Wings of Renewal: A Solarpunk Dragon Anthology Page 26

  As though the man had heard his thoughts his eyes flicked back to Nico's face, eliminating any of his traitorous plans and forcing him to look away. Nico was afraid, but not. He expected the worst, and the best. The visitor was a stranger and a familiar.

  “Who are you?” Nico pushed out in a strained whisper.

  “You are powerful. Like your mother.”

  Nico's lips twitched in irritation as he felt the tug of magic not his own pulling at his face and lifting his chin. “Clearly not as powerful as you.”

  Nico raised his eyes to meet the man's, despite knowing they would burn. The eyes that had flared like miniature suns had dulled somehow, as though the light had been purposefully quelled for his benefit. Nico frowned and repeated his question. “Who are you?”

  The man smiled and pushed himself upright. He was as tall as Nico. No, taller. No, shorter. Nico took a step back. The man's presence was ethereal, intangible yet as solid as Nico himself. His pocket bounced beneath his hand and Nico stepped back again.

  “Show me,” the man said, holding out his hand.

  Nico didn't have to guess what the man wanted to see, and despite the incessant squirming inside his pocket—or maybe because of it—he didn't want to hand it over. He shook his head wordlessly and the man huffed, amused. Still, Nico felt no malevolence in his magic. It simply was. The man with the golden eyes did not attempt to influence Nico with powers again, even though he could have quite easily. Even more than before, Nico wondered at who he was speaking with in the back room of the Red Door.

  “The world is changing, Nicomedes. You would do well to accept the shift in the tides.”

  “The tides shifted long ago,” Nico said quietly.

  “They shift again,” the man said just as quietly.

  “What do you want?”

  “Only to see you.”

  Nico scowled. “You see me now. What do you really want?”

  “Only what you want.”

  “Oh, and what is that, pray tell?”

  The man threw back his head and laughed. The laughter was unlike anything Nico had ever heard before. It was sunlight and cloudless skies and crystal clear water. It was every smile he'd ever had and all the joy he'd ever felt, all at once. Nico fought against his own smile in sheer rebellion. When the man looked into his face, he only laughed harder.

  “You are your mother's son, Nicomedes.”

  “I'm still at a disadvantage. And you are?”

  The man smiled again, ignoring his question and holding out his hand, palm out. “Show me the dragon, Nico.”

  The familiarity in the way his name rolled off the man's tongue struck him as odd, but somehow not unnatural.

  “Do I know you?”

  “The dragon.”

  Nico bit back a retort, knowing there was little point in pretending he didn't have a dragon in his pocket. His fingers shook as he undid the button, the tiny dragon crawling onto his fingers. She was getting bigger every day, but still fit easily in the palm of his hand. She glowed like a tiny sun, golden and hot against his skin. Nico didn't know where she had come from, but he had known her name was Fia and that he would never be without her again.

  It was painful to watch Fia jump from his fingers into the strange man's palm. He admired the tiny dragon and smiled kindly as Fia butted her head against his fingertips fondly. Nico felt a rush of emotion, wanting to snatch back the dragon in a fit of possessiveness. She was his. No, that wasn't quite right either. She was meant for him; they were meant to be together. He watched her as she happily rolled in the stranger's hand and felt an acute sense of betrayal.

  The man held Fia out to Nico, his fingers brushing Nico's hand as he gently deposited the dragon into it. His fingers were hot against Nico's, scorching as though the suns of his eyes were real stars, as though his whole body was made of them. Nico was hit suddenly by a memory. He was very small and they lived in the valley; his mother still laughed freely. The man was there, laughing, too. His hands were monstrous compared to Nico's, enclosing his own tiny fingers and spinning through the field together, dervishes in the late summer sun. He remembered the heat of this man's skin on his, hot in a way a person shouldn't be, but never painful. Never harmful. He remembered the sound of the man's laughter as it rumbled through his chest while he held Nico close.

  Nico took a step back, his breath shaky and uneven. “Who are you? Please, tell me.”

  The man sighed. “My name is of little consequence. You know who I am. It's in your heart.”

