Song of the Storm Dragon

by Marc Secchia

  Aranya said, “In case you hadn’t worked it out, that was a … well, not a vision, exactly, of Hualiama Dragonfriend, and I’m pretty sure she’s alive, although she hasn’t told me where, yet. These are scrolls she said we must take on the journey. Ri’arion, these can go in the library once you’ve–”

  Zip touched Aranya’s arm. “Give them to me, petal, or I’ll never see Ri’arion again.”

  The monk made a pretence of great fuss and annoyance, which ended, predictably, in a passionate kiss.

  “This is a White Dragoness’ scale.” Aranya held up a necklace. Her voice betrayed a discernible quaver. “It’s Istariela’s scale–you know, my grandmother. Hualiama gave me gifts of hope and dance, and identified the Word I inadvertently spoke when we arrived at Gi’ishior. It was the secret name of an Ancient Dragon who used to live beneath Ha’athior Island, Amaryllion Fireborn, a name of great and abiding power, as I just about managed to work out for myself. Hualiama also urged the utmost haste on our quest. We must pack tonight and leave tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?” Zip snorted. “What’s the hurry?”

  “Aye, we won’t have time to analyse these scrolls,” Ri’arion added, sharing an inscrutable glance with Zuziana.

  King Beran said, “What was the substance of the Dragonfriend’s wisdom?”

  “Let me explain.” Aranya summoned Hualiama’s words. “The Rift is in flux. Its activities appear to be cyclical, but it is not a regular cycle. She said that if we can’t cross this month, we won’t be able to for at least a year, which would give Thoralian that much more time to wreak havoc in Herimor. I understood that she meant the fires and the disruptive magic of the Rift-storms increase dramatically during these cycles. Hualiama crossed the Rift herself–”

  “So the legend is true!” Ri’arion crowed.

  “Aye. But she also said it was easier back then. And she was severely injured both times she made that crossing.”

  Zip groaned, “The mighty Dragonfriend? Mercy! What’re our chances?”

  Beran chucked Aranya beneath the chin. “So, Sparky, did you bring back any actually cheerful news?”

  She shrugged. “Hualiama wasn’t giving away much, but I do believe your theory about the First Egg might be true, Ri’arion. She called the Egg a ‘time capsule’ and said that–well, she’s an engineer and scientist, I definitely didn’t understand all the terms she used–there’s a chance everything in that Egg might still be alive, kept in a state of stasis or suspended animation. That’s how the Ancient Dragons travelled between the stars. Magically slowed aging … as I said, I didn’t really understand.”

  Ardan put in, “Are you saying Pip could come out only a little older than she went in?”

  “Aye, that’s what she implied,” said the monk, mining his beard for fleas.

  “If–”

  Zip cried, “Oh, Aranya, I hate ifs. Can we do without this one?”

  Aranya hugged her friend impulsively. “Very well. Here’s the proverbial windroc in the hatchery. We’d need to work out and reverse the exact process the Pygmy Dragon used to suck a volcano, a floating Island and thousands of Dragons inside the Egg. And hope beyond all hope that the Nurguz didn’t somehow enter the Egg too, or that this all-conquering Marshal isn’t resurrected to continue his merry genocidal ways.”

  “He looked like Thoralian’s egg-sibling,” Ardan pointed out, confirming Aranya’s suspicion.

  They stared at each other. Even Sapphire appeared cowed by their collective dismay. Thoralian might resurrect an army of Dragons. They might unleash an enemy crueller and more powerful than the Yellow-White despot of Sylakia, an enemy that even the legendary, tiny-pawed Pygmy Dragoness had not cast into defeat and ruin.

  Beran clapped his hands. “Good. Let’s get packing, ladies, gentlemen and Dragons.”

  Aranya groaned, “Who’s going to explain this to Va’assia and Ja’arrion?”

  “No need,” came a saccharine reply from the doorway. “When were you planning to tell us about the Dragonfriend’s visit, Aranya?”

  She whirled. “Aunt Va’assia!”

  “Dragons have ears,” purred her Aunt, in her Red Dragoness form. “So, my lovely plotters, how can Ja’arrion and I help? And Aranya?”

  “Ayeeii?” Aranya squeaked involuntarily. She covered her mouth. “Aye, Aunt Va’assia?”

