The opal dragon looked at me and spoke within my mind, Child?
Dragon-child, I thought to her. I knew this dragon was female. It was in the way that she said “child,” as if she had mothered several. She had loved them and scolded them, watched them grow, tended their hurts, and seen them leave in search of their own lives. Somehow I had learned all that just from the way she had thought that one word to me.
The dragon waved her forepaw at the humans around us. These? Tell.
I explained about Emperor Kaddar’s journey here. How I’d seen the boys stone Afra, and how Afra had led me to the cave in the rocks hidden by magic. I was almost to the end of how I’d tamed Afra with food when the dragon said, That is sufficient for me to learn your speech.
I stared at her.
It has been an age since I last heard the speech of my winged cousins. I had quite forgotten it. The opal dragon eyed the humans. Other things have changed as well. Some note in her voice was different. She was ready to talk to others. She asked, Have you pestiferous creatures gotten any wiser?
The villagers dropped to their knees, crying out or weeping. Their chief mage was the last to kneel. He quivered as if he could not help himself. Afra clung to Spots. I was so proud that she did not kneel.
Spots bared his teeth at the dragon. Try your luck against me, big lizard, he said. I have fought giants and steel-feathered Stormwings. I have faced Kitten’s family. No dragon, not even a stone one, will make me run.
So I see, the dragon replied.
Neither Daine nor Numair had budged, though the emperor’s soldiers were on their knees. My parents, like Spots, had met far larger dragons.
Numair stepped forward. “It depends on how you gauge such things, Great One,” he said quietly, answering her question about humans. “I have met foolish dragons, and badgers with great wisdom.”
The dragon regarded him, then Daine. Mages have improved, she said.
“Would you favor us with an explanation?” Numair asked in his polite way. “We had no sense of you, or we would not have disturbed you.”
You did not disturb me, the opal dragon told him. She turned her crimson eyes to Afra. Nor did you, small mother. I layered my protective spells so that none of my kind, who had been plaguing me with questions and requests for ages, would find me. I wanted a nice, long nap. But I set the wards so that any mother or mother-to-be might find sanctuary behind my barriers. I welcomed you in my dreams.
She snaked her long neck around Afra to peer at Uday. A little uncertain, Afra half turned so the dragon might get a better look at her son. And I am quite charmed by you, small human. Uday crowed in glee, as if he understood.
The dragon straightened so she could eye all of us again. It was this young dragon who caused my waking. When first she entered my barriers, I began to rouse myself from sleep, bringing down my old wards and cracking the shell that time had formed over me. It has been more than two thousand circles around the sun since her kind and mine have spoken. Moreover, she is so young. I feared that you two-legged creatures might have captured her. You have been known to do that.
Her gaze was so stern that the villagers, who had begun to rise, knelt again. The soldiers behind Numair and Daine quailed.
I am no captive! I told her. Daine and Numair—my mind added their images and voices to their names so the opal dragon would know them better—are my parents. They adopted me. My kin allow it. Daine tried to save my dragon mother’s life, and my mother left me with her. I have been managing very well among humans, thank you!
Now the beautiful creature looked down her long muzzle at me. In my day, infant dragons were not so forward, she said, her mind-voice crackling.
I am not like the infant dragons you knew, I replied. You said yourself it’s been more than two thousand years since you spoke with any dragons.
For a moment, I thought I heard her sigh. She picked up a slab of orange stone that was three feet thick. My nap lasted far longer than I had intended. I was very bored, and tired.
You could come with us, I said. It wouldn’t be boring if you did.
“Kitten—Skysong—means that it wouldn’t be boring for her,” Numair said. “But surely, after such a nap, it is time you moved around a bit?”
“Numair!” Daine said, tugging on his sleeve. “The people in the city—well, people anywhere! If we have a dragon with us—a big one—if folk see her out and about—”
I slumped. I liked this dragon, for all that she was so much older and a snob. She was beautiful and funny. Daine was right, though. People screamed at the sight of me. What would they do if they saw her?
