“And how you did come to bring here a dragon?” asked Shkadaur, in a cute attempt to fix his broken English.
“You want the long story or the short story?” I offered.
Walking along a forest trail, with a self-driving truck behind us, we discussed the most important matters of the situation. There were things we couldn’t discuss; those I decided to omit. I made excuses for the trip we made, excluding the Ark and why Padrict was with us. I made Padrict someone who was coming along with us to investigate an issue with an anomaly near the city; that the Cabal didn’t think it was important enough when compared with the looming threat of the vampirids, only for us to start chasing a dragon across the city.
All the while, I eyed the man named Orlan. There was something about him that I couldn’t put a name to. Even his name was suspect. My magic tingled with every glance I made.
Who was this man and how come I didn’t know about a mechanoconjurator in the Cabal? That seemed like a very important trait. I knew of other conjurators, but they made other types of golems, none of which were machines. There were metal golems, with moving parts, but no one would call them robots as they couldn’t move by themselves except for the motors and batteries that the magic used to move the contraption.
At my every glance, Orlan only smiled and joked by asking me if I were smitten. His shit-eating grin didn’t change my feelings for the better. A good-looking man, that was all. Certainly, I would’ve fallen for him, if I were ten years younger, at the mere sight of him — love at first sight if you want to put it another way. But at my age, those kinds of looks, with that kind of attitude, just made me want to smack him into tomorrow.
I responded to his smiling with confrontational eyebrow-furrowing that I had developed through my time as a wizard student. “Wizard Looks” was not the kind of subject I excelled at, but I got a pretty good B+.
The man wasn’t gay. I knew that much. His heterosexual flirt was meant to mock a peer, not woo a potential partner. That made his action all the more infuriating. I was on the verge of the Violence Precipice, and Orlan just kept teasing me with light pushes. All I had to do was figuratively slip and he would see himself literally slipping towards the floor… accidentally, of course.
“Stop flirting with my friend, guy,” warned Tedet, to my surprise.
Orlan’s face immediately changed. He was confused at first, but soon one could see remorse in his face. A stark difference from the man who was full of confidence mere instants ago.
“I’m sorry,” he said, without looking at my face.
Shame, is how I understood his reaction. It became a little awkward and I started missing wanting to punch the man. Now, I just felt pity and embarrassment. I had no idea how to bridge the gap, but I also had no intention of using my energy to do it. I simply didn’t want to feel awkward.
Luckily, for the humans, radera have no way of noticing the human awkwardness from the slight bodily mannerisms and inflections of our words. To them, we had simply stated our remorse and kept quiet. And so, Shkadaur broke the ice by inquiring more about the dragon.
“I only know dragons from stories,” he began. “What are they like?”
I sighed, to which only Tedet responded appropriately, but then turned red after he watched the confusion (I assumed) in Shkadaur’s face.
“I only know them from stories as well,” I concluded. “But dragon records are extensive in the libraries. I have read only a few in passing.”
“I’ve read them all,” said Padrict.
All other wizards — which added to a staggering two — whipped their heads back to stare at the scholarly man.
“I’m a researcher,” he explained. “I had to read them.”
“I read only some,” explained Orlan. “But it’s more related to dragon components. Like what wizards used them for. Some thought they brought eternal youth.”
“The source of Panasea,” corrected Padrict. “The cure-all potion. And they were right.”
“Many men killed for powerful items like those.”
“And the Cabal destroyed them, fearing it would spark further wars. Specially, against them, the Cabal, for harboring power that could help people.”
“Instead, they wasted them. None of it was left. They could’ve helped so many…”
I looked at Orlan, and that’s when I understood his position. He was a wizard shunned from the Cabal, just like me. He must have spoken about the wizards’ responsibilities and how inadequate or selfish we are — the reluctance to extend a hand to natural problems.
On one side, it’s good that wizards removed themselves from wars and politics, and focused on keeping the supernatural at bay. But that also meant they did not help during natural disasters or epidemics. They do not help people in need, refugees, or starving people.
I am sure Orlan has a strong opinion on what wizards should do when we possess such powers. Just like I do. But unlike him, I still follow my training. Like a cameraman filming a nature documentary, watching a suffering animal. Wizards only stare at the world as they rip each other to pieces. This war across the ocean? That’s none of our concern. Many people will flee and suffer, many wounds and diseases will appear, and we will simply keep that suffering from staining our reputation and laws.
