by Marc Secchia
And Silver was thinking … What was that, Silver? Pip shivered with rage.
Sorry. Involuntary memory.
Should she be impressed or dismayed at his accurate remembrance of her nakedness in the Natal Cave? Stow that mental smirk before I slap it over the next Island!
But I shielded … you still saw? Silver sounded awed–which mollified her. Slightly.
In sing-song tones, she teased, You think I’m gorgeous.
Ay, you precocious little flirt!
Before she could formulate a suitably caustic response, Pip found herself catapulted into a realm of Dragon-minds. Radiant, magical fires surrounded a tiny girl, who viewed them with unaccustomed, shy wonder. Were Dragons truly luminous, transformed in her inner sight into fiery, almost blinding incarnations of draconic existence, their fires ever coursing and ever-renewing, a song of life rooted in the white-fires of which Yaethi had spoken? She realised she saw according to Chymasion’s magic, for the hatchling had joined the Dragons’ powers together in ways she could hardly begin to understand. Strength gushed into her being, imperative and overwhelming. As if from a slight distance apart, Pip saw the watching girl glowing like the Dragons. She was Dragon.
Transform, o child of mine spirit!
Who had spoken? Pip had chosen to withhold, momentarily at least. Yet that command allowed no place for fear and inanition. Helplessly, Pip triggered her transformation with the words, Let Onyx flower!
At once, she tumbled amidst devastating torrents of star-fire flowering from within every fibre and iota of her being, while simultaneously, her humanness folded inward as if rushing home to fill and indwell fonts of a different type of magic. Waiting. Untold, unknowable potential, waiting for her summons. Yet Pip knew also an elemental wrenching at the very roots of her being, as though the Onyx Dragoness must not only be summoned, but must writhe and struggle to break free of those poison-forged, numinous chains which imprisoned her spirit.
One cord stood apart from the others. Not binding, but nourishing, pulsing with a rhythm that reminded Pip of a draconic hearts-beat. She recalled the peculiar Pygmy ceremonies which centred around the umbilical cord, that most enigmatic and beautiful connection between a mother and her womb-bound child. According to folklore, Pygmies did not sever the cord for months after birth, preferring to treat the placenta with special herbs before wrapping it in gum-treated cloths. Cord and placenta travelled everywhere with the infant. It was regarded as a curse to allow a child’s foot to touch the Island’s surface during its first three seasons of life; Pip had several times attended the ‘touching’ ceremony of first footfall, when the cord was blessed and finally severed.
Could this extant connection explain her draconic heritage? Somehow, amidst an omnipotent rush of power, the eyes of Pip’s Dragonsoul turned to trace that life-bearing cord back to its source. Mother. Spiritual-umbilical cord. And it seemed to her, for a mere splinter of time, that she saw in the unknowable distance, a great, brooding draconic presence. She sensed pride. Majesty. An ineffable knowing.
And then, a telepathic blast, ARISE!!
Never had she heard a Dragon’s battle-challenge bell out as wildly and powerfully as this. Not even Leandrial could shake the Island-World so.
Swish! Crack! Pip snapped into her Dragon-form so hard and fast, her entire being vibrated like a gong struck by a Land Dragon’s hammer. So full of life was she, so bursting with fire and magic and sorrow and beauty and understanding, that Dragoness-Pip could not have been denied had she been shackled to an Island and tossed into the Cloudlands.
With a wild, unending bugle of pure jubilation, she vaulted skyward.
Chapter 13: Images to Confound
RUSH! GLORY! WINDSONG wuthering over Dragon scales! Pip raced for the freedom of the open skies, the boundless night that lay but the laughter of a Dragon’s heart from her grasp. She yearned to shuck burdens that had indeed lain like boulders upon her life. Never had she felt lighter. Freer. Happier.
Yet almost at once, she knew enervation. Her Dragoness had not eaten in weeks. She had been wounded and ill-treated. Pip turned quickly about, and saw Silver labouring in her wake, yet he too was laughing that curious variety of Dragonsong which communicated joy born in anguish, laughing so uproariously he could barely fly. Drifting downward upon outspread wings, a miniscule movement near the camp caught her predatory eye. Tawny hide. An involuntary twitch of movement. A short, spiralling horn her Dragon sight picked out even though it was almost perfectly camouflaged in a clump of jiista-berry bushes.