  “You speak in riddles.”

  “And live in the mountainside.”

  “You see into my mind.”

  “Not as easily as others.”

  “You've slumbered.”

  “Until your mother woke me.”

  Nico stilled at the man's words. He told him no lies. Nico knew him in his heart and he knew what he was, even if he couldn't quite bring himself to say it. His eyes fell to Fia, who watched his face with keen amber eyes, knowledge and meaning apparent within them.

  “Did you send her to me?” he asked, his thumb nervously stroking Fia's scales.

  “I could not. She sent herself. She is a part of you, Nicomedes.”

  “As are you.”

  The man chuckled. “Not like her. The tides are shifting, my son.”

  With those words, another rush of memories hit Nico, although these were not his own. A green planet teeming with life and abundant water. Nico knew it was in perfect balance from his bird's eye view and felt a great satisfaction. Then black smoke and choking toxins filled the sky as busy humans milled on the earth's surface, burning and tearing down the life that sustained them all. There was darkness for a time and a coldness that surrounded his body. It was uncomfortable, but it was life still and there were others, safe within the mountainside. And there they stayed for hundreds of years.

  Then there was a girl. A human girl. She had one grey eye, the other black as pitch, and long, straight black hair. She'd found her way inside the mountain and smelled of sunlight and green grasses. With her arrival came something far more important—hope. And love. And a boy, made from both of them. A boy who carried the weight of the new world. But he wouldn't carry it alone. He had a sister.

  Nico looked at the dragon curled in his hand. “Fia,” he whispered.

  “The tides are shifting,” the man said quietly, “and we rise again.”

  Nico's eyes fell upon the visitor again and he could make out his true form, just barely. The black scales and sheer size of him, the incandescent glow of his yellow eyes, the ridges of his back that would cut like diamond and open the world. And wings. Massive, iridescent, and powerful. Nico saw a bright future, one of harmony and togetherness. One where dragons and humans lived together. One where Nico and his dragon-sister would be accepted, not as oddities but as idols of a new age. Nico looked into those burning suns, the eyes of his father, and knew instinctively what to say.

  “The age of dragons is upon us.”

  About Diane Dubas

  Diane Dubas is a fiction writer living in Ontario, Canada. She has attended the Humber School for Writers and her work has been published in Inaccurate Realities and Saturday Night Reader.

  Dragon's Oath

  by Danny Mitchell

  “Rashida, have you spotted any yet?”

  “Not yet, Dad,” Rashida called back from the perch at the top of their house. “You asking me every few minutes won't make a dragon magically appear, you know.”

  “I know …”

  Rashida sighed. Annoying as he'd been about dragon-watching, she understood why her father was so anxious. The village had just taken in several Wanderers looking to start their own families, and as accommodating as the innkeeper was, they couldn't stay there forever. She could see the new, half-built houses on the edge of the village, just near the bee yards and fields, their walls completed but the frame for their roofs standing wide open. They stood out against the other houses, a jarring brown against the harsh blac
k of the dragon scales and the bright green of the solar tree in the middle of the village. Rashida's father, Bassam, had even gotten the molten salt batteries ready for them to store power over the nights and darker days, and all they needed were enough dragon scales to install on the roofs.

  But to get dragon scales, you needed dragons.

  She put the binoculars up to her brown eyes and scanned the horizon again. They used to get four or five dragons a week coming through; massive, majestic beasts flying over the village or basking on the plains nearby, grooming themselves and shedding loose scales in the process. Bassam knew how to treat and craft the scales to make them into devices that could harness the sun to power buildings and devices, in much the same way that the scales helped give the dragons strength and energy. The black scales were the main ones they got, but occasionally a dragon would shed one of its coveted green scales, which could not only draw energy from the sun, but also worked like plant leaves and provided food; incorporated into a solar tree, the green scales could provide power and sugary water, which was a boon for hungry villagers and bees alike.

