by Marc Secchia
They swept out into an underground cathedral whose tall, narrow pillars were pure garnet crystal, where brilliance and intense magic combined to stun the senses. Pip gasped. Breathtaking! The light was liquid enough to swim in; the magic, thrumming softly against her senses, a siren song.
Filled with wonder, she rounded a pillar the size of a Dragonship, and found herself racing toward a glowing gemstone star that dominated all else in the chamber in beauty and stupefying majesty. Below it, as if basking in sunshine, stood a Silver Dragon. He was exquisite. A pure, metallic silver, his sixty feet of scales gleamed back the light as though he were born amongst the stars. His frame was slender and sinewy, the body of an athlete built for speed rather than brute strength. Emblazon dwarfed him.
But his eyes radiated power.
For an instant, Pip recognised a pang of pure desire in her hearts. She knew, without a shadow of doubt, that they were meant to fly together.
Then, the Silver Dragon’s mind reached out, and seized her with the strength of a thousand. Come to me, little one.
There was no gentleness in him, only crushing power. His eyes reflected pitiless disregard for the shriek of anguish she began to cry, before he snuffed out the sound. The Silver Dragon hauled her across the space between them with the ease of a windroc snaffling a small fish. Emblazon! Pip screamed. Help me!
Help? He betrayed you.
The mental voice stormed into her mind, mocking. It wanted to rummage through all that she was, but Pip steeled herself as she had once before, upon first meeting Zardon. Get out.
The Silver Dragon’s attack redoubled, but Pip imagined she was a metal ball, impervious to his strength. He could thunder all he wanted. She was a dark bastion, inviolate–but inwardly, she still screamed. How could Emblazon betray her? Pip’s flight struck the cavern floor a glancing blow. She thumped down hard on the hard-packed tan sand. However, she immediately skidded forward, hauled along by his incredible power until she came to rest right beneath the Silver Dragon’s paw. He placed his longest claw against her neck, at the place where she knew her first heart beat, where the great jugular veins pulsed behind a strong shield of bone.
He said, Surrender, or I’ll tear your hearts out, one by one.
Pip gasped, Who are you? What do you want?
She rested a moment behind her mental defences as the icy-beautiful eyes regarded her. I am Silver, your nemesis. And you are the Shapeshifter with the power of the Ancients.
Silver? It couldn’t be his real name. Emblazon, please … why?
I’m saving the Dragon-kin, said the Amber Dragon, landing beside them. You’ve no idea what power stalks the Island-World, Pip. The Marshal of Herimor comes to save us all. He is the holy avenger. By giving you up, I save my Rider and all those I love.
What?
Just days before, Emblazon had welcomed her to the family of Dragons. Now the dagger of betrayal twisted in her gut, wounding in more ways than she could name. Pip struggled against the Silver Dragon, but his mental grip seemed unbreakable. With her eyes, she beseeched the Amber Dragon. Please. Don’t let this be true. He had been acting strangely. It was a temporary madness, he’d shake himself and the noble Emblazon would reappear …
Emblazon explained, You’re an imposter. You’re in league with that ravening Shadow Dragon. He sounded so certain of himself, even as he spouted unbelievable nonsense. Pip felt her eyes bulge to the point of popping out of their sockets. You’ve duped them all, but I am wise to your ways. You are the cancer that eats Dragons’ souls. You’re the dark enchantress who will destroy the Island-World.
That was one of her fears, Pip realised. She hoped she would wield that power wisely. However, choices were seldom absolute. If she had to ever choose between two terrible evils …
The truth blazed in her mind, a truth that ripped through her gut and left her despairing. You’ve joined them. You’ve joined the enemy.
I am my own Dragon, with my own ways of securing my revenge. Fly to the Cloudlands, little Pip. I won’t see you again.
Pip sensed the laughter in the Silver Dragon before it rippled out of him. Dupe? You’re the dupe, Emblazon. Bow to me. Scrape your muzzle on the stone. Grovel!
To her horror, the light dulled in Emblazon’s eyes. He bowed his head, rubbing his chin against the stone as bidden. The Silver Dragon’s laughter rose, cruel and all-consuming. His power was terrifying. He made Emblazon fawn before him as a hound might fawn before its master.
