by Marc Secchia
Despite the banter, Aranya was observing the incoming Dragonwing closely. At this velocity the sonic shockwave would be phenomenal. If her calculations were correct, they had to be travelling in excess of 450 leagues per hour, or – her brain sizzled as she arrived at the figure – 2,200 feet per second! She could not even cry out to warn them. How fast was telepathy?
No time. Warning the Dragonwing on the mental level, Aranya reached out to cushion them with her Storm as she adjusted their flight path to pass between the Dragons. Jink! She shot between two Greens so speedily that the Dragons clearly lost sight of their quarry; all they saw a second later as they spun multiple times on their horizontal axes was the unrepentant wriggle of an Amethyst tail. Jaws dropped. Wings flared and snapped in consternation. Nothing and no-one treated Lesser Dragons with such impunity!
Aranya crowed, “How about that, Iri –”
“Island!”
She reacted before the word had fully formed in her sister’s larynx. Draconic prescience, perhaps, or the power of twin-ship of which they were barely beginning to scratch the surface. Multiple layers of air dampened their near-impact against Ha’athior’s flank; so closely did they approach the tip of the large Island, her wings brushed the foliage violently flattened by the winds of their passage. She had to correct twice more, once for a flight of dragonets and the second time to propel them into the rim-wall gap between Ha’athior and its neighbour.
A mauve-amethyst comet streaked over Fra’anior’s caldera, decelerating so hard that Aranya, Iridiana and Pip were mashed against the leading edge of their pneumatic shield. Orange sparks hissed past them, mere inches from noses and muzzles. The dragonets raised a chorus of protests.
Aranya twizzled her aching neck. “Whiplash.”
“Another massage, sister?”
“Let’s survive the landing first, shall we? Then you can mangle my bones.”
Never had a Dragon crossed the caldera in under ten minutes. Aranya understood that the speed record for flying from Gi’ishior to Ha’athior was owned by none other than Hualiama’s Grandion, the fabled Tourmaline Dragon, at fourteen minutes flat. She managed the crossing in less than two. She was forced to plumb the uncomfortable depths of her Storm powers to discover how to condense air into hailstones to help protect even Dragonkind from the ferocious friction-generated heat within their shield. Tan and grey volcanic gases swirled up from the simmering caldera floor, interspersed with nose-tingling whiffs of sulphur and acrid, scorched-mineral tangs. Iridiana’s dragonet muzzle seemed to want to twist itself into knots for all the gazing about she did, drinking in the smudge of the Human city and Palace to the East, the Dragonflights of guardian Lesser Dragons and Dragonships coursing between the Islands, and the colourful flocks of birds seeming to spring from every bush about the lush fringes overhanging the smouldering caldera. The slim cone of Gi’ishior’s volcano seemed almost to leap for the skies ahead of them, before settling as the Amethyst chose her preferred route of ingress – the cone, from above.
Nyahi chuckled, “You’re so wicked when you set your mind to it, aren’t you, Aranya! I can smell what you’re planning.”
“Me?”
“Yes. A sonic boom inside the volcano?”
“Would I?”
“Arrive in style. Princess to the core.”
“And, a calculated reminder to all those older Dragons whom I take after,” she added quietly. “Who we take after, sorry.” Aranya blinked as first the Pygmy girl and then Iridiana transformed once more; Pip into her Human form, and Iridiana into a long, snakelike dragonet that did not appear to have a mouth. Pip was still unconscious, but showing signs of stirring.
Gnrrr, her sister commented, clearly narked. How does this one eat?
Aranya said, A mystery for another day. I need to get this turn exactly right … she quickly touched Pip with her healing power. Strength to you, Pip. Hope this isn’t too much of a shock after all you’ve been through.
The girl moaned, Nak …
The watch Dragons atop Gi’ishior’s cone were bugling and roaring as Aranya brought them down at a sharp angle, performing another swerve that left her light-headed, and then the Dragons ducked as one as the sound wave struck them. BOOM!!
Somebody’s eager to see her daddy, Nyahi chortled inside her mind.
Aren’t you, petal?
Yes! Terrified, thrilled, overwhelmed … it’s all a great big muddle. The usual chaos.
