Strangely, though he had come to this planet seeking a missing Faulfenzair and was now forced to idle on it, Qora liked the world of Stronghold. He was moved by its uncompromising harshness and the beauty of the high mountains. The cold crunch of the snow beneath his feet was novel; the playfulness of the wind that caressed his face and then slapped his back until he stumbled forward amused him; and the hiking, while barely exertion in this lighter gravity, rewarded him with vistas of unparalleled splendor. He and Laniis climbed trails in search of some new panorama as backdrop for their picnics, and the Liaison accompanied them, fluttering like a gray kite in the strong mountain wind.
The Seersa had been serious about instructing him in the language, so she woke and went straight to work drilling him in vocabulary and grammar… often for hours. It did, in fact, pass the time, and there was so much time to pass. To waste, almost, except that Qora woke to the daily evidence of Faulza’s sanction, warm as a coal beneath his breastbone. He pressed his thumb to the fur, ruffling it, and wondered if he could excavate that ember if he dug hard enough. Except what would he do with it? Offer it to other, less sure people in need of guidance? But he was not certain he was any surer than they were, even with the Divine hand on him.
There were many Chatcaavan words for air and storm and wind and altitude. Quick words, because the dragons preferred their words sharp: hi, the air, and tso, the wind, and horizon, zon. There was an afternoon, in a high glade with nothing but rocks beneath their blanket and all the world around them for view, when Qora asked the Liaison about the Living and Dying Air.
“Yes,” said the dragon (“chisi,” that was, and it also meant ‘good’). “We say qerimik hi, living air, and butimik hi, dying air.”
“That’s the eternally existing living air, and dying,” Laniis put in. “That verb ending indicates an abstraction. The Chatcaava are all about abstractions.”
“Yes,” the Liaison said. “Because we are forever seeking the Perfect thing.”
“Which exists only in heaven,” said Laniis. “Or that’s what we’d say. A Platonic ideal. Which is a human idea.”
These Others, with their endless chains of exotic notions borrowed from different races. Would the Faulfenza one day become so? Mélanges blended from every source that interested them? Qora hoped not. “Have you heard of a Killing Wind?” He thought back to the priest’s monologue in the capital and picked out what he thought might be the term. “Getachimik tso?”
“I have no idea what that is,” the Liaison said, frowning. “Are you sure you don’t mean a dangerous wind? But that would be getachik tso.”
“Perhaps I misheard,” Qora said. Which was improbable, but every kind of Other he’d run into thus far had poor recall. Not all Faulfenza had eidetic memory, but their emphasis on oral and Danced histories made them far less likely to forget what they’d seen or heard.
“Are there no sects of the Living Air, then?” Laniis asked the dragon. “Most religions have them. Same basic idea, but variations on the belief or practices?”
“If this defines a sect, then there are surely thousands.” The dragon wrapped his arms around his knees, pulling them to his chest. It was such a similar pose to ones adopted by Laniis that Qora wondered if he’d borrowed it. “The belief in the good and uplifting air that allows us to fly is so broad it persists across hundreds of our planets, but I must imagine that the permutations are not in perfect agreement.” He paused, then smiled ruefully at them, an expression similar enough to the Pelted norm that Qora wondered if it had also been adopted. “Not in Perfect agreement.”
Laniis nodded. “It does come back to that for you, doesn’t it.”
The dragon’s tail began twitching in agitation. “And not for you? Do the Pelted not believe in a Perfect form of everything in nature?”
“I guess it depends on the Pelted you ask…!”
To Qora, the Liaison said, “Do you find this as alien as I do?”
“The multiplicity of their beliefs?” Qora said. “Absolutely. But even your variations on a theme strike me as strange.”
“For the Faulfenza, only one god, worshipped in the same way, by all Faulfenza?” Laniis chewed on her lip, her eyes distant. “I wonder…” When she looked up to both of their stares, she laughed. “Sorry, just woolgathering. I wonder if the Faulfenza would be different if they had more planets. Are there Faulfenzair colonies, Qora?”
