by Marc Secchia
“I don’t understand either,” said the dragonet. “You should have been smeared across the rocks and your entrails scattered for the windrocs.”
“Nice–thanks for that image.”
He vibrated his wings very rapidly against his flanks, indicating the dragonet sense of humour under adversity. Flicker said, You’re right, the Dragons seem to know far more about Human politics than they rightly should. Dragons are devious creatures. How can they spy so effectively? Are they employing an unknown form of magic? More importantly, we need to escape from this Island, because I can assure you, to receive only a threat from a Dragon is such a blessing, you cannot believe it. Usually they deal with their problems without delay.
“Hence the detail about my entrails?”
“Indeed. If only you had wings!”
“Aye, meantime, I’ll climb down into the caldera, walk barefoot across the lava flows to the next Island, holding my breath all the way, and climb that one? Or shall I just hitch my belt to a passing windroc?”
He blinked his eye membranes at her sarcasm.
“Oh, Islands’ sakes! I’m sorry, Flicker. I’m not angry with you.”
Flicker wondered if the Ancient One would have a clever idea for how a Human girl could escape an inescapable Island. Could she build herself a gliding apparatus and soar across on the thermals? Flag down a passing Dragonship? They had to assume that all Human Dragonships belonged to Ra’aba. Attracting his attention would spell an ugly end for his friend–just as abrupt and messy an end as that Dragon, by all law, logic and legend, should have dealt her. What did this portend? He shook his head as though he had an insect stuck in his ear-canal.
Poor Lia. Her heart was so wrapped up in her people, just as a dragonet’s hearts were tied to his warren and Dragon-kin. Yet, there was a quality about the Human girl he simply could not place his paw upon. She was never deceitful, but she was mysterious. Aye, by his wings, that word suited her like wings suited a dragonet’s back. Could it be that in hurling himself off the cliff after her, he had thrown himself into the greatest adventure of his life? Of any dragonet’s lifetime? The thought of the praise-songs the dragonet-kind would compose to acclaim his deeds filled Flicker’s belly with warm, pleasant fire.
The dragonet suggested, “You could flaunt yourself without any coverings. Wouldn’t that attract every Human male within a hundred league radius to your aid?”
“Flicker!” The girl’s eyes filled with fire. “You are in so much trouble!”
She chased him around the cavern, calling down hilarious mock-curses upon him as the dragonet evaded her grasping fingertips. Eventually, Flicker allowed himself to be caught and chastised.
That was when they heard Dragons roaring deep beneath the Island, like the sound of a faraway waterfall.
Chapter 8: Within Ha’athior
Three days of enforced hiding were enough to drive her up the proverbial cliff-face, while the Dragons’ unending, thunderous song trembled the Island so violently that Lia kept casting distrustful glances at the cavern roof. Hualiama taught Flicker the dances from the Flame Cycle, her favourite dance-opera, but the baritone parts put her in mind of her brother Ari. Artless, trusting Ari. He would not understand why they needed to live in exile–if her family did indeed live.
“You’ve the patience of a dragonet hatchling,” said Flicker.
Lia demonstrated the dying flame pirouette.
“And the brains of a mosquito,” he added.
“I can recount the twenty-eight warren scents in order for you, if you like,” said Lia, with an exaggerated sniff of disdain. “Danger, trouble, confusion, gathering-together, deep-meeting, kinship first-degree, friendship, companionship, courtship …”
“Any monkey can parrot words without understanding.”
“I think you’re getting your animals confused,” said Lia. “I’m a straw-head, remember?”
Actually, her hair was starting to resemble straw. She had no Palace soaps and oils here to make her hair soft and lustrous, nor servants to scrub it for her and spend an hour brushing out the knots. Lia had learned a form of patience–during the inevitable, endless primping demanded of Princesses and enforced by their Queen-mothers, she designed Dragonship parts in her head or chased Dragons through the fiery suns-set skies of her imagination.
Tanned, bare-legged, dagger-wielding Princesses who ate spit-roast lemur for dinner and slurped down raw cliff-lark eggs, were not the currency of conservative Fra’anior.
Flicker raised his head. “It’s gone quiet out there.”
So it had. Lia nodded. “Do you think it might be safe? Please scout, Flicker.”
