Dragonstar (Dragonfriend Book 4)
Page 16
Shill whispered to her, in a voice that resonated like a chiming bell.
Rest. Think of absolutely nothing. Just be. Let this Shapeshifter kin-magic enwrap her soul.
Shill added,
Hualiama heard her, yet the perception most certainly did not arise from her ears, nor did it arrive directly in her mind, like ordinary telepathic Dragonish. Yet it must be telepathy … or must it? Perhaps this was the plane-removed equivalent of telepathy – and an invitation to an existential headache of Immadior-like proportions. Better not to turn her mind into an epic gnarl as yet. She needed it in perfect working order.
She felt ready to parrot back,
What the … to the tuneful melody of Shill’s laughter, Hualiama flicked her not-eyes open, and looked upon her Island-World with her not-quite perception, and marvelled.
As if she had unexpectedly been transported into a starry sky, she saw constellations of multi-coloured lights slowly drifting about her in the near distance and even afar, some swirling or racing about, some bobbing upon stately currents; glittering strings of stars like beads on a string and gentler, fuzzier groups that orbited unseen central points with an organic variety in their structures. Had she expected white-fires? This was different. Sweeping veils of existence. Colours she had never imagined, arranged in tessellations of playfully winking, elusive simplicity, fluctuating more rapidly than she could imagine. Tiny details raced to her senses and then confounded them. Traceries and filigrees of matter expressed in microscopic draco-magical runes that somehow flowered beneath her examination, then closed up and darted away with diffident, tinkling giggles. Vibrant orange dust poured over everything from above in living streamers akin to the colonies of fire ants of her native Fra’anior, moving along the magnetic field lines she had manipulated, Hualiama realised.
This was the Island-World?
Her sigh occasioned a contented croon from the Chrysolitic Dragoness. Hualiama felt as if she turned, and saw … a creature like a flowing fountain of insubstantial, wispy motes bending over her, and her essence was pale white-green gemstones threaded onto a filigree of draconic character, so that the Star Dragoness half-imagined, half-saw spreading wings and the proud arch of a neck … and realised with a curiously reflective self-perception that she manifested like a many-pointed, petite star in this realm of Flow.
She could scarcely breathe, but she had no need to.
Enchantment wreathed her all.
* * * *
Grandion bent his eye to glare at Queen Imaytha. “While I am breaking my wings trying to save her, that girl – that Dragoness – is … communing with the Island-World’s essential magic! Dancing. Dreaming of … me!”
The amethyst-eyed beauty chuckled quietly. “Is that so truly awful, Dragon?”
Shayitha kicked his back with the heel of her boot. “You dropped us through the lattice and five miles of space –”
“We’re alive, sister. Stop salivating.”
“Salivating?” Shayitha screeched. Grandion could not believe the petite Queen had such a wicked sense of humour. Human females! “Imaytha! He’s a … a –”
“Shapeshifter Dragon, it seems,” said the Queen. “Wasn’t this the dream, o Tourmaline? The dream that Hualiama the Dragon-Princess might be yours in both senses of her soul-manifestations? You picked a rather interesting moment for your first transformation, mind …”
Gnnarrrggghh, said Grandion.
Brusquely, the Queen said, “Right, Dragon. How do we stop that Egg from simply … walking away? And the lattice? If that crumbles – we need a plan. Fast!”
The Tourmaline shook himself. “Numistar’s denaturing herself. She’ll probably use those Ice-Raptors for her next incarnation, but that puts her out of the picture for the moment. The depth’s too great. We can’t descend to that level.” The Cloudlands were now completely open. Visible. Grandion had never imagined how odd that might look to a Dragon – he had always taken that opaque, lethal cloud layer for granted. Strangely solid, even if that was a complete nonsense. “Maybe, if we join Tiiyusiel, we can stop the Egg sinking and rescue Hualiama. I can’t feel her, but I … I know she’s alive. I’ll speak to our ally. And to Mizuki and Makani.”
Shayitha gazed upward. “They’re still dropping Ice-Raptors. Tracking us.”
Sumio said, “Where would they be taking the Egg? Oh look, is the canyon wider down there?”
“You’re right. Eight miles ahead,” said Grandion, peering diagonally downward. Uneasiness spread like cold fire in his lower chest. He consulted Tiiyusiel and reported, “The Land Dragon’s also confused. She says there might be lower-dwelling Land Dragons waiting below, but she doesn’t sense anything untoward. She’s going to try to break through the lattice to join us, and then – aye, Tiiyusiel. Good. She and Mizuki plan to try a combined Shivers-Harmonic attack … no time to explain. Let’s move!”
* * * *
The Immadian Commander of the Army, Darrul, stared at Flicker with a sceptical frown. “You say the mists are lifting?”
