Dar-Furgen

There weren't always Dragons in the Valley. For thousands of years, the Valley had lain dormant. Finally, it was teeming with life again. Flights of Dragons dotted the sky; their gold and silver gilded shadows glinted against the blue. Their thoughts and cries of joy washed over me. The wind blew my hair back and chilled my skin as I watched them high on the south ridge. I could see the forested valley half a mile deep and forever long. At the bottom of the valley, a sinuous slash of reflected sky and greenery stretched away in both directions. I smiled and rubbed my arms, then I thought of a better way to get warm. I took my Dragon’s form. The transformation was nearly instantaneous. Medium-sized as Dragons go at just thirty feet long, I stretched out my wings and took to the sky to join the others in celebration.

***

"Petra, wake up, please," Dar's sending crashed through me.

"I’m awake, Dar," I sent. I shudder to think about the bond becoming more intimate than this. We share a mind already.

"What do you remember of the Valley?"

I thought about it for a moment. "It’s very green, with a river that winds through it. That is weird, Dar; It feels like a memory, but I’ve never been there."

"No, I shared that memory with you. It’s easier to do that when you are sleeping. If you become fully Bonded, we will be able to share memories at will. But, Petra, I fear we must go to the Valley."

"Fear?" Dar is, by Furgen’s account, powerful and ancient. What would he fear?

"Yes. The memory I shared with you is of long ago, before the veil fell over the Valley. Now it is a dark foreboding place. It is also the hub between the worlds. If any other Dragons have lost a Bonded to such an atrocity as what happened to Furgen, they will wish to meet with others as I do. They will try to meet us there."

***

Furgen lay on the bed as grandmother had just six months ago. We were alone in the room, Furgen, and I. Physically alone. The Dragon, Dar, Bonded with Furgen nearly a millennium ago, and they shared the bond with me.

Her breath was a dry rasp, fast and irregular. I could see that she was dying. She sent, "You look like someone killed your puppy," and winked one of her oversize eyes at me.

Furgen was humanoid and yet, clearly not human, and her large eyes held intellect and compassion. She had been my mentor in The Flame and taught me why I might want to become a Postulant of The Flame. She also helped me through the loss of my grandmother and to aspire to help others.

“I am having a hard time accepting all of this.”, I told her, my voice cracking. Then, remembering that even now, I was supposed to be sending, not speaking, "It’s like losing my grandmother all over again; I love you, Furgen." There was no one in the world I was closer to than this creature I had known for barely six months.

"Dar, where are we?" Furgen’s expression changed from coy amusement to worry, and she tried to get up but couldn’t find the energy and lay back down. Then, she sent, "Why is this creature in the Bond? She looks HUMAN of all things."

"Be easy, Furgen," Dar sent, "Be easy."

And just like that, she was gone again. The illness disoriented her and took away her recognition of anyone but Dar. Yet, these moments of clarity teased us that she was still in there. Dar told me the word for it in Furgen’s language, but I couldn’t have repeated it. The disease looked like my grandmother’s Alzheimer’s, but Dar claimed it was very different, involving the breakdown of nerve tissue, not the build-up of plaques. When Furgen began having spells of disorientation, I stayed away for weeks. I was afraid of becoming attached, but later I would have loved to have that time back.

"Petra, Her time has come." Furgen and Dar had prepared me for this. Adding my consciousness to their Bond bolstered Furgen’s mind and delayed this moment, but it couldn’t hold it back forever. I marked time by Furgen’s breaths. Each was weaker and the pauses longer. I don’t think I had yet realized that they had ceased when I felt it. Furgen’s consciousness was no longer in the Bond. It was just my mind and Dar’s.

A golden medallion, a hand span wide, appeared around my neck. It was plain on the back and had a raised profile of a Dragon head on the front. Furgen’s death broke her from The Bond, so Dar could not occupy her body as he had before. Now he hung at my neck, waiting for a new bond.

Dar sent, "Petra Anna Popov, do you wish to be a Postulant of The Flame and bond yourself to me, Dar Ahara Tamid, Dragon, in service to The Flame?"

