by Marc Secchia
“Och aye, and I said I’d seen everything, but – Santazathiar’s oath, lad!” Mister Garamyssill growled at Keir. “Dinnae ye ken an old Elf’s heart needs some warning before ye Dragon-slap him with something like that?”
His wife chuckled, How many decades does it take to become a true believer, my-heart’s-husband?
“Always have been, my wee bonny lass, but now … I am even more. Lad –” He gazed at Keir, just shaking his head. “I see why, now. I see why. I’ve just … I’ve been …”
A fat tear rolled down his cheek.
To everyone’s surprise, Narini moved over to him and slipped her tiny hand into his. There now, honoured-Grandfather, it’s alright. Santazathiar knows all. Will you sing His song?
I … he stared at the little girl, and then wiped his rheumy eyes. Which song is that?
The one that’s in here. Listen. Reaching out, she placed her hand flat over the region of his heart. Her eyes shuttered. Hmm. Yes, there it is. Hmm – mmm-oo … aah … she began to hum softly. Your mommy used to sing this song over you, didn’t she?
Touching his right temple, the old Elf smiled as if recalling a fond memory, and then he clasped her hand warmly. So she did, little one. So she did.
In a moment, he found his breath, and he chanted more than sang:
Long of talon and longer of fang,
Through fiery air his challenge rang!
To ride forth with all masters of airy spaces,
To the portal they set their faces!
Led by the greatest, the crimson tide of Yore,
We called him Santazathiar.
Bright of scale and brighter of eye,
His clarion call a trump on high,
Passing through the fiery portal, its lightning-chased chaos,
Unto the enemy’s dread onyx dais,
Led by the greatest, the crimson sovereign of Yore,
We called him Santazathiar.
Keir rubbed the shivers off his arms as he considered the wording. When Santaclaws flew to Olde Earth, he must have passed through that portal, described as both fiery and lightning-chased. He did not think the songwriter had embellished the moment. Perhaps he or she had even been present, as a Dragon Guardian. For he knew what he had seen, smelled and sensed in that storm above the Abyss, of which the song’s imagery had so vividly reminded him. Could it be that Auroral Storm Diamond had come to him from another realm, a world that lay beyond such a fiery portal? Might she be of Olde Earth … or have come from another world entirely?
Boggle the mind!
Could the Dragon Riders of old have abandoned Tyanbran in such a manner? This might explain their total disappearance eighty anna before – but neither the manner nor the reason behind it.
He had so many mixed feelings about potentially joining a tarnished tradition. Potentially? The correction slipped into his thoughts. He was already connected to this dragonet. Soul-connected? He had only suspicions to guide him as to how deep their union went. Now, it was up to him to revive that tradition. He would restore honour to the Dragon Guardians, he vowed. That was the right and proper thing to do.
Keir only realised he was staring at the dragonet and she at him when he became aware of Rhyl’s hand clasping his shoulder.
“Welcome back from the land of Santazathiar,” she smiled.
“I … uh,” he managed, ruffling up a few more spikes in his white hair. His neck ached. How long had he been immobile? “Sorry. I was far gone.”
“I saw. Dinnae ye worry, I stayed behind to babysit ye both. The others have already descended into the treasure cavern to take a look around. Yer Dad’s laid down the law about the treasure. He and Harik had this idea of making a treasure cart on wheels –”
“Those short boards we lugged over the ravine?”
“Aye, there ye have it.”
“Smart. I had nae idea how we were going to transport several tonnes of gold back to the entrance, except by backpack, which would have been tough going.” Bending, he chucked the dragonet beneath her chin. “Och aye, and what’re ye up to then, my bonny spark of lightning? Did ye greet Santaclaws already? Does Dad’s great plan include moving the stash away from the entrance area, too?”
His cousin threw him a knowing look.
“Aye, alright Miss Smarty-Snowshoes. Just catching up around here. Vaguely.”
“Come along, Mister Vaguely Does It.” She linked her arm into his, and smiled at the dragonet. “And ye, Diamond?”
Rrr … Riril!
Alright then, up you come. Springing eagerly into her outstretched arms, Auroral Storm Diamond overdid it and clashed her muzzle into Rhyl’s lip. Ouch! Oh, you silly … never mind. It’s nothing.