“Of course.” The dragonet managed an in-flight swagger as he nipped out of the cave.
She was just returning to her dance when a high-pitched squeal of alarm from outside, arrested her mid-leap. Lia darted to the cave entrance and peered up the tunnel, squinting at the full-suns brightness at the end of the short entryway. Where was Flicker? Did he need help?
Flicker shot back toward her at ten times the speed he had departed, crying, Dragon, Dragon, Dragon …
Another Dragon? Or, could the compassionate Dragon have returned?
Get underwater!
Lia gaped at Flicker. “What?”
The pool! Go! Hide in the water!
And with that, he raced further down the tunnel.
Indecision froze her feet. No, only one Dragon knew where and who she was. This was her chance to learn something, her best and perhaps only chance to ask for help.
Hualiama jogged up to the cave entrance, just as a Dragon descended four-pawed to the ledge outside, fifty feet from her position. The Dragon was the orange colour of a flame’s heart and yellow in the underparts, a vast, hoary adult male whose wingspan had to measure over a hundred feet, and whose shoulders topped four times her height. Her breath snagged in awe. Were Dragons truly so heart-arrestingly enormous? No wonder his grip had been overpowering.
When the Orange Dragon fixed his burning eye upon her, however, the Human girl realised her mistake. This was no friendly visitor. A scar twisted the left side of his muzzle into a permanent half-sneer. The power of the Dragon’s sallow gaze reminded her of none other than Ra’aba, the way his brow-ridge drew down and his lip peeled open, revealing a jaw stuffed with gleaming fangs, any one of which could have skewered Lia and served her up as a kebab without a second thought.
Did recognition writhe in her belly? Was this the spirit of Ra’aba, reincarnated in Dragon form?
“Ah, so the dragonets spoke truly,” rumbled the Dragon, swinging his muzzle toward her, flame licking around his huge, flaring nostrils. His voice was as dry as air simmering over the caldera, crackling with fires as though he concealed a bonfire in his throat. “Here’s how it works, Princess. Run. Scream, if you’d like. I’ll give you a count of three.”
Hualiama made a wordless squeak of dread.
“Run.” The Dragon made a shooing motion with his forepaw. “Go on. It’s more amusing for me.”
Terror exploded from her belly in slow motion, burning the pathways of her body. The sense of his evil was so palpable, she knew the Dragon saw her as nothing more than a loathsome insect to be crushed beneath his heel. It was possible to die from fright. She was the prey. The Orange Dragon was the predator, and nothing in the Island-World could protect her from such a creature. Doom stalked her upon wings the colour of molten lava.
“One.”
She jerked back.
“Two …”
Hualiama’s feet seemed possessed of wings of their own. She had never fled so fast, but the monster out there provided more than enough motivation. An agile left-right dance-step took her into their chamber. She sprinted flat out. Air hissed past her ears. The Orange Dragon’s monstrous challenge, the full-throated roar of an adult male on the hunt, shook the cavern.
“Three!”
The Orange Dragon pounced, his paws crashing down near t
he cave entrance, the shock conducted through sand and rock to her fleeing feet. The air sucked away from her lungs; Lia heard a rising thunder of fire, a crackling and sizzling sound as a wave of heat rolled over her back, as superheated as any volcanic eruption. Fire-reflections dazzled from the crystals embedded in the cavern walls. Lia dived headlong into the cool pool. The world flared orange. Rolling over underwater, she gazed up through the ripples at a torrent of Dragon fire, roiling and billowing above the pool with fatal brilliance, as though she stared into the heart of the twin suns.
Her body was too buoyant! Hualiama tried to pull herself back down as she floated toward the surface.
The fire expired upward, smoke curling hungrily over stone.
Now was the time for silence. No splashing. She must still her heart’s thrashing. Gripping a rock with her hands to provide a modicum of control, Lia delicately raised her face out of the water. She forced herself to ignore the burning in her lungs as she allowed overheated, smoke-filled air to trickle in.
She heard a groan from deeper in the cave. “Oh … burned …”
Flicker? He was imitating her?
“Ah, Princess. Not dead yet?”
