A Most Refined Dragon

by Paul Chernoch

  An unhappy fan-fan scooted aside to make room in the pile of straw for its new roommate. On a cold night, it was nice to take a seat vacated by another warm body. Melissa was soon asleep. Her dreams, too, were like sitting down somewhere warm that someone else had just been. In this case, the seat was her human body, stranded in the Sudan. She felt the familiar warmth of an alien personality, but heard no words. White Talon must be asleep.

  Melissa raised her right arm to look at her hand in the dim light before dawn, a sensation strange and familiar at once. She forgot what it was like to be human. When she tried to raise her left arm, she felt resistance. Still chained. She felt chafing. That arm was rubbed raw from a failed attempt to get free. I refuse to be chained. I’m dreaming, so I can do anything. She pulled and the links snapped. She crept around the tent, feeling her way. A dress? She spread it out and slid it over her head. Yuck. It’s a burkha. She felt some more and found a flashlight. Footsteps outside the tent made her freeze.

  When all became quiet, she slipped into the next tent and found a sleeping soldier. His rifle lay propped against a crate with a pistol beside it. I’ll never be able to fire a rifle wearing this. She removed the clip from the rifle, tossed it aside, grabbed the pistol and holster and hid it under her robes. Then she moved to another tent. It was Dr. Kozi. Should’ve brought the rifle for him. She took his chains in her hands and tugged until they snapped. Vigorous shaking wouldn’t wake him. She touched her fingers to his neck. Pulse is weak. Coma? Can’t have that. She inhaled deeply and breathed upon his face. There was no blue flame, but why would that matter? It was a dream! His breathing deepened, and another shake woke him up.

  “Shhhh!” Melissa put her finger to his lips. She helped him dress, and they slipped into the darkness, with the moon to illuminate their path over rock and sand.

  * * *

  Whatever followed in her dream she forgot by the time she awoke, except the exhilaration of being free. Too bad the feeling evaporated as fast as the dream. Light streamed in through cracks in the barn. R.J. was suited up and ready to ride. “No more fireballs.” He donned his helmet and stomped on the kickstart.

  “I don’t remember your bike having a kickstart,” said Melissa.

  “Custom mod,” said R.J. “Did it myself. You don’t think I’d risk coming to an alien world without a backup starter? Then again, you got yourself a pretty sweet ride.” He gave her retracted wing a tap.

  Melissa shrank back. “Don’t get all pally on me. Until I find out what you and your co-conspirators have been up to and find a way to undo the damage earthly scheming has inflicted on this world, I’ll be watching you.” She tried doing that thing where you point your index and middle finger at your eyes then point them at the target of your distrust, but those long, pointy claws… She forced back the “Owww!” waiting to erupt.

  “I’m counting on it.” There it was, the famous R.J. smirk. Without the long hair to dominate his look, the smirk took over. “The Reds have no idea what I made off with, and you’ll be begging me to tell you.”

  “Do you know how long a person like me who can heal miraculously could inflict pain on someone they disliked? Hurt, heal, hurt, heal…”

  “Maybe begging is too strong a word.”

  “Do you think?”

  * * *

  The man was dizzily adrift, unhearing, with a scrambled sense of touch, until a warm breath on his face restored everything. He blinked and saw dim light. Half the body parts he moved were sore, but he could move them again. As he fluttered his eyes, he saw the top of the tent. Then a veiled head popped into view.

  “Kozi, get up,” whispered the woman. “We have to get out before they notice we’re missing.”

  The woman helped him to his feet, found his clothes and helped him dress. The blue pants were stitched from a sturdy material and had a peculiar metal closure with interlocking teeth that she had to help him with. Her voice sounded familiar, but her clothing concealed all but her eyes. Such entrancing eyes. That name she called him – Kozi? He had a vague sense he was a doctor. He looped a canteen strap over his neck. “I’m ready.”

  They walked into the dark, avoiding the road. The rocky ground, dry and dusty air made the going difficult for two people who had nearly died. Hours later they heard a click and a man shouting at them in an unfamiliar language.

  The woman raised her hands and he copied. Bright lights came on and blinded them. A man holding a rifle approached and ripped the veil off the woman to reveal long, black hair. It’s Melissa.

