by Marc Secchia
“Ouch. You had to bring that up, didn’t you?” Lia stared over her twin’s bowed head to the stars; were they as faraway as the edge of the Universe, or merely the boundary of her sanity? “I don’t see how I can ever, er, have him, as you put it. Ironic. If we separate, I’m Human and it’s forbidden. Stay together and we’re something … else. Other. Not quite Dragonkind. Either way, we’re the only–”
“–mixed up, crazy–”
“–half Human, half Dragon–”
Dragon-girl corrected, “Fully Human, fully Dragon, summing up to–”
“Two hundred percent mischief?”
Pushing apart enough to catch the spark in each other’s eyes, they began to chuckle. Five seconds later, they were laughing so helplessly, they had to lean against each other to keep standing. Finally, their stomachs hurt too much to continue.
Hualiama tucked a few white strands away from her twin’s mouth, and gently thumbed away the tears. “So, Human girl, what do you suggest we do now?”
“I suggest we let her out.”
“Who?”
Human-Lia loosed a wicked, Dragoness-worthy chortle.
“Tell me!”
“Don’t hatchlings need to play?”
* * * *
With Hualiama fast asleep, Grandion embarked on a swift hunt to clear the dark-fires of defeat and dejection from his mind. His fire-stomach felt grimy, as if crammed with ash. The consequences were clear. To roost-love a Human would be to live as a pariah amongst the Dragonkind. Right-minded Dragons would embark upon honour-quest after honour-quest to rid the Island-World of their odious presence. Had he already written this fate for himself? Aye, perhaps, but he refused to drag the Princess of Fra’anior down with him. She was regarded as striking amongst her kind. Should she choose a mate, what right-minded Human male would refuse?
Better he terminate this liaison now. Today.
No. Sapphurion would counsel patience. As he stalked a sleek young bushbuck on the Island one over from the Dragon’s Bell, Grandion tried to force that forbearance to infuse him from wingtip to tail-spike. Follow in his shell-father’s ways? How young Grandion, with his head stuffed full of fire, would have ground that notion between his fangs!
Snick! He beheaded the buck with the razor-sharp point of his fore-talon. Clean kill. Instantly, he clamped his lips to the severed neck and gulped down the warm, spurting blood.
‘A carnivore gratefully accepts the gift of life,’ was the ancient teaching. How much more he appreciated that saying now that he knew the bloodletting practices of the Dragon-Haters! Disgusting, binding the Dragon’s magic into the blood before harvesting and drinking it. Azziala and her cronies had been on a drinking binge since the battle, building and honing their powers to a new pitch of perfection–perhaps intending to bind the Land Dragons to their cause. Cunning. What creature, or Island, could stand against?
He knew one, born of star fire. Perhaps that was his preordained role–the trusty companion. Grandion gnashed his fangs in impotent fury, before snatching up the bushbuck’s remains with fang and claw, and wheeling back to where he had left the royal ward resting in the shadow of a boulder.
What did the ascending fire-oaths mean if they could never be consummated?
But the wink of suns-light off blue scales resting in the lee of that boulder made the Tourmaline spill the hunter’s spoils from his sagging jaw. By Great Dragon’s seven thundering heads! Long seconds of frozen indecision saw the carcass lodge way down the cliff, a half-mile above the Cloudlands.
Then, he dived for the Star Dragoness with a triumphant bugle, Thou!
Perhaps Hualiama misunderstood his intent and the speed of his approach, for at the very last instant, she flashed into a sidestep like dark water flowing across the ground. Grandion braked sharply, then landed with a show of control and approached her with a swagger, displaying every inch of muscle and scale to its maximum potential.
She purred, Mmm, sulphurous greetings, o chunky monster.
You reverted? he blurted out. How?
How fast her eye-fires whirled, her three hearts racing hatchling-speed at the sight of a majestic Tourmaline! With a coquettish tilt of her head, she said, I spoke to myself and returned as me. I’m awfully hungry, Grandion. Sorry. Were you bringing a meal?
I failed to observe the transformation, Siiyumiel put in, unusually blunt for a bottom-dweller.
This wasn’t the work of your Balance power? Grandion clarified.
No. It was an unconscious change, perhaps transpiring without forewarning, said Siiyumiel.
