Here Be Dragons: Book 1 of the Emergence Series

Pryce was used to waking up early in the morning, but this time he woke up with great anticipation for the day to come. Of course, he had already gathered his things yesterday, but he made sure to double check everything before Fathom arrived.

The dragon could fly from his home to the Horizon in a little over 3 minutes, so it wasn’t really that big of a deal if he forgot anything. Still, it was in his nature to be thorough, and that’s what he did.

Food, water, a construction helmet, a rifle, 60 rounds of ammo, measuring devices, cameras, notebooks, and standard medical supplies including, of course, antibiotics. He even brought enough to (probably) dose a dragon, though he hoped that wouldn’t be necessary.

He didn’t know how many milligrams per kilogram would be the correct dosage for a dragon, but humans were usually prescribed an oral dosage of 4.29 mg/kg, to be taken every 6 hours, or 4 per day. Pryce had been consulted on how much antibiotics they should bring aboard the ship; he had suggested bringing enough penicillin to dose the entire crew every day for 2 months since the medicine was so light. Rounding that value of 2.88 kilograms meant they decided to stock 3 kilograms aboard the ship.

Using humans as a model, a dragon of a mass of 4,590-kilograms would require 19.69 grams per dose, 78.76 grams per day, and for an 8-day prescription that would mean 630.12 grams of penicillin. He decided to bring 1 kg of penicillin, hoping he wouldn’t have to use it. Even if dragons required a far higher dosage per kilogram, he could just condense the prescription and have Fathom help him get the rest of the antibiotics – he didn’t want to bring the entire stock at once in case Fathom accidently dropped his cargo or something.

Once he was done checking all his cargo, he simply waited for Fathom to come pick him up, fidgeting with excitement at the prospect of flying upon the back of a dragon.

“What do you mean I can’t sit on your back?” Pryce said, trying to not complain.

“How will you stay on my back?” Fathom asked sensibly.

“I can wrap my arms around your neck, how about that?” Pryce asked hopefully, miming the motion.

Fathom pulled his head back a little, looking a bit uncomfortable. “If your hands open, you fall and die.”

That was very true, though this bit of reason did little to assuage his great disappointment.

“What if I used rope? Or tied a chain around your neck?” Pryce asked, wondering if this was perhaps a little manipulative. Indeed, Fathom stared down at the shiny stainless-steel chain with a longing expression.

“Why do you want to sit on my back very much?” Fathom asked, a little suspicious.

“I…want to,” Pryce weakly justified.

“You are in less danger in my hands,” Fathom said, using the human word for his foreclaws, which was just as well; they were vaguely hand shaped and had enough dexterity to be called such.

“…okay,” Pryce sighed heavily. “Here’s my bags, I put a chain through them, so you just need to grab the chain to lift all of them. And you can wear this too, I guess,” he said, gesturing to the length of chain he had adjusted some days ago in hopes of securing himself upon the dragon’s back as they flew.

Fathom placed the loop of stainless-steel chain over his muzzle and shook his neck to let the chain fall, settling against his chest. It did look quite nice against his dark blue scales despite the fact that it was not at all intended for the purpose of jewelry.

Next the dragon lifted the chained backpacks experimentally, evidently not finding much difficulty in the one-hundred-and-fifty-odd kilograms Pryce brought.

“You bring…this?” Fathom asked, noticing the rifle.

“Yes, this is a ‘rifle’. What if raptors try to kill me?” Pryce raised an eyebrow, hoping Fathom wouldn’t refuse to bring the weapon along.

“How does rifle kill things?” Fathom asked, eyes shifting between Pryce and the firearm. “You do not touch raptors, but raptors die.”

“Ah, right,” Pryce said, remembering that Fathom had seen him use it before. “This is like rocket, fire make hot gas, and hot gas push small piece of metal out very very fast, around 800 meters per second.”

“This…can kill a dragon?” Fathom asked warily.

“This can hurt a dragon, if I hit head it maybe kill, but if I hit chest then I don’t know.”

Fathom rumbled a little anxiously as he responded, “I do not like this rifle. Why you bring it? I will protect you.”

Pryce was thrown off by the unexpected offer, but he argued that, “Rifle is a weapon, like your talons. If you do not attack me, I promise I will not try to shoot you.”