  The soldier shouted excitedly. He wore an armband with a balance and scales. Justice and Equality Movement. Kozi breathed a sigh of relief.

  Melissa lowered her arms and talked with the man in his own language. When she was done, she turned to him. “My father hired them to rescue me. They have a jeep. We need to go with them now.”

  Kozi and Melissa piled into the back of the jeep and rumbled off, flanked by two more jeeps. Melissa looked straight ahead, and he looked at her. The bumpy road jostled her, periodically pressing her right arm into his left. A black tress snaked along his cheek. Her hair was reaching out; she was not. Dust from the road made her blink, but from his angle it was a wink.

  He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.

  She whipped her head around and pulled away. “What was that for?”

  He raised his hands, palms forward. “Whoa, Melly! You just saved my life. I just wanted to thank you.”

  “Oh, right. Sorry for snapping.” She returned to facing forward.

  He stared at her. “Pretty like a flower, but snaps at you. Hmmm. You must be a… snapdragon.”

  She whirled, grabbed his collar, and yanked him close. “Why do you jerks keep calling me a dragon? I AM NOT A DRAGON! I'M A WOMAN!”

  The flared nostrils, the glaring almond-shaped eyes, the hot breath, and the heaving chest in front of him suddenly were no deterrence. He lunged and planted his lips on hers.

  She recoiled. “That was no thank you kiss, Kozi! Back off.” She slapped his face. Hard.

  While he rubbed the bruise, his head spun. Why did I do that? I set this Sudan trip up because I knew she couldn't resist the challenge. She'd spend weeks with me, see what I'm made of and we could get past the flirting that turns her off. And after she warmed up to me, Sherry's crush on me would make Melissa jealous and she'd jump into my arms. Why do I feel like a kid again? Why isn't she just pretty and smart like before? When did she become the impossible center of my world that makes me jump too soon and wreck more than airplanes?

  Every time Melissa scooted left to make space between them, a wrenching turn of the road slid her back. She was flung so hard she had to grab his arm. As she relaxed her grip they locked eyes. Hers narrowed to say "no", but they said more. They said she loved a man and was searching for him with the same desperation making him perspire. Her focus was now past him, up into the sky.

  Look at me! Me! I'm the one you're looking for! Kozi had two minds about him. One knew she didn't care for him, and the other was rock solid in its conviction that buried inside him was the man she loved. She would see it. She would see him. She would stop looking at the stars. He would make her!

  The shapeless black garb covering Melissa from the neck down meant there was nowhere to look but her face. He had seen her perfect ankles on the plane, her slender arms, and the curve of her back. None of her many charms could free him from the vise-lock of her eyes. The black pupils twinkled. Sparky motes entered a slow burn that coiled about the moist spheres. He saw the flames that would consume him. Had he a hotter flame that could overcome hers? Or water to quench her consuming gaze? No, inside him a cognitive cyclone fanned the forge of passion.

  His mind lost then found itself. He was a hunter. He had flown to Africa. His spear was the tongue swollen thick in his mouth. Melissa was the prey that must not escape. He would capture her or die. He closed his eyes. No frown would stop him. No flare of her nostrils or tightening of her throat would erect any barrie
r. He didn't know what was happening to him, but he knew with absolute certainty that she must be his, and he tensed his body as he prepared to strike.

  While his mental cyclone spun out of control, his newfound resolve opened a doorway in his soul and a new set of memories arrived. “Sure. Kozi will back off. He's fine with it. Kozi will never kiss you again.” He jerked his eyes open. Too fast for her to resist, he grabbed her shoulders, pulled her close and kissed her again. Then he whispered into her ear, “But I am not Doctor Kozi.” The fury in her eyes exploded into surprise and she yielded to his embrace. He was a man who had never held her, but she knew she was in his arms. Her lips were no longer carved into his fields, but pressed into his face. The dragon-fire was doused, as her sad eyes became like pools in the desert after the irrigator discharged its gift. Her dark tresses wrapped around his neck and her hands slid up and down his back, planting caresses charged with the electricity of a storm.

  He pulled away, still holding her shoulders. “I am Shoroko, and I love you. I don't care what worlds you run off to, I will follow you forever.”