“Aye, sir,” said the dragonet, in a military tone he hoped would impress fungus-face – a nice fungus-face, this one, with twinkling brown eyes that saw the absurdity of being interrupted literally mid-clinch with a pretty young soldier in a back storeroom. Flicker guessed this compromising situation probably flouted at least twenty Immadian military laws. “And, my lips are sealed, sir. I shall not breathe a word of your secretive courtship rituals.”
Darrul’s fire-scarred left eyebrow peaked toward his hairline.
“I suggest a Dragonship and a careful investigation, sir,” Flicker added tactfully. “I’d ready the garrison and Dragonship fleet in case the battle spills toward Immadia.”
“Anything else?” growled the Commander, keeping his arm crooked about the girl’s waist. Clearly, he had frolicsome intentions. Flicker approved heartily.
“With respect, sir, I have also alerted seven hundred dragonets in case there is need.”
“Stop wriggling, Nyzura,” Darrul barked.
“Aye, Commander,” said the girl, not appearing abashed in the slightest. She had striking green eyes, Flicker thought. Lia’s eyes used to be a smouldering green before the magic changed her. Was it such features that Humans enjoyed? Nyzura batted her eyelashes at the Commander; his pulse quickened. She added, “Do we have time, dragonet?”
“A good few hours, I’m sure,” Flicker conceded, with all the pomp of a Fra’aniorian courtier. “You Humans do know that it works better if you remove your clothing?”
The girl smiled, but the green pools flashed indignantly. “Then, with respect at least equal to what you’ve just shown us, dragonet – get out! Now!”
“Ungrateful wench,” Flicker smirked, departing post-haste via the window.
Chapter 12: A Sinking Feeling
Hualiama gazed about herself in wonder, trying to ignore the inconvenient fact that Shill had just re-stressed. As a complete novice in the ways of Flow, she would be tempting fate too far if she tried to squeeze away through this rare ice-like material. Essentially, the denser the substance or substrate, the harder it was to Flow through – Shill called the required skill ‘precision’, and, like most competencies she had required or learned in her life, Hualiama knew it was h
ighly unlikely it would come as easily as breathing. Sadly, instant mastery was not the Hualiama way. Painful repetition and learning from mistakes? Much more her style.
Worse, this ice was somehow imbued with Dragon magic, making the process ten times trickier. Even the Chrysolitic Dragon appeared to be taking care, patiently instructing her in the techniques she would need if she had to move from the tiny air pocket – why should that be a problem, Hualiama wondered? Still, she concentrated with her utmost, life-and-death attention.
Then, Shill changed tack.
Ah. Shill meant that they would be trapped in the Flow state, unable to return to bodily form. Grandion? No, in this form, wherever she was, Lia either could not detect the Tourmaline. She did not know how to.
Her voice betrayed deep worry-indicators as Lia said,
They argued back and forth urgently without hitting upon a viable solution. If she somehow destroyed the Egg-stealing Land Dragons and took command of the First Egg, that would give Numistar a second chance. Embody, and Lia would have less than ten minutes before hypoxemia set in. Short on magical resources as she was, could she hope to crack the ice herself and gain the Egg in time? Lia doubted it. This compound was now subtly changed from what she had drilled through – a far denser and smoother material than before. Shill’s solution? Wait to see where the Egg ended up. Gather their strength. Most importantly, survive.
As her fine brother would have put it, here was a pickle-extravaganza of truly Fra’aniorian proportions.
There were more immediate problems, though, if they were still sinking.
Rhyming again – bite the tongue! Honestly, had she experienced a mind transplant as well as some kind of phasic shift? Or was this linguistic shift akin to a draconic bonding ritual? Shill seemed to find her confusion amusing in that unfailingly irritating manner of adult Dragons condescending to hatchling cute-fires.
Hualiama badly needed to hit something. Anything.
However, in the land of the invisible fist, that was patently impossible.
Shill meantime explained to her the fluidity of protective magic, a detailed history lesson that enthralled the Star Dragoness. When the comet bearing the First Eggs had smashed into the planet, a gigantic volume of debris had been blasted into the atmosphere and scattered across the skin of the world, as the Chrysolitic Dragon put it. One of Fra’anior’s earliest tasks had involved setting to rights the damage, a planet-wide necessity. However, that damage had long-term implications, placing into low orbit many millions, if not billions, of tonnes of rock. This turned the Island-World in astronomical terms into a gigantic target, as what went up – Shill supplied a droll mental sound effect to accentuate her message – had a way of coming back down. Fast. Molten. More explosive than Dragon fire.
Perceiving this problem, Fra’anior had created the Flow. This was a layer of protective magic he placed around the Island-World and the world beyond the Rim-Wall mountains, intended to capture the incoming asteroids and hurl them toward the vast, frozen wasteland beyond Immadia. The Chrysolitic Dragons’ main function was to maintain and uphold that great magic. Furthermore, their use of Flow capabilities had the salubrious side-effect of trapping background cosmic radiation and reducing it by an arcane, little-understood process, into the dust Hualiama had noticed. The dust in turn provided a mineral and nutrient base essential to Land Dragon physiology.
