by Marc Secchia
She must … permit something?
Her puzzlement barely registered before the Yhishaalylia bowed slightly toward her position upon Grandion’s elevated paw. It sang, /Spare our souls but a drop of thy starlight, and we shall ignite. Fill us with starlight, and most gladly shall we plunge into the darkness for thee, and all shall become radiant. Sing, o my soul, of the incandescent joy of death! All our kind require to be reborn is the tiniest glimmer of thy radiance, but it shall neither be asked nor demanded of thee. Only an offering –/
A freewill offering? she asked, finally understanding. At once Lia said, Of my freewill, I shall give to thee. Grandion, please help me. Thank you.
The creature did not budge, so Hualiama had Grandion lift her until her muzzle lolled just inches from that utterly alien visage. Tranquillity dwelled in the space in which she communed with the Yhishaalylia, and at last, the Star Dragoness understood that perhaps her greatest dance must be just a soul-wrenching bridging of the inches that separated her being from this alien star traveller’s substance. Summoning her starlight power, she willed her muscles to behave. Strained her back and neck. Stiffened her body to stretch out and touch her lips to infinity.
She kissed a Shining One. Starlight sparked between their souls.
Chapter 36: Myriad Stars shall Fall
The YHISHAALYLIA TREMBLED. A tempestuous sough shuddered through its being, and then a rising melody of magic chimed from wingtip to wingtip – it had five separate pairs of wings, she realised inanely, their shape similar to a butterfly’s wings – and a glissade of inexpressibly charming notes played upon her hearing. White radiance imploded within and exploded outward from the Yhishaalylia’s body simultaneously, searing her retinae with violet light-flares before her membranes could respond, as the Shining One became suffused with the glory implicit in its name.
Flicker exclaimed quietly, O worshipful magnificence!
The Yhishaalylia said, /Our worship is to burn and die, for the gift has been given and the song must be sung; all praise and gratitude to the giver, the sustainer of our star-lives!/
It genuflected toward her.
N-Noooo … please, Hualiama stammered.
/Direct us,/ ordered the creature. /Do not stint, for the dread name of this Dramagon befouls the farthest reaches of the stars. Shine brightly, brave stardrop, until thou assumest thine eternal abode amongst the innumerable congregation of our kind./
Farewell.
At once, the Yhishaalylia turned away and touched its neighbours, wingtip to wingtip. The shimmering sparks of starlight leaped eagerly between them, and the searing song of the Shining Ones swelled until all the heavens revelled in their extraordinary luminosity and all the Islands of the world must perforce bow in awe. Hualiama wanted to shade her eyes, but she also wanted this moment to be emblazoned upon her memory forever. Legion they were, the stars that turned darkness into full daylight, and their song warmed her soul until it seemed she must burst for the ineffable joy that thrilled her hearts. Hualiama rejoiced. She wept. She shone from the core of her being, and by degrees, began to feel some semblance of control returning to her muscles. The starlight rippled outward through their formation, beyond the ambit of the mortal eye. Radiant wings and bodies filled the heavens. They stretched down like a mighty tent of light to the eastern horizon, where Hualiama saw the twin suns about to touch the Islands with their life-affirming beneficence, but this day, they would be outshone.
Unsteady of paw, she rose to gaze down upon the Rift. Too late!
Whiteness spread many leagues beyond Numistar Winterborn’s location as the Dragoness battled Infurion; by keeping him from battling Dramagon’s forces, she doomed them both. Perhaps that was her intent, in the welter of her madness and greed. Perhaps she intended to invade the First Egg and corrupt its eggling fires, thus accomplishing her escape into immortality?
Not today.
Not while this Star Dragoness gazed down upon her Island-World, which slumbered in deceptive tranquillity, and melancholy filled her soul.
Myriad stars shall fall. The prophecy must be fulfilled.
She raised her forepaw. Go.
Directed by her thoughts, the Shining Ones began to peel away from their formation from the farthest points east and west of her position, swiftly coming to resemble a formation of shining birds migrating downward into the dark slash the Rift made right across the breadth of that original impact crater. Faster and faster they fell. Streaks of light speared into the shaking mountains. Their singing swelled. The joy of stars in the fiery labour of their kind caused Hualiama’s voice to respond in an ascent into exultation. At last, she saw the light, and it was as though a fog of fate and fear had lifted from her mind. She sang her love. She sang healing across the Islands. Healing the Rift. Bringing blessed cessation from the terrible amalgamation of conflicting powers.