“No,” Qora said, thinking of the Lost Kin. “But if there were, they would believe what we believe, because it is the truth.”
“Your truth?” Laniis said.
“How can there be different truths for different people?” the Liaison said. “There is only one Perfect form. It does not change depending on the opinions of the person perceiving it. If it did, it would not be Perfect.”
Laniis flopped backwards onto the blanket, laughing.
“Why does she laugh so hard?” the Liaison asked Qora. “Have we deranged her?”
“I suspect she disagrees with us and doesn’t know where to begin to explain how we are wrong,” Qora replied.
“No, no!” Laniis wiped her eyes and exhaled noisily. “No, I would never tell you that you’re wrong.”
“That,” the Liaison said, “is the root of your people’s error.”
Qora’s brows lifted.
“That I wouldn’t tell you, or that I wouldn’t believe it?”
“Both,” the dragon said firmly. “Because one must be honest, and one must not deny reality. Some ways are simply wrong. And you also believe this, or why did you fight a war against us? If all ways were equally valid, you would have allowed us to conquer you, because there would have been no reason to defend yourselves.”
“True.” She sighed and propped herself up again. And, surprising both males, hugged the dragon. The Liaison’s expression, hidden from Laniis by her shoulder but not from Qora, was perplexed and somewhat pained. “You’re about to ask what you did to deserve that,” she said, parting from him. “I’ll just say that I’m glad I met you. You too, Qora, but I’m not sure we’re on hugging terms yet.”
“What would that take?” Qora asked, curious.
“I don’t know. Pretending to be a slave with me and going into a worldlord’s harem so you can free its slaves? Maybe? And then a war.”
“Alas,” Qora said. “I shall never earn a hug from your huntsister.”
“Do your people embrace?” the Liaison asked.
“Do yours?”
They looked at one another, and erupted in mutual grins.
“You’re both about to say something about not needing hugs,” Laniis said. “But I don’t believe it. Every species need to be touched. And I guess I should have asked if you welcomed hugs, Liaison, but part of interacting with foreign cultures is accepting their idiosyncrasies.”
“Never fear,” the Liaison said. “I do not mind your hugs, huntsister. But do not hug any other Chatcaavan. Remember that they can take your pattern from you through such a touch.”
“If they’re the kind of Chatcaavan who would, then they’re already on my side, and I wouldn’t mind.”
“For now,” the Liaison said, stern. “For now all Chatcaava who embrace the Change are on our side. But when it is fully understood how much power there is in the Change, then all Chatcaava will seek it, and will steal from unwilling partners as well as willing ones. Your essence is a gift in my heart, and has changed me. Do not undervalue it, and give it indiscriminately.”
“How did the shapechanging come to be devalued?” Qora asked. “It was bestowed on you by your wind as a means of defense, wasn’t it?”
“Air,” Laniis murmured.
“Air,” Qora corrected. “It had something to do with the creatures on the Vault of the Twelveworld, I assume. The ones that looked like you, but were not you.”
“You saw them?” the Liaison asked, eyes round.
“I was with the Queen Ransomed when she crashed there,” Qora said. “And while she tarried in the temple, I wandered with the remainder of my crew and explored the various halls and chambers. There was a place with crossed spears over the hearth and scenes of killing. But in the carvings, the hunters buried their kills and wept over them.”
“Oh, how I’d love to see that!” Laniis breathed.
The Liaison’s frown had deepened. The breeze pulled at his mane, but it had been confined in a neat tail and barely moved against his brow. “You must understand that I do not love what I am about to say.”
How interesting a beginning that was.
“But if our belief says that the Air gave us gifts, and those gifts are for us to use to protect ourselves, then those who wish to control us will not wish us to believe in the Living Air. A belief that says all people are equally valuable is dangerous. It asks us to imagine we should be treated well.”
“So your lords took it from you,” Laniis said.
