Dragonsoul

by Marc Secchia

  Fly, Hualiama, fly! Makani’s cry stung her from contemplation into motion.

  Behind them, the volcano blasted lava thousands of feet into the sky. Lia knew she was bound to receive a verbal talon in the neck from the Grey Dragoness after they out-flew the range of flying debris. Why was it that her first instinct was to fly into trouble, rather than away from it? What would happen to those Magma Dragons inside an exploding volcano–had her actions triggered an eruption?

  And could she conclude that for reasons of Balance, she had somehow been destined to rescue that Magma Dragon? Mercy.

  Yet his surprising response had condensed certain valuable information for her. She had learned things, neither of which made much sense as yet. The S’gulzzi. A type of exploding rock for fuel. What had Crackle meant? Lia wished she had Siiyumiel to ask, but he was over a thousand leagues away with the Air-Breathers, she assumed. Moreover, the subject of the First Egg was not one to be broadcasting around the world beneath the Cloudlands.

  As they reached clearer air, Hualiama searched for Qilong’s Dragonship. Her marrow froze.

  Chapter 29: Mountainous Landings

  In the SOMNOLENT light of a noon interrupted by the Yellow Moon’s imposing bulk, Grandion gave the undeserving Islands of Pla’arna Cluster a lengthy, contemptuous glare, before aiming his furrowed brow at the western horizon. If only a Dragon could leap over Islands as effortlessly as rainbows arched through stormy skies. His mien suddenly mellowed. Drawing the breeze so deep into his lungs that he practically felt his tail swell with the air intake, Grandion reached out with his senses, calling, Hualiama?

  A hint of volcanic dust. A trickle of starlight laughter. The unaccountable urge, despite his wing-drooping exhaustion, to dance. Aye, it was enough.

  “We will rest here,” he decided.

  Her lack of argument betrayed the Copper Dragoness’ fatigue.

  Tiiyusiel, from a mile beneath the clouds, called, We can press on. I will swim.

  You’re running out of ejecta, the Tourmaline pointed out. Four and a half days of travel at top speed–even a Land Dragoness must rest. And if we rest, you will travel far faster.

  Very well, I concur. Suns-set?

  She did not protest? Startled, Grandion calculated briefly. Two hours after.

  Aye, said the Land Dragon.

  Tiiyusiel sounded, making for the fertile substrate one to two leagues beneath the Cloudlands.

  They winged onward for two further hours, nearing the first of Pla’arna’s rugged Isles, which stood a mere mile and a half above the dark-spotted Cloudlands in this place, which slowly boiled from beneath under the force of an upwelling current Tiiyusiel had noted. The Isles were dark-fanged, weathered spits often rising in multiple spires from a single base just barely visible in the first layer of toxic cloud, giving the Islands the appearance of many draconic paws holding talons aloft. A few of the Human-inhabited Islands were connected by rope bridges, but the majority were inhabited by a clannish group of Lesser Dragons notorious for their hoarding of diamonds and their rough dealings with any marauding Dragons they suspected of stealing their treasures–make that any foreign Dragon in the Island-World, give or take.

  “Reception committee,” said Elki, softly. “Hostile?”

  “Undoubtedly,” said Grandion.

  “What will you do?” Mizuki asked curiously.

  “I don’t know about your customs in the East, but they’re likely to insult us and then challenge me as the largest male to single combat. I will reciprocate, thrash a few of them, and make my demands.”

  Indeed. The Dragonwing of twenty strapping males slighted Grandion and his entire lineage, disparaged Gi’ishior, goggled at the sight of Humans flying Dragonback, and made a variety of boorish and graphic propositions to Mizuki for good measure.

  Grandion sighed. Alright, you lousy sons of flatworms, he snarled. Choose your three strongest Dragons and I will pound them back into the filth from which they were spawned.

  Three? Yuhurak, the beefy Brown who was the leader of their Cluster, thundered in amazement. You want–

  The Tourmaline flexed his shoulders and twizzled his neck meaningfully. Alright, if you insist. Choose five of your pathetic, scale-rotted, hideously deformed runts. All at once, on that Island over there.

