by Marc Secchia
“We ration a litre per day per Dragon Enchanter,” Azziala said. “Five litres each for the Empress and her Councillors. We require no further sustenance.”
Lia nodded. “And the incantation–”
“Draws out the Dragon’s magic and binds it into the blood,” her mother explained. “The process is key to dorzallith and the mainstay of our power. Aye, it weakens the Dragon and eventually kills him. We keep our stocks fresh. As you saw, my Dragonship fleet nears full readiness but there are many vessels yet to clothe in lizard-skin.”
A fate worse than death for Dragons, drained of magic as though they were no better than sagging wineskins. “Aye mother.”
This test she would not fail. Raising her chin and denying her incipient tears, Lia followed in her mother’s footsteps. They passed many pens, open chambers separated by iron frames and thick stone archways that gave the vast, low underground cavern an air similar to the dungeon beneath King Chalcion’s palace. Lia learned that the caverns had been dug out by captured Burrowers, but Azziala dismissed their usefulness for harvesting. Too small and weak. Remembering how the Dragons had overturned the Human village, she could not agree.
“I believe you know this beast,” said Azziala.
Hualiama had half-expected such a test, but assumed Azziala would not risk the fate of her two slain Dragon Enchanters. “Oh, Grandion,” she said, as neutrally as possible, but she could not disguise the warmth that rushed to her cheeks at the sight of the Tourmaline Dragon, nor the sweet clenching sensation deep in her belly. “He looks well. Sleek.”
“We do not name the reptiles. Names carry power,” Azziala warned, watching her charge narrowly. “Watch. Beast, this is Hualiama. Do you remember her?”
Before she could blink, the Dragon’s entire ninety-foot length tensed up, shuddering with pent-up power. His belly-fires roared as if thunder rolled in the distance, muted.
“DRAGON, BE STILL!” the Empress snapped, lashing out with her magic. Grandion subsided.
With all her heart, she would have run to her Dragon, but Lia caught sight of an additional posse of Dragon Enchanters observing the encounter from the shadows beneath one of the archways. They were taking no chances with Grandion. Could she conclude that he remained strong?
“Our command-hold upon these beasts is absolute,” Azziala continued, her dark blue eyes unblinking. “Dragon, prepare to tear out your first heart.”
Grandion unsheathed his claws and raised his forepaw to his throat.
“No,” Hualiama breathed, dipping her gaze.
“What was that, daughter?”
Her voice faltered. “We’ll need his strength in the upcoming war, mother.”
“You seem disturbed.”
“Unnecessary bloodshed always disturbs me.” Hualiama hardened her jaw. “We can use this beast as leverage against his shell-father. Come. The Maroon Dragoness can offer us more. I’m convinced of it.”
If she practised the ways and the language of hatred, it became easier. How could her pure white-fires coexist with the shadow of ruzal? That was the question she had for Ianthine. She had never learned the vile magic. It simply existed.
Hualiama preceded her mother down the hay-strewn corridor leading between the Dragon pens, listening to the conversation of dull, defeated beasts all around. Comments on the quality and quantity of meat they had consumed. Wishes for flight and fresh air, or battle. Gi’ishior’s vitality of draconic community was utterly absent. These were herd animals, being milked for their lives.
At the cave’s end, massive stone doors guarded egress to the frozen night and presumably, protected the caves from attack. Hualiama risked only the briefest glance at the doors’ mechanisms. Azziala’s regard burned the nape of her neck, making Lia picture a cobra salivating over a tasty rat.
Her mother’s voice formed in her mind. “Aye. You sense the lizard, don’t you?”
Wary of Azziala’s telepathic powers, Lia returned, “Last cell on the left. Is she subject to a command-hold, like the others?”
“Aye.”
But there were no additional Dragon Enchanters to subjugate Ianthine, if needed? Almost instantaneously, a command issued from her mother’s mind, summoning a dozen Enchanters at the behest of the heir to the throne.
The Empress’ depthless eyes, shadowed to the point of blackness, fixed upon Lia. “Allow me to teach you the command structures, daughter dearest. Say, ‘Dragon, obey’.”
“Give me the knowledge.”