The dragon looked down at his talons, then at Pryce’s ineffectual fingers. “This…makes sense, you can bring rifle,” he grumbled begrudgingly, then he extended a foreclaw towards Pryce, who awkwardly raised his arms above his torso, unsure of what to do. Fathom was gentle for all his great strength, his foreclaws curled around his torso and his fingers rested against his armpits, distributing his weight as much as reasonably possible as he picked the human up.

“Whoa,” Pryce said involuntarily. Being picked up bodily was an unexpectedly odd feeling – he felt like his shoes were about to fall off though he knew he had laced them up tightly.

“Are you hurt?” Fathom asked, easing his grip a little too much.

“No, no, I was just surprised, this is very strange,” Pryce said. “Grab stronger like before, I don’t want to fall,” he added a little nervously.

“I fly now, yes?” Fathom asked, adjusting his grip.

“Yes.” Pryce braced himself as Fathom coiled the powerful muscles in his legs, then leapt into the air, jarring Pryce. If the human were calmer, he may have realized that the dragon had leapt with less force than normal so as to not injure his passenger. As it was, he only vaguely noticed that Fathom seemed to flap harder than usual as the ground gradually fell away in time with each wingbeat, causing Pryce to feel a little nauseous.

He looked to the horizon, trying his best to not be sick; he doubted Fathom would appreciate that. Once the dragon gained adequate elevation, he was able to propel himself forward through the air, and Pryce was fortunately subjected to a much less jarring experience as Fathom rode upon the thermals.

A few seconds into a glide, and Pryce was able to relax somewhat. The way the dragon’s foreclaws rested meant that he was held awkwardly at a diagonal angle, so he had to look up in order to see the horizon; but that did not bother him in the slightest when he truly took in the amazing view from so high above the ground.

He had flown on planes before, of course, and airplanes were far faster than dragons, but it was another thing entirely to feel the wind rushing past your face and through your hair. Pryce couldn’t stop himself from grinning madly, and nor did he wish to.

“This is good?” Fathom asked, curling his neck to look down at Pryce so that his head was upside-down.

“This is great! This is amazing!” Pryce shouted over the winds, and the dragon made a pleased rumble in response, the tremors traveling throughout Pryce’s body through the dragon’s arm.

Pryce wasn’t sure how to measure the velocity of the dragon, but he estimated it to be around 20 – 30 km/hr once the dragon had gained enough elevation and could focus on propelling himself forward. He watched the river – Eulogy river – meander vaguely westwards from the ocean towards the base of the mountain range in the distance.

Fathom seemed to follow the general direction of Eulogy river, and Pryce realized he forgot to check the time on the chronometer before they left. He had planned to record exactly how many seconds it took for the dragon to fly from The Horizon to his home, but he supposed he could just do that on the way back.

“Is this your normal speed?” Pryce called out over the wind.

“No, if I fly normal speed I shake you,” Fathom said, huffing in mild annoyance.

“Oh, thank you,” Pryce said gratefully, patting the dragon’s index talon appreciatively, and Fathom turned his head away to focus on flying.

Eventually the dragon arrived at the base of the nearest mountain, the river curving around it. Fathom proceeded to climb in elevation until he arrived at a structure that was at least partly artificial in nature; it seemed to be a partly exposed cave system that had logs of wood blocking several holes for reasons not readily apparent. Several ‘lizards’ and other unfamiliar creatures darted away to hide as they heard the dragon’s wingbeats, and by the time his shadow was cast upon the mountainside the surrounding area was completely deserted.

Perhaps it was the cargo in his foreclaws, but Fathom landed a bit clumsily, jarring Pryce a little before gently setting him down. Pryce wobbled on his feet as he felt a bit of vertigo, but it wasn’t too bad. He knew it couldn’t have been more than ten minutes, but somehow the flight had felt long and short at the same time.

“How many beats did it take for you to fly from ship to here?”

“Around 40 beats,” Fathom answered, setting his bags down with care.

“So that’s 480 seconds,” Pryce nodded. “Then that means it’s about 2.6 kilometers from here to the ship.”

“You think I go almost five-point-four and some meters per second?” Fathom asked, cocking his head as he pondered if that was a fast or slow speed.

