Shadow Dragon

by Marc Secchia

  “A trail,” said Yolathion, pointing. “Look.”

  “Right.” How had she missed that?

  Aranya scanned the trail from a hundred feet offshore. “Fresh pony tracks, Yolathion. I sense this is the cave we should check.”

  “If there’s a Dragon in there, those ponies would’ve been eaten.”

  Aranya flared her wings, bringing them in for a landing on the narrow ledge. “Let’s go sniff around the entrance.”

  * * * *

  He heard the creatures before he saw them. The beast retreated deeper into the cavern, suddenly still, his senses suddenly prickling with readiness. Invaders, in his domain! Careful. One out there had hunting skills akin to his own. A slight scratching of claws on rock, the way the creature sniffed the air–it put him on edge. The air currents were flowing the wrong way for him to detect any scent, but that creature must surely sense his presence.

  He could not escape this cavern. But his belly was full. He had no need to hunt, unless those stupid creatures came to disturb him.

  To his amazement, he heard the two creatures slowly approaching along the narrow tunnel which led to the bright place, the place which hurt his eyes. They must be incredibly rash. And blind, because they carried their own light. There was a big one and a smaller one. The big one had a metal stick with him, while the smaller one with the strange multi-coloured pelt on its back, carried nothing. The big one moved as though he intended to protect the little one. That tiny metal stick against his great clawed feet? Silent, murderous laughter flooded his hearts.

  The beast held his breath. He willed his hearts to slow, to beat softly, so as not to alarm them even by the smallest sound. The two hairless worms entered the cavern where he hid, holding up the light and peering about them as though they saw only darkness. They exchanged sounds. Perhaps they had some rudimentary intelligence?

  The creature paused as he considered this. Odd how this thought resonated within his being. Until now he had thought only of food and sleep, and his frustration at being unable to find any exit from the cavern. But these pathetic creatures with their skin coverings entered with ease.

  His muscles trembled in readiness. Which one of them was the hunter? He sniffed the air.

  The little one froze.

  Without thinking, the beast reached out his paw and swatted the bigger of the two creatures aside. He slammed into the tunnel wall, his limb crooked beneath him at an odd angle. He lay unmoving. The little creature made a sound like the cries of the great birds he had heard outside, but it ran on spindly legs toward his upraised wing. Attacking him? Surprise froze him for a moment.

  Right, he’d crush the life out of this one, too.

  Colours and light smote his gaze. The beast howled, blinking furiously. The little thing was gone. In its place stood the most glorious beast in all creation, one who smelled familiar yet as different to him as the moons were from the stars. The aroma of it–her, he realised–was a heady perfume, a singing in all his senses. At once, frenzied emotions pooled thickly in his throat. His muzzle lowered instinctively, his prodigious chest puffed out and his wings flared, displaying his full hundred-and-ten foot wingspan. He overshadowed her with his muscular bulk, making her tremble violently as she retreated, amethyst eyes wide-agleam, drinking in the sight of this creature who confronted her.

  A low crooning burbled from his throat. She was lithe and slender, a dancing wisp eluding and enticing his understanding. He became acutely aware of the rapid throbbing of her hearts, of the dilation of her nostrils and the sinuous curve of her neck.

  With a roar, he mock-pounced at her. The Dragoness slipped aside with ghostly grace.

  Then she said, in a voice like a glissade of delight, What’s your name, o delicious Dragon? Ah, I mean …

  * * * *

  The greyish-black Dragon paused in his ritual to regard Aranya with eyes as depthless as the shadows that he slipped into and out of with such hypnotic ease. The idea of having a name seemed to have seized him by the throat.

  He coughed, I … Ardan. My name’s Ardan, I think.

  Aranya knew there was something important she was supposed to be telling him, but instead, all she could do was echo, Ardan?

  The male Dragon was monstrous. As an Amethyst Dragon she was smooth and sleek, whereas the spines growing from the base of his skull, and his neck-ruff, were up to four feet long. He was built like a Sylakian fortress, four-square and brawny. His lumpen shoulders clustered together behind his neck as though he had invited a brother Dragon to perch upon his back. Even his wing struts bulged with extra muscle, and the striations in his major flight muscles had to be five inches deep. Aranya was certain he would fly like a rock, or be able to bore his way through mountains just by chewing a tunnel with that rugged jaw of his.

