Aranya Treasury - The Complete Shapeshifter Dragons Series, page 101
Repair works were in full swing. The scorch-marks of Dragon fire were still clearly visible on the ground and on several buildings, including the Palace itself, but the fallen bodies and Dragonships had been cleared away.
“Well, we’ve been spotted now,” said Zip, pointing at a couple of Dragonships patrolling above the city, before her paw suddenly curled. “What was that? Did you feel –”
“Aye. I can’t … can you see anything, Zip? A Dragon?”
The Azure Dragoness scanned the Island alertly. “Do you mean Yolathion? Grief, there’s a million places he could be hiding around here. Nothing. Did you –”
“Almost certainly. Leandrial described this Dragon-sense as a kind of itching in the mind – actually, she said, ‘like the nostrils of your mind’. You scent a presence, your sixth sense makes the connection to a harmonic convergence of memory, scents, impressions and magical signatures, and –”
Zip said, “Oof. It’s all muddy Land Dragon-ese to me. Say, we could ask the local dragonets if they’ve seen a large, feral Brown Dragon – what do you think?”
“Great idea.” Aranya tried to scan the Islands as well. “I wonder where Jia-Llonya and Kylara might be? I’m sure Her Warrior-Chiefliness still wants to trim a few of my scales with her scimitar. And what was Kylara’s Dragon’s name? I don’t sense him.”
“Yedior the Brown – it makes sense. You knew Yolathion much better than Yedior,” the Azure pointed out. “So, where are we landing?”
“The Receiving Balcony on the Palace roof, of course,” said Aranya, waggling a brow-ridge at her friend. “Knowing how Remoyans love to make an entrance.”
“Remoyan Dragonesses,” came the jaunty reply.
A tilt of the wings, and two Dragonesses came screaming down onto the Palace roof, startling the living pith out of the blue-robed Royal Guards stationed there. Aranya grinned. Sweating, panicking guardsmen? Sometimes, being a Dragoness was far too much fun. Extending her four paws, she landed lightly on the talon-scored granite flagstone surface, absorbing the momentum of an Immadian Princess’ tonnage with her coiled thighs. Half a breath later, Her Fiery Lizard-Ship, the Princess of Remoy, alighted beside her and, being Zip, smiled – one hundred fangs and a mischievous puff of bluish, sulphurous smoke between those gleaming daggers – at the soldiers.
“Hi, boys!” Zip said brightly.
Some of the soldiers had their swords half-drawn, most were trying to decide if refuge behind their ceremonial shields bespoke cowardice. Or perhaps, a hasty retreat might be in order?
Identifying the Guard Captain by his highly embellished shield-boss, Aranya turned to him and said, “Captain, we would like to transform. Do you mind ordering your men to turn around?”
“Turn?” he barked.
“Around,” said Aranya, making a small circle with her fore-talon. “We’re Shapeshifters. Girls. Princesses, actually.”
“Turn our backs upon Dragons?” The Captain seemed to have one mode of communication, the parade-ground bark. “Are you mad, lady … uh, Dragon? Dragoness?”
“I might be if you insult me again,” Aranya cooed.
“You’re totally awesome and splendid, noble Dragoness,” spluttered another soldier, evidently cognizant of the value of his hide. What a nice young man!
“Observe, Aranya. This is how it’s done,” said Zip. Whirling toward her friend’s starboard flank, she transformed.
Aranya caught the saddlebags with a reflexive snap of her paws. “Zuziana!”
The highborn Princess of Remoy jiggled her trim derriere in the Captain’s general direction. “Now would you turn around, Captain?”
“About face!” he howled, spinning on his boot-heel with alacrity.
A second later, the girl and her Dragoness were surrounded by the backs of tall Fra’aniorian Royal Guards, not one of whom, despite their tan skin-tone, had necks and ears that were not burning red. Aranya stared about her with a degree of consternation. Well. Effective.
Remoyan exhibitionist, she snorted.
“Come on, slow-slug,” said Zip, unbuckling one of the bags. “The King’s waiting.”
“The King is at dinner, lady,” said the Captain, in a strangled whine.
“Good. Send a man to inform him –”
“– to request his good pleasure,” Aranya interrupted, transforming. To a man, the soldiers flinched at the whoosh of air that accompanied her radical change in size.
