by Marc Secchia
“Old and large, and ten in number. No Immadian fleet can stand against their combined power. And we know exactly where your precious father is. We’ve known all along.”
Her thoughts were moths fluttering aimlessly around the candle of Thoralian’s words. She had never known cold to literally burn, but that was how she felt beneath the wintry blast of his laughter. The Yellow-White Dragon must have powers of ice, frost and hail–powers the scrolls spoke of with awe and dread.
“You tracked me?”
“He did.” The Dragon indicated Yolathion with his foreclaw.
“Yolathion?”
Thoralian’s lip curled. “You still don’t understand, do you? I’ll show you your precious boyfriend.” He growled at the man standing alongside Aranya. “Bring her.”
Not-Yolathion grinned derisively at her confusion, causing doubt to mingle with the sickness in her stomach. He didn’t have a twin brother, did he? One whose smile was not quite true, whose mannerisms increasingly struck her as unlike the man she thought she had known–by the mountains of Immadia, had Yolathion shrunk?
The soldiers picked her up once more, a limp rag of a body which had been the proud Princess of Immadia just days before, and followed the Yellow-White Dragon’s thumping, belly-scraping passage deeper into the cavern. She began to hear sounds above the wind’s keening–muffled shrieks, perhaps. At length they passed through a doorway wide and tall enough to accommodate Thoralian’s bulk, and the sounds suddenly took on a dreadful clarity. Torture. The awful, burbling screams of a man in mortal agony.
They entered a gallery above a deep cave. At Thoralian’s gesture, the soldiers forced her to the edge and bade her look down.
“I don’t like traitors,” said Thoralian. “I had no more use for him, but a quick death was hardly justified.”
Not-Yolathion said, “The brutality lies in the design, lady. Each and every joint in the body can be separately crushed, twisted, dislocated or broken. The machine creates these unnatural angles under a very slow, irresistible pressure. I doubt many of his bones are left whole.”
“A joint-breaker,” growled the Dragon, with a low, flame-filled chuckle.
It took Aranya a number of seconds to understand what she was seeing. There was a machine down below, a great mess of levers and pulleys, gears and chains, and dangling in the middle of it like a fly in a spider’s web, was a man. Yolathion. She barely recognised the broken, bleeding thing he had become. Only his size gave him away.
Aranya’s chained hands flew to her mouth, stifling her horror. His screams flayed her too, as though she were the one being tortured. Oh, Yolathion! Ruined, crushed …was this the result of her dalliance with Ardan? Was this the Black Dragon’s handiwork?
I loathe you! Her mental scream was meant for Fra’anior.
Thoralian’s bulbous eyes measured her. You speak Dragonish despite the Lavanias collar? How unexpected.
She made no reply, unhearing, mourning for Yolathion. His injuries were too grave. His knees and ankles had been crushed. Naked skewers of bone stuck out of his flesh in multiple places. His left wrist and elbow hung at inhuman angles. Blood and body fluids striped his body and pooled on the floor. This meant Yolathion’s death–how could he even live, having suffered thus?
And the other man? He who was not Yolathion? Her anguished eyes shifted to him.
Inclining his head, he said, “Kerliss, Chameleon Shapeshifter, at your service.”
A chameleon-person? She had once seen a chameleon in the Crescent Island jungles. Zip had pointed it out, playing with it for a short time, showing Aranya how it could take on the colour of her clothing. It made a repellent kind of sense. He could transform into other people. Mimic them. Steal their identity, their very life. Had she kissed this man? Held him in her arms? Loved an impostor?
Since when had the Chameleon Shapeshifter stolen Yolathion’s life?
They sneered at her in concert, Human and Dragon, enjoying her low sob of realisation. Blow after blow. Aranya reeled, unable to grasp it all at once.
“So much to learn about being a Shapeshifter, isn’t there, Princess?” said Thoralian. “Kerliss hails from Herimor. His family has a very rare Shifter talent. I can’t tell you how useful it is.”
“We imitate. We track magic,” said Kerliss, pointing at Aranya’s upper arm–the very place where the would-be assassin’s magical dragonet had marked her, back in Immadia. “All the way to Yar’ola Island, down to Ur-Yagga, north to Fra’anior. We mapped your every move. Poor Beran and his ridiculous two-front strategy. It was doomed from its inception.”