  Five? Yuhurak had clearly inherited size in place of brains. At once? I accept! We will have the pretty Dragoness for our roost when we win, and the Humans for slaves. What are your conditions, you spavined son of a–

  Shut your cracked fangs, you diseased whelp of a blind windroc, Grandion interrupted cordially. My conditions are, that upon my inevitable trouncing of your five biggest bleating sheep, I shall require you to gift me twenty sacks of your finest diamonds, and then you will fly every able-bodied Dragon of your entire Cluster up to Immadia at top speed to engage in glorious battle with Numistar Winterborn, the Ancient Dragoness. Forthwith.

  Yuhurak gasped something like ‘awkhak’!

  Mizuki grinned admiringly at her wing-companion. By my wings, Tourmaline!

  Elki kicked his Dragoness surreptitiously. “He’s taken. Don’t you start any family feuds, Copper!”

  Meantime, Grandion took great pains to study his talons indifferently. Didn’t see that broadside coming, did you, Yuhurak?

  The Brown could not refuse and still call himself a Dragon.

  Come on. Over to the Island, Grandion snorted, flexing his mountainous shoulders one more time for emphasis, making the striations stand out seven inches deep. Remind me what names you called my shell-father, and I’ll carve them on your sorry hide.

  * * * *

  For eight hundred leagues and the better part of three days, Numistar threw dragonets and lightning at Qilong’s Dragonship without thought or intelligence, just a blind, flailing attempt to knock them out of the sky. Blue and Grey defended the airship with shields as long as their strength held out, then the crew took up with nets, spears, crossbows and swords. The Winterborn threw her main strength at them. Gale force winds. Hail. Sheets of ice. Chain and ball lightning. The storm raged endlessly, sometimes growing dark tentacles or whirlwinds out of the Cloudlands that rushed at the dirigible until Hualiama and Makani combined to knock the attack off course, sometimes darting in guileful winds that buffeted the Dragonship in an attempt to overstrain the sails or break the spars. The crew worked shifts on the back-breakers twenty-seven hours a day to keep the Dragonship a rajal’s whisker ahead of the storm.

  Hualiama was so worn out, she could barely see straight. Yet, she and the Grey Dragoness worked well together. The Grey had enormous endurance and no small cunning, able to judge exactly when shields could be dropped or a few minutes of rest risked, and between her, Jin and Isiki, they formed a deviously draconic triumvirate that kept thinking up new ways to surprise Numistar. They hitched Makani to a harness and had her tow the Dragonship to a high altitude, escaping the storm for a few hours so that essential repairs could be made in relative safety. They developed the idea of magical storage to ‘catch’ Numistar’s lightning attacks, only to return them with interest when the flurries of dragonets came in, thousands strong. Lia wondered–was this the behaviour of a rational mind? Dozens of times a day, they might have been overwhelmed if the attack had been pressed or another angle sought. The assault always fizzled. Why?

  Yet Numistar was slowly, relentlessly pounding them into incapacity. They lost eight men to dragonets and three to lightning, but somehow won through to the third morning away from Immadior’s Roost, when Makani wearily raised the shout, “Immadia! I see the Enchanted Isle!”

  Lia’s Dragoness-hearts pounded in her chest. “Immadia!”

  Every eye on the Dragonship gazed North. Immaculate white peaks vaulted toward the first blush of dawn. The Island stood in stark, isolated splendour like a dark jewel wearing a crown of brilliant white, surrounded by a mirror-calm lake of ultramarine Cloudlands, quite the most unique colour Hualiama had ever seen. Upon the flanks of those mountains she saw bands o
f dark green, virgin coniferous forests, and above the immense, half-league-tall cliffs, the Island’s three layers of terraced lakes reflected back the effulgence of dawn. A verdant green plain faced the travellers, snaking back into five precipitous valleys nestled between the snowbound, Dragon’s-fang peaks.

  Qilong whispered, “They call Immadia the jewel of the North.”

  “Well is she named,” Jin replied, rubbing his eyes with his left hand. Never one for sentimentality, the statement surprised Hualiama. Then she noticed the very tip of the little finger of his right hand resting against Isiki’s fingers on the railing. Rascal.

  “Bah, it pales in the light of Fra’anior’s magnificence,” Makani snorted. Then the Dragoness snorted again as she, and everyone present, realised how unconvinced she sounded.

