Song of the Storm Dragon

by Marc Secchia

  To the West, the thick golden rays of the suns’ fierce gaze beamed from beneath the horizon to the Yellow Moon, still shining furnace-hot two fingers above the faraway Cloudlands. Overhead, Jade waxed toward fullness, whilst the full Blue Moon seemed intent upon lurking behind Gi’ishior’s cone. Yet the caldera was never fully dark. Active lava flows and a constant level of eruption four miles below made a stolid Western Islander feel decidedly jumpy. Ground was supposed to stay still. Earthen-fires should stay well underground. Ardan’s gaze traced the copper-blue sky, picking out familiar constellations–the Golden Rajal, the Portal of the East, and the Forty Ancestors. At least some things remained immutable, unlike his life.

  The suns dipped, the evening deepening as if golden curtains drew majestically across Fra’anior’s skies.

  Suddenly, Aranya’s melody thrilled his soul. Ardan. We’re ready.

  Without warning, Leandrial’s eye-cannon brightened, piercing the ruddy gloom with an ultra-powerful beam that played on the volcano’s steep slope three-quarters of a mile distant. White light irradiated the area, expanding as Leandrial adjusted her output, then abruptly, a picture flickered into existence against the foliage. Dozens of watchers gasped in concert with Ardan.

  Monsters writhed and wrestled in an eerie realm of platter-like plants. Fists pummelled; flaming talons scored Dragon hide and punctured it like a Land Dragon ripping into a mountain. The other Land Dragon was larger than Leandrial by a considerable margin, but he wore puncture-wounds in his flanks and his boomed challenge communicated pain as his opponent struck him with multiple, rapid-fire blows. Every Dragon present flinched and exclaimed at the power of their battle. Yet the picture was wrong–lacking colour, Ardan realised. Leandrial was colour-blind. The aggressor, Shurgal, was shaped like a squat, powerful salamander, with three eyes to Leandrial’s one and five parallel lines of low, stubby spine-spikes running the length of his back and tail.

  Leandrial’s voice, modulated through Aranya’s mind, rolled over the congregation. “I battled Shurgal for possession of the Pygmy Dragon. I was younger and much smaller, then. He had stolen the Pygmy Dragon from the Marshal of Herimor and dragged her into the depths of the Middle Sea, seeking to harness her powers for himself.”

  Suddenly, a tiny Dragoness–barely half Aranya’s size–squeezed through a hole in Shurgal’s flank, clawing at the thick air like an uncoordinated frog. In Leandrial’s vision she was as black as onyx stone; they saw massive paws entering the picture, reaching for the mite, before the gigantic talons curled, shuddering terribly.

  “Shurgal struck me a grievous blow. His anti-Harmonic attack disabled my defences.”

  Latch onto this! a tiny voice cried.

  “The little one was the voice of the Great Onyx to my soul.”

  Ri’arion groaned and swayed visibly as a new sensation gripped the Dragons: power like the voice of volcanoes, strength born of old, of the darkest and most ancient reaches of Fra’anior’s power. Strength of Onyx, channelled through the presence of the Pygmy Dragon. The scene blurred, before stabilising just in time for the viewers to see Leandrial’s fisted forepaw striking Shurgal a monstrous, bone-crushing blow to the left-frontal section of his skull. KEERAACK!

  Ardan flinched. Unholy, stinking windrocs!

  “With Pip’s help, I defeated him. The traitor fled, but I was too sorely wounded to make any pursuit. I’ve had one hundred and fifty years to rue my blunder.”

  * * * *

  Flick. The images jumped again as Ri’arion, even with Aranya’s aid, struggled to control the Land Dragoness’ prodigious output. His job was to translate the language of Leandrial’s peculiar Harmonic vision into images ordinary Humans or Dragons could understand.

  Aranya stared at the black scrap of Dragon fire-life lying collapsed on Leandrial’s palm. That was her? So tiny. So compact of scale and paw. Yet the magnitude of her power … great Islands, she had channelled the strength of Fra’anior himself into another Dragon! In that instant of blooming jealousy, she realised how badly she had underestimated the Pygmy Dragoness.

  She was the most dangerous creature ever to shoot the rainbows above the Isles.

  * * * *

  Zuziana wanted to watch Ri’arion, but the faraway images mesmerised her. Aranya was helping and stabilising him, yet even a monk’s disciplined mind wrestled mightily with the task at hand.

