Oyda nodded, her eyes softening with sympathy. “It should, Aranya. Sylakia monitors all communication between the Islands. We’d have to be incredibly creative–and lucky–not to bring the Sylakian hammer down on your family.”
Aranya winced.
“Maybe, when you’ve learned to fly, you can make your way up to Immadia secretly?”
“Good idea.” But Aranya hated to think of how her family had to be mourning her death. “I’ve also been thinking of going back for my friend Zuziana. I can’t bear to leave her–what if Garthion recovers? She already knows about my fire. Even if it were just a flying visit, so to speak …”
“I see the sadness in your eyes, petal.”
“I wonder what one Dragon who hasn’t even learned to fly yet, could do against the Sylakians?” Aranya stirred her redbush tea listlessly. “I don’t think all Sylakians are evil, of course not. But when one power takes over all the Island-World, it cannot be good. One day, I’d love to find out where the Dragons went. Even you don’t know that.”
“There’s plenty this old woman doesn’t know, Aranya. Sounds like you have a small Island’s worth of things on your mind. You know, if you did choose this Zuziana for your Dragon Rider … well, we should first consult Nak about how you might burgle the well-guarded Tower of Sylakia. Right now, you’re hidden here in this little corner of a large Island. But the theft of the Princess of Remoy, however delighted Nak might be at the prospect of another young woman gracing this house, will inevitably reveal your presence. You must think upon that.”
“I’d love to see Zip’s expression.”
Oyda’s face darkened. “And when she sees you’re a Dragon? Are you ready for that?”
Aranya caught her breath. “I–no. No, I’m not. Oh, I hate this, I hate it! Oyda, please don’t think me ungrateful–”
“You’re not.” Oyda placed her hand upon Aranya’s and squeezed gently. “But I’ve lived on this Island-World too long not to know you’ll want to seek your destiny, Aranya, Dragon Shapeshifter and Princess of Immadia. It cannot be denied. Tomorrow, we need to help you leave the nest.”
“Do you think I’m ready?”
The old woman’s face softened. “You’ve done it once before, petal. This time, the push will be with a hand of love.”
And those were the words that accompanied Aranya to sleep. Precious, precious words, she thought, hugging her knees in the darkness of her bedroom. Where did people as kind and unselfish as Nak and Oyda come from? How had she landed on their doorstep?
Life was strange.
Being a Dragon was even stranger.
The following morning, she stood on the very edge of the cliff. Aranya shivered even though she was not cold. “Spread your wings and make a decent jump away from the edge,” said Nak. “You’ve done this before. I want a quick glide, a turn and a landing. Mind the wind. It might waft you higher than you expect.”
Aranya gazed over the Cloudlands. Her Dragon hearts, all three of them, thumped in her chest and belly. “I’m not sure I can move, Nak.”
“You’re thinking with your Human mind. You’re a Dragon. Dragons fly. They are born to fly. Even one as pretty as you, who would make any self-respecting male Dragon fly sideways into a cliff for a mere glimpse of your scales, can fly.”
“Nak, you do wonders for a girl’s ego.”
“And you do wonders for my–shh, here’s the old sheep herself, now.” Nak raised his voice. “Come to see her fly, o precious queen of my soul?”
Oyda stumped along to join them. “My, you picked a perfect morning, Aranya. Now remember, this is your second flight. Let’s make it better than the first.”
Nak cried, “Ha! The insult. Who’s been mentoring her, may I ask?”
“We’ll see, husband.”
Aranya shuffled closer to the edge. So much for loving high places. It was different when you were planning to jump from nice, solid ground into the endless void. She looked up at the White moon, which had beaten Iridith into the sky this morning, and sighed. She was crazy. She wasn’t just one-moon-touched. Dragon-Aranya spread her wings to test the breeze. She checked each of her wings for the umpteenth time. They certainly looked useful for flying. Her wingspan was over forty feet, perhaps fifty if she stretched to her utmost.
What she had was a brain like a basket of rotten prekki-fruit. The Cloudlands were far below, but her Dragon sight could make out every detail of the copper and cobalt hues of the morning. Was it volcanoes stirring them from beneath, she wondered?
“Yah!” bawled Nak, belting her across the hindquarters with his cane.
