Author: Marc Secchia
Date: 2015-04-11 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Fantasy; dragons; Young Adult; Magic; Romance; Fiction; Science Fiction Fantasy; Paranormal; Steampunk
Description: Listening length: 17 hours and 13 minutes Stabbed. Burned by a dragon. Abandoned for the windrocs to pick over. The traitor Ra'aba tried to silence Hualiama forever, but he reckoned without the strength of a dragonet's paw and the courage of a girl who refused to die. Only an extraordinary friendship will save Hualiama's beloved kingdom of Fra'anior and restore the king to the Onyx Throne. Flicker, the valiant dragonet. Hualiama, a foundling, adopted into the royal family. The power of a friendship which paid the ultimate price. This is the tale of Hualiama Dragonfriend and a love which became
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.

Dragonfriend

Book 1 of Dragonfriend

By Marc Secchia

Copyright © 2015 Marc Secchia

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher and author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

www.marcsecchia.com

ISBN: 978‐1‐78301‐693‐8

Cover art copyright © 2015 Joemel Requeza

Cover font design copyright © 2015 Victorine Lieske
www.bluevalleyauthorservices.com

Dedication

May the ageless wisdom of an Ancient Dragon

Transform your soul.

May you fly as high as a mighty Dragon

To all the Islands of your life.

And may the matchless courage of a dragonet

Fire your heart, forever.

From Elegy by Hualiama of Fra’anior

Table of Contents

Dragonfriend

Dedication

Table of Contents

Map of the Island-World

Chapter 1: Flying

Chapter 2: Flicker

Chapter 3: Storm

Chapter 4: Caves

Chapter 5: A Dragonet’s Pet

Chapter 6: Forging Friendship

Chapter 7: Waterfalls of Dragons

Chapter 8: Within Ha’athior

Chapter 9: Charming Monks

Chapter 10: Master Jo’el

Chapter 11: Avalanche

Chapter 12: Ya’arriol Burns

Chapter 13: Prophecy

Chapter 14: Into Hiding

Chapter 15: Dragon Grave

Chapter 16: Baiting a Dragon

Chapter 17: Kidnapping

Chapter 18: A Dragon’s Oath

Chapter 19: Dragonback

Chapter 20: Ambush

Chapter 21: Rolodia

Chapter 22: Maroon Madness

Chapter 23: The Longest Flight

Chapter 24: Searching

Chapter 25: Ants and Slaves

Chapter 26: The Slave Mines

Chapter 27: The Flight Home

Chapter 28: False King

Chapter 29: Ra’aba

Chapter 30: The Onyx Throne

Chapter 31: Sacrifice

Chapter 32: Asleep with Dragons

About the Author

Appendix

Map of the Island-World

Larger size available at www.marcsecchia.com

Chapter 1: Flying

Twisting free FROM her manacles, Lia surged to her feet. She rapidly gathered a six-foot length of chain between her hands.

At her sudden movement, startled oaths burst from two young soldiers assigned to their cabin. Clad in the midnight-blue of Fra’anior’s Royal Guard, the soldiers watched over Lia and Fyria, her royal sister, as a Dragonship bore them into exile–likely, to a place of execution.

“What’re you doing?” squeaked Fyria.

“Escaping,” said Lia.

Eyes bulging, the soldiers whipped out their swords. One snarled, “Not by the fires of this caldera, you aren’t!”

“Here,” said the other, crooking his finger in a crude gesture. “Little girl want to play–urk!”

Lia lashed out with the chain as he spoke. The metal links snaked around the man’s neck. She sprang sideways, up against the Dragonship’s cabin wall. Using her captive as a counterbalance, Lia stepped briefly along the lightweight wall to avoid the first soldier’s lunge, before dropping nimbly behind him. A swift kick of her slipper-clad foot propelled the man into the corner where her Royal Highness the Princess Fyria’aliola of Fra’anior–Fyria, for short–lay in chains.

Planting both of her feet, Lia used her full weight to spin the chained soldier about. His forehead struck a metal stanchion with a meaty smack. The soldier slumped. Unholy windrocs, that crazy manoeuvre had worked? No time to exult.

“Aye, I’m little,” she snapped, relieving the man of his sword. “Want to play some more?”

“Mutiny!” yelled the first soldier. “Help!”

Lia swayed away from his flickering blade. She pirouetted into her parry with the poise of a skilled dancer. A cut appeared on her arm as if by magic. She flung her elbow upward, catching the soldier in the throat. As he choked, Lia finished him with a sharp rap of her sword pommel to the base of his skull.

The cabin door crashed open. Half a dozen soldiers boiled into the room, led by the hard-bitten Captain of the Royal Guard, Ra’aba. “You,” he growled. “Ever the troublemaker!”

“Traitor!” Lia spat in return. She raised her blade.

Captain Ra’aba, called ‘the Roc’ after the windroc, a ferocious avian predator with a wingspan of up to eighteen feet, stilled his men with a gesture. “Hualiama,” he said, his scarred face twisting into a grin as he mangled her full name with great force, “Little Lia. I trained you myself. How can you possibly hope to best me?”

She said, “I can’t. But I will protect my family–”

“Your family?” he snorted. “You’re a royal ward–about as much a Princess as I am.” When she only raised her elfin chin as if wishing to skewer him upon its point, he added, “Everyone knows you’re an unwanted, bastard whelp of a cliff-fox the Queen took pity on.”

Hualiama flushed hotly. “At least I’m not a worm who betrayed the people who gave him everything. Go cast yourself into a Cloudlands volcano–”

Ra’aba drew himself up with a sneer. “You forget you’re speaking to the future King of Fra’anior, girl. Now, kneel and swear fealty, or it is I who will be casting you off this Dragonship.”

“You wouldn’t dare!”

“Oh, little Lia, who’d stop me? A Dragon?”

Relish twisted his lips; the harshness of his scorn unnerved her. Little Lia. The nickname she hated more than any other.

Staring up into his flat, fulvous eyes, Hualiama realised why she had never trusted this man. Her sword-point wavered; the Roc still had not drawn his weapon. She knew how fast he was with a sword. Ra’aba had never been beaten. If the legends spoke true, no weapon had ever touched him, neither in training nor in battle.

“Last chance,” he said. His stance bespoke nothing but absolute command and confidence. Lia tried to summon her courage back up from her boots, as the Isles saying went. “Girl, you’re fifteen summers of age. You’re a foot shorter than I am, hopelessly clumsy with a blade, and if I’m not mistaken, today’s your birthday. Choose wisely. Choose life.”

“Just as you’re promising life to my family?”

“Banishment,” he shrugged. “Uncomfortable and permanent, aye, but hardly deadly. After all, which Fra’aniorian Islander would accept me if I had royal blood on my hands? King Chalcion will abdicate; I shall ascend the Onyx Throne in his stead.”

He rolled his muscular shoulders, a silent threat. “Now, haven’t you fomented enough grief for one day, Hualiama? Join me, and I’ll promise you a place in my kingdom.”

Her family! Her little brothers! She did not care greatly for haughty, vain Fyria, but she loved her brothers and her mother, Queen Shyana, to distraction. Just that morning, the Roc’s men had staged a bloody, well-planned revolt. Lia had killed two soldiers with her own hand while protecting Princess Fyria, only to wake on Ra’aba’s Dragonship with a lump on her head and no memory of the balance of the day. Judging by the low, ruddy rays beaming in through the porthole, evening approached.

The Dragonship flew southwest, she calculated. Had they already crossed the rim of Fra’anior’s volcanic caldera? Would his threat land her on one of the rim-Islands, such as Ha’athior, or drop her into the Cloudlands, the realm of deadly, opaque gases which lay more than a league below the Human-inhabited Islands of her home?

She could not beat seven elite soldiers.

Allowing her shoulders to slump and her lower lip to quiver, she said, “You win, Ra’aba.”

He began to nod.

With a snap of her wrist, Lia hurled the sword at him.

Almost, the ploy succeeded. Had the Roc not been wearing metal wristlets, or had the blade struck his body armour slightly more squarely, Ra’aba would have been gutted like a ralti sheep prepared for a spit-roast. To her dismay, the blade deflected off his left wristlet, tearing a shallow gash in the armour above his hip. Blood welled up immediately, but not much.

Go! Lia dived for the second soldier’s blade.

Men piled on her. Grunting, wriggling, elbows and knees thrashing, drawing their curses as she jabbed a man in the eye … the soldiers subdued her, wrenching her arms behind her back, putting a dagger to her throat. A rough hand gripped her headscarf together with a handful of her pale hair, jerking her head upright, forcing her to meet the Roc’s gaze.

Ra’aba glared at her, the set of his scarred mouth so draconic, that Hualiama pictured him changing into a Dragon and lunging at her, talons poised to rend her flesh. His fingers explored the cut at his side. Ra’aba wiped the blood across his mouth, sucking the crimson off his fingertips with cold deliberation. Murder blazed in his eyes.

The Captain growled, “Fine. Let her go. Give the girl a weapon.”

“My Lord Captain …”

“Give her a cursed sword!”

Hualiama shook off the hands holding her, tasting blood in her mouth, too. A sword hilt pressed into her fingers. Her heartbeat raced off over the Cloudlands. She confronted the man said to be the most dangerous swordsman in the kingdom. He was tall and heavily muscled, yet possessed of a lithe elegance of movement that had always struck Lia as improbably feline. The burns splashed across his left cheek, running from his eye down across the corner of his mouth, flamed reddish-purple beneath the inimical fires of his narrowed eyes. He meant to kill her.

This was no way to spend a birthday. Mercy.

As if echoing her thoughts aloud, Fyria whispered, “Mercy, Ra’aba. Please. She’s just a girl.”

He snarled, “Nobody cuts the Roc and lives to tell the tale!”

Captain Ra’aba’s attack jarred Lia so powerfully that her teeth clacked together. He was a supremely skilled swordsman, but he hacked at her in a demented fury, by sheer strength beating her backward across the cabin. Always, Hualiama felt graceless with a blade in hand. Jerking this way and that, she kept Ra’aba out with a flurry of desperate parries. Great Islands, how could any man be possessed of such demonic strength? The Roc pounded Lia to her knees.

“Get up!” His finger crooked beneath her nose. “Fight me, you little dragonet. Fight!”

When Lia rose, he smashed the blade out of her numb fingers.

Fyria shrieked, drawing Ra’aba’s attention for a fraction of a second, allowing Lia to kick off the wall and upset his balance. As she darted past, the Captain swivelled and slashed at her unprotected back. The blade bit deep.

Hualiama arched in agony, grabbing for the air, for a wall, for the mail shirt of a soldier who kept her upright with a rough thrust of his forearm. The soldier spun her about; Lia’s green eyes flicked to Ra’aba, who bowed slightly, his expression turned unaccountably gentle. Lia wondered if he had decided to end his lesson. Had his pride not been satisfied by that cruel cut? She felt nothing, as though the nerves had been amputated so suddenly, they had been unable to signal her brain. Then, the muscles of his jawline hardened. Lia stifled a sob. Warmth dripped down her back, each drop a wordless testimony to the gravity of her wound.

“Pick up the sword, girl,” he ground out.

Several soldiers sighed, but no-one lifted a finger to help her. Fyria’s sobs from the corner betrayed what they all knew. Stiffly, Lia retrieved the fallen sword. She wondered if Ra’aba’s stroke had chipped chunks of bone off her spine. Her flesh flapped loosely, slapping against her back with a wet, plopping sound. Now, the pain roared through her like a hunting Dragon bellowing his paralysing challenge. Whiteness crashed over her vision. Lia pressed against the wall to keep from falling. Stand. Lock the knees. Fight!

She turned to face Ra’aba, despite the nadir of pain devastating her body. She raised her blade with a supreme effort. Lia hissed, “I’m ready.”

The Roc nodded, raising his blade to his forehead in an ironic salute to her bravery. He said, “Perhaps it is better this way.”

Lia stumbled into the attack, swinging her blade in looping blow, so sluggish that it seemed she fought underwater. Captain Ra’aba had no such difficulty. Sidestepping adroitly, he punched his left fist into her stomach.

His hand clasped a dagger.

The pain cut her in half. It felt as though her spine had been severed, for Lia lost all feeling in her legs. Only Captain Ra’aba’s iron grip held her upright, folded over the impaling blade. The sword clattered to the floor. Her lungs heaved for air. With each breath pain shot up her spine and tore into her skull like a blood-frenzied Dragon’s claws.

“Foolish girl,” he said.

She wheezed, “Why?”

Ignoring her, Ra’aba nodded at two of his troops. “You two. Throw this piece of trash overboard.”

His voice echoed as though he had shouted down a darkening tunnel. She had to move, to speak, but she was powerless. Lia knew she had to save her family. How odd, an inner voice said. Her life was not meant to end like this. As the Captain dragged her toward the doorway, spitting furiously at his unwilling soldiers, she met Fyria’s tear-filled eyes. The Princess must have thought being hauled out of the Palace in chains was the worst imaginable fate.

A brutal education.

Outside the cabin, the warm, fragrant winds of her beloved Fra’anior ruffled her hair. The Island-World seemed ablaze in fresh and miraculous colours, as though a Dragon’s breath infused all with mysterious wisps of white-golden fire, and in the slowing of time between her heartbeats, Hualiama understood not only that there was magic in the world, but that it pervaded everything she perceived, touched and smelled. The taste on her tongue was its fiery signature. She breathed, and an inrush of fire seared her spirit, yet conversely, brought an unexpected sense of serenity. The fire cleansed without consuming, a touch of love rather than torment. Was this a memory, or a fragment of insight garnered as her soul readied itself for an eternal flight?

Inanely, Lia realised that the soldiers had torn her headscarf away. She was improperly dressed.

The Roc lifted her five feet and two inches frame with ease. As he manhandled her toward the safety railing which lined the gantry beneath the Dragonship’s hundred-and-fifty-foot hydrogen balloon, Lia saw the unmistakable profile of Ha’athior Island’s double volcanic cone abaft their starboard beam. Ahead and several miles below lay a tiny side-volcano, nestled against its parent like a Dragon hatchling taking comfort against an enormous mother’s flank. After that? Crimson-tinged Cloudlands lapped unbroken from the Islands to the horizon’s skirts, a deathly carpet clothed in immeasurable, brooding majesty.

Strange. She had always wanted to experience Dragon flight.

The touch of cool metal against her back provoked a sudden, final outpouring of strength. Reaching behind her, Hualiama caught her long braid in her fingertips.

“Any birthday wishes, little Lia?” chuckled Captain Ra’aba.

“Rot in–” she inhaled sharply, choking on blood “–a Cloudlands hell.” Reaching up, Lia jabbed her three-inch long, razor-sharp hairpin into his windpipe, several inches below his left jawbone.

He wheezed, “You …”

As Ra’aba recoiled, the flailing of his arms tumbled her over the edge. Lia screamed endlessly as she fell through the ruddy beams of a perfect Fra’aniorian suns-set.

Chapter 2: Flicker

WHEN a Scream split the early evening sky, a dragonet lurking nearby almost spilled his mouthful of lemur intestines. What? He hated to be distracted from the spoils of his hunt. His green eyes narrowed against the glare of the sky-fires, the eyes of the Great Dragon which seared the world with their unrelenting gaze. One of those two-legged ground-creepers was trying to fly? Loops of grey intestines dangled either side of his jaw as he gaped at this spectacle. The creature thrashed its spindly, useless appendages as it plummeted from one of their fat flying balloons.

How awkward and ungainly! Imagine trying to fly with no wings?

A premonition prickled his scales. The dragonet’s mirthful gurgle snagged in his throat, replaced by a hissing stream of fire. Wrongness. The thin wail of the creature’s terror.

Before he knew it, Flicker sprang off the obsidian boulder he had adopted as his table, knocking his favourite meal into a patch of nearby jiista-berry bushes. He flapped his wings madly, taking him over a rocky outcropping before a neat flip upended him. Tail jutting skyward, he chased the creature down the four-mile vertical cliff which demarcated the south-western periphery of Ha’athior Island. Faster! Pump the wings! In seconds he whipped by acres of lush overhanging trees, a dozen dark-mouthed caves and a flight of red dragonets practising their song-dance of praise to the Magma Dragon, which roared beneath the roots of their Island.

At two and a half feet in wingspan, and just under two feet from muzzle to tail-spike, Flicker was no unusual size for a dragonet of his nine summers of age, but his smoky green colour was unique amongst his kin. His egg-mother certainly thought him very strange, especially how he studied the ways of the creatures above the cliffs. It’s dangerous for dragonets up there, she scolded him. The two-legs put dragonets in metal cages.

What a horror!

But the mighty Dragons of the mountain peaks sang to his spirit, and the doings of the two-legs were endlessly fascinating. How could such stupid, flightless creatures force metal and stone to bend to their will? They made absurd squiggles on animal-skin scrolls, and were so hopeless at hunting, they had to keep giant ralti sheep penned up next to their stone warrens. They travelled with their clumsy flying balloons and fought other Human warrens with metal sticks, instead of working together under a warren-mother’s wise guidance.

Well, this one’s idiocy had to trump them all.

A strange-smelling red liquid splattered his face as he tucked his wings in to accelerate, just a few tens of feet away from the creature now as it tumbled into the void. Flicker gasped with the effort. If it could just slow a little, maybe extend that skin covering to make wings, the creature might slow its headlong fall. It made another screeching noise which set his fangs on edge.

Down, down it fell. The cliffs blurred past, the heat increasing by the second, the rocks and long, trailing vines flashing past his wingtips. Flicker inched closer, measuring the creature’s trajectory. It would strike near the base of the cliff, splattering its brains out on the slope before being picked over by windrocs and other aerial predators. Would its brains make a tasty meal?

Regardless, his seventh sense impelled the dragonet onward. He had to save this creature.

Reaching out with his paws, Flicker gripped the creature’s body covering and began to flap mightily. Great eternal fires, it flew like a rock! It did not even pretend to help. Obstinately, he struggled on, ignoring the pain in his wings and joints. If he could just change the angles enough, drag it a few more feet in the air … foliage slapped his cheek. More! With a scream of his own, the dragonet allowed his wings to cup the air, slowing them at the expense of a tearing sensation in his major flight muscles.

Whap! They slammed into a leafy branch, bursting right through it in a spray of greenery. The creature hurtled through a patch of tangled vines, stripping them in an explosion of ripe fruit and a flurry of leaves. The resulting rotation almost flung him free, but Flicker was not done. He dug his claws into the creature’s soft flesh, and flared his wings again.

Another, sturdier branch smacked the creature in the side. Thankfully he missed that one, but lower down, there was a huge branch overhanging the red-hot lava flows a mile below. So low already! Right in the danger zone, beyond which even dragonets feared to venture. This was his last chance. Flap, flap and flap again! Wrench this lumpen creature by any means possible into the right trajectory, screaming, muscles burning, magic assisting … thump! They bounced. Rebounded twice more, and then lay swaying on a broken, leafy bed.

Flicker opened and closed his jaw.

I am awesome, he told himself, and fainted.

* * * *

When he woke, a volcanic twilight enflamed his world in auburn and gold hues. Flicker began to stretch before stopping with a grimace. Unholy monkey droppings, what a bad idea. He eased his wings. No more flying for him, not for several days, he suspected.

Oh … the creature lay right next to him, face-up to the blushing skies, breathing shallowly. It had a green cloth covering on its body, and a large patch of crimson stained its stomach area. Was that its blood? He flinched. Grotesque! Not even a hint of gold, unlike the blood of Dragons.

Wake up, weird creature, he chirped.

It did not move.

Flicker stretched out a paw curiously, hesitated, and then pricked its limb with his talon. How daring was he? The creature’s skin was so supple, it yielded immediately to his touch. More red welled up. He winced. What was the matter with its hide? It didn’t have hide? Now, what word had the scrolls used? Skin, yes. He rolled the unfamiliar word across his forked tongue. They had skin, not Dragon hide, a covering so smooth and colourless it reminded him of a newborn, blind rodent. His stomach-fires soughed uneasily. Its limbs were long but supported no wing struts or elastic membranes. How could it have hoped to fly?

Instinctively, his tongue flicked out to taste the creature’s blood, finding it rich and metallic, full of enigmatic undertones. Without warning, a vision struck him. A big creature beat this smaller one with a flat piece of metal. They exchanged meaningless sounds. The little one attacked, but it was not as powerful a beast as the one with the fungal growth on its face. The big one stuck a shard of metal into this one’s stomach.

Flicker’s throat swelled. Murder? A fight to the death?

Was this creature a female of their kind, rather than a handsome male like him?

By the fires of the Ancient Dragons, she had to be the ugliest female of a species he had ever encountered! Flicker shifted closer to examine her face, fascinated and repelled in equal measure. When she sighed and shifted, he shrank back, all three hearts tripping along, but then she made a purring sound like a sleeping dragonet. Well! What a foolish idea, sleeping outdoors at night. Perhaps she was as stupid as she was ugly? Just look at her flat, squashed muzzle, and her tiny nose. How could she scent food with that thing? Strange blades of grass sprouted from her head, grass as pale and golden as the wisps that grew lower down the cliffs, near the caldera, bleached by the heat and gases. Her paws had talons, but they were weak and clearly impractical for rending her prey.

The dragonet cocked his head to one side, his eyes roiling with Dragon fire. Well, you’re not dead, he said, speaking Dragonish telepathically. Say, ‘thank you for rescuing me, Flicker.’

She snored.

He tried speaking aloud. I do declare, you’re the bravest, most beautiful dragonet in this entire Island-Cluster, Flicker. I am eternally in your debt.

Drool slipped from the corner of her mouth; saliva laced with more of her freakish blood.

She was wounded, probably dying! Her body fluids oozed forth steadily–and he prattled on like an empty-headed parakeet about his looks? Abruptly, Flicker retreated, muttering, I’ve done you wrong, strange creature.

That night, sore-pawed and even sorer of wing and muscle, he hunted up and down the cliffs for the herbs and roots he needed. Using several broad fli’iara leaves as his worktable, the dragonet shredded and prepared his materials, making a selection of poultices which he masticated carefully in his mouth, adding his highly antiseptic dragonet saliva to the mashing process, and no small dose of magic. The Ancient One had taught him well.

Only, would his medicines work on one of their kind?

Flicker eyed the branch judiciously. At least he had picked an excellent landing place. The branch jutted four hundred horizontal feet from the main Island, but had a soft, leafy crown which he had picked out perfectly. He blinked his double eye-membranes several times, showing his happiness. Even this clumsy female could not easily fall from their nest among the leaves, although he worried about windrocs, vultures and feral Dragons, to name just a few aerial predators.

His deft paws made short work of tearing her covering and pulling it aside, revealing a deep double puncture wound in her belly. Nasty. He drew out the shard of metal which had made the wound, before licking the site clean with care. The dragonet wrinkled his nose at the odour of her skin. She tasted salty. At least it was not a foul taste, but he decided he should wash out his mouth at the first opportunity. No telling what unmentionable diseases her kind might carry.

The dragonet stuffed the holes full of his most potent healing mixture. There, that should stop her leaking. Muttering fussily to himself, Flicker covered the wound’s open lips with another poultice, before checking the rest of her body for further wounds. She had an impressive collection.

Just let the Ancient One see him now!

Since no other creature was nearby to express due admiration, he congratulated himself, Ha, I’ve saved the life of a two-legged straw-head, a mighty and worthy deed!

By the radiant light of the Yellow moon, Iridith, which covered half of the southern horizon, Flicker saw that the branches beneath her body were slick with blood. He sighed. What dragonet had a chance of lifting such a lump of flesh? How demeaning, now he had to crawl through the branches beneath her body to find where else she was wounded.

The gash on her back, however, made his fiery eyes darken with anger. See what that fungus-faced, mange-ridden rat had done! A flap of skin roughly the size of his right wing hung loose from her back, torn and dirty, already attracting flies. How did flies find an open wound so quickly? By the stench of her blood? If he did not treat this, she would be infested with maggots before the next Blue moon. Admittedly, maggots tasted much like lemur meat, they were just squishier. Yum.

Perhaps she might share her maggots with him? There was an agreeable thought.

With a contented gurgle, Flicker returned to his medicines. Now, where to start? If she was anything like a dragonet, her hide was a sack which held the fluids inside. First, the wound must be thoroughly cleaned. After that, the muscles should be returned to their rightful places, and the hide sewn together to prevent it from shifting about while she healed.

He worked for several hours more before deciding, with a huge yawn, that his heroism and dauntless service ought to be rewarded with a nap for the remaining three hours of darkness.

* * * *

Lia dreamed the blasphemous dream.

Once, she had dared to tell Fyria about her dreams. Her sister relayed them to their father; King Chalcion beat her with his fists. That was the day she learned, to the tune of a broken rib and a split lip, that people did not dream about flying with Dragons. Only wicked, depraved girls dreamed about soaring over the everlasting thermals of Fra’anior’s great caldera upon wings a hundred feet wide, which cut the moons like crystal blades.

She woke with a choked-off sob. A daytime thermal drove hot, faintly rancid air up from the depths. Up at Island level, a league above the Cloudlands, the air would be fragrant with the scent of a thousand pollens and rich with birdsong and dragonet-song, but down here, the heat shrivelled her lungs. Lia’s eyes traversed the lush green precipice rising above her until it was lost in the mists above. She wondered dully why she roosted in a tree.

Captain Ra’aba’s dagger! Falling through the twin suns’ warm, radiant beams … she was alive? Ridiculous! Off-the-Islands crazy.

Despite the heat, her body felt chilled. Hualiama shifted her aching neck to examine her wounds. Shock jolted her as she discovered a green dragonet curled up against her left shoulder, purring softly in his sleep, just like a wild rajal kitten she had once tried to tame. How sweet! The tiny paws twitched slightly and the eyes darted about behind the animal’s shuttered eyelids as though it dreamed. She saw multi-jointed wings, folded neatly back to its sides. It had a row of spine spikes which exactly matched those of the Lesser Dragons who roosted at Gi’ishior Island to the west of her home, and at Ha’athior, and claimed many other Islands for their homes. But Fra’anior’s great volcano was the most ancient and beloved of Dragon roosts, where Dragons lived on the peaks and in the caves, and Humans on their Islands, in an often uneasy truce.

Lia moistened her lips with her tongue. She remembered small, fluttering wings, and the sharp clasp of talons. This dragonet had rescued her, landing her on Ha’athior Island? That was the only possible explanation. She had explored the caldera and its twenty-seven Islands many times, sailing her single-handed or solo Dragonship with her brother Elki, or alone. Even Elki, more mischievous than a troop of monkeys rolled together, had never set foot on holy Ha’athior Island. Dragons tended to take a dim view of trespassers. They dropped them into lava flows or hurled them into the Cloudlands.

Nobody crossed a Dragon.

And whoever had dreamed up the misnomer ‘Lesser Dragon’ to describe an awesome reptilian predator which grew up to a hundred and twenty feet in wingspan, and could devour a three-thousand pound ralti sheep in a sitting, had to have a flock of chattering lovebirds for brains. Dragons were the mightiest creatures of the Island-World, bar none.

That did not stop some people dreaming about them.

Craning her neck gingerly, Hualiama worked out that she lay on a leafy, spreading branch a mile above an open magma pit. She was further down the cliffs than she had ever been, probably being poisoned by the Cloudlands’ toxic gases. Her right arm was heavily bruised, almost definitely broken. Between her shoulder blades, her back ached as though Ra’aba had cut her open a second time. And her stomach–great Islands! Someone had cleaned the wound and stuffed it full of green pulp. She saw very little bleeding on the outside, but she did not want to think about the mess inside.

This must be the dragonet’s work–just look at the neat piles of herbs stacked on broad leaves near her left hand, and the sticky green mess still visible on the animal’s paws.

Impossible. Dragonets were beautiful, amazing, and as thoughtless as the average clump of rocks. What they could do was sing. Often, when taking vocal training as was required of all Fra’aniorian royals–proper or adopted–Hualiama would hear the trilling descant of dragonets accompanying her vibrant soprano. They seemed to prefer her voice even over her youngest brother, Ari, whose developing tenor was widely regarded as the finest voice of his generation. Big Ari. His speech was a muddle, but when he sang, the very Islands sat up, wide-eyed and agog.

Would she ever see her family again?

She was alive. Quiet, hopeless tears slid down Lia’s cheeks. If they were fortunate, her family would be marooned on an unmarked boulder somewhere in the trackless reaches of the Cloudlands.

When a volley of sobs shook her body, the dragonet stirred.

* * * *

Flicker awoke from a dream of being a hatchling again, sleeping alongside his egg-mother, safely cocooned in the warm heart of a dragonet warren.

Unfortunately, his waking was not quite so peaceful, as he found himself cuddled up to his patient. A squeak of dismay escaped his muzzle as Flicker instinctively tried to flap away. Agony! He tumbled muzzle over paws, but something jerked his wing.

The creature had grabbed him! He bit her paw.

“Ouch, you little rajal!” she cried.

Don’t you touch me, you freak!

“Islands’ sakes, little one, I didn’t … I only wanted to save you a fall.”

Flicker hissed, flaring his wings and mock-charging the two-leg. Ooh. He grimaced. Whatever damage he had done, he could not escape … don’t touch me. Grr! By the First Egg, the wretched little windroc had dared to grab his wing! Dragonets were extremely fussy about their wings and tails.

She withdrew her left hand. “Down, girl. Take it easy,” she said. “Here, I won’t hurt you. Did you make these herbs? And treat me? I feel surprisingly good, thank you.”

Meaningless monkey-chatter issued from her flat muzzle, but when she indicated the herbs, he realised that the creature must have some sort of tiny brain after all. Well, didn’t he know that? They used tools and built their communal warrens–so why couldn’t they talk like normal creatures?

Now, her strange face became animated. He began to say, You’re the ugliest … Flicker pulled up with a gurgle of surprise. He was quite certain she was baring her fangs at him, but as he gazed into her smoky green eyes, exactly the same colour as his scales, an inexplicable power seemed to seize his body. His hearts expanded in his chest. A singing began in his ears; not Dragonsong, but a deeper, more spine-tingling melody, a type of magic he had never experienced before.

All Flicker knew was that he neither wanted to move, nor could he.

Her lips parted even further, exposing her pathetic incisors; those gimlet eyes crinkled at the corners. With more of her soothing noises, the creature reached out to touch his neck with her worm-like digits. The dragonet trembled.

“You’re a beautiful, perfect little Dragon,” she said. “Are you hurt? Did you hurt yourself, saving me?”

Don’t, that’s … very nice. Flicker’s scales prickled as she stroked his neck, growing bolder. A low vibration of satisfaction emerged from his chest. Listen here, flat-face, you’re taking liberties … I can’t believe it. I’m actually touching a two-leg. By the First Egg, just wait until I tell my warren-mates!

Wonderingly, she said, “When you look at me like that, I could swear you’re trying to talk to me, little one. Are you talking? Do you like this?”

Flicker shifted restlessly. Enough. Remove your paw, scoundrel.

She jerked her hand back as he made a token snap toward her trespassing digits. She said, “Gently, my beauty.”

How do you survive with no Dragon hide? he wondered, awash in confusion and wonder. Aren’t you cold? Do you have belly-fires, like me? What is this water leaking from your eyes? What magic did you summon? Why did the fungus-faced one try to kill you?

She was looking around, taking in her precarious perch in the V between two branches, supported from beneath by the thickness of the secondary growth, which twined together beneath her body. Flicker moved to his pile of medicines and selected a leaf. She needed to eat at least a pawful to keep the infection at bay. Right. Since he was so brave, this should be easy.

* * * *

“No!” Hualiama flinched as the dragonet rushed toward her.

The movement jerked her right arm. She distinctly felt the bones grate together, a few inches above her elbow. A deep groan accompanied the blenching of her face. Fire spread in her stomach as fresh blood began to seep from one of the puncture wounds.

Eat, insisted the dragonet.

“Er …” Hualiama flopped back on the branch, which swayed and dipped alarmingly. Dancing dragonets–she chuckled to herself as the phrase crossed her mind–she was right near the end, a bird in her leafy nest. How a small dragonet had dragged her to safety, she had no idea, but she had the scratches and burn-marks from branches to prove what the miniature Dragon had achieved. “You want me to eat that concoction?”

It looked like something the dragonet had regurgitated.

Don’t you know what’s good for you, two-legs? said Flicker, flicking his eye-membranes in irritation. This is medicine for the pain.

Feeling too weak and dizzy to refuse the strangely insistent dragonet, Lia sniffed the mess being waved beneath her nose. Actually, it smelled rather agreeable, like one of Queen Shyana’s allegedly ‘uplifting’ or ‘invigorating’ herbal brews she swore by for all ailments.

“Can you–” she squeezed her eyes shut, mouthing a word which would have earned her a reprimand from one of her tutors back at the Palace. She began to sweat and shiver simultaneously as the pain swept over her. “I’m going crazy. Talking to a dragonet in my crazy bird-perch.”

Eat, chirped the dragonet, making the sign again. Eat.

Eat, she chirped back.

Fine, I’ll feed you, you useless … what did you just say?

Lia knew she was badly wounded. The song of her body was anguish, a counterpoint to the consuming grief over her family’s fate. King Chalcion was a proud, unbending man. This would be a dagger to his gut. As for Queen Shyana–she was sweet and accommodating, the person to whom Hualiama had always turned. She truly treated Lia as a daughter, unlike the King. Should she be ungrateful for her position in the royal household? No. But the royal life was not all blossoms, as the Islands saying went.

The dragonet’s paw touched her lips. The animal fed her patiently, pawful by pawful, as Lia forced herself to swallow. Perhaps it thought she was a wounded hatchling? She had never imagined animals could care like this. There was something deeply peculiar about being tended by a dragonet, she felt, sinking back against her bough-bed, the type of impossible magic often served up in dreams. Yet, only reality could hurt this much. Lia spied on the creature as it worked. Fussy little thing, deft of paw and as nervous as a wild rajal kitten. Clearly undecided on a choice between two different mounds of herbal mush, the dragonet bit its little forked tongue exactly as her second-youngest brother, Elki, liked to do when he studied with the royal tutors. The dragonet chirruped to itself before hopping over to examine her broken arm. Quite the little physician. She had no doubt of its intelligence.

A monstrous lassitude swept over her Island like a sinister thunderstorm enveloping Fra’anior. The howl of the tempest sang her sorrow, while the jagged bolts of lightning represented pain, searing her body again and again. Even when Lia lay unmoving, it hurt to breathe.

Later, among her delirious dreams, she felt water spilling down her cheek. Lia opened her mouth instinctively, parched. Was it raining? Or was this the dragonet’s work once more?

The branch swayed in the hot volcanic breeze, rocking her to sleep.

Chapter 3: Storm

Flicker tended the unconscious female flat-face for two more days before heading underground to consult with the Ancient One. He returned with a head buzzing with ideas and new words.

Girl, he said to himself. Human girl. Um … “Girl.”

By his wings, that speech-pattern offended the throat! This was how they talked? According to the Ancient fire-breather, Humans talked only with the sounds of their mouths, just as he could produce Dragonish vocally if needed. Clearly, their brains were severely underdeveloped in comparison to a dragonet’s–or a Lesser Dragon’s.

The old one had said, Thou art possessed of the gift of understanding, little one. Learn to use it well.

He did not enjoy being lectured.

Flicker’s flight muscles were recovered enough that he could test them gingerly for short stretches in the caves and tunnels that riddled Ha’athior’s underbelly, but when he returned to the tree, he dug his claws into the bark and walked across to the place where he had left the unsightly thing–the girl.

To Flicker’s surprise, he found her awake, sitting up on a thicker part of the branch as she bit into a purple prekki fruit with evident relish. Juice dripped from her chin. She had used the metal shard to assist her talon-less digits, so that she could peel the fruit and eat the inside. Well, these Human creatures were quite adept with tools, he had observed, using them to supplement the disadvantages of their pathetic paws.

“Oh, you’re back,” she greeted him, showing her undersized fangs.

“Girl,” he announced, rather grandly.

“What? Did you just say ‘girl’? Aye, that’s right.”

Flicker struck a pose that displayed his gleaming scales to best advantage. He had just bathed in a waterfall. Aren’t I clever?

“Lia,” she said, tapping her chest.

“Leeeeee-ya,” he parroted back. Was this monkey-chatter supposed to convey meaning? How droll. Well, he would learn this simple speech in a few days.

“Very good! Lia. You’re smart for a dragonet. What’s your name?”

Now she was pointing at him? Yes, I know lots about Humans, he said. The Ancient One told me everything I need to know. How’s the fruit? Good?

She lobbed the pip to the winds. “I’m Lia. You are?”

Hungry, he said, tucking into a piece of the fruit he had collected. Just then, a sharp tang entered his nostrils. Flicker raised his muzzle at once, testing the air. There’s a storm coming.

She did not seem to understand. Doing that crinkling routine with her eyes and tossing the pale straw on her head, the girl gazed at him. Flicker did not understand either. His belly-fires churned pleasurably beneath her scrutiny, and his talons curled with bewildering happiness. She was patently pleased with his reappearance. And why not? He was a handsome specimen of a dragonet, and terrifically knowledgeable about her kind. Perhaps now was the moment to impress her with his second word.

“Hooo-min,” he said, delicately pointing a talon at her.

Oh, what joy! Her pale skin flushed with delight and her laugher trilled forth–and laughter was an emotional response dragonets understood. Never mind that she clutched her stomach and groaned right away. Flicker gave her a fine rendition of a dragonet’s belly-laugh. More laughter!

“Ooh, don’t do that,” whispered the girl, nursing her wound.

Her eyes rested gently upon him, gleaming with a quality he wanted to suggest was Dragon fire, but was not. All he knew was the warmth her regard kindled in him, and that this feeling must do something to her fires too, because her face reddened into a fine semblance of a dawn sky. Growing chary at his scrutiny, the girl’s eyes slid aside as coyly as a female dragonet eyeing up an attractive male.

Flicker licked his paws, cleaning them with catlike fastidiousness.

Just then, the wind rose to buffet their branch.

Her eyes visited the southern horizon with palpable trepidation. The mid-morning sky out there had turned a deep, coppery green, as though the Cloudlands had swelled to assault Iridith’s enormous, sallow dome in the form of dark, Dragon’s-head storm clouds. A flight of windrocs rushed toward them from the south. High above, a Dragonwing returning from the direction of Yaya Loop Cluster made a terrific speed of over twenty-five leagues per hour, just specks in the sky at their height, but the way her pupils focussed, the dragonet knew she had noted their haste.

Really? She was less of an idiot than he had supposed. Truth be told, that word did not seem to apply at all, now.

Flicker began to collect his herbs into a neat pile. Come. We need to find shelter, he told her.

* * * *

As the cool wind whipped the trailing strands of her white-blonde hair across her face, Hualiama shivered. A storm! As a proficient Dragonship pilot, accustomed to navigating these Islands solo in her Dragonship, she knew how suddenly a storm could strike. More than once Lia had been forced to take shelter and wait out a storm. She always navigated carefully around the rim-Islands and never flew straight across the caldera, for to be caught out there spelled certain death. This time, however, safety lay over three hundred feet away along a branch which seemed to grow thinner and more precarious the longer she stared at it. The first hundred feet or so were bare, then came a couple of side-branches, after which the wood grew comfortingly thick as it neared the cliff into which the tree’s huge, gnarled roots plunged with grim assurance, like a drowning man’s fingers clutching safely onto the shore of a terrace lake.

Another day, she might have danced along that branch–well, that was a lie. She would have walked carefully but surely over to the Island’s shore.

The dragonet made an insistent chirruping noise.

Lia rose to her feet, swaying in concert with the branch beneath her feet. “Oh, Dragons’ breath! I can’t do this … I must.”

Quickly, urged the dragonet.

Oh, she had almost forgotten to take the dagger, one of a matched pair of Immadian forked daggers she had received the very morning of Ra’aba’s treachery, a birthday gift from the King. Was this what Ra’aba had used to stab her? Removing her slippers, she thrust them into her belt, along with the blade.

“Come on, Lia,” she told herself. Shuffle. Pant. Gasp, sway. The rising wind made her task doubly difficult. The Great Dragon himself could not have blown that storm in any faster. Hualiama knew that if she had seen that sky while at the helm of her Dragonship, she would have been moored on an Island two hours ago. She and the dragonet were in grave peril.

With enviable agility, the dragonet darted over to the Island’s shore, balancing his load.

Lia inched out onto the bare branch, sweating freely, the pain in her abdomen akin to a red-hot glob of lava stuck in her lower intestines. Her back was little better. She only had use of her left arm, and decided she had never been more thankful to be left-handed, even if it caused dark mutterings among the superstitious. Should she slip, she would have no chance of arresting her fall. Lia gritted her teeth. She had to keep moving.

The dragonet zipped past her again. Even he had to dig his talons into the bark now as the branch tossed in the wind.

Suddenly, Hualiama sank to her knees, crying hoarsely, “Come on, Lia!”

She hauled herself along with her good arm, her legs dangling either side of the branch, inches at a time. She established a rhythm. Pull. Wince. Breathe. Rest. “Come on.” Pull again, paying no heed to the tearing sensation in her stomach. Whatever had begun to knit together was ruined once more. Curse the cloth of her dress snagging on a rough chip of bark. “One more.” Resort to slashing it free with the dagger. “Again.” Pull past that point. Her broken arm jarred. Pain washed over her, leaving her dizzy and enervated. She tucked the useless arm into her belt. “And again.” Pull. Repeat.

Black spots danced on her vision, making her imagine windrocs circling a soon-to-be carcass. If only she could rest, pillowing her head on the bark which seemed as soft as the plumpest palace pillow-roll, the type that Fyria demanded for her comfort …

She summoned scorn. Little Lia. Short shrift, as her brothers sometimes called her, in reference to her unusually diminutive stature for a Fra’aniorian Islander. Naturally, she had the golden Fra’aniorian skin and acceptably pointy ears which betrayed her Isles heritage, but she also had eyes of a rare, smoky green. Queen Shyana said her eyes smouldered as though on the verge of catching fire, especially when she was angry. She remembered Captain Ra’aba’s stinging jibes–for he was right. Despite a royal adoption, everyone knew there was but one real Princess of Fra’anior. Subtly or openly, Lia was daily put in her place by servants and nobles alike. Suitors had only a passing interest in a foundling, insofar as she might provide them better access to beautiful, flame-haired Fyria.

Hualiama summoned rage and grief to her aid. Grief over the parents she had never known. Rage at the wrongs she had suffered.

When that was spent, still she crawled onward, until she reached the place where the secondary branches split off.

She rested.

* * * *

Wake up! Flicker shook the girl’s shoulder.

Nothing.

He patted her cheek with his paw.

Nothing, not even a flicker of those odd filaments above her strange, powerful eyes.

Congratulating himself on his audacity, Flicker pinched the skin of her arm with his talons.

Less than nothing.

The dragonet sank his fangs into her finger.

Jerking upright, she screeched, “You wretched dollop of flying monkey–oh.” Shaking her hand, Lia smiled grimly at the dragonet. “You’ll pay for that later. Thank you.”

Stupid straw-head, get moving before I have to bite you again.

To his consternation, the Human girl seemed amused rather than annoyed by his flame-curling ire. She began to move again. How she must rue not having wings and claws like him, Flicker imagined. Flat-face used the piece of metal to pull herself along, stabbing it into the bark, pulling her injured body along as though it weighed as much as a boulder, leaving a crimson smear where she passed. Despite the pain so clearly etched on her face, the girl struggled on and on … and, to his disbelief, further still.

This was courage! Flicker’s throat constricted; he rubbed his muzzle with his paws. She honoured the gift of life in ways his family would have spent hours crafting verses to praise, adding her deeds to the songs that told the dragonet histories. Were these Human creatures truly capable of such elevated behaviour? She was as brave as any Dragon. He had to discuss this with the Ancient One. He would be fascinated, too.

Flicker fell to encouraging her. Come on, straw-head. One paw more. Over this difficult bit, you barbarously ugly beast–here, this is the place for your paw.

The first fat droplet of rain splashed his scales. The dragonet shuddered. She had to move faster! Oh, here she came, covering a whole ten feet before collapsing. No, another wrenching movement of the arm.

He yelled at her, Come on, use your soul-fires! The fires, Human girl!

She was groaning now, not the sounds she had made before, but the wordless cries of a soul in agony. Her lungs made a peculiar whistling noise at each breath. Rain splattered them again. The wind knocked the branch so hard that she slewed and had to rely on the knife to keep from sliding over the edge.

Flicker shoved her from behind. Here, push against my head. Use your magic, you idiotic slab of–oh, do you have any magic? Aye, her strength was magic. The dragonet had never seen its equal, and it brought a weird, fuzzy sensation to his mind. With each movement along the slick branch, the Human girl seemed to grow conversely stronger, as if her heart had simply assumed the function of muscle and bone and refused to let up, to cramp or to let go; as though the pain mattered, but only to refine and fuel her supreme effort; making him fancy that the spirit of the Ancient One indwelled her frail form, a spirit of fire and magic, indomitable.

The rain and wind drove in, drawing a shroud of darkness over the Island-World. The dragonet had to cling to the branch with every talon of his four paws. The girl kept moving. Foot by foot, she gained ground. The water sluiced over her wounds and plastered her head-straw to the massive cut on her back, through which he saw muscle and even naked bone, but the girl did not yield.

Thunder punched his body. Multiple strikes of branch lightning cracked about them as the storm’s full fury struck, as if it were an elemental Dragon taken form to drag dragonet and Human to their doom. Flicker found himself in front of the girl, hauling her along by the very pale straw which had so captured his imagination–and his insults–as they neared their goal, solid ground. Where it established a root-grip on the Island the ancient trunk was deeply lightning-split, a fracture of the branch away from the main trunk at a time aeons past, and it was to this split that the girl dragged herself, and collapsed insensate.

Flicker pulled himself over her head, spread his wings to provide what protection he could, and squeezed his eyes shut. He must endure the storm.

* * * *

Hualiama woke with a song in her heart and laughter bubbling on her lips. Alive! The twin suns baked her shoulders, and she was alive! The storm had rumbled off over the endless Cloudlands, leaving sopping vegetation and a fresh, loamy-wet smell to speak of its fury. The dragonet rested atop her head, his wings drooping either side of her face. Her heartbeat pulsed in her ears, lub-lub, a life-affirming sound, while the pulse in his chest was a complex, ever-shifting drumbeat driven by multiple hearts.

For sheer overflow of joy, she began to sing. Her voice was as rusty as metal left to corrode near the caldera floor, so Lia sang in an almost-whisper. As she sang, she gently shifted the dragonet from its perch on her head into the crook of her left arm.

“You’re a beautiful–ah–” she checked, and blushed “–boy. Oh, aye! You are.”

If he was like any male she knew, she hoped he never found out she had mistaken him for a pretty female at first.

A more appropriate song suggested itself:

Rejoice! O my soul, rejoice!

Soar with the dawn fresh to the day,

Rejoice! O my soul, rejoice!

May these suns brighten upon my way.

No mind that she felt as wrung out as a dishcloth used to scrub pots in the Palace kitchens for the last ten years. Her excitement was unbridled. The Dragon of Death had been cheated of his prey. He would hunt no more, not this day. She might be stuck four miles down a cliff, with no hope of climbing back up again until her arm and stomach healed, but Lia’s heart pulsated with gratitude.

She had a chance to avenge her family.

Aye, and the Roc had better watch his back from now on.

However, such grim oaths did not match her mood. Tenderly, all choked up with wonder and thankfulness, Lia stroked the dragonet. “I’ve never known an animal as faithful as you, little one. Thank you for … everything. How shall I name you? After all, it seems you want to be my friend, for you came back to me.”

He was incredible. His scales had the supple gloss of Helyon silk, yet Dragon scales were known to be diamond-hard. Every detail of his body was sculpted, from the striated muscles and delicate wing struts, to the miniscule detail of the tiniest scales around his eyes. The longer she scrutinised his scales, the more different patterns she found, a palette of greens and flecks of gold which could not conceivably be pinned down to any handful of colours. Lia shook herself free of the subtle hypnosis this investigation exerted on her mind. The dragonet lived and breathed, yet, if she listened as closely as she could, it was to detect a faint crackling within his belly. She held a living coal, a creature of enchanted fires. His body radiated warmth into her belly, soothing the much-abused tissues around her wound.

He watched her! Lying content in her arms, the little creature’s eyes swirled with flame. He had no apparent pupils or irises, just pellucid, almost crystalline orbs filled with an ever-shifting inner storm, clouds and colours and fires all mixed together. And she called this magical creature, an animal?

She had to be the greatest fool ever to have walked the Islands.

* * * *

Your eyes are leaking again, said the dragonet. What does this signify?

As she leaned over him, the twin suns’ radiance highlighted the girl’s pale, fine straw. Flicker lay in an unimaginable place, in the arms of a Human girl, surrounded by a waterfall of molten platinum that rippled as she moved, reminding his Dragon soul of the melody of flight.

She touched her soft lips to his muzzle. A kiss! “Thank you, dragonet.”

Never in his life had Flicker been more confused. Did she mean rather to rub muzzles? That was a common greeting between dragonets, becoming longer and more elaborate the closer the relationship in a warren. Only a dragonet and his mate would ever kiss as she had done. Clearly, she did this out of ignorance, yet he could not help but be deeply touched, for her emotions were as transparent to him as the crystal formations of the caverns beneath the Island.

“What’s your name?” she asked. “I’m Lia, as I said before. Say ‘Li-ya’.”

Lia? He tried aloud, “L-Layer … Lia.”

Her laughter was the burbling of a playful stream, the petting motion of her hand, at once frightening and delightful. The girl–Lia–placed one digit on the point of his nose.

He growled, Remove that talon of yours before I–

“What’s your name, little one?”

He did not know her speech, but her meaning was clear. He said, Flicker.

She stared expectantly at him.

Flicker, he repeated, aloud this time. Flicker, Flicker …

Flibbit? She coloured prettily at his laughter, but struggled on, Flinger? Flapper?

The dragonet grew annoyed, letting a tiny curl of fire lick around her digit. Flicker! How dare the two-legged thing mock him like this? Mangle my name just one more time and I swear–

Flicker.

He trilled his delight into the still afternoon air. Lia laughed again, pressing his body against her shaking stomach, so brimful of joy he could not help but revel in it, too.

She said, “We’re going to be great friends.” Flicker.

Lia, I’m going to teach you all about dragonets, he gushed. You’ll never have had a better teacher than me, you’ll see. I’m smart, and dauntless, and …

The girl let out a hiss of pain, making him jump. Flicker did not understand the sound, but the lines creasing her flat face made her need clear–herbs to dull the pain. Had anything survived the storm?

Chapter 4: Caves

Hualiama REsted in a small, sandy cave–really just a shelter hollowed out by animals beneath a vast boulder–as the dragonet worked indefatigably in her care. Flicker disappeared for hours on end before returning with treasures such as ripe, tasty prekki fruit, landas gourds which yielded sour but palatable milk, and offerings of small animals which he hunted and killed. Raw monkey meat made her sick, but she found lemur and bat very acceptable.

Dragonets were vain, thoughtless creatures, she had always been taught. Flicker’s knowledge blew that Island right out of the Cloudlands. The day following their escape from the storm, Flicker made Lia understand that she should lie on her stomach while he cleaned out the wound on her back, numbed it with one of his powerful concoctions, and then proceeded to sew the flapping skin and muscle tissue together with the use of long, thin thorns and a thread he chewed and teased apart from a fleshy, succulent type of grass. He slathered more of his healing herbs on the wound.

His tiny paws were fabulously dextrous. Flicker seemed able to do anything a Human could do, and more. The dragonet was certainly intelligent! They passed the hours teaching each other words and phrases in their respective languages.

Lia sang for him, which he clearly loved. The dragonet’s eyes would fill with fire as he basked in the sound and often, he chirped insistently for more. Once, he showed her a dragonet dance, but acted embarrassed afterward.

Moving with great care because of the thousand-kitten claw-prick sensation of the stitches criss-crossing her back, Lia cut ferns for a bed, not the hundred-foot trailing ferns from the cliff face, but the softer, smaller type which flourished around boulders and in any moist crack. Flicker immediately appropriated the soft pallet. Lia scolded him until she realised that he meant for them to sleep curled up together, much as a pet feline might creep into a warm bed.

Then, he purred up a miniature storm and spent all night trying to burrow beneath her neck. Perfect.

Finding flint, Hualiama taught herself how to strike a fire, starting with dry moss and twigs, before adding slightly larger sticks. Now she could spit a small bird or bat and roast it over a dancing fire, making her meals much more palatable. The dragonet ate from her fingers with the finicky care of a cat, and woe betide her should she allow fat or juice to drip onto his scales! His love of intestines, however, made her want to cackle like a yellow-breasted parakeet. He was so disgusting, especially his delight in fiery burps during mealtimes, or his predilection for playing with his prey before killing it. But one evening, a week after they had fled from the storm, he nosed her hand aside as she reached for the flint.

“No. Flicker do,” he said, very clearly, and lit the fire for her with his breath.

Flicker clever boy, she replied in Dragonish.

He arched his back against her hand. Scratch.

Flicker turned his muzzle to gaze at her as she coughed dryly, trying to protect her stomach by not coughing too violently. “The air isn’t good,” she said, signing at the cave roof. “I think we should climb, Flicker.”

Fly? he said, hopefully.

Climb. Humans no fly.

His snort of fire let her know his opinion of her disability. Hualiama chuckled, especially when he added, Food ready?

Flicker eat Dragon, she teased.

Flicker eat like Dragon, he corrected her grammar, but purred contentedly nevertheless. Tomorrow, we should climb, Lia.

“What’s your family like, Flicker? Do you have family? A mother, who–er, hatched you?” He seemed more interested in the lemur as she skinned it. “Fine, have the intestines.”

Thanks, straw-head.

Lia wished she knew everything the dragonet said. The dragonet laughed at her for no apparent reason, sometimes, or ribbed her gently with words she did not understand. She was convinced Flicker must think her stupid, because he often acted as if he expected a response from her, yet he had not to her knowledge spoken or otherwise tried to communicate with her. Flicker was smart. He learned so quickly that Lia struggled to keep up. Once he learned simple questions, everything had a question. She dreaded teaching him the word ‘why’. Her brother Elki had been fixated on why questions for several years, driving her parents up the proverbial Island cliff.

“Well, I’ll tell you about my family,” she told Flicker. “I’m adopted, what we call a foundling or ward. My wards, who I call my parents, are King Chalcion and Queen Shyana of Fra’anior, which is the main Human Island of this Island-Cluster, and also the name of the volcano itself. Just to confuse you.”

Flicker ruffled his wings drolly. I’m not confused.

“Oh, is that so?”

Her sarcasm brought a hundred-fang dragonet smile to his lips. “Carry on, Human girl.”

“There are twenty-seven inhabited Islands around the rim,” Lia informed him. “Some Islands belong to the Dragons and others to us Humans. Well, the politics are a little complicated–maybe another time. Anyways, a young Dragoness found me as a days-old babe in a cave on Gi’ishior Island. That’s a mystery, because no Humans live on Gi’ishior. It’s where the Halls of the Dragons are, after all, the great seat of the Dragon Elders who rule all of their kind. Nobody knows who abandoned me there. I wish I knew that Dragoness, so that I could thank her …”

Lia stared into the heart of their fire, struggling to master an overwhelming sense of desolation. Why would her mother abandon her? Why? Didn’t that just scream, ‘You rested nine months in my womb, and I never loved you?’

“I’m grateful to have a family, truly I am–but it isn’t always easy. The King was married once before, to Queen Si’ilmira, but she died giving birth to Ka’allion. I call him Kalli, just like I’m Hualiama, but everyone calls me Lia. He loves to read all the time, and he doesn’t laugh much.”

As she spoke, she drew people in the sand with a stick. “I have two other brothers, Elka’anor and Fa’arrion, who I call Elki and Ari. You’d like Elki, because he’s a mischief-maker, like you. He’s twelve. Ari is only nine, but he’s already taller than me, which I find rather depressing. People think he’s simple because he can’t talk properly, but I think it’s more like you and me, we just don’t understand each other yet. Then, there’s my sister Fyria. She’s half a year younger, but also taller than me, and a great beauty. I’m afraid you probably wouldn’t like her.”

* * * *

Flicker slurped down a length of intestine, wondering at the catch in her voice. He was starting to understand the Human girl’s emotions–her face was an ever-changing scroll, alarmingly so at times, as unpredictable as the storm which had chased them off the branch. He knew happiness, and thoughtfulness, but what was this emotion, which made her eyes grow moister than usual?

“She’s like her father, you see,” said Lia.

Sadness. He understood sadness. Dropping the intestines, Flicker sprang over to her, making Hualiama yelp and drop her stick.

See? I can also be impulsive, he grinned, wriggling against her chest, talons carefully sheathed, producing a giggle and a momentary interruption in her sorrow–ah! Perhaps it was like tickling, which dragonets did with their hatchlings to encourage good growth of the wings? Not that she had any wings to grow. He rubbed her neck. Tickle, tickle.

“Flicker, stop, that tickles! I was being serious.”

This is ‘tickle’, said Flicker, prodding her ribs. Learn the word, flat-face, or I’ll tickle you some more.

Actually, he was embarrassing them both now. Lia was a female of her kind, and he a male, and her excitable response made him imagine rubbing necks with a sweet female dragonet, and roosting together in a cosy cave like this one. Flicker’s belly-fires growled in discomfiture.

“You really are hungry,” she said, misunderstanding him completely.

“Hungry,” he agreed, grateful she had misread his response–for that was bathing in Dragon fire, as the dragonets liked to say.

He wondered what passed for beauty among her people. Long straw? A regular but woefully flat muzzle? And those horrid flaps she called ears, those could not possibly attract a mate. Her eyes, however, might conceivably enthral a male of her kind. They were pleasingly fiery, often seeming to spark when she became animated, or mellowing when she sang. Straw-head had no wings to flutter prettily, but perhaps Humans liked the filaments which adorned her eyelids? They were a pleasing adornment when she shuttered her gaze, or glanced at him with that impishly veiled glimmer when she was tugging his wings or making a joke.

Lia prepared the meat with deft strokes of her dagger, splaying the lemur so that she could pin it with her sticks and set it to cook. When she had done that, she returned to her drawing. “Father. Mother. Brother, sister. Three brothers.”

Oh. She meant the eggs of her clutch, and the parents who had laid them. Flicker taught her the right words in Dragonish. Then, he hesitantly set his paws to the sand. This earned him the bright expression she called a smile. He really needed to make her understand that showing one’s fangs was seen as aggressive amongst Dragons and dragonets. Ooh, perhaps he could draw expressions …

They spent a hilarious evening swapping notes on Human and Dragon facial expressions. Flicker learned that her eye-fluid was called tears, and when her eyes leaked, she was either sad or happy. Utterly baffling! She did not have transparent, secondary nictitating membranes to protect her orbs, unlike him, so she could not express subtleties of emotion with her inner membranes. Humans could snarl. They could know fear, surprise, hatred, anger and consternation. Indeed, she was a much more complex creature than he had assumed.

Still, she could not fly.

After snoozing the night away curled up against her stomach, Flicker rose with the dawn. Lia woke too, and taught him a sweet lullaby as they collected their few possessions.

“Ready,” she said.

Ready, Human girl? Great. I’m a fantastic scout. I know the paths of this Island like the palm of my paw. I will lead you. Flicker pointed. How is your wound?

My wound is good, she repeated, pronouncing the lilting chirps carefully. “It still pulls, Flicker. I’ll need to climb slowly.”

He insisted, Have to climb! Arm?

Lia checked the rude splint she had carved for her upper arm, five lengths of stick bound around her arm as tightly as she and Flicker could manage with vines. She tried to lift it; shook her head.

“Not good?”

“No, Flicker. Not good at all.”

He managed, “Flicker find good fly.”

Path? That would help, Lia replied.

Flicker rewarded her linguistic efforts with a spiralling double backflip.

* * * *

Poor dragonet. Flicker had little patience with her inability to fly, Hualiama realised, although he was happy to spend hours coaching her in the nuances of Dragonish, which was so ridiculously complex, Lia despaired of ever talking properly. As promised, he scouted for the best paths. However, the cliff was vertical or very near vertical, a miles-high wall of rock and vegetation which disappeared into the misty skies overhead. Many places had overhangs, or were so tangled as to be impassable to anyone without wings.

Three hours later, having made less than five hundred vertical feet of progress, Lia sat on a fallen tree trunk, put her head in her hands, and growled her frustration to all and sundry.

Flicker nipped down to alight on the trunk beside her. Lia do good, he said.

“Lia feels as useful as a spade without a handle.”

The dragonet looked quizzically at her.

“Look, you’ve got two wings. Why don’t you just lend them to me?” She made a fluttering motion with her hands. “I’ve always wanted to fly. I never dreamed about much else, nothing that’s worth telling, but I dream about Dragons all the time. Aye, it’s stupid. I had a flying lesson last week and look where it landed me. Now I’m too weak to climb this stupid cliff.”

To her surprise, the dragonet put his paw on her knee. “Lia brave.”

She knew that Flicker set great store in bravery, but that was the very quality which seemed to have deserted her just now. Despondently, Lia said, “Let’s say we climb this cliff all the way up to the Human world, Flicker. By some miracle, I make it back to Fra’anior Island. What then? Captain Ra’aba will be King, and I’ll be the girl he threw off a Dragonship. I can’t fight him, Flicker. He’s stronger and faster with a blade than any man has a right to be.”

“Lia kill bad-bad man.”

“Lia has two small, clumsy hands, and …” Suddenly, words exploded from her in a scream, “I’m too little and I just can’t do it, you brainless, stupid animal! Can’t you understand? Oh …”

Her outburst had driven him away. Shaking, Lia watched the dragonet disappear above an overhang. She was alone. Too bitter, too furious and ashamed even to cry, Hualiama stared at her fingers. Fingers that became clumsy, blade in hand. Slender arms that would never have the muscle to beat a man like Ra’aba. Not a drop of magic pulsed in her veins. No, the not-quite Princess of Fra’anior was no-one special.

“I’m not enough,” she whispered. “All I ever wanted was to be a Dragon, and here I am, trapped in this pathetic body. I’ve had a chance many people would kill for, being adopted by a King. Even that has slipped away. I just wish I could be … more.”

Were these just childhood dreams, a fantasy which should have evaporated like the mists of a Fra’aniorian dawn as she grew up?

She was who she was.

Growing up was a favourite mantra of her father’s. Lately, it seemed to her that Shyana’s influence had tempered his rage, but the King daily trod the cliff edge between political machinations and open hostility with the Dragons. Hualiama had long ago learned to placate him, or she faced being beaten by fist, belt or boot, and once even with a heavily jewelled sceptre. His moods could change at the snap of a finger. Unfairly often, it seemed, she was the target. Lia knew why. Being the royal ward simply meant having to enjoy less love than her royal siblings.

Why should she always strive to prove herself to King Chalcion?

Was this why she yearned to know the Dragons? A soul-deep cry for Dragonish love? Lia winced as this forbidden notion slipped into her mind. Beat it out–immoral, deceitful girl! On that Island lay a fate worse than being dumped off a Dragonship.

As the twin suns wheeled overhead, shortening Ha’athior’s westward-facing shadow until she was no longer protected from the direct glare, Hualiama tied the pitiful scrap of material she had cut off her dress-hem atop her head. Oh, horror of the deepest Cloudlands, she was showing her knees to these lemurs! She giggled manically. No point in dying of exposure, least of all for decency’s sake. Moisture steamed off the vegetation trailing down the cliff. Somewhere nearby she heard the trickle of a waterfall, which would likely evaporate before ever reaching the Cloudlands, adding to the day’s haze. Lia picked a likely route, and wormed her way upward.

Hmm. Those linger-vines …

The tough, fibrous vines grew hundreds of feet long, and formed the staple of the ropes used around the Isles to tie Dragonship cabins beneath the bulging hydrogen sacks, to haul goods and to make nets for fishing the terrace lakes of several of the Islands, not to mention many other uses. Experimentally, she looped one beneath her leather belt. Aye, that could work. Tie herself to one vine in case she fell, while climbing another? One-handed?

Lia looped a section of vine around her legs. Now she could hold it with her feet, while she stretched for the next handhold.

Aye. It took her half an hour of slithering up vines to crest the overhang, but Lia was rewarded with the discovery of what appeared to be an ascending animal-trail leading southward around the Island.

“Ha,” she said, “I don’t need a dragonet, I just need Human brains and ingenuity.”

Her scowl, however, told the truth. She missed Flicker, despite all his silly posturing. Endless chatter, silly witticisms … no mind. Whistling a jaunty tune to pick up her spirits, Lia scrambled over the rocks, following a trail clearly never meant for the tread of a Human foot.

The jagged volcanic rocks made short work of her pretty royal slippers. Lia hurled the remnants over the edge with a frustrated shriek, before biting her lip. She could have used those. For firelighters? A smile curved her lips as she peered out at the Island-World through veils of trailing ferns and vanilla-scented flowering vines, and between trees growing horizontally out of the cliff side, bowing their boughs as if in worship of the great, uncrossable ocean of Cloudlands. Briefly, a cloud of luminous orange giant monarch butterflies swirled out of the foliage, the hand-sized insects wreathing her body as though intending to clothe her in a most splendid raiment.

That was when she spied a slit reptilian eye peering at her from the greenery just beside her head.

“Unholy windrocs!” she gasped, throwing herself backward.

The python struck, but missed by inches as Lia scrambled along in full retreat, trying somehow to keep one eye on her footing and the other on the reptile’s advance. Now she knew what type of trail this was–a trail frequented by pythons large enough to make a tidy meal of undersized royal wards. The trail skirted the cliff edge beneath an overhang in this part. No climbing here. She needed to pass the snake.

Right. May her courage swell from the size of a mouse’s meal to Dragonish proportions.

Hualiama eyed the golden-backed python as balefully as it eyed her. “Come here! I’ll give you this dagger to eat.” She felt for a stone near her foot. Swoop, strike! “Get out of here! Go on!”

Snakes as large as pythons were uncommon on her Island, but Lia knew that in theory, noise and vibration should chase them off. They were ambush predators, not fighters. See, father? All that scroll-worming in the royal library, mostly in search of Dragon lore were she honest, could come in useful in situations like these. Shouting, dancing like an excitable spider monkey and pelting the snake with rocks, Lia chased it off into the undergrowth.

“Come near my family again, Ra’aba, and I’ll do the same to you.”

Lia strutted down the trail, and promptly sliced her toe open on a sharp sliver of basalt.

Midday and early afternoon saw her taking shelter beneath a dead chagga tree, which bore a type of hard-shelled, bitter fruit good for throwing at windrocs or chasing off pestiferous monkeys, of which there seemed to be an endless supply. Hualiama peeled a poor-man’s-apple and ate it without great relish, despite the hunger snapping in her lean belly. The day’s sultry heat robbed her of appetite. Her tan limbs gleamed. Sweat trickled down her neck as her lungs laboured to expel the syrupy air. Oh for a cool breeze, or another waterfall!

Dangling her feet over the cliff edge, Lia gazed out over the pristine Cloudlands, imagining she had Dragon eyes and could see all the way to the Western Isles, hundreds and hundreds of leagues away, to places with evocative names like Naphtha and Ur-Tagga and Xorniss. Where would Ra’aba have sent her family? Would that her soul could have winged across that great void, the unknown, depthless expanse of deceptively puffy ochre clouds, to be with them. Did Shyana gaze to the horizon, mourning her daughter’s death? Did she feel how the beauty of infinite solitude engulfed Lia in waves of aching so intense, that each heartbeat threatened to become her last? Did the Island-World’s majesty both crush and elevate her spirit to exultation?

Here she crawled, an insignificant ant on the wall of the world.

Late that afternoon, when Hualiama crawled beneath a gnarled tree trunk so massive it stood four times her height, almost entirely blocking the trail, she found her waterfall. Thirty feet wide, it was utterly impassable.

A problem for tomorrow. Lia moved forward to lean into the spray, whispering, “Mercy, that’s delightful.” Extending her hands palms-up, she cupped handfuls of water and tossed them over her head and upper body, shivering at the chill pleasure. The suns lowering in the west beat pleasantly on her back.

Lia! Flicker dropped onto her shoulder.

Surprise almost pitched her into the hissing white flow. Lia wobbled; Flicker snatched at her hair and tore a good chunk out trying to pull her to safety.

Her face seemed stuck between a smile and a frown as she regarded the irrepressible dragonet, slowing her panting deliberately. Finally, Lia settled on, “You lovely little pest. Where’ve you been all day?”

I see your straw is useful for something, said Flicker, cleaning the strands off his paws. I was visiting my egg-mother and warren, thank you very much. They were worried about me, unlike your parents … ah, do you have any lemur intestines?

The dragonet looked so cute and contrite, Hualiama had to forgive him, even though she understood only one word in three. “Thanks for coming back, you little scamp. I missed you like I’d miss a mosquito in my ear. Where shall we roost tonight?” Cave here?

Flicker nodded. Through the water-that-thunders, flat-face. Follow me if you dare.

And he plunged into the flow with the facility of a trout fleeing the snap of a windroc’s beak.

Chapter 5: A Dragonet’s Pet

FIve days of fighting with monkeys, snakes, a nest of black wasps, thorn-ferns and more vines than Hualiama ever wanted to see in a lifetime, garnished with Flicker’s inimitable blend of witty commentary and ingenious insults at her lack of progress, brought her to a place Flicker deemed ‘good’–a protruding ledge with an unparalleled view over the Cloudlands. Putting her hands on her knees, Lia decided she’d smack the snarky dragonet just as soon as she had the energy to do so. She was cut, bruised, abraded and covered in blotchy red spots from the wasp stings. Never had she looked less like a member of the royal household. Never had she looked more like a Dragon’s breakfast, chewed up and spat out.

Then, she punched her left arm to the sky and shouted, “Yes! We’ve done it! We’re less than a third of the way up.”

At that instant, Flicker nipped her ankle-bone.

“Blast it, you overgrown dragonfly,” she gasped, clutching the spot.

Swoooosh! Lia’s semi-collapse turned into a headlong dive as a massive pair of wings pummelled the air above her body. Windroc! Flicker screeched and flared his neck-ruff as he raced to take on the windroc. Lia scrabbled for her dagger, palmed it, and watched without daring to breathe as the bird gyrated casually on its wingtip, returning for another pass.

She had to find shelter. Vines, bushes, anything would do as opposed to standing in the open while a red-eyed, feral windroc lined her up for a snack. Close up, the bird looked as big as a Dragon–sixteen feet in wingspan, talons which could clasp her head like a fruit, and a cruel, hooked beak which opened now to express its fury in a long, ear-splitting shriek. A five-foot girl and a two-foot dragonet faced the Island-World’s most fearsome avian predator.

It struck Lia that any self-respecting Dragon would have this windroc for a snack. It was only the size of a several months-old Dragon hatchling, after all–a thought which offered as much comfort as a seat atop an active volcano.

Her world seemed to narrow to those talons. Lia crouched, balanced on the balls of her feet. Flicker! The dragonet tangled repeatedly with the windroc, aiming for the eyes. The girl swayed, aiming a dagger-strike at the feathered body. The bird passed overhead again, snapping at her, and Lia had a new cut on her left forearm, five inches long, down to the bone. Great Islands, she had not even seen its strike. Instead of cutting the body, her blade had torn a gash in its wing.

A strategy popped into her mind.

As Flicker and the windroc looped away, scrapping and screeching at each other, Lia snatched up the length of vine she had been using. Cut it off the belt, fool! She secured the vine to the base of a shabis-berry bush, deep-rooted and tough. Her shaking fingers failed to form a slipknot. No time for that. She threw together an overhand knot and braced her trembling knees, trying to calculate the angles as the windroc swooped for a third pass. Mercy, that creature was lethal. One snap of its beak would slice Flicker in half, but the dragonet dodged with great agility … he was hurt! His right wing hung at a poor angle.

Quicker than thought, Hualiama switched hands to hurl her dagger, burying it in the bird’s skull just behind the eye. The windroc barely flinched. Then she tossed her loop of vine at the onrushing bird and dived again, skidding across the bare rock. Talons plucked the material of her skirt and scored fiery pain across the back of her left thigh. From the corner of her eye, she saw the loop catch on the windroc’s neck. The rope jerked taut. The bird crash-landed on its beak.

Rolling, groaning, knocking her broken arm about … Lia was searching for a way back into the fray when Flicker broke free of the dazed predator.

Shelter! he squeaked, trying to take to the air.

She caught his tail. Dragging the hapless dragonet behind her, Lia ducked beneath a dense thicket. More harsh caws came from the sky as a half-dozen windrocs fell upon their luckless fellow-creature and within a couple of minutes, reduced it to a pile of bones and feathers.

* * * *

My tail, if you please! Flicker grumbled.

“Sorry.”

I’ll make you sorry, you straw-headed … here’s your dagger. With a fine, Human-like bow, Flicker presented the dagger to Lia. My compliments.

You were–Hualiama stumbled, struggling with her limited Dragonish. Switching to Island Standard, she said, “Awesome! So brave.”

Can’t leave you to wander around these cliffs on your own, Human-Lia. Now, why don’t we get away from these nasty windrocs and I’ll show you the best cave in the world. He mock-snapped at her. Don’t you dare pick up a dragonet by his tail. It’s demeaning.

As they emerged from the far side of the thicket, Hualiama gave him one of those looks which stirred his belly-fires. “I don’t understand what I did to annoy you, Flicker, but I’m sorry. Very sorry. Sorry with your favourite intestines slathered on top?”

She giggled in that lilting way that never failed to amaze him. Lia had the best laugh. Carefree, bubbling, even a little wild. She reminded him of a storm in motion, he decided. Flicker’s seventh sense told him that she was the kind of creature who could shake the world. He purred to himself, knowing that she’d be changing nothing without his help. Straw-head would have been rotting in the Cloudlands …

“O mighty Flicker,” said Lia, bowing toward him with an elaborate Fra’aniorian hand-twirl, “slayer of the dreadful windroc, saviour and protector most gallant of maidens trapped down league-tall cliffs, will you ever forgive me?”

Well, said Flicker, strutting and puffing up his chest fit to burst, I’d do the same for anyone in trouble, Lia. But he knew he would slay ten windrocs for her smile.

The girl stopped in her tracks. “Mercy … my soul …”

She must realise what he already knew, that this ledge jutted out two hundred feet or so from the Island’s main body, offering unparalleled, panoramic views. To the north and south, the Island-massif curved away into the distance, a vertical mountain-slope as far as the eye could see. To the west, Flicker saw a few Islets–just mountain peaks, really, apart from one inhabited Island which the Humans called Ya’arriol–sticking up out of the Cloudlands. Even the Ancient One would not tell him what lay beneath that ever-shifting, ever opaque realm. Four or five miles to the southwest, a slender volcanic cone abutted the main Island, lush and green, wreathed in multi-coloured flights of dragonets, making the sharp, perfect cone seem to shimmer with living lights.

That was the place of the Great Dragon, a place of worship.

Hualiama stood motionless, as though wishing to devote her entire being to drinking in that beauty, eyes and mouth and pores all striving to know it, taste it, inscribe what she perceived on her heart. “W-What a-are those?” she stammered, pointing at the volcano.

“Dragonets,” said Flicker.

“So many?”

He coiled, intending to leap up onto her shoulder to comfort her, when he realised he was seeing the strange Human phenomenon called happy-tears. Flicker settled for rubbing against her legs like a cat.

“Oh, my poor darling, you’re hurt,” said Lia, scooping him up.

He pointed with his foreclaw. “Look. Dragons.”

Lia narrowed her eyes. Could she see that far? He was beginning to wonder how good her eyesight was, because she did not appear to see details which were instantly clear to him. He felt a distinct jolt in her body as she spotted the Dragonwing of six huge Reds. Her heart pounded against his flank. Was she afraid? It was men who had done this to her, not the Dragonkind.

Inside, said Flicker. Why are you afraid of Dragons, Lia?

She scuttled across the rock, making for a round cave-entrance he pointed out for her. Me afraid die, she said. “Forbidden.” No Human-Island.

Oh. So that was what the Ancient One had meant! Flicker tasted the strange word. It was similar to the idea that Dragons did not want dragonets invading their roosts, but carried deeper, darker undertones that he neither understood nor enjoyed.

Flicker bared his fangs at her.

* * * *

Lia angled rapidly for the cave. “Forbidden. It’s bad, not allowed … you don’t go to a forbidden place. If you do, they throw you off a Dragonship.”

When the dragonet did not appear to comprehend, Lia imitated the cry she had made before. Aaaah! She mimed a person falling into the Cloudlands.

By the Great Dragon’s breath! Every one of Flicker’s talons unsheathed as his paws contracted, making Hualiama gasp in pain. He said, Oh, shards take it. I’m sorry. Please …

She held him tighter. “What’s a few more cuts, little one?”

Sorry. The dragonet’s flexible neck extended. He rubbed cheeks with her. Hualiama flinched slightly in surprise, but quickly covered her mistake by imitating him, making a contented noise.

She said, “Umm, you smell … what is that smell?”

Flicker’s nostrils flared as they stood before the round cave entrance, wide enough for any Dragon to slip inside, enjoying the warm breeze issuing from the depths of the mountain.

Lia wondered if she was not imagining something, but it was the strangest cave-smell. Not damp. No, nor musty. Just a hint of moisture, yet this was … she could not say. It reminded her oddly of Dragon fire billowing before an attacking Dragon, only this smell was sweet and not acrid like smoke, suggesting dizzying mysteries and hints of long-forgotten magic. She imagined the Island’s roots were steeped in wonders beyond Human comprehension.

Flicker sprang lithely down from her arms. Come, straw-head.

Within, just off the main tunnel which plunged unknowably far into the mountainside, Lia found a cosy round chamber, lit from above by daylight filtering through a clear, star-shaped crystal. Toward the back of the cave she saw two small pools, one bubbling and the other mirror-still.

A Dragon’s roost, said Flicker.

Wow!

The dragonet showed her a depression in the centre of the cave. “Eggs, here.”

Soft, warm sand greeted her toes. Lia gazed around in delight. What colour might the mother Dragon have been? Then, a frisson cased her spine in flame.

White. A hunted Dragoness, frantic, laying her eggs in the cavern while she checked the entrance a hundred times, wondering if she should block it to prevent him from finding her, brooding over her clutch of three Dragon eggs, each easily three feet in length, then knowing a searching presence, the great, many-headed Black Dragon seeking her with all the powers of his magic and cunning … concealing the eggs deep underground, summoning one to care for them, sheltering her unborn young with her own pearlescent power, and then departing the cave to submit to the Black Dragon’s chastisement …

Lia’s legs folded beneath her. Her head struck the sand. She heard Flicker’s shriek as though it came from a great distance, and when she dreamed, it was about Dragons fighting.

* * * *

Her right arm took a further three weeks to heal to the point where she could grip light objects without gritting her teeth, and raise her hand above the height of her shoulder. In that time Lia eased back into her daily exercise and dance routines, much to Flicker’s bemusement. They set up a home of sorts in the cave. Even the worst of her bruises and lesions healed up, thanks to the dragonet’s medications, and she worked diligently on learning to speak Dragonish.

Flicker taught her how to mend a rent in a dragonet’s wing. The thin, supple wing membrane was also extraordinarily sensitive, so he first had her find the right combination of herbs–numb wort, tergaroot and pungent wandering monk’s-flower–which Lia helped to prepare two ways, firstly for eating and secondly, for smearing on the wound to numb it. Then, having readied thorn needles and thread, she was equipped for the task. Fra’aniorian lace embroidery, regarded as the finest in the Island-World, was an art form of which Hualiama had only ever scratched the surface. Flicker made her demonstrate her sewing skills on leaves before he allowed her near his wing. This triggered a hissing-contest between Human and dragonet.

She drew together the ragged edges of his wing membrane and set her nimble fingers to the task, starting by gluing together two severed wing struts, which to her resembled cartilage but were clearly much stronger, and then working on the surface itself.

Lia muttered, “Your wing surface is amazing. Are these all tiny muscles along here? Get your muzzle out of the way, silly.”

Shards take it, straw-head, I’ll bite you if you make a single mistake with that needle.

“Will you pack the fangs away?”

A Dragon’s wing has three joints, Flicker began in his pompous lecturing tone, pointing at them with his tongue.

Hold still, she replied in Dragonish.

He sniffed, Listen to your teacher, you ignorant talking ape.

Shall I sew your lips together? Lia replied, with her sweetest smile.

How’s about I chew your flapping ears into an actually pretty shape? The dragonet seemed pleased by her rippling laughter. Now, the shoulder joint is also the primary wing joint, anchoring the major flight muscles to the keel bone of the chest. The secondary wing joint is akin to your elbow, but it bends forward through one hundred and ten degrees or more, and can be fixed in place by the action of the muscles. And the tertiary joint here, toward the end, is like your wrist, but much more useful, of course.

Oh, of course, Hualiama put in, biting her lip as she concentrated.

Each joint adjusts individually. The arteries which feed the muscles and wing membranes run along a groove in the inner side of the wing bones, where they are best protected. Flicker flared his wing struts at the end of his wing. Ancillary muscles work the wing struts, allowing the entire surface an unparalleled adaptability of movement during flight. Do you understand so far?

Enough. Lia was pleased. Her Dragonish was starting to come much more naturally now, although he still used words she did not understand. How’s this?

Adequate, I suppose, as far as Human work goes.

Lia bared her teeth at the wall. For a creature who had saved her life, Flicker could rile her like stinging-nettle rash.

During this healing time, Lia’s thoughts turned to the outside world. She observed the Fra’aniorian Dragonships flying by overhead on a regular patrol schedule, and reasoned that Ra’aba now exerted absolute control over the Island-Cluster. Her situation was hopeless. Marooned, she was powerless to leave the Island unless she could grow wings of her own. Should she leave, she had no allies. Should the Dragons find her living on their holy Island … Hualiama sighed. Yet, she was daily gaining proficiency in Dragonish. Surely that gave her an edge, even a tiny one?

When a Dragon wished to crush her beneath its impossibly enormous paw, she could plead for her life in fluent Dragonish. Bravo!

Flicker was a strange one. Lia grew accustomed to him flying away to be with his warren, but sometimes at night, she missed the warmth of a curled-up dragonet. Where did he sneak off to for hours on end? And how, by the fires of Fra’anior itself, did he know so much about Humans?

One night, Lia pretended to be asleep so that she could watch for his departure. He flew deeper into the caves, not up-Island to meet his family. Odd. Should she confront him about it? Or just keep her impertinent nose where it belonged? Flicker could be touchy about the most unexpected subjects, such as his habit of slurping up intestines, or the way he cracked the knuckles of his paws, which invariably made her wince. Perhaps she could try to follow him?

The following day, Lia was bathing in the warm pool, singing to herself as she rubbed a natural soapstone on her legs, when a flight of dragonets swooped into the cave, all a-chatter with excitement–perhaps a dozen in number, mostly reds, but she also saw yellow and two light-green, almost identical dragonets among them. Lia had not realised how much dragonets’ shades could vary, but seeing all the reds together, she immediately picked out a range of colours from coppery red through to a deep burgundy. Several dragonets had underparts which were definitely more orange than pale cream.

