by Marc Secchia
What by the creepiest shadows of carrion birds stalking fresh kill, was that? Aranya blinked. Ardan, I … garnet, tourmaline and quartzite crystal formations winked light into her weak eyes, lining the volcano walls between the darker, shadowy entrances of Dragon roosts and, she assumed, chambers and quarters, storage and laboratories, and all the paraphernalia of a once-thriving Dragon city. Even the small portion of wall caught by the rising twin suns’ rays gleamed as resplendent as freshly polished Dragon scales.
Dragons everywhere! Sunning themselves and chatting and diving and training hatchlings … this place was alive!
No. She shook her muzzle, resisting the urge to rub her eyes. Not so many. Just a couple of Dragons, both Blues, apparently cleaning the crystals with storm winds and puffs of fire.
A great cavern stood before her. The partly-ajar, gorgeously fashioned metal doors had to measure two hundred feet tall and double that width, framing the sacred meeting-hall of the Dragon Elders. Yet she recoiled from that place. Shadows loomed over her, massive, menacing, a fiery dance ending in collapse … trapped beneath a Dragon’s paw! Battle-challenges reverberated in her mind. A voice of Storm split the ruinous raging of talon and fang.
Suddenly, her Human struggled against the unbreakable grip of a Blue Dragon of unparalleled stature. The Blue snarled, “Prove the worth of your oath.”
Never had she faced such a congregation of Dragons. In her tiny Human form–Dragoness-Aranya perceived this as from a distance–she saw Reds and Yellows and the mighty Blue stalking her, and her very living pith was gripped with such fear as would stop a Dragon’s hearts, yet there was fire within her, such a beautiful, incendiary tracery of white-fires that her vision cleared to an excruciating clarity which pierced even the inner places of Gi’ishior itself. Her lungs inflated of their own accord as if seeking to draw in all the magic of the Island-World. A great Word swelled in her burning throat.
Such a Word! Aranya’s mortal soul quaked, but the magic could not be denied. Opening her muzzle, she gave herself over to the power of Storm.
BEZALDIOR!!
* * * *
Her soul had travelled the universe’s darkest night.
Ari? Fragrant Ari?
She stirred at the oddity of Sapphire’s anxious trill. Unnh … frag …
“By my wings, who cracked the volcano? What’s Aranya doing lying there? Danger? Is there danger?” Tuzimi shouted, her acid tones making agonising, flaming colours burst through Aranya’s head. “Someone? Anyone–a report!”
Aranya found herself lying half-submerged at the edge of the lake, her muzzle propped up on a smallish, flat boulder. No, a spar of tourmaline. Tourmaline was his colour. Scales of gemstone … windroc droppings to that! She needed to be here, in the now.
She raised her head, and whacked her aching skull against the keel-bone of Ardan’s massive, deep chest. “Oh! My Islands …”
Had he dragged her to shore? The wrecked saddle-harness lying four feet from her left eye suggested as much. Now he stood straddling her prone, throbbing body, his stalwart stance preventing anyone from approaching–no, here came Human-Zip on the run, and she was not about to let a mere Shadow Dragon stand in her way. Aranya gazed further, taking in a brittle, weather-blasted wooden dock and at least forty or fifty Dragons looking on with uniformly grumpy, unimpressed expressions. King Beran stood nearby, deep in conversation with Ja’arrion and two other Shifters, all in Human form; as one, they turned to regard her with furrowed brows as Zip sang out:
“Aranya! Petal, don’t you love to make an entrance? You triggered the earthquake, didn’t you?”
Oh, great lashings of windroc spit …
To her further disbelief, Va’assia hop-flapped down to her level, demanding that Ardan yield to the healers. Two younger, matched female Blues, Tyziti and Zyriti–Aranya wondered how anyone told them apart, for even the similarity of their names did not help–immediately fell to fussing over her. They checked beneath her eyelids, commented on the tenor of her eye-fires, bade her flex both wingtips and extend her tongue, and examined her length with an almost unbearable prickling of magic.
That was when Aranya realised–she could see! Gingerly, she tilted her muzzle and gazed skyward. Her right eye focussed beautifully on the crescent Jade moon … her fires soughed, and Aranya wept. A great, thick tear exuded from beneath the fire-orb of each eye. Odd, she thought hazily. How did a Dragon cry if she had no tear-ducts?
