Shoroko took a bucket and followed Thedarra as she led the way to a pond. He lowered his bucket to scoop, but she stopped him.
“Over there the water is fresher.” She pointed at a spot with bubbles. “Natural spring.”
They drew in silence, walked back to camp, and returned for a second trip. While Thedarra kneeled to fill her bucket, Shoroko stood behind her and cleared his throat. He discarded his typical macho voice and said softly, “Thedarra.”
She held the bucket in the water, but made no move to withdraw it. She stood so still, Shoroko could tell she was holding her breath.
“I need someone who is courageous.”
She drew a hard breath.
“I need someone who is smart.”
Thedarra slowly raised her bucket.
“I need someone who can keep her head when everyone else is losing theirs.”
She stood, straining to lift the water, but remained facing away.
Shoroko reached out and ran his hand through her hair, then stepped back.
Thedarra turned slowly. Her eyes lit with hope, and fear, and…
“I need a friend for a dangerous endeavor. A friend who can be trusted to keep a huge secret.”
Thedarra opened her mouth, shut it, wiped a tear from her face in embarrassment, and stomped past Shoroko, sloshing water in her wake. Shoroko hastily refilled his bucket and caught up with her.
“One more trip to the pond to hear me out – please!”
She spun about and clenched her fist. “I love you! And I can tell when a man’s using my feelings to get me to do something for him. You want smart? You picked the right girl, because any other girl you flex your muscles at would say yes faster than a dactylarry diving for its dinner.” She slammed her bucket against his chest and drenched his tunic. “Carry this one while I decide which way of saying ‘No!’ suits me best.”
* * *
Melissa closed her eyes and recalled jumbled images from the previous night: Lissai in flight, flashes of light in darkness, and big, pleading eyes. A dream? Or had White Talon tried to contact her? She could use advice on how to approach K’Pinkelek. As a younger lissair, he was not on her list of friends or foes, but as a Red, he might be trouble. She still smarted from his lightning strike. Thinking back on the battle, she recalled how the “irrigator” instigated her previous connection with White Talon by lightning. Perhaps K’Pinkelek’s conduit communicated more than electricity? If so, the message had been lost. She opened her eyes to see K’Pinkelek staring. How can one so large sneak up?
“Have I disturbed your contemplation? My fire is yours.” He bowed.
“No need to apologize. It was of you I was thinking. You risked much ending the conflict as you did. I am grateful, and wish to know you better.”
K’Pinkelek coiled his tail about him and sat down. “All you need know is that I am a loyal ollhatch of Blaze.”
“Then as a lissair of Blaze, tell me what provocation sent a Red clutch so far south to engage Hands in battle? I doubt you knew I was their captive until soon before you struck.”
His claws dug slowly into the dirt. “The second nesting ground near Borgash was desecrated. Half the olli smashed, shells licked clean.”
“Hands?”
“No, but only Hands could’ve guided the lizards around the traps.”
Melissa looked up. The clouds cleared and the sun beckoned. She needed to fly. She also needed an ally, but this lissair was too noble to desert his klatch. “I believe you were detached to obtain my confidence and give an advantage to Blaze when the time comes to select a new hlissosak, yet you speak with candor. Why do you undermine your chances?”
K’Pinkelek opened and shut his jaws rhythmically, then exhaled. A puff of gold flame jetted out, which the lissair shaped by gentle breaths into birds and cattle and finally the olissair herself. “White Talon has the keenest sight of all. Gaining knowledge by trickery is both futile and undignified.” He puffed at the pyro sculptures, extinguishing them.
“The ills facing us are too great for me to hide behind the privilege of my office. You have permission to question me directly.”
If White Talon’s eyes saw far, K’Pinkelek’s gazed deep. “Why do you fly alone?”
* * *
Thedarra sat on a rock, surrounded by rushes, cooling her feet in the pond, while Shoroko sat behind to her right, higher up the slope. Every time a doublenipper flew near, she drew a pebble from her lap and beaned the over-sized dragonfly on the head.
“Thedarra, you’re the only one I can trust. Talk to me.”
“You plough a straight line with your team, but you never get top price on market day. Why is that, Shoroko?”
