2

They traveled a span of galaxies, faster than light, to a mission already in progress. The curtain rose on a tropical wonderland. Like exiting a starship, a wall of warmth and humidity hit Sayth in stark contrast to the cold harshness of Golsussuri. He was used to traveling from one interstellar location to the next and thought little of it anymore. The miracle of sylver. It was all part of the job of being a guardian dragon.

He wiped his face; moisture clung to him like a child. His glasses darkened, reacting to bright golden light radiating from the exposed core at the bottom of the world. Meteorites framed on all sides by tightly rooted jungle floated through the sky. The large-leafed trees and ferns shared a green coloration but shimmered blue in the light. From these heavenly islands, great waterfalls cascaded down one to another, island to island in lengthy chains, until eventually evaporating in the heat of the molten core. The geothermal energy sent the water up as great geysers of steam to cool in the upper atmosphere into an ocean in the sky. There it froze as an icy cocoon at the farthest reaches near space as the outer hydroshell, protecting the delicate ecosystem. The inner layer warmed and rained down upon the islands, thus sustaining the water cycle.

“Azalyske, locate Spiral,” Sayth instructed. A display inside his glasses showed a woman’s outline behind several drifting islands a few kilometers out. Sayth stretched his wings and leaped into the air. He flew around babbling streams and falls, over thick foliage encircled by small bird and insect creatures, and cut through the canopy. Pungent tangerine and cinnamon odors permeated his nostrils.

His dragon wings beat the warm air. An earmark of guardian dragons was the ability to shift partially or fully from dragon to their native form at will. Sayth often sustained human form with dragon wings and a tail protruding from his body. He could also fly without wings but not as fast. It was more a matter of self-telekinesis than flight, really.

Brak Thaa was a kelrite: an unnatural planetary formation where the mantle’s polarity mimicked the core. The rocky chunks were rejected by magnetism yet pulled by gravity into a loose orbit. From within the phenomenon appeared an inverted Earth, where the sun was at the lowest point and the sea in the sky. Reflections created a wavy net of light on the outer side of the islands. The core cast long shadows like an ocean sunset.

Atop one of the larger trees he saw her. Spiral took the form of a human woman, donning a full-length white coat and dress, both engineered of dragon scales and stitched with intricate spiral patterns, white gloves with crystal hemispheres on their backhands, a silver belt of interlocking spirals, white boots, and sylver glasses like Sayth’s. Long, wavy silver hair erupted from her head, the same color as the fur in her native form. Her face and right arm appeared auburn tan but her left arm was milky white. Sayth’s fantasizing was frequently fixated on how the colors swapped under her clothes. Was it a gradient or a sudden change by pattern?

“Sayth. Welcome hither. What pertains you?” Spiral asked in a strong, sweet voice. She was a garden from a hazy dream.

“Right. I gave the evidence to Sealveybreon but remain a fugitive. He wanted to take me in,” Sayth replied.

“A request denied? I was with you at the time First Drako harvested, and know your innocence. Fleeing, however, does not portray this of well. Do the Ogigah’s words so trouble you?” She turned to face him, the golden light casting rainbows in her hair.

“No, of course not. The universe isn’t ending. That’s ridiculous. To be clear, I planned on investigating Brak Thaa anyway, and this has nothing to do with Mr. Rhyme.

“Spiral, I’m sorry he dragged you into this. Mr. Rhyme attacked you to get to me. But with the sylver I collected from the seven weapons, he shouldn’t be able to touch you. Use it to line away if you need. You can return to TriCora,” Sayth said. He was the guardian dragon of Earth as Spiral was to TriCora in a dimension separate. It seemed the coding for a single guardian dragon to emerge was found in sentient species all across the cosmos.

“Fret not; Brak Thaa is marvelous beyond imagination. The forest, sun, waterfalls of flying islands: it is truly, how you said, one of the wonders of the universe. I, oh …” Spiral teetered as the island collided with another in a loud crunch. A white-furred tail with dragon-scale blades sprouted from her back and grappled the branch.

“You know, humans don’t have tails. You’ll need to refrain from altering your form in Alliance territory to avoid suspicion,” he remarked.

She pouted. “How inconvenient. Phantom limb syndrome irks me always as a human. They are complex creatures in all the unneeded ways. I, I am sorry. I meant not to offend.”

“You’re not wrong,” Sayth said. “Back to business; Mr. Rhyme’s warning is just one more reason to capture Altnexxis as soon as possible. Did you find anything here?”

“Sylver is truly miraculous. Such versatility even the archmages of TriCora could only dream of. Scanning for decay, as you suggested, I was able to narrow the scope of an entire planet’s span to but a small area. What is Altnexxis, precisely? You have reference to him the key of ending the decay?” Spiral polished her gloves as she spoke.

