by Marc Secchia
Her outflung left arm swung the Scroll of Ernulla-kul-Exarkin in a protective sweep, as if mere scrolleaf might deny the torrid heat of a star’s heart. Kal gasped soundlessly. Did Talon trust its magic? He knew there was a chance. Had he not played sleight of hand with fate all his life? A one-sided coin could not exist; fate was as deceitful as the universe was old.
Kal feared the coin’s second side. He leaped for the scroll.
The illusion shattered. One microsecond Rhadhuri existed; the next, every particle of flesh, blood and bone vaporised in the crucible of Star fire. Only a chimera lingered, imprinted upon reality, a haze briefly glued together by some residue of her innate magic.
Talon’s shadow blew away into oblivion. The Shadow-man fell endlessly into light.
* * * *
Kal awoke feeling as queer as a purple-spotted rajal visiting the Islands from the Blue moon.
He blinked. Someone slapped his cheek urgently. Queasiness stirred the emptiness in his stomach into a fine kettle of sweet tuber stew. Another slap? What an aggrieving way to treat a wounded hero. After all, he had–Riika! Kal sat up so fast, he pulled a muscle in his back and bumped heads with Tazithiel, returned to her Human manifestation.
His senses acted like a Dragonship juddering in a storm. Blotting out the headache rampaging behind his temples with draconic glee, Kal blurted, “Where’s Talon? How’s everyone? Did we win? I need to see Riika.”
“Over there.” Tazi gestured, smiling balm upon his soul.
In the gathering darkness, Aranya, Cyanorion and Jalfyrion stooped over Riika’s prone body. Aranya sported dozens of open, weeping wounds and parts of her wing membranes were more shreds than whole flesh. Cyanorion looked as though he had lost a squabble with a volcano. Jalfyrion appeared to have been squeezed through a Dragonship’s turbines, while Jisellia had fared little better. Yozora? He lay beside Aranya, appearing to sleep peacefully. But his flanks were not rising or falling. Beyond the mountains of Dragonflesh looming over his daughter, Dragons dotted the field.
Kal took all this in, yet starsong lingered in his mind. Had he been cleansed of all Shadow? The price of victory? For the first time since meeting Tazithiel, he could not sense his magic. The loss …
The Indigo Shapeshifter said, “Thanks to you, Kal, we won. The Star fire passed through you to consume Talon. Now, go to Riika. There’s little time. left”
Feet. Now. He glared at the offending appendages, trying to convince them by force of fury that they belonged to him and not another Island leagues away. Kal struggled to stand, collapsed twice as his left knee refused to cooperate, and staggered to Riika’s side with the help of Tazithiel’s arm. The Pygmy girl lay utterly still, greyish of pallor, and it seemed to him that her flesh already grew cold. Death’s claw, they said. He had seen it many times before.
He whispered, “Aranya? How is she?”
The Amethyst Dragoness’ eye-fires were dark with grief. “If only I could cry. If only … why can I not weep? Have I grown too cynical, the Dragoness I vowed I would never be?”
“It’s not your fault,” Cyanorion soothed. “All our draconic wisdom has been stymied by the nature of this strange poison. Truly, Dramagon’s design is a thing of hateful brilliance. Kal, Aranya and I hold her life in the cusp of our paws. She breathes only because of my help.”
“She gave too much.” Kal lurched to his knees, kissed her pale brow. Watched the breath soughing over her bloodless lips. Odd, he could see breath? “She sacrificed herself knowing … why? Damn this fate; curse the Guild of Assassins! Why the hells was this demanded of her? Could the fates not see fit to take me?”
Aranya said, “She gave of freewill and love. We honour her sacrifice.”
“Her courage bought life for us all,” Tazithiel said. “Remember it well, Kal.”
He did. His rockwood brain had been too slow to find the solution, so Riika had felt compelled to surrender her life.
Kal wept softly, helplessly, stroking her cheek with his own, praying that his tears could succour her, that his strength could bring healing. What could he do that Aranya, Cyanorion and Yozora could not? He sensed a corruption. It was not magical, for that he might have been able to combat. His Shadow power eluded or negated magic. This was written in tissue and bone, and her candle had burned one last time, too brightly and too long.
“Riika, oh, Riika,” he moaned. Fra’anior, can you not see this and intervene? She is like you, o mighty Black Dragon, her greatness neither bounded by form nor flaw. Can you not show us the way?
