“It’s a type of magic, really,” Colas continued. He paused long moments between paragraphs of speech, as if studying my actions and taking mental notes. “Our blood is the link. A drop of mine, a drop of yours, a drop of Taka’s, and a dragon queen’s, with additional secicao to help accelerate the process. We’ll complete the conversion together. And you shall be our queen.”
Colas got down on one knee and bowed his head to the ground. “Acolyte Wells, the catalyst. This is Finesia’s will. On this island, we shall start a new race. A new society of immortals.”
I stood still gobsmacked. I’d completely forgotten by this point about Wiggea and Faso. Just being here, the Exalmpora had taken control of my mind.
“Acolyte,” Finesia said once again in my head. “You can have all this and more. You need to settle for no less.”
Yarand now had got really close with his left arm wrapped around the yard and a long glass syringe in his right hand. He moved forward and jabbed the needle into my arm, and I let him take my blood. Then, he emptied the contents of the syringe into the Exalmpora, and I watched in glee as a third stream began to dance around the solution.
Colas’ grin stretched even further across his face, and he opened his mouth to display two rows of rickety teeth. “Finesia was right, you are meant to be our leader. Patience is important now. The magic within the solution needs time to work.” He took hold of a pocket watch hanging from his hip and held it up to his face. “Ten minutes should do it.”
Dragonheats, I wanted to lurch out and take the Exalmpora down in one. But then I doubted that I’d have any chance of wrestling it out of that giant, Yarand’s, hands.
“Hooooiiiieee,” Colas said in mirth, “as our friends down in the jungle would say. Now, while we wait, let’s get this show on the road.”
He rushed over to the prow of the ship and pulled a huge lever on the floor there. A billowing roaring sound came from above and hot air swept downwards, adding to the heat rising up from the volcano. I looked up to see the bladder stretched over the crater bulging. It grew towards us and also lost some of its diameter. It wasn’t long until I realised the whole thing was some kind of balloon.
Our deck bucked a little, and then it began to lift. We were on a gondola, rising up from the volcano fast into the air.
“What about my friends?” I asked. But still affected by the metallic fumes coming off the Exalmpora in front of me, this was merely a passing comment rather than one connected to any emotion.
“Once you’re ready,” Colas said. “You’ll know what to do about them.”
“And Taka? We came for Taka, didn’t we?” And these words seemed distant – slurred slightly as if not spoken by my true self.
“All will be revealed in time. When Finesia chooses.”
I noticed then for the first time how sparse this deck was. There was no steering wheel, no sophisticated rigging equipment. Nothing, in other words, that required manual control, and I guessed automatons ran the whole thing. If, that was, the airship had been designed to fly anywhere at all.
I looked back down into the shrinking crater below and the ever so distant lava lake within, the automatons scurrying around the inner rockface, the complex network of cart tracks, and Faso and Wiggea now looking like helpless ants. And I felt nothing other than excitement and a deep primal desire to take that yard of Exalmpora down in one.
19
We rose faster than an airship usually would, the balloon buoyed up by the heat currents coming off the volcano. Meanwhile, I watched through the telescope at Wiggea and Faso getting increasingly tinier, as they dangled tied to their wooden stakes, unable to do anything. And I felt strangely passive, with a thirst in my mouth for Exalmpora.
“Is this my dark side?” I thought. “Do the lives of these men matter?” No, there were other things far too important. Sukina would have told me that had she been alive. How I had to sometimes sacrifice the lives of only a few for a better world. A stronger race of dragonpeople. Or at least that’s how I felt at the time.
“Yes, you understand it now,” Finesia’s voice came in my head. It was sweet and melodic and had undertones that almost made it sound like a dragonsong.
“Finesia tells me you’re ready to meet the boy now,” Colas said. He sat on a wooden stool, propped forward upon his cane and looking directly into my eyes. He turned to the burly man who was looking down over the side of the airship, plucking at his teeth with a toothpick while he still nursed the yard of Exalmpora against his chest. “Yarand. Bring Taka up. Her auntie wants to meet him.”
