Aranya Treasury - The Complete Shapeshifter Dragons Series, page 143
Zuziana halted mid-sob. Her paws quivered. Oh, Zip! Aranya had never loved her friend more. Thoralian had forced her into this by some vile trickery or threat against her egglings, yet she had balked.
Thoralian disparaged her, but the Amethyst saw the true face of courage.
* * * *
A Word of Command! Ardan gasped as the constant singing of oath-magic within him, arrested. Paralysed. It seemed his soul was ice, that he must also be paralysed. He could but observe from a distance of a mile and a half as the Dragon Rider wing forged into the heaviest fighting yet, as the Thoralians seized both Amethyst and Azure with that most legendary power. None could resist. And even from this distance, his mind quailed at the font of strength that was Thoralian, at the malice shining from three pairs of sallow eyes as the triplet circled his victims-to-be, bludgeoning them with his mind.
He must intervene. How could he reach them?
Brityx and Huaricithe screamed in, but a touch of the Thoralian-mind mobbed them with hundreds of drakes. He saw the surface of the First Egg briefly appear amidst the miles-wide sea of S’gulzzi; almost, the prize was within reach. Aranya had risked all to bring this situation about.
Then, his sharp, searching eyes caught a flash of sapphire scales on Aranya’s shoulder.
Sapphire!
What could a dragonet –
Inverse, Dhazziala interjected, sounding so mournful his mind attuned instantly to her words. You are the Shadow. Not a lesser being. The Shadow has power in its own right. It is the inverse of light, its muse, its companion, its ever-present antithesis. Only you can find a way. Magic is opposites, Ardan. Opposites, and antagonistic forces.
He could not touch Aranya. Her mind was beyond his reach, now. Nor Zuziana. But the spark of Sapphire’s consciousness welcomed him, and her clever little memory played back not so much the Word Thoralian had spoken, but the extraordinary, immutable constructs of magic that held them fast. He saw Sapphire’s gift and smiled at the mental image the faithful dragonet showed him – that of a parakeet. She was an imitator. Therefore, might she not also un-imitate?
Ardan wrestled the ideas through his thick-as-mud mind. He must reach beyond incapacity and disbelief, and the inner devaluing of his existence. Thou too art mine, Sha’aldior! Fra’anior had predicted Aranya would need him. Was Shadow of Onyx, the darkest of strength? Let it be!
Suddenly, he surged, snapping the saddle-straps as though they were crumbling scrolleaf. Beneath him, Gangurtharr’s wingbeat hitched in surprise. Ardan? Did you Shift?
Nay. He only wished. But his vision was clear. There was another way.
His chest swelled. I AM SHA’ALDIOR!
Ardan’s core strength flooded forth, not directed at the unattainable song of his heart, but to flood into the smaller but no less worthy Dragon-heart that gripped Aranya’s shoulder with her talons. Should a Dragoness possess a fourth heart? Its name was Sapphire.
Immediately, the dragonet parroted back the draconic rune-language he invented, like the relief effect of an engraving. Oddly, this emerged as, Be free!
Sha’aldior chortled gleefully as Aranya’s sevenfold wrath split the night asunder.
Sorry, Thoralian, he chortled. All bets just shifted to the Dragoness who’s about to flay your stinking hide and kick the remnant into oblivion.
* * * *
Oath-magic was deep and ethereal, operating below even the subconscious level in her Dragoness’ perception. But the grieving anger of her Humansoul was real and palpable, and the germ of her Storm worthy of the majestic panoply of her grandfather’s most shattering wrath. It was so visceral, that threat against Zuziana’s unborn babes, that Aranya found herself catapulted beyond rational response. She waded across the Pit of Despair, smashing the Thoralians with blast after booming blast, her thunder pummelling the triplets like ragged cloth dolls across the Suald-dak-Doon. Lightning poured from her clenched fists in concussive blows. Boom! Boom! BOOM! The three Yellow-White Dragons shielded and dodged and deflected, carving canyons through the swarming S’gulzzi as the force of Aranya’s overwhelming attack pounded them up and down, back and forth, and in that fury there was a sobbing of thunder and a hysterical storm-wind that shrieked the exact notes of her ravaging grief, the suffering of a Dragoness and the anguish of an Island-World at war.
Maddened, the Star Dragoness punished the Thoralians while the urzul magic in the Pit sang a low, fervent song. This was true power. Inciting. Spellbinding. A voice of untrammelled magic.