  She fainted. He lay her head on his lap, ran his fingers through her hair, listened to her breathe, and fell asleep to the bouncing of the road and the sound of soldiers chuckling from the front seat.

  * * *

  Shoroko awoke, laying on a mat in Makri’s shop, whistling.

  “Good dreams?” Makri was lugging boxes from the cart with the morning’s deliveries.

  “Good? Yes. Dreams? I’m not so sure.” He blushed, sat up and yawned. He remembered everything. When would Melissa be back from her mission to Blaze? Did she have the same dream? I’ll go mad thinking about this. He stood and stretched. “I’ll finish unloading. You have orders to finish.”

  He stepped over the mat where Jessnee lay. Dragon snores intruded from the backyard. Those two had been working nonstop to build the parts needed to repair the gateway, while simultaneously training new oshtukamat techs. The schematics they were working from were incomplete, and they lacked crucial rare metals. Jessnee heard voices. He walked outside and saw Callyglip and Thedarra arriving for work, arm in arm. The grinning young man wore a new shirt, and from the pattern, Shoroko knew who’d sewn it. Before he could greet them, a crowd rounded the bend up the street. He ran and grabbed Callyglip by the arm.

  “Hey, what?” said Callyglip. He heard the footsteps behind him and stopped complaining. “Let’s get inside, love.” The three hustled into Makri’s shop and barred the door.

  Shoroko kicked a stool aside and ran to the window. “Makri! Jessnee! Something’s up.” He scooped up his bow and quiver. “Rouse Orokolga. A crowd’s approaching, and they’re not throwing us a parade.”

  Jessnee stood, rubbed his eyes and adjusted his clothes.

  “You’re the councilman,” said Makri. “See what they want.”

  Shoroko took an arrow in hand while Callyglip grabbed a poker from the fire. Thedarra unbolted the door and Jessnee walked out to meet the crowd congregating in front. Shoroko watched through a crack in the shutters. He didn’t recognize the men. No elders. No prominent merchants. No soldiers. It’s a mob.

  Idle tail thumps testified that Orokolga had crept into the alley to the right, out of sight.

  “I am loathe to turn away customers,” said Jessnee, “but this shop opens in an hour. Mr. Makri will be happy to take your orders at that time.”

  A tall man with a curled lip and the massive arms of a stone mason stepped out from the crowd. “Take our orders?” He faced the rest of the crowd. “Do you hear that? Makri’s going to take our orders! And we thought we would have to use persuasion!” He folded his arms and faced Jessnee. “Our orders are simple: stop making machines for the Claws.”

  “Has the First Hand changed his mind and revoked our concession? If you have a writ from Lord Metookonsen, produce it and I will happily comply.” He reached out his hand. The man slapped it aside. “Very well, persuade me. What are you trying to accomplish? What good will come from depriving the Claws of pure liosh in the midst of a migration?”

  “What good? I’ll tell you what good. They won’t be able to burn down our barns, our fields or us is what!” Three dozen others shouted their agreement.

  “And what about the lives they won’t save because they are unable to drive the herds? I wasn’t here for the last migration, but I’m a clever inventor. Have you heard how successful my plans were to stop the tuskers? Without help from the Reds, scores of Hands would’ve died.”

  “We need more machines, is all. Operated by us Hands, not Claws. We need to be in charge of our own defense.” The mason pounded his right fist into his left palm. “I’ve heard what they can do on the other world, and some guys have been showing us that we can do it here. One has a noisy, two-wheeled cart that can outrun anything on four legs, and most things that fly. With enough of them, we’ll be able to chase even tuskers down, and keep clear of the torryxes, no problem.”

  The crowd pressed closer to the shop, so Jessnee backed up. “You are right. With motorcycles and rifles and antibiotics and a hundred other inventions, we would be strong enough to fight our own battles. We could take care of ourselves without help from the Claws.” He swept his arm in a big arc. “But how do we get there? How long will it take? And how do we keep our families safe during the next couple weeks?” He stuck up one finger after another. “Take communication. I finished stringing telegraph wire from east to west. Already it enables us to send messages faster than the Claws can fly. The southern line should be finished today, straight to Soulfish Lake. I’ve been working on that project for six months! Next is transportation. Better roads will take time, but thanks to Lord Metookonsen’s quick thinking, in exchange for sparing the life of White Talon, he negotiated rights-of-way for a railroad line to the Aliosha Mountains. We need cooperation from the Claws or they’ll never let us build it.”

