by Marc Secchia
Pip managed an hour’s flight before exhaustion overtook her completely. One moment she was fleeing ahead of the Dragon Assassins, the next, her wings took it upon themselves to fold up mid-stroke. Her flight muscles seized up in one gigantic cramp that squeezed her chest as she imagined an Ancient Dragon might squeeze an Island into shape, and she was done for. Falling. It was neither her proudest nor most elegant moment.
Zardon it was who caught her–not quite the rheumy old dodderer she had taken him for–cuffed her several times about the ear-canals as if chastising a hatchling, and then threw her to his Dragon-kin for a dint more rough treatment.
Just don’t kill her, were his orders. Pip caught a flash of a smirk before she found herself the quarry in a large, ugly game of swat-the-Dragoness. She curled up as tightly as she could, and endured.
It was worse than she could have imagined.
Then, clasped in Zardon’s talons, the semi-conscious, battered Dragoness found herself whisked away southward, toward the Marshal’s lair.
* * * *
Eridoon Island hung over the void against a purpling horizon, much as Pip’s bruises were already purpling, she imagined. Eerie lavender forests bearded its sweeping heights, while the dense clumps of moss still remaining on its flanks, thirty feet thick in places from what her Dragon vision made out, supported a cornucopia of unfamiliar animal and bird life–long-legged, hopping mice and burrowing voles the size of medium-sized felines, and many species of long-tailed, long-crested warblers or bee-eaters. The real shock was the Island’s lack of foundation. Nothing beneath. No supports below, no hooks to dangle it from the falcate Yellow moon, looming overhead as though frowning upon the deeds of Man and Dragon.
A faint thrumming of localised, exotic magic made her spine spikes tingle. Ay, raising an Island was a feat to rival the power of the Ancient Dragons. How could the Marshal bear that drain? Just a couple of thunder-blasts, or a single Word of Command, and she felt ready to sleep for ten years.
Zardon swept over the Island’s mountainous brow and down toward a great artificial hole carved into its heart. Dragons streamed into that hole from all directions, vanishing into the gloom like bats returning to a cave. Thousands of Dragons. Perhaps the greatest draconic army ever assembled; and she chose to toss herself gaily into their midst?
A frisson of anticipation-terror stroked her spine. If there was mercy beneath the heavens, Pip prayed, let light enter this place of darkness. Zardon had been her light. May she pass that torch on.
Transform, Zardon commanded.
Uh … I don’t have sufficient magic, Zardon.
Then partake of mine.
Even with help, Pip struggled to make her transformation. Master Kassik had warned her. There was a stretching sensation, a sense of pushing through layers of dark, dense material while generalised pain spread through her Dragon-being. Then, snap! She was Human, and Zardon’s talons adjusted to prevent her slipping between his knuckles.
Still the noble Zardon I knew, she said.
I serve the Marshal unswervingly.
Pip considered not stirring trouble for a period approximating half a beat of a hummingbird’s wings. No. She should be true to her nature. Pip said, But I know differently, Zardon, for I am your Rider. I’ve seen you standing there before the First Egg …
Silence! Zardon’s paw tightened. You know not what you say.
To her shock, runes burst into flaming life within her mind, ever so briefly, before expiring and leaving her with a fine headache. A warning. The Marshal would use that knowledge against them. He already knew, having wrested that knowledge from Zardon’s mind.
She shivered against the jail-bars of his fist.
Slowing now with outspread wings, the old Dragon Shapeshifter descended into the hole, four thousand feet in diameter, bored directly into the Island’s basal rock. To every side, she saw the oval entrances of tunnels apparently lit by Dragon lights set at intervals in sconces recessed in the tunnel walls and ceilings. The arriving Dragons dived into these tunnels, each wide enough to accommodate two fully-grown adults flying side-by-side. They passed seven layers of tunnels before Zardon clipped his wings to take them into a tunnel larger than the others. Lights blurred by. Pip caught flashes of massive storage caverns, wide, flat caverns that appeared to be filled with strange, stunted fruit-trees growing beneath glaring lights, great bubbling vats giving rise to horrid, nostril-searing odours, and everywhere, small pale Humans hooded and clad in tan robes, tending the machinery of the Marshal’s war operation. Clamouring forges producing what appeared to be Dragon armour. Underground lakes. Repair shops. Lines of men bowed beneath huge sacks of meal and great slabs of meat. Roosts where tens of Dragons slept flank-to-flank. Unbelievable. Pip could not take it all in.
