The Bird and The Dragon
The Rebels: Part 1

09-345 Parisya

Broken walls and fallen trees, burned furniture and the spoiled garden, the warm spring’s fractured pool, the abandoned stables, and the empty yards with only dust and shadows occupying them: the dragon had released her fury on the estate. The personnel and the guards had first fled but later regathered to the village. Kvenrei observed the estate with his binoculars lying on the cold grass. He was grateful for leaving the kids in safety.

“The worm took this personally,” Khiandri said.

“The destruction is not as bad as I feared,” Kvenrei answered

“Only a small part of her fury was targeted at the buildings. Most of it took place in the orbit. This was just an afterthought, the last platter thrown to the wall.” Khiandri said.

“The dragon has stayed there since it arrived. We have no recordings of it moving outside the area,” Esrau reported from the downslope, where he almost disappeared in his camo clothes.

The nocturna had brought with him a company of his own. 127 nocturna was a lot and in any other situation, Kvenrei would have considered it a treason to help such a group to this side of the borders. But they were here for the dragon, to stop what Bladewater and Ikanji had started with Marci’s help.

Patrik and Kvenrei knew a political catastrophe was inevitable should someone notice the foreign troops’ presence. The strategej didn’t mind the subject and Kvenrei hadn’t figured out a better alternative. Luckily Parisya was far from everything and Agiisha had disappeared from her own. There had been no troop movements besides the nocturna.

“Did you replace a connection?” Patrik asked Marci. His right hand was weak, and his shoulder was stiff. He was not crawling on the hill but waiting with the girl below it. Marci’s ability to contact the orbit had crumbled together with the elevator cable. She could sense the northern great matrix but was unable to step in. The girl said Agiisha had closed it from her.

“No, but I can feel her presence. She is like a storm outside the windows.” Marci claimed naming Agiisha was like opening her mind to the dragon.

The scouts had reported the dragon’s human body stood in the estate’s winter garden, whose glass paneling had been left unbroken. No one knew how much Agiisha sensed her surroundings without the technology in the dragon body. The stories mentioned the lesser flying machines to have operated as dragons’ senses and weapons.

“It is waiting for us to approach,” Khiandri said when they planned their actions. “We must confront it.”

”That would be madness,” Patrik disagreed. “You can’t approach it.”

“Yes, this is madness. The dragon is insane. I am called unhinged. We are talking about an ancient artificial, whose power we carry in our veins. We don’t operate with the sane parameters anymore; we are following a dream of a better tomorrow. And dreams are madness only if they fail,” Khiandri said.

“In that case they are nightmares.” Patrik pointed out.

“You were not supposed to say that. But Agiisha will not touch my mind or body now, for she knows her dragon body will turn against her if she tries anything like that.”

“The orbital dragon or not, but as long as she stays there, she is under 90 percent coverage of our weaponry,” Esrau said. His men were positioned around the perimeter. The weapons from the end of the world were unreliable, but nocturna possessed surprisingly many of them. Maybe too many, considering Esrau had agreed with Bladewater’s principle of not to kill Agiisha.

In the afternoon Kvenrei led them through the ruined garden of his childhood home. The pavements were mostly untouched, only some tiles were broken, but the front yard sported the tracks of bare feet, molten into the stone tiles. Branches had fallen from the trees and there were pits on the flowerbeds showing the rock below the estate. Some of the windows were broken, the remains of the front door were inside the hall and part of the roof was missing.

“Mom, I must go inside.” Marci had stopped at the front door and was standing her foot on the broken doorstep.

“We can sightsee later, dear. We have a meeting with the worm.”

“No Mom. Dad is calling me. There is a connection inside. I must go closer.” Marci walked cautiously inside, stepping over the broken glass and crushed wood.

“We must keep together,” Patrik said.

“It could be a trap,” Khiandri said.

“Dad has encrypted it and she can’t touch the signal,” Marci walked deeper into the hall.

“Did she inherit that stubbornness from her father?” Khiandri asked the brothers.

“Certainly,” Kvenrei said.

“Without doubt,” Patrik agreed.

Most rooms inside were unspoiled, but some were destroyed to the last piece of furniture. Kvenrei felt oddly sad. Despite everything that he had been through this place had been his home.