A pretty yellow dragonet sang out, Found you, Flicker!

Another dragonet gasped, A naked ape! Look, every dragonet!

A chorus of alarm rang out. Leaping eggshells … by my mother’s paws … disgusting … it stinks … careful, it might be dangerous!

At the top of his lungs, Flicker shouted, Quiet, you troop of chattering monkeys! She’s friendly. Don’t scare her and she won’t harm you.

Flicker, what’re you doing with this creature? the yellow dragonet demanded.

Flicker flickering flick flick, chattered one of the reds.

Is this your pet, Flicker? Are you keeping a pet?

In seconds, a dozen curious pairs of eyes ringed Lia. Half of the dragonets perched on the edges of the warm pool or clung to the walls, while the others zoomed around her at high speed, enjoying a game of aerial acrobatics. Hualiama wished she could follow their rapid-fire chirping. Clearly, she was an object of great wonder and speculation. She began to cover her breasts with her hands before halting the movement with a chuckle. Dragonets cared nothing for nudity–all they had was Dragon hide, and that suited them perfectly well. Could this be Flicker’s family? Hualiama observed them curiously, trying to separate the slender, quicksilver females from the slightly more thickset males, noting the differences in musculature and facial features and scale-patterns.

Flicker was clearly vexed, breathing out sharp gasps of fire and flaring his wings at his fellows. Go away, he snarled, baring his fangs. She’s my pet. Leave us alone.

To Lia’s surprise, the chattering died away as the dragonets appeared to communicate as a group, without need for speech. She sank down in the water in order to present a less threatening posture. The scrolls said to do this in the event of a rajal attack. Presumably, whoever wrote that scroll had been eaten immediately, or should have been for offering such advice, for a rajal was a coal-black feline common to the Islands of Fra’anior which stood taller than Lia at the shoulder. Rajals were not known for their delicate table manners.

The pretty female, a striking yellow topaz colour with amber detail on her wing struts, spine spikes, claws and muzzle, minced toward Flicker with what Lia took to be a coquettish air. He mock-charged her, but the female stood her ground, her fiery orbs alight with curiosity. Whatever aggression had flared between them appeared to blow over, for they rubbed muzzles, took a fluttering dance-step together, and touched wingtips, left and right.

Flicker turned to Hualiama, saying, This is Shimyal, a member of my warren. She was concerned about my lengthy absences.

Lia smiled thinly. Fiery greetings, little one.

Shimyal shook her head. These animals speak?

I’m teaching her.

Lia understood this little exchange, and was distinctly unimpressed. The female seemed equally underwhelmed, volleying a tirade of chirps at Flicker which had the unmistakable air of a reprimand. Without thinking, Lia bared her teeth at the dragonet.

Danger! Shimyal squealed. The dragonets took off in a swarm, mobbing her; Hualiama fell backward into the water, protecting her face lest any of those razor-sharp talons seek her eyes, as Flicker had attacked the windroc. The dragonets dived underwater with ease. She received sharp cuts on her head, arms and back. In moments, red clouded the pool, before the dragonets suddenly reversed course and fled. Lia broached, coughing water out of her lungs.

Flicker? Flicker, what just happened?

The dragonet chased his kin out of the cave before returning with a patently smug air. I told them you’d curse them with an unspeakably horrible Human disease.

A … what? She did not understand entirely, but it sounded unwise.

I just saved your hide!

The Human girl flinched as his flame heated the skin of her knee. Sorry, Flicker. She added, “I made a royal mess of that. Will you be alright? Your family, I mean?”

* * * *

It was as he had feared. Flicker knew that this news would be with the warren-mother within an hour. Lia’s cuts appeared to be superficial. She needed to fend for herself.

I must go, he said, firmly.

He tried not to dwell upon how clouded her eyes appeared as he winged out of the cave. Flicker beat his wings furiously, trying to catch up with his warren-brothers and sisters as they bolted skyward, fleeing as though a hundred windrocs snapped at their tails. He scented their fear. Fool! He should not have spoken so unwisely. Lia could not curse anyone or any creature. She simply did not have it in her. But what he knew, his superstitious brethren did not. They believed every word.

Three vertical miles he chased them, far to the north of the cave where he had left Hualiama, and still he could not catch them all. He overtook Seroth and Gleam and Dynoc the green dragonet, but none of the others, who were quicker flyers than he. He crossed through the layers of air that sometimes seemed to collect around the volcano, each trapping their particular fragrances, pollens and grits within a narrow horizontal band. Storms broke up those bands, but they quickly re-established themselves. Flicker passed through a patch of jiista-berry pollen so thick it caused him a sneezing-fit, before orienting rapidly on the clump of obsidian boulders which marked his warren’s territory.

No hope now.

Flicker flashed across the cliff, cutting his approach as finely as he dared, before flicking his wings to bank ninety degrees. He shot beneath the fallen giant draggor tree which concealed their warren’s entrance and barrelled straight into four guards holding up a rude net.

Shards! Flicker screeched, striking the tunnel wall hard.

Tangled in the netting, he stood little chance against four older dragonets. He was smaller but stronger than any of them, but had too much respect for his elders to do more than submit to the symbolic bite just behind his skull-spikes.

The warren-mother will see you, young Flicker, said the oldest of the four, called Windstorm. Will you come willingly?

I obey, he replied automatically. If he did not, he would be cast out, warren-less, without hope of finding a mate or a territory in which to settle.

Windstorm nodded. Remove the net. Escort him to Mother Lyrica.

The acrid odour of fear and disquiet already drifted up the tunnels. Flicker’s scales prickled with a Dragon sense. He knew the interview was not about to proceed in his favour. What lie could he tell? None. Lyrica would sniff it out in a wing-flip. He could only put on a show of meekness and hope that Lyrica’s punishment would not be too severe.

They moved as a group through the warm, dry warren tunnels, the two older dragonets jostling him from behind so that Flicker was forced to keep a dragonet’s sharp eye out lest he tread on the tails of the two ahead. This was a lesson impressed on hatchlings as soon as they left the shell. Respect the elders. Give their wings and tails a courteous berth. As they passed the living tunnels and birthing chambers, Flicker became aware of many a watching eye, a whisper of comment and disbelief that accompanied his progress into the centre of the warren, to the place of the hive-mind.

Even here, a slight breeze kept the air fresh. A careful, aeons-old design of multiple adjustable inlets and outlets ensured adequate ventilation of the warren. They came to a cavern larger than any other, lit by magical, refractive crystals which lent the cavern a creepy, shifting appearance, never still, ever bathed in dancing rainbows.

As Flicker entered the throne-cavern he saw the warren-mother Lyrica crouched upon a pedestal formed from a single flower-like ruby. At five feet in length the elderly red dragonet hulked over him, for dragonets grew throughout their lives. She regarded him gravely above the bowed backs of her subservient Twelve, the communal mind-members–those dragonets who were old and no longer fit to fly, who served the warren with their minds, at the expense of their bodies. All they knew was to open their mouths for food and water, and that others took care of their needs.

Lyrica’s eyes burned with the power of the Twelve within her, and when she spoke, he heard many echoes in the timbre of her mental voice, voices within voices. Flicker. This has gone too far.

He bowed his muzzle to the stone. Mother Lyrica.

Will you share your memories with us, that we might judge what has been?

She phrased this as a question, but coming from Mother Lyrica, it was also an immutable command. Nevertheless, a spark of an idea leaped into Flicker’s mind.

I obey, he said, and prepared a sequence of the right memories for her.

Chapter 6: Forging Friendship

A Day Passed by without any sign of the dragonet. Anger pushed Lia harder than any other day of late. She worked through her dance routines as though her body were Ra’aba, needing to be whipped for past misdeeds, leaping and spinning with a vengeance, repeating difficult pirouettes and holding balance positions until her muscles trembled from fatigue–the flying Dragon, the back-arching trout, the forward and sideways splits, the split-balance called the spear in which she balanced on one leg and raised the other behind her until it pointed straight at the cavern’s ceiling, toes extended.

Perfection. She demanded perfection.

Lia progressed to her warrior exercises. Handstand press-ups still pulled horribly on her right arm where it had been broken, and she could do only five chin-ups on a rocky ledge within the cave, whereas previously she could have managed twenty-five.

She was weak!

Hualiama stalked out of the cave. Emptiness.

She stormed back inside again. How could she have been so stupid? How could he? Moodily, she drew circles in the sand with her big toe. Right, abdominal crunches, aiming to extended her daily total to three hundred. Ten for Shyana, ten for Chalcion, ten for Elki …

Peer at the cave entrance. Flicker might as well have been eaten by a windroc.

Like it or not, Lia worried about Flicker. She pressed her fingers to her temples, failing to fathom the feelings churning so fiercely inside of her breast. As ever, Lia felt as though she strived for the unattainable, that if she could only wish strongly enough, a locked and barred door within her soul would burst open and all would be … glorious. Light. Touched by the insignia of fire. She would not feel chained in spirit, trapped within her own skin, but rather, there would be an indefinable sense of freedom, a knowledge akin to wind rustling unseen through trees. Often, this yearning emerged in her dance. Step faster. Soar higher. Grace drawn from the spirit of flame, juxtaposed with the limitations of ordinary flesh. Always, she wept for what she could not touch.

Stopping to pant, to strike the wetness off her cheeks. Weak! How could she hope to stand against the Roc when mere dance reduced her to stupid, girlish tears?

Soaring again, pirouetting and flaring the left leg, now a spin, ignoring the tugging sensation across her scarred back, springing into a looping somersault, legs elegantly extended and toes pointed in imitation of a Dragon’s wings … if only the air would not refuse her entreaties and choose, just this once, to bear her aloft! What more did she desire?

Flicker. All was not well. Lia stepped into the golden rays of a fragrant Fra’aniorian afternoon, the scents so thick and redolent on the breeze, she imagined she could stretch out her arms and scoop up great handfuls, stuffing them greedily into her mouth. Unbidden, her head turned to the north. She drew a breath through her pathetic, inadequate nostrils, right into the roots of her lungs.

Flicker, my darling. Where are you?

If she could have cut out her heart and sent it winging away to him, she would have. He needed her. She knew it as deeply as her bones knew their need for marrow.

Pensively, Hualiama’s footsteps turned to the cave. If she could do nothing else, she would explore deeper beneath the Island. Perhaps she would discover something useful.

* * * *

Flicker waited in his cell.

There was no door to the small underground chamber, located off a quiet corridor of the warren, nor was there need of one. Tradition and expectation bound a dragonet more surely than any Human chains or locks. The communal hive-mind saw to that. It saw all, pervaded all, and judged all, just as he was surely being judged by Mother Lyrica and her Twelve and being found guilty of behaviour unbecoming of his kind. He threatened the harmony. He brought the imbalance of original thought and unsettling perspectives to the gentle, never-changing thrum of the warren, as though his music conveyed a different pulse, being strident or discordant in ways he did not entirely understand.

No behaviour of an individual dragonet should ever threaten the sanctity and security of the warren. He could only hope that respect for the Ancient One would temper their judgement.

Was it so evil of him to have plucked an injured Human girl from the air? Perhaps not, but what had followed would terrify them–just as he, when he looked to his Dragon fires, felt at once alarmed and exhilarated. Dragonets should not keep Humans for pets. Dragonets should not treat a Human’s wounds, nor teach them civilised speech. Roost with a Human? That lay beyond the Isle of sanity.

A scratching of claws heralded Shimyal’s arrival.

He read accusation in her gaze and hurt in the tilt of her wings. Flicker, she said. What of us?

What indeed? Once, a promise made by their egg-mothers. A lifelong friendship, yet the seven ascending degrees of fire-promises had always remained unspoken between them–never needing to be spoken, he had assumed. That was a mistake. Flicker’s hearts burbled in his chest and throat as he studied the details of Shimyal’s stance, noting the slight vibration in her wings and the deep apricot tones visible in her eyes. Clearly, she had spoken the fire-promises in her third heart.

That creature has bewitched your hearts, Flicker, said Shimyal.

Flicker said, She is a Human and can never mean more to me than one of my kind.

Truth did not dwell in his words. Shimyal knew it, for her talons clenched as though she intended to spring at him. Flicker would have welcomed a physical punishment. What Mother Lyrica intended would injure much more surely and profoundly, in places claw and talon could never reach.

Shimyal spat, You must choose between the Human and me, Flicker.

The sudden flare of her fire made him flinch. How could he choose? He was bound to the ways of dragonets as surely as he was born a dragonet.

Lia is just a friend, Shimyal. She–

Just a friend? cried the dragonet. You stupid null-brain! I’ve put up with seasons of nonsense, with your learning squiggles and watching the two-legged monsters in the world above, and listened to your perverse, twisting thoughts. Come back to us, Flicker! Be one of us.

Be another obedient clone? That possibility had stepped out of his life when he shouldered aside the shards of his shell.

Suddenly, understanding filled Flicker’s mind with dark flame. He would never be content in the hive-mind. He was an aberration, a threat to be excised like a cancer should be separated from the healthy flesh, burned up, and its ashes buried forever. Why could he not have been an egg like any other in the clutch? Was it the Great Dragon who had made him thus? And thereby, sealed his doom?

Yet the moment he thought of the loneliness of tearing himself away from the warmth and companionship of the warren, a smiling image of the straw-headed Human entered his mind. His soul resumed its stillness, burning inside of him with a contentment that seemed neither warranted nor entirely sane. This was his fate. If he was to carry out the Ancient One’s will, what he knew to be right in every fibre and flame of his being, then let his wings flare with courage, and his paws be quick.

Flicker’s spine spikes tingled with renewed resolve.

Come, Shimyal, he said, softly. Come, and I will show you such wonders–

She retreated, quivering with horror, tiny mewls of distress escaping her mouth. You’re mad, mad, mad …

In his eagerness to follow her, Flicker stepped beyond the bounds of his confinement. Shimyal, my egg-sister, it doesn’t have to be–

The dragonet stumbled away blindly, wailing the death-cry. It wounded him; Flicker knew he would bear the scars for the rest of his life. Muzzle lowered, he turned side-on to her, a gesture of apology.

Movement troubled the periphery of his vision. Lyrica.

An image of the warren-mother stood in the corridor just behind him, her expression bleak. So, you have chosen, Flicker.

It is not a choice, he replied. Surely, a dragonet could both be friends with a Human, and true to his kind? Why did he have to give up either, or both?

The Mother’s voice swelled with power. Even now your mind refuses to embrace the paths of goodness. You are blind, Flicker. Thus you have been since breaking the shell. Lyrica’s eyes grew hotter than the twin suns. This, I will not allow! Failure does not exist in this warren!

No, he thought, failure was discarded like the shell-shards of a dragonet he had once seen born disabled, its wings too malformed to fly. The dragonet had been thrown off the edge of the cliff, the memory of that egg wiped out–except in those like him, who remembered more than the hive-mind would permit.

Lyrica reached out with her thirteen-fold power, wrathfully immense, and struck him down. You dare, little one! I will teach you such a lesson … I will annihilate the old and remake you. And you will never disobey me again.

Flicker’s world collapsed amidst dark, mocking tongues of fire.

* * * *

A girl, once a royal ward of Fra’anior, walked beneath the mountain, penetrating the roots of a world she thought she had known. Magic whispered in her veins. Wonder weaved filigree thrills inside her soul. She had long forgotten the setting of stones and scratching of arrows on tunnel-mouths, intended to mark her route. Tiny fragments of crystal song entered her mind, striking like droplets of fine rain upon a parched Island, sucked ravenously into a soul desperate to know its identity, to grasp truth in a world which had cast her off not once, but many times. She knew, as the weight of a miles-high Island above her settled upon its foundations, the crushing weight of loneliness and despair.

Somehow, one learned to walk even when wounded.

One limped. One drew from grief the expression of dance. One tore it forth, and dangled it in the faces of those wondering how it was possible that beauty should rise from ashes blown across the Cloudlands.

Queen Shyana, for all her love, had failed to protect her adopted daughter. She had paid the price. Hualiama remembered trying to pull King Chalcion off her as he beat his queen in a drunken rage, but she was too small and weak, just nine years old. He had chased Lia off with the roar of a beast. She had never forgotten the sight of her mother whimpering in that corner of her bedchamber, her battered right eye already swelling shut.

“Go, my darling,” the Queen whispered. “I will come to you later. I’ll be fine.”

Did it take courage to suffer like that, or merely acquiescence?

In a cave filled with light, a pure, reaming, magical light emanating from a million crystals, clustered so thickly upon the walls that the basal rock was not even to be seen, Hualiama wept for her mothers. One, doomed to be unknown. The other, who loved her imperfectly yet unstintingly, and was infinitely the more precious for it.

Her limbs jerked in a parody of dance, the heaviness in her soul mirroring the slow suffocation of untold millions of tons of rock bearing down upon the caves.

She wandered the crystal-bedecked hallways, stumbling along in pursuit of that scent which had ambushed her perception, aware only of her soul’s craving to draw deeper, of seeking an elusive presence or purpose secreted in the very bowels of Ha’athior Island. The quality of the light stupefied her senses. It was not the ruddy golden light of the twin suns, warming and beautiful, but an immaculate white which was at once as clarion-clear as starlight, yet inexplicably imbued with a warmth that evoked Dragon fire in her mind. Always, the fire eluded her. Lia could grasp but never hold, bathe but never be.

Passing through a complex set of cross-tunnels, Hualiama came to a place of darkness. Weary, she rested her back against a wall of black stone, as if the solidity of stone should become her life-Island’s foundation. Silence descended like a thunderclap. For the first time in hours, she began to listen.

Where was the crystal song? She reached out with her senses. In this place, it was absent. Only the soft sigh of her breathing and the suddenly enlarged throbbing of her heart came to her ears, amplified by the surrounding quietude. So deep and so vast was the hush, the urge she felt to express her burdens bordered on sacrilege, Lia thought. But if she sang for beauty, her song should not grieve the deeps, but meander along their dark corridors and unknown abysses with the air of a soul-lost being seeking the light.

Lia sang a melancholy lay, one she had learned from a music scroll in the Palace library:

Alas for the fair peaks, my love, my fierce love,

Alas for the scorching winds, which stole thee away,

Let my soul take wing upon dawn’s twin fires …

And fly to thee.

It was the song of a Dragon pining for his lost love.

In that instant, Hualiama began to hear more, as though her song had aroused the Island itself. Sonorous, faraway, conducted into her body through the rock at her back, she heard what seemed to be a gigantic heartbeat, impossibly deep and slow. She laid her head against the volcanic rock, marvelling at the heat conducted into her body, warming the huge crescent scar on her back until it stopped aching.

Mercy! There was something down here with her.

Truly? No, of course Lia’s imagination was taking flight, as always. Quietly, she chuckled, “You’re a silly ralti sheep. Come on, time to find your way back to the real world.”

If she could. Unbidden, her laughter swelled. Being lost underground would only cap her misery. As she felt her way back out of that foetal darkness into the world of light-crystals and their elusive, enticing music, Hualiama found her footprints in the dust and sand of the cave where she had wept. Perfect. She could follow her own careless footsteps back. On an impulse, she knelt to gather together a few pebbles, building them quickly into an arrow that pointed down the tunnel to the place of darkness.

“This way to the Dragon.” She giggled merrily, stealing a line from an ancient ballad about Land-Dragons, “Ho, Island-biter, I shall return to speak with thee.”

Well, that was a touch of Hualiama.

She offered the tunnel mouth a mocking bow. “Say, Ancient–”

Quicker than the Roc’s blade, a vision stabbed into her mind. Flicker, facing a huge red dragonet whose eyes burned with a kind of power she had recognised in Ra’aba. Treacherous. Dominant. Flicker collapsed; the dragonet stalked toward him, mouthing words in a language unknown to her, which sliced into her soul as deeply as the forked dagger had penetrated her entrails.

Lia screamed.

Tearing at her face, sobbing, “No … no …” Knowing Flicker was in jeopardy, in pain. She shrank away, at first, but his anguish drew her inward, acting as a lodestone for the loss she had borne. He must not suffer on her account. She could not bear it.

Falling to her knees, Lia reached out for the writhing figure of the smoky green dragonet she pictured in her mind, forming an overarching shield of love. She drew strength from her pain, and clarity from the crystals surrounding her. The light flickered and dimmed. Instinct supplied the movement of her spirit toward Flicker, a single thought placing Lia in harm’s way as she sought to help her friend.

“Come to me, dear one,” she breathed. “I will be your sanctuary.”

Perhaps Human thought could not communicate to a dragonet in this way. Forming her words carefully in Dragonish, Lia said, I am here, Flicker. I will shield you.

His muzzle lifted weakly, his eyes limpid and devoid of flame, as though a vital part of his soul had been extinguished. Horror! She gagged. Flicker did not appear to see her, his mind entrapped by a many-headed monster of darkness which snapped at him, gnawing, ravaging, battering him toward madness.

The chaos tore at Lia, too. Sensing her spirit-presence, it attacked, roaring, BEGONE!

She bent beneath the red dragonet’s assault with the suppleness of a reed yielding to storm winds, bowed yet unbroken. Lia drew Flicker close with her love. She enfolded him in a cocoon-like space, as though he were the precious chrysalis and she was the silk, a delicately strong thread woven of the fibres of her being and the white fire of the crystals, too many layers for the creature to break through–yet it would not give up, rending her again and again with the shattering blows of a mental giant.

His pain became her pain. She supplied her strength without stinting. Slowly, inevitably, Hualiama sank to the cavern floor, wholly focussed on the inner battle. Stone had never felt softer.

Even the light no longer penetrated her eyelids.

* * * *

Lia roused with a desolate cry on her lips, “Dragon! No …”

It had been a dream of extraordinary lucidity, of Ra’aba trapping her beneath a mountain, bringing down a landslide to bury her alive. Only a blink of time later in her dream, she transformed into a he–Flicker? No. A Dragon of a vivid blue colour, like a gemstone which had fascinated a young girl, found amidst the Palace’s treasures. What had her tutor called it? Tourmaline, aye. A blue tourmaline. Hualiama swallowed away a lump of dream-spawned horror. What must it mean for a creature who owned the freedom of the skies to be trapped in unending darkness?

Flicker.

Pushing abruptly to her feet, Lia was running before the cobwebs of sleep had fully cleared from her mind. She sliced her shoulder open on a spar of cream-coloured crystal, ripping what little fabric remained of her dress. Clumsy ralti sheep. Run! Lifting the fleet feet, skipping past an ancient rockfall, taking the twists and turns that led her past several depthless drop-offs, ever upward through galleries she had marked so painstakingly on the way down. Lia ran hard, taxing her strength and agility to the limit as she negotiated the twisting tunnels on her way to the surface.

Here was the brightness of daylight. Had she spent a whole night underground?

Hualiama burst into their cavern. “Flicker!”

Lia scooped up the dragonet’s poor, limp form, splayed on the soft sand. So cold. She gasped at the gentle pulsing of his second heart at the base of his throat. Alive! Cradling him against her body, crooning, rocking, calling his name over and over, Lia checked Flicker’s limbs and wings for injuries, but found none. Only, if her cave-dreams had been true, he had suffered beyond imagination.

After Hualiama dribbled a little water from a gourd down his throat, the dragonet’s eyes cracked open. Straw-head, you shouldn’t fuss over me.

Shouldn’t fuss? You … you ridiculous male …

She wanted to smack him into the middle of the next cavern. Flicker seemed to sense her feelings, because he chuckled, I came back, didn’t I?

Lia began to say, “I’ll wring your neck, you wretched …” but her voice trailed off. The dragonet flicked his eye-membranes at her, and then with a contented purr, snuggled his muzzle into the crook of her arm. He might just as well have taken her heart in his little paws and squeezed it as the Fra’aniorian Islanders squeezed berries for their juices and berry-wines, Lia thought crossly. “Make yourself at home, little one.”

He said, I will.

How could any animal make her feel like this? Several notable Human scholars had raised exactly this issue. Did Dragons and dragonets have souls? Were they animals in the sense that people took them for? The histories taught that Humans had once been slaves to the Dragons, suggesting that Ancient Dragon scientists had created Human beings to serve them, to be the builders of their roosts, and to farm the Islands and bring in the produce. Pictures of Humans cleaning Dragon roosts and polishing Dragon scales, or making them armour for war, abounded in the royal archives. Slowly, over the centuries, Dragons taught Humans the sciences and scholarship, raising their slaves from the level of the animals they had been.

Of course, it was no surprise that such an unflattering portrait of Humanity should provoke a sceptical response, called ‘adraconosticism’–a smile quirked Lia’s lips at the word–essentially, the belief that Humans arose naturally in the Island-World and were in no way created or shaped by draconic magical powers. The ‘draconist’ or ‘realist’ scholars opposed this movement, but were often accused of seeking to drag Humans back into draconic slavery.

Whatever the truth, there was a great deal of bad blood between Humans and Dragons as a result, and also between Humans of differing beliefs.

And the truth of a Dragon’s soul? No-one knew that for certain. Lia gazed at the creature in her arms. Intuition and experience could enlighten her a great deal, however. Flicker was far, far removed from an unthinking beast.

Scraping a hollow for him in the warm sand, she settled the dragonet down.

You wait here. I’ll go hunt. Don’t move!

As you command, mighty Lia.

She hissed in disapproval, wondering meantime if the ability to be sarcastic might count for a soul-sign. Snatching up her Immadian forked dagger, Hualiama rushed out of the cave.

Chapter 7: Waterfalls of Dragons

Fra’anior Cluster’s Hot season marked two months of dry heat, wracked daily by violent electrical storms fuelled by the enormous, ever-burning power of the mighty caldera. In the Human-inhabited lands above, the weather would have turned to an unendurable scorching of the twin suns, blasting and browning the grasses and withering the crops. People rested during the heat of the day. Two and a half miles below the rim-Islands, the warmth pressed in as though Lia were stuck inside a Dragon’s fire-belly. Flicker lazed in the full glare of the afternoon suns-shine, while Hualiama sheltered beneath the shade of a prekki tree nearby. She had no desire to turn herself into a fried egg, unlike the dragonet.

“You call that clothing?” Flicker asked, not bothering to crack open an eye.

“That’s right, clothing. In a manner of speaking.”

Lia eyed her new top judiciously. It would not pass for decent apparel in any royal court of the known Island-World, she imagined. Her options were limited, for the material of her attire that fateful morning when Ra’aba staged his revolt had not been designed with rough living in mind. Her ankle-length skirt had now been shortened to mid-thigh, in order to provide enough material to fashion a brief halter top from the remaining scraps.

“Why ‘in a manner of speaking’?” asked the dragonet, mimicking her delivery with the skill of a parakeet.

“Because it doesn’t cover enough of my skin.”

Needlework was not a Hualiama strong point. Fixing Dragonships? Any day. Tinkering with her solo Dragonship was one of her favourite pastimes, adjusting the rigging or figuring out better ways of harnessing an engine’s power. Grease was good. Tiny needles and fine lacework were not. She yelped and sucked her finger. Definitely not!

Explain this nudity taboo to me, said Flicker. Are your female parts not attractive to a male of your kind, that you must cover them up?

Flicker! She clicked her fingers rudely at him. My parts … um …

Tell me, what would a Human male find attractive? Your long, pale straw?

Aye, my straw! Lia had finally learned the word in Dragonish, and her tone turned waspish as he teased her again. I guess … they might …

And your haunches? He grinned toothily. I’ve observed Human males are similar to dragonets in this regard.

I refuse to answer that question, you rude, crude creature.

Lia drew the length of fabric across the middle of her back, brought it around her ribs, crossed it over the essentials, and drew the ends together behind her neck. She tied a knot and adjusted the fit self-consciously, hoping that the dragonet might change the subject.

Flicker continued, So, Human males don’t mind you covering your hide? This is ‘polite’ in Human society?

How do I look?

The dragonet’s eyes whirled with lively curiosity. Hualiama was certain there was another rash of questions coming from the inquisitive dragonet, or one of his ever-sharp insults. He simply did not understand clothing. Neither did she, in this heat, but the thought of dashing barefoot over the blistering black ledge to their little rock pool on the far side of the ledge was too much to contemplate. Was she desperate enough? Nay.

If I confess I don’t find you attractive, that’s bad, right?

Lia burst out laughing. Aha, you remembered that lesson! Well done, Flicker.

So, should I say your breasts are well-formed? Shapely?

Heat exploded into her face. “No!” Lia shouted, trapped between mortification and horror. “Don’t you dare! That’s male dragonet culture, Flicker–your display rituals–the dancing, the flaring wings, stalking a female and breathing fire. Humans are more subtle … well, not always. Islands’ sakes! Let’s talk about something else.”

Well, does their size matter?

“We are not discussing the size of my … my–end of Island!”

Flicker pretended to be hurt, although the curl of fire that escaped between his fangs told Lia that he was unrepentant. We discussed how Dragons find physical size attractive, he protested. Why can we not discuss your size?

“Because it’s too personal,” said Lia, fanning her face with her hands. “I’m not a stick and I’d thank you not to notice.”

Although, she had lost weight–as might be expected after being stabbed in the belly, tossed to the windrocs, and having to survive on a diet of raw fruit and meat thereafter. Her skirt sagged on her hips. Her already toned dancer’s body had turned gaunt. Such royal comforts as she had enjoyed, now seemed to belong to another life.

It’s strange how Humans have fires, too, offered the dragonet. Hold still–another Dragon.

Lia followed the faraway red speck with her gaze, shrinking further beneath the tree. That’s the third Dragon this week. What’s going on, Flicker? Do you think the Dragons have found us?

* * * *

Flicker’s eyes leaped from the faraway Dragon to his rosy-cheeked companion.

The Human girl’s ever-busy hands had turned to the matter of fashioning another hunting sling, having broken the previous three. Securing a length of vine between her toes, she shaved it with her dagger using long, steady strokes. As the dragonet watched her working, he wondered at these strange Human customs of manners and taboos and politeness; their many-layered, complex disguises for truth. Who should care if she covered herself to her knees with a piece of cloth, or to her ankles? Only Humans. If he could observe her interacting with others of her kind, he might find a few answers.

“Another sling?” he enquired.

“I don’t have the tools to build a decent bow,” said Lia. “I’m not as good with a sling, but I can hit a moving target one in three times. I need to hunt tonight.”

“I’m ready,” said Flicker.

Her green eyes flashed a warning at him.

“Or you can practise your skills,” he amended hastily. “You’re very stubborn.”

Stubborn was his latest Human word, and it described Lia well, he felt, in the way that she focussed on problems until she solved them. She never gave up. It pleased him that they were so alike in this–well, with one exception. Ra’aba, the fungus-face who had thrown her off the Dragonship. Fear of him shrivelled her soul.

His belly-fires fulminated at this thought.

Lia glanced up. “Indigestion, Flicker?”

The dragonet bared his fangs lazily. “I expect a young, juicy lemur this time, not a tough old piece of goat sinew.”

She made a mocking half-bow. “Any further wishes, your blazingly majestic draconic highness?”

Indeed, I have a modest list–

“Shall I scribe my list on your green lizard-hide?”

“Ooh, sharpening our little fangs, are we?”

Lia giggled, “You should brush your fangs. Your breath stinks. Rotten meat.”

“I’ll just burn it out,” said Flicker, breathing a curl of fire toward her toes.

She jerked her feet away. “Islands’ sakes, that’s hot!”

Despite their shared laughter, Flicker’s thoughts were in another warren entirely. She was right. He should ask the Ancient One what they could do, for he had no desire to be chasing his Human friend down another cliff. Perhaps a hundred dragonets could carry her to another Island in a net made of vines? He brightened briefly, before realising that if a Dragon saw them leave, she was dead anyway. The dragonet’s eyes narrowed, scanning the skies.

Dragons patrolled up there. Why?

If he had still been part of the warren, the latest news would have been at his talon-tips. Could there be war between Humans and Dragons? Or a less sinister explanation?

He said, Please be careful, Lia. Don’t go far.

I won’t. Now, her eyes lit upon him with disconcerting force. Are you ready to tell me what happened in the warren, Flicker?

Quietly, he said, I am, and I thank you for protecting my mind, Lia. What Mother Lyrica intended, what you saved me from, is called ‘first impression’. He searched for the right words, knowing he still needed to simplify his language for her to understand. It is a process which wipes the mind clean, returning it to the state in which a hatchling begins their life in the warren. It is … retuned. It does not remember the past.

The tear which reached her chin, sparkling there for an instant before dropping to the ground between her legs, shocked him. Was she an empath? How else could she feel his pain so intensely? How had she wrested him from Lyrica’s power? The Ancient One must know.

Flicker added, Harmony is paramount in the warren.

She wailed, What have I done to you, Flicker? What have I done?

He rushed to her, crooning, rubbing muzzles with the Human girl. It was my choice. I made my decision long before I met you, Lia.

Her weeping excoriated his soul.

* * * *

Heavy-hearted, Hualiama hunted in a most unusual night–a moonless night. With five moons crowding the sky, aside from the myriad stars, Island-World nights were almost never devoid of light. Iridith the yellow, Jade the green, the Blue and Mystic moons, and White, all dominated the skies in their various orbits and periods. For just three nights a year, and only for a few hours at most, a night might be moonless. Then, the glory of the stars blazed with a rare and breathtaking brilliance.

Lia could not shake the concern that she had unwittingly ripped Flicker from his home, from his loved ones, and from all of his kind. How could that be good for any dragonet? Yet he assured her he was happy, and better off without them. Truth be told, the prospect of being a faceless clone in a community of clones, terrified him. How had she beaten the red dragonet? Hualiama concluded that in her extremity, she had somehow been able to exploit the magic indwelling that cavern to withstand the warren-mother’s power.

With a brace of lemurs slung over her shoulder and a small vine net of ripe fruits weighing on her belt, Lia trudged back along a familiar trail. In this darkness, a misstep was inevitable, so she felt for each step before trusting it. She should have waited until dawn to hunt.

Just before midnight, she approached the ledge. All was still.

Of course, Flicker was not inside the cave. Lia sighed. Another night-time jaunt for the dragonet, after she had instructed him to stay put? Incorrigible pest! She’d have his hide for this. About as incorrigible as a certain girl she might name, Hualiama chuckled. They made a perfect pair–scoundrels to the core!

Lia padded outside to make her ablutions near the picturesque hundred-foot waterfall at the southern edge of their ledge. Sleep? She was too keyed-up to feel sleepy, despite the water’s soothing burble. How many people in the Island-World were privileged to see the stars on a night like this? Stretching out on her favourite flat rock, she knitted her fingers behind her neck and began to name the constellations with quiet resolve–the Dragon Rampant, the Fisherman, Fra’anior’s Breath and the Sky-Strider.

She should not allow her mind to wither from disuse.

Half of the sky was cut off by the black cliff soaring above her, but to the south and west and north, the monumental expanse of the Island-World cast the doings of a not-truly Princess of Fra’anior into insignificance. If it was true that Dragons had made Humans, she mused, who had made the moons and stars?

Perhaps great star-faring Dragons ruled the cosmos. It was their eyes gleaming up there in the darkness, all-seeing and omnipotent, crossing the unthinkable distances of space and time by the power of Dragon thought and magic. Lia chuckled. Any race with that kind of power could enslave Humans at the snap of a talon. More likely, they would not even need slaves. The Dragons of Fra’anior seemed to correlate Humans with an annoying swarm of mosquitoes. Occasionally, they might need to swat a few, especially if they dared to stray into Dragon territory.

Her nose wrinkled. Funny … now she detected a whiff of that same smell she had noticed when she first entered their cave with Flicker. Cinnamon? Crystal magic? Suddenly restive, Hualiama glanced about her. She could not remember rightly, but the small pool seemed to have taken on a new shape–at least, had that huge boulder lain next to it, two nights before? Had it been dislodged during a storm, they would surely have heard the impact from half a mile off.

Now her mind served up monkey-babble for thought. Hualiama’s eyes returned to the velvet skies. That gleaming expanse of stars … wow!

She whispered, “If I were a Dragon, I’d fly to the stars.”

“Me too.”

Lia gasped. “Flicker? Is that you? Don’t scare me like … aaah!”

The stars blotted out. Hualiama rolled instinctively, but thumped into something hard. Before thought could intrude, she switched direction, slipping free of a grasping talon the size of her leg. Dear sweet … ‘Roll!’ her mind shrieked. ‘Leap!’ Another swipe splintered the rock beside her thigh. Lia was up, sprinting, screaming as she ran for her life. A massive shadow sprang away from the cliff face. A wing swept down ahead of her. Lia’s nose smacked into a hard, leathery surface. She bounced straight into a Dragon’s paw, which flattened her with irresistible power.

Dragon-thunder reverberated against her eardrums, “How dare you run from me?”

An Island stood atop her back, three rock-hard digits crushing her shoulders, ribs and thighs into the stone. The vast rasp of the creature’s breathing filled her world. Lia distinctly felt the heat of its breath wash over her back, but her world had reduced to a simple need: oxygen. Only that. The night became blacker as her lungs heaved against the impossibly massive compression of a Dragon’s grasp.

A wheeze escaped her lips. “Please …”

The Dragon spat, “Please what?”

“Can’t … breathe.”

“As if you deserve another breath, trespasser.” However, the paw did lift, if only an inch.

Her heart rattled painfully up near her throat, a mouse thrashing in a steel trap. She could not see much from her position, but Lia sensed something of the size of this predator. The Dragon’s talons felt as thick as her thighs, and terminated in foot-and-a-half blades visible beyond her nose. By the timbre of his voice, she imagined a young male Dragon, not a fully-grown adult, although she had no way of knowing how she arrived at this conclusion.

People did not just sit down to lunch with Dragons.

Again, the hot, enigmatically redolent breath stirred her hair. In a growl that turned the pit of her stomach into a bowl of quivering prekki-fruit mush, the Lesser Dragon rumbled, “You dare to live on holy Ha’athior, little Human? Tell me why I shouldn’t give you a short flight from a great height?”

Monstrous irony! A bleak, chopped-off laugh fell from her lips. Hualiama shuddered as the terrible grip intensified, grinding her jaw against the rock. Somewhere behind her, anger throbbed in the Dragon’s belly, the same fires she heard inside Flicker, only a hundred times larger. His hold was so powerful, Lia could not even turn her head to gaze up at him. All she knew was an awesome voice a mere foot from her quivering back, rich and deeply resonant. So noble. So formidable, and so utterly alien to her experience, vibrating right through her body as though her very bones thrummed to his prodigious tune. How many times had Lia unknowingly flattened an ant beneath her heel? This Dragon could do the same, should he so choose.

“Speak!”

“I-I’m s-so awfully sorry o mighty Dragon,” she babbled, “someone else threw me down this cliff just recently and that’s why I’m here a-a-a–” she tried to halt the chattering of her teeth “–I’m laughing because I’m so terrified, mighty Dragon, and I know you probably think I’m insane but I’m not, and–”

“Silence!”

Lia tasted blood in her mouth from biting into her lip.

“Control your tongue’s flapping, girl,” he snarled, in a tone that did anything but help. “Pray you give truthful answers, or I swear your life shall be spilled this night!”

Four tries later, she managed to breathe, “Aye.”

He said, “Which Dragon threw you down here? How did you survive?”

“I always wanted to meet a Dragon, but not quite like this,” Lia ventured, speaking her thoughts aloud. “Um … I mean, it wasn’t a Dragon at all. A man tried to murder me, before throwing me off his Dragonship.”

“Who?”

“The man who’s now the King, I suppose–Captain Ra’aba. He–”

“Ra’aba!”

A baffling stress on the word, a crack of real thunder right above her back. At once, Hualiama understood that this Dragon knew exactly who Ra’aba was, and … hated him? Disapproved? There were so many nuances in the way her captor bit off that single word. What did it mean?

The claws loosened slightly. “Why are you so important, girl, that Ra’aba wanted you to fly into the Cloudlands? Who are you?”

“I’m Hualiama, the–”

“–adopted Princess of Fra’anior,” finished the Dragon.

Great leaping Islands! Her father’s fears, given voice. Icy claws clamped her belly as though the Dragon had seized a pawful of her entrails. King Chalcion had always claimed that the Dragons knew far more about Human dealings than they let on. If this monster knew who she was–a no-account royal ward of the Human royal family–then what else did he know? Were the Dragons secretly meddling in Human affairs and politics, as everyone seemed to ‘know’ but could never prove?

Yet her contradictory heart sang in the presence of a Dragon. Hualiama became aware of an expanding of purpose and understanding, as though his attack had released a swarm of thoughts like a thousand-strong flight of dragonets scared into flight, chaotic and vibrant and alive. She could not process all that she felt. It was too unruly, too visceral. How absurd was it that her skin thrilled to a Lesser Dragon’s touch, even though he meant to trample her? That her nostrils tingled, desperate to take in the sulphur and cinnamon scents of a formidable male Dragon? She was off-the-Islands crazy, Lia told herself, unhinged by distress and fear.

The Dragon demanded, “How did you survive, little Human?”

“With the help of a dragonet, I landed in a tree.”

A great rumble in his belly resolved into what she realised was the Dragon’s laughter. “You cheated Ra’aba? What courage … girl, you’ve no idea what you’ve done.”

Abruptly, his claws tightened across her back, pinning her as though she were locked behind dungeon bars. Hualiama groaned, but the Dragon did not relent. He snarled, “Princess, attend my words well. I was never here. You never saw a Dragon who warned you to lie low for the next three days. Don’t stick your insolent little nose out of that cave, no matter what you hear. Do you understand me?”

“Aye, mighty Dragon.” Lia despised the way her voice squeaked.

“You need to get off this Island. I don’t care how you do it, just leave. Should you be found here by another Dragon, no power in this Island-World could keep you safe.”

The pressure vanished. Nauseous with disbelief, Lia had strength only to lie motionless, her eyes squeezed shut. Any moment now, a talon would slice across her neck … the Dragon’s paw would stamp down … instead, a cool breeze wafted across her bare back.

Her wide-flung eyes spied the very tip of his tail as the Dragon dropped off the cliff.

What?

To say her world had been shaken was an understatement. The Islands dangled from the sky. The stars burned in her heart. She had just been attacked by a Dragon on their holy Island, and she would live to see another dawn? Dragons were not supposed to behave as though they felt compassion. Lia played and replayed their conversation in her head. Three things stood out to her–her crazed laughter, which had triggered an incomprehensible shift in his attitude, the Dragon’s knowledge of who she was, and the sheer incredulity and joy infusing the Dragon’s voice as he spoke of her cheating Captain Ra’aba.

Nothing about their encounter made a jot of sense.

She had not learned the Dragon’s name. Islands’ sakes, she did not even know what colour he had been! In all her dreams about an encounter with the amazing, magical Dragons, she had never imagined she would count herself fortunate not be scraped off the underside of a Dragon’s paw. Such raw, animal power! She shivered.

At least, in one more irony, she had learned that Dragons could make mistakes. He thought she was important. How little a Dragon knew.

* * * *

When Flicker returned to the cave, he looked for straw-head in her customary sleeping-place, the hollow where the Dragoness in ages past must have brooded over her eggs. She was not there. Instead, the Human girl watched him from the hot pool, neck-deep in the steaming water, the expression in her eyes unfathomable.

“Ah … good hunting?” he chirped.

“If you count becoming the prey as good hunting, yes,” said Lia.

Flicker coughed fire involuntarily. “What?”

“Oh, if you must know, a Dragon ambushed me last night but left me alive–while you were nowhere to be found.”

Flicker’s wings pulsed in shame. “Shards take it, Lia, I’m sorry.” And here I’m the one who preached at you about friends always looking after each other’s wings.

He thought she would demand to know where he had been, but instead, Hualiama recounted the incident for him. “What do you make of it, Flicker?”

“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 the 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.

“A library?” Lia whispered.

The narrow tunnel she had taken opened abruptly onto a tall, circular chamber, lit from above by a spectacular, branched crystal formation, so that it was almost as bright as daylight. The walls were lined for thousands of feet up and down with scroll-racks–at least, as far as she could see, for what she had assumed was the floor, was only a platform beyond which she saw further ranks of scrolls and books and even more platforms. Crystal lights burned lower down in the library. This cavern dwarfed the Palace library. It dwarfed the Palace itself.

She expected to smell musty, mouldering records, but there was none of that. Only fresh, clean leather and the tang of treated scroll-leaf, as though the library were regularly maintained and aired out by beings now absent. Her hand flew to her mouth. The scroll-stands stood fifteen feet high!

Dragon-sized.

A library of lost Dragon lore? What a treasure trove!

However, Lia could see no way of entering from where she was, unless she wished to climb down the shelves. That seemed sacrilegious, somehow.

With great reluctance, Hualiama retraced her steps. Where would a dragonet be hiding? She had already been walking for several hours, and had passed by enough gemstones to finance her father’s kingdom for her lifetime and a few more.

Finding several of her stone arrows, Hualiama jogged wearily along the trail to where she had previously found a dark place, which seemed unique in these caves. Her steps slowed as she began to hear a faraway thudding, a monstrous drumbeat which filled her with trepidation, and a gentle breeze brought the scent of the deep caverns to her nostrils. Now, this was more dangerous. She had no light, unless–yes. Picking up a fallen shard of luminous crystal the size of a decent sword, Lia advanced into the darkness.

She came quickly to the place where she had rested before. Her footprints were still visible in the dust. But here she saw fresh dragonet tracks, claw-scratches leading away into a tunnel to her right. Ha. She was hot on Flicker’s trail. Just wait until she caught that pesky runaway! She’d wring his sinuous little neck until he bawled out his answers. No more evasions. No more sneaking off at night and sleeping the days away.

“Dragonet steaks, chargrilled to perfection,” she muttered, flexing her fingers. “Spicy dragonet stew served with purple tubers. One cheeky dragonet stuffed and mounted for a trophy!”

Pressing on, Hualiama followed the twisting tunnel for another twenty minutes, losing the trail twice, before she broke out into a vast, dark space. Where were the crystal lights? Her little spar gave her just enough illumination to spy an enormous gorge to her left hand; she maintained a respectful distance from the edge. The drumming sound was louder and clearer here, and wind seemed to rush somewhere nearby, across the gorge, although no breeze ruffled her hair.

Lia cast about for the source of the sounds. Nothing, just the pervading, warm darkness within which … a presence brooded. She rubbed her temples tiredly. Mercy. Mortal terror followed by an evening’s spelunking? Not her smartest choice of late. Perhaps her madness had started with confronting Ra’aba. Did that not prove her brain was stuffed with pollen?

Lia delved in her bag, and bit hungrily into a juicy prekki-fruit. Delicious, the nectar of life itself.

The path led on across a cavern of unknown size, before twisting up into a maze of tunnels beyond. Was that Flicker’s voice? Hualiama paused, straining her ears. There, issuing from her right. She remembered to scrape an arrow on the tunnel she entered. The darkness was absolute, now, but she tracked the sound of his chirping through a short stretch of tunnel, guiding herself with a fingertip touch, every step ventured with care, before climbing a steep slope into an open space. The light in her hand suddenly illuminated the dragonet, perched on a spire of rock in front of a black wall.

… power of visions, o Ancient One, he was saying. There’s more to this Human girl than … Lia! What’re you doing here?

Lia snapped, I might ask you the same question, you little runaway!

The dragonet seemed stricken. He glanced at the wall before replying, I come here to meditate.

Rotten liar! Lia drew breath to scorch his scaly rump with all the irritation she had built up during her long search.

NAY, LITTLE MOUSE. IT IS TIME SHE KNEW.

A vast voice boomed in her mind, which should by rights fracture the cavern’s ceiling. She gasped, “W-Who said that?”

Beyond the dragonet, light cracked through the black stone. Lia froze. Twenty feet wide, a gash of streaming light opened up, growing taller than her with startling speed, until the Human girl suddenly realised what she beheld.

“Mercy!” With a scream, her legs gave out and she tumbled several yards down the slope she had climbed to reach Flicker’s perch. An eye! Oh, mercy, mercy … she began to cover her head and tremble–no, she would remember her courage! Lia peeked beneath her upraised arm. Dragon fire swirled in the depths of that massive orb, hypnotic, multi-layered patterns shifting and coalescing, entrancing the senses. Having looked, she found herself unable to glance away. The radiance illuminated the cavern behind her, and enough to all sides that Lia discovered she stood on a rocky ledge that brought her to the height of a Dragon’s eye, while a mountain of obsidian scales towered above her and to either side until they were lost in the darkness. The eye alone was twice her height. She could not begin to imagine the rest of its body.

She felt naked, a mote trapped in a beam of the purest starlight, impossibly tiny in comparison to this vast creature which hid beneath Ha’athior Island.

Lia stammered, A-Are you a L-Land D-Dragon? Your … majesty?

The drumbeat was its hearts. The soughing of the wind, its breath. The touch of its mind cowed her, but did not strike her as evil–she sensed the presence of an ancient, utterly alien intellect, but it was not hostile.

Absurdly, Hualiama pictured herself walking into the creature’s eye.

I am Amaryllion, an Ancient Dragon. The creature’s voice resonated in her mind like an orchestra of many instruments, so dense with half-understood, half-felt tones and nuances, that Hualiama became giddy and confused. Oddly, she imagined growing slightly drunk on an Island-sized bouquet of scented flowers, such was the impression his telepathic speech produced within her. He said, Thy companion hath told me much about thee, little mouse, and I confess, I have looked forward to this day ever since thou took thy rest against my flank, and sang a poignant song, and the lilt of thy laughter tickled mine ears–the first laughter I have heard in many a year. Rise, little Human. I deserve none of thy bows, nor do I desire thy worship. I am not worthy.

Nevertheless, she sensed he tempered his power for her sake.

Uh … Lia gasped, struggling to rise. I think my knees are stuck, o Ancient–

Flicker hissed at her, Talk sense, Lia. Do not disrespect an Ancient Dragon.

You Dragons talk mind-to-mind!

Her mental exclamation brought a sense of two minds smiling at her. Lia felt a fool. The truth was so obvious. All those times Flicker had looked at her, demanding her understanding even though he had said nothing aloud, suddenly made perfect sense. Her dull, half-blind Human senses simply had not picked up his speech. Now, the portal of the Ancient Dragon’s eye seemed to have opened a similar portal within her, in which she glimpsed new facets of a world she had taken for granted.

The Ancient Dragon said, Art thou a telepath, little mouse?

Concentrating so fiercely that a migraine began to throb between her temples, the Human girl formed words in her mind, I never realised that Dragons spoke in this manner, Ancient One, but you are so powerful, so clear and easy to hear …

Thy Dragonish flows with eloquence, Lia. I remain to be convinced thy wings are not hid behind thy back.

She felt Amaryllion’s deep chuckles right in the pit of her stomach. Emboldened, Lia replied, If it were possible to grow wings from sheer yearning, mighty Amaryllion, then I would have flown away to the moons many years ago. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I’m only Human.

Only Human? The Dragon’s great eye bent upon her, all-conquering and omniscient, seeming to strip away the layers of her being until nothing remained hidden, leaving her soul a quivering, defenceless lump before his scrutiny–yet he did not harm her, nor steal her secrets. How many of thy people have ever found this place? Only thee. To my knowledge, thou art the only Human to have learned so much Dragonish in such a short span of time. Thou hast only defeated death itself, thrice. If this marks thee as ‘only Human’, then may I be only Human, too?

A treacherous, fey chuckle escaped Lia’s lips. She said, I think you’d have legs the size of this Island, Amaryllion.

Her voice stole away into silence. Swallowing away an unreasoning desire to flee as fast as her little legs could propel her, Hualiama instead sketched a deep Fra’aniorian bow, somewhat spoiled by the trembling of her hands. On behalf of my Island–uh, and all Humankind, if you’d allow … her formal greeting floundered in a welter of scattered thoughts and emotions. How awkward was she?

And the little Human’s mind popped like a meteorite exploding in the sky!

Lia blurted out, I’m just enormously honoured, o Ancient Dragon.

Somehow, Amaryllion’s eye conveyed the essence of a mental bow. Likewise, Hualiama of Fra’anior, I extend the most sulphurous greetings of the Dragonkind to thee. Be not afraid. Flicker told me of thy suffering today, little mouse.

Little mouse? Such a description should make a person bristle, but instead, Lia found a smile curving the corners of her mouth–an uncertain smile which doubtless betrayed the hysteria rampaging through her mind as she thought, at least the Ancient Dragon did not choose to call her ‘gnat’ or ‘gadfly’ or something worse! She was talking to a … to a Dragon-mountain … great Islands! She wobbled.

Quick as a flash, Flicker landed on her shoulder and twined himself about her neck, crooning softly. Lia found that her fear evaporated like a thunderstorm’s puddle vanishing beneath the full glare of the twin suns. Magic? It had to be. Nothing could prepare a person for such an experience, for the soul-crushing magnitude of a legendary Dragon’s physical and mental presence. Flying ralti sheep, people worshipped these creatures!

Squeezing her eyes shut, Hualiama sucked in a deep, calming breath. Flicker saved my life. Twice, now. I was not hurt, o Amaryllion, but I am … greatly shaken.

Aye, he rumbled. His fiery gaze blossomed with colours of apricot and streamers of turquoise, as if to underscore the deeply affecting gentleness she sensed in him now. To behold the visage of death is no trivial matter, little mouse. To know how narrowly one has escaped the clutches of a murderous claw, chills the very soul-fires. Tell me, how came thee to Ha’athior? Who is this Lia whom Flicker holds in such high esteem? Spare no detail in the telling, for mine ears hunger to hear thy tale.

Faintly, she said, I must start then with the unknowns of my birth, great one. For I was discovered by Dragons upon Gi’ishior Island. How I came to be found, and how I came to the royal household, I cannot say.

Lia hesitated, wondering why an Ancient Dragon should be interested in a life like hers. She was not long-lived in comparison to him, for she deduced from the timbre of his voice that he was ancient indeed, nor had she been greatly successful or notable in many endeavours. She must seem like a gnat, buzzing near his ear. Where were his ears? Somewhere up … there? Yet the great creature seemed content, and his hearts beat steadily in her hearing, and Flicker seemed unafraid–awed, but unafraid.

How much of this beast lay beneath Ha’athior Island? Part of her brain–a foolish part, admittedly–wanted to calculate his size. If Amaryllion’s eye was twenty feet across and the Orange Dragon’s evil orbs had measured perhaps eight inches apiece, or a little more, that made this Ancient Dragon, if she could assume the proportions held true, some thirty times the size of that Dragon … her mind boggled. Over half a mile long! Even her mind stammered, ‘N-N-No!’ She could not contemplate it. Imagine such a creature falling upon Fra’anior’s small, pretty city, with its lush gardens and rose-festooned walkways where tall, graceful women walked together with their Helyon silk umbrellas angled against the suns’ heat? A thousand Islands and more cried, ‘The horror!’

Sit thee down, Lia, Amaryllion invited her, as if blithely unware of her thoughts. Tarry awhile.

So that was how Lia found herself sitting cross-legged before an Ancient Dragon’s eye, with a dragonet on her lap, speaking with them, and before she knew it, the remaining hours of night had tiptoed by unnoticed.

Hualiama curled up and slept beneath Ha’athior, in the presence of an Ancient Dragon.

Chapter 9: Charming Monks

IF asked later, Hualiama would have been unable to recall how many days she spoke with the Ancient Dragon, for beneath the roots of Ha’athior Island, time assumed a surreal, imprecise aspect, neither demarcated by the twin suns or the moons’ waxing and waning, nor measurable by any other ordinary means. She sat or paced about, or even danced and performed her exercises, while Amaryllion looked on with lively interest and allowed her to pose question after question, debated points of consequence with her, and recounted the histories of the Dragonkind with perfect, unfailing accuracy. She slept and woke, and he was there. Lia sang ballads and sagas and histories for him, as many as she could remember. Flicker brought them food, but the Ancient Dragon seemed to need no sustenance. She wondered if he existed by magic alone.

Lia knew the exact moment she lost her fear of the great Dragon; when he told her that he was the last of his kind.

“The last?” she asked. “Are you not lonely, Amaryllion?”

“Not anymore,” he said.

She puzzled over this. “You mean–oh! Really?” Tears sprang to her eyes. “You lie … uh, sorry, Amaryllion. Without disrespect …”

He spoke excellent Human. In his fantastically basso earthquake-voice, Amaryllion said, “A person such as thee can hold herself in too low esteem, Hualiama, Princess of Fra’anior. I find thy heart neither undersized nor immature. For what worth mine words may hold, I value thy friendship more than thou knowest. This time thou hast given of thy freewill has accorded me great joy, as though a choice, molten droplet of the twin suns themselves came to reside in this dark cavern.”

“I … thank you.”

“Thou asked why I wait. Simply put, the time hath not yet come to fruition, little mouse. I will wait until it is time for my soul to depart this mortal flesh and return to the eternal fires of the Dragonkind.”

Lia ducked her head. It was too much for her to contemplate friendship with an Ancient Dragon, but there it was–he had put words to the softening sensation in her heart, to the warmth which she had begun to sense inhabited their interactions. What did it say about her that she struggled to make friends among the Human-kind, but she counted a dragonet and an Ancient Dragon among the finest friends she had ever known?

Amaryllion said, “I have a task for thee. For thou cannot tarry beneath this mountain forever, Princess. Thou must know that the man Ra’aba oppresses thy people, and foments war with the Dragons. Thy family must be found. And thou canst not reside upon Ha’athior Island–”

“I don’t want to leave, Amaryllion!”

“Wilt thou not learn to listen before spouting thy hasty words?”

Sometimes, the several thousand years’ difference between their ages became painfully clear, Lia thought. She nodded, but then essayed a cheeky grin. “Speak, o mighty Island-biter.”

“I am no Land Dragon,” said he, chuckling so mightily that the ground trembled beneath her feet. “I would have thee return here as often as thou might like to pester me with thy endless questions, Hualiama, to take instruction, or to keep me company.”

“See? You do think I’m a pest.”

“Oh, you Humans multiply like lice on a warm, furry body,” Flicker put in.

Lia scowled at him. “Overgrown mosquito. Desist before I swat thee mightily.”

And now she was beginning to speak as the Dragon did, in ancient speech patterns? Lia tasted these words with amazement, coupled with a sense of peace. They fit. Perfectly.

The Ancient Dragon said, “But there are other types of instruction, and the mellow company of those of thy own kind. Therefore, I propose that thou take up residence upon the small volcano just south of here. Within the cone, thou wilt happen upon a monastery of warrior-monks, who are worshippers of the Great Dragon, Fra’anior himself.”

Hualiama exclaimed, “There’s a secret warrior monastery … it’s been that close all along?”

“Didst thou not express a need to learn the weapons and techniques to defeat Ra’aba?” said Amaryllion. “The monks can teach thee the uses of weapons, and much besides. When the time is right, in thy judgement, ask to speak to their Nameless Man.”

“He exists?”

“Aye,” Amaryllion rumbled.

So, the mysterious, magical leader of the warrior monks was real. Her father would be–Lia clamped her jaw shut. The less King Chalcion knew about the Nameless Man, the better, for he had oftentimes ruminated upon taking the warrior monasteries ‘under his command’ or ‘breaking their subversive influence’. Now his daughter was about to join the undesirables. How would a Princess of Fra’anior be received if they knew her father’s view of them?

Still, the idea was excellent. She could learn the monks’ combat techniques and use them to defeat Captain Ra’aba! Maybe they would even have Dragonships. She could find out where her parents had been sent …

Lia enthused, “Thank you, Amaryllion! You’re the best. I’ll definitely come back, as often as I can. I’ll keep you up to date with everything that I’m learning, and sing you songs–”

He growled, “Forget and I shall be insulted, little mouse, so don’t make me shift this Island to come and fetch thee to thy fate.”

Her tiny laughter was drowned out in his thundering.

* * * *

The following day, as dawn outside the caves stretched Ha’athior Island’s shadow like a vast, animate finger across the Cloudlands, Lia and Flicker walked and flew respectively up to the White Dragoness’ lair. Having packed the immensity of their possessions into two pouches which Lia slung at her belt, they returned to Amaryllion and took lunch with him–an affair to make the most cynical soul melt in wonder, Lia thought. Lunch with an Ancient Dragon, anyone?

They spoke with Amaryllion for an hour before setting out along a new tunnel, taking a route which led ever southward and upward. Passing through a series of what appeared to be room-sized sapphire-encrusted geodes, they picked their way across a vaulting rock bridge above a depthless chasm, before plunging back into the mountain. By mid-afternoon, aided by Amaryllion’s excellent instructions, Human and dragonet came at last to a deep but narrow gorge, where daylight filtered from above through a matted layer of brush and vines. Hualiama scrambled over and under boulders the size of houses which had dropped into the chasm in ages past, while Flicker danced in the air above her and called her ‘slow-slug’ and ‘wingless worm’, charming creature that he was. She gritted her teeth, gave in, and lobbed a pebble half-heartedly in his direction.

He dodged with a titter of amusement.

They emerged directly opposite a serene volcanic cone, on a perfect afternoon. A thousand dragonets soared on the hot thermals above the seamless, sheer green slopes. Flicker, quivering, came to land on Lia’s shoulder with his claws sheathed, his eyes a-whirl with what she had come to recognise as curiosity and anticipation.

Hualiama smiled at him. “You could almost reach out and touch it, couldn’t you?”

“O for the wings of a Dragon,” he replied, quoting a famous ballad Lia had taught him, called Moons over the Cloudlands. Flicker said, “Shall I fetch you a handy monk?”

“And the moment the Dragons see them heading this way, we’re dead,” said Lia, scanning the cliffs above and below. “Sage advice, dragonet.”

Flicker shivered in one accord with her. Aye.

“There.” She pointed vertically down the cliff. “That’s where we’ll cross.”

Just three or four hundred feet separated the Islands at this point. Lia narrowed her eyes. Down there, thanks to a bulge in Ha’athior’s side, the gap narrowed to only a hundred feet, so close that the Islands resembled two brothers, one much older than the other, leaning together in whispered conversation. An ancient prekki tree leaned partway across the divide. That much was good. What was less good was that the gap extended vertically downward for at least two more miles. Her knuckles turned white at her sides. This was not the moment for vertigo.

Be strong, Lia, said Flicker, curling his paw around her neck to one side and his tail to the other. Let us eat and drink, and gather our wits, and then we shall make a Human fly. Why don’t you refresh yourself in this waterfall?

Hualiama took his advice gratefully. The water was barely a trickle, but blessedly cool, and tangy with minerals. She drank greedily before washing both herself and her clothes.

“Itchy, Flicker?”

He scratched his hide vigorously. “Scale mites. Blasted prickly inflaming insatiable pests!”

“Great Islands, you make them sound exactly like this dragonet I know.”

This comment earned her a growl and a snap of his fangs.

“Can I help?”

“Talons are better than fingernails,” he protested.

“Especially where you can’t see, right?”

Leaping belly fires, it’s perfectly evident to me now that a lack of centuries of servitude has made some Humans insufferable. Flicker grinned widely, leaping up to assume his customary perch on her shoulder. Attend closely to your duties, slave.

Lia huffed, Slave? I prefer ‘straw-head’, you graceless wasp-snapper.

The dragonet ignored her loftily, launching into one of his lectures. Scale mites stick closer than a dragonet’s own shadow. On Dragons, the mites grow as big as your thumb, and they like nothing better than to shelter right under the root of a scale, where it is warmest, and in that cosy abode, lay their eggs and do other unmentionable things.

Unmentionable things?

Defecate, he said, succinctly.

Yuck! So, your beautiful scales are full of scale mite faeces?

This time, the dragonet gripped her left ear in his sharp little talons. He growled, One more word and I’ll shave this flap of skin and cartilage off the side of your head. I do keep myself mite-free, understood?

“Suddenly, I find the idea of scrubbing your scales strangely attractive.”

“What a pleasing improvement in your attitude–slave.”

So Hualiama learned how to tip up his scales to check for mites, while Flicker lolled in the hot suns and exerted himself to snarkier and snarkier comments. ‘Gently with the sensitive hide.’ ‘Hurry up, worthless minion.’ ‘Missed a scale there, you indolent wretch.’

Shortly, however, their fun gave way to impatience to continue. With the help of the long vines, it took Lia less than an hour to descend to the prekki tree. Galvanised by the prospect of escaping Ha’athior’s holy soil, she immediately set about preparing a vine to sling up to the branch. Having a dragonet’s deft paws made the job much easier. One fist-sized rock, a length of thin vine, and a decent cast–yes! Darting up to the tree, Flicker returned the loose end of the vine to her. Lia rapidly pulled a thicker, triple-braided length up over the branch.

“Make sure you tie it properly,” she called up to Flicker.

“Ready,” he called back.

Fine. She could do this. All she had to do was take her life into her hands …

“You should start lower,” Flicker advised. “You don’t want to jerk the vine with your weight.”

Hualiama clambered down a further ten feet, until she reached a reasonably flat boulder which would allow her a two or three-step run-up. Right. She leaned back, testing Flicker’s knot. Now she had fifty feet of vine to work with, a target of the prekki tree’s base, and a dragonet who needed an arrow-swift education in what not to say to a woman. Grr.

She peered over the edge. There were no trees further down, just a straight drop to a red-hot lava flow, if her eyesight served her rightly–not that it would make an iota of difference if she fell from this height. Before she could think the better of her madness, Lia launched over the abyss.

Thump, thump-thump. Her heart pounded up in her throat as she swung smoothly across the divide. Land. Twist–wobble and grab! Safe.

Lia tied the vine to the base of a strong purple-current bush. “I’ll be seeing you again,” she said, patting it fondly.

“Now the madwoman is talking to bushes,” said Flicker. “Come on.”

“I need a rest before we climb that cliff.”

“Why don’t you just take the staircase?” asked the dragonet, flicking his eye-membranes drolly at her. “Or would that be too easy for a stubborn Human? Er–what does it mean when you put your hands on your hips like that?”

“Exasperation!”

Flicker’s expression clearly communicated that Humans were a great mystery. He said, “There’s a stairway hidden just inside this crack.”

“Luckily for you.” But Lia’s scowl mellowed. “Let’s go spy on the monks.”

So, could she conclude that the monks once had reason to secretly visit Ha’athior Island? Lia considered this as she trudged up the never-ending, perfectly regular spiral staircase. A thick layer of dust made it clear that the stairway had not been used in many years, and she had to brush her way through fifty feet of dangling spiderwebs near the top. The entryway was completely overgrown, well-hidden in a rocky outcropping directly behind the most ancient prekki tree she had ever seen, its roots gripping the boulders like gnarled Dragons’ paws.

Lia crept into the monastery.

Suns-set spoke its valediction to the dying day, casting the scene in a rich, ruddy light. She emerged near the shore of a neat, circular crater lake, surrounded on all sides by a rim wall three or four hundred feet in height. To her right hand stood an ancient temple, part-built and part-carved into the rim wall, so overgrown with prekki trees and towering giant figs that she guessed it must be extremely well concealed from the air. Directly ahead of her, on a wide stone porch, a wizened, bald-headed monk faced a class of equally bald-headed but lean and muscular young men, all of whom knelt in absolute stillness, and not one of whom wore more than a loincloth by way of attire.

Her cheeks flamed scarlet. Oh, flying ralti sheep! They were all men–of course, she should have remembered. Most of the secret monasteries were exclusively devoted to men, who would not appreciate their vows of purity and celibacy being challenged by the unwelcome, even offensive, presence of a young woman, Princess or none.

“Is this sight attractive to a Human female?” Flicker inquired.

Lia shrugged. “Perhaps.”

“As a matter of purely scientific speculation, is it considered normal behaviour for a Princess to start drooling in the middle of–”

“Go stuff your mouth full of intestines, you insolent insect,” Lia returned, her tone sweet yet as honed as a dagger. “Make yourself useful. Go scout or chat to your dragonet friends.”

To her surprise, Flicker darted off at once.

Hualiama padded through the trees, making for the back corner of the building, thinking that she might perhaps find an older monk to take into her confidence. What a shame, all of those gorgeous young men taking vows of service to the Great Dragon!

The wide porch extended around the side of their building–a temple, she thought, eyeing the solid columns, beautifully stone-carved with images of Dragon life, of great Dragons raising up Islands and scholarly-seeming Dragons instructing Humans before stylised models depicting the orbits of the suns and moons. Lia ran her fingers over the carvings. Amaryllion had painted a picture of a time of excitement and adventure, when the Island-World was young and all things seemed possible, but she wondered if the Human slaves had found enslavement to Dragons quite so novel and thrilling.

Pensively, she wandered inside the temple building, following the timeline of a war between the Dragons.

Lia found herself inside a great, echoing hall, lit by a number of tall crysglass windows around a central cupola. Turning absently to her left hand, Hualiama continued along the histories, passing between a row of great columns and the chamber’s circular outer wall, whose panels were decorated in marvellous, illuminated paintings. Such an artist’s eye for detail. How many years must these have taken to complete? Her bare feet made no sound upon the flagstones as she moved around her half-circuit.

A startled cough caught her attention.

Mercy. Two strapping young monks guarded a towering doorway here, directly opposite the entryway she had used. Twin frowns creased their foreheads, while their identical hands rested on identically enormous two-handed swords scabbarded on their backs. She tried not to stare at their sculpted torsos–how much training did they do every day to build such a wealth of lean, perfectly-defined muscle? There were few such tasty specimens at the palace … quick, look somewhere else before she started drooling just as Flicker had accused her! Ridiculous girl.

Lia’s eyes flicked to the vertical, gold-leaf illuminated inscriptions left and right of the doorway. ‘Chamber of Dragons,’ she read. Promising. Returning her gaze to the twins, Lia gazed up at them with all the innocence she could muster. She murmured, “Islands’ greetings to you.”

“What’re you doing here, girl?” said one monk.

“And how did you get here?” asked the second, his gaze reminding her of exactly how little she wore by way of clothing.

Before she knew it, Lia found herself making a gesture she had seen Fyria using to devastating effect on several of her suitors. She bowed her head downward and slightly to the left, and then gazed up at the tall twins through her eyelashes. She tucked an imaginary platinum strand behind her ear.

“Could one of you men open that door for me?” Lia cooed, with her most demure smile.

“Warblit,” spluttered the first monk, turning decidedly pink.

“Urglemadder,” agreed the second, losing any interest in drawing his weapon.

Ignoring her heart thudding madly in her throat, Lia allowed her smile to linger on them, which was no hardship at all. “Pleeeeeease?”

“Glubbadoo,” they chorused, rushing to do her bidding.

In a moment, the great doors creaked open and Lia slipped within, finding herself standing in a richly appointed chamber, stuffed to the rafters with treasures. Great tapestries hung from every wall and even from the ceiling. The golden statue of a Dragon in the corner to her left hand was life-size, standing three times her height at the shoulder. Smaller, equally exquisite statues of dragonets, carved in ruby and emerald and obsidian, stood upon golden plinths arranged around the chamber. Lia goggled in wonder. What was this place? An inner sanctuary? She should not be here, except that it was all so marvellous, she had forgotten how to breathe.

Stepping silently over to the great Dragon, she thought, I greet thee, kin of Fra’anior.

“Master Jo’el, you are late for–by the Great Dragon! Who are you?” A portly monk gaped at her from a gap between the hangings, his face flushing rapidly from red to purple. “Thief! Miscreant! Vermin! Pond skater!”

Lia gaped right back at him. Pond skater?

“Rallon! Hallon!” screamed the monk, the saw-toothed edge of his voice arresting Lia’s incipient flight. “You ralti-brained excuses for guards, get in here! There’s a thieving dragonet right beneath your noses. I caught her red-pawed! You scoundrel, keep your grubby little paws off my darlings. Masters, we are under attack!”

At this, the hangings swung wide and a gaggle of elderly monks peered about the chamber, clearly bemused.

“Hold her, Hallon, you fool!” the monk snapped.

One of the massive, six-foot-six twins wrapped his arms about Lia’s chest and yanked her off the ground. “Mind what you’re grabbing,” she snapped.

Hallon dropped Lia as though he had clutched a red-hot boulder. Rallon, racing toward his twin, suddenly found a petite girl crumpled at his feet and measured his considerable length over her bowed back, bowling into the group of monks, while the portly one hopped from one foot to the other, screeching like a demented windroc.

Cries surrounded Lia, “Seize her!” “It’s a girl–I swear, that has to be a girl, not a dragonet.” “Thief!” “Unhand my treasures, filth!” “What’s all the excitement about, I ask you?”

Lia made a desperate grab for a toppling plinth, only to have her knuckles rapped by an elderly monk’s cane. The ancient treasure fell and shattered, scattering pieces of jade everywhere. Rallon or Hallon, it hardly mattered which, leaped on her back and set about trussing her like a ralti sheep bound for market. Despite the fact that she did not intend to fight back, Hualiama found him discouragingly excellent at his job. In seconds, he had pinned her arms and secured her wrists between her shoulder blades, finishing off his handiwork with a loop around her neck and a viciously tight knot.

Realising exactly which strip of cloth the young monk had used to tie her up, Hualiama blushed furiously. Mercy! Look somewhere else, anywhere else–ruddy gorgeous monk! One image burned in her mind forever …

“Calm yourself, Master Ja’alkon,” said one of the old ones to the rotund monk, whose face had by now assumed an unhealthy hue.

“Calm myself?” he screamed, swinging his foot wildly at Lia’s neck, only to miss and clatter the man on her back right on the point of the chin. He toppled like a felled tree. “This is sacrilege! Sedition! A riot! Brothers, it is beyond belief–we have a girl on our Island! The Black Dragon himself bellows his outrage. Wretched cur! Slime-dripping spawn of the Cloudlands! You shall be beaten–”

A new, calm voice cut through the hubbub. “Enough.”

Chapter 10: Master Jo’el

Silence Descended UPON the squabbling monks as though the new arrival had tossed a Dragon into their midst. An enormously tall, rail-thin monk peered down at Lia, his hands folded into the sleeves of his robes, his ascetic face serene. What betrayed his power were the blue eyes, flashing at Lia like twin blades.

“This pustulent offspring of a windroc …”

The tall monk said, “Master Ja’alkon, please. Try to muster your dignity.”

Ja’alkon folded his arms with an audible sigh. “Master Jo’el, I am merely moved with righteous indignation that this female should appear from nowhere, invade our sanctuary, and–how did you get here, you miniature brigand?”

“Real, lift your brother off her,” directed the tall monk. “Girl, stand up, and–Islands’ sakes! What scanty attire is this? Quick, take my robe.”

Hualiama ducked her head in embarrassment. The monk thrust a robe over her head, which puddled around her ankles in a vivid demonstration of the difference between their respective heights. She wanted to protest about how uncomfortable her trussed hands were, but then it struck her that she knew the tall monk, who had an exceedingly long face with a fantastic beak of a nose that seemed perfect for staring down at diminutive girls and crushing them with a single look.

She essayed a bow curtailed by the throttling strip of loincloth.

“Master Jo’el, I trust you’ve had no more trouble with your Dragonship?”

“Well,” said the Master, eyebrows crawling toward the swirling blue tattoos adorning his pate. His lips seemed to quiver at their corners before he compressed them into a thin line. “Well,” he began again, a stutter-step as he took stock of his captive. “This is most unexpected.”

Ja’alkon made a triumphant crowing noise. “See?”

The blue eyes fixed Lia with unnerving intensity. “Who are you for, girl? Tell me, who are you for?”

“Er …”

“Which King?”

“My father, of course.”

In the stunned silence, Master Ja’alkon could be heard to splutter, “No, she isn’t. No. Is she? No. Couldn’t be.”

Master Jo’el folded his stick-thin arms across his chest. “Masters, I know this girl. She stopped to help me repair my Dragonship on Fa’akkior Island, last year after storm season, as I recall. She jury-rigged my broken sails and patched up a broken stove-pipe. Masters, I have great pleasure in presenting to you the daughter of our one true King, the Princess Hualiama of Fra’anior.”

“That pilfering scoundrel is a Princess?”

To Lia’s astonishment, Master Jo’el’s smile only broadened, crinkling the area around his eyes like old parchment. “And your rightful ruler in our King’s absence, Master Ja’alkon.”

She had the impression that Master Jo’el very much enjoyed making that statement, especially the emphasis he placed on the words ‘rightful ruler’. Perhaps now was not the moment to protest that she was a worthless royal ward and not a true Princess at all.

One should never steal a Dragon’s thunder.

Ja’alkon seemed in danger of choking as Lia turned a bright, albeit slightly brittle smile on him. “The Master is right. I should not have trespassed. I am truly sorry to have caused you such deep distress, Master Ja’alkon. Will you forgive me?”

The Master wrung his podgy hands as he laboured to formulate a polite response.

Jo’el put in dryly, “Well is it said that a woman’s smile is her greatest weapon.” His gaze paused on Rallon for a second as he spoke, causing the young monk to colour deeply.

A flutter of wings interrupted them. Flicker zipped through the open doorway and landed on Lia’s shoulder with a deft manoeuvre. “I leave you alone for one minute, Lia,” he hissed, in a whisper clearly pitched to carry to every ear present. “Could you not stay out of trouble for one whole minute?”

“And this?” squeaked another of the Masters.

“I shall take charge of this dumb beast, Master Ra’oon,” said Ja’alkon.

“Dumb beast?” spluttered Flicker. “I’ll give you a dumb beast, you great waddling ralti sheep.”

Lia clucked at him, “Shut the monkey-chatter, beast.”

Drawing himself up to his full two feet of height, the dragonet announced, “I am Flicker, and I saved this ungrateful imp’s life. Twice. But you are wise to keep her tied up. Indeed, she’s such a troublemaker, I must counsel you to lock her in your deepest dungeon, at once.”

“Oh?” said Master Jo’el.

“By the First Egg, indeed,” agreed the dragonet, warming to his task. “You might even consider feeding her to the Great Dragon.”

The Master frowned, “On a dragonet’s word?”

Flicker appeared unfazed. “Unless you want to help her defeat Ra’aba. You see, that traitor tried to murder my Lia, but I rescued her–indeed, at great personal sacrifice.” At the sound of Lia clearing her throat, Flicker hurried on, “She has been living on Ha’athior Island ever since, with me. I have tried to teach her the basics of civilised behaviour, truly, I have. But I despair.”

Lia struggled to contain her laugher. Oh, Flicker! He had learned entirely too much Island Standard for her liking.

Master Jo’el, however, seemed to have the measure of the dragonet. Stroking his beard, he said, “This is wise counsel, my fellow-Masters. Clearly, this wild Princess is in need of a firm hand of instruction–”

“We are not taking her in!” announced Master Ja’alkon.

From his great height, Jo’el quirked a wire-thin eyebrow at the source of the interruption. “You can’t find her a private chamber in the apprentice quarters, Master?”

“But … but she’s already created utter chaos and mayhem,” spluttered the Master, seemingly gripped by a vision of the end of the Island-World, with stars hurtling to their deaths in the Cloudlands and volcanoes blasting the Islands to smithereens. “What of our dignity? What of these young, impressionable monks? She–” he collected himself with a supreme effort “–she’s a girl.”

Finally, Master Jo’el’s smile lit up his face. “Then I wish for us all the discovery of a little joyous indignity.”

* * * *

Hualiama smacked down on the hard-packed sand with a grunt. She rolled, dodging Hal’s follow-up blow, leaped to her feet, and promptly had her footing scythed out from beneath her by his five-foot ironwood staff. Lia ate sand this time.

Get up. Never give in. She swung her staff at the monk. Block, block, the ironwood rods clacked together with sharp reports–yelp, as he crushed her already broken fingers. Attack! For perhaps fifteen seconds, Lia had the measure of Hallon, despite that he stood over a foot taller than her, and was twice as wide and three times as strong. He defended robustly, forcing her to retreat, to shift her attack as she sought a way through the blurred reaches of his rock-solid defence. From the corner of her eye, Hualiama caught sight of Master Jo’el and his fellow-Masters filing into the training arena to watch the royal ward having the stuffing belted out of her for at least the five hundredth time in the course of the three weeks she had been training at the monastery. She groaned. That millisecond’s distraction allowed Hallon the opening he hardly needed, given the beating he was busy handing her. Again.

Lia landed flat on her back. “Bloody ralti–”

His staff bore down. “Yield,” snarled the monk, his face barely an inch from hers. His weight crushed her neck against the arena floor.

“Submit?” called Ga’ando, the Master of Weapons.

Lia felt her face turn purple as the shaft cut off her air supply. On an impulse, she kissed the handsomely cleft point of Hal’s chin. He gasped in surprise; she swung her legs up, wrapped them around his neck, and tried to apply a stranglehold she had learned that week. Hal toppled to the sand, losing his grip on the staff.

Two seconds later, the monk kicked her off as though he intended to launch her back over to Ha’athior Island. Lia somersaulted in the air, fluffed her landing, and landed with a jolt on her tailbone instead. Pain shot up her spine. Almost elegant. The story of her life. Master Jo’el could have his joyous indignity–Islands full of indignity–because all of it belonged to hopeless Hualiama.

“Enough,” said Master Jo’el. “Lia, how are you?”

“Fine!”

Lia limped over to her staff, and bent with clenched teeth to pick it up. There was no part of her body which did not ache. She was more bruise than clear skin. Only a complete null-brain would to try to keep up with warrior monks who had trained like this, sixteen hours a day, since their boyhood. The difference between their skills and those of the Palace guard was the difference between a dragonet and a fully-grown Dragon. Lia was efficient and creative in combat, but that simply did not shave the proverbial Dragon’s beard when it came to fighting warriors of this calibre.

A hundred pairs of eyes watched her hobble back across the arena. Two, in particular, disturbed her. One set belonged to an apprentice called Ja’al, whose dark blue eyes followed her every move with unnerving intensity. Handsome but aloof, she thought, wishing he might unbend just once to offer her a welcoming smile, rather than that constant, withering appraisal. Next to Ja’al, his older brother Hua’gon watched with brooding mien. Hua’gon was the one who had broken two fingers on her right hand the previous week.

A polite clearing of a throat drew her attention.

Forming his long fingers into a cone reminiscent of the volcano he lived on top of, Master Jo’el said, “Hualiama of Fra’anior, you’ve completed three weeks’ probation. Masters, your assessments. Weapons?”

Lia gazed up at the ranks of Masters gathered on the stone steps above the circular training arena, trying not to disclose how her heart lurched toward her ankles, and from there leached away into the sand.

“She fights with great heart,” said Master Ga’ando, in his characteristic ruined whisper. A windroc had once tried to rip out his throat. Ga’ando, famously, had won that encounter by shoving his fist down the bird’s throat to strangle it. “Lia has tried as hard as any prospective apprentice I have ever trained. But I regret to conclude that, despite demonstrating basic capability, she seems to lack a natural aptitude for weapons–any weapons at all.”

Lia winced. Mercy. Don’t hold back, Master Ga’ando!

“Your tutors, Master Ha’aggara?”

The bookish young monk, whom the apprentices called ‘Aggers’, said, “Lia is a fine and dedicated student of literature, and the sciences, histories and Humanities, Master Jo’el. But she is deplorably fond of joking about serious matters. That aside, she corrected Tutor Ga’al’s knowledge of Dragonship aerodynamics. She’s a fine engineer.”