“Quick, catch those,” Zip ordered the bemused healer-Dragonesses. “They’ve great healing value. We’ll need to find a gourd to store them.”
Sight! Oh, she had forgotten how beautiful was the Island-World seen in sharp edges and colours and detail! A touch to her muzzle confirmed that her wounds were still present, but her eyesight was clearer and keener than ever before. Had the white-fires somehow burned the darkness from her vision? She could not wait to share this tremendous news with her friends. A yearning so sweet flooded her veins, that Aranya shivered and gathered her paws beneath her.
“I’m fine,” she said, swaying on her paws. Oops. Zuziana’s expression of alarm told her that was a lie; Ardan’s solicitous paw steadied her weight with ease. “Stop fussing.”
“Oh, petal,” Zip sighed.
“Don’t suppose you’d have another Word to fix this mess?” Ja’arrion boomed irately. “You collapsed tunnels and roosts, damaged the library, cracked the rim itself, we’ve a lake’s flow into the underground store-rooms–quite the day’s work, shell-niece. Whatever possessed you to summon your Word of Storm?”
Aranya inquired, “Why’re you saying ‘Word’ like that?”
By the mountains of Immadia, walking made her feel as if she were swaying on a Dragonship’s gantry at the height of a storm. She drank sparingly from the lake waters to disguise her confusion, but no more than two seconds later, Zuziana splashed knee-deep into the water beside her. The petite Remoyan grabbed the Amethyst Dragoness by the eye-ridge and a handy skull-spike, and pulled her close to gaze deep into her left eye. Zip’s lips pursed.
Aranya concentrated on that well-loved face, feeling her eye-fires mellow toward warm yellows, oranges and apricot.
Zip screamed, “Petal!”
The Immadian almost jumped out of her hide.
Why does she call a Dragoness, petal? Va’assia complained nearby.
I had a waking vision, Aranya said meantime, to any Dragon listening. And to Zip, she said, “What do you see?”
Poor Zuziana. She just pressed her cheek against Aranya’s eye, and blubbered, “Light, Aranyi. I see light inside.”
* * * *
Walking with her Amethyst Dragon–hers, for she was Aranya’s first Dragon Rider–the Remoyan kept a Dragoness’ eye peeled for further signs of volcano-shaking behaviour. The Shadow Dragon shadowed them, along with Lyriela, Ta’armion, Beran and Ja’arrion, as Va’assia the Red provided a guided tour of Gi’ishior’s marvels. The Halls of the Dragons had been home to the Dragonkind for thousands of years. That great age showed in the artful fashioning of hallways and roosts, treasuries and hatchling-nurseries, scientific laboratories and the bathing-chambers, including red-hot lava, oil, fragrance and hot water baths. She took them first to the Dragon roosts, the chambers boasting Dragon perches and couches, and floor-to-ceiling, sliding crysglass panels opening out on the volcano or giving views of Fra’anior’s caldera to the South, the Islands to the East and West, or unbroken Cloudlands to the North.
Each Dragon roost included facilities for Humans to serve Dragons–Human-sized kitchens, bedchambers and living-spaces, and storage for scale-polishing implements, mite-extracting tools, talon clippers and files, and the like. Va’assia introduced them to Ha’azutl, who was called the Chief Scrollkeeper, the ceremonial title for the head of the famously iconoclastic clan of Humans who served Gi’ishior, who had returned from their homes on the tiny neighbouring Islets. At first the Humans had been overwhelmed to see the Dragons return, but the Red Shapeshifter later informed her delegation
that many were less pleased at the predominance of Shapeshifters. Rightly, Lesser Dragons should be in command.
It seemed Shapeshifters were as little trusted in the ancient seat of Dragons as they had ever been historically.
Va’assia led them past the still-sealed roost of Sapphurion and Qualiana, the illustrious Dragon Elders who had reigned at the time of Hualiama Dragonfriend. Legend told of their death in battle in the Lost Islands in the far northeast, although that was debatable. No Dragon-explorer or long-range Dragonship had ever found trace of the Lost Islands. Aranya took a keen interest in this legend about her aunt. She had explained her visions and subsequent fright, the sense that something momentous had happened at Gi’ishior in centuries past, causing her to cry out in a way that Ja’arrion, who was Hualiama’s shell-brother after all, identified as that rarest and most perilous of Dragon powers, the Word of Command. Oddly, no-one else knew exactly what she had bellowed, but Aranya knew. Disturbance eddied in those fiery orbs, thunder prowled about the caldera, and her manner was withdrawn as it typically was when she introspected.
