by Marc Secchia
The Red Dragon fell, flaccid in death.
Panting hard with residual rage and effort, Grandion circled swiftly, checking that the Red who had fallen over the edge would not recover. Hualiama sucked in her breath as she saw the Dragon smash into an outcropping a mile below before cartwheeling away in an unnatural flurry of broken limbs and wings. Then the Tourmaline Dragon landed beside the final Red, who was incapacitated, too weak even to flex a talon in his defence.
Who sent you? Grandion growled.
Razzior the Orange, wheezed the other. He knows all about your pathetic plan … to rouse the monasteries. The Dragon’s eye, dulled now with the leaching away of his fires into the eternal darkness, lit upon Hualiama. Who are you, Human, presuming to ride a Dragon? Such … has never …
The eye shuttered. The faint beat of his Dragon hearts fell silent.
May your soul burn in the eternal fires of all Dragonkind, said Grandion, in a voice thick with regret. Lia, I must dispatch these Dragons on their final journey. See to your dragonet. Be ready to fly.
I will be.
The scrolls of Dragon lore recorded at length the Dragonish practice of settling issues by open combat. Now, having experienced it for herself, Lia wished there were another way, for the travesty of seeing the fires of a Dragon’s very soul snuffed out, caused an Island’s weight of sorrow to lodge within her breast. As she walked up to where the dragonet lay, the powerful beat of Grandion’s wings blasted dust about her feet. He dragged the two Red Dragon corpses off the peninsula to drop them over the Cloudlands, sending them on their final journey.
Flicker raised his head at her approach. You have become powerful, straw-head, he murmured. Who would have thought I raised you so well?
How Lia laughed!
* * * *
When Flicker awoke, it was to find himself in his favourite place in the world, which, he decided, only narrowly beat nosing about in a warm abdominal cavity for intestines. They flew in at cool altitudes never visited by dragonets, as if ascending the visible curve of the Island-World. He lay in Lia’s lap wrapped in her tunic top; she had stripped down to provide him a snug cloth burrow. If he was not mistaken, he had been bathed with something that teased his nostrils most agreeably. He would rather be chased by a thousand rajals than budge from this spot.
Lia and the proud Tourmaline Dragon conversed in low tones.
Three days travel to Rolodia Island, said Grandion. I know a fine place to roost this evening.
What of your wounds, Grandion?
Bah, mere cuts and grazes. What do you think your dragonet told them, Rider?
Rider? Flicker’s ire piqued at Grandion’s choice of words. But the growling of his belly fires mellowed when Lia said, He won’t have told them anything, Grandion. He’s very courageous.
He’s a dragonet.
Lia stroked his neck tenderly. He’s the bravest creature I’ve ever known.
Flicker suppressed a laugh at Grandion’s visceral reaction to her accolade. Pure, potent jealousy!
Who destroyed three Red Dragons this morning? The Dragon’s tone was neither friendly nor particularly endearing. Rending them limb from limb with my talons, I hurled those three weak-fires to their deaths in the Cloudlands!
Unexpectedly raising her voice in the fifteenth stanza of the vocal saga called Saggaz Thunderdoom, Lia responded:
Bestriding the sky as a tempest raises its battlements,
Saggaz Thunderdoom did smite his foes,
With claw and wing and breath of ice–
A low throb of laughter coursed through the Dragon’s body. “Point taken, Lia. I did wonder when you’d break into song. Well chosen, too, for that storm will strike us before the hour is ripe. Shall I rise above it?”
At the top of her lungs, she carolled:
Canst thou, canst thou?
My wingéd love, canst thou?
“Your what and how much?” spluttered Grandion.
“Unfortunate reference.” Lia fanned her heated face vigorously. “Uh–Grandion, can you do ice attacks? I saw a few tremendous lightning bolts back there.”
“You should see my shell-father …” He floundered to a halt. So, his father was a Blue Dragon? Flicker filed away that titbit of information. “Not yet, Lia. Age augments a Dragon’s powers, and I haven’t yet developed the power to generate ice. I can cool water for you, though–if you don’t mind that it comes from my water stomach.”
“Water you’ve spat up? I’ll take a rain check on that.”
“Ice idea,” agreed the Dragon, spotting the pun immediately.
