RAWN

by Bonnie Burrows

  Rawn continued exhaling his torch and swiveled his head to the side, and as his head moved, it carried his flaming jet across the surface of the material sample, cutting its way along as it went, until the sample was precisely cut in two. The lower half fell with a clatter to the stage floor, leaving the half still in the grasp of the drone smoldering red-hot at the edge of the cut.

  What was earlier a heavy murmur and a buzz of excitement in the auditorium now became almost an uproar. Voices raised, and in the din, Phifer and Sabian could pick out snatches of reaction: “Tactical applications…effectiveness against starship-grade hull plating…sustain that kind of output for how long…continued effectiveness in prolonged combat…how many more enhanced Knights…enhance the on-planet Corps in the same way…but powerblades are more precise…side-effects of the mutation process…adapt the entire Knighthood…”

  Patiently, almost indulgently, Phifer let the upswell of reactions go on as long as he thought was needed. He looked to Rawn and Sabian. His assistant was as obviously pleased with the response as Phifer himself. Rawn’s dragon features were not as easy to read, but Phifer thought he could see twinkles of pleasure in the Knight’s dragon eyes, and he could tell from Rawn’s posture that the young weredragon was quietly satisfied with the reception they were

  getting. At last, Phifer help up his hands to the officials in the seats in a gesture that asked for quiet and calm. “Please, everyone, please… There’s still one final part of the demonstration you’ve yet to see. If you’d all calm down for a moment… Everyone, please…”

  Relative calm returned to the auditorium. The tumult of voices became again a muted buzz, and people settled back into their seats, giving Phifer a chance to go on.

  Resuming, Phifer said, “I heard among your reactions a question about mutagenic side effects. And I’m pleased to announce that the Mythos process has, in fact, produced a side effect in our subject. Yes, you heard me correctly: pleased. For the side effect of Mythos is, in fact, as beneficial as it is unexpected and surprising. The unexpected secondary mutation came about, we believe, as an adaptation to the flame-generating powers. It is an enhancement to the strength and durability of the body tissues to render them impervious to flame.

  The net effect of this enhancement is a most dramatic increase in the strength of the body itself. Sir Rawn now possesses a greatly magnified level of strength; magnified many times beyond that of a human or a weredragon Knight in prime physical condition. And further, he possesses this strength in both his dragon and his human forms, as our young Knight will now demonstrate. You’ve no doubt been wondering why this star shuttle has been placed here on the stage floor of the auditorium. Sir Rawn, if you will, please demonstrate the reason.”

  At the scientist’s request, Rawn entered a relaxed posture. He let his arms hang loose at his sides and slightly bowed his dragon head. With a long breath, he let his reptilian-humanoid form slip away. Wings and tail receded, neck shortened, head morphed, skin turned from scales to smoother human flesh. In a moment, he was human again. He spun on his heel and faced the air-space vehicle parked a few steps away. He walked over to it and crouched. Slipping his hands under the carriage, he made a gesture that looked like a shrug—but was, in fact, a flex.

  With a startlingly token effort, Rawn tilted the body of the spacecraft upward, tilting the vehicle on the auditorium floor. Rising carefully to his feet, he moved under the tilted craft, placed his hands wide apart on the undercarriage, and gave another lift—raising it completely from the floor and standing beneath it, supporting it with his arms and shoulders. He stood there, holding it up above the floor as casually as a man might lift the cushion of a piece of furniture.

  Standing there, hefting a spaceship, Rawn drank in the sounds of loud gasping and the outcries of shock and awe that rippled through the auditorium, and allowed himself a smile that defied the strong but quiet modesty of a Knight. The Knights of Lacerta were trained to be confident in their supreme abilities, but never to boast idly or flaunt their pride. Rawn did not flaunt, but nonetheless, he took pleasure in the success of the endeavor.

