Song of the Storm Dragon

by Marc Secchia

  Just around the time of the Dragonfriend, Leandrial intoned with inflated draconic inscrutability.

  Zip kicked Leandrial’s cheek, despite knowing that in her Human form she could not possibly do the slightest damage with such a gesture.

  The Land Dragoness thereupon added that The Immovables were also called the ‘Inscrutables’ for their unique population of Lesser Dragons who excelled at the art of glamour. No living creature knew what the Immovable Dragons looked like, only that any army which had ever tried to invade, had been annihilated and sunk without a trace.

  Perfect allies, Ri’arion suggested dryly.

  The Princess kissed him until she deemed herself satisfied, leaving a gasping, red-faced, speechless monk in her wake. Ha. Who ruled his Islands?

  Besides, she was addicted to mischief-making. Turn Leandrial into a living nursery? Marvellous! The Land Dragoness seemed quite tickled–literally and figuratively–to have seventeen eggs tucked into her cheek-pockets, and fourteen hatchlings playing wingtips-and-tumbling across the breadth of her tongue. They were awfully cute little fire-breathers, Zip agreed; only, some of the adults insisted on treating her as one of the fledglings. At least they were impressed with her scales, her inner Dragoness snorted fierily. And her battle technique. That had sealed her status in the group as just below massive Tari and her even more gargantuan shell-mother, Brityx.

  Around Brityx, she was so overshadowed that Zip had an odd impression of being a toddler needing to hug the nearest knee.

  Right now, Brityx cracked open an eye right behind Ri’arion and said, without preamble or warning, “Legend has it that Thoralian belonged to a line of powerful Eastern Shapeshifters, hailing from a little-known leeward quaternary pro-cyclical Island-system on a three-decade diurnal Blue-linked migratory pattern, called Sonax, which–”

  “Uh … slow down,” said Zip, trying to sort out the little Herimor geography she knew, in her mind.

  Leandrial showed her a mental map of the Northern Kahilate. Three-quarters of the way down on its far eastern flank, she drew a flat, intersecting oval with bright arrows. In comparison to the main territory, her demarcation was tiny. Here, little one. This is the basic orbital cycle of Sonax, as best it is understood. The Archipelago crosses into the Kahilate for two years, two months and five days of every thirty years, approximately. This is due to an additional semi-harmonic magical factor which causes the Islands to misbehave … she laughed brightly. Alright, Azure. Little wingflips for hatchlings.

  Zip scowled sullenly at Leandrial’s cheek-wall, flicking her long chestnut locks out of her face. Thanks, mighty teacher.

  Ri’arion said, “I love draconic detail, Brityx. Can we speak later?”

  “Shapeshifters,” sniffed Brityx, clearly underwhelmed by Zip’s reaction, even though she appeared to have a fiery spot for the Azure Dragoness. “Briefly, the Sonaxite star began to wax brightly perhaps two hundred years ago under the leadership of a powerful old Marshal named Thoralian. But the Marshal was betrayed and mortally wounded in battle with his arch-enemy and shell-uncle, Goralian. In the simplified version of the legend, Thoralian returned to a secret clutch and breathed of his draconic fire-spirit into three eggs, each of which hatched a perfect replica of the original Thoralian.”

  The huge Dragoness turned to regard her shell-daughter. “Any Dragon worth their wings will tell you Thoralian–be he one or three–was able to evade first deadly nursery battles, then multiple attempts at assassination and poisonings, then the combined ire of other Marshals living on the fringe of the Kahilate. He seemed untouchable. Perhaps six or seven times, entire Dragonwings saw the Yellow-White Dragon struck down and killed, only for Thoralian to reappear in another place, or to apparently fight two battles simultaneously. Unfortunately, the old Marshal ruthlessly destroyed any who knew him in his hatchling or fledgling years, and all records. The legends are fragmentary and confused at best. They say he’s invincible; that he sucks the fire-souls out of egglings–” she shuddered involuntarily “–and inserts his own in their place. So powerful is that spirit, that he reappears in exactly the same form, power and size just a pawful of years later.”

  Zuziana squeezed her monk’s fingers. Mercy.

