Tytiana

by Marc Secchia

  Excorion took a curved metal rebar which had been lying beside the cage, fed it through the door and around the cage frame, and twisted it closed like an engineer twizzling wire with a pair of pliers. He plucked the door with one fore-talon. It barely budged. “That’ll keep a pair of rats from escaping. Old lock doesn’t work anymore, but I find an inch of metal does just the same job.”

  Then, he proceeded to take a leisurely bath in the lava lake. The orange-red pool of molten rock was shallow in some places, Jakani saw, but the far side might as well have been a hundred leagues away. He had no hope of jumping that distance, even if they could escape the cage. At least the lava kept the rock beneath his feet reasonably warm. They would not freeze – just starve. Maybe. Meantime the Dragon warmed his scales, which was a sight in itself as he heated himself to a rubescent brown glow, before he stalked off in steaming, smoking majesty to hunt.

  They stood in the small cage looking very glum indeed, and did not speak for a good long while.

  Jakani turned to Tytiana. “Well, how’s your day going, o Choice … erm … eh?”

  “Marvellous. I believe the friendly fire breather plans to abandon us here for the better part of a week and a half to two weeks, which is the best time we could hope for my father to send a Dragonship up here,” she said. “Only the finest accommodation, Dirt Picker! Now I know how these poor slaves must have felt. Must feel. You do know Dragons still enslave Humans up here, don’t you?”

  Jakani clenched his fists. “No. Really?”

  “Really,” purred Excorion, sidling back into the cave with such quiet, predatory menace, it quite snatched Jakani’s breath away. “In case you’re thinking someone might happen along and discover you, I’ll be concealing the entrance with my Earth magic. Rearranging a few rocks to my satisfaction. Here you go. Dinner for a week or two.”

  He tossed three rat-like corpses against the bars. Well, one was still twitching. They looked and smelled rank.

  “Rock hyrax. Not quite prime specimens,” he sneered. “You might consider letting one rot. I hear the bats in these caves enjoy carrion. You could supplement your diet that way – hurrggh-hurggh!”

  Jakani eyed the offerings. Perhaps sixteen inches long and ill-favoured in appearance, they reminded him rather uncomfortably of caroli rats, which some lamko ate when starvation threatened. He bowed stiffly. “Thank you for this bounteous provision, o noble Dragon.”

  In a whirl of brown scales and furious thunder, Excorion clashed his fangs against the cage. “None of your lip, worm!”

  He did not know how he remained upright, but Jakani felt awfully brave – and more than a touch stupid – as he faced off against the Dragon. Not that he could manage a word in response. But if he did not mistake the fires in those eyes, the beast somehow seemed to approve of his defiant stance. Odd. Then, without another word, the Brown Dragon plunged through the lava pool and exited the cavern. Perhaps two minutes later, they heard a sound like an avalanche. One entrance rearranged. Browns apparently had great skills with earth and rock – some were said to be able to swim though soil like a fish. Believe it.

  Sadly, he was not quite as skilled at swimming through rock, which it appeared they would have to do if they could even escape this cage.

  Tytiana let out a long, long sigh. “Hope you’re feeling strong, Jakani. Fancy trying to bend some metal?”

  As he stepped forward, Jakani stepped on something round and twisted his ankle. “Ah! I …” They both stared as the white egg bobbled across the cage. He tried to dive after it, but he and Tytiana thumped into each other and the egg rolled neatly between the bars, coming to rest in a small depression perhaps four feet beyond their reach.

  Hands on hips, Tytiana addressed the egg with a wagging finger. “Now, just you behave yourself, you mischievous little –”

  “Dragonet,” Jakani hastily interrupted.

  “Aye, dragonet. You sweet rascal, what are you doing popping back and forth between the Islands? You do know that we’re in trouble here, don’t you?” The egg seemed to bobble about excitedly. “Right. So, any ideas as to how we might escape?”

  They both stared expectantly at the gleaming white ovoid. After a few minutes of waiting, Jakani said, “I do believe it’s gone to sleep.”