My children ceased to need me long before my nap. The time I showed you, young dragon, the time when these lands were green and the creatures were larger, was the last time I was happy. Somehow I could feel the dragon spoke to me alone. I cannot—would not—take you from these strange friends, or your two-legged “parents.” But I would be happy to come with you, if you would like.
I squeaked and ran at her and wound between her forelegs. The glassy stone of her body was cool and pliable. She looked at Daine and Numair. The skill of the dragon depends on the stone of our flesh, she said so that everyone could hear. We opal dragons are the mages of ideas, illusion, seeming, and invisibility. That is why my magical protections held for so long.
Suddenly I could feel her, but I could not see her. No one could. Then I could not even feel her. I cheeped, sending my magic out, searching for her. Just as suddenly as she had vanished, she appeared again, beside Afra and Spots. Afra jumped; Uday began to wail. Spots’s ears went back. The villagers decided it was time to run away.
“Now that’s fair wonderful,” Daine said with a smile. “You can hide in plain sight.” She looked at Afra. “I didn’t catch your name.”
“I’m—Afra. This is Uday,” Afra said, keeping an eye on the dragon. “Your little creature, there—she’s been looking after us.” She pointed to me, then Spots. “And the horse.”
“Kitten is the dragon,” Daine said, coming over to Afra. “Her ma named her Skysong, but she’s got to grow into it. Spots is the horse. He’s Numair’s. I see Kitten found some of my things for you to use. She’s a rare thief.” She hugged Afra’s shoulders, then looked at the dragon. “And your name, Great One?”
The opal dragon looked from Daine to me. Why does this child not speak to you mind to mind, as she does to me?
“She is too young. That’s what her family told us,” Daine replied. “It drives her half-mad. I think it’s the only thing she dislikes about living among humans. She needs to talk among us, and she can’t.”
The dragon—my ancestress? My kinswoman?—went to the rocky hollow that had once been her bed and began to sift through the stones, tossing most of them aside. I am Kawit, in the language of my people. Ah. Skysong, eat this.
She turned about and offered me one of her discarded scales. It sparkled in the sun.
But it’s too pretty to eat, I protested.
Eat it, Kawit ordered me.
I obeyed. Daine asked Kawit, “Will you teach me how you did that?”
The scale fizzed and tingled in my mouth, crunching among my teeth. Then it was gone.
I must compliment you upon your raising of Skysong thus far, Veralidaine, Kawit said. She is a valiant young one who will do whatever she must to care for her friends. She nodded to Afra.
“How did you know my full name?” asked Daine, startled.
Because it is in all of me, I said. My mother put Daine’s name in all of me, so every dragon, god, and immortal would know who my new mother is. Kawit, would you tell her?
“Oh, my,” Daine said. She sat on a rock.
You have already told her, Kawit replied.
You hear me! I cried, and I ran to my mother. I jumped into her lap. You hear me! Now we can talk, and I won’t have to make funny signs or noises! Daine hugged me close. Once we stopped saying private things to each other, I looked at Spots. Can you hear me, too?
&nbs
p; As well as if you were one of the beast-People, he replied, nibbling on some weeds. I’m glad you are happy, but we managed perfectly well before.
But now I will understand your jokes. I only used to guess at them, I explained. I looked up at Numair. Papa, Afra has magic in two colors, and Uday in three. Afra needs someplace to be safe and well fed and not enslaved.
“Why are you telling my secrets?” Afra cried, looking around. She hadn’t noticed the villagers’ departure before this. Even the soldiers who had come with Numair and Daine had fled.
“She tells only us,” Numair said kindly. “And we are safe, because Daine and I are both mages. I wish Kitten had brought you to us sooner—”
“I suspect she wanted to look after Afra herself,” Daine told him. “Seeing as how we’d given her nothing to do.”
I felt myself turn pale yellow out of embarrassment. It was dreadful that my parents knew my mind so well.
She has something to do now, Kawit said. I know nothing of this new world. She may be my guide, and my friend. I hope she will be my friend.
I struggled to concentrate, so that only Kawit would hear my reply. I would love to be your friend, I said. If you don’t mind that I am very young.
I like it, Kawit told me. You make me feel younger.
