The Dragon Dreamer, page 11
part #1 of Dragon Dreamer Series
Orm sighed. “We found a shark on our first journey here. What will we find next?”
CHAPTER 11: STORM PEARLS
Thunder rumbled through the dawn sky, on and on, like a symphony of dragon drummers. Arak slumbered on in his cozy shelter until a violent wind rattled the branches. He flinched in his sleep, startled awake, and stretched the sleep out of his body. He poked his head outside, filling his lungs with the cool, tasty air.
The storm finished with a shower of small ice-stones that bounced on the ground like over-active crickets. Arak collected several. He cut an ice-stone in half and studied the glassy rings. The ice ball was made from layers of lighter and darker ice.
It was like a fantastic pearl that Orm grew, when he changed the oyster’s diet again and again. The pearl color changed with each diet change. Orm cut the pearl in half to show its rings of white, pink, violet and peach.
Pearls and ice-stones both grew in layers: one in the sea, one in the sky. Scree was right. Ice-stones were storm pearls.
These storm pearls were unusually round, like tiny trance-stones. Arak stared into a cold crystal ball while questions crowded into his mind. How did trance-stones work? Why did each dragon use only one type of trance-stone? Could other stones work?
Arak grabbed a heavy bag, tucked away in a corner of his shelter. It held his collection of gemstone globes. He removed two and set them on the sand: turquoise and amethyst. Why had he never tried to use them as trance-stones?
Arak glanced at the protected cove, where the octopus guests would remain for another ten-day. He fiddled with his bag, thinking. Could an octopus communicate with a dragon using trance-mind? Could he keep in touch with his friends while they journeyed across the sea? Maybe they’d find an island filled with copper!
Arak had to know. But he was already called the Trance-Freak. His early, unexpected mind journeys had set him apart, and not in a good way.
When Arak was a dragonlet, he was often caught in a long trance. His mind was far away, questing. Once, other young dragons built a prison of heavy ice blocks around his still body. He returned to his body and awoke, numbed by the cold, alone in a cloudy-dim place. Arak thought he must have died. He struggled desperately to push his way out of the ice cage, scared and bruised and humiliated. He ran to his dam, still shaking, feeling rejected and hurt.
“Why?” he cried in anguish.
Arafine had wrapped her wings tightly around Arak, holding him in a warm, safe cocoon. She rocked her young son as gently as a summer breeze. “Because you have a gift,” she said softly, “and they cannot understand.”
“You entered the trance-mind with no training, before you could fly. Your empty body just lay there for hours.” Arafine trembled. “I thought I would lose you. I still don’t know how you found your way back. It frightened the other dragonlets.”
She looked into his eyes. “You must learn to ignore or avoid them. You see the world in new ways, and that is good. Accept yourself. The seal of approval that truly matters is your own.”
She was right. Dragons didn’t stretch their wings very often. They didn’t question what was or consider what might be. The clan would think his experiments a waste of time, useless dreams. But what was wrong with being a dreamer? He just needed a safe, private place to experiment.
Arak grasped his sack, looked out to sea, and launched into the sky. Below, thin, scraggly bushes clung to a jumble of offshore rocks. This barely qualified as an islet, but it would do. He landed and tossed a few sharp stones aside, clearing a smoother patch. Then he settled on the ground and cleared his mind.
Arak focused on a crystal ball of clear, pale amethyst. He stared into the globe until it seemed to shimmer, glowing from within. Suddenly he was looking down on his body from above. Trance-mind! He focused back into the orb and returned to his body.
He reached for turquoise, cleared his mind, and focused. Turquoise did not work. Next he tried a cloudy moonstone ball with flickering blue lights. Success! Arak worked his way through the stones. He tried one after another, experimenting, oblivious to all else.
After he tried all the stones, Arak flew to the glacier. He harvested a chunk of clear ice and made a globe using dragon-fire. He meditated. Ice worked as a trance-stone. But an ice-stone made him crash!
Arak shuddered at that awful memory. His injuries from the crash were bad, but losing his trance-stone was even worse. Without the stone, he could not contact his clan for help. He expected a miserable death. Then Scree appeared.
