by Marc Secchia
That fourth evening out of Jeradia, they stopped at a tall, unusually narrow dormant volcano, which boasted a perfect half-moon lake replete with a unique species of giant trout which had the Dragons alternatively slavering and fishing enthusiastically, and the Humans onshore badgering Nak to hurry up with the cooking.
“Perfect trout takes time,” he said, slowly rotating the spit-roast he had constructed from a Dragon lance broken in training, and a couple of driftwood branches. “Where’s Oyda?”
“Bathing with the ladies,” said Kassik the Brown, winking at Pip with one great, flaming eye.
“Bathing?”
Kassik said, “She’s with Casitha, Shimmerith, Kaiatha and Maylin, behind that stand of targan trees. I hear an awful lot of silliness. Should we send Pip to snatch their clothes?”
Nak’s eyes developed a glazed expression. “Oooooh …”
Pip chuckled behind her hand. Predictable. Where was Hunagu? Also down near the lake shore, stolidly stripping several bushes of their load of fireberries. The Oraial Ape seemed none the worse for the journey. They had spoken together for over an hour before dawn that morning.
Oh. Another tremor. She hoped the volcano was as dormant as Master Kassik had suggested. No-one else seemed at all bothered by a few pebbles bouncing on the beach. The caldera was a mere two and a half times Kassik’s wingspan in diameter, making the space rather cosy, given the size of its temporary visitors. Come morning, the Dragons would have to take off in careful sequence, she assumed. Emblazon had almost chopped off her spine-spikes for daring to touch his wingtips.
“Hey, girlfriend,” said Human-Silver, sauntering up to her.
He wore an open-necked, turquoise linen shirt, Dragon Rider trousers of a tough, dark grey leather, and soft buckskin half-boots. His silvery eyes gleamed at her beneath a flip of almost-white hair, set off by his high, angled cheekbones–so unlike those of any other person Pip had met at the Academy, bespeaking his Herimor heritage. And his smile had its own special magic, imprinting a suitably silvery image of itself deep inside her heart.
“Oh. Oh,” Pip faltered. “You’re very … Human. Handsome! I-I mean …”
Nak chuckled, “And our Pipsqueak is very tongue-tied. Nice work, Silver. It certainly takes something special to silence Pip like that.”
Pip turned her back on the Dragon Rider, blushing furiously. Wriggling marsh-rats, how could Silver undo her with just a greeting? She gazed across the small caldera, trying to fill her mind with thoughts other than the eye-catching, sinewy leanness of Silver’s frame, so unlike the heavily muscled Jeradian warriors working through their combat routines at the top of the glittering, pebbly beach. He would be too short and slight for most girls, but not for a Pygmy. Oh no indeed. And she knew him well enough to appreciate that his apparent slightness disguised muscle as wiry and well-sprung as a Dragon’s thighs, and physical strength to match. Naturally. He was not just leopard, as Jeradian girls apparently liked to say. He was scrummy Dragon.
Please let him not be eavesdropping on her thoughts. The blush roared back in full force.
Her eyes rose from the black waters rippling with the force of Emmaraz’s fishing exploits, to the sheer, vine-festooned cliffs overshadowing the travellers by three hundred feet or more. Hidden now amidst the foliage, thousands of blue-banded peripols and lesser green parakeets sang their final songs of the day. The last gasp of a fiery suns-set reflected off a low-lying band of clouds above the volcano, bathing the scene in an eerie crimson glow.
Suddenly, through a gap in the clouds, Pip’s eye caught the unmistakable glint of Jyoss’ pale scales as she plunged from a great height toward the volcano. Hurtling! Mouth agape. Wings furled for maximum velocity. Body stretched out like an arrow, the Dragoness bellowed a warning as yet unheard by the Dragons sporting several miles below.
A cry stuck in Pip’s throat; the ground beneath her bare feet juddered again.
“Alarm,” she squeaked. And again, this time in a full-throated peal of thunder that should never have emerged from a Human throat, Pip bellowed, “Alarm! Warning!”
Tazzaral picked up the warning, bellowing a battle-challenge that shook the caldera and everyone in it. Kassik sprang into the air, beating his wings powerfully to gain height, while Silver shredded his clothes in an instinctive transformation into his Dragon-self. He did not take off. Instead, he tried to flatten her–for protection, she assumed. Foolish, gallant Dragon! Grinding her teeth against the pain of her wounds, Pip rolled over and saw the sky close before her disbelieving eyes.