Then, Aranya became aware of a gentle touch upon her shoulder. Ari scary! Not forget self?
Sapphire, terrified – of her!
Gradually, by degrees, she relented, until Aranya faced the tattered, smoking Thoralians across a short space. She wheezed, Give it up, Marshal. Your power is broken.
All for nought, spat one of the Thoralians. Whole fangs dropped from his broken mouth as he slurred, You see, Aranya, your mother’s condition is untreatable. I can show you.
Knowledge lurked at the edge of his mind, hers for the taking. Despair instantly sheathed her bones in ice. Aranya knew his words for truth. Perhaps for the first and only time, Thoralian spoke honestly, for by this, he meant to break her hope. They had used a complex, unique formulation of Shapeshifter poisons on Izariela, seven of which had no known antidote. Despair! Her Storm surged …
Unnecessarily, viciously, the Thoralians added, You can never save your shell-mother. There’s no way, by any form of magic or physical substance, she can be saved. Whatever enters her body will complete the corruption of her Shapeshifter form. She’s as good as dead.
If Aranya had cried for Izariela, her tears would have constituted the killing stroke.
She reeled. No … no, no, no!
Thoralian cried, Now, let my Theadurial – ARISE!!
Gleaming in the fell light of the moons and the fires of the Dragonwings writhing in fatal contest above the Lost Islands, Land Dragons poured up the flanks of the Air-Breathers and attacked the final shield still separating the Island-World from the ravaging S’gulzzi.
* * * *
All was ice. Her world, shattered. Aranya floated above the Suald-dak-Doon, unable to think, unwilling to process what she had just heard. Lost. Thoralian must pay. Yet she was powerless to lift a talon.
Below, the darkness stirred, assuming a new form from which even the S’gulzzi fled like rabid curs. Flapping and screeching and thrashing about in their millions, the shielded pipe between the Air-Breathers emptied to attack the legion Dragons and drakes above, but Aranya’s gaze was drawn to the gloom below; the moving coils of darkness, embracing the First Egg’s gleaming beauty with loving malevolence. The enormity of the creature down there, its eyes glowing like old coals.
A debased form of Dragonish roared over her, filled with clicks and nuances and haunting power of a kind she had never heard before.
SO, YOU THINK MY MINIONS WERE THE TRUE S’GULZZI?
Its power was that of the Rift-Storm, eroding her white-fires magic. Earthen-fires? Or urzul? The Star Dragoness drifted backward, separating herself from the Thoralians as she struggled to preserve her sanity and magic.
Gazing up at the Thoralians, the creature bellowed, THIS IS MY EGG! YOU GAVE UP THE URZUL, YOU FOOL!
The S’gulzzi had stolen the secret of urzul from Thoralian? When?
Eye-cannons blazed in concert, inundating the creature’s enormous obsidian coils with Harmonic magic and light. It shook the Air-Breathers with the bellows of its pain and rage, and the shield disintegrated. What a sound! Aranya could not think before it, feeling as if her very bones were melting. The creature was urzul personified. Already, Lesser Dragons and drakes, Land Dragons and Shapeshifters and even the S’gulzzi themselves wilted before the wash of its corrupting power.
The Thoralians cried, The First Egg is mine!
Never! Aranya surged toward them, gathering her Storm, only to trigger the Yellow-White’s maniacal laughter.
The Egg or the friend, Storm Dragoness? he said. My corrupting spirit is ready, present and potent within her body. I, at least, shall survive this encounter.
The Yellow-White drifted downward; Aranya tried to read his intent. Zip still hovered motionless, not falling, just stuck in the sky as though pinioned to a taxidermist’s dissecting table. The Star Dragoness saw, with the eyes of her sixth Dragon-sense, the corruption lurking in her best friend’s body, enclosing the womb, poised to poison her egglings just as the Chameleon Shapeshifters had left their mark upon Aranya’s own body.
Daimonic spirit! she howled.
The Thoralians folded their wings. The First Egg is mine! Enjoy your friend’s demise, Amethyst.
He hurtled into the conflict below, the Land Dragons scrabbling over each other in a bid to be first into the Pit of Despair to secure the Egg; screaming at the putrefying touch of the creature that awaited them, curled around that priceless jewel, its mere breath enough to turn their flesh to dust and their bones to water, the song of its destruction cutting into the Air-Breathers as the Island-sized Dragons began to flee, drifting apart with cries of agony indistinguishable from the general chaos.
