Dragonsoul

by Marc Secchia

  She heard Dragons pouring out onto the balcony behind her, but Lia had eyes only for the comet. Now, bathing the Island-massifs in its blinding glow, the true speed of approach became apparent, the explosive mix of rock, ice and gases stretching out like a single, vastly elongated star. She braced her paws. Closer. A whistling sound climbed the register, rising within seconds to a piercing pitch–brace! Down. Down, impossibly rapid. The comet slammed into … nothingness. Hualiama gasped as the blazing mass shot into the Cloudlands like a crossbow bolt fired point-blank into a deer’s flank.

  Blink. Gone.

  KRRAAABOOMM!! A sound-wave rolled belatedly across the Islands, crushing her against Sapphurion’s side and causing the watching Dragonkind to cry out in alarm. The Cloudlands lapped and rippled outward from the point of impact, then sloshed back together as if a vast stone had been tossed into a lake.

  Suddenly, seconds later, the entire Island shuddered and tipped like a Dragonship catching a breeze. This caused a much louder outcry, a scrabbling of claws and the cross snapping of Dragons thrown against each other as the perturbation rippled outward. Sapphurion and Grandion dug in, for the entire Island swayed side-to-side. On the heels of the first, a second, far louder detonation conducted through their paws and hearing from far beneath the Cloudlands. Even the Tourmaline Dragon was struck to his knees; he shook his head drunkenly, which was exactly how Lia felt. Not even Dragon ear-canal muscles could have protected her from that terrible, echoing explosion. Gazing about rapidly, unsteady upon her paws, she saw Chenak and Irak swaying like trees lashed by a storm. Secondary and tertiary explosions continued to shake the Lost Islands, but the greatest shock was visible at Erak. A weird, fizzing sensation crawled beneath her scales. What? No!

  Hualiama pointed northeast, wheezing, “Great Islands. Grandion, no …”

  Erak cracked into three distinct segments. Great sheets of white water cascaded briefly down its flanks as the peaks began to sink into the Cloudlands. Sluggishly. Hideously. A few Dragons fluttered bravely off the sinking peaks and issued from the exposed caves, but not many. A flotilla of nine Dragonships broke away, her amazing Dragon sight furnishing her the detail of people dangling from ropes; light blue robes fluttered briefly as several Dragon Enchanters lost their grip and fell into the Cloudlands.

  “That’s twenty-four thousand people! Oh, stop it, please … someone!”

  Her plaintive wail vanished over the deeps. No Dragon could speak; Sapphurion put his paw over her back, and held Lia gently as the aftershocks continued. Erak dipped into the Cloudlands in terrifying silence, as if its knees had been cut from beneath it–and perhaps they had, though Hualiama had no concept of what manner of legs it might take to support an Island’s mass.

  In a matter of little over three minutes after that initial impact, the last peak of Erak Island bowed away beneath the Cloudlands. Erased, forever.

  Meantime, as Dardak Island’s rocking began to settle, a deep, animalistic groan resounded through the rock beneath their feet, clearly the cry of a beast in pain, confused and angry. So low was the sound, it was almost subliminal, felt as much as heard. Out between the Islands, the Cloudlands air slopped about like soup in a bowl. Hualiama stared. Was that a glow emanating from below? Aye, a whitish-red glow lit the clouds from beneath. Had the comet penetrated the very crust of the world, reaching to the fabled fires within? Had it given birth to a new volcano?

  Dragons gathered to their left and right, watching in awed silence. Chakur. Jyrandia. A grizzled Grunt Elder, Tobak–he could have been the shell-brother of Tome, who had honoured her at Sarzun Dragonhold. The groaning resounded again, sounding more like speech, this time. Lia’s talons gashed the stone, disquieted.

  Tobak grated, We’re moving.

  Moving? Lia echoed.

  Every Dragon looked around in surprise, as if they expected the stones to be marching off to the horizon in pairs.

  Look. His massive, gnarled grey paw swept above her head. There’s an eddy in the Cloudlands, directly alongside our Island. As yet tiny, but detectable. You can just about see Irak and Burak beginning to change orientation, see? Irak turns. Burak sails westward.

