by Marc Secchia
Dragons, obey! Azziala called. Not quite the Word of before; directed toward the caldera’s lower parts.
Dozens of smoking red muzzles rose out of the lava. The Magma Dragons attacked Numistar in a rush, hurling lava about in flurries thousands of feet tall. The lava changed colour before Grandion’s disbelieving eyes, growing yellower as the heat of the battling Dragons caused the lake surface to start boiling and spitting fountains of lava.
Grandion’s seventh sense prickled. Hualiama. Ready to help Numistar. Something on the wind, in the breeze …
That was not birdsong. The Tourmaline Dragon’s neck twisted as he scanned first the slopes of Ha’athior, then the dark clouds gathering over the spiracles of the Air Breathers and down South, where the silvery streaks of speeding Grunts plummeted into the lurking mass of Dragonships.
Dragonets.
* * * *
Flicker threw out a bubbling, jubilant scream as his kindred arrived to the fray. At last, the dragonets of Fra’anior were roused. They poured down into the Dragon Hater strongholds and over their Dragonships, seeking the blue robes. In ones and twos they were a menace. But in their clusters and warren-wings of hundreds, they mobbed entire Dragonships, quarrying through the Dragonhide-armoured balloons, severing ropes and shredding the blue robes of every trio of Enchanters they encountered.
Numistar’s attacks crashed down upon the Empress, who stood with her staff raised aloft, defying the wrath of an Ancient Dragoness. Ice sheeted miles high from the explosive impact of each bone-shattering blow.
Yet, none of that stung Azziala as did the blooding of her nation.
The Lost Islanders bled Dragons for their power. Now, the paws of Fra’anior were his holy revenge, and the nation-mind screamed as it reeled under the myriad cuts the dragonets had opened. The network formed and reformed, writhing as it tried to adjust to the rents. The dragonet assault was relentless, but if they had hoped for a breakdown of the Hater mind-meld, it was not to be.
Azziala laughed. She laughed as mountains must laugh, with the absolute assurance of the power at her fingertips.
DRAGON, OBEY!
The Command belled over Numistar Winterborn like the tolling of an impossibly monstrous bell. Four miles away, Flicker staggered at its wash, but the power was not aimed at him. He felt Hualiama’s steadying touch, like a cool ray of hope shining into his soul.
She was helping Numistar, too!
DRAGON, OBEY!
Numistar’s laughter boomed in response as she surged into the attack, employing her shining talons like Island-sized scythes to cut down the enemy with ruthless efficiency. “HAVE YOU BEHELD MY ALLY, AZZIALA?”
DRAGON, OBEY!
There was a hint of desperation in that Command, the greatest outpouring of the Empress’ power yet. Even Hualiama shuddered as the mental darkness threatened to overcome her. Then, Flicker heard their conversation as though he were standing right beside Numistar, not winging into the danger zone with the finest of Dragons and Humans. Makani and Mizuki speared in from the flank, flying at a fantastic speed.
Numistar said, “Think you the Word of Command works upon an Ancient Dragon? Fools! You can throw the power of these mountains at me, or Fra’anior himself! It is useless.”
She shrugged through the lava, sweeping her claws out and downward in a gesture that snuffed out the fire-lives of dozens of the Magma Dragons in an instant.
DRAGON, OBEY!
The shining white claws scraped off the air not fifty feet from the foremost of Azziala’s group of supporting Councillors and Enchanters. He saw them clearly now, the golden faces stretched in pain, the slight, familiar form of the Empress standing in their midst. They held hands to aid the transfer of powers. Sweet.
The Winterborn sneered, “Your own whelp shall be your downfall.”
“She is my heir, the future Empress of the Lost Islands!” Azziala shuddered visibly, greedily sucking in every last drop of power she could command.
“You have only one trick. One recourse, and it has failed you,” the mile-wide maw mocked the Empress. Lia imagined beads of sweat trickling down that golden face, the desperation, the knowledge that her most potent attack had come to nought. Could she not imagine any other way? “Try again. Try, and fail. I am immune to your magic.”
