The pressure of the water coupled with the icy shock knocked Will into unconsciousness. Deep within the bedding roll, a small creature was roused by the sudden unusual swirling sensation.
It was not impressed.
While it circled, it is worth taking a moment to investigate the visitor further. ‘It’ is what humans would know as a dragon, fully loaded, fire breathing sulphur farting, horns, tail, teeth dragon. That is, however, only its generic name. Common on Morpheus, they usually have the good sense to stay out of sight. However, depending on its breed, temperament and, if they feel like it, they have an uncanny ability to watch and provide an accurate record of events for anyone brave enough to attempt to train one, and this one was paying particular attention to Will.
For a dragon of any persuasion, the sensation of being unimpressed is not necessarily the same as being concerned. To its credit, its current predicament appeared to be nothing more than an interesting distraction.
At the heart of the vortex, the gorgonian was waiting for its meal; unfortunately, for the creature, it had not realised there would be an additional side order. Its great slobbering tongue tasted the water as Will, and his passenger passed its lips and headed straight into the stomach of the eating machine. The dragon was generally content in most environments because when you are at the top of the food chain, it is hard to get excited about other animals eating habits, but one of the few things to attract its undivided attention is when it becomes the thing that something, however misguidedly, is trying to eat.
With a small puff of smoke from its nostrils, the dragon began to grow from a small, cute lizard and very soon it had reached alligator proportions. It became larger still until it was definitely in the dinosaur category, its talons gently gripping the still unconscious human.
Meanwhile, it was beginning to dawn on the gorgonian’s limited brainpower that it had bitten off considerably more than it could swallow. It fell back on the only thing it could, digest and digest as fast as possible. However, this only caused the swelling in its stomach to increase further until a tiny spark dawned deep within the creature that it was now trying to ingest something almost larger than itself. Full to capacity, the vortex which supplied its web was unable to vent causing the twister to turn inwards. The pressure inevitably became too much. As the creature had its final thought, best described as the interspecies equivalent of ‘uh oh’, its stomach contents were breaching the surface of the water in a violent fountain of tentacles, jelly and gastric juices.
By the time the waters had stilled, and Will was dragged to safety, the dragon had sufficiently diminished, so all that was rescued from the debris was a battered inventor and a rather soggy bedroll. Darkness surrounded Will; he could hear voices, distant, as though underwater. He was aware that in some way, they were talking about him rather than to him. He tried to speak, just as a slap stung across his cheek. There was a sensation of not being able to breathe for a second before his lungs rejected their watery contents, and he was emptying them, and his stomach, onto the grass.
‘I told you not to stand so close.’ A female voice scolded.
‘I didn’t know he was going to do that did I?’ Will opened his eyes to see Ceun wiping vomit splashes from his boots. ‘I think we’d all be very interested to know how you managed that.’ Ceun said, crouching down.
‘I didn’t mean to. It was the water.’ Will said weakly.
‘He means how you managed to kill the Gorgonian.’ Anaya said.
‘I didn’t kill it. Perhaps it just wasn’t hungry?’ Will said, struggling onto his elbows.
‘Given there are assorted bits of it all over the place I think we can be fairly certain you killed it.’ Ceun said. ‘You must be the only edible thing that a gorgonian has ever spat back. I’d hate to think what you taste like.’
Anaya said grinning. ‘What he means is, well done.’ Will felt an involuntary blush rising to his ears. Despite the fact he knew this wasn’t Cassandra, the idea of impressing this version did appeal. ‘It was nothing,’ he said modestly.
‘That’s what we thought.’ Ceun eyed Will carefully. ‘What aren’t you telling us? It certainly wasn’t luck.’
‘Whatever it was, it seems to be on our side, and that is all we need to know.’ Anaya said pointedly.
‘Hmmm.’ Ceun said, scratching his chin. Anaya held out her hand and helped Will to his feet.
‘Pay no attention; he gets like that when it’s not him playing the hero,’ she said quietly.
~~
Their journey continued under an uncomfortable silence. Exhaustion was becoming a real concern for Will, coupled with the second soaking in less than twenty-four hours, and he felt things couldn’t get any worse. This could only be described as a nightmare, and deep down, he didn’t believe in any of it.
