The Onyx Dragon

By Marc Secchia

Shapeshifter Dragon Legends

Book 2

Copyright © 2016 Marc Secchia

Cover Art © 2016 Marc Secchia and Joemel Requeza

www.marcsecchia.com

Map of the Island-World

Chapter 1: Giant Mischief

DRAGONS DARKENED THE skies above a burning city.

Great veils of oily black smoke drifted across the scene. In the distance, vultures and buzzards gathered to slaver over the feast, but they did not dare to approach while the Night-Red Dragon legions wheeled overhead. Every few seconds, a Dragon swooped upon some sign of life and exterminated it with raking blasts of Dragon fire. This was no longer battle. It was annihilation.

Pip moaned in her sleep, tasting blood from her bitten tongue. The visions! Four nights running, powerful, lucid visions had assailed her sleeping hours. Without pause or respite, her point of view swept rapidly toward the final fortress crowning an unfamiliar mountaintop, a solid dark bastion, commanding the area of the devastated city. She had never seen this place before. Yet the clarity and comprehension of a Dragon’s vision was hers, bringing every detail vividly to her awareness. Flame snaked up sandstone fortifications. Once-picturesque terraced orchards blazed like neat ranks of torches planted in blackened soil. Here, a troop of five soldiers wearing unfamiliar banded armour stood frozen in perpetuity inside a column of ice, the snarls upon their faces, their white-knuckled grip of their maces, forever etched in ghastly death. She saw a woman flung against the battlements, mercifully dead before she dropped two hundred feet to the ground. Charred bodies littered a marketplace. From far above, her host’s sight narrowed upon a few dozen pathetically small, red-robed bundles of children lying motionless amongst the blasted ruins of what must have been a school building.

She wept. Her tormentor, the harbinger of her visions, did not. Pip sensed puzzlement, the counterpoint of her Human emotions leaching into the furnace-blast of a Dragon’s battle-madness.

A huge, black-taloned paw rose into her field of vision. Destroy that fortress wall! Crush these feeble rebels, my Dragon-kin!

As you command, mighty Zardon!

Zardon? Dimly, amongst the snarl of Pip’s blankets, awareness penetrated. She was with Zardon? How? Was he alive? Could it be that the Dragon Rider oath she had once inadvertently sworn, still exerted power enough to connect their … souls? It must be.

A monumental chorus of Dragon-challenges belled out from behind Zardon, the once-Red Dragon who had stolen Pip from the Sylakian zoo. He turned slightly to check. Breath snarled in Pip’s throat. Mercy! At least five hundred massive, hundred-foot Night-Red Dragons, the Marshal’s legion of Dragon-thralls, winged behind the experienced Zardon as they approached the huge fortress, still defended by a hundred or more Red Dragons and several Blues. Was this the Southern Academy? Two or three miles to the West, she saw an Island floating above the Cloudlands void. Dragons circled above and around it like a corona of living death, each an identical sooty black in colour, bearing the imprint of the Master they served steadfastly, thanks to his mysterious ability to control Dragon minds.

A blur of white caught her vision. A beautiful White Dragon, gleaming silvery-white beneath the noon dazzle of the twin suns, shot down toward the blocky fortress from over a mile above, seeming to gather impossible speed, the inrush of his magic sucking the very life out of the skies as he fell. He was the largest Dragon Pip had ever seen, easily a hundred and fifty feet from wingtip to wingtip, as slender and deadly as a spear. His scales were white tinged with the slightest hint of blue, she realised. Magnificent. Breathtaking. Yet all that beauty was a cloak for vast evil, betrayed by the eyes, flaming blood-red with uncontainable battle-lust and power.

Beneath his charge, the pentagonal fortress stood outspread like a flower. Thousands of soldiers manned the battlements and ramparts, standing firm against a besieging army many thousands of men strong, bolstered by animals and implements of war Pip could not even begin to recognise.

The host of her dream viewed all this with a vicious snarl of approval. Hold for the Marshal, Dragons. We will feast upon entrails this day.

For a moment, the battle seemed to fall silent, suspended between earth and sky. The Marshal of Herimor plummeted. The fortress waited. Pip sucked in a terrible breath, which seared her throat as if she had drawn in a lungful of Dragon fire.

The opposing Dragonwing began to react, drawing toward the threat of the White Dragon, but it was too late.

Blue fire blossomed from his throat in an unending stream, streaked with jagged spits of white lightning. It swelled like an upside-down mushroom ahead of the speeding Dragon, roiling and burning like a fireball, yet strangely silent. Suddenly, the mass coalesced as if sucked together by an unseen set of lungs, forming into a ball of impossibly concentrated magic and flame. Fire so cold it burned the air, rocketed downward into the centre of the fortress.

KRRRAAAABOOOM!

The earth rang like a bell. Entire sections of fortifications crumbled into frozen dust. In a single, shattering blow, the Marshal of Herimor reduced the defenders to mounds of frozen, bloody jelly and the walls to piles of powder. The defending Dragons reeled in the air as if they had lost all sense of balance and reason.

With a mighty roar, Zardon spearheaded the assault. Leave no Dragon alive, my kin!

Gasping and sobbing, thrashing at her blankets, Pip fell out of her bunk bed to land painfully on the floor. The Dragon Assassins had struck …

Bang! Bang!

A fist shook the door of … phew. Her dormitory. Relief surged, dousing her with mild nausea. Nightmare. The horrific images–she could never forget. She must report this to Master Kassik.

Bang! Bang!

She was alone in the room, which ordinarily housed forty First Year girls. “Coming!” Pip called, trying to pull her battered mind back from the brink of dream-insanity. One thought eclipsed all others.

She had seen the Marshal. He was unstoppable.

* * * *

Pip scowled up at the three-man contingent of giant Jeradian warriors as they invaded her dormitory. Embarrassment and fury churned her heart into an inferno.

She snapped, “You’re here to escort me? On whose orders?”

“Master Kassik’s orders, my lady,” said the foremost warrior, ducking beneath the lintel. Islands’ sakes! They towered over her like the colossal jungle trees of her long-ago home in the Crescent Isles.

Her frown deepened. “The Master?”

“Ay,” rumbled the second warrior, gazing down at the pint-sized Pygmy girl from his apparent perch in the clouds above. Like the others, he wore Jeradian plate armour and the war-hammer dangling from a leather belt-loop at his right hip was so large, it appeared suitable for demolishing volcanoes. “Our brief is to be your bodyguards, lady–uh, Dragoness. That means–”

Pip made a cutting gesture with her left hand. “I know why.”

Roaring rajals, what did they feed these Jeradians? Bamboo? Dragon eggs? Her eyes practically had to scale a mountain to measure the trio’s third member, half a head taller than his companions and as chunky as the average Dragonship. She stood eye-level with his belt buckle. Only just. Unbidden, a snarl vibrated in her throat. Pip clamped her teeth together lest a fiery accident occur. Dragon emotions? She had been warned.

If she was riled enough to spit fire, did that not prove her Dragon still existed? That Telisia’s treachery and her Shapeshifter poison had not destroyed an Onyx Dragoness forever? Nothing in her experience compared to the soul-deep shivers this fear produced in her being. For just a few weeks, she had enjoyed the glorious freedom of the skies. Pip had imagined she could never be caged again. She had won a significant victory against the Silver Dragon, although the greater threat of the Marshal of Herimor and his Dragon Assassins still loomed over the Academy and its inhabitants–people Pip had come to hold dear. She could neither forget all the Dragonkind already slain, nor keep from shuddering at the hordes of battered, traumatised Dragon refugees daily pouring up from the South.

War convulsed the Island-World.

Pip bit her lip. Could she not hide? Become a simple student for a few days, not a marked Pygmy troublemaker? She had to shake off this Island’s weight of duty fate had lumped upon her shoulders–and tame her fears before they grew claws and shredded her gut.

“Look, lady,” said the third soldier, “when my daughter juts out her chin like that, I know she’s being stubborn. Argue all you want with Master Kassik, but let us do our job. Clear?”

“Certainly,” she smiled, liking his directness. Of course, she had to crane her neck so far backward to find his answering smile that a muscular pain shot through her lower back.

Pip read their names off their stylised belt buckles. “Faranion, how tall are you?”

“Seven feet, five inches, lady,” said the first warrior.

“Barrion?”

From a place of concealment beneath his shaggy beard, Barrion’s voice rumbled, “Seven six.”

Pip cocked an eyebrow at the third Jeradian Hammer, whose craggy, bearded face split into a broad grin. “Barefoot, I measure seven feet, eleven inches.” Jerrion’s voice was so deep, she imagined an earthquake emanating from the region of his belly. He reached into his breast pocket. “Please read our orders, lady.”

Only double her height? Unless a Pygmy warrior had contrived to grow a few inches, which was about as likely as a jungle snail sprouting wings and transforming into a laughing-dove.

“Actually, I’m the second-tallest man I know,” Jerrion added. “My little brother takes the honours, but we say he outgrew his brains. Ralti-stupid, he is, and a whisker over eight feet tall.”

Pip scanned the message scroll. “The three tallest warriors? Signed by Master Kassik?”

“Ay,” they chorused.

Ooh, she smelled a fat, stinking jungle pig by the name of her alleged friend-turned-tormentor, Maylin! Or, judging by the perfection of this work of forgery, should she blame Chief Monkey Yaethi?

She swallowed an urge to crisp the scroll with Dragon fire. “I’m going to kill someone.”

As one man, they shrank back from the tiny teenager.

Mercy. She had to force a change of mood, to refocus herself on the present–anything to forget the visions she had experienced, anything to chase away the spectre of Marshal Re’akka’s shadow looming over the Island-World. Everyone believed her destiny was to face that White Shapeshifter in battle and defeat him. Where would she find her courage now?

She must steal back her hope and sanity. Take an everlasting breath. Laugh. Create mischief. Beat away the hideous windrocs of doom …

“Not literally kill,” Pip drawled, taking in their mistrustful expressions with a wicked chuckle. “Look, if we’re going to work together–Islands’ sakes, is there any way I can talk to you three trees without breaking my neck?”

Jerrion swooped, encircled her waist with a pair of paws better suited to a giant rajal, and deposited Pip on top of a large, covered rain barrel standing just outside the entrance of the First Year Girls’ dormitory. “How’s this, little lady?”

“Perfect.”

Pip sighed. She’d look ridiculous. Kassik’s orders would make her the laughing-stock of the entire school when she joined the other students in the dining hall for dinner, due in a quarter-hour’s time. At least she could look the Jeradian Hammers in the eye, now.

Almost. Grr! Gritting her teeth, she said, “Gentle-mountains, I think we need to establish a few ground rules. Firstly, I despise short-person jokes. Right now I am feeling overshadowed and rather feisty as a result–not a pleasant sort of feisty, either. Secondly, you will stop calling me ‘lady’. I’m a jungle girl, born of the Crescent Isles Pygmy tribes, like Master Adak. My friends call me Pipsqueak. What’s that smile for, Barrion?”

Barrion instantly compressed his lips into a straight line. “Your nickname is singularly appropriate, my–Pip.”

“Oh?”

Her waspish tone drew an audible gulp from the warrior.

Pip said, “Thirdly, unlike you Jeradian behemoths, I stand three feet, eleven and a half inches tall according to Mistress Mya’adara’s measure, but I’ll still beat the stuffing out of any of you twenty-nine hours a day–even with my right arm wrapped in this absurd sling and five half-healed holes in my stomach–because I used to wrestle Oraial Apes for fun.”

“It helps that you’re a Dragoness,” Faranion pointed out.

“So it does,” Pip grinned, conveniently forgetting to mention the fact that according to Silver, her deadly enemy-turned-boyfriend, she would be unable to transform into her Onyx Dragon form for at least a month yet. On cue, the wound beneath her right collarbone twinged. Telisia’s poisoned crossbow bolt had punched right through Pip’s body, miraculously missing anything vital, but despite the best efforts of Rajion and Shimmerith, the two healer Dragons, that wound in particular refused to heal up. Had it been just a week? Surely not.

“Don’t forget the all-important half-inch,” Jerrion teased.

He had just earned himself first place on the menu when she found her Dragon form again.

Barrion’s pained expression suggested her feelings were all too plain. “I apologise on behalf of my comrades, lady Pip–”

With a wry grin intended to soften her words, she interrupted, “Listen. You three will help me get even with my lovely friends, or I shall indeed dish out a beating. Understood?”

They nodded with the shamefaced air of three boys caught pinching sweets from Mistress Mya’adara’s stores.

“Good. Here’s the plan.”

* * * *

After a swift detour via the soldiers’ barracks, Pip and her hulking escorts walked up to the dining hall, where the Academy’s students, Journeymen, Masters and Dragon Riders ate their meals. The concessions to wartime were clear. Garrulous students barged about, armed even at dinner time with an array of weapons from around the Island-World. The sixty-foot tall jalkwood doors were guarded by no less than four Dragons, including Tazzaral and Jyoss, Kaiatha’s and Durithion’s Dragons respectively. Jyoss, a rare Albino Dragoness, gave Pip a glint of a Dragon-smile–a hundred fangs and an especial whirl of her pink-flamed eyes. The burly Copper Dragon, Tazzaral, greeted her in thunderous tones that rattled the doors on their hinges.

Pip’s heart sank beneath the level of her slippers, if that were possible. Wonderful. Tazzaral’s never-failing sense of occasion. Why not announce her entrance to the entire hall? Maybe that was their plan. Pip gave Tazzaral a draconic smile of her own. In telepathic Dragonish, she inquired, Kaiatha put you up to that blast of Dragon-thunder disguised as a greeting, Tazz?

His muzzle jerked guiltily. As if. Sulphurous greetings, noble Onyx.

Hmm. Attempt to mollify her, would he? She wished she could flounce off properly, but had to settle for the limping progress of the recently injured. Much less satisfying.

Even less satisfying, the chorus of snickers that rose from the First Year trestle tables, located nearest the dining hall’s doorway, as Pip made her entrance. Firming her elfin chin as if she wished to impale a host of errant students upon its spear-point, she cast about for Maylin, Yaethi and Kaiatha, her best friends in the Academy. There. Giggling like a trio of picayune parakeets. Maylin pasted on her best innocent expression. Twin blooms of colour in Yaethi’s Helyon-pale cheeks flagged her complicity in the scheme. As for gentle Kaiatha, she could not bear to look at Pip, pretending fascination with her plate of spicy Jeradian root vegetables. As they approached the table amidst a swelling tide of laughter, Pip raised her forefinger, giving Faranion a prearranged signal.

“Student Maylin!” the Jeradian Hammer boomed. “I hereby place you under arrest.”

Maylin screeched, “What?”

Pip could have paid half the jewels of Sylakia for that response.

“Forgery of important Academy documents,” Faranion blustered. “Impersonating the noble Master Kassik’s office. Blatant abuse of the messaging system. You will come with me.”

Her golden Eastern skin having bleached to a pasty shade of white, Maylin spluttered, “But it was an order …”

“Are you not aware this is wartime?” Plucking the hapless student out of her seat, Faranion clapped a pair of manacles upon her wrists with commendable efficiency. The Jeradians appeared to be enjoying their roles just a touch more than was strictly necessary. Pip smoothed a grin off her lips. Those doom-mongering windrocs could just take a hop into the nearest volcano.

“Now, listen here,” Yaethi began to protest.

Barrion clamped her good arm in his massive paw. “I’ve apprehended the accomplice, lady Pip.”

“Unhand me, you wretch!”

“Excellent,” said Pip, casting a steely glare around the First Year benches. Laughing from the other side of their mouths now, were they? Picturing an imperious Dragoness in her mind, she commanded, “Clap these miscreants in irons and haul them up to Master Kassik’s office.”

In short order, her band of merry mayhem reversed course, with Yaethi chained to Maylin via her good left wrist. Her right hand had been eaten by a Heripede during Telisia’s cowardly attack on the Academy. Kaiatha tripped along behind with an increasingly alarmed expression, but she dared a level of protest that could only be heard in the depths of a still cave on an uninhabited Island.

The squeak of a Dragon’s scales could have been heard in a hall holding hundreds.

A roar split the hush. “Pip! Pip! Yah stop right there, yah package of beastly rapscallion-ness!”

Monkeys and tinker bananas, where had Mistress Mya’adara sprung from? Pip whirled on her heel to spy the famously stormy Western Isles warrior bearing down upon her with rather more than a hint of thunder in her expression.

“Don’t yah be vexing me like this!” roared the Mistress. “What mischief yah fomenting with mah best students? Ah’ll bend yah over mah knee like you was one of mah own, and that yah are, girl! Don’t yah be thinking you’re all big an’ Dragon-like now, yah still mah Pipsqueak until Ah say different. Right?”

To Pip’s amazement, Jerrion stood his ground before the Mistress’ wrath. Even Dragons thought twice about daring as much.

Mya’adara, who at six and a half feet of Western Isles warrior-brawn towered over most women, ran headlong into Jerrion’s chest and bounced off. Bounced. Pip stifled a laugh; by the rajal-fierce glint in the Mistress’ eye, her reaction had neither been missed nor appreciated.

“Just doing my duty, Mistress,” Jerrion rumbled politely, beginning to greet her in the Jeradian fashion by first blowing across her knuckles.

The Head of Students snatched her hand back. “Jerrion, I changed yah wet cloths when yah was a filthy, snivelling infant. Don’t yah backchat me. Ah’ll tan yah lower cheeks like Ah used to, Dragon-sized or none.”

Just then, a messenger-monkey scampered up to Pip, bobbed its head and presented her a scroll.

Faranion jostled past her to seize the scroll before she could touch it. “Stop. Scrolls can be poisoned.”

Pip gave a few blameless students to her left the benefit of her most venomous glare. Ha. To the monkey, she said in Ape, “Thank you.”

The monkey thumped its chest briefly. “Me perfect messenger. You monkey-girl.”

Controlling her exasperation with a hiss of breath between clenched teeth, Pip assigned the albino messenger-monkey second place on her menu.

“What does it say, o beefy captor?” Maylin inquired archly.

Faranion said, “Just, ‘Code brown.’ I assume that means something to you?”

The Eastern Islander smirked, “Code brown is what happens when you don’t wipe your–”

“Maylin!” snapped Yaethi. “Crudity is a sign of a lazy mind. Code brown means we drop everything and assemble in Master Kassik’s office. Snip snap, Dragoness. Undo these chains.”

Of course, the key Barrion had snatched from the barracks did not fit. After thirty seconds of everyone huffing and puffing and much clinking of chains and unsubtle complaints, punctuated by at least twenty hand-wringing apologies from Barrion, Jerrion took matters into his own hands, literally. He tucked Maylin beneath his left arm and Yaethi under his right and made to march off.

Pip decided she could grow rather fond of owning a trio of pet Jeradian warriors.

The Mistress swatted his behind as the giant departed. “Yah know, Jerri, yah still a nice boy under all that muscle.”

“The indignity!” huffed Maylin.

“Put me down, or I’ll make my Arrabon sit on you,” Yaethi threatened.

“Don’t muss Yaethi’s headscarf,” Kaiatha advised. “She bites worse than a Dragoness if you misplace a strand of hair.”

Glowering at her friend, Yaethi yelled, “Oh Durithion, my darling pet sweetmeat! Dearest little sugar-sap Kaiatha needs her daily kissy-cuddlies.”

The tall, graceful Fra’aniorian Islander blushed spectacularly as Durithion’s classmates raised a round of lip-smacking and hoots and rude clicks of their fingers to salute this sally. Duri hurriedly pushed aside his dinner and raced to catch up. Pip could practically see the steam rising from beneath his collar. Perfect. These shenanigans were improving by the second.

Pausing in the doorway, Jerrion bowed left and right. “Mighty Tazzaral. Noble Jyoss. Please take these miscreants in paw and fly them to Master Kassik’s office at once. We’ll catch up with you.”

“Ah, shall we summon Emmaraz and Arrabon?” asked Tazzaral, visibly alarmed at the state of his passengers.

Maylin tried to kick Pip. “Why don’t you explain Human humour to these Dragons, genius?”

“Human? She’s a Shapeshifter,” Yaethi corrected.

Pip rolled her eyes. “It’s a joke, Tazzaral.”

He growled, “Such as when you were dragged before the Dragon Elders in chains?”

“Ah–that was a serious misdemeanour,” Pip stammered. Mercy, had the new Dragons from Ya’arriol heard the story already? Perhaps they ought to be warned about the dangerous Pygmy Dragoness, who had punched a tooth clean out of Shimmerith’s jaw.

The Copper Dragon was just about to issue a ringing acceptance of the task, when Jyoss slipped past him, seized Pip and Kaiatha in her forepaws, and bugled softly, Try to catch me, thou, my gleaming furnace-heart.

Tazz blinked. Uh …

Jyoss flicked his nose pertly with her left wingtip. Do I need to bite your neck to gain your attention?

NO! A second round of Dragon-thunder shook the dining hall.

Pip chuckled, Tazzaral, did we place an order for trumpets and indoor storms?

Engulfing Maylin and Yaethi in one paw and Durithion in the other, Tazzaral thumped after Jyoss, flapping his wings to prevent his tonnage from crushing the precious Human cargo in his forepaws. He growled, Last one there snacks on the pesky–I mean, Pygmy.

With a rippling laugh, the Albino charged off the portico and launched into the evening sky.

* * * *

Crimson-tinged clouds mooched low over the Academy volcano. The league-wide caldera was still active in places, but with the gentle simmer of an aged volcano which had lost its youthful rip and rumble. Within the main crater, five minor cones housed a burgeoning Dragon population, while an estimated twenty thousand Human souls lived in the sprawling russet brickwork Academy buildings, or in the vast caverns beneath and behind the buildings. Pip wondered why the buildings had been constructed more upward than sideways. She fancied an Ancient Dragon had once tumbled a pawful of buildings down the sheer volcanic slope, giving rise to the dizzying pile of interconnected halls and walkways and turrets that comprised the famous Dragon Rider Academy.

Once, a loincloth-clad Pygmy girl had sneaked into these buildings and surprised Master Kassik. Pip grinned. Now, she even understood what these big people meant by the word ‘naked’. How far a jungle girl had come.

Yet her greatest dream had also been shattered upon these dark volcanic slopes. Stolen from her jungle home at a young age and caged in a Sylakian zoo with Oraial Apes and monkeys, Pip had dreamed of being Human. She wished to be like the people who had traipsed in their tens and hundreds past her window to gawk at a dirty little savage. Sylakian law labelled her an animal. Now she knew she was a Shapeshifter, capable of manifesting in her Onyx Dragoness or Pygmy forms at a thought. No, not even a Shapeshifter. A poison-crippled half-being.

Rising, only to fall. Was this to be her life’s song?

Chapter 2: To War!

JYOSS CLEAVED THE warm volcanic air with silken wing-strokes, maintaining a Dragon’s-length lead on Tazzaral during the three-quarters of a mile ascent to the Master’s office. Pip saw from afar that the windows had been thrown wide open to the volcanic breezes, as if in anticipation of their arrival. The Dragoness’ paw clamped around her body was as warm as suns-baked sand, a hot shackle that encased her from chest to ankle. Perfectly safe. Perfectly deadly. Jyoss’ two backward-facing and three forward-facing digits formed a dextrous paw similar in some respects to a Human hand, with retractable claws neatly sheathed–but one flexion of her talons could pulp Pip’s torso like an overripe prekki fruit. Such was the strength of even a young Dragon.

Shortly, the Dragons back-winged to land neatly on the broad balcony outside Master Kassik’s office. Pip alighted on stones scored by generations of talons, and for several seconds, gazed over the volcano with its open, steaming lava pits wreathing the peaks and rim walls in ever-shifting gaseous veils, seeking to imprint the scene upon her heart. This was the place she called home. The Academy had become a bastion of hope for the Dragonkind with the defeat of the Marshal’s advance forces the week before. In trouncing the formidable Silver, Pip had won not only a victory, but a boyfriend. Ah, boy-Dragon. Boy monster–what should she call him? Villain, foul enemy and the throbbing log drum of her heart?

Monkey droppings, she was about as comfortable with her new relationship as she was with her habitual spot front and centre of the Master’s desk. The Brown Shapeshifter Dragon was not renowned for his kindly ways when he chewed out, shredded and pulverised errant students shuffling their bare toes on his rug. Pip and the spot of shame were well acquainted.

Thankfully, as they shambled within like a clanking flock of sheep, the quintet of students found the large office quite empty.

“You. Ay, you, your unroyal draconic feistiness.” Maylin made a mess of trying to hit Pip, and settled for bunting her hip-to-hip instead. “What’s with the chains? How did you–”

Pip tapped her nose knowingly.

Maylin made a disgusted noise, but Yaethi drowned her out with a bright laugh. “Another magnificent Maylin plan sinks into the Cloudlands. Quite the flair for execution, eh?”

While her friends bickered, Pip watched the courting Dragon couple sharing a private nuzzle on the balcony. Jyoss still had the slender, compact frame of a youngster, although at six years old she was well into her fledgling years. She was a delicate rose colour with a striking hot pink trim upon her spine-spikes, claws, wing struts, and exquisite detailing across her brow ridges and muzzle. Tazzaral, at sixty-six feet long from muzzle to tail-tip according to his latest measure, was thirteen feet longer than Jyoss, head and shoulders taller, and beginning to bulge at the seams with the imposing musculature of an adult male Dragon. His deep copper tones gleamed like a rack of kitchen pots buffed to a magnificent shine–Pip giggled at this mental image. When he moved, the hand-sized scales of his flanks and shoulders rippled like molten metal, as though the hardest known armour in the Island-World was as pliable as soft, oiled leather.

With a fond nip at the base of Jyoss’ modest ruff of skull spikes, each as long as Pip’s arm and as deadly as the fangs that briefly flashed against the Dragoness’ hide, Tazzaral whirled and appeared to pour himself off the edge of the balcony in a torrent of liquid scales and muscle. Truly? Pip blinked. A multi-tonne carnivore could glide with feline grace?

On the balcony, the Dragoness’ soft, flaming pink gaze turned to Pip as if Jyoss sensed her regard. In telepathic Dragonish, the Albino purred, Just wait until your Silver’s soul-fires cascade over your Dragon-senses, little one. Then you’ll know the thrilling, consuming Dragonsong of soul-bonded love.

No warning. Just flame bursting through her body, shockingly ardent; a stabbing fear that she must surely be scalded, blood boiling in her veins, the skin blistering and curling like scrolleaf tossed into a hearth fire … someone clutched Pip as she cried out, and a touch upon her shoulder doused the flames with coolness.

“Easy, Pip,” said Kaiatha. “Yaethi, what’s the matter with her?”

Pip glared across Master Kassik’s monstrous mahogany desk at the Dragoness standing framed within the doorway. Jyoss seemed amused. Pip pictured the Land Dragon, Leandrial, swatting the Albino Dragoness with a paw the size of twenty Dragons. She smiled right back at Jyoss.

Orange flame curled between the Dragoness’ fangs. I saw that image, Pip.

I … projected?

You’re more powerful than you think. Hush, Kassik the Brown approaches.

To her friends, Pip said, “I’m fine. Stop mothering me. Just a touch of inner flame, that’s all. Yaethi, did I feel–”

“Healing magic,” her friend replied, with uncharacteristic diffidence. “Did it work?”

“Ay.”

Pip had no opportunity to say more, for raised voices behind the inner door of Master Kassik’s chamber announced the Master’s arrival. He was snarling at someone. Several people, in fact. There had been an inter-dorm raid between the Third Year male students, attempted hijinks which ended in a brawl involving hundreds.

“–and don’t make me come down there in my Dragon form!” the Master roared, slamming the door. He rubbed his temples tiredly. “Heavens save those boys before I fricassee them in boiling lava!”

Then, at a tiny clink from Yaethi’s wrist cuff, his eyes snapped to the waiting group. Pip anticipated his reaction with a curl of dread coupled with fascination. Master Kassik stood as tall and straight as a spear; a veteran Jeradian warrior of enormous dignity. When he spoke, it was in deep, measured tones, every aspect of his manner and character conveying the assurance that his words stemmed from a man worth listening to. Pip knew that for a truth. Yet, beneath the considered exterior lay the heart and temper of a Brown Shapeshifter Dragon. A wince accompanied Pip’s realisation that her friends must think she had made it her personal mission to reveal the Master’s draconic heart.

Today, he appeared riled beyond anything Pip had seen before.

Kassik’s brow furrowed severely as he took in the chains. Maylin and Yaethi hung their heads identically, Duri shuffled his feet and Kaiatha looked as though she would rather leap off the balcony than face the Master’s wrath. A fiery glint entered his eyes, searing the air between them. His colour deepened. Red. Crimson. Purple. The throbbing of a ropy vein across his left temple entrapped Pip’s gaze. Her breath snagged painfully in her throat. Oh no. This would not be pretty.

Balling his fists, the Master clearly fought to corral his fury. He first looked away to Jyoss on the balcony, before dropping his gaze to Pip’s feet. There, he stopped. His lips moved–reading?

Convulsively, she tore her scrutiny from the Master to focus on the rug beneath her feet. It was new. Hand-stitched, with a message that read, ‘Pip’s Personal Place of Penance.’ She stared at it for endless seconds, uncomprehending. Then the soft gulp of Kaiatha’s horror–guilty horror–speared such fire into her gut, Pip imagined she had been struck again by Telisia’s paralysing poison. They had even smuggled an embroidered rug into the Master’s office as part of this prank? Rotten agitators! She trembled from head to toe, such a crimson rage washing over her vision that she knew it was wrong; no, not wrong, but a product of draconic emotions. She must withhold. Please …

Kassik’s laughter flayed her scattered emotions. Pip could not have been more shocked. Mouth agape, she gaily invited flies to investigate her tongue. His laughter was rough, offensive, frantic for release. A scream might have been less brutal. No one else laughed. Chuckling with forced jollity, the Master extracted the sorry tale from the embarrassed students. After that, he ushered them to the seats closest to the broad windows, plush couches arranged in an area that could comfortably seat forty persons.

Come inside, Jyoss, he invited the Dragoness. I suspect that balcony is about to become mighty busy.

Turning to Pip, Kaiatha, Durithion, Maylin and Yaethi, he added curtly, “You youngsters remind me that to face the grimmest of circumstances with laughter, is a gift.”

“How so, Master?” asked Yaethi.

He said, “If you have paid any attention at all in your History classes, you will know that this Academy was founded by none other than Hualiama Dragonfriend and her Tourmaline Dragon, Grandion. You know its official tenets–to foster good relations between Dragons, Shapeshifters and Humans, to train Dragon Riders, and to become a focal point for the lore and practice of Dragon Riding that would lead to peace across the Islands. The Dragon Riders were never meant to function as a weapon. Instead, this place served as a beacon of hope. When the Dragons withdrew to Gi’ishior, the Academy reached out. In times of strife, we act as mediators and peacekeepers. When the Great Plagues swept over the Islands seven decades ago, the Dragons and Riders transported medicines and medical personnel between Islands and strictly enforced the quarantine, sparing countless thousands of lives.”

“We Shapeshifters are Hualiama’s legacy, Pip,” he said, pinning her with a smile that somehow conveyed the impression of a Dragon’s fang-filled grin, “or at least–Yaethi? A question?”

The Helyon Islander straightened her back even more than usual. “How can there be so many Shapeshifters all over the Island-World, Master? And spontaneous occurrences, moreover, such as our Pip,? They cannot surely be the progeny of one woman?”

“The poor, overworked wretch,” Maylin put in.

Kaiatha said primly, “I’ll thank you to speak respectfully of the legends, Maylin.”

“But a most insightful question,” said Master Kassik, unexpectedly animated. “And that is exactly why we are about to jump into the proverbial Dragon’s jaws, and travel to the Crescent Islands to find out about the ultra-secretive Order of Onyx. The lore-scrolls fail to answer this point. We suspect redaction.”

“First code brown, now red action?” asked Pip.

Yaethi clucked her tongue in annoyance. “Redaction. It’s one word. As in, something has been cut out. Edited. Deliberately removed.”

“For example, ‘Pip redacted the truth’,” Maylin suggested.

“Shall my Dragoness redact half of your brain?” Pip inquired sweetly.

“There’s a functional half?” Yaethi teased, earning herself a malign growl from her friend. “Ah … and I’m chained to the beast. So, Master, why the alert?”

He said, “I’m considering a new Academy policy whereby we chain the most troublesome students together. Permanently. Now, to business. To war.” Making his habitual ‘thinking tent’ of his fingertips, as Pip had dubbed the gesture, Kassik said, “What the histories will not tell you, is that the Academies have a further purpose–that of refuge. Many times over the years, we have found ourselves sheltering … unexpected treasures.”

Pip ducked her head, feeling her ears heat up into red flags as Kaiatha patted her knee gently. Right. Why not just call her a savage? Yet that was not what she had heard in the Master’s voice. Far from it. No, that was cage thinking, an echo of years spent behind bars. Islands’ sakes, would she even remember the great jungles of her birthplace?

“Master, if we fly via Sylakia–” Pip gulped back a lump the size and consistency of a lump of razor-edged obsidian “–would you support me … I want to go back to the zoo. I fear I must.”

“Ay.”

“Must?” Maylin and Yaethi protested in concert.

“Ay,” Duri echoed the Master. “Such a place has power beyond bars and mortar. It shadows the very soul.”

“Pip has no protection under Sylakian law,” Yaethi said.

Duri snapped, “She’ll have our protection!” He blushed as Kaiatha regarded him with undisguised admiration. “What? I’m only saying what we’re all thinking, right?”

“Mmm. I like this man.” Kaiatha curled her fingers around his left bicep, and though she kissed him decorously upon the cheek, what she managed to communicate made Durithion blush up a Fra’aniorian suns-set.

Pip whispered, “I have to. Also, we should try to find my tribe. Master Balthion is convinced my Pygmy battle name–” she pointed to the symbols in blue runic script which ran the length of her outer left calf, trilling “–Pip’úrth’l-iòlall-Yò’oótha, has some special, mystical meaning that will be revealed in the Ceremony of Second Naming. I’m not sixteen yet, but maybe we can convince them. The revelation of my true name will, as a matter of course, unearth an astonishing magical power which will topple Marshal Re’akka’s Island into the Cloudlands abyss and swat the Shadow Dragon back to whatever existential hell spawned it in the first instance. And life will become rainbows over Islands.”

Maylin looked scandalised at the bite of Pip’s sarcasm, but Kaiatha said, “Ay, that’s the Island of truth.”

“I agree. Waiting here at the Academy will win us nothing,” Master Kassik said. “We can best protect our refuge from outside the walls of this volcano. Here come our friends. Let’s wait. I’ll start the briefing once we’re all assembled.”

Pip sat cross-legged on her couch, there being no point in pretending her tiny legs could reach the floor. She turned to gaze past Kaiatha. Beyond the balcony’s edge, from the lush cliffs of the Dragons’ Roost Mountain, winged a group of Dragons that fairly took her breath away–Oyda riding her Emblazon, a young, powerful Amber Dragon, the mighty Red leader of Dragons, Blazon, shell-father of Emblazon, and Nak aboard his beautiful Blue Dragoness Shimmerith, who possessed grace unequalled amongst the Dragonkind.

A coterie of younger Dragons swooped from the darkling skies, including Maylin’s feisty Red Emmaraz, the shy grass-green Arrabon who had paired with Yaethi, and flying more gingerly than the others as the result of a pasting recently handed out by a certain Pygmy Dragoness, Silver, he of resplendent scales worthy of a Star Dragon, spearing earthward like the flash of a gleaming blade. Pip willed her heart to stop flopping about like a river salmon feeling the sting of a fishing spear, but her innards refused to behave. Then again, judging by the spots of rose that blossomed in Kaiatha’s cheek as she spied Tazzaral swirling in to his landing on the balcony, perhaps she was not the only one. From the corner of her eye, she saw Jyoss’ forepaw creep over the back of Durithion’s couch to lay a possessive talon upon his right shoulder. Duri squeezed the digit appreciatively.

As the Dragons descended in a great kafuffle of wings and a blast of wind and dust, Pip spied Casitha and Mistress Mya’adara slipping into Master Kassik’s rapidly overcrowding office. Briefly, through the doorway, she marked her three Jeradian trees. Great. No escape.

Mya’adara tossed a key into Pip’s lap before finding her seat. “Yah can free yah friends–Ah use the term loosely–when they’ve laid down a meaningful stretch of humble-rug.”

Pip blinked at the Mistress’ phrasing.

Opposite, Kassik stood to greet Casitha, a pretty Fourth Year student who had recently become his Dragon Rider, only to have her boot him firmly in the right shin. “No burning my paintings when you’re in a mood, Dragon,” she greeted him acidly.

The Master’s eyes bulged as though he had been made to swallow his own fireball.

Pip smothered a chuckle behind her hand as his apology turned into a tender kiss. If ever there was rightness in the Island-World, their romance embodied it. Kassik had been so determined to maintain propriety. He was Master of the Academy. Consorting with a student could not have been further from his thoughts when he had been ambushed by a spate of oath-magic, which swept them both off the proverbial Island cliff. Now they soared together. Beautiful.

She wondered at Hualiama’s Gift, as the oldest scrolls called her magic–the magic which invited a Dragon and Rider to burn the heavens together. The Dragon-Rider oath was clearly made in the heart before ever a word trembled the air. How could this be? A meeting of destinies, of souls, even? A fate sealed by a form of words which released a power of magic unlike any other in the Island-World? This power which linked a draconic fire-soul to a Human soul so fundamentally, the bond gave a Rider the power to live decades longer than an ordinary Human life. Therefore, the oath was life-affirming, or even life-augmenting. This insight captivated Pip like the cool stillness of a forest pool.

Casitha slipped into the seat beside Pip. She tossed her honey-dark curls irately. “Dragons.”

Ay. Dragons. Pip grinned at Silver. Thou.

The Silver Dragon’s muzzle whipped around so fast, he thumped Emblazon’s mighty flank and earned himself a nip on the neck by way of censure. An image of multiple overlapping rainbows flashed into her mind. Thou … uh, girlfriend.

His mental stumble accompanied waterfalls of silver fire that swept across his eye-fires, a colour Pip had seen in no other Dragon. Mesmerising.

Kaiatha pricked Pip’s leg with her fingernail. “Pay attention.”

The Master waited for the Dragons, busy arranging themselves muzzle-to-muzzle while their enormous bodies fanned out upon the balcony. There was much shuffling and wriggling before every beast had his or her claws tucked in and wings not snagging upon each other, which was highly insulting in Dragon circles, Pip had learned. Lined up, the disparity in sizes amazed her. Tazzaral was massive, but Emblazon, the strongest of all Dragons, was one and a half times larger again–surpassing even his father, Blazon. Shimmerith made a svelte, gleaming contrast to her muscular mate, overshadowed but never outshone.

Without warning, the Dragons all settled in perfect concert. Mental command, Pip wondered? Their eye-fires blazed against the deepening night.

“The most sulphurous blessings of the Great Dragon, Fra’anior, be upon you, my Dragon-kin, and all gathered here today,” said Kassik, suddenly formal. “Three hours ago, I received a coded missive sent by messenger hawk from our agents at Tyrodia Island.” His deep tones carried to everyone present. Rising, the Master began to pace up and down, explaining, “Marshal Re’akka’s Dragonwings have descended upon the Crescent Islands in force, quartering the Islands in a methodical search for what we conclude must be information about the Order of Onyx. Emblazon suggested he seeks Dragon lore that will allow him to hatch the First Egg he holds inside that Island. Should that day come, we believe Marshal Re’akka would be unstoppable.”

Wasn’t he unstoppable already? Pip said nothing, but the dismay displayed on the faces around her conveyed much.

Jerrion rumbled, “Pip. Tell us about your dream.”

Great. Just the medicine to cheer everyone up. Pensively, she related what she had seen, grateful for an encouraging mental touch from Silver, but it was not devoid of a hint of jealousy. Silver did not approve that she shared an oath-bond with Zardon the Red, even if she had not understood the implications of agreeing to become Zardon’s Rider. Pip understood the flight of his thoughts. Had the situation been reversed, she would have been spitting jealousy like a banded copper-viper.

Blazon growled, “Strength to your right paw, noble Onyx.”

Shimmerith added, “We will find a way to defeat this renegade Dragon, my kin. We must.”

“Ay,” agreed Blazon, underscoring his agreement with a curl of fire between his fangs. “Kassik, we must use the respite this action affords us to gather our far-flung refugees and fortify the Academy. I will arrange to secrete our treasures in a different location, in Fra’anior Cluster.”

He did not say so, but Pip assumed Blazon meant Gi’ishior. No doubt the Dragons had many secret treasuries at their ancient home.

Kassik said, “Meantime, we must scour the lore-libraries for a solution to this magic-ravaging Shadow Dragon. There must be a clue, perhaps events or lore rooted in the time the Ancient Dragons departed our Island-World.” Yaethi raised her hand. The Dragon Elder nodded, “Speak, little one.”

Even in his Human form, Kassik slipped into Dragonish ways of communicating, Pip noticed.

“How does the Marshal control the Shadow Dragon?” Yaethi asked. “From all reports, it seems able to negate or parasitize draconic magic. What say our Dragonkind to this?”

Yaethi paused in alarm at the rising growl of draconic belly-fires out on the balcony, but Blazon said, At ease, my shell-brothers and sisters. To speak of evil is not to invite it to roost with us. “Continue, Yaethi, Rider of Arrabon.”

“Well, it was just to say, I don’t believe that even the First Egg’s overwhelming force could create a diametrically different type of magic–an opposite, as oil and water, or shadow and light, mighty Dragons, so I speculated–” she gulped audibly, then blurted out, “–and this will sound crazy, and I’m sorry! Helyon Islanders have an ancient creation legend. To sum up, they say Dragons believe life is created of fire, a fire fundamental to every physical manifestation of life in our Island-World. These are spiritual or mystical fires, called white-fires.”

“The concept translates exactly into Island-Standard, my beautiful Rider,” Arrabon lisped. “You’d say white-fires, or pure-fires. The inner beauty of every material substance.”

“Why teach us our own legends?” Blazon puzzled aloud. “Every hatchling knows these things.”

“Her words are truth-in-song, my shell-father,” Emblazon rumbled. “Let her finish.” And the mightiest of the Dragons raised his paw. “Be not afraid, Yaethi of Helyon. As a Rider, by oath, bond and deed you are adopted into the family of Dragons. I know I am the least qualified to speak of such matters–” his gaze touched Pip regretfully “–but the truth is, these white-fires are the richest and deepest expression of life, and are common to all the great races of this Island-World–Humans, Lesser Dragons, Shapeshifters and the Ancient Dragons themselves.”

All eyes turned to Yaethi as she said, “Thank you, noble Emblazon. Dragons speak of dark-fires, a darkening of the mind or draconic spirit similar to Human depression. And we know this for a complex malady of great power, with physical, emotional and spiritual symptoms. Yet I believe–I envisage–a deeper truth underlies the concept of dark-fires. A force, for want of a better word, which opposes these cosmic draconic white-fires. Brought together, the two annul each other. They are the ultimate foes. Perhaps dark-fires represent negation, annihilation, or chaos itself–I don’t know what exactly, but I sense the answers we need lie somewhere upon the Island of a philosophy of dark-fires.”

The silence that enveloped their gathering was indeed dark-fires, Pip thought. Every Dragon’s eye-fires darkened or turned toward crimson anger as they considered her words.

Shimmerith asked plaintively, “How can we fight an elemental force, Yaethi?”

“A creature born of dark-fires?” Silver whispered, shivering visibly. “Ay, my scales shudder with its truth; like Emblazon, my seventh sense …”

“Sings,” Emblazon supplied.

The Silver Shapeshifter said, “Thank you, shell-brother. My native Herimor is rife with creatures which parasitize magic. Rider Yaethi’s idea elevates the same concept to a greater plane of existence. This chills my belly-fires.”

Master Kassik tented his fingers again, staring at Yaethi with such a blaze of draconic calculation, the girl voiced an involuntary whimper and ducked her head. He said, “Yaethi and Arrabon, I must ask you to remain here whilst we fly on our mission to Sylakia and the Crescent. I would have you lead the scholarly investigation into–”

“Lead?” Yaethi yelped. “But Master–”

“Lead,” he repeated, in growl that booked no argument, “with the help of the Dragon Elders, and every resource at our disposal both in this Academy and Fra’anior Cluster. Masters Ga’am and Shambithion, and the Blue Dragoness Cressilida, shall be your overseers and mentors. Ay. And the Nameless Man, if we can recruit him. What say you, Dragon and Rider?”

Yaethi rose to perform a Helyon genuflection. “As you command, Master. I accept.”

“Bravo!” Arrabon bugled. “My Rider speaks for us both.”

Master Kassik said, “Nak and Emblazon, you shall lead our Dragonwing to Sylakia, where Master Balthion, Casitha and I propose to meet with certain friends in order to investigate a persistent, strong rumour that the Sylakian Shapeshifters have found a way to hide from the beast of Shadow. Meantime, the rest shall fly on to the Crescent. We’ll have many hours on the wing to discuss strategy, but I believe an incisive raid by a limited number of Dragons and Riders should offer the best chance of success.”

Or, it would limit the losses should their mission end in catastrophe. But Pip did not voice this concern. Failure was unthinkable. She could not, and would not, consider it.

“We must secure this knowledge hidden by the Order of Onyx before the Marshal does,” said Kassik. “Blazon will take charge of the Academy in my absence. We will use this evening to prepare, and fly as the first light of dawn illuminates our Island-World. May the fire of Ancient Dragons be our portion, and may we burn the heavens together, forever.”

Kassik gazed around his group, receiving a number of firm nods or affirmative rumbles in response to his passionate closing declaration. Pip’s thoughts, however, turned to Shimmerith.

Noble Shimmerith, what of your unhatched egg? Surely you cannot fly, yet? And will you not be required to nurse your hatchlings?

Dragons don’t nurse, little one. Shimmerith’s Dragonish expressed nuances of laughter, motherly-brooding-love and concern. Your interest is timely. Pip–

“Ay,” said Master Kassik. “Pip, go help Shimmerith hatch her egg. Snip snap, girl.”

“Me?” she squeaked, and lowered her voice, annoyed. “Me? Master, what do I know of Dragon eggs or hatchlings?”

“Enough backchat, you pintsized menace.” The Brown Shapeshifter smiled genially. “Pip, get out of my office before I thrash you with my Dragon’s paw. That is an order.”

She made quite certain her piping laughter had irritated him before she left.

Chapter 3: Hatchlings

SNIP SNAP WAS the Master’s way of suggesting she should not waste a moment. Pip limped over to Shimmerith and Silver, who awaited her on the balcony.

Nak cried, “Pip, my favourite–oof! Let me go, you pile of draconic sublimity.”

Gripping Nak in her left forepaw, Shimmerith rolled her eye-fires at him. “Precious Rider, you cannot clap Pip on the shoulder. She’s wounded.”

“Thank the heavens for that,” said Oyda. “Uh, I meant–that you took your Rider in paw, so to speak, noble Shimmerith. Not you, Pip. Oh, why don’t you just do the talking, Dragoness?”

The Sapphire Dragoness unclenched her fist; Nak tottered out, rearranged his clothes and his dignity, and swooped to plant a kiss upon Oyda’s cheek. “May I further bemuse and befuddle thee, o most delectable of Dragon Riders?”

She shoved him playfully. “Later, you Cloudlands pirate. These are womanly matters.”

“But I like womanly matters.”

Pip blushed as Nak looked Oyda over with undisguised fervour.

Oyda, a petite Yelegoy Islander with fiery green eyes and madly curly brown hair, seemed quite in command of the situation. Swatting Nak so hard on the behind that he yelped and jumped three feet sideways, she bade Emblazon whisk the Dragon Rider away to their roost and the armoury, to pack for the mission. Nak’s parting words, floating back on the breeze as the massive Amber Dragon snaffled him away, had something to do with packing Oyda no shirts whatsoever.

With a soft whoop, Jyoss tipped off the balcony with Durithion seated on her shoulders, while inside Kassik’s office, the Jeradian trio scratched their beards over the manacles. No key seemed to fit. Pip waved cheekily at her friends’ scowls. Revenge had been unexpectedly sweet.

Emmaraz growled, “Off to the locksmith, my Rider. Arrabon?”

“Granted. Shall I have the armourers ready your saddle and Dragon Rider tack, noble shell-brother?”

“And two Dragon lances.” Emmaraz, ever the hothead, let fire leak between his fangs as Arrabon lifted Maylin and Yaethi onto the young Red Dragon’s back. “I’m going to hunt down that Shadow Dragon and rend it limb from limb. Ready, Riders?”

“Don’t you mean, captives?” Pip sniped.

Thundering his testiness to the heavens, Emmaraz launched out over the caldera. Now, at night, the lava flows down at ground level were clearly visible, snaking about like bloody claw-tracks scored through Dragon hide. Pip shook off the image. This was no time for trepidation. Nor for recalling how Re’akka’s cold fireball had reduced thousands of soldiers to crimson lumps of ice within their armour.

Silver nuzzled her back. “Hey, mischief.”

So fiery-warm. Pip leaned back against his nose, sighing, “So it’s off to war for us, Silver? Don’t you start thinking I’m as troublesome as everyone says.”

“No, you only crushed my ribs, trounced me in strategy and in battle, turned my every Island upside-down by ensnaring my heart, and today, clapped your friends in chains. No trouble at all.”

Shimmerith snorted an appreciative fireball, but Pip observed she ejected it from the side of her muzzle, bathing Blazon’s flank in blistering heat. The Dragon Elder did not even appear to notice, deep in conversation with Kassik and Mistress Mya’adara. Hands on hips, she tried to scowl at Silver. His eyes made a fiery lurch that perfectly matched the action of her heart. She could not help herself. A force greater than the daily coursing of the suns above the Island-World turned the corners of her mouth upward.

If you two hatchlings have quite finished making moon-eyes at each other, I’ve an egg I’m concerned about, said Shimmerith.

Let’s go, Silver, Pip ordered, wondering what under the five moons she was supposed to accomplish with a Dragon egg.

Scooping up the Pygmy girl, Shimmerith deposited her on Silver’s left shoulder, saying, Chymasion refuses to hatch. He vexes my wingtips in this. Says the world is far too dangerous and he lacks protection–as if a Dragoness would not safeguard her own hatchling! I’ve never heard of such wing-shivering effrontery. And before you mention it, Pip, I’ve a mind to replace my missing fang with you. I think you’d fit the space quite nicely.

Oyda made the business of scaling her Dragon’s flank look rather easy, especially for someone who had broken both arms a few months before.

As Silver spread his wings and dropped off the balcony, Pip said, “Silver, why didn’t Telisia’s poison affect you? I’ve this unhealed hole in my shoulder and a gash on my side. You–you’re fine.”

“It’s nothing sinister,” he protested. “And, I’m not fine. You fought dirty.”

“Jungle girl,” she smirked.

Over his shoulder, a silvery fire-eye rolled in evident exasperation. “You smug little excuse for a dragonet. Simply put, the nurseries being a hotbed of intrigue and assassination, we trained ourselves from a young age to build up our resistance to all manner of toxins and poisons–Shapeshifter poisons in particular. You had no such resistance. I believe one of the ingredients Telisia used was a necrotic poison, which kills living tissue. There’s no known antidote bar the time it takes for the body to recover–anyways, the medical Dragons cleaned and prepared your wounds according to my instructions. You must have patience, Pip.”

“I excel at patience,” she lied.

“I’m taking notes,” he fibbed in return, without blinking an eye.

Softly, she said, “How am I supposed to fight a war in this state, Silver?”

“Suppose I do the heavy lifting, and you nip in at the last second and steal all the glory?”

“Deal,” she smiled. Perhaps there was no answer. Perhaps she should just grit her teeth and walk under the Cloudlands to Sylakia, free every animal in the zoo and cage up the Marshal instead? Their plan to uncover the Order of Onyx’s secrets had about as much chance of succeeding.

“This business of the hatchling is odd,” said Silver. “I hope I didn’t do any permanent damage when I tried to turn him against you.”

Shimmerith and Silver swept over the luminous green lake at the base of Roost Mountain, before soaring up the slim volcanic cone to Shimmerith and Nak’s roost–a route Pip knew only too well, on foot. Thankfully, Nak appeared to have spruced up his more revolting personal habits. Perhaps that was Oyda’s gentle influence at work. Alighting on the ledge outside the Dragon roost guarded by a Red Dragoness, Shimmerith preceded them through the curving corridor into the main chamber. They heard chirrups of happiness from her hatchlings, the Blue Inzuriel and Amfyrion, a fourteen-foot copy of his amber-coloured shell-father, Emblazon.

Aunty Pip! Silver! They expectorated little fireballs of pleasure.

Amfyrion chirped, Where’s your Dragoness, Aunty Pip? We want to play and you’re too small.

Whipping over to Pip, Inzuriel held up her wingtips for tip-touching, a common greeting between Dragons. Pip patted them in turn with her hands. You’re growing as beautiful as your shell-mother, little … ah, how do you say that in Dragonish?

We’d say ‘fire-sister’ in Herimor, said Silver.

Wing-sister, said Shimmerith. The usage is particularly apt for a Dragon or Dragoness of similar age. Now, Pip, here’s Chymasion’s egg.

Pip whistled softly. The egg was beautiful, a mottled mineral brown that glistened in the lamplight inside Shimmerith’s roost–but it was humungous. Its width was at least the length of a Pygmy Dragon, she estimated, and though the egg lay on its side, it still stood three times her height. She turned to measure the Sapphire Dragoness with her eyes.

Shimmerith chuckled in evident realisation. “No, little one. Dragon eggs are not laid this large–it would be physically impossible. Chymasion appears to be more unique than anyone imagined.”

Silver shook his head in amazement. “A growing egg? I’ve never heard of such a phenomenon.”

Pip giggled as Inzuriel thrust her muzzle beneath her arm, demanding a scratch behind the skull-spikes. “Looks like we need to get him out before he outgrows the roost.”

Inzuriel purred, More.

Go play with Silver, my flame-eyed beauties, ordered Shimmerith.

Oyda and Pip laughed as Silver pretended to be bowled over by the enthusiastic hatchlings, letting them nip at his scales and fight mock-battles with his talons.

“Talk to the egg, Pip,” said Oyda.

“Um–what do I say?”

Shimmerith said, “Pip, you know that Dragons mature much faster than Humans. I have spoken with Chymasion since the time he was in my egg-sac. He’s very curious about the world outside the egg–but not willing to venture into it. You speak to him. You’ve the power of … of common-fires.”

“Er–empathy?” said Oyda. “I’m not sure that’s quite the right translation.”

Pip sighed. Right. Speak to the egg. What exactly was that supposed to accomplish? Moving forward, she placed her left hand flat against the egg’s surface, finding the substance surprisingly warm and pliant. Oddly, she had learned that due to an innate magic, no Dragon egg could be opened from the outside, not even by a mother-Dragoness of the Blue spectrum of colours, the greatest magic-users amongst the Dragonkind.

Chymasion? She projected her thoughts clearly. I’m Pip, the Pygmy Dragoness, and I give you my most sulphurous greetings. Why don’t you come out and meet your family?

No, you can’t make me.

As the eggling groaned, powerful draconic feelings and stresses washed over Pip, making her stagger. But Oyda propped her up quickly. What was this–loss? Yearning? A knowledge of … incompleteness? Pip did not understand at all, and as her incomprehension grew, so did the Dragon eggling’s frustration. As she reached out, ideas began to spit into her mind like sparks. The need for protection. Direction. A strange magic Chymasion feared, not so much the power of the Dragon of Shadow, but something that stemmed from within him–a Dragon power which his shell-mother had been unable to identify. He knew he was unusual. He knew he faced a troubled destiny, and he wanted … what?

This protection you want, Chymasion, what does it feel like? Pip asked.

How can I describe what I have never known?

I don’t understand why you’re so afraid. Shimmerith is here, and Emblazon–so many Dragons and Humans, who all wish you well and healthy–

All I see is fires, he interrupted. Mesmerising Dragon fires swirl before me in this strange space that encompasses my fire-soul; this space which restricts my wings and limbs …

Shimmerith said, He often speaks of those fires. I don’t understand. Suns-light should permeate a Dragon’s egg.

Great Islands! He’s blind! Pip gasped. Chymasion …

What do you mean, blind? the Dragon chirped unhappily, causing the sadness of dark-fires to wash over Pip’s senses. I see much. The past, present and future rush before me in never-ending cascades of white-fires. What are these un-magical images you keep pushing at me? That is not the real world. What’s real is fire; what’s fire is real. Every structure you suggest is but a function of limited perception, for you deny its inner image, the true image of what is.

Shimmerith’s wings vibrated in anguish. Oh, Chymasion … thou, my darling fire-heart!

Distress! cried the eggling. See, I distress my shell-mother! I cannot emerge only to increase her sorrow.

Silver, said Pip. Come here.

Poor Shimmerith nuzzled her egg, coiling her body all around it, crooning her love, her concern; how precious Chymasion was to her, how he had always brightened her fires from the very first spark of his life.

What do you need, heartling? Silver’s eye-fires, in contrast, appeared subdued.

Draw close to me, and help me show Chymasion what we are, together. Think upon our vows–

That’s it!

Her hatchling’s abrupt shriek frightened Shimmerith so severely, she leaped back against the crysglass panels of her roost’s main window, cracking two of the panels.

Chymasion cried, That’s it, there–and a pain smote Pip between the eyes, yet as quickly as he struck her, so Silver shielded her mind.

Silver thundered, How dare you intrude in another mind? Chymasion!

I abase myself, noble Silver. The hatchling cowered mentally. It was not meant–I saw something. The one. In her mind is … one of your strange images, and I thought I felt a presence, the one I yearn for. I abase myself, noble Pip. I was overexcited.

Rouse your fires, noble wing-brother, said Pip, her mind racing. I am unhurt. Now, watch carefully …

One by one, she began to summon impressions of the people she knew, projecting them toward Chymasion as, to her perception, the hatchling trembled within his shell. On and on. Image after image served up by a Pygmy’s eidetic memory. Whom had she forgotten? Not Telisia, oh please, let it not be her! But Telisia was close–and then Pip laughed. Of course.

Here, Chymasion.

The egg leaped on its bed of soft ralti furs, there in the depression where Shimmerith brooded over her clutch. Who is this perfect creature? A whisper, rife with longing.

Pip smiled at the memory. Her father was my mentor; she became my teacher and my friend. This is Arosia. She pictured a rose. Named for this flower. She is Arosia, daughter of Balthion and Shullia, sister of Durithion, who rides the Albino Dragoness Jyoss. Silver–

Already on my way, my third heart. Because I like this idea of causing trouble.

Ask her nicely, Silver.

He answered with a smoky draconic snigger, already fading into the distance as he winged rapidly toward the Academy buildings.

A sharp tapping emanated from inside the egg. Evidently, Chymasion was not prepared to let any scale-mites grow beneath his wings! Pip chuckled happily at the mental image of a Dragon frantically quarrying his way through the egg shell; she yelped as Oyda patted her sore shoulder.

“Sorry. Congratulations, Pip. How did you know?”

“Lucky guess.”

Shimmerith snorted right behind her shoulder, making Pip jump. “No. Only you could have produced this miracle, Pip. You are not a troublemaker. You are an instigator.”

“Now there’s a promotion for you,” Oyda teased. Pip sniffed disdainfully. “Shimmerith, is there any way under the suns we could help Chymasion?”

The Sapphire Dragoness made an eloquent, massively muscular draconic shrug. “If you feel you need the exercise, noble Rider, do not stint. But my fire cannot burn that egg, nor my claws dent it, nor does any Dragon magic penetrate the shell.”

Oyda threw up her hands. “In other words, toss that stupid question onto the nearest bonfire.”

Shimmerith’s laughter gurgled in her belly. She snapped out a paw to catch Amfyrion’s attempted ambush of Oyda. No, my flame-heart. Humans are delicate. Sheathe those claws.

Aw, Mamafire …

Don’t you ‘aw Mamafire’ me, my scorching flame-son. Shimmerith rebuffed him with a playful cuff of her forepaw, drawing a fierce snarl from the hatchling. Fight. Where are your fires? Amfyrion pounced at once; the Dragoness rolled him with a deft flick of her tail. Good! Faster still, Amfyrion. Show me a Dragon who will grow into his shell-father’s paws.

While the Dragons played, Pip wandered into the Human-sized kitchen area to track down a snack–dried prekki fruit and roasted mohili grain–and to take a swig of cool, fresh water piped from a reservoir near the top of the mountain. Somehow, she had expected a longer respite after the first battle for the Academy. She had merely survived the opening skirmish. Silver had been dispatched to deliver a pre-emptive blow, to capture the Dragoness with the power of the Word of Command. He had failed. Yet was there not a chance that Silver was an unwitting dupe in a deeper, long-term strategy being played out by Marshal Re’akka?

She must not slacken her guard.

Pip worried at her lower lip. Heavens above and Islands below, did she not have enough concerns already without lumping Silver on top of it all?

Abruptly, Oyda put her arms around Pip’s shoulders. “Hey, Pipsqueak. Need one of these?”

How did she know? Pip pressed her forehead against Oyda’s shoulder, and heaved three Dragon-sized sighs in a row. So many pressures, such a perfect storm of possibilities which could carry her off in an unexpected direction at any moment. Mercy.

“Oyda, I just feel so unready.”

“Tell you a secret? We all do. As someone once said to me, ‘I only want you to be happy.’ Do you remember?” Pip bobbed her head. “When I first became a Dragon Rider, I was so overwhelmed by the implications of the responsibility I had taken on, I tried to run away. Emblazon tracked me down before I did anything truly stupid. I thought, then, ‘I’ve done it. He’s going to roast me in Dragon fire, and I deserve no less.’ But he wasn’t angry. All he said was, ‘You need to remember, my precious Rider, that the suns will continue to rise in the morning, and the moons will orbit our Island-World in courses unchanged since the dawn of history.’ And he was right. Each day, we can choose to put forth our worthiest foot, and the rest?”

She finished her statement with a shrug.

They’re here, Shimmerith called.

“Time for more mischief,” said Pip, rubbing her hands.

Maybe she ought to stop putting the idea into peoples’ heads?

Master Balthion came striding into the main roost-chamber with a vexed frown creasing his usually serene face. Mistress Shullia could have started a thunderstorm with her expression. And Arosia? Her shy friend’s green eyes appeared as large as a cat’s, full of trepidation and curiosity and no small measure of relief upon alighting on Pip. Arosia was barefoot, and her long, rich brown hair dripped water around her toes. She wore nothing more than what appeared to be a bed sheet.

Crossing her arms, Pip fixed Silver with an ominous glare as he sauntered into the roost, patently chuffed with his efforts. “You hauled her out of the bath, didn’t you, Silver?”

“Through the window!” growled Balthion.

“Naked and screaming to the heavens,” shrilled Shullia. “What do they teach Shapeshifters in Herimor? He brought ten Dragons and twenty guards down on us.”

“Almost started a war!” Master Balthion said.

“Well, I did see Pip naked when–ahem,” Dragon-Silver coughed, taken aback by the hostile reception. “Do I sense a nudity taboo in your culture?”

“In theirs, not in mine,” said Pip, with a little growling of her own. “Arosia, on behalf of the Lord of Beautiful Boorishness over there, I apologise. We jungle animals clearly have more refined manners.” As Silver’s belly-fires roared in indignation, she held up a hand. “All fireballs outside, Dragon.”

Silver lunged through the entryway to unleash his rage over the caldera.

“Very good,” said Pip, as the thunderous echoes faded. “Master Balthion, I assume you have some inkling of what this is about?”

“An egg which requires our Arosia’s help.” The Master glanced about. “Where’s the egg–great Islands! An Ancient Dragon? That can’t be real.”

Beckoning Arosia to her side, Pip smiled up at her tall, damp Sylakian friend. “Sorry about the bath, but I think you’ll find this much more exciting. Arosia, inside that egg is a Dragon eggling.” Arosia quirked an eyebrow drolly. “I know! Amazing, isn’t it? His name is Chymasion and I think he’ll make just about the biggest hatchling in history.”

At the mention of his name, all activity within the egg suddenly stilled. Pip had the sense that the eggling listened with every pore of his body.

Shimmerith added, “We all think my shell-son has special powers, Arosia. But he’s afraid to come out without encouragement. Without … you.”

The silence seemed as thin as fragile blown glass. Arosia stared at the Sapphire Dragoness, who essayed a draconic shrug of her wings. What explanation could anyone advance? This matter was beyond the rational realm, a matter of elemental Dragon lore.

Pip snagged Arosia’s trembling hand. “Come. Let’s you and I have a little chat with this Dragon.”

She knew. Her friend felt that first incredible, meaningful breath of destiny’s winds ruffling the secret waters of her soul, and by the intake of Shullia’s breath behind them, her mother realised it, too. Master Balthion stood with his arms folded, affecting that scholarly-thoughtful look that had been his staple when he studied a certain Pygmy girl behind the zoo bars. But his eyes sparkled.

“Go on,” Pip whispered.

Arosia lifted her hand. Touched the eggshell. “Chymasion?”

Poor girl, her voice wobbled and cracked like a dragonet’s chuckle. The instant she spoke, the egg shook and suddenly a frantic, redoubled tapping commenced in the interior. Arosia snatched her hand back with a tiny yelp, but the egg did not topple. Instead, it began to rock. It groaned, bulging here and there, as though the Dragon were stretching its limbs in imitation of a babe exercising within its mother’s womb.

“Again?” Oyda suggested.

“Do you think that’s wise?” Shullia said.

Suddenly, Arosia tore free from Pip’s grasp and, rushing forward, pressed herself bodily against the egg, arms akimbo and trembling, as if she wished nothing more beneath the five moons than to meld with the creature within. In a wild voice she cried, “Chymasion, come to me! Arise!”

The egg tipped precipitously. Before Pip or Arosia could even begin to duck, there came a violent ripping sound like a Dragonship’s air sack bursting in a storm, and bucket-loads of hot but not scalding liquid splattered them from head to toe. In a flash of green scales, the newborn hatchling bowled Arosia over, laughing, gurgling, licking her face and limbs with a bright purple, forked tongue, mewling with pleasure as the girl flung out her arms and hugged anything within reach. Arosia was laughing too, begging for relief; the hatchling leaped at Pip and slurped the sticky albumen off her face in one enormous lick, before bounding off in a welter of enthusiasm and running headfirst into his shell-mother’s flank.

Seizing the massive green hatchling in her paws–for he was three or more times larger than any ordinary hatchling–Shimmerith crooned in beautiful, multi-harmonic Dragonsong:

He breathes! He burns!

The Dragonsong of living fire,

Blessed eggling, born to fly.

Chymasion stilled. He stilled, but only because draconic magic overwhelmed him. Arosia, who had reached out to help Pip scramble to her feet, dumped her on the floor without a second thought. Mercy. Now she had a sharp pain in her lower back as a counterpoint to a new song of magic in her heart, a song of joy for Arosia and Chymasion. The young Dragon blinked, and Pip felt magic wash over her–like the Land Dragon, Leandrial, he appeared to be using emitted magic to supply sight, rather than ordinary Dragon senses. He was not blind. Chymasion likely saw more than any of them, even though his eyes resembled jade jewels indwelled by Dragon fire–utterly unlike the swirling fire-eyes of his shell-mother, and his colour beneath the layer of sticky, yellow-white albumen clinging to his hide was a remarkable jade-green that shone with a distinct inner effulgence.

Unusual colours, unusual powers–a belief enshrined in Dragon lore. Pip herself was an ultra-rare Onyx Dragoness. What did this forebode?

As if drawn together by invisible strings, Arosia and Chymasion approached each other. Diffident. Exultant. Buzzing with hope.

Human girl, thou art the quintessence of magic’s beauty, Chymasion breathed.

Arosia sighed. “Chymasion, whatever you just said, I feel the same. I don’t understand. I feel as if you’re the piece of my life that has been missing all these years, yet I didn’t even know it was missing until this evening. What is this magic? Help us, Pip. Please.”

Finding her feet awkwardly, Pip explained, “This is the ancient magic of Dragon and Rider, the intertwining of a Dragon’s fire-soul and a Human’s soul. I believe your hearts have already spoken this oath.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she observed Balthion’s furious expression. Trouble. No need for the senses of the jungle-born to understand that. Yet this magic was immutable. It could no less be denied than the Island-World might be denied passage around the twin suns. Pip knew she must play her part, and let the future speak for itself.

Drawing close to the smitten pair, she began, “Repeat after me. Let us burn the heavens …”

Together, Arosia and Chymasion echoed, “Let us burn the heavens together, as Dragon and Rider.”

For sheer joy, the Islands shivered.

Chapter 4: Animals Inside and Out

AN HOUR LATER, Pip found herself back in Master Kassik’s office on her favourite patch of carpet, this time, the object of a father’s wrath.

“You!” Balthion roared. His face had turned an improbable shade of puce. “It’s your fault! My daughter is not riding off to war! Arosia has barely turned fifteen summers of age and you, you wretched Shapeshifter Dragoness, have the nerve, the presumption, to force her into a Dragon Rider oath? Much as I love and respect you, Pip, I will not have you interfering in her life in this manner!”

Master Kassik said, “Calm down, old friend. Nobody’s riding off to war as yet.”

“No, I get to sweat for a few hours beforehand!”

“No mere hatchling is flying with us to the Crescent Islands,” Kassik clarified. “Silver, what’s your assessment?”

“Chymasion is a most unusual hatchling,” said the Silver Dragon, head and shoulders inside Kassik’s office. “He stated that he accelerated his own growth for the reason that we will require him in the battles to come–specifically, that the Onyx Dragoness will require the services of his magic.”

“Impossible,” snorted Master Balthion.

“One would almost think you were the Dragon, Balthion, not I,” said Kassik.

Some communication passed between the men which Pip did not understand, for Balthion’s shoulders slumped and he buried his face in his hands. Between his fingers, he groaned, “Please don’t say it. Kassik, I know you’re a good man. An upstanding leader. I know you would not place any of these young ones in danger, save for reason of great need. If you fear for Casitha, then know my plight is similar.”

Again, Kassik did not speak. He only knelt before Balthion and placed his palm on the man’s right knee.

“Don’t ask this of me, Kassik.”

“I’m not asking. I wish to impress upon you that a Dragon just pledged the strength of his paw and the fires of his eternal soul to your daughter. And the truth is, Balthion, she would be no safer here at the Academy, or anywhere else in the Island-World. You heard what they did down south. Five thousand Dragons razed the Islands, leaving no single creature alive. Ay, she might live but a few weeks longer here. I am sorry, old friend.”

Pip stiffened. She had heard whispers of genocide, she had hoped against hope that her dreams might be disproven as meaningless nightmares; to have it confirmed as truth, made her feel nauseous. The Southern Academy had been utterly destroyed by the Dragons Assassins. What would they do to the Crescent?

She said, “Masters, why don’t you evaluate them?”

Kassik narrowed his eyes. “What’re you suggesting, Pip?”

“Why don’t you allow Chymasion and Arosia to fly with us as far as Sylakia Island? If Master Balthion still wishes to shield them, they can help with inquiries there or return safely to Jeradia via the Spine Islands.”

“Hmm.” The beard came in for a brisk scratching that reminded Pip of Hunagu rooting for fleas. “Good thinking, Pipsqueak. Perhaps I will interview this hatchling.”

Silver, would you summon Chymasion, please? Pip asked.

Kassik arched an eyebrow. “He’s flying already?”

“I’m surprised you couldn’t hear the whoops from here, Master. Chymasion has already been fitted with a Dragon Rider saddle and flies aloft with Arosia.”

Balthion growled, “I accept, Pip. But just remember, I’m flying with you this time. I expect my camp to be made perfectly every night, hot tea on demand and my boots polished to Sylakian War-Hammer standards. Understood?”

“Certainly Master. Silver will be happy to oblige.”

Silver just aimed an unsheathed talon at her, which set both Masters laughing.

Kassik threw an arm about Balthion’s shoulders. “So, old friend. Shall we share a glass of my best Mejian red, before we go check on our students’ preparations? You choose which ones you’d like to boot first, and I’ll see to the rest.”

“Well done and bargained for.” Balthion clasped forearms with the Brown Shapeshifter.

“And me?” asked Pip.

“Haven’t you got boots to polish?” Master Balthion waggled his eyebrows at her, which always made her laugh. “Go remind Kaiatha to pack her father’s secret diary. Has she unscrambled it yet? I’ve an itch inside my left ear that says we’ll need that information to find the Order of Onyx.”

“Yes, Master.”

“And, Pip?” Kassik called.

Pip turned, already halfway to Silver. “Something else, Master?”

“Excellent work today, Pygmy girl. But no more surprises before bedtime, alright?”

“How can I promise the impossible, Master?”

* * * *

Bitter cold. She had known midwinter’s bite in the Sylakian zoo, yet this was bitterer. Deathly cold had attended the deaths of friends in her dormitory. This was deeper. She had known the chill of Telisia’s poison stealing between bone and marrow, between spirit and fire, yet this cold froze the very pith of a person’s living soul. Immedicable. Inescapable. Burning like cold-fire.

Pip whimpered in her sleep.

She wanted to run, to hide, for the shadow sought her unerringly, and the touch of its invisible claw was death. Her tongue cleaved to the roof of her mouth. Her eyeballs froze in their sockets. Frost crept through her veins, halting the latticework flow of life’s warmth, freezing in perpetuity that which was Pip. Her skin grew whiter than winter’s mantle, even the rich mahogany of her Pygmy birthright stolen by the march of her infirmity, the antithesis of all that was hale and golden and Dragon fire.

The creature hunted, its siren cry ringing across the leagues between the Islands, fey and furious. She cowered. Quailed. No! Not her Dragoness … the Shadow turned, seeing with eyes not of any world she knew, seeking … orienting on her …

“No!” With a scream, Pip fled her bunk bed and landed on her tailbone. Again.

Yaethi’s arms! Real and warm, they gripped her with a strength as tenacious and hope-imbuing as life itself.

“Oh, oh, oh mercy, Yaethi … it was here, the beast …”

At the same time, her friend whispered, “Pip, your skin’s ice! Are you alright?”

“It’s here!”

“Pip, nothing’s–Arrabon?”

The Green Dragon’s voice issued from right outside the dormitory’s closed and barred shutters. “I sense nothing, my Rider-heart.” Nothing moves amiss, Pip. Be at peace.

“Then you must go to Shimmerith, as agreed,” Yaethi said.

Into the night? Into the Shadow-creature’s realm? She stammered, “I c-can’t go o-out there!”

Courage, Pygmy Dragoness, Arrabon urged, filling her mind with overtones of safety, protection and a Dragon’s battle-readiness. Fight fear’s dark-fires.

Where was her vaunted courage now? Fled upon the wings of some ridiculous nightmare? She must go. Accepting Yaethi’s cloak, Pip padded to the First Year Girls’ dormitory door to inform Jerrion and Barrion that she would fly to Shimmerith’s roost with Arrabon. They had heard the commotion.

But she searched the skies no less than a dozen times as Arrabon whisked her up the mountain to Nak and Shimmerith’s roost. Pip deliberately turned her thoughts to the advice she had sought from Master Adak during their three-hour conversation earlier that evening. Master Adak would not travel, for he was responsible for building the Academy’s defences and training the defenders. But he had waxed garrulous about the Crescent Isles and Pygmy culture, as was his wont, cramming enormous amounts of useful information into the available time. She needed to reflect upon his wisdom. Internalise his instructions for meeting unfamiliar Pygmies. Recap his description of the likely forms a Naming ceremony might take. There was so much a stolen child had never learned …

If she slept curled up in the Sapphire Dragoness’ paw, would she be safe? Could the beast stalk her even in Human form? Yet, Zardon had once sniffed out a Pygmy Shapeshifter in a cage. Could the beast do the same? Her presence might be exposing every single denizen of the Academy to mortal danger.

The sooner they departed, the better.

Within, Emblazon curled massively about his sleek mate and their three hatchlings, fully blocking the entrance to the crowded roost. But a sleepy round of shuffling afforded her a mouse-hole behind the wall of his flank to slip inside, right into the centre of their Dragon family, there to be engulfed in Shimmerith’s mothering paw. The Sapphire Dragoness crooned softly to her, as if Pip were one of her own hatchlings.

Despite her shivering, Pip found herself drifting off to sleep. Her last thoughts centred on the possibility of having two mothers. Or else, from where or what did a spontaneous draconic heritage like hers spring? Pollen-like magic blowing on the Island-World’s breezes?

* * * *

In the following morning’s pre-dawn chill, over a hundred Dragons, Riders and Academy staff converged on the field outside the infirmary. Wings rustled restively. Saddle-straps creaked as Riders checked them one more time. Weapons clinked. Maylin argued with everyone and everything around her, including the air itself, while Kaiatha and Duri stood hand in hand next to their Dragons, sharing a last-minute cuddle. Master Kassik, transformed into his massive Brown Dragon manifestation, stalked about snapping orders at anyone foolish enough to cross his path. There was something about being growled at from a height of twenty feet above one’s head that made Humans rush to obey. Pip grinned. Odd, that.

Nak sweated over affixing a massive war-harness to Emblazon, who clacked his fangs at an armourer who accidentally prodded him in the flank with a Dragon lance. His harness included space for three warriors aside from his Rider, Oyda, and mounts for flanking and rearward-facing war crossbows.

Pip eyed all of this activity from a short distance apart. She did not want to tangle with Emblazon in his irascible mood. Sleek and gleaming like a molten bar of silver even in the early gloom, courtesy of a last-minute lava bath and hot-oil treatment, Silver chatted earnestly to Chymasion and Arosia. Instructions, Pip suspected. Battle tips.

Her sharp eyes picked out a shadow descending a tree near one of the Academy buildings. It vanished into a narrow alleyway and did not reappear. Ha. Hunagu thought he could sneak up on a Shapeshifter Dragoness, did he? Yet, given the Ape’s supreme jungle-craft, it took Pip a long time to figure out how he had disappeared. Astonishing how a dark-furred Oraial Ape, who stood fourteen feet tall on his hind legs, could utilise the scant cover to camouflage himself perfectly. She scanned the open fields, the retaining terrace wall that separated the higher ground of the buildings from the lower field, and tugged crossly on her crazy curls. Where was he?

A tiny bush shifted up there on the wall. The drainage ditch. Ay! The Ape must be bellying along. Pip padded across to the wall. Now, he could pass right above her, and then she would …

“Pip-Pip!”

A huge, furry arm snaffled her up.

She hooted back in Ape-language, “Hunagu mighty-jungle-hunter. Good-good? Ready fly?”

“Ready get mate.” He thumped his barrel chest with a fist easily larger than Pip’s torso. “Ready go home. Pip go home? Stay home?”

That Pygmy spear of truth pierced her sorely. Hunagu had lost none of his ability to see straight to the heart of a matter. Never think Oraial Apes were simple, she admonished herself. Never think that simple speech equated to a simple mind, or a deficiency of heart. The Ape cradled her in his arms just as he used to cradle a Pygmy child to shelter her from his mother-Ape’s madness. There had been love in her Pygmy village, she remembered. But Hunagu, an animal to most people, had been the first to teach her a deeper kind of love, a love rooted in loyalty and sacrifice, a love which had saved many of her friends’ lives during an attack on their dormitory.

Would she see the dormitory again? This Academy?

“Hunagu go to jungle, take mate, have big-big family. Be happy-happy,” she said.

“Huh,” he snorted. “Pip family stinky no-good Dragons?”

She chuckled merrily. Kassik would transport him in a net which had been reinforced with metal cables. She pointed, “That Dragon. Silver.”

“Huh. Pip pretty. Dragon ugly pig-face pile of bat droppings …” He descended into unintelligible grumbling.

“Mount up!” bellowed Kassik. “We’ve a Marshal to kick in the teeth!”

Emblazon, Tazzaral and Emmaraz saluted these words with massive battle-challenges. Even Silver joined in the roaring, Pip noticed, until draconic thunder shook the nearby window-shutters. So much for anyone still trying to sleep.

Immediately, Faranion, Jerrion and Barrion scaled ropes dangling from Emblazon’s harness. Maylin yelped as Nak pinched her behind. “Move this rondure, o Empress of the East,” he smirked. Oyda promptly hauled Nak off by his left ear, snapping, “Get on your Dragon before Emblazon mistakes you for a stringy piece of goat-meat, Dragon Rider.” Durithion and Kaiatha buckled into their saddle harnesses onto Jyoss and Tazzaral respectively. Casitha balanced upon Chymasion’s shoulder, checking Arosia’s saddle and harness with expert hands, before running along his flank and leaping gleefully into Kassik’s upraised paw. She was so excited; Kassik could not help but bare his fangs in a Dragonish grin.

Pip bowed to Silver. “May I request a paw up, noble Silver?”

“At once, o startlingly formal Rider,” he replied. “How fare the wounds?”

“I’m in constant pain,” she admitted, stepping off his paw onto his muscular upper shoulder. The flight muscles were the bulkiest muscles of a Dragon’s physique, as hard as iron when taut yet as resilient as the finest, most flexible of blades. “Mistress Mya’adara supplied her usual range of oh-so-tasty herbal remedies. The first gave me the itches and the second had me seeing hallucinations in corners. So we’re trying a third concoction. At least Shimmerith has promised to help.”

As she settled into her saddle, a moulded leather pad stuffed with the finest duck-down from Archion Island, Silver stretched his wings along with the other Dragons, pumping his muscles to stimulate the circulation and warm up his joints and ligaments. Silver was not large, so he wore a fledgling’s saddle harness, fastened by ratchet straps to the spine-spikes ahead of and behind her position above his shoulders, between what would be a Human’s shoulder blades. The saddle was further anchored by a double girth strap, wire-reinforced, and an innovative armpit harness developed by Hardak, Maylin’s wheelchair-bound boyfriend. Those flexible straps fastened beneath the Dragon’s forelegs and ran up the front of his shoulders to the saddle, and were further buckled together in the middle beneath his chest and ran down to the girth-straps, making this arrangement the securest Dragon Rider saddle yet conceived.

Silver sniffed, “Remains to be seen if these armpit straps will withstand the rigours of Dragon flight.”

Pip checked her saddlebags, located aft of her legs. Pygmy bow and arrows. Immadian forked daggers. Razor ribbons. Sword. Dragon Rider armour. She was ready to start her own war.

Silver said, “Brace yourself.”

“Not ready!” Pip hastily buckled in her waist-strap, fumbling as she was forced to work one-handed, followed by the double thigh straps. She stretched her legs gingerly, trying to find the least painful position.

“Ready now?” His fire-eyes whirled drolly at her over his shoulder.

A storm of Dragons taking off made Pip shield her face with her arm. She dropped her Pygmy bow as her bad shoulder declared its annoyance at being jostled. It bounced down Silver’s back. Clucking like an enraged parakeet, she unbuckled herself and retrieved the weapon.

“Any time before suns-set will do.”

Helpful, Dragon. Pip produced a stonking mental snort.

“Pip! Pip, wait!”

“Now Yaethi?” said Silver. “By my wings, the day grows old.”

Her habitually cool and collected friend bounded down the steps from the infirmary, waving a scroll above her head as though it were some form of scholarly sword. “Pip, I found it. Stop. Don’t leave without this.”

No, I’m apparently stuck on the ground with a bunch of dithering women, said Silver.

I’ll gladly smack you and your lizard-halitosis later, Pip offered with exceeding generosity. “What is it, Yaethi?”

Yaethi rushed up to Silver, all a-fluster. “Here, Pip. Catch.” An accurate throw landed the neatly tied scroll in her lap. She rattled, “It’s a code-breaking scroll written by Kaiatha’s father. We knew it was somewhere in the library but it had fallen behind a scroll-rack and it took all of the night to find and you have to take the scroll with you, alright? I’ve added two sheaves of notes from Master Shambithion and I, which are tucked inside, so don’t lose them in the Cloudlands or you will not be a popular Pygmy any more.”

Pip raised her hands in mock surrender. “Message hawk received at high speed, Yaethi. May we leave now?”

“The royal permission.” Yaethi swept into a fluid Helyon bow, hands outstretched as though she were about to dive from a height into water. “Go burn the heavens, noble Silver. By the way, did you know there’s a mosquito strapped to your back?”

Silver chuckled dryly, “Go burn a few scrolleaves, Yaethi, Rider of Arrabon. We’re relying on you.”

* * * *

The snap-spring of Silver’s vertical take-off caused Pip to groan in pain, but the young Dragon adjusted immediately with a low apology, deliberately smoothing his wingbeat in order to jar her as little as possible. Still, the intense acceleration pressed her against the additional padding installed behind her back as a concession to a wounded Rider. The school receded as Silver rose fluidly into the dawn’s first suns-beams, orienting upon a flight of winged specks climbing toward a band of pink-hued cumulus clouds blanketing the mountains east of the Academy volcano. The plan was to skirt the northern shore of Jeradia Island before turning northeast, following the Spine Islands all the way up to Archion and Sylakia. This retraced the journey in which Pip had first flown Dragonback to her new school with the Red Dragon Zardon.

Then, Zardon had fallen to the Marshal’s forces. Pip sucked in her cheeks. Could she hope the feisty old Shifter had only been brainwashed into becoming one of the Night-Reds? If asked, could she fight a Dragon who had become her friend? Who had called her his Rider?

The horizon remained mute to her questions.

Silver forged toward the rising suns with a steady yet forceful wingbeat, visibly overhauling the Dragonwing ahead. The air was so fresh and cool, free at last of volcanic gases and grit, it made her shiver with pleasure. The view over Jeradia’s mountains was more than worthy of some of Nak’s effusive poetry. No wonder Dragons loved to fly.

She slipped off her shoes with a pleased sigh and stowed them in her starboard saddlebag. Even the wind on her bare toes felt lovely. Crescent Isles mud? That would have been perfection itself.

He said, “I didn’t make you cry, did I?”

Wretchedly perceptive Dragon senses! “I was remembering Zardon.”

“And you’re moved by the draconic need to avenge?”

She considered this. “Partly. Partly the wish to save my friends, or as many of the Lesser Dragons as possible. Partly the wish to prove myself. To prove my humanity … er, my dragon–how do you say that? Dragonicity? Dragonishness? Anyways, to prove that I will use the powers I’ve been granted to the best of my ability, for the greater good.”

“Noble thoughts,” the Dragon commented without levity or mockery. “You’re a jungle warrior. Do you see yourself as animal? You threatened to undo me with your animal powers, as I recall.”

“That was a bluff–well, not entirely. I suppose I am closer to the animal kingdom than some. Master Ga’am advised me not to fear a lack of humanity, but to turn my savage upbringing into a source of strength. Ay, he called me a savage. He didn’t mean it badly, I don’t think.”

The Dragon disagreed with a choked-off roar.

Pip patted his shoulder with her bare foot. “Thanks, Silver.”

He added, “In Herimor you’ll find many creatures that imitate Humans and Dragons, and many more varieties of Shapeshifters than you seem to have north of the Rift. We call these the many manifestations of life, for Herimor philosophy equates life with magic. In recent decades the Dragon Shapeshifters have risen to prominence above the other races. They rule the pyramid of power. And the Marshal himself is a White Dragon of great power and guile in battle.”

Odd how his Dragon spoke more formally than his Human manifestation. Pip had the impression he might even be quoting from scroll-lore.

“He’s a Star Dragon?” she inquired.

“No, but I have heard it said that he has legendary powers–Kinetic ability, for example, by which he levitated his Island, coupled with shielding capable of protecting us all during our perilous journey across the Rift. He seemed able to source power from the Rift storms themselves. Would you like to hear the tale?”

“Would a Pygmy love to fly?”

“Ay,” he chuckled.

Rumours of Marshal Re’akka’s discovery of a First Egg triggered an invasion by his bitter, lifelong enemy, Marshal X’arth, who at the head of an army of veteran Dragons razed seventeen Islands almost unopposed. Then, without any warning whatsoever, the proverbial Island flipped on its head. Re’akka rose. In his White Dragon manifestation, he rose against eighty-five powerful Dragons armoured for war, and singlehandedly struck half of them down with his opening blow. The balance, he ensorcelled with what Silver later came to realise was the Shadow-beast’s help, and lured them inside his Island of Eridoon.

X’arth’s defeat–a swift and punishing affair–so alarmed the other Marshals of the Northern Kahilate region of Herimor that they assembled six Dragonwings supported by six armies of Human troops, Heripedes and Jagok lizards. En masse, they laid siege to Eridoon Island.

Silver added, “We did not realise that the initial conflict had depleted Re’akka so severely. Then, he had only a fraction of the strength he possesses now. And had we understood his debilitation or his plans for the future, we might have risen to overthrow the Marshal. But he was cunning. Devious. He directed us to defend the Island, and a bitter, attritional siege it was. Months long. Battle after battle. Horrific injuries–you don’t want to know, Pip.”

The food shortage became so critical, some Dragons resorted to cannibalism. Pip gasped reflexively. Dragons eating Dragons? She had never imagined …

With the forces of the rival Marshals closing in relentlessly, Marshal Re’akka secretly gathered his strength and resources, while undermining the base of Eridoon Island with the help of fifty Dragons of Brown powers supplemented by a vast mass of rock-chewing dragonworms, one of the most basic and unintelligent forms of Dragon life in Herimor. The Dragon engineers hollowed out vast storage caverns and living areas within the Island, lightening the load. Thousands of Human thralls–men enslaved by the Marshal’s power and reduced to the mental capacity of dim-witted beasts–laboured night and day to clear the rubble. When they were no longer of use, Re’akka had them hacked up for Dragon fodder. Too many mouths. Extra baggage.

Re’akka unleashed his Shadow Dragon to devastate the enemy Dragonwings. Over a thousand Dragonkind streamed into the Island, some to sate the Shadow-beast’s appetite, but most to undergo the month-long, secret ‘imprinting’ process that changed their colour and mindset. Meantime, his battered forces laboured to fill the great caverns with stolen provisions.

Then, the Marshal flexed his gigantic psychic capability, and wrenched Eridoon off its foundations.

“Did the other Marshals just let him go?” Pip asked.

