A Most Refined Dragon

by Paul Chernoch

  Melissa leaned over the largest pit, which was several lisstai deep. The bottom was black, viscous and bubbling. One whiff of the gas that was percolating made her stand back. “What died?”

  The sound of her voice did more than violate the silence. Scraping of claw on stone and the rustle of scales slipping against crumbly rock betrayed a creature hiding in the lithic warrens. A shadow darted along the side of a crater. She flapped her wings and hopped across one hole and the next in time to see the tip of a white tail vanish into a tunnel at the bottom of the pit. She changed course and hopped some more, only to hear the creature’s scurrying behind her.

  Melissa hopped down into a large cavity and extended her neck into a tunnel. A cascade of gravel tumbled onto her back. Her head snapped up and whacked the roof of the tunnel, triggering its collapse. “Arrrrgh!” She withdrew her head, incurred several scratches and sent small boulders flying.

  A tiny yelp drew her attention to the right, where she saw the white tail sticking out of a deeper hole only to disappear a second later. Melissa shook the rubble off, ran a few paces and leaped out of the hole onto the thin ridge separating it from adjoining holes. She turned in a circle, looking for the next sign of the elusive critter. Why am I doing this? I have more important things to search for.

  Up popped a black sticky mass. It blinked and showed green eyes. “Muh! Muh!” Liosh dribbled from it until the shapes of wings emerged. The sticky monster a fifth of Melissa’s size clawed its way up an incline and balanced unsteadily on the surface. Before it ducked into another hole, it curved its neck backwards. It angled its head to the left and right, then pulled it back sharply, opened its eyes wide, and spat goo from its mouth. “Mulla! Mulla! Sessa ana sessa dissa!” It shook its head and wriggled its back and tail vigorously like a wet dog to shake off the muck.

  Under the black goo were red scales. “What are you doing here, little glissond? We’re a long way from your cave. Your mother must be worried.” It faced her directly and charged. Then Melissa was under it, as the glissond displayed all the excitement of a puppy greeting its master at the end of a long workday. It jumped up and put its paws on her chest.

  That little push was nothing to an adult olissair on solid ground. However, she was standing precariously next to big drops on either side. Melissa nearly righted herself with huge gyrations of her magnificent tail and the firm grasping of the rock beneath the claws she trusted so implicitly. What Melissa was not prepared for was the glissond opening her mouth, and mastering baby talk well enough to say, “Melissa!”

  After surprise claimed her, the icky, black pit did the same, and she remembered how much she hated drowning in oil. I don’t know the Lissai’s opinion on corporal punishment for minors, but I am ready to claim ignorance and give this one a thrashing! Melissa flailed, found the hard bottom, and crawled out of the muck. The lip of the crater gave way, and she slid back in again. A shadow crossed the sun. I could’ve saved you from the rukhs, but no, you had to push me in a pit. An inconvenient maternal instinct arose and she grumbled her way out of the hole. The swirling of air and the scraping of rock as a lissair landed burst her bubble. Fishsticks. No glissonds on the dinner menu today.

  K'Pinkelek looked her over. “I suppose it is a custom on earth to bathe in liosh?” The glissond tried to run, but the Red lissair stepped on her tail. “Stop! I know you can understand me. You fooled your mother, but not me. We’re going back to Red Home, and we are going NOW.”

  Despite the glissond’s black coat, Melissa saw the telltale signs of a major pout rising. “Is this?”

  “Melidessa. Follows me everywhere. Growing faster than the hunger in your stomach after a day chasing torryxes. Shouldn’t be able to walk for another month, but she does. Shouldn’t be able to speak for another year, but she does. Can’t fly, but the way she glides already, it’s only a matter of another week.”

  Belch. A ball of flame the size of a homzhash puffed from the miniature menace’s mouth.

  “No! Not fire, too!” K'Pinkelek put his paw over his right eye and shook his head in resignation.

  Mistake. It was the paw pinning her tail. The red menace dove into the nearest dry-bottomed hole and disappeared. Melissa and K'Pinkelek leaned over the edge. The tunnel was a dead end, but little Melidessa was working her hind claws like a badger. The jet of debris forced the two elders to spread their wings like umbrellas to deflect gravel from their eyes. When they could look again, there was a new hole, but no Melidessa.

