Whisper Alive

by Marc Secchia

  “Whisper,” the King commanded.

  “Princess Rhyme,” she said. “One thing I don’t understand about Humans. Why do you joke when situations are grave, or sad? It doesn’t always feel … appropriate.”

  Stepping around the bed, Rhyme perched on the edge and took Whisper’s right paw in her hands. She turned it over, looking for what, the dragonets only know. After a moment, she sighed. “Whisper, my Dad’s joking because he’s happy to be alive. I joke to keep sadness or stress at bay. Sometimes, we joke just because we’re being silly, or feeling embarrassed or want attention … but there, on the trail when we were running toward the Azar army – that’s what you mean, isn’t it?” Whisper nodded, aghast at having her thoughts read so clearly. “That was defiance. A declaration just like the very first lucid thought you remember of your life, ‘I am alive!’ ”

  She played gently with Whisper’s talons. “As you should know, since you’re the epitome of this paradigm, Whisper, life is irrepressible. You ran first to spite the Warlock. You whispered and battled and overcame, you found healing Dragons, and then … and then you whispered to Azarinthe because we begged you to, and you were so moved by Arbor’s plight you recruited a nation to our side … and then, you whispered home because you wanted to. Because that was, simply, the right thing to do. It was the choice of your heart.”

  I am irrepressible!

  Whisper found a slow smile sneaking about the corners of her mouth. “Aye? Is that what you think of me?”

  “Pestiferous is just another word for irrepressible,” the Princess Blue said, firmly – having read a Whisper’s mind? What? Her upward-quirked eyebrows dared the Whisper to say more, to deny the truths she had uttered.

  She said, “As a friend, o Princess, I find you equally pestiferous.”

  “You take the proverbial dragonet’s feast in that regard!” Rhyme smiled with her eyes. “Will you answer my Dad’s –” her voice choked. She knew what this might cost. She cared.

  Whisper squeezed her friend’s fingers, thinking, all it took was a leap off the cliff. Take the risk. Life must be seized; it must charge through canyons and beneath buttresses, it must whisper around bulwarks and scorn evil with the unruly joy of its being. She repeated the Warlock’s message for him, word for word, inflection for inflection – just as the magic had always demanded. She could do nothing less, and the feeling of vulnerability it sparked within her breast was akin to being thrust back into the Warlock’s magical cage and being whipped through the bars once more.

  The King let out his breath. “Aye? That was what he purposed? Then we must make our lives count for something. What do you propose to do now, Whisper?”

  Rhyme folded her muscular arms and glared fondly at her father. “As the reigning monarch – albeit temporarily – I hereby decree you are confined to bed-rest until the Mage-Healer convinces me otherwise.”

  “She’s big on decrees,” Whisper noted snidely, trying her little paw at defiance. “Thinks they’re a good method of ruling. Oh, no …”

  “What?” asked the Princess.

  Whisper rubbed her temples fiercely, wishing nothing more than to drill out that part of her brain that dealt with oath-magic. “Sanfuri’s second command … oh, Rhyme, I’m sorry. I had hoped –”

  Rhyme rapped, “Yula-îk-yyrrkûdi, Whisper! I bind thee!”

  “Uh, you can’t –” Whisper gulped, arrested by her inner magic’s irresistible insurrection. Enslaved. “O Master, describe the person, place and imperative.”

  She stared expectantly at the Princess Blue. What did she mean to do? Evidently, the blood-oath singing in her veins was more complex than she had imagined, and certainly more complex than any recollection she had of this process. It was supposed to be straightforward. No codicils, conditions or consequences. Yet the Warlock had bolted on his own modification, and now it appeared that Princess Rhyme could tamper further with his instructions.

  Great twisting canyons!

  “I wish I had Xan’s brains, right now,” Rhyme groaned. “Very well. I hereby decree – wielding my despotic powers and all that – that my imperative must be delivered upon before you leave for Illuxor, because I hereby forbid Captain Drex to travel to his home until such time as he has been released from Arbor’s service.”

  “That’s a lot of herebys and generally unspecified despotism, my daughter,” advised King Rhuzime, with a broad wink.