  He had offered up his body and his life to the service of his world and people, and his willingness to serve had been rewarded a thousand-fold. He was the vanguard of a new breed of Knights who would make their world ever stronger, ever prouder, and ever more triumphant. More so than any other Knight before him, it was his honor to serve.

  Dr. Phifer gestured once again for a measure of silence from the seats. “Honored

  officials, please…please, if you will…” As the din once again partly subsided, he continued: “What you have seen today is the beginning of a new era. What we are showing you today is the first Knight of his kind. The fully tested Mythos process is safe and ready to be applied to more subjects. Sir Rawn Ullery will serve as the initial standard. We will seek out other young Knights of Lacerta with the most superb soundness of mind and body, and we expect that we will find many others like him who are prepared to undergo the treatment and take on the powers that Sir Rawn has demonstrated for you today.”

  Satisfied at the exhibition of his powers, Rawn went down on one knee, lowering the shuttle with him, and carefully climbed out from under the vessel, depositing it back on the floor. He stepped back over to the two scientists who had made him the wonderment of

  everyone who now saw him, and casually flexed his bare arms, not at all affected by the exertion.

  Phifer went on, “Today, we have given you our answer to the danger of the Chimerians encroaching on our space. We will meet the threat and the terror that they bring with Knights of such power that they will not only hold the line against our enemies, but push it back. And their presence will serve as a warning, not only to the Chimerians but to any other foes who would challenge us, that no aggression will stand against Earth, its territories and colonies, or its allies. With our newly empowered, loyal and noble Knights, we will prevail.”

  And with no further restraint, the audience burst into a raucous standing ovation.

  Rawn and the two men who had so spectacularly empowered him looked up from the stage floor and scanned the throng of cheering officials and dignitaries who had risen to their feet to honor them. For Rawn, this moment surpassed every dream he’d ever had of what it would mean to be a Knight. Outwardly, he received the ovation with a calm a dignified smile, befitting his station. Inwardly, he lifted his arms and spread his dragon wings and cheered right back at them. It was a moment of glory and the beginning, he was sure, of a glorious life.

  Sewall Sabian lifted his hands, smiling and nodding at the people in the seats, accepting their praise and encouraging them to calm down just for a moment. His voice was just audible over the applause: “Everyone, thank you… Thank you… Please, if I may… Please…”

  The enthused, excited plaudits slowly subsided. The officials slowly took their seats again, leaving their energy charging the air all around. And Dr. Phifer’s assistant spoke up: “This is a fantastic achievement, to be sure. We’ve taken a young man-dragon and changed him from the finest warrior and champion that Lacerta has to offer, to something even mightier. Lacerta and all of the quadrant will be justified in their pride at this accomplishment and what it means: that they’ll soon have a force with which any and all enemies will have to reckon.”

  He stepped closer to Phifer. “For all these many months, Dr. Phifer and I have worked together towards this goal, to make all of our worlds safer from the encroachment and incursion of the Chimerians. And when the Chimerians learn what we’ve done here today, they’ll know that in Sir Rawn Ullery they will face the most formidable of enemies…”

  Sabian cast a broadly smiling glance over at the man he had assisted and the young man who had become the powerful recipient of their labors. Phifer and Rawn looked proudly over at him. And Sabian continued, “…just as they will be assured that Sir Rawn is the only Knight of his kind. The line of enhanced Knights of Lacerta will begin…and END…with him!”
>
  There was only a fleeting instant for Rawn and Phifer’s expressions to change from

  quietly triumphant pride to curiosity and bewilderment. In that instant, Sabian clapped Phifer firmly on the back—and something happened.

  Jacques Phifer’s entire body went first into a spasm, then a shocking, death-like rigor. He threw his head back, convulsed, and dropped to the floor. Rawn stood, paralyzed with disbelief, and watched his friend lying still before him. Phifer’s skin turned the reddish-purple hue of an inflamed blister, then changed to the ashen, deathly grey of a corpse. He emitted a sound like air escaping a balloon—and then his breathing stopped completely.