Marci stepped carefully to the room on the seaside of the house, where the grand piano still stood. The surfaces were covered in dust and the keys showed the dragon’s touch, it had played a few notes.

Marci walked past the instrument and to the back of the room, where she opened a tall airing window. She took hold of the rail outside, turned it, and pushed it away. Patrik grabbed her back to prevent her from falling. Marci pointed to the outside wall, where metalwork had turned out forming narrow stairs.

“Did you know about that?” Kvenrei asked Khiandri, but she shook her head.

“Clever to hide them to the outside wall,” Patrik said.

Marci climbed out of the window and leaned to the wall while stepping down and disappearing around the corner towards what Kvenrei believed was the kitchen pantry.

“Here is a door,” the girl said. Patrik and Kvenrei looked at each other and then Esrau.

“I’ll guard your return route,” the nocturna decided.

A low door opened to very narrow spiral stairs descending through the rock on which the house was built. They used the lantern on the upstairs and went down, below the basement, but above the sea level on Kvenrei’s estimate. The stairs were of unadorned metal, but there were wooden panels on the walls quieting the echoes from their steps. Kvenrei pondered what he was going to replace.

“The weapon cache below the stairs was not Ikanji’s only secret. He didn’t trust the dragon or anyone.” Khiandri said, like having guessed his thoughts.

The stairs ended in a tiny room. There was only a sturdy wooden door, opening to a room that looked like a combined chirurgeon’s workshop, a chemical laboratory, and a museum. Khiandri looked carefully around breathing the cool, dry air. “That bastard. He did this to continue his mother’s work.”

Kvenrei had no memories of this place, but he knew what the padding of the working table in the middle of the room smelled and how there were leather straps below it to be fixed into metal rings by the sides. He closed his eyes.

“Kvenrei, are you all right? You went pale,” Patrik asked.

“Dad made my matrixes here. I am sure of it,” Kvenrei said, he could feel his blood flowing through the patterns in the bones.

Kvenrei touched the table. He thought of Jesrade, bound into the table, her bones bare. He was sure the little sister had acknowledged the process, for she had been much more ambitious than him. Kvenrei sat on the table, its covering was soft under his weight.

“Can’t this one wait? We have a dragon up there,” Patrik reminded.

“A moment,” Kvenrei muttered and lay down, hoping to wake his sleeping memories. He wanted to remember his father in all aspects, including the horrible parts. The memories and the truth behind them felt important now, as the last shadow of Ikanji had left the planet.

The table cover still carried the faint smell of the cleaning medium. On top of it was a row of lamps and Kvenrei imagined the bright illumination making a pale halo of Ikanji’s hair. He heard his father’s voice telling him what was going to happen. The cool fingers with the perfect lacquering on each short nail. The soft sound of a drawer opening, the faint clinks of the equipment set ready. The sharp smell of alcohol. Metal clinking against glass.

“He did my matrixes in several patches. The last one was when I was fifteen, a little before I ran away,” Kvenrei said, feeling the locked memories flowing back into his mind.

There had been no pain; only the sounds and the vibration carried by the bones and reaching the bottom of his skull. Ikanji had been deep in concentration and Kvenrei remembered his impotent rage. He hadn’t chosen the matrixes, he didn’t want to be his father’s creation. Kvenrei remembered his reasoning, the curses, the screaming, and finally the pleading on this table. He had been unable to move, unable to turn his head.

“Why?” Kvenrei had asked.

“Because the dragons swim inside you and use you for every moment of your existence. We built them, but we are their slaves, and they are slaves to the great matrix we carry. The rebellion is not concluded before they agree to our terms. These matrixes are your way to the freedom, with them you can choose your fate.” Ikanji had replied.

”I don’t want to be of this blood. I am not going to be part of your mad fight!”

“You can’t choose your birth, but you can choose your life. I am going to give you the tools for that end. The dragon may separate you from using the resonance, but it can’t separate you from your blood. The power in the blood is the dragon’s core and cutting you out of it would be like cutting her own feet away.”

“But such use is forbidden in the prayer…”

“Forget the rubbish about balancing the great matrix. I’ll help you to drink from the power you are a vessel to. Stop thinking like a slave.”

