Dragon Thief

by Marc Secchia

  Kal came to. Tazithiel’s wings were invisible save for the parts nearest her body where the motion was minimised. Air howled over their shield, but the shape had perfect aerodynamic integrity. Reaching out with his Shadow power, he began to experiment with turning the air touching their shield, into Shadow. The power of the Indigo Dragoness’ flight seemed to crack the noon skies asunder.

  Tazithiel laughed softly, deep in her throat. Clearly, we are the superior creatures. Look, Kal. You can already spy a change.

  Kal looked ahead, for he could not otherwise make sense of the racing images. To look sideways was to see a blur. Soon, he observed that what he had taken for a shadow was indeed a darkening of the Cloudlands. Fifty leagues later, the clouds had turned a sooty black. Kal realised there was no more greenery or any other plant life on the cliffs. On and on they raced, making a speed he did not dare to calculate.

  Here it comes, called Tazithiel, adjusting their flight path. They soared upward, gathering height and a little more distance. The character of the mighty Rim-Wall cliffs changed completely, as if a gigantic paw had painted the rocks with an almighty black brush. It’s the cliffs of golden black, Kal. Look. Look!

  I see, he laughed.

  The dragonets had landed on the Isle of truth. The cliffs were a strange colour; his mind could not ascertain what shade exactly, a metallic black that gleamed like gold? The colour defied classification, glimmering evasively through a thousand median shades. This had to the largest deposit of metal ore in the world, only he had no idea what type. Meriatonium, perhaps?

  Tazithiel, it’s not dangerous, is it? As in, radioactive dangerous?

  I don’t detect anything–save magic. More magic than I’ve ever felt before.

  Kal craned his neck. Some five or six leagues above the Cloudlands, the golden black wall appeared to blend back into ordinary grey rock. Below, the sheer metal surface continued straight down into the black clouds. Only the Ancient Dragons could have constructed an edifice like this. It had to be hundreds of leagues wide. But where was it ‘thusly written’?

  Tazi … slow down. Where are the suns? How many minutes?

  Ten, perhaps.

  Do you see writing anywhere?

  Kal, I think the golden black section ends near the limit of my sight. Suddenly, she braked hard, slewing violently in the air, crying, There! That’s it!

  Kinetic power alone kept Kal upright as the Dragoness made a royal mess of her turn, tumbling head-over-heels before executing a desperate wriggle to right them. Kal peered behind as they overshot the mark by several leagues.

  Hold on! Tazithiel screamed into a turn and suddenly they were racing back the way they came like a falcon screaming down on a hare. Still with us, Kal?

  The important bits, anyway. Kal touched his ears. The extreme pressure fluctuations must have popped his eardrums. Please speak telepathically. I’ve damaged my ears. Oh my … that’s the cipher, right?

  Dragon and Rider gasped as a vast rune flared into being in the dark cliff right ahead. Flames licked across its length, somehow burnished or reflected by the suns, Kal could not tell which. The upper wavy line solidified, then the suns-beams glyph, and below that, a second wavy line. Now, the tops of new runes flashed to life.

  Fra’anior’s Way. Tazithiel turned her muzzle as she read, for despite their five miles or so distance from the cliffs, each separate rune was at least a mile across.

  Kal realised what was happening. The first of the twin suns had begun to pass over the peaks. In that moment, the scant minutes that marked the suns’ passing over at the time of solstice, this writing appeared upon the cliffs. This was mighty Ancient Dragon magic at work.

  Look below the runes, the Dragoness cried. Those are–yes, they are! Paw-prints!

  Eighty-four paws, I reckon, said Kal, rubbing his eyes.

  Paws the size of Islands. Ridiculous. Humbling. As the suns’ last light washed down the cliff, he startled. Great Islands, Tazi, the top’s fading already. Go!

  Go what? Nonetheless, the Indigo Dragoness took off again.

  I don’t know–hit the paw-prints! Do something. Use your Kinetic power. Roaring rajals, they’re disappearing so fast. What stupid magic is this anyways? Sorry if that offends you, Fra’anior! But you don’t make this easy.

  Can’t … I’m trying …

  It was too vast. Too much even for a Star Dragoness. Tazithiel slumped, gasping for breath.

  Listen, Indigo-eyes, if that prophecy really knew about the two of us, and eighty-four is a product of twelve sevens … what is the Dragon power that sings?

