by Marc Secchia
“Sorry I scared you. Just thinking about those whippets which were tracking me. O Queen, why don’t the Dragons –”
Xola interrupted, “Those sheaths can’t be Arborite manufacture – where did you get them?”
“Do you know Drex?”
Now, the ocular daggers dripped poison. “Drex? As in the foreign traitor, Drex?”
Human tongues had to come furnished with some sort of repeat setting, Whisper decided. She must check, but not on the prickly Enchantress. “Aye, the big Illuxorite; accent as thick as this canodraconid’s skull. ‘Yar done polishin’ my boots, lil’un? Get thar t’ work!’ ”
Xola laughed with her mouth, but her eyes only hardened. “So, he’s turned to good? Wonders singing above canyons! I’ll believe that the day I weld Warlock Sanfuri’s thumbs to a passing sunbolt. Now, ask your question.”
“Uh … what’s the danger on the highlands?” Whisper pointed upward, into the haze sifting down into the canyon. She resisted the urge to clean her fur again. Her tongue would only become icky with crystal dust. “Why don’t Dragons fly above the heights?
Brightening, Xola explained, “There are a number of theories. Firstly, sunbolts and Sunderings. Even the Higher Dragonkind don’t fancy being toasted at several million degrees centigrade. Wrecks the lustre of the scales, not to mention barely leaving the dust of their bones behind. Two, the air is thin. It is much harder, if not impossible, to breathe fire up there. Even Dragons have their limits. Five to six leagues, the height of the highest highlands, is a huge pressure differential. Have you ever climbed to a significant altitude?”
“I have, but I was too badly injured to judge the impact of hypoxia on my physique.”
Although, she had not struggled as much as she imagined she should. Interesting. Did Whisper-physiology handle such huge pressure and oxygen differentials?
“Good thing you’re smarter than you look.”
Whisper looked askance at the Queen, sorely tempted to snap at the fingers that descended to rub behind her sensitive ears. Worse, the feeling was not unpleasant. She stilled a traitorous purr that shook her ribcage, but she was sure the Enchantress detected her response.
“Joke.” The young Queen sighed moodily. “Nobody appreciates my jokes. Thirdly, there are storms. Storm season is coming soon, Whisper. While reducing the dangers of sunstrike, there is magic- and gemstone-fuelled lightning to contend with. A decent lightning strike will damage, knock out or even kill a Higher Dragon. And fourthly, there are swarms. In bad seasons, the swarms overrun the highlands and fall into the canyons in numbers, and they attack our Human cities. Life is not easy even beneath the surface of Yanzorda.”
“What type of Dragonkind makes these swarms?”
“Simple. No-one knows and the Dragons are not telling.”
Whisper smoothed her whiskers with what she hoped was a sage air. “Intriguing.”
She glanced about, alert to the fact that her whisker-sense might have reacted for a reason. A trembling of the air? A sense more primal still? Carefully, she scented the breeze. Nothing … yet the fur along her spine bristled. The canyons waited. She shivered slightly, glancing about. Air streams. Scents. Hints on the wind …a hunch that a greater presence considered their little endeavour, not so much with judgement as with … a Whisper-like curiosity? Confused, she smoothed her bristling fur. It promptly stood bolt-upright again, with a sensation as if tiny biting dracolithes were investigating her spine and neck. Ugh! What was the matter with her?
Meantime, Xola added, “Excellent question, Whisper. As best we know, from experience gained at the point of talon and fang, these swarms are some kind of archetype which might be able to become any type of Dragon, drakkid or draconid, but no-one knows for certain. They are two to three feet long with the usual draconic body types, displaying small but unremarkable variations in colour and so on. Some scholars theorise that the Dragonkind might enter a chrysalis or transmutative stage, leading to the final body shape. The draconic lifecycle is a –”
Her paw snapped out. “Danger!”
Small as she was, Whisper had learned that she could move in a blur when needed – such as now, for the instant multiple serpentine loops dropped from the foliage above the trail toward King Xan’s shoulders, she darted lithely up their canodraconid’s thickset neck and launched herself off its flat green muzzle. She flared her skin, skimming toward the immobile King. Why didn’t he react? The snakelike black fangs lashed toward the uncovered nape of his neck; she released her dagger into her left paw with a soft snick, while the right paw settled lightly upon the spine-spike directly behind the King’s seat. Her arms butterflied as though she were illustrating how wide she could stretch.
