Aranya Treasury - The Complete Shapeshifter Dragons Series, page 153
He wishes to travel North, Zuziana said, sharing with them the information they had deduced about the probable location of the Dragon Rider Academy. We believe that hatching the Egg to his purposes – opening an Ancient Dragon to his power of daimonization – might be his ultimate goal. To achieve that he may steal powers from Infurion in the Rift, which he has passed through before. We understand from your knowledge, Yiisuriel, that there is an ancient route through the Rift called the Path of Dark Fires, which might be the means of limited but continual commerce between our realms. It is very clear to us Northerners, by the presence of Chameleon Shapeshifters, Herimor-sourced poisons and the identity of Thoralian himself as the Emperor of Sylakia –
The recently deposed Emperor, thanks to Aranya and my Zuziana’s revolution, Ri’arion put in, his tone of bleak satisfaction drawing favourable gurgles and growls from many of the Dragonkind.
You played a great part too, my beloved, murmured the Azure Dragoness.
Huaricithe noted, We have searched for this path in times past. Fables and legends place it somewhere in the trackless mountain wastelands which separate the northerly reaches of Wyldaroon from the Rift itself, unlike the main section of Herimor. That is a vast region.
Cartographers estimate that these mountains attain a measure of 2,357 leagues width and, on average, a North-South extent of 671 leagues, another voice added, surfacing a data package to the mind.
Noble Yistarill, approved Yiisuriel. You are knowledgeable.
The young Dragoness genuflected psychically and murmured, I’ve a lamentable fondness for seeking out archaic information which often proves useless for all practical purposes, mighty Elder.
May thine inarguably un-lamentable fires burn ever brighter! boomed the Dragon Elder, in tones of scorching praise-command. Excellent. Form a synthesis group to examine these records-traces, Yistarill. Now – aye, Kantuka of Ergani? You say your Dragon Riders and Dragons possess helpful lore? Please submit your memories for examination.
And, we will fly with you, the giant Dragon Rider added. Our people are pledged to this cause.
Aye! A smaller chorus, but no less resolute.
Yiisuriel said, Now, noble Star Dragoness, what thoughts preoccupy and drawn your attention away from this important Council – care to share with us all?
She spoke her censure without severe rancour, but Zuziana understood the flash of humiliation that made her reserved friend wince inwardly. Aranya had kept the detail of her cogitations private, but not the flash of excitement that accompanied whatever she had concluded. Now, she was exposed before all; treated as a child, moreover, which they all were in comparison to a creature of Yiisuriel’s age, but still …
Strength to thy paw, the Azure Dragoness said formally as she, in turn, conceded.
* * * *
The woman who appeared in the mental network was young, not yet twenty summers, but behind her amethyst eyes blazed the fires of a Shapeshifter Dragoness, her mettle refined by many testing battles and her dignity the product of suffering for their cause. Aranya knew her grief was marked even just around her eyes for all to see. How could she bear to lose Ardan a second time? A molten heaviness lay upon her soul.
Her appearance thus was calculated to convey an unspoken rebuke to the Dragons who had unsubtly agreed with Yiisuriel’s overbearing put-down of one they had recently acknowledged was the potentate of Herimor, the worshipful Star Dragoness. Typically convoluted draconic reasoning, she supposed – or, a natural chafing at authority, especially given her youth. That was no help in an age-dominance hierarchy.
The mental network subsided.
Holding her poise, Aranya said mildly, “I was meditating upon a plan. I propose to fly the Air Breathers out.”
Nobody started laughing or shouting at her. Disappointing. She had rather hoped to provoke a reaction. Glancing within, she chuckled at Dragoness Aranya’s narked huffiness, but very soon an Immadian wink disabused her of the notion that her Human didn’t see the funny side of the situation. With exaggerated Sylakian-style gruffness, her Dragoness said, Go on, girly. Show ’em what we’re made of.
The Princess continued, “So, in outline, the plan is to float our Air Breather brethren like dirigible balloons, using sky-hooks at the top and legion helpers at various levels below to push them along. My proposed strategy avoids trampling on the bones of our kindred and starts the chase six days earlier than any of your previous projections. Any questions so far?”
Stunned quiet.
“Just one,” First Hand Dhazziala managed to blurt out. “Is this a flash of Star Dragoness inspiration, or have you gone five-Moons mad?”
