, but there wasn’t much of it. He’d sacrificed himself to Finesia so we could live. And, somehow, I knew I’d never speak to the man again.
“You know,” Alsie said. “Perhaps it should have been you and he that were lovers. But I believe you chose another. And here he is now.”
Another smaller black dragon shot out of the clouds emerging from the factory. He did a barrel roll, and then a loop-the-loop, almost as if trying to court me. “Come and join me, darling,” Wiggea said inside my mind. “I promise I’ll make it worth your while.”
But the last thing I wanted to do was succumb to Finesia’s will. “Wiggea, there must be some trace of you somewhere. You were always so loyal.”
“I still am. I’m loyal to you and I’m loyal to Finesia.”
“Those two loyalties contradict each other.”
“I don’t think they do. You are closer to her than you realise.”
His voice clicked out of the collective unconscious, and then he stopped his circus tricks and vanished back into the unfolding secicao clouds.
“Oh, and there’s one more who I thought we’d bring to join the show,” Alsie continued. “Taka, introduce yourself in your new form…”
And those words brought even greater dread to me than anything she’d said before.
“Taka…”
“Auntie Pontopa, I’m here.”
“Go on,” Alsie said. “Show yourself, boy. Don’t be shy.”
“Taka… You drew on Finesia’s gifts? I told you not to…”
He emerged from the clouds, the smallest and rattiest of dragons I’d ever seen. Yet what he didn’t have in size, he made up for in agility. Someone down below had had enough of these black dragons, and let off a rifle shot, but he darted out of the way.
“Don’t shoot,” I said over the speaker system. “That’s – That’s Taka.”
“Blunders and dragonheats,” General Sako replied. “How is it possible?”
“It just is…”
“Taka,” Faso said. “No! What did that freak, Travast, do to you? It can’t be…”
“It wasn’t Travast,” I said. “It was Finesia... This is the danger I’ve been trying to tell you about all along…”
“Auntie Pontopa,” Taka said in the collective unconscious. “I know you’re angry, but I really had no choice.”
“I wish you’d stayed with Cini,” I said. “We would have come in to rescue you.”
“But King Cini is dead,” Taka said. And, although Taka had grown up with the king all his life, I didn’t hear a hint of sadness in his voice. “These dragons, they took down his airship in Ginlast, before he grouped with the others. They left so many flames burning around me. And I was trapped, and I thought I would die. But now, King Cini is dead. No one survived except me. Finesia gave me a way out. She saved my life, Auntie. Like she saved yours…”
“No!” I screamed out loud. “Alsie, you could have killed him. He’s a child, for dragonheats sake. What were you thinking?”
“Oh, he wouldn’t have died,” Alsie said. “No child would ever neglect their own survival for spiritual and pointless goals. And he already had a way out. He just needed to be prompted to take it. Much like you were, I believe, in East Cadigan Island.”
I could feel the rage boiling in my chest. My heart was pumping incredibly fast, and adrenaline coursed to my arms and legs. I wanted to leap into the sky and take Alsie down. I wanted to turn into dragon form and battle her here and now. I could rip out her throat, much as she had done to Francoiso.
“That’s it, my acolyte,” Finesia said. “Use your powers.”
But then an image of Sukina came into my head. She was there, somewhere in my mind, looking out for me. Present in the collective unconscious, ready to appear when I needed her most.
I’d promised her I’d look after Taka. She’d sacrificed herself so he and I could live.
“Taka,” I said. “You must keep Finesia out. Get on the ground, get back to human form, and never convert again.”
Taka flew towards the army beneath, unnerving the Greys who circled close to him. I sang a quick dragonsong to remind them that Taka was Taka, and not our enemy. “He’s going to land,” I said to General Sako. “Make sure that no one even raises a rifle against him. And trust me, General Sako, this is your grandson.”
“Blunders and dragonheats! I guess I have no choice. I just hope you’re right Pontopa…”
Taka roared out, extended his claws, and came in to land just in front of the company. A black dust cloud came up from the ground as he landed, and this subsided to reveal the sandy-haired boy in his jerkin and frilly white shirt. He ran towards General Sako, who opened up his arms and then held him tight.
“That’s it, boy,” Alsie said. “Go to them. I’ll come back and get you when you’re ready.”
“You will pay for this, Alsie,” I said.
“Perhaps,” she replied. “But you’ll need to give a lot more to Finesia, before you’ll truly have the strength to battle me. One massacre is nothing in the grand scale of things. Anyway, the show is about to start. The fruits of our efforts shall now be reaped. Behold our new dominion, for tomorrow us immortals shall rule the Northern Continent.”
And her words were cut off by another explosion, this one much larger than the last. It filled the sky with a tremendous white light, with such a thunderous roar that every human present clutched their hands to their ears.
“From this earth, immortals shall rise,” Finesia said. “These men and women were wrongfully convicted by an errant king. Now, they can have the immortality they deserve. You sowed the seed for this, Acolyte Wells. And you can claim your reward later, once you’re ready.”
