by Marc Secchia
She said, “Silver, is Dragon flight all about the physics and mechanics involved, or is there a certain amount of innate magic a Dragon must employ in order to stay aloft?”
“I would not presume to steal Shimmerith’s thunder,” he said, “but the answer is, ‘of course’. Look at the size of a Kassik or an Endurion. Do you truly believe all that tonnage can stay aloft for hours on end without the use of magic, or manoeuvre in combat situations with such speed and facility that one simply must conclude the existence of magical compensation for the forces of momentum and gravity?”
“I … don’t know, Silver.”
“Well, then I’d better return you to teacher, hadn’t I?”
For that, he earned a kick of pure frustration.
* * * *
When Emblazon chose to vent his fury, he could be heard from a quarter-league away. Right now, he was delivering his considered opinion to Chymasion Dragon-style, which meant both barrels of his nostrils smoking and flaming, a thundering telling-off and a bristling display of aggression. The hatchling wobbled in the air.
Pip winced, losing concentration as her part of the pneumatic shield she had formed with Silver failed. Her Dragon grunted and released his construct. The pneumatic shield was basic to many more specialised forms of magical shielding–aerodynamically optimised shields to aid Dragon flight, oxygen and heat retention for high-altitude flight, or equally, gas exclusion to counteract rare Grey Dragon poison gas attacks, and the all-important projectile weapon shield for combat. A powerful Blue could even form a shield capable of resisting Dragon talons and fire. Somehow, Pip had assumed shields would be simple. Innate magic, perhaps, or instinctive to all Dragons. Now she had a blinding headache and it was barely mid-afternoon. And she knew the topic of shields for an art-form in its own right.
Nak said, “Let me guess. Chymasion said he was rested enough, fine to fly all the way to the Spine Islands. See the droop of his wings? He’s ready to drop out of the sky and we’re still four hours from land.”
“He’s just a hatchling,” said Kaiatha, nibbling the end of her braid.
“Shimmerith. Silver. With me,” said Kassik, banking sharply. “Durithion–keep leading your Dragonwing Northeast.”
“Uh, me? Sir?”
“You’re in command, Dragon Rider,” the Master replied with the blunt lack of humour of a professional soldier.
Pip chuckled at the way Duri jerked upright in his saddle, as if he had sat on one of the barrel-cacti that dotted Jeradia’s dry, mountainous upland deserts.
The Brown Dragon’s gaze flicked to her. Cork it, Pipsqueak. But his mental tone belied the talon-sharp words, communicating bright notes of fond amusement. Today is all about lessons. Shimmerith, can you touch Pip? She appears to be running a slight fever.
I am?
Some Dragons see in the infrared spectrum, Shimmerith explained, winging closer as she reaching out with her right forepaw. Remind me to add Dragon sight to my lessons, Nak. He saluted nonchalantly, intent on the confrontation between Chymasion and Emblazon. Here, Pip. Hold steady, young Silver. I must touch her with my paw. Actually, little one, attend very closely. I believe you may possess this healing power.
Er, her or me? asked Silver.
The one presently forgetting to flap his wings.
They bounced in the air as Silver resumed his wingbeat with a distinctly sheepish air. Pip almost expected him to bleat rather than breathe fire, but she hid that thought far from her hot-blooded boyfriend’s awareness. Shimmerith first synchronised wing-strokes with Silver, then descended to touch Pip carefully with her fore-talon. Pip almost ducked. One wrong move and the Sapphire Dragoness could swipe her head off her shoulders like a Pygmy harvesting breadfruit gourds for breakfast. Her headache evaporated.
Did you sense that? Shimmerith said.
Ay. That was interesting, Silver replied.
Pip waved her good arm crossly. “Hello? Another person is present.”
What would you call that type of sight, mighty Shimmerith?
Now Silver was being awfully formal. The girl stilled her surging irritation, coughing a little as a smoky tickle teased her throat. Really? Did this mean her Dragon powers were returning? Shimmerith had drifted off to a position a wing’s-length from Silver’s starboard flank, from which the Sapphire Dragoness gazed at the pair of Shapeshifters with a typically inscrutable draconic expression.
