I took a deep breath, and I held the silence for a moment. I felt empty, and I felt afraid.
Gerhaun turned her head slowly, and she moved a little closer. “Sing with me, Pontopa, we need to make the call.”
I looked up at her. “What do you want to sing?”
“Just follow the notes. We shall rally the dragon queens, and this time they must come. They cannot refuse a dying dragon queen’s call, even if they’ve refused my summons before.”
And so, she sang.
It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard. With notes like wind chimes against a soft breeze, a stream swishing by underneath them. Each note twinkled, like sparkles from the sun reflecting off the water. Like all dragonsongs, it had no melody to it. But still it had in it a sense of completeness, designed to calm anyone who could hear.
My heart latched on to the song, and the notes flowed out of my mouth, though with slight variations on the primary theme. Taka also joined in with his own improvised cadence. And even Velos crooned out his own tune.
The song reached out to the edges of the Southlands, and with every note we sang, I felt a new dragon out there joining in. Some of them were on Sandao’s ships. Some of them in distant fortresses I’d never visited. Some of them were wheeling around Fortress Gerhaun on patrol, scouting for automatons. This was the voice of the collective unconscious, and it only existed because souls united in this world to fight the good fight.
That day, the whole of the Southlands sang. And for a while we could forget about the danger that loomed, the lives we’d lost and the lives we’d have to lose.
We came to the end of the song, our harmonies converging into a powerful whole – a held note that pushed the secicao clouds upwards for just a moment.
And then, Gerhaun died.
She didn’t go with a scream. Nor did she whimper. Simply, her life was there one moment, and then snuffed out the next. The subconscious didn’t lurch, like it had when Sukina died. We’d prepared her passage, and so she transcended naturally.
After which, a long silence fell.
The first to wail was Velos, with a high pitch that I didn’t even think could come from his vocal cords. I moved forward and wrapped my arm around his snout. I would always be there for him. He was the father and now the sole protector of the unhatched dragon queen. No female dragon egg had been born for centuries, and so this one was incredibly valuable.
When I’d moved to Velos, I’d left Taka standing there, and now he stood with red-rimmed eyes, staring straight at Gerhaun’s lifeless head. “Come,” I said, and he walked over to me, and I embraced him with my free arm.
“It will be okay,” I said. “Everything will be okay.”
“But, Auntie, without Gerhaun, we’re nothing. I didn’t even say goodbye. I didn’t know what to say…”
I tousled his hair. “You didn’t need to say anything, Taka. She knew how much you cared, and she knew that, above it all, you’re a good person. And a fine dragonseer.”
“But without Gerhaun, how can we stop that horrible woman and keep her away from our minds?”
I took a deep breath. Part of me didn’t want to believe all this. Dragonheats, five years ago, I didn’t even acknowledge the existence of the collective unconscious, and the power that existed within. “Gerhaun’s still there,” I told Taka. “She’s somewhere in the collective unconscious, and she’ll find a way to reach us when we need her. Perhaps we’ll see her in our dreams. Or perhaps she’ll appear suddenly when we need to find the courage to do a brave thing.”
“But she’s not really there, is she, Auntie?”
I turned down to Taka, and I smiled, despite the tears stinging at my eyes.” I believe she is. And if you believe the right things, you can accomplish a lot. Finesia preys off a lack of hope. But we won’t let her anymore. Okay?”
He looked back up and blinked some tears out of his eyes. “Okay.”
I left Taka in the room because I knew he wanted to mourn a little longer. But on the way out, I took the effort to close Gerhaun’s great scaly eyelids. Then, I stepped out the door.
Mamo and Papo were waiting outside, and Doctor Forsolano was just rushing down the corridor with a massive briefcase in his hand. He looked at me as if wanting to acknowledge I was there, but also to signal he really didn’t have time to talk.
“It’s too late,” I said. “She’s left this world.”