  Hualiama turned slowly in the air, hovering above the nose of the Dragonship, which was crowded with men. Silent. Hopeful. This was the Island of salvation. This was the northernmost Island in the world, beyond which, it was said, only ice and winter had reign. The Isle of magic, of enchantresses whose legendary beauty outshone the very dawn. The chill morning air had a nip to it that Hualiama had only ever experienced at the Place of Reaving, for the breath frosted before her mouth and those of the Humans as they goggled at this vision.

  The North. She was more spectacular than their wildest imaginings.

  Lia quoted from The Saga of Tanugar:

  When Fra’anior did raise the Islands,

  He did fashion Immadia to be their crowning glory,

  And placed upon his Isle a people tall and most fair,

  As fair as the breath of a dew-spangled morning.

  Then, drawn by a mysterious power beyond her ken, she turned slowly to her right wing, and saw beyond the sweeping darkness of Numistar’s storm, a mighty Dragonwing approaching at a distance of eight or nine leagues. She blinked, looked thrice, but the Dragonwing remained stubbornly real, flying a steady course for Immadia above a disturbance in the Cloudlands that she recognised as the wake of a fast-moving Land Dragon. Far in the lead of the Dragonwing, she saw an unmistakable flash of tourmaline blue and thrilled to the power of wings that strained to sprint toward her with an indefatigable wingbeat. How his hearts must be celebrating, leaping about like crazed dragonets–just like her own, the blood fizzing and roaring in his ear-canals as he took in the sight that greeted him!

  Who could keep silent at such a moment? Thou … ALASTIOR!

  At first note of her overjoyed scream, the storm vented a peal of world-shaking rage and surged toward them.

  Darkness lifted out of the Cloudlands upon the skirts of that storm as Numistar Winterborn roused to rage, and with rage came the clarity Hualiama had expected all this while, all the long leagues from Kerdani City to Immadia. The clouds boiled, rising miles into the sky before her aghast eyes, expanding with the windstorm feeding them beneath, and in the deathly cold of that elevation, the Ancient Dragoness prepared her ice. Her malice sharpened palpably, expressed in a plunging of temperatures which her soaring dragonets greeted with a chittering chorus of glee. A white mist steamed from the storm’s maw, a cold so deep it bit like a ravening Dragon.

  Numistar boomed, Now, shell-daughter of Fra’anior, behold the face of your doom!

  Daughter of whom? Makani almost fell out of the sky.

  GNNAAARRRR!! the storm growled. Monstrous. Driven. Rushing forward in a great, rolling wave of blackness and poisons churned up from the deeps.

  “Get to the turbines!” Hualiama bellowed. “Makani, the Dragonship!”

  Grandion was not close enough. He would arrive soon, but the murky curtains drawing around them and sweeping across the skies above like a funeral shroud, would not wait. She could not stop shaking. He had come for her. He had chased her halfway around the Island-World!

  No time for a harness. The Grey Dragoness sank twenty talons into the Dragonship’s air-sack and threw her weight forward, beating her wings with all of her might. As if dragging a boulder, the powerful Dragoness hauled Prince Qilong’s brave crew away toward Immadia while the men, with curt cries and orders, organised themselves. The storm chased after.

  Fourteen leagues. The treacherously beautiful, snowy slopes beckoned, the small town beyond nuzzling their skirts like a hatchling Dragoness seeking comfort from her shell-mother’s fires. Still the clouds billowed upward, reaching fantastic heights, as though the Winterborn built for herself a fortress of blizzard and lightning. The storm fulminated, spitting dense flights of dragonets that appeared briefly from the clouds only to be swallowed up again, driving the hapless Dragonship before it like a ralti sheep being driven to the slaughter. Numistar’s displeasure was a constant, low roll of thunder that bespoke malevolence born of the most ancient of days, a hatred which had carried her across the long, dark leagues contained in the heart of a comet. They were riders of the storm. A speck facing a world in turmoil. Grandion’s Dragonwing vanished behind the tempest. Closer. The clouds accelerated with an awful, mesmerising majesty; unstoppable.

  “Get me up there! Up there!” Jin’s screaming finally penetrated Lia’s horror.

  Wailing, What the hells have I done? the hatchling swooped, plucking up the teenager by his shirt-back and trousers. She dumped him on Makani’s back.

  “Me too! Me too!” screamed Isiki.