“…Ye…yes?” Pryce still wasn’t used to hearing the dragon casually doing fairly challenging mental math yet.

“…you can not do this math?” Fathom asked, a note of complacency in his voice.

“I can, it just takes a few seconds,” Pryce said, turning to inspect his luggage while the dragon rumbled skeptically. “Help me carry these, please.”

Fathom obliged, picking up the chain in his jaws as he padded into a large cave entrance. Pryce followed a safe distance behind from his lashing tail, examining the symbols and icons scratched into the side of the cave entrance.

“Are these words your name?” Pryce asked, hoping it was not; there seemed to be many characters.

Fathom set his bags down in a corner of the cave, and turned to face Pryce. “Yes and no. These words are parent names,” he pointed at the symbols on the right of the arch. “This word is my name, this is name of my mate, and this is name of my daughter,” he said, this time pointing to the two symbols at the center and the lone text on the left side of the arch.

“Words go from right to left? Human words go left to right,” Pryce asked, hesitant if now was a good time to ask about Fathom’s family.

“Words go like sun when you point north,” Fathom explained.

“Makes sense,” Pryce said, suppressing his curiosity over Fathom’s past. Instead he took interest in how their culture’s fascination or regard for the sun appeared in the way they arranged their text. “What do you want to show me first?”

“I already show you things, next thing will not be first.”

Pryce rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean.”

Fathom tilted his head in what seemed to be genuine confusion. “But…this is first?”

“…Never mind.”

The first thing Fathom showed him was in fact, breakfast. Or…brunch, technically.

Pryce realized he never asked what dragons did with food, though this question was still answered when Fathom shifted a stone slab to reveal a steaming pit which contained something wrapped in leaves.

Pryce sniffed the air, smelling the distinct smell of roasting meat along with some other foreign flavors. He watched as Fathom stabbed the leaf-shrouded meat with a stick that was closer to the trunk of a small tree than a branch, and used it like a skewer to lift the thing out of the pit.

Pryce watched with great interest, wondering if he should bring out the camera before deciding that resource should be used for something more important. He had a great stockpile of instant and normal film, but it was still limited.

Fathom unwrapped the leaves, revealing it was the last pig Pryce had given him yesterday.

“Interesting, this is called ‘cooking’, how did you cook pig?” Pryce asked, though he was fairly certain it was a method similar to the old ways of cooking some cultures had.

“I drink pig blood, put salt in pig. Then I put wood in hole, burn wood. When fire is very small, I put in pig last night,” Fathom summarized, looking rather proud of himself.

“Very interesting, some humans do this too. Do all dragons do this, or just you?” Pryce asked, curious to know if Fathom was an outlier.

“My father and mother teach me this, but some things I use different. Different leaves, different wood, different shape of hole in ground. You give me salt too,” Fathom added happily, flicking his tongue out in anticipation.

“If I knew you had cooking, I would have given you spices,” Pryce said. “Those are things that give food more taste, like leaves or wood,” he added before Fathom could ask.

“…I did not think of this,” Fathom said. “We go back to ship, get spices?” He stared at the pig as he said so, looking quite reluctant to leave.

“No, spices are added before or during cooking, not at the end. We can eat things with spices later,” Pryce said, digging through his backpack for utensils. He had only brought bread, cheese, and jerky, so he certainly wasn’t going to turn down some fresh meat; especially not meat prepared by a dragon. “Do you want some cheese? It’s very good,” Pryce offered, deciding to eat the bread with the pork.

“Cheese?” Fathom asked, flicking his tongue at the strange white slice of parmesan. Other types of cheeses didn’t last very long at room temperature, so the ship only had parmesan and some other long-lasting varieties to choose from. “What is cheese made from?”

Pryce supposed it was quite unrecognizable from anything in the natural world, despite how much of a food staple it was. “This is made from milk,” he said. “Milk is –”

“Like Milky Way?” Fathom asked, cutting him off.

“Yes! Milky way is named from milk, and milk is white liquid that humans and many other animals make,” Pryce explained.

Fathom drew his head back slowly, giving Pryce a very strange look.