A throbbing wound must be lanced. Thus she viewed the Rift. First in ones and twos, and then in clumps of dozens, pale violet conflagrations flared like the unfurling of faraway blossoms as the shooting stars plunged deep. Fires erupted, soon combining to span hundreds of leagues, but the assault continued unabated. Greasy black smoke mushroomed from every strike, soon joining together as the billows mounted many leagues into the morning air. The white streaks of plummeting stars pierced the boiling black clouds repeatedly. Concussive detonations reverberated against her eardrums, even at such a distance that she could see even beyond the Rift now, into the realms of Herimor. Flashes and flares of violet light spilled from the length of the Rift as the stars shone within, cleansing even as they died. Hualiama imagined the expiring shrieks of Dramagon’s progeny, but the sounds of their agony were drowned out in the glorious march of the legion.
Her paws gestured. Many more stars plummeted from the heavens. She directed them to the points of greatest resistance, where the Dramagon-swarm massed together in dense thickets of bodies; where their foul magic besmirched and consumed the starlight for long seconds before they, in turn, succumbed. The Rift would be scoured from the inside, and she found the destruction to be a grievous necessity rather than a joy. Must Balance be restored at such a terrible cost?
Slowly, Hualiama became aware of Flicker and Grandion watching her with expressions she did not entirely enjoy.
She shrugged gracefully, having to speak telepathically to be heard above the symphonic song. There’s still Numistar to track down. You boys ready for a little game of ‘hunt the Ancient Dragoness?’
Flicker flexed his tiny muscles. Definitely! I might need a little assistance, however.
* * * *
With the First Egg’s help, Numistar had driven Infurion deep into the Rift, below the bridge he had built and which Grandion belatedly realised, Hualiama’s command of the assault was attempting to preserve. But even she had to hearken to the carnage proceeding around her. Tentacles blasted into the new dawn as the Shining Ones created devastating waves of white-fires magic that rolled through the Rift. Much of the strange substrate apparently created by Dramagon’s creatures was gone, blasted into nonexistence. Deep down, the Earthen-Fires magic had begun to exert its dominance anew as Dramagon’s creatures perished in their tens of thousands, and he saw the stardust Hualiama had briefed him about – all that remained of the burned-up Yhishaalylia – drifting upward on the dark-fires in shimmering clouds that eventually disappeared up into the skies.
Perhaps the winds of the cosmos would bring them home.
Turning from Infurion, the Winterborn assaulted his tiny battle group of three.
Feral and swollen with power, the Dragoness was insuperable. He, Hualiama and Flicker joined together, and despite her starlight power entwining deeply with his, amidst the chaos of deathly ice-breath, Chrysolitic-like attacks and the swipes of Numistar’s paws and the ongoing, deafening attacks of these kin-creatures of hers, the Winterborn continually forced them back. Hours passed in grim defence. Infurion, terribly wounded but as yet living, could not help. Numistar drove them to retreat to the
canyon, and from there pinned them against the backs of the departing Air Breathers, and they could find no way to best her. She had the Egg. She was untouchable.
Grandion knew despair. He had strength enough to preserve their lives, but little more.
Then, he heard Hualiama conversing rapidly with Yiisuriel. Shields up. One last, augmented blow that would lure Numistar off the precious meriatonium path and out onto the unstable Rift surface.
Quickly, Grandion!
No need to think. The exhausted Tourmaline Dragon set his wings once more for the skies, incongruously darkening with the Rift’s reinverted and dare he say it, pure Earthen-Fires, free of the influence of Dramagon’s perfidious minions. The forces were still immense and had to be released. The fires already mounted a mind-boggling six leagues above what he considered to be Island-level, and they were still rising. Hualiama’s solution was creating a new phenomenon, a new incarnation of the Rift.
