Resurrection Dawn

by Marc Secchia

  Landing at the now extremely busy lake shore, Samodeé and Alodeé briefed a much enlarged group of Dragon leaders. Again, to her mild startlement, she observed the celebrity status her mother appeared to enjoy – further, that she acted oblivious to it. Could this be due to the mystery of her origins or draconic subtype? She herself held more of a curiosity value, if she judged the tenor of those fiery glances correctly. After being commended for their good work and ambushed by a vocally displeased quintet of dragonets, they rejoined Rainflash, waiting in line for a healer. She had four serious cuts, two of which showed the sapphire colour of her bones beneath the flesh.

  Alodeé stared! “That’s crystal?”

  Rainflash enjoyed her tone; she made a chirp to her other injured friends, who chuckled dutifully. Crystal bones? Not at all breakable, if those cuts were anything to judge by. The deep ones must have glanced off the bone.

  In a sec, she stood before a weary-looking healer. The older woman cleaned each cut carefully with a herbal wash, before pinching the skin together with exactitude and … one zigzag of the forefinger later, she fused the flesh somehow with stitches made of lightning! Well, that was –

  “Eh, not me,” she protested.

  Well. That earned her a beast of a reprimand and a chorus of dragonet giggles behind her. Yep. Big sister had just firmly dumped herself in the soup. Alodeé sat down with a bump and had a cut she had not even noticed, up on the hairline beside her right temple, cleaned out and zapped. Worked a treat on the green one too, it appeared. The healer pronounced a job well done, not without a hint of challenge. Alodeé attempted a thank you chirp-trill. Very well received. Apparently she was incredibly clever, a master of the Lightning Pygmy tongue. Sure. Next week, right?

  She touched the spot curiously. Tingled like heck.

  “Leave that alone,” Samodeé growled. “It needs a few hours of fresh air.”

  “Grrr,” she said. Maximum snark. “What’s the plan, Draa-gan?”

  “Terrible joke from the green bloke.”

  “Bloke? Wow, low blow.”

  Her Mom said, “In brief, we fight a rearguard action until sundown. Then, in a concerted and incredibly well-coordinated manoeuvre, we all disappear down a very large hole in the world. We are the Guardians of Dawn’s Radiance. We plan to show you what that radiance can do.”

  “Great! Plenty of time to whittle a few arrows then.”

  “You’re that keen to go back in again?”

  “Daughter of a Dragoness. Besides, what’re you going to do – drop a few boulders on their heads?”

  “Oh! I’ll just go suggest that to the leaders, shall I?”

  Alodeé gazed after her in bemusement. Did Dragons not think beyond the holo screen? Of course they could drop boulders. Carnoraptors loved to attack in thick clumps. With a Dragon’s exceptional sight and flight skill, they could hardly miss. No need to even dirty their talons. Or maybe they did not go for the ignoble approach to fighting?

  In about 10 mins, she saw several flights of the younger Dragons heading aloft, carrying nets full of rocks and boulders. Ooh. Even better. Let the stone rain begin.

  * * * *

  Samodeé took her and the quins aloft in the late afternoon to help out and give the youngsters their first taste of battle. The carnoraptor invasion continued to roll over the land and through the air, but despite the bestial appetite for slaughter, the predators also grew weary of constant, withering attacks. Some had stopped to sup on the easy meat options. Others paused to investigate likely caves and woods for Dragons, who were not present.

  The dragonets had a merry old time tossing boulders at ground-bound targets, while Alodeé tried her best to pin anything that approached them in the air. She soon burned through the seventy arrows she had manufactured, somewhat hastily, it had to be said. Disappointing shooting.

  So tired. I need food.

  “Hungry again, Alo?” Samodeé fluted, shaking out her empty net. “You eat like a Dragoness.”

  “Insane, right?”

  She shook her head. “I never remember having an appetite like yours. Come on.” She called fluidly to the five animated dragonets. “I’ll ask the Serpents to fish up a small snack for you, which you’ll promptly store in your left big toe and beg for more.”

  Why had she never imagined her mother as this funny, vital, caring person?