‘You’re very quiet.’ He hadn’t realised Anaya was watching him.
‘I’m just trying to make sense of it all.’ He said with a shrug.
‘And how are you getting on?’ She asked.
‘Figments of my imagination are asking me to destroy my potential future, all my work and Adams, based on what? I am in a place that I don’t believe exists outside my mind where other figments are trying to kill me. I think perhaps I need some therapy.’ He said with a snort of humourless laughter.
‘You don’t have faith in your own mind?’ She asked with her head on one side.
‘It plays tricks and makes you see things that aren’t there. Take you, for example, you are exactly what I’m talking about.’ Will gestured towards her.
Anaya flinched as though slapped. ‘Meaning?’ She glared through cold eyes.
‘Um, well no offence obviously.’ Will added hurriedly. Nudging her horse into a trot, Anaya gave Will a final glare before catching up with Ceun.
‘If I didn’t know better, I’d think you almost cared I might have drowned?’ He said with a glint in his eye as she drew level.
‘It’s a very good thing you do then isn’t it?’ She growled and carried on past him to take the lead. By the time they made camp, the silence had become oppressive. Will sat by the fire, trying to rub some feeling back into his hands as a gentle steam rose from his warming body. He didn’t notice the small dark shape slip out of his baggage to forage.
A little way off, Anaya stood with her hands on her hips. It incensed her further that Ceun continued petting that damned horse when it was obvious that she was upset.
‘What is the point of this?’ She demanded eventually.
‘He likes it.’ Ceun answered.
‘Don’t be obtuse, you know what I mean, what we’re doing, what is the point?’ She snapped.
‘He sees the error of his ways, destroys the machine, and all is well with the world.’ Ceun said.
‘He is as bad as the rest of them.’ She said, gesturing towards the human.
‘Ok.’
‘Just like that, Ok?’ Anaya paced backwards and forwards, desperately trying to put into words her frustration.
‘What do you want me to say? I’m sorry that you are angry. I’m sorry that you are in this position, is that what you want from me?’ He asked.
She paused for a moment. ‘No, I just don’t see why one man is worth risking our lives for.’
‘This is not about us, can’t you see it’s bigger than that, even you can’t be that self-absorbed? This is a disaster waiting to happen.’ Ceun said irritably.
The morph tapped her foot angrily. ‘Why is it your decision to make? We don’t even know who is behind it. It could be a trap. When they realise what we’ve done there will be some very unhappy people, the kind that you don’t want to make enemies of? Let the committee deal with it.’
Ceun folded his arms. ‘We can’t hand him over, knowing what they will do to him? I would have thought you would be the last person to suggest that. They will torture him. They will find out everything they can about this machine, and then they will kill him. The next thing you know they’re finding a way to exploit the technology.’
‘So? That’s not my problem.’ She said stubbornly but without conviction.
‘If this gets into the wrong hands, it will be everyone’s problem. We have a chance to stop it. He’s a good man. He’ll do the right thing.’ Ceun was gentler now.
‘And you are such a great judge of character?’ She snorted.
‘I used to be, once...’ He said quietly.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Anaya snapped.
‘It wasn’t supposed to mean anything. I was expressing an opinion.’ He said.
‘An opinion about me. Don’t say it wasn’t, and don’t give me all that I was disappointed, and you let me down malarkey because I didn’t ask for your help.’ She retorted.
Ceun faced her properly for the first time. ‘You did actually. You begged me to help you.’
‘I didn’t think you’d actually do it!’ Anaya yelled in frustration.
Ceun patted the horse a final time. ‘Then you shouldn’t have asked,’ he said before walking away, leaving the morph blinking away tears.
The little stowaway pattered away from the camp, at a safe distance it increased to the size of a small dog. The dragon proceeded to munch its way through an exciting selection of minerals, and as many rocks as it could cram into its mouth at a time. The problem generally being solved by slightly enlarging the mouth, soon it had cleared the surrounding area. With a happy belch, it waddled back to its charge.
