by Marc Secchia
He scared away every bird and beast for a mile about, but Zip just smiled at Aranya. “Did you hear a dragonet squeak?”
“Mosquito,” said Aranya, waving in the general direction of the smoking, fuming, muscles-flexing monster blocking out the suns-shine ten feet above her head. Then, she feigned surprise–hand fluttering to the throat, wide eyes, the whole ralti sheep. “Oh, Islands’ greetings, Ardan. Took you long enough to turn up. Did you bring us a snack? Good boy, just pop it over there.”
The girls split their sides laughing as Ardan woke the Island to his thundering rage.
* * * *
“Look at that Dragon, lazing in the heat,” said Aranya, eying Human-Ardan with a playful air. He rested on a patch of grass in the full glare of the suns-shine, his head pillowed on a half-empty leather saddlebag. “Do you think he’s sleeping?”
Ardan cracked open an eye with exaggerated laziness. “I’m contemplating the mysteries of the universe.”
Zuziana waved the hairbrush at him. “Just a hint, Ardan. Those little yellow spots on the backs of your eyelids are not mysteries.”
“I’m … detoxifying,” he drawled.
Aranya ribbed, “Does the snoring help or hinder the process?”
They had moved a couple of hundred paces over to the south-western edge of the Island, where they expected to meet Leandrial in the morning. Here, a narrow dell delved back into a modest hill crowned with hardwood trees, and a petite waterfall burbled cheerfully over five rock steps, marking the dell’s entire extent, a mere two dozen paces for Human-Ardan. Just before the stream tumbled over the cliff edge, a thoughtful person had built a small rock barrier to hinder the flow. The excellent fit of the rocks proclaimed a fine hand at stonewalling, a skill of Jendor and Horness Clusters which was seen all over the Islands, where low stone walls divided fields and homes were built of stone with no use of mortar, just moss for chinking. Beside this small, clear pool, Aranya sat upon a warm boulder also enjoying the suns-shine, while Zuziana toiled over brushing out the wealth of her many-coloured strands–returning the favour Aranya had accorded her earlier.
Suddenly, she realised that Ardan’s black eyes were unshuttered, regarding her openly. He said:
A warrior came strolling by, beside the stream that day,
Full contented should he be, yet restless his heart lay,
And presently a vision most wondrous, did reward his wandering feet,
Quoth he, “Oh arrest my heart, shouldst I behold,
A sight so truly sweet.”
Aranya ducked her head, wishing to hide the ruin of her face.
Zuziana said, “Wondrous and wandering? I would have chosen, ‘a sight most fair’.”
“Is this a game?” asked the Princess of Immadia.
“A Southern game, perhaps,” said Ardan. “Remoy seems to know it.”
“I know it, o poet,” said Zip. With a positively Fra’aniorian twirl of her hand, she declaimed:
A-singing by the rippling brook, the sable warrior did spy …
Ardan put in, “A maiden?”
“Two maidens, most verily,” said Aranya, only to have her friends both laugh and wave her into silence. “A hulking Land Dragon? A snappily dressed monk?”
“Amateur,” Zip disparaged, softening her teasing with a smile. “Listen.”
A maiden fair, of lustrous hair …
Ardan and Zip quickly fell to bickering over the merits of their contributions at this point. Eventually Aranya was forced to rescue her hair from an irked Shapeshifter’s vigorous efforts with the brush. She set about burying the tubers Ardan had thoughtfully dug up for her in the sand beside the pool, before laying a small mound of twigs and dry firewood on top. With a flick of her fingers, she set the twigs alight, and was soon warming her hands beside a crackling blaze.
“Great, can I cook these steaks now?” asked Ardan, holding up the cuts he’d taken before tossing an entire giant banded forest deer down his capacious Dragon-maw.
Aranya pulled a face.
He goaded her, “Perhaps you’d like to go graze upwind meantime?”
She punched him on the shoulder with more force than she had intended, summarily flattening him to the accompaniment of a crack of nearby thunder. Oh, mercy … but Ardan was only pretending upset, pouting like a four year-old boy who had just been deprived of a sweet.
“I think Aranya channels her Dragon power when she’s angry, or upset,” Zip said mildly. “That’s the reason for the storm she carried from the Western Isles to Jeradia and Fra’anior.”