Shortly, the wide tunnel curved and Zardon turned down a side tunnel, rapidly descending a further half-mile or more into the Island’s grey-grained, granite bowels. A pressure swelled against her mind, bringing strange white-fires to her vision …
The Egg, said Zardon. Such power. Inconceivable power. To think the Ancient Dragons bathed in the power of the twin suns, and forged their creative works with the output of volcanoes born in the Island-World’s core.
Zardon, what does the Marshal want with me? Will he keep his promise?
Ay, I believe he will. He is honourable in a sense which is hard to fathom. Should I know his thoughts? Does he not wish to hatch this First Egg, and thus gain power to rule the world?
Did he not effectively rule the Island-World already? This powerful an army would sweep the Dragon Rider Academy off the map forever.
Zardon flared his wings, landing beside a huge iron doorway which had to be the entrance of a dungeon. The area stank of sweat and blood, oil and fear. Curious. Her Dragon senses could sometimes augment her Human senses, making them extraordinarily sensitive. More proof of the oneness of her Human and Dragon forms. The door slid open soundlessly. Zardon stalked within, all dark menace and power; the septet of Night-Red Dragons guarding the entryway bowed their muzzles.
Commander.
Ay. Take this one down to the Shapeshifter holding chambers.
The special–
Zardon cut the Dragon off with a low growl, Do your duty, Dragon.
He passed Pip over. She shivered, rubbing her arms. Perhaps it was not as chilly inside the Island as she had expected, but she had no clothing and had not eaten since the morning. The Night-Red pushed her unceremoniously down a long, rough-hewn rock tunnel. Barred cells lined both sides, numbering in their hundreds, each housing a miserable-looking collection of Humans. A few larger cells held Dragons. Pip wondered why Marshal Re’akka kept all of these people. Political prisoners? They gazed dully at her, seemingly incapable of reaction or curiosity. Had her mother died of fright, or ill health, cold and alone in this place?
At the end of that gallery of misery, the Dragon pushed her through another metal door. The air changed. Magic? That slight scent of subterfuge, of mutability? The Dragon did not pause. Taking a left turn at a T-junction, he walked another couple of hundred feet before the grey stone passageway ended abruptly in a chamber sized for a single Human prisoner. Only a Dragon hatchling could have fit within. A single Dragon light affixed to the roof lit the cheerless room. She peered at the oddly ribbed walls. Rust-red, they curved around the floor, walls and ceiling, enclosing the chamber in its entirety.
Dragon bones, chortled her jailor. He shoved her within.
Pip stumbled beneath the forceful blow and fell, slamming her nose on one of the ribs. By the time she turned, the Dragon had retreated down the tunnel, and a broad section of stone was sliding across the entryway.
She cried, No …
Two hundred feet of solid rock in every direction, said the Dragon. Sleep well, Pygmy girl.
The stone slid flush against the far wall, the inner part again covered in Dragon bones that fit seamlessly with the rest of the chamber.
Pip was alone. Trapped in Re’akka’s lai
r.
* * * *
Hours passed. Days, perhaps. Pip did not know. She was aware of magic working strangely upon her mind. She dreamed eerie, frightening dreams of events and places she did not understand, and Dragons she had never met. Time telescoped strangely around her, sometimes seeming to rush along like a powerful river, at other times stalling or slipping away from her like a trout escaping a Pygmy hunter’s cunning hand.
At intervals an elderly servant appeared, once to bring her a blanket, other times to supply a bowl of tasteless, never-changing stew and a gourd of water, other times to remove and replace the waste-bucket. The man never spoke.
When she roused herself to fight, it was to realise that magic did not work in her cell. Somehow, that capability seemed muted. It did not feel like the absence of magic caused by her poisoning, but rather as if even the idea of magic was unthinkable. Her magic would not work, she came to believe. Without night or day, time was marked only by the servants’ irregular appearances, and the perception that from time to time, a predatory pair of eyes watched her from an unknown location, burning yellow eyes, measuring, judging, probing.