As Will huddled under his blanket, rest refused to come. Dream or not, this was complete madness. He turned over again, trying to get comfortable on the damp ground. His exhausted mind tried to process all that had happened logically, but he could no longer see through the dark clouds of fear, so paranoia began to set in. How did he know these people were even on his side, just because one of them looked like Cassandra? What if that was their plan? He had a nagging feeling that something wasn’t right here, why would they want to protect him, what was in it for them? They wouldn’t be doing this out of the goodness of their hearts. Ceun, he’d managed to evade the river monster, hadn’t he? Why then was Will sucked in, and how did he escape? The thoughts rolled around and around until he thought his head would explode. ‘This is ridiculous!’ He said suddenly. Realising saying such things out loud was not the best escape plan, he peeped cautiously over the edge of his blanket. To his relief, Anaya appeared asleep. Ceun stared intently at the fire oblivious. ‘I have to get away from these people.’ He thought. ‘There must be someone in charge that I can speak to, ask them to send me back… no demand that they send me back. I am a British Citizen; I cannot be held against my will.’ The inventor peeped over the blanket again. Ceun looked up vacantly as he felt Will’s gaze. ‘I’m just going to check on the horses,’ he said as, trance-like, he walked away. Alone with just the sleeping morph, Will realised he might not get a second chance. He slid out from the covers and quickly gathering his things. The bedroll seemed incredibly heavy; Wills knees buckled under the weight. Balancing himself as best he could, he crept silently away. Just over the ridge two cowled sleeves high fived.
~~
Anaya stretched. Finding herself alone, she wandered over to where Ceun was standing with the horses.
‘For goodness sake, leave the horse alone or get a room!’ she said. Her approach roused him from his reverie.
‘Back for round two?’ he asked genially.
‘Why didn’t you wake me?’ Anaya asked.
Ceun looked confused. ‘Wake you? What are you talking about?’
Anaya searched his face to see if he was teasing; all she saw was honest confusion.
‘For the second watch. You do know it’s morning?’ She asked.
‘Very funny.’ He laughed.
‘No really, look at the sun.’
Ceun glanced up. ‘But we were talking only a few minutes ago?’ he said, but his tone was less sure now. ‘Where’s the human?’ They ran back to the makeshift camp and the bed space where Will ought to have been.
‘Why the hell weren’t you watching him?’ Ceun shouted.
‘Because as I just said we agreed, I would sleep and you would take the first shift!’ Anaya shouted back.
‘I don’t remember that,’ Ceun rubbed his temples. ‘Something has been messing with us.’
‘Really, you think so?’ Anaya was so angry how dare he blame her?
‘Bloody monks!’ he spat. ‘ We have to find him.’ Ceun was already packing.
‘Why!’ She almost stamped her foot, ‘you’re taking too much on yourself, you’re not a one-person police force. Let the committee deal with it, that’s why they’re there Or leave the stupid man to it if he doesn’t want our help. What do we care what happens to one human?’
‘You suddenly seem to have a lot of faith in the people who locked you up and threw away the key? This isn’t a matter for bureaucracy, this is a life, and who knows how many others. You think when they discover Morpheus is real, they are just going to say, oh that’s nice? No, they are going to want to explore, discover, and conquer. And then there will be war. It might be our fault he’s stuck here, it’s our responsibility.’ He said, grabbing her arms.
‘Who knows who else is looking for him? Let’s just tell whoever sent us here that he got away and that we don’t know where he is?’ She said, mirroring the gesture.
‘Why are you still here?’ Ceun pulled away. ‘Your part is done. You caught him, now why don’t you go and get on with your life?’
‘Let’s get this straight. I’m here to get my pardon, that is it, but I don’t want to die in the attempt!’
‘Then leave!’ Ceun said exasperated. ‘Go! I won’t try to stop you. It could be years before anyone thinks to look for you. I certainly won’t be coming after you!’
Anaya was stung. Ceun mounted his horse and had a good head start before she finally caught him. They rode in silence, neither wanting to be the first to speak. ‘Drama queen!’ She said eventually.
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