Ay, a pair of Shapeshifters–my thoughts exactly, Pip. Silver drew a deep breath. For a moment, with the benefit of Shimmerith’s unique inner sight, the sixth sense of Dragons, I saw your Onyx Dragoness form somehow … coalescing, or emerging … as though her perception conveyed a power which summoned your second-soul from the far realms, and upon examining you more closely, I perceived that your Shifted form was also wounded, as if its spirit were injured in an exact mirror image of your physical, Human flesh. I do not understand. Why is this, Shimmerith?
The Dragoness said, Who’s the Shapeshifter, youngling? You? Or both of you?
She wriggled with evident pleasure at her joke.
Silver also squirmed as his mental processes clearly kicked off in a number of directions. Pip could almost see figurative smoke pouring out of his ear canals. He said, Because the poison was multiphasic. I’m right, aren’t I, o Sapphire of all wisdom?
Sapphire of wisdom? Somehow, with the benefit of the Dragonish language’s elaborately constructed, multi-layered semantic contextual indicators, the thought made sense, although it shivered Pip’s brain to think this way. Still, she did not grasp the insight he had evidently achieved. Not in the slightest.
Can we uncomplicate the Island Standard enough for a simple jungle girl to understand? she complained. Multiphasic? Second-soul?
Silver chuckled, You’ll have to introduce me to this simple jungle girl, Pip, because I haven’t met her yet.
Grr!
Pip, my precious fourth eggling, Shimmerith said, pouring motherly egg-love into her words, all Shapeshifters, from the time of Hualiama Dragonfriend onward, have believed in the doctrine of ‘one soul, two manifestations’–the two interchangeable manifestations of the Shapeshifter’s form are coexistent, but appear to shift between the physical, spiritual and magical realms in ways no Dragon science has ever fully explained. The place where your Dragoness lives while your Human form appears to us, fully corporeal–fully enfleshed, so to speak–is called by some ‘the far realms’. This is esoteric speculation, of course, the province of Shapeshifter philosophers. But the proof of oneness lies in what Silver just described–when one form is wounded, so is the other. The two are intimately connected. And what do you conclude from this, youngling?
Silver blinked, ambushed by her abrupt switch of direction. That to treat a Shapeshifter wounded in this way, one must treat both manifestations?
Very good, Silver.
What’s the ‘multiphasic’ bit, then? Pip asked.
She did not need to see Silver’s muzzle to know his smirk for what it was. Work it out, little one.
Grr! The Dragons laughed, even Master Kassik, who must have been eavesdropping. Pip abandoned her growling, feeling her face heat up to a fine glow of embarrassment. Why did she always have to end up at the bottom of the hierarchy, the littlest one? She was worth more!
You are worth more, Pip. Infinitely more. Her head jerked; Kassik gazed upon her with such a surfeit of burning pride, any possible protest dried up in her throat. When your feelings are so powerful, they broadcast to those with ears to listen. Now hear me. This ‘littleness’ which feeds your fears and constrains your thinking is a lie. A filthy, stinking, burn it in the nearest volcano, LIE!
Every Dragon’s head jerked about as his telepathic shout blasted across her.
Kassik gentled his voice into fatherly gruffness. Lies of the heart are the most powerful lies of all. The mind analyses, rationalises, discards. The heart is truly a Dragon of a different colour, Pip, and I say that true greatness is not hewn from deeds of paw and feats of stre
ngth. True greatness is founded in the exploits of a pure and noble heart. You saw Emblazon brought low after he betrayed us at Ya’arriol Island, yet it was not your strength of paw that restored him to his true-fires. It was a deed of great heart.
A sob tore free of her chest. Pip ducked her head, appalled at the storm his words evoked within her. Yet she heard from the region of Shimmerith’s saddle, Nak’s soft, fierce, ‘Hear, hear!’
The Brown Dragon drew close in the corner of her vision.
Here is another truth. Your humbleness is, contrariwise, your strength. Never lose sight of your origins, nor of the fundamental nature of your heart, Pip of the Pygmies, for power such as yours is a ravaging, seductive beast. And that beast knows no compassion.
Now he spoke less as a friend, and more as a Dragon Elder. Pip gulped. How could she hope to navigate the treacherous Islands of a life torn from the jungle and defiled by the zoo, redeemed by the kindness of Balthion and Arosia, and finally liberated by the paw of Zardon the Red? How could they hope to heal a part of her which apparently did not even exist in the physical realm? This Shapeshifter nature stretched her preconceptions about the world in many unexpected directions.