Fixing the mite with narrowed gaze, the Tourmaline growled, I am not fond of trickery, Hualiama. Give me your word this is neither an illusion, nor a projection, nor some power of ruzal? Consciously gentling his tone, he added, I know you understand the gravity of this issue.
Share fresh kill with me, Grandion?
She deflected the question. What was Lia hiding? Yet also, the tone of her response took him right back to the roost, to his shell-mother’s care for a Human mite. Could Qualiana, with her peerless command of the healing and nurturing arts, have somehow anticipated this change of fires at the deepest level of her unconscious mind? Immediately, the Tourmaline tipped precipitously off the cliff’s edge and dived a near-vertical mile in search of the mislaid snack. A bushbuck was a mere morsel for a fully-grown Dragon, but it should sate a hatchling’s voracious appetite for half a day, at least. Bizarrely, he plunged between the Shell-Clan Dragon’s carapace and the Island, almost as if he traversed a ravine.
Furling his wings instinctively to avoid an outcropping, Grandion snatched the bushbuck’s remains out of the shallow crevice where it had lodged and swung upward once more.
That sound. Unfamiliar Dragons!
At once, his belly-fires roared into life. He had been remiss, leaving her in a Land Dragon’s care. What did Siiyumiel know of aerial combat? Where had these hostiles been hiding? Priming his fires, his ice and his shielding, Grandion hurtled upward with his fullest power, silent and deadly intent.
* * * *
Hualiama startled out of her reverie as a shadow flitted over her resting-place. Dragon attack! Instinct alone flung her beneath the swing of Siiyumiel’s flashing paw. Fluttering wings! Smack! A familiar roaring brought the Dragon’s Bell to resounding life as a Brown Dragon tangled sharply with two other Dragonkind–feral? Lia peered out from beneath the unexpected dungeon-bars effect of Siiyumiel’s talons closing over her, not to grasp, but to protect. Her flanks heaved with panicked gasps. Grunts! A volley of Grunts smashed into the Land Dragon’s paw and the nearby rocky ledge with stunning disregard for life or limb.
SIIYUMIEL! roared the Land Dragon, an almighty challenge.
Magic thrummed in Lia’s ears. Pressures seesawed between painful extremes, causing a scream to rip from her throat. Rays of intense light speared out of the Land Dragon’s mighty eyes, striking with pinpoint accuracy to smash a trio of Grunts against the mountainside; next, they sheared the wings off two Blue Overminds attacking a Brown she belatedly recognised as Affurion, leader of the Lost Islands Dragons. Half an eye-blink later, Grandion corkscrewed upward into the fray, spraying a jagged sweep of ice from his throat. A cloud of grey Swarm Dragons with their curiously underslung jaws received the full brunt of his ire. She saw all with incredible clarity. Here, the reflexive strike of Affurion’s talons to finish the one lone Swarm which had escaped the lashing ice-storm. As Grandion expectorated a fireball, a visible bulge travelled the length of his throat, making the scales glow from beneath like ingots warmed in a furnace. Instantly, a firestorm laced with lightning engulfed his target, a Blue Overmind.
If this was a battle-group of Lost Islands Dragons … Hualiama focussed on her vibrating toes. Aye, the underground attack of burrowing Anubam! Again her reactions were liquid lightning, framed in a secondary layer of conscious battle-thought, as Dragons called it, which separated draconic reactions from a Human’s blind mental shortcuts. She rode the rising rock. Lia twis
ted aside as cracks gaped beneath her paws, poised upon an explosion that formed almost calmly around her body, then sank her talons into the shoulders of a Brown Anubam emerging beneath her and snaked her head around to savage his muzzle. Her fangs were too tiny to make much of an impact, so she substituted ferocity and an attack aimed at his left eye as the Brown bugled his pain, taking her for a wild but brief impromptu ride across the battleground. She tasted rich, golden Dragon blood an instant before Affurion dropped his considerable tonnage upon the Brown’s spine and snapped it.
A rising howl warned them both. Grunt!
Affurion’s paw scooped her out of the way, flinging her off the Island. With a startled screech, Hualiama flapped her wings and managed an awkward fly-glide that arced over the crown of Siiyumiel’s head and terminated in a skidding, spark-producing landing on the nape of his neck. Wham! She fetched up against the lip of his carapace in a tangle of wings and paws.
