Dragonfriend

by Marc Secchia

  This was her life’s song.

  Blinking away her tears, Hualiama looked beyond her mother’s shoulder, through the crysglass panels to the Dragons. They watched. They knew. Their awesomely sensitive Dragon hearing would have conveyed her tears to dragonet and Dragon just as surely as they would have heard every word of King Chalcion’s rant.

  Grandion dipped his muzzle. His voice carried into her mind, I abide with thee, Lia.

  * * * *

  After four days aboard the Dragonship, Hualiama could bear it no longer. Caged! Trapped in the same endless conversations, the same lies and half-truths, and the conscious and unconscious relegation of a daughter to her ‘rightful’ place. King Chalcion wished to lay his own plans for retaking his throne. Lia paced the tiny cabin she shared with Fyria, her royal sister, who had thankfully commandeered the single bathroom on the vessel to primp or clean herself or whatever she did to while away the hours. She felt like a caged rajal. Father had made the navigation cabin his own, denying Lia even the pleasure of flying the vessel without his judgmental gaze burning into her shoulders.

  If something did not give, she’d explode.

  The night was advanced enough that snores gentle and stertorous filled the Dragonship and its cabins, from the tiny private cabins, barely bigger than a closet, to the main cargo hold, overflowing with the sick from the mine. Fifty-three souls in all.

  Lia padded to the navigation cabin where Elki was taking his spell at the controls. “Hey, monkey mischief,” she greeted him.

  “Hey, short shrift. Couldn’t sleep?”

  “Aye. Elki, if I disappeared for a bit, could you and Mom cover for me? I’ll rejoin you either here or at Sa’athior Island.”

  “Disappear?” Elki’s normally roguish grin flattened out into a grim white line when he realised what she implied. “You’re not … you aren’t–sister, please don’t tell me …”

  Lia raised a finger to his lips. “Shh. Don’t ask. Then you won’t have to tell a lie.”

  “Heavens above and Islands below! There never was a Dragonship you ditched near the mine, was there?” He glared out of the window, clearly fighting for calm. He pleaded, “Tell me you’re planning to walk on the clouds to Fra’anior Cluster.”

  “Precisely.” She smiled tremulously at her tall, slender brother. “It’s a kind of magic.”

  “Magic it is. Good thing you taught me how to pilot a Dragonship, eh? You scamp. You have them all convinced I’m the naughty one, meantime …” Elki’s breath hissed between his teeth. “You do realise how hard this is for a brother? I’m sort of fond of the living, breathing version of Hualiama.”

  “Dear one,” she stood on her tiptoes to kiss his bearded cheek, “If the Dragons find out where I’ve been and what I’ve done, I’m already as good as dead. Choice is immaterial. Ra’aba threw me off close enough to Ha’athior Island that Flicker could pull me into a tree. I set foot upon Ha’athiorian soil. Lived there, Islands’ sakes. How is this any different?”

  Somehow, it was. His aghast response conveyed the truth. Even if the penalty was the same, a simple trespass felt less of an abomination than what she had done. Yet, how could she change the past? Oaths bound her soul more surely than chains, and her instincts about the Tourmaline Dragon, a hundred times more forcefully yet.

  With that, Lia stepped back, her forefinger pressed to her lips. Elki nodded grimly. Judging from his expression, her brother must have been tempted to raise the alarm, to spring upon her and beat her back from her course … yet he did not, and Hualiama knew she would treasure his trust forever.

  She slipped down to the doorway to the outer gantry. A tiny squeak of the hinges made her freeze, and then the cool night air tickled her neck.

  Grandion’s muzzle turned. Hualiama?

  I’m bored, she said. Want to fly ahead to scout?

  I’m here and you’re over there, said the Tourmaline Dragon, his eyes burning like living coals as they fixed upon her with an intensity that sucked the breath clean out of her lungs.

  Lia’s throat closed up, strangled by the tempestuous flow of emotions in her breast. As if drawn to the mad rush of her heart, Grandion drifted closer. This would be the ultimate negation, she realised, a symbol that Ra’aba had no hold over her. For if she made this particular gesture of her own accord, that would say more than all the words in the Island-World.

