by Marc Secchia
Kaiatha shook like a reed in a torrent. Nevertheless, she turned to her friend and said, “Pip. Quote the Rallix piece. Start on the fourth stanza.”
“I … right.”
Deeply conscious of every stare, hot and ashamed, Pip had a panicked moment when her mind went blank. But then the familiar words began to parade in front of her. She recited:
Gemmiss the Azure did strike her noble claw,
Upon the blazing peak of Fra’anior.
‘Fie,’ saith she, ‘I shall but send this volcano,
To the bottom of a Cloudlands sea.’
“Carry on.”
Pip reeled off the epic poem from memory, until Master Shambithion nodded and breathed, “Aha.” He stopped her with a hand on her arm. “Now I understand. Student Pip. Please name for me the legend on page 147 of the First Year Lorebook.”
“Page 147 is a title page, Master–Miscellaneous Legends. But 148 starts with the Tale of the Two-Headed Dragon. It is followed by Jex of Jeradia, middle of the page.”
Journeyman Gelka’s jaw sagged.
Master Shambithion beamed at Pip as if he had opened a dusty old chest and unexpectedly found it full of treasure. “Quote the entire page to me, Pip.” After a moment, she began to recount the page, her voice echoing in the vast, still hall. The Master’s eyes fluttered shut in a strange kind of ecstasy. He chuckled gently when she noted a punctuation error in the text. Poor Gelka’s jaw just leaned open like a broken door.
“That’s the end of the page, Master,” said Pip.
Shambithion said, “You see, Journeyman Gelka, the oral cultures of the Island-World have extraordinary powers of memorisation. Pip. Geography textbook. Let’s see. Tell me about … Ramgee Island.”
“Certainly, Master.” Pip pictured the page in her mind’s eye. “Ramgee Island, previously called Rambala Island. Location: South-easterly quarter 15.16 degrees equatorial 87.56 easterly. Land mass 12.23 square leagues. Height varies 0.36 to 0.57 leagues above the Cloudlands. Tallest mountain is called the Hammer. Predominant weather Northern, frosty winters, permanent ice-cap. Three peripheral Islets noted, two inhabited, one an active volcano. One major city, seven villages and ninety-four hamlets. Population total 5,739, taken in the eleventh century census by Master Fellik of Hermithia Island–which lies 32.2 leagues north-east of Jeradia and constitutes the nearest major Cluster. Primary economic activities are … shall I continue, Master?”
Shambithion returned Pip’s scroll of answers from the morning to the Journeyman. “If you ask for rote memory, Gelka, that’s what you’ll get. Satisfied?”
The Journeyman’s throat worked. “Yes, Master. But that’s–”
“Extraordinary. Fabulous, I know,” crowed Master Shambithion, spitting slightly in his excitement. “What a mind! Uncanny, isn’t it? Now, Gelka, you will apologise to our student.”
“Pip, I am deeply sorry. I was wrong. You did not cheat.”
She bowed stiffly. When she sat down again, Pip picked up her quill pen and stared at the page for a very long time. The letters swam before her, mocking, circling with the predatory intent of carrion birds sizing up a carcass.
Her world was bleak. She belonged nowhere. Even the Masters and Journeymen distrusted her.
Cheat! Cheat! The words rang in her ears, a chorus drowning out all else.
Finally, when she could stand it no more, Pip scrawled several words below the question she had reached, midway through the paper. She put up her hand, and waited for Master Shambithion to collect her scroll.
“Finished, Pip?” She nodded. “You may leave quietly.”
Pip did not run until she was outside.
Her final written words on the examination scroll were, ‘I HATE this school!’
* * * *
She ran away. But how did one break out of a school guarded by fire-breathing Dragons, who to a beast thought the Pygmy girl enjoyed causing trouble for their kind?
Shucking her tunic top, Pip scaled the main volcano wall above the school that afternoon. By evening, she was climbing down a vertical cliff toward the forested gorge below. Three times, she hid from Dragons with all the craft of her jungle upbringing, either spotting them aloft or sensing a hint of magic stirring the hairs on the nape of her neck. She spared the spectacular, horizon-spanning crags of central Jeradia barely a glance. Her full attention was directed toward staying alive.
