The Diamond of Forever

There weren't always dragons in the valley. As she climbed up to it, Tara hoped there wouldn't be any there today – it was much easier to collect dragon samples when the actual dragons were elsewhere. Yesterday a trio of young dragons had hung around the valley all day, leaping off the cliff-top, bathing in the lake, sunning on rocks. It had been exhilerating to watch them, and she had captured some incredible footage of their aerobatics and other natural behaviours, but that wasn't what she was here for. She wanted to know how dragons were possible.

They flew, and breathed fire. They were snakelike in appearance, but non-carnivorous, despite tales of dragons devouring maidens. The ones here at Dragon Eyrie, anyway – there were at least five species of dragon, by Tara's reckoniong. Exactly what these ones ate remained a mystery. She had a theory that they had a symbiotic relationship with algae which were incorporated into their scales, and so generated solar energy. But how could such large creatures as dragons sustain themselves on sunlight? She wasn't satisfied with her theory, and hoped to gather evidence for or against it this week.

The adolescents she had watched yesterday had spent time grazing; grazing was conjectured to be necessary for fire-breathing, rather than sustenance. It was also conjectured – much was conjectured about dragon habits and biology, but little was known for certain – that fire-breathing was more a side-effect of their diet than a design of it. A bad case of gas.

Today Tara planned to collect samples of what the young serpents had eaten. That was what she was really after – samples. Solid bits of dragons, or things they had touched. Skin, scales, egg fragments, torn leaves, feces – whatever she could bag, tag and carry back to the lab for closer study. And every plant she could confirm they had at least mouthed would be another piece of the puzzle.

Not many pieces had been gathered so far. For some reason, draconology was not considered a serious subject for study, except under mythology. Though their existence on Earth in the twenty-first century was well documented, many people – including most of those in influential positions in institutes of higher learning – continued to insist that dragons were not real, that the photos and videos 'prooving' their existence were clearly a hoax. Tara had been pursuing draconology since she was a kid, fascinated by the creatures from an early age, intrigued by their existence between myth and reality. Now, though she was still a student, Tara was sure she knew as much about the giant, flying lizards and serpents as anyone on the planet.

With a final upwards step and deep, heaving breath, Tara hauled herself onto a certain small ledge she had come to anticipate as a rest point on the long, very steep hike up to Dragon Eyrie National Park. She carefully turned and half sat, resting her pack against the wall of the cliff. Only when she felt the solidity of rock firm beneath her did she raise her eyes to the stunning, dizzying view.

She was perched roughly halfway up the cliff-face, and had to breathe slowly and lean back to not feel like she was about to fall off into the forest far below. The trail picked a narrow, zig-zagging way up the cliff, finding whatever slope of rubble and plants it could between heights of sheer rock. Individual steps on the trails could mean a half meter gain in elevation. But here was the reward!

Lush forest filled her sight. Making the ascent she had to stay focused on the cliff, on sticking to it, pulling herself up its face one steep step at a time, and the green of the forest was a peripheral glow she had to ignore. Now she could drink it in.

Green – brilliant, emerald green; deep, mossy green; dark, forest green; blue greens and yellow greens and olive greens – all were spread below her, and rose up the valley walls around her, enveloping her, suffusing the air with life. She breathed deeply, arching her back against the pack she wore. She inhaled again, tipping her head back, and started to close her eyes to drink in the scents of the forest.

Vertigo threatened to sweep over her. Her eyes popped open and her hands grasped the dirt she still sat on. Safe. Secure. She snorted at herself, remembered not to shake her head. Drawing a steadying breath, she looked again at all the green, running down the long valley below her, out across hills that somewhere beyond the blue of distance ran down to the sea. A long way down. She took a few moments to enjoy the sight, had a few sips of water.

Then she stretched, shifted the pack on her back, drew a deep breath, and turned her attention to pulling herself up the trail the rest of the way to the top. From where the view was even more stunning, she reminded herself as incentive to keep climbing. Not to mention dragons! Or hopefully no dragons. Not today. Only one more steep uphill hour to go.

The daily two-hour hike/climb up the cliff-face was the reason she didn't have an assistant on this research project. She had hired one, a first-year student who claimed to be an avid hiker and climber. He had made the trek up to Dragon Eyrie with her once, complaining all the way, and quit as soon as they returned to the lower valley floor that evening. There was no-one else to hire for the job in the village at the base of the cliff, so she made the daily trek alone. The climb had to be undertaken daily – she would have loved to set up camp in the upper valley, but it was strictly forbidden to stay overnight. She had been lucky to finagle a day pass out of park administration – they didn't allow many people in. It was a park for dragons, not humans. The high, remote valley was one of their few accessible nesting areas. It had taken a lot of calls, emails and persistence to get permission to be here, and she was determined to make the most of the time she had been granted.

