by Marc Secchia
Jakani seemed unaffected. Unbidden, as though drawn by strings deeper and more visceral than she knew, her thoughts bent to him. That … Dragon. Jakani in stance, but not. Jakani in speech patterns and accent, yet more. Striking of colouration. Not actually unhandsome, if one chose to ignore the lizard scales, the fangs, and the fires clearly pulsating behind gaze, chest wall and breath. Could she ever become used to … that? As opposed to her predilection for turning into a living pillar of fire?
Right, Tytiana. That put the boot on the other foot.
Could she ever learn to celebrate him being one of the Dragonkind, and her being less?
“Do you have something to say, daughter?” came the sneer from above.
“Am I your daughter?”
Across from her, Jakani audibly caught his breath. But the High Master merely chuckled indulgently. “Think you otherwise, Tytiana? Have you cause?”
“I just wonder where my magic comes from. I mean, it is draconic in nature, yet different. Is it like the power of that jewel, the Nestrakil, with which you summon Dragons to your bidding, father, or is your power innate?”
The low rumbling in Excorion’s chest gathered volume.
“Magic? What magic?” he sneered. “Come now, daughter, this is hardly about lineage. This is about your base treachery from the first, disrupting my plans and slaying good Dragons without cause. For that matter, noble Excorion, when did you learn of this hatchling’s capabilities and why did you keep these deathly secrets concealed from the rest of us?”
“I did no such thing!” the huge Brown blustered.
“Indeed? Peculiar how you knew exactly where Tytiana would be that hour she stood imperilled in a burning tower, and then you snatched her away together with the young Shapeshifter – care to share the reasons for your treachery with us? Or, what did you seek to gain?” An accusing finger pointed across the pit as the Merxxian Dragons shuffled restlessly behind him, like a terrible phalanx primed with fire and brimstone. She sensed their escalating vehemence. “Whom do you serve, Brown?”
To her surprise, however, the ordinarily crafty Brown shook his head and made no reply. Tytiana flicked her eyes to Juzzakarr. The stone?
“Perhaps you serve Immadia?” he suggested. “Perhaps that is why they arrived with such suspiciously excellent timing.”
Again, the Brown seemed unable to speak.
Conversationally, the High Master said, “Join your comrades in the pit, o Excorion the two-faced. I think it is time to excise this nasty little problem once and for all. Or, you can swear fealty to me forever after.”
Excorion growled, “No. I will never serve you, Juzzakarr.”
“Disobey, and I will have your shell-brothers executed, too,” the High Master said smoothly. The Brown’s stare could only be interpreted one way. Lethality. “Adazara, have your team encourage Excorion in the ways of obedience, would you?”
As the Brown made a threatening step forward, Tytiana saw Jakani beckon very slightly. To him? Aye. She wanted nothing more in the universe. For she knew what her father intended now, and this ballad did not end well for a Choice and her forbidden lamko love. Juzzakarr’s chosen style was epic tragedy.
She took a step. Krack. The cup finally snapped, leaving her artificial foot dangling only by its leather harness.
The world lurched around her.
* * * *
“Down!” Adazara’s roar thundered in the cavern as she flicked her wings outward.
Before Tytiana could fall or Jakani could reach her with a diving catch, he saw the heiress swept away by an overriding yet invisible force. The same force slapped against his nose and shovelled him across the pit in the opposite direction. One second later, the fiery girl was plastered against one wall and he against the other, and while he seemed to be clamped in place with barely a wingtip’s quiver by way of movement, she was oozing upward like a lava flow flouting the laws of gravity. Now that was truly peculiar. Useful trick!
Meantime, Adazara’s heavies spread out, surrounding the pit and Excorion, who growled, “You can’t bury a Brown Dragon, Juzzakarr.”
“You can if he’s dead.”
Excorion launched himself across the pit, but Adazara met him halfway with four of her Heavy mercenaries in close array. Despite that the Brown hammered one senseless and sent another hurtling over his head with a brutal, eviscerating blow, he was tackled and taken down hard, and left stunned at the base of the pit. Jakani winced at the backlash. A psychic blow? It was too much for Excorion, who apparently lost consciousness.