Thankfully, the volcanic rock was rough enough to provide plenty of handholds and footholds. Pip could climb with the ease of any monkey. Ha. Like a monkey. She revelled in the challenge. Pip glanced down once more. Half a mile below, Jalador was sleeping again. She stiffened, hugging the rock face and keeping utterly still as the gleaming bulk of an Amber Dragon appeared, drifting around the base of the volcano. From Oyda’s description, that had to be Emblazon. All she had seen of him previously was fangs and Dragon fire. He was colossal! He flew low and fast, spearing toward Jalador, probably trying to surprise him. Ah, crafty on both counts. The Green Dragon had not been sleeping after all.
They swapped places, Emblazon relieving the much smaller Jalador. After some discussion, Jalador departed and the Amber Dragon shrank into the shadows near the cave. Pip almost whistled aloud. Great Islands, was that magic? He had disappeared.
She clambered down the remainder of the cliff in utter silence, careful not even to breathe loudly, let alone dislodge a rock. Pip had no desire to attract Emblazon’s wrath. Oyda called him the ‘proudest young Dragon’–apparently, this included extraordinary strength and a temper worthy of a starving rajal.
It was fully dark by the time she ghosted into the forest, making for a point back along a faint animal trail where she and Hunagu had agreed to meet. Suddenly, there he was, a boulder rising from the forest, a great arm reaching out to engulf her in a hug. Pip buried her head in his fur and made a sound somewhere between a scream and a groan of anguish.
Hunagu just held her for a very long time. “Pip sad?”
“School hard. Hunagu alright?”
He sighed, a gust of air that flipped her hair about her face. “Good-good.”
Liar. But Pip did not say it. “Forest good?”
“Forest fine. Many Dragons. Bad shadow-thing here.”
With that, Pip’s humiliation in the examination room faded into nothingness. “Hunagu …” Her heart lurched into a gallop. “What shadow–”
“Shadow thing, from before. Sylakia beast.”
With a great deal of questioning, given the limitations of the Oraial language to express complex ideas, Pip managed to establish that Hunagu meant the same shadow-creature which had flown over their cage in Sylakia–the creature which had inhabited her dreams ever since. It had left again, but the way he described it left no doubt–it was the strange oily shadow which seemed to move through things but still had a substance of its own. There was an overwhelming perception of evil’s presence and the impression that it had wings like a Dragon.
Nausea churned in her stomach, as though a Dragon’s claw were slowly winding her intestines tighter and tighter. The hunting beast was surely nothing to do with her … was it? Whatever it was, she had to hurry back to the school and warn Master Kassik.
Hunagu kept asking, “Pip safe? Pip no trouble?”
“Pip safe,” she said. “Pip worry for school friends. Pip warn Dragons.”
“Good-good,” agreed the Oraial, wringing his huge hands. “Pip safe? Pip good-good? Pip careful?”
She punched his arm. “Hunagu careful? Hunagu safe?”
“Hunagu jungle king.” The Ape thumped his chest, but Pip felt it boomed a little hollowly.
Her abortive escape was over. Pip silently lamented the concern that would drive her back up the mountain to warn her friends. She could no more leave them vulnerable than she would choose to dine with a python. But Emblazon’s fury would be immeasurable if he learned she’d sneaked past him. Could she burgle the school a third time?
The Pygmy thief, she should be called.
&nbs
p; By the early hours, as the moons drifted behind the volcanic cone, leaving her only the star-frosted sky for company, Pip was high up the mountainside once more. She had successfully evaded Emblazon’s notice. An easier route had allowed her to scramble upward quickly, avoiding some of the overhangs which had challenged her and torn off a fingernail before. She sucked that finger pensively. Blazing Dragon-fires, it hurt.
The night was cool and hushed. Even the wind, which usually sighed and sang over the volcanic peaks above the school, seemed cowed.
Why?
The barren volcanic cliff held cracks and places where a Pygmy could conceal herself. Her heart pumped furiously. She sensed … Pip raced lightly up the steep slope, angling for a patch of boulders silhouetted against the milky background of stars.