However, Immadior’s chosen place of rest had created Imbalance due to a magical cross-contamination perpetrated by the First Egg’s presence in her stomach. As a draconic subclass, the Ice-Raptors waxed formidable and developed a psychic capability that, as Hualiama understood her description, ‘rattled’ this secondary plane of existence, causing Chrysolitic Dragons to embody involuntarily and become vulnerable to ambush. Therefore, Shill concluded, Numistar’s actions in unearthing the Egg would turn out to the benefit of the Island-World, as opposed to Hualiama’s viewpoint that she had just set off potentially the most catastrophic war in history – well, only since the days of Fra’anior and Dramagon going at it claw and fang, give or take. She was delighted that Hualiama and her Dragon Rider force had destroyed so many Ice-Raptors. This alone might set the Balance far closer to rights, she claimed.
Fascinating.
Still, Hualiama was far more concerned about the here and now. She questioned Shill with growing impatience and frustration over the course of the following two hours, trying to work out an escape plan, to warn Grandion, to subvert the Egg’s passage to their cause, or do anything bar sit on her proverbial ant-squasher and fold her disembodied arms!
Eventually Shill said, as censoriously as a septuagenarian aunt,
All the Chrysolitic Dragon’s hot smoke turned to bubbling laughter as the light-presence of Hualiama flashed and wriggled in realisation. Lesser Dragons were capable of many years of life – she had heard numbers ranging from one hundred and seventy to two hundred years. Incredible! Shill meant a Star Dragoness would share such a long life. Yet, that meant Dragon Riders would grow old and die decades before their mounts. By a century, possibly. What then? Jin and Makani would grow old together, leaving Isiki behind … a farsighted pang gripped her. As a Shapeshifter, Hualiama would likely outlive her Human family. Her mother Shyana; her brother, Elki …
Not all was dragonet-song and dancing, for the future seemed so shadowed.
The First Egg lurched.
Hualiama saw the movement as a change in the orientation of the tiny stars, in the phasing of the colourful changes playing about her. She was learning to read the nuances, but she was grappling with a whole new language. A magical language of shimmering, mellifluent veils of meaning, constantly in flux.
Shill’s brightness shifted, appearing to indicate a deeper, sharper darkness to her left wingtip.
How she smarted! Shill even rebuked in rhyming metre. Lia dipped her starry head.
Aye, when she was already four leagues deep, sinking into realms where it was difficult even for Land Dragons to endure? What light of hope might she glean from Shill’s words?
* * * *
Grandion’s hearts clenched like fisted paws within his chest. That girl! She was sinking away from him once more, pulling away, not fighting the tidal forces of fate that he recognised, an
d loathed with inimical and abiding dark-fires. A Dragon must act! Battle! Confront the enemy! He did not even know how she could have endured inside that ice, unless Shill, who had vanished with the mists, was with her? For good or for ill – could this have been a Chrysolitic Dragon trap?
No!
Yet, Tiiyusiel claimed she could not escape. Her Harmonic magic had tested the Egg’s casement and come away baffled. The cost of that investigation had been paid in an ambush by feral sapphire-coloured Welkin-Runners, which Tiiyusiel had fought off with Mizuki’s magical assistance. Now, she and the Copper Dragoness drove against the lattice a mere mile beneath the uppermost layer of the Cloudlands, while Makani patrolled above.
Numistar! She rises! The Grey Dragoness’ warning bugled from above even as he thought her name. She approaches in the form of Ice-Raptors above, and Land Dragons below. The greater form crumbled.
So, the plan had been to use the First Egg’s power to restore her old Ancient Dragon guise?
The Tourmaline Dragon glanced over his shoulder. Raptors shaded in grey clouds boiled a mere two miles in his wake. Four or five dozen varied Runners charged alongside the great crack in the Island-World’s floor. Numistar Winterborn must already have been on the move for some minutes, shielding her advent with malicious intent.
“Riders, prepare for battle!” Grandion snapped.
Sumio groaned. “Again? I’m running out of arrows.”
“Take Imaytha’s,” said the Princess, burgling her sister’s possessions.
THE COPPER! A booming, screaming attack resounded from his left flank as Tiiyusiel’s eye cannon and Mizuki’s simultaneous Shivers-power pounded the lattice. Aye! Deprived of Numistar’s presence, the whole structure had quickly grown unstable. Great cracks snaked across the struts. Again! His ear canals responded constricted instantly, damping the sound, but his Human Riders cried out in pain. The Tourmaline swiftly added auditory elements to his shields. Long ago, he had thought a Blue Dragon’s Storm power was the only sound that could knock a Dragon out of the sky. Since he had met Land Dragons, he had learned differently.