  “Always the digging!” K'Pinkelek stomped his paw down hard. “First her mother’s garden, then Anspark’s. And who got in trouble for that? Uncle Kip is who! You come out now!” He jumped down and set about enlarging the new tunnel with his own claws.

  Melissa lay down in the sun and watched. She breathed flame and burned the liosh off as much of her body as she could. Then her wagging tail caught a section of pipe, snapped it and sent up a geyser of liosh. She was doused completely. K'Pinkelek paused from his excavation and opened his mouth.

  “Not one word,” said Melissa. “Get Melidessa home safely. Blasted Census Stone is giving me a headache. I’m going back to Four Rivers.”

  “Hmmm. Maybe the Census Stone dragged Melidessa here. She is different from the other ollhatchi. You treated her with your blue flame.”

  “Maybe. Hey, we have a situation, a rumor about Anspark’s strength elixir. Do you know what’s in it?”

  K'Pinkelek hesitated. “While chasing Melidessa through his apartments, I saw the flask and it was full. A few minutes later, Anspark left his chambers holding a case of sealed tubes. The next time I looked, the flask was four-fifths full.”

  “The flask of R.J.’s blood?” said Melissa. He said nothing. “Was it the flask of R.J.’s blood?”

  “I have to find Melidessa.” He resumed his digging.

  Without washing, Melissa took off, looking as black as her mood. She flew southeast to quiet the insistent summons suffocating her will. Arriving at Four Rivers, she landed at the river’s edge to bathe. The goop she shed spread a rainbow sheen over the water. Something peeled off her body and floated in the river. She caught it in her claw and unfolded it. It was a circle of cloth, an armband. She rinsed out the liosh stain using her saliva, until the emblem was clear. The image showed the scales of justice.

  Justice. She was fighting for justice and peace, and still it eluded her, just as it eluded the man who once wore that armband. It was the emblem of the Justice and Equality Movement. They were fighting for justice, freedom and peace in the Sudan. As she held the cloth in her paw, Melissa knew where the blood in the liosh came from. It came from Earth. Men killed men for oil in Africa, their blood mingled with the oil, and it seeped into Kibota.

  Dinosaurs, disease, scheming scientists, and now blood. Earth was like a well, and everything drawn from it evil. Was Kibota preparing to vomit Earth’s children? After she prostrates herself before the Census Stone, it will send her home like all the other beasts. For a hybrid like her, where would that home be?

  Chapter 32: Rounding Up the Thunder

  April 23rd. Trample.

  There were no buffalo, mammoths, torryxes, great auks or giant hopping marsupials. There were no chimps or dodos, snakes or spiny daggersmites. Glips, taggers and wild quaggas were gone, along with red plumes, green flight feathers, blue hides and white spots. There was no distinguishing tail from antler, hoof from head, nor hide from scaly armor. All was brown, running like gravy down a Thanksgiving turkey. The sky was swirling dust from the Silverthorn clear up to Lisstear Lake, and the creatures conveyed their caked-on covering like the second skin of a single organism in motion. As eyes were muddled, so were ears. Clomp, stomp, rustle, crunch, clip-clop, and swish-snap blended into a monstrous call. This monster issued only thunder, and the thunder was loose.

  Melissa glided over the hills outside Trample, wishing she had a second seed trick to lure the herd away from the farms, villages and granaries that hugged the Silverthorn. Alternatively, she wishe
d she were planning the trip to the Census Stone with Jessnee, R.J., Olsurrodot and the rest. How would they transport the equipment yet avoid detection? What contingency for facing opposition from the Browns and Reds?

  Alas, she could do nothing. The call of the stone determined everything. Half its force was directed at her mind, and the other at her conscience, which would not let her abandon the wounded and lost without succor. In her stone-ward flight, she oscillated north and south in a wide, sinusoidal pattern, because west was denied to her. Once she passed a casualty, she could not retreat to visit them. Backing up even ten lisstai now assaulted her skull with enough debilitating pain to cause unconsciousness. She would not fall but fly entranced, no more help to anyone.

