Here Be Dragons: Book 1 of the Emergence Series

The phonograph sat in the rec room, bolted firmly to a table. The table itself was of course secured to the floor of the ship, so it took several minutes for Pryce to find the tools to loosen the bolts and another few minutes to carefully carry the delicate machine out onto the beach.

“What is this? And how does it work? It looks a little like a seashell,” Fathom said, peering at the phonograph as Pryce set it down. He had finished his drink, judging by the pristine state of the bucket.

With what he had taught Fathom about the nature of sound, Pryce was able to explain – albeit with some difficulty – how humans could make things called ‘vinyl records’ that had sounds ‘written’ onto them, and that this ‘phonograph’ could ‘read’ the sounds on the vinyl records by moving a needle over the engraved grooves.

“That doesn’t…sound like it would work?” Fathom said uncertainly, squinting at the apparently uniform disc. He sounded somewhat skeptical, but he knew better than to doubt the claims Pryce made, no matter how ridiculous they initially seemed.

“It’s a little more complicated than that; it uses quartz to turn vibrations into electricity, then that electricity makes sounds,” Pryce explained, which was still something of a simplification, of course, but that was the core principle with which the device operated on.

“Can you record anything? Like my voice?” Fathom asked, peering at the device in great interest.

“Oh, no, it’s very difficult to make vinyl recordings, and it takes a lot of special machines,” Pryce said, rubbing his neck sheepishly. “But I do have another device called a tape recorder, and that can record your voice,” he said, seeing Fathom’s head droop in disappointment.

“Yes, show me the tape recorder,” Fathom urged, shifting excitedly from one foreclaw to another.

“Didn’t you want to hear music?” Pryce asked, gesturing to the phonograph he had dragged out.

Fathom looked torn for a moment, like a child offered two things they both wanted. “Tape recorder first,” he said, after a moment’s indecision.

“Alright,” Pryce shrugged, and disappeared into the ship to lug out the briefcase-sized tape recorder. The device wasn’t mission critical, but people were of course curious to hear what animals from another land sounded like, and it took up very little room, so there wasn’t any reason to not bring it. It did require battery power, but zinc-carbon batteries could last 18 months, and the radio only required power to amplify the signal, which required relatively little power, so Pryce was comfortable with using a little battery power to show Fathom something interesting.

“Alright, when I press this button, the tape recorder will start recording,” Pryce said once he had set up the device. “Ready?”

Fathom nodded, and Pryce pressed the button.

A few seconds passed, with the dragon looking suddenly indecisive as Pryce gestured for him to say something.

“Is…this recording? Why is it spinning?” He asked, and Pryce hit pause.

“Is…this recording? Why is it spinning?” The tape recorder played back, causing Fathom to reel back his head in surprise. The tape recorder had introduced a minor amount of noise into the playback, but voices were still easily recognizable.

“That’s not what I sound like…is it?” Fathom asked, sounding somewhat indignant.

“Well, your voice does sound different to you than to anyone else, but the tape recorder isn’t perfect, so it doesn’t copy sound perfectly,” Pryce explained. “Don’t worry, most people don’t like the sound of their own voices,” he chuckled, though this did little to alleviate Fathom’s displeasure.

They played around with some more recordings, and Fathom became less annoyed with how his voice was depicted and became more interested with the device itself. Pryce tried to explain how the tape recorder magnetized strips of metal inside the tape, though Fathom was understandably unable to grasp that concept.

“The tape recorder uses a thing called a magnet to record sound, but I’ll explain magnets to you later, I don’t think I have any strong magnets to show you,” Pryce said, frowning as he tried to recall if there were any aboard the ship. “They’re pretty complicated, but basically it’s a metal that attracts other metals. For example, iron sticks to magnets.”

“Metals that make other metals fly towards it…” Fathom echoed. “Wait, that’s a very rare treasure only a few dragons have!” he exclaimed.

“Yeah, those would be natural magnets, we can make stronger ones,” Pryce nodded.

“…of course you can make magnets,” Fathom muttered with a sigh.

“Let me guess; dragons think magnets have strong energy?”

“Yes, that is true, though I am guessing that is wrong.”

Pryce wriggled his hand. “Kind of. The nature of a magnet is pretty complicated, I think it will be better if I explain it later. The important thing is that it attracts metals.”

