Even though I know now where I’m supposed to go, Edge thought, I still have to cross this desert. And that’s going to be tough.

One thing Edge was glad about was the Coolia pup had finally found its legs, and didn’t need Edge to carry him anymore. That was lucky for Edge, as the pup itself had already grown quite a bit since birth, and was now probably quite heavy.

“Yes sir,” Edge said to himself, as he looked to the horizon and saw more sand, “I’ll be glad to get to this village Raul told me about.” He was just hoping that no more Stryders paid him a visit; he had had enough of those things for one day. Nanyds, now they were different, he could handle them easily. Hoppers, yeah, maybe hoppers. Not Pludgers, though, they were too strong. And Sand Mites. Urgh, they were revolting enough they didn’t need to attack Edge, just look at him.

Monsters! Edge thought, that’s all I can think about, I’ve got to get them out of my head! Every day even before the whole dragon thing started, all he dreamt about at night was being a snack for a Baldor while he was guarding the excavation site. Now he had met more monsters than he had had hot dinners, which wasn’t saying much, but it was certainly a lot of monsters, and Edge had been scared stiff against all of them.

He looked at his dra… well, it wasn’t a dragon yet. It was a coolia pup. But still, its wings were a dead giveaway. Is this what the dragon looked like at first, when Skiad-Ops-Endow had him? If he only knew more about how dragons grew. He laughed at himself. He was a dragon rider, yet there were probably people on the continent that knew more about dragons than he did. Zadoc the Compiler, he would know. Yeah, he would teach Edge all about dragons! And Paet! Paet would probably be studying dragons right at this very moment! An’jou! And Baicah! They all know about dragons, Edge thought, and I know precisely zip! It’s not fair! And then there’s Azel…

There is no hangover cure in the world that sobered Edge up as much as that one thought.

Azel…

“To be honest, I don’t want to be alone anymore. I love you…”

“Wait for me, Azel! I’ll come back for you! Please, wait!”

Edge couldn’t believe he had forgotten. Was that what 10 years in another plain did to your memory? he thought. He sighed. I wonder where she is, if she’s still alive. If she isn’t, I’ve broken my promise. I’ve broken… my promise…

The Coolia chirped. That noise brought Edge back to reality.

“Well, Edge, you’re in a desert. You’re nowhere near civilization, yet. Azel can wait; you have to get out of this desert before you can fulfil any promises, unless you promised someone that you’d die of thirst like a pathetic nobody. Damn you, you fool!” he laughed, “Wake up and smell the pollen! Stop swimming in self-pity and just get walking!”

The Coolia looked at Edge as if to say; “You’re totally mad. You know that.”

---

For the first time in this story, we must now leave Edge in his long haul through the desert, and make our way to another part of the continent. More specifically, we must travel to the Imperial Capital city, or Imperia, as it was rather unimaginatively known. Although the city had been already torn apart, twice, the Emperor had always demanded it rebuilt in the exact same spot. Only the gods know why, thought the populace, because it seems to get levelled every time we rebuild it.

In particular, the point important to the story is the Emperor’s chamber, on the top level of the palace. He was in there, as was his chief assistant.

A curiosity about the Emperor was that he never told anyone his real name. He was just “The Emperor”. This was for a purpose. It was thought, in the Empire’s twisted minds, that for someone to know your first name was a sign that they owned you. For the ultimate display of domination, no one knew either of the Emperor’s names. In fact, it was common belief that the Emperor of the Empire had all his family and friends killed on ascending to the throne, so that his name would never be known. Anyone ever heard speaking about the Emperor by a name other than such faced a rather unpleasant end at the hands of the army, a life sentence working in excavation sites KNOWN to be home to unspeakable monsters, or to have their vocal chords cut out. It wasn’t even their choice. Commoners got the first, middle-class got the second and noblemen (if it could be said there was such a thing in the Empire) got the lattermost.

But anyway, I digress.

“Assistant, what is on my agenda?”

The assistant wanted to make a comment such as “terrorism, your highness” but he wanted to stay alive.

“A presentation by a Dr Caligary, your Imperial Highness.” How he loathed speaking like that. “He is head of the D.I.E.”

“Most men only have two faces. That man will probably have six.”

The assistant fell about laughing. The Emperor thought he had a great sense of humour, and it was considered good practise to humour him on the subject.

“No, seriously, assistant, what is D.I.E?”

The assistant stood up and stopped laughing instantly. His composure totally restored, he spoke.

“The D.I.E is the Draconian Institute of the Empire, your Imperial…”

“Please speak in Emperor’s English, assistant.”

“They study dragons, Sire.”

“Dragons, eh?” This was a rhetorical question, and one of the Emperor’s little oddities. The assistant knew to be quiet, as the last assistant had replied “Yes, Sire.” to the question and was given a shouting off resulting in the Emperor getting so angry that he lost his head completely. The assistant, not the Emperor. “Show him in.”

