by Marc Secchia
“Welcome to my Island home, Pygmy girl,” he said, in an accent filled with lilting Herimor tones. “You beat my shell-son twice, turned him to your cause, stole his hearts and abandoned him callously at the last.”
She swallowed a wordless squeak of dismay.
“Oh, yes. I see the fear lurking in your eyes. Don’t worry, you and I have much in common. I’m going to enjoy convincing you to share all your little secrets. And when you’ve spilled the waters of your life upon this cold, unfeeling metal, I will convert you to my cause, as I have done thousands of Dragons greater than you.”
She distilled all of her fear and loathing into one simple response. Try your worst, Re’akka. I will never yield.
He laughed softly. “Giving up too soon would’ve spoiled it for both of us. You outmatched my shell-son. That offence will be avenged. And then I will teach you what it means to spite the most powerful Dragon in the Island-World.”
Most powerful? You sad fool. Fra’anior has more power in his littlest talon–
Pip gurgled as the air stopped in her throat.
Re’akka said, “I don’t suppose you’ve encountered Kinetic power yet, have you, little girl? I can rearrange your innards with a thought. Squeeze your liver. Play with your heart, like this.”
Pip felt her eyes bulge at a sickening sensation inside her chest.
“The possibilities are endless.” Marshal Re’akka stepped into the room, drawing the stone door shut behind him with a single, careless thought. “Shall we begin?”
* * * *
Fifty leagues Silver flew in the course of three hours, aiming to catch up with the Island at the hour appointed for the Dragonwings’ return, should they be within range. Odd, how Re’akka insisted on that regulation. Now that he considered it, there was much about his father he did not know. That was the man’s nature. Secretive. Obsessive. Suspicious about everyone and everything. Cruel to the core.
Pip was in his clutches. Helpless rage swelled his belly-fires.
Hold on, Pip. Help is at hand.
Just five leagues or so beyond the line demarcating the Crescent Isles’ ascent from the Cloudlands, Eridoon Island sailed steadily westward, making its slow but inexorable advance. All he saw was a dark silhouette against the setting suns as the twins followed each other down toward the horizon, partially eclipsed by the Yellow Moon. Spectacular swathes of vermilion and bronze spanned the western skies. Flight after flight of Night-Reds swarmed toward the Island, what Silver sincerely hoped was the final withdrawal of the Marshal’s army from the Crescent. Four Dragonwings of a hundred strong each had travelled northward as they hid amongst the Islands after Pip’s abrupt departure, bound for who knew where–subjugating troublesome Islands, most likely.
Did the Dragons return each night to renew their obedience to the Master? He had assumed the physical changes to be permanent, but Cinti’s colour had been lightening by the day. Was that the result of Pip’s work in conquering his shell-mother’s mind, or a natural result of her distance from Re’akka’s imprinting chambers?
Once, Silver had considered his mental powers preeminent in the Island-World. Then, a tiny dark weapon had disarmed him completely. But he could still teach Her Inimitable Littleness a few tricks. The heavily shielded Dragon angled for the nearest Island.
Time to put on a show.
Half an hour later, a smallish Night-Red lifted from the Island. He limped through the air as if wounded. Silver had chuckled at his reflection in a pond. What Herimor glamour-magic could not achieve, with the help of an expert! His mother’s mental construct had allowed Silver to rapidly and faithfully recreate every detail of a Night-Red’s appearance, but the real secret was integrating that appearance into a Dragon-shaped shield that was, in reality, nothing more than highly compressed air. Even to close inspection or touch, his Dragon form would appear and feel authentic–considerably larger than his real Dragon’s size, to be sure, but Cinti had been convinced a small Night-Red would attract suspicion. The Marshal fed the little ones to the Shadow Dragon.
The shielding even modified the airflow over his wings. Silver practised carefully, making his adjustments as he winged out over the Middle Sea, that great blank space on the map that eventually led thousands of leagues to Jeradia and the Western Isles.
