by Marc Secchia
Flicker said, “So, Lia, exactly what kind of playtime were you envisaging with those soldiers?”
“Ooh, aren’t we jealous?” She tickled the dragonet under the chin, to his irritation. “So what if I thought that officer was cute–”
Flicker and Grandion snapped at her simultaneously.
Hualiama’s rich, joyous laughter rippled over them. “Now we’re both acting jealous? Boys–not boys. Oh, Islands’ sakes. Flicker, you told me to flutter my eyelashes. It worked. Grandion has no holes in his hide. We learned some valuable intelligence. Ra’aba’s plot gathers pace and the Humans are starting to respond.”
“Intelligence? You imitate a straw-head all too well,” sniffed Flicker.
“You were brave,” said Grandion, with an arch look at the dragonet, who ruffled his wings and made a disgusted noise. “But Lia is right. War is imminent. Each of those Dragonships holds fifty Human soldiers–I calculate there are up to two thousand two hundred soldiers of Yorbik on the move, a grave threat. The only boon we have in this situation is that Sapphurion is a voice of integrity and reason.”
“And will these Humans support us against Ra’aba?” the dragonet asked.
Lia shook her head. “I know the politics well enough, for a royal ward. When King Chalcion was loud and very drunk a few months ago, I remember him shouting about the Free Federation, how they cared not for who sat upon the Onyx Throne, that we were all slaves and puppets, Dragon-lovers and worse. But if we know Ra’aba in the slightest, we know he will find a way to turn this to his advantage.”
“In our culture, being a Human-lover is about the worst slur imaginable–a mortal insult, we Dragons call it,” said the Tourmaline Dragon. “Curse words. Even treating one’s slaves well was frowned upon. Beat them, starve them, eradicate one or two on occasion by way of keeping the rest in line … it’s hard to believe we Dragons behaved that way. But Razzior and his kin are still of that opinion. Humans are lice, parasites, a plague to be scorched off the face of the Islands. Some follow him openly, others merely believe it in their hearts.”
“As in, fleas and armpits?”
Hualiama’s tone was surprisingly sharp. The dragonet’s eyes flicked from one to the other, wondering what he had missed.
The Tourmaline Dragon lowered his muzzle, a remorseful orange fire leaching into his eyes. After a long pause, the Human girl stepped closer to the Dragon. She hesitated over a decision Flicker did not understand, before spreading her arms as far as she could reach, and resting her cheek against the small scales beside his eye. A tremor seemed to pass between them.
Lia whispered, “I guess fleas can’t be all bad, can they?”
His paw engulfed her back, tenderly cupping her tiny frame. “No.”
Time stood still for the dragonet, his seventh sense tingling with a new insight. At last, he understood the nature of the magic between his companions. This was a power that promised to stand the Island-World upon its head. This was magic worth dying for.
Yet, sorrow damped his fires. Did his Lia know that when they found her family, it must end? Should his daughter misbehave, King Chalcion would ride to war against the Dragons–no question about that. Nor could any Human ride Dragonback and live. No Human could draw this close to a dragonet or a Dragon, for every paw and every hand would be raised against them.
The Island-World was not ready for such a miraculous magic. It would lash out and destroy them before allowing their magic to take root.
Yet, it was beautiful. And neither of them knew it.
* * * *
From the sharp-fanged black Isles of Horness Cluster, the trio travelled ever southward, following the snaking ridge beneath the Cloudlands, topped here and there with Islands peeking shyly above the cloud cover. Most were too low, too close to the poisons down below to contemplate as a stopping-over place, but they perched one night atop a column of rock just fifty feet wide, a second night upon the flank of a constantly spitting volcano, and the third, a goodly distance down the flank of the Western Isles at the latitude of Rolodia Island and a hundred leagues or more north of Naphtha Cluster.
Having been chased into shelter by a massive storm, they waited it out in the shelter of an old Dragon roost, while the winds shrieked a dreadful song and the rain poured so mightily that they could scarcely see five feet outside of the cave mouth.
“Once this blows over, our search truly begins,” said Grandion.
Lia did not even pause her Nuyallith forms as she replied, “I say we’ll find them between Naphtha and Ur-Tagga. Flicker?”