  Starsong. But I’ve never …

  Tried? Kal laughed. Alright, Tazi. Put this in your mind. Prepare to unleash your Kinetic, Storm and Star Dragoness powers on every seventh paw-print. Can you do that? I will boost you just like I do when we’re doing our clever supersonic malarkey. Quickly!

  Roaring a challenge that set the strange metallic mountains ringing, Tazithiel charged toward the sheer cliff at a speed rooted in madness.

  The suns sailed onward. Already the cipher was in shadow, and the words ‘Fra’anior’s Way’ were almost unreadable. Kal wondered inanely how many paws Fra’anior might have. Four? Twelve? Or did that number represent three Ancient Dragons–Fra’anior, Amaryllion and Numistar? Worse, Dramagon?

  If they succeeded, the Island-World might be changed forever.

  Wait, my beauty. Wait for it …

  Their minds joined, drinking deep of each other’s powers. Kal sensed within his mind an inferno of draconic joy, the knowledge that she was uniquely made for this; that together, they boasted powers that unique amongst the Dragon-Rider teams of history. Tazithiel’s concentration narrowed. There. That one. The pattern, completed. Every seventh paw-print blazed in her perception.

  Such a surfeit of power drew together in his breast, Kal felt as though he had swallowed half of the world. Perhaps it was the innate magic of this place. Convulsively, he blasted his own shadowy fires into the hallways of Tazithiel’s being. She allowed the Shadow to infuse her own offerings at the speed of thought, before unleashing it all in a simultaneous twelvefold blast.

  They expected an explosion.

  The tempest flashed across the miles and struck truly, shaking the Rim-Wall Mountains as though Fra’anior himself had struck a powerful note upon a gong a hundred leagues wide and ten leagues tall. The sound seemed unending. No amount of holding one’s ears or squeezing the muscles of one’s ear-canals made any difference. The sound ripped through them. The Indigo Dragoness shuddered with the force that slowed her charge; when Kal opened his eyes, the Dragoness hovered but a nose-length from the sheer wall of otherworldly golden black. The magical forces were palpable, skewing and confusing their senses.

  Then, silence reigned supreme.

  Stretching out a trembling foreclaw, Tazithiel touched the mountain. Aren’t you supposed to do something?

  KAARRAAABOOOOMM! A concussive force beat and bruised their ears.

  Earthquake? Away, Tazi, away …

  She flicked her wings, but despite a groaning rumble that perturbed the mountain from the skies above to the Cloudlands below, no boulders fell, no lightning frazzled Dragon and Rider for their temerity and no mysterious power swatted them like an Ancient Dragon might swat a mosquito. Neither did anything remotely beneficial appear to occur. The Island-World did not end–a decent result, in a thief’s respectful opinion.

  Kal looked at Tazithiel, who considered him with equal perplexity.

  I suppose we could lay claim to the biggest anti-climax in history, Kal said doubtfully. Though, I’m not convinced the balladeers would make a queen’s jewellery from this result.

  We failed, Kal. We did everything we could.

  Everything? Well, we didn’t understand half of what we’ve done … it isn’t something irrational, is it? Such as, OPEN!

  Superior being or not, Kal’s mouth hung open in perfectly idiotic amazement as his shout caused a low rumble to emanate from within the m
ountain. The golden magic rippled outward from a point opposite his dangling jaw. And with a KERRAAACK! that shook him like a toddler shaking a gourd-rattle, the Rim-Wall split along a hitherto unseen seam.

  And stopped.

  Er … is that it? Kal’s question echoed in a gap a couple of feet wider than his outstretched arms. He looked up and down. It stretched as far as the eye could see, impossibly deep. Perhaps the gap reached right through the mountain? Open. OPEN!

  Nothing.

  Nice work, Kal. Tazithiel managed not to sound too sarcastic.

  Aye, Fra’anior himself might be able to stick one claw in there. Two, at a push.

  They took turns in shouting various commands, feeling as futile as a pair of flies batting their heads against a vast, opaque crysglass pane. Eventually, Kal was forced to admit that their ballad was not improving much. Even a Dragon hatchling could not fly down that gap.

  Kal said, So, can a superior being see any light beyond the mountain?