  The black scrap moaned, Jeradia. We must …

  Only in unburdened rest can the soul be healed, little one, Leandrial replied. Now lay the world’s needs aside and sleep. We will reach Jeradia when the Balance of the Harmonies has reached its fruition.

  Here in the now, Leandrial explained, “I ran with the Pygmy Dragon via Meldior to Jeradia. I am sorry, but my thought-memories have degenerated shamefully with senescence. I remind you, Shurgal-ap-Tuûar-bàr-Rhiytûxi was once a legend of my kind, the mighty Guardian of Wisdom of the Water-Runner Clan. Shurgal set out to wrest the First Egg from the deep-dwelling S’gulzzi. But he treated with the dread Theadurial in order to prevail in his quest. Upon returning with the Egg, when his foul bargain became common knowledge, there was outright war between the Clans. That was when the cunning Marshal Re’akka swooped and stole the First Egg for himself. Employing its power to corrupt armies of Lesser Dragons, he floated an entire Island across the Rift with the aim of conquering new territories and laying all the Dragonkind to the sword.”

  “Pip believed that Shurgal summoned the Nurguz, a parasitic spirit-creature, to wreak revenge upon Marshal Re’akka. Whatever the case, the Nurguz ravaged the Dragons North of the Rift. Listen, I have a thought-fragment for you from a time I believe I carried the Pygmy Dragon inside my mouth.”

  Pip’s earnest voice piped up, “Re’akka is a thief and Shurgal is a traitor armed with urzul. Re’akka and Shurgal hate each other. The Theadurial parasitize the Land Dragons–” The voice, apparently that of a teenager, snapped off.

  Leandrial’s voice swelled. “Does any person or Dragon here know this magic called urzul?”

  Zuziana glanced about, seeing a mighty dint of beard- and scale-scratching but not a great deal of knowledge emerging. Privately to Aranya, she said, Doesn’t Leandrial have any idea?

  Ideas, aye, the Amethyst replied. But no direct knowledge. She’s concerned that Shurgal defeated her so comprehensively in both of their battles; the second time, she almost lost her life.

  One of the monks rose from his cross-legged position to relay a pithy message, that the lexical root of urzul was similar to irzu, a word derived from an ancient Dragonish dialect that meant ‘taint’ or ‘corruption’. Ri’arion added that they would unleash linguistic researchers in the libraries. Then, he bowed to the Land Dragoness.

  Leandrial continued, “Having released Pip near the Academy, I retreated for some days to heal. Then, I became aware of the Harmonic-song of battle joined upon the Island you call Jeradia.”

  At once, the pictures jumped again. Accompanied by Leandrial’s low, thunderous commentary, Zip saw her charging up a vertical slope, her Harmonic vision picking out rock formations and features even through a misting that she suddenly realised must be the thick Cloudlands. Soon she poured over an incline before accelerating along the flat, her jouncing vision picking up a craggy, cracked mountain-scape she and many of the Dragonkind recognised as Jeradia Island. Then, the entire assembly drew breath as one.

  An Island with no foundation! Shurgal. Myriad Dragons!

  No Dragon in their group, Zip suspected, had ever seen a battle to compare. Upon a narrow plain between a massive, squat volcano and the north-eastern cliff-edge of Jeradia, a sizeable Island floated with infeasible ease in the air. Shurgal attacked its base like a frenzied mole, his great, spatulate claws fountaining rock behind him as he quarried for a power that shocked her, even now, hundreds of leagues and multiple generations later. Dragons darkened the sky. Spiky coal-black beasts in their thousands flitted around the floating Island and attacked a smaller group, who appeared to have approached f
rom the volcano. The Academy Dragons, Leandrial noted, instructing Ri’arion to outline several of them in haloes of light. Zip would have struggled to pick them out herself, but her throat constricted as the monk showed a Dragonwing of hundreds of Riders seated upon mighty Dragons–she saw Nak riding a sleek beauty of a Dragoness, his Shimmerith, and Oyda aboard a much larger, muscular male who had to be Emblazon. They had been there! And remembered … nothing.

  What by Fra’anior’s sulphurous breath had transpired, that day?

  As Leandrial charged on, aiming her mile-long body like an arrow at Shurgal, who was half again her size, Zip saw the Nurguz. Formless and terrifying, a darkness of oily, unrecognisable magic descended upon the spiky Dragons clustered around Shurgal–helping? Attacking? She could not tell in the chaos. Tentacles fell lightly upon Dragons, pulsating as though to the tempo of an inner sucking, and the creature drank their souls, their very fire-life, out of their bodies!