Silver said, “No. They had retreated to lick their wounds, but not far, and not for long. We fled across the Rift ahead of their advance because the Marshal was concerned his rivals would find a way to steal the First Egg from him, or subvert its power to their advantage.”

“A pity we couldn’t just fly to Herimor and ask around about the source of his power, if it’s somehow native to your land,” Pip mused.

“And receive a properly poisoned dagger in the ribs, this time? Besides that we’re out of time, Pip, and the fact that crossing the Rift is impossible–”

“Save by egg-wielding Marshals and Land Dragons,” Pip said, drawing a snarl from Silver.

“–impossible under ordinary conditions. Anyways, I would not allow it.”

“You’d prevent me?”

“Ay. I rather fancy an alive and snarky yet unfailingly fascinating jungle maiden, as opposed to the ‘enthralled by the Marshal’ version, or worse, the ‘dead under the Cloudlands’ option which I and my forces attempted to ensure.”

His backward-facing grin was a study in apology, insult and humour, Pip decided, returning the favour with a grin that elevated fricasseed Silver Shapeshifter into first place on the menu she was rapidly populating. As Nak would say, double-bah with carnivorous slug-sauce poured on top. She’d teach him a thing or two about what might or might not be allowed in this relationship!

She said, “Not the naked and tied up in your arms affair you seemed to fancy a few weeks back, as I recall? Ay, Silver?”

He had the grace to make a draconic blush, a surging of his belly-fires followed by tongues of fire hissing between his clenched fangs. “I was supposed to capture you. I make no apology for your lack of decent attire at the time. Besides, I hear Mistress Mya’adara has secretly assigned Oyda to chaperone us on this trip. She hopes to warrant there will be no ‘incidents of a delicate nature’ between certain teenagers.”

“Incidents? The Mistress said that?”

“A touch more directly,” Silver admitted.

“She warned you, didn’t she?” His guilty wing-shiver told her all she needed to know! “Roaring rajals, where’s the trust around these Islands?”

“You do have a … reputation.”

“Reputation?” Her chuckle sounded more like a hound’s warning bark. “I suppose I do. Silver, I’m embarrassed to admit, I don’t even know–are you of age? How old are you?”

“Seventeen summers. Back in Herimor, the matchmakers would’ve done their work and I’d already be promised to a pretty Shapeshifter from a suitable bloodline. Probably one who knows to wear clothing on the odd occasion.”

Ooh, fighting talk. “Just keep storing up that volcano’s-worth of trouble for yourself, young Dragon.”

Thereafter, the conversation returned to Marshal Re’akka’s unique ability to draw magical power from other Dragons, the mysteries of the First Egg and even the magical Rift storms. Silver sketched their passage across the Rift as a weeks-long struggle against the sky-spanning, multihued storms that plagued the Rift; how chain lightning had raced across the skies and attacked the shielded Island with clear intelligence and design, of vast draconic cloud-creatures that swam and sported amidst the eternal tempests, and hundred-league vortexes capable of swallowing entire Islands with ease. Pip was pleased to learn the Marshal had almost died striving to forge that crossing. Any sign of vulnerability had to shore up her anaemic stores of hope.

They chatted on as they passed through a layer of cool, wispy cloud and rose slowly into the luminous suns-shine above, which reflected off the underlying layer of pristine white cumulus with blinding intensity. Between the patches of cloud, Pip from her Dragon’s-eye perch could look over the rugged mountain tessellations of Jeradia laid out like a stark warning to the unwary traveller, great bands of basalt and granite interspersed with unexpected hints of rose quartz and even glints of bronze and copper deposits. To the North, a second layer of cloud lay perhaps a league and a half beneath their altitude, the impassable, apparently impermeable Cloudlands. One could almost imagine walking out over that deathly tan carpet; no need to remind any Human or Dragon of the dangers essayed every time one chose to travel beyond an Island’s shores.

An hour’s flying caught them up to the Dragonwing, for the others had not chosen to wait for the tardy couple–or, Pip suspected, Silver had dawdled just a touch in order to spend time in private with her.

Shimmerith greeted them with, “School’s in session, class. Gather around.”

“School in the air?” Maylin groaned. “Pip, you put her up to this, didn’t you?”

“No, I did,” said Master Kassik, in his Dragon form a hulking Brown who looked capable of boring through mountains if the mood took him. “We’ll not waste a single hour aloft. Shimmerith will teach magical offensive and defensive techniques, Emblazon and Oyda are in charge of battle tactics, I will lecture you on Dragon lore until it oozes out of your respective ears and ear canals, and Master Balthion will cover the arts and cultures of the Crescent Isles.”

“What about me?” asked Nak, managing to sound affronted.

With great dignity, Kassik said, “You, noble Dragon Rider, are in charge of entertainment.”

Chapter 5: Ambush

ON ITS NORTH-EASTERN tip, Jeradia Island carved away into the Cloudlands with a final, defiantly jutting headland that seemed to indicate the way to the Spine. Sultry black granite and obsidian cliffs three miles tall dwarfed the Dragonwing as, following an hour’s rest on the ground, the Dragons hurled themselves bodily into the void. Pip and Maylin whooped for joy as their Dragons raced neck-and-neck in a mile-and-a-half vertical plunge before swerving away into a horizontal sprint that whipped a warm breeze through Pip’s unruly curls, and turned Maylin’s long, glossy hair into a raven’s wing behind her head. Not far behind, they heard Arosia’s unrestrained laughter bubbling away as Chymasion pulled out of his dive, followed by a duet of wild yells from Kaiatha and Durithion. A characteristic bugle trumpeted from Tazzaral’s throat, resounding off the cliffs. A quarter-mile overhead, Kassik, Emblazon and Shimmerith forged stolidly into a brisk headwind, leaving the shenanigans and foolery to the juvenile Dragons.

“This is how to cut class,” Maylin yelled across to Pip.

“Don’t tell Emblazon. His idea of teaching fledglings aerial combat prowess is to shoot fireballs at their rumps.”

Silver put in, “Some people do rather beg for it.”

“Thanks for the support, boyfriend.” Silver had positively awoken since his thrashing at her paws, not half as serious a character as she had judged him to be. Pip said, “I wonder if the Spine continues under the Cloudlands all the way to Jeradia? Maylin?”

Maylin pretended to clap her hand to her forehead in realisation. “I knew we shouldn’t have left Yaethi behind. She’d have consulted a centuries-old scroll of secret Dragon lore inked by the Ancient Dragon scientists in order to memorise the precise measurements of every possible landmass within a thousand leagues. In lieu of which–”

Silver said, “We look for disturbances in the Cloudlands. Clouds swirling about a half-hidden peak down there could be a clue, or smoke and outgassing from volcanic vents, or at night, a shallow, active volcano may backlight the clouds from beneath. In Herimor, it is common for Islands to float due to the action of hentioragions–that is, a large family of swarming Dragon species which infest the underside of Islands in their millions and builds nests from skin-covered, helium-filled nodules. We call them Bloats.”

Unexpectedly, Emmaraz performed an aerial half-bow. “Thank you for the instruction, Master Silver.”

Pip, Maylin and Emmaraz burst out laughing.

“Ah, but I have barely begun to disseminate the all-conquering vastness of my wisdom,” said Silver, suddenly changing his wingbeat so that he imitated a fowl strutting through a village, “for the ragions are a vast class of sub-draconic creatures notable for their extraordinarily effectual gas-producing physiologies, some specimens of which float lazily through the air like your Dragonships, while others literally employ gas propulsion using rearward-facing, sphincter-controlled orifices–a novel use of bodily functions. And trust me, you don’t want to fly downwind from one of those, either.”

“Stop, have mercy,” hooted Maylin, clutching her stomach. “Whatever you do, please don’t tell that story to Nak. We’ll never hear the end of flatulent Dragons.”

To the tune of Silver protesting the accuracy of his teachings and Maylin pulling his wings until the young Dragon howled with mirth and rage, the students and their young Dragons swept across the khaki-tinged Cloudlands, rising to a flying altitude of two and a half miles above that deathly realm, which the balladeers called ‘the blight of the Island-World’. No-one, not even the Dragons, knew why the base of their world was covered in an everlasting, impenetrable layer of gases, but everyone knew a terrible end awaited anyone or anything that fell into the Cloudlands. Their acidic wash afflicted even the lowest-lying, hardiest lichens. Only Land Dragons dwelled in those toxic depths, Pip believed, able to survive the immense pressures and heat, and the poisons of their native demesne.

In her heart, she cried, Leandrial, how will we defeat this enemy? How will we return the First Egg to you?

Nothing stirred. The Cloudlands brooded in immovable majesty. Life clung to the paltry rocks peeking above that vast, rolling cloudscape, a precarious perch between the billows below and the rain-bringing, life-giving clouds above. Why had the Ancient Dragons chosen to carve their Island roosts out of such a forbidding landscape? Simply because this was where they had arrived? Was the whole Island-World like this, or did the rumour of a world beyond the Rim-Wall Mountains convey the nub of an inexpressible truth?

Pip turned in her seat to gaze back at Jeradia. A farewell. A bastion of life, of her brief history, already slipping away into the horizon. All that mattered out here was the will to keep flying across an unconquerable domain, the strength and magic of a Dragon, and the spread of great, multi-jointed wings upon the warm, redolent breeze.

She said, “Silver, is Dragon flight all about the physics and mechanics involved, or is there a certain amount of innate magic a Dragon must employ in order to stay aloft?”

“I would not presume to steal Shimmerith’s thunder,” he said, “but the answer is, ‘of course’. Look at the size of a Kassik or an Endurion. Do you truly believe all that tonnage can stay aloft for hours on end without the use of magic, or manoeuvre in combat situations with such speed and facility that one simply must conclude the existence of magical compensation for the forces of momentum and gravity?”

“I … don’t know, Silver.”

“Well, then I’d better return you to teacher, hadn’t I?”

For that, he earned a kick of pure frustration.

* * * *

When Emblazon chose to vent his fury, he could be heard from a quarter-league away. Right now, he was delivering his considered opinion to Chymasion Dragon-style, which meant both barrels of his nostrils smoking and flaming, a thundering telling-off and a bristling display of aggression. The hatchling wobbled in the air.

Pip winced, losing concentration as her part of the pneumatic shield she had formed with Silver failed. Her Dragon grunted and released his construct. The pneumatic shield was basic to many more specialised forms of magical shielding–aerodynamically optimised shields to aid Dragon flight, oxygen and heat retention for high-altitude flight, or equally, gas exclusion to counteract rare Grey Dragon poison gas attacks, and the all-important projectile weapon shield for combat. A powerful Blue could even form a shield capable of resisting Dragon talons and fire. Somehow, Pip had assumed shields would be simple. Innate magic, perhaps, or instinctive to all Dragons. Now she had a blinding headache and it was barely mid-afternoon. And she knew the topic of shields for an art-form in its own right.

Nak said, “Let me guess. Chymasion said he was rested enough, fine to fly all the way to the Spine Islands. See the droop of his wings? He’s ready to drop out of the sky and we’re still four hours from land.”

“He’s just a hatchling,” said Kaiatha, nibbling the end of her braid.

“Shimmerith. Silver. With me,” said Kassik, banking sharply. “Durithion–keep leading your Dragonwing Northeast.”

“Uh, me? Sir?”

“You’re in command, Dragon Rider,” the Master replied with the blunt lack of humour of a professional soldier.

Pip chuckled at the way Duri jerked upright in his saddle, as if he had sat on one of the barrel-cacti that dotted Jeradia’s dry, mountainous upland deserts.

The Brown Dragon’s gaze flicked to her. Cork it, Pipsqueak. But his mental tone belied the talon-sharp words, communicating bright notes of fond amusement. Today is all about lessons. Shimmerith, can you touch Pip? She appears to be running a slight fever.

I am?

Some Dragons see in the infrared spectrum, Shimmerith explained, winging closer as she reaching out with her right forepaw. Remind me to add Dragon sight to my lessons, Nak. He saluted nonchalantly, intent on the confrontation between Chymasion and Emblazon. Here, Pip. Hold steady, young Silver. I must touch her with my paw. Actually, little one, attend very closely. I believe you may possess this healing power.

Er, her or me? asked Silver.

The one presently forgetting to flap his wings.

They bounced in the air as Silver resumed his wingbeat with a distinctly sheepish air. Pip almost expected him to bleat rather than breathe fire, but she hid that thought far from her hot-blooded boyfriend’s awareness. Shimmerith first synchronised wing-strokes with Silver, then descended to touch Pip carefully with her fore-talon. Pip almost ducked. One wrong move and the Sapphire Dragoness could swipe her head off her shoulders like a Pygmy harvesting breadfruit gourds for breakfast. Her headache evaporated.

Did you sense that? Shimmerith said.

Ay. That was interesting, Silver replied.

Pip waved her good arm crossly. “Hello? Another person is present.”

What would you call that type of sight, mighty Shimmerith?

Now Silver was being awfully formal. The girl stilled her surging irritation, coughing a little as a smoky tickle teased her throat. Really? Did this mean her Dragon powers were returning? Shimmerith had drifted off to a position a wing’s-length from Silver’s starboard flank, from which the Sapphire Dragoness gazed at the pair of Shapeshifters with a typically inscrutable draconic expression.

Ay, a pair of Shapeshifters–my thoughts exactly, Pip. Silver drew a deep breath. For a moment, with the benefit of Shimmerith’s unique inner sight, the sixth sense of Dragons, I saw your Onyx Dragoness form somehow … coalescing, or emerging … as though her perception conveyed a power which summoned your second-soul from the far realms, and upon examining you more closely, I perceived that your Shifted form was also wounded, as if its spirit were injured in an exact mirror image of your physical, Human flesh. I do not understand. Why is this, Shimmerith?

The Dragoness said, Who’s the Shapeshifter, youngling? You? Or both of you?

She wriggled with evident pleasure at her joke.

Silver also squirmed as his mental processes clearly kicked off in a number of directions. Pip could almost see figurative smoke pouring out of his ear canals. He said, Because the poison was multiphasic. I’m right, aren’t I, o Sapphire of all wisdom?

Sapphire of wisdom? Somehow, with the benefit of the Dragonish language’s elaborately constructed, multi-layered semantic contextual indicators, the thought made sense, although it shivered Pip’s brain to think this way. Still, she did not grasp the insight he had evidently achieved. Not in the slightest.

Can we uncomplicate the Island Standard enough for a simple jungle girl to understand? she complained. Multiphasic? Second-soul?

Silver chuckled, You’ll have to introduce me to this simple jungle girl, Pip, because I haven’t met her yet.

Grr!

Pip, my precious fourth eggling, Shimmerith said, pouring motherly egg-love into her words, all Shapeshifters, from the time of Hualiama Dragonfriend onward, have believed in the doctrine of ‘one soul, two manifestations’–the two interchangeable manifestations of the Shapeshifter’s form are coexistent, but appear to shift between the physical, spiritual and magical realms in ways no Dragon science has ever fully explained. The place where your Dragoness lives while your Human form appears to us, fully corporeal–fully enfleshed, so to speak–is called by some ‘the far realms’. This is esoteric speculation, of course, the province of Shapeshifter philosophers. But the proof of oneness lies in what Silver just described–when one form is wounded, so is the other. The two are intimately connected. And what do you conclude from this, youngling?

Silver blinked, ambushed by her abrupt switch of direction. That to treat a Shapeshifter wounded in this way, one must treat both manifestations?

Very good, Silver.

What’s the ‘multiphasic’ bit, then? Pip asked.

She did not need to see Silver’s muzzle to know his smirk for what it was. Work it out, little one.

Grr! The Dragons laughed, even Master Kassik, who must have been eavesdropping. Pip abandoned her growling, feeling her face heat up to a fine glow of embarrassment. Why did she always have to end up at the bottom of the hierarchy, the littlest one? She was worth more!

You are worth more, Pip. Infinitely more. Her head jerked; Kassik gazed upon her with such a surfeit of burning pride, any possible protest dried up in her throat. When your feelings are so powerful, they broadcast to those with ears to listen. Now hear me. This ‘littleness’ which feeds your fears and constrains your thinking is a lie. A filthy, stinking, burn it in the nearest volcano, LIE!

Every Dragon’s head jerked about as his telepathic shout blasted across her.

Kassik gentled his voice into fatherly gruffness. Lies of the heart are the most powerful lies of all. The mind analyses, rationalises, discards. The heart is truly a Dragon of a different colour, Pip, and I say that true greatness is not hewn from deeds of paw and feats of strength. True greatness is founded in the exploits of a pure and noble heart. You saw Emblazon brought low after he betrayed us at Ya’arriol Island, yet it was not your strength of paw that restored him to his true-fires. It was a deed of great heart.

A sob tore free of her chest. Pip ducked her head, appalled at the storm his words evoked within her. Yet she heard from the region of Shimmerith’s saddle, Nak’s soft, fierce, ‘Hear, hear!’

The Brown Dragon drew close in the corner of her vision.

Here is another truth. Your humbleness is, contrariwise, your strength. Never lose sight of your origins, nor of the fundamental nature of your heart, Pip of the Pygmies, for power such as yours is a ravaging, seductive beast. And that beast knows no compassion.

Now he spoke less as a friend, and more as a Dragon Elder. Pip gulped. How could she hope to navigate the treacherous Islands of a life torn from the jungle and defiled by the zoo, redeemed by the kindness of Balthion and Arosia, and finally liberated by the paw of Zardon the Red? How could they hope to heal a part of her which apparently did not even exist in the physical realm? This Shapeshifter nature stretched her preconceptions about the world in many unexpected directions.

As Kassik, Silver and Shimmerith swept down on the Amber Dragon and his shell-son, Pip pondered her original confusion. “Silver, do you mean that the poison works on more than my flesh and blood?”

He nodded gravely. “Shapeshifter poisons are designed to disrupt, corrupt or destroy the different phases of your existence–your Dragon fires, your physical Dragon body, your Human form and spirit, and all the magic that binds it together–hence the technical term ‘multiphasic’. In my nursery, I once saw a poisoned Shifter try to transform. She turned into a half-baked mishmash of parts. Nasty.”

Pip and her mount shuddered simultaneously.

Meantime, Kassik marshalled his charges with a brisk series of commands. Chymasion landed on Emblazon’s lower back, moving as close to his spine-spikes as possible to try to minimise the imbalance his additional weight created. The hatchling slumped on the Amber Dragon’s broad back, looking utterly defeated. Meantime, the Jeradian trio transferred to Kassik’s saddle, increasing his load to five persons–Casitha, Balthion and the Jeradian giants. Shimmerith accepted Emblazon’s additional saddlebags and Dragon lances, while Silver carefully transferred a teary Arosia onto his shoulder. Pip unbuckled herself to give her friend a huge hug.

“Father will never let us fly now,” Arosia sobbed. “I feel so stupid.”

“Come on, you’ll be fine. Sit. I’m sure we can both fit on this saddle. And your dad looks worried, not cross.”

“He’s going to flay me like a prekki fruit and squeeze my innards for juice,” Arosia said.

“Don’t I know the feeling!”

* * * *

By the time the Spine Islands appeared on the evening horizon, even Emblazon had begun to wilt visibly. Oyda walked back to Chymasion and spoke with him, before mounting up and directing him to launch off his shell-father’s back. Arosia watched hollow-eyed.

Pip slapped her friend’s knee. “Cheer up.”

Arosia put her arms around Pip from behind. “Don’t be so determinedly positive when I’m having a full-blown moping session back here.”

“Chin up, Dragon Rider.”

“Chin up, heart down?”

“Tell you what. Until we reach the Spine, I’m going to test you on your Ancient Southern. Let’s see if we can turn you into a Pygmy. We’ll start by practicing the thirty-four chirps and twelve trills.”

“Because there’s a chirpy parakeet sitting in front of me?”

Pip watched Emmaraz and Tazzaral powering ahead to scout for a place to roost for the night. Security, water and game, in that order, Kassik instructed. From this perspective, her friends appeared to be flying toward a buried Dragon whose spine-spikes were the Islands, a curiously neat, geographically unique chain of uninhabited Islands demarcating the north-western border of the Middle Sea. The first three Islands in the row were active volcanoes, merrily smoking away like the furnace chimneys of a vast, hidden Dragonship, but Tazz and Emmaraz angled for the fourth, a hunchbacked beast of an Island which Pip recalled well. Hot springs, ample spiral-horn buck and a large windroc population awaited them. On cue, she saw flame blossom from the faraway Dragons–probably a few less feral windrocs in the Island-World as a result.

“Pip, will you stop wriggling? What’s bothering you?” Silver intruded on her thoughts.

“Me?”

“Ay you, twitchy-toes Pygmy-person. Do you think I’d be so rude to Arosia? Are you nervous? Jumpy? Fire-ants in your trousers?”

“No. I just … it’s a feeling. A jungle sense. Here, see what you make of this.”

Pip felt the light touch of Silver’s mind upon hers. After what he had done before, allowing him in demanded a deal of trust. She hoped her misgivings would not be too transparent.

At length, Silver said, “A jungle sense, indeed. You think we’re being watched? Tracked? By what? Or whom?”

“Silver, if I knew that …”

“Ay. And this is dissimilar to anything you’ve felt before. We should warn Master Kassik. He’s a believer in your jungle senses–as am I! Down, Dragoness. I didn’t deserve that kick. My third or fourth today, or I miss my count. Who’s carting who between the Islands, may I ask?”

“This morning I’m a mosquito, now you’re a flying cart?”

Arosia said, “Do all Dragons bicker with their Riders like this, Pip? Chymasion’s as sweet as sugar-bamboo sap and treats me as if I’m a fragile vial of blown glass. Jyoss and Tazz are too busy necking and wingtip-batting and all that Dragonish courtship nonsense to pay any attention to being cheeky to their Riders, and Maylin and Emmaraz seem to talk about nothing but battle. But, you two–sword and whetstone, hammer and anvil!”

“Magnificent Rider and adolescent cliff-lizard?” Pip suggested.

“Fireborn Prince of Herimor and scruffy scale-scrubber?” Silver returned with equal insincerity.

Arosia rolled her eyes. “Honestly, the names you two call each other. Oh, Master Kassik’s calling for the next lesson. Back to class.”

That evening, they pitched camp in the lee of a small lakeside cliff, upon a strip of black volcanic sand laced with chips of obsidian glass. Emblazon took Chymasion off to practise hunting, while Nak prepared a pot of spicy venison stew for the Human contingent, along with flatbread he baked on rocks heated with Dragon fire–Silver’s contribution to the meal. Shimmerith seated herself squarely in the middle of a steaming hot spring at the side of the lake with a groan of contentment, while Tazz and Jyoss took first watch, circling lazily a league overhead, almost invisible against the deepening evening sky. Kaiatha groaned in disgust when she sniffed the stew, and scavenged in the saddlebags for a meal of fruit and nuts instead.

After dinner Nak regaled the group with story after story laced with Dragon lore and legend, and to Casitha’s expert vocal and musical accompaniment on a hand-harp, sang them a number of epic ballads, including Saggaz Thunderdoom, The Lay of the Ancient Dragons, Stars over Islands, and Numistar Winterborn.

“Ballads were the old way of learning,” Nak told them, enjoying a swig from a jar of Jeradian ale which had mysteriously found its way into his saddlebags. “Students sang the great histories of our peoples, Dragon and Human. Don’t tell Master Kassik, but I was a terrible student. Too easily distracted.” He winked at Oyda. “But when I learned the ballads, like you, Pip, I discovered I could recall my histories perfectly.”

“You wouldn’t happen to have a ballad of codebreaking handy, would you?” Kaiatha asked.

Balthion said, “Come. I’ll puzzle it out with you. Where’s Arosia?”

“Fires banked for the night,” said Pip, pointing across the fire. Arosia slept with her head pillowed on Chymasion’s left forepaw, while his muzzle and neck curved protectively around her body.

Balthion’s frown softened. “Ay. Jyoss, a little light, if you would?”

Pip was startled as Jyoss conjured a small, steady white light that hovered over the pair as they pored over Kaiatha’s father’s diary. She had never seen such a Dragon power. The Albino read over their shoulders, calmly interjecting a word here and a suggestion there. Oh, and Silver’s eye-fires had already stilled, indicating draconic sleep. Well, even Mistress Mya’adara could not complain if she curled up in her Dragon’s paw. Perfectly proper, according to big person culture. Funny how they cared more about outward appearances than for matters of the heart.

She smiled as she crawled into Silver’s grasp. She hardly thought of them as ‘big people’ anymore. Just people. That was enough.

Oh. Yaethi’s scroll lay completely forgotten in her luggage. Her boy-Dragon protested drowsily as she wriggled back out of his paw again. “Shh,” she soothed, stroking his muzzle beside the eye as she had seen the other Dragon Riders do. But most of them were not paired with Shifters. Somehow, that lent their relationship a different quality. “Rest, my beauty.”

Silver mumbled, “Pip, if you call my Human form ‘beauty’, I will never forgive you.”

“But your Dragon loves it, doesn’t he? Um, don’t you?” She giggled as his belly-fires roused a further few notches. “Indeed, my beautiful Silver?”

He grumbled something to do with using her as Pygmy-paste to flavour his next sweetbread.

Having handed the scroll to her vocally excited friends, the last Pip saw was three heads bowed together, two Human and one Dragon, focussing deeply on the problem at hand. Her focussing involved deep concentration on the insides of her eyelids. And that was no problem at all.

* * * *

The small Dragonwing passed three further days on the Spine, flitting from mountaintop to mountaintop, always battling the breeze. Each day, Chymasion flew a little further without stopping. No daylight hour passed that was not crammed with learning or training, nor an evening without Nak’s interpretation of ‘entertainment’. Pip came to wonder how she had ever mistaken the Dragon Rider for a skirt-chasing fool, for he never repeated a story or a ballad unless specifically asked, and almost every offering came stuffed to the wingtips with fascinating lore and history.

That fourth evening out of Jeradia, they stopped at a tall, unusually narrow dormant volcano, which boasted a perfect half-moon lake replete with a unique species of giant trout which had the Dragons alternatively slavering and fishing enthusiastically, and the Humans onshore badgering Nak to hurry up with the cooking.

“Perfect trout takes time,” he said, slowly rotating the spit-roast he had constructed from a Dragon lance broken in training, and a couple of driftwood branches. “Where’s Oyda?”

“Bathing with the ladies,” said Kassik the Brown, winking at Pip with one great, flaming eye.

“Bathing?”

Kassik said, “She’s with Casitha, Shimmerith, Kaiatha and Maylin, behind that stand of targan trees. I hear an awful lot of silliness. Should we send Pip to snatch their clothes?”

Nak’s eyes developed a glazed expression. “Oooooh …”

Pip chuckled behind her hand. Predictable. Where was Hunagu? Also down near the lake shore, stolidly stripping several bushes of their load of fireberries. The Oraial Ape seemed none the worse for the journey. They had spoken together for over an hour before dawn that morning.

Oh. Another tremor. She hoped the volcano was as dormant as Master Kassik had suggested. No-one else seemed at all bothered by a few pebbles bouncing on the beach. The caldera was a mere two and a half times Kassik’s wingspan in diameter, making the space rather cosy, given the size of its temporary visitors. Come morning, the Dragons would have to take off in careful sequence, she assumed. Emblazon had almost chopped off her spine-spikes for daring to touch his wingtips.

“Hey, girlfriend,” said Human-Silver, sauntering up to her.

He wore an open-necked, turquoise linen shirt, Dragon Rider trousers of a tough, dark grey leather, and soft buckskin half-boots. His silvery eyes gleamed at her beneath a flip of almost-white hair, set off by his high, angled cheekbones–so unlike those of any other person Pip had met at the Academy, bespeaking his Herimor heritage. And his smile had its own special magic, imprinting a suitably silvery image of itself deep inside her heart.

“Oh. Oh,” Pip faltered. “You’re very … Human. Handsome! I-I mean …”

Nak chuckled, “And our Pipsqueak is very tongue-tied. Nice work, Silver. It certainly takes something special to silence Pip like that.”

Pip turned her back on the Dragon Rider, blushing furiously. Wriggling marsh-rats, how could Silver undo her with just a greeting? She gazed across the small caldera, trying to fill her mind with thoughts other than the eye-catching, sinewy leanness of Silver’s frame, so unlike the heavily muscled Jeradian warriors working through their combat routines at the top of the glittering, pebbly beach. He would be too short and slight for most girls, but not for a Pygmy. Oh no indeed. And she knew him well enough to appreciate that his apparent slightness disguised muscle as wiry and well-sprung as a Dragon’s thighs, and physical strength to match. Naturally. He was not just leopard, as Jeradian girls apparently liked to say. He was scrummy Dragon.

Please let him not be eavesdropping on her thoughts. The blush roared back in full force.

Her eyes rose from the black waters rippling with the force of Emmaraz’s fishing exploits, to the sheer, vine-festooned cliffs overshadowing the travellers by three hundred feet or more. Hidden now amidst the foliage, thousands of blue-banded peripols and lesser green parakeets sang their final songs of the day. The last gasp of a fiery suns-set reflected off a low-lying band of clouds above the volcano, bathing the scene in an eerie crimson glow.

Suddenly, through a gap in the clouds, Pip’s eye caught the unmistakable glint of Jyoss’ pale scales as she plunged from a great height toward the volcano. Hurtling! Mouth agape. Wings furled for maximum velocity. Body stretched out like an arrow, the Dragoness bellowed a warning as yet unheard by the Dragons sporting several miles below.

A cry stuck in Pip’s throat; the ground beneath her bare feet juddered again.

“Alarm,” she squeaked. And again, this time in a full-throated peal of thunder that should never have emerged from a Human throat, Pip bellowed, “Alarm! Warning!”

Tazzaral picked up the warning, bellowing a battle-challenge that shook the caldera and everyone in it. Kassik sprang into the air, beating his wings powerfully to gain height, while Silver shredded his clothes in an instinctive transformation into his Dragon-self. He did not take off. Instead, he tried to flatten her–for protection, she assumed. Foolish, gallant Dragon! Grinding her teeth against the pain of her wounds, Pip rolled over and saw the sky close before her disbelieving eyes.

Darkness swept over the volcano.

Chapter 6: Old Lizards, Old Friends

FOR AN ENDLESS, breathless moment, all within the volcano was panic. Kassik’s Dragon fire blazed against the living trapdoor which had snapped shut overhead. Emmaraz first coiled in frozen disbelief, then sprang over to Maylin. Abruptly, the hours of training took over. The Jeradian warriors charged down the sand toward Pip, hefting their war-hammers. Silver readied his magic. Emblazon’s throat gushed fire as though it would never let up, but even his hottest flame did not appear to shift that thing–that creature, Pip realised–which held them captive. Between digits as thick as the largest of Dragonships, she saw a crack of sky. Paws. Great Islands! Paws covered the mountaintop …

Leandrial! Pip yelled in her mind.

Abruptly, the low earthquake of movement outside the volcano stilled. The Dragons froze. Silence roared in her ears, while her heart beat a desperate tattoo upon her ribs. Why would the Land Dragon ambush them? Had the Marshal of Herimor corrupted and turned even the mightiest of the Dragonkind? Were that true, they were surely doomed.

WHERE IS THE ONE CALLED PIP?

The caldera walls juddered and cracked at Leandrial’s awesome thundering. Stunned, Pip saw Kassik plunge into the lake, while Tazzaral crumpled nearby and even Emblazon shuddered as though one of those paws had delivered a prodigious buffet to the side of his head. Ten thousand birds burst from the dense foliage in a deafening clatter of wings, but they had nowhere to go and perhaps the unnatural darkness confused them, for they returned almost as quickly to their evening perches.

Peace, Leandrial. I am here.

LIAR! Do you take me for a fool? Pip is a Lesser Dragon!

Though she tasted blood in her mouth, Pip replied steadily, Pip is here. I am the one who speaks the ancient magic, and I am unafraid of you.

“Grief, I’m afraid,” Nak squeaked.

A white light brightened behind the digits. Pip realised that Leandrial gazed upon them with that single, magical eye in the centre of her forehead; the wash of alien magic stunned her and Silver, who made a sound between a gasp and a whimper beside her. She tried to raise her chin, to gird up her courage, but Pip knew the gesture for an exercise in futility. She made a ‘keep calm’ gesture in case anyone was looking to her for a lead, aware of Emmaraz lending a shoulder as the Brown Shapeshifter staggered out of the lake, while Emblazon’s belly-fires raged in readiness for battle.

Abruptly, the digits drew apart and Leandrial thrust her muzzle down into the caldera, right above Pip. At the vast inrush of air into the Land Dragon’s nostrils, the Pygmy girl felt her feet leave the sand.

Leand–

Draconic laughter boomed overhead, raising waves on the lake and snuffing out Nak’s cooking fire in an instant, puffing Pip down into an ungainly sprawl on the sand.

“You are Pip. Why’ve you changed? What is this taint I scent within you, little one?”

Leandrial. She had not fallen to the Marshal. She was more awesome than ever, large enough to seize volcanoes in her paws and cunning enough to ambush experienced Dragons. Jyoss winged cautiously around the Land Dragon’s head before deciding upon a landing on the volcano’s rim.

The tendrils trailing from Leandrial’s jowls scraped across Pip’s legs as her body refused to obey her command to roll out of the way. The milky white eye, wide enough for a Dragon fledgling to fly right into, scrutinised their company as though seeking to sample the very marrow of their bones, the living pith that Islanders spoke of. Her hide was a smooth, grey-green wall of flesh, the width of her muzzle filling the crater with little room to spare. Dank yet evocative, the scent of a bottom-dweller filled their nostrils. Primeval secrets. Ageless swamp. Waters rich with tangy minerals and organic compounds, and that ever-so-draconic overtone of cinnamon intermingled with other spices and savours Pip could not identify.

No Dragon of their company twitched so much as a wingtip. Their natural awe and reverence of physical size rendered them speechless.

Well. Now they all felt like insects in a terrarium, while its owner peered in from above. Blotting out the sky. Absurdly, Pip hoped Leandrial would not feel the urge to sneeze. That would be messy. She mentally kicked herself into action. Her friends depended on her. Pip pushed herself out of Silver’s paw, dusting off her Dragon Rider trousers with a businesslike air. She would speak up, for she alone was crazy enough to do so.

“I’m a Shapeshifter, Leandrial. Why did you ambush us? This was unexpected and unkind.”

Magic gushed over her like the most exquisite music playing upon her senses of hearing, touch and even taste, a delicious, outlandish, thrilling symphony seemingly born in another world. Yet behind this wealth of beauty lay an undercurrent of suppressed fury, of monstrous stresses barely held in check. For a moment, the Island-World seemed attuned to the cavernous hissing of Leandrial’s breath as clearly, to Pip’s perception, she restrained an urge to annihilate them all–her paws flexed on the volcanic rim, her shoulders bunching as though she contemplated tearing the mountain in two.

Leandrial snarled, “How dare you censure me? I could squash this mountain and you with it.”

Her impudent response had been a colossal blunder. Pip gasped, “I spoke hastily. I meant no disrespect, noble Dragon.”

“Always hasty, you high-dwelling, short-lived creatures,” the Dragon grumbled at length, apparently accepting Pip’s sincerity at face value.

“So, if destruction wasn’t your purpose …”

“No. I came to speak of a critical need, Lesser Dragon called Pip.”

Hence the stresses Pip sensed within the great beast, the undertone of regret leaching into her words, even in Island Standard. How could she help the Dragoness articulate what troubled her?

She said, “Speak. Our ears hearken to your words.” Pip scowled at the air as the forms of archaic Dragonish interrupted her speech. Silver’s amusement tingled in her mind. She shut him out in order to concentrate on the Land Dragon.

“I’ve new information to share,” Leandrial replied. “First, an explanation. Amongst Land Dragons, there is a particularly well-developed Dragon sense, the name of which translates as ‘Harmonic Inference’ in your tongue. Just as you perceive the harmonic potencies of my magic, so this same magic allows me to navigate the world below what you call the Cloudlands, in a manner similar to your physically limited sense of sight. Is this clear?”

“Clear enough,” said Pip. Ay, clear that a world of meaning lay beneath what Leandrial had briefly outlined. “This harmonic magic is not limited to the material realm, correct?”

“Of course not. Your small understanding shall have to suffice.”

Bite your tongue, Pip! Master Kassik’s growl interrupted her thoughts.

Fine. Now she had two larger Dragons to be annoyed at. She stilled the almost unbearable urge to launch a fireball at a boulder or crisp a berry-bush.

“The power of Harmonic Inference allows a Land Dragon to sense many things, even creatures which should by rights not exist, such as the Dragon you call Shadow. I see disturbance and disharmony; I’m aware of the absence of harmony, and much of this disturbance exists in my realm beneath your Cloudlands. This is what has led me to believe that the traitor Shurgal stalks you, little ones–most certainly, Pip, that no-fire quisling of a Land Dragon is aware of your presence and power over the Balance.”

“My power over the … uh, balance? What balance?”

Briefly, Leandrial’s single eye lidded as she appeared to process a decision. I cannot articulate this in Human speech, little one. Listen closely. Our harmonic magic is closely attuned to the inner equilibrium of magic, which describes the sum of the interactions and interdependencies between every component of our world, from the smallest iota to the greatest forces in the universe; in cause, action and reaction, in the endless struggle between good and evil … all this is called the Balance of the Harmonies, and the protection of this Balance is the paramount task of Star Dragons, and the highest calling of any Land Dragon.

Pip said, I thought the Star Dragons were dead. A myth.

The only myth is the unbelief dimming your mind, little one. Leandrial’s jaw peeled open in a discomfiting Dragon smile that literally covered half the sky, as seen from Pip’s perspective. To restore the Balance amongst my kind and to our Island-World, I must return the First Egg to the place where it belongs, Pip. I must take it back across the Rift to Herimor. You promised to snatch it from this Marshal. Already, you have seen the imbalance this power has caused here, wreaking doom and destruction upon the Islands of your respective kinds. Therefore I charge you: beware Shurgal and his deceptions. You must not fail.

Was this what had motivated Leandrial to risk her life above the Cloudlands? Merely the matter of an enemy Land Dragon–if she could dare the word ‘merely’ in the context of this creature? Had she missed or misunderstood something?

Time enough to puzzle over this encounter later. Pip sucked in a ragged breath. Leandrial, I will do my utmost. Will you help us while you’re here? Please?

Speak. My ears hearken to your words.

Now a humorous echo of her earlier speech? Pip shook herself free from a vision of Shurgal and the Marshal obliterating each other, followed by the Egg falling happily into her clutches, and everyone winging into the suns-set together singing triumphant Dragonsong … hardly. If she knew any one thing, it was that this victory would not be cheaply won.

Pip said, “Please help the hatchling Chymasion learn to see, Leandrial. It’s my greatest wish. And if you could outline how to defeat this Shadow Dragon, that would be an unexpected bonus.”

“Not healing for you? Or the knowledge of a foul, ancient magic alive in Shurgal’s paws?” Leandrial’s challenge boomed across the small lake. “Worthily spoken. Therefore, little one who once dared to call me friend, I will teach you Balance, and you will learn to heal yourself. I will grant the newborn knowledge that will allow him to see like a Land Dragon, for your judgement is correct–Chymasion cannot be healed, for there is no defect in his physical being. I will speak to you of the tainted lore I believe has been unearthed by Shurgal, my greatest enemy, and share my speculations regarding this ravening beast of Shadow. All this will be done–NOW!”

Wildfire washed over her, so rich and stormy and immense it obliterated her consciousness.

Pip pitched forward into darkness.

* * * *

A vaguely-remembered face peered at itself in a slightly curved mirror. A Dragon, his muzzle hoary with age, his four-square stance upon his paws and extended muzzle reminding her of the fiery lizard who had burgled her cage, that night, and spirited a Pygmy girl away across the Island-World. Zardon. Of course. Changed into a Night-Red, yet beneath the jagged layers of sooty scales and the widely-flaring skull-spikes, his identity remained unmistakable.

This is the only place where I may come to restore my mind, he said. Here, washed in the First Egg’s power, I … again you watch me, unseen, fey spirit?

The Dragon cocked his head, gazing curiously at his own reflection as though by inspection he could plumb the mysteries of his condition.

Pip froze, semi-somnolent, somehow trapped in her dream but aware of its import. The Egg!

I must escape, Zardon mumbled. Yet when I leave this place will the Marshal’s command not overmaster? Can I not escape … keep my right-fires … for what deeds I remember, I am as a waking sleeper borne aloft upon evil winds … he lapsed into unintelligible rambling, his eye-fires flickering in uncoordinated, spasmodic patterns as seen in the crystalline yet metallic mirror-like surface, his head shaking in evident distress.

Her heart broke for the old Dragon, so wretched and torn in spirit. A small, selfish part of her wanted him to take a step back to allow her to see the mighty First Egg, rather than a brief portion of its surface. She realised that the Dragon must be standing atop a ledge or in a tunnel-mouth opening into the space that cocooned the Egg. It shone with warm inner luminosity; even a dream-watcher could sense the phenomenal magic radiating from the fabled Egg–not so fabled, Pip grinned sleepily, if she was looking at one.

Yet her heart’s pangs consumed her thoughts. Zardon. She must help him.

Somehow, the dream-state opened a channel of communication between them that Pip suspected must be due to their Dragon-Rider oath, perhaps amplified by the magic of two Shapeshifters? Yet Zardon had sensed her latent Dragon fires long before Pip even transformed. Impossible.

Biting the inside of her lip, Pip called softly, Zardon, I am here.

She might better have slapped him with a fast-moving Island. Zardon leaped forty feet into the air, cracked his head against an unseen obstruction and fell against the egg.

KERAAAACK!

For a second time in succession, pain blasted her into the outer darkness.

* * * *

She swam upward as if from the very roots of the Island-World, surfacing with excruciating effort through layer upon layer of memory, being and awareness, until at last suns-light infiltrated her eyelids and Pip knew she lay curled in someone’s arms–not Silver’s. She sensed a gentle rocking motion that she mistook at first for a dim, early memory of a beloved pair of arms, as above her an unseen voice chanted the blessing-of-birthing in Ancient Southern plainsong. Her mother. In Pygmy-speak, the word mother literally meant ‘guardian-of-origins’. When last had she dreamed of her parents? These memories of her Pygmy mother were so faint, so distant, now … she seized the precious recollection, as jealous as a Dragoness guarding her treasure.

She was flying home. Pip tried not to weep.

A fingertip tickled her cheek, gently succouring a tear. She heard a whisper, “I know you’re awake, Pip. Rest. You deserve it after standing up to that bullying Land Dragon.”

Oyda. Cradling her with aching tenderness; a travel-cloak, by the smell of the dyed wool, wrapped warmly about her body. Womblike. Oh, mercy. A terrace lake of tears lay brimming just beneath the surface, about to be spilled, and Pip feared that should she release such a flow of lamentation, she would never stop crying again.

A girl must weep only those tears she could afford.

Pip opened her eyes and promptly squeezed them shut again. “Roaring rajals, is it evening already? Oyda, how long have I been asleep?”

“Three days.”

“Three! What on the Islands–ooh, I feel terrible. Weak. Headache the size of an Island. And Oyda, I really need to consult a bush. Quickly.”

“Consult–oh. Master Kassik, we need to take a natural break.”

“A break?” The Brown Dragon growled with all the crankiness of an overburdened Master of the sole surviving Dragon Rider Academy. “We’ve leagues to fly yet, Oyda.”

“She’s awake.”

“Awake?” bugled the Master. “Heavens be praised!”

Suddenly, there was a great fuss and commotion as the Dragonwing drew together, everyone exclaiming and congratulating her, although Pip did not understand why. She caught Silver’s concerned glance and self-consciously wriggled into an upright position on Oyda’s saddle. Honestly! He must think her a babe in need of coddling.

Nak said, “Ay, awake, and Pip needs to debate philosophy with a handy boulder. Shimmerith, would you spy us out the nearest useful Island, my peerless shining beauty?”

Pip’s ears burned at the snickers from her three bodyguards lined up between Emblazon’s spine-spikes, right behind Oyda. Jerrion reached out to ruffle her hair fondly. “Good on you, lady Pip,” he said. Had it not been for his compassionate expression, Pip might just have bitten that hand. She hated having her curls mussed!

Unexpectedly, Master Kassik snorted twin fireballs from his nostrils. “Last Dragon to the Island Shimmerith picks is assigned hunting duty every dinnertime for the next week.”

Nak walloped Shimmerith on the neck. “Go, you flaming sunburst!”

“I haven’t picked an Island yet, Nak,” she said, as falsely sweet as only eighty feet of lustrous Dragoness could be.

“Fly, thou emblem of dawn’s blazing majesty!”

“Hmm, which one shall I pick?” Shimmerith teased her Rider. However, she cast Emblazon a coy, challenging glance. The Amber Dragon tensed.

Nak yelled, “Let us burn the heavens together–”

“Third Island!” bellowed the Sapphire Dragoness, surging forward with a mighty wing-stroke that just so happened to take her across Emblazon’s flight-path, causing him to stall slightly or risk bumping into her tail.

“–as Dragon and Rider!”

His yell floated back to them on the breeze as Shimmerith streaked into the lead. Belatedly, the fledgling Dragons threw themselves into the pursuit. The Sapphire blazed ahead, her sinuous wingbeat as smooth and supple as mercury flowing along glass, while Tazzaral matched her stroke for stoke, all brash, youthful power. Silver tucked in behind Tazz and Kaiatha, cleverly choosing to slipstream the larger Dragon. Jyoss and Emmaraz snarled each other’s wings and lost valuable ground by snapping reflexively at each other. Meantime, to Pip’s surprise, Kassik and Emblazon hung back. Daring each other to be the last? Was this a Dragon tradition?

Pip wanted to cheer as Chymasion showed an unexpected turn of speed, hissing past Kassik, Casitha and Master Balthion. The Amber Dragon eyed his shell-son with manifest pride.

Oyda said crossly, “Emblazon, we are not showing off, are we?”

“We are,” he rumbled, not the least bit contrite.

“Do you always have to give others a head start?”

“I’m a stickler for fairness,” returned the Amber Dragon. “I wish to let the hatchlings and fledglings feel as though they are doing well. It encourages draconic endeavour and builds a youngster’s confidence.”

“Emblazon, shut up and go win the race, will you?”

“As you wish, my beautiful Rider.”

Pip raised her eyebrows at this exchange. Dragons could be breathtakingly arrogant, but she suspected Emblazon was merely stating the facts as he saw them. What did he have in store? The others had pulled a quarter-mile ahead; with a basso laugh, Kassik now embarked upon the chase too, flexing his broad wings with rapid flutter-strokes to build an initial burst of acceleration.

The Amber Dragon drew a huge breath into his lungs. EMBLAZON!!

Such a battle-challenge! A thunderclap of sound rolled over the space between the Islands; Pip clapped her hands over her ears with a shout of amazement. Behind her, Oyda laughed as though she knew exactly what was to come. The powerful young Dragon, still growing into the prime of his strength, reached out with his wings to cup the air and blast it toward his tail. Great ripples of deeply striated shoulder-muscle popped into relief at each flexion of his wings, but greater still was the subtlety of his use of that power. No iota of effort went to waste. His form and streamlining divulged a mastery of draconic flight science. Moreover, he augmented his already prodigious efforts with magic of a kind she had never sensed in a Dragon before, which seemed to double his strength while protecting the flesh, muscle and structural elements of his wings and wing-struts from being torn to shreds by the extraordinary physical output. Oyda threw her strength behind Emblazon’s efforts, helping him to formulate a projectile-shaped shield to reduce the wind drag to a minimum.

The effect of this outpouring of power was to shove Pip against Oyda’s stomach and pin her there. The acceleration sat on her chest and compressed her stomach, unrelenting. Somewhere, between gasping breaths and delighted laughter, Pip realised that her shoulder did not hurt nearly as much as before.

The race was on!

First to see Emblazon’s tail snake past his muzzle was Kassik. Browns were not renowned flyers, but if one wanted to move mountains, Brown Dragons were the first and only choice. Besides, he was still hauling the additional tonnage of Hunagu in his net. The Amber blew past Chymasion at a pace that made the hatchling appear as if he were a hummingbird hovering above a flower. At a similarly blistering velocity, Emblazon overhauled Jyoss and Tazzaral, who had begun to flag, before closing in on wily Emmaraz and the even wilier Silver. Pip thought she still detected a slight anomaly in her boyfriend’s wing-strokes–perhaps the extreme effort exacerbated whatever healing his body had not completed. Emmaraz sprayed a diversionary barrage of lava across Emblazon’s path, but the Amber Dragon’s evasive manoeuvring was a joyous opus of aerial ballet. Barely a drop of molten rock struck his hide as the massive, multi-tonne Dragon twisted and corkscrewed like a frolicsome dragonet to the younger Dragon’s side, whereupon he cuffed Emmaraz across the earhole in passing as though to impress upon the youngster the lesson of who was the bigger beast.

Now Emblazon closed in on Silver, while Shimmerith remained four or five Dragon-lengths ahead, already tipping to begin her descent to the Island she had selected.

“Come on, Silver!” yelled Pip.

Oyda smacked her on the knee. “Wallop him if he gets in your way, Emblazon!”

Silver jinked in front of Emblazon, buffeting him with playful psionic strikes and blinding him with a gush of silver-tinged smoke that appeared to stick to the Amber Dragon’s shield.

“Ooh, he’s a crafty one,” hissed Oyda.

Not to be outdone, Emblazon shaped a flower-like spray of simultaneous miniature fireballs, five close together encircled by a further ten. Silver somehow captured most of the two-foot fireballs, whizzed them around his head, and in a slingshot motion, fired them back twice as fast as they had chased his tail.

KAAABOOM!!

Smoke and fire rattled Emblazon and his shield. The Amber snorted angrily, By my wings, how did he manage that feat?

Don’t let a youngster best you, o my furnace-heart of Dragon fire! Oyda incited him.

Go easy on him, Emblazon, Pip said. It’s just a game.

Easy? Insolent hatchling! Emblazon’s belly-fires achieved a furious pitch that drilled into the mastoid bones of Pip’s ears. I’ll easily swat him from here to the next Island!

Predictable. But Silver had evidently learned a trick or three in those early nursery battles. He flitted in front of Emblazon like a silvery dragonfly, evading or subverting his strikes, and the much larger Amber Dragon could not pin him down. The Island loomed and still Shimmerith held the lead.

EMBLAZON!! Thunder tore the air, rattling Silver visibly. With that, Oyda’s Dragon reached out, seized Silver’s tail in his right forepaw, and flung him with a fiery snort of disdain over his shoulder. Get out of my way, pest!

Pip burst out laughing.

Silver somersaulted away; the proud Amber Dragon surged ahead, putting in a final burst of effort in order to catch his mate. But Pip twizzled her neck to watch Silver arcing overhead. A tiny smile? Tendrils of his trademark silvery fire shot from his claw-tips as he passed by upside-down, snagging Emblazon’s spine-spikes. The huge Amber Dragon’s rushing momentum drew those threads taut and then swung Silver around into a screaming turn. Pip could not imagine the gravitational forces Silver must be suffering, for his mouth seemed to be jammed open by the wind and his wings were fully tucked to his sides, not risking breaking wing-struts or straining the muscles and ligaments.

Thanks, Emblazon!

The rascal had the cheek to waggle his wingtips as he whooshed by beneath them at double the speed he had departed, raising a bellow of rage first from Emblazon, then Shimmerith as the youngster overhauled her. Now, the challenge was all about descent and streamlining. The Island tipped precipitously toward her. Pip whooped as her stomach leaped into her throat. So crazy-fast! Despite the shielding, the wind whipped her already unruly curls into a fine tangle. The Dragons stretched out, limbs tucked up against their bellies as they fought for the lead–Shimmerith and Nak weighing in with a cunning anti-shield that suddenly applied enormous wind resistance to Silver and Emblazon so that she took a nose-lead before the other Dragons bulled their way through. Emblazon squeezed fireballs sideways from his mouth and buffeted them with his wings. Silver knocked the other Dragons about with his psychic power, but Pip sensed his attacks had become ragged.

Neck and neck they raced. Rock. Sky. Pip’s eyes streamed tears. No Dragon gave an inch. They were so close now, Pip feared they would smash into the Island’s flank, but the Dragons responded as if linked by one thought, flattening out, straining for that first touch on a long grassy meadow ahead … she strained with Silver … and he shimmered. She saw it. A breath of peculiar, fey magic. Clear as daylight, beneath her sheltering arm, she saw Silver flicker and gain half a muzzle-length’s lead. He plucked a leaf off a bush.

SILVER!!

Chapter 7: Refugees

PIP PRESENTED DRAGON-SILVER with an armful of lake trout. Spoils to the winner.

Emblazon snorted. He won all claws in. I’ve never enjoyed a finer race.

Thou, o mighty sunsfire-storm over the Isles, were preoccupied with watching my wings, Shimmerith suggested slyly. Her fire-eyes developed a distinctly sapphire tinge as she rubbed against her mate’s flank, before she settled down with a smoky sigh. I thought we’d teach that youngster a lesson. I was mistaken.

He teleported, said Pip.

Silver’s head snapped up, while a number of other Dragons nearby blinked or expressed their surprise with a ruffling of wings or unsheathing their claws. Pip met her Dragon’s hostile gaze, and gulped. What had she said now? Open mouth, insert entire prekki fruit?

Kassik, returned to Human form, growled, Pip, teleportation would flout every known law of physics. The Ancient Dragon scientists disproved the existence of this power two thousand years ago. Speak. Clarify your accusation.

She firmed her chin. Accusation, Master? I don’t understand.

Silver glided to her side in a single serpentine movement that seemed to have neither beginning nor end. Clasping her shoulder with his paw, he said, Pip meant no disrespect, noble Kassik. I cannot claim to understand, but it seems this subject is taboo in both Herimor and the North.

Taboo? Pip frowned, trying to read the unfriendly expressions of the Dragons all around her. Typical. Even when she was not looking for trouble, she managed to leap into it without trying.

Taboo, the Master insisted.

She said, It must have been a boost of Kinetic power. My eyes were watering so badly from the wind, I can’t be certain of what I saw. Even to her own ears, her Dragonish betrayed the falsity of her words. No disrespect, noble Silver. You were awesome, thou, uh–

Look, refugees, Shimmerith chimed in. Pip suspected that the Sapphire had interrupted purposely.

Description? rapped the Master.

Two male Dragons and five exhausted hatchlings approach on a south-westerly heading, eight leagues distant, Shimmerith said crisply. Permission to invite them to a safe landing, most sulphurous Elder?

Go. Emblazon, assist your noble mate. Kassik sniffed the breeze with an air of mistrust. Tazz, Jyoss, take your Riders and scout this Island thoroughly. I don’t want any repeat surprises. Maylin, Arosia–snip snap. Patrol one mile above. Let’s see how quickly you can saddle up. Three, two, one, go!

The half-made camp exploded into chaos.

What can I do, Kassik? Silver asked.

Stay right there where I can see you, Silver. Protect Pip.

Pip knew her boy-Dragon was infuriated. A conflagration roared against the sphincter valves which controlled egress of a Dragon’s belly-fires, the inner temperatures reaching dangerous levels. His paws clenched fitfully. Yet, when he turned to her, it was with a gentle dip of his muzzle and an unreadable expression lighting his unique eye-fires.

He said, Pip … I didn’t sense any lie. What did you see?

She realised he had shielded the telepathic link between them, somehow routing it through the paw clasping her shoulders. Kassik, standing less than a foot away as he shielded his eyes to gaze at the sky, appeared unaware of their interaction.

Can I show you a memory?

Ay. If you wish, I can teach you how. It requires openness.

You haven’t done this before? Pip shivered slightly, then coughed as his sulphurous smoke tickled her throat. Silver, I’m sorry I don’t trust you as much as I should. Please. Let’s try.

Apologies are undraconic, hatchling, he said, mimicking Emblazon’s telepathic Dragonish accent so accurately that Pip laughed aloud. Now, listen to teacher. Here’s your lesson.

You just earned yourself a bite.

“Appalling. Fifty-eight seconds,” Master Kassik grunted, watching Emmaraz and Chymasion take to the ruddy evening skies. “We’ll be drilling this again tomorrow.”

Pip focussed deeply, striving to imbibe the knowledge Silver offered through their link. He had such a deep, instinctual understanding of the mental disciplines. She only wished she had a quarter of his knowledge–becoming a Dragon was such a complex, wondrous affair. She could breathe it for air.

Largely a fluke, then, that she had defeated him?

Attacked by the magic-crazed Prince Ulldari, she had Shifted toward Silver. Into his grasp.

She gasped, Silver, teleportation is possible–and I can prove it.

Quiet. Kassik will hear if you don’t … oh no.

Pip opened her eyes to see Human-Kassik smiling at them, his draconic smile somehow portrayed on Human features–pleased, calculating, triumphant. He said, “Kassik will indeed hear you, little ones. And he will not be offended. Master Balthion. A moment, please?”

Clasping his hands behind his back, the tall Master approached them. “Ay, Pip? Which of our preconceptions do you wish to overturn this time?”

“A draconic one. Over two thousand years old,” said Kassik, winking at Pip.

“Student Pip.” Balthion had a wink for her too. “Make haste to break all the taboos you can before the other Dragons return.”

Now the Masters were complicit in a touch of taboo-breaking? Of course. Kassik had not wished to offend the other Dragons, but having dispatched them all on various errands … oh, the multi-layered cunning of Dragons.

No mind. Pip explained first what she had achieved by relocating her transformation from Dragon to Human forms in Nak and Shimmerith’s roost, from the Dragon’s main sleeping-chamber into Nak’s bedchamber. Then, she described what she had seen Silver do. After some discussion and agreement that her conclusion seemed correct, the Masters encouraged Pip and Silver to develop this power in secret, discerning its inner workings, if they could. It would be dangerous, they argued, but such an unthinkable capability might prove decisive against the Marshal and his minions.

Balthion added, “You are both unique colours, Pip and Silver. But you must remember the transference of powers through the Dragon-Rider bond.”

“Ay, excellent point,” Kassik agreed.

“I mean, from all I have learned from my old friend here,” Balthion clapped Kassik on the shoulder, “it strikes me that the oath-bond between a pair of Shapeshifters can be particularly strong and efficient. Powers may transfer between you and be augmented or take strange new forms, especially in moments of dire need.”

Silver put in, “You’re saying, Master Balthion, that the teleportation power originated with Pip? I concur. The first incident was most certainly all Pip. She caught me completely flat-footed. The second? I couldn’t say, but by the tenor of her memory-echoes I’d say she provided the impetus.”

Pip raised an eyebrow. “Tenor of the what and how much?”

His knowing chortle made him definitely the boy- monster. He said, “Private tuition needed, Pip?”

“Forbidden!” the Masters snapped in chorus.

Aiming a mortified fireball at the sky, Silver blurted out, “Oh. I-I didn’t mean …”

Pip blushed, but Silver was so embarrassed he radiated heat like a furnace. The characteristic cinnamon hint of Dragon magic teased her nostrils. Why now? Pip subdued a sudden, almost overwhelming urge to transform. Not yet! Please.

To her surprise, however, Master Balthion whacked the Silver Dragon heartily on the flank. “Don’t mind our teasing, boy. We’ll put you on the schedule under, let’s see–”

“Herimor tricks,” said Kassik.

“Herimor trickster.” She could not resist.

Silver grinned, “Snarky shyster. Never shy of a word, are you?”

Pip sidestepped smartly. His guileful paw-swipe swished through thin air. Stumbling, the Dragon smudged a flat shale boulder with his nose.

“Words, Silver? Who needs words?”

* * * *

The crown of Shimmerith’s chosen Island concealed a grove of ancient prekki fruit trees growing in a deeply-cut bowl, perhaps a dormant crater, sheltered from the storms and winds over the Cloudlands by sharp ascents of weathered granite. Here, the Dragons and Humans gathered around a storming bonfire arranged by Nak and Emblazon, but the mood was sombre. The Dragons shared fresh kill–wild ralti sheep and an unexpected bonus, easy pickings from a sounder of giant Sylakian boar. Pip’s Jeradian trio cleaned their armour and war-hammers, while the students were put to work checking, repairing and oiling a small mountain of Dragon Rider tack.

After dinner, drawn by a mysterious force perchance known as draconic motherliness, the five refugee hatchlings and Chymasion all made their way over to Shimmerith, curled up in a neat row against her flank and promptly fell sound asleep to the tune of her soft, cossetting Dragonsong.

Then, as the fire died down to embers, the two adult male Reds, called Chassix and Keryflamme, spoke of their epic journey from Tarhûme Island in the farthest reaches of the Southern Archipelago. Their Island had been the very first to bear the brunt of Marshal Re’akka’s brutality. A roost of seventy-three adults and forty hatchlings and fledglings had been decimated. A months-long, deadly game of chase-the-wingtip northward through the Archipelago ensued. Hiding. Doubling back. Skulking in caves. All the while the refugees from Tarhûme and other meridional Islands had poured northward, and the Shadow-beast feasted unopposed.

Many Dragons retreated to the Southern Academy, where the Marshal soon attacked in full spate.

“The suns dawned golden with the blood of our kind,” said Chassix, speaking Island Standard for the benefit of the Humans in the group. “The floating Island was surrounded by such legions of Dragons as I have never before beheld, nor since. Dark they were, like cooling lava, and the sound of their wings was a storm’s approach. The clash of those Dragonwings brought early evening to the very skies. What drives their lust for wanton destruction, we cannot fathom. But we saw the Marshal rise, a Shapeshifter of scales so white he seemed almost translucent, like the fabled ice of Immadia in the North. He did not raise a talon. He had no need. For it rained that day–a rain of Dragonkind that amply fed the Cloudlands. Thousands of Dragons passed on to the eternal fires.”

Many of the Dragons present took up a lamenting cry.

Chassix said, “Another day I shall speak of the great deeds and labours of our Dragon-kin–a day, my Human friends, when this evil has been vanquished. Then, according to draconic custom, is the time to celebrate the deeds of paw and wing.”

Pip stared at the two Southern Dragons. They looked so beaten, it shook her to the living pith, and frosted her hope from the inside.

Now the slightly larger Red, Keryflamme, inclined his muzzle. “We thank you, noble Blue, for treating our wounds.” Shimmerith purred her acceptance of the compliment. “We have guided and carried these younglings many a league. Many leagues lie before us. Will you grant us safe haven at your Academy, o Kassik the Brown? Is there safe haven?”

Human-Kassik, seated alongside Oyda and Casitha upon Emblazon’s curled knuckles, inclined his head gravely. “You would be most welcome, though we both know I cannot guarantee your safety, noble Keryflamme. Yet we believe hope remains, if we can discern a secret rooted in the deepest of Dragon lore. We fly to the Crescent to seek this knowledge.”

“Where the Marshal is now?”

The Red’s soft interjection told everyone he had reached the right conclusion. Pip glanced about the circle, taking in the drawn expressions of the warriors and Dragon Riders, and the darkly burning eyes of their Dragon companions. She read courage torn from the bleakest pits of despair; grit and determination and keen minds seeking answers. How awesome and humbling for a Pygmy girl to be counted one of such company.

“We seek the Shadow’s origins,” Nak confirmed.

Keryflamme said, “Ay. Its song is Dragonwine to the senses. None can fly against. We could not fathom the beast’s speed and coverage. It seemed to be everywhere at once, capable of covering enormous distances without apparent effort, between one breath and the next.”

Silver did not look at her, but Pip sensed a frisson run through his body.

“My wing-brothers fly no more!” Keryflamme’s unexpected roar stunned them all. “My family, my hatchlings, my beloved mate–all torn from my paw! When it sang–when the beast sang, curse its soul to eternal, never-burning darkness! When that creature sang and hunted, it was as though every true and draconic thought fled the mind, and every fire burned low, for the mightiest of Dragons became as helpless Human babes before that terrible summons … its song was a blood-madness, a cancer of the mind! And they fell! Ghastly, consumed, fireless husks of Dragons … gone … sucked out to the marrow, all their fire and magic stolen to sate its ravening maw …”

Chassix cried, “My fires rage, noble wing-brother!”

“I cannot convey what dark-fires that beast conjured in my fire-soul, brethren.” Keryflamme raised his great muzzle to the heavens, and with a mighty surge of Dragon fire, he bellowed, How may a Dragon join the eternal fires if their soul be extinguished, if their flame should burn no more?

Pip froze. All around her the Dragons leaped to their paws, thundering their grief and outrage to the starlit heavens, yet she sat immobile, paralysed. For a Dragon, this was the ultimate fear. She remembered that creature flying above her, producing a chill that had less to do with the night’s coolness than the sense of a shadow passing across her inmost being. Could it be that the Marshal’s creature was more than a fire-eater or a magic-consumer–did it feast upon the eternal fire-souls of Dragons? Was that possible? O ghastly, unthinkable fate!

Shimmerith calmed the congregation by appealing to the mewling shock of the hatchlings in her care; they settled reluctantly, Silver at her back and the other Dragons in their previous positions around the glowing fire. Many eyes stared at the coals, pensive. Nak softly translated for the students and Master Balthion, who had not understood the outcry.

Heat rose like gorge into her throat, an awareness of need greater than any of her own pressing upon her life, and for the first time in her life Pip felt, rather than an enormous weight of destiny, a freeing sensation–almost, she reached for her back to check if wings had not sprouted there. This was the truth of her emancipation from the cage in Sylakia. This was the enemy she had been born to defeat!

Leaping to her feet, Pip cried, “My fires mingle with yours, noble Dragons!”

“Another Shapeshifter?” Chassix inquired.

Chymasion called, “Do her words not blaze, noble wing-brothers?”

Keryflamme tilted his muzzle to regard her, fire-eyes blazing with realisation. “What colour are you, noble wing-sister?”

“Onyx,” said Kassik. “The Onyx of Fra’anior himself.”

Speech would not be corked within her throat, for it seemed that the roaring of a mighty seven-headed Lord of the Island-World resounded within her soul, granting Pip for an instant a glimpse of reality, perhaps of the future, far beyond her capacity to understand.

Crashing to her knees, Pip declaimed in a low voice like the onset of thunder, In the name of the great Black Dragon Fra’anior, and all the Ancient Dragons of yore, this I declare: a bane and a binding upon the foes of our bright-fires! I bind thee to justice, o dark ones. I bind thee to judgement! Her fists clenched painfully, despite the pain in her shoulder. I reject the desecration of our Dragon fires! Begone, thou beast of the nethermost Cloudlands hells! For I am Pip’úrth’l-iòlall-Yò’oótha the Pygmy Dragon, your nemesis, and this I vow upon the souls of my ancestors, that I shall not rest until I have banished your foul presence from all existence!

Pip did not know the origin of her vow, whether from within her or without, but the Island-World’s quiver communicated through her knees, and the magic played in her and through her like a comet-trail, blazing with brief but unforgettable brilliance. Nape crawling and ears ringing, she became aware of a sudden answering volatility in all the belly-fires around their circle. Jyoss, Tazzaral, Emblazon, Shimmerith, Kassik, Silver, Emmaraz, Chymasion, Keryflamme and Chassix stared at her in frank amazement–even Nak and Oyda had sensed the oath-magic, she realised.

Master Kassik said, “If ever we had cause for hope, that is why.”

* * * *

Magic to shiver Islands. Magic to make a Pygmy girl moan and shrink into her undersized flying jacket as the Dragonwing powered off the penultimate Island of the Spine, and winged onward to Archion Island. Magic she wished she actually grasped, for once. Pip sighed.

“A handful of monkey droppings for your thoughts?” asked Kaiatha.

She and Pip shared a seat on Tazzaral’s broad back while Emmaraz, Chymasion, Silver and Jyoss trained at aerial combat manoeuvers that were deemed too stressful for Pip in her allegedly delicate condition. If only Maylin would not whoop continuously, dizzy with excitement. If only she could master Leandrial’s Balance magic and just fix her pox-ridden, ralti-stupid wounds! Yesterday would do very nicely. And as for roaring a vow in language better suited to ballads and epic poems drawn from the draconic histories–her throat still felt raw from that effort–whatever had she been thinking? Or not thinking, more to the point?

“Are you bothered about invoking Fra’anior and setting off a volcano of enigmatic oath-magic?” Kaiatha guessed accurately. “Again?”

Pip winced. “Minor detail, right?”

“The suns-rise seen from Dragonback beneath the arch of Archion Island is said to be one of the Island-World’s wonders, Pip.”

“Ah … yes, Kaia.” Odd moment to wax poetical. Kaiatha seemed lost in her thoughts.

She wondered if Hunagu, dangling in his net from a Dragon’s paw, felt the same way. Kassik and Nak had modified their travelling schedule, resting the previous morning on the final spit of rock forty leagues northeast of the Spine Islands, before setting off in the early afternoon for Archion Island. A night of freezing northerly winds and clear skies frosted the marrow of Pip’s bones, while the White and Blue moons beamed down with the air of co-conspirators snickering together as they plotted despicable deeds. Now, the Dragons forged tirelessly onward through what should have been an awe-inspiring pre-dawn tranquillity, three miles above the moonlit, rolling cloudscape above which Archion Island expanded against the backdrop of a waning Yellow Moon–tranquil, at least, until Kassik decided to warm up the students and their Dragons with vigorous morning exercises.

Pip had not been charmed by being woken by Emmaraz thundering in her ear. Poor Duri. Jyoss roused him by abruptly sliding into a twisting barrel-roll that put her Rider upside-down above the Cloudlands. Duri’s howls made everyone hoot.

“How is it, Kaia, that invoking an Ancient Dragon who departed this world over a thousand years ago can still trigger … that?”

“How is it that for you, Pip, the Islands dance?”

“How is it, o Kaiatha, that you turn every question into a philosophy lesson?”

“For philosophy is to the Fra’aniorian as burping is to the Sylakian,” said her friend.

Pip twisted on the saddle to fix the gentle, very proper Isles maiden with a quizzical mock-glare. “Oh? Says she who is dating a Sylakian? Does Duri burp?”

“After every meal,” Kaiatha said primly. “I’m reforming him. If he forgets, he has to train at unarmed combat with me for an hour.”

“I’m sure that dissuades him,” Tazzaral put in unexpectedly, making the girls laugh.

“Once his limbs are permanently knotted into artistic shapes, I usually let him go.” Her lake-blue eyes twinkled at Pip. “You’re just lucky we’re such good friends. Philosophy is our national pastime, Pip. Along with volcano-hopping, singing in concert with dragonets and competing to see who can eat the spiciest, most peppery sauces imaginable. Duri swears he will do the cooking in our relationship. Can’t imagine why.”

Tazz, rolling his eye-fires at them over his shoulder, said, “Duri says the only thing Fra’aniorian peppers and chillies are good for, is to furnish a draconic spice-attack. Swallow them into the rock-stomach, churn them up and spray a fine mist at enemies. Blistering and blinding all at once–I think it could work.”

“A chemical weapon?” Pip mused.

“He has Jyoss and I involved in his experiments,” said Tazz, as indignant as only twenty-five tonnes of Copper Dragon could be.

“I’m impressed with his inventiveness.”

Kaia said, “I think we’ll invent a Pygmy snack-attack, eh, Tazz? Hurl her at the enemy, they’ll be so staggered by how tasty she looks …”

“Are you turning into Maylin by any chance?” Pip scowled.

The Copper said, “I’ll show you a chemical attack. I learned this one yesterday from Kassik.” And with that, a thick streamer of pungent white smoke billowed from his throat. “Diversionary smoke.”

Of course, the wind-speed of his passage instantly whipped the smoke backward, enveloping his Riders.

“Faugh!” coughed Pip.

“Tazz! Smoking lava-pits, you’ve halitosis worse than a dozen rotting windroc corpses.” Kaia waved her hands, trying in vain to clear the air. “Do you have rancid boar-meat stuck between your fangs?”

The Brown Dragon called over, “Say, an old Shapeshifter called Zardon extolled your expertise at cleaning fangs, Pip. You can give all the students lessons tonight–from the inside of my mouth.”

Pip threw him a filthy look complete with imaginary fangs.

“She’s good at cleaning bedchambers too,” Nak suggested from the starboard flank, where Shimmerith winged a touch below and ahead of Tazzaral. “Absolutely superb, aren’t you, my little Pygmy beauty?”

Ugh. Nak and his obnoxious gutter humour.

“And as for thee, fair Kaiatha, wouldst thou grace my bedchamber this night …”

“Rider Nak, you disrespect your Oyda,” Shimmerith said, smoking at the jowls with the force of her censure.

“What harm in examining the buffet?” he asked.

“The buffet might just decide to eat you?” Pip snapped. “And the other half of the so-called buffet comes with ferocious skills in the martial arts?”

“Fie, thou Pygmy popsicle. I shall …”

Whatever he added beneath his breath–Pip saw his lips moving–Shimmerith drowned it out with an ugly snarl and shot off with a clip of her wings. Approaching Emblazon, she flipped over and, incredibly, synchronised wingbeats with the Amber Dragon as she flapped upside-down right above him so that Oyda could reach Nak to deliver a resounding slap to his cheek.

Kaiatha winced. “Wow. Never spite a Dragoness, eh?”

“Ay.”

“Pip, what’s wrong?”

Bitterness made a fragmented, rasping caricature of her sigh. “Kaia, Nak doesn’t mean badly, I’m sure. But when he–well, when a man looks at me like that, it places me right back in the cage. In a zoo, I was an object, not a person. It’s so twisted up inside. I learned to hate those stares. Remembering makes me want to vomit, even now. I know I should leave it all behind … but it’s hard.”

“Too true.” Her friend slipped a supportive arm around Pip’s waist.

“I’m not ungrateful, Kaia. I’ve so many gifts–friends like you and wonderful mentors and even my Dragoness. But sometimes I’d kill just to feel normal; to look normal. Is that so wrong?”

“But you’re not normal. You’re beautiful.”

Did she truly mean that? Kaiatha was striking; her beauty classically Fra’aniorian, a ballad of form and feature, as Nak put it. Compared to her … well, Pip was little, dark-skinned and lithe, more waif than woman. Yet the clear blue pools fixed upon her betrayed no trace of doubt. Pellucid to their depths. Convinced. Kaia meant every word–yet how could she, when they were so very different?

Something, an inexpressible anguish deep within her soul, uncurled at this realisation.

Kaiatha added, “On my Island, we say that to carry the past is to carry boulders.”

“Not pebbles?”

“Do you think these issues are pebbles, Pip? Your cage; my murderer-father and mad mother?”

Pip shuddered at her friend’s pain. “Your father was poisoned. Remember that; remember who he was before. You told us he was a good man. How do we live with these scars, Kaia? Is this what it means to be Human?”

“Ay. Are we not all scarred?”

Tazzaral said, “Did you know that the Dragonish for ‘scar’ translates as ‘battle-beauty’?”

The two Riders meditated on this for a moment, a heartbeat of friendship expressed in quiet togetherness. Pip’s thoughts focussed in on Sylakia, nearing with every wingbeat. How would she respond to seeing those cages again? As an outsider looking in? Surely, not all Sylakians treated Pygmies as subhuman–take Master Balthion and his family, for example. Should she consider that experience her battle-beauty? There had been unexpected Islets of kindness throughout–Hunagu, even his mother when the moods and madness had not taken her, and Arosia, and mighty Zardon. How she had trembled that night he landed in their cage, forty tonnes of fiery draconic monstrosity concealing three hearts of the purest, most beautiful crystal.

“Hey, Kaia–” she elbowed her friend “–if your father was a Shifter, what about you?”

Kaiatha held out one tanned arm. “See any sign of scales, Pygmy Dragon?”

“I’ll be the first to warn you.”

Tazz put in, “If she ever shows any interest in raw meat–well, any meat at all–I’ll be sure to forewarn you, Pip.”

“Ugh. Carnivores.”

Kaiatha laughed, but Pip could not help but wonder. How on the Islands did one identify a potential Shapeshifter? Was it even possible? A question for Master Kassik or Silver, when they had a moment’s privacy. Zardon had sensed, traced and eventually tracked her to the zoo. What Dragon power was that? A sensitivity to Leandrial’s Harmonic Inference? Or the instinctual use of Balance to detect a disturbance in the veil of reality–a certain Pip-sized troublemaker–from hundreds of leagues distant? Impossible.

Mercy. Perhaps she should ditch the word ‘impossible’ for ‘improbable’. Too much that seemed impossible was merely a parakeet of a different feather, as the Pygmy proverb put it.

Tazzaral said, “Look at all those windrocs around Archion Island.”

Almost simultaneously, Kassik bellowed, “Battle formation! Dragonwing to me!”

Chapter 8: Antics at Archion

IN AN INSTANT, the younger Dragons broke off their exercises. Chymasion almost flew nose-first into Tazzaral’s flank, but managed to execute a breathtaking sideslip to avoid contact. Unfortunately, he was so pleased with his effort that he tangled his own wings together at the end of his down-stroke and had to suffer the indignity of being by far the last Dragon to join the double-layer V-formation of Dragons, spearheaded by Emblazon and Kassik, who flew just one hundred vertical feet apart. The other Dragons fanned out, taking close slipstreaming positions which allowed an unrestricted yet concentrated field of fire.

Kassik checked them over. Good. Closer, Jyoss. Silver, try to extend your shield around all of us.

I could do better with Pip’s help, Master.

You could try by yourself, the Brown Dragon spat, rather more acid-Green at that point than his true colour.

Pip burned with embarrassment for her Dragon, but he did not hesitate. Draconic pride would allow no less. A slight shimmering of the air betrayed the expansion of Silver’s shield. She sensed him straining to hold the shape as it swelled; the Dragon dug deep, until Pip knew she could not have managed as much. There. A touch of Shimmerith’s mind to aid and correct an awkward application of the shield-magic …

Kassik began to growl deep in his throat, but the Sapphire Dragoness said lightly, Come, Silver, shake a wing. We’ll make a Blue of you yet.

Appreciative chuckles rippled around the Dragonwing.

Now the rest of you, ordered the Brown. Today, we’re going to fly through Archion’s finest swarm of aerial mosquitos without breathing so much as a puff of smoke. And they will not touch us.

Emblazon snorted, Talons and tails, Kassik, you’re spoiling all the fun for these youngsters.

Kassik returned a hundred-fang grin. If we succeed and reach Archion unscathed, I’ll take volunteers for a little windroc-hunting competition.

TAZZARAL! The Copper Dragon unleashed his battle-challenge.

Jyoss wagged a wingtip at him. And that was for what, exactly, my beauty?

Saluting thy beauty, worthy Dragoness.

Archion Island resembled the lower half of a man standing knee-deep in a dark swamp, his legs surrounded by clouds of gnats–in reality, thousands of windrocs that nested in the cliffs of the lower parts of the Island. That was only the tiniest peak of the Island massif of bird life for which Archion was famed. Multiple layers of terrace lakes each housed a spectacular menagerie of water-bird species, but the true wonder was the arch, the joining of the two ‘legs’ that stood akimbo in the Cloudlands. A crazy feature designed by some Ancient Dragon whimsy, the whole concept tickled Pip’s fancy–wasn’t it frivolous? Outrageous? A pet project breathed into life? Several of Nak’s less reverent ballads called it the greatest birdbath in the Island-World, and no wonder.

Shimmerith cheerfully expounded on the subject of joint, overlapping and concentric shields as the Dragonwing angled onto a more northerly heading, aiming to catch the suns-rise beneath the arch. Kassik and Emblazon argued about the best altitude above the Cloudlands and the optimal viewing angle for the suns-rise, while the Sapphire Dragoness made the younger Dragons and Riders sweat to produce the exact shields she ordered.

“Shielding a wing-brother or wing-sister in combat situations is a basic skill,” Shimmerith lectured. “Augmented shields, however, take on particular properties we have discussed before–additional resilience, decreased effort to maintain and even offensive characteristics such as Arosia and Chymasion discovered a few minutes ago. Reflex lightning? That’s a rare skill. Pip, are you listening?”

“Reflex and reflective shields,” she returned promptly, filing those ideas for future use. Could one reflect such a devastating attack as the Marshal’s? Anyone trying such a trick would simply be pulverised. “Noted. Also, not forgetting Silver’s slingshot effort the other day. I’m sure if you cut him, you’d find Blue Dragon blood.”

“Chymasion’s more Blue than I’ll ever be,” Silver grumbled, earning another round of chuckles.

The Jade hatchling said, “You’re all obsessed with colours. I tell you, the world is far more magical than that.”

“Your blueness only polished my scales to a more beautiful sheen,” the Herimor Shapeshifter retorted.

“Saved by your shielding, Silver,” Shimmerith cut in smoothly. “Right. Back to psychic shields. Silver, prepare your attacks. We’ve a few minutes before those windrocs decide to test our skills. You’ll be dealing with two simultaneous types of attacks, physical and mental, my friends–so prepare yourselves. Attack!”

Windrocs were no fun, contrary to Emblazon’s scornful opinion. Eighteen feet in wingspan, armed with cruel, hooked beaks and talons and the attitude of blood-maddened rajals, windrocs were justly regarded as the foremost avian predators of the Island-World. Or just a menace. Flying rats. Fireball fodder. It rather depended on one’s perspective.

As dawn stretched its roseate wings across the eastern horizon, the windrocs began in ones and twos to indulge in their favourite pastime of suicidally-attack-the-Dragon. They had neither fear nor love to spare the Dragonkind. Pip winced as needle-sharp talons scraped thin air not more than two feet above her head. The foremost windroc, deep brown save for the tan underparts and wingtips, screeched furiously as Tazz’s shield held firm. Soon, they were being mobbed by a screaming mass, the frustration seeming to attract their fellow avians like bees to nectar. Jyoss finally managed to copy Chymasion’s shield so that hers began to throw off spear-like bolts of lightning, frazzling any windroc that dared to attack her. Knots of windrocs fell away from the Dragonwing as the healthy ones chased their injured comrades down toward the Cloudlands.

Honestly, they’re spoiling the view, Emblazon griped.

Unusually aggressive this season, Kassik said. He blinked as unexpectedly, every windroc within a quarter-mile turned upon its neighbour to rend it beak and claw. Silver? I ordered shields only!

It’s a de-motivational psychic shield, he replied, smugly enough that Pip knew he had only just worked out how to achieve that effect. Noble Emblazon requested a clear view of the suns-rise. I wish only to serve my elders to the best of my–

Cheeky hatchling! The Brown Dragon snapped at him.

Silver bore the brunt of Kassik’s clashing fangs against his shoulder without flinching. Ay, mighty Kassik.

Pip saw Casitha bend forward to speak softly to her Dragon. “Battle alert!” roared the Brown. “Riders, to arms! We’ve a flotilla of trader Dragonships in trouble, through the archway. Enough of this nonsense with birds, my Dragon-kin. We’re about to enjoy a little practical schooling.”

All their training translated into instant action and reaction. Peering beneath Archion’s dark underbelly, every person and Dragon could see clear to the far side, where at a distance of several leagues a quintet of trader Dragonships appeared to be under attack by a half-dozen or more pirate Dragonships supported by a trio of matched shell-brother Green Dragons. She and her fellow Riders quickly armed themselves with bows or slid Dragon lances into their bracers, while the Jeradian warriors armed and tensioned the crossbows mounted on Emblazon’s massive war harness.

So much for the spectacular suns-rise, Pip thought wryly, which had cast quadruple overlapping rainbows into the mists above Archion’s terrace lakes. They would do battle against the backdrop of an artist’s masterwork.

“Emblazon, I’ll lead half of our group around the southern leg, highest speed. Pincer attack,” Kassik ordered. “You take the direct attack. Shimmerith, optical shields. Chymasion and Emmaraz, concentrate on the smallest Green. He’s your prey today. Silver, Jyoss, Tazz–with me.”

The huge Amber Dragon nodded. “We’ll synchronise on your mark, mighty Kassik.”

Veering off at once, the Brown pumped his wings to accelerate toward Archion’s league-tall cliffs. Above, layer upon layer of granite terrace lake walls stretched up seemingly to the skies, giving the upper Island the appearance of being encased in layers of banded Eastern Isles armour. They hared around the southern cliff face, blasting the odd unlucky windroc which happened to intersect their path. At this speed, the windrocs barely had time to react before the Dragons zipped past. Vegetation blurred in the edges of Pip’s vision until she learned that with Human sight, one simply had to look far ahead or grow dizzy. Dragon sight, especially with the translucent secondary optic membrane to protect the eye, handled the wind’s buffeting and even the speed of approaching or passing objects much better. No mind. She readied her Pygmy bow and checked the quiver of arrows Kaiatha had quickly foraged for out of Tazzaral’s saddlebags. She fingered the cunning drawstring design that kept the arrows in place even if the Dragon flew upside-down. Quick, belt the quiver at her right hip. Check her saddle harness one more time.

Oh, to be flying like these Dragons …

Not for two more weeks at least, Silver’s mental voice intruded on her thoughts. Please, Pip. Don’t even think about transforming.

The note of his pleading touched her. Ay, Silver. I’m not always as stubborn as I look.

Thankfully. His fangs flashed a quick grin at her. When you’re flying again, I’ll gladly be your Rider for a while–because I happen to think you’re awesome as a Dragoness. An awesome enemy, but a far more awesome girlfriend.

Ah … thanks. What had she done to deserve this accolade? You’re kind of cool yourself–ah, sorry. That’s a stupid thing to say to a Dragon.

Not to a Blue. Ice attacks are very cool.

Joking, Silver. If she could have managed it, her smile would have crinkled not just the corners of her eyes, but her entire being.

Silver reacted with a lopsided, slightly foolish grin. Eh? I didn’t know Humans made fire-eyes.

Kaiatha tapped Pip’s arm. “If you’re done flirting, Kassik would like you to be careful with your shoulder if you’re using a bow. Otherwise, he says, ‘Burn and blast, Pygmy girl.’ ”

Oh. Why did it feel as if she and Silver were alone in the world when he regarded her with that especial gleam in his eye? And that she was the last creature in the Island-World who deserved that regard? Self-consciously, Pip fiddled with her weapons. She had to break away from thinking that differentiated her from big people, at least, in ways that actually mattered. Silver was not tall, mind. Was it not Zardon who had uttered those words seared on her memory, ‘Since when did mere size gauge the worth of Human or Dragon?’ When would she grow within, or did scars or Kaia’s memory-boulders always impact the present?

Silver said, You need to learn to hide your thoughts better, my Pip.

Double the embarrassment. Pip touched her tingling cheek. My Pip? Always, in the cage, her thoughts and feelings had been the one thing no person could own …

He added, You’re right. It’s not about growing bigger, Pip, or becoming someone or something else. It’s about becoming fully yourself. Knowing yourself. Growing into your … true nature. Sorry, I can’t put it better. His mind projected a thought-nugget of his own emancipation from the Marshal’s power and influence, majoring on the freedom and sense of purpose he now enjoyed.

Curious how her body could be rushing around the broad base of an Island at a speed exceeding a mile a minute, while her mind leaped about like an overexcited spider-monkey clambering completely different mental constructs. That was the secret to Leandrial’s harmonic magic, surely? Harmony. Exactly as the name suggested–she quirked her lips drolly at Silver’s slight snicker from over on Tazzaral’s port wingtip–the clue had been right in front of her cute little button-nose all along. What? She scowled mentally at Silver. He dared to supplant her thoughts with his?

Got you.

Pip prodded him mentally. You’re just a muddy-kneed Herimor urchin I picked up in a cave somewhere.

Silver lost his wing-stroke entirely as he stiffened in outrage. Ugh. Dragon emotions. He picked up again, especially as the Brown Shapeshifter directed a withering glare at his apparent misbehaviour.

That was when the giggles attacked Pip with a vengeance. Silver winged on, haughtily ignoring his girlfriend’s chuckles.

Scooting beneath the massive cliff overhang of mid-Archion Island, home to millions of bats roosting amongst the deep cracks and thickets of trailing vines, Kassik and his force burst through a thick scrum of windrocs. No more niceties. Four huge fireballs mingled as the Dragons blasted the windrocs out of the sky. They deliberately winged through the smoke and debris, getting a taste of charcoaled windroc meat in their nostrils–Pip noted the immediate effect on their Dragon physiologies, the surging battle-lust, the howl of belly-fires primed to bursting-point and the trembling readiness of paws to rend, rend, rend …

Pip’s knuckles whitened on her bow. She must not transform. Deny the inner burning …

The Brown snarled, Faster, fledglings. Attack speed.

Hurtling on and on, she began to question if Kassik had misjudged the distance. He jinked upward, taking them above the arch’s mile-wide horizontal join. Sleepy, troubled bird-chatter rose from the birds roosting alongside the six upper levels of terrace lakes as the Dragons’ wash disturbed the waters. Then, the battle appeared to rise over the Island’s bulging flank. That much was illusion. The skirmish was not. The five trader Dragonships scrapped with–Pip counted rapidly–eight heavily-armed pirate Dragonships, a further massive airship which boasted ten war-catapult and crossbow emplacements she could make out, and two Green Dragons who crawled over one of the trader Dragonships, efficiently stripping it of weapons and defenders. Where was the other Green?

Alright Tazz, snarled Kassik. Time to roast those flying slugs!

Four full-throated Dragon challenges rumbled over the battle, shaking the Greens as if they were pebbles in a gourd-rattle. A moment before, those red-rajal pirate pennants had looked so brave, waving in the breeze. Now they resembled scraps of bloody meat waved in front of irate Dragons’ noses.

Where were Shimmerith and her battle group? Pip glanced below, realising how Kassik’s angle of assault from several hundred yards above the pirates had drawn every eye upward. The Greens were already disentangling themselves from the Dragonships, throats swelling to voice their enmity. A pleasant morning’s pillaging and looting, interrupted. There–oh yes! Anticipation punched her breathless. She saw a slight shimmer of air like the play of heat above an open volcanic vent, perfectly in keeping with Shimmerith’s name. Chymasion and Emmaraz broke free of the shield a scant fifty yards beneath the trailing Green’s belly. The Red Emmaraz aimed for the belly region, Chymasion took the throat. Maylin somehow picked off a pirate Steersman with an intrepid arrow-shot an instant before her Dragon slammed into the Green, ramming his talons so deep into its hide that his knuckles completely disappeared. Chymasion seized the Green by the skull-spikes at high speed and threw his full weight into a slingshot manoeuvre, twisting the Green’s head right off his neck!