  Grief, that girl was waving a Haozi war-bow as if she knew how to use the weapon. Lia had learned Isiki was a terrifically skilled open-hand combatant; they had taught each other and Jin many tricks from their respective styles. Go! Her Dragon paws and strength could carry a Human without any trouble. In a moment, she had Isiki seated behind Jin on the Grey’s back.

  The slave-girl carried Lia’s swords at her belt. She patted the hilts. “For you, Mistress, should you need them.”

  Jin passed her short length of rope. “Tie yourself on.”

  The slave-girl’s hand shook. Hualiama could not tell if she was terrified or elated not to be rejected by the warrior. “I will. Jin, to ride with you–”

  He croaked, “I don’t want to lose you, Isiki. Ever.”

  Precious!

  Isiki’s eyes welled with tears not caused by the vicious cold streaming from the storm-front, less than a mile distant now and closing fast. “Oh, Jin …”

  “I love you!” Jin almost lost his seat as the wind cuffed Makani cruelly, beating her wings against the Dragonship. With a groan, the Dragoness righted them, but the port storm-sail ripped with a sharp crack!

  The slave-girl had a grip of his left arm. “But how, Jin? You’re a free man. I’m a slave.”

  Hualiama kicked Jin in the hip to right him. “Get up there. Makani, is this–”

  “I want the oath.”

  Lia stared at the Dragoness. Events were moving too fast. “You what? But you said–” The Grey’s answering stare was wild, proud, incontestable. “Alright. Jin?”

  His suddenly pale face dipped, once. “Not without her. Will your magic find her, too?”

  Isiki? She had no idea, but Hualiama was fresh out of desire to meddle with the destinies of others. They were bound to crash-land on the peaks West of Immadia City, and the villagers and people of this Island were about to awake to a shock both rude and utterly devastating. Judging by the hair-raising tone of Numistar Winterborn’s vengeful howling, she intended to blast those mountains right off Immadia’s back. These Humans would be chaff in her storm; detritus to blow about as she wished.

  At last. She could release into the storm a token of her defiance. Let Numistar know this: Hualiama of Fra’anior, the mightiest almost-royal trouble-stirrer in the Island-World, intended to build a band of Dragon Riders to be reckoned with. More than a token. A force. A new power. A way of life, a philosophy, that would fly directly in the teeth of the grasping, rapacious evildoers of her world. She would seek out Riders. Men and women of character, like Jin and Isiki–not only the noble or those society regarded as worthy. Dragon Riding was for all.

  With a fierce, defiant smile, Hua
liama summoned the inner dancing of a dragonet. She roused the gift which lived in her custody, which had been yearning, she realised, to be shared with these precious souls. Jin the dishonoured, last of his people. Isiki the slave-girl, the lowliest of her society. And Makani, a rare colour of Dragoness, unique among the Dragons of Gi’ishior.

  Her secondary eyelids blinked rapidly. White-fires flared everywhere, as if always present, even in the wings of the storm now outpacing the Dragonship to the East and West. Even Numistar was born of these same fires, subject to the essential forces that sustained her universe. The magic poured forth from her mind and Hualiama danced through the air above the trio, laughing with soft delight and relief. Ah yes, she should never have denied what she had always know. Jin had the fire. Isiki had the heart and will, unbowed by her life of servitude. What would the making of new Dragon Riders release in them?

  “Fire-souls must unite,” she cried. “Repeat this oath after me: ‘May we burn the heavens together, as Dragon and Rider.’ Makani?”

  “May we burn the heavens …” Pure white light flared behind the Grey’s fire-eyes. The Dragoness gasped, “May we burn, and burn, and burn, as a Dragoness and her Riders!”

  Jin and Isiki echoed her words, that same pure light flaming within their souls, for it seemed a Star Dragoness saw through the veil of their flesh to another dominion within, a place where oaths were spoken and the purposes of hearts gleamed in crystal-lattice clarity, and magic reigned supreme.

  “Lots of burning,” Jin spluttered at length, unable to tear his eyes off Makani.

  Isiki wound her arms around his neck from behind, around the Grey Dragoness’ spine-spike, and passionately kissed whatever she could reach, which happened to be Jin’s left ear and neck. He twisted his head and snatched a return kiss full on her nose.

  The young man gulped, “Oops.”

  The slave’s eyes widened. “Oh no, this is forbidden. Isn’t it? Jin, I’m–”