Dragonlove

by Marc Secchia

  The vision of her right eye was blurry and narrowed, probably due to a fine black eye. Had she the use of her arms, Lia could have reached out to touch the dainty pair of slippers that greeted her grim gaze. The woman wore a simple azure blue dress of expensive Helyon silk beneath a heavy velveteen robe of midnight blue. Before her gaze reached the woman’s knees, Hualiama sensed her formidable power. Enchantress. Commander. Absolute ruler. No need for guards to menace a prisoner’s back with swords. If the Enchantress could reach through the fabric of her realm from an unknowable distance to strike a person down with callous ease, what need for weapons? The chains must be for show. Like it or not, Lia felt intimidated. Healthy fear, anyone? Healthy fear in Dragonship-sized doses?

  The Enchantress held a sceptre crosswise across her body, fresh blood smeared on its bulbous, jewel-encrusted tip. Panic twisted Hualiama’s gut. How hard had she struck that soldier? The woman’s arms were bare, her skin as golden as Dragon blood. Unnatural? Magical? A braid of perfectly white hair threaded with fine golden chains hung down to the sceptre, hair as unusually long as Lia’s …

  This had to stop.

  Raising her chin, Hualiama looked at the woman full in the face.

  She gasped.

  Had she always known? Eyes as hard and brilliant as sapphires assessed her, eyes so lambent with power they made the rest of the Empress’ face seem to retreat into shadow. Her features were flawless, like a statue cast in pure gold. Lia wondered briefly if she wore makeup to achieve that brilliant golden effect. A fractional narrowing of the Enchantress’ gaze was all that alerted her. The woman slammed her sceptre into Lia’s stomach, right beneath her sternum. She tried to roll with the blow. Still, the pain was as though a Dragon had run her through with its talon. Hualiama collapsed with a whimper, falling heavily upon her shoulder.

  Then the Enchantress seemed to fold inward, the mask of that face cracking and melting like gold cast into the crucible of a furnace. One hand flew to her lips, trying to stifle a gagging, gasping sob.

  “Highness?” Feyzuria’s creaky tones cut in, alarmed.

  Lia bit the wood in her mouth so hard, she felt it splinter. The Enchantress stumbled backward, falling into the cushioned lap of a wide, low throne.

  All else was immaterial. Forcing garbled speech past the gag, Lia said, “Islands’ greetings–mother.”

  Soft words; their shockwave a Dragon’s battle-challenge.

  Had the woman been able, she surmised, Azziala would have turned as pale as her hair. Her lips moved in shock, but no sound issued forth. Lia became aware of a low murmur rising from behind her in the chamber. Rich tapestries, majoring on the blue theme, provided both insulation and adornment to the walls. Large braziers in the corners provided heat and lighting against the pervasive cold, and a hint of incense not vastly different to a Dragon’s scent–cinnamon, hints of sulphur and agarwood, and other exotic spices Lia could not place. A quick glance about her revealed the presence of soldiers posted at intervals around the circular chamber, and an array of female Enchanters wearing apparel even richer than Azziala’s, perhaps an inner circle of councillors. Most of them stared at her as though she had grown spine-spikes and a tail. Lia lay on a stone dais, hurting, but where the councillors stood, the floor was covered in thick rush matting, presumably against the cold.

  “Empress, did this wretch just call you–”

  “No … it’s impossible. W-W-Who …”

  Time seemed to stretch unbearably thin. All within the chamber knew something had to snap.

  “Whelp of a windroc!” Azziala sprang from her seat with the grace of a startled rajal. The sceptre whistled down to shatter on the stone beside Lia’s head. “No!”

  Shocked, Hualiama realised that several jewel shards had become embedded in her scalp. Pushing with her tongue, she found she had cracked the tough wood gag right through. She stared at Azziala, speechless. Had she not rolled aside, her mother would have summarily finished the job her father had failed to complete. As Azziala shrieked something about taking her away, Lia rolled over several more times, thumping her abused body down the steps and bumped up against one of the soldiers’ bootlaces.

  Azziala stormed after her, her golden face a mask of insane fury. Vile curse-words, many of which Lia did not understand, flooded from her mouth. “You lying paw-licker, I’ll have you–”

  “No.” Another woman, kicking Lia’s head casually on the way past, stepped between them. “I, for one, am very interested to learn about this unknown heir, o Empress.” Scornful, her words stopped Azziala in her tracks. “Wasn’t there a babe who died?”

