The Bird and The Dragon
Viper's Ring: Part 3

Haven’s inner city was part of the metropolis with functional lighting and regularly washed streets. Viper held no power here, but his smuggling operations indirectly served the rich and the influential providing them items and substances that would have been otherwise unattainable. The navigator’s position in the Eastern Trading Union would have justified the Bird’s presence on these streets, but he wanted to keep Bladewater out of this case.

This was a hunt for the Bird alone and he didn’t want the navigator to see how he did it. The man had known the navigator for over a year and her opinions had grown important for him. He wanted to keep the ugly and bloody side of his northern heritage hidden from the woman who against all the odds seemed to think a good person was hiding behind the Bird’s façade.

The Bird had found out what he could about the jeweler who had taken Aldermei Veringe. Jeerhooven was in good standing in the society, but he was rumored to possess an unnaturally strong interest in history. Most likely he kept Alder in his apartment, which was located in the same building as his shop. It was late afternoon when the Bird found the right street.

These roads were patrolled, and the shop’s illuminated windows showed a hired guard inside. Trespassing the shop was a doomed idea and the Bird decided to check the backyard hoping to replace a kitchen door or a suitable window.

An alley provided him something much better; a briquet hatch was installed on the wall. It was used to shovel the heating fuel straight to the storage in the basement. The hatch was large enough to let a man pass through, but it was made of metal and equipped with a sturdy lock. The Bird leaned on the wall and removed a shoe to excuse his stopping. He took out a set of lockpicks and operated the lock open. The Bird didn’t hurry, he put the shoe back on, opened the hatch, and lowered himself inside.

He fell to a half-filled briquet bin in a dark room. The Bird touched around cautiously and was relieved when his nose picked up the smell of wood. The latest fuel load had been woody material instead of the black, messy, oily naphtha briquets the poor people used for heating and cooking.

The man did not even know what the black stuff was. Bladewater had said it was gathered from the Shallow Sea where it floated in rafts like something in the bottom was creating it. The navigator had talked about the starship cocoons in the bottom of the sea and the man had listened with the incredulous curiosity he often felt towards her stories.

There was no light and the Bird hit his head on a balk in the roof. He cursed silently but profoundly and managed to climb from the bin. There was a wall and following the wall he found a door. It was closed from the outside and there were no signs of the mechanism on this side of the door. Even the doorframe was fitting tightly, providing no opening to operate the latch from this side. The Bird pressed his brow and both palms against the door. He forced himself to open his dragon sight.

The shapes and energies filled his senses as a nauseating flood of colors. They were agonizingly bright and so intense his stomach cramped. There was no Bird, this was Jonathan who had only learned the basics of using the resonance. He had never mastered it because the overload to his senses was too much to bear.

He saw a flow of disgusting pale green mixing with rotating triangles of yellow. The yellow was pale, pure, and beautiful, like the afterimage of lightning, he could feel it in the bottom of his eyes. But it meant metal. Jonathan concentrated, tasting a shade of green as nausea in his mouth and nose. He pushed the yellow, turning the triangles over where they tumbled, rotating in ways no three-dimensional shapes should do. There was a clack and the door opened under his weight.

The Bird kneeled on the floor, waiting for the nausea to pass. His senses returned slowly to their normal operation, the coldness of the floor ceased to be waves of grayish violet, and his breath was no more represented by the red outlines of a wavering bubble. Finally, the Bird opened his eyes and noticed a faint light in the corridor. There was a lantern hanging on a nail by the stairs. The fuel storage was at the other end of the corridor and there were two empty doorframes and one, closed door between him and the staircase.

The roof was so high that the Bird could stand straight. He dismissed the storage and walked straight to the locked door to listen. From the inside, he could hear a voice reciting a poem in ainadu’s language. It was repeating three verses over and over again. “The measure of the blood/The weight of a word/Those who dare shall prevail.” The Bird pressed the handle. The door was not locked.

The room had two lamps and Alder was sitting on a narrow bed by the wall. He was shackled to the bedframe from his hands and his naked upper body was covered in bruises. A chair with a side table covered in countless round marks from drinking glasses was beside the bed. Alder stared at the floor reciting his verses.

The Bird touched the ring in his pocket considering his next actions. He could try to carry the boy out using the briquet hatch but the verses made him nervous. They carried the rhythm of some ritual, like a blessing of a dragon.

“He is in the stairs, rebel.” Alder raised his head, and someone looked at the Bird from the boy’s brown eyes. Someone older, much more confident, and substantially more dangerous than the thin, abused kid. Heavy steps were approaching the door.

The Bird hid himself in the shadows beside a cupboard. A key turned inside the lock the Bird did not recall having fastened.

The jeweler stepped inside carrying a bottle and a notebook. Jeerhooven was a medium-sized man with a soft belly. Rumour told he always wore gloves to hide the skin disease in his hands. Jeerhooven didn’t even look around him, he just put his bottle on the table and sat down, exhaling heavily. His eyes observed Alder.

“And who you think you used to be?” Eshmahner Jeerhooven muttered to himself and opened his notebook. “Did you dwell within the stars or in the planet’s dust?” Alder kept on repeating the verses and the jeweler wrote something down. He looked up when the boy’s voice faltered. Alder flexed his arms, the shackles opened, and the Bird bit his tongue.