“I have nothing to sell today. If you help me, it won’t make you rich, won’t make you friends – except me, and won’t get you a husband. It might stop a war.” A water snake slithered onto the bank. Shoroko idly grabbed a forked stick and hurled it. The stick pinned the snake’s head in the mud. It wriggled to get free.
Thedarra turned. “Got another stick for my head?”
“What if I told you why we could trust White Talon?”
Thedarra blew her hair from her face, spat a silent “Ha”, leaned over and grasped the snake by the head. With her other hand she pulled out the stick, brought the snake close enough to kiss, stared it in the face, and hurled it at Shoroko. He rolled to the side and the snake slithered into the grass.
“I trust White Talon more than I trust you. She lost her love.” Thedarra looked down and forced back the tears. “She understands me.”
“Would you like to understand her?”
Thedarra looked up at Shoroko’s face, saw his earnestness, and swallowed. “You really know something?”
“White Talon understands you because she is one of you. She’s a woman.”
“I know that.”
“No, I mean a human woman, a Hand. Trapped in a Lissai body. All because of me.”
Thedarra squinted while her mouth hung open. “Huh?”
“She’s not from here. She’s from the other world – where the new animals come from. Where our ancestors came from.”
“And the real White Talon?”
“They traded places. You have to keep this a secret. She’s the only one who can figure a way to keep us from civil war, but she needs our help. Will you help?”
She stood, walked to Shoroko and leaned over. “For a price.”
“I have nothing to pay with.”
“Oh, yes you do.” She kissed him, and he didn’t squirm away. “And carry the water.”
* * *
K’Pinkelek paced. “How much do you remember?”
“Not much,” said Melissa. “In dreams or times of stress, scraps surface. Now you have your leverage and I’m at your mercy. I’m unfit to rule Kibota in this condition, and this news will spread. Before my secret is learned, I must persuade Hands and Claws to allow me to conduct a thorough investigation into how the liosh became poisoned. But how, if my planning is based on inadequate information? If olli are being crushed, may not other breaches of the peace occur? The window for action is closing, when even truth won’t stop bloodshed and a perpetual alienation of Hands and Claws.”
“I am constrained,” said K’Pinkelek.”
“Would you be censured for telling me things I already know?”
“No.”
“Then tell me our history. Why are the klatches divided?”
K'Pinkelek swatted a branch of a charrospon tree and speared its unripe green fruit with his claws. “Your request just robbed you of lunch.” Crunch, slurp.
“Knowing who I am is all the food I need.”
“It will be a lean meal in the telling. The klatches are divided not for who we are, but for who we lost. We were once seven.
“Red be strong and
Silver wise,
White, O seer, discern the skies,
Brown, do whisper nature's tongue,
Green, rise swifter than the sun,
Black, till masterfully the soil,
Yet laugh before the scourge of toil,
Blue with merest breath reveal,
The channel of the life that heals.
Dance, O Lissai, on the wind,
Whose unity none can discind,
And charter no hand can rescind.”
A sickness infected the heart of this world, whose enormity was now clear to Melissa. “Blue, black and silver gone, and the rest of us turning on each other. Forgetting was a mercy. I had hope.”
“My words will not rekindle your hope,” said K'Pinkelek. “If hope comes from knowledge, it is knowledge hidden from me. The Song of Seven is little sung, because we are disunited, and forgot our charter. In the earliest days, the Lissai were granted a charter to defend a precious thing, but its name is as lost as the thing itself. Each family was endowed with a gift, to be used in service of all, and the gifts flowed from that which we protected.”
“Who authorized this charter?” asked Melissa.
“We forgot, so we call him the Grantor. He brought this treasure from a distant world, because those who protected it before us failed in their charge. On each of the seven families he bestowed a gift, the greatest to the Blues: endless life. In those days, Reds were honored for their strength, because with the Blues’ generous sharing of their healing power, the Silvers’ expert management, and the Whites’ clear vision, no hardship or obstacle could withstand us. We built gleaming cities, dug mines, canals, tunnels and roads and made Kibota prosper. Our people filled this world, living far beyond the mountain ring that now circumscribes our habitation.”