The trio of Shapeshifters plus dragonets plunged past the orderly ranks of Dragon roosts in the upper parts of the volcano, rattling their gleaming crysglass windows and shivering the huge extrusions of gemstones that lent the light inside the volcano such extraordinary radiance, toward the pristine turquoise lake below. Aranya was determined to make this both an elegant entrance, and an occasion to remember. She braked smoothly yet powerfully, flaring out their shields to exponentially increase the friction while drawing heat away from their core.
The watchers must have thought it was a meteorite strike, perhaps, or an unknown form of attack. Dragons were still racing down from above or belatedly taking off from their perches all around as Aranya held her brood fast, and slammed to a halt mere feet above the lake. Curtains of foaming white water exploded hundreds of feet in every direction, thoroughly drenching what appeared to be a Human delegation just emerging from the great Meeting Hall doors. The disbelief writ on their faces was hilarious.
Suddenly, Aranya thought her behaviour reckless and rather silly. She missed Zuziana desperately. Maybe that was the reason. She would have said –
Nonsense, petal, Iridiana snorted. That’s what she’d tell you. Dragon drivel and ragion outgassing! Head high, shoulders back, and behave like you own the Island-World. Her tirade ended in a self-conscious giggle. At least, that’s what the ballads say Dragons are supposed to – oops – do.
Aranya eyed her new wrist decoration. This really is your defensive mode, isn’t it?
Sorry. Hard to control.
Suddenly, all three of Aranya’s hearts trout-flopped inside of her body. There! A familiar, bearded face appeared behind the posse of sodden dignitaries, moving past the shadows cast by the immense jalkwood doors into the intense afternoon suns-light.
She raised a fore-talon. “There, Iridiana. That’s our father.”
Her sister would have known – either by the look of relieved amazement on his face, or by the fact that the King of Immadia, casting aside any semblance of dignity, shouldered through the dignitaries and came sprinting down the stone path toward the lake yelling, “Aranya! Oh, my petal, Aranya!” at the top of his lungs. Madman! Only, that he was mad for love, that his father heart could not stand to be apart from her a second longer.
With a flick of her wings, Aranya darted toward him. She caught her father in her free forepaw and held him so close. Squeezed him. Sucked his fatherly scent deep into her nostrils. “Dad!”
“Hey, Sparky. Welcome back.”
“What’s it been, a week? Anyone would think you’d missed me.”
He laughed gruffly. “Ah, not so much. You just caught me by surprise, that’s all. Say, here’s Sapphire. And you’ve collected a few more dragonets. Swish jewellery, too – is that a Herimor piece? Is it changing shades to match your amethyst colouration?”
Iridiana could not speak.
“Dad, I –”
“Aranya!”
She turned with a laugh. “Nak! How are you? Do I ever have a surprise for you! And you, Dad.”
Nak came rattling down from the lower entrance to the Dragon Library, swinging his canes and stumping along at a startling speed for a man closing in on the eve of his second century of life. Click-clack! went the canes. Thwack! “Out of the way, whippersnapper!” Thud! “Make way for your elders and betters, thou odious guttersnipe! That’s my Dragoness!”
A Blue Dragoness reached out a helping paw. “Noble Dragon Rider, please be careful –”
“Fie, release mine appendage, thou crusty excuse for a daughter of sky and wind!�
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Oh, Nak! Beran just stroked his neatly trimmed beard with an air of longsuffering. Aranya could only imagine; his eyes sparkled with good humour as he met her gaze.
The Dragoness huffed in consternation as she set Nak upon his feet. “Strength to thy paw, noble Rider Nak.”
“That I am, that I am,” he boasted gleefully, tottering and weaving rather alarmingly on down the path. The Dragoness tried to follow him discreetly, but he waved her back. “No, I’m fine. Let’s not make a song and a dance of it, o resplendent fire-snorter! I must hasty on, for my Princess awaits.”
Pip shifted in Aranya’s paw. “Nak?” she moaned.
From Nak’s perspective, as the Amethyst Dragoness raised her forepaw, it must have been as if Pip popped out of nowhere. His eyes bulged. Nak’s neck and throat writhed as though he had swallowed a live snake before he screamed, “Pip!” and promptly collapsed in a heap.
Aranya thought she had just slain him.
