The beast proceeded into the chamber, heedless of the spatters of blood that flicked from his tail spines and the wail that arose from his victim.

Hart approached the fallen mage. A brief glance was enough to tell her that his injuries were beyond her own skills. She bent and placed her hand on the screaming man’s forehead. Taking advantage of the pain that shuddered through him, she overrode his will and sent him down into sleep. A small enough blessing.

Behind her, she heard running footsteps. A glance over her shoulder confirmed that the mage’s co-workers were coming to his aid. One woman ripped a first aid kit from its wall receptacle and almost caromed into a white-haired fellow with the most elaborate coat Hart had yet seen among them. The woman’s haste to prepare mundane aid earned her no kind thoughts from her superior, judging from the glare he gave her. Hart had to agree; it should have been perfectly obvious that the fallen mage would need more than coagulant and spray seal to save him.

Hart stepped back to let the new arrivals tend to their comrade. Noticing that her sash was stained where it had dipped into the mage’s blood, she briefly considered its worth as a material component for ritual purposes and found no significant value. This mage was too stupid to ever make it necessary. She untied the knot that held the band around her hips and let the scarf flutter to the floor. One thousand nuyen on the expenses, Old Lizard. That was real silk and a Scaratelli to boot.

Dismissing the ruined sash from her mind, Hart surveyed the chamber, It was large, a vast womb in the belly of the earth. The ceiling was hidden, even from her eyes, in darkness and haze. Lights mounted on the exposed girders of the structure cast sharply defined cones of light onto the floor. Hart stood on the highest level, a platform with twin ramps leading down in opposite directions. She could just barely discern other platforms hugging the walls at various levels below her. The chamber formed a great bowl, each level spiraling toward the crowded floor of this carefully guarded sanctum.

In the center, a great vat made of some transparent substance sat on a platform of machines and monitors. Technicians stood in a recessed pit around the cylinder, monitoring consoles and adjusting dials. The color of their clothes was washed out by the iridescent glow emanating from the vat. They paid no attention to the motions of a dark shape that roiled the milky fluid within the receptacle.

Still watching the activity below, Hart strolled down the ramp the Dragon had taken. She caught up with the beast on one platform that offered a wide, graveled area with an unobstructed view into the theater. As she approached, he settled his bulk on the rough surface and arched his neck until his head rested on the railing around the landings perimeter.

In the bowl below, mages and technicians bustled about, performing activities that sent mingled odors of rank organics, the ozone of technology, and the sharp scent of sorcerous workings wafting up to the visitors. This environment should be more to his liking, Hart decided as she watched the beast nestle into the gravel.

“This is more satisfactory,” the Dragon confirmed, unasked.

Hart and her employer observed without interruption until Hart noticed someone approaching. It was the master sorcerer who had arrived at the side of the wounded man just as Hart left to catch up with her employer. The mage stopped a few meters away to compose his face into a pleasant expression before stepping forward to where he thought the Dragon could see him. From where she leaned against the beast’s withers, Hart felt more than heard the soft chuff that she recognized as a sign of the Dragon’s amusement.

Hart knew that the beast could see that the mage stood waiting. The Dragon let him stand there for some minutes, a period sufficient to establish dominance, then inclined his head to signal his attention.

The Human smiled. “You are just in time, Lord Dragon. It’s almost ready.”

“It will work as desired, Doctor Wilson?”

“Certainly. The last two prototypes performed well within parameters. Mutability factors have all been right on prediction and there has been no decay in stability. We have no reason to believe the process is flawed.”

“Well that you should not.”

Wilson swallowed, his fear apparent to Hart. She had no doubt that the Dragon sensed it, too. He could probably smell it.

“I meant no disrespect, Lord Dragon. It’s just that, as both a mage and a scientist, I expect all new processes to have some problems. It’s only natural. This project has gone very smoothly under your guidance. I have no doubt that the product will meet with your satisfaction.”

The Dragon flexed its wings slightly, dismissing Wilson’s remarks. “Show me.”

“As you wish, Lord Dragon.” Wilson wet his lips with a pink tongue that only slightly protruded beneath his mustache. “With your indulgence, it will take a few minutes.”

The Dragon remained silent. Wilson turned quickly and vanished into the darkness of a side tunnel. A moment later, he reappeared emerging from a corridor onto the floor of the chamber to have a brief conference with a quartet of his fellows.

Hart wanted to get a closer view of the operation. Reaching into her shoulder bag, she retrieved a pair of glasses. She tapped once on the frame to adjust the setting to magnification and settled them on her head. What she saw on the screens was fascinating, though she understood very little of the abstruse hermetic formulae, much less the chemical formulae. She wished she had a copy to study at leisure.

The consoles forfeited her attention when they blanked at the first faint strains of thaumaturgic chant beginning to drift up from the group of mages gathered below. She scanned the bowl’s floor. All the ordinary technicians, save one, had disappeared. That one was attaching a hose to a wheeled canister. The other end of the hose was fastened to the vat. The technician moved to a nearby panel, where she adjusted a few knobs. Bilious green swirled into the vat’s fluid, commingling with the liquid until it resembled molten jade. As more and more of the green substance entered, the shape in the vat slowed its motion, ultimately becoming still. Apparently satisfied, the technician shut down her panel and vacated the floor.

As soon as she was out of sight, the mages raised their voices, strengthening the chant spell. The four who had joined their master split away in two pairs to take up station’s at opposite sides of the container. Their song rose again in volume as Wilson stepped up to the tank. The paired mages split, one of each couple remaining in place while the other walked a quarter of the way around the circumference. The cardinal points occupied, they raised their chant almost to a shout before dropping it to a soft, monotonous tone.

Within the hermetic circle, Wilson executed a series of intricate hand motions. The sweeping gestures described by his arms grew ever smaller until only hands and fingers moved. Then they too stopped. A heartbeat later, Wilson stepped back. A casual gesture of his right hand brought a harness down from the obscurity of the ceiling. A flaccid spider trailing its web, the straps plunged into the once more translucent liquid to snake around the limp shape. Wilson raised his hand and the harness rose in sympathetic motion.