“Oh, stop splashing words about!”
“Fine, Hail-iama, no need to storm at me.”
That was not even worth a groan. Grinning toothily over his shoulder at Lia and Flicker, the Tourmaline Dragon’s sweeping wingbeat quickened in tempo. He soared skyward, seeking to overfly the oncoming storm.
“Ra’aba and his allies grow in power,” Grandion noted. “They dare a daylight attack on the Isle of Gi’ishior itself? This bodes ill, my fair Rider. What say you?”
Flicker decided he had heard quite enough from the Tourmaline Dragon, especially his disgusting insinuations of affection for Hualiama. Besides, neither of them were paying him the slightest attention.
“Ooh,” he groaned pitifully.
Much better. Now her green eyes did their crinkling at the corners that unfailingly turned his insides to goo. Questions followed. Flicker tried not to lap up Lia’s fussing too blatantly as he modestly recounted the inspirational saga of his journey from Ha’athior Island to Gi’ishior, where he had conducted an audience with none other than Sapphurion himself, convincing the Dragon Elder to fly to the monastery to investigate. But upon leaving the Halls of the Dragons he had been ambushed by Razzior, the Orange Dragon, who had stolen from him the final scroll meant for a monastery hidden on tiny Giaza Island, just offshore of Gi’ishior. Flicker had been tortured for any further information he might have.
“I told them nothing!” Flicker said, proudly.
Hualiama bent her head to kiss his muzzle, which made him purr with pleasure and Grandion’s eyes bulge fit to pop out of their sockets. “You are truly spec-uh, spec-ta … spectabulous,” she said, appearing to grow confused.
“What is this tinge of blue on your soft skin, Lia?” asked the dragonet. He laid his paw on her arm. “And these funny bumps?”
“Cold,” she said, rubbing her arms. “This air’s so thin, it bites.”
“Take your tunic,” Flicker offered, hoping that she would refuse. On cue, straw-head shook that mane of hers. “Please,” he said. “I’m fine.”
“You’ve a broken leg. And your wings, your beautiful wings make me think of butterflies swirling about my face.” Hualiama made a shooing gesture. “Pretty butterflies just like a pretty dragonet, are you singing to me? I like singing butterflies.”
The dragonet squeaked at Grandion, What’s the matter with straw-head? Do something, you lumbering numbskull!
Chapter 21: Rolodia
A WARM FIRE glowing between three tremendous boulders that comprised the entire crown of a tiny Islet a hundred leagues north of Gi’ishior, a portion of lightly grilled bat and the kindness of two friends, were all Hualiama needed to recover. Flicker treated them to a comical rendition of her altitude sickness, making up all sorts of nonsense Lia was convinced she could never have said, not if all the Islands of the world turned into mountains of purple jelly inhabited by singing draconic eels.
Resting against Grandion’s flank, with the warmth of a Dragon at her back and a fire dying to embers before her, Lia brushed out her long, wavy tresses, which unbound tumbled to the small of her back, as she tried to make sense of the day which had been. One question troubled her above all others. Best blurt it out before it burned a hole through her tongue.
“Grandion, did you murder that child?”
The Tourmaline Dragon heaved a sigh that raised such a gust, it a
lmost snuffed out their campfire. “Must you ask?”
Hualiama wished she did not always feel she had to walk the narrow edge of her fears with him. In a small voice, she said, “Please. I must know.”
Grandion said, “That was the moment, Lia, when I realised matters had gone too far. Others had warned me. Would I listen? We stalked a child on Ya’arriol Island. I lay in wait in the densest part of the jungle, concealed, and she skipped right into my paw as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Singing, as you do.”
“Seeing me, she screamed.” Grandion’s digits curled as if he could still feel the child there, her heart fluttering in mortal terror; Lia could imagine the scene all too vividly. “Her eyes were wide, petrified, and so blue–like the child I remembered. Delicate, she quivered in my paw. Alive. A tiny fledgling, innocent of any wrongdoing. All of my murderous thoughts crashed in on me. I saw … the evil … and I asked myself, what had she done to deserve this? I was a hatchling killer, an egg stealer–not yet in deed, but certainly in my hearts. Most certainly in the dark fires of my Dragon hearts.”
Lia said, “Yet there is good in you, Grandion. You showed me mercy.”
