by Marc Secchia
What?
Stirring, she groaned and sank back on her featherbed … her air bed? Shioni’s head rolled aside. Howling hyenas, where was she? This little dell was beautiful. Weird, but beautiful. Blue grass, sprays of pink trumpet-shaped flowers bending over her bubble, and trees with a dozen or more lavender-coloured trunks winding around together as though they had been deliberately braided together, greeted her eye. Fragrant pollens and nectars teased her nostrils.
Ooh, she could eat a–Shioni’s eyes widened. She was floating in a bubble! Weirder and weirder.
Shioni felt as wrung out as a dirty, overused dishcloth. Her wings ached, and the tip of her lower left wing, covering her ankles, was torn in three places. A glimpse of the wound on her shoulder made her wince and feel faint. Was that whitish stick her shoulder blade? The wild magic had surely left its mark. She was surprised it did not hurt more.
Cradling her wounded left arm with care, Shioni sat up, feeling about with her toes. Definitely a bubble. Not soapy, but soft and yielding. Magical, judging by the prickling of her antennae. Well, she would just … oh. No weapon.
A different sensation crawled up the back of her neck. She was being watched.
Shioni whirled, and stifled a scream against her knuckles. A dragon! Or was it? Her brain wavered between wanting to call the creature a butterfly, a dragonfly, or a dragon. It had at least ten luminous wings rippling gently in the breeze, allowing the creature to hover with the perfect control of a dragonfly, and butterfly-like patterns and swirls all over its body, which glimmered in the sunlight like a gemstone or a cluster of curiously alive crystals, but the finned head was unmistakably draconic–complete with hypnotic, faceted eyes, a grinning muzzle stuffed full of fangs, and a curl of real fire flaring from its slit nostrils.
What it was for certain, was a monster.
The beast watched her with unnerving intensity. It was so eye-poppingly enormous, Shioni realised she could have flown up either of its nostrils with ease. Had this creature helped her, perhaps saving her from the storm? Had the bad weather blown over? And why did she sense crystal chimes singing as the creature moved, a sound which reminded her acutely of the Cave-Crawler she had heard while they flew to Green Central?
Maybe she could make friends with it?
And maybe hyenas lived on the moon. Cautiously, Shioni said, “Er–hello?”
The wings undulated, bringing it closer. “Many an orbit have I waited to see one of your kind,” said the creature. Its voice was the sound of glorious chimes combined with a flute-like resonance, but its beautiful music nonetheless chilled its listener. The dragon’s manner showed not a drop of kindness or welcome.
“I-I’m Shioni,” she faltered. “W-Who …”
“So, Storm Fiuri, you dare to return to Fiuriel’s surface?”
“S-Storm … what?”
A chameleon’s change of colour swept over the creature’s skin. Within two breaths, it had grown utterly transparent, and vanished! Shioni puckered her lips. If she concentrated carefully, she could tell it was still present by the way the light wavered as it filtered through the beast, but why had it hidden itself?
Glancing around, her heart plummeted from the fear of a moment before, to the blackest depths of despair. Oh no!
Three Green Fiuri winged toward her, chattering and calling excitedly, “Shioni!” “Wait up, Stink-Flower!” “Race you!” “First Hunter to the prize wins–wake up, Shioni! Where have you been?”
No! Shioni lurched to her feet, standing awkwardly on the yielding surface as she waved her good arm. “No, don’t! Run away! Please!”
The bubble absorbed her shouts effortlessly. She could hear them, but the Green Fiuri acted as if they had not heard a word. In a minute they flew right up to what she now realised was a prison, still laughing and congratulating themselves on finding their friend.
“You silly petal,” said Viri. “We thought you were lost in the storm.”
Chardal added, “We thought the wild magic had taken you, Shioni. But then Iri said she remembered seeing you fighting back, at least she thought she might have dreamed it, and then the Hunter of course suggested we follow the direction of the wind, and three days later, here we are!”
Three days? She had been unconscious for three days? She yelled at them, but Viri and Char only looked quizzically at her. The Green Hunter asked, “What’s she saying, Char? Can’t you scholars lip-read?”
