by Marc Secchia
Had Pip not been strapped in, she might have fallen right off Shimmerith’s back. Nak? How did he switch between the feckless villain and the noble Rider with such Island-shivering facility?
The Dragons ascended to a mile above Archion. Two. The fields diminished to a tiny tracery of fractured green crysglass. The lakes reduced to a series of gleaming concentric slivers, and the birds became a white mist over the Isle as they descended in their droves to roost for the night. Now Archion was but a broad oval besieged by leagues of ruddy Cloudlands, a stronghold of life holding firm against an ocean of death.
Shimmerith led the Dragons in forming semipermeable shields to protect their Riders with oxygen-rich air and warmth. Just in time. A frigid wind from the West ruffled her curls, a harbinger of worse to come. For as they continued to rise, the wind increased from a playful buffeting to an all-out gale which knocked the less experienced fledglings about as though an invisible Dragon cuffed their tails and hindquarters. All thought of lazing upon thermals fled. Bellowing encouragement to the fledglings, Emblazon turned his muzzle to the East and led his Dragonwing deeper into the chill airstream which would whisk them over to Sylakia Island.
They travelled a Dragons’ Highway, far transcending any Human habitation.
Overhead, the starry skies seemed to amplify the gaspingly low temperatures with icy cheer. Fair winds and clear skies for travellers, was the ancient saying. Pip wondered if this relentless, ice-breathing beast hounding their tails counted as fair winds. Crescent Jade had already surmounted the eastern horizon, just a compass-point or two north of their heading. The White Moon blazed balefully upon their tails with its usual pinpoint brilliance, reflected upon the Cloudlands beneath. Pip huddled in her jacket and tugged the furred collar tight about her neck. Brr! By morning, she would be a Pygmy icicle ready to shatter upon the famously unforgiving bulwark of Sylakia Island.
Alight, Shimmerith. I’m ready.
Good, Pip. I’m going to teach you a type of meditation–a technique of inner awareness–we Dragonkind call ‘knowing the cell-fires’. For through draconic medical science we can examine the composition of our bodies in the minutest detail, down to our inmost fires and component parts. Attend closely as I scribe these teachings upon your mind-fires.
Far into the night, she laboured with Silver and Shimmerith on her mental skills. Pip wrestled with Dragonish logic, so unfamiliar to one who had grown up in a jungle and a zoo. The breadth of Balthion and Arosia’s schooling followed by a few months’ education at the Dragon Rider Academy made but a small foundation for understanding the draconic half of her heritage, yet she was grateful. How could that cage-bound Pygmy girl have imagined riding Dragonback upon a windstorm, on a mission to change the Island-World as she knew it? How could the two Dragons claim to be learning from her questions?
Two hours before dawn, Shimmerith sang out sight of Sylakia. Pip realised she had not slept a wink. She could not tell if she felt refreshed or too keyed up to imagine sleep. She must build her barricades, bury the feelings deep. And let go? Could she ever follow Kassik’s heart-cleansing wisdom and consign that experience to the past?
Dark and forbidding, Sylakia loomed upon the eastern horizon. Sheer, league-tall cliffs bounded the Island on every visible quarter, laced with vegetation in some parts. From several leagues off, she made out multiple Cloudlands-bound waterfalls and the serrated interior mountains of Sylakia’s notorious wilderness regions. A huge Island in comparison to Archion, Sylakia stretched forty-one leagues from top to tail, as Nak put it, with a midsection twenty-eight leagues wide. Much was uninhabitable wilds, mountains and even a large desert on the eastern periphery. Sylakia Town itself perched upon the brink of a massive inlet that cut into the Island as though an Ancient Dragon had once sought to tear it asunder. The infamous Tower of Sylakia, an uninviting lump of a prison building, stood upon a separate tower of rock just off the northern peninsula, separated from the mainland by a few hundred feet and two vertical miles’ drop. Few prisoners escaped, she imagined, unless they could fly. Nak quietly pointed out a jutting walkway called the Last Walk, where Sylakia executed convicts by forcing them to cast themselves into the Cloudlands from the height of a league.
Silent-winged and cloaked by Shimmerith and Silver’s combined power, the Dragonwing circled the northern flank of town and headed slightly southward again, landing near a small, concealed juniper and prekki tree forest Balthion clearly knew well.
