Aranya Treasury - The Complete Shapeshifter Dragons Series, page 135
Zip gasped, “Petal, it is you …”
“Are you well, petal?” Aranya asked at the same time.
“Actually, I’m quite nauseous,” the Remoyan blurted out. “But fine. Mostly in the mornings –”
To her embarrassment, Aranya shrieked again. Dragoness-Aranya was rolling her fire-eyes, deep inside, but her Human playfully swatted her nose. Alright, I’m making a scene, Dragonsoul. Live with it.
You’re precious, petal, laughed her Dragoness.
“You are –”
“Pregnant,” Zip confirmed.
“Oh, Zip-Zip, that’s beyond awesome! Best news in all of Herimor! Best this century! How’s Ri’arion? Did he faint again?”
“The freaking hells he did!” the monk shouted from behind Gang’s tail.
“He fainted,” Zip confirmed. Yet there were shadows in the Azure’s eyes. Aranya’s mouth compressed into a pensive line as she stopped gushing and started looking. Zip protested, “I’m fine, honestly. I just toss my breakfast around at random intervals and sleep a lot.”
“Triplets?”
“Do Dragons have babies – eggs, I mean – some other way?”
“I guess not,” replied the Immadian Princess, wondering for a fleeting second about her own heritage. “I kind of missed you – hope you noticed.”
“The nose-hug and the windroc-screeching were somewhat telling,” Zip suggested slyly. “So, you need to tell me – what do Star Dragonesses do for fun in orbit, apart from just shining prettily?”
“Where’s Ardan? He’s here too, right? And Sapphire? Did you find my precious –”
Zuziana’s eye-fires darkened. “I’m sorry, Aranya.”
“No! Oh, no, Sapphire …”
Gang’s neck curved at a surprisingly acute angle to enclose the two Shapeshifter Dragonesses in the space between his neck and chest. He snorted gently, “I’ll gladly hand this one over to you, Azure. She’s trouble.”
“Oh she is, is she?” Zip’s eyes gleamed brightly.
“Although, my every Dragon-sense tingles with a sense that you might just be more mischief than your Star Dragon friend, Zuziana, which is Dragon-tonnage-significant.”
Aranya said, “You’re right about that too, Gang.”
Even Zuziana’s light-hearted giggling and a decidedly heated Dragon kiss that swamped the entire side of Aranya’s head, as they fell into their old, snarky ways, failed to convince. Aranya decided to watch her friend closely. And Ardan? Where in the Island-World could he be? She still could not sense his presence, but perhaps that was due to her wild, misbehaving magic. If Leandrial lurked below, then she would ask the venerable Land Dragoness for assistance in pinpointing Ardan’s location.
Gangurtharr added, almost mournfully, “Accordingly, my prescient white-fires conclude that Thoralian’s days number few indeed. Come, Dragonesses. We must incite these Herimor Dragons to war. Did you bring reinforcements?”
Zip batted his neck with a kittenish paw. “A few, noble Dragon. Some paltry eight thousand Land Dragons gather beneath your Island. And one unstoppable monk.”
“All we’re missing, then, is the dragonets,” drawled Ri’arion. “And now’s when I say, noble Dragon, get your filthy mud-grubbers off my gorgeous wife!”
Flexing his power, he levitated Gang into the lintel again. Thump!
The Grey-Green Dragon’s displeasure struck an ear-splitting note of thunder.
Chapter 29: Straight through the Straits
Ardan’s awakening was that of a Dragon with a fractured skull. A headache worthy of Kylara’s scimitar-blow sawed at his throbbing brain, making blinding lights explode behind his eyelids. Still, he forced his eyes open. His Human hand scratched his nose. Still no Dragon.
“Fainting firiliflower,” Bane greeted him.
“Uh … water?”
Lurax sniffled, “You were unconscious for two days.”
“What?”
Ardan tried to sit up, which was easily the worst idea in his recent past. Pain washed over him with the glee of Marshal Tixi applying herself to breaking a Shapeshifter. He slumped back in his … hammock? What, with purple dancing rajals thrown on top? And a troupe of giggling acrobatic dragonets, for he lay in a painted cave, decorated in blocky blue and white patterns crazy enough to trigger his gag reflex. A perfectly circular metal door looked bolted and shut against Dragons. There were no windows. Only him, the two boys and Sapphire – thank the heavens – resting on heaps of moon-shaped blue cushions.
