Song of the Storm Dragon

by Marc Secchia

  Aranya said, May I address whichever of your heads is prepared to be reasonable? For I fail to see what I have done to earn your contempt this time, o Fra’anior.

  Again, his silence spoke much.

  She pressed, May we speak as kindred Dragons?

  One head approached her precipitately, mantled in clinging dark clouds, the eyes churning with lightning and tempest. Art thou not afeared to speak, little oath-breaker?

  So that was it! She lashed out, Istariela is my white-fires lodestone. You, I know not. You have forgotten her love. Leagues and leagues of Dragon body and seven heads all seemed to sigh at once; an Island-shaking, Moons-weeping sigh. Or did you hate her, as you hate me?

  If only she could make him understand! Aye, Fra’anior was vast and awesome, ancient and alien, but he was also a creature of high intelligence who, the ballads proclaimed, had loved and lost. He knew the pain of heartbreak, and she saw an inexpressible aching in his eyes now. The shifting colours of his lightning-storms became more like rainbows. More like her hair.

  Truly, I loved Istariela, he groaned.

  Aranya replied, Yet you chose to smash Ardan and me together without regard for feelings, against our integrity and morals, and–did you not see what he did to me, and me to him? It was like … being tumbled beneath a waterfall, that oath-magic. Bruised, torn … ruined. Blindly, she pushed fractured images at him, crying, I’m in agony, violated yet remorseful, and I hate-love him! How can I ever know if this is love, Fra’anior? How can I be certain, after that? I didn’t know the Shadow Dragon! All was consumed; the deed is done–and I feel sick to my stomach. Sick!

  Distressed beyond measure, she knew no holding back, vocalising her pain with all the terrible expressiveness of the Dragonish language. You despoiled us both. I will not own this pain only for myself, but also for Ardan. He’s crushed! Dishonoured! And I am ruined for any other, via Thoralian and his Shapeshifter pox. What was wrought and shattered can never hereafter be consummated. Grandsire, how could you conceive this path? HOW?

  He baulked, yet Aranya would not let him flee, for she flew right into the face of one of those vast heads to deliver her message.

  Fra’anior groaned, No, no … I never meant … his fires wept like torrential rain.

  She wanted to fight him, beat him, to hurt him as he had hurt her, but she knew he understood at last. Empathy unfolded her crumpled heart and afflicted her with mercy–mercy as torn and bloodied as a Dragon savaged in battle, bleeding out of her every pore, yet mercy it was.

  His paw hove beneath her, as large as an Island. It trembled; four times, he halted the movement for fear of bruising her, yet at last they touched, Dragon hide to Dragon hide. In that touch was a shuddering, fragile connection, and perhaps the naissance of restoration. And in Fra’anior’s eyes, the Amethyst Dragoness saw colours she had never imagined she would see–luminous, unmistakable apricot and white shades of regret mingled with love.

  Fra’anior whispered, I … was … jealous–what I foresaw for you … it brought back so much … agony. I am so sorry. So deeply sorry. I lashed you with my heartache and mistreated you and I am mortified by what I have wrought–yet Aranya, there can be healing of these oath-fires. You can build foundations which should have preceded such an intimate oath-taking, and its outworking. It is possible, in spite of all the damage I have done you.

  But am I allowed to choose my path, grandsire? she asked.

  I will devote my every resource and wisdom and Dragon power to finding the flight of your healing, Aranya, to making white-fires, and right-fires, out of this unconscionable wrong with which I have afflicted thee!

  Will you trust me?

  The vast Onyx laughed curtly, shaking the vast plain of a Dragon’s palm she stood upon as if she were a grain of salt lodged in the palm of a man’s hand. Unexpectedly, she found Humansoul standing with her, shoulder to knee, yet as large in presence as any Dragon–the wellspring of her hope and the catalyst of her courage.

  Together, Humansoul, Aranya said.

  Together forever, Dragonsoul, said the Human girl.

  Gazing upon the tiny pair from his mighty vantage-point, Fra’anior rumbled, You’re so like my Istariela–and like me. We quarrelled. We loved. We were rainbows over Islands for each other, and the song of stars. We sang Dragon-soul-song together. I would know and cherish you too, Aranya … if you would allow me?

  Her amethyst eyes refused to relinquish her questions.

  The great head dipped, but his soul-fires genuflected in a gesture of deep respect. Before all else, I promise to trust thee. Unconditionally. This is my love-oath.

  Love that belled out across the void between the stars with magical imperative and glory.

