Project DRAGN

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. What made it worse for Gideon, though, was that he had put them there.

He brushed his hand over the fingers of an enormous fern, its waxy green skin echoing the last remnants of afternoon light that managed to weave their way through the dense forest canopy above. Only a few months ago, the ferns had crumbled to dry powder at the same touch. They had also been about seven times smaller. Now they towered over him along with the rest of the plant life, like underbrush for a giant.

The speed of the Valley’s recovery was incredible, a marvel of modern magical science. Of course, Gideon hadn’t been solely responsible for it. He was a professor of biology, not a god. Though he and his colleagues had certainly thought themselves divinely inspired.

They had developed a self-improving genetic restoration spell, the first of its kind, as an answer to the emaciation of the Valley caused by overindulgent mana harvesting. Mana was the undercurrent of life energy present in all organic matter. It was also the top renewable energy resource on the interplanetary corporate market. Unfortunately, most corporations seemed to think “renewable” equated to “infinite.” They had bled the Valley dry in less than ten years—an impressive feat, considering it was the size of an Earth continent—then demanded the University fix the problem. After all, it was a far better option than the old unstable nuclear days, wasn’t it? Wouldn’t want to return to that.

Gideon and a few of his graduate students had jokingly named the project “DRAGN,” which stood for Doing Really Amazing Genetic Nonsense. The Board of Directors had liked it, though, apparently finding the acronym ostentatious enough for the market. Its boldness matched the unprecedented effectiveness of the cure, they said. And when field researchers had started reporting unfamiliar beasts roaming the forest, it only made sense to refer to the new enigmas as “dragons.”

Then the field researchers started disappearing, and the joke soured.

Gideon hadn’t found any of them yet. Not a trace. Ga’Jeet, Parker, Layja, Siddhem, Thomas; they were his grad students. His responsibility. He should have pulled them out when communications started failing. He should have pulled everyone out.

Gideon practically swam through the foliage around him, wiping sweat from his eyes and wondering for the five-thousandth time that day why he hadn’t shaved his bushy gray beard before attempting this fools’ errand. The forest was claustrophobically healthy, hot and humid and pressing in around him like a crowded shuttle terminal. The tops of the largest trees disappeared behind graying clouds overhead, and their roots crested the dark soil like the great backs of sea monsters in a black and green ocean. Gideon had to climb over them like boulders, and when he did he swore he could feel them shiver. Almost as if they were reacting to his touch.

And it was quiet. Astonishingly, unnervingly quiet. Gideon hadn’t heard a single bird since entering the forest over twenty-four hours ago, hadn’t seen a single squirrel or deer or banana slug. Nor had he found traces of any of the mysterious “dragons” the field scientists had reported before communications cut out. Only the breeze and his own movement broke the heavy silence. He felt like an intruder in a sacred place.

He paused at the base of a thirty-foot cedar sapling. At least, it was a mostly cedar sapling. Patches of birch bark covered the trunk like a rash, huge oak and maple leaves budded from some of the ladder-like branches. Gideon had noticed a similar pattern of…fusion among other plant life in the Valley. He had never seen anything like it before, and he had studied the biology of three different planets. DRAGN seemed to have more than a replenishing effect on the Valley’s flora; things were becoming one another here.

He glanced down at his wrist display out of habit, waiting for its interface to awaken. It didn’t. Like all other mana tech within the forest, it was being jammed by some kind of signal that no one at the University had been able to pin down. That was why communications and geolocation had failed, why the corporations had to resort to inefficient aerial mana harvesting, and why Gideon’s airship had crashed into the mountainous trees when he flew too close like an idiot.

It was also why Gideon had brought an ancient battery-powered camera with him. He needed some way of documenting what was going on down here, and old tech seemed unaffected by the strange jamming signal. Hopefully his grandfather’s antique Nikon could help him convince the corporate board not to sell DRAGN as a miracle cure for mana depletion. Something was wrong with the spell, but he knew a journal of hand-written notes and his word as a University scientist weren’t going to cut it. Clearly, there was enough money on the line that a few missing researchers could be overlooked.

