by Marc Secchia
He was quite certain she was smiling under that mouth-veil as she took his arm again with more than a hint of draconic possessiveness. “Are you quite certain you’re a tough, commanding Western Isles warrior, Sha’aldior? Tonight’s romantic walk is taken in the company of a dark, shadowy mystic, the mighty Shapeshifter Ardan?”
He pointed down the beach with his chin. “Chaperoned by your smoking-at-the-jowls Aunt and Uncle, in Human form?”
“Great. I didn’t spot them in this light.”
“Ardan, can I ask you a question?” Suddenly, she was turning over his right wrist, her slim fingers touching the ur-makka strapped there beneath a worn leather thong. The pox had even touched her knuckles, he observed, making them as gnarled as an arthritic old woman’s hands. “Remember how we talked about the ur-makka, how it survives your transformations? Kylara said that the ur-makka was an extension of the spirit-world, and that name-runes like these are given by the Ancient Dragons. Tell me, did all of your people wear the ur-makka?”
He said, “All, aye. But few would have a Dragonish rune in place of their name.”
“And how would that have come to be?”
“Usually, secret or spirit-names are given by the tribal shaman. The shaman in our culture is like a bard, a magician and a prophet rolled into one.”
“Good?”
He shook his head. “Not necessarily. The naming is a secret process. I could not tell you exactly, but the spirits are consulted, auguries spoken and the parents petition the gods for favourable attributes–strength, spirit, power and so on. The shaman creates the name-chip and secretes it inside the ur-makka, which is given to the child one lunar cycle after birth in a naming ceremony.”
She pondered this, her head bowed to show Ardan how she used a slim circlet of metal atop her head, almost a crown, to secure her face-veil, leaving her marvellous hair free to tumble down her back, covering her shoulders and back as she bent. He raised his left hand, playing with the still-magical link between them. No sparks erupted this time, but from a distance of twelve inches, her hair clearly yearned toward his hand, reflecting their oath-connection.
“Don’t,” she said, gathering her hair self-consciously to her side. The strands immediately swept toward him once more, making Ardan laugh softly.
He said, “Command the winds of fate, Immadia. I dare you.”
“Don’t tempt me. Ardan, do you think the archives of Gi’shior would tell us if there has ever been another Dragon like you?”
What connection could she possibly be contemplating between scale-mites and an ur-makka? Testily, he said, “Your relatives approach. Well is it said, we can choose our enemies but not our family.”
“Ardan!”
Now she admonished him? He did not understand this woman in the slightest.
“Islands’ greetings,” Va’assia and Ja’arrion chorused.
Aranya bowed formally, apparently a Fra’aniorian performance her etiquette classes had covered. Ardan bowed much more simply, just a nod of the head. He liked Ja’arrion, but Va’assia’s attitude … he could not respect her.
Straightaway, Aranya said, “Aunt, Uncle, do we have Dragon scientists among the Dragonwing capable of identifying the possible sources of a precise blend of phosphates and metal sulphites? I’m trying to heal Leandrial. Or would you know if this information is readily available at Gi’ishior?”
Ja’arrion shared a startled glance with his wife. “Beran did warn us you never stopped, niece.”
Aranya’s hand quivered in his, but she said evenly, “Surprised I’m looking to others’ needs rather than my own, Uncle?”
“You misjudge us, Aranya,” he replied, his gaze unwavering.
“I’m not sure I do,” she replied bitterly. “What have I done that you mistreat me so? Thoralian did not pause to ask the polite form of address before putting entire Islands to the sword! Nor did he care for hatchlings or Dragon Elders. Or is this some ill-concealed draconic jealousy? The mighty mite has too much power, therefore she must be suppressed?”
“Aranya,” Ja’arrion placated. Va’assia’s expression was a study in indignation.
Ardan’s ears registered nearby thunder once more. There. The unmistakable voice of Aranya’s turbulent emotions–but he focussed on the altercation.
She stormed, “You can barely wait for me to leave so that you can start building your precious new empire! If I have to return to take care of matters here, Uncle–if I have to return, know I will fight injustice, avarice and evil, no matter what form it takes!”
Va’assia exploded, “Are you threatening us? You dare–”
SILENCE!
