We waited a moment for a response, but it didn’t come immediately. The workshop simply swayed in the wind. The sky around it was hauntingly still, no sign of any airships doing construction work.
“Maybe he’s out,” I suggested.
“Not the Faso I know. He’s probably watching from a window up there seeing if we’ll go away.”
Which was unsurprising really, given how I’d punched him in the face yesterday. “We should probably go,” I said.
“No, no, let’s see this one out. We can have some fun with this.” Sukina cupped her small hands to her mouth and projected her voice with a power that belied her tiny frame. “Faso, we know you’re in there. If you don’t come out, we have a dragon that can roast you in there alive. I’m sure he’d find it a pleasure after what you did to him.”
I smirked. “Will he really take you seriously?”
“If anything, I think he’ll be surprised to see me. The last time was meant to be the final goodbye.”
We waited for a while with our legs wide and hands on our hips. It seemed so long that I just wanted to turn around and give up. But Sukina didn’t seem ready to move and, every now and again, hollered out assertions that we weren’t going to go away so easily.
Soon enough, the ramp spiralled down from the workshop and Faso emerged at the door wearing a sharp black suit. Even from this distance, I could see the purple welt I'd caused beneath his right eye. “Ladies, ladies!” he called down. “Do you have to make such a racket? I’m trying to get some hard-earned rest.” He was squinting. “Sukina, is that you?”
“Didn't your device record my message?” Sukina shouted back. “Or didn't you recognise my voice?”
“Why didn’t you just press the button?”
“I did!”
Faso shrugged. “Oh, well, I guess I need to make some modifications. What do you want?”
“To talk,” Sukina said. “And hopefully for you to apologise to Pontopa here.”
“And tell me how to get that damn armour off him,” I added.
“Hang on, hang on,” Faso said. “I’ll be right down.” He went back into his workshop and then remerged a moment later with Ratter on his shoulder. He lowered himself onto his haunches onto the slide. As he slid down, Ratter watched me with those red menacing crystalline eyes.
“Don’t make any sudden movements,” Sukina whispered in my ear.
“What, why?”
She remained silent until Faso approached. “First things first, Faso,” Sukina said, “get that thing to take its sights off Pontopa. I know your tricks. Pontopa, right now, won't harm you.”
“Dragonheats, did you see what she did to me?” Faso pointed to the welt on his right eye. I was impressed I’d managed to cause such a bruise. I hadn’t, in all honesty, been in many brawls.
“Yes, and you bloody well deserved it,” Sukina said. “But we’re not here for fisticuffs. We need to talk about your contract.”
Faso studied Sukina for a moment. “Oh, if you insist…” He tapped Ratter on its back three times and, thankfully, the automaton scurried down his arm and hid itself in Faso’s widened sleeve. “So, let’s talk. And don’t be long, I’ve a busy schedule.”
Sukina swallowed. Deep inside, I thought I could feel her seething.
“Very well,” she said. “I came to convince you to quit the contract and come south with us. Fortress Gerhaun would welcome your skills, and we could give you a better life living out of Cini’s pocket. Gerhaun Forsi, in short, wishes to employ your services.”
“For what, exactly?” Faso said.
“Because you’re one of the best inventors in this land, and Gerhaun would rather you helped advance science for her cause rather than Cini’s.”
Faso cocked his head and scratched at the stubble on the side of his face. I’m sure that would have ballooned his ego. “I see,” he said. “So, you did go south in the end? And here I was thinking that strange man — was his name Colas — had really sold you to a dragon queen.”
“Gerhaun Forsi is real,” Sukina snapped back. “If you saw her, you’d believe. And, for your information, she’s much better to work for than a monarch who will backstab you at any opportunity.”
Faso let out a desultory laugh. “Really? And I guess you flew all the way from the Southlands on dragonback, without any of Cini’s forces shooting you out of the sky.”
“I have my ways,” Sukina said.
“And wellies knows how many merchants you stowed away with to get through the barrier.”
Sukina’s lips tightened. “I can travel quite freely, thank you very much. It’s a personal choice to travel via boat than air.”