“I see,” said Jo’el, in a tone that made Lia shuffle her feet. If only she had not cracked a joke about Ga’al’s gaffe afterward. That had earned her a stern reprimand and a night spent cleaning the practice arena until not a grain of sand was out of place.

“Master Ra’oon?”

The elderly Master managed a surprisingly nimble and florid bow. “As you know, Master Jo’el, the prospective apprentice sings like a purple-crested warbler, and plays a decent hand on the great-harp and the Jeradian pan-flute. Lia is a fine musician.”

“Master To’ibbik?”

The harsh Master of Arcane Arts sniffed loudly, as he was wont to do, in Lia’s general direction. “It is too early to tell if the girl has any ability in the mystical arts. But I doubt it.”

“Master Ja’alkon, your behavioural assessment?”

“Disruptive, Master Jo’el, as we expected.” Hualiama hung her head. Trust Ja’alkon to put it that way! “She behaves with the propriety one would expect of a member of the royal household, but the regrettable fact that she is a girl has the boys in uproar–we could cover her in a sack and they’d still swoon left and right to be the one to fall into her shadow. However, she is more motivated than any apprentice I have ever worked with. If she could master armed combat, the traitor Ra’aba would find he had a truly formidable enemy.”

Lia’s jaw sagged. She had concluded Ja’alkon hated her. Had his hatred mellowed into violent dislike?

“The Master of Secrets?”

Master Yiiba, the only non-Fra’aniorian among the Masters, inclined his dark, habitually searing gaze toward Hualiama. “The student displays a notable aptitude for code-breaking, lock-picking, and subterfuge,” he said, so mournfully that Lia wondered once again if teaching her caused him unspecified but excruciating pain. “She excels at espionage, is cunning and resourceful, adequate at disguise, and would make an excellent sneak-thief.”

Master Ja’alkon’s rubicund face broke into a smirk.

“After all,” said Yiiba, “who else has ever broken into our monastery, let alone the Chamber of Dragons?”

Ouch, double-wince as the Master of Secrets did what he did best, slipping in the unseen, unanticipated dagger. Maybe living in a cave was not so bad after all. Maybe she could beg Amaryllion to pop over the gap and swallow this ridiculous house of macho egotism and … she’d say, ‘Well, who’s laughing now? I’ve been hiding an Ancient Dragon in my pocket.’

Hualiama smiled involuntarily.

Gritting his teeth, Master Jo’el hissed, “Hualiama, what exactly do you find so funny? Do you think we’ve taken you in for any reason save duty to our King?”

She, and many others in the arena, gasped, Ja’al loudest of all.

No place in the Island-World had ever felt lonelier than the centre of that training arena. Lia knew it as a roaring in her ears, a melting of self into the storm. The Master’s words speared her soul. She had believed in this man; entrusted her life into his hands. Now the truth emerged. Hualiama was a burden. A duty. Master Jo’el had never wanted a royal ward in his monastery, nor had he viewed her bid to learn weapons-craft as more than a frivolous waste of time. Lia burned. A shaking began in her toes and worked up her body, wracking her with pain as violent and consuming as the fire the Orange Dragon had breathed into her cave.

What she had fought for was as the dust beneath her feet. She knew that his eyes measured Hualiama, and found her wanting.

In flat, definitive tones Master Jo’el said, “While you’re stood on that sand giggling like a parakeet, Princess, Ra’aba is out there, abusing and maltreating your people–”

The tearing of cloth arrested his speech.

Lia ripped the buttons off her shirt, sobbing as she fought her way free of the material. She whirled abruptly, facing away from the Masters, screaming into the mortified silence, “Look! See the gift Ra’aba left me!”

The use of two mirrors in her small chamber in the apprentice halls, had allowed Hualiama to examine her back. The scar ran jagged, angrily red, from behind her right shoulder blade to her left hip-bone. Despite Flicker’s best work, it was unsightly–only marginally more hideous than the wound the Master had just dealt her.

She turned, pointing just above her belt. “And before he threw me off the Dragonship, he stabbed me, here.” The dagger’s entry-points were puckered, two-inch scars in the indentation between her abdominals. The blades had exited right next to her spine, practically shaving the nerves which would have left her paralysed.

Unseeing, swaying as the memory cast a soul-shadow within her, she cried, “I tried to kill him. At the last, as he pushed me against the railing, I pierced him in the throat … but Ra’aba was too strong. He’s still alive and I failed. I failed all of Fra’anior.”

Clarity pierced her awareness. Despair coiled python-like about her throat, choking the living pith out of her. Ra’aba’s life had been hers to claim, if only for the briefest moment. Had her hand only been surer in the strike, had she flung the sword but an inch higher … her eyes blurred. Pain burned her scarred back as though the wound were bathed in Dragon fire.

Silence smothered the arena.

Only the abrasion of breath against her raw throat told Lia she was alive.

She rasped, “I need you to teach me, Master Jo’el. But, more than that, I need you to believe in me. I don’t have the strength. I can’t do this alone.”

Lia sank to her knees. An uncontrollable juddering shook her body as Master Joel’s words hammered her once more. Brutalising. Ruling with a Dragon’s iron paw. She had seen it in Ra’aba’s eyes. Not just casual contempt for another life. No, he had taken pleasure in dealing her that cut. She shuddered at the memory of his perverse delight as he drove the dagger deep; the hatred as he twisted the blade, soul-destroying. Lia had known Ra’aba since her girlhood. What drove him to wrest the kingdom from her father? To attempt her murder? What despicable passions had he concealed behind a dutiful nod, or a half-smile as he watched a child dancing for her parents?

She felt dirty. Lia desperately wanted to vomit out the memory of him, to purge Ra’aba from her body and from her mind.

Feet entered the periphery of her vision. Master Joel gathered her shaking hands in his own. “No, Lia,” he said, quietly. “It is we who have failed you.”

“Nay, Master I …”

“Aye. In your suffering, I sense the fires of the Great Dragon himself. We have not seen you for who you truly are. We must pledge ourselves to do more. Need we move the Islands to find a way, we shall.”

He meant this? Through veils of blurry tears, Lia saw a raw, fatherly vulnerability writ on the tall monk’s face–an expression she would have given the Island-World to have seen, just once, from King Chalcion.

Master Jo’el said, “Your probation is over, Hualiama. For the first time in our history, we followers of the Path of the Dragon Warrior accept a female student as Apprentice.”

A dignified ripple of applause travelled around the arena, broken by Lia’s shriek of delight.

* * * *

Flicker attended the soft sigh of Hualiama’s breathing. Behind her shuttered eyelids, her eyes darted about as though running for their lives. Where did she go in her shell-dreams? Even the smallest hatchling did not dream as she did. “Let’s fly together,” she mumbled, and rolled over. “Uh … fire, not the fire …”

If ever a person yearned to shed her skin and don Dragon-hide, it was his straw-head. Even Amaryllion’s two-thousand-year reserves of patience had cracked slightly at her obsession with all things Dragon. Lia. Flicker’s eyes streamed with inner fire as he regarded the Human girl. If he had a shred of Dragon sense, then he knew that this one was destined for great deeds–despite the fact that she was woefully Human, and not even as capable as a dragonet. Poor creature. This process they called training was really just an excuse to thrash young Humans until they displayed some strength. Why would their elders do this? Flying training was best done with love, not by beating hatchlings with sticks. Worse, their declarations that they actually enjoyed it!

When the tall one who resembled a reed had shouted at her, Flicker had been on the cusp of attacking them when Lia exploded like a proper Dragoness and displayed her scars for all the bald, tattooed men, and they had suddenly made friends and there was a cheering ceremony that made his scales itch. There was no understanding the madness of these Humans.

Could it be some kind of disease? Hopefully, nothing infectious.

Flicker scratched his chin. Would he develop fungus, too, if he kept learning from these Humans? No dragonet would take him for a mate if he had facial fungus! And as for these Human males who chose not to take mates, how insane was that? Surely, they all saw how perfect his Lia was? Indeed, she had created endless waves among them, like smoke billowing into a wasps’ nest.

Now, his sensitive ears detected a noise in the corridor outside her room. Here came the younger, less fungus-faced ones. Ha. More moons-madness. Fascinating.

The door creaked open. Eight young monks filed into the room, their eyes gleaming in the semidarkness as they surrounded their intended victim, fast asleep on her pallet. The one called Ja’al, who Lia liked to show her teeth to, motioned him to move aside.

“Don’t you dare hurt her,” Flicker growled, baring his fangs.

“We won’t.”

One of the others counted silently on his fingers, One, two … three.

Flicking the thin covering off the sleeping girl, the apprentices pounced. A strong hand muffled her shrieks as they hastily bundled Lia into a sack. She kicked and thrashed, trying to bite the hand that muffled her cries. Flicker almost assailed them. She was terrified! Lia managed to elbow one of them in the jaw, but the young man only laughed, and with at least six bodies holding her down, Lia had no chance.

“Shut the trap,” hissed Ja’al, tying the sack shut. “This is a friendly kidnapping.”

The sack shifted. A muffled voice emerged, “Uh, Ja’al? Is that you?”

“No, it’s a Dragon. What do you think?”

Three of them grabbed the rough canvas sack and lifted Hualiama off the bed.

Flicker? Her voice sounded in his mind. Where’s my brave protector?

Laughing in the corner, he said.

You! I’m going to … I’ll peel you like a fruit!

Chuckling wickedly, the monks trotted up the corridor with their captive, who sounded rather underwhelmed by the experience. Flicker flitted sentinel-like behind them.

“Where’s Master Ja’alkon?”

“Snoring,” said Ja’al, with a wicked chortle. “Terraba-juice in your drink will do that.”

“Good. Hurry. Where are the others?”

“Already outside.”

With the excitement of a troop of dragonet hatchlings attending their first communal singing, the apprentices filed out of the main temple building into the cool pre-dawn gloom. They jogged along a path Flicker had noticed previously, which led to an outcropping above the crater lake which the dragonets favoured for teaching fledglings how to fly. Flicker narrowed his eyelids to an anxious crack, unsure how Lia would respond to this after her experience of being thrown off a Dragonship. They handled the sack with due care on the climb, however, soon appearing on the ledge two hundred feet above the water.

As her tousled head emerged from the canvas, Lia spluttered, “I’m not sure I appreciate–”

“The new apprentice will remain silent,” said Ja’al. His sapphire-blue eyes sparked noticeably. Flicker chirped animatedly to himself. A Human who had magic? Fascinating. “In a moment, you will demonstrate the high jump for us. Usually the apprentice is stripped for their maiden flight, but given your special situation, we have prepared a modest outfit for the occasion. Put this on.”

Lia took the garment in hand. It took her a few moments to figure out their plan. She scowled, “It’s a monkey suit.”

Ja’al said, “Oh, is it?”

One of the others, a thickset young man called Ya’orra, chuckled, “As you are such a fine dancer, Lia, we felt you might brighten our morning with a monkey dance, first.”

A treacherous snort of fire escaped Flicker’s muzzle.

Lia glared at him. “In my future kingdom, dragonet, you will be summarily demoted from royal companion to royal door-stopper. Do we understand each other?”

“Oh, not at all,” said Ja’al. The monk bowed to Flicker. “We do not insult the noble beasts of the air, Hualiama. Flicker, you have my permission to dream up a suitable punishment.”

The dragonet stretched lazily. “I like this Human tradition called hazing.”

* * * *

Dancing in a monkey suit was not so bad, until Hualiama discovered the itchy-powder the crafty apprentices had placed inside. This made her scratching rather too authentic. Lia begged to be allowed to jump, but her classmates forced her to keep capering and aping monkey noises for a further twenty minutes before allowing her the ‘privilege’ of jumping.

Great Islands, the water looked as though it was a mile away. Cold sweat beaded Lia’s neck. She had to do this, but her feet seemed to have put down roots.

“Need a friendly push?” Ja’al asked.

Lia knew that her stricken look gave far too much away.

“Look, Lia, we’re out to have fun. Still, given your story, there’s not one of us who’d force you to jump.”

“This is the tradition, isn’t it?” she asked, trying to decide if the wobbling of her heart was due to the height, or to his gentle understanding. He saw her. All the jewels of royal Fra’anior could not buy such a precious commodity.

“Aye.”

She cleared her throat hurriedly. “Any other advice?”

“Keep your body straight and don’t hit the water side-on, or you’ll be wearing the bruises for the next month.”

The Human mind was capable of peculiar forms of lunacy, Lia decided, and one of those was leaping off a rock into space. Nothing to it, except the sensation of her stomach flying up into her throat, chills running up and down her spine, the wind roaring endlessly in her ears as she fell–take a breath, idiot! Smack! She fell deep into a world of blue, her soles stinging, heart pounding, bubbles effervescing all around her body as she kicked for the faraway, silvery-gleaming surface.

She whooped as she broke into the air.

“Clear the way!” hollered Ja’al, making shooing motions with his hands.

Hualiama struggled through the water, weighed down by the monkey suit.

Shouting, “This one for the Dragon!” the monks came pouring off the rock high above her, a shower of young monks in blue robes fluttering through the air.

To Lia’s shock, Ja’al caught himself just above the surface. Levitation? Grinning at her disbelief, he shucked his robe to reveal a set of abdominals which could easily have doubled as paving stones, tossed the garment to the water’s edge, and then gracefully upended as he ‘dived’ into the cool volcanic lake. Lia wanted to hit somebody or something. Why could she not enjoy that power? And what madness had bitten the serious young monk? Now he was the leader of all the mischief-making? She certainly preferred this Ja’al to the unsmiling one.

Later, at lunch, Hualiama’s task was to wait on the Masters at their table, serving them fresh berry juices and wines, a selection of freshly baked breads, and spicy baked trout from the lake.

Ja’al whispered in her ear.

“No … no!” stammered Lia, turning a hot shade of pink. “I couldn’t.”

“It’s his birthday.”

“I am not singing–”

“Well, we learned the Dragons’ Praise birthday song, didn’t we?”

Lia pinched his arm. “Have I told you how little I like you?”

“Not more than ten times since this morning.” Ja’al drew a hand-harp from behind his back. “Oh, look, I just happen to have an instrument with me. Shall I play for you, or would you prefer to accompany yourself?”

“I’d prefer to bite you.” Her treacherous mind served up an image of Ja’al just before he dived into the lake. Perhaps something other than a bite was in order …

Ja’al strummed an overly dramatic set of chords upon his harp, quieting the dining hall. “Masters, tutors and apprentices,” he called. “Today is Master Jo’el’s birthday. We apprentices have arranged a special surprise. Hualiama will sing the Dragons’ Praise for our noble Master Jo’el, may the sulphurous fires of the Great Dragon himself ever burn within him.”

He made to pick out a chord, when the entire apprentice class yelled, “Stand up!”

“Oh, aye, up on this bench,” he said.

Lia bit the inside of her cheek as she took Ja’al’s hand to climb up onto the bench. He had elegant hands, which seemed to betray the gentility of his heart, and her disloyal fingers lingered on his before she allowed her hand to drop.

With a flash of those depthless eyes, Ja’al said, “And …”

“We can’t see her!”

“Aren’t they so mean?” he whispered to Lia, under cover of the laughter filling their great underground hall. “Up on the table with you.”

Oh, she was definitely going to have Amaryllion visit! Cheeks burning fit to combust, Lia stepped up onto the long trestle table. There was worse to come.

Their final dare was to kiss Master Jo’el on the cheek.

Chapter 11: Avalanche

ON the evening of her rest day, four weeks later, Lia sat on the highest point of the volcano’s rim wall, resting her back against a boulder. To her left hand, the still crater-lake collected the last ruddy fires of suns-set, as darkly mysterious as Ja’al’s eyes, yet gilded with strands of twin-suns fire. Dragonets dive-bombed the waters in search of fish. Close at hand, she saw a mother dragonet teaching three hatchlings the basics of flight, angling her wings in an instructional manner. To her right hand, the tangled green wall of Ha’athior Island, four miles from its base to the cooler heights up top, curved away northward until it grew misted with distance and height. She could never tire of this view.

Moodily, she wondered which females Flicker was chasing this time.

She was stuck in a volcano stuffed to the rim with gorgeous, fit young monks, all of whom intended to make vows to the Great Dragon. Picking up a small stone, Lia lobbed it crossly into the lake. Celibacy. What was the point, as Flicker had inquired, a trifle archly? She admired their religion. They were so dedicated and frugal, and yet in an indefinable way, full of life and Dragon fire. She could not spoil that. Not even if she knew that her great Dragon, Amaryllion, wanted no worship.

Her Ancient Dragon? My, how the idea tickled her tongue. His counsel that morning had been to be patient, to bide her time and learn from the monks. Ha. He obviously had neither seen her daily humiliation in the arena, nor fathomed the storms in her heart whenever she dared to consider her family’s fate.

A soft footfall made Lia startle. “Ja’al.”

Gathering his robe about him, the young monk sat down on the boulder beside her, almost but not quite touching her arm. “Islands’ greetings, Princess,” he said, drolly. “To which Islands do thy thoughts soar?”

Lia kept her eyes downcast. “Tomorrow’s expedition.”

“Ah. We go to find the Nameless Man. If you’re wondering, Master Jo’el has assigned you the twin slabs of granite as bodyguards.”

“Not you?”

“Why, am I nicer than them?”

He said it lightly, but tension roiled beneath his words. “It hurts my neck to look up at Hallon and Rallon,” she returned, aware of a similar undercurrent in her tone. “Do I understand that you hail from Ya’arriol Island?”

“Aye. Hua’gon and I come from a family of ten brothers. He’s the oldest, and I am five years younger, the fourth in our clan. You’ll get to meet them all.”

“Oh.”

Somehow, Lia had imagined that Ja’al would be an orphan, like her. Had he entered the Great Dragon’s service out of choice rather than necessity? So yawned the gap between their lives. The gentle excitement in his voice told her that Ja’al had a family who loved him, and parents who had not dumped him on Gi’ishior for Dragon-fodder. He had no appreciation of how deep her soul-scars reached–and better he did not, Lia told herself. She could never wish this on anyone else.

“I see you’re wearing a Dragon’s scale,” said Ja’al.

Lia chuckled, “It’s a White Dragoness’ scale. It took me two months to figure out how to bore a hole through it.” At his upraised eyebrow, she explained, “Master To’ibbik showed me how to build a diamond-tipped bore. That’s the only way to penetrate a Dragon’s scale without enormous force, and it still took three hours of drilling. Now I have a unique necklace.”

“As if you need outward adornment,” he remarked. “It suits you.” Lia failed to deny a blush from sizzling upward from the region of her belly, but he did not appear to notice. “Lia, where do you go on these days off?”

“I wish I could say,” she retorted, rather less apologetically than she had intended.

Her companion sighed. “I have to admit, it’s weird having a girl in the monastery. I don’t know what I expected–a spoiled brat, perhaps–”

“What?”

“Easy, dragonet!” he placated her. “Perhaps, a Princess who had no idea what it might be like to blister her hands from hard work, or take a blow to the ribs and get up again. Great Islands, was I wrong. Just when I think I’ve understood something about you, Lia, I discover there’s another layer beneath a layer.”

“I’m not deliberately hiding–”

“No. But you do have secrets. Your ability to speak Dragonish, for example.”

Lia opened and closed her mouth like a trout sieving water for food. The deep blue of his eyes captivated her, causing her to shiver despite the warmth of the breeze. How had he guessed?

Ja’al said, “Lia, there’s something came to tell you. Please don’t hate me.”

“I wouldn’t.” Hualiama bit her lip, wondering at the melancholy undertone in his words. If he was building up to a confession of love–was this not a strange approach? Yet he had sought a time for them to be alone together.

“Lia …” he groaned softly, sounding so anguished that the wound in her stomach twinged. “Lia, when we return from Ya’arriol Island, I will be taking my vows.”

At once, she replied, “That’s fantastic, Ja’al. I’m so pleased for you.”

Her lie sounded so pathetic, she was surprised he did not snort his contempt.

Instead, with sober mien, the monk noted, “I respect you too much for there to be secrets between us, Lia, and I hope that you respect me equally. You see, when you say you dream of Dragons–let me put it this way–my powers give me insight into your feelings. You struggle to conceal your heart for my sake. It is so very principled of you, I want to weep–for I am irrevocably committed to the Great Dragon’s service.”

Fragile her hopes, and so easily shattered. Lia stared at her toes, fighting a tearful fury that threatened to completely unravel her. Ja’al–toss him into a Cloudlands volcano! His hand rested upon her arm, briefly, a touch that made her tingle as though an electrical storm brewed around her. Life’s tempests. Here came yet another, roaring over her in full spate. Loneliness. Fear for her family. Jealousy, truth be told, that Ja’al should choose his vows over her. Was she forever fated to be little Lia, her Island passed over by all?

Bleakly, she said, “Some secrets are not given to us to reveal, Ja’al.”

“Aye. But to some, it is given to love.”

Love? Now, of all times, he dared … that word? She erupted, “You try to keep loving when life drags your heart through lava flows and tosses it off the Island!”

“Lia–”

“Don’t Lia me!” she snapped. “Don’t you see how hard I’ve tried, Ja’al? Islands’ sakes, you infuriate me like nothing I’ve ever … I do respect you. Admire you, even. I’ll tell you a secret, and may Fra’anior himself have mercy upon my soul–I don’t just dream about Dragons. I dream about flying with them. I dream of falling over the Islands in love with a Dragon!”

She sought to shock the young monk, yet all she saw in the deep blue pools of his eyes was acceptance, and it shivered the foundations of her Island. How dare he understand? How dare he be so cursed noble, standing immovable upon the peak of his religion, yet be exquisitely attuned to her feelings and needs?

Molten fury, mingled with shame, spat out of her. “Go on, say it! I’m depraved. I’m a wicked, wicked … aberration. I deserve to burn in the nearest volcano!”

“Shh.”

“So help me, I will bite those fingers!” Lia snarled around his hand, spitting with rage at being hushed like a child.

“Listen. Listen to me! Mercy, you and your passions, you’re such a little Dragoness!” Only Ja’al’s wry smile kept her from blowing her top again. “Tell me, where’s the sin in great love?”

Hualiama wrinkled her nose at him. “Must I teach you the tenets of your faith, monk?”

“Lia, my faith isn’t unshakable.”

The words he left unspoken, hurt more than he could possibly know. Ja’al meant it kindly and without rancour, but the vulnerability in his manner trumpeted his true, conflicted feelings. She was the nexus. The cause and the pain. How could she drag him away from the very faith that defined his life? She should rather leap off Ha’athior’s cliffs!

Suddenly, a decision crystallised in her mind. Should Amaryllion allow it, she would take Ja’al to meet the Ancient Dragon. He deserved no less.

Unsteadily, desperate to conceal her distress, Hualiama said, “As you are so committed to your vows, Ja’al, perhaps I might help you to develop your faith.”

“Oh? How is that?”

“I shall wake you in the mornings with sweet flirtation, make shameless moon-eyes at you every hour of every day, and attempt in every possible way–”

“I surrender already!” His exaggerated shout of horror drew a hoot of genuine laughter from her. “Oh, thou shameless Princess, what faith shall I learn by my inevitable capitulation to your charms? Nay, not the pout! I can’t stand the pout.”

“Then I must depart the monastery.”

“I forbid that.”

“Really?” Lia waggled an eyebrow at him. “Your name is Master Jo’el?”

Ja’al folded his arms, his eyes dancing. “Any other options?”

“I shall issue a royal decree that you are to wear your shirt at all times, for no chaste and incorruptible monk should have a right to flaunt such a magnificent set of pectorals.”

She had thought Ja’al could not be embarrassed. Flaming of cheek, he toppled her with a playful shove. “You are impossible–great Islands!”

A Dragon shot by overhead. He was so close, the down-stroke of the Dragon’s wingtip struck Ja’al atop his shaven head. Barely had the young monk tumbled across Lia’s body–protecting her–when another two Dragons raced by in hot pursuit, the shockwave of their passage punching her eardrums.

The first Dragon, a sixty-five foot juvenile, flared his wings as he dodged the aggressors’ fireballs. Recognition struck Hualiama like an Island-avalanche loosed by an earthquake; her pulse pounded inside her ears with deafening hammer blows. That young Dragon was a vibrant gemstone colour, the very Tourmaline Dragon she had dreamed about!

Horror piqued her gorge. She knew what was to come.

The foremost pursuer wheeled with breathtaking agility to strike the youngster with his talons. Lia choked. Oh mercy, her soul should perish … it was the huge Orange Dragon who had attacked her, the one whose scarred muzzle reminded her so lucidly of Ra’aba! She would never forget him. The second aggressor, raking the Tourmaline Dragon’s wings with his talons, was an even more massive Brown. The battling reptiles clashed with monstrous power, snarling and biting each other, fangs agape. Fireballs seared the evening sky. Ja’al and Lia ducked involuntarily as the ferocious melee abruptly swept back toward their position. Despite lying beside a boulder, their exposed location was perilous. Molten fire splashed the ground not ten feet away, so close that the heat sucked their lungs dry. Bushes crisped instantly.

Dragon thunder rolled over the chasm between the Islands. Battling two Dragons half again his size and weight–hundred-foot monsters–the Tourmaline Dragon was being chewed up, despite his most valiant efforts. Lia found herself unable to tear her eyes from the aerial combatants. So powerful! So majestic! How could a smaller Dragon even hold those two at bay? The juvenile fought with the strength of ten, punching with his claws and biting and shaking the larger Dragons off time and time again … but he was tiring. He suffered a vicious bite to the base of his tail, and now another that wrenched his wing, slewing him in the air.

In the space between heartbeats, Lia’s breath sucked into a new, cavernous space. A soul-shift caught her unawares. Suddenly, she knew pain and gasping breaths and the prodigious boiling of Dragon passions in her breast. Blood-thirst! Battle-rage! The inrush of senses so sensitive and all-consuming that her little Human heart feared to burst. A veil slipped over her eyes. Lia saw the world in enchanted freshness, a hiatus of time as she became he, and her Dragon’s neck snaked about with great cunning, spraying fire into the Brown’s face. Enjoying a surfeit of time, she flipped about in the air to strike the Orange Dragon a talon-blow that opened a ten-foot gash on his neck. Her challenge boomed off the cliff-side. She mauled the Brown’s neck and hindquarters with claws that suddenly became his again and she yelped, ejected by an eruption of draconic rage.

How dare you? The Tourmaline’s suns-white fury lashed her mind. All was fire. All was incandescent agony … the connection chopped off as the Brown Dragon thundered back into the fray, striking such a devastating blow with his left forepaw that the young Tourmaline shuddered from muzzle to tail. He sagged in the air before catching himself no more than a decent spear-cast from Hualiama’s position. The breeze generated by his wing-strokes ruffled her hair.

“No,” Lia moaned. “Don’t kill me …” Him? Did she mean him? Confusion and disbelief surge as a dark tide through her mind, underpinning a rising song of grief at the Dragon’s impending doom.

The Orange Dragon’s flame spurted out, lava-like. It stuck to the blue scales, burning the Dragon terribly, a scream of anguish cutting her soul to ribbons … the Tourmaline broke away with a supreme outpouring of strength, flying raggedly … he shot into a cavern in the lower mountainside of Ha’athior Island, and vanished in the blink of an eye.

The Orange Dragon thundered, Bring it down, Yulgaz. Bury him.

Aghast, Hualiama became an unwilling spectator to the enactment of her dream. Her scalp crawled; so surreal the moment, she knew it would be seared on her memory forever.

The Brown Dragon hurled a torrential outpouring of magic at the mountainside. Rock cracked and sagged. With a reverberation that shook the volcano beneath the two Humans, a landslide tore a reddish-black streak through the foliage, wounding the holy Island’s cliff. It buried the Tourmaline Dragon alive.

Sealed, o Razzior, said the Brown Dragon.

Hualiama shook as though she had the fire-fever, which often caused violent convulsions in its victims. Ravaged, broken in spirit, she could only watch as the Orange Dragon scanned the avalanche site with manifest satisfaction. He said, Excellent work, Yulgaz. Teach that flying worm to plot against us.

The scarred orange muzzle began to twist as the Dragon scanned his surrounds.

Every hair on the back of Lia’s neck stood to attention. “No … he’ll kill me! Mercy, no …” Running would never work. The Dragons were too close. Lia felt as paralysed as a rodent facing a cobra’s mesmeric stare.

She gasped at an unexpected contact, skin to skin. Ja’al’s lips covered hers.

The monk kissed Lia with wary, eloquent attention, one eye fixed on the two Dragons hanging in the void between the Islands, just a few hundred feet away. Against her mouth, between the mingling of suddenly overheated breath, he whispered, “A proper kiss, you silly ralti sheep …”

Smart man. If she could not fool that Orange Dragon, she was dead. Shielding her face with a hand she brought up to cup Ja’al’s cheek, Hualiama of Fra’anior set about thoroughly decimating the promise she had just settled upon–please, let her not tempt Ja’al from his intended vows.

Terror screamed its lonely counterpoint to the song of her excitement. Lia realised that this was her first kiss, a sweet, forbidden kiss with a monk–with two hostile Dragons for an audience. Mercy. What could be more ironic, or more perfectly sum up her life? For an unending second, the burning gaze of two Dragons dwelled upon a young man and an Isles maiden kissing on the edge of a volcano.

Ja’al’s heart thudded against her fear-numbed chest.

Bah, Humans, said the Orange Dragon. With a flip of his wings, he rocketed away to the north.

The Brown Dragon glanced back over his shoulder, causing Lia and Ja’al to freeze in position, faces less than an inch apart. The Dragons vanished over the rim of the Island above.

Ja’al coughed awkwardly. “You weren’t supposed to kiss me … quite so …”

“Fervently?” Hualiama squeezed her eyes shut, breathing raggedly. “I’m so sorry, Ja’al. That was the Orange, the one who attacked me before, on Ha’athior Island. I panicked.”

“The one you told me about?”

“Aye.”

“Well, Princess. You are not forgiven.”

“What?” Her eyes sprang open.

Treacherous monk. His face was still so close, she saw every detail of the very fine wrinkles edging his smile. He waggled an eyebrow suggestively at her, causing Lia to splutter, “Ja’al of Ya’arriol, if I’ve caused you to break … your beliefs are you. Slay me now. I could not live, nor could I ever forgive–”

“You misunderstand.” His eyes, oh, his beautiful, swimmable eyes, so depthless that they took her breath away, crinkled as his smile broadened. “O Princess, I’m being obtuse. Forgive me. Holding you in my arms has only convinced me more than ever–despite that this was my first kiss, and undoubtedly the sweetest kiss in the history of the Island-World–”

“Unforgettable, indeed.”

“–that I must take my vows.”

Hualiama gaped at Ja’al. By the innermost fires of Fra’anior, she lacked the power to change this monk’s convictions? Was this a fundamental insult to her femininity, or an even deeper relief? His hand moved to stroke her cheek hesitantly, a touch devoid of the passion she expected. Something had changed between them. A forever change. There was sadness, a sense of farewell.

Delicately, Ja’al said, “Occasionally, it is given to me to penetrate the veil of the future, Lia. It’s a dangerous power, for it is easy to say too much. Know this. Our paths will diverge from this moment. I will take my vows, and–”

“–become the next leader of this monastery after Master Jo’el,” Lia interjected.

Rather wild of eye, he breathed, “You never fail to astonish. Are you quite certain you have no magic?”

She replied, “I will find the Nameless Man, and he will name my destiny.”

“Aye.”

A simple word, and Lia knew there was more. Their gazes met, sparred, sparked. Why press him? Let the future care for itself, for knowing the future must certainly change it, or change the person who held that knowledge. What a burden to carry. What a noble vessel to carry that burden–Islands’ sakes, and would her heart not stop asserting that for reason of being incorruptible, Ja’al was therefore infinitely the more appealing?

On an impulse, Hualiama tilted her chin upward to press her lips to his cheek. “I know my opinion doesn’t count for a great deal in this Island-World, Ja’al, but I want you to know that I think you’re categorically and amazingly awesome.”

He looked to the horizon, swallowing audibly.

“Now,” she said, “we should return before your brother hatches any ideas.”

As the monk rose, helping Lia to her feet, her eyes traversed the newly scarred cliff-side. Surely no Dragon could survive a mountain being dropped on his head? She had witnessed the death of a Dragon, a heart-wound which could know no stanching.

Ja’al dropped her hands with a soft exclamation. “Hua’gon.”

Barefoot, Ja’al’s brother sprinted away as though the Orange Dragon hunted him. He must have come right up to the boulder, spying on them.

Lia said, “You don’t suppose he–”

“There’s no doubt Master Jo’el’s about to receive an earful. There’ll be no stopping him now.” Ja’al sighed, rubbing his bald pate with a long-suffering air. “My sneaky brother. Do you have any siblings as delightful as Hua’gon?”

“Implausible as it might seem, yes,” said Lia. “Shall we swap notes?”

Would that her heart could be a strongbox, for she would lock and bolt it and throw away the key, rather than suffer this pain.

* * * *

Four hours before dawn the morning following Lia’s inadvertent witness of the Tourmaline Dragon’s destruction, eighty monks filed underground to the great storage caverns a quarter mile beneath the monastery. Four Dragonships lay at anchor there, gently bobbing in the cool breeze that trickled through the cavern mouth.

Master Jo’el crooked a finger at Lia. “You. Get your sorry hide over here.”

Somewhere amidst the cloaked, hooded mass of monks, Hua’gon would be smirking. Lia dragged herself over to the Master, fixing her eyes on a point near her toes.

“Hualiama,” he said.

She blurted out, “I’m awfully, awfully sorry, Master.”

“Sorry? You should be, and worse,” he growled. “A highly unusual strategy to encourage a young monk to take his vows.” His long forefinger wagged beneath her nose. “Aye, blush like the dawn, you pint-sized Cloudlands pirate. We will have words, later. Right now, I need a competent Dragonship pilot. I’m short one, who was struck down with a bowel infection yesterday evening. Are you the woman to help us?”

“Certainly, Master.”

He snorted at her tone. “I don’t buy the meek and mild Lia. Pack her away, and go find the other pilots. We leave in ten minutes. And Princess, one more thing.”

“Aye, Master?”

“Nice beard.”

Lia spluttered something respectful, and fled.

Her face itched beneath her disguise, but Lia concentrated through the distraction as she piloted her hundred-foot traders’ Dragonship out of the cavern, one hand lightly resting on the levers controlling the airflow valves which governed hot air flow into the six main compartments of the dirigible’s sack, and the other on the wheel. She gazed through the forward crysglass windows, judging the tricky exit. Meantime, in the main cabin behind a panel at her back, ten monks peddled the machines that drove the six turbines, affixed in two clusters of three up the Dragonship’s port and starboard flanks. With severely limited fuel, they would have to rely on manual propulsion or a helping wind.

This beast was so much less manoeuvrable than her Dragonship. Flying solo was one matter. Being responsible for twenty-five lives back there, including Master Jo’el’s … daunting. The crossing to Ya’arriol Island, however, should take only a couple of hours. The small Island stood a little apart from the main Fra’anior Cluster, west and a few points north of Ha’athior.

“You know, that beard is amazing on you,” said Ja’al, from the doorway.

Without looking, Lia flung a rolled-up scrolleaf at him.

“How did you lose your curves?”

“Padding on the shoulders, binding around my ribs, and what do you care anyway, you prissy, puritanical–”

“I kissed a bearded Princess?”

“Get out!”

“Hua’gon wants to kill you.”

“Tell him to stand in line! There’s Ra’aba first, an Orange Dragon next–” Lia’s hands jerked on the controls, swerving the Dragonship, but she recovered her mistake deftly “–after that, any other Dragon who figures out I lived on Ha’athior Island, and lest we forget all of Ra’aba’s troops …”

Ja’al pointed at the crysglass window. “What’s that ridiculous dragonet of yours doing?”

Lia tilted her head askance. “I do believe he’s calling you an egg-head.”

* * * *

Stop distracting me, Hualiama’s voice growled in Flicker’s head. Ever since she had learned telepathic Dragon speech, her mental voice had been growing stronger and more distinct. Are you alright, Flicker?

I’m far handsomer than the egg-head, said Flicker.

I kissed you first, remember?

Fickle woman, he grumbled, mostly because of her alert perception. Flicker was not feeling well–the fiery scourge, dragonets liked to call this fever. It could kill a hatchling.

He zipped through the doorway, making Ja’al duck, and alighted on Hualiama’s shoulder. He glared at the monk, making his expression as fierce as possible. Paws off my girl, egg-head.

Lia made her cross clucking sound. He’s a good man. And how exactly am I your girl?

Fine, I’ll call you my talking perch, then.

Oh, a dragonet’s perch? It’s all I’ve ever aspired to in life.

Barely fit for the clasp of my claw, said Flicker, rubbing his muzzle contentedly against her neck.

“Are you two talking Dragonish right now?” Ja’al asked curiously.

“We are. He said–ouch, you flying earthworm!” The dragonet purred as he showed Lia the talons of his right forepaw. She shoved his paw away. “Honestly, Flicker. He said–aieee! My neck’s being held to ransom here, Ja’al. If I’m still alive, I’ll tell you later. Boys, I need to concentrate on piloting this Dragonship now. Can you kindly–”

“Aye, Captain,” said Ja’al, throwing her a slipshod salute.

Lia hissed wordlessly at him.

After the monk withdrew, however, Flicker sensed that her thoughts dwelled upon him. Lia said, Flicker, you feel hotter than your natural temperature …

I’m not well, he said, explaining.

With a deft touch, Lia set the controls and locked them in place, freeing up her right hand–the left, she kept on the wheel. Flicker, are you fully recovered from what the warren-mother did to you? I worry …

Too much, he said, nibbling her ear. You know how that scar on your back twinges sometimes?

Aye.

It’s like that. Now, memorise this herbal recipe, which should help my fever.

* * * *

Lia chatted a few more minutes with the dragonet before he fell asleep on her shoulder–unusually, for him. Just as a bird could sleep clutching its perch, the dragonet remained in place even when sleeping, his febrile body curled around her neck.

As her smoky green eyes searched the farthest reaches of the Cloudlands, Hualiama felt her gut clench with a sense of foreboding. What would this day bring? At a Dragonship’s cruising speed of four leagues per hour, factoring in a slight headwind, they should cross the nine leagues to Ya’arriol Island in two and a half hours, arriving before dawn.

Incipient tears blurred her eyes. The magnificent Tourmaline Dragon would never see another Fra’aniorian dawn.

Just then, a jolt of insight struck Lia so forcefully, she tasted blood in her mouth from biting her lip involuntarily. She had dreamed of the Dragon’s fate before she ever saw him; before ever imagining a Dragon of such a colour could exist. How could she anticipate the future so accurately? There could be no doubt. The moment of that dream was branded forever in her memory, for it was the day she had helped Flicker escape the warren-mother’s torture.

She had dreamed a Dragon’s death. Dreams could foreshadow, but they could not determine the future, could they? A soul-lost chill accompanied this thought. No, the Tourmaline Dragon’s gemstone scales would nevermore gleam resplendent beneath the twin suns, the magical flame of his eye … snuffed out. Destroyed. Hualiama stared unseeing at the bulk of the Yellow moon, covering fully a third of the western horizon, as she relived the awfulness of the Dragon’s final moments.

How could she bear yet more grief?

He’s alive.

Lia’s body jerked. “What?”

A hand reached over to grasp hers, correcting the Dragonship’s course. “Lia? Are you alright?”

“I–Master Jo’el?”

“Do you have fits?” he inquired. “I came in and spoke to you, but you acted as if you hadn’t heard a word.”

Where had the Master sprung from? Lia shook her head. “I … Master, I’m sorry! Mercy, all I ever seem to do is apologise to you. I’d never put your life in danger–”

“I know that.” The Master bent, bringing his eyes disturbingly close to hers. “Why do I sense that the paw of the Great Dragon lies heavy upon your life?”

“Master, did you just say, ‘He’s alive’?”

“No. Who’s alive?”

“The Tourmaline Dragon I told you about, Master. The one I thought was buried.”

The Master gave a grunt of apparent satisfaction. Lia felt her eyes widen. Releasing her hand, Master Jo’el moved over to stand at the forward crysglass windows, wrapping his lean frame in his robe as though he had felt a chill.

He said, “And will you obey the Great Dragon’s voice in this, Hualiama of Fra’anior?”

Lia wished she possessed his faith. Whether it had been Amaryllion, speaking across the leagues, or Fra’anior himself, she had no idea–but an adamantine certainty lodged in her breast. The Dragon was alive. Only she had the power to save him. Perhaps Amaryllion had cast his thoughts into her mind? She would have no idea what the Black Dragon Fra’anior sounded like.

“Master, I will.”

Jo’el said, “We must speak to the Nameless Man.”

The silhouette of Ya’arriol had enlarged against the yellow backlight of Iridith. How long had she been absent, lost in her thoughts? Hualiama shivered. And look at those dots above the Island’s cone …

“Master? Isn’t Ya’arriol’s caldera inactive?”

“Aye.”

“Then why do I see smoke rising from the southern ledge? And shadows above it which look like Dragonships?”

The Master did not hesitate. “Full speed ahead, Lia! Signals! Ready for battle!”

Chapter 12: Ya’arriol Burns

IN FULL BATTLE array, the four Dragonships from the monastery swooped down on Ya’arriol Island. Two Dragonships flying the standard of a black war hammer lay moored near the southernmost tip of the Island, while a third vessel hovered overhead, providing cover to fighters on the ground. Smoke billowed from a nearby village.

“Pirates,” spat Ja’al. He stood alongside Master Jo’el at the crysglass window, ahead of Hualiama but to the left, keeping clear of her line of sight.

“Get us right over that hovering Dragonship, Lia,” directed Master Jo’el. “Ram their balloon, if you can.”

Hualiama eyed the spar projecting above their heads, anchored somewhere above the navigation cabin. “And if they pack fire-arrows?”

“Our outer layer is hot air. Only the inner sacks are hydrogen,” said the Master. “Besides, we plan to distract them by shooting a few warriors in their direction.”

Shooting warriors? Her eyebrows arched. Great Islands! She had never heard of such a tactic before. She had the bruises to prove what these monks were capable of in training. Now she would see the famous warrior-monks of Fra’anior in action.

“Don’t be afraid, we’ll take good care of our little Princess,” said Ja’al, patting her on the arm.

Lia snapped her teeth at his fingers exactly as Flicker might have done.

“Ramming speed,” said Master Jo’el.

She called down the tube at her right side, “Ramming speed!”

The engines’ pulse picked up as the engineers opened the furnace engine’s valves. The monks working the manual drives doubled their speed. Hualiama concentrated on their target. No telling what the pilot might do when he realised that they intended to ram him. The standard defensive manoeuvre was to present the stern crossbows for several shots at the opponent’s navigation cabin, before making an emergency dive or ascent.

Closer. Outside, on the gantries flanking the navigation cabin, she saw groups of monks tensioning the crossbows–two traditional crossbows, which fired quarrels six feet long, and two elastic catapult contraptions which she had never seen before.

Lia pursed her lips as the other pilot held his nerve, and his position.

“Fight well for the Dragon,” said Ja’al, ducking out of the cabin.

Ahead, on the southern ledge where four Human villages were located, Lia saw smoke pouring up from the houses and what she took for a glint of weaponry. The villagers were not giving up without a fight. She wondered if the local monastery had dispatched their monks to assist.

The flanking Dragonships drove forward in a tight wedge formation, angling for the thickest of the fighting.

A catapult twanged. With a scream, “For the Dragon!” Ja’al shot across the divide between the Dragonships. Arrows homed in on his flying form, but abruptly skittered away as if frightened. Another handy trick. That monk was far too talented for his own good.

Hualiama’s vessel rocked slightly as the crossbows fired simultaneously with the enemy vessel’s weapons. She dipped the Dragonship’s nose to the port side, causing one bolt to skitter off the armoured crysglass. The other penetrated but Lia was already ducking smoothly, driven by an instinct which hardly seemed her own. The crossbow quarrel plugged into the wall behind her right shoulder–too close for comfort.

Ja’al jinked mid-air before alighting nimbly on the gantry beside the enemy’s starboard crossbow. His swords flickered. One pirate fell immediately, but his three fellows laid into the monk with a vengeance. Ja’al’s tall form seemed to drift like smoke between their sword-strokes, driving two of the pirates into each other’s arms while the monk delivered a crushing kick to the last man’s sternum, smashing him overboard to a fatal fall. Mercy.

As Lia grimly maintained her collision course, she assessed the orientation of the enemy vessel’s adjustable turbines. This pilot would drop, she was convinced of it. Two more monks shot across the gap, while crossbow quarrels and arrows were fired back in reply. Crysglass shattered to Hualiama’s left, showering her with fragments. She clutched the controls even as she ducked, holding their course steady. Lia reassured Flicker with a touch of her mind as he moaned, dreaming. Port and starboard, monks fell lightly through the air. Most did not possess Ja’al’s power, rappelling with incredible rapidity down ropes. Others simply flung themselves to the winds, creating a deadly rain of monks wielding staves tipped with wicked, eight-inch blades either end, or the more traditional, slightly curved sword called nazatha, which meant ‘the warrior’s arm’.

Hualiama’s hand punched the controls a fraction of a second behind the other pilot’s move. A feint! She adjusted instantly, bringing their lance back onto its deadly course. The Dragonships were so close, she clearly saw the enemy navigator sweating behind his own crysglass windows as he threw himself on the emergency gas release. Their balloon sagged. Too late.

Yelling, “Brace!” into her command tubes, Lia brought the nose down in one fell swoop.

She had never rammed another Dragonship before. Legs flexed, expecting the collision, Hualiama was startled when it began with a dull pop–PAH! A teeth-gritting squeal followed. The ramming spar punctured the enemy’s balloon, stringing the two dirigibles together like gourds on a single branch. Then, the reinforced nose of their Dragonship impacted the enemy’s navigation cabin.

KEERAACK!

The shock smacked her face against the throttle.

“Ralti sheep droppings!” Blood trickled down the bridge of her nose, but she caught Flicker before he fell.

“Take us down gently,” ordered Master Jo’el. “Leave the dragonet here. Put your hood up and follow Hallon and Rallon into the villages.”

“And you, Master–”

“I’m off to capture a Dragonship,” he said, diving headlong through their shattered window into the cabin opposite. The Master rolled smoothly to his feet, a baton sprouting in either hand as though summoned by magic. Four swordsmen surged toward him. A whirlwind of robes and flying batons enveloped the cabin. By the time Lia had placed Flicker on the floor, the pirates were all either unconscious or dead, and Master Jo’el was kicking down the door into the main body of the Dragonship, beyond.

“Right. Do it all on your own.” Hualiama wrestled with the controls, snorting, “Typical man.”

A deep voice tickled her neck. “Aye?”

Hallon, or Rallon–she could never tell them apart. Ja’al had a trick, however. He said Rallon had a tiny scar on his right cheek. This must be Hallon.

“Aye,” she said, biting her lip. Lia’s hands raced over the controls. Back-thrust to counter the weight dragging them into a stall. A touch of the ailerons to stabilise the linked vessels. “A little more power, engineer boys,” she called down the tube. Something snappy and rude floated back to her ear. She growled, “Is there a problem?”

“Aye, Captain!”

“What?”

“Ah … no, Captain!”

The beat of the engines increased as the men stoked the fires. Hands racing over the controls to steady their steep descent, Hualiama looked down and saw a tidy cottage dead ahead, surrounded by clumps of men and women locked in close combat. Slam the throttle! Spin the wheel! Slewing the Dragonship violently, Lia scraped over the grey shale roof and brought them to a spine-jarring landing on the path beside the house. The Dragonship’s superstructure groaned, but held together.

Lia said, “By the fires of–”

“Swords!” chorused Hallon and Rallon.

Her hand paused in the motion of wiping sweat off her brow. Right. Evidently, no-one had the time or the inclination to admire her wonderful landing. Drawing her nazatha, Lia sprinted to catch up with the giant twins.

Outside, chaos engulfed her. Men bellowing. Metal screeching against metal. The wails of the wounded. The low, uncanny chanting of the monks, ‘For the Dragon. For the Dragon,’ somehow droning through the general mayhem, as the unarmoured monks swarmed the battlefield, making her imagine a cloud of lethal butterflies fluttering over dark vegetation.

Nausea seared her throat. Lia gulped. This was no training field. Blood splattered the dark volcanic stone walls of the nearby cottages, typical Fra’aniorian stone dwellings with shuttered windows and neat gardens laid out front and back, abutting towering walls of volcanic vegetation a hundred feet tall. Here, she saw a man fall from a monk’s blade, the metal slick with blood. There, two bodies lay draped across a fallen basket of prekki-fruit. And children, slain! Beneath a bush, she saw a pair of tiny bodies bearing axe-wounds to their torsos, mercifully beyond any pain, now.

A red haze descended upon her vision. She knew a Dragon’s rage as if she were with the Tourmaline Dragon, even within him, knowing the potential blazing in her fire-stomach and the power of the Island-World’s premier predator at her fingertips, wild and feral, uncontainable. Suddenly, she had no need of Hallon’s hand to pull her forward. The twins gasped as Lia spun past them into the thick of a knot of bearded pirates, who wore the crimson headband that seemed to mark their sorry crew.

Slash. Parry. Slide beneath a wild overhand blow, rising in a fluid motion with her sword outthrust to spear the man in the armpit, where his armour left him vulnerable. Thunder into a clutch of three pirates trying to kick their way through the door of one of the cottages. Knocked over. Lia rebounded a fraction of a second ahead of Rallon, grateful for his shattering kick to the knee of an assailant as she slid her blade past his tall oval shield to pierce the base of the man’s throat.

A near-perfect cut skidded off another pirate’s forearm before penetrating the leather fold of his elbow armour. His sword dropped from nerveless fingers. “For the Dragon!” spat from her lips. From the corner of her eye, she saw one of the twins finishing the man with a mighty, cleaving blow.

Lia sprinted down a pathway between dense, towering jiista-berry bushes to ambush half a dozen pirates as they tried to reform ranks. Her roar was so mighty she tasted blood on her lips from a throat ravaged by a sound no Human throat should ever have made. The men froze. Hualiama tore into them with a pure, draconic wrath she could neither deny nor command. Rallon and Hallon hurled themselves into the fray; a violent clash of swords ensued. The nazatha blurred in front of Lia’s face as her training kicked in. At some level, she recognised that if she simply reacted, letting her instincts carry her through, she could fight better than ever before. Her clumsiness returned with that thought, however. Stumbling, Lia took a stab-wound to her right bicep.

Hallon grabbed her shoulder. “Easy, rajal!” He smashed a pirate’s jaw with his elbow. “Keep your focus. Channel the rage.”

“Got that out of our system?” rumbled Rallon, casually cleaning his blade on a fallen pirate’s tunic top.

“I … I …” Their enemies lay scattered around the small clearing, unmoving. Lia’s eyelashes dipped, but she was unable to keep from scanning the carnage all about her. Her gorge surged.

“Smell this.”

Something acrid exploded up her nose. “Hal–roaring rajals!”

However, the urge to retch had vanished. At Hallon’s solicitous touch upon her shoulder, Lia spluttered, “I’m fine now–great Islands! I know him! That man.”

“This one?” Hallon prodded a pirate with his toe.

“Aye. Except, he’s no pirate–he’s a member of the King’s personal guard.” Rallon and Hallon exchanged troubled glances. Scratching her false beard, Lia said, “He might have fled … which seems unlikely. No. Ra’aba’s men are attacking these villagers under the guise of being pirates!”

Rallon began, “Why would they–”

Hallon punched his brother affectionately on the shoulder–a punch which would have felled little Lia without a doubt. “Why do you think, pumice brain? They’re far too disciplined to be pirates. Just look at this shiny new armour, the way they fight in ranks …”

“We need to tell Master Jo’el,” said Rallon.

“After we drive them away from the village. Follow me!” cried Lia.

“Typical woman!” she heard floating from behind as they pounded down the trail to the next brace of houses. “Never content just to follow.”

“Hallon!” she snapped.

“I’m Rallon.”

“No, you’re not. Come on, they’re firing that house!”

* * * *

In the evening after the battle, a group of monks escorted their much slighter companion to a village on the eastern shore of Ya’arriol Island, which overlooked Fra’anior. The largest known volcano in the Island-World, Fra’anior dominated the eastern horizon, sixty miles wide and four miles tall–at least, that was the portion visible above the Cloudlands. The mountain’s roots had to be much deeper and wider still. It was Lia’s favourite view, and she paused to drink it in until Master Jo’el discreetly touched her arm.

Hualiama did not need to duck beneath the lintel of Ja’al’s parents’ house, but everyone else did. Master Jo’el bent almost double. The giant twins fared little better, while Ja’al courteously indicated that Hualiama should precede him.

She entered a low-beamed dining room, simply furnished with a carved wooden table and chairs. A delighted squeal announced Ja’al’s mother–clearly–flinging herself across the room at her son. He tucked her beneath his chin, reddening as he spied Lia’s smile. His father, an older, no less handsome version of Ja’al, rose from the kitchen table where he had been honing nicks out of his sword. The weapon looked as battered as he did. Ja’al’s father sported a fine black eye and limped as he moved to greet them.

“Master Jo’el,” he said, gathering the tall Master into a very un-Fra’aniorian hug. “You saved us from being slaughtered like sheep, today.”

“Master Ga’athar.” Over the shorter man’s shoulder, Jo’el’s eyes twinkled. “Sister.”

A wide grin ambushed Hualiama as the Master gathered Ja’al’s mother into his embrace. Beside Jo’el his sister looked tiny, but she had the same beak-like nose and piercing eyes, her expression quite at odds with the homely apron protecting her fine, sapphire-coloured traditional lace dress. The smell in the cottage made her mouth water. Yum! Mohili-wheat sweetbread a-bake, was it? Lia had seen her among the villagers helping set everything to rights after the battle. By evening, Ja’al’s mother must have found time to return to her housework.

They had worked all day. Hualiama exhaled. So many graves. Such wanton destruction.

Several younger faces peered shyly around a curtain at the back of the room, before ducking back with muffled giggles.

“It was the Great Dragon’s timing,” averred Ja’al, following his nose toward the oven.

Dusting her hands on her apron, his mother said, “Paws off the sweetbread, you thieving dragonet! Have you forgotten your manners, being surrounded by men all day long? Kindly introduce your companions, young man, before I introduce my rolling-pin to your left ear.”

Lia chuckled at Ja’al’s pained expression. Oh, what part of the Island-World would she not have given for a reprimand from her own mother …

Sweeping into an elaborate bow that showed everyone a trio of red-crusted cuts above his right ear, Ja’al said, “Followers of the Path of the Dragon Warrior, I am honoured to present my parents, Master Ga’athar and Mistress Yualiana. My father is the leader of this Island. Father, Mother, may I present our esteemed Master Jo’el, the monks Hallon and Rallon, and–”

“Shut the door, Hallon,” said Master Jo’el.

As the door creaked shut, Ga’athar addressed Hualiama with a jovial smile, “It seems our monks grow younger by the year. Was this your first battle, boy?”

“My first, aye,” she said, quietly.

Yualiana’s eyes narrowed as she turned from Lia to Master Jo’el. “Aye, a petite and very pretty monk, brother–oh! Heavens above and Islands below … it can’t be, we heard … no, no …”

“She looks better without the beard,” said Ja’al.

“Aye?”

One word from Yualiana, and her son began to steam around the ears. He sat down at the table with a thump, finding some fascinating detail on the opposite wall to engage his attention.

Next, Yualiana glared at her brother. “You great ralti sheep, our house is in such a state and you, you bring home …”

Fancy, for once, even Master Jo’el seemed flustered. He joined Ja’al at the table, while Hualiama looked on with astonishment. Someone could do that to Master Jo’el?

“Lia,” said the Princess.

With a preposterously fancy bow, such as Hualiama had not even seen the most fawning of courtiers possess the coordination to produce, Ga’athar said, “By all accounts, you gave a fine account of yourself in the battle today, your–”

“Just Lia, please.”

“I saw her leading Hallon and Rallon a merry dance,” said Master Jo’el. Shuffling their feet, the giant twins found their seats with alacrity. “You may remove your hood, Lia.”

Yualiana took Lia’s hand to kiss her knuckles. “Our household is deeply honoured. King Chalcion never made occasion to visit the Nameless Man. I assume that is why we are graced with the presence of–”

“A royal ward,” said Hualiama, with a brittle smile. “In reality, I’m as ordinary as … ah, without offence, I mean, anyone else. The monks have certainly thrashed me enough times …”

‘Ordinary?’ Ja’al inquired with his eyes, causing her sentence to trail off into silence. “Father, shall I see if the Nameless Man will receive Hualiama?”

Ga’athar nodded; Ja’al disappeared behind the curtain. Hualiama heard him dispensing fond kisses to his siblings, before a door creaked and all went quiet. Ja’al’s father said, “Princess, your intelligence was accurate. About an hour ago, several captives we interrogated confessed to being Ra’aba’s men. This was clearly Ra’aba’s plot all along–to force us to commit our warriors in the fight against the Dragons, or to destroy us.”

“Aye,” said Master Jo’el, making a tent of his long fingers, a habit of his. “He’s without conscience. Ra’aba has also demanded our warriors join his forces.”

“There’s open war?” asked Hualiama.

“Aye,” grunted Ga’athar, “but not here, not yet. Over in the East, the Kingdom of Kaolili fights Dragons constantly. A month ago, Lyrx’s main city was attacked and sacked–by renegade Dragons, we’re told. That’s over five thousand people! Six months ago, Telstroy Island fared little better. Half of their main town was reduced to cinders. Sapphurion–”

“The Dragon Elder, the leader of all Dragons,” Master Jo’el explained.

“Aye, Sapphurion would have us believe he’s fighting these renegade Dragons and protecting us. And just this last week, news reached us of four villages just south of Gi’ishior, plundered and set ablaze by an entire Dragonwing of feral Dragons.” Ga’athar’s hands twisted into fists. “It was an annihilation. Pure, wilful murder. Just as would have transpired here, at the hand of our own people, Princess, had you not intervened.”

Lia shifted uncomfortably on her seat. The false beard itched mightily, but Master Jo’el had commanded her to keep it in place. She muttered, “Master Jo’el leads the monks, not me.”

Jo’el’s lean hand rose to indicate the curtain.

“Oh.”

Her soft gasp preceded her as she brushed past the densely-worked lace hanging. As Lia passed into the small, dim room beyond, she heard Yualiana say, rather acidly, “A girl at the monastery, brother? How’s that been?”

“Educational,” said Jo’el, dryly.

“I’d wager on that!” his sister snorted.

“She’s an extraordinary young lady. Quite remarkable.”

Lia’s ears burned at the Master’s praise.

Ja’al clasped her fingers. “This way.”

Her eyes had no chance to adjust to the dimness before he swept her through a well-hidden doorway into a completely blackened room. Hualiama sensed the presence of men with weapons. Then, a metal door scraped open and bright candlelight dazzled her eyes.

The room was bare, save for a green rush pallet in the centre, and a flat floor cushion off to one side. Lia’s eyes moved first to the cushion, where a girl of about her own age knelt beside a half-size harp, her curly dark hair spilling from beneath a modest white headscarf. However, that girl was not the source of power in the room. A stillness pervaded the place, as deep as the Cloudlands, and perhaps as perilous. Hualiama saw a small boy seated cross-legged on the pallet, who could be no older than seven or eight summers of age. His arms protruded like sticks from the depths of a sleeveless robe of midnight blue, his head balanced like a small blue egg atop an impossibly frail neck, and his eyes appeared overlarge in a sepulchral face–the eyes, she saw, of a Dragon.

Yellow. Flaming. Drawing her irresistibly into the ambit of his power.

A joke about the ‘nameless boy’ had been poised upon the tip of her tongue. Instead, Lia stumbled to her knees and bowed her head.

“Child of Fra’anior,” said the Nameless Man, in a little-boy voice that belied the gravity of his position, “the Great Dragon apprised me of your coming. Long have I awaited our meeting.”

Unbidden, an image of Amaryllion’s monstrous orb filled her mind.

The boy intoned, “No, one greater than he. Sit, and take tea with me, Hualiama. For we are kindred creatures, you and I, the foci of fates thrust upon us. We feel the fire of the Great Dragon. We blaze. We burn. History itself trembles on the cusp of a new era. You and I are its ushers.”

Lia shuddered.

Chapter 13: Prophecy

HuAliama and the Nameless Man did not speak as one of Ja’al’s younger sisters brought them redbush tea sweetened with honey. The girl strummed the harp with tantalising skill. All the while, the Nameless Man’s smouldering yellow eyes measured her with a barely-veiled might not unlike what she had felt in the Ancient Dragon. Lia considered the childlike voice which wielded verbal blades, the simplicity of a boy’s words incising past and future with equal facility.

“Ask your questions,” said the Nameless Man.

“I have many,” Lia admitted. “Perhaps the most important is, how can I restore the King to the Onyx Throne?”

“Find him and defeat Ra’aba,” he replied at once.

Hualiama knew her inward scowl did not go unnoticed. “Nameless Man, you know what manner of man Ra’aba is–”

“I do.”

“Then you know I can never defeat him.”

“I repudiate that conclusion. Nevertheless, the future is clouded.” The Nameless Man reached out with his free hand, swirling the steam rising from his small cup of tea as though he could thus read the mysteries of the Island-World. “You’re a puzzling one, Hualiama. Hard to fathom. A soul shadowed by an evil so great–” His eyes flickered very rapidly, turning from yellow to pure white and back again “–I sense the touch of a foul, perverted magic … a past crime concealed, yet it will come to light. Were I a man, grown into my full strength, I could perhaps wrest these secrets from you. Your heart’s deepest desire is clear to me. You seek knowledge of your parents.”

“I do,” she repeated, feeling more and more the child before the penetrating gaze of a boy half her age.

“Discovering your heritage is paramount, child of the Dragon. Paramount.” His gaze drilled the word between her eyes. “A clue is revealed. Seek the Maroon Dragoness.”

“What? Sorry–would that be the Dragoness I dream about?”

“Tell me your dreams.”

Hualiama began, haltingly, to describe her dreams of a Dragoness singing over her clutch, when the Nameless Man interrupted, “Show me in your mind. Quickly.”

Why the rush? Images eddied through Lia’s mind as though his insistence had stirred up a flurry of leaves, flitting past the all-seeing yellow gaze. She became aware of his mental processes, of a mind so awash in power it seethed like a volcano, seeking to pare the truth from the bones of what she offered him–yet also, she sensed a vast frustration. Why was her future unclear? What prevented the Nameless Man from finding what he sought?

And now, his response communicated fear.

Words formed in her mind, similar to a Dragon or dragonet’s telepathic speech. There is a prophecy known to but a few Dragons, a prophecy concerning the unleashing of an aeons-old power upon the Island-World. Ask the Ancient Dragon if he can name it. Seek the Maroon Dragoness–perhaps she will know why you were brought up by Dragons. To stand a chance of defeating Ra’aba, you need to learn a technique rooted in the power of your dance.

Suddenly, the Nameless Man stood. “I must leave.”

“Wait!” she yelped. “What about the Tourmaline–”

“Follow your heart in that matter, Hualiama.” Old, melancholy, the boy’s eyes transfixed her. “Do not lose hope, even when your soul’s Island is cast into the abyss of despair. I promise to meditate upon all you have shown me. Should any new insight–”

“Wait. Why must you go?”

“He comes, and I cannot be found here.”

“Who?”

She knew. As an armoured fist pounded on the front door. A voice cried, “Open up in the name of the King!” Hualiama knew in her bones, her nemesis had come.

The Nameless Man’s hand moved in a strange form of blessing. Ja’al had already sprung a hidden hatch, which opened on a narrow tunnel. He said, “May the Great Dragon’s fire breathe upon your life.” Tears wet his cheeks, great drops that seemed to pour from his soul’s own well. “A double portion of courage be thine, beloved child of Fra’anior.”

His weeping, more than anything which had preceded it, terrified Hualiama. Trembling, she turned, her hand falling upon her sword-hilt.

“Well, quite the gathering,” sneered a familiar voice.

Ra’aba.

Before she knew it, Hualiama was on the move, sidling beyond the reach of Ja’al’s grasping hand, darting through the darkened room toward a crack of light. Zing. Her sword rang brightly as she drew it. Surely, justice would guide her hand this time.

The Roc said, “You did fine work against those pirates today. A happy coincidence, Master Jo’el, that you happened to be–”

As he spoke, Hualiama oriented on that despicable voice. Fleet and soft-footed, she arrowed toward the curtain. The bright candlelight in the room beyond made her target stand out amply well. It was a long shot, but an overhand throw should spin the blade through the curtain … “Unh!”

Every muscle in her body seized up. Hualiama landed hard, unable to throw out her hands to prevent her fall, the well-worn wooden floorboards abrading her right cheekbone as she tore through the curtain and skidded to a halt at the foot of Master Ga’athar’s chair. Though her body was as rigid as a petrified tree, she began to convulse, her feet drumming helplessly against the floorboards, her tongue sliding back into her throat.

Clearly, she heard Ga’athar say, “My son has these seizures. My apologies, Ra’aba.” He raised his voice. “Ja’al? See to your brother, would you?”

Someone was growling and frothing like an animal throttled in a noose. Panicked. Trapped inside of her own body. She heard everything, but had lost all self-control. Gnnnnaarrr! Lia bellowed at the darkness, breathless at the pressure of rock walls too close to her wings and ambushed by the madness of a creature entombed beneath a mountain. She broke her talons on unyielding stone. Back and forth she charged, driven into a frenzy as the rock closed in, looming, a visceral terror crushing her hearts and driving her panting, scrabbling and clawing up and down the narrow chasm, knowing only that she would perish if she did not escape, and she was … the Tourmaline Dragon?

The sounds of the room resumed. The sense of soul-crushing terror abated. Lia felt Ga’athar push her gently with his foot so that she did not break her teeth on the table leg. Was she meant to be grateful? Where was her sword? Heavens above and Islands below, what was wrong with her? Had she been the Dragon, somehow? This was beyond empathy. Beyond the Isle of wishing to be a Dragon, it was a lurch toward insanity.

Casually, Master Jo’el said, “So, how can we help you, Ra’aba?”

“That’s King Ra’aba to you, Dragons’ paw-licker,” growled a soldier. “Search the place, men.”

“Please don’t scare the children,” said Yualiana.

“How many in your sorry brood now?” asked Ra’aba. “Ten? Eleven? A few less after today?”

Dead silence.

Then, Lia heard the movement of heavily armed men shuffling around the house, checking under beds and peering into cupboards. Children whimpered. She hoped the Nameless Man–the boy–had escaped to safety. A hand turned her over, cradling her head. Fingers, scraping at the back of her throat, tugging at her slippery tongue. Sweet air flooded her lungs.

“Nothing, o King!”

“Curse it!” roared Ra’aba. Furniture shattered against a wall; splinters of wood spun past Lia’s nose. “Search again! Tear the place apart!”

Soldiers, going through the motions. Boots tramping past her head, while Hualiama helplessly tolerated the nearness of a man she could have loved. Oh, Ja’al. What if she had followed her heart?

“Curse her to a Cloudlands volcano!” screamed the Roc. Lia felt a dull thud through the floor, as if a body had slammed against a wall.

“Sire? Sire?”

Her body refused her command to look at the scuffles and grunts which followed. Abruptly, vile curses flooded from Ra’aba’s mouth. “I killed her with my own hands! Twice … the prophecy is broken. It must be. There’s no other way … no other person … the bane … that Dragoness brought it down on me … on us all …”

His voice broke down into meaningless babble, punctuated by more curses; now sobbing, the deep, rasping sobs of a man gripped by mortal terror.

“Tell us about the prophecy, Ra’aba,” said Ja’al’s father. “Perhaps we can help.”

“You’ll never have it. Never! I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you all if I have to.”

Sarcastically, aiming to rile, Master Jo’el said, “Ra’aba, no man can escape a word of fate spoken by the Great Dragon.”

“You’re the one who doesn’t understand.” Ra’aba’s voice grew fainter. Lia imagined his men were dragging him away from the house, down the path. Yet, his final wail carried to her hearing, “It’ll mean the end of us all … of everything we hold dear!”

* * * *

Hualiama knew Ja’al’s mother had noted the tender care her son bestowed upon the Princess of Fra’anior. Now beardless, she sported a hot red rash where her disguise had been glued to her much-abused cheeks. His mother was the least of her worries. She explained all that the Nameless Man had told her–or not–careless of the irritation boiling beneath her manner until Master Ga’athar crashed his fist down on the table.

“My son saved you from a reckless attack on Ra’aba!” he growled.

“I would’ve killed him!”

Ga’athar shouted, “You would not!”

“Not when I was thrashing on the floor like a speared trout, no!” Hualiama yelled back.

Master Jo’el said peaceably, “You simply aren’t ready.”

Lia roared to her feet, stung by his words, when realisation sucked the wind out of her Dragonship’s sails. The Master was right. The heat of righteous anger could only carry a person so far. Last time a thrown blade had fortuitously nicked the Roc’s skin. His reactions were quicker than a dragonet’s–she, of all people, should know. Ra’aba and his soldiers would have slaughtered this family. What a fool she was. She had to train. She must grow stronger.

Collapsing into her seat, Hualiama fought bitter tears. She would not cry on account of that man! Never again! Yet she was afraid, so dreadfully afraid. How could she ever face Ra’aba? Please, Great Dragon, lift this soul-shivering destiny from her life …

“It is said,” Jo’el added, “that Ra’aba has a mysterious, magical capacity akin to the rare Dragon skill known as stone skin. You told me of the legend that he had never been touched by another blade, Lia. Except yours.”

“He wasn’t prepared, that’s all,” she spat. Stone skin? None of her delving into Dragon lore had mentioned that ability, nor had it mentioned Dragon-empathy so deep-seated, it was as if she had inhabited a hide of gemstone hue … “You heard the Nameless Man. Much as I would have loved to hear, ‘Do this and your victory over Ra’aba will be assured’, what he said was, ‘To stand a gnat’s chance in an erupting volcano’–well, that’s my point. And what, by every Cloudlands hell in the entire Island-World, do my parents have to do with the price of silk in Helyon? Riddle me that!”

She glowered at the group gathered around the table. Fulminating. Fuming at the dragonet, who had just suppressed a purr of approval at her ire–she hardly needed his encouragement!

“Another sweetbread?” Master Jo’el offered her the basket.

“More spicy ralti stew?” suggested Hallon.

“A cheeky dragonet’s tail to stir the stew?” Rallon grinned, holding up Flicker’s tail. He had gently lifted the dragonet off Hualiama after Flicker arrived in a mewling mess, scratching at the front door, clearly feverish and delusional.

Flicker cracked open an eye. “What say you I stir your intestines with my talon?”

Lia grinned grimly. Clearly the herbs she had instructed Ja’al’s nineteen year-old sister, Inniora, to prepare, were having the desired effect. “He’s touchy about his tail,” she advised. “Treat it as a sacred object.”

“He’s beautiful,” said Inniora.

“Mmm,” purred Flicker, switching laps with alacrity, nestling into Inniora’s sky-blue Fra’aniorian lace gown with an exaggerated sigh. “Tell me more, you lovely girl.”

She was the girl who had played for them in the Nameless Man’s chamber. Inniora had all the graceful height that Lia lacked, a mischievous twinkle in her dark brown eyes, and hands which appeared to be calloused from the use of a blade. She moved as though she knew how to take care of herself, but had a gentle air about her that belied the firmness of personality expressed in her definite chin and jawline. Inniora took possession of the dragonet in a way that made Lia’s blood boil.

Ja’al said, “Inniora, maybe you should play some soothing music for Lia.”

Mutinously, Hualiama grumbled, “When I feel like soothing someone’s head off their shoulders? I think not! You heard our report, Master Jo’el. I’ m sorry, but I didn’t expect to come to Ya’arriol to be told I can flutter my eyelashes at Ra’aba and dance him off the Onyx Throne!”

“Now, Lia–”

“Ooh, it’s my deep, dark destiny.” Despite her intent to keep a lid on her volcanic emotions, words tumbled over each other in a bid to escape. “I tremble on the cusp of a ruddy volcano! This way, I toss myself into the caldera; that way, I fall into the Cloudlands. Has anyone ever heard of a maroon-coloured Dragoness? Islands’ sakes, no! Red, aye! Crimson, of course! Greens enough to forest a hundred Islands. So I’m supposed to just march up to some mythical Dragoness and demand to learn about an ancient and perverted prophecy and trust it has to do with my parentage? How in anybody’s imagination does any of this make sense? How will the Dragoness not slay me on the spot?”

From behind her, Yualiana put her hands on Hualiama’s shoulders. “Are you scared, petal?”

“If I were a Dragon I’d be spitting fire!”

Ja’al’s mother leaned close, clasping Lia exactly as Queen Shyana used to. “I’d be, too. We all understand that feeling. You try defending your children in wartime and see if you don’t know a fear that turns your bowels to water.”

“If anyone is scared, it’s Ra’aba,” said Inniora. “I’d take comfort from that, Lia.”

Comfort? Hualiama stared at her hands.

Inniora touched her arm. “What is it?”

“I buried five children today.” Her fingers trembled. She formed them into fists. Faintly, she said, “One was a little boy. He had this toy Dragon. Of his family, he was the only one left alive when we found him. I sang to him as he died in my arms.” She opened her hand. Imprinted upon her palm, she had clutched it so tightly, was an exquisitely carved wooden Dragon. “I felt so stupid and helpless. As my tears wet his face, he looked up and saw this Dragon scale that I wear, and he said, ‘May the Great Dragon comfort you, lady.’ As if I were the one who needed comforting! And then he said, ‘Why didn’t the Great Dragon save us? Why?’ And I had no answer. I held him, and whispered that he was loved.”

Master Ga’athar said, “The nature of evil is to destroy all that is precious.”

“The nature of love is that it can be wounded, but never destroyed,” said Master Jo’el. “Like a Dragon’s soul, it rises from the ashes, reincarnate.”

Lia stared at them, bereft of words.

What was it about these monks and their insights?

“You’re right,” said Ja’al. “Ra’aba just confessed to murder. How can he be the rightful King?”

Master Jo’el said, “The kings of this Island-World are hardly above murder, Ja’al. But he is not the rightful King, nor can he ever be. Our task is clear. We must restore our King to the Onyx Throne, and defeat Ra’aba’s plot, before he brings down ruin upon Dragon and Human alike with his evil collusions. We must understand this prophecy. What ruin does Ra’aba envisage, apart from that which his reign will produce?”

In the ensuing silence, the dragonet purred, “How do you murder a person twice? Is this a Human saying? Of course, I saved Lia through an incredible feat of bravery–”

“Once, Ra’aba threw me off his Dragonship,” said Lia, her mind racing. “The second time? Did Ra’aba send that Orange Dragon to roast me? The Dragon addressed me as the Princess.” Unconsciously, her voice echoed the Dragon’s growl, “‘Run. Scream, if you’d like. I’ll give you a count of three.’”

Ga’athar’s fist pounded the table again, making the plates jump. Rallon swore unhappily, while a tic jumped in Jo’el’s cheek. Yualiana laid her hands on Hualiama’s shoulders to comfort her.

Hallon pointed out, “But Ra’aba said, ‘With my own hands’.”

“Has anyone–anyone else–tried to murder you before, Hualiama?” inquired Master Jo’el. “Because it seems to me that this Orange Dragon knew you all too well.”

“Er, well, there was another Dragon who stood on me. But he turned out to be nice.”

Lia chuckled glumly as Flicker’s eyes filled with baleful fire. The dragonet complained, I’m nice. I saved your hide. That craven beast was a sulphur-stinking monster who dared to attack my favourite girl!

Flicker, you’re awesome.

He sniffed, Obviously the sheer magnitude of my awesomeness is wasted on the likes of you.

She said, “And then, one day, Ja’al and I were sitting on the rim-wall above the monastery–”

“Doing what, exactly?” inquired Yualiana.

“Talking,” said Lia, at exactly the same instant as Ja’al had a coughing-fit and turned a fine shade of purple. “Well, I …” Her fiery blush did not help her cause one iota. “I-I d-didn’t mean–”

“I kissed the Princess to save her from a Dragon,” Ja’al said, firmly.

His mother’s hands felt like a Dragoness’ claws, digging into Lia’s shoulders. She could not see her expression, but from the way she snapped, “Explain!” it must have been a picture. Beside her, Inniora stifled a chuckle beneath an extremely fake cough, while Hallon and Rallon wore the identically stunned expressions of startled ralti sheep. Yualiana stalked around the table, pouring berry-wine into the tall wooden goblets from a large wineskin, the very tension in her manner demanding answers.

“You kissed my brother?” needled Inniora. Poor Ja’al’s nerve rather deserted him as he slumped in his chair. “Wasn’t that like kissing windroc droppings?”

“We saw her first,” said Rallon. “Why didn’t we get kisses?”

Flicker put in, “Actually, Lia kissed me first, after I saved her hide.”

“Bah, what’s so special about a kiss?” snorted Master Jo’el. “I got one for my birthday.”

Yualiana paused over her husband’s goblet, staring across the table at her brother in a way that made him turn as red-faced as Hualiama. He quickly busied himself with his bowl of stew. Yualiana said, “I can’t believe my pointy ears. What kind of a monastery are you running, brother? Fomenting rebellion against Ra’aba, taking in stray royals who run around kissing monks … and you, son!”

Ja’al narrowly avoided slipping off his seat. “Me?”

“When are you taking your vows?”

“Actually, that’s the main reason we’re here–apart from meeting the Nameless Man, of course.”

His mother snapped, “Are you taking your vows?”

“Of course,” spluttered Ja’al. “No mere kiss could stop me–this very week, in fact. The whole family’s invited. With no disrespect, Princess–”

“By the First Egg, Lia,” Flicker interjected, “didn’t you kiss him properly?”

When it became apparent that embarrassment had stolen Ja’al’s tongue, Lia said, “We had to fool a Dragon, Flicker. But Ja’al’s incorruptible, which is rather helpful, considering …”

Unexpectedly, the dragonet launched off Inniora’s lap, turned sharply in the air, and smacked down on Ja’al’s shoulder. In seconds, Ja’al was being treated to a close-up view of a pawful of razor-sharp talons. The dragonet hissed, “You don’t like my Lia?”

Eyes bulging with alarm, the young monk quickly clarified, “No, no … it’s not like that at all.”

“Is she not the greatest prize of a thousand Isles?”

“Of course she is.”

“And what about her eyes–do they not sparkle with magic?”

“Flicker,” Lia warned.

“They do,” Ja’al agreed.

“So, as a Human male, you admit that you find my Lia attractive?”

Taking in his mother’s frown, he gulped, “Er …”

“Flicker, get your claw out of his nostril!” snapped Lia, beyond amusement now.

“Very attractive!” Ja’al howled.

The dragonet made an unmistakably curvilinear gesture with the forepaw that was not holding Ja’al’s nostril hostage. “What about the size and shape of her br–”

Crimson washed over her vision. Hualiama found herself leaping to her feet, roaring in Dragonish, ENOUGH, FLICKER! Her chair crashed down behind her, but that sound was drowned out as her cry shook the room like a minor thunderclap.

Flicker, being the sensitive dragonet that he was, bared his fangs at her. Into the dead silence that followed her cry, he deadpanned, “Ears.”

So help me, you are unbearable! Lia stormed around the table. Her hands clawed before her as she angled for the dragonet, fully intent on throttling the flying pest, otherwise known as her friend. I’m so ashamed! Everyone knows exactly what you meant, you outrageous … you exasperating … beast!

The dragonet gasped, You just did magic, Lia.

Don’t think you can excuse–what? His comment caught her so off-guard, Lia stumbled over the leg of Master Ga’athar’s chair and landed squarely in Ja’al’s lap.

Once a flurry of apologies had been made, Lia found her seat again. With the help of a swig of ice-cold lemon water, she calmed her flustered nerves, and tried to think through the crumbs the Nameless Man had tossed to her. What did it mean to be a child of Fra’anior, she wondered? And where exactly would she start looking for one rare Dragoness? Oh. There was one Dragon who might make a captive audience, if he was still alive.

She could start by finding the Tourmaline Dragon. Did Dragons return favours? Most likely he’d chew her up for trespassing on the holy Isle …

Just then, Master Jo’el formed his finger-tent and inquired, “What language was that, Hualiama? And when did you learn magic?”

She stalled, “Magic? Are you certain, Master?”

He cocked an eyebrow at her as though it were one of his batons aimed at her skull.

“Petal,” said Yualiana, aiming a visual cudgel of her own at her brother, “Why don’t you tell us your story? Perhaps together, we might breathe the Great Dragon’s truth into these matters.”

Unfolding her tale calmed Hualiama’s frayed nerves. Flicker entertained everyone by recounting an embellished version of his feat of rescuing her–not forgetting to explain her nicknames of ‘straw-head’ and ‘flat-face’. He lapped up the laughter like a feline which found itself hip-deep in cream, preened outrageously at their compliments and of course, begged for more.

But all too soon, the conversation returned to Lia.

“Your answer?” said Master Jo’el.

Hualiama sighed.

“You’re too hard on her, Jo’el,” his sister admonished. Now officially invited to her son’s oath-taking, Yualiana appeared to have mined a vein of sympathy for Lia’s plight.

“No,” said Hualiama. “I’ve no need to tell you that this is a grave secret …”

He said, “You speak the forbidden tongue.”

“Aye, Master.”

“Hmm.” That was all Master Jo’el volunteered on the subject. Having expected a grilling, she felt like a trout hooked out of a terrace lake.

Flicker chirped brightly, “Of course, the Lesser Dragons would slay Hualiama in a wing-flip if they learned she could speak Dragonish, so keep those fangless traps of yours shut, by my wings. Anyways, I’m sure any Human can learn to speak Dragonish, even the stupid ones. I taught Lia, after all.”

“Thanks!” She smacked his scaly rump.

“Look, Ja’al, you do some magic, right? Listen.” Flicker said telepathically, You egg-headed excuse for a male, how dare you refuse my Lia? You must have scrambled windroc eggs for brains.

Ja’al peered inquiringly him.

“Are you Humans all born deaf?” Aloud, the dragonet chirped, Egg-head.

Leg-bread, the young monk chirped back.

Lia chuckled, “You said, ‘Leg-bread.’ Like this, egg-head.”

Egg-head, Ja’al repeated faithfully.

Flicker and Hualiama burst out laughing. Everyone else looked on in bemusement.

“So, uncle,” said Inniora, “now that your monastery takes women, when can I start?”

With great dignity, Master Jo’el ignored his niece’s question. But Lia did observe that his jaw tightened, and his gaunt cheeks seemed rather more pinched than a moment before.

Inniora turned to Hualiama with an overzealous smile. “Doesn’t every Princess need some kind of handmaiden? Er, companion to the royal personage? Someone to stitch their dresses? Perhaps a royal dragonet-carer, who feeds and pampers the royal pet?”

“Desperate,” said Ja’al.

Flicker purred softly, “Actually, I find her attitude most stimulating.”

“You’re mine,” growled Hualiama.