  She had to squint and screw up her brow-ridges to eventually grasp what the Grunt Elder had so effortlessly detected. Imagination? No, the Islands really were moving, at approximately the speed of a feral land-snail. Perhaps a quarter-mile an hour, her inner engineer asserted. Dragoness-Lia sent Humansoul a mental salute. Clever, for a dancing dragonet.

  Pompous paw-prancer, came the response. How’s about we ring in a few orders?

  By my fires, uh … such as?

  Human-Lia snorted, My, don’t we need to grow into our mischief-stirring paws? However, this is serious, Dragonsoul. You saw Erak die; we should prepare every Island for evacuation. Snip-snap, girlie. Get talking.

  Girlie? You’ll pay for that!

  Her stomach clenched. Humansoul was right. Not just light on her feet, was she? Slipping out from beneath Sapphurion’s wing, Hualiama took a four-pawed stance that she knew had to look less than impressive in a twelve-foot hatchling. Yet the Tourmaline Dragon observed her mien, and immediately alerted the other Dragons with a commanding word. In three seconds, a hundred pairs of fire-eyes gazed down at her.

  “Right,” said Lia, in a grief-ravaged growl. “We’ve work to do, Dragons. Jyrandia, I need your fastest fliers to wing to every stronghold and warn them to prepare for potential evacuation. We do not want to lose thousands more Dragons and Humans. Use Empress Azziala’s name if necessary. Get it done. Grandion, go do the same for Affurion and his kin. We’ll pay through the nose for flying out there again, but you’re the only Dragon I know who can be certain that there is no lingering Command-hold lurking in his mind.”

  “How do you know that?” he asked.

  “Oath-magic links us.”

  Grandion blinked slowly. “How do you propose–”

  “No time. Snap to it, Dragons! The day of Imbalance grows no younger.”

  As Jyrandia reeled off her orders, pair by pair, Dragons fanned out across a vivid display of aurora brightening the East. For a mere second, Hualiama’s gaze lingered on the streamers and curtains of light appearing to play overhead, beauty to make her throat ache–or was it the anguish of sensing the heart-crushing outcry of thousands of departed souls, a chill of Disharmony? Her paws felt numb, her hearts-beat laboured and purposeless. Grandion spoke to her, but Lia barely heard. Where was her spark of courage now?

  “Come, Hualiama, we must fly to Chenak and brief the Empress,” said Sapphurion, sternly but not without kindness.

  She said, woodenly, “Aye, noble Sapphurion. Grandion, fly strong and true.”

  “Aye, Dragoness. May you soar to the stars.”

  How did Dragons weep? How did any soul weep for the fate of her world?

  * * * *

  Hualiama winged aloft, knowing not glorious flight, but a sapping sense of enervation and defeat. Defeat? Before the battle had even commenced? She beat her wings furiously, until even Sapphurion had to stretch his sinews to catch up with her, as if she were fleeing the scene of Numistar’s homecoming. What form would the Ancient Dragoness take? At three-quarters of a mile in length, Amaryllion had been regarded as undersized, a mere waif. Hualiama could relate. The under-Cloudlands glow had already spread many leagues beyond the Lost Islands, the clouds churning slowly, as if ancient talons stirred a gruesome potion, preparing to rain destruction upon all creatures of the Island-World.

  The Blue Elder gave her time and space, winging silently upon her right flank. She saw his great jaw set; his eyes dark and brooding, betraying the savage bent of his thoughts.

  Slowly, dawn spread her wings across the eastern horizon, flooding the skies with streaks of crimson, like the magnificent volcanic dawns of Fra’anior Cluster. Hualiama realised that a great quantity of dust and underworld gases must have been thrown up into the atmosphere by that explosion, for she tasted a strange rankness in the air, and she had sneezed
grit out of her nostrils a dozen times already. The sensitive leading edges of her wings felt abraded.

  Without preamble, Sapphurion said, If your shell-mother was Istariela, o Blue-star …

  Her wingbeat stalled and snarled. He knew! And her reaction betrayed her as surely as a spoken word. Great leaping Islands …

  He growled, You do not wish Grandion to know? I noticed you elided this information during our briefing several days ago, when you returned to Chenak. Is it not of the first importance? She hung her head, feeling very much the youngling beneath his censure. Yet, the seeking of your shell-mother’s scale reveals your third heart, Hualiama. Is this matter not so grave, so intense and intimate, that to speak thereof resembles a form of sacrilege? And immodesty far exceeding ordinary draconic hubris?

