Whisper Alive

by Marc Secchia

  If the City of Blue already knew about the Warlock’s capture of the bridge, why had she run all of this way? The truth was fierce, defiant and raw. Whisper’s heart swelled painfully inside her chest.

  I am hope!

  Chapter 17: Whisper of Hope

  HOPE HAD A way of regularly having to jump off cliffs.

  Perhaps that was why the Princess of Arbour had recruited her? Either way, without a miraculous means to leap hundreds of feet over the massed ranks of Sanfuri’s soldiers and the Mage-shield, no Whisper was about to make a difference in this situation, apart from feeding herself to the magic users or becoming trapped between Dragons behind and Dragons before. The siege engine looked like something Drex might use for a toy. She had no idea what it did, apart from that it boasted an improbably large mouth that screamed ‘I blast things’ and a plethora of pipework and storage vessels behind that suggested an insane inventor who raged about in a locked and barred laboratory deep beneath a city somewhere, muttering the word ‘overkill’ beneath his breath and cackling with chilling abandon.

  Shaking off that charming image, Whisper charged confidently up behind the Warlock’s men and discovered, to her consternation, that they could see her. Magic had a way of running out. Most annoying. Hurdling a hospitable arrow aimed at her kneecaps, Whisper veered, slipped on a patch of moss, and did not manage anything even remotely resembling an elegant dive off the ledge. Instead she rebounded off her knees, cracked her chin on a boulder in passing, skidded eight feet along on her left shoulder, and nosedived into space.

  Arrows buzzed past her departing torso.

  Falling a few dozen feet was probably her most sensible achievement yet, because Whisper suddenly noticed her fur being sucked sideways as she fell into a gravity inversion that drew her back against the cliff. Abruptly, she found herself running at ninety degrees to her usual orientation, with a ribbon-like river miles below at her right paw, and the sky to her left. Her stomach wobbled horribly. Her sense of balance gave up entirely. Her legs ignored everything and kept pumping, taking her past overhanging branches and gemstone spires, on and on, and then smoothly bending back up the cliff, if her poor brain could figure that out, and returning her to the ledge as though she had merely stepped out for a morning stroll. Wow!

  Her inner ears rebalanced, and Whisper promptly fell over sideways. Thankfully, the ledge was still mossy in this part, so she merely ploughed a purple-and-green furrow toward a familiar set of oversized boots.

  “Whisper!” Drex snaffled her up and proceeded to hug the breath out of her. “Whisper! Yar alright? Thar done inelegant-like, lil’un, but yar got’n news?”

  She wheezed and mimed dying.

  “Oh. This better?” He eased the vicelike grip of his arms.

  “Alive beats elegant any day of the week,” she managed, but gave her best effort to hug his thick neck right off his shoulders. She did not even come close.

  “Come, thar’n speakin’ today?” he demanded.

  “The Azar are coming.”

  “Men, the Azar are on thar trail!” roared Drex.

  The hullabaloo they raised visibly staggered Warlock Sanfuri’s troops. The Mage-shield wavered as the men and women holding it in place glanced about in confusion, perhaps expecting an imminent attack. Two Dragons took off to fly back and check on matters at the bridge.

  Under cover of the din, Drex said, “Yar done fixed the air-bridge?”

  Whisper shrugged. “That was the easy bit. They are coming from Sunidar with all speed, Drex, but I don’t know how they’ll win across this bridge in time to help.”

  The huge warrior just ruffled her fur fondly. “Thar’n something else, Whisper. Now yar run along good-like an’ brief our Princess an’ we’ll just tidy up thar’n Mages an’ thar boot-lickers blockin’ our nice trail. Oh. ’Fore yar git in any battle-like, an’ I mean anythin’ at all, yar must see Yadron the Armourer.”

  “What for?”

  He tapped her wristlet. “Upgrades.”

  “Upgrades?”

  Ugh, now she was parroting just like a Human!

  Drex just swatted her shoulder, albeit withholding his massive strength. “Go on, Whisper. Git yar cutesies t’ Arbor’n brief our Princess. Shoo!”

  That huge weapon would likely blow everyone off the canyon-side, especially Drex and his ‘cutesies’ comment, but Whisper could not bear to wait any longer.

