[Part 2: Prax] Chapter 11

  Part 2: Prax

  Six months Before Kaleidoscope

  Anthea brushed her long, snowy hair on the edge of a cliff outside her cave. She brushed with methodical, sweeping strokes. She had been letting her hair loose lately, allowing it to fly about in the wind. Her hair tangled itself up whenever she did this, and it got caught in her crystalline wings. It inconvenienced her, and Acarnus hardly ever even saw her in person. Not that she was doing this for him. Certainly not because Derxis had told her recently that Acarnus thought she looked pretty when her hair blew in the wind.

  She thought of going up to the heights later to harvest the dragon flowers. Perhaps she would put some in her hair. Such affectations had never occurred to her until recently.

  She finished with her hair and sat on the edge of the cliff, smiling into the moving currents of air. She kicked her legs as they dangled off the side. The ruddy stone plummeted hundreds of feet to the next ledge, and then hundreds more beyond. Down in the valley, a flock of white birds in V formation crawled across the green landscape. Steep cloud-wreathed mountains staggered away to the north beyond.

  The changing winds whipped Anthea’s hair around her face with mischievous intent. No matter what she did, no matter how she positioned herself, it always found a way to wrap her hair around her face. She did not, in truth, think this was very pretty at all. Perhaps Derxis had been making a fool of her. Now that she considered the possibility, it seemed more likely than any alternative.

  She set down the brush and took up the bamboo flute she had finished yesterday. She was proud of this flute. It had taken her all week, and she thought it approached perfection. Not quite there, not yet, and therefore she would keep trying. But it was good. She put it to her lips and played just long enough for the eagles to come down from the heights and wheel in the vast expanse before her. She waved at them, and they called out their harsh cries in return.

  Her own keen eagle’s eyes caught something moving far below at the foot of her mountain. It crept along the winding path up to her home. A visitor? That was rare. Few set foot on her mountain for fear of dragons. Well, she had hours before they arrived. They wouldn’t make it up before mid-afternoon, not unless they were in a great hurry, and this didn’t seem to be the case.

  She rose and returned to her dwelling. In the drafty cave where she lived, she exchanged the brush for her scythe. It was the same scythe she had picked up from her fallen mentor back on the awful, wonderful night that she had first met Acarnus. She saw here that someone had messaged her; a blue light decorated the com-disk atop her rough stone table.

  She laid the scythe on the table and clicked on the com-disk. Grey words flickered into the air.

  AC: Do you want to play another game of chess?

  Anthea grinned. He always asked politely, even though she had never refused. He thoughtfully considered the fact that he always won, and that this might discourage her from playing. But he should really know better by now than to ask her like that.

  AN: Doesn’t it ever get boring for you?

  AC: Chess? Never.

  AN: Winning, Acarnus

  AC: It depends on who I am playing.

  AC: I never get bored playing with you.

  AC: It is always a pleasure.

  AC: As I am sure I have mentioned on previous occasions.

  AN: My, Acarnus! Such passion! Do try to calm down

  AC: My apologies.

  AC: In the future, I will conduct myself in a more reserved manner.

  AN: Good

  AN: Of course I’ll play chess with you Acarnus

  AC: In fact, it is not so much playing chess with you as communicating with you that I enjoy.

  AN: You’re on a roll today

  AC: I know that you are making fun of me because I am not skilled at expressing myself.

  AN: And I thought Derxis was the mind reader

  AC: However, I possess sufficient faith in your own deductive powers to discern my true intentions regardless.

  AN: Consider them discerned, AC

  AC: I shall.

  AN: I want to play without a handicap this time

  AC: Are you certain?

  AN: I want to at least die with dignity

  AC: I am certain that when you die, it will be with dignity.

  AC: I would like for you to consider that a compliment.

  AN: Consider it considered as such

  AN: Let’s play!

  AC: Are you in a hurry?

  AN: Someone is coming up the mountain

  AC: It may be Emmius. He mentioned an intent to visit you when last we spoke.

  AN: Oh no

  AN: Let’s make it quick so I can hide

  AC: As you wish.

  AC: E4

  Anthea flicked on the holographic projection. Acarnus might not need to see the board, but she surely did.

