by Marc Secchia
That’s it, Grandion exclaimed, spitting a gobbet of meat against her thigh.
Lia threw it back at him. You’re a messy eater. Who else but Razzior would pay Shinzen for the likes of us? Does the Orange traitor seek the Scroll of Binding for himself?
The Tourmaline thundered his unhappiness around the cavern. Heavens above and Islands below, that tiny cranium of yours must conceal an incredibly dense lump of brain-matter. Lia’s response was a low growl. Aye, you’re right–what does Razzior want more than ultimate power in his paw? We need to think. Plan. What type of magic can break through Dragon bone? How can we foil Shinzen’s schemes?
Hualiama echoed, What kind of magic, indeed? Force won’t suffice.
Grandion’s fiery breath hissed over the sheep’s remains, crisping the skin and sizzling the fat. He said, When you ran for the door, I saw a flash of light–or magic. Perhaps my eyes aren’t completely ruined.
Oh, Grandion! Lia danced over to him, slipped on a sheep-bone, and landed awkwardly on the hard upper surface of his forepaw, right on the primary thumb joint.
She hugged his ankle fiercely.
Chapter 18: A Dragon’s Eyes
UNbreakable. Impervious. The cage had defeated Grandion’s every artifice during his three years of captivity. Designed by Dragons for the containment of Dragons, the structure was not only built from the strongest substance known to the Dragonkind–Dragon bones–but further reinforced with cunning spells of an ancient, forgotten weave which destroyed the ability of those incarcerated within its bone cage to perform magic of their own. Telepathic Dragon speech was impossible. Magical Dragon attacks were impossible–on the contrary, Grandion informed Lia, his attacks had only served to strengthen the structure.
A week later, she was still arguing the odds.
“It’s impossible,” Hualiama grumbled. “There has to be a weakness.”
“Keep trying. Your skull is, after all, more impervious than either Dragon hide or bone.”
Lia refused to be provoked by her oversized sheep-obliterating cage-mate. “We’re missing something, Grandion. Somewhere in the magical lore, there must be a clue. A trick. A reversal of logic. A fresh insight. Years ago, a girl beat the premier swordsman of Fra’anior Cluster. It is possible. It must be.”
Irritably, the Dragon growled, “It’s difficult indeed to reverse something we can neither identify nor understand in the first instance. Hualiama, we’ve covered this ground twenty times over. Our best chance is to wait for Razzior–”
“To attack us when we’re helpless?”
“Dragons are not easily chained.”
“Pity us Humans, then,” Lia sighed. “I’m not content to wait, Grandion.”
His knowing chuckle brought a burn to her cheeks. Aye, Lia would never sit back, content, while fate sent an Orange Dragon to finish the foul work he had begun. Ra’aba had escaped Sapphurion’s justice and roamed the Islands freely. Razzior would be on their trail just as soon as Shinzen put the pieces together. She scowled at the Dragon, aggrieved that Grandion chose to exhibit a fine imitation of a blue doormat.
A magical cage required a magical solution. But of all the strangeness which had attended her fragmented existence, perhaps the strangest was the magic of a Dragon’s secret name, Alastior! That was magic of a type or character she could not reproduce. Nor could she cry the Ancient Dragon’s name. It accomplished nothing in this cage. Yet, she knew magic had touched her life repeatedly. Ianthine’s paw. Flicker’s soul-fire. Amaryllion’s bequest. Heavens above and Islands below, she dreamed impossibilities, rich, lucid dreams of playing in the Island-World’s vast aerial realms, and her mysterious shell-dreams. Lia had dreamed of being raised by Dragons and that, confounding all belief, had been true.
What did it all mean? Oh, for a draconic paw to scribe the answer on a handy wall! She chuckled softly, making the Tourmaline Dragon orient his blind gaze upon her. “What now?”
The Princess asked, “Grandion, do Dragons dream shell-dreams? Before they crack the shell, I mean?”
Stillness greeted her question. Grandion always fell silent when he was thinking deeply, or when she asked an inappropriate question. Nevertheless, she pressed gently, “I do not wish to pain you, but could I ask–do you remember your mother’s voice speaking to you as an unborn hatchling? Did you sense the fire-souls of your siblings … who died?”
