Here Be Dragons: Book 1 of the Emergence Series

[JOURNAL ENTRY]

Day 77,

Today I read Fathom some books about minerals. I didn’t have any particular interest in the subject, but Fathom’s childlike interest in everything turned out to be rather infectious. It was fun to categorize the various minerals in his collection, and it turns out he has quite a few rare ones – including a few I could not identify. That’s not surprising; this is a completely different land. It’s expected that there would be all sorts of never-before-seen minerals here.

Like I said, I’m no geologist, but there was a massive chunk of (what the textbook identified to be) copper pyrite, or chalcopyrite, in Fathom’s collection. Then he told me that copper pyrite is abundant on the island, so much so that it’s normally considered a rather worthless ore – the one in his collection is just a particularly auspicious specimen with naturally formed pyrite cubes sticking out of it.

Copper is a rather rare resource on the mainland, and most of the easily accessible deposits have already been mined. This is a pretty momentous discovery, especially if Alternis was originally a piece of the massive island to the west. That means even more copper.

Not that I have a use for copper ore at the moment, but it’s still good news for the future.

Fathom’s endurance continues to improve quickly. I’m not sure how long he can fly at a normal pace, but he flew at a relatively intense rate for half an hour today. By ‘intense’ I mean flapping and light diving. Even with their low density, dragons are still bound by the laws of physics. With how much mass they have, feats of agility seen in (reasonably sized) birds are simply beyond them.

Even still, it’s interesting to see this limitation reflected in the way they fly. As expected, casual flight almost entirely consists of gliding and riding thermals, but quicker maneuvers almost always begin with a dive in order to accelerate – not that I allowed Fathom do anything extreme, newly recovered as he is.

There’s no napkin math I can do to analyze dragon flight with any degree of accuracy, but I don’t need math to tell they must have some absurd biological adaptations just to have enough power to lift straight off the ground. Muscles generally use two kinds of respiration: aerobic and anaerobic. Anaerobic is nearly worse than aerobic in every way, with the caveat that it does not require oxygen and that it occurs rapidly – this means that they’re well suited for short bursts of explosive power, but are outclassed by aerobic muscles in any kind of prolonged use.

If I had to guess, I would say a dragon’s wing muscles use anaerobic respiration to power the takeoff, then the muscles switch to aerobic respiration for gliding. Then again, it’s not out of the realm of possibility for them to be utilizing a different kind of respiration yet unknown to science. Or perhaps their muscle cells simply store vast quantities of ATP[1] to be used in bursts.

Later in the day he went to chat with his neighbors, mostly to let them know that he hasn’t keeled over yet, but also to catch up on whatever gossip he’s missed out on, which wasn't much according to his brief summary.

I voiced some concern over us leaving his territory for a few days, but Fathom told me that if a dragon notifies their neighbors of their absence, then their possessions and territory cannot be looted. This courtesy is partially offered for honorable reasons, but also because dragons value a ‘proper’ victory as much as the prize.

Of course, sometimes this courtesy isn’t obeyed, or sometimes dragons from several territories over can drop by and decide to pillage, but Fathom doesn’t seem too concerned about that.

He stated that under normal circumstances he would have called in a favor to have someone patrol his territory, but a hypothetical house-sitter would inevitably see The Horizon sitting right outside his doorstep. Even if I risked moving the ship back to the beach it would still be easily visible, especially to a dragon’s keen eyes, so that plan won’t fly is a no-go.

In the end, the best option is for us to simply return home every few days to check up on his things. Troublesome, but not undoable.

[Day 78]

“So, we meet Celeste two days from now, we teach her English, and then get her to help us look for the rescue ship that will be on day 100, at the earliest,” Pryce summarized.

Fathom nodded, his jaws shut tightly to keep his mouthful of food from falling out.

“Are there any other dragons that you can get help from? What about your parents, your father and mother?” Pryce asked cautiously. Fathom hadn’t mentioned them much, though he wasn’t sure if that was because something bad had happened or if parents just weren’t close to their children once they reached maturity.

Fathom swallowed audibly before answering, “No, I don’t know other dragons that I trust with humans,” he said decisively. “Why would my parents help me?” He asked, tilting his head in genuine confusion.

“Well, humans usually help their families, but I guess dragons don’t do that.” Pryce said, scratching his head. “Won’t your parents be interested in humans?”

