by Marc Secchia
“You’re a dead dragonet!”
He somersaulted past her outstretched hands with ridiculous agility, chanting, “Big fruit, big fruit, Lia’s got big …”
Lia charged around the cabin in hot pursuit, yelling, “Pest! Flying cockroach! Mosquito! So help me I’ll spit you for a kebab, you–stop! Stop!”
Her outthrust right fist punched a head-sized hole in the cabin’s rear wall. BOOM! The flame generated by her fist shot across the next cabin, where Prince Qilong and his jolly crew sat at dinner, blowing a hole through Sumio’s upraised wine-goblet and knocking a spicy leg of fowl, which Qilong was evidently using to illustrate a conversational point, clean out of his fingers. The morsel splashed down with a sizzle in a bowl of berry-wine beside the petrified royal’s left elbow.
To a man, the crew stared through the splintered hole at the very red-faced Princess in the other cabin.
At the top of her lungs, she yelled, “Do I have big fruit? Do I? I ask you!”
“Of course, Princess. Most assuredly you do,” Qilong spluttered in a placatory tone, no less baffled than the rest of his crew.
“Men!” Lia struck a note that made the crystal decanters on their table sing. She smashed the toe of her boot through another section of the wood panelling for good measure, and stormed out onto the gantry to cool off.
Apparently there were explanations inside the cabin–Sumio’s low rumble carried in the cool evening air–and then, howls of laughter. Cackles. Hoots. She could not stand it. Lia shuddered, knowing that if she unleashed her Dragoness, there would only be a puff of smoke left in the sky to show for a Dragonship full of people she was coming to regard as friends. Aye, it was funny, but also maddening. She knew what she must do. Marching to the stern end, past the main double-turbines to port and starboard, she set about yanking off her clothing. Wrecking yet another outfit would surely crown what had to be the most humiliating evening of–well, recently. Too many to count.
“Mistress?”
“Thirteenth … Isiki? Hold these, please.”
“At once, Mistress. Will you be flying?”
“Aye, Shapeshifting has a way of destroying clothes. Note that down, would you?” Hualiama bit her tongue. “Sorry.”
“No need to apologise to a mere slave.”
“Isiki, one more humble this, meek that and mincing-me gibberish and I’ll have my Dragoness slap some sense into–you! Islands’ sakes!” The Prince stood on the gantry like a stunned ralti sheep. Lia had never been more thankful to be holding her clothing in front of her body. His bulging eyes …
Let me at that skanky mouse! roared her Dragoness.
Human-Lia snapped, “You had better get inside, o Prince, before I do something I’ll very much regret!”
Wailing, “I humbly apologise!” Qilong beat a full retreat, complete with a dive back inside his cabin.
Her hands shook uncontrollably as Hualiama shovelled her clothing into Isiki’s arms. “Forgive me. I have to fly.”
Flexing her knees, the Princess of Fra’anior performed a perfect backward dive off the Dragonship’s stern gantry.
Let me out! You–it’s my turn. I deal with situations like this!
Lia gritted her teeth painfully, feeling the air rushing over her body and the sensation of her stomach cramming into her throat. Dragoness, you kill in situations like this.
The Star Dragoness vented a word better suited to a Sylakian dock-worker than a royal. But she knew. The Human girl knew she knew. So as the girl plummeted like a falling star, as the Grey Dragoness flying above the Dragonship began to react, there was an inner clenching of fangs to match her physical form. The wind whipped her long hair against her taut back as Hualiama dived headfirst from the Dragonship’s altitude of a league and a half above the Cloudlands, the clouds below like a silvery-blue carpet gleaming beneath the fulvous eye of the full Blue Moon.
Hualiama!
Her head whipped about, buffeted by the rising wind. Shell mother?
Briefly, silhouetted against the stars as she narrowed her eyes against the frigid, rushing wind, she saw an image of the White Dragoness, Istariela. She was a petite, eye-catching Dragoness of a mere fifty feet in length, with an understated ruff of skull-spikes and a compact musculature optimised for speed rather than power.
She cried, Shell-daughter, you must find the Chrysolitic Dragons before Numistar does!
Istariela blinked out of existence before Hualiama could formulate the first of her many questions. Great. Mother-mysterious, how charily thou dost avoid thy daughter. Nothing about her upbringing had been normal, so why should she wish for normality now?