  She had her imperative, and it owned her, body and soul. Arbor.

  * * * *

  Rushing along the narrowing, verdant canyon trail toward Arbor, a new insight struck Whisper. There was a canyon’s worth of difference between looking and truly looking.

  I am unobservant?

  Some of these ringing inner observations, which seemed to retrieve, recalibrate and return her memories to their rightful places, were downright discomfiting. Whisper had thought she noticed everything. Perhaps she was not unobservant, just focussed. If so, then focus could be narrowed, a cognitive process that protected the overwhelmed senses or allowed a drakkid-like chain of inner thought to proceed uninterrupted, but ignored many if not most of the inputs.

  Now, she invited her senses to drink in her environment in all its immensity. The ledge ran approximately midway along a canyon some fourteen miles deep, heavily shaded or even buttressed in this initial region, but the buttresses stood miles lower down, hiding further layers and biomes, such as the fungal zone inhabited by fungaziods, fungodrakkids and other darkness-loving fauna and flora. Right at the bottom, if she squinted through the occasional gaps, she could make out flashes of an emerald-green river. Its many tributaries arose from cracks or cave mouths in the canyon wall, pouring or seeping down the naked rock and snaking between massive crystal formations that conducted light without sunstrike deep into a canyon’s otherwise murky depths – garnet, aquamarine, quartzite variations and shendite-grounded extrusions, as the orange-hued crystals were called. Several of the tributaries poured out from miles overhead, even on this side, so that several times Whisper passed behind screens of falling water, or splashed through streamlets running across the ledge.

  Arbor’s location was not quite the Canyon of Light, with its ubiquitous creamy myrkiorite crystal formations and prismatic light displays, but it was immodestly and memorably, fabulous.

  No other word sufficed.

  The abundance of water supported an accordingly jaw-dropping profusion of plant, animal and insect life. There were more subtle varieties of sentikor, tangled plum-coloured lurkibor and the giant, spreading ankibor shade-trees with their mottled green and white leaves seemingly large enough to build houses upon, than even the overeager botanist in her memories could identify. Then came the flowering trees, the pollen-shedding creamy assumbi, the long-fronded jentiko trees with their characteristic mauve, trumpet-shaped blossoms, and hundreds of varieties of creeping and hanging vines, bushes and climbers, from the spiky snuggle-vine – whimsically named since no creature would ever snuggle into those three-inch thorns and poisonous clusters of five-petalled crimson flowers – to the profuse instabu with its pure white flower-sprays that reached two hundred feet and more, which her memories drolly noted as the bush so designated because a Blue Draco-Mage scientist had identified it as the plant most likely to trigger an ‘instant sneeze’.

  Dragons had a sense of humour? Curious. The Draco-Mages must have been different to most Dragonkind she had met thus far. Had they been good or evil? What did it mean that alongside Whispers, the Draco-Mages also appeared to have died out or simply disappeared?

  Charging up to an approaching Arborite patrol, Whisper called, “The Azarinthe army is coming to help!”

  Twenty blue faces topped with that characteristic blue-white thatching of hair, tilted to stare at her as she pelted toward them. “The Azarinthe?” they chorused.

  “The Azar! Your old allies!”

  “From Azarinthe? The Greys? How?”

  Silly Humans. They were like dragonets, parroting back every bit of informa
tion they received, as if they processed data with their mouths rather than their brains. Or, was there a vital connection she hadn’t yet understood?

  She whipped up to the patrol of bemused, stolid axmen, and pulled a face sideways at them in passing. With a rousing gesture of her hands, she yelled, “Celebrate!”

  As she rushed on, she heard one young fellow call after her, “You’re pretty loud for a Whisper!”

  Hmm. So she was.

  Pelting down the long, curving ledge, Whisper chuckled to herself. Nothing like warming up with a short Dragon race before embarking on a fifteen-mile run in the morning, was there? That said, her hind right leg ached from its mistreatment. That Dragon who had sat on her had definitely eaten plenty of breakfast; he was no stripling and her joints knew that for a fact. Hope his underparts hurt! She watched swarms of brilliant yellow crystalloid butterflies working their way along the sprays and garlands of cream and white blossoms, and laughed as a pair of green jade-dragonets whizzed through, stuffing their mouths to bursting with wriggling beauty before clipping their long, sleek wings and darting away. Perhaps other creatures appreciated this bounty differently!

