d the King's guard suppressed any new Anki

since whoever harbored him would take a grave risk on his behalf. His wound and the

. He did not try to negotiate surrender; death alone served as punishment for his existence. He fought with lashes

ugh his comrades hefting a battle axe. Another held the boy fast to the downed

killed the young Anki, " a voice hi

ad gathered their wounded and made f

assed before he gained consciousness in a small warm room. A bent green skinned figur

ars alone, " hissed the same voice from the shad

an Ancien

ing track of time. We got pulled through what must have been a hole in the fabric of space and time while on patrol between Nibiru and its moon. Time simply passed w

sions would have spelled doom for any man without an idgeul.

ls the machine. Silver dragons stand upright about ten feet high, a total of twenty feet from tail tip to snout. Capable of flight from a planet's surface to the other worlds within a solar s

itransparent belly plates, I had long ago for

ol, aboard the colonial starship of Earth's weather phenomenon, the torn

n the other end. Perhaps the others had been destroyed, perhaps the

recognized from Haran's sky,

lated world was a welcome new home, now that we three are all that exists of our former lives, save for the other machines left by Nibiru's ancient masters. It stands to reas

hundreds of years. Small talk lost context, not because of a malicious gesture, perhaps after so much

simultaneous awe. When we got closer and satellites

again seem like the blink of an eye. We never found humanity, b

t for a change. Sometimes as we grow old, one of us will joke about mounting the dragons

cal I

in rural isolation. Peck, the miller's son, loved his small town. The boy hauled bags onto a cart, bound for the granary, in the midsummer sun. Sweat beaded on the brow of

hone brilliant silver slashed on hip, wing, and shoulder with black streaks. The