  Rawn was hardly even aware of the stunned incredulity of the people in the seats above him. His eyes stayed riveted to the sight of Phifer’s lifeless body on the floor—before he turned up his face to meet a look of pure, wicked evil on the features of Sewall Sabian.

  Rawn choked out the horrified question, “What did you just do?”

  With pure malevolence Sabian answered, “I’ve just struck a blow for the great Chimerian expansion. I’ve destroyed the man who would have raised an army of super-dragon Knights against the Chimerians. The mighty squadrons of fire-breathing dragon men and women will never exist and never stand against the inevitable. The Chimerians will never stop coming for your worlds or for you. They will sweep over you like the floods and plagues of Earth’s old myths, and you and everything you know will fall before them.”

  Rawn’s horror and disbelief only grew with Sabian’s words. “But why?” he shouted.

  “Because the High Chimerian has shown me the way!” Sabian shouted back. “Because the rule of a single intelligence over life in all its forms, over all shapes and expressions of life, over all transformations and evolutions of life, is an inevitability! Everything that lives will become an expression of a single mind—one supreme mind that will rule the galaxy! And there will be an end to chaos and conflict and struggle and pain. There will only be a collective unity of all life-kind and every species on every planet—with the High Chimerian as its lord and master!”

  Sick with shock, Rawn took a step back and away, his eyes darting from the fallen Phifer to the maddened man standing over him. “You’ve been serving the High Chimerian—working with the Chimerians—all along?”

  “You don’t know what a glorious thing it is,” said Sabian with the look of a man addicted to a narcotic. “I’ve seen the vision of the High Chimerian, a vision of all life united as a whole, reshaped and transformed to serve a single purpose, a single will. One life form becoming

  another, every creature becoming an extension of one mind. You don’t know the power of it, how it will transform the nature of life itself for the better. Under the High Chimerian, there will be no conflict, no inequality, no strife and struggle—only the devotion of all life to one master. That’s what we offer. That’s what we will bring. And you and your Knights can do nothing to stop it.”

  Something snapped inside Rawn. A fury tore itself loose from somewhere deep in his soul. “TRAITOR!” he bellowed. “YOU MONSTER! YOU TRAITOR!” He morphed back to dragon form so quickly that it seemed as if his human shape had been suddenly, violently torn away. He drew his powerblade from the side of his armor and released the glowing energy sword from its hilt.

  Curls of smoke raised from his dragon nostrils, and tongues of flame rolled from his dragon jaws. “In the name of the Knights of Lacerta, I place you under arrest for the murder of Dr. Jacques Phifer in the eyes of these witnesses. And your attack on our planet and all our worlds will be stopped.”

  “And you’ll stop us, boy?” said Sabian. “We’ve already stopped your Mythos Project. Your Knighthood, your Corps, and your Interstar Fleet will all be next. Accept the inevitability of the rule of the Chimerians. We are your future.”

  With a shrug, Sabian morphed his own body. His laboratory coverall fell away, and his body transformed. His skin took on a dark brownish-grey hue. His hair disappeared, and from his back, a pair of wings of his own unfurled: wings with mighty grey-black feathers, each one bearing a massive, curved spike at its joint. Rawn dismissed his reaction to this latest shock. Brandishing his powerblade and exhaling fire, he commanded the thing that was Sabian, “Stand your ground. We have you surrounded. You are under arrest.”

  The winged monster fixed Rawn with a contemptuous smile, then looked up into the seats where the Mentors of the Knights and Corps had already stood up and unfettered their own powerblades. There were dozens poised against him. Sabian gazed back at Rawn and simply said, “No, boy. I have you ‘surrounded’.”