Enough of this. The Silver Dragon flicked his head dismissively. Hear my orders. Go to the rock which lies fifteen leagues southeast of Fra’anior. You’ll find a hundred of my Dragon-kin there, the Night-Red Dragons. Bring them here, and destroy all Dragons who dare to defy you. With this little one muzzled, our victory is assured.
Emblazon growled eagerly, It shall be done, Silver.
White-hot fury enveloped Pip. All was molten. Tearing herself free of the Silver Dragon’s mighty grip, both mentally and physically, she attacked Emblazon with tooth and claw. Her fury staggered him. Tiny as she was, she threw the massive Amber Dragon backward–her strength, at least momentarily, disproportionate to her size. A word formed within her mind, blazing toward her like a comet streaking across the night sky, a word which would …
The breath stopped in her throat. It not only stopped, but it sucked outward, deflating her lungs completely. The word could not be released. Emblazon spun, lashing out with his great tail, slamming Pip across the cave with bone-shattering force. She crumpled, seeing nothing.
The Silver Dragon was above her. Crushing her with his body, stretching her wings to breaking point with the strength of his talons, curving his neck to pierce her throat with his fangs, he snarled, I’ll tear your wings off. Transform yourself.
Without air in her lungs, Pip could not form a Word of Command. The pain was excruciating, the strain of her tendons and ligaments beyond endurance. She tasted blood. All was colours and magic and light, and the renewed mental hold of the Silver Dragon, battering her into oblivion.
She transformed.
An unknown time later, Pip opened her eyes. She lay on her back. Leather filled her mouth, stretching her lips painfully. Above her, a young man of eerie, silvery skin and pure white hair, as beautiful in form as he was detestable, hummed cheerfully as he trussed her hands and feet with lashings of rope. She could not move. Her thoughts were numb; her magic, spent.
He was a Shapeshifter, too. Striking. His colour made him seem ethereal, but there was a real, wiry strength about him and an intensity of purpose bordering on obsession. A sardonic smile touched his lips, noting her regard. Pip flushed with self-loathing. She tore her eyes away from his sculpted jaw. Where in the Islands was he from, with his unusual looks? Oh, the sweet temptation to lose herself in his hypnotic gaze …
Emblazon growled, You aren’t as strong as you think, are you, Silver?
His eyes–oh, his eyes! The terrible orbs rolled aside, lighting on Emblazon. The words stopped in the proud young Dragon’s throat. Panic flashed in his gaze. Mutely, Emblazon stared at the Silver Dragon Shapeshifter.
Stop, he said. Emblazon’s hearts halted. After a long pause, he said, Start.
It was not a Word of Command. His magic was different, Pip realised, tied somehow to controlling the essence of physical things. Nevertheless, it was awesome. How could she have imagined that she might fly with this monster? She had to be sick. Pip tried to roll over, but Silver’s hand gripped her throat.
To Emblazon, he said, Buzz along now, you overgrown dragonfly. Do not make me discipline you further.
The Amber Dragon winged off.
Pip groaned into the gag. Silver’s fingers tightened, digging into the sides of her neck, forcing her to meet his gaze. They locked on each other, black orbs to silver, and battled in silence. His mental strength was inexorable, the stuff of Island foundations and ever-burning suns. He sought to vanquish and despoil her mind. He squeezed and prodded and beat her. Pip’s teeth ground against the le
ather as she resisted. Pain mushroomed between her temples. Was this the danger she had sensed? How long since Emblazon had given himself over to the powers of evil? What did they know of their plans? Everything?
Hot, acid despair scored her heart.
An unknown interval passed as she resisted Silver, an unending, unblinking clash of wills. Suddenly, the pressure vanished. He settled back on his haunches, studying her with a grim smile. He was considering how to attack her again, she knew. Fifteen leagues to the rock where his forces waited, Pip thought, suddenly aware of the passage of time. Two hours, perhaps, before they attacked–less whatever time she and the Silver Dragon had already spent together.
She had to distract him. How? Here came the compulsion of his mind, red-hot pincers pinching her temples.
Inanely, an image of Nak sprang to mind. On an impulse, she said, Do you like seeing me naked?
