by Marc Secchia
Aranya braced herself, but still ended up sprawled in a heap with Iridiana atop her. What a pang! Would he disown her due to her nature?
Fire dribbled from at least five jowls as the Great Onyx spluttered, A twin? Another stardrop? None could doubt thy kinship, sensed upon every intricate level that striketh mine cognizance, yet – JOOOOOOOYYYY!!! O JOY! O, MINE SOUL EXALTETH EXCEEDINGLY!
It was wildly exciting to see a storm lose control. Chain lightning erupted from his throats in uncontrolled sprays of bolts hundreds of feet thick and many miles long. Thunder smote the mountain repeatedly, while smoke and cloud, fire and storm billowed around the great Dragon in a frenzied demonstration of his power. Despite her rapid, reflexive shielding, his every exclamation rattled them with shattering sonic exuberance. Fra’anior carolled and laughed and roared and belled his delight to the heavens, before he suddenly cried, To me! Oh, to me – this instant!
Dragonsoul picked up the girls and flew them up to the bridge of one muzzle, where his eyes focussed upon them from a distance yet of several hundred feet, and he said soberly:
Iridiana?
Mighty Fra’anior? she quavered.
Thou knowest we are kin? How came this to be? I must know everything!
Aranya did brief me, o Great Onyx. I – I am just –
Delightful, said he, smiling in a way that seemed to strike terror into a Chaos Shifter’s soul. Of Iosaxxioa’s capricious nature thou art, and only the third of thy kind I have had the privilege ever to meet. Know that Iosaxxioa was never evil, but was driven to a dire fate I lamentably failed to prevent. I owe her memory much; very much indeed. Allow me to manifest to thy cognizance information which shall guide and aid thee. At Fra’anior Cluster, seek thee knowledge of the first Human who was Dragon Librarian there. Seek her personal writings most diligently. There thou shalt find word of thy unique heritage.
Aranya queried, A Human Librarian at Gi’ishior? Surely, that is –
Fra’anior chuckled massively. Indeed. Most mysterious and capable was she, this pure soul called Auli-Ambar Ta’afaya. Seek her!
They spoke for long minutes more. Fra’anior seemed desirous to tarry, asking many detailed questions about Iridiana and her past, and how they had discovered their familial relationship. He confirmed their conclusions about her origins and the nature of her egg, exactly similar to Istariela’s, while peppering the conversation with sundry bugles and roars of gladness, which meant they had to be constantly alert or face being bowled over every time. He encouraged them in their pursuit of the Thoralians. He could not comment upon the future, but departed with a powerful word for Iridiana:
Great deeds shall be thy portion, as I have come to expect from thy sister Aranya. Guard her well. Be her right paw. Keep hoping, for I believe all will turn out well, even the fire life of Zuziana of Remoy, who watches us speechless from yonder. When the sisters laughed, another muzzle dipped above the mountaintop to declare, Mine regard rests also upon thee and thy future progeny , o valiant Remoy – for hast thou not safeguarded mine wayward shell granddaughter from the first?
Zip could only gulp and squeak something unintelligible.
I must fly, Fra’anior said. Iridiana, Aranya, Zuziana, know mine fieriest regard for thee. Fear not the vagaries, depths and bounds of thy natures. All thou hast wrought, winneth mine approval. Thou shalt overcome – LET IT BE!
When the crack of his booming and echoes had faded into the distance, the sisters and Zuziana behind them, bowed deeply.
More gently, he growled, Now, I must fly as the very starlight I have had the unforeseen privilege to sire and to everlasting-adore with all of my hearts! Anon!
With a bellicose roll of belly laughter, the onyx tempest thundered away.
* * * *
Early morning inside of Leandrial’s cheek pocket was usually a time of quiet contemplation for Ardan, who had never mastered the art of sleeping beyond dawn. Warrior instincts.
“Fra’anior!” yelled Iridiana, fizzing through seventeen transformations that he managed to count before she snapped into her bracelet form around Asturbar’s wrist.
His instincts missed that one.
Before his heart rate had quite finished its dash for the Moons, Aranya awoke and said, “Aye, we succeeded, and Fra’anior owned her as kin. Congratulations, Asturbar. You’re related to a legend.”