What if no one had come? Would he have tried using ice for a trance-stone? Dragons believed that only one stone worked for each dragon. But many clear or cloudy stones worked for him, even storm pearls. The clan also thought only dragons could trance-mind. Was this wrong, too? Could he mind-speak with Scree?
A powerful wave of excitement grew inside him.
Arak flew to the shore and found Scree resting on a log seat, arms trailing loose in the gentle surf. He crouched at the edge of the sea and asked his question: “How did you calm your mind when you fought the squid?”
“I focused on a mental image, the bright star. I took deep, slow pulses of oxygen-water. I existed in the moment, letting go of the past and future. It’s a skill I learned to focus on difficult healings.”
Arak’s inner wave of excitement became a towering tsunami. “Your mind-calm technique is the first step of the trance-mind!”
Scree turned bright apple-green. “Are you thinking octopi could do this?”
“I hope so. We think ice dragons couldn’t talk mind-to-mind because they hadn’t discovered this ability, just as they couldn’t make fire. Maybe there was greater need for both when the dweer came. But the ability was always there, and it just needed training. Octopi might have this ability.” The thought flashed through Arak’s mind that dragons might owe the dweer more than they realized. Fire and trance-mind had changed the dragon world.
“I think Orm and Stur would want to try this. The trance-mind could be really helpful when we’re skiff-flying.”
Arak nodded agreement. “And perhaps you and I could communicate. Let’s meet at the stream beyond the clinic. It’s shaded by trees and hidden by bushes, so we can experiment in private. It’s easier to learn without spectators.”
The next afternoon, Arak sat on the stream bank with his sack of small gemstone balls. They were normally used to play a dragon game of marbles. Scree, Orm, and Stur each held a crystal ball in a coiled arm.
“To enter the mind-calm, focus on the mid-point of the ball,” Arak said. “Put your mind into the sphere. When your consciousness leaves your body, it can only communicate with another trance-mind. Send a mind-picture. That should be easy for you, after concentrating to make your body-pictures.”
The sky darkened into night as they tried the different stones. Stars blossomed overhead. Arak gave up on the transparent stones that worked for him, so they tried opaque orbs: black garnet, red jasper, turquoise and purple jade. But nothing worked.
Stur’s arms drooped. “Perhaps we just don’t have trance-mind ability.”
Orm plucked three lustrous white pearls from his pouch. “We haven’t tried pearls yet. You may need clarity, but what if we’re drawn in by a shimmer?”
Each octopus concentrated on this new stone.
Scree’s eyes glazed over and she slumped around her seat. Arak watched in tense silence.
Scree opened her eyes. Her entire body turned dragon-gold. “I looked down on myself! Just for a moment. What a strange feeling!”
Arak thumped his tail. “This can work!”
The following day, as the sun sank, Arak watched over a trio of limp bodies. Scree opened her eyes and her skin pulsed with colors. She seemed as excited as a dragonlet on an ice-slide. “We did it!”
Arak grinned. “I knew you could!”
Orm and Stur simply smiled, quietly relieved that this had worked. They had all exchanged thoughts.
The group practiced each day from afternoon to sunset. At the end of the fifth day, after Orm and Stur had left, Scree motioned to Arak. “Would you try the trance-mind with me?”
Arak nodded eagerly. He had worked hard, learning to form pictures in his own trance-mind, hoping this new ability would allow him to communicate with octopi. He entered the trance-mind and watched as a pale shimmer emerged from Scree. A night sky with glowing tunicate stars came unbidden to Arak. She had shared! He sent an image of Zarina’s octopus snowflake. Then they each returned from trance.
Scree flashed a rapid rainbow of brilliant colors, one after another: ruby-red, topaz, emerald, turquoise, and amethyst.
Arak just grinned. He couldn’t have said it better himself. He grabbed his silver flask, cooling in the stream, and poured two mugs of red-root tea. The rich, woodsy flavor was perfect for a celebration.
Scree sipped her drink. “We’re charting new waters. This will really help when we’re skiff-flying new waters!”
She lifted her mug to Arak. “To friends.”
