The Bird and The Dragon

The voices located the guests in the second-floor winter garden. It was behind the tall glass doors opening from the main entrance hall and Jonathan understood they had come upstairs using the servants’ staircase.

“Veringe has already done his presentation and is basking in the attention. He never gives people time to play with his creations so the route should be clear.” Josue guided Jonathan towards the wooden doors carved with plant motifs. No one was moving in the hall.

There was a brightly lit room. The display cases along the walls showed even more of Veringe’s collection. In the middle, located below the windows on the roof, was a luxurious set of chairs arranged around a well-waxed table. At the end of the table, there was an empty serving trolley.

Jonathan stopped at the doorway and Josue let out a stunned sigh. Blood was on the floor and Thomms was standing there, cleaning her fingers with a napkin. She noticed them.

“Joanna, is something wrong?”

Jonathan walked closer. Behind the table, facing towards the floor, was the very dead Captain Veringe. His walking stick lay on the floor. Jonathan looked to the navigator without demanding an explanation and scanned the room, mapping potential weapons. The door opened again.

“What…what in the name of the ash-cursed winds has happened here? A murder! There has been a murder!” The newcomer was wearing grey. He was Veringe’s trusted friend and his airship’s navigator, Willem Daas.

Thomms kept her hands visible and her voice soft. “Calm down, Willem. Don’t make a scene when his spirit still moves among us.”

There were hurried steps and Willem was followed by the slightly intoxicated guests who had heard Daas’ shouting. Josue tried to hide in the middle of the crowd. Jonathan stood by a cabinet filled with dubiously sexual statues trying to look harmless.

“You did it!” Willem said.

“The voice connector is gone,“ a female voice said.

“Give it back,” Willem said standing by Thomms and pointing her threateningly despite the woman being taller than him.

Two men wearing the trading company’s colors entered. “Close the doors. No one is allowed to leave.”

“You, explain yourself and your woman,” Willem said at Thomms.

Thomms opened the napkin she held and turned it to show both sides. There was some moisture, but the fabric was spotless. “Mister Di splashed some liquor on me and I went to clean myself in the side room,” the navigator said.

A man in a brown jacket, his cheeks red from alcohol and embarrassment coughed. “True. But it was an accident and most fell to the floor.” His shoes sported the sticky signs of liquor.

”When I went inside the connector was on the trolley. When I came back Veringe was lying here. I had heard nothing and I had no time to react when Joanna and…Jamiel arrived,” the navigator explained. Willem and Annike looked at Josue.

“Joanna was expecting to see…the invention. I brought her here. My apologies, it was inconsiderate.” Josue said.

“Navigator Daas, my apologies. Josue can be impulsive, but he was a friend to the captain,” Annike said.

Willem, Annike, and some of the other guests looked at Jonathan in a way that communicated them having made assumptions about the nature of his intentions with Josue.

“Well then,” Daas said and kneeled by his captain. He gently rolled the body over. Veringe’s shirt was bloody and his eyes were staring open. There was a single cut on his throat. “Did anyone see him leaving the winter garden?”

“A guard came to talk to him,” Mister Di said needlessly loud. He blushed some more.

“It was not a long time ago. He was talking with Heger,” Annike filled in.

“That is true,” Heger said. He had long hair and a fashionable suit and he was drunk. “The guard was a medium-sized man, with light brown hair. Had a knife on his belt.”

“None of my men openly carries a knife in the indoor service.” A man in uniform pushed forward. “You know it as well as I do, Navigator Daas. Lance Corporal, check the area!” A guard left the room.

“Why to kill Veringe? Why to take the voice connector?” Willem stood and looked at his captain sadly. Thomms walked to Jonathan and stood by him in silence. The navigator seemed calm and severe.

“I cannot let you leave. Please, return to the winter garden while my men secure the area,” Willem sighted. “You too, Thomms. I don’t like your scarred face, but you didn’t do it. At least not alone.” The crowd moved restlessly hearing the threat in Daas’ words and Jonathan readied himself to kick off his heeled shoes.

“The killer had green in his eyes, he was eaten pale by the plague. Just like that woman. Thomms, do you sleep with the servants of old Tarasten?” Heger said staring Thomms with open menace. ”Come here Joanna or whatever you bitch are called.”

“Leave her alone,” Thomms said.

Josue tried to turn invisible. Jonathan straightened his posture like an insulted woman and without minding the navigator’s words walked to confront Heger. “I am right here, sir. What do you want?”

“You are an ash-raped half-blood,” the man let the vulgar words drop slowly from his mouth, clearly enjoying the situation. “And Thomms has admitted she is from the planet’s dark side. Everyone knows her kind deals with the ainadu. You murdered the captain because of his brilliant work because you want to keep your secrets safe. Your common boyfriend is skulking somewhere in the shadows. He did the dirty work, and you were supposed to take Thomms to safety.”

Heger’s words made Mister Di hold tightly to the amulet on his neck. “Guard us from the ash,” he muttered.

“This is untrue,” Thomms said. She walked to Jonathan and set her hands on his shoulders. “I won’t forget your insults Heger, but in the presence of death we must restrain our hate.”

Jonathan shrugged the hands away staring at Heger openly with his pale eyes. Blue and grey shades in the eyes were considered a sign of sickness in the southern countries. Jonathan saw no need to restrain himself, the navigator herself had asked if he could fight. “You have no evidence. Mister Heger here keeps on insulting me while the murderer runs loose and…”

Heger hit. It was a quick slash with his right hand, reaching towards Jonathan’s chin. Jonathan made a minimal movement to let the fist pass harmlessly and stepped behind Heger’s arm placing two hard hits into his armpit.