“Oh really? Didn’t you see that article today in the Tow Observer mentioning the terrorist organization down south? It’s only a matter of time before King Cini comes looking for you.”
“Fortress Gerhaun had nothing to do with Prince Artua’s kidnapping. And the king has no idea who I work for.”
“Because you haven’t published your photograph anywhere and you shy away from cameras? I would have thought you’d at least have considered a false alias by now, Sukina. And I guess you’re here to convince us of the dangers of the secicao blight. Gerhaun Forsi and her unscientific nonsense. I’ve read her baloney.”
Sukina had her fists clenched by her side. “Gerhaun has conclusive, empirical evidence.”
“Because she lives in the Southlands and calls herself a dragon queen? She’s published no statistics; I’ve seen nothing in the scientific journals.”
“You’re a buffoon, Faso. You’ve not seen any statistics because Cini won’t publish them. And, of course there’s evidence. You’ve been to the Southlands, haven’t you?”
“Which is one piece of land with its very own characteristic ecosystem. What proof is there that what’s going on down there will happen up here?”
At this point, part of me wanted to run away and leave these two to their bickering. But I felt this strange sense of feeling what Sukina was feeling. A sense of rage mixed with yearning, as if a thief had just stolen my necklace and then deposited me by a shop window where that very same necklace was for sale. In the same sense, part of me wanted to reach out with my mind and soothe Sukina. But that would be impossible, right? How could what’s in my mind possibly influence what’s in hers?
But Sukina seemed to sense something too. She stopped in her tracks, completely blanking Faso, and turned slowly to me. Meanwhile, Faso held his arms outwards and shrugged, clearly not liking to be ignored. Sukina raised one eyebrow at me. “So, it’s true… I suspected as much.”
“What?” I asked.
“I thought it when I saw how you behaved around Velos. You can connect to the collective unconscious. There’s more to you than meets the eye, Pontopa Wells.”
Really, I was glad Sukina had decided to talk to me directly because I’d had enough of turning my head between these two in an attempt to make sense of it all. “Okay,” I said. “Could you please fill me in here? Give me a little context, at least. You’re talking about dragon queens, Fortress Gerhaun, Faso says you’re a terrorist, and now this mystical thing called the collective unconscious. For wellies sake what is going on?”
Sukina turned to me and smiled. Her face had a kind of ethereal glow that seemed to tone down my emotions somewhat. “I think you might want to come south with me and see for yourself,” she said.
“What? Why?”
“Because. It looks like you’re a dragonseer.”
Which left me absolutely dumbstruck. Understandable, given my favourite author had turned loopy all of a sudden. “What in the dragonheats are you talking about Sukina?”
“Okay, this is going to be hard to believe, but there’s a reason your connection with Velos is so strong. I came from Fortress Gerhaun which is one of the eight fortresses in the Southlands run by dragon queens. Gerhaun Forsi is not only an anthropologist but a dragon queen and mother of two thousand Greys. I am a dragonseer, which means I work with h
er.”
“You’re a…” I was lost for words. Varion in Sukina’s books was a dragonseer. Could my favourite author’s fictional worlds in fact be constructed from her own delusions?
“Oh, this is just bloody marvellous,” Faso said. He shook his sleeve and Ratter came back up to his shoulder. It swiped out at a mosquito and knocked it right out of the air. “You decide there's no chance of getting me to come south, so you decide to work on my business partner instead. Hence, leaving me to explain her desertion and to pick up the consequences while hanging from a garret.”
Sukina’s eyes narrowed. “Dragonheats, you can be impossible, Faso.”
“And you can be so… treacherous.”
It was kind of hard to concentrate, with these two bickering away, but still I was trying to organise my thoughts. What Sukina had told me made kind of sense when I thought about it — I’d always felt something with Velos. Plus, what Faso said didn’t make sense — Sukina just didn’t seem to be the terrorist type. And despite all this, and this really wasn’t rational, but I somehow knew that Sukina was telling the truth.