  The beast called Ardan stalked her with unwavering curiosity. The Amethyst Dragoness found herself wondering what it might be like to be caught by this feral monster. She was faster than him, faster by far. But his sheer presence mesmerised her. All she desired was to shelter against his bulk and have his vast wing curve protectively over her body. His scent was the deep, enigmatic essence of a creature of shadow and dominion, the kind of scent the artist in Aranya imagined might be shared with starlight, incongruously conveying a hint of cinnamon and sulphur.

  Her hearts pulsated in her throat, chest and belly. This was not at all the encounter she had imagined with a feral Dragon. It was more perilous by far. He was breathtaking. Neither Garthion nor Harathion had affected her like this.

  Fright stoked her belly-fires to an almost unbearable pitch.

  Slinking forward upon his thick legs, the great predator asked, And thou, o delight of mine eyes? How shall I sing to thee?

  I’m c-called A-Aranya, she stammered, retreating again. P-Princess of Immadia.

  What is this Immadia?

  An Island far to the north of here, Ardan, she replied, finally remembering her mission. I came to get you out of this cave–

  Aranya yelped as he lunged at her. She leaped the wrong way, confused and sluggish, smashing into a solid stone column. In a flash and a flurry of wings, the dark Dragon was upon her. A cunning paw trapped her legs, flipping her onto her back. She growled, writhed, scrabbled at his hide in a frantic attempt to escape, but he slapped her muzzle and seized her with his paws. Then, Aranya gasped at the enormous upper-body strength of a fully-grown male Dragon as he pinned her to the cavern floor. Had an Island perched upon her chest, she could have been no less trapped.

  Stillness settled upon the cave, broken only by the thudding of many hearts as the Dragons’ gazes fused together–astonished, heated, turbulent. Was this a tightness in her chest, or had she forgotten how to breathe? Aranya suppressed the blue-hot fireball which had risen into the back of her throat, trying to tame her dread.

  If he had been feral, he was no longer.

  Did he not want to hurt her? Tear her limb from limb? The Dragon’s claws were unaccountably gentle upon her scales, and his great jaws did not gape open to rip holes in her hide. Could she still speak to him, she wondered? Reason with him? For what she perceived in his eyes was no longer hunger, but a volcano of emotions far more complex and wide-ranging than that.

  His gaze searched her soul.

  * * * *

  Ardan held the young Dragoness defenceless beneath his claws. He expected her to whimper in fear, but her frantic hearts-beat suddenly settled down. Her pupils were dilated and her throat worked against his paw, which could entirely encircle her slender neck, yet she was unafraid. What? She should tremble! Flame licked from his nostrils as he demanded, Why do you not cower before me?

  Aranya’s jewelled eyes contracted with amusement. Because I could destroy you before you blink.

  His muscles tensed. How dare his captive goad him? Then, the Dragon’s laughter thundered around the cavern, shaking loose sand and rocks from the ceiling, until he realised his convulsive grip was crushing her windpipe. He eased the pressure on her neck but d
id not uncurl his talons, nor did he relax his grip on her neck, the major wing bone of her left wing and her right hind leg above the knee. As though drawn by hypnosis, his gaze returned to her face.

  Oh, her Dragon eyes …

  Her magical gaze drew him in and disarmed him, as though her eyes hid a vertiginous drop to places unknown. Her fire whispered Dragonsong to his feverish senses, eliciting a surge of unforeseen tenderness. From a killing rage, to desire, to … this?

  Now, Ardan found that an inexplicable pressure in his mind held him captive. Her magic weaved melodies to enthral his soul. He held a star, her purity so dazzling and intense that he wanted to gaze at her forever, to weep in cleansing rivers at her beauty, only his Dragon form had forgotten how. The beast was erased, replaced by a creature who wondered who he truly was.

  She said, Do you have any idea what powers an Amethyst Dragon has?

  The Dragon released her wing to scratch his chin in a surprisingly Human-like gesture. Let me see … o pulchritudinous Princess of a place which doesn’t exist, you have beguiling eyes–

  I don’t exist?