  “My itchy nose tells me you had some influence on the frankly astonishing levels of co-operation King Cha’arlla showed in the negotiation process. Is there a confession you’d like to make before you depart our shores?”

  Mercy, her Aunt’s Dragon-smile was an exercise in sweat-provoking disquiet. Aranya was quite sure her own colour had summarily migrated toward a pasty swamp-green.

  Ja’arrion shouldered his wife aside good-naturedly, as only a Green-Orange of his size, or perhaps Ardan, could have done. “You’ve a way with words, my flame.” That earned him a shoulder-bite. “Seriously, Aranya. We need to know because your Aunt and I intend to see that the will of Aranya is implemented concerning these Isles, the Dragons, their governance–whatever it was you said.”

  Aranya raised her chin. “I was candid.”

  “Verbal fireballs,” said Zip.

  “You threatened him?” asked Ja’arrion, sounding so impressed that Va’assia bit him again.

  “I merely reminded the King that we’re family.”

  Chapter 11: The Far Shores

  THE SHADOW DrAGON spread his wings over the caldera before daybreak. So nascent was the pre-dawn gleam, Fra’anior’s Islands appeared to float upon beds of darkness. Mist and smoke swirling around the base of the Islands lent the Cluster an air of mystique, so that Ardan imagined the Islands might just drift off on the breeze like Dragonships. Fine. This land was stunning. He was growing mawkish, a tough Dragon-warrior developing a melancholic appreciation of natural beauty. Or was this his Dragon’s outlook? Intriguing. For literally, he saw the Island-World through new eyes, and unaccustomed thoughts percolated through his armoured cranium. Just behind his left wingtip came Aranya, and then Zuziana, in the perfect slipstreaming position Ja’arrion had taught them–when was it? Less than two weeks ago?

  Leandrial had already set off around midnight, since she and Ri’arion had worked out that given prevailing winds, the flying Dragons should catch her at the latest by Archion Island. Ardan had made the journey to Sylakia in two straight days and nights of flying, but this time they intended to take three, which was Leandrial’s estimate of her under-Cloudlands ability. Besides, there was no point in killing anyone before they partook in the communal delight of tossing themselves into the Rift for a swift and deadly roasting.

  Ardan asked, New saddlebags, Zuziana?

  Aye. Longer ones made of Dragonship sacking, which strap to multiple spine-spikes. I’m less likely to lose anything this way, she replied. Also, this configuration provides improved protection for all the jolly implements our wise Elders insisted we pack.

  Tell me about it, he grumbled, hooking a talon backward at his load. Ardan had been ready to fly four hours before anyone else. At least he did not need to leave his beloved behind. Poor Zip. Her wings drooped at the tips.

  Ri’arion had divided the scrolls exactly as specified by Hualiama, some to pack in a treble-sealed package in Zuziana’s saddlebags, while the rest he deposited in the library of Gi’ishior. Disturbingly, he reported a number of valuable scrolls were missing from the library’s racks–Thoralian’s handiwork, Ja’arrion concluded.

  Let’s go burn the heavens, Dragons! Aranya bugled unexpectedly.

  A spurt of Dragon-hormones roused Ardan’s being into a battlefield of pulsating blood and quivering muscles. Aargh! He expended his energy on driving higher, searching for a Dragons’ Highway. To his intense annoyance, the Dragonesses not only kept up, they were visibly flying more languidly than he and even goading him to fly faster! Rascally females! Ardan tried to focus on wing-form and body posture, but there were few apparent differences, apart from the obvious dispari
ty in size and strength. He narrowed his eyes, trying to see in the spectra which Ri’arion had advised would allow him to observe magical influences, and was rewarded with a view of the air flowing over their peculiarly-shaped aerodynamic shields. Oh! How did they do that?

  Alright, Ardan. Time to eat humble gristle, as his people said. He growled, Teach me to shield like you!

  The Amethyst Dragoness eyeballed him in a way that made a Dragon’s blood boil. Are you asking or demanding, thou paragon of soot and fire?

  Please, he barked. Uh … please, would you teach me, thou … um? Dragoness? Ardan burned at the ineloquent words snarled up in his throat. By his wings, he had better work on the romance, as Ja’arrion had quietly advised. He was no silver-tongued Immadian, but even a gruff word well-turned could shiver a Dragoness’ wings …

  Ooh, that was nicer, said Zuziana, with a pert waggle of her tail.

