by Marc Secchia
* * * *
Brityx and Huari had been even naughtier than promised, Zuziana commended them mentally, ogling her newly acquired husband as flagrantly as was wholly appropriate. How much lean, sweat-glistening muscle, mister ex-monk? Those mounded, ropy abdominals thrown into full relief by his straining posture? Scandalous Islands of yumminess! How happy she was to have corrupted him within a short few days of his adopting a new profession, namely, helping her and Aranya beard Sylakian tyrants. Masterful work on the man-acquisition there, she congratulated herself, but she did desperately wish she had lips to lick, because she had a burning desire to do some serious drooling.
Still, Zip hoped he did not drop that boulder on his left big toe. That might spoil his day.
As Ri’arion staggered off down the short track toting a sizeable hunk of granite upon his shoulder, Gangurtharr and Ardan sprinted ahead with their loads to the far end, dumped them across a rope line, and hefted even bigger boulders for the race back. The men were barefoot, clad in nothing more than the calf-length, deep blue leather trousers beloved of a people once entitled the Dragon Haters. That – praise the stars above – left Ri’arion’s well-muscled, battle-scarred upper body bare. Her man was no stripling, having trained at the fabled warrior arts of the Fra’aniorian warrior-monks since he had taken his first toddling steps, but he appeared slight, even boyish, in comparison to the sculpted magnificence of the Shadow Dragon’s Human physique in which every muscle and fibre stood individually etched beneath the sable beauty of his scarified, tattooed skin – no doubt a response seeping through from Aranya’s mind, Zip realised dazedly – and then … Gang. Roaring rajals! Man-mountain. Shoulders in keeping with the eye-popping physique of an angry male Dragon. Strength enough to raise a boulder of eye-watering proportions above his head, but as she watched the recently embodied man lost his balance, drawing horrified gasps from the crowd …
Aranya awoke at last. Introspection broken, her serious-minded friend glanced about in alarm. Although Zip was convinced she could not possibly have spied the danger, her instinctual whiplash of magic wafted Gang’s load out of harm’s way. The boulder bounced off the sand to one side as the huge man crashed to the ground, thankfully not copping that pebble atop a cranium more durable than any Dragon’s scale-armour.
Thanks? Not a chance. The ex-gladiator thundered his discontent!
Typical Dragon.
Ardan paused to make a show of helping Gangurtharr rise – riling him further, which was absolutely the point – while Ri’arion staggered toward the pair, still labouring to complete his second boulder. Zip experienced the curious sensation of not-her-eyes scanning the crowd and her unfamiliarly dull hearing taking in the clamour reverberating around the balmy warrior-training hanger. A sandy floor of perhaps two hundred feet in length by a hundred wide was bracketed by a decent crowd, thanks to Brityx’s invitation. The Lost Islanders cheered lustily for their favourites as the men set to their competition once more, and Aranya’s awareness noted the mostly female sound.
Zip buttoned down her thoughts. All part of the despicable plan.
The men sweated through two more rounds of boulders. Ri’arion, not having the benefit of draconic strength, failed to shift his boulder on the third leg and Ardan lost ground to Gang on the fourth. To rousing cheers, the newly-minted Shapeshifter Dragon raised his fifth boulder, a speckled granite beauty weighing substantially over half a tonne, two feet off the ground before lurching off down the track. Ardan could not even reach around his boulder to grip it.
“A little healthy competition?” Aranya said dryly.
With a shake of her lustrous dark curls, Huaricithe said, “Lifts the spirits.”
Her eyes followed Ardan through a short foot-race, seven laps of the cavern touching the wall at each turn. Ri’arion won with Ardan breathing down his neck, and Gang lumbered through in a distant third, huffing and puffing mightily. Not his event.
Aranya elbowed Huari slyly. “How does he ever catch you around the pillow-roll?”
“Have you considered that I might enjoy being caught?”
Zip chortled appreciatively.
Growing rather more heated of cheek, her hostess coughed, “Someone’s keeping score?”
“You know Dragons,” came the reply, raising Aranya’s suspicions immediately. Dear Immadia. She had no clue, Zip thought. “Why don’t you let yourself be distracted?”