Oh no. Grandion and Affurion were facing off over the Dragon’s Bell, raging at each other!
Her Dragoness bounded up to her paws as if electrified by one of Grandion’s lightning attacks. Charging back over the top of Siiyumiel’s head, Hualiama launched into the air … and discovered she was not much of a flier. Not yet. With a howl, she tumbled past the Land Dragon’s row of eyes and plummeted down past his body. She caught flashes of pink evening sky. Rock rushing toward her. Tourmaline scales zipped through the air above. Brown? Were they fighting? Lia fluttered frantically, bravely, and suddenly found herself the filling inside a smashed-together combination of Grandion, Affurion, and another of Siiyumiel’s paws.
“Oof! Rotten windroc droppings,” she cried.
Grandion snarled, By the First Egg, what did you think you were doing?
“It’s a battle!”
And she’s a fiery-of-spirit Dragoness, said Affurion, with an indulgent grin Hualiama summarily placed on her ‘most want to bite’ list. Courage, little one. The battle’s over. Rogue Dragons from our group, I’m afraid. But we routed those craven sheep, didn’t we, wing-brother?
Grandion returned a brotherly mock-bite against Affurion’s neck. Strength to your paw, mighty Affurion.
Male Dragons. Posturing and congratulating each other. Preening and boasting. Was there need to add to their already overblown egos? While they swapped further compliments, she turned upon Siiyumiel’s paw and gazed up into his lava-lake eyes.
Speak, o Star Dragoness.
She realised he spoke directly to her with the aid of shielded telepathy. According to the lore she knew, this channel of communication was almost impossible to eavesdrop upon. At the speed of thought, their conversation proceeded.
Is this Balance, Siiyumiel? I sense it is, but I know so little.
Somehow, each manifestation of Hualiama, he said, stressing her name with an ancient-prophetic indicator, appears to be perfectly Balanced in its own right. Even the Ancient Red scientist-mage, Dramagon, failed to achieve this result despite thousands of seasons of experimentation.
Am I–
No, you are not Dramagon’s experiment. In all I perceive and conclude from what you have shared, this is not the Dragonsong of his fire-soul, Hualiama. Nor are you Amaryllion’s creation. You are a vessel, a miracle, and the bearer of prophecy’s seeds. What is given, is that the flowering-in-beauty of your life will influence our Island-World profoundly. Therefore, the performance of your life’s task must accord with your third heart’s fires.
She chewed this over in her mind, adding it to a conviction already established within her hearts. Then a Star Dragoness must learn to weave Balance, justice and truth. She must listen as much to the groaning of volcanoes as to the song of the stars–will you teach me how to listen, Siiyumiel? My paws are surely too tiny for this great a task.
Search your hearts. What will you accomplish first?
A personal quest. I must find the white scale, my shell-mother’s scale. It will serve as a lodestone, a reminder to always seek the higher path.
The Land Dragon asked, Does this mean you’ve learned your heritage?
Aye. I am the daughter of Ra’aba and Azziala, and the shell-daughter of Istariela by–I believe–Fra’anior himself.
Did she believe? As the Land Dragon’s inner fires and eye-fires erupted in response to her assertion, Lia swallowed a lump in her throat as black and cutting as a shard of granite. Truly? With his fabled powers, surely the Onyx himself had purposed this, or at least foreseen that his progeny should remain in the Island-World beyond his departure. Why hunt Istariela, then? Was it the White Dragoness’ egglings who represented the betrayal she remembered him roaring about, or another matter entirely, something beyond her ken? And might she not one day find her egg-siblings, should that grace be granted her?
Was Fra’anior friend or foe?
Before she knew it, Hualiama had assembled all of these thoughts and all she knew of her heritage, and conveyed an infinitesimally brief yet world-shaking package of information to the great Wisdom of the Shell-Clan.
His entire body, miles long and deep, quivered as though she had picked up an Island and slapped him across the nose with it.
Only, where was his nose?
The budding Dragoness was still mired in this enormously important contemplation when Siiyumiel suddenly folded himself up in reverse. The eyes shuttered. With a deep groan and a shudder, his body began to sail backward from the Island. His head withdrew into its protective armour. At once, Grandion scooped her up in his right paw and made an agile leap to the Dragon’s Bell Island, almost landing on Affurion’s tail.
