Apparently, the Dragon Flights were silent watchers of Iaredin. Theo remembered hearing from Elrin the way he had encountered a dragon. It was a beast he had never tamed, although it had quickly become his life’s desire. The intelligent creatures, appearing as monsters to most people, did their best to stay out of the way. Only when they were truly needed did they alter the course of history.
That only made Theo question why they hadn’t jumped into this new iteration earlier. Surely there was something they could’ve done to help out the new version of this world? But Pogo was quick to explain it away.
“You’re from Earth, aren’t you?” Pogo asked.
Theo looked into her yellow eyes, finding a depth in there he found hard to imagine. It was the gaze of someone who had watched the sands of time slip through her fingers without blinking. He couldn’t even guess how the dragons had survived for so long without going insane. “I am,” he confirmed after a short pause. “Why?”
“Excellent. You understand the concept of electromagnetic wavelengths, right? Radio, x-ray, so on and so forth.”
Theo blinked a few times, never expecting a science lesson from a dragon. “That’s right.”
“Imagine the energies of the world like radio waves. The primordial energies, something most people call celestial energy, occupies a narrow band right in the middle. The local system takes up a lot of the higher waves, and draconic energies settle down near the bottom.” Pogo reached out, plucking a leaf from a nearby branch. The forest they had found themselves in reminded the alchemist of the old Pacific Northwest, only far more humid. “The system is maintaining a certain form to keep the temporal field activated. Over the years, her waves have expanded in both directions. That forced the celestial energy down, which is blocking our energy.”
“That’s actually an insanely good description,” Theo said. “I don’t think anyone has explained a magical concept as well as that before.”
“I have experience,” Pogo said. “What this means is that we can produce as much energy as we want, but it won’t soak into the world properly for us to reproduce. If we generate more dragons forcefully, perhaps we can expand our occupied range just a bit. Enough for a clutch or two.”
Theo had concerns. One thing he knew about radio waves back on Earth was what happened if one signal tried to force the other out of the way. One would be met with hissing static and the overlap of voices and songs that joined to create a garbled mess no one could understand. Although he was concerned, he had to cede to the more experienced person in the conversation.
“Any way we could reach a better solution?” Theo asked. “How far does the radio wave analogy go? Can we create repeaters of some kind out in the void?”
“The analogy is finite in that regard,” Pogo said, seeming to dismiss the idea entirely. “But I like the way you think.”
“There’s nothing saying we can’t put load balancers on this planet or another. We could do all of them if we really needed.” Theo cupped his chin, looking skyward. There was a more pressing question on his mind. “But what do we get out of this? Not to be selfish, but I feel as though I need to ask. The protection of the dragons is nice, but that’s far down the road.”
“You’re more shrewd than I remember.” Pogo looked him up and down, shaking her head. “Where’s the timid alchemist I met in the cave?”
“Dead, unfortunately,” Theo said. “I’m slightly more competent, but only because I snatched at a tiny thread of power. Give it time, and I’ll go back to the old version.”
Pogo blew a ring of smoke from her nose, jerking her head in a vague direction. “Get on my back. I’ll show you something.”
Theo tilted his head to one side, pointing at her human-sized frame. Pogo rolled her eyes. In a flash of light and a puff of dramatic smoke, she assumed her massive form. In the light of the sun, he could see the details of her scales. They were a brilliant shade of gold, intermingling with reds in places. Although it was awkward, he climbed up her side and sat behind her slender neck.
“Off we go,” Pogo rumbled, taking to the skies in such a quick fashion that Theo felt his stomach drop out his ass. They dashed into the clouds, banking hard enough that the alchemist hardly had time to look at the landscape below.
What fleeting glimpses he got of the land below didn’t tell him much. He saw the war-stricken lands outside of Vesta, thick with smoke and teeming with people that looked like ants. The green landscape faded to brown, then settled on a muted shade of brown-yellow. It had changed startlingly quick, and Pogo descended just as fast. Theo held on for his life, counting on the fact that the dragon knew what she was doing.
“Welcome to Vulca,” Pogo said, shrugging and ejecting Theo from his seat.
“Nice,” Theo said, looking around. It was a desert. The area looked as though it hadn’t seen rain in forever. What trees once grew here were now dead husks of their former glory, and a few monsters lingered in the distance. It was good they were smart enough to keep their distance, the lizard-like creatures dashing to whatever holes they used to avoid the blazing sun overhead. “There’s a lesson here, isn’t there?”
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“You’re a quick one,” Pogo said with a wink. “Welcome to one of the largest follies in history. A dragon pretending to be a mortal is to blame here. When my Dragon Flight extended a helping hand, he swatted it away and plotted something of his own. Vesta was besieged on all sides. His people were starving. When given the chance to gain supplies from the skies, what did he do?”
“Something stupid, I’m guessing. The landscape here doesn’t match the surrounding area.”
“Indeed, it doesn’t. Instead, the good archduke dug a tunnel. But we all know what happens when you dig too deeply.” Pogo nodded toward the southwest. “The Ekor Catacombs now house the damned souls of around two-thousand soldiers of the archduke’s civil corps. Well, I don’t know if Fenian recreated them, but you get the point.”
