by Marc Secchia
Ardan bit his lip. Huaricithe will lead the strike force?
Yes. You will be in no fit shape to fly for several days, noble Shadow, said she. I persuaded the Shapeshifter that commerce across the Rift might become a moot point should the Island-World be annihilated by these Shao’lûkayn. Huaricithe accepted my point graciously.
And negotiated for …
Yiisuriel’s laughter came booming down the tunnel from what Ardan belatedly realised must be a great distance. Where exactly was he, he wondered? She replied, Huaricithe sought reassurances few were willing to grant at this juncture. There is a time and a place for seeking advantage. That is not now. So, Shadow, ready to pick your strike force?
He shifted uncomfortably. May I speak in the Star Dragoness’ name? As in, cut through all the ridiculous politics and hurry this along?
That would be wise indeed, Yiisuriel approved.
Could a mountain smile? She might.
Chapter 26: Reunited, I Depart
CHAOS HAD AN interesting method of working on problems. Aranya would have gone about systematically examining the vectors and testing them in a logical fashion. As best she could tell, her sister was fighting Infurion’s trap sixteen different ways at once, as her frustration-fuelled Chaotic manifestations filled their prison with dracofauna, dracoflora and more esoteric fire- based forms, never mind those she simply did not recognise at all. Iridiana exploded, attacked, fizzed, flapped, slapped, spat, head-butted, gnawed, sawed and tore at their prison, thus far without any visible effect.
She took multitasking to the extreme, even for a woman.
Must run in the family.
Finally, Aranya sought to calm her down. “Iridiana. Iridiana, look. That’s Fra’anior Cluster ahead.”
She turned into a panting dragonet with six glistening insectoid wings. “Is that … oh, wow! Now there’s a volcano worthy of the name.” Nyahi peered ahead hungrily. “You told me about its size and all, but words just don’t do it justice. Aranya, do you think our father will be there?”
“Almost certainly.”
“And this man Nak, and Oyda, who helped you –”
“Nak? Sent him –” The Pygmy girl moaned in Aranya’s paw, before her voice unexpectedly rose to a shriek, “Nak! No! Where’s – who – what is this? Let me go!”
In a flash she transformed into a tiny but feisty Dragoness-beauty of Fra’anior’s exact colouration. Aranya had never seen her like. Pure onyx. Deep and gleaming and beautiful, like a night sky condensed into draconic form.
“Pip? It is Pip, isn’t it?”
Madness inflamed her eyes as the Dragoness instinctively tried to wing away but found herself constrained by their prison. Her slender neck thrashed from side to side. “Why are you holding me? Who are you? Where’s Nak?”
Aranya said, “Calm down, Pip –”
“Calm? Why?” she spat. “Where is everyone? Who – where are we? What’s that noise?”
“You’ve been inside the Egg for a hundred and fifty years, Pip. You need to understand – he’s old and –”
The Dragoness’ eyes bulged. “Liar!”
“Me? I’m telling the truth. I’m Aranya, Princess of Immadia, and this is –”
“Liar! You’re one of Re’akka’s stooges! Where’s my Silver? Where is he? How dare – how – w-what is this p-place?” Fire dribbled from her lower lip as the Pygmy Dragoness flicked her eyes this way and that. “Let me go – let me go!”
“Pip, please –”
FIENDS!! roared Pip.
They scrambled about in the small space afforded them by Infurion’s construct. Aranya was trying to explain what had happened, but Pip kept interrupting, roaring and champing as she backed up against the far side of their fire bubble, which kept her no more than ten feet from Aranya. She was clearly on the verge of going feral. Abruptly the Onyx Dragoness pounced upon the Immadian with a low snarl, but Iridiana sizzled across her muzzle in an attempt to divert the attack. Pip jinked and drove in hard, punching Aranya in the flank multiple times before the Star managed to wrestle her off, trying to infuse healing power into the Dragoness simultaneously. Bad idea.
“Stop it! We’re friends, you idiot.”
GNARRR!
She didn’t want to hurt Pip. Aranya shouted, “Nak and Oyda are our – holy Fra’anior!”