* * * *

Flicker’s eyes whirled with curiosity and pride. Twice now, straw-head had surprised him with positively draconic responses. Obviously, his skilled tutelage was not wasted! He had thought Lia incapable of properly civilised behaviour such as jealousy, and the fire in her tone revealed a hitherto veiled strength of character and purpose. And just take her thunderous rage, earlier! Oh, by the First Egg of all Dragons, he’d have her breathing fire, soon!

Ha. Only he could have been smart enough to spy her potential–instantly. Why else leap off the cliff? Now, he knew his role. He must guide the Human girl with a firm paw and protect her from the fungus-faced one, until she attained her destiny. His chest swelled. That the Ancient One should have chosen him for such a task! It struck him that she was a perfect Dragoness, a creature of guileful fires and complex passions. The glint of her scales concealed much from these fellow-Humans, but unsurprisingly, the superior intellect of a dragonet had penetrated her subterfuge. He’d have to watch her more closely from now on. Magic? Fury filling those smoky green eyes with flame? Oh, his beautiful Lia, she was a hatchling trying out her wings for the first time.

But his student must not suspect he was wise to her cunning feminine ways.

“A true Princess treats her dragonet with respect,” Flicker said loftily. “Now, this is how you issue orders, Hualiama. Inniora, fetch your harp this instant. You will accompany the fabulous firebird of Fra’anior as she sings O Erigar, My Island for us. You will all attend closely to the words.”

Slow-as-sheep Humans. They perched on their ridiculous wooden platforms and made noises of undignified confusion as Inniora fetched and prepared her instrument. Hualiama stood, moved a little to the kitchen area, clasped her hands beneath her sternum, and filled the room with song.

Look at how they appreciated her performance! Yualiana closed her eyes with a soundless sigh of pleasure. Master Ga’athar balanced on the edge of his seat, his eyes alight and his blunt hands clasped in his lap. Hallon and Rallon sat bolt upright, as though a sly dragonet had stuck them each with a claw. And Ja’al? His eyes were alight, fixed upon Hualiama as though he wished to devour her.

In the fifth stanza, Master Jo’el’s head finally snapped up. He gaped at Flicker, who cocked his head aside. Did the twin suns dawn within your mind, Human?

Hualiama’s song faltered as she took in the Master’s response.

“Repeat that!” snapped Jo’el.

She sang:

The whirl of swords in ancient dance,

Did the terrible Fraga entrance,

‘Nuyallith!’ roared he, ‘what dread power is this …’

“Master,” Lia gasped, “I always thought ‘Nuyallith’ a proper name. But if Fraga the Red is fighting Johoria Dragonshield at this point in the tale, it doesn’t make sense. The word sounds … Dragonish, really. Isn’t that right, Master?”

Jo’el shook his head. “Perhaps it’s a dialect of Dragonish, Lia–the histories hint at a secret draconic tongue which expresses words of extraordinary magical power, words which raised the Islands from the Cloudlands, for example, and separated the good air from the poisons below. I do know that there’s an ancient martial art called Nuyallith, which used to be practised by the predecessors to the monks who follow the Path of the Dragon Warrior.”

“Nuyallith?” Master Ga’athar echoed. “Isn’t that just a legend?”

“What are the old names for our arts?” Jo’el challenged.

Blank looks around the table preceded Inniora saying quietly, “Ullith, the open hand. Fuyallith, the way of staves, Xarallith, for thrown weapons …”

Chapter 14: Into Hiding

“A TOUCH on the starboard ailerons,” Hualiama instructed. “The other starboard–Islands’ sakes, and your other left foot!”

Her trainee pilot overcorrected. The Dragonship groaned and shuddered as the crosswind caught the balloon side-on. Lia said, “Like this, you rustic oaf.” She tapped rapidly on the foot pedals while simultaneously supplying thrust to the port turbines, returning them to an even keel.

“Sorry,” said Inniora. “We peasants of the realm don’t exactly grow up piloting Dragonships.”

“Get your grubby paws off my nice clean Dragonship controls, peasant,” said Lia.

“Is that a royal order, your infinitesimal tininess?”

Lia scowled unconvincingly up at her new, head-taller friend. “Are you as clumsy as you are deaf? Don’t make me come up there to shout in your ear.”

Flicker twitched his wings in befuddlement. Humans. Worse, Human girls. Trying to fathom them was like trying to grasp the Mystic Moon as it sailed by. This banter had continued for over an hour while the Dragonships plotted their course to the monastery. The day was bleak and squally, with low clouds shrouding the Island-massif ahead, and dull grey Cloudlands roiling below under the impetus of capricious winds–not the sort of day to be piloting fat, lumbering balloons between the Islands. He perched on a mound of supplies–sacks of vegetables, spiced dried meat and coils of rope–stacked neatly either side of the navigation cabin. Each Dragonship had to bear their share of the load, Lia had explained, given their limited lifting power.

The entire notion of Human air-travel between the Islands struck him as a hazardous affair.

The dragonet’s nostrils smoked with jealousy as he watched Lia explaining which controls worked the ailerons one more time, showing Inniora the precise level to make her settings, before clipping the lines in place. “Once they’re set, there’s no need to fiddle with them,” she instructed. “It’s like playing a harp. You manage that much with your work-roughened fingers, farm girl.”

“Shall I till your ribs with my hoe?” suggested Inniora, indicating the towering two-handed sword scabbarded on her back.

“By the time you reach that weapon, I could have carved my initials on your churlish intestines ten times over.” Lia smiled at Flicker. “You’re rather quiet over there, o jewel of the skies. Those turric-root sacks can’t be very comfortable. Come here.”

Flicker exhaled a curl of fire, crisping a stowaway giant pincher beetle. He snapped up the paw-sized insect and crunched indelicately, burgundy legs waving from his mouth, as he destroyed his snack.

Such a male, Lia teased.

That’s what all the females say, he agreed readily. You know, if you chose to display more of your hide, you’d have that handsome monk sharing fresh kill with you.

Er … His mental picture evidently puzzled her.

Why reject him?

It’s the honourable thing to do, Flicker. But her eyes seemed smokier than usual, almost shadowed.

“When you leak over Human graves, Lia, what does that mean?” the dragonet inquired. “Do you lose your courage? Are your tears supposed to water those flame bushes you placed over each grave? Why don’t you sing the flame songs?”

She chuckled, “The word you’re looking for is ‘crying’, Flicker. We grieve that a soul has passed on, just as you dragonets believe the flame-soul returns to the invisible fires of eternity. But you’re wrong about my courage–if anything, I’m more determined than ever to see Ra’aba brought low.”

“Grief exposes weakness.”

“Grief strengthens,” Hualiama shot back, earning herself a hiss of disapproval. “It tempers and refines, focussing a person on things that truly matter. Surely, there is no pleasure without pain? Joy becomes meaningless in a world without suffering.”

“Therefore I should wish you’d suffer more?” snapped Flicker, before shutting his jaw with a snap louder than that which had just entered his voice. “I’m sorry, Lia. Shards take it, what a stupid thing to say!”

Lia simply extended her hands. A flip of a wing later, he nestled in her arms, and extended his serpentine neck to rub his muzzle against her cheek. She scratched Flicker just behind his skull spikes, the spot where he loved it most.

“Jealous old lizard, aren’t you?” she whispered into his ear canals.

How did she know his moods so well? Testily, he said, “You Humans always think jealousy is a negative emotion.”

Though his fire curled past her nose, Hualiama did not flinch. Instead, she performed her powerful, indefinable magic. In a tone that squeezed his third heart and made his fires surge, she said, “I am jealous of our friendship, Flicker. So few people would understand, but you … how can I describe it? You make my Island shiver with happiness.”

“While this conversation confuses us yokels beyond redemption?” But Inniora tempered her response by tickling Flicker beneath the chin.

He purred, “What’s a yokel? You really must teach me more Human insults, Lia.”

Hualiama peered ahead to the monastery’s Island, frowning. “The truth is, I didn’t know much about friendship before you pulled me out of the sky, Flicker.”

Human courage was inexplicable, Flicker decided. A creature like his Hualiama, often riddled with self-doubt and thoughts unshaped by a protective warren, so wounded by life and maimed by her enemies, still chose to spread her wings and soar. The idea practically turned his hide inside-out. Dragons valued physical size and prowess. Little Lia possessed neither size nor raw physical strength, but her heart was a hidden jewel, blazing with star-fire. She had the audacity to laugh at her fate, to struggle on and to overcome.

These events drove her toward a cliff-edge, Flicker sensed. The true plunge would come soon.

The dragonet asked, What’s bothering you, Lia?

She said, Am I imagining it, or do I sense something out there? Her face suddenly turned as grey as storm clouds. Ra’aba … he’s near.

A frisson of flame ignited the dragonet’s body. Flicker leaped into the air. I will scout. And he darted out of the open doorway of the navigation cabin, leaving the two girls staring at him from behind the crysglass.

* * * *

“What was that?” asked Inniora.

“Aye, what was that?” inquired Master Jo’el, right behind them.

“Master!” Hualiama gasped. “Don’t sneak … sorry, Master. I had a sense–”

“A premonition?” His lean face seemed graven in stone. “We call this the Great Dragon’s voice. Learn to listen with your entire being, Hualiama. Open yourself to the currents of the Island-World, from the groan of Islands shifting upon their roots to the song of the stars above. Be not too busy to listen. Even the lowliest beetle has a voice. Know him, and you will know what is abroad in the world.”

Master Jo’el’s long, spiderlike fingers came to rest on Lia’s head. A link. A bridge for the passing on of knowledge. Jo’el said, “It is a small magic, but one with enormous power. A sixth sense, if you wish–intuition and more. Open yourself, like this.”

Unfolding. In a time measured by an eye’s blink, yet which stretched like her despairing sensitivity upon the Dragonship’s gantry before Ra’aba flung her overboard, Hualiama saw the world painted anew. From the great bellying storm-clouds to the tiniest mote floating across the leagues between the Island-mountains, she saw bonds and influences and harmonies, a song of fiery magic as old as the aeons yet experienced by her for the first time. White-golden fire radiated from her being, concentric circles racing outward, perturbing and penetrating the magical fabric of the Island-World.

“He’s behind those clouds,” she said, pointing.

Her legs crumpled.

Next she knew, Master Jo’el held her in his arms, his lean frame surprisingly strong. His smile touched his features with terrible beauty, at once majestic and profound. He said, “We begin to discern the Great Dragon’s will for your life, Hualiama. There comes now a time of hiding and training, of decoding and learning the secret ways, and for this, you will work harder than ever before in your life. It will change you, Lia. That I can promise.”

Lia only knew that her mind soaked up the essence of the Master’s words like dry soil desperate for nurturing rain, while her ears seemed so wide open, she could hear his thoughts behind the sounds uttered by his vocal cords.

Jo’el’s smile gentled. “What you just did takes most Masters many years to learn. Yet that is the way of Hualiama, is it not? She is never content to give just half of her life-Island. Nay, Lia would summon even the impossible to her aid. Look, the dragonet comes.”

Lia, Lia, wailed Flicker, shooting back to the Dragonship in a blur of wings and talons. What was that magic? It was you, Lia! It was … oh!

Master Jo’el eased her to her feet. “She is well, dragonet. Just a little too enthusiastic, that’s all.”

Of course, Flicker’s eyes filled with fire. “I cannot leave your side but for a second and you are sticking your wings into danger. You are–what’s the word …”

“Incorrigible?” suggested the Master.

“Worse than incorrigible!” he snapped, winding his body around her neck. His eyes, churning faster than Lia had ever seen them with swirls of yellow flame, glared at her from mere inches away. “What did you do? What did you see? Truly, your behaviour is–”

Inniora supplied, “Intolerable? Insufferable? Insupportable?”

“Any of those words!” howled the dragonet. “All of them!”

Just then, the gloomy clouds clinging to Ha’athior’s slopes shifted slightly, revealing the unmistakable oblong shapes of two Dragonships leaving their volcano. Twin purple flags fluttered behind the foremast of each vessel. No Human eye could see the detail from that distance, but they knew the symbols of royal Fra’anior–the volcano for the royal house, and the windroc for Ra’aba.

The Roc had been visiting. What ill did this bode for the monastery?

* * * *

In the caves deep beneath the volcano lay a secret complex comprised of living quarters, training facilities, and the great libraries of Human and Dragon lore. Here, Lia and Inniora set up new rooms, and Lia began her training.

“This is Master Khoyal of Archion Island,” Master Jo’el introduced them. “He is the only master with first-hand knowledge of the art of Nuyallith.”

Lia stared at the age-bowed monk. He moved as though his hips were fused in place–how was he meant to teach her to dance? She scuffed the sand with her toes, looking around the large but low-ceilinged training chamber as she considered how to respond.

Master Khoyal said to Jo’el, “I’m afraid ‘first-hand’ is an inappropriate descriptor, young man.” Lia blinked–if Master Jo’el was young man, what did that make her? A tadpole wriggling in her mother’s womb? His rheumy eyes turned upon the royal ward. “You’re a Princess, yet not. How shall I call you? Aye, your beauty blows as the gentle winds upon the misted terrace lakes of my home Island. I shall call you ‘zephyr’.”

Whatever was wrong with the name ‘Lia’?

Khoyal said, “My great-grandfather was a master of Nuyallith. I have from him many scrolls of lore, which for reason of their great age will require copying to fresh scrolls. That will be your first labour, zephyr. Jo’el, my boy, we’ll need desks, ink and quills … over there. We shall set aside that chamber for study. I need rope. A laver of water to be set here in the cavern floor. Quick as a dragonet, boy!”

Hualiama stifled a giggle that threatened to land her in hot lava with Master Jo’el.

“Zephyr!” said Khoyal, clicking his fingers rudely at her. “You will swim the underground lake two hundred times every day. We’ll need bars for gymnastic exercises–boy, are you still standing there? Where’s that little scamp, your nephew, with my scrolls?”

Master Jo’el scurried off.

Lia nodded. She had seen the underground lake, through a short tunnel off the cavern where they berthed and maintained the Dragonships. It had to be five hundred feet across if it was an inch. The Master would have her swimming miles every day. Good. But, copying scrolls? What kind of training was that?

“Two hundred laps,” said the Master. “A lap counts as there and back.”

Grr. Double that.

Ja’al arrived, carrying such a great armful of scrolls he could barely see where he was going. Lia smelled the mustiness from where she stood.

“Put them in that cave,” directed Master Khoyal. “Hurry up with the rest. Don’t dawdle!” The Master smacked her arm with his cane. “Idle hands, zephyr? Go help Ja’al carry those scrolls.”

The crack of his cane became a metaphor for her new life beneath the Island, hidden from Ra’aba’s prying eyes and, undoubtedly, his spies. Master Khoyal valued hard work as the path to mastery. “Eighteen hours of work. Nine to sleep,” muttered Lia, copying a scroll carefully. She eased her bruised knuckles, punishment that morning for a spelling error. “Only eighty laps today? Lazy little zephyr.” She had to stop lest she sink to the lake-bottom.

Khoyal was not unkind, but she was starting to dream about his whispery commands, when she was not suffering through sweat-soaked nightmares about a certain Dragon’s fate.

Hualiama eased her back. She and Flicker had spent their entire rest day–and the night, returning at dawn–searching up and down the avalanche site. Surely the Tourmaline Dragon was buried beneath ten thousand tons of rock? No sound, no sign, no possible route had they found, not even a hint of a crack that might lead within the Island. Her fancy new magic skill had been resoundingly silent.

Next week’s rest day, however, promised more entertainment. She would take Ja’al to meet Amaryllion.

“Coming to bed?” Inniora asked, sleepily.

“Just finishing this scroll.”

“If your head drops any lower, you’ll fall asleep and start drooling all over your work.”

“I do not drool!”

“Except over my brother.”

Lia huffed, “Inniora! He’s taking his vows tomorrow. End of Island.”

“Well, over that Blue Dragon, then–what was his name?”

“I don’t know. Fibber. I do not drool over Dragons.”

“Except when you dream about them,” Inniora said. “You talk in your sleep.” Lia favoured this with an expression no Princess should ever have made in public. “If I wanted to know your secrets, all I’d have to do is ask you questions while you sleep. Say, who’s Qualiana?”

Lia rubbed her eyes wearily. “Mate of Sapphurion the Dragon Elder, Red Dragoness. Over one hundred feet in wingspan, powerful healing capabilities beside the usual Red affinity for fireballs and lava attacks–why?”

“Night before last you mentioned her name, clear as the twin suns rising over Iridith.”

“Qualiana? Why would I dream about her?”

“Squirmy, aren’t you?” Inniora grinned. “To bed!”

“Shut your chirping parakeet-mouth. Better still, give me something to tease you about. There’s a man in your life, isn’t there? Ja’al was hinting. And, what reason under the twin suns could there possibly be for me to copy so many scrolls, blast them into a volcanic ruin!”

Lia jumped as Flicker chirped in her ear, “So that you learn, zephyr, and don’t just skim through the scrolls as you’re wont to do. Knowledge must be internalised before it can be reproduced as skill.”

Both girls chuckled at his flawless imitation of Master Khoyal.

A spiralling triple-loop showcased the dragonet’s skills as an aerial acrobat. Eyes a-whirl, he added, “Ask Inniora about Chago, straw-head.”

“Chago?” Lia turned on her three-legged wooden stool. “What would you like to tell me about Chago, Inniora?”

She swatted at Flicker as he whizzed past. “Nothing.”

Hualiama needled, “We are talking about Chago, Sub-Captain of the Royal Guard, right? The tattooed giant from the Western Isles?”

The taller girl developed spots of colour below her cheekbones. “He’s half Fra’aniorian.”

“I know … isn’t the story that he inherited his height from his Fra’aniorian father and his brawn from his Western Isles mother? He’s rather Dragon-esque, wouldn’t you say?”

“I’d say that flying pest of yours had better watch his wings!”

* * * *

To her mortification, Hualiama wept her way through Ja’al’s vows. Duty. Fidelity. Service and honour. The words were beautiful and poetic, but Ja’al’s elation as he spoke his vows, struck her as a hundred times more beautiful yet. His soul knew peace; she had done right. She would suffer this wound and lock it away in her secret storehouses of grief and loss.

Flicker wound his body around her neck, purring, Are these happy tears? Or sad?

She wiped her eyes. How’s about ridiculous tears, Flicker?

Hualiama. Attend.

Dragonet and Human stiffened alike. Amaryllion? she ventured.

It is I. His voice must surely judder the Islands off their foundations, Lia thought, as a mental earthquake faded into the recesses of her mind. The Ancient Dragon rumbled, I wish to meet with thee tonight. Bring he who speaks his vows. Now, Fra’anior shall bestow honour upon him.

Having entered the Chamber of Dragons through a secret tunnel, Hualiama, Flicker and Inniora stood concealed behind a rich tapestry to observe proceedings. Ja’al and his family knew they were present, but none of the other monks knew. Flicker had snidely advised Lia of legions of young monks wailing and lamenting in the halls for weeks as they mourned her absence. Lia snidely introduced her elbow to his ribs.

The Chamber was a unique meeting-place. A rough-hewn, round obsidian table dominated the room, surrounded by chairs each carved of a single monolithic block of stone or gemstone which represented a Dragon’s colour–ruby, emerald, sapphire, onyx, jade, a brown stone she did not recognise, and a white that could be diamond, only Lia could not imagine any diamond being large enough to seat a person in comfort. Ja’al stood at the far end of the room, between the twin golden statues of Dragons, their forepaws raised and clasped together to form an archway above his head.

JA’AL OF FRA’ANIOR!

This time, the room did quake. Hualiama grabbed Flicker as he voiced an involuntary squeak; his talons stabbed her right bicep, but she kept silent. Every monk gasped except for Master Jo’el, who looked gallingly unperturbed.

KNEEL, JA’AL.

Somehow, Lia sensed that this new voice, fraught with ageless power and majesty, spoke through Amaryllion. How could this be? Where did Fra’anior speak from, and what gave that most kingly of Ancient Dragons the ability to speak through space and perhaps even time, to interrupt at this very moment?

Ja’al knelt as though his knees had felt a scythe.

Great Dragon? He fell face-down. How may I serve thee?

I accept thy vows, thundered Fra’anior, the many-headed Black Dragon of legend. I bless thee with wisdom and Dragon fire, and with the power to seek justice for my people. For all are mine, Human and Dragon alike. Care for these my children, as I shall surely care for thee. I name thee Ja’al the Just, the divider of truth. Know that my paw shall rest upon thy shoulder all of thy days.

With that, the mighty voice vanished.

Stunning. Those gathered departed in reverential silence.

* * * *

Inniora’s back and right arm flexed, every muscle leaping into definition as she strained upward to tuck her chin briefly over the exercise bar. “Five.”

“Roaring rajals, would you look at her?” grumbled Hualiama. “What girl in their right mind manages five one-handed pull-ups in a row, Flicker?”

“Not you,” said the dragonet, helpfully.

“Oh, go chase a mosquito somewhere! Better yet, how’s about fishing up a few trout for dinner?”

“My mother says I’m scrawny enough to give her a case of the blister-fever,” said Inniora, dropping lithely to the ground. “Your turn.”

“Scrawny? You’re all muscle and bone.”

Lia found herself the recipient of a quirky grimace. Inniora said, “It’s ralti-stupid, I know, but I’d trade four inches of height and a sackweight of muscle any day for a few of your curves.” The dragonet sniggered; Lia mentally suggested he tie his neck in a knot. “Though, my mother was aggrieved that any Princess should look so manly. She’s promised to alter some clothes for you.”

“Manly? Hualiama?” Flicker was laughing so hard, he had a case of the fiery hiccoughs.

“Flicker, this is girl talk.” Lia pointed at the cave entrance. “Trout!”

Oh, can’t I talk clothes and curves with you, Human girl? It’s such fun–

“Get out!”

He sulked out. Meantime, Lia regarded the bars of their exercise frame with a jaundiced eye, trying to stop blushing up a storm. She was developing a healthy hatred for their daily regimen, and that dragonet and his penchant for stirring up trouble … Inniora pasted a diplomatic half-smile on her lips, but Lia sensed she was howling with mirth inside.

Lia said, “Right. Twenty-eight today?”

After Lia had completed ten pull-ups, Inniora said, “So, that was a surprise for Ja’al. Does Fra’anior always speak at these events?”

“Not that I know of … twelve …”

“Eleven. You didn’t touch your chin to the bar. And where exactly are you sneaking off to this evening?”

Between bouts of stretching her scarred back, Lia grunted, “Why won’t the Master let me … dance, Inniora? All I do … is blasted exercises … and copy blasted scrolls … and spend blasted hours admiring my reflection … in that blasted pool … meditating on what I’ve learned.”

Master Khoyal said, “Finish your set, Lia. Then I would speak with you both.”

Her breath streamed out in a long, frustrated hiss. Great. Could Inniora or Flicker not have warned her?

When, groaning and quivering, Hualiama had forced herself to complete her twenty-eighth repetition, she dropped to the sandy cavern floor and accepted a cloth from Inniora to mop herself down. They knelt, attentive to the Master’s words.

“I’m sorry, zephyr,” he said, unexpectedly mournful. “I’ve been too preoccupied with trying to work out how to train you. You see, I’m a Master, but I am no master of Nuyallith. All I remember is the hours I spent watching my great-grandfather training here, in this very chamber, and trying to copy him. But thus far, our experiments have failed. You could polish your patience. What chews at the roots of your Island?”

“Minor things,” she said absently, fixated on what he held in his hands. “Ra’aba, the prophecy, my family’s fate, the inexplicable stirrings of my magic, and the Tourmaline Dragon’s misfortune …”

“Aye, such a pawful even an Ancient Dragon should struggle to hold.”

“Aye,” whispered Lia. “Those blades, Master … I feel them.”

Kneeling with considerable difficulty, the Master placed his burden on the ground between them. Two slightly curved blades, each just over three feet long, nestled beside each other in a double scabbard of an unfamiliar style–Lia noted plain leather and straps meant to hold the slender scabbards not upon one’s belt, but upon the back. The swords were unadorned, yet the craftsmanship of what she could see was exquisite. But it was their nature that made her heart gallop into her throat. It was as if the swords pulsed with an inner energy, yearning to spring free of their confinement, to sing in the wielder’s hands with a wild, lethal song.

“Tomorrow, you will start dancing with reeds,” said Khoyal. “But today, Hualiama of Fra’anior, I offer you these Nuyallith blades. They belonged to my great-grandfather. I would be greatly honoured if you were to accept them.”

“I am not worthy, Master.”

“Not ready,” he corrected. “Draw the blades–just a few inches will suffice.”

Reaching out, she grasped the two hilts as though expecting a shock, but there was none. The swords voiced a silky, metallic song as they slipped out of the scabbards. The blades were perfect, inscribed with a runic script that ran down the centre channel. The strangely dark blade in her left hand exhibited a slight sheen of blue, the right a ruddy hint, as though a living flame indwelled the metal.

“It is said that these blades were forged from the pure ore of a meteorite,” said Master Khoyal. “The metal is incredibly light and flexible, yet the blades hold their edge like no other. Seventy years on, you can still shave with these. Strangest of all, is what my great-grandfather told me of their forging. Can you sense it?”

Lia said, “It’s impossible. Metal cannot hold magic.”

“He said these blades were forged in a flame hotter than any furnace.”

“Dragon fire,” she said.

“Aye, zephyr. Forged in Dragon fire.”

Chapter 15: Dragon Grave

THe Lowering Suns slipped between layers of cloud, splashing rose highlights across the Cloudlands and enflaming the underside of the cloud cover overhead. Hualiama and Ja’al stood at the edge of the chasm. Lava seethed below. Hundreds of dragonets played in the dense bushes nearby, darting about with squeals of excitement as they chased their buzzing, crawling or fluttering dinner. Flicker’s hearts tripped along. How he wished to join his brothers and sisters! But his task was clear, and his purpose exalted. The trivial complaints of an empty stomach could wait.

The monk laughed apprehensively as he laid one hand on Lia’s vine rope swing. “So, this is your secret, Hualiama? This is how you stole into our monastery?”

She shook her head, golden glints of amusement dancing in her eyes. “Ja’al, you’ve all the patience of a rajal kitten mewling for milk.”

“Do you know what my lovely brother Hua’gon thinks of this venture?”

“Spare me.”

Flicker purred contentedly. His Lia still liked to show her teeth to the monk, and the monk still regarded her as though he wished to bathe in her fires. What did those silly vows serve, but to keep a female from a suitable mate?

Swinging across the chasm, Lia landed lithely on the far side. She swung the vine back for Ja’al, calling, “Come on, slow-slug.”

“This is the bit where the Dragons kill me, right?”

Remember the Great Dragon’s words, straw-head,, said Flicker.

With a crazed grin playing about his lips, the monk launched himself into space. In seconds, he gripped Hualiama’s left wrist and allowed her to assist his landing. After tying off the vine, they set out to climb the cliff.

Flicker had helped Lia shift linger-vines into helpful positions and affix them, making the climb far easier than before. Still, it was a sheer vertical ascent, so it took the slow Humans an hour to traverse the cliff to the tunnel, skirting the avalanche site to the southern side. The shaking of the dragonet’s head as he examined the Dragon’s grave made his spine spikes quiver. The place was ill-omened, a monstrous jumble of rock and bushes dropped into a ravine which must cut deep into the Island, perhaps an ancient watercourse. It made his scales itch. Could it be that the Dragon was trapped further within, as Lia thought?

Egg-head followed straw-head into the tunnels. Flicker gave a toothy grin of amusement. Ja’al’s very fires were about to be snuffed out in shock.

The monk paused, his voice rising to a squeak, “There’s something down here, Lia. What is it?”

“Come on, Ja’al,” she urged. He senses what we know, Flicker.

Bah, you think he’s that clever?

Traversing the wondrous geodes and tunnels lined with sparkling crystal, they came at length to the place where the Ancient One brooded in darkness. Amaryllion had lain silent all this time, but he perceived their approach. Flicker knew that the Ancient Dragons had the power to send their senses out into the Island-World, observing and gathering information, tasting magic upon the breezes and reading the hearts and minds of the Lesser Dragons and Humans. Ah, which reminded him, he should see if the Dragon library held any information that could help his girl. Lia would be delighted.

Fiery, monstrous, the Ancient One’s orb opened to light upon the threesome–the little ones, who quaked before his majesty.

“Ja’al the Just,” he said. “Welcome.”

To his credit, Ja’al did not fall down as Hualiama had done that first time, but neither could he speak.

“I am Amaryllion Fireborn, the last Ancient Dragon of this Island-World,” he rumbled, his voice filling the tunnels and caves with thick draconic resonance. “We live in a great crater, thousands of leagues in diameter, forged by the explosion of a comet as it collided with this world, which flung up the shielding rim-wall mountains, twenty-five leagues tall and more, and carved the depths now filled by the Cloudlands. Little ones, the world beyond the mountains is greater still, a world of blue oceans and white sands, of mountains and deeps, within which myriad creatures roam, great and small, good and evil–and wherein dwell many more of thy kind.”

“What’s an ocean?” inquired Lia, in a small voice.

“Imagine the terrace lakes of thy native Island, little mouse,” growled Amaryllion. “Now imagine those waters as endlessly wide as the Cloudlands, sparkling blue beneath the twin suns. Therein creatures as great as Dragons do sport, indeed, creatures called Whales which rival even my size. And they speak a tongue akin to that of Dragons.”

* * * *

Hualiama quivered with wonder. Even Flicker seemed stunned. Imagine whole oceans churned into a fury by mighty talking fishes, and a world greater than their own? Who had ever seen the rim mountains? Perhaps from the frozen Isles north of Immadia, or perhaps south of the Rift in Herimor, such sky-scraping peaks might be visible–but no traveller’s account she had ever read, had described what must surely be an unforgettable sight.

“I would instruct thee, Ja’al,” said Amaryllion, “but mostly, I would know thee. I am not Fra’anior, who blessed thee this day, but I am his kin. Hualiama and Flicker I call friends, though they are small and I am mighty.”

The yellow fires in his eye surged as the Dragon’s mind fixed upon Lia. “The way of Ancient Dragons is to deal first with business. Therefore, I charge thee to find and succour the Tourmaline Dragon, little mouse. The Dragon is alive, but unwell, and sorely wounded. Find him beneath the avalanche, buried deep within the mountain.”

Pensively, she nodded, stealing a glance at Ja’al. Poor man! Dragon fear and awe gripped him in equal measure.

“There is an ancient prophecy I had thought lost,” said Amaryllion. “The creature Ra’aba uses it to forge his destiny. It speaks of a time of change and turmoil, when a giant comet shall streak across our skies and the balance of the Island-World shall be thrown into disarray. Old powers will fail, and a new race–the third great race of the Island-World–will rise from the shadows, a race born of magic. That is what Ra’aba fears.”

As if his mind were a claw, the Ancient Dragon’s deliberations pierced her. “A Maroon Dragoness lives, though I know not where. Her name is Ianthine. I have not sensed her presence in many a year. Since the Dragons drove her out, they must know where she lives. Ianthine is a wicked creature and never to be trusted, for she practices a vile form of magic called ruzal in the ancient Dragon tongue. The word means ‘twisting’ or ‘binding’. It is a magic of subterfuge and concealment, a magic capable of binding minds, even the minds of Dragons. And I suspect its touch upon thy life.”

Lia shook off a chill. Either the Ancient One had read her thoughts, or he had spoken with the Nameless Man. All these different powers circling her life, no better than windrocs stalking a likely victim!

“Long have I wondered about thee, Hualiama, pondering the enigma of thy existence. Surely, Gi’ishior Island was not thy birthplace.” A note of vexation crept into Amaryllion’s voice, a roaring of the vast furnaces of his faraway belly. “A redolence of the East, I guess.”

Her response slipped out, unthinking, “A guess, Amaryllion?”

“AYE A GUESS, EVEN I!” he thundered.

The power of his fury knocked the trio down the slope they had ascended to reach his eye; not far away, rock cracked and roared away in an unseen avalanche.

“S-sorry great D-Dragon,” stammered Lia, picking herself up. She dusted her knees. “I doubt thee not. This mystery pains my soul.”

What? Just listen to what spouted from her mouth! Somehow, ancient speech-patterns seemed to come to the fore whenever she spoke with Amaryllion, even if she spoke Island Standard. Why was that?

“I meant no harm, little one,” said the Dragon. “Speak thy heart.”

“I discovered I have magic, Amaryllion. Art thou surprised?”

“Vastly,” he snorted, a suitably titanic snort of amusement. Heat rolled over her; Lia realised that the Dragon must have breathed fire from his mouth, somewhere unseen beyond the wall of rock away to her left hand.

She chuckled, “And doth mine feminine mystery suffice to flummox a Dragon most ancient?”

HAARRRAA-HA-HA! Amaryllion boomed.

Precious Ja’al. He had saucers for eyes. He probably thought her utterly mad for jesting with an Ancient Dragon–never mind that the force of his laughter made them both stagger drunkenly back up the slope as they approached his eye.

“Come, Ja’al,” he said. “I would teach thee the Dragonish art of reading pictures and memories from the mind. Thou might thus aid Hualiama in her learning, by taking of what thy Master Khoyal remembers, and making it known to her.”

At last, the monk found his voice. “Of course, o Ancient One. Am I to understand that Dragons can read minds?”

“Of course, little mouse,” Amaryllion echoed. “It is a magical art, a gift claimed only by the most powerful Dragon magicians. The best subject is a willing mind, one open to examination. Beware, for a mind-reader can snatch thoughts from the unwary, and the most powerful–like Ianthine–can squeeze a mind dry, even as you Humans squeeze berries for wine. Tell Master Khoyal that he must instruct thee in the arts of Juyhallith, the way of the mind.”

* * * *

Departing the Ancient One’s cave, the two Humans and the dragonet spent the remainder of the night searching for the Tourmaline Dragon, but found no clues as to his existence. Footsore and wing-weary, they returned to the monastery at dawn, just in time for a full day’s training.

“I must find him. I must.” Lia repeated her mantra.

To Flicker’s disgust, Inniora’s consternation and Master Khoyal’s fury, Hualiama spent the following three nights doing exactly the same, traversing the slopes and walking the inner tunnels of Ha’athior Island, searching.

“When last did you sleep?” stormed the Master.

“Er … I don’t remember,” Lia replied, thinking it best if she did not.

“I cannot teach an apprentice who falls asleep on their feet–literally! Go to bed!”

“But I have to find the Dragon.”

How could she explain what drove her now, the imperative felt as a migraine squeezing her temples, throbbing, the restless tingling in her bones? She scowled at the sight of Flicker spying on her in the darkness. Islands’ sakes!

She tiptoed out at the hour of midnight.

Hallon and Rallon guarded the stairway beneath the prekki-fruit tree. Having flirted her way past the giant twins once, Lia knew she should not drop them into hot lava a second time. A sigh escaped her lips; she stared at the Jade moon, half-crescent as it sailed over the Island massif above, bathing the scene in a deathly green glow. Defeated. The Dragon’s chances of survival diminished by the day.

Back in their cavern, Inniora greeted her with the clink of a manacle meant for her ankle. “Master Khoyal said you were not to be trusted.”

“You’re not putting that on me!” Lia declared.

“Aren’t I?”

One ill-tempered and undignified wrestling match later, the Princess of Fra’anior found herself chained to their gymnastic bars, with a wrenched elbow and a fresh bruise on her cheek.

Inniora dusted her hands cheerfully, but Lia noticed she moved with a limp. Served her right. “May your dreams be filled with Dragons,” Inniora smiled. When Lia only growled at her, she added, “Wrestle me any time. I’m only being your friend.” She stalked off.

“Bully,” Lia sniffed, but her heart was far from in it. “The peasants have revolted.”

Hualiama dreamed about being trampled by the Dragon who had attacked her on the ledge where she lived with Flicker. That was followed by a dream of fleeing endlessly through the caverns beneath Ha’athior, being chased and burned by more angry Dragons. Their thundering turned into Dragons fighting over a yowling infant. Was that a Maroon Dragoness fighting another Dragon? They clashed in the darkness, roaring challenges at each other. Lia moaned in her sleep, knowing a deep-seated fear which always lurked in the dark recesses of her mind. Dragons were evil, never to be trusted. Dragons had shaped her fate. What would she become?

She stirred to find Ja’al squatting patiently nearby. His blue eyes twinkled at her. “Keep the little rajals chained up, say I.”

“Save me, o handsome monk.”

His grin widened. “I think I’d rather keep you like this, Princess.”

Well, that would not do. Failing miserably to keep a flirtatious tone out of her voice, Lia said, “If you had any idea how inappropriate that sounds, Ja’al, you’d free me immediately.”

He flushed pink. Crimson. Purple. The veins on his tattooed head almost popped. Finally, he managed to splutter, “Master Khoyal is ill today and has sent me to teach you the basic forms, Lia.”

“Thank you.” She gentled her heart. “Inniora has the key, so unless you wish to wake her …”

“I’d rather wake a windroc. Open your mind.”

Reaching out, Ja’al placed his hand upon her forehead, and a velveteen-wrapped sledgehammer walloped her between the eyes.

Lia gasped. Inexplicably, she smelled mint–a strong, fresh scent of mint.

“Sorry,” Ja’al grunted. “More gently; more control. I’ll offer up his memory … thus.”

A boy stood in the cavern, watching a small, supple man dancing, spinning, weaving forms in the air with dazzling speed and grace. Swords flashed in his hands, cutting the air so rapidly that the blades moaned a song of beguiling fatality. Faster. Higher. Lia saw a dance wreathed in the beginnings of that white-golden fire she recognised as magic, coalescing around his leaping form as though drawn there by a mysterious compulsion. Every hair on her nape stood to attention.

Suddenly, stillness enveloped the cave. The man crossed his swords, bowed to the boy, and lowered his defence. His bare torso was covered in a sheen of sweat, yet he showed no other outward sign of the ferocity of his exercise.

“I will teach you the forms, Khoyal,” said the man.

“With my crippled hips, father,” said the boy, without rancour, “how can I ever learn the art of Nuyallith?”

“It is not for your benefit, but for another.”

The monk looked directly at Hualiama, and his deeply furrowed cheeks creased into a smile. The memory spiralled into blackness.

Next she knew, Ja’al was slapping her cheek gently. “Lia? Lia, come on … did it work? Did you see something?”

“Aye, it worked. Don’t kiss me.”

“Some girl I met told me I’m incorruptible,” he announced, but a pensive expression tightened his jaw. “Though, I’m not sure I’ll ever be where you’re concerned, Lia.”

“Are you trying to make me cry, Ja’al?”

He gulped. “It’s a grief, isn’t it? A process of letting go; of mourning even as one looks to the future.”

A profound silence gripped them. Lia searched for words to express the sorrow she felt, to express her certainty without causing further hurt.

She said, “You hoped that taking your vows would cure what you perceive as weakness, Ja’al. But I say that the heart is an untameable beast, a Dragon of passions that can sweep over us as a Cloudlands storm lashes the Islands, or ripple as gently as a dawn breeze upon a still terrace lake. If my time with the Masters at this monastery has taught me anything, it is that passion both refines and nourishes discipline. Discipline can be as dry and scorching as a wind born in Fra’anior’s caldera, or burst with rich, life-affirming power. Faith without passion is a dead thing.”

“You think you’re a terrible monk-apprentice,” he countered, reaching out to clasp her hand in his. Hualiama had never seen his expression so intent. “Yet I say you are an inspiration. The power to love is your greatest weapon, Lia. That is your untameable beast. Know it and embrace it, fear it and devote yourself to it, for love will shape your destiny.”

Again, the strength of their connection robbed her of words. She did not understand. Why had the Great Dragon allowed Ja’al to take his vows? Was he too good for her? Did Fra’anior’s desire for service trump any budding Human love?

If only love did not make her so vulnerable. Love alone had driven her to save Flicker from the warren-mother’s torture. Dare she speak of friendship-love, to use the dragonet word, which had compelled Flicker to eschew his warren and the dragonet-kind, to be her friend? Now, these same passions compelled her to rescue the Tourmaline Dragon, with all the peril that implied. Fear the Dragon, aye. Devote herself to him?

A thrill, a terror, an abiding hope …

But she must first deal with Ja’al. Lia said, “Would you allow me to call you ‘brother’? It would help me.”

Clearly, the monk was not fooled. He bowed. “I’d be honoured. Although, ‘brother Ja’al’ sounds awfully staid, doesn’t it?”

“Oh please, deliver this maiden from her peril, brother Ja’al.”

“Ah,” he leered, scrambling to his feet, “I shall–drat, how does the line go again? ‘Bait the rajal’?”

“Bait the rajal?” Inniora glared at Ja’al from just within the small side-chamber where the girls’ sleeping pallets lay. He winced. “You’d better explain yourself, brother–fast!”

* * * *

For three hours that morning, Lia swiped Master Khoyal’s reeds about in the air as she laboured to reproduce the movements Ja’al had etched magically into her memory. Right. Whoever had imagined pinching someone else’s memories to turn them into martial arts forms was easy, had equally as much a clue of the world beneath the Cloudlands.

When she paused for a breather and a sip of water, Flicker appeared. Without warning, he announced, “I am a genius.”

Inniora, Ja’al and Hualiama stared at him.

“Just admit it.” He blew multiple smoke-rings between his fangs. “I am undeniably the most awesome, intelligent and devastatingly handsome male of a species north of the Rift. Actually–” he inclined a wing airily “–you may include all of Herimor for the sake of accuracy.”

“Spit it out, genius,” said Lia.

“I didn’t quite hear you,” suggested the dragonet.

Inniora’s grin widened as Hualiama swept into a ludicrous parody of a Fra’aniorian courtly bow. “O, thou mighty bewinged paragon of muscular Dragonhood!” she cried. Flicker expectorated a fireball of pleasure. “Pray edify these humble serfs as to the luminously brilliant workings of thy incomparable intellect.”

A few adjectives and the dragonet was so puffed up with pride, he could not even produce a squeak.

“Firstly,” he managed to decree at last, “you, Inniora, shall blindfold the Princess. She will learn that the Human brain works more efficiently to process memories without distraction or interference from her inadequate eyes. Secondly, I wish to announce that I have rounded up two hundred dragonets to help me search for your Tourmaline Dragon. By this evening, I shall inform you where he is, or may my wings fall off and scale-mites infest my–”

Lia interrupted quickly, “Oh, Flicker, that’s splendid! Why didn’t I think of that?”

“Because I’m the genius, and you are a straw-head,” he said, flying upside-down out of the cave.

“A ruddy irritating but remarkably effective little genius,” Hualiama muttered, accepting a length of cloth from Inniora, while she passed . “Ja’al, how’s it possible that Khoyal’s father saw me in that memory?”

Ja’al scratched his beard. “Unless someone else was standing there at that precise moment in time … yet there was such a powerful sense of connection–I felt it, too. I cannot fathom it, Lia. In theory, magic can work over time as well as through space, but it’s never been proven. It’s said the Ancient Dragons could move independently of time. Adraconistic scholars suggest we only believe that because Dragons are so long-lived. Great are the mysteries of the Dragonkind.”

“May the Great Dragon speed Flicker’s search,” said his sister.

Lia felt the touch of Ja’al’s fingers. “Lia, will you be careful with that Dragon? I’ve a bad feeling …”

“What kind of bad feeling?”

“Only, that events might not proceed as we’d expect. Being trapped underground probably does strange things to a Dragon’s mind.”

Silly, overprotective monk. He was sweet, but it rankled when he treated her as a child. “I’ll be very careful,” she promised. “No offering to polish his fangs.”

Ja’al’s sour expression suggested Lia should take his warning more seriously.

Inniora asked, “So, there are twenty forms of Nuyallith, of which Ja’al has so far taught you two?”

“Twenty basic forms, aye, and several hundred advanced forms beyond those,” said Lia, binding her eyes. “Each form is a prescribed set of movements, much as a dance is choreographed. Master Khoyal says that when I have performed each form ten thousand times, perfectly, I’ll have written the movements into my muscle memory and should be able to reproduce them instinctively, without need for thought.”

“The path to mastery lies through pain,” said Ja’al, imitating his uncle Jo’el.

“What does Nuyallith mean, anyway?” asked Lia.

“The way of dancing on air,” said Inniora.

Ja’al quipped, “Sounds deadly.”

Glowering in the direction of Inniora’s voice, Hualiama held out her hands. “Give me those reeds, brother Ja’al. I’m going to slice you both into ribbons.”

* * * *

Lia dressed rapidly for her foray that evening, more excited than she had been in a long while. Ja’al was excited too. “Sapphurion is making an official visit tomorrow!” he yelled, dashing out of the cave for a meeting of the monks.

Sapphurion? So, the rumours of war between the Dragons might be true. For certain there was open war between the Dragonkind and the Humans of the Eastern Isles–that had been simmering and occasionally flaring up for years. Now, if she could rescue the Tourmaline Dragon in time for Sapphurion’s visit …

Yualiana had delivered the promised clothes, and Lia had to admit, this outfit was a vast improvement on baggy monk trousers and shirts five sizes too large for her. “Undergarments that actually fit,” she muttered drolly. “Novel.” Beneath a dark emerald-green skirt, split all the way up to her thighs to allow ease of movement, Lia wore dark fitted leggings and light slippers, the toughened and slightly tacky footwear the monks wore for infiltration and espionage training. A matching green tunic top, covering her shoulders but leaving the upper arms bare, had been tailored for a feminine physique. “Very tasteful,” she approved. Armoured wristlets covered her hands and arms from knuckles to elbow. The right sported a half-dozen throwing blades cunningly concealed against her inner arm. “Sweet.”

Hualiama braided and coiled her platinum hair, and concealed it beneath a dark scarf. Beneath a two- or three-moons night sky, it would shine like a beacon, otherwise.

She was ready.

“Islands’ greetings, Lady Blade,” Inniora whistled softly as Lia stepped through into their main cavern.

“This is wonderful, Inniora. Thank you!”

“Did you find the lock picks?”

“No …”

“Left wristlet. Oh, and Ja’al suggested a flexible saw, several files, and skeleton keys. Here are your forked daggers–a proper matched pair now, thanks to a raid on the armoury.”

Lia smiled at Inniora’s enthusiasm. “What do you expect me to be doing?”

“Hmm … burgling a palace to depose a traitor? And, I designed a few extra pockets for concealment. Places no man would dare to look.” She winked at Lia. “Inner thigh, tucked inside the bodice–it’s the new fashion, girl-monk attire. Take a peek down your top.”

“Ooh, are those weapons?”

“Well, Princess. My brother certainly thinks so.”

“Blast it, you wretch,” Hualiama groaned. “I walked smack into that one.”

Waving her hands excitedly, Inniora explained, “You’ll find pockets in the bodice seams for pepper sacks, gemstones, vials of poison, money or anything else you wish to conceal, and plenty of room in the middle as you enjoy–” she chuckled at her friend’s affronted expression “–certain natural advantages. That’s a bundle of poisoned darts you see there. What do you think?”

“I’m glad we’re on the same side, you Cloudlands pirate.”

Lia received a hearty whack on the shoulder for that comment. “Go stir us up a Dragon!”

Emerging from a trapdoor hidden amidst the rocks behind the monastery building, Lia ghosted along behind the ancient prekki trees, keeping to the deepening shadows. Flicker’s rowdy band of dragonets had delivered in spectacular style in the late afternoon. Even now, they celebrated over the lake in a welter of enthusiasm, swirling and diving and chirping up such a storm that the evening’s habitual avian chorus was entirely drowned out.

Smiling, she ducked down the stairway. Flicker met her at the bottom, the fire in his eyes churning more vigorously than ever.

You’re the greatest dragonet genius ever to fly the skies of the Island-World! she greeted him.

Modestly, he agreed, I know. You took your time, straw-head. That is a most striking outfit. Almost as fine as Dragon scales.

So typically Flicker! Lia said, Thank you, my friend.

A short swing and a quarter-hour scramble later, Flicker introduced her to a hole that Hualiama would never have guessed led beneath the Island. My friends widened the tunnel to accommodate you, he said.

She said, This is near the avalanche site, isn’t it?

Beneath it on the southern aspect.

And the Tourmaline Dragon’s alive?

Lia … he doesn’t sound friendly. He might be feral.

You didn’t go in, did you? Lia hissed. Fine, I’ll go talk to him. Look, the poor thing’s probably starving. Would you hunt and bring the Dragon a kill or two?

Flicker seemed all too eager to leave the dangerous work to her. Fine. Lia grumbled a little as she slithered beneath a large, flat boulder and dropped gingerly into the space beyond. A whiff of cool, stale air greeted her questing nostrils. Pausing to allow her eyes to adjust to the dimness, Lia took in a narrow tunnel–more a crack or shear between two rock faces–which at some point had been half-filled with a jumble of rocks and dirt fallen from above. The footing was treacherous. All too easy to snap an ankle, she thought, feeling her way forward with care.

A little light filtered down ahead, and beyond that, she saw another brighter patch. Encouraging. Slowly, sliding along on her haunches or creeping crablike over the rocks, listening intently, Lia moved deeper beneath Ha’athior Island.

The crack narrowed, eventually forcing her to turn her shoulders sideways to squeeze through the narrowest parts. She heard water dripping somewhere nearby. The roof lowered. Odd. The tunnel seemed to end a short ways ahead. Lia paused again, peering about at the oblong boulder she stood upon. If she was not mistaken, she stood above a yawning space, and the cleft ended just ten feet or so ahead in a pit of impenetrable darkness. Picking up a pebble, she tossed it ahead.

Clink. Clink. Nothing.

Whatever she stood above, it was deep. Only the boulder lay between her feet and an unknowable drop. Lia hoped it was wedged tight.

Force the lungs to draw in a breath. “Dragon?”

Silence. A silence in which menace lurked, listening.

“Dragon, are you there?”

Claws, scraping upon rock. A leathery rustle came to her ears, perhaps wings dragging across stone. Hualiama wondered briefly if this had been a mistake, if Amaryllion could somehow have been wrong about the Tourmaline Dragon. A low, throbbing sound echoed up from the depths now, accompanied by a thump-thump that shook dirt onto her head and shoulders. The creature was on the move. Lia’s heart made a bid to leap out of her throat as she realised the Dragon was rushing closer, up beneath where she stood.

GRRAAAAAGGGHHH!

Dragon-thunder paralysed the Human girl. With a rushing, whooshing sound, as though a storm had unexpectedly entered the tunnel and gusted toward her, a bright orange light raged upward.

Dragon fire!

Chapter 16: Baiting a Dragon

HuAliama Threw herself into a headlong dive. Scramble! Claw with the fingers! There was no time. Instinct alone wedged her body between two boulders, head tucked into a foetal position, as fire stormed along the narrow passageway, first blasting upward, then following the curvature of the tunnel to wash over the exposed parts of her body.

She remembered screaming. There was pain riven through her right arm and thigh, her buttocks and feet. Lia swam up from the blackness whimpering, the sickly-sweet odour of burned flesh making her gag. She had to escape.

Below, the Dragon purred like a hundred-times-larger dragonet. Satisfied.

Stretching her wounds was agony. What now, Great Dragon? she moaned in distress. I obey, I hurt … I die?

What a fool she had been, sashaying gaily into a Dragon’s lair. Let this be a lesson. Those who did not want to be rescued could never be, even if they regained the freedom of the skies. She had only wanted to help. She had only obeyed a heart laid desolate by a Dragon’s fate.

Lia hauled her body back down the tunnel as if she were a blind worm scraping inside its burrow. At the sound of her movement, the Dragon’s engine-like purr rose to a crescendo. GRRR-RRR-RRR.

“Stupid, unthinking beast.” Lia used the sound of her anger as a counterpoint against the pain. “You have to … unnh–” the world faded through black “–escape. Come with me.”

Heave herself onto a boulder. Slide back in a tangle of limbs, soaked with sweat. She had survived bad wounds before. She must not give up. Never give in.

Weakness washed over her. The world turned white with magic, while Lia’s awestruck thoughts seemed to flow through prekki-fruit mush. Always in extremity. Why could she not see the Island-World like this, where she knew each stone and boulder had come from a unique place in the earth’s fiery heart, and had been shaped by the unimaginable forces of creative Dragon fire … she saw vast, coiling Dragons themselves the size of Islands, speaking words of power in a language long passed from living memory, raising mighty towers of stone from the seething magma pits inside which she glimpsed the fiery heart of her world.

Hualiama saw ant-like Humans labouring beside the Ancient Dragons. Never again would Humans be slaves, King Chalcion liked to declare. But there was more. Surely, this was not the only way? Surely, there was a pattern of being together as Dragon and Human that would bring honour to that mighty, many-headed one, whose gaze burned darkly over all, all-seeing and all-powerful, who knew the fate of a Human girl ere she plummeted from a Dragonship bound for the Cloudlands?

Lia collapsed and recovered many times before reaching the gap beneath the boulder. She heard a flutter of wings.

Flicker.

The dragonet squeaked in horror, Lia, what have you done?

* * * *

There were rents in her clothes through which Flicker saw raw, charred flesh, weeping with her red blood and another clear fluid, the stench of meat cooked as she liked it–yet, this was her flesh. His Lia, burned.

Stupid, stupid straw-head! No word of warning would she hear. Her green eyes locked on his, occluded with suffering, as if a dark, lashing storm had broken within her soul, dampening her fires; as though even the hope of life itself had succumbed to the pain.

Flicker, darling. Bring Ja’al.

Be strong, Lia, he cried. I’ll be back before you know it.

The dragonet’s flight-muscles burned as he shot over the volcanic rim. He crashed into the monks’ meeting, shrieking his need. Ja’al hurtled out as fast as Flicker had arrived. The monk charged down the stairs, three at a time, taking the rope swing Flicker fetched for him and flinging himself over the divide … his blue eyes overflowing as he saw the blackened, battered form of Hualiama pulling herself hand over hand across the rocks, along the dangerously narrow mouse trail on the cliff side.

“I’m here, Lia.” He choked down a sob. “Come, climb onto my back.”

“Oh, Ja’al …”

They struggled to raise her. Lia had no strength left in her arms, so Ja’al bound her wrists with his belt and pulled them around his neck. Lifting her body, he used his loincloth to create a sling that kept her in place, leaving his hands free to grasp bushes and roots as he negotiated the steep descent back to the tree.

By then, Master Jo’el was at the prekki tree with five more monks. Hallon and Rallon rigged a rope bridge to Ha’athior Island, and moved Hualiama across the gorge in an improvised sling.

Ja’al said, “Sapphurion will be here in a matter of hours.”

“We can’t tell the Dragons,” said Master Jo’el. “They’ll burn this place down if they hear we trespassed on their holy Isle.”

The young monk cradled Lia in his arms. “Careful with her,” Flicker growled at Ja’al. She was tiny compared to him, like a wren tucked into its nest.

“What about the Tourmaline Dragon?” asked Ja’al.

“Hualiama must decide,” said Master Jo’el. “He was feral?”

“Feral,” whispered Lia, groaning through gritted teeth. “Can you heal a feral Dragon?”

Ja’al cut in, “Toss that despicable Dragon in a Cloudlands volcano! Sapphurion’s mate is meant to have healing powers. Can we ask her to treat Lia?”

“It’d be dangerous,” his uncle pointed out. “What if Lia speaks Dragonish in her presence?”

“What if she dies? Look at these wounds, Master.”

Flicker nodded quietly as he followed the men back up the tunnel. If a Dragon had injured her, a Dragon should heal her, his seventh sense insisted. There was a certain rightness about the notion, a completion of a necessary fragment in the impossibly complex song of the Island-World, the great balance alluded to in Dragon lore. Land Dragons were masters of the balance. But they dwelled in the vastness of the cloud-oceans between the Islands, between Kaolili and the Lost Islands, he had read, that hotbed of Dragon-hating Human magicians who were said to possess a power called Dragons’ Bane, the ability to bind a Dragon to their purposes and fling them to their death in the Cloudlands.

* * * *

Tiny Lia squealed happily, running into a Red Dragoness’ paw. She’s such a darling thing, said a voice.

We can’t keep her, my third heart. This was the great one, whose voice thundered with mellow, ageless wisdom. Humans are not our pets, not any longer. If their King discovers we’re secretly raising a Human on Gi’ishior Island, there would be terrible consequences–their adraconistic advisors would have all the excuse they needed for war, not to speak of our own enemies in the Council of Dragon Elders.

She’s so beautiful. So … bursting with the fires of life.

There was a silence of breaking hearts. That girl knew nothing of it, then, yet she remembered their voices.

You mourn our eggs, thou breath of my soul. The great voice sounded leaden. Just one hatchling when we dreamed of three.

That’s a truth born in fire, Sapphurion, said the Dragoness. Always, you know the flight of my wings, even when it must perforce dip into the Cloudlands with sorrow. What did Ianthine want with this one? Where did that ruzal-breathing witch find her? This is a great mystery, my third heart.

Giggling, the Human toddler ran unsteadily to the mighty Blue Dragon, holding out her arms.

When she fell, the Dragon scooped her up with great gentleness, for each of his talons were longer than her body. Here, little mouse. You cannot stay in our clutch forever. We must give you to the Human King.

I sorrow, said the Dragoness.

And I fly with thee in thy sorrow, said her mate.

* * * *

They had done to her what the Nameless Man had done, Hualiama realised. She was trapped in her own mind, unable to speak or respond as a maternal draconic presence examined her wounds. Then, the Nameless Man had saved her from being destroyed by Ra’aba. Now, she raved inside the echoing hallways of her mind, slipping into and out of lucidity. How could it be that a Red Dragoness stood in her cavern, alongside Master Jo’el, Ja’al and Master Khoyal? How could the Dragoness confer with them in low tones, while Lia lay helplessly abed, beneath a light cloth covering meant both to preserve her modesty and to conceal her identity?

Magic. Oh, the sweet, unattainable song of icy fire playing over her body!

“What kind of fire did this?” inquired the Dragoness.

“Dragon fire,” said Master Jo’el. “A feral Dragon attacked the girl–my niece. We brought her here, for we hoped you might accompany the Dragon delegation, o mighty Qualiana. Your powers of healing are peerless, even among the Dragonkind.”

His smooth lie darkened the fire.

After a long silence, Qualiana said, “I will accept your story and treat your niece, Jo’el, but you will owe me a favour. A personal favour.”

Unable to respond, Hualiama lay unmoving, drenched in equal parts of pain and astonishment. Dragons spied lies so easily? At last, coolness bathed her burns, a healing magic which traversed the most intimate, delicate pathways of bone and muscle, and she knew by the Dragoness’ groan and the transfer of arcane energy between them that Qualiana worked a mighty labour within the very warp and weft of her being.

After a very long time, Qualiana spoke. Do I know you, girl? Did I cradle you–the Dragoness’ voice caught, thick with emotion–in my paw?

Loving wings infolded her into a womblike space.

* * * *

From a prison of the mind, to a prison of the body.

Lia stared stupidly at her left wrist, tethered with a leather thong. Her neck twizzled. And the right. What was this? She lay on her stomach like a windroc soaring wide-winged upon the everlasting thermals of Fra’anior’s caldera, yet she was helplessly lashed to the frame of her pallet. Increasingly crazed thoughts avalanched through her mind. Pirates? Bandits? Torture from Captain Ra’aba? A draconic punishment for daring to set foot on Ha’athior Island?

“Er … help? Can somebody let me out?”

“She stirs at last from the royal pillow-roll,” said Inniora, moving into Lia’s line of sight. “Before you ask, this is for your own good. You kept thrashing about and scratching yourself so much that you were wrecking your chances of healing properly.”

“My own good?”

“Right. Red Dragoness say you no move. Heal good. Flicker say, you no move. Herbs stay put, heal good. Understand now? Inniora say–”

Lia fumed, “I understand I’m about to boot your backside so hard you’ll fly right over the caldera!”

Inniora folded her muscular arms with an infuriating smirk. “In which case, I’m leaving you right there. If you’ve the energy to squawk then you must be healing up.”

“Has anyone fed the Dragon? We must feed him. And–” Hualiama’s eyes flew wide “–how long have I been asleep? Will you untie me, you rotten tease … Inniora, laughing does not help. Please.”

Chuckling, “Slow down, grey falcon!” Inniora explained that Lia had been unconscious for four days after Qualiana exerted her healing magic. Flicker had delegated several dragonets to feed the feral Dragon assorted monkeys, lemurs and cave bats. Lia had dreamed repeatedly about being burned by the Dragon, she said, untying her friend’s ankles and wrists.

“You must not aggravate your wounds!” the tall Fra’aniorian admonished her.

“Are you angry with me, Inniora?”

“A little. What happened down there?”

“I was a fool,” Lia answered bitterly, explaining just how she had strutted into the Dragon’s ambit without a care in the Island-World. “Listen, I need to find out all about feral Dragons. Can you get Ja’al to raid the library for Dragon lore–no?”

Inniora laughed, “In good time! Great Islands, are you always this feisty?”

Lying still and healing up was not Hualiama’s favourite pastime. Thankfully, Ja’al arrived that afternoon to dump a pile of scrolls within arms’ reach. She devoured scroll upon scroll of Dragon lore. Dragons going feral was an old problem, she learned. On occasion during battle or as a result of trauma or grief, a Dragon might enter a feral state for hours, or weeks, or–Lia winced–permanently. The only sure cure seemed to be if the Dragon had a mate, who by reason of their bond could break them out of a feral state. Dragon scientists had tried magic, music, drugged food or even a shock therapy consisting of lightning attacks from a Blue Dragon, with variable and largely discouraging results.

One scroll suggested that ninety percent of all Dragons had become feral at one point or another in their lifetime.

The following morning, Master Khoyal arrived with Ja’al in tow. “Good,” said the Master. “How’s the head, Lia?”

“Full of fluff,” Inniora suggested.

The Master whacked her kneecap with his cane. “Go fetch me two hundred grains of sand, student. Hurry. Now, Ja’al, I want you to fill Lia’s head with as many forms as possible. She can start thinking about them while she’s convalescing.”

“At least there’ll be something in her head–ouch!” Inniora yelped as the Master’s cane connected her elbow.

“Five hundred grains.”

* * * *

Flicker made it his business to stick closer to Lia than her own shadow over the following three months as she progressed from lying flat on her stomach to dancing like a dragonet–reference intended, naturally. She progressed from the faintly ridiculous waving of reeds, to a woman whose twirling form seemed clothed in shimmering steel, her blades moved so rapidly. Lia told him she dreamed in Nuyallith forms, as if her training existed in two realms, the physical by day and the mental by night. Certainly, her power multiplied. Hualiama broke Ja’al’s nose in combat while training with staves.

Lia wept for joy when Inniora held up two mirrors so that she could see her back. It was not perfect–perhaps the scar would always remain, a reminder of what the fungus-face had done–but the scar had subsided from an angrily red, keloid curve to a faded tan that blended with her skin. Her badly burned elbow regained its full range of motion. The damaged skin was only slightly rough to the touch, much of that improvement down to the herbal poultices Qualiana had decreed for her treatment.

The dragonet now instructed a class of apprentice monks in the art of herbal medicine, three times a week, a fact he never tired of impressing on Hualiama.

But she would not leave that trapped Dragon be.

Shards take it, Lia, are you singing to him again? Flicker was certain his eye-fires had turned green with jealousy. It isn’t working.

Amaryllion insists, she replied, conveniently skimming over all her other reasons–such as her constant blathering on about the worthless Tourmaline, and her claims of a special bond with him. Flicker’s scales crawled every time he considered her ideas. Sharing thoughts with a Dragon? Being … inside his mind? Madness.

Besides, if his girl shared a mental space with any creature, his name should be Flicker!

At least Lia had the wisdom to keep consulting the Ancient Dragon on a regular basis. Flicker had to admit, she was a brainless straw-head at times. Her eyes glazed over when speaking about Dragons. They became limpid pools when she considered the trapped Dragon’s state. And her hands grew deft with her new power, at once as hard-edged as blades, or as gentle as a mother dragonet’s brooding touch upon her eggs.

More like Lia insists, Flicker needled, nibbling her ear as they emerged from the secret stairway at the base of the monks’ nest. Another storm-season tempest had blown over, leaving a fresh and exciting scent in the air. I do enjoy your singing …

But?

We’re no closer to defeating Ra’aba.

Her shoulders stiffened beneath his paws. I wish you wouldn’t sully such a beautiful evening with the mention of his name, Flicker. Do you not think the fate of my family shadows my every waking hour?

Was he not family enough for her?

Appearing pensive, Lia took the vine rope in hand. They trod the now-familiar cliff path in a companionable silence, Hualiama’s hand rising to stroke Flicker’s neck in a gesture of apology. Perhaps his girl did understand how he yearned for the simple warren life, in the same way that she missed her family.

High in the rose-tinted sky, Flicker saw a Dragonwing wheeling over Ha’athior Island. Four Dragons–three Reds and a Brown. Patrolling? Hunting? Instinctively he flared his wings, shielding Lia from view as she lowered herself into the hole. A fifth draconic watcher appeared high above the cliff face, perfectly silhouetted against an isolated dark cloud. A huge male, the bright orange of a lava flow. A frisson ran the length of his spine spikes. Was that the Orange who had attacked his Lia? Not a good omen, shards take it!

Settling on her habitual boulder, a respectful distance shy of the place where she had been burned, Lia called, “Islands’ greetings, Dragon. It’s me, Lia, for only the hundredth time or so. I hope you’re not growing fat on all that monkey meat we’ve brought you.”

Silence. The beast neither stirred, nor did Flicker hear the muted thunder of the Dragon’s challenge as her arrival disturbed him. But the dragonet sensed a lurking draconic presence, just as his sixth sense had alerted him to the Dragons above. He smelled the Dragon, too. Over the months, the cave-stench had become rank. Why was it not worse? Was there another outlet for water or air?

Hualiama said, “So, following our theme of modern masters, o Tourmaline Dragon, today’s offering is, Arise, o Veriza! It was presented at court a few years back as a new opera in honour of the King’s fiftieth birthday, and tells the story of Veriza, a young Dragoness who longed to see what lay beyond the Rift.”

Her singing never failed to make him buzz with pleasure. Oh, Dragon eggs and flashing wings! Were her voice but a Brown Dragon’s magic, she could have sung open a tunnel to that Tourmaline Dragon and he could have paraded out of his entrapment on its very wings. The delights of Lia’s voice were completely wasted on that slack-winged, feral null-brain, naturally. But a discerning dragonet could bathe in its rich nuances and shadows, and dare to add a trilling descant in just a few places, eliciting from her a bright smile of encouragement.

She was leaking! Oh, Lia. Flicker wound his body around the Human girl’s neck, purring soothingly, allowing her strangely warm tears to splash on his scales. He glanced up and felt his belly-fires ignite.

Magic? His Lia was doing magic with her voice? For her eyes gleamed, an undeniably draconic curl of fire lighting them from within. She could not know. Hualiama sang with unstinting yearning of Veriza’s joy in flight, of her wonder at the Island-World’s marvels as she approached the sky-spanning Rift storm … and every scale on Flicker’s body prickled.

Extraordinary.

As the notes of her finale lingered in the gathering darkness, a deep growl issued from below, a voice of equally thrilling resonance. The Dragon said, “Bravo, Human girl. That was inexpressibly beautiful.”

Lia fell off her boulder and landed on her tailbone with a yelp.

She stared at Flicker in such jaw-gaping amazement, that he could not suppress a titter of laughter. I knew … he switched to Island Standard. “I knew you could do it, Lia.”

She mouthed, ‘You knew?’

The Dragon declared, “Thou hast seized mine third heart in thy delicate paws, if you’ll forgive the obscure reference. I … who are you? How did you find me? Forgive me, for I have been lost in the everlasting mists of the Cloudlands.”

Turning to Flicker, Lia gulped, “He’s the one. I know that voice.”

Flicker made a shooing gesture with his paw. Go on.

“O noble Dragon, I extend to thee the most sulphurous greetings of the Great Dragon, Fra’anior,” she replied, formally. The dragonet purred serenely. How well he had trained her in the proper etiquette of Dragons! “You have been lost, for you were feral–”

Grandion gasped, “Your song-magic restored my soul-fires–who are you?” Suddenly, the Dragon seemed unsure, awkward. “How can I ever thank you enough, Human girl? Know that I am Grandion, a rare Tourmaline Dragon. Honour me with your name. I wish to know you.”

Hualiama replied, “Do you not recognise to whom you speak?”

Movement came from below, a restless, muscular pacing of a huge Dragon in a small space. “I do not–you! Trespassing again?” A vast, throbbing chuckle echoed in the tunnel. “You aren’t much of a respecter of rules, are you, Hualiama of Fra’anior?”

Her laughter cascaded from their tunnel into the space inhabited by the Dragon, a wild storm of merriment suddenly unleashed. Relief, Flicker thought. Delight. The melody of a heart unchained, reprieved at last from the shackles of grief.

“Not when it comes to rescuing Dragons,” she returned pertly.

“Threatening a pretty girl with being trampled beneath my paw was not enough?”

Lia’s unconsciously sweet smile roused the dragonet’s belly-fires. She winked at Flicker, who was unimpressed with the tenor of this conversation. He hissed, Stop flirting with him, straw-head.

He’s the one flirting.

Defiantly, Hualiama retorted, “Oh, your paw is immensely strong, Grandion.”

The Dragon growled, “Then why not obey?”

Flicker desperately wanted to bite Lia as a dragonet might discipline a naughty hatchling. What was she thinking, swapping banter with a Dragon? On Ha’athior? Moreover, a Dragon who had burned her to cinders? Lia rolled her eyes, smiling in the face of Flicker’s warning growl. She seemed delighted, abuzz with energy, and he was most displeased.

She said, “I took it more by way of advice.”

The cough of the Dragon’s fireball brought the scents of sulphur and smoke to Flicker’s nostrils. “Advice?” The force of Grandion’s displeasure made the rocks tremble beneath them. “I hunted you, girl! I spied on you–you practically walked over my tail without seeing me–slammed you to the ground, and roared in your ear, and you call that advice?”

Lia added airily, “Oh, if you must know, Grandion, I did leave the Island for a bit. But then you were attacked by those two nasty flying ralti sheep and I couldn’t leave you to die alone in a cave. So aye, I took it for advice.”

Evidently summoning up his reserves of patience, the Dragon growled, “While I appreciate the food, Human girl, I’ll have you know that monkey meat is the foulest substance under the twin suns.”

“What kind of food would you prefer, o sizzlingly majestic one?”

* * * *

“Ouch!” Lia glared at the dragonet. “You bit my ear, you flying rat.”

You deserve it–you can’t talk to a Dragon like that, Lia. You just can’t.

Says who? What was wrong with Flicker? His eyes blazed darkly, a shade of burned orange that rarely filled his eyes. Was he afraid the Dragon would burn her again? But he sounded so friendly. Her heart danced skittishly, behaving like a dragonfly investigating a pond.

Grandion called, “Who’s up there with you?”

“Some dragonet a windroc dropped in passing,” said Lia. “He’s called Flicker.”

Grinning toothily at her, Flicker said, “O Grandion, would you prefer Human meat, lightly toasted? I have the perfect candidate.”

Lia tried to smack his rump, but he danced out of reach.

The unseen Dragon rumbled, “While I agree that she’d make a royally tasty snack–” Hualiama gestured at Flicker, ‘See? He’s the one flirting!’ “–the girl I trapped beneath my paw was so dainty a scrap she’d barely whet my appetite. No, I’d prefer a whole ralti sheep, if you can manage that, dragonet.”

“Maybe in ten thousand pieces,” said Lia, rolling her eyes. “Grandion, we’re here to help you escape. Can you see any possible way out of that cave? I really need your aid–can we come down into the cave and help you find a way out?”

“Ah, rather not,” said Grandion, in a strange voice.

“Why not?”

“I’ve been feral for some time, I’d imagine.”

“Three months,” said Lia.

The resonant voice performed the audible equivalent of squirming as he said, “Let’s just say there’s a great heap of rancid meat, rotting bones and worse down here.”

He’s covered in Dragon droppings, Flicker tittered.

Why can’t we smell that? There’s a definite whiff of rancid meat …

Dragon droppings don’t smell. But everything else down there stinks like a windroc’s breakfast.

Raising her voice, Hualiama said, “Of course, I understand that any self-respecting Dragon would want to look his best for a lady–for royalty, no less.”

“Oh, naturally,” Flicker teased, flicking his wings beneath Lia’s nose. “Grandion, it’s getting dark and Lia promised Master Khoyal she would return before nightfall. I must tuck the Princess into her plush bed and sing her to sleep.”

“That would be a hard pallet,” Lia put in, with another fruitless swipe in the dragonet’s general direction, “and Grandion, I’m a royal ward, not a–”

“You won’t leave me in this grave?”

The Dragon’s plaintive cry was far removed from his confident basso rumble. In it, Hualiama perceived an undertone of terror, the madness of a creature accustomed to gracing the measureless realms of the skies, now trapped in a stinking hole.

Before she could formulate a response, Flicker called, “Grandion, Lia’s been telling you stories and singing to you every other day for three months, even though you tried to kill her. What does that tell you?”

The rasp of the Dragon’s breathing sounded over-loud in the enclosed space. Faintly, he said, “I remember some things. I can never apologise enough, Hualiama. My honour is smoke, not flame.”

She choked out, “I will return.”

Chapter 17: Kidnapping

HuAliama HAD NOT anticipated the onset of crippling Dragon-fear. She had been so elated, so soaring over the Islands at Grandion’s recovery and his unexpectedly thrilling voice, that she had not stopped to consider his true nature. Now, dread brought a Northern winter to her heart. This Dragon had burned her. He was powerful, alien, a creature born of fire. As the twosome returned to the monastery, she fretted herself into a fearsome knot of anxiety. How could she ever trust a Dragon?

They emerged as the surreal light of a four-moon conjunction broke out from behind a cloud-bank to bathe the scene in eerie moonlight.

Flicker said, “I can see why Humans never made good slaves.”

Lia patted him absently.

“Humans are cheeky, lippy, stubborn flouters of every law under the known–what’s that?”

“What’s what?”

The dragonet yelled, “Two Red Dragons, incoming!”

Hualiama barely glanced at the sky before she broke into a sprint. There was no mistaking the intent of those Dragons as they swooped from a height of several thousand feet above the monastery; their outstretched talons, the angle of their descent, the fire just beginning to glow behind their bared fangs–unmistakable.

“Attack! Dragon attack!” she screamed.

A group of monks who had been meditating on the open balcony at the front of the building, scattered like a flock of fowl ambushed by a rajal. Hualiama followed them indoors at a sprint.

Master Jo’el’s hand clapped down on her shoulder. “Down to your cave. Now!”

“What?”

“They’re after you.”

“Master, I want to fight.”

“Now’s not the time, Lia. Go! Ja’al–you know the drill.”

Jo’el whirled, barking orders. The monks appeared to be prepared for this type of attack. Hualiama had never before appreciated why the upper levels of the building were left unoccupied–now she knew, and while she did not appreciate Ja’al thrusting her toward the secret stairway which would lead to her cave, she understood the necessity. They slipped behind a statue of a warrior-monk, triggered the door and dashed within.

“Hurry,” Ja’al urged.

From above, a low whistling sound suddenly rose to a shriek. KAAAABOOM! The monastery shuddered on its foundations. Fireballs, most likely, or the more powerful Red attack in which the Dragon first chewed up rocks, reduced them to molten slag in one of its special stomachs, and then expectorated the molten rock mingled with Dragon fire as a stream of fluid lava. The Red Dragons’ challenges rolled like thunder over the lake.

The narrowness of the spiral staircase forced them to proceed carefully. Lia held the railing lightly, her superior agility allowing her to outstrip the much bigger monk. Flicker, having flown ahead, reappeared in a rush. “Battle, below.”

Lia stopped. “Oh no.”

Betrayed! Her mind raced. Many of the monks must know about the secret caves, or have knowledge of her presence. Ra’aba had visited the monastery. Was this attack his doing?

“Blades, Lia,” Ja’al ordered grimly. “Let me past. Cover your face.”

Mercy. Master Khoyal, in his thoroughness, had anticipated even this. She pulled an Eastern Isles-style face veil over her nose and mouth, clipping it to the hood of the new outfit Inniora had designed for her–an outfit intended to conceal the identity of a certain royal ward, while including her modifications for weaponry and concealed items.

Whipping out her twin Nuyallith blades, Lia shadowed Ja’al down the remaining steps.

Metal clashed upon metal. She heard Inniora’s battle cry. Chaotic shouts and orders beat against her ears, while Lia was certain the low growl of a Dragon throbbed somewhere nearby.

“Great Islands!” Ja’al surged forward, snarling, “Hua’gon, you traitor!”

Lia darted behind him, sliding her blades across the face of a man Ja’al ignored in his maddened bid to reach his brother. They burst into a cavern filled with brawling soldiers and monks. At least five soldiers, wearing shiny body armour which bore an unfamiliar motif of the twin suns setting over an Island, had Inniora surrounded. Judging from the two bodies lying by her feet, they had developed an instantaneous respect for her skills with that huge blade she wielded.

Her Nuyallith forms came so naturally. Burned in her brain months before, they flowed through her veins like smelted ore. Three men faced her. Lia performed the whirlwind technique, generating tremendous centrifugal force in her opening parries to open up her opponents’ defence, before flicking her blades outward in rapid succession. Two men fell. The third thrust at her. A breaking the hammer skill flowed from her body before she knew it–a powerful downward parry from her right hand, driving his blade into the sand and causing him to stagger forward a step, juxtaposed with her left hand extending in a rapid cross-cut. The man sliced his own throat open on the rising blade.

Master Khoyal fired his throwing knives into a knot of soldiers. Then the Master crumpled, a surprised expression crossing his face; a soldier stepped out from behind him, wiping his dagger on his leg.

There were so many men between her and Inniora, Lia had no chance to help her friend. They tossed a net over Inniora’s shoulders, and then beat her down with clubs and sword-pommels, crying, “Get the Princess!” The tall girl collapsed under a heap of bodies.

The soldiers drew back rapidly in tight, well-disciplined formation, hauling their struggling, spitting captive along in their midst. Monks flung themselves at the soldiers, flying from above or clashing with the soldiers, in some cases striking so hard that their swords shattered on impact. Two, three more soldiers went down, one due to Flicker clawing out his left eye, but the formation shifted to close the gaps. They retreated steadily, resiliently, keeping their shields high and their swords ready, through the shattered secret doors leading from the section of caverns used by Inniora and Lia, into the hanger which housed the monastery’s Dragonships. Out there, fires burned fiercely where the vessels had been moored. Through the billowing smoke, Lia saw that the invaders had a Dragonship–and another Red Dragon to protect it.

Upon the port gantry–Ra’aba! Calmly, he watched the battle, a smile playing upon his lips.

Traitor! His men had taken the wrong girl, unless they assumed it was her sister Fyria living in the monastery. Someone had betrayed them. Lia was not glad; instead, a Dragon’s claw of white-hot fury speared into her belly. When he found out, Ra’aba would slay Inniora.

His calmness intimidated Hualiama. A bloody clash boiled right ahead of him, and the Roc’s expression did not change. A decision crystallised in her mind. Much as she hated the man, Inniora came first. Crossing the Nuyallith blades in the first or ‘rest’ position, Hualiama ran lightly through the smoke, dancing, dodging the unexpected spray of arrows from a half-dozen archers ranged on the starboard gantry. Ahead of her, two monks fell to the archers. She saw all with a disconcerting clarity. The Red Dragon drew breath to shoot Dragon fire at the monks. Ja’al bounded over a low sword-stroke, slamming his knee into his brother’s chest. Five bald-headed, baton-wielding monks crashed into Ra’aba’s soldiers in a wedge formation, ripping shields aside, breaking jaws and arms. More monks poured downstairs into the cavern, responding to whatever strategy Master Jo’el had decreed above.

Lia knew that the Master dealt with a diversion. This was the real attack.

With a puff of his cheeks, the Red Dragon expelled a stream of fire. Lia somersaulted over the path of the sweeping flames, tucking her body tight to increase her rotational speed. Landing lightly on her toes, she burst into a second leap, higher even than the first. Her swords sliced in tandem, distracting her intended victims while failing to kill them, as Lia described an arc over the heads of Ra’aba’s troops. She landed nimbly on Inniora’s stomach. Flick. Flick. Her blades sang, separating the soldiers’ fingers from their hands and the net from her friend’s body.

Clubs beat against her speedy defence, snarling her swords; a flurry of blows that ended with her being kicked brutally in the stomach. Her abdominals, hardened by exercise, absorbed the blow, but the powerful kick booted her ten feet out of the formation. At their leader’s command, the soldiers closed ranks again.

Distinctly, she heard Ra’aba command, “Red! Kill that monk. The little one.”

Rounding the retreating soldiers, who still maintained their grip on Inniora, the Red Dragon charged.

Blood pounded in her head, each beat a slow hammer-blow against her consciousness. The Dragon’s vicious bite seemed to slow, to proceed along a predetermined path, while Hualiama became the breeze blowing before his attack, shifting capriciously, impossible to pin down. Snap! The Dragon’s jaws clicked on thin air. Snap! The departing threads of her sleeve tickled his nostrils. Roar! Snap! Not even the reaction speed of an exasperated Dragon could catch up with her.

Hualiama whirled, rolling beneath the Red Dragon’s neck, her blades scoring twin slashes on the slightly softer underside of his throat. Really? These Nuyallith blades could cut Dragon armour?

GRRAAAAAGGGHHH!

The Red Dragon’s thunder blasted against her back as Lia fled, barely half a step ahead of the flame spurting from his nostrils. A burning Dragonship superstructure filled her vision. Soaring heron, she thought, leaping eagerly toward it. Flex the knees, soft to land. Hualiama rebounded off a leaning stanchion with a backflip that took her up onto the Dragon’s neck. Full extension of the arm. Her blade slashed his left eye.

Now, the Dragon’s thunder of before was as a zephyr. The crazed, half-blind Red Dragon thrashed in agony, spraying steaming, golden Dragon blood across the cavern, crashing through a pile of burning supplies, flattening the remains of a Dragonship. His bellows shook the cavern. Lia, flung aside as if she weighed no more than a kernel of mohili wheat, crash-landed on the sand. Groaning, she pushed to her feet. Where was Ra’aba? And Inniora–there, being loaded onto his vessel, which shifted as the turbines reversed it out of the cavern!

The stricken Red blasted past the Roc’s Dragonship and out into the night.

Hualiama scrambled to her feet, screaming incoherently. One more try. She could catch Ra’aba.

She pumped her arms, breaking into a lung-bursting sprint across the cavern from the point to which the Red Dragon had driven her. Her feet pounded the hard-packed sand. Suddenly, Ja’al was beside her, his jaw grimly clenched. They raced neck and neck for a few seconds before Lia began to outstrip him, her light frame filled with the memory of a Tourmaline Dragon’s fire, the swords beginning to gleam before her startled eyes as she closed the gap with the Dragonship. To her right came Flicker, screaming an incomprehensible but chilling challenge in Dragonish. The Dragonship gathered speed. Ra’aba’s brows rose as if he could not quite believe the prospect of their pursuit succeeding.

Ja’al hurled a throwing knife at Ra’aba. He flinched aside, his speed inhuman. The knife ricocheted off the crysglass panel behind him, striking one of his soldiers squarely between the shoulder blades. The man pitched off the side with a wail. Ra’aba’s eyes did not so much as flicker.