That stopped Doctor Forsolano in his tracks, and he pivoted around. “What? You’re kidding? Are you sure?”
“I just felt her go, doctor,” I said.
He feigned a step forward, as if he wanted to reach out and hug me, but then he noticed my mother hovering nearby. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I did everything I could.”
“I know. But it was time, and she was old.” And the last words barely came before I found myself weeping again and then wrapped in my mother’s arms.
No matter your age, there’s something about your mother’s embrace that soothes even the greatest of despairs. I wondered then, how much longer my parents would also be on this world. Would they die first, or would I? Before all this, they’d wanted me to settle down and find a nice husband and have a good life under the contract of King Cini. They also wouldn’t have ever thought we’d end up here, in a barren land where we can’t even breathe the air outside.
I left my mother’s embrace and turned back to Doctor Forsolano, who was peering around the doorway, almost as if he didn’t believe Gerhaun was dead
“Doctor Forsolano,” I said. “Do you mind if we have a private word?”
He nodded, and I led him aside down the corridor where we wouldn’t be able to be heard. I turned back to see Taka was now in my mother’s arms.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “But I lost the cyagora. And I wasn’t able to get more.”
He turned back to me. “Oh dear,” he said. “Were you okay? Did you have any repercussions?”
I shook my head. “It was hard to come off it. But I think I’m finally okay. I’ll try to go out with Velos to get the herb as soon as I have the chance.”
“You’ve got other things to worry about right now,” the doctor said as he put his hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry, I’m sure I’ll convince Candalmo Segora to bring out a shipment soon. By the way, is it true? I heard news around the fortress that King Cini has died.”
“Taka saw it with his very own eyes,” I said.
“That must be hard for him. How has he been since?”
“I think we’ll both need a checkup. But I don’t think he’s going to go back to those drugs. Not after everything that’s happened.”
“I understand,” Doctor Forsolano said. “And I truly am sorry… About Gerhaun, I mean.”
“It’s okay,” I said, and I turned back to look at my parents. “I should go.”
“Of course, you’ll probably need this time with your family.” Doctor Forsolano gave me a warm smile before he left, and then he traipsed back down the corridor.
I walked back to my parents, and this time Papo took the chance to give me a hug. Not long after, there came the call of a bugle from outside, and a guard came rushing down the corridor. She was a young woman, not much older than I’d been when I’d left the Five Hamlets to become a dragonseer.
“Maam,” she saluted. “There’s a great golden dragon approaching from the air. We’re not sure we can trust it. I wanted to ask Gerhaun…”
I sighed. None of the troops would have had a chance to find out yet. “I’m sorry to say that Gerhaun has passed on,” I replied. “Please inform the rest of the troops. And also, tell them not to show any resistance, for this is one of the dragon queens and she comes in peace.”
The guard saluted one more time and then she rushed back off towards the courtyard. I turned around, nodded to my parents. Then, I marched through the corridors as I wiped the tears away from my eyes.
29
“Ah, there you are, Dragonseer, I wondered when I’d finally get the chance to
meet you.”
While Gerhaun had never come across as patronising, the first dragon queen’s voice in the collective unconscious had an undertone of contempt.
I stood with the troops lined up neatly in Fortress Gerhaun’s courtyard. Behind them stood every single Grey that remained at Fortress Gerhaun, and Velos too. Taka stood beside me, his posture rigid.
A gust of wind came from the dragon queen as she brought herself down to land. It was so strong that I worried it might knock us off the ground. It wouldn’t look great if she saw we employed troops that couldn’t stand upright.
But I looked over my shoulder and saw the troops were holding their ground. The wind subsided, and the dragon touched down, sending up a cloud of brown dust around her. I let it settle and then stepped forward.
“Keep your distance, dragonseer.” The dragon queen said. And I recoiled, more than slightly taken aback.” Oh, don’t look at me in that sulky human way. I sense a presence in you. I might have known Gerhaun would be harbouring agents of Finesia. Much as she did with that fool, Charth. She was never the best judge of character.”