Suddenly, Lia realised that the foot of Numistar’s storm was sweeping toward her position far faster than she had imagined. Dragoness!
Wham! The growth-shock punished her stomach muscles. That transformation had been so much on the cusp that it exploded outward, thumping her innards as if her skin were a drum. Hualiama gasped at the change of pressure and sensation, then her wings snapped out and she shot forward as though unleashed from a war crossbow. A tearing pain gripped her shoulders momentarily as she adjusted to the strain. Unlike her Human, her Dragon-form’s stomach had no trouble adjusting to high-speed manoeuvers, however. Laughter burbled from her mouth as the hatchling accelerated, outpacing Numistar’s storm.
Mamafire! Look at me!
When the Grey Dragoness eventually caught up with the fast-flying hatchling, she asked, Who were you talking to out here?
I imagined I saw my shell-mother, Lia said, feeling her fires darken with loss.
But Makani, falling into flying formation with her said, A great volcano lies ahead. It must be Immadior’s Roost. While we fly ahead, tell me about your shell-mother. Who was she, little one? I heard you grew up in Sapphurion’s roost. What was the great Elder like, Hualiama? What was the flight of his wisdom?
Hualiama squinted. That bump? That’s Immadior’s Roost?
Even Star Dragonesses must learn the ways of the world’s winds, said the Grey Dragoness with a wing-shiver of appreciation. Will you be offended if I suggest a few improvements to your flying technique?
For an eternity of about a quarter-second, Lia assured her.
* * * *
Eternity was slightly longer than a quarter-second. Makani was a patient and clever teacher, making her try different postures, wing-orientations, flares of the wing-struts and concentrate on different muscle-groups until suddenly, the whole came together unexpectedly and she slipped through the air with noticeably greater ease than before.
Beautiful, Makani exclaimed, shivering her wings a second time.
This feels fantastic, Lia admitted.
Great. We’ve a few hours yet until we reach your grossly misnamed bump. Has the story about your shell-mother brewed long enough in your fire-stomach, little one?
Lia told her tale as they flew northward.
Seen in the light of the rising suns, the ‘bump’ was a volcano that rivalled Fra’anior Cluster in sheer, horizon-dwarfing magnitude, Hualiama observed, a mountain with a base over forty leagues wide rising at a shallow angle to a ferociously smoking peak situated perhaps two miles above the Cloudlands. Great rich rivers of lava ran like orange veins down its flanks in at least a dozen locations. The boulder-strewn slopes were desolate and fire-blackened, smoking with the volcano’s inner heat. A pall of smoke and noxious gases drifted eastward across the scene, and heat shimmered ferociously in the air above. Even as Lia watched, glowing lava burst out of the central caldera and slopped over the rim in a fresh wave of destruction.
Volcanic hells, whispered the Star Dragoness.
Dying.
What was that? Her muzzle jerked, seeking.
Dy …
The Grey Dragoness advised, Caution, little one. I scent Dragonkind. Yet what manner of Dragonkind, I cannot say. There is magic present …
Magic of great deeps, Lia responded softly, tasting the nuances upon her tongue. Primitive and wild magic. Come, Makani. We
must heed the call.
With clear reluctance, the Grey Dragoness followed Lia toward the great volcanic cone. It had none of Fra’anior’s stark majesty, with league-tall granite cliffs topped by verdant bursts of tropical vegetation, but in its own way, the uncompromising presence of the mountain spoke its own brooding Dragonsong of rising from the deepest roots of the Island-World, strong-shouldered and unbowed, year after year after year building its base above the Cloudlands. Lia followed her instinct around the western edge, skirting the worst of the sulphurous gases and blasting lava, which as she rose over the rim-wall, popped and fizzed and sheeted upward in great curtains. This volcano was more than active. It was young and fierce and deadly.
Makani said, Do not fear unnecessarily, Hualiama. Lesser Dragons can survive lava for periods of time if we are not buried beneath it.
There would be no landing for the Dragonship here, Hualiama knew, inclining a wingtip to show the Grey she had heard. Qilong should steer clear.