“You shit. I’ll make you pay!” Heger said breathlessly

”Heger!” Willem’s voice carried authority that halted the situation. “This is enough. She is right, there is no evidence. Thomms, keep your beast in control.”

“My apologies,” Thomms muttered and took Jonathan’s arm. “Do not dig us any deeper in the trouble.”

Guards escorted them back to the winter garden where various intoxicating substances were available. Thomms kept hold of Jonathan’s arm and prevented him from getting a glass or a cigarette or anything else. The atmosphere was tense, even explosive, but the presence of the guards kept the emotions in control. Annike found Thomms and Jonathan who were standing by the windows. She had Josue in tow.

“A terrible turn of events, Navigator. Are you and your companion well?” Annike asked.

“Thank you miss. We are doing quite well. How about you, I understood that the deceased was your friend?” Thomms answered.

“He was my oldfather. So full of stories from his travels all around the world. But he was still hunting for his great invention. Please, Navigator, tell me if it would have worked?”

“I am not a technology expert. I have seen some ancient machines wake up but they have been without mind. Even if the mechanism works, as it did in the demonstration we saw today, something is broken beyond repair. Replacing the broken mechanical mind with ainadu’s scrips is an innovation, though.”

“Where have you seen such machines?” Annike sounded curious and not at all shaken by the evening. Josue tried to look keen but moving the topic towards technology bored him. Josue glimpsed Jonathan, who was under the navigator’s physical control.

“There are all kinds of things floating on the seas. There used to be cities, Annike, and the machines that supported them. Now they all are dead, just flotsam.”

“Can’t they be fixed?”

”Yes, just like the captain did. The parts will move, there will be lights and sounds and the controls will operate logically. But when you leave the machine on its own it falls prey to its internal paradigm. The intelligence they used to have died with the world and they can’t be fixed.”

“It is so sad.” Annike sounded like she meant it.

“No, Annike. It is our ordeal. There is working technology stored up in the orbit. Our ascension will take us there.”

Annike looked at the navigator oddly. Many had been scared into obedience as kids by stories of avengers descending from space. Annike believed humanity’s place was on the planet’s surface, in the purgatory of their own making.

An hour after Veringe’s death Willem returned to the winter garden.

“Dear guests. My men have found the destroyed remains of the invention. They also found another victim. The murderer killed a guard and used his clothing to lure the captain apart from the crowd. The coat was found together with the burned remains of the voice connector. I believe the murderer got what he was after and has left the scene. My men are tracking him. I am very sorry for the inconvenience. You are free to leave.”

Later Thomms and Jonathan stood on the patio, waiting for the other guests to leave. Navigator Daas was softly discussing with Thomms and Jonathan wandered to observe the second-floor library’s open window. He saw a clear route to climb there both up and downwards. In the flowerbed, hidden by the shadow of a cast iron bench were marks where someone had dropped down.

Jonathan was not surprised to recognize the shoeprint. These shoes were of northern make, and they were of the same size as his shoes. Jonathan covered the tracks and checked that there were no other marks to be found about the intrusion. He hated and evaded his father, but he did possess some loyalties towards his home country, the New Freedom. People in the south seldom used the ainadu name and called it just the north or the hot segment describing its history and geography.

The navigator and Jonathan were on the return trip to the city. They were sitting inside a small, hired carriage, pedaled by a tired man. Navigator rested her eyes on the city’s silhouette.

“Was it someone you knew?” Thomms asked.

Jonathan sighed. He had his suspicions, but no certainty. A man with light brown hair, green in his eyes, abilities with the knife, and a will to murder a skycaptain who had studied the ainadu could have been any madman. But everything fitted too well, including the shoe size.

“Not in the way you mean,” he muttered thinking about his half-brother Patrik. “I had nothing to do with it. But I have my guesses and…”

“You can tell me, Jonathan. I don’t blame you on your obvious bloodline.”

“I don’t want the north coming here. I want to be left alone, without the politics and the responsibilities.” The words were out before Jonathan understood what he had said.

The navigator waited a while before answering: “The north was already waiting for you when you arrived. It was imprinted on the planet and peoples’ minds during the war. You can run all you want but can’t escape a dragon.”

“That was quite philosophical.”

“You are not stupid, although you give a great show on that.”

“Says a woman who left her responsibilities on the dark seas.”

The navigator chuckled. “I lived a full life there. I served two generations of my family. Now I’ll have a life for myself, but as you can see, neither can escape the history I am being connected to because of what I look like.”

“I don’t even look like an ainadu in all this makeup!"

“Your nose, your eyes, and the accent of your speech. The wig won’t hide them. Your origin is obvious the moment you open your mouth.”

Jonathan snorted. He had tried to get rid of the accent but the hard consonants they used in the south were difficult to pronounce right.

“It is not a bad thing, boy. We cannot choose where we are born, but it’s up to ourselves to define our lives. But to return to the original subject…Is the murderer a risk for me or you?”

Jonathan pressed his hands into tight fists, the painted nails biting his palms. He didn’t want to think about these items at all. That was why he had left it all behind and visited his home seldom. Enidtha was the only thing that dragged him back, Enidtha and their kids. The family had not been Jonathan’s plan, Enidtha had wanted it as she had wanted him. She accepted and probably enjoyed that Jonathan, whom she knew as Kvenrei, would rarely be present. Jonathan wanted to be more with her, but he couldn’t stand the North.

Jonathan sighed again and wished for a drink. Any alcoholic drink. “No, he is not a risk.” If it was Patrik and who else it could have been, would be irritating and ridiculous while appealing to honor and responsibilities. Jonathan could not imagine why the strategej would be after a lone navigator, who carried no ainadu bloodline. “Not for you. He is after me if anybody.”