Fathom sighed, but accepted this deferral. Instead, he asked, “do you know why it feels a little strange if a magnet is held near your head? That is something that dragons have wanted to know for a long time.”

“What?” Pryce blinked. “What do you mean ‘feels strange’?”

“It feels a little like you don’t know where you are, but I’m not sure how to describe it,” Fathom said, tilting his head in consternation. “Does this not happen to humans?”

“No, the only thing a magnet does is-” Pryce abruptly paused as realization struck him. “Can dragons sense which direction is north? Even without knowing where they are?” He asked urgently.

“Of course, that is easy,” Fathom replied. “Can humans not do that?” He asked, with a questioning squint.

“No, we can’t,” Pryce said excitedly, “Dragons have magnetoreception! You can sense magnets!”

“I…don’t understand, what does this have to do with knowing which direction is where?” Fathom asked, bemused by Pryce’s enthusiasm.

“Earth is one big magnet, it’s too weak to attract metals, but it is a magnet, let me go grab something,” Pryce said as he rushed off mid-conversation. Fathom’s spines flattened impatiently as Pryce returned a minute later, holding a round thing that looked a little like a smaller chronometer.

“This is a compass,” Pryce said. “It has a magnet inside of it; it’s not very strong, but because Earth is a magnet it will always pull this smaller magnet to the north and south, see?” Pryce said, spinning the compass around while the needle remained in the same direction.

“That is strange, are you saying any magnet can do this?” Fathom asked. “Interesting, how did humans notice this?” he asked when Pryce had given his affirmative.

“I heard it was when someone put a magnet on a small piece of wood that was floating on water, but I’m not sure how true that story is,” Pryce shrugged.

“Humans do weird things,” Fathom noted inoffensively. “Can you show me what phonograph does now? I want to listen to human music.”

“First of all, music is any sound that sounds good, while singing is a type of music that someone can make with their throat and mouth,” Pryce explained. “I have records for both music and songs, which do you want to hear first?”

“Songs,” Fathom said, without much hesitation. “I want to hear what music humans make with your throats.”

“Alright, a song it is,” Pryce said, selecting a record containing a particularly famous one. “You should know that human songs almost always have music to go with the singing,” he explained as he wound up the machine. Fathom looked like he wanted to ask more questions, but he held his tongue while Pryce worked.

A minute later Pryce set the needle onto the disc and pressed play.

The song began with a wordless feminine vocalization, lone and sorrowful. Fathom leaned in closer to listen to the melody with rapt attention, his ear-spines stretched tight to better hear the alien sounds. The voice remained solitary until it was joined by a harp and a violin, though these instruments never overpowered the singer, and only served to emphasize the melody. Once the singer was even silent for half a minute while the slow and solemn notes plucked from the harp filled the silence. Back and forth the singer and the instruments went, until the song ended in the same six notes with which it began.

The phonograph fell silent as it ran out of track to play, the needle scrabbling against the empty record.

“That was…very beautiful,” Fathom said slowly, mulling over each word as he formulated his opinion of the piece, “but…I am not sure if it is happy or sad. I have never heard of anything like it.”

“Happy? Most people would say it’s just sad,” Pryce said, confused but interested to hear the dragon’s interpretation.

“It sounds alone, like a young dragon gaining ‘freedom’, but it also sounds sad, like they are sad to leave their old home,” he explained. He tilted his head quizzically to ask, “Is this song supposed to be sad and not happy?”

“Yeah, it’s a sad song, but it’s one of my favorites. It’s pretty old, maybe a hundred years or so, but it was recorded only a few years ago,” Pryce said, glad to hear some familiar music from less stressful times of his life.

“Are there any words in that song?” Fathom asked. “I did not recognize any.”

“No, those are just nice sounds made by a female human,” Pryce said.

“It was much higher than your voice, are human female voices higher than human males?”

“Almost always, yes.”

“Strange. Dragon female voices are a little deeper than dragon male voices,” Fathom noted.

“That makes sense,” Pryce nodded, “they are bigger, and bigger things usually have deeper voices.”

“Can I listen to other human music? Do you have something happier?” Fathom asked, which Pryce responded to by selecting another record.

A soft, melancholy ocarina began to play, which made Fathom tilt his head a little. Soon string instruments joined in, then brass, followed by other instruments that Pryce wasn’t confident in identifying. The brass instruments gradually carried the song’s transition into a triumphant cacophony before ending on that lone haunting melody.

