by Marc Secchia
After that came the traditional tossing of the bride. This began with an energetic dance in which even King Lorman showed he could shake and stretch his legs like a man twenty years his junior, before the men linked hands, four at a time, beneath Zuziana’s feet to toss her from one group to the next. Aranya’s eyebrows crawled as Zip neatly executed a range of forward and backward somersaults, raising a roar from forty thousand throats, then she threw in a single-twist, double-forward effort. Pandemonium!
Wryly, Aranya found herself hoping she might not have to produce any acrobatics on her wedding day.
Had there been a roof, Zip’s climactic triple-twisting single-backward piked somersault would have blown it right off the building.
Yet what moved her most deeply was the unabashed joy with which Ri’arion and Zuziana exchanged first the Remoyan, then the Fra’aniorian wedding vows, which if she recalled correctly, included a few more draconic overtones than expected. Every member of Zuziana’s family blubbered their way through the formal oath-taking, which included special oaths for parents, brothers and sisters, relatives and even one that was surely made up on the spot by King Lorman, presiding over this part of the ceremony, for Zuziana’s ‘best and truest friend’, Princess Aranya of Immadia, Star Dragoness.
After that, her makeup was a hopeless mess.
The afternoon’s shadows grew long in a realm of unending bliss for Zuziana and Ri’arion. As they clinched the matter with the traditional five-minute no-holds-barred kiss, Aranya was startled to look up and wonder where the time had flown. Truly, it was said that love transcended time, touching eternity. Zip stretched upward on her tiptoes to kiss the much taller monk, her chestnut curls flowing to her waist–just not quite long enough to disguise his hand wandering beyond her lower back. The Nameless Man’s countenance shone as if he beheld the very twin suns.
Leandrial split the heavens with her exuberant bugling. She fired her light-cannon in all directions, causing a fine, silvery dust to rain from the skies.
Then, the Fra’aniorian monk swung his bride off her feet and ran the gauntlet through the crowds as the people strewed the ecstatic couple with lily petals, perfume and small, sticky sweetmeats, to the strains of the ballad, Love is of Jade Eternal.
* * * *
That evening, at the Shadow Dragon’s insistence, Aranya and Sapphire flew Dragonback with him toward the setting suns. The day’s mellowing light perfectly matched their mood. Roseate upon the terrace lakes, winking impulsively off what appeared to be new patterns of mineral deposits in Leandrial’s hide, the rich suns-set robed all Remoy in truly royal splendour.
Stroking Sapphire’s scales serenely, Aranya said, “Ardan, I wanted to thank you for the gift you gave Zuziana and Ri’arion this morning. Before it all began.”
“Oh, that?” said the Dragon. “Selfish, that’s what it was.”
“All for my benefit? I’ll swallow that the next time I swallow an Island, Ardan.”
His knowing chuckle betrayed the truth. “Alright. I was wrong. Does an apology ring better upon the royal ear?”
Aranya tugged her grey travel-cloak more closely about her neck, but her legs remained bare to the thigh, tucked neatly either side of the Shadow Dragon’s towering spine-spikes. Today was about freedom. She could not have stood to wear a long dress upon Ardan’s back, nor suffered the closeness of trousers. Only, she could not easily pretend. Happiness for Zip’s sake was effortless. Pretending her pockmarks had vanished? Not so easy, despite the Remoyan King’s unforeseen kindness.
Yet she possessed sight enough to imbibe the suns-set’s glory.
“Not so much,” she said lightly. “What did you mean, ‘faster than Shadow’? There’s no such concept in known physics.”
Obliquely, he said, “One of Hualiama’s lore-scrolls noted the slow melding of powers, especially in more powerful Shapeshifters, and the ability of the oath-magic to be called upon in times of duress, leading to unpredictable results. You Shadowed through your friend.” He chuckled deeply, “I even saw you hesitate, probably wondering what on the Islands was happening.”
Aranya sat puzzling over this. Ardan was right. Maybe she had become light’s converse, momentarily. She had called upon Ardan’s powers and partially passed through her best friend’s body, only she didn’t remember actually running or leaping those four or five long strides through the crowd to reach Zip. So the soldier must have seen her cloaked in Shadow, aye, and her use of Shadow power had brought her clothing with her, just like Ardan kept his ur-makka through transformation–no. Wait just a hummingbird’s wingbeat!