“The Drakean database classifies him as an imbalance, same as the schism. We don’t know what he is or where he’s from, but the life-form Altnexxis understands imbalances and the logic-defying decay better than anyone. Some theorize he’s from another dimension entirely. He’s a top-priority target, but I aim to find him first.

“There are rare cases of mutual symbiosis with the decay and Brak Thaa’s one. It was originally a normal planet until an imbalance meteorite collided with it eons ago. But rather than split all life into two decaying polarities, Thaa balanced into the kelrite you see before you. It defies physics and suffers no schism. My theory is that Altnexxis feeds on such cases, and evidence suggests I hit the mark.

“Imagine it. This decay plagues the entire universe. Countless planets have been split and burnt away. No one has ever been able to cure it, but Altnexxis survives despite being infected. What we could learn from him. Sustaining himself through cases of balanced imbalance. It’s groundbreaking. To shatter the glass that locks the sky,” Sayth said.

“Why not let the dragons capture him?” Spiral asked.

“Why not let a cleaning droid perform complex surgery?” he asked in reply.

“This schism means much to you, as I see.” She slid her hands in her pockets.

“It’s complicated. I’d rather not talk about it.”

“Of course. I need no confirmation of importance. TriCora and we of her are strangers not to such matters.

“As duty of guardian, I was asked to find a man broken by contact with a surreality crystal. It was his wife who sought aid from me. In the forest Harpe, I searched days and nights until a blue fire caught my eye. It was him I had found but truly not, for schism is a thief. His skin was burnt, peeling of ash, and his eyes had gone grey. Home, I returned him to find he was but half a man. His mind a sieve; only half of his memories did he retain. Half his soul. Days and years were lost like finer powder. For he had been split. Not his own wife did he remember.

“I thought and searched to find his other half. Although never before, my mind was to reunite him and perhaps, just perhaps, rid his schism. But so that half I could not find and how I did look. One night I returned the hour late, for he was nothing more than a pile of ashes on the bed sheets. To cure this schism, there is no greater act.”

“The schism’s taken something from us all. As for the task at hand, we’ll split up and search the final area. Contact me if you find anything,” Sayth said.

Spiral nodded, sprouted a pair of wings, and took off. Sayth did the same.

“Alright, Azalyske, the plants and animals of Brak Thaa have a rare resistance to decay. Usually, when something suffers the schism, it’s split into two bodies, each burning of an opposite polarity. Altnexxis has found a way to avoid this fate, probably pertaining to this kelrite, and features both polarities of decay. That’s what we’re scanning for,” Sayth instructed. “What is it? Don’t let Mr. Rhyme’s words concern you; focus on locating Altnexxis.”

He flew in between floating islands, each covered on all sides by thick jungle. They rotated and sometimes built up enough momentum to clash together despite being magnetically repelled. As he ventured farther from the hot core, mist and fog became prevalent. His glasses switched to bio-signature scanning when the sight distance grew poor.

He landed on an island. A flock of birds fluttered up. They were colored bright pink and orange, standing out in the blue-green jungle. Sayth phased intangible to let the chirping cloud pass by.

He thought about the harvest and destruction of Drako. It didn’t add up. Dragons were very secretive and secluded.; humans should have had no knowledge of their planet. Furthermore, humans had no access to the miracle sylver.

It was a matter of terraforming Mars. Now able to travel the sacterrian currents to different galaxies in short time spans, it became favorable to harvest the atmosphere from another planet rather than go through the lengthy process of creating a new one. Very controversial, but the Alliance agreed not to use any planet with animal life. Or so they thought. Before harvesting First Drako, their sources said this was so.

And why was he framed? The intent was undeniable. It reeked of a hidden hand, but the weapons research and development team had all been murdered quite gruesomely. Questions were left unanswered like litter floating downstream. Either way, he was a criminal now in the dragons’ eyes and one of utmost priority.

“Sayth, come with haste for something I have found, not Altnexxis but two young dragons and a tree of leaves all colors. Quite surely, it is not from Brak Thaa.” Spiral contacted him via sylver.

“Affirmative. I’ll shadow in and investigate,” he replied.

Sayth silently sprung from the grove in a leafy gust. The black scales on his coat slithered together, and Sayth’s entire body phased to a translucent shadow. He flitted from island to island, low under the canopy when possible. A wisp, nearly invisible and quiet as a gentle snowfall.

Soon he came to an odd tree on its side. As Spiral described, it was not green nor shimmering blue like those of Thaa but rather one with a rainbow of leaves and shaped to function as a starship, modified at a signature level.

Towering over redwoods with a wide trunk, it stretched an expanse of nearly two hundred meters. Aligned knotholes in the dark amber wood served as propulsion, and several leaves, at what would be the top, stretched ten meters long into sacterrian sails. Branches on the sides had been fashioned into solar panels. Their growth was sleek and aerodynamic, woven tightly by elongated roots.