“And for a woman with a punch like a Dragon,” said Ardan, ruefully accepting Aranya’s proffered hand. “That’s the last time I offer you steak, you lunatic vegetarian!”
* * * *
They spent the remainder of the afternoon and evening working through Leandrial’s detoxifying exercises and discussing the failings of their shields, a depressingly lengthy list. To Zuziana’s amusement, Ardan kept rubbing his shoulder and casting Aranya dark glances until the Immadian squirmed like Sapphire chasing her own tail. With the weather closing in, the Western Isles warrior quickly strung up a thin leather sheet for shelter, but the squall that bustled overhead was a meek and unconvincing affair altogether–definitely not an Aranya, Daughter of Storm special.
Two hours after darkness, Aranya curled up on the sand and drifted off. Her breathing rasped heavily. Zip carefully pulled an Immadian cloak over her friend’s shoulders, wrinkling her nose at the musty smell, thinking that if they were going to carry clothing and supplies required by their Human forms beneath the Cloudlands, they should package them in airtight Dragonship cloth.
She sat with Ardan, niggling at the filtering problem.
“You can smell the contaminants,” Zuziana pointed out. “That means there’s particulate matter seeping through, or gases. Aranya thinks some of the poisons may behave in ways that defy ordinary draconic science–she’s calling that vector magical osmosis, even if the idea itched Va’assia like a scale-mite infestation. ‘Stick to proven science,’ indeed!”
“No surprises there,” grunted Ardan. “No surprise, either, that we’ve barely scratched the surface of shield theory, or that the great Blue Dragons of the past preferred to keep their secrets to themselves, rather than scribing them for future generations.”
“Ja’arrion said we should have access to Gi’ishior’s libraries.”
The dark warrior growled, “Aye. Apparently the Blues had their own happy little council of secrets, apart from the other Dragon colours. Dragons just don’t know how to help themselves, do they?”
“I’m not sure they expected to be wiped out in the northern third of the Island-World.”
“Aye. Zip, most Island-nations don’t plan on suffering genocide, either.”
“Sorry, Ardan. I didn’t mean–”
“No mind.” His thick, blunt fingers made a curt gesture. “Curse those Sylakian murderers to a Cloudlands hell!”
They both glanced over their shoulders at Aranya as she groaned in her sleep. She turned over restively. “She’s dreaming,” Zip said unnecessarily. She rose to adjust the cloak. A light shone beneath her friend’s closed eyelids, affirming that her magic was clearly alive even though she slept. When Aranya whimpered something about Garthion, she smoothed her friend’s hair back from her brow. Mercy, her skin was scalding! “It’s alright, Aranya. You’re safe here.”
Aranya mumbled a troubled, unintelligible phrase or two before settling again.
Returning to where Ardan sat on a flat boulder protruding above a mile’s drop, with the carelessness of a man who knew his Dragon form was available on command, she said, “Burning up. Aranya used to do that when we were captives in the Tower. She’d set the hangings or the bedclothes on fire when she was particularly distraught. Or Garthion. She burned him.”
“Good riddance,” Ardan said flatly. “He’s the one–”
“Aye,” said Zip, not wishing to remember.
“And they call Western Is
landers barbaric?” He flicked a stone into the darkness.
Zip glanced toward the shelter once more. Sleeping. Good. She hoped Aranya knew the Remoyan would move Islands for her; some gifts were beyond words, and her gratitude daily burdened Zip’s heart. She pressed back against the warm rock, imbibing its warmth into her soul. If only she could have beaten Garthion herself. But she had unable to rise due to a broken wing. And now, in a nightmarish twist of fate, Aranya had been laid low by Garthion’s father, the once-Supreme Commander of Sylakia. In the darkness, she gathered her right hand into a painfully tight fist. She wanted to spit. What had Ri’arion once said?
I say, curse the hand that writ such a tale of woe upon your flesh! I say, spirits of the Ancient Dragons, be roused against this evil and may the hand of the afflicter be forever afflicted!
Her body shook. Her eyes blazed so brightly, smoke curled off the surface of Ardan’s leather jerkin.
A bane upon the hand that scarred thee, Aranya of Immadia!
