by Marc Secchia
Sapphire? The dragonet peeped softly, then it felt as if a sleeper turned over and settled.
Did dragonets dream, too?
Clipping her face veil into place, she exited her chamber and walked steadily up through Yiisuriel’s levels, conscious of the Dragoness’ mind tracking her progress. Herimor was a haven of nasty bugs and creatures that specialised in assassinating Shapeshifters and Lesser Dragons. It was no secret that the Thoralians would dearly love to do away with a bothersome Star Dragoness, hence a veritable posse of bodyguards and the full-time tracking. Not that she had needed convincing. Five attempted Scorpiolute attacks had alternated with other, less conventional forms of assassination including three food poisoning attempts – those she knew of. But Aranya had only to think upon her mother’s fate to shiver and concede the point. The apprehension it would have cost her was not worth the price.
At length, her cushioned slipper-steps brought her to a surface door, the one that led to Yiisuriel’s main peak.
Aranya walked out into a cloudless late evening, enjoying a still-warm breeze upon her cheek that brought many unfamiliar, heavy scents and tangs to her attention. None of the crisp freshness of an Immadian night, where all sounds were dampened by a flawless blanket of snow. Here were the pungent scents of cedar and nakkiso-bush, the richness of rumis, chimlily and alangar pollens, and the metallic, musty scents of the ever-present ragions, the numberless protodraconic denizens of this realm that floated and linked the mighty rafts of Islands.
How she would have loved the leisure to study all the different, magical forms of life present in this realm. So many types and varieties of Dragonkind, not to mention the tumbling ribbons of flowers and the apparent ability of these Islands to produce their own water.
Sapphire had been laughably unimpressed to be confronted by some of the literally hundreds of dragonet varieties. Bah, overgrown butterflies, she had sneered. Pond-skater! That’s a waddling toad … and what do you even call the frilly nonsense on that one?
Pure elegance, Aranya teased.
The dragonet made sure the Princess’ left ear knew it was in mortal danger of being chewed off the side of her head. That was before she, too, had become a disembodied presence within Aranya’s soul.
She breathed deep of the night’s fragrance. Her throat felt so taut, her heart heavy and engorged with the foreboding which accompanied her thought from earlier that day: Everything I touch turns to dust. Had she meant that? Was it true? Had Fra’anior turned a deaf ear canal to her pleas, or did she no longer enjoy his favour?
The Great Onyx remained silent. So too, the stars and all about her.
What now? Even the wisps and mites of the Island-World shunned the marred star, one who must suffer to be the butt of Thoralian’s every joke. Even her saviour in his torture chambers, Jia-Llonya, had taken off with her ex-boyfriend – he too had been broken by this conflict, shattered and imperfectly healed, and it was all her fault.
With a low cry of anguish, she fell to her knees. O you ridiculous phantasm, why will you not answer me?
Star … oh, Star …
Chapter 8: Race to the Fires
Arrested in the act of shifting to relieve the pressure on the knurled lesions of her kneecaps, Aranya came within an inch of falling flat on her face. Only at the last second did her brain remember to fling out her arms. Skinned elbows. Perfect.
Sprawled on hands and knees, she cried, Uh –
Necromancer attack … help, she heard, in burry and distant tones. Dreaming? Was the female creature dreaming?
Where are you? Are the Thoralians attacking you?
Strange images stirred in her mind. A misshapen, monstrous creature hammering its way into an underground fortress not dissimilar to Marshal Huari’s home, which had also suffered Thoralian’s depredations. A bald-headed, granite block of a man with a fearfully intense gaze issuing commands to clusters of soldiers and Dragons. He wore enough armour to supply a Dragonship’s cladding, never mind an ordinary man. Spurts of Dragon battle. Drakes. Refugees teeming. A dark, damaged portal stuffed with debris. She saw all in flashes.
Whimpering, suffering, the terrors of memory like a fierce whirlpool sucking hungrily at her mind …
Aranya wrenched herself free with an effort. Where? I will come, but where are you?
She saw a scene of draconic life seething and spitting like a turbulent caldera about to erupt; again that dizzying sense of connection struck her, laced through with inchoate, paralysing fears.
Easy there, petal. Shh. Only, tell me where. I am ready.