Now I wanted to pull a rifle off my back and take a shot at her. How dare she say such horrible things about Gerhaun. “I am not an agent of Finesia.” I said. “Nor is Taka.”
I looked down at the boy, and he smiled.
“The dragon queens shall be the judge of that. When they arrive, we’ll have a council and decide what to do with you. We need to know that this place is safe.”
“Taka and I are the last dragonseers alive,” I pointed out.
The dragon queen raised an eyebrow. “Are you now?”
“Of course, I am. Francoiso and Sukina are dead,” I said. “And Alsie, and Charth, and” – I hesitated – “Indira, are now under Finesia’s thrall.”
“But I sense you have the same abilities as them. And yet, you seem to think yourself different.”
“We are different…”
“How can you be so sure?”
And that was the question that I’d been asking all this time. How could I be sure of who I was when I had Finesia raging through my mind? Part of me wanted to admit myself as a traitor, after what I’d done. But, like Gerhaun had reminded me, I had to put that all behind me now.
“Answer me! How can you be so sure?” And with that question in the collective unconscious, she let out a massive roar that caused the ground to tremble in front of us.
But I would not let her scare me.
“Because I have my own will,” I said. “And I will not surrender that to Finesia. And because I care about the fate of this world more than I care about my own.”
The dragon queen paused a minute and then lowered her head as if assessing me. I affixed my gaze on one of her eyes, and I held the stare, not letting her bully me. Gerhaun had been nothing like this.
“Oh, don’t be so harsh on the woman, Tarinah. She has just lost her dragon queen.” I looked around for the source of the voice and saw another massive golden dragon approaching from the sky.
“Yol,” Tarinah replied. “You’re late, as always. Where are the remaining dragon queens? And what happened to the other woman?”
“They’re coming, and they’ll be here in due course. It’s not like we can start the funeral before Admiral Sandao and General Sako get here, anyway. Their boats are still a long way away.”
The two dragons continued to natter away, like two elderly rivals. They hadn’t put their feuds behind them, it seemed, and so their conversations diverted Tarinah’s attention away from her threats, at least for the time being.
While they argued, the third of the dragon queens came into view. This time she landed silently without a word to the other two dragon queens. They also ignored her, seemingly more interested in their own conversation. The third dragon queen turned to me.
“Ah, the young dragonseer,” she said. Her voice sounded younger than the other dragon queens I’d encountered before. “You must forgive my comrades, for they know not how to behave in front of humans. I am Castlonth. And you, I believe, are Dragonseer Wells.”
Castlonth…. She was the dragon queen we were meant to trust. I stepped forwards slightly so I could bow to her. But the dragon tossed back her head and roared to the sky. I stumbled backwards.
“Don’t be so hasty, Dragonseer,” Castlonth said. “We’ve all agreed to not let you get too close. We need to know where your allegiances lie.”
“Auntie?” Taka asked. “Why are they being so unfriendly?”
“I guess we have to earn their trust.” I said. I hadn’t expected the other dragon queens to be so hostile towards us.
The next three queens came in from the sky in a group of three. They landed in unison. One was shorter, one thinner, and one more stout. They touched down behind the first three dragon queens.
“Ah, there she is. The traitor.” One of them said, though I don’t know which one.
“Heard she made a whole volcano erupt,” said another.
“Heard she torched her own village, and almost destroyed a covey of dragons in rage,” said the third.
Dragonheats, this wasn’t going well at all. All these dragon queens had it in for me. And this time, they didn’t even seem to want to tell me their names.
“Silence!” A voice boomed out in the collective unconscious. The six dragon queens turned their golden shiny heads to the sky, and I looked up in the same direction. She was like a whirlwind coming through the clouds. I couldn’t see her yet, but rather what looked like an approaching storm. The air started to smell of ozone, and the sound came of gigantic beating wings.