  Whisper waited stiffly, secretly trying to fight the magical shackles binding her, body and soul, to whatever her Master would decree next. There was no give whatsoever. Did these Humans not understand, that they must joke about her greatest shame? Had they no compunction in using her … then, understanding lit her mind. It did not just light her thoughts, it ignited her entire being. How had she not seen it before? They were not being crass, they were assuring her that she was worth being cherished! She was a person. A person of worth.

  She wanted to weep, but the oath-magic bound her wholly.

  Slowly, thinking it out, Rhyme added, “You will deliver this message to Queen Xola of Azarinthe at a time and place that I shall specify within the forthcoming month, after which, in the absence of any other imperative, you may consider finding a viable route to Illuxor which most likely does not involve swimming.”

  Shivura said, “Respectfully, Princess, you can’t play with magic like that, especially not forms as ancient as those which bind a Whisper.”

  Rhyme nodded. “I know. But I need … I need Whisper not to die. I’m far too despotic to allow that kind of insubordination.” She winced and, clearing her throat awkwardly, said, “The message is, ‘Queen Xola, we will not rest until we find you and rescue you from Sanfuri. Despite your grumpiness’ – uh, belay that bit. Say this, ‘Know that there are those who love you and we will never let you down.’ ”

  Whisper repeated the message, and then squeaked, “It worked? It – Mage Shivura! It worked! How?”

  “I couldn’t find that canyon if I leaped into it personally,” he growled, sounding as if he would far rather be tossing Whispers into bottomless canyons. “However, I might advance a few theories …”

  * * * *

  The following day, after vociferous incident that sounded as if it ended with the ‘feeble and bedridden’ King being summarily locked into his bedchamber by his daughter, Princess Rhyme walked down to the shattered city gates to formally welcome King Xan and the Azarinthe army to Arbor.

  Whisper’s legs felt far too much like bendy vines to walk on properly, so she took the royal carriage, namely, the blue left arm of her Princess.

  She turned to Rhyme. “You are turning into quite the despot.”

  “Well, I didn’t want to disgrace myself by falling off a cliff laughing at how you were trying to walk,” replied her friend. “And, I want the people to know how you served Arbor.”

  “You didn’t want a pet?”

  “Me? Never.”

  Whisper snorted at her facetious reply. Looking through the gates, she watched the Azarinthe column advancing, the foot soldiers marching in parade-ground lockstep, while even the canodraconids appeared to be behaving themselves for a change. Novel, thought Whisper. If she was not mistaken, the monarch had taken time to spruce up his forces to give the best impression. There was Manrax, fixing something on his lap as he rode several canodraconid-lengths behind his monarch, and Yatux and Sihui marching to the King’s left hand. No distance could disguise the magic she saw that linked them. Xan sat upright on his mount, his injured leg extended before him. His armour gleamed as if it had never seen battle, but he did not wear his helm. Instead, his grey features and curly grey hair – not so strange after all on a young man of his race – appeared carven of granite, majestic and sombre.

  Rhyme cast a stern eye over her troops, arrayed in gleaming ranks both inside and outside the city, and checked that her minshuki-dragonhorn blowers were ready to sound the traditional fanfare.

  Whisper said, “You didn’t want to wear something pretty for Hi
s very ceremonial Majesty?”

  “This is pretty and shiny,” said Rhyme.

  “You’re armoured.”

  “Have you looked inside my closet, Whisper?”

  “I confess, I peeked,” she said, licking her lips. This weather was just ridiculously hot. It needed to break with a decent storm. “Nothing looked actually worn, except your frilly underwear.”

  Rhyme’s right hand clenched on her axe, looped on her belt. “I don’t suppose you’ve noticed I’m much more comfortable in chainmail than skirts?”

  “Well, at least you took my advice and wore your hair long,” Whisper noted. “Rhyme, very quickly, what happened between your father and Yessimy?”

  “Aye. Well, Ammox loved Yessimy. Yessimy secretly loved my father, and the Warleader somehow learned this. It seems the Warlock used Ammox’s jealousy to drive in the fatal wedge. That was clear from the letter he left in his quarters. He called himself a tortured man. Yessimy’s motives were less clear. We don’t know, and we’ll probably never know now, who administered the complex nutrients to grow that … that thing in my father’s back and chest. We don’t know how it was done.” Rhyme heaved a sigh. “We’ve sent for my brothers. The Mage-Healer will need to examine them all, too. I’m clear, in case you were wondering.”