Daine set me down and went to Afra. “May I see your baby?” she asked. Slowly, Afra turned so Daine could lift Uday from his carry-basket. “I have two of my own, but they are with their grandparents,” Daine told Afra. “Please come with us. We’ll send the soldiers back for the rest of your things.” Holding Uday, she took Afra by one wrist and drew her toward the trail.
“But the dragon—Skysong—” Afra said, hesitating. “She drew a crown? The emperor is with you?”
“He’s a nice young man,” Numair said, coming to stand beside her. “Kitten said you have two-colored magic? How do you manage to keep one aspect from overpowering the other? My own, which is two-colored, has always been integrated, as you see—” He showed her a ball of his black fire so she could look at the white sparkles in it.
Oh, no, I thought. If Numair starts to ask questions now, I will never get my own answered. Papa, when are we going home? I demanded, tugging on the leg of his breeches. He was already walking off with Daine and Afra. Spots trotted ahead of us. Kawit, come! Papa, did you fix the river? Mama, are the chickens going to be all right? Are you going to scold those mages for trying to kill us? Will you tell the soldiers to leave Spots with Kawit and me instead of tying him up all of the time?
That was just a start. I had a great many more things to say.
Dragon Storm
MARY ROSENBLUM
It’s always a good thing to have friends, but as the tense story that follows demonstrates, when you’re a shunned and despised outcast, sometimes having a friend can make the difference between life and death—particularly when that friend is a dragon!
One of the most popular and prolific of the new writers of the nineties, Mary Rosenblum made her first sale, to Asimov’s Science Fiction, in 1990, and has since become a mainstay of that magazine and one of its most frequent contributors, with more than thirty sales there to her credit. She has also sold to the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Science Fiction Age, Pulphouse, New Legends, and elsewhere.
Rosenblum produced some of the most colorful, exciting, and emotionally powerful stories of the nineties, such as “The Stone Garden,” “Synthesis,” “Flight,” “California Dreamer,” “Casting at Pegasus,” “Entrada,” and many others, earning her a large and devoted following of readers. Her novella “Gas Fish” won the Asimov’s Reader Poll in 1997, and was a finalist for that year’s Hugo Award. Her first novel, The Drylands, appeared in 1993 to wide critical acclaim, winning the prestigious Compton Crook Award for best first novel of the year; with its picture of widespread social upheavals caused by catastrophic climate change, it and her other stories about the Drylands—an American West emptied of population by a disastrous drought—seem today more relevant than ever (alas!). Her second novel, Chimera, and her third, The Stone Garden, followed in short order, as did her first short story collection, Synthesis & Other Virtual Realities. She has also written a trilogy of mystery novels under the name Mary Freeman. Her most recent books are Horizons, a major new science fiction novel, and Water Rites, an omnibus collection of her Drylands stories that includes the novel The Drylands as well. A graduate of Clarion West, Mary Rosenblum lives in Portland, Oregon.
KNEELING in the rear of the narrow outrigger beneath the Crone’s dim yellow face, Tahlia gasped as salt spray soaked her. “What was that for, Pretty?” The little blue surf-dragon dropped the boat’s towline and rose half out of the water, needle teeth bared in her narrow snout as she chattered shrilly. Her teal-colored companion rolled his blue-green eyes and winked, and splashed his mate with water. She turned her wrath on him, and, in a second, both dragons were skipping away across the ocean swells, their vestigial wings sending up white skiffs of spray as they chased each other out of sight beneath the starry sky.
“Oh great.” Kir stood, balancing easily as the boat crested a swell. “What now? Do we have to paddle all the way back? We’ll miss the morning market for sure.”
“Maybe they’ll come back.” Tahlia shook her head as she gathered in the tow ropes the dragons had dropped. “I don’t know what got her upset. Surf-dragons are kind of … well … they get distracted pretty easily.”
“I wouldn’t know.” Kir sniffed. “You’re the only one who can talk to them … or whatever it is you do. We’d better start back now.” He peered northward. “I sneaked out, and if I’m not back by dawn, Dad’ll find out, and he said he’d beat me, next time I sneaked out to night-fish.”
