Dragonsoul

by Marc Secchia

  The tallest of the trio stepped forward officiously. “You heard us. Clear off, lizard.”

  Clear off? Lia snarled, “Lay one finger on this Dragon, and you’ll regret it.”

  “Do you dare defy the Empress?”

  Enchanters, obey … Hualiama snapped her jaw shut. No! Having released the ruzal once, it slithered out all too eagerly, despite her mental lockdown. Unholy windrocs! It subverted her magic that easily? What if it took over entirely, subordinating her Star Dragoness powers to its wicked will?

  Return to your quarters. No. She sighed. Nothing for it. Secretly move among the Dragonkind, removing the additional bindings placed within their minds, making every effort to ensure you are not caught. You will forget you even had this conversation or received these orders. Go.

  The trio of Dragon-Haters ambled off, ignoring her and Sapphurion.

  Mercy, ruzal was this easy to use? Or did it seek to use her? A Star Dragoness must not yield to darkness. Stuffing the hateful magic back into its imaginary cave as far and deep as she could, she visualised her white-fires instead. Even if a hatchling had no flame to breathe, she must find a way to honour Sapphurion. As always, her emotional state affected the responsiveness and intensity of her magic; barely a thought triggered that familiar tightening sensation in her belly. Her vision bleached to ashen, almost blinding shades of white, as if she stood upon the threshold of a star. Glancing to her paws and wings, she discovered she blazed star-bright.

  Best honour mighty Sapphurion before we’re drained and unable, Dragonsoul, her Human advised very quietly.

  We will.

  How did one push light about? Sheer, bloody-minded draconic willpower? No. It had to be cajoled. Whispered. Coaxed into being. Hualiama leaped nervously as a bush right in front of her nose exploded into flame. A living lake of radiance lapped over Sapphurion’s body, finding there an unexpected, still-latent magical potential and rousing it into flame, just as Amaryllion Fireborn had done for himself, she recalled belatedly. The core of Sapphurion’s body heated up like a furnace. Hotter still. Dragon hide could withstand temperatures of several thousand degrees, allowing them to bathe comfortably in all save the hottest of lava, but she instilled the heat of incandescent starlight in his flesh.

  As much as she shone, she mourned.

  Hualiama wished she had words to sing over him, to speed his soul upon its eternal flight. Was it as Dragons believed, that from the flame, the fire-spirits of the ancestors gazed down upon the living, judging their deeds? May even the spirits know his greatness.

  Raising her muzzle to the skies, she sounded a single note of exquisite clarity, so high up the vocal range that Human hearing could not apprehend it. Every Dragon for leagues about inclined his or her ear to that ultrasonic cry and raised their own bugles of grief-knowledge. Lia sang in honour of the Blue Dragon Elder:

  Sapphurion was he, the shining jewel of Fra’anior,

  The very orb of the Great Dragon’s eye,

  Who this day blazes among the eternal fires,

  His deeds shall be sung forever!

  Great-paw! Strong-wing! Wisdom of the Isles was he,

  Shell-father, roost-mate of Qualiana, venerated by all,

  He is: Sapphurion the Jewel-Hearted, a treasure like rainbow-song …

  Who is no more, but burns, eternal.

  To her amazement, as she sang, a new purpose entered her magic, weaving through the white-hot, metallic powder rendered by the consuming fires. Slowly, in the crucible, those carbonised particles drew together as if animated by a will of their own, fusing in intolerable brightness into a new form of crystalline beauty, until all that was left upon a circle of melted rock in the place where the great Dragon had fallen, was a gemstone. A sapphire.

  For a moment, all Lia could do was stare at the gem, as her body shuddered uncontrollably, racked by the aftereffects of such a tremendous output of magic. Mercy. What was this?

  The deep blue gemstone was circular and faceted like an ordinary gem, but fashioned in the likeness of a Dragon sleeping curled up, muzzle-to-tail. Imprinted in the crystal lattices were sparks of a lighter, diamond-like hue, that shifted as she moved gravely toward the stone, picking out details of the Dragon’s appearance–scale-patterns, fangs, talons, as if the gemstone represented in some indefinable way, the very life and form of a Dragon. She half-expected it to uncurl and wing away.

  Her paws clasped the stone, as large as her Human’s torso, to her breast. The Star Dragoness returned to retrieve her effects and walked soft-pawed back to her quarters, joined by Elki and Saori at either flank.

