Dragonstar (Dragonfriend Book 4)

by Marc Secchia

  Imaytha pursed her lips grimly. Even her worst expressions contrived to look beautiful. “Our treasury will be drained.”

  Makani said, “Do you think now’s the time to tell her?”

  The Copper Dragoness nodded, crooking her talons to provide a gap as Saori’s stomach rebelled once again. The Eastern warrior deposited her scant dinner in a bucket positioned below Mizuki’s knuckles for just such an eventuality. “I suppose we could.”

  “It’ll be costly,” the Grey noted.

  “An honour offering of Gi’ishior might ease the pain,” Mizuki noted.

  “You might prevail upon a Prince of Fra’anior to raid the treasuries of the richest court North of the Rift,” said Makani. By now, every eye rested upon the two Dragonesses.

  “Erm,” said Elki, scratching his neck as the svelte Copper Dragoness looked him over with swelteringly draconic intent.

  Turning to the Queen, Makani said, “It strikes a certain Dragoness that while helping to rebuild the terrace lakes, Yuhurak the Brown might well have mapped certain natural resources of Immadia, purposing to use this information for leverage during negotiations. It may be reasonably conjectured that the application of gold or treasures, or a well-negotiated share of mining operations, might release this entirely hypothetical knowledge into the paws of Immadia’s rulers. I mean –”

  “We understand,” the Queen said, with a brittle smile, before adding delicately, “but what assurances could I request that this theoretical knowledge was all that existed?”

  “Word of a Dragon,” said Grandion.

  “I see.” Now, the Queen’s smile turned brilliant. In the background, Grandion heard Prince Qilong sigh softly. “I don’t suppose it might be possible on our southward route to drop a hint of our dire need in certain ear canals?”

  Mizuki purred, “I can be very persuasive.”

  Elki coughed loudly, “A-A – Affurion! Excuse me. Bad chest, you know.”

  The Copper fixed her most baleful glare upon the Prince of Fra’anior. “I’ve always wanted to try roast haunch of Prince. Quite tasty, I’m reliably informed.”

  Far from dismayed, the Fra’aniorian Prince turned to wink up at Grandion. “You’ve tried roasted Princess before, o Tourmaline. How did that endeavour work out for you?”

  Grandion was on the cusp of field-testing the idea of stuffed roast Prince served upon a bed of spicy Immadian tubers when a white mite executed a treble somersault landing directly upon the bridge of his nose, and with a couple of swaggering steps to the fore, deepened his voice and declared, “Being a Tourmaline Dragon of Island-shatteringly striking handsomeness – as you all have undoubtedly noticed, and if you dare hint otherwise I shall twist your unworthy heads off the scrawny twigs of your necks forthwith – ten thousand Human girls swoon at every swirl of my fiery-bright eye. Why, I am a Dragon of such rare beauty –”

  Gnanrr-grarr! was all the interruption the Tourmaline could fabricate.

  Flicker continued blithely “– aye, I’m so fabulously rare that the very stars worship the air cupped by the gleaming expanse of my wings, and the beauteous Star Dragoness, my verimost muse and –”

  “Pest!” With great dignity, Grandion tried to swat him.

  “Missed,” the dragonet snickered. “Don’t bruise your pretty nose.”

  The Tourmaline aimed a baleful fore-talon at Flicker. “I’ve been meaning to try dragonet kebabs. Come here, you strutting mosquito. I’m hungry.”

  * * * *

  The evening skies gleamed golden and crimson as a partial eclipse burnished the mountains of Immadia a vivid copper, and transformed the fields of white into spreading robes of kingly majesty for the fabled Isle. It seemed a storm could never have struck, for even the swatches of coniferous trees flattened by Numistar’s storm had been buried in thick folds of snow, leaving the scenery pristine. The extraordinary turquoise Cloudlands waved like a field of rose-tufted grasses, if that were possible, an optical illusion caused by the suns-light reflecting off the toxic billows three miles below the Island.

