by Marc Secchia
“Good point.”
Helpful at this juncture not to mention quite how deeply he had been sleeping.
“To be honest, I really thought a tiger wouldn’t come within a mile of Dragon. The tiger’s the stupid one around here!”
“Followed by a second, equally excellent point. I hereby retract the adverb.”
“You are a lucky Dragon.”
“That I am.”
She blushed at his tone. “Stop that. Better still, save it for Aria.”
“She’d braid four leaves into a garrotte and murder me.”
“A third point, far more excellent than the previous two,” the profoundly wise and perceptive Princess pointed out. Narrowing her eyes, she said, “You were sleeping with one eye open a crack as you told me you always do, right?”
By his sire’s egg, she knew him far too well.
“Ahem –”
“Dragon! You …”
“I am embarrassed and deeply apologetic, Azania.”
“Apology accepted.” She blew on her meal to cool it. “For that, I graciously permit you to bear the royal personage unto the Kingdom of Mornine.”
“It shall so be done, and even with my eyes open.”
“Wings outspread?”
“Don’t push your luck, Princess.”
Flying at sensible times of the day and night, Dragon and Princess made mincemeat of the miles to Mornine. They practised island-hopping, flying as directly as possible between Fara’ane and their destination without taking the ever so slightly longer coastal curve. Their aim was a tiny island off the northernmost tip of Mornine, which Aria had clearly marked on her diagram as the launching point for her epic ocean-crossing feat.
From there, Aria had made two shorter hops before braving the perilous eight-hour unbroken stint that would land them on a tiny reef literally in the middle of nowhere. Then, a longer and a shorter hop should bring them safely to the lowest talon of Vaylarn Archipelago. Dragon recited the times in his head. Three, four, eight, five, three, two. Just over a full day on the wing, not counting the rest stops. A mere three hundred and fifty miles across fickle, windswept oceans infested with Sea Serpents.
One mistake … aye, better not be thinking that way.
Feeling strong! Gnarr!
The crucial part would be to find that tiny reef during daylight hours and at the start of the low tide phase, giving him enough time to recover before the next stint. Oh, and plead with the weather gods for perfect conditions. If a sea squall blew up, they might need to make a very quick decision to turn back or press on.
The final island on the sensible side of the mad crossing was a dry, low mound of sparse grass crowned with four copses of towering coconut palms. Pristine turquoise waters lapped upon white beaches. This was a foretaste of the Archipelago. Dragon understood that the climate up there was tropical, but the soils on the whole were not overly fertile. Aria had spoken about the King’s programmes to invest in soil conservation and enrichment, which were starting to bear fruit – literally. Tough climate and salty, sandy soils with little loam, however. Until the Sea Serpents had taken over, they had even been experimenting with importing compost from Hamirythe and Thobe.
The Isles Dragons had previously lived mostly off fishing. That was now far more dangerous. How were they coping? Speaking from a wealth of first-paw experience, hungry Dragons were not nice Dragons.
Nor were impatient ones.
Unfortunately, as they waited and rested from midmorning until their expected mid-afternoon departure, the northern skies began to darken. First, an artist’s smudge along the horizon with a piece of coal. Then came a freshening breeze. Over the course of several hours, the horizon turned a fetching version of gloomy green-black.
“You couldn’t pay me to fly into that,” Azania observed.
“No, and besides, your ransom is far too valuable to consider tossing you into that storm.”
“Did you have to bring up that old nugget?”
“Sorry. Any better ideas?”
“How’s about we go terrify the local populace into giving us a sheltered place to sleep?”
“Wicked music to a Dragon’s devious hearts,” he purred, screwing up his muzzle into the most terrible expression he could manufacture.
“Oh, something stuck between your fangs. Hold on.” Using the tip of her talon dagger, Azania extracted the offending strip of venison. “Phew, that’s been there a few days. Dragon, before you meet that frisky cobalt assassin, we need to talk about your nasty bachelor habits –”
“Nasty bachelor – WHAT?”