  I have spoken with the Onyx, o Sapphurion, she said, touched by how well he knew her.

  Aye, I am the illicit shell-daughter of a towering draconic legend. Right. How well he touched her discomfort, her shame, her disinclination to accept that heritage.

  He nodded. Your life’s flight begins to take shape. Was Fra’anior not said to be infertile?

  Istariela found a way. He was halfway into an acknowledging tilt of his wingtips, when Lia added, Without the Great Dragon’s foreknowledge, or blessing.

  Sapphurion expelled a monstrous belch of flame. What? Explain!

  Her blue muzzle shook slowly, side to side, and the Elder knew what she did. There could be no understanding Istariela’s motives if the White Dragoness chose to withhold the truth. This must be the scandal the lore-scrolls failed to pinpoint. For this reason, Onyx and White had fought, and for her transgression, Istariela had been banished to a place beyond knowing. Hualiama grasped one more truth–one known also to Fra’anior. She was complicit in hiding her shell-mother. As an eggling she had somehow, through time and space, transferred to Istariela the power to elude the Onyx Dragon’s grasp. Now, there was no way to bring her back. Perhaps it was Istariela who had banished herself for fear of Fra’anior’s wrath? Her shell-father grieved that loss. All his terrible majesty poured into the pain of betrayal, expressed in storms and fire which had frightened an eggling-spirit into giving Istariela the White exactly what she needed … why? The question haunted her. Why?

  The Sapphire Dragon’s regard seared the air between them, his brain behind that gaze clearly raging like a bonfire, the thoughts sparking and boiling and coalescing within. He said, I foresee this will become the crucial question of your life, Star Dragoness. The crux, upon which all will rise or fall. The heritage of Star Dragons has been cast into disrepute. You are the kinship-redeemer, the source, the weight of Fra’anior’s paw upon our Island-World. You are restoration; never more truly, the promise-star.

  She fluttered along gamely, feeling ralti-stunned by the force of his words. It was too much, too grave and threatening and fragile, to grasp at once.

  Finally, Lia said, Sapphurion, I will need your help in one matter.

  Star Dragoness?

  There is a soul-shadowing darkness upon my life, the heritage of ruzal. I cannot allow this spirit of Dramagon purchase upon my life, Sapphurion, for I am damaged and unstable, the product and focus of forces too great for any Dragoness to hold safely in her paw.

  Now it was he whose wings drooped, dispirited. I understand.

  Do you, o roost-father?

  You wish to cast off the Tourmaline, or at least, to distance yourself from him. I am not without sympathy. It is not pride, but fear and the spectre of events past, that causes this word to be spoken. Grandion … my shell-son may not readily understand. He will not give up.

  He would not understand at all. Hualiama whispered, Aye.

  Yet I must counsel you with a word, if you will allow. Noting her slight nod, he said, A Dragoness must choose if she would fly alone, or together with wing-brothers and wing-sisters. Remember, o Dragoness; remember and honour those who would fly this course with you.

  Just as solemnly as he, she said, I promise to heed this word, roost-father.

  Unexpectedly, he reached out and tipped her spine-spikes with a playful push of his right wingtip. Besides, I don’t see us giving you any choice in the matter. Respectfully. So you’re welcome to crisp that in your little fire-stomach, Dragoness!

  She laughed so hard, Sapphurion had to rescue her from an ignominious fall from the sky.

  * * * *

  Four hours later, Hualiama stood before the Council of Haters in her raiment of Dragon scales, having strips torn off of her by her visibly infuriated mother. “You issued orders in my name?”

  “Aye, mother.”

  “Prepare for evacuation. Pack essential belongings. Ready the Dragonships?” Azziala’s voice grew shriller with each phrase.

  “Aye.”

  “You created chaos! All my systems, my careful plans–”

  “Perhaps you feel you can afford to lose another twenty-four thousand?”

  “You sent an envoy to Affurion!”

  “The worst form of treason, helping my own kind–” Azziala screamed a curse, but Lia forged on. “Odd as it may appear to you, mother, these are also my people and I acted to protect them. Did I do wrong?”