  “That lizard-lover is no child of mine!”

  “Truly?” The tall woman swooped unexpectedly, plucking Lia off the ground with draconic strength. “Can any person present deny this is Azziala’s whelp? Look past the scourge of holy pain. Look into the eyes.”

  “Aye,” someone whispered.

  As she dangled from the woman’s hand, the song of Lia’s soul revolved around the grief of finally meeting her mother. None of the hoped-for joy would materialise. She understood that now. Her sweetest, most cherished dreams would never flower to supplant the reality surrounding her very existence in the Island-World–she had parents spawned in the pit of some nameless volcanic hell. This was a barren place, a place where hope came to be tortured and broken by a dungeon-master’s cruellest implements. This was a place that reeked of pain, of vaulting ambitions and unholy secrets. This was the realm of hate.

  “Stop the posturing, Shazziya,” Feyzuria hissed. “We all know your purposes here.”

  “Then, by the Sixteenth Protocol, I invoke a council of–”

  “Let it speak.” Like a whetted razor drawn delicately across skin, Azziala’s voice stilled them. “First it must speak, lest the Protocols be contravened. You. Remove the gag. As if her magic could override this Council!”

  Politics. Hualiama’s brain raced feverishly as she considered the import of this encounter. Azziala’s position had been weakened by her arrival, perhaps fatally. Now she fought to re-establish control. Shazziya had ambitions for the crown. Her eyes glittered as she dumped Lia ungently on the rush mats. Feyzuria sought to play the mediator, but the clasp of her clawed fingers upon the handle of her cane suggested that she might switch sides should it prove convenient. To a woman, Azziala’s councillors displayed the strangely golden skin and plain white hair, so different to that of the soldiers–an insignia of their magic, she concluded, wondering what could produce such an effect. She must speak wisely, and conceal her true abilities. Aye, bury her secrets deep. If she could not stand against Azziala’s power, then the power of the thirteen gathered here would destroy her in a heartbeat.

  Could an Ancient Dragon’s fire ever be destroyed?

  Shazziya towered over her compatriots. “You read her mind while she lay unconscious, Feyzuria?”

  “A natural shield,” the old woman sniffed.

  Ha. So Grandion’s Juyhallith training had proved successful. One of his tricks was a shield which protected the mind when unconscious or asleep, which appeared to be an innocuous natural resistance to psychic probing. Forewarned, Lia buttressed her shields and silently constructed a fake shield behind the first, should that be breached, and a third, far deeper layer to conceal her magic, ruzal and Dragon fire, disguising it as a latent capacity for magic. Mercy. The mental tricks Dragons dreamed up. Subterfuge layered upon deceit wrapped in guileful innocence.

  As she watched, Azziala’s face reassumed the planes of confidence and indifference, as if she were a statue cast in cold metal. “Who are you, girl? And what do you seek here, in the Lost Islands?”

  With her mouth free, Lia waggled her jaw before saying, “I’m Hualiama of Fra’anior.”

  The sceptre tapped against Azziala’s open palm; her face masked every secret. “A full answer,” she grated, making her meaning abundantly clear.

  “I am Hualiama, Princess of Fra’anior,” she said, “royal ward of the court of Ki
ng Chalcion and Queen Shyana. Daughter of Ra’aba, former Captain of the Royal Guard, and Azziala of the Lost Islands.”

  Azziala’s response was icy. “Continue.”

  When Lia mentioned that she had been brought to Gi’ishior as a babe by the Maroon Dragoness, Shazziya exclaimed, “A plot with a lizard, Azziala? Or did you think to take a lizard at her word while speaking out of the other cheek to your sisters here?”

  “The babe died,” Feyzuria growled.

  Another of the councillors snorted, in a high, reedy voice, “Are you accusing Azziala’s daughter of flying here on a lizard?”

  “That’s immaterial,” said Azziala. “Do you believe you’re my daughter?”