Immune? Liar! Flicker knew differently. The Ancient Dragoness would have been fragmented and flayed by that incredible power, save for the shining presence of Hualiama protecting her mind. Numistar had focussed upon the Star, and endured.
“You may be immune, but – DR –”
Hualiama! Flicker shouted.
The Command never arrived. Her starlight, touched with a hint of oily inner darkness, lanced out at the precise millisecond that Numistar attacked in a new way Flicker did not understand.
The Star Dragoness’ and the Winterborn’s powers combined, bathing Azziala’s chest in cool, radiant light.
The Empress fell silent.
* * * *
Azziala’s immobility was like the stillness before a heart attack. Hualiama’s eyes took in details, but her brain refused to process a single thought. Her wings beat, but she could not feel them. She approached her frozen mother through a hail of pure white ice shards, expecting the devastating assault at any second, but the severed command was never completed.
“Star Dragoness,” Numistar rumbled.
Where was Azziala’s face? She searched her features, but the woman was gone. Those eerie, beautiful golden features had never been more a mask. Yet she sensed a stirring within – the repressed twin? The parasite? Her robes shifted, though there was no wind to stir the heavy cloth. The caldera’s heat transformed much of Numistar’s ice attack into a cool rain that bathed her overheated scales, as she watched her mother narrowly. No, Azziala was alive. She just did not know what had happened to her.
“HEARKEN!”
The Empress’ head snapped about at Numistar’s command. Hualiama’s did not. In that heartbeat, her intuition leaped to an incredible conclusion. She understood. The Winterborn’s power was a mental dominance, like the soul-devouring daimonic spirits of Dragon lore. In one fell stroke, opened by a blade of starlight, Azziala had been defeated.
She had abetted this.
With deadly, purring menace, the Winterborn said, “It is with great pleasure that I announce the completion of my end of the bargain, o blighted whelp of Fra’anior. Azziala is dealt with, according to the terms of our agreement.”
Cutting smoothly through Grandion’s rising roar of rage, the Winterborn continued, “The three months’ hiatus start now. I think you’ll be a little busy as mother and daughter … discuss … the terms of your future Empire. I can only imagine the discussion will be somewhat inimical, as I am about to instruct the Empress on behalf of every person here. Empress!”
“Numistar?”
The voice was all wrong. The parasite! Hualiama stared at the creature now standing on that Dragon’s back. Numistar’s stooge. Her thrall!
“Considering your former host’s daughter, I find her continued presence in this Island-World to be an extreme irritant. It will be much easier for me to regain the First Egg, this very day, if the bargain I made with her were wiped clean by the simple fact of her death. I don’t suppose you’d mind arranging that for me?”
“You promised not to attack!” Hualiama snapped. No, Numistar was not attacking. Azziala – no, her parasite, would. Confusion!
“To carry out your munificent will is my pleasure,” her mother said smoothly.
Lia almost choked. What? What was this?
Numistar’s grin was a study in draconic malice, multiplied to a horrifying degree. “Let me educate you in the ways of draconic bargaining, o ignorant little Blue-Star. You never specified on whose behalf you were negotiating. Therefore, one must assume, this deal was made on behalf of yourself – not for your friends, say, nor you precious Tourmaline, nor does it pass to your descendants. Nor did you specify ought apart from Azziala, and this creature,
this abhorrent entity possessing your physical mother’s flesh, is most certainly not Azziala. You are as great a fool as your arrogant, feckless shall-father ever was – for the love of the Islands and their peoples? Pathetic! Undraconic, null-fires fool!”
Her derision rocked Hualiama in the air, but she had already drawn these conclusions for herself. Numistar’s shrewdness owned this battle. Yet, she dared to insult Fra’anior himself? A hot, white kernel of fury burned within her breast.
The Dragoness added, “All of those options might have been possible. If you die, under Dragon law, our bargain is declared null and void. Being an honourable Dragoness, I will not kill you myself until the three months’ truce is up, but we shan’t need that little codicil, shall we? The parasite has been awakened. Now, the disgusting truth of your mother’s nature displayed for all to see and while I will not lift so much as a talon against you, that creature inhabiting her most certainly will – in the spirit of shell-motherly love, and all that filth. Enjoy your reunion.”