He must be having a peculiar turn.
“Marshal?” he croaked.
Lurax blenched. Bane’s voice cracked as he said, “Thoralian ate her … hearts.”
He stared blankly at them. “I …”
He remembered only fragments after that Island-smashing impact – talons snatching Bane and Lurax out of harm’s way as Islands collided and ground together in a five-way smash … Imagatharr’s fatal crash-landing, and most clearly, the Yellow-White despot, barely a quarter of a mile distant, spearing his remarkably elongated talons into the Red Shapeshifter’s chest and wrenching forth the still-living, beating heart … champing down …
He gagged and heaved, but managed to withhold.
Bane mopped his forehead with a cool cloth. “Easy, warrior. We are safe, if captive, to these Inscrutable people. They wanted you.”
“Me – what? Why?”
The boys, and Sapphire, shook their heads. The dragonet touched her paw to his forehead. At once, the pain seemed to abate.
He said, Sapphire?
Copy clever Ari, said the dragonet.
Why, you little blue scallywag! Ardan said feelingly. Of course, you’re a Blue. You clever, wonderful … friend! You can just copy Aranya like that?
I tell big-mind Dragon save my Ardan, the dragonet added proudly, sending him a mental image.
At the sight of that metal-armoured behemoth sporting fortified emplacements upon his back and shoulders manned by up to ten men apiece, and furnished with what appeared to be the muzzles of further Dragons peeking out of slits and portholes built for the purpose, Ardan could only gasp, That’s a Dragon?
Bigger than any Dragonship he had ever seen! Freaking volcanoes, what was this place?
“Tell us,” Bane and Lurax begged. “What did she say?”
He scratched her spine-spikes cheerfully. “Boys, this dragonet just saved our hides. She called in the Inscrutable Dragons – roaring rajals! Are they flying armouries, or what?”
“Never seen nothing like it!” Bane said feelingly.
“They’ve got different types – a flying fortress, a clever-mind type, these little swarming Dragon-things and Dragon emplacements on their battlements,” Lurax prattled like an excitable parakeet. “Some of them have, strike my soul, twenty wings!”
“And burrowing Dragons,” added Bane.
“And these Dragons that are so flexible, they link together to form a single bigger Dragon!”
“They live on Dragons!”
“What?” Ardan scratched inside his left ear as if mining for a few sensible thoughts.
Now, he remembered that the breakage of the first Island-spanning shield had led to one entire side of the heptagon folding away and disappearing beneath the Cloudlands, only for a second pentagonal Island-formation to be revealed in the centre … and a second shield. What a shield! It had even stymied Thoralian as he winged after Ardan, bellowing his possessive rage. He had wanted the Shadow Dragon. They had escaped. But what an awful, fitting fate for Marshal Tixi, to see her second heart eaten before her still-living eyes! Gaah, he could not wish that fate on any Dragon, not even one so evil. Vile beyond belief!
Suddenly, as if unleashed from a fog, his mind began to make connections. What were the Inscrutable Islands protecting, if not the First Egg? Were they keeping the Thoralians out, or the S’gulzzi in? Could it be that these fabled Dragonkind might be protecting the Island-World from the depredations of the S’gulzzi creatures who possessed all the power of a First Egg of the Ancient Dragons? He shook his head in amazement. He would never have thought it, but small threads began to twine together and make sense. Leandrial’s description of the Theadurial and how they had historically been slaves to the fire-spirits of the S’gulzzi. They had no love for their old masters. The beastly, elongated Yellow-White’s desperation to retrieve the First Egg, and his rousing of all the infested Land Dragons to purse his prize. Then, how could the S’gulzzi, those ravening, core-dwelling spirits, not have escaped with the First Egg?
Because there was something special about this place. Something that prevented them. A reason why this most peculiar Island-Cluster had settled here!
Wow!
These Islands dated from the time of the Dragonfriend, six hundred years before. The First Egg had returned to Herimor just one hundred and fifty years before. That discrepancy baffled him. He had to wonder … the approach of magic arrested his thoughts.
A woman shimmered through the metal door as though the metal were merely a gossamer curtain, saying, “Because we stole the First Egg to stop the war between the Land Dragons, Shapeshifter Ardan.”