“Dragons don’t do that very much, and maybe they will be interested, but…” Fathom trailed off, looking away shamefacedly. “There are things a dragon is supposed to do, and it makes parents…look bad, if their child does not do well.”

Pryce grimaced; apparently humans weren’t alone in having parents with high expectations. A moment later he looked up to see Fathom glancing away, as if he had been caught staring.

“Do you want to ask about my parents?” Pryce asked. Fathom had become fairly easy to read once Pryce had gotten to know him, and the dragon blinked in surprise at the accurate guess.

“Yes, how did you know?”

“Lucky guess,” Pryce shrugged. “My mother got sick and died when I was ten years old, and my father raised me until I was an adult. He died fourteen years ago, from a…different sickness.” Fathom was silent, and Pryce chuckled upon seeing that same restrained look on his face that he had earlier. “It’s okay to ask questions, they died a long time ago, I am not very sad anymore,” he reassured.

“Okay, what kind of sickness did they have?” Fathom asked, visibly relaxing.

“My mother had a sickness that needed surgery, but she died because of it. My father had a sickness that made him forget things.”

“Forget things? But you already forget things often,” Fathom said, in his oddly genuine way of stating a somewhat insulting observation without a shred of malice.

“Yes,” Pryce said, strained, but still patient. “But this is different. He forgot everything.”

“...Everything?” Fathom asked quietly, eyes widened though he had not yet fully understood the ramifications.

“Everything,” Pryce confirmed grimly. “He lived for ten years with the sickness, slowly forgetting things. He forgot his work, he forgot his name, he forgot his friends, and…he forgot me,” he said, quiet and low.

“...dragons do not have sickness like that,” Fathom murmured, spines flattened in horror. “How can you forget everything? Do many humans get sick like that?”

“No, it is rare, very rare,” Pryce reassured.

“That sickness is horrible, worse than death,” Fathom hissed, shaking his head and looking as rattled as Pryce had ever seen him. “Don’t humans have medicine for that sickness?”

“Yes, it’s a horrible way to die, and no, we don’t have any medicine that helps much, we don’t even know what causes it,” Pryce said grimly.

“...You will not…forget everything, will you?” Fathom asked, his head lowering in concern.

“Probably not, it’s not hereditary; that means if a parent has an illness then their children will have that same illness. Besides, I don’t think I could forget you, even if I wanted to,” Pryce chuckled, hoping it didn’t sound forced. Fathom didn’t seem to buy it, but he didn’t say anything either. Hoping to change the topic, Pryce asked, “Is there anything else you wanted to learn about?”

“Hmm…” Fathom rumbled, looking a little torn. For a moment Pryce wondered if he was going to ask about Alzheimers, but instead he said, “Dragons remember dragons who are very good at doing things, like fighting, or flying, or making things. I’m sure humans do this too, is there a word for it?”

“Yes, very much,” Pryce nodded. “Humans who are known by many other humans are ‘famous’, do you want to learn about famous humans? Maybe famous human fighters?”

“Oh, yes,” Fathom nodded eagerly. “You have said that humans fight, but that is hard to imagine. Who was the strongest human? What did they do?” Fathom asked, tilting his head curiously.

“By ‘strongest’, do you mean the human who killed most other humans in battle, or the human who can lift the heaviest thing?”

“...Both,” Fathom said after a moment’s thought.

“I’m…actually not sure if I know the second one,” Pryce said apologetically.

“Why did you ask if you don’t know?” Fathom asked, rolling his eyes.

“Fair point,” Pryce conceded, rubbing his neck sheepishly. “There was a man who lifted over two thousand kilograms on his back, but I’m not sure.”

“Two thousand? That does not sound right, that is only a bit less than half of me,” Fathom said as he dubiously examined Pryce’s tiny frame. “Do humans get much larger than you?”

“I’m a little bit taller and stronger than average, but strong humans are much stronger than me,” Pryce explained. “I have a mass of 70 kilograms, but very strong humans have a mass of maybe 250 kilograms.”

“That is a very big difference,” Fathom noted. “Strong humans have more mass than three of you. Dragons are only a little bigger or smaller than other dragons, but I don’t know how much mass they have. What about the human who killed the most enemies in battle?”

