Wings of Renewal: A Solarpunk Dragon Anthology Page 23

  There was a large conclave of dragons in those mountains northeast of Kolozsvár (what the Romanians call Cluj), a growing number, one of the largest conclaves of wild dragons in the world. Dragons love mountains, but only a certain kind of mountain. The Alps once had some, but the white ice-breathers of those slopes were long since gone. The Himalayas boasted a fine roost, but they were so inaccessible that even tracking them by satellite was impossible. The Rockies in America. The Andes, mainly on the Chilean side. And the Carpathians, the craggy, forested mountains of what had been Hungary until one of the wars of two centuries ago. My Aerie patrolled three countries, extending well beyond the borders of states that still hated one another, down deep. But the Confederation superseded all, and we were its eyes and ears out here in the wild.

  The dragon had gone down a few klicks northeast of Bistrita, near a commune called Telciu, so small I didn't know the old Hungarian name for it. The chit told me my guide would meet me at an inn in Nasaud, a tiny town halfway between the two, where the Dragoneyes had an outpost. By the internal calculations of the lightfibers inside Kodály's skin, we'd arrive there in about two hours.

  At the speed we were flying—around 220 kph—my scalp should have been slowly peeled from my skull, were I fully outside. Most Dragonflies operated like pilots, glass and electrons completely enclosing them in their saddles, protected from the elements, but I preferred to operate with the saddle mostly open to the sky, a thin shield before me, and let come what may. How could I hope to wake the soul of the Dragon if I did not feel what she did?

  * * *

  I set down in an empty wheat field on the edge of the Nasaud commune, after circling it twice to make sure it had already been harvested. At this elevation autumn seized the crops early, and in late September they were already being baled to dry. The farmer came out from his house, tramping across his field to greet me.

  “Ola,” he said, warily, but with respect in his eyes. Dragonflies were rare, and benefitted from centuries of tales about dragons, but we knew ourselves to be little more than airborne forest rangers, game wardens, though of the largest land game on earth.

  “Ola,” I said, trying the Romanian, which I'm sure I pronounced as if I had cotton stuffed in my cheeks. “Vă mulțumim pentru că ne- a utiliza domeniul tau.” That was supposed to be “thank you for letting us use your field,” and it must have been fairly close to correct, because although he grimaced, he also nodded, his beard wagging. He answered in Amerish, though. “You be gone by nightfall. I have flocks.”

  My Kodály eats sunlight, not sheep, I wanted to say, but though she was unlikely to rise up with a roar and carry off his sheep, she did look like she might be dangerous, and when the Dragonflies are out, dragons are usually in the area. I couldn't blame him.

  “I will be gone before then,” I said. “I need to go to the bar called Nikolai's to meet someone. Can you direct me?”

  In response he swiveled and pointed back over his farmhouse. “You go to the road, you turn left. It is along there.”

  I thanked him and started off across his field, with him still staring at Kodály. I wasn't concerned about that. She was far less fragile than she looked.

  The main road in town was unpaved, packed earth. There was a tractor rolling quietly along it, loaded with hay, the driver sitting with his feet propped up on the engine, a stalk in his teeth. I moved over to let it by, caught my reflection in the wide solar panels along the side. I looked like an aviator from a century past, maybe more, with a fringe of hair falling loose under my leather cap. I remained thin, more from lack of appetite than exercise, though flying kept my arms and legs toned.

  The contact's name was Ionescu, which is as popular a name as Nagy in Hungary or Jones in Wales, and I wondered if I might have difficulty identifying the guide. I wished I'd read Imre's brief on the way here.

  My boots kicked up dust on the pebbly road, and I breathed the clean air of the eastern mountains, redolent of hay and barley, the yeasty smell of brewing beer, and … something else. Just a flash of it, a faint tang, borne on the breeze and carried away on it, a sharp smell like cloves and cinnamon, with a hint of smoke. I knew it, and it made me smile. Dragon country indeed.