I cocked my head. Yes, I was curious to see how Taka had evolved. Because something told me he was part of this too. He’d already been raised in King Cini’s palace on a hefty dose of Exalmpora. Given his remarkable ancestry, it seemed that he’d be crucial for Finesia’s plan.
Yarand entered a slouch, as if not wanting to follow Colas’ orders at all. Still, he stomped below deck, at least half-obediently. The gondola rocked with each step the giant took. Strangely he took the yard of Exalmpora with him as if it wouldn’t be safe to put it down anywhere. Presently, a door creaked open from below, and soon enough Yarand emerged from the bottom of the deck, still carrying the Exalmpora.
Taka followed him in tow. The boy had his head bowed low, and he’d lost much of the playfulness that he’d had when I’d last seen him in Fortress Gerhaun. His hair was a little greyer now and his eyes seemed to let out an ethereal white glow.
“Auntie Pontopa,” he said in the collective unconscious. His voice was distant in my head, but definitely there, at the same volume as those empty thoughts that pass through the mind before sleeping. “I thought I detected a source.”
“A source?” I asked. “Is Charth nearby? Or Alsie?” And I found myself suddenly on high alert looking around for any sign of my rival.
“It’s not them,” Taka said. His voice took a flat, lifeless tone. Like one of a child who’d already seen great pain. “You’re the source, Auntie Pontopa. You have the power within.”
“But how?”
“Can’t you feel it? You’re becoming a dragonwoman, auntie. Like Alsie.”
I touched my hand to my face and felt how dry and cracked the skin felt. Something was changing within me, yes. And it was for the better. Surely it was for the better. Now, I didn’t have Sukina around to stop me, to hold me back from the Exalmpora and Finesia.
“I’m still within you,” Sukina’s voice resonated in my head, much as it had in her shrine in Fortress Gerhaun, many days past. “I’ll always be here in the collective unconscious.” But I batted her words away as worthless. She was only a construct of my imagination, anyway. Gerhaun had pretty much told me that.
Colas waved his hands around in the air as if to attract my attention. “Oh, don’t tell me you two are doing that telepathy thing. I bring you together and offer you great powers, and you don’t think to include me in your conversations. Well, I’ll soon be able to hear you there too, once the transformation is complete. Drink the solution, Dragonseer Wells, and all who have tasted the concoction will become just like you – your servants who’ll together rule this world.”
Taka’s gaze was one of nonchalance. He stared straight ahead as he spoke out loud. “Auntie, is this right? It sounds great, but something… I don’t know Auntie Pontopa…”
I smiled and rubbed him on the head. “We’ll find a way, Taka. Now tell me, has Colas treated you well?” Despite the fact I wanted the Exalmpora and Colas was the man who would deliver it to me, I still didn’t entirely trust him. What if he knew a way to take my power and rule the world alone? He knew a lot more about how Exalmpora worked than me, and he might be planning to usurp me as soon as he had the chance.
“The old man is part of the plan,” the voice said in my head. “Dragonseer, you will be the most powerful creature on this planet. This is my will.”
While the voice came in my head, both Taka and Colas stood stock still as if also listening to something. We’d all
been exposed to Exalmpora, and so we could all hear Finesia. Although what she’d just said to the other two, I had no idea.
Finesia. How long had she been talking to Taka? Her voice may even had led the boy to Colas. Had this all been part of her grand scheme?
I raised my head to a sudden breeze that came from the sky. “So tell me your plan, Colas. I’m curious. Why is Taka so important? I think he should know his worth as well as I know mine.”
I didn’t just want to learn the final piece of the puzzle, I wanted Taka to discover it too. Because my destiny and the boy’s destiny were intertwined. I knew this for a fact, even though he hadn’t been part of my vision.
“Hah,” Colas said. “Didn’t you listen to what the elders told you? I heard every part, for my automatons have ears throughout this land.”
Taka walked to the side of the airship and looked down slightly, his posture straight and his eyes fixated in the distance as if still entranced.