Her wings flexed softly amidst the heat-shimmer and turbulent, heated winds. A mile across the open, glowing orange caldera filled with magma, a lightning storm played in the clear air, its colours flashing from turquoise to purple to searing yellow. Her own scales glimmered with the play of magic in the air, causing odd, frightening sensations to course along her spine-spikes. Again her muzzle snapped about, following a Dragon-sense to a sense of large bodies shifting behind a veil of smoke, but the impression was too fleeting to quantify.
Strength to your paw, little one.
Dying …
On this western periphery many of the lava flows had cooled, or perhaps there had been a single explosion that dumped a layer of rock and pumice atop the lava lake, carving out a fantastical landscape of impossible rock formations; tall columns and waves and spirals of gleaming mineral deposits. In places, geysers must have erupted and the water boiled away, leaving a green, salty rime upon the stone. The stench was overpowering, catching in her throat and irritating her nostrils and eyelids.
She jinked, following the faint call through a maze of archways and lava-carved gullies into a cathedral of stone, glistening silica and quartzite deposits laced with darker igneous rock and gemstone deposits.
Lia said, We should take some of this to … watch out!
A loop of lava rose and fell from a hole in the floor. A loop? Surely not. The blazing orange rock lifted again and Hualiama knew her mistake. That fifty-foot thick loop was no rock. It was a Dragon’s body, formed of molten magma–yet oddly, darkened and cracked crazily in many places as though its fire had guttered.
Dying, help … me …
Quick, we must help, cried Lia, clipping her wings sharply as she reached out.
Don’t touch it! Makani roared.
KAABOOOM!!
Rock splattered across the cave and the Star Dragoness with that explosion; yet she cupped her wings and swerved, ricocheting off a column with no more than a bruise to her dignity and a growl of annoyance.
Roaring rajals, what form of magic was that? she spluttered.
The Grey Dragoness tried to herd her away with her wings. A dangerous one! I warned you!
Dragon? Dragon, can you hear us?
Makani snarled and snapped at the hatchling, driving her backward, but the orange lava surged again. Suddenly, an unmistakably draconic head heaved up from the hole and flopped onto the rock alongside. Well, it was Dragon-shaped, but Hualiama could not make out much more of this Dragon-like creature. Scales? No, a body of lava apparently held together by magic. Eyes? Aye, eye-like depressions appeared in the lava where eyes ought to be–ovoid eyes larger than the Star Dragoness in their longest dimension–and a sensation similar to the Land Dragons’ Harmonic magic passed over her body in a fiery frisson. Lia gasped as her wings burst into flame!
Makani! Makani …
The creature blinked. The fire snuffed out.
The lava-Dragon radiated heat like a furnace. Lia hid behind a column before flitting forward again, dodging Makani’s exasperated grab for her tail. Dragon, can you understand us? Can I help you?
Help? Little one of great power … I am dying here in this tidal pool, isolated from the goodness my kind require.
The voice was faint and exhausted, yet lilting in a way that spoke to Hualiama of fires rising and falling and glowing rivers flowing as brightly as the heart of the suns themselves. Its Dragonish, though couched in this peculiar accent of fire-notes, was also clear and understandable.
What’s your name? Don’t look at me! Lia ducked away again, her tail and hindquarters smoking, too hot to touch. The Dragon made a strange, crackling sound she did not understand. That’s your name?
Help …
Charily, watchful for another glance from the lava-Dragon, she reached out with the same power she had applied to Siiyumiel’s heart. Furnace temperatures blasted through her body, but this time she was more prepared, radiating it away rapidly with an application of the shielding she had developed to redirect Siiyumiel’s light-cannon. Makani yelped and flinched away as Hualiama blazed; the Star Dragoness focused on applying her magic in new ways, in strange and unfamiliar pathways as she sought to detect and learn the Balance of this unimaginable creature. Magma Dragon, she learned. Its body was primarily comprised of molten metals fused into structures and organs which bore little resemblance to her own, but the mind was what drew her, shining and potent, yet diminished by what she sensed was starvation.
Alright, noble Crackle–she dubbed him laughingly–let’s see if we can warm you up.
White-fires gushed out of her into the lava-Dragon, sparking a tremor that shook his body and raced out in the caldera. Crackle’s doleful bellow was matched by other, far greater voices resounding from the lava lake without. Hualiama realised that she had not delicately brought Balance into being. She had pounded him with the magical equivalent of a Balance-earthquake. Headache. Agony. Then, fiery relief.