  * * * *

  By a time that Tytiana estimated might be evening, three things were clear. One, the Brown Dragon was not coming back for a good long while. Two, Jakani could not bend the bars despite some muscle-popping straining that threatened to make her drool in a most unladylike manner. Sweet fires, he was built like a mythical warrior straight out of some ballads no well-behaved Choice would ever admit to have read by lamplight under her blankets. Three, the egg was no ruddy help whatsoever. It was looking more and more likely that they would be spending an extended period of quality time together, if they didn’t kill each other first. Right now, Jakani was sulking over on the other side of the cage in the belief that she had insulted his manhood. Maybe, just maybe, she might have laughed at the wrong moment.

  Maybe she had been a smidge mean.

  He was not the only one with a tongue that could run away with itself at times.

  ‘Well, mind you don’t break a fingernail with your efforts, Choice Tytiana!’ he had snarled. ‘I don’t see you lifting a finger to help!’

  She must allow that was a valid point. Vexingly valid! Time to apply herself properly to this problem. So, she could not pass between the bars without cutting herself in half. She did not have his crazy strength, nor was that jolly egg even bothering to quiver as she glared at it now. Another couple of days in here, and she knew those dead hyraxes would start to look appealing. And that Excorion could go bury his flaming head beneath an Island if he thought she was just going to wait and starve and lap water off rocks for a week while he flew back down to Helyon Island. Why bring them all the way up here anyways? Unless there was a cunning plan to double-cross them …

  Last time she had yowled for help like a feline doused with a bucket of water.

  This time, she was going to do something about her situation. If Mister Muscles could not lock-pick, wangle or tear himself out of this cage, then she would just have to do it for him. Maybe she could use his head as a battering ram? It was certainly made of all the right materials. Mercy, he had even tried to kick his way out and nearly broken his ankle in the process – which was the moment at which her unsympathetic response had made it all fall to the windrocs.

  The key must be her magic.

  Alleged magic.

  For a long, long time she sat cross-legged and tried to imagine her way toward changing herself into a Dragoness. No good. All she discovered was a migraine. Then she tried to apply her fire to the cage, but it was not nearly hot enough. Maybe ten thousand times hotter would do the trick. She could not even make the material of her clothing smoulder today. Fantastic skills there, Tytiana. Idly, she wondered how people made do with spending two weeks in the same set of underwear. Yuck. If there had been a working lock they could have used her hairpins to try to pick it, but the Dragon’s paw work had put paid to that idea – permanently. She tugged at her ghastly windroc’s nest of a hairstyle in frustration. Twenty freaking knots!

  “Here,” said Jakani. “Don’t fret over it, o … oh, for Islands’ sakes, why can’t I just say your name? Tytiana!”

  “What are you doing?”

  “I have sisters, remember?”

  “Aye, and our hair is exactly the same.”

  “Yours is just more challenging.”

  “Like my personality?”

  He chuckled softly, there in the gloom lit by the ruddy glow of the lava. “I can’t say that being flown backwards and sideways through a few storms would leave most women’s hair looking its best. Of course you are right. I should accept what you say, because you are the Choice of the House. You and your placid temperament, aye.”

  Fire stirred in her breast. “Dangerous territory, Jakani.”

  “Is it now?”

/>   “Are you purposefully trying to rile me?”

  “Is it working?”

  “You scoundrel! How is this going to –”

  “Help us escape by exploiting the finest features of your naturally tranquil nature? Would I? I am not such a beast. Ever.”

  Compounding her annoyance, his stratagem appeared to be working a treat. She said, “Maybe if we didn’t touch each other for another year, it might work.”

  “Tell me, o Choice Tytiana, is it just me or do you blow shirts off all the boys? Ouch! Your hair just sparked at me.”

  “Ha! Watch what you touch.”

  “Mmm, but you said the other night you might like the idea of holding me.”

  Tytiana almost snapped his head off, before pulling up in confusion. She had thought that. One hundred percent for certain, she had not spoken any words to that effect aloud, unless she talked in her sleep. Was Jakani reading her mind? Adazara had said she had no idea what his magic might be. If this was true then he was a bit … terrifying, to be honest. Did he know everything that she thought about him? Merely picturing his mounded deltoids leaping into sharp relief as he attacked those bars had turned her insides into molten lead.