She clutched her left eye in disbelief. Pip had punched her so hard and fast, she had not even seen the blow coming – but it was like being struck by Fra’anior himself. Her strength! Her head rang like a gong.
Dazed, Aranya was still busy blinking and trying to see out of that eye when Iridiana and the Pygmy tangled in a blur of fangs, snapping and snarling and pummelling each other furiously. Sister to the rescue! Afraid that the Pygmy would tear Iridiana apart with her extraordinary strength, she waded in too and clobbered Pip across their fiery bubble repeatedly with left-right fist combinations until the Dragoness rattled back and forth like a pebble in a gourd shaker. Even though she had clearly been weakened by her long incarceration, Pip rammed them both backward and belted Iridiana across the lip, splitting it open like a ripe prekki-fruit.
She was cute, even when she was in a foul mood. Nothing like waking with a headache one hundred and fifty years in the making, she supposed – worst migraine ever!
“Where’s Nak?” roared the Pygmy, bruising Aranya’s ribs.
“He’s at Fra’anior Cluster, you prize ralti sheep!” the Amethyst Dragoness yelled back, clouting her open-pawed across the ear canals so hard that the Pygmy Dragoness spun about four times and landed in a heap on the bottom of their flying ovoid.
The scorching of Earthen Fires against her scales galvanised Pip. She came back swinging madly, still dribbling the fire with which she was trying to immolate Aranya and Iridiana, crying, “Nak – is – not – old!”
“He’s ancient but alive!” Aranya defended herself with compact attention. “It’s been years, Pip! Decades. The Egg was lost far, far under the Cloudlands.”
“I’m not – I can’t –”
“Ouch! You little harridan!” Nyahi squealed as Pip ripped at her flower stems. “Take that!”
The Pygmy Dragoness vanished inside what appeared to be a metal ball.
Aranya wiped her forehead with the back of her paw, forgetting that Dragons did not actually sweat. “Great leaping Islands, she’s a lively one. I’m going to have such a black eye.”
Clang! Dong! resounded inside the ball. Aranya did not want Iridiana to be dented from the inside, because she had first-paw experience of what that little spit-fire could do. Pip would take on Gangurtharr or Asturbar in a wrestling match, of that she had no doubt.
Magic flared. Be free!
A Word of Command! Aranya saw Iridiana snap into being outside the fire bubble before the raging wind ripped her away. What?
* * * *
Pip stared at Aranya. Aranya stared at Pip.
Then, the Onyx Dragoness seemed to slump in slow motion. To her shock, Sapphire stood on Pip’s back! With a triumphant trill and a gurgling laugh, she said, Dragon finished greeting my Ari? Nice Ari! Nice Pip! Be friends, yes-yes? So funny.
Pip just looked shocked. “That was supposed to – to –”
“Iridiana’s chaotic. She’s pure Chaos magic,” Aranya panted, keyed up and ready for the Pygmy to start swinging again. “What did you do to her?”
“I … Nak’s alive?”
“Aye.”
“Oyda?”
“Aye, Pip. But they are old. I’m sorry. I tell you no falsehoods – you’ve no idea where the First Egg has been, or where it is now.” Aranya sighed, gentling her voice. “Look, in my time you’re a legend. I’m sorry, but that’s the way the rainbows intersect. We need you, Pip. We are friends – we can be friends, if you want. We’re definitely allies! The same Marshal you faced in those days is still alive now – aye! I can explain, if you’d just stop hitting me.”
Simmering with battle nerves, the Dragonesses circled the bubble slowly, each
watching the other narrowly. Aranya felt her wingtips flick humorously as she began to see the amusing side of their altercation. Didn’t her best friendships always start like this? For her part, Pip appeared to be fighting a twitch that kept tweaking the corners of her mouth upward. But she still had a feisty glint in her eye Aranya recognised from a mirror, when she was fired up. Aye.
Gruffly, the much smaller Dragoness said, “Do you yield, Aranya?”
“Yield? Not a chance. You?”
“Never.”
“Keep fighting?”
The twitch was winning the battle. “Seems somewhat … silly.”
“Like a pair of felines squabbling over meat scraps silly?” Aranya suggested, also failing to fight off a smile.