Chapter 6: Bobbling Mountains
FITTING THAT HE should spy upon the Amethyst Dragoness’ doings. Not so fitting that he could make neither head nor tail of what she was doing, nor could the Masters.
Report.
Every half-hour, night and day, the triplicate pulsed its demand. Being inferior to these mighty Shapeshifters, Ardan was always the fourth and final participant. In strict sequence, the Thoralian designated as Prime ruled for a twenty-seven hour period, thereafter Secondary became Prime, and finally Tertiary took his turn at the helm. Ardan understood that this arrangement was due to the heritage replication requirements of the triplicate – essentially, for each Prime day, the dominant Thoralian hosted and updated the essential data upon which their survival depended, right down to the memory and cellular level. In this way, even if two were lost the third member could always replicate himself, and the most current data was at most a mere two days old. The practise had begun at the time one of the triplicate had rebelled and fled to the North – the ‘replicand ancestor’ of the Shapeshifter who had come to rule the Sylakian Empire, and decades later and an unknown number of reincarnations later in defeat, had determined to rejoin his long-lost shell brothers in Herimor carrying the vital information of First Egg’s location.
With the arrival of a fourth replicand, as they called themselves, the Thoralians had communed, determined the weakest member of the quartet, and executed him without hesitation. Only the strongest must rule.
Always stronger. Always change, adapt and layer power upon power – this was the mantra.
Prime summarised: I travel with the Egg. We are passing through the Straits into Wyldaroon as planned. Everything is proceeding according to schedule.
Secondary said: I am raising and imprinting allies from the Islands of Wyldaroon and from the secret breeding chambers of the Drakes up to four hundred leagues South of the Straits. Tomorrow I fly North and repeat the process, as planned. Everything is proceeding according to schedule.
Tertiary added, more gruffly than the previous two: I have flown through the Straits and into Wyldaroon, seeking knowledge of a power over death. Legends of the notable deeds of one Azhukazi the Iolite Blue, a reputed Necromancer with the power to raise Dragon and Human bones from the grave, falls like warm fires upon my ear canals. Hearken, brothers, to the details of my report.
The three gave each other little quarter, Ardan had observed. This communication was typical, laden with superiority-indicators that trumpeted this Thoralian’s opinion that his task was far more important than the functions undertaken of his brothers. Oddly, a scene from his youth flashed into his mind, that of youths taunting each other and catcalling as they trained at wooden scimitars in the heat of the day in Ur-Naphtha Cluster. That had been a happy time. He remembered! This was the first time a clear memory of the time before he first transformed into a Shapeshifter Dragon had come to mind, and it staggered a man who thought he had lost his past.
The prospect is agreeable, the Thoralians agreed. We will seek this Necromancer. Adjust the plan to take cornering this feeble Marshal Azhukazi into account. Shadow, report.
The dark shackles tightened between his temples.
I am tracking and observing, he said. Much of the expected activity has ceased. The Runners clear paths for the Air Breathers but not to any reasonable depth. Thousands of carcasses still hem them in and they will not crush the bones of allies. Meantime, there is a hive of engineering activity around the peaks. No sign of the Star. The greatest Runner, this troublesome Leandrial, shows signs of recovery from her wounds but as yet rests upon the Elder Yiisuriel’s flanks. My full-spectral analysis has determined greater than normal concentrations of moisture, meriatite and trace metals, leading to the speculation that they prepare their Dragonwings and Dragonships for an all-out assault on the Drakes. Our battlefront formation must remain fluid in anticipation.
Agreed, intoned the Prime. Make it so, Shadow.
Aye, Masters.
Ardan blinked. Stared. Blinked again, and ground his knuckles into his eyes as if that could clear his disbelief.
What? Report! boomed the command.
She’s – oh, great leaping Islands!
The unbreakable bands tightened until the Shadow Dragon groaned, imagining his mind smoking like the peaks of those rising Air Breathers out there. Rising! Floating! That was what Aranya had been doing, and he admired her most ferociously for her genius. Clearly, at least five of the peaks had begun to rise perceptibly out of the Cloudlands, exposing many tens of feet of lichen-encrusted, never-before-revealed flanks to the bright afternoon suns-light. Their general eavesdropping on the mind – not shielded nearly as completely as those ancient Land Dragons of the Lost Isles imagined – had identified Aranya’s voice as the Prime, issuing commands and making plans together with Yiisuriel. The Thoralians had dismissed any kind of engineering solution to the problem of moving those Air Breathers. Aranya was not capable, they had adjudged.
