Voyages of the Flying Dragon: Beast Child

by Ben Chandler

  Lenis accepted the mug, sniffed at it, and then took a sip. Sometimes Hiroshi’s idea of what was good for him didn’t extend to his sense of taste, but this proved delicious. It was a thick, rich soup that tasted heavily of garlic and ginger. Lenis thanked the cook again, forwent his visit to the doctor, and carried his rice ball and mug of soup up to the bridge, accompanied by the sound of Suiteki’s gnawing right by his ear.

  Missy had just finished presenting herself to the captain when Lenis walked in. It was still early. The sun was up beyond the eastern mountains, but it would take hours to get high enough in the sky to be seen. The bridge was all but deserted at this hour, though not because her crewmates were still abed. Most were in Fronge, helping the survivors as best they could. Tenjin remained behind, seated in a chair with his injured leg up on a short stool.

  When Missy arrived the captain had been speaking with a representative from the destroyed town. He was a tall man with curly brown hair and broad shoulders, who had bowed low to Missy before departing. Clearly Heidi hadn’t yet managed to convince her fellows that Missy wasn’t a god.

  ‘I am glad you are both here,’ the captain said after Lenis had bowed, much to Suiteki’s distress. The poor thing nearly dropped her breakfast as she clutched Lenis’s robe to keep her perch on his shoulder. After he straightened, she nipped him on the ear, put the strip of meat she had been picking at in her jaws, and slipped down his collar into his robe. ‘I wished to discuss certain matters with you. Things have taken a surprising turn since we diverted to Fronge.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Lenis replied, hunching his shoulder to rub his ear since both his hands were full.

  ‘However, our mission remains the same. We must retrieve the stones of ebb and flow to unlock Suiteki’s power. We know Karasu holds at least one stone. Also, for whatever reason, he wants the boy we found in the temple.’

  ‘Kanu,’ Missy said.

  ‘Yes. This means Karasu will eventually come to us. I believe we should therefore focus our attentions on the second stone. I have decided to follow Karasu’s advice and seek the unclaimed stone in temples dedicated to Seisui. Lord Tenjin believes he knows of such a temple here in Heiligland.’

  Tenjin coughed and adjusted his foot on its rest. ‘I cannot be certain. The theory that the Totem are worshipped by different names in different countries – the World Tree philosophy – has yet to be proven, but we must remember it was the connection between the Totem Apsilla and the Blue Dragon Seisui, which Lenis drew back in Gesshoku, that led us to the dragon egg.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Lenis repeated. Missy sensed her brother was in a bad mood. He obviously wasn’t well and probably should have stayed in bed.

  ‘Well,’ Tenjin continued, ‘if we assume Rinjin and Njord are the same entity – the god of the sea – it follows logically that Apsilla’s Heiliglander guise would be a daughter of Njord.’

  ‘Because Apsilla is the sea god’s daughter?’ Missy asked.

  ‘That is correct, Misericordia.’

  Missy nodded. ‘Does Njord have any daughters in Heiligland?’

  Tenjin stroked his beard before placing his hands inside his sleeves. ‘He has several. We know Apsilla is the Lady of Rain, so I have ruled out those of Njord’s offspring who share no such affinity with water. That leaves three possible candidates: Ran, a vengeful ocean deity; Jormungand, a slothful deep water goddess who invokes feelings of regret; and Kolga, a gentle goddess renowned for guiding lost sailors to safe havens.’

  ‘It’s Kolga,’ Lenis said, his voice muffled by his cold. ‘It has to be.’

  Tenjin nodded. ‘I suspect you are correct. Kolga is the most compassionate of the three. The captain and I have discussed this and we believe Kolga corresponds most closely with what we know of Apsilla.’

  Missy found their reasoning to be pretty thin. Even if the World Tree philosophy was correct and Apsilla was known as Seisui in Shinzō and something else in Heiligland, that didn’t mean she was benevolent in both cultures. Perhaps Heiligland was where she went to vent her frustration by wreaking vengeance on sailors.

  ‘It is likely Karasu will draw the same conclusion,’ the captain said.

