by Marc Secchia
Honestly? This was how he chose to cheer up a Dragoness? Well, he could just –
“I do find it fascinating how abundant hard work and training appears to enhance talent,” observed the Shadow Dragon, suddenly pouring off the massive roller bed like a glossy black coal improbably awakened to life.
Whomp! Her inner fires ignited in approbation. Aranya took two steps backward before she managed to arrest the movement. Grr, she blurted out, narked at her reaction.
Grr indeed, mine heavenly muse, he beamed. Clearly, repentance was in scant supply. Fiery flirtation ruled the day.
Humansoul pictured swatting him past the Yellow Moon.
Meantime, her Dragoness’ every fire trembled at the song of his presence. GRR! Stop … looming over me, you … you hulking monstrosity!
That’s an excellent way to stoke my fires, the Shadow paused to note dryly, before he performed a fang-licking routine that reminded her so improbably of a lascivious Nak clothed in Dragon hide, Aranya’s ire succumbed to a torrent of hilarity. Ardan growled. Fulminated! Inquired with wrathful bemusement. He made a few gruff barks of laughter, and when she explained through sulphurous hiccoughs what had ignited her laughter, he assumed a stance of massively igneous masculine pomp, and promptly flattened her beneath his left forepaw.
Ardan! This behaviour is most undignified.
Oh … what fortuitous happenstance! Arching his forepaw slightly, he peered beneath with simulated surprise. Aranya’s lips peeled back from her fangs. As usual, Ardan’s acting was dismal. Hath a pretty fledgling of most fetching Amethyst colouration swoonéd beneath mine mighty paw?
You think your paw’s mighty? I’ve alighted upon Fra’anior’s paw tip, and that’s an Island …
His talon tickling the underside of her scaly chin made Aranya pull up with an undignified splutter. Aye? purred the Shadow. Hast thou remembered when last I clasped thee thus, Immadia? Even as heat thundered through her being, igniting even the most pox-blighted conduits and organs, his gaze mellowed. Ardan stroked the softer scales beside her left fire eye tenderly with the knuckle of his fore-talon. Oh, mine flame heart …
All that was within his third heart welled up in an expression she had neither seen nor appreciated in a Dragon before. The glorious, suns-like unfurling of colours within his eye made her feel as if she were diving at a breakneck velocity into a field of Immadian wildflowers at the height of the season. The monster’s breath hitched as an incongruously fragrant wave of rich scents teased her nostrils. He tried to speak. Gulped. Tried again, and failed … and her treble hearts-beat flew into paroxysms of anxiety. Her scars! He stared at her scars; her greatest shame!
A-A … Ardan? she stammered. O, mercy me, don’t –
Aranya!
Scrabbling to her paws but finding her Dragoness cupped between his massive palms, Aranya gasp-growled, Ardan? Stop. She flinched reflexively as he traced the ruined, exposed cheekbone of her left cheek with a delicate talon-tip touch. Don’t. That’s … stop! Stop! What do you think you’re doing?
At the same time, he gasped, ARANYA! Oh – you must – I will – you have to see!
A vitriolic fireball of humiliation exploded in her belly. No, Ardan … no, don’t. Please! But he was pushing her, physically dragging the far smaller forty-plus foot Dragoness toward a Dragon-sized mirror amusingly entitled ‘The Preening Station’ in bold, golden runic letters each two feet tall, on the nearby wall. Aranya fought back. She spat fire and singed his freshly buffed hide with affrighted bolts of lightning she had learned from Zuziana, and heard one of her inner presences – no, Zip and Sapphire in chorus, she realised – soothing with gentle voices. Despite his great strength, Ardan trod a line of gentle inflexibility, insisting that she must both obey and forgive him; she must look even though she wished nothing less in the Island-World. In a moment he Dragon-handled her in front of the mirror.
His left forepaw cupped her scaly back and flanks, and with the right, he reached around to tilt Aranya’s chin upward – exactly as Fra’anior had just teased her!
Echoes of consequence paralysed her every muscle. Draconic correlation magic, they called it, in a linguistic play on the idea of coincidence – a not-coincidence of enormous, mystical import.
Please, if you believe nothing else, he wheezed, believe me. For my sake, believe this.
