by Marc Secchia
The tribe gathered, hushed in anticipation. Each family sat in their small group, the elders in the front, the parents kneeling behind and the children and the young people standing alongside their parents. Pip saw many infants cradled in slings. Her father had related that the tribe thrived under No’otha’s capable leadership; the evidence was before her. Could they do anything to help? Nak had already quietly cleared his saddlebags of valuables and pressed the gifts upon No’otha; Kaiatha had passed on four blank scrolls and all the ink and quill pens she possessed, while Oyda had gifted them a gold ring and two earrings. All of this No’otha received with gratitude.
Behind and around the Pygmies, the Dragons and their big person Riders gathered. Kaiatha’s height as a woman had caused wonderment. Jerrion was inconceivable. But even he had a Pygmy youngster in arm, fast asleep. Far from being discomfited, the Jeradian Hammer looked quite content. Pip suddenly pictured him with a Pygmy wife and had to smother a burst of laughter. How would that ever work? Where there was a will … for several of the young women had become very giggly whenever he cast a glance in their direction. And Jerrion had a touch of pink to his cheeks which was not ordinarily present. She began to burn at his unfaithfulness to his wife, when she remembered that Jeradians often took two wives, or consorts, at least. A strange culture. Pip could not imagine sharing Silver with anyone.
It was fun to distract herself for a moment from all the cares of war.
Pip had hoped to translate for her friends, but one of the senior Pygmy women apparently spoke Island Standard–one of the few who did. Pip’s place was front and centre, kneeling five paces in front of the congregation, but still about twenty feet from the cheerful blaze.
The Seer threw several bundles of herbs onto the fire, which gave off scents of sweet anise and jasmine, and momentarily caused the flames to burn blue. Then, she sang the Pygmy histories. Pip listened in growing fascination.
The Pygmies were a people sprung from Fra’anior’s own paw. The songs named him the ‘Ancient Power’, but it was clear from the description of the sevenfold thunder of his presence, and of the way his heads appeared amidst Island-spanning thunderheads, that the story could have referred to only one Dragon in history.
In olden times, the Ancient Dragons had emerged from the First Egg to found the first Dragon society at Fra’anior Cluster, under the leadership of Fra’anior himself, the great Black Dragon. Great were his creative works, the raising, placement and population of the Islands and the design of lesser creatures and species. For this the Ancient Power required an army of labourers with small and deft hands. Enter the Pygmies. Far from being slaves, the legend called Pygmies co-labourers and colleagues in this great creative labour, and spoke of Fra’anior’s great love for his tiny friends. Later, the other Ancient Powers demanded their own creatures to command, and thus the Lesser Dragons and Humans came to be, formed primarily to serve the Ancient Powers’ needs.
In the course of time, jealousies and rivalries arose between the Ancient Dragons. There was a three-sided war between Fra’anior and his black Dragon shell-son, Amaryllion, on the one front, Numistar the White and her allies on the second front, and Dramagon the Red on the third front, with the allies and strange creatures of his own creation, including magic-wielding giants–every eye turned to Jerrion at this point–burrowing Dragons and creatures only known to the tales as the Swarm. Their warring destroyed much of what had been built.
In the aftermath of those dark, devastating confrontations, the Seer related, the Ancient Powers determined to abandon the Island-World to travel to a better, greater and more luminous place, where there was room even for Ancient Dragons each to command their own realm. Fra’anior had to choose to leave the Pygmies behind. So he bequeathed to the people of his right paw his paramount creation, the Islands of the Crescent, and bade the Lesser Dragons watch over and protect the Pygmy tribes. He gifted the Pygmies his most potent lore and the highest standing amongst all the world’s peoples.
Then the Ancient Powers had departed the Island-World, the Seer concluded. But the Pygmies watched and waited for the return of their illustrious originator.
“Now,” she said, “we shall demonstrate one small aspect of our Pygmy gifts. We shall speak to the Ancient Power, and bid him Name this girl, Pip’úrth’l-iòlall-Yò’oótha.”
So saying, she turned to the fire. Taking from her belt a gourd, she poured a handful of precious, sparkling powder onto her palm and cast it directly into the fire’s heart. Crimson and violet flames exploded toward the cavern roof. Now Pip knew why they had been seated so far back, for the blast of heat practically singed her eyebrows.