“Aye.” His claws curled unconsciously, as though he pictured snatching his shell-siblings from death’s paw. “Sometimes, I imagine I still hear their voices, perhaps their spirits speaking from the eternal flame. They died peacefully. I, in my immature way, tried to command their spirits not to leave. I fought the eternal fires that day, Hualiama. I railed and cursed. I wept a rain of fire. Thus, I must perforce live three lives.”
At once appalled and deeply moved, Lia whispered, “You honour them, but at what cost?”
Grandion pawed his muzzle roughly. “Why ask this question, Lia? Why summon dark-fires from the past?”
“Because I dream what seem to be shell-dreams–please don’t hate me for saying this, Grandion.” The Tourmaline Dragon’s tail flicked dangerously behind him. “I know how precious these dreams are to the Dragonkind. I’m not making it up. Maybe it’s a magic-induced form of insanity. Could it be the Ancient Dragon’s fire-gift? Some kind of echo–”
“And the Dragonfriend profanes the sacred once more,” he blazed. “No Human is welcome to trample these precious mysteries.”
People and Dragons mixed as well as Islands and the Cloudlands. These dreams must hint at the transformative power of Amaryllion’s magic.
The Ancient Dragon might have questioned the wisdom of imparting such a gift upon a Human, but that was no excuse for Grandion’s surly response. Let him sulk. He did not carry the burden of conflicting claims of magic in his life, nor the affliction of a prophecy that shadowed a person’s soul. What third great race? What great cataclysm? She wished she knew what any of it meant.
Yet, magic’s touch had not always been for ill. A miracle had placed an unwanted babe in Sapphurion and Qualiana’s roost. Magic had underpinned the bond of friendship between her and Flicker. And the magical Nuyallith techniques had manifested through her dance with truly disruptive power, as her fathers–blood-father and adoptive father alike–had discovered to their cost. What power could disrupt this cage? A force such as that she had sensed both in Razzior’s link with Ra’aba, and in the strange gemstone-eyed young man who had appeared to help her as she confronted her father before the Onyx Throne of Fra’anior? The youth who reminded her so forcibly of Grandion?
People did not become Dragons, nor Dragons, people. That boy had vanished like rain falling upon the Cloudlands. Hualiama eyed Grandion speculatively. It was a girlish fantasy, but how might he look as a man? Eyes of striking, tourmaline blue, wavy dark hair … just as gorgeous as the young man she had fancied. Six years later, his features graced her memory with pristine clarity. Certainly, that oh-so-leopard young man had tipped the balance in her fight with Ra’aba. He had bowed to her as if he knew exactly who she was.
Her mind bounded in another direction.
Disruption. Ruzal was the ultimate disruptive magic–dark, devious and debilitating. Razzior had commanded the Greens against their will. A flick of Ianthine’s ruzal had ejected Grandion from her lair as though he were a child’s toy. In the midst of her joyous celebration of calling the Tourmaline Dragons’ secret name, what had reared up to steal her joy, if not ruzal? And if the Ancient Dragon had correctly identified the taint of Ianthine’s ruzal magic upon her earliest years–what had the Maroon Dragoness bound? What had she disrupted? If only she knew.
Then, realisation struck her like a Blue Dragon’s most potent attack, storm-powered ice. Hualiama could not prevent a keening cry of horror from escaping her lips.
“What?” Grandion demanded, from across the cave. “Smarting as you ought to be, Dragonfriend?”
Repentance was a thousand leagues from his thoughts.
But Lia, nauseated to her core, could barely think past the simple, chilling knowledge that she had the power. She knew the darkness of ruzal. Malleable, seductive, it sang to her spirit. It wanted to be used. It wanted to ooze into her life, to seep into the despicable, unlovely corners of her being. Ruzal’s darkness would steal all that was good and light within her, corrupting and tainting Hualiama–yet it promised a sweet, poisoned chalice of freedom.
A Dragon’s paw steadied her. Hualiama startled, having not heard Grandion move. “What?” he growled again, but his tone betrayed gentleness this time. “Are you unwell?”
“I know how to escape.”
* * * *
Words burned in Grandion’s throat, but he refused them egress. A Dragoness would have nipped his wingtips. Lia had no such recourse. But she was smart. The Tourmaline Dragon had always thought Dragons far superior in intellect, but that a five-foot wisp of a girl possessed the capacity to constantly surprise him–she deserved his respect rather than the scourge of draconic scorn.