Her voice was small and private, but no less terrible than Ri’arion’s the day the Nameless Man beheld the mutilation Garthion had wrought upon her torso. The craggy, discoloured wilderness of scar tissue. Never able to nurse a babe again. As the oath-magic jolted Ardan to his feet, crying out, it seemed to Zuziana that for the first time, her oh-so-draconic lust for revenge had transmuted into its nobler brother, justice. Catharsis. Clarity that ran as a clear river through her mind. Oyda’s teachings about justice and honour; about the thorny, sometimes abstruse complications that accompanied the simple desire to do right …
“What did you just do?” Ardan hissed.
Unable to speak, Zuziana pushed the memory at him; the warrior’s breath seized in his throat. Tears welled. Salty wetness ran over the harshly scarified planes of his cheeks, bespeaking his anguish. As he loomed over her, Ardan’s tears dripped upon her chest, her neck, her face. He let them fall. She watched them fly and land, each droplet sizzling upon her skin as fire met inner fire, and Zuziana saw motes swimming dreamily in those drops, like Dragons swirling in battle, sucked away suddenly by a Command into a place of … rest.
Ardan said, I join my fire-life to this oath. For Aranya’s sake, let it be. Let it be! His fist punched the heavens. LET IT BE!
Even Thoralian must hear, and cower in whatever shabby burrow marked his resting-place this night, for such dread words had been spoken as would make the very stars pause in their eternal courses, and weep. Even he must sense the talon of death poised to terminate his contemptible existence.
Rising, Zuziana wound her fingers around Ardan’s strong right arm, and rested her head beside the knot of his bicep as they stood together, facing south. Strange, how Shadow could exhibit such strength, substance and soul.
No more words need be spoken.
* * * *
In the dead of night when spirits roamed abroad, Ardan jerked awake, his ribcage wracked with the pains of raw terror. What had he been dreaming? Such a roaring and belling of monstrous draconic voices, such a crackle of–his eyes shifted beyond their shelter. Fire? Fire in the clouds? But it was not yet dawn, his sleepy mind insisted. Out over the Cloudlands, it was raining fire!
What?
Aranya shot to her feet, bellowing in a voice that froze his marrow. “Fra’anior!”
He chased her. A girl could run off a cliff … shouting incoherently, her voice rousing the storm, her arms conducting those sulphurous fires of destruction raining from the burning clouds … he sprinted up the hill behind their small camp, chasing glints of amethyst magic in the darkness.
“Aranya! Aranya!”
Catching her upon the hill’s barren brow, he grabbed her arm, spinning her about.
“She betrayed me!”
“Uh …” Her wildfires swept over his world, her hair shooting a bonfire’s sparks into the night, golden and red, blue and white, silver and violet and lime-green.
Aranya’s left fist knotted in his clothing. The flexion of her biceps lifted him a foot off the ground; Ardan’s legs dangled as incredulously as his jaw. Her mouth opened in a crashing thunderclap: SHE BETRAYED ME!
“Who?” he blurted out. “Who betrayed–Aranya!”
Her knees crumpled. Too much power. Too much grief. Ardan, twisting to avoid landing atop the toppling girl, crumpled awkwardly upon his already bruised shoulder. He had eyes only for her; but Aranya’s head lolled. She was unconscious.
Rising, Ardan carefully scooped the girl up into his powerful arms. Sometimes she seemed so terribly frail, as though the next breath of wind would sweep her away. Then, she jerked a full-grown warrior off the ground with the strength of her arm, and he was no eight-sackweight stripling.
She was a Shapeshifter Dragoness. Enigma, ablaze. And, if he was not mistaken, the voice of the Great Onyx himself.
Who had betrayed whom?
Chapter 5: Mighty Mites
COMe morning, Three Dragons waited. Fretted. Sharpened their talons. Grumbled–well, some males grumbled like a Dragon with the worst infestation of scale-mites in history while Zip idly sharpened her talons on a handy granite boulder. So tough were a Dragon’s talons, she had already worn a substantial groove in the top of the boulder.
Aranya eyed Ardan, amused. “Ho, mighty Dragon of Shadow?”
Arrrrrrggghhh, was his irascible reply.
“Ho, you rock-gargling, throat-mangling excuse for a Brown Dragon–”
“I’m not Brown!”
“Sounded like a Brown playing tunnels and rocky hideouts,” she pointed out. Ardan’s quarter-smile implied he was listening. “Why do I seem to recall wrestling with you last night?”