Aranya saw the instant the Thoralians’ vicious magic whipped toward Zuziana. Yet, even telepathy travelled only as fast as thought.
Zuziana!
Starlight glimmered across the divide.
* * * *
Ardan shuddered together with Leandrial and Ri’arion as their force was inundated in a sea of bodies, but the Theadurial-infested Land Dragons had no further interest in fighting them. All they wanted was the First Egg, and the press of their bodies piled up an under-Cloudlands wall ten miles high and fifty wide, crushing tens of thousands. He fed Leandrial’s command pictures of the obsidian-scaled Dragonworm lurking inside the Suald-dak-Doon, the S’gulzzi of all S’gulzzi. Now, they knew what had been lifting the First Egg for two decades. They knew what had been hidden beneath the meriatonium cap concealing that subterranean realm.
The Air-Breathers howled.
Leandrial cried, Steady, my kin. The mountains will break apart. Then, we must be ready to fire. We will be the cannonade of Fra’anior’s justice against that S’gulzzi fiend.
Aye! roared a thousand Welkin-Runners.
Aye, rumbled the enormous stellated Shell-Clan, overshadowing even the Runners gathered before them.
Link minds, said the monk. Then, he cried, Zip, no!
Ardan saw light flicker right over where Zuziana had been. What? Where was she? Where were they, the Star and the Azure?
His Dragonwing drew together at Dhazziala’s command. S’gulzzi surrounded them on every side, like a living, pulsing river of oil, so thickly gathered that they entirely obscured the battle. Their reddish eyes glowed in what Ardan realised was pleasure at the destruction to come. Briefly, he spied Bane and Lurax peering out of one of the Bullet Dragon slits on Genholme’s mountainous back.
Those boys trusted him. But he was no Shadow. He was a Dragon-less … Dragon. Aye, he might not have his Dragon, but he did remember a big-mouthed Western Isles warrior claiming something about starlight shining best against shadow, or some such mystical malarkey?
How could he lift up a Star, if not by helping her to shine?
Across the mile separating them, he called, Even stars must dance to a new song, Aranya-my-soul!
And to the Dragons around him, he cried in a great voice, Art thou Dragonkind? Thou art pure as white-fires, as noble as the suns, as proud as the day is long!
Ah, a tingle of Nak in his bones! Leaping again to his feet, Ardan declaimed, This is Gangurtharr the Great-Hearted, who roost-lived with a Star Dragoness. Over there is Genholme, the Fortress of our hopes! And here is Dhazziala, First Hand of a mighty nation of Dragon-Lovers!
The S’gulzzi stared at him as if he had gone moons-mad. Arguably, he had. They neglected to attack as the Shadow Dragon’s voice rose stridently above the sounds of thousands of wings beating the air, and the booming of Land Dragons. He bellowed:
I AM SHA’ALDIOR, SON OF SHADOW!
Well, that sounded impressive. But he could do one better, for his throat thickened at a touch of Storm borrowed via his oath-connection. Ardan’s song boomed over the Islands:
Arise in wrath magnificent, thou sons and daughters of Fra’anior,
Thou pride of his right paw, thou voices of infinite justice,
Dragons of Herimor! Unite to smite the foe!
Ooh, Nak would be chortling now.
* * * *
Aranya whirled in mid-air, frantic. Where was Zip? Sapphire? She called to them, forlornly, but the silence mocked her desolation. Where were her friends?
She stared at paws white as starlight. Betrayed? How?
When she finished this task, she might ask her questions.
Furling her wings, the Amethyst Dragoness plunged toward the Suald-dak-Doon, entering a howling maelstrom of Harmonic magic, screaming urzul and bellowing Land Dragons, intensely aware at the same time of the proliferation of S’gulzzi and the guttering of so many fire-souls. This was wrong. Destruction fed urzul as nothing else – that was what had roused the creature in the first instance. She apprehended her mistake now. When she had poured forth the paean of her Storm-powered anger and grief, the S’gulzzi had supped well. Now its song rose triumphant, brutalising the Dragonkind. Minds snapped. Theadurial writhed. Lesser Dragons fell senseless into the Cloudlands and Dragon Riders screamed. The S’gulzzi swelled in power and stature, glutted on the terrible cry of their god, or whatever that thing was. They would gut the Dragonwings.