Cut him a path to the caldera, Makani! Hualiama cried.
A booming chorus of draconic voices shook the cavern; she heard lava slopping about, splashing upon the rocks, now leaking through the ceiling above them. A shadow fell over the cave’s entrance, making Crackle’s colour suddenly appear brilliant, devoid of the dark patches she had seen before. Had she done enough? Lia hoped so.
The Grey Dragoness stalked forward, apparently uncaring of the lava-Dragon’s gaze. Stand firm.
A dark fireball rocketed out of her mouth. BOOM! Lia staggered. BOOM-BOOM! Makani’s head snaked about, firing precision shots at points she envisaged, perhaps fault lines in the rocks.
KKRRAAACK! A brief avalanche; a monstrous wave of heat rushed over her!
Crackle? He was gone. Or was he?
A sensation like an earthquake conducted through the rock to Lia’s paws. Quicker than thought, she slapped a shield around Makani. No time for big-Dragon little-Dragon politicking. They needed to escape. Now. Follow me, Makani!
They darted upward toward a narrow chasm. The Grey fired another one of her dark, explosive shots and then slammed her body into the hole, tearing the rock asunder with the strength of her shoulders and forearms. With a low, wicked laugh, the Star Dragoness modified her shield. Blades of light pierced the paradoxical gloom as a wave of radiant lava rushed toward them, the fury of hundreds of lava-Dragons carried upon its curling brow, the power of their combined gazes smiting the two flying Dragons and turning their shield into a blazing comet.
Roaring, straining, fighting, the Blue and the Grey shot into the peak of the curving cliff of lava overhead and punctured it like a living spear of white, exploding through the far side in a triumphant shower of molten rock. Higher they rose. Higher and higher, tearing free of those vicious gazes.
Hualiama began to laugh in relief, but then Crackle’s voice came to her via shielded telepathy, slicing through her mirth. He cried, Drawn from the deeps of the world, from the eternal fire-melting-core, was I, blasted by the rising fires into a realm of cold, uncaring winds. Crusted and bro
ken was I. Grieved and starving was I. Cool and darkened was I. Then you came, Star Dragoness. Then you came, and a Lesser Dragon lifted up one of the Magma-kind and restored his fires. She was the white-fires of his draconic life, the Dragonsong of blaze and surging-oceanic-billows of thousands of degrees of ardour.
Poetic, but she understood his fires. Lia bowed inwardly to Crackle’s mental presence, barely discernible amidst the raging of his kin. I am honoured to serve, noble Magma Dragon.
Ask me a boon, Star Dragoness, and I shall give two.
I seek a First Egg of the Ancient Dragons, she blurted out. Do you know where it is?
It is said great powers hide in the roots of the Island-World. I know not, but I know where I would look. A deep-dwelling Dragonkind inhabit the deepest cracks leading to the innermost fires of our world, who for aeons have claimed possession of a great treasure–the greatest treasure, they call it. Yet of late, for a thousand years of your short-lived time, there has been rumour of a strange stirring amongst these Dragonkind, tales of hauntings and mind-freeze and new ambitions. I would seek word of your First Egg amongst the S’gulzzi, little one. That heat and pressure of those places, fifteen leagues below your freezing world, in the abyss just North of this place, are intolerable to your kind and mine, but perhaps starlight can imagine a way.
I … thank you, Crackle. S’gulzzi? What under the Islands was a S’gulzzi, a name expressed with a sibilant hiss made deep in the throat?
Crackle? His laughter crackled around in her mind, making Lia momentarily see fires leap across her vision. Your curious inner radiance-reflections amuse me, little one. Here. Name yourself and I shall name myself. Then, a parting boon, a life-debt expiated.
I am Hualiama, Blue-star! To her surprise, the speaking of her name resounded as if struck from a gong. Was that her true name, or secret draconic name?
And I am–Incendior! His secret name. Yet she had no time to think. The Dragon added, Think upon the rock that explodes. Fuel–
And his voice vanished in the turmoil of Magma Dragons rampaging through their lava lake home, fulminating at the escape of intruders.