Her counter-challenge brought a touch of a smile to Azziala’s lips. “Here.” A mental touch sufficed to convey what she needed to know, although Lia might have bet half of Fra’anior’s jewels that the information was incomplete. Some secrets must remain the Empress’.
Suppressing a crazy urge to dance around the final column–wishing to cast aside necessary inhibitions–Lia stepped forward to face Ianthine. Six years became as a moment. Here was the monstrous Dragoness, almost rivalling Yukari for bulk, still blighted and unsightly, powerful and … enchained? Perplexed, Hualiama took a moment to assemble the knowledge she required. What part had ruzal played in a Human baby’s life? Was she ruzal-spawn, as her own father and others had accused her? Only Ianthine knew the truth. This was a Dragoness notorious for her cunning, one of a race of creatures who prized cunning and practised it with their every breath.
Instinctively, Lia moved to the commands. “Dragon, obey. Positive identifier required: Hualiama of Fra’anior.”
“Princess Hualiama.” Ianthine’s dry whisper echoed in the chamber. “It has been too long.”
From the corner of her eye, the royal ward saw Azziala’s hand twitch with readiness. Aye. Her mother also knew this for a strange answer from a Dragoness subject to the command-hold. Defying the shadows that perversely seemed to collect around Ianthine’s ulcerated bulk, her eye blazed darkly orange, bursting with the fires of Dragon life and power.
The Human girl wet her lips. “Dragon, answer my questions.”
“Yours to command, freshly anointed heir of these accursed rocks,” sneered the Dragoness.
“DRAGON, OBEY!” Azziala snapped. Was that a note of panic?
“As you command, Highness,” Ianthine bowed her great muzzle in mock-subservience. Or was it? Tenuous as the magic’s control over her might be, that was all they could rely upon.
“Dragon, do you still hold that Ra’aba is my father?”
“Is it still scarred?” The Dragon sniffed toward her. “Ah, it slithers within, delicious, delicate, devious ruzal.”
“Aye or nay, Ianthine!”
“So similar to the mother, it is.” Ianthine cocked her head playfully, as a Dragon hatchling might during a game of wingtips. “Did she tell you about the twin? Which is the mother?”
“Silence, Dragon!” Azziala ordered.
“Now she won’t answer anything,” Hualiama pointed out, placing a quelling hand upon her mother’s arm. “Dragon, obey. Is Ra’aba my father?”
“One must have a Human father.” Ianthine tapped her foreclaw thrice, an ancient form of Dragonish agreement. “He scarred thee. He sired thee. One must know, who stole the seed from–”
“Silence, Dragon!”
Frustration boiled out of Lia. “Mother! Shall we ask our questions or not?” Mercy! And the implications … that was another issue. That whole stinking Dragonship-full of windroc entrails would have to wait. “Dragon, obey. Answer my questions. What became of the Scroll of Binding? Was it truly stolen, as you said?”
The fires danced in Ianthine’s eye, mocking. “Aye, it was stolen.”
“Stolen by whom?”
“Ianthine.”
“Roaring rajals, answer my question honestly, Dragoness!” The Maroon Dragoness’ chuckle, awash with malevolence, stilled the other Dragons nearby. Lia fought for calm. “Who stole it first?”
“Ianthine.”
“What is the Scroll of Binding?”
“A scroll of Dragon lore said to outline the knowledge of–�
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“I know that. Did you read it?”
“In part.”
“Outline one of those parts for me.”
“I’ve forgotten.”
Azziala cursed unhappily, but Lia found her mind racing back over the information she knew, the conniving ways of Dragons, identifying and discarding possibilities … her mother might be stymied, but her daughter had reserves of stubbornness one could build an Island’s foundations upon. “Dragon. Who wrote the Scroll of Binding?”
“It is unseen. Many generations of Dragons lived before Ianthine’s time. You have power, child. Spend it wisely.”
The exact phrase flung Hualiama six years back in time. Suddenly she saw herself in that stinking, faeces-smeared cavern, listening to Ianthine taunting her, Flicker and Grandion. Intuition struck her with the force of forked lightning. The Maroon Dragoness wanted to remind her of the bargain Lia had unwisely made. Did that bargain still hold? Further, Lia established the most likely source of her knowledge of ruzal–he whom the Lost Islanders worshipped as father, benefactor, law-giver and Human most noble.
