by Marc Secchia
Tenderness, unbearable. She turned away, grieving inconsolably.
“That would be wise,” said the blue-haired twin.
The Great Onyx snarled, “Then, we shall work out how and when you shall raise this Egg from amongst the treacherous S’gulzzi, o star of mine third heart!”
* * * *
“You are a recruitment machine,” Flicker advised Mizuki.
The Copper Dragoness eyed him cagily. “What do you want, dragonet?”
“Merely to advise this present company of your most admirable skills,” he returned, playing bait-the-Dragoness with glee. “Grandion. Ear canal to the ground. It is time.”
The Tourmaline snorted, “So glad we have small minds to remember small details.” Nonetheless, the great Dragon bent his ear to the sparse ochre grasses of Gemalka.
Flicker snickered, “Down, boy … good Dragon.”
Then, he had to leap over a fireball; Makani moved like grey lightning, protecting the tents and Dragonships in Grandion’s line of fire. She snarled, One more chirp out of you, trickster, and I’ll Glue you to the nearest Dragonship – permanently. Do we understand each other?
The dragonet nodded. Perhaps that had been a talon tip too far. Flying directly to the Tourmaline, he genuflected aerially. How may I serve you, noble Dragon?
Help me work out what she’s saying.
At once, Flicker flattened himself beside Grandion. They exchanged data, trying to decipher the choppy, oftentimes fragmentary communication. She was located somewhere near Immadior’s roost, they worked out, hundreds of leagues ahead of the Dragonship fleet. Hualiama had been speaking to Fra’anior – Grandion’s sigh communicated much as the dragonet relayed this information to their companions – and she reminded him to feed his house? His hardships? Eat Haribol fruit? Flicker and Grandion pulled disgusted faces at each other.
“Your Human,” Jinichi called over, from where he sat with Elki, working on an infected talon on Mizuki’s left hind paw. “Feed your Human.”
“Feed him?” asked Flicker. “Why?”
Sounding as if she were quoting from a scroll of non-existent lore, Isiki said, “The great Star Dragoness’ Human manifestation inadvertently starved during her period of suffering at the Empress’ Command-hold. She only narrowly survived, and that thanks to Siiyumiel’s – ah, what is it, noble Tourmaline?”
“Close a paw upon that thought for a moment,” he ordered. “I want you to teach the Shapeshifters-to-be. Brazo! Zanya! Jin –”
“Listening,” Zanya returned crisply, raising a hand. She, Brazo and their mother Varinya were working steadily through a pile of arrow shafts ready for fletching. No doubt, they would shortly be greeting Ice-Raptors once more.
“I am not worthy –”
Grandion stared the diminutive Eastern Islander down with a brooding frown. At length, he snarled, “Did I make a request?”
Isiki shook her head, gulping audibly.
“I didn’t hear you, former Thirteenth Slave, now bondservant to a Star Dragoness!”
“Aye, noble Dragon!” she squeaked.
“Better,” he purred. “Next time I’ll have less blithering nonsense and a deal more instant obedience, girl, or you’ll be sharpening every single Dragon’s talon in our Dragonwing! Daily!”
Isiki’s eyes darted about, taking in a few dozen of the two hundred and ninety-three Lesser Dragons which had now swelled their forces, keen to earn battle honours and the favour of Gi’ishior. Politics, as ever, ruled many a Dragon roost. A more cynical thought elbowed its way into Flicker’s mind. That, and the fact that Numistar had attacked many of their roosts on her way south. The prospect of revenge, served fiery, had enticed many a paw to their service.
Yet Flicker also noticed Dragon ears bending to the talk of Shapeshifters. Grandion had not decided upon a policy of openness, but that seemed the best way to stem any loose talk. All Dragons knew of the passing of Amaryllion Fireborn, but not many knew about the gift of his fires. He would ensure the spread of the right rumours. His regard returned briefly to the overgrown blue dragonfly and his overweening ego. Dragonet chatter might be put to good use. He could do worse than to tell sundry tales about his best girl, ensuring that the divine seal of the Ancient Dragons attended her actions.