  “Having conquered mighty territories over the course of fifty years, Thoralian’s greed waxed greatly regarding the First Egg,” Brityx continued. “It is said he schemed and connived and corrupted Land Dragons to his cause, masterminding the situation in which the traitor Shurgal first retrieved the Egg, then betrayed all of the Dragonkind by availing himself of the corruption of urzul. By unknown means–doubtless great draconic trickery–it was the unremarkable Marshal Re’akka who prevailed in the battle for the First Egg. Harnessing its powers, he devoured his enemies including the Thoralians, and fled across the Rift before any could follow.”

  “We can tell you something of that tale,” said Ri’arion. “As best we know, the Pygmy Dragoness defeated Re’akka and his armies of corrupt Dragon Assassins, after they murdered ninety-nine percent of the Dragonkind North of the Rift, but she lost the Egg once more to Shurgal–”

  “Cursed be his name for all eternity!” rumbled Leandrial.

  “–and the Egg is now back in Herimor,” the monk summarised. “Somehow, we ended up with a Marshal Thoralian North of the Rift–”

  “While one or more Thoralians endured and laid the groundwork here in Herimor,” snarled Suk’itarix. “The timing of his renewed rise to power over the last decades is otherwise impossible.”

  The companions exchanged troubled glances in the gloomy interior of Leandrial’s mouth.

  “Or, once our Thoralian returned, and reunited with his shell-brothers, they became stronger than ever before,” suggested Ri’arion. “Trebly strong. It is a mystery to me how a Dragon could pass on his spirit like that, spawning perfect copies of himself as he wishes.”

  Leandrial said, “She who holds the Egg, holds power. We must recapture the First Egg before Thoralian does. He is clearly allied with the S’gulzzi–but why should they gift the Egg to him? What would it benefit their kind, apart from domination of all Dragonkind South of the Rift-Storm? It seems too mean an ambition for a Dragon of Thoralian’s foul ilk.”

  “Immortality?” said Zip.

  “Thoralian seems to have that conundrum firmly in paw,” the monk snapped bitterly. He massaged his temples, wincing. “Sorry, love. Need to detoxify.”

  “How I wish I’d had access to your penetrating insights a hundred years ago, Suk’itarix,” sighed Leandrial. “I can shed fire upon this matter of Thoralian’s proliferation, however. There’s an ancient word in the annals of my people; I know not the Island Standard equivalent, but in Dragonish, we say daimon. It translates as ‘ravaging spirit’, or ‘spirit of darkness’–the exact converse of angel, which means ‘star spirit.’ In draconic lore, angel signifies the eternal light- or fire-spirit of the Dragonkind in a poetic or transcendental sense. A daimon is like the ravaging, unstoppable Nurguz of old–a daimonic spirit which was perhaps the very reason Fra’anior and his brethren fled our Island-World. Regardless, I propose that the Thoralians essentially consume or corrupt eggling-spirits as a vile form of procreation–accursed daimon-spawn!”

  Of one accord, every Dragon listening shuddered, even the Land Dragoness.

  Leandrial mused gloomily, “Still, I cannot penetrate the nature of his need for the First Egg.”

  “It’s simple,” said Zip.

  For once, she had the jump on her sharp-as-talons companions and she could not celebrate it. She wrapped her arms around her torso, shivering with a chill that settled deeper than her marrow. No, no, no …

  “What? What, precious Remoy?” Ri’arion asked, drawing her against his hard-muscled chest.

  “It’s an egg. Consider what’s inside. What would Thoralian most want to daimonize–if that’s the right word–if not the young of the Ancient Dragonkind?”

  * * * *

  Chained to a dungeon-like wall by manacles at wrist
and ankle designed to contain a Shapeshifter’s Dragon-enhanced strength, Ardan faced Marshal Yar’nax’tix. Through bleeding lips, he said, “I am addicted to powerful women, just not to you.”

  The Marshal reeked of glamour-magic. She had dressed up for the occasion–filmy silks, perfume, jewelled slippers, the whole seductive approach. The Lavanias collar compressed his mind like the business end of a blacksmith’s vice, promising him realms of endless ecstasy if he would only yield to her charms.