Aranya wished she had some clever words, any words, to beat away the slowly-strangling despair. She knew that this was what Thoralian had planned for her. He meant to break her. His torture would not be quick. It would be mental, physical and emotional. Had he wished, he could have tossed her to his troops for entertainment, or killed her with a paw-stroke. His plans were more devious and far-reaching. Was he arrogant enough to wait for Beran to come to him? If he knew all, why had he not crushed the Immadian advance long before?
The Yellow-White Dragon hissed between his fangs. “I toyed with the idea of having Kerliss return to Beran as you, Princess. His face as his own daughter murdered him would have been priceless.”
The Chameleon Shapeshifter laughed. “Oh, my Lord! What a delightfully wicked notion.”
Aranya’s voice trembled as she said, “I beg you, let Yolathion go.”
“That traitor? Don’t be ridiculous,” said Thoralian.
Her abrasions were a new voice in the litany of her pain as the soldiers dragged her along behind Thoralian. Her skin felt as though it had been stuffed with rough pebbles. She had to force herself to lift her feet, lest they stub one of the purple nodules against a stone. Aranya deliberately pictured Zip’s torture at Garthion’s hand, and forced herself to continue. Nurse the anger. Be stronger than this all-powerful beast of ice. Yet all she heard was the whimpering and incoherent pleading of the once-handsome young man who had courted her.
They moved along the high gallery and through a short tunnel to another cave, lit by lanterns strung high overhead. Aranya saw two Red Dragons below. They crouched unmoving, as if asleep on their paws.
Here, Thoralian paused. “We lived twenty years in these caves after the Shadow Dragon came,” he said. “We survived. Here we bred and grew strong. When the creature vanished, we emerged to claim the Island-World for our own. Of course, other Shapeshifters appeared on a regular basis. We captured them and stored them here, against a future day. There are hundreds of caves just like this one. Every so often, I get the hunger. Then I feast.”
Aranya cried out as he moved. In a flash of wings, Thoralian dropped to the cavern floor, thudding down four-pawed with an impact that she felt through her feet. He extended his claws, and sliced the first Red Dragon’s chest open with deliberate, practised strokes of his talons, peeling back the Dragon hide with horrifying finesse. Clutching the still-beating heart in his fist, he looked up at Aranya.
“I eat the heart for courage, and the brain for wisdom,” he said. “Isn’t that the Jeradian custom you shared with that fool at dinner?” Sinking his fangs into the throbbing flesh, he ate with relish.
“You’re a cannibal,” Aranya breathed, aghast.
Oh, heavens above and Islands below, had the Chameleon been with them since before Jeradia? Or a spy, at least?
Thoralian paused to slurp at the golden Dragon blood running between his fangs. “I know. I’m a freak. There are those in my family who plot against me. But I am strong. I’m the strongest Dragon in the world. You see, I have power over the minds of Dragons around me. I control their thoughts. That’s why they don’t trust me.” Suddenly he coiled, predatory, a feral gleam springing into his eye. “I trust nothing and nobody. Not even Kerliss. And I was the first. It was I who shielded my family from that ravening Shadow Dragon. I, who led them to hide in these caverns.”
Aranya could not tear her eyes away from
the spectacle of Thoralian chewing a Dragon’s heart.
“And now you would bring another Shadow Dragon down upon us?” His sudden thundering stunned her. Thoralian leaped from the floor of the cavern to the gallery in one colossal bound. His paw struck her spinning, while his outstretched talons sliced the head off the soldier who had been stationed just behind her. Thoralian’s fangs snapped inches from Aranya’s face. “You dare to rescue a creature of Shadow powers, a devourer of Dragons? You shrivelling little fool. Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
She heard a whimper begin in her throat; bit her weakness to oblivion.
Ardan was not like that, was he? He was good, even noble. But as she watched Thoralian with the air of a wounded animal, a bitter seed of doubt lodged in her craw. The legend of the Dragons’ disappearance majored on a creature called the Shadow Dragon. It boasted a strange and irresistible power to mesmerise Dragons, and a monstrous appetite for their magic–just as she herself had been entranced by Ardan’s depthless, devouring black eyes …
She said, “Ardan isn’t that creature.”