“Perhaps the missing are still out there, similarly confined.” Melissa looked into K'Pinkelek’s eyes for a morsel of hope, but his nostrils flared an unsatisfactory reply.
“On first hearing, every tender glissond says the same. Since our aged failed to avert this tragedy, perhaps we should listen to our young. But our youthful race imported the trouble, so maybe not.”
“Imported?”
“With the labor of building our world complete, none could imagine a finer place to spread their wings. All our kind celebrated a feast at the great mountain. Blacks prepared the meal, Greens danced in the sky, and the Brown’s song has never been equaled; every bird and beast understood their speech and all nature joined in. We Reds provided the music, and the joy of life exploded like the passing of a star.
“So enraptured were the Blues by this celebration of life, that their spirits broadcast our passion to the heavens. Outward sped their soul-shout, like ripples on water; it did not go unanswered.” K'Pinkelek paused from his telling to study Melissa’s reaction. “Do you not believe that distant worlds can hear our voice?”
“Not just believe; I rely upon it. Was it Hands who heard our song?”
“No, their hearing is poor. Birds, lizards, snakes, fish and mammoths answered with their pain. We celebrated life; they lamented death and agony. Kibby Sky the Blue felt the sting of death and compassion moved her. She called upon Honra Pearl the White, who ascended the mountain to gaze across worlds. Hearing unknown words, she repeated them to Charis the Brown, who interpreted. Whole species were being snuffed out. Every family contributed to the rescue. We Reds mined rare metals and assembled the door according to the Silvers’ design. The tunnel opened briefly, so only Greens were swift enough for the journey. We welcomed new creatures to our world. The Blacks excitedly discovered new fruit trees and vegetables and cultivated food for our new charges. And the Blues…”
“Created the hlisskans?”
“Yes, they shared their gift freely to ease the suffering of our world’s new inhabitants. What began as a singular event, became routine. The land between the mountains we ceded to the newcomers. Bounded by sea on the east, mountains to the north, west and south, and a gap opening into a desert in the west, we thought we could contain them and preserve harmony, sharing Kibota equitably.”
“Why is it we who are now contained?” said Melissa. Skandik walked by, pretending to ignore their conversation, but making sure the two Lissai weren’t scheming. Satisfied they were only discussing lore, he walked on.
“The Blues’ spiritual energy maintained the portal and enlivened the hlisskans, until catastrophe struck the other world and tens of thousands of species swiftly perished. Refugees flooded our world, climaxing during the week of the Great Wave. We lost access to the machines we constructed in Nehenoth. An unknown force robbed our vitality, our knowledge of mechanisms and numeracy, and the ability to turn our machines off. The flood of creatures brought disease, blight and weeds that choked our food supply. The Blacks’ numbers never recovered. The creatures spoke madness that tormented the gregarious Browns. It was decades before they reemerged from their warrens at Menagerie. They had to be taught again the essentials of speech. But the Blues, how we lament the loss of the Blues. They simply… surrendered. They wandered off, sapped of will and devoid of hope, and flew into oblivion, never to be seen again.”
“Your tale explains hardship and loss, but not the division,” said Melissa.
“It occurred during the forty-ninth census after the Great Wave, under the rule of Pelegelek the Brown. The story’s for no ears but yours, so I’ll tell it another way.” K'Pinkelek stomped on kellbriars and calissatails to flatten a runway, galloped along and launched into the air.
Melissa watched his gyrations, dives, nuanced tail movements, and fluid wing articulations with anxious pleasure, a mesmerizing but unintelligible aero-dance. Patients with amnesia remember basic skills like language, and physical movements learned by repetition, like playing an instrument or driving a car. There was a language to this dance K'Pinkelek expected her to understand. When she did not, how would he react? Her dream from the previous night gave evidence of an incomplete connection with her sundered ollisairean identity. She wished for an interpreter, but received a storm darkening the western sky.
