69 Fragment 69

Anne stood beside Mac who bowed his old head as the stone slid into place. 'Gregory Vincent' rested here, according to the words engraved in the surface. It was an unfamiliar name, and the body beneath the stone wore an unfamiliar face.

Mac's hand was surprisingly warm as he squeezed her fingers. "I'm glad," he announced.

She looked away from the stone surface to examine his face doubtfully. "Glad?" she asked tremulously.

Mac reached out and patted the stone with his other hand. "I haven't got much time left, and it's the hardest thing in the world to watch your child die."

She gazed at him with confusion, and couldn't stop the tears that blurred her vision. "But he… he said," she protested weakly.

Mac moved his other hand over to pat hers where it was held between his small warm fingers. "I know, he wanted to stay awake this time until I was gone. But it's better like this, and he'll find you when he wakes up again, he promised."

Anne nodded numbly. Chris had talked almost continuously since realizing that his fatigue lately was signaling his need for sleep. Mac looked cheerful now, but he'd been outraged when he'd learned that the dragon had known weeks in advance. Not because Chris had hidden anything from the two of them this time, but because of how the dragon had left him half a century ago.

The two of them exited the little crypt and pulled up the exaggerated lapels that were part of every new jacket design, and covered their faces against the breath of the world, and the snowflakes that stung as they whipped around on the twisting winds of the storm.

The world was restless. War had written more bloody stories into the new century, beginning in the far East. But those skirmishes had died down surprisingly quickly when the Emperor of one of the oldest countries in the world had flown out of his sheltered palace and descended upon the bureaucrats who had long ruled in his place. It seemed like humanity hadn't yet evolved to a point where fights could be broken up without kicking some people in the head.

The unweavers, as the dragons knew the viruses that had plagued the world for longer than any species that currently lived had existed, were still waging war on far more individual fronts across the entire globe. The promised vaccines were only temporary measures to reduce large outbreaks, but every day a little more was learned about exactly how a virus could rewrite a cell. And every day a little more was learned about how a dragon could modify its own DNA.

Chris wasn't the only dragon who had woken at the beginning of the turn, but he might be the first to fall asleep. Amaru had informed them calmly that it was likely because Chris was so young and his sleep had been interrupted. But it seemed unfair, when even the newest babies hadn't fallen asleep yet.

Two years, she'd only had him as a friend for a little over two years, and he might sleep for decades. Anne stared at the sky without seeing the clouds, as ripples of light on the water that spilled out of the heart of the vast dragon who hovered above her covered the sky.

Teacher. Generations of dragons called the one currently known as Amaru Drakon their teacher. In her strange vision, no longer untrustworthy, he shone like a god, despite the way the strings had faded into a pale mist that resembled what Chris had seen when he looked at the world with his half blind true eyes.

"You okay?" Mac asked.

Anne lowered her gaze to his wrinkled face. Ordinary, human, mortal. There was no bitterness over those facts within this cheerful old man. "Yeah, I'm okay," she assured him.

They walked out of the old fashioned garden of stone where the so-called monster who had saved them now rested, and into a city of glass and steel. New buildings shone in the dim light, standing tall against the freezing storm that swept toward the mountain. Housing for those who had once had none. Safe, clean, and free.

Anne had never imagined her broken country would be one of the first where people realized that protecting their own health was easier when they protected the health of everyone one around them. Old Jose had resided briefly in one of those towers, although now he lived in another town with the little family that he had unofficially adopted.

"They aren't gods, but there are good men among them," Mac said.

Anne glanced at him, and he nodded toward a church where the figure of a dragon perched where a cross had once stood. "And women," Anne added after a moment.

Mac flashed a grin that belonged on a younger face at her. "Even so," he agreed cheerfully. "Never would have guessed that brat would be the one who pioneered a new branch of science."

Anne grinned back at him. "Tanwen is actually amazing with human technology, and you know it!"

Mac nodded. "A beautiful narcissist, an unapologetic speciesist, older than Christ, but she's a good kid at heart. That poor ex spy though…" he clicked his tongue in a sympathetic noise. "Guess it just goes to show that those who are willing to cross the boundaries are the ones who can push the edges of our limits."

"I wish…" Anne murmured.

"Live long, live well, you'll be one of the first when they get it working, so you have to behave yourself young miss," Mac spoke teasingly.