  The Amethyst replied, Thank you, o Fra’anior. Your oath means more to me than you know. I would … I would more than allow it. I would welcome you. Yet Aranya wondered how hurt could change to love. She respected him. Feared him. Could her feelings one day be called love? How did one make that most delicate transition, more enigmatic even than the mystery of a Shapeshifter’s transformation? She added, For my part, I will try to resist–not to resist–correction … uh, too much. Or to act quite so rebelliously …

  Then, his delighted laughter thundered over her, and all became the glorious melody of an Ancient Dragon’s love-song.

  * * * *

  “She’s dreaming,” said Zip.

  Aranya lay a little aside from the smoking hole her strange turn had blasted in Leandrial’s tongue. The Land Dragon smarted, but said the wound was trivial. Not so trivial, the powers raging in Aranya now. At first, Zip had thought her friend was undergoing a violent fit, that the magic had at last overwhelmed and damaged her. Lightning had blasted from her body, contained only by Ri’arion’s quick reactions, leaving Aranya lying in a smoking crater, her eyes rolled back to show only white, her body convulsing. Now, amethyst lightning appeared to play beneath her pale skin, and she still twitched occasionally, crying, ‘Fra’anior’ or ‘Ardan’–and thus she had lain insensate for four hours as their mighty force rushed toward the Inscrutables and the inevitable encounter with Thoralian’s selves.

  “We’re minutes from charging into battle against the paramount powers of the age and she’s … napping?” Ri’arion barked.

  Zuziana quipped, “Power-napping?”

  His warm hands came to rest upon her shoulders. “Sorry, love. Nerves.”

  “Nerves? What’s to fear–the triune master of urzul turning himself into an Ancient Dragon? Or something less mundane?”

  Ri’arion said, “Strange how these gifts, and curses, of the Ancient Dragons persist to our time. Storm powers manifest in Aranya. Urzul must be the foul excrement of Dramagon himself. It is almost as if magic lives in its own right and exhibits will, and purpose, to keep alive. It adapts and manifests in new forms–”

  “Huh, and you call Aranya mystical?” Zip kissed his fingers fondly, yet she sighed. “After we win this battle, husband, I plan to demonstrate just how much I love you.”

  “I don’t come furnished with my personal storm-mantle and lightning inside my skin,” the monk pointed out, then added a positively wicked chuckle. “All private demonstrations welcome, however. What’s bothering you, precious Remoy? Tell me everything.”

  “I fear that dream of Thoralian,” Zip said. No, she feared what she must do. The choice she did not have; an unspeakable threat outlined in chilling tones. “Just pregnancy fears, dear one.”

  Ri’arion held her for the longest time.

  “I should transform,” she ventured at last.

  She read his lack of conviction even behind his Nameless Man mask. He would never forgive her. A man of unbending principle, Ri’arion would not understand. Yet his hands were tender upon her clothing as he helped her disrobe. Unbearably, unforgettably tender.

  Zuziana said, “Monk-love, if the worst should happen–”

  “Don’t.” He kissed her forehead.

  “I must. If this day is to be ou
r last together, may the knowledge forever be imprinted upon your heart of how deeply, helplessly and eternally I have loved you, o Ri’arion of Fra’anior.”

  Past tense! Oh mercy, how he twitched apart from her, pretending a sudden preoccupation with folding her dress. Magic folded and unfolded within and around her, bringing her second-soul from its place of hibernation. Ri’arion could not know, nor could she, for she suspected Thoralian had hidden his imprint behind a profound, sophisticated form of hypnosis.

  She feared he would share his concerns with Aranya.

  Yet as the Azure whirled, sensing a change in her best friend’s breathing, it was to find a well-loved pair of amethyst eyes regarding her. Aranya blinked back tears. “To war, Dragon?”

  “Where were you?” asked Zip.

  “Sorting out a few family matters with Fra’anior,” said Aranya, smiling at her understatement. “I’m afraid something’s happened to Ardan.”

  “He’s dead? Sorry, I meant–”

  “I know.” Aranya crinkled her eyes. “No, something happened to our oath-magic. I think he’s fallen over the Islands for someone else.”

  “I’m … sorry? Again? I thought you …” Zip sighed, and gathered her friend into an embrace. “I thought you said he was free to love another, because you’re so scarred. Yet I’ve seen his moon-eyes for you, and the ever-present storm suggests all is not well in Aranya’s world.”

  Ri’arion put in, “Perhaps the Jeradian way would be best for you, after all?”