Dimly, she heard Ardan sing within her mind, yet his notes struck her profoundly, at the level of her soul and their oath-magic:
Even stars must dance a new song, Aranya-my-soul!
You alone can bring us the starlight,
Be the star.
Sparked by his belief, incredulity gave way to insight. Choice. A choice framed in love so raw and potent, it galvanised her inmost being with wings of white-fires. She knew clarity. Just as she had demanded of Fra’anior, she had a choice now, at this crucial moment. It lay in her paws.
She could chase the First Egg and ultimate power, or she could change the Balance.
Her Dragonsong could espouse destruction, or she could sing the greater song Ardan alluded to, an anti-urzul song, the song of a true Daughter of Storm. For that was urzul’s power – annihilation. Anti-creation, anti-life, anti … anti-love.
Ardan?
A-A-Aranya? He grasped this truth burning lambent in her breast!
Ardently, she called, From this day forth, Ardan, I promise to be authentic with you. No more hiding. No more falsehoods, Ardan-my-soul’s inmost fire, for I … I have played thee false, wretched fool … I am … her mental voice cracked. I am for thee, and thee alone, if thou wilt have me. Eternally.
He choked out, Thou … I love thee, heavenly Immadia. I’ve always … helplessly –
And I thee, Sha’aldior.
I-I am for you. And, I would … have you. I will – forever!
They spoke brokenly, yet the oath was forged afresh, and in that burgeoning beauty of oath-fires, Aranya saw a new way. Her heart seemed to tip onto a new axis, recalibrated, Balanced.
The star believed.
The First Egg sank steadily into a morass of writhing, smoking, crumbling bodies. Thoralian and the S’gulzzi clashed over it, and the conflict they created would devastate all, for its power brutalised her senses with mind-numbing force. The pile collapsed faster and faster as the badly injured Air-Breathers fled the battlefield at their maximum speed, a stately walk.
Yiisuriel, I need your strength, the Star Dragoness commanded. Ardan, summon your Shadow. Dhazziala, turn your people to my command.
Seconds stole away from her as her friends organised themselves.
Then, Aranya seemed to rise on weightless wings, sovereign over the Island-World, for the immense resources of an Island-nation of Dragons, Humans and Shapeshifters shifted into her mental paws, but she was only the vessel. She was the focus and the filter of a merciful, nascent Dragonsong.
She lived in fire. She was the purity of starlight.
Aranya exhaled.
Starlight exploded from her breast, her body, her paws and wingtips and tail. It shot outward in a series of concentric rings of pure splendour, washing over and through the moving mountains and the mounded bodies and the ranks of S’gulzzi and Dragon Riders, and all the armies of the Lost Islands, lapping from the puffy white clouds now fragmenting to reveal a twinkling night sky, to the floor of the world hidden beneath the Cloudlands, and over every living creature ensconced within the warm ambit of her love. The soundless soul-concussion whispered of broken chains and freedom from corruption. It spoke of an end to urzul’s ghastly song. It breathed life into brokenness and dissolved the Theadurial still greedily sucking upon the brain-stems of Land Dragons, and blew the marauding S’gulzzi away like pollen on a breeze.
Perhaps her power was a zephyr of starlight, after all. A greater Storm had never struck her Island-World.
Aranya touched the white scale hanging just beneath her throat on its slender leather thong. Miraculously, it had survived everything. Thus I honour thee, Istariela, shell-mother of my lineage.
A mighty chorus of Harmonic magic answered her song as the Welkin-Runners and Shell Clan fired down into the Suald-dak-Doon, enveloping the S’gulzzi giant in a blinding stream of light. The ghastly obsidian of its corrupt flesh began to crumble beneath an inexorable onslaught. Vapours shrouded the S’gulzzi as it voiced a single, final blast of defiant fury, and that blast fizzled into a violent hiss that presaged its protracted demise. At the last, the Star Dragoness gave of her song to finish the beast, as the coils incinerated from within in great bands of dusty black Earthen-fires.
Then Aranya saw the First Egg tumbling end-over-end into the gloom, already eight leagues deep and plummeting as though sucked away by the S’gulzzi still hiding beneath the Island-World’s crust. No Lesser Dragon would catch it now, not even Leandrial’s kin who chased the Egg into the deeps.