“What?” Pryce asked, then belatedly realized his error. “It’s a liquid that offspring dr –” he stopped, aware this was not helping. It took a few more minutes of explaining that female mammals made milk for their offspring, and by the end of it Fathom still did not look very inclined to try it.

“I do not want to try human milk,” he said. “And cheese smell…bad,” he added tactfully.

“It’s not made from human milk, it’s made from animal milk,” Pryce corrected.

“Humans drink other animal milk? Animal milk for their offspring?” Fathom asked, sounding nine parts confused and one part disgusted.

“Well…when you say it like that…” Pryce rubbed his neck awkwardly, suddenly aware that it was kind of gross. “It’s not worse than eating animal meat,” he said defensively.

“No, but this is stranger,” Fathom said, moving on from the topic to take a bite out of the pork, rumbling with evident pleasure as he did so.

Pryce sighed, giving up and trying some pork haunch. He put it in his mouth and remembered that some of the plant life on this island might be poisonous to him right before he bit down on it.

Sighing, he took the piece of meat out and put it back onto the roast and took one of the cooked leaves to rub against his lips.

“What are you doing?” Fathom asked around a mouthful of pork shoulder, bemused by the human’s odd behavior.

“I am not from this island; these leaves might be poisonous to me,” Pryce explained. “You said you eat fungi but they make you feel sick, right? Those fungi were poisonous.”

Fathom rumbled understandingly, then tore off another mouthful of pork.

“I’m going to eat a little bit of leaf, if it is poisonous then I only get a little sick and not die,” he sighed, his stomach grumbling as it expected meat and was instead given a sliver of a leaf. At least the leaf had a nice, light flavor. It was not one that he could describe, but it was nonetheless a pleasant one.

Pryce sat facing away from the feasting dragon to begin his own dismal meal. He knew heat destroyed most poisons, so Pryce told himself that it didn’t make sense to risk his health for some meat.

Unfortunately, this perfectly reasonable argument satisfied his stomach as much as the cold bread had.

Pryce had finished his meal long before Fathom had, as the dragon seemed to be savoring his exotic treat. Once he was done with the meat, the dragon started crunching on the bones with evident satisfaction.

“Are pig bones weaker than gryphon bones?” Pryce asked as he watched the dragon easily cracking apart the thick bones to lick up the rich marrow.

“Yes, these bones much weaker, taste very good,” Fathom said, speaking over the snapping of bones in his mouth.

“Pigs probably taste much better than other animals here,” Pryce said, thinking of how tough gryphon or dragon meat would be.

“You do not have more pigs?” The dragon asked hopefully, picking at his teeth with a rib bone.

“Nope, only animals on ship left are chickens. They are small, but they do taste good.”

“I can eat chicken later?”

“Eh…” Pryce was reluctant to give away those. “Chickens make eggs, I eat those.”

“You…have chickens for eggs?” Fathom asked, sounding mildly surprised.

Pryce blinked. “Yes, we have chickens for eggs and meat, I thought you knew this?”

“I know you have animals for meat, but have animals for eggs is…different.” The dragon seemed to find the practice a little distasteful.

Pryce shrugged, saying, “Humans are not very strong. For many thousands of years we use animals for many things.”

“Humans…are very different,” Fathom rumbled, looking slightly troubled. “…Do humans tell other humans everything? Is there a word for things that you do not tell other humans?”

“Thing that you do not tell others is a secret,” Pryce answered. “One or two people can have secrets, but if more people have it then it is usually not a secret anymore.”

“I will tell you a secret, you do not tell other dragons, yes?”

“Okay, I will keep this secret,” Pryce said, leaning forward curiously. He had never seen Fathom exercise caution when telling him something before.

“Do humans have word for keeping animals?”

“Yes, this is called ‘farming’. Pigs and chickens are farm animals.”

“I…farm lizards,” the dragon said in a low tone of admission. “Lizards live here, I only eat some and the others stay.”

Pryce raised his eyebrows, recognizing the behavior. “Yes, I know some animals do this. Ducks make nests near alligator nests, is safer even if alligator eat some ducks.” He looked up at Fathom, who still looked a bit nervous. “This is why you are so blue, yes?”

“…yes,” Fathom said, one foreclaw scratching the other anxiously.

“Why are you nervous? I do not understand,” Pryce asked.