The cavernous rumbling of the Dragon’s fire stomach warned her. Gulping half a breath, Lia ducked again as a sunburst of Dragon fire streamed into the cavern, a fiery breath so powerful and sustained that she saw the surface of her pool begin to boil. A dull reverberation conducted through the water to her ears, the thunder of his attack.
The fire lasted an unending time as Lia desperately schooled her lungs and limbs, denying the desire to breathe. She had to stay hidden. Had to! Even if she slowly boiled underwater …
* * * *
Flicker crept deeper into a crack between the rocks, away from the Human skeleton he had planted in the corridor at the Ancient One’s suggestion. He stilled his breath. His hide was scorched, his lungs seared and his concealing magic deployed in full force.
The Orange Dragon bellied down the tunnel toward his position, his spine spikes scoring lines on the tunnel roof. The Dragon stopped when he spotted the charred skeleton. Ah, Princess, it ends here, he declared, visibly satisfied.
By the First Egg, please let his girl remain as silent as a hunting dragonet. How long could straw-head remain underwater? The Dragon backed up with excruciating deliberation, unable to turn in the tunnel due to his great bulk. Flicker damped his fury. He wanted nothing more than to scream, Murderer! Egg-stealer! Hatchling-killer! But if the Dragon detected his emotions, or heard his hearts-beat … his subterfuge seemed to have worked. How had the Ancient One known? Did he have the power of visions, similar to what Lia had described to him when she spoke of the Star Dragon, who must have taken refuge in this very cave? Could the Human girl have envisioned Istariela and Fra’anior?
Such power, vested in a frail Human body. Unprecedented, the Ancient One had professed.
Outside on the ledge, the Orange Dragon thundered a challenge of earth-shattering power, IT IS FINISHED! And straight afterward, so whisper-quiet that Flicker wondered if he had imagined the words, The prophecy is broken.
The swish of his huge wings, blasting dust back down the tunnel, confirmed the Dragon’s departure. After waiting as long as he could bear, Flicker darted back up the tunnel, squealing, Lia? Lia?
He wheeled on his wingtip into their cave. There, in the water, floating as if dead! The dragonet dropped on her stomach; Lia surfaced in an explosion of bubbles, coughing, laughing and exclaiming crossly at him.
Are you alive? Flicker worried.
Do I look that bad? Flicker, what was that? I … She thrust her fist against her mouth, her eyes wet with more than water. Lia’s shoulders began to shake. Why does everyone want to kill me? Why?
Hush, softly now, said Flicker, speaking as to a wounded hatchling.
He was just like Ra’aba–exactly the same eyes. I don’t understand. Her eyes rose in a mute appeal the dragonet knew he could never answer. In those smoky green depths, he saw what squeezed his chest–an awareness of mortality, fresh and raw, as if the Dragon had scored them both with bloody wounds. She seemed soul-haunted. I don’t understand, Flicker, Hualiama repeated. Can Humans and Dragons share the same spirit? How did he know I was here?
The dragonets of my warren must have tattled, he replied, as her words provoked a disturbance in his Dragon senses. Could this be true? A vengeful spirit of Ra’aba? Look, one thing is good in all–
“Good?” she shouted, making Flicker squeak and flare his wings in panic. “What could possibly be good about this? I’m being hunted by Dragons, Islands’ sakes, and I’ve no idea why! I’m stuck on this stupid Island–”
Hush. We need to be certain he’s gone.
Aye. Though her eyes still registered distress, Lia reached out to stroke his neck. Flicker, I’ve no words to thank you enough. You’re the best friend a girl could want.
You saved my hide, he muttered, rubbing his muzzle with his forepaws.
At least I’m clean, now. Lia rose from the water, standing hip-deep in the small pool as she clearly cast about for a way to put her fright behind her. Flicker would have done the same. Well, our food is all cooked, we’ll need a new bed, and I guess I’ll be weaving another sling after this. How did you misdirect that Dragon, Flicker? You’re so brave, so resourceful …
“Islands’ greetings, my name’s Lia,” said Flicker, affecting the dragonet version of a sultry pout.
Hualiama’s mouth dropped open. “You can imitate me that well?”
“Well, yes,” he smirked, emboldened by her reaction. “I am the Princess Straw-Head of Fra’anior, and my burned skeleton is lying just outside in the tunnel.”