  One of her new Councillors had the temerity to make an assenting noise. Azziala’s staff, a heavy replica of the previous one she had smashed at her first meeting with Hualiama, blurred as she moved with infeasible speed. The heavy gemstone-tipped top end smacked into the woman’s temple with a sickening, audible crack of bone. She slumped.

  Gurzia knelt quickly, checking the pulse. “Dead.”

  “I despise insolence,” Azziala said, without inflection. “Promote Payturki of Irak at once. Hualiama.”

  “Mother.”

  Nothing like a murder to ground her mother’s mental state. Immediately upon braining one of her cohorts, the Empress exuded calm and control, acting as if nothing untoward had taken place. It took every ounce of Hualiama’s willpower not to glance at the fresh corpse or run screaming from the room.

  Unholy windrocs, the woman was monstrous!

  “Upon your lizard’s return, you will blood him triple the normal amount and bring the offering to me. That is the punishment I decree.” Lia tried to disguise her reaction. Triple! That would cripple the strongest Dragon. “What you fail to understand, daughter, is that this lizard will betray, overpower and use you even as I was betrayed and used by your father. That is the nature of lizards. Worse, you are a freak. Dragons value the purity of their precious soul-fires above all else. Serve the lizards as you wish, it will avail you nothing. Eventually, he will turn on you. He must. It is inevitable.”

  Again, that peculiar, twisted tone of caring. This was a mother who thought of Reaving as a love-gift to her daughter. Lia lifted her chin. “He will not.”

  “Tell me, Hualiama, how do lizards understand honour?”

  Blood roared dizzily in her ears, filling her body with unbearable heat. She could not answer.

  “Rule of law, right of paw,” Azziala recited. “He is no Dragon, who does not uphold the law. By your very existence, unless you defeat the possessing spirit, you will doom his. Grandion must destroy the freak, or himself suffer the fate of right of paw. The scales of draconic justice are clear.”

  How had the Empress come to understand draconic law so well? Did she make a closer study of the Dragonkind than she dared to admit, seeking out any and all weak points in their society as much as their psyche? Once more, Azziala’s acuity reigned supreme. Slowly, she hemmed Lia in, closing the jaws of her trap.

  The Empress urged, “Just let me in, Hualiama. I will cleanse your soul of the lizard, of ruzal, of all that besets your life. No? How very strong-willed you must think you are.”

  She forced herself not to divulge how deeply her mother’s words distressed her. “We must plan for Numistar.”

  Turning to her Councillors, Azziala said, “Once more, my daughter’s intelligence and insight has proved its worth. We have learned we dwell atop the ba
cks of the accursed lizards. This is an examination. A Reaving of our collective will. Dramagon’s purposes must be known. Therefore, gather my Dragon Enchanters from every Isle and fortress, every one that can be spared. It is time to put our Controls to the test, to harness these Land Dragons to our cause. Two days.”

  Hualiama could not resist. “Far quicker if you flew Dragonback.”

  The golden eyes narrowed. “Perhaps you’d prefer to blood your brother instead?”

  Chapter 10: Sailing the Deeps

  A DAY LATER, Human-Lia stood atop the still-frozen heights of Chenak Island, waiting for the Dragon. Her Dragon. Dreading what must be said. She was not too preoccupied to take note of the minutest changes in her surrounds, as if her inner Dragoness sharpened her senses even further than normal–she noted the slightly elevated temperature of the Land Dragon’s breath, and the increased frequency of its exhalations, close to one every two hours, now. The redolence of cinnamon-vanilla magic had increased exponentially. Puffy clouds of condensation poured from each of the Land Dragon’s nostrils, forty-five in all, scattered all across Chenak Island. Formerly Chenak, she should say. The great Island-beast must have its own name–which probably took a week to utter in grinding rock-speak, she imagined.

  Behind, behaving exactly like a flotilla of Dragonships, came the rest of the Lost Islands, clustered together as though by family group or affiliation. Burak Island had split into five separate beasts, and after a manoeuvre of disquieting facility, lay clustered together just ten leagues East of her position now, sailing along on a roughly parallel course of five compass points West of due South. Further back, obscured by a band of bad weather, the rest of the Islands had only just begun their glacially slow migration–hopefully, including Sarzun Dragonhold. She would not know until Grandion returned.