Blue-in-blue eyes, devoid of distinction between the iris and the sclera, fixed upon him with extraordinary clarity. The woman had a face like a golden statue and beautiful white hair that fell to her waist. Her thick, sweeping blue robes were clasped by a high, stiff collar at her throat, and although she wore no insignia, Ardan knew her for a high-ranking official of these people.
“We have trespassed sufficiently upon your thoughts to know you are no friend of Marshal Thoralian’s, Ardan,” added the woman, in ringing, exotic tones. “For this act we make no apology. We are at war. Necessities must be such.”
He made to rise, but she halted his action with a small, definite frown.
“I am Dhazziala, First Hand of my people. Among my ancestors, I proudly name Hualiama Dragonfriend, the Star Dragoness, and Grandion the Tourmaline. Who are you?”
“Ardan of Naphtha Cluster, Dragon of Shadow,” he said, with growing excitement and astonishment. This idiosyncratic woman and Aranya must be related! “And if there is war to be waged against Marshal Thoralian, then I beg you to let me and my Apprentice Dragon Riders ride with you. Yet I must ask, why is the Egg not in your … paws?”
“Aye, Shapeshifter.” Her depthless eyes sparked. Dhazziala countered, “Why is your Aranya not with you?”
“That’s a story.” He inclined his head graciously. “In my culture, it is polite to allow ladies to speak first. After all, the wise-women of our tribes are responsible for preserving and extending the lore.”
“You are oath-bound, are you not?”
Ardan produced a fine example of the challenging glare.
Dhazziala laughed musically. “Oh, we discovered that link quite by accident. It’s one of the very few types of magic which is able to penetrate our shield; by that, and Thoralian’s maddened pursuit, we knew you for a Dragon of note. By our calculations from this morning, your Star Dragoness is travelling rapidly from mid-Wyldaroon through the Straits of Hordazar. She’s about to engage in battle.”
Alive! Coming for … well, not for him. She had made that as clear as crysglass. His smile had to be foolishness personified. Thinning his lips, Ardan said, “Aranya is not mine.”
The blue eyes turned effervescent, the magic practically leaping out at him. “Oh? It is said that the consequences of denying the oath-magic are dire beyond comprehension – this is a complication.” Ardan, listening closely, began to hear echoes within echoes as the woman conferred at the speed of thought with others. “Very well. In overview: The traitor Shurgal’s return with the First Egg sparked war between the Land Dragons. Great were the losses and the Clans have been weakened to this day. We posit this is the reason the Thoralian-triplicate was able to ally with the Theadurial –”
“Besides that they share knowledge of urzul?” Ardan put in.
The woman swore inadvertently, then apologised. “To have this confirmed! Ardan! You must brief my Council forthwith.”
OPEN! she commanded. The door dissolved into nothingness.
Ardan found himself staring into an egg-shaped chamber furnished with seven rows of curved benches, packed shoulder-to-shoulder with blue-robed, white-haired men and women. They looked so freakishly similar, his nape crawled.
Then it struck him like a Dragon’s icy claw speared through his gut. All the peculiar legends of Thoralian he had read in the Marshal’s library. This woman had just called him the Thoralian-triplicate …
Dhazziala nodded, confirming his suspicions. Three! Shell-brothers? Or something entirely more sinister? It made a twisted sort of logic, an explanation for his legend and confirmation of his amplified mental power; Ardan had just seen one Thoralian near the horizon, and then another arrived in ambush, thirty leagues apart. He had thought his memories played him false. Clearly, no. Where was the third? The First Hand turned already into a graceful genuflection, sweeping her right hand from her heart outward and behind her. The Council rose, and simultaneously, made exactly the same gesture at the same tempo.
“We are the Seventy-Seven,” they said.
Ardan steadied Lurax with a firm hand upon his shoulder. He said, “We greet the Seventy-Seven and the … uh, First Hand. I am Ardan, as you know, and these are my apprentice Dragon Riders, Bane and Lurax.” He almost chuckled at how Lurax straightened and Bane puffed out his chest. “This mighty dragonet is Sapphire, favoured companion of Aranya, the Star Dragoness, who has travelled from North of the Rift-Storm with the avowed intent of defeating Thoralian’s bid for supremacy and returning the First Egg to its ancestral home at Fra’anior Cluster.”
