by AJ Fitzwater
With the pens so narrow and close, our whispers will be heard by other prisoners, of that we are sure. But how well they are understood and translated to the Mistress is another matter. We are the oldest beasts here, and well used to manipulating time.
We only have to wait upon the mistress's curiosity.
Again, she appears after a carefully considered time. We are not fooled into thinking she has forgotten us.
But we are ready.
"I have negotiated a commission," the mistress says to Riena in her sweetest voice, standing at relaxed attention, casting shade, haloed by the bitter sun. "Your services are required to create a grand tapestry. If you perform well..."
The mistress trails off. She cannot stop the small smile that cuts at her lips. She is the mistress of whispers and hints, no doubt somehow inciting the attack on Riena. She has found a way to cut me, to manipulate me. For this alone, she shall hurt.
The mistress will be paid handsomely, perhaps in a sum of power greater than she has ever experienced. The lavishness of her rooms are just a by-product, the size of the building is what matters. And she intends for it to go on and grow forever.
I am the great eel, pushing up and up, pushing against the sky.
The instructions, doled out to us in a bored voice, are vague enough that we understand well it is best not to deviate. The tapestry is to be a wall-sized landscape, mountains, trees, snow, a domain of indomitability. The cold must be invoked, the smell of pine delighted in on each pass, but it cannot be too alive in case a viewer stumbles into the fabric. It is a trap for only the right kind of people. Terribly boring.
But even within those restrictions I plan our finesse.
The mistress glances at me, as if finally remembering my presence. "You will join her," she says, a smirk destroying the boredom on her face. "Perhaps she will enjoy the company."
Say nothing, Riena. Say nothing. No one has friends in this garden that twists around and down on itself, the great screw into the guts of the mistress's world. I am your guard, leave it at that.
Each day a different room. At least all of them have windows and the suggestion of sunshine. There is no chance of a repeat. It is done to keep us from getting comfortable, finding our bearings.
Each day, the mistress escorts us to and from the room, inspects Riena's tools, inspects progress. That much close proximity to orimos is wearying. The silver flame has been quickened, her armour and the windows of each room we occupy tighten with its dangerous promise.
You will not break me. I am the eel, breaking the surface of the great ocean, up and up.
The mistress asks us nothing of what we say to each other in Drakon-het and the old new language. Perhaps she believes she is skilled enough in reading body language; I know she has yet to learn mind-reading, but someone with such skill has yet to enter the garden.
Each day, I curl as close as I dare to the window, drawing what little sunshine I can closer to my scales. Dust motes dance around my long, slow breaths.
Each day, Riena drags the huge frame closer to the window. I position a paw in such a way that she can easily slice threads without having to disturb me. This monstrosity will be a blur of harsh grey and sickly green and stark white. As much as I detest mountain scenes, when the silk threads are laid out their individual colours invoke memories I have long buried. This one, I explain to Riena in Drakon-het, is the smell of a winter storm about to slice in from the ocean's horizon. That one is the feel of damp sand between my claws at twilight.
Other than this, we speak very little.
And each day, Riena selects from her collection of allowed slivers a needle I carefully coloured with blood and poison and flame to look the same as the others. No one dares a dragon's mouth; it was an easy enough thing to transport that first day, when the massive single piece of canvas loomed blank and terrible as a lower fractal at night.
We thought we were so clever.
Months pass in domesticated silence. Patience is something I have had cut into me. Riena, not so much, I was to learn.
Riena has been sitting on the floor for a long time before I realize she has not been moving in that steady drag and release that has filled our days.
I crack my good eye and assess the faceless parlour. At least this one does not stink of fresh viscera. We are still alone.
"Do your hands hurt? Are you hungry?" I manage to grind out after a great yawn I cannot give full extent to; the ceiling is too low.
Riena shakes her head, though her hands twist in her lap. Over and under, fingers interlace and stretch, then into fists.
She cannot bring herself to say the words, because it will bring the mistress. She cannot say, because we are not ready. How will our bodies cope with the wall-less horizon and roofless sky after spaces barely bigger than our being?
The eel stretches. Reaches. Fails.
We wait a little longer, and I try to see what Riena sees. She has hidden it well. How does one put the ocean in such a severe landscape?
There. In the V created by a mountain pass hazed by distance, the barest hint of blue-grey and copper-gold. Not so bright as to warrant attention. It is not an ocean I recognize, but to return to the one I do would be a foolish endeavour.