  She climbed over the gantry’s edge, right beneath the lowest of the turbines.

  Wait, I’m coming, said Grandion.

  Catch me if you can.

  She leaped to the winds. Laughing. Spreading her arms to catch the breeze. A hundred leagues shy of Fra’anior, a Human girl flew and a Dragon dived after her, spouting words in Dragonish she did not know, but were surely uncomplimentary, even wrathful. Her clothes fluttered madly against her body, while the wind roared in her ears.

  Grandion caught Lia’s tumbling body on his right wing. Are you quite mad? His eyes flashed as brilliantly as stars, bemused, admiring, even shocked. Flicker rushed after them, visibly flaming at the mouth. For once, even the dragonet was lost for words. All she heard was the spitting of his fires.

  Maybe, said Hualiama, smiling at the Tourmaline Dragon. This is how much I trust you, Grandion. A low gasp at her own idiocy escaped her as Lia rolled suddenly off the trailing edge of his wing. I’m flyeee-eee-iiiing!

  Next she knew the Dragon flapped beside her, forepaws folded in a typically Human pose–one she had used on him on more than the odd occasion, she realised. His expression was priceless. And if I don’t catch you, Human girl?

  You’ll catch me.

  He winked at her across the fifty feet or so separating them in the air. Never trust a Dragon–isn’t that the Human saying? Perhaps I might easily rid the Island-World of an insolent, sassy, trouble-stirring Fra’aniorian royal ward who has shamelessly ignored her lonesome Dragon for four nights and three days?

  Waving her arms and cupping her hands, Hualiama tried to swim through the air toward Grandion. By orienting her body differently … smack! She thumped headfirst into his stomach.

  Oh, I’ve been attacked by a deadly flying beast of unknown species! laughed the Dragon, flying on his back now–how he managed that, Hualiama had no idea–while shielding her with his cupped talons.

  Wriggling to her feet, she began a mad, capering dance on his belly. Lia yelled, Tickle, tickle!

  Oof, you pest, get off!

  Making a standing backward somersault over the lazy swipe of Grandion’s paw, Hualiama discovered the power of the wind as it snatched her away from the Dragon. He tagged after her with languid wing strokes, chuckling, You really don’t want to be caught, do you, she whose hair blazes like the fires of a twin-suns dawn?

  Save me–she tumbled head over heels–o dread master of the skies.

  Grandion slowed to allow Flicker to catch up, before replying, I remain unconvinced that you wish to be saved. Even the prettiest Humans are not meant to fly.

  Hualiama tried to bat her eyelashes at the Tourmaline Dragon, but the wind’s blast only made her eyes water. Perhaps blatant flirtation was best. She called, Oh most fearsomely fiery fiend, pray succour this Isles maiden to thy scaly bosom.

  Flicker snorted, Bah! Leave her to fly, say I.

  The wind pummelled Lia’s body, snatching her laughter away and bringing on a coughing fit. In a trice the Dragon scooped her out of the sky and cradled her against his shoulder, much as a Human might coddle a baby.

  The Tourmaline Dragon growled, Now will you behave? Never mind. Stupid question.

  She squirmed free and clambered rapidly up to her customary seat between Grandion’s spine spikes.

  Flicker said, I imagine you missed us, then?

  The dragonet sounded wounded. How could he? Who had been missing whom? Lia wanted to slap him, but when Flicker thrust his muzzle beneath her arm with an imperious growl, demanding affection, she could not resist. She gathered him into her lap; a heartfelt
sigh escaped her lips. I’ve missed you like a Dragon would miss one of its hearts, she admitted. Both of you. Families–

  Are weird and inexplicably complicated? suggested the dragonet.

  That was occasion for all three of them to groan as one.

  Grandion asked, So, where are we headed, Human girl? Not back to the Dragonship, I presume?

  She shook her head. I’m finished with Humans for a while … maybe even for a lifetime. How could she tell them how she had been treated? Grandion would blast the Dragonship out of the sky. Instead, Hualiama lifted her eyes to the heavens.