  Squinting into the distance as the ambient sounds seemed to shift strangely, Whisper said, “I’m glad. I’d like to think that Yessimy was innocent, just tricked by the Warlock or his agent. Maybe Sanfuri even lied or blackmailed her at first, making her administer whatever he needed –”

  Rhyme pursed her lips. “You’re sweet, Whisper.”

  “I’m … what?”

  The Princess Blue chuckled merrily. “Takes a Dragon to know one, eh? But you are a pest. Do try to stop wriggling and refrain from making me blush when I greet Xan, alright? I don’t need to tell you this is a massive moment in my life.”

  “Indeed.”

  Whisper scratched her chin, having delivered the appropriate response – frankly, steaming as much as the day was unpleasantly hot and oppressive. Did the Princess honestly think she was about to spoil this meeting between her and the Grey King? Even if she had failed to save Xan’s sister. That loss was like having Ignothax chew on her innards, thirty-three hours a day. She had failed. She and Drex, peering oddly at her now, had lacked the strength to wrest Xan’s sister from the Dragon’s paw.

  That really was a peculiar look from the Illuxorite warrior. ‘Drex?’ she mouthed.

  He broke ranks!

  That was the instant she knew wrongness. Danger. Every sense in her body ignited, but most of all, that Whisper-sense that grappled with the flux and flow of her environment. A sympathetic awareness of the world’s vicissitudes, and her place or journey in it. A resonance felt deeper than her bones. The air seemed to vibrate as in her mind, a cascade of living fires rippled down the cliffs above Arbor, fluttering downward like flakes of ash spit from a roaring bonfire. They came softly. Lethally. Huge numbers of flakes …

  Whisper tried to spring away from the Princess, to run to the gates, but she tangled with that very long blonde plait she had convinced the Princess Blue to wear over her shoulder. The effect was less than elegant. Rhyme stumbled forward with a pained yelp. Whisper struggled, yelling about danger. Every Arborite soldier stationed around the gates immediately snapped to combat-readiness, and the Greys stiffened, perhaps imagining something had gone very wrong indeed.

  In that time, Drex crossed the space between them in five huge strides and hauled Whisper off the Princess by the scruff of her neck and shook her. “Whisper! Where’s the danger?”

  Being blasted by a man-mountain from a distance of less than an inch and seeing down his throat to his quivering tonsils, jolted Whisper more than enough.

  “Up.” She pointed. “Above, from the cliffs … Dragons?”

  “A swarming?” gasped Rhyme.

  Whisper leaped on the word. “Swarming! Aye!”

  “Fungazoids!” Drex swore. “On my shoulders, Whisper. Princess, you have to trust –”

  Rhyme roared, “ALERT! There’s a swarming!”

  The soldiers froze, looking up past the buttress above the city to the thick, soupy haze even at this early hour, and seeing no hint of danger. But Whisper knew the flitting of many wings, the soft chittering as bodies came tumbling down the cliffs ahead and behind, and the horror of knowing the Greys were stuck right out there in the open.

  “Protect the Azar!” shouted the Princess. “King Xan! Get under cover, NOW!” Her running was alarm enough. Suddenly, the King’s canodraconid reared, tossing him into the path of his forces. Xan’s head snapped backward. Hard.

  The Captains were shouting orders, deploying the axmen to secure the gates and battlements; as Rhyme and Drex charged out into the open, the alarm gong began to crash out over the city. Captain Semoki’s group peeled away from the outside of the gate, flanking the Greys to the strongside of the cliffs as chaos erupted.

  They floated down like semi-opaque flakes of black coal. Protodragons, just a few to start with, their bodies strangely formless, as if roughly fashioned from clay by a sculptor but as yet, unfinished. Whisper saw shadowy shapes of body organs through their hides. Narrow, delicate wings that wafted them down on the breezes. Like baby spiders blowing from a nest, they drifted over the city’s buttress and down the cliffs and into the canyon in a deceptively magical silence – but these were Dragonkind. Lips peeled back in snarls as they saw the man-buffet awaiting their hunger, their terrible hunger … Whisper reeled as their powerful Dragon emotions washed over her. She could barely hang onto Drex’s back as he thundered after the Princess.