The big man did not rise to the bait. “Excellent news,” he declared, sitting up. “Morning?”
“Just about,” Zip complained. “Nothing like you bunch of chattering parakeets to spoil a pregnant girl’s sleep. Did anyone mention that I met Fra’anior too? And he called me ‘valiant Remoy’! He’s nice, in an utterly omnipotent kind of way. My poor babies. We were all palpitating together.”
“Zip was speechless,” Iridiana noted.
“Inconceivable! Somebody give me a scroll to record this momentous event,” Ardan crowed.
“Huh. You just try being pregnant, Mister Shadow!” said Zuziana, with the air of the Island-World’s greatest authority on the subject. “Better still, you can borrow a few scroll leaves from our friend Asturbar here, who went where no man –”
Ardan chuckled wickedly. “Who, may I point out, swallowed his babies?”
“Ew, there’s no need – now I’ll never erase that mental image!” screeched the Remoyan. “You are a bad, bad man-Dragon! Slap him, Aranya!”
Aranya had to catch her own hand with alacrity, or she would have done just that.
After this notable start to the morning, the companions conferred rapidly with Yiisuriel-ap-Yuron and their closest allies onboard. They were not best pleased by the plan to sprint ahead, but no-one saw any other recourse. The imperatives were plain to all.
Therefore, they plotted.
Two hours after dawn, Leandrial approached the almighty doorway to the Passage of Darkness, and cracked open her jaw for her passengers to take a stupefying look.
“Large enough for mountains to walk through,” Yazina whispered.
Ardan just let his jaw dangle. It seemed an appropriate reaction, for the tunnel was vast almost beyond comprehension. The Land Dragon barrage had shredded the Cloudlands ahead of Yiisuriel and six of her kin, who flanked her three to either side, revealing the entrance of a great, dark tunnel apparently comprised of matte black meriatonium substrate – the Passage of Darkness. The piceous darkness ahead was strobe-lit every ten seconds by a synchronised light cannon blast operating on multiple wavelengths and harmonic frequencies. Dust and gases spewed out of the upper quarter of the tunnel, obscuring the mountain ranges above the gently downward-sloping tunnel, while legion Runners braved the heat and slag at its base many miles below, shovelling debris out of the tunnel at a rate which Yiisuriel calculated approached ten thousand tonnes per second.
It was the scale of the operation that beggared belief. There was the fact that despite the tunnel being fifteen miles tall, the snow-capped peaks above still topped it by miles more, receding into the distance as though jagged white fangs gnawed hungrily at the sky’s underbelly. Yiisuriel’s flanks seethed with over four thousand Land Dragons, organised into ten distinct batteries. They bombarded, melted and vaporised the debris relentlessly, and were relieved in nine-hour shifts by other allied Land Dragons. Fifteen hours remained before Yiisuriel estimated the tunnel would be clear enough for her to walk through, but she promised that by narrowing their focus and losing perhaps four hours, they would be able to demolish sufficient material for Leandrial to pass overhead of the blockade first.
Nothing survived in there. Nothing.
As the Air Breathers reset their focus, Ardan and Aranya rapidly flew up to her topmost hangar to meet and return with Ri’arion and a minimal load of supplies. They did not want to pause to hunt, so the bulkiest items loaded upon the Shadow Dragon’s back were a quartet of freshly slaughtered orrican and two barrels of water.
Will you let me carry something, Ardan? Dragoness Aranya hissed sidelong at him.
No.
She snarled, Do you have to be such a … male?
I do, aye.
Do you know how infuriating your attitude is?
I hadn’t guessed, Princess, he grinned back, one hundred utterly unrepentant fangs gleaming in his jaw. Tell me more. Tell me how you slaver over my mighty shoulders and love to slip into the lee of my impressive bulk –
And how I’ll Dragoness-slap you for these comments, she chuckled throatily. Tell me –
How I love the gemstone-surpassing lustre of your scales? The sheen of your petite, girly talons? The incandescent purity of thy soul’s whitest fires, o puissant and incomparable Empress of Herimor and Wyldaroon?
Aranya collected her errant jaw with a firm snap. Thou trouble-stirring zephyr of kingly majesty, be silent!
It was his turn to snap at unseen insects. Shadow and Star gazed at each other, then grinned inanely at each other. Fire-love burned bright.
