Aranya Treasury - The Complete Shapeshifter Dragons Series, page 139
Ah, it is she, said Thoralian.
At once, she knew this was not the creature she remembered from the North. This voice was different, the accent harsher, the mind behind the words, slipperier and more fluid to apprehend, as though Thoralian concealed his thoughts behind ever-shifting barriers of ice.
He said, Ah, she works against the urzul, but mine is the power that hides, embezzles and slinks in the dark …
Thoralian flipped his wings, conjuring intently with his paws. Many Dragons around Aranya groaned, but amidst this, the Immadian realised that he was not stealing power from them as she had expected. He was robbing strength from his own forces, from the minds and bodies of those turned to urzul. A black cloud began to boil in the air around Thoralian, powdery and dark, like a swarm of insects. She narrowed her focus. The air shimmered as glamour vanished. Dragons! Legion Dragonkind surrounded the old Marshal; at once, battle-challenges resounded across the half-mile separating both sides, but her attention was drawn to that dark cloud. What …
It drifted downward like a fine rain. Like a swarm of flies. Thoralian’s force hovered, waiting – Up shields! Aranya bellowed.
The black specks sifted ever so softly over the incoming Dragons. Marshal Huaricithe, slightly in the lead with Gang and Tari shadowing her wingtips, was the first to scream. Her body convulsed, wings folding, snarling, mouth agape. Then a filament of pure agony passed through Aranya’s body. She felt as if a white-hot needle had been threaded through her flesh. The black dust speared through her … like anti-starlight, the antithesis of draconic white-fires … and she and every other Dragon afflicted arched and howled and stalled, overwhelmed by pain … nothing else existed …
Thoralian’s laughter boomed across the void, Ah. Sweet vengeance. Kill them all!
All she understood was the word ‘kill’.
Starlight was her shield. Shining as Izariela had shone for her daughter, the Amethyst Dragoness felt the starlight reduce those killing black specks to just … specks. How could anything in the Island-World pierce Dragon hide and bone with such ease? She did not understand, but she knew what she must do. Reaching for those intimate, precious memories of Izariela, the Star Dragoness mustered her light and began to shine it through the fire-spirits nearest her. Zip. Tari. Gang, Huari … so many. Tinting white-fires with starlight that bubbled and sang like a child’s laughter. Giving to each a touch of her gift.
Suddenly, she knew Infurion had been mistaken. There were more types of fire than just Earthen-fires and Sky-fires present in her world. There was Star-fire.
The pain cleared from her vision.
Hundreds of allied Dragonkind fell already, dead or mortally wounded, peeling away from her Storm-powered advance like petals curling away from a dying flower. Through the impending collision of mighty Dragonwings, she momentarily caught sight of Thoralian, his expression darkening.
Pitiful, he said, and vanished.
KAAABOOM!!
Dragon smashed into Dragon. All became reactions and fire and battling. The Azure barrel-rolled beside her, spitting lightning like a miniature tornado. She and Ri’arion were locked deep in their mind-meld, clearing Aranya’s path as the Star Dragoness’ power lapped outward, whispering over the last few Dragons in their battle group. Humansoul’s horrified voice told her that fully a third of Tari’s command had perished in a breath of Thoralian’s magic.
Focus the rage. Narrow down. Concentrate. Pfft! Pfft! She cleaned Gang’s back of a champing Lesser Dragon.
Storm, be mine!
Lightning sparked over to her from Zuziana. Her fire-eyes swivelled to follow the light. Suddenly they were one, the Amethyst Dragoness snaffled up in the fringes of her friends’ beautiful linkage, and she saw how Lightning played in her friend’s body, how the Azure was so flawlessly fitted to sculpt and control the electrical potentials seething along her electro-conductive pathways to their endpoints in her throat and talons and spine-spikes. Aranya tossed Zip’s Lightning back.
Come on, Azure. Let’s crackle and burn!
Linking their right forepaws instinctively, the Dragonesses swung about each other upon a single axis. Swirling. Dancing. Tossing lightning bolts from their spinning wingtips and paws and tails. The massive charges lurking in their chests joined in the air, sparking in crazy chains-linked lightning amongst the swarming enemy Dragons. Aranya danced with her best friend, supping on the Storm’s power and sharing it with Zuziana. She saw the darkness of hearts that followed Thoralian’s way. They pirouetted through the awful press. Dragons died.