  Fifty-two Dragonships carrying two thousand two hundred crack Immadian troops flew silhouetted against the soaring peaks, bound on a south-easterly tack first for Gemalka Island, and then several compass points west of south to Helyon, skipping Herliss and Pla’arna Clusters. Makani and Mizuki would make the run to Pla’arna, leaving Grandion to shepherd the slower Dragonships to Helyon. Not that he intended to allow them opportunity to rest.

  Taking a deep breath, the Tourmaline Dragon summoned his power of Storm winds, but reminded himself to be gentle with these poor Humans.

  How he lamented the lack of a petite girl upon his back.

  Her hand, however, was evident in the appearance of the Immadian Dragonships. Being the Blue-Star, she had found time to tinker with nothing less than their entire war fleet. Naturally. White Helyon silk sails billowed ahead of and alongside each Dragonship, swelling with the breeze; sails set in a new, flexible configuration that was the Star Dragoness’ brainchild. Not only flexible, the agog Steersmen and Navigators had observed, comparing notes at inordinate and excruciatingly wearisome length, but twenty-three percent more efficient. Twenty-three! That promised to cut a massive eight days off their estimated journeying time to Fra’anior Cluster, formerly twenty-five days – given a little helping paw here and there, such as mysteriously steady winds from astern. Grandion smirked, taking an imaginary bow toward an approving Star Dragoness. She was still working on the greater issue of long-distance propulsion, for Human Dragonships still remained largely at the mercy of wind and tide, as the saying went.

  Unstoppable.

  His hearts swelled as Grandion turned from checking the fleet’s progress away from Immadia’s shores to the glories of the mountains and the sky. This was a place Dragons could loom large. Sweeping territories beneath a pearl-blue dome, most of the day, and sky-fires that played at night. He must remember to blazon this sight upon his memories for Hualiama, and remind her of her promise to return and work with the Chrysolitic Dragons to heal their ills. One day.

  To think that an army consisting of four Lesser Dragons, one Land Dragon below the Cloudlands, and fifty-two Dragonships represented a significant portion of the hope of the Island-World!

  He had heard briefly, and very faintly, from Hualiama the previous evening. She had said something about battling the S’gulzzi in the river of fire, he recalled, seventeen leagues beneath the Cloudlands, and made a mental note to speak to Tiiyusiel about the theory she had advanced, ever so sketchily, regarding mental parasites of the Land Dragons. Thread? Or, a word close to it. At its interference-broken mention, her communication had suddenly become choppy before cutting off completely.

  Rivers of fire. Why did that notion fill a Dragon with dread?

  Chapter 14: S’gulzzi

  RUZAL RAGED WITHIN her. Hualiama could not believe how abruptly the change had come upon her. Not temptation. Not hidden power. No, these S’gulzzi fire spirits called to her ruzal with eerie, evocative voices, almost as if they recognised the taste of its magic, and sought to roust it deliberately from the most secret recesses of her mind. How did they know?

  It had begun two days before, as they entered a new region of choppier fires that knocked the First Egg about, slowly but surely breaking off pieces of its protective casing. Hualiama did not doubt that the Egg itself could not be breached by any ordinary force under the twin suns – save Numistar, perhaps – but at the same time, as the swirling, sluggish torrent of fire had lifted them to a mere twelve leagues deep, the strange, crystal-like threads had begun to congregate in great numbers.

  With her uncanny Flow senses, Hualiama tried to observe and eavesdrop upon goings-on, to the vocal annoyance of Shill, who had grown weary of all her ‘disrespectful’ questions. Was the Dragoness afraid? The unaskable question when it came to Dragonkind, of course. Firstly, the insubstantial patches of winged darkness which Hualiama had come to recognise as the S’gulzzi fire spirits assembled around the
brighter threads. Soon, the threads began to pulsate more brightly, displaying more detailed filaments either end of a long, tubular body – strengthened in some magical sense, she concluded. Secondly, as the fire spirits worked, some of the threads winked out completely, their fires surrendering to the corrupting Earthen-Fires magic. Others, however, appeared to swim off with renewed purpose, heading … upward. Out of her surveillance range, eventually.

  S’gulzzi minions?