Next, he extended his mind to apply an advanced technique Master Ga’am had introduced during his training, a means to modify the magical signature of a Dragon. Every Dragon left a detectable aurora-trail in the magical sphere, an idea similar to Leandrial’s Balance, he imagined. Pip did have to keep speaking to legends, didn’t she? Silver suppressed an acid spurt of draconic jealousy. If he claimed to love her, he would have to work on keeping up with those little idiosyncrasies, like speaking to Ancient Dragons and making the odd Island-shaking oath. Though he had a few fiery words he owed Zardon! Fancy taking advantage of a naïve girl he pulled out of a cage?
Silver flew steadily toward Eridoon, covering the distance in an unhurried half-hour. He approached the Island just as the suns dipped beneath the horizon.
He started as a huge Night-Red appeared out of the gloom. Had a little trouble out there, wing-brother?
The tone was scathing. Feral Red, Silver grunted, maintaining his course.
The other returned a grunt of his own. Still a few left, eh? Go get cleaned up. The Marshal doesn’t like stragglers. Feeds them to his little pet.
Silver bared his fangs and angled for the entrance to his old home.
Long habit almost made Silver choose the tunnel that led to the inner chambers, those inhabited by Marshal Re’akka’s shell-children. He stuttered at the last instant and chose another tunnel at random. He tried to fly nonchalantly, acting as if he belonged. He joined other Dragons in the waterfall-baths, so necessary in Herimor where the scale-rot and other Dragon diseases spread so quickly. Northern Dragons seemed so much more casual about cleanliness.
Fledgling, are you new around here?
Just finished in the chambers, Silver lied glibly. First patrol and picked up a wound. I’ll get better.
A couple of other Dragons peered at him through the waterfalls pouring from the cave’s roof. The others had already moved on to the feeding or sleeping areas. One said, Go see the healers, youngling. Don’t want you spreading infections here.
Silver inclined his muzzle respectfully. As you command, flight-leader.
Flight-leader? The other laughed. Trying to earn wingtip-favour, are you? Go cosy up to another Dragoness. You’re too scrawny for me.
Actually, heading to the healing pens was a smart idea. Silver silently thanked the Night-Red. Up there, it would be quieter and he could find a place to transform, steal a drudge’s outfit, try to find Pip … which would be difficult. He had no idea where the Marshal kept prisoners, especially ones as important as her.
Silver shook the water off his fake hide, and headed for the vertical tunnels which would take him up to the healer-Dragons. One paw before the next, Shapeshifter.
* * * *
Marshal Re’akka pushed away from his victim, sniffing the air with a distinctly draconic toss of his head. “Odd. I sense a presence …”
Pip groaned into her gag. She had been beaten and tormented, twisted and pummelled until every organ in her body felt as though it had been permanently rearranged, and she had long since given up the idea of remaining strong and silent. She had screamed until her throat was raw. She had wept, pleading without shame or dignity and voided her bowels uncontrollably. Then, cradling her head from behind with his long, spiderlike fingers, the Marshal had started on her mind.
She did not know how she had resisted him. The Marshal’s irritation had soon reached boiling point; she could still feel and hear the impact of his psychic hammer-blows in her memory.
To the watch-Dragon, he said, “Leave her shackled here but summon a healer. We’ll start again in the morning. I’ll have fresh ideas for you, girl. Your own mother calls you a demon-child. Maybe I’ll twist your ovaries so t
hat you can never whelp any demon-spawn of your own.”
His vile threat rolled over her like distant fire. Struggling to focus her mind, Pip whispered in telepathic Dragonish, You’re still … a sad … fool.
Re’akka stormed out.
That was her victory. A small payback to the torturer.
* * * *
For Pip, the days and hours began to blur together, demarcated by eating, sleeping, being tortured by the Marshal, and being healed by a procession of different Dragon Assassin healers so that she could be tortured all the more. Re’akka learned she did not fear to die. He learned she would not yield no matter how creatively he applied his powers. Each time he left, Re’akka returned fresh to the fray. Pip wondered if he used the First Egg to renew his strength. Eschewing physical torture, he concentrated on her mind, driving her to insane levels of agony as he applied force and guile to the Dragon egg she imagined her mind to be. Only the Dragon within could break the shell.
Each time he left, or just before he left, she would whisper in her mind, You sad fool. It became her mantra. Her pinpricks.