Silence.
A strange, brooding silence rang in his ears like faraway bells, as though destiny itself waited for the faintest breath to tip one way or another.
Kal said, “Razorblades, can you hear me?”
“Aye.” A zephyr of breath against his ear. “Dad. No crying.”
“Aranya, listen!” Kal looked up excitedly. “Look, I know big Dragons don’t cry, but when I tell you this … I know the location of your mother’s roost! The Star-Hoard, the roosting-place of Istariela the Star Dragoness!”
He stared up at the Amethyst Dragoness, but her eye did not brim with moisture. “Istariela was my grandmother, Kal. I’m grateful. All the Dragonkind thank you.”
Could fiery eyes ever tear up?
“Kal.”
“Love you, Razorblades. You take it easy.”
Riika hissed, “Up.” He began to protest. “Help me.” Doubtfully, Kal helped her sit up. She gasped, “Bring … Aranya.”
Her breath caught in her throat with a ghastly rattle. Cyanorion quickly adjusted his magic, but a trickle of red crept over her lower lip.
“I’m here, little one,” Aranya soothed. “Rest. All will be well.”
Riika tried to raise her arm. Kal helped her, until a tiny brown hand touched Aranya’s monstrous muzzle, near her eye. “B–” Her chest heaved. “B–uhh.”
The Amethyst Dragoness’ eye, three feet across, churned with apricot, purple and white flame, generating a soft effulgence that bathed the girl’s body in balmy light. “Peace, Riika. Don’t speak.”
“Burn!” Riika coughed terribly. Sweat beaded her forehead; Kal feared she would never speak again, when she rallied, rasping, “Burn … aiee!”
Cyanorion said, “What? Did she say burn? Burn what, little one?”
“Will you … burn heavens? Aranyi?”
Kal froze, but this was no chill of terror. This was the thrill of a glorious unfolding in that mysterious, instinctual connection which had always existed between a young girl and the aged Queen of Dragons, an oath hardly spoken but never more fully meant, and by the abrupt inrush of the Dragoness’ breath, he knew the girl had spoken true. Aranya shivered just once; the world, it seemed, shivered with her, as a magical Dragonsong raced from them away over the far horizons and returned in a blaze of splendour.
Holiness. Kal knew elation, a sense of rightness in his soul, as he formed a bridge between Dragon and Human, over hundreds of years … yet what mattered was the sacred union of two souls, trembling upon the cusp of acceptance.
He knew the answer before the Dragon Queen spoke, because her hearts had already spoken for her.
Aranya whispered, “I would be profoundly honoured.”
Riika collapsed against Kal’s shoulder, her arm limp. But there, coalescing in that great eye, he saw the fabled magic of the Amethyst Dragoness. Wars had been fought over this power; a simple, pearlescent teardrop the size of a man’s fist. Quickly raising the half-Pygmy’s arm, Kal turned her hand over and helped her cup her palm to receive the Dragon’s Tear. It glowed like the renowned mother-of-pearl of Rolodia’s terrace lake clams, squeezing forth gently to envelop Riika’s hand and his in warmth.
“Unbelievable,” Jisellia whispered.
The viscous liquid gathered itself before flowing purposefully down to Riika’s elbow, as if possessed of sentience and knowledge of the half-Pygmy’s need. Quickly, it travelled the distance to her shoulder before pausing in apparent confusi
on.
Kal directed Riika’s hand to dip her fingers into the tear before touching them to her slightly parted lips. He whispered, In here.
As if galvanised, the huge teardrop raced up over the curve of her neck and dived inside her mouth. Every last drop disappeared within. Dragon and Human alike caught their breath.
For long minutes, nothing seemed to change. Riika’s breath continued to rasp in her chest. Then, a delicate tracery of light blossomed beneath her skin, commencing with the pulse at her throat before spreading down into her limbs as though every blood vessel, down to the tiniest capillary, had become a pathway for liquid starlight.
“And so, it begins,” said Aranya.
Chapter 31: Westward, Ho!
ARANYA PINNED KAL against the wall of the temporary infirmary by dint of employing a ten-foot talon to entrap his neck. “You’re being a pest. As usual.”
Kal pushed back, but could not budge her claw an inch.
Looking on in amusement, Tazithiel called, “Beat him up, shell-mother. It’ll save me a cartload of trouble later.”