Impact! Whisper hissed as her left wrist twisted, but she held firm. The white constrictor-dracosnake, not usually a predator of Humans unless grown to its full adult size of fifteen feet, impaled its own gaping mouth on her blade, which lacerated the soft palate and thrust down its throat.
Her hind paws landed. Whisper swung around with the right-pawed blade, and with a sharp, enraged scream, plunged the dagger deep into the dracosnake’s eye. She jerked the blade with all of her strength, opening a lethal cut, while the creature’s weight dragged her sideways off the King’s mount. Soldiers dived upon her and the coils, lashing about in their death-throes, levering the jaws open with their swords and even the business end of a pipe-crossbow as they helped to extricate her arm and subdue the beast. One checked the King. He was untouched, and utterly unmoved.
“Nice moves, girl!” enthused one of the soldiers.
Whisper asked, “Bit the King?”
“King’s fine,” said another voice. “Healer! Get a healer here for … it. Her.”
A Unit Leader growled, “Hold that dracosnake, you fools. And when you’re done, take the blasted creature down to the Provisioner. I’ll see it in the King’s soup tonight! Tasty, y’know.”
“Poisonous?” asked Whisper, clutching her arm to slow the bleeding.
“Nah, not this type,” said a female soldier, rapidly rooting in a pouch at her belt. “I’ve got some powders here, though. Worst you’ll get is a nasty infection. Healer! Over here! Put this on your tongue … good, and a swig of water to knock it down …”
Whisper almost choked on the dry herbs. Good. Ignoring her brain’s trying to puzzle out the exact recipe – the torrent of her thoughts could be exhausting at times – she checked the King with her own eyes. Good. No three-inch fangs trying to bite through to his jugular veins.
“What slug-blind fool missed that dracosnake?” roared Queen Xola. “Scouts! Report!”
She did not want to be those scouts. Nor did they want to be themselves, judging by the looks passing along the column. Instant execution might be preferable to the litany of execrations they were about to endure.
Shortly, Whisper was sitting at the trailside having her wounds gently cleaned with water. The Healer applied an astringent antiseptic as the column slowly filed by. Whispers followed her, as if her name had started another inexplicable round of the Human echo game. ‘Did you never see lightning move faster than that creature?’ ‘Cleaned our King’s back of that snake-stabber thing.’ ‘Incredible work, Whisper.’ ‘Glad you’re with us, Whisper.’
Sure. She stuck her arm down an armoured dracosnake’s gullet every other day. The Azar had been prepared for Warlock Sanfuri sending Dragons against them to slow down the advance, but they had almost missed a far simpler attack.
Something must be wrong with King Xan. Surely.
* * * *
The column pushed on past the hour of nightfall, wending steadily between towering, chalky white cliffs and spending a good two hours inside a dank tunnel where the roof had been freshly shored up in three places. The soldiers ducked carefully beneath the temporary shoring works, which the engineers had marked for the support groups which would follow, further clearing and preparing the trail to ensure that the Azarinthe supply lines would be as untroubled as possib
le. The triarchy had moved with gratifying speed to implement a plan to re-establish trade and communication with Arbor, should they succeed in stringing up a bridge.
Whisper did not entirely understand why the Azarinthe powers had not done so years before, given Xan’s evident regard for Rhyme. What was the history between the two cities? It must be complex, of that she had no doubt. She questioned the healer, but the middle-aged woman would only say that there had been ‘troubles’ and that the King must have had other priorities. Then, they spent seven hours agreeably enumerating, discussing and debating the various healing herbs and plants they passed along the trail. The healer was most gratified to plumb Whisper’s memories, but the Whisper also learned a great deal in return, even while she chafed at the relatively slow pace of travel in the face of Arbor’s undoubted need.
Four hours after nightfall, the call finally came along the line. The canyon lay just ahead. Queen Xola came striding out of the stifling darkness, sweeping her habitual coal-black cloak about her spare frame as she searched out the Whisper.