After a moment, a contrite paw crept up and touched her bruised lip. Srr-eee Riril. A slight flash ensued as a spark leaped over to her lip; the Elfmaiden chuckled at the sensation – ticklish, she said – and the dragonet tested her droll, lopsided smile. Apparently they both understood there had been healing magic transferred. Keir’s gaze dropped to her right hand, attracted by a flash of silver. The patterns on her skin were still present, but did he detect … a slight bulge, which had not been present before?
Before he could mention anything, the first group of ten Elves arrived on the outlook platform, bearing thirty to fifty pounds of gold apiece. Skiver, several complained jovially. Layabout. Finished Dragon-gazing, or whatever you were doing?
Keir chuckled, I was engaged in extremely important work, I’ll have you know. Which he did not happen to remember in the slightest, mind. Worry-pang! Is there a spare backpack down below?
Laran, a lanky older teenager with silver-blonde hair, drawled. Now, no calling in favours from Daddy, alright?
He grinned, Tempting as that may be, I’ll carry my fair share, thanks.
Believe it when I see it.
Do try to keep up, you poor old jungle vine.
Unfortunately, as it turned out, he also had to carry a fractious hatchling who would not leave him alone. Keir climbed and descended the 931 steps five times before his father called a halt to the gold transport efforts for the day. The children needed to eat, and there had already been one accident over in the section holding the Dragon armour – thankfully, only a bad sprain earned when a pile of Dragon armour collapsed upon several children.
After a light trail dinner, Keir wanted to help with a cart run to the far end of the caverns, for Auroral Storm Diamond had acted agog at the statues of her slightly larger draconic relatives. One issue with this idea –the mysterious lighting in the treasure chamber rippled into darkness less than twenty seconds after he left. Faint yells from behind alerted him. A shouted conference and a swift test later, he worked out that the issue occurred if he left the cavern. Not the dragonet. That put the proverbial wasp in the soup as far as he was concerned.
He was not supposed to be magical. Most certainly, not the sort of weird magical that nobody understood, which might just link him to that crimson monster on the other side of the cavern that Narini was now in full meltdown about. Scared. Of course she was scared – so was he. Only a wee bit. It was a manly, healthy sort of fear, he tried and failed to convince himself. What five anna-old would not be afraid when she was far from home, anxious and overwrought? Arami’s way was to want to fight something. Sometimes a big brother was just the right sack of potatoes to hit. Narini’s way was to fling wide the floodgates and have a massive bawl.
The problem was, she also set off most of the other children.
His way was to crack jokes.
Plucking up a large diamond which the twins had been playing with, he pretended to pull it out of his mother’s left ear. Right behind her back. He made a funny face. ‘Ooo.’ Next, he pulled it out of her right elbow.
“Keir, nae helping!” his mother growled, waving him off half-heartedly.
“Watch this, Narini,” he called. With deft sleight-of-hand, he pulled the egg-sized diamond out of his own nose.
Her tearstained face cracked int
o a tremulous smile. Clutching her favourite blanket close to her chest, she whispered, “Keir’s silly.”
“Silly? I’m now’t silly. Who’s this?”
He marched the diamond across his palm with big military steps.
“Dad.”
“This?”
“Och aye, that’s ye, big brother.”
“Nae, guess again.”
“Prince Zyran brushing his hair?” She giggled when he nodded.
“Look, Keir. Yer dragonet’s watching,” Arami interrupted, snuggling closer to her sister. “Here. I’ll hold ye. Dinnae ye worry about now’t, I’ve got ye.”
“Ooh, clever girl.” He waved the diamond toward her muzzle. “Who’s this? Mmm, kissy-kissy, where’s my Prince?”
“Rhyl!” the twins hooted.
“And this?” He pretended to make the jewel fly past Auroral Storm Diamond’s muzzle. She tracked the movement with curious intensity, her tail twitching. “Whee … diamond me.”
The diamond’s sparkling mesmerised the hatchling. Keir bobbed it back and forth in front of her gaze, watching the brightening of her eyes with a growing sense of hypnosis of his own. Did the refraction of light through the gemstone facets in some way remind her of her birth, or of the qualities of lightning itself? Whatever it was, he could read her rising excitement in the rhythm of her tail, the refulgent fires of her eyes, and the sudden spike of ravenous hunger in his gut –
Without thinking, he tossed the diamond lightly into the air and snatched his hand away.