  Acarnus made the game quick indeed. Only once did he hesitate, and that was likely because Anthea had asked him how many were left in the monastery, not because he was thinking of the game.

  Anthea told him to forgo his usual post-game analysis of where she had gone wrong. She didn’t find the explanation of her many mistakes very engaging, but Acarnus sometimes became marginally excited about explaining it. As far as Anthea was concerned, any excitement from Acarnus was welcome. Always so stoic! If the world was collapsing around him in fiery chaos, he would observe it calmly while calculating the optimal course of action.

  So cool.

  Anthea took up her flute and her scythe. She wrote a note to Emmius that told him politely to go away and pinned it to the stone table with a heavy rock. The rock served the double purpose of paperweight and bait so that Emmius would find the note. Anything that could blow away had to be pinned down here. Nothing was safe from the wind. Anthea didn’t mind. Even when sleeping, she loved the feel of air pressing against her skin.

  She shouldered the scythe and set off through one of the many tunnels which wormed through the red stone of the mountain. Up, up, up. Through ribbed galleries carved by the wind of ages, past spires of stone painted in the colors of sunrise, up narrow winding stairs scored by some ancient hand. She ascended through these halls of stone at least once every day; she never missed watching the sunrise.

  Her nameless mountain possessed not a peak, but a flat plateau decorated with fantastic rock formations. The shapes of the stone were perfect for music, perhaps shaped by the voices of dragons rather than the wind. The dragon flowers grew here and only here. They bloomed year-round.

  Dragons came sometimes to hear her music, slithering wingless through the eastern skies. They spoke to her as they spoke to few others, and they told her of the sky, and the winds, and the shape of the lands, and the death of the gods, and the end of this world. They would speak of things long past and times long gone, for the dragons had ancient memories, and they would sometimes speak of things to come, for they had memories also of that which might yet come to pass.

  Apart from dragons and Anthea, only eagles came here. They built their eyries on the crags below, but they seemed drawn to this high place. Perhaps they took pleasure, as Anthea did, in seeing all the land spread out around and below. The clouds themselves often drifted below this summit, making it a sunlit island in a sea of sky.

  Anthea composed herself. She stood straight. She held the scythe vertically before her. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, and then another. And then another. The sighing breeze ruffling the blossoms at her feet swelled and sank in time with her breath. The crystalline proto-wings on her back sparkled with light.

  She danced. A swift dance, a spinning dance, a dance like a bird wheeling in flight. This dance had come to her when she first arrived on this plateau with the scythe of her slain mentor. The blade of the scythe neatly clipped the green, red, blue blossoms of the dragon flowers and lifted them spiraling into the skies. The wind caught them and carried them away on a long journey east, riding a river of air to the place where the dragons lived—the place Anthea had always dreamed of going, but dared not go without invitation.

  She slowed to a stop, panting, when the dance had finished. She bowed reverently to the east. Not even Fiora knew this dance. It was a gift from the dragons, the closest thing to gods that this world still had.

  Anthea jumped at the sound of clapping behind her.

  “Woo! Yeah!” shouted a rough voice. “Hey wow like good job. Did Fiora teach you that?”

  Anthea closed her eyes and took a breath. This time, the wind on the mountain did not respond in kind. “Emmius…” ‘What are you doing here?’ would be a stupid question. Instead, she asked, “How did you get up here?” She just barely stopped herself from adding ‘so fast.’

  “Haha like there was this eagle just chillin and I said like hey you wanna gimme a lift and it was all like sure whatever man.”

  “That’s…” Lucky. Very lucky. Damn it.

  She still didn’t turn around, but she finally relaxed her pose from ending the dance. “Why are you here, Emmius?”

  “Oh well like it’s been a while you know?”

  Come on, Emmius. You just want to see the dragons.

  “And like I wanna see the dragons right?”