  I rounded the curve of the road where it crossed a brook, and there on the right was Nikolai's, although there was no sign to tell me so. Two round tables sat at the side of the road, bordered by a fence with a short gate, standing open, as was the door to the building behind it. At one table sat two people, a man and a woman, the man nuzzling the woman's neck, with his hands somewhere under the table. The woman didn't look particularly aroused by this; in fact, she reacted far more to my appearance at the bend in the road than she did to the man's ministrations.

  She didn't get up, but she was at least aware of me, where the man was absorbed in other pursuits. I wondered how I would get his attention, when the woman said, “Hé, Dragonfly. Come have a drink.”

  I stopped at the fence, a couple of meters away. “Ionescu?”

  She raised her glass, half-full of beer, and took a long swallow. The man seemed unaware of me, locked to her neck. “Your partner?” I said. “You are Coupled?” She seemed very young for such a thing.

  She laughed, musical and trilling, an enticing laugh without any hint of shame. “Oh, no. My Coupled is elsewhere today. This is someone else.”

  I tried not to show my shock. Openly flouting the Coupling, right on the street, in a town small enough that everyone must know what she was doing. What kind of disaster was this woman going to be as a partner?

  “Relax, Dragonfly. That does not matter here,” she said, reading my thoughts. “Sit down and have a drink with me.”

  I would rather have drunk from an outhouse than shared that table. “We should go. My Dragon is waiting.”

  “You think she will run out of fuel?” Ionescu said. But she laughed again and drained her glass, then wiped her mouth and pawed at the man. “David, go home. I will see you tomorrow.” She brushed his head off her neck, and he seemed to slump inward and collapse, like a deflating balloon. Ionescu stood and tucked her shirt back into her trousers. Her outfit was much like mine, a shade darker green, multi-pocketed and practical, and her shoes were made for hiking.

  “You know where we are going?” she said.

  I nodded, took a glance at the sky. Noon, or close to it. “I have the satellite photo.”

  “That's not what I mean,” she said, reaching behind her for a jacket and plucking it off the wrought-iron chair. “You won't be able to land there. We'll have to hike to the body. Do you know where it is?”

  “No,” I had to admit.

  She grinned. “Good thing you have me, then.”

  On the way back to the field I caught myself glancing at this woman. She had coal-dark hair and matching eyes, and she was young. At my age everyone looks young, but she couldn't have been out of her teens. She was curvy, physically almost a full-grown woman, but with a youthful athleticism that showed in the bounce of her step, as if she could walk all day and never tire. Her whole mien was reckless, untamed except by whatever will she exercised over herself. I thought she would be unreliable as a guide and dangerous as a companion. Dragoneyes often were, but I hated to have it be so obvious so early on.

  “Where is the outpost?” I said. “I was told we had one here.”

  She shrugged. “It was never more than a house on the edge of town,” she said, whirling about and pointing back the way we came. She jogged backward as easily as forward. “Back there. But now there's just me. Just Dragoneyes, no Dragonflies here. The closest Aerie is in Bistrica.”

  I knew that. I'd been to Bistrica many times, on routine patrol, but never up this way.

  Kodály lay lazily just where I'd left her, and as she came into view, Ionescu gasped. The corner of my mouth turned up. She did have that effect on people. Walking across the field, I willed her to raise her head and greet me, but of course she didn't, simply lying quiescent and waiting for us to approach, s
ubjects seeking audience with the queen.

  I approached her snout in the usual way, heedless of what Ionescu would think, but after I had greeted Kodály, I realized she had stopped several meters off, waiting.

  I looked quizzically at her. “May I approach?” she said. It was a formal response, very stilted, totally at odds with her personality so far. Proximity to Kodály had made her serious, focused and solemn, and I began to see there was more to Ionescu than sex and adolescence.

  Responding in kind, I said, “You may. She is sleeping, but she will be glad of your company.”

  Ionescu circled the beast, keeping more than an arm's length away, eyes riveted to Kodály's flashing sides, color in her cheeks. Her breathing was shallow, light, her eyes wide but curious, awed but not afraid. She stopped at the nose and glanced at me, as if for permission. I dipped my head and gave it.