To his further surprise, not a shadow of dark-fires doubt did the Tourmaline Dragon find in his mind. He trusted her, and judging by the tenor of her pearlescent eye-fires, she warmed to his faith.
Bait Numistar, Grandion.
He was too wrung out to formulate any clever insults. Numistar! he bellowed. Come for me, and I’ll rip off another of your limbs! Soon, you’ll just be a worm crawling on your belly …
It was enough. He had to stretch his wings to their limit as he carried Flicker and Blue-Star upward, for the mountains beneath the enraged Ancient Dragoness were also rising. Infurion! Yet Numistar seemed unawares, for she pursued them with exaggerated snarls of rage. Her paws thrust aside the unstable mountains as she floundered and struggled through, but she was so huge that she could simply step from one insecure foothold to the next.
He gasped incredulously; Flicker laughed, Family will rise, o Grandion. Family always does.
Those two troublemakers had recruited Infurion to their side and ensured he survived the fantastic core temperatures of burning stars? Or did Infurion act out of a selfish desire to protect himself and his domain?
Fly, o Tourmaline! Lia cried.
For thee … beyond the stars, he grunted, pouring the last of his strength into an evasive sprint. This, he could do. Riding a powerful thermal, he wrenched himself sideways to avoid a shower of ice shards each longer than his body. Flex the wings! Retract, angle, dodge! Grandion flew as never before, hurtling unscathed through the Winterborn’s lethal discharge as he clutched his precious cargo close to his chest. Never let them go. Never give up!
Numistar vented a series of terrible, wrenching cries. The mountains shook at each augmented blow of her paws, and the air reverberated to the tune of her vengeful insanity. Ice exploded repeatedly all around them. Dimly, he realised Hualiama and Flicker had joined him, their combined power racing through his wings to grant them edges of starlight and lightning as the terrible assault became inescapable. Devastating cold curled about them, seeming to suck them backward – but that was only the power and speed of Numistar’s charge. Grandion feared his eye-fires might freeze in their sockets as he battled on and on.
Fra’anior, your strength! he ground out. For here came her mouth, engulfing their surroundings as it snapped shut over them … the Tourmaline spun on a brass dral and rocketed back over Numistar’s frozen blue tongue. Desperate velocity! He angled for one of the gaps between her almighty fangs, bellowing with the effort.
Idiot! shrieked Flicker. You call this a strategy?
Faster! urged the Star Dragoness.
It drew shut too fast. Already, he could not have squeezed through the gap as the upper fang sliced downward, perfectly filling the gap between the two lower-jaw fangs. Still, he triggered the Storm power pent up in his stomach. At the same instant, Hualiama thrust out one of her shields. KAAABOOM!! They exploded together through Numistar’s jagged fangs on the starboard side of her head. Grandion thrust away from her lips with his hind legs.
They tumbled away past her monumental flank as the Ancient Dragoness charged onward.
Grandion, flee now!
Hualiama’s urgent cry galvanised his wings. Grandion clattered awkwardly into a full battle-sprint, glancing backward from the corner of his eye to check why she had shouted her warning – even though, through their mental link, he already knew.
The greatest of the Yhishaalylia came screaming in from the northern horizon, and dozens more seared down from the blazing skies and from all points of the compass. The beams of their violet brilliance seared even through the protection of his secondary optical membranes as the unearthly creatures converged at a phenomenal speed upon the Dragoness still clutching that most precious treasure to her chest, the First Egg of the Ancient Dragons.
At the last second, Numistar’s head jerked upward as she hurled all the power of the First Egg at the Shining Ones.
As the Yhishaalylia smashed together, the detonation was as if all the cymbals of the heavens had crashed together at once. Did his ear canals thrill to the Great Onyx’s roar of triumph?
A brilliant wave of light slapped Grandion into oblivion.
* * * *
Five days later, the last of the Land Dragons hobbled off the path through the raging Rift storm, and with a joyous cry of relief settled into his more natural realm. The Cloudlands had been rent and disfigured, but the Island-World slowly crept toward the norm – a norm that might take decades to settle, Hualiama realised. No mind. She snuggled deeper into Grandion’s strong arms and tucked the warm, purple orrican wool blanket up to their chins. They were alive.
Burliki said, “Is this location satisfactory, noble Empress?”