Ja’arrion’s battle-roar washed over them, silencing even Ardan’s equally explosive rejoinder.
“I am sorry, but I must speak,” said her Uncle. “Aranya, there’s something you do not know. Something which you will find incredibly painful to hear. I hesitate …”
Her fingers tightened so forcefully on his hand that Ardan felt his bones grind together. But her grip suddenly eased, and Aranya’s poise shocked him as she replied, “I am overly forthright. Understand that I am distraught by this poison between us. I apologise. Whatever you have to say, Uncle, let the truth not remain hidden. I am ready.”
The Red Shapeshifter tried one more time. “Ja’arrion, we agreed …”
Her voice trailed off beneath the force of his gaze. For the first time, Ardan saw Va’assia yield the floor to another. Her quickening heartbeat carried easily to ears sharpened by Dragon insight. The older Shapeshifter was afraid!
Tightly, mind to mind, the Immadian said, Help me, Ardan …
I shall. His fingers tensed, as if by that tiny action he could suffuse her frame with strength.
Ja’arrion said, “Over these last days we have been approached by many of the Shapeshifters you rescued from the chambers beneath Yorbik, Aranya. With minor variations, they tell the same tale. One and all, they tell us they were betrayed by Izariela–as were we.”
The Amethyst Shapeshifter tore away.
Chapter 6: Volcanic Colours
ARanya’s desolate CRY rolled across the waters like thunder. Her uncontrolled Storm-eruption whipped tonnes of water hundreds of feet into the sky, where titanic bolts of amethyst forked lightning blasted the spray into steam. Momentarily, rainbows wreathed the play of lights over the lake.
When she turned, Ardan perceived how the dark-fires of grief ravaged her gaze.
He started toward her.
Addressing the air, Aranya whispered, “I will not stand idly by while these accusations are levelled against my mother.”
Her countenance was so terrible, Ardan’s legs decided, against the urging of his brain, to halt him in his tracks. Thunder voiced its ire nearby; her hair whipped violently about her slender frame.
Va’assia hissed aside to her husband, “This is why, Ja’arrion. Her power is raw and untutored–”
“So much the better!” he rapped.
“Better?” Aranya’s control took Ardan’s breath away. All that was Dragon within him screamed to transform, to shield, to fly into battle, but she mastered the inner storms with an evident, physical wrenching. “You mean, Uncle, that this truth is better?”
He bowed curtly. “I mean, trust is better than subterfuge. If I am any judge, then you are a woman rare enough to hear–”
“–wisdom that flies against the united decision of all the other Dragons,” Va’assia blurted out, suddenly fierce and proud. “Oh Ja’arrion, I have never loved you more!”
They kissed passionately.
Ardan heard Aranya’s teeth grinding; in four huge strides, he reached her side. What the volcanic hells, Aranya?
I believe my Aunt’s had an epiphany, she murmured.
How?
She shook her head, the tides of magic receding. Sullen drumrolls of thunder faded into the distance. To their further amazement, Va’assia broke away from her husband and tottered toward Aranya, arms outstretched, murmuring, “Peta
l, will you ever forgive me?”
With that, she forced the taller girl into what had to be the stiffest, most uncomfortable embrace in history.
* * * *
Lyriela, Aranya and Zuziana lay abed that evening in a warm, sandy hollow by the lakeside. Dragoness advantages, Aranya decided with a thin smile–no need to be cold when a curl of magic could heat the air around them. And no better place to sleep than between her cousin and her best friend, while the men disappeared to have a manly ‘conference’ with Beran, Ignathion, Ta’armion and Commander Darron. It seemed probable that a certain amount of Rolodian wine or ale, which had survived the destruction in underground vats and cellars, might lubricate their deep, philosophical discussions.
Lyriela said, I can’t believe my mother, Aranyi. To try to haze a hatchling into some kind of confession–it’s beyond stupidity. Did they imagine you’d betray your mother? Would you belie the battles and sacrifices you and Zuziana fought to win our freedom, and transform thereafter into some world-dominating evil genius with a mad plan to enslave all Shapeshifters and Lesser Dragons? It’s … I can’t grasp such foolishness. I can’t! My mother, lacking the courage of her own convictions–an apology, aye, that was more than owed you. But where was her integrity in all this? Her backbone?