I don’t know how many of us will be able to stand it before anyone breaks a vow. Orlan most definitely would, it’s only a matter of when, not how or why. Consider all the warlocks and witches out there that have already done so and have paid or will soon pay for it. Witch hunting was never just a pure mortal affair. How do you think mortals managed to successfully hunt all those evil wizards that could and have killed several men at the flick of a finger? Who do you think helped them hunt? Or better yet: who do you think started the hunt?
I don’t think you need me to answer those questions, now, do I?
“Dragons are magical animals,” said Padrict. “They are not spirits. But their origin is unknown.”
“Animals? Like mortals?” Shkadaur stopped in his tracks. “But wizards are forbidden to hurt mortals.”
“Except for dragons,” I explained. I turned around to look at Padrict and he understood I was expecting him to explain further.
“Dragons are dangerous magic users. And smart to boot. They did not care for rules or morality. They used their power for personal benefit. Just like warlocks and witches.”
“Human rules and morality,” corrected Shkadaur.
As an individual from a species that was once under the yoke of human rule, forced to learn human values, he understood what it meant for another individual to be hunted for not following human order. In a way, it was concerning, but radera were not just another animal, they were entirely alien. Dragons were creatures that had to live alongside humans. We were forced to live under them too, and their personal principles changed from dragon to dragon. Humans could not stand having to deal with each.
“Yes, you are right,” said Padrict. “So, we issued ultimata. Coexist or perish. Dragons never thought we could be so serious about it. And even if we were, they never thought we had the power to act on them successfully.”
“They were wrong,” Shkadaur said and I could taste the bile emanating from each word.
His words ushered a long silence.
The forest was calm. The loudest sound came from the van as the many motors whirled and whined with every turn of the wheels. The sound of leaves rustling and animals darting to hide from the large bipedal creatures was the only symphony we received. Every so often we would hear the singing and rumbling of distant animals calling to each other. To me, it was surprising the many sounds that resembled machinery.
I could only enjoy the, literally, otherworldly sounds of the forest before Shkadaur broke the enchantment with another question.
“Where do you think they come from?”
“I’m from the school of Drift. We think, several lizards managed to sneak their way into the spiritual world, and, in there, changed and evolved to what they are now.”
“And the others?”
“Creationists. Designers. Artificials. Spirituals. Accidentals. And, my favorite, Magicals. They don’t like that tag, they prefer Fantasticals.”
“I know Spirituals and Creationists,” I said. “One thinks they are actually spirits, but somehow became material; the opposite of vampires. Creationists believe the Almighty made them.”
“In some way or another, they all believe in a designer of some kind, like Creationists. Or in pure chance. But Fantasticals, they believe in what we all know is impossible: ‘Creatio ex Nihilo.’ ”
“They appeared out of nowhere?” Tedet’s red face showed his interest was piqued. As an alchemist would.
“People think of magic like that. Use magical powers and conjure flames from nowhere. In reality, magic adheres to the laws of nature, just like everything else. Thermodynamics cannot be overcome.”
“Fantasticals think magic can make things appear from nothing,” Tedet reiterated the obvious.
“Creatio ex Nihilo,” confirmed Padrict. “They are not entirely wrong. The power of Creation must have created something from nothing, and Magic comes from it. So, why can’t it? Or why can’t spirits?”
“Why can’t dragons,” said Misa, and she opened her eyes wide like she had an eureka moment. “Faith! Miracles!”
“You know your magic. Did Avarez teach you about it?”
Padrict, which had felt so subtracted from the world had finally washed away his defenses. The scholarly talk and the genuine need for knowledge and learning had brought back the academic inside him. He smiled like a child and his eyes shone with each question and revelation. Misa was the last straw.
He couldn’t stop talking about Theoretical Magic and the research on Creation and the Spiritual Duality. He started mentioning Hub Theory, and how the spiritual world is shared across all magical worlds, but the spiritual phases don’t cross over unless people meet and their knowledge and experiences overlap.
Padrict had become the man I knew he once was, before he had turned into a child scared of the dark. He had run away from a destiny that put his life at risk and brought about the Fist of the Law from the Cabal upon him. But just for a few minutes, the once fugitive had become Padrict once again.
“So, what do we know about this dragon?” finally asked Orlan after a minute or so of conversation.
Padrict cleared his throat and searched for what to say and what not to say.
