Dragonstar (Dragonfriend Book 4)

by Marc Secchia

  So much of the territories of outer space was void. Travelled only by starlight. The constellations had never been brighter nor more glorious, yet they were also impossibly far.

  Suddenly afraid of losing herself, Hualiama paused. Her Island-World was an invisible pinprick somewhere beyond a hook-like swirl of garnet and tourmaline and jade stars, so far away that they appeared as dust. No. She shrank back, sensing a consciousness as old and evil as the cosmos itself, which brushed her soul with such a chill as she had never imagined.

  Even as she fled, screaming in the grips of a nightmare beyond her imagination, it seemed to her that a star winked in the corner of her vision. She glanced back. The vast creature did not pursue. Perhaps it was unaware of her presence. Star eater, she imagined. That was the sense she gathered from it … oh mercy, there were many of this beast’s kin inhabiting this region of space in ways she did not understand – did some stars live whilst others died?

  Starsong. She shifted again, slowing her headlong rush. Did she dream, or was one of those stars gazing at her? Searching for her?

  She had to put wishful nonsense behind her and focus on her escape.

  At the speed of thought, she snapped back into her person, and a tentacle dropped across her chest. Pain burst into her throat, together with a clump of sputum laced with blood. Lia screamed!

  A second time, Istariela’s poetic declaration sang in her mind:

  What is a droplet of starlight?

  Fire unfathomable,

  Liquescent esotericism of life.

  Discover your past.

  Now the drumbeat interfered with her perception, but Hualiama became aware of a single locus of luminosity in the very periphery of the vision of her left eye. Starlight. Yearning, unwavering, welcoming starlight. She focussed on it, reaching with all of her heart and will, mind and soul. She could not move for fear she might invite those beasts waiting in the abysmal chill of space to visit her Island-World. That would be the end, she knew – were they the reason for Fra’anior’s barrier? A bulwark against the all-too- tangible horrors of the Dragons of deepest space? Then she must not risk flight again, but rather invite that speck to visit with her.

  Help, o please, help me. Her heart’s cry.

  The light vibrated slightly.

  Oh please, the pain, I’m bereft and terrified for this world, for its creatures …

  Suddenly, the flow of brightness seemed to slow, to reduce to motes crawling across the unthinkable distances separating her from that inconceivably remote pinpoint, and she heard a low, sweet chuckle that conveyed an unmistakably male tenor:

  /There you are./

  Help.

  /You’re a shy one. Focussing farsight … come, don’t play the glimmering tease with me,/ sang the voice. It was right at the limit of whatever sense of hers could perceive it, yet it carried to her understanding with a tinny clarity, like talons plinking thin sheets of metal. /Shine just a touch more. Glitter, o beauteous mote. Where are you hiding? I’ll find you yet …/

  He sounded like a parent playing hide-the-Dragon with a child.

  /That miniscule blip, Astralior?/ This second voice, even fainter than the first, was authoritative yet kindly, a female contralto that conveyed the heart’s-warmth of a star’s most beneficent gaze. She teased, /Your farsight must be malfunctioning. Where are we searching today – not the Danigarus Quadrant again, my love-light? That’s been dead for –/

  /The locus is two point three seven million parsecs and fourteen point one arcs beyond the nearside boundary,/ Astralior put in. /The very heart of the dead region. Look closer. Observe my readings … here! See? Did I lie? That’s a twinkle, clear as the shimmer of starlight in your incomparable eyes./

  Hualiama wanted to rub her own eyes. What was this?

  Voices of starlight. Incongruously musical and beautiful, like a sliding, tinkling magic played upon harp strings of pure radiance, their communication entered her being through senses she had not known she possessed. Lia knew she had never heard this language before. So evocative. Faraway. Were they speaking a variant of Dragonish? What form of communication could be deeper than telepathy? For the words seemed to be captured in a auroral light-play upon her ocular nerves, which then transferred into her brain – but there was no disturbance to her ordinary sight. Most peculiar.

  She warmed in response to their amiable, even affectionate interaction.