Arak raised his mug. “To kindred spirits.”
He took another drink in a silent toast to an ice-stone, his storm pearl. So much had happened because of a storm pearl. His crash was a dark black cloud, but every cloud has a silver lining.
He would never have met Scree if he hadn’t crashed. There would be no exotic trading festivals, no Orm to identify Arafine’s mysterious illness, and no Scree to heal her. The devastating loss of his trance-stone had also driven him to experiment, finding success beyond the limits of clan beliefs.
There were layers within layers of silver linings amidst the cloudy gray rings of his storm pearl.
“We’ll look for an island for your copper search,” Scree said. “And now, you’ll know what we find before we get back!”
* * *
Arak rustled his wings nervously. He dreaded the coming storm dance, and not because he feared lightning. He’d tossed bolts with Taron for many seasons and made more lightning casts than any other dragon. He loved flying storms. But this time Arak would be expected to choose a dragon-lady partner, and the only one he wanted had several suitors.
Clouds towered into the sky and darkened, but wind was minimal. It would be a perfect storm.
Most of the clan had already chosen partners. By tradition, the mated pairs flew up into the clouds first, wingtips barely touching as they spiraled higher. Then other couples formed and joined them. Taron and Erinite, without a hint of hesitation, leapt gracefully together into the sky. Arak felt a rare pang of jealousy toward his good friend.
Arak checked the vials of metal powders in his pouch. Five were used for artistic displays, to color the lightning red, orange, yellow, blue or purple. These rainbow colors burned in the clouds, more beautiful than an aurora borealis.
But dragons did not paint with green sky-fire.
Arak had one precious vial of chromium powder. The bright, red-orange metal would change a lightning bolt to vivid green. This special bolt was only made for a dragon-lady. She could accept or toss it aside. If she accepted, they were mated for life.
Lightning began to spark in the clouds.
Arak fiddled with the chromium vial’s stopper. He polished his scales once more. Then, wings held rigid to control his tremors, he walked toward Zarina. She was still on the ground.
Arak suffered unexpected agonies when Karoon landed right beside her. Arak’s rival puffed up his chest, extended his gleaming claws, and smiled suavely. Clearly Karoon expected her to be his partner. Arak held his breath. Then Zarina shook her head and turned away. Karoon snapped his wings angrily and flew off. Arak breathed again. But was she waiting for him? Or someone else?
Another dragon-lord landed beside her, shining and confident.
This must be her partner. Arak couldn’t watch. He turned blindly away and stumbled into the sky, pelted by rain, seeking the oblivion of dark, distant clouds.
CHAPTER 12: BUTTERFLIES
Scree watched pairs of young octopi twirling through the water above the newly raked sand. They had changed their arm skin to bright colors: orange, teal, yellow, red-violet, and more. They reminded her of butterflies, in a dance of color as unique as the dragon-flake. The swirling octopus arms matched the drumming pulse of pounded shells, and they sparkled.
Scree looked more closely at the youngsters. How could they sparkle? “Shell bands! They shine like dragon-scales,” she said to Orm. “This new fashion is really quite beautiful.”
Orm’s apprentice, Mir, spun up into the sea. Her arms wrapped into a tight spiral. Then she spiraled slowly down, arms stretched wide, gleaming like a fantasy creature. Pearly discs of abalone shell were tied along each arm. The shell discs made a continuous, flexible line of silvery-blue that flashed brightly, accenting her movements.
Scree’s eyes glowed as she watched the dancers. She wove her arms in a sinuous pattern that matched the beat, and she could barely restrain herself from twirling. But Orm lay completely relaxed on the sand. He’d soon be busy training three more helpers to tend the shellfish farms, which had tripled in size to accommodate trade and travel needs.
“The dancers have added more twirling to show off the armbands.” Scree looked at Orm hopefully. “We could join them.”
Orm shook his head, an automatic dragon-like gesture for no. “I’ll wait for the circle dance. But the armbands are beautiful. Abalone shells are as lovely as pearls, and bigger. I wonder if dragons would like them, and trade?”
A change in drum beat invited adults to join in the traditional, whirling circle dance.