Iri prodded the bubble. “Why are you in a bubble, Shioni?”
Viridelle said, “Look, you’re wounded, you darling petal. Did the wild magic burn you? I’ll cut you out in just the flip of a wingtip …”
“You’ll do nothing of the sort, Green Fiuri!”
With a roar, the creature swooped. Magic whizzed through the air, extruded like spiderweb from the creature’s talons, which Shioni had not noticed before. Before they could blink, Viri, Iri and Char were stuck, and a bubble grew steadily around the threesome.
Chardal shouted a few words of his ward-working, but the creature only laughed. “Ah, Fiuri magic–so refreshingly miniscule. Escape is impossible, little Fiuri. Don’t bother.”
Iridelle hurled herself at the bubble, but her blade simply bounced off the tough surface and nearly caused a nasty accident. Every spell Chardal tried fizzled. They yelled and buzzed and tangled each other’s wings until Viri calmed them both with a word.
The Green Hunter glowered at the creature. “Let us go. You’ve no right to imprison–”
“No right?” Fire thundered over the dell. The little monkey-things had long since fled, but now every other living creature did, too, in an explosion of leathery wings and a cacophony of different cries and bleats and squeals of panic. “You treacherous mite, how dare you lecture me about my rights!”
Apparently unabashed, Viri raised her chin. “Please, great beast, let us treat our friend. She injured herself saving our lives.” The dragon pinned its tiny captives with a terrible glare. “An ounce of pity, please …”
The dragon growled, “Am I to pity a traitor? Very well, one of you can treat the Storm Fiuri.”
Viri and Char exchanged significant glances. The dragon’s sarcasm was as leaden as storm skies, but it was her friends’ expressions that made Shioni bite her lip. The Green Hunter pushed Chardal forward; the dragon’s magic pinched him off their bubble and then squeezed him inside with Shioni. No chance to escape. While he began to examine her wounded shoulder, he breathed ‘Storm Fiuri?’ Shioni shook her head.
Viri persisted, “Who are you, and what do you want with us?”
Immediately, the dragon bathed her sphere in fire. In seconds, the two Fiuri inside began to scream. Cutting short its fire, the dragon played with them, batting the sphere back and forth with the air of a cat patting a favourite toy from paw to paw–as if interested in seeing how they would respond.
After a while, the dragon appeared to grow bored of its sport and moved away, changing colour to match the brilliant sky. Suddenly, it took off at a tremendous speed, disappearing over the nearby hills in seconds.
“This will hurt,” Chardal told Shioni. “I need to stretch the muscle and skin over the bone to position it for regrowth. Bite this.”
She positioned his belt between her teeth.
“And try not to rip my head off when I start, alright? I’ve numbed your shoulder, but nerves always misbehave. Here we go.”
“Nnn-gaaah!” Shioni shrieked. Mercifully, she fainted.
When Shioni roused again, Char, Viri and Iri were conversing in low tones, unhindered by the bubbles. They broke off.
“Still sipping nectar with us, little petal?” asked Viridelle.
“Just about,” said Shioni. Chardal’s handiwork encased her shoulder in the same clear, crystalline substance which had helped her broken wrist heal. It allowed her to see through to the wound beneath. She made a face, not exactly appreciating a clear view of how he had moved bits of skin and muscle about to cover the bone. “Thanks, Char. I’ll try not to
get in the way of any more wild magic.”
Chardal handed her a gourd. “Drink up. Lovely medicine.”
Shioni grimaced as a whiff burned its way up her nose. “Ugh–so, do we know what that dragon thing is, and what it might want with us?”
Viridelle said, “It’s a Crystal Inferno Dragon, according to certain secret and highly illegal lore which none of us know about, officially.” Shioni began to smile, but the Hunter’s next words erased her smile instantly. “What a Storm Fiuri is, however, we haven’t a clue.”
Shioni stared at her friends. “You don’t think …”
Viri and Iri scowled identically at her.