“Look, speaking as the only female with the gumption to tell you the truth straight to your face – but not that straight,” she said, ducking to one side of his jaw, “your breath just now, Dragon, does have a certain sewer-special bouquet about it. Last week’s buried bones, and all –”
GNARRGGHHH!!
Fire spurted involuntarily out of his mouth. That … pest!
Stepping back because of the heat, the Princess said, “Is that the way Dragons clean their teeth and throats? I can smell roast meat for certain. Do you have to swish the fire around a bit? Gargle fire?”
He growled, “I don’t actually … know.”
“Give it a whirl.” He glared at her. “Alright, a swirl. Better? Look, you’d rather I told you, wouldn’t you? Here, let me hold your big old paw and you follow my lead, alright, Dragon?”
Now Human baby talk? The Princess had the gall to take a swig out of her water bottle and show him how it was done! After that, immediately on to wondering how big a toothpick a Dragon would require, and where he could find a mirror to work with?
He prodded her thigh. “Sharpen this thigh bone, shall I? Looks about the right size.”
Azania chortled, “Hint taken. I’ll start packing.”
Putting on his own baby voice, Dragon cooed, “Here, let me hold your sweet little hand and I’ll just lead you inside here, alright, Princess? You just keep going down this nice tunnel until you find my stomach –”
“Dragon! Get off.”
“Don’t you want to check my fangs from the inside?”
“Not overly. Although, in a pinch, I guess your mouth might make a pretty sneaky hiding place. As long as it doesn’t get too warm in there.”
“Couldn’t imagine us having to do that,” he said. “Righto, let’s be on our way. My terrible Princess wants to terrify another poor, innocent city. That sounds much nicer than waiting out here for that storm to blast and inundate us.”
* * * *
Mornine must once have been a thriving community, but now it showed every sign of dilapidation. Peeling paint. Warehouses left to go to ruin. A large port deserted; the fleet had all been drawn up onto sandbanks higher up the river mouth which the town straddled, and the river blocked with nets. The hulks rotted and rusted up there. Hardly any vessels looked seaworthy. Along the port’s main quay, where they landed, old fishermen sat around, telling stories everyone had heard a hundred times before.
Had they needed any further proof of the devastating impact of the Sea Serpent invasion on the coastal trade, Mornine’s bedraggled air was more than enough. It had the air of a mildly confused elderly gentleman wondering how the world had changed while he was not paying attention.
He and Princess Azania wandered up to the ruler’s mansion to cash in her royal ticket to a free lunch in whatever kingdom they visited.
Handy skill.
King Jos Mandar Umalitran tar-Dane, Sovereign of the North and various other titles that he waved his long, thin fingers rudely at, was a non-standard fellow in his own right. He was as skinny as a reed, touching six feet and eight inches tall, had a piratical peg leg and but one eye, but appeared to be as jolly a fellow as they had ever met. He and Gangbuster the Crusher would get on famously. He also nursed a long-running feud with the Terror Clan Dragons, which meant they were destined to be the best of friends, he opined.
“Miserable weather for two days, and then m
ixed after that, lass,” he boomed, waving a drumstick of some unfortunate fowl in Azania’s direction. “You might be dodging squalls up North, my old bones tell me. And these bones never lie.”
“How long before the weather settles down?” Dragon asked from his position on the balcony alongside the King’s dining hall. Despite his startling thinness, this was clearly the ruler’s favourite place in the entire kingdom, and perhaps in the world.
He sniffed the air. “Couple of weeks. Say, big fellow like you, you don’t want to go burn out a few Terror Clan lairs while you’re about it?”
“There’s reason for haste,” he said. “We’d like to meet the Sea Dragon migration if we can, o King.”
“Ah,” said he.
Dragon sniffed the tenor of his emotions.
Far more to this carousing King than he let on, wasn’t there? Azania’s eyes touched his briefly. She might not have outright magical senses, but this feminine intuition she spoke about stopped up that gap in ways he had yet to fathom, but greatly admired.
