Wings of Renewal: A Solarpunk Dragon Anthology (23 page)

Before them stood my Dragon.
He reared beside the overturned shuttle with his four legs planted firmly on the ground. His claws dug into the concrete floor where they rested. His long neck was curved gracefully over his body to stare proudly down at the men facing him.
 

“Aranai!” I screamed to be heard over the clamor of panic and shorn metal. “Stop this!”
 

Aranai turned his head toward me. Light poured over him and washed the floor around me.
 

“Destroy the destroyer, and save us from ourselves,” he responded. “You cannot have one without the other.”
 

“Man isn't the destroyer,” I said back. I didn't have to yell this time. Every eye was on me.
 

Steam and billowing flame slithered from Aranai's nostrils. He snorted in derision.
 

“Man cuts me,” the Dragon drawled in a slow and dangerous growl. “He disrespects me. You—more than most, little one—have seen how man destroys himself. He must be stopped before his self-destruction spreads to us all.”
 

“Yes, we destroy ourselves,” I replied. “But we don't do it in the name of a destroyer. We are creators from the first. We seek to understand the world and to change it, to make it better.”
 

“Does it seem better to you now? Did it seem better to you when your reactors were burning chasms into the Earth?”
 

“No,” I smiled sadly. “Somewhere along the way we reversed the order of our progress. We became so excited with our power to change the world that we didn't stop to ask ourselves whether we should. Our power to change has increased faster than our understanding, and that has been our destruction. When you are weeping for the damage we have done, you must know that there are those of us who wept with you. That is why you were born. You were born to slow our progress and give understanding a chance to catch up with it. And that is exactly what you have done.”
 

“I am purging the planet,” the Dragon said. “I will remove both the power to change and the capacity to understand.”
 

“But you are a lesson, and we are learning,” I pressed. “Yes, it is easier to change than to understand, but it is a thousand times harder to destroy understanding than it is to destroy change. You may break our homes and our tools and our lives, but the knowledge that these things have passed will never be destroyed. Our destroyer is the difference between our knowledge and our power, and you have destroyed him already. We have learned from you, and you have saved us from ourselves.”
 

The Dragon paused in thought. He reached out one long claw and, with an ease that defied the incredible size of the fallen shuttle, he set it back upon its framework. I now saw that Mr. Hankers was sitting within, coated in a thick blanket of broken glass and fuming anger.
 

“Has your understanding caught up with your power, little one?” Aranai asked.
 

Mr. Hankers didn't look as sure anymore. His fine suit was torn. His face was bleeding from a thousand small cuts. His hair was almost as frayed and wild as his eyes.
 

“Shoot it! What on Earth are you all waiting for? Shoot that creature!” Mr. Hankers bellowed before ducking behind the control panel of the shuttle.
 

The Dragon's claw folded around Mr. Hankers and the shuttle alike. It crumpled like a soda can.
 

Guns were raised higher, but no shots rang out.
 

“His understanding did not increase, so I decreased his power to change. If this balance is maintained, I will concede that my duty has been fulfilled,” snorted the Dragon. “I have done much damage already. Will you really still choose understanding over rebuilding your way of life?”
 

“It doesn't have to be a choice,” I said. “The unstable fusion reactors have already been destroyed. After the damage they have caused, the people will not allow them to be rebuilt. I already have designs for a project that will harness the ocean currents for energy. If we are to rebuild our way of life, we will do so only through understanding.”

The Dragon bowed its head in acknowledgement. A jump, and then one, two, three beats from its powerful wings, and it was already at the ceiling. Light scattered from its scales and bathed everyone watching. As the Dragon disappeared into the sky, the speaker system crackled to life one last time.
 

“If you do not forget the curse I have brought, then I will not have been a curse. Move with care, my children. I will be watching.”