  She shook her head. At least he admitted it. She turned around. Emmius leaned against the base of a nearby triple-ribbed arch. He appeared even dirtier and more ragged than the last time she’d seen him. In places she could hardly make out his odd, dark tattoos through the caked-on mud. His clothes looked ready to disintegrate, stiff though they were with the sediment of many lands, and his hair hung in a greasy, tangled mass among the spiky brown ridges of his arda that ran along his spine and arms and over his forehead. A small furry creature poked its head out of Emmius’s hair to peer at Anthea before ducking back into safety. She couldn’t tell how Emmius felt about any of this because he wore the elaborate dragon mask Rasmus had made for him. Honestly! Rasmus shouldn’t encourage him like this.

  “Emmius, when is the last time you’ve had a bath?”

  The dragon mask tilted back and to the side in thought. This, combined with the fierce expression it wore, struck Anthea as irresistibly funny. She stifled laughter and put a hand to her mouth to hide a smile.

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  “Like I guess I pretty much got all up in the ocean when I tried to swim down to see the big turtle even though Rosma said she’d totally kill me if I showed up there but like that shit’s deep man like I couldn’t even get down very far so I was pretty much thwarted in that attempt I guess.”

  “Emmius, you can’t swim to Ys; it’s at the bottom of the ocean.”

  “I mean what I’m saying is that like I wish someone told me that before I tried you know? I probably would’ve drowned to death right there if I didn’t get swallowed by that whale.”

  “And what about your clothes? And when have you last eaten? Are you still smoking the crystals, Emmius?”

  He put his hands up defensively. “Like woah chill. I mean, uh, one question at a time okay?”

  Anthea could see that Emmius had been on the road for a long time. Dirt clogged his jagged fingernails, myriad scrapes and bruises decorated his skin, and what looked like dried brown blood stained the rags he wore. His ribs showed clearly through one of the gaping holes in his shirt. Most likely, the only thing about him in good condition was the guitar on his back. Most likely under that stupid dragon mask he had a stupid grin on his stupid face. Just happy to be here.

  Anthea rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Emmius, you’re not leaving until I get you cleaned up. And fed.”

  “Well like okay but you know I don’t mind being all dirty but like thanks for the food preemptively.”

  “And I’ll find you some new clothes.”

  In response, he only looked down at himself, the fierce dragon mask scowling as though in objection to her assumption that he needed new clothes.

  “And some shoes.” And she would also make sure she found all the powdered crystal he had on him and threw it to the wind.

  “Oh like maybe you don’t know this but I totally stopped wearing shoes. Yeah cause like I don’t ever step on broken glass or sharp rocks or landmines or anything.” He raised a foot to look at it and fell back against the stone. He got distracted for a moment by a random rock at his feet, then looked up at her. “Oh hey wanna hear a song?”

  “No.”

  He reached up and after a few tries unstrapped the guitar from his back. She had been wrong about its condition; two of the strings had snapped. They hung loose from the neck of the guitar. Anthea thought she had spare wire she could lend him.

  Emmius fished around in the recesses of his tattered clothing and managed to produce a frayed electrical cord. He looked around. “Hey is there an amp up here?”

  “Of course not, Emmius!”

  “Aw man like yeah I guess not. Probably no speakers up here. Like haha I guess it would be pretty weird you know if—”

  “Emmius, put your guitar away.”

  “Like okay if you say so.” He tried to reach over his head and strap the guitar back in place, but encountered difficulties. Anthea watched him struggle for a full ten seconds. “Um…” he said.

  Anthea marched over with her scythe, briefly considering using it to sever the giant knot of hair that had tangled with the guitar’s straps. She dropped the scythe and helped Emmius tie the guitar back in place. Emmius fell against her. Dirt smeared all over her white robes, but more importantly, he felt strangely light. Malnourished. He was taller than her, and built with broad shoulders, but she could support his weight easily. He had not been taking care of himself. He had been surviving. He always survived; that was no problem for him. But he had not been doing well.

  Had he been like this when Acarnus saw him last? If so, she would have sharp words for Acarnus.

  “Emmius, do you know where the spring is? On this mountain.”

  “Like no but I can ask it you know and find out pretty quick.”

  Right. Emmius could ‘ask the mountain,’ whatever that meant. “There’s a pool down by the spring with soapstone by it. Go and start cleaning yourself up.”

  “Naw I kinda wanna stay up here it’s so nice you know?”