She nodded. It wasn't magic. It wasn't a cure all. And Tanwen and the elder who had developed it guessed that only the 'wise' among them would be able to attune themselves with their own patterns until they could build machines that could directly push the patterns through their existing structures.

--

It was time to move, Sarah decided abruptly as she watched the college students digging up the garden that the dragon had once dug up in a far more destructive fashion. She would miss the capstone that covered the mysterious 'heart' that seemingly collected an energy that dragons could consume, but her days were never quiet anymore.

"An expert on dragons," they called her now. She scoffed silently at anyone who believed that, as she gulped down the last of her tea.

All she'd done was search for evidence that what the dragons had told her had been true. It wasn't her fault that there had actually been quite a lot of evidence lying around. Misidentified relics, unsolved puzzles, and even a few bones.

An island, she decided. A nice flat little island in the middle of a warm sea, someplace without any mountains. Not too many people.

--

He stretched, and reached for the heart of the world as the fires began to burn. His compressed form was far too heavy for the fragile craft to carry, but to the world his entire being was merely a small fragment.

The heart of the world felt slippery, and hard to grasp. It was constantly moving as curtains of alignment shifted within the molten core, pulling and tugging at the intangible shrouds that wrapped the Earth. The strings had almost completely dissipated, and the magnetic fields rolled and spun like dancers around the planet. Only the newest and the oldest of the aircraft were able to fly safely during the turning of the world, when the birds flew in strange patterns over hills and seas that they had never seen before.

But this fragile craft was never meant to be confined to the sea of air that cradled the Earth. Many of the youngest had vied for this uncomfortable seat, surrounded by devices that watched him with hundreds of artificial eyes and ears. But only the oldest and strongest of the dragons were able to grasp its heart, and so Amaru was the one who would test the boundaries of the world. The child had once suggested that the only reason that dragons were tied to the Earth was because they had reached the limits of the atmosphere, but Amaru suspected that he would reach the limits of his grasp before he escaped the limits of the world's pull.

His true eyes were not limited by the boundaries of physical sight, and he watched with interest as the curve of the Earth grew more pronounced. Even though the craft was traveling upward faster than he could fly on his own wings, it felt slow. It was a pity that this test hadn't been possible before the strings had dissolved and he had missed a chance to learn the pattern of the world itself as its true roundness was revealed ever so slowly. He would have to try this again after the world had settled into its new patterns.

The fragile material beneath him crumpled as the spacecraft tried to rise faster than the dragon it carried. He had reached the limit of his grasp, and his true weight tore through the fragile materials that were moving too quickly for him to align himself to move through before the craft split and shattered around him. Perhaps the very youngest children could ride a spacecraft all the way beyond the Earth's pull, but this was his current limit.

He expanded as he fell into nothingness above the sea of air. The void above the sky pulled at his fragments, trying to force him to expand faster, thinner, and farther. He held to his pattern and reached for the distant heart of the world that had slipped from his grasp. A less experienced dragon might have burned to death as pieces of the fragments that made up the world tried to slice through the whole fragments that made up himself, but he had experienced nearly every environment the world had offered him.

His wings caught the thinnest air high above the clouds, and he flew. Breath was still denied him, but one who had swum into the Earth far enough to feel the stone soften could endure without breath for long enough. He circled the world on his way home, and observed everything beneath his eyes impartially.

The world had changed beyond his expectations, but it was still filled with familiar patterns. The mankind, the plague that consumed seemingly without limit, was very similar to the unweavers in another way. They both wrote their own pattern into what had existed before.

It had not yet been spoken, or sung, that he knew of, but despite attaining the separation of I from us, some knowledge was still shared from one heart to another. Their kind must write their own pattern into the hearts of the mankind if they wanted to survive.

Perhaps some had known this longer than others, or perhaps the mankind had been writing themselves into the hearts of dragons ever since they had begun to create their own words. Had there ever been a human language that did not have a word for dragon?

The sea sparkled in the sunlight beneath him, and the seafolk leapt into the air and called out to him as he skimmed the surface.

--

The car hummed quietly as it passed overhead.

The young dragon formerly known as J. Chris Torres in his last brief 'life' watched it drive away with an expression that contained no trace of the world weary vampire who had once walked this city.

He fingered the small card that had been placed in his hand while he slept, and examined the more familiar watch on his wrist. Only two decades had passed, but the world had obviously changed beyond recognition.

The card belonged to Chris T'Andy, a Dragon registered with the United Nations of Earth.

He had so much to learn.