  You don’t want to make a grown Dragon beg, he snorted. It’s not pretty. How’s about a little Aranya-style negotiation?

  How does that work? asked the Amethyst, playing the innocent.

  Ardan said, First I burn your pretty rump from here to Sylakia, then–hey! Aranya’s mischievous wing-slap caught him unawares, sending the Shadow Dragon into a spiralling part-stall.

  Catch me if you can, floated back to him on the breeze.

  GRRROOAARRGGHH!!

  * * * *

  Three days later, the Lesser Dragons dived into the Cloudlands to join the Land Dragoness at the southern tip of Sylakia Island. Over the howling of the wind as they plunged, Zip called, “This is where the fun starts, according to Leandrial.”

  They had tarried briefly at Nak and Oyda’s old cottage, finding only a note from their friend Nelthion and enjoying the pick of Nak’s herd of ralti sheep, who had continued to patiently fatten themselves on the sword-grass without a herder to care for them. Zuziana dropped by the nearest village–in her Human form–to send a note by message-hawk to Nelthion suggesting he meet Nak and Oyda at Fra’anior. A man of his administrative gifts could easily find employment at Fra’anior or Gi’ishior, or with King Beran.

  With an unseasonal snowstorm closing in, which they could not blame on Aranya for a change, the threesome opted to shoot the breeze and dive off Sylakia’s edge, cutting through a driving blizzard which Zuziana teasingly suggested was ‘home and hearth to a Northern paleface’.

  Aranya favoured this with her snootiest snort.

  It seemed difficult to believe that travel in the dense layers beneath the Cloudlands could beat travel through the grey, stormy skies above, but with the blizzard firmly set against them, choices appeared limited. Down they speared, battered by the gale-force winds swirling around Sylakia’s peninsulas. Ardan’s lead took them several miles offshore on a steep descent aimed to obviate any chance of striking the cliffs, even though Sylakia’s massif plunged a jaw-dropping three leagues beneath the Cloudlands, right into the middle-lower and lower layers. There was no distinction between blizzard and toxic cloud, only an awareness of sinking into a realm where the snow fell ever more imperceptibly, and predatory bodies cut through the murk around them in search of easy pickings.

  Aranya’s developing senses identified the primitive forms of Harmonic magic these creatures hunted with, responding to disturbances in the aether, either magical or physical. The light intensified rapidly as they descended through a drifting swarm of shihurior, an untranslatable word in Dragonish which described a class of light-producing, single-celled organisms which converted ambient electro-magical waves into light. Feathery, transparent bodies teemed against their shields. Though these appeared to be the benign form of shihurior, Leandrial had adjured them to be alert for other, more aggressive subspecies.

  Thus, their wings stirred a cauldron of ever-changing, blue-white light as they descended into a realm where the deadly masqueraded behind serenity. Four times they dodged or hid as inquisitive monsters sought them out, from bubble-bodied, swift electrical Stingers to the lazy, mile-long Harvesters, which consumed everything in their path. Beautifully-patterned, butterfly-like insects the size of Dragonships concealed deadly stinging probosces beneath the pretty ancillary wings lining the undersides of their abdomens like sweeping lace skirts. In this middle layer the colours of plants and animals were vivid and variegated, like the view from one of Gi’ishior’s underwater windows which opened on the terrace lake. Stripes and spots and shimmering colours abounded, so unlike the realms they had traversed further north. This was the start of the Middle Sea’s vast expanse, stretching from Jeradia to Remoy along the full length of the Southern Archipelago, a sea so broad and untamed that no Dragon or long-range Dragonship would attempt such a flight.

  In these parts there was no flat, leafy plant-layer to separate the middle layer from the middle-lower, only the waving tips of the forest in the distance, approximately three miles beneath their position in the aquamarine depths. Here, a vast shadow named Leandrial awaited them.

  Little ones! she bugled gladly.

  She looks well, Zip observed. Have you noticed the phosphorescent quality to her scales, Aranya? That’s new. She’s become … bluer. Brighter.