Pip whispered, “Well, if Nak will vouch for you … leaping lizards. Did you say you were a Princess? I’m a girl from a jungle. How are we ever supposed to be friends?” The Onyx Dragoness was wilting visibly now, her speech coming slower and fainter. “I … I just …”
“Let me help you,” Aranya offered, extending her forepaws in a peaceable gesture. “I’m not a complete icicle from the North, and I’m not a whole lot older than you, I don’t think.”
“You’re the amenable sort of royalty?”
“You’re always this contrary? Now, new friend –” she grinned at Pip, trying to hide her annoyance at her throbbing eye “– we’ve a great deal to accomplish in a short space of time.”
“I’m not finished yet. What about that spirit girl – did she take my place?”
“That’s Zuziana. Long story. Aye, my best friend took your place, and that’s why you’re going to help us, or so help me, jungle girl alias cutesy pestiferous back-chatter, I shall summon Fra’anior himself to belt some common Isles sense into your stubborn little head!”
Pip scowled. “I am not cute!”
“You so are.”
“Besides, Fra’anior called me the child of his spirit, so, Miss Snooty, you can just shove all your galumphing high-and-mightiness back up your left nostril!”
“Well, I’m his actual granddaughter. And so you can just – whatever – with your stinky … attitude!”
Aargh, she was so terrible with insults!
They were back to spitting dagger-fangs at each other when Aranya spied in the corner of her eye a mauve blur incoming from astern. She crowed, “Iridiana! Look, she’s coming back.”
Pip chuckled, “That crazy – say, do you know how much you two look alike as Dragonesses?”
“She’s my twin –”
Three words were all Aranya could manage before a sparkling, purple comet of fury plucked up Infurion’s fiery prison bubble and seared across the late afternoon skies toward the towering ramparts of Fra’anior Cluster. The great cliffs, tufted with green like a boy’s unruly hairstyle upon waking, appeared to crawl skyward from their perspective, for they were making an even greater speed than before under Iridiana’s impetus.
As they arrowed toward Fra’anior Cluster, the shimmering river of silver-lilac motes that collectively described this current form of hers attacked Infurion’s magic with monomaniacal purpose. Clearly, Iridiana had chosen a manifestation which was impervious or at least highly resistant to disruption, for her attacks at last began to make headway. To Aranya’s heightened perception, her sister’s magic was like an army of tiny, ravening maws that slipped in and around the smoky veils of Earthen Fires magic and began to unravel them at the most fundamental level. The constructs could not recover in time. Iridiana chewed up dozens of threads and isolated nodes at a furious rate, seeming to spit and seethe to rid herself of some taint or influence before she continued unabated. The gnashing maws rent holes in the fabric of Infurion’s power like silverfish decimating clothing left too long unprotected in a drawer. The structures weakened. Frayed. Ripped!
A wall of wind greeted the group within, but Aranya was prepared. Popping up an impeccably designed aerodynamic shield, she chuckled in wonder as their extreme speed caused the front edge to start glowing orange.
Iridiana!
Aranya!
They would have wing-slapped, but had to settle for lilac, sparkling motes bobbing eagerly around Aranya’s wingtip. Nice work, sister. Look, Pip’s recovered!
Nyahi said, She’s unconscious, Aranya.
Oh. That’s awkward.
* * * *
Zuziana supposed the decent thing to do would be to actually die, for a change. She was so bored that death was a sore temptation, but fate apparently had other plans for stray Remoyan Princesses. She had tried. Death simply would not have her.
Was she too snarky? Too disobedient? Too rash?
Her father King Lorman used to say it was unwise to tempt fate too often. She had better stop counting the occasions, just in case.
She looked about for the umpteenth time. Nothing had changed. She floated in an upright position in an apparently endless place that consisted of white, cloudlike fluff – as best she could describe clouds that were at once somewhat cloudy without being cloudy enough. Her surrounds were featureless, odourless, yielded slightly to her movements, allowed visibility up to perhaps a dozen feet, and were a billion leagues more boring than the most tedious of Leandrial’s stories. Nothing happened. Nothing! There was no sound. No movement. And apparently – most peculiar of all – there was no sense of magic despite her indwelling the most powerful magical treasure ever known.
