by Marc Secchia
He had deliberately cut the saddle off the Amber Dragon’s back.
They fell.
It seemed slow at first, the Dragons still falling and Oyda and Pip falling at the same time. But the flaring, flapping wings held the Dragons up as they continued to grapple with each other, while the two Riders, strapped to a Dragon Rider saddle which had been ripped off their mount’s back, had nothing to stop their plunge. Something struck the back of Pip’s head a terrible blow.
Uunh! That was her, lost somewhere in a world of darkness, spinning, falling, trying to find her way back. Somewhere, a Dragon cried out in terror. Wind buffeted her body.
She was about to die.
Mountains, shadowy canyons, rushing up toward her. A flash of Emblazon’s face, desperate, far away. He struggled to tear free of Rambastion as the dark, muscular Dragon held him with all four paws for those precious seconds which counted out her remaining life. The broken, wounded form of Zardon, gliding unheeding toward the volcano, focussed wholly on arriving alive.
Oyda shouted at her. She could not understand.
Her hair, released, fluttered in her face like a Dragon’s wing.
The realisation struck her as slowly as they seemed to float through the air; in reality, falling at a terrible speed toward a steep mountainside. There was a new word. She should have known. There was a creature within her begging for release, a new way of being, a strange-Pip which did not even need a word, but only the will to actuate.
The world leaped around her–or was it her leaping through the world?
Grabbing Oyda to her belly, Pip tried to orient herself. The ground! The agony in her back and shoulders registered just a second before she smashed into the steep slope. Pip and Oyda flipped through the air, tumbling down the mountainside. She had to catch her friend again. She had to …
Chapter 21: Transformed to Scale
Someone stroked her cheek. Pip moaned. “Easy, little one. Eat.”
She chewed rich, blood-dripping meat, and swallowed. She slept. She dreamed of the Shadow Dragon winging through the night, hunting for her. There was fleeing and endless burning in rivers of fire.
Wakefulness returned with the blink of her eye. Pip tasted blood in her mouth. Her eyesight zoomed outward, blurring, and then sharpened on a Dragon’s massive flank lying just inches from her nose. Such beautiful patterns. Transfixed, she stared at the scales for an interminable time before she began to separate out the sounds of the three hearts beating in that great body. She heard every sound in her vicinity. There were mites scratching beneath those scales, a dragonfly buzzing over on the far side of the cave, a person breathing softly nearby–and the scents! Her head exploded with scents. The air coursing through her elongated nostrils touched off cascades of wonder.
Pip wanted to roll over, but she could not seem to lift her head off a pile of furs. But an itch on her nose had to be scratched. She raised her hand and satisfied the itch with a five-inch claw. At a thought, the claw retracted into her finger. Pip watched the smooth flexion with dull amazement.
Something was not right. Her body felt heavy, far too heavy, and her heart–hearts–throbbed with an unfamiliar, complex rhythm. She thought about this problem.
“Pip?” A soft query made her stir. “Pip, are you awake? Rajion. She’s awake.”
“Kaiatha?” She wanted to speak, but her friend’s name came out as an incomprehensible moan.
Fingers rubbed her cheek. “Oh, Pip. We were so worried.” A tear splashed on her neck. Pip gazed upward, seeing a crystalline droplet forming at the edge of a huge eye which filled her vision. She saw every tiny thread of the iris, the tiny flecks of gold trapped within radiating filaments–and suddenly her vision jumped. Kaiatha?
Her friend’s smile spread across her field of vision. Blink. There, now she saw her whole face.
Forming her words carefully, Pip croaked, “Oyda? Is she … alive?” That was not her voice. Who had stolen her voice?
“Everyone survived–you, Oyda, even Emblazon,” said Kaiatha, her voice choked with happiness. “Oh, petal, if you could only see yourself! It’s amazing. Master Kassik said … but I didn’t know … you are Pip, aren’t you?”
“I am me. Yes.” She chuckled gingerly, because everything hurt as though a Dragon had trampled her for fun. “Why, Kaia–why do you ask like that? Honestly, I haven’t grown horns.”
“No, not exactly.”
An unfamiliar surge of anger bubbled in her belly. Pip scowled at her friend. “What, then?”
Kaiatha sucked in a breath, before saying in a rush, “You don’t have horns–but fangs, claws, wings and Dragon hide are all present. Very much … present.”