Dramagon.
She had power. Knowledge was power. Knowledge was also peril.
Unconsciously, Lia’s left forefinger wrote a rune up her belt, beside where it had come to rest upon the hilt of her sword. It is remembered, the simple glyph stated. The Dragoness allowed fire to fill her mouth but kept it behind her fangs, then snuffed it out and blew the smoke aside from her visitors.
“Hualiama.” Azziala nudged her impatiently.
“Dragon, obey. Where is the scroll now?”
“Lost.”
“Where is the knowledge of the scroll?”
Ianthine’s eye-fires brightened as if Lia approached the nub of the matter at last. “The knowledge resides within the souls of all those who practice ruzal. You. Me. Ra’aba, Razzior …”
“Where would I find the greatest concentration of ruzal in this Island-World?”
Now, the brow-ridges drew down. “It is unseen.”
“Unseen, but clearly present,” the Fra’aniorian Islander retorted, recalling her tutelage at Grandion’s paw. “Knowledge is unseen … aye! Ianthine–” Azziala hissed at her usage of the Dragoness’ name “–confirm hypothesis: Ianthine stole the Scroll of Binding. She caused herself to forget its contents and even its location. When she flew to Gi’ishior with the babe, nothing could be proven during the Dragons’ interrogation, because self-evidently, Ianthine had forgotten everything to do with the Scroll.”
“Thus, it is forgotten,” agreed the Dragoness, examining her paws.
“Can it be un-forgotten?”
“A logical fallacy,” the Dragoness reproved her. “Complete forgetting implies a forgotten method of retrieval, otherwise there’s no point in forgetting.”
Azziala growled, “This is ridiculous double-talk! She stole the accursed Scroll before we could learn its secrets. Now she has forgotten everything? How propitious! We’ll learn nothing here, daughter.”
“No,” said Lia. “Ianthine did steal the Scroll of Binding.”
“Windroc droppings!”
Hualiama gritted her teeth. “Mother! Don’t you understand–I told you Ra’aba accused me of being born of ruzal, of being … oh, mercy! Oh no. Tell me it isn’t true. Mercy, mercy, mercy …”
She doubled over, clutching her stomach.
“Oh, stand up, child,” Azziala snapped.
“Nay.” The Maroon Dragoness shifted closer. “What is it? What is this terror-stench I smell upon your skin?”
Words tumbled out of her now, uncaring, as raw as a weeping wound. “Dragon. Was I born of ruzal? Conceived of it? Born of a Dragon?”
“How can I discern this?” asked the Dragoness.
“Dragon. The babe whom you accepted from Azziala–did she have any ruzal within her? Did you sense the taint that exists in me now?”
Ianthine said, “No.”
The Empress scowled at them both in turn. “This makes no sense.”
“It m-m-makes p-perfect sense,” Lia stammered. “The Scroll of Binding was lost, but the knowledge exists. It is unseen. Don’t you see, mother? Ianthine did steal something–me, in a manner of speaking. A babe. And she placed inside of me the knowledge contained in the Scroll of Binding. She stole the Scroll twice.”
“No.” More grey than gold infused Azziala’s features now.
“Everything fits. Every answer the Dragoness gave is true. And you were so willing to give me up–you gave the Scroll away. You said, ‘Take Ra’aba’s whelp, Ianthine. Use it against him.’ How else could I know this magic as if I had been born to it, mother? I was born of violation, but not of ruzal.” Turning to Ianthine, she said, “You were protecting the Dragonkind, just as you claimed at Gi’ishior. Did you not say, ‘All Dragons will know that Ianthine saved them from a fate worse than death’?”
Ianthine rumbled, “You mistake me for a noble Dragoness.”
Yet here she was in the Lost Islands, serving the Dragonkind in her own demented way. Hualiama could not help feeling a thawing of her heart toward the strange, tormented Maroon Dragoness.
Azziala stared at Hualiama as though she had breathed Dragon fire from her nostrils. “You speak Dragonish? Did I just hear you speak–”
“Of course.” Lia jutted out her chin. “I am the Dragonfriend, after–”
She never saw what struck the point of her chin with the kick of a war crossbow fired in anger.