“Exactly two hundred and fifty-seven miles south of Naphtha,” chirped the dragonet. “Lia, do you remember that morning when we sang and you danced upon Grandion’s back? I sensed the fire of magic in your dance. These Nuyallith forms you practice are also a channel for the inner fire. If you learn to release your power through those blades, or release their inherent power …”
She landed with a sharp cry, splitting an imaginary opponent in half. “I might stand a gnat’s chance in a storm of beating Ra’aba?”
“A large gnat,” said the dragonet, illustrating with his claws.
“Perhaps as much as a yellow finch,” agreed Grandion.
Hualiama stuck out her tongue at the two of them. “Don’t overdo the encouragement there, my faithful escorts.”
Flicker chuckled, “Right. Try this. You’ll storm the palace, Hualiama, scattering all before you with the might of your wrathful presence, and slay Ra’aba with one glance of your burning eye.”
“You will strike him with such power that his teeth will rattle off the Mystic moon,” growled the Tourmaline Dragon, “following which you will dice his body into a million tiny pieces and scatter them from here to Herimor, not missing a single square inch of Cloudlands in between.”
“I don’t think that’s mathematically possible,” the dragonet disagreed.
Lia snapped, “Oh, just forget I spoke!”
She wanted to shout ‘men!’ But that would merely insult them. Did they not realise, or care for her feelings, that she must destroy her real father in order to reclaim the Onyx Throne for her adopted father? Oh, and all of this at the behest of Amaryllion, who she called her Dragon father? What irony could possibly bite deeper than this?
Ra’aba had toyed with her, that day on the Dragonship.
Surely, he could not know she was his daughter? What was the connection between her and the prophecy? Who had Ra’aba killed with his own hands, twice? Her mother? No. If Hualiama had not been lying on the floor, silenced by the Nameless Man, she might have seen the Roc’s eyes and known the truth for what it was–a truth which swirled about her like leaves tossed in a wind, eluding her grasp. The Orange Dragon’s attack, the exact shade of the zeal in Razzior’s eyes as he prepared to incinerate her with his Dragon fire …
The world seemed to flicker through darkness.
“Lia?”
Flicker was on her shoulder, crooning in her ear.
“Oh … what happened?”
“You cried out. You’re cold! So cold, what’s the matter?”
“I was thinking about the day the Orange Dragon attacked me. You remember that, don’t you? Of course you do.” Hualiama rubbed her temples. “I don’t feel very well. Flicker, I’m still struck by this instinct, as I think about what Ra’aba said about the prophecy, that he and Razzior are linked, somehow. More than allies. More than creatures who take joy in evil deeds. There’s … something … and I’m missing it. Perhaps it’s a power of ruzal–you remember, Amaryllion suspected the touch of ruzal on my life.”
Flicker nodded. “It stands to reason. If Ianthine somehow knew you as a babe, then maybe that’s the touch Amaryllion spoke of.”
“Why would a Maroon Dragoness steal a child from its Human mother? What would she stand to gain?”
Softly, Grandion rumbled, “We weren’t about to make further inquiries from the Maroon Dragoness. Besides, Ianthine revealed that
your mother tortured her. Revenge is reason enough to snatch a baby, surely?”
Hualiama marched from one side of the cavern to the other, demanding, “How does a Human–any Human–go about torturing a Dragon as powerful as Ianthine? Riddle me that, Grandion! How powerful would my mother have to be?” Right beneath the Tourmaline Dragon’s nose, she whirled, wringing her hands in frustration. “Even at Fra’anior, home to the most ancient of Dragon magic, where some Humans like me display magical powers–Grandion, it’s impossible! Far beyond the Isle of belief! Moreover, why keep the child? Why not toss it into the Cloudlands, Islands’ sakes?”
The Dragon seemed flustered. Lia laid her hand against the warm scales of his neck, sensing that the powerful male Dragon would prefer to feel in control of events, to possess the answers his Rider sought. Thanks for letting me vent, Grandion.
He touched her shoulder with his talon. I’m constantly astonished by the volcanic passions burning in your breast, like a little Dragoness. Do not apologise. These are fearful, Island-shaking conundrums.