  /Oh …/A catch hitched the female’s response. /Oh, Astralior, I do see – that’s no anomaly, is it?/

  /N-N-No,/ stuttered the other. Each word was a flare of colours and light in her mind, somehow conveying linguistic import. A light-language? /Focussing to the uttermost limit. I – can you augment – a few delicate touches needed …/ His voice trailed off into incomprehensible scientific speech, outlining parameters of which she had not the first clue. /There, we have her. Perfect. And what a timorous little beauty she is./

  The light quivered. She was convinced two stars had just kissed.

  Either her sanity had just popped its cork and was gaily frothing out of the gourd, or she was experiencing a waking dream. Hualiama reached out with a sense that she was straining unfamiliar muscles. /Mmm-rrk./

  Wow. Less than erudite. But the effect was as if she had pressed the detonator on the hydrogen bomb she had used to blow Grandion out of his mountain. There was a sound like starlight shrieking for joy. At once, the light wobbled violently and winked out.

  Windroc spit!

  * * * *

  I HAVE THE EGG! AT LAST!

  Holding up her prize in one of her three remaining paws, Numistar Winterborn’s bellow of triumph split the late evening sky. Flicker shook his head slowly. All for a gamble. One supreme toss of the dice those Jeradians loved so dearly. She did not back down from her dominant pose as yet another, even stronger earthquake shook the Rift from end to end. The mountains beneath her body rippled and bucked. The tremors were almost constant now, but their group had cleared enough of the way ahead that they were able to keep walking or sliding, and the great exodus of Land Dragons continued toward the lands of Herimor. Crimson and black fires rose from the broken peaks all around them, but the area upon which the Winterborn stood was a cracked heap of ice three leagues in diameter.

  The Ancient Dragoness sneered, I should rend you limb from limb. But the one I want lies deeper. Tremble, little Dragons, for I shall be your enemy from now until eternity. Once I have muzzled your precious little Star Dragoness, I shall trample over your worthless carcasses, which are not fit even for fodder.

  You’ll never defeat us, Grandion asserted boldly.

  Numistar spared them the briefest of sarcastic laughs. Enjoy the remaining moments of your pathetic existence, Dragon. My immortal paw shall rest upon the high places of this world, and I shall rule forever!

  The Dragons said she was mad. Flicker shook his head slowly. Not so. Ruthless.

  With that, she turned away and began to burrow with paws and magic, tossing her debris down upon Yiisuriel-ap-Yuron’s deeply fractured mountain peak. The leader of the Air Breathers was grievously wounded, but she refused to give up. Leaning upon her strength, the Land Dragons and the battered nation they bore upon their backs limped on, ever southward toward Herimor. They left their dead scattered behind them.

  His gaze turned to the skies. Oh Blue-Star, we have given our all that you might shine. Do not forsake us in our hour of need.

  * * * *

  Abandoned, she still knew hope. Alone, she dreamed of victory. Cast down, a star dreamed of destroying Dramagon’s schemes from the very nadir of her powers.

  Imagining the faculties of a Land Dragon, Lia turned her toes into beacons of light. She would expend her last strength in fighting these creatures of Dramagon and the magical detonation they had primed. The bomb must be defused, and she would destroy them one at a time if she had to.

  BE LIGHT! Starlight blazed upward, searing through tentacles and piercing one of the jet black sacs right through. The creature impl
oded, rending their lattice. The Earthen-Fires magic wavered ever so slightly.

  Lia tensed up. BE LIGHT! Her blaze was better directed this time. Four creatures snuffed out as their dark-fires surged in response to her starlight attack, and the resulting discharge annihilated the bodies they contained. Four more shots exhausted her strength. Her lungs burned as she watched the Dramagon-spawn reform their lattice many miles overhead. A supple vice grip contained the Rift’s own storms of magic. Even now, she sensed Earthen-Fires erupting up there – removed from the meriatonium! That was why she could survive, and think, because the bottom of this area was devoid of all magic. No. That wasn’t logical. What she did conclude was that the massed presence of Dramagon’s creatures had succeeded in corrupting the Rift’s basic fires just as she had once been corrupted, but now she shone untainted, and perhaps that very purity had allowed her to communicate with … no. Ralti-brained nonsense! That was impossible.