Hualiama was just twenty feet from the Dragonship when the Roc’s right hand rose from his side. Clawed. Outlined in orange fire.

Taking aim, Ra’aba hurled a fireball at them.

Hualiama began to duck, but Ja’al was faster. BOOM! The fireball detonated against the air right in front of their faces, flinging the trio backward. Ears ringing, head swimming, Lia staggered to her feet. Another fireball! Ja’al deflected it with a wave of his hand. The fireball detonated against an already gutted Dragonship. The gap was a hundred feet now, widening rapidly as Ra’aba’s Dragonship caught the breeze. That distance might as well have been a hundred leagues.

“Inniora!” Lia crashed to her knees.

Ra’aba’s smile widened. He threw them a mocking salute.

* * * *

Master Khoyal died. The Master of Arcane Arts, To’ibbik, perished, but he took one of the Red Dragons with him in an explosion that destroyed the northern quarter of the temple building. The monks were still pulling the dead and injured out of the rubble when Master Jo’el called together his Masters, together with Hualiama, Ja’al and Flicker.

Sober faces ringed the conference in the Chamber of Dragons, the same room where Ja’al had taken his vows so joyously, just months before.

“I’m going to kill Hua’gon!” Ja’al bellowed, storming into the room. “He brought Ra’aba down on us, the traitor!”

Master Jo’el said, “Your brother is a minor issue. Now, Masters–”

“Leave him to me, uncle!”

“Silence!” bellowed Jo’el. It was the first time Hualiama had known him to lose his temper, and it silenced his nephew’s ranting. “Hear me speak!” Glaring at the wall, the tall monk collected his thoughts. “Ra’aba allies himself with a faction of the Dragons. Sapphurion’s kin would not move against us in this way. Therefore, we must conclude that these Dragons of Ra’aba’s are a threat to Gi’ishior. Dragonet, I have a dangerous mission for you.”

“Me?” squeaked Flicker. Then, his wings unfolded and with a showy bow, he declared, “Command me, o Master.”

No mirth stirred Lia’s lips at her friend’s posturing.

“We have no Dragonships left. Until our remaining two vessels return from Jeradia Island, we’ve no means of travel either,” said Master Jo’el. “Therefore, I charge you to bear a message to Sapphurion, the Dragon Elder. It is vital that you deliver our missive personally, Flicker, and convince Sapphurion that we require protection against Ra’aba. Draconic law is clear. Interference in Human affairs is tantamount to a declaration of war.”

Flicker nodded gravely. “You can rely on me, Master.”

Lia noted, “We should alert the monasteries on the way. There are at least five I can think of.”

“King Chalcion knows the location of our monasteries?” Master Jo’el gasped.

In a voice as bleak as a Cloudlands storm, she replied, “Don’t you trust me? Can you not distinguish between father and daughter?”

That was a sure way to lower a room’s temperature, Hualiama thought, meeting the Master’s stare with all the honesty she could muster. But he did not know her adoptive father as she did. King Chalcion was neither an easy man, nor a good father–she had earned bruises and contusions enough to prove that many times over in her lifetime.

He nodded curtly. “I trust you, Hualiama. Flicker will pass eight monasteries on the flight to Gi’ishior.” Turning to Master Ha’aggara, Jo’el said, “Compose message scrolls–small ones. One to request Sapphurion’s help without demanding it. He will know we refer to the law. The others to alert the monasteries.”

“Aye, Master Jo’el.” The young scholar bowed deeply, and departed at once.

Master Jo’el raised his hand. “Hualiama …”

She whispered, “I must go after Inniora. It’s my fault they took her, Master Jo’el.”

“You must rescue the Dragon.”

In a voice rife with bitterness, Lia muttered, “I’ve spent three months trying to work out how to move a mountain, Master. Should I move the mountain, I must bargain with Ianthine, a Maroon Dragoness who is a master of what Amaryllion calls a vile and twisted form of magic. And what part has the Tourmaline Dragon to play in this? He will thank us and fly away.”

Jo’el clapped his hands together. “By the Black Dragon’s own wings, who is Amaryllion?”

Lia bit her tongue. Oh no. Mercy … could she keep no secrets?

Tell him, little mouse. It is time.

The Master’s eyes flickered as though he, too, had heard the Ancient Dragon’s voice.

“Amaryllion lives beneath Ha’athior Island, Master,” said Hualiama, quavering of voice and heart. “He is the last of his kind, one of the Ancient Dragons.”

A bony finger stabbed toward her. “You know an Ancient Dragon?”

“He’s my friend.”

Master Jo’el’s expression seemed frozen somewhere between wanting to tell her off for a childish fantasy, and a compulsive desire to believe. The other Masters had no such reservations as they collected their respective jaws from somewhere in the region of the floor, amidst a chorus of undignified spluttering.

At length Jo’el asked, “Tell me, did this Ancient Dragon reveal anything more about the prophecy?”

Lia nodded. “He said, ‘The third great race of the Island-World will rise from the shadows. That is what Ra’aba fears.’”

If possible, their gathering grew even stiller as each person present tried to imagine what this statement might portend. The royal ward knew that every Master present wondered what manner of woman they had invited into their midst.

Hualiama answered their regard fire for fire. She refused to apologise for who she was. Let them splutter. Let Lia evince the courage of one who had befriended the mightiest of Dragons!

“Speak, Lia,” Jo’el commanded.

Lia held her audience spellbound as she recounted every detail of Amaryllion’s words. Mighty was the mental and physical beard-scratching of these monks, she thought with a smile. Even she sometimes felt as though she walked amidst dreams and visions.

After she had spoken, Master Jo’el noted, “I don’t believe a comet is due for another handful of years, Hualiama, but not all such portents are signalled. Our path is clear. You will ask the Tourmaline Dragon to find this Ianthine, and to return here once he learns the truth of your parentage. We will rally the monasteries and seek to alert Sapphurion. After that we find our King, and lay our plans to overthrow Ra’aba.” Unexpectedly, the dour monk chuckled, “What could be simpler?”

Flicker said, “A shame we can’t recruit a Brown Dragon to rescue Grandion, Lia–if one trapped him, surely another can blast him out?”

“No,” Lia said thoughtfully. “We need to secure the Dragon’s obligation to our cause. The scrolls of Dragon lore I read suggest that a life-debt holds great weight in Dragon society. That is, if he doesn’t consider it his duty to blast me for being on Ha’athior–oh. Blast … aye!”

Hualiama startled everyone, including herself, by leaping to her feet with a shout of triumph. Somewhat sheepishly, she found her seat again. Master Jo’el threw her a pointed look.

“Hydrogen bomb,” she blurted out.

“What’s the wretched girl talking about, Flicker?” Ja’al winked at the dragonet.

Flicker shrugged. “Been raiding the berry wine again, Hualiama?”

She knew he was referring to her flirtation with Grandion–the flirtation of a moth with a candle-flame. Green is the colour of jealousy, dragonet, she growled.

To the monks, Hualiama said, “I was thinking about how dangerously volatile hydrogen gas is.” Their blank looks only made her press on doggedly, “So, I thought … what if we made a long balloon and stuffed it down the tunnel, filled it with hydrogen, and then just blew the side off the mountain?”

“Brilliant!” crowed Ja’al.

Flicker beamed at her, showing every one of his tiny fangs. “You’re a genius, Lia. That Dragon had better have somewhere to take cover, though.”

“And you’d better have a very, very long fuse,” said Master Jo’el. “Or, run very fast.”

* * * *

“So, Human girl, let me understand the flight of your thoughts,” said Grandion, not long after the meeting concluded. “You propose to blow up this mountain with me still inside. If I survive, you want me speak to a mad Dragoness on your behalf, and find out the terrible secret of why you remember being raised by Dragons on Gi’ishior–a secret which might spell the end of all Dragons, if Ra’aba is right?”

“That’s about it,” said Lia, miserably. The incredulity in his voice was unmistakable. Mercy. Now she wished she had been less honest with him.

“In exchange for undertaking this crazy quest, you will rescue me?”

“Aye–no. I will rescue you anyway. After that, you have a free choice, Grandion.”

“Oh, a free choice? Your Highness is exceedingly kind.” His sarcasm stung, delivered with all the rich nuance of a Dragon’s vocal capability. “Perhaps you’re hoping the fabled draconic oath of obligation will force me to accede to your request? Did you read that in an old scroll somewhere?” Lia grimaced, about to reply, but Grandion cut in, “Girl, Dragons are creatures of high intelligence. I am not some stupid rock-dwelling lizard to be led about by the likes of you!”

His pronouncement came accompanied by a roar of fire which heated the rock she stood upon. Sweat pearled upon her brow. She must stink of fear; her courage, winged away to another Island.

Lia cried, “Grandion, you’re taking this entirely the wrong way.”

“Am I?”

“You could try trusting me! I’ve cared for you for three months!”

Ungrateful, despicable beast! She had to make him agree! Aye, her words had been less than eloquent. They had been desperate and broken–but surely, even this dim-witted lump of a Dragon could grasp the depths of her need? The sweep of events that drove her to stand upon a forbidden Island, that drove her to rise again and again above the murderous designs of Ra’aba and his minions? The grief of a family lost and now a friend kidnapped?

“Then why insult and threaten me, Human girl?” growled the Dragon, more puzzled than menacing. “You already hold my life in your paw. Do you not possess the power to leave me here?”

Heartache and loss abounded in her life, and now Lia faced more. The glut of her misery and woe would overspill a terrace lake. She who thought she knew Dragons … was a prize ralti sheep. Lia had misread Grandion and crash-landed the Dragonship of her hope on the rocks of his oh-so-Dragonish stubbornness and pride.

Naked despair thickened her voice as Hualiama replied, “If you knew me at all, Grandion, you’d understand that no power exists in this Island-World that could persuade me to abandon you to die beneath this mountain.”

Her words seeped away and returned to spark a roaring in her ears. Lia searched her deepest feelings. She saw ripples perturbing the magical veil of the Island-World, concentric circles diving inward and expanding outward simultaneously, their consequence, cataclysmic.

Even the silence held its breath.

She must speak her heart. Slowly, she added, “Grandion, you once spared my life. Therefore, I swear upon the sacred Spirits of the Ancient Dragons, and all that is dear to me, that I shall devote my life to succour yours, o mighty Tourmaline Dragon, and I promise to protect the Dragonkind against whatever terrible fate the future may hold.”

An overpowering stillness seemed to amplify around her oath, a power of truth she had never known existed. Though they existed as two separate beings, though the gulf between Human and Dragonish understanding was as measureless as the depths of the Rift storm, yet it seemed to Hualiama that a delicate yet unbreakable magical chain had come to link her heart to the Dragon’s third heart. When had that transpired? Sometime during her months of one-sided caring for Grandion? A shared fate which had drawn her to him before she ever knew his name? A destiny which lay together, beyond the Isles?

All she knew was that their hearts beat as one, and that the rhythm of that pulse was her life, throbbing out a miraculous, unstoppable torrent of magic, until her heart could bear no more …

The Dragon made a sound like a low, crooning sob, and when he spoke, it was with raw, quivering emotion. He declared, “Though it flies against every current of reason, I swear that I shall do everything in my power to aid and honour your oath, Hualiama of Fra’anior–out of my free will as a creature of flame and magic–for the gift of life must be honoured by all creatures under the twin suns, lest we fall into the Cloudlands and be lost forever.”

All the Island-World must marvel at these vows.

Magic swelled and undulated between them like the breath of a dawn wind misting the surface of a terrace lake. No breath would pass Hualiama’s throat. For a moment the veil of the unseen and unknowable seemed to draw aside, granting her a glimpse of the world-spanning ramifications of their simple words, a multi-dimensional tapestry of fate drawing together in a single time and place, lending now the infinite complexity of a universe of possibility. All would change. The Nameless Man’s cusp of history was already receding into the past, immutable.

Unthinking, in Dragonish, she whispered, I thank thee, noble Dragon.

My soul-song gladdens the very stars, gracious Hualiama.

And so, having secured Grandion’s agreement to hide as far up the narrowing crack as he possibly could, the place where he said a trickle of water entered his cave, Lia returned–nay, fled–to the monastery to prepare her hydrogen bomb. Ten monks had worked for hours on gluing together sacks ten feet long and seven feet tall, connecting them with long hoses of hollow chengis vine.

Master Jo’el showed her the fuse he had braided and prepared. “It needs another two hours to dry,” he explained. “You’ll have five minutes after you light this to get as far away from that cave as possible. Do you have the hydrogen still? Enough meriatite stone and acid? Bellows and a pump?”

“All is prepared, Master.”

“Ja’al will help you set up the still. I want no-one else setting foot on the Holy Isle, for if that Dragon should seek revenge, we must minimise our transgression.”

“Aye, Master.”

She dared not speak of what had transpired between her and the beast. It was too fresh, too fragile to risk, trembling like a baby bird within her breast.

“Three hours of darkness remain. By dawn, be undercover. The sacks will take hours to fill with that small still. Take heart. Perhaps tomorrow evening, or the day after, you shall be ready. Pray Ra’aba does not return before that hour to complete his evil labours.”

Working rapidly, Hualiama and Ja’al ferried the necessary equipment over to Ha’athior Island. She worried about Flicker. Gi’ishior was a huge flight for a dragonet. Though dragonets were quick, they did not enjoy the stamina of Lesser Dragons. Flicker had estimated it would take him two or three days to reach Gi’ishior. He would stop at the hidden monasteries to rest. With one eye glued to the skies for Dragon-sign, Ja’al and Lia lugged their equipment around the treacherous path to the avalanche site. They stuffed everything down the hole and dragged the huge bags of Dragonship material to their desired locations along the tunnel.

Ja’al peered over her shoulder. “So, this is a hydrogen still?”

Lia nodded, biting her tongue as she concentrated on assembling the parts. “I’ll rest the acid bulb on this little stove to warm it gently, which speeds the reaction. Then I’ll drop chunks of meriatite into the acid where they’ll bubble away, and in the time it takes to toss a few ralti sheep at the Jade moon–hydrogen gas. This valve controls the gas outlet into this bag here, and the foot-pump drives the gas into the pipes leading to the sacks. Clear?”

“You know what? You’re weird.”

“I’m what?”

“Weird. What kind of Princess knows how to patch Dragonships and assemble a hydrogen still?”

“I keep telling you, I’m a royal ward–an imposter. Not a real Princess at all.”

“Royalty is an accident of birth,” said Ja’al, unexpectedly dropping a kiss on her cheek. “Chalcion may be a brute of a father and a respectable King, but I can guarantee he has no clue what a treasure he has in you.”

And he departed, leaving Lia to smile in bemusement, touching her cheek with a fingertip.

“Sooooo,” crooned Grandion, drawing out the word suggestively.

“He’s a monk. A friend. More like a brother, really.”

She babbled with the skill of the most empty-headed parakeet! Lia knew that the Dragon would not believe a single word.

On cue, he added, “Indeed, and I can safely reveal that I’m an overgrown windroc in disguise.”

Hualiama stamped her foot with unconvincing outrage. “Grandion! Ja’al is sworn to the Great Dragon’s service with vows of chastity, fidelity and service–”

“So that was a perfectly chaste kiss?”

“Aye.”

“Then why’s your little heart beating so fast?”

From her reading about Dragons, Lia knew their senses were many times acuter than those of Humans. It beggared belief–he could hear her heartbeat from down there? “It’s irritation–with you,” she retorted, bending low to blow on her little stove. The heat felt about right. Now to add the meriatite …

“Hualiama, why did the monk call your father a brute?”

Flip that Dragon over an Island, now he was suddenly full of questions–and none of them easy ones.

Hualiama went very still, transported to another time and place. Her sister Fyria, sneering, ‘Father never wanted you, little Lia. That’s why he hates you. It was Mother who insisted on adopting you. None of us wanted you, but she made us.’

“Father has a punishment board in his office,” she said, in a dull, lifeless voice. She tested the release valve cautiously. Not enough pressure, yet, although the meriatite was bubbling merrily. “It’s a square of wood covered in sharpened dowels. When I have done wrong, which is often, the punishment is to kneel on that board, for hours. Or he beats me, and my mother. When he’s drunk–”

“You stand between him and your mother, wishing he would beat you, rather.”

At first, Hualiama thought he had read her deepest feelings, but then she realised Grandion must be talking about himself. Could it be that they shared this secret shame of a father both loved and feared, who demanded respect but often did not deserve it, who lashed out at the most unexpected moments to tear a family apart? Suddenly, he seemed not a vast, serpentine predator, but a friend with whom she could share confidences.

“I should’ve stood on him,” said Grandion.

“Aye? Yet I love him, Grandion. Isn’t that the strangest thing?”

“No,” returned the Dragon, his voice now as mellifluous as the tones of a Fra’aniorian pan-flute. “No, for love transcends woe. Sometimes it is pure, like the stars of a moonless night, and sometimes it is as clouded as a storm, but it is still love.”

Such were the storms that lashed her heart.

After a time, he added, “I’m sorry I made you cry.”

And now he heard the drip of her tears above the chuckle of the bubbling still? Hualiama sniffed hugely. Pestiferous, perceptive Dragon!

“How many hours until your bomb is ready?” asked Grandion.

“Too many.”

Below, talons clicked on stone as Grandion shifted restlessly. “You have told me stories, and sung me songs, Hualiama, but I regret I was a feral beast for much of that time, unthinking and unheeding. I would know the tale of your life. Would you tell me of the heart of a girl who scorns death to comfort a lost Dragon?”

Hope lodged in her breast, yet it was hope bound to a disconcerting knowledge. This Dragon would not kill her. Whatever magic had emerged to ensnare them, it was far more dangerous than that.

Chapter 18: A Dragon’s Oath

ON Her THIRD strike of the spark-stone, the fuse caught. “Take cover!” Lia yelled, even though she had already warned Grandion four times. His muffled laughter chased her into the depthless night.

Although only the tiny pinpoint of the White moon was visible in the sky and enormous Iridith was hidden behind Ha’athior’s looming bulk, there was plenty of ambient light to help Lia traverse the cliff. She hurried with the zest of someone who knew a large volume of highly explosive hydrogen gas was about to ignite. Scrabble for bushes and handholds. Keep the feet moving, but take each step with care. Wish for wings that could bear her aloft if she took just one misstep …

How long was that fuse? Was Master Jo’el correct about the five minutes? She waited.

When it came, the detonation was disappointing.

Thump. Just a dull concussion conducted through the ground to her feet, although Lia did see a flash of light briefly illuminate the volcanic cone to her right hand. Dragonets? Lia paused in surprise. Hundreds of dragonets lined the volcano’s rim to watch proceedings. How did they know?

She turned. Nothing.

“Oh, Islands’ sakes …” Lia’s voice trailed off.

First, there came a sharp cracking sound as though lightning had struck from within the Island. Then, a deep groan, as if a mile-high door had been forced open for the first time in millennia. And now, a roar as a piece of Ha’athior Island slipped away from the mainland, sluggishly at first, but the noise rapidly escalated into a thunder that rolled away over the Cloudlands until it was lost in that immensity.

Flying ralti sheep! Lia dived beneath an overhang as a cascade of pebbles pinged her head and shoulders, followed by a few larger boulders which narrowly missed her feet as they tumbled past.

After that, the stillness shrieked against her ears. Hualiama listened for a final crashing lower down the Island, but perhaps the distance was too great. Silence. No Orange Dragons nosing about, investigating the landslide. Right. She scrambled to her feet. Time to see what trouble she had wrought.

Hopefully, a great deal. But when she reached the old avalanche site, it was to voice an involuntary wail of despair.

She had buried him!

Hualiama surveyed the destruction with mounting horror. A hundred feet away, she saw a darker smudge that she took for a sign of the blast-fire. Bushes still smouldered there, but below, the cliff-side had been carved away, leaving naked rock. But where was Grandion? Surely, he should emerge from the tunnel smiling and carolling his joy to the heavens? Then, she heard a muffled roar. Alive! He was somewhere beneath the rubble!

Before she knew it, Lia screamed across at the dragonets, Help me! There’s a Dragon, buried here. They looked on as, with trembling hands, she shinned down a vine to the level on the near-vertical slope where she thought she might find the Tourmaline Dragon, tracking the sound of his voice and the faraway scrape, scrape of his paws. Boulders, sand and other rubbish had collapsed into a crack here, she saw. The explosion had brought the cliff down on Grandion’s head–or not quite on his head, judging by the racket he was making.

Drawing one of her forked daggers, Lia hacked off the vine below the level of her feet and then tied the end firmly about her waist. Did she care about prowling Dragons? Nay. Living atop an active volcano meant that earth tremors and landslides could be bought a dozen for a brass dral.

Having freed both hands, she began to dig.

Immediately, two reds whizzed over to chatter at her in amazement.

Two-leg thing make dragonet warren? inquired the first.

Crazy creature far from home, snickered the second. Crazy-no-brain. Play game?

Being accustomed to a particular dragonet’s name-calling, Hualiama only smiled at them, mindful to keep her teeth covered by her lips. There’s a Dragon trapped beneath this rubble, little ones. Will you help me dig for him?

The reds chorused, No dig warren?

No, I’m playing a game to find a Dragon. Can you hear him under there? Why don’t you bring your friends to play?

Chirping excitedly, the dragonets began to burrow into the side of the cliff with the alacrity and enthusiasm of a pair of rabid weasels. In seconds, another dozen dragonets joined them. Dirt began to spray about. Boulders shifted. The dragonets took turns to tease and castigate each other. A minute or two later, Hualiama estimated that she had to have five hundred eager little helpers, their paws blurring as they dug, covering each other in dirt and picking up bushes to drop them off the cliff, crying, Beware! Beware! in shrill little voices when they undermined a boulder and rolled it away.

You’re marvellous! What wonderful helpers! Lia cried, ignoring at least ten pairs of paws pinching at her skin, trying to work out what manner of strange animal she might be.

Chaos. She considered the scene, laughing. The dragonets nearest her started laughing as well. Soon the entire cliff was covered in dragonets laughing for no other reason than the fact that the dragonet next to them was laughing. They sounded like a menagerie stuffed with giggling, squawking parakeets.

Lia dug with all of her strength, her heart suddenly pounding with a wild, uncontainable hope.

She must save the Dragon.

But ten or fifteen of the most tortuous minutes of her life passed by before suddenly, six feet from her right hand, a huge, scaly blue paw punched free of the dirt and stone. It withdrew underground.

“Oh, please, be alright … Grandion?”

Lia was yelling into the dark hole when the incline beneath her feet heaved, sending her into a helpless, bruising tumble down the steep slope before the vine snapped taut. She fetched up against a large granite boulder. Nearby, rock and stone buckled and cracked. Clinging to her vine, Hualiama caught her breath. With the resounding thunder of a Dragon’s challenge, Grandion burst free from his confinement, bellowing and bugling his joy until echoes cascaded from the opposing mountainsides, and the startled dragonets took off in a flock to begin a celebratory aerial dance.

From the tips of his talons to the massively spiked crown of his head, Grandion was what the scrolls failed so miserably to capture, an awesome living creature of fire and magic. It seemed inconceivable that a beast of his stature could possess a sleek, feline grace, but as the Dragon stretched his neck to gaze at the stars, and arched his spine with a deep groan that bespoke irrepressible delight at being freed from his bondage, he seemed wreathed in a mantle of stark and terrible splendour, far surpassing Lia’s wildest imaginings. Her chest hurt. Lia’s scalp crawled with a sensation of expansiveness.

Mercy! What had she loosed upon the Island-World?

Then, the Dragon’s muzzle turned, seeking her out. A crystalline eye-jewel, blazing with Dragon fire, fixed upon the Human girl with a potency that struck her speechless. She had never felt so very small. Mighty as he was, not even Amaryllion had mesmerised her so profoundly. This was different, a tempestuous song of magic and elation and no small tremor of fear as she gazed back at the Island-World’s ultimate predator, and yet her heart sang unbridled.

Grandion. She knew him, and he knew her, and it was a connection so exquisite and unending, Lia thought she might explode in a puff of bliss.

“What magic is this?” he whispered.

“None I know,” Lia stammered. “Oh, my soul … I feel … strange.”

With great nobility, the Dragon bowed his neck until the tip of his muzzle almost brushed her stomach. “I thank thee for redeeming my life, Human girl.”

By rights, the Dragon should execute her on the spot for standing upon the holy Isle. Though terror reigned supreme in her being, Hualiama’s tiny hand rose to touch his muzzle, sparking a palpable frisson in the Dragon’s body. Grandion’s belly-fires roared into life as if she had applied the bellows to stoke a furnace, only the blaze melted her own soul. Lia laid her cheek against his; so warm, so alive. There was nothing cool or reptilian about him. The complex beat of his hearts defied her comprehension, bespeaking ebullient storms of emotion coursing through the Dragon. And Lia wept as she had never known a person could weep, for gladness and wonder and the strangeness of a mystery which cocooned their shared existence at this moment, for the white-golden fire which gilded his muddied bulk in tongues of living fire, and for the knowledge that all of what she knew of the world, should be cast upon the pyre.

Once, the Ancient Dragons had raised the Islands from volcanic ashes. Newness rose from those world-shaping fires, sculpting places where creatures could live and love and thrive. So she felt now, poised upon the rim-wall of the unknown, about to dive into her future.

“O Dragon,” she breathed at last, “I tremble at thy presence.”

Thou … he gulped, and heaved such a great exhalation that it blasted particles of dirt off Hualiama’s body. Grandion’s muzzle withdrew; without warning, he then pressed forward eagerly, nostrils a-flare, to snuffle her scent deep into his lungs.

Terror and glory!

Acting on an impulse alien to anything she had experienced in her fifteen and a half summers of life, Lia copied the Dragon. She caught a whiff of rancid meat mingled with a far more redolent, intriguing spiciness of vanilla and cinnamon, and the sulphurous smoke of his fires. The odour made her head spin. Hualiama sighed wordlessly, and giggled as the Dragon sighed in concert with her. Hypnotic and inveigling, his eye-fires matched her soul’s febrile ardour blaze for blaze.

He blinked, breaking the connection.

Grandion growled, “This is impossible. I–I can’t fathom these fires.” Turning again to gaze at the starry heavens, he added, “It takes the absence of stars to truly appreciate their beauty. In the same way, I feel you have been absent from my life all these years, Hualiama.”

“Wow, you sound old.”

His laughter brought billows of smoke forth from his nostrils. “I’m a juvenile Dragon, like you, only I’m four years older–nineteen summers of age. And, sixty-five feet is no great size for a Dragon.”

“Big enough when you could probably swallow me sideways down your gullet.”

“Tempting?” He pretended to consider eating her, before chuckling, “Nay, Human girl. I have pondered your proposition, and I find in it a fatal flaw.”

Lia ventured, “You don’t know where Ianthine is, mighty Dragon?”

“The Maroon Dragoness lives in the northern Spits.”

“Ianthine would liquefy your brains and suck them out with a straw?”

“Possibly. That’s another problem. No,” his forepaw rose before he evidently thought the better of tapping her on the shoulder, “the fundamental issue is that no Dragon would deliver such information to a third party. You have to ask Ianthine in person. It’s an unwritten law in Dragon culture–we have many such unwritten codes, unfortunately.”

“So I must fly my non-existent Dragonship into the most dangerous airspace in the Island-World, bar the Rift storm, to inquire of a mad Dragoness who my father might be?”

Grandion’s jaw yawned open, giving the cringing girl a fine close-up of his gleaming white fangs. It was a Dragon smile, she realised belatedly. If only she could stop prattling away and calm her thoughts, which bubbled in her brain as though liquid lava pooled there. Was this Dragon fear? Or something even more visceral?

He rumbled, “I swore an oath.”

Gazing into the turbulent fires of the Dragons’ eye as though she wished to penetrate his very soul, Lia suddenly grasped an inkling of what he meant. No. He could not. She had thought the same, but never seriously, because no sane Dragon would ever consider it. Yet, the longer Grandion regarded her, the more convinced she became that her irrational thought might not, in fact, be quite so irrational after all.

Hualiama whispered, “Dragons possess a magic of concealment, do they not?”

“Especially Blues,” he clarified.

“So, hiding a Human would be how difficult, exactly?”

“Trivial. I hope you are not thinking what I am not thinking, Princess.”

“Er … of course not. I would never dream of thinking what you are not thinking. We are perfectly agreed on not thinking … um. That.”

A brittle silence stretched between them.

Grandion said, very carefully, “I am still not thinking the unthinkable, Hualiama. One must certainly not think about such taboos, for what is worse–to be an oath breaker or a taboo breaker?”

“Yet here a Human girl stands upon Ha’athiorian soil, conversing with a Dragon.” A hoarse chuckle broke past the tightness in her throat. “You aren’t much of a respecter of rules, are you, Grandion the Tourmaline Dragon?”

He roared his laughter until the ground shook beneath her, and his paw had to rescue her from a minor avalanche he had instigated. What panic his touch sparked! While a curl of flame heated her cheeks, Hualiama was more surprised to sense the surging of the magical insight Master Jo’el had begun to teach her during their return from Ya’arriol Island. For a moment as brief as a star’s twinkling, she saw him. Into him. She beheld the furnace-heart of Grandion’s Dragon soul, potent and noble and true. Yet she caught also an intoxicating whiff of treachery, darker currents of memory and experience that eddied amongst the purer light …

Grandion was there. A being of pure white flame intercepted her intrusion into his spirit. Hualiama sensed his shock and confusion; it ejected her as surely as if he had cuffed her with his paw. A physical shudder ran the length of his body. And when he spoke, it was with a levity that failed to disguise the inner disquiet Lia saw so clearly.

“I see that you remember my insults as well as any Dragon might,” said he. “Nay, I am a rebel through and through. I like you, little Human. So, we’re definitely agreed not to think about this?”

“I’d think even less about it if I could return briefly to the monastery to collect a few unnecessary items,” said Hualiama, smiling through the nausea churning in the pit of her stomach. Oh, flying ralti sheep, what had she just promised him–promised a Dragon? She was mad. Set aside the magic raging between them, she was off-the-Islands, loopier than an overexcited dragonet, mad! “Will you wait for me?”

“And stink like a cesspit before my benefactress? I think not.”

With that, the Dragon snatched Lia up. His forepaw covered her body from her neck to her knees.

“G-G-Grandion?” she squeaked, a pathetic and mortifying sound. “Put me d-down! N-No!” This was as he considered the vine connected to her waist. “Wait. What are you doing?”

With a deliberate flick of his talon, he severed the vine. “Ready?” The massive muscles of his thighs coiled.

“No! Grandeeeeee … yoooooonnnn …”

The Island-World turned on its head as the Dragon performed a backflip off the edge of Ha’athior Island.

Hualiama unashamedly wailed her heart out as the world turned over again, twice, for the Dragon wished to show off his aerial prowess to the melody of the joy gushing through his hearts. His grip almost stopped her breath, but it was also comforting in an utterly overpowering way.

And her mind was as cracked as an earthquake-cleft Island. Lia had just about mastered her terror when the Dragon growled, “Roll?”

“Noo … wooo … ooooeee!”

Before she knew it, Grandion thumped down on the rim wall of the volcano, right beside the boulder where she and Ja’al had kissed. He set her daintily upon her feet.

“How did her Royal Highness enjoy her first Dragon flight?”

Lia wobbled and would have collapsed, had Grandion’s paw not flashed out again to steady her. Now if she could only recapture her heart and stuff it back inside her chest!

With a coy glance at him, she complained, “That was not nice, you great big bully.”

A wickedly unrepentant chuckle, chock-full of Dragon fire and arrogance, constituted his response. Grandion rumbled, “Go collect those unnecessary items, little one. I shall bathe in this lake.”

“Let me alert the guards before–”

“They’re already alert,” said Grandion, nonchalantly dropping toward the lake on outspread wings. “Tell them to keep out of my way.”

“Tyrant,” Lia muttered.

“I heard that,” floated back to her on the breeze.

* * * *

Ja’al shouted, “You’re doing what?” Lia had never seen the tall, tan monk turn quite so pasty. “Lia, people don’t ride with Dragons, or on them, or any such nonsense! Where do you think … oh, no, no … NO! You and your dreams about flying! You’re forcing this poor Dragon to stick his head in a noose for you. Foolish girl! Don’t you realise how forbidden this is?”

“How can something be more or less forbidden, Ja’al?”

“It’s wrong!”

“It doesn’t feel wrong to him–to us.”

The way Ja’al’s eyes bulged brought a horrid, constricted feeling to Hualiama’s gut. “You have … feelings … for this creature! Unholy, perverted feelings.” He made a sign of the Great Dragon’s warding. “Lia, please. Tell me it isn’t true.”

“Look,” she said, her face flushing hotly, “I have feelings for Flicker and you don’t call those unholy. He’s my friend. I care for him, Ja’al. I owe that dragonet my life, and if anyone laid a finger on him, I’d destroy them. It’s that simple, yet the feeling runs so deep it’s like a river thundering into the Cloudlands; a river so deep and wild, it can never be grasped or contained. How I feel about Flicker is more than friendship, Ja’al. It’s a kind of love–a good, wholesome love.”

“I knew you’d use that word.”

Hualiama shook his hand off with an irate hiss. She shrugged the scabbard for her Nuyallith blades onto her shoulders and buckled the strap across her upper chest. “Aye, love!” She emphasized the word with a zing of the blades as she pushed them home.

“Always driven by your feelings, Lia. I hadn’t pegged you as the type. You aren’t weak, you’re the strongest woman I know.” Poor Ja’al, he was physically shaking as he tried to express the depths of his horror. “This is criminal. It’s inconceivable!”

Suddenly, her anger evaporated. Softly, Lia said, “Listen to me. Please, dear brother Ja’al. You know how you felt about your vows? That you must deny all, even a prodigal Princess and her pathetic attempts to distract you with a swift peck on the lips, to serve the Great Dragon?”

“Aye,” he muttered, unwillingly.

“That is how I feel about Grandion. It feels right. My whole life I have dreamed of Dragons, learned about Dragons, even been brought up by Dragons on Gi’ishior, it seems. Now I have the chance to right a monstrous wrong. I see only one path, although it is difficult and dangerous and probably profane. Ja’al, if this is the path the Black Dragon has set before my feet–”

“–then may you tread it with the courage of a Dragon,” he finished the ancient saying for her.

“Thank you.”

“But you’d go without my blessing.”

Lia paused in tying a pouch of supplies onto her belt. Consumed by dread, did he not see how he wounded her with his words? “Won’t you wish me well, Ja’al?”

His sigh deflated his chest like a punctured Dragonship balloon. “I wish you less moons-madness and several Islands’ worth of good sense in exchange, but I see you will not be dissuaded. Frankly, I’d rather argue with that feral Dragon than a woman whose mind is clearly made up! Therefore, I will say this: Go burn the heavens with your Dragon, Hualiama of Fra’anior.”

Distantly, the mighty Black Dragon’s thundering quaked the Island-World’s roots–a sound felt more in the spirit than in a physical sense. Lia’s spine crawled with the awareness of momentous magic. She gaped open-mouthed at the monk, who appeared as nonplussed as she.

“What was that, if not a blessing?” she objected.

“Heavens above and Islands below, I haven’t a clue, Lia,” he whispered. “Strange events are afoot, and stranger days will be dawning, should the Great Dragon place his beneficent paw upon this wool-brained venture.”

They shook their heads in tandem.

“Very well,” said Ja’al. “I shall attest to Master Jo’el what you have done and trust he does not summarily shorten me by a head.” Unexpectedly, the monk enfolded Lia into his strong arms, and hugged her until her ribs creaked. “Hurry back, moons-mad girl. We need to end Ra’aba’s reign.”

She hugged him back as hard as she could. “Silly monk. You couldn’t stop me if you tried.”

* * * *

Running lightly along the trail up above the crater lake, which faithfully reflected every star in the skies above, Hualiama tried to shake Ja’al’s words, but they clung to her mind like a clammy mist. Was she perverted? Was it profane to maintain a high regard for Dragons? How could she characterise what had passed between her and Grandion, if not by using the very words Ja’al had seared on her mind? Forbidden. Unthinkable. Against the law. There was still time to backtrack. It could be explained. Only a few taboos had been tossed off the Island of sanity so far.

No. She had sworn an oath.

Despite Grandion’s accusations, Lia thought, she was not a disrespectful person. The law was good and just. It had great value. What if her oath was profane – or did the Black Dragon’s response rebut her qualms? What was there to fear if a Human should ride with a Dragon?

Ride with a Dragon? Hysterical laughter burbled upon her lips. Where would she even ride? In Grandion’s paw? Just consider the power of his grasp, and be reminded of the sensation of stalwart talons encircling her torso! One tiny squeeze and Hualiama’s insides would pour out of her ears. The only time Humans rode in Dragons’ paws, the histories suggested, was when they were condemned to ‘a short ride to a long drop’–a cheerless phrase referring to execution by being tossed into the Cloudlands or an active volcano.

Lia rubbed her arms. How could she trust a Dragon who planned to openly flout a rule regarded as inviolable for over a thousand years? People who played with Dragons risked being burned, the Isles saying went. On the other hand, why should Grandion trust a Human who spoke Dragonish and danced with impunity upon the holy Dragon Isle?

What a merry pickle!

From the rim wall above the monastery, Hualiama turned to see Grandion breaching the crater lake’s dark surface. Water sheeted from his muscular body. Mercy, what a monster! As a juvenile Dragon he was slimmer through the torso than an adult male, but what he lacked in physical size, he compensated for in strength. This Dragon had fought off two fully-grown males. She liked that his muzzle was a little slimmer than some. The skull spikes that adorned the back of his huge head and jaws were a spectacular thicket, four feet long and wickedly pointed, giving him an arresting, rakish air. A single row of spine spikes ran the length of his body, from the tallest three-foot spikes above his burly shoulders, decreasing in size down his long, whiplike tail.

And his colour! Great Islands, what wouldn’t a girl give to be so pretty? The dirty blue had been washed clean, revealing the striking tourmaline of his armoured scales which indeed imitated the gemstone for which his rare colour was named. Blue-coloured Dragons were often capable of summoning lightning and storm-wind attacks, or hail and ice. The most powerful Blues were also masters of magic-casting and shields, making them formidable opponents in battle. The lore she knew suggested that Grandion’s gemstone rarity signified unique Dragon powers.

If she was not mistaken, the Tourmaline Dragon took full note of her regard and flew up to her position with studied elegance, making his landing soft-pawed just twenty feet from her right hand, careful to furl his wings without striking her.

“Any improvement?” he inquired.

Smug reptile! Her grin widened, for he knew full well her answer. Time to see if he responded to compliments as Flicker did. Lia declaimed, “O mighty Dragon, outshining the very stars, do I know thee?”

At once, Grandion’s fire-stomach rumbled energetically, and his eyes blazed amber with pleasure as he inclined his muzzle to spurt Dragon fire twenty feet from his nostrils. Lia scented smoke, the tang of charred minerals, and the alluring hint of cinnamon she recalled so clearly from the time he held her powerless beneath his paw.

The Dragon strutted toward her with all the arrogance of a courting bird displaying its beautiful plumage, growling, “Indeed?”

“As my mother would say, Grandion, you do scrub up very nicely.”

“Hmm,” he blinked at her mischievous tone. “As for you, how many knives does a Human girl need? Four?”

“Fifteen, counting the hidden ones,” said Lia.

Pure white sparks eddied in his eyes–approval? Grandion whispered, “You are arrayed in splendour as a Dragoness for war.”

Oh, mercy. Hualiama struggled to control an abiding weakness in her knees. An undignified splutter emerged from her throat, “S-s-soooo w-whaa …” She folded her arms at his smoky laughter, and evaded his gaze. “Vexatious reptile! Er, what now, Grandion? What are you neither planning nor thinking about? I wanted to say, I really don’t want to leave Flicker behind. We need to find him.”

“We’ll probably catch the dragonet before he reaches Gi’ishior,” said Grandion. “Are you planning to scream every time we fly?”

Lia fumed, “I’d smack you for that comment, but I fear it’s rather pointless.”

On cue, Grandion struck what he probably thought was a heroic pose. Actually, when his knee-joints were the height of her nose, and his massive stance brought all of the striations in his major flight muscles into sharp relief, he did rather succeed in shooting lightning bolts along every nerve in her terrified little body. Dragon fear turned her bowels to mush. There was something so instinctual about standing beside a beast within which Hualiama could hear fire boiling away, that her body simply screamed, ‘Run away!’ Only, that would be as futile as whacking his flank. He could catch her more easily than a windroc snagging an unwary lemur.

The glint in his eye suggested that he knew all this; that the treacherous Dragon perceived the exact rhythm of her runaway heart, and that an apology was the very last matter on his mind. Molten heat rushed into her cheeks. Was the hulking serpent stalking her? What thoughts lurked behind that scorching regard, his eye-fires smouldering, changing colour and character before her fascinated gaze? Lia wanted to fall into his eyes and burn forever.

Grandion reached out with the speed of a cobra’s strike.

“Oh!” Lia beat her fists uselessly against his talons. “What are you doing?”

The Tourmaline Dragon paused with the Human girl’s feet dangling eight feet in the air, rumbling, “Currently, you have a monopoly on being executed should the Dragons discover your secrets. I wish to unite myself to your fate. Therefore, I am placing you in the dominant and conceivably the only comfortable position I can imagine for an extended flight–between my spine spikes, above my shoulders.”

Lia gasped, “My riding on your back would be regarded as dominant? As in, a five-foot Human girl dictating terms to a multi-tonne fire-breathing Dragon? Which of the five moons do you live on?”

“Isn’t it droll?” he chuckled.

“Ridiculous!”

Grandion shrugged hugely. “I don’t make the law. And, I fancy the idea of making history, even if it’s a potentially fatal sort of history.”

Truly the young rebel, Hualiama thought. Once she defeated her nerves, she would have to ask him about his past. What had he done to bring the Orange and Brown Dragons down on his neck? Why was he prepared to go to such lengths to help her–merely for the sake of an oath, spoken in haste, or did a deviously Dragonish reason underpin his behaviour?

Her feet touched down on the Dragon’s neck.

“Can you manage?” inquired Grandion.

Lia smothered a nervous, high-pitched giggle. Control yourself, girl! “Well, since we have neither been struck by lightning from a clear night sky, nor been torn apart by the enraged Spirits of the Ancient Dragons … isn’t this the easy part?”

How exhilarating to be standing, literally, on a dream she had treasured since her childhood. Lia walked charily up Grandion’s colossal right shoulder, expecting her feet to sink into soft skin. No, these were the iron-hard muscles of a Dragon, swathed in virtually impenetrable Dragon scale armour. When he shifted edgily beneath her, the muscles rolled like animate boulders beneath his hide. Was he as nervous as she, despite his bravado? Snagging a spine spike with her hand, Lia thrust a leg over to the Dragon’s left shoulder and settled down. It was not an uncomfortable position, a kind of natural saddle between his spikes, but she knew that after an hour or two, her backside would be numb.

What should she do now? What did one say to a Dragon? What emerged from Lia’s mouth was, “I’d really need a saddle.”

Grandion stifled a roar with a snap of his fangs. “Don’t even think I’m some beast of burden! I knew at once you’d have the wrong idea.”

“I am honoured, Grandion,” Hualiama whispered. “Humbled. And, were I to dare a little honesty–” she chuckled hollowly “–you scare the living pith out of me. Just that teensy … thing. Soul-destroying terror and–”

“Very wise,” he said, bending his flexible neck to check her position. “Hold on and trust me to do the flying. Dragons are not for nought called the lords of the airy spaces.”

She hugged the spine spike ahead of her as Grandion tramped toward the volcano’s edge, her throat as dry as dust, her stomach already turning cartwheels. The Tourmaline Dragon paused above the abyss, seeming to gather his thoughts. Heat rolled up Lia’s body, despite the night’s coolness, bringing a roaring to her ears and an overpowering sense of dislocation. Her brain refused to process the idea that she was about to fly Dragonback. The Cloudlands lay two miles below, Islands’ sakes!

Deep in her mind, Amaryllion spoke, Fly strong and true, little mouse. She had a sneaking suspicion he was laughing at her.

Then, Grandion tipped forward.

Chapter 19: Dragonback

IN MUTE AMAZEMENT, Hualiama’s soul welled up. Tears streaked her cheeks, whipped away by the wind generated by Grandion’s passage. Dragon wings spread out to either side, supple upon the breeze, and the slow, powerful thrust of each wingbeat caused them to surge through the air. Lia marvelled at the purity of Dragon flight, unembellished and silent save for a slight, leathery creaking as his wing membranes flexed. Nothing in her experience of flying and piloting Dragonships had prepared her for this sensation. The Tourmaline Dragon propelled them along as if the air were a vast sheet of Helyon silk he simply slid along; not the boring action of a bulky dirigible balloon, but the sleek, streamlined flight of a supreme aerial predator.

Abruptly, Lia stretched out her arms as wide as she could reach. Throwing her head back, she began to laugh. At first, it was the staccato gasps of a pair of lungs which had forgotten how to breathe, but soon, her mirth swelled into a torrent of uninhibited, effervescent joy.

Grandion reacted as though stung. His neck twizzled around until he could stare at her with both eyes. “Are you laughing or crying?”

“Both!”

A low hiccough caused them to bounce in the air. Grandion began to laugh, too. “We’re crazy. Like a pair of dragonets drunk on fermented fruit.”

He felt the same way!

At last, her throat opened. Hualiama poured out in song the response of a soul taken flight. Her hymn drank deep of the magic which had restored the Tourmaline Dragon’s sanity, and rang forth with the beauty and majestic panoply of a Dragon’s passage across the Iridith’s broad, yellow face. Resounding from the dark cliffs of Ha’athior Island, which lay upon their starboard bow as they winged northward, her melody fell like sweet rain upon the Cloudlands misting Ha’athior’s shores, here backlit by a miles-wide orange lava flow. And it seemed to her, as Grandion swept a Human girl out into the moonlit night, that the stars themselves should answer in bell-like notes of rapturous approbation, and that having experienced this, nothing in the Island-World could ever amaze her again.

A sonorous bugle resounded from deep within Grandion’s chest, a sound that caused her to shiver pleasantly.

When she fell silent, the Tourmaline Dragon said, “Happy?”

“You’ve given me the greatest gift of my life, Grandion. Should I not exult?”

The Dragon rubbed his muzzle with his forepaw in a gesture Hualiama had learned signified deep Dragon emotion. He said, “And we Dragons take the power of flight for granted. Shame on us. I should deploy a little concealing magic, now that you’ve woken the entire Island.”

“Grandion?”

“Songbird of Fra’anior?”

“Do Dragons sing?”

He riposted, with a knife-edge ill-concealed in his tone, “Do Dragons rule the Island-World from shore to shore?”

“Except for the large majority of Islands which are ruled by Humans, aye,” she agreed. “You can have all the air; just leave us Humans the Islands.”

“You are exceedingly generous, your Highness,” he said, his displeasure crackling in an undertone of fiery reproof. “Though, I find your social and political education sadly lacking in foundation.”

“Don’t tell me you believe Dragons should rule by right.”

“By right of superior beauty, physical prowess, intelligence, scientific endeavour and achievement, breeding, and–”

“–modesty,” Lia snapped. “You’re awfully strong on modesty.”

Grandion coughed out an impressive plume of fire at her comment. Lia ducked, but the wind wafted the choking, sulphurous smoke into her face. As she coughed, he snarled, “Humans are nothing but the fleas infesting the armpit of this world.”

Fire roared over her vision. Rather than being cowed by his tone, Lia found herself snarling right back, “You’ve eaten so much monkey meat you’re starting to sound just like one!”

“Most Dragons would kill you for that insult!” he snarled.

“Well, it’s blindingly obvious good manners and charm didn’t land you up in that hole!”

GRRAAAAAGGGHHH!

A crack of thunder! Hualiama clapped her hands over her ears as Grandion roared so loudly, he almost stopped in the air with the effort. She distinctly heard boulders crashing down the nearby cliff, shaken loose. The Tourmaline Dragon flew straight for several moments, panting, while Lia clung to his back as though glued in place. Fantastic. He had spoiled her good mood with one thoughtless slur. Well, a slew of insults, truth be told.

Now her ride wanted to eat her.

At length, he commented, “You surprise me, Hualiama. You’re quite the little Dragoness.”

“I’m sorry, Grandion. I didn’t mean to–”

He cut in, “An apology? In my culture, that’s even worse than the preceding insults. It’s regarded as a sign of cowardice.”

“So, the flea must keep fighting?”

Just like that, the fire and stiffness in his manner vanished and Grandion began to chortle helplessly, shaking his head. “You are incredible. The nonsense that gushes from your mouth, mingled with the most sublime insights! Nay, I don’t want to fight with you, Hualiama. I don’t even know why I am wont to spoil your first flight with crass and worthless words.”

Lia pushed herself upright, peering past his spine spikes to catch a glimpse of his eye as he inclined his head. So, he could apologise but she could not? She smiled, “Thanks, Grandion.”

“Girl, in reply to your earlier accusation–I ended up in that hole because my shell-father ordered me to do something useful with my life, or never return home again.”

What could she say to such a bald statement? Even King Chalcion had not gone that far. No, she laughed hollowly. He preferred to keep her around so that he could beat her personally. Perhaps a cautious question or two could distract the Dragon from his unpredictable mood?

“Who are your parents, Grandion?”

But he shut his muzzle with a click of his fangs. “I will not speak of them.”

They flew north for several hours, each mired in their own thoughts, before Grandion curved his flight toward the northerly tip of Ha’athior Island and alighted in the mouth of a wide, shallow cave a mile beneath the top of the flat peninsula which formed part of Fra’anior volcano’s rim wall.

“Tired?” Lia asked quietly, as he walked beneath the overhang.

“Three months of inactivity doesn’t leave a Dragon flying-fit,” he admitted. “I need to rest. Of course, my superior Dragon physique will quickly adjust to the demands of flying–you’ll see. Meantime, how are you planning to descend the muscular mountain which is my overly conceited self?”

That was a curious form of apology, but it worked.

Hualiama surveyed the prospect of sliding down his shoulder from a height of fifteen feet, and shook her head. “I’d break an ankle … no, wait. I might try your hind leg. Bend your knee, please.”

Gingerly, she walked along the row of spine spikes, before sitting on her rump and making the slide down to the bulge of his upper thigh, and thence his knee. After that, it was still a respectable hop down onto the arch of his hind paw, and at last to the ground. Lia stretched, groaning.

Grandion furled his wings with an even bigger groan, before curling up abruptly, his head tucked back toward his tail. “Wake me if something exciting happens.”

Ten seconds later, Hualiama turned around to speak, and found the Dragon sound asleep!

Hands on hips, she waggled an eyebrow at her co-conspirator, feeling daring–as daring as a certain dragonet, in fact. She had flown Dragonback! Hualiama was a rider of Dragons. Her vision darkened. Lia leaned over, trying to find a way to draw breath despite the feeling of bands of iron clamped about her ribcage. What was this? Slowly, the attack eased. Mercy. It had been a busy night–was it really not yet dawn?

She had not eaten since Ra’aba’s assault on the monastery, she realised.

* * * *

Hualiama woke up with a horrid jolt. Dragon! No, he was neither trampling her, nor standing over the royal ward with a toothy grin, considering how exactly he might turn five feet of Human girl into a between-meals appetiser.

Tucking into a handful of nuts drawn from her pouch, Lia considered their mutual madness. Oaths made between Dragon and Human? Aye, for evidently, ralti sheep danced upon the Blue Moon! And what of this inexplicable magical imperative which seemed to have seized them both by the throat and winged them off to an uncertain destiny? Had Grandion noticed her accidental use of Dragonish? Which brought to at least three the number of reasons he should summarily execute her with a blast of Dragon fire. She peered at Grandion from the corner of her eye. No, he was neither a single inch smaller, nor any less … Dragon. Mercy. Double mercy with huge fire-breathing serpents on top!

There would be no escaping this cave without him.

Grandion nigh filled his half of the cave, a slumberous mound of Dragonflesh clothed in gemstone raiment fit for a king. She snuck a little closer to examine the detail of his scales, shaking her head. How could she describe such a blue? Pearlescent? Mesmeric? Each scale on his flanks was the size of her two hands placed side by side, reducing to tiny, thumbnail-sized scales around his eyes. Lia felt as though she were gazing into the inner part of a gemstone which had inexplicably assumed the structure and form of draconic scale armour. She had a sense of falling inward into a hypnotic, perilous crystalline world. One could lose oneself in such scrutiny.

Fascination and Dragon fear. Aye. So had it ever been between Dragons and Humans. So it was with her now.

Lia drank sparingly from a trickle of crystal-clear water at the rear of the cave before shucking her blades and her belt with all its supplies. She owed it to Master Khoyal, let his soul fly upon the eternal winds, to complete her training. She would first limber up with a dance before moving on to the many forms of Nuyallith burned into her mind. Some were inexplicable or mystical. Ja’al had not yet transferred ninety of the lessons, but Lia already felt like a walking library of lore–or an ambulatory headache.

Grandion stirred in the late afternoon, when the heat pressed down as if intent upon smothering the Islands in a thick, sweltering blanket. A storm brewed out there. The eighteen league wide caldera generated so much ambient heat that Fra’anior Cluster never grew cold, but the heat also caused massive thunderstorms to boil around the Islands year-round, with a particular concentration in the storm season–which would arrive within the month, she realised. Ra’aba had been on the throne far longer than anyone would ever have imagined.

“Doesn’t a Dragon usually fly much faster than we managed last night?” Lia inquired.

The tip of the Tourmaline Dragon’s tail twitched twice, an indicator of irritation. “That was for my benefit, Human girl. Muscles long dormant must be reawakened. Toxins build up in the muscle tissues and joints, while the smaller arteries feeding the wing surface begin to calcify. Even the heart muscles atrophy, because for a creature the size of a Dragon to fly requires an extraordinary output of energy, despite the efficiency of our triple-heart cardiovascular system. Furthermore, we have additional bodily organs which store energy and nutrients essential to flight, magic, brain function and so on–organs which Humans do not possess. These take time to replenish.”

“I’d love to learn all that you have to teach me,” she said.

“Thankfully, the body heals itself rapidly,” he said, less testily. “I need to hunt. What can I bring you–a spiral horn deer? Wild sheep?”

“I’d have a bit of anything. I’m starving.”

“No sneaking off while I’m gone.”

Snarky Dragon. But Lia burst out laughing when he strutted in to drop an entire haunch of ralti sheep at her feet, an hour later. He looked so pleased with himself. At her best guess, the slab of meat also weighed double her entire body mass.

“Hungry?” he sketched a graceful bow and lost his balance slightly. His muzzle butted her shoulder.

Lia staggered. “Oof, there’s no need to flatten me!”

Grandion held out an apologetic paw. “Paw up?”

Lia gripped his talon and bounded to her feet, making the Dragon startle and flare his wings. “I’ll cut a few steaks and wrap them in fli’iara leaves. I’ve two ripe landas gourds and I spotted a patch of jiista-berry bushes just by the cave entrance. A feast! Shall I make a fire?”

“Shall I roast your woefully undersized rump?” he exclaimed, demonstrating with a curl of fire over his lip what he meant. “You’re travelling with a Dragon.”

“Ooh, I forgot,” said Lia, her eyes dancing as she swept into a flowing Fra’aniorian bow. “Please cook my meat, kind sky-lizard, whilst I … have no clue what I can do for you. This is going to be a very one-sided relationship, Grandion, if I can’t do anything to serve you.”

“Who needs servants? I’m a modern Dragon. Watch.”

Grandion picked up the haunch and, shaping the fire with his blue forked tongue, began to bathe it in a hissing stream of flame. He even rolled the hunk of meat steadily with his talons, ensuring that it cooked evenly. Having fireproof knuckles certainly helped.

“Yum,” Lia said, looking on from a safe distance. “Smells delicious. What does, ‘I’m a modern Dragon’ mean?”

“Human servitude was a blot in draconic history, but don’t tell most of my race I said that,” he averred. “Your congenial companionship is enough.”

A slow and rather silly smile spread across Lia’s face, chasing her blush as it broadened. “But I want to help. Look, you’ve a thorn vine stuck beneath your wing, in your … ah, armpit. Wing-pit? Can I help with that?”

Grandion nodded, still doing his incongruous impression of a cook turning a spit.

“Are these so-called ‘modern Dragons’ domesticated? Tame?”

“Tame?” Fire thundered out of his long throat, reducing the boulders in front of him to molten slag and turning the sand to glass. The Dragon spluttered, “Tame? Look, now I’ve ruined your meal, you rude … you little …”

“I’m sure that charred mess is still pink on the inside,” she returned, with a pert waggle of her woefully undersized rump as she marched over to his flank. “Bring your wing down here. I’ve been meaning to slice you up with my dagger.”

GRRAAA-UH! Grandion caught himself halfway into whirling upon her, fangs agape. Hualiama dived aside with a yelp. So her bravado had lasted less than ten seconds. Great. Now she had a bruised elbow and a bucket load of sand down her top.

“Insulting a Dragon is dangerous,” he muttered, shuffling his paws and looking as sheepish as a sixty-five foot Dragon could possibly look–a less than apt description, Lia decided.

She willed her heart to stop bruising the inside of her chest. “Sorry–I mean, I’m not sorry, Grandion. See? I’ve learned something about Dragons already.”

“Given as you’ve a brain the size of a large nut, you do continue to surprise me,” he growled, without menace.

“Grandion!”

He offered her a quirky smile. “Eat up. We should be on the wing within an hour.”

A minor eclipse of the twin suns behind the Blue moon lent the late afternoon a sleepy, golden aspect as Grandion winged northward, caldera-side of Janbiss Island, home to a colony of Red Dragons. By evening they had passed Churgra and Sa’athior, both smaller Human-inhabited Islands. Grandion weaved back to the Cloudlands side of Frendior in search of a favourite roost, but they found it already occupied by a mated pair of Green Dragons, who seemed in no mood to be disturbed. However, Grandion’s magical disguise worked. The Green Dragons let them fly on with nary a flicker of their nictitating eye membranes.

The Tourmaline Dragon seemed in no great rush to reach Gi’ishior Island. Lia wondered why he was in such a bad odour with his fellow Dragons, but dared not ask, for his mood seemed to deteriorate the closer they flew to the Halls of the Dragons.

Come nightfall, Grandion settled on a ledge on the western flank of Frendior Island, a place strangely devoid of vegetation.

“There’s little water on this Island,” he said. “Have you ever flown north to Rolodia?”

“Once, when I was small,” she said.

“Aye? They have massive terrace lakes built by the Ancient Dragons, much larger than your home Island. It’s an Island with a beauty all of its own.”

“Could we fly that way, Grandion?” Lia asked.

He nodded, settling his paws beneath him while his long tail curled up past Lia toward his head. “That was my plan. There are a few rocks midway where we can roost. Perhaps you could procure a bow at Rolodia, which would be useful against windrocs and crested eagles in the Spits.”

“I forgot, but Ja’al did give me a bit of money. So, where will we find this Ianthine?”

“In the northern Spits, between Rolodia and Noxia Island. It’s a fractured wilderness of stone, full of rajals and pythons and windrocs, blasted by wind and storm. A dangerous place.”

“Dangerous for Humans, perhaps,” said Hualiama. “I ride a Tourmaline Dragon.”

Grandion’s head rose, his left eye widening as fire raced about beneath the clear surface. He breathed, “Dragon Rider.” What did he mean? Lia did not trust the glint in his eye, not one iota. “Don’t just stand there in the open, looking lost, Hualiama. Come under cover.”

Biting her lip, Lia stepped into the space he indicated between his left forepaw and his flank, and tried not to baulk when he arched his wing overhead. Great Islands, he was as hot as a meriatite furnace engine! His paw curved to create Lia a cosy nook in which to curl up, making her feel safe and protected–and overwhelmed. Unquestionably overwhelmed. His eye gleamed at her over the edge of his paw, fiery yet gentle, making Lia duck her head and pretend to be busy with her weapons and supplies. He could not have mistaken her response.

“There’s an old saying in Dragonish,” Grandion said. Envy the Dragon and his rider. Mighty are they in battle. “In Island Standard, that translates as–”

I know thy speech, Dragon.

There, better she aired that secret as she had decided beforehand. Lia knew she could never have kept it from Grandion for long, especially not once they found Flicker.

By the First Egg of all Dragons! The Tourmaline Dragon stared at her as though she had grown curly horns and capered in circles about him, bleating, ‘I’m a sheep! I’m a sheep!’ A gurgle of laughter shook every last scale on his body, while his talons clenched briefly before releasing her. Such is the enigma of a Human girl who rides with a Dragon. Of course, you spoke Dragonish before. I didn’t notice.

One more reason to kill me, isn’t it?

“Don’t be foolish. Plenty of Human slaves have learned to speak Dragonish over the centuries, Hualiama. What’s remarkable is how perfect your accent is.” Switching languages, Grandion demanded, Who taught you Dragonish? How many more secrets are you hiding?

Replying in Dragonish, Lia explained how Flicker had taught her to speak while they lived on Ha’athior Island. She must have learned Dragonish as a child on Gi’ishior, she added. I don’t know how long I spent on Gi’ishior before I was adopted. There are still some Humans living with the Dragons on Gi’ishior, aren’t there, Grandion? Do you think I might find my parents there?

Grandion was still staring at her, ten inches of fangs gleaming through the crack of his jaw. And your grammar–you speak as fluently as a Dragon, Hualiama. Exactly … like–he shook himself with the mien of a wet hound–have you always been good at languages?

Engineering, aye. Languages, no. Grandion, don’t stare at me like that. It’s … daunting.

His brow-ridge crinkled at her, giving his expression a droll aspect, while he snarled, I’d gladly eat you, little Human, but I suspect the sour aftertaste of your Cloudlands-dwarfing capacity for impudence and misbehaviour would only serve to frazzle my tongue.

What? A huge grin caught her unawares.

Lia, I’m sorry to say this, but I wouldn’t place much hope on your birthplace being Gi’ishior. Our Human community is small. To hide a pregnancy would be nigh impossible–and where would Ianthine fit into the puzzle, in that case?

Hualiama wished she had the courage to trust him with her dream of a tiny Lia running to the Red Dragoness Qualiana and her mate, Sapphurion. One phrase in particular stuck in her mind, ‘Where did that ruzal-breathing witch find her?’ Grandion was right. The mystery of her birth would not be solved at Gi’ishior. She could not disclose her dreams yet. They were woven inextricably into the fabric of her soul, precious chords of a yearning too delicate to risk breaking. And, people did not remember dreams from so young an age. Her mind must have concocted a sweet fantasy to cover for the grief and loss of that time. Inwardly, Lia wilted beneath a devastating burden of sorrow.

With his paw, Grandion gradually raised her chin, a gentler touch than she had imagined a Dragon could possibly achieve. Hualiama tried to resist, furious with herself for appearing so fragile before him. Could the past not be content to remain in the past? Must it always shadow her present? Her eyes slid aside from his burning gaze, coyly and not without anxiety. Should he choose force, how could she resist?

Let not the storm-Dragons of despair ravage thy spirit, he breathed. Magic lapped against her senses, bringing comfort.

I fear this journey. She gazed unseeing over the Cloudlands, a rippling ocean of cloud pinked by the setting suns. Grandion, I fear what we might discover. There’s a kind of peace in not knowing … if only one could ignore the pain.

The Dragon said, But you are not such a person, are you, Hualiama?

At last, her smoky eyes dared to meet his. No, I am not. The old saying pounded through her mind, ‘Never trust a Dragon.’ She must guard her heart.

Grandion added, I sense your strength, Hualiama, and this I promise: I shall stand beside you. Tomorrow we shall fly to the heavens, and find your dragonet. Pray our enemies do not spy us–Yulgaz the Brown and Razzior the Orange are their names, and many are their minions. Before darkness wreaths the Isles, would you help me by picking a load of flara-fruit? I sense there’s something nurturing in them that I require.

Hualiama sprang to her feet, absurdly grateful for a task to distract her from the intensity of that draconic gaze, and how Grandion seemed able to read her like an open scroll.

Whatever she had imagined of Dragons, this was different.

* * * *

At daybreak the following morning, Grandion powered up into the skies above Frendior Island with a new snap in his wings and a song of fire pulsing in his hearts, leaving Lia gasping and clutching at his spine spike in alarm. Whatever foresight had led her to lash a vine to the spine spike at her back and tie her belt to it, she was grateful. Perhaps a wasp had stung him in the tender underparts? It would have had to be a wasp with a sting the size of an armour-piercing drill–because this Dragon revelled in his flight. What a thrill! Revelation! Steadily, the Island-World spread out beneath them.

Unexpectedly, the Tourmaline Dragon began to play. Whipping around a white cotton puff of cumulus cloud, he dived suddenly, making his Rider whoop in surprise, before he jinked left and right and then whizzed vertically up through another cloud, bugling softly as they broke free of the grey once more. Now he spiralled in ever-tightening circles, taking care not to turn upside-down and unseat her, before he suddenly furled his wings.

Hualiama yelped as her stomach leaped into her throat. Grandion pulled out of his dive with liquid ease, screaming between battalions of clouds as though affrighted of touching them, left, right, a bounce! She laughed until she was breathless, and the Dragon too.

Now, he sauntered further aloft.

“And how is your second flight thus far?” Grandion inquired.

“Fantastic! Aren’t you supposed to be looking where you’re going?”

The Dragon chuckled, “O innocent maiden, whom I have snatched away to distant Isles, what might I crash into up here? A fast-flying ralti sheep?”

Lia quipped, “A bouncing Island?”

She meant it as a joke, but Grandion replied, “Apparently Herimor has floating Islands. No Dragon can sleep on the wing there!”

Higher and higher they rose, a mile, two, three. With the keen regard of a Dragonship pilot Hualiama noted a storm looming on the northern horizon, a characteristic band of coppery dark clouds promising a fine squall to come later that afternoon. She saw the whole of Fra’anior Cluster now, the Islands shrunk to a bracelet of green and black dots lost in an endless, lapping sea of Cloudlands, the habitat of Humanity almost impossible to pick out, apart from the green and red chequered cloth that described Fra’anior City’s famed gardens. Perhaps that dark speck just a hair taller than the rest of the city was the palace, where Ra’aba now ruled?

Seen from a distance of thirty or forty miles? Doubtful.

“Grandion, do I see the royal palace?”

He nodded. “Most impressive, Human girl. That is the palace indeed.”

Very condescending, Dragon! Perhaps it surprised him that she was able to feed herself or wipe her own nose.

“A Green Dragon rests atop the palace building,” he added, appearing to squint a little to focus on that faraway dot. “No, two. It appears your fears about Ra’aba are well founded, Human girl, unless that is a social visit.”

Copying his heavy sarcasm, Lia added, “Destruction of Human society being a Dragonish social pastime–for some.” Better she added that qualifier in haste! Quicker still, change tack before Grandion’s fire stomach did more than just growl at a thoughtless comment. She gabbled, “Grandion, you said many Humans had learned Dragonish. So doesn’t it stand to reason that Humans have been Dragon Riders before? History is a deep and broad terrace lake–”

“Not at all,” he said, now adjusting his flight path to aim them a few points east of northward, setting a direct course for Gi’ishior Island. “Saying that, I believe that you fail to appreciate the truly staggering proportions of draconic pomposity and arrogance.”

His chuckling eased her irritation at his attitude.

“Grandion, how high can a Dragon fly?”

“Best guess? Three or four leagues, Hualiama. In practice no Dragon flies that high because the air becomes bitterly cold, and altitude sickness can result.”

“Such as how I’m feeling a little breathless right now?”

“That’s probably awe at my flying prowess,” he claimed. “I’m surprised you aren’t breaking into song or washing my scales with your tears, Hualiama.”

“You think I’m weak, don’t you?”

He winged on in silence for many wingbeats, until Lia wondered if he would answer at all.

What she felt, was little. Everyone knew that the Island-World was vast, stretching measureless leagues from shore to shore. Immadia Island, the most northerly inhabited Island in the world, was said to lie over two thousand leagues from Fra’anior–although nobody knew for certain, because the instruments and techniques to measure such vast distances across the Cloudlands simply did not exist. The sheer scale of the tapestry unfurled below robbed her mind of comparisons, even of the capacity of speech. Grandion flew on, but the Island-World seemed to stand still. Fra’anior was the largest active volcano in the known world, yet even its bulk seemed insignificant, viewed from this height.

“I was the sole survivor of a clutch of three eggs,” he said, taking an unexpected tangent. “We are not certain if my brother and sister died of disease, or poisoning. After I broke the shell, my shell-mother fell into a deep sadness.”

The Dragon said, We call it a darkening of the fires, in Dragonish.

“Depression?” said Lia.

“That’s the word. For several years–my hatchling years–I saw little of her. But suddenly, one day, my shell-mother seemed happy. As I grew into a fledgling, which is a Dragon between two and five years of age, I learned that she had another hatchling, one upon whom she lavished all the love and affection I felt I lacked. Imagine my shock when I learned that my mother nurtured a Human child!”

Imagine the shock of the girl seated upon his back!

“You must never mention this secret to anyone, just as I will never knowingly reveal your grasp of Dragonish. Given your story, I assumed that child might be you, Hualiama, but I was mistaken.”

Lia, gripped so sharply by trepidation she was on the verge of vomiting, managed to gasp, “Oh?”

“Aye. That child had blue eyes, the depthless blue hue of a midnight sky. Yours are green–but a strange green, as if occluded by smoke.” Grandion cleared his throat, which in true Dragon style, meant producing a fireball. “That is aside. I was so jealous of that child, I could have killed her. I planned to, but my mother forbade me. Sick with jealousy, I held that tiny mite in my paws, and cooed and growled and played with her, and taught her the worst Dragonish words I knew.”

“A dark fire burned within my soul. Jealousy, but not of a keen draconic kind. Murder, revenge and hatred of what that girl represented, consumed me. I fell in with bad wing-mates, Dragons led by the Brown, Yulgaz, who is as eloquent the whelp of a snake as has ever cracked the shell. As soon as I could, I turned against my parents, shunning everything that they taught me, and everything they stood for. Soon, I graduated from burning a few scattered houses to fomenting widespread mayhem. But my final test to be fully accepted into their unholy alliance, was to murder a Human child.”

Lia bit her fist rather than cry out.

Suddenly, Grandion’s body stiffened. “That’s odd,” he said. “Would you look at those rajals down there? On the southern peninsula of Gi’ishior … rajals don’t usually hunt in groups, do they?”

“Small family groups, aye. How many do you see?”

“Seventeen.” Tucking in his wings while simultaneously quadrupling the tempo of his wingbeat, the Dragon accelerated.

Hualiama yelled over the whistling wind, “Where are you going? Grandion, speak to me!”

“They’re hunting a green dragonet,” he threw over his shoulder. “I think somebody’s tied his wings together and tossed him to the rajals.”

Chapter 20: Ambush

Grandion TOSSED HIS tail upward. The bottom dropped out of Lia’s world. Her stomach crammed into her throat so hard and fast, she could not summon the breath to scream. Grandion’s furled wings buzzed with the awesome force of his descent. An insect pinged off Lia’s cheek so hard it felt as though she had been shot by an arrow. At the instant the Dragon levelled out, her stomach plummeted in the opposite direction.

Thundering his challenge, the Tourmaline Dragon swept down upon the rajals and struck out with his talons, killing two felines instantly and tossing a third over a hundred feet through the air. Each coal-black adult stood over five feet tall and weighed as much as four men. But Grandion was a young, enraged Dragon. His wings flared, causing them to brake so sharply that Lia cracked her head on the spine spike ahead of her. Roaring rajals! She slewed sideways out of her seat as the Dragon spun on his wingtip. The rajals loped after Flicker, acting as if they had not even noticed the Dragon’s assault.

Rajals did not behave like this. Hualiama dizzily tried to right herself as Grandion charged the massed cats, spraying fire to all quarters, but her head was bouncing against his shoulder and the vine rope chafed fit to saw her in half.

Flicker scrambled desperately over rocks, running for his life, his wings twisted together behind him with wire and his left hind paw hanging limp. A cleansing rage swept over Hualiama like a storm from the Cloudlands. She growled exactly like a Dragon. Calmly, she sliced the vine fastening her back to the Dragon’s spine spike; she found a stance upon Grandion’s shoulder as the Dragon crashed into the midst of the rajal pack and as the Isles proverb went, set the dog-pack upon them.

As Grandion slewed, body-slamming two rajals with his tail, Hualiama employed the force of his turn to slingshot herself clear. Seven of the forms had taught her how to fall, but she flipped over in the air to crash feet-first into a rajal with bone-crushing force. Her blades sang, biting deep.

Flicker! Lia raced to the stricken dragonet. Beware! A rajal, closing in from her right. The Nuyallith blades lashed out, slicing the paws that cuffed at her. She took a heavy blow on her right wristlet, but rolled smoothly beneath the animal to disembowel it on the way past, even as its claws slashed all around her tumbling body.

Flicker! Flicker, come to me, darling!

The dragonet was terrified out of his wits. He snapped at her.

Lia danced deftly around the dragonet to spear an eager rajal with the blade in her left hand. The rajals’ snarls deafened her. What was that stench on Flicker’s body? Dust kicked up in the air, bushes over her head; Lia cried out at a sudden sharp pain in her shoulder from an unseen blow. She saw Grandion run over the pack with the power of a living avalanche, beating them back with his wing-edges. As Lia ducked beneath the sweep of the Dragon’s wing, her blades slashed in tandem at a tumbling rajal.

She howled, “Flicker!” They had tortured him!

Up now, stepping lightly upon the Tourmaline Dragon’s tail, Lia stretched her body into a dive, clashing with a proud male rajal who drove her back, rising on his hind paws to deliver a flurry of blows. She countered with exactly the same Nuyallith technique, called the angry cat, and suffered only a cut on her cheek before Grandion stormed in, bellowing, “Paws off!” He decapitated the rajal with an open-clawed swipe of his talons. A fang-filled grin flashed briefly in Lia’s direction. “Try to keep up, Human girl.”

He immolated a rajal in Dragon fire.

Reversing her blades, Lia stabbed backward, piercing a female attacker through the heart. She spun away from the falling beast. “You keep missing them.”

Grandion pounced on one of the great cats, flattening it beneath his hind paw. “Missed that one, too.”

“Braggart,” Lia shot back, casting about for the dragonet.

There was a rajal clinging to his back, Lia saw, and another gnawing at Grandion’s left wing. The black rajals were tenacious and powerful, sleek jungle hunters, but a strange force was at work here. What rajal would willingly take on a Dragon? Had that powerful, fishy smell emanating from Flicker driven them mad? No time to think. Grandion, whirling, slapped Lia with the rajal hanging from his wing. Her sharp blades attempted to fillet the beast, but the right stuck in its spine. The cat’s snarling muzzle was inches from her own as they grappled in the dirt, Lia held the feline off by dint of shoving her armoured wristlet into its gaping jaw, while she scrabbled with the other hand for her forked daggers.

“Die!” she screamed, striking deep and true.

The cat squashed Hualiama with its dying spasms. Squirming out from beneath the dead weight, Lia had to roll aside desperately as Grandion’s paws thumped down around her. She found herself the recipient of an unexpected ride on top of his right hind paw and bounced off his belly before throwing herself clear.

“Watch your clumsy paws!” she shouted, casting about for more attackers.

Grandion lunged, snapping a rajal in half with a click of his jaws. Lia hurled her blade in a flat, skimming arc to pierce a rajal savaging Flicker. She raced toward it, but a crack of lightning from her left blew a hole the size of her torso in the rajal’s chest. Blue Dragon powers. She grinned. Always handy when you could imitate a storm all on your own.

Suddenly, there were no more rajals left standing. Black bodies lay where they had fallen or been thrown, one or two rajals still mewling out the last moments of their lives. The awesome power of a Blue Dragon–with a little help from his Human sidekick–had seen to that.

Reaching Flicker, Lia gathered the stunned dragonet into her arms. “Flicker, darling.” She stroked him gently. “You’re safe now. What happened?”

“Lia?”

He was too weak to speak more than her name. A tiny purr cut off as the dragonet slumped across her forearm. Lia checked him over rapidly; apart from a clearly broken ankle, and the cuts sustained as he had struggled to escape the tightly twisted wire, Flicker appeared unhurt. Horror choked her. What sadist would deliberately disable a dragonet this way, twisting the wire with pliers to prevent a dragonet’s cunning claws from untangling himself?

Grandion nosed her shoulder. “Give the dragonet a drink. Can you remove that wire? It’s restricting his breathing.”

Lia selected a metal saw from her wristlet and set to work. The Tourmaline Dragon moved off for a moment, examining the battleground and finishing off a couple of the cats.

“Stinks of evil magic,” he commented. “Here’s your sword, girl.”

She sheathed the blade efficiently and uncorked a water gourd. “Flicker, drink.” He had strength enough to swallow greedily.

Cool wind ruffled her platinum locks. Scenting a moist, metallic tang, Hualiama’s eyes flicked up to assess the incoming storm. Great, leaden thunderheads reared their heads into the sky, grey in the underbelly and deceptively white above. A decent blow was in the offing, she judged–but suddenly, a different intuition struck like a barbed fishing spear into Lia’s belly. She knew, and the tenor of her response somehow alerted Grandion, too, because his muzzle rose as he tested the air with more than just his sense of smell. This was a trap.

For an endless moment, the world hushed in anticipation.

Three juvenile Red Dragons soared up from beneath the cliff edge, snarling at them with almost identical expressions. A clutch of brothers, Lia thought, not one of them smaller than her Grandion. The Tourmaline Dragon immediately leaped into the air, but he hovered protectively over Hualiama, clearly unwilling to abandon her. Noble Grandion. She knew his posture would place him at a significant disadvantage during aerial combat.

The foremost thundered, So, you dare to return to Gi’ishior, Grandion?

Shut your fangs, you puny toady to a traitor! Grandion roared back. Lia shook her head. Clearly her draconic companion’s skills in diplomacy could stand a little polishing.

Fawning bootlicker of a Human witch! another of the Reds ground out. Does she force you to crawl on your belly like a worm?

Hualiama sensed a new power building in that body above her, a power born in the insults being traded by the incensed Dragons. There would be no negotiating with these. Raising her Nuyallith blades, she settled into the ready position. Breathe out. Focus …

Grandion’s already impressive chest swelled as he declared, This is my Dragon Rider, Hualiama of Fra’anior. Address her with respect, or perish like the snivelling cowards you are.

Hualiama gaped at her concentration-wrecking draconic companion. Grandion? Was this the Dragon she knew, melting her emotions into a puddle of amazement?

At once, two Red Dragons charged Grandion with mighty, ringing challenges, firing fireballs from their glowing maws as they came. The Tourmaline countered with a lightning strike which knocked the foremost Red spinning. Just a hundred feet overhead, the second Red, brawnier than his brother, smacked into Grandion’s shoulder with a thud that the Human girl felt in her bones. She whirled, following the third assailant with her eyes. How could she help Grandion? It was three against one. Lia was ground-bound, useless in a fight between Dragons. Just overhead, Grandion tore into his opponent, snarling in a maddened rage as the Dragons traded pugnacious blows of their talons and smashed their muzzles together, scrapping for a disabling bite.

Down! Hualiama dived at the last instant, sensing movement behind her. The attacking Red Dragon missed his target by a whisker, ending his dive with a desperate slew as he realised he was beneath Grandion–an unhappy mistake for him. The Tourmaline kicked out viciously with his hind paws, opening huge gashes in the Red Dragon’s wings and flank.

“Ha,” Lia snorted. “Serves you–”

A massive weight slammed into her back, propelling her helplessly into the air. “Catch!” roared a Dragon.

Mercy! A Red swept toward her flying body, smirking with the air of a gleeful cat eyeing up a wounded rat. Play time for Dragons, Lia sensed. She was the plaything.

Just then, a Dragon’s wing slapped her backside from beneath. A glint of blue assured her that this was Grandion. Lightning seared her vision, spearing perfectly into one of the Red Dragons, seizing up all of his muscles for a vital moment as he crashed into Grandion’s hindquarters. The impact toppled Lia off the Tourmaline Dragon’s wing-surface, even as Grandion savaged the Red with a terrible bite to the base of his neck.

Hualiama could not tell the Reds apart in the thundering melee. She did not know which direction to look as she tumbled through the air. A Red Dragon’s muzzle thrust toward her, mouth agape as the Dragon tried to snap her in half. The picture in her mind was perfect, a dainty dance-step upon his lower lip, which would propel her out of the way … “Oof!” Lia smacked into the Dragon’s nose, right between his flaring nostrils. Somehow, she still gripped her blades. Thrusting instinctively from the hip, Hualiama ran her right arm right up to the elbow into the Red’s left nostril before she struck something soft and evidently sensitive. His head snapped about, rattling Lia like a monkey testing a nut for ripeness, before her arm suddenly worked loose in a spray of hot, golden Dragon blood.

With a warbling scream, the powerful Red flicked her high into the air.

Up she flew. Jaws, yawning open from beneath! Instinct saved her. Hualiama stretched out her legs in a dancer’s splits, bridging the Dragon’s gaping fangs from nostrils to lower lip as he pursued her skyward.

“Huh?” grunted the Red Dragon, evidently confused that his snack was misbehaving itself.

Lia had an insane split second to appreciate what damage a fireball might do to her delicate underparts, before Grandion came raging in to slap the Red open-clawed in the stomach. He ripped out a length of bluish entrails. “Lia!” Grandion roared.

The impact of the Tourmaline Dragon’s attack jolted her off the Dragon’s lips. Dropping on all fours upon the Red’s rotating shoulder, Lia crouched, coiled and ready, for less than a second before her second move was forced upon her by the Red chasing her off with a vicious nip. An agile leap took her onto the upper surface of the Red Dragon’s wing. She darted along the pliant membrane, trailing her blades behind her to open a long slice through the flight struts and wing surface, until she struck the secondary wing-joint bone. Ignoring the pain in her wrists, Lia stabbed deep, finding the major arteries feeding the Dragon’s wing. Her Nuyallith blade severed the controlling nerve-bundle. The Dragon slumped toward its maimed wing, flinging her aside …

Smack! A Dragon’s paw. “Grandion!” she gasped, never happier to find huge blue talons clamped around her neck and upper chest.

“Not content to stay where I left you?” he snarled, giving Hualiama a hair-singing blast of the scorching inferno roiling in his throat.

“Not when my Dragon’s in danger,” she hissed back, twisting to scan the air around them. Count the Reds. One spiralled helplessly into the Cloudlands, his tattered wing no longer serving to keep him aloft. Just fifty feet less would have dropped him safely upon the peninsula. A second Red was grounded, the wounds in his neck and chest spurting golden Dragon blood with ghastly force. Grandion’s bite must have penetrated the ventricles of the Dragon’s second heart. Where was the third Red?

He growled, “My Dragon?”

“My Dragon Rider? Grandion, watch out–”

He reacted with a Dragon’s incredible swiftness. Somehow rolling to dodge the incoming fireball, Grandion lunged out with jaws agape to sink his fangs into the upper portion of the Red Dragon’s muzzle, up near the eyes and ear canals. A ghastly crackling sound ensued. Flesh sizzled. Sweetly acrid smoke poured out of his mouth for heartbeat after heartbeat, unending; Hualiama realised that Grandion had launched his most powerful Blue Dragon attack, lightning, right into the bite wound, cooking the other Dragon’s brain in the process. Mercy.