What a kerfuffle! The Dragoness’ nimble reactions caught him a talon’s-width from a potentially fatal concussion, every Human and Dragon in the vicinity started shouting and exclaiming in alarm, and after an excruciating thirty seconds or so, by which time a crowd of dozens had gathered around and over the venerable Dragon Rider, he sat up, griping, “Give a man some air! I’m fine, I said! Just a smidge tangled up in my canes, that’s all.” He patted himself all over before clearly remembering what had felled him. “Pip! Pipper-squeaker … my Pipsicle!”
She breathed again.
Pip just beamed as if she dared to split her own face apart for joy.
Then, Nak’s lips trembled. He quavered, “Thou, mine dusky love; o thou that wast lost and hath been found, o joy; thou precious treasure fresh liberated from Fra’anior’s own hoard! Can this be? Doth mine aged oculars deceive me? Surely ’tis but a dream, yet one so blindingly fair, I cannot believe its truth. Pip, is it thee?”
“It is I, Pip’úrth’l-iòlall-Yò’oótha,” trilled the girl.
Nak tried to rise, but his knees failed him. Instead, he just held out his arms, weeping piteously. “Thou, thou, thou …”
Pip leaped out to run to him, but her long-disused legs failed to bear her slight weight. Bracing the girl with a curved talon, Aranya whisked her over to Nak. She fell upon him making a strange, ululating cry as they embraced amidst a great flurry of jubilant shouts and bugles from the onlookers.
What a reunion! Aranya’s Dragon hearts had never felt fuller of joy that bubbled like a clear mountain brook in Immadia’s springtime. For this, she could have travelled to Herimor and back ten times over. Yet was Nak’s joy somehow fragile? He had never been able to hide his feelings. Aranya searched his eyes and his behaviour as he fussed over the Pygmy girl, wondering.
The Pygmy girl kept touching his face, crying, “Nak! I can’t believe … it’s been so long … dear Nak.”
He sniffled, “Thou, mine peerless flower, t’was the fullest agony of waiting.”
“You look … well,” she faltered.
“Aye, and you’re a pint-sized liar,” he laughed, rubbing fiercely at his eyes, before a sly grin twisted his lips. “Not every day I clasp a nude beauty in my arms, saith the Nak. What a perfectly delectable little pair of nates, I do declare –”
“Nak!” she slapped his hand sharply as it swooped with lascivious intent. “Behave yourself, you old reprobate. I am just … recovering. Where’s Oyda?”
His face fell. “Abed. Ill, my Pip.”
She searched his anguished, watering eyes. “How ill?”
“Dying. She’s –” Nak choked up helplessly, shaking his head and pawing at his throat.
Aranya reached out, feeling as if she were falling. “Nak …”
He mouthed, “Petal …”
“Can we see Oyda? Is she –” He nodded at once. “But, what’s wrong with her?”
An elderly draconic voice rasped, “She has an incurable condition, noble Star Dragoness. Pyrosanguinox consumption, it is called. Some claim it is the curse of Dragon Riders.”
“Nay, it is the ultimate honour for venerable Dragon Riders; Fra’anior’s holy seal upon their lives,” argued another Dragon, but Aranya barely heard the bickering that quickly consumed the Dragonkind. Rallying her little group, forgetting all else, she rushed to the infirmary where Oyda had been resting almost since Aranya had departed Fra’anior, Nak informed her. He did not complain about being carried this time.
They found Oyda propped up abed on a treble-thick pillow-roll in a bay sized to receive visitors of both the two-legged and the four-pawed kind. By the bright lamplight, her smile was serenity itself as she regarded the hubbub which briefly snarled up her doorway. Then, her eyes ignited. “Pip? Oh, Pip!”
“Aye, it is I.”
Elation shivered in both voices.
Aranya deposited the Pygmy girl at Oyda’s beside, shocked by the change in her friend. She looked wasted away; burning up from within. Her sunken cheeks were far too flushed. So hot was she, the sheets smouldered gently around her body. Yet her smooth, shining face belied her age. Although she appeared diminished, her skin displayed not a single wrinkle despite her pure white hair and emaciated limbs. Consumption. A pyretic fire of the blood? She had never heard of such an illness, perhaps because so few Dragon Riders reached Oyda and Nak’s grand age. Interestingly, Sapphire and her dragonets tucked in at the foot of the bed beneath a mound of extra blankets. Seven pairs of fire eyes looked on with alert interest.