“Taka,” Colas continued, “was the first time that the male offspring of dragonseers once again crossed with the true dragonseer bloodline. Which means that he’s the only product of the union between dragonseers and normal humans.” Colas turned to the burly man. “Yarand, take Taka below because the rest should not be for his ears.”
“You better take care of the boy, mind,” I said. “For he’s my responsibility.” And at the back of my mind, I could still hear the slur in my words. I didn’t quite have the wits about me then to understand what that responsibility entailed, nor did I remember my promises to Sukina, General Sako and Gerhaun Forsi that I’d protect the boy at all costs.
Yarand nodded unenthusiastically, and he shepherded Taka back below deck, the yard of Exalmpora nestled against his massive chest. While the Taka I knew in Fortress Gerhaun would no doubt have a lot to say about this, this version of him didn’t even mumble a complaint.
“So tell me,” I said to Colas.
“Have you closed off your mind so the boy can’t hear you?”
“Why are you giving me commands, Colas? I thought you said I would be the leader.”
“As soon as I know that you’ve truly turned, you will be. But until it’s time to drink the Exalmpora, you better heed my instructions.”
So, there was a part of me that could still resist. A part of me that could refuse the Exalmpora and Colas knew it. But I had no idea where in my head that part of me resided.
“Very well. It’s done.” I said, and I closed off all channels in my mind.
“Good. So, Taka is the only creature in this world who will be able to mate with humans to create more dragonmen and dragonwomen, once he’s metamorphosed into his true form, that is. You see, Exalmpora is a special substance that has the power to latch on to your DNA. Unlike no other person ever to have lived, Taka was born with Finesia inside his head. With my help at Cini’s palace, the empress has been moulding him into a powerful being since birth.”
I nodded and folded my hands behind my back. “And that’s why Alsie wants him so bad.”
“Exactly,” Colas said. “Alsie is barren. Charth is barren and so was his brother.”
“But if Francoiso was barren, what was to be gained from my union with him.”
Colas laughed. “Nothing,” he said. “King Cini is a fool to have thought so. Now, Taka is Finesia’s only hope to propagate our new race of immortals. With one exception.”
“What’s that?”
“We’ll come to that later,” Colas said, “once you’ve completed your transformation. But for now… Yarand!”
“What?” Colas’ lackey called up from below deck, sounding ever so frustrated. It seemed he really didn’t like to be ordered around.
“The Exalmpora should have mixed by now. Bring it.” Colas turned to me. “From what I’ve seen through my panther’s eyes and by my calculations.” He reached forward and ran the back of his dry, wrinkly hand across my cheek. “Yes, it’s as I expected. Now, you’re ready to finally become Finesia’s beloved.”
The lackey came back up carrying the yard of Exalmpora. It had a different hue to it now. The river of red was much stronger in there and seemed to emanate a faint glow.
“Here you are,” Yarand said. “Breakfast is served, I guess. Although why you’d want to drink this stuff.” He walked over to stare over the edge of the airship at the jungle below and the great gaping maw of the volcano.
“Prop it down against the deck,” Colas said. “I’m sure you’ve mixed it well by carrying it everywhere by now.”
“Fine,” Yarand said, and he plunked it down on the floor with such force, I half expected the glass to break.
“Very well Yarand,” Colas said. “Your duty has now been served.” And he clapped his hands.
From right next to me, the panther automaton stood up quickly. It pushed itself underneath the front of Yarand’s legs and lifted its head to push them upwards. Yarand was sent tumbling over the edge, letting out a scream as he fell.
“What—” I began to ask, and the hackles rose on the back of my neck.
“That’s the problem with hired hands,” Colas said. “They’re always wanting more, no matter how much you give them. Automatons are much more reliable, don’t you think? Not to mention the primitive beings in this very jungle who once hailed me as a god. You caused them to lose faith in me, but I don’t think it matters anymore. So long as you repay me in immortality for all you’ve done.”