Riena is taking us far away.
"A masterpiece."
The mistress's voice should not make me flinch, but the tines on my back rattle.
I am the eel, the water all around me. The sun calls, so loud I cannot hear the waves over its voice.
Riena is on her feet as the mistress saunters closer to the massive canvas, her guest trotting close behind. The guest is nothing, has to be nothing, a small woman who I must feel no guilt for. It is not that hard to destroy the dreams of the rich of hand but poor of heart.
"Magnificent," the mistress murmurs, a trick of softness. "Do you agree?"
The guest allows herself to pretend she is really seeing the tapestry, but she makes her demand too quickly. "Do whatever it is that you do, girl. Make it come alive."
One does not simply wave a hand at the thing Riena stitched pieces of her fingers into and then I licked those fingers back together so that they could continue the next day. And the day after that.
But then, it is not for you, beast.
I rise.
"Kitahniaa." Riena places a hand against my neck, a greater hand, stiff, ready, precise.
The mistress watches the interaction, her face blank. How I would like to rip your armour off and see your guts, little one. I suspect they are black, not fit to bear the greatness of orimos, Drake's blood twisted and tortured against the purpose she originally intended.
Riena steps up to the canvas. I must ready myself. We have not dared to talk about this day, so everything from here on in is guesswork.
I do not operate well on chance.
I am the eel. I am in the dark at the bottom of the ocean, pressure crushing from above.
Riena touches a spot on the canvas seemingly at random; the mountain pass. The thick material shudders, stitches tighten, and life ripples out from her fingers like concentric circles from a touch of claw against still water.
The scent of snow and pine makes me feel queasy, and I have to turn my snout away. A stream of effusiveness erupts from the mouth of the mistress's guest, bile to my ears. A beatific smile stitches the tapestry of the mistress's face; this is not her greatest achievement yet, but it will do for now.
She knows. She might not be able to read my insides or translate what we are saying but she knows we are planning something. And she is counting on it.
Is this the double-cross trick I dared not anticipate? Riena's guts are so tidy, the stitches neat and tight, silk thread in a myriad of colours. The mistress will test us, that much I can feel on my muzzy, long disused mind. She has used one trick against us in anticipation of the other.
Obsenities I have long kept wrapped around the flame in my gut crawl up my gullet like I am invoking a cur
se. Perhaps I am.
I turn my good eye on the person I have foolishly put my hopes in. All it will take is one bite, one swipe of my claws. I do not know what human tastes like, but I am willing to find out just this once.
"Burn it," Riena says in Drakon-het. For a moment I ponder the impossibility that is a human tongue and mind working its way around my language.
The mistress cocks her head, examining the tapestry, pretending not to listen. She cannot know my language, no human does. And yet...she has not needed to know. She has counted on us turning the tricks around on each other, because given enough time that is what her residents do. Love, death; it's all the same.
Then the true horror of destroying my escape turns my tongue cold, and lightens the lump of coal that sits where my guts should be.
"No," I reply. "This is your masterpiece. Pieces of your flesh. Our way out."
"Burn it," Riena says again, quiet and still.
The mistress is watching us now, ignoring the guest prancing in front of the canvas. Her fingers twitch at her sides. She carries no knife, but she does not need something as pathetic as steel to flay us wide open. That is only for special occasions.
I stare hard at Riena's torso. Perhaps the gift of my eye to the mistress has impaired my skill. Perhaps I have only been seeing half of it for so long, and this has allowed me this foolish fancy.
The mistress takes a step closer. I am about to turn my head, open my mouth, save what remains on my ocean, when Riena's insides shift. I squint, my good eye sore and dry. I see...I see more. A brain, with Drakon-het runes tossing and diving like an eel in the ocean. And a heart with my name on it, stitched neat and tight.
I am coming, my great ocean.
Before the mistress can close the small distance between us, I regurgitate. The ensuing flame is small, but enough to singe the mistress's hair. I would chuckle long and deep at the sight if I had time.
Yellow and gold and copper catch at the edges of the canvas, gobbling the fabric greedily. It spreads too quick for the screaming guest to batter at, first with her hands, then a rug.
The rug catches too.
Then the curtains.
The mistress is upon me, silent as the blades extracting from her finger bones that slip into my ribs and throat. The orimos of her armour sizzles against my flesh and screams on my scales, stripping all memory of my ocean from my mind.