  Rhyme threw herself into the path of the army, utterly reckless, in pursuit of the fallen King.

  The protodragons began to land, first in their ones, then in their tens. They whirled at once into the attack, snapping and rending, their small muzzles and fangs more than capable of spooning flesh off unwilling bodies – and they were not at all fussy about what those bodies were, whether their own kind or canodraconids or Humans.

  Drex’s smaller hammers whirled, one in each hand, as he slammed three protodragons away from the Princess’ back. She knelt over the King, slapping his cheek. “Xan? Xan!”

  Whisper had her crossbow loaded now. She snapped off a shot to Drex’s rear, taking out a pouncing protodragons. The dark bodies fell upon the Azar army like rain, driving the canodraconids mad. They had sensed the danger, Whisper realised, with an animal sense just like hers, only she had not listened. Now, talons scraped and men cursed, driving their animals or running for the city’s cover. The axmen swept around toward the rear, to the Azarinthe supply train and all their wounded, splitting up as they saw the need to protect individuals. No solid formation was about to stand against an enemy that sifted from the skies.

  The Princess scooped Xan up into her powerful arms. “Drex –”

  “Watch out!”

  The huge warrior slammed his shoulder into an onrushing canodraconid, turning it aside just enough that Rhyme could swing Xan’s legs out of the way. “Get us back. Come on, Whisper!”

  She lurched upright on her wobbly legs. Fangs! Drex hammered a protodragon away from her face. Alright, crossbows were useless in this situation. The black rain thickened. The swarm must have arrived right above Arbor, Whisper realised, pouring down the cliffs and teeming over the buttress. That was its exact purpose. Beneath the buttress was safety. The protodragons hissed and spat, attacking and tearing into anything that moved. They fed in convulsive, starving gulps of flesh, only to be set upon and eaten in their turn. The carnage was indescribable, but the only blessing was that the Dragonkind did not care for what exactly they attacked, so there was no co-ordination or overwhelming force, just a swirling mêlée of bodies and devouring muzzles. Golden Dragon blood spilled like water, running in rivulets across the sweep of open ground that led to the city.

  The protodragons sifted down more thickly now, snarling in the canyon-cover
of sentikor trees and tumbling over the edge, drifting down toward the farms, villages and mines far below. A surge of bodies tumbled over the buttress, burying a troop of soldiers near the gate. Whisper saw Azar canodraconids slewing through the open portal, being openly chewed upon; Arborite axmen mobbed them at once, cutting away the ravening Dragonkind. Other citizens lined the battlements, firing arrows or flinging spears into the fray.

  Whisper slapped Rhyme on the leg. “Go!”

  “I …”

  “Your Prince needs you! Drex and I will round up the troops.”

  “But I –”

  “You’ve the sweetest voice! Use it!”

  Rhyme looked as if she would gladly have smacked a pestiferous Whisper right over the buttress, but with both hands curved around the Prince’s limp body, she had little recourse. Instead, the Princess Blue raised her chin and began to bellow, “To the city, men! Semoki! TEAM COVER!”

  With the Princess’ shouts echoed by Drex, the Arborite axmen drew together into teams of three, covering each other’s backs as they shepherded the Azarinthe troops into the City of Blue. Arrows and crossbow quarrels buzzed thickly from the walls now; as Whisper found her perch on Drex’s shoulders again, she saw Yadron and Gemmini leading a relieving charge of Armourers and apprentices from the gate, clearing the path for the wounded Azar soldiers. Yadron wielded his Blacksmith’s hammer, while Gemmini appeared to be wielding a fire poker and a pair of heavy tongs. Well, whatever worked. And that had to be Gemmini’s mother, clad in a fire-stained smock, lashing out left and right with an iron skillet large enough to fry any one of these protodragons whole. Whisper would have liked to see her employ that skillet on Ignothax’s skull. Such a talent!

  The Princess fought, dodged and hurled her way to the city’s gateway. She kicked protodragons out of her path, whirled Xan over her head at one point to save him from a vicious bite, and then stood by the massive stone gatepost, rallying her troops with the sweetest voice that ever bellowed over a battlefield.