by Marc Secchia
“Oh,” said the Shadow Dragon.
“Oh, you didn’t mean for this to happen?” Aranya cried, waving a wing toward herder, standing in stupefaction a hundred paces off as his herd stampeded to all points of the compass. “Oh, I’m ravenous and that’s incredibly convenient? Oh, I’m going to pay that poor cattle-herder for his loss?”
“Could you imagine a cleaner kill?” asked Ardan, not even slightly repentant. On the contrary, he preened like the worst of court flunkies. “My majestic Dragon-smile flummoxed that stupid ox–”
Aranya rolled her eyes. “Dragons. Come on, Zip.”
“Uh … maybe in your Human form?”
She was not sure which was more frightening, the Amethyst Dragoness or a tall Shapeshifter, clad in a simple Immadian dress, her unbound hair waving in a brisk breeze as she approached the herder.
He wrung his fur hat in both hands, his uncertain smile exposing far more gum than the few yellowing teeth he had left in his mouth. “Great lady?”
Aranya said, “I apologise for my companion’s actions. Can we offer redress for the animal?”
“Whass redress?” he mumbled.
“Payment.”
“Gold?” his dull eyes brightened slightly.
Catching a potent whiff of alcohol, Aranya coughed politely. Mercy, she was surprised he could stand upright. “Gold. Five Immadian drals,” she said.
Fairly soon, she learned that the beast was a favourite family pet, that the man had eleven children dressed in rags and they never had enough to eat. She learned of generational misfortune which had afflicted his ancestors since the first dawn brightened the Island-World … and as the story stretched even the bounds of the most brazen balladeer’s abilities in storytelling embroidery, she concluded he was as greedy as he was drunk.
Grr!
Ardan, could you be a little more shameless up there? she thought to him.
Shameless? No linguistic nuances were needed to communicate the immediate spike of his ire.
Of course, he read insult into her words. Aranya tried again. Could I request a properly revolting show of draconic gluttony? It would help me negotiate.
Ardan’s answering laughter was an exercise in arrogance. Aye! Aranya’s eyes widened as the Shadow Dragon set about his guzzling with a most amazing range of lip-smacking, gurgling and growling noises, liberally interspersed with exclamations of carnivorous satisfaction. “Oh, the intestines,” he warbled, slurping down a twenty-foot portion with pursed lips. Holding his meal aloft with one paw, he champed down and ripped off an entire haunch with a powerful flexion of his neck. “This meat is so rich–” grunt, slobber, slurp “–so tangy, so delicately set off by the flavour of this firm yet yielding haunch.” And then he produced a belch so prodigious, it knocked him five feet backward. “Oh, yes!” he thundered.
“Dragons don’t like parting with their gold,” Aranya advised, not quite stifling a giggle as Zip peered over her shoulder, purring like an overgrown rajal.
“No gold?” asked the fellow, sweating freely now.
“He might decide to devour your entire herd if you try to cheat him,” she suggested.
“Uh …”
“Dragons are stomachs on legs,” Zuziana said, eyeing the nearest animals while blowing overlapping smoke-rings from her nostrils. “I’m sooooo starved! I could eat–well, anything …”
The herder’s complexion had progressed to the colour of swamp-scum, suggesting that his recent binge disagreed violently with his current situation.
Aranya said, “How’s about two animals, three gold each? I’m sure I could convince these Dragons.”
With the gold having crossed his palm, she decided she had never seen a sot run so fast and so ably. Aranya laughed quietly in chorus with Zip. Right.
Ardan, I bought you two just in case one didn’t fill that Dragonship cargo-hold you call a stomach.
Only two?
Ugh. He had a large flap of hide stuck between his upper fangs. She said, Aye, only two, or I shall have to dub thee Mister Wobbles.
The Shadow Dragon launched skyward, performed an aerial backflip and landed perfectly atop a hapless suttock, crushing it with a devastating blow of his hind foot. Call me Mister Flattens, he said, and bugled until the meadows rang for his triumphant mirth.
Aranya sighed. “I guess I’ll leave money for another. Enjoy scraping up your pancake, Ardan.”
Zuziana fell over, hiccoughing fireballs of helpless merriment.
