she noticed its hands. Two small minuscule hands, although one was a little longer than the other, both as strange as the legs. Whatever the creature in that abandoned room was up to, it definitely did not use its weird-shaped body parts to achieve it.
Once the revelation was complete, Teftkra looked at the bizarre creature standing before her. A red body with arms and legs that were impossible to function correctly or harmoniously. Then, after all this, a strangely plain head. Narrow skull, if there was an actual skull in there. Random, short hair, here and there. And then, the overwhelming presence of red everywhere on the head. Only one eye would break the monotony of this face. A perfectly round, bright yellow eye.
“What kind of eyes would emit light through them?” she wondered.
“This is no eye, my child. This is me” said the creature, reading and responding to her thoughts.
Muscle. Raw, crimson-red muscles arranged in several layers, forming the body. Placed. Those pieces did not belong to the creature. The entire body was formed, or rather was assembled from pieces of different muscles. Most looked like they were left intact during the removal of the original bodies and their addition to this flesh patchwork. Small, thin pieces of black tendon held the various parts in place, acting as linking devices.
“Unbelievable” murmured the astonished woman. She thought of her own situation. She thought of the pain in her arms over the last two years and the occasional tweak of pain on her back, which was getting more and more frequent. She pondered on her own complaints about the pain of her age and compared them to what this creature must have been feeling due to his condition. Suddenly, she felt relieved that she only had those problems at forty-seven.
“I am Novonos” said the creature. There was no trace of discomfort or resentment in his voice, from the physical pain that must have been, inevitably, torturing him.
Teftkra noticed that the creature had no mouth. Although his body consisted entirely of muscles -since she couldn't notice skin anywhere on him- they were not formed to correctly depict the physical properties of Samnyans. Two of its fingers looked like they were taken from the same person. One arm partly belonged to an adult female, the other to a child. What could such an intelligent entity be doing in such a disgusting, useless body, on planet Samna, the most isolated corner of the white galaxy?
“You will never be able to guess on your own, unless I tell you” said Novonos, once again reading her thoughts.
“I am one of the sons of Lathyggen” said Novonos and Teftkra felt that something about this name rang a bell, but could not determine what. She opened her mouth to ask for clarifications, but she had no time before he started explaining.
“Samna’s history goes back to ages much earlier than the discovery of the spectral current or the first wheel.” He lowered his head as much as he could, to speak closer to the woman's face.
“My birth came about shortly after Samna was created” said he.
Teftkra started feeling uncomfortable. She did not really know why, but she knew that a revelation of this kind could not be heard by her ears without her having to suffer some kind of consequences.
“Lathyggen” she managed to utter some words after several seconds of silence. “The First Dracon” she said as she looked inside his yellow eye and then stood in awe.
“Yes” Novonos confirmed her words. “The Great Dracon. The Suffering Darkness. He was my father. And he was very different from the one your people have descriptions of, in the fragments of your ancient texts.”
Teftkra could still not come to terms with the fact that Lathyggen had actually existed. The conspiracy theorists had been talking about a creature with an oblong beetle-like body, with thirty feet and sharp eyes glued everywhere onto its thick shell.
“The Witch’s Era” she whispered.
“The transformation of Horofmef and the birth of the demon Lathyggen” said Novonos. “At the beginning of Samna, witches and dwarves walked all over its surface, when this world was still a flat, multi-level world, instead of a round one.”
He let his words sink in a bit, though it would take much longer for one to come to terms with such a realization. Then, he went on.
“My birth and the birth of my brothers, Lathyggen’s demise and the Witch’s punishment were the first tragedies of Samna. I grew up as part of those tragedies. I watched as the Witch’s limbs were hanging, newly cut, from the great tower of Fergrim the Forger. I saw dwarves and gnomes building castles, cities, countries, I saw them giving Samna the hope that it had been so soon deprived of. For a long time I kept wandering and observing, banished from the ground, when my name was still Rarchta.