  Fire! She gazed open-mouthed at her hands. Flaming scarlet. No. This was not the key. Fantasizing about Jakani made her flame –

  “Whoa!” He sprang backward.

  “What? My … oh, sorry, Jakani. I was just thinking about …” She blushed. Merciful heavens, she blushed the colour of her hair, and the more he stared at her and her hair seething behind her with a charge of wild magic she could not deny, the worse she blushed. Fire flushed up and down her body. Even her bare toes were glowing perceptibly!

  Hopefully, she wouldn’t burn her prosthesis off.

  Jakani quirked an eyebrow.

  Arrogant swine! Prancing popinjay! He actually had the gall to pop out his chest, and worse, all the poise learned over sixteen years had promptly deserted her. He drawled, “Seems like you’re having fun over there, at least, Tytiana. Do share what you’re thinking?”

  She’d tear his egotistical head off and feed it to the Dragons! Flay him alive with the fury that thundered through her heart now!

  Tytiana opened her mouth, and yelled, “Why don’t you just … kiss me!”

  Chapter 18: All in a Day’s Piracy

  “EH?” JAKANI SQUEAKED.

  The Choice clapped her hands over her mouth. Clearly, she could not believe what she had just shouted. Nor could he. Kiss her? What? No! He was an honourable man! He was not about to take advantage of being trapped together with the heiress to steal kisses like a couple of teenagers canoodling behind a hut. Besides, it was more than forbidden. His entire world would turn upside down if he committed such a crime. Wouldn’t the Islands themselves rise up and hurl him into the depths of the Cloudlands, where scum like him belonged? Would the very stones not rise up to crush his offensive bones, and the boughs of the trees whip his accursed body to a pulp?

  But she was beautiful, and never more so than right now, when every inch of her visible skin was pulsating the rich, rubescent colours of her mortification, yet he knew a truth had slipped free. Oh, she was a living dream. A walking, breathing enchantment of fire and irresistible magic.

  “I … I didn’t just say that,” she gasped at last.

  “Liar.”

  “I … Jakani! Please …”

  “You said –”

  “Dashed dandy Dragons dance delightfully!” she yelled.

  “Huh? I could have sworn I heard –”

  Hands clapped over ears, she cried, “I’m not listening!”

  “Good, because neither am I.” He placed his hands on his hips, tried for his most insouciant smile and hoped to heavens it did not come across as a piratical sneer, and said in a singsong voice, “Tytiana wants to kiss me. Tytiana wants to –”

  “I most certainly do not! I said I might need to. There’s a difference – you know, between wants and needs, and that is a concept which is perfectly common to all Humankind. I also need some air.” She fanned her face dramatically. “Is the lava making it really crazy hot in here? I said I think we might need to do that … what I said … so that we can escape from this cage. That’s all I was thinking.”

  “Same result, right? Need, want – kiss.”

  “Jakani, you – you smarmy slug, you wipe that smirk off your face right now!”

  “Oh, was I smirking? Must have been because the most gorgeous girl in the entire freaking Island-World wants to –”

  “Needs! I said needs!”

  “Alright, the Choice of the House has needs. Mmm.” He puckered his lips and made a few smacking noises. “How’s the temperature coming on over there? Suitably steamy?”

  Tytiana buried her face in her hands, shaking with laughter or crying, he did not quite know which. Everything with her was so alarming and vehement – and Jakani had to pinch himself. Just a second, man! This meant she felt the same way he did! Ignoring that actually quite revealing drivel about wants and needs, and the minor fact that nothing in either of their cultures allowed either of them to actually commit such a heinous transgression, the truth staggered him. How could she want him? He was unworthy! Lamko filth! And she was glorious beyond words or hope or any ideas he should rightly entertain. She must be using him. Manipulating him. The moment they escaped, she’d turn around and say ‘never again.’ Surely.

  Then, she lowered her hands, and her eyes were filled with a spark that introduced the fear of Dragons into his knees. “Very well, Jakani Sakazi. This is our second battle and the one in which you demanded victory. Therefore, you can have your kiss.”

  Uh-oh.