  Every four thousand lisstai the trail bent toward the river to provide water for the animals. It would run along the banks of the Silverthorn for a stretch, before heading north to bypass the next river town. A dozen farmers leaned into wooden braces to keep the stockade around their town from giving way. The animals pressed up against it, galloping along. Smoke from the scare-pots lining the fence began failing and the animals grew bolder. The wall swayed.

  Melissa dove and growled to scare the creatures off, but there was no place for them to retreat. Timbers moaned, then snapped. A sword-sized splinter pierced a Hand’s arm. Melissa landed inside the stockade and stood her ground while the farmers fell in behind her. After removing the spike and spraying blue flame over the injured Hand’s wound, she blasted a fireball at the ground near the breach in the wall. It delayed but could not halt the invasion. Melissa kept up the flame as long as she could, but as her energy became depleted, the force of the stone took over. She held on long enough for a clutch of Reds to arrive. While two assisted the farmers with repairs, the other Claws stood shoulder to shoulder and made a living barricade. Their behavior made it evident they had not yet consumed Anspark’s elixir. Melissa breathed easier, then took off. While fresh sunlight infused her wings, she watched. When Claws engaged in heedless fierceness, wild charges and uncoordinated attacks, she knew, but the clearest sign was a trail of blood, where Red Claws blinded by blood rage preferred to strike animals instead of carry Hands to safety.

  Occasionally, she spotted lone Browns atop rocks jutting up from the tide engaging individual hlisskans in conversation. By word and gesture the Claw would direct the animals one way, and they invariably went the other. Melissa compared the madness of the Reds and Browns. Which was better? Fight fiercely yet lose your sanity, or spend your intellect on disregarded discourse?

  Melissa treated hundreds of Hands and Claws, but all she recalled when night fell were the ones trampled to death under thundering hooves when her fire was out and her will not her own. When she shut her eyes, she saw outstretched arms pleading for her to swoop down like a Valkyrie, and heard screaming babies defenseless in their cribs, with her forbidden to assist.

  She camped on a small, wooded hill by a river bend, surrounded on three sides by water, defensible. There was no division between Hand and Claw. All collapsed on the spot where they were. Beside her lay a Green olissair. “I thought I was the only lady taking the field today,” said Melissa.

  “I would happily stay home if I could,” said the Green. “Without drum rolls from the ocean deep, I have trouble finding sleep. This animal sea is not the right sea for me.”

  Ever the doctor, Melissa examined her hide for wounds. “You’re covered in brown splotches. I am ill-informed about maladies common to the Lissai. Do you require treatment?” By the hesitant narrowing of her eyes, Melissa knew the Green olissair would be guarded in her answer.

  “You are the one who was White Talon but is not?”

  “Yes. I am Melissa.”

  “And I’m Soomani. What became of the hlissak?”

  “Her mind departed to my world, at least for awhile. Now I’m not sure. She is silent.” From her recent excursion to Earth and her last memory of drowning in a mass grave, Melissa feared White Talon was dead. She no longer felt the ancient olissair’s presence. My great sacrifice, wasted. I gave up my human body to rescue her, and how many days did she last? “Our exchange was accompanied by a gift. I can heal many ailments, but need help distinguishing the sick from the well.”

  “Paint,” said Soomani.

  “Pardon?”

  “The brown splotches are paint. I was helping Hlissak Poonrapi redecorate her quarters.”

  A black and silver box strapped to the olissair’s arm looked of foreign manufacture. Melissa amplified her vision and spied tiny symbols and words in a strange yet familiar alphabet. Stop. Play. Rewind. Record. How? She extended her claw and pointed. “It is a strange device you carry.”

  The olissair smiled. “A reward from my lady for my service. It was fashioned by Hands, though not from this world. It plays music.” Soomani tapped buttons and a majestic Wagner piece poured from the small box. This created a stir in the camp, amazed looks, eager questions from Hands and Claws, and an end to Melissa’s conversation.

