Edwin wasn’t entirely certain what to make of this Temeraire fellow; he’d have preferred to have done the research in the library that coming out here, wherever here was, but Temeraire had assured him that that was entirely possible. He’d taken a waypoint to the Dragon Covert, not quite sure what to expect. His whole life he’d been certain that dragons didn’t exist, and yet here he was, in a land where they were very real. He’d faced only only a few short weeks ago – or rather, others had faced him while Edwin had frantically worked away at one of the word puzzles that would send them home. If there were any dragons here at the Covert, he hoped they’d not try to eat him. He hadn’t the slightest idea how to defend himself from one.
He hadn’t expected to a large, military-like building to be set up at the other end of the covert, a large courtyard, potentially for training out-front and the crest of a strange obsidian hill visible just beyond the roof of the building. He wasn’t sure if he should knock or if it was considered a public building, so he erred on the side of caution, adjusted the bag of books on his shoulder, and knocked at the large, heavy door, and was rewarded after a moment by a blond man, who gave him a quizzical look when he asked his business.
“I’m Edwin Courcey,” Edwin answered. “I’m here to see Mr. Temeraire. Is he in?”
The confusion cleared from the man’s face. “Ah yes, Mr. Courcey. I’m Will Laurence, a pleasure to meet you. Temeraire mentioned that you’d be coming today; I’m sorry, it completely slipped my mind. He’s just along in the back. You can take that hall,” he gestured to one, “straight down, it will lead out back.”
It didn’t take more than a glance around the common room he’d come into to realize the man had been sitting at a table that was spread with papers and a calculator. Perhaps he’d been in the middle of doing his household accounts, but Edwin wasn’t about to question him. The man assured him that he’d bring out some tea for him shortly, and Edwin followed his directions through the building.
He stepped out, glancing around for this Temeraire and wondering, perhaps, if he was on the other side of the very strange hill before his mind finally made sense of it – of the limbs, the wings, the over large talons that could effortlessly eviscerate him. He paled, finding the creatures head, and then quickly averted his eyes; he was sure that he’d read that making eye contact with a wild animal was sure to make it attack.
“Good afternoon,” Temeraire said politely. “Mr Courcey, I presume.” He was used to people being intimidated by him, particularly those who were not familiar with dragons, although for the most part he found people in Vallo to be refreshingly prepared for what in their eyes might be considered unusual. “I am Temeraire; thank you for coming. As you can see, it would be rather inconvenient for me to come into town.”
“Yes, I see that,” Edwin said, voice a little hollow. Temeraire’s voice wasn’t nearly as loud as he would have expected, coming from a creature his size. He wondered, faintly, if Temeraire was going to eat him if he grew too bored with the research, and if the gentleman inside would even come to help him if the dragon turned against him.
He tried very hard to banish those thoughts. They’d help not at all.
“Yes, I’m Mr. Courcey,” he said, more for his own benefit than Temeraire’s, who’d obviously already worked that out. Research. They were there to discuss magical research. He gathered himself.
“Before we begin, perhaps you might tell me a little of the magic of your world.”
“Oh, there is none,” Temeraire said, already a little reluctant to say as much. Since so many people in Vallo seemed to think magic was a necessary part of society; it felt a little like admitting to some kind of fault in his own world. “At least, it is only in stories. Of course, there is religion, but Laurence says that is different, and calling it magic is blasphemous, although I do not quite see what else to call it. I have not seen any actual magic until I came here. How is it where you come from?”
Edwin was surprised to say the least. Dragons did not exist in his world (at least, he didn’t think they did; if they did, they hadn’t existed in his world since the fae had, long enough ago to fade into something no more than a children’s story), but he’d always seen them as something that would have been entirely magical, if they did exist.
He smiled, a little, while Temeraire spoke of magic and religion. “Religion’s a little magical,” Edwin admitted. “But it’s more based on faith than anything else. In my world, magical society is kept apart from non-magical society, and that removal was in part because of religion. They believed that miracles are the providence of God, and can only be performed by divinity or those touched by divinity, and magic arises from the Devil. And so, you see, miracles cannot be magic, because they’ve been told that magic can only come from evil.”