Suddenly, new sounds permeated the battle. Tak-tak-tak! Tak-a-tak! Tak!
A mighty surge of Dragons charged into the fray, bellowing in deeper and greater voices than she had ever heard before. Aranya saw Dragon-mountains occluding the sky, their hides spitting projectiles from other-mouths, and still she danced, living the Storm, being the Storm, overcome by the tingling of power and the multifarious colours that spelled draconic death, fire-souls winking out all around her, tugging her soul toward grief-fires …
Nearby, Ri’arion called a wild, glad greeting and there in the crimson heat filling her mind was a new, chirruping voice, calling, Ari? Find Ari!
Sapphire? You came, oh! She clutched the frantic dragonet to her bosom. Where’s Ardan?
Mid-spin, her astonishing Dragon-sight conveyed a crystal-clear image of Ardan – him – riding a great Dragoness of Cobalt-Green hues, her scales wrought of invidious perfection, and she beheld the soul-shaking bent of the Dragoness’ desire toward him who sat strapped in her saddle, bending a mighty bow to its utmost reach, the muscles of his forearms and shoulders standing out like sculpted stanchions, and he was the unquenchable beast who stalked her dreams and her nightmares, evermore unattainable, and from bloodless Dragon-lips she whispered, Fra’anior, I choose, I choose …
The backlash of oath-magic through their linkage smashed her beyond the stars, into darkness.
* * * *
Ardan folded his muscled arms and glared at Aranya as she rested in a hammock inside Yiisuriel’s fortress. The day’s fighting was done; Thoralian’s forces were regrouped outside the overarching shield that now protected Leandrial’s entire command, including the Star Dragoness. They had won through. Now, strategies must necessarily be redrawn.
Yet all of this paled into insignificance before the soul-electrifying power of a pair of amethyst eyes that regarded him now.
Ardan roared, “You are the most granite-headed, intractable, storm-creating excuse for a stray lightning-bolt I have ever encountered! Your so-called friends won’t let me in the blasted door for fear that my very presence will knock you silly – again – half of Herimor apparently worships your wings, and I am fated to love a veritable goddess who cannot see her own tail if it slaps her in the jaw! And if they are eavesdropping –” he sucked in an enormous, shuddering breath – I WILL LOSE MY FREAKING TEMPER!!
The Princess did not point out the obvious, but he could see what she was thinking. Half of the Island had just heard him bellow. A pleasingly draconic bellow …
Mewling and spitting in anger, Sapphire whizzed into the room and buried herself in Human-Aranya’s arms. Aranya calmed the dragonet with a deft touch, irritating Ardan further, because his treacherous brain immediately pictured him as the dragonet, purring beneath her caressing hand.
He gritted out, “You are impossible! Can’t love you, can’t not love you … what do you want, woman – Dragoness? Answers on a handy scrolleaf!”
“I do not want to put this war at risk, right now, by trying to untangle this fiendishly intricate knot that binds us,” she suggested sensibly.
He shook a fist at the ceiling, as if railing at the skies might better express the depths of his frustration. Zip had pointed out that maddening each other was just the other face of the dral of love. Ardan had to leave the room at that point or he would have committed a morally reprehensible act. He was good at those, apparently.
He said, “May I mention the war-interrupting storm raging overhead at present?”
“Aye.” An Island-World’s weight burdened her sigh. “Ardan, I don’t have many answers, but I can tell you this. I am not negotiating with some seventh-generation niece of mine about rights to you. The very idea makes me feel tired. Besides, if I know you, you’re more stubborn than that scimitar-stopper you wear atop your shoulders. You command your own heart. I should not interfere.”
“For the tenth stupid time, Aranya – interfere! I want you to interfere! Must I grovel until you change your mind for sheer, bloody shame, woman?”
Aranya’s eyes glistened between the folds of her royal purple face-veil. He could not begin to enumerate the emotions roiling within her. She whispered, “I need that storm, Ardan.”
He growled, “So, you want me to –”
“No.”
“You don’t want me to –”
“No.”
