by Marc Secchia
Starlight indwelled the depthless cosmos behind her gemstone eyes.
Ardan plunged into eternity. Stretching, tumbling, a mote helplessly afloat upon a tidal bore of magic, yet he still could not make the vital breakthrough.
Her shining hand rose to cup his cheek. O Dragon, come forth.
He wanted nothing more in the Island-World that to respond to her tender summons, but his best effort was still lacking. Ardan groaned, I … I haven’t … please, Aranyi. The Immadian intimacy caused her smile to traverse the twisted, ruined side of her face. Ardan knew only that his deepest wish was not for him, but for her. Shine afresh, o Aranya, star of mine heart. Shine in truth and let this travesty be no more!
Magic seethed about his very bones with a sound and sensation like torrential rain, refreshing and renewing his being.
Joyously, she sang, SHA’ALDIOR, ARISE!
Ardan cried out as whiteness detonated behind his eyes. He knew only the storm within and without, as if he had stepped into the incandescent heart of a comet, and a voice like an orison of Storm crying:
Dragon, arise … aye, come alive, my Dragon!
That thundering! It was him, the mighty thickness of his throat reverberating like a drumskin as the beast bellowed his jubilation to the heavens; his Shapeshifter Dragon burst into being four-square and proud, stretching and shaking out his wings with a shiver of pleasure. His scales gleamed like smoky obsidian fired by a blacksmith’s labours, and mighty fires seethed within him, as if his naissance were excruciation, and what he needed most, was the agony of renewal.
And then, the storm’s aftermath, Sha’aldior, be at peace.
Ardan saw that he clutched a node of pure light in his forepaw – a girl! Nay, a young woman who though blemished, was to him beauty incarnate, and the fury and mystery of his Dragon fires embodied. With a trill of laughter unlike anything he had ever heard pass Aranya’s lips before, she shielded both her person and the crowd around to protect them from the monstrously triumphant fires gushing forth from every pore of his being, it seemed.
Ardan belatedly snapped his jaw shut. Clack!
Amidst the swirling plumes of fire contained by her shield, those incomparable amethyst eyes materialised to capture his Dragonsoul with her gaze, and now her smile widened as the wistful, upward-quirked lips parted to breathe deep of his fires.
Aranya!
For thee alone, Ardan crooned zealously, awash with white fires love.
From her tongue she expelled a thin stream of fire directly against his muzzle, a multi-coloured thread of flames so similar in appearance to her hair, the Dragon almost mistook her gesture at first. Then, the enchanting scent of a Star Dragoness’ soul invaded his nostrils, igniting sapphire and lilac and pure white constellations behind his eyes, as though the night skies danced for the glory of their revealed presence, no longer faraway, but intimately grafted into his being. Soul-fires!
Mighty as he was, the Dragon crumpled to his knees.
When his vision cleared, it was focussed upon the girl standing within the crook of his forepaw – her expression focussed to the point of inscrutability. Draconic. Artistic. Now, a dawning of delight that mirrored the exultation rising in his soul.
Aranya raised her hand to his muzzle, and chuckled with that peculiarly Immadian musicality, You’re my incandescent passion, thou, my soul’s –
FFIIIIIRRREE!! thundered the Dragon, and her laughter embraced his roaring from within.
* * * *
“O grand shell-father, do you not despise my frailty?”
Fra’anior had a way of occluding the horizons like the apparition of a thousand-year storm. He effortlessly dominated her surrounds with steepling thundercloud-mantled necks and the mayhem of lightning bolts a hundred feet in diameter constantly sparking between the spine spikes so awesome, he could skewer Islands like the spicy kebabs these denizens of Herimor so dearly loved – however, as Aranya considered him, she knew something had changed. She sensed tenderness. Esteem. A growing cognizance of his unfathomable, brooding soul’s brightening toward the scrap of life that watched the edge of his forepaw approaching like an onyx cliff sweeping across her skyline. How could they even embrace? How had she never appreciated this aspect of his character before; how had he not recognised her resemblance to his beloved Istariela?
How could the creator Dragon have forgotten his first love?