A male, white feathered wing dragon and female, violet harp wing dragon were found beside the ship. They were young, about one hundred and fifty years old, which would equate to twenty-year-old humans. The feathered wing scanned the harp wing with some device, checking thoroughly for something. Seeming satisfied, although with an expression of concern, they disappeared through a hollow in the trunk, which sealed tightly behind them.

Spiral contacted Sayth telepathically so as not to give away his position. ‘The tree’s growth patterns are most highly irregular. It seems more a vessel than a sedentary object.’

‘That’s correct; it’s been biologically engineered into a starship,’ Sayth thought.

‘Fascinating, this. Are all Drako’s ships of such design?’ she asked.

‘No, flora-based interstellar transportation is seldom used due to inefficiency and the long growth process. Furthermore, lengths of engineering to this degree are illegal. One thing’s for certain; they’re not searching to arrest me, and don’t have any connection to the Drakean government, for that matter.

‘It’s odd. Since Drako’s destruction, there’s nothing to sustain them up current from Brak Thaa. A primitive vessel like that would be at the mercy of the interstellar currents. It’s like they came from First Drako, but that can’t be.’

The knotholes in the roots glowed green. Strong winds scattered the mist. Smokeless flames roared, and the island shook from the pressure. Something was amiss; the ship began to slide sideways from the vibrations, tilting off the ledge. The engines stalled. It rocked and risked plummeting down into asteroids and the fiery core below.

‘We must help them!’ Spiral exclaimed and flew to the side of the ship. She glowed white, her face, neck, and tail elongated, and sharp fur ran over her body. She grew and gained muscle mass, transforming into a white dragon with an unusually long tail and wings. Her eyes were the same turquoise with cat-like slits for pupils.

Sayth also rushed in, his shadow body growing into that of a black dragon with six wings and a long scythe tail blade. As a male, his form was larger than Spiral’s, although not significantly.

They pushed against the precariously positioned ship. The floating island began to rotate sideways from its weight, and they could hear the machinery struggling. Trees and foliage were crushed under its massive trunk.

‘I do not know if we can hold in place it!’ Spiral strained.

‘It’s all in the mind,’ Sayth thought.

‘No, I am fairly certain it’s in this before us giant log,’ Spiral answered, anchoring her talons in the rocky ground.

‘Disposition rifts through a dozen cliffs. In attitude and the contour sifts, never spent to count the cards in hand. There’s a land in lay; there’s a deck in play—all downed by a line drawn in the sand,’ Sayth replied.

‘What?’

‘Less talk, more push,’ he answered.

The island rolled, sliding the ship farther. Only their telekinetic abilities were keeping it from free fall. It wasn’t going to be enough, as the three-hundred-thousand-kilogram vessel was almost off the edge.

They toiled with all their might, but it toppled over and plummeted towards the core. Islands cracked and crumbled as it bounced off them. Clouds of birds fled, and rivers clashed. All seemed lost.

Suddenly, at the eleventh hour, the engines exploded to life. The ship curved upright and blasted off, flying between islands, up into the fog, rain, and hydrosphere. Then finally, into space.

‘We saved them!’ Spiral cheered. Sayth nodded and dusted off his hands. They both shrunk back to human form, although Spiral kept her tail.

Sayth flew up over the island where the ship had been docked. Half of the island was a waste of broken branches and shredded leaves. His eyes methodically surveyed the scene, eventually settling on half-eaten blue rinds under an undisturbed tree. Some sort of fruit. Small spherical indentations did not match dragon mandibles, and a quick scan by Azalyske revealed it had been ingested within the hour. They were all that remained as there was no sign of Altnexxis himself. Sayth smeared the turquoise pulp and pink seeds between his fingers. They featured decay of both polarities: the violet, red, and pink of north and light blue and indigo of south, crackled like a campfire. It was unlike anything else in the kelrite.

He’d been right about Altnexxis going to Brak Thaa, yet too late. Damn it; he had to meet with Sealveybreon first. As much as Sayth tried to deny it, his gut advised that time was running out. Dragons marked Altnexxis as a top priority target relating to the schism decay, and worse, so did the Ogigah.

With this lead lost, he hadn’t a foggy idea of where Altnexxis escaped to. But he knew where he’d been. There was another curiosity an old friend had asked him to unravel. Azalyske flowed out as a silver stream in the air and took a sample of the rind.

“Spiral,” Sayth called over the crashing waterfalls. “We lost Altnexxis. I have another planet to investigate. You can join me, but don’t expect idyllic scenery. A derelict Lytrik production plant reactivated recently. They’re the species that got wiped out in the Triangle War.”

“This world whole is new to me. In time I wish to see it all, the beauty and unsightly,” Spiral said, flying over. “War, I regret to say, is not unfamiliar to we TriCorans.”

“Alright,” Sayth extended his hand to her. She took it.

“Azalyske, line us to the moon Opheln in the Lytrik system,” he instructed. Spiral held her breath as liquid sylver washed over them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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