  What a night. Four moons adorned the sky–great Iridith waxing in the southern sky, crescent Jade to the east slightly eclipsing the fuller sphere of the Blue moon, and White shining with its characteristic pinpoint brilliance just over the north-western horizon, like a star of greater magnitude than any other. Ahead, the cone of Fra’anior heaved its shoulders out of the Cloudlands, its brow crowned by a second layer of spotless white cloud, perhaps a mist.

  A homecoming, Lia wondered? Or a farewell? A song rose in her heart, perhaps an improper choice, but out in the trackless reaches of the Island-World’s loneliness, those concerns seemed to fade to nothingness. A song surfaced in her mind.

  Hualiama sang the ballad of the Red Dragon Cerission romancing his Yellow Dragoness love:

  The moons resplendent in glory rise, the shining souls of gilded skies,

  To thy flank alone my third heart flies, to sing love’s song, which never dies,

  O Zuthazia! The essence of thee …

  O Zuthazia! Thy breath so free …

  Unites fire to fire and soul to soul,

  The glorious everlasting,

  Love.

  After that, Human, Dragon and dragonet flew north-eastward for a long time without speaking, as the moons ascended to fill the skies, and Fra’anior enlarged in kingly majesty above the horizon.

  * * * *

  Nothing had changed at the monastery, apparently, except that a girl and a Dragon winged in Dragonback at dawn’s first blush. Landing on the slope just shy of what Flicker referred to–with a typical snigger–as ‘the kissing boulder’, Hualiama enjoined Grandion to wait for half an hour before bathing and feeding in the crater lake. It must not be too obvious that they had arrived together.

  She jogged down to the monastery building.

  There, Master Jo’el and Ja’al meditated on the fire-blackened front porch, facing each other, eyes shuttered but fully aware of their surroundings, of that Lia had no doubt.

  “Master Jo’el,” she whispered, bowing.

  “You bring news?”

  Lia stifled a curl of inner fire. No, ‘we’re delighted to see you alive, Lia’ or, ‘how did your perilous mission conclude?’ No, Master Jo’el was far too cool for that. Then, she spied a tiny smile playing upon Ja’al’s lips. “Oh, this and that, Master,” she replied, kneeling to make a third point of a triangle with them.

  “Report, Apprentice Hualiama,” Jo’el said, in the same ultra-calm tone.

  “Here is my report. Maroon Dragoness, check. Father, check. Mother, check. King and family, check times six.”

  Master Jo’el’s lips quivered. “Might I request a more detailed report?”

  “I am delighted to see you hale and hearty this morning, Master,” she replied, with utterly fake sweetness. “And I would simply love to extend the most reekingly redolent greetings of the mighty Great Dragon to you–”

  “You are incurable, Apprentice Hualiama.”

  “My humblest apologies, Master Jo’el.”

  “You took off against my express orders, Lia,” he added, rather severely. “Do I sense the presence of a Dragon nearby? Call him.”

  “Grandion convinced me that I had to travel to the Spits personally to meet with Ianthine,” said Lia. “Truly, Master, I am sorry if I caused you any concern.”

  “Concern? Oh, I’m convinced you can whistle up a Cloudlands-spanning thunderstorm of trouble quite on your own, Lia,” he said, his ascetic features finally crinkling into a smile. “Of course I had my concerns. I still have them! But I trust your judgement, mad as that might prove. First I bewailed the fate of one who flew Dragonback, but then, the Great Dragon spoke to Ja’al and we had peace–be a good girl and collect your jaw from the ground, before the birds start building nests therein.”

  Truth be told, she shook like a lava flow struck by an earthquake.

  Lia called, Grandion? Would you join us?

  She returned her attention to the Master, feeling in no small part perturbed and humbled. “Master, are you telling me that Fra’anior himself, the mighty Black Dragon, spoke? Again?”

  Ja’al interjected, “The Black Dragon said, ‘Do not hinder my child.’”

  “He didn’t say what she did was right,” the Master argued.

  Hualiama had the sense that this was a conversation frequently repeated. As the Tourmaline Dragon landed nearby, his wings blasting dust around the trio of Humans, she said, “Master Jo’el, how exactly am I a child of Fra’anior? The Nameless Man used the same terminology. I presume he referred to the relationship I have with Amaryllion. Now, I’m uncertain. When I face Ra’aba, am I to expect aid from the Black Dragon himself?”