“I despise lying abed,” she returned frostily.
“Orders, Your Highness,” said the stolid Red, but his fire-eye wandered as if possessed of a will of its own toward the Ice-Blue Dragoness Zanya, standing guard nearby. “Recovery first. Rulership in good time.”
Hualiama grumbled, “You put me in the same bed as –”
“– your husband?” murmured Grandion, rubbing a place where her back was not bandaged. “Faugh, how iniquitous. Besides, you know Flicker is somewhere under these covers, don’t you? My favourite chaperone.” He rolled his eyes drolly.
Aye, courtesy of a favour from Burliki, their double bed had just been carefully placed on flat area of Yiisuriel’s mountaintop, from which they could survey the wondrous realm of Herimor. It had only taken them four hours of begging for this excursion to be arranged, and the laughable but necessary stricture –sworn ten times over – was that neither Hualiama nor Grandion would budge from their bed. No mind. That meant she had her entire nation’s permission to be cuddling her husband, in public, atop a living mountain. How her life had taken wings.
A sleepy voice emerged from a petite mound near Grandion’s feet, “Burliki, you’re getting rather enamoured with this romance business, aren’t you? Shall I offer a few pointers?”
The Red’s fires blushed. “Erm …”
“First, tell her how you feel,” Flicker goaded.
“I feel like I’ve been run over by Numistar,” Grandion offered, ignoring the dragonet, “but I’ve never been more in love with you – not that I can find much of my wife beneath these bandages, nor can I move with four separate casts covering half my body …”
“So much pent-up desire,” teased the dragonet.
“Flicker,” Hualiama warned.
“Right, right. Make moon-eyes at the suns-set – ooh, by my wings, wasn’t that an excellent joke?” When silence greeted his words, Flicker added facetiously, “Tell me something new about Herimor, most exceedingly noble Empress?”
“It has floating Islands,” Lia said, with a broad wink at Grandion.
“Nonsense. You’re spouting mystical Star Dragoness-ese again,” sniffed the dragonet. “Wake me when something interesting happens.”
Judging by a touch more cuddling nearby, Jin, Isiki and Makani might have resolved their Shapeshifter love issues, and the solution was agreeable to all. Hualiama sm
iled privately. Teenagers. Did they think kissing behind Makani’s angled forepaw would fool anybody? All she saw of them was Jin’s boots, and Isiki’s toes curling right beside them. The bent of the Grey Dragoness’ fires toward her beloved Riders told all.
A warm, smoke-filled evening breeze blew from the direction of the Rift, which obscured the entire northern horizon with a wall no longer of mountains, but of almighty fires. Lia had not expected that result. She had wanted to heal what she saw as a wound reaching right across her world, but instead, had created a greater barrier than before. At least shell-uncle Infurion had declared himself a satisfied Ancient Dragon. He had his beloved, pure Earthen-Fires, decades to recover his health, and he had even identified a few new forms of life flourishing in his Rift. The invaders had been annihilated to the last creature, but a remnant of their magic did appear to have made some changes. Infurion promised to take those in paw; for her part, Hualiama could detect no trace of Dramagon’s taint remaining. Perhaps this was a new Balance? She hoped so.
Grandion said, “Floating Islands? I’d yawn but my face is too sore. They look barren, anyways. Maybe we’ll find something more exciting deeper in Herimor, my third heart.”
His voice bubbled with amusement. The wonder was, these Islands were not even anchored beneath the Cloudlands. They floated several miles above the clouds with the help of a subdraconic life-form which produced lighter-than-air gases which they trapped in bulging glands. The ‘critters’, as Flicker disparaged them, infested the undersides of Islands in their millions; the phenomenon had the scientists in raptures. Maybe they should just glue thousands of these creatures to the bottom of Dragonships, and solve the problem of propulsion in that way?
“I’d settle for something less exciting than the need to belt Numistar over the ear canal with a falling star,” Hualiama replied lightly, gazing out over the Islands floating impossibly above the Cloudlands, highlighted in rose, bronze and gold by the setting suns. “Our first Herimor suns-set, my fiery love, and what a beauty it is. That final blast certainly took its toll, didn’t it?”