Darkness swept over the volcano.
Chapter 6: Old Lizards, Old Friends
FOR an ENDLESS, breathless moment, all within the volcano was panic. Kassik’s Dragon fire blazed against the living trapdoor which had snapped shut overhead. Emmaraz first coiled in frozen disbelief, then sprang over to Maylin. Abruptly, the hours of training took over. The Jeradian warriors charged down the sand toward Pip, hefting their war-hammers. Silver readied his magic. Emblazon’s throat gushed fire as though it would never let up, but even his hottest flame did not appear to shift that thing–that creature, Pip realised–which held them captive. Between digits as thick as the largest of Dragonships, she saw a crack of sky. Paws. Great Islands! Paws covered the mountaintop …
Leandrial! Pip yelled in her mind.
Abruptly, the low earthquake of movement outside the volcano stilled. The Dragons froze. Silence roared in her ears, while her heart beat a desperate tattoo upon her ribs. Why would the Land Dragon ambush them? Had the Marshal of Herimor corrupted and turned even the mightiest of the Dragonkind? Were that true, they were surely doomed.
WHERE IS THE ONE CALLED PIP?
The caldera walls juddered and cracked at Leandrial’s awesome thundering. Stunned, Pip saw Kassik plunge into the lake, while Tazzaral crumpled nearby and even Emblazon shuddered as though one of those paws had delivered a prodigious buffet to the side of his head. Ten thousand birds burst from the dense foliage in a deafening clatter of wings, but they had nowhere to go and perhaps the unnatural darkness confused them, for they returned almost as quickly to their evening perches.
Peace, Leandrial. I am here.
LIAR! Do you take me for a fool? Pip is a Lesser Dragon!
Though she tasted blood in her mouth, Pip replied steadily, Pip is here. I am the one who speaks the ancient magic, and I am unafraid of you.
“Grief, I’m afraid,” Nak squeaked.
A white light brightened behind the digits. Pip realised that Leandrial gazed upon them with that single, magical eye in the centre of her forehead; the wash of alien magic stunned her and Silver, who made a sound between a gasp and a whimper beside her. She tried to raise her chin, to gird up her courage, but Pip knew the gesture for an exercise in futility. She made a ‘keep calm’ gesture in case anyone was looking to her for a lead, aware of Emmaraz lending a shoulder as the Brown Shapeshifter staggered out of the lake, while Emblazon’s belly-fires raged in readiness for battle.
Abruptly, the digits drew apart and Leandrial thrust her muzzle down into the caldera, right above Pip. At the vast inrush of air into the Land Dragon’s nostrils, the Pygmy girl felt her feet leave the sand.
Leand–
Draconic laughter boomed overhead, raising waves on the lake and snuffing out Nak’s cooking fire in an instant, puffing Pip down into an ungainly sprawl on the sand.
“You are Pip. Why’ve you changed? What is this taint I scent within you, little one?”
Leandrial. She had not fallen to the Marshal. She was more awesome than ever, large enough to seize volcanoes in her paws and cunning enough to ambush experienced Dragons. Jyoss winged cautiously around the Land Dragon’s head before deciding upon a landing on the volcano’s rim.
The tendrils trailing from Leandrial’s jowls scraped across Pip’s legs as her body refused to obey her command to roll out of the way. The milky white eye, wide enough for a Dragon fledgling to fly right into, scrutinised their company as though seeking to
sample the very marrow of their bones, the living pith that Islanders spoke of. Her hide was a smooth, grey-green wall of flesh, the width of her muzzle filling the crater with little room to spare. Dank yet evocative, the scent of a bottom-dweller filled their nostrils. Primeval secrets. Ageless swamp. Waters rich with tangy minerals and organic compounds, and that ever-so-draconic overtone of cinnamon intermingled with other spices and savours Pip could not identify.
No Dragon of their company twitched so much as a wingtip. Their natural awe and reverence of physical size rendered them speechless.
Well. Now they all felt like insects in a terrarium, while its owner peered in from above. Blotting out the sky. Absurdly, Pip hoped Leandrial would not feel the urge to sneeze. That would be messy. She mentally kicked herself into action. Her friends depended on her. Pip pushed herself out of Silver’s paw, dusting off her Dragon Rider trousers with a businesslike air. She would speak up, for she alone was crazy enough to do so.