It wasn’t a perfect explanation by any means – Edwin had never been particularly religious himself. There were, in fact, very few magicians who were also Christains.
Temeraire considered this. “But what is there to say that magic is not also a miracle?” he asked, doing his best to be polite and not dismiss the idea offhand as he might have if he were discussing with Perscitia, for example. “Who gets to decide which kind of magic is miraculous and which comes from the devil? Besides, there seem to me to be a lot of people very quick to assign anything even slightly inconvenient to the devil, who I am sure if he exists has much better things to do.”
“Well, I certainly believe that miracles are some form of magic.” If they weren’t straight up magic themselves; who was to say if those who performed miracles in the past weren’t simply magicians of some calibre?
His lip twitched a little at Temeraires censure of the Church, though he didn’t quite smile.
“I believe the Church gets to decide which magic is appropriate and which isn’t. The persecution of the Church is why the magicians of my world chose to separate themselves from the non-magical people. There are those who would destroy anything that they might deem a threat to themselves, whether or not the threat is real or imagined.”
“That does not seem very fair,” said Temeraire, whose sense of fairness was sometimes stronger than any other logical argument presented. “Or indeed very sensible, particularly when magic is so useful.” He thought of the healer who had come and fixed Laurence, and made him better so much quicker than any surgeon he had heard of could have managed. “But perhaps if you had not experienced it for yourself, you might think differently,” he allowed, begrudgingly.
“No, it’s not, especially,” Edwin agreed. “People will fear anything which they do not, or cannot, understand, and doubly so if that thing threatens them or the established power structure.” It was little wonder that people had shied away from magic. The vast majority of people couldn’t use it, at least not in his world, and so they crushed what threatened them by sheer numbers alone. “Vallo is different in that regard, at least. Enough people have magic in this world that it’s simply a part of every day life. Would that the same was true in every world.”
Temeraire had to agree with the sentiment; certainly people at home feared dragons only because they knew nothing useful about them. He nodded sagely, his foreclaws crossed delicately in front of him. “Will you tell me about your project?” he asked. “I know little about magic, as I say, but I like to find out about things. Although I am starting university soon,” he added with pride. “So there may not be much time when I am not also studying.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t call it much of a project,” Edwin said, a little embarrassed. “The state of magical research conducted in English back home is truly abysmal and it’s been a constant source of frustration for me. Here though… There are universities and secondary schools dedicated to the practice, and there are so many different types of magic. I simply wanted to see what I might learn from it.”
There was so much of his own magic he didn’t know or understand – he’d once thought he’d had a good grasp on it, until he’d met Flora Sutton, and now he was only just beginning to understand how little he truly knew about English magic. He hoped, by studying what he could of the magic here, he would find something useful for his own magic. But even if he couldn’t, it was still an endeavour he wanted to take on.
He was a little more concerned when Temeraire mentioned that he was going to University, and Edwin eyed him again, trying to take in his size again; the scale was enough that he had trouble wrapping his mind around it at all. “Ah,” he said weakly. “Are there… schools large enough for dragons here?” he ventured, trying to picture it. His mind kept trying to go back to Oxford, where every room was the size of the university itself, and he found he simply couldn’t imagine it; at some point, the scale was impossible.
“Oh, I believe it will mostly be online,” Temeraire said. He indicated his dragon-sized tablet which he had set up in a covered area of the courtyard to protect it from rain and other elements. “Such things are quite convenient here, even if they might not have had dragons in mind specifically. I have had to learn all about technology, but I am getting much better already. “There are so many books, and I can have the text as large as I want. And if anything must be on paper then Laurence can read it to me.” He let out a happy rumble. “Perhaps you could study at the university as well, if you are interested in learning about magic? Or I could let you know about anything interesting I find. I could translate from Chinese, or French.”
"Oh, of course," Edwin said, a little embarrassed by his lapse. "We don't have this sort of technology where I'm from, I hadn't thought… But of course it could be used for such things. I am studying at a University here though, or rather, I'm sitting in on some classes at the University of Unseen Arts. It's a school dedicated specifically to the magic arts. Do you speak French and Chinese as well, then?"