Ikanji had talked about the dragons and the great matrix whose existence was a prerequisite for the dragons’ existence. It flowed physically in the ainadu blood. Kvenrei remembered his dad showing schematics and explaining what he was doing and how it would work. He remembered his angst; over thirty years later it felt distant. He remembered the determination in Ikanji’s blue eyes and how eventually something faded from them, like a spark of hope dying.

“I hoped you had grown enough to understand, Kven. The matrixes will stay. They will help you on your path. I’d like you to have appreciated this gift, but you have your mountain to climb, and I don’t understand your route or challenges. I’ll give you a door to freedom. Maybe you will one day open it.” Ikanji had said. At some point later Kvenrei’s consciousness and memory had faded.

Kvenrei opened his eyes. Only a moment had passed, but he felt again like the betrayed youth he had been. But now he understood what father had been saying. The blood was flowing through the matrixes, through the bones. Hot and strong and Kvenrei understood Agiisha had certainly known they existed. His matrixes had been why the dragon had been interested in him.

“Are you with us?” Khiandri asked.

“I just remembered what happened here. The memories had been hidden.”

“Oh Kvenrei,” she patted his shoulder.

“Yes, I have been stupid. More than stupid. Father was right in so many items, but I was not able or willing to listen to him.”

“On the other hand, he was not known to listen to others,” Patrik said. He hadn’t touched anything but scanned the room and its equipment carefully.

“Patrik, would you have wanted to be part of this?” Kvenrei asked.

“Once I would have said yes and considered myself obliged to carry those matrixes. Now I am grateful for the freedom I got.”

“I always thought it was weird Father was not interested in you. You were everything he wanted me to be,” Kvenrei said without sarcasm. The hard feelings towards Patrik were almost gone.

“You told Ikanji didn’t plan your birth. He had the habit of concentrating his energy on the items he could fully control,” Khiandri said.

“Mother said I was a lucky accident,” Patrik said in a neutral tone, “She is a temperamental woman. I imagine that after the romance was over Ikanji didn’t keep in contact with her. It might have been…”

“Too dramatic,” Kvenrei filled. “I once saw Marya and Anhava arguing about something Marya was not accepting.”

Patrik smiled a little and nodded. He loved his mother but agreed her having a demanding personality.

Marci was looking through the equipment hanging on the back wall. There were all kinds of weapons, both blades and firearms, pieces of armor, and unknown technological devices like silky black cloth flowing on the wall like a shadow, a white box with some markings, a bright plate of glass, and items that could have been jewelry.

Marci stopped at a matte black device, sized and shaped like a notebook, and took it down from its nook on the wall. She turned holding it in both hands. The faint dots of green light in her eyes were of the same shade of green as the row of light on the device’s side. Marci smiled staring into nothing.

“What is that?” Kvenrei whispered and Khiandri shook her head.

“Targeting device for the orbital bombardment,” Patrik said and Kvenrei assumed he was joking until he noted a handwritten label glued in the bottom.

“Maybe we should take it from her before the orbital shipyard falls?” Kvenrei said, but Marci’s eyes focused back on the room.

“Ikanji sends his greetings. He is in the orbit, and he is the dragon’s soul.”

“What about Bladewater?” Kvenrei asked with wavering voice.

“The navigator has tamed her ship. It is still underdeveloped, but Navigator must grow and change to properly sing with it. They are in contact with Ikanji, they need each other to make both the ship and the dragon work. They are a weak newborn and a sickly elder, but they support each other.”

“Tell me more about Ikanji and Agiisha,” Khiandri said, keeping her tone down.

“She attacked to reclaim her own, even if she can’t use it. Ikanji has sung to her from the orbit and met her in the great matrix. She is not alone anymore.”

Kvenrei leaned on the table. “What do you mean, Agiisha was unable to use her dragon body?”

“When the world ended that body was damaged and left in the orbit. Maybe Agiisha was unable to send her mind in there.” Khiandri said.

“She is ready to talk. Dad’s phase cannon is synchronized and targeted, but he says only one of the nocturna weapons is on the green area of operation.”

“Marci, that version of him is but a fragmented collection of a dead man’s memories, edited and curated by a dragon, fed to operate a war machine in space. Not your father,” Khiandri said, but Marci didn’t heed her opinion.