And then a huge shadow rose above the volcano’s lip. She saw the constellations clearly through it–the Leaping Rajal, the Windroc, and Frakkior’s Dragon. Pip froze, as terrified as a mouse confronted by a cobra. The thing rose and tipped toward her, a shadow spreading like dark rippling water over the stars and the scrubby bushes, a winged shadow-beast with eyes that were pools of nothingness, just darkness upon darkness, and the horror that wracked her chest was so severe, she forgot how to breathe or live or believe. All was pain. The hunter searched with senses unknown to Humans. The touch of its presence brought only a flaring of agony behind her temples.
Pip smacked down on her face. Most fervently, as the creature bore down upon her in majestic silence, she wished that the rocks would rise up to conceal her frail existence.
A whisper of wind stirred her hair as it passed overhead.
Dimly, Pip heard the bugling challenge of a Dragon rise from the gorge below the volcano. Emblazon raced skyward, chasing the Shadow Dragon–but he seemed to become confused, because the shadow slipped away from him and vanished into the Jeradian wilderness.
He turned slowly in the air, scanning the terrain. A Dragon’s blazing gaze locked on her upturned face.
A sound like a thunderclap rolled over her; Emblazon’s bellow of pure fury, which smote her a paralysing blow. The impact of his landing shook her world. A Dragon’s paw smashed the air from her lungs. But he did not crush her–not quite, even though she was as an ant trapped beneath a boulder. Claws curled around her ribcage and lifted her irresistibly into the air. Emblazon heaved several breaths, clearly trying to calm himself.
“You, again,” he snarled. “Explain yourself.”
Pip struggled, heaving, her lungs burning with the need for air, seeing only a Dragon’s smoking nostrils entering her vision through a gathering tunnel of darkness. He breathed softly at her. Stars prickled behind her eyes; sweet air whistled into her lungs.
Healing magic. Even her panic had vanished.
Holding her up toward his muzzle in his fisted paw, Emblazon repeated, “What was that creature? What’re you doing here? What are you planning?”
She shook her head, saying, “I honestly don’t know what it is. Do you? I saw it once before in the zoo in Sylakia, flying overhead. I only went to the forest, Emblazon. I don’t know what that shadow creature is or what it’s doing here. You have to believe me.”
For several minutes, the burning of his gaze consumed her. Pip could not look away. She did not struggle. What he was looking for, she did not know, but at length the Dragon sighed and his fierceness evaporated. He said, “I do believe you. But not all will. Pip, I heard about the exam–everyone heard. You were running away, weren’t you?”
“Ay.” Breaking in, not breaking out. Emblazon had her moving in the wrong direction.
“They’ve been searching half of Jeradia for you,” he said. “You need to report to Master Kassik at once. I will report finding you separately from discovering that shadow creature.”
“I … don’t understand.”
“You and that creature, lurking out here together?” Emblazon snorted fire over her head. “What do you think they’ll think? Foolish girl.”
Pip swallowed. And she thought she had troubles enough already?
“Climb on my back.” The huge paw placed her on his shoulder. In a low, troubled voice, Emblazon added, “I do this for Zardon’s sake. He trusts you. That old Dragon might be two leagues short of a full Island, but his craft, judgement and knowledge of Dragon lore are unsurpassed. Hold on.”
For Zardon’s sake? What had the Red Dragon told his kin about her? And when? Pip clutched Emblazon’s spine-spike as he blasted into the air, before trimming his wings and accelerating at a fantastic rate over the volcano’s rim and down into the central caldera. The young Dragon was a powerful, silky-smooth flyer. He had to be awesome in combat.
For the first time, she saw her school from above. Pip gasped in wonder. There, hidden between five volcanic cones, was a lake of the clearest, most resplendent green she had ever seen, swirling slowly and glistening as though it were a window to a starry sky below. Around the lake, lit by the radiant waters, Dragons played. So many colours! Large Dragons and small, whole Dragon families playing in the pre-dawn gloom. Steam rose in numerous places along the lake’s edge from what Pip assumed were hot springs. In one place, bright orange lava flowed into the lake, bubbling and steaming so vigorously it was visible even from a distance. She saw a Yellow Dragon resting its rump directly in the fiery flow.
Emblazon was already approaching the school buildings. His broad wings flared as he braked sharply, bringing them in for a rooftop landing so perfect it did not disturb a single tile.
“Down that tree,” he said. “I assume your climbing skills are adequate to the task?”