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  With the rainclouds finally having shifted along to leave a pristine light mauve afternoon sky, the Dragons and remaining Serpents made preparations for the big move. Whole families of Lightning Pygmies mounted up. Many of the slower-moving Serpent Dragons had been underway for several hours already, writhing sinuously down a broad golden river toward the Eye, still over 30 kloms distant. The Dragons and Pygmies on the battlefront disengaged and suddenly, colourful wings filled the sky with a massive rushing sound like a storm renewed. Breathtaking! Alodeé could not drink in enough of this sight.

  She hugged her knees. This was what it meant to be part of something incredible.

  On Samodeé’s back, Rainflash’s family introduced themselves. Mom, Dad, a smattering of grannies, grandpas, aunts and uncles and kids and cousins. Twenty-one people in all, including her friend. Excellent. Now she had four little ones making themselves at home on her lap. Best get used to the idea. Pretty soon, all her kid brothers and sisters would be bigger than her. A lot bigger.

  Beat them up while she still could? Hmm.

  So many Dragons took off at once, she could barely see patches of sky above. So many gorgeous gemstone and crystal hues. Easily over 1,000 different colourations, she estimated. Many mated pairs carried fiery eggs or had a brood of between three and seven dragonets in tow, although few were as young as Mom’s. Other adult Dragons hung unobtrusively but protectively around Samodeé and the five little ones. Sure enough, they tired soon – busy day for younglings – and the adults took a passenger each, except for shy Platinum, who winged over to Alodeé and insisted upon being accommodated with the other children.

  Jealous much?

  She had never had other siblings to pester or play with. Quite novel, discomfiting and wonderful all at once.

  Mellowing into a fine evening as the sun set behind the far peaks, the day remained warmer than Alodeé had imagined. Was the weather here warmer? Could this be the effect of the great sinkhole that was the Eye?

  30 kloms was no great flight for Dragons, but even they were diminished by the immensity of the hole as they approached after an hour’s steady flight. It was fully 5 kloms across, lined with beautiful, flower-shaped white crystals of a type she had not seen before. Even without the direct sunlight pouring up it as yet, the light was already an extraordinary quality. It gleamed secretively through the crystals and danced in the plumes of many, many waterfalls of differing shades, reds and golds and greens and pinks, all falling down into the immense space with a reverberation of thunder.

  Samodeé banked and suddenly they flitted down into the Eye together with thousands of other Dragons. What an immensity of draconic glory! She saw Ssirinssar of Gold sailing down a golden stream not 40 mets from her seat.

  He gave her a broad Dragon smile and fluted, “Welcome!”

  She waved back. Then, like a soundless explosion, light exploded up through a depthless tunnel toward the Dragons and she had to close her eyes. So intense, it was like being punched in the eyeballs by pure beauty.

  Suddenly, everything was light.

  Chapter 23

  Standard 1301.07.20 Estimated – The World’s Eye.

  DYSHAULU, THE WORLD’S EYE, was a realm of light so brilliant, even the Dragons squinted or shut their eyes. They began to sing. Sound built upon sound and light upon light, echoing back and forth from the walls of this immense chamber, until it seemed to Alodeé that the very portals of heaven itself sang glories to her soul. The pure radiance rippled through her being, so powerful that she imagined she was being reshaped from the inside out. If she shielded her eyes with her hands, s
he barely saw the shadows of bones.

  The Dragons sang of light. She understood barely a word, but it was the harmonies and haunting timbre of what they sang that moved her the most. When they repeated the song, she began to hum along as best she could, one tiny voice lost in the immense ensemble.

  Then, despite the blinding brilliance, she began to notice the outlines of the flowery crystals glistening with a new property of lustre. For many long mins, the flowers cartwheeled through the air, sparkling and dancing, causing her to clutch Samodeé’s battle spike for fear that they were flying – well, as crazily as a moth, but she still felt steady, solid and dependable beneath Alodeé’s knees. The flowers continued to flow around her like a river of unknowable dreams. All was white and whiter than white.

  Light in light in light … oh, what’s happening?

  A peculiar inner sensation suggested her bones were in motion and the rest of her had better catch up, or else.

  “Here we go,” Samodeé laughed. “I’ve never done this before, myself.”