  “Do it, Emmius.”

  “Okay.”

  He looked around in mild confusion. “Oh!” he said. He stepped away from her and inspected the base of one of the sun-streaked limestone arches. Just like him to be distracted at once by a rock. He reached out to paw clumsily at the stone, and the hard limestone fell apart under his clawed fingers as though it were nothing more than dry sand and gravel.

  “What is it?” Anthea asked, unable to resist her curiosity.

  Within moments, Emmius had hollowed out a sizeable cavity. “There’s a pretty rock in here,” he explained. He pried loose a limestone encrusted chunk. The pale limestone dissolved into sand as he revealed his prize: a dull grey geode the size of a coconut. It split down the middle and fell apart in his hands as though it had already been cracked open when he found it. A forest of crimson angles glittered within.

  “Like woah,” he said, displaying every appearance of surprise. “Red zircon.”

  Anthea gave him a stern look. “Do not smoke this, Emmius.”

  He shook his head. “Nah like zircon tastes weird. But maybe like I could give this to Akkama.”

  The gemstones were red, true, but this seemed a sudden change of subject. “Akkama?”

  “Yeah well like I guess I made her mad or something.”

  Anthea rolled her eyes. “Doesn’t take much, does it? Now, the spring. Go clean up.”

  He nodded and began turning to leave, then froze in place. Anthea stooped to pick up her scythe, and when she straightened, Emmius was hopping up and down and pointing behind her.

  Oh gods, no. Please, no. Please no dragon coming when Emmius was on top of the mountain with her.

  But it was. Not one, but two dragons, coiling like bright ribbons across the eastern sky. Anthea stepped forward slowly, reverently, as the dragons approached. One was predominantly a metallic green, the other red. She strained her keen eyes to pick out details, to see if she recognized either of them. The crimson dragon looked familiar. It looked like Five Hundred, so named because he had witnessed five hundred lightning strikes on the night he first entered the sky. Five Hundred had once done Anthea a favor by frightening a manticore off her mountain.

  The dragons preferred to alight upon the strange rock formations when they came. Anthea approached a grand arch, the second largest on the plateau (she had never named them). The flowers grew thickly around this one, but they had not yet bloomed here.

  The two dragons weaved through the air as they approached, twining around each other. They both settled upon the arch with supernatural grace. The red dragon curled several times around it while the green perched atop it lengthwise.

  Anthea sat down under the arch and gently lay the scythe onto the flowers. She took out the almost-perfect flute from her robes. She wanted them to hear it. But she always waited for them to ask first. She always waited for them to speak first. They had come here; they would communicate when they pleased.

  She looked past them, through the red stone arch and beyond into the far eastern skies.

  Player of Winds, said the red dragon who was definitely Five Hundred, we have come to bring warni—

  A sound interrupted him—the sound of a guitar inexpertly strummed. It sounded hollow, since two of the strings were broken.

  Anthea closed her eyes, pressed her lips together, exhaled sharply through her nose. What was this she felt? Embarrassment. Yes. The dragons did not like Emmius. And here they all were together.

  She spoke quickly. “I am sorry. He…” wouldn’t leave? “…just arrived.”

  The guitar slowed to a stop. “Yeah,” said Emmius, “Uh…hi.”

  Is it he with the false flesh? asked the green dragon.

  Yes, replied Five Hundred. Then, to Emmius, leave us, false flesh.

  “Um hey are you talking about these? Cause I was like wondering if you could help me out and maybe tell me what they mean. I mean none of the other dragons would but you never know right?”

  Anthea cringed. She kept her face turned down to the red earth, jaw clenched. What should she do? She heard the rustling of the dragons moving, slithering over the smooth rock.

  “…what?” said Emmius.

  We will not read it for you, false flesh, said Five Hundred.

  We will kill you if you do not leave, false flesh, said the green dragon.

  “Wow like okay but listen maybe I’ll just play something,” said Emmius. “Hang on.” For a long moment, Anthea heard only the moaning of the wind over the plateau and the systematic twanging of Emmius trying to tune his broken guitar.

  Time seemed to stretch out, seconds into hours.

  Let us kill him, said the green dragon.