“Anyways, just do what she said.” Zip prodded Aranya in the ribs, making her yelp. “I am Zuziana, Princess of Remoy and my very under-dressed companion is Aranya, Princess of Immadia. We visited not long ago to battle with Thoralian, and furthermore, Aranya is the cousin of Prince Ta’armion’s new bride, Lyriela of Ha’athior. Do you have all that straight, you charming man? I do love men in uniform. So very … leopard.”
“Shameless,” Aranya hissed.
“Aye, my Lady!” rapped the Captain, dispatching one of his men immediately. Aranya noticed the man snuck a glance as she tugged an under-shift over her head. She failed to ignore his hiss of shock.
Rapidly, the Princesses adjusted outfits and Aranya fitted her veil. Then, the stiff-backed Captain conducted them inside the Palace to meet King Cha’arlla.
Softly, en route through the gorgeous, art-decorated corridors of Fra’anior’s Palace, reputed to be the richest Court in the Island-World, Zip said to Aranya, “What are you scheming at, rushing here before your Dad arrives? He’ll have your hide for usurping the negotiations. In case you hadn’t noticed in any of your seventeen ill-behaved years, your Dad does like to be the one doing the upstaging. Rebels alike, the two of you. Shameful behaviour for a royal family.”
Aranya said, “Immadians may be regarded as traditionalists, but you’ll soon discover that wilfulness as thick as the Island-World is wide runs in our makeup.”
“Ooh, can I have that on a scroll, signed with the royal seal?”
She winked at Zuziana. “Only if you play along.”
“Aranya, what – I don’t like that gleam in your eye. Petal –”
“I’ve never been less a petal,” said the tall Immadian, marching into the royal banqueting hall with her head held high.
Time to show the King her most volcanic colours.
Chapter 7: O Fra’anior!
The herald sang out a formal announcement as Remoy and Immadia processed into the sumptuous dining hall. Five steps along a plush rug led to the green marble expanse of the floor and a round jalkwood dining table, hand-carved from a monolithic piece of gorgeous, deep-toned wood. They swept into the best, most formal Fra’aniorian bows they knew, including fourteen genuflections of the head, hand-twirls, a pirouette of respect and a range of dance-steps. Keeping a perfectly straight face, Zuziana linked arms with Aranya and did a little toe-tapping Remoyan jig to finish up.
Aranya resolved to spank the Dragoness for that later.
One servant per chair helped the royals and the Councillors rise from their seats without raising so much as a squeak of wood upon the polished floor. Then, it was formal greetings and exchanges of thanks and congratulations for winning the war; expressions of gratitude for liberating Fra’anior from the Sylakian yoke answered by Aranya’s thanks for troops, Dragonships and warrior-monks; congratulations on the royal wedding and felicitations for the future balanced with the King’s thanks for Aranya intervening on his son’s behalf … so it went on for ten or fifteen minutes, with the Queen and the King’s seven violet-robed Councillors looking on, evidently wondering beneath their beards what two Shapeshifter Dragonesses meant by their impromptu visit.
All the while, Aranya watched King Cha’arlla’s eyes. Friendly, aye, but there was a cloudy guardedness to those violet depths. Good. He would do well to watch his step around a woman he’d had drugged, kidnapped and presented to his son for purchase!
Finally, the King said, “And how may Fra’anior serve Immadia and Remoy this day?”
In court-speak, that meant, ‘state your business’. Most courtiers would now launch into a flattering, veiled dance around to the topic of their choice.
Aranya drew a deep breath. “O King, without disrespect to the long association between Immadia and Fra’anior and our kinship, I wish to speak frankly to you, your gracious Queen and your Council, before the balance of our delegation arrives on Fra’aniorian shores.”
He bowed floridly. “Frankness is a breath of refreshing perfume in this Court.”
Hearing the implied, ‘You’re young and naïve and I can’t wait to dance verbal rings around you’, Aranya swallowed back a draconic surge of ire. Mercy! She snuffed out a fiery whirlwind beneath the table before anyone noticed it. Were her powers growing uncontrollable again? What did this presage?