The air filled with a thickening smoke. It brought with it the acetic smell of secicao. It wasn’t enough yet to stop us breathing, but it would be soon. Although there were gas masks in the armour and in the dragon automaton, the men below hadn’t brought them inland. Thus, we had to get the troops out, otherwise they’d die.
“General Sako,” I said. “I need to bring the dragons down to pick you up. We must get you all out of here.”
And before he could respond, I sang to command the Greys into action. They swooped down and took up the men in their talons. We had to leave the extra equipment that we’d bought behind. But none of the weaponry we had here would do anything against these black dragons, anyway.
One Grey took hold of Taka, and under the command of my dragonsong hovered over Velos and deposited the boy in the central seat. Taka quickly buckled himself into his harness, without me asking for him to do so.
“I’m so glad you’re alive,” I said to him in the collective unconscious. And I turned to see that tears were streaming from his eyes.
“Are you angry?” He asked.
I shrugged. How could I be angry? “I also had to use Finesia’s gifts to save my life at East Cadigan Island. You didn’t have a choice. But you must be even more vigilant now. Because she wants to trick you into getting closer to her. And we cannot let her gain control.”
“I know, Auntie. And she said some horrible things to me. She wanted me to join her cause for immortality. But it’s just stupid. I just want to be human, Auntie. I don’t want her to take away Velos and the other dragons.”
We were interrupted by a third explosion. This one was smaller, but had an intense pitch like a thousand snare drums sounding at exactly the same time. Then, out of the ground emerged the first dragon. “I’m finally free,” came its voice in the collective unconscious. “And Acolyte Wells, you are my master.”
&
nbsp; “And I,” another said. Another black dragon shot out of the ground. “All I did is steal a loaf of bread, and it eventually earned me immortality.”
“What the dragonheats is happening?” Faso said. “It’s impossible.”
“But you saw the same happen at East Cadigan Island,” I replied over the speaker system. “Alsie is taking control of this land.”
“But what about the king?” he asked. Of course, he hadn’t heard any of the conversation in the collective unconscious, so he had no way of knowing.
“King Cini is dead,” I said through clenched teeth.
“What? How?”
“The black dragons killed him.”
More dragons continued to emerge from the smoke. They claimed to be my minions, and asked me to command them. But I didn’t give them an answer. Alsie, once again, could have them. Because to accept control of them would be to surrender a large part of my will to Finesia. And that, I couldn’t do.
There came a whirring sound, and the ground beneath us parted. Out of it shot heavy strands of secicao, and war automatons popped out of the land, their rifles raised to us. The secicao shoots continued to twist up around them, faster than any plant could naturally grow. Soon, the stuff would take the land, and with it the gas would snuff out all life here.
“Ah, my automatons,” Indira said in the collective unconscious. “By employing me as his chief scientist, the late King Cini appointed me in control of them. We shall set up more factories like these, and we shall make more dragonpeople and automatons ours. And those who don’t join our cause shall die.”
“And, we shall take our armies south,” Alsie continued. “And use them to destroy all mortal dragons on your precious continent. Then this world will become our own. Are you still sure you want to be on the wrong side?”
I took one glance at the war automatons, and the secicao spreading across the land, its branches and roots spreading outwards, tearing apart the ground. This was Sukina’s hometown. And now it was being taken over by the force she’d battled to protect us from.
Ginlast would be taken first. Tens of thousands of citizens having their lives choked up by a virulent and unforgiving species they had no idea could live here. “We need to go,” I said over the speaker system.
I lifted Velos up into the air, just as the war automatons fired upon us. My dragon roared, and the Greys followed his call, crying out mournfully into the blue sky above the rising acrid clouds. We’d all been fighting to prevent this – humans and dragons alike.
Faso took the dragon automaton down for one last pass, spraying the war automatons with bullets and flame. The automatons returned the fire, but neither side seemed to hit their targets or do any damage. The dragon automaton came up to join us, and we rose ever higher.
“You need to return home now, Dragonseer Wells,” Alsie said to me, just before I was out of reach. “Because someone you love dearly is on her death bed. Indeed, I’ve received reports that Gerhaun Forsi will soon draw her last breath.”
Dragonheats. I’d been so consumed by my own problems, and more recently this carnage, that I’d neglected to listen to the more subtle echoes on the collective unconscious. And when I pushed Finesia and Alsie, and the fear, and hate, and guilt away, indeed I could hear Gerhaun singing out from afar into the void.
I needed to get back to Fortress Gerhaun to say my goodbyes.
“And remember,” Wiggea then said. “That I love you, and I always will.”
And that was the last I heard before I caught sight of the ice caps and I left the dying Northern Continent behind. The catastrophe Gerhaun had been warning us about for so long had started. And there was nothing I could do to prevent it.
Part VIII
Gerhaun
“Those who live to help others, will never truly die, for their legacy will remain eternal.”
Gerhaun Forsi
28
As we approached Fortress Gerhaun, the clouds felt heavier than normal. Usually, I’d get a sense of them easing off as we approached the base. But now, they felt as if the secicao was trying to push in. As if it knew Gerhaun’s death would give it the opportunity to swallow up all human life.
