Chaos Shifter

by Marc Secchia

  It cost him, aye. Forgiveness was no part of a warrior’s training, but in that moment, Asturbar knew that his words would ease the man’s conscience. Perhaps he too might come to believe them.

  Rising, the other man added, “May the luck of Dragons be your portion, soldier.”

  “And yours.”

  Luck? How many times in a thousand years did anyone travel to this oasis? Less than a handful, for certain. This was exactly the living death that the Marshal had envisaged, a revenge as sweet as it was pure and honourable. Proper, even. The Iolite Blue had acted in full knowledge that his words would seal Asturbar’s fate. Perhaps marooned soldiers went mad out here. Started talking to floral protodragons. Threw themselves into the Cloudlands when they could stand the loneliness no longer.

  Asturbar was not that man.

  The soldiers trooped back onboard. In a moment, he heard the Steersman shouting that he required a double shift on the beast for take-off, and who was tending the meriatite furnace engine?

  To a man left behind, the moment the base of the navigation cabin shifted from the dust and clear space appeared beneath, was intensely poignant. He wanted to scream. To holler until they returned. To protest his innocence; but they were bound by duty as was he. Should he not charge, leap aboard, kill everyone and commandeer the vessel? None of this was right. Only once they left would he be freed from all strictures. Finally. He could live out his days no better than a dragonet flitting between these Isles. No more cares. No more battling and killing and striving and throwing men into battle against unstoppable Dragons.

  All of that was ended.

  A small sack plopped into the dust. Compact, made of soft leather, it clinked upon landing with a sound that suggested useful tools.

  Then, the turbines began to whirr with a steady, throbbing beat as the men worked them up to cruising speed. The ungainly behemoth of a Dragonship accelerated away gradually, its sacks creaking and hissing, the Steersman directing all thrust to the port side to turn her about before he aimed the bow directly to the North.

  As the twin suns rose, his last hope departed.

  Asturbar watched until the Dragonship was a tiny dot in the distance.

  * * * *

  A good soldier took inventory of his possessions. Therefore, he dispassionately itemised his strong infantry boots, two pairs of socks, trousers, a long-sleeved cream linen shirt – military issue casual – and his heavy utility belt and Azingloriax embossed platinum-argentonium wristlets. Inside the drawstring bag he found exactly what he would have hoped for: a short paring knife, two razors, a dagger, a small hand axe, flint for striking a fire, fire cord suited to building snares for small animals, pliers, needles and a spool of catgut thread, a fifty-foot length of ultra-strong spider silk rope, a quaint rectangular craft hammer, and a selection of chisels and rasps for wood and stone. Oh, and two fish hooks? His eyebrows peaked. Right. He laid everything neatly in the dust beside his knees. His odds of survival had just taken a Dragonesque leap forward.

  “Lucky castaway, eh?”

  Toss it down a Dragon’s gullet, he was already talking to himself!

  Next, his questing hands unearthed sixteen small scrolleaf packets comprising a variety of common vegetable, fruit tree and berry bush seeds, and two items that truly surprised him. One was a small vial of what he mistook at first for poison – perhaps Bantukor intended to give him an easy way out after all – but then remembrance struck most sorely. Perfume! This vial contained extract of Nyahi, a rare anemone flower, which he had once purchased but never had the opportunity to gift to Rezhine. The second item was a scroll which he extracted gingerly from its waterproof metal casing. Thick fingers did not lend themselves easily to fiddly tasks. He found all of his military medals and honours tucked within the curl of parchment. They made a tidy pile in his palm.

  Asturbar touched the scroll wonderingly. Unfurled with care, it was about fourteen inches tall by six wide. The text was exquisitely laid out in a pretty, curlicue runic script which he had not the first clue how to read, but it had the appearance of a certificate of origin. The fancy platinum seal, giving the Record Keeper’s credentials and date, certainly looked authentic. His certificate! Bantukor must have stolen this from Records, more the fool he. If this theft was ever discovered …

  He had read about these certificates. Here, if only he could read it, he might at last discover the identity of his Azingloriax clan, his parents’ names and their fate.

  What monstrous irony.