“Oh yes,” Temeraire said, “and a little German and some Turkish, and X’hosa and Quechua as well, although those do not have written language as far as I know, and Durzagh, but that is a dragon language, so I do not think it will be useful. I am trying to pick up Spanish while I am here, as I have always wanted to learn, but there are so many things to learn it is hard to fit it all in. Laurence says I ought perhaps to concentrate on one or two things at a time, but there are so many things I want to know, and sometimes one needs to know one thing, like how to find a book on the internet, before you can learn other things.”
Edwin was still struggling to come to terms with the idea that dragons were both real and intelligible, and he was now coming to the sinking realization that there was a very real chance that this dragon was smarter than he was, at least in terms of language. Edwin had always thought that he might be able to learn a language if he set his mind to it, and maybe someday he’d be forced to learn at least enough of a language to open a correspondence with someone who was studying magic in a different language, but he’d always been more focused on reading books in English, of creating new spells and testing the bounds of magic as he knew them to put in the time, but he doubted very much he’d have been able to learn as many varied and unconnected languages as Temeraire had just rattled off.
“Yes, it is generally better to choose an area of study and focus on it,” Edwin agreed. “That is, at least, if you would like to have a deep and complete knowledge of it. I suppose you could learn a great deal about a good many subjects, but I’m afraid you’d be unlikely to be able to develop an especially deep understanding of anything in particular. Do all dragons learn language as easily as you?”
Temeraire considered; he did not like to disparage his fellow dragons in their absence, but the idea of Maximus trying to speak French was painful. . “I think they could if they tried,” he said eventually. “But usually we learn language in the shell, that is how I learned Chinese and French and English. Celestial dragons - such as I am - are especially bred for intelligence, but also I have had a lot more opportunity than most to encounter other languages.” That was humble enough, he thought. “Laurence and I have been all over the world.”
“In the…” Edwin started, but he didn’t need to finish the sentence to realize that Temeraire meant while he was in the egg he’d hatched from. That was interesting. Did that mean that human children could also hear while they were in the womb? It seemed unlikely, but then, it wasn’t like Edwin spent any time at all around infants.
“More than I’ve been,” Edwin said. “I’ve barely even left Britain. Where have you gone?”
Temeraire recited, “Let me see; I was born at sea, and we went first to Gibraltar and then to England. Then we went by sea to China in my second year, and came back overland through the Gobi desert to Turkestan and then over Europe where we fought in Prussia. Then we went to Africa and back to find the cure for the dragon sickness. Then…” he hesitated a little and checked that Laurence was not in earshot before going on; “we sailed to New South Wales for a while and helped to expand the colony there, and then the Incan Empire, down to Brazil, then over sea to China, except we were wrecked in Japan for a while…” he couldn’t help a slightly distressed noise even at the thought of that terrible time when he thought he had lost Laurence, and then he had come back with no memory of Temeraire at all. It was the main reason he had not tried to talk much to Laurence about his future, for fear of having to explain those dreadful months. “And then overland again to Russia, with the Chinese legions,” he added. “And back through Europe again to Paris, and then back to England, once the war was over.” All in all it was rather impressive, he thought, having gone all the way around the world twice. Of the dragons he knew, only Iskierka might come close, and then only because she kept following him when she had not even been asked.
Edwin couldn’t hide the fact that he was impressed. At least, he couldn’t hide that from any other human – he didn’t know if Temeraire could make out his facial features, or if he could even read human facial features in the first place. Edwin was entirely certain that he’d have some difficulty if expected to read Temeraire’s expressions.
He was even happier that he understood most of where Temeraire had gone. So many people had entirely different worlds, with countries whose names Edwin had never so much as heard of. He didn’t miss the note of distress in Temeraire’s voice, but he didn’t know what to do or say to help – he suspected that even if he could gather the nerve enough to come close enough to give Temeraire a reassuring pat, it would probably feel more like a mouse trying to comfort an elephant than anything.
“You’re very well travelled then,” Edwin said, though there was something about that list that bothered him, and his mind kept turning it over until he figured it out. “The Incan Empire?” he asked after a moment. He supposed it was possible that Temeraire had come from sometime before the sixteenth century, except that he’d also mentioned New South Wales.