Which was almost up; her pass was good for only one more day after today. She'd made this climb three times so far, had collected some good specimens and shot some decent photos and video. Today, though, she had started out especially early in order to reach a further point than she'd made it to so far: a ledge at the far end of the upper valley. The young dragons had been sunning themselves there, and rubbing against the rock. That had really excited Tara, envisioning all the skin cells sloughing off them. Fresh samples were always best, and even better when she could match the samples to certain individuals. Not to mention the opportunity to compare samples from three similar-aged dragons.

What a thrill that had been, watching those three adolescents gamboling in the sun! How rare a treat! Even the remembrance gave her a shiver of joy.

They were almost the exact same colour, wings and back a bright blue teal, fading to pale green on their bellies, which indicated that they were all the same age. (How old that was she had no idea; somewhere between 5 and 25, she conjectured.) It made it difficult to distinguish them from one another as they surged and soared through the air, bursting past each other, spiralling up, diving down, wings pumping mightily, tucked in tight, or spread wide to catch the air, stretched to full length for both full lift and maximum exposure to the sun. Visions of dragons danced in her head as she toiled up the cliff.

Tara was finally nearing the top of the climb, breathing heavily, pausing often, when she heard a loud screech, and turned to see the serpentine head of a dragon reaching out over the cliff-edge to bugle at the morning. The dragon leaned back – its head momentarily disappeared, wing-tips swept into view and out again – then it arched forward and launched itself into the air.

Tara's breath caught as the dragon dropped down beside the cliff, teal green wings curled around itself, diving towards the green far below. Not far when plummeting so fast, though. Tara held her breath, but the dragon knew how to fly, and casually dragged its wings wide, soared off over forest green. It skimmed the trees for a few beats, then with powerful, graceful downstrokes lifted itself up, towards the sky, becoming small with distance, blending in with the far blue-green.

Another screech and she snatched her eyes from the disappearing dragon just in time to see a second hurl itself from the cliff. This one was less of a dare-devil, immediately spreading its wings to beat a path into the blue. How wide they were! Maybe 37 meters, she estimated. The largest had wingspans of about 40. On bodies only a third of that.

Dragons spent most of their time soaring high in the sky, as far as was known, high above any clouds that ever formed, where the sun beat steadily on their long, broad wings. They were never seen on commercial flight-paths, and rarely from any airplane or even sattelite, so exactly where they spent their days was very much a matter of conjecture. Tara didn't have much hope of shedding any light on that – all she could tell was whether or not they were in the valley, not where they were when they weren't there. She had no way of following them into the sky, of tagging along where the air was rare... Tara imagined herself with her own wings, flapping mightily in an attempt to keep up with the large, graceful dragons...

She sighed in regret of the unattainable, dropped her eyes back to earth. Well, there was enough room where she was to shrug off her pack and have a snack. Might as well do that and wait for more dragons to leave the valley.

Two more of the flying serpents leapt from the cliff while she ate her cheese and fruit. She was pretty sure one of them caught sight of her as it dove into the air, but it didn't seem to react, or to mind her presence. Dragons were not known to be openly hostile to humans, except in response to hostility from humans. Even then, if one studied the reports of human/dragon interactions – which Tara had certainly done – in only two per cent had humans been injured by dragons, and then by parents protecting eggs. Even when provoked (and there were certainly idiots willing to provoke a dragon) the dragons would fly away at first opportunity, rather than harm their attacker.

Provoking any parent by endangering their child was just asking for trouble, and trying to steal an egg from a dragon – Tara snorted at the thought – you got what you deserved, in her opinion.

So being up here she wasn't particularly worried about her personal safety as far as the dragons were concerned, as long as she didn't bother them. Which to her meant keeping out of their sight and as far away from them as possible at all times, because they were huge snakes with wings after all, and they did breathe fire.

Well, she didn't know whether or not all the fire-breathing serpents had left the valley, but it was time to venture forth and see. Tara carefully wiped out her food containers and stuck them back in her pack – could never have too many containers to put samples in! - took a final swig from her water bottle, and hiked the last bit of trail to the top.

It came over the rim at the edge of forest. From here she could follow a rough trail under cover of small trees, or walk where she wanted in the alpine meadow and rocky expanses of the valley. She had a careful look for dragons, and stepped into the open. Such a valley!

High above the world it hung, grey peaks above, green forest below, blue lake sparkling at its center. A ribbon of stream ran from the lake between flower-studded meadow over the cliff out of sight to the world below. But so thin the ribbon, so long the fall, that seldom any water reached the bottom, but evaporated in a fine mist on the way down.