  ‘He’s the one who suggested we find her temple,’ Lenis mumbled. ‘He knows we need the stones. It could be a trap.’

  The captain nodded. ‘Indeed. Karasu may try to take the boy from us by force, or he may seek the second stone to gain a greater position from which to barter. In the temple he attempted to trade the boy for the stone in his possession. He may try again. Either way, a confrontation seems likely.’

  Missy stared out of the crystal dome of the bridge at the walls of Fronge. Tendrils of smoke still curled up out of the ruins. The captain’s words brought back memories of her conversation with Heidi. Is that really where all this was leading? Was violence the only way to resolve the problem of Karasu? Didn’t they have enough to worry about with Ishullanu and his growing Demon army?

  ‘Kanu.’ Missy hadn’t realised she’d said the name aloud until she felt the others watching her. She turned back to them. ‘He’s the key to whatever it is Karasu is up to. He wanted the dragon egg. Now he wants Kanu. We need to speak to him. Maybe he can tell us what all this is about.’

  Captain Shishi smiled. ‘A wise suggestion, Miss Clemens. We do not know who or what Kanu is, nor do we know what Karasu wants with him. Perhaps he believes the boy is the sea god. The boy seems to be who he was looking for in the temple. Kanu may hold some clue to Karasu’s motivations.’

  ‘You want us to talk to him?’ Lenis asked.

  ‘I do. You are both extremely gifted in various methods of communication. The boy speaks a language no one else can understand, but he seems to have some sort of connection with you both. If possible, I would like you to try and converse with him. Find out as much about him as you can.’

  ‘Where is he?’ Missy asked. She had her own reasons for wanting to talk with Kanu. A quick glance at her brother told her that he was having similar thoughts.

  ‘He is down by the water,’ the captain told them.

  ‘The water?’ Missy hadn’t noticed any water during their mad flight to Fronge, but then she had been a bit distracted and there had been a lot of smoke.

  ‘Over that rise to the west.’ The captain pointed to a series of low-lying hills set between two towering peaks. At their summit was a stone wall, blocking any further view in that direction. ‘There is a gate in the wall and a path that will take you through the mountains and down to the shore. The people of Fronge have a jetty there for loading their minerals and shipping them to the mainland.’

  Missy forgot about Kanu for a moment. ‘By sea? Can they do that? What about the Demons?’

  Lenis answered her. ‘Metal ore is too heavy to transport via airship unless you keep the loads too small to make the voyage worthwhile.’

  The captain turned to her. ‘There are those who still sail the oceans, Miss Clemens, despite its dangers. The members of Miss Shin’s family have been sailors for many generations. Her nautical skills are what earned her the post of helmswoman on the Hiryū.’ He saw the doubtful look on Missy’s face. ‘I have been to the wall myself. It is quite defensible.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Missy said, though she wasn’t thinking of defending Fronge from Demons. She had known that Shin had been a sailor before joining the Hiryū’s crew, but somehow she had never really dwelled on it. The Shinzōn woman had spent most of her life on waters infested with the Wasteland taint. That takes a special sort of courage, Missy thought.

  The twins bowed to the captain and left the bridge. As they passed by the stairway leading below decks, Lenis turned to head down into the hull. ‘We’d better grab warmer clothes, and I’ll leave Suiteki with Hiroshi. She won’t like going out into the cold.’

  Once they were attired in heavier gear, including gloves and padded boots, they met at the gangplank. Although both had been given new Shōgo uniforms in Nochi after the Warlord had legitimised their theft of the Hiryū, Missy
preferred to wear the clothing Andrea had given her. She felt more comfortable in breeches and shirts than she did in Shinzōn robes. It was closer to what she used to wear back in Pure Land. She still wore her hair tied back in the Shinzōn fashion, but where once she had done so to emulate her owners, now it was to keep her hair out of her face. The coat she wore was another gift from Andrea. It had a large hood and was heavily padded with wool.