Rising steadily, the slimmest of the peaks had already exposed an additional half a mile of her upper flanks to the air. Above the Air Breathers, the flotilla of Dragons and Dragonships resolved in his mind. Lifting power! Or, steadying power, linked as they were by heavy-gauge hawsers to the mountaintop. Thousands of Dragons fluttered above, supported by Dragonships. His spectral analysis revealed the presence of many, many Runner Dragons beneath, steadying the rising, urgently smoking mountain – the youngster acted panicked – whilst hundreds of Cognates and other mental giants stood off a small ways, supplying steadying and lifting power on the kinetic level. The mind pulsed in a relentless rhythm, synchronising all of the different parties.
Brilliant. Simply brilliant.
His mental bonds hissed. Remember, the Star is the enemy!
Air Breathers must of course possess natural buoyancy. Any creature that stood two to three leagues beneath the Cloudlands possessed a natural buoyancy related to the far higher air pressures at that level, just as a boat floated in terrace lake waters. But to toy with a balance so delicate – what if a mountain tipped? Without fresh air, the mountainous Land Dragons would die. How had they supplied so much lifting power?
Gas. Meriatite degrades into hydrogen gas, Secondary Thoralian noted. Chambers deep within the Air Breathers have been filled under pressure. There is significant danger of completely flipping over, hence all the support.
Ardan’s hearts crammed into his throat. He knew this was Aranya’s signature pawprint, changing the Balance of events in the Island-World. The grey granite flanks of the Air Breathers poured majestically toward the heavens. Clearing two miles above the Cloudlands. Damp rock steamed energetically, creating great white billows of moisture that mingled with the light teal exhalation of their air spiracles. The mind made its calculations and fine adjustments while Runners swarmed about the base, pressing against a gentle under-Cloudlands air current.
Gently bobbling in the afternoon breeze, the Air Breathers began to float to freedom.
O Aranya, thou –
Enemy! The shackles shifted and settled, conforming more intimately to the patterns of his mind.
Beautiful Amethyst …
ENEMY!
Momentarily blinded by great sheets of sooty black flame, the Dragon shook his head as if broken-hearted. Then, his vision cleared. A new, vicious note entered his voice as he spat, Enemy! Attack!
* * * *
In an exhilarating, exhausting afternoon’s work, the Lost Islands Dragons lifted seven Air Breathers clear of the debris and wafted them away to better locations to the Southwest, from which they could walk – or more accurately, roll upon their foot-pods – unobstructed down to the Straits. Yiisuriel’s fast-moving scouts, the younger and lighter Runners, were already reporting from under-Cloudlands locations ninety leagues distant, mapping the world’s floor to find a viable route. No Air Breather had ever ventured into Wyldaroon. The terrain was unknown, and in many places, treacherous.
Progress? Aranya said tiredly.
Yiisuriel touched her mind fondly. Little one, you must take rest.
I’ll rest when we’re all moving, she replied, groaning as Brityx’s immensely powerful, blunt talons worked fragrant healing creams into the lesions upon her back and shoulders. Massage-aided work? These Herimor Dragon-kin were certainly an odd crew in many ways. They believed the right aromas and oils were beneficial for a huge range of healing and restorative functions, and had amassed over ten centuries of experience and scientific proofs to support their case.
Brityx smoothed the nape of her neck with the tips of her smallest talons. Aranya felt but a toy in the Dragoness’ paws, but her touch evinced the ease of many decades’ experience. Think healing thoughts, Aranya. Your muscles are one big knot. Unwind! Relax!
Not too much there, noble Brityx, or we’ll have an uninhibited Immadian on our hands, Zip quipped, sounding as if she was enjoying herself too.
The aged Grey-Green Dragoness smiled warmly in her mind. How fare thy egglings, o beauty of Azure?
Passably well, I believe, said the Remoyan Princess, who had been taking much instruction from Brityx in all matters related to pregnancy, birth, and raising ‘rambunctious younglings.’
Triplets! Hard work.