How fascinating to observe from the perfect insider position, another woman’s regard for her man. Zip’s derision evaporated in a rush of amazement. The artist in Aranya picked out details at a dazzling rate, each image intense and complete. Flick. A snapshot of the sweat beaded upon Ardan’s battle-scarred left deltoid. Flick. Noting how the magical lights dangling twenty feet from the ceiling burnished the veins bulging over his biceps with coppery tints, highlighting the pulse and flow of his inner life-magic. Flick. A perfectly synchronised contraction of the right quadriceps muscles as his weight pounded his heel into the sand, throwing a deep but healed-over injury into momentary relief. Flick. The visceral reach of her desire for his manly-draconic scent. Flick. The tempest of oath magic seething between them, playing through her memories to unearth traumatic echoes of their first meeting, coupled with notes of profound regret.
Oh! Zip sighed. Now who was intruding upon whose private memories?
The men worked at push-ups until they dropped; to her surprise, Ardan won easily and was continuing to show off, doing one-handed repetitions while Gang and Ri’arion egged him on. “One hundred and fifty, one hundred fifty-one …”
Eventually he collapsed, groaning without need to resort to fakery. Two hundred and twelve! The crowd’s hooting and whistling, however, brought him to his feet with a bound and a broad grin. He flexed his pectorals and then arched his arms overhead, tensing every muscle in his body until Aranya’s poor eyeballs nearly scalded their sockets in appreciation. The Immadian breathed, “Unholy smoking volcanoes!”
Undeniably. That was pure, volcanic Dragon. The crowd’s delirium struck a deafening pitch. To Zip’s mounting surprise, Aranya yelled and cheered lustily for Ardan, despite causing herself a coughing-fit. Nothing of polite, reserved Immadia in that dance, the Remoyan decided with glee!
Her attention shifted to a particular person standing in the crowd.
Patience, little one, Brityx replied privately. In her Human form, she was a tall, raven-haired Shapeshifter matron who appeared as lean and deadly-striking as a Dragoness’ talon. After the wrestling.
Aye, noble Brityx, Zip responded.
Gangurtharr took the anvil-toss with ease, making the crowd scatter as he struck the back wall of the cavern with a throw fuelled by a roar of almighty frustration, but then Ri’arion snatched the honours from Gang by a rajal’s whisker in the third round of wrestling – small as he might be compared to the Dragon Shapeshifter duo, his skill in hand-to-hand combat was nonpareil. He did come out limping and wheezing, however, courtesy of a signature Gangurtharr body-slam straight out of the gladiator pits of Wyldaroon.
“Gang held back,” Aranya whispered to Huari.
Huari pursed her lips. “He doesn’t know his Human strength yet, Aranya. Better that than broken bones. The monk destroyed Ardan.”
“He didn’t enjoy that,” said Aranya, measuring the tenor of the Western Isles warrior’s fires.
Ardan clapped Ri’arion on the shoulder. “Well fought!”
“Speed and trickery,” said Gang, clasping Ri’arion’s forearm. “You’d make a fine gladiator. Next time, though, I’ll rake this sand with your splintered bones.”
“Next time you’ll be the one eating sand, noble Dragon,” the monk grinned back fiercely.
As Aranya watched a squad of soldiers quickly setting up bars, Zip picked her moment. “Petal, could I take over for a moment?”
“Why?”
“Oh, alright. Can you just ogle Ri’arion for a bit so that I can enjoy this, too? Enough visuals of strapping Western Isles biceps for me. I�
�m a married woman.”
Aranya’s fires streamed into her body. “Zip, I’m not trying to –”
“I’ll settle for a few lascivious glances,” she goaded her friend wilfully. “You know, focus on those cobblestone abdominals, slaver over the backside wrapped in scandalously tight leather; all the scrumptious manliness on display over there. Like you used to stare at Yolathion when you thought no-one was watching.”
“Zuzi, you just – you –stinker! Fine!”
As maddened as a feral Dragoness, Aranya acceded. At once, Zip walked her new and unfamiliarly tall personage over toward the monk, eyeing him up with unmistakable intent. The oath magic hissed around her and through her, spitting like a furious snake. As she had suspected, the oath magic was an indiscriminate protector of what it saw as Aranya’s inviolable connection with the Shadow Dragon. Perfect plot. Aye, Fra’anior might have apologised for slamming the pair together in the very hope that such an inviolable bond might be formed, but the repercussions echoed through Aranya’s life to this day. Much of her partial victory over the S’gulzzi which had risen from the Pit of Despair could be ascribed to this very connection, arguably the deepest and most mysterious expression of all draconic magic.