She was incapable, at first. Ardan scooted his free paw beneath her chin to catch the blinding flurry of her tears, tears she realised sprang from unbelief and negation – for after all the travails her world had suffered, how could a Dragoness begin to trust again? She deserved nothing, not even the eternal fires of the Dragonkind. Nay, not death. Her lot must be castigation. Derision. Torment. Aranya ground her fangs together painfully. Why had Fra’anior not rained the hellish fires of his darkest creation upon her contemptible head, and hurled the feeble Star Dragoness, who had lost his Dragon-kin’s Egg, into the darkest abyss?
Too soon, the eruption of her emotions sputtered to a halt. Emotional overload dampened the agitated flicking of her wings and the bilious fires churning about in her lower throat. She swallowed it all down. Courage, Immadia! She was so weary.
Aye, it took courage to face brokenness.
From her mother’s interment, she had learned the bitterest of lessons. Dread would never again dominate her life. Thus the Princess of Immadia, the Shapeshifter Dragoness crushed by Thoralian’s paw, forced herself to focus on the slim draconic countenance she beheld in the mirror.
Her gaze scrutinised and assessed the whiteness of bone within its crater of raddled, scarred flesh. A timeless second slipped by. Two. Had something … changed?
Realisation smote her breathless.
Chapter 3: Abnegation
“I LOATHE abstinence,” Zip groused. “I’m a Remoyan girl. I have needs, husband dearest. Needs.”
The monk snorted, “Self-denial is the core of being –”
“Boooo-ooo-ooring!”
“And discipline is –”
“Yawn, yawn, ruddy old yawn! Discipline, duty, it’s all dusty drivel. And as dull as the business end of a Sylakian war hammer.”
Her monk raised his hand, then folded and replaced it as a fist in his lap. Zip’s heart ached at the tremor she saw run the length of his arm muscles. Wearily, he said, “Zuzi, we should focus on Ardan and Aranya’s preparation for their mission into the Suald-dak-Doon.”
Zip threw up her hands – Aranya’s hands. “Aye. Because her Shadow isn’t being shadowy enough, so they can’t keep the mind-meld together in the Shadow-state?”
Ri’arion rubbed his bald pate unhappily. “As the Princess of Remoy gaily casts aside the combined scientific prowess of an entire nation’s contribution to this problem …”
Within, Dragoness Aranya purred sleepily, Permission granted to lock me out and cuddle the poor man. We discussed this, Zip-Zap.
Aye, we did, Zip replied acidly. I still harbour no desire to create unforgettable mental images in my husband’s mind! What kind of a marriage would it be if he’s dreaming about … well, my very best … Her voice trailed off, suffused with chagrin. In a much less bellicose tone, she spluttered, No disrespect, Aranya, but you – true-you and not now-you – are the stuff of enchant … oh, could someone please stuff my mouth with smelly windrocs’ socks?
This is the reality, Zip, whispered the voice, reminding her of the total devastation wrought by the Shapeshifter pox. Lesions. Gaping wounds. Constricted points within her veins and arteries. Scarring to the gut, ravaged heart and lung tissues … contrasting with the picture in Zuziana’s mind; an image of a tall Northern beauty of flawless aspect and wild torrents of multi-coloured Shapeshifter hair – such a woman as outshone the glory of stars, and seized even the most devoted husband’s attention!
Zip pulled up in a welter of acidic self-pity. What? No! She despaired of the horrid, jealous creature she saw lurking within. Don’t hate me, please, the Remoyan protested, watching Ri’arion’s eyes. He knew she was conversing with Ara
nya. I’m talking Sylakian tavern-trash … you’re neither loathsome, nor a man-stealer. No, dearest –
Petal, I meant differently, Aranya interjected, so equably Zip felt as if a clamp had been applied to her thoughts. Observe. I gleaned a few Dragonfriend-esque tricks from those lore scrolls your husband in a Dragoness’ handbag smuggled all the way across the Rift.
Uh … Zip bit her lip.
Whose images had those been? Had she projected her own simmering resentment into Aranya’s mental processes? How did that work? Worse still, the warmth she sensed from her Immadian hostess now. Zip wanted to sprint away and curl up in a dark corner. Humiliation! How to further injure her very best friend in all the Island-World … she had to chuckle faintly, however, for Aranya’s thoughts flashed briefly to, ‘How far we’ve come from beating one another with staves!’ and then served up a picture of a displeasingly vapid Remoyan Princess fainting into an Amethyst paw.
