by Marc Secchia
“Don’t yah be vexing me like this!” roared the Mistress. “What mischief yah fomenting with mah best students? Ah’ll bend yah over mah knee like you was one of mah own, and that yah are, girl! Don’t yah be thinking you’re all big an’ Dragon-like now, yah still mah Pipsqueak until Ah say different. Right?”
To Pip’s amazement, Jerrion stood his ground before the Mistress’ wrath. Even Dragons thought twice about daring as much.
Mya’adara, who at six and a half feet of Western Isles warrior-brawn towered over most women, ran headlong into Jerrion’s chest and bounced off. Bounced. Pip stifled a laugh; by the rajal-fierce glint in the Mistress’ eye, her reaction had neither been missed nor appreciated.
“Just doing my duty, Mistress,” Jerrion rumbled politely, beginning to greet her in the Jeradian fashion by first blowing across her knuckles.
The Head of Students snatched her hand back. “Jerrion, I changed yah wet cloths when yah was a filthy, snivelling infant. Don’t yah backchat me. Ah’ll tan yah lower cheeks like Ah used to, Dragon-sized or none.”
Just then, a messenger-monkey scampered up to Pip, bobbed its head and presented her a scroll.
Faranion jostled past her to seize the scroll before she could touch it. “Stop. Scrolls can be poisoned.”
Pip gave a few blameless students to her left the benefit of her most venomous glare. Ha. To the monkey, she said in Ape, “Thank you.”
The monkey thumped its chest briefly. “Me perfect messenger. You monkey-girl.”
Controlling her exasperation with a hiss of breath between clenched teeth, Pip assigned the albino messenger-monkey second place on her menu.
“What does it say, o beefy captor?” Maylin inquired archly.
Faranion said, “Just, ‘Code brown.’ I assume that means something to you?”
The Eastern Islander smirked, “Code brown is what happens when you don’t wipe your–”
“Maylin!” snapped Yaethi. “Crudity is a sign of a lazy mind. Code brown means we drop everything and assemble in Master Kassik’s office. Snip snap, Dragoness. Undo these chains.”
Of course, the key Barrion had snatched from the barracks did not fit. After thirty seconds of everyone huffing and puffing and much clinking of chains and unsubtle complaints, punctuated by at least twenty hand-wringing apologies from Barrion, Jerrion took matters into his own hands, literally. He tucked Maylin beneath his left arm and Yaethi under his right and made to march off.
Pip decided she could grow rather fond of owning a trio of pet Jeradian warriors.
The Mistress swatted his behind as the giant departed. “Yah know, Jerri, yah still a nice boy under all that muscle.”
“The indignity!” huffed Maylin.
“Put me down, or I’ll make my Arrabon sit on you,” Yaethi threatened.
“Don’t muss Yaethi’s headscarf,” Kaiatha advised. “She bites worse than a Dragoness if you misplace a strand of hair.”
Glowering at her friend, Yaethi yelled, “Oh Durithion, my darling pet sweetmeat! Dearest little sugar-sap Kaiatha needs her daily kissy-cuddlies.”
The tall, graceful Fra’aniorian Islander blushed spectacularly as Durithion’s classmates raised a round of lip-smacking and hoots and rude clicks of their fingers to salute this sally. Duri hurriedly pushed aside his dinner and raced to catch up. Pip could practically see the steam rising from beneath his collar. Perfect. These shenanigans were improving by the second.
Pausing in the doorway, Jerrion bowed left and right. “Mighty Tazzaral. Noble Jyoss. Please take these miscreants in paw and fly them to Master Kassik’s office at once. We’ll catch up with you.”
“Ah, shall we summon Emmaraz and Arrabon?” asked Tazzaral, visibly alarmed at the state of his passengers.
Maylin tried to kick Pip. “Why don’t you explain Human humour to these Dragons, genius?”
“Human? She’s a Shapeshifter,” Yaethi corrected.
Pip rolled her eyes. “It’s a joke, Tazzaral.”
He growled, “Such as when you were dragged before the Dragon Elders in chains?”
“Ah–that was a serious misdemeanour,” Pip stammered. Mercy, had the new Dragons from Ya’arriol heard the story already? Perhaps they ought to be warned about the dangerous Pygmy Dragoness, who had punched a tooth clean out of Shimmerith’s jaw.