  Slowly, the riverbed below rose, leading her toward Arbor, which stood five point three miles above its lake, according to the cartographers. Here, she passed a plumy, turquoise-tinged waterfall on the far cliff face dropping from about three and a half miles above her onto a buttress two miles beneath the ledge; it pooled toward the middle of the canyon, before splitting to drop off either side in further vegetation-brushing plumes into the hazy green depths. Wondrous.

  What was it about beauty that stirred the soul? Was this a sign that she shared a common existence with Humans, that her claim to identity and personhood had grounds and substance? She eyed the prismatic blue light entering this section of the canyon from enormous, almost-touching thickets of azurite spars above, and sighed. Always the questions. Less strong on the answers.

  Her watching presence could just consider this: If Whisper had a world-sense, it was abuzz with natural glories, even in the face of dire need. Could it be that she sensed her part as a tiny mote in a greater consciousness that spanned Yanzorda, or even the cosmos beyond it?

  If she whispered in silence, would it be as if she had never whispered at all?

  She would not slow for so much as a heartbeat.

  Ahead, the city spanned the gorge. She saw a Gold-Red Dragoness lazily sunning herself on a buttress a mile from the city, as sleek as an aquatic draconid but far more impressive. Watching. Threatening. Where was Ignothax? Always close to his master? The city itself stood inviolate, according to her careful observation, spanning the canyon with that improbable airiness of fluted, shaped supports and arches, from which flowering vines and sprays sprouted and dangled in profusion, hiding the dwellings and oftentimes the defences. Above, on the broad buttress or rooftop of the city, she saw new emplacements of dressed stone encircling the vicious, spinning-axe catapults – that would be what was keeping the Dragoness at a respectful distance – and huge, multi-firing tube crossbows, which used both springs and pressure to drive crossbow bolts distances of over five hundred feet through the air. Ammox’s favourite, he had claimed, for serving up skewered Dragon meat.

  All appeared still.

  No smoke. No thundering army driving Sanfuri’s wrath against the defenders.

  “The calm before the Dragon storm,” she whispered, snapping her dagger into her left paw. She wished had a better weapon with which to confront the Warlock.

  Her paws were so tiny. Could they make a difference?

  * * * *

  The city gates stood open but were heavily guarded, which pleased Whisper, but less pleasing was the man standing right in the centre of her path, arms folded and bulky legs akimbo, glaring at her.

  “What news?” Warleader Ammox barked, by way of greeting.

  A thick-necked bull of a man, the chainmail he wore made his formidable forearms appear like brassy Dragons’ forelegs improbably sprouting from Human shoulders. Given as either limb was thicker than the entirety of her torso, the comparison was not only appropriate, Whisper decided, it made him resemble a rock-chewing dracoworm perched on a pair of stubby tree trunks. Right now, his expression could have ignited dry tinder at ten paces.

  “Success, Warleader Ammox,” she said crisply.

  “Report!”

  His belligerent roar cut off a rising cheer from the soldiers he must have been chewing over, judging by the alacrity with which they snapped to attention.

  Could he be the one poisoning the King? Ammox was certainly cantankerous enough. She must keep her pointy ears sharp and her surveillance even sharper, Whisper reminded herself. Xan needed data to lock the final pattern of his reasoning – or, however that worked in Azar doublespeak.

  Pitching her piping voice so that every person present could hear, Whisper said, “An Azarinthine army has already approached to this side of Sunidar, where we defeated the Warlock’s Dragons in battle, Warleader. They will begin to assault the bridge by tomorrow evening, latest. We repaired the air-bridge, so the supply lines are open.”

  Ammox’s eyebrows twitched at the word ‘we’, but all he said was, “Good work, soldier. The Princess is inspecting the fortifications behind the city. You will brief her without delay.”

  “Aye, Warleader,” she said.

  “Be quick!”

  Whisper sprinted off, chuckling as the cheers and hoots started again, only to be cut off by another bellow from the Warleader. Ah, the soldier’s life. Perhaps he should try whispering. It was much easier on the throat.