Grandion hissed between his fangs, “Escape? How?”
The girl trembled in his paw. Terror, he realised. One of the bravest creatures he knew, one who drew strength from grief and power from the unspeakable wells of vulnerability, was afraid.
Her fear focussed his mind upon the only possible answer. He said, “Ruzal. Lia, you mean to use ruzal, don’t you? May the Great Dragon’s wings protect us!”
His throat closed. That inner darkness, that almost-presence which had stolen her joy … a Dragon-sense made every scale on his body prickle with painful intensity. She had voiced the only answer. This was Ianthine’s signature work beginning to flower in her life. No, not to flower–an unfortunate choice of words to describe a vile fate. Suddenly, Grandion was afraid for his bright, beautiful Rider, whose song had entwined with his fire-spirit. Perhaps it was grounded in the Ancient Dragon’s and the dragonet’s gifts, but he knew the colour of her white-fires as pure Hualiama. Those sacral fires must never be extinguished. They kindled his Dragon-senses to a pitch of sensitivity he had not enjoyed since waking in Shinzen’s cave. Yes! For a dazzling moment, Grandion’s magic surged, and his mind reached out.
To contemplate Hualiama as he did now, with the insight of his seventh sense, was to behold a star-like spirit imprisoned in frail Human flesh. To imagine this star consumed by a darkness deeper and more terrible than his own lack of sight, filled Grandion with a wild, towering rage. Suddenly, the Tourmaline Dragon felt vitally, painfully alive. His hearts pounded three distinct drumbeats within his throat, chest and belly, driving blood along his arteries so powerfully, his body buzzed in response. He wanted to pounce upon something, to attack, to rend and claw and bite …
Yet he remembered not to clench his fist.
A soft query tickled the Dragon’s ear-canals. Grandion? Speak to me. Have I angered you?
NO! he boomed. No. I’m angry at what must be done.
Why?
He replied, The word ‘ruzal’ is similar in meaning to ‘infiltrate’ or ‘sabotage’. That’s the fundamental nature of this magic. As you Humans say, it is a two-edged blade. Opening yourself to this twisting and tainting influence, Hualiama, carries an appalling risk.
Her fingers caressed the sensitive scales beside his left eye, with a touch both tender and troubled. Your caring warms my heart, Grandion.
Then you’ll do it?
I’m not strong enough. So terrified …
Suddenly she was bent over his paw, her body racked with sobs, shaking the Dragon to his core with a force beyond his comprehension. How could he feel like this, if it was not right? Yet millennia of draconic law and tradition would tell otherwise. His left paw rose uneasily to stroke her unbound hair in a gesture with which he had seen Qualiana comfort a Human child. To what good end could this forbidden passion possibly lead?
There was an un-nuanced quality to Hualiama’s Dragonish which oftentimes struck him as ingenuous, for it contrasted so sharply with the complexities of which an adult Dragon was capable. Meaning was veiled, distorted, processed through so many layers of subterfuge that mental or vocal communication often resembled a game of strategy, in which neither player knew quite what the other meant, nor entirely what they themselves wished to convey. It also lent her language a direct, refreshing quality which the Tourmaline Dragon revelled in.
The Princess of Fra’anior sniffed, I’m such a bleating coward.
Never! His growl caused his captive to stiffen. I’ll gnaw your head off your shoulders if you dare to invent falsehoods. Now, fire up that Dragoness’ heart of yours. Gird your courage as a Dragon girds himself for war, in Dragon armour and the splendour of his power, spread your wings, and fly to the battle with a song of Dragon fire alive in your breast!
Hualiama snorted, Bah, and I thought you the miserable one. Now you’re a draconic war-poet?
Grandion’s laughter thundered over the girl. See if my words don’t fire you up. I feel the strength in your spine. I sense the smoking paths of your thoughts–thou, the ardent cataclysm of volcanic glory!
Her shoulders shook. At first he mistook her response for amusement. His belly-fires roared in protest, but then he sensed her head shaking side-to-side in the Human gesture of negation. She said, How do you know me so truly, Grandion of Gi’ishior? Empowering and overpowering, awakening and inciting … is this what it means to be a Dragon?
The music needs only to be unleashed, little one. He uncurled his paw. This is the Dragonsong of your heart.