He rasped, “Great Islands, of all the ballads that star a ghastly mother-in-law, this has to be the worst by a thousand leagues. Your legends, o Queen have a feisty princess chewing up Sylakians for breakfast and kicking hairy War-Hammer butts all over town, and I’ll tell you what–nothing’s changed in three hundred years!”
Aranya’s grin displayed fangs sufficient to furnish a decent-sized jail with bars for all its cells.
“Tell you something else, lady. You don’t scare me. And I can escape whenever I like.”
“No Shadow.” The Amethyst Dragoness wagged another ridiculously enormous talon at him. “Recovery first. I’ll answer your questions, Kal. Aye, the magic is working and yours will too, if you give it time! Aye, Riika is breathing steadily on her own. Cyanorion is being very attentive.”
Kal mentally added Cyanorion to his list of Dragons who required a vigorous thrashing. Attentive to his daughter? Paws off, beast!
“Now I know I’ve been busy, but I would have you listen with both ears for a change. All the signs point to Riika’s recovery, although when, or what the magic will do to her, we don’t and won’t know until she wakes up. That could be as long as a month from now. It requires time. My friend Zuziana was deathly ill with the jungle plague. The magic took over two weeks to work in her. Riika has been damaged by a magical poison over a course of years. This is unknown territory.”
“That’s my exact concern,” Kal pointed out.
“I forbid interference!” Aranya’s eyes blazed lava-orange and white. “Furthermore, pinching valuable oxygen around your convalescing daughter is unhelpful. This pestering of the healers has to stop. You can pester Tazithiel instead. She actually likes you.”
Kal favoured her joke with a thin smile. “Alright. So you’d rather Tazithiel and I abide by an incomprehensible mystical scroll which actually never had anything to do with Talon’s powers, and fly to the Rim-Wall Mountains for the summer solstice at which time a mysterious potential called the real power of Ernulla-kul-Exarkin might just be available to be utilised in unspecified ways to an unspecified end called ‘the opening of the suns’? Shooting us like happy comets twenty-five leagues into the atmosphere and safely down the far side? And I cannot just walk through the mountains because–”
“According to Dragon lore, they’re laced with a radioactive ore called meriatonium, a derivative of meriatite, which has rather unpleasant consequences for creatures of magic. Aye, I know its existence has never been proven. But the substance is documented in Fra’anior’s works. I do not wish you to become a living experiment–tempting as it might sound.”
“I truly appreciate the sentiment, o fiery mother-Dragoness.”
“And I wish to rebuild my Academy in my way without your incessant monkeying about.”
“It’s going well,” Kal admitted. “I never knew Dragons were such fine labourers.”
Kal rather enjoyed vexing the Queen of Immadia. Those Dragon emotions flared every time. On cue, fire leaked between Aranya’s fangs as she snarled, “Labourers? You obnoxious excuse for a rabid, two-legged ape–”
“Mother.” Tazithiel shouldered her way between them, despite the disparity in their sizes. “You should know by now that Kal never listens with anything bar the withered contents of his trousers. Allow me to convince this insignificant Human. Watch and learn.”
Folding his arms, Kal snorted, “Just you try … oh. No, don’t do that. Not the moon-eyes!”
The Indigo Dragoness snickered.
He covered his eyes with his hands, but Tazithiel only purred against his neck, “I’ll let you do anything you like with me, Kal. And I do mean anything.”
“Aargh! You’re scalding my neck, you venomous beast.”
“I hate to interfere, shell-daughter,” Aranya put in, “but I do believe the desired effect may be achieved thus: Kal, Tazithiel says she’ll go without you.”
“Over my worm-ridden, putrefying corpse she won’t!”
“Perfect,” said Aranya. “I’ll leave you two firebirds to discuss this matter in private. And Kal–I am not the slightest bit interested in the details of ‘anything’. Period, underscored with a very large, steely grey talon. Understood?”
Kal bowed floridly. “And the part of the wicked beast-in-law was played by a monstrous Amethyst–”
GGRRRAAARRGGGH!
If Dragons could not have the last word, they deafened everyone within a mile and took the last word anyway.
