Part 18 (1/2)

*Of course,' said Zouche. *Children's stories.' Dalia shook her head. *Maybe, but I think there's more to Jonas' words than that. Some of it, anyway. I mean, yes, I found lots of stories of heroic knights in s.h.i.+ning armour slaying dragons and rescuing maidens in return for their hands in marriage.'

*Typical,' said Severine. *You never read of a maiden rescuing a man from a dragon.'

*I guess not,' agreed Dalia. *I suppose it didn't fit with the times when they were written.'

*Carry on, Dalia,' said Mellicin. *What else did you learn?'

*There wasn't much that could be called fact, but I remember several tracts that purported to be historical works, but which I think were probably mythology, since they dealt with monsters like dragons and daemons as well as describing the rise of warlords and tyrants.'

*Do you remember the names of these books?' asked Zouche.

Dalia nodded. *Yes. The main ones were The Chronicles of Ursh, Revelati Draconis and The Obyte Fortis. They all spoke of dragons, serpentine monsters that breathed fire and carried away fair maidens to devour.'

*I know those stories,' said Caxton. *I read them as a child. b.l.o.o.d.y stuff, but stirring.'

*I know them too,' cut in Zouche. *But for my people they're more than just stories, Caxton. The Scholars of Nusa Kambangan taught that they were allegorical representations of the coming of the Emperor, symbolic representations of the forces of light overcoming darkness.'

*That's right,' said Dalia, excitedly. *The slayer represents some all-powerful G.o.dhead and the dragon represents dangerous forces of chaos and disorder. The dragon-slaying hero was a symbol of increasing consciousness and individuation a the journey into maturity.'

*Can't they just be stories?' asked Caxton. *Why does everything have to mean something?'

Dalia ignored him and pressed on. *The one thing a lot of these stories have in common is that the dragon, even though it's beaten, isn't destroyed, but is somehow sublimated into a form where goodness and sentient life can flow into the world from its defeat.'

*What does that even mean?' asked Severine.

*All right, put it this way,' said Dalia, using her hands as much as her words to communicate her increasing pa.s.sions. *In Revelati Draconis, the writer describes a dragon slain by a sky G.o.d with a thunder weapon to free the waters needed to nourish the world. Another tale speaks of a murdered serpent G.o.ddess who held mysterious tablets and whose body was used to create the heavens and earth.'

*Yes,' said Caxton. *That's right. And there was a story in The Chronicles of Ursh about these creatures... the Unkerhi I think they were called, who were destroyed by the *Thunder Warrior'. Supposedly their remains became a range of mountains somewhere on the Merican continent.'

*Exactly,' said Dalia. *There's a footnote towards the end of the Chronicles where the writer describes a race of creatures known as Fomorians that were said to control the fertility of the earth.'

*Let me guess,' said Zouche. *They were defeated, but not destroyed, because their continued existence was necessary for the good of the world.'

*Got it in one,' said Dalia.

*So what does all this mean?' asked Severine. *It's all very interesting, but why does talking about dragons need a vox-blocker?'

*Isn't it obvious?' asked Dalia, before remembering that her friends didn't possess the innate faculties for data recall that she did. *It's clear that these defeated forces, these dragons, were still considered valuable, and it follows that these early writers understood that the conflict between dragon and dragonslayer wasn't a contest of genocide for one or the other, but an eternal struggle. For the good of the world, both sides needed to have their powers expressed and the balance maintained. Even these ancient enemies needed one another.'

*Your logic being that it is the struggle, not the victory, that supplies the needful conditions for the world,' said Mellicin.

Dalia beamed at Mellicin. *Yes, it's like summer and winter,' she said. *Eternal summer would burn the world up, but eternal winter would freeze it to death. It's the fact that they alternate that allows life to grow and flourish.'

*So I ask again, what's the point of all this?' said Severine.

Dalia looked into the faces of her friends, unsure of how to phrase the next part of her confession. Would they believe her or would they think her proximity to the flaring energies of the Astronomican had unhinged her? She took a deep breath and decided she had come too far to back out now.

*When I was in the coma after the accident I think... I think I became part of something, some other, much larger, consciousness. It felt like my mind had detached from my body.'

*An out of body hallucination,' said Zouche. *Quite common in near death experiences.'

*No,' said Dalia. *It was more than that. I don't know how else to explain it, but it was as if the Akas.h.i.+c reader had allowed my mind to... link with something old. I mean, really old, older than this planet or anything else we can possibly imagine.'

*What do you think it was?' asked Mellicin.

*I think it was the dragon that Jonas was talking about.'

*The dragon he said the Emperor slew.'

*That's just it,' said Dalia. *I don't think it's dead at all. I think that's what Jonas was trying to tell me. The Dragon of Mars is still alive beneath the Noctis Labyrinthus... and I need your help to find it.'

HE OPENED HIS eyes and tried to scream, feeling the heartsick spike of agonising pain in his chest once more. He thrashed his limbs, palms beating on slick gla.s.s surfaces, his movements glutinous. His world was a blur of pink, and he blinked in an effort to clear his vision. He reached up to wipe his eyes clean, the sensation of movement like swimming through thick, gluey water.

A shape swam at the edge of his vision, humanoid, but he couldn't focus on it yet.

His head ached and his body felt unutterably heavy, despite its apparent suspension in buoyancy fluids. He felt weightless pain from every portion of his body, but that was nothing in comparison to the crus.h.i.+ng weight of sorrow in his heart.

He remembered sleeping, or at least periods of darkness where the pain was lessened, but nothing that truly eased the abominable, unfocused sadness he felt. He knew he had woken here before, having heard fragments of distant conversations where words like *miracle', *brain-death' and *infarction' were used. Without context, the words were meaningless, but he knew they were being applied to his condition.

He blinked as he heard yet more words, and fought to get the sense of them.

Forcing himself to focus on the voice, he swam through the jelly-like fluid of his world.

The shape spoke again, or at least he thought he heard its voice, the words soft and boneless, as though filtered through faulty augmitters.

He pulled himself forward until his face was pressed to a pane of thick gla.s.s. His vision swam into focus, and he saw an antiseptic chamber of polished ceramic tiles and metal gurneys beyond the gla.s.s. Spider-like devices hung from the ceiling and a number of fluid-filled gla.s.s tanks were fitted into bra.s.s sockets on the far wall.

Standing before him was a young woman robed in blue and silver. Her form wavered through the liquid, but she smiled at him and the sight was pathetically welcome.

*Princeps Cavalerio, can you hear me?' she asked, the words snapping into sudden clarity.

He tried to reply, but his mouth was full of liquid, bubbles forming on his lips as they worked to form sounds.

*Princeps?'

*Yes,' he said, his facility for language returning to him at last.

*He's awake,' said the young woman, the words said to an unseen occupant of the chamber. He heard the relief in her voice and wondered why she was so pleased to hear him speak.

*Where am I?' he asked.

*You are in the medicae facility, princeps.'

*Medicae? Where?'

*In Ascraeus Mons,' said the woman. *You are home.'