  She smiled when she thought back to her last birthday, where the whole village got to see a dragon migration. There had been hundreds of the creatures flying overhead, most of them big enough to crush houses, their black and green scales glinting in the sunlight as they weaved around each other. Rashida remembered spotting a large dragon with three smaller ones balanced on its back, peering over the edge of their parent before swooping over her. They were still young enough to be covered in fuzzy green down and their wings were leathery and had no scales yet, but they made a good show of flying around before one of the more mature dragons scooped them up and brought them back to the parent they'd launched off.

  Now that she thought on it, that migration was the last time they'd all seen dragons. Since then, it had barely been one dragon every few weeks, and they weren't dropping as many scales as they used to. Most of them weren't even stopping on the plains, instead staying closer to the eucalypt woods to the north of the village.

  Rashida scanned the horizon again and spotted a flicker of motion in the distance. She focused her binoculars onto it, and smiled when she saw the familiar silhouette on the sky.

  “Dad! Dragon! I can see a dragon over the woods!”

  Seconds later, Bassam barged into the lookout. He was a huge slab of a man and Rashida was round herself, so the end result was Rashida being squashed against the wall and almost elbowed in the face. “Are you sure?” he asked.

  Rashida passed Bassam the binoculars and pointed over the woods. “I'm sure, Dad—look!” she replied as she readjusted her hijab and tucked a few errant locks of black hair back into place.

  Bassam's expression lit up like the village paths at night. “Fantastic! Keep me updated on its movements while we get ready! ENG—WARM THE ORNITHOPTER UP!” Bassam bellowed to his apprentice downstairs, and he vanished down the ladder as rapidly as he'd appeared.

  Rashida smiled as she trained the binoculars back onto the dragon, but the smile didn't stay for very long. The dragon wasn't moving as quickly as she was used to seeing, and she initially thought it was just searching for somewhere to land. Once it got closer to the village, she realised it wasn't okay; its wings were flapping asynchronously, liquid was dripping from its back and sides, and it looked like it was taking too much effort for it to stay in the air.

  “Dad, it's hurt!” Rashida called, not taking her sight off the dragon.

  “ENG, GET THE MEDICINES!” Bassam bellowed.

  “But you just told me to warm the 'thopter up!” another, higher-pitched voice complained.

  “I DID TOO, SORRY! I'LL GET THEM.”

  Rashida watched as the dragon kept struggling against gravity before its wings finally flopped down and it crashed to the ground, landing somewhere in the forest. Even though it was too far for the sound to travel, she imagined the loud thump the creature would have made on impact.

  “It's down! It's crashed!” Rashida called as she climbed down the ladder into the workshop.

  The workshop was brightly lit with the afternoon sun streaming through the north-facing glass wall, and was currently in chaotic disarray rather than its usual precise neatness. Bassam hastily filled bags of tools from the shelves and tool boards on the walls, with more than a few falling onto the floor. He'd also knocked over a few bottles of treatment chemicals, spilling their acrid contents. Bassam was trying to clean the mess with a rag while loading the bag of tools, succeeding only in making both processes take longer. She could hear the low whine of the very old ornithopter warming up outside, accompanied by frantic cursing and invective in Mandarin.

  “Crashed? That's … Rashida, take the bike, the portable kit, and a signal flare and get to it. See if there's anything you can do to get it back in the air. We'll follow along once the 'thopter decides to warm up and get flying,” Bassam told her as he cleaned up the last of the chemical spill and idly tossed the rag into a corner.

  Rashida didn't need to be told twice, and was already putting on a heavy apron with several pockets filled with medical supplies specifically for treating injured dragons. At least, that's what the book in the apron pocket had told her; she'd never had the chance to actually try the kit out. “I'll see you both there, Dad!” she called as she grabbed a hanging satchel stuffed full of more supplies and dashed out the door.

  There were already a couple of people clustered around their house wondering what was happening when Rashida charged out, almost bowling one over. “Hey, what's going on?” one asked as she took the goggles and helmet off the bike and put them on.

  “Dragon! No time!” Rashida called back as she got onto the bike and started it up. The vehicle hummed to life as the solar batteries kicked in, and the people just managed to clear a path for her before Rashida took off.