What? Kassik gasped an involuntary fireball.

Roaring, Death to all pirates! Tazzaral pummelled the largest Dragonship, blasting war crossbows off the bow with a series of explosive fireballs while Jyoss spiralled a bare foot above her companion’s arched spine-spikes to attack two catapult emplacements on a gantry above the main air sack. So fast! Pip struggled to follow the action as two delicate blades of white fire appeared to spear from … her eyes? Jyoss wielded her magical weapons with surgical precision. The emplacements and their attendant engineers peeled off the gantry and tumbled into the Cloudlands.

Suddenly, catapult-shot and arrows filled the sky. Pip yelled something nonsensical and ferocious as she drew to shoot. Pain lanced into her wounded shoulder; the shot went awry. Quick. Another! A pirate lining up Durithion with a six-foot metal crossbow bolt folded over an arrow buried in his right flank. Kaiatha deafened her right ear with a wild yell. She saw Kassik twisting metal into useless sculptures with his Brown power, while Emblazon had the biggest Green locked in a death-grip, all talons bared as he quarried great chunks of Dragonflesh off his adversary. A six-foot quarrel sprouted in her Silver’s side! Pip flinched as a matching spear-point of pain seemed to shoot into her ribs, too. Nothing. No blood.

Ignore the pain. Pip flung up an arm to deflect a normal-sized arrow whizzing toward Kaia; her answering shot made the archer duck. Shimmerith ambushed him from behind, merely a blur of sapphire scales as she cleared the lower gantry of a pirate Dragonship with an extended swipe of her left forepaw. Each airship was a large oblong balloon with a cabin suspended beneath it by hawsers, with light metal gantries around and above the cabins to double as fighting platforms and repair access for engineers. Dragonship design often included crysglass-enclosed Navigator cabins at the bow, but these pirate ships were built for combat–their Steersmen stood in the open. Unlucky.

Emmaraz slammed into a Dragonship above and ahead of them, ripping the entire bow-gantry off its moorings in a fit of pique. Maylin’s laughter egged him on. Opposite, Pip spied Silver lashing out with his hind foot, leaving an imprint of a Steersman on a cabin wall. He shook his paw to clean–well, Pip did not want to think what exactly–off the underside.

Oyda’s in trouble!

Pip could not tell which Dragon had cried out. Somehow, the third and last Green Dragon had wriggled free of a melee, only to impale himself on Emblazon’s spine-spikes in the region of the huge Amber Dragon’s hindquarters. She knew that feeling all too well. But the injured Green pressed his paws down to lift himself clear. Now he clawed his way toward Oyda, disregarding the war crossbow emplacements positioned to either side. The Green was just six feet behind her position. Had Oyda realised? Meantime, Emblazon wrestled with his quarry, trying to execute a killing bite.

Roaring! Rushing! Tazzaral sprang off the pirate mothership at Kaiatha’s sharp command. Duri and Jyoss speared across the fray, but came under heavy fire from catapults belonging to both friend and foe. Somehow Kassik was in the thick of it all, above Emblazon, holding Hunagu against his belly with one paw while he reached out with the other, only to be rebuffed by an unfortunate swoop from Chymasion, intent on dodging a catapult-load of razor-sharp shrapnel.

Go, Silver! On my mark! Pip heard herself yell. She slapped her saddle-harness buckles, freeing the spring-loaded mechanism.

She saw Oyda speared through the back by a talon. No, Oyda was fine, riding high. The Green, golden Dragon blood dripping between his fangs, coiled his thigh-muscles in anticipation of the fatal blow. Oyda tumbled lifeless into the Cloudlands, Emblazon bugled in wild, unrestrained grief … she could not tell what was real anymore. Silver swerved at her call … seeing what she saw … now Pip looked through his eyes, making a desperate correction of course as she crouched. She tried to shake her head to clear the intruding images. Ready. Judge the distance. She sprang upward, clasping a sword in her weaker left hand. Snagging the outermost edge of Silver’s wingtip, she flew in an arc over a trader Dragonship as it slowly ascended into the gap between her and Emblazon. Her shoulder burned. Pip disregarded the pain. The Silver Dragon crashed into the soft air sack and rolled over it, keeping his wing perfectly extended, one with her in crazy-slow motion.

Bolts, fired by double crossbow emplacements on a nearby pirate airship! But before Pip could blink, Jyoss’ eye-beam attack cut the pair of six-foot ‘Dragon killer’ crossbow bolts in half. She arced rapidly toward Oyda, muscles screaming at the strain.

The Green heaved himself forward.

Pip released Silver’s wingtip, bringing her sword up from behind her left shoulder in a fluid blur. She hurled it overhand with all of her strength into the space between that fatal grey talon and the small of Oyda’s back … and it kept right on cartwheeling, flying so fast that it struck the side of the Island hundreds of feet distant. The claw struck home. Pip screamed! But the steely talon never penetrated her armour, for it had no foundation. Sheared clean off. Oyda had a second’s grace to slice her final saddle-strap free and leap for safety before the stunned Green jerked ahead to complete his attempted backstab. That was his last living accomplishment, for Silver embellished his manoeuvre with a shaped fireball he had been trying to teach the other Dragons. Flame crackled above Pip’s head, spearing into the Green Dragon’s wounded neck. Silver sparks exploded throughout the Green’s flesh. That was Silver’s special power, what he called a kinship-power between a Silver Dragon and a Star Dragon’s signature star-fire attack.

The enemy Green’s eye-fires ebbed and flickered out.

She tumbled out of the fray. Down, down forever, heart crammed into her throat. Amidst the smoke and chaos above, Pip caught flashes of fangs and wings. Flame blossomed lazily from one of the Dragonships … Silver!

I come, my Rider. He upended and clipped his wings sharply, diving in pursuit of the falling Humans. Below Pip, Oyda fell with peculiar calm, as if she were lying on a bed of air. Silver’s rapid acceleration brought him down to the Dragon Riders within seconds, whereupon he produced a stunning piece of aerial acrobatics, snagging both women simultaneously at high speed, yet his catches were so perfectly timed, Pip experienced only the gentlest of bumps against her ribs.

Oyda chuckled, Silver, Pip–you’re awesome together. Wow!

Silver’s doing, really, Pip protested.

Let’s argue properly later, suggested the Dragon, lacing his words with nuances that made Oyda shout with laughter and Pip blush up a firestorm.

She huffed, Mind on the battle, young Shapeshifter!

Silver only produced a fiery chuckle while diving out of the way of a Green Dragon corpse tumbling away into the Cloudlands. Emblazon had defeated his foe. With that, the pirates were effectively doomed. Eight battle-maddened Dragons crawled all over the enemy Dragonships. Those pirates who did not surrender were summarily invited to a quick flight from a great height. Smoke drifted away on the breeze, and with it, the blood-scents and debris of battle.

Nak grandly ‘negotiated’ with the trader Dragonship Captain for disposal of the proceeds. Thereafter, the Dragonwing flew up to one of the terrace lakes, scattering ten thousand birds to the winds, while the trader manned the empty pirate vessels and flew them off with a smile plastered upon his bearded face that could likely be seen from ten leagues away. He was rich, and alive.

* * * *

The terrace lake rippled golden-orange in the early suns-shine as Tazzaral and Jyoss sported in the narrow but deep band of water, chasing terrace-lake trout more for fun than food. Everyone else gathered on a beach shaded by jiista-berry bushes growing horizontally out of the granite cliff face just behind this level of lake, licking their wounds, sorting and fixing equipment and discussing the brief but intense battle. At a safe distance, hundreds of herons and blackwing storks perched on the lake’s curved retaining wall and proclaimed their annoyance at the Dragons’ intrusion with a constant chatter of grating caws.

“What need for Dragonships when we have Dragons?” Nak pontificated, striking a trademark Nak pose, arms folded and legs akimbo. His forehead and left eye were heavily bruised, the eye already almost swollen shut.

“The Captain thanked us a hundred times,” Kaiatha said mildly.

“Jolly right he should,” said Maylin. “Ouch, Oyda. Easy on the bandages there. It feels as if you’re roping my ribs together.”

“Broken ribs need firm treatment,” Oyda said. “Nak. Having trouble with that eye?”

“Still lets me ogle your utterly charming behind, o lily of Yelegoy,” he opined, trying to wink and failing.

“Hmm.” Oyda stalked past him, whirled on a sudden whim, delivered a prolonged kiss that literally brought Nak to his knees, and marched right on to Emmaraz. Nak looked as if a Dragon had cuffed his head.

Oyda barked, “Arosia, stitches on a wing-membrane need to be closer together. No more than an eighth of an inch. You can redo the entire section between the fifth and sixth struts beyond the elbow joint.”

“Ay, Dragon Rider,” said Arosia, mopping her forehead. “Right away.”

“I’ll inspect your work afterward.” The Yelegoy Islander grinned. “Pip says I should set your father on you if your work is inadequate in any way.”

“Huh,” snorted Master Balthion.

“Silver, let’s see to that crossbow quarrel.”

“I’m fine.”

“Ooh, you’re such a male,” snorted Oyda. “You’ve six feet of metal buried up to the fletching behind your third rib. Lucky it missed your lungs. Pip, Shimmerith–over here. This looks like the worst of our wounds. Arosia, make sure to check Chymasion over thoroughly once you’re done with Emmaraz. Dragons have a dreadful habit of lying about their wounds.”

“Ay,” said Casitha, giving Kassik the proverbial flaming eyeball.

“Blasted lucky shot,” grumbled the Brown Dragon, covering the split webbing of his left forepaw with his right. “Deflected off a stanchion.”

Emblazon had many acid burns courtesy of the Green Dragon’s death-throes, but had already treated those by swimming in the lake. Barrion’s upper left thigh sported a fresh bandage–an arrow had plugged in the muscle. Shimmerith had plucked it out for him while the warrior bit a piece of leather.

“Your shoulder’s bleeding again, Pip,” Silver pointed out.

“That was some crazy manoeuvre,” Duri enthused, apparently not as preoccupied with picking bits of catapult shrapnel out of his right arm as everyone thought. “You two acted as if you had one mind. Wasn’t that what Master Ga’am tried to teach us? And Pip, how did you get a sword to shear off a Dragon’s talon when a talon is harder even than tempered steel?”

“Desperation?” Pip quipped. Or, strength-magic?

Oyda, her arm buried up to the armpit inside Silver’s flank as she felt about for the crossbow bolt’s flanges, said, “Pip, that’s the second time you’ve rescued me. Actually, twice in one battle–how can I ever thank you? Perhaps our native Yelegoy beliefs in guardian spirits are true. How you ever coordinated that stunt with Silver is beyond me.”

“I saw it,” said Pip.

Silver, Shimmerith and Kassik shared significant glances, but Nak brought the conversation’s tone down to his level with perfect comedic timing. “Ah, my incomparable Pygmy princess,” he declared, smacking his lips like a drunken lout, “were I to kiss you as you deserve, the very stars should swoon from the skies and be found ensconced in thy pyretic physique.”

Pip wrinkled her nose at him. “Thou art gracious but woefully misguided, o nefarious Nak.”

How glad she was to have discussed this problem with Kaiatha before bringing Emblazon and Oyda into her scheme. By shielded telepathy, she called to Emblazon, To my aid, mighty Amber? The Amber Dragon sneaked up behind Nak, astoundingly cat-footed for a beast of his tonnage. Predator. No other word served as well.

“Misguided?” Nak played to his audience. “Pray elucidate, thou dusky flame?”

“I’m just wondering which Dragon you’d choose to rebuke you first–Silver, Shimmerith or Emblazon?”

“Um,” said the Rider, making a show of scratching his beard.

Emblazon roared in his ear, “Jump!”

“Help!” Screeching in dismay, Nak bounded off like a frightened rock deer before realising that everyone was laughing at him. He dusted off his trousers and threw Pip a reproachful glare. “Where’s the dignity in this relationship, I ask you?”

Pip indicated herself. “Right here. Besides, my kisses are reserved for …” Blast it, now she stuttered to a halt and cast a sidelong glance at the Silver Dragon.

He wafted a flame-ring toward her, shaped as a wavering but recognisable heart. He bugled softly, “For thee, my flame-heart.”

Nearby, Casitha and Kaiatha raised whoops and cheers while Durithion clicked his fingers approvingly in the Sylakian fashion. Pip had to grin, albeit sheepishly. She had walked into a trap of her own making. Now she must pay the price in embarrassment.

Oyda beckoned Nak with her free hand. Garnishing her playful tone with fluttering eyelashes and a sassy pose, she cooed, “Oh Nak, I desire a strong man’s help with this crossbow bolt. Would you please assist me, o mighty, mighty Dragon Rider?”

Nak produced a fake swoon, staggering against Emblazon’s outstretched paw. “Ah, slain by thy beauty, winsome Yelegoy!”

Oyda’s cheeks developed matching spots of colour. “Nak. Get over here. Now!”

Pip approached Shimmerith to seek the Blue Dragon’s help. She had to find a way of healing her strange, Shapeshifter-connected wounds. Perhaps the image of becoming truly herself could be translated by a Dragon’s innate healing magic, for in the battle’s heat she had begun to sense an inner stirring she had thought forever lost beneath the Cloudlands.

Fire. Dragon fire.

Chapter 9: Sylakia

FOR THE MIDAFTERNOON briefing that same day following the pirates’ defeat, Master Balthion took over. “Using a Dragons’ Highway, we’ll depart this evening and aim to arrive in Sylakia before dawn tomorrow. We’ll be met outside Sylakia Town by agents sympathetic to our cause. I’ve already alerted them by message hawk.”

Clasping his hands behind the small of his back, the grizzled Master swivelled slowly, scrutinising each member of their group as if seeking to plumb their strengths and weaknesses. Pip knew that gaze well. A commander’s gaze. An academic’s keen intelligence. A swordsman’s understanding of combat. A fatherly softness as his eyes briefly touched upon Arosia and Chymasion.

He said, “With due respect, Chymasion, this crossing may prove to be beyond your capabilities at present due to the strength of the winds. We’ll plan accordingly. We will also hide Silver in his Shifted form for this leg. The Marshal’s agents may well be searching for a Dragon matching his unique description. At Sylakia we’ll split up as planned. Kassik, Casitha and I will slip into town to begin our investigations. Faranion and Barrion, you will accompany us. Jerrion, Pip is your responsibility. The rest will proceed under Nak and Emblazon’s command to the Crescent Isles.”

“Ay,” growled the Dragons, as if their response were orchestrated by a single, invisible paw.

“One small aside,” Balthion added. “For the zoo trip, Pip and Silver will require disguises. You’re about to become a happy little family. Nak and Oyda, congratulations on your incipient parenthood.”

“Phew.” Nak began to scratch himself vigorously with both hands, and not in socially acceptable places either. “You just set off all my allergies at once, Balthion.”

Duri grinned at Pip. “Hey, can I call you my titchy little sister?”

Maylin piped up, “Why don’t you make Jerrion and Oyda the parents, and Nak the boisterous little brat?”

“Hey!” Nak flicked a fish-head at the Eastern Islander, who caught it with a snap of her wrist and a smirk aimed to infuriate.

Balthion pretended to consider her proposal. “Hmm. Excellent strategic thinking there, Maylin. Emmaraz, you and Chymasion will be main watch on the zoo complex. Emblazon and Shimmerith are too recognisable. The other Dragons will wait in a wood a mile southwest of the zoo. Saddled. Ready to depart at the drop of a rajal’s hat.”

“Ah–are we sure this zoo visit is worth all the trouble?” asked Pip.

The Sylakian Master bowed formally to Emblazon. “Noble Amber. What is a Dragon’s foremost weapon in battle?”

“Heart,” he growled.

Shimmerith agreed, “Absolutely. We Dragons say the brighter the heart burns, the more powerfully a Dragon burns in battle. White-fires, battle-fires and heart-fires–in Dragonish, these words are all formed from the same root. My Emblazon is a great-hearted Dragon and that is his battle-secret, the true power behind the outward appearance and a battle-honed mind.”

Emblazon squeezed his mate’s paw with his own, much as Humans would hold hands. “Ay.”

Balthion said, “Therefore, Pip–”

“I understand, Master, and I thank you for this lesson.”

He dipped into a Sylakian quarter-bow. “Then I expect you to apply your understanding to the attainment of mastery, student Pip–and that goes for all you students, understood? Right. Questions, anyone?”

Arosia raised her hand hesitantly. “Father?”

“I suppose I have to, don’t I?” A wink softened his low growl. He indicated his cheek. “A kiss for your poor, bereft parent. Right here.”

Arosia leaped up with more than a shade of rose complimenting her glad cry. “Father!” She stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek, and then added an impulsive hug.

Balthion held her close. “Permission granted. Hasten back, precious daughter.”

* * * *

The Dragons spiralled aloft upon thermals generated by the intense late afternoon suns-shine, soaring above the northern massif supporting the great natural arch. Archion’s splendour only increased the higher they rose. The multiple layers of terrace lakes, twenty-eight in all, gleamed like bands of molten silver. Above the lakes, the flat summit of the Island played host to four small Human villages, the total population of the Island being less than three hundred hardy souls. Neat triangular fields of crops abutted thick, dark green coniferous forests. Everywhere the eye fell, flotillas of multi-coloured specks affirmed the abundance of bird life. Pip spied a family of rajals slipping past a village. Apparently these people tamed the huge black cats. Mad!

“Beautiful, but you’d need earplugs to live here,” Nak said irreverently. Pip and Human-Silver rode Shimmerith together with Nak, for Emblazon expected to carry Chymasion partway.

“Oyda’s the one who needs earplugs. You snore,” said Pip.

“Bah. I am the epitome of flawless masculinity,” Nak boasted. “Islands’ sakes, are Balthion and Kaiatha puzzling over that diary again? Pretty girl, but ridiculously tenacious. Remind me to give Durithion some pointers about dealing with stubborn women.”

“Of course, Nak.”

“Meantime, Silver, haven’t you taken Pip up on her offer as yet?”

“Ah–what offer?” asked Silver.

“Kissing.” Nak winked over his shoulder. “My boy, you are surely not so dense as to have ignored such an opportunity? Whatever do they teach you over there in Herimor?”

“Courtesy and respect,” Silver snorted.

“Bah. Toss that in a Cloudlands volcano. Can’t you see she’s rainbows over the Islands for you, boy?”

“She is right here, sitting between you,” Pip interjected.

“Oh, great Islands,” Nak teased, “I must’ve overlooked you there, Pip.”

Marvellous! Definitely a lick of ethereal flame as his short-person joke did not fail to irk. Pip said, “I hope fate sends you three little Naks to drive you up the proverbial Island cliff.”

“Three pretty little Oydas to cherish, cosset and protect from all those roguish Naks out there,” said the Rider, sounding so serious that Pip smothered a gasp. “Now, let us use our time wisely–see? Even the merest hint of parenthood has transformed me into an improbably responsible man.” That deserved a chuckle. “Let’s us four put our heads together and figure out how you trigger this Balance power which is supposed to heal a Shapeshifter’s hidden manifestation. Because that’s where the problem is. I’ve thought about it. Your Human flesh is fine. It’s your Dragoness who is suffering, Pipsqueak.”

Had Pip not been strapped in, she might have fallen right off Shimmerith’s back. Nak? How did he switch between the feckless villain and the noble Rider with such Island-shivering facility?

The Dragons ascended to a mile above Archion. Two. The fields diminished to a tiny tracery of fractured green crysglass. The lakes reduced to a series of gleaming concentric slivers, and the birds became a white mist over the Isle as they descended in their droves to roost for the night. Now Archion was but a broad oval besieged by leagues of ruddy Cloudlands, a stronghold of life holding firm against an ocean of death.

Shimmerith led the Dragons in forming semipermeable shields to protect their Riders with oxygen-rich air and warmth. Just in time. A frigid wind from the West ruffled her curls, a harbinger of worse to come. For as they continued to rise, the wind increased from a playful buffeting to an all-out gale which knocked the less experienced fledglings about as though an invisible Dragon cuffed their tails and hindquarters. All thought of lazing upon thermals fled. Bellowing encouragement to the fledglings, Emblazon turned his muzzle to the East and led his Dragonwing deeper into the chill airstream which would whisk them over to Sylakia Island.

They travelled a Dragons’ Highway, far transcending any Human habitation.

Overhead, the starry skies seemed to amplify the gaspingly low temperatures with icy cheer. Fair winds and clear skies for travellers, was the ancient saying. Pip wondered if this relentless, ice-breathing beast hounding their tails counted as fair winds. Crescent Jade had already surmounted the eastern horizon, just a compass-point or two north of their heading. The White Moon blazed balefully upon their tails with its usual pinpoint brilliance, reflected upon the Cloudlands beneath. Pip huddled in her jacket and tugged the furred collar tight about her neck. Brr! By morning, she would be a Pygmy icicle ready to shatter upon the famously unforgiving bulwark of Sylakia Island.

Alight, Shimmerith. I’m ready.

Good, Pip. I’m going to teach you a type of meditation–a technique of inner awareness–we Dragonkind call ‘knowing the cell-fires’. For through draconic medical science we can examine the composition of our bodies in the minutest detail, down to our inmost fires and component parts. Attend closely as I scribe these teachings upon your mind-fires.

Far into the night, she laboured with Silver and Shimmerith on her mental skills. Pip wrestled with Dragonish logic, so unfamiliar to one who had grown up in a jungle and a zoo. The breadth of Balthion and Arosia’s schooling followed by a few months’ education at the Dragon Rider Academy made but a small foundation for understanding the draconic half of her heritage, yet she was grateful. How could that cage-bound Pygmy girl have imagined riding Dragonback upon a windstorm, on a mission to change the Island-World as she knew it? How could the two Dragons claim to be learning from her questions?

Two hours before dawn, Shimmerith sang out sight of Sylakia. Pip realised she had not slept a wink. She could not tell if she felt refreshed or too keyed up to imagine sleep. She must build her barricades, bury the feelings deep. And let go? Could she ever follow Kassik’s heart-cleansing wisdom and consign that experience to the past?

Dark and forbidding, Sylakia loomed upon the eastern horizon. Sheer, league-tall cliffs bounded the Island on every visible quarter, laced with vegetation in some parts. From several leagues off, she made out multiple Cloudlands-bound waterfalls and the serrated interior mountains of Sylakia’s notorious wilderness regions. A huge Island in comparison to Archion, Sylakia stretched forty-one leagues from top to tail, as Nak put it, with a midsection twenty-eight leagues wide. Much was uninhabitable wilds, mountains and even a large desert on the eastern periphery. Sylakia Town itself perched upon the brink of a massive inlet that cut into the Island as though an Ancient Dragon had once sought to tear it asunder. The infamous Tower of Sylakia, an uninviting lump of a prison building, stood upon a separate tower of rock just off the northern peninsula, separated from the mainland by a few hundred feet and two vertical miles’ drop. Few prisoners escaped, she imagined, unless they could fly. Nak quietly pointed out a jutting walkway called the Last Walk, where Sylakia executed convicts by forcing them to cast themselves into the Cloudlands from the height of a league.

Silent-winged and cloaked by Shimmerith and Silver’s combined power, the Dragonwing circled the northern flank of town and headed slightly southward again, landing near a small, concealed juniper and prekki tree forest Balthion clearly knew well.

Here, supplies and disguises awaited. Kassik and Silver transformed into Human form. The Dragons tucked into a well-deserved meal of freshly slaughtered ralti sheep–slaughtered beforehand so that the sheep would not raise a ruckus when they smelled their doom landing nearby. The Riders unloaded, steaming of breath and rubbing their numb fingers in the nippy pre-dawn air.

Pip embraced Casitha. “I’ll see you back at the Academy, won’t I?”

“Hope so.”

“Otherwise I’ll just have to hunt you down.” Suddenly, she hugged Casitha so fiercely the girl gasped. “Be careful. Promise?”

Casitha looked oddly at her. “Of course, Pip.”

Pip disguised her disquiet beneath a fake shiver. “Mercy, it’s cold. Give me a steaming hot jungle any day.”

“You’ll find your family, Pip. For certain.”

Farewells were so awkward, especially when she wanted nothing more than to shout, ‘No! Turn back!’ Yet she knew that any hope must be pursued. If Dragons could hide somehow from the Shadow-beast, perhaps some Dragonkind could still be saved. Beside Chymasion’s jade flank, Balthion embraced Arosia, murmuring in her ear. What she would not have given for such a hug from her father. Would she remember her tribe? Would she even recognise her parents?

So far, they had seen no sign of Night-Red Dragons, which concerned Kassik, Balthion and Nak. Surely Sylakia must be a target for the Marshal, its power subdued if he intended to establish his regime North of the Rift? Yet all seemed quiet. The eight dark, four-square garrisons situated around Sylakia Town had raised no alarm as the Dragonwing ghosted by. Pip decided that itching had no value. Go to the zoo. Array herself in courage as a Dragon arrayed in gleaming black scales, ready for battle. Make the sacrifice she had to make for the sake of the future–everyone’s future.

“Your outfit, lady Pip,” Jerrion rumbled.

“What’s this?”

“A Sylakian peasant’s headscarf for children,” he said, perfectly straight of face. Pip was certain his eyes twinkled way up there, four feet above her head. He knelt suddenly. “Here. I’ll show you how to fasten it. Oh, this has a face-veil.”

Kaiatha said, “I think I’ll take over at this point, Jerrion.”

“Your dress,” said the Jeradian, handing her the rough garment. “Looks and smells well used, lady Dragoness.”

“Jerrion, are you begging for a beating?”

“I’m all for realism in disguise,” he grinned. “You haven’t seen the best yet–clay to muddy your already pungent outfit. And dung.”

“Dung?” Pip glowered at Kaiatha. “Don’t you giggle. I have my standards, they just aren’t as high as some.”

“If you smell terrible, people won’t look as closely,” said her friend, rapidly forging her path to becoming a non-friend. Kaia helped her fasten the headscarf with pins, covering her face until only her eyes showed through a narrow band. “Welcome to the world of headscarves. Right. Now, none of that perky-Pygmy walk either. Timid and self-effacing is what you’re after.”

“Timid? Self-what? I’m not that kind of girl!”

Nak, passing with an armful of supplies, helpfully put in, “Ay, she accosted me in public one day, stark naked. Nothing timid about that.”

Pip snapped, “Nak!”

“Imagine my shock. Delicate heart, you know,” said Nak. “Now, fabulous Fra’anior, if you’d only do the same …”

“Ignore him.” Kaiatha daubed tan mud artfully here and there on her clothing, particularly around the hem and sleeves, and finished up with a healthy dollop of fresh dung. “Perfect. Now for the banded knee-leggings and leather-wrap shoes. Phew. These also stink like the genuine article. Let’s show Silver.”

Silver had dyed black hair and a tan! Pip stared at him, abashed. Only the eyes betrayed his true nature, and his slightly quirky grin. Just like the girl chatting to him … oh mercy, she wasn’t seeing a gleam of magic in her friend’s eyes, was she?

“Kaiatha?”

The luminous blue eyes turned from Silver to her. “Pipsqueak?”

Shapeshifter. Kaia just kept staring at her. No, it could not be. Kassik had revealed that Shifters understood Dragonish perfectly. “Uh … I’m seeing things again. Imagining things.” She winced at Silver’s expression. “I thought I saw magic in you, in your–”

Kaiatha’s eyes filled with moisture. “Islands’ sakes, Pip! Can you please not allude to my father? I … I just don’t need to hear it right now.”

“Sorry.”

A quarter-hour later, Pip tramped through the damp woods with her newfound family. Off to peel open her own hurts.

The zoo stood a short ways out of town, a broad, flat area of otherwise infertile ground which had been converted to displays of crysglass-fronted cages arranged along a circular walkway. A towering blackthorn hedge backed by a rough picket fence kept the curious public from intruding on the zoo compound, forcing all traffic through the main gates. Pip pretended a deep and abiding interest in her toes as Nak charmed the matron in charge of selling tickets. She should have convinced Zardon to wreak a properly draconic destruction on this place–only, that would have killed the animals. And Hunagu. There was another loss to prepare for. The Ape had become withdrawn during the journey. Perhaps he felt it, too. Perhaps the advent of an Onyx Dragoness had forever spoiled what had been a strong friendship.

The smell! Pip clutched Silver’s hand. She must breathe past the claustrophobia crushing her lungs against her ribcage, the memory of waking to impassable cage walls hemming in a free-spirited jungle creature …

“The monkey cages were this way,” said Pip, tugging Silver’s hand impulsively. “Let’s get this over with.”

A couple of brass drals purchased even a poor family a chance to stare into the cages. Caged for life, most animals would not know what she felt. Perhaps they came to see the zoo as home, and had no past to remember. Yet she recalled this people-babble, the children exclaiming as they rushed from the violet flamingos of Remoy to a cage of Fra’aniorian parakeets to the rajal display, the adults strolling along sipping hot, thin Sylakian ale which smelled of nothing so much as stale urine. Even Silver wafted a hand past his nose. Abruptly he gripped her hand, his palm febrile to the touch.

Pip squeezed his fingers gratefully. He understood.

Ahead of them, Jerrion moved through the crowd with ease, a man-mountain in motion. His role was to protect and to distract–easily done by a giant. Children stared with a mixture of fascination or fear. The adults balked and stepped out of his path.

No obvious signs of danger, said Nak, his telepathic Dragonish imperfect but understandable.

Emmaraz flies above, said Silver. My extended senses detect nothing so far. Pip? Balance or imbalance?

That awareness when one stepped into a cave and knew the almost-imagined, almost-certain sense that a predator lurked somewhere in the darkness. Her nape prickled. Hyper-awareness, Master Ga’am called it, indistinguishable from plain, cold fear. Fear was her enemy.

No imbalance. No Dragon minds.

Three telepathic gasps greeted this assertion. Silver said slowly, You detect draconic minds? Pip–

Probably not shielded ones, she replied, cutting off whatever label of peculiarity she had just earned herself. Normalcy? Oh, Kaiatha. She was not unusual. No, she was cursed.

Well, I feel something and it’s not one of my usual itches, said Nak. Stay alert.

Pip shut her mind before he conjured up an unforgettable image. Master Kassik thought the prize was worth the danger. Their disguises were sound. Looking ahead, she saw that the zoo management must have rebuilt the monkey enclosure. A crowd had gathered around one of the nearest windows, exclaiming excitedly.

“Look, chabbik lizards from the Southern Archipelago,” said Nak, reading a plaque on the enclosure opposite the monkeys.

Pip pretended interest. Yaethi said that the flightless, carnivorous lizards were ancient relatives of the Dragons. Meantime, she listened to the crowd, the tone of their comments, the excitement–there was something in there. Something oddly … draconic. Her keen eyes scanned the enclosure. A dozen six-legged lizards, some larger than a hatchling Dragon, squabbled over a fresh animal carcass. Their finger-long fangs flashed as they tossed back their heads to bolt scraps of meat.

“What’s the excitement?” Nak asked a passer-by casually.

“New display. Some kind of monkey,” came the reply, emphasized by a glob of spit that landed near Nak’s well-worn boot. “Out of my way, peasant scum.”

“So tiny!” Pip heard. If these lizards were draconic cousins, maybe that was the bloodthirstiness she sensed–and she should never mention the possible relationship to real Dragons. “Roaring rajals, what is it?”

She turned. Alright, Pygmy girl. Look into the cage, into your past. Deal with it.

Apparently noting the purpose communicated by her movement, Jerrion leaned into the crowd. “Way for a small one, folks?”

As she walked into what seemed a dream, Pip came face-to-face with a little girl of similar height, who stared at the dark eyes and skin beneath Pip’s veil and headscarf. The girl raised her hand as if wanting to touch her face, but she did not dare. She said, “Are you a monkey, too?” The father pulled her away. “Don’t talk to the dirty peasant girl like that, my sweetbun. It isn’t nice.”

Pip barely heard. She knew what the cage contained. The knowing was a spear of flame stuck through her spine. Pressing past Jerrion’s thigh, she came to the crysglass. Touched it. Peered within.

“Would you look at that?” someone said. “Dirty little savage.”

Her first thought was that the woman had spoken directly to her. Not true. For Pip was inside that cage in thought, feeling and memory–no, not her, but it may as well have been. A tiny Pygmy girl stood on the other side of the glass, sucking her thumb. No more than five or six years old. No larger than Pip had been when the slavers first brought her to this cage. Staring at her with dark, beautiful eyes framed by ringlets of muddy black hair. Naked. Innocent of what all this meant.

Pip sagged against the cool crysglass, groaning, clutching her heart. Such pain! She must surely die.

Strong arms gripped her. Voices, calling her name. Pip ripped her face with her fingernails, moaning and wailing in her native Pygmy language, tearing the skin, the cloth, the life from her own body to spill it as the honour-sign of shared, inescapable grief. Oyda pulled her away and it felt as though she tore her soul from her flesh. Every step exacerbated the pain. The crowd began to close the gap. Oh, the caring arms. Mercy, the little dark eyes trapped behind the crysglass, just starting to widen in realisation.

“No! Oh please, oh please, I can’t … I’d rather die …”

Oyda, saying urgently, “Pip, you have to come away. We’ll think of–”

“NO!”

Voices drowned out in the torrent of rage thundering through her being. All was crimson. All was fire.

“Pip, please!”

Silver. She shoved him off, fought free of Jerrion’s arms, and the giant Jeradian could not hold her. The fire would not be denied.

Pip! DO NOT TRANSFORM!

Sobbing, she shoved Silver out of her mind too. The power existed, locked behind a barrier erected by the magic-annulling, perverted Shapeshifter poison. Pip ripped those restraints asunder. That was no longer her. That was Imbalance. This was the person she had been created to be, a fusion of fire and flesh. Nak’s grip tore her peasant dress as she surged forward. Running. Charging through the crowd as though they did not exist.

Smash! Power erupted as she swung her tiny fist.

Pain lanced through her arm! The crysglass window vibrated as though she had struck a gong; fault-lines shot from the point of impact, but the glass did not shatter. She drew back her arm with a moan, but suddenly a hammer whirled past her. Boom! Jerrion, his face ravaged by anguish. He swung again. Boom! The armoured glass sagged. The Jeradian warrior kicked his way in.

“Come on,” he growled, holding out his hand.

The Pygmy child’s mouth hung open in shock. Pip knelt, reaching for her, speaking gently in Ancient Southern, “Little-sister. Jungle-sister. Come with me. This is no place for the jungle-born–see, I am like you. I will take you to your village.”

Tiny arms clasped her neck.

Sweetness. Warmth. Another heart thudding against her chest, matching beat for beat.

Pip rose. “Thank you, Jerrion.” She arranged the child on her forearm, for she had either sprained or broken her wrist with that punch. Turned to leave. A hundred eyes stared at her through the shattered crysglass frame, halting her with the force of their outrage. Who was inside the cage now? There was neither inside nor outside. Freedom beckoned.

A monkey–a vervet monkey, just as she remembered–began to scamper past her. Then it reversed course, fleeing across the cage with a wail.

Pip stared past the crowd. Above their heads, inside that chabbik lizard cage, a low mound of dirt had reared up into a mountain. Thick black legs thrust the pile toward the window, scattering the hissing chabbik lizards to the winds. Beneath the dirt, a well-remembered pair of eyes blazed at her, filled with the dark-fires of draconic hatred.

The Dragon’s voice was fiery winds blasting over barren Islands. So, Pygmy girl–or should I call you Dragoness? It has been too long since I cast you from the skies.

Rambastion!

All her flame turned to ice.

Chapter 10: Dragon Renegade

PIP CLUTCHED HER foundling, glaring across at the renegade Dragon, who lifted his paw to flatten it against the intervening crysglass. His talons flexed as if the Dragon imagined he were sharpening his talons upon a pestiferous Pygmy’s spinal column. Flame licked the glass hungrily.

You look good in a cage, Rambastion, she blurted out.

He should have been enraged. Instead, the Dragon only laughed curtly, Walked straight into our trap, little one, didn’t you? How’re you planning to escape now?

Between them, the crowd began to scatter, screaming and flapping as if a rajal had pounced upon a flock of fowl. Nak mopped his brow with a large red handkerchief–a pre-planned signal, easily seen by Dragon sight from two miles above. Yet for Pip, none of this existed. She said, I’m taking this child home, Rambastion. Don’t even think of trying to stop me.

The Marshal will reward me well.

With life? Pip laughed in exact imitation of Rambastion’s tone. You’re serving the wrong master if you think that, Rambastion. He has already turned your colour and your mind. Your fires are dust to him. Join us, and choose life.

Beside her, Jerrion hefted his massive war-hammer. “You go, lady Pip. I’ll rearrange that lizard’s fangs.”

Nak and Oyda had their swords drawn; Silver looked stricken. “I can’t transform, Pip. I can’t transform, and I can’t reach that lizard …”

What? Why was Rambastion waiting? Did magic’s scent tingle in her nostrils? Pip stepped out of the cage, glancing about. Immediately, a line of sinister men–or creatures–caught her eye. They ranged across the path in both directions, clearly moving against the tide of hysterical humanity. They were manlike, but the resemblance stopped there. Beneath their cowls, the slate-grey faces lacked eyes, but slit nostrils and small, puckered mouths were present. Each creature carried a loaded crossbow and each weapon was levelled at her–not at Silver, nor at Nak or Oyda. Undoubtedly, these creatures had no need of eyes to see. Pip imagined they had been scraped out of a cave somewhere. Sightless. Fusty. Deadly.

Another figure leaning against the chabbik cage, right next to the crysglass window, caught Pip’s attention. “Telisia!”

“Took you long enough, Pygmy scum.” Telisia pushed her hood back, revealing a pretty yet deathly pale face. Was she sick? “We had word of your coming a week ago.”

“You turned Rambastion into an earthworm for a week?” Oyda chuckled. “Suits.”

Telisia raised her hand. “Hold.”

The Night-Red remained motionless, but his inner infernos raged audibly. His entire length smoked furiously as flames burned through the rock and soil piled upon his back. Pip squared her shoulders and willed her knees to remain firm. That initial burst of courage now seemed the foolhardiness of a bite-sized portion of meat presenting itself to the Island-World’s mightiest hunter. Meantime, she wondered what was wrong with Telisia, how she commanded a Dragon, and what those creatures were–doubtless beasts of Herimor, but whatever they represented, they could not be the messenger hawk of joyous tidings.

For a breath, everyone stared at everyone else and nobody moved. Pip knew Nak’s signal would already have been relayed to the Dragons waiting in the wood. At top speed, they could cover the mile to the zoo in less than a minute. She had to stall.

Rambastion made that decision easy.

The huge Night-Red leaped out of the cage with a snarl of rage, surmounting the wall in an instant. Pip and Jerrion peeled off in one direction, Nak, Oyda and Silver in the other. Rambastion ignored the other three. He lunged for Pip, stretching out his right forepaw.

Quicker than the eye could follow, Jerrion slammed his war-hammer into that outstretched paw. Rambastion, however many tonnes he was, staggered as the bone cracked audibly. Pip froze in disbelief. What? Somehow, Jerrion seemed possessed of a draconic power, for the giant moved again in a blur. Wham! The war-hammer thudded into the muscle of Rambastion’s lower left flank. The Dragon staggered. The Jeradian warrior’s third blow knocked the Dragon to his knees.

That was Emmaraz’s cue. The Night-Red’s belly vibrated like a hide drum as the fledgling struck with all the power of a two-mile vertical dive. Perhaps Rambastion had expected to play a trick on the youngster similar to what Silver had done to Pip. Whatever the case, the massive pirate Dragon was unprepared for their combined assault. Emmaraz savaged him unopposed, opening huge rents in his flank and belly before springing sideways at Maylin’s shout. He snatched up Nak and Oyda in one forepaw and Silver in the other.

CHYMASION! Bellowing his battle-challenge, the hatchling snagged one of the grey creatures by the scruff of its neck and hurled it at Telisia, missing by inches as the girl seemed entranced by the sight of her younger sister, a Dragon Rider, nocking an arrow aimed at her forehead. The grey thing crunched into the stone and slumped, its neck crooked at an impossible angle. Arosia fired! Telisia waved a hand, flicking the arrow aside. Chymasion shuddered beneath an invisible blow. He stalled, bouncing off the felled Rambastion before skidding to a halt just beyond, mere inches from Pip’s feet.

Arosia lolled from her saddle, bleeding at the mouth. The grey creatures leaped in with the speed and sinuosity of cats, wielding a blade or a crossbow in either hand.

“Go!” yelled Pip, shoving Jerrion toward the Dragon.

Use this, whispered Chymasion.

Impossible strength flooded her veins. The hatchling must have helped Jerrion thus … suddenly, the grey things slowed. Pip slapped a crossbow bolt out of the air, vaulted over Jerrion, and kicked out. A pair of chins snapped backward. She dropped the child in Arosia’s lap, spun, and seemed to enjoy all the time in the world to catch a pair of bolts headed for Jerrion’s kidneys. She hurled them back at the attackers, taking one in the belly but missing the other. The grey creatures did not slow.

Why could Silver not transform?

With a volley of sharp, guttural barks, five creatures leaped at her, unnaturally graceful in their movements and quicksilver of speed. She saw the world afresh. Fires whiter than snow veiled her vision with thin yet inescapable translucence. Just the barest outlines of flesh and bone impressed upon her senses. Chymasion? This was his sight? Her hands blurred before her face. Arrows, blades, nothing touched her. The hatchling did not appear able to shield her, for two blades sliced through her flying clothing, but no metal reached the flesh. Pip lashed out with her left fist and both elbows and feet, pounding the Herimor creatures in the face, throat and groin areas. When the fifth stayed his ground, having stumbled to his knees, Pip head-butted him brutally in the nose.

Chymasion’s power dissipated as the creatures fell away. She sprinted up the Jade Dragon’s tail and vaulted onto his back, pleased to see Arosia, blood-streaked yet sitting upright, clutching the child firmly to her chest. Jerrion was already seated behind them, brandishing his war-hammer.

Pip shouted, Go Chymasion! Fly!

Scrambling upright, the young Dragon staggered several steps before Telisia abruptly appeared right in front of his nose. Pip was quickest. As Chymasion jinked; she hurled her sword and spoiled Telisia’s crossbow quarrel, intended for someone on the Dragon’s back. Then she was clutching a spine-spike for dear life as the Jade Dragon ran vertically up a cage wall and sprang from the top, beating for the sky.

Pip laughed as Telisia’s furious visage dwindled below. Great work, Chymasion. Telisia waved again, but only appeared able to buffet the Jade Dragons’ tail with wind as he powered away.

Enemies incoming! bugled the young Dragon. Look north!

Pip swivelled in her improvised seat. Over a dozen strong, a Dragonwing of Dragon Assassins sprinted for the zoo. No! What next?

The Marshal had sprung his trap. Who could the traitor be?

* * * *

Pip trotted up Chymasion’s back and slipped between the two spine-spikes in front of Kaiatha, facing her friend. “Alright, Kaia. Start spilling. What did you two just do back there?”

“Saved you from a roasting?” said her friend. In Ancient Southern, she added, “I Pygmy girl safe. Shh, infant.”

Not bad. The little girl blinked. “Ancient One safe?”

Safe? A Dragon? Pip laughed, explaining, “He’s a good Ancient One. Those dark ones are bad. Will you wear a … rope? Keep safe?” Switching languages, she added, “Jerrion, belt yourself in place. This is looking rough.”

GRRARRRRGGHH! Silver’s cry split the cool morning skies. Pip. On my back. That was–freaking feral windrocs, those grey things are running as fast as we’re flying!

Pip chuckled briefly at the sight of Silver wearing his trousers on a skull-spike. Ah, the joys of transformation. A few hundred feet below, the grey creatures were indeed keeping pace, hurdling obstacles with the enthusiasm of a herd of buck in mating season. She saw no sign of Telisia, but that girl seemed capable of almost anything–controlling Dragons, transforming, vanishing upon a handy breeze and, lest she forget, a dash of murder by way of entertainment.

Silver extended his wing with a peremptory waggle. “Now.”

What if he was the traitor? Rising, Pip stepped onto his tertiary wing-joint, the equivalent of the Human wrist, and ran the length of his primary wing bones to his shoulder, taking care not to place her feet on the thin, flexible wing-struts. Please let him not read the suspicion rife in her mind.

“Help!” The wind’s buffeting made her slip on her final step from wing-bone to shoulder. Silver’s paw arrested her fall with draconic reaction-speed. He flicked her atop his shoulder effortlessly. “Great catch.” Pip slipped into position, masking her trepidation with a playful, “You’re a nice boy-Dragon. What’s your name?”

Silver’s laughter gurgled up his long throat. “You may address me as, ‘O Magnificent Plucker of Pygmies.’ ”

“Silver, what are those things?”

“Some form of shuzzalich.” Pip clucked in annoyance. “A swamp-dwelling magic hunter,” he clarified promptly. “Most people call them Leeches. They’re tough, fast and deadly. But Leeches are most famed for never giving up on a hunt–the only way to escape them, once they have your scent, is to fly to another Island.”

Or to kill them, said Chymasion, flexing his talons.

“They sound as delightful as my sister,” Arosia called over.

Pip said, “Right. I’ve a few questions. How can I hear Arosia, who is a hundred yards away, as clearly as if she’s talking in my ear? And what did Chymasion just do to Jerrion? Big as he is, I don’t think even a giant can hammer a full-grown Dragon to his knees. It’s impossible.”

Roaring rajals. She really needed to erase that word, even the notion itself, from her vocabulary.

Emmaraz and Chymasion veered rapidly to follow Emblazon’s lead, the Dragonwing forming up with instinctive ease. The Jade hatchling dropped Oyda and Nak off with their respective Dragons. The group exchanged information rapidly. What had transpired? Who had seen what and what could they conclude? The Leech-creatures. The Pygmy child, perfect bait for the trap. Arosia received Shimmerith’s healing touch, as did the child, although she shrieked and buried her face in Arosia’s arms. What of Telisia’s authority over Rambastion? And her unprecedented ability to prevent a Shapeshifter from transforming? All this took valuable minutes as they fled eastward, leaving Sylakia Town far in their wake.

Silver said, “I’m afraid your sister may be in mortal peril, Arosia. The Marshal’s power burns too fiercely within her–a terrible design has been wreaked within her being by poison or magic, perhaps both, to grant her these powers and abilities. I’ve seen the Marshal twist the First Egg’s supreme magic to corrupt his minions. And Chymasion, if I’m not mistaken, you’re a … I don’t have a word for the Dragon capability. It’s legendary. You amplify magic.”

“Catalyst-synthesizer,” said Pip. “Page sixty-seven of your father’s notebook, Kaiatha.”

Duri threw up his hands in mock-disgust. “How does she do that? How many times have you read that diary, Pip?”

“Once,” she replied.

“Aren’t you going to check the reference?” suggested Nak.

Kaiatha shook her head. “What’s the point? She has eidetic recall. Totally annoying.”

“Catalyst-synthesizer Dragons awaken and amplify the magic around them by means of an internal mechanism which is little understood,” Pip quoted. “It is said the Ancients relied upon Chayvuron, a two-headed Ancient Dragon of Green colour, to focus and enhance their magic during their mightiest feats of Island-raising. I’m sorry, Kaia. I should’ve been paying more attention to the notebook.”

Oyda put in, “Pipsqueak, just to tidy up your earlier question, we Riders hear through our Dragons’ senses. It’s a function of oath-magic.”

Chymasion said, “Noble Oyda, may I elucidate your point? I believe this power is a function of the innate draconic ability to see and interpret sound-waves at medium distances. At close range, the ear-canals take over this function.”

“Sound has waves? Slap me over the head with a windroc!” Nak exclaimed. “Alright. Insatiable Pygmy curiosities aside, we need to escape. I don’t think we want to argue with fourteen fully-grown, horribly unsightly Night-Reds.”

“And their friends,” said Pip. “I sense Dragons directly ahead. Behind those clouds.”

Grr! Emblazon snarled. When were you going to tell us, hatchling?

I-I only j-just–

Dragons burst through the heavy cloudbank ahead of them–Night-Reds, chillingly uniform of colour and demeanour, as indistinguishable from one another as pebbles on a terrace lake beach. Not one was less than a hundred-foot adult, sooty red-black in colour, with strangely ragged Dragon hide and widely-flared skull-spikes. Their eye-fires blazed balefully against the dull grey backdrop of clouds. Hot on their tails–literally–came a Dragonwing of Sylakian Reds and Greens in swift pursuit. Pip quickly lost count amidst suddenly crowded skies. Two dozen of each? No, an additional Dragonwing of Assassins slipped free of the clouds, orienting on the Academy Dragons.

“Help from Sylakian Dragons?” Emblazon spat.

Shimmerith said, “No mind, my flame-heart. Today, they are our friends.”

“I appreciate battle, but I don’t understand why we aren’t making a strategic retreat?” Maylin asked.

The Amber Dragon champed fire between his fangs. “Apart from the shame of turning tail like the most craven of ralti sheep, little one? With our younglings in tow, we cannot outfly those Dragons. Our only chance is to pick a battleground and fight. I hoped for caves or mountainous terrain. We enjoy neither of those, but we are less outnumbered than before. Now, prepare to engage!”

Maylin’s reply was a grim nod.

Four Dragonwings converged in the skies above Sylakia.

Nak said rapidly, “Chymasion, support Silver, Shimmerith and Jyoss. Oyda, Kaiatha, you’ve the most powerful Dragons. Engage the enemy Dragonwing head-on, but stick together. Blind them with flame; destroy them with augmented lightning attacks. Or, whatever works.”

“I like that bit of the plan,” Oyda laughed.

Emblazon filled his lungs. GNNNNAAAARRRGGHH!!

Emmaraz called over, I quarried holes in his hide, but Rambastion rises from the zoo. How’s that even possible?

No time. I need your strength. Fly with me, Emblazon snapped.

The young Red swelled visibly. Ay.

At the Dragons’ combined speed of approach, the time for dialogue was over. The Marshal’s forces clamoured together in deafening chorus, a mass-challenge that rumbled like ominous thunder across the low, wooded hills. Amber, Copper and Red responded in kind, their belly-fires roaring their rage as much as their throats. Shimmerith and Silver threw up shields. Pip exclaimed in disgust when she realised she had no weapons–but Silver reminded her she had two mighty weapons, heart and mind. At once, she offered herself to a mind-meld with her Dragon. Pip entered a world of glittering enchantment, a tracery of mystic potentials at once heart-wrenchingly beautiful and stronger than forged steel. Here was Silver, adamantine of purpose yet mellow toward her presence. She sensed the flexing of flight muscles and tasted the tension of powers coalescing behind controlling barriers, awaiting the ecstatic instant of release.

There was no hint of treachery in his inmost being.

She sighed, relinquishing her much gnawed-upon reservations. Now they were one, wing and mind, Shifter-souls roused to a pitch of harmony Pip had never experienced before. Dragonsong vibrated within her at a level far deeper than the conscious. Oh, sweet agony! She held her transformation just barely in check.

Roaring their battle-names, the colourful Academy Dragonwing collided with the Marshal’s dark hordes. Suddenly, all was instinct. Wingtip control. Talons rending. Silver’s white-hot lightning exploded through two Night-Reds. They were instantly slain, multiple smoking holes appeared as if by magic in their hides. Shimmerith stunned another; Emblazon finished a Dragoness with a mighty claw-stroke that penetrated the brain. She glimpsed Tazzaral flashing by, entangled with a hoary monster of a Dragon, while Jyoss cartwheeled beneath the fighting males to leave a bloody furrow scored forty feet long along the enemy Dragon’s belly. As the Night-Red arched in agony, Tazz executed a brutal bite behind the skull. The Dragon slumped instantly.

Thou lethal beauty! thundered the Copper.

Thou, the right paw of wingéd justice! Jyoss bugled back, side-slipping a Night-Red’s attack with great cunning. Silver rent the enemy Dragon’s wing in passing.

Four dark Dragon Assassins ganged up on Chymasion. Silver and Shimmerith scattered them with psychic blasts and chain lightning respectively. Tazzaral shook off a marauder and buried his fangs in the throat of another, while Emmaraz plunged like a red suns-beam through the fray, driving a pair of Dragon lances fifteen feet deep into his opponent’s flank.

Pip sensed Chymasion’s power slip over to boost the embattled Emblazon for a moment. The Amber Dragon, sleek as liquid flame, tussled with five enemy Dragons in a tight melee. The instant Chymasion’s power touched him, Emblazon’s reflexive bite crushed a Night-Red’s skull, the crunch of bone sounding like a nut crushed beneath a monstrous war-hammer. He whirled. With a hooked paw, he disembowelled another in the blink of an eye, tore free of two clawing backstabbers, seized them one in each paw, and slammed the Dragons together with terrible force. They fell unconscious from the sky.

Emblazon turned a bloody smile upon his mate. Blasting these hapless lambs from the skies with chain lightning, thou peerless Blue enchantress?

My very first chain attack, Shimmerith said, inclining her wingtip. Thou ruthless, skull-crushing monster!

In-battle romance? Pip grinned fiercely.

Then, with a sky-shaking roar, the second Dragonwing of Assassins plunged into the fray.

Even Dragon senses were no longer enough. The battle flashed by Pip in minimal fractions of seconds, half-impressions of flying claws and flaying teeth, a wound that appeared to pop open in Silver’s flank of its own accord, hot Dragon blood scalding her neck, Shimmerith and Jyoss banding together to rend a Night-Red’s wings, Reds and Greens whizzing into the fray as the Sylakian Dragon contingent made their presence felt, the constant strobe-flash of lightning and fireballs blistering her retinae as if a localised storm expended all of its energies upon itself … the battle raged on, unending. Dragons fell, it seemed, every second.

Pain! Ah, gasping pain shooting into her from an external source! Glancing about, her gaze homed in on Emmaraz falling, helplessly entangled with an attacker, so far away …

She screamed, Silver!

He saw what she saw. In that second the feisty Red wrenched himself free of the Night-Red’s dying throes, but Emmaraz had taken a ghastly bite to the left shoulder. Fractured wing-bone protruded from a flesh-canyon torn through his shoulder; the surrounding muscle had been shredded. He could not fly. Maylin looked little better. She pressed down on her thigh with both hands, holding something shut. Bright crimson arterial blood ran in rivulets down her left side and leg, mingling with Emmaraz’s golden blood.

Silver plummeted out of the fray, pumping his wings furiously. The left midsection of his wing membrane, between the first and second wing-struts, flapped freely as her Dragon accelerated hard, jamming Pip against his spine-spikes. She focussed their sight. Both knew at once that the Leeches closed in on the battle-site, still sprinting at that improbable speed, and here came Rambastion with Telisia as his Dragon Rider–Emblazon dashed out of the battle on a direct intercept course, with Chymasion shadowing his shell-father. Unholy windrocs, what was that crazy hatchling doing?

Though he strained every fibre of his being, Silver’s descent was still too slow. Emmaraz fell ahead of them, his one good wing beating uselessly. The ground below was unforgiving rock, a barren outcropping crowning a low hill. No mercy there.

Pip wanted to reach for them, to be with them, to catch them …

Silver cried out in shock as the sky shifted. Emmaraz landed on Pip’s head.

Had she been half a foot taller, Pip’s neck would have snapped like a twig. As it was, the crushing blow of the Red’s weight against Silver’s back drove the smaller Dragon into a spin. Yet both had been falling. The relative speed was close enough that Emmaraz did not impale himself on Silver’s spine-spikes, but settled upon them, his belly brushing Pip’s curls. Silver screamed at the pain in his muscles and joints as he tried to fly for both Dragons. Pip poured her strength into him instinctively; suddenly, a tumble smoothed into a rapid glide. The ground blurred upward.

Tuck in your legs, stupid, Pip hissed.

WHAM! The Silver Dragon crash-landed on his belly. Dragon-hide rasped over rock, kicking up sparks and dust and bits of bleached wood. Silver groaned as they juddered to a halt. Safe.

“I’ll help you, Maylin!” Pip shouted.

“You’ll do nothing–go fight! Get Shimmerith.” Her white-faced friend made a shooing motion with one arm. “Emmaraz. Emmaraz, my beauty. Up. Let Silver go.”

Pip could not believe it. Tears pricked her eyes as the young Red struggled off Silver’s back. She knew that such a wound likely meant he would never fly again–not only was the primary wing-bone splintered, but the socket within the shoulder was damaged too. Maylin’s left leg had been savaged.

“Go! Islands’ sakes, Pip, don’t worry about–oh no.”

Four grey creatures loped onto the open expanse of rock. As one, they oriented on the stricken Dragon–or on Pip, she could not tell which. More Leeches approached. Eight. Ten. They slowed, clearly relishing the prospect of attacking a downed Dragon. Pip read that expression clearly in each inhuman face.

Maylin drew her sword. “Take this. I’ve … got a …” She slumped sideways, unconscious.

Despite Silver’s anguished cry, Pip sprang out of her Dragon Rider seat. The ferocity within her chest was a cold, hard nugget of pain. Nobody did this to her friends. Not while she had breath left to fight. Snatching up the sword, Pip took her stance upon Emmaraz’s back.

She said, “Come on, Razzer. Where are those fires?”

Emmaraz answered with a low, throbbing growl. Despite his wounds, his three Dragon hearts still beat bravely. She dashed away tears that threatened to blur her vision.

Dragon fire roared over the Herimor creatures, but to the Dragons’ shock, they just blasted right through, sheeting flame from their bodies as they surrounded Silver, Emmaraz and Pip. One held out a net, presumably meant for her, because no sane person would dream of stuffing a Dragon into rope netting. Nor would a Pygmy girl suffer to be captured again, she reminded herself, holding the sword in a ready position.

Pause. Breathe. Move!

Dragon sight and senses merged with Pygmy strength and warrior skills. Never had Pip moved as rapidly as now. Arching her back to dodge a crossbow bolt, a vertical block with the sword shattered her first opponent’s weapon. She drove the sword into its body and ripped upward, heaving the surprisingly slight creature off its feet with the force of that cleaving blow. Hurling the corpse to her left, Pip whispered to her right, disembowelling one Leech but feeling a blade bite into her left arm as its partner’s weapon struck true. Silver’s lightning crackled repeatedly. Never mind Dragon fire. He had a hotter fire, a cross between a Dragon’s standard fireball attack and lightning, only Silver’s efforts tracked their targets before detonating on impact.

Pip howled as the net slapped her face. Suddenly entangled, she slipped off Emmaraz’s back, bounced off Silver’s tail, and landed awkwardly on her right hipbone. Three Leeches pounced on her. “Get it. Tie it,” hissed one. With her free arm, Pip punched the creature’s sharp little teeth through the back of his throat. Great Islands! Every time she jarred that right wrist–evidently it wasn’t broken, but the repeated punishment was no help–the pain almost made her black out. A Leech slammed her head against the ground. Again. Pain darkened her vision. It lifted her one more time … and shot off her body with a whoosh of surprise, impaled by a ten-foot spear of ice.

Pip blinked. Silver?

Ice way to die, laughed Shimmerith, pounding the area around Pip and Emmaraz with flurries of ice shards. As fast as the Leeches were, there was no place to run. Slice, slice, slice!

Nasty jokes. Green blood splattered the clumps of ice clustered upon her foes’ remains.

Silver roared, leaping over Emmaraz to clear his back of a Leech about to slit Maylin’s throat. One creature had hacked a fresh hole in the Red’s throat; Pip ambushed him from behind with a decapitating stroke. The Dragons swivelled, seeking additional foes–there were none.

Pip stared at her friends, stunned. Their wounds! The sight of bone in Emmaraz’s wrecked shoulder …

Oh, Emmaraz, Maylin, how thou art fallen, Shimmerith bugled sorrowfully. I’ll care for these younglings. Silver, Pip, check for more Leeches. Help Emblazon.

She did not even glance at the sky. Pip fled, unable to face more horror. Running up Silver’s wrist, she accepted a flick up onto his shoulder, skidded across his hide on the balls of her feet and used a spine-spike to help her swing into Dragon Rider position.

She whispered, Silver, we’ve heavens to burn …

Even a whisper seemed too loud in the face of what Maylin and Emmaraz had suffered.

Chapter 11: Dragonwing

SILVER AND HIS Rider ascended into the morning suns-shine, which filtered beneath ranks of heavy cloudbanks marching in lockstep over Sylakia Island. Sulphurous smoke drifted on an easterly breeze. Repeatedly, the crash of Dragon battle-challenges and fireballs blasting against flanks and muzzles made the air vibrate to the peculiar, concussive drumbeat of draconic conflict.

They scanned the ground, but found no more sign of shuzzalich.

Above, the Dragon Assassins fought in a tightly bunched formation, a dark shoal encircled by the hunting pack of Greens and Reds, and the distinctive flashes of the Academy Dragon colours. Silver powered upward to gain a strategic height advantage; Pip sensed his mental reach toward Tazzaral’s position, distracting an opponent just in time for the Copper to inflict a fatal neck-bite. He bolstered Jyoss’ shield, preventing a huge Night-Red from rending her port flank with his talons. The Red’s screech of fury cut across the battle; Jyoss and Durithion drove a shattered Dragon lance deep into his belly and left the weapon dangling there.

Chymasion flew tiredly, his cut-and-thrust movements against Rambastion growing visibly weaker, while Master Balthion’s pretty daughters exchanged sociable crossbow quarrels across the divide. Emblazon loomed above, protecting his shell-son but not preventing him from fighting Rambastion. Even the Amber Dragon was streaked and bloodied, his massive musculature torn in a dozen places. Golden blood speckled his neck and shoulders. Atop her stolid Dragon, Oyda fought as cleanly as ever, like a slim dagger choosing its moment to slip in unnoticed to deliver a deadly strike. As they neared the battle, Pip saw Oyda’s arrow feather perfectly in a Night-Red’s right eye. Dragon-enhanced accuracy? Mercy.

Abruptly, Silver pulled a ninety-degree swerve and shot off after a retreating Night-Red, snarling, Come decorate my talons with your blood, coward.

The Dragoness convulsed as Silver attacked her with a series of telepathic blasts. Blinding. Shattering. Overpowering. Suddenly, Pip remembered what she had done before.

Silver, Dragons can be turned. Their minds succumbed to the Marshal’s tyranny, see?

You had your Word. But he seized the idea with the air of a Dragon sinking its talons into living flesh. Silver hammered the Dragoness, expending a dangerous amount of magic. Yield!

Suddenly she sagged in the air, utterly transformed in demeanour. The Dragoness shook herself like a wet hound. Where am I?

Silver sagged with relief. Pip knew relief, too. They could not give out much longer without rest. While Silver explained in terse, staccato sentences, she followed the battle up into the clouds. Was Rambastion fleeing? Yes! Pursued by over a dozen Sylakian Dragons, the remnant of the Marshal’s Dragonwing fled into the clouds. Emblazon bellowed furiously as two Sylakian Greens cut off his pursuit, but perhaps there was a touch of relief in his voice too–the Sylakian Dragons’ pride required them to deal with their own problems. Assistance was only acceptable to a point.

Emblazon gathered Jyoss, Chymasion and Tazzaral to him and closed the gap with Silver, stiffening visibly as his battle-bright gaze lingered upon the Night-Red Dragoness circling nearby. She dipped her muzzle and spread her forepaws, talons sheathed–a draconic submission.

The two Green Dragons escorted them to a landing near Emmaraz; the Dragons arranged themselves uneasily in a semicircle around the stricken pair. Chymasion hurried to his shell-mother’s side, supplying the remnants of his magic to bolster her healing work.

Without preamble, one of the Greens said, We know your mighty reputations, noble Emblazon and noble Shimmerith. While we are grateful, you must depart Sylakia’s shores at once.

Emblazon’s reply was a charged growl, deep in his throat. At four feet taller in the shoulder than the two Greens, there was a clear reluctance on their part to slight the larger, more powerful Dragon. Eye-fires blazed for several lengthy breaths, almost setting the air afire. But the Greens broke eye-contact first. Pip knew that was a signal of hierarchy-acknowledgement–not quite an admission of defeat, but an acceptable alternative.

Dragons. All fire and smoke, weren’t they? Pip did not giggle. That would have been deeply offensive.

The first Green added, Lest you invite the Shadow to our shores.

The Amber Dragon inclined his muzzle regally. We accede to your request. What of our wounded, noble Eryfalgor?

Eryfalgor turned respectfully to Shimmerith, so much sleeker than the spiky Greens, who responded, If I may request several hours grace to stabilise them and treat our wounds, I believe this Dragon and Rider could be flown by Dragonship back to the Academy.

Again, a message of body-language or eye-fire-intent passed between the Dragons. Pip gritted her teeth. If only she understood!

The Green responded, Ay. May I offer four of our Blues to aid you with healing tasks, and a Dragonwing to escort your wounded to Jeradia? Shimmerith and Emblazon purred agreement. Settled. Will you take the traitor with you?

It was not a request.

On a hillside half a mile away, Pip spied two Sylakian Reds moving amongst the fallen Dragons, finishing several Dragon Assassins who must still have been alive. She felt rather than heard Emblazon confer briefly with Nak and Silver, before he said, Upon her oath.

Nothing more was spoken. Eryfalgor and his companion winged off with a pompous air.

Emblazon raised his forepaw. A command. He did not so much as glance in her direction, but the captured Night-Red sank at once to her belly and slithered toward him, rolling onto her flank to expose her lower neck to his paw. The Amber Dragon lowered his limb, talons outstretched, and gripped that exposed section of Dragon hide rather less gently than Pip would have expected. As he pressed in, golden Dragon blood trailed from beneath two of his talons.

She said, I am the Dragoness Cint’ixt’ix, called Cinti, once of Harashoon Island in Herimor, and I am a Dragon without honour. Accept my unconditional service or end my worthless life, o mighty Amber.

In the stillness, Pip heard and saw her pulse throbbing fitfully in her throat, as though the Dragoness’ blood had grown too thick for her arteries. Interesting how her name included the strong, sharp ‘T’ sound, very similar to the range of Pygmy ejectives. Did that mean there were linguistic similarities between Ancient Southern and whatever language they spoke in Herimor? Of course. She understood Silver, didn’t she? Barbaric accent and all. He probably thought the same of her.

No, your accent is like Dragonsong. Silver’s telepathy tickled the inside of her mind.

To her chagrin, a blush warmed her cheeks.

Emblazon said, Cinti of Harashoon, I accept your oath. May honour attend your service. For the benefit of the Riders, he repeated his words in Island Standard, then continued, “Friends, this is Cinti. What colour were you, Dragoness? Can you help with healing?”

“Colour?” The Dragoness looked puzzled. “All common Dragons of Herimor are one colour, unless you come from a noble lineage, like the Marshal’s shell-son, over there.”

She pointed delicately at Silver.

Pandemonium!

Pip charged into the thick of flashing fangs and flying scales, shouting, Stop! STOP! Tazz had seated himself on Silver’s chest. Jyoss had Silver’s tail clamped between her fangs, while Emblazon stood on his neck. Tonnes of Dragons piled atop each other, panting and leaking fire from the jowls and nostrils, all peering at the not quite four-foot Pygmy girl in evident shock. Perhaps they wondered what manner of ralti-stupid, parakeet brained person would dare to interrupt four Dragons in the midst of a nice all-claws-out brawl. Pip thought the same.

Had she spoken a Word of Command? No. The Amber Dragon turned a smoking cavern full of fangs upon her, growling in palpable amazement, “Why, do you wish to kill him yourself?”

She folded her arms. Tapped her foot dangerously. Eyed the fifty-foot mound of tangled Dragonflesh with no small measure of exasperation.

To her surprise, it was Duri who came to stand alongside her. He said, “Alright, Dragons. Just keep sitting on Silver whilst we fire the questions. Pip, didn’t you know your boyfriend was the Marshal’s shell-son?”

“No. He suspected he was. The Marshal had many eggs in many nurseries. When he emerged victorious, it was made clear he was no special shell-son, just the sole survivor of an unwanted nest of hatchlings. Perhaps now we’ve heard the truth.”

“Truth?” Nak spat. “Now we’re all best friends with the Marshal’s shell-son? Count me out.”

Silver wheezed, “The Marshal has many other shell-sons and daughters. None were silver. My egg came from afar. I’m just a fatherless foundling, no shell-son of his.”

“You hail from Harashoon,” said the Dragoness.

Pip whirled, eyes popping.

She and Silver shared the same intuition. The pace and rasp of his breathing communicated as much; Pip approached the Night-Red Dragoness, gazing deep into her eyes. Ay, there it was. Balance.

Pip said, Will you share your thought-echoes with me, noble Cint’ixt’ix?

The Dragoness said, I thought you but a Rider. You’re the Pygmy Dragon? So small?

Dangerously compact, Pip retorted, closing her eyes as she touched the Night-Red’s knee. Now, open your memories, Dragoness, that we may know all.

Images cascaded through her mind.

After a moment, she opened her eyes again. Raising her voice, Pip said, “To summarise, one hundred and fifty-nine years ago, a young sub-Marshal called Re’akka visited the Isle of Harashoon, which floats windward with the tertiary sub-cyclical Island-system of northern Herimor, passing close to Eridoon once per decade. He and Cinti met and fell in love. In the course of time, Cinti produced just a single egg, an unusual egg. Though she brooded upon it for many moons, the egg never hatched. Cinti longed for Re’akka to return, but he never did, nor did she hear a word from him. War swept across the Islands. When Harashoon returned upon its cyclical path, she received a message from Re’akka’s shell-father saying that they could never espouse, for she was infertile and therefore unworthy of the Marshal’s son. Cinti was heartbroken.”

“Roll forward one hundred and forty years. Re’akka invaded Harashoon, stole the egg and corrupted Cinti into his service. He placed the egg into a special hatchery. Three years later, it hatched a small, most unusual Dragon.”

“A Silver Dragon,” whispered Silver.

My shell-son, Silver. He is born!

Cinti’s soft exclamation punctured Emblazon, Jyoss and Tazzaral’s animosity. In a flash Silver sprang to his paws, running to her, pausing in bewilderment–but you’re so old to be my shell-mother–and then the two Dragons were nuzzling, crooning, crying waterfalls of inner fires rife with a particular tone of love that squeezed Pip’s heart like a prekki fruit crushed beneath a press.

“Well, that’s convenient, isn’t it?” Nak grumbled, but Pip saw him dab his eyes with his sleeve.

Once, Re’akka had been a handsome, charming man, according to Cinti’s memories, but even then had displayed a broad streak of arrogance–only, no person living guessed the extent of his hubris and ambition. The years had changed him. Perhaps his father’s training, or a predilection for the darker aspects of Dragon magic, had transformed the man into a monster. Cinti had been as clear as the finest crysglass on that point. No trace of compassion or humanity remained. Well, humanity was not entirely the right word for a Shapeshifter, was it? Nor was compassion unknown to most Dragons, only they approached the matter from a very different cultural viewpoint.

Pip startled out of her thoughts when Silver clasped her in his paw. Shell-mother, this is Pip. I can’t say her full name properly, but–oh.

The Pygmy child ran to Pip and clutched her leg, wailing. She picked her up and comforted her.

Cinti smiled, Ah, beautiful. She has a youngling already?

Who blushed most–Pip or Silver? The Dragon yelped, No, not yet. That’s a story. And somewhere over near Emblazon, Nak could be heard chortling away.

Ambushed by joy. Pip found she could not stop smiling. Her lips hurt, but the smiles would not stop–at least for now. She had kidnapped a treasure from the zoo, just like Zardon, in a startling reprise of history. They had defeated Rambastion and Telisia in combat, although the renegade Dragon would stage his return, she had no doubt. The windfall of battle was the unexpected treasure of Silver’s shell-mother.

Yet the cost was high. Paid in blood.

Emblazon flew to the forest to fetch Hunagu. Shimmerith, Oyda and Chymasion worked tirelessly on Maylin and Emmaraz. Nak and Jyoss helped with the minor wounds and Pip and Silver lent their strength to the healers, denying any thoughts of exhaustion. Tazzaral and Kaiatha scouted briefly, but it appeared that the Sylakian Dragons had kept their word and driven the Dragon Assassins away. Soon, a quartet of Sylakian Blues swooped down from on high to lend fresh impetus to the healing work.

Pip rubbed her eyes tiredly, and wobbled into Silver’s paw. Catch me.

Islands’ greetings, gorgeous. He puffed a smoke-heart at her. With practice, his skills appeared to be improving. So, who’s our little friend? She doesn’t trust me.

She’s afraid of Dragons. Wouldn’t you be after this morning?

Oyda popped up to tickle the girl beneath the chin. “She’s adorable, isn’t she, Silver? Her name’s Tik–at least, that’s the pronounceable bit. Sorry, Pip. You’ve been outbid in the cuteness stakes.”

“Huh. You aren’t so far off being cute yourself.” Pip wrinkled her nose at Oyda. “What’re you, five foot nothing?”

Jerrion limped over, nursing a burned calf muscle and an impressive bruise that ran the length of his right arm. “Say, is this the short peoples’ club? Can I join?”

Well, that deserved her best Dragoness-grin. Pip said, “Silver, would you chop off this man’s legs, please?”

* * * *

Battered and bruised, the Academy Dragonwing limped off that afternoon, making it as far as the base of Sylakia’s central mountain range. Several icerocs, close cousins of windrocs who lived on the frozen peaks, came to investigate. This time there was no fooling around with shield-testing. Only cinders fell from the sky once Tazzaral and Emblazon finished with them.

Come evening, even Hunagu joined the group near the campfire. To everyone’s surprise, he shared several Oraial Ape legends his mother had passed down to him. The translation stretched Pip’s linguistic abilities to the limit.

The conclusion of the third legend had Nak scratching his beard and Kaiatha riffling the pages of her father’s diary with excitement. “No. It can’t be. He didn’t know Ape, did he, Pip?”

“Page forty-eight,” she said.

“Ugh, honestly!” Kaia punched Pip’s shoulder, then immediately apologised.

Pip gasped, “It didn’t hurt. It didn’t–look, Silver!” She tugged at her tunic top to expose her shoulder. “Look, everyone.”

“Mmm,” Nak drawled. “You wouldn’t mind slipping out of that garment completely, would–ouch!”

“Oops.” Shimmerith’s fangs gleamed in the firelight. “Slip of the old talon there, my Rider. Oyda, don’t you need to distract Nak from looking at other females?”

Oyda’s cheeks developed more than a hint of colour. “Um.”

“Ay. I need distraction,” Nak waved his hands excitedly, “because I’ve just had a brilliant idea. Modestly meant, of course, but it is quite brilliant. Almost as brilliant as a certain Dragoness I could name.”

Shimmerith curled her paw about her Rider and pretended to stroke his beard with her fore-talon. “Hmm. Let me just think. Ay, more compliments will do nicely.”

A ripple of laughter ran around the fire.

Yet little mirth underlay their banter. Somehow, the battle had served to knit the group more closely, thoughts turning from training to war, from the matter of putting past ghosts to rest to the reality of an elderly Night-Red Dragoness amongst their number. An early afternoon squall had left the air fresh and chill. Now, bands of stars peeped between the cloud-battalions still parading across the velvet skies in close formation. To the West, Sylakia’s jagged peaks were lit golden white by the massive Yellow Moon sinking into the far eastern horizon, its pocked and scarred surface clearly visible as it covered more than sixty percent of the horizon.

Kaiatha said, “Here. Look, Ape-steps. Pip remembered perfectly. Thank you, Hunagu.”

“Pleasure mine,” he rumbled. “Steps–er, Pip? Help?”

“The Ape Steps are a series of … low-lying Islands between the major Crescent Islands,” she translated for her Ape friend. “Hunagu says they are sometimes covered by the tide–the Cloudlands, I think he means. Is that even possible, Hunagu?”

He thumped his chest, creating a hollow booming sound. “Ape-wisdom mighty-mighty wisdom!”

Cinti said, “Ay, Ape-wisdom is mighty. The five moons exert tidal forces on the Cloudlands–and on the flying Islands of Herimor, which is how we know of this. I’m sure it’s quite possible, under the right conditions, for the Cloudlands to slop about like blood in a Dragon’s feeding-bowl.”

“Ew, please,” Kaiatha protested. “Well, there appear to be some references here to Islets and counts in Ancient Southern–Pip, can you read this?”

Pip waved the book away. “I can read the runes, but I don’t understand their meaning. Ta’tik, ya’ûk, malikíkò …”

Tik held up three fingers with the middle one crooked downward. “Malikíkò.”

“What?”

The child sat up straighter in Arosia’s arms, saying in Ancient Southern, “Play finger-game? Ya’ûk.” She held her little fists side-by-side, the smallest finger of each hand extended. “Ch-û-íeí.” Now she made a complex shape, perhaps a bat, Pip thought. “Play game?”

Pip smiled joyously. “Teach me. Teach big persons? Tik many-wrinkled clever old teacher.”

A peal of childish delight greeted her assertion.

* * * *

Emblazon assigned Pip and Silver the fourth watch, from the eighth hour of night until dawn. “No soaring aloft,” he warned. “The Sylakian Dragons want as little overt interference as possible. Pick a spot upslope where you’ll have an uninterrupted view. And try to keep warm.”

“All I want is my balmy jungle,” said Silver, imitating Pip’s accent ineptly.

She made sure to kick her Dragon multiple times on the way up his rear left knee to his back.

Mid-amble to his habitual sleeping-place at Oyda’s side, the Amber Dragon paused to glance over his shoulder, and said, They happen to be the only truly Dragonesque jungles in this Island-World, young Silver. You fire-breathers of Herimor should know to listen to the lay of the Islands. Is it not said that Pygmies are the favoured friends of Dragons, the original worshippers of the Ancient Powers? Fra’anior called the Pygmies ‘the people of his right paw’.

Pip made the mental equivalent of dropping her jaw in astonishment.

Ay, said the Amber. It just came to me, from one of the oldest legends of our kind. Begs the question, doesn’t it?

Er … what question, mighty Emblazon? Pip inquired.

Were Dragons ever meant to rule the high places of this Island-World, masters of all, enslaving the other races? Particularly Humankind? Or was Fra’anior’s original conception a fierier, more beautiful plan altogether?

He gave the word ‘fierier’ context-associations of draconic true-fires, white colours, and unexpectedly, an image of multiple overlapping rainbows gilding a storm’s aftermath. Pip had the impression the Dragon meant to blow her boots off. Had she been wearing boots, mission accomplished.

Truly, Emblazon? He stiffened, every inch of his hundred feet bespeaking affront. Sorry, I meant, thank you, mighty Emblazon, for … uh, sharing your wisdom.

He settled down with an irritable huff of breath that almost snuffed out the dying fire.

Great. Touchy Dragon-pride!

Silver winged a little ways upslope as ordered, picking a spot in the lee of a jutting boulder which afforded protection from a chill night-breeze sweeping down from the nearby peaks. Mountains. Mostly outside a Pygmy’s experience, unless one correctly counted every Island as a mountain risen from the Cloudlands. The Yellow moon waxed immense over the wooded hills of Sylakia, its deeply cratered surface scored by several low-lying bands of dark clouds. Pip wondered telepathically if the Yellow Moon somehow protected the Island-World from being impacted by comets the likes of which had smashed a home for Humans, Dragons and Shapeshifters into the flank of a virgin planet. What an explosion that must have been!

Above her position, Silver took a typically draconic stance atop his chosen boulder, four-pawed and muscular, sniffing the air with predacious concentration. But after a moment he inclined his attention to her ideas, noting, Ay, Pip. Dragon scientists have long examined our crowded night skies and formulated such theories. In Herimor, we say Yellow is a mighty, battle-scarred Dragon. So to ‘be yellow-winged’ or ‘yellow-clawed’ is a high compliment.

The very opposite of the Human notion of cowardice.

Pip squinted. Silver, is that a Dragonwing crossing the Yellow moon? Look, just beneath the third band of clouds.

To her, those faraway specks looked smaller than migrating sand-swallows, as dust blowing across Yellow’s broad face, but Silver’s vision magnified the image until Pip saw in his mind, a pair of Reds shepherding a hatchling toward Archion. Flying raggedly–why?

Barely had this realisation sparked between Dragon and Rider, when Pip saw a shadow descend from the clouds. Horror crammed into her throat. She could neither breathe nor cry out, for even across that enormous distance, Silver’s Dragon-sight furnished her the perfect, repulsive detail of the Shadow-creature seeming to pulsate softly as it enveloped the Dragon family like folds of black silk, veiling their draconic fires. So gentle. So ruinous. And her soul knew desolation as those fires snuffed out. The specks tumbled lifeless from beneath the shadow.

No! Oh mercy, stop it, oh Silver please–STOP!

Her gorge surged. Pip vomited so violently, she felt as though a Dragon had kicked her in the stomach.

Her Command-magic dissipated somewhere out there in the beyond. The Shadow-creature drifted westward, making what Pip knew to be an incredible speed. Unaffected. Had she hoped it would be? Pip wiped her mouth, scanning the western horizon in futile fury. Nearby, the camp was abuzz following her mental shout, but she knew there was nothing they could do. Nothing. What if the Word of Command did not work on that otherworldly creature?

Silver poured down to her, smoking at the jaw, trembling palpably as he clasped her fervently to his lower chest. We will find a way, Pip. We will!

Ay, Silver.

Or die trying.

Chapter 12: Over the Islands

DAWN RAISED MORE than a few groans amongst the battle-weary Dragonwing. Shimmerith winged down from her watch-post, having elected to spell Pip and Silver when the Sapphire claimed she could not sleep any longer. Given magical healing, Nak’s black eye and bruised cheekbone had progressed into a rather spectacular purple-and-yellow map of Sylakia, Oyda suggested slyly. Pip complained to Silver that she was supposed to have learned something about the Balance of the Harmonies, not to have magic sashay unnoticed into her flesh and start changing things, even if it was for the better. Moreover, what of Leandrial’s assertion concerning Shurgal’s rediscovery of an ancient, twisted form of magic? She remembered not a jot of the knowledge with which the Land Dragon had summarily knocked her out for three days.

A bird chirruped spiritedly near her ear. Pip flicked a pebble at it.

“Leaping Islands, your Dragoness must be making a reappearance soon,” said Arosia, emerging from an apparent place of hibernation between Chymasion’s forepaws. “Leave the poor, innocent animals alone, Pip.”

“Ay, pick on your Dragon instead,” suggested Chymasion.

“Hmm. Safer, do you think?” Pip mused.

“I’m listening,” said Silver, without opening his eyes. “And if you intend to keep all of your fingers and toes intact, the answer’s a negative multiplied by twenty.”

Nak sang out, “Everyone’s grumpy this morning, but I’m not–can I tell you why?”

“I’d rather rearrange your teeth with my war-hammer,” grumbled Jerrion. “You snored all night, Rider Nak.”

“Except for when Shimmerith poked him,” said Oyda.

“I miss Maylin and Emmaraz already,” said Kaiatha. “Arosia, I’ll braid your hair if you braid mine?”

Nak prodded Jerrion with his toe. “That’s the hair-braiding club and no, you can’t join unless your leg hairs are long enough to braid. Oh, would you look at this …” The Jeradian growled as Nak swiftly plucked a few leg hairs by the roots.

Well, there was a note on which to start the morning.

The Riders rapidly broke camp while the Dragons hunted up a quick pre-flight snack–a brace of wild ralti sheep, which stood seven feet tall at the shoulder and weighed fifteen times more than a grown man, and a tender young spiral-horn buck which was apparently a trophy for the ‘grand old Dragoness’–Cinti managed to glower and slaver simultaneously at this dubious accolade. The bounty vanished in less than five minutes.

Kaiatha primly ordered Tazzaral to wash his gore-splattered lips and claws before she would mount up, than you very much, Dragon! He consented with a parting snap of the fangs that came within a whisker of snatching her headscarf off her head.

Thereafter, the Dragons sprang aloft, beating hard to clear the ground. The first suns-beams reached past the easterly peaks to warm Riders and Dragons alike, but Pip, thinking upon the fate of that Dragon family, did not stop shivering for a long time. The morning’s easy-paced flying took them up a snowbound valley into the heart of the Sylakian mountains. They saw many icerocs wheeling amidst the peaks, but none were foolhardy enough to approach the compact Dragonwing. As they ascended, Cint’ixt’ix and Silver exchanged stories. Pip listened quietly, awed by the Dragoness’ long life and many experiences–of all the things she had never expected, having a hundred and seventy-six year-old potential mother-in-law, or shell-mother by oath-fires as the Dragons put it, had to take the proverbial purple rajal. She had been a Shapeshifter of a colour she described as ‘aged bronze’ until the Marshal’s power had altered her to Night-Red.

After cresting the highest pass, Pip gazed out over a huge, winter-bound desert stretching to the horizon, mostly snow interspersed with strips of striated grey basalt and isolated patches of blasted-looking, stunted bushes. No single green, living thing gladdened the eye.

Volcanic hells had nothing on this. “Silver, can you warm up our shield a little more?”

“One steamy jungle, as ordered.”

She sighed as warmth bathed her numb fingers and toes. How had a Pygmy child ever survived the Sylakian winters? Only with an Ape’s help. Tik stirred sleepily in the folds of Pip’s travel cloak, but opted only to crack open one eye to confirm Pip’s continued presence. The winsome mite had eaten for a whole tribe of Pygmies last night. A familiar feeling, Pip recalled, cuddling her charge a little closer. And now they were taking her into a warzone.

The desert crossing was mercifully swift, bringing the low eastern shore of Sylakia into view within two hours’ flying. Two positions ahead of Silver in the habitual streamlined V formation, Emblazon inclined his wingtip to veer onto a more southerly heading, aiming for Sylakia’s farthest tip, the south-eastern peninsula fondly called ‘the Outstretched Talon’ by the Dragonkind. His wing-brothers and sisters followed in perfect accord. From there it would be a short haul to flat, unremarkable Telstroy, which lay but a Dragon’s pounce from the Crescent Isles.

Home. Did she even know what that word meant?

They bored into a biting headwind which swept in from leaden skies, promising snow before the morning was out, Nak avowed. Pip decided she would be an ice-statue long before then. Three hours’ steady labour in worsening weather saw the Dragonwing reach Sylakia’s south-easternmost isthmus. Here Emblazon took them a half-league offshore, appearing to be searching for some landmark. At last, he vented a snort of satisfaction that puffed a cloud of condensation around his muzzle, and bent his course toward a slanting crack in the mile-and-a-half cliff. Shimmerith pointed out an ancient Sylakian fortress standing atop that bleak headland, barely visible beneath grey sweeping cloud-curtains spitting flecks of white at the travellers. Freezing weather-dandruff, Duri muttered. Even he sported a blue nose.

Pip could not imagine a more forsaken location in all the Island-World. By some quirk of geography or atmospheric conditions, Sylakia appeared to suffer far colder conditions than the Crescent Islands situated just a few hundred leagues south. Why? Yet the crack reached further back into the forbidding granite massif than had been evident to the naked eye. It quickly turned into a passageway that led to a sheltered grotto, open to the sky far above, but warmed from beneath by a trio of scalding hot springs that fed numerous interlinked pools. Out there, the day had turned from freezing to a full-blown blizzard. But the sifting snow melted long before it reached the grotto’s base.

Pip grinned as nearly every member of the group sighed in anticipation. No freezing wind? Steaming hot water? Were they still on Sylakia?

Nak said feelingly, “Emblazon, you are the most magnificent beast ever to fly beneath the five moons.”

“I know,” the Amber Dragon agreed, as shameless as a courting parakeet. He carefully unwrapped Hunagu from the cargo net. As the Ape shambled off shedding puddles of snow-melt, the Dragon regarded him with carnivorous curiosity. Pip restrained the urge to slap him with the nearest handy Island. Grr.

“Oyda and I have booked the far pool,” Nak added. “The rest of you, sort yourselves out.”

“Ay, o fearless leader?” said Pip.

“Oh, alright. Girls over there, boys over there. Snip snap. I’ve things to do and stunningly attractive Dragon Riders to woo.”

“And the Dragons?” Kaia asked.

“Honestly, if Tazz and Jyoss need privacy to nuzzle, there’s another cavern and more hot springs right through that archway,” said Nak, growing peevish. “No, Silver, you will not ‘protect’ Pip. Go with the men, or transform and go with the men, I don’t care which.”

Silver growled, “What about Emblazon?”

With withering disgust, the Amber Dragon snarled, “Unlike you, I do not find Human hide in the least attractive. You Shapeshifters are the wind over another Island. Go with the males, youngling, and not another word will I hear. Chymasion, I don’t care what you say about magical sight. You see far too much anyway. No doubt you can see through rock, never mind clothing.”

“Hmm, haven’t tried,” said Chymasion. Pip was almost certain he was lying.

Ten minutes later, Pip found herself unthawing in neck-deep, slightly alkaline water with three Dragonesses effectively blocking any view the males might have enjoyed. Tik slipped underwater like a little river-otter, perfectly at home in water as most Pygmy children were.

“You can see why Fra’anior Cluster is so much more appealing than Sylakia,” Kaiatha said. “Wouldn’t you agree, Arosia? Duri and I should raise our children–”

“On the rim of the largest active volcano in the Island-World? Comforting,” said Arosia.

Kaiatha chuckled, “Ay, I’ll go with the volcano any day. What’ll happen to Emmaraz and Maylin, Shimmerith?”

“You saw them leave by Dragon-stretcher, little one,” said Shimmerith. She stretched as lazily as a cat catching the suns’ heat on hot bricks. “They’ll be flown straight to Sylakia Town. There’s a secret Dragon roost somewhere nearby, I believe–that’s the first place Kassik intends to search–from which those Blues appeared. Once Emmaraz’s shoulder is stabilised and Maylin’s bleeding has stopped, they’ve promised to provide a Dragonship to fly them down the Spine to Jeradia. It’s an ugly wound, but with Chymasion’s help I’ve already rebuilt the basic structure of the critical flight-joint. Poor function in that joint would cripple a Dragon permanently.” The Dragoness sighed. “Too many ifs–if the bones knit properly, if the ligaments repair themselves, if the shattered main wing-bone can regenerate internally, if the blood vessels are not restricted …”

“You accomplished a noble work, o Shimmerith,” said Jyoss. “Now, will you teach us the additional magic-dampening shield constructs we’ll need in the Crescent?”