Rascal! she snorted.
Aranya chuckled, Watch. Firstly, I shall weave a seamless corporeal shield around our person. Thusly done. Now, I’ll paint Zuziana upon thin air, because this is about you, not me.
Watching, wonder blossomed within the Remoyan’s soul like petals unfurling to a delicate pearling of spring rain. This comes from your study of Hualiama’s lore?
Aunty Smarty Paws deserves her moniker, indeed.
What Aranya achieved was as far beyond illusion as the stars lay beyond the far horizons. She was painting in scents, now. Olfactory artwork! Although, Zuziana wondered if she really smelled quite so fragrant, like piquant Remoyan limes tenderly wrapped in vanilla pods. To be known and reproduced in such lavish detail was breathtaking, and her friend’s speed of execution proceeded as quickly as thought itself. No constraints of brush or the need to precisely mix her pigments and paints. Her mind was her tool, shaped by that formidable concentration. Dazzling!
At length, or the flip of a gnat’s wingtip in mental terms, the artist said, Aye. My Chameleon power can assume many guises. Catch your breath, Azure Dragoness. I just became you.
Zip blinked slowly, and essayed a wry smile at her husband.
The person who needed to catch his breath was Ri’arion. He sprang to his feet as though he had sat upon a Remoyan black-banded wasp, crying something like, ‘Issamiracluhzuzihow?’
Incoherence was definitely becoming in a husband. She beamed at him.
With a mental smirk of unapologetically epic Daughter-of-Storm proportions, Aranya added, Wake me when I won’t be embarrassed by your antics, Snoozy Zuzi. Have fun!
* * * *
Given Ri’arion’s mental prowess, however, significant foolery in the psychic realms was required to complete what Aranya – sweet, selfless Immadia – had purposed. One hour later, as Zip and Ri’arion began their training session with Ardan beneath the full brunt of the Lost Islands nation’s attention, nigh one thousand Dragon and Human scientists, engineers, mystics, enchanters and the like, Zuziana was still inclined to the odd guilty wriggle. Ri’arion looked dazed. Amazing what one could achieve with a decent slice of motivation!
Even with an invisible wife.
Still, the ethical ramifications of her and Aranya’s arrangement did not bear too narrow a level of scrutiny. When the ancient philosophical argument about means, ends and justification nagged unhappily at her conscience, she tossed it into the nearest figurative volcano.
Perhaps invisibility had its perks.
Anyhow … Up with the dawn, Immadia, she sang out. Time to take over.
A Star Dragoness sprang from the aether. No, I don’t want to know why my lips hurt – stow it, Remoy. We’ve work to do.
* * * *
Dragons were not able to sweat, but by the time the mental machinery of the entirety of the Lost Islands, spearheaded by the ancient fortress mind of Yiisuriel-ap-Yuron, had finished meddling with his brain, Ardan felt as if he’d been run over repeatedly by a team of excitable Land Dragons, before they handed him over to the Thunderous Thirty for a salutary cannonade that rattled every bone in his body. His memories of comfortable lava baths and oil treatments had vanished like pollen on a breeze. He would rather have faced ten rounds with that rogue Gangurtharr in the arena than undergo an interrogation that seemed bent upon drilling ten thousand precision holes through his impervious skull.
Maybe he should clash heads with Thoralian. Mash that flying slug’s brains out through his ear canals. A thought wrapped in pure Dragon fire!
What Human Ardan longed for more than anything was to take a decent swing of his scimitar at an honourable enemy. Now, his paws were his scimitars and the enemy’s malevolent ambitions knew neither bounds nor principle. What motivated a creature like Thoralian? Greed? Madness? A craving for absolute power? The vile pleasure he took in humiliating his foes before executing the crushing finale?
If he could only get close enough … somehow, he sensed, their understanding of the Yellow-White Shapeshifter’s purposes was lacking. Aranya was too high-minded to think in the way of ruthless beasts. He unsheathed three talons thoughtfully, examining the steely blades as if his regard might constitute a final benediction prior to gutting that worthless perversion of a Dragon like a hapless ralti sheep. Warriors could afford few scruples.
His soulmate possessed an unshakeable nobility of spirit, for which he loved her so fiercely, it hurt.