This was the very edge of the mountain range, and the world below ran off in forest-covered hills a long, long way until the greens of the forest were one blue. Eventually the view reached fields plowed for planting or already green (blue) with growth. Towns were mere dots. Even the glittering city, far, far away, was just a shine on a line of blue that must be the sea. Spectacular! She snapped a few pictures, had another look around for dragons, and headed to the worn, rocky edge they used as a launching pad. There should be some fresh scrapings from their bellies or tails, at the very least. She might even be able to match them to the dragons she had seen.

Working her way up the valley, passing through areas where the trio of young dragons had played the day before,Tara was able to find plenty of tidbits for her sample boxes and bags – scales rubbed off in rough play, leaves and plants that had been nibbled or peed on, even a few chunks of rock from a spot where the dragons had been rough-housing. Anything that came from a dragon, or anything they had touched, she was willing to sample, label, and carry away. She took pictures to document each item in place before carefully packing it away, and even did a few quick sketches. Her pack got steadily heavier. She hefted it to her shoulders once more, checked the time. Time to get a move on if she was going to make it to the ledge today! She would try to forego any more gathering on the way, to have room for the treats she was sure she would find there.

Tara thrilled as she hiked up the high valley – inhaling the alpine tang, feasting her eyes on meadow and mountain, scanning the sky for dragons. She saw a few specks high up that might be some, or maybe were eagles not quite so far away. The day was glorious and bright, the lake even bluer than the sky, and she whistled as she walked. When the way wasn't too steep. The valley rose steadily, and she had to do a bit of climbing to reach the ledge that had been calling her, finally pulled herself to the top of it.

Her eyes picked out the scratching rock to one side and the thin layer of scales in front of it, and then saw something gathered further along, at the back, nestled against the small cliff there. Tara hurried over for a closer look. Egg fragments. Gold! She grinned, dropped her pack to the ground, and started snapping pictures.

She had just finished packing away the largest shell fragment she found, admiring its marbled pattern, wrapping it carefully against further breakage, when a piercing shriek rang down through the sky, shattering the valley stillness. Tara whirled, terrified that she had been spotted in a dragon's nest and was about to face a mother's wrath.

A dragon arched up in the sky and beat its wings, but it was very high above her. Not an immediate threat. It screamed again. Maybe it was calling the other dragons back, and they would all dive down on her together. Tara tried to keep an eye on the serpent while hurriedly stowing gear in her pack, throwing it on her back and getting out of there! In theory she knew that dragons were not the vicious beasts they were reputed to be, but they were big and wild, and that dragon up there was definitely agitated, and she did not want to be anywhere in sight when it came down to the valley. Unfortunately, in climbing to the ledge she had climbed above the altitude of trees, and the only shelter around was slight overhangs of rock. If she tried to climb down and dash for the scant cover of the nearest trees, which were anyways very small, she would be totally exposed on the rockface while she climbed and then ran across the valley floor. And she had no doubt that once the dragons started to dive for the valley from their current height – she saw a second dragon arrowing across the sky to join the first – they would take about half a minute to make the drop. She needed the best cover she could reach fast.

Tara looked around the ledge – maybe to the side there, in the bushes? - glanced at the sky again – three dragons now! - dashed over to crouch down and hide herself the best she could among jumbled boulders and scraggly juniper bushes.

Next time she looked at the sky, five dragons were gathered above the mountain peaks, circling, writhing, hissing and shrieking at each other. What the hell was going on? Were they having a fight? She remembered her camera, zoomed in on the animals and starting shooting. They didn't seem to be attacking each other, but maybe arguing? Yelling and hissing at each other, anyway, bodies coiling, wings beating. It was hard to keep them in the frame at such a long zoom. Tara zoomed out a bit. Two of the dragons coiled themselves tight, then suddenly shot up, wrapping their wings around themselves. She tried to zoom out more, to track them, but they were gone. She put the camera down and scanned the sky for them. She saw dragons, but it was a group of three, not two. Maybe the young ones from the day before.

A shriek from the first group of dragons snapped her attention back to them. They were coming down. Not streaking down in a dive headed straight for her, thankfully, but descending quickly, a steep glide on half-folded wings. The young ones were also dropping to the valley. Tara crouched down more, tried to look like a bush. She put the lens cap back on the camera, so the lens wouldn't flash in the sun and attract attention. It didn't matter.

The serpents separated as they neared the valley, with two of them flying straight for the ledge. She didn't see where the others went, somewhere higher up the mountain, she thought. That didn't seem important right now, though, because two dragons were landing on the rock in front of her.