Her breath sucked in sharply. Then she performed that inexplicable, chrysalis-like transformation which never failed to astonish him. He could almost imagine the clicking of door-locks or the throwing open of hidden chests of energies and potencies within her being, for the Human girl switched personalities in the time it took him to formulate a coherent thought acknowledging the fact.
Right, Dragon, she said, in a voice like a whetted blade. You will teach me everything you know about Juyhallith, the way of the mind.
In the next hour? He wafted sulphurous smoke in her direction, a draconic way of amplifying negation.
Our time is short–do you not sense it?
Grandion gasped, Hualiama! How, by the Spirits of the Ancient Dragons …
Her clothing rustled as, he imagined, she shrugged her shoulders. The scent of the Island-World tingles upon the breezes. The balance changes. And a girl can stand tall with a Dragon beside her, Grandion.
She thought he grasped something of her essence, and then she made statements like this? Grandion ruffled his wing-membranes in consternation. Oh, to feel such a breeze buoying him up! The very thought aroused the melody of Dragonsong in his hearts.
He whispered, And her Dragon can stand aside while his Rider revolutionises said Island-World …
Never aside, sweet Dragon. Never second-rate.
* * * *
Hualiama knew the precise moment she released the ruzal.
Grappling with that dark kernel of power was an exquisitely painful sensation she could only liken to trying to force food down a throat clawed repeatedly by a dozen dragonets’ needle-sharp talons. It was not natural. The magic needed to be torn free, gasping and bloodied, a ghastly birth of something within her that should never have seen the light of the twin suns.
Gaaaaarrgggh! Lia wailed.
The magic of their Dragon-bone cage recoiled, before surging back to seal the tiny breach she had wrought.
Behind her, the Dragon’s agitated pacing increased exponentially. He had given up trying to comfort her as she forced herself to forge a channel to release the ruzal. Concern radiated out of the great beast, along with a heat in the cavern that only seemed to increase the harder Lia worked. A cold sweat shone on her skin as though she strained to vomit, but could not. When the ruzal licked out for the first time and Hualiama groaned, the Dragon’s massive paws shook the ground behind her.
“Stand back,” she called, holding out a hand. “I don’t know what might happen.”
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br /> “I felt that!” growled the Tourmaline.
“I know.”
The Dragon could still his entire being, it seemed–belly fires, breathing, even his hearts-beat if needed–for an instant, to listen. He rasped, “When we breach it, they’ll come.” She did not need to express her question; somehow, he knew. “I sense fresh movement in Shinzen’s hideout. Unusual sounds.”
“Dragons?”
“Nothing I could rend with my claw.” Sweltering air boiled over her shoulders. Despite the heat, Hualiama shivered. The Dragon said, “We need to work together. When you rupture the magic, I’ll try to tear into the wall with my claws and pull a few of those Dragon bones free.”
“I want you out of the way.” Hands on hips, Lia addressed Grandion with asperity. “I can’t guarantee your safety.”
“Yesterday, you said, ‘Never aside, never second-best.’ ”
“That’s not a word-for-word quote.”
Grandion showed her a hundred-fang smile. “Call me sweet again, I dare you.”
Fending his muzzle away with a straight-armed push, Lia turned back to the wall. Taking a deep breath and squaring her shoulders, she summoned up tentacles of dark magic, envisioning as Grandion had suggested, a shadowy pond which contained the ruzal–both as a focal point for her concentration, and as a means of limiting its spread into her mind. Lia’s imagination drew oily, black appendages out of the water, waving with animate purpose, which she determinedly shaped and extended toward the cage wall. Pain blossomed between her temples. Sweat pearled afresh on her brow. Hualiama’s back and shoulders creaked under the strain as she compelled the ruzal to bend to her will.
Her loathing of the process only served to strengthen the ruzal. Where had it come from? This knowledge seemed embedded in her psyche–had Ianthine implanted her terrible, corrosive magic within a Human baby? Sick, perverted Dragoness! Focussing on the cage, Hualiama scraped together every ounce of disgust, animosity and despair she had ever tried to blot out of her existence. As much as she loved the light, these things were part of her nature, too. She pictured Zalcion’s vile attack. She remembered Razzior’s invitation to run, because the pursuit and slaughter of a helpless Human excited him. She gagged at the foetid scents of Ianthine’s lair.