  At length, when several thousands of the long, filament-like Dragonkind had departed again, the shadowy, dancing dark-fires reformed in their regiments and embarked upon lengthy hours of further labour on some of the threads – and this was when she began to feel the strange pulling at her ruzal magic. She could not tell at first whether it originated with the threads or the darker fire spirits, but Hualiama gradually came to understand that a debased form of magic was at work, corrupting and changing the Theadurial. Or, did the S’gulzzi seek a means of embodying themselves? Either way, the reason she knew was because the ruzal secreted long before within her breast by Ianthine, stirred in response, and wailed – a yearning, tearing, hateful paean of recognition.

  At once, the dark, flitting creatures swarmed closer, eager to imbibe of her power, and that was when her battle truly began. They identified. They breathed this foul brand of magic as if it were nectar to their souls. Hualiama sensed their hungering. That was the first emotion which had communicated clearly; their intent felt visceral and overwhelming, as though the coursing magma had unexpectedly come alive in the foulest possible way.

  How could she explain this to Shill?

  She must.

  Yet this living magic of Dramagon’s soul was perhaps one of the deepest secrets with which she had been entrusted; it had been forced upon her, as true as Dragons breathed fire, but was this not the very reason she had been born? To find a way to ensure that the Red Dragon’s infamous evil never again ravaged the Island-World?

  Worse than the calling and pressing from the outside, was the ruzal’s restless malingering. Hualiama thought she had somehow attained mastery over the inner taint, but this magic was not about stealing keys. It changed the locks. Subtly. Relentlessly. It seeped around her doors and corroded the dungeon bars, constantly shifting its avenues not only with chilling intelligence, but with the knowledge advantage that stemmed from living within and understanding its host intimately – perhaps better than she understood herself.

  Dramagon’s soul-fragments hungered for her powers just as Numistar hungered for incarnation and supremacy, and as day slipped into day, it became nigh impossible for Hualiama to deny the ruzal access to her light. She feared that if that happened, the stigma would last forever. She’d become a dark-star. Immoral. Malevolent. A creature that corrupted all it touched like acid.

  Learning about her environment could only distract her so far. Speaking in the hope Grandion would somehow detect her subsonic groaning, produced by a fiendishly magnificent magical construct that embodied her sound waves after they left her Flowing body as thought monads, could only furnish so much hope. Aye, she did detect the slow cycling of her Dragon and Human minds and hoped she would not suffer the starvation of before … but as they dipped deeper beneath the Island-World’s crust once more and the ruzal set about engineering the destruction of her will to resist, Hualiama knew she needed help.

  This was beyond her ability to counteract.

  She set her mind to dreaming.

  * * * *

  The place of beauty and foetal warmth had turned to dread. Unwanted. Rejected. Magic crept around her being, fey and predatory, supping upon the tiny spark of her life. Why her? What had changed?

  Her infantile understanding knew only the terror.

  The waiting.

  Dying.

  This was the space where a soul learned the mortality of the flesh it departed, but was not yet willing; she shivered in the grip of a fear so profound, it transcended all belief or thought or willpower. Clinging to life. Clinging, even though the space had become her prison. Clinging in the vain hope her poor, broken heartbeat would flutter, and somehow, her body might become animate …

  In the beginning, there was laughter.

  Light danced nearby, joyous. The quest had yielded its goal. Loneliness ebbed. The mote was so beautiful, like a radiant firefly, and its delight a contagious panacea to her soul.

  She sensed movement toward the mote. A dance step, where dance had been unthinkable. Now, she remembered that something existed beside sorrow, and the covetous spirit could be denied if she embraced the white fire that sang so beguilingly to the fires of her own existence. The mote giggled again, speaking tenderly to the timorous foetus, touching the gossamer silver thread that linked her back to that dying flesh in the womb where she had never known safety.

  We rise. We dance. We love.

  Courage infused her awareness, swelling like a long-suppressed tide. The glowing mote shrank back in surprise, but voiced a gurgle of glee when a tiny mental prod reached her, just nascent inklings, not fully developed notions. Like … love. Dance?

  The silvery thread stretched as the pair, entwined, capered away upon the winds, veiling themselves from the ravening mouth within the womb of the monster.