The Copper Dragon was just about to issue a ringing acceptance of the task, when Jyoss slipped past him, seized Pip and Kaiatha in her forepaws, and bugled softly, Try to catch me, thou, my gleaming furnace-heart.
Tazz blinked. Uh …
Jyoss flicked his nose pertly with her left wingtip. Do I need to bite your neck to gain your attention?
NO! A second round of Dragon-thunder shook the dining hall.
Pip chuckled, Tazzaral, did we place an order for trumpets and indoor storms?
Engulfing Maylin and Yaethi in one paw and Durithion in the other, Tazzaral thumped after Jyoss, flapping his wings to prevent his tonnage from crushing the precious Human cargo in his forepaws. He growled, Last one there snacks on the pesky–I mean, Pygmy.
With a rippling laugh, the Albino charged off the portico and launched into the evening sky.
* * * *
Crimson-tinged clouds mooched low over the Academy volcano. The league-wide caldera was still active in places, but with the gentle simmer of an aged volcano which had lost its youthful rip and rumble. Within the main crater, five minor cones housed a burgeoning Dragon population, while an estimated twenty thousand Human souls lived in the sprawling russet brickwork Academy buildings, or in the vast caverns beneath and behind the buildings. Pip wondered why the buildings had been constructed more upward than sideways. She fancied an Ancient Dragon had once tumbled a pawful of buildings down the sheer volcanic slope, giving rise to the dizzying pile of interconnected halls and walkways and turrets that comprised the famous Dragon Rider Academy.
Once, a loincloth-clad Pygmy girl had sneaked into these buildings and surprised Master Kassik. Pip grinned. Now, she even understood what these big people meant by the word ‘naked’. How far a jungle girl had come.
Yet her greatest dream had also been shattered upon these dark volcanic slopes. Stolen from her jungle home at a young age and caged in a Sylakian zoo with Oraial Apes and monkeys, Pip had dreamed of being Human. She wished to be like the people who had traipsed in their tens and hundreds past her window to gawk at a dirty little savage. Sylakian law labelled her an animal. Now she knew she was a Shapeshifter, capable of manifesting in her Onyx Dragoness or Pygmy forms at a thought. No, not even a Shapeshifter. A poison-crippled half-being.
Rising, only to fall. Was this to be her life’s song?
Chapter 2: To War!
JYOSS CLEAVED THE warm volcanic air with silken wing-strokes, maintaining a Dragon’s-length lead on Tazzaral during the three-quarters of a mile ascent to the Master’s office. Pip saw from afar that the windows had been thrown wide open to the volcanic breezes, as if in anticipation of their arrival. The Dragoness’ paw clamped around her body was as warm as suns-baked sand, a hot shackle that encased her from chest to ankle. Perfectly safe. Perfectly deadly. Jyoss’ two backward-facing and three forward-facing digits formed a dextrous paw similar in some respects to a Human hand, with retractable claws neatly sheathed–but one flexion of her talons could pulp Pip’s torso like an overripe prekki fruit. Such was the strength of even a young Dragon.
Shortly, the Dragons back-winged to land neatly on the broad balcony outside Master Kassik’s office. Pip alighted on stones scored by generations of talons, and for several seconds, gazed over the volcano with its open, steaming lava pits wreathing the peaks and rim walls in ever-shifting gaseous veils, seeking to imprint the scene upon her heart. This was the place she called home. The Academy had become a bastion of hope for the Dragonkind with the defeat of the Marshal’s advance forces the week before. In trouncing the formidable Silver, Pip had won not only a victory, but a boyfriend. Ah, boy-Dragon. Boy monster–what should she call h
im? Villain, foul enemy and the throbbing log drum of her heart?
Monkey droppings, she was about as comfortable with her new relationship as she was with her habitual spot front and centre of the Master’s desk. The Brown Shapeshifter Dragon was not renowned for his kindly ways when he chewed out, shredded and pulverised errant students shuffling their bare toes on his rug. Pip and the spot of shame were well acquainted.
Thankfully, as they shambled within like a clanking flock of sheep, the quintet of students found the large office quite empty.
“You. Ay, you, your unroyal draconic feistiness.” Maylin made a mess of trying to hit Pip, and settled for bunting her hip-to-hip instead. “What’s with the chains? How did you–”
Pip tapped her nose knowingly.
Maylin made a disgusted noise, but Yaethi drowned her out with a bright laugh. “Another magnificent Maylin plan sinks into the Cloudlands. Quite the flair for execution, eh?”