In a reedy Nak-voice, the Shadow Dragon sneered, “Oh, peerless Immadia, would that I could wrestle at the pillow-rolls with thee!” Zip’s smoky snort only encouraged him; Dragoness-Aranya favoured this with a ferocious scowl. Thanks. And no small truth in that sally, either. He added, “In all seriousness, Aranya …”
Her teasing turned to puzzlement as Ardan described fire and brimstone raining from the heavens, and that strange declaration, ‘She betrayed me.’
Finally, Aranya managed, “Islands’ sakes, Ardan, I … I channelled Fra’anior’s presence? Literally burned the heavens? And then ran up a hill in my sleep, shouting–oh. Mercy!”
Ardan rolled his fire-eyes at the heavens, the Island, the far horizons.
A Dragon’s thoughts could clearly produce smoke, because Zip started ostentatiously clearing the air with sweeps of her wings, muttering, “Faugh! Where do you hail from, o Princess of Reeking Halitosis?”
Friends. Aranya didn’t know whether to wing-slap them or hug them. She settled for neither. “Sorry, but I just remembered something important. I know I clam up like Yorbik shell-snail when my brain’s working–”
“Allegedly.”
This time, Aranya did take a playful snap toward Zuziana’s nose. The Remoyan dodged smartly. “Working more than yours, Miss Purple Forked-Tongue. So, hear this. I was asking about my celebrated aunt–we had a bad connection, I guess you could say. Fra’anior kept fading into and out of existence, and I understood that six heads were fighting a battle while the seventh talked to me. Anyways, amidst his usual storm, lightning and general Lord-of-the-Universe awesomeness, the Great Dragon claimed that my Aunt Hualiama betrayed him. Then he vanished, came back for half a sentence about still loving his dancing hatchling … then I think I grabbed you, Ardan. Do I remember rightly?”
“Bruised my sensitive skin.” He rubbed his chest, pretending to pout.
Given that Ardan’s Dragon form was a hulking Black bruiser topping twenty-four feet at the shoulder, if he did not crouch upon his belly, Zip and Aranya developed instant attacks of the fiery hiccoughs that ended with the Amethyst Dragoness literally falling off the cliff. She drifted around in a lazy half-circle, fighting return attacks of burbling laughter.
Zip, peering a little anxiously over the edge, called, Hualiama betrayed the Onyx? How?
Haven’t a clue.
<
br /> Don’t sound so ruddy cheerful, sniped Ardan, returned to inability to wait.
Alright, you explain how your ur-makka remains with you between transformations, and I’ll explain the mysteries of my crazy family, Aranya smiled back unconsciously, before remembering her disfigurement and dropping her head. I was hoping he’d be available for a session of question-the-Ancient-Dragon. Failing that …
The Azure groaned, No. Don’t make me, Aranya. You can’t make me!
Aye, Zippety-Zapper. I hereby sentence thee to a lifetime raiding Gi’ishior’s library.
They passed the hours until noon cleansing, working with Aranya’s healing powers to try to identify additional steps or techniques they could use to recover more quickly from the Cloudlands poisons, and indulging in an impromptu competition to hunt rock-hares blind. At noon they perceived Leandrial’s call from afar, and at once, launched themselves into the void.
From Jendor’s wilderness to Horness Cluster was a mere day and a half’s dip beneath the Cloudlands, which took them from overgrown, tumbling cliffs and ravines of foliage crowning cracked, uninhabitable peaks, to the broad pasturelands of a Cluster where, it was said, cattle outnumbered people a thousand to one. Needless to say, Ardan licked his chops and drooled his way across the Islands in search of a quiet place to settle, while more than a few herdsmen looked to the sky and blanched. Alarm gongs rang across the closely spaced Islands.
“Huh, they didn’t do this when my father turned up with his army,” Aranya complained.
“Must be Ardan,” Zip suggested.
Ardan’s grin displayed a great array of polished ivory-whites. “Watch this.”
He swooped!
“Ardan!” Aranya yelled crossly.
He was far too quick. Shadowing completely, he landed just in front of a fine specimen of four-horn suttock, a bovine which supplied the famously soft, tan leather of Horness.
Ardan unshadowed, muzzle low, eyeball to eyeball with the quadruped. “Boo!”
The suttock did not make so much as a low or a cry. It merely fell over sideways, dead before it struck the long, lush blue-green grass.