As Kassik, Silver and Shimmerith swept down on the Amber Dragon and his shell-son, Pip pondered her original confusion. “Silver, do you mean that the poison works on more than my flesh and blood?”
He nodded gravely. “Shapeshifter poisons are designed to disrupt, corrupt or destroy the different phases of your existence–your Dragon fires, your physical Dragon body, your Human form and spirit, and all the magic that binds it together–hence the technical term ‘multiphasic’. In my nursery, I once saw a poisoned Shifter try to transform. She turned into a half-baked mishmash of parts. Nasty.”
Pip and her mount shuddered simultaneously.
Meantime, Kassik marshalled his charges with a brisk series of commands. Chymasion landed on Emblazon’s lower back, moving as close to his spine-spikes as possible to try to minimise the imbalance his additional weight created. The hatchling slumped on the Amber Dragon’s broad back, looking utterly defeated. Meantime, the Jeradian trio transferred to Kassik’s saddle, increasing his load to five persons–Casitha, Balthion and the Jeradian giants. Shimmerith accepted Emblazon’s additional saddlebags and Dragon lances, while Silver carefully transferred a teary Arosia onto his shoulder. Pip unbuckled herself to give her friend a huge hug.
“Father will never let us fly now,” Arosia sobbed. “I feel so stupid.”
“Come on, you’ll be fine. Sit. I’m sure we can both fit on this saddle. And your dad looks worried, not cross.”
“He’s going to flay me like a prekki fruit and squeeze my innards for juice,” Arosia said.
“Don’t I know the feeling!”
* * * *
By the time the Spine Islands appeared on the evening horizon, even Emblazon had begun to wilt visibly. Oyda walked back to Chymasion and spoke with him, before mounting up and directing him to launch off his shell-father’s back. Arosia watched hollow-eyed.
Pip slapped her friend’s knee. “Cheer up.”
Arosia put her arms around Pip from behind. “Don’t be so determinedly positive when I’m having a full-blown moping session back here.”
“Chin up, Dragon Rider.”
“Chin up, heart down?”
“Tell you what. Until we reach the Spine, I’m going to test you on your Ancient Southern. Let’s see if we can turn you into a Pygmy. We’ll start by practicing the thirty-four chirps and twelve trills.”
“Because there’s a chirpy parakeet sitting in front of me?”
Pip watched Emmaraz and Tazzaral powering ahead to scout for a place to roost for the night. Security, water and game, in that order, Kassik instructed. From this perspective, her friends appeared to be flying toward a buried Dragon whose spine-spikes were the Islands, a curiously neat, geographically unique chain of uninhabited Islands demarcating the north-western border of the Middle Sea. The first three Islands in the row were active volcanoes, merrily smoking away like the furnace chimneys of a vast, hidden Dragonship, but Tazz and Emmaraz angled for the fourth, a hunchbacked beast of an Island which Pip recalled well. Hot springs, ample spiral-horn buck and a large windroc population awaited them. On cue, she saw flame blossom from the faraway Dragons–probably a few less feral windrocs in the Island-World as a result.
“Pip, will you stop wriggling? What’s bothering you?” Silver intruded on her thoughts.
“Me?”
“Ay you, twitchy-toes Pygmy-person. Do you think I’d be so rude to Arosia? Are you nervous? Jumpy? Fire-ants in your trousers?”
“No. I just … it’s a feeling. A jungle sense. Here, see what you make of this.”
Pip felt the light touch of Silver’s mind upon hers. After what he had done before, allowing him in demanded a deal of trust. She hoped her misgivings would not be too transparent.
At length, Silver said, “A jungle sense, indeed. You think we’re being watched? Tracked? By what? Or whom?”
“Silver, if I knew that …”
“Ay. And this is dissimilar to anything you’ve felt before. We should warn Master Kassik. He’s a believer in your jungle senses–as am I! Down, Dragoness. I didn’t deserve that kick. My third or fourth today, or I miss my count. Who’s carting who between the Islands, may I ask?”
“This morning I’m a mosquito, now you’re a flying cart?”
Arosia said, “Do all Dragons bicker with their Riders like this, Pip? Chymasion’s as sweet as sugar-bamboo sap and treats me as if I’m a fragile vial of blown glass. Jyoss and Tazz are too busy necking and wingtip-batting and all that Dragonish courtship nonsense to pay any attention to being cheeky to their Riders, and Maylin and Emmaraz seem to talk about nothing but battle. But, you two–sword and whetstone, hammer and anvil!”