  Thankfully, Ardan had learned a few of Ri’arion’s mind tricks. Not that she was a bad-looking woman. She was short, muscular and curvaceous, which the silks made amply clear. Tixi looked every inch the Shapeshifter Dragoness, with a magical spark in her arresting dark eyes, set off by high cheekbones and the longest hair he had yet seen in Herimor, two inches of black curls framing a cruel yet somehow alluring visage. Crudely put, he had placed a vascular restriction on that part of him which she hoped would salute her glamour-enhanced appeal, magnified many-fold by the collar’s power. He clung onto the ward controlling his physiological response, but concealed it behind thoughts of the scrolls contained in Gi’ishior’s library.

  How did she achieve that amplifying effect? Did the collar feed off his innate magic?

  Ardan allowed a smirk to touch his lips. “Well, this is getting us precisely nowhere, isn’t it, Marshal? Don’t take it personally.”

  “I interviewed your boys,” she snarled maliciously.

  “You hurt them?” he blurted out.

  Tixi laughed mockingly. “No. Nor your dragonet, though I considered both avenues. But Lurax, with some encouragement at the tip of my Dragoness’ fore-talon–” she supplied a crude, universally abhorrent gesture “–told me everything.”

  Ardan threw himself against the manacles, screaming every foul curse he knew.

  The Marshal let him rage for a minute, before calling upon the House wards. Ardan’s body convulsed helplessly against the manacles as a sensation like a Dragon’s lightning attack jangled his nerves. His teeth smashed together and his eyes rolled back in their sockets. Even when she stopped, his body continued to spasm and twitch for over two minutes.

  “I know about this Aranya, this Amethyst Dragoness you hold in such high regard,” sneered the Marshal. “I’m hunting her already. And when I find her …”

  Spears of pain pierced his mind, followed by a rain of excruciating fire. His body streamed with sweat, which now steamed off his skin as the heat built beyond endurance.

  “I’ll burn her like I’m burning you now. How’s this, Dragon. Feel like a volcano?”

  GRRAAAARRRGGH!!

  Dimly, faraway, he heard her say, “Yield, Dragon, before you break your own bones.”

  Crimson washed his vision; tears as thick as blood; perhaps they were blood, squeezed from his bulging eyes as Ardan fought the pain. Every tendon in his body thrummed under the terrible, wracking impetus of the collar’s untrammelled command of his body and mind; every muscle tried to twist itself around its neighbour. Warmth leaked down his leg. Ardan had thought himself too strong, incapable of ever losing control of his bodily functions, but the agony drove rational thought from his mind, a wedge between body and soul. Tixi bore down even more heavily. He jerked against the manacles over and over, tearing his own skin. He was losing, losing the will to survive, to stand against …

  Fra’anior …

  His was the final cry of a despairing, broken soul.

  Open the fonts of thy power, o shell-son of mine spirit.

  I cannot. He must be raving; over the cliff-edge of sanity. Father-mine, I cannot stand … let me die … please.

  A keening sound of many throats raised in grief washed his awareness. This maggot torments without reason. You must teach her to fear and respect a child of my spirit–SHA’ALDIOR!

  Ardan’s world resounded with the violent roaring of many throats. With a scream of metal, he ripped the deeply-embedded manacles out of the wall. All was dark, leaping flames of fire. Marshal Tixi’s face became a rictus of effort as she plundered the House wards for the strength to keep him from transforming. The collar’s furnace-heart pain battled with the black fire within him. Something had to give. Ardan tore a leg free. Then he ripped down the wall as he started for Marshal Tixi.

  SNUFF HIM! she cried, herself turning white as she gave the last of her strength to bolster the House’s ancient magic.

  All went mercifully dark, and fireless.

  Chapter 21: A Star Descended

  ARanya Smiled at her shell-mother. Why am I not breathing?

  Izariela’s expression had never seemed more inscrutably draconic. The White Dragoness shrugged, drawing her wings up. Though she had no need of physical flight, her spirit-form still mimicked the right actions. Time passes strangely in a Shapeshifter’s soul.

  We’re … inside my soul?

  In a manner of speaking. We commune. All else is extraneous, as you say. Even breathing.

  O mystical mother! Aranya chuckled softly, Or, actually being alive? I’ve heard it’s not the worst state of being. Oh mercy, no …

  Her mother’s state was the worst. Trapped between life and death. Aranya hung her head, but Izariela chucked her beneath the chin with a fond talon-touch. No–oh, please don’t look so woebegone, Aranyi. You didn’t mean it that way. You’re alive, petal. Take it from someone who knows the difference. I’ve missed you so. I remember you as just a little girl with a crazy-beautiful wealth of hair. Now, you’re a grown-up Dragoness and you’d take my breath away–if I were actually breathing.