  Rushing through the ‘outer circle’ of defensive structures, which was anything but actually circular, Whisper entered the city proper between a second set of fortified gateposts that ran from the ground to the bulwark above, originally rock columns which had been massively armoured with metal mined in the gorge below. Immediately, she took a metal gangway which arched elegantly over to The Hexagon, a central courtyard meeting place that dangled from the shendite buttress by hundreds of metal-cable hawsers each a foot thick.

  She paused to ask a child, “The Armoury?”

  Pain blossomed inside her head as she thought about delaying her message. Whisper thanked the boy for his quick directions, and took the second gantry to the openside, before laughing softly to herself. She was thinking like a Human. Gaily, she leaped for a hawser and slithered down to the tertiary level, shortcutting a number of gantries and steps. This was the industrial zone, covering everything from food production to textiles and weapons, located in a cavern complex in the far canyon wall. Was that a potential vector of attack for the Warlock?

  Ammox would know this better than he knew the tracery of veins on his own hands.

  The homes and workshops were scattered thinly across the canyon’s divide, so she could easily observe progress on the protective nets below. Almost finished. Whisper skittered through the branches of a spreading air-whisker, a flowering plant with burgundy leaves, white flowers and no need of roots, and borrowed somebody’s washing line to flip herself into the middle of a studious class of boys and girls, apparently working on maps.

  Whisper peered past a girl’s shoulder, and pointed with her left fore-talon. “That’s wrong. This area is all Sundering now.”

  Four Arborite hamlets had been vaporised on this side, and if she was not mistaken, the underground Red Human city of Garshaaz must be no more. Melancholy filled her spirit. Mage Shivura’s nation had suffered a terrible blow.

  “Thanks … uh, who are you?” The girl’s eyes flew wide.

  “Whisper.”

  “Ooh. My Great-Aunt Sigis – she works in the Palace kitchens, you know – says you eat like a Dragon. Is that true? Are you a Dragon? You’d be very cute for a Dragon,” prattled the girl. “Where are you going? Why aren’t you in class? Are you a child?”

  “Bessamy, who are you – by my blue ears! It’s the Whisper!”

  “Just checking her map,” Whisper said
politely.

  The teacher’s brocaded turquoise robes looked hot and extremely heavy. Perhaps that was why her face was a decidedly florid shade of blue. She mopped her forehead with a blue handkerchief Whisper could have used for a blanket. “Dragons eating worms, beast, would you prefer to take my class? I’d certainly appreciate it in this heat – why are you looking at me like that?”

  Whisper said, “You smell … fruity. It’s nice, but you should see a doctor very soon, teacher. I think you have the Human condition called ketoacidosis, which may be linked to diabetes.”

  “I smell?” screeched the teacher. “You’re telling me I smell?”

  “It’s a sickness –”

  “Get out! Get out of my class, you vile, wicked creature!”

  The students were frozen between laughter and the grating shock of the woman’s shriek. Whisper unstuck her paws, and fled.

  Ten minutes later, she was perched upon Yadron the Armourer’s workbench in the stifling heat of his cave, which housed an open forge, having her arms measured. “Bless me old Arborite soul,” said Yadron, blinking at her through round goggles that appeared to house four or five layers of lenses to aid his vision. Reaching up, he clicked out one lens and replaced it with another. Now, his eyes looked bigger than her head. “Drex got yer measure just honko-monko.”

  Whisper’s arm jerked. “What did you say?”

  “Honko-monko? It’s an expression from nearer the mainland. I guess as Reds use it most, least, that’s what they used to say before the Sundering stole so much from us,” Yadron said sadly. He did seem to be very melancholy, with his slow, gloomy voice and round, dejected face. “I once loved a Red girl, I did. Merchant’s daughter. Sweetest girl you ever did see, with just the smallest hint of a cute beard. Turn yer wrist a smidge. Good. So, let’s show yer what ol’ Drex dreamed up. Fabulous armourer, he’d make. So inventive. Obsessed with hammers, though. Just can’t understand why the man won’t pick up a proper axe. Inexplicable. Here. Don’t touch the points.”