by Marc Secchia
The Albino Dragoness patted him upon the back. “Jakani, don’t be discouraged. Becoming a Dragon isn’t always the most natural process. Maybe it just needs a little more time.”
“Tytiana doesn’t have time!”
“You’re overthinking this, I’m sure,” she said gently. Exactly his advice for Tytiana! Aye, the boot was on the other foot now, and how. “Here comes Flicker. Perhaps he has some sage advice about how to wake up your Dragon.”
Advice? The dragonet was strutting worse than any lamko boy out courting. Had he not learned how to be less obnoxious during his many centuries of life? Jakani sighed. Prepare to swallow a few choice words.
Flicker preened as he approached them. “Enough foolery for one morning. Time to give over to age and experience.”
“A good morn to you, noble Flicker,” said the Princess.
“No time for pleasantries, pretty-scales,” said he, in an offhand manner, causing Shalanya’s fires to sough within her belly. A draconic blush? Wow. “We’ve serious work to do. The intelligence service reports that a girl matching your Tytiana’s description has been spotted near Pla’arna in the dubious company of the scurrilous Brown, Excorion.”
“Excorion? But …”
“I know, I know.” Flicker held up a paw. “Ablazion perished. Excorion now has the prize, and Excorion has long been linked with the notorious Morazi Dragon Roost. A band of – I shall not essay sufficient description in polite, and shall we say, royal company. Now. It’s clear you two hapless children need to be taken firmly in paw, and I am just the dragonet to do that. My centuries of experience with Shapeshifters give me nonpareil insight into the nature and requirements of this most mystical, metaphysical transformative magic. Attend. Jakani, open your mouth.”
“Huh?” he said.
“What are you doing?” asked Shalanya.
“Applying my time-honoured expertise to the trivial problem at paw,” said he, making it entirely clear he meant Jakani. “You! Don’t hang your head like a sick windroc, boy! Learn to listen to your elders and betters. On that note, instant obedience will do just fine.”
He popped open his mouth. With a surprisingly sprightly movement, the dragonet rose upon his hind legs and tail, and slapped the pawful he had been concealing behind his back, straight inside.
“Urgh,” said Jakani. Squishy. Bloody meat?
“Chew!”
“Urgh-urtth-is?” he spluttered. Gross!
Then Flicker grabbed his head in both paws and yelled right in his face, Dragon, taste thou the bloody entrails of thine enemy!
The rich scent of blood flooded his nostrils. Dripping thickly from his tongue. Sliding metallic-sweet down his ravenous throat to ignite responses he had not known existed. Suddenly his concentration seemed to dive into the incredible tang of the life-magic contained within that all-consuming taste, kindling a visceral reaction within him which rushed through his bloodstream in an incandescent, indescribable wave of torrid heat.
The air seemed to shiver around his being, imploding and exploding simultaneously.
Newness.
Graa … GRRAOOOAARRR!! he thundered.
Yiee! screeched Flicker, leaping away as Jakani’s strangely elongated mouth snapped about in a frantic search for more food. How do I resemble comestible victuals, you blithering idiot?
Huh? spluttered Jakani. What under the suns was the matter with his tongue?
Oh, that was clever of you, noble Flicker, the Princess approved, placing a heavy paw upon his shoulder. Peace, noble Dragon. We shall have a prime haunch brought for you from the kitchens – Jakani stepped forward and promptly fell on his nose – erm, just as soon as you find your paws.
He squinted down his long black muzzle. Why’s everything so … oooooooh … I feel weird.
Flicker said, All is well, but most Dragons do attempt to look rather more intelligent than you’re looking just now. Try a few things. Go on.
He riffled his wings. Shuffled his paws. The courtyard leaped at him, then rushed away. When he squeezed his eyes shut to make that nauseating sensation disappear, Jakani immediately became aware of a plethora of sounds at an infeasible level of accuracy. His complex heartbeat, no, three hearts beating in different places – Flicker’s self-satisfied little paw clap – Shalanya’s gentle breathing and her superb female-Dragoness scent – and the sounds of the city, so immediate – a blacksmith’s bellows creaking – pots clanking in a kitchen – a child crying – a bird calling somewhere in the frozen gardens behind the Palace – everything was so real and immediate and detailed, he felt he ought to sit down.