  She approached Kodály exactly as I had and greeted her in Romanian, pressing her forehead to the skin of the craft. Ionescu left herself there for a long moment, then straightened and gave a little bow to Kodály, and turned to me. “It's an honor to fly with the two of you.”

  Her words struck me as the rising sun strikes a collector. No one had ever referred to Kodály as a being before, including her with me as an entity. It was a measure of great respect, and I warmed to Ionescu—not forgetting her earlier display, but tempering my distaste a bit.

  “Let's get about it, then,” I said, as solemn as Ionescu herself.

  * * *

  I mounted Kodály at the saddle and laid my arm down her flank for Ionescu to take hold of and climb. She did, gripping my gauntlets for extra purchase, hand to forearm, and though her hands were small, almost delicate, her grip was viselike and cords of muscle rippled under her alabaster skin. When she brushed against me, climbing into the rear saddle, I had a flash, like a vision, of Ionescu as a faerie woman of ancient tales, Csipkerózsika, who the Americans call Snow White. It passed as quickly as it had come. She seemed unaware of it, working her way into a comfortable position in the saddle, concentrating on getting her boots into the unfamiliar stirrups. Her calves bunched and stretched, and she nodded in satisfaction, pulling her knees a bit closer together and raising her eyebrows at me.

  “Ready?” I said.

  She nodded. I laid my hand on the console between my legs and Kodály flickered to life. I turned back to Ionescu. “I ride mostly open,” I said, “so it will be windy. I can make your saddle enclosed, if you prefer.”

  “No!” she said. “I'll ride the way you do.” It wasn't bravado I heard in her voice, but excitement. She was a child again.

  Then let her experience a child's wonder. I spoke to Kodály and curled my fingers around the reins. “Fel az ég felé!” I cried, and we leaped for the sky.

  Over the rush of the wind, I heard Ionescu's imprecation, “Sfântă Marie, Maica Domnului!” Holy Mary, Mother of God. I thought it appropriate.

  Kodály's sinuous tail bent and we rolled to the side, diving over the town, a Dragon indeed, and bolted across the treetops northwest toward Telciu. Nasaud dropped away behind us, and we rose up a long steep climb, the edge of the valley, and then we were clear above the range. Stretching below us the carpet of forest, a tapestry of green and gold and fire of early autumn. Telciu was just over the next ridge of mountains.

  I felt two hands on my shoulders. Ionescu, reaching for me. The only way she might do that was to push her saddle as far forward as it would go, and rise up almost on the skin of the Dragon, with no more than her legs covered by Kodály's hide, as mine were. One of her hands tapped me. I raised the screen a few centis to block the wind and allow us to talk.

  “Dragon hunts,” she said, and brushed her hand down my arm to the right, drawing my gaze. I could see the marks, the long, straight scars in the tree line where they had shunted aside the trunks in search of prey. There were large boars in these hills, deer, bears. Dragons could eat anything, but meat was their preference, and woe to any who came between them when they were hungry. Including humans, who had long ago learned to accept dragon-losses as part of the price for having such otherworldly magnificence grace their skies from time to time. Few things were as awe-inspiring as a dragon in flight.

  Not even a Dragon. Though I loved her, Kodály was not a dragon true. Not until she came alive, or showed her life to me and let me share it.

  None of the local dragons was up this day, for which I was grateful, with a wistful sadness. I had never flown with a true dragon. We were advised on the strictest terms to avoid it, on pain of dismissal from the corps. The few attempts that had been made were failures that resulted in destruction of both Dragon and Dragonfly.

  We had the sky to ourselves, and Kodály cruised peacefully at half power. Ionescu's hands did not leave my shoulders for some time, and only then to descend along my arms and come to rest on my waist, as if we rode tandem, pressed together. Though only her hands touched me, it seemed I could feel her body molded against my back, and I was as aware of her as of my own flesh. So different from other Dragoneyes, who kept as much distance as they could.

  Fifteen minutes sufficed to reach Telciu, and I circled the town from above, good practice in any circumstance, allowing the town to know we were there, but this time there were other reasons as well. I had seen something as we dipped over the flanking mountain and wanted a closer look.