* * * *
Dragoness-Zuziana led the short flight to meet Leandrial south of Horness Cluster, after the Land Dragon had wasted a further two days searching for the precise blend of phosphates and metal sulphites she required to supplement her diet. She might find something at Fra’anior Cluster, she said, but Zip soon observed Leandrial was behaving in unfamiliar ways, appearing tired and snappish.
Having negotiated the world of upper-layer predators with relative ease, courtesy of improved unidirectional opacity-constructs and magic-dampening shielding, they joined the Land Dragon as she forced her way through a tougher, more substantial layer of decaying olive-green plant matter to arrive once more in the middle layer–the barrens, Leandrial called this area. So scarce was life in these parts, Zuziana imagined they swam through a vast, stagnant aquarium.
Leandrial said, “There’s a minor counter-current that runs from near Horness down between Rolodia and the Spits, almost duplicating the route we’d expect the Dragonships to take. We’ll use its force to help us travel, even if the detritus it carries will be … less than savoury, as you high-dwellers might style it.”
Less than savoury? A lead-coloured, sluggish flow greeted them, cutting a shallow channel along the base of a featureless, unvarying plain of greyish fungal matter. The footing was grey and sludgy. The air was greyish and only marginally less sludgy. Visibility was a mere thousand feet. And the air current was a morass of fungal and plant matter, with a few mouldering carcasses thrown in to enhance the general savour. Zip and Aranya chuckled over allusions to flying through pots of rancid Jeradian meat soup, and spent the days labouring on the mental and magical exercises Leandrial set them in order to improve their shielding and healing stamina. She, Ardan and Aranya tinkered constantly with the shields, making incremental but not Island-shattering improvements. None of them were natural scientists, but Aranya had her creative flair, Ardan the brutal practicality to test and discard or approve their experiments, and Zip, a double-dose of renowned Remoyan stubbornness. The Immadian suggested this was overcompensation for diminutive stature. The Remoyan countered that height was no guarantor of lofty thoughts.
Their bickering exasperated Leandrial, who was set upon beating the Dragonships to Fra’anior Cluster. She declared it a matter of draconic pride.
Four days later, it was abundantly clear to the Lesser Dragons that Leandrial was tiring badly. This was rather less clear to the Land Dragoness. Aranya pressed her on the matter until she and the Land Dragoness had their first flaming row. The Amethyst Dragoness stitched Leandrial’s flank with an injudicious fireball. Leandrial’s flame-wreathed right forepaw paw swatted Aranya like a fly, sending her tumbling–her shield-protection rang like a gong, but saved her from worse injury than a very sore head. Aranya roared back in, blasting away, only for Ardan to leap between the two.
Enough! he bellowed. He blinked in shock as an Aranya-special signature blue fireball engulfed his muzzle. Shadow! He slipped away from the conflagration, reappearing with a head-shaking snort of discontent. Right. We’re friends, remember?
Uh … serves you right for getting in my way, Aranya said stiffly.
Zip began, Aranya, honestly–
No, growled Leandrial. She’s right. I lack strength. I–I … curse this fate! I need rest. Between old age and mouldering away here in the North, a hundred and fifty years apart from my kindred …
To Zip’s astonishment, Aranya alighted on the flat bridge of Leandrial’s muzzle, directly in the firing-line of her eye-cannon.
Eyeballing the Land Dragon with fierce and uncompromising mien, the Amethyst nevertheless said gently, Leandrial, you remind me of a particularly independent-minded Immadian Princess I happen to know. I had not pegged you for the type of crusty old bottom-dweller who would refuse help. You yourself related how the Pygmy Dragoness aided you, how you merged shields and drew upon her strength. I know we three are a poor substitute for the wondrous, all-capable Pip, but we are willing to try. I have healing power. Ardan has strength and Zuziana has experience with the mind-meld, besides being party to the Nameless Man’s teachings. Are we too small and incompetent to pass your muster, Leandrial?
The huge orb blinked once, very slowly. She said, I’ve wronged thee–
Not wronged so much as ignored, Zip corrected, then bit her lip. Oh …
Leandrial’s monstrous guffaws tossed Aranya right off her nose. You little ones! Oh, how you fill even the deathliest realm with life and chatter and energy. I wish I could show you my thought-memories of the Pygmy Dragon, but my mental wards have grown crusty and recalcitrant with age. Come. Aranya has the rights of it. We must join our strength, for thereby, even an old Dragoness might learn a trick or three.