I had known this was coming. I knew it would happen when Furgen died and had made my decision long ago, yet It was still a shock. By rote, I sent the words to confirm my oath, "I, Petra Anna Popov, wish to become a Postulant of The Flame and accept the bond of Dar Araha Tamid, Dragon, in service to The Flame."

"I accept you, Petra Anna Popov, Postulant of The Flame," Dar sent. The medallion melted into me. A flood of awareness washed over me. I was part of their bond throughout my training and all of the time lately. What I thought was intimate awareness of Dar before was nothing compared to the Postulant’s Bond. I could sense the minds of all of the Bonded that had come before Furgen and feel their welcome.

Shimmering points of light appeared and danced around Furgen’s head. I didn’t see them; I felt them there with the senses that Dar shared with me through the bond. The points of light grew in number and brightness. Furgen’s consciousness was free of her body, unable to partake in the Bond. We could add her consciousness to Dar’s memories of the Bonded, but that required a choice.

Dar would not accept her rebonding without her consent. Dar and I projected warmth and welcome to her. As with her predecessors, we would be able to commune with her. Dar called this process the Rebonding.

The shimmering points of light, beautiful and bright, slid toward us. We reached out to Furgen’s mind with lights of our own, but we were blocked before we could collect her. Something else had gotten in the way. Points of darkness that, if any light escaped them, would have been a malevolent red. Instead, they seemed to pull light in from around them. They swirled and taunted Furgen, dashing in and out, blocking her way to us. Their number grew until I could no longer feel her light through the many points of darkness that swirled between us. Soon there were so many that they, like a cloak, enclosed her completely. Then the dark mass shrank and warped, and all of it slipped between the twists that lay between everywhere and vanished. Furgen’s consciousness was gone.

“Dar!” I sent. “What happened? She’s gone; I don’t understand!”

“No,” sent Dar. “Neither do I.”

***

"We need to Travel to the place in the memory, Petra."

I shook myself out of my reverie, still shocked by Furgen’s passing and the horrible aftermath even after a night’s rest.

"Travel to the Valley? How does it work?"

"Yes, I will guide you through it. But, first, you must perform a gathering."

A gathering. Those were exhausting. Furgen had explained. Dragons got almost all of the energy they need to live and do the extraordinary things they do from the world around them. They didn’t need to make any special efforts for everyday activities, but they had to spend time focused on gathering energy to do anything significant. Dar claimed it wasn’t magic and that the human Arthur C. Clarke could have explained it to me, but I never met him. I suspect Dar was making fun of me.

"How long will this one be?"

"I think it will take you about five days."

"Five days?" How was I going to do that?

"Yes, please get started."

"All at once? Won’t I get hungry or tired or have to do biological things?"

"You will do those things while gathering. Stopping will mean starting over. That is worse, is it not?"

"Sure, but do you mean that I will keep gathering in my sleep or while I’m playing video games?"

"Yes. It will be faster if you are awake, but yes. Please begin."

"And I can play video games? I don’t have to be training?"

"Training will slow the gathering. You can play your video games. Will you please begin?"

"Sure, but what’s the rush? I’ve never seen you impatient about anything." I started the meditation that would lead to the gathering despite my poking back at Dar.

"The Flame is the rush. I must protect my Bonded, and I must try to retrieve Furgen from wherever she is, and the only place where there is any hope of learning more is the Valley."

While he talked, I pushed all thoughts out of my mind and focused on my breathing. My sense of the world, already enhanced by the bond with Dar, now deepened. I could feel between things. The tiniest parts of everywhere seemed to curl in on themselves. I could feel the deep energies pulse in those twists and turns of the world around me. I reached into those spaces between and pulled that energy inward.

"So will you please–Ah. Thank you," Dar sent.

I let it fill me. It was a trickle at first, and as I gained confidence, it didn’t exactly flow faster, but the flow got deeper.

"Is it possible to pull too much?"

"The Postulant Bond will not let you pull faster than is safe. I will show you how much we can safely hold."

I had a sense of a vast well. The level of energy in that well was rising but very slowly. I relaxed. The well could hold far more than we could gather in five days.

"This gathering is much easier than my last."