He blinked. Huh?
The mental vise slacked for an instant. Somehow, somewhere, beneath the adamantine grip, she sensed there was a real young man. She had to reach him. Quickly.
My Dragons will be here any minute. He growled, When we’ve finished annihilating your pathetic friends with Dragon fire, I’ll take you to the Marshal. None can stand against him.
Which Marshal? That knowledge alone would be priceless …
Nak danced again in her mind. Pip grinned beneath the gag. Your backside is awfully cute, Silver. I wish all Shapeshifter Dragons were as cute as you.
Confusion softened the fierce silver gaze. His hand slackened on her neck. Don’t play games with me, little one. I know what you’re doing.
It’s a problem we Shapeshifters have, isn’t it? Did you enjoy tying me up? I think I might come to appreciate being your captive.
Pip tried to make her eyes wide and artless, while she mentally pictured throwing up at her words. Well, he was cute, that was a true word. Volcanic, as Kaiatha liked to say, but only when Durithion was not about to hear her call him that. She squirmed in what she hoped was an enticing way.
Are you sure you don’t want to keep me for yourself, Silver? Just for a little while?
His eyes flickered over her body before leaping guiltily back to her face. A pinch of rose entered his cheeks. Pathetic, he sneered. There’s practically nothing to you. But his eyes disagreed with his mouth. And the pulse leaping in his throat spoke even more persuasively than his eyes.
Suddenly, he cocked his head as though he had heard a call. They’re here. Dumping Pip on her stomach, he rapidly forced her ankles and feet together and tied them off. Don’t fly away, helpless little Pip, he jeered. His fingers locked a cool collar around her neck. This is a Lavanias collar. It doesn’t change or break. I wouldn’t suggest transforming. It’s a special invention of the Marshal’s, especially designed for subduing Shapeshifters. Any last words for your friends?
The steel was back in his manner. Pip knew she had failed. The silver eyes watched her fight the ropes, sardonic, scornful, callous.
Go combust in a Cloudlands volcano, she snarled.
I thought so. See you after the blood-letting, Pygmy Dragon. Then you and I will have all the time together that you seem to crave.
His body shimmered, changing inward and outward in the blink of an eye, a blooming of magic on so many levels, it took her breath away. A Silver Dragon loomed over her.
I’ve a mind to burn you to ashes. The wings beat, and he was gone.
Pip lay in the crystal cave, abandoned.
Chapter 26: Fires over Fra’anior
For a time all she knew was the searing bitterness of defeat.
Pip writhed against the ropes. She fought obstinately, seeking a loose point, a knot, anything she could get her rapidly numbing fingers around or slacken, but Silver–whoever he really was–had completed a work of beastly diligence. The treacherous half of her concluded he was gorgeous. The other half wanted to claw his eyes out. And that was not just the Dragon in her, either.
Blast him and his blasted ropes and his blasted collar. Could she trust his word? A transformation ought to snap the ropes like spider silk–but what if the Silver Dragon, with his extraordinary command of the material world, was telling the truth about the collar? She’d slice through her own neck.
A repugnant end for a Pygmy Dragon.
She needed her fires. She needed her strength. But how could she utter a Word of Command when her cheeks were stuffed to bursting with foetid old leather?
“Pip strange-strong.” Hunagu’s voice echoed in her memory.
When she was mad. When she was filled with fire to bursting, she might hurt an Oraial.
What could make her that angry?
Pip cast her mind back seven summers. She summoned up all her best memories of the Pygmy village–her friends, her hut, the jungle and her parents’ love, best of all. Then she recalled the big people invading. She traced the fires with the eyes of remembrance. She heard the screams. She saw the tiny Pygmy children fleeing, terrified, wide-eyed and alone. The dying. The men she had killed. Then, she put them all to the fires. The burning filled her memories, burning her very soul.
First, her upper body seemed to swell against the ropes. She tried to bite back the feeling, terrified of another uncontrolled transformation into her Dragon form. Her veins bulged palpably in her neck and forehead, squirming as if her flesh concealed indignant worms. The collar squeezed her throat. Her fists clenched so hard that she felt warm, wet blood squeeze out between her knuckles.