“I’m a Shapeshifter, Leandrial. Why did you ambush us? This was unexpected and unkind.”
Magic gushed over her like the most exquisite music playing upon her senses of hearing, touch and even taste, a delicious, outlandish, thrilling symphony seemingly born in another world. Yet behind this wealth of beauty lay an undercurrent of suppressed fury, of monstrous stresses barely held in check. For a moment, the Island-World seemed attuned to the cavernous hissing of Leandrial’s breath as clearly, to Pip’s perception, she restrained an urge to annihilate them all–her paws flexed on the volcanic rim, her shoulders bunching as though she contemplated tearing the mountain in two.
Leandrial snarled, “How dare you censure me? I could squash this mountain and you with it.”
Her impudent response had been a colossal blunder. Pip gasped, “I spoke hastily. I meant no disrespect, noble Dragon.”
“Always hasty, you high-dwelling, short-lived creatures,” the Dragon grumbled at length, apparently accepting Pip’s sincerity at face value.
“So, if destruction wasn’t your purpose …”
“No. I came to speak of a critical need, Lesser Dragon called Pip.”
Hence the stresses Pip sensed within the great beast, the undertone of regret leaching into her words, even in Island Standard. How could she help the Dragoness articulate what troubled her?
She said, “Speak. Our ears hearken to your words.” Pip scowled at the air as the forms of archaic Dragonish interrupted her speech. Silver’s amusement tingled in her mind. She shut him out in order to concentrate on the Land Dragon.
“I’ve new information to share,” Leandrial replied. “First, an explanation. Amongst Land Dragons, there is a particularly well-developed Dragon sense, the name of which translates as ‘Harmonic Inference’ in your tongue. Just as you perceive the harmonic potencies of my magic, so this same magic allows me to navigate the world below what you call the Cloudlands, in a manner similar to your physically limited sense of sight. Is this clear?”
“Clear enough,” said Pip. Ay, clear that a world of meaning lay beneath what Leandrial had briefly outlined. “This harmonic magic is not limited to the material realm, correct?”
“Of course not. Your small understanding shall have to suffice.”
Bite your tongue, Pip! Master Kassik’s growl interrupted her thoughts.
Fine. Now she had two larger Dragons to be annoyed at. She stilled the almost unbearable urge to launch a fireball at a boulder or crisp a berry-bush.
“The power of Harmonic Inference allows a Land Dragon to sense many things, even creatures which should by rights not exist, such as the Dragon you call Shadow. I see disturbance and disharmony; I’m aware of the absence of harmony, and much of this disturbance exists in my realm beneath your Cloudlands. This is what has led me to believe that the traitor Shurgal stalks you, little ones–most certainly, Pip, that no-fire quisling of a Land Dragon is aware of your presence and power over the Balance.”
“My power over the … uh, balance? What balance?”
Briefly, Leandrial’s single eye lidded as she appeared to process a decision. I cannot articulate this in Human speech, little one. Listen closely. Our harmonic magic is closely attuned to the inner equilibrium of magic, which describes the sum of the interactions and interdependencies between every component of our world, from the smallest iota to the greatest forces in the universe; in cause, action and reaction, in the endless struggle between good and evil … all this is called the Balance of the Harmonies, and the protection of this Balance is the paramount task of Star Dragons, and the highest calling of any Land Dragon.
Pip said, I thought the Star Dragons were dead. A myth.
The only myth is the unbelief dimming your mind, little one. Leandrial’s jaw peeled open in a discomfiting Dragon smile that literally covered half the sky, as seen from Pip’s perspective. To restore the Balance amongst my kind and to our Island-World, I must return the First Egg to the place where it belongs, Pip. I must take it back across the Rift to Herimor. You promised to snatch it from this Marshal. Already, you have seen the imbalance this power has caused here, wreaking doom and destruction upon the Islands of your respective kinds. Therefore I charge you: beware Shurgal and his deceptions. You must not fail.
Was this what had motivated Leandrial to risk her life above the Cloudlands? Merely the matter of an enemy Land Dragon–if she could dare the word ‘merely’ in the context of this creature? Had she missed or misunderstood something?