  Instead of answering her, Dragon-Ardan cracked open his jaw. He wafted his inmost Dragon fire gently into her face.

  * * * *

  The world spun on its axis.

  As Aranya breathed in the male Dragon’s flame-vapour, she knew at once it was more than just Dragon fire, for it conveyed the quintessence of all that was Ardan–Shapeshifter, Dragon and man–a constellation of impressions, as if the dark Dragon’s personality and past had exploded inside her mind in a single instant, but communicated nuances and complexities a million-fold to her awareness. Aranya saw all things anew. The universe held new colours, dizzying, rapidly-expanding ripples of sensations never before imagined, world-shaking in their intensity, uncontainable.

  In that instant, all was lost.

  There was only one possible response. Aranya breathed her own fire over Ardan’s questing muzzle, putting all of her soul into it.

  The Dragon blinked in surprise. He drew a deep, shuddering breath, and she recognised that for him, the shock was as intense and omnipotent as it had been for her. His dark eyes became liquid, fiery pools of understanding. A low, throbbing song rose unbidden from the depths of his formidable chest, a song of flying together through moonlit nights and rubbing necks and resting side by side in warm, sandy caverns, a song of awe and adoration, almost worship.

  Fire swirled from her mouth, fire intermingled with Dragonsong. It rushed together into the form of a blazing jewel, filled with colours and magical essences, a jewel which pulsed with her inner life. He had never imagined a thing more precious.

  She said, Thou, Ardan, my soul’s eternal fire.

  As if she dwelled within that fiery jewel, Aranya found her spirit rushing into him, igniting all that it touched. She was the shivers running up and down his spine. Visions crowded into his mind, images of birth and battles and loving and running and laughing and weeping in the ashes of his beloved home Island. Was this her power? The power to unbind his past, yet to soothe and heal with an extraordinary, consuming love?

  She knew that he desired nothing more than to offer her his greatest treasure.

  He said, Thou, Aranya, my soul’s eternal fire.

  She breathed again of his secret fire, and crossed the unimaginable divide between two souls, yet suddenly, there was no divide. Ardan’s fire dwelled with her, as though she had grown a fourth heart … no, as though their souls were united, and all she had to do to know his presence, was to search within.

  His tongue flicked her neck-scales.

  The Dragon-fire spell broke. Human-Aranya remembered someone who had licked her palm, a perverted, loathsome beast of a man, who had been a Red Shapeshifter Dragon. That memory spun her out of Ardan’s ambit of passion into a cold, bleak place.

  She had freedom. She transformed.

  * * * *

  Lost in the depths of his reverent song, eyes heavy-lidded and mind adrift upon the winds of draconic romance, Ardan did not realise at first that the Amethyst Dragon had slipped from his grasp like prekki tree pollen blown away on the breeze. Her scent lingered in his nostrils. His sensitive scales and wing membranes thrilled to the pulse of her incomparable magic coursing through his body as a bone-deep vibration. Her eyes, her wonderful, bewitching eyes …

  She was gone? Vanished!

  A growl of discontent surged from his throat. He lifted first one forepaw, then the other, searching for what eluded him.

  The little creature was back! The strange thing with the glorious mane knelt next to the bigger two-legged creature, touching his neck even as he had just touched her … in his dream? He noticed that the creature had fresh wounds on her back and buttocks, which were beginning to heal.

  How dare she misbehave!

  With a fiery snarl, the male Dragon pounded across the chamber and snatched the little thing up.

  “Ardan,” she gasped. Ardan, please … don’t hurt me.

  His forepaw was so huge, it enveloped her body in its entirety. The little creature struggled feebly in his powerful grasp. But–his eyes bulged–her voice! He thundered, What is this?

  Please, listen to me. I am Aranya. I am both Dragon and Human. You are like me, Ardan.

  Fire roared out of his nostrils. You lie!

  Smell me and know me–but please, don’t burn me. I’m already hurt.

  The huge nostrils flared, ruffling her hair with a cavernous inhalation. He felt and heard her little heart fluttering like prey panicked at the first inkling of a Dragon’s awesome presence. But before he even breathed in her scent, Dragon-Ardan stared into the small amethyst eyes which had so entranced his soul, and knew the truth.