“Magnificent Rider and adolescent cliff-lizard?” Pip suggested.
“Fireborn Prince of Herimor and scruffy scale-scrubber?” Silver returned with equal insincerity.
Arosia rolled her eyes. “Honestly, the names you two call each other. Oh, Master Kassik’s calling for the next lesson. Back to class.”
That evening, they pitched camp in the lee of a small lakeside cliff, upon a strip of black volcanic sand laced with chips of obsidian glass. Emblazon took Chymasion off to practise hunting, while Nak prepared a pot of spicy venison stew for the Human contingent, along with flatbread he baked on rocks heated with Dragon fire–Silver’s contribution to the meal. Shimmerith seated herself squarely in the middle of a steaming hot spring at the side of the lake with a groan of contentment, while Tazz and Jyoss took first watch, circling lazily a league overhead, almost invisible against the deepening evening sky. Kaiatha groaned in disgust when she sniffed the stew, and scavenged in the saddlebags for a meal of fruit and nuts instead.
After dinner Nak regaled the group with story after story laced with Dragon lore and legend, and to Casitha’s expert vocal and musical accompaniment on a hand-harp, sang them a number of epic ballads, including Saggaz Thunderdoom, The Lay of the Ancient Dragons, Stars over Islands, and Numistar Winterborn.
“Ballads were the old way of learning,” Nak told them, enjoying a swig from a jar of Jeradian ale which had mysteriously found its way into his saddlebags. “Students sang the great histories of our peoples, Dragon and Human. Don’t tell Master Kassik, but I was a terrible student. Too easily distracted.” He winked at Oyda. “But when I learned the ballads, like you, Pip, I discovered I could recall my histories perfectly.”
“You wouldn’t happen to have a ballad of codebreaking handy, would you?” Kaiatha asked.
Balthion said, “Come. I’ll puzzle it out with you. Where’s Arosia?”
“Fires banked for the night,” said Pip, pointing across the fire. Arosia slept with her head pillowed on Chymasion’s left forepaw, while his muzzle and neck curved protectively around her body.
Balthion’s frown softened. “Ay. Jyoss, a little light, if you woul
d?”
Pip was startled as Jyoss conjured a small, steady white light that hovered over the pair as they pored over Kaiatha’s father’s diary. She had never seen such a Dragon power. The Albino read over their shoulders, calmly interjecting a word here and a suggestion there. Oh, and Silver’s eye-fires had already stilled, indicating draconic sleep. Well, even Mistress Mya’adara could not complain if she curled up in her Dragon’s paw. Perfectly proper, according to big person culture. Funny how they cared more about outward appearances than for matters of the heart.
She smiled as she crawled into Silver’s grasp. She hardly thought of them as ‘big people’ anymore. Just people. That was enough.
Oh. Yaethi’s scroll lay completely forgotten in her luggage. Her boy-Dragon protested drowsily as she wriggled back out of his paw again. “Shh,” she soothed, stroking his muzzle beside the eye as she had seen the other Dragon Riders do. But most of them were not paired with Shifters. Somehow, that lent their relationship a different quality. “Rest, my beauty.”
Silver mumbled, “Pip, if you call my Human form ‘beauty’, I will never forgive you.”
“But your Dragon loves it, doesn’t he? Um, don’t you?” She giggled as his belly-fires roused a further few notches. “Indeed, my beautiful Silver?”
He grumbled something to do with using her as Pygmy-paste to flavour his next sweetbread.
Having handed the scroll to her vocally excited friends, the last Pip saw was three heads bowed together, two Human and one Dragon, focussing deeply on the problem at hand. Her focussing involved deep concentration on the insides of her eyelids. And that was no problem at all.
* * * *
The small Dragonwing passed three further days on the Spine, flitting from mountaintop to mountaintop, always battling the breeze. Each day, Chymasion flew a little further without stopping. No daylight hour passed that was not crammed with learning or training, nor an evening without Nak’s interpretation of ‘entertainment’. Pip came to wonder how she had ever mistaken the Dragon Rider for a skirt-chasing fool, for he never repeated a story or a ballad unless specifically asked, and almost every offering came stuffed to the wingtips with fascinating lore and history.