It wasn’t so much the pain as the surprise that made her leap. One moment she was safely perched on the rocks, the next, she was airborne and wailing her heart out–which, in her Dragon form, meant bellowing so loudly that every last one of Nak’s sheep turned tail and bolted for the safety of the forest. Aranya tried to level out. She was flying! Actually, she was almost upside-down. She righted herself with a violent wobble and searched anxiously for Nak and Oyda. Oh dear, she really was flapping above nothingness. Her Human brain wanted nothing to do with this.
She closed her eyes and tried not to think. Suddenly, Aranya found herself drifting gracefully through the air as though she had flown a thousand times before.
But the moment she opened her eyes again, Aranya panicked. Help! People don’t fly! She needed an Island beneath her feet. Nak, Nak … there they were. Phew. Just feel the wind embracing her hide, she told herself. This was supposed to be joyous. But she was terrified.
Now all she needed to do was land without ploughing the dell with her nose.
Aranya came screaming in low. Nak leaped for cover as she hurtled overhead. Remembering her lessons, Aranya cupped the air with her wings and landed neatly not on her legs, but on her tail. She promptly toppled sideways like a felled tree.
Next she knew, a little man kicked her in the neck, chuckling, “I see we need to work on our take-offs and landings, my precious purple puffball.”
His kick did not hurt at all. With a flexion of her talons, Aranya righted herself. “Very well, little manikin. I’ll do it again.”
She did. Badly. Four botched landings and a scrape of the prekki-fruit tree later, Aranya finally managed to just about land on all fours with a modicum of grace. She grinned wryly at Nak, which meant showing off a thicket of teeth, she realised belatedly.
“At least I’m getting the jump right, aren’t I?”
“Give me a Dragon kiss,” he cried. Nak planted a smacker on the end of her nose. “Right, Dragon, a little rest while we discuss the finer points of your astounding ineptitude at this simple task. Tortoises fly more elegantly than you. I fly more elegantly than you. Those sheep are hiding more in embarrassment than in fear, by now.” He waved his cane beneath her nose. “The sight of thy beauty streaking across the face of the Jade moon should strike awe and wonder into the hearts of thy numerous admirers. Few sights in this Island-World are more marvellous than a Dragon in full flight. When her Dragon fire billows before her, what can stand against?”
Aranya snapped playfully in his direction.
“Back, thou glorious raiment of the dawn,” he growled, cutting the air with the cane as though he wished to dice her up with a sword. “Down, thou companion of the suns’ brilliance. Am I not thy Prince? Art thou not resplendent in all thy scaly, reptilian glory?”
“That you are, you silly man. I thought you taught me that Dragons are warm-blooded?”
“Then fly, thou precocious Dragon. Fly!”
She flew, and allowed her Dragon instincts to take over. Wind filled her wings. It caressed her scales, thrilling her with the sensation of swimming through the air like a fish. A thousand unfamiliar scents teased her nostrils. Her Dragon hearts welled up with such a fierce joy it burst out of her throat in a series of bugling calls of delight. What rapture! She knew she was made for this. Everything about her Dragon body was streamlined. She had power and grace and catlike reflexes. Her wings
responded to the tiniest changes in air pressure and direction, flexing and trimming and rising and falling with a living rhythm all of their own. She swooped over Nak, carolling her exultation to the hills and skies.
He waved and danced and generally acted like a complete lunatic.
Later, when Aranya had practised at least fifty take-offs and landings, and was so exhausted she overshot the hut on her final landing and plowed another large furrow into their meadow, Oyda emerged to scold her inside. “She barely has energy left to transform,” she reproached Nak. “She’s just a fledgling.”
“But flying is just so … oh, Oyda, what can I say?”
“The sparkle in your eyes says it all, my petal.”
For sheer happiness, Aranya danced about Oyda and bent to kiss her cheek. “I think you deserve a kiss, too. You’re just too proud to ask.” She threw her aching arms around the old woman. “How could I ever, ever repay you for all you’ve done?”
Oyda reached up over Aranya’s shoulder to wipe her eyes. “This is thanks enough.”
“But I’ve eaten up all your bread–”
“Aranya, you’ve much to learn in this life. My old Nak has so much Dragon gold hidden back in that hut you wouldn’t believe it. We live simply because we believe there are things in this world no Dragon’s hoard can buy. Cup of tea?”
Typical. Just when she thought she knew them, Nak and Oyda sprang another surprise on her.
