Dragonsoul

by Marc Secchia

  You’re a beautiful flier, she had said, with a flash of those depthless blue eyes in which his soul had swum seemingly for eternity. But your stalwart chest does generate considerable wind resistance, Grandion–ha ha! Stop your ridiculous preening, you ego-mad Dragon.

  Stalwart? Naturally! His low growl billowed smoke over the Human girl.

  If you can pay attention to more than the beauty of your scales, I’ve an idea. Let’s take Siiyumiel’s layering technique and create a penetrative shield around a pneumatic inner layer, like this. This will effectively direct the airstream away from the more resistant parts of your physique.

  Grr, he said, flexing his pectorals.

  Playfully, she threw up an arm to shield her eyes. Oh, Grandion, oh, the dazzle! I’m positively woozy …

  He could not stop thinking about the Star Dragoness. If only a Tourmaline had her facility with engineering solutions. Not even Hualiama could un-engineer the juxtaposition of her Human and Dragon parts. His mind kept generating and discarding scenarios in which they winged into the suns-set together. Hiding. Taking a disguise. Living in the remote Western Isles. Bribing the Dragonkind to look to another Isle. Placing a Command-hold on local Dragons. Fleeing from Island to Island all their lives … where was the joy in any of that? She was right–burn it in the hottest of volcanic hells! Why could she not settle for simply being a Dragoness?

  Simply, Grandion? He snorted a fine fireball away to his port flank. Since when was that girl, that Dragoness, ever simply anything?

  And that, as the draconic poetess Suphiara the Green would style the matter, was the shimmer of her wings carving across a five-moon conjunction. Grandion’s right forepaw mirrored the clenching of his third heart. Reject a Tourmaline, would she? That only made her a hundred times more desirable. He would woo and win her, or he was no Dragon.

  Fuelled by his anger, Grandion did a little carving across the moons of his own. What was she doing, anyhow? Sitting on a Land Dragon’s back drinking some vile Human brew with her mother the Empress of Dragon-Haters, while he burned the heavens in service to the Dragonkind?

  Ah. He spotted a patrolling Dragon. So, the third of the Dragon force from Gi’ishior which had been left behind at the Kingdom of Kaolili, under the command of the highly-respected, wily Red Elder, Zulior, the shell-brother of Grandion’s mother Qualiana, were as well-organised as he expected. Although, that young Green was not paying attention.

  Lessons needed to be delivered by claw and fang. Grandion checked the optical elements of his shielding. By his wings, that stupid ralti sheep would never know what had struck him.

  The Tourmaline hunted.

  * * * *

  At that very moment, Hualiama, Saori, Elki and Mizuki were reclining in the relative luxury of a dormant digestive incinerator chamber, upon thrones comprised of mounds of grey soot. Lia had just woken from the sleep of a hatchling so weary, her very marrow groaned for relief. This was the Land Dragons’ equivalent of burning the rubbish, Elki joked. The chamber was circular, roughly two hundred feet in diameter, with a single, narrow outlet only a Human could have squeezed into. Siiyumiel had explained that Shell-Clan Land Dragons had two main digestive modes, normal and blast-ejection, which served dual purposes–additional jet propulsion vented from special spiracles on the base of the carapace, enabling faster travel, and a deadly form of defence when an enemy or parasite attacked from an unexpected quarter.

  Naturally, the Prince descended into hysterics for an hour at the idea of rocket propulsion by excrement, until even the dignified Land Dragon lost any semblance of composure and nearly split their eardrums with booming bellows of displeasure.

  Now, the mighty Land Dragon met with his Clan of five dozen members in the Barrens, as the vast territory bordered by Herliss, Gemalka and Pla’arna to the West, the Rim-Wall Mountains in the North and the Lost Islands in the East was called. The Humans and Lesser Dragons looked on with the benefit of the images Siiyumiel projected into their minds. He did not appear to see colour, nor were outward structures necessarily the most evident feature of what his form of harmonic sight presented back to the watchers. However, the images portrayed in thousands of shades of grey were superbly detailed. Lia easily made out a ravine above which the Land Dragons collected, swimming through the ultra-dense air like a group of turtles suspended in a lake. The ravine was a mere sixty leagues wide and eight deep, according to Siiyumiel’s waveform measurements, bounded either side by precipitous mountains four and a half leagues tall.