Aranya sighed. I think she feels sorry for me.
It’s a perfect crockpot of draconic illogic, snorted Zip. Talk about misreading a situation!
Potential explanations abound, Lyriela growled, her telepathic communication seething and sparking like a bonfire.
Aranya reached out to touch her cousin’s arm. Peace. Don’t fret so. I don’t hate your mother, but I’m also not so blockheaded as to deny I’m not hurt.
Lyriela said, Chameleon Shapeshifters being the obvious candidate–only, they don’t believe those creatures ever existed! Not that they’d say so to your face, of course. Wouldn’t lie to a Star Dragoness, oh no. Poor Lyriela. She was more than steamed; she was humiliated. Or, they claim it was some Herimor glamour-trickery, which was a new idea at least. What more do you have to do to win their regard, Aranyi?
Do less, I suspect. Be less powerful. Less … starry.
The words you’re looking for are ‘less irritatingly unconventional,’ Zip interjected, which happens to be exactly why we love you so much. Burgled any impregnable towers lately? Assaulted any random Princes and forced them to go kidnap and marry their beloved in the middle of a war, dear Dragon-petal?
Lyriela blushed as she ventured, My kidnapping apparently satisfied the most rabid Fra’aniorian traditionalists.
An accolade that a certain headscarf-burning, tyrant-trashing Immadian reprobate is unlikely ever to earn, Zip teased. Buck up, Lyri. How is Ta’armion coping without you this evening?
The nuances of her Dragonish made the Fra’aniorian gasp. Zuziana!
I blame that wasp’s tongue on having seventeen siblings, Aranya said. Oh, is that a bat?
Sapphire, said Zip.
In a moment, the dragonet curled up against Aranya’s ribs. Ari sweetness, purred Sapphire, earning herself a scratch behind the spine-spikes. She burped a decidedly fishy gust of air. Yum. Trout tasty.
Images of a wild chase, of flying swiftly underwater in pursuit of the perfect dinner, cascaded through Aranya’s mind. Roaring rajals, the dragonet’s projection of her thoughts was crystal-clear. If only they could borrow Leandrial’s memories in that way, maybe they’d be able to trace what had happened to Pip and an entire Academy of Dragon Riders. Yet every Dragon appeared to possess at least some level of innate magical protection, which Leandrial referred to as ‘wards’, that safeguarded the mind from casual inspection or control. Still, a beast of Thoralian’s power could override or circumvent the mental strength of an adult Blue Dragon.
Interesting. Might this magical warding explain why she and Ardan struggled to duplicate the mind-meld which Zip and Ri’arion entered so readily?
The following morning at dawn, the Dragonship fleet upped anchor and beat southward toward Fra’anior. Obeying Leandrial’s call, Zip, Aranya and Ardan followed her down into the current once more, and with languid wingbeats, caught up with the undulating Land Dragon.
By way of greeting, Leandrial inquired, So, Aranya, what did you blow up this time?
* * * *
The current, reinvigorated and forceful, swept them from Rolodia past the dark legs of the Spits, a veritable forest of rock columns planted by the Ancient Dragons for purposes unknown. The terrain changed rapidly, growing craggier as the viscous winds dipped and swirled, knocking the Lesser Dragons about with increasing ebullience. Its song was a roar that varied with the terrain, like a boulder-tossed river, and a low whistling and hissing that grated on the ear. The foursome took to drowning out this noise with a commotion of their own, as they belted out Leandrial’s songs and learned new lore-sagas and historical ballads. The Dragoness always declared she felt better after a sing-song–drawing a predictable snigger from Zip–but Aranya’s internal, magic-enhanced examination soon convinced her of measurable improvements in Leandrial’s general functioning.
Zuziana blessed this prognosis by bellowing ‘funky monkey’ right in Aranya’s ear, following which they had to endure an hour-long digression on the peculiarities of Southern culture in order to satisfy their huge companion’s curiosity.