Even my buoyancy is reaching critical thresholds, Yiisuriel added. So far the inner pressure shields are holding well. One point seven more hours and I shall commence floatation. Enough time to deal with another meddlesome wave of Drakes. Your mate Ardan is up there, directing the attacks. He thought upon you earlier, but his mind has been subsumed into the triplicate once more.
Aranya stiffened again. He thought … of me?
Yiisuriel said, I distinctly heard something like, ‘beautiful Amethyst,’ as a zephyr upon the breeze. I was listening. He is not lost. Not yet.
To allow hope is hard. Aranya sighed, trying to force herself to relax as Brityx worked down her lower spine. Do I sense the environmental conditions worsening?
Aye, but your plan remains sound. Astonishing, but sound. Yiisuriel chortled massively. You conceive the inconceivable, o Aranya true-heart, o white-hearted ally. And I know we clash over some matters, but do not be afeared or cowed. As many as fight for our cause, t’would be strange if disagreement did not arise. My fires burn true for thy grandsire, the holy Fra’anior.
I value your counsel, Yiisuriel.
Your pods swim deep in the current of destiny, o daughter of Istariela.
Aranya did not bother to correct her, for she knew that the Land Dragoness meant daughter in the general genealogical sense. It did start her thinking upon the whisper she might or might not have heard. Stardrop. No, /Stardrop./ Was that a variant upon Dragonish? When she put the question to Yiisuriel, the Dragoness deferred to the linguistic specialists, who expressed puzzlement but promised to investigate. So, if she understood a different language, was linguistic ability innate or learned? Or was there a difference between Dragons and Humans? The lore noted an innate ability to speak Dragonish as the hallmark of a Shapeshifter. Yet when she sang the chiming notes of the other words she had heard, the linguists definitely began to scratch their bearded or scaly chins, leaving Aranya greatly bemused. Perhaps she had imagined it? But no, they assured her in a chorus of breathless splutters, those cadences, nuances and dracotonic intonations definitely indicated a draconic language – just one of which they had not the first clue apart from her best translation of the concepts, which she immediately supplied.
She left fifty-three linguists in a flurry of great excitement. A new language! A star-language! It was as if the skies had opened to rain philological treasures upon scholarly heads, be they of the bald, the hairy or the scaly variety.
They were not the only ones perplexed by a matter that seemed to grow stranger the more she dwelled upon it. Only four words existed in her vocabulary, as if a few stars of a mighty constellation had winked alight in her brain, but the rest of – well, whatever that might represent – remained stubbornly dark and inaccessible.
Brityx prodded her charge’s backside. “Sleep.”
“Just a few more things,” Aranya protested.
“There will always be more. You’ve four other souls inside of you.”
“Five.”
“Making babies demands extra rest.”
“But Brityx …”
“But I will sit on you until you squeal, youngling,” growled the enormous Dragoness, drawing hoots of laughter from Zuziana. “Not one more word – nor worry, command, response nor any contemplation whatsoever. Not one! If you need a mother –” she hissed between her fangs “– ah, forgive me. You have a mother. What you need is a drop of common Isles sense!”
Her paw rested heavily upon Aranya’s back. The Dragoness breathed, O Fra’anior, I beseech thee, as it were with thy fiery creative breath of yore, breathe life into Aranya’s dear mother, that she might be hale and fire-filled once more. O great Onyx, let it be.
Finding a place of unexpected tranquil in spirit, Aranya’s eyelids drooped at last. O Izariela …
Hope must be cherished.
* * * *
By the roseate light of a blusterous evening, amidst a storming Drake-battle and rising winds, the greatest of the Air Breathers left her paw-pods for the first time in all the centuries of her life and floated serenely aloft. She was stuffed to the gills with highly volatile hydrogen gas and escorted by eight thousand Dragons and one thousand Dragonships aloft, whilst well over three thousand Runners swarmed about her lower flanks to supply a helping paw or shoulder. With the utmost precision and delicacy, the communal mind directed the enterprise, compensating for the changing pressures as the entirety of Yiisuriel’s bulk became subject to the variable tides and currents of the immeasurable below-Cloudlands realm. Ahead of her, tight-knit squadrons of Runners cleared a path through the remnants of the Thoralians’ allied forces with what they politely described as ‘vigorous’ measures.