He took several pictures of the mottled wood and leaves, then crouched down to examine an exposed root. He wanted to get a look at what was going on at the micro scale. Typically, he could scan the molecular makeup of matter with a few taps on his wrist display, but now he had to do things the old-fashioned way. He grinned, feeling a little self-righteous. He always nagged his students about practicing the old mana sight that most academics considered embarrassingly outdated. Now he’d have another anecdote to really help drill the concept home.

If he ever got to teach again, that is. He hadn’t exactly received permission for this research and rescue mission.

He reached out and rested two fingers gently on the root, closing his eyes and breathing deeply. He guided his attention to the mana within him, a lake of formless wind in the center of his chest. It flickered in response to his attention, swelling through his veins and into the tips of his fingers, the ends of his hair. He felt electrified. Alive.

His mind dove into the wood. The grain of it became like his own skin, the nutrients and carbon sugars swam past him between root and soil like fish in a current. As always, the experience was breathtaking. And overwhelming. He wiggled his toes to ground himself in his physical body, then refined his view even more, twisting his focus like a microscope lens until he could observe the spiraling ladders of DNA. Just as he thought, they reflected the mingled wood, a bewildering jigsaw puzzle of various plant and fungal species. And wait, was that elk DNA?

Gideon pulled his sight back into his body, opening his eyes and steadying himself against the wave of dizziness that followed. He grabbed a small notebook and a pen from his hip pack and began furiously scribbling notes, adding a few rough sketches of the bizarre chemical structures he had seen. He and his colleagues hadn’t anticipated anything like this when constructing DRAGN. He wondered if the creatures that the field researchers had reported were experiencing a similar genetic phenomenon. Then he abruptly sat back on his heels and stared into the forest.

Using his sight had given him an idea. He hadn’t found any sign of the “dragons” yet, not a track or clump of fur or broken branch. He needed a way to cover more ground with more precision. He tucked away his notebook and pen, then breathed deeply and tapped into his mana again. This time, he needed a broader view.

A bubble of awareness formed around his body, like an extra layer of hypersensitive skin. Time seemed to slow as he fed mana into his brain to increase its processing speed, allowing him to notice and catalog more details. He could feel each tiny ridge of the bark beneath him, each speck of dust drifting through his aura skin. Then he expanded the bubble.

It traced over every surface, creating a three-dimensional topographic map of the surrounding twenty feet. He sought any sign of passage, observing the delicate lacework of veins on the leaves overhead, the soft canyons of the mud. After several minutes, he finally found an imprint in the mud. It was bigger than he had hoped it would be.

Gideon inhaled, drawing his mana back into his center. He stood and walked a few meters to the track, squatting as he reached it. The first thing he noticed was how few of the surrounding plants had been damaged by it. This creature was either moving at the speed of molasses or was more graceful than a griffin, and Gideon had seen those outmaneuver plenty University pilots with ease. The second thing he noticed was how shallow the track was, only about an inch deep in wet mud. He scarcely believed this thing was made of flesh and bone. Maybe its bones were hollow, like a bird’s? And what were these strange punctures across the print?

Gideon closed his eyes and expanded his awareness again. He would likely have to keep tracking the thing with magic. He felt two more tracks, one behind and one ahead. Their placement suggested six legs, and again he was surprised by how uniformly gentle the imprint was. It was as if the thing took care not to harm the forest.

He focused his awareness from a bubble into a beam, extending it along the ground in the direction the dragon seemed to be moving. He followed the tracks for ten meters, then twenty, thirty, his mind like a sheet of water molding to each detail of the mud and fallen foliage. The tracks seemed relatively fresh, and the distance between them suggested the thing was moving slowly. He wondered if—

His mind touched a foot.