  She stretched like elastic, from nowhere to everywhere to somewhere in a fraction of a sec. Out of the whiteness, familiar shapes coalesced. The Dragons flew and swam through a sea of vast pink jellyfish that poured around and past them.

  Alodeé blinked, “Did we just …”

  “Apparently so,” her mother sang sweetly, gazing about her in delight. “We’ve travelled right to the outer portal already. We’re well on our way, Alodeé.”

  Her bones prickled madly.

  My sweet girl, she’s so overawed by all this.

  She stiffened. Whose thought was that?

  From nearby, Ssirinssar of Gold’s voice explained that they had travelled from the inner portal to the outer in the draconic way. Dryly, he noted it was unlikely Humanoid science had any way to explain such travel as yet, but she should understand that they had just travelled 7,921 of her kloms at light speed. This type of travel was unfortunately not available everywhere.

  Shucks. Tough luck, that.

  Now, the real journey begins, came that warm, familiar voice again. Alodeé prodded her ears. When do I tell her how grave a danger the Humanoid colonists face?

  She said, “Mom –”

  “A moment, Alo. Let me translate.”

  Rather ponderously, Ssirinssar continued to explain that advance scouts into Dyshaulu had taken measurements via a process even her mother was unable to find words for, which suggested that a super-migration had already begun outside of the ward barrier, driven by the Obsidian Shaman Flyers. Given the data that Alodeé had supplied regarding her direction and probable speed of travel, they calculated a strong possibility that the carnoraptors were headed directly toward the Human colonies. She was not to be too concerned. Variability in the calculations, speed and her travels since, considering her epic journey of over 21 kilo-kloms …

  Blah blah blather!

  I’ll swat her over the planetary rings – where did this insolence spring from?

  The crazy thing was, if she focussed on her Mom, she could listen in on and recognise some of her draconic emotions – sense the infuriated clenching of her paws, marvel at the surge of fire into her brain and taste for herself the speed and prodigious power of her physiological and mental processes.

  She whispered, “Mom, I hear you.”

  “Good. Now, listen to Ssirinssar. Once we pass through the portal, we will assemble a strike force to travel with all speed to Settlement Central via the deep flows mapped aeons ago by our kind. If you understand the sacrifice these Dragons and Lightning Pygmies are making for you Humanoids, young lady, you will keep a civil tongue in your head and receive instruction with humble gratitude!”

  “Mom, I hear you.”

  Samodeé only just harnessed her temper. “Then why the … behaviour?”

  Mom, think something at me. Seething violet eyes. Something silly.

  Teenagers are so delightful!

  Freaking lumoslugs, she supposed she had asked for a Dragon-sized dollop of sarcasm. She parroted, “Teenagers are so delightful. Another one?”

  Oh, I’ll bite your green butt, alright!

  “If you plan to bite my green butt, I’ll kick yours faster than you can catch me.”

  Ah, the pleasure of seeing shock seize up a Dragoness so severely, her wingbeat froze and she wobbled like a drunken soldier before recovering. “Alodeé!”

  “That’s my name, beautiful Mama Dragon.”

  “ALODEÉ!!”

  Holding out her hands as her mother spurted a 50-met gusher of Dragon fire, she thought carefully, Ah, nice and warm. Sorry if I annoyed you, Mom, but it is scary and overwhelming to discover a telepathic ability. I guess our passage through the Dyshaulu changed something, maybe washing out a residual effect of those vitamin supplements you had me take all these years?

  Samodeé thundered something unintelligible, causing thousands of Dragons to glance curiously at the four-winged one. Then, she said, “Sorry. Sorry I made a mess of things, Alodeé, but if you’d experienced the rampant Classism in those days … I guess I feared, most of all, that you’d end up like me, stuck inside a high-security prisoner transportation module, an experimental subject …”

  “It’s alright, Mom. We’re good.” They shared a smile. “Just need the wings now.”

  She made a show of rubbing her forepaws together with a wicked chuckle. “Shall we test if you’re fireproof?”

  With Ssirinssar of Gold demanding an explanation, Samodeé paused to satisfy that itch. There we go. Clever girl! Yep, he almost popped with ‘I told you so’ practically written on his gleaming fangs.

  Fair enough, let the Dragon have his due.