It was just me and Taka on Velos’s back. We’d escorted the rest of the fleet to Port Szutzko, and when we’d decided we were clear of any Towese forces and dragonmen, we left them to travel the journey alone. We kept Velos as light as possible, so I let Faso refill the tank on his armour while I took out all unnecessary luggage, keeping only a few snacks and the water we’d need to make it back.
If someone had told me before this day that I could make that journey in twenty-four hours without landing once, I wouldn’t have thought it possible. But necessity has achieved much more unlikely things in the past.
I could already feel Gerhaun’s spirit waning in the collective unconscious as I brought Velos in to land. We had only taken a small force up north, and so numerous troops awaited us in the courtyard. They stood at attention in their olive suits and then saluted us in unison as I touched Velos down. My parents were with them, and Papo stepped forward first. Meanwhile, Velos lowered his back so Taka could rush down his tail. I followed the boy down to the ground via the ladder.
“Pontopa,” Papo said. “You made it back. A Hummingbird scout came back to us with the news of King Cini’s death, and we worried so much. They blew up the factory, Pontopa. How did you survive?”
“Papo,” I cut in. “We’ve not got time.” I could already feel Gerhaun’s life force dissolving. She was mumbling in the collective unconscious, something about this being the end of the good life, repeatedly.
Mamo strolled up to me and hugged me quickly, then took hold of my hand. “Gerhaun has been wanting to see you.” She looked me in the eye, seemed to notice something, but said nothing. She turned to Taka. “Both of you… It’s good that you made it in time.”
“I’ll go,” I said.
Mamo nodded. “We’ll be right behind you.”
“No, please, wait outside. This is something that Taka and I need to handle alone.”
I took hold of Taka’s hand and rushed him through the empty corridors. They were even dustier than usual, and I let off a sneeze as we walked. We passed the tapestries of dragons in battle, torches that had failed to be lit, even Mamo’s tearoom with a sign on the door – ‘Closed Until Further Notice’.
Then we were outside the double doors to Gerhaun’s treasure chamber. I pushed them open, and saw Gerhaun lying on the floor, wrapped around the golden egg. Her head was flat against the ground, and her warm breath buffeted against me as I stepped forwards, Taka trailing only slightly behind.
I remembered Velos and I knew that he would also want to join us. So, I sang to him, to invite him down the chimney, thinking Gerhaun wouldn’t mind.
“There’s no need,” Gerhaun said. “I’ve already extended the invitation.” Even in the collective unconscious, her voice came across as fragile.
There came a rush of air from above, and Velos came down the massive chimney, and landed just a few metres away from Gerhaun’s back. He let out a groan, and pushed forwards, nestling his muzzle into the gap in front of Gerhaun’s neck.
“Gerhaun,” I said in the collective unconscious. “We came as soon as we could.”
“And how I’m glad you did. Dragonseer Wells, I am proud of you. As I am of you, Taka.”
I turned to the boy who had remained silent up to this point, both physically and in the collective unconscious. He had his head bowed to the ground, his sandy fringe covering his eyes as if hiding away his pain.
I didn’t know whether I should tell her. Not on her deathbed. She’d banished Charth for crimes like mine, and I didn’t want her last thoughts to be those of despair. But she’d been my trusted advisor, my mentor for several years after Sukina’s death, and a friend. I owed it to her, whatever the cost.
“Gerhaun,” I said, and opened up the channel to make sure Taka could hear me too. “I need to tell you something, and
I’m sorry it comes at such a late hour. But I’m no different to Charth. Both Taka and I, we ended up taking dragon form. But while he took it for his survival, something happened to me. Finesia took control of my mind in my sleep. Out there, I lost it. I massacred, and I destroyed the lives of innocent men and women. I couldn’t keep Finesia out.”
Gerhaun shook her head slowly and gently. “We all have regrets. Had I not had banished Charth from here, we might not have lost him. And when you told me what happened at East Cadigan Island, I privately resolved that I’d help you through it whatever the cost.”
“But when you pass on,” I said. “You won’t be there…”
She paused a moment and regarded me with her great yellow eye. “You’ve come so far, Dragonseer, and you’ve learned how to be good, like Sukina. None of us can stay on this world forever – none of us, that is, who remain true to ourselves.”
“But you can fight it, surely, Gerhaun. I – I – I can’t do this alone. Finesia wants to control my mind, and I need your help.” I had tears welling at the bottom of my eyes now. Taka reached out and took hold of my hand and squeezed it a little. He also had tears in his eyes, and he looked lost.
“You can,” Gerhaun said. “And you will. Because you are much stronger than you think…”
I shook my head. Her words comforted me somewhat, but I still couldn’t truly believe it, not after everything I’d done. “How long do we have before the secicao swallows this place?” According to convention, the dragon queens should come to the funeral, and they’d help keep the secicao away for some while. But when they left, we would all have to relocate.
“A day or two. But at least one of the dragon queens should arrive before that time elapses.”
“And then I’m alone…” I said. And a sense of emptiness closed in.
“You will never be alone, Dragonseer Wells. Sukina and I, we’ll be there to help you in the collective unconscious, in the most profound ways.”
Dragonseers and Airships Page 83