“O King, my family and I intend to re-establish the dwelling-place of Dragons at the Halls of the Dragons at Gi’ishior,” Aranya stated flatly. “To that end, seventy-two Shapeshifter Dragons fly to your shores and will arrive within three to four hours.”
Several of the Councillors gasped. The King’s shoulders stiffened. But he nodded. “Continue.”
“I request that you and your Councillors work out how Fra’anior Cluster will become a lawfully free zone for Humans, Dragons and Shapeshifters alike, given the historical interrelationship of Human and Dragon rule of certain of these Islands – although not for the last one hundred and fifty years, I’ll grant. There will be fairness and full co-operation in use of the airspace, local resources and so on. I suggest that you demand return payment in the form of protection of your shores by the Dragons, access to and use of draconic mining techniques and sciences – I’m sure you can think of many advantageous and profitable avenues. I can certainly think of some less advantageous avenues should we not be able to reach agreement on these matters. We are family, after all.”
Above the rising murmuring of his Councillors, the King growled, “Princess of Immadia, you are asking me to give up how many Islands, exactly?”
“I’ve not finished yet.” Aranya locked eyes with him. “You will outlaw the hunting of dragonets.”
He waved his hand. “Trivial.”
She countered, “Essential. Dragonets are intelligent, speaking members of the Dragonish race and deserve to be treated as such. Further, you will declare the monasteries following the Path of the Dragon Warrior legal and therefore, you will take steps to integrate them into Fra’aniorian life – given as they saved this city and helped liberate us all from the Sylakian Empire.”
King Cha’arlla quietened his livid Councillors with a stiffly upraised hand. All pretence of politeness tossed into the nearest volcano, he snarled, “Anything more, Immadia?”
Aranya wondered if she had overstepped her reach, but the inner storm-pressure drove her on. Perhaps landing a massive Dragonwing, suggesting the King summarily divide his Island-Cluster and reminding the Council of their status as a conquered territory all at once, had not been the most diplomatic approach. Then again, she was a Dragoness. They had better remember it, her stony expression suggested.
Softly but clearly, Zip said, “I’m not sure King Cha’arlla asked for or deserved quite that brand of frankness, my friend.”
The fires were too strong in her; storm-winds of magic, soughing through her being. Aranya swallowed again. “O King, finally, I ask that you devote Fra’anior to the cause of advancing the return of the Dragon and Shapeshifter races to the Island-World North of the Rift, so that the balance of magic may be restored, to the benefit of all.”
At once, the man she knew as Ma’arkon, the Chief Councillor, exploded, “The hells I’m listening to some chit of a girl standing in our own banqueting hall, threatening us! King Cha’arlla –”
“Aye!” shouted another Councillor. “Or what, girl? Or what? These are preposterous demands. Preposterous, I tell you!”
She could have said many things. She was a Star Dragoness, descendent of the Great Onyx himself. She had right of conquest, even of Fra’anior Cluster. As Lyriela’s cousin, there were family ties. She had to protect her kind …
Aranya forced all of that away. She growled, “I speak with the fire that is within me. Now let cooler heads intervene, before my rash tongue burns us all. Zu –”
“I agree with everything Aranya said,” Zuziana said, in a voice like rough-cut granite. “As one who knows Aranya of Immadia and all she stands for, o King, I declare that no-one has achieved more, or suffered more, in the service of your freedom and mine. If only for the sake of her sufferings, we should give ear to her words.”
The silence that greeted Zip’s statement seemed formed of the peerless blades of Immadian forked daggers. Aranya’s heart fluttered in her throat. Zuziana! By sheer presence, she arrested them. By the force of her anguish, she commanded their respect. Never had she imagined the diminutive Princess could be the proverbial Dragoness in the room, but here she stood, eclipsing Kings and seasoned rulers.
Zip said, “My appeal is simple. O King and Queen, and honoured Councillors, I believe that Aranya’s vision, which lies within your grasp, represents an opportunity to rise up and shape the future of our Island-World. This is not a once-in-a-generation opportunity. Not even once in a lifetime. This is a seminal moment in the history of the three great races. I beseech you to listen not only to the fire of her words, but to the song of her heart. Aranya is a Dragoness, as am I. Dragonesses nurture and protect with a fierce and fiery love. They are creatures as proud and wise and noble as all of you gathered here.”