Ardan roared a very impolite word at this juncture. It did not improve his mood that she giggled at his reaction. “Maybe I’ll just come over there and start with a few kisses,” he threatened, then almost cursed again as a shadow crossed those incomparable eyes. “I am a decent, patient man!”
Now, a twinkle of amusement. “Is that so?”
“Alright, if you want honesty, Immadia, I need my Dragon. I can’t fight the Thoralians without my Shadow. Won’t you just –”
“I can’t heal what isn’t there.”
“Can’t you?”
Suddenly, the room seemed a quarter of the size it had been before, and the heat, like a furnace. Aranya’s eyes were as wide as a startled Dragoness’, rife with ideas sparking in all directions.
Rather more feebly, he added, “Maybe I should turn you over my knee like Nak always threatens to.”
“That almost set your scales alight last time,” she retorted diffidently, yet he sensed her blushing even beneath the veil. “Ardan, the bigger issue is that I can’t defeat – we can’t defeat the Thoralians, without the whole Daughter of Storm … piece. I need you, your magic and your presence. I’m sorry if that makes you feel used. Of course that’s offensive and I am acutely conscious – I’d feel the same way. But I am confused and vulnerable, Ardan. There’s a heart in here that resents acting the victim, but I just don’t see how this story ends with ‘and they winged happily into the suns-set together’. Tell me you understand that much, at least.”
“No.”
She stared at his upraised, scarified eyebrow.
Clapping his hands together so sharply she jumped, Ardan said, “Right, Star Dragoness. We’re in a war. Afterward, you will unbend this ridiculous stance, or so help me, I swear …”
“The knee?”
“By Fra’anior’s sulphurous armpits, my knee!”
He was ashamed of shouting at this woman, but she seemed to understand his emotions – Aranya was attuned to Storm, after all, and stormy draconic emotions were what raged, choked and burned inside of his breast now. Ardan had always considered himself a forbearing and self-controlled man, insofar as he remembered. But not where Aranya was concerned. Never, with her …
“Now that I’m awake, we should confer with the lovely Dhazziala.” Aranya had the nerve to wink at him. “She has fine taste in Shapeshifter Dragons, I hear.”
“She’s seventy-two flaming years old! It’d be like … kissing someone’s grandmother!” Ardan contorted his face, making her laugh merrily. “Even Western Isles barbarians have their standards.”
“Except regard –” She bit off her words. Except regarding teenage princesses? But Aranya ad-libbed graciously, “If you kissed her you’d probably bring down an Island or three. Maybe we can turn that power against Thoralian?”
“Should I skip Dhazziala and kiss Thoralian instead?”
“I think you’d rather kiss a dead rat floating down a sewage pipe,” Aranya suggested, as they laughed together. “Well, let’s keep that strategy in the back pocket, agreed? You scared Nak silly last time, anyways. Now, can I tell you what passed between Fra’anior and me? It’s … huge. Pun intended.”
Council chamber, now, said Dhazziala, directly into his mind.
Ardan offered his arm. Your Majesty, we are expected.
As the First Hand’s anger flared, the oath-magic responded and Aranya, halfway risen from her hammock, executed a very unroyal tumble. Ardan’s Dragon-swift hand saved her head a nasty crack against a nearby wooden chest.
A monstrous peal of thunder shook Yiisuriel to her roots.
Mercy. Finding her feet groggily, Aranya picked up Sapphire and popped the dragonet upon her left shoulder. You should stick with me, Sapphire, for I’ve a feeling … anyways, what’s this I hear about you channelling Blue powers, you lovely little mischief? At least with this driving storm, even the Thoralian-triplicate can’t cause too much trouble for us.
I disagree, Ardan said bluntly. That’s what this meeting is about.
He caught her a second time as Aranya faltered, clutching her head. Sapphire’s magic flared gently, soothing the pain. Then, Star leaned on Shadow’s arm as they walked out of the chamber together, as if they belonged to each other.
* * * *
The Azure Dragoness winged down between the enormous flanks of the Air-Breathers to meet Leandrial, who together with, Zip, Aranya and Huaricithe, proposed to make the trip to the invitingly named Pit of Despair. The Suald-dak-Doon began a mere seven leagues beneath the Cloudlands, two leagues beneath the feet of the Land Dragons who surrounded the ancient mine. One of these guardians was Yiisuriel, and it was her flank that passed by Zip’s right wingtip as she descended.