Bloodlust blasted through Pip’s mind, as if all mental process suddenly sucked away into her ravenous gullet. In a flash, she swivelled and plummeted. One thought consumed her. Meat. Instinct overwhelmed all else. Poor Silver could only gape in bemusement as the Onyx Dragoness hurtled by, zeroing in on the bushes. Calculating angles past the huge jinsumo boughs which spread across her path. Reactions primed to their utmost pitch. Too fast! Pip flared her wings between the fragrant boughs, passing by so narrowly that her left wingtip flicked the bark; the resulting draught of air spooked the young spiral-horn buck, which bolted away from the danger, but toward the campfires where other Dragons waited. Shooting beneath the leaf-laden boughs, Pip plucked up the buck an instant before she realised her approach angle was too steep and–holy smokes! Kaiatha!
Dragon instinct alone saved her from an embarrassing and potentially lethal collision. Pip rebounded off the ground, whooshed mere inches over her startled friend’s head, and with a vertebrae-popping somersault accompanied by sharp aerial braking, landed perfectly in a four-pawed stance between Kaiatha and the nearest fire. The buck had the temerity to wriggle. Without thinking, Pip slammed it to the ground between them, and disembowelled the hapless creature with a powerful bite. Yum! Grr! She hacked its jugular open with her fore-talon for good measure, splattering Kaiatha with blood, then began to rip and rend and bolt the meat with low, throaty growls of pleasure.
In the middle of her sixth mouthful, reason returned. Pip froze mid-guzzle, eyeballing Kaiatha. “Sorry.”
Duri, standing three feet behind Kaiatha, said, “Well, it’s emphatically dead, Pip.”
Her gentle friend wiped her left cheek absently, her fingertips coming away streaked with crimson. She popped her fingers into her mouth. “Mmm, that’s nice.”
Poor Durithion looked as thunderstruck as Pip felt. Kaia, who had never touched a scrap of meat in her life. Kaia, who had politely asked the Dragons to hunt and eat out of her sight. She actually closed her eyes in bliss. She smacked her lips … and voiced a low wail of distress.
In an instant she was in Duri’s arms, shaking her head, sobbing, “No, it cannot be …”
Duri glared over her bowed head, directly at Pip. “Freaking Dragons!”
Pip started toward him with an angry snarl, but suddenly Jyoss appeared, shouldering between them. “Ay, Dragons,” she growled at Duri. “What of it, my Rider?”
“We need to talk,” said Pip, gazing past Jyoss to her friends.
“Ay,” Kaiatha echoed. “I … I think we do.”
Durithion stared furiously at the two Dragonesses. With her enhanced Dragon senses, Pip caught the precise moment his heart sprang into a gallop, the pulse leaping in his neck, the quiver tensing his muscles as he pushed away from Kaiatha.
“The hells I’m going to listen to this!” he grated. He stormed away into the night.
The Fra’aniorian Islander sank to her knees, putting her head in her hands. “What have I done? What have I done, Jyoss? Pip?”
“Nothing you’ve done,” said the Albino, clasping Kaiatha with a gentle paw. “I’ve sensed this turmoil growing within him–Nak says that many young men who become Dragon Riders, particularly men of strong principles and conservative backgrounds like Duri, struggle with being the physically weaker creature in a Dragon-Rider partnership. In truth this is a false conception. But we have struggled, and argued, and our fires have not burned together in healthy ways.”
Kaia
laughed curtly. “Conservative? I thought we Fra’aniorian Islanders were the old-fashioned ones.”
“Odd,” said Pip. “Hunagu’s gone to watch over him–no, to converse with him, even.”
Jyoss gazed sombrely at Kaiatha. “But we do need to talk. You and Pip, and don’t forget to include Silver and Cinti–all our Shapeshifters …”
The girl quivered in the Dragoness’ paw. “I can’t, Jyoss. What if it drives Duri away even more? He’s already so angry. And it’s not true, anyways. I don’t understand a single word of Dragonish. I feel no fires. Nothing. How can this be happening to me? Pip?”
“You can’t not, Kaia.” Pip found she had lost her appetite, both for the buck and for the promised date with Silver. “The best we can do now, is to prepare you for what must be.”