This was not a good sign. Scattered memories of a dead ainadu would have been manageable, but this was a memory strong enough to possess a child and to use skills and powers whose existence should have been unknown to the street urchin.

“Stop that!” Jeerhooven stood up sounding irritated. He had no clue what was going on.

“I followed them,” the memory of an unknown ainadu said in the northern language and raised the boy’s body to its feet. “There is lots to do. Lots to make certain of. You are but a nuisance.” The words were harsh, but the tone was playful like the speaker didn’t hold Jeerhooven as a threat.

The Bird decided to act. The memory stored in the matrix should have stayed there, this world needed no more conflicts. He stepped forth but Jeerhooven took hold of the boy. Alder moved like he had a body half a meter taller than the frame he had. The boy evaded the man and took hold of his neck.

“No, you are not him,” the memory in Alder whispered and kicked the jeweler into the knee. Jeerhooven dropped heavily to the floor and snorted furiously. Alder attacked him using moves that made the Bird grimace. The memory was someone who had studied the close combat techniques carefully and by the long route and only the restrictions set by Alder’s fragile frame prevented the jeweler from turning into a pile of pound meat.

The Bird put the ring on and assaulted Alder who was kicking the man on the ground. He took hold of the small body who fought him with adult fury and an excellent technique. The Bird opened the kid’s skin by scratching his arm with the ring. The stone woke and Alder tried to escape but submitted when the matrix lighted up.

“I can help you, rebel. I’ll tell you the secrets of the dragons.” The voice coming from Alder’s lips was soft and pleading.

“Who you used to be?” The Bird did not loosen his grip. He needed only time for the matrix to suck away the memory. He hoped it would work, hoped it would suck away the ainadu and not the boy.

“Jenet of Ardara. The seeker of the lost ones, the keeper of the order. Who are you?” The man had never heard about any Jenet but the histories written down on this side of the empty vastness of the space were scarce. The rebel ainadu had brought only a few records from their previous world.

“Patrik,” he answered. A long sight escaped Jenet, but it didn’t sound like a soul leaving a body.

“You are a descendant of the traitors.”

“At least I haven’t spent a century inside a matrix and woken up to possess a kid!”

“So long?” It was almost a whisper. “Tell me, offspring of the renegades, is Ikanji the strategej still alive? He came here with the rebels.”

“What letter of the word century was too hard to understand?” the Bird evaded answering. He was not going to give any more hints to Jenet. He had kept his hold on the boy and the matrix had been in contact with his blood.

“You can stop it. Only one spirit can fit inside at a given time,” Jenet said. The man glimpsed the matrix. No more blood was flowing between the ring and the boy. The stone was again bright green, shining luminously.

”You have my gratitude, young man,” Jenet slipped a bit and kicked unconscious Jeerhooven again. The Bird let go of him and stepped away while Jenet dashed in the other direction. They stared at each other: the involuntary heir to the northern powers and a memory who had followed the ainadu rebels on their way to the planet chosen by their dragon. The Bird put the ring back in his pocket.

“A shadow of him is inside me, but it is of no importance,” Jenet said. The Bird retreated towards the door and remembered it to be locked only when his back hit the handle.

“My mission is not about you. You may live and you may tell the tale,” Jenet stated.

The lock clicked. Jonathan had witnessed this kind of effortless use of resonance only with his father, lord Ikanji. He didn’t hesitate but ran to the fuel storage. He did not look back even when there were smacking noises and a wet crush. No, he jumped in the fuel bin and climbed through the hatch. Jenet was not a creature he wanted to stand against. He would only fail without preparation and he should tell the North about this incident. Tell his father that a memory was hunting him.

But when Jonathan walked away from the inner city, he didn’t think about the history of the mission Jenet’s memory had mentioned. No, he thought about Aldermei Veringe who would never come home. He thought about the interrogations, restrictions, and the plain disdain that would follow if he reported this to anyone in the north.

Jonathan’s feet led him to the familiar streets where the bars and restaurants were coming alive with the evening. Jonathan’s heart was heavy, and he wanted to forget the anxiety and guilt he was feeling.

The dragons, the politics, and the political players were not of his interest. They were issues to be dealt with by his honorable and responsible half-brother Patrik. But there was no one else but Jonathan to take care of Alder and the ring felt heavy in his pocket. He considered throwing it to the sea, but burying the boy’s memories in the mud at the end of the pier would have been too terrible a burden to bear.

Later in the night, a familiar hand took hold of Jonathan’s shoulder. He turned to see Bladewater’s tattooed head. The navigator did not look disappointed or angry, only relieved upon seeing him. Jonathan tried to smile but despite the drunkenness, his lips trembled.

“Oh Bird,” Bladewater said softly and hugged him. “Was it so bad?”

“I am okay,” Jonathan lied but pressed his cheek to the navigator’s shoulder feeling tears in his eyes.

“No, you are not. You will come with me. Now.”

“I have an unfinished beer.”

The navigator took Jonathan’s glass and drank it empty. “What beer?”

Jonathan did not argue but followed Bladewater. Soon he was on her sofa, wrapped in a blanket and telling her about Aldermei and Jenet. The ring was on the table. The navigator listened and did not interrupt until Jonathan had finished.

“How do you feel?” she asked softly.

A tear rolled down Jonathan’s cheek. “It was my fault. I don’t want to be a mess like this anymore.”