“Still languishing back here?” she growled. “Time to go to work.”
Whisper stood up on her canodraconid. “Aye, of course, I’ve been snoozing the day away.”
“Good. I’m glad you’re well-rested because I intend to be kicking your undersized derriere over that canyon myself! Let’s move, soldiers of Azarinthe! Engineers! Where are those cables? Are you tired? We’ve only marched sixteen hours today!”
“If the line would move to let us through, lady,” came a voice out of the darkness.
This provoked a flood of orders liberally peppered with colourful imprecations and curses as the Queen berated her army. “One thousand rock-headed, boot-scuffing morons!” she roared. “Get me some handlers. You, clear those canodraconids off the trail or I’ll feed your sorry carcass to them, piece by piece! You – yes you, you skull-clanging fleabite! See to the rear guard! Has my brother emerged as yet?”
A call came from up ahead, “No, my Queen.”
“Carry him to his tent! Carefully! Get out of my way – Dragons’ breath, you unfortunate excrement of a pinworm, move!” Suiting actions to words, the Queen unceremoniously zapped a gaping canodraconid handler with a spark from her forefinger. “I’ll turn you into a fungus even scragglier than your beard! Whisper! Flaming sunstrikes, where is that –”
“Right beside you, o Queen.”
“Whisper! Don’t sneak up on me like that!”
“Can’t help it. Whisper by name, Whisper by nature.”
The Queen’s brows drew down as if by force of stare alone, she could hammer any dissent into the dust around her boots. “I am not in the mood for backchat! Follow me.”
“Is it the problem with your brother, Queen Xola?”
“Problem?” Xola almost walked straight into a canodraconid’s rump. The creature chose that moment to deposit a mound of unbelievably foetid dung on the Queen’s boot, but the woman only stared at Whisper. “What problem?”
“His unresponsiveness. He didn’t even see the dracosnake –”
“Oh. Oh, that.” A grim smile pursed her lips, but the Queen’s ill temper somehow seemed to have been tamed by Whisper’s apparent ignorance. “That, o sassy murmurer, is my brother applying himself to the problems that face us. He is in a trance –”
“He’s alright?” Whisper put in.
“Aye! Fine … as he applies his mind to the art form that is Azar Interlocking Reasoning, at which, I will never admit even with my verimost, dying breath, he happens to be a virtuoso,” said the Enchantress, sounding, just for a second, as if she might be rather more green than grey. “Quite the finest exponent in the last three hundred years, give or take the odd century. Dear Xan will apply his towering intellect to working out who is the traitor in the Arborite ranks, while I fail to – Dragons’ breath, I am not about to bare my heart to you, you overly inquisitive little pest! Hold your pernicious, forked tongue and accompany me this instant! Mana save us from magical creatures with actual ideas in their heads!”
Whisper trotted along beside the tall Grey Queen, trying to sort out this outburst as it rang in her mind. So many nuances. So many pieces of the aggrieved puzzle that was Xola. She stopped so abruptly that Xola’s knee almost flattened her.
“What? You aren’t going to cry, are you?” snarled the woman, but her attention was fixed upon an altercation between two canodraconids just ahead. She roared, “Clear the acid-blasted trail! Unholy draconid spit, don’t make me come and do your job for you!”
“Which Element stirs your magic?” Whisper asked softly.
Xola pressed her fingers to her temples as though her head was about to explode. Then, unexpectedly, all of the fire and indignation seemed to seep out of her. Her shoulders slumped. She knelt next to Whisper, right there in the dirt, and placed her right hand upon the smaller creature’s shoulder.
The Grey Queen breathed, “Everything the legends tell about a Whisper’s powers of intuition is true, isn’t it? You’re freaking incredible!”
Whisper had assumed the Queen was talking about how she had landed literally in King Xan’s lap, but the grey eyes now seemed clouded by hurts beyond knowing. She stilled. Alert.
Xola whispered, “My Element is mana, Whisper. Do you understand now?”
Chapter 13: Whisper Aloft
MANA, THE UNPREDICTABLE element, feared and coveted more than any other. Raw power, untamed and untameable. Xola said it as if she had been cursed, and perhaps she had. Even Shivura’s voice had betrayed deep respect, even reverence, for the volatile source of his magical powers.