  After sunset, the stone’s pull diminished. Melissa splashed in the Silverthorn River, washed the caked on baptism from her body and snagged fish to satisfy her hunger. Then she caught a few more and donated them to the Hands for their supper.

  The injured straggled into camp. Melissa treated their wounds. In gratitude, each offered her a unicoin. She didn’t need their currency, but it would be impolite to refuse. One Hand gave her a pouch to keep them in. Another, whose son she cured of a raging infection, handed her an item that by the slow extension and hesitant uncurling of his hand signified how precious it was to him: the three-inch tip of a unicorn’s horn. Its base had a small threaded hole. She was about to move on when she recognized him under the grime and beard growth. It was Skandik.

  “The gift I received I offer for free,” said Melissa. “You owe me nothing, Skandik. Your verdict was just. I hold no grudge.” She held out her paw to return the horn tip.

  The stout man’s face had more wrinkles than when she met him a fortnight before. He pushed her paw aside, bowed, and shuffled away with his son to a spot under a tree by the water’ edge. Everyone was exhausted from migration duty, but the tears Skandik tried to hide while he ran his fingers through his son’s hair and held him close said more.

  Melissa slipped the horn tip into her purse and sat. All she wanted was quiet, but the low din of how-are-yous and have-we-met-befores and that’s-my-spot, I-got-here-firsts was aggravating. “Shush!”

  Every eye was on her. Melissa looked left and right. No one was talking, and the puzzled looks said ‘What’s her problem?’ She looked down at the purse in her hands, then held it to her ear.

  The first tiny voice said, “Our new owner is a fire-breather! We are so lucky!” The next said, “I was already important. I came from the hlisskan’s horn.” “No you didn’t!” “Did too!”

  Melissa lowered the pouch and shook her head. The Brown’s wonderful talent for understanding languages had a downside: the insufferable small talk that pervaded the universe. Money talks but it is soooo inane! I have got to get rid of this loot before it gives me a worse headache than the Census Stone.

  With her heightened senses, Melissa overheard Skandik comforting his son. “We’ll find another place. Start over. It’ll be alright. I have enough for breakfast and a boat back home.”

  The twelve-year-old boy lay with his head in his father’s lap. “But you can’t skoffle no more, Darda. You gave up your horn.”

  “I woulda lost more than I’d make. Bad luck, these days. Don’t need more trouble gambling.”

  Melissa craved sleep, but recognized desperation. She rattled her purse, stood, stretched and walked to the tree. “Skandik, I have no need of this. Take care of your family.” She tossed the purse and it landed at his side.

  He looked at it, then her, before picking the purse up, loosening the drawstring and peering in. He pulled it shut and handed it back. “Generous, but it’s not enough. All I’d do is throw it away on games. I’ve gotta
face it manlike.”

  “Face what?” said Melissa.

  A big teary grimace seized his face and he shook his head from side to side, but his son was there, so he wouldn’t talk. That said everything. He was losing his farm.

  “Medicine?” said Melissa.

  “Cost me everything,” said Skandik. “Worked some, but the disease came back.”

  “Who sold it to you? Was it Jessnee? He’s a friend and I–”

  “No, not Jessnee. He’s decent. Guy had funny eyes, from your world I’m guessing.”

  “How long do you have to repay?”

  “First of the month. I’ve enough time to get home and pack the wagon.” He could no longer merit her gaze and stared at the dirt.

  “Where will you go?”

  His first attempt at an answer stuck in his throat and croaked out. “The manor.”

  “Which manor?”

  “Futility Manor. I hear they… It’s free again. I’ve got seniority, so the place…” His eyes kept shifting about.

  Melissa hadn’t heard of the place, but the Hands sitting nearby turned away and pretended not to hear. She thumped the ground with her tail. “No. What’s this game your son was talking about?”

  “Hornskoffle.” He wagged his index finger. “Don’t you dare–”

  Melissa stuck her index claw out and pointed back. “Are you any good?”

  He shrugged, but his son bolted to his feet. “My darda’s the best skoffler on the west bank of the Faithful!” He proceeded to air-skoffle, miming slaps and finger-thwacks at imaginary coins sticking out the side of an imaginary skoffleboard.