“Because,” began Flicker. As his companions turned to him, the dragonet coughed uneasily. He seemed as fearful as Lia had ever known him to be, a creature bereft of hope. “Because, ‘It comes with an innocent face, unaware of the secrets locked within its breast’.”
An involuntary whimper escaped her throat before Hualiama found heated words spilling out, “But what, Flicker? If even an Ancient Dragon was unable to put his claw on this secret I’m supposed to be holding, how great a secret could it be?”
Both of her friends shuddered.
The dragonet whispered, “I wish you hadn’t said it quite that way, Lia. It’s at least great enough to leave that scar on your belly, and to make an Orange Dragon hunt you.”
“And to drive a Maroon Dragoness to an act of desperation which has exiled her from the Dragonkind for fifteen and a half years,” Grandion added, drawing Lia to him with a gentle nudge of his paw, curled around her shoulders. “Furthermore, Amaryllion may be playing in deeper lava pits than you or I could imagine.”
“He’s my friend.” Lia sounded plaintive, and hated herself for being on the defensive. “Look, I trust Amaryllion. He’s never given me reason not to trust him.”
The Tourmaline Dragon made no reply, but the surging vibration of his belly-fires betrayed his thoughts. She knew as well as they did, that an Ancient Dragon’s motives might be completely incomprehensible to any ordinary Dragon, Human or dragonet. He was over two thousand years old. Plenty of time to learn how to manipulate the lives of those smaller than he.
They all three sighed as one.
* * * *
The Western Isles were a dense, untamed archipelago sprawling all of the thousands of leagues from Haffal Cluster in the north to the shores of the Rift, the impassable storm said to divide the northern Island-World from a far larger demesne to the south. If the Rift was truly impassable, Lia had often wondered, how did the legends tell of Herimor? Had the Ancient Dragons passed down tales to their slaves? Here, the Islands were so rough-edged and scattered, they seemed incomplete, a vast draconic jigsaw left unfinished upon such a table as might have dwarfed even the greatest Dragon of all, Fra’anior.
They hunted up and down the shores of Naphtha Cluster, peering at every one of its hundreds of outlying islets and outcroppings, without success. Thick vegetation piled over dense clusters of rock and sudden inlets in the Islands, with fractured ravines and gaping caverns that all took time to investigate. Few Islands could be discounted from afar. Flicker spied a Human settlement on one Isle; he disappeared to filch a quiver of arrows to resupply Lia’s bow.
“You can’t just steal like that!” Hualiama admonished him.
The dragonet shrugged his shoulder in a Human-like gesture. “You can’t just ride a Dragon like that.”
They exchanged ferocious growls before bursting into laughter. Grandion accused them of acting like a pair of cackling parakeets. Lia ordered the dragonet to return to the Humans with a gemstone for payment, in exchange for the promise of cleaning and polishing his scales for an hour.
Late in the afternoon of the third day of their search, Grandion began to drift further south. Flying over yet another overgrown patch of boulders poking out of the Cloudlands in the improbable shape of a Human’s clenched fist surmounting a slender tower of rock, the Dragon unwittingly subjected his rider to the perils of flying at speed through a swarm of gnats with her mouth open.
“Yum,” said Flicker, perched on Grandion’s shoulder as he sieved the air for delicacies. “Can we do that again?”
“Pah! Yuck!” Lia spat. She wiped her mouth and averted her head.
“I spotted a place to rest just a couple of minutes ago,” said Grandion, banking sharply.
Shortly, the Dragon flared his wings, bringing them to a gentle landing beside a shallow volcanic pool with water the colour of Grandion’s scales. Lia peered about in delight. Was it tourmaline or some other gemstone creating that remarkable colour? Reflected suns-light rippled across the underside of a wide rock ledge which overhung half of the pool, but the true delight was the gossamer-thin sheets of water which poured over most of the ledge’s width from a height of thirty feet, water which mingled with long, trailing fronds to create a tinkling curtain. Lush ferns adorned the obsidian cliffs of the natural dell. Below the water pool was a second, markedly different pool–a bubbling pot of orange magma. The tiny caldera seemed barely big enough for Grandion, but he eyed it with the same delight Lia had reserved for the waterfall above.