Tytiana was still oozing along in an attempt to escape from whatever force was holding them fast, but the Teal Dragoness and her cronies now exited the pit; Excorion’s supposed backup pair had not moved a muscle.
Juzzakarr said, “Good. All the riffraff together in one place.”
The Teal said, “What will you do with them, Juzzakarr?”
“No less and no more than traitors deserve,” the High Master said. “I wouldn’t give that Brown a chance by allowing him to burrow out. No, instead, I have offered a prize to the Morazi and Death cabals. First one to bring me the Dirt Picker’s ugly head wins.”
“And me?” Tytiana somehow managed to call out.
“You? You’re the lamko’s booty – if you’ll pardon the use of that most appropriate expression,” he smirked. “The instructions are that if you escape alive, the whole deal is off. No Dragon gets anything at all. You’re less than worthless, Tytiana. You’re the penalty prize.”
Jakani’s jaw would have dropped to his knees if he could have managed as much.
“Fly well, daughter.”
“Daughter?” she said bitterly. Even her flame seemed to weeping now, hanging lacklustre from “You’re no father to me. You never were.”
He just quirked an eyebrow. “So?”
Tytiana stiffened. Suddenly the flames raged and poured upward, until Adazara was forced to react and cast up some kind of additional barrier to prevent her progress; but the effort it cost her was clear and dear. Hotter. Yellower. Whiter now, burned her fires, and Jakani knew something terrible was about to erupt, and he cried, No, no, NO! TYTIANA!
The High Master deliberately turned his back.
“NA’AXION!” thundered the flame.
She could not more effectively have run a sword through his spine, so hard did Juzzakarr jerk; a strange, spasmodic movement that betrayed his shock all too clearly. When he swung back to the pyre his daughter had become, disregarding the frantic efforts of Adazara and two fellow-Blues to contain the phenomenon she was becoming, bending and shimmering the air about her with the force of her distress, his face was as grey as a storm cloud.
“What did you say?”
“I said ‘Na’axion,’ father. Do you perchance know the name?”
Now it was Juzzakarr’s turn to be struck speechless, but his expression was terrible to behold, a frenzy of indignation and purpling rage that bordered upon insanity. Jakani imagined he might just expire upon the spot, so gelid and throbbing were the veins in his neck and forehead, and so ghastly the sweat that erupted from his brow, as thick as half-frozen blood.
At last he spat, “You had better not be saying what I think you’re saying, Tytiana!”
“Had he red hair, much like mine?”
She spoke as if this were a mortal threat and accusation, and in his listening ear, as he called it, Jakani heard twin gasps. The High Master flinched as though she had slapped him soundly across the cheek. Throat trembling. His fist had clenched so tight upon the ruby he wore upon his chest, Jakani saw blood seeping between his knuckles and trickling down his wrist.
“Better – you – die! Come on!” Juzzakarr turned jerkily, as if something within him were broken. “I am done here.”
“No, you are not.”
In a flash of – sigh, pink sparkle-dust – the Princess of Immadia dropped from the air vent in the ceiling, jolting every Dragon present as she switched into her butterfly-Dragoness form. Bits of shre
dded dress ripped away from her Dragoness; she casually puffed the remnants of her under-slip away from her delicate nostrils.
“Na’axion is my uncle!” Shalanya cried. The pink Dragoness dimpled sweetly as she drifted down toward Tytiana. “If so, well met, noble cousin!”
Chapter 26: Double-Flame Dragon
IT WAS ONE thing being accused of familial ties. It was quite another to be named cousin by a pink, effervescent, flitting … well, something or other. Tytiana was not quite sure that was a Dragoness in the strictest sense of the word, but the frilly, cutesy, really far too unrelentingly pink creature clearly possessed snark by the Island-full, and she was not afraid to riffle her pretty wings and deploy her charms to maximum effect.
There was actually something perversely admirable about a girl who was comfortable with that much pink in her life. It was either going to be love or hate, she knew that full well.