“I can help,” said Cinti. “Herimor magic is all about concealment and subterfuge. Can someone lend me clothes?”

“I thought it was all about subterfuge?” Kaia suggested coyly.

The Dragoness chuckled, “You and my Human manifestation should be of a size, little one. May I borrow a few items, if you brought spare? I haven’t been Human in so long.” At Pip’s soft interrogative sound, she clarified, “The Marshal’s magic corrupts draconic flesh and scale. Some Shapeshifters find they’re unable to return to Human form, others that there is no need. A Human form does require regular maintenance and feeding, just as a Shapeshifter must regularly feed her Dragoness or she might sicken and die.”

“What if she was poisoned?” Pip asked.

Cinti’s eye-fires mellowed to a vibrant orange colour. “Some Shifter poisons only dampen or block the second-soul magic, Pip, but most will do permanent damage unless you have a particularly strong innate healing power. We will only know when you transform.”

Balance. She must summon Balance. Drifting in the hot water, Pip began to recall Leandrial’s teachings–something had indeed arrived in that titanic psychic blast–and began to unpick what she could. So much was alien, a song of magic beyond her ken, but it was the overall pattern she strove to perceive, the true weft and weave of a Shifter’s flesh and soul, and the composition or recomposition of her person. It was too mystical to frame with words. Much of a Shapeshifter Dragoness’ existence seemed a mystery cased within a conundrum, as Master Kassik had put it, quoting from the ancient ballads of Hualiama Dragonfriend. Yet perhaps Chymasion’s power of seeing the exquisite inner magic of all material substance could help.

Chymasion? Silver? Can you help me see and identify–

Ay, responded the Dragons, already attuned to the needs communicated by the rich nuances of her Dragonish.

The Island-World’s night skies revealed never-ending filigrees of stars, the vast yet delicate dance of suns and moons and worlds like hers. Seeing into a person’s flesh was akin to diving into a well of endless depth and complexity, where thousands of miniscule systems interacted in a perpetual dance of such beauty it caused her soul to inhale sharply, then to exhale in endless, infinitesimal realisation. This was Pip. Spirit and substance. Chemical and eternal.

This place, said Silver, showing her. See the wrongness, then transform it in your mind into conditions under which only truth may exist–the not-yet truth, the truth which will become.

Pip saw within herself the wound created by Telisia’s arrow as it penetrated her shoulder. She saw pain radiating from the puncture-point, and decay, as if the physical wound were the mastermind behind a cancerous irruption of her flesh. Travelling deeper, she saw the distortion of fundamental pathways and balances. Deeper still, Pip came upon a realm she did not understand, perhaps in the same way as an Island’s shore demarcated the boundary between Island and Cloudlands ocean, so this unknowable border traced the conjoining of flesh and spirit. Or did she misunderstand? In life, were the two not always one?

And if she observed with the most sensitive tools of Chymasion’s unique magic and employed Silver’s intrinsic connection with the pathways of that most mysterious of monads, the mind, could she envisage a shining Dragonsoul, a tantalising hint of her other-self? As Silver said, imagination must become reality. She must claim her future. Will the Balance into being …

“Glub,” Pip spluttered, coughing up a lungful of tangy, mineral-rich water.

“Fallen asleep there, Pip?” asked Jyoss, cupping her paw to help her stay afloat. Silver’s shell-mother sternly growled at him to stay put.

She began to laugh, then coughed and hiccoughed simultaneously, and had to submit to the indignity of having her back swatted by a Dragoness until the spluttering abated.

After that, Shimmerith decreed a ‘healing snooze’ for everyone. Pip had the impression that Dragons were rather partial to snoozing in warm places, like a pride of vast, scaly rajals slumbering in their lair. She slept, and dreamed of jungles.

* * * *

For the leg to Telstroy, Cinti rode Dragonback with Pip and Silver. Her Human manifestation was a tall, iron-haired matron clad in Kaiatha’s spare blue tunic top and Dragon Rider trousers, standing strong and unbowed despite her great age, with bright, laughing green eyes set in a fine-boned face of startling symmetry. Gazing into her eyes, Pip saw flecks of burnished bronze, as though a furnace had spit molten metal onto the green palette of her irises. Clearly, Dragoness. Clearly, beauty was not solely the province of youth.

And she had a special hug for Pip. “I hope you don’t mind my interrupting matters with Silver,” she whispered. “I know my arrival’s a nuisance. But I never dreamed I’d find my egg again, and it warms a mother-Dragon’s heart to see him with you, Pip. You’re gold. A jungle treasure.”

“Silver and I both wish you’d be more of a nuisance, Cinti.”

Pip wondered what it must be for a Dragoness to learn how she had given the Marshal unwavering and willing service for five years. Grief’s dark-fires shadowed her fires. Dark magic had etched its mark upon her hide, changing not only the colour, but the very nature of her scales–making them rougher and developing multiple spikes on the downward-pointing edges. Her talons were as gnarled as a vulture’s, her lips hard and prone to cracking, and her gums black. Foul magic indeed.

Traversing the Cloudlands to Telstroy was a matter of several hours’ flight courtesy of a stiff following breeze, by which time night had fallen and the climate had changed so radically, Pip was tempted to shuck her fur-lined flying jacket. She could not imagine wearing the garment in the Crescent–indeed, how would her people receive her if she arrived wearing actual clothes?

Pip rubbed her shoulder thoughtfully. Tingling. A good sign?

Suddenly, with a start, she realised Silver was making moon-eyes over his shoulder. He said, Ready for a date tonight, Pipsqueak?

Date? To her intense annoyance, a mental squeak popped out. Of course. What shall I wear, o bright-eyed muse–scales or skin?

Scales.

Really? Drat! Another squeak. Silver had the cheek to chortle up an involuntary fireball. She growled, Are you yanking my hawser? Or is this a serious proposal, noble Silver Dragon?

How would Nak put it? Skin, skin, there can be only skin?

Pip folded her arms and pretended to blow his smoky breath back in his face. I am not that kind of girl.

I beg to differ. You most definitely are, jungle girl. And I would not have it any other way.

I think you’re culturally confused. Pip pushed a mental image at him. How’s about you in a loincloth, Herimor boy?

Hey! The Dragon lurched in the air.

Mmm, I’ll have a slice of lightly clad boy-Shapeshifter, Pip teased. But Silver …

I’m as serious as an Island firmly sat upon its foundations, he replied. Shimmerith and Chymasion both think you’re ready. I think you’ve been able to shake off the poison’s aftereffects. You’re ready, Pip.

But what if fear ruled her heart?

* * * *

That evening the Dragonwing camped in another place Emblazon and Nak knew, a nameless Islet just a Dragon’s hop southeast of Telstroy, where a grove of mighty jinsumo trees planted by Dragon Riders three hundred and nineteen years before served as a memorial to a famous pair who had died in battle at that spot–Asturbar of Erigar and his Green Dragoness, Iridiana. Jinsumo trees were eastern giants, reaching heights of over four hundred feet, and their sap-sweet fragrance pervaded the grove tucked beneath those mighty, spreading boughs. Pip felt Silver’s eyes upon her and knew what thoughts preoccupied his mind.

Transformation. Simple. Think and become.

She ducked away. Wandering around Tazzaral’s hindquarters, Pip bumped into Oyda, who took one look at her and said, “Better out than in, Pip.”

Oyda had that kindly but implacable mien that served her well in many situations, not least in dealing with Nak’s hijinks. Pip hurriedly netted a few of her scattershot thoughts.

“I … well, I used to think it a kind of wisdom to charge into situations without much forethought, Oyda–as you know. I’d blame it on innocence, ignorance, or the zoo. Punching Shimmerith’s tooth loose. Sauntering naked up to the school buildings just because I was spitting mad at a few silly hatchlings. It was even fun annoying Master Kassik for a while, because it seemed I could do nothing right and there was just something ridiculously inevitable about that–and, I’ll admit, I enjoyed the attention. I was starved of real attention. Not the looking-through-crysglass sort, either.”

Pip gulped, realising Oyda had just received more of an earful than she had bargained for. But her friend only nodded encouragingly. “I understand.”

“And now I’ve become a Pygmy Dragoness–the Dragoness–and suddenly everyone has expectations and I can’t just rush in because I know better and I’ve learned a few things since then and oh, Oyda, I don’t know what to do with a boyfriend and I’ve no idea where I belong anymore and if one more person thinks I can just fix the ruddy Island-World with a powerful Word then I’m going to scream at them, I swear I will!”

“Hey,” said Oyda, hugging Pip warmly.

“If this is what growing up is supposed to mean, can I rather suck on a few haribol fruits? Even worse, the Marshal’s his father, Islands’ sakes, so what happens if we encounter him in battle? Am I supposed to kill him? And how by all five moons and most of the stars, for that matter, do we expect to defeat a beast whose chief power is the diametric opposite of any magic this Island-World understands?”

“Hey.” The hug tightened.

“And what is this foul magic Leandrial hinted at, which Shurgal is supposed to have mastered? Could it be the same power which summoned the Shadow-beast here? Even if we stop the Marshal–which is as likely as stopping a Cloudlands tempest in its tracks–how will we destroy that beast before it strips our entire Island-World bare of magic?”

“Hey. It’s not all up to you. Fates, stars, Land Dragons, genocide prevention … honestly, Pipsqueak, you do have a way of trying to deal with all the world’s problems at once.”

Pip tried to keep a straight face, but the way Oyda was smiling at her–tender, funny and irresistible–was too much. A gruff chuckle waylaid her crabbiness. “Oyda!”

“Ay, that’s better.”

“I guess I’d need Leandrial-sized shoulders.”

“Trust me, petal, not even Leandrial could carry those burdens. But you’ve Pygmy-sized shoulders and those are good for a surprising load–of mischief.”

“Oyda!”

“Great, at least you’ve worked out my name by this stage of the friendship, jungle girl.” Oyda touched Pip’s cheek gently, her green eyes crinkling in the fondest of smiles. “You’ve one thing that poxy old Marshal and his pet beast will never have. Can you guess? Courage, disproportionate to your size. I know Kassik lectured you about great deeds, true greatness–but did he say that the heart knows no boundaries? Neither limitations of size nor heritage nor nature? Ever wondered if you’ll need shoulders like Fra’anior, the great Black Dragon himself?”

“Seven pairs?” Pip put in. “Sounds mighty useful.”

“Only the heart can carry the Island-World’s burdens, petal. The heart breaks, but carries on. It can shoulder the most impossible burdens. Kassik taught me that.”

Pip gaped at her friend, shocked by the waves of hurt radiating from her words. Remembering Oyda’s story, her pain.

The Dragon Rider ducked her head, taking a moment to dry her eyes. Pip gently pulled Oyda’s head to her shoulder, saying, “And shall we speak of a heart’s true beauty? That’s what you taught me, Oyda.”

Her voice emerged muffled. “The other thing about hearts? They can join together. One may break, but others gather around, and from that fellowship stem healing and a manifold strength that creatures like the Marshal will never understand.”

“Humanity in community?” said Pip. “Ay, that’s beautiful. So, what do I deal with, Oyda? Which bit of the puzzle? You know me …”

“No, Pip cannot possibly sit still,” Oyda agreed, waggling her eyebrows to emphasize her point. “Tonight, you must claim your heritage, petal. Go be with your boyfriend. Be the Dragoness you truly are. Two manifestations of one heart.”

Pip’s eyebrows crawled at this word-play on the nature of Shapeshifters.

Oyda gave her a playful push. “Go shake a wingtip, Pip. Have fun. Bite that boy. He deserves it.”

They cackled together like a pair of conniving parakeets.

Tazzaral’s left eye cracked open near Pip’s shoulder. “Alright, I’ll stop pretending not to be listening,” he rumbled softly. “How can we Dragons help you, Pygmy Dragoness? Do you need Jyoss, Chymasion or Shimmerith to assist with the transformative magic? I could always provide a suitable fanfare, since with all immodesty, I do have the loudest voice in this Dragonwing.”

“Oh, Tazz!” Pip patted his scales near the eye. “You could teach Ancient Dragons a thing or two about nobility of heart.” Switching to Dragonish, she said, Shimmerith, Jyoss, Chymasion … will you help?

And me? asked Silver.

She paused in the act of undressing. Uh … yes, please. No peeking–mentally or physically.

Oh, the joys of Shapeshifting, which had a way of destroying forgotten clothing as the Dragon-form emerged from whichever plane of existence it vanished to during the ‘between’ times. It was both impractical and embarrassing.

And Silver was thinking … What was that, Silver? Pip shivered with rage.

Sorry. Involuntary memory.

Should she be impressed or dismayed at his accurate remembrance of her nakedness in the Natal Cave? Stow that mental smirk before I slap it over the next Island!

But I shielded … you still saw? Silver sounded awed–which mollified her. Slightly.

In sing-song tones, she teased, You think I’m gorgeous.

Ay, you precocious little flirt!

Before she could formulate a suitably caustic response, Pip found herself catapulted into a realm of Dragon-minds. Radiant, magical fires surrounded a tiny girl, who viewed them with unaccustomed, shy wonder. Were Dragons truly luminous, transformed in her inner sight into fiery, almost blinding incarnations of draconic existence, their fires ever coursing and ever-renewing, a song of life rooted in the white-fires of which Yaethi had spoken? She realised she saw according to Chymasion’s magic, for the hatchling had joined the Dragons’ powers together in ways she could hardly begin to understand. Strength gushed into her being, imperative and overwhelming. As if from a slight distance apart, Pip saw the watching girl glowing like the Dragons. She was Dragon.

Transform, o child of mine spirit!

Who had spoken? Pip had chosen to withhold, momentarily at least. Yet that command allowed no place for fear and inanition. Helplessly, Pip triggered her transformation with the words, Let Onyx flower!

At once, she tumbled amidst devastating torrents of star-fire flowering from within every fibre and iota of her being, while simultaneously, her humanness folded inward as if rushing home to fill and indwell fonts of a different type of magic. Waiting. Untold, unknowable potential, waiting for her summons. Yet Pip knew also an elemental wrenching at the very roots of her being, as though the Onyx Dragoness must not only be summoned, but must writhe and struggle to break free of those poison-forged, numinous chains which imprisoned her spirit.

One cord stood apart from the others. Not binding, but nourishing, pulsing with a rhythm that reminded Pip of a draconic hearts-beat. She recalled the peculiar Pygmy ceremonies which centred around the umbilical cord, that most enigmatic and beautiful connection between a mother and her womb-bound child. According to folklore, Pygmies did not sever the cord for months after birth, preferring to treat the placenta with special herbs before wrapping it in gum-treated cloths. Cord and placenta travelled everywhere with the infant. It was regarded as a curse to allow a child’s foot to touch the Island’s surface during its first three seasons of life; Pip had several times attended the ‘touching’ ceremony of first footfall, when the cord was blessed and finally severed.

Could this extant connection explain her draconic heritage? Somehow, amidst an omnipotent rush of power, the eyes of Pip’s Dragonsoul turned to trace that life-bearing cord back to its source. Mother. Spiritual-umbilical cord. And it seemed to her, for a mere splinter of time, that she saw in the unknowable distance, a great, brooding draconic presence. She sensed pride. Majesty. An ineffable knowing.

And then, a telepathic blast, ARISE!!

Never had she heard a Dragon’s battle-challenge bell out as wildly and powerfully as this. Not even Leandrial could shake the Island-World so.

Swish! Crack! Pip snapped into her Dragon-form so hard and fast, her entire being vibrated like a gong struck by a Land Dragon’s hammer. So full of life was she, so bursting with fire and magic and sorrow and beauty and understanding, that Dragoness-Pip could not have been denied had she been shackled to an Island and tossed into the Cloudlands.

With a wild, unending bugle of pure jubilation, she vaulted skyward.

Chapter 13: Images to Confound

RUSH! GLORY! WINDSONG wuthering over Dragon scales! Pip raced for the freedom of the open skies, the boundless night that lay but the laughter of a Dragon’s heart from her grasp. She yearned to shuck burdens that had indeed lain like boulders upon her life. Never had she felt lighter. Freer. Happier.

Yet almost at once, she knew enervation. Her Dragoness had not eaten in weeks. She had been wounded and ill-treated. Pip turned quickly about, and saw Silver labouring in her wake, yet he too was laughing that curious variety of Dragonsong which communicated joy born in anguish, laughing so uproariously he could barely fly. Drifting downward upon outspread wings, a miniscule movement near the camp caught her predatory eye. Tawny hide. An involuntary twitch of movement. A short, spiralling horn her Dragon sight picked out even though it was almost perfectly camouflaged in a clump of jiista-berry bushes.

Bloodlust blasted through Pip’s mind, as if all mental process suddenly sucked away into her ravenous gullet. In a flash, she swivelled and plummeted. One thought consumed her. Meat. Instinct overwhelmed all else. Poor Silver could only gape in bemusement as the Onyx Dragoness hurtled by, zeroing in on the bushes. Calculating angles past the huge jinsumo boughs which spread across her path. Reactions primed to their utmost pitch. Too fast! Pip flared her wings between the fragrant boughs, passing by so narrowly that her left wingtip flicked the bark; the resulting draught of air spooked the young spiral-horn buck, which bolted away from the danger, but toward the campfires where other Dragons waited. Shooting beneath the leaf-laden boughs, Pip plucked up the buck an instant before she realised her approach angle was too steep and–holy smokes! Kaiatha!

Dragon instinct alone saved her from an embarrassing and potentially lethal collision. Pip rebounded off the ground, whooshed mere inches over her startled friend’s head, and with a vertebrae-popping somersault accompanied by sharp aerial braking, landed perfectly in a four-pawed stance between Kaiatha and the nearest fire. The buck had the temerity to wriggle. Without thinking, Pip slammed it to the ground between them, and disembowelled the hapless creature with a powerful bite. Yum! Grr! She hacked its jugular open with her fore-talon for good measure, splattering Kaiatha with blood, then began to rip and rend and bolt the meat with low, throaty growls of pleasure.

In the middle of her sixth mouthful, reason returned. Pip froze mid-guzzle, eyeballing Kaiatha. “Sorry.”

Duri, standing three feet behind Kaiatha, said, “Well, it’s emphatically dead, Pip.”

Her gentle friend wiped her left cheek absently, her fingertips coming away streaked with crimson. She popped her fingers into her mouth. “Mmm, that’s nice.”

Poor Durithion looked as thunderstruck as Pip felt. Kaia, who had never touched a scrap of meat in her life. Kaia, who had politely asked the Dragons to hunt and eat out of her sight. She actually closed her eyes in bliss. She smacked her lips … and voiced a low wail of distress.

In an instant she was in Duri’s arms, shaking her head, sobbing, “No, it cannot be …”

Duri glared over her bowed head, directly at Pip. “Freaking Dragons!”

Pip started toward him with an angry snarl, but suddenly Jyoss appeared, shouldering between them. “Ay, Dragons,” she growled at Duri. “What of it, my Rider?”

“We need to talk,” said Pip, gazing past Jyoss to her friends.

“Ay,” Kaiatha echoed. “I … I think we do.”

Durithion stared furiously at the two Dragonesses. With her enhanced Dragon senses, Pip caught the precise moment his heart sprang into a gallop, the pulse leaping in his neck, the quiver tensing his muscles as he pushed away from Kaiatha.

“The hells I’m going to listen to this!” he grated. He stormed away into the night.

The Fra’aniorian Islander sank to her knees, putting her head in her hands. “What have I done? What have I done, Jyoss? Pip?”

“Nothing you’ve done,” said the Albino, clasping Kaiatha with a gentle paw. “I’ve sensed this turmoil growing within him–Nak says that many young men who become Dragon Riders, particularly men of strong principles and conservative backgrounds like Duri, struggle with being the physically weaker creature in a Dragon-Rider partnership. In truth this is a false conception. But we have struggled, and argued, and our fires have not burned together in healthy ways.”

Kaia laughed curtly. “Conservative? I thought we Fra’aniorian Islanders were the old-fashioned ones.”

“Odd,” said Pip. “Hunagu’s gone to watch over him–no, to converse with him, even.”

Jyoss gazed sombrely at Kaiatha. “But we do need to talk. You and Pip, and don’t forget to include Silver and Cinti–all our Shapeshifters …”

The girl quivered in the Dragoness’ paw. “I can’t, Jyoss. What if it drives Duri away even more? He’s already so angry. And it’s not true, anyways. I don’t understand a single word of Dragonish. I feel no fires. Nothing. How can this be happening to me? Pip?”

“You can’t not, Kaia.” Pip found she had lost her appetite, both for the buck and for the promised date with Silver. “The best we can do now, is to prepare you for what must be.”

* * * *

Morning brought further frustration. With a roar, Dragon-Pip launched herself at Emblazon, only to be rebuffed not with tooth and talon, but with a patiently turned flank–exactly as she had seen him deal with the Amber hatchling Amfyrion’s temper-tantrums.

She subsided with a low groan. “Emblazon, please.”

“Nak and I have made our decision, youngling,” said the Amber, gruffly but not unkindly. “Respect our wisdom. A few days to rebuild your strength out there in the Crescent, and we’ll see about flying longer distances. Now, transform. We’re wasting precious daylight hours and the Crescent Islands grow no closer.”

Pip sulked off to transform in private behind Jyoss.

“You’re with Tazzaral,” Silver informed her. “Diary duty.”

With utterly infuriated composure, Pip suffered to fly a different Dragon from her own, in her Human form, aware that every Dragon present could deduce her feelings from her heartbeat, the temperature of her cheeks and likely even from her scent. True to their nature, however, the Dragons did not comment. Anger was a positive emotion, the fierier the better. Indeed, they had over fifty words and phrases in Dragonish to describe different types of anger and the fires they provoked.

But she could not be angry for long. Today, after seven summers–nearly half of her life–she would finally lay eyes upon her home Islands. Enslaved at eight. Freed seven years later. Forcibly freed, but she bore Zardon the Red no ill-will for that deed. How could she?

As they rose above the early mists blanketing Telstroy Island, Pip had eyes only for the South.

“I need your help cracking this code on page thirty-seven,” Kaia said.

Pip shut her eyes. Ay, Tazzaral’s forward speed caused the wind to sting her cheeks, but that was not the reason for the moisture pricking at her eyes. She struggled to concentrate, assemble the pages in her mind. They would not sight the Crescent for hours yet. She carefully picked through the runic script and the whimsical illustrations, seeking the cunningly concealed truth. Only a Dragon could have conceived of the artwork that was Kaia’s father’s legacy. Had he sensed he might die with the help of his draconic seventh sense? Partly, the diary was a blueprint for the fabled Order of Onyx–the rules and lore of his Order, standards of conduct, and oaths to be taken. But the margins and borders were crammed with additional information and pictures, much of which simply did not make sense. Unless …

She said, “Kaiatha, I’m calling in the troops.”

“Troops?” echoed her friend.

Chymasion. Silver. A little mental trickery, if you would. Is it possible to draw others into a mind-meld–I’d need Shimmerith, Oyda, Kaiatha, Arosia, Hunagu, Tik–

Hold on, Silver protested. Just one confused brain over here. Draconic, I’ll admit, but thoroughly discombobulated.

Shimmerith put in, Pip, you’re asking a great deal from minds not used to–

Oh glorious freaking lizards, said Kaiatha, clapping a hand over her mouth, even though she was speaking in her mind. Sorry … I … oh, oh, I understand … Chymasion! What did you just do to me?

It wasn’t him. It was me. Jyoss gave an amused snort. Don’t think only hatchlings are capable of mischief, Kaiatha. It was right there on the surface of your mind, needing the merest tickle to unleash your potential.

Don’t rush her, Jyoss, Dragoness-Cinti cautioned sternly.

Why not? the Albino asked.

Pip noticed that the Dragons were sticking to telepathy–Jyoss’ nuanced delivery betrayed her desire to hide the truth from Durithion. Not good. Necessary, perhaps, but she had to wonder how this could possibly end well. She checked Tik from the corner of her eye. Oyda had the child on her lap, playing the finger-game. But the distraction she sensed in Oyda’s manner informed her that the Dragon Rider listened closely, even if she understood only a moderate amount of Dragonish.

A Shapeshifter’s fires must develop in their own time, Cinti explained. Sometimes the first transformation is triggered by great need, as you are aware of from Pip’s history. But the natural process is for several months to elapse between the first signs of power–such as innate understanding of Dragonish …

Or enjoying blood, said Kaia, with a shudder.

Cinti nodded. Ay. Or violent mood swings, vivid dreams, lighting candles with a thought, living feral in the wild, seeking out the Dragonkind–all this and more is possible. Even outright madness is not unknown. Kaiatha, we will do our utmost to safeguard you. Now, Pip. Melding might not work with so many, but a projection might suffice.

Projection? How do you do that, noble Cinti?

The Herimor Shapeshifter spent half an hour or more instructing the Dragonkind and Riders in the art of projection, a higher function of Blue Dragons or in Herimor, those Dragons displaying Blue-like abilities. Then she had Pip send her mental images of the diary into Chymasion’s and Silver’s linked minds, who in turn projected them into an imaginary space in the air ahead of the Dragonwing. Emblazon snorted in consternation as a forty-foot tall rendition of page thirty-seven appeared several feet in front of his muzzle. Following Cinti’s instructions, Silver controlled the holographic image, placing it in a more suitable location about fifty feet ahead of the Dragonwing.

“Unholy spitting serpents!” Nak exclaimed feelingly. “Now there’s a trick I’ve never seen before! You couldn’t do a fetchingly unclad version of Oyda for me later, Chymasion, could you?”

The image wavered beneath the force of the hatchling’s consternation.

Plucking a prekki fruit from her saddlebag, Oyda hurled it with surprising accuracy across at Nak, seated on Shimmerith’s back. The soft fruit splattered against his hip. Pip blinked in surprise. Had the Sapphire Dragoness cunningly tilted her wing at the last instant, ensuring that the fruit struck its intended target and not her scales?

“Wow!” said Arosia, patting Chymasion enthusiastically. “Aren’t you just the cleverest creature with two wings?” A few other Dragons puffed smoke from their nostrils, indicating draconic amusement, while Kaiatha suggested Yaethi would be most put out.

“Yaethi has no wings,” said the hatchling, as if that settled the matter.

Arosia added, “You could almost imagine the Ancient Dragons collaborating on projects like building Archion Island, in this way. Can’t you see it?” She deepened her voice. “‘I’ll have a few more terrace lakes over here, Fra’anior. Shouldn’t we make this arch even more ridiculous? That way our Human pets couldn’t possibly miss the paw of our grand draconic design.’ ”

Nak waved dismissively. “Bah, my beauty. Don’t you think they should rather just sign the Island with a few runes like Pip’s leg over there?”

“And leave no room for belief?” Kaiatha sounded uncharacteristically testy, Pip thought. “Where’s the wonder at creation, at the natural beauty of our Island-World, if it’s all written on the Islands, so to speak?”

“Ay,” Oyda agreed. “Perhaps if we had Shimmerith peel Nak’s hide sufficiently, we’d find the word ‘rejected’ stamped on his essential parts.”

Apparently this was bait to a windroc, rather than insult. With a broad grin, Nak said, “The beauties of thy nature art writ on the very stars above, o peerless Yelegoy, for thy essential parts were indeed stolen from those celestial realms to furnish this grateful man with–”

With a toothy smirk, Shimmerith shielded the rest of his sentence from hearing, muttering something about youngsters in the group. But Oyda could evidently lip-read enough, for she blushed the precise hue of the radiant eastern skies. How she burned! But Kaiatha took over now at Emblazon’s low prompt, directing everyone’s attention to the diary pages beginning to surge from Pip’s mind as she tried to link the information scattered throughout the diary. Chymasion’s brow-ridges wrinkled and Silver’s Dragon-jaw firmed into a grim line as the Dragons laboured to keep up with her ideas flitting about like frolicsome mental dragonets.

Much spirited discussion ensued. At one point, Pip caught Nak gaping at her with undisguised admiration. Through Silver, she caught him muttering about ‘idiosyncratic yet marvellous intellect’ couched with another inappropriate Nak-ism that apparently had something to do with kissing the grey entrails of her skull. Yuck.

Cinti and Shimmerith organised the Dragonwing into teams to focus on different aspects of the diary, including the text, the pictures, the inexplicable runes, cryptograms, epigraphs and markings bordering many of the pages or decorating the text. Pip developed a kicker of a migraine–the kind of headache that kicked one’s temples like Dragons entangled in battle exchanging blows of their powerful hind paws–but Silver put his nascent healing skills to use in alleviating the worst of the pain.

So they flew toward ranks of semi-transparent pictures, until the suns lifted well above the horizon and Pip’s strength was ready to give out. She said, “I need to stop, Kaia.”

Nak said, “Moving pictures … you know, Pip, people would pay to see moving pictures just like this. With you and a couple of Dragons, I could be a rich man.”

Pip groaned, “Maybe tomorrow, Nak.”

“Moving pictures! That’s it!” Arosia yelled.

Chymasion leaped fifty feet upward in fright, before firing an angry fireball to express his feelings.

The young Dragon Rider laughed. “Sorry, Chymasion. Overexcited. But I have an idea. Actually, it’s Nak’s idea. Total genius.”

Nak swelled like a bird fluffing up its feathers.

Oyda rolled her eyes. “Arosia, do you have to? Honestly?”

Arosia winked across at Oyda. “Nak is awesomeness with trumpet fanfares wrapped in a kingly cloak! He’s the rajal’s pelt, the fantastical finch’s tail-feathers!”

“Well, I say!” spluttered Nak, blushing like a village maiden.

“Nak’s brilliance outshines rainbows overlapping over the Islands! Who else beneath the twin suns–”

Emblazon growled, “Enough, Arosia, or he’ll simply explode, which would make an ugly mess on Shimmerith’s scales. What is this idea?”

Arosia pointed. “Moving pictures. Overlapping–Pip and Chymasion, can you overlap, let’s see, that page and that one? No, not the fourth, I meant the fifth one over. Good! See?”

Pip was rather pleased it was someone else’s turn to squeak with excitement. For as she overlaid the images, new patterns began to emerge. Roots. Vines. The heads and backs of Oraial Apes. Everyone was shouting at once, but she blocked them out, summoning and discarding images at the speed of thought. Blurring. Faster still. Reordering. Commanding a touch more transparency from Silver and Chymasion. The Dragons’ fires rumbled and fulminated as she drew heavily on their strength. Who else kept ridiculous cupboards-full of information in their heads, perfectly preserved for recall? The trick was synthesizing the content of her memories, which was where Silver and especially Chymasion came into their own …

“There!”

“Holy Ha’athior, Pip,” breathed Kaiatha.

“Ha’athior used to be holy. It’s a Human Island now,” Emblazon corrected, but his mind was clearly a hundred leagues from the subject of Fra’anior’s fabled Island home. “By my wingtips …”

Pip said, “It tells a story. Look. On these Islands, clearly somewhere in the Crescent, we have Pygmies speaking to Dragons. Receiving gifts. Here, we appear to have an oath–”

“An entry spell,” Shimmerith and Jyoss chorused.

“Dragonish portal magic,” the Sapphire clarified. “We’re rather fond of protecting our treasures in a wide variety of creative, fiendishly draconic ways. Judging by the complexity of that construct, I’d say one’s chances of reaching this treasure without the information contained in these pages would be vanishingly small.”

“Or fatal,” Jyoss added.

“However, the spell’s deliberately been left incomplete,” said Cinti. “Go on, Pip.”

Roaring rajals, her head was spinning afresh. Pip willed her heart to quieten down. Too much adrenalin and excitement.

She said, “Together, the Pygmies and Dragons crossed these seven Islands and then climbed down into the Cloudlands, taking these Ape Steps–look, you can clearly see an Oraial leading this party of Pygmies. Here, they appear to descend into the earth. One Pygmy, travelling alone, is shown placing the treasure in this narrow cave, which is marked ‘beneath the Cloudlands’. How’s that possible? How would they breathe down there?”

Silver said, “It’s a place no Dragon could reach.”

Of course. That was the whole point. Where in the Island-World could one hide the knowledge of the Word of Command, that Dragons could not find it? Did that mean any Dragon could use this power? That it was treacherous or corrupting or deadly? Pip shook her head slowly. All three? And if she read this treasure-trove of knowledge, a list of Words for example, that would effectively turn her head into the greatest prize in the Island-World, bar none. A prize a Marshal of Herimor would stop at nothing to gain. Surely, territorial conquest alone had not drawn him to the North? Silver had talked about the ‘elevation of Shapeshifters’. Did that mean he desired elevation to the status and power of the Ancient Dragons?

Perhaps all she needed was to get close enough to the Marshal to use a Word on him …

Now every person and Dragon in their group had seen the map. Could Marshal Re’akka steal that information from unguarded minds? Weariness stole over her. Pip let the images vanish. Confounded knowledge, better that it did not exist at all!

Silver. I need you to protect us. All of us.

After a long, irascible discussion, the group agreed to having their memories modified by Silver, even Silver himself, for they saw no way around the problem. All except Pip. All except for the littlest pair of shoulders.

She had to carry this burden alone.

* * * *

All that morning, Pip watched the air ahead grow grey with cloud and moisture, and eventually a small squall swept in from the easterly quarter to dampen hair, clothing and scales. She welcomed the beating of water upon her fevered brow. Cleansing the soul. Washing away any fear. From water and spirit a Pygmy warrior must be reborn. To Tazzaral and Kaiatha’s vocal surprise, she unclipped her saddle buckles and walked out onto the Dragon’s shoulder, spreading her arms and throwing back her head to let the suddenly driving rain pound against her head and shoulders.

With a jealous snarl, Silver slipped out of formation, snatched her off Tazz’s shoulder and placed her firmly upon his own. You belong here.

Pip sent him a mental hug. I concur, thou monster of green eye-fires.

Grr, he agreed, apparently putting the matter beyond contention.

Her bare feet flexed against warm, rain-slick Dragon scales. Her curls plastered her forehead and neck. On an impulse, Pip drew her long daggers and moved into a series of Pygmy warrior-forms Master Adak had helped her to polish. In Ancient Southern, she whispered, ‘Scything the raindrops. One with the storm. Flying amidst jungle boughs.’ Her limbs performed the flowing steps and sweeps, cuts and thrusts, while her mind drifted afar. The Crescent could teach her oneness. Pygmy-body and Pygmy-soul. How her destiny could be rooted in the reality of home. How she might come into her Pygmy battle-name. How a mind, honed and attuned to perfection, might even learn to cleave raindrops.

The rain abated. Ahead, the cloud-veils parted as if drawn aside by invisible drawstrings.

“Quite barmy,” said Nak, shaking his head dolefully.

“I know,” said Silver.

“Several leagues short of the Island,” Oyda agreed, crinkling her nose at Pip, who glanced across, startled. “Eyes to the front, jungle girl.”

Rainbows. Dazzling sprays of rainbows arched across their path, intersecting playfully, cast by the double refractive effect of the twin suns. Pip gasped. Those rainbows curved over great bowed canopies of jungle foliage which crowned the Islands lying ahead of the Dragonwing like gigantic, untamed mounds of curly Pygmy hair. Even from a distance of two or three leagues, these Isles proclaimed their uniqueness. Boughs a quarter-mile long and more overshadowed vast, grey-black cliffs. Vines and fronds trailed almost into the Cloudlands, miles long. Massive vine-hawsers, thick enough at their bases for a full-grown Dragon to make a comfortable landing upon the upper surface, linked the Islands–the famous jungle ways, which young Pygmies walked as a rite of passage.

The Dragons swept toward the majestic scene in silken silence, as though every creature could not speak for the glory of what awaited. Life teemed. It burst forth, wild and vigorous and verdant. It crammed into cracks and competed endlessly for the abundant rain and suns-shine, thriving in the towering jungle canopies and rising from the leaves in dense clouds of insects and darting specks of birds. Everywhere, there was damp. Dripping foliage. Slippery, gleaming rock, that which could be seen. Loamy stacks of fallen, rotting leaves and vegetation surrounded the bases of some Islands, surmounting the Cloudlands, supporting the growth of a second layer of dense, dark green brush and trees, as if deliberately planted by a draconic paw to create the effect of a decorative garden.

Then, Hunagu’s crashing, chest-pounding male Oraial challenge resounded over the deeps.

Pip wanted to laugh or cry, but could manage neither. She breathed so deep, it seemed every fibre of her being had lungs to imbibe the essence of this jungle. This was a place of ancient earth-magic. This was the nourishing, sheltering Mother jungle.

This was home.

Chapter 14: The Ways of Apes

THE CRESCENT ISLANDS stretched south to southeast in a long, gentle curve that legend told comprised half of Fra’anior’s smile–at least, so the balladeers opined. Most Dragonships accomplished the twelve to fourteen-day haul along the Crescent without stopping, Nak averred, save those who knew a little-known halfway stop called Well-Hole, a word-play on ‘hellhole’. There, a knowledgeable Dragonship Steersman might enjoy safe harbour beside a small natural lake and take on a load of abundant giant catfish. Slavers were more adventurous, taking small, manoeuvrable Dragonships in amongst the jungle giants as they hunted their victims. Dragons, too, required a rest-stop every day or two, but they could make the same journey in less than half the time, if pushed.

The major issue would be finding the right tribe of Pygmies and hopefully, Hunagu’s Ape tribe as well, without running afoul of the Marshal and his minions. Nak explained that Master Balthion’s best intelligence placed the northernmost Pygmy tribes about a third of the way along the Crescent, from which point they were widely scattered amongst the official number of one thousand, four hundred and eleven Crescent Islands all the way to a point fifty leagues shy of Germodia. But Pygmies were shy and reticent. They were not known to emerge to wave at passing Dragonships. Tracking them down would take time and tenacity.

As they passed close by the first lush Island, Pip called to Hunagu, “Air smell nice-nice?”

“Air smell stinky-wrong,” Hunagu grumbled. “Go further.”

How her feet itched to put down! But Pip had to submit to Nak’s pronouncement that they would fly on for the balance of the day, before finding a place to put down. Tomorrow, the search would commence in earnest. She gazed at each Island curiously as they sailed by. None matched the descriptions in Kaiatha’s diary. All called to her heart with desperate, tangled emotions that knotted like prickly vines in her chest. And the Marshal searched for the same knowledge. Could her people escape genocide at the paws of thousands of rapacious Dragon Assassins?

Even an endless day had to end. The twin suns peered through the humid atmosphere like great, trembling fruit afraid of sinking into the horizon. All became golden. The vast, Cloudlands-overhanging boughs gleamed as though dipped in the light of a blazing furnace. The clouds below rippled like a vast terrace lake lapping against forbidding cliff shores; Pip almost expected a brace of Land Dragons to arch out of the deeps like lake trout fleeing a Dragon hunting underwater. In the early evening Shimmerith and Emblazon ascended until they vanished from sight, intending to spy along the Crescent with Dragon sight, but they returned with grim, negative headshakes. No sign of the Marshal. How did one hide an entire floating Island and thousands of Dragons? No-one wanted to propose an answer.

When Tazzaral recommended a large cave a mile beneath an Island as their roost for the night, a simmering Pygmy was not long in making her voice heard.

Pip said, “Not on the Island?”

Tazz said, “This is an excellent location, protected and large enough for all of us–”

“But I need squidgy mud between my toes. Leaves! Vines and trees. Dirt …”

The huge Copper Dragon blinked as he often did when Pip confused him. “By my wings, Pip–why?”

“Because Pygmies need mud between their toes like Dragons need air beneath their wings,” Nak explained, with a wink at Pip that raised her temperature to melting-point.

She exploded, “Rider Nak, I take exception–”

Cinti, returned to her Dragoness-form, crashed out, “Family outing, Pip?”

“No! Yes! Er … what do you mean?”

“Just say yes,” said Dragon-Silver, putting down in the cave mouth a couple of inches from striking Emblazon’s tail. Had he touched one scale on that proud Dragon’s tail, the likely response would have been to collect a paw in the jaw.

Less than a minute later, with all Dragons and Riders accounted for, Pip took Tik on her lap–the child acting as if leaping from Dragon to Dragon was as natural as climbing trees–and Silver blasted back out of the cave, following his shell-mother’s lead. A vertical mile for a Dragon was the merest flip of a wingtip. They shot upward past broad curtains of jungle vines and creepers, scaring thousands of twittering birds into momentary silence. Silver took the lead. Pip rather suspected he wished to show off, for his flight path traced the underside of a massive bough deep beneath the forest canopy, using it as a kind of living highway. He kept his form compact. Dragon reactions flicked his wings in and out, dodging secondary and tertiary branch growth with apparent ease, but the tangle quickly became too much even for a Dragon. He burst through a thicket of creepers with an angry snarl, chopped off a few thin branches with the leading edges of his wings, and burst into what Pygmies called the jungle’s underbelly with a fiery snort of discontent, blowing charred leaves out of his mouth.

“Taken to chewing plants, Silver?” Pip teased.

He thundered furiously!

Pip clutched Tik to her chest. “Ancient One annoyed at self. No worry.”

“Silver good-good Dragon.”

Tik’s laughter trilled around the gloomy bases of the forest giants. Here, beneath the dense layers of forest canopy, it was already night-dark. Gigantic tree-trunks, several Dragon wing-lengths wide, loomed in the gloaming, but Silver avoided them easily as he found a place to put down. His splayed paws touched down softly upon a layer of deep, centuries-old loam. A few breaths later Cinti joined them, having taken a gentler approach. Her fire-eyes were bright enough to create a pool of radiance between those hoary, deeply striated boles.

Pip skidded down Silver’s shoulder, whizzed along his half-raised forepaw, and plopped down in the muck with a sigh. She wriggled her toes happily, as did Tik. She began to laugh. Great, gasping sobs of laughter seized her diaphragm. Pip did a crazy dance, bringing a further round of giggles from Tik.

After a few minutes of this, Silver said, “Pip, you’re hugging a tree.”

She wiped her eyes. “And?”

“It’s–” he struggled for words, “–a tree. Shell-mother, is this what it means to have a family outing?”

“We used to climb trees constantly.” Suiting actions to words, Pip set off, finding no trouble fitting fingers and toes into the wide cracks in the rough, stubbly bark. No masses of moss or lichens could slow her down, but she had to climb around broad plates of fungi in places.

“Wait for me!” Tik swarmed upward.

After a few minutes, the Dragons followed, digging in with their talons to walk vertically up the trunks. Their burning eyes followed Pip and Tik up into the first layer of branches and foliage. Suddenly, the light improved. Cinti and Silver joined them atop a branch wider than Silver’s wingspan at the base, where it jutted away from the tree.

“I’ve never climbed a tree suitable for Dragons before,” said Cinti, glancing about.

“I’ve never had a family outing before,” said Pip. “Pygmy children are trained by the elders and warriors rather than by their parents. It’s supposed to make us better, tougher fighters.”

“Your father never taught you to hunt?” asked Silver.

“No. That would’ve been shameful.” Pip chuckled as Tik decided Cinti’s nostrils needed internal investigation. The Dragoness jerked and twitched, clearly trying to suppress a sneeze. “Tik, no tickling. Dragons sneeze fire.”

Having whisked Tik away from danger, she paused. “Cinti, your scales are changing.”

The Night-Red Dragoness froze. For a moment Pip thought she had no answer, then she sneezed violently aside. Gouts of fire bathed the trunk twenty feet overhead, charring a large patch.

Tik giggled, “Tickle more?”

“Ask Silver,” said Pip. Cinti, I’m serious. Here by your eye, where the scales are smallest, there’s a definite change in colour. I’d love to see this in the full suns-light.

She sighed heavily. Perhaps all is not irredeemable.

Perhaps Balance may exist in many forms, said Silver, tossing Tik from one paw to the other. She demanded a repeat. Pip, I don’t understand. You said your parents are Pygmies. Who, then, is the Dragon in your heritage? A grandparent?

“That’s what I wanted to ask you,” Pip said. “I’ve never heard of a Pygmy Shapeshifter. According to Master Shambithion, there were none recorded in the lore-libraries at Ya’arriol or the Academy. Even if there was some so-called special relationship between the Ancient Dragons and my people, what exactly does that mean, Silver? I’ve learned there are spontaneous Shapeshifters. Where does the magic come from? Is it like a magical infection? I mean, you two are clearly the generational sort of Dragon; magic runs in the bloodline, shell-mother to shell-son. What about me? I can’t be the only one, can I?”

Cinti said, “If only we knew the answers! Ay, little one, spontaneous Shapeshifters are perfectly possible. They arise in Herimor too. Usually scare the living pith out of everyone involved.”

Pip appreciated Cinti’s toothy grin. Tik was now rolling over Silver’s knuckles, playing happily. Pip said, “Did it truly all start with Hualiama Dragonfriend? What did she do? How did she come by this great Shapeshifter magic? How did it cross the Rift to Herimor?”

Silver rumbled, “How’s about you ask a few questions we can actually answer, Pipsqueak?”

“Apparently asking the unanswerable is what family outings are all about,” Pip shot back. “Sorry, Cinti. Maybe I should stop babbling and you tell me what you do know.”

Theories abounded, mostly centred around magic. Some said Shapeshifters were Humans who caught a hint of starlight in their souls, learning to become Dragons. Some Dragons called Shifters ‘the curse’. Cinti knew of Dragons who had learned to shift into Human form, as well as the opposite, Humans who became Shapeshifters. If there was a Shapeshifter in a bloodline, that ability would often repeat down the generations, leading to a worldview she believed Marshal Re’akka subscribed to–that Shifters could breed their way into all Human and Dragon bloodlines, until all merged into one super-race–Shapeshifters, of course. That had long been his goal.

Yet for all the efforts of draconic science, no-one had ever worked out exactly how or why Shapeshifters arose naturally. Shimmerith had described the mainstream view held North of the Rift, which was that Shifters could exhibit blood heritage or spiritual heritage, a link which somehow worked through the spiritual realm to convert, supplement or corrupt Dragonsoul into Human soul, or vice versa, depending on one’s beliefs.

Blood-parents and soul-parents, Pip thought. Odd. Then had her vision been a true vision, that last time she transformed? Was it possible her deeper quest might lead to that devoted presence she had sensed at the end of her umbilical cord?

Cinti said, I’ve no idea how the ability to Shapeshift might have crossed the Rift, Pip. But I do have a word for you. Amongst Herimor Dragons, we use the phrase ‘child of my spirit’ to describe a special relationship between a fledgling and their mentor, especially in our highly stratified societies where this bond may exist across different social classes. There is a resonance which may exist between fire-souls that transcends colour or ability or age or bloodline, which we take to signify intertwined destinies. In such cases, the elder Dragon refers to the younger as ‘child of my spirit’. The saying is ancient, perhaps passed to us by the Ancient Dragons themselves.

Silver used the paw not being turned into Tik’s personal gymnasium to chuck Pip gently beneath the chin. “Catching flies, Pip?”

With a growl, she explained her vision, leaving both Dragons rather more gape-jawed than she had been, especially given the magnitude of the roar she shared via her memory-echoes. What could anyone make of that?

Cinti said, “Well, Pip. You are a strange one, but these are strange Isles, redolent with an ancient, earthy kind of magic even I cannot fathom. I should not wonder that a magical truth underlies Fra’anior’s special regard for this place and its people. You speak wisely. Such a quest of which you have spoken is the draconic seeking of true-fires. Destiny will not yield willingly to your paw, Pip. You must fly to it. Seize it. Squeeze that destiny until every secret is known.”

“Ay?” said Pip. Or was her destiny predetermined?

“Now, Emblazon would have you transform and test your wings. Let’s see if you’re clever enough to fly out of this jungle you’ve landed us in, Pygmy Dragoness.”

From the Island-World’s greatest mysteries to the humble student in one fell swoop. Pip could not help but laugh at Silver’s expression as she gestured at him to turn his back. Tik goggled as she transformed into her Dragoness-form.

Then, the Pygmy child burst into tears.

This time, there was no exultant leap for the sky. The Onyx Dragoness mooched along the branch as though she felt the weight of Islands upon her back.

* * * *

The following day, they flew charily southward, keeping a low profile. Skulking amidst the Islands. Shielding with every power at their disposal. Stopping three times to allow Hunagu to consult with tribes of Oraial Apes they spotted from afar, or Chymasion detected amongst the jungle giants with his unique abilities–although even he could not see as deeply into the jungles as he had expected. Three times, a pair of their Dragons ascended to the heavens to try to spy out the Marshal’s wiles. Nothing. All appeared peaceful, which had to be ten thousand leagues from the truth. Where were the Marshal’s Dragonwings?

Pip flew for most of the day, grateful for each rest and feeling stronger by the hour. Tik kept casting the Onyx Dragoness reproachful looks.

They camped that evening on the bald crown of an Island deep in the Crescent. Chymasion and Jyoss hunted for wild pig, while Emblazon and Shimmerith plotted strategy with their Riders. Hunagu slipped away under the cover of the nearest bushes.

Pip moseyed over to Hunagu and crouched next to him. Speaking Ape, she asked, “How we find Hunagu Island?”

“Pip hear last Apes. No want stranger,” the Oraial griped.

“Hunagu scent family-tribe?”

“How Pip remember tribe-scent after seven years? Hope beat in Pip’s heart?”

“Big-big hope,” she admitted. “Find Pygmies, ask about runes on leg. Tik have no runes. How we find Tik home? Ask clever-clever Oraials?” She punched his arm slyly, given she could not reach his shoulder. “Hunagu smell like Dragon. Find beautiful mate.”

“Hunagu stink like Human.” He tried to punch her back, but Pip grabbed his fingers and pretended to wrestle with him as they always used to.

The Ape laughed, covering her head with his huge paw. “How Hunagu live without best-best friend? Pip forget?”

“Never.”

Pip stood on his crooked forearm in the gathering evening, grooming his neck ruff and flicking the ticks she found into the nearby bushes. Ay. She and Hunagu had been on a journey and come back changed. Were they too much changed? She had no answers.

* * * *

From bald-spot Island, as Nak cheerfully nicknamed the place, the search spread out, slowly drifting southward as they investigated and discarded possibilities. Three times, they shielded and hid amongst the Island canopies as fifty-strong Dragonwings of Night-Reds passed by high overhead, traveling northward up the Spine, but the Dragons did not pause even to glance about. They seemed mysteriously intent on whatever mission consumed their attention.

Pip was tremendously excited to find a Pygmy tribe just two days later, only to have invective screamed at her for being a strangely dressed interloper and no Pygmy at all.

Before dawn the following day, during their patrol, Jyoss and Duri spied Oraials crossing the vines between Islands four Islands away, swaying above the Cloudlands as they made the dangerous crossing despite a stiff breeze. Taking Hunagu in his paws, Emblazon flew ahead with Nak, Jerrion and Pip to land the Ape on the Island ahead of the tribe. Dragoness-Pip peered at the family making the crossing. Ay, did she detect something of a resemblance? For Hunagu, though he said nothing, took several deep whiffs of air and a quiver seemed to run through him.

“Pip change,” he said. “Come with?”

“I’ll watch from a suitable distance,” said Emblazon.

“I’ll peek through my fingers when you transform,” Nak added, grinning at her from atop the Amber Dragon’s mountainous shoulders.

Seated in the second Rider position on Emblazon’s harness, Jerrion took the smaller man’s neck in a playful headlock. “I’ll just twist his head off if he misbehaves, alright, Pip?”

“Emblazon, help,” Nak pretended to wail.

Ignoring the Rider’s travails with a pompous air, the Amber Dragon launched off the branch where he had deposited Pip and Hunagu. She transformed, dressed and armed herself rapidly with her Pygmy bow, quiver and long daggers, and followed the Ape as he lumbered beneath the damp jungle canopy. In seconds, they were swallowed up as though they had never been.

“Air smell home-home,” the Oraial hooted softly, making a mighty leap across to a new branch.

Seizing a trailing vine, Pip swung after him. How it all came rushing back! The smells, the gourds, even the insects that buzzed around them. She had names for each iridescent wood-boring beetle they saw embedded in the bark, and most of the colourful jungle parakeets, peripols, hoopoes and woodpeckers that flitted through the green, leafy hallways and tunnels that formed and changed before them as the Ape and the Pygmy warrior worked their way northward around the Island, travelling in silence for the most part, with the odd brief exchange to agree direction. Hunagu scared off a twenty-foot copper-backed python by hooting and beating a booming tattoo on his chest.

Well. Now the Oraial tribe would be alerted to their presence. Judging by his expression, Hunagu realised this, too. They travelled on for another quarter-mile or so, fording two streams in their deeply-cut gullies and cutting through a marshy area rife with reeds and sedge grasses that stood twice Pip’s height, but Hunagu had no problem seeing over their plumy white tips even when he travelled on all fours. Then suddenly, his thick, splayed fingers made a warning signal.

Pip halted.

Hunagu reared upright, his throat swelling thickly. A series of low, booming hoots resounded deep in his chest, declaring his name and lineage, Pip realised, although there was much of his hoot-speak she could not understand. Some monkeys spoke with whistles as well, adding further dimensions to their basic Ape language.

A decidedly querulous reply rumbled back from no more than fifty feet away.

Pip, knee deep in black swamp muck but at least able to enjoy the brunt of the early suns cutting beneath the jungle’s flanking boughs from the East to brighten the light green reeds and khaki sedge grasses, peered ahead through a natural break in the growth. At least seven scowling adult Oraials stood in a semicircle facing Hunagu. Only two had the thick white neck-ruffs that identified male Oraials, a rheumy-eyed male who stood a similar height to Hunagu, perhaps fourteen feet tall on his hind legs, but was even thicker through the torso and shoulder. The other was a young male, considerably smaller and slimmer than Hunagu.

“Father,” said Hunagu.

“Challenge-challenge?” thundered the old male.

“No challenge. Hunagu find own-tribe home-tribe,” he replied.

“Hunagu many-summers dead.”

Pip called, “Bad-bad big person steal Hunagu to Island far from suns. No good place for Oraial. Long-long suns pass. Hunagu grow mighty brave. Save two-leg peoples from evil stinging creatures. Ancient Ones bring Hunagu back to family.”

The reeds rippled as the alpha male forged toward them, the fighters of his family gathering into a dense wedge just behind. In a moment, a posse of black Oraial eyes faced Pip and Hunagu, their body language communicating suspicion and anger. She would not have wanted to encounter such a group in battle, despite the knowledge that a Dragoness lurked within easy call–her secret weapon. She imitated her Ape friend, lowering onto all fours with a respectfully downcast gaze.

“No challenge,” Hunagu repeated.

The male said, “Apes no fly. How fly from Island far from suns?”

Waving his thick arms, her friend explained, “Little Island-person ask Ancient Ones. Carry with rope. Many suns–twenty-five suns travel.”

One of the older females moved forward, sniffing at Pip’s neck with her huge nostrils delicately a-flare. “How speak Ape so good-good? Lost own-tribe home-tribe?”

Ay. Lost. Pip listened unobtrusively as Hunagu retold their story in great detail, even as the rains swept over her heart. A person could be lost yet home. Physically present, yet part of her heart soared with Silver, and her soul had yet to find its true home. Perhaps she was just the sum of the assorted parts of her history and heritage, experience and learning, scattered across the Isles. She could claim what was hers to claim. The rest? That she must fight for.

Pip did not know what was afoot in her heart, but she sensed a resettling of those parts into new patterns.

She startled. What was this? Hunagu’s father … a paw rested upon his son’s shoulder. Great, silent Ape-tears rolled down his dark cheeks! Hunagu gripped his father’s forearm, unspeaking.

Beautiful.

Surrounded by his kin, Hunagu renewed bonds devastated those seven seasons ago by the Sylakian slavers. There was fond back-slapping and soft hooting and communal grooming. Beautiful. Several female Apes came to check Pip’s hair. She hoped they would not find anything too serious amongst her unruly curls. The young male approached to sniff and greet her. Then, he slapped her back in the Ape fashion, summarily planting Pip’s face in the swamp.

Perhaps she should feel part of the tribe, now.

Chapter 15: No’otha

BY EARLY AFTERNOON, the Dragonwing had gathered beneath the trees beside the swamp, meeting with the Apes in a most extraordinary conference. Eight Oraials. Five Dragons. Three Shapeshifters and six Humans. They shared intelligence, speculation and tales of Ape-lore for hour upon hour. The Apes, far from living in isolation on their Island homes, had extraordinary and far-reaching knowledge of their environment, shared and retold in oral form for hundreds of years. They knew the location of every Pygmy tribe within a hundred and fifty leagues. Pip learned of the jungle vine, a sharing of information by Oraial Apes every full cycle of the Jade Moon, when the Apes would gather late at night to boom information and stories across the great gulfs between the Islands, or to physically meet up with other tribes.

“It seems your people might live near the southern reach of their territory,” Nak mused.

“Can you ask them about the Islands we need to find?” Jerrion inquired.

Pip said, “I tried, but they’re not really visual thinkers. They think in scent-memories and oral lore. Hunagu’s father could recall at least eight sets of Ape Steps which might match what we’re searching for.”

“Would your friend be willing to accompany us further?”

“I guess that’s the only option. Hunagu?”

“Mighty Ape! Ancient Ones no-smell blind younglings!” he thundered in Ape-speak, thumping his chest until it resounded like a drum.

“He says yes,” Pip said wryly. No point in hurling dry tinder on already fiery tempers.

Emblazon rolled his eye-fires at the Apes. “Is that a precise translation, Pip?”

She kept a perfectly straight face. “He says the Dragonkind wouldn’t know exactly what smell they’d be searching for. I think we’ll need Hunagu’s guidance, mighty Emblazon.”

They passed the late afternoon training, discussing strategy and preparing suitable clothing for Pip, narrow strips of plain cloth she could turn into a loincloth and upper body coverings. She did not want to repeat her mistakes upon meeting that first Pygmy tribe. Yet would she be able to recognise her Island when the time came? She did not think so, but Hunagu seemed confident. Just another mystery, how Oraial Apes could pass on scent-markers and memories in the same way as Humans or Dragons might tell a story.

She fell asleep wondering if Human souls could develop a case of infectious starlight.

* * * *

At first light, the Dragonwing took to the skies. Jade. Night-Red. Silver. Sapphire and Amber. Onyx, Copper and Albino. Not one was less than a rare colour, perhaps the most unusual assortment of Dragons ever to grace a burning Island-World dawn.

The suns rose hot and heavy on their port flank as the Dragonwing forged forth several compass points east of south, making a steady nine to ten leagues per hour. Ahead, a storm front straddled the Crescent in ascending, mounded layers like a bulging pile of sackcloth bags, from the grey-blue skirts denoting rain to the pure white cumulous puffs tens of thousands of feet above. No overflying that, Emblazon noted. Within, there would be powerful updrafts and jagged hailstones, which could debilitate an unshielded Dragon. Better to fly beneath or take shelter. Yet the day’s warmth belied the storm. Sultry as the breath of an angry Dragon, heat shimmered over the serried Islands, a band perhaps forty leagues wide at this point, but endlessly long. Pip, Kaiatha and the Dragons luxuriated. Durithion, on the other hand, sweated and grumbled mightily.

At Shimmerith’s suggestion, Pip flew with Chymasion and worked with him on trying to see further, beyond the storm. They had to know the Marshal’s movements. Yet either the storm hampered their efforts, or Re’akka had the South sewn up tighter than the stitching on a Dragonship’s air sack. There were, to borrow a Nak turn of phrase, suspicious volumes of nothing to be found.

“Absence often speaks louder than presence,” the Dragon Rider continued to hold forth, distracting Pip from another attempt at boring Chymasion’s special sight through the storm.

GRRARRRRGGHH! The Pygmy Dragoness ground her fangs impotently.

Rather than continue to tug her wingtips, however, Nak waxed unexpectedly poetic. He cried, “Thou piceous penumbra of draconic pulchritude, shalt thy shrewd feminine intellect not doubtless secure victory? Thou subtle ode to wingéd magnificence, thou ingenious igneous lizard …”

That snake-tongued son of a chattering monkey, he was at it again! Pip was just about to engage in a round of fire-spitting combined with the teeth-gritting when the words ‘penumbra’, feminine’ and ‘subtle’ seemed to leap out and strike her a triple blow between the eyes.

“Yes!” she shouted. “Brilliant, Nak!”

Nak startled, then began his preening routine. “My genius shines, of course,” he agreed, obviously having not the slightest clue what he was agreeing with.

With a clip of her wings, Pip whipped over and dropped a sooty kiss on the crown of Nak’s head, before spiralling back to Chymasion with a tight triple forward somersault that would have been the envy of any self-respecting dragonet. Ignoring Nak, who was busy extolling his towering virtuosity to everyone who might be listening–she suspected not many of their number–Pip called Silver over and was soon embroiled in deep discussion as to more cunning ways they might employ to detect what lay on the far side of that storm.

The hours fled. The Dragonwing put down and listened to the sounds of rain and high winds pounding the treetops far overhead, while they nestled between thousand year-old trees, warm and dry. Pip hunted for ochre clay to use for Pygmy war-paint.

As night drew on and the storm passed over, Pip dreamed restlessly of her village burning. Ever burning.

Before dawn she led Chymasion, Jyoss and Shimmerith aloft to see what they could make of Chymasion’s new skills, honed after long hours of discussion between the Dragons the night before. Shortly, seven magical probes departed, primed in slightly different ways to seek out that absence which might imply magical shielding, and return with information they could use.

Not a single probe returned.

“More sensitivity,” said Chymasion.

“There must be something we’re missing,” said Jyoss.

“One more construct,” said Shimmerith, holding it forth in her mind. “If there’s an unusual drain on the magic of these probes, they should return immediately. We have self-propulsion, detection and return systems working as best we can. But self-preservation is another imperative.”

Chymasion shuddered as he released his second wave of seven probes.

You’re draining yourself too severely, my precious flame-heart, Shimmerith scolded. Don’t place yourself in danger in this way. Here, let me touch you.

The others come, said Jyoss.

Shortly, the Dragonwing formed up and moved on, steadily following the Isles’ curve south-eastward. After an hour, about the same length of time they had waited for the previous set of probes, three returned. Chymasion returned the information to Pip, who plotted three touchpoints on her mental map. If she performed a quick triangulation …

“The Well-Hole,” she said.

“Good,” rumbled Emblazon. “Nak’s nothing has likely been proven. The Marshal is no more than one hundred and fifty leagues from our position. Two hours more, and we should reach the area the Oraials suggested for our search. It’s becoming tight.”

The balance of the bright, sunny morning passed quickly. Pip recognised nothing, but Hunagu led the group quickly by smell to the first Island where they should find Pygmies–or at least, signs of recent habitation. The Pygmy tribes moved often, or at least hunted abroad, to avoid depleting one Island’s resources and to keep potential enemies guessing.

Three Islands. Five. They found a cunningly camouflaged but abandoned Pygmy village at the sixth, which showed no sign of ever having been burned. Dragon-Pip cast about but soon realised the village was not her own. It seemed too neat. Recently abandoned, perhaps, but everything had been removed to the last iota–gourds, tools, weapons, cooking pots, even the sacred images of ancestors. No, this struck her as a strategic withdrawal. No haste. Nothing dropped or forgotten. The ground swept clean of tracks, the huts deliberately left open …

They were going about this the wrong way.

Sending all the others except Chymasion away, Pip transformed from Dragoness to Human form. She dressed quickly, but not in her usual tunic top and calf-length trousers. She donned her home-made loincloth, fastening the daggers to her waist with a double loop of cord. Pip tied ragged strips of cloth across her chest and over her left shoulder, ostensibly to hold her quiver of arrows, but also to preserve a certain measure of modesty she no longer felt she could give up. Using the sticky ochre clay she had found and prepared the previous day, she painted her body, face and arms as best she remembered in the patterns of her tribe.

She made a face. Mercy, she felt naked–a word which did not even exist in Ancient Southern. She felt as if her uncovered backside was a flag waving in the breeze. Perfectly Pygmy-normal, she reminded herself. Overdressed, even.

Chymasion, we need to find their sacred cave. It’ll be here somewhere, near the village.

You need me to detect rock? Hard ground?

Please.

Pip felt magic pass over her as a tingle up her spine. The Jade Dragon slowly turned, scanning the undergrowth with his unique power. Meantime, she cast about for a trail leading from the village. There would be one, well-concealed as a matter of course.

As Silver had taught her, she focussed her Dragon awareness through her limited Human senses, slowly allowing herself to become one with her surroundings, mindful of every leaf brushing against its neighbour and earthworms squelching through the moist earth, the movements of jungle rodents and birds and insects, alert for any sign of disturbance, any hint which did not belong to the whole. She laughed softly, testing the air with her nose. Was that the faintest smell of wood smoke lingering on the breeze?

Chymasion, focus this way. Stay twenty feet behind me.

Pip pushed through the undergrowth. Mercy, a noose trap linked to a poisoned arrow. She ghosted past, sending a mental warning to her draconic guard. Here. The faintest of trails led her forward past a massively gnarled tree which grew almost horizontally up against a hidden hill, just a jumble of boulders covered in yellowing moss. The tree turned ninety degrees and reached for the skies. Behind was a narrow, dark crack.

Her heart crammed into her throat, throbbing like a frightened animal.

In Ancient Southern, Pip recited aloud, “O spirits, receive one of your own. Stay your curse till my purpose be known.”

Again she settled, letting the awareness of her surrounds imbue her consciousness. Ay. She moved her hands away from her weapons and held them up at shoulder level, fingers unclenched.

Loudly, she called, “A stranger seeks aid from your hearth.”

After a long, long moment, a Pygmy warrior appeared out of the dark, a poisoned arrow nocked and pointed unwaveringly at her belly. He was not the only one, Pip sensed. She did not know him. His tribal warrior-paint was a thick, pustulent green, limited to unfamiliar bands around his neck, biceps, upper thighs and ankles.

“Stranger you are,” said the man.

A warning. Pip kept her hands immobile, grateful now for Master Adak’s tutelage in the basics of inter-tribe relations. She ironed any hint of uncertainty out of her voice. “This stranger comes open-handed, in peace. I seek a boon. Knowledge of my tribe, for I have walked a lost path for seven summers of my life.”

“What of the Ancient Ones who stalk our jungle halls?”

“I will bid them leave.”

The dark eyes flashed at her. “You have this power?”

Pip nodded firmly. “I have this power.”

The man showed no outward sign of shock, but Pip’s Dragon-senses clearly identified his elevated heartbeat, and the nervousness of the warriors backing him up. They had thought to deal with an interloper from another tribe. Now, she claimed power over Dragons. To retreat and confer would be shameful. To reveal fear, even more shameful. Yet, she must not offer help, at least not directly. The next move was his.

The man’s jaw tightened. “What knowledge do you seek?”

She winced inwardly. The direct phrasing of his question betrayed weakness. She said, “In my eighth summer of life, the pale men-with-beards took me as a bond-slave to their faraway land. An Island of no jungles. A place so cold, rain sticks to the ground.” This was a gamble, an admission of vulnerability. That those events were past, was immaterial. To die in battle was glorious. To be captured? Dishonour. “Now, in my fifteenth summer, I have returned to find my tribe. But the Islands are many and their ways, the secret of gelid sap.”

“Few return from the monster’s belly,” said the warrior.

Pip indicated her leg. “I am Named. I am Pygmy. The fires of my jungle soul never die.”

“Ay. May the soul’s fires never die,” he responded appropriately. Odd how Pygmies talked about soul-fires, similarly to Dragons. “Name a warrior from your tribe. Quickly.”

“No’otha,” said Pip, not pausing to think.

“Ah.” Finally, the deadpan face split into a grin. Drawing his dagger, the man squatted and began to draw rapidly in the dirt. “Take the jungle ways five Islands directly south, then two eastward. Crossing the Ape’s way here, you will come to an Island shaped like forked stick.”

Pip peered over his shoulder, nodding. Right. That should be easy to find, the westerly fork being shorter than the south-easterly.

“From there, head for the smoking Island. South again, you will find its four sisters. One is shaped like a Dragon’s foot. There you will find your village, burned seven summers ago by the big-person slavers. Many warriors were lost, but the tribe is still strong. Will you give that old leopard No’otha a message from Cha’òbít?”

She nodded. “I will be your mouth.”

Rising, the warrior hawked up a decent gobbet of spit and covered her left cheek in a spray of red-stained spit.

* * * *

Pip ran back to where she had left the others. “Found them!” she yelled.

“What’s that on your cheek?” asked Oyda.

“Phew,” said Nak, fanning his face. Emblazon promptly snaffled the Rider into his paw, effectively blinding him. Nak yelled unhappily inside his instant confinement.

Silver’s eyes bulged in his suddenly rosy-cheeked face. “What’re you wearing, Pip?”

“Not wearing,” said Duri, scathing of tone as he deliberately averted his eyes. “Did I ever tell you how Pipsqueak first appeared to me?”

Nak managed to call between Emblazon’s knuckles, “Is there any chance under the heavens you could persuade Oyda into Pygmy gear, Pip? Please? Have mercy on a poor, piratical reprobate whose head you never fail to turn.”

“You first, I insist,” snorted Oyda, but she had a wink for Pip.

Quickly, Pip summarised her meeting with the Pygmies. “Cha’òbít’s nephew is–ah, married, I guess you big people would say–to No’otha’s granddaughter. That’s a tribal blood-tie.”

“And the spit?” asked Kaiatha, evidently itching to wipe Pip’s cheek. Lack of neatness always vexed her.

Pip scratched her chin. Roaring rajals, how did one translate all these cultural nuances? “Greeting and obligation. No’otha will owe Cha’òbít for helping me. Therefore we should find a way of paying or honouring No’otha first … Islands’ sakes, it’s complicated. Can we go find my tribe now?”

Freshly released from Emblazon’s paw, Nak imitated a child’s piping voice. “Are we home yet?”

For that, he received a punch on the shoulder that knocked him clean off his feet. Pip winced. “Ah, sorry, Nak. Stronger than I thought.”

The Dragon Rider rubbed his shoulder, astonished. “Suffering windroc spit, girl. I’m standing right behind you in the next battle.”

“What about Tik?” asked Shimmerith.

“Cha’òbít did not offer help,” Pip noted. “But I’d hope that with the right questioning we could find out who Tik’s relations are, and then ask amongst the tribes. It might take months.”

Arosia said, “Pygmies love children. Helping orphans is a high honour.”

This was definitely an occasion for wrinkling her nose at Arosia. Being reminded of her own culture was itself a reminder of what she had lost. Pip’s gaze returned to her discomfited boyfriend–and what she had gained. Although he did seem too easily shocked.

Reaching out to lace her fingers into his, Pip said, “This isn’t flaunting, Silver. Animals, even Dragons, are clad in their own hide and that’s enough, isn’t it?”

Silver nodded. Gulped.

Nak smirked, “The problem is that her hide is just so flaming fabulous, isn’t it, Silver? We men understand these–urk! Emblazon …”

The Dragon inquired solicitously, “Oh, Dragon Rider. Did that hurt?”

Pip settled for wrapping herself in a travel cloak as they soared over the Islands once more, following Cha’òbít’s guidance to the letter. Strange how Emblazon was sometimes so arrogant-male Dragon, doing what he wished, and other times he became an immovable stickler for protocol. Thus they flew the neat, prescribed zigzag, each point ticked off in officious tones by the Amber Dragon. Soon, the Dragonwing skirted the actively spitting volcano Cha’òbít had mentioned and headed south toward its ‘four sisters’, connected to the volcano by several mile-long vines. The easternmost Island, right on the edge of the Crescent, was indeed shaped like a Dragon’s foot, with two rugged peninsulas pointing almost due north, and a further three splayed out upon its southern aspect.

Still the storm lurked, occluding the entire southern horizon in towering grey-black battlements. In fact, they were so close now that the storm almost appeared to be reaching around the Dragonwing, a flanking manoeuvre of dangerous cloud-armies pregnant with lightning and magic. The Marshal’s doing? Pip had to wonder. No further Assassin of Night-Reds had appeared; those which had winged north had vanished into the distance and not returned. She could not shake the sensation of being watched. Shurgal? The Marshal? The Dragon of Shadow? Some other power?

Too many enemies.

Seen from Cinti’s back, nothing looked familiar. Pip turned to speak to Silver, seated right behind her, when the rearward view to the broad-based volcanic cone snagged her eye. Her jaw sagged. That crack in the cone’s rim, leaking a slow, meandering trail of hot orange lava. That cloud of smoke or ash hanging just over the summit, the dense tropical vegetation clinging to vertical cliffs on the eastern face … o heart, keep beating! O lungs, don’t forget how to fill and empty!

Silver reached out to squeeze her arm. “This is it, isn’t it?”

“Ay.”

Pip buried her head in her arms; Silver rubbed her back companionably. “It’s going to be perfect, Pygmy girl. You’re going home.”

Chymasion called over, “I still can’t master penetrating that jungle in search of life, Pip. You’ll have to go in on foot.”

Hunagu made his feelings plain with a snort that conveyed the superiority of Ape jungle skills over those of Dragons. Oyda immediately laid a warning hand on Emblazon’s shoulder, but the Amber Dragon had clearly determined that matters Ape were beneath his dignity. He landed Hunagu gravely on a huge, moss-mottled branch and watched the chosen trio sally forth–Pip, Chymasion and Hunagu.

They were back in less than half an hour. “Wrong scent-memories,” Pip explained.

“Wrong stink,” Nak translated for everyone.

“That’s your boots,” Pip retorted. “Trust me, I’ve suffered multiple near-death experiences in the vicinity of Nak’s boots.”

Nak beamed at her. “Trust me, I hire only the finest roost-help for cleaning my beautiful Shimmerith’s lair. Who else can count a Pygmy Dragoness for a pillow-changer and bootlicker?”

“Recently upgraded to boot-burner,” Oyda put in.

Right. Fourth place on her menu went to Oyda. “Move on!” Pip sang out.

The next peninsula, the more easterly of the Island’s two ‘toes’, was much more promising. After being dropped off midway along a quarter-mile branch in a spot where Dragons could land, Hunagu immediately sniffed the air approvingly. “No stinky Human boots,” he said approvingly, in his best Island Standard. “Come, Pipsqueak. Here good-good hunting.”

Pip sniffed too. Magic, a touch of bird guano, and the pungent odour of a saprophytic gourd-vine dangling nearby. She automatically checked for ripe fruit, plucked one and made a neat incision into the orange stem with her dagger. Sweet, sticky green mikku-juice, tasting like anise and honey. Yum!

After a short swig, she passed it back to Cinti. “Give that to Tik, please.”

She followed the Oraial Ape along the branch, hooting softly to find out how far he had progressed.

Brushing aside a veil of leaves, Hunagu shinned down a secondary trunk as though it were the easiest of stepladders and struck out into the Island’s interior. Cool green enfolded them. Pip noted familiar birdcalls and a chill trickle of premonition or anticipation on the nape of her neck. This was it. Home soil. Not that they were on home soil as yet, but another swift descent from Hunagu, a hundred-foot drop taken with the help of trailing lianas and an Ape’s incredible facility with tracing a pathway in any conceivable direction through the wildest of jungles soon brought her feet into contact with cool, rich black soil. Chymasion landed soft-pawed right behind her.

Once more, they wended their way in between the mighty jungle giants, every footfall deadened by the soft mulch underfoot, every breath hushed for reasons Pip could not quite fathom. She eased into a Pygmy warrior’s habitual alertness. Now, her footfalls did not even squelch. She disturbed no leaf or twig in passing. A touch awkward, but that feeling was already fading.

Astonishing, said Chymasion, after an hour had passed in utter silence. Not all around us is botanical. I see in these trees a tracery of magical pathways akin to those in a Dragon’s being. The reason underpinning the outstandingly massive botanical growth upon these Islands, is magical. Naturally. Or unnaturally, if you prefer.

Dragon and Shapeshifter chuckled together.

Quite unexpectedly, Pip sensed a familiarity in her surroundings, almost a mental ‘click’, or as Dragons would say, a change of aerial orientation. She pointed out a faint, heavily overgrown trail to Hunagu, who hooted in accord with her assessment, charging ahead more aggressively. Then he paused, gesturing for her to take the lead. Pip jogged ahead, increasing the pace still further. The pace of a Pygmy warrior on the hunt. Every few steps she scanned the trail ahead and the trees above and to the sides. They passed through a few rare patches of dappling suns-shine, detoured where a twenty-foot tall branch had crashed down across the trail, and crossed two ravines on branch-bridges, or in Chymasion’s case, a leap, a gentle glide and a deft landing.

In her heart, Pip agonised over a cold truth. This trail had not seen use for many moons. In all likelihood, her people were not on this Island any more. Yet her village called to her. It sang a song which could not be denied. They climbed a four thousand foot ridge into the day’s heat, before finding on the far side, a small half-moon pool of water on the edge of a vertical drop.

Pip walked right to the still pool’s lip, next to a trickle of a waterfall, and peered over the edge. “We used to do this as children.”

“Do what?” asked Chymasion.

“Jump into the plunge-pools. A series of four. I remember the last being very high indeed.”

For a moment, Pip paused to gaze at the wall of leafy jungle pressed up against the cliff, chenki, lime-green orbík and flowering tiû’ti trees in the main. Thousands of trumpet-shaped pink flowers, as large as a Jeradian serving-platter, stretched forty feet upward from their branches, yearning for the suns-light. Jungle- mountains, these had once been. Now she knew a far wider world, accessible by a Dragoness’ wings, yet to be in this place was to know again the tininess of the Human frame in contrast to the stolid ranks of jungle giants, a sense of insignificance in the light of the natural world’s overwhelming power. Those Ancient Dragons must have been moved by wonder, she realised. An appreciation of beauty. A love of stark, forbidding landscapes and mighty Island-sculptures. World-building. Modelling. Perhaps even … loving what they had wrought. Ay.

With a soft whoop, she leaped into space. Splash! Icy water revived her. Pip gathered her weapons, forged ahead to the edge of the next pool, and leaped again. Swish. Splash! Now a short leap, and then a quick gathering of her balance atop the final, tallest leap. Two hundred feet into a narrow, pitch-black draw stuffed with foliage. Down below was an apparently bottomless plunge-pool, black as the night.

Suddenly reckless, Pip leaped into the dark, careless of whether her friends followed her or not. This was her quest. Her homecoming.

The fall was long enough to know the thrill of immediate danger. What if new boulders had tumbled into the pool in the last time of rains? What if it was no longer safe?

Forming her body into a rigid spear, Pip struck the water, feeling a stinging slap against her soles. She plunged deep in a tornado of bubbles. Kick! Swim! For an interminable moment, it seemed the surface would be too far. She broached with a yell of wild delight.

Now, the village was not far. A quarter-mile, perhaps less. Every tree was her friend. She knew each bend in the trail. Her feet did not need to be told where to tread. Chymasion shook the branches not far behind. Hunagu, too, would be down that cliff in moments. Perversely, Pip wanted to win this race. Her legs blurred. Weaving. Balancing. Unstoppable, now.

She skidded to a halt in an open space, nestled in a bright natural clearing in the heart of the jungle. How had the Sylakian slavers ever found this place? A dozen rude huts stood around the clearing’s edge, cleverly concealed beneath sheltering boughs. Opposite, she saw a blackened and flame-split tree. There was the hut from which she had rescued the Pygmy children and taken them to the sacred cave. Here was the place she had taken her stance, defying the armoured big people as they destroyed her village and murdered her people.

All was abandoned. All was dead, save for the warrior waiting in the precise centre of the clearing.

No’otha!

Chapter 16: Questions of Heritage

GRIZZLED OLD WARRIORS only ever seemed to grow tougher and gnarlier with age, until their skins resembled dried, shrunken fruit and their character somehow became etched upon their features, as if age drew back the veil almost every person wore over their true selves. No’otha’s visage communicated honour, unspoken power and curiously, a gentleness that transcended an expression seemingly carved of forbidding granite. Three circular, raised ritual scars adorned each cheek. The striking ochre war-paint of a Pygmy warrior streaked and swirled across his face, neck, and upper torso and arms. He held a four-foot flint-tipped spear at ease in his right hand, the butt resting against his left instep. Twin daggers adorned his hips, and a Pygmy bow was slung crosswise upon his back. Puckered burn-scars ran the length of his hard-muscled left thigh.

Yet she also saw a person like her. Mahogany skin. Tightly curled black hair, short-cropped as befitted a warrior, now streaked with grey. Each sideburn sported a rare crimson chentis-feather that curled beneath his jawline, symbolising his status as the tribe’s leader. No’otha was short yet strong, just four and a half feet in height, but as wiry as a side of dried meat. His sole garment consisted of a scrap of loincloth which had clearly seen many years’ service.

Pip knelt and stretched out face-down, making the traditional obeisance of a Pygmy child to a respected elder. Perhaps she had grown out of such a greeting, but in her culture, the status of adulthood was extended by invitation only, and the Naming ceremony had to take place before one was regarded as being of age.

“This girl abases herself, Elder No’otha.”

“How does a stranger speak with familiarity?”

“The stranger is Named by her tribe. This girl has not had the privilege of the Ceremony of Second Naming. Therefore, she is nameless until Named.”

This followed the traditional formula of greeting which Master Adak had suggested would be the likely response of her tribe. Inwardly, Pip reeled. It seemed No’otha had been waiting for her.

No’otha clicked his fingers. “Arise and regard me, child.”

For a measureless time, the old warrior’s unreadable black eyes appraised her. Pip was not certain he recognised her; she met his gaze steadily, refusing to be cowed. This was proper behaviour for a warrior. Yet she trembled, for were his eyes not an echo of her own? An element of magic, a concealed light within the darkness much like the depths of her gaze when she observed herself minutely in a mirror–did this denote draconic magic? Or just a fancy on her part?

At length he said, “Why sully ground hallowed by the spirits with your presence, stranger?”

“This ground knows this girl, for it saw my birth and my first step,” she replied. “From womb to cord, from cord to life, from life to a living-death and resurrection from the place of big-person evil, the blood of this girl’s life pulses without ceasing.”

“What is your battle name, child?”

Pip half-turned, presenting the outer portion of her left calf for his inspection.

Silence. It seemed to Pip the entire abandoned village held its breath. Then she heard a teardrop plink beside her foot. That was shocking. She had never seen a Pygmy man cry like this–not in the face-tearing fashion of formal grieving, but in a silent upwelling of his deepest feelings. No’otha looked away to the overarching trees, fighting to master his emotions.

Then he clasped her in a huge, rib-bending hug. Unthinkable! That an elder should so much as touch an Unnamed young female …

He said, “You are no stranger. You are this tribe’s lost heart-stone. This precious one who was dead, is alive!”

Throwing back his head, No’otha vented a long, ululating cry of untrammelled jubilation.

* * * *

Many explanations followed. No’otha seemed unfazed by the presence of Chymasion and Hunagu, but the retelling of her story kept him clenching his right fist over his heart and hissing in repeated expressions of wonder. Pip had forgotten Pygmies did that. She had also forgotten they spat not just for greeting, but for blessing. For the second time that day she wore a fine gobbet, this time upon her neck. No’otha’s face darkened as she reflexively began to wipe it off, then halted the movement.

“I abase myself,” said Pip. “This girl has forgotten much.”

And she spat back in his face.

No’otha chuckled in fierce pleasure, before cocking his head. “Ancient Ones approach. Take cover!”

Barely had he, Pip and Chymasion dived into the nearby bushes, when a huge flight of Night-Reds roared overhead. Pip estimated their number at over two hundred strong. Dragons wheeled and dived amongst the foliage, growling to each other with low-voiced, monotonous regularity as they searched the undergrowth, up and down trees, and every nook and cranny. Her tracks! Pip’s head jerked in horror, but Chymasion’s voice instantly entered her mind.

Hunagu swept them away from the ridge onward.

Sweet relief. Pip replied, Pray they don’t find our companions on the far side of the Island.

Shielded telepathy allowed them to speak freely even as a Night-Red blundered by not ten feet from their hiding place. Beside her, No’otha kept utterly silent, speaking to her with his fingers. Pip caught only every second word or so, but understood enough to be reassured that the tribe, two Islands away, would be sufficiently well-hidden to confound even the attentions of the Dragonkind. Still, she listened for what she felt must be the inevitable discovery of Emblazon and the rest of their Dragonwing, but the search appeared to proceed fruitlessly, for after a heart-stopping hour or so, the Marshal’s Dragonwing upped paws and moved on with that peculiar synchronicity of action that she had several times observed.

As if wishing to erase the stench of the Night-Reds’ presence from the Island’s heart, the heavens promptly opened with a breathtaking peal of thunder and unleashed a titanic rainstorm. Pip withdrew from beneath the bushes she had been using for cover, as sodden as the foliage around her, and joined No’otha beneath a sheltering bough. She eyed the wind-lashed treetops above the village with appreciation. Roaring rajals! And the wise old warrior was bone-dry, having of course anticipated the storm’s arrival. Grr.

“Tonight, you and I shall walk the jungle ways to our peoples’ home,” No’otha announced, picking up their conversation as if it had never been interrupted. “Your companions will await our judgement and ceremonies.”

“So this girl can be Named right away?” Pip asked.

“In a moon’s time,” the Pygmy warrior replied equably.

“A moon! Elder No’otha–”

“My decision is made.”

Pip did not know how to approach the matter, but her fuming consternation was evidently an open scroll to him.

“You disagree?” His arms folded like stringy vines across his chest.

“I beg haste,” said Pip, unable to exclude a quaver from her voice. A whole moon! The Academy would be destroyed and the Marshal’s genocidal designs concluded long before then. “These enemy Dragons do not sully Pygmy territory without reason, Elder No’otha. This girl would urge the tribe, she would plead–”

“I would see this Dragoness.”

“This girl–what?”

“The Dragoness.” No’otha’s musculature seemed stiffer than old roots now, but Pip could have sworn she saw a twinkle cross his eye as briefly as a firefly flitting behind a leaf. “First, I wish to see this Dragoness you described.”

“B-b-but … don’t you trust me? Does this girl’s word not–”

“I see my trust girded about your right bicep,” said the old warrior.

“Then …” Pip clamped her mouth shut.

No’otha added, “Did I not tattoo those runes with my right hand, as unknowing of their meaning as you? I knew a Pygmy child. She returns a young woman. She claims a fabled form, colour-kinship with the Ancient Power himself. Her tongue is no instrument of forked speech. And a Pygmy Elder sees such rare power gathered in her breast–” he made a complex sign with his fingers Pip did not recognise “–therefore, these old eyes wish to behold a miracle.”

She breathed, “A miracle?”

Pip’s mind reeled between twin poles of No’otha setting arbitrary conditions and his assertion that her Onyx Dragoness’ colour somehow made her a relative of the mightiest of the Ancient Dragons, the Onyx Fra’anior himself–he of seven-headed majesty and the mythical ability to raise storms. Her Shapeshifter heritage? Ludicrous. She was the titchiest of Dragons. Instead, Pip focussed on his purse-lipped nod. It was a miracle, indeed. Yet Zardon had sniffed out her magic from a hundred Isles away. Oh, mercy–should she conclude the Marshal or his pet might be able to do the same?

In rapid-fire Dragonish, Pip explained her fears to Chymasion. He noted quietly that a Shapeshifter’s transformation did appear to create a detectable magical signature or resonance, although he had not studied the matter in detail. Could other, sensitive Dragons detect this resonance from afar? If Zardon’s mysterious capacity had somehow been connected to the Balance, or even been prophetic as some Dragon philosophers believed of the seventh sense, she added, then they should exercise due caution and warn their Shapeshifter companions as soon as possible.

Chymasion’s best magic-dampening shield prickled over her skin, then spread across the immediate area. Pip noticed No’otha rubbed his arms as if he had felt a chill, and Hunagu voiced a wordless grumble of complaint. Animal senses? Intriguing. She shucked her weapons and clothing rapidly. No’otha looked on inquiringly.

“The transformation flowers from within a soul,” said Pip, using a clever trill that hearkened to a flower-bud’s first unfurling. Wow. Ancient Southern expressed the idea perfectly.

Then, she stepped away and transformed.

Radiant magic folded inward and outward simultaneously, as if her Dragoness flowered right through the retreating non-substance of her Human flesh, for an infinitesimal instant, the twin aspects of her life being indistinguishable from each other.

A thought resounded in her mind, Hualiama, Shapeshifter-mother, were you the naissance of my Dragon-fires?

Or could the prospect be infinitely more threatening, involving the awesome Onyx progenitor of all Dragonkind?

She gazed down at Elder No’otha from a new height, four or five feet above his head. No’otha’s eyes rose in wonder. Pip inclined her muzzle graciously. “I greet you as Pip, the Pygmy Dragoness.”

No’otha performed a genuflection she had never seen a Pygmy make before, falling to one knee, head bowed, his interlinked hands forming a sign like Dragon wings rising above his grizzled thatching. “I abase myself, Ancient One. I worship your mighty right paw.”

“No, you don’t!” she blurted out.

* * * *

An hour after dark that evening, Pip stood upon the root of a jungle way, ready to embark upon her journey into adulthood.

In the storm’s aftermath, all smelled new. Pip, returned to Human form, felt invigorated, as fresh as the moisture glistening on the jungle boughs surrounding her. First, the Pygmy Elder had directed her through the ritual bathing and cleansing of her person, including a scrub made of ooliti oil mixed with fine river sand, leaving her skin tingling and sparkling. His part in this process was to sit cross-legged on a boulder above the final rock pool she had leaped into earlier, with his back firmly turned, while he sewed her an outfit of special jungle leaves, barely more than a garland meant to encircle the hips. He anointed her head, ears, eyes, nose, lips, fingers and toes with another fragrant oil supplied from his scant possessions secreted near the village, while speaking over her a long and complex incantation in Ancient Southern which Pip did not entirely understand. This represented the cleansing of the mind and its senses.

“Usually, the tribe gifts the candidate with the weapons of an adult,” he had said, painting her cheeks in the likeness of a jaguar with the shaped, blunted tip of a branch. “But since you plan to leave immediately, that seems a foolish waste of resources. No mind. Your life is gift enough.”