Rajion loomed overhead, giving her a cheerful but concerned glance. “And how is my patient? Fractured skull, broken leg, cracked ribs and all?”
“Um … surprised,” said Pip, staring at her paw. There was too much information surging into her brain. Her senses were so super-sensitised, she wanted to block everything out in order to simply think. She shut her eyes, but magical, multi-dimensional glissades of tiny sounds and impressions still intruded. “What did you do to me?”
“Me?” he snorted. “You, little one. You did it. You saved Oyda’s life.”
“But my skin’s turned black. And scaly.”
“Tends to happen in your Dragon form,” Rajion explained.
“Hold on just a–oh. Oh!” Pip flexed her claws, aware her eyes were bulging. They were so … beastly. “Islands’ sakes, what’s happening? Is this me?”
Rajion nodded. “I guessed this would happen. Kaiatha, bring the mirror, please. Pip, calm yourself. You are alright. You’re–”
“Not alright! No!”
Her howl echoed in the cave. Pip began to thrash about in blind panic, but the deep red mountain next to her shifted. Zardon’s muzzle curved around toward her, soothing. He purred, Well, aren’t you just the prettiest little Dragon I ever saw? His soft words and a breath of magic together took the edge off her horror.
Pip caught a glimpse of herself reflected in his slit pupil. I … ooh, this is madness. I feel sick.
Peace, Pip. All is well. Give yourself a little grace. Ease into it.
Kaiatha brought a large round mirror over to her friend. She had to step carefully around Zardon’s muzzle to reach her. Pip realised that the Red Dragon had curled his body protectively around her, shielding her with his enormous flank. Pip gaped at her reflection. The Dragon in the mirror gaped back in astonishment. It blinked.
“After you and Oyda fell, Pip,” said Zardon, “I understand that you transformed just in time to catch Oyda and crash-land on the mountainside. I don’t know how you did it, but somehow you caught Oyda on top of you, or you arrested her fall … she’s fine. Barely a scratch. Well, she broke both arms. But considering the circumstances, I’d say being alive is a decent outcome for both of you.”
“And how are you?” Pip’s muzzle formed the words. She was an animal! She was a Dragon. A Shapeshifter, as Master Kassik had warned … this was off-the-Island crazy.
“I’m more bandages than hide,” Zardon joked. “I’m fine. I’ve been through worse. But look at you!” Thou, Dragon-Pip, art the very melody of fire and magic.
Zardon … she had no words.
The mirror reflected kaleidoscopic eyes, gleaming with gently roiling depths of mystic potential. Pip saw a sable muzzle, slender and lightly pebbled with neat, oval scales. A hint of smoke curled from a nostril wider than her mouth had ever been. Her neck-ruff consisted of four neat, dagger-sharp horn-spikes either side of her head, the largest over a foot long. Experimentally, Pip bared her fangs. Great Islands! She was scaring herself ralti-stupid. A pool of fire simmered somewhere down in her belly, impossibly, and so much besides …
Pip’s ears conveyed the sounds of approaching feet, heartbeats, even the creak of someone’s bones as though they squeaked like a poorly-oiled hinge, to her awareness. She shifted her aching head with care. Here came Casitha and Oyda, dress
ed alike, Maylin and Yaethi, Master Kassik towering over them all, Mistress Mya’adara and Durithion hurrying to join the group … all the people she had come to know and love. She wished her parents could have been part of this.
For a moment, nobody spoke, perhaps waiting for each other to speak first. With a sinking heart, she took in the awed and confused expressions of her friends.
“Well, I suppose I look a sight,” said Pip. Her voice cracked spectacularly. She thought she might blush, but instead, a rumbling heat ignited deep in her belly.
“Frightful,” said Maylin.
Yaethi smacked her on the arm. “Maylin.”
Suddenly there was a babble of comments. “Wonderful.” “Dragonish.” “A bit battered.” “Ah’m so happy yah alive.” “Pip, you’re awesome.”
Kassik said, “So, student Pip. I think we can safely call you an Onyx Dragon. Master Shambithion is very precise with his definitions.”
“Jet black, with just a hint of white around the throat, scale edges and claws,” Yaethi clarified. Pip grinned. Yaethi could equal Shambithion for precision any day.