By way of reply, Lia puffed out her chest, imitating one of Flicker’s favourite postures. “And I am an overgrown, brainless parakeet with a head stuffed full of feathers. Aren’t I the handsomest creature under the twin suns?”
His howl of laughter came accompanied by a plume of fire.
* * * *
Late that afternoon, the Yellow moon eclipsed the waning suns and the atmosphere grew dim, despite the day’s lingering warmth. The cliff-larks, lesser blue parakeets and swarming crimson-sparrows cheeped sleepily outside. Digging through the cavern sand with her toes as she worked on her fifth sling in several weeks, Lia sliced her left big toe open on what she took initially for a sharp stone.
She unearthed a flat shell–no! Lia gasped and brushed the dirt off the Dragon’s scale. It was old, dusty and white. As white as the Dragoness in her vision.
Despite its evident age, the scale was still dagger-sharp. She cleaned it in the pool and dried the shard carefully on her brief skirt. Wow. Now the colour was pearlescent, more than merely white, like the inside of the shells she had once seen which came from the terrace lake on Gi’shior Island. Seeing how the light played upon a Dragoness’ scale, it was easy to believe in magic. It was less easy to understand how her dream could have been so accurate.
Magic? Of the two great races of the Island-World, Dragons had magic and Humans did not–apart from persistent rumours about the warrior-monks of her own Fra’anior Cluster, Hualiama reminded herself. Even King Chalcion had never succeeded in pinning down the truth about Human magic. Secret monasteries, even more secret practices. Even a King could not know all.
No, little Lia possessed no magic. What she did possess was a nose with an uncanny ability to sniff out trouble–oh, and the less helpful ability to land in that trouble right after she scented it! That was how she knew Flicker would embark on one of his midnight escapades later on that night. This time, she would follow him.
Meantime, she worried endlessly about why a Dragon should be hunting her. Surely Ra’aba was not working hand-in-glove with the Dragons? Surely, they had no interest in a royal ward apart from the sin of her trespass on their holy Isle? But she was unable to discount her intuition that the mighty Orange Dragon had been Ra’aba, or was, in some undreamed-of way, connected
to him. What did she truly know of Dragons? The Dragonkind had a deep-seated aversion to meddling in the affairs of those they regarded as inferior creatures. Very occasionally, King Chalcion met with Dragon representatives on the Receiving Balcony atop the Palace. When she was younger, Lia had sometimes spied on them, but after she had been caught and chastised by Captain Ra’aba, Chalcion had put a stop to that.
She could not possibly be a threat to the Roc, could she? Heavens above and Islands below, she had no weapons, no magic, no allies, no means of transportation between the Islands …
Despite her best intentions, Lia fell asleep waiting for Flicker to depart. Her dreams filled with the Orange Dragon’s fire, which morphed unexpectedly into the yolk of an egg-sac surrounding her body, and then unexpectedly to the image of a mother Dragon crooning mellifluously over her clutch of eggs, telling the developing Dragons inside how much she loved them, even though they were not yet hatchlings. Even in her dream, she frowned. Dragons spoke without words?
This Dragoness was a blue so fathomless it was almost sable, not the white of Lia’s previous vision. As a hatchling, Hualiama broke free from the egg-shard, milky with albumen, feeling the clutch of a paw so massive it enfolded her body like a new womb. She ached beyond reason or understanding for that brooding, maternal presence.
Mother.
She never wanted to leave such a sweet dream.
However, people must awake as people, no matter what their hearts desired.
Stirring, Lia found Flicker gone. She thrust the dagger into her linger-vine belt, and tied on a small lemur-skin pouch of supplies. On an impulse, she added the White Dragoness’ scale to the contents of her pouch. Cheeky dragonet. Time for him to give up his secrets.
Given the glorious crystalline formations of the caves, no light was necessary to aid her exploration, although Lia knew she needed to take care. Flicker would not have left any trail, unless he landed for some reason. On and on she wandered, searching galleries and marking side-tunnels, expanding her knowledge of the vast underground network. These caves must honeycomb the entire underside of Ha’athior Island. What mysteries might be hidden here, she could hardly imagine, but when she stumbled upon one, it was an enormous surprise.