Overwhelmed, she genuflected with her gaze. Who might presume to call the most majestic of Ancient Dragons, grandsire? Yet in his weakness; aye, in his loss, he seemed both nobler and easier to empathise with. She supposed that the truth of his vulnerability must seem a blasphemous thought to many. Nevertheless, who else knew the fires of this supreme Dragon’s hearts?
“Arise,” commanded the Storm of Storms, the Great Onyx. When she stumbled in finding her paws, he chuckled, “I intended no reprimand, wishing only to warn thee.”
Famously, he loved the tiniest creatures of the Island-World with a fierce and abiding affection.
Turning her rising into an impulsive bound, the Amethyst Dragoness sprang aloft, startled to discover a presence rather than a weight upon her shoulders. Second-soul! Her neck twizzled about to examine … herself. Oddly. Curiously. Lamenting the scarring. To her, Human Aranya was a girl of knee-length tresses that rippled in kaleidoscopic colours across her back in the breeze briefly generated by her Dragoness’ flight; the soul behind her eyes was at once mysterious and familiar-yet-not-herself, making her wonder afresh at the dichotomy of possessing a second-soul, separate yet one.
She landed upon the pad of the nearest of Fra’anior upturned fore-talons. Even a butterfly landing upon her Human’s fingertip was proportionately larger by far; she felt as a gnat or a speck of dust clinging to a gleaming mountain of onyx scale-armour. The rest of him was beyond awesome. He was miles and miles of sinuous, storm-girded battlements of Dragon armour; so eye-wateringly humungous that the leagues of his body vanished into the distant gloom.
“I preferred the butterfly image,” rumbled the third head to her right flank, jostling with its neighbours to overawe her with – for the very first time – the combined gaze of fourteen fiery lakes.
Aranya hoped he did not sneeze. Gnat in a gale.
Another head rumbled, “Chin up, o Daughter of Storm.”
Now a mischievous quip accompanied by a curl of fire that raged two miles wide and five long overhead? Dragons said the suns flared like that, but her eyesight had been too weak to join in the observations at Gi’ishior’s celestial laboratory. It was hard to imagine her grandsire being overshadowed by anything in the Universe, but she supposed there must be powers mightier than he.
At which, the remnants of her rational mind threatened to pop like a lava lake bubble.
Aranya glanced down at her tiny soul space, the now-overpopulated peak of that spectacular spire of rock. At least half a dozen of Fra’anior’s eye-fires tracked her motion.
“A worthy deed,” he rumbled. “The answer is nay, shell-granddaughter. How canst I despise one who hath spilled out her very soul’s essence in service of her Island-World? Or deny the sorrows that dampen mine fires when I consider all that mine envious desire for vengeance wrought upon thy frame and fate?”
Aranya dismissed his statement with a wave of her forepaw, feeling brave and mawkish at the same time. “Spent fires, o noble Fra’anior, much as I appreciate thy sentiment. What of the Thoralians?”
The congregation of his mighty eyes measured her being with such seething majesty, she felt faint. The tenor of his storms betrayed his response before the Ancient Dragon replied, “Aye, Aranya. This was mine purpose in initiating this meeting. Indeed, the Thoralian-spirits survived the battle and even the immense wash of thy healing magic, protected by their command of urzul’s corrupting force – but they are unable to penetrate the First Egg. Not as yet. The Suald-dak-Doon’s very nature, namely the presence of enormous deposits of meriatonium, precludes that possibility. Therefore the Thoralians will att
empt to fly the Egg into the Rift Storm and there, augmenting his power with that which he would steal from Infurion, he shall seek to penetrate its innate magic – as thine friend posited.”
She considered this new information, her wingtips betraying an anxious quiver. Her Humansoul said, “Fact or supposition, o Great Onyx?”
Phew! Dragon-direct! her Amethyst Dragoness admired, mingling draconic respect-indicators into her tone. Nonetheless, Fra’anior laughed his monstrously basso laugh, which beat against her chest and abdomen like amplified paw-blows.
I am direct, her Human sniffed privately, to which the Amethyst replied, I like that quality in you. Your personality is akin to the strike of a mystical talon.
What?