“Oh, his name’s Ardan? Is that his Dragon name, too?”
Aranya disguised her shock with a fake sob. Had she unwittingly granted Thoralian some kind of hold over him? The runic name on his ur-makka had been Sha’aldior. Was that his Dragon name? Was it as Ri’arion believed, that Dragons had secret names by which their power could be evoked, or controlled by others? In which case, she should guard that information with her life. Instinctively, she buried the knowledge lest Thoralian wrest it from her mind.
The Yellow-White Dragon shook his head, his breath so cold, her eyelids threatened to freeze together and her bones ached. “You misjudge me, Aranya of Immadia. You’re on the wrong side in this war.”
“You’re evil,” she said, but her heart was not in it.
“I need power,” he said. “The only power in this Island-World which can stand against the Shadow Dragon, is the power of the First Egg. And you’re going to help me secure it.” His talon stabbed her chest, slicing the skin. “You’re the whelp of a Star Dragon.”
Aranya knew that a Marshal of Herimor had used the power of a First Egg to levitate an entire Island across the Rift. According to legend, that same power had corrupted thousands of Dragons, turning them into his invincible legions. Power, surely, which should never fall into the paws of a creature like Thoralian. There was a lie hid within his words. She just could not identify it, not in her state.
Or was Thoralian already using his mind powers to bend her to his will?
“Why should I join you?” she asked. “All you want is the clout to subjugate your own family. Then you’ll rule unchallenged.”
“The Shadow Creature escaped at Naphtha Cluster,” Thoralian mused. “Will it feed on the Dragons I have sent, and only grow stronger? I must accelerate my plans. The Egg lies across the Rift in Herimor. You will help me retrieve it, Aranya.”
She said, “I’ll never help you.”
His evil laughter boomed over the body of the Dragon he had slain, and all around the cavern.
He thought he could force her? “Never!”
“Oh, you will, Princess,” he said. “You see, I’m party to a secret which’ll ensure you do exactly as I command.”
“Oh, that’s rich,” Aranya scoffed. Islands’ sakes, she would not be sick, not in front of him. But her pride was the first thing he had destroyed. And her body was not far behind.
Thoralian’s mighty talons clasped her body like a cage of the coldest steel, and his breath was colder still. “You see, I know the precise blend of poisons we used to bring down Izariela,” he said. “I also know the antidote. That’s why, if you ever want to see your mother alive again, you’ll do exactly as I wish, and all that I wish.”
With that, the full horror of her situation crashed in on her. Aranya’s screams faded into darkness.
* * * *
After her gruesome interview with Thoralian, the pox struck with a vengeance. Languishing in her cell, Aranya did not know one day from another, or one hour from the next. She dreamed repeatedly of Ardan cupping her in his paw, only for a chill to start seeping into her body, then the claws turned white with frost, and Thoralian’s pale, baleful gaze froze her solid … but even the dreams gave way to the galloping spread of the pox. The pustules swelled like caustic blister-worms growing beneath her skin, running into each other. The pain multiplied. Every movement brought a fresh burning, a chafing of over-sensitised skin, or cloth tearing away from the crusted, open wounds. She lay abed, only to find that the sheets stuck to her wounds, red with fresh blood, brown with the old, and stained yellow with pus and fluids seeping from every inch of her skin.
The doctor came and left many times, but his treatments afforded her little relief. A glimpse she caught of herself in his mirror made her shriek. She was a monster! A disfigured, unrecognisable monster.
Aranya sobbed into her pillow, wailing in endless agony. Sha’aldior! she cried, casting her voice across hundreds of leagues. Sha’aldior! Come for me, please … no, don’t, you mustn’t see me like this …
In the darkest nadir of her despair, Aranya considered killing herself. Death alone would bring a surcease from this nightmare. Thoralian’s proposed abuse of her powers would be stayed.
Pip, oh Pip, she raved. It’s you he wants. You have the power. Why did you make Nak and Oyda forget?
Her last rational thought was of how ironic it was that Thoralian wanted her, when what he needed was a Dragoness who had been dead for one hundred and fifty years.