“One of our own has died,” the voice continued. “And it seems your spirits have devolved into chaos. Show some respect for our order. We need to stick together now more than ever before.”
“Bassalhan,” Castlonth said. “It’s been so long…”
A hole opened up in the clouds, and something massive plummeted down through it. The dragon queens scattered, and it landed right between them, where the mosaic depiction of Gerhaun lay on the cobbles on the ground. The force of her landing sent up so much dust that it took me a while to be able to see her.
When the dust subsided, I saw not one dragon but two.
There was the queen I presumed to be called Bassalhan, as spectacular as the tallest of statues. She had long teeth that passed over the top and bottom of her mouth, and eyes that looked so rugged they displayed both age and wisdom. She must have been a good head taller than Gerhaun had been – and much more muscular too.
The second dragon was a coloured dragon just like Velos – a splendid citrine with scales like early autumn leaves. He was slightly larger than Velos, and I could sense in the collective unconscious he was much older too.
But what surprised me the most was a red-haired woman in a one-piece leather suit, who carried a double-headed spear on her back. She sat bareback on the coloured dragon, and I cast my mind back to the days before Faso installed the armour on Velos, when I’d ride him that way too.
The woman slid down the dragon’s tail, and then lifted herself back up to an upright standing position, one tip of her spear plunged into the ground. I then noticed her right leg shining in the light. It was metal, but still she walked on it as if it were made of flesh.
Meanwhile, the golden dragon queen called out loud to both humans and dragons alike. Her voice was loud and could cover massive distances with ease.
“I am Bassalhan,” she said. “The strongest of all dragon queens, and hence the most suited to take leadership of the fortress. From now on, you shall answer to me, is that understood?”
Confused murmurs came from the troops from behind me. They answered to me, General Sako, and Admiral Sandao. But Gerhaun left tactics down to us, while she managed strategy and morale from the top. This, suddenly, seemed quite a different arrangement.
“Is that understood?” the dragon queen bawled again.
I glanced over my shoulder and nodded. Best to let her have command until
we had a better handle on things. The troops noticed my signal, and out came a cry of, “Yes, your highness,” from them. I noted that it wasn’t, ‘yes, Maam’, or ‘affirmative’, almost as if they’d been trained what to say in this situation.
As I turned back to look at the massive dragon queen, I saw the women sprinting at me at a speed I wouldn’t have expected given her artificial leg. Before I had time to react, she stopped herself and extended her spear at my throat in one swift motion. She stopped it just short enough to pinch my skin without nicking it. I looked down at it, my heart thumping, and then I looked up into the woman’s assessing stare. Those cold cornflower eyes told me that if I budged even one inch, she’d end my life here and now.
“Auntie Pontopa,” Taka called out.
I put up my hand carefully to stop him doing anything stupid. “It’s okay…”
“Don’t hurt her, please.” Taka said. “She means you no harm.”
The woman didn’t even look at him. Now I could see her up close, I noticed three jagged scars that ran down from the corner of her left eye to her right cheek. It looked almost as if she’d been clawed.
“I’ll be the judge of that,” she said. And she twisted her spear slightly, tugging at the skin on my neck.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“I’ll be the one who’ll ask the questions, Dragonseer Wells,” she said. Then her voice came again in my head. “And you’ll talk to me on this channel, where no one else can hear.”
She could talk in the collective unconscious… How was that possible? “Fine,” I said. Without daring to flinch. “What is it you want?”
“Prove to us you’re not an agent of Finesia.”
“And how am I meant to do that?”
“Pledge allegiance to Bassalhan right now. Say it out loud and look me in the eye as you say it. If you’re a traitor, I will know.”
I wanted to swallow but doing that might cause that sharp tipped spear to rip my throat. It looked so well sharpened that it would cut through cartilage like a scalpel. And the woman held it there with surgical precision.
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