He had Shadowed and Unshadowed more times than was good for a Dragon whilst being scrutinised via 9,422 disparate vectors and techniques, and had run through more of Ri’arion’s monkish brain-frazzling exercises than he could count.
He was finished.
No, he could not sustain a mind-meld with Aranya, which would allow them to Shadow and travel as a team into the farthest depths of the Island-World. He could not fathom how Hualiama had managed it. One legend had her travelling beneath the Island-World’s crust. Physically impossible. Existentially nonsensical, practically ridiculous – clearly the provender of the worst fabulists. Only, Aranya’s many-starred relatives seemed wont to dump common Isles sense upon its protesting cranium nine days a week, and had a galling habit of laughing their way through life’s impossibilities with confounding effortlessness. Contrarian sanity muddlers, the lot of them!
He snorted wrathfully, Principally, your conclusion is that I don’t actually have a brain.
An entire nation of brains, Dragon and Human alike, gasped. Hesitated. Then, a storm of laughter erupted around him. Yiisuriel and her kin voiced basso thunderclaps of mirth. The Humans produced a strangely synchronised volley of guffaws. Above them, the Dragonkind bugled and hooted their amusement and the dragonets’ uproarious chuckling skittered over the cacophony like a flight of joyous birds carolling the dawn chorus.
Ardan roared, Aye, that’s the result of all your monkeying about!
When a further explosion of hilarity had subsided, Yiisuriel queried, What, by my fumaroles, is a monkey?
Another brainless creature? scorned a voice Ardan knew belonged to Brityx.
Null skull.
Hollow as a drum.
He has a valid point. The wilful abnegation of reality serves no Dragon well.
Argument piled upon mirthful jest until Yiisuriel-ap-Yuron clamped down on the hullabaloo with a firm, ORDER IN THE MENTAL SPACE!
Her mental voice out-boomed a thunderclap.
Yiisuriel added, It was the Dragonfriend who first taught us the incorporeality of the Shapeshifter existence. Have any detected the presence of the second-soul, the Shifted form? Have the phase-Shifters and the Chaos Beasts and all creatures birthed of the Star Dragoness’ incomparable fires ever been identified apart from their embodied form? Has the endpoint of transformation been mapped?
Respectful silence pervaded the mental space.
Only insofar as event-horizon phenomena have been observed, but I hold to an additional postulation … the young Dragoness who had blurted this out pulled up with a throaty gurgle as she evidently realised she addressed the entire nation.
Elucidate your research, noble Yistarill, Yiisuriel said warmly.
A mental picture of a shy, slim young Red Dragoness, with the characteristic double set of wings in the Eastern mould, appeared in the shared mind.
She spluttered, I … my research remains lamentably theoretical, noble Elder – she genuflected in a mental representation of a wingtip deprecation – but I believe that the second-plane theory cannot be discounted, despite the logical fallacies inherent in its current formulation. The Dragonfriend’s writings hint at a second plane of existence, essentially undetectable from the material-physical-psychic realm of our experience. In my thesis, I attempt to demonstrate that the very existence of the event horizon in Shapeshifter transformation endpoint mapping, corroborates a metaphysical truism that such a realm or plane must indeed exist. As you are aware, this argument originally arose from the nonexistence law, which states that it is impossible for material substance or fire life to emerge from nothingness. My additional speculation is that this theory may explain the current location of the Ancient Dragons. They are here, with us … but not. I count the Amethyst Dragoness’ personal account of her interactions with the Great Onyx amongst my reflections.
Aranya’s link with Ardan unexpectedly fizzed to life as the Dragoness spoke. She had not considered this conclusion. Always, she had sensed Fra’anior’s distance. He was faraway, somewhere across the cosmos. Could the young scientist Dragoness have identified a key intention of the Great Onyx – that his mighty paw was nearer than anyone had imagined? At the very least, her speculation about an additional plane was intriguing. Ardan’s Shadow power appeared to do exactly what Yistarill had just noted, and was concisely laid out in the data the scientist presented to the mind-meld now. He vanished, slipped through reality like a shadow slipping between two parallel panes of crysglass, and returned unharmed and fully embodied – yet, he remembered that other Dragons appeared to have enjoyed power over his Shadowed form, most notably his recollection of the way Gurdurion the Brown had seized his tail at the Shipyards of Yorbik and prevented him from Shadowing away. His tail still ached in that spot.