“No. Listen. I’m a Human being, from Earth. I have nothing to do with storms and I had never met a Fiuri until recently, may I remind you?”
“And how many so-called Humans, give or take a wingtip or three, have powers like yours?” asked the Green Hunter, with an especially Viri-smug smile.
“Wow, let me think.” Shioni pursed her lips.
“With powers that chase off wild magic, which is supposed to destroy any normal Fiuri in an eye-blink?”
“Viri, I’m sorry, but I resent that.”
Before Viri could continue, arms folded and foot tapping her bubble dangerously, Char put in, “Look, Viri, any Fiuri fresh out of the pupa can see that she’s a Fiuri. Even our captor admitted it and called her a Storm Fiuri.”
“Fiuri have colours, my dear scholar,” said Viridelle. “Blue, Green, Pink, Red, Black …”
Chardal was turning into a Pink Fiuri of his own accord, Shioni thought, watching the scholar’s ire rise. Wagging his finger, he said, “Listen while I teach you, pollen-brain. There are no storms in our tunnels. Storms are a surface phenomenon. However, since the dragons and the wild magic drove us underground, there are no Fiuri left on the surface. The Fiuri up here were wiped out, Viri. Their blood spilled like spoiled nectar, that’s what those ravaging, maniac Crystal Inferno Dragons did! Therefore, there is no such thing as a Storm Fiuri, not on this world.”
“Fiuri, Fiuri-el!” shouted Viri. “We come from Fiuriel! She’s clearly a Fiuri–one of us!”
“Hold on, you can’t flip sides like that.”
“Chardal, you can take your flipped-up argument and stuff it up your proboscis,” the Hunter said succinctly.
Iridelle put in, “Aren’t you two saying exactly the same thing?”
“No, because your sister’s a rotten little cheat!” cried the scholar.
Viri threw herself at their bubble in a rage, succeeding only in bobbing it along a wing’s-length or so. She pounded their bubble again, bringing it close to Shioni and Chardal’s round prison. The scholar retreated to the far side with an alarmed squeak.
The Green Hunter cried, “You’re lucky you’re stuck in there, Scholar Chardal, because if I had my hands on your antennae right now …”
Chardal gasped, “Slap me with a petal, Viri, you’re just so beautiful when you’re angry.”
All Viridelle could manage in return was a speechless wheeze of consternation, fury and embarrassment. Shioni did not know whether to cry with laughter, or cringe. Poor Chardal. Then, the Crystal Inferno Dragon appeared out of thin air, just a couple of wing-lengths from Shioni’s bubble.
The dragon reached out, pinching Viri and Iri’s bubble lightly between its talons. “So, a most revealing conversation,” said the creature.
Shioni realised that it must have deliberately left them alone, hoping that the Fiuri might reveal their secrets. What had Iri, Viri and Char been speaking about before she recovered consciousness? But that was spilled pollen, as the Fiuri liked to say. The dragon moved so close to her bubble that its hot breath bounced them about in the air. Fixing Shioni with a dreadful glare, it growled:
“Now, Storm Fiuri, you will tell me where the rest of your kind are hiding, or I will start killing your friends one by one.”
Chapter 20: The Song of Crystal
Begging, pleading and shouting at the great dragon had no effect. It kept asking Shioni which one she’d choose first–the big Fiuri or the small one? Her protestations of amnesia or coming from another world met with a plume of fire that burned the pool’s small banks and set a tree aflame. Shioni, for her part, was so weak after Chardal’s healing efforts that she could hardly stand. Nor could she think of a way to change the dragon’s mind. Was it truly so cruel?
A flare of magic–the last of her magic, a thread of anguish and horror–lapped around their bubble. With a frosty crackling sound, it shattered. Shioni darted free, but she turned before being able to fly far, panting, close to fainting from enervation. The creature had Viridelle pinned in its talons. Seeing the Hunter struggling helplessly, Shioni could not abandon her. She circled rapidly. What now? With a gasp, Shioni flew right up to the dragon’s eye. Pitiless, it burned with a hatred she had never experienced before. Not even Captain Dabir had loathed her like this, so overwhelmingly, such a towering, ruthless mountain of hate.