Concepts spat into her mind far faster than before, a chaotic flood of overwhelming need. A blur of faces. Fears of Thoralian. Dark passages. A fantastical ruby-decorated hall. Kissing the fierce soldier, feeling his hands twined in her hair! Aranya coloured at the tenor of their passion. Oh! A predatory, prowling presence sniffing about the portals of a terrified mind. Darkness and dungeon-stench, the foetid odour of agony Aranya knew far, far too well. She clenched her fists painfully tight. Someone had tortured this poor girl! That faraway mind was spinning, pulsating, fragmenting at its edges, yet somehow the core was a cool, pulsing place of blue which flowed like liquid, yet was flame. Brilliant flame, like the magnesium flares she had sometimes seen Beran use to light a fortress for night-time attack. Eviscerating fear washed through her, causing the Immadian to break out in a cold sweat.
Darling … petal, calm yourself. Just tell me –
AFRAID! My powers … don’t come. You CAN’T HAVE ME!
Aranya moaned, pressing her fingertips to her temples. Was the Shifter insane, or simply crippled by fear? Either way, she herself feared to keep the connection, because what was brewing inside her – that creature – that Chaos Beast? She froze. No. It could not be. She had no idea what a Chaos Beast even was, but the words stuck in her mind with a particular clarity she had come to realise might very well represent her intuition, what Leandrial termed the Balance of the Harmonies.
Indeed, her Dragonsoul whispered cool healing within; becoming her bulwark against the rising tide of madness, calling to Zuziana, Ri’arion and Leandrial in the same breath.
Without knowing how she had come to fall, the Princess of Immadia found herself lying face-up beneath the stars, panting as though she had sprinted a mile. The power! The shocking ambit of fires at once so tempestuous and beautiful, her inmost being ached to know them with a need as ardent as it was perilous. She must go. The fates sang, or … lost for words to describe the sad-ecstatic-imperative clutching at her throat, Aranya could only groan and rasp for breath, her panicked gaze sweeping the starry expanse for inspiration.
Why could that faraway presence not simply articulate her location?
What do you see, petal? Tell me.
Islands! A fortress! Seething fire! Terror! A little girl wailing in the darkness for a father who never came. The fires, overwhelming – snap! Lash out! The creature’s essence seemed to fibrillate through an impossible series of Shapeshifter transformations, as if she were trapped between two opposing poles, the incredible velocity of variation setting up a harmonic note that pierced the listener through, inveigling her mind to a place of fires lethal to her kind … Aranya clutched at the notion that Yistarill must study this phenomenon, as she struggled to cling to her sanity.
The untameable power of this creature! Was this a trap?
Boots! screeched the fires.
Aranya tore free from the connection before it consumed her like a ravenous maw.
Licking her parched lips, she whispered, “Boots? Boots? By the mountains of Immadia, girl, you are – well!”
Aye, we’ve no idea who or what she is, do we? Dragonsoul said soberly.
No. She patted herself down. Everything still present. Mostly. Oh mercy, Dragonsoul, I’m so twisted up inside. What if this is a scheme of the Thoralians’ devising? What if – but she’s so … so …
Frightened, said her Dragoness. Like you, when the fires first struggled to break free – I’m sorry about that
, Humansoul. It’s like a birthing. Withholding would have killed us both. I had to be free.
Free? Of what – my tyranny?
The Amethyst mentally gritted her fangs and spat half of a draconic execration. Oh, crack my fangs, that was a ghastly choice of words to describe what, for me, was like coming home to my own soul. I am nothing without you, dearest second-soul. Dead. Unburning. Non-existent. We are one. I am you and you are me. Yet even a child must be free of the womb, that’s how I meant it. Forgive me?
Aranya hugged that gleaming inner presence until even her Dragoness had to laugh. Understood?
Her other-voice purred, Aye. Clear as white fires.
What do we do now?
Gnarrr. We go sketch that place for Huari and Gang. Maybe that man-Dragon. Quite the beast, wasn’t he? Bigger than Gangurtharr or I miss my mark – surely, amongst those images must be a clue as to where our quarry is hiding. Then, we hunt her down. Today!
Aranya grinned fiercely. Sometimes, she just loved being a Dragoness.
* * * *
Ri’arion, Huari, Brityx and Gangurtharr gathered around a table to watch Aranya sketching rapidly, using a charcoal stick on new scrolleaf. Leandrial and Yiisuriel watched curiously through the mental network via Huari.