* * * *
Morning brought further frustration. With a roar, Dragon-Pip launched herself at Emblazon, only to be rebuffed not with tooth and talon, but with a patiently turned flank–exactly as she had seen him deal with the Amber hatchling Amfyrion’s temper-tantrums.
She subsided with a low groan. “Emblazon, please.”
“Nak and I have made our decision, youngling,” said the Amber, gruffly but not unkindly. “Respect our wisdom. A few days to rebuild your strength out there in the Crescent, and we’ll see about flying longer distances. Now, transform. We’re wasting precious daylight hours and the Crescent Islands grow no closer.”
Pip sulked off to transform in private behind Jyoss.
“You’re with Tazzaral,” Silver informed her. “Diary duty.”
With utterly infuriated composure, Pip suffered to fly a different Dragon from her own, in her Human form, aware that every Dragon present could deduce her feelings from her heartbeat, the temperature of her cheeks and likely even from her scent. True to their nature, however, the Dragons did not comment. Anger was a positive emotion, the fierier the better. Indeed, they had over fifty words and phrases in Dragonish to describe different types of anger and the fires they provoked.
But she could not be angry for long. Today, after seven summers–nearly half of her life–she would finally lay eyes upon her home Islands. Enslaved at eight. Freed seven years later. Forcibly freed, but she bore Zardon the Red no ill-will for that deed. How could she?
As they rose above the early mists blanketing Telstroy Island, Pip had eyes only for the South.
“I need your help cracking this code on page thirty-seven,” Kaia said.
Pip shut her eyes. Ay, Tazzaral’s forward speed caused the wind to sting her cheeks, but that was not the reason for the moisture pricking at her eyes. She struggled to concentrate, assemble the pages in her mind. They would not sight the Crescent for hours yet. She carefully picked through the runic script and the whimsical illustrations, seeking the cunningly concealed truth. Only a Dragon could have conceived of the artwork that was Kaia’s father’s legacy. Had he sensed he might die with the help of his draconic seventh sense? Partly, the diary was a blueprint for the fabled Order of Onyx–the rules and lore of his Order, standards of conduct, and oaths to be taken. But the margins and borders were crammed with additional information and pictures, much of which simply did not make sense. Unless …
She said, “Kaiatha, I’m calling in the troops.”
“Troops?” echoed her friend.
Chymasion. Silver. A little mental trickery, if you would. Is it possible to draw others into a mind-meld–I’d need Shimmerith, Oyda, Kaiatha, Arosia, Hunagu, Tik–
Hold on, Silver protested. Just one confused brain over here. Draconic, I’ll admit, but thoroughly discombobulated.
Shimmerith put in, Pip, you’re asking a great deal from minds not used to–
Oh glorious freaking lizards, said Kaiatha, clapping a hand over her mouth, even though she was speaking in her mind. Sorry … I … oh, oh, I understand … Chymasion! What did you just do to me?
It wasn’t him. It was me. Jyoss gave an amused snort. Don’t think only hatchlings are capable of mischief, Kaiatha. It was right there on the surface of your mind, needing the merest tickle to unleash your potential.
Don’t rush her, Jyoss, Dragoness-Cinti cautioned sternly.
Why not? the Albino asked.
Pip noticed that the Dragons were sticking to telepathy–Jyoss’ nuanced delivery betrayed her desire to hide the truth from Durithion. Not good. Necessary, perhaps, but she had to wonder how this could possibly end well. She checked Tik from the corner of her eye. Oyda had the child on her lap, playing the finger-game. But the distraction she sensed in Oyda’s manner informed her that the Dragon Rider listened closely, even if she understood only a moderate amount of Dragonish.
A Shapeshifter’s fires must develop in their own time, Cinti explained. Sometimes the first transformation is triggered by great need, as you are aware of from Pip’s history. But the natural process is for several months to elapse between the first signs of power–such as innate understanding of Dragonish …
Or enjoying blood, said Kaia, with a shudder.
Cinti nodded. Ay. Or violent mood swings, vivid dreams, lighting candles with a thought, living feral in the wild, seeking out the Dragonkind–all this and more is possible. Even outright madness is not unknown. Kaiatha, we will do our utmost to safeguard you. Now, Pip. Melding might not work with so many, but a projection might suffice.
Projection? How do you do that, noble Cinti?