About Tobias Wade

As a child I constructed a spaceship capable of superluminal speeds powered by a fusion core reactor. The submission was denied by NASA on the grounds that it was made entirely of LEGOS. In high school I was told that I could do anything I wanted in life, while only being taught everything that I didn't want to be. I probably deserved the detentions I received. In college I completed two Bachelors of Science in Psychology and Physiology and worked as a researching neuroscientist.
During my psychological studies it struck me as odd that I could learn so much about why humans behave without really understanding the intricacies of human nature. It occurred to me that I had learned more about the depths of human experience from reading Dostoyevsky than I ever had from my text books, and I was inspired to write.

Fighting Fire with Fire

by Gemini Pond

Taneen tells us stories of a time when the earth was dying, when the desert encroached on fertile land, stealing its nutrients and replacing them with arid sand. Looking around the sprawling orchard before me, I cannot believe it ever looked different than it does now. He says these stories are lessons, that the desert is always hungry and we must always be diligent. I think the old dragon just likes to hear himself talk.

As if my thoughts summon him, I see a great shadow pass over where I am standing. Taneen also says there was a time when people ran in fear of his presence, but that was before he offered his help to combat the growing desert. First, he had watched as our forefathers slowly planted individual trees along the desert line, tending each one as they went. They were the front line in the greater plan to create a band of trees thousands of miles long and thirty miles thick. The leaders of more than twenty countries agreed to the plan, but it was the people who made it work. Taneen says he admired their tenacity as they dug one hole at a time and cared for every single tree. He offered them his help, dropping thousands of seeds across the fields and using his massive claws to dig holes faster than a single person could.

A moment after he passes, the wind catches up and buffets its way through the trees, almost knocking me to the ground. “Show off,” I mutter before hurrying towards the square. Despite my earlier musings, visits from the dragon are few and far between, and his flair for the dramatic keeps us entertained.
 

When I get to the square, though, the atmosphere isn't like it usually is when Taneen arrives. Instead of children climbing his golden scales and trying to pounce on his long tail, he is perched in a corner with the council. Anxious eyes fix on him as his deep voice murmurs to the others. I approach my friend Bukky and lay my hand on her shoulder. “What's going on?” I ask.

“Eno,” she responds, putting her hand on top of mine, “I don't know. I thought I heard them mention a fire, but there's no smoke that I can see.” Her brows crease in worry. “We've never had a fire before, what if it destroys all our hard work?”

“There's no way one little fire can destroy generations of growth,” I scoff, but my bravado is mostly for her. I don't know how much damage a fire could do if left unchecked, though Bukky is right and there is still no sign of smoke in the sky.
 

Anxiousness grows as the crowd builds, and I'm almost certain everyone from our village has gathered in the square by now, drawn by Taneen's shadow and the hope of stories from our past. Instead, they are met with whispers of a fire, and eyes nervously scan the sky, trying to find any hint of impending flames. It feels like time stands still as we wait for word of what is going on.

Finally, Taneen and the council turn toward us, and we can all sense the concern radiating from them. It is the council leader, Ade, who speaks to the waiting crowd.

“I'm sure you have heard from the whispers of your neighbors,” he begins, “Taneen is not here for a social visit. He brings word of a fire being brought this way by the wind. He tells us it began just on this side of the Wall, near the desert, and will probably be here in two weeks. Within the next few days if the winds pick up.”

“What do we do?” a voice calls out.

Ade glares in the direction of the voice, though I'm not sure if he's frustrated about being interrupted or about the frightened whispers it elicits from the crowd. “What we have always done in times like these: survive.”
 