  Zip’s scream choked off in an explosion of bile, but even as she struggled not to vomit, she could not tear her eyes off the spectacle. The smaller force of Academy Dragons and Dragon Riders split up as Leandrial thundered into the fray, her unopposed opening strike knocking Shurgal sprawling as she tore a rib bodily out of his side. The Land Dragons tangled once more. They saw flashes of battle … Dragons clashing, falling … the ghastly Shadow feeding … the curvature of the First Egg partially exposed in the base of that Island, its inconceivable power playing havoc with Leandrial’s senses … the tiny Pygmy Dragon assaulting another Lesser Dragon of a size that beggared belief, power radiating from him in waves of awful majesty … Thoralian? No, surely–

  HSSSS-KERRAAAACK!

  An explosion of magic rocked the battling Land Dragons, momentarily turning her world to white, and then they tipped precipitately into space and fell, and fell …

  Leandrial’s eye-beam shut off. Ri’arion sank to his knees, groaning and sweating. Aranya steadied him with her magic.

  Roughly, the Land Dragoness ground out, “You have seen the Nurguz, my kin. It has departed our Island-World, or perished. You have seen the Academy volcano and its brave forces led by the Pygmy Dragon; you have seen the Island of Eridoon, home to Marshal Re’akka and his dread legions of Night-Red Assassins. Thus was my battle with Shurgal, but its ending was … shameful. I failed. I tumbled more than four leagues down the cliff; there, I fell upon my neck with the weight of Shurgal bearing down from above, damaging the spinal column. The traitor left me for dead. I was paralysed for a time spanning weeks. Having rolled all the way down to the middle layer, I placed my body into a healing sleep not unlike the hibernation of your high-dwelling animals. Once I had sufficiently recovered, I climbed that mountain again, the massif of Jeradia. And this is what I saw. Ri’arion?”

  “Aye, mighty Dragoness,” he agreed, lurching to his feet.

  The eye-beam speared out once more. Now she displayed two images, the first being the volcano and its backing mountains, and beside it, a second image showed a blackened, blasted hollow against a backdrop of manifestly the same mountain range. Gone. Spirited away, without explanation.

  The eyes deceived. Surely, impossible? A chorus of querulous argument began among the monks and Dragons.

  “That is Jeradia today, little friends,” Leandrial confirmed. She sounded exhausted and dispirited. “Long did I search, but the bodies of those slain Dragons also vanished into the aether, along with Eridoon Island, the volcano and all within it, and the First Egg. Yet I scented magical traces of Shurgal’s passing and the mighty power of the Egg, and I tracked him past your Crescent Islands, until I came at last to the Rift and knew the prospect of my doom. Three times I attempted that crossing, and failed. My kin suffer the most terrible oppression. But now, a new Star Dragoness has risen and I know a tingling and a trembling in my fires.”

  Slowly, the talons of her right forepaw rose alongside her head, until the Amethyst Dragoness apprehended her intent and stepped forward to press her muzzle against Leandrial’s foreclaw.

  After a long pause in which no soul dared move, Leandrial said, “By the power of the First Eggs, the Ancient Dragoness traversed the vast gulf between the stars and arrived upon the shores of our Island-World. At all costs, we must prevent Thoralian or Shurgal, if he still lives, from claiming such power. Yet we have hope. This little one is the paw of the incomparable Fra’anior in our world. She is the Daughter of Storm, her voice the thundering that resonates through the fate of all Dragons. Let Thoralian hear, and tremble! Let evil be struck into the abyss, and perish!”

  The Shapeshifters’ answering battle-challenges boomed over the waters.

  Zip watched Aranya. Her friend’s eye-fires were clear for the first time since her captivity in Sylakia. A tender wingtip-touch soothed her dragonet. What was she thinking? Aranya’s mind seemed to be trapped in another time and place, perhaps faraway at Jeradia …

  * * * *

  Ari call Dragon, Sapphire insisted. Ancient one.

  A Dragon? Aranya puzzled. I know you don’t mean Fra’anior, petal. Help me understand.

  As she flew back to the roost assigned to her and Zip, directly between Va’assia and Ja’arrion’s roost and a roost assigned to Beran, Ardan and Ri’arion, Aranya puzzled over the dragonet’s words. Her vocabulary and ability to communicate were growing by the day, but she was still the equivalent of an older child in dragonet terms.

  Dancing. Laughing. She here, Ari. You see she-Dragon. Ancient one.