  Hualiama pushed up to her knees. Speaking from the floor was too demeaning. “The Tourmaline Dragon is Grandion, the shell-son of Sapphurion, Dragon Elder of Gi’ishior–a Dragon I believe you’ve met, Azziala.” She pounded her words into the frozen silence that gripped the women. “He is my Dragon and I am his Rider, bound by mutual oaths. If you cause any harm to come to him, I swear, it will start raining Dragons around these Isles! And as for your question, mother–I don’t just believe it. I know it. I know the bargain you struck with Ianthine–”

  “You know nothing!” Azziala snapped.

  “Nothing?” Lia exploded. “I know you hated your baby. You peddled me to that Dragoness in a vile exchange for ruzal! Look at me! Look at–”

  Furious sobs burst out of her, uncontainable.

  Raising her hands, Azziala clapped them together in a thunderclap of sound which ignited her sceptre and stilled the angry shouts of her councillors. With great deliberation, she said, “What I did was for my people. One life sacrificed that the many may live, no longer subject to the claw of draconic tyranny. Child, if you truly are that whelp of my flesh, know this–your life is nothing, and worth nothing, to me. I would do it again in a heartbeat.”

  * * * *

  Frigid water laced with herbs bathed her heavily bruised face.

  “If seeing you pop out of the Empress’ birth canal counts for more than a dragonet’s chirp, then aye, chicklet, I know you’re her daughter, and one of us.”

  One of them? A Dragon-Hater? Lia lay abed–such as her mother’s people called this bowl of rushes lined with animal skins and piled high with large, soft cushions which apparently doubled as blankets and padding–having her wounds treated by Yinzi, a woman who effortlessly defined the word ‘motherly’. She was built like a Dragonship, broad in the beam, but clearly had a heart to match her frame. Hualiama eyed the woman curiously. These people had a distinctive look, much paler of skin than Saori’s people, but also black-haired and angular of facial features. Where the residents of Kaolili were predominantly petite and small-boned, these Lost Islanders appeared to vary widely in build, but were so similar in visage, she had the impression of a large family of brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles. People stamped of a single mould? Perhaps their isolation, even inbreeding, had contributed to this uniformity in appearance?

  And the overlarge eyes. Lia considered her attendant. Yinzi had beautiful, lucid eyes, framed by long eyelashes that gave her a girlish air, despite her iron-grey hair. She had always thought her own eyes a few fractions too large for her elfin face. To see her own eyes looking back at her from Azziala’s visage had been a shock.

  “And how do I look?” Yinzi smiled.

  “Just as I remember you,” the Princess smiled back. “Yinzi, isn’t it impossible for a days-old babe to remember such details?”

  The old midwife and healer paused to glance at the three Enchantresses standing guard at the door of Hualiama’s small chamber–her cell, more accurately–before sighing. “Chicklet, I suppose it won’t hurt you to know.” Hualiama wrinkled her nose. “It’s the eyes, as you were thinking.”

  Was the woman a mind reader? Now she felt as though she had swallowed a spear of ice.

  “One examines the eyes to know the bloodline,” said Yinzi, sounding as though she were quoting from a scrolleaf. “The Second Protocol lays out the desirable traits and the means of honing the genetic potential of our people, until the wheat is separated from the chaff, and the High Ones rise to claim their birthright, the throne of the world. With your magical power and half-Fra’aniorian heritage, you’ll make a fine addition to our breeding stock.”

  Yinzi delivered her speech so sweetly that it took Lia several moments to work out its import, and be rattled to her core. Did she know what she was saying? Nauseated, almost unable to bear her touch, Lia stared at the woman. Yinzi did, and believed it utterly.

  “What are these Protocols? Who made them?” she managed to ask.

  “Mighty Dramagon codified our lore,” said Yinzi in the same sing-song voice.

  “Wasn’t he a Dragon, Yinzi?”

  “An ancient heresy,” she cut in. Again, her eyes flicked to the watching Enchantresses. Lia wondered what would have happened, had the woman dared a wrong or unsuitable answer. “Dramagon was a Human, the greatest leader of the former age, when Humankind rose up against our Dragon overlords and cast off the paw of draconic tyranny forever.”

  “Of course. Yinzi–” she wet her lips “–if you’re Dramagon’s favoured people, why do you live here in this faraway corner of the Island-World?”