Fate of the Island-World? All-disrupting, illimitable font of magical energy? She would die of boredom first. The problem was that the rest of the planet would perish shortly after. That bothered her to action. Any action was better than none.
Was she being watched?
Zip turned a full circle – at least, what she thought was a full circle. Since the terrain was unchanging, she could not exactly tell save for her Dragon senses. She saw nothing.
Well, there was nothing for it. She would walk or float or swim. Whatever it took. Somewhere in this place there must be something, hopefully of the size and nature of an inhabited volcano and its denizens, or an Ancient Dragon … eggling? She was not certain. Surely she would have detected another draconic presence, especially one so humongously, mind-bendingly powerful as even a baby Fra’anior? Even if she walked in circles, she had nothing better to do. Scholars believed that these Eggs slowed down time within, allowing Dragons to travel between the stars. If so, she had approximately an eternity at her disposal.
Her babies needed their daddy.
These lost people and Dragons needed to be rebirthed. That said, giving birth to a volcano was not an image on which a pregnant woman might wish to dwell.
Zuziana made a silly face to cheer herself up. “Ew.”
She drifted further into the endless clouds, searching for answers.
* * * *
Fra’anior Cluster seemed to swell with increasing speed the nearer they drew to the famous volcano. The velocity was insane. Aranya had only ever approached Islands at a fraction of this speed. Iridiana was laughing as she played around inside the burning shield, which left a vapour and smoke trail in their wake as they hurtled toward a rim-wall gap. That was the only safe approach, Aranya deduced. She did not want to risk slowing too fast or changing their heading by more than fractions of a compass point at a time.
Sapphire chirped, Dragons come.
Aye! said Aranya. Indeed, there was a Dragon watch around the Cluster now. What would they make of this brazen assault?
This evening the Cloudlands surrounding the league-tall basaltic ramparts glowed golden in the setting suns, and the usually dark cliffs were burnished to a fine cupric sheen, making the rock resemble metals smelting in a furnace. The particle- and pollen-rich air caused the ambient light to diffract and diffuse spectacularly, creating a many-splendoured coronet over the inhabited rim Islands, especially over Ha’athior where a localised thunderstorm exhibited both stormy darkness and cheerful rainbows at its edges. Aranya pointed out and named the major Islands for Iridiana. The dragonets w
ere also all awake now in her paw, and were making a suitably sage-sounding background chorus of chirrups and draconic purrs as she described the wonders of Fra’anior. They would not slow in time to visit the Palace, where she suspected King Beran might be located, but there also might be precedent for him having taken up residence at Gi’ishior’s Halls of the Dragons – if he had not already departed for Immadia.
Would he have brought Silha and the boys here?
A Dragonwing of a dozen Reds and Greens powered aloft from Ha’athior Island at the south-westerly corner of the Cluster, approaching diagonally from their left flank to intercept the intruders. Perhaps they misjudged the speed of approach. Aranya thought she might recognise a few of their number from amongst those Shapeshifters they had rescued from the caverns beneath Yorbik Island.
“I hope they don’t get into our airspace,” Iridiana worried as she pitched her voice over the low rumbling of their flight, voicing Aranya’s thoughts. “Shouldn’t we slow down?”
“I plan to find Dad – fast.”
“Can we talk about this?” Her sister flickered nervously through four forms as the Dragonwing fanned out.
“Tell you what, we’ll wave nicely as we rocket by.”
A frilly-winged pink dragonet with tourmaline edging on her scales peered suspiciously at the Amethyst Dragoness. “Exactly who am I speaking to? Aranya is always modelling the best behaviour. Aranya does not do mischief. Sapphire?”
Me? squeaked the other dragonet in affronted surprise. Not me, Iri!
“We have already decelerated considerably,” Aranya pointed out, “which is the reason for my heat suppression constructs. Now, may I elucidate –”
Iridiana’s head twizzled about. Four miles and closing. “How speedily we’re hurtling toward a deadly collision?”
“Not so.”
“Aranya!”
“Watch and learn.”
“Ooh, I’m not sure you’re my favourite sister anymore.”
“I’m your only sister. Hence, my favourite status is assured.”