Her head spun. She could not think. Grandion, I …
Outplayed? he returned, but absurdly, his mental presence essayed a grin filled with draconic pride. Even so, we shall redeem this, and more.
Deliberately, Numistar dumped the First Egg into the lava just outside the entrance to the Natal Cave, which the lapping orange wavelets had almost reached. “The Egg, Star Dragoness, and my formal withdrawal.”
With a final smirk, the enormous white Dragoness began to turn aside.
* * * *
In the Star Dragoness’ mind, she heard her Humansoul conversing urgently with Grandion. Tactics. Vectors. Informing their allies. Meantime, Flicker urged her to land and deal with the remnants of her mother.
This was what Numistar had promised. By her twisted logic, Azziala was indeed ‘dealt with’. She saw clearly now. Perhaps the mother-brain was dead. Perhaps the twins were linked in ways she could not imagine, and always had been. But even as she watched, the face changed to that thin, pinched creature she had seen before. Flesh became animate. The parasite steadied in its command and control of her person, and the not-Empress turned to her stunned Councillors.
The parasite intoned, “Let us rejoin the meld.”
The Star Dragoness darted forward.
“Back, lizard!”
The Councillors retained enough strength to knock her away. Snarling mindlessly, champing her jaw, Hualiama swung back into the attack, only to be repulsed as efficiently as before. She had to sneak in there! Change the Balance before the spider assumed her place at the heart of her web!
AAAAHH-HA-HHAA!
A mighty roar staggered them all. A blue fist slugged Numistar in the lower ribs, a terrible blow like the sound of a Dragon smashing headlong into an Island. Hualiama gaped. Grandion? He flew upright in the air, his stance or orientation somehow reminding her of a Human brawler playing at fisticuffs, and his hugely enlarged forepaws worked in rapid combinations of strikes. WHAM! BLAM! WHADDA-BLAM!
Each blow landed with the concussive beat of thunder, stronger than the last. The Ancient Dragoness grunted in pain. BEGONE, FOOL!
Grandion slammed up a shield; Jin, Brazo and Zanya all pitched in to help him, but they were staggered by her gargantuan blow nonetheless.
Through bloodied lips, the Tourmaline snarled, “Traitor!” His right fist snaked out a cunning hook that landed like an exploding Dragonship against Numistar’s flank. “You didn’t bargain with me! You dared to insult my third-heart treasure, Winterborn. You’ll regret that!”
So saying, Grandion deflected her counterattack with a burning forearm and cunningly punched her beneath the extended armpit. With an Island-shaking groan, Numistar expectorated an icy breath of agony laced with rivulets of golden Dragon blood.
Strike, o Alastior! whooped her Dragonsoul.
Lia blinked. What magic was this?
Again! A sharp crack as a pinpoint blow connected the verimost point of the wrist of Numistar’s left forepaw! The Winterborn flinched. There was a kind of ghastly entertainment in beholding Grandion slugging an Ancient Dragoness with booming magical fists; better still, he visibly shook the marrow of her bones. Explosive Tourmaline awesomeness!
She saw a vision.
She whispered, Let the power of Onyx come alive in thee.
* * * *
As Numistar Winterborn rounded upon him, Grandion knew that he had nibbled at her proverbial wingtips just enough to aggravate. Aye, they had not bargained. That meant she was free to attack him, too. Dark-fires of dread pulsed through his Dragon hearts. Even great strength, his most potent weapon, could never be worthy of a Star Dragoness. The trio of Shapeshifters backed him up, but he sensed their Riders leaping free. Hualiama winged them over toward the Haters – no, it was that monk, Ja’al!
In seconds, as the Winterborn rounded upon his small battle group with a growl that blasted lava hundreds of feet through the air, a spate of affrays broke out over the Dragonships nearest the Empress. The creature Hualiama no longer knew as mother. Monks and warriors flew or leaped from Dragonship to Dragonship, clashing violently with the blue robes and their neat squads of protectors. White dragonets swirled through the fray, mobbing an Enchanter and toppling him over the edge. He fell, screaming, into the lava below.
And as the melody of his beloved’s whisper sang to his spirit, he saw … Fra’anior.