Aranya swam gamely back to her flank. Since my magic seems useless to heal my own ailments, I’d rather chew upon a bigger morsel.
This time, Leandrial was wise to the Amethyst Dragoness’ goading. She said, Oh? Are you suggesting you’d like to meet a few of my scale-mites, Aranya? They’re about your size.
* * * *
Swimming down an opaque current while traversing an under-Cloudlands desert made Aranya feel less at a loss regarding her vision. No Dragon could see even halfway down Leandrial’s body in this murk. Even predators avoided the gloopy flow, which skirted Rolodia’s base, south of Noxia, and squeezed through the relatively narrow straits between Rolodia and the Spits in an ever-rumbling stream, before eventually swinging away a few points south of east toward Sylakia, where it petered out.
Ha. Did that make Sylakia the garbage-trap of the Island-World?
She should not be so mean as to feel vindicated.
Aranya worked for hour upon hour with Leandrial as they approached Rolodia. Although the Land Dragon was no healer, she had a keen sense of the inner workings of her body and a host of unfamiliar skills to teach. Aranya learned to trace the magical pathways of the Dragoness’ being at both the macroscopic and microscopic levels. Although she developed a pounding headache, she found the microscopic examination easier than understanding the myriad factors and organ functions that comprised a Dragon’s overall health. She could spend a lifetime on such study! To her delight, Zip and Ardan worked with her, discussing the calcification of arteries, the ossification of bone joints and the magical equivalent, simply called ‘encrustation’. Leandrial was not in good shape. Years of poor nutrition, ageing and isolation had contributed to a poor outlook, overall. She was even mentally fragile, she said, due to her solitary confinement.
“I don’t understand the metaphysical issues you were trying to explain, Leandrial,” Ardan said at one point, half a day short of Rolodia. They were looking forward to a break from swimming the low-dwelling equivalent of a sewage channel. “What’s the point of communal singing?”
“To share histories, lore and teachings,” said Leandrial.
Aranya glared at the Shadow Dragon as he scratched his scaly behind vigorously. Males.
Flying along fifty feet forward and starboard of the Dragoness’ eye, Ardan waved a talon in negation. “No, no. That’s the practical bit you and I love. What was the other part–balancing out imbalances? Shifting burdens?”
From the port flank, the Azure Dragoness said, “The Dragonish term was, ‘community-constructive-consecration’,” before she laughed, “I’m sure Leandrial was speaking a language I’m supposed to understand. But I don’t. The nuances–way, way beyond this little brain.”
Ardan said, “I understand building up a community. Many cultures do the same–sharing stories, moral tales and lore … but she’s saying it’s a spiritual exercise.”
Together, even the mightiest Dragons become more, Leandrial quoted.
“I wish our high-dwelling Dragonkind would take a leaf out of that scroll,” Zuziana groaned. “They’re so individualistic and grasping.”
“Ardan has a point,” said Aranya. “Leandrial, what if we became your community? Stop scratching your–Ardan! Sordid beast!”
“Scale-mites,” said Ardan, taking a parting dig beneath the base of his tail.
“Ugh. Go find a volcano and chargrill your rump,” she shot back. “Right. Indulge my fancies a moment. Leandrial, what might we do for you that would achieve the constructive-consideration?”
Community-constructive-consecration, Leandrial corrected. We’d sing the sagas together, little one. We’d join our magic and life–is this not community? The state of being-together?
“We sing?” Ardan said doubtfully. “I’m tone-deaf.”
“Your Dragon isn’t,” Zip pointed out.
One hundred feet of Shadow Dragon opened his mouth, fished for delicacies in the filthy airstream, and clicked his jaw shut again.
So Leandrial taught them the first hatchling-songs she remembered, and they sang their way to Rolodia Island in Land Dragon dialect–one of the more surreal experiences of Aranya’s life. Yet in the haunting harmonies and thrilling descants of Dragonsong, was there not something … more, which her avowedly non-mystical Shadow had touched upon?
If he scratched those mites again, she was so going to belt him. Ugh!