With a mighty cry, the Seer declaimed, “O great Power of Old, o Ancient One, o voice that parts the waters and shakes the foundations of the uttermost heavens, we your favoured race crave this blessing from the exceeding greatness of your majestic hearts, that you will speak now and declare the true meaning of this girl’s battle-name, for she is Pip’úrth’l-iòlall-Yò’oótha of the Pygmies, the people of your paw!”
Pip held her breath. How could this work, indeed, that one Seer would mark a Pygmy child with a name of which no-one living knew its meaning, and then another Seer would claim to speak to Fra’anior, and–
Her thoughts stalled. Before her, the leaping flames drew apart like curtains tugged by strings to expose another world, a fire within the fire, perhaps an erupting volcano, she thought–but such an inferno as her world had never known, stretching beyond the horizon, a churning sea of iridescent flames that dazzled the eye. Great fountains of fire erupted constantly toward a sky of the deepest amethyst, which itself was a magnificent tapestry of coursing ribbons of flame, putting Pip in mind of the lacework of one of Kaiatha’s formal Fra’aniorian gowns. From the gasps that rose behind her, she suspected that most of the Pygmies present had never seen this place either. A great and unknowable enchantment bridged space and perhaps time, yet for the interval of a breath no Human, Dragon or Shapeshifter dared to snatch, nothing but flames moved upon that remote scene. Then, a dark storm billowed out of a pinpoint of black, growing vaster and vaster still as it rushed toward the onlookers, picking up a tidal wave of gleaming, liquid fire in its train. Closer and closer it roared, filling up far more than their small portal, until it seemed that surely the storm must crash upon them and annihilate all creatures foolish enough to stand their ground.
Pip flinched and flung up an arm for protection. Yet the storm appeared to pause, there in the beyond, so great that she imagined it would have swallowed half of their Island-World into its gloomy maw.
A thunderclap! With a peal that shook their cavern and all within it, a Dragon burst out of the storm–such a Dragon! Indeed, they saw only part of the beast, but that was ample. He was immense beyond comprehension. The power of his burning gaze struck them dumb, the gaze of three sets of identical Dragon eyes set in wedge-shaped heads like gleaming black battlements of Dragon hide, each the size of a large Island, each mantled in seething lakes of storm-clouds. Lightning played all around those heads and between them as the Dragon turned his scorching regard upon the tiny congregation, and smiled a Dragon-smile that rolled up the words ‘terrible’ and ‘majestic’ and smote Pip right between the eyes with a holy awe that bordered on outright terror.
Fra’anior!
The fabled Onyx Dragon did not speak. He looked at her and into her soul, and Pip thought she should surely die. She was a mote. The dust beneath his paws. Unworthy.
In a voice like the thundering of many waterfalls, Fra’anior said, Blessed child of my spirit, be welcome. Long have I awaited thee.
Him! The brooding presence, the umbilical … calling her blessed? Pip thought she might gibber like a foolish white-tufted monkey. No. Her mind seemed lucid, her thoughts never clearer. She replied, Great One, you honour us exceedingly above all we could ask or imagine.
He rumbled, sevenfold voices echoing each other, We will speak much, little one, another day. Gird up thy courage, Pygm
y Dragoness!
The portal darkened. A blade flashed, as darkly magnificent as a shard of gleaming obsidian, pressing through the portal in an unexpectedly swift movement. Pip ducked, then fell flat on her face as the spatulate tip of Fra’anior’s gargantuan talon reached from beyond the boundaries of the Island-World to touch and rest upon her back, oddly gentle, even though his talon alone had to weigh many tonnes. That living blade was wide enough even at its sharpest point to cover twenty of her laid side to side, and far longer than the Academy field.
Yet, his intent was not to crush her. Instead, the Ancient Dragon whispered, “The meaning of thy battle-name is, ‘Paean of the Black Dragon’s soul-fires.’ ”
Pip shivered as his pronouncement rolled over her bowed head. He had spoken simultaneously in Ancient Southern, Standard and Dragonish. In a manner similar to Leandrial’s multi-harmonic magic, his words sparked dozens of ancillary impressions and colours and thoughts in her mind, overwhelming in their totality. Fra’anior spoke in tongues of Dragon fire that washed over her bowed head, garlanding her body in unburning flame and sparking strange, wondrous visions in her mind; unlike Leandrial, he knew to gentle his power and magic to the tiniest whisper, lest he obliterate the fragile scrap of life he addressed. So it was a shock to her when she realised the talon had withdrawn, and the bonfire closed over that rent in the fabric of reality. The last she saw was one great eye of Fra’anior’s many heads, ablaze with pride as he regarded her through the narrowing gap. One luminous teardrop of iridescent fire squeezed forth to land beside the bonfire, which now struck her as tiny in comparison to what had transpired.