K'Pinkelek approached the climax of his story, as he spewed fire in many colors, painting pyrotic words upon the air. Melissa felt a tingle. K'Pinkelek’s next flaming jet was black. That color I understand. Callyglip stood on a rise nearby, admiring the aerial show. “Get down!” Melissa charged through brush up the hill and hurled herself at the youth, who dove aside to avoid being crushed.
Craaaack-kaboom! A white knife sliced the heavens and played connect-the-dots with its targets. The bolt struck K'Pinkelek’s protective black smoke shield, careened on to Melissa, before its final hop onto Callyglip and into the ground. She smelled ozone, then burnt flesh, then nothing at all.
Before regaining consciousness, Melissa revisited her dream, with images less jumbled. It’d been a lissair calling, not White Talon, but whom?
* * *
Melissa did not miss another meal. Thedarra prepared dinner while others attended to Callyglip. While slurping a vat of vegetable stew, Melissa studied K'Pinkelek. He sat to the side, eyes closed, meditating. He held his right claw forward, turning it this way and that in a deliberate pattern. Light of Blue, come on through. Light of Blue, come on through. Return and heal, we need you. She spotted those infernal scaliburrs floating in her tureen and sampled one. Mmmm. Like walnut and green apple. She munched another. Then she realized she’d understood the lissair’s sign language.
Melissa almost dropped her tureen. She turned to conceal her surprise, and saw Thedarra trying to feed her injured assistant, whose moaning rejected her offer. The olissair rose and padded over. “I am stronger. Let me try.” At the merest breath, a tendril of blue flame slithered from her mouth and bathed the blackened flesh, bringing instant healing. Effortless.
“Thanks.” Callyglip sat up and took the spoon from Thedarra. His hands twitched and shook. He saw a scowl on Ecraveo’s lips. “Sir, I’m sorry I held us up. I’ll be fit to journey tomorrow.”
“Just as well,” said Ecraveo. “A message came while you were out. That fool doctor, Jessnee, went chasing useless rodents northwest of here and we have to fetch him back.
He’s part of the council. If we only lose one day we’ll be lucky.”
“Why us?” asked Thedarra.
Ecraveo pointed to Melissa and K'Pinkelek. “Eyes in the sky.” He scratched behind his quagga’s ears. “I’m not losing another mount to the Osh Pits.”
Melissa lifted her claw and awkwardly signed to K'Pinkelek. “Your earlier dance was beautiful, but without meaning. The lightning restored my comprehension. May I request a reprise?”
K'Pinkelek’s eyes widened and nostrils flared in surprise. He turned to the Hands. “We are thirsty. We shall return shortly.” At the spring, K'Pinkelek satisfied his thirst, before repeating his story in the language called siglissik, this time remaining on the ground. “All were assembled around the great mountain, observing a day of contemplation. In an act of abasement, each klatch modeled the negation of its essence. Reds, strong and active, sat still. Silver’s, gifted in leadership, served the meals. Whites shut their eyes, Greens moved in a slow dance, and the able-tongued Browns remained silent. As the feast ended, Pelegelek, Hlissak of Menagerie and Hlissosak of Kibota, ascended Speaker’s Rock. Inward waves of electricity beat upon the assembly, prelude to the arrival of a distant call. As Pelegelek opened his mouth, a glimmer appeared at the mountain’s feet. The glow brightened, lengthened, a dark spot opened in its heart, and out stepped a golden creature.”
Melissa flailed her claws ineptly. “What kind? Lissai? Hand?”
“It was like and unlike our kind, lacking wings and three times our size, its features smoother. Its relief at escaping a dangerous place lasted until it turned and saw our multitude. As it stood in terror, Pelegelek flew down to convey our peaceful intentions. Our leader could speak with every kind of animal, sensible or not, so when he opened his mouth, all expected wisdom, courtesy and clarity to flow like golden zizza sap from his tongue. His words held none of those things. The golden creature ran off, and Pelegelek signaled to the other hlissaks. Their council ended before it began. The leaders could not understand one another. For a day the linguistic confusion caused panic, but our deep affections preserved the peace. Then the migration arrived and our defense collapsed. Divided speech became divided allegiance, and our civilization died.” K'Pinkelek returned to oral speech. “Have I answered your question?”
A Most Refined Dragon Page 10