Pip suppressed an urge to slap his hands as No’otha rapidly and deftly painted swirls all over her upper torso. Mercy, she had changed. She shivered as he wrote runes in ochre paint around her midsection, above her leaf garland, and vertically down each of her thighs. Silver would never have dreamed of touching her so intimately, yet in her culture, Master Adak had told her, this was an acceptable, even noble task, usually reserved for a tribal Elder. He shaded her eyelids with iridescent blue eye-shadow prepared from crushed beetle shells, and outlined her lips, nostrils, eyebrows and ears in crimson. Perfect.

The entire process of preparation took over four hours, by which time, her Dragonwing had begun to fret over her fate. Chymasion came in for a roasting from Emblazon as the Amber Dragon passed overhead, searching, but the hatchling assured his shell-father all was well.

Pip had returned to converse briefly with her companions, not enjoying the identically glazed looks that greeted her from both Nak and Silver as they took in her outlandish appearance.

“Jungle princess,” Silver whispered as she departed.

How easily he redeemed himself.

Where she stood, the huge roots of an Island-linking vine burrowed into the Island’s very heart, according to Pygmy lore. The vine itself was over thirty feet wide at its base. As it looped out of the jungle canopy, it sprouted further ancillary tendrils that supported the massive vine by winding themselves around branches and tree trunks. Here, its size made the vine a veritable highway. Out there, the storm’s remnants buffeted the vine playfully; she sensed a slight trembling through her bare feet. She remembered how vines came to be, how the seed-pods explosively ejected their missile-shaped seeds on a particular night once a decade, firing them a distance of over a mile from the Island. Silken thread linked the young vine to its base. Should the connection be made successfully, the vine grew rapidly and tenaciously to its full strength, also fruiting five times a year. Magic. It had to be magic. Yaethi would have been enthralled.

Her feet traced the ancient ways of her people. Pip walked steadily along the vine’s central bark-ridge, navigating a quarter-mile traverse of jungle canopy, ducking through thick curtains of leaves and clambering over or under the odd branch. All around her, the sylvan jungle soughed its restless wind-song. At length Pip passed beyond the last branches and found No’otha waiting for her.

She knelt upon the traditional last leaf, which was as large as a Dragon’s paw, and waited.

Once more, the black eyes considered her as though her every quality were tossed out before him like a Seer’s bones upon an animal-skin, ready to divest portentous secrets.

“It strikes this Elder,” No’otha said in a voice that rose and fell like the wind-song about them, “that due to her age, a girl may not recall her heritage. You are this Elder’s great-niece, the progeny of my deceased older brother’s lineage.”

Pip raised her clawed hands toward her face, but a whip-crack, “No!” stopped her.

More gently, he said, “No. Disturbing these markings now would disturb the spirits. When I wept earlier, you did not understand. Now you do. As I told you, your parents both live. Your father was burned in the attack, but remains strong. Your mother is … cheû’tàl’k.”

Pip spread her hands slightly.

“Spirit not whole,” said No’otha, using Island Standard, before switching back to her tongue. “A tynûss-blossom, we say.”

“Fragile?”

“Ay. A fragile spirit. I’m afraid that having your friends at the Naming Ceremony may agitate her. Come. The night grows impatient to receive you. I will sing the blessing, and then we must walk.”

The liberation her spirit had felt at the news of her parents’ life modulated into the knowledge of inchoate grief. She knew heaviness. Concern. An unspoken threat lingered upon the Island-World’s winds, an inchoate anticipation stirring in her blood and bones. Eyes watched. Perhaps not of flesh, but eyes of ageless perception, overseeing realms that Pip recognised only from Leandrial’s teachings, and with this realisation came the awareness that what she wrought this night would shift balances and harmonies far beyond her ken.

Pip must draw her inferences. She wished she understood more of these cosmic forces besieging one small life. Feet on the Island, Pygmy girl! Ay, the Marshals of the world might entertain an overblown sense of destiny faced with such insights; she felt like a speck blowing hither and thither on unseen winds, perhaps upon the unknowable breath of an Ancient Dragon.

When No’otha sang, it was in eerie tones that made Pip’s neck hairs prickle, a low droning of syllables older even than most spoken forms of Ancient Southern. He intoned:

Spirit-salutations of elder days,

The brooding presence of ancient ways,

Magic rooted in olden time,

The Ancient Powers’ life and rhyme,

Island-song, life-song, spirit-song is sung,

From old to young, life must flow,

In consecration.

Pip knew her understanding was imperfect, yet each time No’otha repeated the song through seven iterations with minor modifications of inflection and meaning, she grasped more. She resisted the urge to look about for where the Dragonwing must be watching from a distance, as No’otha had stipulated. This part of the ceremony, of her journey, was for Pip alone.

When his song faded into the night’s gentle sounds, the Elder nodded gravely.

Pip said, “Calling upon the spirits of her ancestors, this girl declares her readiness to embark upon the sacred journey into adulthood.”

No’otha responded, “This girl is ready, anointed and welcome. By the spirits of our common ancestors, I bless the joining of a new spirit into the fullness of Pygmy life. Let seeds be planted which will grow to fruit. We journey together.”

Setting her face westward, Pip followed No’otha down the long, gentle curve of the hawser-like vine as it reached into the dark, starry night. The Island’s earthy scents mingled with the fragrance of innumerable jungle blossoms were strong in her nostrils at first, but soon faded into the deeper, more mysterious scents of the night. Pip filled her lungs, a ritual No’otha had prescribed. Inhale the world. Imbibe its essence. Unbind the spirit that it might roam the night, mirroring the physical transition of her person between Islands.

Minutes ticked by. Pip breathed starlight, darkness and the faintly rancid scent she recognised as the Cloudlands. Ay, she knew that smell from when Leandrial had raised Pip upon her paw. Quiescent now in her spirit, she recalled the strange events of her life which had brought her to this place, of the people she loved and the longing that still consumed her to understand what it meant to be fully Human, to partake in the common life of humanity. Yet was that her destiny? Could a person dream their destiny and choose to seize it, or did inheritance and circumstance determine the future? Much had been done to her, she realised. This journey was about forging her adult identity. Taking responsibility for her own life and destiny, a notion that loomed large in Master Kassik’s teachings.

Suddenly, she realised No’otha had stopped. Halfway already?

He motioned her to take the lead.

Pip had not even noticed the passage of time. Now, the winds swirled about her person, capricious and conniving, willing her to make a misstep upon a vine which had shrunk to but a foot wide in this place, a mile and a half above the Cloudlands. Yet the eyes of her spirit saw life and magic coursing through the plant, pointing as it were the pathway into the future. She forged ahead. Each step became harder, as though she were pushing through layers of history and being and magic and oppression and slavery to zoo thinking and littleness and incapacity and grief. She swayed, sweating freely. Pip glanced back at No’otha, who regarded her impassively, yet with a knowing air that assured her, this was her task. This was the test.

Cold perspiration trickled down her neck as Pip forced herself to continue. Fears mobbed her mind like a flight of feral windrocs, from the wind’s buffeting to the horror provoked by her probable fate at the Shadow-beast’s inescapable hungering. Her footsteps stuttered. Snagged on a tiny protrusion.

“No!”

Pip wobbled horribly, falling to her knees. Just breathing, a slow, laboured rising and falling of her lungs. Panic? She was a Dragoness! She had flown between Islands, and now she could not walk a solid vine across the same void? Rising, only to fall, she had once thought. That was not her life’s song. She must soar.

All it took was the courage to make that first step.

Thunder reverberated over the deeps! The voice of a vast, overwhelming presence crushed that fragile spark of audacity as though it had never existed. Was she worthy? Who was she to make this journey? She sank lower, clutching the vine. Pressing her face against solid vegetal life, a plant which by some miracle of magic knew how to span the Islands, bridging the past and the future.

Pip trembled, prone. Ridiculous. She could not even raise her head without feeling as if the vine were wriggling about like a snake clamped by a windroc’s beak. Impossible! There was barely a breath of wind. No’otha stood by impassively, watching his charge hug a vine as if life depended on that connection. Yet every time she made to rise, that draconic thundering pummelled her again. Somewhere, not too distant, she sensed that subtle connection with Zardon stirring, pulsing, alive at a level beneath conscious thought or control. Would he know she was close? Fraught? Standing on the fragile bridge between the worlds of youth and adulthood?

That connection with the enemy was a concern for another time. She made a decision. If she could not run, she would walk. Failing to walk, she would crawl. If she could not manage to crawl she would wriggle along on her belly. Nothing would stop her.

If the cage had taught her anything, it was how to yearn for the unattainable.

Or how to sing in harmony with the stars.

Pip blinked. Where had that thought sprung from? She glanced skyward. No, a mysterious force seemed to be drawing her eyes eastward, toward the dawn. Dawn? The night had escaped her, and she was no further than halfway along the vine?

She scanned the eastern horizon over her shoulder, suddenly hungry for what lay beyond. For a voice that called to her with clarion sweetness past that strange, oppressive spirit, so distant yet so monumental. A wink. A tantalising hint of starlight illuminating her darkness.

Pip stared at a star she had never noticed before, there just above the aurora irradiating the eastern horizon, surmounting the delicate penumbral shadow somehow created by the twin suns’ incipient advent upon the Island-World. A trick of refracted light?

The star danced enticingly.

You … aren’t a star, are you? Pip gasped. Who are you?

The star twinkled through azure and turquoise to midnight blue, then giggled.

The Pygmy girl chuckled in return. Now she knew she was dreaming. For the merest fragment of time, her heartbeat and the dancing rhythm of the blue star appeared to pulse as one.

Then she was gone.

She?

Pip looked, and discovered the laughter of starlight in her heart.

Chapter 17: Homecoming

SHE SNAKED HER fingers an inch along the vine. Two inches. Levered herself forward with the strength of arms and legs. Pip repeated the movement, beating back the Islands’ weight of fate lumped upon her shoulders with the laughter burning like white-hot mercury in her veins. A third time, and she looked to the power which had thundered from afar, and discovered not condemnation, but pleasure. Pleasure so vast, it seemed to resound across the deeps to warm and fizz in the inmost expression of her being. Then it, too, faded from her awareness.

Pip realised that her sense of subjugation had never originated with that entity. It stemmed from her own enslavement and fear, self-loathing and hatred of difference. It was grounded in the fear that childhood innocence should give way to adult existence and experiences. This was itself a loss, a grief.

Having accepted this loss, she began to move, laughing roughly at first, then with increasing freedom. Her arms reached out. Further. Faster. More certain of each hand-grip upon the rough bark. Higher. More confidently. Her head, upturned to the future. Rising to a crawl, scraping her knees on the rough bark. That did not last long. Pip staggered to her feet, as shaky as a child taking her first steps, yet contrariwise, stronger than ever before. She stumbled forward without a care for the abyss yawning beneath her feet, for the clouded realm of death gleaming rose with the dawn. She was alive.

She was alive!

The quickening in her spirit spilled over as floodwaters rushing over the edge of a terrace lake, uncontainable. Pip picked up her knees. Faster! Wilder! Feet, be fleeter than a Dragon! Arms, pump out the rhythm! Behind her, she heard the old warrior give a great burst of joyous mirth. He must see that she had become–what, she did not as yet know. Yet Pip knew an unbearable lightness, a freedom from shackles she had always acknowledged but never dreamed of shifting.

Pip’s feet fairly flew over the vine now. She ran with her arms outspread and her face turned to the skies. She left No’otha far behind as she sprinted toward the embrace of the far Island.

* * * *

Great was the rejoicing of her people when No’otha introduced her to the waiting throng. They lived in a huge, sandy cavern beneath the third Island she walked to that morning, reached via a torturous climb along a hidden ravine. No’otha had laughed loudly and long with her when they reached the basal roots of that first vine.

“A mighty achievement, Pip,” he said. “It was harder for you than for many. Don’t try to understand this experience all at once. That will come in time.”

Now, the Pygmy Elder walked into the waiting throng, and took two people by the hand. One was a middle-aged warrior, heavily scarred on his left shoulder, flank and arm. The left arm would no longer extend fully, drawn into a half-bent position by tight scar tissue. The woman was of similar age, just an inch or two taller than Pip, her curls already turned prematurely grey, almost white. Her eyes seemed bewildered, as though clouds drifted across the skies of her understanding. Pip looked upon their poverty and simple dress, and felt ashamed of her feelings. So much depended on this. So many years of tortured, heart-wringing hope.

They seemed smaller than she remembered.

Yet familiar.

She could not swallow past an Island-sized lump in her throat as her mother tottered forward, breaking free of Elder No’otha’s grasp. She gasped, “Child, is this true? Do I dream? Are you real?” Wonderingly, she touched Pip’s cheek. Pinched her left earlobe. Traced the outline of her lips, the point of her chin, now a ritual touch of both hands upon Pip’s head, shoulders, breasts, hips and knees, the woman-blessing given upon important occasions in a woman’s life, at birth, cord-cutting, first solid food, first step, first blood, first budding and first promise of marriage, and many occasions thereafter.

A shadow crossed her face. The lips twisted.

“Demon!” Suddenly she shrieked, a thin, terrible wail that pierced and paralysed them all. “Away from me, demon-child!”

Pip could not help herself. She ducked beneath the sudden assault, the fists beating her back, the chipped fingernails scoring bloody trails in her neck.

Three women and her father rushed forward to restrain her, with difficulty. Pip’s mother fought like a jungle jaguar, frothing at the lips and spitting, “Demon! Demon-child!” over and over again.

Suddenly, the whites of her eyes rolled up and the woman collapsed.

The man tore away from that group. “Take her. Make her rest easy,” he said, over his shoulder. Then he approached Pip, who shook violently, her teardrops splattering his chest.

Fiò’tí. She remembered his name, at last.

He moved as if in a dream. Kneeling, he felt Pip’s feet, her ankles, her calves and knees. He read the runes upon her calf with an audible wheeze of recognition. His hands touched her thighs, quivering palpably now. He traced her belly-button and the lowest curvature of her back, then moved to stand behind her, touching each vertebra of her spine. Pip guessed this too was a ritual, perhaps symbolising acceptance of the whole person and all of their parts. It took all of her strength to stand still. When he finished, Fiò’tí moved again to stand before her, his face stone-carved in grief, wet with tears.

A high ululation sprang from his throat, causing every hair on Pip’s body to stand on end. Joy stolen from grief! The lost, found! The mourned, restored! She recognised the sound before he broke off abruptly.

He cried, “I am Fiò’tí, father of Pip’úrth’l-iòlall-Yò’oótha! She is alive!”

Frenzy! Chaos! Men rushed to the log-drums. The women of the tribe rushed to mob her, but Fiò’tí was first and fastest, clasping her in his arms as he screamed that joyous, heart-rending ululation once more, crying, gasping, wailing as though he intended to turn his lungs inside-out. The log-drums struck up a furious, celebratory beat, so loud that Pip was certain every one of her friends, waiting nearby outside of the cavern, could hear the clamour of celebration. The men sprang into near-crazed expressions of joy, shaking and leaping, dancing and beating their weapons together to create a violent counterpoint rhythm to the drums. The women joined in the ululation, dancing the flower-dance in which they surrounded Pip in three concentric circles, the swirling, rising and falling motions of their bodies mimicking flowers furling and unfurling.

“Come, dance!” cried her father.

Pip danced until her feet no longer felt the ground, until the ochre paint ran in rivulets off her body and her spirit flew as free and unfettered as a Dragon.

* * * *

Even lowering the number of Dragons by two Shapeshifters changed to Human form, reduced a cavern large enough to house an entire Pygmy village to very close quarters.

Shimmerith elbowed Emblazon. “Mind your great big paws. There are children present.”

“Do you think we scare them?” asked the Amber Dragon.

“Do you think Dragons are carnivorous?” Nak snorted. He, in contrast to the Dragons, was liberally smothered in giggling, playful Pygmy children. He said, “Why do children always pick on me? Is it written on my face? Tattooed on my ineffably handsome backside?”

“Funny,” said Oyda, “I thought that one said, ‘Kick me.’ ”

The three young Pygmy girls braiding her hair paused to compare her curls with Kaiatha’s golden tresses, which had sparked quite the kerfuffle. Kaiatha had six pairs of hands working on her hair; deciding who would braid her hair had sparked a fight. Silver was another matter entirely. Several of the older tribe members had whispered that he was a ghost.

Turning to Elder No’otha, Pip answered his question, “The blue and yellow Dragons are a mated pair. Those two, Tazzaral and Jyoss, will be soon, I suspect. Kaiatha here is hand-holding with Durithion, as am I with Silver, although our relationship is a very fresh bud. And Nak and Oyda are a couple, but not yet–”

“Heart-pledged?” said No’otha, supplying the word missing from her vocabulary. “Why not? They are of age, not so?”

“Er, well, in their culture it seems acceptable for them to … be together, without pledges.”

“It is dishonourable!”

Oyda glanced up at the force of the Elder’s outburst. “Pip, are you two talking about us? What’s wrong?”

Pip shuffled her feet, but in the end under the force of both No’otha and Oyda’s stares, had to confess, “Elder No’otha feels that your unmarried state is dishonourable, especially since you and Nak are so obviously together and in love.”

To her surprise, Oyda blushed up a small firestorm. “Well, we had planned …”

Nak lifted a naked Pygmy imp off his left ear. “We intend to marry just as soon as the war–well, that sounds rather stupid even as I say it, now. Who knows how much time we have together? Besides, my heart is for Oyda alone, even if my eyes misbehave and stray from time to time.”

No’otha scowled at them, saying in Island Standard, “Marry. Tomorrow.”

Oyda raised an eyebrow. “Not a whole lot of arguing with your great-uncle, is there?”

Nak gasped as Tik leaped onto his diaphragm. “Well, I wouldn’t object, especially if the happy event came with a romantic marital night … hurrying on, is he offering? What’s involved?”

After a fair amount of translation and discussion, the happy event was settled.

Well, there was a turn-out for the scrolls, as Master Balthion loved to say. And a good example for the youngsters, according to No’otha. The fire of Pip’s Dragoness wanted to blaze against being condescended to by adults. The Pygmy in her rejoiced at being reunited with her tribe, many of whom she recognised. And yet there was the matter of her mother. The shadow over a beautiful day.

Kaiatha kept giving her especially sympathetic hugs.

In the early evening, the young men of the Pygmy warriors returned from their foraging with armloads of dry wood and sprays of particular aromatic bushes and fragrant herbs. They built a bonfire in the centre of the cave, in a fire-pit, and several smaller fires nearby for cooking. Shortly, the older male warriors returned from a successful hunt with seven wild pigs lashed to carrying poles and a very large buck of a type unfamiliar to Pip. The Dragons accepted the offering of the buck gravely. Pip heard Emblazon’s stomach gurgling in anticipation–and also, most likely, in the knowledge that one buck would hardly furnish five hungry Dragons with a decent meal.

The Seer was a youngster no older than Pip, for the old Seer had perished in the same raid in which Pip had been captured. No’otha had explained the tribe’s loss–much knowledge and lore had been irretrievably lost. They had traded away much of the tribe’s wealth in order for her to complete her training with the Seers of other tribes, but the core knowledge and genealogies and particular know-how of her own tribe had to be rebuilt from scratch, from the memories of the tribal elders and the few, precious lore scrolls secreted in their Sacred Cave.

No’otha said the Ceremony of Second Naming was no complex affair. After the rituals were completed, she would petition the ancestors for a word before making her pronouncements over Pip’s life. She seemed no more than a nervous teenager, Pip thought.

Then the Seer donned her mask and headdress, and became another person.

The tribe gathered, hushed in anticipation. Each family sat in their small group, the elders in the front, the parents kneeling behind and the children and the young people standing alongside their parents. Pip saw many infants cradled in slings. Her father had related that the tribe thrived under No’otha’s capable leadership; the evidence was before her. Could they do anything to help? Nak had already quietly cleared his saddlebags of valuables and pressed the gifts upon No’otha; Kaiatha had passed on four blank scrolls and all the ink and quill pens she possessed, while Oyda had gifted them a gold ring and two earrings. All of this No’otha received with gratitude.

Behind and around the Pygmies, the Dragons and their big person Riders gathered. Kaiatha’s height as a woman had caused wonderment. Jerrion was inconceivable. But even he had a Pygmy youngster in arm, fast asleep. Far from being discomfited, the Jeradian Hammer looked quite content. Pip suddenly pictured him with a Pygmy wife and had to smother a burst of laughter. How would that ever work? Where there was a will … for several of the young women had become very giggly whenever he cast a glance in their direction. And Jerrion had a touch of pink to his cheeks which was not ordinarily present. She began to burn at his unfaithfulness to his wife, when she remembered that Jeradians often took two wives, or consorts, at least. A strange culture. Pip could not imagine sharing Silver with anyone.

It was fun to distract herself for a moment from all the cares of war.

Pip had hoped to translate for her friends, but one of the senior Pygmy women apparently spoke Island Standard–one of the few who did. Pip’s place was front and centre, kneeling five paces in front of the congregation, but still about twenty feet from the cheerful blaze.

The Seer threw several bundles of herbs onto the fire, which gave off scents of sweet anise and jasmine, and momentarily caused the flames to burn blue. Then, she sang the Pygmy histories. Pip listened in growing fascination.

The Pygmies were a people sprung from Fra’anior’s own paw. The songs named him the ‘Ancient Power’, but it was clear from the description of the sevenfold thunder of his presence, and of the way his heads appeared amidst Island-spanning thunderheads, that the story could have referred to only one Dragon in history.

In olden times, the Ancient Dragons had emerged from the First Egg to found the first Dragon society at Fra’anior Cluster, under the leadership of Fra’anior himself, the great Black Dragon. Great were his creative works, the raising, placement and population of the Islands and the design of lesser creatures and species. For this the Ancient Power required an army of labourers with small and deft hands. Enter the Pygmies. Far from being slaves, the legend called Pygmies co-labourers and colleagues in this great creative labour, and spoke of Fra’anior’s great love for his tiny friends. Later, the other Ancient Powers demanded their own creatures to command, and thus the Lesser Dragons and Humans came to be, formed primarily to serve the Ancient Powers’ needs.

In the course of time, jealousies and rivalries arose between the Ancient Dragons. There was a three-sided war between Fra’anior and his black Dragon shell-son, Amaryllion, on the one front, Numistar the White and her allies on the second front, and Dramagon the Red on the third front, with the allies and strange creatures of his own creation, including magic-wielding giants–every eye turned to Jerrion at this point–burrowing Dragons and creatures only known to the tales as the Swarm. Their warring destroyed much of what had been built.

In the aftermath of those dark, devastating confrontations, the Seer related, the Ancient Powers determined to abandon the Island-World to travel to a better, greater and more luminous place, where there was room even for Ancient Dragons each to command their own realm. Fra’anior had to choose to leave the Pygmies behind. So he bequeathed to the people of his right paw his paramount creation, the Islands of the Crescent, and bade the Lesser Dragons watch over and protect the Pygmy tribes. He gifted the Pygmies his most potent lore and the highest standing amongst all the world’s peoples.

Then the Ancient Powers had departed the Island-World, the Seer concluded. But the Pygmies watched and waited for the return of their illustrious originator.

“Now,” she said, “we shall demonstrate one small aspect of our Pygmy gifts. We shall speak to the Ancient Power, and bid him Name this girl, Pip’úrth’l-iòlall-Yò’oótha.”

So saying, she turned to the fire. Taking from her belt a gourd, she poured a handful of precious, sparkling powder onto her palm and cast it directly into the fire’s heart. Crimson and violet flames exploded toward the cavern roof. Now Pip knew why they had been seated so far back, for the blast of heat practically singed her eyebrows.

With a mighty cry, the Seer declaimed, “O great Power of Old, o Ancient One, o voice that parts the waters and shakes the foundations of the uttermost heavens, we your favoured race crave this blessing from the exceeding greatness of your majestic hearts, that you will speak now and declare the true meaning of this girl’s battle-name, for she is Pip’úrth’l-iòlall-Yò’oótha of the Pygmies, the people of your paw!”

Pip held her breath. How could this work, indeed, that one Seer would mark a Pygmy child with a name of which no-one living knew its meaning, and then another Seer would claim to speak to Fra’anior, and–

Her thoughts stalled. Before her, the leaping flames drew apart like curtains tugged by strings to expose another world, a fire within the fire, perhaps an erupting volcano, she thought–but such an inferno as her world had never known, stretching beyond the horizon, a churning sea of iridescent flames that dazzled the eye. Great fountains of fire erupted constantly toward a sky of the deepest amethyst, which itself was a magnificent tapestry of coursing ribbons of flame, putting Pip in mind of the lacework of one of Kaiatha’s formal Fra’aniorian gowns. From the gasps that rose behind her, she suspected that most of the Pygmies present had never seen this place either. A great and unknowable enchantment bridged space and perhaps time, yet for the interval of a breath no Human, Dragon or Shapeshifter dared to snatch, nothing but flames moved upon that remote scene. Then, a dark storm billowed out of a pinpoint of black, growing vaster and vaster still as it rushed toward the onlookers, picking up a tidal wave of gleaming, liquid fire in its train. Closer and closer it roared, filling up far more than their small portal, until it seemed that surely the storm must crash upon them and annihilate all creatures foolish enough to stand their ground.

Pip flinched and flung up an arm for protection. Yet the storm appeared to pause, there in the beyond, so great that she imagined it would have swallowed half of their Island-World into its gloomy maw.

A thunderclap! With a peal that shook their cavern and all within it, a Dragon burst out of the storm–such a Dragon! Indeed, they saw only part of the beast, but that was ample. He was immense beyond comprehension. The power of his burning gaze struck them dumb, the gaze of three sets of identical Dragon eyes set in wedge-shaped heads like gleaming black battlements of Dragon hide, each the size of a large Island, each mantled in seething lakes of storm-clouds. Lightning played all around those heads and between them as the Dragon turned his scorching regard upon the tiny congregation, and smiled a Dragon-smile that rolled up the words ‘terrible’ and ‘majestic’ and smote Pip right between the eyes with a holy awe that bordered on outright terror.

Fra’anior!

The fabled Onyx Dragon did not speak. He looked at her and into her soul, and Pip thought she should surely die. She was a mote. The dust beneath his paws. Unworthy.

In a voice like the thundering of many waterfalls, Fra’anior said, Blessed child of my spirit, be welcome. Long have I awaited thee.

Him! The brooding presence, the umbilical … calling her blessed? Pip thought she might gibber like a foolish white-tufted monkey. No. Her mind seemed lucid, her thoughts never clearer. She replied, Great One, you honour us exceedingly above all we could ask or imagine.

He rumbled, sevenfold voices echoing each other, We will speak much, little one, another day. Gird up thy courage, Pygmy Dragoness!

The portal darkened. A blade flashed, as darkly magnificent as a shard of gleaming obsidian, pressing through the portal in an unexpectedly swift movement. Pip ducked, then fell flat on her face as the spatulate tip of Fra’anior’s gargantuan talon reached from beyond the boundaries of the Island-World to touch and rest upon her back, oddly gentle, even though his talon alone had to weigh many tonnes. That living blade was wide enough even at its sharpest point to cover twenty of her laid side to side, and far longer than the Academy field.

Yet, his intent was not to crush her. Instead, the Ancient Dragon whispered, “The meaning of thy battle-name is, ‘Paean of the Black Dragon’s soul-fires.’ ”

Pip shivered as his pronouncement rolled over her bowed head. He had spoken simultaneously in Ancient Southern, Standard and Dragonish. In a manner similar to Leandrial’s multi-harmonic magic, his words sparked dozens of ancillary impressions and colours and thoughts in her mind, overwhelming in their totality. Fra’anior spoke in tongues of Dragon fire that washed over her bowed head, garlanding her body in unburning flame and sparking strange, wondrous visions in her mind; unlike Leandrial, he knew to gentle his power and magic to the tiniest whisper, lest he obliterate the fragile scrap of life he addressed. So it was a shock to her when she realised the talon had withdrawn, and the bonfire closed over that rent in the fabric of reality. The last she saw was one great eye of Fra’anior’s many heads, ablaze with pride as he regarded her through the narrowing gap. One luminous teardrop of iridescent fire squeezed forth to land beside the bonfire, which now struck her as tiny in comparison to what had transpired.

Pip knew tranquillity.

She recognised the ebb of the Ancient Power’s magic, yet its echoes still thrilled her inmost being at more levels than she could comprehend. Dragonsong effervesced in her blood. The world flickered wildly, etched in the very white-fires of which Chymasion had spoken, splendid, beautiful and unbounded in ways that surpassed her power of description, before settling abruptly into ordinariness. Sand beneath her knees. Grit lodged in her teeth. The fading, all-pervading fragrance of draconic magic, a scent-song of cinnamon and sulphur, jasmine and starlight and unknowable, mysterious deeps. Hot, heavy tears sprang to Pip’s eyes and splashed upon her thighs.

She pushed to her feet, drenched with fresh realisation, an insight of simple yet staggering clarity.

Her soul had journeyed, and come home.

Chapter 18: Wedding

THROUGHOUT THE NIGHT, Pip dreamed of the Black Dragon’s voice thundering across the deeps between the worlds. Therefore, when she woke at the break of dawn feeling like a frisky dragonet electrified by a burst of pollen buoyed upon the fragrant volcanic breezes of Fra’anior, she could not help bouncing about irritating everyone.

“Rise with the birds, Rider Nak!” she chirped, snitching his blanket.

“Islands’ sakes, I’m not wearing a stitch,” he groused, checking to see if Oyda had noticed. His face fell when he saw that everyone else was fast asleep.

Pip skipped over to Oyda’s place. “Wedding day!”

“Prod my ribs again and I’ll make you a Pygmy in the past tense,” snapped her friend.

She booted Emblazon in the region of his fifth rib. Arise, thou blistering breath of dawn’s rubescent passion!

Somehow, in Dragonish the compliment did not sound overdone. Pip giggled as the rising reverberation of Emblazon’s belly-fires, like muted rolling thunder, betrayed the enormity of his pleasure. He stretched, accidently kicking Jyoss in the belly. She snapped at Tazzaral’s neck. The great Copper woke with a violent start and a reflexive swipe of his paw that whipped Durithion up by the blanket wound around his body, and pitched him halfway across the cavern. Oh, that definitely woke the Sylakian, screaming! Jyoss sprang to her Rider’s aid, stamping on Shimmerith’s head to gain an excellent launching-pad. The Sapphire Dragoness sprang to her paws with a blast of discontent that ignited last night’s store of firewood. At once dozens of Pygmy warriors sprang for their weapons, fearing an attack. The youngest children wailed. Dragons trumpeted and clashed in the close quarters.

Picayune pandemonium!

Pip laughed. Oh, how she laughed! Such an unlikely chain of events and the Dragons’ corner was a fiery brawl, the people nearest her starting to turn to stare at her piping merriment, Nak clutching his blanket about his waist as his hand rose in quivering fury to point at her, screaming, “You!”

She waved cheekily. “Me?”

Nak and Oyda yelled simultaneously, “Get her!” Or at least, that was what it looked like from a safe distance.

That was the precise moment the Amber Dragon grasped who exactly was at the root of their troubles, and his temper boiled over. ONYX PEST!

His bellow shook her toes into tingling flight. What? Pip spent a valuable half second gaping at her feet in amazement, wondering what crazy magic was brewing down there, before the Amber Dragon’s paw streaked into her vision. She whispered aside, nimble as a dragonfly. Grab! She dodged again. His was not a killing rage, but punishment was definitely high on the agenda. Yet the Amber could not catch her. For an impossible cascade of seconds, her tiny feet danced away ahead of a Dragon’s vastly superior reaction-speed.

Emblazon whirled, huffing and snorting in amazement as he chased his quarry halfway around the cavern, all in vain. Pip reversed course, barely a blur as she darted right between his forepaws, under his legs, hurdled his tail and skidded to a halt in front of purple-faced Nak and Oyda, who was scratching her head in sleep-tousled, priceless perplexity.

Breathless from all the running and laughing, Pip collapsed in a happy heap before them. “So … sorry!”

Emblazon’s hot talons grasped her legs; Nak flung himself, blanket and all, on her upper torso, crying, “Hold her, Emblazon, while I pummel the stuffing out of–”

“Nak! Decency!” Oyda cast her blanket over the pair of them.

“Decent?” The unclad Rider poked his head briefly out of the tangle. “Are you quite mad, woman? That’s a bad, bad word.”

Oyda’s green eyes flashed. “You two are quite the pair. Pip, how exactly does a Human run faster than a Dragon? Answer before I do indeed let Nak pummel you to prekki fruit pulp.”

“Ay,” rumbled Emblazon, having calmed down to a point just shy of volcanic eruption, “what magic is this, Pip? Are you hiding another secret power?”

“A Pygmy power,” said Nak. “Like how she and Silver won that race …”

“How they cheated,” growled Emblazon.

Her enjoyment dissolved, along with all her wonderment at what she had just achieved. Flinging Nak off with the full strength of her arms–from the corner of her eye noticing Shimmerith catching the airborne Rider–Pip faced off with the massive Amber Dragon. “I’m no cheat, Emblazon! You take that back!”

For a second, all was heat and fire and dangerously simmering tempers. Emblazon seemed delighted with her fiery response, which riled Pip no end, but she was also aware of the incongruity of a four-foot Pygmy girl fighting with a Dragon whose forepaw alone measured thrice her height, whose hulking tonnage was stuffed to the ear-canals with magic and fire, and a beastly temper to match. Ha. No apology, of course, but the forge-billows sound of the Amber’s breathing slowed, indicating acceptance. He flicked a wingtip eloquently, indicating that he allowed her challenge to stand.

Oyda shouldered her way between them, saying, “Well, now that we’re all awake thanks to Pip, I’ve a wedding to prepare for and I will have no more misbehaviour from you three miscreants.”

Nak began, “Oyda–”

“Oyda nothing!” she hissed. “No fighting. Clothes will be worn. Emblazon, Shimmerith, why don’t you Dragons figure out exactly what that power is while we Humans clothe our hides in animal and vegetable fibres, paint and primp–Nak, what is it now?”

“You’re so beautiful when you’re angry,” he breathed, looking like a man who had beheld a most winsome vision.

“Shut the trap, Rider Nak.” Oyda pretended fury, stomping her foot and waving her arms about. “I am marrying you today, man, so snap to it!”

The Pygmy tribe must think all big people as barmy as a flight of Dragons winging backward around the Blue Moon, Pip thought. But there was something weird stirring in the hidden depths of her magic. Something that smacked of forbidden powers such as teleportation, or an Ancient Dragon’s claw riven through the unimaginable reaches of interstellar space or even planes of existence to touch her life … child of his spirit? What did that mean?

Not now. For the women of the tribe had come to surround the Remoyan Islander and spirit her away; they beckoned to Oyda and Pip, Arosia, Kaiatha and Cinti. Tik laughed and skipped happily in the midst of them all. No’otha had promised he would help Tik find her tribe. The men pretended to haul Nak off at spear-point; he acceded with half-hearted protests.

Ay, today was about the celebration of life.

Even godlike Ancient Dragons must understand that.

* * * *

Clothes were worn, in a manner of speaking.

Oyda wore a breathtakingly brief loincloth that consisted purely of white river lilies, and a similar flowery allusion to a garment above that only just concealed her modesty. The Pygmy women braided blossoms and white opals into her hair. They smoothed fragrant oils into her skin, before an elderly woman spent over two hours working on her makeup and drawing artistic flower designs upon her shoulders and back. All the while, the tribeswomen sang blessings in five-part harmony, alternating the blessings with sage and pointed advice which left poor Pip, the translator, gasping and red-faced on more than a couple of occasions.

Judging by the hoots of laughter emanating from behind a leaf screen which had been erected on the far side of the cave, the men were also enjoying ribald companionship.

Now it was the turn of all the women and girls, from youngest to oldest, to ready themselves for the occasion. Already the cooking fires blazed and a steady stream of teenage warriors, male and female, had been entering and leaving the cavern, bearing provisions, spoils of the hunt and delicacies for the wedding feast. The women wove white flowers into their hair and donned their best white loincloths, for white was the colour of celebration. There was a certain amount of confusion over whether they should cover their breasts in honour of Oyda’s Yelegoy culture. Pip amused herself by teasing Kaiatha and Arosia until neither girl knew where to look, whereupon Cinti intervened gently to suggest cloth sarongs for the hips and a simple cloth tied crosswise …

“N-n-no,” Kaiatha stammered. “Show my waist? No. I couldn’t. Pip, have pity.”

Arranging a length of woven cloth over her friend’s shoulders, Pip chuckled, “I’ll make a jungle girl of you yet. How’s this, Kaia?”

“Smoking volcanoes, Pip, my back’s almost bare.”

Pip sighed and asked for more cloth. Honestly. What was so wrong with skin?

At this juncture, Elder No’otha appeared to hand Oyda the traditional gifts she would give her beloved–a new spear, a Pygmy bow and quiver of arrows, and a special stone called the heart-stone which should be buried in the middle of their hut.

He said, “We begin?”

Oyda nodded. “Alright. Time to change my life.”

Cinti smiled at the younger woman, then bent to kiss Oyda’s forehead. “You’re beautiful, my petal. You’ll knock him right out of his boots. As we say in Herimor, the bride is rainbows over the Islands, the beauty of the twin suns garlanded in all their splendour.”

Tears welled in Oyda’s eyes.

Singing the traditional song called Her Dawn in Ancient Southern, the women led the bride forth. The younger girls, Pip included, broke into gentle, beautiful dance-forms of celebration, mimicking the unfurling of flowers with sweeping motions of the arms and backs extravagantly arched. Nak emerged, and it was all Pip could do not to howl with laughter. He was arrayed as a splendid Pygmy warrior, painted in dark swirls rather than ochre, his beet-red face thankfully mostly hidden beneath a feathered mask fashioned in the likeness of a snarling jaguar. His headdress was a shimmering golden cloth of a fabric Pip had never seen before, which glistened like liquid gold in the firelight, and his loincloth was fashioned of the same cloth, also decorated with white opals. In his hands he bore a magnificent ruby and diamond necklace for Oyda, the greatest treasure of the tribe. It was not one strand of jewels but ten, in totality at least seven inches wide, and the centrepiece of the ensemble, also called the heart-stone, was a marvellously tooled seven-pointed star of what Emblazon wonderingly, in telepathic Dragonish, identified as magical horiatite, a gemstone found only on the holy Dragon Island of Ha’athior.

As she observed Nak and Oyda’s interaction during the ceremony and oath-taking that followed, and saw Duri’s regard for Kaiatha and Silver’s for her, Pip learned a new truth. Love was the harbinger of hope. Love was the glue and the binding, the vine of all peoples, the gelid sap of life.

Having forgotten her cares for some hours after the ceremony, during the feasting and dancing and displays of warrior-skills that followed, Pip allowed her thoughts to turn inward. Would she live to enjoy such a moment with Silver? What did the Ancient Dragon’s talon-tip touch signify? If Star Dragons existed, as Leandrial suggested, where were they in this mess, or was the convergence of usual, even forbidden powers, in her and Silver, Chymasion and Jyoss, meant to address that lack?

She understood so little.

Pip turned and left the cavern, climbing the ravine to a warm, sunny boulder above where the treeline broke just enough to allow a shaft of golden suns-shine to strike and warm the ground, and found Silver there, apparently sleeping in a patch of suns-shine.

Her heart was a butterfly’s wings tickling her throat. To borrow a Yaethi saying, coincidence? Or congruence?

“Join me, Pip?” Silver offered, without cracking open an eye.

Even in Human form, he managed to look improbably feline, stretched out in the suns’ warmth with his arms folded behind his head and his legs crossed at the ankles. He was all hanks of lean, corded muscle–woefully skinny, Mistress Mya’adara had opined–and his skin as pale as Oyda’s porcelain dinner set, but did it glisten ever so slightly with the same silvery magic that danced in his unusual eyes? Had she a pair of drumsticks, she could have played a pretty tune on his pebbly abdominals. Roaring rajals! And she had tried to beat a hole in this Dragon’s ribcage?

“Mmm,” Pip teased, “I’m eyeing up a Silver buffet, fetchingly displayed.”

Mercy. Flirtation with the subtlety of a flying war-hammer.

“When in the Crescent, do as the Pygmies do,” Silver replied nonchalantly. Pip lay down on her stomach beside him, her chin cupped in her hands. “Besides, I think I’m growing rather fond of you, you pocket-sized fumarole of mischief.”

“I-I … oh.” His lazy grin made her stumble over her words. Wretched Shapeshifter. “This morning–”

“Was hilarious. Emblazon wasn’t impressed. But he was chuckling about it afterward, when he was sure you weren’t looking. Pip–”

Uncertain of how she would answer the question she sensed on the tip of his tongue, Pip burst out, “What’s soul-fire, Silver? I’ve heard Jyoss mention it, once. ”

“You’re surprisingly mystical this fine afternoon, for an avowed jungle girl.”

Pip dared herself to stroke his cheek. “Says the silver-skinned lizard from Herimor?”

He drawled, “Besides, Pygmies are allegedly connected to the most ancient of Dragon magic, thou favoured child of Fra’anior’s paw. Small accolade, that. No burden at all.” Pip winced, but he stroked her fingertips gently. “Scared?”

“Not a jot. Brave as the day is long.”

“I see. Brave for eighteen or nineteen hours, and then?” That deserved a rude noise and Pip gave it to him with zest. He added, “Don’t freeze me out, Pip.”

“What?”

Now, Silver’s eyes did open, his expression discomfiting, even hurt. “An Ancient Dragon touches you and you’ve nothing to say?”

“I was just about to ask …” Even to her own ears she sounded overly defensive, which served only to annoy her further. “Islands’ sakes, that’s not what I’m about, Silver. I spent most of my growing years in a zoo speaking to monkeys–can I be forgiven a little self-reliance?”

“All I ask is an open door. Just a crack.”

Pip lapsed into fuming silence. What was this? He couldn’t handle a girl who was stronger than him? Was he jealous of her powers, or of her apparent favour with Fra’anior–not understanding, clearly, how such an encounter might serve to shatter the foundations of a person’s existence, and how it added to the already overwhelming Island of expectations she must shoulder? Might she not claim a little time of her own to process the encounter? Coupled with that, there was the bewildering development of her Dragon powers in directions no-one claimed to understand, an emotional homecoming, her mother’s condition, and her feelings not knowing which Island was which over her Dragoness’ return …

“Soul-fire is a mystical expression of a Dragon’s inmost being,” Silver said, tightly. “It is said that certain Dragons, having breathed soul-fire together, are linked at levels deeper even than the Dragon-Rider oath magic, Dragonsoul entwines Dragonsoul. It forms an irrevocable and exceptional bond. Few claim to have breathed soul-fire. The most famous example in Herimor Dragon-lore is said to have been Tarquira the Turquoise Dragoness and Shendiss, a famously powerful Red Elder. Both were without peer in their mastery of draconic magic. The obvious candidate north of the Rift is Hualiama and Grandion, both Blue Dragons. Shimmerith taught me that Hualiama was the first Star Dragoness.”

“A Star Dragoness?” Pip’s mind leaped to that strange experience during her first walk of the jungle ways. The star she had imagined speaking to her. Could there be a connection?

Words welled within her, haltingly at first, as Pip described her journey between the Islands and the even stranger encounter with the star. She wondered again if she should tell the Silver Shapeshifter all her secrets. Was that the reservation he sensed so keenly? If the Black Dragon indeed claimed some numinous bond with the smallest of Dragons, should she be honoured, or terribly, chillingly afraid?

He growled, “Fra’anior isn’t enough, now you must commune with stars?”

Pip almost hit him. Silver sensed her reaction, for he was up in a flash, seizing her wrist.

“Let me go!”

“Listen, I’m sorry.”

“No you blasted well aren’t! You think it’s all attention-seeking. Silver, I never wanted this. I never asked to be a Dragon nor for this fate!” She did not pull away, but her gaze was all the frost he had accused her of, and more. “If you want me to open up, Silver, then you have to be willing to listen and accept, for if you can’t stomach the truth, who will?”

He said, “It just sounds unbelievable, that’s all.”

“More or less unbelievable than Fra’anior’s appearance, Silver? Answer me! Or did our eyes collectively deceive us?”

He did not reply. He could not.

Pip clenched her fists. “Fine! I’m going for a walk. Don’t you dare follow!”

She stormed off into the jungle.

* * * *

Far out of any Dragon’s earshot, Pip allowed herself to cry. She curled up beneath a tree and tried to think her way through all that had transpired in a few short months. School. Friends. Dragons. Powers. A world which in many ways had opened to a Pygmy, yet in others, she had been forced to fight and fight again. She laughed quietly at the memories of Kassik bawling her out on his carpet, then wept for the students and friends who had been killed. She sorrowed for brave Maylin and Emmaraz and wished dearly for their safe return. Pip tried to reason through what she had learned about the Shadow beast. There was so much. Too much. Yet she could neither hide nor run away. No longer was she the simple jungle girl, nor was she even a student. Life had chosen to graduate her.

She focussed inward, trying to apply the mental disciplines in which Silver and Master Ga’am had instructed her to the conundrums surrounding her Shapeshifter heritage and the question that constantly plagued her–even if she could by some miracle defeat the Marshal, how could they defeat the Shadow?

Later, Pip heard Shimmerith calling for her, flying somewhere overhead. She glanced up. Should she respond? Put the others’ worries at rest? Ay. This too was part of growing up.

She rose, calling, Shimmerith.

It was Shimmerith with Oyda, no doubt sent because Pip was close to both the Yelegoy Islander and the Sapphire Dragoness. They approached rapidly through the jungle canopy, the Dragoness finding her way adeptly through the dense foliage right to Pip’s side.

She greeted the pair with a wry grin. “Oyda, if I don’t return you right now, Nak’s never going to forgive me for spoiling his nuptials.”

“That old cliff-goat can wait,” Oyda said acidly. “More importantly, how are you, Pip?”

Pip said, “Afflicted with nothing that cannot wait for the morrow, Oyda. Silver and I fought. I’m exhausted and besieged by everything that has happened, but I just need time to think it through and try to reach some conclusions.”

Oyda regarded her with that quirky grin Pip had grown to love. “I knew you’d fought. Silver said otherwise, but that boy’s emotions are an open scroll.”

Shimmerith engulfed Pip’s shoulders with her forepaw. The Silver Dragon worships your wingtips. Be cunning, Pip. Allow him to pursue, to close with you. Allow him to think he’s winning. Males like that. He will pursue you the more ardently for your astute fire-craft.

Relationship advice, Dragon-style! Pip wrinkled her nose at the Sapphire. Is that what won you Emblazon, Shimmerith?

Oyda said, “Are you quite sure you’re alright, Pip?”

“Ay. Let’s walk back. I’ll tell you more, if it’ll put your mind at rest. Especially regarding Silver, Oyda. Boys are so complicated.”

“Boys? Complicated?” Oyda snorted, rolling her eyes. “Great Islands, have you got a lot to learn, Pip!”

Pip chuckled brightly. “That’s what I’m hoping for, Oyda.”

The Dragon Rider began to wave her arms as she launched into a speech which appeared to have enjoyed recent polishing, “Complicated? Nonsense, you silly ralti sheep. Leagues off the Isle of Truth. Boys are a harp with one string. They’re the same meal morning, noon and night, every day of the week. Why, boys even …”

Chapter 19: Jungle Jinx

SILVER WOKE PIP with a posy of flowers and a bold kiss on the tip of her nose. Oyda was wrong. He was no one-stringed harp, she decided instantly. He was the intricate melody of her heart. Pip rewarded him with a kiss that startled them both with its intensity–draconic passion ruling them both, momentarily, before a soft remark of approbation from Arosia turned both Shapeshifters into overheated puddles of embarrassment. Pip touched her tingling lips, staring at Silver with huge eyes. Her first kiss. And it was a sizzler.

Silver clasped her fingers briefly. “There will be more of those, my Pip.”

“Now,” she said, and made good on her words. And a glob of windroc spit for anyone who cared to watch.

An hour later, the Dragonwing made ready to depart, once Nak and Oyda had been extracted from their love-nest and Tik had finished thanking them all for her rescue in piping, earnest tones. She was so happy. Sometimes Pip wished to be a child again, just to experience that precious, fleeting innocence. The kind of innocence Re’akka had no qualms in destroying with fire and sword. Today was about finding the Ape Steps. Today, Elder No’otha and five Pygmy warriors, including Pip’s father Fiò’tí, flew with the Dragonwing to assist with their jungle craft.

Her father flew Dragonback with Pip. “Better your mother did not see this,” he said quietly in the Pygmy tongue. “Storm clouds obscure her mind, Pip. My sadness is as unbounded as the Cloudlands oceans.”

“I rend my face in blood-grief, father,” she bugled back.

“Ay. Now teach this proud Pygmy father how to fly, daughter-of-my-heart.”

Dragons wept tears of fire.

Oceans. What a peculiar word. Pip knew the concluding double-trill signified water, but the word indicated a body of water far larger than a terrace lake. That was a different word in Ancient Southern, with a completely different etymology. She should ask Cinti or Silver. Perhaps there were oceans in Herimor.

Once aloft, Pip used Chymasion and Silver to show the layout of the Islands they required from her memory, but she elided the crucial details of where the Ape Steps commenced and concluded, as agreed. No-one else would hold that knowledge in their minds. Safety first.

Four days, they searched. Four days, they hid in fear and frustration below Island or shielded as the Marshal’s forces crawled all over the Islands, conducting their own search. Only Shimmerith’s mastery, Cinti’s knowledge and Silver’s power kept them from being discovered. That third day, Marshal Re’akka’s Island finally appeared from the mists of its concealment, less than fifty leagues south of their position. Ay, he had been hiding, too. The game grew deeper, the stakes higher.

Pip eyed that forbidding hulk pensively. The Island was perhaps three leagues in diameter and a league and a half tall, shaped like a thick ring with a hole in the centre, hidden from view on the horizontal plane, from which dozens of Dragonwings issued or returned on a regular basis. The Island seemed to breathe Dragons. It looked like a flying vessel, an Island-Dragonship hovering there over the deeps in bleak defiance of any law of gravity or magic. Otherwise the Island was unremarkable. Its khaki-green, moss-covered flanks gave it the appearance of a vast boulder wrenched from a damp swamp, but the moss had been scarred in many places. The Rift storms, Silver noted. Its heights were bearded with a thick layer of deep purple coniferous forests, which made more than one Dragon stare in amazement.

“Purple forests?” Emblazon snorted. “What next, flying ralti sheep?”

Arosia asked, “Silver, if Islands float in Herimor as a matter of course, what’s so special about Marshal Re’akka floating an Island across the Rift?”

Silver gestured toward the Island with his fore-talon. “Ordinarily, it requires the action of multitudes of ragions, our gas-producing bottom-dwelling Dragonkind, to float an Island. You would normally see them clustered in a thick, living layer beneath the Island, the nine-toed talons of each of six legs immovably affixed to the native rock, or gripping each other. However, I believe that the ragions would be utterly destroyed in the fire of the Rift-storms. The difference is, Arosia, that the Marshal floated this Island with his own Kinetic power and shielded it from the storms of fire from below and chain lightning above.”

The citadel of evil. Almost, they flew beneath its shadow. Pip had steeled herself–well, she did not know for what exactly–only to find the Island had no outward features that might warn a watcher of the malevolence lurking within, but she did sense a vast, ominous magic emanating from its belly. And … Imbalance. She had been trying to teach herself to see with the eyes of Balance, mimicking in some small sense the magic of harmonic inference which Leandrial had taught her. If she was not mistaken, she detected an Imbalance somewhere in the Cloudlands below the Island–Shurgal? Did she sense the presence of the rogue Land Dragon? Yet not even Chymasion’s unique magic could penetrate the Cloudlands, and it did seem that the Shadow Dragon also could not penetrate that gloomy demesne, from what the Land Dragon had told her before. If only they could hide all Dragons beneath the Cloudlands. Not that any Lesser Dragon worth their wings would ever take kindly to hiding from any danger. That was regarded as the worst form of cowardice after outright treachery or acting contrary to the survival of the Dragon race.

Maybe the Cloudlands were the key, possessing some property or element that could defeat the Shadow Dragon? Unusual speed or strength could not be enough. There had to be a different, more intelligent answer.

Four days of hunting high and low brought them no sign of the Island outlines that would indicate the Ape Steps they sought. Pip was frustrated, Emblazon snappish and Silver philosophical. As they gathered deep beneath the jungle boughs that fourth evening to evaluate their progress, in a hollow created by five intertwined jungle giants so massive they created a woody cavern between their roots sizeable enough for multiple Dragons, Jyoss and Durithion flew out on patrol with Tazzaral, who had Cinti aboard. Kaiatha was sick, laid low with a fierce jungle fever.

“Emblazon, call this rabble to order,” said Nak.

With a reverberating growl between his fangs, Emblazon silenced them all. He grinned fiercely, all proud Dragon fire and a challenging stance. Behind him, an opening through the trees allowed a view of the blushing western horizon, a natural window somehow carved through the massively spreading jungle crown of this Island. Pip wondered if they camped in an ancient Dragon roost. Dragons were ever ones for the far-reaching view, for mountaintops and roosts in league-tall cliffs with dizzying drop-offs into nothingness. Maybe one day she would enjoy their lack of fear.

Nak said, “Alright. Adorable wife, please summarise.”

Oyda said, “So we’ve found seven sets of Ape Steps so far, none of which match our description from any conceivable angle. Pip?”

“I’m translating, Oyda,” she hissed between her fangs.

“Thank you. Usefully, the Marshal continues to be preoccupied with the Crescent and the Academy gains time. Less usefully, the Shadow Dragon gains victims and the Dragonwings continue to round up any remaining Dragons, leaving the South defenceless.” Oyda winked at Nak. “However, we have all of our combined brainpower and the unshakeable will to succeed, and on a positive note, I have recently taken possession of the most gorgeous husband in history.”

“Who is now rendered utterly brainless as a result of a case of swollen ego,” said Shimmerith. “Chymasion. Flip a wingtip.”

“No progress on seeing within the jungles,” he said, hanging his head. “It’s almost as if they were deliberately obscured from magical sight. I continue to fail in this task.”

“Arosia, Pip, the diary?”

“No further clues,” said Arosia, “but Emblazon suggested that the lay of the Islands may have changed.”

Pip clapped her hands in excitement. “Volcanoes or earthquakes? Brilliant, Emblazon!”

Shimmerith turned a jaundiced, smoking eye on her massively purring mate. “Males! Lost another one. Pip. Images, if you will. We did not find at least three sets of Ape Steps, according to No’otha–is that correct?”

He conferred quickly with Pip. “Ay. Three.” He held up his fingers.

“Pip call up our–” Nak’s voice vanished behind an acoustic shield.

Shimmerith smirked at him. “My peerless Rider says, ‘Pip, would you call up the images of those three sets of Ape Steps we did not find, and overlay our memories upon them?’ ” Nak gestured furiously, in futile silence. The Sapphire Dragoness said, “That’s right, Nak. We’ll let Pip develop a headache doing the hard work and you can swoop in and claim the glory.”

Nak folded his arms, looking immensely smug.

Headache was not the right word. By the time she had arranged all of their information in her mind, Pip felt as though ten Jeradian warriors were pounding away at the insides of her temples with their huge war-hammers. “First candidate.”

She shivered. Odd chill along her spine spikes, as though a rajal’s paw had stroked her spine with delicate menace.

Everyone peered at the images Chymasion projected before them as Pip cycled efficiently through days of memories. Half an hour passed. “No.” “No chance.” “Zero correlation.”

She rubbed her head in a Human-like gesture of tiredness. “Alright. Give me a second to rearrange my head.”

“About time someone stirred up that soup,” the Silver Dragon murmured.

Pip gave him her filthiest glare. “Watch your paws, Dragon. Right, everyone, round two coming up.”

Nothing.

“Hold on,” said No’otha. “There’s a legend of Ape Steps existing right next to our Island, your birthplace, Pip. They were once meant to head north, toward the volcano. Do I understand you can read thought-pictures?”

“Ay.”

“Then see this.”

No’otha’s memories showed her a meandering image of a cave-painting, viewed by the light of a flaming torch, Pip realised. He had explored the cave in his youth, finding a series of ancient paintings depicting early Pygmy life with the Ancient Dragons, which in itself was fascinating. One of those paintings he recalled might have indicated the lay of Ape Steps stemming from her home Island.

Pip, try to enhance the image like this, said Silver. What’s the matter? Tired?

Just a Dragon sense. Here we go.

Tilt the image fifteen degrees, said Shimmerith.

“That’s it!” shouted Oyda, echoing all of their thoughts.

The volcano stood partially upon the place Pip had left blank to protect the others, the place where the secret knowledge was meant to have been stored. What if all had been destroyed? No wonder these Ape Steps had been forgotten. They could no longer be travelled to their end.

Then, she sensed a presence colder than any Island-World night. Pip froze, thunderstruck.

“No! Jyoss, Tazz–they’re out there!”

Before she finished speaking, Pip’s Dragon reactions had already launched her out into the darkling evening. She beat her wings to the utmost of her strength, a panicked fluttering that abruptly smoothed out into searing Dragonflight that shot her out from beneath the Island’s canopy at a speed in excess of thirty leagues per hour and still accelerating. She searched the skies for the barest millisecond before her Dragon sight latched onto a shadow that obscured the stars, hovering just above the pale form of Jyoss. Sucking. Pulsing with slow, ghastly satiation. Already, Jyoss’ fires dimmed.

JYOSS!

Here came Tazzaral, speeding toward his mate, distraught, frantic. Despite her rapidity, Pip was too far away. The moment the Copper came into the Shadow Dragon’s ambit, his eyes glazed over momentarily, then burned … differently. Transfixed. On his back, Cinti yelled and beat the Dragon with her hands, trying something with her mind, Pip sensed. She must not transform! Must not! Oh, Jyoss … oh, please, let mercy flow …

Straining so hard that she felt a wing-strut fracture as a distant pinprick of pain, Pip shot toward her friends like a dark lightning-bolt spearing up from the Island’s underbelly. Her mind wailed, ‘No, no, no!’ and her magic swelled enormously, primed for action.

She unleashed a Word of Command. STOP!

The Shadow beast did not pause. Jyoss wilted; magic rushed out of Tazzaral, vanishing into the beast’s unseen maw.

STOP! STOP!

The only response was a cold, alien intelligence turning to regard her, eyeless and irresistible. Pip sensed curiosity, recognition and an overwhelming cascade of alien magic that seemed to sing in all of her senses at once; before that song, no other melody could even conceive of existence. Time stretched and flowed in eerie ways, a kind of tunnel-vision in which Pip knew nothing but the beast’s ravening hunger for magic and its destruction of her friends and her own inanition, the inability of flesh and blood to make any response and the telescoping of time and awareness as it feasted. Could the Pygmy belief in demonic spirit-creatures be encapsulated in this apparition? It was vast, many times the size of Jyoss or Tazzaral, but its hunger was vaster still, disproportionate to its size. There was a darkness that burned as fire, a searing against her consciousness that by its very character denied all warmth, life and magic.

Before such a prodigious appetite, all must be consumed.

Pip watched helplessly, her magic spent, as Jyoss gave one final shudder. Now Tazzaral shuddered too, reduced in seconds to a lifeless, hollow husk of the magnificent Dragonsoul he had been. His nobility, shattered. Her friends were falling, failing, spinning downward with their Riders still strapped into their saddles, the grief and horror crushing her fiery spirit to ashes as she saw the reality of death engulf her friends, and she could do nothing.

She was more powerless than she had ever been in that cage.

So they died.

The Shadow seemed to consider and dismiss Pip, beginning to ripple and swell with new strength born of its engorgement on draconic life. Then she sensed another Dragon’s approach. A Dragoness. She was an effulgent yellow, like topaz infused with Dragon fire, bugling in distress, flying raggedly yet keeping ahead of others because of strength born in insane desperation. Pip screamed at them to stay away. As the new Dragoness surged toward Pip, the Shadow-creature paused in renewed anticipation. All was reaction, not thought. Pip swooped and swung her fisted paw. One sharp, skull-rattling blow stunned the Dragoness. She tumbled from the sky and Pip with her, a close spiral of flashing wings.

The oppressive chill lifted. Pip realised that the Shadow had vanished.

Here came Emblazon, making a sound Pip had never heard from a Dragon before, a sound like a cat’s mewling, his distress cutting bone-deep. Swooping, he scooped Tazzaral into his paws. Shimmerith flashed by, angling for Jyoss and Durithion, while Cinti leaped free and transformed in a burst of magic, furling her wings to dive toward Pip. In a hasty flap of wings Pip caught her quarry and tried to back-wing, slowing her descent enough for Cinti to catch them both in her capable paws. The Pygmy Dragoness untangled herself from the stranger–from Dragoness-Kaiatha!

Pip’s jaw sagged inelegantly.

No time! Cinti gasped. Silver, help! Chymasion, go to Shimmerith–

They’re gone, Shimmerith moaned. Tazzaral and Jyoss have winged to the eternal fires.

The Sapphire Dragoness wailed a keening note of distress, but Emblazon called, Be still, beloved, lest we bring the enemy upon us. Already, they must have heard and seen …

Pip could not bear it. Springing free of Cinti’s paw, the tiny Onyx Dragoness winged to Jyoss. She knew the truth, but it stuck in her craw, raw and offensive and wounding. Jyoss was gone. Duri dangled from the saddle straps like a limp dishrag. Not dead. Her sharp Dragon-hearing identified his pulse, weak and rapid, but in Jyoss there was … nothing. Within Tazzaral’s flesh there was only silence, an unthinkable, echoing absence of any magic.

Such dark-fires! Grief roared over her being like the tumbling tumult of a storm, as voracious as the Shadow Dragon in its feeding frenzy. Why had it not taken her? Ignored her? There must be a reason.

I am ashamed. I blunted our attack, Shimmerith said.

No, I’m to blame, said Emblazon. I tangled with your wings, so desperate was I …

They winged beneath the great boughs that spread over them like arms seeking to give comfort, to the cavern where the others waited–Nak and Oyda, Arosia, Jerrion and the Pygmy warriors.

Pip said, No, it was I. My Word of Command washed over the beast …

You cannot blame yourself, little one, said Emblazon. We should not have let Tazz and Jyoss patrol, we should have been faster–we have failed our kin, Pip. We have all failed, and our fierce, great-hearted companions have passed on to the fires, may they burn eternal!

His gentleness stirred both comfort and anguish in her three Dragon hearts. Passed on to the fires? Or quenched, forever? If only she knew for certain. How could Fra’anior have abandoned his Island-World, the creation of his own paw, to suffer the predation of such a demon-creature? His were the greatest pair of shoulders. Perhaps pairs of shoulders; she had not rightly seen. Ay, blame the greatest. That way, so-called lesser creatures could obviate their own responsibility and ignore the consequences of their own choices and actions.

Somewhere, Pip imagined she heard those great black throats roaring in terrible, shattering anguish.

* * * *

Perversely, the following day dawned bright and cheerful.

Human-Pip turned over, and saw Kaiatha, also returned to her Human form, sitting staring at her–no, through her, unseeing. The left side of her jaw sported a spectacular bruise, Pip’s handiwork. Her eyes were haunted forest pools.

Her friend’s lips barely moved. “When you became a Dragoness, Pip, was it terrifying?”

“Ay.” Pip shivered, remembering the circumstances, the devastating imperative to save herself and Oyda before they both crashed into the mountainside, then waking as a Dragoness … “Kaia, how’s Duri?”

“Not good. Shimmerith suspects some kind of mental breakdown. He’s unresponsive. Alive, but no-one’s inside. Maybe the Shadow Dragon sucked him out, too.”

“Mercy.”

Or the oath-bond between Dragon and Rider had ensured his fate. Yet if there was life, was there not hope?

Only tears moved on Kaiatha’s face, streaming unheeded down her cheeks. “Pip, I feel … I feel so … how can I live when all is lost?”

Bleakly, Pip replied, “I imagine you must feel as if your heart has been torn from your chest and thrown to the windrocs.”

Kaiatha breathed. “Ay. All I see is shades of guilt. How can I be a Dragon when they do not live?” She indicated Tazzaral and Jyoss, lying so still near the cave entrance. To look was to know the reality of death. All muscle tone was absent. Their fires, extinguished. Flanks, unstirred with the breath of life. “And I’m afraid, Pip. So afraid. Duri will hate me. He’ll–”

“He’ll learn to love you and value you even more than we do,” Pip said firmly. No time for her own grief. Not now, when her friend needed her. “What colour did they decide you are, Kaiatha?”

“Topaz-Navy,” she sniffed. “I guess that makes me about as odd as you?”

“Odder,” said Pip, giving her a quirky grin.

Kaiatha laughed mirthlessly. “It’s ridiculous. How am I even supposed to eat, Pip? I despise meat.”

“Um, good question. Listen, Emblazon’s calling us for the final rites.”

“I heard.”

“Oh. You speak Dragonish? I’d forgotten.”

Suddenly, Kaiatha was the one hugging her. “Strangely, this Dragoness does speak Dragonish. Come. He also wants us to transform–oh, why are we telling each other what we can both hear?”

The Shapeshifters all transformed. Emblazon directed proceedings, singing fire-songs, blessings and praise-songs of mighty deeds over the fallen Dragons. Then he bade the Humans and Pygmies stand as far back as possible. Upon his command, the Dragons directed streams of fire at the corpses of Tazzaral and Jyoss. Emblazon spoke an ancient formula of soul-flight over them. The fires crackled suns-hot, consuming flesh and hide no longer protected by Dragon magic, until all that remained were two Dragon skeletons lying side by side, for all the world as though they had fallen asleep together and been overtaken by some unspeakable calamity. Copper bones lay beside the pink, the colours of an Island-World suns-set.

Then, Emblazon said heavily, “From death to life. We are reminded even at this hour of dark-fires, that life stirs amidst us. Dragoness Kaiatha, would you step forward, please?”

The Fra’aniorian Islander, normally so graceful and composed, stumbled over her paws, but Shimmerith steadied her with a motherly paw-touch.

Emblazon bugled, “We sing the eggling-celebration!”

Together, the Dragons sang:

She is born, fire of fire,

Blessed eggling, heart of living Dragon flame,

Born to fly!

Kaiatha was all draconic elegance, the sleek lines of a Dragoness enhanced by a neat, pretty ruff of skull spikes. Her hide was as glossy as snakeskin, displaying the rare quality and colouration of topaz gemstone, the scales picked out with patterns and highlights of deep blue. Every detail was exquisite. Neat, midnight-blue talons showed unsheathed as she had not yet learned to control the muscles. Muscular yet slender limbs. Lustrous wings half-unfurled, the struts, arteries and primary wing bones all picked out in her signature blue.

Pip felt slightly vindicated in that Kaiatha’s Dragoness was only a little larger than hers, perhaps twenty-two feet from muzzle to tail-tip. Of course, Kaiatha would probably grow to four times that size. What hope for a Pygmy Dragon?

Kaiatha blinked uncertainly at them as the Dragonsong faded, and all became still. Wondrously, sorrowfully still.

“I’m still Kaiatha,” she blurted out suddenly. “Don’t think this changes anything.”

Shimmerith chuckled musically. “No, little one, it doesn’t change anything. It changes everything.”

Chapter 20: The Order of Onyx

IN A VOICE roughened by grief and a poor few hours’ sleep, quickly snatched toward morning, Nak said, “Listen, everyone. Time to fly to the Ape Steps. Full shielding, my beauty. Oyda, let’s get Durithion strapped in. Gently, mind. Kaiatha, you’re with Oyda. Take your Human form, please. We’ve enough hatchlings in this group already.”

Chymasion and Pip growled identically, then looked at each other and chuckled hollowly.

“Mount up! Let’s shoot the winds!”

They retraced their route away from Marshal Re’akka’s Island to a point twenty leagues north, where the Crescent Islands inhabited by Pip’s tribe loomed out of the Cloudlands. Silver and Shimmerith shielded the compact, deadly intent Dragonwing as they negotiated the distance in a brief hour’s flying. Pip would not have wanted to be an enemy Dragon crossing their flight path this morning. No mercy would have been granted.

Calling over to Hunagu, who by now seemed to have grown entirely comfortable flying in a net dangling from Emblazon or Kassik’s paw, Pip asked in Ape, “Hunagu smell Ape Steps?”

The Oraial’s eyes gleamed darkly at her. “Thought Pip never ask. Mighty-mighty Dragoness no need Ape?”

“Humble Pip need good-good friend. No other nose powerful like Hunagu’s nose.”

Hunagu chortled happily, his good mood restored. “Hunagu show stinky Dragons how to hunt. Dragons not know jungle.”

“Good-good,” agreed Pip.

She had identified a point approximately midway down the flank of her Island as the likely start of the Ape Steps. No’otha’s information suggested a cave. Accordingly, the Pygmy hunters and Dragons divided their numbers between the two northern ‘toes’ of the Island, some concentrating on the more easterly peninsula, others on the westerly. Hunagu, after a few sage-looking sniffs of the air, chose the easterly side for his search, at a point that would have been the webbing between a Dragon’s two rearward-pointing talons. They spread out, combing the area assiduously.

The terrain was rugged, not conducive to traversal or easy searching. Not only were the cliffs near-vertical in the main, there were also many overhangs and places where boulders had tumbled down from above, perhaps dislodged by the area’s general instability, and become wedged and ingrown amongst the thick covering of vines. Caves were few and deeply hidden. After a few fruitless hours Pip caught Emblazon displaying a fit of pique, tearing several great paws-full of vines off the cliff. Ay. She felt the same–the pressure as yet another Assassin Dragonwing passed over the Islands nine leagues distant. The frustration. The grief, so fresh and caustic.

At midday they gathered beneath the jungle boughs a mile higher up the Island for a drink of water, food and a chance to compare notes. Here, the vegetation flowed over the Island’s edge a mere four hundred feet past the cliffs, the massive boughs overhanging the area in a floral waterfall to a half-mile beneath their location, the vines a half-mile further yet.

Nak sketched out a new search plan; Hunagu gave the idea an unenthusiastic snort.

“Ape nose find,” the Oraial said in Island Standard.

Emblazon flexed his claws as though he would dearly have liked to test them on Hunagu’s flesh, but desisted for Pip’s sake.

“Let’s also work backward,” Arosia suggested. “Why not have Chymasion and I fly out to the volcano and–”

“Because we like you alive, that’s why!” snapped Nak.

“With Shimmerith and you for protection, Nak,” said Oyda, smiling at him.

Arosia drew herself up to her full height, almost a head taller than Nak. “With your permission, Rider Nak, my Dragon and I will do our duty. Stand aside, please.”

“Even the hatchlings have fangs,” Nak grumbled, appearing not in the least put out. “I hope that green lump of a Dragon-jewel knows what a treasure he’s found in you, o most slender of Sylakian sprites. So, we’re to check for an under-Cloudlands ridge, right?”

The teenager bowed in acceptance of Nak’s kiss upon her knuckles, murmuring, “Oh, Rider Nak, you always have the best ideas.”

With that, Oyda promptly applied her boot to Nak’s backside. “I’ll have less simpering over pretty girls who evidently know how to handle menfolk, and more application of the grey matter to the problem at hand, Rider Nak. How are you going to use Chymasion to see what cannot be seen beneath the clouds?”

He barely hesitated. “We’ll drop rocks and the Jade genius will hear or see the echoes.”

Pip shook her head in amazement. Good old Nak. Never short of a word, and ay, there was a sharp mind hidden somewhere beneath the parakeet-like layer of feathers. As Arosia turned to mount Chymasion, she heard Nak mutter, “But she does look amazing in Dragon Rider trousers. Mercy, those legs!”

Oyda booted him again. “Volcanoes have nothing on my wrath, Nak!”

Toward mid-afternoon, their efforts finally bore fruit. The foursome returned from the direction of the volcano, having rapidly plotted a zigzag under-Cloudlands course leading, unexpectedly, around to the westerly flank of the volcano. At one point they had even identified a boulder lying just beneath the drifting clouds. The area was certainly shallow enough. Pip still wondered how they were supposed to walk or travel beneath the Cloudlands and not turn purple before falling over dead–minor details. Deal with those later. Reversing their ridge-plotting back to the Island brought them to an unexpected site, approximately one-eighth of a mile along the easterly ‘finger’, close to the Island’s main body.

Quickly, the Dragons shuttled the hunters over the divide, Hunagu leading the charge. He pressed his nose in amongst boulders and vines. “Not here. Not here.”

“Lower,” Chymasion called. “There’s a looser area a hundred feet below your position.”

Emblazon immediately transferred the Oraial Ape, then snatched him away as his weight caused an entire section of loose shale to slip several feet.

Hunagu ordered, “On Dragon paw. Find place.”

Now an Ape was issuing orders to a Dragon? And the Island-World stood on its head. Pip did not trust herself to utter a word. Instead, she watched, heart in throat, as Emblazon hovered close to the cliff with remarkable skill, sweeping Hunagu about with steady movements of his paw. Fifty feet this way, fifty that. Lower. Lower again.

“Here.”

Leaping off the Amber Dragon’s paw in a welter of excitement, the Ape began to scrabble at the spot like a hound quarrying a patch of soil in search of a tasty bone. Emblazon again had to rescue him as dozens of boulders, some larger than the Ape himself, suddenly tumbled from above.

I’ll dig, growled Emblazon.

Cinti said, I’ve abilities in the Brown spectrum. Allow me, Emblazon. Please hold me; I’ll try to shore up the face as I dig.

Pip did not understand the issue until she observed how much power Cinti had to expend to force her way into the treacherous slope. Her magic allowed her to carve out rock as though it were soft Jeradian cheese, but the entire slope above was unstable. She worked on fashioning a foundation and bracing beams of fused rocks, slowly squeezing them together with her talons while Emblazon held her against the mountainside, his wings sweeping steadily to keep them both aloft.

An hour passed. Two. Cinti was head and shoulders inside the mountainside now, the work slowing as she depleted her stores of magic. She cried, Yes! Muffled, but exultant.

“What do we have?” asked Pip.

Cinti shuffled backward, fairly trembling with fatigue. A crack leading downward. Air flow. Steps.

Pip raised her muzzle. “Elder No’otha? Father?”

She landed neatly at the dark hole to allow her father to alight, resisting the urge to investigate first, and helped No’otha leap across from Emblazon’s paw. The two Pygmy men advanced briefly, before retreating again.

“Bad air,” said Pip’s father.

“Bad magic,” said No’otha.

The passage Cinti’s tunnel intersected was very narrow, barely a fit for a slender Pygmy. For once, Pip realised, she would be grateful for her tiny size. Oyda would also fit, but Kaiatha? They had planned for her to bring the diary and her magic.

The Pygmies organised themselves rapidly. With Dragons available to convey people between Islands, there was no delay in fetching the supplies No’otha ordered. While Fiò’tí built a neat fire from dry twigs and lengths of dead vine twenty feet inside the passage, the other warriors worked with the Dragons to disguise the cave entrance. Silver and Cinti returned with bundles of several types of herbs in paw, and the awed-looking young Seer.

Meantime, Pip talked softly with Hunagu. The time she dreaded had come, she realised, and her heart would rather bolt and hide in the jungle far, far away than face this reality. Pip embraced her friend, burying her face in his fur. His scent was so familiar. It spoke to her of icy Sylakian nights endured in their rude shelter, of play-wrestling and grubbing in the dirt for food, deep friendship, and much besides.

She said in Ape, “How Pip thank Hunagu enough?”

“Silly-silly girl,” he said, stroking her curls with his huge paw. “Pip Hunagu’s friend. Mighty-heart Ape, friend never forget. Pip take Hunagu to home. Her word good-good word. Always good.”

“Hunagu has mighty-mighty heart. Always go with Pip. Always.”

“Always,” he said, thumping his chest.

After that, Oyda and Emblazon flew away with Hunagu, a forlorn Chymasion trailing in their wake to help with shielding. Pip watched until the Dragons were only a speck in the distance.

No’otha and the Seer prepared cleansing smoke and magic, which the steady inrush of wind bore within the mountain. They spoke appeasements to the ancient spirits and wove their Pygmy magic, preparing the way. Quite the fuss, Pip decided, but with a queer journey across the vines fresh in her mind, she declined to comment. Instead, she spoke at length with Nak, Arosia, Kaiatha, Silver and Cinti about what her strange power might be that allowed her Human form to react and run faster than a Dragon, and the possible challenges they might encounter down beneath the Cloudlands. Soon, the Pygmies declared their work done. The way was open.

Pip’s father gripped her shoulder firmly. “Pip will succeed. I feel it in my liver.”

She gripped his forearm equally firmly. “My father is my heart-stone.”

Could ever a million stars inhabit a smile, his was so.

* * * *

They filed down the stairs within the crack seemingly forever, first Oyda, then Silver, Pip and Kaiatha bringing up the rear. Arosia suffered from claustrophobia, so she was excluded from the party. Each person held a light prepared by Silver and Shimmerith, an ancient but well-understood trick by which Dragons bundled an electrical charge inside a special type of shield which only functioned in sizes smaller than a Human fist. The result was a neat, bright, not hot and usefully, rather sticky bulb imaginatively called a Dragon light. Pip stuck hers to Silver’s back. What a useful idea. Only, these Dragon-lights demanded an inordinate amount of magic to produce and lasted only eight hours or so.

According to No’otha and Hunagu, some Ape Steps ran above ground, and some were tunnels below ground, which cleared up Pip’s undeclared confusion. She had imagined having to wait days for the right moon before being able to make a crossing–that was certainly the way with most Ape Steps, but not this one. Her tiny size made her a perfect fit, whereas Silver kept having to cant his shoulders to squeeze through the tighter spots. Kaiatha kept up a steady stream of, ‘ouch,’ ‘Islands’ sakes’ and ‘build this roof lower, why don’t you?’ in her ear. No Oraial could have managed. Did that mean this tunnel was a Pygmy secret?

“Where’s Yaethi when you need her?” Pip commented.

“How many steps? Aren’t we under the Island already?” asked Silver.

“What about Yaethi, Pip?” asked Kaiatha. “She’s not the adventurous sort, unless you’re talking about adventuring through some exciting scroll-lore.”

The Pygmy said, “The airflow mechanism. Fascinating, isn’t it?”

“If you say so. I’d settle for a little engineering to ensure anyone taller than the average grasshopper could fit through here.”

At last, the tunnel broadened and flattened out. Kaiatha made certain to sigh with relief at least ten times as she stood upright for the first time in an hour. Pip eased her aching thighs and calves. Silver was right. How many steps? Were they beneath the Cloudlands already?

After a quick consultation of the diary, Silver led off, extending his Dragon magic ahead of them to check the passageway. Shortly, they paused at a cave-in that partially blocked the tunnel. There must have been another entrance, Kaiatha observed, as they scrambled through the gap. One large enough for Apes.

“Quick march,” said Oyda.

Silver said, “Why? I might miss something.”

Oyda hooked a thumb over her shoulder. “Or I’ll have the Pygmy twist your arm.”

“I submit already!”

Silver peeked over his shoulder; Pip stuck out her tongue. “I’d never treat my boyfriend like that.” Various rude noises greeted this fib. She added, “He’s such a delicate little Dragon. Wouldn’t want him to snap a toenail.”

Her boyfriend managed a spluttering, inhuman growl at this sally. Ah, Dragon emotions, Pip chortled inwardly. Volatile as the suns were bright, and about as safe as whistling up a Cloudlands storm.

Fresh air streamed steadily past the group as they made a small, advancing puddle of light in a passageway cut by some remarkable technology. Pip ran her fingers along the wall. Perfectly smooth. Square edges at floor and ceiling, so this was not an ancient watercourse. Besides, the substrata was granite. Water would not ordinarily cut through solid granite. A slight, dry-musty smell came to her nostrils, and a hint of cinnamon–

Stop!

Pip cried out fractionally before Silver pulled up abruptly, extending his left arm to stop Oyda in her tracks. “Wait. Magic ahead.”

“First entry spell,” Kaiatha muttered, thumbing rapidly through her father’s diary. “Ay. An easy one to warm us up. Arosia and I worked this one out weeks ago. Shall I take this one on to save you for the more exciting work later on, Silver?”

He made a slight bow. “Verily, o mighty Dragoness.”

Kaia spluttered, “Er …”

“That’s you, petal,” said Oyda. “Less catching flies and more action, please.”

As Kaiatha spoke a short incantation, a shimmering light briefly infused a band of stone in the floor just a step ahead of Silver’s feet. The light flared, then faded to nothingness. The Fra’aniorian said, “That’s it.”

“What was it?” Pip asked.

“It’s fondly called a knee-trapper,” said her friend. “The intruder falls in and the stone closes, crushing their knees and trapping them in stone forever. Charming idea, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Um,” Pip gulped.

“Never mind,” said Kaiatha, striding forward. “The next one is poisoned spikes. Then we have the ten-tonne ceiling dropper, then a bottomless pit followed by a trap called the spiked grasshopper, and after that things become really exciting.”

Mercy. She was grateful Kaia and Silver seemed confident about all this nasty Dragonish portal magic. Pip clenched and unclenched her fists. Thank the heavens for friends with skills other than getting into trouble. She watched with increasing appreciation as her companions dealt competently with the various barriers apparently devised by the Order of Onyx with expert draconic help, perhaps their own Shapeshifters. What had driven them to hide their secrets with such paranoia? Was the assassination of Kaiatha’s father connected to his knowledge of this location?

After two hours’ march, the foursome had reached the final barrier, the portal spell deliberately left incomplete in the diary. Here, the tunnel finally rose and widened, becoming a cave hidden behind two successive barriers–firstly, a silver curtain veiling an arched entryway, clearly of magical origin and function. The barrier shimmered slightly as though alive, and was transparent enough to allow a view of a chamber beyond, empty save for a plinth or altar in the precise centre of the floor space. A stone slab denied access to a second chamber, beyond the plinth. Above the doorway, Silver pointed out several runes, which could not be fully read from below.

Oyda mopped her forehead. “Phew. I’m boiling. We must be right beneath the volcano.”

Kaiatha raised her light on her palm, straining to read the runes. “Pip, I need your help. Climb on my shoulders.”

Shortly, Pip rose into the air, but she still could not see clearly. The original chiselling was time-worn, and slightly hidden above a protruding lip of stone where the archway rose toward the ceiling. Carefully, she balanced on her feet and reached up to steady herself against the arch. “Ouch! Islands’ sakes, this rock’s blisteringly hot.”

Silver touched the wall to his right and snatched his fingers away with a hiss. “You’re right.”

Pip said, “Listen to this, ‘Only Pygmies may enter here. Death awaits.’ That’s unambiguous, I’d say.”

Kaiatha put her down again. “Alright, team. Let’s work this out. We’ve a puzzle noted as ‘sliding door’ and we see a small plinth through the barrier in that chamber, which is thirty foot by six by thirteen high, exactly the dimensions noted in the diary. Only Pip can proceed beyond this point. Pip, you need to memorise this entry oath.”

Pip crossed her arms and pursed her lips.

Oyda clipped her fondly over the back of the head. “Stop smirking. It’s impertinent.”

Sipping her water gourd, Kaiatha conferred rapidly with her team. Shortly, she and Silver were probing the barrier with a variety of magical techniques. An hour passed. Two. Pip tried to sit down, but the rock burned her through the seat of her Dragon Rider trousers. At length, she grew impatient.

“Look, have you two tried touching the barrier?”

Kaia waved crossly at the diary. “Look, you need all of this … this part written in my father’s best obsessive double-speak. And left unfinished.”

“Here? Or in there?” She jabbed with her forefinger.

Pip gasped as her finger stuck to the silvery substance. “I didn’t mean to …” She shook her hand. Nothing, save from hurting her cast-in-stone finger. “Oh, no …”

“Pip!” Silver grabbed her waist, Kaiatha her free hand. They heaved.

“Stop! You’re pulling my finger out–mercy, it’s … my hand!”

Kaia shrilled, “The oath!” Pip stared at the strange, silvery substance flowing over her knuckles. It had already reached her wrist. Cool, slick and perturbing.

Oyda slapped her shoulder. “Start talking, you stupid lump of soot!”

As if released to fly, Pip babbled the oath. No change. The silvery coating flowed up over her elbow as if partaking of a leisurely afternoon’s stroll. Still the magic held her fast, unyielding. Had she known a few more Words of Command, she might have been able to counteract this magic. Pip placed her foot against the archway and pulled with all of her might, but she might as well have been welded in place. Her heel touched the silvery surface. Instantly, she was stuck at two points.

Now they were all shouting, Pip rattling through the parts of the spells she had read and the oath, three times, but the cool magic expanded up to her knee and armpit. Oyda tried to push it back, but the stuff simply flowed around or under her hands, ignoring her with suspiciously animate intelligence. Silver attacked the doorway and was repulsed with a sizzle and a loud report, flung across the chamber where he sprawled, shaking his head unhappily. Kaiatha yelled at Pip not to transform. She tried to push at the peculiar magic with her mind, probe it, stop it, change its nature … nothing worked. In seconds, it was creeping up her neck and down beneath her tunic top. That was an Island too far.

Panic ripped through the Pygmy girl. This magic was attacking her! Covering everything, inexorably, sneaking up her chin and tickling her lips and dipping into her mouth and she was screaming and now it closed over her nostrils and reached the top of her thigh, encasing her hips … on the verge of blacking out, Pip gasped a huge breath. Another. She was fine. Not suffocating.

“Mercy, that feels peculiar,” she ventured. “The air’s like ice.”

Kaiatha stared at her, their faces just inches apart. “You’re not hurt? Anywhere?”

“Not so far.”

Silver said, “What–it’s some kind of membrane? That’s impossible.”

With some asperity, Pip retorted, “I’ve struck that word out of my vocabulary. Can we please not use the I-word? What, by all the Islands, is this magic?”

“Look, it’s completely covering every strand of her hair,” said Oyda. “It looks just like the little icicles you get on your nostrils when you fly too high on your Dragon. Come on, Pip. Use your strength or a Word of Command to break free.”

Flexing the fingers of her free hand, Pip said, “Besides not knowing the right Words, I’m not sure that’s wise. We don’t know what this stuff can do. Look, I can see fine. It’s like seeing through a strange silvery film–no disrespect, Silver–but I can ooooooaaaahhh …”

Pip’s yell ended in an undignified yelp as the curtain sucked her through the doorway and summarily dumped her on her tailbone on the far side. She stood gingerly. Oyda was leading the chorus of yelling, but Pip could not hear a peep past the silvery screen. She cupped her ear and indicated she was fine with a cheeky little bow that had nothing to do with the fear merrily dicing her innards into stew-sized chunks. Her friends looked very concerned; Silver in particular tried unsuccessfully to hide his distress.

When she tried to approach the curtain again, the magic repelled her so powerfully that Pip realised she would be unable to escape without an extraordinary effort. Or, without completing her mission. Simple choice, then, in a place where death awaited.

Pip approached the black granite plinth cautiously, hoping it was not an altar built for Human sacrifice. No’otha had warned her of certain Pygmy tribes which had adopted that barbaric custom. But she eyed a simple block of stone two feet tall with two small, hand-shaped depressions on top. Right. Pip exhaled and placed her hands where they belonged before common sense seized any foothold in her mind. The chamber immediately blazed with rainbows of light, which rippled over her magic-encased body several times.

“Pygmy magic confirmed,” intoned a voice, speaking Ancient Southern with a peculiar, sing-song accent.

She glanced about, but saw no-one or nothing to suggest where the disembodied voice might have emerged from. Suddenly, the plinth cracked and five sizeable silver tubes tumbled out, each as long and thick as her arm. The ends were sealed; Pip could not immediately see how. Nor did she have time to investigate. The curtain flickered and turned opaque.

The voice said, “Take the lore-scrolls, Pygmy warrior. Never surrender their treasure to the enemy. Now, we will show you the words of power. Read quickly. This chamber will self-destruct in twenty, nineteen, eighteen …”

Jumping jaguars! Pip gasped as the entire section of wall before her began to develop a reddish glow. What she had thought was solid rock appeared to be some kind of crystal, perhaps Ha’athiorian horiatite, for it appeared similar to the Pygmy necklace Oyda had worn for her wedding. Brilliant runes, precisely etched in Ancient Southern, rapidly scrolled outward from a point directly opposite her nose. Up and down. Sideways. An entire page of words, gleaming like radiant fish swimming in an orange lava lake, which rapidly increased in brightness and heat as the countdown ticked on, unheeding. A second page replaced the first.

… thirteen, twelve …

The wall shone ever brighter, and though she sensed the heat developing, the magic stubbornly kept her body and face cool. Pip read in great chunks, committing each section to memory as page after page, perhaps a dozen in all, flashed by.

… nine, eight …

Now the colour was yellow-white, a dazzling finale to the sections of text, which suddenly began to scroll backward twice as fast as they had appeared. Words leaped off the crystal wall at her in black, sooty clumps of text that expired mid-air in puffs of black dust.

… four, three …

Pip observed with her fullest attention as the Words of Command spontaneously, almost joyfully sprang free to be etched on an eidetic memory. Nothing must be lost.

… two …

Pip gasped as the final words plinked against her nose, but that was because flames burst through the white-hot wall, now, the overheated rock glistening, dripping, sagging! The far door shuddered as it dropped; from the tunnel beyond, Pip heard a booming roar and saw the beginnings of a deep, fiery glow that made her imagine peering down the volcano’s throat.

… one …

Remembering, she reached for the five scroll-tubes. Molten rock sloshed over her back, thick as jungle honey, and now she did feel heat and pain through the magical skin that encased her being, but it protected her enough. Pip fought. Thrashed. Dived for the scrolls and surfaced like a Dragon rising from bathing in a terrace lake, swimming a surge that thrust her irresistibly toward Kaiatha, Silver and Oyda. The barrier was gone, the archway slumping toward the ground, her friends backing up, wide-eyed. Pip opened her mouth, and screamed a newly-acquired Word of Command.

Run!