* * * *
There was a great deal of anything before Kal allowed himself to be persuaded. He attributed this partly to his reluctance to leave Riika in her never-waking coma, and partly to the happy fact that Human-Tazi’s idea of ‘anything’ was rather closer to epic poetry than a brief couplet–if he could be forgiven a groan-worthy pun. The Indigo Dragoness stocked up on food, eating fit for three Dragonesses. She flew rapid exercise laps around the volcano, weighed down with a chunky boulder in each paw, until she was satisfied she was in tip-top condition. Cyanorion and Aranya checked her over twice, declaring themselves content. The Star Dragoness and her shell-daughter spoke until late each evening, exploring lore and techniques for extending Dragon flight.
“I flew for forty-three hours and it nearly killed me,” Human-Aranya told them, one balmy volcanic evening six days after the battle, as they sat talking in Kal and Tazithiel’s roost, and sipping a very fine vintage from Remoy Island. “Oyda told me that her Emblazon, a powerful Amber Dragon, once managed two and a half days on the wing. That stands as a record. We estimate you’ll need four to five days to reach the Rim-Wall Mountains.”
Tazithiel nodded grimly. “I know.”
“There’s no Dragons’ Highway out there to help, according to the scrolls.”
Kal grasped the calculations. He and Tazithiel had pored over them enough times. Two thousand one hundred and fifty-one leagues of unbroken Cloudlands lay between the westernmost of the Western Isles and the Rim-Wall Mountains, according to Ancient Dragon lore and measurements. To cross that distance in five days would require the Indigo Dragoness to sustain an average speed of fourteen point eight three leagues per hour. A target of four days raised that average to a jaw-dropping eighteen and a half leagues per hour. Under ordinary conditions, Dragons could sustain speeds of eight to ten leagues per hour for a day to a day and a half. If they survived, this crossing would be the inspiration for a thousand ballads. If not? Their demise in the Cloudlands would not leave so much as a splash.
The Immadian Queen added, “Yet the Scroll of Many Hands is intriguing. Almost as intriguing as Kal’s ability to shield a material object while in his Shadow-form–which is what you achieved when Tazithiel’s fire vaporised Talon, Kal.”
Leaping upon a dismembered hand still grimly clutching its prize had to be a high point of his career. Kal pictured a circle of friends guffawing at his description of the moment. But the scroll had been an utter disappointment–esote
ric, opaque and apparently mostly of scholarly interest, it shed no light whatsoever on Dramagon’s bequest to Rhadhuri, his most ardent disciple. Finding where her former student had discovered her powers presented Aranya with a fresh headache of a size worthy of a Dragon-leviathan.
Kal said, “Oddly, I didn’t see her Shapeshifted form, either Dragon or Human. It was as if Talon existed in both forms at once.”
“She blocked Kal’s Shadow-form,” Tazi added.
Aranya shook her muzzle slowly. “I wish I understood what it meant. Just when you think you understand something of magic, it Shapeshifts from a lemur to a rajal.”
“Tell me, why ‘Aranyi’?” asked Kal, changing the subject.
“According to Immadian tradition, that’s the intimate form of my name,” Aranya explained. “Riika is obviously a fine student of Island-World cultures.”
He added, “Great Islands, can you imagine how insufferable she’ll be when she wakes up? Aranya, have you designed this new Academy to be Pygmy-proof? I hope so.”
“No, only thief-proof.”
Kal mourned, “Truly they say that royals live in another Island-World.” Mother and daughter regarded him with identically imperious scowls. “So, Aranya, tell me what’s so vitally important about this mission that you two have been conniving like thieves–exceptionally handsome thieves, might I add–in dark and dingy corners, and having a rash of oh-so-darling mother-daughter Star Dragoness bonding sessions?”
“Refrain from befouling the universe’s unfathomable mysteries with thy crass, roguish tongue,” Tazithiel declaimed, with a girlish giggle.
Aranya flicked her remarkable multi-coloured locks with an air of faint despair. “I thought I’d never say this, but you two do suit each other. Kal, rightly you ask: ‘Why this mission? Why now?’ Defeating Rhadhuri, my murderous former student, was a truly worthy feat and spared this world countless sorrows, but I believe that a greater calling lies ahead. Kal, you have Master Ja’amba’s blessing–a most unusual blessing. You hear from the great Black Dragon himself, whose claw has clearly reached out to touch your life. Both of you dreamed independently of crossing the Rim-Wall Mountains. And there is your extraordinary liaison. Kal, I call you the King of Thieves because your touch is golden. The lives you have touched … I don’t pretend to understand your transformation, but ever since you declared yourself a fool for love’s sake, that foolery has set your destiny dancing and spinning amongst the stars.”