But the dragon twitched his head. “No. That is too easy, huntsister. Beliefs should have relevance to your life. If you are mastered by a cruel lord and your belief no longer maps to your reality, then why would you believe it? Many gave up faith in the Living Air when it failed to describe their experiences. A benevolent force that grants power to all? How is that true, if it is not so in someone’s life?”
“I’m not a huge believer in anything,” Laniis said. “But even I think you shouldn’t give up your beliefs when you’re miserable. Most of the faithful I know would say it’s when you’re at your nadir that you need faith most.”
“Rock bottom,” Qora murmured in Universal.
“Yes.” The Seersa smiled at him. “Exactly.”
“Perhaps,” the Liaison said. “But I believe—I do not know, but I believe—that the Living Air fell from us because it no longer gave strength to the afflicted. And our lords were not loath to see that belief fall away, because it kept alive hope and dignity in the hearts of those who would otherwise believe they had cause for neither.”
The silence then was filled only by the whisper of the breeze over the rocks.
“We’re probably giving a very dire view of aliens to Qora,” Laniis said at last. “The Faulfenza are all religious faithful, aren’t they?”
“I don’t know what you mean by religion,” Qora said. “And Faulza is real, so no faith is required.”
He’d expected skepticism from Laniis, but it was the Liaison who bent that supple neck to study him more closely. “It is my observation that belief in supernatural powers is intended to comfort one in times of uncertainty. If you never have uncertainty, why do you need a supernatural power?”
Since the dragon sought to understand, Qora made the attempt to think like an Other. It made his head burn… appropriately, perhaps. “Do you ever doubt that your Emperor exists?”
“Of course not.”
“Do you always understand the purpose behind his actions, or his decrees?”
The Liaison leaned back, wings sagging.
“And could you go to him directly to ask him to explain?” Qora continued. “Whenever you were confused and wanted enlightenment.”
“He is a busy male.” The Liaison bobbed his head. “I see. You suggest that even if you are certain your supernatural power exists, there is room in your heart for doubt and fear and anger.”
“Are you afraid of, angry at, and doubtful of the Emperor?” Laniis asked, ears flicking back.
“No,” the Liaison said. “But I rarely understand him. And I certainly see him almost not at all. Thank you, Qora-alet. That metaphor was helpful.” He cocked his head. “But I am making assumptions. Have you seen your god?”
“Do you see the air when you fly? The wind? Or do you know it with other senses? And see its passage by its effects on clouds, and the bending of grasses, and the shifting of smoke?”
The Liaison’s brows lifted. “Oh!” And then, chuckling. “I like you. And now I am deeply curious what it is like to be one of your species.”
“Perhaps one day I’ll teach you,” Qora said, and wrinkled his nose. “On the same day I hug Laniis.”
* * *
Qora’s interactions with their host were less explicable. The Worldlord invited them to supper every evening, where he initiated careful but unremarkable dialogues with the Liaison and his kept Others attempted conversation with a prickly Laniis. Since only Laniis’s talk was conducted in Universal, Qora spent the first few days attempting to understand the perspective of the Worldlord’s Others and how it conflicted with Laniis’s. The furred Other enjoyed her dragon master and didn’t know why Laniis should find her tastes distasteful; the human Other didn’t care what Laniis thought of her with all the sublime indifference of the elderly. “My dear,” she said at last one evening, “one day you’ll see that the pattern is not the blanket.”
Qora asked about that later but Laniis was so frustrated she didn’t explain what a pattern was and why it was related to a blanket. He and the Liaison made an attempt on their own and failed to find illumination in the Chatcaavan skein, the dragons’ version of the Alliance’s u-banks. “Unless this blanket is like a machined part,” the Liaison said at last. “Where the schematic may not match the installation.”
“Have you run into many installations that fail to match the schematic?” Qora said.
“I admit, I’m not sure,” the Liaison said. “It is not my area of expertise. I would think the purpose of the schematic is to show the only workable solution, however.”