It struck Pip one such occasion, amidst the flames of burning as Re’akka assaulted her mind with his titanic strength, that if she could isolate part of her mind to resist him, then she could isolate the whole and not have her thought processes fogged by the chamber’s magic. And if his magic or the healer Dragons’ magic worked within the chamber, why should hers fizzle and fail? This conundrum she could not puzzle out. But as her mind cleared, the Pygmy girl began to observe the Marshal closely, and from observation she turned to active plotting, and from plotting to outright sabotage.
First, she fell back on her memories of her friends and reminded herself over and over again why she had chosen this course. Then she thought upon Silver, taking strength from the fact that he lived to oppose the Marshal, and he and the others would have returned to the Academy with the scrolls. Surely, they would describe a way to defeat the enemy? She reviewed her expanded knowledge of the Word of Command, finding the magical constructs frightening in scope yet limited in peculiar ways. It did not allow mind reading or mind control. According to the lore, that was a different branch of magic altogether, an ancient, forbidden lore called ruzal. So much for borrowing a few of the Marshal’s thoughts. Most of the Words operated on the physical world. Influence in the spiritual realms was limited, and in the magical, apparently illimitable. Use of a Word was fraught with danger, especially if the Word was turned on oneself, as she had done once already.
She always came back to one truth–her Word had not worked on the Shadow Dragon. The beast was apparently immune. It all hinged on the Marshal. He controlled the Shadow. He was the key.
Whipped on by the unrelenting stress and trauma, unforeseen thoughts or ideas surfaced in her mind, forcing Pip to reevaluate her experiences, to link them in new ways. As a healer worked on her one day, preparing her for the Marshal’s next bout of creativity, she recalled the laughter of starlight and allowed it to brighten places torn and abused by Re’akka’s ministrations.
Blue-star and Balance.
The healer-Dragon stared at her. What did you just say? Where am I?
Pip eyed the huge female Night-Red with wary surprise. Habitually the healers stood just outside the small chamber, pushing their muzzle and right forepaw inside in order to touch Pip to work on her. There was something of Cinti about this Dragonsong, perhaps a common heritage? And a sweet, beautiful melody of Dragonsong began to pulse through Pip’s veins as her intuition roared forth like wildfire. Oh, mercy! Could this be done? A change of the Balance?
When she did not speak, the Dragoness peered at Pip as though seeing her for the first time. I feel as if I have slept. Why do I dream of stars? Why am I healing you? Have you been tortured? By whom?
Her mouth having been left unfettered to receive food and water, Pip said in Dragonish, Marshal Re’akka of Eridoon holds many Dragons captive here in his floating Island, noble Dragoness. You are his captive, tainted by a foul brand of magic. He has been torturing me for my knowledge of magic.
The Night-Red gasped, I know … now I understand!
A roar echoed down the corridor. Pip said, The Marshal comes! Quick–
The Dragoness shook her head. I cannot live with this dishonour. Farewell, Human child who shone starlight into my fire-eyes.
She backed out, turned, and launched herself out of Pip’s sight with a resounding battle-challenge. There was a mighty shout, a ringing clash of metal and the sound of a huge body thudding to the ground. Boots tapped sharply, rushing closer. Running.
The Marshal burst in, cursing in his native Herimor dialect.
Pip began to laugh. Great, relieving, reckless heaves vibrated her body against the huge manacles. Oh, it hurt so badly to laugh, but it was good. So freeing!
“You!” Storming across the chamber, the Marshal lashed out, splitting her lip with his fist.
She laughed harder. Oh, blue-star, grant her the power to laugh forever!
“What the hells are you laughing at?” roared Re’akka, his face purpling with wrath. “I captured you. Tortured you! Look at your pathetic, battered little body, stretched out on this rack, stinking of your own faeces, bereft of magic and all your vaunted Onyx Dragon power. You are mine! I can do anything I like to you!”
Pip licked the blood trickling down her lip.
Composed now, she chuckled quietly, “You thought to break me, Marshal Re’akka. But I have broken you. You truly are a sad, sad fool.”