Time enough to puzzle over this encounter later. Pip sucked in a ragged breath. Leandrial, I will do my utmost. Will you help us while you’re here? Please?
Speak. My ears hearken to your words.
Now a humorous echo of her earlier speech? Pip shook herself free from a vision of Shurgal and the Marshal obliterating each other, followed by the Egg falling happily into her clutches, and everyone winging into the suns-set together singing triumphant Dragonsong … hardly. If she knew any one thing, it was that this victory would not be cheaply won.
Pip said, “Please help the hatchling Chymasion learn to see, Leandrial. It’s my greatest wish. And if you could outline how to defeat this Shadow Dragon, that would be an unexpected bonus.”
“Not healing for you? Or the knowledge of a foul, ancient magic alive in Shurgal’s paws?” Leandrial’s challenge boomed across the small lake. “Worthily spoken. Therefore, little one who once dared to call me friend, I will teach you Balance, and you will learn to heal yourself. I will grant the newborn knowledge that will allow him to see like a Land Dragon, for your judgement is correct–Chymasion cannot be healed, for there is no defect in his physical being. I will speak to you of the tainted lore I believe has been unearthed by Shurgal, my greatest enemy, and share my speculations regarding this ravening beast of Shadow. All this will be done–NOW!”
Wildfire washed over her, so rich and stormy and immense it obliterated her consciousness.
Pip pitched forward into darkness.
* * * *
A vaguely-remembered face peered at itself in a slightly curved mirror. A Dragon, his muzzle hoary with age, his four-square stance upon his paws and extended muzzle reminding her of the fiery lizard who had burgled her cage, that night, and spirited a Pygmy girl away across the Island-World. Zardon. Of course. Changed into a Night-Red, yet beneath the jagged layers of sooty scales and the widely-flaring skull-spikes, his identity remained unmistakable.
This is the only place where I may come to restore my mind, he said. Here, washed in the First Egg’s power, I … again you watch me, unseen, fey spirit?
The Dragon cocked his head, gazing curiously at his own reflection as though by inspection he could plumb the mysteries of his condition.
Pip froze, semi-somnolent, somehow trapped in her dream but aware of its import. The Egg!
I must escape, Zardon mumbled. Yet when I leave this place will the Marshal’s command not overmaster? Can I not escape … keep my right-fires … for what deeds I remember, I am as a waking sleeper borne aloft upon e
vil winds … he lapsed into unintelligible rambling, his eye-fires flickering in uncoordinated, spasmodic patterns as seen in the crystalline yet metallic mirror-like surface, his head shaking in evident distress.
Her heart broke for the old Dragon, so wretched and torn in spirit. A small, selfish part of her wanted him to take a step back to allow her to see the mighty First Egg, rather than a brief portion of its surface. She realised that the Dragon must be standing atop a ledge or in a tunnel-mouth opening into the space that cocooned the Egg. It shone with warm inner luminosity; even a dream-watcher could sense the phenomenal magic radiating from the fabled Egg–not so fabled, Pip grinned sleepily, if she was looking at one.
Yet her heart’s pangs consumed her thoughts. Zardon. She must help him.
Somehow, the dream-state opened a channel of communication between them that Pip suspected must be due to their Dragon-Rider oath, perhaps amplified by the magic of two Shapeshifters? Yet Zardon had sensed her latent Dragon fires long before Pip even transformed. Impossible.
Biting the inside of her lip, Pip called softly, Zardon, I am here.
She might better have slapped him with a fast-moving Island. Zardon leaped forty feet into the air, cracked his head against an unseen obstruction and fell against the egg.
KERAAAACK!
For a second time in succession, pain blasted her into the outer darkness.
* * * *
She swam upward as if from the very roots of the Island-World, surfacing with excruciating effort through layer upon layer of memory, being and awareness, until at last suns-light infiltrated her eyelids and Pip knew she lay curled in someone’s arms–not Silver’s. She sensed a gentle rocking motion that she mistook at first for a dim, early memory of a beloved pair of arms, as above her an unseen voice chanted the blessing-of-birthing in Ancient Southern plainsong. Her mother. In Pygmy-speak, the word mother literally meant ‘guardian-of-origins’. When last had she dreamed of her parents? These memories of her Pygmy mother were so faint, so distant, now … she seized the precious recollection, as jealous as a Dragoness guarding her treasure.