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“Thanatophagon breathes radiation,” he began. To that, we heard gasps or the alien equivalent, as expected. “It can also control matter to a degree never seen before. Also, possibly, gravity.”
In unison, everyone questioned the same thing using a single word.
“It’s the first of its kind. No one and nothing has ever been capable of controlling gravity. I believe this is how it flies, given its dwarfed wings.”
The ground shook.
The needle of my compass changed slightly in angle.
“Is that it?!” asked Misa.
That was the only voice that broke the sudden silence of the forest for a few seconds.
The ground shook again, and like clockwork, the needle shifted once more.
“It’s moving; we’re close,” I said.
“Death Eater,” whispered Orlan, almost sounding like a prayer.
We changed directions, trying to follow the needle in parallel. We did not want to encounter the dragon head-on. The trail began to disappear when Orlan decided to stop his truck from following. We let him unpack his truck.
Boxes and more boxes, like he was moving out of his home, the boxes never stopped coming out.
He kept asking how close we were and, as the shaking grew louder and the needle shifted, I figured we were close enough that less than ten minutes on foot would be enough to find the dragon. Or for the dragon to find us.
Suddenly, a crashing sound, and Orlan dropped a box from his truck, barely catching himself from falling into the broken wood. From within, a robot in a fetal position bounced off like a skeletal ball.
Mechanoconjuration. That’s what he meant.
“Shit,” he cursed.
Quickly, he ran to check on the machine that just fell over, making sure it was fine. But we were all getting anxious and Orlan was taking too long. Either we find the dragon, or the dragon will find us with our pants down.
“What are we doing?” Tedet urged. “We need to get a move on!”
“Orlan,” Shakadaur echoed him. “We don’t have time.”
The wizard looked up at everyone, and standing up in silence he looked into everyone’s eyes, finally finding mine, and nodded displeased. He pressed a button on the bruised machine and its servos whined in a high-pitched, long note that disappeared into the ultrasonic. Humans didn’t react, but radera croaked and flashed blue.
When the robot stood on its two long legs, towering over everyone, Orlan touched its back and I sensed magic flowing. Nothing I had ever felt before. The incantation was barely audible and, soon enough, I sensed a storing stone that immediately merged with the magic poured into the machine. The spell was over when I sensed the robot had successfully become a mechanical golem.
“Open the boxes,” Orlan commanded the machine.
Before he finished his sentence, the golem was already moving towards the boxes on the floor, stripping them from their cover. Nails and splinters flew in every direction. The violence continued while Orlan placed a storing stone inside each of the robots as they stood up. Not only did his golem rip open the boxes, but it had turned on each of the other machines. And, like soldiers standing fast for their commanding officer, the robots awaited the salute of the wizard and their first command in the form of a spell.
I felt a chill when I realized Orlan had so effortlessly conjured a personal army; completely loyal and unquestioning. If Orlan simply said to kill us all, the golems would simply rip us to shreds in record time, and there would be nothing we could do.
Absolutely nothing.
I kept my cool and my poker face and simply stared at the machanoconjurator do his magic while I felt my legs trembling from the ground that shook with every step of the dragon. This was an army we were going to need. Just like in ancient times when wizards would bring soldiers to assist them in slaying dragons, we were now bringing our own.
“They are intelligent,” Orlan explained. “I developed their AI so they don’t just follow orders blindly. They understand commands and they analyse the world to engage threats accordingly. You can trust them to do their job right. But only I can give them commands. Both the magic and the code are made to be that way. They are also made to keep fighting even after my death, to finish their job or be destroyed trying.”
Terrifying.
“Awesome,” admired Misa from behind. Her eyes shone like pearls under the sun. “Do you think we could do that? It’ll make fighting vampires much simpler.”
That made me laugh awkwardly. I shook my head at her comment and she dejectedly agreed to my usual excuse of incompetence.
Misa was being naïve and innocent, like always. But I understood perfectly what she meant. However, for me, that feeling was overshadowed by dread. Somehow, at the back of my mind, I questioned why the Cabal would allow a person to build their own army of intelligent golems.
Were they thinking of fighting? Were they preparing for what they thought was an inevitable war against the supernatural? Or simply a way to fight against the onslaught of vampirids? Misa was smart to think that far ahead. Another part of me thought that if they were hiding something like this so well, that there were not even rumors of it among the wizards, then how could this man simply be driving around with a combat battalion of magical machines in his vintage truck?