Whee-KRACK!
Auroral Storm Diamond blurred past him from a standing start, snatching up the gemstone mere inches from his departing fingers. With a blinding flash and a sharp report that echoed around the cavern, she disposed of it. Swallowed whole? Her white, forked tongue zealously slurping around the fangs. She turned ten feet away with a look of mild amazement creasing up her muzzle – all four ears pricked up to maximum attention – and then he spotted something new. A sly narrowing of her eyes. A considering tilt to her head, as if she wondered what Keir might think if she did whatever hatchling naughtiness she was contemplating in her heart. The eyes blinked once, very slowly.
She made an experimental sideways step, a sidling action he had never seen her make before.
Keir raised an eyebrow. “Och aye, young lady?”
Off in a flash!
He galloped after her, yelling and perhaps salting in a few words not best suited to young ears, as she scooted up a mountain of gold coins to snatch up a fabulous ruby and sample that, and then she skidded down the far side, setting off an avalanche of bullion. As he rounded the pile at a dead sprint, he found the dragonet sampling a pawful of emeralds. Not to her taste, apparently. Nor was a fabulous sapphire flower the size of his doubled-up fists, a moment later.
“Nae! Auroral Storm Diamond! Come back here this instant!”
Keee-irr?
“Dinnae think yer all cutesy now, ye wee scallywag.”
Krrrr-krrrr Keee-irr …
“Stop right there – stop yer nonsense!”
Who said parenting was fun?
Bounding from one treasure chest to the next as Keir gave chase, she snatched up samples of garnet, tourmaline, jade, chalcedony and ruby. All the while, she cast strange, wild glances back at him, torn between the fun of the game and a furnace-like hunger in the pit of her belly that she could neither understand nor control. Barrelling through a stand of longswords, she attempted to scale one of the house-sized treasure chests which was bound in straps of brass as thick as his forearm, but her still-soft talons could not penetrate the timbers deeply enough to hold. She fell back with a squeal of discontent.
“Got ye!” Keir swooped. No such luck.
Chasing her through the Dragon armour section, he wove between the ribs of a mighty set of armour and ambushed her from the side. Auroral Storm Diamond jinked a fraction of an inch past his outstretched fingers. With a sound that reminded him suspiciously of a chortle, the cheeky dragonet vanished into a maze of pyramid-packed stacks of Giant-sized ingots, each three feet tall and fifteen long. Consumed by the annoyance and fun of the chase, Keir raced up the side of one stack, bounded lightly along the golden beams, and tried to ambush the rascal from above.
No dice.
A gleaming white tail vanished into a jumbled stack of treasures. She popped up wearing a king’s crown upon her neck. Keee-irr! Keee-irr!
No, don’t you – aargh!
Oh, how she loved the chasing game! The dragonet had never been in such an environment, he realised, full of glitter and gleam and wonderful places to hide, cracks to sidle through, and mountains of armour and weapons and jewellery to climb. To her,this was a cross between a giant maze and a jungle gym – and if she revelled in such an environment, how much more would she love the jungle? His growing exasperation only served to egg her on. Gold coins cascaded merrily toward him, bouncing off his knees and thighs as she scrambled awkwardly to the top of a pile eighty feet tall, which washed up against four almighty metal treasure chests. He had no clue what was inside, but the dragonet was bent on finding out. Paws scrabbling. Wings flaring to try to help her balance as she tumbled away, down, down in a shower of gold …
Keee-irr! she trilled as his hands closed upon her flanks.
“Ha, ye wee rascal,” he laughed, rubbing her behind the ears. “Why were ye like a hound on the scent – gently with yer squirming, darling. Talons in.”
Keee-irr – she sniffed the air keenly. Krrrr-krrrr … KRRR!
He knew her hungry noise far too well from many an hour spent on the wrong side of midnight trying to figure out what she wanted. This time, it came accompanied by several clear signs. Inhaling some elusive scent deep into her nostrils. Her stomach gurgled appreciatively. Next, her right paw waved uncertainly up-slope. Krrrr – rrrp?