Pip knew tranquillity.
She recognised the ebb of the Ancient Power’s magic, yet its echoes still thrilled her inmost being at more levels than she could comprehend. Dragonsong effervesced in her blood. The world flickered wildly, etched in the very white-fires of which Chymasion had spoken, splendid, beautiful and unbounded in ways that surpassed her power of description, before settling abruptly into ordinariness. Sand beneath her knees. Grit lodged in her teeth. The fading, all-pervading fragrance of draconic magic, a scent-song of cinnamon and sulphur, jasmine and starlight and unknowable, mysterious deeps. Hot, heavy tears sprang to Pip’s eyes and splashed upon her thighs.
She pushed to her feet, drenched with fresh realisation, an insight of simple yet staggering clarity.
Her soul had journeyed, and come home.
Chapter 18: Wedding
Throughout the night, Pip dreamed of the Black Dragon’s voice thundering across the deeps between the worlds. Therefore, when she woke at the break of dawn feeling like a frisky dragonet electrified by a burst of pollen buoyed upon the fragrant volcanic breezes of Fra’anior, she could not help bouncing about irritating everyone.
“Rise with the birds, Rider Nak!” she chirped, snitching his blanket.
“Islands’ sakes, I’m not wearing a stitch,” he groused, checking to see if Oyda had noticed. His face fell when he saw that everyone else was fast asleep.
Pip skipped over to Oyda’s place. “Wedding day!”
“Prod my ribs again and I’ll make you a Pygmy in the past tense,” snapped her friend.
She booted Emblazon in the region of his fifth rib. Arise, thou blistering breath of dawn’s rubescent passion!
Somehow, in Dragonish the compliment did not sound overdone. Pip giggled as the rising reverberation of Emblazon’s belly-fires, like muted rolling thunder, betrayed the enormity of his pleasure. He stretched, accidently kicking Jyoss in the belly. She snapped at Tazzaral’s neck. The great Copper woke with a violent start and a reflexive swipe of his paw that whipped Durithion up by the blanket wound around his body, and pitched him halfway across the cavern. Oh, that definitely woke the Sylakian, screaming! Jyoss sprang to her Rider’s aid, stamping on Shimmerith’s head to gain an excellent launching-pad. The Sapphire Dragoness sprang to her paws with a blast of discontent that ignited last night’s store of firewood. At once dozens of Pygmy warriors sprang for their weapons, fearing an attack. The youngest children wailed. Dragons trumpeted and clashed in the close quarters.
Picayune pandemonium!
Pip laughed. Oh, how she laughed! Such an unlikely chain of events and the Dragons’ corner was a fiery brawl, the people nearest her starting to turn to stare at her piping merriment, Nak clutching his blanket about his waist as his hand rose in quivering fury to point at her, screaming, “You!”
She waved cheekily. “Me?”
Nak and Oyda yelled simultaneously, “Get her!” Or at least, that was what it looked like from a safe distance.
That was the precise moment the Amber Dragon grasped who exactly was at the root of their troubles, and his temper boiled over. ONYX PEST!
His bellow shook her toes into tingling flight. What? Pip spent a valuable half second gaping at her feet in amazement, wondering what crazy magic was brewing down there, before the Amber Dragon’s paw streaked into her vision. She whispered aside, nimble as a dragonfly. Grab! She dodged again. His was not a killing rage, but punishment was definitely high on the agenda. Yet the Amber could not catch her. For an impossible cascade of seconds, her tiny feet danced away ahead of a Dragon’s vastly superior reaction-speed.
Emblazon whirled, huffing and snorting in amazement as he chased his quarry halfway around the cavern, all in vain. Pip reversed course, barely a blur as she darted right between his forepaws, under his legs, hurdled his tail and skidded to a halt in front of purple-faced Nak and Oyda, who was scratching her head in sleep-tousled, priceless perplexity.
Breathless from all the running and laughing, Pip collapsed in a happy heap before them. “So … sorry!”
Emblazon’s hot talons grasped her legs; Nak flung himself, blanket and all, on her upper torso, crying, “Hold her, Emblazon, while I pummel the stuffing out of–”
“Nak! Decency!” Oyda cast her blanket over the pair of them.