Meantime, Isiki gathered her courage and blurted out, “Well, the wisdom of Siiyumiel was that both manifestations of the fire-soul ought to be fed at least every third day, and potentially more often than that. While a Shapeshifter’s physical needs do not seem to appear to match those of normal activity – we can think of the second-soul as being in a place of rest – they are definitely present, and measurably higher for both manifestations after battle, for example. Can I speak to each of you and document the exact symptoms you are experiencing?”
Jin said, “Watch this.”
With his tongue, he expelled a thin stream of fire out of his mouth.
“That doesn’t burn you?” the girl asked quickly.
“Just the sensation of heat,” he averred.
“Mind where you water the grass,” Flicker suggested, with studied indelicacy. “You might pee Dragon acid.”
Jin said, “More to the point, is there a chance I could burn my girl – uh, fellow Dragon Rider, in a fit of anger? My emotions … I mean, I’m an Easterner and a warrior, but I’ve never felt this way before. I’d liken it to –”
“Being a volcano on the verge of exploding?” Zanya suggested, with a delicate shiver.
“Exactly. Out of … control.”
Flicker’s hearts melted toward the boy’s concern. Easterners had such a knack for self-discipline, but he knew that draconic emotions would test him to the limit. Hualiama still experienced that. Even better, he had provoked her more than a few times – a pleasant picture of his girl punching holes in Dragonship walls came to mind; and now, more expressively, the memory of her literal flame dance, which he had picked up from Grandion. Just … amazing. He pictured the Human notion of rolling up his sleeves. What trouble might an ingenious dragonet foment amidst a group of emergent Shapeshifters?
The possibilities were endless.
* * * *
Battered by legion S’gulzzi eager to sup upon the power of ruzal, Hualiama swept away on her rapidly melting Egg-ship, passing beneath Immadior’s roost and into fountains of fire that poured with ceaseless, thundering majesty through the vast tunnels and chambers of this area. She did not entirely understand the geophysics, for in some places the massive upwellings lifted them miles, but just when she expected to go shooting up a volcanic pipe, they tumbled away down a series of billows like a waterfall spilling over many ledges, spinning dizzily until they splashed down in a lava lake of unknowable proportions. Her best efforts at echo location – a haphazard technique given the limitations of Flow – suggested the biggest cavern was a monumental two hundred and thirty leagues in diameter, and pressurised by toxic volcanic gases to well over one hundred and forty atmospheres. She shook her head slowly. Even the hardiest of Dragons must surely be crushed beneath such phenomenal pressures!
The Egg’s protection sloughed away steadily beneath these titanic forces, and with it, the relative protection that Hualiama and Shill enjoyed. She realised that the tough additional shell somehow insulated her from the psychic attacks upon her ruzal, which alone of her magic did not react in the same way to Flow. This provided a direct route to her mind. While the S’gulzzi were more devious than strong, they were countless and she laboured until she felt stretched as thinly as spiderweb in a gale.
Hualiama recalled her latest consultation with Fra’anior. Warnings. All warnings, and a smidgen of help promised. The First Egg must not be allowed to rest long in the Earthen Fires, for the combination of their conflicting types of magic would be as devastating as Shill had described. He could not attend her often, for Numistar Winterborn had already become alert to his presence and care for his shell-daughter. Indeed, he adjured her to treat with Numistar rather than Azziala, for the Ancient Dragonk
ind were bound to a code of honour that even the Winterborn would be forced to obey. He provided extensive advice on the subject. Lastly, the ruzal. She must never give it up willingly, neither in life nor in death. That was a prize both her mother and Numistar would give the Dragon’s share of their future kingdoms to possess, and with its surrender, the spirit of Dramagon would roam free at last. What of the S’gulzzi? He counselled her to endure until he could divine a solution.
If the towering intellect of the seven-headed progenitor of her Island-World could not conceive of how this so-called bequest of Dramagon’s could be extinguished, then how could she?
Hualiama despaired.
She fought and agonised and writhed as the First Egg rolled on seemingly with a will of its own, and measured the cracking of the ice field about them, and knew the crux must come soon.
* * * *
That night, Istariela came to her.
The White Dragoness’ approach was guarded, hidden within a dream filled with warm eggling-feelings, but at the moment it turned to terror and chasing, Hualiama awoke, feeling as if emotional shards lacerated her soul. Two eggs still lay abandoned. Safe, she hoped, trying desperately to cling to those slivers of a memory, of a roost secreted behind a mighty waterfall … she must find it! She must succour those eggs! Ensure they were safe …
As the dream-state faded, she sensed Istariela’s presence.