Ardan could no better have deposited an explosive fireball in their midst. The previously stony-faced Councillors descended into a shouting, gesticulating mess. Well-spoken, Western Isles warrior, he congratulated himself.
SILENCE, said Dhazziala, and gained exactly what she demanded. “Picking up my tale – so heavy was the fighting that the First Egg fell to the floor of the world beside the roots of our Islands. It was captured by the S’gulzzi – we spit upon their ancestors!”
“We spit!” chorused the Council.
Ardan blinked. Roaring rajals! A peculiar bunch, this, but definitely on the right side of this war.
“It is said, the First Egg falls where it wills,” continued the First Hand, in a sing-song tone that suggested she had told this legend many times. “The Egg fell into the only known deposit of meriatonium in all Herimor, the fabled mines of Dramagon himself, called Suald-dak-Doon, or the Pit of Despair. We surrounded the Egg with our Air-Breathers, the mightiest of whom is called Yiisuriel-ap-Yuron, constructed our shields, and discovered – stalemate.” Her voice turned bitter. “We could not reach the Egg, for meriatonium is anathema to magic. Impenetrable. As the Egg lay at twelve leagues’ depth, no Land Dragon could reach it from above. The S’gulzzi penetrated the cracks in the Island-World’s crust to reach that fabled treasure, but they lacked the physical substance to move the Egg or the knowledge to manipulate its power – until recently.”
“The Air-Breathers know the dark past of our people. They know whence we came, and why we tarried – our long-unconsummated purpose clarified the moment the First Egg fell into enemy paws. Four hundred and fifty years, and one hundred and fifty farther, we have awaited the Star Dragoness. Only she can illuminate those unimaginable depths and retrieve the Egg.”
Recently? chirruped Sapphire.
“Aye, my Dragon-kin.” The First Hand smiled brightly at the dragonet. “Two decades ago, the Egg began to move. Something is pushing it to the surface – despite our ultimate protections, and with a power that tips mountains. The Marshal Thoralians know this. His power has already breached our first layer of defence – we spit upon his ancestors!”
“We spit!” the Council shouted in unison.
Ardan scratched his chin, trying not to think of the incongruity of conducting this interview while ensconced in a hammock. These were Aranya’s kin? He rather suspected these were the type of relatives one preferred not to invite to family events. “We heard that your Islands have been located here for six centuries. If that’s the case …”
Dhazziala bobbed her head. “We are the Peoples’ Council of the Lost Isles, representing Humans, Shapeshifters and Dragonkind.”
No Dragons were visible, but that clearly meant nothing, judging by the amount of mental chatter in the aether. “But that’s – they were …” Ardan protested, pointing upward and to his right, locating the Lost Isles far above the Kingdom Kaolili in the far North-Eastern corner of the Island-World.
“One and the same. We relocated across the Rift and settled here,” said Dhazziala, making this implausible migration sound trivial.
“Well, welcome to the ‘not so lost after all’ Islands,” Ardan quipped, earning himself not a single smile in the chamber. “I suppose you’ll be wanting to hear all about the Star Dragoness and urzul, now?”
Seventy-Seven Councillors leaned forward in perfect concert and said, “Forthwith.”
Behind them Ardan sensed echoes within echoes of draconic minds, a vast congregation of mighty minds. What an ally to have discovered!
One thing was for certain. He must elide key details about how he and Aranya had met. Then, he remembered how easily Dhazziala had plumbed his mind. He stood in a chamber full of freakish mind-readers who lived atop a Clan of Air-Breathers, the largest Land Dragons of all, and they commanded the most mysterious, feared powers of any in the Island-World, according to the scroll-lore.
Ardan broke out in a cold sweat.
* * * *
On the wings of Aranya’s under-Cloudlands Storm blast, Leandrial’s enormous force churned toward a Land Dragon blockade beneath the Straits of Hordazar. They knew they were placing themselves between the jaws of a trap. One jaw swept from behind, the other undoubtedly waited for them beyond the Straits, somewhere between the Vassal States and the Southern Kahilate.
Their intent was to punch a neat hole in that jaw and go swim down the gullet of Thoralian’s plan.
