Where There Be Dragons

Chapter 7

As we walked through the door, we were instantly caught by the incredible art on the ceiling. It looked like this world's version of the Sistine Chapel. It was painted with all types of dragon soaring through the sky and at its centre there was that same sphere that we had seen on the automated infantrymen's chests. This must have been the crest of the Kingdom.

The rest of the room was dark and cold. Green cloth hung over the windows and an ancient, gravelly voice whispered from the shadows in his ancient, gravelly tongue.

"Welcome travellers" whispered Christopher as he translated the language of Dragons.

The room fell silent as the creature's piecing bright eyes watched us from the darkness for a moment.

"Welcome to my court".

The Dragon crawled from his shadowy throne and as it did, he twisted his posture, determined not to be seen by us as a quadruped.
He reached up, stretching up in a muted agony as he lowered down a chandelier of candles that was strung up by some elaborate pulley system. He took a deep breath and as he exhaled, an inferno lit the candles and the room was alight.

The creature was dressed in the type of tunic that a medieval knight would wear and on his chest, that same crest, the symbol of the kingdom.

"What's this all about? What's with this wall? With this world? With that symbol?"

"Oh, the sphere?" replied the scaled monarch. "Well, we found our salvation in the sphere and we believe in the sphere because you believe in the sphere".

Christopher followed almost instantaneously with translation.

"What do you mean?" I said with a tone of confusion. I was hoping the creature would answer my questions, not give me more.

"When Wyvern Armada and the Boulder Guard found you, they thought you were the gold plated ones, but no." said the creature as his eyes squinted, continuing to stare us down.

"No, you are far worse" he added as he turned away from us and walked back towards his throne.

"Excuse me!? Who do you think...." I yelled before being halted once more by the husky voice.

"You were our oppressors back in the days of yore. Well, not you specifically, but your kind. Dragon slayers, that's what they called you. A race of murderers and torturers."

The creature picked up a goblet that stood on a table next to his throne and continued to tour around the room.

"We flew to distant lands, hoping to hide from your cruelty, but you were never very far behind, at least in a physical sense, anyway. Our technology and our knowledge however, eclipsed yours greatly and this would become our strength."

As the dragon made his way to the window, he pulled open one of the curtains and looked mightily over his domain.

"While you developed canons and gunpowder, we created the steam engine. And while you carved new vessels to explore the world, we created the transport gateway".

"The transport gateway? You mean the portal!?" asked Keira. The monarch nodded and continued with his story.

"It's amazing what we could do really, when we weren't being slaughtered in our hundreds of thousands."

"We were able to do this all in peace, free from your tyranny, away on these distant lands. But we knew that our time was fleeting."

"That's when the tailor stepped in" said the creature as he signalled over towards the door where a hunched over dragon stood patiently waiting in the wings.

"I'm sorry I'm late, Your Majesty, I didn't want to interrupt your story." said the hunched dragon.

"My dear, you look absolutely ravishing in that dress" continued the hunched dragon as he passed by Keira.

"Please, Your Majesty, please continue".

"It was the tailor that suggested that the world was like a piece of cloth, similar to the tunics he would fit in his line of work. It was the tailor who theorised that, like any fine garment, the world could be taken in with the right pinning, shaping and adjustments".

I just stared at the King, my mind frazzled, just hoping that what he was saying was all going to make sense soon.

"It was the tailor who suggested that the world could be like one of our infinity chambers, where the prisoners would not see walls but endless, open space."

The King then encouraged his 'tailor' over to stand with him by the window, as if it was some sort of stage for the tailor to take. The tailor accepted his King's offer proudly.

"You see" said the tailor. "All of the technology and circuitry could be placed on the back of the portal device with nothing showing on the front except the imperceptible transport energy. Once they were packed in, shoulder to shoulder along the barrier, there was no real way for you humans to go around it, to see the edges, to understand the magic trick. You would simply go through it and continue to be oblivious."

The more these creatures spoke, the less I understood. What were they saying?

"But we came through a portal and we arrived in this crazy messed up world. Can you just tell us where we are?" I screamed in frustration.

"Poor deluded boy. You didn't come here because the portal was on, you came here because it was off." said the monarch.

"A malfunction." added the tailor.

We all looked at each other. It didn't matter how much they tried to simplify things, none of us were comprehending what they were saying.

"Had the portal been on,boy, you would have been transported back seamlessly to the other side of your 'fully discovered map', completely ignorant of the world beyond.."

"The world beyond!?" cried Hank.

This was finally making sense.

"Yeeass! The flat world. This world. The world outside, kept from you by a prison of illusion". hissed the King

I pulled out the piece of graph paper from my pocket and looked at it again. This abstract shape. This polyhedron was the answer.

"Is this the shape of the wall?" I asked.

"Yes, that's it. The ring of gateways. And although your world feels round, it is only by our design, our choice, our making. The shape of the ring was created by our tailor, a flat shape that could be folded into a sphere to feed into your delusion of a globe."

"Don't you see, Connor? It's a flat Earth. We've been living on a flat Earth this entire time." said Keira.

My head was spinning. I couldn't quite wrap my mind around what I was hearing. It was so hard to believe, but not impossible. There really was no way to disprove what they were saying. I guess, if we couldn't see the portals or feel the portals, how would we know if we were walking through them and starting again on the other side of the map? But this was crazy, it had to be. Was this what NASA were on the verge of discovering? Did they know?

"You maniac! You...you made us believe that our flat Earth was spherical!?" shouted Hank.

"Yes, and when the gateways were put in place, all the edges were brought together and all the seams of your world were joined". smirked the monarch. I could tell that for the first time the dragon truly felt superiority over the human race.

"As your technology grew, so did your curiosity. Updates needed to be added as time went on, such as the canopy projectors and the wave oscillators, but we'd finally done it, we were finally free of your oppression".

"So, what happens now? " I cried. "If we promise not to tell anyone, if we stay silent? Will you let us go? Will you let us return to our world".

I don't think the King had any intention of killing us as his joy came from keeping us alive, from knowing that he was better than us, but I did wonder what his game plan was in the long run.

"Oh, heaven's no." whispered the King.