Soon, cracks began to appear in the black, igneous rock formations, but they were only a precursor to the majestic volcanic presence of Fra’anior Cluster, Leandrial told them. She pushed the quartet of Dragons hard. Training. Always training. She spoke little of what they might expect in the Rift, perhaps out of fear, the three Lesser Dragons speculated privately, but she waxed wistful regarding the nature of Herimor, with its peculiar migratory Island-Clusters, airborne Islands and many Clans of roving Land Dragons. If they imagined the Island-World as a great circle, she taught them, the Rift was a band which divided the northern third from a greater demesne to the South, a vast, ever-shifting wilderness of Islands. The Rift bowed southward and thinned slightly in the East, according to Land Dragon lore, which was where Aranya assumed Thoralian planned to make his crossing–although exactly how the Yellow-White Dragon planned to achieve the theoretically impossible was matter of debate. Logically, they concluded that there must be limited commerce with Herimor, for how else had Chameleon Shapeshifters come to cross the Rift?
Ardan and Zip bickered cheerfully over the wisdom of his destroying the Chameleons before they could be interrogated.
Aranya, thinking upon how upset Sapphire had been at her departure that morning, caught the Shadow Dragon scratching near his tail once more. Right. That was quite enough.
Islands’ sakes, Dragon! Can we stop with the mites? Scratching only makes it worse.
He made a face. I can’t tell you how bad this is.
Let me take a look.
There? Big as he was, the Shadow Dragon tucked in his tail with a woebegone look. It’s … not in the nicest place. I think I’m allergic–
Shy, Ardan?
He veered away skittishly, dodging a shred of floating emerald-coloured leaf that was longer than ten of him laid end to end. Stop. Paws off.
Paws off his backside? tittered Zip.
Aranya smiled, allowing fire to curl between her fangs. Shall I just burn them off for you, Ardan? Be a good boy and lift your tail.
Yiee! Ardan Shadowed, flickering away from the visible spectrum, before reappearing two hundred feet away with a distinctly sheepish air. Aranya, stop! Go away, you bad, bad Dragoness!
What fun! Aranya had never known Ardan to be panicky about anything. She chased him playfully this way and that before they came to a standoff over Leandrial’s back. She feinted. Ardan twitched violently. Fighting was a strange dance at this high pressure, each movement slower and dreamier than expected. Was there a pressure at which fireballs were no longer viable? Was that why Land Dragons fought with flaming talons? Aranya made another feint, watching the Shadow Dragon as narrowly as he watched her
. She could catch him, being smaller and nimbler, but he would likely just Shadow his way out of trouble. Cheat!
Coyly, Aranya said, Perhaps I should examine you, Ardan–she unsheathed the three forward-pointing talons of her right forepaw with a purposeful air–with these!
Flexing her wings, she pursued the mightily muzzle-out-of-joint Dragon, aware of Zuziana almost folding herself in half, she was laughing so hard. The Amethyst was on the verge of firing a mischievous fireball with the intent of warming those unsavoury scale-mites, when an out-of-the-Cloudlands idea struck her with the force of one of Thoralian’s psychic blasts.
Mites Shifted! They travelled with a Shapeshifter.
Aranya stopped so sharply, she tangled up her wings and had to extricate herself, by which time Ardan was a quarter-mile downstream, just a dark blob at the extreme edge of her limited vision. Gathering her wits about her, Aranya hitched a ride in Leandrial’s slipstream. On second thoughts …
Leandrial, where can I find one of your scale-mites?
Finished playing, little one? the Land Dragoness said, sounding weary. What brain-knotting idea did you have now?
Would you call Zip and Ardan–oh, here they come.
Zuziana was clearly giving Ardan the sharp end of her tongue as her friends hovered against the current, waiting for Aranya to catch up.
Quickly, she rallied her troops. Refusing to explain, she bade them hunt. Leandrial’s scales were roughly triangular in shape, being smaller at the anchoring end, while overlapping longitudinally to provide optimal streamlining. The scales varied in size toward her eyes or armpits, but those on her back were up to thirty feet wide and three times that length. The armour was smooth and dense, yet lighter and more flexible than any of the Lesser Dragons had expected, while the overlap and fit was so perfect, Aranya could not insert so much as a talon-tip into the cracks between them. They had to rely on wedging open the end closest to Leandrial’s tail. Despite all the close fitting, when they found a mite, Zuziana recoiled.