The Red Dragon fell, flaccid in death.

Panting hard with residual rage and effort, Grandion circled swiftly, checking that the Red who had fallen over the edge would not recover. Hualiama sucked in her breath as she saw the Dragon smash into an outcropping a mile below before cartwheeling away in an unnatural flurry of broken limbs and wings. Then the Tourmaline Dragon landed beside the final Red, who was incapacitated, too weak even to flex a talon in his defence.

Who sent you? Grandion growled.

Razzior the Orange, wheezed the other. He knows all about your pathetic plan … to rouse the monasteries. The Dragon’s eye, dulled now with the leaching away of his fires into the eternal darkness, lit upon Hualiama. Who are you, Human, presuming to ride a Dragon? Such … has never …

The eye shuttered. The faint beat of his Dragon hearts fell silent.

May your soul burn in the eternal fires of all Dragonkind, said Grandion, in a voice thick with regret. Lia, I must dispatch these Dragons on their final journey. See to your dragonet. Be ready to fly.

I will be.

The scrolls of Dragon lore recorded at length the Dragonish practice of settling issues by open combat. Now, having experienced it for herself, Lia wished there were another way, for the travesty of seeing the fires of a Dragon’s very soul snuffed out, caused an Island’s weight of sorrow to lodge within her breast. As she walked up to where the dragonet lay, the powerful beat of Grandion’s wings blasted dust about her feet. He dragged the two Red Dragon corpses off the peninsula to drop them over the Cloudlands, sending them on their final journey.

Flicker raised his head at her approach. You have become powerful, straw-head, he murmured. Who would have thought I raised you so well?

How Lia laughed!

* * * *

When Flicker awoke, it was to find himself in his favourite place in the world, which, he decided, only narrowly beat nosing about in a warm abdominal cavity for intestines. They flew in at cool altitudes never visited by dragonets, as if ascending the visible curve of the Island-World. He lay in Lia’s lap wrapped in her tunic top; she had stripped down to provide him a snug cloth burrow. If he was not mistaken, he had been bathed with something that teased his nostrils most agreeably. He would rather be chased by a thousand rajals than budge from this spot.

Lia and the proud Tourmaline Dragon conversed in low tones.

Three days travel to Rolodia Island, said Grandion. I know a fine place to roost this evening.

What of your wounds, Grandion?

Bah, mere cuts and grazes. What do you think your dragonet told them, Rider?

Rider? Flicker’s ire piqued at Grandion’s choice of words. But the growling of his belly fires mellowed when Lia said, He won’t have told them anything, Grandion. He’s very courageous.

He’s a dragonet.

Lia stroked his neck tenderly. He’s the bravest creature I’ve ever known.

Flicker suppressed a laugh at Grandion’s visceral reaction to her accolade. Pure, potent jealousy!

Who destroyed three Red Dragons this morning? The Dragon’s tone was neither friendly nor particularly endearing. Rending them limb from limb with my talons, I hurled those three weak-fires to their deaths in the Cloudlands!

Unexpectedly raising her voice in the fifteenth stanza of the vocal saga called Saggaz Thunderdoom, Lia responded:

Bestriding the sky as a tempest raises its battlements,

Saggaz Thunderdoom did smite his foes,

With claw and wing and breath of ice–

A low throb of laughter coursed through the Dragon’s body. “Point taken, Lia. I did wonder when you’d break into song. Well chosen, too, for that storm will strike us before the hour is ripe. Shall I rise above it?”

At the top of her lungs, she carolled:

Canst thou, canst thou?

My wingéd love, canst thou?

“Your what and how much?” spluttered Grandion.

“Unfortunate reference.” Lia fanned her heated face vigorously. “Uh–Grandion, can you do ice attacks? I saw a few tremendous lightning bolts back there.”

“You should see my shell-father …” He floundered to a halt. So, his father was a Blue Dragon? Flicker filed away that titbit of information. “Not yet, Lia. Age augments a Dragon’s powers, and I haven’t yet developed the power to generate ice. I can cool water for you, though–if you don’t mind that it comes from my water stomach.”

“Water you’ve spat up? I’ll take a rain check on that.”

“Ice idea,” agreed the Dragon, spotting the pun immediately.

“Oh, stop splashing words about!”

“Fine, Hail-iama, no need to storm at me.”

That was not even worth a groan. Grinning toothily over his shoulder at Lia and Flicker, the Tourmaline Dragon’s sweeping wingbeat quickened in tempo. He soared skyward, seeking to overfly the oncoming storm.

“Ra’aba and his allies grow in power,” Grandion noted. “They dare a daylight attack on the Isle of Gi’ishior itself? This bodes ill, my fair Rider. What say you?”

Flicker decided he had heard quite enough from the Tourmaline Dragon, especially his disgusting insinuations of affection for Hualiama. Besides, neither of them were paying him the slightest attention.

“Ooh,” he groaned pitifully.

Much better. Now her green eyes did their crinkling at the corners that unfailingly turned his insides to goo. Questions followed. Flicker tried not to lap up Lia’s fussing too blatantly as he modestly recounted the inspirational saga of his journey from Ha’athior Island to Gi’ishior, where he had conducted an audience with none other than Sapphurion himself, convincing the Dragon Elder to fly to the monastery to investigate. But upon leaving the Halls of the Dragons he had been ambushed by Razzior, the Orange Dragon, who had stolen from him the final scroll meant for a monastery hidden on tiny Giaza Island, just offshore of Gi’ishior. Flicker had been tortured for any further information he might have.

“I told them nothing!” Flicker said, proudly.

Hualiama bent her head to kiss his muzzle, which made him purr with pleasure and Grandion’s eyes bulge fit to pop out of their sockets. “You are truly spec-uh, spec-ta … spectabulous,” she said, appearing to grow confused.

“What is this tinge of blue on your soft skin, Lia?” asked the dragonet. He laid his paw on her arm. “And these funny bumps?”

“Cold,” she said, rubbing her arms. “This air’s so thin, it bites.”

“Take your tunic,” Flicker offered, hoping that she would refuse. On cue, straw-head shook that mane of hers. “Please,” he said. “I’m fine.”

“You’ve a broken leg. And your wings, your beautiful wings make me think of butterflies swirling about my face.” Hualiama made a shooing gesture. “Pretty butterflies just like a pretty dragonet, are you singing to me? I like singing butterflies.”

The dragonet squeaked at Grandion, What’s the matter with straw-head? Do something, you lumbering numbskull!

Chapter 21: Rolodia

A WARM FIRE glowing between three tremendous boulders that comprised the entire crown of a tiny Islet a hundred leagues north of Gi’ishior, a portion of lightly grilled bat and the kindness of two friends, were all Hualiama needed to recover. Flicker treated them to a comical rendition of her altitude sickness, making up all sorts of nonsense Lia was convinced she could never have said, not if all the Islands of the world turned into mountains of purple jelly inhabited by singing draconic eels.

Resting against Grandion’s flank, with the warmth of a Dragon at her back and a fire dying to embers before her, Lia brushed out her long, wavy tresses, which unbound tumbled to the small of her back, as she tried to make sense of the day which had been. One question troubled her above all others. Best blurt it out before it burned a hole through her tongue.

“Grandion, did you murder that child?”

The Tourmaline Dragon heaved a sigh that raised such a gust, it almost snuffed out their campfire. “Must you ask?”

Hualiama wished she did not always feel she had to walk the narrow edge of her fears with him. In a small voice, she said, “Please. I must know.”

Grandion said, “That was the moment, Lia, when I realised matters had gone too far. Others had warned me. Would I listen? We stalked a child on Ya’arriol Island. I lay in wait in the densest part of the jungle, concealed, and she skipped right into my paw as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Singing, as you do.”

“Seeing me, she screamed.” Grandion’s digits curled as if he could still feel the child there, her heart fluttering in mortal terror; Lia could imagine the scene all too vividly. “Her eyes were wide, petrified, and so blue–like the child I remembered. Delicate, she quivered in my paw. Alive. A tiny fledgling, innocent of any wrongdoing. All of my murderous thoughts crashed in on me. I saw … the evil … and I asked myself, what had she done to deserve this? I was a hatchling killer, an egg stealer–not yet in deed, but certainly in my hearts. Most certainly in the dark fires of my Dragon hearts.”

Lia said, “Yet there is good in you, Grandion. You showed me mercy.”

“Aye. And I burned you.”

“You were feral.”

Grandion’s chuckle occupied a melancholy tomb beneath an Island-mountain of heavy thoughts. “Here we sit, Hualiama, representing the two great races of the Island-World. Human and Dragon. One young and vital, the other ancient and noble. Yet we Dragons have lost much. It is said we travelled from the stars. What calamity drove us hence? Have you ever asked yourself that? And what is nobility, if not a choice–not a birthright, as many Dragons believe, but the actions and choices of an honourable heart? Protect the innocent. Nurture the little ones. Stand against evil in all its forms. We must in all our deeds, exhibit integrity. We Dragons are the apex predators of this Island-World, for who dares hunt a Dragon? All the more, therefore, are these things asked–nay, demanded–of us.”

“Please, Grandion, tell me what happened to the child.”

His muzzle curved around until his lower jaw lay almost in the fire, and both of his eyes fixed on Lia. Though her question was plaintive, a tiny giggle suddenly escaped her lips.

“And what’s that giggle for, you green-eyed imp?” demanded the Dragon.

“I was just imagining what it might be like to have a neck like yours. I could look completely backward.”

“I see that Humans excel at barbed compliments, just like Dragons,” he smiled. “Well, let me put your mind at rest. I hid the girl in the leaves and bade her be as still as a mouse. When Yulgaz and Ra’aba arrived I attacked them and lured them away. That Human hatchling lives, as best I know. The Dragons chased me to Ha’athior Island, and the rest you know.”

“Ra’aba?” Lia echoed.

“Razzior. I said Razzior.”

“No you didn’t, I clearly …” Some unknown, poisonous quality in Grandion’s gaze corked the words in her throat. A soul-lost feeling swept over her, an awareness that if she pressed the point, the Dragon might tip over the edge of sanity. “I misheard.”

Flicker’s mouth was catching flies. He fidgeted with the splint on his ankle; Hualiama told him off sternly, while her thoughts raced off over the Cloudlands. No, it was an honest mistake–it had to be. Dragons could not be Humans, could they? Besides the impossibility of mixing Human seed with Dragon, the very idea was repugnant and physically unfeasible. Perhaps Dragons could change shape? But nothing in all the volumes of Dragon lore she had ever read, even hinted at the possibility. The engineer in her knew without a shadow of a doubt that the sheer size and physical volume of a Dragon could never be compressed down into Human size. Matter did not vanish into nonexistence, only to reappear. Magic itself operated according to laws similar to the physical realm. It did not arise from nothing–nothing arose from nothing! Magic existed intrinsically in the very substance of the world.

Just before he attacked her, Hualiama remembered thinking how strongly the Orange Dragon’s body language, tone of voice and even a peculiar aspect of his gaze, had reminded her of Ra’aba. Could a Dragon’s spirit or power subjugate a Human mind and inhabit a person’s living soul, making Ra’aba the mindless thrall of the Orange Dragon? She whispered, “A magic capable of binding minds.”

The Tourmaline Dragon almost tied his neck in a knot, until his nose bumped against her leg. “You speak of forbidden things,” he whispered. “Fearful powers.”

Laying her palm flat against Grandion’s nose, Lia said, “Permission for a titchy Human girl to scare a fire-breathing colossus?”

He blinked. “I’d claim with all my draconic arrogance that you can’t scare me, Hualiama, but I find entirely too many mysteries in your existence for that to resemble anything but a flight of foolishness. Speak.”

“Promise you won’t breathe fire?” She patted his nose; the dragonet helpfully tittered away as Grandion snorted uncomfortably. When he nodded, Lia summoned up Amaryllion’s words. “Brace yourself. ‘At that time, a giant comet shall streak across our skies and the balance of the Island-World shall be thrown into disarray. Old powers will fail, and a new race–the third great race of the Island-World–will rise from the shadows, a race born of magic’.”

Grandion could not have looked more stunned if she had slapped him in the muzzle with an entire Dragonship.

“Do you know of a third great race, Grandion? Do you–”

“This is deep Dragon lore, Hualiama!” he hissed, his eyes filling with ember-like orange fire in the semidarkness of a three-moons night. “How came you upon such dread knowledge?”

There were moments when Grandion seemed just like any good friend, and other times when he seemed as alien and terrible as the infamously wicked Dramagon, who legend named the father of all Red Dragons. Dramagon was said to have subjected his Human slaves to terrible experiments and torture. Hualiama was quite certain that the temptation to shorten her life at his claw-tip, quivered in his body in that instant. Pretending unconcern, she returned to working a particularly stubborn knot out of her hair, but was grateful when Flicker hopped into her lap.

The Tourmaline Dragon whispered, “By the First Eggs of the Ancient Dragons … you would fracture the very foundations of this Island with such thoughts!”

Pensively, Hualiama outlined Ra’aba’s words, that fateful evening when she had met the Nameless Man. “Ra’aba tried to murder me, or have me murdered,” she said. “He believed that would break the prophecy. Amaryllion also believes that the prophecy and I are somehow linked–and, I recall, that I might have been born somewhere in the East.”

“Not with those ears,” said Grandion. Abruptly, the tension seemed to drain from his body. “We Dragons say ‘but one egg is laid at a time’, by which we mean, events will befall us as they will. Let us focus on Ianthine and the dangers she represents. You mentioned before the need to learn Juyhallith, the way of the mind. As you know, we Blue Dragons are skilled in the ways of high magic, for example, the shield I built for you this afternoon to help you withstand the cold of our altitude, or the concealing magic to hide your presence–never mind, those matters have already passed beneath our wings. I know a few Juyhallith techniques and will teach you, if you wish.”

Hualiama swallowed. How could she trust a Dragon to meddle in her mind? “What must I do?”

“Describe at length how astonishingly handsome a dragonet I am,” Flicker put in.

Mustering her courage, Lia raised her chin to meet Grandion’s gaze without recourse to her natural diffidence. “Dragon?”

Grandion’s grin seemed especially draconic as he said, “You must make yourself vulnerable.”

* * * *

Over the following two days, Grandion and his companions winged northwest to Rolodia Island, enjoying a stiff following breeze. Hualiama trained at shielding her thoughts from casual ‘borrowing’, as the Tourmaline Dragon called it, while they approached the broad, shallow oval of Rolodia Island from the air. The locals liked to name the Isle the ‘Lake of Jade’, referring to the colour of the terrace lake waters which surrounded the entirety of the Island, four tiers in all, and the densely vegetated interior, which ranged from tall jungles to towering bamboo forests.

Grandion landed stealthily near Rolodia’s only town at the southerly tip of the Island in the early afternoon. Reasoning that either of her draconic companions would attract too much attention, Lia convinced them that she enter the town alone to purchase herself a bow and a quiver of arrows. The gate guards questioned her rudely; a trader barged over her foot. Unfriendly place. Lia adjusted her headscarf self-consciously, confirming that her distinctive Fra’aniorian ears were hidden from casual view. She received a number of openly hostile looks as she inquired at an inn just inside the gates for directions to the market area. Hualiama had visited Rolodia before, but as a royal guest. This was startlingly different–probably a good experience, she told herself. Who was she trying to fool?

Lia drifted along a narrow row of brick-and-board shops, the dark eaves providing the barest sliver of protection against the white-hot twin suns’ glare. The market area seemed far too quiet. Where were all the customers? A quartet of guardsmen loitered about in an alleyway she passed by, eyeing her with the air of dogs considering a juicy bone. Ugh.

“Oi, ah fancy me that bit of skirt,” she heard as she ducked inside a likely-looking establishment.

Inside, the weapons shop was dim, and stank of oils and leather, together with the tang of hot alloys from a forge which was being worked somewhere in the back. A little apprentice boy, spying her, pelted into the back crying, “Da! Da! Is a lady.”

“A lady, you say?” The man’s voice was gruff but not unkind.

“A pretty lady, Da! Will ya marry her? Will ya? She wearing swords and all, Da!”

A hugely muscled man ducked through a hanging bead curtain leading to the back room. A Western Isles warrior! Hualiama tried not to stare, but his dark-skinned kind were uncommon enough around Fra’anior to arouse her curiosity. The armourer’s eyes were dark points in a broad, scarred face, and his gaze dropped briefly to the Immadian forked daggers at her belt before leaping to note the hilts of her swords rising behind her shoulders.

“Well, lady,” he rumbled, his accent thick and unfamiliar. “I hope you know how to use those swords in this town. I am Jarrik the Armourer. How may I serve you?”

“I am looking for a good bow,” said Lia, realising she had been foolish on two counts. She wore rare Immadian daggers on her belt. First mistake. The second mistake, not remembering Remoyan attitudes to women who bore weapons.

“Long, short, crossbow or recurve?”

“Recurve. Compact size with a strong draw.”

Without a word, Jarrik moved to a weapons rack affixed to the wall above three neat heaps of round shields, and selected a bow. “How would this suit you?”

Lia raised an eyebrow at him, which was a long way up. Jarrik looked to be the kind of man who could beat through walls using nothing but his head. “It’s pretty, I’ll grant, but I’d need something sturdier.”

He presented her the weapon. “Test the draw for me, please. What’re you hunting?”

“Windrocs,” she said, drawing the bowstring to her ear with ease.

“Aye? Would you indulge me with two further impositions, lady? Show me your palm, and show me one of your swords.”

With a slight bow, Hualiama drew the Nuyallith sword from her preferred left side, and laid the weapon in his hand. The Armourer’s brow furrowed. He tested the sword’s weight and balance with a professional flourish, and then ran a finger reverently along the blade. “Sweet. Windrocs, eh?” He turned her palm over in his blunt-fingered paw, pursing his lips at the well-used calluses which her training had developed. “Hmm.” He passed her the blade; Lia sheathed it without hesitation.

Jarrik dismissed his rack of bows with an irascible wave. “None of these. Come into the back, lady.”

He moved to a cupboard opposite the furnace, reached inside without looking, and selected a weapon. Lia’s eyes moved to the little apprentice, who stared at her open-mouthed. She winked at him. Sweet lad.

“This is the weapon for you.”

Hualiama examined the bow curiously. It appeared to be constructed of an exotic type of lacquered hardwood, and the recurve of the tips was slightly more pronounced than she was used to. The grip fit her hand as though crafted for her alone. The craftsmanship … aye. Gorgeous.

Jarrik explained, “It’s a Haozi hunting bow, from the far southern end of the Eastern Isles. They ride a type of giant boar on their hunts, beasts that rival a ralti sheep for size. With practice–” his teeth flashed a quick grin at this “–you should be able to draw it fully.”

Right he was. Hualiama grinned back at him as she managed just over a three-quarters draw. “This is an excellent weapon. I don’t have enough coin for a bow of this quality, however. Would you accept an alternative form of payment?”

“As in?”

“Excuse me.” Reaching down her tunic front, Hualiama liberated a ruby the size of the top joint of her thumb from a secret pocket. A shadow fell upon her spirit as she remembered Inniora’s plight. Please let Ra’aba have mercy on her … “Will this do?”

Jarrik raised the gemstone to the light. “It’s more than adequate, aye. You will require a quiver and arrows? My best for you, lady.”

“And a few leather belts,” said Lia, measuring rapidly in her mind as an idea popped into the forefront of her mind. Aye, she could ride Grandion alright. He was about to be thoroughly vexed by her plan, however. She knew exactly how she would pull his leg, or wing, or whatever …

Having settled with Jarrik the Armourer and wrapped her more obvious weapons in a cloth he provided her, Lia stepped out into the dazzling suns-shine. Unease tickled her spine. In the narrow road to her left, a dozen youths played a strategic game of stone-tossing against a wall. Right, a similar number, standing and staring at her with the peculiar intent of those inciting each other to mischief–not of the humorous kind. Pretending to rub her eyes, Hualiama adjusted the cloth to provide easy access to her swords, knowing in her bones that if Grandion was prowling somewhere high above, these youths were already dead.

The youths closed in rapidly from her right, limbering up a motley assortment of weapons. Lia had expected a few insults, perhaps a way she could use her feminine wiles to slip by. No posturing from these. This confrontation was planned, organised and dangerous. She spied the town guardsmen looking on from the mouth of the alleyway with bored inattention. No help there.

“Sword-wearing rajal!”

“You trying to start a riot, foreign girl?”

“Beat her!”

Thankfully, the viler comments were swallowed up in a general ruckus as the youths broke into a run.

Little Lia briefly considered retreating into the weapons shop, but a fierce fire burned in her breast. Bullies. She hated bullies. Lia dropped her bundle, leaving a sword in each hand. Stepping out into the cobblestone street, she gathered her concentration as Master Khoyal had so painstakingly taught her. Mentally, Lia saluted him. ‘I never appreciated you enough, Master. This is for you.’

The thudding of feet matched the thudding in her senses as Lia’s mindfulness expanded in concentric ripples. The footing, the precise quality of the dust in the air, the smell of silverback trout baking in a nearby shop, the sound of Jarrik pumping the bellows to bring his forge up to heat, all filtered into her awareness. Time seemed to slow. The foremost youth charged in with his iron-shod staff levelled at her belly, his fellows just a couple of steps behind. Lia stood still, arms relaxed at her sides, her blades hanging toward the dirt. But inside, she was as taut as a coiled spring.

Now.

Let the dance begin.

A step off her left foot allowed the staff to slide by her torso, not an inch from her skin. Her red-tinged Nuyallith blade lifted gently, severing the youth’s arm at his wrist. Spinning beyond her howling victim, Lia gutted an intrepid swordsman with a clean slash across his belly, her right arm rising into a vertical parry, the left swinging beneath a club to spear a man in the thigh. These were ill-trained fighters, but the onrush caught up with her. Lia collected a cudgel blow to the shoulder and a painful stamp upon her foot, momentarily arresting her dance. Her blades shimmered darkly, left and right, leaving attackers screaming in their wake. Those at the back skidded to a halt. Vaulting a fallen dark-headed man, Hualiama rebounded off a shop wall, smashing her head into the jaw of a man just behind her.

She stumbled, dazed by the violent clash of heads. Crossbow quarrel! Her left blade, the red one, deflected the incoming quarrel before its presence even registered in her mind. Where was the archer? Springing upright, she executed the double windroc technique on a luckless rogue who was still facing the wrong direction when her blades pierced his neck and right kidney simultaneously.

Here came the other dozen youths, aware now that their intended victim was not about to lie down and beg for mercy. Lia whirled out of the dancing crane into a modified kingfisher skill, pausing just long enough to allow a blade to swish past her stomach, before leaping high into the air and striking from above, lightning-quick. Her left sword pierced a man’s eye, the right slid into another man’s cheek.

Bellowing a Western Isles war-cry, Jarrik the Armourer came charging out of his shop, using his shield as a battering-ram to crush four men against the opposite wall.

“Fancied some exercise,” he grinned, abandoning his shield to twirl a two-handed war hammer about his head. “Just bop these thugs, one, two!”

Spill their brains was what he meant.

“Thanks!” Lia ducked a javelin and used the momentum to knock a man’s feet out from under him. Jarrik finished him off by the simple expedient of dropping his knee on the man’s chest, crushing his ribcage. Grandion would have approved of that move.

For a few moments they withstood a siege of cudgels and swords, before the youths saw the better value of cowardice and fled. Gathering her weapons with exasperated haste, Lia quickly armed herself and slipped her swords into their sheaths. No point in skulking about now.

“That way,” said the Western Isles warrior, pointing.

Halfway down the road at a dead sprint, Lia heard a tramping of booted feet ahead. A cohort of Rolodia’s grey-clad guardsmen marched into the narrow street between the shops, blocking it. She turned.

“Run!” yelled Jarrik.

The sound of more boots echoed up the street. The real trap was sprung. Lia spared a half-breath to wonder if Ra’aba might not somehow be behind this, before she realised what she must do. She bounded up onto a barrel and from there, sprang up to the eaves and swung herself smoothly onto the roof. Lia raced across the uneven surface as the monks had so often trained to run across the uneven boulders near the crater lake.

For a long drawn-out second, she thought she had made her escape.

Whap! A weighted net snarled her body. Hualiama had not seen a rooftop guard post, but they had seen her and fired a net in her direction. Deprived of the use of her arms and legs, Lia toppled helplessly, rolled down a shingled slope, and tumbled into the street below. A mound of red-dyed cloth broke her fall, but she had no time to struggle free of the net. Cruel hands seized her.

“Now you’ll pay, girl!”

An unseen cudgel slammed her head into the cobblestones. Blackness overwhelmed her instantly.

* * * *

A Princess locked in a tower. The same prekki fruit of old, Flicker chirped, slipping between the bars of Lia’s tower cell.

Flicker! Hualiama gasped. What … where did you come from?

The dragonet inquired archly, Good shopping trip? What’re you still doing in here?

Escaping, of course. Lia worked vigorously at the lock on her left ankle. Toss it in a Cloudlands volcano, this one’s so blasted stiff …

Shall I fetch the keys off that hook, straw-head? Her brilliant smile made him flip an aerial somersault–gingerly, to avoid further hurting his ankle. The dragonet chattered, Aye, thank you Flicker. You are my saviour, my best friend and indeed, the true dragonet-king of all Fra’anior. Here. Loosen those chains while I call Grandion.

As the jail tower was a little ways out of the city, down near a garbage heap which smelled emphatically appealing to Flicker, he and the blue blunderer had decided that with a touch of Grandion’s concealing magic, they could rescue the Human girl and earn themselves kisses. Well, kisses were his privilege. By his wings, there was no way he’d allow that prowling Lesser Dragon to muscle in on his girl, shiver the thought and turn his fires to ice!

Having signalled Grandion as agreed, Flicker returned to the cell to find Lia gone! The door yawned open. In a flash he whizzed down the spiral staircase. He narrowly avoided crashing into the back of Lia’s head and instead, violently assaulted the man facing her with a crossbow levelled at her chest. Meantime, Grandion landed on the roof, shaking the building. Twang! A quarrel quivered in the wooden ceiling of the room beneath Lia’s previous cell.

Hualiama chopped the man down with the hard edge of her hand. “Flicker, I had it under control!”

“That’s what you’re doing with a lump on your head, in jail?”

“I was in the middle of escaping, you brainless lizard,” she complained. “Look, the guard captain laid all my things out nicely on his desk so that he could choose what he wanted for himself. Let me just collect–”

“Grandion is so upset with you–I’m upset with you!”

The Tourmaline Dragon thundered, “WHERE IS THAT PEST?”

“Hmm, sounds like he’s planning to rip the roof off,” said Lia, strapping on her daggers with a studied unconcern that had the dragonet gaping. Would he ever understand the ways of a two-legged female? “Tell him to wait just a rajal’s whisker, Flicker.”

Flicker coughed up fire as he squeaked, “You tell him!”

A huge blue paw smashed through the floorboards, shooting splinters and chunks of wood across the room. Grandion snarled, “You come here right now, you wretched bundle of vexation, or I swear I’ll pulverise this place–”

“Coming, Grandion,” she cooed.

Flicker blenched. That was completely the wrong tone to take with a Dragon … on cue, Grandion’s fury erupted in spectacular style. He roared so deafeningly and so long that the Islanders could probably have heard him back on Gi’ishior, never mind Rolodia. Rock detonated just a couple of feet above their heads, while the south tower wall bulged and cracked as he flexed his muscles. Nails shrieked as the incensed Tourmaline Dragon tore through the floor, tossing boards and sturdy beams to the winds.

Hualiama shrugged her Nuyallith sword harness over her shoulders. “Right, Flicker, just a couple more things and I’ll be ready.”

A wordless squeak of dread escaped the dragonet. Hualiama deftly sidestepped a grasping paw, as if the Dragon were fishing for her like a dragonet fishing in a pond, and scooped her belongings into her arms.

“Quick, Flicker. Upstairs now.”

“There’s neither an upstairs nor stairs left anymore,” he pointed out.

Grandion’s forepaws swept the room from either end, eventually corralling the Human girl near the middle. His muzzle punched through what remained of the ceiling. The Tourmaline Dragon glowered at Hualiama from a distance of six inches, panting great gasps of smoke, growling deep in his belly as his tail idly demolished another section of the Rolodian jail tower behind him. Flicker sensed that his righteous wrath had robbed him of words, or more accurately, he did not wish to open his jaw and embroil her in a deadly firestorm. Grandion’s sword-like talons flexed as if longing to burrow into a certain Human’s impudent neck.

Flicker decided that at this precise moment, the path of valour would be to bury himself beneath the rubble, or be flying a hundred leagues an hour in the opposite direction.

“I’m ready when you are, Grandion,” Lia chirped, with a radiant smile. “Oh, and this is for coming to pick me up after my shopping.” Leaning forward, Hualiama planted a kiss directly on Grandion’s left eye. “You’re the best.”

Although, a dragonet could be moved to contemplate murder on occasion.

Chapter 22: Maroon Madness

Human, Dragon and dragonet camped that evening on the wild, uninhabited northern shore of Rolodia Island, beside a terrace lake shimmering like fiery stained glass as the lambent twin suns fired their rays beneath the broad underbelly of waxing Iridith, dominating the south-western skies as only the yellow moon could. The mile-wide fourth and lowest band of terrace lakes, buttressed by mighty dam walls only the Ancient Dragons knew how to build, was home to a vast cornucopia of bird life which loved the violet-tufted reed beds and towering, impenetrable bamboo forests, and filled with the silverback trout famed throughout the region. An optical illusion made the far side of the unspoiled lake appear to run right into the Cloudlands, giving an impression of infinite distance. Warmly tinted in an awe-inspiring palette of colours, the evening was without equal.

Why a soul-lost sadness to darken such a day?

Hualiama sat on a grassy knoll overlooking this tableau, and hugged her knees to her chest. Grandion and Flicker bathed at the lakeside, the deft dragonet engaged–with much lip-smacking and trills of happiness–in plucking mites from beneath Tourmaline Dragon’s scales and gobbling them down.

The song of her heart was a haunting ballad:

Alas for the far shores, my heart, my third heart,

Alas for the stars, illuming thy doom,

Let my soul take wing upon dawn’s twin fires …

And fly to thee.

Alas for the fair peaks, my love, my fierce love,

Alas for the scorching winds, which stole thee away,

Let my soul take wing upon dawn’s twin fires …

And fly to thee.

So she had sung for Amaryllion, unwittingly, in the darkness beneath Ha’athior’s Island-massif, and the darkness had turned to magic and light, and that light was the naissance of a friendship few could have imagined.

Flicker’s voice rose, carrying clearly to her ears because of the stillness. Evidently, your large cranial cavity is woefully underutilised, Grandion. Insipid follicular filaments my shell-mother’s warty backside! Let me teach you about Human females. I am an expert, after all.

From beneath her lashes, giving no outward sign that she overheard them, Hualiama spied on her draconic companions. This should be entertaining.

Firstly, you need to understand that just as a Dragon has three hearts, a Human female has three minds.

Three? Grandion was as nonplussed as the Human eavesdropping on their conversation.

Aye, three, and you never know which one you’re going to get from one moment to the next. Ooh, she was going to give that overgrown, armour-plated mosquito a piece of her mind–one of her minds. Lia hushed a giggle as the dragonet continued, They can switch from one brain to the next at a speed that would make a bat’s head spin. At least one of their brains possesses a dismaying tendency toward contrariness and wing-shivering vexation, as you observed in the tower.

Aye, that makes sense, Grandion nodded.

Secondly, a woman’s hair is always perfect, the dragonet pontificated. It is neither too long nor too short, too dark nor too light, nor does it ever resemble a windroc’s nest. Clear?

Give me scales any day, muttered the larger Dragon.

Flicker drew himself up. Lia’s hair is wondrous amongst her kind. It falls down her back like spider-silk threads of the whitest Dragon gold.

Grandion’s paw, upraised in the act of scratching his spine spikes, curled as if with a sudden cramp. Hualiama shivered at the tenor of his glance. Dragons were said to be covetous. Surely, that could not be what he wanted of her, to add a Human to his Dragon hoard? One fable told how Dragons could breathe out a magic which converted any object into pure gold. Nonsense, she told herself. Silly tales for children–and who would want a golden statue of Hualiama?

Perhaps Ra’aba, as a decoration for his throne room?

Now, Humans value diminutive size, Flicker instructed. She is cute. Dainty. Lia’s entire person, but especially her backside, is not to be commented upon except with the greatest consideration.

Huh? Grandion snorted. What Dragoness would not burn for a well-turned compliment?

Favourable comparisons to legs as sturdy as the Islands, and haunches as full and round as the Jade moon, are definitely forbidden, said the dragonet. Lia almost choked with laughter. Imagine! They are very particular about the taboo parts of their bodies, and believe their body coverings enhance beauty.

The Tourmaline Dragon snorted even more impressively than before, raising ripples on the lake surface. Ridiculous! She teases and torments like a Dragoness, but then retreats behind her clothes? I could not even chastise her like a hatchling. You witnessed her tears. What did that mean?

Flicker sighed at the same time as Lia. In part seriousness and part teasing, Grandion had wanted to bend her over his paw to receive a beating for defying his commands back at the tower–she had disrespected her Dragon protector, she realised. Hualiama felt ashamed now at her screaming, her blind panic and revulsion … but how could she resist a Dragon’s strength? How could she tell him, that the action reminded her so clearly of a time her father held her down to whip her with a heavy weapons belt?

She is no hatchling, despite her lack of stature, said the dragonet. Perhaps it is taboo in Human culture, or signifies something mated Humans might do together?

She wanted to laugh bitterly. No, Flicker. It was only in speaking to Ja’al’s sisters, quietly that night she had visited his family, that she had learned that not all parents beat their children bloody, nor did they break their child’s arm–Elki, in this case–in a hunting ‘accident’ that everyone knew was no accident.

Abruptly, Lia pushed to her feet. Something needed to be said.

“Grandion?”

“Aye, Hualiama? I will catch you a trout, I promise, but our companion seemed hungry for parasites.”

“He often eats from beneath a log,” Lia smiled, wading out into the lake. She wore just her tunic top, having swum earlier with Flicker while Grandion soared aloft to scout.

“That’s where you find the best and juiciest grubs!” Flicker enthused. “And, I highly recommend those green crunchy beetles. They flutter in your mouth and sometimes right down your gullet, while the many-legged orange ones …”

“Grandion, I know this is an un-draconic apology, but I’m sorry I aggravated you earlier. I was frustrated at doing such a poor job in Rolodia town.”

“Accepted,” he growled.

“There’s more. I vented my pain on you, when I should’ve trusted you not to hurt me.”

Grandion had the grace to shake his head dubiously. “I would not have trusted myself, Lia. This echo arises from your past. Your father hurt you?”

He phrased a question, but only an idiot would have missed the murderous undertone, a crackling akin to a monstrous bonfire, accompanying his words. Hualiama was struck once more by the Dragon’s powers of insight and perception. Not only did he listen, but he internalised and remembered what he heard and observed. She must beware that he did not learn to read her too well.

“I forbid a draconic revenge-taking against my father!”

Fire whirled into Grandion’s eyes. “Aye, Human girl, but were I to exert a Dragonish cunning to circumvent your words, I would say, King Chalcion is not your true father. Therefore, your words fail to bind my actions.”

“Semantics!” she snapped, clenching her little fists.

“Remember this lesson. Dragons are all too fond of sliding between the scales, as we put it, whenever the occasion suits. The dragonet tells me of my lack in the arts of diplomacy and courtesy.” Reaching out, Grandion ran a talon down her unbound hair, eliciting a tremor in her body. “Riddle me this: why do you veil such a wealth of beauty, o Princess of Fra’anior?”

When Lia found herself tongue-tied, Flicker said, “Another point about Humans, Grandion. This flushing of the blood vessels beneath their soft skin denotes feelings of embarrassment or anger.”

The large Dragon rumbled, “Did I anger you with a feckless insult, Lia?”

“Nay, noble Dragon,” she replied. “Know this, that not all creatures of this Island-World share the power and freedom of the Dragonkind.”

“Aye? I understand, now.”

“Grandion, did I see you speaking to a Red Dragon, earlier, while you were scouting?”

“Aye. Xardiora is an old fledgling friend of mine, a messenger Dragoness of the Council of Dragon Elders.” The Tourmaline Dragon looked to the skies, a gravity gathering in his manner as if storm clouds had abruptly occluded clear skies. “Apparently the war in the East has taken an ill turn against the Dragons. Razzior uses this information to divide the Council. Many Dragons have rallied to him, upsetting the balance even amongst the voices of wisdom, while Sapphurion struggles to maintain control. The Dragons are aware of Ra’aba’s treachery, but with the alliances fracturing, they have other concerns–which even Xardiora was unwilling to share with me. These are strange and troubling times.”

“Strange indeed, when Human, dragonet and Dragon form an alliance,” said Flicker.

Lia muttered, “I’d bet half the jewels in the kingdom that Ra’aba’s underneath it all, stirring the whole situation into a putrid pot of soup.”

Grandion gave a great, water-boiling snort of laughter. “You! Always, you remind my hearts to keep the drumbeat of courage.”

“Er … right.” Hualiama did not know what exactly she had done or said to earn such an accolade, but she smiled as the tension between them evaporated. “Grandion, what exactly are we looking for in the Spits? And how will we manage to fly in there, given the dangerous winds and–”

“The place is called ‘the staircase into darkness’,” he said. “It’s the place to which we Dragons magically banished Ianthine. I have an image and a description from a scroll. We’ll fly into this perilous wilderness because I am a Dragon with all the power and freedom that you think Dragons enjoy. And you have these new straps to keep you on my back.”

“Oh. Grandion, I’ve a favour to ask.”

“Aye?”

“I’d be a great deal more secure if I could affix those straps properly. Could I drill holes in your spines for my saddle?”

“WHAT?” A Dragon’s fury blasted over the lake, scaring off every bird in a half-mile radius.

Then, his savage gaze met her ingenuous smile. “Joke?”

His paw flattened her in the water.

* * * *

Lia woke before dawn the following day, missing the warmth of the Tourmaline Dragon’s body. Grandion stood by the lakeshore, brooding over his private meditations. The Dragon really was better than a blanket, she told herself. Warmth, protection, and the low rumbling of belly fires to lull her to sleep. She blushed. Hopefully he could not hear her thoughts!

After a swift breakfast consisting of a handful of wild grain, two ripe tinker-bananas and water, Hualiama clambered onto Grandion’s back to affix her new saddle. It was a simple affair–a ratchet-and-spindle strap for the spine at her back to anchor her waist belt, a second strap to the fore to hold onto if needed, and a set of stirrup-like loops which buckled around her upper thighs, which ought to serve to prevent a sideways slide.

Without looking up, Lia grunted, “You’re breathing on me.”

Grandion’s supple neck allowed him to curve his muzzle right over his own shoulder. “Just checking there’s no surreptitious drilling going on,” he rumbled, showing Lia at least fifty fangs.

“No drilling here.” Aye, having a Dragon’s hot breath ruffling one’s hair did serve to stress a point, Hualiama thought. “Come on, Flicker. The day grows old.”

“Not as old as I feel,” said the dragonet, stirring with a groan.

“Teach you to chase minnows all afternoon!”

Flicker chuckled, “I like playing with my food.”

Nevertheless, the dragonet squirmed up onto his paws. He was now able to touch his injured hind paw to the ground, at least for short periods of time. Dragons healed at a phenomenal rate, Hualiama had observed. Just witness the wounds Grandion had taken before Yulgaz the Brown trapped him in that cave! His hide showed no trace of scarring. Was this the fabled Blue Dragon power of healing? Then again, the Red Dragoness Qualiana had healed her burns amazingly well.

From Rolodia Island it was a straight shot–using Flicker’s words–to the northern tip of the Spits, which lay south of a smaller Island called Noxia. Above the Spits were many other Islands Hualiama knew only from map and fable–Remia and Rorbis, the forested behemoth of Yorbik, the silk-producing Island of Helyon, the rugged beauty of faraway Immadia, and to the East, Herliss, Kaolili and the Lost Islands, where a war raged between Dragons and Humans. It was said that from the Lost Islands one could see the edge of the world. Now that would be a place to travel to, one day!

Riding Dragonback, all Hualiama needed to do was to sit tight and enjoy her companion’s freedom to roam the Island-World’s skies.

Remembering the blessing Ja’al had spoken, Lia leaned over Grandion as he spread his wings for take-off, and said, “Let us burn the heavens together, mighty Dragon.”

A shiver ran through Grandion’s muscles. Raising his head, the Tourmaline Dragon bugled his gladness until the dawn rang with a new splendour. The sound echoed from the gigantic terrace wall behind them, constructed of stones fitted together so perfectly and evenly that despite a lack of mortar not even water could escape between them, and echoed back over the lake as if an entire Dragonwing had raised their voices in exultation together with him.

He roared aloft, swinging eastward toward the Spits.

They flew until the day was old, beating steadily into a headwind which sapped even Grandion’s strength. A band of dusky cloud rose before them, topped with a strange, impenetrable haze, appearing to stir from within as though it were that very pot of soup Hualiama had accused Ra’aba of agitating. Later, she began to make out the landscape beneath the clouds. Spires of black and reddish rock, jumbled together, rose into the clouds as if they were the spines of the giant hedgehog she had once seen when visiting Sylakia Island. Some of the spines were cracked or leaned against each other beneath that frowning dark brow of cloud, lending the scene the appearance of an old man’s gap-toothed grimace filled with misshapen, blackened teeth. A rank smell drifted to their nostrils on the breeze, like water long grown stagnant, mingled with fresh windroc guano.

“Charming place,” said Flicker, evidently not as asleep as he appeared.

“Perfect for Ianthine,” said Grandion. “Help me search for a roost, dragonet. I can’t fly much further today.”

Looking at the twin suns lowering behind her shoulder, Hualiama realised they had been aloft for the better part of thirteen hours, as Grandion alternately rested on the wing or beat into the breeze. His wingbeat had slowed noticeably as he slackened, while the wind grew perversely stronger. His breathing came in rasps. Had his months of incarceration weakened him so severely?

“Through that gap looks a likely place,” said the dragonet. “Limber up your bow, Lia. I don’t trust those windrocs.”

She had been thinking exactly the same.

They rested well that night in a cave formed by a broken-off stone tower which had crashed down on a ledge, forming a natural shelter. Grandion ousted a family of black-headed, giant bearded goats–saving one for his dinner–and they were set.

Over the course of the following five days, the companions painstakingly combed the north-western corner of the Spits for any sign of a Maroon Dragoness, working their way toward the rising suns. Grandion battled turbulence unexpectedly blasting around corners or creating powerful wind-shear downdraughts, while the weather turned icy, a bitter, bone-biting cold hurled about on the blustering airstreams, until even Flicker began to look more blue than green. Lia expended her stock of arrows on downing feral windrocs which attacked Grandion at regular intervals, learning how difficult it was to strike moving targets while flying Dragonback. She woke one morning to discover herself sharing Grandion’s warm paw with a ten-foot cobra. Flicker disabled the snake with an expert bite behind the skull, after which they shared a tasty meal.

“Lovely fat rock hyrax, young bearded goats and now a yellow-bellied cobra,” the dragonet declared with relish. “This is the place to feast!”

Hualiama sniffed through her raw, red nose. Grandion only grunted, trying to keep from being swept against what had to be the millionth stone column they had passed. Lia knew she would have become hopelessly lost in the rocky maze, but her draconic companions appeared to navigate it with ease, returning again and again to the edge of the Spits, before picking the next route to investigate. Lia wondered what could have created such rock formations–miles high, with enough regularity just to begin to tease the mind with the notion that perhaps they had been shaped or carved by an unknown intelligence, before all descended into a jumbled nightmare once more. They needed to search not only horizontally, but vertically through a three-dimensional labyrinth.

Late on the fifth afternoon, after navigating into another blind canyon, Lia’s black mood finally boiled over. She yelled, “I give up! Who needs parents anyway? They abandoned me! And look what I received in exchange. Stupid insulting poxy fungus-ridded ralti-dropping-laced leech infested misbegotten travesty of a fate!”

“By my wings, say all that again? Backwards?” Flicker teased.

Lia tossed him off Grandion’s back.

* * * *

Picked up by a truculent breeze, the dragonet tumbled away toward the bottom of the blind canyon with a yelp and a brief fireball of surprise. Flicker fluttered valiantly, but a vortex sucked him downward. The Tourmaline Dragon reacted instantly. A plunge, a swipe of his forepaw to net the dragonet and a bruising landing resulted. Grandion groaned, My knee!

Flicker’s scales prickled with the curious magic of a Dragon’s seventh sense. Grandion, Hualiama, there’s something down there.

I’m sorry, said Lia, patting Grandion where she could reach his shoulder. I didn’t mean–

I’m fine, he growled. Judging by his limp as he approached the place where the wind whistled away into a bleak, jagged tunnel, clearly not. Dragonet and Lesser Dragon considered the darkness together. I sense it too, Flicker.

Lia pitched her voice to carry over the wind’s keening. “It doesn’t look like a staircase into anything.”

You poor, stunted Human, said Flicker, keeping a respectful distance from her hand. Lia’s reactions had grown swift, of late. Leave the Dragonkind to the hunting, will you?

Come. The Tourmaline Dragon began to squeeze into the tunnel.

Hualiama yelped, Mind–stop! I have a head, you know. Flicker, I’ll thank you not to snicker, you mange-raddled clump of ambulatory mildew.

What’s with all the big words today? he complained. I’m being nice, aren’t I?

Hurry up, boys. Lia, pushing ahead, promptly staggered as the wind caught her.

Allow me, said Grandion, his bulk blocking the tunnel–and any remaining ambient light. But with an audible crackle of magic, he lit up the tunnel with his eyes. Lia almost leaped out of her soft hide.

Flicker crooned in approval. Oh, very clever–

One more word, dragonet, and I’ll squash you like a bug, Grandion growled. Move along, Rider.

The Tourmaline Dragon was just being tetchy, which was understandable, Flicker thought. Whilst his larger cousins did love a cave roost or an underground treasure hoard, they invariably chose lighter, airier spaces which suited their massive stature and love of freedom. Bellying down a tunnel was not a Dragon’s idea of fun, especially not when that tunnel led to a place of unfamiliar magic. Flicker tested the exotic, disturbing scents alertly. This was beyond his experience. Ancient magic lurked in these walls, making him feel distinctly queasy. Suddenly, he shared straw-head’s evident lack of desire to proceed. Only evil could dwell in a place like this.

They crawled down the tunnel for hours before abruptly breaking out into a vast cavern. Its vaulting roof was hidden in shadow, while the floor … Flicker’s hearts pounded forward, triple speed.

“The staircase into darkness,” Hualiama whispered, bracing herself as Grandion popped free from the tunnel. At once, the wind whistled about them.

Giant steps, indeed. Flicker peered down a series of steps, each two hundred feet tall. The scale of the cavern stunned him, but after a time, he began to grasp what he was seeing. These were the same columns as comprised the Spits, but they lay side-by-side in a neat pile–rectangular columns each several miles tall and a quarter mile thick.

Lia said, “It’s like an ancient storehouse. Did the Ancient Dragons store these columns here, and then simply plant them in the Cloudlands to make the Spits?”

Grandion shook his head. “And this Dragon’s wings shiver in disbelief. Mount up, my Rider. We must find this Ianthine.”

Flicker rode with Lia while the Tourmaline Dragon made great hops and flying swoops down beneath the Spits, into a realm few Dragons had trod. When he looked up, it was to see the Human girl’s jaw so tightly clenched, her lips showed white at the edges. Perhaps two or three miles beneath the surface, Flicker began to smell something. Grandion oriented on the stench without anyone needing to say a word. Instinctively, they knew that was where they would find Ianthine. Her presence pervaded this space like an invisible mist closing its clammy tendrils about the travellers.

Swooping cautiously over a pile of desiccated windroc bones, peppered with rotting fur, entrails and other delights, Grandion brought them to a landing outside a low-roofed grotto carved into the southern wall of the main cavern. Here the rocks were brown, strangely organic, sprouting such a profusion of damp mosses and fungi that they could have been in the midst of a moist jungle–were it not for the incredible stench of stale urine and what Flicker finally recognised as faeces plastered on every conceivable surface, even the cave roof. The fungi were certainly well fertilised.

What is this place? Grandion said.

Ianthine’s lair, said Flicker. She waits for us.

Hualiama had a hand on one of her swords, but then dropped it deliberately. She glanced at her companions. Come.

The Human girl’s elevated pulse rate betrayed her qualms. Chattering softly to himself in approbation of her spirit, Flicker leaped up to Lia’s shoulder. He whispered an ancient blessing into her left ear, The courage of Dragons be your portion, Hualiama of Fra’anior.

She said, Thanks, my friend. I’ll need every drop.

The grotto bent around a corner. As Lia moved forward, they passed out of the wind’s blast into a place of musty smells so concentrated that Flicker felt as though he had sniffed acid up his nose. The sound of water pouring resolved into a small waterfall tumbling fifteen feet into a shallow pool. The water’s phosphorescent glow lit up the cavern, and the flank of the Dragoness crouched beside it.

Flicker gagged. The Maroon Dragoness was easily twice the size and three times the bulk of Grandion. At least part of the stench was due to the open, weeping ulcers on Ianthine’s neck and flank, great wounds seemingly bitten out of her hide by an unknown agent, leaving bloody craters behind. What could be seen of her Dragon scales was the purplish red of a bruise, while the majority of her vast, bloated body was covered in scale rot or fungus, perhaps both. A flame-red eye fixed upon them.

Ah. Took you long enough, tumbling about my little realm. What a puny party. Ungracious greetings laced in snot to you, pathetic creatures.

Ianthine’s voice sneaked and slithered about their minds, riddled with a cackling undertone of madness.

Grandion came to a halt right beside Lia, panting, wild-eyed at the sight of this legendary monstrosity. Sapphurion himself had banished this Dragoness. Now they stood before her to ask a boon. Flicker’s three hearts skipped a beat simultaneously.

Drawing a shallow breath, Lia said, “The most sulphurous greetings of Fra’anior to you, Ianthine–”

Ianthine drowned her out in a volley of vile curses. “That black-bellied son of a volcanic flatworm! Skanky two-faced whelp of a bleating goat! Speak not his name, little one … but come.” She crooked a claw, abruptly crooning with saccharine malice, “Come to me. Old Ianthine wishes to sniff thy maiden beauty. Such a pretty thing. Belongs in this cave, it does. I’ve a hoard. All around us–what wonderful, foetid riches they are.”

Gulping audibly, Lia began to shift forward, Grandion whispered, “No, Lia …”

“Closer. Yes, closer it must come. Right under my paw.”

Hualiama stopped, her fists clenching and unclenching at her sides. “Do your sniffing from there, Ianthine. Then, I would ask you a question.”

“It wishes to ask a question?” Stretching her neck suddenly, the Maroon Dragoness brought her ruined nostrils right up to Lia’s chest and took a huge, wet sniff. “Ah!” she moaned, retreating suddenly, a fearsome thrashing of her body. “It smells … I haven’t smelled such in many a year. It reminds one of what was lost. Toothsome wench. Ianthine should eat it. Like she ate its mother, a pretty, two-legged snack she was. What is this question, this deception, this voice from my past?”

Poor Lia! Her reflexive shudder almost threw Flicker off her shoulder. Like him, she probably did not know what to believe, because the Maroon Dragoness’ tone was so hateful and filled with deliberate malice, it was as though she wished to cast verbal barbs and twist them into the flesh of her victim with the air of an expert torturer.

“I wish a boon, Ianthine,” said Hualiama, unsteadily. “You know something of my parents. I wish to learn who they are.”

“And what does it offer old Ianthine?” Flicker stiffened in concert with his perch. “Poor, pathetic Ianthine,” she whined. “She suffers greatly. A boon requires a payment, child. Make an offer.”

“I-I have some jewels h-here–”

“No, not jewels,” hissed the Maroon Dragoness. “Offer old Ianthine something more … interesting. You have power, child, more than you can imagine. Spend it wisely.”

Ianthine’s cackles were swallowed up in the organic morass of her chamber. Lia’s head swivelled as she took in her surroundings, buying herself time to think. Finally, she said, “I have nought, old Dragoness, but I am moved by your plight. I shall offer you a favour, as is common amongst the Dragonkind.”

“I accept!”

Flicker felt his eyes darken with horror. Every scale on his body tingled. The Dragoness’ glee, the instant response–what harm did she envisage for Hualiama? Grandion’s fires surged in a low rumble as the Dragon drew closer to Lia, curling his forepaw protectively over her shoulder.

“Offer her something else,” Flicker urged.

“Too late.” Ianthine continued to laugh. “It holds in its frail Human form the key, all the power I need to break free from this prison built by small-minded Dragons of limited understanding. Strange company Humans keep these days. A pretty Dragon on a leash, and a dragonet who shadows his mind? Deceitful little creature. I accept. Here is my boon, Human. Its mother? A trickster, a vile, veiled enchantress was she, who gave her babe to old Ianthine. Maybe I ate her. Maybe her twin, the madwoman. The envoy of the Dragon-haters, she came to Gi’ishior.”

So Lia was perhaps born on Gi’ishior, and the Human girl’s shell-mother gave her up to Ianthine? The dragonet’s mind reeled as he considered this. But Ianthine was not finished yet. Her forepaw lifted, the longest talon outthrust from its retractable sheath to tap Lia’s belly.

“Here, it is scarred. The one who did this, he is the father.”

Chapter 23: The Longest Flight

“No!” HUALIAMA’s SHRIEK tore through the cavern. “You lie! You vile, wicked filth!” Falling to her knees, she moaned, “Nooooo … please, it’s not true. Tell me it’s not true.”

She knew her pleading was useless, yet Lia clung to hope as a drowning woman clinging to a rope. Sweat oozed from her brow. It trickled down her body in droplets as thick as blood. She stared at Ianthine, recognising the truth before the Maroon Dragoness spoke.

“Confuses me, it does. Where is the lie? It comes with an innocent face, unaware of the secrets locked within its breast. The truth is told.” The Maroon Dragoness rocked back and forth on her paws, keening, “Its mother tortured old Ianthine, she did. She paid in blood and the soul of a babe she hated, a child spawned in pain and violation. Only the truth could sear such a delicious, writhing agony into its darkling spirit, as it bows before Ianthine’s knowledge. Aye, history stands immutable. He who tossed it to the windrocs, he is its father.”

Hot vomit laced with blood spewed out of Lia’s mouth. She was dimly aware of Grandion bellowing at Ianthine, of the Maroon Dragoness laughing uproariously at his futile, fire-spitting rage. Her power held the younger Dragon as helpless as a newborn hatchling. Then, a vast, crushing force ejected them from the cave as though Ianthine had hurled them outside with an invisible paw. Lia toppled into Grandion’s grasp. Bearing the dragonet in one paw and the Human girl in the other, the Tourmaline Dragon winged away up the steep staircase of recumbent rock towers, fire frothing from his mouth in shock and outrage.

For a time, Hualiama drooped insensate within the cage of Grandion’s talons.

Cool night air roused her at last. Grandion had brought them out of pitch blackness into the dull, grey world of the Spits. Perched upon a cliff ledge beside a trickle of water, he laid Lia down to check her condition. Flicker’s muzzle hove into view.

The dragonet chirped, Lia? Lia?

Leave me alone. I want to die.

Grandion said, That deceitful, manipulative egg-eater played us false! Malice and untruth infest her hearts. Lia, she lied–Ianthine must have lied. There’s no way on this Island-World Ra’aba could be your father.

I need to wash myself. Lia stumbled over to the trickle of water. Suddenly, she plunged her head beneath the flow, yanking her clothes violently. I must wash. I’m dirty, dirty, so dirty …

You’ll freeze. Please. The Tourmaline Dragon tried to draw her gently away from the flow; Hualiama punched his talons with her fists, uselessly, screaming that he was hurting her, that she was in pain, that he should let her fling herself off the cliff … and suddenly shudders overtook her so violently that her teeth clacked together. Lia curled up into a ball, unable to weep for the horror that choked the very living pith out of her soul and poured it out in a stream of raw anguish.

This wound could never be stanched.

Somewhere in the distance, through a roaring in her ears, Lia heard Grandion continuing to insist that Ra’aba could not be her father. How could he be so adamant? Obstinate reptile! He had prekki-fruit mush for brains. She too was adamant–Ianthine had neither lied, nor had she stinted in taking vicious pleasure in her revelation.

Lia moaned, Amaryllion, why didn’t you warn me?

With the help of a stiff following breeze, Grandion flew until the night grew old and Noxia’s silhouette bulged out of the endless Cloudlands. He brought his charges to a safe landing in a remote dell beside a burbling stream. Even a Dragon must sleep for exhaustion, but he would not rest until Hualiama assured him rather fiercely, yet with an apologetic touch to his muzzle, that she was finished with reckless, suicidal thoughts. A certain stiffness seemed to leach out of his muscles as she spoke, leaving a weary Dragon to close his eyes, but not his ear-canals.

Hualiama felt hollowed out, a shell of one who had been Lia, royal ward of Fra’anior, Dragon Rider.

Her eyelids shuttered upon a familiar nightmare in which she fell eternally from the Dragonship, terrified, hopeless and alone. Waking when the morning was well advanced, biting her tongue to keep from sobbing, Lia washed in a streamlet behind a fallen log, not ten feet beyond Grandion’s flank as he slumbered in the hot suns. Though the water’s freshness helped clarify her fevered thoughts, Hualiama found herself scrubbing her skin compulsively with sand from the streambed, desperate for the pain of abrasion, as if that could possibly cleanse her of the past, of the need to know and remember what was branded on her heart forever.

She dropped her hand. No. Starting now, she would deny Ra’aba any dominion over her life.

Lia touched the White Dragoness’ scale, still dangling on its thread between her breasts, whispering, “When you abandoned your eggs to face the Black Dragon’s fury, you summoned another to care for them. And you protect me even now, through this.”

A symbol? It was just a Dragon scale.

Ianthine’s words played through her mind. Much was puzzling, but there were clues. Ianthine had clearly recognised her, either by sight or smell, or some other Dragon sense. Lia’s mother was a ‘trickster’–an old word for an enchantress–while the reference to a veil suggested an Eastern woman, one who hailed from the Kingdom of Kaolili. This concurred with Amaryllion’s conjecture about her birthplace. The Dragoness had first claimed to have eaten Hualiama’s mother, only to backtrack with some drivel about a twin. From what she recalled, it was unclear whether her mother was alive or not. Either way, she had given up her babe to Ianthine.

A child born of violation. She shuddered. Nothing spoke more truly to Ra’aba’s spirit than that statement. Could she envision it? An envoy had journeyed from the East to the Halls of the Dragons at Gi’ishior. Somehow, that woman had encountered Ra’aba, who had forced himself upon her. A child resulted. Perhaps she had tarried nine months, perhaps the woman had fled to her home, traumatised. In madness or in hatred of a babe she had never wanted, she had delivered the infant to the Maroon Dragoness. Why? For what purpose? How had a mere infant escaped that Dragoness’ clutches? And if she had dreamed accurately of being brought up by warm, caring Dragons, where did they fit in?

Lia felt as though she were stringing the beads of her life together. She had a string and a handful of beads, but some were missing. Some beads were hateful, bespeaking horror and shame. Some were rubies and diamonds, the sparkling emblems of love and friendship. One was still unknown, a blue gemstone which she sensed was good. And one represented a beautiful, faithful dragonet …

Lia? A soft chirp.

Flicker stood on the log, his primary eyelids squeezed shut ostentatiously. See? I’m respecting you by not regarding your nudity.

Umm … thanks, Flicker. She could not withhold a smile, and it must have communicated in her voice, because the dragonet’s purr swelled. What did you bring me?

Herbs to ease your grief and distress.

How thoughtful. Lia said, “Thank you. One second.” Having slipped into her undergarments, she splashed through the stream and reached out to the dragonet. “Join me, thou pinnacle of dragonet magnificence. Let’s bask beneath the twin suns.”

At times, he seemed just a vain and silly creature, she thought, like when he crooned at her extravagant compliments or posed and postured to be admired. Then, even as the suns reappeared from being eclipsed by Iridith’s great bulk, the lustre of his third heart shone through. Accepting a pawful of fresh herbs, Lia chewed on the sweet stems and leaves.

“Are you alright, Lia?”

“Aye.”

They soaked up the suns-shine for an hour more, not speaking, just being together. The Human girl’s arm lay beneath the dragonet’s head, her hair spread out on the soft, fragrant riverside grass to dry.

At length she said, “All my life I longed to know my parents, Flicker. I made up silly stories. They were anything from farmers to merchants, even Cloudlands pirates. Of course I’m not alright, and I am sorry I lied, but it just … hurts. It’s as if Ra’aba stuck me with that dagger all over again, as though he dug around in my innards with a blade and carved out all the goodness, all the light and beauty and laughter, bit by bit.” Flicker did not move, but she sensed his full attention. “We Humans say that you can’t choose your parents, but you can choose who you will be. That’s the Island of sanity, Flicker. When I face Ra’aba and wrest back the Onyx Throne, I will say to him, ‘I am the daughter you scorned, Ra’aba. I am love, overcoming your hatred. I am joy, the wellspring of my mother’s precious tears. I am the child of the Dragon.’ That is how it must be.”

“Child of the Dragon?” echoed the dragonet.

An inner acidity embittered her words. “It seems I have three fathers, Flicker. Ra’aba, Chalcion and Amaryllion. Why should it take an Ancient Dragon to teach me what a father’s love ought to be?”

Flicker replied, “Amongst the deepest tenets of Dragon lore, there is a truth seldom spoken. We say that a Dragon is thrice born.”

“Of course, it would be three, with your Dragonish love of triplets,” said Lia.

“Very insightful, Lia. So you knew that Dragon clutches always number three eggs?”

“No …”

“Allow me to instruct you,” said Flicker, in that smug, I-am-so-learned tone which unfailingly made her imagine slapping him. “It is said, a trio of shell-mates is the most potent draconic power of all. A Dragon is born once of the love between shell-father and shell-mother, and a second time of the shard, it is called–the moment a hatchling breaks free of the egg. The third birth is a rebirth of spirit and fire.”

Hualiama shook her head slowly. Just when she thought she knew a few things about Dragons! “Go on, Flicker.”

“It is a sacred subject,” he said gravely. “I hesitate to reveal such things to a Human. Sorry, Lia.” He flicked his secondary membranes at her, signalling a shared joke. “Therefore, I shall pretend I speak to a Dragoness. When a Dragon passes from juvenile to adult, he or she must pass through a rite of passage. So, Grandion will remain a juvenile until he–”

“Grandion,” the Tourmaline Dragon boomed, “says that gossiping dragonets should not speak without knowledge or understanding.” Lia stifled a giggle at Flicker’s peeved hiss; Grandion’s muzzle appeared at once over the log to fix them both with a savage glare. He snorted, “Twittering hatchlings! The quest of sacred fire is not for all Dragons. It is not a physical quest, necessarily, but a spiritual journey to understand one’s own fire-spirit, which is the innermost incarnation of every Dragon. For a year or two, a Dragon might withdraw into seclusion or roam the Island-World, seeking that one defining deed, that moment or insight which will guide and forge the fires of a Dragon’s soul. Often, this results in the release of new Dragon powers. Once a Dragon has completed this quest, he or she is regarded as a full adult member of the Dragon community, and is expected to bear a burden of responsibility and take a mate.”

Lia said, “So, you haven’t–”

“I have started.”

“Am I to understand, then, that exchanging oaths with a Human Dragon Rider was not a defining incident for you?”

“You think too much of yourself, Hualiama of Fra’anior!” His growl sounded so much like an admonishment of Amaryllion’s, at that moment, that Lia felt her lower lip tremble. Her terrace lake brimmed … and she despised her weakness. Grandion already thought her fragile, just a Human girl. The Dragon growled, “Nay, you meant it well, Lia. I … apologise.”

Briefly, a smile curved her lips. An apology from a Dragon?

With a visible twitch as he realised what he had said, Grandion complained, “By the fires of the Great Dragon himself, I’m starting to think like a Human!”

With that, the mountain of torment and confusion resulting from the last day dissolved into mirth for Lia. She knew an edge of panic lay at its root, but found herself incapable to withhold her laughter, especially as she took in Grandion’s increasingly bemused expression. She laughed until her stomach hurt and tears trickled down her cheeks. Too deeply wounded, her mind rebounded to a ridiculous extreme.

“What?” his discomfited laughter rumbled forth. “What’s so hilarious?”

At length, Lia chortled, “At last, one Dragon in this Island-World has achieved enlightenment.”

“ENLIGHTEN-WHAT?”

He coughed out a fireball at least ten feet in width, destroying a prekki-fruit tree across the dell from them. Oh, Grandion! Teasing him was a sport she could never tire of, even if it affronted a proud young Dragon. Despite his quick smile, Grandion’s belly-fires proclaimed his annoyance for an hour afterward.

Much discussion of the Maroon Dragoness’ words ensued, and much debate about the bargain Lia had struck with Ianthine. Grandion was scathing. “For what purpose did you grant that vile slug a favour? For knowledge which will haunt your nightmares ever after?” Flicker was more pragmatic. “As long as you never meet Ianthine again, Lia.” Hualiama concluded that if she could discover from which Eastern Island an envoy had come to Gi’ishior, fifteen and a half years ago, then she might learn her mother’s name and fate. But first, they had to return to the monastery offshore of Ha’athior.

As for Ra’aba, she refused to speak about him.

“We will not return to directly to Fra’anior,” said Grandion. “We must find your family, Lia.”

“Master Jo’el was very clear on the order of events–”

“On his order of events.”

Quirking an eyebrow, Lia smiled, “You’ve a better idea? Tell us.”

Grandion naturally set off on the wrong wingtip, snarling at Lia and squashing her–only half-jokingly–beneath his forepaw, before Flicker intervened to inform him that Lia was being neither insolent nor obtuse, but merely asking for clarification. His fires simmered down to a dull roar.

Arrogant male Dragon that he was, he made no move to release her.

Lia demanded, “Let me go!”

“Judging from the direction you say the Dragonships took while leaving the Fra’anior Cluster,” Grandion said, ignoring his captive’s wriggling, “we can surmise that Ra’aba removed your family toward Yaya Loop, or to Ur-Tagga Cluster, the closest of the Western Isles–both of which make for strange choices. Yaya Loop is inhabited by cannibalistic Human tribes, and Ur-Tagga would invite an enterprising Western Isles chieftain to take matters into his own paws for profit.”

Lia corrected, “Hands.”

Flicker burbled, “And you say I play with my food, Lia? Just look at Grandion.”

“I am not food! And I’d thank you to get your fat foot off my chest this instant, you weirdly flying chunk of flexible gemstone.”

“She might do that squeaking noise if you squash her a little more,” the dragonet suggested.

The Human girl drew breath to yell at her draconic companions, when the cunning reptile tapped his paw against her diaphragm. What came out was, “Grand-eeeyooo!”

Grandion snickered happily, making smoke billow out between his fangs. “Perfect.” Flicker zoomed around the Tourmaline Dragon, touching wingtips with him in celebration.

“Islands’ sakes, gently with the little Human,” Hualiama complained. “We’re breakable.” She shoved Grandion’s paw with all of her strength, but she might as well have attempted to move an Island. Lia gave up with a long-suffering sigh, peering up at the Dragon between his knuckles. “Fine. Grandion, where do you suggest we look?”

“Well, I conclude that we’ll find the King of Fra’anior in neither of those places.”

Hualiama pictured a map in her head. “You’re thinking they switched direction? I’d guess offshore of Naphtha … but that’s relatively close to Fra’anior.” The Dragon showed rather more of his fangs than Lia would have preferred. She pouted, “Pray explain the workings of your incredibly dense reptilian brain, you overweening tyrant, and stop oppressing me!”

“Op-pressing?” Flicker hooted. “Good one, Lia!”

Affecting a haughty sneer, Grandion pontificated, “Pay attention, you vanishingly primitive life-form. Human cartographers have clearly passed their delusions on to you. It is over seven hundred leagues from Fra’anior to the Western Isles, a distance not even the most powerful Dragon could traverse in a single flight. Noxia to the Western Isles measures nine hundred and fifty leagues, give or take a few Dragons’ tails.”

“Correction noted, you suns-addled lizard,” she retorted. “So?”

Flicker said, “So our route must lie northwest, past Remia to Horness Cluster. From there, there’s a little known under-Cloudlands ridge by which we might be able to Island-hop to the Western Isles. We skirt the Western Isles, exploring southward. There are plenty of hiding places up to a hundred leagues offshore of the main body of the Western Isles–isolated Islets, boulders, volcanoes and such. If your family are anywhere to be found, it will be there.”

“Bravo, little one,” said Grandion, “and the Dragonkind beat Humankind for two minutes of history, at least.” With that, he raised his paw.

Lia stormed up the length of the Dragon’s body to kick him in the neck. Hurting her foot was rather pointless, but Grandion’s goggle-eyed reaction certainly was gratifying.

* * * *

Looking to the skies, Grandion said, “What say you we make the hop over to Remia Island and roost there for the night?”

Handy, when you could ‘hop’ several hundred leagues from Island to Island. Lia considered all the preparations she would have made for such a journey in her solo Dragonship–stores of food and fuel, filling up on hydrogen gas, extra ropes and sails … and a Tourmaline Dragon simply spread his wings and flew where his whimsy took him. She was just beginning to feel sour about the differences between her huge draconic companion and her wingless, fireless, talon-less self, when the Dragon suddenly nosed the back of her neck and rumbled:

“Best clothe thyself, o Princess of Fra’anior, before this despicable beast develops a craving for Human sustenance.”

How his voice trembled her Island! Lia, making for her clothes and weapons over a perfectly even, lush stretch of meadow grass, yelped as her knees crumpled–she managed a frightfully undignified wobble that turned into a hands-and-knees scramble, landing her on top of her belongings with a huff of infuriation. Grandion’s hot snort of laughter flipped her hair over her head. Sly beast! He knew exactly what mischief he had wrought. When Hualiama made to mount up, he offered her his cupped forepaw with a measure of debonair flair that threatened to put the most pompous Fra’aniorian courtier to shame. Fire blossomed in Lia’s cheeks as she lowered her eyes to evade his scrutiny, while her breath quickened for no good reason.

What peculiar mood possessed the Dragon?

Worse, what was wrong with her? Surely, she no longer feared the Dragon? And she was no giddy thirteen year-old to simper over handsome courtiers or servants at the palace. Unlike her sister Fyria, Lia had always regarded herself as the one with her feet firmly grounded on her Island, and to the windrocs with self-indulgent behaviour. Now her feet were grounded upon a Dragon’s shoulders, about to fly ten thousand feet above the Islands.

Life seemed a different prospect when soaring Dragonback.

Trumpeting, “Let’s burn the heavens together as Dragon and Rider!” Grandion launched into the sky on the wings of turbulent emotion. Power and grace. Fire and fury. He exhibited a driving anger which Lia did not understand, but it mirrored how she felt when she thought about Ianthine, and considered the curl of her claw about an innocent baby. There were depths to that interaction she could not fully grasp; an intertwined fate whose story was yet to be written upon the scrolleaf.

And so it was that as the dread of her future threatened to embroil Hualiama and drag her into the toxic Cloudlands of despair, Grandion began to sing:

Still be thy soul, let thy fears take flight,

Gaze upon the dawn bright and fair,

For the spirit of fire unquenchable lives on,

There is no death, only flame everlasting.

Dragons had three areas of the long throat in which to produce sound simultaneously–the booming depths of the chest, the warbling tenor of the middle throat, and a soft, flexible flap of the palette which a skilled Dragon could manipulate to produce notes of piercing clarity which rose to pitches inaudible to the Human ear. A symphony of sound poured from the Dragon’s throat, as though he were the singer and his instruments merged together. Such music no Human could ever produce. It was otherworldly, stirring a wild, inexpressible conflagration in Hualiama’s breast. Shucking her saddle straps–to Flicker’s gasp of dismay–Lia stepped out to dance upon the Tourmaline Dragon’s broad upper shoulder, as though he were the stage and the Island-World spread out before them, an audience of uncountable millions of souls.

The dragonet burst into a rapturous, trilling descant as he sprang into the air, surrounding Hualiama in a complex aerial dance. The sweeter her draconic companions sang, the higher she danced, careless of any consequence. All that was pain could be surrendered to the splendour of this endless moment. Three souls worshipped in ways common to their kind, yearning in their oneness for a greater, more exhilarating reality beyond the veil of world and flesh, a place where the song never ended.

Later, they soared over the deeps in profound silence.

The Dragon rose into the skies, his gemstone scales gilded by the sky-fires, which Flicker told them in dragonet mythology signified the eyes of the Great Dragon. Grandion laboured aloft until at a height of two and a half leagues he reached a Dragons’ Highway, a jet stream of such a wind as Hualiama had never imagined. Despite being protected by his magic, in which the Tourmaline Dragon cocooned Lia and Flicker from the effects of the extreme altitude, the wind snatched her breath away. It picked Grandion up and hurled him westward so that they soon left Noxia far in their wake, screamed over Remia Island and its smaller, outlying satellite Islands at a speed of over fifty leagues an hour, according to Flicker’s calculations, and then arrowed toward the pin-sharp peaks of Horness Cluster at the same breathtaking velocity. A Dragonship could manage just three to four leagues per hour, Lia discussed with the dragonet. He just chuckled, making his eyes whirl with fire to express how quaint he found her idea.

A tick or two shy of five hours later, they descended upon Horness Cluster like a bolt of blue lightning seeking to blast the Islands asunder.

Lia and Flicker slept curled up in the crook of Grandion’s paw, alongside his neck.

Chapter 24: Searching

The creak OF a Dragonship’s rigging woke Flicker. Stirring, his eye-membranes blinked rapidly as he tried to process what he was seeing. His muzzle dropped open. Unholy monkey droppings!

The dragonet butted Lia’s cheek. Hss. Straw-head. Stop snoring. We’re in trouble.

Rock me in your paw, Mama. Hualiama chuckled in her sleep.

Flicker poked her with his talon. Up. Think of something, o she of miniscule brains. Grandion! Couldn’t you have warned us?

“Sir, it’s a Dragon.” A voice carried clearly on the breeze.

“Ready catapults! Back up, Steersman! Take no chances, men.”

Grandion said something low and rude under his breath as his belly fires growled mightily. I was sleeping too … shards take it! So many … Lia, do something. Quick.

Oh, so it’s up to me, you two pebble-brained reptiles? Lia’s mental tone brought an image of an irate wasp to Flicker’s mind.

Leaping to her feet, the Human girl quickly scanned their surroundings, realising what Flicker had already determined with his penetrating intellect. An army of Dragonships had drifted in from the north during the night, but she and Flicker had been fortuitously hidden behind Grandion’s bulk as the Human fleet approached.

Of course, being a straw-head Lia wandered right out into the open and stood staring up at the Dragonships, coming in low over the trees, just forty feet overhead. A rope ladder dangled from the nearest vessel. A young, dark-haired Human officer dangled fifteen feet above the ground on that ladder, caught in the act of descending to investigate. He, too, gaped with a most unbecoming, slack-jawed, typically Human expression at Lia.

“There’s a girl!” he exclaimed, making Hualiama sound like the most astonishing sight in the world.

Well, Flicker could relate to that. She was astonishing. Do your fluttering thing with your eyelashes, Lia, suggested the dragonet.

Lia looked fearfully at what had to be four Dragonships’ worth of war crossbows with their giant, metal-tipped quarrels all trained on Grandion, and another three dozen Dragonships drifting down the breeze toward them. At least a hundred fighting men clad in brown leather armour, armed to the teeth with swords, javelins and longbows, stared down at them from the gantries abutting the Dragonships’ cabins.

I’ll burn them all, growled Grandion.

From the corner of her mouth, Hualiama whispered, No. Lie still, Grandion, and use your magic to look old.

The Dragon snorted, What?

Old. Decrepit, said Flicker. Senile as a mouldy bat–

I’m going to start killing things any second!

Hush, just do it, said Lia. Magic rippled as the Dragon deployed his wiles.

“Islands greetings, noble sirs,” she called, gaily. “What fair breeze brings thee to my little dell? Is that a flying bird machine?”

“It’s a Dragonship,” said the man.

“Ooh, I’ve got a Dragon.” Lia bounced up and down on her toes. Interesting, thought Flicker. A bit of jiggling and that poor man’s jaw sagged like a Dragon taking his widest yawn. “Look, isn’t he cute and adorable? I call him Grandion. It’s a bit of a silly name for such a timeworn, snaggletoothed beast–”

Grandion clamped his jaw shut. Still, fire leaked around his fangs and the roar of his belly fires was unmistakable.

“He sounds dangerous,” said the officer, looking Hualiama up and down with an appreciative grin. Flicker’s claws clenched. He would perpetrate a murder or two of his own if that carried on!

“He has the most terrible indigestion.” Lia gave the man a silly wave and fluttered her eyelashes, ignoring Grandion’s fang-grinding response right behind her. “Ooh, you’re kind of cute too. Do you want to come down and play with me?”

To Flicker’s fascination, the man’s colour flushed to a rich beet-red. Hoots of laughter sounded from the gantries of the Dragonships above as the soldiers relaxed; hands dropped from their weapons. A few began calling out ribald suggestions to the increasingly steamed officer. “Bring her up, sir!” “I want to play, pick me.” “Sir, why don’t we kill the Dragon?” “She’s a simpleton, you idiot.” “Simply volcanic.”

“Stand down!” he called to his men. “Where are you from, girl?”

Hualiama made a few small circles in the grass with her big toe as she gazed demurely up at the officer. “Just over there.” She flapped her hand absently. “Can’t you play with me? The Dragon’s nice. He’s two hundred years old and he tells nice stories, but he sleeps most of the time. I’m so lonely.”

“Oh, my Islands!” yelled one of the soldiers, from a Dragonship which was directly overhead now, casting a shadow over Lia. “Can I be lost on this Island, sir? Pleeeeeeeeaaassse?”

Another voice called, “Permission to shoot the Dragon, sir?”

“We’ll see plenty more Dragons at Fra’anior!” snapped the officer. “Stay at your posts. Stand down, but stay alert.”

Several of the men took to advancing creative ideas about the games they might like to play with Lia. The bold one shouted, “O beauteous maiden of the Isles, we are soldiers from the Yorbik Free Federation, and we’ll come back this way once we’ve finished making our demands of the Dragons at Gi’ishior. Remember me, my suns-shine! My name is–”

“Attention, soldier!” A gruff bark silenced them all. “What’s the meaning of this? Giving away military secrets?”

The brown-shirted one protested volubly to the new arrival, an older Human man wearing golden bands on his arms that appeared to raise his status in the hierarchy. Flicker’s grin widened as the high one summarily ordered his inferior to take a double shift on the turbines to work off his excess energy. His Lia could certainly provoke these Human males! A flick of her wings, a spark from those fiery green eyes … any Dragoness could take lessons from this one.

Then, golden-bands leaned over the side of his vessel, scanning the scene with alert interest. “A feeble old Dragon and a girl … who happens to match the description of a lost Princess of Fra’anior?”

No fool, he! Flicker almost rushed over to Lia; he knew her so well now, he had no need to hear her heart bolting off like a startled lemur scenting a hunting dragonet, to recognise her dismay. A pause of wing-tearing horror ensued, the dragonet frozen, the Dragonship slowly drifting by, the hard-eyed man’s gaze fixed upon Lia.

Her face screwed up in apparent endeavour. “Where’s franor … frilly … frallior?” When no-one answered, Lia kicked a tuft of grass with a petulant cry, “Mean boys! Nobody wants to play with me.” She stomped off a few steps, muttering crossly.

The senior man shook his head. “Nah. No chance.”

Lia was doing an excellent impression of a thumb-sucking Human youngster Flicker had once seen while snooping about their dwelling. Ah! Now he saw the twin suns. She imitated a Human hatchling, playing to their natural instinct to protect their younglings. Smart girl. And brave, keeping her fires banked while she dealt with the danger.

Gold-bands called down, “Girl, Dragons are dangerous creatures. You should take more care. Now, wish us well as we fly south to treat with these treacherous beasts at Gi’ishior, for they have been ravaging our Islands and people.” Straightening up, he bellowed at his men, “The job of soldiers is to protect the innocent! We are moral men, soldiers of the Federation, neither dogs to pillage and despoil where we please, nor men who murder the elderly and vulnerable, be they Dragon or Human! Move out!”

Hualiama waved and blew kisses to the men on the Dragonships as the fleet puttered by overhead, collecting sundry offers of companionship, marriage and even the Jade moon. When they had vanished over the low hills to the south, she sagged against Grandion’s flank.

The Tourmaline Dragon took a playful nip at her knee. “Snaggletoothed, eh? Cute and adorable? And you, dragonet–did I hear the words ‘mouldy bat’ trip off your tongue?”

Flicker said, “So, Lia, exactly what kind of playtime were you envisaging with those soldiers?”

“Ooh, aren’t we jealous?” She tickled the dragonet under the chin, to his irritation. “So what if I thought that officer was cute–”

Flicker and Grandion snapped at her simultaneously.

Hualiama’s rich, joyous laughter rippled over them. “Now we’re both acting jealous? Boys–not boys. Oh, Islands’ sakes. Flicker, you told me to flutter my eyelashes. It worked. Grandion has no holes in his hide. We learned some valuable intelligence. Ra’aba’s plot gathers pace and the Humans are starting to respond.”

“Intelligence? You imitate a straw-head all too well,” sniffed Flicker.

“You were brave,” said Grandion, with an arch look at the dragonet, who ruffled his wings and made a disgusted noise. “But Lia is right. War is imminent. Each of those Dragonships holds fifty Human soldiers–I calculate there are up to two thousand two hundred soldiers of Yorbik on the move, a grave threat. The only boon we have in this situation is that Sapphurion is a voice of integrity and reason.”

“And will these Humans support us against Ra’aba?” the dragonet asked.

Lia shook her head. “I know the politics well enough, for a royal ward. When King Chalcion was loud and very drunk a few months ago, I remember him shouting about the Free Federation, how they cared not for who sat upon the Onyx Throne, that we were all slaves and puppets, Dragon-lovers and worse. But if we know Ra’aba in the slightest, we know he will find a way to turn this to his advantage.”

“In our culture, being a Human-lover is about the worst slur imaginable–a mortal insult, we Dragons call it,” said the Tourmaline Dragon. “Curse words. Even treating one’s slaves well was frowned upon. Beat them, starve them, eradicate one or two on occasion by way of keeping the rest in line … it’s hard to believe we Dragons behaved that way. But Razzior and his kin are still of that opinion. Humans are lice, parasites, a plague to be scorched off the face of the Islands. Some follow him openly, others merely believe it in their hearts.”

“As in, fleas and armpits?”

Hualiama’s tone was surprisingly sharp. The dragonet’s eyes flicked from one to the other, wondering what he had missed.