  Suddenly, Lia remembered what lay in her pouch.

  While she extracted the scrap of scroll, Flicker darted over to land between her and Master Jo’el. Grandion shifted his muzzle closer to Ja’al, who had a pained expression on his face as though he expected any second to be fire-seared and served up on mohili sweetbread for a draconic snack.

  She smiled at the young monk. “Don’t be afraid. Grandion’s an adorable Dragon, and not a very big one at that.”

  With great dignity, the Tourmaline Dragon extended one of his freshly sharpened talons and held it to Lia’s neck. “Care to repeat that statement, Human girl?”

  Widening her eyes in mock terror, Lia babbled, “Grandion’s a stupendously awesome Tourmaline Dragon who daily cleans his fangs with the bones of his enemies. He strikes mortal terror into the hearts of–”

  “Much better,” growled the Dragon.

  Master Jo’el said, “Before you unveil whatever’s making your hand tremble, Lia, would you tell us what has transpired?”

  Grandion said to Hualiama, Do you trust these two Humans?

  I’d trust them with my life, she replied. You must decide for yourself before I speak.

  The Dragon’s baleful gaze lit upon her two monkish companions. At length he said, We dived off the Island of sanity a ways back, Hualiama. Why not trust these two, too?

  In the quietness of the dawn, Lia related recent events to Ja’al and Master Jo’el, sparing no detail she could remember. Flicker and Grandion chipped in with contributions of their own. Fascinating. Hualiama was intrigued by Grandion’s reading of Ianthine–the diametric opposite of hers. No wonder he thought the Maroon Dragoness had lied about Ra’aba. Could it be that Ianthine’s fabled mind-power had fooled him, but not a Human? Or, Hualiama squirmed, might she not turn that thought-Island upside down? No, the dream of her mother had confirmed her parentage. There was only one way to be certain. Pin Ra’aba down and have Grandion force him to tell the truth.

  She might more easily wrestle a Dragon.

  Quietly, Master Jo’el said, “I thank you, Dragon and dragonet, for the wise guidance you have provided to Hualiama. Now, what else?”

  “A fragment of the prophecy from Ra’aba’s own desk,” she said. “It’s a bit burned, so it starts in the middle of a passage.” Lia read:

  … o child of the Dragon,

  A life birthed in fire,

  Star Dragons sing starsong over her cradle,

  The Cloudlands rise up to bow,

  And the Islands roar at her name.

  “And then there’s a chunk missing, and we have this.”

  … third Great Race will emerge from the shadows,

  And take their place at
destiny’s helm.

  A time of rebirth, struggle and …

  “A few more lines burned away.”

  … a multitude of stars plummet …

  Turmoil and rage abound, and the Dragons …

  … torment and destruction …

  Lia sighed. “That’s all we managed to salvage.”

  The image of Star Dragons singing over a cradle was beautiful. The rest made her want to run and hide in the deepest, darkest cave she could find.

  Flicker said, “I must take full responsibility. I didn’t spy out a magical trap in Ra’aba’s quarters.”

  Master Jo’el pressed his fingertips together. “Grandion, what do you make of this phrase, ‘child of the Dragon?’”

  “It’s figurative language,” he rumbled. “Perhaps it signifies a spiritual relationship, or the fact that Hualiama serves the Great Dragon through her deeds. We Dragons would refer to familial relationships using similar language–child of Qualior, for example, or Qualior, egg-father of Huazzior. But ‘child of the Dragon’ or ‘child of Fra’anior’ is a sign of great approbation, exclusively used for references to the mighty Dragon heroes of old. Forgive me for stating the obvious, but I don’t believe you merit such a title, Hualiama. That is why I would deduce a spiritual relationship. Which title did the Nameless Man accord you–generically, the Dragon, or did he specify Fra’anior?”

  “Both, if my memory serves me well.”

  Flicker put in, “The prophecy clearly refers to a female child. And Ra’aba’s fear of apocalypse seems to be borne out in the final stanzas. The stars which have rejoiced now plummet from the heavens, we can assume, and turmoil and rage abound.”