Dad had meant next time he sneaked out with Tahlia. He didn’t approve of Kir’s friendship with the “bad-luck golden eyes.” Especially since someone had seen the surf-dragons towing her canoe and had spread the word. Spider-dragons they tolerated, because the big, aggressive spiders that lived on the grove trees were a lot worse than bad dragon luck. “I’m sorry.” Tahlia sighed and began to uncoil the fine fishing line. “We might as well fish while we paddle back. Maybe a jewel fish will bite. They come to the surface when the Crone is in the sky. If we can get it pulling in the right direction, it’ll even tow us.” She baited the line with a tree-crab and dropped it overboard, then leaned out over the stern. The gold that edged the jewel-fish scales might make even Kir’s father happy. The Crone’s light seemed to fall like a beam, illuminating a patch of sea a few boat lengths away. “Kir, what’s that? Something floating.” She grabbed a paddle.
“What?” Kir twisted to look. “I don’t see anything.”
“It’s like a pile of bubbles.” Tahlia paddled her outrigger closer to the floating mass. Half as tall as she, it looked a bit like the foam the storm winds whipped up on the waves, but each crystal bubble shimmered with rainbows in the Crone’s yellow light. “It’s solid.” She touched it tentatively. Her hand sank slowly into the dense mass, and she touched something. Warm. Smooth.
“Watch out!” Kir backed the canoe away with a hard paddle stroke. “You don’t know what’s in there!”
“Oh, stop it.” Tahlia hung on, and the floating mass drifted with them. “Look at this!” She pulled one of the warm shapes from the gleaming bubbles, held it up. “Some kind of egg. I felt a bunch of them.” So big that her fingers couldn’t close around it, the shell, iridescent like the bubble mass, seemed both soft and hard at the same time, pulsing faintly against the pressure of her fingers.
“Too big to be a ketrel egg.” Kir tilted his head, his sky-colored eyes narrowing. “Let’s take them back to the market. If they’re not rotten, that is.” He reached for the egg. “Let’s crack one and see.”
“No way. Hey.” Tahlia snatched it out of his reach, but as she did, the shell cracked, or rather split, pale edges curling back. A moment later, a long, narrow draconid head, the dull grey color of a stormy sea, poked through.
&
nbsp; “Surf-dragon egg.” Kir looked disappointed. “Everybody has always wondered where they lay their eggs. Now we know.”
“I guess.” Tahlia cupped her hands around the egg as the small dragonlet clawed its way out of the shell. “But it doesn’t look quite right for a surf-dragon, and if this is how they lay their eggs, why don’t we find ’em all over the place? Surf-dragons are everywhere. Ow!” She snatched her hand away, nearly dropping the dragonlet into the bottom of the boat. “It bit me!”
“Throw it overboard.” Kir scrambled back to the bow of the canoe as the dragonlet thrashed in Tahlia’s grip. Blood dripped from her wrist as she examined the double set of tooth marks on her left hand. “Sharp teeth. No, I’m not going to throw it back, Kir. Why shouldn’t it think I’m going to eat it? Relax, baby, I don’t eat dragons,” she soothed it. “Look.” She nodded. “They’re all hatching.”
Small dragonlets were emerging, poking narrow heads into the Crone’s wan light, clawing their way to the surface of the mass.
“Ketrels!”
Kir’s cry made her tear her eyes from the hatching dragons. Sure enough dark shapes wheeled overhead, blocking out the stars with their huge wings. “They’re after the nest.”
“Better them than us. Tahlia, paddle!” Kir dug his paddle blade into the water and drove the canoe away from the bubble nest.
He was right. Tahlia grabbed her paddle. The dragonlet had stopped fighting her, was now wrapped tightly around one wrist. “Hang on, little one.” Tahlia dug her own blade into the water. “I won’t let them eat you.” They would be lucky if the ketrels didn’t eat them. More than one grove dweller had died when caught out in the night ocean by a hungry flock. The Crone’s light dimmed as a cloud veiled it, leaving them in safe darkness. Tahlia’s back itched with the expectation of razor-sharp claws as she and Kir drove the canoe through the swells.
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