His tail got in the way and he toppled heavily onto his side. “Ouch.”
“Told you he’s hopeless,” said Flicker.
“Gorgeous colour though,” crooned the Princess. Jakani wanted to slap her. Suffering spiders, he was trying to be loyal to Tytiana!
By Fra’anior’s own wings! He truly was a Dragon! How could this be? Some very large slice of his awareness knew that he should be running all over the place freaking out like the gibbering idiot Flicker clearly thought he was right now, but there was also a profound sense of completeness. Peace. All was right with the world in a way it never had been for him, before this seminal event.
“Huh. So he’s a rare onyx with gold flecks. Who honestly cares? My Hualiama was a thousand times rarer than him.” A paw tapped Jakani upon his … well, something, but he wasn’t sure because the sensations his body was telling him were true, were bizarre and freakish and wonderful all at once. “Four wings. Noble Dragon, everything I taught you about flight dynamics is different because you’re an Eastern Dragon. And a woefully small fledgling one, at that.”
Fire detonated inside his belly. GNARRR!!
Inside his belly! What manner of insanity was this?
“Alright, keep your hide on, genius,” said the dragonet, apparently unmoved by his flaring rage. “Let’s try a few baby steps, shall we? Like standing up without falling over. Let’s start with that.”
Jakani’s gusty sigh blew up a minor snowstorm ahead of his muzzle. Long day ahead.
Then, he opened his eyes and saw his outstretched left wing. Another aggrieved bellow split Immadia’s morning skies, bringing pause to the sounds of the city. “WHO STITCHED HOLES IN MY WINGS?”
Ever so drily, the Shapeshifter Princess observed, “That comes from belly-flopping on top of five trees on your first landing. Not a recommended technique.”
Chapter 22: A Shift of Perspective
AROUND MIDDAY, A new girl brought a snack of roasted, slightly salted mohili kernels and a couple of sad-looking prekki fruit. This girl carried a baby in a shawl upon her back. Surely she was too young … Tytiana leaped upon the offerings, figuratively speaking, with an appetite she could scarcely credit. Hunger bit her belly like a rabid tiger. For a moment, the need for taste and substance to satisfy her need, consumed all.
“Great lady, could you touch my sister, please?”
Tytiana looked up from ravaging her meal, suddenly aware of her actions. “I … of course. Forgive me. What’s the problem?”
“She crawled into a fire, lady.”
Noooo … “I’ll do my best.”
Cheek, arm and leg, all on the child’s right side, had been recently burned and the flesh was weeping a clear fluid where it was not charred. Tytiana wondered why the baby was not making more noise, when she realised the mite was unconscious. Shock clenched her gut. The girl began to plead with her; she thrust her hands through the bars convulsively. Only the knowledge of her inadequacy had caused her to hesitate.
Arise, o mine fires … why was she even speaking this way?
There was plenty. Moved by compassion, she realised that the fire was more than present. It was eager. She passed her hands over the injuries, seeing the older sister’s grimy face light up with hope just as much as the crimson healing glow highlighted her features; she dug deep, trying to focus as best she could on the restoration of the inner tissue and blood vessel
s and ligaments. She was a botanist, not a doctor! So unprepared to wield a gift like this. Yet as it so often did with her, this profound concentration upon one goal suddenly brought insight. The inner flesh. The fundamental nature of this sweet babe. That was what she was trying to influence with her nascent skills.
That was what she had completely missed with her experiments all that morning, and the previous day. She had been trying to change her environment rather than herself.
Did that mean she might still be a Shapeshifter, just an atypical sort?
As the girl departed with her baby sister, Tytiana chuckled as she imagined introducing herself to someone, ‘I’m Tytiana the Totally Confused, at your service.’
“Why do you keep laughing?”
Tytiana looked up. The Brown Dragons, Excorion’s two shell-brothers of what she understood was the usual trio of Dragon siblings, liked to pop their muzzles over the parapet every so often to check up on her. She wondered if they all possessed the same powers. If she was a Shapeshifter, why did she not have two other siblings? Perhaps there was some research into birth rates?