Fathom bobbed his head to the melody of the music, which was interesting to see. Humans were the only known creature to bob their heads to music, was it an indication of intelligence, or just coincidence? He realized that if dragons liked music, then bobbing their heads was a good thing, which might explain why they also nodded to show approval just like humans do.

Pryce lifted the needle off of the record, then turned to face Fathom, curious to see what the dragon would think.

“I like this song, it is very beautiful, and it does sound happy, even if the beginning and the end are a little sad,” he said after a moment’s thought.

“I’m glad you liked it,” Pryce said, smiling.

“Most dragon songs are happy, do humans write many sad songs?” Fathom asked interestedly.

“Songs can be anything,” Pryce shrugged. “Songs can be happy, or sad, or powerful. People who write songs put their emotions into it. It is interesting that dragons would see – or hear it differently,” he said, amending his choice of words.

Fathom hummed in thought, then asked, “Instruments make these sounds?”

“Yes, instruments make these sounds. The ship has instruments, but they need a lot of practice to use, and it has been many years since I used an instrument.”

“Is it embarrassing if you use an instrument?” Fathom asked hopefully.

“It’s not really embarrassing, but…” Pryce was about to say that the instruments were not his, but he knew his crewmates well, and he was sure they would not have minded it if their instruments were used to play music for a dragon. “Nevermind, I will show you how they work,” Pryce said, much to Fathom’s delight. “I’m not good at playing them, so they won’t sound good like the music made by the phonograph,” he warned, which did not seem to dampen the dragon’s anticipation in the slightest.

He took some time searching through his departed comrade’s belongings, and found a flute, an ocarina, a trumpet, and a violin. He had only ever played a bit of the flute when he was young, but he took them all out anyway. Even without practice he could play a few notes, and that would have to be enough.

Pryce started with the instruments he was most unfamiliar with, and chose the trumpet at random. “This one is a trumpet, I’ve never used one before, but these things here are called ‘keys’, and pressing on them changes the sound,” Pryce explained, then looked up to see Fathom’s face so close that the trumpet’s golden brass was visibly reflected in dragons wide eyes. “Oh, right, this is pretty, isn’t it?”

“Why didn’t you show me this before?” Fathom asked, a little petulantly but mostly in awe at the smooth and shining pipes that made up the instrument. “This is almost like gold,” he breathed in covetous tones.

“Yeah, this isn’t gold – wait how can you tell?” Pryce asked, staring at the instrument. It was obvious that it wasn’t gold, of course, but if he hadn’t known that then it would have been very difficult to tell what metal the trumpet was made of at a glance.

“It looks different, it reflects less UV than gold,” Fathom said thoughtfully. “This looks like gold to you?”

“Yes, they look almost the same to humans,” Pryce confirmed.

“Interesting,” Fathom nodded. “If this is not gold, then what metal is this?” He asked as he continued to stare at the beautiful instrument.

“This metal is called brass, it’s made of two other metals called copper and zinc,” Pryce explained.

“Are copper and zinc made of other metals?” Fathom asked, tilting his head thoughtfully.

“No, copper is only copper, and zinc is only zinc. Gold is like that too, things that are only made up of themselves are called ‘elements’.”

“There must be many elements in the world?” Fathom said absently, still staring appreciatively at the trumpet.

“Humans have found 90 elements, but there are some more. Everything you see,” Pryce waved broadly, “is made up of elements.”

“Everything is only 90 elements?” Fathom said, tearing his gaze away from the trumpet in shock.

“I can teach you more now, or I can play the trumpet – that means to make the trumpet make noise,” Pryce amended.

“...play instruments, teach later, maybe tomorrow,” Fathom said after a moment’s thought.

“Alright,” Pryce said, picking up the trumpet and disinfecting the mouthpiece. He played a few sloppy notes which made Fathom flatten his spines in displeasure. “I told you instruments need practice to use,” Pryce shrugged. “But you can hear that one of the instruments in the song was a trumpet, right?”

“Yes, in the middle of the second song,” Fathom said, looking disappointed.

“These instruments are called ocarina, violin, and flute,” Pryce said, moving on to the other instruments. The ocarina was easier to play clear notes on, though he didn’t know which holes to cover in order to play specific notes. Fathom was better pleased by the pleasant airy notes made by the ocarina, and easily identified it as the instrument used in the beginning and end of the song.