  * * *

  She rode through the village, barely giving people enough time to dodge. She breezed past the public food garden and community kitchen; past the bee yards and their workers creating honey, comb, and wax; the solar tree; and through the marketplace, almost taking out a stall cart of jewellery on her way. She yelled an apology to the cart owner but she wasn't sure it was heard over the commotion and humming of the bike. She figured Amelia would be waiting for her when she got back, her hands clenched into fists and her eye twitching the whole time, but Rashida didn't care right now; she had to find that dragon.

  The bike hummed louder as she left the outskirts of the village, past the north fields and towards the wood. The tires tore along the plains, dry grass crunching under the wheels and dirt puffing up behind her as she put on more speed.

  She had to slow down once she got to the eucalypts. Not only did the trees grow close together and make manoeuvring difficult, there was almost always a mass of dead leaves and branches underfoot, reducing traction and making the whole place hazardous for anyone moving through it faster than a slow walk. The air was thick with the scent of eucalyptus oil evaporating in the summer heat, and the whole forest was one errant spark away from becoming a massive inferno. She carefully moved through the trees, hoping she remembered which way she was going and silently praying to Allah that the dragon was going to be all right.

  Rashida skidded to a stop when she saw a newly downed tree blocking her path, one side of its trunk covered in a glistening, silvery-green ichor. She cut the engine and took her helmet and goggles off, leaning the bike against a nearby upright tree. Once she was sure the bike wouldn't fall over, she carefully moved around the trunk, past the thick mass of roots dangling from it, and peered into the clearing.

  She gasped when she saw the dragon.

  The enormous beast had belly-flopped onto the ground. It had taken out several trees in its landing, coating some of them and the ground under it in the same silvery-green ichor Rashida saw on everything. One tree had survived the impact somehow, and had impaled the dragon through what Rashida thought was its pelvis. One wing jutted out at a crude angle, while
the other flopped limply on the ground, the support bones visibly shattered. She saw several black scales scattered across the ground from the limp wing, with a couple stuck deep into the downed tree trunk. The creature's back was a ragged mess of scales and ichor and its sides had been torn open by something, spilling more ichor onto the ground. She could hear it breathing heavily, every breath accompanied by a thick, gurgling wheeze. The dragon's head lay near her, its remaining silver eye unfocused, its long neck bent and lacerated, its whiskers twisted and split.

  Rashida started crying as she moved into the clearing. “It's not fair,” she whispered. The first dragon she'd seen in weeks, and it was wounded well beyond anyone's skill to save, let alone hers.

  The dragon's head shifted, accompanied by a painful grunt, and Rashida found herself face to face with a dying dragon. Its eye was the size of her head and staring at her, trying to say something she couldn't understand. She could feel its hot breath blowing on her, the sweet stench of dragon ichor filling her nostrils. Even beaten and bloodied as it was, Rashida was awed by the size and power of the creature before her. She nervously reached out a hand to stroke it, and the dragon shifted its head slightly to reach her. Its face was softer than she'd expected it to be, much warmer than her, and there was a fuzzy ridge of what felt like moss running from the tip of its nose to past the top of its head. The dragon made a low, rhythmic rumbling noise as she touched it, like a cat purring—only much louder. She gently stroked the parts of the dragon's head she could reach with one hand, wiping tears with the other. “I'm so sorry. I … I wish I could do something …”

  A shrill call came from somewhere along the dragon's body, audible over the purring. A baby dragon struggled out of a pouch in the dragon's belly and through a curtain of ichor, before climbing up the dragon's body and dashing along its back and neck towards Rashida. It was the size of a small cat, covered in bright green puffed-up fuzz that looked like moss. It stretched its leathery, scaleless wings and opened its mouth wide, displaying serrated fangs. It took a deep breath and let out a squeaky roar, accompanied by a tiny spark of electricity that flickered out of existence as soon as it appeared. It stalked closer to Rashida's hand, snarling and hissing and showing as much aggression as its tiny form could manage.