  They did not speak.

  * * * *

  Shinzen’s forces poured up from the South, rolling over the Kingdom of Kaolili in a wave of death and destruction. He commanded tens of thousands of Dragonkind, they learned, drawn from a secret network of breeding chambers riddling the southern tip of the Eastern Archipelago. The Giant Warlord had emptied those chambers in their entirety, and abandoned his old home to gather the dust of aeons. Massive Dragonwings of identical Oranges torched Island after Island, methodically. The Orange horde bracketed the Archipelago from East to West, sweeping the ground with rolling firestorms of Dragon fire and poison, leaving no stone uncharred, no settlement intact..

  All Grandion and his vastly outnumbered forces could do was to bloody the nose of the beast, and that they did. Endlessly. Ruthlessly. Perfecting the killing stroke.

  Smoke billowed over the East, ever-laden with the sweetish smell of scorched flesh and the distinctive, bready char of mohili wheat. The Humans fled in every conceivable vessel at their disposal; Commander Hiro plying his fleet of Dragonships–bolstered by every cargo vessel and merchant ship and single-handed Dragonship owned by the nobility–twenty-seven hours per day to carry refugees back toward the capital city, but it was never enough.

  The Tourmaline and Yukari and Zulior led their Dragonwings in endless raids against the powerful Oranges, cycling back to Kerdani City to rest as the battlefront swept northward toward the huge, flat Island that housed the largest city among the Human population of the Island-World. Kerdani was now fortified by seven concentric layers of battlements and moats constructed and strengthened with the able help of many Brown Dragons, and manned by King Taisho’s troops.

  Often, his restless eyes searched the horizon. Where was Hualiama? When would her star rise?

  * * * *

  “I’m flying out this evening,” said Hualiama.

  Elki nodded, hiding his evident concern behind an affected yawn. “Azziala wishes an alliance with Siiyumiel? Logical. Any alliance at all …”

  “You travel with Mizuki, too?”

  “Right away. Bringing the fireflower of accord to Affurion.”

  Indicating the north-lying Islands, the Prince said formally, “The storm has broken, sucked down into the Cloudlands. What brews below none may know, sister, but you will furnish intelligence to the Empress regarding goings-on beneath the Cloudlands and seek formal alliance with the Land Dragons. Saori and I will seek accord with the Dragonkind, or at the very least, a truce for our mutual benefit. This is unprecedented in Lost Isles history. The Empress made clear the displeasure of her Council at this unilateral action on her part. I cannot imagine such a truce will be honoured–but we must try.”

  “We must try.”

  Disregarding his stiffness, Hualiama drew her brother into an embrace. “Mizuki remains under a Command-hold. Be careful.”

  Suddenly, he hugged her back fiercely. “You always dreamed of Dragons, Lia. Always. When you were small–I remember the day, it was after your formal adoption, when Queen Shyana first brought you from the city-house to live at the Palace. You were just a snotty-nosed little mite of five summers–”

  “Elki!”

  “Well, close to the truth. You used to speak to the dragonets, Lia, while you fed them in your room. We thought you were crazy.” Lia laughed as he pretended to stroke his beard in puzzlement. “Now I realise you were just talking D
ragonish. And you sang all over the Palace–how you sang! You see, even at that age, you already knew the words to the Flame Cycle and Saggaz Thunderdoom, all the draconic ballads. Every word, every note. You told me Qualiana taught you to sing.”

  “Qualiana?”

  “Aye. It just sprang into my mind … today. Because of Sapphurion’s passing.”

  “Elki, how come you remember these things? I’m three years older than you, as best we know.”

  To her surprise, her dapper brother blushed rather violently. “I was, sort of … besotted. Aye, that’s the word. Besotted … with you.”

  “E-Elki!” She snorted a puff of smoke.

  “Faugh! I’ll admit, in all that Dragon-nonsense, I never imagined the scary, scaly, sulphur-breathing variety of sister.”

  “Scary? Explain yourself, scoundrel.”

  Saori approached behind the Prince of Fra’anior, carrying warm jackets for flying, and their weapons. A quizzical smile curved her lips as she saw them talking earnestly together.