  Dragons could not physically squint, but Tazithiel made a fair impression of squinting into the darkness. Meantime, waiting interminably for her response, Kal wriggled in his seat and eventually looked around idly.

  Kal? Did you just skip a heartbeat?

  Tazi … turn around.

  She whirled. An immobility of tingling scales and prickling neck-hairs seized both Rider and Dragon. For they saw a flotilla of Islands come sailing from the South, perhaps two dozen strong, their bare, damp mountain peaks appearing to dip into the Cloudlands and emerge again in a stately rhythm not unlike a slow walk. Way in the distance, another Island-flotilla crested the Cloudlands.

  The place where Dragons slumbered.

  Ambling along as though they owned all the time in the world, the Islands drifted into position, the first set about eight or ten miles from the Rim-Wall, while others ambled further afield. They clumped together in pairs and triplets, as if forming family groups. Some individual Islands were as large as two or three miles across, some groups as many as eight strong. As they slowly formed a line stretching away beyond the horizon, the Island-creatures appeared to move higher and higher–perhaps climbing a ridge hidden beneath the Cloudlands–until they exposed a couple of miles of what appeared to be ordinary rock to the world of suns-shine and clear air.

  Now, that’s magic, Kal breathed.

  They’re Dragons, said Tazi. Very slow moving, slow thinking Dragons. They speak a dialect of Dragonish I don’t think I’ve ever heard before. Are those nostrils on their backs? Or ravines? Anyways, I think we’ve found our Island-bridge. I’ll bet your entire hoard to a rajal’s breakfast that in a few days, we’ll find a neat line of new Islands stretching all the way to the Western Isles.

  Kal gawked unseeing at the horizon, for suddenly, clouds passed across his eyes.

  The Dragoness said, And I know Riika will be the first to wrangle Aranya into crossing that Island-bridge to reach us, Kal. I know it as surely as the suns know to rise every morning.

  He hugged the spine spike in front of him. I’m convinced I’ve identified your one and only colour, Dragoness.

  Oh?

  Aye. It’s called indigocredible.

  Really? Well, I think you’re a particular shade of shadawesome.

  Kal made a face. Ugh, enough mushy-this and sappy-that. We’ve work to do, Indigo-eyes. Because I am not having your mother-monster turn up here to burn my ears with all she thinks about an eight-foot gap to nothingness. Not on my Island. Not today!

  Aye. Dragons are not exactly renowned for their meek acceptance of failure. Tazithiel spat like a Green Dragoness in her fury. I want to solve this mystery as much as you do, Kal. Pull out that scroll. Start reading. I’ll fly to the top and see if I can find those runes again–what’s that?

  The Indigo swivelled again in the air, searching for the source of what Kal readily identified as a low vibration emanating from the cliffs. Ha! Celebration time! Now they would see the truth of the world beyond the Rim-Wall. Could the great cliffs, these unimaginable gates to another realm, be drawing back at last? Then he detected a high-pitched hissing, like high-pressure steam escaping from a meriatite furnace engine. Whatever it was, that sound was fast approaching. Kal tensed. The Indigo Dragoness back-winged steadily, facing the danger like a good Dragon; reflexes primed, muscles quivering with readiness and shield strong.

  A series of muffled booms resounded beneath the Cloudlands. Dragon and Rider jerked in surprise. Danger from below?

  Water exploded from the gap as if all the spigots of the heavens had been turned on at once. It jetted hundreds of feet outward before curving into a magnificent, miles-high waterfall. Tazithiel tumbled away from the blast, the power of that hydrant too much even for a Dragoness to combat. Laughing, she swung around and burst back through the waterfall, shouting, Taste it, Kal! This water’s salty!

  So it was. Kal shook his head in disbelief, the more so since he discovered a sleek, three-foot fish wriggling in his lap. Before he could corral his catch, the unfamiliar fish wriggled like slick soap through his grip and tumbled away, flipping and flopping, into the Cloudlands.

  Kal kept expecting the flow to ease, to dry up, but it showed no signs of abating. What if the water level out there was higher than any of the Islands of his world? Surround them in water, he realised, and they truly would be Islands–like those tiny pocks of land in Remoy’s famous wealth of terrace lakes, so beloved of the water birds and thieves who might choose to construct a hideout there. Then he laughed. The volume of water required to fill this giant crater must be incalculable. Even with this volume of salty water falling from the heavens, it could never make so much as a puddle in the bottom of the Cloudlands. Not in a thousand years.