“Aye. And I burned you.”
“You were feral.”
Grandion’s chuckle occupied a melancholy tomb beneath an Island-mountain of heavy thoughts. “Here we sit, Hualiama, representing the two great races of the Island-World. Human and Dragon. One young and vital, the other ancient and noble. Yet we Dragons have lost much. It is said we travelled from the stars. What calamity drove us hence? Have you ever asked yourself that? And what is nobility, if not a choice–not a birthright, as many Dragons believe, but the actions and choices of an honourable heart? Protect the innocent. Nurture the little ones. Stand against evil in all its forms. We must in all our deeds, exhibit integrity. We Dragons are the apex predators of this Island-World, for who dares hunt a Dragon? All the more, therefore, are these things asked–nay, demanded–of us.”
“Please, Grandion, tell me what happened to the child.”
His muzzle curved around until his lower jaw lay almost in the fire, and both of his eyes fixed on Lia. Though her question was plaintive, a tiny giggle suddenly escaped her lips.
“And what’s that giggle for, you green-eyed imp?” demanded the Dragon.
“I was just imagining what it might be like to have a neck like yours. I could look completely backward.”
“I see that Humans excel at barbed compliments, just like Dragons,” he smiled. “Well, let me put your mind at rest. I hid the girl in the leaves and bade her be as still as a mouse. When Yulgaz and Ra’aba arrived I attacked them and lured them away. That Human hatchling lives, as best I know. The Dragons chased me to Ha’athior Island, and the rest you know.”
“Ra’aba?” Lia echoed.
“Razzior. I said Razzior.”
“No you didn’t, I clearly …” Some unknown, poisonous quality in Grandion’s gaze corked the words in her throat. A soul-lost feeling swept over her, an awareness that if she pressed the point, the Dragon might tip over the edge of sanity. “I misheard.”
Flicker’s mouth was catching flies. He fidgeted with the splint on his ankle; Hualiama told him off sternly, while her thoughts raced off over the Cloudlands. No, it was an honest mistake–it had to be. Dragons could not be Humans, could they? Besides the impossibility of mixing Human seed with Dragon, the very idea was repugnant and physically unfeasible. Perhaps Dragons could change shape? But nothing in all the volumes of Dragon lore she had ever read, even hinted at the possibility. The engineer in her knew without a shadow of a doubt that the sheer size and physical volume of a Dragon could never be compressed down into Human size. Matter did not vanish into nonexistence, only to reappear. Magic itself operated according to laws similar to the physical realm. It did not arise from nothing–nothing arose from nothing! Magic existed intrinsically in the very substance of the world.
Just before he attacked her, Hualiama remembered thinking how strongly the Orange Dragon’s body language, tone of voice and even a peculiar aspect of his gaze, had reminded her of Ra’aba. Could a Dragon’s spirit or power subjugate a Human mind and inhabit a person’s living soul, making Ra’aba the mindless thrall of the Orange Dragon? She whispered, “A magic capable of binding minds.”
The Tourmaline Dragon almost tied his neck in a knot, until his nose bumped against her leg. “You speak of forbidden things,” he whispered. “Fearful powers.”
Laying her palm flat against Grandion’s nose, Lia said, “Permission for a titchy Human girl to scare a fire-breathing colossus?”
He blinked. “I’d claim with all my draconic arrogance that you can’t scare me, Hualiama, but I find entirely too many mysteries in your existence for that to resemble anything but a flight of foolishness. Speak.”
“Promise you won’t breathe fire?” She patted his nose; the dragonet helpfully tittered away as Grandion snorted uncomfortably. When he nodded, Lia summoned up Amaryllion’s words. “Brace yourself. ‘At that time, a giant comet shall streak across our skies and the balance of the Island-World shall be thrown into disarray. Old powers will fail, and a new race–the third great race of the Island-World–will rise from the shadows, a race born of magic’.”
Grandion could not have looked more stunned if she had slapped him in the muzzle with an entire Dragonship.
“Do you know of a third great race, Grandion? Do you–”
“This is deep Dragon lore, Hualiama!” he hissed, his eyes filling with ember-like orange fire in the semidarkness of a three-moons night. “How came you upon such dread knowledge?”