The crowd murmurs uneasily again, though the people sound less frightened than previously. Taneen shifts his weight and lifts his head high above everyone else. “I have watched Kebbil develop with the growth of the trees,” he says, and his great booming voice echoes around the square, though there isn't much to create an echo. “Before the trees, before the growth, your ancestors lived in what you call poverty. I would pass over this village and watch the young starve and the grown seek power through evil means to keep their families fed. As the trees were planted and the desert was pushed back, your people flourished. You grew healthy, you became whole. A Saharan Dragon is not meant to want the desert to stop expanding; yet watching you thrive has brought me more joy than watching my territory spread. It is why I joined your people in planting and why I continue to monitor the edge of the desert. I intend to make sure that what your ancestors wanted for you does come true and that you continue to leave this world better for your young. If your ancestors could stop a desert, you can stop a fire.”

I can feel my pride swelling, and see that pride reflected on the faces of neighbors I have known my whole life. We are the same tough beings our predecessors had to be to stop the desertification of our village, our country, and our world. What is a fire but the desert with claws, heat and power seeking to destroy everything it touches? We defeated one; we would defeat its cousin as well.

The winds are on our side over the coming days. While the fire does not slow, it also does not quicken its pace, moving through the forest that makes up the majority of the Wall. We are lucky we are so far from the edge where it began. Although we are at risk, none of the orchards are gone.

Smoke appears on the horizon the day after Taneen bears his news and a stronger thread of fear weaves its way among the villagers. It only encourages us to work harder though.

While Taneen flies back and forth to report the distance and damage, groups of men hike through the forest to try to cut a path through the undergrowth and thin the trees to stop the fire before it gets close to us. Taneen helps gather buckets of sand to throw on the fire when the time comes. Ade contacts other village leaders and councils, utilizing the solar energy that works so well in an area with so much sun. Soon my small village is full of strangers here to prevent the fire from taking the homes we have worked so hard to create.

By the fifth day, the smell of smoke permeates everything around us and the sky is hidden behind a curtain of darkness. Taneen is once again huddled with the council, though they are joined by men and women I do not recognize. There is an air of confidence to them that seems to set the crowd at ease. It is Ade who addresses us when they finish their meeting.

“I look out at a sea of faces, and I cannot help but be honored that so many of you have come. Of course I see my friends, neighbors and family, but others are strangers who are drawn here by the same desire—to preserve the Great Green Wall created by our forefathers; some of the same technology that helped preserve our lives. It helped grow our pride in ourselves, in our communities, in our country and we will not lose that pride so easily! We will not lose our lives so easily! We will not give up all that we have fought for because a fire threatens us! We come from people who built everything from nothing, and we will live!”

A cheer goes up from those gathered around me and I feel my heart swell with pride. We had risen above what other people thought we could not do; we broke so many stereotypes. Living on the edge of the Sahara had once been thought to be a death sentence, yet now we are self-sustaining. We are communities the rest of the world strives to be like: cooperative, supporting each other, and taking care of ourselves. We showed that humanity could turn the tides on the effect we'd had on the planet. We had every right to be proud and to take back our forest from the fire that wished to devour it.
 

Once the cheering dies down, Ade addresses us again. “I will not force any of you to stay and fight this fire with us. Our children and the elderly are currently being evacuated to make sure we preserve our past and our future. We will need people to go with them and protect them. Guarding them is just as important as fighting the flames.

“Those of you who stay may be putting yourselves in danger, but you are the only ones who can decide what to do with your life. We will be dividing up and taking on the fire in teams, with Taneen and council members as leaders. We ask that you please divide yourselves into groups of ten to fifteen, and a leader will join you shortly to tell you what your role is.”

The crowd hurries to do what Ade has asked. I grab Bukky's hand and we join a group that has formed near us where we all make hasty introductions. There is little time to talk and learn about each other as we are joined by Taneen. He considers us one by one, bringing his great golden eye down to meet our own. He seems satisfied by what he sees and exhales a warm breath. “I am proud of all of you,” he says. “Dragons have long memories. I have watched each of you grow into the brave people I see before me today, who are willing to risk their lives to preserve their home. I am not surprised to see a single one of you here.” We all stand straighter in light of his praise and I can feel our resolve harden. We are going to stop this fire by any means necessary.