  The midwife intoned, “A harsh people for a harsh land. Here, among the bitter snows at the end of the Island-World, we wait and grow strong. We are tormented by the cold and movements of the Islands and tempered by the cunning lizards of these Isles, who winnow us with their powerful magic. But the time is coming, chicklet. With Azziala’s ascent to the hallowed crown, may her holy name forever inspire us, the Lost Islands people have developed the skills to overcome these wicked reptiles, to strike them down and use their body parts as we will–their hide clothes our airships–”

  Lia’s aghast gasp made Yinzi break off with a motherly frown. Gently, she touched the Princess’ forehead with three fingers. “Soon, you’ll understand these things, my chicklet. Dramagon’s enlightenment will brighten your mind. Rest now; don’t fret. You’re home. All will be well.”

  All was a monstrous irony, she wanted to scream. The Dragon-Haters swore by a manual handed down to them by none other than the infamous Ancient Dragon scientist, Dramagon, and continued his scandalous experimentation with the bloodlines of their own people! Breeding stock indeed–may her womb shrivel at the thought! Mortification struck her instantly. She should neither mock the childless woman, nor the gift of life itself, even if the idea of being bred like livestock was repugnant … she touched her stomach fearfully, invoking the ancient blessing, ‘guard this belly, guard this womb, guard the fruit of life’s great loom.’

  “Is that what they’ll do with my Dragon?”

  Her plaintive question earned her another gentle frown. Yinzi made a superstitious gesture and spat on the rushes beside the bed. “That Blue lizard has beguiled and blinded you with his powers, Hualiama. Tell me you grasp his devious ways. No? Your mind must be acutely sensitive. That’ll be a definite boon when you follow in the mighty footsteps of your mother. Can you do magic without Dragon blood, chicklet? Can you? Are you the one we’ve been waiting–”

  “SILENCE, YOU BABBLING FOOL.”

  Azziala! Lia startled, wrenching her neck.

  In a flash the large woman knelt, head bowed to the rushes. The Empress growled, “If your work is done, Yinzi, return to your duties. I would speak with my daughter.”

  Her tone made the midwife’s dismissal clear. Yinzi fled.

  How had Azziala entered the chamber without her hearing? Lia knew she had slept for some interminable period after being interrogated for an hour before being summarily removed from the Chamber of Counsel, as Azziala referred to their meeting-place. The meal she had eaten in this room had contained unfamiliar herbs. How long had she slumbered? Had they drugged her? Were they planning to perform some horrific Dragon-Hater ritual that would turn her into one of them?

  More upset than she cared
to admit, Lia snapped, “You clothe your Dragonships in Dragon hide? Truly?”

  The golden face remained serene, despite the tension so thick between them, it seemed to flow and crackle like cooling lava. “Of course, child. Our hold over a captive lizard is absolute. Once the command-hold is established by a Dragon Enchanter, a Dragon will do his bidding without question, be that to peel off his own hide, destroy his soul-bonded companion or fly headlong into a cliff.”

  “You don’t fly them in battle?”

  “What for? Lizards are too treacherous to be trusted, even as helpless slaves to an Enchantress. And who would grant them the glories of battle promised in the Seventh Protocol? I’ll be glad to capture these other Dragons you’ve promised us. They’ll be helpless fodder. You see, the Eastern lizards have developed skills that allow them to resist our powers. Dramagon said we would be tested, and we are. Those vicious animals raid our villages, steal our livestock and murder our children. But your precious Dragons of Gi’ishior have no such resistance.”

  “Which you established by travelling to Gi’ishior,” Hualiama realised aloud.

  “Aye. Those who would Ascend must prove themselves worthy.”

  All within her was turmoil as wild as the storm which had driven her Dragonship from Merx to the Eastern Archipelago. This woman feared nothing. She feared not to walk the very Halls of Gi’ishior, despite her heritage and powers. The Dragons must have known. No wonder the Lost Islanders had removed her chains and not replaced them. A person who exerted absolute dominion over Dragons could hardly fear one girl, Dragonfriend or none. How could she hope to escape the jaws of this trap she had willingly entered?

  Azziala’s eyes glittered as though she were privy to Lia’s fears. “I stole from the Halls of the Dragons the secret lore of Dragon blood–a branch of ruzal called dorzallith in the old tongue, or ‘the way of inheritance’.”

  “And gained a child.”

  “Who lacks the most elementary respect!” Seizing the front of her daughter’s tunic top, the Enchantress shook her violently. “That fool Yinzi presumes to teach my daughter precepts about which she knows not the first iota. Address me with respect–”