The Tourmaline Dragon lowered his muzzle, a remorseful orange fire leaching into his eyes. After a long pause, the Human girl stepped closer to the Dragon. She hesitated over a decision Flicker did not understand, before spreading her arms as far as she could reach, and resting her cheek against the small scales beside his eye. A tremor seemed to pass between them.

Lia whispered, “I guess fleas can’t be all bad, can they?”

His paw engulfed her back, tenderly cupping her tiny frame. “No.”

Time stood still for the dragonet, his seventh sense tingling with a new insight. At last, he understood the nature of the magic between his companions. This was a power that promised to stand the Island-World upon its head. This was magic worth dying for.

Yet, sorrow damped his fires. Did his Lia know that when they found her family, it must end? Should his daughter misbehave, King Chalcion would ride to war against the Dragons–no question about that. Nor could any Human ride Dragonback and live. No Human could draw this close to a dragonet or a Dragon, for every paw and every hand would be raised against them.

The Island-World was not ready for such a miraculous magic. It would lash out and destroy them before allowing their magic to take root.

Yet, it was beautiful. And neither of them knew it.

* * * *

From the sharp-fanged black Isles of Horness Cluster, the trio travelled ever southward, following the snaking ridge beneath the Cloudlands, topped here and there with Islands peeking shyly above the cloud cover. Most were too low, too close to the poisons down below to contemplate as a stopping-over place, but they perched one night atop a column of rock just fifty feet wide, a second night upon the flank of a constantly spitting volcano, and the third, a goodly distance down the flank of the Western Isles at the latitude of Rolodia Island and a hundred leagues or more north of Naphtha Cluster.

Having been chased into shelter by a massive storm, they waited it out in the shelter of an old Dragon roost, while the winds shrieked a dreadful song and the rain poured so mightily that they could scarcely see five feet outside of the cave mouth.

“Once this blows over, our search truly begins,” said Grandion.

Lia did not even pause her Nuyallith forms as she replied, “I say we’ll find them between Naphtha and Ur-Tagga. Flicker?”

“Exactly two hundred and fifty-seven miles south of Naphtha,” chirped the dragonet. “Lia, do you remember that morning when we sang and you danced upon Grandion’s back? I sensed the fire of magic in your dance. These Nuyallith forms you practice are also a channel for the inner fire. If you learn to release your power through those blades, or release their inherent power …”

She landed with a sharp cry, splitting an imaginary opponent in half. “I might stand a gnat’s chance in a storm of beating Ra’aba?”

“A large gnat,” said the dragonet, illustrating with his claws.

“Perhaps as much as a yellow finch,” agreed Grandion.

Hualiama stuck out her tongue at the two of them. “Don’t overdo the encouragement there, my faithful escorts.”

Flicker chuckled, “Right. Try this. You’ll storm the palace, Hualiama, scattering all before you with the might of your wrathful presence, and slay Ra’aba with one glance of your burning eye.”

“You will strike him with such power that his teeth will rattle off the Mystic moon,” growled the Tourmaline Dragon, “following which you will dice his body into a million tiny pieces and scatter them from here to Herimor, not missing a single square inch of Cloudlands in between.”

“I don’t think that’s mathematically possible,” the dragonet disagreed.

Lia snapped, “Oh, just forget I spoke!”

She wanted to shout ‘men!’ But that would merely insult them. Did they not realise, or care for her feelings, that she must destroy her real father in order to reclaim the Onyx Throne for her adopted father? Oh, and all of this at the behest of Amaryllion, who she called her Dragon father? What irony could possibly bite deeper than this?

Ra’aba had toyed with her, that day on the Dragonship.

Surely, he could not know she was his daughter? What was the connection between her and the prophecy? Who had Ra’aba killed with his own hands, twice? Her mother? No. If Hualiama had not been lying on the floor, silenced by the Nameless Man, she might have seen the Roc’s eyes and known the truth for what it was–a truth which swirled about her like leaves tossed in a wind, eluding her grasp. The Orange Dragon’s attack, the exact shade of the zeal in Razzior’s eyes as he prepared to incinerate her with his Dragon fire …

The world seemed to flicker through darkness.

“Lia?”

Flicker was on her shoulder, crooning in her ear.

“Oh … what happened?”

“You cried out. You’re cold! So cold, what’s the matter?”

“I was thinking about the day the Orange Dragon attacked me. You remember that, don’t you? Of course you do.” Hualiama rubbed her temples. “I don’t feel very well. Flicker, I’m still struck by this instinct, as I think about what Ra’aba said about the prophecy, that he and Razzior are linked, somehow. More than allies. More than creatures who take joy in evil deeds. There’s … something … and I’m missing it. Perhaps it’s a power of ruzal–you remember, Amaryllion suspected the touch of ruzal on my life.”

Flicker nodded. “It stands to reason. If Ianthine somehow knew you as a babe, then maybe that’s the touch Amaryllion spoke of.”

“Why would a Maroon Dragoness steal a child from its Human mother? What would she stand to gain?”

Softly, Grandion rumbled, “We weren’t about to make further inquiries from the Maroon Dragoness. Besides, Ianthine revealed that your mother tortured her. Revenge is reason enough to snatch a baby, surely?”

Hualiama marched from one side of the cavern to the other, demanding, “How does a Human–any Human–go about torturing a Dragon as powerful as Ianthine? Riddle me that, Grandion! How powerful would my mother have to be?” Right beneath the Tourmaline Dragon’s nose, she whirled, wringing her hands in frustration. “Even at Fra’anior, home to the most ancient of Dragon magic, where some Humans like me display magical powers–Grandion, it’s impossible! Far beyond the Isle of belief! Moreover, why keep the child? Why not toss it into the Cloudlands, Islands’ sakes?”

The Dragon seemed flustered. Lia laid her hand against the warm scales of his neck, sensing that the powerful male Dragon would prefer to feel in control of events, to possess the answers his Rider sought. Thanks for letting me vent, Grandion.

He touched her shoulder with his talon. I’m constantly astonished by the volcanic passions burning in your breast, like a little Dragoness. Do not apologise. These are fearful, Island-shaking conundrums.

“Because,” began Flicker. As his companions turned to him, the dragonet coughed uneasily. He seemed as fearful as Lia had ever known him to be, a creature bereft of hope. “Because, ‘It comes with an innocent face, unaware of the secrets locked within its breast’.”

An involuntary whimper escaped her throat before Hualiama found heated words spilling out, “But what, Flicker? If even an Ancient Dragon was unable to put his claw on this secret I’m supposed to be holding, how great a secret could it be?”

Both of her friends shuddered.

The dragonet whispered, “I wish you hadn’t said it quite that way, Lia. It’s at least great enough to leave that scar on your belly, and to make an Orange Dragon hunt you.”

“And to drive a Maroon Dragoness to an act of desperation which has exiled her from the Dragonkind for fifteen and a half years,” Grandion added, drawing Lia to him with a gentle nudge of his paw, curled around her shoulders. “Furthermore, Amaryllion may be playing in deeper lava pits than you or I could imagine.”

“He’s my friend.” Lia sounded plaintive, and hated herself for being on the defensive. “Look, I trust Amaryllion. He’s never given me reason not to trust him.”

The Tourmaline Dragon made no reply, but the surging vibration of his belly-fires betrayed his thoughts. She knew as well as they did, that an Ancient Dragon’s motives might be completely incomprehensible to any ordinary Dragon, Human or dragonet. He was over two thousand years old. Plenty of time to learn how to manipulate the lives of those smaller than he.

They all three sighed as one.

* * * *

The Western Isles were a dense, untamed archipelago sprawling all of the thousands of leagues from Haffal Cluster in the north to the shores of the Rift, the impassable storm said to divide the northern Island-World from a far larger demesne to the south. If the Rift was truly impassable, Lia had often wondered, how did the legends tell of Herimor? Had the Ancient Dragons passed down tales to their slaves? Here, the Islands were so rough-edged and scattered, they seemed incomplete, a vast draconic jigsaw left unfinished upon such a table as might have dwarfed even the greatest Dragon of all, Fra’anior.

They hunted up and down the shores of Naphtha Cluster, peering at every one of its hundreds of outlying islets and outcroppings, without success. Thick vegetation piled over dense clusters of rock and sudden inlets in the Islands, with fractured ravines and gaping caverns that all took time to investigate. Few Islands could be discounted from afar. Flicker spied a Human settlement on one Isle; he disappeared to filch a quiver of arrows to resupply Lia’s bow.

“You can’t just steal like that!” Hualiama admonished him.

The dragonet shrugged his shoulder in a Human-like gesture. “You can’t just ride a Dragon like that.”

They exchanged ferocious growls before bursting into laughter. Grandion accused them of acting like a pair of cackling parakeets. Lia ordered the dragonet to return to the Humans with a gemstone for payment, in exchange for the promise of cleaning and polishing his scales for an hour.

Late in the afternoon of the third day of their search, Grandion began to drift further south. Flying over yet another overgrown patch of boulders poking out of the Cloudlands in the improbable shape of a Human’s clenched fist surmounting a slender tower of rock, the Dragon unwittingly subjected his rider to the perils of flying at speed through a swarm of gnats with her mouth open.

“Yum,” said Flicker, perched on Grandion’s shoulder as he sieved the air for delicacies. “Can we do that again?”

“Pah! Yuck!” Lia spat. She wiped her mouth and averted her head.

“I spotted a place to rest just a couple of minutes ago,” said Grandion, banking sharply.

Shortly, the Dragon flared his wings, bringing them to a gentle landing beside a shallow volcanic pool with water the colour of Grandion’s scales. Lia peered about in delight. Was it tourmaline or some other gemstone creating that remarkable colour? Reflected suns-light rippled across the underside of a wide rock ledge which overhung half of the pool, but the true delight was the gossamer-thin sheets of water which poured over most of the ledge’s width from a height of thirty feet, water which mingled with long, trailing fronds to create a tinkling curtain. Lush ferns adorned the obsidian cliffs of the natural dell. Below the water pool was a second, markedly different pool–a bubbling pot of orange magma. The tiny caldera seemed barely big enough for Grandion, but he eyed it with the same delight Lia had reserved for the waterfall above.

“I’ll be down there if you need me,” he said.

“You plan to roast your rump in molten lava?” Lia clarified.

“You have to try it sometime,” the Dragon asserted. “If you can stand the heat, its perfect for killing off scale mites, and I have the most fearsome itch around my–”

The dragonet squeaked, “Stop! There’s a lady present.”

“My left inner thigh, I was about to say.”

Unbuckling the straps, Lia stretched her legs and yawned. “I don’t have any itches, but there are definitely parts of me I can no longer feel. Can’t you invest in a little padding, Grandion?”

“A plump cushion for the royal rump?” Flicker found the subject irresistible, as usual.

Great Islands, she had the choice between a snooze in the suns and bathing in the pool. There was even a blue-black, glistening strip of beach. Heavenly! The suns won by virtue of overcoming her before she reached the water. Sometimes she could imagine herself as a Dragoness, Lia thought, letting the warming heat beat upon her back, shoulders and legs with an inward sigh of pleasure. Ooh, she was too lazy even to cover her head with her headscarf, which had come to seem more and more trivial the longer she spent travelling Dragonback. Just a few minutes …

Flicker chirped, I’m off to hunt, your un-royal laziness.

Don’t play with your food, she mumbled, already sinking into a dream–so fast, it seemed a vortex sucked her in.

Voices sounded near the veiled crib wherein she lay, warm and snug.

“I have come for the child, Azziala, according to our bargain.”

A woman’s voice, as dull as a spent fire, intoned, “First, give me the knowledge, Dragoness. Then you may do with the whelp what you wish.”

“Here.” She heard a rustling of scrolleaf. “This was all that was left after those traitors burned it. But as you can see, it is unparalleled amongst Dragon lore. Mastering this will give you power over Dragons.”

“Yes.” Low, hungry, a cry of triumph. “At last!”

“May I take the child?”

She heard a careless, heartless laugh. “Take Ra’aba’s whelp, Ianthine. Use it against him.”

Oh, you supreme fool, that I will. The cradle jolted. Hualiama heard herself gurgling happily at the gentle movement. The Dragoness growled, “I have all I need.”

Fear trickled into her infantile awareness.

Adrift in a hot red ocean behind her closed eyelids, Lia rocked to the motion of Dragon wings bearing her across the Island-World. She wailed for warmth, for nurture, but there was only a cool wind caressing her face and the rasp of a Dragon’s paw upon her tender skin. She was wet and soiled, but the Dragoness did not seem to care. Hour after hour, the suns winked in and out from behind huge, spreading purple wings, making baby-Lia screw up her face and scream.

Hush, little one, the Dragoness whispered. We return to the Isle of your father. This is the hour of my greatest triumph. All Dragons will know that Ianthine saved them from a fate worse than death.

Abruptly the dream jumped to Dragons, thundering over her. Hualiama lay on sand, bawling uselessly at the commotion, ignored and unwanted. A crackling of fire overhead. Lightning flaring in an enclosed space. A cacophony of Dragon voices resounded above her–perhaps three or more Dragons. Magic prickled across her skin.

THOU CANST NOT BIND ME!

Was that a roar she knew? The voice of the great Blue Dragon?

Ianthine vented a terrible shriek that stabbed daggers of pain into her young eardrums. NO! NOOOOO!

Lia awoke in the aftermath of a soul-lost tremor, the kind of waking that always made her wonder if the breath she had just inhaled would be her last. A single thought shone above all others–she knew her mother’s name! Azziala …

Reflexively, Hualiama scratched her back. Her skin itched fiercely. A sharp prickling developed all over her legs and lower back.

Then, a thousand needles stabbed into her skin at once.

Chapter 25: Ants and Slaves

FLicker spat out an eight-inch long, luminous orange lizard which he had been about to slurp down his gullet, and gaped at Lia in astonishment. Shards take it, was this some strange new Human dance? Straw-head writhed across the sand in a series of bizarre, juddering lurches, slapping herself frantically, shrieking as though she had tipped over the cliff edge of insanity. What entertainment! The reprieved lizard vanished beneath a rock.

Moreover, she did not stop. Lia fell to tearing off her coverings in the most amazing hurry. She literally tore the cloth, wrenching her arms out of her tunic top with what sounded suspiciously like curses–to his knowledge, his Lia never cursed. The dragonet flicked his wings in consternation as Hualiama’s leggings flew in one direction and the under-tunic in another, and then his belly fires rumbled as she shucked her underclothes too! That was an Island too far, as the saying went.

Glancing aside awkwardly, he saw the Tourmaline Dragon, forepaws planted shoulder-width apart on the rim of his lava bath, staring at straw-head with equal incomprehension. Lia charged into the pool, screeching like a starving Dragon hatchling, and thrashed about in the water with all the grace, he had to admit, of a fish speared on the point of a dragonet’s talon.

Whatever was the matter with her?

Grandion began to guffaw at her gyrations. Insensitive clod! Flicker’s anger burned at the Dragon.

Lia began to rise and then collapsed again with a yelp. Concerned, the dragonet darted over to the water’s edge. Perhaps she had gone feral? Ianthine had been most ungentle with his lovely girl. The knowledge that her own shell-father had tried to murder her could not be easy to live with.

Finally, Lia found her feet. She checked her body with her hands–searching for scale mites, perhaps? Not that Humans seemed to get those. Hualiama was careful with her hair, though, keeping it clean of pests and infestation. Dragon hide was so much easier to maintain, apart from the ever-tenacious scale mites. Flicker scratched his neck. Even the thought of them seemed to make him itch.

Grandion was still chortling so hard, he hiccoughed spurts of fire involuntarily between his fangs.

Lia whirled on her heel. “Grandion–ants! There were ants, you wretched, unfeeling reptile …”

“Fire ants?” asked the Tourmaline Dragon. “You slept on a nest of fire ants?”

“Stop laughing! It was painful. They bit me here, and here … oh.”

Lia stiffened.

Flicker’s eyes leaped to Grandion. The Dragon’s expression had changed. His laughter seized up in his throat. The Tourmaline Dragon gazed hungrily at the Human girl as though, having unexpectedly sighted the most tempting treasure hoard in existence, he had been overcome by what Dragons called the gold-fever. His talons clenched, splintering the rock he held. His jaw cracked open. Flicker smelled the hot, sulphurous burn of his breath from twenty feet away, and the tempo of his triple heartbeat was that of the height of battle.

Lia covered her nudity with her hands, stammering, “G-G-Grandion, d-don’t look at m-me … like that.”

“Like what?” purred the Dragon, yet it was far from a pleasant sound. Flicker was quite convinced his draconic companion was about to pounce on Lia and gobble her up.

* * * *

Hualiama had never seen such a hateful, predatory light in Grandion’s eye. The quivering of his muscles, coiled for action, speared dread into her stomach. What had she done? Was it the mere sight of her nudity, which–Islands’ sakes, he was a Dragon!

She ventured in reply, “Like you want to … devour me?”

Grandion slithered up out of his pool, sixty-five feet of sinuous muscle and draconic grace. Molten lava sheeted off his flanks. He stalked closer, fixated on Lia as she stood thigh-deep in the water, quite incapable of movement. In Human lore Dragons were synonymous with greed and savagery; their cunning and love of jewels and precious things, the fodder of legends and ballads. Grandion did not speak, but his all-consuming gaze and his dominant stance spoke of all this and more. Dragons were beyond Human understanding, her quaking body told her. Raw, animal emotion …

Lia shook herself, crying, “Stop. Get away from me … Grandion, please.” Her voice cracked. “Flicker, do something. He’s gone mad.”

The dragonet looked between them several times, very quickly. “Well,” he said with studied unconcern. “It’s a bit pointless trying to hide like that, wouldn’t you say?”

Lia blinked, feeling her cheeks heat up to a furnace temperature. “Flicker, this is hardly the time for another of your crude jokes!” When the dragonet only smirked at her, she added, “Speak to him, Flicker! Tell him to stop scaring me–”

Flicker drawled, “The Human girl really needs bigger hands to cover her beauty properly–wouldn’t you agree, Grandion?”

Hualiama gave a small shriek of fury, sinking down to her neck in the water. “You are toast!” she yelled at the dragonet. “I’ll barbecue your entrails for dinner! I’ll wring your scrawny, worthless neck and tan your hide into saddle leather! And after that, do you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to kick your scaly backside over the next ten Islands, you vulgar, insolent … flying slug!”

A gruff bark of amusement startled them both. Abruptly, Grandion sat back on his haunches and began to shake with truly belly-shaking guffaws. “Flying slug,” he chortled. “That’s a good one.”

Flicker stalked off a few paces, miffed.

Lia did not know whether to throttle the dragonet or kiss him. By some miracle his joke–which she did not appreciate in the slightest–had punctured Grandion’s freakish avarice, and the tension which had practically boiled the water between them, evaporated as the mists of the dawn. His eyes lost their sheen of green. A softer, yellower flame burned there, an altogether more enticing colour.

The Dragon’s gaze was unblinking. Compelling. Utterly irresistible.

Despite an echo of peril lingering in the air and the erratic hammering of her heart, Lia found herself paddling closer to the Tourmaline Dragon as if drawn to him by an invisible hawser. So tranquil was the afternoon that even the slightest ripple stirred by her body created echoes, while the tinkling of the waterfall made an interplay of melodies between the stone walls.

Was this wise? Not on any Island, but her body refused to obey.

“Are you trying to hypnotise me?” Lia whispered.

Equally softly, he responded, “I am trying and failing to understand what power you have exerted over the fires of my soul since that very first day I struck you down with my paw, Hualiama. Can you not taste the magic surrounding us?”

“It burns within me, Grandion. Oh, I wish … how I wish things were different.”

He sighed, stirring the water with his left foreclaw.

“I don’t want to be without you. Ever. I wish …” How could she make him understand these choked-up feelings locked in her heart, bound and chained in the laws, traditions and practices of a thousand years? Lia choked out, “I wish I could fly.”

Were he to regard her like that, she must wish to have wings, scales and Dragon hide. Not two legs, soft tan skin, and an absence of draconic raiment.

“We can fly whenever you want, Lia.” I would show thee the marvels of this Island-World, my Rider, my … he also seemed on the verge of saying something more, but could not.

Two Islands they were, longing to bridge the silence of things that could never be spoken.

Then, she rose.

Knee deep in pearlescent blue water, Hualiama of Fra’anior straightened her back, clad only in her tumbling platinum hair, the Dragon scale, and the raiment of her skin. She smiled tremulously, spreading her hands. “Here I am, Grandion. This is my hide, and this is all there is to me. Simply, a Human girl.” The Dragon’s eyes widened. He seemed to have mislaid the power to breathe. Clearly, Lia heard the complex thudding of his hearts, louder and louder, coming to her senses as a distinct, fervent gallop. “I’m neither tall nor strong, and I weep for happiness and sing when I’m sad, and my heritage seems a shameful thing. I befriend Dragons from the smallest to the greatest. I speak a forbidden language, have a history of desecrating holy Dragon Islands, and generally make a nuisance of myself by refusing to die when I’m supposed to.”

The Tourmaline Dragon bowed gravely to Lia, almost dipping his muzzle in the water. “Simply? What I see is gritty, crazy and beautiful Human …” Grandion’s long throat worked as he searched for words. “Forgive my blundering tongue and my deplorable behaviour. I’m confused, Hualiama, my hearts captivated by this magic … and by all you are. I know not what to make of it. One thing I understand. This Dragon is profoundly honoured to have you as his Dragon Rider.”

The pulse in her throat seemed attuned to the drumbeat of his Dragon hearts. It burned on her tongue to tell Grandion about her dreams, yet she withheld. Something in the gravity of the moment prevented it. Then, the chance evaporated.

Lia said, “You frightened me.”

“Aye,” he growled, with a piratical leer, “we must keep our slaves in line, we must! A nibble here, a beating there …”

The Human girl chuckled, “Allow me to remind you, my humble means of transportation, of who rides who in this relationship?”

Not to be outdone, Grandion declaimed:

Cruel was she, that Dragoness fair,

A cunning heart in evil lair,

Black-fire burning in hearts of stone,

She tossed that slave about like a bone!

Hualiama pretended to draw a dagger out of her heart. With a dramatic, swooning swoop to her voice, she sang:

“Nay, foul traitor, thou hast wounded me most grievously.

My love, my soul’s rest, I die …”

The King, beset with grief, cried, “Away with thee, beast,

O perfidious Blue Dragon, thou hideous fiend of Gi’ishior–

Grandion’s guffaws drowned her out. “Now you’re just making it up.”

With that, she reached out and smacked the Tourmaline Dragon on the nose, crying, “Slowest one’s a mangy cliff-fox!”

Dragon and dragonet looked at each other.

“Cracked as Fra’anior’s caldera,” suggested Grandion.

“Crazy as a monkey dancing in a storm,” agreed Flicker.

Hands on hips, Lia grumbled, “Great Islands, I feel like the prize ralti sheep. You’re supposed to chase me. Don’t you know the game? Don’t Dragons play games?”

“Oh, she’s playing wingtips!” cried the dragonet.

“Do Dragons play games?” Grandion eyeballed Lia in a mock-fury, before making his lunge.

She skipped beyond his reach. “Too slow.”

A second time, the Dragon’s claws clicked shut on thin air.

With a taunting dance, Lia cried, “What’s the matter, Grandion? Is your fat old belly weighing you down? Here I am–no I’m not! You cheat, don’t herd me with your wings. Ha, fooled you.”

The Nuyallith forms allowed her to keep ahead of the Tourmaline Dragon for a few seconds at least, although she suspected Grandion was not trying his hardest. Lia kept expecting him to return to hot avarice, but instead, discovered a mischievous side to the Dragon’s personality. He pounced on her but missed on purpose, swiped at the air as though drunk, and pretended to be blinded by her beauty, allowing Lia to scuttle between his legs to safety. When, declaiming that she had died from Dragon fear, Lia fell face down on the black sand beach, Grandion nosed about the backs of her knees and the nape of her neck until the tickling became unbearable and she curled up, giggling helplessly. The Dragon scooped her up in his forepaws, only to pretend that she was as slippery as a bar of well-used soapstone. He used a cunning flick of his talon to ‘squirt’ her thirty feet through the air into the deepest part of the pool.

They played and laughed together–oh, how they laughed! Knowing her mother’s name made an irrepressible joy bubble up within Lia. Her mood clearly affected Grandion. Seizing his lower lip, Hualiama dragged the Dragon into the pool for use as a diving platform. They had a mock fistfight, ending in Lia knocking the Dragon out, whereupon he pretended to fall over, only to slip over the edge of his lava caldera for real. His howls had Lia in stitches.

“Treacherous Human slave,” he growled, grasping her in one fist while he threatened her throat with the talons of the other, “you didn’t clean my talons properly yesterday.”

Hualiama pressed his talon with her hand. “I enjoy the magical power of commanding talons to disappear.”

Retracting his claws into their flexible sheaths, the Dragon cried, “You’ve grown mighty in the lost art of declawing the Dragonkind, Lia!”

“You’re all hot air and smoke, Grandion.”

“Aye? Then meet my most fearsome Dragon power yet.” And he blew smoke into her face until she began to cough.

When the smoke cleared enough for her to speak, Lia inquired, “Are your claws battle-sharp?”

“By my wings, that was a polite way of suggesting my claws are in a sorry state,” the Dragon said. “I’ll admit, they aren’t at their best.”

Lia said, “I read that it was customary for Human slaves to tend to their Dragons’ needs, including sharpening their claws for battle.”

“I wasn’t looking for a slave, Hualiama–except earlier.” A softer yellow entered his eyes as he spoke, Lia noticed, a gentle refulgence similar to candlelight. His voice dropped to a low, beguiling throbbing. Grandion said, “If I were to speak honestly of my soul-fires, I have dreamed about keeping you for my own, impossible as that is. How can this be? You’ve neither wings nor tail. I have seen many Humans upon many Islands. Yet nothing in my nineteen summers has ever made me feel this way, Lia. You stir things in me … deep things.”

She whispered back, “Other girls dream of Fra’aniorian lace finery and grand weddings. I dream of standing on mountaintops with a Dragon, or flying to the farthest horizons.”

White fire sheeted across her vision.

Lia started. How long had she been gazing into Grandion’s eyes, mesmerised?

They broke eye contact awkwardly, Lia mumbling something about needing her swords to shave his toenails, while the Dragon discovered an urgent itch requiring his attention.

And so she sharpened the Dragon’s metallic talons, and tried not to dwell on her sense of foreboding. This wondrous season in her life must draw to a close, shadowed by the march of time.

When Flicker returned from hunting and Lia had completed her work on the three foreclaws of Grandion’s right forepaw, and moved on to the two opposing hind claws of that foot, she called the dragonet over. “I’ve something special to share with you both,” she said. “I dreamed of my mother–my real mother–today. I learned her name.”

The dragonet smiled, “Hence your joy. Oh, Lia. My fires soar for you.”

Hualiama said, “I feel as though my life is coming together, piece by piece. I don’t like all of the pieces, but I wondered if Ianthine’s ruzal magic corrupted my father–if he might not have been a good man, once, or if there might still be good in him now.”

“Ra’aba is not your father,” said Grandion.

The tip of Flicker’s tail twitched in irritation. Lia was glad she was not the only one affronted by Grandion’s confident statement.

The dragonet said, “But Lia, there is a certain naïveté about that statement. Some creatures turn to evil, or are born evil. I know you love the Island-World and expect it to love you back without reservation, and see good where others see only darkness and despair–”

“No creature is irredeemable,” Hualiama protested, anticipating where Flicker was leading with his thoughts.

“Nor are some creatures lacking in stubbornness,” said Grandion, gently enough that Lia did not quite contemplate trimming his entire toe off his foot. “What’s your plan for Ra’aba, Lia?”

“He’s probably at the Royal Palace,” she said. “There’s a secret entrance into the dungeons I doubt even Ra’aba knows about, which my brother Elki and I discovered a couple of years ago. You, Grandion, must fly to Gi’ishior to fetch a Dragonwing so that we can counter the Green Dragons allied to Ra’aba. Meantime we infiltrate the palace building together with the monks, demolish his cronies and defeat Ra’aba.”

“And when you face him, and have to slay your own father?” asked Flicker.

“Pray that I find the courage of a Dragon.”

* * * *

It was only in looking back that Hualiama spotted a curl of smoke.

The day following their overnight stay at the blue pool, they spent twelve hours criss-crossing a sea of Islets off the north-easterly tip of Ur-Tagga Cluster, little pockets of copper-headed vegetation dotting the Cloudlands like a peculiar form of the pox, which was due to being overrun by a larger relative of the prekki-fruit tree which abounded in these parts. Golden eagles nested in the coppery treetops, while crimson flycatchers inhabited the lower reaches of the rugged cliffs of each Island in their millions. Lia had never heard such a monotonous cacophony of birds. Fra’anior enjoyed variety. This corner of the Island-World enjoyed two things: flying insects and birds to eat them.

“My belly is going to pop!” Flicker declared. He had taken to riding atop Grandion’s shoulder, the better to simply hang his mouth open and enjoy the airborne offerings.

Lia ducked away as another flurry of iridescent flying beetles bombarded her body. Maybe she should face backward. That might save her the indignity of copying the dragonet in his bug-munching exploits.

That was when she saw smoke.

“Grandion! Flicker! Down there … I saw something.”

“Where?” asked Grandion.

“Just trust me and turn around, would you?”

The Tourmaline Dragon flicked his wings to execute a neck-wrenching screamer of a turn, evidently irked by her request, but seconds later, he stiffened. “That’s it. Well spotted, Lia.”

“Especially with your weak Human eyesight,” Flicker added. “How do we know that’s what we’re looking for?”

“We don’t, not yet,” said Grandion. “But any building which is so well concealed halfway down the side of an Island, in such a remote location, has to be hiding something. My guess is a secret mine.”

As they flew closer, Grandion deployed his concealing magic in full force. They ghosted by a quarter-mile offshore, eyeing the portion of tan-coloured brickwork they could see, set flush against the side of the Island. Narrow windows provided some ventilation, but were clearly designed to be difficult to detect, especially as the suns lowered on the far side of the Island, deepening the shadows on the east-facing cliffs. Little else was visible from afar.

Dragonet and Dragon swapped notes.

Flicker said, “To the left of the building is a cave or ravine heavily overhung by those prekki-fruit trees. I thought I saw the tailpipe of a Dragonship in there. And you saw that Green Dragon leaving to patrol, Grandion. We’ve been very fortunate on the timing.”

“What would they mine in there?” asked Lia.

“Gold or gemstones,” said the Tourmaline Dragon. “This is the way Dragons used to work their Human slaves. You see, the closer you get to the Cloudlands, the better the pickings. It has something to do with the way that the Ancient Dragons raised the Islands. But the atmosphere is poisonous lower down. So it is safest to mine inside of an Island. That outlet you spotted, Hualiama, is likely to be the exhaust for a smelting operation. They’ll mine, refine and work the metals down here, and then ship out the finished product by Dragonship.”

“Lighter than handling all that ore,” she agreed. “I’m familiar with the theory, Grandion. But if the King was being held here, why would they have just one Dragon guarding the entire Island?”

“Actually, it’s the presence of that Green which reveals Ra’aba’s hand,” said Flicker.

Grandion snorted, “Is one Dragon not enough?”

Her emphatic agreement elicited a chuckle and an aerial bounce from her ride. His fires began to fulminate, a low vibration transmitting itself through his Rider’s seat into her bones.

“Down, Dragon,” said Lia. “We need to find the King first–and who says there aren’t more Dragons inside?”

“Dragons do not sneak about, it is dishonourable–”

Typical Dragon! Lia interrupted, “Grandion, why don’t you go challenge that Green with a nice bit of honourable thundering and leave the sneaking to the little people? If Ra’aba’s men know we’re coming, they might kill my family. Besides, I’m already disgraced.”

Swiftly, they hammered out a plan. Flicker and Hualiama would have two hours inside before Grandion attacked, or if the dragonet warned him earlier, he would ‘tidy up’ for them, as the Tourmaline Dragon put it. Lia readied her blades and implements of sabotage. If only the Master of Shadows could see her now, she thought, tying her black head-covering in place and blacking her face with coal dust mixed with a little oil. She slung the Haozi hunting bow across her back, clipped a quiver of arrows to her belt, and readied her Immadian forked daggers at her hips.

Grandion turned, and flitted toward a narrow, square window beside the exhaust outlet Lia had identified. Go burn the heavens, Rider, he said in her mind. And, be careful.

I will.

The Dragon added, Don’t let her do anything rash, Flicker. Call me the instant you need me.

Lia said, Stay out of sight, Grandion. Paw?

She clambered over his wrist onto his paw.

Scouting swiftly, Flicker returned to say, The Dragonship’s flying the purple of royal Fra’anior, but has the symbol of a windroc.

Ra’aba, she nodded. He isn’t here, is he?

Seems unlikely, the dragonet reassured her.

Balanced in the palm of Grandion’s right forepaw as the Dragon hovered just twenty feet from the building, Hualiama sucked in a breath. This was it. This was the moment of change; after which, a Human might never again ride her Dragon. Yet her duty was clear. She must set aside her feelings for the sake of her kingdom.

Grandion tossed her gently across the gap. Lia made a soft-footed landing courtesy of her tacky shoes, and grasped the ledge. She lifted herself into the gap before glancing back.

You’ll hear me before you see me, said the Tourmaline Dragon, bending his neck in a regal bow. Go. Save your family, Dragon Rider.

Thanks, Grandion.

Hualiama’s eyes blurred as she squeezed her slight frame through the window and dropped into the room beyond.

Chapter 26: The Slave Mines

BUrglary. Flying Dragonback. Search and rescue of banished royal families. Living in a volcano full of young warrior-monks–this was the brand of mischief a royal ward perpetrated in her spare time. Lia suppressed a nervous chuckle as she allowed her eyes to adjust to the gloom of a storeroom which was filled with barrels of mohili flour, judging by the musty smell.

Hualiama began to draw her Nuyallith blades before sheathing them with a grimace. The Master of Shadows would’ve striped her hide. ‘Weapons only when needed,’ she mimicked his sarcastic tones. ‘No time to braid your hair, Princess.’ Finding the door locked, Lia raided her wristlet for lock picks. She had raced against time often enough to know exactly what needed to be done to this type of lock. With a horribly loud click, she turned the simple mechanism and eased the door open. Faraway, the low thrumming of machinery came to her hearing.

I’ll investigate, said Flicker.

Hualiama nodded. Go. While it made sense to take advantage of her Dragon companions’ superior abilities, it did leave a Human feeling rather stuck on the ground and inadequate, at times.

She padded down a corridor dimly lit by oil torches set in sconces on the wall. Up or down? The slaves’ living quarters had to be lower down, close to the mines. That would make it easier for Ra’aba’s men to control them and prevent escape. So these levels would likely be used for storage, or accommodation for his men.

Lia came to a central staircase leading to a lower level landing. She shrank into the shadows. Flicker. Mercy, the sudden, silent movement had scared her.

Found something, he said. One level down, a set of guarded apartments. I think it might be your family’s accommodation. Two soldiers at the door.

Let’s take a look.

Lia bounded down the stairs, three at a time, before flattening herself against the wall and peering around the corner. Forty feet down this corridor, two soldiers moped either side of an imposing-looking doorway. Promising.

She motioned to the dragonet. Distract them.

Next she knew, Flicker sauntered out into the open and began scratching his rear! Lia gaped at his gall before taking the opportunity to scan her surroundings. A warm breeze on her cheek brought the acrid tang of smoke and metals to her nose and throat, suggesting that the entrance to the mines proper was nearby, lower down. Lia heard male voices deep in discussion.

“Huh? There’s a dragonet,” said a voice, in the familiar accent of her home Island. Aye. This was the place, alright.

“Chase it off,” said the second soldier. “Ra’aba doesn’t like anyone near his quarters, despite that a few dragonets would keep the rat population down around here.”

Hualiama froze, but the first man replied, “He isn’t here. Scoot, you dumb animal! No food here.” Footsteps sauntered closer. “Scoot!”

Hualiama palmed one of her forked daggers. Drat, the soldier would appear on her less favoured right side. Closer, closer … Flicker walked past her, still scratching his unmentionables … the soldier marched around the corner and straight into the razor-sharp blade of an Immadian forked dagger. He gurgled. Lia tried to lower his body silently, but the soldier’s sword clattered on the stairway.

“Fa’arric?” called the other man. “You alright there?”

Plucking an arrow from her quiver, Lia set it to the string and drew hastily. Time to see what her Haozi hunting bow could do. Stepping just an inch clear of the corner, she sighted her shot.

“Who’s–” The man’s voice cut off. Lia had aimed for his chest, but the soldier’s reflexive duck meant he took the arrow right beneath the rim of his open-faced helmet. Not the most pleasant end for any man, but certainly quick and painless.

Lia stole along to the door, checking in both directions. She tested the door handle. Locked, of course.

Flicker said, Quiet in there.

She retrieved her arrow with an effort, a gory but necessary task. No telling how many more arrows she might need. Right, lock picks–this lock had been recently oiled, but was considerably more complex than the previous one. Lia bit her tongue, listening and concentrating. Click. There, a welcoming sound. She pressed the door open, keeping to the closed side of the double door as she had been taught. A light glimmered inside. Was Ra’aba truly absent?

Oh, come on, said Flicker, darting through the doorway.

Swish! Thud!

Had the dragonet stood an ordinary Human’s height, he would have been struck by five arrows, whose points penetrated the wooden door but stopped an inch shy of Lia’s chest. As it was, Flicker received a nick to his shoulder, but was otherwise unhurt. Reckless beast that he was, the dragonet shrugged off the near-miss and merely flitted further into Ra’aba’s chambers! Lia searched with her senses. A false flagstone? A trip wire or other traps and triggers? Clearly, Ra’aba wished no disturbance in his absence. Her skin prickled. There was something in here, something dangerous …

Magic, Flicker’s voice entered her mind. I’ll see if I can disarm it …

A magical trap? Her training had not included much on the subject, although her readings of ancient lore had suggested that Blue Dragons in particular were adept at constructing fiendishly clever magical traps. As the dragonet hovered, the Human felt that unmistakable prickle of magic at the back of her retinae. Mercy. Flicker had been right.

I think that’s it. Proceed with caution, said the dragonet.

Lia crept into the room. Clothes in a chest. Weapons. Parchment and quill pens arranged with exactitude on a wooden desk tucked into the corner, where it might receive light from another of the tiny, square windows. Led by instinct, Lia approached the desk. Ra’aba–or someone–had been copying a scroll. A half-finished fragment peeked from beneath a neat stack of what appeared to be sealed royal missives, scrolls prepared with the royal authority of the new King of Fra’anior. But the scrap was out of place. Just a single sheet.

Her eyes fell on the last line, and a gasp tore out of her chest.

… third Great Race will emerge from the shadows,

And take their place at destiny’s helm.

The flowing, beautiful script delighted the eye. The contents paralysed her. The prophecy! They had just stumbled upon the prophecy by blind luck … chills racked her body. What terrors and what hope might this knowledge represent?

Her hand reached out, and touched the parchment.

* * * *

Voicing a soundless scream, Flicker hurled himself through the air. Flame erupted from a tiny hole in the wall above the desk. Straw-head was already ducking, alert to the danger but too slow, her hand scraping the pile of parchment onto the floor as she tumbled sideways. Burning scraps blew off the table as the dragonet flashed between his girl and the flame. She clutched something to her chest, snuffing it out by rolling rapidly across the floor.

Another danger-sound, a snick from above the bed! Poisoned darts skittered off the stones where Lia had been just a dragonet’s heartbeat before, but her swift motion saved her. Of course, she clobbered the back of her head on the bedframe. For a second, the Human girl lay still.

Flicker, darling?

Ooh, he could sing flame-songs all day when she said that! If only the Tourmaline lout could hear how dear she held him in her regrettably singular heart, he would turn into a Green from sheer jealousy. I’m fine, Flicker replied gruffly. Hotter than usual, but you already appreciate my lava-hot–

Lia clucked crossly. Took care of that trap, did you, mister daring dragonet?

Saved your hide from a roasting, didn’t I?

She turned the parchment over in her fingers. “Oh, toss it in a Cloudlands volcano …”

Half of the page was scorched, charred holes riddling the parchment as if worms had attacked a leaf. Flicker flinched at the shock and disappointment writ on her pallid face. He thought she might be sick.

He said, Tuck it away for later, fire-eyes. We’ve your family to save.

Not straw-head? Wretchedly, fingers trembling, she folded the parchment and secured it inside her belt pouch.

Never again, said Flicker. But he felt the sting of having failed Lia. He must gather his courage, for to have her look so defeated again on his account would surely extinguish a dragonet’s fires.

They penetrated deeper into the strange Human warren. Flicker did not understand this Human desire to delve into the bowels of the Island to retrieve metals and stones of dubious value. Lesser Dragons loved treasure, but what would a dragonet want with cold stones which could never warm a warren? Give him twenty warren-mates any day.

They passed several guard posts by the expedient of sticking to the shadows and once, crawling beneath an iron gateway which could shut to seal off the inner part of the mine from the outer world, he presumed, but there was gap enough beneath it for an audacious dragonet and his petite Human companion. Hualiama had to remove her Nuyallith blades to fit through. Soon, the darkness assumed a ruddy glow, and they came to the edge of an enormous shaft riven into the living rock. Four square cages hung from thick chains, driven by winches and spindle-wheels the size of Dragons. Two counterbalanced pairs, Lia whispered to him. One cage travelled up while its running-mate travelled down.

The din was louder and closer. Furnaces roaring. Metal clanging. Shouts and curses, the crack of a whip. Heat shimmered down there, rising past their faces as though the shaft were a living volcano.

As they crouched behind a great wooden box filled with mining tools, examining the guarded cages, Lia said, They must keep the slaves on this level. Look. Locked dungeon doors. Four levels, maybe more. How many slaves do they have working here?

A huge gong crashed somewhere below.

“Change of shift,” said one of the purple-clad soldiers. “Let’s get those slaves up here.”

Can we wait here? Lia asked.

Grandion will attack in less than an hour, Flicker reminded her. Finding your family is of the utmost importance. I haven’t seen any other Dragons down here, though, so we might stand a chance.

Down we go, said the Human girl.

Wait, here comes our chance.

Three men approached along a side passage, hauling a cart of what appeared to be water rations. They paused next to Lia’s hiding-place to have a short but rancorous argument with the guards at the transportation platforms. Unknown to them, they picked up two infiltrators in that short space of time. The cart rumbled forward and clanged onto the metal. With a deafening squeal of the winches, the platform began its slow descent, a thousand feet or more, into the caverns below.

The men stood about and griped about their lives in the mines, the toes of their steel-shod boots just inches from Hualiama’s nose beneath the cart, braced between the axles. Her eyes seemed preternaturally agleam in the gloom, Flicker thought. Just how much magic inhabited his lovely straw-head? No, not straw-head! When the dragonets sang this tale in the histories, she would be Lia Fire-Eyes, friend of Dragons.

They swung through the roof of a monstrous cavern lit by bulbous smelting pots and tens of roaring, open furnaces. Hundreds of men and women laboured down here.

Flicker bellied to the edge to look down. Another shaft like this one leads further down, he told Lia. Heaps of Humans coming up. They look exhausted.

The dragonet crept back to Hualiama, feeling cowed. He heard more commands being shouted. Whips seared the air with cruel cracks. Ore thundered into tumbling or stirring machines incomprehensible to a dragonet. The miserable cries of Humans in pain darkened his fires, while clouds of steam and smoke created a pall over the scene.

Strength to you, noble dragonet, Hualiama sent into his mind, accompanied by a picture of a dragonet wreathed in white fire, a golden circlet upon his head.

His fires sizzled. Lia knew him so well!

As the cage descended and the other rose to the top of the second shaft, fifty feet away, Hualiama and Flicker had a clear view of many pale, soot-blackened faces staring unseeing at the cavern. The Human girl stiffened with a soft cry. “Mother …”

“And how are we today, your kingship?” A soldier called, not unkindly, his voice carrying to where the pair hid. “Come on, the day’s work is done. Time to rest and sup. There’s more on the morrow.”

At least he’s not a beast, said Lia. I see Shyana and Fyria, and Ari, but where are Father and Elki? And Kalli, my oldest brother?

The slaves began to file out of the other cage, waiting their turn for the cage Hualiama and Flicker had taken down. Bracing her hands and feet across the gap between the cart’s axles, with Flicker gripping the wood with his talons, Lia clung on like a swamp leech as they bounced off roughly. A boulder smacked the Human girl’s rump as the cart jounced, scraping her loose. She yelped. Then, as the heavily-loaded cart rumbled forward, the royal ward tumbled out helplessly, snarling herself amongst the feet of the men pushing from behind.

There was a taut, shocked silence. A hundred pairs of eyes stared at the commotion.

“You!” shouted a man, grabbing Lia by her collar.

Flicker bit him in the calf muscle.

* * * *

Hualiama heaved free of the men with a flash of her throwing daggers, one in either hand. With a flip of a blade, she downed one of a trio of soldiers standing alongside the slaves. The second received a knife in the belly. Then, soldiers closed in from everywhere. Lia immediately drew the much longer Nuyallith blades and began her dance, springing lithely upon her first foe using the pouncing rajal technique, slitting his throat before he had time to raise his weapon; now spinning into a powerful, sideways double cut which gutted two soldiers, soaring above a wild cut to slash a man’s face on the way past. Thrust! Slide! She weaved among the flying blades. The dragonet screamed before her, firing tiny fireballs, so that it seemed that a single fire-spitting, blade-wielding creature of an impossible number of arms, legs and wings tore into Ra’aba’s soldiers.

Suddenly, Lia arrived at Queen Shyana’s toes.

“Mother,” she exclaimed softly, gripping the Queen’s arm.

The tall, graceful Queen of Fra’anior had never seemed more shocked. “Lia? My girl–it’s really you?”

“I came for you, mother!” Hualiama hugged her fiercely. “Now, grab a sword and help me.”

“What?” The Queen smiled uncertainly, ambushed by hope. “You brought Dragonships? Troops? You’re alive? My darling petal–warrior? What’s this outfit you’re wearing?”

“Mom! Explanations later!” Stooping, Hualiama robbed a fallen soldier of his sword and lobbed it to Ari. “Are you with me, brother?”

There was Elki–oh, great Islands! Shouting, “Every man grab a weapon!” her scamp of a brother grabbed Lia about the waist and planted a swift kiss on her cheek.

More soldiers charged them from the direction of the forges. Lia exchanged weapons with lightning speed. An arrow leaped to her bowstring. Zip! A man in that dozen-strong formation fell.

“For the King!” someone shouted.

“Sound the alarm!”

Hualiama drew and fired as fast as she could, downing four men before they fell upon the slaves, who had begun to scatter in search of weapons and soldiers to kill. A huge brawl developed as the slaves mobbed the soldiers, beating them down by sheer numbers. Pity those men.

“Fright at night!” said Elki, sword in hand. “Where’d you spring from, sister?”

“Get them on the platform and get moving!” she rapped at him. “If they close the gates up top, we’re finished. Where’s father?”

“Over there.” He pointed at the melee. “We’re all here except Kalli, who’s sick upstairs. Oh wow, would you look at Mom?”

Gentle, artistic Queen Shyana put her foot to a soldier’s belly to pull her blade free. Shouting orders, she herded slaves toward the platform.

“Arrows!” cried Lia, yanking Elki down.

Flicker took care of the archer, ripping out his throat with his claws. The dragonet fought like a swarm of maddened hornets. Anyone wearing a purple uniform seemed to be fair game. Hualiama helped Flicker with a stream of arrows, but he was causing enough trouble all on his own. Chuckling, she turned away, and rammed her head into her father’s breastbone.

“Lia.” King Chalcion’s eyes were as hollow as the cough that rattled his chest. “How come you’re alive?”

“That’s a story!” She threw her arms around him; the King patted her shoulder absently. “Briefly, we’re starting a rebellion to take back the Onyx Throne. With a little help.”

“But Ra’aba has Dragons.”

Exile had been unkind to her father, Lia thought. He looked little better than an ambulatory corpse. Perhaps the poisons of the deep mines did that to a person. She shoved the King toward the platform. “Will you get the family together, father?”

Was that thunder? Lia’s head snapped about. Queen Shyana bundled people onto the swaying platform, slapping shoulders and shoving anyone not moving fast enough for her liking. Aye, Dragon thunder without a doubt. Grandion had come, and not a moment too soon, because she heard an answering challenge reverberating somewhere in the depths of the caverns. It sounded large and decidedly unimpressed.

“La-La!” A muscular pair of arms picked her up off the ground.

“Little brother,” she smiled at her dark-haired brother. At just nine years old, her brother Fa’arrion or Ari for short–whom her father called ‘the simpleton’–was already four inches taller than her and twice her weight. “It’s me.”

“La-La die?”

“La-La is definitely alive. Now get on that platform before I put you over my knee.”

“’Oke?” He seemed confused.

“Just a joke,” Lia agreed. “Help Mom, Ari. Get this platform moving.”

Ari ran to apply his muscle to the levers. The winches groaned and began to rotate.

Lia scanned the cavern. Where was that Dragon? They would be meat on a mobile grill-rack if a Dragon caught them before they reached the top.

Elki screamed at her, “Lia! Come on!”

Taking five running steps, Lia launched into a vertical leap for the rising platform. Leaning dangerously over the side-rail, her brother caught her wrist. She swung on board. Arrows pinged the underside of their platform, but there were still slaves down below battling with the soldiers, some of whom appeared to have switched sides. Hualiama wished she could go back for them, but the King and her family came first.

Flicker, will you fly ahead and see if you can delay the gates from being shut?

“Is that a dragonet?” asked Elki, peering upward.

“Aye. All the way from … uh, Fra’anior,” she said. Flying ralti sheep, she needed to start watching her tongue. Lia made a curtailed courtly bow. “Islands’ greetings, Prince of Fra’anior.”

“You silly girl!” he laughed, throwing his arm around her shoulders. “I can’t tell you how happy I am to see you. A month or two back, Ra’aba visited and took great pleasure in recounting for us how he threw you off his Dragonship. Now you pop up here like the proverbial white rajal kitten, all fluff and vicious claws, and decide to mount a rescue?”

She chuckled at his turn of phrase. “I didn’t like being dead, Elki. Flying like a wasp up Ra’aba’s left nostril seemed to offer better entertainment. Watch out!”

Everyone ducked reflexively as a body came hurtling down from above, narrowly missing the platform. Lia gazed upward. Just a few hundred feet left. They might just make it. Then, the unmistakable clang of a heavy gate sounded from above. She had barely begun to exclaim in frustration when from below, a monstrous growl shook the platform and its chains.

A stalwart, hundred-foot Green Dragon pursued them up the mine shaft.

Hualiama slung the Haozi hunting bow off her shoulder. Perhaps she could strike an eye or a nostril before that Green Dragon caught them–or worse, melted them in a puddle of acid. The distinct crack of Grandion’s lightning attack lit the tunnel way overhead, above the winches. Lia gasped as her head turned reflexively toward the sound. Two more Greens! How were they ever going to escape this Dragon trap? Two above, one below … no time for inane thoughts. Drawing the bow to her limit, Lia aimed downward, past the massive chains, to ping the Green Dragon’s nose with an arrow. It ricocheted off his armoured scales. She immediately sent another arrow after the first, but he crisped it with a fireball that rushed toward them, but was already expiring by the time it struck the platform.

“Come to Gaffazor, little Humans!” roared the Green.

Hualiama called, “Ready to jump, everyone? Get under cover–any cover you can.”

The cage bumped to a halt. Lia saw the gates, closed. There was Flicker, scratching at the face of a soldier behind the bars, another lining up a bowshot at her friend. So many! They had sealed off the exit, just as she had feared. Arrows spat toward them. Leaping over the railing, Lia fired a reflex shot at the man threatening Flicker, catching him in the upper thigh.

“Go! Take cover!”

The Humans surged off the platform, led by Queen Shyana and Elki. “Down this corridor,” shouted the Queen.

Hualiama knelt behind the large toolbox, and set herself the task of picking off soldiers behind the gate. Meanwhile, a group of forty or fifty people scrambled down the corridor, spilling into the slaves’ living quarters. What now? Dragons growled and clashed in the shaft, the cough of their fireballs like hollow thunder. The Greens made a different, wetter sound. Acid spit?

Grandion thundered, DIE, GREEN SLUG!

That was her Dragon!

Aware of a lunatic grin curving her lips, Lia drove the soldiers back with a flurry of arrows. Right behind her, Gaffazor’s claws gripped the edge of the shaft, forcing her to leap aside or face being crushed between talon and stone.

She had a crazy idea of how they might escape. “Flicker! Go to the gate! Insult the Dragon!”

* * * *

Picking up his battered body, Flicker stared at straw-head. Whatever was she thinking? Meantime, the Green Dragon heaved past the metal cages, lifting his muzzle over the tunnel’s edge not five feet from Lia. She stood stock-still, frozen in that ready position which he hoped by his wings was the one that could spring into action in the flip of a dragonet’s wings, not the rooted-in-terror possibility which he had also seen a couple of times. Right. Insult the beast? Lia had picked the right dragonet for the job.

Over here, you crusty thousand-year-old swamp leech! Flicker shrieked. You decrepit son of a flatworm, you bilious glob of phlegm!

The Dragon’s head jerked.

Can’t catch me, you corpulent sot! Cud-munching quadruped! You’re a disgrace to your sire and your lineage, you wheezing, toothless lump of mouldy windroc excrement! You hang from that ledge like diseased snot dangling from a Human’s left nostril–

That was more than the Green Dragon could tolerate. His shoulders bulged as every muscle in his body tightened. The Green shot a Human-sized glob of acid spit at the dragonet. Flicker zipped out of the way. Direct hit! Two soldiers who had been creeping down the stairs behind him collapsed, screaming as their clothes and flesh hissed and boiled. The metal grating sagged as the powerful acid devoured the metal.

Oh, Lia was definitely his fire-eyes again! How cunning … Flicker performed a celebratory aerial somersault as Hualiama thrust at the Green Dragon’s eye, but her stroke only pierced his cheek. The Green Dragon’s paw blurred as he struck! Flicker gasped, but Lia twirled on the axis of her body, her blades lashing out with fantastic speed. Two of the Dragon’s talons spun into the air, surgically amputated by the venom of her strike. As the Green reared, bellowing his pain fit to bring down the mountain, a higher, whistling sound registered on the dragonet’s ears. The bravest Humans, cowering at the edge of the tunnel, were treated to the spectacle of Grandion’s stunning strike. The Tourmaline Dragon smashed into the far larger Green at a staggering velocity, his hind paws crushing his opponent’s neck against the tunnel’s edge. Bone cracked sharply.

Of course, Grandion could not resist striking a brawny pose atop the Green Dragon before its dead weight slithered back into the shaft. Flicker sniffed in annoyance, but was rather less annoyed when the Dragon’s paw snapped out to rescue Lia from an incipient attack.

“Over here, Princess of Fra’anior,” he said.

Vile green acid splattered the rock where she had stood.

“Allow me to deal with this ill-mannered lout,” Grandion continued, flicking Lia in one direction while he dodged to his left paw. Another Green smashed into the platforms where the Tourmaline Dragon had stood but a heartbeat before, roaring in fury and pain as he missed his strike. Grandion was in no mood to return the favour. Lightning flared. His fangs closed on the Green’s wing and with a ferocious bite, Grandion ground his fangs against the bone near the second wing joint.

The huge Green Dragon lunged, his jaw gaping so wide that he engulfed his opponent’s entire left shoulder in his mouth. Flicker shuddered at the power of that mauling. But Hualiama’s hands blurred into motion. She bent the Haozi bow so hard it creaked audibly, and suddenly an arrow leaped out to bury itself up to the fletching in the Green Dragon’s eye. The creature convulsed. It smashed Grandion against the tunnel wall before shuddering as it broke away, thrashing the cages like clanging cymbals and tumbling into the shaft.

The Tourmaline Dragon shook himself with the air of a wet hound. He rumbled, “Perfect shot, Hualiama. Thanks. Now, your Dragonship awaits. There is but one, a cargo vessel.”

“It will be enough,” she replied, smiling at the Dragon.

“One more matter,” said Grandion, thumping forward with all the arrogance of a victorious Dragon. Lia skipped out of his way. “These stairs must be cleansed of vermin.”

A Dragon’s fire roared up the stairwell.

Chapter 27: The Flight Home

Hualiama HUNCHED over the Dragonship’s controls, gazing out into the Island-World night. Grandion shadowed them upon the starboard beam, his scales lustrous in the moonlight, wings outstretched to glide at the slow speed of a Dragonship with a minimal expenditure of energy. Four more days to Fra’anior if the following wind kept steady, she thought, raising their overall speed to six or seven leagues per hour. King Chalcion had just finished shouting at her for her ‘familiarity’ with the Dragon and stormed off to his cabin. If he only knew … she gritted her teeth. She had enjoyed no word of appreciation from the King bar a grudging acknowledgement of their rescue effort. And a lecture.

Talking to her father was like trying to squeeze prekki juice out of a stone.

Flicker flew with Grandion, leaving Lia alone with her thoughts in the navigation cabin. She glared at the crysglass windows as though they supported Ra’aba’s regime. To her, the transparent panels symbolised the barrier between her and her draconic friends. Not very visible, but undeniably present. What Lia would not have given to be out there, with the scents blowing in her nostrils and the warm winds ruffling her hair …

Hearing the tread of someone stealing up behind her, Hualiama sighed. “I know it’s you, Mom.”

Queen Shyana said, “My Hualiama departed a girl, and returned a woman. What has wrought this change, daughter? Is it love, or loss? What has turned you into such a warrior?”

That girl might as well have been lost in the Cloudlands, for what had transpired after, must change a person’s very soul. But Lia rued the new distance between her and her mother.

“Mom, am I so difficult to love?”

“Oh, petal. It’s your father, isn’t it?” Her mother’s sigh contained depthless wells of grief. Tall and graceful in that most Fra’aniorian way, Shyana was a beauty like her daughter Fyria, and a dancer like Hualiama. Her raven hair fell to her waist, unbound for sleep. Her striking mauve eyes softened in sympathy. “He can be so stupid, so unbendingly proud! Chalcion sees being rescued by his daughter as an insult–to his kingship, to his manhood, I don’t know. He mutters about a royal ward issuing orders. That nonsense about the Dragon is just the smoke of those inner fires, petal.”

Nonsense? Lia allowed herself to be drawn into her mother’s embrace. That was exactly the problem. To Chalcion it was not nonsense. It was the tripartite pillars of honour, law and unshakable belief. Prejudices that ran as deep as the roots of Islands.

“Our main concern is who that Dragon is,” Shyana added. “Grandion is Sapphurion’s son, and not a good egg, petal. He’s been a liability to peace and a claw in his parents’ side since he cracked the shell. You just don’t see the evil in people, or in Dragons, for that matter. You’re kind and sweet–”

“Dragons can change,” Lia said.

“Petal … what attachment have you with that Dragon?”

Now she must tiptoe most carefully, because Shyana was so emotionally perceptive, she’d winkle the truth out of Lia before she knew it. She must tell herself that the Queen’s concern was legitimate, that Grandion could indeed be manipulating her as part of some overarching Dragonish scheme against Humanity. He might have lied about being a changed Dragon. Shyana, for her part, must sense something of Lia’s conflicted feelings and fear that their roots might drink from the most forbidden well of all.

Ironic. She had told Ja’al things could not be more or less forbidden, but she had been wrong. Some things were anathema, beyond the pale of reason.

Lia said, “It’s a debt of life, mother. Grandion feels obliged to me because, as I shared with you, I saved his life on Ha’athior.”

“Then he’s treading dangerously close to the Dragon law about interfering in Human affairs.”

“He is–but Ra’aba is allied with Dragons.”

Shyana said, “I hope you’re right. Perhaps Sapphurion will overlook the matter of the Island from which you rescued his son, and not be shouted down in the Council of Dragon Elders. It’s a complex situation which we need to approach wisely. Grandion’s request to offer us aid could easily be cast as Dragons helping Humans against Dragons. And you know how jealously they protect their precious holy Isle.”

Grandion’s exact fears. Queen Shyana evidently concealed a shrewd and calculating political mind behind her ethereal, often mystical exterior.

Lia drew breath. “Mom, there’s something you need to know. Something more.”

“What? Secret warrior training?”

“Uh … that too.” Hualiama chuckled. “I am apprenticed to one of the Dragon Warrior monasteries. Please don’t tell Dad! He’d explode.”

The Queen chose this moment to arch an eyebrow at her. “Were the monks nice to you, daughter? Was there a special one?”

“Mom! Aye … there was.” Lia willed her ears not to start burning. “We kissed. But he decided to take his vows of celibacy and service, and we parted as friends. Mom, it’s worse than that. I know who my real parents are.” Now that she had cracked open this chest of secrets, she had to throw the lid right open in a rush, or her courage would fail her. “My mother was an envoy from the East, a woman called Azziala. I’m not sure she ever came to our court, because she was bound for Gi’ishior. But my father … well, you’ve seen my ears.”

Shyana’s hand flew to her mouth. “It wasn’t … he didn’t have an affair, did he?”

“Not Chalcion, no.” Lia had never considered that possibility. Which was worse? Swallowing painfully hard, she rasped, “Ra’aba.”

“Ra’aba? Truly, petal?” Her mother’s shoulders stiffened until she resembled a petrified tree, but when she spoke, it was to add, “I don’t believe it. Never was a daughter less like the father, were that the truth. Why would he not have told us? Clever, though, to keep you nearby where he might watch over you.”

Mother and daughter shivered as one. Lia said, “He never admitted it, because it was neither a happy nor a willing union.”

Shyana searched Hualiama’s eyes, her expression at once so empathetic and affectionate, it evoked tears effortlessly. “Oh, petal. And you believe you’re fated to oppose him? Your own blood-father? My heart weeps terrace lakes.”

At last, she could grieve with one who understood. Lia wept a Cloudlands storm of her own making, thoroughly wetting her mother’s tattered clothing. Such a burden of loss. The pain of the past, translated into the present. The father she had never known, and wanted so desperately to hate. The King and father she did know, who misunderstood and beat her; ungrateful and immovable as an Island. The love of a mother whose arms embraced her now, who would never have given Hualiama up–that was as certain as the suns rising to warm the Island-World. And a fate which drove her beyond what any soul should have to bear.

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.”

“It must all be figurative,” Lia protested. “Plucking stars from the heavens just isn’t my style.”

“Good thing we cleared that up,” Ja’al quipped.

Lia smacked the monk’s knee. “Be quiet, brother Ja’al. What I find strange, is how Ra’aba even found the prophecy in the first instance. And why he’s so afraid of it. I wondered if Ianthine might have twisted his mind somehow … to function as her tool while she’s in exile?”

“May the Great Dragon forefend!” Master Jo’el exclaimed.

Ja’al hissed, “A good man twisted to evil? You think a man who sends soldiers to slaughter children is secretly misunderstood? You were there, Lia! You buried his victims!” Lia flushed at the depth of disgust in Ja’al’s voice. “Now he’s good? Mercy, how naïve and stupid can a girl be?”

Dragon and dragonet snarled at him, but Lia leaped in at once, Grandion, Flicker … it’s alright.

Her fingers touched her pouch where she stored the child’s wooden Dragon. She said, “Ja’al has a right to his opinions. I haven’t forgotten. But I’m also aware of the power of ruzal. You haven’t met Ianthine. You and I both know that some Dragons have mind powers.” Powers enough to control a Human being? Of that she had no doubt, but she was not about to say so in front of Grandion. “You forget that the Nameless Man detected the mark of Ianthine’s claw upon my life, and that’s fifteen years after the fact. I’ll admit it’s unlikely, but we have to give Ra’aba a chance.”

The young monk looked unhappily around the circle. “Don’t you see Ianthine’s ploy? Asserting that Ra’aba is her father weakens Hualiama’s hand against him. Doubt has crept in.” He flinched at Lia’s low cry of distress, but added steadily, “I’m sorry if my words hurt you, Lia, but friends sometimes have to be prepared to voice the hard truths. Or they are no friends at all.”

When she raised her gaze to meet his, it was with moist eyes but a firm chin. “Thank you, Ja’al. The reason I am certain is founded on my dream of my mother, Azziala. I dreamed details that no imagination of mine could possibly have served up. She confirmed Ra’aba is my father. I know that Ianthine gave my mother at least part of the lore of ruzal, or something similar. She said, ‘mastering this will give you power over Dragons.’ Doesn’t that uncannily mirror what you told me of the war in the East, Grandion? That the Humans there demonstrate an inexplicable power over Dragons?”

Grandion lay utterly still. Hualiama could not read his emotions, for it was as if the windows of his soul were shuttered, even though his eyes were wide open and filled with dark fire.

Her instinct told her that the Tourmaline Dragon was fully primed to kill someone, or something. The wrong whisper would provoke an Island-shattering outburst of violence.

What had Ianthine aimed to achieve by gifting Azziala such a power against the Dragonkind? What kind of woman was Azziala, to use that power? Suddenly, Lia’s clothes seemed too hot. Mercy. The long dreamed-of prospect of knowing her parents grew less palatable by the hour! She began to growl like a Dragoness, caught an odd look from Flicker, and stopped.

Hualiama said, “I do doubt my dreams, in case you’re wondering. But they also seem to be frighteningly accurate–at least the vivid ones, the ones I remember.”

“Good,” said Master Jo’el, unexpectedly. “How many hours before the King’s Dragonship reaches us, Lia?”

“Ten to eleven,” she said.

“Even better!” Now he seemed cheerful, Lia thought, frowning at the Master. “There is time for more talk, but now, we must lay our plans and strategies. Grandion, will you entreat the Dragon Elders on our behalf?”

“Aye, but I can make no promises.”

Hualiama weighed his response, the aggression barely concealed beneath his calm demeanour. Something in their conversation had touched a raw nerve in the Dragon. Reaching out, she laid her palm flat against his muzzle. Her eyes crinkled into a smile. “Not even one, my Dragon?”

The stillness between them communicated much.

Stirring, the Tourmaline Dragon said, “Aye, precious Rider, there is one promise to be made, born in an oath of fire and magic.” Had Master Jo’el possessed hair on his head, Lia grinned inwardly, but also with a measure of fright, his eyebrows would have taken refuge in that thicket long before. Grandion continued, “Even if no other will fly to your aid, I will come. For the creatures which dwell in the Palace of Fra’anior are the mortal enemies of Dragonkind. I will smite them with tooth and claw until in a bleating panic, they flee into the very Cloudlands. And I will honour my word to you, Hualiama Dragonchild.”

Lia almost fainted. Dragonchild? Even her thoughts gibbered, ‘W-W-What?’

But she sensed a greater magic nearby. Ja’al! His eyes rolled back in his head. In a mighty voice not his own, he roared, May the strength of the Ancient Dragons inhabit your paw! Alastior!

Magic thundered out of the young monk–neither seen nor physically felt, but a wash of the familiar white fire over Lia’s vision. She saw in dizzying array powers and thrones and fates and above it all, the blackest of thunderheads boiling over the horizon. Among the storm clouds loomed the multiple obsidian heads of the greatest Dragon of all, Fra’anior. Grandion groaned long and deep. The length of his body shuddered; a new fire entered his eyes, one Hualiama had never seen before–dark and light, intermingled, wreathed together in a complex helix pattern.

Ja’al screamed, and pitched forward.

Hualiama threw her legs beneath him without thinking. The monk’s head bounced on her thigh. Unseeing? Dead? The horror! Soft now, she bent over him, her hair sliding forward to whisper against his cheek.

“Ja’al? No, please don’t …” Nothing. No rise and fall of his chest. No pinch of colour in his cheek. “Spirits of the Ancient Dragons, have mercy!”

Master Jo’el stared at them. “No!”

Fires ancient and fateful immolated her soul. Lia’s little fists rose and pounded his chest with all of her strength. “You … can’t … die!”

He lay unmoving.

“No. Oh, Ja’al … n-n-no.” Weeping. Inconsolable. She bent over him as a tree would shade a still pond, searching for life. Mercy, oh please … just one sign.

As tenderly as the touch of dawn’s light, Lia brushed his cheek with her lips. “Ja’al, don’t leave us …”

A flicker beneath the skin of his neck caught her eye. His pulse!

Ja’al murmured, “Princess, I thought we agreed there would be no more kissing of monks?”

Chapter 28: False King

IN HIS DREAM, two days later, Flicker found himself peeling egg-head’s skull aside to get his nose into the tasty, nourishing brains. Ooh, that was the bit that he loved best. Brains. His talons curled with delight. Their sponginess was just so …

Flicker.

Oh no, not when he was having such a pleasant dream.

Flicker, wake up.

The dragonet mumbled, You kissed that monk again. Shame on you.

Flicker, so help me I will tan your hide for boot leather!

He cracked an eye open. Is it time?

Hualiama nodded. Time for their assault on the palace.

In the predawn darkness, she, Flicker and a fifty-strong team of monks skulked in the jiista-berry bushes not a hundred feet from an outer circle of purple-clad Royal Guards. Above them, the eastern side of the palace grounds sheared away in two hundred feet of black basalt cliffs into a tangled mess of brush and trees. Few knew that this area also concealed a secret entrance into the dungeons beneath the palace. Two days, Flicker thought. Just two days since they had landed at Ha’athior Island, and Master Jo’el had organised a full-scale assault on the palace–alias, Ra’aba’s stronghold. The Master was a smart man, as far as Humans went. But his Lia had dreamed up the tactical masterstroke. It served to show the benefits of a dragonet’s instruction.

He nibbled Lia’s earlobe contentedly.

Jo’el had already stripped the monasteries bare and had his monks infiltrate Fra’anior in preparation for an assault. Dragons had sacked two of the empty monasteries while the daring dragonet, the blue beast and his favourite fire-eyed Human girl, had baited Ianthine in her lair and sprung the King from his rock cage. Flicker had quickly labelled the King ‘hard-head’, because the only voice he listened to was his own. But that one called Elki, he had a dragonet’s keen sense of mischief.

Ra’aba had five hundred crack troops deployed around the palace building, as well as a further three thousand mercenaries from Yaya Loop stationed in the palace grounds. Cannibals. The dragonet shuddered. Fifteen Dragons–thirteen Greens and two Browns–formed part of Ra’aba’s personal guard. The numbers arrayed against them were less than encouraging, unless the King managed to rally his troops from the barracks just outside the city, and Grandion succeeded in whistling up substantial draconic support from a father who had, by all accounts, banished him from the Halls of the Dragons until he reformed his ways.

Lia grabbed Flicker’s muzzle and stared right into his eyes. Have you forgotten your part?

By the First Egg, Lia’s eyes blazed! Flicker felt his snarky response evaporate. No, he said, and fluttered aloft.

He scanned the scene. Atop the bluff, two sentries overlooked the brush area. A further dozen were strung out at the base of the cliff. A mile to the north, a huge cargo Dragonship drifted above a low hill. In half an hour it would lose control and come sweeping down upon the Palace … right. Flicker’s duty was to signal the attack. He made one aerial loop. A second. As the third came to its completion, the monks surged silently from the bushes. Arrows whispered into the semidarkness. Lia struck her target atop the bluff cleanly beneath the chin, the arrow spearing through his brain. Fourteen Royal Guards collapsed within a heartbeat of each other, struck down simultaneously. All was accomplished in complete silence.

Monks rushed toward the secret entrance. Just a crack in the rocks marked by a damp stain, it was a sewage outlet for the dungeons. A Human pyramid formed against the cliff as if by magic. Sprinting toward the pyramid, his Lia–the lightest by far–stepped nimbly into the linked hands of a pair of monks. They launched her to the top of the pyramid, where a second pair of monks repeated the manoeuvre. Up she soared, a further fifteen feet to the crack. With the accomplished wriggle of a dragonet disappearing into its warren, Hualiama slipped into the darkness.

Rope flew up. It drew taut. Inside, Lia would be tying it to the metal grating which prevented ingress.

A low birdcall sounded.

Thirty monks heaved on the rope in perfect concert. The old, rusty grating popped loose on the third attempt. Flicker caught his breath–and where was Lia? There, swinging aside on a one-handed hold to allow the grating past her body. Two monks on the pyramid caught it so that there would be no clash of metal against rock.

A stream of dark-clad monks began to swarm up their pyramid, leaping for the crack like a flurry of Human-sized bats, so rapidly that they almost landed on each other’s backs. Flicker chirruped his approbation. Respectable, for mere Humans. A pair of ropes snaked down. The last of the monks–Rallon and Hallon, the giants at the pyramid’s base, swarmed up to join their fellows.

Flicker scanned the clifftops. When he observed no sign that their intrusion had been detected, the dragonet flipped his wings to enter the narrow tunnel with far more grace than the monks had managed. Obviously, he refused to sully his paws in the sewage. He landed on Lia’s shoulder.

Perfect, said the dragonet.

“Flicker says we’re in,” said Lia. “No Dragons so far.”

Their intelligence suggested that the majority of the Dragons slept atop the sprawling royal abode, with two or three of the Dragonkind guarding the chamber off the Great Hall which Ra’aba had made his own. Flicker reminded himself that this was only the first prong of a four-pronged attack.

Lia said, “Right, brother Ja’al. Time to foment a little long-overdue regime change.” His teeth gleamed briefly at the royal ward. “Flicker, check the dungeon entrance and report back. Hallon and first squad, secure the downstairs. Jammizon, second squad, this level. Ja’al and the rest, follow me. Keep the noise down to less than a Dragon’s battle-roar, alright?”

Garbed all in black, their hands, faces and heads blackened, the unarmoured but heavily armed monks filed up the stinking tunnel toward the dungeons proper. Flicker nipped ahead.

* * * *

Hualiama wished that adrenalin would wipe out the toxic cocktail of dread and dreams seething in her belly. So many qualms. Would her Nuyallith skills prove the ultimate weapon against Ra’aba? What kind of reception would Grandion receive at Gi’ishior? When she faced her father, would she feel wounded or vindicated? Could she hope to live up to the task with which an Ancient Dragon and the Nameless Man had entrusted her?

She issued orders. Led a team of monks. Even if her service was not acceptable to the King, she would serve her kingdom.

She secretly hoped that her friend Inniora would be held in the dungeons. Unlike most dungeons, she supposed, these were clean, dry and well ventilated, but also overrun by rats and hardly comfortable accommodation. The standard sleeping arrangement was a block of stone set along the left side of each cell, which were ten feet deep and just six feet wide. Tiny. Open metal gratings faced onto a substantial grid of long, torch-lit corridors, and while there were few guard patrols downstairs, a heavily fortified guardroom was located above the third level of the dungeons, which they would have to pass through in order to gain entrance to the lower servants’ levels of the palace.

There was also the charming affectation of the large torture-chambers just off the guardroom, which from all reports, Ra’aba had put to extensive use. Squeezing out of the sewer, the different groups of monks formed up and loped off to carry out their duties. Lia led her group to the stairs.

Ja’al whispered into her ear, “Is it always this crowded?”

“No.”

Her eyes flicked from side to side. Five, six to a cell. The acrid stench of sewage and unwashed Human bodies. Ra’aba had certainly been busy. There were whole families occupying cells, the children having to sleep stacked together like dragonets in a warren. A Dragoness’ fierce, aggrieved anger suffused her breast. This was wrong. The Roc’s tyranny knew no boundaries.

“Why don’t we let these people loose?” asked Ja’al.

“Too noisy right now. Once the King starts his assault, I’d like to–if we can get the keys from the guardroom.”

Flicker’s voice sounded in her head. All clear to the guardroom, but it’s locked.

Keys?

Can’t see them. Twenty Human soldiers; only five awake.

“Flicker says it’s clear but he can’t see the keys,” Hualiama whispered. “Let’s go up and take care of any patrolling soldiers. Then, wait for the signal.”

Lia called mentally, Flicker, please give us an estimate of the Dragonship’s arrival. The dragonet darted away.

Reaching the top of the stairs, Lia’s group fanned out, keeping well clear of the stairs up to the guardroom. Hualiama heard a tiny scuffle downstairs, and then silence. Nearby, a snick of metal against metal. Again, silence. She smiled bleakly. Each of those noises represented a patrolling guard being taken out of action.

She and Ja’al trotted down to the last corridor of cells on the southern side. They paused for a minute for a patrolling soldier to reach them, before Ja’al ghosted forth and struck the base of his skull with a fist clasped around a weighted baton. The soldier slumped; Lia seized his weapons before they clanged on the floor. Her ears identified a tiny scuffing sound. ‘Another,’ she signed. Ja’al nodded, pointing at himself. He slipped away, returning after an interminably long time with a grim smile and a nod.

Checking the final corridor, Ja’al jerked back hurriedly. Lia could not understand his smile. ‘Look,’ he signed. Gingerly, she peered around the corner. Her hand flew to her mouth. Two cells down on the opposite side, a hulking guard and a female prisoner were locked in a passionate embrace, despite the metal bars separating them.

With a tiny flutter of wings, Flicker returned to her shoulder. They’re early. I saw the King’s forces already approaching the Palace grounds. The Dragonship is less than five minutes away–by my wings, what are those two doing?

Kissing, said Lia.

Flicker gurgled softly, a dragonet laugh of disbelief. That’s revolting. They look like they’re eating each other’s faces.

Lia clucked crossly. It’s just a kiss. An unabashed, endless, world-stopping kiss. Actually, it’s a good opportunity for us, because our naughty boy Chago there has the keys.

I’m glad you never kissed me like that, Flicker snickered.

“Wait here,” said Lia, enflamed of cheek as she remembered her kiss with Ja’al. She darted across to the pair. Putting as much gruff and bark into her voice as possible, Lia snapped, “Report, soldier!”

They parted as though a Dragon had charged between them.

“S-Sir,” Chago said, before his brow beetled. “Who the–Princess! What are you doing here?”

Lia glanced at Inniora, dumbfounded and immobile in the middle of her cell. “Is this how the Royal Guard takes care of its prisoners, Chago?”

The giant Western Isles warrior, fully a head and a half taller than Lia, crashed to his knee and bowed his head. He rasped, “Your Highness, words fail me. We heard you were dead. Ra’aba celebrated; it was awful, and then Inniora whispered to me …” Poor man, tears rolled down his scarified cheeks! Even kneeling, she noticed with a tiny flare of annoyance, he was nearly as tall as her.

“Lia?” Inniora gasped. “It’s really you?”

With a wicked grin, Lia said, “Maybe I should just leave you here with Chago. You seem to like the dungeons.”

“I’d rather join in whatever nasty designs you have on Ra’aba’s fate.”

That was the Inniora she knew! Hualiama turned to Chago. “Unlock Inniora’s cell and please, don’t kneel. It’s not necessary.”

“Right now, you are the twin suns rising above the Onyx Throne,” rumbled Chago, rushing to do Lia’s bidding, “and I am at your command, my lady. We have other Palace soldiers ready to rise against Ra’aba. Only say the word. We will stand with you.”

“Rebellion is evidently catching,” said Ja’al.

“It’s always the little ones that cause the most trouble,” said Inniora.

Suddenly, from an unexpected quarter, formality slipped into Lia’s manner. Drawing herself up to every one of her five feet and two inches, she declared, “The true King of Fra’anior is at hand, Chago. Rouse your men and follow me.”

“And women,” said Inniora.

“And women,” said Lia, laughing softly as the tall Islander grabbed her into a rib-crushing embrace. “Glad to see you too. We brought you a present–your favourite sword.”

Inniora nodded. “Thank you. I hope I can hold it.” Showing Lia her left hand, she said, “I lost two fingers to Ra’aba’s men, but they did not torture me much once they realised they had the wrong person, and knew nothing of your plans.”

“Not much? Oh, Inniora.”

“You’ll be weeping like Chago in a minute,” said Inniora, with a discomfited growl. “Lead on.”

The dragonet said, You should send monks with Chago, or there’ll be confusion, Lia.

Good idea, Flicker, she replied. “Brother Ja’al, will you detail ten of your men to accompany Chago and his Guards?”

Ja’al’s lips twitched at the stress she placed on the word ‘brother’. “Aye. Second squad. See to it.”

Lia explained, “Some of them can try to get the servants to safety and let these people out. The rest of us need to concentrate on finding our way to the Great Hall.”

Chago’s appearance in the guardroom with a female prisoner caused an eruption of hilarity amongst his fellows. Their uncouth laughter lasted less than two seconds as a group of grim-faced monks crowded in right behind him, with Hualiama in their midst. Curses! Weapons slipping from sheaths! Sleepy men leaped from the pillow-roll, scrabbling for their weapons and armour.

“Silence!” Chago bellowed.

Lia stepped forward. With more than a crackle of Dragonish fire in her voice, she said, “Men, I am the Princess Hualiama of Fra’anior.” Her title did occasionally come in useful, she thought ruefully. “If you stand with the true King, then stand with us. Today, the traitor Ra’aba will fall.”

With a flick of her Nuyallith blade, she deflected a thrown dagger onto the floor. The room exploded in violence. Soldiers grappled with each other. Monks raced forward, deadly shadows on the move. Hualiama found herself facing three sword-waving soldiers, with Ja’al at her side and Flicker above them. The dragonet scratched one man’s eyes out. Lia finished him with a straight thrust to the chest. Her hands blurred into a series of parries as a second swordsman took her on, only to be ambushed by Flicker. She glanced around to see Hallon and Rallon charging the stairs to the upper levels of the palace, where a group of soldiers tried to shut and bolt the dungeon door.

“To me!” bellowed Chago. “Take them!”

The metal door stood on strong ratchet hinges designed to halt egress from the dungeons. Behind it, Hualiama saw two or three dozen men wearing unfamiliar livery and wielding large war hammers, perhaps the mercenaries from Yaya Loop. The three big men charged the door. Rallon threw himself bodily into the gap, groaning as the door slammed against his chest and shoulder. Hallon hacked away above his brother, trying to stop the blades and war hammers homing in on the trapped monk’s head. Above them, the dragonet whizzed through the gap, turning side-on to fit his wings through.

Having picked up a war hammer, Chago attacked the hinges with mighty overhand blows. Lia jerked forward. Arrows! Rapidly, almost falling on top of Rallon in her haste, Lia swung the Haozi hunting bow off her shoulder and began to place arrows through the gap, not caring what she hit as long as she drove the mercenaries back.

Suddenly, an image flowered in her mind, taking over all else. She was in a different place. From afar, Lia saw a Dragonship slewing toward the pink quartz and black granite Palace building. Dragons lounged all over the Receiving Balcony, a flat, paved area where the King of Fra’anior traditionally met with the Dragon Elders. Sleeping, a watching mind told her, from what felt a great distance. Lia’s body shivered, but she realised her spirit was not there. It watched with one who powered through the first flames of dawn’s sky, driving his body to the utmost speed to reach the Human Island.

A Green Dragon sat up. Her vision zeroed in on the Dragonship, magnifying the scene to an incredible degree. Men appeared on the Dragonship’s gantries, yelling and milling about in an obvious panic. They leaped over the side. Ha, she thought. Monks with the ability to levitate. But the Greens did not know that.

Bellowing in shock and anger, the Green Dragons began to leap into the air, flapping, diving over the edges of the wide balcony. Too late. Less than five seconds separated their first warning from the Dragonship’s arrival, targeting the bunched Dragons perfectly.