A low, gruesome groan built in her chest. Pip bore down on the ropes. Her strength multiplied, and multiplied again. Her back arched until she thought her spine must surely crack.
The ropes snapped first, with sharp retorts. She attacked the gag with angry growls. Next, the collar. That took a great deal of wrestling with before she realised, sliced fingers and a bleeding neck later, that the lock was the vulnerable point. She snapped it with a twist of her fingers. Rope burn scored her skin in a dozen places. She shut out the pain.
Flinging the collar aside, Pip jumped into the air.
The world leaped around her. A soundless groan, trapped in the instant of changeover between her two forms, elongated as the power required for her transformation gathered from all around her. There was a noticeable hesitation this time, before the transformation rippled through her being. Had the cave aided her? Pip shook herself. No time to think about that. Wings. Claws. Go!
Pip’s wings pumped at full force, shooting her back down the tunnel. She jinked and swerved around the corners at a breakneck velocity, before bursting out into the fiery Fra’aniorian night. Her shoulder joints rotated. Golden Dragon blood drained toward her tail as Pip shot toward the vast Yellow moon, her well-trimmed wings driving her on as never before. Emblazon had taught her well. She should thank him before she killed him.
Poor Oyda. Betrayed by the creature she loved. Sorrow damped her fires.
The Amber Dragon needed to be redeemed.
She climbed at a phenomenal rate over Ha’athior Island, seeking with her Dragon sight for what she feared most–and saw it. Flame billowed in the night sky. The small compound where they had spent the previous night was already ablaze; so too the Dragon hatchery and the narrow bands of orchards clinging to the steep volcanic slopes. Dragons wheeled in the dark sky, Red fighting Black, Amber against Green. There was Nak, riding the Blue Dragon who had first greeted them, Turquielle.
The confusion of Dragons bellowing and sizzling fireballs rocketing between the close combatants and the clanging of an alarm gong gave her wingbeat pause. Then Pip spotted the Silver Dragon. He circled over the battlefield, directing his Dragons with touches of his mind. Her lips curled back from her fangs. So, he would be her nemesis?
Her wings furled. She swooped in for the kill.
The cool night air hissed hungrily over her scales as Pip plunged from on high, accelerating to her highest velocity, driven on by a firestorm of rage and sorrow lodged in her breast. She was too late. Emblazon’s treachery had seen
to it.
Air crowded into her nostrils. Her ear canals narrowed reflexively, dulling the wind’s roar, and she trimmed her wings to their narrowest extent, knowing she needed only tiny adjustments to keep herself on course at this speed. Madness. She’d kill herself, too. But Pip could not bring herself to care about that.
The world blurred around her, except for the Silver Dragon. He was clear. He was the target.
A second before she struck, the Silver Dragon glanced up, perhaps sensing danger, or hearing the wind howling over her scales. His eyes widened. Silver threw up a wall of magic, but Pip sheared straight through it. Steeling herself for the impact, she struck his flank with a smack like a thunderclap. Her shoulder smashed his ribs. She bounced off, dazed. The Silver Dragon began to say something, but what burst out of his mouth was a coughed-up mist of Dragon blood. She could not imagine the internal injuries she had caused.
Pip stared, appalled.
That was when Emblazon’s claws raked her back.
She arched away, screaming as daggers of pain sliced through her hide, making a weak counter with her claws, which simply skittered off his tough scales. The Amber Dragon thundered his challenge. He buffeted her tumbling body with his wings as he sought to bring his fangs to bear. Dodging, twisting, diving, she could not escape the cunning, powerful Dragon. Where was Oyda? If she could find her … the Dragon Assassins were everywhere, ravaging and fighting, burning and maiming. Pip caught a flash of Tazzaral whizzing by with Kaiatha riding him bareback, biting a chunk out of a Dragon’s wing; Maylin, firing arrows left and right off her Red Dragon as they corkscrewed into a dark knot of enemy Dragons and ripped them apart.
Grief, that girl was crazy.
A familiar bellow washed over her as Kassik closed with Emblazon, forcing him to disengage and take on the larger Dragon. He had two Riders! Which was which? Even Pip’s Dragon sight could barely discern the difference between Casitha and Oyda, but then she realised one of them had eyes puffy from weeping.