“I am no engineer,” Qora said. “But I am a mechanic. And I will confidently state that an installation of sufficient age will acquire eccentricities that would confound the designers.”
“That would make sense of the statement,” the Liaison said, satisfied, and then faltered. “Oh, how annoyed my huntsister must be. To be treated like a callow child who does not understand the difference between aspiration and execution.”
“Among the Faulfenza, it is the prerogative of elders to speak so to the young,” Qora said. “Is it not so among the Pelted?”
“I don’t know!”
“Perhaps it is because their elderly don’t live very long,” Qora said. “Ours live eight hundred years by Pelted timekeeping.”
“And mine, some three hundred. By that standard, my people will never earn the right to dress down a youngling either.” The dragon turned considering eyes on Qora. “Your people live almost as long as the Eldritch.”
“Would you, if you took an Eldritch shape?”
The Liaison leaned back, eyes wide. “I did not think of it. The revelations at the birthworld… you were not there when we learned the origins of our species.”
What was it about this moment that Faulza approved of? Was it the waiting? The locale? The dim twilight falling outside the panoramic windows, the echoing quiet in the vast ring of their suite, perhaps the company? “No,” Qora said. “I was not.”
“But you are… someone important.” The scrutiny now was distinct. “For if you were not, the Queen would not have arranged you an escort and the Pelted would not have provided it.”
“I do not know that I am important,” Qora said, uncomfortably aware that this statement was more accurate than he typically intended when affecting an air of mystery. “But the Queen of the Chatcaava and I have been through interesting times together.”
“And you are an alien with useful traits,” the dragon mused. “In some ways, it is more proper for you to learn these things than it would be for me to tell another Chatcaava without the permission of the Breath.”
“You intrigue me!” Qora said. “I hope you make good on this fascinating beginning!”
Startled, the dragon looked up, then huffed a laugh. “I deserved that, didn’t I. Well, let us sit and have something to drink, and I will tell you about the gifts of the Chatcaava.”
“The same gifts given you by the Air? To defend yourself?”
“The very same.”
The details of the shapechange had taken on a significance Qora could not have predicted when he first met the Queen Ransomed. What had he cared that dragons could look like other species? Until the Emperor had taken on the soul of a Faulfenzair along with the body… for what else could he call it, when an alien could Dance the language given them by the God? So he sipped from his bowl of a bitter mountain tisane and listened to the Liaison explain how the dragons could not only take on the entire bodies of another species… but pick through the traits that made those species unique and permanently acquire them.
It would have chilled him before he’d had evidence that the God had plans for the Chatcaava. Now he had to wonder what Faulza intended for the dragons, and how their ability would play into the Golden Age. Surely it would, because what use such a gift if the Chatcaava did not use it to become better people? Truer to the God?
“So you learn my shape,” Qora said. “And you could decide to be as long-lived as me.”
“Correct.” The Liaison glanced at him. “You do not seem as distressed by this as I expected.”
Qora grinned. “You expected pathos?”
“Fear, at least. Other aliens have confessed to it and I can’t blame them.”
“What is there to fear?” Qora asked. “You speak as if it is only your species who profits from the exchange, that your species conquers another by ‘stealing’ its qualities. But what if it is the species you are preying on that benefits most? By changing you to suit it? To be more like it? You yourself told Laniis her shape was a sacred gift.” He cocked his head. “If you took enough of my traits, would you become Faulfenzair?”
“That is the fear that prevented us from using the shapechange for so long that it became associated with vulgar and unthinkable acts.”
“I don’t envy you the grappling,” Qora said.
“I don’t either.” The dragon paused, chuckled. “So will you give me your shape, and conquer me?”
“When I hug Laniis as a nestsister… that will be your warning. You’ll be next.”
After the dragon had gone, Qora perched on the balcony outside to count the stars in Faulza’s sky. There was no rail but he did not fear the fall. There was no way the God would send him on this journey to kill him before its ending.
He wished it would end faster, even guessing the ending would shatter him.