  Snarled up in an engineer-Lia conundrum, she heard the male voice intone, /Detection trebly confirmed. It’s a newborn stardrop. Initiating secondary analysis vectors./

  /By what miracle has she survived amongst galaxies of death?/

  Astralior replied, /Miracle indeed, Quinesstaralia./ Was she hearing right? Hualiama was convinced that this musical language of theirs did not translate exactly into whatever processes she used for ordinary decoding of language, so the name seemed to be an amalgamation of ‘quintessence’ and ‘starry regalia’, but the male was speaking again, with mounting excitement, /Oh, may the First Star be praised – look, my light-love. Behold! It’s one of ours!/

  He broke into a disconcerting ululation, which she found more eerie than joyful.

  /A d-descendent –/ Quinesstaralia could not speak. Instead, she made a soft crooning sound, perhaps the very star’s weeping Lia had imagined before.

  /The signature is unmistakable,/ Astralior just about managed to quaver. She had the impression of unsung age and wisdom in his manner. How old were these creatures? /Keep steady, o paws, stay true to my purpose! The adjustments are so miniscule at this amplification … such distance … there, see these legacy-quartile, upper septuplet markers represented on the spectral genetic footprint? Unmistakable. Meet our descendant-stardrop, my dearest soul-song. She is unquestionably ours./

  Did they embrace? Could she believe this hallucination, these voices speaking over her life from the farthest beyond and claiming – mercy, how her pulse reverberated with concussive hammer blows against her eardrums and deep in her throat – kinship? With her?

  I’m your grandchild? Hualiama thought. What emerged in star-speak was another wondering, shrill, /Mmm-rrk?/

  /She speaks!/ the female rejoiced. /Oh, she’s more enchanting than any spectral flux, oh, dearest Astralior … you are without a doubt the very pinnacle of Seeker-Star excellence!/

  Right. Apparently, she was a cooing infant. Flicker would fall out of the sky laughing.

  Speechless with wonder, Hualiama tried another, /Mmm-rrk./ A burst of ecstatic laughter greeted her mind-blowing linguistic success. She was speaking with stars? Nothing in her experience could have prepared her for this moment. Nothing in her imagination. For a girl birthed of a hateful womb, it was too overwhelming, so she bottled up the volatile brew of feelings inside and instead, tried to communicate her need.

  After the briefest pause, Quinesstaralia said in querulous tones, /Do I understand she’s under attack by the Sankûraguz? No, something akin – her world’s so strange. What’s a droplet even doing out there, Astralior?/

  /She needs us,/ he replied gravely.

  Help. Help me. If she could not speak, she would emote. Drawing together with her second-soul, Lia tried somehow, anyhow, to communicate the danger of the Rift’s impending explosion and the fate of the First Egg. /Mmm-wa,/ she said. /Rrr-mk./ Marvellous progress.

  /How our love-radiance explodes to know you!/ Quinesstaralia burst out. /Oh illume my soul, dear stardrop, my treasure –/

  /You’re in greater danger than you imagine, little stardrop./ The sweet quality in Astralior’s speech vanished, replaced by great urgency. /Your world lies in what we term a ‘dead zone’, ravaged in aeons past by the Sankûraguz and their cousins the Nurguz and stripped of all life as we know it. Those fiends are the eternal and immortal enemies of stars. Our worst enemies. You correctly identify us as your grand … parents./ He stumbled over an evidently foreign concept or terminology. /We, that is Quinesstaralia and I, Astralior, have dedicated our lives to searching the heavens for stardrops lost to –/

  /Her aid, dear light-love. Urgently./

  /But, what can we do?/

  Quinesstaralia’s voice warmed at her mate’s helpless tone as she said rapidly, /Take courage. No other could have found this stardrop from within our luminous citadel, o beloved radiance of the heavenly places./ Lia sensed a fiery caress underlying her words. /Now, we cannot explain much. Know that we are with you, little stardrop. We long to travel to your aid, but uncountable parsecs separate us, and those territories between are inhabited by very many formidable adversaries. Youngling you may be, but you must ensure your world remains veiled from their cognizance. To this end we shall send to your aid a legion of those called Yhishaalylia, or the Shining Ones. They are –/

  Hualiama almost shouted with frustration, not understanding her terminology. Stars that did not live? Partially alive stars that infiltrated enemy strongholds and committed suicide?