She said, “One must make the best of miserable circumstances, correct, noble Dragon?”
“Such as those which befell this boy you wept for in your dreams last night?”
Uh-oh. She talked in her sleep? True, her dreams had become increasingly chaotic, especially that one she had come to think of as Fra’anior rescuing her from a terrible fate. Briefly, she told him what had happened to the Dirt Picker, expecting sympathy.
The Dragon laughed horribly. “A short flight? He’s probably a frozen icicle buried twenty feet deep, falling from that height. Best you can expect is an instantly broken neck – if he struck the Island at all. Don’t worry, little one. It seems your father may want you after all, but we are negotiating the matter to our advantage. The more I hear of that High Master, the more he reminds me of a Dragon in his dealings. But we shall best him. No-one crosses a Dragon, especially not some base creature destined to serve the Dragonkind forever!”
Tytiana tried to keep her head high and her reaction private. “My father is no Dragon.”
“No. Say, you’d make a fine slave.” Hraa-haa-haa, he chuckled evilly. “You are regarded as pretty amongst your kind, aye? Hair like fire. An acceptable bauble to grace my roost. Failing that, I have many times supped upon the cattle we keep in these caverns.”
His laughter faded as the Dragon ambled off. Loathsome cretin!
Suddenly he thundered, “I am hungry! Where is my meat?” A sibilant hiss followed, “Human cattle, by my wings – they taste the best. Especially the little ones. So juicy and soft, squalling upon my tongue …”
Oh no, o Fra’anior, no! Tell me he didn’t … just … retching violently, she only just had time to reach the ablutions area before she vomited up every last scrap of her meal. Her eyes streamed with agonised tears. Holding her hair back, she heaved until there was nothing left.
Kneeling there over the stinking drain, the Choice’s helpless sobs were screams for justice.
* * * *
Flicker said, “It is important that you see yourself in a mirror, noble Jakani. Therefore, let us proceed to the buffing room.”
He blinked slowly. “Buffing room?”
“Where grubby Dragons and dragonets go to oil and buff their scales into resplendence suitable for our magnificent selves. Step lively, youngling. The Dragon entrance to the Palace is just over here.”
Walking felt so strange. It was like crawling, only he had four paws and the natural grace of his long, sinuous body to make the action work. He kept forgetting he had a tail. Also, he felt as if he was constantly about to crash down upon his much-abused nose, since he no longer walked in an upright position. However, he had successfully engaged in a bout of Dragon fisticuffs with the delicate little Shapeshifter Princess, who had proceeded to kick, pound and hurl his scaly rump all over the courtyard until he had been forced to beg for mercy. Twice. How humiliating.
Then, he had finally managed to switch on his Nikuko warrior brain and had almost choked the Princess unconscious, despite that his Dragon self was a mere fraction over half of her size. A geriatric dragonet had proceeded to slap him silly for that indiscretion.
Quit drifting, Jakani. He hurried after Flicker.
He could not help but imagine he was a beast diving into its lair.
The Palace was a curious mixture of castle and home. The front part was all carpets and cosy homeliness, but in actuality the structure of the place was more like a stone fortress of a type he had never seen exemplified so fully before, a castle. The highest tower was called Izariela’s Tower, she who was famously mother to Aranya, the Star Dragoness.
Phew. Shalanya was right about having to fill big paws in her family. Apparently Aranya and her best friend, Zuziana of Remoy, had overthrown the world-dominating Sylakian Empire fairly much on their own. Those were problems on a scale hard to imagine. His were only life and death. Only!
Trailing after Flicker, he blinked in an attempt to contain his incredible Dragon vision. It kept tricking him with zooming in on some detail right across the courtyard, or just beneath his nose. He did not know what to do with four wings upon his back, even though Flicker had demonstrated furling and unfurling the ruddy appendages at least twenty times, he still kept tangling them up. Four wings? Why not a simple two? Which actually worked and did what he told them to do?
He dreaded trying to fly.