  He held that priceless scrap of information to his breast for a long time. Trembling. Unseeing. Not for the first occasion in his life, he wondered why they had sold him, not to the service of a noble Line, but to a mercenary band. Had they been criminals? Disgraced, as was he? Uncaring? The Azingloriax served in many theatres of war, he understood, being prized for their remarkable constitutions as much as their proven fitness to military life and command, but his history of outright sale and adoption into a House seemed most unusual. Asturbar had never been moved to spend the time, effort and platinum marks to investigate the matter thoroughly. Now he would never know.

  Eventually, feeling the suns starting to properly warm the nape of his neck, Asturbar returned the scroll and medals to the container, and sealed it tightly.

  Priority one. Water.

  He stowed the tools in the bag and the daggers upon his person, tucking the naked blades beneath his belt at his back, by his left kidney, until he could fashion better sheaths for them. As soon as he could, he should figure out some kind of covering for his head. Plenty of clean-shaven landscape up there for the suns to bake. He stood, walked but one step, and stumbled over something large and heavy.

  His battle-axe! How had the Steersman managed that sleight of hand?

  Asturbar guffawed loudly, a sound that shocked him as much by its eruption as by its immediate absorption into the quietness. There truly was a strange quality about this oasis. It had an ageless, intensely secretive ambiance, as if he stood upon the portal of a sacred realm somehow separated from all that he knew, undisturbed and inviolate. He should tiptoe rather than clumping about in his tough infantry boots. He should laugh in the tinkling cascades of the dragonet-kind, rather than the gruff, self-conscious bellow of a soldier. He shook his head in bemusement. The thoughts that entered his head nowadays! The sappy, sentimental manner in which he had observed the Marshal’s garden. Leaky freaking eyeballs – there they went again!

  With a low snarl of discontent, Asturbar snatched up his battle-axe and trooped off in search of non-existent battle. Thumping his boots in the blue dust. Swaggering as if he owned the entire oasis and every creature within it. Which he did. Outright owner of nothing and nothingness itself.

  * * * *

  By the end of his first week in the oasis, Asturbar knew a great deal more about his environment, but he had not yet worked out how to move easily and safely between many of the Islands. The issue was not of being able to scale or descend the Island-binders, but of reaching them in the first instance, for they did not bother to anchor themselves in convenient places. Mostly, the anchor points were located well beneath the curved rim of each Island, and once he defied death and physics itself reaching one with a slipknot-tied rope and a dint of swinging and mad upside down cliff scrambling, they would easily bear his weight. After all, yethiragions supported entire Islands. They were more like long, flexible metal stanchions than vines. Reversing his course presented a different challenge, that of scaling at best a vertical cliff at the top, if not an impossible overhang. A grapnel would have been handy.

  “Bantukor, you failed me,” he accused drolly. Liar.

  The sense of inhabiting a self-contained environment grew upon him as the soldier penetrated the archipelago more deeply. His original estimate of Island numbers doubled, and then more than doubled again. Asturbar reckoned the entirety of the archipelago must occupy roughly three to four cubic miles of airspace, comprising over a thousand individual bodies ranging in size fr
om boulders some twenty feet in diameter, to one he dubbed ‘the daddy,’ for it measured an irregular half-mile along its two major axes, which converged to make a most unusual flying delta shape. Reaching this ‘daddy’ Island became his goal. Its overflowing lushness proclaimed soil suitable for farming, and it even boasted three waterfalls of eleven, seven and nine tiers respectively, starting right at the top of the flying flotilla, and pouring from Islet to Islet in a breathtaking display of spray and rainbows until it eventually frothed into a central pond sunk into that largest habitable surface.

  En route, he discovered dozens upon dozens of species of dragonets, and both botanical and crystalline forms of draconic life, which were entirely unfamiliar to him. The vegetation was lush and ferny, with some flowering species twining their leafy lengths, embellished with extravagant bouquets and coronets, sprays and clusters of exotic flowers, along the binders or cascading down from Island to Island like the mythical hanging gardens of Iaxubor. The vegetation supported a cornucopia of insect life and a number of small to medium-sized rodents. He trapped and ate several; one intended meal bit him back and Asturbar spent three days in a poison-induced delirium having lurid nightmares about all the people he had killed during his years of military service. Revenge of the rodent! Next time he trapped one, he was a great deal more respectful of his meal.