Perhaps part of it was me not wanting to believe bad things about my favourite author. But also, something had started to grow in me, this strange sense of knowing a lot more about Sukina than I’d ever had a chance to learn.
The two had just reached that lull in their argument where they had run out of things to say. Faso had just about turned on his heels ready to go back inside. Sukina was furious: I could feel it, the rage also fuming inside me. At the same time, I felt kind of detached from the emotion. I had enough rationality at that point to take a few breaths and let it cool. Now seemed a good time to deliver my coup-de-grace.
“I think I want to go south, Sukina,” I said.
Sukina turned to me. She blinked a few times. “That's good to hear,” she said after a short pause.
“Yes, it sounds like an adventure, and you… Your world fascinates me.” And, crazy as this might seem, I believed her. I can’t really explain why. Partly, it just felt right.
Faso had taken a few steps and stopped, turned around. “Well, I didn’t think you’d manage to convince her with such a phoney sales pitch. Pontopa, this is stupid.”
“No,” I said. “Stupid is getting me in such a rage that I make irrational decisions like punching you in the face. If you’d just asked nicely.” Well, I still wouldn’t have let him install the armour, but a man needs to learn how to behave.
Sukina was beaming. “So, that’s settled then.”
“Where are you staying by the way?” I asked.
“Well, I have a room booked in The Vineyardier.”
“Oh, stay with me,” I said. “The sofa’s comfortable and I’ve so many questions.”
“Fantastic idea.”
Faso huffed and turned around. He punched the button that flipped up the slats of the staircase and then stepped on and let the device carry him up. Sukina watched him go, scorn tracing the line of her lips.
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s leave this moron to sulk.”
✽✽✽
We took a detour on the way back to cool off a little via the cliff-edge. It was drizzling and it felt a little chilly — we should have brought our coats really. But still, we walked fast enough that we didn’t get too cold.
Back at the cottage, the sink had been cleaned and a plate of chocolate biscuits was on the table — a peace offering I was sure. My parents had left a note saying that they were going hiking then shopping and that they wouldn’t be back until late evening. I made Sukina tea again — I realised now why she wouldn’t want to drink secicao — and we talked a little until she was yawning out her words. I let her nap on the sofa while I sat under the faint light of the reading lamp.
The latest Tow Observer had been placed in the magazine rack by my armchair — Papo must have been reading it while Mamo washed the dishes. I picked it up to try and get the latest on Prince Artua, but there was nothing new, only journalists who wanted to revive old news. So, they interviewed a farmer who thought he’d seen the boy but had instead mistaken him for a scarecrow. At least in fiction stories got completed, rather than being revived and revived aimlessly.
Yawning, I picked up Dragons and Ecology and began to leaf through the book. It amazed me to think how a dragon queen could write such a thing and I tried to imagine her gripping the pen with her front claws.
While Sukina’s explanation had felt like part of a dream, the information had flown by so fast, Gerhaun Forsi explained it in clear, succinct language. I felt entirely convinced, as well as mesmerised. It felt if I was reading words written by my own kin.
Eventually, I drifted off to sleep. I later woke up to Sukina reading a censored version of one of her books, a scowl on her face. She lifted her head and we began to talk about the practicalities of going south.
We decided that when Velos awoke, we’d take him with us. Sukina said she could wait until then. But I felt anxious really. Velos could take up to a week to wake up after a heavy run south and, for all I knew, he might never wake up again. Fortunately, Sukina kept me distracted enough from such horrible thoughts, and we continued to talk about life, dragons, and the Southlands until sunset when we were ready for sleep.
I looked outside to see if the lights were on in my parent’s farmhouse, but they didn’t seem to be back yet. After I had checked on Velos, who was still dead to the world, I turned off the lights. Sukina and I slept until the late hours of morning.
CHAPTER 6
Iwoke up with a groggy head, but a decisive mind. Something was different — I knew it before I could put words to thought. I’d left the bedroom door open and the sun streamed through the front windows. Without bothering to get dressed or say good morning to Sukina, I put my slippers on and ran out into the yard.