“To answer your question, I need to explain that people who fight in wars are called soldiers, and there was one soldier about fifty years ago who killed at least 200 enemy soldiers, maybe 300.”

Fathom hissed in alarm, evidently very surprised by this. “How did he kill so many?”

“He was very, very good at using a gun to shoot enemies from far away.” Pryce paused. “Is, not was – I'm pretty sure he’s still alive,” he amended.

“It is not honorable to kill like that, and it seems very easy to kill with a gun,” Fathom said, a note of disapproval in his voice. “Are there others who killed many like him?”

“No, no one was close.” Pryce shook his head emphatically. “The other soldiers have guns too, so what he did was…very impressive, even if it wasn’t exactly good.”

“Why was it not good?” Fathom asked, blinking.

Pryce sighed. “It’s complicated, he killed a lot of people who were attacking his home, so I don’t think he did anything wrong, but the soldiers attacked because their land did not have food; it’s important to understand that people usually have reasons for the things that they do, even if they are not good reasons,” Pryce said, staring pointedly into the deep red eyes. The effect was a little undermined by the fact that he could only really make eye contact with one eye at a time, but Fathom seemed to grasp his intent.

“...I think I understand a little,” Fathom said slowly, scowling as he considered this dilemma. “But why did their land not have food? It is a dragon’s responsibility to make their territory healthy, do humans not do this?” He asked severely, then paused to frown for a moment as he asked, “Did cutting down forests make people hungry?”

“Well, that didn’t help, but humans don’t really take food from the forest, we make places for plants and animals to grow, called farms-”

“You told me this before,” Fathom interrupted.

“Oh, right,” Pryce blinked, remembering it now that Fathom had reminded him. “Anyway, farms need a lot of work, and things like bugs, bad weather, and disease can all kill plants and animals. If this happens lots of people have no food to eat. This gets worse in wars, because if there’s a war very few people are making food, which means more people get hungry, which means less food is made, which means even more people are hungry, and everything gets worse and worse.”

Fathom only rumbled quietly in response, so Pryce took the opportunity to ask, “What do you mean dragons make their territory healthy? What do you do?” Pryce asked.

“If there are too many predators, we kill them,” Fathom explained, holding his head up with pride as he said this.

“Do you do anything else?” Pryce was privately skeptical that a few dragons could significantly affect the thousands of animals in their territory, but perhaps he was wrong.

“If one dragon has too many predators, and a neighbor has too many prey, they can chase predators to the territory with prey,” Fathom added.

“That…might work?” Pryce frowned. He hadn’t studied how ecosystems worked in detail, but even if he had it wouldn’t have been very helpful given the foreign ecology. “It’s good that dragons want to take care of their territory, it took a long time for humans to learn how to do that.”

“Yes, we are proud of our territories, we want to see them live well,” Fathom explained. “The Draconic word for dragon means…‘person who takes care of something’,” Fathom said, shrugging a wing vaguely in an attempt to convey the concept. “Do you have an English word for that?”

“That’s…interesting,” Pryce said, surprised by the mundane word for their own people. Humans decided to call themselves homo sapiens sapiens, which was rather narcissistic given that it meant ‘smart smart man’. “I guess the word for that would be ‘keeper’.”

“What does the word human mean?” Fathom asked interestedly.

“I’m not certain, but I’m pretty sure it just means ‘human’,” Pryce shrugged.

“No meaning, like dragon names,” Fathom nodded amiably.

“What other humans did you want to know about?” Pryce asked.

“Hmm…guns feel like cheating. What about famous humans who fought without guns?” Fathom asked.

Pryce furrowed his brow, trying to recall details of one man in particular. “There was a famous man who lived five hundred years ago, people say he killed three hundred enemy soldiers,” Pryce said, causing Fathom to rear his head in surprise.

“Three hundred? With no guns? What weapons did he use?” Fathom asked incredulously, his spines twitching in shock.

“He used weapons that were just pieces of sharp metal, like machetes, but different. I’m not sure what he used,” Pryce admitted.

Fathom rumbled discontentedly at this. “There was one very famous dragon who was hatched over one thousand years ago, and he only beat three other dragons in a fight.”

“Well, this soldier lived over five hundred years ago, so the story might not be very accurate,” Pryce admitted. “He supposedly fought on a bridge, which is a thing humans make that goes over water. This bridge was narrow, so only two people could fight at a time.”