Everyone shook their heads as her friend’s deft fingers sketched out a toad-like monster with hammers for paws. “No. Not real. Nothing exists like that – not even in Wyldaroon.”
Aranya scowled at the leaf. “Alright. Here comes the fortress I saw.”
Two minutes later, Gang said, “Could be any of ten thousand around Wyldaroon. Nice rendering, though.”
“Nice? How’s about I ‘nice’ you for mincemeat?” suggested Huari.
“Fine, she’s a gifted artist. Happy?”
Gangurtharr’s smirk only broadened as his mate stroked his arm and said archly, “You’ll want to keep making me this happy, Dragon. Trust me.”
Uncharacteristically, Ri’arion quipped, “Better stop flirting, Marshal, before Gang’s armpits start smoking.”
Over the chuckles rising around the table, the Gladiator added testily, “It’s probably a Mercenary House, by the looks of it, and that vegetation Aranya’s just added does smack of the Fringe. I’d guess she’s pointing us at that place you mentioned before – who was that Marshal, again?”
“Chanbar. The Mistral Fires,” Huari put in. “Problem is, I don’t know their actual home location. Few do. It’s a point of pride with these Mercenary Houses to conceal themselves off the obvious Isle, so to speak, and to pop up from nowhere to do their dastardly work. The Fringe is thousands of leagues and millions of Islands. Perfect concealment for their ilk.”
“She did mention the Necromancer,” Zip noted.
“Aye, and we’ve no idea where this Azhukazi the Iolite Blue is,” Gang added, “but as far as reputations go, the words you are looking for are big, bad and brutal.”
“We’ve dealt with those three B’s before,” Ri’arion said evenly. “Sketch that warrior you mentioned, Aranya. The man-boulder in armour.”
The moment she outlined the breadth of the man’s shoulders, Huari and Gang chorused, “Azingloriax.”
“As in what?” asked Zip.
In her lecturing-the-youngster tone, Huari said, “Azingloriax. They’re a warrior tribe from Herimor, actually, famed for the size of their infantry soldiers – they’re the biggest and best, trained for the warrior life from birth. They come furnished with metal-infused skeletal structures, harder than normal skins, and the strength of a small Dragon. I’d guess the average Azingloriax warrior could heft armour in excess of fifty stone. That’s roughly seventy sackweight in your Northern measure.”
Ri’arion whistled. “Wow. I’d hate to calculate the cost of feeding one of those.”
“Compared to a Dragoness?” sniffed Zuziana. “I’m ever so expensive. Royalty, my dear husband. We come with a price.”
“I’m a monk. Haven’t a brass dral to my name.”
“We can find ways for you to pay,” she continued mischievously, instantly turning Ri’arion’s bald pate into a passable rendition of smoking, purple prekki-fruit.
Carry on before Zuziana truly embarrasses him, Aranya, Leandrial suggested.
Setting down her chalk, the Immadian Princess laughed awkwardly. “I’m being stupid. Look at this.”
A second later, the steely gaze of the Azingloriax warrior pinned them all as Aranya projected her memory into the mental network. She adjusted the perspective, bringing the near four-foot breadth of his shoulders into focus, before panning backward to show everyone the extraordinary bulk of his plate metal armour. It had to be several inches thick, all over, but the joints appeared to be masterfully fashioned, and the size of the battle axe he wore at his belt beggared belief. Zip wondered aloud if that weapon alone weighed as much as her Human form. The image shifted, the harsh eyes softening as if they had alighted upon a most diverting vision– the watcher, she realised.
Zip giggled, “He’s got it bad.”
“What’s bad, love?” asked Ri’arion.
“That’s the face of a hopelessly besotted man, or I’m a purple dragonet with pink spots.”
The older Grey-Green Dragoness, Brityx, prodded Huari in the back with her sheathed left fore-talon. “Remember those eyes? Can’t for the fires in me recall his name, however.”
The tiny Shapeshifter wrinkled her nose, and then threw back her long navy blue hair with a surprisingly deep laugh. “It’s Sub-Commander Asturbar! Oh, it could be no other – he was promoted to Commander later, I believe. Asturbar’s a good man, besides being a very fine soldier.”
Gnarrr! Gang protested enviously.
Huari slipped both of her tiny hands around his massive right bicep, leaned against him, and cooed, “You are mine, mine and mine forever, Dragon. Do we understand each other?”