Stretching his wingtip, Ardan tipped her playfully. Thou.
Thou. Ardan, what do you think we’ll find at the other end of this Passage?
He said, Yiisuriel suggested an ancient route across the Rift; a place where the Earthen Fires burn with less intensity due to meriatonium inclusions in the substrate. I can’t imagine that Infurion let passers-by through on a whim, however. There must be a catch.
We know him. He aided us, Aranya said, but the nuances of her Dragonish betrayed her doubts.
Ri’arion said, It is wise to be on our guard.
Aye, said Ardan. We’ll return to Asturbar, Iridiana and Leandrial. Have you had any useful communication out of the Chrysolitic dragonets as yet, Aranya?
Knowing they would have to wait several hours for the projected completion of the bombardment, the companions fell to animatedly discussing the mysterious nature of their tiny companions. Aranya was all for dragging Ardan into the frozen wastes of the North to investigate, a prospect that made a man from hot climates shiver. They debated approaches to Infurion for the umpteenth time, and through Ri’arion to Leandrial, connected with Asturbar and Iridiana to share with them also.
A happy family affair, Ardan said privately to Aranya.
She projected warmth into him, seeming moved by the strength of his response. Aye?
This is my clan, my family, my name! he returned, trying to express through their link all that this meant to him. That they were the foundations of his world, the purpose for which he lived, and the ones he had long since determined to die for.
Not too morbid, she responded warmly. Let’s save thoughts of dying for some inconceivably distant future, alright? When you’re a doddering old wobbler tossing your sticks about like Nak –
Bah. Desist from comparing me to that blackguard, thou – what would he say? Thou blossoming, misted lily of all delights.
Aranya’s soft laughter warmed him. Can’t wait to introduce him to Iridiana. Nak will die.
Blissfully, he agreed.
Returning to the conversation with the others, she said, Come. Work with me on ways to launch ourselves into space. I’m all about backup plans these days, borrowing a leaf from the renowned Dragonfriend’s scrolls. She was a detail Shapeshifter through and through.
Can’t help but think you’re two scales off the same hide, Zip grumbled inside. What happened to improvisation?
The more we know, the better we’ll improvise.
Very good, Leandrial approved.
You would agree, Great One, Zuziana returned cheekily. Alright! Alright, I submit already. Ri’arion dearest, could you just tell us how to defy gravity and the need for oxygen, please?
The ex-monk decided now was the moment to send his wife a mental image fit to make stones blush.
Ri’arion! they all gasped.
Folding his arms crossly, he aped hiding his face behind the Shadow Dragon’s spine spikes. Let’s just pretend I didn’t just accidentally send that to everyone, shall we? My mental discipline is slipping most deplorably these days. It shan’t happen again, I promise.
Zip replied, My fault, dearest. A little change is good for the soul.
A little Chaos, too, Asturbar added. But his image was much more decorous.
Just one shapely silver-blue ankle.
* * * *
Ankles, chaos, pregnancy and the prospect of total annihilation. No wonder she was not as preoccupied with her tiny egglings as she perhaps ought to be, Zuziana thought, chattering fondly to her babies as her friends – old and new – made frivolous conversation. Jittery nerves were on display everywhere, from Iridiana’s incessantly churning psychic suns-flares, as Leandrial had dubbed them, to Ardan’s compulsive knuckle-cracking. In Humans the habit was annoying. In Dragons, it sounded as though someone were splitting rocks with a sledgehammer.
“Don’t worry about those nasty, life-devouring forces of illimitable cosmic evil,” she soothed her babies. “Mommy and Aunty Aranya have the matter in paw.”
Who was she trying to comfort?
Aranya sighed with relief as she heard the assault pause for a brief assessment before Leandrial received word to proceed. Zuziana watched through other eyes and listened with ears not her own as the Dragons swam and flew up toward the roof of the tunnel. The air was as gloopy as the finest of swamp water, thick with minerals, toxins and dust. Visibility was down to a mere fifty feet or less, but this presented no deterrent whatsoever to a grizzled campaigner like Leandrial. She used sound and even longwave-like radio waves to map the terrain ahead, sweeping smoothly through the murk as though it were the brightest of daylight. Fifteen minutes saw them across the base of the debris. Hundreds of Land Dragons dug assiduously down there, like a lizard-swarm seen from so far above. Ten minutes more took them beyond lava fields of orange-hot slag left by the ravaging eye cannons, slowly sliding downward under the force of gravity. They saw countless charred corpses of Drakes and the far larger bones of Land Dragons.