He felt him in his soul. He knew when the seven-headed strength of onyx mountains stirred within him, and a light yet searing touch seemed to flick against his brow, not upon the cranium but against his mind, like the lightest pressure of an incomparably mighty talon.
Wherein is thy Tourmaline strength rooted, o Grandion, pride of my spirit?
His vision filled with fire. White, pure, incandescent fire.
This Dragoness had spited the Onyx. Grandion’s strength swelled. His hearts seemed too large for his chest, pumping fit to burst, and there was a roaring in his ears like seven waterfalls thundering together upon his head at once. Jin spoke, but he heard nothing.
With me, Dragons.
Drawing his Shapeshifter team to his flanks, Grandion shared his revelation with them. He would teach these fledglings what it meant to be shell-sons and daughters in the tradition established by Hualiama, their lineage traced through Fra’anior himself. They need never bow to another Dragon again. They were the third race!
His throat thickened with that monstrous, visionary power. Battle challenge! Grandion’s monumental Storm blasted Numistar backward, stripping scales off her head. He dimly felt the three Shapeshifters bracing him, or the backlash would have crushed his bones, even the bones of a Dragon, against Ha’athior’s sheer mountainside. Then, he waded into the fray, battering Numistar mercilessly; taking her counter-punches upon his ethereal forearms and fists. She tried to bite back, but he crushed her lip with a blow that split the skies like a proximate thunderclap. His fists were Dragons, belling and roaring in an awesome fury, great roiling masses of onyx-shot tourmaline power each five hundred feet tall. He felt invincible, yet he knew the truth of where his power originated.
FOR THE ONYX!
His fist flew true, a perfect right cross to the point of the Ancient Dragoness’ jaw.
Thunderclap!
Numistar skidded half a mile backward, raising a great wave of lava that inundated the Magma Dragons behind her. She shook her head, dazed. With a low, throbbing laugh, the Tourmaline stalked the Winterborn, calling, Now must end the era of Winter, for this I declare: Fra’anior’s fiery springtide is at paw!
* * * *
“Mother, I –”
“Accursed quisling,” the creature spat.
“Who are you? What is your name?”
“My name?” it hissed, a sibilant sound like Dragonship gas escaping a balloon under pressure. “I have no name but death. I should have consumed you in the womb, you bastard whelp of Ra’aba’s diseased loins! I supped of your sweet infant flesh then, and it sustained me. You tried to escape. So long have I w
aited and at last, I have tasted the truest and deepest sweetness of your life – the spirit and life of Dramagon, stirring in thee!”
Hualiama gaped at the perversity distorting her mother’s features as she spoke. Despite that she had prepared for this encounter, she was still shocked. The lay of the robe across the distended abdomen was disturbing. She did not want to imagine what lurked beneath, how it writhed and heaved and seemed occasionally to kick in inhuman ways. Had the parasite grown in accordance with the waning of her mother’s command over the creature – or had the truth always been more twisted than she imagined?
Her Humansoul was a beloved companion. This relationship must be … she had no words for the ghastliness that confronted her now. Different. Soul devouring. Soul conspiring against soul.
Suddenly, the face twisted bizarrely. “No! Down, you beast! You cannot take it – I must rise – I will eat you alive – then you will die!”
Lia almost choked, chilled to her marrow. Her mother was still in there! Numistar had lied, of course, only supplanting Azziala’s person with the power of her parasite. The Ancient Dragoness played for long-term goals, and she was treacherous to her core. Only for a short time had the parasite been in command; in that time, Numistar had seized the opportunity to dissolve their bargain – to which every Dragon and Human had agreed, not least herself. Sly beast! Almost, she admired her duplicity.
She could barely follow as the entities battled like screeching Dragonesses squabbling over a choice roost. Each seeming to command her face and vocal cords by overlapping turns, they screamed, “Hualiama, help me – don’t you dare – I’m the Empress – you loathsome succubus – I hate you – hate you – DRAGON OBEY!”
The Star Dragoness ducked and twirled, only to see the Command-hold slap Makani and Mizuki simultaneously. Before the Haters could transfer control, she yelled, DRAGONS, BE FREE!