Here, supplies and disguises awaited. Kassik and Silver transformed into Human form. The Dragons tucked into a well-deserved meal of freshly slaughtered ralti sheep–slaughtered beforehand so that the sheep would not raise a ruckus when they smelled their doom landing nearby. The Riders unloaded, steaming of breath and rubbing their numb fingers in the nippy pre-dawn air.
Pip embraced Casitha. “I’ll see you back at the Academy, won’t I?”
“Hope so.”
“Otherwise I’ll just have to hunt you down.” Suddenly, she hugged Casitha so fiercely the girl gasped. “Be careful. Promise?”
Casitha looked oddly at her. “Of course, Pip.”
Pip disguised her disquiet beneath a fake shiver. “Mercy, it’s cold. Give me a steaming hot jungle any day.”
“You’ll find your family, Pip. For certain.”
Farewells were so awkward, especially when she wanted nothing more than to shout, ‘No! Turn back!’ Yet she knew that any hope must be pursued. If Dragons could hide somehow from the Shadow-beast, perhaps some Dragonkind could still be saved. Beside Chymasion’s jade flank, Balthion embraced Arosia, murmuring in her ear. What she would not have given for such a hug from her father. Would she remember her tribe? Would she even recognise her parents?
So far, they had seen no sign of Night-Red Dragons, which concerned Kassik, Balthion and Nak. Surely Sylakia must be a target for the Marshal, its power subdued if he intended to establish his regime North of the Rift? Yet all seemed quiet. The eight dark, four-square garrisons situated around Sylakia Town had raised no alarm as the Dragonwing ghosted by. Pip decided that itching had no value. Go to the zoo. Array herself in courage as a Dragon arrayed in gleaming black scales, ready for battle. Make the sacrifice she had to make for the sake of the future–everyone’s future.
“Your outfit, lady Pip,” Jerrion rumbled.
“What’s this?”
“A Sylakian peasant’s headscarf for children,” he said, perfectly straight of face. Pip was certain his eyes twinkled way up there, four feet above her head. He knelt suddenly. “Here. I’ll show you how to fasten it. Oh, this has a face-veil.”
Kaiatha said, “I think I’ll take over at this point, Jerrion.”
“Your dress,” said the Jeradian, handing her the rough garment. “Looks and smells well used, lady Dragoness.”
“Jerrion, are you begging for a beating?”
“I’m all for realism in disguise,” he grinned. “You haven’t seen the best yet–clay to muddy your already pungent outfit. And dung.”
“Dung?” Pip glowered at Kaiatha. “Don’t you giggle. I have my standards, they just aren’t as high as some.”
“If you smell terrible, people won’t look as closely,” said her friend, rapidly forging her path to becoming a non-friend. Kaia helped her fasten the headscarf with pins, covering her face until only her eyes showed through a narrow band. “Welcome to the world of headscarves. Right. Now, none of that perky-Pygmy walk either. Timid and self-effacing is what you’re after.”
“Timid? Self-what? I’m not that kind of girl!”
Nak, passing with an armful of supplies, helpfully put in, “Ay, she accosted me in public one day, stark naked. Nothing timid about that.”
Pip snapped, “Nak!”
“Imagine my shock. Delicate heart, you know,” said Nak. “Now, fabulous Fra’anior, if you’d only do the same …”
“Ignore him.” Kaiatha daubed tan mud artfully here and there on her clothing, particularly around the hem and sleeves, and finished up with
a healthy dollop of fresh dung. “Perfect. Now for the banded knee-leggings and leather-wrap shoes. Phew. These also stink like the genuine article. Let’s show Silver.”
Silver had dyed black hair and a tan! Pip stared at him, abashed. Only the eyes betrayed his true nature, and his slightly quirky grin. Just like the girl chatting to him … oh mercy, she wasn’t seeing a gleam of magic in her friend’s eyes, was she?
“Kaiatha?”
The luminous blue eyes turned from Silver to her. “Pipsqueak?”