“Nineteen feet of lethal Dragonish splendour,” said Maylin. “I’m jealous. Let’s just see that Island for what it is, shall we?” But her smile lit up her eyes, and she wrinkled her nose at Pip in the Pygmy way. “Enormously, Dragonish-ly jealous.”
“Your every inch is a delight,” rumbled Zardon.
Only nineteen feet? She was the size of a three month-old hatchling, Pip realised, trying very hard not to be disappointed. Was she doomed to forever be the tiny one? Maybe her Dragon-part would still grow? Maybe she wouldn’t be a fifth of the size and a tenth of the bulk of a Zardon or an Emblazon?
Mya’adara said, “Yah perfect, petal. A perfect Pygmy Dragon.”
Pip gulped, wide-eyed.
Her friends cheered and hooted and stamped their feet.
* * * *
Granted the benefit of Rajion’s Dragon magic to aid her healing, Pip was astonished at her progress. She had been unconscious for two days. Emblazon had reported she had flared her wings just before impact, or she and Oyda would both be dead. As it was, she hurt as though a Dragon had rolled over her.
Three days later, she was able to start hobbling about the infirmary and chatting to the other patients. There were many, for Rambastion’s force had mounted a diversionary attack from the north while he led a smaller group on what was intended to be a raid on the school, only to be thwarted by the alert Dragon sentinels patrolling a league above the Academy. Three Riders and two Dragons had been killed, and one Dragon, Serhion, had been blinded by an acid attack by a Green Dragon. They did not think she would recover her sight.
Dragon-Pip was wobbly and unstable. She needed to learn to walk, like any hatchling. The other hatchlings did not have a Human brain to interfere, however. She despaired of learning to fly. She’d probably only make a second attempt at breaking her neck.
To Pip’s amusement, Nak followed Oyda around like a puppy, doting on her. He fed her meals. He fetched whatever she needed. But Oyda vocally drew a line at having him help her undress. “Try another one, Rider!” She winked at Pip.
Nak protested his innocence in four lines of rhyming verse, but Oyda cut him off with, “Nak, how’s Shimmerith?”
“She kicked me out,” he moaned. “My roost’s so empty without her. What am I to do, Oyda? My darling Dragon despises me. I’m dying. I’m–”
Oyda said, “She’s brooding, Nak. You just take her the juiciest haunches of meat and put them outside her cave. Whatever you do, keep your distance.”
“I am bereft. Mournful. Alone.”
Pip prodded him in the back with her muzzle. “You’re going to be a surrogate father, Nak.”
“Ah, it’s you, my dusky beauty.” He scratched her beneath the chin absently. “I am inconsolable, despite your sweet encouragement.”
“Today, Rajion says, you can transform back,” Oyda informed her. “But–”
“Great.” Pip, who had been waiting anxiously for this moment, tried to trigger her transformation. Her body shivered. Suddenly, she felt tiny. Her perspective switched to Human, with all the limitations of sight and sound and sensation that entailed. For a moment, she feared she had gone blind and deaf.
“Close your eyes,” Oyda snapped at Nak.
“Ay?” he drawled. “This I remember–ouch!” Oyda had kicked his shin.
“Take off your shirt and hand it to Pip, you shameless philanderer.”
Pip felt a fool. Of course Dragons did not wear any clothes. Neither would she when she changed back to her Human form. “Sorry, Oyda. Sorry, Nak.”
“Sorry?” His smile assured her he was anything but sorry, which was no harm to her ego … “Oyda just wants to admire my muscular physique. Shall I remove my trousers too, Oyda–ouch! The bruises you’re giving me, woman.”
“If you’d prefer, bend over and I’ll boot your backside,” the female Rider offered.
“You bend over and I’ll–”
“Nak!”
He said, “You’ve no arms to defend yourself.”
“That’s what I’m worried about, you shaggy-bearded pirate. Besides the damage to listening young ears.” The pretty Rider turned to Pip, high spots of colour in her cheeks. “Don’t listen to him. He’s shameless. You need to take it easy, petal. Shall I help you to your dormitory?
Nak’s wicked chuckles followed them out of the infirmary. Oyda walked alongside Pip, who was still limping, with solicitous care.
“Says she who has both arms in casts?” Pip teased.