Nightmares crept into her dungeon, oozing along the walls, slithering beneath her bed. Aranya scraped her arms bloody against the bed-frame. She could scrape the pox right off her skin, this way. She had to. Her powers rose within her, scalding her skin with their everlasting flame. She lived and re-lived the moment when Garthion had first attacked her, when her flame burst forth to burn away his sight, to disfigure him as she was now disfigured. She was trying to knock herself unconscious against the wall when a pair of arms slipped around her shoulders and lowered her onto the bed.
“Easy, Aranya. It is Aranya?”
Her eyelids fluttered. “Jia-Llonya? Oh, Islands’ sakes, not you …”
Next she knew, a cooling ointment soothed her skin. She heard the doctor say, “Cream of taraloya, lady? I would never have considered it effective against the pox.”
Jia said, “How are we going to get this cloth off without skinning her alive?”
“Thoralian wants her alive, so we’d better find a way. I’ve never seen the haemorrhagic form of the Shifter pox. Look at how black her skin is. She’s bleeding internally, too.”
The doctor made her sound like a specimen he wanted to pin down and dissect.
“Help me get this infusion down her throat.” The Jeradian girl seemed perfectly capable of issuing orders, even to a doctor.
A blessed coolness slid down her gullet and radiated from her stomach, allowing sleep to ensnare her at last. With a return to awareness, Aranya realised that an interminable time had passed. Jia-Llonya lay beside her, sound asleep, her gorgeous chestnut locks framing her soft face. An echo of jealousy possessed her; she touched a clawed finger to the pulse at Jia’s neck, imagining a talon … Aranya withheld with difficulty. No. This girl had cared for her. She was chained to the same ring, evidently as much a prisoner as Aranya was. She had to reject the cycle of jealousy before it spiralled out of control again.
Jia’s clear green eyes unshuttered. “Awake, o dreamer?”
“Jia, I … I … thank you.” Squeezing her swollen eyes shut, Aranya added, “I must be the last person in the Island-World you want to be locked in with.”
“Softly, girl,” said Jia-Llonya. “How are you feeling?”
“Terrible. How do I look?”
“Bordering on terrible.”
“Will I scar? Will I be ugly forever after?”
To her chagrin, Aranya began to sob. One kind word from t
his hateful girl and she fell to pieces? But she recognised her old arrogance in that thought, and chastised herself immediately.
“Truth be told?” said Jia. “You’re likely to scar badly, Aranya. I hope your healing magic might help, but it doesn’t look good. Do you hate me? You certainly took off in a huff.”
“When I blasted out of the hall? In a huff? Roaring rajals! Some perfect, very pregnant Jeradian man-stealer was glued to my boyfriend’s arm–”
“Not pregnant anymore.”
“What?” Aranya’s wrath plunged into the Cloudlands. “No … no! Don’t say that. What happened?”
“The Sylakians is what happened.” Aranya tried to slip an arm around Jia-Llonya. The girl threw her off, hissing, “They beat us, Aranya. They kicked me in the stomach, and … are you happy, you self-important lump of ralti turd? Are you happy now I’m not going to have Yolathion’s baby?”
The dungeons themselves should split open and bleed from such a wound.
The groan that emerged from her mouth was inhuman, a cry of incoherent rage, sorrow and pain. Aranya curled in on herself, weeping so hard that she felt several blisters burst on her face. Her stomach knotted up. Now Jia was holding her, apologising, smoothing back her hair so that it did not catch on the broken skin of her cheeks. They wept together for their loss.
Aranya learned that the Sylakians had captured Yolathion and Jia-Llonya just hours after she had fled the celebration. She and Yolathion had been brutally beaten with cudgels and boots. After that, two Dragons, hidden in Jos City, had borne them directly to Sylakia. Jia had bled and lost the baby. She began to tell Jia about Yolathion’s condition, but the Jeradian girl declared that she had already been given the ‘two-brass-dral’ tour before being shut in with Aranya, under orders to keep her alive.
“You think I’m soft, don’t you?” Jia-Llonya said bitterly, at one point. “You think I’m just after Yolathion because he’s a handsome War-Hammer.”
“I thought that, certainly.”
“Well, thanks for the past tense. I’m more than you think I am, Aranya.”