The remarkable Dragoness had with her a dragonet too large, by any measure she had heard of in any ballad, to actually be a dragonet, besides that his colouration was pure white. The creature perched upon the pink-and-white Dragoness’ shoulder and glowered at Juzzakarr as if he had just discovered a walking pile of ralti droppings.
That made them the best of friends, she decided.
Besides which, he was holding that mischievous little egg in a proprietary way that assured her she had finally found the baby’s actual sire. Maybe it would soon hatch?
Now, that horrible lamko rat had better not be ogling – he was not. Lucky boy. He was staring at her, and moving his Dragon-lips as though he was saying something she really ought to understand. Unfortunately, Mister Dirt-for-Brains had not yet worked out she was not well-versed in lip reading the Dragonish language, nor would staring at her with that doleful look in his scrumptious … oh-so-fiery – sigh – eyes … do more for her than ignite her inmost fires in ways that were frankly less than appropriate for their perilous situation. Great leaping Islands! If she had not been afire already, she would have spontaneously combusted from just that one look.
Aye, Mister Sexy, I demand a kiss. Right now!
His eyes popped wide open as if he had eavesdropped perfectly upon her thoughts, and the luxuriant, ever-swirling colours of his eyes deepened to a zesty vermilion that caused even missing toes to imagine curling with pleasure. Oh!
Whomp! said her fires.
“Aargh, she’s escaping,” Adazara bellowed. “Back, High Master! Back!”
The awful pressure suddenly lifted. Tytiana rose above the rim of the pit, while Jakani, after flopping forward into a near-collision with the floor, deftly pretended that he was actually launching himself into a run and flitted up in completely the wrong direction, before he changed course abruptly.
They landed together above the pit – sparkles, fire, a white dragonet and the Onyx-Gold, and faced off against the High Master, who seemed pleasingly displeased by this development. When Tytiana stumbled because her fires misbehaved and would not compensate for her wobbling foot, a black paw from one side and a pink one from the other were quick to steady her.
“Ouch!” said the owner of the pink paw, snatching her talons back.
“Yeow,” Jakani grinned as she jolted him with their familiar spark. “She’s hot stuff.”
Nothing had changed about his brashness, clearly! That remark was pure-silk Jakani, right down to the overstated connotations. She loved that he was acting a touch possessive around her, but that smirk could definitely do with a good, hard slap.
The Merxxian force had formed up and were backing away across the gloomy cavern in a solid, clearly rehearsed phalanx, protecting the High Master in their midst. The air shimmered between the two groups as Adazara and the other two Blues of the mercenary group deployed protective shielding – calm, unhurried, completely professional. It seemed that their loyalty would not be shaken by anything that occurred here, and that the hold Juzzakarr exerted over them was complete.
Speaking to Tytiana, the pink Dragoness said, “I am Shalanya the Albino Shapeshifter Dragoness, and I also happen to be a Princess of Immadia. Flicker, the noble companion of the Star Dragoness herself, stands upon my shoulder. We are taking you under our protection, the protection of Immadia. High Master Juzzakarr, I have heard enough. More than enough. No potential relative of mine will be executed here without there being severe repercussions from all the powers of Immadia.”
“Is that so?” Emerging again from amidst his draconic escort, the High Master seemed to have recovered his poise and indeed, a measure of swagger.
“That is so.” Shalanya’s chin lifted.
“Dead Dragons sing no ballads,” he stated flatly.
“Nor do dead tyrants,” Tytiana put in. “You just can’t stand losing, can you, Juzzakarr?”
“It’ll be such a shame for your half-sisters,” the High Master threatened scornfully. “Just imagine how they will fare without their precious flame-haired guardian! Did Ahlyaza put you up to this, I wonder? Never mind. Adazara, it is time to put all this nastiness behind us. Shovel these traitors into the pit where they belong, and let’s let the cabals squabble over the scraps.”
For the first time, Tytiana saw Adazara baulk. “But High Master, this Dragoness is of royal Immadia.”
“What of it?”
“She is star-kin. Oath-bound to the Great Onyx, Fra’anior himself.”
Juzzakarr frowned, touching the gem. “What’s stopping you from doing exactly as I order?”