Gideon spasmed backwards in surprise, losing his concentration and balance as his mind careened back over sixty meters and slammed into his head. He turned over, temporarily blinded, and wretched onto the ground. He kept heaving until his stomach had nothing more to give, leaving him shaking on all fours with hands covered in mud and bile. His head spun as if he had downed two bottles of student-made moonshine in about four seconds. With one final shudder, he sat back on his knees, the green world around him sliding slowly back into focus.

“Well, that was exciting,” Gideon said to the forest. He shook his head and directed his mind to the issue at hand. The initial shape of the foot had matched the imprints in the mud, but the texture of it had been so strange, unlike any skin or fur he had come across in his career. It felt like wood, like the bark of a tree. Perhaps some kind of chitinous exoskeleton? A big, wooden forest crab?

He wiped his hands on his stained pants and pulled out his notebook, scribbling aggressively. He needed to learn more, maybe sneak up to it and try to get a picture. He steadied himself with a few deep breaths, then begrudgingly closed his eyes and extended his awareness again. He focused along the tracks, moving faster now to catch up with the thing. Ten meters. Twenty. He had run into it at sixty meters, so it would likely be a little further past that. Thirty. Forty. He steeled himself. Fifty.

Four legs bloomed into his sight, nearly causing him to break concentration again. He quickly centered his mind around the dragon, taking in as much of it as he could. It was huge, about four meters tall at the shoulder, with a long neck stretching another two above that. Its limbs were gnarled and twisted, little tufts of fur sprouting randomly from its skin like budding twigs. Somewhere far away Gideon felt his physical body furiously scratching sketches of the thing. Then all of him paused as he realized something.

It was moving towards him.

Gideon reeled his mind back into himself like a frenzied fisherman, clenching his empty stomach as his mind dropped into his body. He blinked rapidly as his normal sight returned, then shoved his notebook into his pouch and stood quickly. His unsteady legs buckled underneath him, but he caught himself and began running as fast as he possibly could, cursing his stubborn refusal to enter the campus gym.

Gideon pumped mana into his muscles and lungs as he sprinted through the towering trees, and he suddenly felt like he could run a marathon. He really, really hoped he wouldn’t have to, though. His wet pants chafed against his skin and his backpack slammed into his spine with each stride. He listened behind him for the sound of the beast chasing him but couldn’t hear anything. Maybe he had gotten lucky.

He stopped and crouched, breathing heavily. He quickly extended his awareness behind him, reaching backwards to feel for the dragon. After only thirty meters he felt it, and it was moving much faster than it had been at first. It would reach him in about five seconds, ten if he kept running. Fuck, this thing was fast. He’d have to face it.

He drew his awareness back into himself, his adrenaline fending off disorientation. Then he flooded more mana throughout his physical body, feeling the tension and fiber of each muscle. Energy rushed into his brain, and the world around him glittered with astounding detail and color. He stood and turned, wrapping himself in a cloak of hardened mana and wondering whether all of it would be enough to fight a dragon several times his size.

Then it was before him; huge, elegant, and baffling. It looked like the roots of a tree had grown into the shape of an animal based on a vague and fleeting memory. Its legs were long and had too many joints, its torso was thin and arched steeply. Its body appeared amalgamated like the rest of the Valley plant life, hues of ash and oak and cedar woven into a haunting silhouette. It had no skin or hide, and Gideon realized the tufts of “fur” he had felt along its body were actually sprouts of different grasses and fungi. A great disk of a head sat at the end of its long neck, but there were no eyes, no ears, no mouth. Instead, the ends of the roots blossomed into translucent opal petals, fanning outward like the face of a colossal, milky sunflower.

And it was still. It did not shift, it did not breathe. It simply stood, as a tree stands, old and immovable.

Gideon had no idea what to do. He had expected it to attack him immediately, but it seemed to be waiting for something. He thought briefly about trying to run, but that would be pointless. Maybe he could analyze it instead, while he had a moment. Slowly, carefully, he extended his awareness forward, inching it along the ground until it touched the feet of the great beast once again.