  “Ignore him!” Zip said angrily, even more annoyed as a touch of jealousy smoked through her words. The Nameless Man had promised to serve Aranya; having her to consort was rather a broader definition of service than she could tolerate! “I doubt that could be true, considering what I’ve observed. At least we know Ardan’s alive, if only to face the walloping of his life, because I intend to trim his hide for boot-leather and stuff his ugly mug for a trophy if he dares, if he has the gall to so much as think about another woman!”

  Aranya patted the Dragoness’ neck, laughing. “You vicious, jealous beast. I love you. But Fra’anior did counsel me that oath-magic forges its own pathways. Our enforced period of separation, and my desire to annul what is essentially a perpetual connection between fire-souls, has led to a situation of critically exaggerated, and highly unstable magical potentials.”

  “Right,” said the monk.

  “To which Gramps suggested what, exactly, as a solution?” inquired the Azure, oozing false sweetness. “Whistle all of this magic together into the Song of the Storm Dragon, and–”

  “Quite. Then, dump the entire tempest on Thoralian’s head.”

  * * * *

  Ten minutes later, the Azure Dragoness pushed her way between a snappish Shapeshifter Princess and a steaming Nameless Man. Aranya restrained her Dragoness-instincts as Zip growled, “The enemy is out there, may I remind you both?”

  “Then why is he–” Aranya winced as her Storm unleashed an almighty roll of thunder. “Mercy. I need to transform. Minus the childish linguistics lesson, Ri’arion.”

  Zip engulfed his scowling visage in her blue paw. “Allow me.”

  “Murmble,” the monk just about managed.

  “Aye,” said the Azure Dragoness. “It’s all in the delivery, monk-love. Sit down, Aranya. I’m turning into quite the pocket tyrant here, aren’t I?” The Immadian arched an eyebrow at her friend. “The reason Mister Pedantic here wanted you to say ‘Thoralians’ in plural rather than the possessive form, Your Feisty Highness, is–”

  “Oh!” Aranya sat on a knob of Leandrial’s cheek-pocket hide with a bump.

  “Exactly,” said Zip.

  “Thoralian is–” She pointed over her shoulder, in the general direction of the Land Dragoness’ tail.

  “Quite.”

  “And?” Aranya pointed toward Leandrial’s muzzle, which was aimed at the Inscrutables and a sprawling battleground vaster than anything she wanted to contemplate.

  “Indeed.”

  She held up three fingers.

  The Azure purred, bleakly, “It all makes a sickening kind of sense, doesn’t it?”

  “When was someone going to tell me, Zip?” Three Thoralians. Of course. His apparent omnipresence was no myth, but rather a unique Dragon-power. Faintly, she said, “You can let the man-accessory go now, Azure. He was right. I just wasn’t prepared to listen.”

  Impulsively, Aranya leaped to her feet and seized Ri’arion’s hands as he emerged from within Zuziana’s paw. “You were right, Ri’arion.” She kissed his cheek. “I’m sorry–”

  The oath-magic voiced a rabid howl of Storm-driven winds that resolved in a thunderclap so mighty, it rocked all eight thousand Land Dragons of their command. Aranya shuddered at their mental outcry.

  Still, she shook her fist at the heavens and yelled, “He’s a friend! Can’t you tell the ruddy difference?”

  What greater futility than to yell in the face of fate?

  More or less daunting than standing up to her Ancient Dragon grandfather?

  The Princess of Immadia almost blew up like a volcano as Zip joked, “Is this one of those ‘laughter of starlight’ moments?”

  Aranya bottled her vehemence enough to grit between her teeth, “Alright, friends. We’re about to slam headlong into war and I need to know everything you know about this threefold-Thoralian. The augmentation of his powers. His capabilities. The history. Hit me with everything.” She looked from Zip’s glinting fire-eyes to Ri’arion’s steely mien. “Then we’ll shovel so much starlight laughter down his three foul throats he can ruddy well choke on it!”

  With a ripping of cloth, she destroyed another outfit as her Amethyst Dragoness shapeshifted into being.

  Her growl was all low, throbbing resolve. This day will be the Thoralians’ downfall–let it be!

  * * * *

  Ardan eyed the Metallic Fortress Dragon with disbelief. “Fra’anior’s paws, that’s a Dragon?” he exclaimed, feelingly. “I’m fifty-one tonnes, in my Dragon form. What’s … she?”