  Pickle her mind and serve it as a side-dish to a feast!

  However, there was little life. Here in the North, the preferred feeding grounds were located around the roots of the Islands, particularly Immadia and Herliss, in Immadior’s Sea, south of Immadia, and in the far northeast, near the Rim-Wall, where mineral-rich thermal upwellings led to an explosion of plant life over vast areas. This meeting-ground, however, enjoyed the services of an easterly current from Immadior’s Sea, which regularly delivered Island-sized rafts of allegedly delicious plant matter to the ever-hungry Shell-Clan.

  The Land Dragons sang draconic telepathy to each other across the deeps. Tiiyusiel, a female barely a third of Siiyumiel’s size, had brought intelligence from the Lost Islands, whom they called the Air-Breather Clan. In Siiyumiel’s sight, her form was a gleaming lacework of draconic magic and fires, bordered by a darker, shadowy outline just barely recognisable as Shell-Clan. Although the Dragons were curious to meet and speak to Siiyumiel’s passengers, there appeared to be protocol to follow; all deferred to Janiisiel, a visibly grizzled male of a mere seven hundred and fourteen ‘circuits of the Island-World about its suns’, as he summarised the intelligence he had received just hours before by what he called longwave-speech from the Hura Shell-Clan, three thousand leagues to the South.

  Three thousand? Imagine the ease of communication around the Isles if Humans could somehow learn to replicate that! Engineer-Lia charged off in design-mode.

  A group of mixed Stellates, Deep-Dwellers and Mountain-Runners attacked the Hura Clan, said Janiisiel. They appeared feral, or under the control of a single governing Dragon, although none was identified among their number. Having murdered seventeen Hura and carried off eight, they retreated into the Trench of Maa-Ak-Uura, and have not been detected since.

  Above the others’ wailing, Siiyumiel thundered, GREAT IS THE GRIEF OF THE SHELL-CLAN!

  The four tiny observers shuddered at the Dragons’ unbridled mourning.

  The Land Dragons threw questions about–why would historically inimical Clans co-operate in this way? Had the Stellates not resettled in Herimor two hundred and ten orbits before, crossing the Rift? They debated the ‘feral’ observation and the kidnapping of Shell-Clan. This was undraconic behaviour. What was their purpose? But Hualiama was drawn to Janiisiel, to a shadowing of doubt concealed in his mind. Was he withholding information?

  Withdrawing her attention from the debate, Hualiama shielded her thoughts and sent to the elderly Land Dragon, O great one, may I respectfully query–when the purpose of these wicked Dragonkind was mentioned, I saw dark-fires wreathe one particular thought.

  After a long pause, Janiisiel replied, You see much, for a miniscule high-dweller.

  I sense doubt over crucial intelligence, she said, Dragon-direct but infusing her words with the strongest context-indicators of respect and deference she could fashion.

  Aye. His angry rumble rippled out of his mind in suffocating waves. I fear I misheard. Only because of your heritage, and the understanding I sense of Balance in your mind, do I confess: age dulls my senses. I did not detect all the longwave-speech I should have in my function as Clan Speaker.

  Siiyumiel growled, Hualiama, who are you speaking to? Cease this disrespectful behaviour at once!

  Ignoring his interference, Lia said, O Janiisiel, would you allow my white-fires to touch your thought-memories? Siiyumiel taught me the re-harmonising of scattered memories when we sought clues to my past. My white-fires seem part
icularly proficient at this task.

  Hualiama! Siiyumiel snarled.

  But the great Clan-Speaker drifted closer to the Wisdom of the Shell-Clan, breaking out of his position in the sphere formed by the close-packed Land Dragons as they deliberated. Janiisiel said, The Star Dragoness brings wisdom. I must confer with her.

  Siiyumiel managed to turn his silence into an eloquent ode to indignation.

  The older Dragon said, Will you tell us how you became host to two Lesser Dragons and two Humans, o Siiyumiel, before you judge my need? Lia winced. Yet in this, I sense Balance. Whatever transpired, you have performed a remarkable service by bringing these kindred souls into the Conclave of the Shell-Clan. And verily have they restored your health.

  With that, the older Dragon bowed his inner fires to the younger.