“The odd thing is, you didn’t call upon my power until you reached Zuziana,” Ardan added, putting words to the twisting constriction in her throat. “I’d know. I identified the precise millisecond of that demand upon my magic. The timing was skewed, exactly as that soldier said.”
“I-I d-did …” Her teeth were chattering too hard to speak. Her mind managed to yelp, Impossible!
The huge, black head curved back until the Dragon fixed Aranya with one eye, as pearlescent and hypnotic of fires as she had ever seen in the Shadow Dragon. Glints of the fiery suns-set appeared between his fangs as Ardan essayed a fierce, noble, lunatic grin.
“Tell me about impossible, Star Dragoness. Tell me all about it.”
Chapter 13: Southerly Spear
IF RI’ARION’s Blushing the following morning was any indicator, the wedding night had not deviated too far from plan. Princess Zuziana coyly bagged her monk, leaving his face exposed for a moment in order to provide him a parting smooch for his mind to hibernate upon. Once Zuziana had transformed, Dragoness-Aranya fastened the saddlebags to her friend’s back.
Aranya made sure she elbowed Zip sharply. “Smug.”
“Aranya! Not in front of my family.”
Zip, embarrassed? A novel idea. Aranya bent her gaze upon King Lorman, his wives and family, who had all turned out despite the early hour to wish them felicitous travels, the Remoyan expression for ‘farewell’. She growled, “If I have anything to say on the matter, o King–”
He bowed deeply. “We know. You’ll bring our Zuziana, and all you love, safe to home and hearth. Go burn a trail beyond the moons, Star Dragoness!”
The Azure Dragoness picked that moment to land a Dragon kiss right on top of her father’s head, pinching his crown in the process. “Felicitous rulings, Dad,” she quipped. “Oops. Er, want your crown back?”
The King retrieved his crown from its lodging-place upon one of her fangs. “Perhaps you intend to start a new fashion in Dragon-tooth jewellery?” He rolled his eyes comically. “Given as I now have a scandalous epidemic of headscarf-burning young women to deal with around Remoy, you’d best be off, you irrepressible rascals!”
With that, the three Dragons launched off the flat Palace roof, headed south over the fabulous ribbon-lakes surrounding Remoy. The family waved until the Dragons had to be mere specks in the sky; Aranya did not tease Zip about looking back until she developed a crick in her neck. She knew what it meant to turn one’s back on family and face an uncertain future.
Instead, she sidled up to Ardan. Let’s give them a proper send-off.
What do you have in mind, Immadia?
Together, she and Ardan fashioned a heart-shaped rainbow ten miles high and wide, with the word ‘Remoy’ written in five-mile-high, rainbow-hued runes right through the middle.
Zip startled and laughed happily. “Oh, you two patsies. It’ll be your turn next, mark my words.”
Suddenly, a huge body cut through the Cloudlands beneath them, as if an Island rose to bare its back to the softly spreading dawn. Leandrial’s great length breached the clean air briefly, dark and slick and monstrous, as if reaching for the five moons. Her answering laughter boomed over the rose-tinted Cloudlands; her light-cannon blazed briefly before she sounded, showing the way.
Leandrial cried, Fly like a southerly spear, Dragons!
“You know, all she’s missing is wings,” said Ardan. �
�I thought she required Islands to climb up above the Cloudlands, but no. Just a long run-up.”
“Follow on!” cried Zip, clearly overexcited. “Only seven days to the Rift!”
Sapphire returned to Aranya’s right shoulder as the Lesser Dragons accelerated into a long, shallow descent designed to eat into the many leagues still to travel. The dragonet clung on with fully extended talons, revelling in the strong breeze. Sapphire snapped up a few flying morsels, then just stood mouth-agape for fun, enjoying the way the wind buffeted her tongue and puffed out her cheeks.
Between Remoy and the Rift stood nothing but league upon league of open, storm-swept Cloudlands, notorious for their fickle weather and legendary monsters of the deeps. Few Dragonship Steersmen braved the westerly run to the sprawling Southern Archipelago, although Aranya understood that it was Human-inhabited by hardy frontier types fond of living in wild, primitive conditions. As the Archipelago curved westward toward Meldior and eventually, at least a month’s journey even by Dragon, reached Elidia, Mejia and Jeradia, it crossed a desert of Islands ravaged by Dramagon the Red’s legions of Anubam, the legendary rock-chewing Dragon worms. She had to wonder what truth had spawned that legend. Far more fable than fact lurked out here near the edge of her Island-World–her corner of the Island-World, compared to the mythical extent of Herimor.
True to form, the Cloudlands grew choppy and the winds spiteful just a few hours offshore of Remoy. A storm blew up magically out of nowhere. Ardan led the downward plunge beneath the scudding cloud-front. After the three smaller Dragons rejoined their own monster of the deep, Leandrial, they dived into the tail-end of the Urtuo-Jahû current.
“Just an offshoot of the main current,” the Land Dragoness corrected Zuziana’s misapprehension. “We should enjoy two days of helpful currents, then five days of more laborious and dangerous travel.”
Once more, they descended into the middle-lower layer to find the optimal travelling conditions in a world of murky blue, employing the warm, plant-rich flow of wind to sweep them along. Leandrial chewed happily on a plentiful supply of one of her favourite foods, wine-red berries half the size of Aranya, swept down from the sprawling reed-beds of the Middle Sea. Aranya, Zuziana and Ardan flew above or to the side of Leandrial’s head as she snaked languorously along the current, making occasional corrective paddles with her forelegs or changing the rippling action of her hindquarters and tail. In her native environment, she was graceful and quick, her enormous, streamlined tonnage supported by the air’s density and shunned by most predators–which were plentiful, and most dwarfed even Ardan, never mind Sapphire. The dragonet goggled at the sights, cooing and peppering Leandrial with questions.
What’s that, Li-Li? she asked, using her name for Leandrial.
That’s a paw-sized chunk of flaming chak-chak moss, little one. Tamped into a wound, it has fine healing properties.
And Li-Li, what’s that?
Stickleback constrictor flatworm, little one. It’s a parasite with a nasty habit of strangulating its victims, anything from the size of a Borer up to that school of marauding Soma-Terrors up there. See those ugly insects with the underslung mandibles and curved frontal fangs? Very poisonous. They sometimes infest Land Dragon wounds and their acidic bite is excruciatingly painful, often leading to necrotic or gangrenous secondary infections. Now, the treatment for such is …
Aranya glanced from the five hundred foot long flatworm to the school of nasties Leandrial pointed out. They came in a vile, luminous green with fangs longer than her entire wingspan. Great. Assume everything wanted to eat you down here? Aye, Leandrial. Sage advice.
Ooh, mountains, Li-Li.
We’ll see plenty more of those, Leandrial purred indulgently. By evening the day after tomorrow, we’ll reach the first of the impossible deeps, and the beginning of the Rift-cracks.
As they flew between ranks of under-Cloudlands peaks, Aranya realised that they were following a deeply-scored watercourse. They passed fantastical mountain landscapes of delicate, fluted violet columns, towering reddish cliffs and a place where a bright orange lava flow tumbled sluggishly down a series of mile-high rock steps to plunge into the water flow below–and what a flow, at least nine miles wide! That afternoon, the canyon broadened as an even larger river joined from the East, opening out onto a floodplain twenty leagues wide and hundreds long, populated by the silvery, metallic Rollers, a class of water-loving herbivores that–Zip chuckled at another Land Dragon literalism–rolled along the bottom using their spherical or conical bodies and steam propulsion powered by their proto-draconic fire stomachs. Their main defence was targeted jets of steam.
This floodplain eventually terminated in a waterfall twenty miles wide and eight tall, as the run-off from the Middle Sea roared into an immense lake–more an ocean, Leandrial shouted to them over the deafening thundering of the waters, an impossible deep which had been flooded over the aeons. Many hitherto unseen piscine, crustacean and insectoid forms of life inhabited this new realm.
The rumbling commotion followed them for many a mile as they flew above endless, almost black waters for the remainder of that day and most of the next two, stopping occasionally to rest on the jagged mountain peaks protruding from this underworld ocean. Their talk turned often to the conundrum of Thoralian–including his uncanny resemblance to Marshal Re’akka–and the clear evidence of commerce across the Rift, not least the treacherous Chameleon Shapeshifters of Herimor, and the poisons they had used to bring both Aranya and her mother down.
During one enforced sleep-time, as an electrical storm laden with magical overtones growled over the ocean and the smaller Dragons took refuge in a mountaintop cave, Aranya said, “I think I’ve finally worked it out. Thoralian, I mean.”
Zuziana lifted her head from a quick check of the hibernating monk, giving Aranya a droll whirl of her fire-eyes. “Aye?”
Just outside the cave, Leandrial murmured, “My ear-canals tingle in anticipation, Aranya.”
That was Land-Dragonese for, ‘explain in detail.’ She replied, “Actually, I’ve only put together what you’ve all been talking about, perhaps in a slightly different way. It seems evident that Thoralian or his sire must originate from Herimor. He’s never been Sylakian, my friends. His Dragon-form’s colour is so unusual, it is absent from any Dragon lore we could find, besides his colossal physical size. He possesses a combination of psychic powers of unusual character and unmatched expertise in the mental disciplines, together with the strategic skills you mentioned, Ardan–which taken together with the probable timeline, argue against Re’akka being his sire. And let’s not mention his abhorrent feeding habits.”
“To think I was about to accuse you of admiring the beast,” the Remoyan growled. “Could you check Ri’arion in a minute?”
“Sure, girlfriend.”
Ardan’s eyes flicked open to roll at the Dragonesses. As his charcoal colour blended almost perfectly with the gloom, the effect was almost as if a predator had sneaked up on them. Both Aranya and Zuziana startled crossly.
“Dragon powers do arise spontaneously, particularly in Lesser Dragons,” Leandrial pointed out. “Case in point, one Shadow Dragon.”
“You mentioned the highly sophisticated nature of Thoralian’s mental processes, Leandrial,” Aranya countered. “Mostly, I refer to Ardan’s comments yesterday on the unexpected rise of the Sylakian Empire. Let’s say Shapeshifters had been infiltrating Sylakia for years, perhaps decades. At some point after Shurgal stole the First Egg and whisked it off to Herimor, Shifters came North. Why? Easy conquest, perhaps. Or they were forced out. Both Shurgal and Thoralian have demonstrated the ability–a theoretical ability in Thoralian’s case, I’ll grant–to cross the Rift, where even Leandrial has failed. That suggests a type of magic which counteracts the Rift’s disruptive magic. Then, a miracle. Over a period of sixteen years, Sylakia developed from being a band of merry, bearded occasional pirates and hardened ale-drinkers to the dominant power in our third of the Island-World. They
improved Dragonship and battle technology, and demonstrated long-term, strategic mastery and a level of drive that was never present before. They subtly, quietly, removed all opposing Shapeshifters and Lesser Dragons during their conquests. Thoralian could be a hundred years old. He could already have been some kind of Herimor potentate–”
“A powerful Marshal from one of the ancient Shapeshifter bloodlines,” Leandrial clarified. “Or, he’s the old Marshal’s shell-son, as we discussed before.”
“Aye. He’s battle-hardened. Cunning. Every action and counter-action thought through beforehand,” the Amethyst added.
Ardan’s eyes held an especial gleam for her as he pointed one dagger-sharp grey talon at Aranya. “Only, he failed to identify the disruptive factor. Fate’s wild rebuke.”
Zip chuckled, “Well, there’s a few titles I don’t believe Aranya’s ever heard before. Shut the jaw, petal. No, better still, finish your thought.”
“Perhaps he planned to invade Herimor from the North, or there was knowledge he sought,” Aranya said, trying to decide just how thoroughly to thrash Ardan for that comment. “Thoralian had been busy in the library at Gi’ishior, Ja’arrion said–they reported various important scrolls and manuscripts were missing. What I mean to say is, however, that Thoralian is likely to be returning to his ancestral power base. He’s not one lone Dragon bent on causing a ripple of discontent. He means to gain the First Egg, and for that reason, he’s off to war.”
“Cheery, but logical,” suggested Zip. “Leandrial, I thought you couldn’t see colour?”
“I can discern gemstone qualities,” she replied.
Zip preened. “Meaning, I’m quality. Thanks, Leandrial!”
“Not that sort of quality, you silly ralti sheep,” Aranya joshed her. “So, is it true that all the most powerful Dragons in Herimor hail from these bloodlines, noble Leandrial?”