Zuziana’s eyes flicked to Ardan. Sapphire perched on the sooty-black Dragon’s left shoulder, as they conversed constantly. Ardan was patiently teaching Sapphire the Human and Dragon words for everything they saw. Zip grinned. Unforeseen talents!
After the roosts they toured the laboratories, climbing first to the astronomy dome at the top of the volcano. It boasted a range of Dragon telescopes for celestial star-gazing and studies of the orbits of the moons, asteroids and comets. Then they descended to the deeper laboratories designed for scholars of the botanical sciences, zoology, chemistry, magic, physics and draconic healthcare and more, and then to the forges and armouries in the volcano’s bowels, finishing up with the first of the great treasuries, re-opened that morning. Zuziana stared out over an underground lake of gold and gemstones, and caught her breath like everyone else.
Aranya averted her head. Get me out of here, Zip-Zip.
Surely … come with me, Aranya. Nonplussed, Zuziana guided her Dragon down the tunnel which had led them through the sextuple-layer security provisions of the vault. You aren’t avaricious. I know you, petal.
It sings to me. Strangely. I–I need suns-shine on my scales.
En route, Zip picked up a brush, a cloth and a pot of polishing oil from one of the storage chambers they had passed. They walked back up six levels to the lake, and then hiked higher to pool fed by a hot spring, Dragon-designed for bathing. At this hour the twin suns peered over the rim half a mile above, causing rainbows of iridescent light to cascade from the gemstone-studded walls with fearful intensity. Zip stretched like Aranya, catlike, savouring the heat.
She said, “Ah, a taste of summer in Remoy.”
Aranya nuzzled Zuziana’s left hand with her nose. “Scrub, slave.”
“Not before you soak the royal rump, lizard.”
“Ooh. I like ’em sassy,” growled Aranya, mock-feral. She huffed hot breath over the girl’s shoulders.
Zip brushed her hair back crossly. Pest.
The Amethyst sank into the steaming water with a sigh. Ah, beautiful.
Hands on hips, Zip confronted her Dragoness. “Right. Enough misty-mystique Islands from you, Immadia. Spit it out.”
“Spit? The royal personage does not spit. Mercy, Zip. Where do I start?”
“The beginning. I’ll give you a scratch behind the ears. You tell old Zippy everything.” She jumped lightly onto her friend’s lowered muzzle and clambered up to her modest but pretty ruff of skull-spikes. “Scrub, scrub. I know where you like it best.”
Aranya purred as Zuziana worked on the sensitive scales behind her skull-spikes, the equivalent of the nape of a Human neck.
“It’s just … this place has echoes,” Aranya muttered defensively. “Too much listening to Leandrial’s Balance and Harmony. I’m seeing oddities in corners.”
“You were odd long before we met Leandrial, my friend.”
“Rotten friend, you are. Remind me to tell my Dad to un-outlaw the painting of Dragons,” added the Amethyst, chuckling on cue. “Keep scrubbing. Ooh, do I smell fusty old monk?”
Zip waved happily. “Hey, sexy! Over here!”
“He’s blushing.”
“Good.” No doubt, Aranya noted the acceleration in her heart-rate as Ri’arion swung those long, lanky legs down a trail leading from the middle roosts. Dragons were all-knowing pests at the best of times.
He waved a scroll over his head. “Found something!” floated down to the girls. Correction. A girl and her Dragon. Zip shivered joyfully. Quadruple rainbows over Islands, that a girl of Remoy should unearth such a rich future!
Sapphire darted up to Aranya. Ari. Big, loud Ari. Shake leaves off Dragons. Scale-leaves.
The dragonet fell onto Aranya’s back, hiccoughing with laughter. It took them both a moment to understand her joke. Zip said, Aranya shook scales off the Dragons like leaves off trees, Sapphire?
Clever Dragoness. Clever, clever, clever, cooed the dragonet.
Honestly? Sapphire had to be the only creature cheekier than the Princess of Remoy. Even amongst her extensive family, she had earned the nickname of ‘volcanic hellion’. That detail, her siblings had helpfully shared with Aranya during their first visit to Remoy, along with various titbits drawn from her more hair-raising exploits. Now, she intended to bring home a man, handfast and settle down?
Cold sweat trickled down her neck–why?