Human-Lia stirred first, disconcerted. How did this Shifting work? One brain awakened fully, while the other still drifted in those languid yet ungentle mists. Moaning softly. Eyes flicking rapidly beneath her shuttered eyelids.
She whispered, “Are you here to hurt us again?”
The perfect white wings stiffened. Anguish flashed briefly in her eye-orbs before the White Dragoness circled to a brusque landing. “You wound me, child-not-mine.”
Fra’aniorian! That mellifluous accent could hardly be mistaken. A slight variation in the vowels, to be certain, but perhaps a precursor of her own accent. Hualiama raised her chin. “Really? Then you fail to understand who I am – who we are, Dragoness. Shell-mother.”
“So bitter?” The beautiful, sleek Dragoness inclined her head. “Yet, you wear my scale.”
“Did Fra’anior create you to be his mate?” Lia bit her lip, wishing she would not engage in verbal combat with her twin’s mother.
“I was a foundling.”
Jaw. Clang. “Like … me?”
For the first time since she remembered from her earliest eggling dreams, Istariela chuckled, but the sound struck her as gruff and self-conscious. Lia snuffed out the mental picture which had prompted that laughter. How could she pretend connection with a mother she had never truly known? She wanted to lash out or run to Istariela, she did not know which. But she did know she must not distress her second-soul in the doing.
Instead she, of her own volition, must bridge the gap. Someone must take the lead.
Rising from the white bed with a simple flexion of her legs, Lia danced with melancholy, processional mien toward the White Dragoness, who quivered as if she too was on the cusp of bolting. Lia said, Stay. Tarry, o Istariela the White, and dance with me as we once danced in your womb.
Now, it was the White Dragoness’ turn to stand frozen, her left forepaw daintily poised upon the third step leading up to the bed as the girl’s dance gathered form and momentum. Onward. Upward. Fire gathered in her path, adorning her limbs and crackling sharply from her hair. It was dark, at first, the notes of desertion and angst overriding her decision to forge a new relationship, the sense of being a traitor to herself too poignant, swamping her soul. The anguish communicated in shudders, abrupt pirouettes and fearful leaps.For the longest time, her palette remained murky, but then almost imperceptibly, Hualiama began to find a hint of yellow here and vibrant orange there, as if her deepest heart’s cry leaked through into her dance, granted expression she could not otherwise find in speech or thought. The irruptions gathered pace. They persisted.
Istariela wept.
Whirling. Soaring. Higher and higher she flowed, broader of gesture and lissom of bended neck as she bowed now before her shell-mother, curled into a foetal position, trembling as the incandescence of life’s inner joy began to diffuse from her skin. She depicted that fragile first meeting in a series of rising hand twirls, accompanied by lithe flutter steps evoking the laughter of conjoined foetus and fire-soul absconding upon the winds of the Island-World. She twisted and soared, fleeing from the ghastly cavern of her Human mother’s womb.
Hualiama knew Istariela’s womb had not been so. Frightened, aye, yet profoundly mother-loving. She played her exquisite twin’s sweet yet fleeting rapport with her shell-mother before she flew from the empty nest, tracking that scintilla of need across a thousand leagues and more; then the thrill of discovering her second-soul, the moment of … assimilation? Integration? The desire never to possess, but to unite in soul-deep companionship.
The rapturous intensity of her expression demanded movements as fluid and exotic as the Flame Cycle, inviting the flame of her sister, already alert and responsive as she watched – how long had she been dancing? Did time have meaning in her soul space? Softly, as if their souls were connected by a fragile strand of Helyon silk, she reeled her in. Blue-hair. Second-soul. Mirror-soul. Rising into the flame. Pouring out her inmost need and joy, her eternal gratitude to a nascent fire-soul who had braved the long leagues and who had saved her life in more ways than one.
Their together-dance retraced the helical expressions of deepest life.