“Yes,” Temeraire said, souring a little at the memory, his ruff stiffening. “We did not mean to go there, only we were shipwrecked and marooned by the French, and then we had to try to stop them marrying their Empress to Napoleon, only Iskierka made a mull of it and we had to run away.” He grumbled, hesitant to reminisce on a failure even from over two years ago. “If Napoleon had been marooned without any weapons or even a proper harness, and only a handful of proper officers, then he would have run away instead, I am certain.”
“Napoleon? Bonaparte?” Edwin asked, clearly surprised. Napoleon’s War had been a century earlier, nowhere near the destruction of Incan Empire, and Edwin suddenly wished he’d spent more time reading histories than he had. It must have been the dragons, somehow, that had changed history. He supposed it made sense, if dragons fought in wars.
“Where I’m from, the Incan Empire was destroyed by the Spanish, oh, it must have been three centuries before Napoleon came to power. I do wish I’d studied history a little more closely.” It wasn’t as though he could simply ask what other changes there were; Temeraire was as unlikely to know the history of Edwin’s world as Edwin was to know of Temeraire’s. “Napoleon lost the war in your world too, I hope.”
“Oh yes,” Temeraire said almost absent-mindedly, mulling over what Edwin had said. He had not considered, although the more he thought about it, the more it made perfect sense, that a world without dragons might not have the exact same historical timeline as his own. He was immediately on fire with questions, but he managed to say, “Yes, he was defeated in battle this last year, the year twelve, and Laurence personally took him into custody,” before going on, “I wonder what else might be different? I know that Lan Xichen’s China is dissimilar to my experience, as they were only building for men and so all the architecture is quite wrong; I had not considered that some battles might not be won if there were no dragons to help. I remember Hammond saying something about the Spanish invasion of the Incas, and they killed their Emperor too, but the Incas drove them off in the end.” His talons tapped thoughtfully on the flagstones as he thought, a world without dragons must be very bleak, indeed.
“Mr. Laurence? The gentleman inside?” Edwin asked, turning toward the covert. He’d never had any especial interest in the Napoleonic Wars, but it would be something to speak to someone who’d had Napoleon in their custody nevertheless.
“I imagine, too, that the lack of magic in your world changed the shape of history as well,” Edwin said after a moment, though he didn’t know, exactly, how. Magic had been kept out of the general eyes of the populace for centuries, and while there was some cooperation between the magical governments and the non-magical governments, he’d never seen any particular histories about how magic might have played a part in wars or world events; he imagined any sort of historical analysis on that sort of thing would be entirely impossible, unless there was some archive somewhere that he was not aware of.
“Oh, that’s probably true,” Temeraire agreed. “I do think it’s very interesting, how all these different worlds can be similar in some ways and different in others. And some are different entirely. That would be just as fascinating a study, I expect, but if the worlds are in fact infinite, you could study it for a dozen lifetimes and never get to grips with it all.”
“That’s both the pleasure and the sorrow of studying anything; you might dedicate your entire life to a topic, and never learn all there is to learn.” Even if there had been magicians in England making significant strides in magical studies, Edwin doubted very much they’d even be able uncover a fraction of all there was to learn. It was both exhilarating and heartbreaking.
Temeraire nodded emphatically at this; it was very nice to talk to someone who understood his frustration in that regard.
“Speaking of,” Edwin said, glancing down at the satchel filled with books that he’d brought with him. “I suppose you’re unable to read any of these, are you?”
He’d have been very surprised if Temeraire would be able to read the books with anything short of a dragon-sized microscope.
Temeraire peered at the books. “No, they are very small,” he said, squinting; he could just about make out some of the titles. “But I can ask Laurence to read them to me aloud.” He didn’t think Laurence would mind, and perhaps he might enjoy some of them as well.
“I’ll be sure to leave them with him when I take my leave, then,” Edwin said, smiling a little. “In the meantime, I hope you don’t mind if I ask some more questions about your world? I’d be happy to answer any you might have about mine, too, of course.”