“De-na.” said the assistant, which, of course, means “Of course”, or “Yes, Sir” in the native language.

Dr Caligary walked into the court post-haste. He had with him the equivalent of an A1 pad, which was obviously going to be drawn on, as well as several books, each containing a myriad of bookmarks. The Emperor groaned as soon as he saw those bookmarks. He had had this situation before. The man was going to drown him in quotes, which was not a pleasant way to spend an afternoon.

“Your Imperial Highness, my name is…”

“Look Galicary, I don’t have time for idle chit-chat. I want facts. I don’t want quotes, unless they contain facts, and I want it quick. I don’t want a lecture, what I do want is my dinner.”

Caligary looked at the Emperor with utter distain, thinking how little he was respected when the Emperor could not even trouble himself to get his name right.

“Your honour, over the last few months the D.I.E has been studying dragons….”

“Wow, that’s amazing(!)” the Emperor said with blatant sarcasm.

“…and we have come to the conclusion that the dragons responsible for the Imperial defeats….”

“Setbacks, you mean.” That was the assistant, under his breath.

“…was the same dragon.”

This remark was too short, and too to the point for a sarcastic comment for either man. “The same dragon, all three times?”

“Well, the third time we were only attacked by the dragon, it was the forces of the Tower that really got us.”

“BUT WHAT ABOUT THE FIRST TWO, LITTLE MAN!?”

“We have suitable reason to believe that the blue dragon who stormed our capital and the grey one that interrupted our battle with Mechania are the same.”

“Evidence?”

There was silence.

“Evidence?!”

“We… we… don’t have any. It’s just really an educated guess.”

“If that is your attitude Mr Galicary….”

“Caligary.”

“If that is your attitude Mr Lacigary then you might as well go home now.”

“But that is not the end of my presentation!” Caligary blurted out as he saw two rather large guards move to try and drag him out of the chamber. “I have undoubtable proof that the dragons ARE demons from Hell that we have always believed them to be!”

The Emperor blinked.

“Guards, leave him. Speak Caligary, and let us hear your proof.”

Caligary was in shock from the Emperor getting his name right that there was a delay before he started to speak. Then he got his breath back.

“The first piece of proof, your Lordship, is this dragon here.” He pulled out a picture of a dragon. The Emperor and the assistant both knew which dragon that was. It was the blue dragon that stormed the Imperial Capital, years ago. “This dragon is special because it has a name; the Heresy Dragon. As we all know, Heresy is a crime against either a) a belief or b) a theocracy. The Empire is, in a way, a theocracy, but it is a stratocracy as well.”

Caligary stopped just long enough to hear the assistant explain what theocracies and stratocracies were to the Emperor (Note to reader: They are terms meaning “Government by the Church/God” and “Government by the Military” respectively).

“Therefore, the Heresy Dragon is evil. Now, onto the second point. We know that the dragon pictured went on to challenge the being known as… Seeeeesssssstren.” He said the name almost as if he was a snake with a lisp. “ Now, Sestren lives in the Heavens, so for the dragon to challenge something that lives in the Heavens, then it must be evil, as only gods live in the Heavens.”

“So you are saying that Sestren was a god?”

“Well, possibly not. Even gods aren’t immortal, according to mythology. Apparently the blood of the Golden Hind put on a dagger will kill a god.”

“But we aren’t talking about daggers and mythological stags here, Caligary. We are talking about…” the Emperor held up a finger, “ONE dragon, and ONE rider. No daggers.”

“Yes, I know. But it is common to all religions that the Heavens are good and that the-other-place-you-know is bad.”

“True.”

“Which leads me onto my next point. This one does not concern the Heresy Dragon, but considers this dragon here.”

A new picture was put up for the Emperor to see. It was a picture of a large, black dragon, with various blue lines all over its body.

“This dragon is named Atolm according to the ancient scriptures. Now, we, that is, the Empire, dug up Atolm from an excavation site. Atolm, subsequently, decided to abandon the purity of the Empire and return to his rider, this… where’s your assistant going?”

“Ignore him. Carry on.”

“This drone, which we found out is named Azel.”

A picture of Azel, wearing the uniform of Craymen’s fleet, was placed up for the Emperor to see.

“Note the colour structure, your Excellency, and compare it to the common theological art. The colour scheme of this drone matches the colour scheme of Lilith, the queen of Hell and the wife of YOU-KNOW-WHO.”

“So?”

“So the dragon demon returned to its mistress, a being mastered on the Queen of Hell, therefore the dragon itself is from Hell.”

Silence.

“An interesting theory, Caligary. I will think about it over dinner…”

“Just so your Lordship doesn’t have to remember too many details, I have summed my presentation up in three, basic, bullet points.”