“I’ll be down there if you need me,” he said.
“You plan to roast your rump in molten lava?” Lia clarified.
“You have to try it sometime,” the Dragon asserted. “If you can stand the heat, its perfect for killing off scale mites, and I have the most fearsome itch around my–”
The dragonet squeaked, “Stop! There’s a lady present.”
“My left inner thigh, I was about to say.”
Unbuckling the straps, Lia stretched her legs and yawned. “I don’t have any itches, but there are definitely parts of me I can no longer feel. Can’t you invest in a little padding, Grandion?”
“A plump cushion for the royal rump?” Flicker found the subject irresistible, as usual.
Great Islands, she had the choice between a snooze in the suns and bathing in the pool. There was even a blue-black, glistening strip of beach. Heavenly! The suns won by virtue of overcoming her before she reached the water. Sometimes she could imagine herself as a Dragoness, Lia thought, letting the warming heat beat upon her back, shoulders and legs with an inward sigh of pleasure. Ooh, she was too lazy even to cover her head with her headscarf, which had come to seem more and more trivial the longer she spent travelling Dragonback. Just a few minutes …
Flicker chirped, I’m off to hunt, your un-royal laziness.
Don’t play with your food, she mumbled, already sinking into a dream–so fast, it seemed a vortex sucked her in.
Voices sounded near the veiled crib wherein she lay, warm and snug.
“I have come for the child, Azziala, according to our bargain.”
A woman’s voice, as dull as a spent fire, intoned, “First, give me the knowledge, Dragoness. Then you may do with the whelp what you wish.”
“Here.” She heard a rustling of scrolleaf. “This was all that was left after those traitors burned it. But as you can see, it is unparalleled amongst Dragon lore. Mastering this will give you power over Dragons.”
“Yes.” Low, hungry, a cry of triumph. “At last!”
“May I take the child?”
She heard a careless, heartless laugh. “Take Ra’aba’s whelp, Ianthine. Use it against him.”
Oh, you supreme fool, that I will. The cradle jolted. Hualiama heard herself gurgling happily at the gentle movement. The Dragoness growled, “I have all I need.”
Fear trickled into her infantile awareness.
Adrift in a
hot red ocean behind her closed eyelids, Lia rocked to the motion of Dragon wings bearing her across the Island-World. She wailed for warmth, for nurture, but there was only a cool wind caressing her face and the rasp of a Dragon’s paw upon her tender skin. She was wet and soiled, but the Dragoness did not seem to care. Hour after hour, the suns winked in and out from behind huge, spreading purple wings, making baby-Lia screw up her face and scream.
Hush, little one, the Dragoness whispered. We return to the Isle of your father. This is the hour of my greatest triumph. All Dragons will know that Ianthine saved them from a fate worse than death.
Abruptly the dream jumped to Dragons, thundering over her. Hualiama lay on sand, bawling uselessly at the commotion, ignored and unwanted. A crackling of fire overhead. Lightning flaring in an enclosed space. A cacophony of Dragon voices resounded above her–perhaps three or more Dragons. Magic prickled across her skin.
THOU CANST NOT BIND ME!
Was that a roar she knew? The voice of the great Blue Dragon?
Ianthine vented a terrible shriek that stabbed daggers of pain into her young eardrums. NO! NOOOOO!
Lia awoke in the aftermath of a soul-lost tremor, the kind of waking that always made her wonder if the breath she had just inhaled would be her last. A single thought shone above all others–she knew her mother’s name! Azziala …
Reflexively, Hualiama scratched her back. Her skin itched fiercely. A sharp prickling developed all over her legs and lower back.
Then, a thousand needles stabbed into her skin at once.
Chapter 25: Ants and Slaves
FLicker spat out an eight-inch long, luminous orange lizard which he had been about to slurp down his gullet, and gaped at Lia in astonishment. Shards take it, was this some strange new Human dance? Straw-head writhed across the sand in a series of bizarre, juddering lurches, slapping herself frantically, shrieking as though she had tipped over the cliff edge of insanity. What entertainment! The reprieved lizard vanished beneath a rock.