  For all their ponderous majesty, Hualiama realised, the mightiest of Dragons were fire-souls like any other, achingly beautiful in their revealed selves. This was the way of seeing truth Siiyumiel had tried to explain to her, where the veil of the physical seemed as gossamer brushed by a breeze, and the world beyond the Island-World drew close enough to touch. For a moment as fleeting as a dragonet’s wingbeat, a glimpse of the glorious unknown might intrude, profound, spine-tingling and magical.

  Without knowing what she did or why, she leaped to her paws and sang:

  Wingéd soul did bow to wingéd soul,

  And the deepest of Deeps did tremble,

  Evermore.

  Chapter 13: Stinking Liars

  TWo minutes later, Hualiama clenched her paws and lost her rag spectacularly, courtesy of Dragon-furnace emotions. She yelled, Next time you lose seventy three point six–whatever percentage that was–of your circulatory and heart function, Siiyumiel, will you kindly crack open your brainless beak and tell someone?

  One million, four hundred and nineteen thousand tonnes of Land Dragon hung his head glumly. As you wish, Star Dragoness.

  And you, Janiisiel! Pride wings no Dragon to the eternal fires–uh, not that you have actual wings. Suddenly Hualiama floundered, realising that she was screaming her lungs out at a pair of Dragons rather fuller of life’s experience than her, either of whom could squash her like a flea. Uh, and I don’t wish you’d fly … walk … to the fires, anytime in the next thousand years …

  With a bow to Siiyumiel’s Clan, watching in their shared mental space, Mizuki said smoothly, What the Star Dragoness means is, she is honoured to join her fires to those of the noble Shell-Clan in the eternal dance of the Dragonkind. We Lesser Dragons and Humans would receive your wisdom, mighty Janiisiel.

  In that blackened, sooty chamber, dimly lit by the ever-present luminescent quality of Siiyumiel’s innards, the foursome glanced at each other pensively. The Land Dragon had been translating simultaneously into Island Standard for the Humans and Upper Dragonish, as he called their language, for Mizuki and Hualiama. The Shell-Clan used at least two other dialects of Dragonish for communication, the longwave-speech for vast distances, and their own dialect of Dragonish that shaded utterance with echoes of harmony and song, product of their Balance-magic.

  To their surprise, however, Janiisiel bade Tiiyusiel speak first. The issues are connected, I believe. Tiiyusiel, share with your kin.

  The mighty comet brought a new power smashing down amongst our Air-Breather brethren, said the youngster. I did investigate, by the light of mine eyes and every finesse of my mental processes, to discern this was a spirit of draconic power like unto the Ancient Powers, and concluded–she conveyed a vast, detailed set of mental notes, investigations, impressions, hypotheses tested and discarded in a single breath, giving Lia an instant headache–it seeks physical form. The Air-Breathers were not suitable for this Power’s purpose, so the female Dragon-spirit sought another manifestation. Oddly, that form comprised a life of many thousands of fragments, each smaller than these tiny fires you host, Siiyumiel, appearing to my questing senses like this–

  Dragonets! Hualiama blurted out. I apologise–

  Speak, Janiisiel commanded her.

  Well, time to shake the paws of the earth-shakers. Recently, I spoke to Fra’anior the Onyx–

  Pandemonium! Siiyumiel and Janiisiel bellowed until their kin settled, but in that brief time, Lia learned her claim was blasphemy to the Land Dragons’ beliefs. Evidently, she had better not admit the greater, as yet unproven scandal–that she might be his illicit shell-daughter! Instead, she said:

  Fra’anior spoke to my spirit in a portent-filled dream. Dire and dreadful in the panoply of his majesty, was the great Onyx. That quote from the ballads generated a mere dozen or so Island-quivering growls, but their temperature simmered down noticeably. I believe by my seventh sense, he wished to warn us of the return of Numistar Winterborn from the place of exile. And this is what I saw within the comet.

  In shocking contrast, utter stillness greeted the image she passed through Siiyumiel’s mind to the watching Shell-Dragons. A stillness of paw and awe, he fed back to her. They acknowledged the validity of her inner sight; the awful portent of that vision.

  But Tiiyusiel blurted out excitedly, This harmonises with what I found! The precise notes of chill flesh and vast, ancient soul-fires …

  She hesitated as Janiisiel’s regard snapped toward her, but he only said, May our Shell-Clan fledglings imitate the courage of the four voyagers amongst us.