  One curiosity was the blue dust, which Asturbar after several hours’ observation ascribed to the activity of a nocturnal rock-chewing variety of ten-legged, crawling protodragon. More specifically, it was the colour of their droppings once they finished digesting whatever nutrients they derived from the rock. Wouldn’t the Islands be chewed to dust, then? No, for he discovered other species of Dragonkind which collected the dust with remarkably industrious endeavour and turned it into mud or bodily secretions to fashion their burrows and fortresses and roosts, and he already knew that the buoyant hentioragions exuded a type of cement that must further bind these Islands together.

  Maybe archipelagos were built?

  So dense was this unique ecosystem that the biggest Island disappeared from sight for days at a time as Asturbar determinedly picked his way toward the centre. Here and there he discovered pools of delightfully sweet, fresh water, and he found he could turn several varieties of gourds over to use as water storage containers. The dragonets frequented the pools for bathing, but after he saw a ten foot water snake dart toward his hand in one, he learned once again – paradise had its dangers. He sampled and ate judiciously from the local offerings of berries, nuts and fruits, but found little that was truly suitable for Human consumption. He developed an abominable stomach ache.

  At last, after nine days spent swinging from vines like the mythical monkeys, primates rumoured to live North of the Rift, he finally reached a perch from which he could survey the ‘daddy’ unhindered. He noted a couple of enticing grassy meadows of long blue-green grasses tipped with fluffy cream plumes toward the eastern periphery, a decent little forest of hardwood trees perfect for fashioning a more permanent shelter on the northern promontory, or the apex of the flying ‘V’, and generally a wealth of tropical foliage broken in places by thick spars of stone and towering, fifty foot tall columns of – he squinted carefully – crystals? Or were these some kind of organo-crystalline protodraconic lifeform? The terrain struck him as very promising. Lush, even, unless he was missing a further slew of lifeforms that would enjoy having a Human centrepiece grace one of their dinner parties.

  Hmm. So, where to build his hut?

  The Island was an odd shape in the vertical dimension, he noted soberly. Asturbar likened it to a flattish, inverted cauldron with a substantial lip. The gently domed top led on all sides to beyond-vertical cliffs of one hundred and eighty feet, beneath which lay a wide ledge that appeared to circumscribe the entire landmass. No Islands rested beneath its shadow, for the mass of supporting ragions must be dense indeed to bear such a burden aloft and thus preclude easy anchorage for the binders, but its fringes and indeed the area above were surrounded by a great cathedral of ancillary bodies, all linked by binders and characterised by eye-catching hues of indigo, turquoise and violet flowering vegetation. The primary inhabitants were great swarms of butterfly-dragonets and other smaller denizens of the protodraconic families, the pollinators and diggers and scavengers and fire-beetles, flying eels and wide ‘drifters’ which he seemed to recall were scientifically called dracomantas. Their gently rippling cerise wings could be ten feet wide, allowing them to swoosh past a ground-bound man with enviable grace. Here in this natural amphitheatre Asturbar at last attained one of the multi-step waterfalls, and spent an enjoyable afternoon lazing, relaxing and relieving what had admittedly developed into a ripe case of man-stink. He washed his clothing and boots with a soldier’s assiduous attention to detail, laid everything out to dry, and lazed in the suns’ glare like a Dragon taking his repose in a lava bath.

  Life was not so awful, was it?

  Chapter 5: Explorations

  SIX WEEKS LATER, Asturbar had constructed a decent hut backing onto a small natural cave beneath one of those boulder clusters with a clutch of four massive tourmaline – or some variety thereof – spars protruding from it, one of which directed prismatic beams of light into the rear of his dwelling during the afternoon hours. He was proud of that touch. Since Bantukor had neglected to include a saw in his thoughtful provisions, Asturbar had taken to carefully splitting some sizeable deadfall trunks with his axe, hammer and chisels, a slow but satisfying labour that eventually yielded timbers suitable for building. Having no need to season wood already toppled who knew how many years ago – perhaps felled by a storm – he proceeded to fashion neat four-square joints that allowed him to build up a single room hut, layer by painstaking layer. He chinked the walls with mosses gathered from around that large pool in the Island’s centre, fed by no less than five streamlets flowing from various points of the compass, and then belatedly remembered to build himself a window or two. He laughed openly at his lack of foresight. Oh well, he could turn the cut-out pieces to use as furniture.