Chapter 24: Shades of Impossibility
SiLver Stood in the Marshal’s bedchamber, watching the altercation in the dungeons with his ghastly pallor superimposed over the image in the mirror. All the blood had drained from his face; from his heart, even. Pip! Oh, Pip, standing up to his shell-father in a way Silver had never imagined!
It had been difficult to break into the routines of the drudges. Every movement of every day was orchestrated. No-one seemed to know anything about the underground layout of the Island, much less where his girlfriend might be held. Eventually, after a fruitless week wasted trying to drop his questions here and there, Silver determined a new course of action. He would find and confront his father directly. Winning his way to the bedchamber involved slaying and impersonating five different servants as he worked his way into the inner sanctum. Here, his father’s absence had rung loudly in the aether, but Silver had spied a magical mirror linked to a Dragon’s Eye elsewhere in the fortress. He had activated the mirror in time to see Re’akka thunder into the chamber and strike the Pygmy girl a fearsome blow.
Her poor, swollen mouth moved; the voice emerged tinny but clear enough to understand, “You thought to break me, Marshal Re’akka. But I have broken you. You truly are a sad, sad fool.”
Silver’s fingers twisted his cleaning cloth into knots. His jaw not only dropped, it practically bounced off the floor near his boots. Re’akka had underestimated her. So had he. Pip was not pushing up fireflowers or a mindless thrall of the Marshal’s. She was laughing at him. Laughing.
Impossible!
Just then, a noise in the doorway alerted him. Silver whirled.
Islands’ greetings, Silver, said the old Shapeshifter, Zardon, now Commander of the Dragon Assassins. Your father has been waiting to speak with you.
He reacted as quickly as thought, but the tall, uniformed Shapeshifter only shook his head slightly. Silver’s mental attack sputtered and died. How? He had been prepared. Somehow, Re’akka had detected or anticipated his arrival.
Zardon stepped forward, nodding toward the mirror. Young man, you’ve made a terrible miscalculation. You’ve given the Marshal the tools he requires to control her. May there be mercy for us all.
A slight hissing should have warned him moments before. Silver hurled himself across the chamber, but the mustard-coloured gas pouring from vents in the roof overwhelmed him. The last he remembered was slumping toward Zardon’s boots, before the roof of the Island-World seemed to cave in atop his
head.
* * * *
A tall, heavyset woman of middle age came to bathe Pip, and dress her, and comb out her curls. She introduced herself as Chymis, shell-daughter of the Marshal. A Shapeshifter, Pip realised. Chymis escorted her, unfettered, to a magnificently appointed dining-chamber somewhere higher up in the fortress, where the walls were tastefully adorned with sprawling artworks, perhaps from Herimor. She gave Pip time to dawdle, eyeing the exotic paintings as she walked and Pip shuffled along, limping heavily and gasping with the effort. Her body barely seemed her own.
Like Pip, Chymis wore a floor-length formal gown of the deepest blue, closely fitted at the bodice and waist, her skirts swishing as her formal slippers whispered along the carpeted hallways. If Chymis disliked her, Pip could not tell. Herimor subterfuge. The art of masking motivations and intentions, Silver had called it. Her dress fit Pip’s almost four-foot frame perfectly, as if tailored to measure. Slippers had been found, again an impeccable fit for tiny feet. Chymis had even taken the time to apply a little makeup with her own hand, and to pin emeralds here and there in Pip’s hair. An emerald choker adorned her throat, just above the gown’s modest neckline.
This was another scheme of the Marshal’s. Pip knew enough to understand that this development boded ill for her. Something had changed, leading to Imbalance.
Having briefly gained the upper hand, the Pygmy girl found herself on the defensive.
Perhaps twenty-five or thirty men and women of varying ages stood to attention around the dining-chamber’s walls at precise intervals, as if assigned to pre-agreed stations. All were groomed and clad as if for the most royal of occasions. None spoke, but their eyes spoke for them. Hatred. Animosity. The fiery regard of Shapeshifters. Pip had never encountered quite so much latent draconic power gathered in a single room. Intoxicating. And eerie, making her hackles bristle. It was the bland sameness of their expressions, she realised. Most resembled Re’akka in form and features. The dynasty. The inner circle of his power. Chymis moved to join her family, leaving the Pygmy girl alone.