While her friends bickered, Pip watched the courting Dragon couple sharing a private nuzzle on the balcony. Jyoss still had the slender, compact frame of a youngster, although at six years old she was well into her fledgling years. She was a delicate rose colour with a striking hot pink trim upon her spine-spikes, claws, wing struts, and exquisite detailing across her brow ridges and muzzle. Tazzaral, at sixty-six feet long from muzzle to tail-tip according to his latest measure, was thirteen feet longer than Jyoss, head and shoulders taller, and beginning to bulge at the seams with the imposing musculature of an adult male Dragon. His deep copper tones gleamed like a rack of kitchen pots buffed to a magnificent shine–Pip giggled at this mental image. When he moved, the hand-sized scales of his flanks and shoulders rippled like molten metal, as though the hardest known armour in the Island-World was as pliable as soft, oiled leather.
With a fond nip at the base of Jyoss’ modest ruff of skull spikes, each as long as Pip’s arm and as deadly as the fangs that briefly flashed against the Dragoness’ hide, Tazzaral whirled and appeared to pour himself off the edge of the balcony in a torrent of liquid scales and muscle. Truly? Pip blinked. A multi-tonne carnivore could glide with feline grace?
On the balcony, the Dragoness’ soft, flaming pink gaze turned to Pip as if Jyoss sensed her regard. In telepathic Dragonish, the Albino purred, Just wait until your Silver’s soul-fires cascade over your Dragon-senses, little one. Then you’ll know the thrilling, consuming Dragonsong of soul-bonded love.
No warning. Just flame bursting through her body, shockingly ardent; a stabbing fear that she must surely be scalded, blood boiling in her veins, the skin blistering and curling like scrolleaf tossed into a hearth fire … someone clutched Pip as she cried out, and a touch upon her shoulder doused the flames with coolness.
“Easy, Pip,” said Kaiatha. “Yaethi, what’s the matter with her?”
Pip glared across Master Kassik’s monstrous mahogany desk at the Dragoness standing framed within the doorway. Jyoss seemed amused. Pip pictured the Land Dragon, Leandrial, swatting the Albino Dragoness with a paw the size of twenty Dragons. She smiled right back at Jyoss.
Orange flame curled between the Dragoness’ fangs. I saw that image, Pip.
I … projected?
You’re more powerful than you think. Hush, Kassik the Brown approaches.
To her friends, Pip said, “I’m fine. Stop mothering me. Just a touch of inner flame, that’s all. Yaethi, did I feel–”
“Healing magic,” her friend replied, with uncharacteristic diffidence. “Did it work?”
“Ay.”
Pip had no opportunity to say more, for raised voices behind the inner door of Master Kassik’s chamber announced the Master’s arrival. He was snarling at someone. Several people, in fact. There had been an inter-dorm raid between the Third Year male students, attempted hijinks which ended in a brawl involving hundreds.
“–and don’t make me come down there in my Dragon form!” the Master roared, slamming the door. He rubbed his temples tiredly. “Heavens save those boys before I fricassee them in boiling lava!”
Then, at a tiny clink from Yaethi’s wrist cuff, his eyes snapped to the waiting group. Pip anticipated his reaction with a curl of dread coupled with fascination. Master Kassik stood as tall and straight as a spear; a veteran Jeradian warrior of enormous dignity. When he spoke, it was in deep, measured tones, every aspect of his manner and character conveying the assurance that his words stemmed from a man worth listening to. Pip knew that for a truth. Yet, beneath the considered exterior lay the heart and temper of a Brown Shapeshifter Dragon. A wince accompanied Pip’s realisation that her friends must think she had made it her personal mission to reveal the Master’s draconic heart.
Today, he appeared riled beyond anything Pip had seen before.
Kassik’s brow furrowed severely as he took in the chains. Maylin and Yaethi hung their heads identically, Duri shuffled his feet and Kaiatha looked as though she would rather leap off the balcony than face the Master’s wrath. A fiery glint entered his eyes, searing the air between them. His colour deepened. Red. Crimson. Purple. The throbbing of a ropy vein across his left temple entrapped Pip’s gaze. Her breath snagged painfully in her throat. Oh no. This would not be pretty.
Balling his fists, the Master clearly fought to corral his fury. He first looked away to Jyoss on the balcony, before dropping his gaze to Pip’s feet. There, he stopped. His lips moved–reading?