A weight settles in the curve behind my wings and between deadly tines spaced almost perfectly.
"Fly," Riena whispers in Drakon-het below the hungry crackle of flame and shouts drifting from anger towards hysteria.
My egress is more a stumble than the grace expected of one of my size, but then this is not the ocean or sky. I cannot open my wings in here.
The mistress's bone blades are still buried deep, the orimos competing with elemental flame to sear my flesh, and she drags with us for a step. There is nothing to be done for it; I sacrifice a paw and rip the mistress off my chest, flinging her to one side. My claws shriek and wither immediately at the touch of orimos.
Roar of pain and triumph. The mountainside rushes up. Stone, stone, grey stone.
Hard edges of fear dig into my back as mountainside and trees threaten to cut short our flight. Those edges are nothing at all to the black, hissing wounds on my chest and throat, Drake's twisted blood sapping my will.
A snap of sail and wail of wind through membranes. Oh, how I have missed that sound!
And at the corner of my mind, above the rage of the fire and hissing loss from orimos, a laugh; not of death or capitulation, but one that simply marks time.
Fly.
Riena lives in a cottage on her beach by the ocean.
This ocean is not mine, but as all oceans are connected, so too will the memories of my old home eventually circle around to find me. The greater warmth is kinder on my gnarled paw and eye, its currents making up for the strength I lack. But still I can dive deep, for I am the eel, and the ocean welcomes me with the disinterest I expect. Ours is the good fight, water against scale.
On the warmest days, and there are many of them, Riena pushes open one entire wall of the cottage like a great door. There, on ground packed hard and smooth by my weight, I rest my head, switching my watch between ocean, the mountains, and her hands as she stitches a garden.
Flowers and vegetables flourish with the seasons and her whim; she reverse-stitches mercilessly. The seams aren't always neat and her hands often shake, but then I bring her crabs, which she cooks up in a great pot—they are even more delicious hot, I have discovered—and we spend an evening crunching through them, discussing the heat and usefulness of stars; they are a long way away after all.
Much like the mountains and its deep frown of a pass. Bruised by distance, the mountain pass is often, thankfully, obscured by mist and cloud.
On the days Riena cannot bear its sight or the sight of my withered paw, I take to the waters. Often I sun upon a rock so far out I cannot see land, attended by birds who are teaching me their names and tricks in Drakon-het.
And sometimes, weeks of ocean are required between us. In those early times, I would often circle around when I was sure she could not pick me out against the sun, drifting over fields of wild cotton and forests teeming with silk moths, before taking to the cooler updrafts of the leering mountains.
Flying is harder than I remember; almost too hard on that first reckless flight. My tumbling, pain-stricken descent into the ocean almost drowned Riena, who could not swim. No matter how much I pull the comfort of the waters around me, the warmth can never quite scrub clean the remaining blemish of orimos against my flesh and scales.
Sometimes I think I smell smoke when I perch on the blade-like rocks of the mountain pass. Glimpses of shining objects from the corner of my eye make me flinch. I curl my blackened paw closer to my body, and the withered claws dig hard into the flesh of my belly until it all creaks with pain.
I roar this all down at the gray stones. Run, little rocks. Run.
Only my echo roars back.
One day, Riena presents me with an eye.
This is her finest work to date. I lied about that canvas full of cold and stone, and I tell her so.
"What am I supposed to do with this?" My laugh startles the seabirds making tentative forays at my back claws. "One eye is just as good when you are my size."
She hefts the membrane-lidded oculus with as much gentleness as her reburgeoning muscles can manage. Delicate tendrils of tissue, veins, and nerves spin out from the back of the orb, stitches almost too small to see. How did she know these colours, let alone find them?
"Bury it, eat it, give it a name, I do not care." The first real smile since we made this our home weaves her face.
And she touches her fingers to the lid.
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Copyright 2018 AJ Fitzwater
AJ Fitzwater is a meat-suit wearing dragon who fashions elaborate curses, living between the cracks in Christchurch, New Zealand. They attended the Clarion workshop in 2014, and is a two time Sir Julius Vogel Award winner. Their work has appeared in such venues of repute as Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Shimmer Magazine, Crossed Genres Magazine, and Kaleidotrope. Dragon eructations can be found at @AJFitzwater.
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Giganotosaurus is published monthly by Late Cretaceous and edited by Rashida J. Smith.
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