“Actually, I’m starving. Is that your berry and prekki pie I smell baking?”
“Let me rustle up a little snack.” Oyda’s eyes twinkled. “All that flying must make a girl as hungry as a Dragon.”
“Hungrier,” growled Aranya, so Dragon-like that her words stopped in her throat.
Oyda chuckled, “Aye, a Dragon.”
Aranya coughed and squirmed. “Oyda … did I hear in your tone a lesson about Dragons and gold?”
“Put some clothes on, petal, before my Nak bursts a blood vessel.” The old woman waved her wooden rolling-pin in Aranya’s direction. “Think you know me that well, eh, you scamp? Two lessons then, since you insist. One, a Dragon’s insight is different to a Human’s. Learn to use them both, since you as a Shapeshifter have that opportunity. Two, Dragons are acquisitive by nature. Unfortunately, in my experience, hoarding turns a Dragon mean. Gold, jewels, crowns–all those glittery things do something ugly to a Dragon’s heart.”
“Hearts–three hearts,” said Aranya, emerging from her room dressed in a simple peasant smock. “Where’s Nak?”
“Snoring up a thunderstorm.”
“Already?” she asked. “How do I look, Oyda?”
“Hmm,” said Oyda. “I’ll have to teach you to look less of a Princess of Immadia. We need to think about your disguise. Maybe a young noblewoman would work better. Meantime, I’ll teach you how to fix your hairnet and headscarf like a peasant woman.”
“Ah, maiden most comely,” Nak called out, but went straight back to his snoring.
They both jumped, and laughed.
“So, tomorrow will be your night flying training?” Oyda asked.
“Yes,” Aranya agreed. “He wants to cover landing on vertical surfaces like cliffs or battlements. Nak also says I need to make a few longer flights before I try anything as daft as raiding the Tower of Sylakia. I think he’s also hoping for some bad weather to provide harder testing.”
“He’s just concerned about you, petal.”
“You worry too much. Oyda … oh, I don’t know.”
The old woman sighed. “Ask your question, Aranya. But I cannot answer it.”
“Oyda–how, of all the places in the Island-World, did I happen to crash-land on your doorstep?”
Oyda’s smile, at that moment, seemed as old and wise as an ancient Dragon. She shrugged. “I can’t say, Aranya. It just is.”
Chapter 9: The Raid
Nak scowled at the Dragon, who glowered in return. “I’m trying, Nak.”
“Trying with the wrong brain,” said Nak. “Try to appreciate, my delectable damsel, how much more brain there is behind that thick Dragon skull of yours than a Human will ever enjoy. Islands’ sakes, your head and muzzle are longer than I am tall. A Dragon’s brain is designed for flying.”
“I understand that, Nak.”
“But does it penetrate that impervious shield of armoured Dragon bone about your cranium?” Nak smacked her muzzle for emphasis. “The instant Human-Aranya tries to fly, you resemble a blue-speckled marsh stork stuck in a glue trap, flapping up and down in a panic. Dragons glide, Aranya. They soar. They do not flap straight up and down like a child playing Dragonships, they tilt the wing to minimise drag on the forward stroke and maximise power and lift on the backward stroke. A figure of eight is basic to good flying.”
He demonstrated with his arms–for the tenth time, Aranya thought, crossly. The real problem lay between her ears, precisely as he said, in her inability to disassociate her Human brain from the business of flying. Don’t think. Just fly. Easy as breathing.
She followed his instructions yet again, showing the maximum extent of her incredibly flexible wing joints. She made her wing tips touch together ahead of her nose, then way above her back, before spreading her wings to their maximum extent, her struts straining and her muscles quivering as she held the required position.
Nak marched along her wing, tapping the salient points with his cane. “First joint, the shoulder. The second–your elbow, if you prefer–brings the wing bone forward again, although you can reverse it and lock the joint for the gliding configurations. Eleven flight struts, your primary struts, lie between the shoulder and the elbow. They are a light and flexible form of Dragon bone. Seven struts lie between the elbow and the third joint, your wrist. These provide power when used properly. All of your struts can curve with these ancillary muscles to provide additional shape to the wing’s surface. From the wrist to the wingtip we have five thinner struts. These provide manoeuvrability and fine control in the air. Now, the tail–”
“Nak. You’re filling her brain with technicalities,” said Oyda. “The poor girl’s mired worse than your stork in a glue trap.”