  “Who cares about a railroad!”

  “A railroad means cheaper ore, more mining, more stone for you masons, paved streets, iron for tools, and quicker time to market for crops during harvest. It means less food spoils and fewer Hands die of hunger. But it will take time to build. In the world I came from it took centuries to do all this! We can do it faster, but it takes lots of people. I built a seed drill to speed up planting, but we need combines, tractors, and refrigeration. We need schools to teach our children how to use the things we build, and we need to do all these things together in an orderly fashion because they all reinforce each other. The key is making sure the Claws see benefits as well, so they work with us and not against us.” While he was talking, a runner arrived with a message. Jessnee unrolled it, read it, scowled, then held it up. “The new telegraph line is up and running. The first message from Soulfish Lake may be our last. We know that the migration from the west is larger than last time. We moved men and wagons west to get ready, plus additional teams north of the Silverthorn. We expected the migration from the south to be small, like usual. We were wrong. It is twice as large.”

  The fury on the men’s faces became somber. Their leader said, “Twice? That’s bad, but we’re tough. Your telegraph just gave us three days warning. We can adjust. Move teams. Without Claws.”

  The others echoed, “Yeah, without Claws!”

  Jessnee walked up and stuck his nose right in the ringleader’s face. “You weren’t listening. The herds migrating from the south are not twice what we got from the south seven years ago, they are twice what the western migration is this year!”

  “Double the west? This year? Impossible!” The man staggered back like he’d been punched in the gut.

  Another threw up his breakfast. “My brother’s down south! Let me through!” He pushed his way out of the middle of the group and ran away.

  Shoroko opened the door as the last of them scattered. “What’re we going to do, Jessnee?”

  Inside, the only sound was Thedarra weeping. Her family’s farm was a day from the advancing edge of the herd, and on the wrong side of the
river. Shoroko wanted to wait for Melissa’s return, but knew what he had to do. “I’m no engineer, I’m a farmer and a fighter. You work on the machines; I’ll ride south and face the herds. Orokolga, will you join me? The Browns can never talk sense into the animals, but maybe I can. If not, you’re a lot scarier than me.”

  “Being called scary is not normally a compliment, but I accept,” said Orokolga.

  “Makri, do you have a unicorn horn-tip to spare?” said Shoroko.

  “To spare? That’s like asking if I have an extra gold ingot lying around. What do you need it for?”

  “My klafe is sharp and hard as steel, but I need a more potent knife.”

  Makri’s normally jolly face displayed panic. He took Shoroko by the shoulders and shook him. “Are you insane? If the Claws find out… You must never use such a thing!”

  Shoroko touched his forehead to Makri’s. “I know you won this year’s minting contract. Do you have one?”

  Shoroko spent the next two hours pedaling a sharpening wheel and enduring Makri’s pacing, scolding and finger wagging. When both kinds of sparks stopped flying, he wrapped the end of the horn with leather strips for a grip, fashioned a sheath and admired his work. The edge was passable, but the tip would pierce anything. The spiral rainbow sheen of the silvery horn was entrancing. He waved the knife back and forth, tested its balance and practiced a few lunges. It wrestled against him, twisting in his hand to get free, but his grip was firm. After a few minutes of struggle, it submitted. He strapped the forbidden knife to his leg.

  When their food and supplies were loaded onto Fear, Shoroko said goodbye. “Tell Melissa to meet me at the Census Stone, so we can continue what we started in the back of the jeep.”

  Everyone was puzzled about what a jeep was, except Jessnee, who was puzzled about where.

  Chapter 28: Danger at Sea

  April 18th. Morning. The wilderness near Four Rivers.

  The deal was simple. R.J. promised not to run away and get himself killed, and Melissa promised not to kill him. Then if he arrived at Four Rivers alive and with his bike, he’d spill his secrets, and if she got the doors to Nehenoth and Earth open, he’d get a free, one-way ticket home.