Pip gave the eyes no quarter. Though she had started weak and abused, and felt herself growing steadily weaker, there was in her psyche an adamantine core forged of suffering and pain, Pygmy stubbornness and draconic willpower, that remained inviolable. The yellow eyes burned that fortress pitilessly, but as Silver had found, her paucity of physical dimensions was not reflected in the makeup and disposition of her character. She took encouragement from the yellow-eyed being’s flashes of vexation. Always, she returned to the little blue star’s laughter. It was balm to her tortured spirit and a panacea for her grief. She thought of each of her friends in turn, and held them dear. For these, she told herself. It was for love she had entered the beast’s den.
Yet there came a time she realised that her spirit’s hold on her mortal flesh was weakening. If she did not escape this dungeon, she would die.
Chapter 23: Interloper
Silver regarded Emblazon with his jaw set in stony defiance. “Ay, I am determined upon this crazy course of action, as you call it. My shell-mother’s training is complete. She’s a mistress of disguise, for the magic of Herimor runs thick in her veins.”
He spoke Island Standard for the benefit of the others.
Here, fifty leagues north of where Pip had ambushed her friends, the jungle had once more gathered the Dragons and Riders into its warming embrace. Silver had never imagined coming to regard impenetrable jungles as a Nature-mother, nurturing and protective of Her own. Yet Pip called this place home. She had blossomed here–did her actions not scream that fact until the exquisite enormity of her sacrifice resounded to the very stars? Even now, four days later, his Dragon hearts sang at the memory. I love you, my beautiful Silver. Crazy, wilful, exasperating Pygmy mite!
Unexpectedly, Emblazon lowered his great amber muzzle from its twenty-five foot elevation, to nuzzle the Shapeshifter’s neck in a brotherly-love gesture. “I would commend and encourage you, my wing-brother. Your white-fires burn with all purity. I wish you clear skies and strength. Chymasion?”
“Eridoon Island continues to forge westward,” said the youngster. “It seems Marshal Re’akka would plot his course directly across the Middle Sea, now that his Dragonwings have finally lifted their paw from the Crescent Islands.” Across from him, Shimmerith’s eye-fires gleamed with evident pride in the Jade Dragon’s efficient assessment. “Further, my Rider and I conclude the Marshal has captured what he always wanted most–Pip. Her knowledge and skills. There is nothing left here for him.”
“Save the scrolls,” said Kaiatha. “We must discharge our responsibility to Pip. If we return via Sylakia, we could quickly check on Masters Balthion and Kassik, and Casitha.”
Nak said, “So, we’re in a race to the Academy.”
“We’ll win!” Emblazon, Shimmerith and Cinti growled simultaneously.
“Hmm. Not if we’re the love-flight,” Nak snorted, turning a jaundiced eye upon Jerrion, who shrugged massively. “Master Adak will dice you up for kebabs, large as you are.”
“Love chooses us,” said Jerrion, indicating his diminutive Pygmy consort-to-be, who dimpled and made moon-eyes in return. She was cute. Not Pip-cute, Silver hastily corrected his thoughts–argh, treachery from his own mind!
“You two don’t understand a word the other says!”
“Since when does love entail speech?” asked the giant, apparently amazed there should be any doubt cast over his intended liaison. “She’s Master Adak’s niece. Everything will work out.”
Nak snorted a second time, more loudly and rudely than the first. “After he’s finished carving his initials on your–”
“Nak!” snapped Oyda. “Alright, everyone, time to say your farewells. Silver has his own love-boat to catch. Literally.”
Silver laughed, but fumed inwardly. These Northerners were crazy and hilarious in equal measure. One day, he might even understand a sense of humour that guffawed in the face of annihilation. Until then, he would chase a crazy girl who knocked out her friends for love before flying right into the evil overlord’s lair. He could not help but admire her spirit. She drove him to distraction–yet, what a girl! She would have taken nursery battles to a whole new level.
But his shell-father was not one to be trifled with. Pip was too fresh from the jungle to comprehend the power of an ancient Shapeshifter like the Marshal. Oh, Silver knew better than to offer his help. No, what was required was a more guileful approach. An approach worthy of every ounce of a Herimor’s devious, conniving heritage.