  Numistar Winterborn? No. Aranya did not appreciate feeling dense, but her brain would not make a sensible connection. Poor Sapphire danced on her shoulder, making a spitting sound like an angry feline.

  The dragonet hissed, Ari speak great Black Dragon. Now, speak her. Speak her!

  But Fra’anior was male. Immadior? No. My mother? No, not ancient enough. Sapphire, who do you–

  Here! She here! Ari lots-help. Sapphire flipped over her head and somersaulted into a landing on Aranya’s nose. Her little talons dug in sharply. Ari silly mush-for-brains.

  Hmm. Perhaps less language was better. Aranya scowled at the mite, gazing at her eyes in turn from a distance of less than a foot as she danced from one paw to the other, making encouraging noises. Here at Gi’ishior, a dancer. Who had been a dancer in the ballads? Surely not …

  Hualiama?

  Chapter 10: A Dance of Stars

  ONCE BEFORE, ARANYA had channelled her mother’s presence in a time of grave need. Now, her need was not battle-urgent, but nevertheless, excitement pinched her chest like a pair of warm blacksmith’s tongs as she settled on her pallet that night. She had returned to her Human form. Somehow, it felt right–not for any practical or obvious reasons, just an intuition.

  Hualiama. Star Dragoness. Long deceased–surely, a legend of yore. Aranya knew so little about the mystical ways of Star Dragons, but if her mother could rise from her near-death state to enter a waking vision–whereupon she rebuked her daughter soundly, yet in terms so lucid, Aranya was persuaded Izariela had actually been present in some spiritual sense–could the legendary Hualiama do the same? Heavens knew she needed help. Even Sapphire said so! Paws the size of Fra’anior’s might help, along with the ability to spirit herself and her companions across the Rift.

  Aranya closed her eyes decisively. She stilled her breathing. She must summon yearning and desire, and thrust rational objections out of her mind. This was no rational exercise.

  This was a family affair.

  Hualiama? Blue-star? If you can hear me, please, heed my call. I need you. Actually, I’m not ashamed to say I’m desperate, and a bit scared. She chuckled sleepily. Alright, I’m more the shaking-loose-of-my-hide kind of scared. Please come soon.

  Sapphire snuggled against her ribs. Ari … so warm …

  Aranya twined an arm around the dragonet. You’re so much more than a heap of pretty scales, eh, girl?

  Sapphire prettiest, murmured the dragonet.

  Their eyelids shuttered.

  * * * *
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  The Red Dragoness burst into her roost, dripping hot oil. What? Are you hurt? Come to Mama, little one.

  A tiny slip of a girl sat lost within the vastness of a Dragon-sized turquoise floor-cushion, facing the Dragoness. Her hair was a white-blonde moon-halo about her elfin face, framing eyes of a haunting, smoky green. Dragon-Mama? Hurt. Look. She displayed a deep cut on her knee.

  Aranya watched, thunderstruck. How could a girl-child call a Dragoness her mother? She must be three years old, four at most, but … the Red was a Shapeshifter, surely. That was the only sensible conclusion.

  Oh, my sweet mouse, crooned the Dragoness. Come to Mama. What were you doing?

  Her eyes brimmed with fat, hot tears. With a spectacularly cute pout and a trembling lower lip, the girl sniffed, Was dancing, but I fell down. Hurt, Mama. Hurt bad.

  Come. Crooking one talon about the child’s waist, the Dragoness whisked her to the bath-chamber, where she bathed the wound in cool water and touched it with her healing magic, singing:

  Hush little eggling, don’t take fright,

  Mama’s wings will rock thee all the night,

  Safe and sound in roost and fire …

  Aranya could not help herself. She gasped aloud, transported in her own memories to a time when Izariela used to sing that very song over her crib!

  Squirming in the Dragoness’ tenderly cupped paw, the little girl stared directly at Aranya. She lisped, Who are you, tall spirit?

  The Red Dragoness’ head jerked about, searching. There’s no-one there, she said. You and your imaginings. Now, why don’t you show me that charming dance, Hualiama?

  Hualiama!

  * * * *

  Aranya’s jaw was just starting to drop when a petite, blue-haired girl of about her own age almost stuck a finger up her nostril, using the wagging appendage to illustrate her shout, “You leave my hatchling-memories alone, you despicable thought-stealer!”

  “Calm down, Dragonsoul. We invited her,” called another, virtually identical voice, tugging at the other girl’s arm.