The Princess said, “O King, we’d value your advice. I will tell you of our own discoveries relating to the Terror Clan and our desire to restore the old migration path, if you would share your wisdom as an old salt –” Dragon blinked at her phrasing, before he realised from context it must be something to do with this man having been a mariner “– regarding the behaviour of the tides and the weather.”
Raising his goblet of wine in salute, the King said, “I appreciate your candour, Ambassador, especially refreshing in a murky world of kingdom politics. If the Sea Dragon migration could be restored, that would mean everything to us.”
She smiled. “So I understand. I had no idea things had become so bad.”
“Aye, that it has, lass. Now, let’s speak, and eat. More wine?”
“No thank you, lest this Princess disgrace herself by sliding beneath your well-stocked table. Meat, Dragon?”
“More fowl would be fair,” said he.
“Ah, I cackle at such jokes,” Jos said, producing a very fine example of a deafening cackle.
Dragon bowed and said, “Most pheasant of you to say so, o King.”
They spoke for a long time. King Jos promised to raise an army in support of T’nagru if she and Dragon promised to speak to their kin about the Terror Clan’s depredations. They regularly raided all the Human Kingdoms around the great bay area south and west of the Terror Isles – Mornine, Barine, Hulbine, Onyxil and Ermine. From his description, Dragon realised that the Terrors might well be more powerful and numerous than his own Devastator Clan. How did they thrive so well?
The King drank like a fish but never grew drunk. Azania soon gave up on even pretending to sip at the rich, heady red vintage he pressed upon her, and moved to fruit juices.
As the storm swept in, bringing moaning winds and thunderous rain, Jos finally came around to the point he had hinted at regarding the tides. He said, “If you want to be up north in time for the migration – if that’s where it is these days, north again of the Archipelago - you have three days in this long lunar cycle. You will be landing somewhere on a reef, I assume?”
“I apologise, but the exact route is not our secret to share,” Azania said.
“No problem. But it’s a low landing, hence the timing of your journey?” the King said, sharp as a brass tack. When they nodded, he picked up a ripe orange and said, “Let me illustrate it to you this way. Imagine this fruit is the world. My right hand shows our two suns and three moons. As you know, the tides are affected by the complex actions of these bodies as the moons orbit our world, and we move around the binary sun – at least, according to accepted theories first developed by Dragon astronomers over four centuries ago.”
“When the suns and moons all line up, it’s like gravity squeezes the fruit – so – causing it to bulge and flex. Extra-high tide, extra-low tide. When the moons and suns are more separated, the effects can cancel one another out and create periods of much more even tides, but if you keep your eye upon this orange I am slowly pulverising, you’ll notice that those tides are not as low as the lowest tides. A low reef might be permanently covered over during such a time.”
“Aha,” Dragon purred.
Jos said, “To the point. What you need to know is that the tidal almanac you are following, is also subject to an eleven-year cycle. Setting aside all the complexity, over the next three days you will enjoy the benefit of the lowest low tides and not very strong high tides. After that, despite what your almanac says, we pass immediately into a season of unusual medium tides – the eleven-year tide change. I’d estimate the general ocean level will remain as much as seven feet higher than normal even during a standard spring low tide. That will last for a period of ten weeks.”
Azania raised her eyebrows. So, Aria had either been very fortunate or very smart.
“I’d assume the Archipelago will be cut off even by air for this season,” he added, in case there was any uncertainty about his advice.
The Princess rose to offer a graceful desert genuflection. “Thank you, o King. Aye, the mid-landing is very low indeed. Two feet above sea level at low tide. And tiny, according to our records.”
He said, “Best to search for that spot during the daylight hours. The storm will ensure there’s no nocturnal phosphorescence for at least a few days – but you may very well be able to see the disturbance effect of even a small reef from a height, for a distance of miles. Look for colour and pattern changes on the surface. And lastly, I should advise you that Sea Dragons and Sea Serpents ride out storms by going deep. If you’re in trouble in a squall, consider landing and swimming for it. Dragons are very good swimmers and you’re unlikely to be bothered by Serpents in rough conditions.”