There were moments when Grandion seemed just like any good friend, and other times when he seemed as alien and terrible as the infamously wicked Dramagon, who legend named the father of all Red Dragons. Dramagon was said to have subjected his Human slaves to terrible experiments and torture. Hualiama was quite certain that the temptation to shorten her life at his claw-tip, quivered in his body in that instant. Pretending unconcern, she returned to working a particularly stubborn knot out of her hair, but was grateful when Flicker hopped into her lap.
The Tourmaline Dragon whispered, “By the First Eggs of the Ancient Dragons … you would fracture the very foundations of this Island with such thoughts!”
Pensively, Hualiama outlined Ra’aba’s words, that fateful evening when she had met the Nameless Man. “Ra’aba tried to murder me, or have me murdered,” she said. “He believed that would break the prophecy. Amaryllion also believes that the prophecy and I are somehow linked–and, I recall, that I might have been born somewhere in the East.”
“Not with those ears,” said Grandion. Abruptly, the tension seemed to drain from his body. “We Dragons say ‘but one egg is laid at a time’, by which we mean, events will befall us as they will. Let us focus on Ianthine and the dangers she represents. You mentioned before the need to learn Juyhallith, the way of the mind. As you know, we Blue Dragons are skilled in the ways of high magic, for example, the shield I built for you this afternoon to help you withstand the cold of our altitude, or the concealing magic to hide your presence–never mind, those matters have already passed beneath our wings. I know a few Juyhallith techniques and will teach you, if you wish.”
Hualiama swallowed. How could she trust a Dragon to meddle in her mind? “What must I do?”
“Describe at length how astonishingly handsome a dragonet I am,” Flicker put in.
Mustering her courage, Lia raised her chin to meet Grandion’s gaze without recourse to her natural diffidence. “Dragon?”
Grandion’s grin seemed especially draconic as he said, “You must make yourself vulnerable.”
* * * *
Over the following two days, Grandion and his companions winged northwest to Rolodia Island, enjoying a stiff following breeze. Hualiama trained at shielding her thoughts from casual ‘borrowing’, as the Tourmaline Dragon called it, while they approached the broad, shallow oval of
Rolodia Island from the air. The locals liked to name the Isle the ‘Lake of Jade’, referring to the colour of the terrace lake waters which surrounded the entirety of the Island, four tiers in all, and the densely vegetated interior, which ranged from tall jungles to towering bamboo forests.
Grandion landed stealthily near Rolodia’s only town at the southerly tip of the Island in the early afternoon. Reasoning that either of her draconic companions would attract too much attention, Lia convinced them that she enter the town alone to purchase herself a bow and a quiver of arrows. The gate guards questioned her rudely; a trader barged over her foot. Unfriendly place. Lia adjusted her headscarf self-consciously, confirming that her distinctive Fra’aniorian ears were hidden from casual view. She received a number of openly hostile looks as she inquired at an inn just inside the gates for directions to the market area. Hualiama had visited Rolodia before, but as a royal guest. This was startlingly different–probably a good experience, she told herself. Who was she trying to fool?
Lia drifted along a narrow row of brick-and-board shops, the dark eaves providing the barest sliver of protection against the white-hot twin suns’ glare. The market area seemed far too quiet. Where were all the customers? A quartet of guardsmen loitered about in an alleyway she passed by, eyeing her with the air of dogs considering a juicy bone. Ugh.
“Oi, ah fancy me that bit of skirt,” she heard as she ducked inside a likely-looking establishment.
Inside, the weapons shop was dim, and stank of oils and leather, together with the tang of hot alloys from a forge which was being worked somewhere in the back. A little apprentice boy, spying her, pelted into the back crying, “Da! Da! Is a lady.”
“A lady, you say?” The man’s voice was gruff but not unkind.
“A pretty lady, Da! Will ya marry her? Will ya? She wearing swords and all, Da!”
A hugely muscled man ducked through a hanging bead curtain leading to the back room. A Western Isles warrior! Hualiama tried not to stare, but his dark-skinned kind were uncommon enough around Fra’anior to arouse her curiosity. The armourer’s eyes were dark points in a broad, scarred face, and his gaze dropped briefly to the Immadian forked daggers at her belt before leaping to note the hilts of her swords rising behind her shoulders.