Chapter 21: Blockade

THEY FLED THE rising volcano. Pip rode a wave of thin, white-hot molten lava as she chased her friends down the endless tunnel. Oyda was first, her legs fairly flying in the bobbing light of her magical lantern. Kaiatha followed, lean and fleet, then Silver, as quick and lithe as a dragonet in his movements. The threesome ran at superhuman speeds, the speed of their passage creating a strange, whistling sound as they sprinted away from her. Pip struggled to free herself from the viscous rock. She forced the power into herself.

Run!

Too much magic. Blackness spotted her vision before she managed to collect herself. Pip kicked forward with a shout of rage and a belly brimful of blazing energy. She thrashed the lava into foam with her limbs, slowly emerging from the surging wave of rock filling the tunnel as if it sought to drag her back into an unwelcome, deadly embrace. Magma sloughed off her body as she battled and fumed and won, her feet splashing short-lived footprints in burning yellow puddles before she accelerated onto cool, solid ground. She raced off as though shot from a Pygmy bow.

Rock blurred to either side of her.

Seemingly a moment later, Pip found herself at the base of the stairs, chasing after the sounds of her friends. On and on, lungs rasping for air, realising at some level that driving her body this way could only end in grief. She searched her newfound knowledge but could find no immediate answer to how to reverse a Word of Command. Once spoken, never unspoken? She launched herself upward in huge bounds, seven steps at a time, catching up to Silver with ease now, as the passageway’s confines forced him to slow.

Not far behind, a series of deep explosions reverberated through the earth and rock.

Pip and Silver broke out almost simultaneously into the passageway carved by Cinti, and collapsed. Wheezing. Coughing. Gasping as though they were half-dying; Oyda and Kaiatha were the same. Shimmerith had her paw upon Kaiatha, easing her pain, but she quickly moved to help the others.

Shimmerith called, No time to rest. Hurry, we must fly. Hide this place. Pip, did you–

I have it all, she replied. Or so she hoped. Time would tell.

Easy, Silver. Breathe deep, said the Sapphire Dragoness. But Pip detected nuances of alarm in her voice.

Shimmerith, what’s the matter? She tottered toward the cave’s entrance.

Before the Dragoness could speak, Cinti called from outside the cave, Shimmerith, get them out, now!

The volcano, of course. Pip accepted being snaffled up into Cinti’s paw, while Shimmerith gathered the other three into her grasp. The Dragonesses launched out into space. Pip wriggled about, searching for a decent view between Cinti’s gnarled knuckles. Well, the Ape Steps were no longer hidden, that was for certain. A clear line of mini-volcanoes linked the two Islands, while above … she cried out softly, involuntarily. Night-Reds. Dozens of Dragon Assassins hovered over the Cloudlands out there, watching her home Island intently.

Bile rose in her throat. Her neck twizzled; Pip noticed that the Dragons guarded not only horizontal space, but vertical as well. A dome of the Marshal’s forces arched over her Island. A Dragon every few thousand feet. There were no bolt-holes, not this time.

We’re shielding so they can’t detect us, Shimmerith said. But you’re right. They’ve tracked us to this Island, and we don’t know how.

Hunagu? Chymasion–

Cinti replied, Returned safely, little one. Do not fear. The Night-Reds came upon us while you were below. We thought at first it was just another search, so we hid ourselves with all our draconic cunning, but by my wings, we were not cunning enough. Somehow they have spied us out, and we are trapped behind this blockade.

Pip scanned the late afternoon skies. There’s hundreds, Cinti.

Were we betrayed, shell-mother? Silver asked.

Her answer was a deep, smoky growl.

But you succeeded, little one? Shimmerith repeated, anxiously.

I have the knowledge, but I need to … assimilate it, I guess? I don’t understand all of the runes. Master Balthion might have been able to help if we had him here; also, Arosia studied Ancient Southern writing.

The Dragonesses stuck close to the cliffs, flying upward with cautious wing-strokes, not wanting to disturb any bush or dust or boulder in passing. Fire thundered out of the tunnel they had just departed, the final chisel-mark on the gravestone for that secret tunnel, as the Island saying went. The Night-Reds responded instantly. A dozen Dragons rocketed downward toward the source of the disturbance; as if acting with one mind, Cinti and Shimmerith sideslipped away with great guile, soft-winged, barely disturbing air particles in passing, it seemed.

They ghosted up beneath the great overhanging canopy and plunged into the safety of the jungle’s deep coolness.

Ten minutes later, amidst the cool, loam-scented gloom, the two Dragonesses and their cargo joined up with the others–No’otha and his warriors, and the Academy Dragons and Riders. Emblazon immediately set the tone by accusing Cinti of outright betrayal. Nak questioned Silver’s motives. Kaiatha worried about Durithion, left on the other Island with the tribe, while Chymasion unhappily tried to play the peacemaker and found himself lambasted from all directions for his trouble. Silver snapped into his Dragon-form, the better to growl at Nak and anyone else who dared to express their suspicions.

Finally, Pip had to act. She transformed, and pounced into the midst of the Dragons, shouting, Stinking jungle blossoms! Stop it!

To a beast, they stared at her, momentarily forgetting their various quarrels.

“I think I know who has betrayed our presence here,” said Pip. “Me.” And she explained the dreams she had been having of Zardon, most recently as she walked the jungle ways, and the power of their Dragon-Rider oath-magic.

Silver ground his fangs together in palpable rage. Dragon-jealousy seethed in his hearts. But to her shock, it was Shimmerith who rounded on her. “You bury your secrets well, Pygmy Dragoness!” she spat. “Silver told me how you hide crucial information from us all; I did not believe it, until now. This is foul, undraconic misconduct!”

“We might better have invited the Marshal’s Assassins to cuddle up to us,” Nak snorted, mimicking his Dragoness’ fury. “Does he see through your eyes too, Pip?”

She hung her head. “I don’t know. I didn’t think about that.”

Nak yelled, “You don’t know? Islands’ sakes, you look so cute standing there mincing your paws, what do you expect–one cutesy flutter of your pretty Pygmy eyes and all is forgiven? You of all people should understand this is not a game played by children! These are real people, real lives–”

Arosia gripped Nak’s shoulder, spinning him around. “Now, just a moment–”

The Rider shoved her, making her stumble and fall. “Unhand me, child! We should never have brought all these feckless hatchlings along on such an important mission.”

Chymasion was growling up a storm; appearing to take her cue from her Dragon, Arosia stood and threw her right knee squarely into Nak’s vitals. Pip would have laughed if the situation had not been so fraught. Nak folded up like a snapped twig. Immediately, Shimmerith swung a paw at Arosia, only for her shell-son to deflect the blow, and then Emblazon shouldered between them, stoically letting Shimmerith pummel his flank until she met his blazing gaze. Whatever she saw there, the Dragoness backed off like a spitting, furious cat.

Perhaps the companions had never understood the stresses underlying their venture, Pip thought. Perhaps Dragon emotions overtook their Riders, too!

At Emblazon’s gruff, “Simmer down!” the Dragons backed off.

Then, the Amber bowed his great muzzle. “Let me express my sorrow at my lack of sound leadership. All I cared for was this Dragon’s pride, when I should have acknowledged each member of our group and the unique, valuable contributions each of you have made.”

Shimmerith made a soft bugle of shock.

“Ay, my beautiful fire-heart,” he said. “I did not draw upon our unique strengths and abilities, nor did I understand any of your inner fires in any sufficient measure.” His nobility and vulnerability held them all rapt. Pip rapidly translated for the Pygmies, before Emblazon continued, “My leadership has failed you. Jyoss and Tazzaral have passed on. I grieve. Duri lies gravely wounded. My fires weep! I will do better, that I promise.

“Please accept my–” the word choked in his throat, but emerged at last, “–apologies.”

Pip knew what that cost a proud Dragon. Suddenly there was a clamour of approval, promises to work together and not against each other, apologies from Nak, Pip and Arosia, and the shining love in Shimmerith’s gaze as she considered her mate as if for the first time, never more magnificent. The Amber Dragon rapidly organised them, modifying his commands at several suggestions from Nak. Healing for the exhausted quartet. Checking the precious scrolls, if they could. Nak and Shimmerith to put their heads together to formulate an escape plan. Pip rapidly related their adventure beneath the volcano, and then they were out of time.

DRAGONS! SHOW YOURSELVES! An enormous, magic-magnified bellow reached even to the base of the Crescent Island giants.

“It’s Zardon,” said Pip.

“Not the Marshal?” Oyda asked.

“Well, how can she know that?” asked Silver. “Yet Eridoon Island moves slowly. I doubt the Marshal will be here yet, unless he moved the Island in secret.”

“Why wouldn’t he just fly here?” Pip asked.

Silver replied, “My father flies little, and does not often take his Dragon form. Perhaps it is the strain of levitating the Island.”

“Perhaps he fears he’ll be eaten by the Shadow Dragon,” Chymasion suggested slyly.

“Ay!” Oyda and Shimmerith agreed fervently.

“We have to negotiate,” Cinti interjected, clenching her paws in a clear indication that she would rather be negotiating with the Marshal’s entrails wrapped around her talons.

Emblazon said, “The noble Dragoness is correct. Nak and I will go speak to him. The rest of you, stay hidden beneath the canopy but remain close enough to shield and protect us.”

“Nak cannot presently contemplate standing,” Nak whispered, from his prone position between Shimmerith’s paws. “Nak’s manhood has been forever blighted–woe to us, o Oyda, how this mighty exemplar of manly virility hath fallen!”

Oyda whispered to Shimmerith, “Will you tell him, or shall I?”

The Sapphire Dragoness’s eye-fires softened toward a rich peach. “Go ahead, petal.”

Pip and several others chuckled at her use of one of Oyda’s pet phrases. Yet suddenly, there was another feeling in the air, a bashfulness Pip had never seen in her friend as the petite Dragon Rider turned to her new husband. “Congratulations.”

He blinked. “Um … for being so irresistibly attractive? Or because I am maimed for life?”

Pip knew. She sensed it in the Balance, in the way Oyda held her head, her eyes resting tenderly upon the man she loved. She caught her breath. Oh, by the white-fires of life itself … what fragile beauty was this, a pair of the tiniest of buds?

Oyda smiled, “I’m pregnant, and you’re going to be a father. Congratulations.”

True to form, Nak gasped and pretended to faint.

When the general babble had subsided slightly, Pip added, “Nak, you’re going to be a father of twin girls.”

He pretended to faint a second time and thumped his head on a stone. “Ouch!” he rubbed the offending spot. Never had a man smiled more broadly than he.

* * * *

Selecting a great bare bough that arched out of the Island’s canopy, Pip and Emblazon poked their muzzles out into the radiant afternoon suns-light. They stood in a sea of verdant green. Creeper-covered mounds of trees alternated with those free of clinging vine-parasites, spreading a full mile around them in every direction, and further along the Island’s splayed isthmuses. Ordinarily, thousands of birds would have been diving into and out of the foliage, munching flying insects or playing with each other or singing at the top of their lungs in salute of the coming nightfall. But the presence of the Dragons had scared them into hiding. Pip ignored that response in her own breast. She was Dragonkind, only outnumbered a mere five hundred to two.

Above, the form of a lone male Night-Red Dragon detached itself from the hovering throng to wing steadily, unhurriedly down to them. Pip knew his manner for a ploy. Impress upon the victims-to-be their helpless state.

Zardon’s eye-fires blazed balefully as he approached stiffly, his great age evident in every wing-stroke, yet Pip thought him noble, not sad. Brought low, ay, and changed by the Marshal’s Dragon-bending magic, but this was Zardon. Her rescuer. A beast she knew to be torn within, yet could she acknowledge it? Would this Dragonwing not fall upon him, and tear him limb from limb?

Closer and closer he flew, until the hoary old-timer faced them from a mere hundred yards distant, and every sinew in Emblazon’s body thrummed with audible tension, at least to Pip’s imagination. Zardon’s left forepaw was curled beneath him as if he were injured, or did he hold something concealed from view?

Zardon said, The mighty Marshal demands the Onyx Dragoness enter his Island.

And where is this Marshal? Emblazon sneered. Let him show his craven face, not send some paw-licking lackey to irritate our ear-canals with his worthless buzzing.

Muscles twitched along the length of Zardon’s mighty jaw, but he appeared otherwise unmoved. Fiery words are welcome, young Amber, whom I remember from his hatchling years, but serve only to warm the air between us. I bring five hundred Dragons. You are but five.

Six, if they counted Kaiatha. Pip kept silent.

Regretfully, the Onyx declines Marshal Re’akka’s gracious invitation to be moulded into a null-brained, wingless fool, Emblazon sneered.

Ignoring the Amber Dragon as if his words were the wind whispering over the leaves all around him, Zardon said, What of you, Pip? Will you not join your old Dragon?

She said, Zardon, while my hearts sing Dragonsong to find you alive, my eye-fires see you are trapped in a living death. You know I cannot accede. Join us. We have turned one to our side; we will turn many more, until the Marshal is abandoned to his fate. We have the right and you know your actions for evil and dark-fires. Join us, noble Zardon. You are our friend.

Emblazon’s talons hooked up chunks of bark in his outrage at her statement, but the Amber did not interrupt her. Pip wondered at this. Where had this tact sprung from, his evident sensitivity to the nuances of a delicately poised situation? Zardon stared across at them, his eye-fires first brightening in understanding, then growing dimmer as shadows appeared amidst the flames.

Little one, these are the Marshal’s conditions. Surrender yourself, or he will command his Dragon legions to burn these Crescent Islands from their northernmost tip to the southernmost. Regard.

Zardon raised his foreclaw. Pip’s head turned to follow the movement as he indicated the next Island to the southwest of hers, a small, uninhabited volcanic cone swathed in the typical lush vegetation. So suddenly that she voiced a spontaneous squeak of dismay, hundreds of Dragons burst through the cloudbank a quarter-mile above the Island, and swooped. Rank upon rank. A dull roar resounded across the Cloudlands. Flame bloomed before them like a beam of pure suns-light spearing between dark storm-billows, at once beautiful and deadly. For a breathless moment, it seemed the damp foliage would resist that terrible assault. Then, her Dragon sight brought her the detail of foliage exploding into sheets of flame, a conflagration which swiftly engulfed the Island as the Dragons continued to supply fireball after fireball. Sparks leaped thousands of feet into the air, surmounted by an ominous column of dark smoke.

Zardon said, Thus, we will raze every green thing until the Crescent Isles are no more, and you are the last of your race, Pip, and you know the unbearable anguish of being the cause of the Pygmies’ annihilation.

He would not, she wanted to cry. Who could contemplate such a monstrous course of action? Nausea clenched her throat. She dropped her gaze, fighting for composure, seeing in her mind’s eye the battalions of Dragons sweeping over the Crescent, burning, burning, Tik burning, and No’otha, and her parents …

Give us time to consider, o Zardon, Emblazon called. Pip realised he was trying to sound unmoved, but the angst and dark-fire indicators in his Dragonish betrayed him.

You have until suns-set, said Zardon. And Pip …

She raised her muzzle.

What emotion entered his mien now? Sorrow? Regret? The old Dragon said, Though our oath-connection revealed your presence here in the Isles, it was never I who betrayed you. It was this person, who called you ‘demon-child.’ She came to us.

His left forepaw unclenched. Upon his palm, unmoving, lay Pip’s mother.

Desolation swept her Dragon hearts.

Zardon said, Do not fail to return by suns-set, Pip. Do not fail to supply the right answer. For this life is the first which would be forfeit, followed by the lives of all of your tribe. We know where they live.

He did not perceive it. There was no breath on her mother’s lips. She was dead.

* * * *

“No,” Pip moaned.

Returned to their place between the jungle boles, the conversation stuttered amidst helpless realisation. If Pip did not surrender, the Marshal would annihilate her people.

“That’s why he hides in his benighted Island,” Nak said bitterly. “Even should Pip expend a thousand Words downing all those Dragons, the Marshal will simply whistle up a hundred more, or drop the Shadow beast on her. He controls that thing, of that you can be sure. Then, the Pygmies die. We all die.”

“And if Pip does surrender–”

Emblazon drowned Arosia out with a furious bellow, then chopped off his own fires with his tongue. “Sorry, little–Dragon Rider. Continue.”

Arosia said, “What guarantee do we have that the Marshal will keep his word?”

Cinti said, “Word of a Dragon. Even Re’akka will keep that promise. You may think it strange, but Herimor culture lives and breathes honour.”

“A strange form of honour,” Nak growled.

“Ay, strange,” the Dragoness said equably. “Strange, and binding, sometimes beyond death. He will leave the Pygmies alone but continue to trample the rest of the Island-World into dust. We can also be assured of that fact. No. We have about an hour in which to concoct a miracle.”

Pip indicated the scroll-tubes secreted in a backpack attached to Shimmerith’s harness. “We’ve a number of imperatives, some of which conflict with each other. We’ve a duty to keep those beyond the Marshal’s grasp, and to use them to plot his downfall. That requires time and distance from these Night-Reds. We must keep the knowledge in my head away from the Marshal at all costs. We must learn the secret of Re’akka’s hold over the Shadow Dragon, deduce what part Leandrial and Shurgal must play in our fate, and succour the Egg.”

“Why not bid a million stars dance for our amusement?” Emblazon growled horribly, deep in his throat. “No. There must be a way out that involves you not surrendering, Pip. If that happens, we’re lost. The Marshal will suck out your thoughts and turn you into one of his minions. Imagine facing a Pygmy Dragon Assassin with the power of the Word of Command?”

Chymasion said, “She could do anything, shell-father. Sink the Islands. Stop the suns. Send every Dragon living to the eternal fires.”

Much as she wanted to decry their cheerless assessment of the situation, Pip knew they were right. What they required was a small, dark paw to tip the Balance. A paw that would not shirk from doing the unthinkable. Surely it hinged on what the Marshal wanted of her. Assurance of dominance? Or did he have some deeper, darker purpose altogether? She could not imagine. The new knowledge had begun to percolate into her understanding, to meld and morph and grow within her, and that potential–she could not begin to articulate it. Chymasion might be right. Emblazon was correct. Should the Marshal own the Word-power, what could stand against?

Defeat the Marshal, unleash the Shadow. She remembered its restraint that day the beast took Tazzaral and Jyoss. The sense of waiting, of abiding, for an opportunity that would arise between that creature and the Onyx Dragon. The Shadow’s understanding of Balance.

Again, the understanding crystallised within her. She had to change the Balance. How could she gain power over the real demon in the Island-World? Only by being close to the Marshal. Only by stealing his secrets, for her Word had not worked upon it. If the creature was immune to the Word but constrained by Re’akka …

A shiver seemed to pass from her Shapeshifter soul into her Dragonflesh.

Pip? Pip? Silver gazed quizzically at her. Will you open your mind–

No. Oh Silver, darling fire of my hearth, I cannot–don’t you see?

You’re acting weird. Staring into space.

The laughter of starlight. Only that knowledge could rouse her courage from the pit into which it had sunk. An Ancient Dragon claimed kinship with her spirit. A star watched over her. Therefore, she should take them into the Marshal’s presence and let him do battle against Nature’s most primal forces. Or not. She did not know. Tip the Balance. Save lives. Save her people. Avenge her mother. Save the Dragons.

One simple factor consumed all else. The Marshal must be removed from the equation.

Impulsively Pip sprang upward, talons extending to grip a leaning tree trunk thirty feet overhead of the group. Every eye turned to follow her movement, startled. And into that moment, she spoke a Word of Command.

Be still.

Chapter 22: Inside the Island

ANTS, FROZEN IN amber. Time encapsulated. Petrified, yet alive.

Lithely, Pip landed on the soft soil. She was the only one who moved in that congregation, save for the faint hissing of draconic breath and the beating of hearts. Her Word of Command owned every particle of their bodies, but their senses remained intact. That was a mystery, one she would contemplate another day, should she live to see it.

Pip gazed at her beloved friends one by one, seeing them, imprinting them on her mind and in her heart. For if she did not return …

“Mercy,” she whispered at last. “Mercy, mercy, mercy … what have I done? What will I do?”

Please, Fra’anior, grant a Pygmy girl the courage to seize her destiny in both paws and haul it around each of the five moons, and the twin suns for good measure. For that was her assessment of their chances.

“Dear friends,” she began, and choked up.

Island vines, rise up and throttle that Marshal! Islands, fall upon him and crush him! Storms, throw his Island back into the abyss from which it rose!

She tried again, desperately unsteady of voice, “Dear friends, I do not leave you because I have no choice, but because I believe there are still choices which can be made. I will not surrender to Marshal Re’akka. No, I will fight him with every breath of my body and every scrap of fire in my soul, and if I cannot win, I will die rather than give him what he wants. I promise you that. I promise, and give you permission to slay me without qualm or second thought, should that terrible day come to pass.”

“I go, because the only way to defeat the Marshal is to get close to him. The only way to defeat the Shadow is to know its secrets. We cannot separate the two. Both must be defeated; their fates are inextricably bound up in each other. Understand that I go, because the Marshal cannot turn my mind. He must not. The Words dwell in my Pygmy memory, a living kind of memory, and if that alters, then his cause is lost and my power is denied to him forever.”

She surveyed them, but not one eye blinked in response. They could not. Almost, she wished to loosen the magical shackles that bound them against any form of reply.

Pip clenched her talons in the deep muck layered beneath the trees. “I must go … I can’t explain it in every detail, dear ones, for Re’akka might turn that knowledge against me. I simply know that this Balance cannot be allowed to stand.” She gazed at her paws, panting heavily. “For the sake of my people, it must be done. Their destruction would wound Fra’anior as nothing else. If I am the child of his spirit, then I must trust him to protect me.”

“I go for you. I go, because I love you.”

Again, her courage failed. She began to mouth another Word, tasted it upon her tongue, but did not allow it form and substance. Pip shuddered, feeling that if she had been in her Human manifestation just then, she might have sweated her own blood.

“Silver, I’m not on some ‘only Pip can do this’ trip. You must take these scrolls and use their knowledge and hide them far from the reach of Marshal Re’akka and his ilk. Silver, I …”

She raised her paw to his cheek. I love you, my beautiful Silver.

Her tongue could not be trusted to speak more, or she might reveal all. Quietly, Pip said, “When I leave, I will incite the Night-Reds. You will hear their response. At that moment you must snatch the opportunity to make good your escape. Shield, fly low, and don’t look back. Don’t even think about me. Silver, don’t do anything rash. Go to the Academy and prepare for the final battle. If it is at all in my power, by any miracle above the Cloudlands or beneath these heavens, I swear I will join you there in readiness to defeat the Marshal and this Shadow.”

LET … IT … BE!

Pip’s head spun as the entire Island-World seemed to shudder beneath her paws. She glanced about wildly. Fra’anior?

The faraway thunder rolled on and on, before fading into silence.

At last, her heart knew steel and valour, and the incongruous joy of Dragonsong. This was her choice. Pip of the Pygmies would shake the heavens.

Quickly, she touched her friends each one, murmuring, Love you. Love you, Shimmerith. Love you, Arosia, Oyda, Nak–don’t take this declaration the wrong way, you ridiculous old cliff-goat–love you, Chymasion and Cinti, Silver, Elder No’otha, warriors who I’m sorry I don’t know your names, and you, my precious father …

Grievous fires seared her Dragon hearts. Yet she must, at last, turn and reach for the skies. This Pygmy girl would fly, or die trying.

* * * *

Pip’s muzzle broached the final leafy screen guarding the sanctity of the open skies like a vole peeking from its burrow, scenting the air for predators. Briefly, she imagined launching into the beyond, unfettered by fate or circumstance. She felt the weight of lives keenly, not least that of her mother. It seemed someone else’s paws pushed her out into the open, climbing a branch ten feet wide, placing her squarely at the focal centre of hundreds of hostile fire-eyes.

Magic swelled within her breast, again with the inkling that the idea had not quite originated within the confines of her own mind. An unfamiliar pain grew behind her breastbone. Indigestion? Surely not such a banal problem. Pip sensed valves constricting in concert with those rising potentials. Her innards shifted, concentrating the power–oh, that was wild–she suddenly bared her fangs in a fine draconic grin, having a suspicion of what this might mean. Fra’anior had his legendary powers. If she was also Onyx, might she have inherited something of his fabled Storm? Not that she had ever loosed so much as a spark of electricity in any of her brief experiences as a Dragoness.

If she was right, it was time to greet Zardon and his cronies as they deserved.

Pip sprang eagerly into the air. Fate could just work on keeping up. With an efficient clip of her wings, she angled for Zardon, hovering a little beneath the orderly ranks of Night-Reds. The old Shapeshifter certainly ran a tight Dragonship. No bolt-hole had been left open, high or low, or at any point of the compass. Mercy, let her magic release her friends as planned …

She slowed in front of Zardon. I have come, you old fire-eater.

I knew you would. He bared his fangs.

She answered him tooth for tooth, in number at least. She had no answer for the size and menace of his lazy snarl. Planning to keep a Pygmy Dragoness in a cage is a perilous prospect, Zardon.

You would bare your fangs at me, little mouse?

Every scale on her body bristled with fury. Little mouse? She was Dragonkind! They had killed her mother! Zardon stiffened slightly in response, still subtly mocking in his relaxed mid-air attitude. Pip’s throat worked as if the muscles were tying themselves into a Dragonship Steersman’s knots. She recalled the Hatchling-Mother Imogiel’s sage advice. ‘A Dragon’s wings know what to do, Pip. Relax. Let your instincts rule.’ That was before her ecstatic first flight. Accordingly, she relaxed those points of pressure she felt inside.

Mistake! Momentarily, she panicked. The Dragon power roared forth regardless.

WHHEEIII-BOOOOMM!!

Thunder and storm winds smashed Zardon aside and blew a hole fifty Dragons wide in his blockade. Pip, unfortunately, found herself tumbling in exactly the opposite direction, victim of her own deed. Instinctively, she waited. She must seize the element of surprise. The instant Zardon’s massed Dragonwing reacted to her challenge, startling out of their immobility, Pip performed a simultaneous barrel-roll and a forward somersault, changing her orientation in the air. She pumped her wings.

I’m yours if you can catch me, you herd of corpulent, yammering ralti sheep!

Roaring rajals, had she really just discovered a new Dragon power? Shimmerith had taught her that fledglings often experienced ‘leaps’ of ability as their innate magic developed. The Sapphire had come into her lightning powers early on, but only learned to shield four years later. And the powers continued to develop, with instruction or experimentation. Hadn’t Shimmerith used chain lightning for the first time in the battle with the Night-Red Dragonwing over Sylakia?

Thoughts and impressions raced through her mind, Dragon speed. Mistake? No way! Every muscle was primed for action, her body thrumming to the exhilarating, maddening Dragonsong of battle. Pip flexed her jaw, feeling the magic gathering again with shocking speed, the sharp stabbing beneath her breastbone … hold it, wait for the right opportunity … she braced herself.

WHHEEIII-AARRGGHH!

Whatever mess the Storm power made of her battle-challenge, it was also remarkably effective. And terribly draining. Blasting Dragons left and right with the power of her Storm-fuelled winds, regardless of any shields or other draconic magic, Pip shot through the new gap in their ranks with a pert waggle of her tail and a rude wingtip-gesture she had learned from Silver. That was enough to break their discipline. A rippling roar of draconic fury thundered over the Isles as the dark Dragons turned as one beast to chase her, responding to the ancient instincts of their kind. No Dragon could fail to react to the brash challenge of a much smaller creature.

The Onyx Dragoness led five hundred Dragons a merry chase westward over the Isles while, she prayed, her companions would wake and snatch their opportunity with paws or hands or whatever it took to slip through the Marshal’s clutches.

Pip managed an hour’s flight before exhaustion overtook her completely. One moment she was fleeing ahead of the Dragon Assassins, the next, her wings took it upon themselves to fold up mid-stroke. Her flight muscles seized up in one gigantic cramp that squeezed her chest as she imagined an Ancient Dragon might squeeze an Island into shape, and she was done for. Falling. It was neither her proudest nor most elegant moment.

Zardon it was who caught her–not quite the rheumy old dodderer she had taken him for–cuffed her several times about the ear-canals as if chastising a hatchling, and then threw her to his Dragon-kin for a dint more rough treatment.

Just don’t kill her, were his orders. Pip caught a flash of a smirk before she found herself the quarry in a large, ugly game of swat-the-Dragoness. She curled up as tightly as she could, and endured.

It was worse than she could have imagined.

Then, clasped in Zardon’s talons, the semi-conscious, battered Dragoness found herself whisked away southward, toward the Marshal’s lair.

* * * *

Eridoon Island hung over the void against a purpling horizon, much as Pip’s bruises were already purpling, she imagined. Eerie lavender forests bearded its sweeping heights, while the dense clumps of moss still remaining on its flanks, thirty feet thick in places from what her Dragon vision made out, supported a cornucopia of unfamiliar animal and bird life–long-legged, hopping mice and burrowing voles the size of medium-sized felines, and many species of long-tailed, long-crested warblers or bee-eaters. The real shock was the Island’s lack of foundation. Nothing beneath. No supports below, no hooks to dangle it from the falcate Yellow moon, looming overhead as though frowning upon the deeds of Man and Dragon.

A faint thrumming of localised, exotic magic made her spine spikes tingle. Ay, raising an Island was a feat to rival the power of the Ancient Dragons. How could the Marshal bear that drain? Just a couple of thunder-blasts, or a single Word of Command, and she felt ready to sleep for ten years.

Zardon swept over the Island’s mountainous brow and down toward a great artificial hole carved into its heart. Dragons streamed into that hole from all directions, vanishing into the gloom like bats returning to a cave. Thousands of Dragons. Perhaps the greatest draconic army ever assembled; and she chose to toss herself gaily into their midst?

A frisson of anticipation-terror stroked her spine. If there was mercy beneath the heavens, Pip prayed, let light enter this place of darkness. Zardon had been her light. May she pass that torch on.

Transform, Zardon commanded.

Uh … I don’t have sufficient magic, Zardon.

Then partake of mine.

Even with help, Pip struggled to make her transformation. Master Kassik had warned her. There was a stretching sensation, a sense of pushing through layers of dark, dense material while generalised pain spread through her Dragon-being. Then, snap! She was Human, and Zardon’s talons adjusted to prevent her slipping between his knuckles.

Still the noble Zardon I knew, she said.

I serve the Marshal unswervingly.

Pip considered not stirring trouble for a period approximating half a beat of a hummingbird’s wings. No. She should be true to her nature. Pip said, But I know differently, Zardon, for I am your Rider. I’ve seen you standing there before the First Egg …

Silence! Zardon’s paw tightened. You know not what you say.

To her shock, runes burst into flaming life within her mind, ever so briefly, before expiring and leaving her with a fine headache. A warning. The Marshal would use that knowledge against them. He already knew, having wrested that knowledge from Zardon’s mind.

She shivered against the jail-bars of his fist.

Slowing now with outspread wings, the old Dragon Shapeshifter descended into the hole, four thousand feet in diameter, bored directly into the Island’s basal rock. To every side, she saw the oval entrances of tunnels apparently lit by Dragon lights set at intervals in sconces recessed in the tunnel walls and ceilings. The arriving Dragons dived into these tunnels, each wide enough to accommodate two fully-grown adults flying side-by-side. They passed seven layers of tunnels before Zardon clipped his wings to take them into a tunnel larger than the others. Lights blurred by. Pip caught flashes of massive storage caverns, wide, flat caverns that appeared to be filled with strange, stunted fruit-trees growing beneath glaring lights, great bubbling vats giving rise to horrid, nostril-searing odours, and everywhere, small pale Humans hooded and clad in tan robes, tending the machinery of the Marshal’s war operation. Clamouring forges producing what appeared to be Dragon armour. Underground lakes. Repair shops. Lines of men bowed beneath huge sacks of meal and great slabs of meat. Roosts where tens of Dragons slept flank-to-flank. Unbelievable. Pip could not take it all in.

Shortly, the wide tunnel curved and Zardon turned down a side tunnel, rapidly descending a further half-mile or more into the Island’s grey-grained, granite bowels. A pressure swelled against her mind, bringing strange white-fires to her vision …

The Egg, said Zardon. Such power. Inconceivable power. To think the Ancient Dragons bathed in the power of the twin suns, and forged their creative works with the output of volcanoes born in the Island-World’s core.

Zardon, what does the Marshal want with me? Will he keep his promise?

Ay, I believe he will. He is honourable in a sense which is hard to fathom. Should I know his thoughts? Does he not wish to hatch this First Egg, and thus gain power to rule the world?

Did he not effectively rule the Island-World already? This powerful an army would sweep the Dragon Rider Academy off the map forever.

Zardon flared his wings, landing beside a huge iron doorway which had to be the entrance of a dungeon. The area stank of sweat and blood, oil and fear. Curious. Her Dragon senses could sometimes augment her Human senses, making them extraordinarily sensitive. More proof of the oneness of her Human and Dragon forms. The door slid open soundlessly. Zardon stalked within, all dark menace and power; the septet of Night-Red Dragons guarding the entryway bowed their muzzles.

Commander.

Ay. Take this one down to the Shapeshifter holding chambers.

The special–

Zardon cut the Dragon off with a low growl, Do your duty, Dragon.

He passed Pip over. She shivered, rubbing her arms. Perhaps it was not as chilly inside the Island as she had expected, but she had no clothing and had not eaten since the morning. The Night-Red pushed her unceremoniously down a long, rough-hewn rock tunnel. Barred cells lined both sides, numbering in their hundreds, each housing a miserable-looking collection of Humans. A few larger cells held Dragons. Pip wondered why Marshal Re’akka kept all of these people. Political prisoners? They gazed dully at her, seemingly incapable of reaction or curiosity. Had her mother died of fright, or ill health, cold and alone in this place?

At the end of that gallery of misery, the Dragon pushed her through another metal door. The air changed. Magic? That slight scent of subterfuge, of mutability? The Dragon did not pause. Taking a left turn at a T-junction, he walked another couple of hundred feet before the grey stone passageway ended abruptly in a chamber sized for a single Human prisoner. Only a Dragon hatchling could have fit within. A single Dragon light affixed to the roof lit the cheerless room. She peered at the oddly ribbed walls. Rust-red, they curved around the floor, walls and ceiling, enclosing the chamber in its entirety.

Dragon bones, chortled her jailor. He shoved her within.

Pip stumbled beneath the forceful blow and fell, slamming her nose on one of the ribs. By the time she turned, the Dragon had retreated down the tunnel, and a broad section of stone was sliding across the entryway.

She cried, No …

Two hundred feet of solid rock in every direction, said the Dragon. Sleep well, Pygmy girl.

The stone slid flush against the far wall, the inner part again covered in Dragon bones that fit seamlessly with the rest of the chamber.

Pip was alone. Trapped in Re’akka’s lair.

* * * *

Hours passed. Days, perhaps. Pip did not know. She was aware of magic working strangely upon her mind. She dreamed eerie, frightening dreams of events and places she did not understand, and Dragons she had never met. Time telescoped strangely around her, sometimes seeming to rush along like a powerful river, at other times stalling or slipping away from her like a trout escaping a Pygmy hunter’s cunning hand.

At intervals an elderly servant appeared, once to bring her a blanket, other times to supply a bowl of tasteless, never-changing stew and a gourd of water, other times to remove and replace the waste-bucket. The man never spoke.

When she roused herself to fight, it was to realise that magic did not work in her cell. Somehow, that capability seemed muted. It did not feel like the absence of magic caused by her poisoning, but rather as if even the idea of magic was unthinkable. Her magic would not work, she came to believe. Without night or day, time was marked only by the servants’ irregular appearances, and the perception that from time to time, a predatory pair of eyes watched her from an unknown location, burning yellow eyes, measuring, judging, probing.

Pip gave the eyes no quarter. Though she had started weak and abused, and felt herself growing steadily weaker, there was in her psyche an adamantine core forged of suffering and pain, Pygmy stubbornness and draconic willpower, that remained inviolable. The yellow eyes burned that fortress pitilessly, but as Silver had found, her paucity of physical dimensions was not reflected in the makeup and disposition of her character. She took encouragement from the yellow-eyed being’s flashes of vexation. Always, she returned to the little blue star’s laughter. It was balm to her tortured spirit and a panacea for her grief. She thought of each of her friends in turn, and held them dear. For these, she told herself. It was for love she had entered the beast’s den.

Yet there came a time she realised that her spirit’s hold on her mortal flesh was weakening. If she did not escape this dungeon, she would die.

Chapter 23: Interloper

SILVER REGARDED EMBLAZON with his jaw set in stony defiance. “Ay, I am determined upon this crazy course of action, as you call it. My shell-mother’s training is complete. She’s a mistress of disguise, for the magic of Herimor runs thick in her veins.”

He spoke Island Standard for the benefit of the others.

Here, fifty leagues north of where Pip had ambushed her friends, the jungle had once more gathered the Dragons and Riders into its warming embrace. Silver had never imagined coming to regard impenetrable jungles as a Nature-mother, nurturing and protective of Her own. Yet Pip called this place home. She had blossomed here–did her actions not scream that fact until the exquisite enormity of her sacrifice resounded to the very stars? Even now, four days later, his Dragon hearts sang at the memory. I love you, my beautiful Silver. Crazy, wilful, exasperating Pygmy mite!

Unexpectedly, Emblazon lowered his great amber muzzle from its twenty-five foot elevation, to nuzzle the Shapeshifter’s neck in a brotherly-love gesture. “I would commend and encourage you, my wing-brother. Your white-fires burn with all purity. I wish you clear skies and strength. Chymasion?”

“Eridoon Island continues to forge westward,” said the youngster. “It seems Marshal Re’akka would plot his course directly across the Middle Sea, now that his Dragonwings have finally lifted their paw from the Crescent Islands.” Across from him, Shimmerith’s eye-fires gleamed with evident pride in the Jade Dragon’s efficient assessment. “Further, my Rider and I conclude the Marshal has captured what he always wanted most–Pip. Her knowledge and skills. There is nothing left here for him.”

“Save the scrolls,” said Kaiatha. “We must discharge our responsibility to Pip. If we return via Sylakia, we could quickly check on Masters Balthion and Kassik, and Casitha.”

Nak said, “So, we’re in a race to the Academy.”

“We’ll win!” Emblazon, Shimmerith and Cinti growled simultaneously.

“Hmm. Not if we’re the love-flight,” Nak snorted, turning a jaundiced eye upon Jerrion, who shrugged massively. “Master Adak will dice you up for kebabs, large as you are.”

“Love chooses us,” said Jerrion, indicating his diminutive Pygmy consort-to-be, who dimpled and made moon-eyes in return. She was cute. Not Pip-cute, Silver hastily corrected his thoughts–argh, treachery from his own mind!

“You two don’t understand a word the other says!”

“Since when does love entail speech?” asked the giant, apparently amazed there should be any doubt cast over his intended liaison. “She’s Master Adak’s niece. Everything will work out.”

Nak snorted a second time, more loudly and rudely than the first. “After he’s finished carving his initials on your–”

“Nak!” snapped Oyda. “Alright, everyone, time to say your farewells. Silver has his own love-boat to catch. Literally.”

Silver laughed, but fumed inwardly. These Northerners were crazy and hilarious in equal measure. One day, he might even understand a sense of humour that guffawed in the face of annihilation. Until then, he would chase a crazy girl who knocked out her friends for love before flying right into the evil overlord’s lair. He could not help but admire her spirit. She drove him to distraction–yet, what a girl! She would have taken nursery battles to a whole new level.

But his shell-father was not one to be trifled with. Pip was too fresh from the jungle to comprehend the power of an ancient Shapeshifter like the Marshal. Oh, Silver knew better than to offer his help. No, what was required was a more guileful approach. An approach worthy of every ounce of a Herimor’s devious, conniving heritage.

He would woo her right out from beneath Re’akka’s nose, with an act of real courage.

A sacrifice.

With a final, mighty slap of Emblazon’s paw to speed him on his way, Silver darted between the great trees, careless now of the smells of wet mulch and jungle flowers, or the moist tang of the vast, airy beyond, the realm of Dragons. All that mattered was the hunt.

I’m coming for you, shell-father. You have something that belongs to me.

No, that jungle girl could never be owned. A fierce joy pervaded the Silver Dragon’s hearts as he spread his wings above the abyss. For the first time since the Pygmy Dragoness had crushed his hopes and brought him low, he felt truly alive, infused with a sense of righteous purpose. Marshal Re’akka had to fall. And he was the silver spear who would pierce his father’s evil ambitions.

This would be the greatest battle of his life.

* * * *

The Dragon Assassins, four strong, moved Pip to a new room. Again it was stark, buried deep, comprised of nothing but Dragon bones enclosing a chamber somewhere in the Island’s granite bowels. The dominant feature was a monolithic block of metal planted squarely in the room’s centre, one surface of which was canted at fifteen degrees from the vertical, and sported manacles better suited to securing a Dragon’s limbs, never mind a Pygmy girl.

Should she feel flattered?

Her mind seemed as sluggish as a giant land snail, reluctant to form coherent thoughts. Pip wondered if this was the start of physical torture, now that the magical torture had concluded. Perhaps they intended to gut her or … worse. Oh please, not that. She could think of so many creative ways a Dragon might torture a Human, never mind a Shapeshifter of Re’akka’s reputed power.

A trio of the ubiquitous tan-clad servants bustled about, clamping her bodily to the table. Oddly, the great bands of metal appeared to flow and adjust, covering her outspread arms from wrist to elbow, and each splayed leg from ankle to knee. She supposed the position was designed to make her feel vulnerable. If so, it succeeded. Not even a Dragon’s paw could have torn her off the metal block now. The servants fastened a thick metal gag over her mouth, ostensibly to preclude the possibility of her uttering a Word of Command. The metal flowed as well, a touch of cool magic as it conformed to her face and invaded her mouth. Ugh.

So, magic was possible in this room? She snatched up that nugget of hope. So far her clever plan of getting close to the Marshal appeared to have come woefully unhinged.

Pip waited and waited. After a time, her eyelids shuttered.

She dreamed of standing on a desolate mountaintop, upon the peak of a dormant volcano. All the Island-World spread out before her. Every realm, every people, all its riches and glory and honour were exposed to her view. There would be adulation, even worship, when she assumed her rightful position of rulership. In her ear, a voice wheedled, ‘You can have all this if you yield to me.’ Over and over, the voice called to her, threatened, pestered with promises no sane person would ever consider.

She found her voice. It was sevenfold, the voice of an Ancient Dragon as she remembered it.

The wheedling presence vanished with a sharp cry.

Pip’s eyes snapped open.

It was him. Marshal Re’akka; it could be no other.

A man stood framed in the doorway, straightening with a tiny movement as her black eyes lit upon him. He was tall and lean, his spare frame swathed in robes of earthy orange, the colour of a fiery dawn sky. He wore black trousers tucked into what Silver had described as Herimor-style boots, mid-calf black leather with a thick, fancy black collar tooled with a silver overlay of Dragon runes, expressing ancient wards of power and protection in a Herimor script. The flame-coloured robe and his dark, high-necked shirt set off the pale skin of his hands and neck. Sleek, pure white hair framed his face, which might once have been youthful, but now the eyes appeared sunken in their sockets, underscored by dark sleep-rings, as hooded as a snake’s gaze. Jutting brows and high cheekbones lent the Marshal’s visage that angular Herimor cast which in Silver was so attractive, but upon his shell-father only served to appear gaunt.

Ay, the resemblance was unmistakable despite the disparity in height. But where the son’s eyes had silver irises and a youthful openness about them, the father’s were as yellow as Dragon fire, yet cloudy in their depths, eyes that hinted at great secrets and power; utterly, fearfully hypnotic.

“Welcome to my Island home, Pygmy girl,” he said, in an accent filled with lilting Herimor tones. “You beat my shell-son twice, turned him to your cause, stole his hearts and abandoned him callously at the last.”

She swallowed a wordless squeak of dismay.

“Oh, yes. I see the fear lurking in your eyes. Don’t worry, you and I have much in common. I’m going to enjoy convincing you to share all your little secrets. And when you’ve spilled the waters of your life upon this cold, unfeeling metal, I will convert you to my cause, as I have done thousands of Dragons greater than you.”

She distilled all of her fear and loathing into one simple response. Try your worst, Re’akka. I will never yield.

He laughed softly. “Giving up too soon would’ve spoiled it for both of us. You outmatched my shell-son. That offence will be avenged. And then I will teach you what it means to spite the most powerful Dragon in the Island-World.”

Most powerful? You sad fool. Fra’anior has more power in his littlest talon–

Pip gurgled as the air stopped in her throat.

Re’akka said, “I don’t suppose you’ve encountered Kinetic power yet, have you, little girl? I can rearrange your innards with a thought. Squeeze your liver. Play with your heart, like this.”

Pip felt her eyes bulge at a sickening sensation inside her chest.

“The possibilities are endless.” Marshal Re’akka stepped into the room, drawing the stone door shut behind him with a single, careless thought. “Shall we begin?”

* * * *

Fifty leagues Silver flew in the course of three hours, aiming to catch up with the Island at the hour appointed for the Dragonwings’ return, should they be within range. Odd, how Re’akka insisted on that regulation. Now that he considered it, there was much about his father he did not know. That was the man’s nature. Secretive. Obsessive. Suspicious about everyone and everything. Cruel to the core.

Pip was in his clutches. Helpless rage swelled his belly-fires.

Hold on, Pip. Help is at hand.

Just five leagues or so beyond the line demarcating the Crescent Isles’ ascent from the Cloudlands, Eridoon Island sailed steadily westward, making its slow but inexorable advance. All he saw was a dark silhouette against the setting suns as the twins followed each other down toward the horizon, partially eclipsed by the Yellow Moon. Spectacular swathes of vermilion and bronze spanned the western skies. Flight after flight of Night-Reds swarmed toward the Island, what Silver sincerely hoped was the final withdrawal of the Marshal’s army from the Crescent. Four Dragonwings of a hundred strong each had travelled northward as they hid amongst the Islands after Pip’s abrupt departure, bound for who knew where–subjugating troublesome Islands, most likely.

Did the Dragons return each night to renew their obedience to the Master? He had assumed the physical changes to be permanent, but Cinti’s colour had been lightening by the day. Was that the result of Pip’s work in conquering his shell-mother’s mind, or a natural result of her distance from Re’akka’s imprinting chambers?

Once, Silver had considered his mental powers preeminent in the Island-World. Then, a tiny dark weapon had disarmed him completely. But he could still teach Her Inimitable Littleness a few tricks. The heavily shielded Dragon angled for the nearest Island.

Time to put on a show.

Half an hour later, a smallish Night-Red lifted from the Island. He limped through the air as if wounded. Silver had chuckled at his reflection in a pond. What Herimor glamour-magic could not achieve, with the help of an expert! His mother’s mental construct had allowed Silver to rapidly and faithfully recreate every detail of a Night-Red’s appearance, but the real secret was integrating that appearance into a Dragon-shaped shield that was, in reality, nothing more than highly compressed air. Even to close inspection or touch, his Dragon form would appear and feel authentic–considerably larger than his real Dragon’s size, to be sure, but Cinti had been convinced a small Night-Red would attract suspicion. The Marshal fed the little ones to the Shadow Dragon.

The shielding even modified the airflow over his wings. Silver practised carefully, making his adjustments as he winged out over the Middle Sea, that great blank space on the map that eventually led thousands of leagues to Jeradia and the Western Isles.

Next, he extended his mind to apply an advanced technique Master Ga’am had introduced during his training, a means to modify the magical signature of a Dragon. Every Dragon left a detectable aurora-trail in the magical sphere, an idea similar to Leandrial’s Balance, he imagined. Pip did have to keep speaking to legends, didn’t she? Silver suppressed an acid spurt of draconic jealousy. If he claimed to love her, he would have to work on keeping up with those little idiosyncrasies, like speaking to Ancient Dragons and making the odd Island-shaking oath. Though he had a few fiery words he owed Zardon! Fancy taking advantage of a naïve girl he pulled out of a cage?

Silver flew steadily toward Eridoon, covering the distance in an unhurried half-hour. He approached the Island just as the suns dipped beneath the horizon.

He started as a huge Night-Red appeared out of the gloom. Had a little trouble out there, wing-brother?

The tone was scathing. Feral Red, Silver grunted, maintaining his course.

The other returned a grunt of his own. Still a few left, eh? Go get cleaned up. The Marshal doesn’t like stragglers. Feeds them to his little pet.

Silver bared his fangs and angled for the entrance to his old home.

Long habit almost made Silver choose the tunnel that led to the inner chambers, those inhabited by Marshal Re’akka’s shell-children. He stuttered at the last instant and chose another tunnel at random. He tried to fly nonchalantly, acting as if he belonged. He joined other Dragons in the waterfall-baths, so necessary in Herimor where the scale-rot and other Dragon diseases spread so quickly. Northern Dragons seemed so much more casual about cleanliness.

Fledgling, are you new around here?

Just finished in the chambers, Silver lied glibly. First patrol and picked up a wound. I’ll get better.

A couple of other Dragons peered at him through the waterfalls pouring from the cave’s roof. The others had already moved on to the feeding or sleeping areas. One said, Go see the healers, youngling. Don’t want you spreading infections here.

Silver inclined his muzzle respectfully. As you command, flight-leader.

Flight-leader? The other laughed. Trying to earn wingtip-favour, are you? Go cosy up to another Dragoness. You’re too scrawny for me.

Actually, heading to the healing pens was a smart idea. Silver silently thanked the Night-Red. Up there, it would be quieter and he could find a place to transform, steal a drudge’s outfit, try to find Pip … which would be difficult. He had no idea where the Marshal kept prisoners, especially ones as important as her.

Silver shook the water off his fake hide, and headed for the vertical tunnels which would take him up to the healer-Dragons. One paw before the next, Shapeshifter.

* * * *

Marshal Re’akka pushed away from his victim, sniffing the air with a distinctly draconic toss of his head. “Odd. I sense a presence …”

Pip groaned into her gag. She had been beaten and tormented, twisted and pummelled until every organ in her body felt as though it had been permanently rearranged, and she had long since given up the idea of remaining strong and silent. She had screamed until her throat was raw. She had wept, pleading without shame or dignity and voided her bowels uncontrollably. Then, cradling her head from behind with his long, spiderlike fingers, the Marshal had started on her mind.

She did not know how she had resisted him. The Marshal’s irritation had soon reached boiling point; she could still feel and hear the impact of his psychic hammer-blows in her memory.

To the watch-Dragon, he said, “Leave her shackled here but summon a healer. We’ll start again in the morning. I’ll have fresh ideas for you, girl. Your own mother calls you a demon-child. Maybe I’ll twist your ovaries so that you can never whelp any demon-spawn of your own.”

His vile threat rolled over her like distant fire. Struggling to focus her mind, Pip whispered in telepathic Dragonish, You’re still … a sad … fool.

Re’akka stormed out.

That was her victory. A small payback to the torturer.

* * * *

For Pip, the days and hours began to blur together, demarcated by eating, sleeping, being tortured by the Marshal, and being healed by a procession of different Dragon Assassin healers so that she could be tortured all the more. Re’akka learned she did not fear to die. He learned she would not yield no matter how creatively he applied his powers. Each time he left, Re’akka returned fresh to the fray. Pip wondered if he used the First Egg to renew his strength. Eschewing physical torture, he concentrated on her mind, driving her to insane levels of agony as he applied force and guile to the Dragon egg she imagined her mind to be. Only the Dragon within could break the shell.

Each time he left, or just before he left, she would whisper in her mind, You sad fool. It became her mantra. Her pinpricks.

It struck Pip one such occasion, amidst the flames of burning as Re’akka assaulted her mind with his titanic strength, that if she could isolate part of her mind to resist him, then she could isolate the whole and not have her thought processes fogged by the chamber’s magic. And if his magic or the healer Dragons’ magic worked within the chamber, why should hers fizzle and fail? This conundrum she could not puzzle out. But as her mind cleared, the Pygmy girl began to observe the Marshal closely, and from observation she turned to active plotting, and from plotting to outright sabotage.

First, she fell back on her memories of her friends and reminded herself over and over again why she had chosen this course. Then she thought upon Silver, taking strength from the fact that he lived to oppose the Marshal, and he and the others would have returned to the Academy with the scrolls. Surely, they would describe a way to defeat the enemy? She reviewed her expanded knowledge of the Word of Command, finding the magical constructs frightening in scope yet limited in peculiar ways. It did not allow mind reading or mind control. According to the lore, that was a different branch of magic altogether, an ancient, forbidden lore called ruzal. So much for borrowing a few of the Marshal’s thoughts. Most of the Words operated on the physical world. Influence in the spiritual realms was limited, and in the magical, apparently illimitable. Use of a Word was fraught with danger, especially if the Word was turned on oneself, as she had done once already.

She always came back to one truth–her Word had not worked on the Shadow Dragon. The beast was apparently immune. It all hinged on the Marshal. He controlled the Shadow. He was the key.

Whipped on by the unrelenting stress and trauma, unforeseen thoughts or ideas surfaced in her mind, forcing Pip to reevaluate her experiences, to link them in new ways. As a healer worked on her one day, preparing her for the Marshal’s next bout of creativity, she recalled the laughter of starlight and allowed it to brighten places torn and abused by Re’akka’s ministrations.

Blue-star and Balance.

The healer-Dragon stared at her. What did you just say? Where am I?

Pip eyed the huge female Night-Red with wary surprise. Habitually the healers stood just outside the small chamber, pushing their muzzle and right forepaw inside in order to touch Pip to work on her. There was something of Cinti about this Dragonsong, perhaps a common heritage? And a sweet, beautiful melody of Dragonsong began to pulse through Pip’s veins as her intuition roared forth like wildfire. Oh, mercy! Could this be done? A change of the Balance?

When she did not speak, the Dragoness peered at Pip as though seeing her for the first time. I feel as if I have slept. Why do I dream of stars? Why am I healing you? Have you been tortured? By whom?

Her mouth having been left unfettered to receive food and water, Pip said in Dragonish, Marshal Re’akka of Eridoon holds many Dragons captive here in his floating Island, noble Dragoness. You are his captive, tainted by a foul brand of magic. He has been torturing me for my knowledge of magic.

The Night-Red gasped, I know … now I understand!

A roar echoed down the corridor. Pip said, The Marshal comes! Quick–

The Dragoness shook her head. I cannot live with this dishonour. Farewell, Human child who shone starlight into my fire-eyes.

She backed out, turned, and launched herself out of Pip’s sight with a resounding battle-challenge. There was a mighty shout, a ringing clash of metal and the sound of a huge body thudding to the ground. Boots tapped sharply, rushing closer. Running.

The Marshal burst in, cursing in his native Herimor dialect.

Pip began to laugh. Great, relieving, reckless heaves vibrated her body against the huge manacles. Oh, it hurt so badly to laugh, but it was good. So freeing!

“You!” Storming across the chamber, the Marshal lashed out, splitting her lip with his fist.

She laughed harder. Oh, blue-star, grant her the power to laugh forever!

“What the hells are you laughing at?” roared Re’akka, his face purpling with wrath. “I captured you. Tortured you! Look at your pathetic, battered little body, stretched out on this rack, stinking of your own faeces, bereft of magic and all your vaunted Onyx Dragon power. You are mine! I can do anything I like to you!”

Pip licked the blood trickling down her lip.

Composed now, she chuckled quietly, “You thought to break me, Marshal Re’akka. But I have broken you. You truly are a sad, sad fool.”

Chapter 24: Shades of Impossibility

SILVER STOOD IN the Marshal’s bedchamber, watching the altercation in the dungeons with his ghastly pallor superimposed over the image in the mirror. All the blood had drained from his face; from his heart, even. Pip! Oh, Pip, standing up to his shell-father in a way Silver had never imagined!

It had been difficult to break into the routines of the drudges. Every movement of every day was orchestrated. No-one seemed to know anything about the underground layout of the Island, much less where his girlfriend might be held. Eventually, after a fruitless week wasted trying to drop his questions here and there, Silver determined a new course of action. He would find and confront his father directly. Winning his way to the bedchamber involved slaying and impersonating five different servants as he worked his way into the inner sanctum. Here, his father’s absence had rung loudly in the aether, but Silver had spied a magical mirror linked to a Dragon’s Eye elsewhere in the fortress. He had activated the mirror in time to see Re’akka thunder into the chamber and strike the Pygmy girl a fearsome blow.

Her poor, swollen mouth moved; the voice emerged tinny but clear enough to understand, “You thought to break me, Marshal Re’akka. But I have broken you. You truly are a sad, sad fool.”

Silver’s fingers twisted his cleaning cloth into knots. His jaw not only dropped, it practically bounced off the floor near his boots. Re’akka had underestimated her. So had he. Pip was not pushing up fireflowers or a mindless thrall of the Marshal’s. She was laughing at him. Laughing.

Impossible!

Just then, a noise in the doorway alerted him. Silver whirled.

Islands’ greetings, Silver, said the old Shapeshifter, Zardon, now Commander of the Dragon Assassins. Your father has been waiting to speak with you.

He reacted as quickly as thought, but the tall, uniformed Shapeshifter only shook his head slightly. Silver’s mental attack sputtered and died. How? He had been prepared. Somehow, Re’akka had detected or anticipated his arrival.

Zardon stepped forward, nodding toward the mirror. Young man, you’ve made a terrible miscalculation. You’ve given the Marshal the tools he requires to control her. May there be mercy for us all.

A slight hissing should have warned him moments before. Silver hurled himself across the chamber, but the mustard-coloured gas pouring from vents in the roof overwhelmed him. The last he remembered was slumping toward Zardon’s boots, before the roof of the Island-World seemed to cave in atop his head.

* * * *

A tall, heavyset woman of middle age came to bathe Pip, and dress her, and comb out her curls. She introduced herself as Chymis, shell-daughter of the Marshal. A Shapeshifter, Pip realised. Chymis escorted her, unfettered, to a magnificently appointed dining-chamber somewhere higher up in the fortress, where the walls were tastefully adorned with sprawling artworks, perhaps from Herimor. She gave Pip time to dawdle, eyeing the exotic paintings as she walked and Pip shuffled along, limping heavily and gasping with the effort. Her body barely seemed her own.

Like Pip, Chymis wore a floor-length formal gown of the deepest blue, closely fitted at the bodice and waist, her skirts swishing as her formal slippers whispered along the carpeted hallways. If Chymis disliked her, Pip could not tell. Herimor subterfuge. The art of masking motivations and intentions, Silver had called it. Her dress fit Pip’s almost four-foot frame perfectly, as if tailored to measure. Slippers had been found, again an impeccable fit for tiny feet. Chymis had even taken the time to apply a little makeup with her own hand, and to pin emeralds here and there in Pip’s hair. An emerald choker adorned her throat, just above the gown’s modest neckline.

This was another scheme of the Marshal’s. Pip knew enough to understand that this development boded ill for her. Something had changed, leading to Imbalance.

Having briefly gained the upper hand, the Pygmy girl found herself on the defensive.

Perhaps twenty-five or thirty men and women of varying ages stood to attention around the dining-chamber’s walls at precise intervals, as if assigned to pre-agreed stations. All were groomed and clad as if for the most royal of occasions. None spoke, but their eyes spoke for them. Hatred. Animosity. The fiery regard of Shapeshifters. Pip had never encountered quite so much latent draconic power gathered in a single room. Intoxicating. And eerie, making her hackles bristle. It was the bland sameness of their expressions, she realised. Most resembled Re’akka in form and features. The dynasty. The inner circle of his power. Chymis moved to join her family, leaving the Pygmy girl alone.

Pip noticed that the central wooden table, a highly polished oval of dark wood, was laid for dinner for just three persons. It could as well have been a king’s table, she imagined. Gold cutlery. Gold plates. High-backed chairs of flawless craftsmanship, apparently hand-carved. Place settings outlined with a bewildering array of three-tined forks, petite skewers, and dainty, long-handled spoons. Every detail was perfect, down to the flower arrangements standing around the circular, tapestry-screened walls, seven in all. Each tapestry depicted a story or scene drawn from Herimor’s history, she assumed. The artwork was fabulous, perhaps platinum, gold and silver thread.

Yet what was this banquet, a triumphal celebration?

A slight scuffing of boots behind one of the tapestries alerted her to movement. Whirling, Pip saw the Marshal emerge from a hidden doorway, his hand firmly placed upon the shoulder of one she had fervently hoped would be five hundred leagues away by now.

She whispered, “Silver. You didn’t.”

“I’m afraid I did.” And he raised his chin as if daring Pip to deny him his right, to misconstrue what his very presence here betrayed.

She could not. Marshal Re’akka’s wolfish grin spoke volumes, but her heart’s cry was no volcano of fury. It was elation. Ten thousand words could not have expressed his love more clearly; a romantic Dragonflight around the Yellow Moon would have paled in comparison. He had probably doomed himself, but she had never loved him more than at this moment. Sweet agony suffused her breast, despair mingled with exultation over the fate he had chosen. Silver! You chose me!

Re’akka could hardly disguise his glee. “I see you have feelings for my treacherous shell-son.”

“She will not hesitate to slay me,” Silver said. “She has tried twice already.”

Without making any reply, the Marshal seated himself first, indicating that Pip and Silver should take the other two seats. Silver held her chair for her. Pip glanced at him, trying not to blush as she had to scramble up into the seat. Grr. Short legs. Silver wore a golden Lavanias collar, a more complex affair than the one with which he had attempted to bind her. He looked well, unlike his girlfriend with her bruises and swollen lip.

“You’re looking at a poison-dart Lavanias collar,” said Re’akka. “One word from me, and the collar will inject him with a deadly Shapeshifter poison.”

Silver said, “But you left Pip unchained, shell-father. Are you not afraid she will speak a Word and doom our family?”

The Marshal chuckled curtly. “And unleash the Shadow, thus dooming the Island-World’s remaining Dragonkind?”

“Perhaps I am desperate enough to take my chances,” Pip snapped.

“Perhaps there is an auditory magical ward spoken over this Island, denying the only viable form of your foul magic,” said Re’akka. “Allow me to explain. Using your unique magical signature, provided by your old comrade Zardon, my family has spent the last few months preparing this Island to entrap you. We knew you for a risk-taker, a warrior, unlike your pathetic Academy friends. After all, it is only logical that I should hold the key to the Shadow. And I do. This I have already gleaned by eavesdropping on your thoughts via the oath-magic that binds you to my shell-son.”

Silver and Pip gasped as one.

“Ah, yes.” Re’akka waved grandly as a bevy of servants appeared, bringing the first course. “Please, help yourselves. After all, it’s the last meal Silver will enjoy in his … right mind. Tomorrow I shall assign the task of your interrogation to him. I’m quite convinced he’ll find it a tremendous pleasure.”

A glance at Silver assured her that he felt quite sick enough to retch all over the table. Pip locked gazes with the Marshal, feeling her black eyes flash with draconic fury. “And what makes you think he’ll succeed where you failed so miserably?”

The Marshal’s knuckles whitened on the handle of his long spoon as he served himself from a dish Pip could not even begin to recognise. “Oath-magic,” he spat. “The reason none of my progeny will ever become Dragon Riders. So much passes through the link. Zardon was the traitor you suspected, Pip–isn’t it ironic? I’ve already learned so much about you and your precious friends, the forms of your magic and even your so-called special relationship with the Black Dragon, Fra’anior. Derisible! You think I display hubris? You dream of spirit-descent from an Ancient Dragon! The sad fool beneath this Island is you, Pip. Where is your precious Fra’anior now? Fled this Island-World like the craven worm he is!”

“He had his reasons.”

Pip’s voice quavered. She tried to disguise her response by helping herself to a few little biscuits artistically piled with unfamiliar minced meat heavily garnished with spices, and a few sticks of a purple root vegetable that looked the least poisonous of the dishes on another platter.

“Try the chiyyifish, Pip,” said the Marshal, waving a servant in her direction. “The flavour is particularly exquisite, matured over the course of a month under exacting conditions.”

For a few minutes they ate in uncomfortable silence. The food was peculiar, but delicious in the main, although it hurt her abominably to chew. Pip waved away a fine Herimor vintage of hesk-wine, a luminous purple drink of which one sniff made her head spin, and requested water in its place.

“Traditionally, Herimor food is highly spiced in order to hide the presence of poisons,” said the Marshal, as if intent on making convivial conversation. “We become experts in different tastes. Unlike my dishonourable agent, that hapless turncoat Telisia–how easy it was to warp her mind–I have eschewed the slightest help from food, poisons, environmental agents or truth-eliciting or mind-altering drugs when it comes to your interrogation. These things are beneath me. But I will have no hesitation in using my shell-son as the gilded dagger of my right hand.”

She did not entirely understand his phrasing. Silver would commit dishonourable acts on behalf of the Marshal? This was acceptable? Instead, she said, “You sound bitter about the Ancient Dragons, Re’akka.”

“Bitter? They abandoned the Dragonkind.”

“But you’re a Shapeshifter, as am I. Our race is a relatively recent player on the Island-World’s stage, stemming from the heritage of Hualiama Dragonfriend,” said Pip, genuinely curious now. “How does this ancient history relate to Shifters?”

Silver said, “My father believes in the ancient seed theory. This hypothesis–”

“Fact!” snapped Re’akka, and every other person in the room save Pip or Silver.

The Marshal added, “Tell the histories truthfully, or be cursed, Silver!”

Did his hand quiver? Silver believed in that curse? Pip stared across the beautiful table as her boyfriend said, “The first denizens of this Island-World following the Ancient Dragons were Shapeshifters, seeded by Fra’anior and his kin. Fra’anior, however, was betrayed by Numistar the White and Dramagon the Red, his shell-kin, and the original magic of that seed corrupted by a great curse known as–the Division, I believe you’d say in Standard–which split that original pure race into Humans and Lesser Dragons, each in their own right far lesser beings than what had been before. Shapeshifter magic was twisted and oppressed.”

“Oppressed and downtrodden!” shouted the gathered Shapeshifters, making Pip startle and spill her drink.

Silver’s voice took on a singsong quality as he recited, “Great was the evil done that day, but greater still the evil to come. For Fra’anior and his ilk summoned the Shadow Dragons from a place far beyond the bounds of our Universe, and abandoned the Island-World to their depredations, intending to wipe out the ill-fated Lesser Dragons and the hidden Shapeshifters forever, paving the way for unopposed Human rule. It was the great Shapeshifters of the Herimor noble lines who learned to bind the forces of Shadow, and thus saved the Lesser Dragons from extinction. Now it is our noble task–”

“Our noble calling,” agreed thirty voices. This time, Pip kept her hands perfectly still.

“–to restore the original, perfect Balance by completing the great work begun by Hualiama, our beautiful shell-mother, who conceived of and inspired the resurgence of Shapeshifters all over the world, reuniting the debased Humans and Lesser Dragons into perfect Shapeshifters. We are the original creation, the true heirs of the Islands. We are destined to rule all.”

“WE WILL RULE!”

Well, that certainly rattled the cutlery. Pip said cautiously, “So, Shapeshifters have always existed? They were … hidden?”

“Suppressed,” snapped Re’akka.

“Alright, suppressed. And the Ancient Dragons failed to deal with these Shadow beasts?”

“No, they fled, yammering like kicked curs!”

“So how come you own a pet Shadow?” At last, she was learning a few things. Perhaps too late, but that remained to be seen.

“I trapped it. My powers alone brought the ravening creature to heel, and I unleash it only on the foes of true-fire Shapeshifters.” The Marshal wet his lips delicately. “The traitorous Fra’anior granted the Land Dragons knowledge of the magic which summons Shadow Dragons from beyond the fabric of our universe. They desire to steal this Island-World for themselves!”

Pip’s tongue uttered words before she could think the better of her reaction. “Shurgal did that?”

Re’akka’s fingers snapped the stem of the crystal goblet he had just raised to his lips. He stared at Pip, his throat working as he appeared to fight an insane desire to leap across the table and slay her. “How do you know of Shurgal?”

“I know the Land Dragons seek the First Egg for themselves,” she hedged, hoping Leandrial would not slap her like a mosquito for the half-truth. “They stalk you even now.”

She was hard-put not to imagine the Marshal and all his progeny having eyes that popped out on stalks at her statement. She heard someone whisper, ‘So the report from Fra’anior Cluster spoke true?’ Re’akka’s eyes darted in that direction, silencing the offender.

Pip could not believe she had been so wrong. The Marshal cast himself as the world’s defender against the Shadow beast and the saviour of all Shapeshifters, destined to restore the beauty of that first creation. The Land Dragons were usurpers, the Ancient Dragons traitors. That part did ring true. What reason could Fra’anior and his kin possibly have to abandon the Island-World, unless they themselves could not combat the Shadow Dragon? Which left her … where, exactly? On the wrong side in this conflict? Herself a traitor to her race, the Shapeshifters? She saw it all now, so clearly. She must surrender her powers to this noble cause. It was the only way.

Her mental armour wavered as she grieved her wrongdoings.

Then, she caught from the corner of her eye a tiny nod from the Marshal as he directed Silver’s next statement. Mercy! Pip pretended to choke on a coil of what looked remarkably like a fern’s tendril but tasted like charcoal mixed with greasy pod-chillies. Genuinely foul, she had to admit, searching within for some sign that the oath-magic had been turned against her. What she identified was her inner fragility. Day after day of unrelenting torture had left its mark, now she was questioning her own mental processes, trapped in a mire of self-doubt. All she knew was that Re’akka must gain no foothold. She must stand firm.

Silver was relating the past, the story of their brave journey across the Rift in search of the singular power which would bring it all together. The Word of Command.

Pip wished she could reach to kick him beneath the table. Deserter! He was already lost, incapable of standing against the Marshal–or could she hope he was playing a double-game, just as the Marshal’s double-bluff had almost slipped through her defences? No. He must be the Marshal’s gormless quisling. Or not. What plan had he devised before throwing himself upon Re’akka’s tender mercies? If he was still in his sound mind, she must never reveal it. Well, here was a teeth-gritting conundrum.

When Silver’s monologue wound to an end, two dinner courses later, Pip tried to school her expression into vacancy. “Have you seen the First Egg, Silver? What’s inside that will help the cause?”

The Marshal’s eyes flickered ever so slightly. “Lore. Power. The greatest font of magic left in this Island-World.”

“The Egg’s power will defeat the Shadow?”

“Of course.”

Pip pretended confusion. “Then I … I will never give up, Re’akka. I mustn’t, because … no. You can’t make me.”

Re’akka raised his glass. “Perhaps a viewing of the Egg is in order, in good time. After Silver’s loyalty has been tested by torturing you.”

“I won’t do it, shell-father. You can’t make me.”

He was either a great actor, or completely in the Marshal’s power. It was only with the greatest effort that Pip kept her voice firm. “He’s weaker than you, Re’akka. How do expect him to succeed this time?”

The Marshal’s smile grew into a masterpiece of devious brilliance. “You’re a poor actress, girl, and you’re trying to deceive one who hails from a culture of deceit. Give it up.”

Pip jutted out her chin, glaring at Re’akka. “Your games have failed, old man.”

His laugh was pure mockery, a Dragon’s fireball fired into the heart of her defiance. “Besides, we both know your weakness, don’t we, Pip? You’re a jungle animal. And that’s an angle of attack you cannot possibly counteract.”

* * * *

Human-Silver ached to kiss her contorted face. Kiss away the screaming. Kiss away the pain and tears. The accusation he read in every glance. Yet could she only have seen through to his anguish, veiled beneath nine layers of the finest Herimor-style mental trickery he and his shell-mother could devise … Pip’s boldness had forced his paw. That knowledge only exacerbated his guilt.

To win his father’s trust, he must torture Pip to the utmost of his considerable expertise. Love did not beat the beloved. Yet he was either too dim-witted, or too cowardly, to conceive of another way.

He was also so depleted, sweat ran in rivulets down his face and neck.

The inmost layer screened off his true self, first locked away and then veiled in the guise of latent fears. The third and fourth layers were a construct and a shield, a compliant mind concealed behind an armoured psychic shell, identified by that oxymoronic notion of false true-self indicators. Should Re’akka breach the outer layers, this one should convince him he had reached the depths of Silver’s psyche. The fifth to ninth layers comprised another fake mind and three layers of disparate, powerful mental shields–exactly what the Marshal would expect. The trouble was the strain of keeping up all that pretence.

With a final mental blow that would have snuffed out most Dragons’ minds like a pair of fingers pinching out a candle, Silver collapsed on the torture-plinth beside Pip. He coughed and spat blood on the floor.

See, shell-father, my devotion to you.

Re’akka did not respond, but Silver knew he was watching. Always watching.

Pip lay limp against the manacles. Only the pulse in her neck and the slight rising and falling of her chest betrayed the life still flowing in her veins. For that, he was grateful.

Briefly, Silver considered killing himself. Too good a fate.

Her head turned. He felt her breath stirring the air over his ear. Then a thought, just a faraway echo of a whisper, Sacrifice was my right.

She knew! Almost, Silver’s reaction betrayed him, but he clamped down at the last instant.

Her eyes touched his. Drew him in. Wells of darkness, inhabited in their depths by a curl of living flame. She spoke not a word. She did not formulate a thought in Dragonish. Pip knew the Marshal would be listening and watching. She examined him as if his every secret was hers to know. Then, she changed. She opened herself and drew him in by a magic Silver could not begin to fathom.

To gaze that deep was a soul’s journey. He dived into profundity so immeasurable, a Silver Dragon experienced a sense of vertigo for the first time in his life, for it seemed he could see into her very soul.

There, where onyx power enwrapped a glimmer of starlight.

Chapter 25: Egg Lore

A BEVY OF SERVANTS roused Pip and bade her follow. Lord Zardon commanded her presence. She stumbled behind, before collapsing, too weak to walk more than a few steps. The last session with Silver had been brutal, for he had learned much and grown in power since their encounter in the Natal Cave. Did he draw power from the First Egg, as she suspected the Marshal did in secret?

And then there had been that moment of connection–could she hope? Was it but a spark of compassion she had seen there in a mind dominated by the Marshal, or was Silver playing a deep game? Sacrificing himself, becoming her substitute?

He must think she could not wrest the Marshal’s secrets from him. Truth be told, he was right. Pip recognised that now.

The servants returned to kick her into motion.

“Stop.”

Pip glanced up, holding her ribs. “Zardon. One more broken bone hardly matters at this point, does it?”

The tall, elderly Shapeshifter regarded her with asperity. “Dying is not written in the plan. On your feet, Pygmy warrior.” When she only groaned something about feeling more like a slab of tenderised meat than a warrior, he swooped unexpectedly to gather her in his arms. “Patience is not a draconic character trait, either. No, be silent. Your chatter annoys me.”

Zardon? Pip did indeed hold her tongue, for his behaviour did not ring true. Heavens, he was strong for such an old-timer. He carried her with ease along corridors and up flights of stairs, quickly entering parts of the underground warren Pip did not recognise. Black, spiky Assassins repeatedly checked his progress and allowed them to pass without comment.

He said, “We have forged far into the Middle Sea, out of sight or reach of land. Escape is impossible. The time has come to take you to the First Egg, to test your animal strength there.”

Pip said nothing, but found the temptation to rest her head against his chest too much to deny. Zardon had been a father to her. For the first time since her flight to Eridoon Island, she began to cry–not sobbing or moving in any way, just tears leaking from her eyes to wet his chest and crooked arm, and her plain green, sleeveless tunic top. Zardon did not appear to notice. On and on he walked through the well-lit granite tunnels, until at last Pip sensed a change in the air–no, the presence of magic.

“Behold, the imprinting chambers,” said Zardon. “Fresh recruits are brought here to undergo the month-long imprinting process, which is powered by the First Egg’s magic. As if that were not potent enough–no Dragon can stand to be in the presence of such a font of magic for long–the imprinting relies on urzul, a variant of an ancient, foul magic called ruzal, which Hualiama Dragonfriend believed to have been banished from the Island-World. She banished ruzal, but urzul is said to be native to the Theadurial, those creatures which parasitize Land Dragons. It is common knowledge that Shurgal offered Marshal Re’akka this lore in exchange for the First Egg’s return.”

Pip said, “Instead, the Marshal floated his Island to a place he thought beyond any Land Dragon’s grasp–north of the Rift, high in the sky.”

“The Marshal will keep his word.”

She had the strength to laugh. “Ay, he hoped the Land Dragon would perish in the Rift-storms. He’ll keep his word at a time and a place that suits him.”

This received no response.

Pip peered through a Dragon-sized crysglass doorway. There was not much to see–two Reds halfway through the transformation process, their scales already darkened, but the final features of gnarled talons, blackened gums and extended, flaring skull-spikes had not yet fully matured. The Reds appeared to be asleep, or hibernating. She observed a shield glinting slightly in the air a few feet inside the doorway, probably to protect onlookers from contamination by that magic.

Zardon explained the processes of imprinting and re-imprinting, which the Dragon troops were required to undergo twice a week. The Marshal liked to keep control. Pip suddenly wondered when last Zardon had been imprinted. He seemed so … normal. Compassionate. More alive than before.

Still cradling his charge, the Shapeshifter moved through three further sets of double doorways, each twice as thick as the last. They opened and shut on silent runners. Before the third, she already tingled at the presence of magic. As that door cracked open, she wanted to gasp but could not.

Torrents! Waterfalls! Dragonsong and Dragon-beauty, singing at a pitch indistinguishable from the roar of a mighty, Cloudlands-bound river! The Egg filled a large cavern, twenty times larger than Chymasion’s egg had been, curving up and down and to either side of her, glowing with a faint radiance that reminded her once more of horiatite. Along the fifty-foot tunnel that led to that moon-like egg, the rock had begun to transform into gemstone, as though the Egg’s magic had transformed its fundamental nature. Did horiatite itself originate with the shells of Dragon eggs? Regardless, it was beautiful, having that silvery-crystal sheen which had appeared to mesmerize Zardon.

Abruptly, Zardon’s presence enfolded her, muting the blast. He said, This is the only place on this Island safe from the Marshal’s seeing eyes, Pip. Here, we can talk at last.

Oh, Zardon. She flung her arms around him, as best she could reach.

This is not another ploy of the Marshal’s. Already, his shield wilted beneath the phenomenal, never-ending discharge of the First Egg’s magic. I am who you saw here before–ay, Pip, I realise now that it was always you watching me, and I am … ashamed.

Please, don’t cry.

Ay? To weep is the least I can do for this Island-World, thou, o gift to my soul.

Pip gulped as he returned her hug. Mercy.

He said, You’re a gift, because I know you are the one, Pip. I smelled it from the first. You have rare powers; I have one of my own–foresight. I know few things any more, and am a husk of my old self, but I know you will prevail, Pip. I know it as surely as the twin suns rise in the East, as surely as I know you hold in your paw the power to stop the twin suns in their tracks.

Placing Pip gently on her feet, Zardon explained that he had brought her to the Egg that she would understand the wonder and beauty of it, the majesty, the power that seethed restlessly within. The Egg was a power-source, the means by which Dragons traversed the vast distances between stars. It was a time-capsule, a place where the passage of time slowed almost to stasis. No-one knew if a Dragon lived within the Egg. It had never communicated, nor if life was present, did they know if it would take the form of a hatchling or the fires of a Dragonsoul. But all knew the Ancient Dragons had hatched from eggs like these.

Pip tottered forward, awash with wonderment. She laughed, You came from such a vessel as this, Fra’anior? You, too, were once a hatchling? How great a shell-mother should hold such an egg as this in her egg-sac? She spread her arms, drinking from the awesome font of magic.

Then, she realised that was what the Shadow creature did, and sighed up a small gust of air.

The Shadow is a trans-dimensional creature, said Zardon. Perhaps all we see is a manifestation, like an echo or mirror-image drawn from another dimension. I believe it exists only because of magic. Moth to candle-flame. Once, it was smaller and slower, but the creature is insatiable. It demands more and more of the Marshal, and I know neither what holds it at bay, or holds it within the physical confines of our Island-World. Its hunger seems to be a survival imperative.

Pip turned to him, eyes shining. I’ve thought of that. Starve the beast, it may die. But how? We’d all be dead.

The Shadow creature has demanded to see you, he said.

W-W-What?

She thought she had misheard. She must have. That thing did not speak–but she remembered its eerie regard, that sense of recognition and feline curiosity. That sense of being the prey.

The Marshal will take you to the beast soon, Pip, said the Shapeshifter, his eyes softening, his face bathed in white-fires as Pip’s vision slipped toward what she had sensed in Chymasion. All exists in a delicate balance–the Egg, the Marshal, Shurgal and the Shadow Dragon. And now, you. You are the wild magic.

Again, Pip thought he had misspoken. The word was so close to white-fires in Dragonish before one added the draconic linguistic trickery that subtly modified the target meaning. Wild magic. But Zardon seized her hands, squeezing them as though he could by some force beyond words or compulsion or draconic magic, infuse her heart with strength. His eyes gleamed with power; his manner slipping toward that fey flash of almost-insanity she remembered from before.

He cried, What is thy battle-name, mighty Pygmy warrior?

Uh … paean of the Black Dragon’s soul-fires? Whatever a paean was. She had an idea it might be an archaic word meaning ‘song’. Poetry certainly moved Kaiatha to raptures. Perhaps this Pygmy girl was learning to be mystical, too.

Then call upon your progenitor, your soul’s breath, the Dragonsong of your elemental power!

Pip scratched her chin, baffled. Zardon seemed inordinately proud of his pronouncement, beaming at her with quite the silliest joy wrinkling his eyes until they almost disappeared from sight. Evidently, she was the greenest neophyte in the ways of mysticism.

Then, without any warning whatsoever, he swooped, seized her leg and swung her upside-down into the air!

Whimper! Zardon ordered, striking her shoulder without great force. The Marshal approaches.

* * * *

As the third metal set of protective bulkheads slid apart, Silver braced himself for the deluge of magic. What he was not prepared for was the sight of Zardon dangling Pip by her left ankle, apparently enjoying a touch of Pygmy-bashing sport. Judging by his shell-father’s malicious chuckle, Re’akka found the prospect amusing in a rather different way.

Zardon shook her like a Dragon holding up a leg of mutton. “Marshal. New orders?”

“Bring her.”

The grizzled Shapeshifter slung Pip unceremoniously over his shoulder, growling, “She’d only slow us down. The captive’s having trouble walking.”

* * * *

So malevolent, as if he had not just hugged her. Pip was amazed at the facility these big people displayed for lying and twisting the truth. Except Silver. She had hoped to draw him out, to detect some sign that the Marshal had not turned his mind, but she sensed nothing at all. No spark of compassion. He had laughed as he tortured her mind, and spared not an iota of his brutal power. Even invisible wounds needed time to heal. He knew what he had done, how he had hurt her; he knew he was the Marshal’s lackey.

Even now, Silver said, “No need for kneecaps to work magic, is there? Get anything out of her, Commander?”

“She squealed like a wild pig,” said Zardon. “But I gained nothing useful.”

“Would imprinting break her shield, Silver?” asked Re’akka.

“Undoubtedly. But my investigation showed that the urzul constructs deliver unpredictable results when applied to the higher Dragon powers,” Silver noted. “We might lose access to the Word of Command altogether.”

Exactly what she had concluded! Weariness washed over her, rather than elation. She wished nothing more than for this vile game to play out to its end. Yet her death would not serve anyone well. That was the one fate, surely, no one could afford. Yielding her life was a non-option. Therefore she must face the dark-fire beast, and defeat it.

Silver said, “What do you make of her mental shield, shell-father?”

He considered this at length, his yellow eyes glittering with an unholy light as he examined Pip.

Meantime, the trio of Shifters wafted up a vertical shaft on a cushion formed by the Marshal’s Kinetic power. Shortly, they broke into the open air, beneath a starry night sky, and dropped lightly to the ground. A bare circle some one hundred feet in diameter had been cleared of forest. Pip breathed deep of the scent of untainted air, so sweet. She groaned involuntarily as she spied her destination–the same metal plinth used for all her torture, complete with manacles and a few fresh bloodstains. Hers, of course.

Perhaps there was one more chance. Could she attack the Marshal while he busied himself with the Shadow Dragon?

But while Zardon and Silver applied the manacles, Marshal Re’akka took his sweet time constructing a shield around her. “No magic or Command here, Pygmy girl,” he said. “Wouldn’t want you panicking and trying to run away–not that there’s anywhere to run to out here, anyway, not for five hundred leagues. And in your state you won’t be flying anywhere soon.”

That was a Pygmy spear of truth.

He said, “Shell-son, her mental shielding is unique. I suspect a subliminal Word applied to a standard psychic bastion-ward, with additional hardening elements. Quite beautiful, in fact.”

Pip’s head jerked to stare at him. “Beautiful?”

“Ay. Should one not appreciate beauty, Pip? Why should a father be labelled evil for seeking to protect his own family?” This was a side of the Marshal she had not imagined, much less seen. “We each seek to protect our own, do we not? We just see the matter differently. You act to protect your loved ones, and I do the same.”

He drew Silver to him, the first physical gesture she had seen him make toward his son. “Is this boy not my own flesh and blood? Should a father not correct his son and train him in the ways of right thinking?”

This, to him, was love? O twisted, tainted obsession!

“By owning his mind?” Even to her own ears, Pip’s response sounded feeble.

Silver said, “Owning? How mistaken you are, Pygmy girl. We labour together for the same goal–the elevation of Shapeshifters to their true status in this Island-World. We rain death upon the enemies of true-fires–the Dragons, Humans and Shifters so deluded by Fra’anior and his schemes. All he has worked in your life is a deception, Pip. This is your chance. Join us. Choose life.”

Pip wept for him, but showed no outward sign of her weakness. Nothing about these Herimor Shapeshifters was as it seemed. All was quicksand. Could he have lived a lie toward her, executing a devious plan which had led to her inevitable capture? Oh, Silver!

No torture of theirs had hurt like this, a thick acid despair pouring down her throat and spreading through her limbs, setting her being afire, pouring dark-fires in a deluge through her soul.

She had loved him, unrequited. And Silver Dragon had ripped her heart clean out of her chest.

Never had she felt so little.

* * * *

Silver watched every detail of his shell-father summoning the Shadow. How could the beast be banished, not merely contained? For that was the construct Re’akka produced. He employed a branch of magic in which Silver had no capability, to be sure, but Silver grasped the gist of what was being done. A summoning and a binding. No more. The Marshal’s command of the beast must be tenuous indeed.

Then what reason could the Shadow have to obey? Did such a creature possess intelligence enough to know design, purpose and strategy?

He was out of time. “It comes,” said his father.

Silver had somehow hoped that by remaining in their Human manifestations, Shapeshifters could elude the beast’s notice. The first hint of its approach kicked that notion off the proverbial Island. As a Dragon, he knew what it meant to be the hunter. The apex predator of his environment. In Herimor, plenty of magi-physical creatures parasitized Dragons or even, by working together, could destroy a Dragon. But this creature hungered in ways foreign to his understanding. His perception insisted on a tenebrous presence in the physical realm, yet the shadowy aura felt substantial, its emotions alien yet palpable. His Dragon’s spirit quailed. The magic within him, all his careful layers of subterfuge, began to waver as the coldness of dark-fires seeped inward unhindered. A deathly chill pervaded his soul.

Ignoring the Marshal, the shadow angled for Pip.

“Back!” Re’akka reacted, pushing outward with that strange magic.

Folds within folds of oily shadow responded as though struck, scrunching up before rippling forward with renewed purpose, like reams of black Helyon silk floating in water, cloying and clinging to the entities it preyed upon. The Marshal shouted again, holding the creature at bay with an enormous outpouring of magic–yet was it truly held? Silver narrowed his eyes. He could not understand how the urzul affected it, or what aspect of the creature even existed as he understood existence, to be impacted by their magic. Pip’s Word had failed. How could the Marshal claim …

Pip screamed a thin, piercing scream. The thing had touched her! A slender tendril licked briefly at her face before Re’akka hurled his utmost power at the creature, which lapped it up, yet appeared to experience pain as a result. He sensed that pain incited the creature, being somehow a desirable feeling. Then, the thing spoke.

<Ache><Fury><Magic-hunger><Longing-waiting><GIVE!>

Its voice was not a voice as such, more a flurry of monad-like impressions which splattered against his awareness, trailing linking indicators he did not understand. Ay, there was thought, and intelligence of a kind. To place trust in some form of control of this beast was madness.

There was more wrestling, a power-match between Re’akka and the creature. The Marshal wanted it to break down Pip’s mental shield. Yet it seemed to balk. All the while the wash of its power sucked at him, confusing his thoughts and stealing his magic. Perilous. Silver heard himself gasp as if from a distance. He fell to his knees.

Then, the Shadow reached out and struck Pip deeply, sucking gluttonously at her life.

* * * *

Dark lightning speared through her body. Pip arched against the manacles, knowing such agony, it seemed to her that the Marshal’s Kinetic power had stolen even the ability to scream, that she was locked away behind a wall of silence that could never articulate how the beast savaged her … the craving of the Shadow was so overpowering, its magic-song irresistible, yet she would not yield that core of herself she so prized. She fled inward to a place beyond where she had ever ventured before, a place of soul-shattering desperation, where the spirit could only cry out in wordless anguish for some sign of hope, some spark …

Dear one.

Pip turned, staring at the girl. Uh … where am I? Where’s the beast?

Savaging emptiness. The girl was robed all in blazing white, as though she wore starlight for clothing. Pip had an impression she was pretty, although it was hard to see anything beyond the purity of her blue-in-blue gaze, and the staggering gentleness it communicated. Dance with me.

Am I mad? Dreaming?

We can call it that if you’d like. The girl’s laughter was music, and balm, and the inexpressible melody of joy. Pip’s feet twitched helplessly. She twirled into the dance. There was no pain. No weakness. None of the weariness, the transience, her Human-self suffered as a result of her torture.

For a timeless space, they communed exuberantly.

Pip cried for happiness. Yet the world waited for a rebirth from the pangs of war … she said, I must understand. Who are you? What am I doing here? Did Fra’anior send you? Because I c-cannot … must not leave …

The girl bent to her, touching her cheeks with her thumbs, loving the tears away. How precious are the tears of your suffering, cherished child. I grieve for this pain and suffering. You do not understand yet, but you will. And then you will laugh. You will laugh as the starlight.

Starlight? Pip was already fading, feeling the pull of her mortal flesh.