“Colas, what are you—” A sense of alarm started to rise in my chest, and I forgot about the Exalmpora for a moment.
“Do not worry, Dragonseer,” Finesia said. “This old scientist is merely executing a well thought out plan. This is my will, and you will soon be part of it. Put your fears to rest.”
There was something about that lilting melodic voice that calmed my spirits as soon as I heard it. I stared ahead at the horizon, into oblivion, not feeling anything for the death of this huge man, except that it was necessary. A part of my mind thought it was strange for me not to have any empathy whatsoever. But a stronger part of it didn’t care one bit.
“Look through the telescope, Dragonseer,” Colas said. “I can now reveal to you the rest of the plan.”
I nodded and then walked up to the thin device that had hit me in the chin just a moment ago. I put the telescope to my eye, and I scanned the terrain below. Something inside me guided me towards what I was looking for. A panther automaton with a stick of dynamite in its teeth, moving down the inside of the crater. I angled the telescope up and to the right a little and found another one, again with dynamite in its teeth. Then another, then another, then another. How many of these things did Colas have?
“You see,” Colas continued as I watched the graceful movements of the beasts, “I’ve been working on this place for a long, long time. So many tend to see volcanoes as just a lump of rocks, but really, they’re just part of a larger phenomenon – a vent that connects to the centre of the planet, helping to circulate its blood. And so I’ve had my automatons chip away at this island, redirecting lava flows underground, loosening the rock at the edges, getting everything ready to create huge landslides, causing the whole underground reservoirs of molten rock to pop all at once.”
“Remarkable,” I thought. And here I believed Faso to be the greatest scientist I’d ever known, even though I’d never say that to his face.
“You’re going to create an eruption?” I asked.
The old man looked down towards the crater and nodded. “You know, it’s no small feat. You can’t just drill a hole in the earth and expect it to blow. You need to spend years of planning and know that you’ve got the variables just right. But fortunately, I’ve had Finesia in my head all this time to help. She knows how the collective unconscious flows through the earth, and so she knows how to spark this crater off. After its cooled, the earth will then become incredibly acidic, creating perfect conditions for the secicao I’ve planted here to grow. Soon enough, my dear, East Cadigan Island will be just like the Sout
hlands. With a new race of dragonpeople to rule the land.”
I nodded and looked over at the yard of Exalmpora again. I’d been so close to transforming back at King Cini’s palace that I knew instinctively that the entire lot would be enough to tip me over the edge. And, because I was salivating for it so much, the lives that would be taken by the erupting volcano meant nothing to me. I simply wanted to be part of Finesia’s plan.
“No!” I thought. There had to be a part of me that could resist. But even that sole thought drifted casually away.
“So, go on,” Colas gestured towards the yard that Yarand had placed on the floor. “If you want to transform, you’ll have to drink the whole thing. Much as Francoiso did. Your blood and Taka’s blood will catalyse the process.”
I smiled, and I picked up the yard of Exalmpora with both hands. It felt warm to the touch. Inside, the two red streams had now mixed together, creating one cloudy whole that glowed as I ran my hands over the glass. I raised the yard to my lips and started to tip it back.
“That’s it, my child.” Finesia said. “We’ll go far together.”
The liquid touched my lips and the metallic fumes seeped up my nostrils. Colas’ eyes were affixed on me, as if in anticipation.
“It tastes good, doesn’t it?” The voice of Finesia said in my head. “Think of the power you’ll have. The adulation your minions will give you. A people who’ll look up to you as their god. With me, you’ll never have to worry about death again.”
But then, and I don’t know where it came from, a sudden flash of images came to my head.
My father raising me up in the air when I was six years old, me looking down into his sparkling eyes as he spun me around and around.
My mother untangling the knots from my hair. Her smile, as she told me that I was a special lady who’d go far in life.
Velos, when he was just a child, not much larger than an adult human, rubbing his nose into my hand and then tumbling across the floor.
Then came the darkness. The bareness of my farmhouse in the Five Hamlets burnt to shreds.
Dragonseers and Airships Page 51