  * * * *

  Her awakening was not gentle. With a sweating, monstrous jerk as if every iota of her consciousness had been hooked and launched out of a terrace lake to land squirming beside a fisherman’s boot, Hualiama bucked against the arms that held her, shrieking, “Leave me alone!”

  Blue hair! She had just bitten …

  “Oh, mercy … sorry, sorry … my Dragonlove –”

  “Shh. You’re safe.” The other girl held her as fiercely as – well, as the Dragoness she was – while the Human girl cried tears of humiliation and bereavement. “You’re alright now. Bad dream?”

  Blonde-Lia stiffened in surprise as a mighty huff of air washed over them, flicking the white sheets and tousling her hair, but the sensation it brought was even more astonishing. The breeze’s scent was a glorious medley of ancient wonders mingled with fresh, poignant tenderness, and with it, the poisonous darkness yammering about a foetus seemed to recede.

  Fra’anior. Every time they met in her soul space he seemed to bend closer, to yearn for his shell-daughter with a joy as fierce as it was undeniable, and the colours of his love that she spied over Dragonlove’s shoulder, defied her powers of description. A million emotions jammed into the lake surface of his fire-eye, which filled the background of her view more completely than the Yellow Moon ever dominated the skies of her Island-World.

  Fra’anior whispered, “Why so afraid, little one?”

  “Aye, what was that dream?” asked Dragoness-Lia. “We were just speaking about you – Hualiama?”

  She bit her fist. “I – I can’t … Azziala. It was … Azziala, and – I can’t speak …” Fangs! The gaping emptiness of a mouth within her womb … oh mercy, have mercy upon her soul! “Dragonsoul, do you remember, when we were just an eggling …”

  Her anguish clearly distressed her twin, for blue-haired Lia’s eyes filled with tears as she gazed back, soul mirrors, realisation dawning in her eyes as the memories flickered between them in a single, horrific gasp. Dragonsoul clutched her stomach with a groan that seemed to stop the moons in their orbits, and the stars from shining.

  Fra’anior rumbled, “What is it, Hualiama? Can I protect you …”

  He did not understand.

  Nor could she fathom such evil. Unsteadily, she shared her memories with her shell-father, who became so silent, it seemed even his fires had forgotten how to burn. At length, he groaned, “The inner twin parasitized your magic in the womb? The memories do not lie.”

  Azziala’s twin.

  “Worse,” Human-Lia moaned. “Much worse.”

  Blue-hair gritted out, “When we communed, we discovered her soul-force could not leave her body. To snap that thread would have been to kill … myself. We were forced to return. Then I –
we, healed ourselves. Bodily.”

  The word hung between them, an obscenity.

  At length, Fra’anior stammered in realisation, “She … the twin … cannibalised a foetus? Oh, my precious shell-daughter!” The Great Onyx roared, ACCURSED DAIMONIC SPIRIT! Mighty thunder boomed around his body, over and over again, and lightning crackled off his scales as the Ancient Dragon’s fury and anguish burned as she had never seen it burn before – an awesome, terrible fury, like the heart of a storm exposed to the watcher.

  Human-Lia whispered, “I remember …”

  The force of her horror caused her heart to skip; to restart with another wrenching jolt. She pleaded with her eyes. No. Let these soul-searing memories be false. Please. How could she face such wanton cruelty?

  “This is why you tried to end your life,” gasped her twin. “This … is why! What was – how do you remember?”

  “Because she started … eating, before I died.” Tears flooded from her eyes, but her mouth gaped open, trying to swallow air but not finding any. Agony speared her breast like a Dragon’s talon slowly twisting her organs. “That mouth. How can I ever forget? I want to. I must.”

  “Petal …” The Dragoness stroked her hair tenderly. “Breathe. Deep breaths. Slowly. You’re safe with us. We’d never let anything bad happen to you, ever again.”

  Now, for the first time, Hualiama saw Fra’anior’s fisted paw rise, clenched so hard that the mightiest of Dragons trembled. “That warped whelp of Dramagon’s most diseased schemes! We must find a way to stop her. Come. I shall … should I give you time and space to grieve?”