  According to Aranya, the Cloudlands boasted abysses so deep, a bottom had never been found despite Land Dragon explorations to depths of over six leagues, the practical limit even for the greatest of four-legged beasts. In other places, the world’s core fires broached the surface, such as at Fra’anior Cluster, where the caldera eighteen leagues in diameter oozed lava, continually building its foundations atop the roots of the world.

  Kal said, Bah. Hope the scroll survived your impromptu swim, Dragoness.

  Tazithiel wheeled away from the plunging water, chuckling, Well, we wrote one more stanza of our ballad, did we not?

  Aye. Dragon and Rider broke out the soapstone, and enjoyed the biggest bath in recorded history.

  They chuckled all the way up into the heavens.

  * * * *

  Three beautiful evenings later, a despondent Dragon and her Rider camped beside the nostril of a sleeping Land Dragon. At least, they hoped the creature slept.

  “Can I say something?” Kal inquired.

  Tazithiel wagged a talon in the affirmative.

  Kal voiced a full-throated Jeradian battle cry. He shook his fists at the heavens, growling until the veins popped out in his forehead. He hurled a few imaginary Ancient Dragons into the bottomless Cloudlands. He shadow-boxed Fra’anior in the jaw. He beat the ground with his heels in a tantrum worthy of ten toddlers and finished up by shredding an invisible scroll and disgustedly tossing the bits to the winds.

  “All done?” the Indigo Dragoness inquired solicitously.

  “Actually, I do feel better. Right. So we know the waterfall goes all the way to the top of that golden black section, six leagues or so above the Cloudlands. Apparently this part of the Rim-Wall is metallic but made of a substance harder than a Dragon’s talons can penetrate–perhaps a door, but we can’t be sure. There’s no end to the water so far. The runes vanished, most helpfully, and we cannot find a single clue in the scroll. How’s my summary?”

  “Not quite miserable failure, but–”

  “So close it’s indistinguishable from the same?”

  “Exactly.”

  Kal kicked at the Land Dragon, though he knew it for a futile gesture. “With due respect, beast, you sit here for the reason that greater and better minds can fly to Fra’anior’s Way
and discover what we could not. Which I am not bitter about.”

  Tazi clasped his shoulders with her paw. “Here’s the plan, Kal. I spend all night discombobulating you here, on a Land Dragon’s back. Tomorrow, wearing incredibly silly smiles, we return the green dragonets to their home. Then we fly back down the Island-bridge and find out how Riika’s doing. Your head says she’s fine, but your heart weeps clots of blood.”

  Kal gaped like a slack-mouthed Yorbik drudge.

  “Aye. Either I’m getting to know you better, or I’m starting to read your mind.”

  He folded his arms sullenly. “Right.”

  “I know, I’m so thrilled! It’s like sucking on a sewer.”

  Chapter 37: Into the Gap

  Having returned the green dragonets to their home warren in a day-long flight and having shamelessly metagrobolised the local fauna in an unspecified number of locations en route, when Tazithiel was not chomping said local fauna, Rider and Dragoness soared away two points east of southeast, aiming to intersect the Island-bridge midway between the Rim-Wall and the Western Isles. Kal had to work hard not to imagine a pair of whipped curs slinking home, tails tucked firmly between their legs.

  Appropriately, the weather was dismal. A storm swept in from the northwest and tossed heaps of sleet–derisively, it seemed–atop the most isolated pair of heads in the Island-World, before meandering on over the horizon. The winds jostled Tazithiel along at a fine pace. The faster to meet a never-ending chorus of mockery, Kal muttered. Perfect.

  After two days on the wing, Kal and Tazithiel approached the Island-Bridge in the hour after midnight, landed rapidly atop a league-long Land Dragon’s back, and made a camp of sorts beside a nostril which had to measure a quarter-mile from end to end. Kal leaned over the abyss, and breathed in that particular cinnamon-like scent of magic. Aye, Dragon.

  Bah.

  A perfect suns-rise worked an artistic masterpiece over the eastern horizon.

  Double-bah with oodles of supercilious dragonets ladled on top.

  Kal, awake with the dawn, cast a disparaging glance at the Rim-Wall massif. Not so freaking large now, was it? His follow-up glance was so rapid, he pulled a neck muscle.