One thought kept pounding through his brain. I’m a Dragon. I’m a Dragon. I’m a freaking scaly four-pawed monster!
Who had just breathed a little fire out of his nose at that thought. Sokadan would have been crowing over how cool all this was. How magical. This former Dirt Picker just felt awkward and silly and stupidly powerful all at once, like a boy playing at dressing up. He tripped descending the stairs now and had to rescue himself with a screech of talons upon stone before he tumbled into Flicker, who regally ignored the fledgling Shapeshifter’s shenanigans right behind his tail. They were in the basement level of the castle, he realised, moving back under the training courtyard. Every tunnel and access route was brightly lit with oil lamps and was warmer than he supposed was logical given Immadia’s extreme northerly latitude.
“In here,” said Flicker, stalking grandly into a set of chambers that branched off the corridor. When Jakani entered, he pointed with his paws, “Receiving chamber. Washing pools, hot and cold. Oiling. Buffing. Massage and treatments such as scale picking, talon sharpening, fang maintenance, tongue brushing, and the like.”
An elderly purple-clad servant bowed in greeting. “Noble Dragons. May I heat the oil for you?”
“Perhaps later, my good mammal,” Flicker said airily. “I wish to show this Dragon to himself in the buffing room.”
“Very good, o fire-snorting quadrupeds,” said the servant, who evidently knew about Flicker and his propensity for salting a conversation with casual insults. “This way, please.”
“I designed these rooms myself.”
“Masterful work,” said the servant. Flicker ruffled his wings shamelessly.
Around a pit filled with crazily canted mechanical brushes and rollers, adjustable wall to wall and even ceiling mirrors provided an ideal means for a goggle-eyed Dragon to admire himself from every conceivable angle. He stared in awe. What was weird was to feel like Jakani the young man looking out through eyes attached to a brain he knew without a shadow of a doubt was his, only to see a creature gazing back at him. A beast. Wings, paws, fangs, the whole draconic shebang. Craziness. Everything worked. Extend and retract talons. Curl toes. Swish tail. Champ jaw. He had to keep trying every possible function just to discover what it did and how it felt.
“Alright,” said Flicker, tapping Jakani’s cocked elbow for attention. “Note the essential draconic features and colouration. I believe your colour shall best be described as Onyx-Gold, given as your primary scales are this strikingly deep, refulgent black with, if we observe very c
losely, gold speckling. Plus we have more prominent golden highlights and flares upon the muzzle, most notably around the eyes, gold etching upon this very impressive thicket of skull spikes, and further splashes along the most prominent spine-spikes from neck to tail. More generally, you have an Eastern Dragon body structure so you are longer and leaner in the torso than most Lesser Dragons. You have two sets of wings with the associated doubling of the upper shoulder musculature. I believe this will allow fine manoeuvring in aerial combat other Dragons can only dream of. Dragonets of course are aerial masters, and you will only twist yourself into knots attempting what we can do.”
Jakani stared at himself. Actually, he wasn’t a bad-looking fellow, as far as the Dragons he had met went. Decent toothy grin, a rakish slant to those skull spikes that jutted backward from the skull to protect the all-important neck, and if he flexed – wow. Muscles upon muscles. Shalanya quite fancied his colour too, which she said made him look like an artistic statue. Hmm! Would Tytiana like it, he fretted? She had shared her fears about becoming a Shapeshifter Dragoness in some detail with him. Now he was the one with paws and a tail!
This was not how it was meant to be!
Onyx was the colour of the holy and almighty Fra’anior himself, and so it would be regarded with favour by most Dragons. She and Flicker had been rather less sure about the gold detail, however. That was unparalleled in draconic lore, to their best knowledge.
Just one problem, which Flicker spelled out for him now.
“So, you measure twenty-nine feet from muzzle to tail, which isn’t saying a great deal in Dragon terms. You’ll be out-muscled by any half-grown youngster out there, never mind a fully grown adult. You’re less than a third of the size and a fifth of the body mass of that null-fires, slap-pawed, spavined son of Dramagon who calls himself Excorion, for example. In close combat you’ll be eaten alive. So, don’t!”