KAAAABOOM!

White light flared, brilliant. Dark smoke mushroomed from the point of impact. Immolation in fire was no great danger for a Dragon, for they were armoured against it and even bathed in lava for sport, at least for short periods of time. But the force of a hydrogen blast did pose a danger for outstretched wing membranes. Two Dragons right in the centre of the blast fell immediately, howling in mortal agony. A third somersaulted off the balcony, crashing headfirst into the palace gardens. The others, smart enough to tuck in their wings or roll away, survived, but not unscathed.

Lia shuddered, sensing the shockwave through her knees. For a second she felt disoriented by being back in her own body.

Ra’aba must be awake now!

Scrambling to her feet, Lia squeezed her petite frame through the gap, even as Chago’s prodigious blows made the door shudder and sag on its hinges. She rolled beneath a half-seen blow and stabbed her swords into the nearest mercenary’s gut. Monks crowded behind her, but Inniora beat them all, her long sword flashing in a huge overhand blow that cut down a mercenary to Lia’s left, who had been lining Rallon up for a fatal hammer strike.

The bearded mercenaries gave no quarter. Again and again, Lia found herself having to curtail her flowing Nuyallith forms for lack of space. This was a problem she had not envisaged. The style was not only useful for single combat, was it, or combat against Dragons?

Outside, a rousing roar similar to the onset of storm winds and rain announced the arrival of the King’s forces, the third prong of the attack. But above the rumbling sounds of battle, Lia heard the thundering challenges of Ra’aba’s Dragons. That was her concern. Even given Master Jo’el’s idea of mobile war crossbows on carts, any ground force battling Dragons had to be at a severe disadvantage. However, King Chalcion would have it no other way. No sneaking about for him. He intended to lead a glorious frontal assault on the palace gates.

The monastery forces spread out through the below-ground servant quarters, securing them despite the mercenaries’ fatalistic, last-man-standing attitude to defence. Bloody hand-to-hand fights developed, with the outnumbered monks slowly prevailing by superior skill and passion. Gaining a few seconds’ space, Hualiama surveyed the battle from an alcove just within a large hallway, hung with ten-foot tall artworks depicting common scenes of Fra’aniorian life, which housed the only two staircases leading to the upper palace levels. The Royal Palace had been designed this way for security.

Around her, knots of monks and Chago’s warriors of the Fra’aniorian Royal Guard led servants and families down to the safety of the dungeons, while the battle on the two wide, parallel staircases raged without ceasing, neither side gaining an advantage. The mercenaries were well armed and shielded their archers at the top of the stairs with tall oval shields. Any unarmoured monks attacking across the open areas leading to the base of the stairs, were vulnerable. Scores already lay injured or dead. Lia knew they needed to change the balance. Their dwindling force would pose little threat to Ra’aba otherwise.

A Grandion-sized fireball would have been useful in this situation.

Racking her brains for ideas, Hualiama’s gaze fell on Flicker flying overhead, dive-bombing mercenaries. Aye. That was it.

“Chago. Inniora,” she rapped. “Get every water gourd you can find in the slave quarters and empty them. Ask those families downstairs. Ja’al, there are stores at the back of the Palace. We need oil. Fast. Get five of the small barrels. Hallon, Rallon, tear up cloth for fuses.”

Ja’al’s eyes widened. “You’re going to burn them.”

“Got any better ideas?”

Shortly, out of sight of the mercenaries, oil began to glug into gourds. They stuffed the mouths of the gourds with oiled cloth and prepared braziers with fire.

Lia handed out gourds. “On my mark, we light the fuses, charge out there and throw these at their heads. Flicker, you take a few and drop them from above. Then, we break for the Great Hall. Chago, you and Inniora will lead a force upstairs and try to break through to the Great Hall–but you’ll be the diversion, so please don’t risk too many lives. Ja’al, I need a dozen monks to come with me. We’re going another way. Maybe we’ll surprise Ra’aba.”

They lined up in the rooms opposite the stairs, dozens of monks and Fra’aniorian soldiers grimly clutching their oil gourds.

Lia nodded, remembering their battle cry from Ya’arriol Island. “For the Dragon!”

The monks all shouted as one, “For the Dragon!”

“Light up … go!”

Shouting their battle cries, Lia and her group burst through the doorway and across the twenty feet of open space leading to the stairway. Flicker shot ahead, already above the mercenaries. He dropped his deadly load. Lia flung her own gourd, scoring a direct hit on their shields. Flame sheeted toward the ceiling. Black smoke and terrible screams filled the hallways.

Oh well. King Chalcion would have to put up with a few of the kingdom’s treasures being burned.

“Go!” she screamed.

Crying, “For the Dragon!” the mixed group of soldiers and monks charged the stairs.

A few arrows winged their way, but mostly the mercenaries were rolling on the ground, helplessly trying to put out the oil fires as they burned alive. Lia knew that she would hear their agonised shrieks in her nightmares forever after. The monks dived through the leaping flames, charging into the halls beyond, clashing violently with the squads of Ra’aba’s mercenaries waiting there. More gourds flew. More treasures burned, but Lia cared little for them. Each life lost wounded her afresh.

Lia broke to her left, past a blazing tapestry. “Follow me!” Ja’al and Flicker paced her, the other monks a step or two behind. Sprinting through a series of richly furnished reception rooms, they came to the western wall of the palace building. “Through the windows,” said Lia, fighting with the window locks.

“Oh, Islands’ sakes,” said Hallon, shouldering her aside. With a swing of his war hammer, he shattered the priceless, stained crysglass panels. “After you, Princess.”

Hualiama leaped out almost onto the back of a Royal Guard. Flicker was already all over the man, razor sharp talons slicing any exposed flesh. Lia despatched the soldier with a thrust of her blade, while the giant twins leaped past her, closing with a further couple of Royal Guards. The purple robes fell.

“Around here,” Lia panted, leading the charge through the ornate formal gardens, called the Queen’s Joy. “The Great Hall’s just above us. There’s a balcony… some vines on the wall … played here as a child.”

“Give me that,” said Ja’al, helping himself to a throwing knife from her wristlet. He hurled it into the throat of a guard running toward them.

“Up here,” Lia pointed.

Without a word, the monks began to climb the dark walls. Meanwhile, the royal ward plucked a couple of poisoned darts from her bodice and flicked them at a pair of mercenaries who seemed to think that she presented an attractive target. They fell, convulsing uncontrollably.

Now it was her turn. Lia swarmed up the linger-vines which covered most of this wall of the palace. Up past the senior servants’ recreation rooms, up past her old tutor’s chambers, she climbed the three floors to the balcony outside the Great Hall. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw the King’s forces beset by Dragons, fighting at a standstill just a few hundred feet from the palace gates.

Then she was up and over the protective wall of the balcony, whipping out her Nuyallith blades to join the fray. Ja’al and his monks hammered into a squad of four or five dozen Royal Guards.

“For the true King of Fra’anior!” she screamed. “Are you with us?”

The soldiers laughed.

At last she had the space to truly fight, and fight she did, in that curious mental state where rational thought was suspended by the imperative of the battle-song raging in her veins, the roaring between her ears and the clash of metal against metal.

Whirling the ultra-sharp Nuyallith blades about her spinning body, Hualiama sliced into the squad of soldiers, causing even the veterans to fall back with alarmed cries. She was fire. She was the dance-step before death. She breezed between their clumsy blows. Lia was appalled to hear her own laughter rise over the clash of battle, hungry and fierce, all bloodthirsty passion and a Dragoness’ delight in the kill. She skidded to a halt beyond the soldiers, confronting a second squad of purple-clad Royal Guards pouring out of the hall.

What was she doing? What had she become?

“With me!” cried Ja’al.

Thrusting with his hands, the young monk impelled a number of the soldiers out of their path. The purple robes smashed into planters filled with exotic flowers and tumbled over the edge of the balcony. Riding the force of Hallon and Rallon’s charge, the monks broke between the enormous green marble pillars which separated the Great Hall from the outside world.

The fighting was fierce, but Hualiama had eyes only for the far end of the Great Hall, where the Onyx Throne of Fra’anior stood. A single monolithic block of dark, sparkling onyx carved in the likeness of a seated Dragon, the arms were the Dragon’s paws and the seat back, a stylised Dragon’s head rising above the king’s head, which had rubies the size of a man’s fist for eyes, and six-inch garnets for teeth. Its wings spread fifteen feet either side of the seat. This was the symbol of Fra’anior, the ultimate seat of power.

Upon that cold stone throne, flanked by two stolid Green Dragons, clad all in black save for his purple robe of office and a golden circlet upon his brow, sat the false king.

Ra’aba.

Chapter 29: Ra’aba

CHills racked Hualiama’s spine as she locked her gaze upon her nemesis. Finally. All of her life, it seemed, had been spent in preparation for this moment–since before her birth. Ra’aba sat deep in consultation with two ranking soldiers, as if the fighting did not concern him in the slightest. Then, he appeared to sense her special animus. Great rivers of fire rushed in her ears as his sallow, unfeeling eyes sought her out, unerring. Piercing her soul.

Ra’aba’s brow furrowed.

Was that a flash of concern she saw, of recognition, before the fighting closed in? Hualiama threw herself furiously against the Royal Guards, those same men who had bent the knee, swearing to serve the true King of Fra’anior. Her blades burned the air. Pain scored her side. She stumbled over a fallen soldier, but Ja’al leaped in to turn aside a blow aiming to detach her head from her shoulders.

When Hualiama had an opportunity to look again, Ra’aba was on his feet. His usual sneer had reasserted itself. Making a curious gesture with his right hand, the Roc said, “Separate her to me.”

At once, the disciplined Royal Guards closed about Lia like fingers pinching a bud. Hualiama fought like a madwoman, but the soldiers worked in concert to beat her away from her friends. Suddenly, she was ejected into the open. Alone. A half-circle of steel cut off her retreat. For a second, all Lia could think of was how exposed she felt, similarly to the time Grandion had become strangely possessive of her at the blue pool. Then, her anger surged.

“So, Ra’aba. Pleasantly surprised to see me alive?”

“Surprised, aye,” he growled, stalking closer. Lia noticed his hand did not stray far from his sword-hilt, even though he appeared relaxed. “Pleasantly? No. Why won’t you just lie down and die like the good little girl you always were, Lia?”

Flicker landed on her shoulder, baring his fangs at the Roc. Lia was grateful for the dragonet’s support. Having wished for the courage of a Dragon to confront her father, hers was more dragonet-sized. Nevertheless, she forced scorn into her reply.

“Dying’s overrated, Ra’aba. Besides, you’re fouling the Onyx Throne with–”

“Big words, little Lia,” he sneered. “How’s your back?”

She shrugged, allowing her Nuyallith blades to fall to her sides, palms held outward in the second ready position as she matched his slow approach step for step. “I was healed by a Dragoness. You see, while you’ve been trying to grasp a kingdom which is not your own, I’ve been out there, learning and growing in my skills.”

His derision bellowed around the Great Hall. “You still think you can beat me?”

“That prophecy is so awkward for you, isn’t it?”

His yellow eyes blazed. “What do you know about the prophecy? Nothing! Besides, I don’t need to fight you. There are a dozen arrows trained on your heart even as we speak.”

His gesture brought to her notice archers arrayed on the galleries around the magnificently appointed hall, where the great balls and functions of royal Fra’anior took place. Lia returned her attention to Ra’aba, pretending unconcern.

“How then shall I address you, o false king of Fra’anior? The coward king? He who hides behind his soldiers and archers and Dragons. King yellow-belly the toothless. More sparrow than roc. You’re a liar, a traitor and above all a fool, because you’ve stirred up the wrath of the Dragon Elders. They’re on their way here right now, Ra’aba.”

“The Dragon Elders?” he spat. “I took care of that detail months ago, little Lia. You won’t be seeing them any time soon.”

But one Dragon was coming, or had she sensed falsely, Lia wondered? Through whose eyes had she seen the Dragonship explode? Her heart sank. She fervently hoped Grandion was on his way with all the strength of the Dragons of Gi’ishior at his back, because the thundering of those Dragons out over the city sounded victorious … she had to trust her Dragon. When was the time to start using the information she held against Ra’aba?

“So, these Greens pander to the whims of a Human? You know what they say in Dragonish? Only a worm serves a Human.” Oddly, the two Green Dragons only blinked at her, apparently unmoved by her insult. Lia changed tack. “Unfortunately for you, the Nameless Man has already predicted your demise, Ra’aba. You’re on the wrong side of fate. Try to kill me again, I invite you. The very stones of Fra’anior will rise up to strike you down.”

As she spoke, Hualiama watched him narrowly. A slight tightening of the muscles around the Roc’s jaw provided a fraction of a second’s warning. With a terrifying scream, the sword appeared to leap into his hand as Ra’aba executed his fast draw technique and split the air with a mighty, cleaving stroke.

Lia whispered aside.

The Roc struck again. Metal screeched as angrily as a windroc. Hualiama allowed herself to return to the first rest position, swords crossed in front of her chest.

“Is that all you have?” she inquired, smiling.

Her words were hydrogen gas piped into a blast furnace. Their swords blurred, the violence of clashing metal echoing from the famous arched ceiling, painted in glorious life-size pictures of the different colours of Dragons, causing the soldiers to step back cautiously. Hualiama danced before him, absorbing the fury of Ra’aba’s attack, negating his power, yielding with a suppleness that allowed Ra’aba no direct route to strike her as before. But the Roc had his inhuman speed and strength, and so he bullied her around the floor, relying on his greater muscle and reach to keep her at bay.

Hualiama switched forms to the raging volcano technique, striking with increasing power and agility from a variety of angles. Her right blade clanged off his elbow. So, the famous stone skin was intact! The Roc frowned more darkly. He settled grimly into defence. His yellow eyes blazed, measuring her attack, probing for weaknesses. A misplaced parry jarred her right wrist painfully, but Lia recovered. She must be careful. With his power, Ra’aba could snap her wrists.

“Not bad, little Lia,” he sneered. “Unfortunately, you’re still just a girl.”

His lunge snagged the cloth above her hip. Lia struck backhanded from her left side, but Ra’aba’s forearm smashed into her elbow, seeking a disabling blow. Pain spurted through her nerves into her fingers. Lia twirled away instinctively, trying to protect that hand; a fallen weapon rolled slightly beneath her foot. That was all the opening Ra’aba needed. He plowed forward, taking advantage of her imbalance, thrashing her defence until he was able to kick her front foot out from beneath her. Hualiama’s skull connected the marble floor with a sickening thud.

She groaned, “Oh, mercy …”

“Get up!” His finger crooked beneath her nose. “Fight me, you little dragonet. Fight!”

His phrasing; that exact gesture, transported Lia all the way back to the Dragonship, to the moment when Ra’aba slashed a frightened girl’s back open with a single, merciless blow. She was that girl. Lia tasted fear and inanition, and the knowledge that the Roc would kill her as surely as a man slaughtered a ralti sheep. Images flashed through her mind. Crashing to the sand in the training arena. Losing to the monks again and again. Master Khoyal’s expression as a dagger slipped between his ribs. The exact taste of Lia’s terror as she fell from the Dragonship … which suddenly mutated into the sensation of flying with the Tourmaline Dragon.

Aye. She was that victim no longer. Hualiama had suffered and trained, and refused to die. She counted an Ancient Dragon among her friends. At this thought, the cheekiness of a dragonet mingled with the courage of a Dragon in her spirit. Infectious. Exhilarating. A liberation of chains which had bound her soul for so long.

“Same tired old lines, Ra’aba?” she chuckled.

“You–you laugh? You dare?”

She could not more effectively have punched him on the nose. The Roc’s eyes almost watered as he stared down at her; a tic leaped in his cheek. His heavy boot stamped at her throat. Missed. His sword crashed down. Missed again. Lia remembered playing this game with Grandion. No Human could be faster than a Dragon. As she rolled across the floor, Ra’aba chased her furiously. Suddenly, she reversed her legs into a scissors throw she had learned while wrestling Hallon, catching Ra’aba across the knees and upper thighs. Her momentum flipped him onto his back. Her Nuyallith sword clinked against his chest. No way through.

For half a second their gazes sparred, for Hualiama straddled the Roc’s torso as she brought her blade down to stab him in the neck.

Ra’aba waved his left hand, and struck with his magic.

Lia gasped, punched by an unseen force. She skidded twenty feet backward on the polished marble flagstones before recovering her balance. Ra’aba struck her again, and again, furious blows of unseen magic. Out between the pillars. Dazed, she tasted blood in her mouth. Wham! Over a wide planter of fireflowers. Hss … a dull explosion burst against her chest. “Unnh!” she cried. Lia crashed against the balcony’s retaining wall. Black occluded her vision for a moment. All she heard was the thudding of her heart inside her aching skull.

Her swift touch to the back of her head brought back a smear of blood.

* * * *

The fungus-face had done quite enough to his girl! The dragonet swooped in with a furious screech, but Ra’aba batted him away with a casual surfeit of magic. Flicker careened across the balcony, fetching up in a thicket of aromatic vines trailing up one of the marble columns. He shook his wings. How could they possibly fight this madman?

Ra’aba stood just a few wing-lengths from Hualiama, facing outward from the balcony as though she no longer mattered. “Look.” He pointed out over the city. His blade was sheathed once more. “They will bring me the King.”

Wincing in evident pain, Lia raised her head.

The dragonet looked, too. Smoke rose from many places in the city, but it was the mayhem surrounding the King’s forces that drew Flicker’s eye. Yulgaz the Brown led the attack, along with half a dozen Green Dragons. Master Jo’el and a handful of monks withstood them, holding the Dragons’ repeated acid attacks at bay with a shield that shimmered like bubbles on a volcanic lake. He scanned the horizon. No Dragons? Why then had he sensed Grandion’s presence when Lia froze for several seconds while shooting arrows over Rallon, and again, just seconds before? If the Tourmaline Dragon was able to help her from afar …

One of the Greens screamed in pain. A six-foot crossbow bolt plugged in his chest. The Green’s Dragonwing smashed into Jo’el’s force, time and time again. The monks buckled and struggled but somehow forced the Dragons back. Just behind them, King Chalcion stomped up and down, screaming orders. Suddenly, Yulgaz drove his talons into the wide cobbled roadway. A hundred feet of Brown Dragon burrowed beneath the ground like a mole. The King’s forces broke into a full retreat, leaving the pocket of monks standing on a deceptively unbroken stretch of road. Yulgaz broached! Rocks and dirt exploded upward in a huge brown fountain, the Brown Dragon’s great jaws snapping and grinding against the monks’ shield. Master Jo’el staggered, struck by a flying rock. The shield collapsed. The Green Dragons hurtled together like hounds fighting for a choice bone, and when the dust settled, there was nothing left. Not even a scrap of a monk’s robe.

A low sob escaped Lia’s clenched teeth.

“You see, my victory is inevitable, said Ra’aba. “I’ve planned for every eventuality.”

Hualiama groaned longer and lower, her face twisted in the Human expression of grief. She folded in on herself, holding her stomach as though gutted like a hunted lemur. Flicker began to hang his head, his fires dampened in sorrow at the great Master’s demise, when he saw her countenance change. Strength from grief. He remembered now. Every one of his scales prickled in anticipation.

The Human girl transformed before his eyes. Flicker thought to see hatred. He saw sorrow. He thought to see weeping, but instead Lia’s eyes widened, swirls of smoke gathering in their orbs as though ignited from within. He expected dark Dragon fire, but instead, the magical fire that poured forth from her soul was so pure and white, it hurt his eyes to look upon. It was adamantine purpose. Obligation. Necessity. A manifestation of the fibre of her will brought into beautiful being, the light coalesced in the blades lifting from her sides, very slowly. Hualiama rose with draconic grace, a hunter’s stalking sinuosity that brought Flicker’s own fires roaring back into life.

She said, “Go help Ja’al, Flicker. I will take care of Ra’aba.”

Fungus-face seemed frozen, stupefied by her transformation. Rightly so. For a long second, Flicker understood the awe that rooted the Human in his clumping boots. Ra’aba knew fear. He knew that destiny’s claw shadowed his very soul.

Hualiama said, “Fifteen and a half years ago, I was born amidst mystery. I grew up in this household as a royal ward, aware only of the strangeness of my existence, of the fire-dreams that inhabited my soul. You see, Ra’aba, I have always longed to fly.” As she moved forward, it was as if an invisible bubble of Lia’s presence drove the man to retreat. No need for blades. “Why did you try to murder me, Ra’aba? Why did you send Razzior to burn a no-account royal ward?”

He shook his head violently, retreating into the Great Hall.

“You were right. I’m no Princess. For I know that a woman came from the East to treat with the Dragons at Gi’ishior. Her name was Azziala. Tell me, what do you remember of Azziala? Was she small, Ra’aba? Did she have smoky eyes like mine?”

“Ready archers!” Ra’aba screeched, sounding the exact note of a feral windroc.

The monks still fought furiously, though they were surrounded by purple robes. At the Great Hall’s doorway, Flicker glimpsed a hand-to-hand conflict before the four inch thick wooden panels were slammed shut and barred.

“You see, I have dreamed of my mother,” Hualiama said, as if that very dream entranced her now. “From the very beginning, the paw of the Great Dragon has shaped my destiny. Tell me your fears, Ra’aba. What do you fear most? Why do you tremble? Do you know that the Dragons of Gi’ishior are at hand? I have felt them. They come, and your rebellion will be immolated in Dragon fire.”

Flicker’s eyes shifted at a commotion up on one of the balconies. A shadow stole between the pillars. Both of the archers there crumpled, dead.

Slain by the shadow? What was this?

He must help the monks! He must get Lia the help she needed!

* * * *

Hualiama reacted to a flicker of movement in the corner of her eye. Her blades screamed aloft, slicing a single arrow into three disparate pieces.

She said, “Is this your best, Ra’aba?”

An archer pitched off one of the balconies with a choked-off cry. Even the pair of Green Dragons, so far disinterested in happenings in the Great Hall, began to shift uneasily. Hualiama’s nape pricked with a sense of foreboding. What on the Islands was going on?

Looking to her hands, Lia saw one blade blazing the red of a volcano’s heart, and the other the blue of a pearlescent sky. Insight crystallised within her. There was only one way to reach Ra’aba.

She had to beat him.

The Nuyallith forms surrounded her mental space in the likeness of a host of ancient warriors, Master Khoyal foremost among them. Honouring them with a mental bow, Hualiama picked a form. Her small feet tripped deftly across the flagstones, closing the distance with Ra’aba.

Their blades converged with shattering force. Hualiama harassed him like a small whirlwind, her petite frame generating so much power that chips of metal flew off the edge of Ra’aba’s blade. He parried robustly, sliding and coiling, trying his wiles and his trickery, reversing his strokes and even switching hands in a bid to throw her off. The Nuyallith blades struck sparks off his skin. And again. Whipping the blades around in parallel to strike neck and shoulder simultaneously, Hualiama sent the Roc staggering, yet still she could not break his skin. She drank deep of the pain of her father’s betrayal and Master Jo’el’s death, slowly driving Ra’aba up to the Onyx Throne, between the two Green Dragons.

She was living fire, flickering, burning from every angle. She was the spirit of a Dragon expressed in dance, the movement of her limbs becoming ever more expansive and flowing, the red and blue fire surrounding her artistic representation of the Dragon flying skill like a nimbus, yet Ra’aba withstood all she had, fighting grimly with his blade, using his forearms as shields when needed, and his stone skin power seemed unbreakable.

Lia stepped back, breathing hard. Not a single archer remained. Instead, on the final balcony, there stood a beautiful young man, clad in a Fra’aniorian Royal Guard’s purple uniform, yet Hualiama knew he was no soldier or courtier she had ever seen around the royal court. Had that mystery soldier struck down all of Ra’aba’s archers, singlehanded? Who was he? For his eyes glowed in the shadow of the balcony. Blue as gemstones. Tourmaline blue.

What? Now she was imagining the spirit of Grandion in Human form? Her sanity had to be cracking, the magical fire too much for any Human to bear …

The young man bowed deeply and smiled at her.

Ra’aba, too, looked to the balcony. His knuckles turned white on his sword. He ground out, “You can never beat me!”

With a scream of pure fury, the Roc hurled himself at Hualiama. Insanity! Frenzy! Ra’aba had the strength of many men, the power to cut through mountains, it seemed. But the flame refused to be beaten down. Lia met his assault with the supple, ever-shifting elegance of the higher Nuyallith forms. Parrying with the left blade, she struck with the right, driving her father back. Lia grieved. Was this how it had to be? Duelling her own father to the death?

She was storm. Lia roared at him, the Nuyallith feral Dragon form fuelled by the anguish her father had caused over the years; all the pain and suffering he had inflicted upon her kingdom. Real thunder snapped the Roc’s head back.

“FOR THE DRAGON!”

Her cry smashed Ra’aba against the Onyx Throne. He grabbed the seat, shaking his head groggily, unable to rise. The two Green Dragons thundered their own challenges, as though a tiny Dragoness had dared to voice her challenge before the mightiest beasts in all creation.

Silence rippled across the fabric of the Island-World. Every person, every Dragon present, stilled to view their confrontation. Hualiama gazed upon the father who had despised her, and could not find it within herself to hate him. Though she knew the strange, blue-eyed young man watched her with unnerving intensity, she focussed on Ra’aba as though he were the only person in the world. Did he still not know who she was? Did he not see her? How could he deny the truth, shaking his head as though wishing her away would change the fact of her existence?

Lia’s arms parted slowly, leaving her chest vulnerable. A sacrifice.

Someone in the crowd gasped–Ja’al?

Ra’aba bounded forward, stabbing his blade right into the centre of the Human cross formed by her arms and torso. The Dragoness’ scale pinged sweetly, incongruously even, given the bruising power of his thrust. His blade bounced off.

He stammered, “W-What?”

Distinctly, Lia said, “Like father, like daughter.”

“You are not my daughter. It’s impossible.”

No trace of colour remained in his cheeks. At last, Hualiama knew she had rattled him to the very core. Her words were blades, now. Lia said, “Denials are pointless. You are my blood father, just as was prophesied.”

The yellow eyes appeared lost, cast adrift on the Cloudlands of his inner turmoil, a mounting disbelief which staggered Ra’aba more surely than the strike of a Dragon’s paw. Gasping, “No. It cannot be,” the Roc fell back against the Onyx Throne, clutching onto the stone arm for support. “No. You can’t prove a thing.”

Almost, Lia pitied him. “I don’t need to, father. I have the Maroon Dragoness’ word on it.”

He began to speak, before grinding his teeth shut. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. Hualiama stared at her father–to avoid telling the truth, he had bitten through his own tongue?

Then Ra’aba lunged, bellowing and flailing, his face screwed up into a bizarre rictus of insanity–or, had she imagined the face of a Dragon, of Razzior, peering out from within? The heat of her magic must be playing her false. At the speed of thought, Lia’s swords crossed in front of her face. One parried his blade. The second extended simultaneously, piercing Ra’aba cleanly beneath his lower right ribs.

He screamed in shock and pain.

Then, he vanished.

* * * *

Lowering her swords, Lia turned a full circle on her heel. Twice. “Where is he?”

Around the Great Hall, the soldiers of the Royal Guard appeared equally nonplussed, shaking their heads or examining their weapons as though they had only just realised where they were.

She shouted, “Where is Ra’aba?”

“Lower your weapons!” yelled Ja’al.

“Come with us,” Rallon ordered the soldiers nearest him. “Join us and fight for the true King of Fra’anior!”

The striking young man had also evaporated like smoke over the caldera. Lia shook herself. Flying ralti sheep, had she or had she not just been fighting Ra’aba? Who had bled upon the Onyx Throne? The Nuyallith swords had only begun their brief journey back into their sheaths, when Lia heard two distinct noises. There came the cry of a Dragon, a wonderful, well-known voice, but it was a bellow of pain rather than triumph. Grandion! And another mighty voice, bawling, Dragons, to me!

Ra’aba was on top of the palace! What? Had she heard right, her father bellowing in Dragonish?

Instinct sped her feet. Lia tore out onto the balcony, searching the skies frantically–great Islands! Her eyes bulged. How had Grandion managed to land himself in such a tangle? As she watched, the Tourmaline Dragon swept toward the Royal Palace, but a massive Green Dragon rode upon his back, gripping Grandion’s upper wings and flanks four-pawed while gnawing at his neck with his beak-like jaws. Lia realised that the bulky Green intended to force Grandion into a rough, possibly bone-shattering landing.

Backing up two steps, she bumped into Ja’al.

“Launch me with your power,” she demanded, judging Grandion’s flight path. He would pass close to the balcony, perhaps sixty feet distant.

“You must be joking–”

Lia snapped, “Now, Ja’al!”

No time to think. She broke into a dead sprint. As Lia leaped off the balcony, wind slammed into her back, propelling her like a Human arrow fired at the incoming Dragons. She thought to stab the Green in the eye. But Lia had misjudged. She smacked into the Green Dragon’s upper shoulder, right in the meat of the major flight muscle. A desperate tangling of limbs, flailing swords and an unexpected boost from both of the Dragons flapping their wings at the same time, ended up with a Human girl lying upside-down against the Green Dragon’s spine spikes.

Elegant as ever. Lia righted herself with an irritated wriggle.

Now, how much damage could a Human girl do with the equivalent of two metal toothpicks, to a hulking, hundred-foot Green Dragon with paws large enough to crush three of her at a time? Her eyes narrowed–aye! He had neck vertebrae, only they were twenty times the size of hers. Sheathing one blade, Lia danced out onto the Dragon’s neck. Time to quarry for a nerve. She slammed the blade down as hard as she could, and almost broke her wrists. Bone. But the Nuyallith blade had at least penetrated the Dragon’s scale armour, which was as much a surprise to her as it was to the Green Dragon, who unexpectedly found a Human Dragon Rider upon his back.

Get off me, you mosquito! he thundered.

The Green tried to shake his head, which was ineffective given how his fangs were stuck in Grandion’s neck. Lia stabbed twice more with the air of a butcher cutting up meat, feeling her way to the slight ridge between two neck vertebrae. With a sharp cry, she speared the blade hilt-deep.

The Green convulsed. Lia knew that most Dragon nerves and major blood vessels, even their hearts, existed in triplicate. A Dragon could lose a heart and still keep flying. But she imagined that few Dragon fangs could penetrate the narrow gap between their neck vertebrae, and certainly not with the precision of her blade. Lia hung on as her body flapped about like a tethered windroc, jerking the blade up and down and doing untold damage to the Dragon’s spinal cord. Suddenly, the wings drooped. The Dragon’s mouth slipped off Grandion’s neck.

Flaccid, the Green Dragon’s entire body weight drove the Tourmaline Dragon toward the ground.

Seeing trees whizzing by right beneath Grandion’s paws, Hualiama screamed, “Roll, Grandion!”

Her Dragon heaved himself sideways, a violent slew in the air. The Green slipped off Grandion’s spine spikes. Lia wailed as she tried to run up its neck, but the speed of the rotation was too much. She spun loose. The next instant, before she could even gasp, she collected the full weight of Grandion’s flailing tail-tip in her stomach.

“Oof!”

Lia saw black. Then the Dragon–her beautiful, deadly Dragon–whipped his tail around like a massive slingshot. Hualiama flew over the gardens she knew so well. Whap! She smacked into his paw. Grandion immediately did a second, fancy mid-air grab to catch her sword.

“Your weapon, Princess.”

“Thank you, Dragon,” she wheezed, accepting the blade. What she could see of his body was a bloodied, fire-blackened mess. A strip of membrane flapped freely from his left wing. A battle at Gi’ishior? Or the Green’s doing? She could not think about that now. Lia exclaimed, “Am I glad to see you! Ra’aba just vanished.”

“He’s up top, rallying his Dragons. Thanks for cleaning the slug off my back.” Grandion had that most disconcerting Dragon habit of looking backward while flying forwards, the better to grin at his captive. “Look, your King’s in trouble. Why don’t I set you down somewhere and go make a nuisance of myself?”

“Are there more Dragons coming?”

“Watch the skies, Dragon Rider,” he said, banking sharply. “Do me a favour. You need to distract Ra’aba for as long as possible. Can you do that?”

Hualiama knew what Flicker might suggest. She settled for wrinkling her nose at Grandion, her heart ululating its happiness within her mind. “I succeeded in distracting you, didn’t I?”

“Aye, most certainly,” he said, with great dignity but a detectable hiccup in his flight pattern. “They are some ways behind.”

“Great! Throw me at that tree, would you?”

Chapter 30: The Onyx Throne

Hualiama COULD HAVE burst into joyful song until Grandion said, “Don’t forget, the Dragons will not interfere until there is cause.”

Which meant, Grandion too. He would deal with Yulgaz and his minions, if he could. The rest was up to Lia and her allies.

Now that palace rooftop looked like the loneliest place in the Island-World.

“They’re destroying the town! How does that square with your policy of non-interference?” she complained.

Understanding struck. Lia had no need of Grandion’s dismayed growl to confirm her suspicions. Those Humans down there simply did not matter, not in draconic reckoning. All that mattered were Ra’aba’s recalcitrant Dragons and his rebellion against Sapphurion and the Dragon Elders. If a few Humans were trampled in the bargain, what of it? Humans were the lice in the armpit of the world, as Grandion had once told her.

Heartsore, sickened, Hualiama had no words.

Then, she indeed watched the skies and saw a Dragonwing breaking out of the clouds above Fra’anior. Greens. Uncountable Greens, like a flight of dragonets, only these were larger and angrier beasts by far. Sixty? Seventy? She could not count through the tears blurring her eyes. Dragon-thunder rolled before the Dragonwing as though a Cloudlands storm had voiced the sum of all its thunder at once. Massive wings churned the air. Talons curled beneath the incalculable tonnage of serpentine bodies cleaving their path to Lia’s Island home.

G-G-Grandion? Hushed. Overawed. This was the end of Fra’anior … they would tear the Island apart and every Human on it.

Be strong and unafraid, treasured Rider. Relief is at hand.

Lia gasped, How can we stand against so many? And she felt ashamed at her first thought–that Grandion had betrayed her.

I believe Ra’aba is the key. And I know who must confront him. She’s the bravest Human I know; she will find a way.

Hualiama gave the Tourmaline Dragon a dejected smile. Right.

Six Green Dragons dwarfed the Receiving Balcony atop the palace, guarding Ra’aba. Lia remembered hiding up there as a child to spy on her father’s meetings with the Dragons. The black paving stones were scarred by Dragons’ talons. The balance of the flat roof area was gardens with some surprisingly large trees. She had been told the intent was to keep the palace building cool in hot season. Now, Ra’aba used the Receiving Balcony as a command-post to instruct his Dragons. Even as they swooped down, Hualiama saw a Green leave and another arriving to take its place. Grandion released her into the crown of a tree, rushed on, and tackled the Green Dragon with an ugly snarl and a welcoming bite to his left wing.

Not for the first time, Lia crashed to a halt amidst leaves and branches. She clambered down the prekki fruit tree’s gnarled trunk. By this time, the Tourmaline Dragon was already rising toward the Green Dragonwing, one Dragon facing dozens. A strange power gathered within Grandion even as she watched. Dark clouds coalesced around her Dragon’s body, and lightning flashed between the clouds and his gemstone scales. This was the harbinger of the fabled Blue Dragon power of storm winds and ice, she realised, Dragon lore she had only ever read about in the scrolls.

The twin suns, which dragonets believed were the eyes of the Great Dragon, flamed over the horizon, casting thick golden beams of light to gild the clouds and the Dragons in gloriously golden haloes, belying the destruction to come.

Hualiama focussed on Ra’aba. Her father.

Wait, straw-head.

Air puffed around her ears as Flicker landed on her shoulder. “Talk Island Standard,” she admonished him. No point in being killed for the wrong reasons, when she was doing such a fine job of trying to be killed for all sorts of other reasons.

“How are you planning to stop Ra’aba?”

“Attack,” Hualiama said grimly.

The dragonet said, “Try to use the knowledge of ruzal against him; maybe it’ll turn the Greens. The Dragons hate Ianthine–as you might, if someone can control your mind.”

“Good idea. Watch this.”

As she loped forward, Flicker muttered near her ear, “I hate it when you say that, Lia. It always means you’re about to do something stupid.”

“Father! Father!” Hualiama waved cheerfully as she vaulted the low wall surrounding the Receiving Balcony and trotted toward Ra’aba, as if blissfully unaware of the Green Dragons turning to glare at her and a Dragonwing darkening the skies just half a mile away, now. “Islands’ greetings, father!”

“I am not your father!”

Ra’aba’s growl did not dissuade her. “Oh, Ianthine told me all about the bargain you struck with her, daddy. The power of ruzal in exchange for your service to Ianthine. Is that what you’re doing to these mighty Green Dragons? Are you controlling their minds just like the Maroon Dragoness wants you to?”

Having expected the Green Dragons to react, Hualiama was shocked when they only blinked their nictitating membranes at her. Not even a curl of fire? Something was terribly wrong with this picture. She had to work it out.

Ra’aba’s hand rested on the pommel of his sword, his expression poisonous. “Girl, you’ve been sticking your nose into secret Dragon lore. Shut your yapping little muzzle before I shut it for you!”

She settled for a coy approach. Dragons liked hatchlings. Nibbling her forefinger and gazing around her with assumed innocence, Hualiama said, “I just don’t understand why you’d try to kill your own daughter. Isn’t there some good left in you? Or has Ianthine stuck her talons so deep in your mind that you no longer know who you are?”

He laughed. Full of confidence, Ra’aba strutted toward her. “My Dragonwing comes, little Lia. Who would stop me?”

“A Dragon,” she said.

For a second, a shadow seemed to flicker behind his yellow orbs. Then, he shaded his gaze to take in Grandion’s lone attack on the Greens.

A smile just began to tug at his lips when a howl of wind carried to their ears, even across the distance separating the Dragons from the conflict around the palace. Mist billowed ahead of the Tourmaline Dragon’s flight, while blue-accented lightning blasted out of his body, a series of electrical discharges so powerful, the bolts lit up even the dawn sky. Multiple Green Dragons turned white with hoarfrost. Weighed down by tons of ice on their wings, more than a dozen Greens tumbled from the sky as if mossy boulders had, for an improbable moment, attempted to fly. Lia winced as the first Dragon smashed to the ground, literally shattering into pieces.

Fire blasted against her shoulder.

A dragonet’s cry of pain! Flicker’s torn wings brushed her face–he had protected her, she realised, from an attack she had not seen. Lia had no time to examine her hurts as the dragonet flapped away a short distance, attacking an archer who had crept up behind her. Ra’aba roared down upon her, vengeful. Her Nuyallith blades zinged out of their twin sheaths. Hualiama stopped his blades with a two-handed parry, swords crossed above her head, but his boot followed through to kick her in the sternum, right between her breasts.

Pain exploded in her chest. Lia fell backward, yet tucked in her head as she rolled, tapping the momentum of his kick to flip over onto her feet again. She was certain he had broken something. Ra’aba followed through with a sword-strike which shattered the stone planter she had fetched up against. Flicker rushed between them, his claws moving faster than a Human eye could follow, but Ra’aba’s uncanny speed saved him at the expense of a three-clawed furrow on his cheek.

The Roc’s sword trimmed an inch off Flicker’s tail as the dragonet whizzed past.

“I see I’ll have to take care of you myself,” said Ra’aba.

Lia wiped blood off her lip. “I’ve been longing for a father to do that for years.”

Ra’aba screamed into his attack, achieving a new pitch of strength that jolted her with every blow. But the stronger he became, the faster Lia danced, drawing on every ounce of knowledge Master Khoyal had poured into her to keep alive. They clashed furiously and ripped apart again, like two Dragons sparring. Lia became dimly aware of fighting on the internal stairs leading to the roof. Ja’al, Chago and Inniora had arrived, cutting their way through the Royal Guards still loyal to Ra’aba.

“Time’s running out on your reign, Ra’aba,” she said.

Up in the sky, Grandion still battled the Greens, but he had expended an enormous amount of power in that first, devastating attack. Lia sensed his tiredness. She had to stall Ra’aba further.

Flicker raced over to her once more, flying raggedly, trying to distract Ra’aba with his tiny fireballs. They sizzled against his tan skin, ignored and ineffective. In her mind’s eye, she saw the great Black Dragon, Amaryllion, and remembered the way his power washed over her, the feeling of flickering in her soul, as though a bonfire lived there. That was her power. One of the stranger, more mystical Nuyallith forms was called The Flaming Dawn, and as Master Khoyal’s memories replayed in her mind, she recognised how it mirrored a dance she had loved since she was a child, the Ancient Dragon’s fire-dance from the Flame Cycle dance-opera.

She had to neutralise Ra’aba. That was their only chance.

Leaping away from her father, taking a stance between two of his Green Dragons, Hualiama began to sing the part of Fra’anior summoning the ancient Dragon-Spirits to his aid. Her magic soared, light and ethereal, weaving shimmering threads of silver-trimmed blue.

Ra’aba froze in astonishment. His hand trembled, but his blade refused to rise.

A sacred tranquillity settled upon the gathering.

Lia’s rich voice carried into the vast reaches of an Island-World which for countless aeons had yearned for that stirring call. The Green Dragons aloft oriented on the sound, all thoughts of sacking the city apparently forgotten, acting as if obeying the command of a single mind.

Hualiama stepped into the opening movements of The Flaming Dawn with her eyes squeezed shut against the exquisitely painful welling up of her soul, the length of her spine tingling with an awareness of unfathomable magic. Throwing back her hood and liberating her hair from its pins, Lia poured herself into the dance sequence, the opening series of flying leaps designed to mimic a Dragon’s flight, now tight pirouettes in the pattern of a fireflower, her flutter-steps lightly gracing the flagstones around Ra’aba. Within her, flame rose lambent. If only she could soar on these fiery wings. If only she could fly like the massive beasts raining down around her now, filling the enormous rooftop gardens, gazing at her with the purest and most present astonishment she had ever seen scribed upon the faces of the Dragonkind. A soft chorus rose from them, a vibration produced in the base of a Dragon’s throat, causing the air to tremble in response.

Now, the clouds parted to reveal a second Dragonwing rushing toward Fra’anior from the west, from the direction of Gi’ishior, outnumbering the Greens by ten to one. Reds, Blues, Oranges and Yellows, and many shades of each; it seemed that the entire population of Fra’anior’s Dragons had been roused to war, and that was a sight to strike fear into the bravest heart.

A storm of Dragon swept down upon the Human Isle.

Lia sang and danced for unadulterated joy. How could she not? As she considered Ra’aba, it was with the eyes of a daughter for her father. She would have given half of the Island-World for him to have opened his arms and his heart to her, right then.

Instead, a shriek of mindless violence tore out of the man.

Ra’aba charged her.

Dropping to her knee, Hualiama swung her blades horizontally, left to right, even as she arched backward with all the suppleness of a dancer’s spine, allowing the wild arc of his blade to pass above her throat–in a dream, it seemed to her. Her blades etched fiery trails in the air as they slammed into Ra’aba’s ribcage, beneath his extended arm. A horrific wheeze tore from his chest at the impact. His blade clanged to the ground as he clutched his side, blood spurting from a fearsome wound.

Beaten. The man who had never been touched in battle, had been wounded by his daughter. Twice. He coughed, disbelieving. “How?” He staggered. “How did you–”

Softly, Lia said, “I’m sorry, father. I wished it could have been different.”

Ra’aba crashed to his knees, holding his side with his arm and his free hand. Gasping. Blood flecked his lips with each breath. And her heart turned to ice. What had she done? There was no joy in her victory, only a surfeit of pain. Father!

His left hand wobbled into the air.

Hualiama expected a plea. Instead, he rasped, “Bring me the King.”

The Brown Yulgaz rose over the balcony, clutching the King of Fra’anior in his great paw. He growled, “Lay down your weapons, girl, or I’ll kill your King.”

Lia stiffened. Terror reigned in her heart. Her true father threatened her adopted father. This was her worst nightmare come true. Hualiama knew she would have to kill one father or the other. Or both, she realised. She begged the skies, ‘What now, Amaryllion?’ In the eyes of the watching Dragons, this was a simple dispute between Humans. Whether Yulgaz allowed himself to be used as a tool or not, that would be judged later by the Dragon Elders, amongst themselves. The second Dragonwing was minutes away.

Too far.

She dropped her swords.

“No, Lia …” That was Flicker, looking on from just a few feet away.

“And the forked daggers, girl,” said Ra’aba.

Hualiama tossed her Immadian forked daggers aside. “Let my father go, Ra’aba.”

“Go stand with him,” the Roc commanded, grimacing as he tried to rise.

That would put her within easy reach of Yulgaz’s talons. Lia wanted to scream. Again, she glanced to the west. Where was Sapphurion, the vaunted leader of the Dragon Elders? She saw Grandion, but not his massive, instantly recognisable father … yet she sensed him, a closeness of a presence she might have known as a babe. How could she force Sapphurion to intervene?

Pitching her trained singer’s voice to carry across the throng of Dragons overrunning the Receiving Balcony, Hualiama said, “Where is Razzior the Orange today, Ra’aba?”

He hesitated, the triumphant smirk on his lips fading.

“You see, when Razzior came to burn me that day, father, I recognised him. I recognised in him the same spirit that I see in you. You two are kindred spirits. Yet your primary ally’s missing, Ra’aba. Why don’t you summon him to your aid? Surely, by the power of ruzal, you could do just that?”

Here was the edge of the cliff, and she should tread with the utmost delicacy.

Ra’aba appeared to have no answer. His eyes flicked away to their right, to a spot which stood strangely vacant amidst the throng of Dragons.

Into her mind, Flicker whispered, Why then, do Dragons follow a Human?

Changing to the dragonet’s tack, Lia continued, “I wonder what Sapphurion the Dragon Elder thinks of this unholy alliance you’ve forged between Dragons and Humans? Why are these Greens so willing to follow a Human leader?”

“Get back, girl!” Ra’aba snarled. “Back to your father. Yulgaz, let him go. I have no need of Dragons to do my bidding. One false move, Lia! Just one, I swear!”

“Easy, rajal,” she soothed, closing the distance with King Chalcion. Perhaps she could protect him. “The Dragons follow you because you are possessed by the spirit of Razzior.”

“You’re mad!” he snapped.

“Stone skin, fiery yellow eyes, unearthly speed and the devoted attention of dozens of Green Dragons,” she ticked off on her fingers. “Does that sound Human to you? Ask any–”

Lia broke off as that vacant spot shimmered, resolving suddenly into the vast form of Sapphurion. When had the Dragon Elder arrived? Had he been hidden all along? Sapphurion stood twenty-five feet tall at the shoulder, visibly more impressive than any of the Greens in his immediate surrounds. Hualiama gasped, fighting an urge to bow before the depthless gravity of the Dragon’s demeanour, the clarity of his gaze and the sense of a mind reaching out to divide truth itself.

A trapped, feral mien seized Ra’aba. His fingers clawed. Lia could not understand the nature of the disturbance which had so visibly sunk its talons into her father. Why an intervention now? What had changed? Why Sapphurion’s naked menace directed not only at Ra’aba, but at her? Magic built darkly within him, Lia sensed. Here, in the space between her two fathers, beneath the burning gazes of dozens of Dragons, was a place of unimaginable peril. She must navigate it alone.

“No!” Her father cursed luridly. “You cannot take this from me, Lia, I swear–”

Carefully, Hualiama said, “I can, because I’m the child of the Dragon.”

In a low, terrible rumble, Sapphurion asked, “Ra’aba, how do you answer these accusations?”

“No … no!” Ra’aba insisted. “I am a man. I bleed like any man.”

Lia said, “You have children like any man. Ianthine confirmed it, and Dragons do not lie.”

“The Onyx Throne is mine!” Ra’aba screamed. Every vein popped out on his forehead; sweat streaked his neck and gleamed on his cheeks. “It is my right! Nobody can tear it from me!”

* * * *

Flicker perched on a plant a little aside from his Lia, watching the fungus-face with narrowed eyes and muscles primed to pounce. Trapped in his own vile scheme, Ra’aba at last recognised the hour of his fate, yet he could not accept it. The dragonet read that in the muscles of his throat, in the way his yellow eyes blazed, the mind behind them racing to imagine a way out of this mess.

Ra’aba rapped, “I’m the same as the girl, Sapphurion. Lia just demonstrated her powers. Her claim to be the child of a Dragon is insane. What prophecy is the girl blathering on about? Next, she’ll be taking philosophy lessons from a ralti sheep!”

The dragonet shook. In a sense, Ra’aba was right. His favourite fire-eyes might not be leading a Dragonwing in revolt against her leadership, or wantonly destroying Islands and trying to take over the Island-World, but she did have a certain rare Tourmaline Dragon eating right out of her pretty little paw. Of course, Grandion just hovered there like a brainless lump of scales, like the rest of his kind, while this drama played out before them.

A dragonet might have to take matters into his paws, for the tension between Ra’aba and Sapphurion was unbearable. Something was about to break. He did not know what, or how, but his Lia had sparked the rage that was slowly and certainly driving Ra’aba off the proverbial cliff. The words she had spoken, the very magic reaching from her smoky eyes, demanded answers.

The Roc said, “Ask that whelp of a cliff fox how she found Ianthine–how she even knows about Ianthine, Islands’ sakes! Ask her how she survived being thrown off a Dragonship. She’s a liar!”

Did it hinge upon what the Dragons believed of Ianthine? Or on what Ra’aba’s manner exposed, the squirming and snapping of a trapped animal? Either way, the dragonet was amazed that fungus-face could still move, given the wound Hualiama had dealt him. So much blood! Yet he still seemed to cling on with preternatural strength.

Suddenly, the King of Fra’anior shouted, “Is this how the Dragons delve into Human affairs, Sapphurion? Sending spies among us in the guise of Humans? Shame on you!”

Flicker gasped at the accusation. Oh, by his fires, no …

Sapphurion growled, “We Dragons will judge these Greens. Yours is a dispute between Humans.”

Chalcion screamed, “First your Dragons sack this city, now you’re–”

“Shut your stupid, bleating mouth, Chalcion!” Ra’aba roared back. “You’re unfit to rule. Sending your daughter to do your dirty work for you. You never loved her!”

As King Chalcion bawled his defiance, Flicker detected a swirl of magic in Ra’aba, a darker, more brutal form of magic than he had ever sensed before. Fungus-face’s hand rose. A dark, Dragon-like shape winged forth, fuelled by all the hatred and fury of a tortured soul, of a man with nothing left to lose.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Hualiama leap across to protect her father.

Flicker leaped first, and faster.

Chapter 31: Sacrifice

AN EXPLOSION RIPPED through Flicker’s body. Lia saw only the start of his dive, then something black slapped her forehead and she found herself lying crumpled atop King Chalcion, with the dragonet draped across her right wrist. Her ears rang. Someone was shouting–bellowing, perhaps–but she could barely hear them. Liquid ran into her left eye; she wiped it absently, and came away with a handful of golden Dragon blood mingled with her own red blood, and bits of flesh that draggled between her fingers.

Flicker started to rise, but collapsed with a startled wheeze. Blood trickled from his muzzle.

“Flicker? Flicker!” Lia panted. “Oh, darling …” She began to lift the dragonet into her lap, but her hands froze mid-motion. “No!”

“My turn … save.” He exhaled.

Hualiama groaned. Flicker’s poor tail … his belly … his hind leg! Gone! Blown away by that madman, that Ra’aba!

Before she knew it, she was on her feet, screaming incoherently. Lia ripped two throwing knives out of her wristlet as she sprinted across the flagstones toward Ra’aba. He began to raise his hands, but her roar paralysed him. No Human throat should have been able to produce such a sound. It punched into the Dragons gathered right behind Ra’aba, confounding even Sapphurion, the mighty Dragon Elder. Angling to rip his throat out with the blades, Lia slammed into Sapphurion’s paw.

“No!” she shrieked. “Let me at him! I’ll kill him!”

“No, little one,” Sapphurion growled.

Hualiama somersaulted over the Dragon’s paw, stabbing downward with all her strength. “Burn in a Cloudlands volcano, you fiend!” Sapphurion grunted as she stuck a blade between the knuckles of his other paw, which shielded Ra’aba’s head.

The Dragon growled, “Now just you–by the First Egg!”

Throwing herself backward, head over heels, Lia landed lightly on her toes. She sprang forward beneath Sapphurion’s startled swipe and drove in hard, stabbing her father in the gut, in almost exactly the same place he had stabbed her with an Immadian forked dagger all those months before.

Her scream rose to a ragged pitch, as if torn from her chest by a Dragon’s talons. “You killed him! You killed my friend!”

A paw plucked Lia into its irresistible grasp. “Fierce little hatchling!” exclaimed the Blue Dragon leader, smoothing out an unfortunate smile at her antics. “Peace, little one. Peace!”

“No! Oh, please, Flicker–let me go!”

Sapphurion shook Hualiama for emphasis as he snarled, “I will take this man to meet Dragon justice, that I promise you, little one. Go see to your pet. It is over.”

“Pet?” Lia shook her head absently, hating Sapphurion. She hated the anguish in her heart, deeper than the Islands reached beneath the Cloudlands. “He’s never been anyone’s pet.”

King Chalcion was saying something about the state of the city. Griping. Her feet touched the ground, but had no feeling left in them. Lia moved to Flicker; knelt by his side. She glanced back to see Ra’aba trapped in the Blue Dragon’s paw, slumped in defeat. Was it truly over? How could she ever have imagined that beast was her father?

Over Lia’s back, Sapphurion called to Chalcion, “Be grateful for the restoration of your Onyx Throne, o King of Fra’anior, and take pride in a daughter whose mighty deeds have won this day. I will delegate a Dragonwing of Brown Dragons to help with the rebuilding of your city, and Greens and Reds to help clear the streets.”

As the Blue Dragon began to turn away, Lia blurted out, “O Sapphurion, is there nothing that can be done for Flicker?”

The great eyes gleamed regretfully, red-tinged. “I sorrow with thee. Seldom has a nobler paw, nor a braver deed, graced the annals of our Island-World. Honour him well.”

“But … Qualiana?”

Sapphurion’s muzzle lowered, yet still, he addressed her from a height of over fifteen feet. He growled, “My mate was unable to make the flight, little one. We had our own problems back at Gi’ishior. Were it not for the exploits of my shell-son, all would have been lost.”

He said, Come home, Grandion. You are most welcome.

Grandion arched his fang-punctured neck, showing his obedience and gratitude. I shall follow as soon as I am able, noble shell-father.

The Dragons began to lift off in twos and threes, buffeting the small crowd gathered atop the Human Royal Palace. Monks stood shoulder to shoulder with Royal Guards. Hualiama’s eyes briefly followed Sapphurion’s ascent, Ra’aba’s solitary form grasped in his right forepaw. Dragon justice? She had been fully prepared to give her father all the justice he deserved. Even that had been stolen from her. Little Lia had held out her hand, and grasped nothing.

Nobody cared for a dragonet, not even one who had just saved the King’s life.

Oh, Flicker … Tearing off her tunic top, Hualiama tenderly wrapped his ruined body, trying to stanch the bleeding. Incredibly, the dragonet still breathed. Are you in pain, darling?

He said, Not … much.

The dragonet’s eyes remained closed, his flanks rising and falling too rapidly. Never in her life had Lia imagined a pain like this, a pain akin to the white-hot core of a Dragon’s fire, yet which consumed utterly without leaving any visible mark. The entire Island-World should weep with her, yet what she saw were men and women dazedly returning to normal life, despite the wreckage. Grandion’s brethren winged away, already receding into the swirling vapours crowning Fra’anior’s caldera. The dawn was bright and fair. It felt so wrong.

Flicker’s sacrifice had purchased this?

Grandion offered Hualiama his paw. Come, my Rider. There’s only one who can help him now.

She stared up at him. Dragons were fire, yet his emotions radiated from pellucid pools which mirrored the cobalt hues of the early day. Her mind became still. Grief gleamed, acknowledging her loss. Hualiama knew that one Dragon saw her truly, down to the living pith of her innermost being.

Her shoulders bobbed. We can’t. All these people …

I will shield us. I have not my father’s mastery of the art, but it will suffice. It must.

Flicker’s body seemed so tiny in her arms, so broken. The cloth was already sodden. Lia stepped into Grandion’s paw and allowed him to fall away off the palace roof, to be whisked through the air at an increasing velocity, until Dragon and Rider seared the dawn skies with a fire of their own.

Flicker, why did you jump in front of me?

His lips curved just a touch. Because you’re my dearest girl. My straw-head.

Hualiama could not breathe. She stroked the dragonet’s muzzle tenderly, beneath the ruff of his spine spikes where he loved it best, and tried to imagine that if she only looked at the upper half of his body, he was still whole and perfect, and not dying.

After a time, Flicker’s well-loved eyes cracked open. You’re leaking. My soul is content, Hualiama. I see it now. You will live. The power of that fungus-faced man’s ruzal did not touch you.

Flicker–her lower lip trembled–I want to die, too.

He gasped, struggling for breath as Lia soothed him with the softest words of a shattered heart.

The dragonet rasped, Then, what of the starsong? To whom would the Islands bow? The prophecy …

My world is ended.

Yet he had touched her fear and named it. What of the prophecy? What of the invisible, unrealised third race of the Island-World? As if sensing the questions burdening her heart, the Tourmaline Dragon stirred, his paw flexing to cradle Lia more completely.

“Through his allies, Ra’aba had organised enough votes in the Council of Dragon Elders to block my shell-father’s desire for action,” Grandion said. “My presence wakened their fires. You can imagine the heat of an argument between Dragons; imagine a huge cave filled with shouting, quarrelling, fire-breathing hotheads! Then there was worse, an ambush during the back-cave negotiations. Dragons were killed. War erupted on Gi’ishior. The Greens and their allies under Gemugaz the Dragon Elder attacked, having tricked the men of Yorbik into joining their cause. Many fine and noble Dragons were killed, but we prevailed.”

“It was that simple?” Lia asked, waking for the first time to Grandion’s condition. Fire-blackened scales, more talon cuts than she could count, and a detectable twinge in the action of his wings.

“Easier than bolting down a haunch of ralti meat,” he said. “Many a battle-song could be sung, but there is more.”

“Tell me.”

“I promised my shell-father I would fly with him to campaign against the Greens of Merx, Lyrx and Syros, to bring them to heel.”

So, the die was cast; her future, bleaker than ever. “You will go away.” Hualiama felt faithless to Flicker, considering her response to this new loss. How could she think of herself at a time like this?

Grandion said, “I will fly with my kin. Hualiama …” I’m speechless. Bereft. Will my Rider watch the skies for a Tourmaline Dragon?

I will, my Dragon.

A storm raged over Ha’athior. A cap of dark, suns-fired clouds lay over the Island, as though the Ancient Dragon’s wrath at his kindred’s deeds had leached into the atmosphere. Around the holy Isle, rainbows shimmered with the endless intermingling of heat and moisture, making Lia conceive of elemental Dragons dancing upon the wings of storm winds. Only the wind soughing across Grandion’s wings reminded her that there was life, of a beating of hearts so ravaged by grief, it seemed even their gentle throbbing sullied the perfect dawn.

Flicker whispered, My soul takes wing upon its last flight.

Flicker, don’t say that, said Lia. We’ll get you to Amaryllion. He’ll heal you.

The dragonet snuffled against her hand. Such an incurable straw-head, Lia. His voice grew fainter, as though his soul already sought to fly. It’s been a grand adventure. Ever since you fell into my lap … didn’t I do well? Took you in paw … sewed your pretty hide … taught you to speak, didn’t I?

She sobbed, You did! The dragonets will sing your praises through the ages–o Flicker, friend of Humans, saviour of Fra’anior, a Dragon-soul whose fires burn brighter than the twin suns.

Silly, beautiful fire-eyes. Flicker tried to purr, but his lungs rasped appallingly, and a trickle of fresh, golden Dragon blood welled from his mouth. Stupid egg-head’s no good for you. Choose the Dragon. He’s a rascal, but a noble one–

I am listening. Grandion’s mental voice smiled at the dragonet.

You’d better take care of my best girl, Grandion. Consider yourself warned. Still, Flicker conversed with them. Incredible. Lia heard agony in every syllable, yet he struggled on, Would you sing for me, Lia? My favourite song: Alas … faraway something–

“I know it,” Lia said. How could she sing? Yet she must. Neither she nor Grandion had any healing powers. They must rush beneath the storm to Amaryllion. He alone could perform a miracle now.

Whisper-soft, singing for her Dragon friends’ ears alone, Lia battled her way into the verse:

Alas for the fair peaks, my love, my fierce love,

Alas for the scorching winds, which stole thee away …

Her voice kept cracking. “I’m a mess,” Lia apologised. “I’m sorry, Flicker.”

He said, It isn’t looking good, is it?

“We’re close to Ha’athior, darling friend. Hold on just a little longer …”

I’m sorry I won’t get to see you fulfil the prophecy. Yet I will ask Amaryllion a boon. If even in death I can be with you, then I will be content. Lia nodded, although she did not understand. The dragonet added, ‘Let my soul take wing upon dawn’s twin fires … and fly to thee.’ He breathed, Fly far and free, my Hualiama.

After that, Flicker had no more strength. Lia sang them around the northern shore of Ha’athior, cradling him to her bosom as best she could to keep out the wind and the rain.

Alas for the far shores, my heart, my third heart,

Alas for the stars, illuming thy doom …

To the dragonet, she said, Thou art my third heart.

Perhaps he smiled.

Grandion screamed across Ha’athior’s volcanic slopes and over the western shore without once stinting on pouring out his utmost power. They shot down the cliff so fast that the rain turned into stinging pellets. Then Hualiama realised that it was hail. The Tourmaline Dragon shielded her with his left forepaw. Still, she curled lower over Flicker and directed Grandion to the lower cave entrance, which lay closest to Amaryllion’s lair.

Into the mountain she raced, a Human girl bearing a precious bundle, down through ravines and crystalline geodes and glorious magical crystals to the Ancient Dragon’s resting place, crying, “Hold on, Flicker! Amaryllion, Amaryllion, Amaryllion!”

I am present, little mouse.

And Lia knew it was too late.

Her friend’s great orb opened, and Hualiama ducked away from him, unable to bear the destruction of her last hope. She moaned, “Please …”

“His spirit flies, little mouse,” Amaryllion rumbled. Infinitely mellifluous and compassionate, his voice enwrapped her like a mother’s hands gentle upon her babe. “Show me what transpired.”

Falling to her knees with a desolate groan, Hualiama summoned her memories. She could not still the shaking of her shoulders. Could Amaryllion hear through her sobbing?

Shortly, the Ancient Dragon responded, “Truly, this dragonet saved both thy life and thy kingdom, holding in abeyance by his courage the power of ruzal and Ra’aba’s dreadful revenge. Allow me to commune a moment with what remains of Flicker’s spirit-fire.”

Her grief rivalled the breadth and depth of the Cloudlands, ravaging her spirit, wounding her body by its force.

“There is something Flicker wished for thee, Hualiama. A name.”

“A name, mighty Dragon?” she sniffed, thinking of all the names he used to chirp at her. Straw-head and flat-face and slow slug …

None of those. Amaryllion read her thoughts effortlessly. His mental voice deepened, rushing like vast rivers in her mind. In recognition of thy noble deeds and the virtues of thy soul, in the most Dragonish tradition, Flicker proposed a new name for thee, Hualiama. I concur. Truly, this name did spring to my mind as I considered the flight of thy life. Even since I have known thee, thou hast grown mighty in spirit and deed.

Thou art a friend to Dragons, Hualiama of Fra’anior, from the smallest to the greatest, and not only in the making of friends, but in knowing and serving and devoting thyself to the Dragonkind. Therefore it is with great pride that I, Amaryllion Fireborn, last of the Ancient Dragons, name thee ‘Dragonfriend’. May the courage of this little dragonet live on in thee.

Oh my darling Flicker, Lia smiled through her weeping. Even at the last your spirit shines. How can I ever repay you? A dragonet’s chuckle seemed to tinkle somewhere, unseen.

To Amaryllion, she whispered, Thank you. Is he truly gone?

His body has perished. His soul flies forever with the fires of the Dragonkind, little mouse.

She wept harder.

Chapter 32: Asleep with Dragons

When HUALIAMA EMERGED from the caverns, hours later, she had no need to speak. Grandion threw back his head and uttered a cry she had never heard from a Dragon. It began as an earthquake-low rumbling in his chest, rising into a descant of such piercing sweetness, it brought fresh tears to her eyes. Lia thought she would never cry again. Now the Dragon grieved, too.

“His spirit had already flown?” Grandion asked.

Lia pressed against his lowered muzzle, shivering. “Almost. Amaryllion said he spoke with Flicker’s fire-spirit. Is that even possible?”

“We Dragons should leave a few secrets unplumbed by the ever-inquisitive Humankind,” Grandion said. “Aye, it is possible, briefly. What else did the Ancient Dragon say?”

“I–I will return to him later, after I’ve honoured Flicker. I’m afraid I wasn’t very coherent. I just … ache.” Lia looked to the far horizon, visible now that the storm had blown over. Tiny jewelled rainbows hung over the vegetation nearby. “Grandion, will you fly me up to the White Dragoness’ cave? I wish to honour Flicker there.”

“Gladly, my Rider. We will honour him together.”

Hualiama slid into her customary position between Grandion’s spine spikes. Was this the last time? When he flew away, would the Tourmaline Dragon remember a Human girl? Better he found a sweet Dragoness to grace his roost. Better this friendship ended, for the good of all.

Grandion bore them aloft with stately majesty.

Lia clasped the dragonet’s body in her lap, unable and unwilling to give Flicker up as yet.

Long before they reached the cave, dragonets began to join them in their flight, first in ones and twos, and then in their dozens. Silently, they shadowed Grandion and Hualiama to their landing on the ledge. The Tourmaline Dragon’s eyes were alight, resplendent, awed.

Dragonets covered the ledge in a scintillating blanket of Dragonflesh. They hung on every boulder and bush and crevice on the cliff above and all around the cave. More dragonets, unable to find room to land, circled in the air just above the ledge.

Lia gasped, “They must number five thousand! Ten!”

Every dragonet of Ha’athior who is yet able to fly, said a voice Hualiama remembered with a shudder. Aye, Human creature, I am Lyrica, warren-mother of our dead kindred you hold in your arms. The oldest and largest dragonet Lia had ever seen, Lyrica had to measure five feet across her wingtips, and her eyes appeared rheumy with age. Yet the power of her mental voice was unshakable. Mother Lyrica said, Will you share your memories with us, that we might judge what has been?

Gravely, Hualiama bowed from her seat upon Grandion’s back. Today, I wish to honour a brave and noble spirit, a dragonet I was privileged to call my friend.

The red dragonet inclined her head ceremoniously. As the Ancient One charged us, we join you in honouring our warren-mate. Never have the dragonets sung the fire-songs with one of the Humankind.

Her tone was mildly censorious. When a space miraculously cleared for landing, Grandion put down and helped Hualiama dismount. Kneeling, she placed Flicker’s body between her and Mother Lyrica. The dragonets fell silent. Even the tiniest fledglings quietened their habitual chattering and chirping. A sea of expectant eyes fixed upon her.

Drawing a deep breath to quell her nerves, Lia said, The first touch I knew of this dragonet’s paw, was that which saved my life. As was the last. To this dragonet, I owe the very air I breathe. He named me Dragonfriend. But I confess, it was he who taught me the true meaning of friendship.

I will tell you what I knew of Flicker, may his soul fly as Dragon fire, forever.

* * * *

When, late that afternoon, the last of the sacred fire-songs had been sung, Hualiama interred Flicker in the White Dragoness’ cave, beside the pool where they had played and sung together. She built a cairn of the finest gemstones to cover his body. Grandion wafted his Dragon-fire and magic over the pile, melting the gemstones into a many-hued casement for the dragonet. A grave fit for royalty.

Then, Grandion took his leave.

Wings outspread, tilting forward off the precipice, the Tourmaline Dragon suddenly pulled up and turned to her. “One last thing, Lia. That day by the pool, when you were bitten by ants. And I acted … weird.”

Hualiama blushed. “Grandion, don’t.”

He said earnestly, “That was wrong–at least, how I felt at that moment, was wrong. The rest was real. When you stood in the water clad in just your hide and told me who you are, it was …” Grandion swallowed, while her mind shrieked, ‘Humiliating? Terrifying? Flattering yet acutely disturbing?’ “It was a revelation.”

Now Lia wished she could immolate herself in a curl of flame. “Grandion, please. You’re embarrassing me.”

“No, you don’t understand. I put that badly.” Uttering an affectionate growl, the formidable Dragon slipped a talon beneath her chin to raise her eyes to his. Lia resisted, futile a gesture as that was. “Hualiama, I saw you in that moment as a desirable object–as a Dragon might lust after a bauble or a fine jewel–and not as a living soul. For all my fine talk, that day I learned that my third heart still regarded you somewhat as a pet, or slave. I have much to learn about Humans. I would learn much more from you, given the chance.”

“Oh,” said Lia, ambushed by this unexpected torrent of feelings. “Oh … is that so?”

“By my wings, it is.”

When she did not speak, Grandion’s head swung away. His muscles coiled.

“Wait!”

The Dragon turned so sharply, he almost knocked her over.

“I feared you,” the Human girl said, raising her hand hesitantly. It hovered just above the scales of his left eye. “You’re a monster of fire and magic, and there’s just so much of you, I oftentimes felt … overshadowed. Obviously.” Lia chuckled softly. “Everything about you is just so predatory, Grandion, and so forbidden. Forgive me–” she forced the words out in a breathless rush “–if I treated you as an animal.”

With the tiniest movement, he shifted to nuzzle her hand. He remembered! Helpless captive to her heart’s hegemony over her thoughts, Hualiama whispered, “Grandion, for me it was that day at Horness Cluster, after we evaded the Human fleet from Yorbik, when I touched you like this. And you, with your paw, you held me just so … as if I were precious, and infinitely cherished. Not grasping an object as you said, but–”

“Like this?”

Warmth enclosed her back and shoulders. The Tourmaline Dragon drew her close, tender to the shuddering of her body against his paw.

Lia whispered, “It was indeed a revelation.”

“I wish I didn’t have to leave,” he said.

“You must. You promised.” Hualiama wiped her eyes, knowing she had to release her Dragon now, before the anguish destroyed her. “Be reconciled to your family, Grandion, and become the Dragon I know you want to be.”

“Thank you, Lia.”

When he winged away, she watched until the faraway speck of blue merged into the evening sky. The ledge suddenly seemed chill and vacant. Only her memories remained, drifting like an unseen fragrance upon the volcanic breezes.

A Human girl walked alone through the underground halls of holy Ha’athior. Every so often, her hand would touch her shoulder where Flicker once sat, and she imagined him warming her neck and chattering nonsense into her ear. Her steps slowed. Straw-head. No kissing that monk–whom he had so memorably nicknamed ‘egg-head’. She would never look at a monk in the same way again.

Poor Master Jo’el. He had perished defending an ungrateful king from his own folly.

Hualiama wandered down through the maze of tunnels, wishing she knew the answer to that most unanswerable question of all–what now?

Would the part of her soul that winged with a Tourmaline Dragon across the Island-World, return to her whole? What would become of her father? Would she be required to testify against him? Lia knew she must trust Grandion, and not live in fear of her fate. She must resolve to keep Flicker in her heart.

Amaryllion’s eye was wide open. He waited for her.

Weary beyond exhaustion, Hualiama seated herself on the stone barely two feet from the fiery surface of that great orb and buried her face in her hands. Her thoughts spun off in strange directions. She pictured herself flying a Dragonship to Gi’ishior to defend her father in the courts of the Dragons … she remembered Ianthine’s warning about possessing the power to escape her Dragon-forged prison. Had she unwittingly effected the Maroon Dragoness’ escape? And what of the mystery of her mother’s detestable bargain with Ianthine?

An enormous emptiness seemed hollowed behind her breastbone. The kingdom, saved, at the expense of her friend’s life. Shattering.

Lia muttered, “Any wisdom for a broken heart, o Ancient Dragon?”

“Time will temper thy grief, little mouse,” he rumbled, with great kindness. “Much remains to be learned of thy destiny. Now, thy task is to rest and sleep, and to forget.”

She gazed into the wall of his eye. Lia said, “Perhaps I might step within your fires, and thus forget.”

“Nay, I meant that I will touch thy mind.”

“But I don’t want to forget!” she protested. “My memories are precious–please, Amaryllion, you cannot rob me thus, painful as it might be. I am not crushed. I will survive.”

When he spoke, his voice acquired an unexpected edge of iron. “These are not my reasons. Thou art a Human of a mere fifteen years and several months’ age, little mouse. Thy knowledge of this Island-World and its dangers, and the forces of darkness entrenched against thee, vanishes into insignificance in comparison to the wisdom of an Ancient Dragon two thousand years thy senior! I adjudge that thou must forget, and forget thou shalt, even this conversation. Do not question my decision.”

“Amaryllion, I do trust you.” Hualiama swallowed. “If I cannot question you, then I must beg you. Please, for the sake of all we’ve shared … please. Don’t do this to me.”

Heavily, the Ancient Dragon replied, “Many of thy lifetimes have I watched and waited. The sense of mine hearts, the leap of my fires, the tingling of deep knowledge in my seventh sense, all point to one fact. We must wait. The fire burns brightly, but the coals are not yet ready. And while we wait and grow in our understanding, greedy and fey eyes will fix upon thee and thy life. Dragonish eyes. Human eyes. I shall wait beneath this mountain. And thou wilt understand, one day, that it was for the best.”

Lia could not contain the bitterness that crept into her reply. “It has already been the worst day of my life. Why not truly crown my Island?”

Amaryllion blinked, a shuttering of that vast eye which in no way diminished its power, although the cavern flickered through twilight to utter darkness, and back to the fire of his gaze. “What is thy meaning, Dragonfriend?”

“Do what you will, beast!” Lia burst out, trembling so hard she flung tears into his eye. The teardrops sizzled briefly against its surface. “Maybe you wish to wipe me out and start afresh, as the dragonets do–why not a better, more compliant Hualiama? One who neither tramples upon ancient taboos, nor questions her elders? This is not wisdom–”

When an Ancient Dragon sighed, Ha’athior Island trembled on its foundations. Such a sigh shook her now. The wind of his breath whistled away through the caverns, and a distant rockfall rumbled before falling silent.

“I see you as one of my fathers,” she whispered, half statement, half plea. “The father of my spirit. One who understands the flame within me.”

“I am honoured,” he said.

There were times Hualiama simply could not find it within herself to believe Amaryllion. How he condescended to a mere Human! What ancient lizard would truly be honoured that a miniscule Human of fleeting life and uncertain destiny should consider him a father?

Truly, I do not understand the nature of thy flame, he said in Dragonish, while his monstrous chuckle rattled her bone-deep. Surprised? Aye. This is the enigma I spoke of before. Thou art mystery unfathomable, Hualiama Dragonfriend, a child of the endlessly unpredictable, many-faceted, impossible to define power we so inadequately describe as ‘magic’. And that, o delight of mine Dragon hearts, is why I must bid thee sleep. Not to change thee, but to guard thy very soul.

A deep, brooding thrumming filled her senses. Hualiama resisted, unwilling to forget. Her eyes drooped.

Lay thee down, little mouse.

She pillowed her head upon a rock beside the Ancient Dragon’s titanic eye.

Sleep, o child of the Dragon. Dream much, live much, love much, and forget just a little, and only for a time.

Hualiama slept. She dreamed of the whisper of tourmaline-laced wings greeting the flames of a twin-suns dawn, and of a faithful dragonet trilling to her, ‘Fly, Lia, fly!’

About the Author
www.marcsecchia.com

Marc is the bestselling author of 11 fantasy books. Born in South Africa, he lives and works in Ethiopia with his wife and 4 children, 2 dogs, a rabbit, and a variable number of marabou storks that roost on the acacia trees out back. On a good night you can also hear hyenas prowling along the back fence.

When he’s not writing about Africa or dragons, Marc can be found travelling to remote locations. He thinks there’s nothing better than standing on a mountaintop wondering what lies over the next horizon.

If you enjoyed this story, please consider leaving a review, or reading one of my other works. You can find links to all of my works on my website, www.marcsecchia.com. Every review matters and I read them all.

Where you can find me:

Goodreads

Twitter: @marcauthor

Facebook

Email: marcsecchia@gmail.com

Other Books by Marc Secchia

Shapeshifter Dragons: (Young Adult and older readers–a bestselling dragon adventure series) Chained to a rock and tossed off a cliff by her boyfriend, Aranya is executed for high treason against the Sylakian Empire. Falling a league into the deadly Cloudlands is not a fate she ever envisaged. But what if she did not die? What if she could spread her wings and fly?

Long ago, Dragons ruled the Island-World above the Cloudlands. But their Human slaves cast off the chains of Dragonish tyranny. Humans spread across the Islands in their flying Dragonships, colonising, building and warring. Now, the all-conquering Sylakians have defeated the last bastion of freedom–the Island-Kingdom of Immadia.

Evil has a new enemy. Aranya, Princess of Immadia. Dragon Shapeshifter.

Aranya

Shadow Dragon

Shapeshifter Dragon Legends: (Young Adult and older readers) A young Pygmy warrior is stolen from her jungle home and sold to a zoo, where she lives for seven years before being kidnapped by the Red Dragon Zardon. Now, the courage of the smallest will be tested to the utmost. For Pip is the Pygmy Dragon, and this is her tale.

The Pygmy Dragon

The IsleSong series: (Young Adult and older readers) A story for anyone who loves the ocean and its whales, salt water in their hair, and the gentle rasp of beach sand between their bare toes. This story will transport you to a beautiful, unspoiled ocean world where people have to rely on Whales to travel between the islands. A world where danger can, and does, lurk beneath any wave.

The Girl who Sang with Whales

The Shioni of Sheba series: (Middle Grades and older readers) Unique, bestselling African historical fantasy adventures set among the myths and legends of ancient Ethiopia. There are currently 4 books in this series:

The Enchanted Castle

The King’s Horse

The Mad Giant

The Sacred Lake

(Coming Soon) The Fiuri Realms

Epic fantasy (New Adult and Adult readers) Epic length tales of unique worlds and powers.

Feynard

The Legend of El Shashi

Appendix

The Island-World

Legend tells how a huge comet carrying the original Dragon eggs (the First Eggs) smashed into the world, creating a gigantic impact crater many thousands of leagues in diameter. The mountains surrounding the crater are 25 leagues high, a height far beyond Human or Dragon capability to overfly.

The Ancient Dragons, the mightiest of whom is the Black Dragon Fra’anior, raised the volcanic Islands out of the depths and set them above the toxic Cloudlands, forming the unique backdrop of a world where Dragons fly between league-high islands above the clouds, and Humans must use dirigible Dragonships to do the same. The world beneath the Cloudlands is a great mystery, but is said to be inhabited by mile-long Land Dragons, beasts who gnaw at the roots of the Islands.

Five moons battle for space in the night sky, making a moonless night a rare and special occasion, when the stars blaze in all their glory. The moons are Iridith the yellow, Jade the green, Blue, Mystic and White. Iridith will often fill half of the horizon, while White is the smallest and most distant of the moons. Eclipses of the twin suns are common due to the number of moons.

Distances

For converting between leagues, miles and kilometres:

1 league = 5.556 kilometres = 3.45 miles

1 mile = 5280 feet

Seeing distances from Mountaintops

The Human eye can see great distances under optimal optic conditions–unlike the Island-World, with its myriad active volcanoes, which contribute a great volume of particulate matter and gases to the atmosphere, creating for example the extraordinary volcanic sunsets of Fra’anior Cluster. This haze in the atmosphere effectively limits the distances a Human or Dragon is able to see.

How far could Hualiama see, for example, from her native Fra’anior Island across the caldera to Ha’athior? Assuming perfectly clear air, a world curvature the same as Earth’s, and both Islands being exactly 1 league (3.45 miles) above ‘sea’ level (the Cloudlands), and ignoring the effect of refraction–which varies depending on atmospheric conditions–Hualiama could technically see a distance of some 95 leagues (330 miles)–five times more than the 18 leagues (62 miles) to Ha’athior. (Data courtesy of: http://members.home.nl/7seas/radcalc.htm)

Lia wonders if anyone has ever seen the rim-wall mountains. If she were flying on Grandion’s back at a height of 2 leagues (6.9 miles) above the Cloudlands and looking to the mountains which are 25 leagues tall (86.25 miles), she could theoretically see them from a distance of some 307.4 leagues (1060 miles).

For a more detailed mathematical treatment of this issue, please see this page: http://mintaka.sdsu.edu/GF/explain/atmos_refr/horizon.html by Andrew T Young.

Dragonship Technology

At Hualiama’s time Dragonship technology is relatively basic. Most Dragonships work like a hot air balloon, having a large oblong sack (shaped like a zeppelin) which is filled with hot air supplied by a wood-burning stove. While using turbines for propulsion, the prevalent system relies on the efforts of a crew of 5 to 50 persons to provide the thrust by taking turns to peddle a bicycle-like device fondly called the ‘back breaker’. At the time of Hualiama’s birth, the steam-powered turbine drive has just been invented, which provides superior thrust and lifting capability.

More advanced Dragonships have begun to use hydrogen gas for additional lifting power. Because of the explosion risk, the hydrogen system is kept separate from the hot air system. Hydrogen is produced by the process of dissolving hydrogen-bearing meriatite rock in an acid bath, giving off hydrogen gas which is pumped into a balloon or segment of a balloon. The meriatite furnace engine prevalent in Aranya’s time will only be invented 425 years later.

Nevertheless, Dragonship navigation remains a hazardous and exacting profession. Largely at the mercy of prevailing winds and atmospheric conditions, most Dragonships are piloted as close to the shores of Islands as possible. The Steersman keeps a weather eye out for storms and squalls, and truly long-range flights are relatively rare.

Table of Contents

- Dragonfriend
- Dedication
- Table of Contents
- Map of the Island-World
- Chapter 1: Flying
- Chapter 2: Flicker
- Chapter 3: Storm
- Chapter 4: Caves
- Chapter 5: A Dragonet’s Pet
- Chapter 6: Forging Friendship
- Chapter 7: Waterfalls of Dragons
- Chapter 8: Within Ha’athior
- Chapter 9: Charming Monks
- Chapter 10: Master Jo’el
- Chapter 11: Avalanche
- Chapter 12: Ya’arriol Burns
- Chapter 13: Prophecy
- Chapter 14: Into Hiding
- Chapter 15: Dragon Grave
- Chapter 16: Baiting a Dragon
- Chapter 17: Kidnapping
- Chapter 18: A Dragon’s Oath
- Chapter 19: Dragonback
- Chapter 20: Ambush
- Chapter 21: Rolodia
- Chapter 22: Maroon Madness
- Chapter 23: The Longest Flight
- Chapter 24: Searching
- Chapter 25: Ants and Slaves
- Chapter 26: The Slave Mines
- Chapter 27: The Flight Home
- Chapter 28: False King
- Chapter 29: Ra’aba
- Chapter 30: The Onyx Throne
- Chapter 31: Sacrifice
- Chapter 32: Asleep with Dragons
- About the Author
- Appendix