  The Prince said, “When I was six and you were nine, I had a proper fight with King Chalcion. I announced in the middle of a royal dinner to four hundred guests that you were my true love, and I intended to marry you, adoption or no adoption.” Elki touched his left eye. “This scar is what he left me. To this day, I’ve had slightly blurred vision in this eye. Headaches, too.”

  “Because of me?”

  Saori gripped his arm with the air of a Dragoness entertaining a buck to dinner. “You fell in love with your older sister?”

  Elki spluttered, “Adopted older sister. I was as hopelessly and innocently infatuated as only a six year-old boy … uh, completely spoiled me for, ah–” the warrior’s eyebrows peaked “–well, I’ve grasped the error of my ways. It’s taken me years to get over being jilted … first for a monk, then for a Dragon.”

  “The hallmark of a desperate woman,” Saori suggested, in a tone of saccharine acidity.

  Dragonsoul! Human-Lia snapped. Are you going to let her speak–

  “Don’t you insult my Human like that,” growled the Star Dragoness, just as acidly as Saori. “She’s too polite to spell out how she truly feels. I’d skip words and move straight to skinning your prissy Eastern behind–”

  “Ladies!” Elki pushed between them. “No fighting, biting or skinning of Humans allowed. I love you both in significantly different ways. Mostly appropriate ways. Except regarding a certain Eastern enchantress. I keep having these wicked, wicked thoughts–mmm–I’m such a bad … ouch! You bit my lip!”

  “I know,” said Saori. “Hualiama, sorry. I’m just jealous; strict Eastern honour-code, you know. Like wearing a rope jacket. We’re a funny, traditional society, much like you Fra’aniorians.”

  “I see.”

  Parallels between Fra’anior and the East? Lia tried for a bland response, and almost succeeded. She was nothing like Saori!

  Elki checked his lower lip for blood, but unfortunately for the sulk he was contemplating, there was no permanent injury. He settled for making a mumbling diatribe about all the strong women in his life, those who enjoyed swords just a little too much, those who had talons like swords, and those who indeed chose between swords and talons at inopportune moments.

  That was when an earthquake struck the Island.

  * * * *

  Hualiama was in the air before her mind properly registered what she had felt. An impact. A massive force or collision, yet when she looked, the Air-Breathers seemed unmoved. No. Chenak dipped! As she slowed her racing skyward, feeling slightly foolish, she scanned the Islands with her Dragon senses alert. What was this? The quintet of Land Dragons, once called Burak Island, split apart as though fleeing … she could not say from what, but that was how their behaviour struck her. One Dragon slewed sideways as though it had run aground somewhere far beneath the Cloudlands. Another shuddered side-to-side as though repeatedly pummelled by an unseen enemy, before suddenly losing three miles of above-clouds height in a precipitous swoop. Lia bit her tongue between her fangs, but the Land Dragon appeared to make a partial recovery.

  Now, listening, she became aware of a muffled, faraway draconic bellowing, and again, as she attuned her senses in the ways Siiyumiel had taught her, the faint tang of Dragon battle-magic teased her awareness, leaving a rank metal aftertaste on her tongue despite her not physically having tasted anything. An under-Cloudlands battle? Or the still-absent Numistar at work?

  Hualiama knew she must act.

  Fluttering short ways offshore from Yiisuriel’s upper flanks, she allowed her wings to fold to a compact minimum and dived for the Cloudlands. One mile. Two. The pressure and ambient temperature increased noticeably as she dropped. She perceived an easterly breeze of perhaps two leagues per hour. The rank stench of orrican faeces washed from what must be a lower outlet pipe of Azziala’s fortress. What an instrument her Dragon’s body represented!

  Temperature inversions and the insulating effect of miles of super-dense air kept most Land Dragon magic from detection by the high-dwelling Lesser Dragons, she had learned. So when Hualiama, after several minutes’ descent made her call, she gave her shout every ounce of power she possessed.

  Siiyumiel, I need to speak with you!

  Hualiama. Report.

  Ugh. Not the reply she desired. I’m investigating, mother. Land Dragon battle down below.

  Numistar?

  She’s the prime suspect.

  Lia’s eyes lit on a disturbance in the Cloudlands along Yiisuriel’s flank. Oh? Was Siiyumiel trying to sneak up on her?