  How was it possible? His fist loosened slightly, but still curled possessively around her frail form.

  What have you done with her? He snorted a gust of Dragon fire, slightly aside from the little creature, singeing her hair. How did you become this tiny … thing? Where did you hide my incomparable soul-mate?

  Like you, Ardan, I have two forms, she said. I’m a Shapeshifter. You can become like this if you think about it–it is magic, which is easy for you as a Dragon. Remember Human-Ardan? Remember having two arms and legs like me? Remember?

  He did. The world rippled. He fell forward into darkness.

  Next Ardan knew, he lay sprawled on his back staring up into a pair of amethyst eyes framed by sculpted cheekbones and the most incredible abundance of hair he had ever seen. It fell about him in a many-stranded waterfall, an impossible curtain of colours, enfolding him in a mysterious cocoon of allurement. Great Islands! Nothing else existed. Only … her.

  He groaned, “What a dream I had.”

  “It was no dream,” said the girl, in mellifluous tones.

  Her accent was exotic; a singing in the vowels that suggested fifteen sounds rather than five. It fired his soul with melodies of pure magic. Incongruously, Ardan pictured himself speaking to a songbird.

  Reaching up to twine his fingers in her hair, he whispered, “You outshine the stars. Only a dream could be so flawless.”

  “Don’t …”

  He raised himself to one elbow. Desire seethed within him, unstoppable. “Don’t what?”

  Her eyes flickered over the length of his body. The girl whispered, “Please, Ardan. Don’t look at me like that. I can’t …” She swallowed hard, to his perception, held captive by the power of emotions stoked to a volcanic pitch. “Introductions. Yes. I am Aranya, Princess of Immadia, a Shapeshifter, as you saw. A Dragon.”

  She thought she was a Dragon? Was she moons-touched? Odd, though, how he had just been dreaming about Dragons. And, how by the Islands, did a tall, slender foreign woman come to be here in the Western Isles? These thoughts were but distant echoes, a faraway, meaningless drum-roll of sanity amidst a scorching madness. What had she done to him?

  “And I am Ardan of Naphtha Cluster,” he replied. A heaviness like gravity connected them, belly to belly, soul t
o soul. He needed only a fingertip touch to draw her closer. “You’ve nothing to fear from me.”

  “You’re hurt.”

  Ardan cared nothing for the half-healed scabs and scars covering his body, nor could he remember how he had come to be wounded. He said, “Destiny alone has summoned us to this time and place. Come, my soul’s eternal fire, sweet Aranya–”

  “Please, no,” she gulped. “I’ve never … no, please. No!”

  “Yes. You want this.”

  “I … no, Ardan. Oh, stop me … no …”

  Her arms twined about his neck with a will of their own, her hair rippling about them as though stirred by an unseen wind. Her body trembled. Aranya nestled her face in the crook of his neck, and he was astounded at the febrile heat radiating from her skin. It set him afire. If she felt half of what he did, he thought, then they were already lost in the Cloudlands, winging away far and free. There was a roaring in his ears and a wild abandon in his heart.

  He kissed the girl’s neck and bare shoulder with great tenderness. “My treasure of the Isles, your cheeks burn bright. Your very soul quivers with a longing which cannot be denied.”

  A memory of Dragonsong consumed his mind. The flames within her reached up and enticed him in.

  * * * *

  The storm broke outside the cavern, seeming to charge her body with every lightning strike, her entire being pulsating to the percussive drumbeat of thunder, as violent and uncontrolled as the storm itself. She became the storm’s rising. Winds raged through her mind, sweeping all before their blast, burning with a sweet, enigmatic fire.

  All was incandescent, a desire that transcended any mortal reason or barrier, within her and without a tempest beyond imagination.

  Thou, my soul’s eternal fire.

  * * * *

  Aranya came to her senses slowly. Her strength was spent. From the angle of the suns light filtering into the cave, she knew that the day was drawing toward dusk. She was never cold, yet she shivered now. How dark the surrounding shadows. Why had the beautiful flame vanished? She ached for its warmth.