They touched down lightly, dropping onto their tails, folding their wings, lowering their bodies to the ground. One stayed near the front edge; the other slithered towards her, gazing right at her. Tara was frozen, staring into the eyes of a dragon. Her heart kept beating, sending blood coursing through her body, and she kept breathing, though her breaths were shallow and short, but other than that she felt that she had stopped functioning. No thoughts, but wonder.

The snake would not hurt her. Her breathing eased as the knowledge entered her head. The dragon's lips parted slightly. Its tongue protruded in what Tara had the distinct impression was a smile. She tried to smile back, started to stand.

“Tara Lightfoot,” the dragon hissed softly. Tara froze. The dragon knew her name. The dragon had said her name. “I am Markoliga.”

“I didn't know dragons could talk,” Tara said.

The dragon's tongue stuck out in another smile. “There is much more than that that you do not know about us,” it replied.

“How do you know me?” asked the woman.

“We review all applications to come to the valley,” Markoliga said in reply. “It is we who give approval.”

“Oh,” said Tara, and paused. Then, “Thank you! Thank you so much! It's such an honour! It's been so helpf-” she started to gush, but the dragon cut her off, lifting a little higher.

“You are welcome, but we have other matters to discuss. An emergency has arisen.”

“What? Oh, of course, I was wondering what was going on-”

“The Diamond of Forever has been stolen!” The serpent rose up on their tail, swayed in agitation. “Shame has fallen on our house!” they screeched, “Betrayal from within!” Tara jumped back in reflex at the enraged cries, cowered down in the bushes, eyes wide. The other dragon, which had been watching them quietly, undulating slightly in place, now hissed with the same anger and sorrow, arched up on coiled tail, beat their wings, and blasted the air with fire. “Damodoren has fallen! Kaltorarin is outcast!”, they bellowed.

Tara crouched in terror until the dragons' cries stopped reverberating from the rocky peaks and the dragons themselves stopped writhing in fury and grief. Finally Markoliga calmed, lowered their head to her level once more. Collected themself. “Tara Lightfoot.” Cautiously, Tara rose. “We are sorry to cause you distress,” Markoliga said. “We will cause you no harm. Our anger is directed not at you, but at the ones who have stolen the diamond and put all time at risk!” The snake raised their head, hissed at the sky.

Tara trembled, but remained on her feet. “All time?!” she squeaked. “How? What do you mean? What is the diamond of forever, anyway? Where is it? Do you-”

Markoliga's huge nostrils flared, and Tara stumbled to a stop. “The Diamond of Forever is the single most important object in the multiverse,” the dragon stated.

“Huh?” Tara said.

“The Diamond of Forever was carved at the beginning of time. It's carving created time.”

“Huh?” Tara repeated.

“The Diamond of Forever is what keeps everything from happening at once,” Markoliga explained. “It is the strongest magical object ever made. Everything that ever will happen has happened. The entire multiverse exists all at once. All of time and all of space created in one infinitesimally small point and moment, one blaze of energy! One mind in the maelstrom made sense of existence, and found a way to allow us all time. Time to experience being, time to figure life out. Time to wonder. Time to enjoy creation.”

Tara blinked.

Markoliga stuck out the tip of their tongue, continued. “The Diamond of Forever was/is being/will be crafted by the great mage-smith Silluntha Fronfey Godfrey (truly the greatest of all time) on the planet Unsseera 4,603 standard years from now. It has been kept safe for trillions of years, and now so close to its creation has been stolen!” A wave swept down the serpent's body. Markoliga hissed, calmed themself.

“The Diamond was hidden in a deep place of this world,” they added. “Now it is gone!”

“What?” Tara asked, finally finding something in the dragon's tale to grab on to. “If it was so important, why was it kept on Earth? The human race isn't worthy enough to be trusted with something like that!”

“The human race has never known about The Diamond of Forever. Very few humans have ever heard the phrase. The Diamond was hidden here because any magic here must be hidden, lest it be destroyed. It's very existence would be unbelievable to most who live on this planet, and disbelief sends out strong repulsive waves to those sensitive to magic.”

Tara tried to wrap her head around that one, gave it a shake. “Um, okay. But I'll bet a human had something to do with it being stolen.”

“Perhaps, but if so they did not do it alone. The Diamond has been taken from this dimension. Balinalta and Gabriona are following the trail of the thieves now.”

Tara drew in a deep breath, realized how cramped she'd become from tension, and stretched and shrugged her shoulders under her pack. “Well, umm, okay.” she said. “Other dimensions. You did mention 'multi-verse'. I guess that means you're going to go too and find 'The Diamond'.” Suddenly she felt left out.