“Dragons do not…have farm animals, dragons hunt animals,” Fathom said.

Pryce scratched his chin in thought as he considered this. “I think most dragons probably do something like farming, mostly dragons who have much color use…things like this. This is smart, not bad,” he said, trying to sound encouraging.

Fathom seemed to seriously consider Pryce’s words, and drew himself back up a little. “This makes sense. Dragons keep many secrets from other dragons, what you say is…can happen.”

“Word for ‘can happen’ is ‘possible’. ‘Can not happen’ is ‘impossible’.”

“I understand,” Fathom nodded.

“So…can I see the inside of your home?” Pryce asked, resisting the urge to rub his hands together in excitement.

“Yes, I show you my things,” Fathom turned to walk into the cave's entrance; it was large enough to easily fit him, and Pryce followed suit.

The interior of the cave was simple and somewhat domelike, though it was far from smooth. Pryce could see some evidence of the dragon having done work to expand and clear out the cave; scratched walls, leftover remnants of shattered boulders, and stumps of stalagmites and stalactites littered the corners of the caves.

It was somewhat dark inside the cave, but once his eyes had adjusted, he could see clearly thanks to the small holes in the cave walls.

Fathom introduced him to each of the three deeper chambers; the first one held dried plants which Fathom said were used like spices, the second was where Fathom slept, and the third…

“This is…treasure chamber,” Fathom said, moving some wooden logs to unblock the passageway. “This is secret,” he paused to turn his head and gaze pointedly to Pryce.

“I promise not to tell anyone,” Pryce said seriously, though he privately wondered how much security a few wooden logs would provide.

Fathom padded into the dark passageway, and Pryce followed hesitantly, wondering if he should go get his lantern. They made it to a larger chamber with a hole in the ceiling to allow sunlight in, allowing Pryce to see several tree trunks that had been hollowed into shelves. Upon those shelves sat an impressive number of shiny trinkets including but not limited to shells, amber, metal nuggets, and crystals.

“Very interesting,” Pryce complimented. He noticed with interest that the tree trunks were stacked upon one another, and a large shelf had been stacked five high. This shelf had holes carved into it such that two long sticks could run through each end of the shelf and hold it all together. He personally found the shelves to be more interesting than the ‘treasures’, as most of them were worthless to humans, but they were all quite pretty in their own way. Some were geodes or sizable crystals, but he wasn’t a geologist and had no idea how to differentiate the common gems from the rare ones. He’d check them out using a geology textbook later.

“Where’s the things I gave you?” Pryce asked, noticing the absence of his gifts.

Fathom huffed, and seemed to gather himself before stepping forward to push the largest shelf to the side, revealing a small entrance that Pryce doubted the dragon could easily squeeze through.

He was immediately proven wrong when Fathom slipped into the hole, apparently dragons were a lot more limber than they looked. Pryce followed into the pitch darkness slowly with his arms outstretched, making sure he wasn’t going to run into any stone walls.

“What are you doing?” Fathom asked from somewhere in the cave. There was no echo, so this particular chamber couldn’t be very large.

“I can’t see,” Pryce said, a little frustrated.

“You can’t see? Human eyes are very not good,” Fathom huffed sympathetically.

“Yeah yeah,” Pryce grumbled before shortly stumbling into Fathom’s scaled hide, causing the dragon to snort in amusement. “Why is it so dark in here?” He groused, eyes finally adjusting so he could see a little.

“Because this,” Fathom said, reaching a foreclaw out to move something that almost completely blocked out the faint light from the previous chamber.

“Hey, I can’t see!” Pryce protested, completely blind again.

“Wait,” Fathom rumbled. Pryce heard the dragon exhale, then he saw – and heard – the snap of a spark, with a crackle the dragon had lit a stick aflame like a primitive torch.

“I could’ve brought my lamp,” Pryce was about to grumble, but was silenced by the wall of glimmering light surrounding him on all sides like an imitation of the night sky.

“What…is this?” He asked in breathless wonder.

“This is…a dragon’s Star Sky,” Fathom said, translating the term. “We make this using treasures we find or take, each ‘star’ is a treasure from something we did.”

“Things that happen in the past to someone is…a story,” Pryce said in realization.

Fathom nodded, “This is my story.”