This was a head-scratching mystery that I didn’t have the luxury to theorize at the moment. Whatever it was, I was glad Orlan was on our side.
“Are you done?” Tedet pushed.
“Done,” Orlan answered, while the last of his machines were being transformed into bona fide golems. He turned around to see my astonishment and intrigue. For a moment, he seemed to hesitate but followed it up with an explanation: “I can issue voice commands to them, but some long-distance control and information are impossible. My solution was to use magic to make up for the deficiencies. They can’t communicate with each other via radiowaves, but they can use magic.”
“Use magic?”
“Their AI learned to understand magical cues. They don’t feel it per se, but they can analyse magical effects. Like how certain organisms smell hormones, they smell it, but they don’t know what it means, they react by instinct to it. Golems are like that, you give them a command and they act, like real robots. AI is there to bridge the gap between magic and autonomy. It’s not perfect, but it works much better than you think. And if they can hear me, magic and machine work together on the same goal.”
“They become much more dangerous,” I said, amazed, but with a tinge of fear. “I bet you had a lot of problems with the Cabal for researching and building this. I am surprised they allowed you to go this far, even.”
To my unconscious remarks, I saw his face twist by my uncomfortable conversation. Something didn’t sit right with me and tried to push it further.
“How did you manage to convince them?”
“Some of it they don’t know, of course.”
I nodded to that. A wizard hiding the truth from the Cabal, the Council, was seen as dangerous to everyone — to the Cabal and mortals. If they found out, it’s possible they may even punish him with death, especially if they already knew and ordered him to stop.
“Don’t do something you might regret,” I said, without trying to scold or force an opinion on him. I simply offered some unrequested, but needed, counsel.
“I’ve heard that before,” he said while giving me a side-eye look. He looked ambivalent in his decision to continue with his work. “Coming from you, that advice seems surprising and… hypocritical.”
“That’s exactly why I’m advising otherwise. Don’t say you weren’t warned.”
I decided to walk away, there would be no point in pushing the matter, especially with an ally. Last thing I want is to create enemies. I gave him a passing shrug, indicating to him that he and his actions were no longer my problem. He was a man that knew of his position, but he was still willing to push the boundaries. Such people existed many times before and will continue to exist, for the good and the bad of society and the Cabal. Such people are needed for change. Maybe he would be the start of a good change in our lives. Maybe one day young wizards learning mechanoconjuration would learn of the Senior or Arch Wizard Orlan, the first mechanoconjurator, and the usefulness of wizards to the mortal world will increase exponentially.
But that day may not be today, and I will most likely not be the man to help him make that change. Instead, I will be known in the history books as the guy who almost stunted the growth of magic. So, be it. They don’t have to learn about the useful idiots that try to stop their brethren from getting their heads lopped off by the i\Inquisition before the world turns a new leaf.
And, so, we marched off, with the sound of servos, compressed air and liquids, and mechanical joints whirring and whining with every step, as well as the clack of their feet. An odd juxtaposition with the symphony of the organic, of meat groaning and leaves rustling on the air, with the clanking of the artificial and the machine. A sound meant to be heard only before the storm of battle, of war, in our times.
Quite fitting for us, to be true.
We approached a small hill, a rocky protuberance from the forest floor that towered several stories above the tallest trees around it. The rocky floor only allowed for some tall bushes to grow, and limited to small weeds very near its rocky wall. Some creeping weeds fell from the walls and covered the gray-white karst-y surface. This was a well-known, but very small, monolith in the forest on the outskirts of Al Patreck, named after its forest — or maybe the other way around, who knows — Rashchet. A monolith that snapped during the construction of the underground mass driver of Free-Teck. Still, the split monolith retains its status as one by simple tradition. People don’t like to change, especially when it was those darned humans that destroyed their heritage.
The compass pointed towards Rashchet. Was it across this monolith? Above it? Under it? Or maybe, inside of it?
I extended my concern, and it would take a long time to do something if any other possibilities that aren’t "around the monolith" were true. Being so close to the dragon, it would be easy to find him out if we simply looked for its magic, but given we were back on the surface of a planet, one teeming with life, it would be impossible to find out where it was accurately even if we were to feel the dragon. At this point, it was hard to differentiate the dragon from the usual background magical noise.
“Use our Senses?” Padrict asked.
“Or lose more time searching,” I explained. “Or divide the team.”