“Ha!” snorted Nak, resting on a boulder. He waved his cane. “Your pupil, master.”
Aranya glanced between them. They were so familiar with Dragons. So experienced. Nothing about Dragon-Aranya seemed to surprise Nak and Oyda. It was hard to believe that the rest of the Island-World did not feel the same way.
Advancing toward her with a posy of wildflowers held in her right hand, which she had been collecting, Oyda said, “I’ve been thinking.”
“Thinking is precisely the problem around here,” Nak interrupted.
Oyda quelled him with a fierce scowl of her own. “Right, my fledgling. Memorise these flowers.”
“I–um, what’s this got to do with–”
“Now, or it’s none of my honey biscuits for you later, you churlish wretch.”
Aranya studied the wildflowers. Five meadow daisies, a sprinkling of tiny blue-tinkles and three each of peonies, red anemones and tall bursts of fireflowers, made up her posy.
“Now, you will make a pass above the dell,” Oyda instructed. “While you fly, you will tell your Human brain to paint these flowers in every detail. I will question you afterward. And–do shut your yawning trap, petal. You’re catching flies.”
Grumbling to herself about how direct Nak and Oyda could be at times, Aranya thumped four-pawed over to the edge of the cliff, to her favourite outcropping, and threw herself into the air. This bit at least she had grasped. As usual, the moment she was aloft, her Human and Dragon brains went to war in her head. She immediately wallowed in the air. Every wing beat was a struggle.
Fine. She would paint flowers.
Aranya shot through the morning air. The deep golden sunbeams of a partial eclipse, the twin suns almost completely hidden behind Iridith’s bulk, seemed thick enough to swim in. She wheeled a thousand feet out and spun back on her wingtip for the required pass over t
he dell, where the figures of two tiny old people watched her intently.
She shaped meadow daisies. She concentrated on the finely bearded leaves of the fireflowers.
And she flew like a Dragon.
She raced across the sword-grass of the dell, almost brushing the blade-tips with her wingtips, before corkscrewing up above the forest bordering the heights and doubling back for a graceful landing that barely disturbed the still morning air.
Nak and Oyda smiled mysteriously at Aranya.
“Well? How was that?”
Nak wiped his eye. “Got a gnat stuck …”
“You old charlatan.” Oyda clipped the back of his head fondly. “That was Dragon, Aranya. Pure Dragon.”
* * * *
Two nights later, an hour before midnight, Aranya launched herself off the Sylakian bluffs at the edge of the dell. After drifting downward a thousand feet or so, Aranya trimmed her wings and swung to the north. Nak had advised two wingspans of clearance to guard against sudden changes in air currents as they swirled around the cliff’s rough outcroppings. “When you’re a better flyer, you can cut it finer,” he had advised. Despite the clear effulgence cast by the White moon and a sense of dangerous exposure, she stuck to his advice. Her nostrils flared in the flow of cool night air across her streamlined body. Night flowers? What was that scent?
Aranya ran Nak’s guidance on her mission through her mind. She stretched her wings and tried to find the most efficient way of harnessing the small amount of tailwind available. Human-Aranya painted flowers. Dragon-Aranya adjusted her wing struts; she surged through the air as though she had released an anchor. This would be the longest flight she had ever attempted, culminating in the minor issue of avoiding Nelthion’s guards on the walls and roof, and inside the Tower of Sylakia. To that end she carried a dark cloak in her right forepaw. She agreed with Nak–the awkwardness of transforming into a nude Human form was a problem for a Shapeshifter.
He rather fancied the idea, however.
For about two and a half hours, Aranya flew northward and a touch easterly around the bulge of mid-Sylakia, up toward the midway point of the large Island on its western edge. She noticed the ground rising steadily to her right hand–wing, she corrected herself silently, marvelling at the appendage as the White moon’s light shone through the thin membrane of the main surface, highlighting the bone struts and secondary and tertiary arteries that fed the skin and the flight muscles. This was beyond her dreams. This was Dragon flight, crossed by a windroc! She pulled up alertly. But the windroc went about its business without apparently noticing her. Aranya let out a long, gusty breath. Her Dragon instincts had immediately primed her body for battle. Time to calm down.
Aranya (Shapeshifter Dragons) Page 12