Up? Sure, we can try.
To the tune of musical jingling at every footstep, dragonet and half Elf finally scaled the mighty slope of coins. Maybe they should leave King Daryan more than two tonnes of gold? This place was incredible.
So was the chest they approached. This particular silver metal chest could have swallowed his entire house with room to spare. The rim, cover and lock were richly embellished with green gemstones he did not recognise, encrusted in thick settings of an orange-grey metal. The lid had been left propped open by a four-foot metal rod that was comfortably as thick as his torso. Since the rim was three feet above his head, Keir boosted the dragonet up first and then he leaped up to grip the metal flange with his fingers. A moment later, they were gazing into a … pool of luminous green liquid. Weird. It had the texture of molten lead, but the colour was all wrong. His face tingled, and his body felt strangely drawn to it – not in a comforting way, but as if it were trying to suck his marrow out of every pore.
“Now’t this one, paw monster,” he said. She shook her head gravely in agreement. “Try the next?”
Mrrr-prrt.
Whatever that meant. His baby was growing a new range of sounds, he realised, much as he had noticed his twin sisters do in their infancy. The pace of development was incredible. Sponges passively soaked up water. Humans, Elves, and Dragonkind too, as had become clear to him over these weeks since Christmas, actively interacted with their environment, searched for responses and matured so rapidly one needed to be paying attention every moment.
They walked together along the five-inch wide rim to the next chest – Keir confidently and his charge, much less so. This one was closed. Keir failed to detect anything, but the dragonet bristled and hissed between her fangs. Moving swiftly on. Trying not to think about paws capable of lifting and moving such immense treasure chests. After bounding over the curved lid, they slid down a fresh golden slope to a marginally smaller chest which, if he was not mistaken, was carved out of a monolithic block of emerald. Again, it lay propped open. They peered within. It was filled to about a foot beneath the rim with semi-transparent sapphire balls, about the size of the top joint of his thumb.
“Now’t here either … oh!”
At the sound of his voice, the balls rippled with a dry, rustling sound. Not at all the metallic sound he expected. A rather more sinister sound, like the jungle ochre-banded mamba he had once nearly stumbled upon as a child. His only warning before the strike had been a slight crackling amongst the leaf-fall. Aye, his mother’s razor-sharp reactions had saved him that day.
Keee-irr … swivelling awkwardly on the rim as she sensed danger, the hatchling checked his nearness.
Storm! His frantic yell cut off as he dived headlong toward her, managing to catch only her forepaw as a tendril-like appendage snaked out to seize her dangling tail. The edge punched him in the sternum as he reflexively allowed himself to fall, trying to yank her free.
He ended up almost folding her in half.
Auroral Storm Diamond vented a squeal of pain. Keee-irr!
I know, sweet fires – hold on! Her four paws were clamped to the edge but still, inevitably, the creature or entity hidden inside the treasure chest began to drag her backward. It was huge, powerful and ancient, he sensed. A Dragon predator? Holy Santazathiar!
Keee-irr – Keee-irr!
The terror in her eyes threatened to consume him, but for the first time, Keir found himself able to hold his own – perhaps, it was only the clarity of his own dread that allowed him to react incisively. With me, now! Come on, fight!
Pulling up one-handed, he lunged over with his leaf-blade and swung hard. Again! The tentacle simply writhed and reformed intact, as if he flailed at water. Where it had wrapped four times around her tail, the scales steamed as if burned by acid.
Locking his legs over the rim, he shifted his grip to hold the dragonet beneath her armpit and around her torso, snarling, “I’ve got ye, girl. Help! Someone, help!”
The problem was whatever monster lurked on the other end of the single, powerful tentacle. He could see no way of loosening its powerful grip; the bulk of it caused the sapphire marbles within the chest to heave and churn, but the few tantalising glimpses he was afforded showed a coal grey, barrel-like body no different to the tentacle. Go for it and try to find a weak spot? Drown in that unknowable substance? He was about to bellow again, when he spied several of the younger Elves and a Weapons Master gazing up at him from the base of the gold slope. They bore swords, bows, even a metal lance one of them must have picked up from amongst the treasure.