Ri’arion said, “The Thoralians must have abandoned their forces here. All that were left.”
“He had no further use for them,” Asturbar agreed. “Everything was expendable. It means, from what you reported, Ardan, that the Thoralians must have mastered the magic enough to move the First Egg more rapidly than ever before. I’m surprised there’s no tidal wash through this tunnel.”
“An apropos observation, little one,” Leandrial said, making Nyahi fall about laughing in half a dozen different transformations at this description of the powerful Azingloriax warrior.
“Little?” Asturbar hooted.
“Compared to me, you are a gnat – one of those emotional insect things you introduced me to before,” the great Dragoness noted drolly. “My scale mites would gladly breakfast upon you.”
“I’m sure you could find use for him as a tooth polisher, Leandrial,” Zip suggested.
With a mighty guffaw, Leandrial shot back, “What a fine idea! Perhaps Fra’anior’s notion of Human servants might yet find its place in the new order North of the Rift. Now for a little scraping and crawling on my part … Yiisuriel left the margins rather narrow.”
Ardan made a show of looking up and down as he and Aranya sailed easily through the gap.
The Shapeshifter pair drew ahead as Leandrial slowed, grunting and growling irritably as she forced her body through. Her back scraped against the ceiling with a sound like claws upon slate, while her belly-armour made light of the jagged rocks, metal stanchions and even whole Islands beneath. She quarried irritably with her talons and soon deployed her light cannon, driving back the darkness in the tunnel. The meriatonium was a matte-sable colour, absorbing all light – Zuziana realised that without their own source of light, they would see absolutely nothing for hundreds of leagues. The effect was eerie; unlike a proper night sky, even a stormy one.
Then, momentarily through Ardan’s eyes, she saw the Amethyst Dragoness agleam with her inner light. Zip’s heart felt as if it squeezed within her chest. A psychosomatic sensation, she knew, but the feelings were real enough. Finding Iridiana had changed her fri
end fundamentally. Aranya was so predisposed to frightening levels of focus, she sometimes tied herself up in insoluble knots. Lump upon that her failure to stop the Thoralians – no-one, not even Fra’anior, could be harder on the Immadian Princess than herself. Duty and responsibility loomed like Ancient Dragons in her life, colouring everything. Thus, it was a delight to see her shining. To see the hope that gleamed in her eyes and radiated from her countenance when she gazed upon Ardan or Iridiana. To hear the lilt in her hostess’ voice. To sense even in some small measure the redemption of the evil the Thoralians had inflicted upon her … it was thrilling.
Zip treasured these moments. This was what instilled hope in her own soul. Hope for a brighter, starrier future – she chuckled inaudibly. Feet on the Isle, Remoy! Now, how did Dragonflight defy gravity? Surely to wing fifty tonnes of fire and brimstone through the air required something more than ordinary physics?
Somewhere, there must be a clue.
Fra’anior had no wings, but he could fly in his own storm. Maybe she could encourage Aranya to copy her mighty grand-storm? No air up there, however. How far could they fly without air? Even Shadowed by Ardan’s power they had to live on something, didn’t they?
It felt so heart-warming to have their noses firmly pointed to the North, at long last. Maybe one day soon, she could plan to take Ri’arion to Remoy again. King Lorman and her mothers could hold a few precious bundles between them. Maybe she could dare to imagine a place to call home, far from war and strife and endless death.
That was what she longed for most of all.
* * * *
The Dragon’s share of three days later, Aranya saw what Leandrial had already detected from afar – the literal light at the end of the tunnel. She also saw what she had feared.
“Looks like there used to be a bridge out into the Rift,” Ardan observed.
“Aye,” Aranya sighed. “Leandrial, we’ll scout as agreed and send the data back to Yiisuriel. Above all else, as she comes down this final slope, she mustn’t start sliding. That would be disastrous. How deep do you think it goes?”
“Deep,” the Dragoness rumbled.