  Her brother seemed to prefer Shinzōn clothing. He had fallen into the habit of wearing his Shōgo uniform, which consisted of black, wide-legged trousers and a black robe embroidered with a red dragon motif, tied with a red belt. He had complained that they were poorly suited to the high winds of airship travel until he had learned to layer other robes on top of and beneath his uniform. No one had bothered to teach the twins how to wear Shinzōn clothing when they were just slaves, but Lenis had picked it up from watching the captain and Lord Tenjin.

  Both wore Shinzōn boots, which were little more than sealed casing of hard leather that fitted over their regular boots. It took a while to get used to them, but Missy had to admit they were very warm. They also both wore the red scarves Namei had given them back in Gesshoku.

  The walk to the foothills was uneventful. They went in silence, both concerned with thoughts of their own and both, Missy realised, anxious about their upcoming conversation with Kanu. When Lenis had confronted Ishullanu at the World Tree, the Demon King had told him that the Clemens twins were different, that they weren’t even supposed to be human. They could do things no other Bestia Keeper could do. Missy was telepathic. Lenis was empathic. They could communicate not just with Bestia but also with Totem and humans and who knew what else. Somehow Kanu had recognised that difference in them. Missy was anxious about what that might mean.

  Two guards met them at the wall. Missy felt her face flush as she drew near. She had tricked these people into believing she was a god. She had frightened them, too. It had all been to get her brother back, but that thought didn’t help her feel any better after the fact. Doubtless, Heidi had told her kinfolk what a liar Missy was. She didn’t relish having to talk to any of them.

  As they came closer, Missy suddenly realised that the guards looked more like shopkeepers than warriors. They wore aprons over their clothes and carried no weapons. Karasu had probably killed off the fighters before torturing the other townsfolk. What was going to happen to the people of Fronge now? They had few possessions and almost no food. Worse, if Demons rose out of the sea to strike them they would be almost defenceless.

  Missy bit her lip as she prepared to face the guards’ scorn, but the twins were waved through silently. The guards lowered their eyes as the two passed, as though they still believed she was Magni. Missy hesitated only a moment and then scanned their minds. They did still think she was a god. She didn’t know if she felt relieved or sickened. Being treated like a god had gotten her what she wanted, but deep inside she knew that what she had done in the square was wrong, even if she hadn’t meant to do it. She didn’t want people to be afraid of her, to do what she asked whether they wanted to or not. She had been a slave too long to ever want to enslave anyone else.

  ‘You okay?’ Lenis whispered, and Missy knew he had sensed her turmoil.

  ‘I think so,’ she replied, wondering why Heidi had not told the guards about her lie. Perhaps the Heiliglander hadn’t had a chance yet.

  Missy stepped through the gate and into a corridor leading between the mountains on either side of them. Ahead she could see the ocean about half a mile away, but there didn’t seem to be any sand. It was as though the rock gave way directly to the sea, which was a slate-grey colour where it wasn’t whipped into low white peaks by the errant breeze. The path beneath their feet was straight and well maintained. At first Missy mistook it for a naturally formed rock shelf, but then she noticed a perfectly straight crack cutting across their path and she realised it was made up of slabs of worked stone fitted tightly together. It must have been carefully laid to stand up to generations of traffic that consisted mostly of cartloads of metal ore.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Lenis prompted, which Missy knew to mean no, you’re not.

  She sighed, pushing back her hood. The exertion of their walk was making her sweat. ‘I don’t know. It’s just … I don’t know.’ How could she explain it to him? ‘First there was Fronge, and then I thought we’d lost you! It was hard, you know?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Lenis muttered. ‘It wasn’t any fun for me either.’

  ‘I guess not. Just another grand adventure for the Clemens twins, right?’ Missy nudged her brother with her elbow; Lenis remained silent.

  They reached the edge of the road and stepped onto a stone jetty that projected out into the ocean. At the end of it was the silhouette of a small boy. It was Kanu. He didn’t turn as the twins approached, but Missy knew he had noticed them. He was dressed almost identically to Lenis, in a black robe and trousers, though he wore no winter gear at all and his feet were bare. The cold obviously didn’t bother him.

  When the twins were a pace or two behind him he spoke up. ‘Ki’am Tamtu adi la basialaku.’

  ‘He’s very sad,’ Lenis whispered.