“Is the point that the ghosts poisoned the lands, or that this archduke refused your help and paid for it?” Theo asked.
“Both,” Pogo said with a shrug. “My point is that we’ve been around for a very long time, and we know good ideas from bad.”
Internally, Theo knew this was his weakness. It had been something he was working on, but that didn’t make it easier to stomach. Why was it so easy to think he was always right, even when faced with the obvious nature of things. Eventually, he nodded. There was enough on his plate that he couldn’t afford to solve the problems of the dragons at the same time.
“Okay. Do you at least have a plan that goes further than turning me into a dragon?” Theo asked.
“Not really. We’ll know how to respond when we have three new true dragons in the system,” Pogo said. “Well, your once-goose is pushing closer to the power of an elder dragon. Do you think you could reach those heights?”
“In barebones terms of energy storage?” Theo asked. “Easily. I think I can push well beyond that. Tresk might have trouble hitting the true dragon stage, but there’s only one way to find out.”
“Excellent. Let’s help your friends with the armies. I’m sure a giant dragon overhead would do them wonders.”
***
“We almost had it sorted,” Fenian complained. He folded his arms, looking over Theo and Pogo with a cautious expression.
“You killed like twenty dudes,” Tresk said. “They weren’t listening.”
“They still aren’t,” Theo said, nodding to the fighting that had broken out in the distance. “Seriously, what’s wrong with these people?”
“The world may need some reprogramming,” Fenian said with a nervous laugh. “It seems mortal souls are driven a bit mad when they come here.”
“Yeah, he created a death planet,” Tresk said. “Good job.”
Alex hadn’t been enough to quell the fighting, and even Pogo had some trouble. She used some dragon magic to calm them down, but it was fading quickly. It was impossible to tell if there was some way to permanently disable the compulsion of each mortal to kill each other.
“This might be above our paygrade, guys,” Theo said. “Is your interface for the planet working?”
“Yes, but it isn’t listening to me. Erradon wants to do its own thing, and I can’t stop it,” Fenian said. “It has locked me out of the interface, only showing the most bare features. The only thing it will tell me is that the fighting will stop in time.”
“This is a lot of complex, system-level magic,” Pogo said. “Considering how hastily it was constructed, the planet might be seeking to balance the forces of nature with the artificial energy you’ve injected here.”
“Which means what?” Theo asked.
“We can’t do anything,” Pogo said. “The people here will keep fighting, and that’s fine. I’ve noticed they aren’t dying. If I had to guess, the planet is absorbing that energy to power monster-related generators. Erradon will then direct the attention of the fighters to the monsters, creating a cycle that makes stronger and stronger monsters. I suspect it wants to create another reset after the main one.”
“That’s insightful,” Tresk said with an approving nod. “Pays to have a dragon around, huh?”
“This information I offer freely, because of the agreement Theo made.”
“We’re gonna be dragons,” Theo said, clarifying what was going on. “Well, something like humanoid dragons. Dragonoids?”
“Oh, that sounds cool.”
“I want to be a dragon, too,” Fenian said with a pout. “Why can’t I join the Tara’hek?”
“Stop whining. You’ve got your own training to do,” Theo said. “Infusing our bodies with the draconic energy isn’t going to be easy. We’ll need to control the changes so we don’t turn into quadrupedal dragons like Pogo. Sorry, I know you have a humanoid form, but I’m attached to my thumbs.”
“Fair.”
“I’m also interested in how our racial biology mixes with that of dragons. Do you guys have hybrids?”
“Not that I’m aware of. Other than Alexandria,” Pogo said.
“So, we’re going into untested territory here. Which means caution, and a lot of time in the time-dilation realm. In exchange for balancing the draconic energy in the world, the dragons will help us afterward,” Theo said. “I think that’s a fair trade.”
“Is it?” Tresk asked. “Whatever. Don’t care. I wanna be a dragon. What’s better than killing a dragon? Becoming one.”
Pogo winced. “At least you’ve stayed your dagger against me. That shows great restraint, little one. Perhaps your marshling heritage will help with the transformation. Who knows?”
“Can I call you mommy?” Tresk asked.
“No.”
There was little else they could do on Erradon. With so little time left on this plane, Theo had to make sure everything was good for everyone else. Before heading back to the mortal plane, he stopped by Tero’gal to issue a warning. Anyone going to Fenian’s planet wouldn’t be leaving. They’d be locked in an endless cycle of battle until the first reset, and perhaps the second. Even then, he didn’t know if they’d be able to leave. Travel between the worlds was still a vague thing.
“We need someone to cover us at the arena,” Theo said after the group arrived back in Broken Tusk.
“Oh, I know just the persons!”
“People,” Pogo corrected.
“Yes, mommy.”
As much as Theo wanted to be there to commentate the games, he couldn’t spare a moment. He fell back into old habits, resigning himself to working too much. But the end of the world didn’t come every day, now did it?