However, the oath magic could be turned to other purposes … may it never become a liability.
Zip reached out to stroke Ri’arion’s arm. “Islands’ greetings, handsome. And what might your name be?”
The monk jumped almost as much as Ardan. Aranya’s increasingly stormy presence fulminated in the background. Thunder chuntered around Yiisuriel’s mountaintop. “Ara … uh, Zuziana?”
“Aye, it is indeed your very lonesome wife, who is entertaining some deeply immoral thoughts just now, you sexy beast.”
Ri’arion coughed, Whaa-oof!
Ardan growled, “I just can’t get used to –”
“A Human beating two Dragons?” Zip put in smoothly, touching her throat as Aranya’s voice box operated at an unfamiliar pitch and timbre. “What are you ahead by, Ri’arion dearest? Three points?”
Gang and Ardan snarled in concert, “One!”
No mind that she could no longer tuck herself beneath his arm. Zuziana swallowed, and pressed her body against Ri’arion’s with the air of a tavern tart touting for business. Lowering her voice, she purred, “Will you win for me, my lovely leopard-man?”
To say that the monk was discomfited – as was she – was an understatement. Ri’arion twitched away, his eyes full of questions. It was wrong to abuse her friend’s person like this, but Zip persisted, pursing her lips to blow a few kisses at her husband. Pique was needed. Brazenness. And a full glamour-shielding of her intent. Just what they would expect from a dissolute Remoyan Princess, she thought despondently, cringing at her friends’ expressions.
Ardan looked incensed.
Zuzi … Aranya puzzled within. What are you doing?
The more she salivated over every sensation and emotion that pertained to Ri’arion, the more strongly the oath magic reacted, graduating now from a few hisses to a full-throated thundering like a Land Dragon’s eye cannon warming up. Aranya observed with mounting concern, but did not yet grasp her intent. The response from Ardan was every ounce as visceral as one might expect from a Dragon spited. Fire. Deep-seated, jealous rage. A physical swelling of the muscles and a thrumming of tendons in readiness for battle. The impossibility of his mate dallying with another male – betrayed! Wounded! Enraged!
Deftly, Huari slipped between them and said, “Gang, you’ll show these two reprobates how it’s done, won’t you?”
Ardan rounded upon the next drill with an inarticulate snarl.
Having marked with blue chalk the desired position of each man’s hands upon the bars, the soldier running the event called, “Ready, combatants? Friends, I mean …”
No-one laughed.
Chapter 2: Give of Thy Fires
Ardan CHAMPED HIS teeth, so sick with wrath it seemed to lodge in a heated ball in his throat. Freaking Remoyan … whatever! He did not want to think ill of her, for he knew how deeply Aranya’s ever-ebullient friend must rue the Thoralians’ attack that had led to her downfall, but this was unacceptable behaviour. Disturbing! Wrongness washed his soul like caustic lye as he dried his hands with chalk dust, and then reached above his head for the metal bar. All he could see in his mind was his girl fondling another man’s arm – no intellectual knowledge that it was Zuziana of Remoy who spoke and acted thus could excise that image from his mind. None! It was beyond perverse!
Gritting his teeth, Ardan focussed on the forthcoming challenge. He was Dragonkind. He would win.
Fury lent him terrace lakes of raw power as the drumbeat started, marking the timing for the three men. Flexion. Chin to the bar. Full extension of the arms. Another flexion, the muscle fibres of his latissimus dorsi – another of those draconic linguistic peculiarities, for Ri’arion said that no-one knew the origins of such scientific terminology – curving in great bands across his back as he settled into his rhythm, matching Gang and Ri’arion repetition for repetition. One for Aranya. Two for Bane. Three for Lurax. Four for Sapphire. Five for Dragon Rider Nak. Quietly, he recounted in his mind his family and clan, so crucial to the cultures of the Western Isles. Thoralian had razed his home Cluster of Ur-Naphtha with Dragon fires. He had no family, no place and but few fragmented memories of the past; no foundations to his world but these.
Eleven. Twelve.
Ardan’s gaze touched the leather ur-makka wrapped about his right wrist. Sha’aldior. How had they known? Who had pierced the veil of the future to gift him a spirit-name of such visionary power? He vowed he would protect his own with all of his being, beyond life if necessary, against the depredations of the Thoralians.