  ‘Sa-da,’ Kanu repeated, turning to face them.

  Missy reached out to his mind. Trying to understand another language was slightly different than skimming someone’s thoughts. You had to piece together what they were saying with the general flow of what they were thinking, as well as hope that what they were saying matched up with what they were thinking. If they were lying it could lead to all sorts of false interpretations.

  ‘Can you understand us?’ Missy asked, speaking slowly. She repeated the question in Heiliglander, Shinzōn, Tien Tese, Ellian, Lahmonian, Kystian, and even Garsian. Kanu made no reply. ‘Who are you?’

  Kanu indicated the ocean behind him with a sweep of one arm. ‘Tamtu.’

  ‘The sea? Tamtu means sea?’

  Kanu cocked his head to one side, and a moment later Missy felt something she had never felt before. Kanu had somehow gripped her spirit-self. He had felt her in his mind and held on to her. After her initial panic, she relaxed. His hold wasn’t strong, and there was nothing threatening in his manner. It felt more like a handshake than anything else, an acknowledgement that she was there.

  Then Kanu looked to her brother and suddenly Lenis was there with her, inside the boy’s mind.

  What’s going on? Lenis asked. Like her, he wasn’t afraid. What they were experiencing was new, but it didn’t feel like it. It felt right.

  Alka, Kanu said to them, and then Missy’s mind went blank.

  Lenis and Missy had joined once before, back in Nochi when they had used their combined wills to control Raikō the Demon Lord. This felt like that, only now that they weren’t in imminent danger, the twins could examine their bizarre transformation. Their physical bodies still stood beneath them, holding hands at the end of the stone jetty. Kanu stood across from them, his own hand resting on theirs, his strange skin and nails looking even more alien against theirs. Their hands. Somehow their gloves had come off. They were connected, skin to skin.

  What is this? the part of them that was Missy asked.

  I’m not sure, the part that was Lenis replied.

  Now I understand, a third voice added. They looked up and saw Kanu floating with them, above their bodies. They could understand him now. They had entered a state of being beyond language barriers. You are you but not you.

  Sorry? Missy asked.

  You are split, but here your halves can join.

  The Clemens twins’ spirit-self quivered. Kanu’s words had echoed Ishullanu’s and woken something uncomfortable in them.

  It was the portion of them that was Lenis that broke the silence. Who are you?

  One who serves, Kanu replied. I have been waiting for you for a long time, but you have not come as you should have come. Something has gone wrong. Come.

  Where are we going? Missy asked.

  Home.

  The
twins felt themselves pulled along behind Kanu’s spirit-self. As they flew, the colour seemed to leach out of the world. The sky filled with dark clouds. The Lenis part of them recognised where they were going. They were flying back to the temple of Njord.

  An instant later they were there, as if naming their destination had been enough to make them reach it. Only this time they didn’t enter via a rock shelf or a long tunnel. They had descended to sea level and arrived in front of a set of doors that looked a thousand feet high. Inscribed on the door was a series of glyphs and runes that Lenis recognised from Neti’s temple. It was the stylised representation of the World Tree. He wondered then as he did now how the carving came to be where it was.

  They passed through the doors without them opening. They were at least ten-feet thick, though it was hard for even Lenis’s mind to calculate accurately in the state they were in. Once inside they noticed that the ocean flowed in under the doors, and that the place was brightly lit, though to them it still appeared in shades of grey.

  There were people everywhere. Kanu pulled them closer. They were all like him, with large cheekbones and heavy brows. Their hands and feet seemed strangely disproportionate to the rest of their bodies. They were mostly naked. Only the older ones were wearing loincloths.

  What is this? Missy asked.

  This is my memory, Compassionate One.

  The Clemens twins shivered again. That was what Ishullanu had once called Missy.

  How long ago was this? Lenis asked. His mind was always the most practical out of the two. Their combined-self maintained that aspect of him.

  Long before the Nintunaki died.

  As if a dormant memory of their own had stirred, the Clemens twins saw the Nintunaki as they were. Spirits. Beings of pure energy that flowed through this world and kept it connected with the World Tree. But what had happened to them? How had they died?