Pip flushed. “They are.”
“Then straight to the Master’s office with you. Promise me.”
Oyda’s instruction echoed in her head. ‘Dragon promises are not like Human promises, Pip. They kill promise-breakers. Don’t ever make a promise to a Dragon you don’t intend to keep.’
“I promise.”
Emblazon opened his wings and fell into space.
Pip watched his departure with an unexpected pang of jealousy.
Then she shinned down the tree with ease. Right. She was in the garden courtyard where she had found Casitha before, not far from Master Kassik’s office.
Pip turned around, and bumped right into Maylin. She yelped.
Maylin grabbed her arm. “Pip! Where have you been? We searched this garden …”
Kaiatha and Yaethi threw themselves at her. Kaiatha sobbed, “Where were you? Pip, we were so worried.” Now Pip felt miserable and guilty, on top of her nerves.
But Maylin said roughly, “You little wretch. What kind of a friend disappears like that? Where were you hiding? Master Kassik’s going to roast your backside in the nearest volcano, let me tell you.”
Pip smiled uneasily. “I don’t suppose you’d believe me if I said I flew Dragonback on Emblazon?”
Yaethi spluttered, “Oyda’s Dragon? Are you mad?”
“Maybe a little.” Pip’s eyes gleamed. “Can you three keep a secret?”
“Can we turn you into Pygmy pie?” retorted Maylin. “You hold her, Kaiatha, and I’ll do the slicing and dicing.”
Chapter 15: Roast Pygmy for a Feast
Master Kassik Gave her a verbal roasting, just as her friends had threatened. Pip stared at her toes, scrunched up in his thick carpet.
“You’re the smallest student, but a Dragon-sized troublemaker,” stormed the Master, making a tight turn in front of his desk and marching back across his office. The buttons, medals and honours on his Jeradian War-Hammer’s uniform cast winks of light all around her. She dared not meet his gaze. “You drop from the sky, bamboozle that witless Green Jalador, irritate Alathion, assault a Prince–and I still haven’t heard the end of that incident from Udalia Island, may I tell you–break my Weapons Master’s arm, and rile up all of the Dragons! You’ve barely been here a month and you’re wearing a path to my door. What do you have to say for yourself, eh? Eh?”
“I apologise, Master Kassik.”
The Master unexpectedly made a growl worthy of any Dragon. “And then my Journeyman calls you for cheating in front of your entire class. Unbelievable!” He threw up his hands. “I’m surprised you didn’t hear my shouting at that Island-sized idiot from wherever you were up the volcano. You came second in yesterday’s exams, Pip. Second.”
“I’m very sorry, Master.”
“No, you’re not!” he roared, and then pulled up with a low chuckle. “Not for that, anyway. Only Yaethi beat you.”
He was not as angry as he was pretending to be. Why? More and more, the ways of big people confused her. Or was it just as Kaiatha had whispered, that someone who had grown up in a zoo, needed to learn how to be a Human? Surely her humanity–her humanness, rather–was inborn, as natural as breathing? If she read him right, Master Kassik was proud of her. Why then the anger?
She said, “Truly? Master, you checked how many hundred–”
“We know our students, Pip. Unless there are any surprises. Always possible. And, word of warning, young lady–we’ll set different types of questions, next time.” He flashed a big, Dragonish grin at her. “No more running away, Pip, please. My sanity depends on it. Promise?”
Careful what you promise to a Dragon, or to Master Kassik, Pip thought. He did strike her as very Dragonish in his behaviour, sometimes. He certainly had a Dragon’s temper hidden behind that commanding officer’s calm exterior.
“Master Kassik, I promise.”
He held her gaze until with a nod, he declared himself satisfied. Unexpectedly, he barked, “Alathion! Send them in.”
Kaiatha, Maylin and Yaethi joined her on the carpet. Pip imagined it should have been red, not brown. That would have matched Master Kassik’s display of temper. She had thought him so dignified. But he was also a warrior, a commanding officer. Her verbal thrashing could probably be heard halfway around the school.
Quietly, Yaethi handed her a tunic top. Pip drew it over her head. Her undressed state as she was hauled through Master Alathion’s office had caused him to turn as purple as a prekki-fruit.