* * * *
Hualiama could only have been unconscious for a few seconds, because she came to at the Empress’ feet, with an aching jaw and an equally painful lump on the back of her head. Her mother must have punched her!
“DRAGON, OBEY!” her mother thundered. “You will obey! I command you by the strictest protocols to release the ruzal within my daughter. Then, she will write the Scroll of Binding afresh.”
“It is forgotten.”
A curse and a magical buffet punished Ianthine for her imperturbable reply. The Maroon Dragoness fell heavily upon her side, gasping with pain. Azziala screamed, “I’ll do worse if you don’t obey!”
“Stop. Mother …”
“You’re in cahoots with this foul lizard, this–”
“Mother! I know how!”
Slowly, the Empress of the Lost Islands turned upon her heel, her visage terrible to behold. “Do you, now? I don’t need to wring the knowledge out of my precious, lizard-loving daughter’s head?”
“No. Mother–mercy, don’t you understand? The Dragoness doesn’t remember, but I know because I’ve seen visions of–” oh, mercy, and her stupid dragonet’s tongue had just babbled another secret! Lia continued lamely “–uh, visions of the past.”
For a second, Lia almost believed that another face peered out of Azziala’s face, a cruel, alien thing, so brutally scarred that it appeared to possess neither nose nor left eye. However, her mother’s face returned to its normal planes of arrogant golden perfection before Lia could dwell upon it. Her hands twitched as though she itched to wrap her long, powerful fingers about her daughter’s neck and choke the life out of her.
“Show me,” said Azziala.
The form was simple, the implications profound. Had the Maroon Dragoness been trying to warn her about unchaining the ruzal? Yet how could she exorcise this evil from her being if it remained bound, obeying the original command of one who had implanted the dread knowledge into an innocent?
Lia squeezed her eyelids shut. How could she bear yet more torment? If the Dragoness spoke truthfully, she was no abomination. Heartening, but her relief had been supplanted with the knowledge that she was the repository of the foulest of Dragon lore, a subject doubtless an intimate favourite of Dramagon’s. The prophecy was true. She carried the seeds of draconic destruction in her flesh, as Ra’aba had once accused her–which begged the question. Why did he care?
Too many complexities! A soft scream died unvented from her lips. Instead, words formed upon the scrolleaf of her heart, a song she ha
d composed while crossing the straits between Erigar and Archion.
For the power of love is greater than any Dragon,
Greater than magic, greater than soul-fire,
It changes the immutable,
Breaks all chains,
And stirs the Islands to dance.
Could she hope?
Speaking Dragonish, she let words fall like stars plummeting from the skies. Let it be unbound.
* * * *
Having spent three hours ruing her simple lie–the ruzal had been unbound, but her mind required time to remember more than the sketchiest detail–Hualiama collapsed into her bed-bowl with the grace of a punctured Dragonship air sack late that evening. What a day. Her mother clearly did not accept ‘no’ for an answer. She, Feyzuria and Shazziya had taken turns trying first to cajole and later to wrench or pound the knowledge of ruzal out of their unwilling subject. Unsuccessfully. Lia had the impression that the harder they tried, the deeper the magic concealed its perfidious presence.
Failure in Azziala’s realm was clearly as painful as it was intolerable.
Oh, Grandion. What would the Tourmaline Dragon think of her now? Child of the prophecy, but no child of the Dragon, unless that appellation referred to the gift of Dragon fire. Lia flexed her fingers, remembering how her hands had burned, how the power of a single word had tossed Razzior across the Cloudlands. She still had to take Azziala to task over two things she had learned–one, that Azziala’s twin might have been her real mother, and two, the monstrous accusation that it had been Azziala who had somehow overpowered or stolen from Razzior in order to have her baby.
Now the Empress was afoot, checking on preparations for Razzior’s arrival by the eve of the morrow. War. The fortress bustled with activity. All day, Dragonships had been bringing Humans in from the outlying Islands, until the fortress threatened to burst at the seams.
Tonight might be the perfect opportunity to abscond with Grandion. Only one fly wriggled in the stinking ointment of her life–how? All Azziala had to do was think and she was as good as captured.