At last, with a terrible, racking sob, Istariela stretched out her wings. Come to me, oh, please … please, my darling, precious sparks …
Her brokenness told it all. The girls abandoned their dance to gather the White Dragoness into their embrace, huge as she was, stretching their linked arms about her neck as far as they could reach, and in perfect concert, laid their heads against her breast, so that they could hear and soothe her frantic hearts’-beat.
Istariela nestled her shell-daughters close, one beneath each wing.
Miraculous child – children! the Star Dragoness wailed at last. I bore one beautiful egg and gained two, profound mystery that thou art. Oh, that I could brood once more over thee … I would do everything differently. So differently.
Chapter 15: Unfathomable Fires
Hualiama GOGGLED at her shell-mother. Her voice struck an incredulous note as she repeated, “Are you saying you’ve no idea of your origins? You claim that you’re a cosmic mote, fallen –”
Istariela sang:
What is a droplet of starlight?
Fire unfathomable,
Liquescent esotericism of life.
Her Dragoness touched the Human girl’s arm, stilling a furious outburst. Aye, this was as draconic a non-answer as she had ever heard, and it made no sense. It was maudlin, a tale for infants; nothing a Star Dragoness should even pretend to believe. How could she not know? How could she not want to know? Surely Fra’anior must have refuted her belief, or set her straight aeons before …
The White Dragoness said, “I wish I had better answers – any answers at all. Long have I sought the truth, but Hualiama, you must accept that of draconic magic, some enigmas simply exist. They pre-exist time itself, and perhaps even our universe. No reasoning of mortal creatures can penetrate the impenetrable. Amongst the first rains of that fiery re-creation, as Fra’anior navigated the seething infernos of destruction, he came upon what I just sang to you, a liquid droplet of starlight, which contained the flame of draconic fire-life. That was my egg. As I said, I was a foundling – his foundling, and despite all that has passed between us since, I still love Fra’anior for his tender and faithful care for my un-embodied eggling form.”
“How old are you?” Human-Lia blurted out. “Uh, Mom – Dragoness?”
Istariela chuckled throatily. “It took my egg three thousand, three hundred and seventeen years to hatch.”
“What?”
“Star Dragon eggs ar
e special.”
Human-Lia dearly wanted to slap the ever-so-draconic shrug that accompanied these words. Dragons! Even her second-soul acted as steamed as a volcano evaporating a lake, fulminating at length in the recesses of her mind.
Istariela regarded them with eye-fires dominated by apricot and pure white tones that curiously, seemed to eddy about each other in a fiery embrace. Love, as the Dragon poets would have it, burned in the eyes. Mellifluously, she said, “My treasured egglings, I would love to teach you what I have learned since of Star Dragons. Your own life story should tell you better than any words of mine how unique you are. Star Dragons hatch when the Balance is right. I believe our greatest work is to uphold the Balance, and to stand against the forces that would destroy the magical life of our Island-World. We possess unique powers and privileges, but also bear unique responsibilities – and that is why I have come to you this day. Because I see your struggles, my shell-daughters. Because I know that you possess the greatest fortitude, but I also know you will need all of your untainted strength to stand against the scourge of Numistar Winterborn.”
The girls chorused, “What are you saying?”
“Two things.” The Dragoness held them close. “When the time is right, I would whisper to you the location of my last two eggs. Would you brood over them for me? I beg you. Please.”
“Of course.”
Human-Lia glared at her twin. “What? This Dragoness isn’t coming back for them!”
“You’ve every right to feel this pang,” Istariela soothed. “I cannot return, or the Balance would be upset, and though he does not admit it, Fra’anior’s eternal fire-soul would be forfeit. Worse, I must ask you to keep their location secret from Fra’anior. The Ancient Dragons have ways of … of knowing each other’s thoughts and intentions, as best I can tell. Numistar’s wrath would be unimaginable; worse, she might even seize and corrupt one of those eggling spirits. Promise me!”
Suddenly, her manner bespoke fire and terrible majesty.
She must protect her own – they were her siblings, Lia reminded herself. She could do no less. How lonely they must be, hidden in cavern or roost and shielded even from Fra’anior’s regard, longing for over two decades for maternal touch. Any touch at all would be better than the fate of abandonment. She herself had spoken to Istariela from within the shell, so these egglings would know their fate. In a mental flash, she agreed with other-Lia. It was not even a choice.