The Herimor Shapeshifter spent half an hour or more instructing the Dragonkind and Riders in the art of projection, a higher function of Blue Dragons or in Herimor, those Dragons displaying Blue-like abilities. Then she had Pip send her mental images of the diary into Chymasion’s and Silver’s linked minds, who in turn projected them into an imaginary space in the air ahead of the Dragonwing. Emblazon snorted in consternation as a forty-foot tall rendition of page thirty-seven appeared several feet in front of his muzzle. Following Cinti’s instructions, Silver controlled the holographic image, placing it in a more suitable location about fifty feet ahead of the Dragonwing.
“Unholy spitting serpents!” Nak exclaimed feelingly. “Now there’s a trick I’ve never seen before! You couldn’t do a fetchingly unclad version of Oyda for me later, Chymasion, could you?”
The image wavered beneath the force of the hatchling’s consternation.
Plucking a prekki fruit from her saddlebag, Oyda hurled it with surprising accuracy across at Nak, seated on Shimmerith’s back. The soft fruit splattered against his hip. Pip blinked in surprise. Had the Sapphire Dragoness cunningly tilted her wing at the last instant, ensuring that the fruit struck its intended target and not her scales?
“Wow!” said Arosia, patting Chymasion enthusiastically. “Aren’t you just the cleverest creature with two wings?” A few other Dragons puffed smoke from their nostrils, indicating draconic amusement, while Kaiatha suggested Yaethi would be most put out.
“Yaethi has no wings,” said the hatchling, as if that settled the matter.
Arosia added, “You could almost imagine the Ancient Dragons collaborating on projects like building Archion Island, in this way. Can’t you see it?” She deepened her voice. “‘I’ll have a few more terrace lakes over here, Fra’anior. Shouldn’t we make this arch even more ridiculous? That way our Human pets couldn’t possibly miss the paw of our grand draconic design.’ ”
Nak waved dismissively. “Bah, my beauty. Don’t you think they should rather just sign the Island with a few runes like Pip’s leg over there?”
“And leave no room for belief?” Kaiatha sounded uncharacteristically testy, Pip thought. “Where’s the wonder at creation, at the natural beauty of our Island-World, if it’s all written on the Islands, so to speak?”
“Ay,” Oyda agreed. “Perhaps if we had Shimmerith peel Nak’s hide sufficiently, we’d find the word ‘rejected’ stamped on his essential parts.”
Apparently this was bait to a windroc, rather than insult. With a broad grin, Nak said, “The beauties of thy nature art writ on the very stars
above, o peerless Yelegoy, for thy essential parts were indeed stolen from those celestial realms to furnish this grateful man with–”
With a toothy smirk, Shimmerith shielded the rest of his sentence from hearing, muttering something about youngsters in the group. But Oyda could evidently lip-read enough, for she blushed the precise hue of the radiant eastern skies. How she burned! But Kaiatha took over now at Emblazon’s low prompt, directing everyone’s attention to the diary pages beginning to surge from Pip’s mind as she tried to link the information scattered throughout the diary. Chymasion’s brow-ridges wrinkled and Silver’s Dragon-jaw firmed into a grim line as the Dragons laboured to keep up with her ideas flitting about like frolicsome mental dragonets.
Much spirited discussion ensued. At one point, Pip caught Nak gaping at her with undisguised admiration. Through Silver, she caught him muttering about ‘idiosyncratic yet marvellous intellect’ couched with another inappropriate Nak-ism that apparently had something to do with kissing the grey entrails of her skull. Yuck.
Cinti and Shimmerith organised the Dragonwing into teams to focus on different aspects of the diary, including the text, the pictures, the inexplicable runes, cryptograms, epigraphs and markings bordering many of the pages or decorating the text. Pip developed a kicker of a migraine–the kind of headache that kicked one’s temples like Dragons entangled in battle exchanging blows of their powerful hind paws–but Silver put his nascent healing skills to use in alleviating the worst of the pain.
So they flew toward ranks of semi-transparent pictures, until the suns lifted well above the horizon and Pip’s strength was ready to give out. She said, “I need to stop, Kaia.”
Nak said, “Moving pictures … you know, Pip, people would pay to see moving pictures just like this. With you and a couple of Dragons, I could be a rich man.”
Pip groaned, “Maybe tomorrow, Nak.”
“Moving pictures! That’s it!” Arosia yelled.