Scree wove her way through the clusters of purple sea fans that edged the dance floor. This level field of sand had been cleared for dancing in a time before memory. She and Orm twined arms, becoming part of a huge circle. Three arms were behind each octopus, serving as anchor. Three arms were ahead, to twirl the dancers.
Eight dancers took their places inside the circle. They faced the outer ring. Each dancer gripped three arms with an octopus of the big outer circle. On the beat, they were flung to the next pod-mate in the circle. The dancers quickly released their former hold and grabbed three new arms. Boom. They were flung again, releasing and grabbing arms.
Boom-boom-boom. The beat grew faster. Dancers were flung again and again, twirling about the inside of the circle, spinning like tops. The drumming changed. Dancers melted into the outer circle and eight new octopi took their places.
Scree loved the flying sensation as she was whirled about, twirling in circles within the big ring. She released three arms and quickly grabbed three more.
The dance ended and Scree leaned happily against Orm. “I wish we could do that every day!”
“But this makes it more special,” Orm said.
A group of older juveniles played a game of Mimic. One octopus shape-shifted and color-changed to become the most unusual creature he or she had seen. The others had to copy it perfectly. Scree watched as an octopus changed into a blue lobster, and the other octopi matched him. The seven lobsters looked real. It felt strange seeing them transform back into octopi.
“Let’s check out that play-scape,” Scree said. “The pod used eight trees of kelp-weed! My arms were cramping up from knotting stalks and leaves.”
Tiny octopi chased each other through the elaborate play-scape. They squirted through a maze of rings and tunnels, rapidly changing directions, sometimes camouflaging to confuse the “it” octopus.
“That’s a worthy game. Excellent practice for escaping from sharks,” Orm said approvingly.
“Or for catching them,” Scree replied, with a teasing look. “Orm, I’ve been thinking about giant squid. We need a better plan. I found shattered coral heads on a not-too-distant reef. Squid must have broken them to reach the lobsters below. They have moved beyond their old range, and I think we’ll meet them again.”
Orm blanched. “Giant squid. We must tell Spar.”
She nodded agreement. “And Arak. He might have some good ideas.”
Scree began tasting the feast through the water. Clams and crab claws were dressed with pounded seaweeds, releasing a tide of flavors. Sweet, succulent abalone meat was a rare treat, available because several large abalone shells had been harvested to make the dancers’ shimmering armbands.
Dragon spices seasoned many dishes. Ground peppercorn was worked into the oyster meat, while cinnamon bark flavored a meaty salad of mussels and scallops. Scree loved best the mashed red-root tea, which octopi found curiously relaxing and stimulating.
The music stopped, followed by three strong beats that were felt by all. Scree and Orm headed for the low stone tables, which were made from hundreds of small rocks. The tables were covered with giant clamshell bowls full of food. Octopi gathered in lines, circling around the sumptuous buffet. Each octopus filled a large clam plate, and small circles of friends settled onto the sand.
Scree, Orm and their apprentices discussed their new crop of rare, medicinal seaweed. A large reef fish swam into view, with curved gray scales that were edged in pure gold. The fish glimmered like a sunlit stream with overlapping ripples.
“Orm, look.” Scree pointed at the fish as it swept past them. “Those fish scales ripple just like the clinic stream where we practiced the trance-mind. Imagine that, learning a whole new way to communicate.” She absently drew a design in the smooth sand. It was the octopus snowflake that Arak had shared mind-to-mind with her. “The clan hosted a terrific trading festival. I miss the dragon-fires and story-telling.”
“But it’s good to be home, and our own festival is exceptional. Trading with dragons is changing what we eat, how we travel, even how we accessorize. Octopus arms gleam like dragon wings when they’re covered with abalone,” Orm said.
Scree took a closer look at her mate. “You’re enjoying the changes!”
“Of course. Change can be good.” Orm smiled. “And it’s really spiced up our food. But I still have concerns about the skiff voyage. There are even bigger sharks than the one that attacked Tara. Also giant squid and fierce storms. Huge waves are barely noticed down here, but they could crush a small skiff.”