Never give up. Never give in. He was … Dragon!
Twenty-one. Again. One more.
Yet, despair rimed his heart with bands of ice and iron. Surely, when he thought like this, he must sense the stirring of his inner fire life? Yet all within his breast was a frostbitten wasteland. His Shapeshifter Dragon slumbered. This was the peril of the triple-strong Lavanias collar with which the Marshal had enslaved him … suffering skanky windrocs, and now he felt her gaze reaming his back, and even the touch of her eyes sparked upon his skin with a prickling sensation like tiny briars of flame!
Thirty-one. Thirty-two.
Ardan pumped out the repetitions, minimally aware of Gang’s gasps to his left and Ri’arion’s cool, controlled breathing to his right hand. He existed in another space. No magic – he had none left. Just the pure power of muscle, tendon and bone, the abilities he had been given as a man, and the concentration upon a single goal. Winning.
Forty-four. Five. Six.
Gangurtharr’s roar chilled him to the bone! The intangible oath magic roared once more as he began to see via the implausibly vivid projection of Aranya’s mind, the individual striations of his muscle fibres thrown into sharper and sharper relief by bourgeoning luminosity, the sweat steaming off his torso, the bar gleaming as though burnished in furnace fires. Knowledge seared his mind afresh. He was Ardan, warrior of Ur-Naphtha and Dragon Shapeshifter; the adopted son of Fra’anior himself! Her vision sharpened upon his physique with excruciating exactitude. Revelling. Glorying. Appreciating him with all that was woman and Dragoness and artist rolled into an overwhelming awareness of febrile perception. Aranya’s searing regard. Her desire. Her amethyst gaze piercing his flesh like burning talons!
Fifty-nine! SIXTY!
Heat and power swelled his heart as Gang dropped away with a low curse. Ri’arion’s breath hissed sharply. The monk plumbed his last strength, but Ardan powered on and on, abiding in the furnace fires bathing his entire back now. Humbled. Exultant. Terrified of what might be; of failing to become more.
Suddenly, he became aware of his own voice babbling, Please … oh, please …
And another voice commanded, Paint him, Aranya. Paint your Dragon.
Sapphire? Or Fra’anior? Ardan could no
longer tell, for the exercise hanger had grown lambent, suffused with the unbearable whiteness of the first fires of draconic creation, and the watching faces shifted in smeary white blurs as people and Shapeshifters dropped to their knees, and his flesh assumed the pristine translucency of untainted water as that extraordinary light gleamed right through his being, forcing the raddled shadows to combust like aged linens tossed upon a bonfire. The consuming fire! Fragmentary memories of his past made bile surge into his throat. He would burn, burn, burn!
As if spirited away upon fearful wings, the conflagration mellowed into the wondrous notes of a new melody. Sweet relief coursed through his veins in viscous spurts of molten flame, as if her fire-song now evoked his inmost being, the true nature of what he must become. The flesh of his back, shoulders and arms became her canvas. He saw every bunched muscle, every mound and hollow and dip, every detail of every ancillary muscle and battle-scar, down to the verimost pores of his skin, captured in perfect detail – described in the poetic language of infinitesimal rune-fires, he realised. This was the magical insight of a Star Dragoness which the Remoyan Princess had once explained to him; rune-magic expressed at the atomic level. And now, a sense of rippling spreading across his flesh. Tingling. His skin began to transform in her mind’s eye. Roughening. Forming a patchwork of crenelated ridges. An outline of scales. Changing with every breath. Gathering definition. Armoured hardness. Metallic lustre. Becoming Dragon!
Could Aranya thus resurrect his Dragonsoul?
To the once-Shadow Dragon, it seemed that tumultuous waves bore him aloft upon gossamer wings. Whose eyes were these, that knew his being so intimately as to reclothe him in Dragon hide? That sketched each talon and so accurately rendered the deathly, slightly curved steel blades until they were indistinguishable from what had been before? That traced the phenomenal bulk of a Dragon’s flight musculature behind his neck and across his trapezius and deltoid muscles? That breathed living fires into his soul? The Immadian Princess stood before him now, gazing upon him as though she sought to plumb the very essence of Ardan-ness. Her lips, shining with such pure luminance that only the faintest hint of rose touched their otherworldly appearance, curved upwards at the corners as always when she was amused or simply content.