Convulsively, she tore her scrutiny from the Master to focus on the rug beneath her feet. It was new. Hand-stitched, with a message that read, ‘Pip’s Personal Place of Penance.’ She stared at it for endless seconds, uncomprehending. Then the soft gulp of Kaiatha’s horror–guilty horror–speared such fire into her gut, Pip imagined she had been struck again by Telisia’s paralysing poison. They had even smuggled an embroidered rug into the Master’s office as part of this prank? Rotten agitators! She trembled from head to toe, such a crimson rage washing over her vision that she knew it was wrong; no, not wrong, but a product of draconic emotions. She must withhold. Please …
Kassik’s laughter flayed her scattered emotions. Pip could not have been more shocked. Mouth agape, she gaily invited flies to investigate her tongue. His laughter was rough, offensive, frantic for release. A scream might have been less brutal. No one else laughed. Chuckling with forced jollity, the Master extracted the sorry tale from the embarrassed students. After that, he ushered them to the seats closest to the broad windows, plush couches arranged in an area that could comfortably seat forty persons.
Come inside, Jyoss, he invited the Dragoness. I suspect that balcony is about to become mighty busy.
Turning to Pip, Kaiatha, Durithion, Maylin and Yaethi, he added curtly, “You youngsters remind me that to face the grimmest of circumstances with laughter, is a gift.”
“How so, Master?” asked Yaethi.
He said, “If you have paid any attention at all in your History classes, you will know that this Academy was founded by none other than Hualiama Dragonfriend and her Tourmaline Dragon, Grandion. You know its official tenets–to foster good relations between Dragons, Shapeshifters and Humans, to train Dragon Riders, and to become a focal point for the lore and practice of Dragon Riding that would lead to peace across the Islands. The Dragon Riders were never meant to function as a weapon. Instead, this place served as a beacon of hope. When the Dragons withdrew to Gi’ishior, the Academy reached out. In times of strife, we act as mediators and peacekeepers. When the Great Plagues swept over the Islands seven decades ago, the Dragons and Riders transported medicines and medical personnel between Islands and strictly enforced the quarantine, sparing countless thousands of lives.”
“We Shapeshifters are Hualiama’s legacy, Pip,” he said, pinning her with a smile that somehow conveyed the impression of a Dragon’s fang-filled grin, “or at least–Yaethi? A question?”
The Helyon Islander straightened her back even more than usual. “How can there be so many Shapeshifters all over the Island-World, Master? And spontaneous occurrenc
es, moreover, such as our Pip,? They cannot surely be the progeny of one woman?”
“The poor, overworked wretch,” Maylin put in.
Kaiatha said primly, “I’ll thank you to speak respectfully of the legends, Maylin.”
“But a most insightful question,” said Master Kassik, unexpectedly animated. “And that is exactly why we are about to jump into the proverbial Dragon’s jaws, and travel to the Crescent Islands to find out about the ultra-secretive Order of Onyx. The lore-scrolls fail to answer this point. We suspect redaction.”
“First code brown, now red action?” asked Pip.
Yaethi clucked her tongue in annoyance. “Redaction. It’s one word. As in, something has been cut out. Edited. Deliberately removed.”
“For example, ‘Pip redacted the truth’,” Maylin suggested.
“Shall my Dragoness redact half of your brain?” Pip inquired sweetly.
“There’s a functional half?” Yaethi teased, earning herself a malign growl from her friend. “Ah … and I’m chained to the beast. So, Master, why the alert?”
He said, “I’m considering a new Academy policy whereby we chain the most troublesome students together. Permanently. Now, to business. To war.” Making his habitual ‘thinking tent’ of his fingertips, as Pip had dubbed the gesture, Kassik said, “What the histories will not tell you, is that the Academies have a further purpose–that of refuge. Many times over the years, we have found ourselves sheltering … unexpected treasures.”
Pip ducked her head, feeling her ears heat up into red flags as Kaiatha patted her knee gently. Right. Why not just call her a savage? Yet that was not what she had heard in the Master’s voice. Far from it. No, that was cage thinking, an echo of years spent behind bars. Islands’ sakes, would she even remember the great jungles of her birthplace?
“Master, if we fly via Sylakia–” Pip gulped back a lump the size and consistency of a lump of razor-edged obsidian “–would you support me … I want to go back to the zoo. I fear I must.”