  “No,” said Anthea. She had the sense that she interrupted Five Hundred in doing so. She said it not as a plea, nor as an exclamation, but as a simple denial. She could hardly believe, once the word had left her lips, that she had said it. With astonishment, she noticed that she had reached out a hand to touch the scythe by her side. Just a light touch, just making sure it was still there. But the dragons must have seen it, and to them the message must have been clear. The more capricious of the dragons might kill someone just for that.

  She bowed low. She held her breath. She experienced hitherto unreached depths of horror and humiliation.

  Time now seemed to stop entirely. Even the wind, for a long minute, seemed to cease.

  Then Emmius’s guitar twanged, horribly out of tune, and he muttered something in response.

  Player of Winds, said the green dragon at last.

  “Yes,” she said, standing. She would accept whatever penalty for her insolence, but Emmius…she had to make Emmius leave before the dragons killed him. She turned to face Emmius and gritted her teeth painfully when she saw that he still wore that stupid dragon mask. How insulting must that be to a real dragon?

  We may return, said Five Hundred. The message came with the very definite impression that they were leaving.

  “No, wait!” she cried. She spun in place, clutching her flute. She opened her mouth to protest that she wanted them to hear the flute she had made, to hear her music. But such protests seemed childish, especially after her previous insubordination. She bit her lip. She tasted blood.

  The dragons writhed up to the skies and did not look back. No guarantee that they, or any dragon, would return to this place any time soon. Or ever. She might be alone here again, with none but the eagles to hear her music.

  “Woah like rude,” said Emmius, who had come up close behind her.

  Anthea’s scythe lay at her feet. She kicked it up into her hands and spun in a vicious arc. The blade of the scythe struck the side of the dragon mask and dislodged it from Emmius’s face, revealing his placid expression. He reacted with surprise a full second after the mask had come off.

  “Emmius!” Anthea shouted. “I told you not to come up here! Ever! Remember?”

  He looked vaguely puzzled. “Um well yeah but like…”

  Um yeah but like what, Emmius? Anthea wrung the shaft of the scythe in her hands and growled in frustration.

  Um yeah but like he only wanted to see the dragons. Just like her.

  No! This was her place, her mountain; the dragons came to talk to her!

  “Hey maybe I’ll just—”

  “Emmius.” She kept her voice level. He looked at her expectantly. “Go to the spring. I’ll get you some food and clothes. And strings for your guitar.”

  Emmius brightened up when she mentioned the strings. He nodded enthusiastically and bent down to pick up the dragon mask. He inspected it closely when he lifted it up. A large diagonal gash now scarred the face of the mask. Emmius seemed pleased with this.

  He turned and meandered away. Anthea watched him go. He stopped after a dozen steps and looked around, clearly puzzled about how to get down from here. It took him a full five seconds to remember that he could ‘ask the mountain,’ which he did so by crouching down and putting both hands onto the rock. He remained as motionless as the stone around him for a minute or two, then stood and wandered away toward the nearest way down to the spring. He stopped to look at, and touch, every peculiar rock formation he passed.

  Anthea sighed and turned back to the east. She looked at the scythe and flute in her hands. Maybe she should play anyway. She was about to put the flute to her lips when she heard a shout from Emmius. The wind carried away his sound, but she could still faintly make out the content. “Like, my bad, Anthea.” Maybe, just maybe, it had taken him this long to realize what he had done.

  She sat down and played.

  It took time for the wind to shift itself to the music. Draft by draft, note by note, the winds rushed stronger around the rock formations surrounding her and around the mountain itself. Gust by gust, phrase by phrase sounds became audible: of wind whistling through fluted columns, moaning over narrow cracks, rushing through tight caves. Order emerged from the chaos. And over the top of it all, the small, breathy sound of the shakuhachi flute sighed on the winds of the mountain.

  Even if the dragons weren’t here, she could still play. And she would play, for as long as she had a Song.

  Her robes swirled in the gusts, and clouds eddied around the mountain like foam around a rock. The eagles wheeled as though in dance, and the pale skies sang.

  When she had finished, she went to acquire provisions for Emmius.

  Then she made him leave.