“Yes, Halforindo and I will also pursue the thieves of The Diamond of Forever,” Markoliga agreed. Then they added, looking even more intently into the woman's eyes than they had been, “You will come with us, Tara Lightfoot, to recover The Diamond of Forever and secure it in a new safeplace.”

Tara drew in a breath and held it, blinked a few times, stared at the dragon, shook her head. “What!? I mean, I'm honoured and all that, that you would even consider me, but why? How? Where?”

“You are here now. You are intelligent, as humans go, and in excellent physical health and fitness. You are emotionally stable enough that it is unlikely you will disassociate when we go through wormholes to other dimensions.”

Tara stared. When she realized her mouth was gaping open she shut it. “Umm, right now the only one of those I feel is true is that I am here. And even that I'm beginning to doubt. Am I dreaming you, Markoliga?” Tara put her hand up. The dragon raised the edge of their wing, brushed it against the woman's hand. Tara's fingers froze, then felt the dragon's leathery skin, smooth and warm, alive and real, stroked it slightly.

“This is not a dream;” the dragon said gently, “this is a crisis.”

“Umm, yeah, and are you sure you want me to help you with it?” Tara looked quizzically at the dragon. “Just because I'm here? I mean, surely you could find someone better, someone with, you know, 'special skills', or whatever, who could do a lot more to help you than I can. I mean, what can I do that you can't?”

“You have hands.”

Surprised, Tara looked down at her hands, turned them palm up. She looked at Markoliga again, at the long, smooth, snakelike body rising above their coiled tail, folded wings their only appendages. The serpent put the tip of their tongue out in a smile. “For all our skills and magics, there are things we just are not physically capable of doing. We need you to be inconspicuous, to get into tight spaces and close situations. There are far more humanoids than giant reptilians in the known worlds. You'll fit right in. You have the necessary skills.”

Tara blinked some more, processing, gazing into Markoliga's eyes. Finally she laughed, shrugged, laughed again. “Well, sure!”, she agreed. “If you really want me. I mean, it's totally crazy, and this is probably all a dream anyway, but if I'm being given the chance to go to other dimensions with a dragon, I'm taking it! I mean, I'm not that crazy! That I would pass it up, I mean. The chance. The Diamond of Forever? This is – wow!”

Markoliga's lips curled back and their tongue darted in and out. Tara took that as a big smile, and smiled back. “So what do we do now?” she asked.

“We go,” the dragon replied.

The smile wavered on Tara's face. “Right now?”

“Yes. Come here, Tara Lightfoot.” The dragon slithered back towards the other dragon, which had been watching them intently while they talked. Tara inhaled sharply, and stepped out of the bushes to follow.

“Halforindo, meet Tara Lightfoot; Tara Lightfoot, Halforindo,” Markoliga introduced them. “He will follow Balinalta and Gabriona's wormholes, and we will follow his.”

“You can just use 'Tara',” Tara said, realizing she couldn't shake hands with a dragon. She bowed slightly, looked the dragon in the eye. “I'm honoured to meet you, Halforindo.”

Halforindo's tongue extended in a slight smile, and he ducked his head in a brief bow. “We will talk another time,” he said. He slid a few meters away, coiled on his tail, and sprang into the air, wrapping his wings around himself. A small, round hole appeared in the air in front of him. He disappeared into it, and the hole disappeared with him.

Tara gulped, but stepped up to Markoligo when the serpent gestured her closer. “Come, right under my wing,” the dragon said.

Tara complied, and Markoliga wrapped their wing around the woman, rolled her right up in it so she was snug against the dragon's body, only her head sticking out. It was warm beyond warm, but not overly hot. Tara knew she was a long bump deforming the dragon's usual sleek appearance, and also knew she was completely secure where she was. Or completely helpless to whatever the beast might decide to do with her. Take her to help save the universe, they claimed. Well, if Tara would believe that she would believe anything, she felt. Still, incapacitated as she currently was, unable to do more than wriggle in Markoliga's grasp, she felt safe. This was the right thing to be doing. Unlikely as it sounded, the universe was in peril, and she could help save it.

Markoliga's face was suddenly in front of her own, snaked down on their long neck. They asked with their eyes if Tara was ready, if she was sure. The woman answered the dragon with a nod, a deep breath to acknowledge the seriousness of the situation, and a smile she couldn't repress at being pressed to the side of a dragon, about to travel through a wormhole to unknown dimensions.

Markoliga rolled their eyes at Tara, extended their tongue. They leaned back to bugle into the sky. Tara yelled along, then gasped as the dragon sprang up from her coil into a hole in the sky.