Her sweet voice echoed over an impossible distance. A Pygmy’s laughter is of the stars, but her strength is Onyx.

How many strange entities’ child could she be?

Pip pressed into her own flesh, knowing she came home, yet aware of a sense of having journeyed, as if her body was unprepared for her spirit’s arrival. Strength. Strength of Onyx. Could the girl have meant Fra’anior’s heritage flowed in her veins? This was the source of her great strength?

If she could, just once, channel the strength of an Ancient Dragon, that would be a miracle to shake this Marshal right off his floating Island.

Her chest heaved as though she drew the first breath of her life. Pip croaked, Fra’anior …

Re’akka laughed cruelly. “Fra’anior? Do you think that traitor will stoop to help some worthless piece of jungle trash? Come, beast! Tear the knowledge out of her!”

<Portal><Ancient-magic-ones><Immortality-creature><Single-minded-hunting><Predation><SHOW!>

Again, the dark lightning burned her mind. Pip stared up into the animate darkness, aware of the beast’s swirling, alien feelings, of concepts crystallising as she rearranged those impressions in her own mind and reached an intuitive answer. She knew. The creature knew she knew. A great, echoing darkness seemed to slam down around her.

The Shadow Dragon only tolerated the Marshal for one reason: they shared the same goal, that of finding the Ancient Dragons. For Re’akka, that was his Dragonflight to immortality. For the Shadow, the Ancient Dragons were its ultimate enemy, their destruction the sole reason for its existence. And a Pygmy girl was the gateway to both of their dreams. She served no other utility beyond providing access to the greatest Dragon powers either via the First Egg, or via her connection with the Black Dragon. Both creatures had somehow recognised that unique connection in her spirit.

Now she knew the magnitude of her blunder, placing herself in their power.

She had gambled away the fate of the Ancient Dragons.

The Marshal screamed, “How dare you give away our secrets?”

He lashed out with the urzul-magic, with strength born of insane fury. Gone, any artifice. He sucked deep of the First Egg’s power, blasting the Shadow Dragon with so much hatred that just for a moment, somehow, it seemed the creature might not weather the storm. It wilted. The floating folds pulsed with an oozing, ugly expression of hunger.

<Must feed!>

Re’akka growled, “Ay, serve me, and you will feed well!”

Driven by a storm of self-loathing at her failure, Pip reached inward with every power at her disposal, with yearning and pleading and a dearth of real hope, for the umbilical cord which she had sensed a lifetime ago, there upon the Crescent Islands. She begged for the chance to save her friends. She ached for her Island-World, lashed by the twofold scourge of the Marshal and his Shadow Dragon. All else faded into insignificance. What future could there possibly be if she failed?

Yet not her alone. She was no longer alone. She had Shimmerith and Nak, Oyda and Emblazon, Maylin and Yaethi and Dragoness-Kaiatha, Arrabon and Emmaraz, crazy old Zardon and Cinti and Arosia and Chymasion, poor, broken Durithion, Masters Balthion and Kassik and let her not forget Casitha and Mya’adara, Adak and Elder No’otha and her parents. She had a whole Pygmy tribe to call her own … so many. She had just not seen it before.

They were her true strength, the chorus who had unfailingly cheered her on.

Pip felt her body swell against the manacles. There was a Cloudlands ocean of strength in her now, pouring and crackling and raging, uncontainable.

Drawing a mighty breath, she roared, FOR THE ONYX!!

Chapter 26: Running with Dragons

A STUNNING DRAGON-CHALLENGE ripped from the Pygmy girl’s throat, tossing the Marshal and the linked Shadow creature across the small clearing. Silver whirled in time to see Pip bend and snap metal shackles a foot thick, designed as fetters for fully-grown Dragons, with an almighty flexion of her arms. Reaching down, she ripped the matching restraints off her feet. Her eyes were a dark storm, shooting sparks of what appeared to be black lightning as she faced him, her face a rictus of rage, evidently more than prepared to rip his head–or that of his Dragon–right off his shoulders.

Pygmy power!

The Shadow shot over toward her with that incredible defiance of natural law, but Zardon transformed with a crack of wind and threw himself between them, shouting, “Go, Pip! Don’t think of me!”

The Marshal transformed into his monstrous, wintry White Dragon form. Silver followed suit at the speed of Dragon reactions. No Shapeshifter would want to wear their Human guise in the face of two angry Dragons–no, three, for faster than an eye-blink Pip wore her Onyx Dragoness hide, too.

“Go!” Zardon thundered.

With one last, stricken glance at the old Night-Red, she vanished. Vanished.

Pip reappeared two hundred feet away, accelerating at a phenomenal pace. The Marshal whipped forth his Kinetic power in a welter of thundering rage, but Zardon somehow tore himself free of the Shadow Dragon to kick the Marshal squarely in the jaw. With his strength, that was a brutal strike, but Re’akka shook it off with a coarse laugh. Ice crackled from his talon-tips; Zardon ducked behind a shield, but then the Shadow fell upon him, and the fire in his eyes changed.

Silver tore his eyes off the fray just in time to see the Pygmy Dragon flicker again, evading the Marshal’s Kinetic reach and the ice spraying ceaselessly from his broad-based attack. She disappeared for one second, two, three. Where was she? A flutter of dark wings against the night. Thousands of feet traversed already, her wingbeat betraying extreme pain, yet the Onyx flew fast and free. There would be no stopping her now.

Silver wanted to scream in delight, but the supreme discipline drilled into him by years of battling for survival in a Herimor Dragon nursery carried him through. He turned to his father.

“Leash the beast, before it destroys us all.”

Shaking his head, panting as if he’d flown a hundred leagues at top speed, Re’akka stared into the distance, searching for the Dragoness.

Silver roared, Shell-father!

The beast was finished with Zardon. Pulsating with that ghastly satisfaction, yet not entirely satiated. The Marshal gestured curtly, pushing urzul at the beast. “Hunt, my beauty. The night is yours.”

Would it not hunt Pip? Silver shuddered.

Then, for the first time in his life, he had an intimation of what Leandrial had called Balance. He knew she would find a way. Out there in the Middle Sea, the distances were so vast that a Dragon could fly in any direction and not find land for six days’ flight–impossible, for most Dragonkind could not fly much longer than a day without rest, while the strongest Dragons could only manage two. Bruised. Bloodied. But never beaten. She’d foment a little trouble and greet him at the Academy … with a fireball between the fangs. Silver winced. Or just bat those depthless eyes to charm a passing comet and use her talons to hitch a ride.

He blew smoke between his teeth. That girl claimed to have excised the word ‘impossible’ from her vocabulary. Who wouldn’t believe her?

Fly to the moons, Pygmy girl! Fly beyond!

* * * *

Pip powered ahead into the never-dark Island-World night beneath the light of four moons, shielding and winging westward upon the tattered remnants of her strength. She expected any second to feel the Marshal’s Kinetic power seize her tail-spikes and drag her bodily back to Eridoon Island. Twice, she had invoked Kassik’s forbidden power and felt the sky shift; now, she glanced over her shoulder for signs of pursuit. Mercy. Was that the Shadow …

Was that a heart-shaped puff of smoke?

Her wingbeat stuttered as Pip stared backward, rubbing her eyes with both forepaws as if the action could supply further clarity to the finest eyesight in the Island-World. All she saw on that faraway mountaintop was white and silver standing alongside each other. No, Silver was airborne. She searched the darkness beneath the Jade and White Moons in a convulsive sweep, but saw no sign of the Shadow Dragon. Just dark shapes, Night-Reds, flitting out of the hole in the Island. Orienting on her. And there, a shadow darker than the night descended to pick off a straggler. The other Dragons formed up as if nothing amiss had occurred, straightaway surging into the chase in a single great, roaring crescent, spearheaded by the characteristic, slender young adult who had been her boyfriend.

Silver led the pursuit. Her hope was rainbows over Islands; it was a four-mile plunge into toxic death. She could not bear to dwell on it.

Pip waggled her wingtips in what she hoped was a flirtatious gesture, not just an ungainly hop through an air pocket, and roared, PIP! Their answering challenge was a storm front’s ominous low grumbling, hers a sharp crack as if an Island had split down the middle.

To a Dragon they were larger and more powerful, beasts of greater stamina by far. In a flying marathon they would overhaul her without a doubt–at least, that was what Imogiel and Emblazon had taught her. Pip eyed her dark wing-surfaces flexing and gleaming beneath the lambent moons, mentally pulling out several scrolls for review. Eidetic memory was useful to a point. Perfect recall did not, however, imply understanding, account for experience or guarantee any form of mastery. Also, the five scrolls she had studied did not agree on every point. Toss that in a pile of ralti droppings. Instead, she pictured Emblazon flying, the stunning rhythm of his flight muscles, the long, sweeping strokes that maximised his acceleration-to-effort ratio, the precise cant of his wings at every point during the wingbeat action and the streamlining of his body. He was the finest flier she knew. He had muscles popping out of his ear-canals, however. She chuckled tiredly. Most other Lesser Dragons had to make do with less.

Onyx poured across the broad, pocked face of the Yellow Moon, one with the warm, redolent breezes of the night. Disregarding the pain of flight, she wondered about that girl enwrapped in light, how it had felt to leave her body for a moment and travel amongst the stars, thwarting the Shadow’s succubus touch. Ay, it was intelligent, and its purpose clear. A shiver travelled outward along her wing-bones to the very tips. Such sensitivity in her Dragon senses. They saw the world painted in fresh Dragon-fire, and beyond the world. Beyond, to memories and visions not her own; beyond, to pierce the white-fire veil and enter the wonder there, and to ache upon one’s return for heavenly visions she hardly understood, but was profoundly grateful for.

Thank you, laughing star.

Once, a mighty Dragon of lustrous black like polished onyx stone–that blackness which always seemed to hint at an inner life of stardust–had forged across these endless Cloudlands oceans, and made his home here, and his seven throats had roared and bugled as he sported in the unknowable deeps and set his home upon the heights raised by his mighty paws. Yet he had spoken kindly to a Pygmy girl, and given of his almighty strength for the struggle.

Thank you, Onyx father.

Pip. A mighty voice resounded beneath the moons, so powerfully that the very air seemed to quiver and cry out beneath her wings, and her every scale prickled in thrilling realisation.

Fra’anior?

Your strength is your own, little one.

Black storm clouds billowed in a mighty canyon between the worlds. Fra’anior’s voice triggered the embodiment of a waking vision, until storm and lightning filled the Island-World from horizon to horizon, yet Pip still saw the moons and Cloudlands faintly through it. The mightiest of Dragons loomed amidst the mountainous shoulders of his storm, darkly awesome. Seven sleek draconic heads set upon long necks writhed and lashed each other as if possessed of idiosyncratic, conflicting purposes. She wondered if Fra’anior held arguments or debates with himself. Which head determined the final purpose of this great creature?

The force of his regard split the atmosphere with lightning, yet though she scented fire and ozone and sulphur and burned cinnamon, that terrible majesty did not roar forth to consume the Pygmy Dragoness. She bowed deeply, unable to face fourteen lakes of draconic fire-eyes that seemed to sear her soul to embers within the white-fires of her flesh.

Look at me, he said, commanding yet gentle.

Could a storm claim gentleness? Pip raised her eyes with a steadiness she felt in no iota of her being. She need not have feared. Wonder and reverence saturated her being, yet some quality of the Ancient Dragon’s gaze communicated deep, unequivocal esteem. Her inner fires wept for joy.

Fra’anior said, How can I help you understand? Think of your inborn strength as an echo–but what a mighty echo! All that you are, your gifts and powers, your character and will, Pip, these are your own. I would never usurp those things or twist them to my purposes. You are my spirit-child, a bond in which we share much. I desire good things for you.

Then why leave? Her gulp made her flight bob unsteadily. Sorry. I’m often impertinent.

Why leave? Because we saw our warring would destroy the world we made, and cast the heights of its beauty into the bottom of the Cloudlands. We Ancient Dragons hoped to hide you from our primeval enemy–we call it the anti-Dragon, the Shadow. Its species is called ‘Nurguz’. We wrought a mighty work of magic, my shell-kin and I, to forge our passage to what you think of as the beyond. Another world, another time, another dimension. And now my shell-brother Dramagon refuses to cooperate, and Numistar wilfully corrupted her magic, and the possibility of return is lost forever.

I’m sorry you’re lonely there, Fra’anior.

There was a silence so far-reaching, Pip feared she had offended the great creature. Ralti-stupid tongue! All she could do was beat her wings and watch the seething storm, waiting. The Middle Sea would accept her demise. Did she fear to sink to her death? Truly, she did not. Not while her triple hearts beat as one. But then the knowledge of his presence grew thickly around her–or some aspect of his presence, she realised. Did the spirit move through dimensions of existence unknown to the conscious mind and to mortal flesh?

He laughed. He laughed so loudly and long, Pip feared the world’s floor should split asunder and volcanoes rise with new Islands heaped upon their backs. He laughed with such longing and delight, she could not help but laugh with him, like the tiny peeping of a finch in a dark storm’s tumult.

She chortled, I’m sorry, Great One. I do say the silliest, most impolite things. It’s just that the words are there on my tongue and they pop out and then I sound insolent and brash, your majesty, when I don’t mean to be.

The obstreperous little troublemaker. His amusement washed over her in waves. That you may foment more, much more! That you may scoff at the schemes of this worm from Herimor, who dares defy the power of Onyx! That you may grow into the full power of your tripartite heritage, Pip–how I long for the dawn of that day.

Tripartite? Human, Pygmy and Onyx Dragoness?

Not quite.

Then what do you mean, o Fra’anior?

To utter the prophetic prematurely is to alter the course of fate, he replied. Pip, I must restrain myself and allow you to work out your destiny for yourself. Otherwise, I foresee a far worse fate ahead. That is a hard truth, one I wish I did not grasp. It means I sound intransigent, unhelpful and uncaring.

You are none of those! You’re sweet, and … oh. A fiery draconic blush rippled through her body.

And you’re fiercely beautiful, and your audacity warms my hearts. Fly true, Pip. Fly like Onyx.

Fra’anior I … He was gone. Pip said to the silence, I’ll never betray you.

It was already dawn, somehow, the night having fled upon wings like Dragons. As dawn’s blush spread across the eastern horizon, interrupted by the Jade Moon casting its million-league shadow across her path, Pip realised she was indeed flying like Onyx. Like a stone.

For her strength and magic were spent, and the Cloudlands beckoned, already sweeping by beneath her belly.

* * * *

Silver led his Dragonwing throughout the night, pacing them to ensure a safe return, knowing even a Pygmy Dragoness’ endurance must soon give out. Her stamina had been broken in the torture-chamber, her body bruised and her mind traumatised. Yet what power had infused her as she ripped those manacles apart like a Dragon tearing through wet scrolleaf? And when had she learned to control a teleport? And how had Zardon torn free of the Marshal’s mind-altering urzul, pouring out his life that Pip might fly free?

In the silent heart of his inmost shielding, Silver saluted the old Shapeshifter. He was nobility personified, his demise a wing-shivering lesson to a young Silver Dragon.

Ahead, that slender black huntress just flew on and on and on, indefatigable. At barely the size of a fledgling, this level of resilience should be … ay, impossible. She flew lower, by his wings, but no slower. By the time dawn warmed her pretty tail-spikes, she was flying five hundred feet above the Cloudlands, right in the danger-zone yet still achieving speeds of over fifteen leagues per hour. Many of his Night-Reds would soon have to turn back. The Dragonwing remained half a mile above and four miles astern. What was she thinking? Where could she fly to, out here?

And then he saw it. A disturbance in the Cloudlands just a pebble-toss behind Pip. A disturbance that tracked her flight-path with ominous intent.

He had erred. Silver’s bugle of horror split the morning. Faster! Catch her!

The hundred-strong Dragonwing swooped, powering up to their full attack velocity. Pip did not seem to notice. She was certainly not aware of the acidic cloud-eddies boiling in her wake. Was she sleeping on the wing? Some Dragons could doze on the wing, but the practice was generally disregarded as saving minimal energy, while in Herimor, it placed a Dragon in deadly danger. Out here the skies seemed clear of predators and parasites. Silver spit angrily. Soft Northerners! They did not know how easy life was, north of the Rift.

And Pip. Two hundred leagues she had travelled and unerringly located the only trouble in this entire Middle Sea! Clearly, she had a gift.

Now the eddies seemed to suck downward, before exploding in a mountainous surge of black and yellow scales, a colour as poisonous as the deadly salamanders of Herimor. A shockwave of magic blasted back into his Dragonwing, scattering the Night-Reds and knocking many unconscious. They fell to their deaths in the Cloudlands. Silver himself was shaken to the very core of his fire-stomach, but his superior shielding saved him.

Pip reacted, flitting sideways. The great Land Dragon snapped out a paw. She struck a talon, tumbled, and then–what? A spit or glue attack? Like a fly ambushed by a cunning chameleon, the struggling, howling, gloop-covered Pygmy Dragoness vanished into that maw on the tip of a purple Island-slapper of a tongue.

The monster dived. Its huge, damp-slick body disappeared beneath the ever-present, opaque cloud layer with one final swirl of gases. Draconic laughter bubbled up from the deeps.

Shurgal!

Silver gathered his decimated Dragonwing with a series of low commands. His shell-father would be displeased. Very displeased indeed.

Now, Shurgal would come to bargain for the First Egg. They must be ready.

* * * *

Stuck in a glob of hot grey glue that could have engulfed Emblazon, never mind a Pygmy-sized Dragon, Pip vanished into Shurgal’s maw. Oddly, she did not fear to be eaten. Death was apparently the least of her worries. What she felt was … fury? She grew weary of jumping from one volcano to the next, from sizzling trouble into the heart of the bonfire. Not that Dragons minded molten rock. She felt him dive, felt the undulating motion of the great body apparently running or swimming as the pressure grew steadily; her ear-canals constricted to compensate, making the sounds reaching the inner ear-organs muffled but still audible.

Then, Shurgal swallowed.

Pip might have screamed a Word of Command save that she barely had enough magic left to shield herself, and that imperfectly. She rolled down a cavernous gullet on a floor of rippling draconic muscle, before abruptly branching off into one of his stomachs–not a food-stomach or a fire-stomach, thankfully. A water-stomach.

BUBBLE! Shurgal’s voice crashed over her.

How?

Do you know nothing? Make an air-bubble. Like THIS!

She replied, Softly, mighty Shurgal. I am … tiny and frail. Please.

Dragons loved small, cute things, perhaps because they were so mighty. Pip had once watched Shimmerith playing with a kitten upon her paw, her eye-fires mellowing into orange and apricot tones. Shurgal’s tone unconsciously mellowed as she played to his instinctive protection-sense. Yet his intellect was vast, and the colours she sensed in his mind, dark-fires of green and a muddy brown–not a healthy sign. According to Silver, those colours were the signs of mental instability or even insanity. Her health, first. Pip formed an air-bubble around herself and queried Shurgal about how best to filter the toxins she sensed seeping through her flawed magical construction.

Soon, the air improved as she began to find some limited control of the fine art of gas flow, both into and out of her bubble as she floated on the surging waters of Shurgal’s third stomach. The glue began to wash away, leaving her wings tacky but serviceable.

Well. From the Marshal’s torture-chamber to the inside of a Dragon’s stomach. Life was looking up.

She began to speak, but Shurgal silenced her irritably. Pip gasped at the outpouring of his magic, understanding that he was concealing their tracks and even the aura of their passing, the magical disturbance every Dragon created as they traversed the Island-World. That signature, which the Marshal had wielded so effectively against her.

Deeper and deeper he ran; the pressure multiplied accordingly, his movements becoming ever more fluid. She imagined the Dragon running down an under-Cloudlands mountain. With the increased pressure, her efforts with the shield became more and more challenging, for the outward osmotic flows grew sluggish and the inward flows harder to manage. She wished desperately for Silver’s fine mental control. He was just so ridiculously talented–could he be devious enough to have intentionally supplanted her in an effort to gain the Marshal’s trust? Was that his plan? He was a creature of Herimor, after all.

Nothing would be easily forgiven, or forgotten.

The motion of Shurgal’s body changed to a side-to-side rippling which felt like swimming. Pip wished she could see something, anything at all, of the fabled under-Cloudlands realm, but her world was darkness save for the natural glow of her fire-eyes. She stood in a bubble just large enough for her Dragoness, floating beneath a curved, ribbed roof of deep purple, in a cavern which appeared to be three-quarters full of water. To her left, three successive layers of massive sphincter muscles had constricted the water’s egress, and hers. She supposed this place was as effective a jail as any.

Sensing no immediate danger, Pip slept warily–one eye half-cracked open, jungle style–for she judged her best form of defence was to recover her magic. After a period she estimated to be eight or nine hours, Shurgal suddenly growled:

Speak. You had a question.

Pip deliberately relaxed every muscle which had clenched in surprise. Shurgal, what do you want of me?

The First Egg.

At her soft interrogative, he added, The First Egg belongs to my kind, the Land Dragons. I am Shurgal-ap-Tuûar-bàr-Rhiytûxi, Guardian of Wisdom of my tribe the Rhiytûxi, also called the Water-Runners. There are many tribes. Some, in your tongue, you would call Shell-Clan. There are Stellates, Deep-Dwellers, Air-Breathers who make your Islands above the Cloudlands, tribes named for colour and allegiance … very many. You peak-dwellers think of this realm as dead, yet it is alive and filled with life in all its many forms.

Shurgal’s mental voice had a curious edge to it, almost an echo, and nuances she had never sensed in a Dragon’s mind before. Pip wanted to examine him more closely, but there was a crystalline quality to his mind that denied access, making her regard slide aside like claws skittering over crysglass.

And you gave the Egg to–

Re’akka stole the Egg! With his foul power, he convinced Leandrial and her perfidious kin to steal the First Egg, the greatest treasure of my kind, leading to Imbalance and war and suffering.

Finally, Pip worked out how to modulate the Land Dragon’s telepathic Dragonish, so that his passionate roaring subsided to a dull growl, like faraway thundering. Better that than hurting her extremely tender brain still further. Yet still, she sensed that curious double-echo behind his voice, and wondered what it meant.

So you–

He roared, I summoned the Nurguz to punish this pathetic Marshal by destroying his tribe.

And therefore, all the Lesser Dragons and Shapeshifters above the clouds, Pip said, aghast. Yet why can the Nurguz not hunt down here? Your magic is greater than any in our airy realms, surely, the greatest prize of all? Well, besides the First Egg. Everyone seems to want the Egg.

Ah, the joy of speaking Dragonish. She inevitably fell back into archaic speech-patterns. Hearing herself speaking this way was a source of amusement, yet the topic was crucial. Pip focussed narrowly on his response.

In the loftiest of tones, the Land Dragon explained, There are different types of Dragon magic, just as there are different dialects of Dragonish. I speak your dialect to help you. The Egg’s shell-magic is inanimate. The Nurguz has no interest in such power. It lives for the hunt, for the taste of life itself. Our harmonic magic is a different form again. The primary restriction appears to be depth. The power demanded of the Nurguz’s manifestation into our physical realm is prohibitive at such depths.

Pip gasped. It’s a Shapeshifter?

A dimension-shifter.

Can you … send it back? she asked cautiously.

No. Once summoned, the Nurguz will strip this world of its magic. There is no return. It is an intelligent, voracious and ruthless hunter. A scourge.

Yet the Shadow was apparently attached to the Marshal, or at least his Island, for it had chosen not to chase her. Teleportation could not be the answer. Too illogical. Pip’s mind returned to the problem of Shurgal. Doubtless, he planned to use her to bargain with the Marshal, or worse, to use her powers to steal back the First Egg. Yet the fate of the Egg concerned her as well. If there was an Ancient Dragon inside, she should protect it from a creature such as Shurgal, who wielded a power gained from–she stopped, thunderstruck. Roaring rajals!

Unsteadily, Pip said, So, what part do the Theadurial play in this complex power-game, o Shurgal? Do they not seek the Egg for their own ends?

The Theadurial dwell at enormous depths in the great rifts of Herimor, he replied. In their pupal stage they are able to parasitize Land Dragons, growing like your jungle vines along the brain-stem. What interest would they have in an Ancient Dragon’s Egg? They’re highly specialised parasites capable of inhabiting only one type of host.

And your parasite, does it agree with you, Shurgal?

My parasite?

The Theadurial I sense embedded in your flesh. Well, that much was intuition, but one Pip was reasonably certain of as she tried to piece together the true story of the First Egg and its claimants. And which Dragoness had laid it? She had not even begun to unpack the saddlebags of that question.

Shurgal’s movement stilled. For a moment, he simply drifted there beneath the Cloudlands. Pip heard her steady hearts-beat and was thankful for life; for how long, who knew? For the poisons continued to leach gradually into her system.

Suddenly, a new voice emerged, a voice of muted tinkling, as if crystal chimes clinked together beneath a layer of foul grease–that was her mental image. Pip blanched. She had never imagined such a hateful sound. Had she been a jungle jaguar, every hair on her spine would have stood bolt-upright and she would have backed away, snarling. She felt physically sick as it sneered:

Smart little Dragoness, aren’t we? So full of tasty nuggets of magic. Never mind, one little taste of my urzul and you will be ready to be parasitized–

KAAABOOOM!!

Shurgal quaked as an unseen force struck him amidships.

Again, an enormous blow shook the great Land Dragon. She had imagined at first Shurgal had run headlong into a mountain, perhaps, but now he shuddered in pain beneath repeated strikes, turning Pip’s hitherto slightly rocky ride into a Pygmy Dragon-sized pip rattling about in an enormous shaker half-filled with water. She tumbled about in her shield-bubble, desperately trying to shore up her defences. Then she heard a muted roar without–another Land Dragon! Leandrial! Her prison bounced in every conceivable direction as the Land Dragons grappled, bellowing at each other with the hatred of mortal enemies.

Pip cried, Leandrial! Leandrial! In here!

Suddenly, magic gripped her. The Theadurial! She tried to beat it away, but its magic was like trying to beat tendrils of greasy darkness. Fragments kept touching her, and everything they touched, became tainted. Pip had never fought anything like it. The Theadurial slipped through her shielding like a Dragon’s talons rending an undefended Dragonship’s air-sack–was this urzul? Or the Theadurial’s native magic? It was different to anything she had sensed in the Marshal. Panicked and in pain, Pip struck back with the psychic blasts Silver had taught her, and this at last caused the creature to recoil. She patted herself down mentally. All parts present.

Leandrial! Help!

Talons! Without warning, a massive talon blazed through the water-stomach right above her head. Pip hurled herself aside, gasping–a burning talon? Again, what magic was this? Reeking emerald smoke curled from the trench carved in Shurgal’s stomach lining, before it closed apparently of its own accord. Never mind shielding! She had a different problem. Leandrial was trying to cut her out blind, and doing a fine job judging by the sounds out there. The fray escalated to a whole new pitch of deafening. Pip curled up as the Land Dragons battled furiously, cuffing each other with blows fit to shake Islands, snarling and growling and tussling in an unimaginable physical battle. She wondered how many Humans had stood on an Island, felt a tremor, and not known it was Land Dragons scrapping somewhere near the roots of their domain?

Finally, a blow greater than any before slammed her into the muscular stomach wall. Could she cut her way out? Pip had barely flexed her talons when the Theadurial returned with an entirely different attack, stealing all volition in one fell swoop. Suddenly she could not remember how to blink her eyes. Raise a paw. Respond in any way to the world around her.

Talons! Pip did not even groan as Leandrial’s foreclaw sliced across her back. She could barely feel anything.

The stomach’s water surged up Shurgal’s throat, a riptide that tumbled Pip up between the great oval sphincter muscles, before they suddenly clamped shut on her midsection. She screeched in pain. He was trying to suffocate her! It was as though ten Emblazons had sat on her chest at once.

Out there, the shaking began anew. Leandrial’s challenge sliced into Shurgal with a piercing shriek of harmonic magic, cutting off the Theadurial’s stranglehold on Pip’s psyche. She sensed the Land Dragoness knew something about combating urzul. With her thoughts suddenly clarified, Pip flexed her Onyx power, creating a small breathing-space. Then she set about cutting and quarrying with her talons like a vole excavating a burrow. She dug through red-and-white-striated muscle into a place of steely sinews, traced with pathways of magic that gleamed like liquid horiatite. Pip weaved between those flexing hawsers. Thump! Boom! Leandrial and Shurgal were at it again like feral male Dragons slugging it out to the death. Pip crashed painfully about, tangling her neck and wings, momentarily crushed, groaning as a sinew thicker than her Dragoness’ upper thighs sawed across her neck.

The route to escape seemed endless, the final barrier, the massively thick scale-armour of a Land Dragon. Pip scraped and tore at the inside of Shurgal’s thickly armoured Dragon hide, howling in rising fury as the Land Dragon and his parasite fought back, thrashing her with a magical assault that was all about raw, brutal power. Enough! Her fury boiled over. Reaching out, Pip sank her talons into Shurgal’s armour and ripped outward with monstrous magical strength, tearing a rent a hundred feet tall. He certainly felt that. The Land Dragon went into spasms, thrashing about uncontrollably.

Pip squeezed through the gap, and fled.

Unfortunately, fleeing was akin to swimming in slow motion through one of Mistress Mya’adara’s nourishing stews. The air was so dense, it hugged her wings and made every motion sluggish. Kicking her legs and forepaws like a vastly overgrown frog, Pip lurched away from Shurgal’s side into a realm so bizarre, she could not recognise a single plant or feature. The Land Dragons appeared to have been fighting upon a vast field of heaped-up platters of plant matter, each of which sported garish luminous markings upon their leaf-edges, if it was indeed leaves she was looking at. The luminous markings emitted enough light for her to see by, revealing a strange world indeed. The nut-brown leaf-platters dwarfed even Leandrial. Most were comfortably long enough for a Land Dragon to run upon. In the middle distance, a group of pod-shaped, luminous yellow behemoths drifted along with the help of ridiculously tiny, rapidly vibrating wings set above what she assumed were the heads and tail ends, judging by which end was eating and which was busy fertilising the plain.

That was the limit of her sightseeing. With a roar, Leandrial flung herself at Pip, reaching out with one enormous paw. Shurgal, half again as large as the Dragoness, punched the flaming talons of both forepaws into Leandrial’s lower flanks and dragged her backward, gouging out half a dozen smoking trenches each large enough for any adult Dragon to fly into.

Leandrial voiced a terrible, haunting cry as greenish-gold blood pumped out of her wounds. Her outstretched paw shuddered. Pip, please …

The Pygmy Dragoness froze.

Chapter 27: Archaic Lore

SILVER FACED THE Marshal, surprised to be alive. He had expected a roasting at the very least, or swift trip to the imprinting chambers.

Re’akka turned a tight circle, muttering, “Shurgal stole her? Most disconcerting. I did not anticipate this eventuality. She plays the fates like her own nine-stringed lyre, my shell-son. Like a master of the seventh sense.”

Returned to Human form and wearing House Re’akka uniform, a black single-breasted jacket with the triple interlocked Dragons symbol pinned to his immaculate epaulettes, Silver stood in the traditional pose of attention in his father’s office–shining black boots placed precisely shoulder width apart, chest thrown out, arms folded high across his uniformed pectoral muscles and a Dragonish stare fixed upon his superior’s every move. He was shocked, though. The Marshal sounded positively jovial. Admiring, even.

These emotions twisted his father’s face as though an artist struggled to radically modify or overpaint his first creation.

“Father, this is a setback, surely?” he inquired.

Re’akka said, “I despise an uneven contest. This conquest has been too easy. Every move planned, my superior strategy and preparedness sweeping the board of their chiahiaki-pieces. At last, one chit of a girl dares to stand against me. Should I not rejoice? She is a worthy opponent!” He thumped his chest like a male Dragon displaying dominance, then ticked off on his fingers, “Despicable cunning, astonishing mental fortitude and supreme power! Oh, worthy indeed!”

“She is a Shapeshifter.”

“Exactly!” For a second, Re’akka’s eyes displayed an unholy light and Silver thought he might have to suffer yet another diatribe on the all-encompassing pre-eminence of the Shapeshifter race. Instead, Re’akka rounded his desk to approach Silver, and clasped his much shorter son’s biceps firmly. “You displayed mature judgement in choosing Pip as your quarry, my shell-son, even if she is sistûk-tyk.” Silver forced his features to remain impassive at this ill-mannered double-reference to her dark skin colour and midgets in general. “We must adjust our strategy accordingly. Ay, it is time we woke Shurgal to the reality of our power beneath the Cloudlands as well as above.”

With that, he punched a button on his desk with his Kinetic power. A metal screen behind his desk began to roll down. Silver had always thought it concealed a private vault; he saw instead a reinforced crysglass tank filled to the brim with murky, brown-tinged water. Inside, a dozen sleek, torpedo-shaped grey creatures waited, watching them through the four-inch thick armoured glass panels. One end was all teeth, a sharp conical point lined with two or three dozen outward-pointing, concentric rows of fangs, giving the creature the air of a living drill bit. The other end, fifty feet away, was all fins and spidery appendages, and eyes.

Silver realised that these creatures probably swam backwards. “Impressive,” he said dryly. “What are they?”

“A subclass of Borers called chell-bûyon. Very rare. About seven years ago, we captured and studied a young Land Dragon. With the right encouragement, it gladly furnished us a great deal of knowledge about the world beneath the Islands. Ordinarily these Borers are an annoyance, drilling the odd hole through a Land Dragon, but these are a little more special. I changed them using urzul. These beasts will hunt by a specific magical signature, break down shields and inject a poison that will paralyse a Land Dragon for a week. That’s not enough to kill a Land Dragon, but it’s plenty of time for all of the other nasty parasites down there to make themselves at home–which inevitably spells a very painful end for a Land Dragon.”

Silver knew his father to be a stickler for order and strategy, but this surpassed anything he had seen so far. Forcing Shurgal’s paw was a smart move. However, the Marshal’s chuckling as he closed this statement was the chilling edge of a blade. Malice beyond reason. Lunacy in its deadliest form–cerebral and merciless. How his own viewpoint had changed in just a few short months! He grimaced at the inner tearing he felt between loyalty to his family and upbringing, and what he knew in his hearts to be white-fire truth.

The Marshal examined the creatures as if willing them to yield his greatest desire. No, he was imprinting them with Shurgal’s scent and signature. Silver observed, partly fascinated, partly repelled.

“How do we release them?” he asked his father’s rigid back.

“We flush the tank.” Re’akka activated another button. The tank began to empty with a roar; the Marshal quickly switched to the mirror on his desk and called up a Dragon’s eye beneath the Island. Silver saw several of the creatures tumbling away in their wake.

Clasping his hands behind his back, the tall, thin Marshal abruptly swung back to Silver. “Shell-son. Let us discuss the vectors of attack on the Academy. We have this Island, our Dragonwings sweeping up from the South and Rambastion and those four hundred Dragons preparing a pre-emptive strike on Sylakia as we speak. There is the complication of Shurgal. How best shall we position our pieces on the chiahiaki-board? Give me your assessment. Elucidate the capabilities of the key Dragons which oppose us.”

“Why not send the Shadow Dragon against them, noble shell-father?”

Re’akka waved a hand casually. “It seems to feed constantly, now. Besides, that vector holds no honour. No, Silver. I want a grand victory. Spin me such a tale.”

Silver drew a sharp breath. “Ay, shell-father. So I shall.”

And become a traitor thrice over? A career turncoat. Under what circumstances could such despicable crimes ever be forgiven? Oh, Pip! How he had striven to change. Yet again, his honour was dust and his future uncertain.

His only chance for redemption was to destroy his own shell-father. For that, he needed to plot a way through the mental defences of a paranoid prodigy, a father who trusted his own children so little he had constructed specific psychic defences against each and every one of them.

Silver set his teeth. He must win.

* * * *

Pip flung herself at Leandrial’s paw. I’m here!

She did not understand how one attack from Shurgal could have reduced the Dragoness to a quivering casualty. To borrow a Nak phrase, she was just so freaking enormous! Then again, having two hundred feet of flaming metallic Dragon-talon slice through one’s gullet could not be a comfortable experience. Reaching Leandrial’s massive digit, Pip grabbed on four-pawed with a mental apology for using her talons. Pinpricks, Pygmy fool! Mosquito-bites!

Shurgal’s poisonous yellow head with its blotchy black eye-patches grinned at her along Leandrial’s back. He reminded her of nothing so much as a squat, powerful salamander, adding on the spiked barbels, five parallel lines of low spine-spikes and the non-retractable talons of a Land Dragon. Unlike Leandrial, he had three eyes on his forehead, a larger white eye in the centre and one eye offset to either side, giving him a very wide field of vision. Still grinning in evident enjoyment, Shurgal twisted his talons further. This time, Pip detected his tainting power, usurping the clean Dragonsong of Leandrial’s native magic. It had disrupted or destroyed Leandrial’s ability to resist.

Help … the Land Dragoness groaned.

Pip reached out with her mind. Leandrial, open to me. Let me strengthen you.

Open? Pain beat Pip to her knees. I open myself, I trust …

Latch onto this! Reaching into that new place she had discovered, Pip summoned Fra’anior’s power, the Onyx. Strength like the shoulders of Islands. Iron purpose. Colossal, potent darkness. A searing comet of draconic transference exploded between them, an order of magnitude greater than Pip expected as it revitalised Leandrial’s flagging magic. She knew it was hasty, imperfect, founded on both of their weakness, but there appeared to be enough. With a low growl, the Land Dragoness swung backward with her right elbow, striking Shurgal in the base of his throat–a blow that would have crushed any ordinary Dragon, but not a Land Dragon. He wheezed in unhappy surprise, relinquishing his grip.

Again, Pip shouted, shooting a mental picture at Leandrial.

Ay! Her shout was a thunderclap, drowning Pip out entirely. Eat this, Shurgal!

The blow seemed slow, travelling through the viscous air so far beneath the Cloudlands, but the power it transmitted was nonetheless enormous. Leandrial’s right forepaw struck Shurgal a terrible, Onyx-powered blow on the left frontal lobe of the head, right above his eye. Pip distinctly heard the crack of bone snapping. As the fist rebounded, she saw the imprint of Leandrial’s knuckles left in his skull, so hard had she struck, she wondered if the bones had turned to powder.

Shurgal’s limbs convulsed. She thought he would go floppy, be knocked unconscious, but the Dragon shook his head dizzily. Abruptly, he turned tail and fled.

Coward! Pip howled. Why don’t you chase him, Leandrial?

I cannot. And you cannot, either. You’ve been poisoned, Pip, either by drinking his water or by this atmosphere beneath the Cloudlands.

I’m fine, she growled.

No, you are not. Even the feeble remnants of my harmonic magic attest to that. But I know where to take you.

Pip knew she had been running on adrenalin. She had not taken so much as a fraction of a second to assess her own condition. Now she recognised her weakness, the darkness slowly dimming her draconic fires, and she turned to Leandrial with many questions burning in her heart.

You will travel in my mouth, the Land Dragoness said firmly. I will take you to Meldior, the ancient Dragon roost of your people. It lies perhaps a day’s running from here. And on the way, I will teach you the proper uses of harmonic magic and Balance.

May I sleep, first?

Leandrial turned the full brunt of her glorious eye-magic upon Dragoness-Pip, kneeling there on her wide paw. Ay, sleep, little one, and I shall attempt to keep these toxins at bay.

Jeradia. We must …

Only in unburdened rest can the soul be healed, little one. Now lay the world’s needs aside and sleep. We will reach Jeradia when the Balance of the Harmonies has reached its fruition.

* * * *

Pip woke, and chuckled when she realised where she was. She had been the Marshal’s captive before sliding down Shurgal’s foul gullet. Since then, her prospects had improved to being tucked inside a Land Dragon’s cheek. Life was rainbows over Islands. That she felt desperately sick was an excellent indicator of her continued existence. Jollity reigned in her Dragon-hearts all the way to her throwing up inside Leandrial’s mouth.

“No need to apologise, little one,” said the Land Dragoness, speaking Island Standard in a previously declared effort to conserve her own magic for self-healing. “We great ones surely eat far worse down here.”

Pip just groaned.

So Leandrial taught her about harmonic magic. Pip was fascinated when she wasn’t busy throwing up so violently, a few small, involuntary fireballs emerged amidst the less savoury matter. Soon, the Land Dragoness took to demonstrating to Pip the action of her harmonic magic in her body, already working healing those huge rents in her flanks and sealing off the blood flow from her pierced third heart.

“Shurgal used the opposite of harmonic magic,” Pip realised.

“Disharmony is the simplest way of viewing that attack,” agreed the Dragoness. “Its effectiveness was rooted in the urzul you referred to. I had no idea the Theadurial were proficient in its use, and had passed the secret on to the Marshal. Feel that? The ground rises. We have reached the roots of Meldior Cluster.”

Pip wondered aloud how Leandrial knew so much about the world above the clouds, which immediately elicited a story.

She began, “Five hundred or more sun-cycles ago, there was a great disturbance amongst the Land Dragons triggered by the rising of Numistar.”

“The Ancient Dragoness? The White?” Pip queried.

“The White,” said Leandrial.

“But Numistar fled the Island-World with Fra’anior, maybe two thousand years ago.”

“Our legend says–”

“Look, Fra’anior himself told me. You must be wrong.”

Leandrial unleashed out a healthy-sounding roar of discontent. “It’s a story! Will you or will you not let me tell it? Before I succumb to the temptation to grind you up with my molars?”

“You’re a vegetarian,” Pip pointed out.

“I’m an intelligent creature fully capable of modifying my position on such matters,” said the Land Dragon, audibly smirking. “My smallest molars could grind twenty of you on each surface. I’ve measured.”

Pip peered toward the shadowy rear of Leandrial’s cavernous mouth. That estimate struck her as conservative. She swallowed long and hard.

“I thought so,” the Land Dragon bugled cheerfully. “You’re more trouble than a whole hatchery-full of overexcited younglings.”

Why did everyone conclude she was a troublemaker? Pip rolled her fire-eyes extravagantly.

Numistar rose at around the same time as Hualiama Dragonfriend, Leandrial related. The Ancient Dragon fomented war between the remnants of the Land Dragon tribes North of the Rift. As the conflict developed, it came to the fires of the Land Dragons’ understanding that the true root of the trouble related to the discovery of a First Egg in Herimor. Numistar had sought to raise an army to capture the Egg. In those days it was common practice for Land Dragons to cross the Rift, for the Rift-fires and storms were neither as large nor as dangerous. There were several well-established trails across the Rift; those Land Dragons who survived the conflict migrated south, citing reasons of Balance.

“Didn’t that migration create Imbalance?” Pip asked.

She had the impression it was Leandrial’s turn to churn up the fires of her single eye. “Ay, little chigger,” she said. “It was so.”

“Chigger?”

“A worm-like parasite that enters through a Land Dragon’s wounded paw and lays its eggs within the wound-site. Three weeks later, the maggots hatch and eat their way out. Maggots about the size of this little Dragon I know.”

Pip snorted, “Leandrial, you have the most charming way with words.”

Oh, great leaping Islands! Did Leandrial long for a hatchling of her own? Something about the tenor of her fires suggested it …

The Pygmy Dragon asked, “So, what happened to Numistar? Did Hualiama cross the Rift? And why are the Rift-fires more powerful now?”

“Flurries of questions!” Leandrial chuckled massively. “There were two major Land Dragon wars, first at the time of Fra’anior’s departure, the second in the era of Hualiama. In the first, the Egg was purportedly stolen by one of the Land Dragon tribes and taken from Fra’anior Cluster to Herimor, where it vanished into myth and legend. Back to Numistar and the second, later war. Some tales say Numistar recovered the Egg, but Fra’anior tricked her into using its power to steal her away to another dimension. Other tales say Hualiama, a Star Dragoness, used her Star power to defeat the Ancient Dragon–with or without Fra’anior’s help, for on this point the tales disagree. Yet other legends relate that it was Hualiama who first identified the Theadurial infestation of Land Dragons. The Theadurial being the servants of the evil S’gulzzi, the deepest-dwelling Dragons of all–Dragons which are said to inhabit the core fires of our Island-World. The S’gulzzi had possession of the Egg.”

“I’m confused,” said Pip.

“Hold onto your wings, little wing-sister. The tale is almost complete. Roll forward to twenty years ago. Shurgal, a mighty Land Dragon warrior, set out to recover the First Egg from the S’gulzzi. Unfortunately, Shurgal struck a bargain with the Theadurial for the power he required to complete his quest.”

The Pygmy Dragoness cried, “Wait, let me guess!”

“If you must.”

“The Theadurial wished to rise against their masters, those guzzling things you mentioned. So they gave Shurgal knowledge of urzul in exchange for the First Egg. Right?”

“Very astute, Pip. The word is ‘S’gulzzi’. We are now passing up through your clouds. This air grows thin and cold. Shurgal recovered the Egg, the tribes fought as Dragons naturally do, and at the height of our conflict, Marshal Re’akka swooped in and filched the Egg for himself. With it he raised his Island, and flew over the Rift. The rest, you know.”

“I think I have it straight in my head now.”

“About time,” Leandrial teased. “If you thought more with your brain and less with your mouth–”

“Shall I take your tongue hostage with my Onyx power?” Pip suggested sweetly. “So, let me summarize. Re’akka is a thief and Shurgal is a traitor armed with urzul. Re’akka and Shurgal hate each other. The Theadurial parasitize the Land Dragons with the intent of gaining the Egg’s power, that they might escape from their masters, the S’gulzzi. You want the First Egg back to restore the Balance and I want to defeat the Marshal and the Shadow. Does that make us allies, Leandrial?”

“Not friends, little one? Has this rescue reduced my status?”

“Ay, lackey. Take me aloft without delay.”

This time, Leandrial’s laugher knocked Pip right over.

Pip said, “Let me tell you what I learned from the Marshal, Leandrial. Did you know that it was Shurgal who summoned the Nurguz to destroy all Dragons above the Cloudlands?”

A great bellow shook the cavern even as Pip felt fresh, clean air flood in. The great Dragoness roared, “Does his evil know no bounds?”

As Leandrial ran up the side of an Island into the realm of light, Pip quietly related what she suspected about the Master’s and the Nurguz’s ambitions.

“I wonder if the Shadow is somehow parasitizing him?” Leandrial wondered afterward.

“The Marshal?”

“Ay. Forcing him to expend more and more power to maintain the control he believes he has over the creature.” But she clucked her tongue with a booming sound. “Now, Pip, you must hunt and purge yourself of all the toxins you’ve ingested, and I must meditate and heal. We will rest here at Meldior. Shall I come for you when the sky-fires travel to their rest in the West?”

“Will you take me to Jeradia, Leandrial? Please?”

Obliquely, the great Dragoness said, “When they fled across the Rift, my people took much lore about the high-dwellers with them, which is why I know a few details about your ways. I love all kinds of lore and would have you teach me what you know. Gladly shall I run across the Middle Sea for you, little one; it is a mere trifle. After all, I’ve never had a Lesser Dragon for a friend.”

Or many friends at all, Pip’s heart-fires interpreted. If that was a gift great enough for a Land Dragon, it was one she would readily grant.

* * * *

Meldior was technically a cluster of volcanic Islands numbering some sixty-five larger, inhabited landmasses and several hundred ancillary Islets and volcanoes, lying in the southwest-central region of the Middle Sea. They jutted out of the Cloudlands like a discarded jawbone full of cracked black fangs, wreathed with mists and smoke, all uncompromising, sheer cliffs and rocky battlements upon which unique plant and animal species waged ceaseless war against the powerful storms that swept this region. The local Humans and Dragons were famously iconoclastic and clannish. Pip had debated warning them, but when she saw the volumes of smoke rising from many non-volcanic Islands, she realised that the Marshal’s Dragonwings had already paid a visit. Lay low? She hated the idea. Old-Pip would have charged in to help, this Pip was painfully aware of her importance to the cause. How best to balance both needs?

In the end, she sulked around one of the smaller Islets and pounded a hapless rock-deer with her fist rather than killing it cleanly with one blow. Pip growled at herself and finished the animal properly. Don’t even start flying to that Island, Pygmy Dragon!

Then, she found a handy lava lake. Dragons were always waxing lyrical about lava baths, and this one had the double benefit of enjoying an overhanging rock ledge which shielded two-thirds of the lake from casual observation. Real Dragons would have expired in a fit of helpless fiery hiccoughs of laughter at the sight of an Onyx Dragoness warily dipping her toes into bubbling, molten rock. But once she was immersed, it was beautiful. First, the heat sought out every place that ached, which was most of her body. Pip groaned like Emblazon stretching first thing on a cool morning. Then, that warmth began to knead out the knotted muscles with the enthusiasm of Leandrial’s paw rolling her out for flatbread.

She emerged an hour later feeling so loose and supple, she could barely walk. Pip found a cosy corner, curled up, and promptly fell fast asleep. The last sensation she remembered was mild surprise. Did Dragons really fall asleep at the drop of a rajal’s paw?

She dreamed in rushing fragments, chaotic imagery swirling through her subconscious like the ebbing and flowing susurrus of a Dragon’s belly-fires. But later, that settled into a sweet reprise of the laughing star’s advent upon the stage of her life, there upon the jungle vine above the void she had now plumbed, in some small sense. Then a draconic premonition woke her.

A young rajal stalked her, bellying along behind a row of pumice boulders. She covertly watched the cat, appreciating the rippling flow of muscle beneath its glossy black coat, the lithe feline grace, the tawny eyes narrowed in concentration. The Academy had its fair share of rajals living on the volcanic slopes, drawn by the scent of food. They grew as tall as a man, and considerably more massive. Few were man-eaters but they were known to react aggressively if approached or provoked. A Pygmy warrior would have shown a rajal a dint of healthy respect.

As the young male gathered himself, Dragoness-Pip fixed the youngster’s twitching tail-tip with a burning eye. I’d think twice, if I were you.

He yowled and fled as though she had set the developing ruff of his black mane alight. For good measure, she aimed a small fireball at a boulder just beyond his bounding form. Yrrrwwwwoool! Hsss! The cat leaped ten feet in the air, hackles bristling. Pip chortled happily to herself, “I’m so dangerous I scare myself sometimes.”

Yet one indelible impression from her dream percolated to the surface of her awareness–she must not forget the laughter. It felt and tasted … special. The idea itched oddly in the back of her mind. Was this the fabled draconic seventh sense?

It seemed so long since she had enjoyed the opportunity to sit alone with her thoughts. A young Pygmy warrior had lived free, yet had been bounded on all sides by the mothering jungle, by laws and strictures and Pygmy tradition, and by the lay of the Islands themselves and the jungle ways or Ape Steps that linked them. In the zoo she had been trapped, free only to grub in the dirt or eat and sleep as she wished, the huge walls of her cage and its armoured crysglass windows unbreakable and unscalable. How her soul had rejoiced at the freedom Zardon gifted her–so free, the boundless skies brought mortal terror, threatening to crush a jungle-sheltered creature’s spirit. Yet even the skies were not limitless. There were bounds of heights or depths to which no Dragon could fly, and constraints of distance and time. Was freedom simply an illusion? A relic of childhood innocence one had to grow out of?

Some boundaries were immutable, Pip thought, or imposed by others or by circumstance. But some boundaries one chose for oneself, such as love, trust and responsibility. The last was the one that made her scales prickle the most. Elder No’otha had been keen to impress upon her the Pygmy saying, ‘A warrior’s true worth lies not in arm or spear, but in their service to the tribe.’ By the tribe, he added, he meant the whole Island-World.

She hunted again to fill her belly, then worked on trying to understand the toxins which had entered her body and how to expurgate them. Somehow, the shielding and filtering had been inadequate. If she meant to arrive in Jeradia in fighting-fit condition, she needed to do better. Back to Master Ga’am’s mental disciplines, so shamefully neglected of late.

Please, let her meet Silver and be able to turn his mind.

Please, let his love not have been a sham.

Chapter 28: Beneath and Beyond

ENSCONCED ONCE MORE in the pocket of Leandrial’s left cheek, Pip faced the prospect of the long leagues beneath the toxic Cloudlands ocean. Land Dragon and Lesser Dragon chatted amiably as Leandrial made the initial descent through the clouds laced with sulphuric acid, describing the scent, texture, temperature and flavour of the different gaseous layers as she ran down toward Meldior Cluster’s roots. Pip would have loved to take in the sights, but even just bathing in the edges of Leandrial’s extraordinary harmonic magic was an education in its own right, a whole new way of ‘seeing’ the world. The Land Dragoness constantly produced high-pitched sound-waves, radio waves and magical emissions to probe the world around her, analysing the reflections these different communication systems returned to her ultra-sensitive Dragon senses. She spent some hours describing the science behind each technique to Pip, who had the impression that everything about Land Dragons was large, including their love of lengthy, exhaustive explanations of every possible point or viewpoint.

“You could use these methods yourself, little friend,” said Leandrial.

“I know a Dragon who does.”

“The hatchling Chymasion? I meant you. Ocular vision, as I understand it, is so limited.”

Pip said, “Every type or colour of Dragon thinks they’re the best.”

“And so we are,” Leandrial agreed.

Pip learned that Land Dragons did not possess the fire-breathing capabilities of their Lesser Dragon kin, but they were able to ignite their talons as Pip had seen, and some rarer types of Land Dragons could form lashing tendrils of fire or even create fire-phantasms, flame-born creatures that would attack an enemy with basic intelligence.

Having learned to peek between Leandrial’s teeth each time she breathed in, Pip also discovered that the world beneath the Cloudlands was not one realm but many, as variegated as the landscapes above the Islands. They descended first through the ‘upper layers’, which Land Dragons did not enjoy due to the alleged thinness of the air and high levels of pollution and acid. Several thermal inversions later, each heralding ever greater pressures and temperatures, they passed into the ‘middle layers’ approximately four miles beneath the permanent cloud layer. Here, life abounded. Huge, avian reptiles glided through the thick, plant-rich atmosphere, slowly harvesting floating seed pods the size of Pygmy huts, which came in every shape and colour imaginable, from fire-red chilli-peppers to globular fruit-like pods that reminded Pip of Jeradian grapes, although they were a sickly yellow colour and larger than any Dragonship.

A dense layer of khaki and purple roots and vines underpinned the middle layers, forming a natural barrier to the layers further down. Aeons of massive growth had rendered this layer compact and compost-rich, a fertile ground for worms, burrowing reptiles and several smaller subspecies of Land Dragons of lesser intelligence–‘small’ denoting creatures measuring up to a thousand feet in length. The tang of loam in the air reminded Pip sharply of her jungle home.

Leandrial munched her way through this layer with relish, telling Pip that the air holes created by Land Dragons were essential for the health of the middle layers. Her little passenger ducked and shielded frantically as Leandrial shovelled plants the size of trees down her apparently bottomless gullet.

By now, the air was so dense that Pip could not easily distinguish the difference between flying, swimming and walking, her hostess apparently doing all three simultaneously. Leandrial lectured Pip about the ability of high pressures to support massive creatures such as Land Dragons, and indeed, this was a realm of behemoths, mostly plant-eaters, but also sustaining a variety of carnivores so gigantic, Leandrial snidely suggested they would simply pass Pip over for a more substantial meal. Not enough meat on her toothpick bones.

This, growled the Onyx Dragoness, was not appreciated. She could not stop goggling at every sight, however, despite the denser, bluer air making distances harder to see. Her hostess had no such problems with her eyesight, apart from the sheer quantity of floating plant matter.

Then, there were all manner of parasites and carrion-eaters and plants that moved like animals and insects and muck-fleas, Dragon lice, and an entirely separate ecosystem inhabiting, at last, the watery lakes and oceans Lesser Dragon scientists had always insisted must lie at the bottom of the world. Only, this region was apparently far from the bottom. It was not even the middle. Pip rolled her eyes as Leandrial explained how the layers extended further, the middle-lower and lower layers, then the deeps, the impossible deeps, and the bottomless rifts still further beneath it all at depths of seven to ten leagues, and legend would have it, many leagues more. No Land Dragon travelled that deep, Leandrial said. Only the S’gulzzi lived down there, in the fires beneath the bottomless rifts.

“But I thought they were bottomless?” Pip complained.

Leandrial replied, “It’s just a figure of speech. Do you high-dwellers have to take everything so literally?”

“Places need to be named properly. ‘Impossible deeps’? What’s impossible about them, apart from the impossibly bottomless rifts that do indeed have bottoms?”

This provoked a mighty bellow of laughter. “I do hope you find your bottoms, Pygmy Dragoness! The world is the way it is. How’s your shield?”

“Better than before, but still leaking,” Pip growled.

“We will mostly travel at this level through the–ah, forests and deserts of my realm, but if we want to travel directly to your Jeradia massif without taking a five hundred league detour, we will need to pass through an impossible deep–”

“Which will, by an inexplicable twist of fate, turn out to be possible?”

Leandrial snorted a fine gust of soupy air at Pip’s interjection, “And over a bottomless rift. You will see these impossibilities for yourself. Now, let’s work on your purging of toxins. I believe we may be able to find a few critical adjustments which you have undoubtedly missed in your incurably hasty high-dwelling manner.”

This time, a fireball did light up the inside of Leandrial’s jaw.

* * * *

“That’s a tree?”

“Ay, little one. Did I mention that plants in my territory grow a little larger than those above?”

“Only fifteen times or so,” said Pip, feeling another attack of awe and wonder coming on.

She peered between her sarcastic ride’s flat teeth, feeling as if she were lurking inside a decently-sized cavern. By her reckoning, Leandrial measured over a mile long from those peculiar barbels on her chin–additional olfactory organs, apparently–to the tip of her tail. That made her one absurdly monstrous slab of Dragon-flesh. Worse, she was not even the largest of her kind. Some types of Land Dragons were apparently actual Islands who moved through the middle layer like millipedes gliding on thousands of stubby paws, while their breathing spiracles reached far into the air above. Pip could not shift that image from her mind. Island-Dragons. Slow-moving, three thousand year-old Dragons who spent over ninety percent of their lives sleeping. They breathed actual, clean air! Did people honestly mistake living Dragons for Islands? Mercy!

And if those were trees, she was a purple-headed parakeet.

Leandrial ran-swam down a long ochre slope dotted with Dragon-sized boulders covered in tufts of lilac moss toward the faraway forest, an endless sweep of purple, serpentine trunks reaching a full league from the white, sandy forest floor to brush against the middle layer above. The top third of each trunk was leaf-blades, gently waving in an apparent breeze, emitting a surprisingly bright purple light from light-cells speckled all over their surfaces and in swirling patterns down each trunk. Each trunk terminated in a root-ball, a substantial outgrowth of roots which tore into and clumped up the substrate.

As she scooted along on her squat, massively powerful legs, Leandrial used her magic to casually swat away a marauding school of Borers. “Pests,” she said. “Won’t bother a healthy Land Dragon, but they’ll plague us in the forest.”

Pip eyed the insects pessimistically. They looked like hundred-foot earwigs, only these were armed with oversized pincers on one end and an equally attractive selection of nasty-looking, serrated mandibles on the other. She imagined they were brutish enough to eat whole Pygmy Dragons for breakfast.

“Which reminds me,” said Leandrial, “last night was the second time–”

“Night? I thought you said there was no real night down here?”

“I’m using concepts familiar to you suns-loving high-dwellers in order to impress you with my sensitivity to our budding friendship,” said Leandrial, so blandly that Pip knew she was tugging the smaller Dragon’s wings. She encouraged Leandrial with a small chuckle. “It is night above, the fourth day we’ve been under the Cloudlands. I should teach you about all the varieties of bioluminescent plants, plant-Dragons and other forms of life down here. It really is fascinating.”

“I’m sure it is,” Pip chirped back. “You were reminded of what exactly, Leandrial?”

“Twice while you’ve been sleeping, you’ve chuckled and mentioned a star. Why is that, Pip?”

Hmm. And now she talked in her sleep? She began to summarise, but then remembered how much Leandrial loved a story. Perhaps spinning out a tale would take her mind off her nausea and general sense of malaise. And so they entered the great forest of the deeps, with Pip helping Leandrial shield so that the Land Dragoness could continue to concentrate on her healing. And she told her story, right from the beginning.

Unlike Pip, Leandrial saved her comments for the end. By then they had wound their snakelike path deep into the peculiar purple forest. The Pygmy Dragon retreated inside her companion’s mouth, the better to cope with the pressure and poisons, and the acid which itched her scales. All was poison down here–the plants, the animals, the atmosphere itself. Leandrial said the toxins and acid were increasing in potency, just as the Rift had grown more powerful. Now, it was almost uncrossable, even for the mightiest of Dragons. The Rift was the source. From those hundred league-wide volcanic upwellings, capped by world-spanning storms, came the toxins and the Cloudlands, she said. Much of the territories near the Rift were already dead. Desert. League upon league of barrenness, where life had once thrived.

The Land Dragon said, “Tell me about this creature you called blue-star. Why that specific description?”

“It seemed to fit.”

Leandrial said, “Here’s the connection you’ve missed, Pip. In the oldest dialects of Dragonish, the word for blue-star is Hualiama.”

“Uh … but that’s imp–” Pip clenched her jaw. What? “Are you telling me …”

“There’s an old legend which tells of a blue star which appears at daybreak on the eastern horizon. Her name is Hualiama. It is said that Star Dragons never die, they just travel to the heavens and become a new star. From the heavens, they watch over us.”

“You’re saying I talked to a dead star? An alive star? A star?”

Judging by the bounce of her step, Leandrial shrugged. “You enlighten me. You’re the one with the mystical connections stemming from your Shapeshifter heritage, the one who derives her power from the great Onyx Fra’anior himself–not forgetting, I wielded that power with my own paw when we defeated Shurgal. It is as real as your soul-fires and mine. Isn’t this wonderful?”

“Wonderful? What does it all mean, Leandrial?”

The great Dragoness’ jaw-muscles moved, forming a smile Pip felt rather than saw. She wished the Dragonkind would not hint at mysterious truths, ever so condescending. Obviously she was meant to work it out for herself. Obviously, Leandrial meant her to recognise a lesson was being taught.

As for what she insinuated … impossible!

“Flying fruitcakes and backwards bats!” Pip snorted.

“What?”

“It’s too high and mighty for me–honestly, Leandrial. I’m just a jungle girl. A Pygmy. Mostly, a troublesome pest with an exceptional talent for flying Dragon-swift into the nearest, deepest jungle mud-pool of mischief I can find, and wallowing in it.”

“Wait, let me memorise that exact phrasing for the lore-scrolls!”

A howl of outrage burst from Pip’s throat. The fact that Leandrial apparently found this so hilarious she started to hiccough great, fruity-smelling gusts of thick air, did not help in the slightest. Ugh, open mouth and insert foot, or paw, or wingtip–who cared what the saying was? She was no Star Dragoness and that was final! In fact, her colour was the opposite of starry, unless she was planning to be the darkness of night around a nice bright star. Hualiama! What under the heavens had she been hinting at–and Fra’anior, refusing to speak for fear he would somehow invoke a more terrible future?

A Pygmy’s laughter is of the stars, but her strength is Onyx. Fra’anior was the Onyx. What then was the power of laughter? What use did laughter serve when the Dragons of war swept across the Island-World? When sorrow rained upon sorrow, when the altars of the Marshal’s greed flung their smoke to the heavens in defiance of all that was good, and worthy, and true, Hualiama advised laughter?

It took Pip an awfully long time to simmer down after that. She would have words with that giggling star-girl, oh ay, she would!

* * * *

Pip, sealed up to the eye-fires in pressure-defying, oxygen-permeable, poison-filtering quadruple concentric layers of shielding that would have made Shimmerith drool in pleasure, peered over the edge of an impossible deep toward the allegedly bottomless rift which she could neither see the bottom of, nor for that matter the rift itself, and scowled. Well. Nothing impossible out there in a cerulean void which deepened almost to black at the limit of her vision, save the astounding profusion of predators parading about in schools numbering thousands, even millions of animals, all pursuing each other with toothy and destructive abandon. Half of the muck floating out there was probably blood and regurgitated body parts.

“Carnivore city,” she muttered.

The air-ocean, we Dragons call it, said Leandrial. Air so dense, it acts and flows like water.

It’s a bit overcrowded.

Don’t worry, I’ll give you a fang’s-point view of the action, the Land Dragoness said. Pip muttered how invigorated she felt. What do you Dragon Riders say–buckle up?

For a bottom-dweller, she knew far too much about the ways of the races living above the clouds, Pip decided. How long had these lizards been spying on Humans and Lesser Dragons?

Without further discussion, Leandrial charged into the depthless blue.

Her methodology was simple. The same magic and sonar which acted to inform her about her environment, changed and waxed considerably more complex as it homed in on the weaknesses of the different animals and chased them away in a great, ripping bow-wave of startlement. Mayhem! A chorus of yipping, snarling, clicking and wailing cries accompanied her unheeding charge. Predators flicked their fins and tentacles and other appendages, whipping out of her way, tangling with each other in their haste to escape the powerful beam of magic sweeping out of her single eye. Those too slow or lazy to move fast enough, Leandrial simply trampled or shouldered aside.

Those massive talons now truly came into their own, spearing deep into the blue-black organic muck to provide leverage to power her long, serpentine body across the viscous surface. By evening, signalled in this location by a gentle darkening of the atmosphere overhead, they arrived at the edge of a rift, and looked out over a fifty league wide canyon of such depth, the cobalt simply faded into darkness. To their left, a waterfall which was apparently small by Land Dragon standards–half a mile wide, Pip estimated, although she was having a beastly time trying to estimate distances in this strange atmosphere–poured with peculiar slowness over the edge and into nothingness.

“Bottomless,” said Leandrial, succinctly.

“What’s that noise?” Pip shouted back. She felt as though she were talking underwater, but that did not stop a low, powerful rumbling from communicating to her ears and bones simultaneously.

“A storm approaches. See that darkening in the North?”

“A storm? You get storms here?”

“Of course we do. The deeps were amazingly calm today. We were very fortunate. But we’ll need to hurry to stay ahead of that air-storm. There’s no good place to shelter this side and it’s better not to get caught in the open, because storms tend to stir up Hakkulids, and those are an unpleasant business altogether.”

The notion that something might bring a threat-tremor to Leandrial’s voice performed nasty tricks with Pip’s intestines.

Acerbically, mostly to deny her own fear, she asked, “So, ground-hugger, how do you propose to walk across a bottomless rift? Hitch a ride on one of those Hakkulids?”

“Pray they don’t hitch a ride on us,” said her friend.

“I have exclusive claim to the best transport across the Middle Sea!” Pip declared loftily.

With a forced-sounding laugh, the Land Dragoness ran over the edge of the rift and, like a lizard on a wall, seemed to experience no trouble whatsoever chasing down a vertical surface. Pip felt the pressure escalate rapidly. In terse tones, Leandrial explained that she needed to dive to a depth where her body would find equilibrium. Then, she would simply swim across. There was also an increase in ambient noise and the abrupt wash of a pressure-front that tossed them from side to side, the first harbinger of the storm.

Five or six vertical miles later she abruptly turned and launched off the side of the cliff-face. Bizarrely to Pip, all that monstrous tonnage of Land Dragon simply swam through the air. Leandrial was flying, in her own way. Undulating her body powerfully, the Dragoness swam along with concerted strokes of her cupped forepaws and hind-paws, displaying far more urgency than at any point in their journey so far.

Will you snarl at me if I offer my strength? Pip asked.

Yes! Please!

Well, there was an answer. Typically draconic. Taking care not to disturb her shielding, which was creaking at the invisible seams under the pressure, she reached for the Onyx. More familiar now, yet still amazing. Leandrial’s entire body vibrated with her growl of satisfaction as she doubled the frequency of her paw-strokes, the thick air washing across her body like a river, her mouth shut and that eye no doubt gleaming with power. Pip found herself increasingly better attuned to the Dragoness’ harmonic magic; with understanding came a stronger linkage, and with that mental linkage, sight of a type Chymasion had tried to describe to her, the world described in elemental white-fires, the key to draconic life.

What–what are you doing to my sight? the Land Dragon gasped.

Uh … sorry, was that me?

Was that you? Leandrial’s strident tone reflected the strain of her physical effort. Don’t meddle in my mind!

I’m connecting, not meddling, Pip said, a blunt bludgeon of denial. What’s that shaking?

Storm’s incoming. Much faster than I expected. Any other clever tricks in those little paws of yours? A Command?

She supposed she could try to stop a storm two leagues tall and twenty wide, which Leandrial’s vision showed looming on their starboard flank. Pip had imagined wind or waves; what she saw was bands of compression and streaks representing winds fanning out before it; the white-fires intruded again, showing her a scattering of blobs trailing long tendrils or tentacles riding deep in the storm’s belly.

Hold that vision, Leandrial snapped. I had no idea you could detect Hakkulids inside a rift-storm. Fascinating use of magic, little one.

Pip studied the creatures apprehensively. Are they Dragons?

They’re hive-mind Dragons, of relatively low intelligence and high aggression. What you think of as one creature is in reality many linked organisms acting as one. The blob is a central or focal mass controlled by the minds of the creatures that make up those thick filaments you see, thousands upon thousands in number.

With her rising state of battle-readiness, Leandrial’s mental voice crackled with energy and authority. They’re opportunistic swarm-attackers which we need to avoid if at all possible. The strategy is to swarm, stick to and overwhelm the victim’s magical defences, followed by slowly burning into the hide by use of mandibles armed with the most potent acid known to the Dragonkind. It will eat anything, including unprotected Dragon scales. Hold tight, little one.

Roaring rajals, hold onto what? The inside of her mouth? A strange race developed, with the Land Dragon wriggling along like a dyspeptic snake trapped in a tank of water while the storm gathered momentum from the North, already pushing them off course. Shortly, Leandrial gave up fighting to keep their heading five compass points north of west and slipped more and more into running with the storm, following Pip’s prompts to keep them one step ahead of the as-yet-unseen Hakkulids. A low keening of wind built up without to accompany Leandrial’s low growls of effort, while a tang of ozone reached Pip’s nostrils through her heavy shielding. Lightning to come.

A heavy buffeting began, slewing them off course as the storm rushed on in all its fury. The Land Dragon swam with smoother strokes, riding the waves of dense, faintly acrid air; lightning crackled all around them but as with most Dragons, atmospheric lightning appeared to pose little immediate danger. Darkness did not matter to a Land Dragon. Her eyesight cut through light or dark with equal facility. Meantime, storm-riding Hakkulids swished by above and below, trailing those long tendrils like spiders anticipating a touch upon their web to trigger the descent upon a hapless insect followed by a deadly, paralysing bite. The wind still strengthened, a cruel, fickle master. Debris knocked into them, bits of plants and leaves and even a brief peppering of small stones.

Pip gasped, They’re tracking your magic, Leandrial!

Ay. But I can’t see otherwise …

It stood to reason that predators down here would rely on magical detection, Pip realised. Leandrial’s unique eye-magic, so effective before, had now become a liability. The great Dragoness jinked and thrashed wildly, dodging several Hakkulids. Pip sensed a great number of draconic minds about them, noting the way that the individual Hakkulids hung together in neat braids to form the tentacles many hundreds of mini-Dragons long, the way their minds seemed to mesh together to form a greater whole in a similar way to how she and Silver had practised joining together to become a more effective battle-unit. Tentacles waved, pushing the creatures through the storm winds. They were not very effective at manoeuvring, but they were many, coming on in thick numbers, reaching out eagerly as they sailed by.

Leandrial was wrong. These Dragons were smart–perhaps dullards in ones and twos, but in the swarm, the hive-mind became a greater entity, as if the individual nodes acted like the fiery neurons of a Dragon-brain one of her school textbooks had described.

Should they hide behind a shield, Leandrial would be blind.

The Dragoness arched her back, allowing three blue-grey tendrils to pass tantalisingly close to her stomach. Another creature avoided. They were right in the storm’s howling belly now, fighting to keep their orientation. The Land Dragon drew relentlessly on her small passenger’s power, muttering that they were making progress and beating the storm, when suddenly, a mighty downdraught caused Leandrial to shear off her intended path. Just a touch sank them; a mere graze of her right knee against one of those Hakkulid tentacles. The entire creature responded as though jolted by lightning. Pip detected adhesion. Dozens of pinpricks of magic stuck fast, tethering the Dragon-units while hundreds more broke their grip on each other to swarm down that tentacle toward Leandrial, chittering hungrily as they came.

Two more tentacles curved over her back, latching on with ghastly ease despite the wind’s force. A cold tide rippled over the Land Dragon’s hindquarters. Leandrial thrashed wildly, knocking tens of grey or grey-blue mini-Dragons into the raging gloom, but there were thousands rushing over her now as the original form of the creature collapsed, the individuals fighting each other like a colony of disturbed cockroaches to swarm their much larger quarry.

Hundreds of talons became thousands. Reforming in a coat of living armour over the Land Dragon’s hide, the Hakkulid army attacked!

Chapter 29: Dragons a-Brewing

FOR MANY LONG minutes, Pip and Leandrial battled to shore up their shield. Meantime the Land Dragon curled up on herself, using the emitted force of her eye to knock many mini-Dragons loose–her power overwhelmed minds or caused nervous systems to overload, putting individual creatures into shock. Clumps of Dragons fell away into the storm. But the hive-mind adjusted. The creatures spread out to maximise the area of attack. They began to pulse in tandem, successive waves that built on each other. Pip dropped most of her own shielding to focus on helping Leandrial, but her own power was limited and still not entirely recovered from her torture. She groaned, crying, Fra’anior … could even that great strength be overwhelmed? She was not an Ancient Dragon. She was the smallest yet the most stubborn, one whose will would never yield to these creatures, whose headache exploded in blinding white light as she drew deeper and deeper …

Gritting her fangs, Pip endured far beyond the point of reason. Leandrial’s thrashing became a dull, distant thing, her pain a counterpoint to Pip’s own, the roaring of the storm just a faraway vibration felt somewhere in the base of her ear-canals. No! She could not allow the fate of her Island-World to hinge on an attack by these creatures! She could not.

The inner search turned to her memories of the cave beneath the Crescent Islands. Commands and constructs flashed through her mind. Blue-star. Laughter. Starlight given voice. She yearned as a drowning swimmer for the light above the water, the clean, clear air; the beauty of starlight caressing the great dark strength she wielded now … yearning for a new Dragonsong of magic, rooted in the hitherto unexplored second part of her heritage. Light from darkness. Laughter from pain. The power that had transported a Pygmy girl beyond the Marshal’s ability to hurt her and keep her captive. The voice of that most ancient, most life-giving of magic. Starlight.

Her voice struck her ears as the deep, drawn-out groan of an earthquake. LIGHT!

She gave all she had, funnelling it through Leandrial’s shielding. Luminosity pierced her flesh, exquisitely beautiful. Riven right through the Land Dragon’s body, she saw beams of light haloing her enormous companion as if another Dragon of even greater size, a Dragon of pure light, expanded from her flesh in all directions, running with them through the storm. The Hakkulid armour did not peel away. It vaporised.

You found me. The delighted, musical interjection seemed to reach her awareness from a million leagues distant.

Then there was laughter and a soft, helpless falling forward into darkness.

Pip welcomed it.

* * * *

Marshal Re’akka’s hand swept across the map-table. “All the Dragons in the Island-World have converged on the Academy, seeking refuge. Poor, blind fools.”

Silver, together with the thirty-four other Shapeshifters of his family arranged in a wide arc around a sparsely furnished conference room, stood to attention, giving his fullest attention as the Marshal expounded his strategy for the forthcoming battle. Each family member was a Wing-Commander responsible for a Dragonwing numbering three hundred Dragon Assassins. A further one hundred Dragons comprised the Marshal’s personal bodyguard, led by Silver in recognition of his unique powers and ability to shield the Marshal from any sneak attacks by a certain firebrand.

What if Re’akka learned Silver had no such intention? Did he suspect treachery?

Not for the first time, Silver thought back to the magical command-word he had suffered to be placed into his psyche, a word which could kill him instantly. Only Kassik and Ga’am knew it; Pip had refused the knowledge. What if that word came to light? Telisia and Rambastion were on another secret mission, one his shell-father had carefully failed to mention in all their conversations, and so far in this briefing. Silver knew better than to bring up the subject. He constantly evaluated his shielding, his actions, his responses, and every nuance of his body language, intonation and gestures when he answered any question. He must be perfect. Yet still, Marshal Re’akka had his intuition.

Just as he displayed now. “The Pygmy Dragoness lives,” said the Marshal, rubbing his neck as if the hairs there had told him a tale. “I sense we shall meet the Onyx at Jeradia. I felt a great shift in the magical aether, somewhere here.” He indicated a spot on the map perhaps three hundred leagues shy of Jeradia, out in the Middle Sea, a place otherwise unmarked and unremarkable. “She has faced grave danger and prevailed. Do you sense her fire-life through your special bond, Silver?”

“I do not, shell-father.”

The yellow eyes lit upon him, assessing, veiling the monstrous power of his mind. Silver hoped he saw conviction, courage and unshakable loyalty. “The traitor Zardon did.”

“I am not Zardon.”

His double-meaning was more than clear, boldly posited in the light of his father’s unspoken accusation. I am not a traitor. Every shade of his tone would come under examination like a gemstone being examined by a jeweller for hidden flaws.

Re’akka turned his back, addressing the wall. “No, you are not. What do you sense, Silver?”

He stiffened at the implied insult, that he was less than Zardon. Silver said, “I sense Shurgal, also, is not as dead as we would prefer.”

“Shurgal? His part in this great game is, as yet, clouded to me.” The Marshal whirled abruptly, making Silver’s heart lurch into his throat. “He is alive?”

Silver tried not to stare at the dark circles beneath his father’s eyes, which made him imagine a woodcarving being hollowed out from the inside. What burned him up so? What had Re’akka sacrificed for the power he wielded, and was he aware of the cost?

However, the imperative in his father’s question was clear, expressed with draconic skill. Silver stepped forward, willing his knees to remain firm, his intuition to flower. Discipline was his forte, not intuition. He was not Pip. She was a hothouse of emotions, a storm in a goblet as they said in Herimor. He might better contain a lightning-bolt in his paw than try to command her.

Staring down at the map, Silver willed his rudimentary intuition forth. Maybe there was something. Maybe the Marshal’s heritage did run in his veins, much as he hated the idea. A spark.

Silver’s finger stabbed out. “Here, shell-father. Heading toward Elidia.”

“I concur.”

Just two words, and he enjoyed full restoration. A cold sweat of relief broke out on his forehead. Silver willed it not to shine forth like a beacon as he stepped back into his assigned position. What did the rest of the family think about a Shapeshifter with whitish-silver hair and silver eyes, he wondered? Not one had shown him the slightest regard, apart from fear. That fear was deeply hidden but present, the suspicion that Silver possessed mental powers just like his father’s, that he was being groomed for leadership above them. So, the battles did not stop in the nursery. Fierce joy made Silver’s eyes flash, just once, as he glanced about the room. Let them quiver!

Re’akka turned his briefing to the disposition of their forces and the timing of a potential attack. Three days. Three more to cross the remaining leagues of the Middle Sea, and then they would arrive at Jeradia.

Could Pip detect him? Would she recognise the Dragonsong of his hearts?

* * * *

Pygmies said that when the body slept, it was preparation for life. When the soul slept, life grew within a Pygmy.

Thus it was that when Pip woke and felt a cool breeze upon her cheek mingling with the warm, redolent breath of a Land Dragon, she felt as though she had slept a thousand years and woken in a world subtly changed from what had been before. She stretched lazily, yawning so widely her jaw made a popping noise. Unnnnhhhh …

Leandrial stirred. Awake at last, little one?

Where are we?

Below your Jeradia, at the base of the cliffs on the northern flank, at an altitude suited to your thin-air-loving kind, replied the Dragoness, helpfully. One day and a half I ran, bringing us from the rift to your home. And now I must depart and find fire-springs for healing, for I sense that Shurgal will soon reappear to trouble us once more.

Pip glanced about, inordinately pleased to find herself lying on a flat granite boulder beneath a huge overhang that almost dipped into the Cloudlands. The day was fine, the hour, near noon. Leandrial must have brought her here and placed her on this rock. She had journeyed to the bottom of the world–well, near enough–and returned to her realm above the Cloudlands.

Impossible! The Pygmy Dragoness smiled ferociously. No, she would neither ignore nor deny that word any longer. She would celebrate it!

Leandrial, how can I thank you enough?

Just above the lapping clouds beneath that overhang, a massive draconic smile curved the Land Dragon’s moss-green lips. The single eye turned upon her, its beautiful magic dulled by exhaustion but very much alive. I’d ask you for just one little favour. An Egg.

I promise. Pip laughed, holding out her paws as if it were somehow physically possible to hug a Land Dragon. If it is at all in my power, I promise it shall be done.

If it is at all in my power, I promise I shall deal with Shurgal and return to help you against this Marshal, said Leandrial. How do you say farewell? Fly strong and true?

And for Leandrial–clear skies? Clear Cloudlands? Flying Land Dragons? Smiling back, Pip said, I say, shall we be friends?

Leandrial’s right forepaw rose to mimic Pip’s gesture. Carefully, she touched the tip of her non-retractable talon to the tip of Pip’s first talon, the equivalent of the Human forefinger. Having braved death together, friends forever.

Slowly, her smile sank into the Cloudlands, then that incredible white eye, larger than a Pygmy Dragoness. The acidic white clouds lapped over her head.

Keep laughing.

Pip stared at the place where Leandrial had vanished. Keep laughing?

Roaring rajals, she was a Dragon too. Maybe she should practise her portentous pronouncements and knowing smirks. Meantime, she had an Academy to burgle for neither the first nor the last time in her life, hopefully stuffed full of friends who had rushed back from the Crescent and Sylakia to meet her there, as planned. Ay. She should sneak in. The less Marshal Re’akka knew about her survival, the better. He would have agents in the Academy. Her paw curled into a fist. Including Telisia. She owed that girl a crossbow bolt in the ribs–only, was she acting of her own volition, or was she another slave of the Marshal’s?

Unfurling her wings and checking each to see that they were present and not full of acid-bitten holes, Pip made a tiny leap into the air and winged out from beneath the overhang. Right. Optical and auditory shields, check. Magical-signature damping, check. Sore muscles and sorer head, double-check. Oh, spitting rajals, she had forgotten to ask Leandrial how she had escaped the Hakkulid hive-creature and arrived at Jeradia. Did the detail matter, now? The Cloudlands stretched out beneath her as if they had never been disturbed. Serene. Toxic to life above, yet equally, there existed a cornucopia of life below the clouds which she had never imagined. And depths to rival the skies above. As she winged northward around the peninsula from which she had leaped to start this adventure, Pip reflected that she had never been so glad to see the suns as this day. Warmth on her back. Life tingling in her scales.

She had travelled beneath and beyond.

Flying with increasing confidence and ease as her draconic physique settled into the tasks of cleansing her bloodstream and tissues, ordering and focussing her inner magic and pumping golden Dragon blood to every extremity of her body, Pip allowed herself to feel excitement. Just a little. She pictured Oyda’s tears, Nak’s knowing grin and Shimmerith’s bugles of joy. She would check in on Maylin and Emmaraz and give Kaiatha the biggest, most Dragonesque hug ever!

And then Silver would arrive to spoil everything. Suddenly, her wings felt as if they were dragging weights around Jeradia.

No. She must forget him.

But when her eyes rose to measure the cliff-massif of Jeradia, starkly fronting the northern aspect of the Island like the uncompromising granite bow of a monstrous Dragonship, it was with clouded vision and shrivelled Dragon-hearts. Wonder mingled with soul-excoriating sorrow in her breast.

Though her eyes turned often to the West, scanning the horizon for signs of the Marshal’s advance, Pip saw nothing there. Several Academy Dragonwings passed above, but did not spot her. She was too tightly shielded–thank you, Silver and Shimmerith. She flew with fluid power, with a nod of appreciation to Emblazon. Perhaps an hour later, her Dragon sight picked out a Dragonwing approaching Jeradia high from the North, still several hours’ flying from the Academy volcano, and she identified in their midst a smaller yet oh-so-familiar light green fledgling. Arrabon! Returning from Fra’anior Cluster, perhaps?

Without making a conscious decision, Pip’s wingtips flexed. She hurtled for the open skies with dancing Dragon-hearts and the power of hope driving every wingbeat. Let it be! Oh, Yaethi … oh, her beating hearts, she could not withhold!

Setting an intercept course, the Pygmy Dragon blazed across the noon skies. Silent. Guileful. Draconic.

* * * *

Having miscalculated the relative distances and speeds, Pip found her course bending more and more to a direct westerly bearing as she stalked Yaethi’s Dragonwing, bringing her within ten leagues or so of the Academy volcano before bedlam erupted. Emblazon, visibly bellowing but inaudible from such a distance, rocketed over the rim with Shimmerith right on his tail and Chymasion upon his port flank. Pip had to hoot. Nak was still strapping in. He had his shirt tangled over his head and what looked like a boot dropped over the Sapphire Dragoness’ side as they powered into the sky, scanning every horizon. By contrast Oyda was neatly seated between Emblazon’s spine-spikes, apparently cool and unruffled, but Pip could smell her excitement from afar. Behind them Kassik the Brown lumbered aloft, and Cinti, a clear coppery gleam reflecting off her scales now.

Their bursting into the air electrified Yaethi’s thirty-strong Dragonwing, who drew together with body-language that suggested high levels of alarm. Fire leaked between their fangs. Suddenly experiencing a spine-spike tingling sensation, Pip flipped about in the air to check the western horizon. There was no Island looming behind her shoulder. What, then? Whirling again, she saw Chymasion’s paw clearly stabbing in her direction.

Oh, flying ralti sheep! Exposed. Clever Jade hatchling!

Part of her had secretly longed for a big fuss over her homecoming. Sensible Pip, who occasionally made an appearance, had settled upon the quiet approach. Now, with Dragonwings gathering from all points of the compass, she had no choice.

Pip dropped her optical shield.

The result was delight. Bellowing and bugling wildly, her friends broke into an all-out sprint, achieving speeds of up to forty leagues per hour. With Pip racing along as best she was able, the Dragons rushed toward each other at a combined velocity touching four hundred feet per second. But that was nothing compared to the speed of joy, which had leaped across the leagues faster than thought. Arrabon dropped out of his formation, belatedly chasing the others. Poor Nak was still trying to squirm into his shirt as the wind-rush made a mockery of his efforts.

Her long throat swelled. PIP!

A touch of thunder made her challenge resound like a much larger Dragon’s battle-roar.

EMBLAZON! SHIMMERITH! CHYMASION!

KASSIK! thundered the Master, by now more than two miles behind but closing fast.

Suddenly, all the Dragons remembered how fast they were flying. Pip flung out a braking shield, while Emblazon flared his massive wings in warning to the others. Chymasion, quite forgetting how to stop in his overexcited state, overshot everyone by a quarter mile. Arosia waved her arms like a madwoman and screamed exuberantly as they whizzed by. Shimmerith twirled about her with a wingtip touch, laughing and exclaiming in Island Standard and Dragonish simultaneously. Oyda did not hold back. Throwing off her saddle-straps, she had Emblazon toss her at Pip; suddenly she clutched Oyda close to her chest as the Yelegoyan sobbed with happiness. Even Nak’s shirt had a few suspiciously sodden patches once he managed to extract his head from its clutches.

After the obligatory several minutes of manic shouting in which nothing useful whatsoever was said but much was communicated, Emblazon managed to make himself heard over the others. “How did you escape, Pip?”

She made a swooping gesture with her right wing. “Under the Cloudlands, with Leandrial.”

“And Silver?” asked Shimmerith, once the amazed clamouring settled a little.

Pip hung her head. “He … he’s joined the Marshal.”

“Oh my petal!” cried Oyda, planting a kiss on Pip’s cheek. She spat to one side. “Unholy smoking Islands, you taste rank.”

Nak folded his arms, casting the horizon a surly glare. “Well, if that boy’s given you up, he has an earthworm’s brains and a monkey’s fine sense of judgement, Pip! I don’t believe it. Not for one–”

“It’s complicated,” said Pip.

“Complicated?” growled Nak. “Complicated is what I’ll do to his nostril hairs with the toe of my left boot!”

“No more chatter,” said Kassik. “We must return to the Academy, not least because I’m in deep trouble with Casitha for flying out here while injured.”

A small smile tugged at the corner of Pip’s mouth. Ay, she was home. For how long, no-one could know.

* * * *

The Academy Dragonwings rapidly closed around Pip to whisk her away to the Academy volcano. Kassik flew heavily, favouring a large burn-hole in his right flank. As they angled for the rim, he briefed Pip:

“After you and Silver left, your companions flew rapidly to Sylakia. We ran into some trouble there with Rambastion and a large flight of Night-Reds, but the Sylakian Dragons caused them enough grief that we were able to escape–not without our wounds. I’m sorry to tell you, Pip, that Kaiatha and Durithion chose to stay in Sylakia with Master Balthion.”

“He was killed?”

“No, but he was wounded, Pip. And it turns out the brave Master was hiding a secret from us all, one with which he did not wish to trouble his family.”

Arosia said, “Pip, my father has a cancer of the stomach and bowel area. He was in terrible pain, but hid it for our sakes. It will be fatal, if it hasn’t been already. The wounds he suffered … made it much worse.”

Her friend turned away, gazing over the volcano. Pip would dearly have loved to hold her. Her throat closed; her paws clenched painfully tight. Such a bottomless Cloudlands ocean of grief!

Gently, Master Kassik explained that the Sylakian Shapeshifters claimed to have a secret process by which they put Dragons into hibernation, but had found no substantive evidence or methodology to back up that claim. There was no proof the Nurguz would not feed on a hibernating Dragon, even if they were hidden in caverns far beneath Sylakia. That inquiry was a barren Island, yet another in their mission to defeat the Shadow beast. And for this knowledge, Balthion had fallen.

Having heard this, Pip turned to Arosia, stammering, “Your father was dear to me … the first to believe … Arosia, I’m so sorry. I would’ve wanted to say a proper farewell, but I can’t imagine how you must feel. Shimmerith, couldn’t you … help … Master Balthion?”