"The Bond was on loan to you while you were training. The Postulant’s bond is yours now, not borrowed."

I spent the next four days alternating between video games and sleep. After that, I went grocery shopping and, to round out the days, I got an oil change. When Dar finally decided that the gathering was nearing completion, he woke me from a dead sleep. Again. I sat bolt upright on the living room couch.

"Petra, you need to practice something."

I sent, "Is the gathering done?" But what I thought was, Why can’t you wait until I wake up naturally?

"No, please don’t stop. I want you to work on changing forms."

I was stunned. I thought that was only for the Bonded. Those who had reached the highest level of the Bond. "I didn’t think that was possible yet."

"I have some latitude in the bond. I usually would not allow a Postulant to attempt it, but you are a fast learner and listen well enough that you probably will not kill yourself trying this."

"Probably not kill myself? I am totally stoked. Let's go."

"That will do. You will first attempt to be you."

"What?" I giggled. Attempt to be me?

"It is not as absurd as you seem to think. Try."

I did; I imagined me as myself.

"That is the wrong approach.”

“I barely did anything yet!”

“It was enough for me to feel the Bond shift. Let me explain it differently. You will not attempt to change yourself. That is not how it works. Instead, you must decide that you are the thing you wish to become.”

"So, I have to decide that I am me." That sounds simple enough and completely absurd. So, of course, I did the only logical thing. I decided that I am me.

"Correct. Well done."

“You’re serious? Nothing happened.”

Dar sent, "But it did. You told the bond who you are, and the Bond responded; You will get the feel of it. It is just too new."

"Oh, ok." I was still a little skeptical, but who was I to argue?

"Now, please decide that you are a Dragon."

I cracked up. I couldn’t help myself; Just the thought was utterly ridiculous. It took a while to get my breathing back to normal and wipe away the tears.

"Ready now?"

I choked back the giggles again and sent, "Yes, Dar. Sorry."

"Please proceed."

I started to imagine myself as a Dragon and realized I was making the same mistake again. So instead, I decided that I was a Dragon. Nothing happened. "Well, that was a fail," I sent and threw myself into a chair in frustration. The chair shattered, and I yelped in pain from sitting on my tail. I stared at the tail in confusion and followed it up to my back. Upon seeing my wings folded up just below my long neck, I closed my eyes and took a moment to clear my head. I was not just any Dragon. I was the same Dragon that I met as Dar-Furgen six months ago.

"Well done," sent Dar.

"I think we probably should have gone to the garage before trying that. The living room is a bit cramped."

"Perhaps, but it will not matter in a moment. Are you ready to see the Valley?"

"Yes, but shouldn’t I change back first?"

"No. The Valley may be dangerous, and you will be safer in this form. I will guide you through a Traveling. It is not the hardest thing you will learn."

“Ok. I think I am ready.”

"Good. Continue the gathering, but look deeper."

I started doing what Dar told me, trying to do each thing as he said it. I could feel the twists in the fabric of everything. I could feel how the world around me was more complicated than it seemed on the surface.

“Now, as you look deeper, you will find the energies we pull on for the gathering. Push our senses beyond, and you will see a convergence. It is a place where all of the twists get woven together. This place is a construct, an uncanny valley that is real and unreal. This place spans all of space and time. This place is the Valley. So reach out to it; Take hold of it with your mind.”

I reached out and found the place. It matched the memory Dar sent me, and as I took hold of it, I sensed that I would be able to find this place no matter where I was.

"Then you will open the well of energy you have been gathering, and you will pull that place to you through it."

I pulled.

***

There was a Dragon in the Valley. I stood on a ridge and took in the devastation. The Valley of the dream was gone. High ridges overlooked a deep, wide valley that seemed to go on forever, but the similarities ended there. The river and vegetation were gone but for the desiccated stumps of long-dead trees and the abandoned river bed. The smell of dust and a hint of ancient rot hung in the air. What wind there was, whispered warnings that to stay here long was to court disaster.

“Dar, “ I began, but my sending was interrupted by motion on the opposite ridge. A bending of the air and then something was standing where there had been nothing a moment before.

“Ah. That was fast.”

“Dar, wait. That isn’t a Dragon.”