“This one is called a violin, I don’t know how to play it either,” Pryce warned as he picked up the violin. He didn’t even know how to tune the instrument, though he knew to rub the bow hair with resin. Fathom seemed to like this one a little more than the trumpet, and at least he was able to identify it as one of the two instruments used in the first song, despite the fact that Pryce was unable to string together anything coherent.

“This is a flute, and my mother taught me how to play it a long time ago,” Pryce said, tracing his fingers over the wooden instrument reminiscently. It was only a little similar to the one he had used, and it had been decades since he’d last held a flute.

He brought the instrument to his lips and struggled to play an old lullaby buried somewhere deep within his memories. Pryce had his eyes closed, and so he did not see how the shrill reedy notes made Fathom flatten his spines in displeasure. Despite this rocky start his decades-old muscle memory slowly began to return, at least enough for him to play a stumbling-yet-pleasant melody.

“That was much better at the end,” Fathom said when he had finished the short song. “This song is different from the song the phonograph played, it sounds…calm. I like it.”

“Yes, I learned it a long time ago, so I only remember how to play a little. I can try playing the second song, if you want.”

“Yes, play,” Fathom nodded eagerly.

Pryce closed his eyes, then played the notes one at a time at a slower rate than was intended, but he gradually sped up to an acceptable tempo. The notes were meant to be played by an ocarina, but the flute was similar enough to act as a substitute, though that did not keep him from making mistakes as he stumbled from note to note.

Fathom rumbled approvingly, despite this very flawed performance; he seemed to have taken a liking to the noises made by the instrument. “It is different, but I can hear where the music is the same.” Fathom hummed thoughtfully. “In the future, I want to see and hear humans who are good at using instruments play songs.” He paused, then asked sheepishly, “Is that an insult?”

“No, it’s true that I’m not good at playing the flute,” Pryce chuckled. “Humans playing different instruments together is called an orchestra, and yeah, I hope you can hear one someday,” Pryce said, smiling at the thought. It would take a lot of work to get Fathom back to The Mainland, or to transport all the instruments across the ocean, but it was a pleasant thing to imagine nonetheless.

“Yes, that is good, I will ‘look forward’ to this,” Fathom said, using one of the human expressions Pryce had taught him. “Dragons singing together is very nice to listen to, but it is different from this.”

“Dragons singing? Do you sing with other dragons?” Pryce asked, surprised.

“Yes, at celebrations, or with family,” Fathom said, with what sounded like a hint of nostalgia in his tone.

“I would like to listen to you sing, if you want to,” Pryce said hopefully.

“Okay,” Fathom nodded, then took a deep preparatory breath.

What came out was nothing like Pryce had ever heard; it started as a deep, throaty noise, then slowly ascended in both pitch and volume. The dragon’s massive lung capacity allowed him to go on without breath for far longer than any human could, and he did not stop for the entire duration of the song. The tune was strange and erratic, sometimes the pitch changed steadily, but other times he would transition into an undulating cry. Halfway through the song Pryce noticed that the pitch of the song jumped from high to low, but never the reverse.

He couldn’t put his finger on what was so strange about this piece of music, but it didn’t seem to feature notes in the traditional human sense, as he was fairly certain many notes were ‘off-key’, and of course the undulating cries could not be reproduced by any human.

The song was much like a paradox, chaotic then orderly, vigorous then placid, and sometimes both at once – yet it wasn’t unpleasant to his ears. There was a sort of primal energy, a raw emotion conveyed in the song that was impossible for anyone to find dull.

Fathom finished the song with one last haunting cry, and lowered his head to look at Pryce expectantly.

“Thank you, I liked the song; it was very interesting and very different from human songs,” Pryce said, hoping it wouldn’t be offensive – the song really was very interesting.

Fortunately Fathom seemed pleased by the answer, and settled back down with a contented air.

“Was that song…about flying?” Pryce guessed. There weren’t any words in the song, at least none that he could tell, but that was the impression he got from it.

“Yes!” Fathom said happily, looking quite pleased. “How did you know?”

“The pitch of the song went from low to high slowly, like a dragon flying up, but it went from high to low quickly, like a dragon diving, am I right?”