Then I went on to other star systems. As I was cursed not to be able to touch ground until I took my revenge against all witches, I would observe other cultures of the white galaxy. And, after that, cultures of the green galaxy and then, beyond even that. For a long time I kept wandering throughout the universe, studying anything that crossed my path.”
“Then you finally came back and took your revenge on the witches?” Teftkra’s obvious question followed.
“No” said Novonos, providing some relief to the woman.
“Hatred faded as I learned more and more about the Universe around me. When I returned, I ignored the curse, touched the ground and my body was forever lost. But I had to return, to save Samna.”
“Save it from what?”
“From the disaster that was brought by the Witch, of course. Ever since she realized that she could change the world at will, she was no longer concerned about preserving even her own life. She destroyed Samna’s atmosphere. Many world levels broke and the underground was ruined and greatly poisoned. And, finally, the magnetic field became very weak and its remaining life was too short. This became more obvious in the years that came after the Witch's punishment. It was by far the worst disaster out of all she had caused.
When I left, Samna had already begun to shrink and melt around itself, becoming spherical in shape. Its orbit had changed and it had been brought too close to its star, Emias. Dwarves were forced to take refuge in what tunnels were left intact. Gnomes hid deep into the bottoms of lakes to protect themselves from intolerable high temperatures. The holes in the planet's magnetic field let the universal cosmic rays and Emias’ intense rays to scald all vegetation, sometimes even the rocks and the stones. Samna was dying and I had left it to its miserable fate, too angry and too disappointed with what I had experienced on it. The planet's lowest level, the birthplace of the old gods was gone and hid from the world.”
It all began to make some sense about the Scanning’s process. Scientists could not figure out how life started on this planet, with Gamma rays and with Emias' harmful rays burning the atmosphere.
Teftkra wanted to know more about Novonos’ and Samna’s history, but she was still eager to know more about the Scanning.
“Our planet still exists thanks to the Scanning, doesn’t it?” she asked, coming to a hasty, but real enough, conclusion.
“That is not completely correct” said Novonos. “It is only life on this planet that cannot exist without the Scanning. When I returned to Samna, I had already decided to abandon the idea of revenge. Who knows what I would have done, had I returned with wrath!” he said, and his bright yellow eye shined with reminiscence of the old days for a moment.
“I saw the planet's new version and looked at its new children. I observed hope in their actions. The descendants of dwarfs and gnomes had given Samna the harmony and peace it always deserved. And, despite the occasional clashes, your world is, by far, superior to the dark world I was born and grew up in. I felt calmness and unexpected joy when I saw my world again. And, after experiencing the horrible environment Samna’s children were forced to live in, I decided to protect it, for as long as necessary.
My first position, when I initiated the Scanning, was the most sensitive area in the planet's magnetic field, where the cemetery of the Sacred Valley's monks now exists. Samna's rotation around its new axis h
elped strengthen the magnetic field in certain spots and I had to move to new places every time, until I ended up here. I took an invisibility capsule from the abandoned workshops of Ramnia and I have been hiding here for the last thirty five years.”
“How long have you been implementing the Scanning?” she asked him. Now that she had become accustomed to the idea of the existence of Novonos, she felt she had to learn certain things about Samna’s protection process. She didn’t quite know why, but she knew that she had to know.
“I first started protecting Samna twelve million years ago” answered he, as he let his voice express weariness for a moment. He wasn't tired because of his horrible body, but because of time itself. Twelve million years was too much, even for him.
Teftkra was beginning to realize. She could not understand how it was possible, but she felt it in her heart.
“You are running out of time, aren’t you?” she asked, compassionately. She pitied the poor creature that had only known pain and death and yet, he had decided to help the planet that had virtually destroyed him.
“That is correct. The more I scan, the more my existence weakens. This little eye you see was once a big and enormous one, like a bright cloud in the sky.”
Teftkra had now completely realized what needed to be done.
“You need to be replaced. If