  The faraway voice continued, /When they penetrate your atmospheric shield – a wonder in itself, hiding your planet so seamlessly from rapacious eyes – you must activate the Shining Ones and direct them to the battle./

  What? She could not throw stars at the Island-World! /Mmm-rrk!/

  /It will not be easy,/ Astralior soothed, evidently misunderstanding her alarm. /You must direct the assault with precision. I am so sorry, but this is the best aid we can offer from this mighty a distance, our infinitely precious, pristine stardrop. We will come for you. You and your star-kin, should more exist in your demesne, must hold strong as a family unit until we can divine a way. We will not fail you. Never again./

  Again? What did he mean, again?

  Then, she froze. Had a shadow just crossed their communication?

  /In one year and a day, will you seek us?/ Quinesstaralia rapped, patently apprehensive.

  Here was that most draconic of emotions, joy-grief. Yet the implications were clear. Something sought her luminous kin, or hunted a stardrop. One of the baleful creatures she had detected up there must be homing in on their link.

  Ambushed by an uncharacteristic attack of that very shyness they had accused her of, Hualiama whispered, Until that day, farewell and shine brightly, my … uh, grandstars?

  Warmth and laughter ignited in her chest.

  Chapter 35: Above and Beyond

  Grandstars. Belonging. A family beyond the stars, representing a wealth of heritage that she simply could not wrap her bruised brain about. Not today. Not when so much hung in the balance. They had been combing the farthest reaches of their night skies for … her. Aching. Longing. They loved her with the passionate, fiery hearts of stars.

  Always, when faced with the unknowable, Hualiama had turned to action. Therefore, she sat up. Oh. That motion alone took over a minute as she battled the forces that threatened to crush her pitiful Human bones. She had to mould her shielding finely about her person just to find the strength to crook her knees, and to stand was a painful anatomical lesson. She tested her ribs gingerly. That odd burst of warmth had been a touch of healing, she suspected, for although her flesh still felt tender and would no doubt turn all colours of the rainbow in a few days’ time, she was able to stand without doubling over in pain. She had not been welded in place. It was only the insane pressure which had led to that impression.

  Could she use her levitation trick? Only with the greatest effort, paid in a cost of magic she did not possess. But she knew one who did; Infurion was still fighting up there. How best to gai
n his attention?

  Flicker would counsel the brash, all-paws flailing approach.

  Amplifying her telepathic powers, Lia shouted, Shell-uncle! A ride to the surface!

  She could not see him amidst what she belatedly realised was a swirling storm of dark-fires forming a roiling firmament where the magic seethed into being overhead, but she knew when the Ancient Dragon reacted to her imperious demand, for his wrath shook the Rift right down to its foundational meriatonium. Then, he exerted his magic and built for her a growing column of translucent Rift quasi-stone, conjured out of apparent nothingness. Hualiama found herself rising into a region of immense tidal forces and battle. She readied her protections. Disruptive Earthen-Fires awaited, their corrosive tang already eroding her magic. She had navigated them before only due to being insensible. Yet again, why had she not been destroyed?

  Dramagon’s creatures angled for her at once, jetting along with enviable ease while she was forced to stand immobile within her shields, like a metallic statue. She took measurements rapidly, relying on Dragonsoul’s abilities. Inside, she conversed excitedly with her second-soul.

  Did you see – the girl began.

  I did! And can you believe – the Dragoness squealed.

  I can! I do! Was it real? We didn’t just imagine a link to our past; perhaps to the origins of all Dragons?

  It was as real as I am, rocks-for-brains. We have grandstars! And I see –

  – the prophetic rising before us –

  Her Dragoness snarled, The only rising we need to do is above this Rift to direct the attack, which might yet sunder our Island-World as Flicker feared.