Despite their objections, Ri’arion and Ardan had been left behind, but would monitor and assist mentally via Yiisuriel.
They had thought Leandrial was old, Zip chuckled to herself. Yiisuriel claimed a venerable one thousand, four hundred and seventy-six circuits of the Island-World about the suns, apparently not an uncommon age for creatures boasting such a slow metabolic rate. Leandrial acted most put out. To stand with one’s feet eighteen miles below one’s breathing spiracles, and to house tens of thousands of lives in one’s rocky shell-exudate, was no mean feat.
Yiisuriel had known the Dragonfriend and was most ‘fierily tickled’, therefore, to make Aranya’s acquaintance. In a fit of uncharacteristic impertinence during her descent, the Immadian had requested that the phlegmatic Air-Breather tell her amusing stories about her Aunt.
Well was it said that good friends grew alike.
As they descended, the pressure intensified steadily. In the recesses of her mind, Zip felt a slight tingling as Ri’arion checked and approved her auxiliary countermeasures against airborne and magical toxins. How peculiar to hear her faraway monk, Ardan and Yiisuriel discussing the sweeping lines of enemy Fire-Sporters and Bottom-Huggers – she burst out laughing as that name impinged on her awareness, startling Aranya and Huari – invading the vast plains area between the Vassal States and the Inscrutables, which were cut on an East-West plane by four relatively narrow impossible deeps. Soon, she realised Yiisuriel’s stolid presence was amplifying the men’s thoughts. Telepathy only carried so far.
Leandrial awaited them in the soft, dim blue two leagues below the Cloudlands, her eye shining like a vast, welcoming lantern. Without preamble, she said, Dhazziala has despatched envoys to agree alliance with the Vassal States and their Dragon Riders – a tardy move, but not unwelcome. As predicted, we are now surrounded by hostile Land Dragons, but allies gather in the Eastern deeps of the Southern Kahilate, and North of the Vassal States. The third Thoralian approaches from the Straits with a vast force, conservatively estimated at forty thousand Lesser Dragons and a million drakes.
A million? Aranya gasped.
Zip heard her friend’s annoyance at that draconic love of dropping news into a conversation like a boulder tossed down a cliff.
Merely, said Yiisuriel, chuckling massively. Now, little ones, I’ve a job for you. I feel an irritation on the lower base of my shell, down where your paws would be. I need you to take a look.
Leandrial said, Very well. Only nine miles to go, little ones.
Zip tittered, Aye, you Land Dragons are unutterably humungous, Leandrial. You put the shivers of colossal awe into my exceedingly tiny wings.
You’re so eye-wateringly gargantuan, o mighty Leandrial, that I need to dust off my truly outsized thesaurus of draconic hyperbole to merely attempt speech with such a leviathan, Aranya chipped in, drawing a strange look from Huaricithe.
Don’t teach properly civil Dragons your insolent Northern ways, sniffed Leandrial, cracking open her jaw. Shall I eat you now, or later?
Later, said Zip. With a dollop of that delicious sauce the Lost Islanders serve over orrican meat?
The Welkin-Runner dived. Do try to keep up.
Lightning-girl and her Storm-munching sidekick, said the Remoyan, snidely elbowing Aranya in the ribs.
Storm-girl and Lightning-in-her-britches, retorted her friend, thinking something that for a change, made Zip’s belly-fires blush dramatically.
Zuziana chased the surprisingly blue Star Dragoness down into the depths, swimming the precipitous cliffs of Yiisuriel’s great flanks with broad, languid wing-strokes. Below the three-league mark, the ambient bacterial light petered out, leaving just a broad reach of darkness surrounded by ten hazy mountains rising into the murky heavens – their Air-Breather friends. The upper Pit was two leagues across, Dhazziala had briefed them, and narrowed as one progressed deeper than the level the Air-Breathers stood upon. Over the centuries, their heavily armoured shells had fused with the bedrock and each other, making them true mountains, but they could crack that seal at any time and amble off to another location. Yiisuriel, the largest of her kind, measured six point nine two leagues in diameter, her great bulk bordering fully a quarter of the Suald-dak-Doon.