He would woo her right out from beneath Re’akka’s nose, with an act of real courage.
A sacrifice.
With a final, mighty slap of Emblazon’s paw to speed him on his way, Silver darted between the great trees, careless now of the smells of wet mulch and jungle flowers, or the moist tang of the vast, airy beyond, the realm of Dragons. All that mattered was the hunt.
I’m coming for you, shell-father. You have something that belongs to me.
No, that jungle girl could never be owned. A fierce joy pervaded the Silver Dragon’s hearts as he spread his wings above the abyss. For the first time since the Pygmy Dragoness had crushed his hopes and brought him low, he felt truly alive, infused with a sense of righteous purpose. Marshal Re’akka had to fall. And he was the silver spear who would pierce his father’s evil ambitions.
This would be the greatest battle of his life.
* * * *
The Dragon Assassins, four strong, moved Pip to a new room. Again it was stark, buried deep, comprised of nothing but Dragon bones enclosing a chamber somewhere in the Island’s granite bowels. The dominant feature was a monolithic block of metal planted squarely in the room’s centre, one surface of which was canted at fifteen degrees from the vertical, and sported manacles better suited to securing a Dragon’s limbs, never mind a Pygmy girl.
Should she feel flattered?
Her mind seemed as sluggish as a giant land snail, reluctant to form coherent thoughts. Pip wondered if this was the start of physical torture, now that the magical torture had concluded. Perhaps they intended to gut her or … worse. Oh please, not that. She could think of so many creative ways a Dragon might torture a Human, never mind a Shapeshifter of Re’akka’s reputed power.
A trio of the ubiquitous tan-clad servants bustled about, clamping her bodily to the table. Oddly, the great bands of metal appeared to flow and adjust, covering her outspread arms from wrist to elbow, and each splayed leg from ankle to knee. She supposed the position was designed to make her feel vulnerable. If so, it succeeded. Not even a Dragon’s paw could have torn her off the metal block now. The servants fastened a thick metal gag over her mouth, ostensibly to preclude the possibility of her uttering a Word of Command. The metal flowed as well, a touch of cool magic as it conformed to her face and invaded her mouth. Ugh.
So, magic was possible in this room? She snatched up that nug
get of hope. So far her clever plan of getting close to the Marshal appeared to have come woefully unhinged.
Pip waited and waited. After a time, her eyelids shuttered.
She dreamed of standing on a desolate mountaintop, upon the peak of a dormant volcano. All the Island-World spread out before her. Every realm, every people, all its riches and glory and honour were exposed to her view. There would be adulation, even worship, when she assumed her rightful position of rulership. In her ear, a voice wheedled, ‘You can have all this if you yield to me.’ Over and over, the voice called to her, threatened, pestered with promises no sane person would ever consider.
She found her voice. It was sevenfold, the voice of an Ancient Dragon as she remembered it.
The wheedling presence vanished with a sharp cry.
Pip’s eyes snapped open.
It was him. Marshal Re’akka; it could be no other.
A man stood framed in the doorway, straightening with a tiny movement as her black eyes lit upon him. He was tall and lean, his spare frame swathed in robes of earthy orange, the colour of a fiery dawn sky. He wore black trousers tucked into what Silver had described as Herimor-style boots, mid-calf black leather with a thick, fancy black collar tooled with a silver overlay of Dragon runes, expressing ancient wards of power and protection in a Herimor script. The flame-coloured robe and his dark, high-necked shirt set off the pale skin of his hands and neck. Sleek, pure white hair framed his face, which might once have been youthful, but now the eyes appeared sunken in their sockets, underscored by dark sleep-rings, as hooded as a snake’s gaze. Jutting brows and high cheekbones lent the Marshal’s visage that angular Herimor cast which in Silver was so attractive, but upon his shell-father only served to appear gaunt.
Ay, the resemblance was unmistakable despite the disparity in height. But where the son’s eyes had silver irises and a youthful openness about them, the father’s were as yellow as Dragon fire, yet cloudy in their depths, eyes that hinted at great secrets and power; utterly, fearfully hypnotic.