“Yes, that is right. This song is about what emotions we feel when flying, but I did change it a little; it is normally much louder,” he added candidly.

“Yes, thank you for not roaring at my face,” Pryce said, only a little sarcastically.

“You…still don’t want to sing?” Fathom asked expectantly.

“No, not really,” Pryce grumbled. “But you did sing for me, so I guess it’s fair that I try singing for you. It’s not going to sound pretty,” he warned, seeing Fathom perk up in anticipation.

“That’s okay, I want to hear it,” Fathom said brightly.

Pryce could only say that he knew two songs; the alphabet song, and…the amino acid song. As embarrassing as that was, he sure as hell wasn’t going to sing the alphabet song to a dragon…so the latter it was.

Glycine, valine, leucine, isoleucine, alanine, they all are aliphatic, so you will not see a ring!

The lone human amino acid with one is proline, from protein we are formed!

With two hydroxyl groups you'll find serine and threonine, for sulfur, look to cysteine or to methionine!

For bases, you have arginine, lysine, and histidine, from protein we are formed! (Now the aromatics!)

Tryptophan and tyrosine and phenylalanine!

Aspartic and glutamic are both acids as we've seen,

For amides, see asparagine and also glutamine, from protein we are formed!~

“...I do not know many of these words,” Fathom said, sounding a little disgruntled.

“Sorry, this is the only song I know. It’s used to help people remember the names of complicated things that I can’t really teach you about right now,” Pryce said apologetically.

“Humans use songs to help remember words?” Fathom asked interestedly.

“Yeah, I guess dragons wouldn’t need to use songs to remember things.”

“No, we do not. I have never thought of…songs having a ‘use’ before,” Fathom said thoughtfully.

“So…did you like the song?” Pryce prompted when Fathom remained silent on the song itself.

“Oh…It was…interesting, very different from dragon songs,” Fathom said awkwardly in an uncannily similar cadence to one politely lying through omission.

“Oh,” Pryce said, a little wounded despite himself. “...I can play the rest of the songs on these records, if you want.”

“Yes please,” Fathom said, bobbing his head eagerly as he sat down.

Pryce moved to set up the phonograph, but paused as he remembered something. “Oh right! I think I know why dragons and humans both nod when they mean ‘yes’,” Pryce said enthusiastically. “It’s because of music. Humans and dragons both like music, and we both nod our heads when listening to music, so nodding means a good thing.”

“That…makes sense,” Fathom nodded unconsciously, then abruptly stopped as he realized what he was doing. “It is very interesting. I have never thought about it before, but I have not seen any other animals that like music,” Fathom noted. “Is it a coincidence? Or is there a reason?”

“Yeah, I have a theory,” Pryce mused as he turned to wind up the phonograph. “I think the reason is that something has to have intelligence to like music.”

“Makes sense,” Fathom hummed affably as Pryce selected another record. In an odd way, listening along with Fathom felt like a novel experience, despite the fact that these songs were not new to him.

He also felt an odd sense of pride whenever Fathom expressed fondness for a particular piece, though he had never composed a song in his life. As the day wore on, he began to realize that he was feeling pride as a human being.

It was not exactly a foreign emotion – Pryce had always loved science with a passion, but he had never quite felt it so viscerally before, and he suspected it was impossible to feel such an emotion in any other circumstance, without a member of another sapient species to act as a mirror.

He had considered teaching Fathom a bit of chemistry today, but Pryce smiled as the tip of Fathom’s tail began to lash in time with the bobbing of his head, and he decided that it wouldn’t hurt if the two of them spent the rest of the day listening to music.

[JOURNAL ENTRY]

Day 75,

Fathom was able to fly with great success today; to say he was exultant would be an understatement.

We plan to go meet Celeste on Day 80, and Fathom says she is not very far – about three or four hours of flying away, though he has not visited her before. I’ve already packed ten days worth of food, though in practice Fathom can help hunt for me.

It is…easy to dismiss the people I’ve helped as a statistic, but seeing the joy I’ve brought Fathom makes that concept feel a little less esoteric.

I introduced him to music today, and he enjoyed everything greatly. He also sang a song about flying to me, though it used no words in any language. It was very bizarre, but not at all unpleasant. I do not think any written description could do the experience justice, at least not any written by me.

Tomorrow I will teach Fathom about chemistry, as he has shown interest on that topic – especially with regard to metals.