* * * *
Rolodia’s famously beautiful terrace lakes had once gleamed like great brass mirrors in the glorious light of a partially eclipsed suns-set. No longer. Only a partial half-moon of one lake had survived Sylakia’s depredations. Nevertheless, Zuziana’s hearts fluttered as if filled with swarms of butterflies. Dragonships. She saw Immadian and Jeradian Dragonships, captured Sylakian vessels flying the flags of Fra’anior and Immadia, and a tall, bearded monk standing on the gantry of King Beran’s flagship, dancing a very excitable, un-monk-like dance. Ri’arion!
She roared up beneath the Dragonship, crying, To me, my beloved!
Casting his not inconsiderable dignity to the winds, the monk hurled himself overboard. The beauty of his trust fired her hearts. Twenty Shapeshifter Dragons shepherding the Dragonship fleet immediately sprang toward him, but azure seared the early evening skies like a flash of lightning. Zuziana would not be beaten. She swooped for her man as he plunged toward the lake. His gaze locked with hers. Their minds touched and embraced. Furling her left wing, the Azure spiralled into a sublime catch that whipped him away a mere half-foot above the surface.
Lovely man. She dropped a Dragoness-kiss lightly on his lips.
He laughed, Serendipitous timing, o Zuziana. However, I must inform you that while I am over the five moons to see you safe and hale, you stink to the very heavens.
Then we shall bathe.
Whaaa–suns-warmed water crashed over them as the Azure Dragoness, shielding the monk from the impact with her cupped paws, slammed into the lake and disappeared beneath the surface. A school of lake trout shot away as they came to a sudden rest within a cosy bubble of air. He laughed, Crazy woman. Those eyes, as deep a blue as the bottom of the lake, made her belly-fires dance madly. I love thee so very dearly. Can we not fly to Remoy, beloved, and do business with thy father?
It’s my mothers you need to convince, she returned pertly.
You’ll have to teach me how to charm your … uh, mothers. I’ll have you know, waiting stinks worse than your under-Cloudlands reek.
Zip whirled her eye-fires in an expression she hoped communicated coquettish desire. Is waiting for permission so very hard, Ri’arion?
I thought I was the hidebound one, he admitted, colouring to the very top of his shaven head. I’m afraid for you, precious girl. Impatient, aye, and I fear that distance shall grow between our hearts even as the far horizons separate our beings. I
’ve changed my mind. Upon pain of unspecified but undeniably terrible punishments, I hereby, summarily and forthwith, do forbid you from travelling to Herimor without me.
With a sad laugh, she touched his cheek with her knuckle, and lied, I shall obey your every command, Ri’arion, all the days we share beneath the suns.
* * * *
Ardan and Aranya walked arm-in-arm along a soft, white-sand beach by the effulgent glow of waxing Iridith and a full Blue Moon. Her father had flown Dragonback to Rolodia’s main town to negotiate with the leaders there. Ardan gazed at the woman who linked her elbow through his. Not so standoffish, was she, this complex woman? Not when pushed and shamed … he knew his blunt Western Isles ways hurt her. But how else could he express that he wished to be with her for the long haul, over all the Islands of the world?
So desperately hard for a woman to feel degraded and unlovely.
As a warrior, he had never contemplated the night’s splendour, as she did. What might an artist see? Perhaps she listened to the near-inaudible susurrus of waters rippling upon the beach, or did she consider how, just a stone’s throw to their left hand, the second layer of terrace-lake wall overshadowed the lake, squeezing this strip of beach and its fringing foliage into a narrow gap? His warrior-mind relentlessly catalogued the deployment of Dragonships half a mile away, some moored over the water for safety. He checked for the Dragon patrols above, all but invisible to the Human eye. He scanned their surrounds for–what? Rolodia had no snakes, no rajals, no marauding feral windrocs. Nothing nasty whatsoever. Just … the illusion of beauty, here in this miraculously untouched corner of the Isle. Aranya must drink in the beauty of moonlight upon–
“About your scale-mite infestation, Ardan,” she said.
He doubled up with laughter.
Those amethyst eyes flashed with anger as she pulled apart from him. “What? What did I say?”
“Nay, my backside does not itch in my Human form.”
“I’ll have a truthful answer, Ardan!”
“It was truthful,” he protested. “Mostly, my laughter stemmed from the minor discrepancy between me wondering how your creative soul sees the night, and you thinking about my … itches.”