Toasting Dragon with his goblet one more time, he said, “Especially white Dragons.”
* * * *
Mid-afternoon two days later, the storm scooted away as if chased off by a bigger, more terrible foe. It left pristine azure skies in its wake, but also choppy, troubled waters. Jos had warned of unexpected tidal maelstroms developing as the medium-calm period asserted itself.
Truly, who thought this crossing was a good idea?
Back upon that last, most northerly islet off Mornine, they saw how the tides must have inundated the land and carried off many coconuts. Azania cut one open and tried the milk inside.
“It’s good,” she reported.
“Hmm, tasty,” Dragon agreed, after tossing his half down the hatch.
“Glutton.”
“Need to keep my strength up,” he said, stretching his wings carefully. “Ready for this?”
She drew an instrument out of her bag. “Ready once I set this up. Believe it or not, I almost forgot we had it.”
“What is that?”
“A Hariskon Celestial Navigator,” she said. “This is the most accurate and reliable navigation instrument ever developed by mankind – actually, in collaboration with Dragons, I believe. It is also Yarimda’s gift to us.”
“I thought they had all been lost? The art of making these … it’s magical!”
“If you say so,” the Princess said blandly, causing generations of Dragon scientists to turn over in their graves at her crass attitude. “Alright. Let’s see what it does.”
“Thank you, Yarimda,” he whispered to the ocean.
Having affixed a fist-sized red gemstone atop a short silver metal staff furnished with Dragon-like claws that gripped facets of the gemstone, she fiddled with the buttons and knobs running the length of the hand grip. As a slight hum emanated from the instrument, Dragon’s scales prickled. The red colour drained out of the gemstone, leaving the image of a compass suspended inside the clear crystal. It hummed again as it calibrated itself, detecting the suns and moons. Magnetic and true north appeared in tiny script; next, representations of the two suns and the moons.
“Should change automatically to reading the stars at night,” she muttered, holding the handle close to her eyes so that she could r
ead the dials. “Let me get the first leg set … forty-three point two degrees north of west, to the two pimples –”
“The what?” he snorted.
“Our first major stop is called the two pimples, Jos told me. Volcanic islands –”
He groaned, “Volcanic? Now you tell me?”
“One is dormant. The other … less so, shall we say? It oozes constantly.”
“Ooh, do you have to stoop so low?”
“Weak stomach, Dragon?”
They peered together at the tiny display. He said, “I wish it could be larger – oh!”
“Nice feature,” said the Princess. “Slightly smaller, please?”
The display adjusted again.
“They certainly don’t make them like this anymore!” he said feelingly.
“Too right. I’m ready now, Dragon.” As he punched off the sand with the girl clinging to his neck, he heard her whisper, “Be with us, destiny. Bring us safely to Azerim and Aria.”
With his speed and power, Dragon knew he would be able to compress Aria’s flying times on the first stretch. Rather than taking the longer route with the extra hop she had been forced to employ, they set off directly for the memorably named pimples. Due to the constant lava flow, the glow and smoke should make it an unmissable target even during the dead of night. Good in theory. The Princess stiffly dismissed Dragon’s needling about Human attitudes toward hot squeezable pimples and other puberty-related bodily delights.
“Royalty knows nothing about such sordid topics,” she fibbed – royally. “A hair to your left nostril, Dragon.”
“What kind of directions are those?” he grumbled.
“Amusing ones.”
Provocative. “I’m glad we’re amusing ourselves back there, Princess.”
“Just remember who sits upon whom in this relationship, Dragon. I’m staging a coup.”
“The seating arrangement can always be switched around.”
“Have I told you recently how wonderful, strong, handsome, noble, powerful, fiery, ferocious, majestic and intelligent you are?”