  First, a forked tongue emerged, comfortably large enough for five of Grandion to sleep upon side to side. Then came a flat, spatulate head, the exact colour and texture of mouldy mohili bread. The Land Dragon surged upward with apparent ease, its massive, hooked claws digging tens of feet into the naked rock with every running step. The tiny Dragoness almost laughed as the lizard-like Land Dragon oriented his single huge eye upon her–an ambush! Who did this ground-grubber think he was? Without wings? By a peculiar trick of perspective, the beast seemed to swell as he charged up into the clear air; Lia belatedly began to realise just how monstrous this type of Land Dragon was. Every step covered hundreds of feet. His tail and hindquarters emerged from the clouds after a staggeringly long interval.

  Engineer-Lia tried to classify him according to what she had learned from the Shell-Clan. Water-Runner? Murk-Runner? All of the four-legged Land Dragons were called ‘Runners’ because they used their legs and tails as primary propulsion, unlike those that swam, floated, had tentacles or thousands of insectoid legs, or used gas or water propulsion systems for locomotion.

  She was still busy classifying, when the Land Dragon flicked his single eye and smashed her out of the sky with a cannonade of Harmonic magic.

  Lights exploded behind Lia’s eyes. Reeling as though she had run headlong into a boulder, she tumbled toward the Cloudlands, dimly aware of the Runner-Dragon making a magnificent, salmon-like leap in her direction. His leap covered the better part of a mile; she could not have flown out from beneath him without some form of teleportation. A heroic blunder.

  Darkness swallowed her as though a Dragon had taken a bite out of the twin suns. A hard, sticky surface slapped into her belly and legs. She screamed! No! She could not lift her wings. She was stuck to the Dragon’s tongue like a fly trapped in amber. But her captor had barely begun to retract his glue-covered tongue when a second beam of light speared at a low angle over the Cloudlands, instantly separating tongue and Star Dragoness from the flabbergasted creature that sought to dunk her into his realm. Steam exploded around Lia as the light vaporised Dragon-flesh. Bellowing incoherently, the Land Dragon watched his severed tongue part directions with his mouth. His paw grabbed the end of his tongue just as evening-darkened clouds closed overhead.

  She had not taken a breath! Frantically, Lia slapped up a pneumatic shield. She could not bubble it around her entire body; something in the glue-trap prevented her from separating her bod
y from the adhesive layer, as she intended.

  Stupid, blighted worm! she snapped, angrier at her own stupidity than the attacking Land Dragon.

  Great. Her head sat in a bubble, which was all the clean air she had managed to trap in her panicked state. Right. She should initiate the particle and gas filtering, and try not to think about the poisons already leaching into her body, or the powerful alkaline adhesive scouring her sensitive wings.

  SIIYUMIEL!!

  His voice alone could smash these Air-Breathers about. Despite her head-bubble, Lia felt both deafened and bruised by the impact of the Shell-Clan Dragon’s challenge. She heard other voices rise about her, unseen in the opaque upper layers of Cloudlands gases. Different tribes? Rapidly, she tried to separate out the contrasting accent-indicators of their speech. Shell-Clan she knew. There were at least a dozen in the vicinity.

  Lia heard:

  Bring the Air-Breathers down!

  Cut the gas ventricles and drown the high-dwellers in the Cloudlands.

  –I’m hurt!

  Shell-Clan four leagues off, closing fast. Drive them off, brethren! Steady in the ranks.

  –Too large … urgh! That was a fatality. Lia winced.

  Ha ha! Pathetic Welkin-Runners. What under the five moons were Welkin-Runners? Made a nice smear on the rocks back there.

  Alarm! Alarm!

  Who was attacking whom? Was another Clan attacking the mobile Lost Islands in order to bring down Azziala and Affurion, at Numistar’s command? With Siiyumiel and his allies defending or attacking? Were any of the Land Dragons allied with Numistar?

  More importantly, who would come out owning the severed tongue?

  Hey. Wings-without-brains. Know anything about star-fire?

  She was so going to swat Humansoul one of these days. Did she always have to be right? The Dragoness snickered, Alright, keep your clothes on.

  Pointedly ignoring the sneaking suggestion that her Human form was faultless, perfect and implausibly astute, Lia worked on summoning her special fire. In a moment, she burned herself clean off the slab of tongue, inhaling a goodly lungful of greasy white smoke before she worked out how her shield was not correctly filtering smoke particles. Mizuki had taught her to restrict more vectors of contamination rather than less; it did not help to forget a whole class of filter-constructs, however!