This time, the massive Shapeshifter managed only the tiniest of squeaks.
“Good,” Huari drawled. “Mind you, Gang, I think we might just have found you the wrestling partner you’ve been searching for – until we wrestle that Shadow Dragon back into our fold, that is. So, I see that in your image, Asturbar is wearing the badge of a Marshal of the Mistral Fires. The plot grows fangs and talons. What became of Marshal Chanbar, we might reasonably ask?”
“What does Azhukazi want out there?”
“Whatever it is – those Jewels for example – we can safely assume we’re in a race with the Thoralians to secure their power.”
“It’s a guess, but it’s looking like a safe one. My father would call that a strategy that scribes its own destiny.” Aranya paused. “Alright, you can all just stop shaking your heads, you rascals!” Yiisuriel, what say you regarding this discussion?
I am not hasty, unlike you little ones, she rumbled contentedly, but I say, ‘What? Are you still here?’ The Land Dragon guffawed massively at her own joke. Go seize the Balance, Star Dragoness. We slower-moving creatures will bring up the rear, and you can always converse with us via longwave communication. Given the probable distance as we discussed, homing in on the approximate region-origin-locative data, I suggest running ahead first with the noble Leandrial, then striking out with a small raiding party. These tiny fortresses are best penetrated by subterfuge, especially if you are dealing with House Wards.
Slower only in that you bear entire nations upon your back, noble Yiisuriel, Zip said stoutly.
I do indeed, little one.
Not exactly the paragon of modesty, was she? Zip grinned at Ri’arion, who shook his head slightly but winked to indicate that he understood her amusement.
Then, they broke up from the brief, intense conference with a flurry of eager chatter. Brityx declined to accompany them, saying that she had responsibilities to the younglings in her care. Gang pinched Huari’s behind when he thought himself unobserved, and Ri’arion chatted animatedly with Leandrial, working out speeds, vectors, and the amount of supporting equipment she and her Runners could carry in a pinch.
Leandrial was set upon travelling light. Dragonwings strong enough to argue properly with two to five thousand Drakes at a time were no mean feat to transport, she noted, advocating a second wave to set out from the walking Land Dragons one to two hours after her departure. That would give the reassurance of quick backup within a few hours of arrival. Easier to conceal one Runner and a small crew than an entire expeditionary force.
Twenty minutes later Huari, Gang and Aranya unfurled their wings and dived off Yiisuriel’s peak, with Ri’arion riding the Amethyst Dragoness bareback. The proverbial journey of a thousand leagues lay before them, but it seemed to a Dragoness, all that was needful was to spread one’s wings upon a zephyr and fly away across moons-lit Cloudlands to realms beyond any fantasy.
Zuziana’s arms ached. Not that she had anything to ache, but they did.
Where was her Dragoness – oh, this was her Dragoness! How could Aranya have claimed to meet her inner presence? Was that a Star Dragoness privilege? Zip felt she was either one or the other.
And I love us, her Dragoness put in quietly. Sometimes I wonder where we found … well, where I came from.
The Amethyst said, There’s a view – widely considered blasphemy across Herimor and probably all across the North too – that all Humans bear fires within their souls. I cannot claim to understand the philosophical ramifications. These Southern Dragonkind talk about the ‘fire-gift’ of Hualiama Dragonfriend as if she merely breathed upon people or Dragons to arouse the Shapeshifter life within them. Clever trick, eh?
Being so vastly different from scattered teardrops turning people into Shapeshifters?
Silence.
Sorry about the sarcasm, but your brain does have the occasional attack of prekki-mushiness, petal.
Laughing, the Amethyst trimmed her wings and sped after Gang and Huari, pursuing the couple down toward a shimmering carpet of silver-chased Cloudlands billows.
At length she said, Are you saying I compare myself to others too much?
No, but you do tread in the paws of legends, which do have a way of being incredibly hard to live up to, given as we’ve no idea what portion of them might be true. Take this fire-gift business. Perhaps Hualiama was just a girl like you, overwhelmed by power and responsibility, so she just danced her way past all the worship and obeisances and general silliness that seems to accompany high position in these parts. Put another way, comparing yourself to Fra’anior, only the greatest Dragon who ever lived, is a bit like trying to fly over the Blue Moon.