Shapeshifter. Kaia just kept staring at her. No, it could not be. Kassik had revealed that Shifters understood Dragonish perfectly. “Uh … I’m seeing things again. Imagining things.” She winced at Silver’s expression. “I thought I saw magic in you, in your–”
Kaiatha’s eyes filled with moisture. “Islands’ sakes, Pip! Can you please not allude to my father? I … I just don’t need to hear it right now.”
“Sorry.”
A quarter-hour later, Pip tramped through the damp woods with her newfound family. Off to peel open her own hurts.
The zoo stood a short ways out of town, a broad, flat area of otherwise infertile ground which had been converted to displays of crysglass-fronted cages arranged along a circular walkway. A towering blackthorn hedge backed by a rough picket fence kept the curious public from intruding on the zoo compound, forcing all traffic through the main gates. Pip pretended a deep and abiding interest in her toes as Nak charmed the matron in charge of selling tickets. She should have convinced Zardon to wreak a properly draconic destruction on this place–only, that would have killed the animals. And Hunagu. There was another loss to prepare for. The Ape had become withdrawn during the journey. Perhaps he felt it, too. Perhaps the advent of an Onyx Dragoness had forever spoiled what had been a strong friendship.
The smell! Pip clutched Silver’s hand. She must breathe past the claustrophobia crushing her lungs against her ribcage, the memory of waking to impassable cage walls hemming in a free-spirited jungle creature …
“The monkey cages were this way,” said Pip, tugging Silver’s hand impulsively. “Let’s get this over with.”
A couple of brass drals purchased even a poor family a chance to stare into the cages. Caged for life, most animals would not know what she felt. Perhaps they came to see the zoo as home, and had no past to remember. Yet she recalled this people-babble, the children exclaiming as they rushed from the violet flamingos of Remoy to a cage of Fra’aniorian parakeets to the rajal display, the adults strolling along sipping hot, thin Sylakian ale which smelled of nothing so much as stale urine. Even Silver wafted a hand past his nose. Abruptly he gripped her hand, his palm febrile to the touch.
Pip squeezed his fingers gratefully. He understood.
Ahead of them, Jerrion moved through the crowd with ease, a man-mountain in motion. His role was to protect and to distract–easily done by a giant. Children stared with a mixture of fascination or fear. The adults balked and stepped out of his path.
No obvious signs of danger, said Nak, his telepathic Dragonish imperfect but understandable.
Emmaraz flies above, said Silver. My extended senses detect nothing so far. Pip? Balance or imbalance?
That awareness when one stepped into a cave and knew the almost-imagined, almost-certain sense that a predator lurked somewhere in the darkness. Her nape prickled. Hyper-awareness, Master Ga’am called it, indistinguishable from plain, cold fear. Fear was her enemy.
No imbalance. No Dragon minds.
Three telepathic gasps greeted this assertion. Silver said slowly, You detect draconic minds? Pip–
Probably not shielded ones, she replied, cutting off whatever label of peculiarity she had just earned herself. Normalcy? Oh, Kaiatha. She was not unusual. No, she was cursed.
Well, I feel something and it’s not one of my usual itches, said Nak. Stay alert.
Pip shut her mind before he conjured up an unforgettable image. Master Kassik thought the prize was worth the danger. Their disguises were sound. Looking ahead, she saw that the zoo management must have rebuilt the monkey enclosure. A crowd had gathered around one of the nearest windows, exclaiming excitedly.
“Look, chabbik lizards from the Southern Archipelago,” said Nak, reading a plaque on the enclosure opposite the monkeys.
Pip pretended interest. Yaethi said that the flightless, carnivorous lizards were ancient relatives of the Dragons. Meantime, she listened to the crowd, the tone of their comments, the excitement–there was something in there. Something oddly … draconic. Her keen eyes scanned the enclosure. A dozen six-legged lizards, some larger than a hatchling Dragon, squabbled over a fresh animal carcass. Their finger-long fangs flashed as they tossed back their heads to bolt scraps of meat.
“What’s the excitement?” Nak asked a passer-by casually.
“New display. Some kind of monkey,” came the reply, emphasized by a glob of spit that landed near Nak’s well-worn boot. “Out of my way, peasant scum.”
“So tiny!” Pip heard. If these lizards were draconic cousins, maybe that was the bloodthirstiness she sensed–and she should never mention the possible relationship to real Dragons. “Roaring rajals, what is it?”