“Fra’anior has always been the luminary in Human-Dragon relations,” the Remoyan added. “Having been brought low, the Dragonkind have now returned and a critical choice is now thrust upon you. I appeal to you to act wisely, with future generations in mind. We are not here to threaten, but I must point out that we are both Shapeshifter Dragonesses. I therefore advise –”
“King, o King Cha’arlla!” the herald burst back into the hall, ashen-faced. “There’s a monster in the caldera!”
The King raised an eyebrow. “What? Gather your wits, man!”
“It’s a Dragon, sire! A Dragon the size of an Island! And it’s coming –”
“Silence!” King Cha’arlla whirled upon Aranya and Zip. “What treachery is this, you adder-tongued –” He pulled up with an effort. “Now the fire is mine. Speak.”
Aranya raised her hands, sighing, “Mercy. Perfect timing. Well, I suppose if we’d really wanted to threaten you, we’d have started differently. O King, that so-called monster in the caldera is our friend Leandrial, a venerable Dragoness who is helping us track down Thoralian, the former Supreme Commander of Sylakia.”
The Fra’aniorians just stared at her.
“Shall we take a Dragonship and go meet Leandrial?” Aranya suggested. “She’s a Land Dragoness of the illustrious Welkin-Runner Clan, who measures about a mile and a half long, and is possibly the oldest living creature in the Island-World.”
More blank stares.
Zip clapped her hands sharply, making everyone jump. “Snip-snap! Listen, Land Dragons are real, the Shapeshifters are coming, and the future governance of this Island-World will be decided here on this Island. Can we shake our boots, people?” She paused to eye up the table. “Actually, belay that. I’m hungry. Permission to grab a bite, o King?”
Just when everyone glanced at each other and started to relax, she deadpanned, “Pun intended, of course.”
* * * *
Sitting alone on her balcony, Aranya moodily stroked Sapphire’s neck as she gazed over the caldera, unable to sleep. From where she sat on her west-facing balcony, she enjoyed a panoramic view over the city’s slate rooftops to the ruddy canyon of half-light beyond, the radiance of the great volcano. Even at night, birdsong played over the city. Ardan had just left her to rejoin the negotiations, which, despite her worst efforts at dunking them repeatedly in an exploding volcano, were reportedly proceeding well. Zip was also in attendance, accompanying Ri’arion as he represented the monks.
Aranya had excused herself, pleading tiredness. If only. More a case of damage limitation; of retreating from a place of wild inner storms and the rash words they had sparked. She sighed heavily, saying aloud in Dragonish, Oh, Sapphire. I’m not much of a negotiator, am I? Saved by the Zippy one.
Sapphire purred happily and squirmed about in Aranya’s lap, presenting her belly for a scratch. More, Ari. More.
Aranya sallies into battle and returns … chastened.
Thankfully, if she read between the leaves of Ardan’s report, everyone else in that room had been far more gracious than Aranya and her flurry of verbal daggers. Whatever had bitten her?
At least we still have each other, Sapphire. You should fly to Ha’athior. Visit your warren.
Warren far. Ari here, murmured the dragonet.
Sapphire, you’ll need to stay at Fra’anior while we travel on to Jeradia. Sadness infused her words with the heaviness of molten lead. I’ll miss you awfully, little one.
Ari here. No Ha’athior, insisted the dragonet.
But you’ll have to, Sapphire, my darling – what?
To her chagrin, Aranya voiced a squeak of shock as Sapphire went from three-quarters asleep to a stiffly-coiled position around her neck, holding her windpipe ransom with the unsheathed claws of an uncompromising left forepaw! The dragonet shifted, her claws pricking Aranya’s shoulders through the thin dress that was all the ever-tropical temperatures of Fra’anior Cluster demanded, until her fully open fire-eyes stared directly into Aranya’s from a distance of but three inches. Crimson, jade and amber whirled in those depths.
The dragonet said, Ari need Sapphire.
Always, petal. But you can’t survive the Cloudlands. I’m – aah, can we treat the neck gently?
Aranya felt a warm trickle of blood reach her left clavicle as she held very, very still. What mood was this? Was Sapphire feral? Aggravated? Dangerous?