The bullet points, which was now on the front piece of card, read as follows:

• Sestren is good
• Dragons are bad
• As the ancient ones created the dragons, the Empire must control all of the technology it can, with the ultimate aim being to control all technology, everywhere.

“Ok, Caligary, I have the hang of it. I’ll give you a report back tomorrow.”

“De-na.”

“Now, please go. I have a dinner date to keep.”

Caligary left, leaving the Emperor alone in his throne room.

Outside, Caligary ran into the assistant that had excused himself from the presentation.

“What’s the idea, sneaking out like that?” Caligary asked.

“If I had not left the room,” replied the assistant, “I would have exploded in laughter at the phrase “purity of the Empire”. Purity and Empire don’t belong in the same paragraph, the same book, let alone the same sentence.”

“I see. Do many people share the same opinion as you?”

“I don’t know. Many people just keep their opinions to themselves. Seems to be the best way to stay alive, most of the time.”

Caligary smiled, and wished the assistant good day. The assistant did not wish him the same.

---

“Well, well, well,” said Edge to himself, and the coolia pup. “Who would have thought that a sandstorm would spring up out of nowhere, in a desert? I mean, in a desert, that’s the only place you would find a sandstorm. And we get one. It isn’t fair!”

It should be noted that, by now, Edge had almost totally lost his mind. He hadn’t had anything to eat or drink for hours, and he was tired beyond belief from walking across the Garil Dunes. He thought he could see the village in the distance, but that’s what he had thought the other four times as well.

“What do you think, Dragon? No, I’ll have to give you a better name than that. What do you want to be called, boy, eh?”

The Coolia pup appeared to ponder something for a moment, then, he used his wings to start making designs in the sand.

“Are you writing your name?” Edge asked realising shortly afterwards the chances of a reply were slim.

The pup’s wing continued to write. It did not write in our language, of course, it wrote in the language we call Panzerese, or the one the people of the world call Zoahian, based on the evidence that people gained back the ability to read and write first in Zoah, after the Ancient Age had ended and the grand majority of knowledge was lost.

The wing wrote the word meaning “Spirit”.

“So, you want to be called Spirit? Fine. Quite suitable actually, in that unless this storm ends we’ll soon be spirits ourselves.”

The pup looked at him with questioning eyes, as if to say “why?”

“Without water, we’ll both be dead in a few hours. I should have asked Raul to give me some rations for this walk…” Edge stopped in the middle of his sentence, and looked at Spirit, as he was now called.

Spirit’s throat was glowing even more than it had been. Suddenly, the pup opened his mouth, and an intense beam of light fired out of it. The light struck the wall, shaking the area to the tune of 3.2 on the Richter scale. Edge looked in wonder at where the light had hit.

Writing. Language.

For the benefit of the reader, this is what the writing said, in English:

If you look at my wing, you’ll see I have grew,
An intericately designed tattoo.
As I am a pup, merely a seed,
You must provide me with what I need.
Four qualities, four auras I need to mature,
You’ll be able to figure them out I’m sure,
As people I’ve known, riders I’ve met,
Hold the qualities that we must get.
After three, the fourth is nigh,
But my only advice is to look up high.

“A riddle?” said Edge to no one in particular. He ripped a piece of paper out of his Imperial Instruction Book, and took out what would pass as a pencil. Hurriedly, he wrote down the riddle, line by line, muttering each line as he did so. It was only when he had finished that he realised what the first two lines were. He put down the paper, and looked at Spirit’s wing.

Nothing. Then he looked just under Spirit’s wing.

Ah ha! There was a tattoo. A rather bizarre one.

The tattoo composed of two circles, one inside the other. In the ring that the two circles formed, there were three symbols. The first one was unmistakeable. It was a heart. The second one was more bizarre. It looked like a toadstool, or a mushroom. The third one was either an eye, or a lemon. In the areas where there were no symbols, straight lines joined the two circles together. The entire tattoo was black, possibly to contrast with Spirit’s green colour.

Edge’s brain finally started to work. He saw the symbols, and looked at the riddle. “These symbols must be the qualities you need. But you say you need 4, and there’s only 3 here. “Look up high?” Curious. There isn’t anything on your back.” He looked up.” And there isn’t anything on the ceiling. Guess I can only get the clue for the fourth when the other 3 have been found. But how can I find them? I’m dying of thirst as it is.”

Amazingly, the wall where the riddle had been written had just fallen down while Edge was contemplating the tattoo. Edge hadn’t even heard it, but noticed that behind it was a small, enclosed puddle of water. Very cool, and refreshing water, as Edge soon found out when he ran to drink it. When he had had his full, he looked at Spirit again. The pup was smiling.

“I guess you had something to do with this, huh? Thanks.”