As Whisper ran lines up the cliff face that night by lantern-light prepared by the Azarinthine Warlock, Zintu, and his apprentices, she thought much upon what Queen Xola had shared. She did not understand a King who could shut himself away so completely behind the bulwarks of his mind, he took no notice of a scuffle literally against his back, nor even acknowledged her presence after the event. She worried for Xola. Something about her situation, her elemental link to mana and Sanfuri – some combination or interaction of those three factors triggered her danger sense, but she did not have the famous Azar reasoning to fall back upon, at least, not their Penetrative and Interlocking skills. Apparently, she had a smidgen of the third recognised stream, Intuition, and that was making her bite her lip like a dragonet with sore fangs.
Legend had it that mana flowed in the veins of Higher Dragons. Never in Humans. Never. What about a creature like a Whisper, who seemed to possess senses in some respects akin to those of Dragons, and in other cases, completely different and inexplicable except in the context of an innate command of magic?
Focus. Rappelling rapidly down from a sentikor tree she and the engineers had chosen after three hours of careful consideration and much checking and rechecking of measurements, Whisper stopped to confer with the Azarinthine Lead Engineer, a phlegmatic fellow named Manrax.
“The pulley system is ready.”
He grunted and spat on the ground. “Aye? That so? Jamax, Joz and Yarx! Haul yourselves aloft and get the running wheel, well, running.” His grin displayed teeth blackened from chewing raw azarite ore, an expensive habit, Whisper understood, and it gave him such rancid breath, she had quickly learned to stand upwind of him. “Don’t worry. It’s only a mile’s climb for young caterpillars like you. Whisper’s gone and done the difficult bit already, stringing you some ropes.”
Turning to her, he began to make the motion of clapping her upon the shoulder, thought the better of it, and settled upon kicking a random Junior Engineer instead. “Go fix something, boy!” He laughed heartily, “So, Whisper – we still on for two hours before dawn? You’ve got a cliff to climb dragging a mile and more of the lightest metal-core cable Azarinthe manufacturing can produce, depending on how far you drop. Smart thinking, shortening the distances by using the sentikor trees. You sure you know what to do on the far side?”
“Your lightweight running wheel won’t snag at an inopportun
e moment?”
Manrax’s grin just widened at the challenge implicit in her question. “Alright. I hear you clear as a crystal chime.” He spat again, aiming for her toes. Whisper did not flinch. “You fall, we’ll reel you in – but that isn’t going to happen.”
Whisper found herself smiling up at him. “How do you know?”
“Azarite sediment in my bones, girl. Get some rest – that’s an order. I’ll call you when we’re ready.”
Rest? She could not possibly sleep. Wandering past King Xan, whose shadow sat stock-still against his tent, silhouetted by a lamp within, she found the Queen’s quarters. Empty, of course. The Enchantress must be off somewhere applying the royal boot to an unfortunate minion’s tail end. Whisper checked her own tail. Still there. Growing, albeit slowly, and very tender again this evening. Why was that? At times during the day, the cognizance of being observed had become so powerful, she had leaped about or darted glances here and there. Nothing. In fact, the manifestation seemed chary, diminishing when she took notice of it, and sneaking up around her at the most inopportune times. It was not an apparition. It was nothing she could see, but her whiskers and her tail clearly thought something was amiss. Next, she’d be chasing wisps around the trees.
“Right, you come out where I can see you,” she muttered.
Only the sounds of chirruping draconids and a busy nest of quarrying dracolithes came to her hearing, apart from the subdued noises of an army settling down for the night.
Deliberately, she ate and drank. Sweet lime-green miskoa juice. Spicy bread. A selection of greens especially prepared by the Provisioner to a vegetarian’s requirements. Well, she was an insectivore, too. Whispers would eat most provender, just not meat, no matter its condition. Ooh, he had even supplied some of the fat brown mopani worms she had taken a liking to. Most probably, Xola had threatened to boil the man in his own hungry-army-sized stewpot if he did not cater for her special diet.
Mages and Enchantresses were like that.