“Help me understand!” she screamed. “Don’t you see, I’ll do anything, anything at all … to change this … why do you hate me so much?”
The creature’s anger only seemed to grow. The chiming sounds developed a murderous undertone. Suddenly it spoke a new language:
Shioni stiffened.
The turquoise piles in the crimson plain! Shioni’s thoughts pierced her sorely. Oh, no. If her intuition was right, it was worse than she had feared. Far, far worse.
Gloriously bright, the Crystal Inferno Dragon’s body blazed with living colours. It had come from that world, Shioni realised now. Crysturiel rose partially over the horizon. Black tendrils crept among the burning, shimmering light areas. She understood far more. What she had imagined were clouds, was the billowing inferno of which the creature had spoken. That was where they lived. A perfect storm–perhaps magic, perhaps a fire sparkling between crystal peaks, a riot of simmering veils of colour, singing its own song to her spirit. She imagined riding those storms. Diving into them. Laughing with dragons.
And if there was storm … she and the Crystal Inferno Dragon stared at each other.
Querulously, the female dragon added,
“I would never have betrayed you,” said Shioni.
“I don’t believe you!” thundered the dragon.
Concentrating deeply, she chimed back,
Monstrous as it was, a creature so great it could have destroyed Sherfiuri Ball with ease, the dragon nonetheless shuddered as though Shioni had struck her a mortal blow. Trembling talons released Viridelle. The furious rippling of its wings stilled, until Shioni imagined the dragon must surely fall from the sky, frozen, creating an earthquake as it crashed to the ground.
With quiet certitude, Shioni said, “If I can understand your chimes, then I must be a Storm Fiuri, right?”
The creature nodded, breathing heavily.
“And the mounds on the crimson plain are where you lay your eggs? They are nests? Your children are great larvae which burrow down into Fiuriel’s core in search of heat and light, and nutrients, because they are not born in their native environment.”
At last, the pattern was becoming clear to Shioni, as though she had suddenly perceived the shape of a constellation hidden among many stars. She pointed at Crysturiel, filling the horizon, and the sun rising behind it, as gloriously orange as a strange fruit the royal court had once imported from a faraway country called India.
Shioni asked, “Was there a battle, recently? Did your enemies come to try to take your eggs?”
“We saw that place, torn apart, bodies and wings littering the ground,” Chardal put in.
The dragon growled, “Hear me now! They came to attack our fire-eggs. Two of my nest-mates fell, but we beat away the Elementals–the creatures you spoke about. There are two kinds of wild magic: the first is those creatures the Black Ice Dragons loosed upon Fiuriel. We call them Elementals in our language, because they are the elements of wild magic. And secondly, there are Storm Fiuri. They are creatures of wild magic too, and they used to be good. They used to fight alongside us as comrades and friends. Together, we kept the Black Ice Dragons at bay.”
The tone of accusation was clear. Bowing her head, Shioni said, “We abandoned you. I’m so sorry. And you’re wounded, aren’t you?”
The Inferno Dragon’s fire blazed between her fangs before she clamped her muzzle shut.
Ignoring that warning, Shioni asked, “What’s your name, dragon?”
“My name?” The creature laughed melodiously. “Have you a year of your life to listen to it?”
“Er, no … may I call you ‘Chime’?”
The dragon’s paw lifted as though tempted to swat her. “And disrespect my ancestors, my history, and the deeds of my life?” But her anger appeared to subside. “You do not understand the ways of Crystal Inferno Dragons. Nor do I understand yours. Know that my fellow-dragons would kill me in a heartbeat for speaking to a traitor–but you may call me what you wish. Now, what secret burns in your heart, Storm Fiuri? Come. You would negotiate for your friends’ lives, would you not?”
Still, Chime threatened her?
Shioni rapidly marshalled what knowledge she had. So, the Fiuri believed dragons had driven them underground. The dragons believed the Fiuri had abandoned them. Which story was the truth? But one thing was certain. One question burned more urgently than any other.