  “Oh, come on now. Lost our courage?”

  “No.”

  “You’re imagining kissing a salamander’s backside?”

  “No! Don’t be ridiculous.”

  Tytiana stepped toward him; he stepped back automatically. “Am I too fearsomely ugly? You could close your eyes to make this terrifying prospect more palatable.”

  “Ch-Ch-Choice, be reasonable. You know I can’t do this. Ever.”

  “Oh, but you can.” She smiled a Dragoness’ smile, her hair flaring out behind her with the turbulent force of her feelings as she advanced again. The cage bars pressed against his back. “We’re nowhere near Helyon and that accursed caste system. Out here in this cave, in this cage, we are just a girl and a boy who need to survive. Surely you can kiss a girl if your life depends upon it? Or would you prefer a taste of Choice Tytiana?” She struck a haughty pose. “Here we go: ‘You horrible, stinking lamko rat, I demand that you obey my orders and kiss me this instant!’ ”

  He tried to laugh, but it emerged more like a cough. “Look, can I be honest?”

  “If it helps.”

  She was close! So close, and her every flame was beguiling him now. If she didn’t see, her inner flame was yearning across the two-inch gap between their bodies as if longing to snaffle him into her fiery embrace, and thank the rainbows above he seemed to be fireproof or this would end very badly indeed, and … oh, her violet eyes! Burning down at him from four inches above his own height, her beseeching expression performed an act of sweet violence to his ability to resist.

  Jakani heard himself splutter, “If you say we’re not bound by Helyon law here, then I get to choose, right? Honestly, Tytiana, I’d give my right arm for the chance to kiss a treasure like you, but I fear everything I am and know would just collapse and be different and … and how could we ever go back to being what we were before?”

  Maybe he didn’t want anything to be the same …

  She nodded to show she was listening. “So, the honourable choice is to die in this cage without having kissed me? Aye, I see your logic. Look, it might not even work.”

  “I – I think it will.”

  “So you might end up enjoying a kiss for its merits alone.”

  “There’s a million ways life could be worse.”

  “However, I’m thinking,
maybe just a chaste peck would be enough?”

  He spluttered, “But I don’t want just a chaste – eeee … oh, dear. That rather betrays everything, doesn’t it?”

  Then her gleeful laughter bubbled forth and his answering merriment stirred the fires at her cheek, breathing across the slopes of her bare shoulder as her arms curved about him to the meeting of their desire, and her hair fell about his face and around his body like an incandescent waterfall, until all his world inhaled her beauty.

  Forever.

  * * * *

  She burned. How sweetly, how deeply and intimately, how powerfully she burned! If ever there was a moment in her life that should release the promised Dragoness, Tytiana knew this was it, for his kisses rocked her soul like thunder. At some point long after they remembered to breathe in the fire that lived between them, she ignored his small sounds of remonstration and moved her hands to the bars of the cage. Soon, the metal began to glow orange.

  “More kissing needed,” she murmured.

  For once, the Dirt Picker obeyed without protest.

  It took a dint of fancy manoeuvring, since neither of them wanted to or dared to break the connection between them, for him to understand that she needed him to place his hands upon those now yellow-hot bars she had been working on. Metal heated enough should bend, right? Given as he had his strength and must surely feel as she did, Tytiana felt confident they could pull this trick off. The metal was actually spitting and sparking beneath her hands now. She realised she was feeling pain, but her healing magic had been keeping it at bay.

  She broke the kiss. Had to. “Jakani. Place your hands on the bars.”

  “Why? What? Oh, you’ve … lost your clothes.”

  “Oh no!” Tytiana covered herself instinctively. “I’m burning up! Oh. You can’t actually see much, can you?”

  * * * *

  Fire upon fire. Flame wreathed her limbs and poured up and down her torso, surging again and again throughout her person in complex, swirling patterns Jakani could not immediately identify. The heat she generated was intense, like standing right up against a blazing hearth fire. There was no detail of her limbs or face, torso or hair, that was not aflame in orange, gold and crimson, yet Tytiana was not consumed. Incredible. Nor was his clothing, oddly. Hers had been incinerated. That must be some peculiar foible of the magic.