Her inner mirth merged into Fra’anior’s as he chortled, Doth Human doubt creep in amongst thy draconic candour, o Aranya? Fear not. I have lately eschewed the taking of insult in my dealings with thee. Nay, consider this: is mine the only dragonesque paw seeking to work its purposes in the Island-World? Am I the only one who dares speak with mine charge, mine delight; thou, the BEAUTEOUS FIRES OF MINE THIRD HEART?
Clinging on with all twenty talons, Aranya was nevertheless whisked four hundred feet backward by the wash of his ebullience.
Shaking her skull spikes, she blurted, Thou canst not essay plain speech?
Fra’anior’s following inhalation threatened to suck scales off her hide. Meantime, not far away, Zip was giggling at her antiquated phrasing. Later, there would be leisure for the plenteous swatting of cheeky Azure Shapeshifters. Aranya made a mental rune mark to remind herself that when she awakened from this dream, she must find out if her Shadow had recovered completely.
The Onyx growled, Prophetic or overly specified speech hath power to change the fates. Why question what thou knowest, thou troublesome mite?
Oh, so my words don’t matter? Thanks for the clarification, grand shell-sire!
With a withering curl of acrid smoke from his nostrils, the three heads occluding Aranya’s right flank snorted, There’s a small difference in magnitude!
Alright, I’ll say it – Dramagon, Dramagon and more Dramagon the ruddy Red Fiend! Aranya stormed right back, Dragoness and Human speaking in perfectly synchronised cadence.
Fra’anior made no reply, but the multiple cannonades of thunder provoked by her rash response were all the confirmation she needed. Such power! For the longest time, she could only stare up into his seething eyes, and tremble. Lightning exploded from his fangs, turning the Ancient Dragon’s mouths into immense caverns of sheeting electrical mayhem.
Dragon Aranya clung to the fragments of her courage. Foolish Immadia! Why did she always have to rile her grandfather? The fate of her Island-World was no game!
At length, the seven dark heads intoned in booming concert, Dramagon indeed.
Her wings juddered in shock! She settled them with a discontented rustle. He was gratified? Had she just released … a capacity within him? Somehow, unchained fate’s hold upon his tongues? Was that not what she observed secretively gleaming within his eye fires; a pattern so quickly abolished, it seemed illusory?
With an air of ineffable gravitas, the Onyx of Ages boomed, Attend, o Aranya. Despite this apparent grandeur which cows thy awareness so sorely, many matters mine cognizance doth not encompass. I never was a star traveller, save within mine Egg. Who knows what manner of paw launched our First Eggs across the cosmos? Who knows from what unspeakable fate the progenitors of our kinds did abscond? From where amidst the starry array? Or why? Scant memory avails few answers; many conjectures puzzle mine awareness. Now, I perceive events in thine Island-World but dimly from mine fortress of self-imposed exile, praying that the nostrils of those foes of yore do not tingle at the fragrance of our fire-lives, nor thrill to inhale the sweetness of all we have laboured for, built and placed under our protection here.
Aranya was immediately intrigued by the nuances of his delivery. What protections? Before she could consider the implications, the Ancient Dragon moved swiftly on, rumbling:
Yet apposite to thine place and time, I adjure thee: The spirit of Dramagon hearkens to the labour of the Thoralians. Mine shell brother is most gratified. His is not an easy paw of service. He will deal with thine archenemy, and mine, in his own time. I believe that the Ancient Red seeks the lost remnant of his spirit, the ruzal once possessed of thine shell-aunt, the so-called Scroll of Binding. Dramagon’s rekindled attention implies that he suspects the foulness of ruzal must remain hidden within thine demesne. Therefore, thou must deal with mine errant shell daughter, Hualiama!
While her Human swallowed hard, unable to speak, the Amethyst Dragoness managed to squeak, O Fra’anior, pray do not set me against my flesh and blood.
Do not misapprehend mine purposes! thundered the Dragon, his blast smacking her backward once more. Aranya had to throw up a shaped aerodynamic shield to prevent being blasted away … no, not aerodynamic after all. Some kind of magical flow … the Onyx urged, with peals of thunder and ebon clouds boiling out of nothingness to wreathe his body in elemental storm, Nay, not against the Blue Star. With her. For yea, I foresee with a powerful frisson that seizes all of mine spines, fraught with the fantastical and wondrous scent of destiny, that this gathering of Star Dragonesses presages a truly remarkable passage of events in the history of many worlds. Succour the Egg, mine cherished grand shell daughter. Set its Balance to rights. But always, always, always guard against the despicable schemes of mine shell brother, Dramagon!