“This … negates the white-fires … of a Dragoness,” Adazara stumbled. A couple of her fellows jostled her angrily, urging her to obey. She said, “It is said that Aranya of Immadia is Fra’anior’s own kin, his –”
“I care spider droppings for Immadia!” roared the High Master.
Tytiana found herself gaping at Shalanya in a way that not too long ago, she would scornfully have ascribed to a lamko serf. This petite pink Princess was somehow related to the legendary Onyx of Fra’anior, only the greatest Dragon in history? Oof. Maybe respect was the least she could do. Maybe calling her names was … unwise. Maybe calling an Onyx-Gold Dragon various testy, zesty monikers was not exactly the height of wisdom, either!
Adazara the Teal shook her head, groaning, “No. No, this is Fra’anior the Onyx. He is first and highest. Higher than your orders, Juzzakarr, is the service of the mighty progenitor of all Dragons. I cannot …”
“OBEY!” he roared.
“No.”
Shalanya cried out, “Fight him, Adazara! Fight! He is using you, controlling your inmost fires with that profane stone he wears, that remnant of Dramagon’s power!”
Suddenly she was roaring and Juzzakarr was holding out his stone and thundering commands too, and Adazara broke out of her mercenary formation, clutching her head as if the fires of a volcanic hell had broken loose inside of her skull. That accursed jewel! Shalanya and Flicker broke to their right, while Jakani suddenly had her in paw and sprang to his left. The Teal Dragoness ran blindly between them and pitched into the pit, right on top of Excorion. The mercenaries closed ranks around the High Master, who with one final shriek, tore somehow from the Nestrakil the power to buffet the Princess with an unseen strike that clearly staggered her. As Shalanya dropped to one knee and then slumped backward into the pit, the man who was not her father back-peddled quickly toward the entrance.
Over his shoulder, he called, “Unleash the Dragons!”
At his command, several broad section of stone either side of the cavern’s entrance crumbled away, revealing the toothy grins of untold pirate Dragons. The cavern had been larger than they had ever imagined! The ranks of leering pirate Dragons, dozens and dozens strong, started forward with low growls like the rolling groan of an earthquake developing inside of their chests.
“Slay them all!”
* * * *
Seizing Tytiana by the waist, Jakani dodged the Teal Dragoness as she hurled herself headlong into the pit. Kaboom! Flame seemed to explode inside his mind; far worse, the blow
that Juzzakarr dealt to Flicker and Shalanya. His idea of escaping through the air vents, or better still using her unique teleportation gift, had just evaporated. Then, the High Master unleashed his forces, the Morazi and the cabal of Death. These were no beasts of nobility; no Dragons of the white-fires purity Adazara the Teal had recognised at last, before Juzzakarr struck her down.
How much would she hate herself after this?
If they survived.
Hold her more gently, you fool, he told himself, smiling at Tytiana. “Hey,” he said. “Any clever ideas, Miss Fire-for-Brains?”
“Well, I’m not exactly running anywhere without you, am I?”
And that was the moment something very unfamiliar and purely draconic, he realised, an emotion native to his new form, sprang to the fore. Thick-throated and throbbing of heart, he declared, “No, you are not – for thou art Tytiana the Radiant, mine eternal beloved!”
Whose tongue was it, exactly, that spoke in the language of ancient ballads? Her smile just widened until it dazzled more than all the fire wreathing her form.
“We’ll face this fate together,” she said.
“Together,” he echoed.
“For I love thee, Jakani the Onyx-Gold, secret warrior or no, Dirt Picker or no, lamko or no, with all that is woman and fire within me, and I love all that you are.” Tytiana’s voice cracked four times as she spoke, which he adored. “I am thine, forever.”
He crooned, “And I – watch out!”
The pirate cabals cared not a brass dral for declarations of love in the face of inconceivable odds. They swept across the chamber in a single, snarling mass of draconic fury, every beast for himself or herself, every one vying to be the one to win the honour and the bragging rights of bringing back one small black head, and to stamp out the fires of the girl he held in paw. They charged with a thunder that shook the Island to its roots. Even as they came they were already jostling and snapping and clawing at each other, like a living landslide that threatened to consume everything in its path.