Sinking with surprising rapidity into the Cloudlands, Siiyumiel called, This changes the Balance of the Harmonies, Hualiama. I must retire to consider your revelations.
Siiyumiel, I–
I will find you, Star Dragoness.
Hualiama stared after the receding mountain peaks of Siiyumiel’s shell. Why did she sense she had just stumbled over her own paws?
Chapter 4: Sarzun Dragonhold
That eveNing, AfFURION flew with Grandion and Hualiama to Sarzun Dragonhold, the ancient roost of the Lost Islands Dragons. Thick cloudbanks marched overhead in ranks as regimented as sullen soldiers wearing dark grey uniforms, but although heat built upon heat and thunder fulminated all about, no rain appeared to be in the offing. When she realised where they were headed, Lia began to protest, but Affurion laughingly assured her that Azziala knew everything there was to know about the Stronghold already. Besides, anything truly important would be hidden long before she arrived.
Grr! Grandion caught her about the waist before she launched herself more than ten feet off his paw in a spitting, snarling mini-rage.
Dragon emotions, he chuckled.
Oh. Mercy, Grandion … is it always like this?
Like rivers of fire coursing along your nerves? Aye, Dragoness. But you learn control, and how to channel the rage into great battle-magic.
In your extensive experience of being a Dragoness? she teased.
Affurion snorted with laughter, momentarily turning the Tourmaline Dragon into a flying mass of knotted muscle and thundering fires. Without delay, the slim, double-winged Brown pointed with his left foreclaw. Behold, Sarzun Dragonhold.
They swept toward a trio of mile-wide crater-lakes crowning a lush Island, their rims curiously smooth and regular, as though formed by a planned geological process. Such was the power of the Ancient Dragons. Lia imagined there must be fine hunting amongst the bristly, dark green coniferous forests bearding the rugged slopes and shadowed ravines. Her stomach gurgled and clenched at once. Her new Dragon eyes picked out deposits of olivine, jade and chalcedony stone upon those igneous slopes, and the scales along her spine prickled as she became cognisant of an unfamiliar magic pervading the very air.
Aye, said Affurion, observing her reaction. This Island benefits from a natural shielding magic, which is the primary reason Dragons made their home here. None can approach with impunity; certainly, none possessing the subterfu
ge of the Dragon-Haters.
The Star Dragoness replied, It is almost as if the two halves of the Lost Islands were created to exist in eternal opposition.
The Brown Dragon dipped his wingtips in respect. A claw-tip touch upon what many Dragonkind suspect, Hualiama. We know not why we were created thus.
As huge and pockmarked as an ancient boulder, the Yellow Moon rolled across the sky above the Lost Islands, passing by so closely, she imagined a paw could reach out and scratch its dusty, citrine-yellow surface. Beyond the aspect of its western curvature, Hualiama saw the great comet stretching across the sky, its coma hidden behind the Yellow Moon, so that the two separate tails appeared to stream away like a child’s white ribbons trailing across the deepening indigo of the evening sky. What would become of the Island-World if the notoriously malevolent Numistar returned to rule and reign?
Her gaze swung dizzily to the craters, zooming in to discover streams of Dragonkind issuing from the honeycomb rim walls, which rose a good thousand feet above the slowly-roiling turquoise lakes, then her vision panned out again to spy many more thousands of Dragons, mostly Swarm, rising to orient upon the visitors with clear intent.
Steady your eye muscles, Grandion advised. For now, choose a single focal point until you learn fine control of your magnification. I will also teach you the magical enhancement of Dragon sight. That’s a higher Blue skill.
Clearly, the Tourmaline intended to revel in the role of teacher.
It was hard not to feel chary and skittish given his sheer physical presence; more so the possessive clasp of his paw and the surging of eye-fires each time Grandion regarded her. Lia had to remind herself she was twenty-one years old, no mere stripling, and certainly not an ordinary Dragon hatchling. Life’s experience had scarred and moulded her.
The power of Dragon sight was hers.
Lia said, Grandion, please show me how to work this magnification. What are your Dragon-kin doing, Affurion?