  Many of the Dragonkind had never seen this place. As before, the air was breathable but entirely pink. So were the vast jellyfish. She observed that their trailing tentacles parted for the journeying Dragons, behaving exactly as they had for her. An electric touch, but no apparent danger. Not even for the Pygmies. So, this realm was keyed to accept its core inhabitants? Who then had let in the carnoraptors? Or the Obsidian Shaman Flyers? More to this history than met the eye, she suspected. Crazy tech, too – imagine setting up an entire shielded realm within the atmosphere of a gas giant? Even to her advanced civilisation, this sounded suspiciously like magic.

  Movement caught her eye. Ah, here came the Phoenix Cats. The gorgeous, white-speckled hot pink flying cats were one of her favourite creatures of those she had discovered so far. Lethal, but totally cute. A bit like her friend Rainflash.

  The Cats approached the Dragons with skittish caution. Alodeé noticed that due to the light gravity here, the Dragons barely had to flap their wings at all. Dragonets played around the adults; even the great Serpents undulated through the air with clear satisfaction, behaving as if they were in water. A couple of Pygmies flashed over to greet the cats, who reacted by flaring their wings and bursting into flame. Hilarious! More greetings, more flaming Phoenixes … and Ssirinssar calmed the growing chance of disaster by dint of bellowing loudly enough to be heard by 9,000 Dragons all at once.

  Alodeé prodded her ears. Oof.

  5 mins later, the Pygmies and Cats played together like the best of friends. Hmm. Clearly, Ssirinssar was the adult in charge of this little playground. They even appeared to have found a common language of sorts, something to do with spitting like lightning bolts. To her left hand, a small group compared sets of fangs to great amusement. Flash-bang here, flame-wings there. Here she was, the only green-skinned redhead girl, the only Class U of her type –

  We will find our kind, Alodeé. One day.

  Great. Now Mom was even reading her subconscious fears.

  With a mental grin, she replied, Would it be really rude if I jumped onto your head to give you a hug?

  Not at all. After that, I’ll start teaching you how to focus your thoughts. Oh – you rascal!

  This was as she landed lightly atop her Mom’s head. Alodeé gave her a cuddle that felt a decade overdue. Not that cuddling the br
idge of her mother’s extremely large nose was necessarily a natural experience, but her situation could definitely be worse. Just ask a girl who had grown up largely without this person in her life.

  “You’re strong!”

  “Yep, so don’t give me any trouble, or I’ll tie a knot in your tail, pretty Dragoness.”

  Red clearly thought this was a totally inappropriate tone to be taking with his mother. He bristled by, hissing and growling. With a laugh, Alodeé took advantage of the low gravity to surprise-tackle him about the neck.

  “Canid-sucking – no biting!” she scolded. Thank heavens for the arm armour. “We’re family!”

  The red dragonet chirruped unhappily.

  “Yep, just you remember I’m the boss,” Alodeé grinned, wriggling onto his back. “Now, take me for a ride.”

  He promptly turned upside down and tried to dump her, the rascal. After he worked out that in the reduced gravity carrying her weight was no issue, however, Red clearly decided he was the Dragon’s tail and wings. He flapped around proudly, showing her off to everyone who mattered – apparently, fairly much every Dragon, Pygmy and Serpent in sight. Gold and Goldie, the names she had given her male and female gold brother and sister respectively, decided this was quite enough and ambushed Red in an attempt to steal their big sister for themselves. Instant scrap!

  Funny how much their personalities already differed.

  Now she had to take turns with the other four, Samodeé informed her, because Mama Dragon did not want to be left to pick up the mess afterward if the jealousy business got out of hand. Right. This would be the responsibility talk. Dad also rocked this particular lecture.

  She pretended to pout.

  Stow that lip, young lady! How old are – oh, I get the joke. Samodeé showed fifty fangs in a huge grin. Alright, I’ll try to take myself less seriously.

  The Dragons flew on for several hours, making excellent time through the slow-moving clouds of pink jellyfish. Every so often, the bell of a jellyfish would pulse languidly, shifting a creature along, giving the atmosphere an incredibly dreamlike quality. Alodeé worked at language lessons and keeping busy dragonets from being bored – a full-time occupation, she was quickly learning.