  The mountainous Dragoness’ laughter punched him in the gullet. “My name is Genholme. I weigh two thousand, four hundred and fifty-eight tonnes,” she rumbled, in a fantastically basso voice. “I eat twenty tonnes of metal ore every day to keep up my fine looks. My flexible metal armour is two feet thick and my maximum payload is two hundred soldiers, twenty catapult emplacements and three hundred Bullet Dragons.”

  “And you can fly?” Ardan could not keep a squeak of amazement from his voice. Her size!

  Dhazziala chuckled merrily, clutching his arm. “It’s magic,” she said throatily. She had made no secret of her attraction to him, despite her knowledge of Aranya’s existence. Could Aranya be right? Could his finding another resolve this tension between them? “When our people came to Herimor, we discovered Transporter Dragons, which possess genes for great size. They combined favourably with our metallic Tynukam–also called Grunts–to create these marvellous beasts, the backbone of our airborne forces. We still have Grunts. We fire them at the enemy using Kinetic magic.”

  “And, Bullet Dragons?”

  “There,” said Dhazziala, pointing at a crew of long, rail-thin, flightless Dragons climbing up the towering scaffolding required to reach Genholme’s back. “They are a rare breed, originally from the most southerly Islands of Wyldaroon. They hunt by shooting pebbles at small birds. We first adapted them, then trained them to fire other types of missiles–metal bullets, darts, spears, grappling hooks and even other specialised Dragons.”

  Faithless heart, Ardan berated himself meantime. Would he grow to despise the Immadian, as Aranya feared? There were many more types of love aside from the pillow-roll, but if he were brutally honest about his needs–well, he had not the strength of a monk. Such a feckless failing upon which to cast aside the most magnificent woman in the Island-World, she whose very hair yearned for his touch; a nobler, fierier and more genuine princess than any balladeer had ever envisaged. Her deeds were her mantle
and her soul’s core, white-fires. He clenched his fist, promising to guard his heart for Aranya. She thought him staunch and upright. As his people would say, no value was costlier than integrity. Was Ardan of Naphtha Cluster prepared to pay that price?

  He must. Aye.

  The Lost Islander said, “Are you listening?”

  “Sorry. I was far away.”

  Without warning, Yiisuriel-ap-Yuron’s voice broke in, Thoralian’s Lesser Dragons approach. Allies swim beneath the Cloudlands from the North. A Welkin-Runner called Leandrial has identified herself, by shielded telepathy, as the leader of a mighty force approaching from the South, but an army of Land Dragons sweeps westward to cut them off from our shores. Twenty minutes’ warning, First Hand.

  Ardan clapped his hand together sharply. Leandrial! Excellent news.

  Dhazziala’s voice filled the caverns of her people. TWENTY MINUTES! SCRAMBLE, PRIORITY ONE!

  What had already been a bustle, exploded with zest and zip. Ardan sensed subordinate commands firing at the speed of thought between the enormous, hive-like mind of these Lost Islanders. Commanders and Sub-Commanders relayed instructions efficiently. Like a well-oiled engine, they swung into motion. Trapdoors along the length of the great underground hangars dropped open, disgorging troops of ready soldiers and Dragons. Purple and yellow Bullet Dragons came swarming out onto the staging deck, their fixed talons clacking loudly on the stone and metal. They split up rapidly, charging up the loading gantries, one hundred and eighty feet tall, and onto the backs of the mighty, twenty-winged Metallic Fortress Dragons. So massive were these Dragons that a single hangar held but five beasts, and these were among the largest caverns Ardan had ever seen.

  As they had toured the fortress, called Chenak Stronghold in the Dragonfriend’s time, but now renamed Yiisuriel’s Stronghold in honour of the Land Dragon who bore part of a nation upon her back, Dhazziala had begun to open the communal mind to Ardan. The volume of information stunned him, but she quickly taught him how to filter and focus. Most record-keeping was done in their minds. He saw schematics showing underground Strongholds located in the upper regions of many Air-Breathers, the largest holding populations of up to thirty thousand Humans and Lesser Dragons. Atop the Island-sized Dragons stood farming villages connected by tunnels to the strongholds, farming mohili wheat, vegetables and a bovine called orrican in the main. The Air-Breathers numbered thirty-five in the outer heptagon, with five having perished in Thoralian’s first almighty assault, and ten positioned in a regular pentagon in the inner ring, tasked with controlling access to the First Egg via a vast under-Cloudlands volcanic pipe called the Shaft. Proudly, Dhazziala told him that the Air-Breathers had recently budded three fledgling Islands, who sheltered on the flanks of their parents, their breathing spiracles peeking above the Cloudlands.