Trifold emphasis! As if her nemesis were not almighty enough already, she thought bitterly, emerging from beneath the blast with a displeased wingtip fluttering. Now the very master of genocidal infamy, her great shell-uncle, stood against her, too!
Fra’anior’s tempest boiled prodigiously.
Yet … a gathering of Star Dragonesses? Incredible; a vision beyond her imagination. What was the Onyx hinting at? Why was this revelation allowable when others were not? Hualiama, Istariela, Izariela, herself … maybe the Pygmy Dragoness? Was she a family member, too? Should they not number seven, the draconic number symbolising perfection? Was she fated to give birth to another Star Dragoness?
Her spine felt as if tiny talons were racing up and down its length, each prickle a deliciously alarming portent.
Thrusting aside her stubborn pride at the pang of realising she might be but one of a number of Star Dragonesses, Aranya said, I serve willingly, grandfather. But in an escalating war between two Ancient Powers …
The Onyx’s seven heads dipped simultaneously. Aye, rightly dost thou speak. Thou cannot imagine nor be told the powers and perils at stake in mine domain. Know that I struggle for thee. Always. But as for thine domain, by which I mean all the realms within the Rim Wall Mountains, o breath of mine innermost fires, thou must be mine strong right paw – wilt thou be?
A command not assuaged in the slightest by the quintessentially draconic non-apology tail-ending his statement, Aranya realised with a chagrined inner smile. Aye, she could refuse. She might as well cast herself into Thoralian’s paw in the doing; worse, earn herself the untrammelled wrath of the Onyx! Yet she understood that by his phrasing, Fra’anior intended to be gracious.
Confounded Dragons!
Aye, so was she. Fired up by this realisation, Aranya flashed one hundred pearly white fangs at her shell-grandfather, and purred in tones like gravelled honey, May my service be acceptable in thy sight, o mighty progenitor of mine soul’s verimost fires.
Fra’anior arched his mighty necks until his fiery smiles threatened to swallow the skies, and replied, Mine watching of thine deeds from afar illumeth mine soul in delight unbounded, o Aranya!
Oh, to be his delight – how she yearned.
* * * *
Come evening of the day following her vivid dream of the Great Onyx, the Amethyst Dragoness limped into the cavern complex to which Brityx had directed her search for the Shadow Dragon, aching in every bone of her body, and stumbled over her paws with a muted growl of discont
ent. “Ardan!”
The song of his pleasure was a throbbing buzz deep within his chest. Ardan stretched his thickset neck until he regarded her upside down, luxuriating in the action of the heavy rollers brushing against the scales of his belly, flanks and thighs. He said, “They told me you were side-tracked.”
“Working hard, I see,” Aranya hissed, all a-bristle with draconic jealousy.
He lounged upon a broad field of whirring brushes and hissing cloth rollers set at a variety of angles to create shallow, cupped beds perfectly suited to buffing up a Dragon’s scales to within an inch of their armoured lives. Ardan was putting the fullest effort of his Dragon hearts into lolling – shameless lout! He extended his foreleg over a roller and rubbed his left lower flank vigorously against a quartet of spinning, bristly brush columns, purring, “Mmm, you’re a sight for fiery eyes.”
Aranya puffed sulphurous smoke in his direction. Bah.
“The best part was the three hours I spent sweltering in boiling lava,” he averred, slitting his eyes as lazily as a suns-bathing feline. “I didn’t enjoy the mechanical picks cleaning beneath my scales, but after a heavy massage from Gangurtharr – you wouldn’t believe what that gladiator Dragon can do to your joints – I do feel a great deal more limber. The flow and feedback along the magical pathways has definitely picked up. I’ve been stuffed to the skull spikes according to a special recovery diet developed some six hundred or so years ago by none other than your dear Aunty Hualiama, who I’m reliably informed was a highly skilled inventor and scientist quite apart from her legendary awesomeness –”
“Apparently, every draconic ancestor of mine is excessively talented in every possible discipline,” Aranya snarled, three parts Dragoness and one part Human.