“...yes, that makes sense, humans cannot fly,” Fathom said, bobbing his head lightly. “That is very impressive, even if he killed less than three hundred soldiers. What did he do before and after this battle?”

“Before, he was protecting someone important to him, and he didn’t do anything after the battle because he died. People say that he killed three hundred soldiers, then the rest of the soldiers killed him with arrows, which are sticks with sharp metal tips. There were no guns back then,” he added.

“Why didn’t they use arrows first?”

“Um…I’m not sure. Maybe the soldiers wanted to fight him honorably?”

“I can understand that,” Fathom said, nodding thoughtfully. “This soldier protected someone, do you think what they did was good?” He asked, eyeing Pryce to gauge his reaction.

“I don’t know, no one knows the details because it was so long ago,” Pryce confessed. “I’m sure very few of those soldiers deserved to die, but sometimes there’s no good choice for anyone to make. I think if you must kill someone, the least you can do is to understand why they did the things that they did.”

“That is – wait, are you still talking about humans…?” Fathom asked, narrowing his eyes.

“What do you think?”

“...you don’t want me to kill Pathogen,” Fathom scowled.

“No, I don’t,” Pryce said. “At least-”

“Why? You know he almost killed us!” Fathom demanded, his deep voice adopting tones of irritation and anger. “I need to kill him, so why does it matter if I understand him or not?” Fathom paused, and he almost seemed to deflate as his ire faded. Quietly, he admitted, “I have never been so sick before, and I know that…that I would have died, if you were not here.”

“I know,” Pryce said quietly.

“Pathogen will try to kill me again, and he will probably try to kill you too. The safest thing to do is to kill him first,” Fathom said reasonably, trying a different tactic.

“I know,” Pryce sighed, “But tell me; do you know why he’s been trying to kill you?”

“Because he hates me,” Fathom growled.

“But do you know why he hates you?” Pryce pressed.

Fathom opened his mouth to answer, but upon realizing that he had no response to give he closed it without saying a word.

“I know he’s dangerous,” Pryce said, reaching up to pat the dragon’s lowered muzzle, “and I don’t want you to get hurt if he tries to kill you. So, if he tries to talk to you, the only thing I want you to do is to ask him why he’s trying to kill you, okay?”

Fathom hesitated for a moment. “...Yes, I promise that if I can, I will ask him why he wants to kill me.”

“Thank you,” Pryce said, nodding in relief as he smiled at Fathom. “I won’t be mad if you have to kill him, I just want to make sure you won’t regret anything.”

“Yes,” the dragon said slowly, his tone undecipherable as he looked to the late evening sky. “It is late. We are going to leave in two days, do you have everything you want to bring?”

“Yes, I packed it all days ago.”

“Good,” Fathom said, scratching his neck awkwardly.

“Is there something you wanted to ask?” Pryce ventured when Fathom said nothing.

“I still think you are safer in my hands, but…do you still want to ride on my back?”

[JOURNAL ENTRY]

I’m going

Day 78,

I’m going to be riding on the back of a dragon tomorrow. It’ll just be a test flight, of course, but still – flying dragonback!

I should’ve listed today’s events in chronological order, but who cares? I’m going to be the first human in history to fly on the back of a dragon. If I think about it, I’m the first human in history to do a lot of things with a dragon. My biography is going to be a pretty long one. Assuming people learn I survived in the first place, of course.

Today we talked about human history, Fathom expressed interest in historical figures – specifically the strongest ones. I don’t think there’s any way to properly explain human history with the resources I have, especially when I don’t know much of it in the first place.

Tomorrow we go and visit Fathom’s daughter, who according to Fathom’s latest intelligence should still be living with the same two dragons she’s been with for the last fourteen years. If all goes to plan, I’ll be meeting three new dragons in a little over 24 hours.

Fathom offered to let me fly on his back, and I began modifying a fishing harness today – the kind used to make sure a fisherman doesn’t get pulled overboard – so that I can secure myself to chains that Fathom will wear like crisscrossing sashes around his neck and shoulders, while he holds the baggage in his talons. His scales are pretty hard, so I’ll wear a few layers of thick clothing. Hopefully things won’t be too uncomfortable.