Ri’arion started expounding the contents of his scroll from ten yards off–advanced shielding techniques they could use to hold multiple mental constructs in tension and achieve multiple layers of specialist shields–but Zuziana was struck with a crazy notion. Skip Jeradia, and their route would sweep right by Remoy.
She eyed Ri’arion speculatively, chewing the inside of her lip as the cold shakes moved from her belly down to her knees. Given as he’d flat-out forbidden her to travel to Herimor without him …
* * * *
On that sultry early afternoon following Aranya’s thunderclap arrival at Gi’ishior Island, as nearby storms fulminated without real menace, the Immadian Princess accosted Dragon-Ardan in the library. Ardan fretted over a Dragon lore-book, a volume ten feet tall and sixteen wide which Ri’arion’s scholars had retrieved for him and lugged up to a Dragon reading-stand, a plinth some fifteen feet tall in the massive upper chamber of Gi’ishior’s library.
Sensing a familiar presence playing as a threnody upon his Dragon senses, Ardan glanced to the library’s arched doorway. Great Islands–Aranya, wearing soft tan boots, snug-fitting Dragon Rider trousers and moulded body armour! Her hair was braided into a single, thick rope dangling to four inches above her knees, and Sapphire perched upon her right shoulder, her tail fondly twined about Aranya’s neck.
Amethyst eyes flashed between the folds of her face-veil, daring him to react.
Rage and desire choked him up like a roughly-corked wineskin. The Dragon-Princess insisted upon holding him at arms-length, yet now she dared to appear looking so … so much the breath of a volcanic dawn over the Islands? Those long, slender legs sashayed across the space between them with a rajal’s grace and all the poise of Immadian royalty, yet somehow mellower than he had imagined, the sway of her hips responding to the shared music of the oath-magic playing between them. Ardan swallowed fire down a suddenly parched throat. Did she feel as he? Amethyst-eyes must. How could she not recognise the effect upon a Dragon of staring into searing amethyst depths and recognising the fire, passion and high intelligence gathered there?
To some, Aranya must appear arrogant. Yet Ardan had seen her heart. Not all was the hard edges of a warrior like Kylara. He was the rough-hewn one, and she … she was … the Dragon struggled to put words to the feelings roiling audibly in his breast.
Incomparable.
Walking up to the Shadow Dragon as though this was perfectly natural, Aranya paused. “Good book?”
“Boring,” he croaked. Cleared his throat. His Drag
on-hearing detected the precise burbling tones of her heart, faster than warranted–or was it? Curse this fate!
His muzzle swung down precipitously. Before he could stop himself, Ardan’s massive inhalation plucked at her clothing and sucked her braid upward to tickle his nostrils. Vanilla. Iridescent spider-silk magic. Perfume, not the dorlis-flower scent she had worn when courting Yolathion, but a headier, more complex scent. Lilies, fireflower, traces of oddly fragrant metals or aromatic wood, his dazed brain tried to comprehend. Smoke. Volcanoes. Fra’anior the Onyx’s roaring drowning out all but the raging of his Dragon-hearts!
Ardan was quite certain his expression must resemble a gormless ralti sheep.
“D-D … Dragon!” Aranya stammered, igniting liquid fire in his bowels. Ardan’s talons curled, squeaking against the stone floor. “Ride with me.”
He wanted to laugh. Fraud. She was as overcome as he.
This battle would be won by a Shadow Dragon. Aranya had no conception how tenacious he could be! Only friends? Find another to love? Toss that idiocy in the nearest volcano!
Aranya stamped her left foot. “Stop looking at me like … like that. You’re tearing your own scales off with boredom. Take me flying.” In a small voice, she added, “Now, please?”
From imperious command to a girlish plea. Oftentimes, he forgot she was still a teenager. Aye, Ardan, This was a young Dragoness who had made it her business to body-slam history and wrench it onto an entirely new course. Aranya’s course. And her heart throbbed in rhythm with his. His thoughts were sweet pollen tumbled by whimsical breezes.
He proffered a paw. “My lady.”
She bowed. “Thank you, Ardan. But I think I will practice mounting my Dragon. Never hurts to be prepared.”
Eloquence deserted his tongue. Ardan creaked, “Your saddle?”
“Spine-spike straps,” she said, holding up a tidy assortment of straps linked to ratchet-action fasteners. “A Dragonfriend special. Coupled with a touch of laziness on my part … come, Dragon! We’re frittering the day away.”
He purred: