by Marc Secchia
Sapphire nibbled his earlobe. We find Ari? Good. Ardan marry?
Ardan bent forward, touching his forehead to the dragonet’s febrile scales. Two paws slipped around his neck in a perfectly Human-like hug. Suddenly ambushed by a wild, inexpressible hope, he began to weep as never before.
Aranya!
* * * *
Trying to compare Wyldaroon to anything she had seen before was a futile exercise. Aranya gave up almost as soon as she started. Every time she gazed at something, she saw another wonder. Colourful butterflies the size of dragonets drifted amongst lush, floating Islands which were linked together by a bewildering latticework of greenery–apparently originally draconic in nature, but quickly covered by creeping vines or curling branches. Some Islands caught waterfalls from those above, forming tiered cascades many Islands tall. The foliage was beyond lush. It exploded in every direction in daring sprays of flowers and hanging ferns thousands of feet long and waving, spiky-haired crowns of Islands. There were dragonets–forty different types she had counted so far, with quadruple wings, frills, long flattened bodies, or even something like sails … and creeping forest-Dragons, and tiny Dragonkind no longer than her Human’s finger, which drank nectar and pollinated flowers. Over to her left wing, she saw blue aquatic Dragons racing up a trio of waterfalls in great, joyous sprays. A pair of eyes each fifteen feet wide glared briefly at her from the underside of an Island, before withdrawing languidly.
She flew inside a three-dimensional jungle–how did one navigate this place? The Pygmy girl would have been blown right out of her little stockings. Or had she gone barefoot?
That inane speculation evaporated as they surmounted the Islands of this single Archipelago, one of thousands in Wyldaroon, and entered a realm of rainbows. Oh, and mountains! Aranya gazed at the rolling, white-capped mountain range spanning the horizon from North to South, seemingly close enough to touch, and batted away a treacherous notion that perhaps Immadia was not, after all, the most beautiful location in the Island-World. Nonsense.
She blinked. Ridiculously awesome mountains–four leagues tall? Five? More? Her Dragon sight abruptly zoomed in on what she had taken for a snow-avalanche, and she realised that was an avalanche of White Dragonkind–thousands strong, perhaps a herd on the move?
Before she knew it, a tear squeezed from her left eye and fell. Flying just beneath her, Gang’s tongue flicked in and out instinctively. Mmm? he puzzled, glancing at the clear sky. Magical raindrops?
Aranya winged along, the very paragon of innocence.
Unholy smoking volcanoes, what had she done now? What would her strange tear-magic do to a Dragon? Turn him into a Shapeshifter? Her hearts lurched painfully as a different thought intruded–his scars might be healed. And what of his old wounds that rendered him incapable of roosting with a female, just as the pox had similarly scarred her … there?
Let it be.
Every Dragoness–and the one male Dragon–in the Dragonwing shivered simultaneously and glanced about in evident puzzlement as the oath-magic teased their Dragon senses.
She projected the same surprise as everyone else.
She had to act normal. Aranya must be just one of fifty Dragonesses and two dozen Shapeshifters winging southward toward a similarly tangled group of Islands, this one garbed in vast blue flowers with deep orange hearts. She was the smallest by forty feet, aye, but she pretended the difference did not exist. Her eyes kept searching for the bases of Islands, for the normalcy of Cloudlands lapping around rocky shores, but that was absent. The suns-set colours embellishing the not-too-distant mountains and the vibrant sprays of rainbows adorning myriad waterfalls and drifting clouds of moisture almost undid her soul.
Breathing deep of the pollen-rich air, Aranya said, How does it feel to be out here at last, Gang?
Sacred, he replied.
So, the old fire-blower had a sweet streak? She knew that, of course. Just as she knew he had been watching her and filing away her every action and reaction in that cavernous mind of his. Gang’s suspicion was veiled with plenteous draconic subterfuge, but they had grown close in the past weeks and she, too, was aware of his signals. He might yet be her undoing. And how could she lie to these Dragons? She was the Island-World’s worst liar, bar none.
Therefore, she must not lie.
Late that evening, the Dragons rested in the bowels of a small Archipelago beyond the last of the Gladiator Pits, which occupied a lawless stretch of Archipelagos near the north-western corner of Wyldaroon. They ate, and Huaricithe questioned Aranya.
Half an hour later, the Navy-Blue Dragoness finally lost her temper. That was a long period for a Dragon, but her ensuing effort made the average erupting volcano look extinct. After ten minutes of venting her pique at considerable, creative and fiery length, when threats of a return to the Pits had been made and Aranya’s own fury had risen to a choking boil of its own, Gang stepped in.
He said, One question. One honest answer, Aranya. Can you manage that much?
Depends on the question, she hedged.
Ruddy fledgling doesn’t know her place! grumbled another Shapeshifter. No hint of glamour, expects us to understand her need for ruddy secrecy but not so much as half a scale’s hint as to why!
Strangest accent she has, grunted another. Can’t for my fire-life place it to any region I know.
Some few Dragons were amused, but the majority sided firmly with Marshal Huaricithe–a lynch-mob on paws, Aranya thought. Nonetheless, she had stuck to her line. Secrecy was vital. She could not say, not on pain of all the various torments Huaricithe had just recited.
She fears Thoralian, said Gang, over the rising hubbub.
That silenced the congregation. One, an older female Green called Itomiki, blurted out, Did the old Marshal hurt thee and thy family, little one?
Aye, Aranya growled, seizing a potential way out with relief. But I do not fear him.
No? pressed Gang.
No!
Looming over her, the hulking Gladiator pressed his muzzle right into her face and hissed cruelly, You slimy swamp-dwelling liar, you two-faced undraconic null-fires piddling little weasel–Aranya clamped her jaw shut as her fires surged uncontrollably–you grey-hearted salamander falsely clothed in Dragonskin, you calamitous coward whelped of deserters and runaways–she groaned in pain–you whelp of a diseased caveworm blighted amongst all creatures to a degree of hideousness–
HE DID THIS TO ME!!
Aranya clamped her jaw shut as thunder shook their Island. Huge thunder. Not just an angry-Aranya peal of thunder. Fra’anior’s voice.
Mercy!
Her thighs coiled faster than thought. Aranya sprang seventy feet in a single vertical bound, before her wings wrenched back toward her tail, stabbing pain into her shoulders. Behind her, the sheltered encampment exploded with shouts:
Catch her! Don’t let her escape! Burn the liar!
Fireballs, psychic strikes and even a sharp tugging at her wings, perhaps a Kinetic attack, staggered the young Dragoness as she accelerated away. Aranya slewed violently through a curtain of vegetation, spinning in two complete rotations before she oriented her wings and shot upward with Dragon-swift reactions. She jinked past hanging Islands, sliced through two cool waterfalls and hurtled upside-down through an equally startled flight of red dragonets, who squeaked in annoyance, only to flee as ten larger Dragons hurtled out of the gloom. Leaving a vocally unimpressed chorus eating her dust, Aranya flicked past a flotilla of the strange, bloated Dragons that held Islands upon their massed backs, and out into the open.
What she beheld knocked the fire and the stuffing right out of her.
A storm–an almighty storm!
Filling every horizon in a single, unbroken arc, massive shoulders of lightning-shot black cloud billowed beneath the lustre of a full Yellow Moon. An eruption, her panicked thoughts suggested. Then Aranya paused, her jaw dangling even further in an expression Zip called ‘catching windrocs as opposed to flies’. The lightning glinting behi
nd those malevolent storm battlements was distinctly amethyst–undeniably anomalous and magical in origin, different in character to her shell-grandfather’s signature storm-mantling. The multi-branched, gorgeous amethyst lightning throwing itself across the leagues between the surging, sooty cloud-mountains made that much crystal clear.
The storm intensified as if charged by the electrified response of her speeding hearts-beat. No. This was not her signature, was it?
Aranya’s nostrils flared, taking in more than the storm’s scent. Hints of primal magic, operating at levels of existence she did not understand. Not malevolence so much as … Imbalance? A sense of release? Yet why the knowledge of connection, why this inkling that she could scent her own multifarious Amethyst Shapeshifter scent? Was this the same redolence she had detected in Izariela’s tomb?
Humansoul was dancing! Flying! That uninhibited Hualiama-esque flare and whirl of insubstantial limbs … Dragoness-Aranya glared at herself in perplexity. Lunatic.
Her Human’s laughter welled up like a spring of living water. We are two but one, Dragonsoul. Release your fears. What will be–
Will occur at the verimost talon-flick of a Star Dragoness? If only!
Humansoul’s merriment at her dry sarcasm was unbridled; a strange, fitting counterpoint to the storm’s ominous onset. Her inner voice seemed to fade into a faraway cry, Dance, o Amethyst … all we are asked to do in this life, is to dance …
Suddenly, the Star Dragoness became aware of Gang on her port side and Huaricithe to the starboard, scrutinising the storm with wary attention. Three necks twizzled identically, taking in the unnatural approach of those threatening storm-billows.
By shielded telepathy, Gang whispered to her, ’Tis the Song of the Storm Dragon.
Aranya nearly bit through her tongue. What?
An old legend of the Dragonfriend, the Grey-Green Dragon replied peaceably. A prophecy, indeed, attributed to her roost-mate-soul, Grandion. I know thy scent, Shapeshifter Scrap. I cannot prove anything as yet, but rest assured, I will plumb thy secrets, for I declare, as surely as the Island-World turns about the twin suns, Marshal Thoralian cannot be defeated by subterfuge and secrets kept in darkness, for those secrets will do nought but rend and destroy. All must be light, and white-fires light. Then truth will become our shield, our talon, and the paw of ultimate justice.
She caught herself jaw-dangling again. The soul-quaking power of his words!
Gangurtharr? A croak, nothing more.
He peered at her quizzically, smugly, draconic-mysteriously. Aye, Aranya of no past? Is it not every Dragon’s obligation to seek white-fires? Come. We must shelter from this storm.
With that, he winged away.
* * * *
From North and South came the drakes of Thoralian’s command, appearing from amidst the floating Islands as if a plague peeled off the ravaged backs of its victims. Shapeshifter Dragons flung the drakes into battle in their legions. Twice, Aranya thought she might have caught sight of a Yellow-White Dragon commanding the hordes, but amidst the torrential rain, the continuous hammering of storms and swirling clouds, it was impossible to tell for certain.
That first night, as the storm whipped their surrounds like the strokes of an almighty, many-stranded whip, Aranya feared the Islands must surely be flung back into the Cloudlands whence they came. Trees ripped free of their roots, leaves and whole branches whistled through the air, and stones pelted the sheltering Dragons, who hunkered down and spoke ominously about a type of storm called ‘hurricane’, unfamiliar to Aranya, which flung Archipelagos out of their customary paths, forming entirely new Island-patterns to bemuse and preoccupy the cartographers. Apparently, cartography in Herimor was a celebrated profession requiring a combination of artistry, prescience, magic and hard facts, mostly undertaken by a species called ‘Shurmbikals’, a humanoid reptile of uncertain origin and even more uncertain powers.
Come morning, there was a cheerful wake-up battle against three hundred fang-champing, battle-mad drakes. Aranya flew with Huari’s Dragonwing and fought with all her heart. The second day was a repeat of the first, only this one held two battles, larger than the first, as the powerful Navy-Blue fought to return her Dragonwing to her fortresses some six hundred leagues southwest of the Pits region. On the third day, further waves of titanic lightning-storms swept in, even more impressive than the first.
Unseasonable weather, grumbled the all-female Dragonwing, casting Aranya dark-fires glances.
Late that morning as they took a short rest inside yet another tangled, flying jungle, Gang sneaked up behind Aranya and hissed, Song of the Storm Dragon!
She whirled in a jumble of wings and limbs. Gang! Don’t do that.
Almost scared you into your Human hide, did I?
Go pester Huaricithe. You seem to have a fiery spot for her.
Aye, he growled. You know what, Scrap? I’ve an unaccustomed itch in my–he pointed to a spot that made her fires blush. I haven’t had feeling down there in fifty years. And, my hide seems to be changing. The footprint of each scar is reducing in size, their colour–
What? Oh, Gang, that’s wonderful news!
Gaah, she could barely convince herself, let alone a hyper-aware Herimor Dragon. They all seemed to live and breathe this crazy form of subterfuge they called ‘glamour’. As far as she could tell, they were all born lie-detectors and wrapped themselves in endless onion-like layers of mental shielding meant to keep prying thoughts out of minds. All of that duplicity demanded a great deal of magic and effort.
Ever since I tasted a strange teardrop on the breeze, he snorted. Do you know of a Dragon power that produces tears, Scrapling?
Aranya aimed a fond bite as high up his left thigh as she could reach. I know only that you grow weepy in your senescence. Oh, Gang, you’re as transparent as that pool over there.
And you, my charming little fabricator, could not tell a convincing lie given a hundred years’ training and all the glamour in Herimor, he growled back. Come on. When will you transform for us? I know you can. You smell like Huari and those other Shifters. You reek of Shapeshifter–
TO BATTLE! Huaricithe roared.
Freaking feral windrocs, why had she never considered that Shapeshifters might smell a certain way? Enraged beyond reason, and missing her friends like a hole in her Dragon hearts, Aranya belatedly launched out after the rest of the Dragonwing. A Dragon fell right past her. Not one of their own. The Amethyst Dragoness shot through the foliage out into the open, above the small, nameless cluster of Islands, and gasped.
Fiery red drakes occluded the stormy skies. Counting was pointless. Low, underslung jaws furnished with hooked fangs and bloodshot eyes surrounded them; an overwhelming force. Thoralian must have been breeding again. Their chittering surrounded her like a million insects singing at once, filling the noon skies with an eerie buzzing sound as the drakes clumped together and wheeled into the attack, dive-bombing the much larger Dragons. Wings torn! Eyes ripped from their sockets. Drakes hung off lips and wings, mobbing the much larger Lesser Dragons. In return, mighty jaws champed the smaller, twenty-foot Dragonkind in half and fireballs seared the air, chargrilling their victims. Drakes rained from the skies. Dragons perished. Aranya saw Gangurtharr barrelling into a thick knot of drakes overwhelming a Green Dragoness, and followed.
Useless destruction. If Thoralian had his way, he would destroy every Dragon in the Island-World. In their madness, these drakes even attacked the ragions clamped to the undersides of Islands. Anything that moved.
Her sorrow was her Storm.
Here, the battle raged between pockets of storm-clouds. Aranya knew that this Storm was something linked once more with her emotions, with the burdens that weighed her hearts so heavily, or even with her concern over the fate of her Island-World. These were her creatures. As a Star Dragoness, she was sworn to set this Imbalance to rights.
Suddenly, her scales crawled as if seeking to lift off her back. Ardan. She felt … Ardan! That profound linkage
stirred just slightly, so very faraway, in her breast …
Galvanised, Aranya reached for her power. If there was a Storm Dragon, perhaps his legendary power lived in his progeny; if there was a song to be sung, then she must be the singer.
In your honour, grandsire.
She genuflected deeply. Then, the Amethyst Dragoness acquiesced at last. Aranya sang to her Storm. Lightning gathered upon her paws. It sparked in great torrents from the gathered clouds, and played over her scales in crazed, jagged patterns. Come to me, she sang. I shall discharge you in the cause of justice.
Power sizzled across her scales. More, she crooned. Join my fires, my song, my life …
Grief-song. Power-song. Dragonsong!
Coiling lightning about her talons, the Amethyst Dragoness launched into the battle with a melancholy ballad rising upon her lips–one of Hualiama’s favourites, she had read in her Aunt’s writings. It seemed appropriate, the legend of Saggaz Thunderdoom:
Bestriding boiling thunderheads, the Thunderdoom arose,
His roar a trump of thunder,
Like wingéd lightning his mighty paw,
Struck the skies asunder!
And as she sang, she fell upon the drakes and their commanding Shapeshifters like the Thunderdoom of old, flinging lightning across the divide from her talons, aiming her wingtips and muzzle at Shifters, and even striking with mighty bolts shot from her tail. She burned. She blazed. Aranya could not have described the fires that devoured her soul at that moment, only that they were white, excruciatingly white, so beautiful that they consumed, uplifted and inspired all at once, and in that whiteness was a well of truth by which she must fly all the days of the life given to her under the twin suns.
The battle was her song. Wild Dragonsong swelled in her mind, until the swirling of body and tangling of claws became as nothing before the mighty power of her song, and she drew from the surrounding Storm-power all that was to be drawn, and depleted herself in almighty vengeance. She saw Thoralian. She saw him everywhere, in the claws, the fangs and in the faces of their enemies–his foul imprint lived in their souls, and she knew she must expunge every last taint.