“Maybe I should start by kicking your scaly Dragon hide over to the next volcano?”
Pip grinned at Oyda, feeling so alive, she was positively buoyant. “I’m Human-me now. You’re acting a bit feisty this evening. Is our Nak getting you riled up?”
They emerged from the infirmary beneath a vast Yellow moon, which hung over the volcano as if determined to block it up forever. Its cratered surface was easily visible to the naked eye, as was the jagged, darker line that the scientists theorised was a canyon of fantastic proportions carved into the Yellow moon’s surface. As they walked up a long flight of stairs to the balcony above their level, which housed a play area for children of the staff, Oyda sighed deeply.
“Partly, Pipsqueak,” she said. “It’s partly that I can’t use my hands, partly Nak, partly you being naked in front of Nak, and probably an unhealthy dollop of Emblazon’s jealousy rubbing off on me.”
“Er … mercy.”
“A little more honesty than you bargained for? Sorry,” said Oyda. “Pip, you need to understand–I’m terribly grateful for the rescue, and so is Emblazon, but his pride has been wounded. This isn’t your fault. Not only did he lose Rambastion, who escaped, but he lost both of his Dragon Riders. You saved us, not him. I know that smacks of Dragon logic, and it is, but he feels he failed and it’s you who made him look bad.”
“I can’t seem to put one foot right in this school,” Pip said, bitterly.
They passed Mistress Mya’adara hurrying down to the infirmary. “Huh,” she commented. “That Nak’s shirt yah wearing, Pip?”
“I can explain, Mistress–” Pip was only talking to her back. “See, Oyda?”
With an irritable hiss, Oyda said, “You act like you’re still in the jungle sometimes, Pip. With you it’s, ‘Oh look, Nak, I’m just so teensy and cutesy, oops, lost my shirt.’ Now you’re an Onyx Dragon, basking in all the wonder. Haven’t you ever asked yourself why you always have to be the centre of attention? Didn’t you get enough back–” She muttered something under her breath and implored the sky, “I’m sorry, Pip. I hate my tongue, sometimes.”
Back in the zoo? Pip bit her lip so hard she tasted blood. Here she was, bemoaning her lack of stature even as a Dragon–was she not grateful to be alive? Was this how she repaid Master Kassik’s trust in her? How Oyda’s outburst stung!
She turned to the Dragon Rider, and hugged her. “Sorry. I’ve been a bad friend.�
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Oyda stiffened, but then she chuckled as she placed her cheek against Pip’s head. “I guess a Dragonish nuzzle is the best I can do. I didn’t mean to roar at you. Forgive me?”
“Of course.” Pip hugged her harder.
“Ouch. Gently, you pocket rajal–well, I can’t use that one any more, can I?” Oyda’s waspish mood seemed to ease. “Do you think it’s the Dragon in you that makes you so strong?”
“I wish I knew.” They walked in a companionable silence up to the first year dormitory. “Oyda, stop me if I’m going right off the Island with this,” said Pip, cautiously. “You like Nak, don’t you?”
The pretty Yelegoy Islander quirked an eyebrow at her.
“Why don’t you capture his attention, Oyda? You could, so easily. One look from you and Nak would be your slave forever.”
Oyda’s laughter rippled like melancholy water. “His eye wanders, Pip. He doesn’t care for me.”
Pip clucked her tongue in annoyance
“How long have you known him, Oyda? I heard you met when you were in the first year and he was in third. What is this–nine years on? Ten? And you still haven’t worked out that he worships the Island you walk on?” The older Rider made no reply. “I know he’s impossible sometimes, and I haven’t helped–and I can’t believe I’m speaking up for him … oh, Oyda. I only want you to be happy.”
She nodded distantly. “I understand, Pip.”
When they parted, Pip waited in silence outside the dormitory for a time, watching the Yellow moon wheeling slowly overhead. She hoped she had not just caused Oyda to hate her. Could a Dragon fly to the moons, she wondered? To the stars? The other students would be relaxing or studying. She felt far from that, now.
Rather than facing her friends just then, Pip felt a need for a different friend. She slipped through the school’s shadows and dark byways to the garden where Hunagu had made his home.
The Oraial understood her–and she needed that understanding more than ever. But she needed to tell him about being a Dragon. How could she ever explain?