An abrupt, bone-crushing impact to his chest interrupted his examination. Even with his heightened senses and reaction time, he had barely registered the blur of wood before it hit him. He flew backwards until he slammed into the wide trunk of a tree and slumped to the ground with a groan. He blinked away fuzz at the edge of his vision, trying desperately to find his breath. He felt he’d been shot. He looked up, expecting more, but the dragon remained motionless as if nothing had happened.

Well, he thought, I guess I should have asked permission first.

He felt something slithering around his legs and torso. Several somethings, actually. He glanced down and saw roots stretching out from the ground and the trunk of the tree behind him, snaking across his body. He swiped at them and jumped up, grimacing at the pain in his chest. He shuddered. It was like the tree had been trying to swallow him.

He glanced back at the dragon in time to see it barreling towards him, moving with a strange and silent grace as it bent its head toward his chest. Gideon sent a surge of mana through his legs and leaped out of the creature’s path. It seemed to ignore its own momentum, stopping immediately before hitting the tree. Then, as Gideon was still in the air from his jump, several roots peeled themselves off from the dragon’s shoulders and speared towards him.

Gideon managed to twist his body midair to avoid most of the roots, but one caught him in the left shoulder and sent him careening down into the mud. He skidded for a moment before coming to a stop, his body aching deeply. He struggled to rise, keeping his eyes on the dragon this time. The force and speed of its attacks were unlike any creature Gideon had experienced before. He quickly took stock of his body as he stood, noting two cracked ribs, a concussion, and disturbingly little mana remaining.

It was apparently time for more drastic measures.

The dragon was looking at him, the petals of its face rippling in an almost curious manner. Gideon got the feeling it was examining him now. He steeled himself, shoving the biologist in him aside and tapping into his field combat training. If the creature really was made of wood, then fire would likely be Gideon’s best option. He sent a mass of mana through his veins into his fists, willing it to heat rapidly. He swung his arms out, flames trailing behind his hands. Then, with a deep breath, he pushed his hands forward, launching twin streaks of flame through the foliage toward the dragon.

It reeled backwards, pawing at the air in panic. It managed to avoid one of the lines of flame, but the other cleaved across its right side. The flowers and grass along its body vaporized into embers immediately, and the wood of its front leg flared into a bonfire. It released a horrible sound, like ten violins shrieking in dissonant notes. Gideon covered his ears with hands still hot from magic.

Though he hated to see the dragon in such distress, Gideon felt relieved. He didn’t know how much longer he would have lasted against it. He held his hands out and transposed his mana into flame again, preparing to end its suffering.

Then the dragon unraveled.

It planted its feet, shuddered deeply, and simply unbraided itself into several long strands of root. They snaked away into the soil, leaving behind a shimmering egg-shaped knot of wood from which the roots extended.

Gideon felt a rumbling under his feet, and several roots launched from the ground in front of him. They struck him in the chest and stomach, knocking him to the ground and immediately wrapping around his limbs. They pinned him to the ground and tried to pull him into the soil. His right shoulder popped out of its socket and he screamed in pain. He began releasing sporadic torrents of flame from his hands in an attempt to burn away his living shackles, but they retreated into the soil to snuff the fire and returned to wrap themselves around them. He felt the soil beneath his back being broken up and shifted to the side, and he began to sink into it like quicksand. Black dirt rose around him, crumbling into his eyes and mouth as he was pulled into the hungry earth.

As Gideon stared at what he assumed would be his last glimpse of the world above, he noticed a shape high among the trunks. It appeared to be falling, or flying, and Gideon thought it might be the first bird he had seen in the Valley. When a bolt of white lightning erupted from it and plunged to the ground, Gideon began to have second thoughts about that. He felt the roots around him tighten and start to spasm, crushing the breath from his lungs. Another bolt carved across his vision and the roots stilled, leaving Gideon’s broken body half-buried in the soil. It smelled beautiful. Healthy.

Then a familiar face was above him, maroon-skinned and grinning toothily. The figure brushed the dirt from Gideon’s face and ears, then flicked him on the forehead.

“Hey, Professor,” the figure said. “Cutting it a bit close there, don’t ya think?”