  Slowly and thoughtfully, Hualiama summarised for them, drawing on information and nuances fed to her by formidable draconic minds. Numistar’s spirit had travelled in the comet, but it lacked physical substance. Therefore, she had landed amongst the Air-Breathers, seeking perhaps to possess and use their bodies, but had deemed them unsuitable. Now, she must be hatching the frozen dragonet eggs–Lia bade Saori show the Shell-Clan the egg she held–and inhabiting each, she assumed, with a fragment of her soul-fire. A hive-creature, Saori put in, similar to the wasps of her native Eastern Isles. A hive-consciousness, Elki mused. All the pieces would be linked, as if one mind inhabited many bodies. What, then, was the connection with this mismatched group of Land Dragons in the South?

  Janiisiel said, The Numistar of legend is not a creature renowned for her mercy. Her malice was once contained by Fra’anior, Amaryllion, Dramagon and their kin. Numistar will move against any and all powers that oppose her absolute dominion. That includes the Empress of the Lost Islands, the Warlord Shinzen, the Clans of Land Dragons, the high-dwelling Dragonkind, and a Star Dragoness. She will destroy each and every one, or bend their power to her use.

  Lia fought an urge to burrow beneath the nearest handy Island and hide there for eternity. Nausea coiled in the pit of her stomach.

  For Land Dragons, this group displayed unusual haste–perhaps an indicator of the degree of their agitation. Toss a comet into their realm together with an Ancient Dragon’s spirit, she supposed, and they had every right to be disturbed. Yet this news of Janiisiel’s also troubled her. The elderly Dragon described again the report received from the southern Clan, slowly reproducing each of the pictograms or ‘thought-runes’ gleaned from the marauders and reassembled with Lia’s help, repeatedly remarking how esoteric a form of Dragonish communication this was. The monks used to play a similar rune-game, she remembered. The trick was to disguise a concept or message within a pictogram that looked like a valid rune, but was not. Master Jo’el had been gifted with a draconic subtlety in his gameplay; the acknowledged rune-master, committed to bamboozling his peers and a certain female apprentice monk on a weekly basis.

  “Definitely a search or a quest,” said Elki, picking out the second rune in the sequence. Lia found his mental activity fuzzy, but understandable.

  Here, the comet? Siiyumiel suggested.

  With a tail of great age, added Janiisiel. This comet, or the first comet to impact our Island-World?

  The Land Dragons generally agreed this could not be determined. There was a suggestion of abduction, of the use of force; another rune which appeared to be a play on Hualiama’s name, blue-star,
but it was changed to ‘white-star’ while preserving the suggestion of the star that appeared at dawn, beneath the rising of the twin suns. Her response felt as if every scale on her body tried to crawl off in a different direction at once.

  This one is power, said Mizuki. Great … transforming, or corrupting, power. See?

  Much discussion and speculation ensued, but they made little more progress. The Shell-Clan moved on to debating the southward migration of many Land Dragons, including the displaced Lost Islands. Strangely, many Clans had begun to journey toward Herimor over the past six seasons, all of them citing changes in the Balance of Harmonies, or a sense of ‘calling’ that could not be ignored. Already, great swathes of the North were depleted, growing wild and unkempt in the absence of the prodigious appetites of the Land Dragons.

  “All paths point to Herimor,” said Elki. “What can this mean?”

  “That there is a prize in Herimor, something dear to Land Dragons or crucial to their fate,” said Saori. “Look. This rune is not a sign of questing, it is a warding. Those strange Land Dragons you mentioned are a scouting group. Perhaps they divined Numistar’s advent, and came to investigate whatever threat she poses to their treasure, or plans …”

  Siiyumiel puzzled, “What treasure do you imagine, little one? Unlike your high-dwelling comrades, we are not the type of Dragonkind to be seduced by pretty baubles and shiny booty.”

  Well, neither was Lia infected with the urge to hoard gold–so far. Dragon lore and Human ballads alike expended countless reams of scrolleaf on the matter of mean, greedy Dragons brooding over their sparkly treasures, rearranging and enumerating them endlessly. Oh. Rearranging? Hualiama glanced at Elki, wondering if he was thinking the same … his eyebrows peaked. “Aye, sister. An idea?”