  The barbels beneath Leandrial’s jaw, housing many of her additional sensory organs, waved as the Land Dragoness flicked her tail lazily, swishing toward them. Aranya realised they had never been so deep. The pressure against her pneumatic shield-layer was massive. She adjusted her wingbeat and form, performing more circumscribed beats with an increased cupping of the wing-struts on the downward stroke, lessening the lift required in thinner air while increasing direct forward thrust–semi-swimming, Leandrial called this movement. Aranya adjusted her pressure-compensation constructs and called for Ardan and Zip to do the same. As they had learned from Hualiama’s lore-scrolls, increased pressure differentials directly influenced the forms of filtering magic they required.

  Besides, her little passenger needed to be kept comfortable.

  Leandrial looked them over with a muted touch of her Harmonic eye-magic. She had explained that Harmonic magic examined or acted upon the natural vibration of every element of the material realm at the atomic level, which was an element of science unfamiliar to Lesser Dragons. At the simplest level, she could increase or decrease the amplitude of vibration or change its nature according to various vectors, leading to observable effects such as heating, cooling or even vaporising materials. Then, there was a host of other more metaphysical uses in the realms of her Balance-magic, which Aranya understood as a way of seeing broader global or even universal harmonies, such as the flow and probable cause and effect of events.

  Very good, the Land Dragoness approved. Will you teach me all that is new about these multi-layer, responsive constructs? Where came you by this lore? Tell me everything!

  As you command, o wise teacher, Zip said meekly.

  I am wise, Leandrial agreed, oblivious to the Remoyan’s sarcasm.

  Aranya sensed that the Land Dragon must have missed them even in three short days. How droll. How … sad. She could not imagine the loneliness of a century and a half’s enforced isolation from her kind–too staggering to frame in words.

  She listened to Zip as Leandrial led them deeper, forging down to the level of the ‘treetops’, the broad, leafy terminal tufts of the snaking forest giants that stood rooted in a substrate a further three miles down–and these were not the largest under-Cloudlands forests by any means. The trunks, a mere fifteen or twenty feet in diameter for the portion they could see before they vanished in the sapphire depths a mile below, swayed gently in the air currents, and played home to a unique menagerie of under-Cloudlands life. How Aranya revelled in her newfound sight! Oh, she had never appreciated colours and details and distances like this!

  They flew a mere compass-point or two east of south, angling for the mighty Urtuo-Jahû current, the great circular current that served the Middle Sea and kept its denizens alive.

  From Sylakia to the fringes of the Urtuo-Jahû was a matter of a mere t
welve leagues, but that was enough time for Leandrial to outline the dangers. Aranya ticked them off in her mind. Electrical pod-fish. A class of Sharp-fin predators that hunted in shoals, usually swimming against the current and relying on surprise to ambush their next meal. Eddies and whirlpools. Sentuki Squid, the flying giants of the invertebrate class together with the packs of hunting Minors they controlled psychically, and then a host of sub-intelligent draconic species.

  Soon, a low rumbling communicated to their senses, agitating the magenta fronds of the forest in this area, bending them toward the southeast and the Crescent Islands.

  The fringes are the most perilous, Leandrial noted. This is prime predator territory, where the voracious ones enjoy cover and camouflage, and the benefit of creatures knocked about in the Current’s swirling edges. Behold.

  She pointed with her talon. A half-mile distant, the body of one of those creatures Aranya had nicknamed ‘Butterflies’ tumbled toward them, under siege by a host of Borers. As they watched, a flash of light beyond the Butterfly caught their attention. Dense shoals of sleek, fifty-foot swimmers descended upon the mess, their triple rows of inward-sloping teeth flashing white as they tore into the Borers. Beyond, a massive violet head reared up out of the current, squeezing and pulsating as the monster jetted toward the fray, its stubby yet powerful tentacles waving eagerly.

  Sentuki Squid, the Land Dragoness advised.

  Aranya shivered. The creature had to be a quarter-mile across, and the beak that pushed out of its underparts was capable of snaffling ten of Ardan for breakfast at a time. One gleaming, crimson eye fixed balefully upon them. She felt that gaze! No wonder Leandrial had them shielding; the creature’s menace was palpable and accompanied by psychic probing that stabbed at their brains like a thousand pinpricks all at once.

  Leandrial explained, Hold firm. She seeks Minors for her herd, but she isn’t strong enough to overcome any of us. Sentuki are best left to their own devices. They’re too smart to take on a Land Dragon.