“Decent?” The unclad Rider poked his head briefly out of the tangle. “Are you quite mad, woman? That’s a bad, bad word.”
Oyda’s green eyes flashed. “You two are quite the pair. Pip, how exactly does a Human run faster than a Dragon? Answer before I do indeed let Nak pummel you to prekki fruit pulp.”
“Ay,” rumbled Emblazon, having calmed down to a point just shy of volcanic eruption, “what magic is this, Pip? Are you hiding another secret power?”
“A Pygmy power,” said Nak. “Like how she and Silver won that race …”
“How they cheated,” growled Emblazon.
Her enjoyment dissolved, along with all her wonderment at what she had just achieved. Flinging Nak off with the full strength of her arms–from the corner of her eye noticing Shimmerith catching the airborne Rider–Pip faced off with the massive Amber Dragon. “I’m no cheat, Emblazon! You take that back!”
For a second, all was heat and fire and dangerously simmering tempers. Emblazon seemed delighted with her fiery response, which riled Pip no end, but she was also aware of the incongruity of a four-foot Pygmy girl fighting with a Dragon whose forepaw alone measured thrice her height, whose hulking tonnage was stuffed to the ear-canals with magic and fire, and a beastly temper to match. Ha. No apology, of course, but the forge-billows sound of the Amber’s breathing slowed, indicating acceptance. He flicked a wingtip eloquently, indicating that he allowed her challenge to stand.
Oyda shouldered her way between them, saying, “Well, now that we’re all awake thanks to Pip, I’ve a wedding to prepare for and I will have no more misbehaviour from you three miscreants.”
Nak began, “Oyda–”
“Oyda nothing!” she hissed. “No fighting. Clothes will be worn. Emblazon, Shimmerith, why don’t you Dragons figure out exactly what that power is while we Humans clothe our hides in animal and vegetable fibres, paint and primp–Nak, what is it now?”
“You’re so beautiful when you’re angry,” he breathed, looking like a man who had beheld a most winsome vision.
“Shut the trap, Rid
er Nak.” Oyda pretended fury, stomping her foot and waving her arms about. “I am marrying you today, man, so snap to it!”
The Pygmy tribe must think all big people as barmy as a flight of Dragons winging backward around the Blue Moon, Pip thought. But there was something weird stirring in the hidden depths of her magic. Something that smacked of forbidden powers such as teleportation, or an Ancient Dragon’s claw riven through the unimaginable reaches of interstellar space or even planes of existence to touch her life … child of his spirit? What did that mean?
Not now. For the women of the tribe had come to surround the Remoyan Islander and spirit her away; they beckoned to Oyda and Pip, Arosia, Kaiatha and Cinti. Tik laughed and skipped happily in the midst of them all. No’otha had promised he would help Tik find her tribe. The men pretended to haul Nak off at spear-point; he acceded with half-hearted protests.
Ay, today was about the celebration of life.
Even godlike Ancient Dragons must understand that.
* * * *
Clothes were worn, in a manner of speaking.
Oyda wore a breathtakingly brief loincloth that consisted purely of white river lilies, and a similar flowery allusion to a garment above that only just concealed her modesty. The Pygmy women braided blossoms and white opals into her hair. They smoothed fragrant oils into her skin, before an elderly woman spent over two hours working on her makeup and drawing artistic flower designs upon her shoulders and back. All the while, the tribeswomen sang blessings in five-part harmony, alternating the blessings with sage and pointed advice which left poor Pip, the translator, gasping and red-faced on more than a couple of occasions.
Judging by the hoots of laughter emanating from behind a leaf screen which had been erected on the far side of the cave, the men were also enjoying ribald companionship.
Now it was the turn of all the women and girls, from youngest to oldest, to ready themselves for the occasion. Already the cooking fires blazed and a steady stream of teenage warriors, male and female, had been entering and leaving the cavern, bearing provisions, spoils of the hunt and delicacies for the wedding feast. The women wove white flowers into their hair and donned their best white loincloths, for white was the colour of celebration. There was a certain amount of confusion over whether they should cover their breasts in honour of Oyda’s Yelegoy culture. Pip amused herself by teasing Kaiatha and Arosia until neither girl knew where to look, whereupon Cinti intervened gently to suggest cloth sarongs for the hips and a simple cloth tied crosswise …