  It was a burn scar, right on the edge of town, down the center of a field and over what looked like the remains of a house. And there was another, forty-five degrees anticlockwise, a similar pattern.

  “They took some damage,” Ionescu said. “Some of the villagers were killed. Children.”

  “When was this?” I said, cursing Imre for not mentioning it before. My fault for not reading the brief. But he knew I wouldn't, so it was still his fault.

  “First one? Two days ago. Second attack was yesterday afternoon.”

  “What caused it?”

  She removed a hand, put it back. It was as good as a shrug. “I guess we should find out.”

  I landed in the northeastern burn field, the one closer to the dragon's carcass, according to the chit.

  The air was redolent of charred wheat stalks, and cinnamon and cloves. The attack was so recent it still smoldered and smelt of dragon, and so would all the wheat in the field. Two, three hectares, lost. Which would have been bad enough, without the house.

  Ionescu walked to the edge of the burn and knelt. She picked up a handful of dirt and let it drift back to the ground, blackening her porcelain hand. I could feel the disaster here, cloying and pulling at me.

  “They'll be coming,” Ionescu said, straightening with a grimace. “Do you want to meet them now, or later?”

  “Later. I need to see the dragon first.”

  “Then we should go. Village like this, they'll be here any minute.”

  “Hang on,” I said, and clambered up Kodály's side. I detached a cube from the console, a recorder and communication link about the size of my palm. It lit briefly, coming alive and soaking up the afternoon sun, glowing faintly purple. I clipped it to the chain on my neck and it hung down just above my breasts. “Okay,” I said. “This is your ground. You said you knew where we were going.“

  She tried the same bright smile as before, but in this place, it came off as brittle. “I do. I've been all over this ground since I was a child.”

  Which you still are, I thought. Ionescu cut straight across the ruined field, her boots kicking up little black puffs of soot behind her. I followed, keeping an eye on the road to my left, but there was no sign of the villagers. I couldn't imagine they were in a hurry to meet me. Dragonflies aren't police, but they are a manifestation of the power of the Confederation. The Confed had provided almost everyone in its borders with solar power for homes and vehicles, and transformed the lives of nearly a billion people—these people more than most, with the solar roofs where thatching had been for centuries—but the uniform still meant Power, and Power was dangerous. The villag
e had killed a dragon. That wasn't a small crime. Punishments ranged from arrest of the guilty party to cutting off net access for the entire village. My recommendation would carry a lot of weight. Eventually, they'd talk to me. Someone would have to.

  First, though, I wanted a look at the dragon's body. There were so many things a sat image couldn't tell me.

  Ionescu seemed to melt through the trees, flickering in and out of view ahead of me. If there was a path she was following, I couldn't tell where it was. I couldn't even see any sign of her passage. She certainly had woodcraft. I wondered again at her wild mixture of traits, irresponsibility, recklessness, delight, awe, respect, skill. She had to be one of the youngest of the Eyes, the ground troops of the corps, which might be why I'd never met anyone like her, not in twenty years. I realized with a start I didn't know her given name, or even if Ionescu was her name at all.

  I walked into a small clearing, half-tripping over a protruding root, and suddenly couldn't see her.

  “Do you want some help?” Ionescu said from behind me. I turned and saw her leaning on a tree trunk, paring her blush-colored nails as if she'd been there all day.

  “No. I'm doing fine. We just need to hurry.” I wouldn't let her get the best of me.

  She glanced at the solachron on her wrist and said, “We're halfway, or a little more. We should be there in an hour. You'll have about half an hour of study before we have to head back to be at the Dragon by dusk.”

  Ionescu didn't seem winded at all, though we were moving steadily upward from the valley floor into the short hills that bordered the mountain range. From the topo map, I knew the dragon was just beyond them, on a forested slope of one of the taller mountains in the district.

  The cinnamon and clove scent on the breeze grew steadily as we went, until I was sure I could taste it, follow it without any guide. The leaves here had begun to fall, and I crunched through them, though still Ionescu seemed to float over them. Even when I halted briefly to take a drink from my canteen, I couldn't hear her.