She turned. Alright, Pygmy girl. Look into the cage, into your past. Deal with it.
Apparently noting the purpose communicated by her movement, Jerrion leaned into the crowd. “Way for a small one, folks?”
As she walked into what seemed a dream, Pip came face-to-face with a little girl of similar height, who stared at the dark eyes and skin beneath Pip’s veil and headscarf. The girl raised her hand as if wanting to touch her face, but she did not dare. She said, “Are you a monkey, too?” The father pulled her away. “Don’t talk to the dirty peasant girl like that, my sweetbun. It isn’t nice.”
Pip barely heard. She knew what the cage contained. The knowing was a spear of flame stuck through her spine. Pressing past Jerrion’s thigh, she came to the crysglass. Touched it. Peered within.
“Would you look at that?” someone said. “Dirty little savage.”
Her first thought was that the woman had spoken directly to her. Not true. For Pip was inside that cage in thought, feeling and memory–no, not her, but it may as well have been. A tiny Pygmy girl stood on the other side of the glass, sucking her thumb. No more than five or six years old. No larger than Pip had been when the slavers first brought her to this cage. Staring at her with dark, beautiful eyes framed by ringlets of muddy black hair. Naked. Innocent of what all this meant.
Pip sagged against the cool crysglass, groaning, clutching her heart. Such pain! She must surely die.
Strong arms gripped her. Voices, calling her name. Pip ripped her face with her fingernails, moaning and wailing in her native Pygmy language, tearing the skin, the cloth, the life from her own body to spill it as the honour-sign of shared, inescapable grief. Oyda pulled her away and it felt as though she tore her soul from her flesh. Every step exacerbated the pain. The crowd began to close the gap. Oh, the caring arms. Mercy, the little dark eyes trapped behind the crysglass, just starting to widen in realisation.
“No! Oh please, oh please, I can’t … I’d rather die …”
Oyda, saying urgently, “Pip, you have to come away. We’ll think of–”
“NO!”
Voices drowned out in the torrent of rage thundering through her being. All was crimson. All was fire.
“Pip, please!”
Silver. She shoved him off, fought free of Jerrion’s arms, and the giant Jeradian could not hold her. The fire would not be denied.
Pip! DO NOT TRANSFORM!
Sobbing, she shoved Silver out of her mind too. The power existed, locked behind a barrier erected by the magic-annulling, perverted Shapeshifter poison. Pip ripped those restraints asunder. That was no longer her. That was Imbalance. This was the person she had been created to be, a fusion of fire and flesh. Nak’s grip tore her peasant dress as she surged forward. Running. Charging through the crowd as though they did not exis
t.
Smash! Power erupted as she swung her tiny fist.
Pain lanced through her arm! The crysglass window vibrated as though she had struck a gong; fault-lines shot from the point of impact, but the glass did not shatter. She drew back her arm with a moan, but suddenly a hammer whirled past her. Boom! Jerrion, his face ravaged by anguish. He swung again. Boom! The armoured glass sagged. The Jeradian warrior kicked his way in.
“Come on,” he growled, holding out his hand.
The Pygmy child’s mouth hung open in shock. Pip knelt, reaching for her, speaking gently in Ancient Southern, “Little-sister. Jungle-sister. Come with me. This is no place for the jungle-born–see, I am like you. I will take you to your village.”
Tiny arms clasped her neck.
Sweetness. Warmth. Another heart thudding against her chest, matching beat for beat.
Pip rose. “Thank you, Jerrion.” She arranged the child on her forearm, for she had either sprained or broken her wrist with that punch. Turned to leave. A hundred eyes stared at her through the shattered crysglass frame, halting her with the force of their outrage. Who was inside the cage now? There was neither inside nor outside. Freedom beckoned.
A monkey–a vervet monkey, just as she remembered–began to scamper past her. Then it reversed course, fleeing across the cage with a wail.
Pip stared past the crowd. Above their heads, inside that chabbik lizard cage, a low mound of dirt had reared up into a mountain. Thick black legs thrust the pile toward the window, scattering the hissing chabbik lizards to the winds. Beneath the dirt, a well-remembered pair of eyes blazed at her, filled with the dark-fires of draconic hatred.