“This is what I tarried for,” Oyda whispered, blinking back tears. Even her eyelids appeared too thin, rendered almost translucent by the magical flames lambent within her flesh. “For you, Pip, and Aranya; my two petals.”
Pip wailed, “What is this? She’s so … Aranya, you have the power – cure her, please! Oh please …”
“Don’t touch me! Not like that.” Oyda’s dry croak arrested them. “Any breath of magic would send me … beyond. I must … I want to hold you … both. A moment. Please, everyone … just … Pip … and my petal … Nak? Just my girls … understand?”
Her request was as good as a command. Shortly, with Nak having herded everyone out of the room and with the door slid to behind them, Aranya transformed, dislodging Nyahi without so much of a squeak of compliant, and then she, Pip and Sapphire climbed up onto the bed and lay beside their friend as Oyda, in broken sentences, spoke to them and over them. She assured them of her love and her peace at departing the Island-World. Her sickness was related to the magical bond between Dragons and their Riders, she said, as best Nak had been able to discover in the Dragon Library. She had unknowingly been affected by it for several decades as the magic burned brighter and her body slowly ran hotter and hotter.
“It doesn’t hurt at all, petal,” Oyda said, caressing Aranya’s cheek. “It’s like you used to tell me about how the fires rose inside of you, do you remember? These are Fra’anior’s own fires. I believe I’ll be called beyond to the place of Dragons – to the eternal fires – a belief which riles up some of those sticky-pawed philosophers out there like you would not believe. They say no Human should thus be honoured.” To Pip, she said, “I waited. I knew in my spirit that you would come to me at last, my precious Pip, and I wanted to say, I’m sorry for all the times I believed you never would. You two are my ultimate gift, the two faces I could not bear to depart without seeing one last time. I raised you both, my Shapeshifter daughters. And you, Sapphire, are the truest of friends. Fra’anior will reward you richly.”
Aranya feared to wet Oyda with her tears, but Pip had no such compunction. She was in floods. The old Dragon Rider shut her eyes again, breathing shallowly. Her pulse flickered urgently in her throat.
At length, Aranya whispered, “Could you stand one more gift, Oyda? A small surprise? I don’t mean to cause any anxiety.”
Nyahi breathed, Noooo, Aranya …
Oyda’s ever-bright eyes flicked open at once. “Who’s that?” Who spoke? Who are you, stranger?
Not … so much
a stranger, the Chaos Shifter whispered bravely, trying to shift back into her Human form and failing.
Still, a grin briefly creased Oyda’s white-rimmed lips as she eyed the tall posy of dracofloral finery bending over her bed. Intriguing.
Nyahi sighed in irritation. Pop. Dragonet. Fizz! A beam of sparkling motes rebounded off the ceiling and landed in a glowing, mushroom-shaped heap on the far side of the bed. Honestly, can I not … in a flash, she was Human.
Iridiana regarded the Dragon Rider shyly askance. Oyda’s eyes danced upon her, before her throat bobbed with a sharp inhale. “Fra’anior’s holy beard hairs!” Then, a trill of pure joy escaped her lips. “Petal, who is this?”
Aranya could not resist. “A dusty old relic I dug up in Herimor.”
“Love you too,” Nyahi chuckled.
“She’s …” Oyda made an imperious gesture with her chin, clearly inviting the comparsion between the two girls. “She’s … isn’t she?”
“Oyda, I’d like you to meet Iridiana, my twin sister.”
Never had she seen contentment to rival Oyda’s expression. A delighted frisson tingled up and down Arnya’s spine. Gift, accepted.
Chapter 27: Departing, We Ascend
ZUZIANA HAD IMAGINED that going walkabout inside the First Egg would cure her of all boredom. Not so. She was unimaginably fed up of nothingness. Even her sleep did not seem like real sleep. Closing her eyes, she watched endless cloudscapes until she slumbered, but woke again not feeling fully rested. She could not feel her babies.
She drifted forever, feeling nothing beneath her feet.
Aranya would have thought her way out of this, but Zip was having trouble coming up with something clever. She was struggling to think at all. Was this what it must have been like for the Pygmy Dragon – for one hundred and fifty years, a slow erosion of self-awareness and cognitive function? Frankly, the prospect terrified her.
Zip tried to push down the welling sense of panic, but she was just too concerned about her babies to think rationally. Hey! Hey, somebody – I need to see something in here! I’m going to go mad otherwise.