“I don’t like that last one,” grunted Tedet.
Shkadaur croaked in a way that, I assumed, mimicked humans shaking their heads, as I have noticed Tedet does when he disagrees with me.
“I can search for the dragon,” he proposed. “I can sniff it in seconds.”
Sniff? I knew the Knights didn’t use the Senses like we did, and instead, they concentrated on feeling the magic or, as they called it, sniffing. But no matter how much I heard it, it sounded weird to hear someone say sniff, like how a dog would.
“Do you even know what to look for?” I countered.
“A dragon.”
I shook my head. “Do you know what a dragon smells like?”
His unreadable alien face along with the silence told me everything I needed to know, I didn’t need to be a genius arbderologist — from the Goktoga arbdera, meaning radera — to figure out the obvious.
“Let us do this, we don’t need to know what to look for, we’ll know.”
While hadtherad are trained to learn to sense, or sniff, the magic and differentiate one scent from another, one source or form of magic from another, and even separate two magics from the same type, they are incapable of learning to spot new magic out of nowhere. Shkadaur will need to learn dragon magic before he can sniff it. In a way, Shakadaur would be the first hadthread to learn dragon magic once we find it, and probably will be the last. A skill that would be as useless as it would be historical, so long as we are successful.
Opposed to them, wizards can open their senses to receive any and all types of magical stimuli into ourselves. The Knights are careful, they are protected but they are also limited. Wizards are not careful, we allow every source to pass through our magical filters, and it becomes dangerous.
We separated from each other only slightly around the split monolith to triangulate the source of the magic. I planted my feet hard on the ground and breathed in. On the Ark, I did not need to search for the dragon, I felt it as it brushed my body hair. It was effortless. The small magical breeze tingled my nose. I knew where it was, like a hound or a Knight Hadtherad. But the ship was desolate of magic, and Sovail was alive.
I braced for whatever could happen—
I was punched in the gut. In the face. I was punched in the back and the groin. My body forcefully genuflected, even when I tried to keep my stance. The world relatively approached me, encountering my face.
I did not sense pain, nor did I feel anything on my body. I simply got punched from everywhere, all at once.
On the ground, like a fetus, I managed to contort my head to look for anything, as if by spotting something I could find relief for my situation. Instead, I found a shape that seared my eyes. It was red hot — no, it was white hot. I could feel the heat through sight alone. My nose burned, I tasted cinders, charcoal. My world was asunder.
I felt myself forcing air into my lungs, but I did not feel like I was breathing. My lungs were aflame. I opened my mouth to gulp air and only found the intense heat in my tongue and my teeth clenched to shield my mouth from the fire.
A spark of lucidity gave me enough time to close myself to the senses. In an instant, I felt fresh. The cool and damp forest air gave me relief. The wet leaves under me lost their moisture into my dry skin, like it was sucking it with a straw. My eyes, they saw the bright blue and cool sky, and it embraced my eyeballs.
Even the screams of Tedet and Misa, so ablaze in emotions of love and friendship, they felt chilling in contrast to the oppressive burning that the dragon released as pure magical waste, as excess heat.
I was only out for a second or two, I knew.
Turning to look at everything around me, I found the other two convulsing wizards snap out of their fiery trance and hold themselves close. Their wide eyes told me everything as they opened their mouth to suck the moisture of the air or smear their face on the wet soil.
A small cry came from Padrict.
“Too much,” I whispered.
“Ed! Are you okay?” both my friends asked in cold unison and harmony. I wanted them to keep talking.
I stared at them without saying a word and waited. I waited for their voices.
“Are you okay?!” Tedet almost screamed as he shook me with his deformed, alien pseudo-hands. And they were lukewarm, but all I felt was coolness.
I smiled at both.
“You’re not alright, are you?” Misa kept pressuring.
“It was so hot,” I finally said. “I was burning. But you, you two are so… cold. So nice and cold.” I grabbed Misa’s hand and squeezed, trying to take the coldness from her.
But soon, I started to feel the heat around me again. And I felt disgusted, almost repulsed. The smile I wore so fondly, quickly melted like my emotional ice cream.
“What happened?” asked Shkadaur. “Where is the dragon?”
The bittersweetness of the end of a time brought me back to real consciousness. I looked at the other two wizards, holding on to themselves in all four, and they each looked back at me. I pointed towards the split monolith and slightly downwards.
The two other wizards mirrored me.