  He should spin out these projects. After all, the one commodity he would not lack for the rest of his days under the suns, was time.

  Early on, Asturbar planted a selection of seed and scouted out likely locations for his fruit trees. The soil was blueish but apparently rich, and surprisingly deep in places – he quarried four feet beneath his eventual vegetable patch and still found no basal rock. Apart from the peculiar colour, it appeared to be rich in organic nutrients. Vegetables should grow well.

  A soldier ordered his life. Accordingly he established a route to that central pool, for it was a favoured fishery for the dragonets, and discovered their taste in a type of yellow-finned freshwater trout unfamiliar to his palate, but which proved delicious when slow-cooked upon a makeshift spit over his firepit. Excellent! There were a few water snakes about, but a dint of vigorous splashing never failed to drive them off. He took to bathing in the early evening after his working day, and following the custom of the Mistral Fires, took the ninth day of the week for rest. Contemplation. Surveying the far horizons through the thick cascades of vegetation, or between the pretty waterfalls; but he soon realised he was hoping to see a dot speeding toward the oasis. Help. Rescue. A change of the Marshal’s heart.

  He must put hope aside.

  Imperceptibly, the shackles of loneliness began to bind his soul. At first it was whistling as he broke his fast with a piece of fruit in the mornings, but it soon progressed to trying to tame the dragonets enough that they would eat from his hand. Then he found himself talking to them. Giving them names. A particularly bold golden butterfly-dragonet, who visited him each evening and particularly enjoyed nibbling on any sweet fruit he might offer, he called Ingot. He was ten inches long and over a foot in wingspan, and his four semi-transparent wings boasted fantastical designs picked out in black and gold, with teardrop-like edges that occasionally folded into cases in the back of his rigid but clearly draconic thorax. Hi
s muzzle was tiny and packed with needle-sharp teeth. The trio of two-winged scavengers who raided any scraps he tossed out of his door, he called the Three Scamps, or Prime Scamp, Secondary Scamp and Backup Scamp for the chariest of the colourful threesome. They loved to sing their trilling songs every dawn. Right outside his window. Aye, at the top of their lungs, in clever but piercing three-part harmony.

  He might have tossed a boot at the pests a couple of times, but he was not so mean, was he?

  Actually, he might have been accused of a growing fondness for the three rascals. In all respects they were perfect little Dragons – for the word ‘dragonet’ described a very broad class of smaller Dragonkind which was subdivided into myriad varieties. These had four deft paws complete with feline-style retractable talons, sleek bodies a foot to a foot and a half in length, including the tail, and fiery draconic eyes set in delicate muzzles. Their sinuous necks boasted a thicket of needle-sharp skull spikes starting just behind the cranium. Prime was predominantly a sky-blue colour with ochre trim, while Secondary reversed this colour scheme, and Backup’s shining scales were a brilliant, luminous green that made him unmissable. They were fun, chatty, liked to chase each other in the air, and could sing decently if it were just not so deafening - or if they could only choose a better time of the day, the rude rascals!

  After his light breakfast, Asturbar exercised each day. Healthy body, healthy mind – alright, the latter was likely to prove troublesome soon, he recognised, but the former was a matter of discipline. He carved a few bars and set up a short training course in the forest, to which he had returned often enough now that his boots had trampled down a noticeable trail. Bars, balance, vines for swinging. An old, cracked-off stump he thrashed daily with his battle-axe, both left-handed and right.

  He rubbed his hands in satisfaction. Right. Next on the list, table and chairs – ah, chair. Who would he have for a visitor, some imaginary friend? Two chairs. Maybe a rocking chair for the corner; later, a proper bed rather than his makeshift rush arrangement on the floor, which he must refresh tomorrow, and a kitchen table. Running water inside would be fun, wouldn’t it? Maybe he could divert a stream right to his hut for running water and to keep his vegetables from wilting in the unrelenting heat.