  His blade raised high, Rawn took a step forward to give battle to the traitor. In the same second, the transformed Sabian turned his smile to a scowl—and from the inhuman flesh of his morphed body poured massive, dark clouds, billowing and spreading and rolling out across the stage and up into the seats. Before anyone could react or move, the auditorium quickly began to fill with opaque clouds that turned the place into a roiling expanse of impenetrable vapor.

  Rawn reared back, breathing plumes of fire, trying to cut through the dark clouds with his flame, only to see his fiery breath disappearing into the churning clouds. He could see only the expanding, spreading vapors before him and could hear only the shouts of the onlookers and Mentors in the seats. Then, he heard the crash and clatter of something shattering overhead.

  The dark mists slowly parted, receded, and settled towards the floor. Rawn looked up at the skylight of the auditorium and saw the large, open, jagged place where it had been broken open. He reacted instantly. With a beating of his wings and a slashing of his tail, he was off the auditorium floor and rising fast for the skylight.

  In just a few wing beats, he was out of the auditorium, through the hole in the skylight, and cleaving his way through the open air above the Spires. Rawn did not even pause to look back at the Mentors flying out behind him. With fire smoldering in his jaws and his powerblade at the ready, he fixed himself on the dark, flying figure heading quickly away, high above the treetops. Slashing his tail and thrashing the air with his wings, he sped off after Sabian.

  Rawn began to close the gap between himself and his foe. He let loose a piercing dragon screech, a warning to Sabian that he was coming for him. Sabian, beating the wings of his own mutation, looked back over his shoulder at the fast-approaching Rawn, then looked back ahead and sped onwards. Roaring after him, Rawn exhaled a huge ball of fire that rolled searingly through the air and burst into a fiery discharge just a couple of meters behind Sabian.

  The evil mutation peered back at Rawn once again and released from his skin another cloud of dark, spreading mist, into which Sabian disappeared. Furiously, Rawn breathed out an expanding sheet of flame into the opaque clouds between himself and his quarry. The fire cut through the vapors, and Rawn shot forward like a missile behind it.

  Emerging on the other side of the dark cloud, Rawn looked for his enemy and caught sight of Sabian in the distance, flying quickly towards a hovering craft identical to the star shuttle that had been brought into the auditorium. Beating his wings all the harder to increase his speed, Rawn made straight for the shuttle, but it was for naught. Sabian flew into the opened hatch of the craft, which sealed itself behind him, and the shuttle was on its way at once. It retreated higher into the sky, becoming just a speck among the clouds, and was gone.

  In another moment, the sound of wingbeats behind him heralded the arrival of the

  Mentors who had flown out of the auditorium after him. Hovering and circling in the air, they all watched with Rawn as the ship carrying the traitor disappeared.

  Throwing back his head and shaking his powerblade impotently at the sky, Rawn gave forth a screech and a howl of the all-consuming rage that only a dragon could feel at a friend lost, a cause betrayed, and an evil that would be avenged.

  _______________

  And that was the way it was, fifteen years ago, the day that his friend, Dr. Phifer, revealed to the awestruck l
eaders of the Knighthood, the Corps, and the colony what Rawn had become in the service of his world. That was the way it was the day that Dr. Sabian, whom he and Phifer had so trusted, revealed himself as the basest of traitors and turned on them, the betrayal that cost Phifer his life.

  Phifer had been more to Rawn than just a scientist laboring to transform him into a super dragon. He had treated Rawn with kindness and concern, almost in the way of a father. After Sabian had escaped, Rawn had retreated away in private to weep bitter, angry tears at the loss of his friend who had given him so much--and he had sworn a private, personal oath to bring the treacherous Sabian to justice, even at the cost of Rawn's own life. And in a way, it had done exactly that. His showdown with Sabian had cost him the last fifteen years, lost in a remote space, cut off from everything and everyone he knew, facing a long journey home with only himself and his ship to count on.

  Rawn had requested that the Spires assign him standard Knight's quarters in which to

  settle himself and take up residence, but he had been assigned a place of honor in Mentor's