Velos now had his head raised to the sky, but his eyelids were still droopy. The sun was out and already gave the air a latent heat, even though it was still early. The light gleamed off Velos’ majestic blue scales and that ugly armour. Meanwhile, Velos lowered his head towards me and I rubbed the bridge of his nose. Sukina was soon out and standing next to me, fully dressed.
“He’s amazing,” she said. “He stands so much taller than the Greys.”
I wouldn’t know — I’d only seen Greys in flight. “Velos is certainly something,” I said. “I can’t tell you how happy I am to see him awake.”
“And the armour…” Sukina cocked her head. “Come to think of it, it doesn’t look so bad.”
Velos raised his head and stood up proud, as if posing for a photograph.
“What are you looking so smug about?” I said and I glanced out towards Faso’s workshop, imagined the whole thing walking on its chicken feet towards us, chasing Velos through the woods and trying to shoot him down with its decommissioned war-automaton parts. I turned to Sukina. “This armour needs to be taken off him. A man might look good in an itchy suit until he takes it off and shows how red his skin is underneath.”
“But Velos doesn’t seem affected by it.”
“Still, Faso was wrong putting it there and I’m sure it will do Velos no good wearing it.”
Sukina smiled. “You are headstrong, I give you that. I think Gerhaun will like you.”
“I hope so,” I said, and I walked around Velos. His muscles were taut, and they felt strong again. He started to croon from the base of his neck. “He looks ready for flying,” I said after my brief inspection.
“That may be. But take as long as you need.”
Really, I had no reason to be sticking around. “I’ll just go and deliver the news to my parents. I’ll be back soon.”
I literally danced around the side of cottage towards my parent’s farmhouse. The door was open, and the smoky smell of bacon and eggs wafted out. Mamo was in the kitchen holding a frying pan over the stove, light smoke rising from it. Next to her, on the counter, was a full jug of tomato juice.
“Ah, Pontopa, you’re awake,” she said. “I
was just going to bring you breakfast. How did you sleep, dear? I’ve only just got up myself.”
“A late one?” I asked.
“We ended up in the bar last night. Your father’s still in bed.” The frying pan began to spit, and so Mamo poured in some water from a cup by the stove.
“Look Mamo,” I said. “Maybe we should have breakfast outside? Sukina stayed the night and we’ve both got some news.”
“Sukina? Gosh! Okay, I’ll just wake him, look after the pot will you, darling?” While Mamo went towards the stairs, I moved towards the pan and turned the heat down a little, so I wouldn’t have to pay it much heed.
Creaks came from the staircase and then Mamo’s footsteps passed by overhead. I hummed to myself, some kind of strange tune which you wouldn't even have recognised as having a melody.
After a while, I noticed the tune to be the same as that harmonic progression I’d produced by the tree trunk the other day when I was reading The Dragon Boy. My voice seemed to reach out into the air around me like gentle shimmering tendrils, but I dismissed the effect as an illusion caused by the heat from the pot.
It must have been a good ten minutes or so before I heard Papo’s heavy feet staggering across the landing and down the stairs. He walked in, bleary-eyed his hair dishevelled, wearing t-shirt and jeans. Mamo followed him into the room.
“We’ll meet you at your place, darling,” Mamo said. “Your father just needs a brief hair of the dog to whip him on his way.”
I went back towards the front of my cottage. Sukina was just outside, crouched next to Velos’ head, crooning a soft song to him. She looked up as I approached, and I told her breakfast would be ready soon. We went inside. Sukina helped me set up the coffee table with cutlery, crockery and placemats.
Papo soon came in with a sizzling frying pan, looking much better for wear. He looked at me and smiled, but I returned a sneer. If he thought I'd forgive him that easily, he had another thing coming.
Mamo followed with the tomato juice. We sat down and served out our food. Sukina said how fantastic it tasted. Mamo mentioned how we only used local eggs and bacon from the farms, which was much better than anything you’d find in the city. Papo asked whether Sukina had heard anything of Artua, seeming to think her celebrity status would give her inside knowledge. Of course, Sukina knew nothing. It was eventually Mamo who decided to get to the point.
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