  Over Izariela’s musical chuckle, Aranya growled, I’m half-grown, and ugly.

  She did not mean to sour their time together. Pain lanced into her breast as Aranya thought upon the years they had lost, the march of time to her seventeenth year; her mother entrapped in that almost-tomb behind the royal palace of Immadia.

  Yet her mother’s wings enfolded her tenderly. I believe you will overcome, Aranya, if you’re even half the Shapeshifter Dragoness I think you are. Remember all I have taught you.

  I–I don’t remember. Have we talked? How long have I been here, mother?

  Not long enough, Izariela sighed mightily. Aye, we’ve spoken all this while. Suddenly, Aranya knew suspicion. Her mother sneaked soft-pawed around fate, around that always-hinted-at ability of Hualiama or Fra’anior or Izariela to speak across time and space, thereby threatening the march of destiny. What exactly had the White Dragoness done?

  Aye? Aranya purred back.

  Izariela’s eye-fires mellowed into pearlescent beauty. Good, you understand.

  I don’t, but I’m almost as stubborn as you, mother.

  I love it when you jut out your chin like that, petal. You always did that, even as a girl. Izariela’s gaze was melancholy; so fond and profound that Aranya could hardly bear to face it. You’ve evidently inherited a double portion of stubbornness, both maternal and paternal. How is my Beran?

  He’s … good. He married again, Mom. I’m sorry.

  He couldn’t have known.

  None of us knew. Silha’s a sweet petal, but it’s not the same as … as my real mother. Aranya ran her eyes one more time over the Dragoness, memorising every detail of her slender form and her perfect white scales. I gather sullen teenage Shapeshifters can be more than a little feisty.

  I’ll remind you of that one day when you’ve a beautiful brood of your own, Izariela chuckled. Now, it is time for a Star Dragoness to descend from the heavens. It has been four weeks, Aranyi.

  Four? But, Thoralian–but I–mother! Four! How could you?

  Affecting unconcern, Izariela said, Don’t tell your grandsire, alright?

  Don’t tell? Aranya gasped. Fra’anior would strip all the scales off her with his bellowing. Oh, she was so in for a sevenfold roasting this time …

  I will be with you, Aranyi. You must grasp that conviction in all your hearts! Fly strong and true, my treasure. She began to fade. Aranya pressed her close, her head pillowed on her mother
’s shoulder. You must fly for me, Aranyi. Fly for one who cannot.

  Mom. MOM!

  Her head rested on air. As her scream faded, Aranya felt gravity reassert its usual place in the Universe. With a surprised gurgle, she began to fall.

  Sideways.

  * * * *

  Tixi and her Dragons took a week to re-establish the House wards, struggling and failing to keep Ardan unconscious all that while. Unfortunately for them, he continued to heal at Dragon-speed. Great weals adorned his wrists where he had broken the allegedly unbreakable manacles, but his injuries were nothing. Lurax, having suffered the Marshal’s abominable interrogation, lay abed on the cusp of death. He was tougher than Ardan could have hoped for, but infection raged unchecked in his body–and who valued the life of a slave-boy?

  He swore revenge on his Dragon’s soul-fires.

  The Marshal had not interrogated him since, but he daily felt her hatred as a physical force.

  Legs splayed, right palm firm upon the ground and the left clenched behind the small of his back, Ardan ground his way through the fiftieth consecutive one-handed press-up with his left arm. Not bad. Ever since he had turned into a Dragon, at some point prior to his escape from the Sylakian genocide at Naphtha Cluster, his physical strength had been growing. And if he was ever to escape this place–and the diamond-trimmed, ornamental briefs that constituted his allowable day-clothing–he would need to be in top form. As usual, a dozen or so of the harem’s inhabitants lazed in the shade or beneath richly ornamented umbrellas nearby. Even in the early evening, the day’s heat was formidable, like a Western Isles hot season shoved inside a bread-oven for additional roasting power. The male consorts sipped iced fruit juices, while the female consorts occasionally roused themselves to a sultry waggle in their scanty finery and lashings of jewels, and made moon-eyes at him over the tops of their fans.