“I eased his pain, Pip,” said Shimmerith. His bowels were raddled. There was little left to work with; it was a miracle he was even alive as the cancer had metastasized and spread. Even Dragon powers have their limitations.

Through tears, Arosia said, “He was proud, Pip. He hid it so long. Mother didn’t even know … but I caught him pretending to eat. And then he was wounded, and Chymasion saw … Duri’s also bad. He couldn’t be flown further. Kaia chose … it tore her up, Pip, but she chose to stay behind to nurse them both.”

Pip gasped, “Has someone told her not to transform? To hide? To–”

“Ay, we did,” said Nak.

“Maylin and Emmaraz?”

“Recovering,” said Kassik. “You may see them now, if you wish.”

“I do wish! And you, Master–”

“You can do me a favour, Pip. Distract Casitha from being too ungentle with me. She’s a tyrant, that girl. And while we’re on the subject, how by the five moons and five thousand Islands for that matter did Jerrion end up with a Pygmy consort? Master Adak has promised to slam your head into the nearest brick wall over his niece’s decision.”

Nak called over, “Well, Master Kassik. We might say one Dragon is accusing another of having wings on that score.”

The Brown snarled, “She’s half his size!”

“Casitha is one eighth of your age, mister ‘I just turned one hundred and sixty’ Shapeshifter,” Nak pointed out helpfully, drawing a massive fang-clashing snap from Kassik. “She doesn’t seem unhappy, however. You must be doing something right.”

“Rider Nak!” roared the Brown Dragon.

“You bellowed, o noble Master of the Academy?” Nak inquired mildly.

Slipping over the volcano’s rim, Pip was immediately struck by the appearance of a seething armed camp. Gone, most of the friendly Academy buildings, transformed into massively fortified, castle-like structures. Dragons, everywhere she looked. At least fifty Dragon-sentries stood on the rim-wall, never mind multiple draconic guards stationed atop the buildings and a plethora of catapult and crossbow emplacements, besides other weapons she did not recognise.

As they descended, drawing flame-eyed stares from every Dragon present, Pip asked Yaethi, “So, did the Mistress of Scrolls find any useful lore at Fra’anior Cluster?”

Yaethi threw Pip a bright, happy grin. “Couldn’t let you have all the adventure. While you were stretching your wings and basking in the suns, I’ve been to Fra’anior, Ya’arriol, Ha’athior’s secret library and the Natal Cave. I have one word for you.”

“Let me guess,” Pip interrupted. “Nurguz?”

“What? It took me weeks to find–and the headaches–you just saunter up from the acidic pits of death–Arrabon, will you swat her for me, please?”

“Swatting the fledglings is my job,” said Emblazon, joining Arrabon in swatting Pip’s shoulder from the other flank.

Pip noticed Emmaraz lying in the afternoon suns-shine beside the infirmary entrance, his wing and shoulder heavily bandaged. Beside him, Maylin snoozed in a comfortable chair, a thick green blanket tucked up to her chin. Casitha stood beside the pair, tapping her foot dangerously as she pinned Kassik with an angry gaze. But for the Onyx, she had only smiles. They landed on the field in a flurry of wings. The Dragons on the buildings, on the rim and in the air above, started such a chorus of joyous bugling that the volcano fairly rang with it. Would they be so happy when they heard her story, and learned of the Marshal’s power?

But Pip had eyes only for her friends, for Casitha running to her with her arms outspread, and for Maylin’s sleepy peek over her blanket, eyes widening as she realised who had landed, and here came Mistress Mya’adara, charging down the infirmary steps with a child cradled in one arm and a half-unrolled bandage dangling from her free hand, shouting:

“Yah! Mah Pip! Mah Pip come home, yah hear, everyone! Told yah so. Come here, yah filthy heart-breaking rapscallion, and give yah poor Mya’adara hug for all the worry yah caused!”

Ay, home was where people yelled at her.

Chapter 30: Scholarly Approach

EIGHT THOUSAND HUMANS and three thousand Dragons watched Human-Pip’s presentation as she told her stories–in part, at least–that evening, helped by Chymasion who projected her carefully selected memories onto the air beside the infirmary cave, using an area one thousand feet wide and five hundred tall. Kassik’s rationale was that they needed to see the enemy. Sight of the Island brought murmurs of awe. The numbers ranged against them made the Dragons gasp. Pip’s torture drew growls and fireballs of grief-rage from the Dragons and tears from many of the Humans present. The Shadow loomed over the congregation, vast and dark and soul-chilling. Then she swept them beneath the Cloudlands with Shurgal and Leandrial, through the layers and the deeps and the rift, to the final battle she remembered with the Hakkulid.

Kassik whispered in her mind, Show them Fra’anior, Pip. Show them the power of Onyx. Give them hope.

Ay, that was what the silence needed. Not a pretty speech, not rage or sorrow or hollow declarations that the victory would be theirs. Everyone knew the odds. The Dragons were outnumbered three to one. Marshal Re’akka commanded armies of slaves, but would he even need them? He had the Shadow and the power of the First Egg behind him.

Drawing once more on Chymasion’s power, Pip’s amplified voice thundered over the congregation. “Two more things, my friends. I want to show you the source of the Marshal’s power, and I want you to meet the Dragon who stands shoulder-to-shoulder with us in the forthcoming battle.”

First, Pip showed them the First Egg, explaining what it was. Then she introduced Fra’anior. He could speak for himself–storm, seven-throated thundering and all. She was tired, too tired to think of ways to inspire all these people and Dragons. The number of watchers was awesome, fire-eyes thickly lining almost the entire circumference of the volcano and the Roost Mountain, and the field behind a sea of upturned Human faces. And all of these depended on her to come through for them. To stand and defy the Marshal, or doom every soul present.

Who could bear such a weight of expectation?

As Kassik took over, offering simple words of hope and strategy, Pip melted away into the darkness, shadowed by her old trio–Faranion, Barrion and Jerrion. Her three trees, her personal giants away from the jungle giants of her other home. Would she ever see them again–Elder No’otha, her father or precious little Tik? Would the Island-World see another dawn free of the threat of Dragon Assassins and certain death for the Dragonkind at the insatiable Shadow’s hand? That creature had hunted far and wide at first, roaming the Island-World apparently at will. Now it seemed tied to the Marshal’s wingtips. Why? Why had she not discovered the Marshal’s secret power over the Nurguz?

Did that power even exist?

She had failed. Maybe Yaethi had the answers they so desperately needed.

Perhaps Nak and Oyda might put up with her borrowing their roost for a night or two. She had nowhere else to go. No danger of sneaking off anywhere with her quisling boyfriend.

Suddenly, Oyda was beside her, talking softly with Emblazon in her developing Dragonish. Most Riders took time to become attuned enough to their Dragon to speak telepathically with them. Together with Nak and Shimmerith, they winged up to the roost and spent a convivial hour sharing a basic meal of sweetbread and fruits, and meat for the Dragons, and talking of better times.

Come morning, the talk would be of war.

Pip felt her eyelids growing sandy with exhaustion. Too many people, too many emotions. Fra’anior, I must speak with you this night. Would you heed my call?

She curled up inside Shimmerith’s left forepaw, and tried to quiet her agitation.

* * * *

“Would you forgive me if I turned up instead of Fra’anior?”

Pip turned at the sound of a melodious voice. Star-girl! Well, not clad in her dazzling star-guise tonight, but … mercy, why were her thoughts dark-fires? “Hualiama, Princess of Fra’anior. Rider of Grandion.” She opted for a Pygmy salute, right fist clenched over her heart.

The girl sat upon the head of a Dragon who rivalled Shimmerith for beauty, the legendary Tourmaline Grandion, who appeared to be sleeping, but was no less stunning for his posture of repose. He was a living, breathing jewel. Radiant. Powerful. Every inch as majestic as the ballads painted him, and more. And she was beautiful. Large eyes of the deepest blue. Masses of blonde hair with a hint of the untamed about it. An elfin chin. Although, she was not quite the Island-strider one of Nak’s ballads styled her–Hualiama was petite, just about Oyda’s size. Oddly, this made Pip envisage a kindred spirit.

“I am Hualiama. Blue-star, if you’d prefer,” said the girl. “Forgive me, but for today’s formalities I’ll add the title Star Dragoness. I really don’t have much patience with titles. I’ve been saddled with more titles than the average Green Dragon would care to spit at. Uh … and I’m pleased you’re here. Delighted.”

Star-girl was nervous? And delighted? Make that two of them. Before she could consider how one was supposed to talk to legends who were rather more alive than they ought to be, and surprisingly young to boot, Pip wrinkled her nose at Hualiama. “Ay? I’m confused–I mean, pleased … pinch my wings, I’m really talking to you, aren’t I? Really?”

“Really, really. Don’t worry about the existential implications. Quite puzzling.”

And with a smile and a matching wrinkle of her nose, Hualiama leaped lithely down from her Dragon’s head and enveloped Pip in a heartfelt hug.

“Oof. You’re stronger than you look,” said Pip.

“Dancer,” said Hualiama. “But I never enjoyed your Onyx power. That’s quite the heritage you have there, Pip.”

“But strength of paw will not defeat the Shadow Dragon, will it?”

The blonde head shook slightly. “Far be it from me to read Fra’anior’s mind, but I doubt that was his purpose when he adopted you, Pip. I think of this Shapeshifter spiritual inheritance in terms of adoption, because my familial heritage was a complex one; for many years, all I knew was my adopted family. You know, lucky girl gets the Fra’aniorian royals for parents. The truth was worse. Traumatically worse in ways that … started wars and upset Islands, killed my parents, downed empires …”

“I’m really sorry, Hualiama.”

For a horrid second, Pip thought the girl would scorn her response. But the deep blue gaze considered her, and in a mischievous wink of starlight, the moment passed. “Your spirit is so generous, Pip. It’s one of your most endearing qualities. I grew up an abused royal. You grew up in a zoo. I could not imagine that. How did you survive?”

“By eating grubs,” Pip said bluntly, then felt awful as Hualiama’s eyes filled with tears. “Sorry, I … look, I survived, and I wasn’t lonely because I had Hunagu. He’s now … windrocs take it, I’m leaking too …”

“Left behind,” said Hualiama.

In that quietness of shared sorrows, Pip felt a deep sense of connectedness. This girl was not about frivolous laughter. She had given solemn advice, the key to her small victory over the Marshal. But laughter would not dispel the Nurguz.

“I’ve a task which falls to me and little time in which to discharge this responsibility,” said Hualiama, with an apologetic frown. “Pip, by now you will have realised that you are the third member of a select group of Dragons. The first was Istariela, the mate of Fra’anior. The second is Hualiama, as Leandrial correctly deduced. The third is an Onyx Dragoness. Each has a unique set of attributes and qualities, but together we share a common goal.”

Pip waggled an eyebrow, then performed a droll bow.

The so-blue eyes twinkled merrily. “Oh no, not even the smallest Dragons get to wriggle out of this one. You are a Star Dragoness, Pip. Take it from me, this mantle is neither asked for, nor easy, nor optional.”

“It’s about Balance, isn’t it?”

“See, you’ve already stepped into the paws of a Star Dragon,” said Hualiama, with a genuflection of profound respect. “I’m delighted to call you kin, Pip, and honoured to accept you as the third member of this unique family. I am looking forward to knowing you well. Now, I must give you what is mine to give at this time. I’m like a spiritual mentor, I suppose, but I’d rather just be a friend. Otherwise I’ll sound five hundred years old.”

“Five hundred, yet lacking a single crease or wrinkle?” Pip grinned. “O crone most ancient–”

“Thanks. Now, sweet dreams, Star Dragoness.”

“What?”

* * * *

“What?”

Silver sat up on his sleeping pallet, patting himself down to check everything was as it should be. What a peculiar dream. Pip had been talking to a star. A star?

Maybe he did have real oath-connection. In which case, should he report to his esteemed shell-father that Pip was whole in wing and scale and plotting his inevitable demise? With a despicable chuckle, Silver rose to his feet, standing on the thin rush mattress to gaze out of the crysglass window of his roost just beneath the summit of the highest peak of Eridoon Island. Re’akka owned the topmost room, of course, as befitted his station.

Tomorrow, they would raise sight of Jeradia. His shell-father would lower their shields at dawn, giving the Academy the benefit of a full day to allow panic and terror to set in. Then, at midnight, he planned to attack.

The White Moon was amazingly bright at this early hour, perhaps three hours before dawn. His already pale flesh seemed ghostly in that light, less substantial than the moonlight itself. Impulsively, Silver unlatched the wide window and cracked it open, letting the cool night air flood in, exposing himself to the soft croaking of Herimor night-toads in the formal gardens outside, and the mysterious, cinnamon-draconic scents of the night.

Stepping over the low windowsill, Silver scented the air deeply. Glorious.

Then he looked down, and saw the shadow of a Dragon move across the centre of his chest. Then another head. Then … seven heads, writhing across his chest as though intent on supping upon his pectoral muscles and abdominals.

He cried out, gazing at the White Moon.

Nothing. Yet when he looked down again, the Dragon’s shadow was present. A monumental presence filled his mind. Silver.

He fell backward, bruising his tailbone, whispering, No. No … Why had he not believed? Even having seen the very face of Fra’anior himself, he had not believed–what? That the Ancient One would choose to speak only to Pip? That it had been a vision, a mass hallucination?

SILVER.

I’m not worthy, he babbled. Don’t touch me. Go away, please … I am but a worm …

Shadows flitted around the room, heads and fangs and skull-spikes. Silver knew the icy breath of mortal terror keening through his soul, and shuddered.

No, Silver. You shall be my strong right paw, the Dragon for whom I have reserved a special task. I am calling you. Go now, and touch the First Egg. I will speak to you there.

As if trapped in a dream, Silver rose and left his room.

* * * *

The alarmed bugling of the watch-Dragons woke the Academy to the reality of Eridoon Island sailing in stark majesty along the northern shore of Jeradia. No Dragon moved in the sky above. That stillness, Pip decided, as she and a thousand other pairs of eyeballs and eye-fires peeked over the Academy volcano’s rim, communicated far more than ten thousand Dragonkind darkening the sky. Re’akka had begun the war without firing a single fireball.

A beautiful suns-rise outlined that dark Island.

The Marshal’s invisible paw lay heavy upon the Academy all that morning as people bustled about, Dragons growled and snapped, and the caverns beneath the buildings and the rim-wall itself filled with wailing children and tetchy hatchlings. Soldiers rushed about checking last-minute details–baskets of metal fragments or heavy shot for the catapults, the disposition of troops and patrols, reports and distribution of armour and weapons to the students. Master Kassik’s office could no longer handle the constant toing and froing of Dragons. He decamped to the field, a hulking Brown Dragon at the centre of a whirlwind of wings and orders.

Eridoon drifted almost imperceptibly closer along the mountainous northern shoreline, just three leagues off Jeradia’s famously rugged granite cliffs, backed by a trackless, ravine-scored wilderness frequented by rajals and windrocs.

Pip, returned to Human form, and Yaethi swapped notes on the Nurguz near Master Kassik’s field office while Shimmerith, Arrabon and Chymasion looked on.

Even before she finished, the reserved Helyon Islander seemed ready to burst with excitement. “It fits! It matches–everything that Leandrial told you, including your Pygmy belief in demons.”

“Demons?”

Shimmerith blinked at Pip over Yaethi’s shoulder. “Indeed, little one. Tell her.”

Chymasion chimed in, “Ay, what did you find in the old libraries? I heard the Elders whispering about dark legends …”

Deep in the fires of times before memory, Yaethi related in dense chunks of discourse, unimaginable wars had been waged between the forces that shaped the galaxies, stars and worlds. This was told in scrolls so archaic, the best Dragon scholars had been unable to decipher much of the proto-draconic language in which they were couched. Some sources called these warring forces or entities good and evil, others light and dark, or angels and demons, she said. This world-spanning war was waged on many levels–between fundamentally opposed substances or matter, or beings, or even dimensions. At length, these great enemies came to understand that these forces were not only opposed but intertwined, even interdependent, and that if the conflict continued, the very fabric of the Universe would be annihilated. True nothingness would reign. Even life and death would cease to exist. A truce had been declared, a truce–

“Wait, wait,” Pip laughed, throwing up her hands. “My head hurts. What’s a galaxy, Yaethi? You said something about quasi-transmutative interdimensional magical powers? And demons are real? We’re fighting a remnant of those original dark-fires, the elements of our Universe’s substance?”

Yaethi seemed on the verge of tears. “My finest scholarship–”

Shimmerith put in, “Pip’s a practical girl, Yaethi. Just tell her how to beat the Nurguz.”

Now Yaethi looked even more upset. She began to expound in excruciating detail, referring to Pip’s Shapeshifter forms, how a trans-dimensional being such as the Nurguz or an Ancient Dragon could manifest in different dimensions simultaneously and transfer fundamental energies between one lattice of existence and another, and how time flow fluctuated between the different expressions of quantum space-time and a creature might require enormous quantities of energy to materialise completely in a dimension which was not conducive to its type of life-manifestations and white-fires or dark-fires. How life could transform its essential elements to conform to a particular lattice’s constraints … half an hour later, she was still spouting in monologue; even Chymasion’s white eyes had begun to glaze over.

Pip grabbed Yaethi’s good hand. “That’s completely mind-blowing, Yaethi. Now, may I summarise what I’ve learned?”

“Bah,” said her friend, seeing right through Pip in a flash. “Don’t pretend to be stupid, because you aren’t.”

“No, but I’ve got a freaking big problem, a ruddy great Island floating out there crewed by ten thousand Dragons and … sorry, Yaethi. I didn’t mean to shout at you.”

“I understand.” Yaethi wiped her eyes with her stump. “It’s just that it’s imperative that you understand, Pip, and I’m saying it so badly. I just … there’s so much to know, so much we don’t really grasp, which has been lost …”

“Right,” said Pip, hugging Yaethi with one hand and clamping her mouth shut with the other, “just nod or shake your head, alright?” The Helyon Islander bit her forefinger. “I feel nothing, because I’ve … uh … mutated into another headache-inducing quantum whatsit.” Yaethi bit down harder. “Ouch! That definitely manifested in the physical lattice-thingy.”

“First lesson,” Arrabon piped up, making them all laugh.

Pip said, “Seriously, the Nurguz is a creature apparently designed to destroy white-fires. In effect, it is partially manifest here because our world–our lattice-energies–consist of white-fire type life, which ordinarily would be anathema to dark-fires, but the Nurguz does some clever transmutative magic which you described so beautifully and changes white-fires into energies on which it feeds, or transfers back to whichever dimension it came from. Right?”

Yaethi, Shimmerith, Chymasion and Arrabon all nodded.

Arrabon said, “And it stays here because opposites attract. White-fires are like Dragonwine to that creature.”

Yaethi’s headscarf bobbed a second time.

“You had a nice scholarly wrangle about whether or not the Ancient Dragons ever defeated the Nurguz, right?”

Pip’s finger came in for another mangling.

Wincing, Pip rattled, “Techniques of warfare against the Nurguz were vigorously debated by a glittering host of scholarly minds.” Yaethi’s lips moved in a smile hidden by Pip’s hand. “The truth is, the Ancient Dragons never defeated the Nurguz, because the Shadow does not exist physically in this dimension, nor can it be operated upon magically, because its fundamental demonic nature is immune to or eradicates our white-fire magic. The Ancients fled–no!”

Yaethi froze mid-nod.

“No,” Pip repeated slowly, gripped by a sudden insight. “They didn’t run away. They sent their children to a place of safety–here. This Island-World. They acted to save their children, their precious eggs, from the Nurguz scourge …”

Shimmerith bugled a heart-rending note of grief that made every Dragon in the vicinity look up; she drew her wing protectively over Chymasion’s back.

“And then a second time, perhaps two thousand years ago, they decided to try to draw the Nurguz away from our Island-World, or to hide … us, from the Shadow. Ancient Dragons are closer to that original state of the Universe, closer to the white-fires,” said Pip, thinking aloud. “That’s why they’re so powerful. The Nurguz is older still, and even more powerful, in a sense. More elemental. Yaethi, you were right. Do we conclude my job as a Star Dragoness is to shine white-fires so brilliantly that the Shadow is obliterated in the fires of its natural antithesis? And all of us, must we not save that First Egg?”

Finally released, Yaethi said, “Don’t forget your Word-power, Pip.”

“But that’s all physical or mental. What would that achieve? No, the Word is meant for the Marshal.”

The Helyon Islander added, “The Marshal’s power you saw in that original vision is a rare Dragon power called Shivers. A rapid vibration of the inter-dimensional lattice–if her Highness the Shining One can follow these very large words.”

That drew a fine snarl from whichever dimension Pip’s Shifted Dragoness happened to be hiding in at the time. Did that mean Shapeshifters were trans-dimensional beings, too? Had the Ancient Dragons stumbled upon a dimension which no Nurguz could penetrate? The Pygmy girl felt her eyes widen. Could they Shiver the Shadow out of existence? Rattle his time- and space-spanning dimensional … er, apparition, into some other reality?

Shimmerith said, “Meaning that if the Marshal rises, we must at all costs prevent him from using that power of Shivers?”

“Ay,” said Yaethi, suddenly stepping into rapid-fire summarisation mode, “and, we theorise that the Marshal draws his power from the Egg. That will be a key vector of attack if we aim to defeat him. If I may just elucidate a few ideas we scholars have advanced in that regard …”

Pip listened closely, yet she despaired. Still, they were no closer to defeating the Shadow. Amongst this mountain of lore and legend and Dragon science, by Star power or by Onyx, there had to be a way. There simply had to. But was she smart enough, and brave enough, to find it?

* * * *

Half an hour before suns-set, the voice of Marshal Re’akka entered the mind of every Dragon in his service and bade them arise.

Silver nodded quietly to himself, transforming into his Silver Dragon guise in the privacy of his bedchamber. Ay. To prevent the possibility of the enemy learning their plans, the Marshal had kept the exact hour of their attack secret from everyone, including his own Wing-Commanders. Silver stepped through the doorway and rushed to the planned assembly point atop a mile-high peak on Eridoon’s eastern side–at least, the side facing eastward now. There, they awaited the Marshal’s pleasure while beneath them, within the Island, the Dragonwings formed up in the long tunnels radiating from the central hole. The first so-called shockwave of two thousand Dragons was armoured with plate armour that mainly protected the front of the chest, neck and flanks, those areas where the hearts were more vulnerable, while leaving the massive flight muscles and shoulder joints free to flex and rotate as required. A second Dragonwing five thousand strong would follow the first, leaving three thousand in reserve–mostly smaller Dragons–which would be deployed only if needed.

Few amongst his kin expected the Academy to last longer than a few hours.

The Marshal’s thirty-four family members were all huge Dragons, for Re’akka’s lineage bred beasts renowned for their size and ferocity. As a noble house, they boasted colour–colours as common as dirt here in the North, but not in Herimor. Twelve were green, fifteen Red, five a variety of pale Blue shades, close to the Marshal’s near-White colouration, and two were ultra-rare Greys notorious for their hot glue and acid attacks.

Sadly, Silver himself just topped half of the size of any of his kin. He supposed this was a terrible deficiency. Just let any Dragon breathe a word …

Where was Rambastion? And what of the Dragonwing meant to be approaching along the Spine from Sylakia? Missing in action, perhaps, but Silver was certain Re’akka would be keeping one flaming eye on the situation. He filed the information at the back of his mind.

Suddenly, the Marshal rose from the Island’s central pit, his pale white form almost ethereal in the moonlight; his wings translucent for the most part, his scales similarly so, as though formed from ice so compressed, it became slightly blue, like tinted crysglass. A giant among Lesser Dragons, Re’akka the White measured one hundred and fifty-two feet in wingspan, but his form was sinewy rather than having the muscular bulk of an Emblazon. Silver knew that musculature for sprung steel, and the scales to be almost impervious to any attack. He had once seen Re’akka take down a traitorous Red Shapeshifter uncle of his; even without the use of magic, he was as deadly as one would expect of a veteran of a lifetime of Herimor warring and Dragon combat.

Take wing! the Marshal thundered.

There was a slight pause, as if the Island drew breath or gasped in dread. Thick torrents of Night-Red Dragons suddenly spat out of the hole, thirty Dragons emerging every two seconds, their intervals so regimented that Silver suspected the Marshal’s exacting mental control of this process. In a touch over a minute, a thousand Dragons fanned out across the sky. Fourteen minutes later, the staging was complete with the heavier, armoured Dragons taking slightly longer to deploy.

Silver knew what this must look like to the Academy. Night-Reds hovered above Eridoon in a dense cloud two miles high and five wide. Dragon upon Dragon upon Dragon, gleaming in the ruddy light of the suns-set as though their scales and talons already dripped crimson with the blood of Humans. Of course, the timing was deliberate. Marshal Re’akka was not above relishing a dramatic touch–the better to scare his enemies witless. Silver supposed it must work, although there was not much response from the Dragons above the Academy. Why not? There was a tingling deep in his bones. This was a stratagem. The wily old Brown, Kassik, was up to something. But what?

Death to the enemies of true-fires! Re’akka’s bellow rolled over the Dragonwings.

On cue, most of Silver’s family launched into the warm, still evening, spearing in a single colourful line to the battle-front, the Reds lining up in front of their heavily-armoured shockwave, the Greens and Blues commanding the second wave and reserves.

Silver stood alone.

Shaking Jeradia Island with the massed thunder of their challenge, two thousand heavily armoured Night-Red Dragons stormed across the league separating Eridoon Island from the Academy and its defenders, now ascending to face the challengers.

The Silver Dragon’s hearts thundered in his throat, chest and stomach as the shockwave closed with the Academy’s defenders. With perfect synchronisation, they blasted the defenders with two thousand combined fireballs, lighting the Academy volcano as though a new sun had risen overhead, and the report of that first detonation rolled back like distant thunder to the Marshal’s awesome Dragon army. The defensive line folded and scattered; the Marshal’s force raised a deafening roar of approbation.

Silver was not convinced. As the Night-Reds dived over the rim-wall to rake the Academy’s defences with fire, he thought it was simple. Far too simple.

Chapter 31: Dragons, Attack!

KASSIK SCRUTINISED THE incoming Dragonwing from the upper slopes of Roost Mountain, saying quietly to Casitha, strapped into his saddle, “We’ve one chance at this trick.”

Beside him, Pip stood in her Onyx Dragon form, her talons unconsciously furrowing the rocky ground as Dragon Assassins occluded the roseate evening sky, a total eclipse of hope. To her right flank Chymasion stiffened, quivering perceptibly as he channelled the efforts of thirty Blue Dragons including his shell-mother Shimmerith through his unique augmentation ‘filters’, as he called them. Pip shored up his strength with her Onyx power, husbanding her own resources carefully–Kassik’s fire-snorting, talon-wagging orders. The Jade Dragon spared a tiny mental nod of thanks for her help. Pip only hoped this would be enough to protect that crazy-brave, fragile first line of defenders. The bait in the jaws of Kassik’s trap.

GRRAAARRRGGGHH!!

Flames exploded across her field of vision, causing Pip’s secondary nictitating eye-membranes to cycle perceptibly, dimming a potentially damaging flare. The huge wave of fire, comprised of bright Dragon flame mixed with yellow-hot lava, washed over and around the Academy Dragons, drizzling with deceptive, glowing gentleness over the outlying Academy buildings and field. Flames smouldered despite earlier efforts to damp everything down with water.

The defenders broke and fled, making convincing cries of alarm and distress. She knew how much argument that action had cost Kassik! A tidal wave of wrathful Night-Reds chased them down into the caldera.

The Brown waited till they swooped toward the buildings … and gave his signal.

At once, concealed entrances to artificial caverns and tunnels riddling the upper sixth of the rim-wall cracked open. Camouflage netting ripped away. One hundred and ten massive twenty-foot Dragon crossbows, a weapon borrowed from the legendary rebels of Merx, fired a snarl of metal-reinforced netting and grapnels attached to cable-hawsers over the enemy Dragonwing. Snap! Crack! Snarled, hundreds of Dragons fell or slewed into their fellows. Lighter crossbows and catapults fired point-blank into the mass, using shrapnel for shredding wings and six-foot metal bolts designed for penetrating Dragon hide or downing Dragonships. An indescribable bellowing rose from the chaos. Pip flinched. Mercy, oh …

Courage, little ones, growled Kassik. Hold firm. This is battle-reality. Your Silver spoke true, Pip. Let us pray his hearts know love’s true-fires … or that you can turn him. Ready?

A third round of shot and nets crashed into the massed Night-Reds.

With a mighty roar, Kassik the Brown launched into the air with his slim Dragon Rider on his back, backed up by four Jeradian Hammers manning mobile crossbow emplacements strapped to his saddle-harness.

Academy Dragons erupted out of the rim-wall caves and the upper echelons of Roost Mountain to fall upon the Marshal’s beleaguered advance force. Hundreds of Assassins were already grounded on the field, their wings helplessly snarled in netting or ropes, but more than half remained unscathed. The clash made Pip recoil a second time. Why was she chary now? She was Dragonkind! Yet the slaughter grieved and angered her. So unnecessary. So wasteful. Driven into the crucible of the Marshal’s overweening ambition, many Dragonkind would join the eternal fires this evening. Kassik’s forces pounded the stricken Dragon Assassins, picking first on their Wing-Commanders, then the thronging Dragons. Melees formed at the speed of thought, wheeling and snapping through the air. Catapults and crossbows picked individual targets. On the ground, dense wedges of Jeradian Hammers supported by Academy fledglings and the older Dragons raced across the field, finishing off fallen Night-Reds.

The volcano became a living deathtrap.

Pip tracked Shimmerith with her eyes. She felt and saw Chymasion reaching out to help his shell-mother as she danced gracefully through the fracas, her amplified powers allowing her to shoot twenty-foot bolts of ice right through Dragon scale or armour. Shimmerith picked off three Wing-Commanders, while Emblazon finished two. Kassik tangled with a huge Night-Red, forcing him down toward the beautiful green lake now dotted with struggling Dragons and limp carcasses, its waters laced with gold and crimson.

Yet the carnage was terrible to behold, the casualties on both sides multiplying at a dizzying rate. Everywhere Pip looked, the white-fires of her vision focussed through Chymasion’s unique sight seemed to weep golden Dragon blood. Rivers of blood. She could not know laughter here. Pip knew only the inner storm of Dragon hearts moved to weep for her world, as though Fra’anior himself wept through her and in her, for the diminution of his original creation.

Quick as a flash of lightning, Pip turned to Chymasion.

He began to say, You promised … but then he, and Arosia with him, bowed their heads as though the force of her heartache robbed them of any right of refusal.

I’m sorry, said Pip. She had to be a promise-breaker.

* * * *

An invisible paw punched the air out of Silver’s lungs. He whirled, as did the Marshal, staring from the Island’s elevation of a mile higher than the volcano’s rim as the battle over the Academy changed character. It subsided.

Pip! Three hearts leaped like ungainly fish within him. What had she done?

Second wave, ordered the Marshal. Burn them all!

Winds generated by Dragons’ wings rocked the island slightly as the five thousand proclaimed their battle-readiness, roaring like an angry volcano in full spate. The suns burned into the western horizon, yet from Silver’s perspective were almost completely obscured by the onslaught of sooty black wings upon that gleaming beauty. There was something fearfully awesome about their collective purpose, the way the great wings beat and the spiky reptilian muzzles faced the gleaming light, some passing through the volcano’s long shadow, some burnished as coals glowing in a fire. The massed growling which seemed to feed on itself, amplified by the collective gathering of Dragon powers and fires in such an enormous battle group; the suns bowing away as though unable to bear the onslaught of such a surfeit of draconic majesty.

Come, shell-son. The Marshal beckoned imperiously with his wingtip. This is the hour of our victory. Let us crush the Onyx . It shall require but one fell strike. Then, these miserable specimens of Dragon excrement will bow before my mastery.

Silver beat his wings, rising into the last suns-set upon the Dragonkind.

* * * *

Staggering to her paws, Pip eyed the confusion with inordinate satisfaction and a headache so almighty she imagined Leandrial had just cuffed her around the earhole. Her inner ears rang with a celestial song–tinkling, soul-penetrating laughter? Hot, aromatic Dragon blood filled her mouth. She sensed the magic in her body adjusting, already redressing the Balance and healing, for she was hypersensitive to everything within and without her body in the wake of that Island-shivering Word of Command.

Be changed! She shivered. Even the thought-echo of a Word seemed to exert magical influence.

Beside her, Chymasion groaned as he pushed up off his knees. Pip’s gaze fell on Arosia, standing between the two Dragons, hands on hips in a pose copied straight off Mya’adara’s scrolleaf, slim, handsome and madder than a nest of hornets shaken and tossed to the ground. She was so angry, she could barely speak.

“You … promised! We all did!” Arosia yelled. “What the volcanic hells … what’s the matter with you, Pip? One simple order. One!” Abruptly she laughed, even as she rubbed her temples with a groan. “Blazon and Kassik are going to shred us. Well. I’ll just have to defend you two rascals.”

Chymasion vented a pained snort of mirth. “Thank you, noble Rider.”

Defend a Dragon? Pip tried not to let her silly grin loose to aggravate Arosia, but failed. “We changed the Balance, didn’t we, my friend?”

The girl thumped her on the flank with her fist. “You are trouble with a Dragon-sized ‘T-rune’ picked out in gold-plated calligraphic script, as our Yaethi would say. No. This is–”

“Magnificent!” shouted Yaethi, riding Arrabon out of a nearby cave-mouth. “Stupendous work, Pip and Chymasion. Arosia, no teasing a scholar about calligraphy. Or have you been taking trouble- provoking lessons from our Pip?”

Arosia blushed fiercely. “No!”

“Blues!” Yaethi yelled, helped along by a low growl from Arrabon in Dragonish. “Pay attention. Healing over here for these two.” Shading her eyes, she gazed up at Kassik rapidly briefing the massed Night-Reds, milling about above the Academy buildings, evidently confused. “You un-imprinted what, five hundred Dragons, Pip? Changed their minds? No, Night-Reds exist in a state of Imbalance and you just set the scales right. Clever little Dragoness.”

Fire leaked from Pip’s nostrils, along with a trickle of blood. She shivered. Just for a second then, her Dragon brain had been roaring, ‘Kill the insolent Human,’ while her Human-brain shrilled a warning at this bloodthirstiness …

“Second attack-wave incoming,” said Chymasion. “Time to get under cover, Pip.”

Up above, Kassik said something to Casitha, who quickly pulled out two white signal flags and waved them in a wide circle around her head. Up on the rim-wall, Pip saw the signal repeated in five places.

Oh … mercy. If mercy existed on a battlefield littered with the dead and dying, and too many wounded Dragons to count.

The Marshal intended to finish them quickly. And now, she must face Silver.

A rushing of wind passed over the Academy. The skies darkened with draconic wings. There was a moment’s profound stillness, as though the world held its breath. Then, the hammer fell. Clouds of Dragons rained fire upon the defenders, blasting the rim-walls with such sustained aggression that it seemed to Pip that the volcano had erupted. Waves of searing heat rolled over the battlefield, shimmering and smoking. Sheets of flame roared into the sky, but the Dragons simply tore through, bathing in the conflagration, growling and snapping as they tangled with their adversaries. The awesome aerial bombardment shook the volcano concussively, echo building upon echo in that enclosed space, until the very Island-World seemed to be roaring in outrage at the slaughter developing over the Academy.

Yet she had eyes for one Dragon alone–for the Marshal, winging slowly and majestically into a position from which he could personally oversee the battle. She shifted her gaze fractionally to Silver, following meekly in his shell-father’s wake. How well he served that monster! How the son nosed his heels like a spineless lap-dog!

By now, the twin suns had dipped beneath the horizon, thus as the Marshal spiralled lazily upward to a height of four miles above the volcano, he became the lone actor on a golden stage, furnace-gilded to a resplendent sheen.

He gathers his power, said Chymasion. Through the Jade Dragon’s eyes, Pip saw feathery tendrils of fire reaching into the Marshal’s being from the suns and the skies and the earth and most especially, thick and beautiful, from the First Egg itself. Yet his power was not white-fires. As the magic coalesced in his breast it changed character, becoming dark and malign–a different darkness to an Onyx power, Pip realised, although she did not understand it. His wingtips flicked.

Here it came.

* * * *

Watching his shell-father narrowly, Silver was perfectly poised to anticipate his next move.

Shield me, Silver, ordered Re’akka. Add your strength to mine.

There was rage in his hearts. Anguish. The certainty that this special attack of his shell-father’s, the cold fireball which had so ravaged fortresses and cities, would sound the death-knell for all within the Academy. Yet Fra’anior had ordered him to stand firm, to withhold his paw when this moment came rather than striking prematurely. What did the Ancient Black Dragon intend, bidding him to strike Pip with all his strength? Silver did not understand. Twice already, he had tried to kill her. She would not stand for a third.

Ablaze with power, Re’akka dove.

Already, the five thousand-strong Dragonwing had silenced Kassik’s cunningly-placed defences. The Academy Dragons were scattered and dismayed, powerless to intervene–but they tried, bravely fluttering up in their droves to attempt to stop or sway the Marshal’s course. Silver slapped them aside with a cone-shaped shield as he dove parallel to his father and half a Dragon’s-length behind, protecting them both.

The Marshal’s voice rose, clearing their path of Night-Reds.

One mile. One and a half. The volcano blurred closer. Open magma cracks snaked along the caldera floor in places. The beautiful green lake beckoned him, the lake into which Pip had dumped him after crushing his attempted usurpation of the Academy and all its Dragons. That would have been a coup worthy of the son of a Herimor Marshal. Instead, it had provided the impetus for a meeting of souls which had rocked Silver’s life like storms battering the floating Island-flotillas of his native Herimor. Nor would he forget Telisia’s attempted assassination of Pip. The disbelief in her eyes as a crossbow bolt punched right through her body.

Now he would do worse.

Wind rushed over his scales, hot and foetid with the stench of destruction. Burning flesh. Charred buildings and vegetation. Soot and grit tingling in his nostrils. Silver’s hearts sang wild battle-Dragonsong, the bloodthirsty rage that primed his body, magic and reactions for the speed and ferocity of all-out Dragon warfare. Rend. Bite. Slay! These words were the trumpet-blasts of his hearts.

Yet he watched, and saw a petite black form rising through the melting-away mass of Night-Red and Academy Dragons to oppose them. Alone she came, of all the thousands of Dragons inside the volcano.

He saluted her courage. Pip! Dark Dragoness, arise!

Ay, Dragons of both sides instinctively shied away as Re’akka began to spin in his dive, the magic steaming coldly off his scales to gather around him and in his wake in a coruscating spiral, easily visible to Dragon sight. The cold his father generated was immense, a gripping, shattering chill that made Silver wonder how he even managed to fly in its grip. A low humming began in his body, a sonic vibration slowly climbing through the register. Silver pushed his power at the White Shapeshifter, who accepted it with a low chuckle.

Re’akka roared, Ay, you would face this? Then be it on your head, Dragoness!

The Pygmy Dragoness hovered a half-mile above the Academy buildings, looking up as though measuring the Marshal’s assault, undaunted. Silver narrowed his eyes. She was … humming, too? He saw the sound-waves fluctuating about her body. Her power was a dark, fantastically compressed nucleus, as though a star had turned its own existence inside out to expose the unimaginably dense core matter to an alert Dragon’s scrutiny.

The unstoppable force. The immovable obstruction.

Knowing crammed into Silver’s mind. Fra’anior was right. He must change the Balance. Much as it made his Dragon hearts convulse in pain, he must add to his father’s attack.

Silver power flared. Blue fire hissed from his father’s throat in a long streamer that billowed before him with the force of his charge, centring unerringly on the Onyx Dragoness’ upturned nose. The magical charge Re’akka generated was so immense that lightning began to spit around them, tearing the very fabric of the darkening evening air, lighting the tails, hindquarters and wings of the Dragons fleeing the inevitable destruction. An insane howling built in Re’akka’s throat. The legendary power called Shivers, Silver remembered, unable to tear his gaze off his unflinching, immobile girlfriend.

Why, Fra’anior?

As the blue-white thunderbolt capped with silver fire reached her, Pip rose in a whirl of black wings as if to greet their attack, making a circling gesture of her paws.

She cried, Orbit!

Silver fire and cold-fire bent to her Command. Silver’s scales crawled with wonder. Ripping the twilight with an angry hiss, as though denied the opportunity to assume the form of massive, inescapable destruction, the ultra-concentrated stream of Dragon fire diverted to flow around her rotating form as though Pip conducted a concerto of bravura brilliance. A disk of fire. A blazing ring forced to orbit her dark planet.

The two Herimor Shapeshifters stared in shock. The Marshal’s output stuttered, but he still unleashed the Shivers with such venom and fury that it stalled his vertical dive, wrenching his body with the effect of extreme gravitational forces. Before their disbelieving eyes, the darkness opened subtly, accepting the charge like the Shadow Dragon lovingly enveloping its victim in death. Yet this was far too much for any one Dragoness to contain. Her face stretched in an agonised scream which precisely mimicked the pitch and tempo of the Marshal’s secondary attack–the sound-waves which would have outstripped his fire by a small margin, Silver realised. That was the Marshal’s secret. Pulverise and burn-freeze. What could stand against that combination?

Those tiny dark paws lifted to the heavens. Flower! Reflect!

He perceived her hesitation, the moment mercy won over the desire for revenge. She could have unleashed the Marshal’s attack on every Dragon in the nearby airspace, annihilating them. Instead, Pip chose to tilt that roaring disk and discharge it into the evening skies. Silver barely had time to register the cold flowering upward in response to her Word, when he realised the import of her second command. Dragon reactions! Silver slammed up a shield a millisecond before the Shivers struck him and his shell-father like a mountain tossed into the Cloudlands.

Dragons fell. Silver fell with them. All he remembered was astonishment fading to black. Pip’s colour. The colour of his mortality.

* * * *

Seven blue-white comets seared the darkling sky before exploding miles overhead in a shower of fine white particles. Yet Pip had no eyes for beauty torn from the jaws of ruin. Her wings folded, lacking the power to beat. Her hearts folded, lacking the will to live.

SILVER!!

His shell-father cradled that limp, broken body, staring at her with an unreadable draconic mask fixed on his handsome yet hateful face. Then he winged away raggedly yet with great speed, the legions of Night-Reds closing behind him as though slamming a door in her face. She had killed him! Silver, silenced forever! The heavens stood mute before the force of her terrible outcry. Cold white dust drifted over the volcano like the ash of death.

Dimly, she became aware of Kassik’s shoulder and right wing beneath her, bearing her tenderly back toward the mountainside. All he said was, I know, little one. I know.

It was enough.

* * * *

Pip lived a waking nightmare. For five days and nights, the Dragon Assassins attacked in fits and starts. The Academy defended itself with tooth and claw, with courage and tenacity, yet the cost was daily paid in the bodies of Human and Dragon lives alike. Eridoon Island stood a league offshore, grimly silent. No-one saw the Marshal. No-one saw Silver.

She wept as though her heart were a Cloudlands ocean, capped by white clouds of sulphuric acid, underpinned by impossible deeps and bottomless rifts of grief. Pip stumbled about in a fug, unable to think or eat, unable to respond. Desolation ruled her heart.

Four Blues had died supporting her. Shimmerith and Chymasion recovered after a day of forced rest each–how they chafed and grumbled! Pip made mistakes, almost striking Arrabon down in battle as she mistook him for an enemy Green Shapeshifter. Nothing anyone said seemed to penetrate, either the kindness of Oyda, Mya’adara and Casitha, or the apologetic but inflexible words of Kassik as he forbade her to go find out if Silver was alive. “Not in your state,” he said bluntly. “You cannot risk this Island-World’s future for one double-crossing Herimor snake!”

He was right. Oh, Silver!

Then there came a night when the Shadow Dragon hunted. Seventy-four Dragons entered the eternal fires.

The following morning, Pip woke in Shimmerith and Emblazon’s roost to find the Sapphire Dragoness asking Chymasion to take Amfyrion and Inzuriel down into the training caverns for their hatchling classes. With Oyda and Emblazon out on patrol, that left Pip alone with Shimmerith and Nak. She dressed pensively. An off-duty morning. What would she do? Rest? Ha! She wandered into the Riders’ bathroom to wash her face in the laver of cold water which was usually set there on a Jeradian hardwood dresser, along with Oyda’s oils, perfumes and womanly effects, and a few odds and ends that belonged to Nak.

“Islands’ greetings, Pygmy girl,” said Nak, decent for a change, trimming his beard with a dagger. “Flaming with the dawn, thou dusky–”

“Nak. I’m not in the mood.” Pip stared at him in the mirror. Her reflection was hollow-eyed, Nak’s unusually solemn.

“Fie, what of thy declaration of love everlasting, I ask thee?”

Her lips tried a twitch, but the movement only hurt. “Nak, I do love you, but–”

“Enough. It’s more than enough.” First a typically florid Nak gesture, then he turned and bent toward her. Pip froze as Nak kissed the top of her head. Nak? What possessed him? “You have to go, you know.”

“I, uh … no, I don’t. Kassik’s orders.” Nak snorted dismissively. “I’m being obedient, Nak.”

Nak began to hoot with laughter, then cut himself off abruptly. “Pip, my petal, my delicate jungle flower. Oh, windroc droppings on that nonsense! Pip, let’s be honest. Obedience is not your style. So I have taken the liberty of laying a variety of devious and despicable plans this day to help you be delightfully disobedient.”

He just could not resist making verbal floral arrangements. “Look, Nak, Kassik was very clear. And right. Fate of the world, hot-headed Pygmy nonsense, taking responsibility, unequivocal betrayal–message-hawk received. Loud and clear.”

“Don’t you take that vulgar tone with me, young lady!” Nak made yet another of his collection of rude noises.

“It’s true.”

“Kassik tried it before and look where it landed him!”

Pip flushed hotly at the reference to Master Kassik’s first wife. “Nak, that’s … that’s just …”

“Alright. Sorry. I’m only … great Islands, Pip. Fates aside, this is love. You don’t find it on every Island. And actually, this is the responsible thing to do because look at you, you’re a wreck.”

“You’re so considerate of a girl’s feelings.”

“No, you really are. Beautiful, but a wreck. A boot without a foot. A Dragoness who’s misplaced her fire. Useless to man or beast until your heart is revived.”

“Nak …” She clenched her fists. Fra’anior help her or she would punch him right through that mirror!

Nak, blast him, knew he was winning the argument and was smirking like a boy with his mouth stuffed full of sugar-bamboo sap. “Furthermore, I have recruited co-conspirators. You’ve no choice. One will advise, one will shield us and one will be your Rider.”

“I don’t want a Rider! I want Silver! I want him back. Curse it, Nak, I killed him …”

He held her gently as one sob–just one, a sob that tore her heart like a Dragon’s rending talons–did violence to her frame.

He whispered into her hair, “Trust me. This one, you cannot refuse.”

Knowing Nak had intended to rile her did not stop Pip from spinning away from him, hands on hips, her dark eyes sparking. “Try me, Rider Nak.”

He bowed fluidly, indicating the doorway to the main roost-chamber.

Pip stalked out in her best high dudgeon, chin high and little feet stamping an angry beat–anything to drown out her heart’s weeping. That Nak! Thought he could shift her grief, did he? She almost chuckled at the sight of Nak’s three recruits caught in guilty tableaux out in the roost, however. Shimmerith, Yaethi and … “Maylin? Maylin!”

Nak won.

Her friend made a stiff half-bow. Maylin said, “I blame Emmaraz. He bullied me into this.”

“Into what, exactly?” asked Pip.

“Raiding Eridoon Island in broad daylight,” said Nak.

“Convincing you to sway the Balance,” Maylin smiled. “I hope he’s worth it. I think he is.”

“Working with Shimmerith to redesign the craziest, most amazing shielding in history,” said Yaethi. “An effect only Istariela was ever capable of achieving.”

Pip lost control of her tears. She whispered, “I don’t understand. Why?”

When the others appeared lost for answers, Nak put his hand on her shoulder and said, “Because even the world’s worst romantic poet knows that the only way to ambush fate is by using one’s heart.”

* * * *

Five hours of headaches, two solid meals in Human form and one for a Pygmy Dragon, a great deal of frustration and a rush of blood to the collective heads of four people later, Pip and Shimmerith winged away from the roost upon gossamer wings, utterly invisible. More invisible than invisible, Nak joked, giving Shimmerith at least her twentieth hearty slap of approbation. Yaethi had dashed off to cover for them. Maylin rode Pip, not as her formal Rider, but as her friend.

Pip would have smiled gratefully at Nak, except she could see neither hide nor hair of his mount, never mind herself. Yaethi’s prismatic shield had seen to that. It blocked nothing–neither suns-light nor wind, nor dust nor magic, nor sound nor even radiation, nor any spectra of Draconic sight or senses. Instead, the prismatic effect folded all of these emissions or particles around the Dragon and passed them along to the other side, unchanged and undisturbed. The science of it was beyond Pip, but she did not mind. Her headache was worth it. She and Shimmerith had achieved Istariela’s fabled shield, perhaps imperfectly, thereby proving she was a Star Dragoness.

Proving they lacked both brains and the common sense accorded any gnat.

All she sensed was soundless, frictionless motion and telepathic thought. They could not work out how to bend thought around a Dragon’s awareness.

Feel for the oath-connection, the Sapphire Dragoness’ voice intruded in her mind. If he’s alive, it will be there. The Dragonfriend’s lore makes that clear.

I will, said Pip.

Shimmerith’s mind conveyed the sound of Nak happily singing to himself a line from the vocal saga of Saggaz Thunderdoom, also famously a Sapphire Dragon:

Like wingéd lightning his mighty paw,

Struck the skies asunder!

Isn’t he the sweetest? Shimmerith chuckled. He is my Rider!

Nak had refused to tell Emblazon or Oyda. “Sticklers,” he sniffed. “They’d put a talon through this mad plan, make no mistake.”

They flew following Pip’s instinct through a perfect, cloudless Island-World afternoon, passing anxiously between dozens of Night-Dragon patrols and four layers of Island-shielding, all without incident. They were ghosts behind the crysglass pane of reality. The Dragons exchanged thoughts to keep together, to keep close. And as they passed that fourth barrier, Pip began to feel something. An umbilical in her mind. A knowledge of connection. Silver …

She led them soft-winged over the central hole, as black as the darkest night in its depths, and up the wooded mountain on the far side, following that faint trail. A trail that seemed more faith than substance, but it led them at length to a set of windows fronting underground chambers–the family quarters, she thought, judging by the number and quality of the draconic minds inside. She sensed the First Egg nearby, ever burning, unchanging.

They approached the windows with great care, taking time to seek out any potential trap. All was silent. Waiting, brooding, yet still there was no sign of detection.

Pip found her attention drawn to one particular window high up on the mountainside, a window framed in pretty hanging plants and flower beds outside, as though a person might step through it like a portal to take a few minutes’ refreshment.

She wafted up there, and saw him. Silver. Behind the crysglass he lay, brutally clamped to the same torture-block she knew all too well, and behind him stood Telisia, picking her fingernails with a dagger.

Chapter 32: Big Lizards can Fly

PIP’S DRAGON-HEARTS launched into wild battle-rage. The rest of her being arrested so sharply she felt as if she had flown headlong into a cliff-side.

Silent-wings, Shimmerith roared in her head.

Pip drifted upward, observing. Silver’s chest rose and fell. He had been beaten, cruelly. Yet he lived, and that was Dragonsong to warm a new dawn in her heart. He was pasty and sweating of flesh, bruised and bleeding in too many places to count, gagged and clamped to that infernal lump of malleable metal, yet he lived.

Telisia, in contrast, looked in fine fettle. Idly, she turned the dagger over in her fingers as she stared out of the window. “Ram-freaking-bastion,” she grumbled in disgust. “Had to go annoy the Master, didn’t you? Now I get idiot-watching duty. I’m so bored, I could die.”

Don’t be shy about the dying part, Nak encouraged her.

“Oh well, a few key changes and we should be able to slip into that Academy slick as a dagger sliding into flesh–wouldn’t you say, Silver?”

Pip suddenly realised that she was watching sound-waves through the crysglass rather than hearing sound. Weird. Why would the Marshal torture his own shell-son, if he were not a traitor? A traitor to which side, was the question.

She called, Silver.

It’s a trap!

His shriek caused her to recoil, but immediately, a new voice intruded. Of course it’s a trap, my son. But there’s nothing out there. The hallucinations are powerful, aren’t they?

Re’akka!

She sensed Shimmerith and Nak immobilised with alarm; she calmed them with a mental touch. She was the calm one? Hardly!

The Marshal moved into view from a hitherto unnoticed post in the room. To Pip’s annoyance, he too looked a picture of health. Better than ever. In fact, he positively glowed with magical vigour. Re’akka wore a dark, unadorned uniform with a high collar. Clasping his hands behind his back, he peered out of the crysglass window. Pip willed her wings not to whisk her away to the next Island. He could see nothing. He sensed nothing. She had to believe it.

That’s him? Maylin said in her careful baby-Dragonish.

Now, the Marshal glared back at Silver. “I know you’re a traitor, my shell-son. I cannot prove it, but I know you are. And by my seventh sense, I know she’ll come! That girl cannot possibly resist the trap I’ve laid for her.”

Remind me to explain to him your views concerning the word ‘impossible’, Pip, Shimmerith snorted.

Ay. Pip shushed her as they watched, unnoticed, from a mere thirty feet outside the window. Peculiar how a Shapeshifter with the Marshal’s power could look straight through two Dragons. Freaky.

She gasped as Re’akka backhanded his son across the mouth so hard that blood splattered against the glass. “No mind. Tomorrow, if she does not come, we will go strike a bargain for your miserable life. Whatever you did to disrupt my attack five days ago, Silver, know that you failed.”

Silver had–no! Surely, a lie! Silver had disrupted nothing. It was Pip who, in a moment of blind hate, had flung the Shiver-attack right back in his fangs. She had tried to kill him. That guilt was a clutch of cold boulders lodged in her breast, immovable. Perhaps, in another lifetime, they might attempt a relationship less rife with repeated attempts to murder each other?

Silver said, “I remain your servant, shell-father.”

The Marshal spat a curse Pip did not understand. “Know that if our bargain fails, Silver, I will unleash the Nurguz on that miserable, defiant scrap of rock until every Dragon’s fire-soul is sucked out their bodies and cast into the garbage-heap of another dimension!”

He turned again, peering out of the window with a knowing expression twisting his lips. I know you’re out there, Pygmy girl. I know you can hear this. I will kill him, Pip, if you do not yield your power to me. That is the promise of a Herimor Dragon, made on the bones of my ancestors.

If you’re out there, Pip, said Silver, gazing past his father, know that I am my father’s faithful servant. You must give up. You cannot possibly win this war, not even with your darkest feminine wiles and your jungle ways. If I must die to see my race elevated to the heavens, then may I die with honour. Let it be so.

But his eyes. His eyes said something else altogether.

* * * *

Having returned to Shimmerith and Nak’s roost that evening, Pip passed a sleepless, fretful night. Three times, she flew up to stand on the rim-wall to gaze across to the Island of Eridoon, serenely floating upon the winds just offshore of the majestic granite cliffs, which on the Academy volcano’s northern aspect, sheared five vertical miles from the rim to the Cloudlands. Above Eridoon, the Shadow Dragon fed steadily. One Dragon every half-hour, she estimated. Did the Marshal store some Dragonkind simply as fodder for his pet? Perhaps the feeding was what kept the Nurguz faithful, although Pip doubted it. That beast must be controlled by more than appetite.

She had imagined rescuing Silver, but the Marshal’s appearance, his shocking seventh-sense intuition about her presence and the trap set for her, had put paid to that. Should she be demoralised or elated he was alive? What now, Fra’anior? What Balance should a Star Dragon seek, Hualiama?

The burden of destiny was so immediate, so intense, that she feared the merest flick of her talon might destroy the future.

Where was Leandrial? What of Shurgal? And Silver? Was he truly a traitor to his father, playing out the strategy Pip had first decided upon for herself? If so, he had joined her in failure. Her mind kept gnawing at the odd emphasis he had placed on the word ‘honour’, and the flash of emotion she thought she had detected deep in his silvery eyes. Was he inviting Pip to kill him rather than submit to Re’akka? If so, he and every Academy Dragon in the volcano would be in agreement.

Hualiama and Fra’anior remained silent, allowing events to proceed without interference. Yet Pip sensed them watching. Hoping. Supporting. She looked to the eastern horizon, seeking the blue star, her heritage-mother. She did not see Hualiama there, but if she looked within to the place where imagination bordered reality, could she not hear the chiming of star-forged laughter? Pip turned to scan the volcano. Most people and Dragons would be sleeping. The infirmary and forges were awake. Engineers worked through the night to repair harnesses and weapons and fortifications, the faraway ting-ting-ting of hammers mingling with the muted roaring of forges. She looked over the habitation of men and Dragons, the many lives given into her heart’s care.

Had it all come to this? The plainest and most profound of choices–life or death?

On a whim Pip flew down to the library, where once she had worked under the stern eye of Master Shambithion. There she found Yaethi slumped over a scroll, sound asleep. The Dragoness padded to her friend’s side, peering over her shoulder. She had been reading one of the five precious Order of Onyx scrolls. The title captured her notice: ‘The Onyx Chose Life.’ Beneath it, penned in Yaethi’s neat hand, was one word, ‘Choose.’ Fra’anior had chosen life, to build life and to safeguard against his destructive kin. The Onyx must choose the same. Was this Yaethi’s meaning?

She paused, struck by her friend’s insight. Clumsily picking up a quill between her talons, Pip dipped it in the open ink-pot and paused, concerned about desecrating a priceless scroll. Yet, Yaethi had not withheld. She would not willingly break rules. Pip sketched a Dragon egg beside Yaethi’s note, adding a label, ‘The First Egg is life.’ There. A few words more? Beneath, she wrote, ‘I am Pip, the Onyx Dragon. I choose life.’ And she signed her name in four neat clusters of runes.

Whatever she chose, may it result in life.

* * * *

At dawn, Marshal Re’akka’s voice boomed over the Academy volcano: “I am Re’akka, Marshal of Herimor! Where is the one called Pip, the Pygmy Dragon? Let her come forth to offer full and unconditional surrender! Give her up, or I will unleash my Dragon of Shadow and end you all.”

Three times, he repeated his challenge.

The Marshal flew to the fore without his usual escort, clasping Silver in one enormous white paw. Silver appeared to be sleeping, but Pip thought she might be able to detect a heartbeat slightly faster than it should be, and the glint of a Lavanias collar encircling his neck.

Pip had been hovering with the Academy Dragons above the volcano for the last half-hour, watching Eridoon Island spout the Dragon Assassins. So many were they, she pictured a storm cloud Fra’anior might have worn around his neck. Had the Nurguz decimated the Lesser Dragons of Herimor before travelling north, she wondered? Might these, together, be the last of the Dragonkind above the Cloudlands? Meanwhile, a dawn of magical beauty lightened the eastern sky. Pygmies said that the closer one walked to death, the more a fragment of beauty might light the soul. Thus it was her hearts ached for splendour, in poignant contrast to the great deal that had been spoken and argued, and even shouted, bellowed and fought over, on the Academy side.

The Pygmy Dragoness pushed all of that aside. As Leandrial had taught her, she tried to listen to the Balance, to feel it, to attune herself to the song and flow of the world. Around her were Kassik with Casitha, Emblazon and Oyda, Nak with his Shimmerith, Yaethi riding Arrabon and Chymasion speaking softly to Arosia, then Blazon and all the Dragon Elders, and one thousand, four hundred and fourteen further able-bodied Dragons, many armed with Rider saddles and crossbow emplacements.

All these faced over four thousand pairs of unfriendly, burning eyes, and over the floating Island, an additional several thousand Dragons the Marshal had kept in reserve. What did numbers matter when the odds were so heavily stacked against them?

Pip stifled the urge to leap about like a jaguar kitten chasing invisible fireflies. Something was amiss. Her gaze strayed to the Cloudlands, a deceptively homely-looking tan carpet. From there? Or from elsewhere? Where was the threat, the Imbalance, perhaps a third opposing power she sensed as an itching in the back of her mind? Had the Island drifted closer? Ay, it floated perhaps two miles offshore. Her mind probed the wider environment restively. She tasted and sniffed the air. Perhaps Re’akka had a nasty surprise tucked away inside Eridoon, a novel use of the First Egg? All she knew was the last time she had felt like this, she had discovered Silver fomenting mischief with Shimmerith’s hatchlings.

With a clip of her wings, Pip flew out between the two forces, feeling like a gnat positioned between a pair of very large hands. She approached Re’akka’s position just east of the rim-wall, a mile above the three-mile-wide volcano. The Blue-White Marshal was at his physically imposing best, a clear strut in his wingbeat as he oriented himself regally to receive her approach. Since he measured seven times her length and many times her tonnage, the contest looked ridiculously unequal by any conventional measure of draconic battle-lore. Re’akka had his cold-fire, his Kinetic strength–Pip rubbed her chest, recalling the sensation of her internal organs being rearranged to the tune of the Marshal’s lively commentary–and a further giant advantage, the power of the First Egg. She should be under no illusions that she could beat him in a fair fight. Fair? She was a crafty jungle warrior!

“So,” boomed the Marshal, from five hundred feet away, “will you surrender, Pygmy Dragoness, or shall I destroy this traitor first and chew on the rest of you for leftovers? Look around you. You are outnumbered and overmatched. Why not save your lives, pathetic as they are?”

Pip amplified her voice as Emblazon had taught her. “You’ll guarantee to safeguard every life in this volcano?”

“I guarantee nothing,” he sneered. “I demand unconditional surrender. No more, no less. I hold nothing but contempt for these Academy Dragons who chose you, a member of a squalid race of mud-grubbers, cannibals and naked savages, to represent them.” The Dragon made a spitting motion. “Surrender, or I will design a death befitting of the black filth you are.”

Loathing made her body shake as she growled back, “Re’akka, you remind me of nothing more than a grub. You know, one of those grubs I used to dig up and eat in the zoo–fat, white, disgusting grubs that taste like ralti meat–”

GNNAAARRGGGHH!

So, he could be provoked! Pip smiled grimly as a chorus of approving roars and laughter rose from the Academy Dragonwing, more than overmatched by the furious thunder of the Night-Reds.

Re’akka roared, “Do not bandy words with me, child!”

“You had me in your clutches, Re’akka, and I beat you. That’s how I know you for a sad, deluded fool–”

“Answer, or your precious Silver Dragon dies!”

Her hearts crammed into her throat, but Pip forced an expression of disdain onto her lips. “Your shell-son is your lackey, Re’akka. Destroy your bloodline if you wish, I don’t care. Murder them all. You’re a cockroach, not a Dragon.”

The Marshal dangled Silver from his talons, testing her resolve. Pip crushed her emotions. He was a traitor. The Island-World would be better off without Silver or any of his brutish kin. She must believe that. She had seen nothing redeeming in him all that time Silver had tortured her. These people had killed untold citizens of the three great races. They had murdered her mother. Be strong, Pygmy girl! Be Onyx!

She stared with eye-fires laced with darkness at her former boyfriend.

His lips curved into a soft, sad smile. A smile that bade her, and all the Island-World, farewell. A smile that dropped the molten suns into her heart. Shock stole the air from her lungs. Silver?

He ripped out of the Lavanias collar, an instantaneous burst of magic transforming him into Dragon guise. With a snap of his hind paws he kicked his shell-father in the jaw, using that as a springboard to leap toward Pip. One wing-stroke. Behind Silver, Re’akka wiped his jaw with one paw as if dismissing Silver from existence. Then he reached out, the malign curl of his talons matched by the expression upon his lips. Kinetic magic speared from his talons.

Gazing directly at Pip, his eyes ablaze with liquid passion, Silver began to bugle, “I love–” Seized by the iron grip of Re’akka’s Kinetic magic, he lurched violently and stalled in the air. The young Dragon clutched his chest, coughing, “Pip? Pip …” A ghastly rattle accompanied his expiring breath.

His eye-fires guttered.

Re’akka’s laughter boomed over the massed Dragons. “Die, you traitor!”

All time, all life, all hope, froze forever.

A desolate cry broke the silence. Pip twitched forward from a hovering start, her wings blurring with extreme speed, her paws outspread in a gesture of pleading, of the purest despair she had ever known. Channelling her power. Seeing in Silver’s flesh an inexpressible point of light gathering beneath his breast, the fabled third heart of the Dragonkind; knowing it for the expression of his Dragonsoul, a white-fire being of winged beauty intensifying within his mortal flesh. Pip saw all this. She saw death begin to take him. A crazy, desperate idea speared into her mind, not even a conscious thought, but a Dragon-swift calculation.

She teleported through Silver, batting his stalled hearts with a sonic vibration as she ghosted by.

The action she took should have been physically, metaphysically and spiritually impossible. Pip somehow found herself between Silver and the Marshal, the encumbrance of the Silver Dragon’s weight braking her impetuous rush even though they were not touching, and as she ducked, reacting to an unexpected presence rushing up behind her, their strange connection twisted into the same slingshot manoeuvre with which Silver had once hoodwinked Emblazon to win their race.

Silver gasped an enormous, ragged inhalation. Air whistled shrilly into his lungs. The continuing onrush of his Pygmy-generated momentum slammed the young Dragon into Re’akka, who seemed too stunned to react. Silver sank his fangs into the base of his father’s neck, biting down instinctively, pouring his unique silver-fire into the holes he punctured.

The massive White Dragon’s cry of pain lashed his enormous Dragonwing. He punched Silver loose, reeling as though he had taken a heavy blow to the head, for his eye-fires burned with a million questions and his movements seemed sluggish. The Marshal wheeled, drawing back toward his forces. Instinct sped Pip to Silver’s side. He seemed more grey than silver, clearly terribly shaken, yet he spared a moment to nuzzle her neck in a gesture Pip recognised from Emblazon and Shimmerith’s courting.

I never stopped loving you, he said.

Oh, Silver!

Her world froze a second time, but for an entirely different reason. All was Silver. All was a magic greater than any which had impacted her life before, a transcendent realisation of oneness with the soul beside her.

Unthinking, unheeding of anyone or anything else, the two Dragons turned and breathed over each other and into one another the secret fires of their souls, and in that mingling, saw the world made afresh. Promises. Commitment. Apologies. Passion. True love, deeper and fierier than the joy of stars, breathed out in the essential expression of draconic life. All was articulated without need for speech. They breathed so deep, the soul-fires consumed them everlastingly.

An unknown time later, a blue paw touched Silver’s shoulder, pouring healing magic into him. If you two are quite done, Shimmerith laughed, we happen to be in the middle of two startled battle-fronts about to smash together. Strength to you, noble Silver.

Nak put in, Will you ever need it when you’re dealing with that girl!

Pip blinked. What happened?

Breathing soul-fire is so rare! Shimmerith sighed. You’re a wonder, noble Pip.

Pip’s bright laughter rang out in the canyon between the two opposing Dragon armies, her entire body tingling with elation. Still the Dragon Assassins hovered in their dense ranks, bereft of commands, for the Marshal watched without apparent understanding. The Academy Dragonwings were fixated upon Pip and Silver and upon what had transpired between them.

Death to life, said Silver.

Briefly, Silver’s memory-echo flashed into Pip’s awareness. Silver was rising from the green Islands of the world toward a realm of glorious fires, when a beautiful, glowing being caught his eye. She was the purity of starlight, the glorious imperative of Dragon life. She beckoned to him and he tarried, as if her words were the Dragonsong of his soul.

Don’t leave me, Pip heard herself say. Come back, my precious Silver.

Pip? Am I dead? I don’t understand.

I don’t either, but your place is here. With me. And he turned, and found a fleshly raiment waiting, and his fires inhabited that raiment not just as if it were a cloak he drew over his shoulders, but imbued every element as though it had arrived home and made its forever-abode there.

Pip said, Was that me you saw?

I think so, said Silver, his Dragonish redolent with wing-shivering wonder.

Just then, Marshal Re’akka vented his wrath and indignation in a tremendous bellow, DRAGONS, DESTROY THEM ALL!

* * * *

As if the rage of a thousand years had been unleashed, the Dragonwings fell upon each other tooth and claw.

Pip had the briefest instant to shout at Silver, I’ll handle the Marshal! You get to safety!

He yelled back, Over my recently dead body I will not–

Go! Pip gasped, champing back her Word with a furious cry. Please, Silver.

His eyes-fires silvered with understanding. Thank you, Pip.

A white-blue fireball slammed into her shield, frosting it instantly with a bone-deep chill. Pip veered sharply, gathering her thoughts and fury into a single, concentrated ball of desire in her chest. Should she breathe a little magic and let untrammelled forgiveness envelop the Island-World in multiple overlapping rainbows of perfect peace? By those very same fires, Silver had tortured her without a drop of mercy! She hated him! She loved him. Release and healing … that seemed a thousand Islands away. Pip berated herself for letting Silver back in so easily. Weak! Foolish! So easily swayed.

Yet heart was her strength. Pip’s Dragon-instincts responded to the battle around her. She slipped between Night-Reds, stalking the Marshal. Somewhere behind, she heard Emblazon’s monstrous battle-challenge as he slammed into the Dragon Assassin advance with all his extraordinary strength. A dozen or more of the Amber Dragon’s fireballs hosed past her, exploding amongst the massed Assassins with detonations dulled by her ear-canals. Fire laced her path; Dragons fell, stunned. Pip stormed ahead regardless, deliberately filling her lungs with fire and smoke.

Now, Re’akka. He slipped backward steadily, throwing Dragons at her left and right with flicks of his claws, studying her responses as Master Balthion used to study her swordplay. Pip fought through again and again, relying on her Onyx strength to blast through the wall of Dragonflesh, but the sheer weight of bodies bogged her down. She could not close with him. Re’akka struck viper-like with his Kinetic power, but Pip had been expecting this attack. A shimmer of Shimmerith-like shielding, applied with eidetic perfection and speed, brought to her ears the surprised gurgle of two Dragon Assassins on her tail being strangulated by their own leader.

“Coward!” Pip roared, as another dozen Dragons impeded her path.

Re’akka only smiled, waving his talons languidly. Dragons, crush the Onyx.

Every one of several hundred Dragon Assassins in the vicinity flung themselves at Pip. She dodged, jinked, tumbled away from a lashing tail-strike and found herself crushed between three Night-Reds’ torsos. They clutched each other and her. More and more bodies thumped together, forming a melee that only briefly pretended to fly. They plummeted. Yet, Silver had tried this trick on her before. That day, Leandrial had plucked her out of the Cloudlands. Now, Pip remembered the strength of her friend and the song of her harmonic magic as she battled Shurgal.

Her muzzle was mashed between bodies. Her wings could not move; she could barely lift a paw. But she knew how to armour a Land-Dragon. Laughing with wild, fierce joy, Pip reached for the Onyx power and threw it together with her memories. What emerged was a Dragon of Light.

Huh? What a crazy magical equation …

This was beyond jungle-craft. But not beyond imagination. Not impossible.

Pip exerted her strength, crying inwardly, For your honour, Fra’anior! And from her throat, a deep, shuddering groan shook the ball of Dragons tangled around her, GNNNAAAARRR …

Light rampaged from every scale of her body, racing outward in an expanding likeness of a Pygmy Dragoness. Her petite skull-spikes, her talons, her slim, sinewy body, enlarged to twenty times her size before the brilliant magic dissipated. Pip blinked, turning slowly in the air. Where were all the Night-Reds? Nearby, Emblazon whirled in similar confusion, finding himself in clear air. Where had his enemies disappeared? For hundreds of feet about, Academy Dragons flew in the open and the Night-Reds were dust. Vapours and fire-trails expired on the early morning breeze.

Pip felt sick. Faint. How had the magic distinguished friend from foe? That Hualiama, could she not have explained a thing or three about Star Dragon magic before it ambushed everyone?

Then, she sensed a shift in the Balance–a shift which had not originated with her. The Pygmy Dragoness spun her body, flaring her wings in alarm. Emblazon! Academy Dragons! BEWARE THE WEST!

The Academy volcano trembled. Rock cracked. With a roar that split the heavens with fire and lightning, a black and yellow muzzle lunged into the air above the far rim-wall. Shurgal! Not Leandrial, as she had hoped. Pip back-winged in awe as the Land Dragon’s forequarters obscured the horizon, his immensity needing no exaggeration as he surged up the cliffs of Jeradia Island and onward into the sky, looming half a mile over the volcano. For a moment, Pip thought he meant to take off. Curling his forepaws over the rim-wall, crushing the stone with his monstrous tonnage, Shurgal bounded across the caldera. His tail casually pulverised a couple of buildings as he caught onto the far side, cracking the mountain in a dozen places. Shurgal gathered himself for an endless second until, continuing his onrushing momentum, he launched into an almighty leap.

Shurgal flew. He arrowed toward Eridoon Island in a massive arc, a two-and-a-half mile leap from the volcano’s top.

Pip’s neck twizzled to follow his flight, along with every Dragon on both sides of the battle. The gaping mouth shovelled up Night-Reds with abandon, those too slow to evacuate his path. The Marshal’s jaw dropped as Shurgal’s banded belly soared by a quarter-mile above his head. His instinctive discharge of magic did nothing whatsoever to stop that leap as Shurgal shadowed the battle. So massive was the Land Dragon, the flight seemed languid, absurdly graceful. Pip gasped, wondering if he might fall short, imagining the impact of such a body once it reached the bottom of the Cloudlands.

Stretching forward with every fibre of his body, Shurgal caught Eridoon Island in his forearms. His chest and muzzle smashed into the purple-forested hills on the near side.

KAABOOOM! Every Lesser Dragon felt that impact.

The impact of Shurgal’s body made the Island lurch and shudder. Rock cracked with sharp reports and groans as his fore-talons scrabbled for and found a firm grip. The Land Dragon curled around the Island, bringing up his flaming hind paws. Sinking his talons hundreds of feet into the living rock, Shurgal began to quarry his way into the Island, seeking the Egg.

Marshal Re’akka bolted for his Island with an anguished cry. All the Dragons stared in amazement, the battle quite forgotten, as the Island slowly tipped on its side, leaving Shurgal dangling underneath by his talons like a gecko on a ceiling–only, Shurgal was himself a mountain, and his fury was a primal vision, like a volcano erupting or an avalanche sweeping down a mountainside. Granite and quartz crumbled beneath his assault. Eridoon quivered but somehow remained airborne, slewing toward the low hills just east of the Academy volcano.

Academy Dragons, to me! Kassik bellowed.

The Night-Red Dragonwings wheeled en masse, following their Marshal as he raced toward the Land Dragon.

Pip shook her head in disbelief. The Marshal had finally made a mistake, bringing the Island too close to land. Yet, who could have imagined? Those big lizards really could fly.

Chapter 33: Treachery

SECONDS LATER, DRAGON fire engulfed Shurgal and the entire flank of Eridoon Island as the Night-Red battalions fell savagely upon the invader. Columns of oily black smoke billowed into the sky. Shurgal had emerged looking battered, his scales rent in dozens of places; now, with fires raging the length of his body, his bellows of pain drowned out the uproar of battle. Yet still his hind paws worked at a frantic pace, spilling countless tonnes of rock and forge-fires and supplies and a lake of water out of the Island. Amidst the suns-yellow conflagration, the Marshal’s strikes burned brightest, white-hot, each blast of his magic a detonation distinct from the general roar.

The Academy Dragonwing formed rapidly around Kassik. The Dragon Elders Blazon, Cressilida, Verox the Green, the Yellow Lavador and Imogiel the Hatchling-mother took the fore, while her friends gathered around Pip. Silver looked dreadful, more grey than silver. Having one’s three hearts stopped and restarted … Pip looked on gratefully as Shimmerith touched him again. Chymasion looked ready to drop, and Emblazon was bleeding from an astonishing number of flesh wounds, but Oyda saluted jauntily from her mount’s back.

“Ready to serve, Master Kassik,” she spoke for them all.

Pip’s eyes blurred as she looked around the circle of dear faces. So many present. Some, glaringly absent. Nak, Arosia, Maylin … Maylin? Pip blinked rapidly to focus her sight. But her friend was back at the Academy …

Maylin? she gasped.

Her mental exclamation startled them all. Pip, staring at her friend, was more than startled to spy a crossbow quarrel spitting at her from the region of Maylin’s stomach. Her hesitation was almost fatal, but Arrabon’s paw snapped out. The arrow plugged in the webbing of his right forepaw.

Silver shouted, Burn it out, Arrabon!

But a huge battle-roar drowned him out. Suddenly Rambastion was a mere twenty feet from Pip’s muzzle, closing the gap with a huge thrust of his wings. Dragons flung themselves at him. He had been disguised! Waiting to ambush her, with his Rider Telisia wearing the likeness of Maylin! Pip flung herself aside as Rambastion’s dripping talons sliced the air where her muzzle had been. She blurred again as Silver shouted something about poison. She somersaulted over his back faster than even her own reactions could credit, snagging Telisia’s saddle harness in her left hind paw and ripping it free. The girl slewed off Rambastion’s back as the Night-Red whirled, trying to orient on the fast-moving Pygmy Dragoness. Her double crossbow fired its second bolt, but this one flicked off Kassik’s scales and headed uselessly earthward.

“She’s mine!” Arosia yelled.

Pip had a fraction of a second to watch Balthion’s daughters slugging it out, Telisia unleashing powerful blows of her magic even as she fell, Arosia jolted about despite Chymasion’s shielding, blood sheeting down her face from a cut above her left eye. Arosia waited … and swung a piece of broken Dragon lance at her sister’s head. Thud. Telisia went limp; Lavador it was who caught her in his paws, and a Dragon Rider Pip did not know jumped down immediately to divest Telisia of her weapons.

Meantime, Rambastion fired fireball after fireball at Pip, who dodged at high speed. Then suddenly, Emblazon swooped in, catching Rambastion’s right wing in his jaws. He bit down, a savage bite, roaring, “For Zardon!”

Pip goggled. Had he regarded the old Shapeshifter so highly?

Then, as if stung, she whipped back into the fray, her draconic part refusing to have the glory stolen by another Dragon, even one as powerful and noble as Emblazon. Tangled up with the huge Amber, Rambastion could not defend himself as Pip sliced across his neck, the talons extended, gouging first ten then twenty trenches into the flesh of his throat. Rambastion arched his back in pain, thundering his rage to the skies. His poison-dripping talons clenched only the air as Pip corkscrewed away.

That strike gave Emblazon opportunity to switch his hold on the massive Night-Red into a death-grip, clasping him four-pawed from above, around the flanks and lower belly, so that the Dragon could not fight back except by whipping his head around–but Rambastion was too old and chunky, not supple enough to reach easily over his shoulder. Sinking his teeth and talons into his arch enemy, Emblazon shook him like a hapless rat. The Amber Dragon rent the old-timer’s flesh again and again, snarling horribly. But Rambastion had one trick left. As the Amber rode the canny pirate earthward, the larger Dragon flipped them both in the air, intending to crush Emblazon between the ground and his spine-spikes, and Oyda beneath them both.

Pip, sensing the gathering of magic nearby, rapidly imbued Shimmerith with Onyx power. The Sapphire struck hard, driving four huge spears of ice simultaneously into Rambastion’s exposed chest.

The old Dragon convulsed, and died.

Emblazon flung him off with a growl of disgust, eyeing Shimmerith with baleful anger. “He was mine!”

“That scaly pirate wasn’t worthy of the touch of your talons,” Nak called from Shimmerith’s back. “Alright, precious Yelegoy?”

She raised her sword in a tired-looking salute. “I ride the mightiest Dragon of all!”

Another monstrous challenge shook them even as Oyda opened her mouth. LEANDRIAL! The familiar grey-green Land Dragon came charging around the southern edge of the volcano, kicking up a storm of trees and debris that sprayed hundreds of feet in every direction.

“What now?” Master Kassik groaned.

The Amber grinned fiercely. “Now that’s a Dragon!”

Ignoring the Academy Dragons completely, Leandrial charged toward Eridoon Island, clearly aiming to strike the region of Shurgal’s neck. Her size was stupefying. Over a mile in length, the stubby, powerful legs of a lizard became as great as the tree trunks of the Crescent Isles giants, and her head topped a thousand feet. Her approach was the low thunder of an earthquake, and her roar split the air with stunning power.

Rather squeakier of voice than Pip had ever heard him, Kassik gathered his force. Academy Dragons, to me. Not too many eyes were focussed on him, but every ear heard his gruff demand, “Strategy?”

“Easy,” said Pip, pointing with her fore-talons. “Shurgal, evil. Leandrial, good.”

The Brown made a draconic half-bow. “Your grasp of tactical subtleties is unparalleled, Pygmy Dragoness.”

Then, a strangely sweet, bell-like sound pealed above the sounds of battle. Pip’s brain clicked to the obvious conclusion. “He’s reached the Egg! Master–”

Torrents of magic poured past Shurgal’s knees. With the Egg uncovered, the Marshal seemed to swell with renewed strength, blazing with a malevolent light of his own as he pounded Shurgal with every force and artifice at his disposal. The Land Dragon responded with repeated blasts of his eye-fires, driving the White Shapeshifter backward.

The Shadow! cried Chymasion.

As if the release of the Egg from its imprisonment had summoned all creatures and powers that desired its possession to a climactic confrontation, Pip saw the Nurguz floating down above the battlefield, changing form, its silken black folds deepening in opacity as it approached the Dragons clashing around the Egg. Dozens of insubstantial tentacles reached out, touching Night-Red after Night-Red, draining away their fire-life. It touched Shurgal as if wishing to sample his magic, but an answering flare of urzul seemed to repulse it–momentarily, at least. Pip sensed the calculations of a predatory mind evaluating potential food.

<Feed><Study><Must feed>

The more it fed, the more it seemed to need. Pip considered how the creature seemed to grow and deepen in colour in accordance with its frenzied feasting. The beginnings of a plan materialised in her mind …

Pip. Pip! Kassik’s paw thumped her shoulder. Assess and report.

Dreamily, she said, Now is the hour to strike down the Marshal. Cinti, Silver, Chymasion, Shimmerith–to me. Everyone else, help Leandrial and at all costs, do not let Shurgal steal the Egg. Do not approach the Shadow.

Kassik wasted no time commenting on the nature of her response. Dragonwings!

The Dragons flowed rapidly into a new formation, winging toward the stricken Island. Following his rapid-fire commands, Kassik’s forces split into three behind the Brown, and Blazon and Emblazon. Pip led her smaller Dragonwing directly toward Re’akka, exchanging ideas with them at the speed of thought.

To Silver, privately, she said, Are you ready for this?

Never better, he lied cheerfully. I’m with you, Pip. I would not be anywhere else in this Island-World. Never again.

That means more to me than you know, Silver. Now–help Leandrial!

The First Egg was now exposed in a section roughly two hundred feet in diameter. Soon, it would be in danger of dropping out of Eridoon Island entirely. Leandrial stampeded through the thick of the fray, her eye-magic knocking Dragon Assassins about like an angry man swatting mosquitos. As she reached Shurgal she leaped, raising her right forepaw to strike him a devastating blow beneath the right armpit. The larger male Land Dragon groaned as her Onyx-powered strike, amplified by Chymasion’s unique power, ripped an entire rib out of his side.

Then Pip and Cinti closed with the Marshal, spiralling through the battle to engage him. Flurries of blows and bites flew between the Dragons. Re’akka beat them back repeatedly, his power augmented by the Egg; only the help of Silver, Shimmerith and Chymasion kept Pip and Cinti in the fight, bolstering their shields and confounding the Marshal’s attacks. A mere wing-flip away, Leandrial and Shurgal renewed the battle of monsters, writhing and rolling heedlessly over the bodies of the fallen, their talon-strikes landing with a dull, booming rhythm all of their own. From the corner of her eye, Pip observed Silver eyeing the First Egg and turned slightly to berate him. Mistake. Re’akka swooped in that instant, blasting Pip aside with a Kinetic strike meant only to shovel her out of the way as he lunged toward Silver. She flapped furiously, bouncing off Shurgal’s knee or elbow, she could not tell which.

You! The Theadurial’s scream was a thin screech in her mind. Now, watch your Silver die.

Re’akka swelled visibly, stuffed with so much power that even his eyes bulged with it–the White Dragon was as surprised as anyone. He unleashed his most intense cold fireball yet, aiming directly at his shell-son’s head. Cinti leaped in the way, taking the brunt of the blow full on her chest. She groaned terribly. Silver still shook, struck by the backlash, but his mother was mortally wounded, speared through by a half-dozen spears of ice Re’akka had concealed within or just behind his fireball.

Cinti fell, wheezing, Silver … thou wert my delight …

She was dead before she struck the ground.

When Silver lifted his eyes, it was to fix such a terrible gaze upon his shell-father that even the powerful Shapeshifter balked. Pip gulped. Vindictive, clearly pushed beyond any remaining shred of reason, her Silver went feral. He fell upon the Marshal and savaged him. Shield or no shield, it seemed not to matter, for his silver-fire burned with a keenness of grief that made his attack unstoppable. Pip threw her strength at Silver, desperate to see him overwhelm the White Dragon. Re’akka tried to draw on the First Egg’s magic, but Silver was all over him, moving at speeds impossible to credit. Pip sensed the blurring and blending of powers through their link, the shared magic somehow seeming to feed upon itself, to become greater than before.

Silver, in his weakened state, could not sustain that tremendous output for more than a handful of seconds. Re’akka cuffed him across the ear-canals, sending the smaller Dragon spinning. A second blow, bolstered by his Kinetic power, made Silver stagger drunkenly in the air. He puffed out his chest, laughing, lording it over Silver as he gathered his power to finish off his shell-son.

That was Pip’s cue. She screamed, Taste the vengeance you deserve!

Pip plunged into the fray, barely twenty feet of dark fury, yet she drove the massive Shapeshifter backward with blow after blow, her paws moving so fast even her draconic sight could not follow, her fists like granite, each blow falling like an explosion against his flesh. Re’akka’s cold blasted around her. Pip drove it back with her own fire. He tried to fight her off, but her sustained mauling forced him into a vertical position, then backward toward the Egg’s exposed surface. His great body vibrated beneath the relentless pounding, faster and faster, the ribs and bone-cages protecting the heart fracturing and splintering audibly; all Pip heard was a seven-throated harmonic roaring, as though Fra’anior directed his fury and grief through the action of her fists, and all the stubbornness and iron of her will forged in those years in the cage pushed her onward, not with hate, but toward justice. Remembering the fallen. The burning of towns and villages. The wanton, wasteful destruction this man, this Shapeshifter had chosen to wreak upon the world in the pursuit of his ambition.

Then, she stopped.

For several seconds, the White Dragon’s body continued to quiver as though invisible fists persisted in their assault. Then, the great eyes focussed slowly on Pip.

“Surrender, Re’akka,” she snarled. “This is your last and only chance for mercy.”

“Mercy?” he coughed.

“You are overmatched.”

“I am … not!”

The Marshal struck out in one final, convulsive assault. Pip shielded instantly, but was unprepared for Silver’s usurping her shield through their oath-bond. He inverted her shield, pushing it around the White Shapeshifter as his shell-father unleashed his most desperate attack, an unbridled, raging tornado of powers including cold-flame, urzul, Kinetic power, Shivers and a mind-destroying psychic blast. Re’akka gave every last drop of magic he possessed.

The shield turned it all back on him. Silver, Chymasion and Shimmerith held firm in concert, belatedly, Pip joined them, thrusting the Marshal flush against the First Egg as he was enveloped in a perfect storm of his own making.

HSSSS-KERRAAAACK!

Blue lightning flared within the shield. Pip did not recognise this power, perhaps the Egg protecting itself, perhaps a result of that furnace-melting of unique Dragon magic. Within, all went still. Tendrils of stinking white smoke drifted around the shield’s edges. Nothing more. When they lifted the shield, not even Dragon bones, one of the hardest known substances in the Island-World, were left. Just smoke, and a foul odour.

Was the Marshal truly dead? Slain by his most precious possession?

The realisation made her wings shiver convulsively. Gone.

Pip lifted her eyes to see Leandrial and Shurgal, still tussling mightily, drop over the edge of Jeradia Island three or four thousand feet away. By the looks of things, the Dragoness had the upper paw, so to speak. Her eyes widened. The Egg! Relieved of Shurgal’s weight, Eridoon Island wobbled slightly in the breeze, already starting to drift toward the volcano on a collision course, with the Egg still embedded in its side.

The Nurguz drifted toward her, pulsating horribly.

<Feed><Unlimited feed><Ancient-magic-ones><GIVE!>

Pip froze.

Chapter 34: Infolding

THE NURGUZ PAUSED to suck the life out of several Night-Red Dragons. Pip sensed it knew it had time, now; the leisure to feed. She and her Dragonwing had destroyed perhaps the only force capable of reining in this creature’s appetite. It cared neither for the Egg nor for Land Dragons, but only for the delicious food scattered about its immediate environment. The Nurguz’s siren-song whispered around and inside the Dragons, inviting them to its ghastly banquet. Glazed of eye, hundreds of Night-Reds and Academy Dragons drifted about, waiting their turn to be eaten.

Nak immediately yelled a horribly off-key song about–well, Pip could not repeat the words in polite company, for it concerned Dragon Riders’ toilet habits–but the shock value was enough. It took her mind off the Nurguz’s seductive song.

These were all the Dragons left North of the Rift. Pip had no idea of the situation in Herimor, but she knew one thing. This creature lived to feed. It lived on magic. There was nowhere in the entire Island-World a Dragon could hide from this scourge, for it burned darker and darker, feeding faster and faster … apparently tied to its food source! Its behaviour had changed … suddenly, bits and pieces of the puzzle fell into new patterns. The creature expected her to sacrifice the Ancient Dragons on the altar of her need, to save her own kind by opening the door to those great Dragons who assumed they were safe somewhere else in the cosmos. The Ancients had left a little Onyx Dragoness to deal with the menace which had forced them to sacrifice their own children. Just look at the Nurguz now. Feeding ten, twenty Dragons at a time.

Yet if she acted according to her instincts, who would know the fate of all these Dragons spread out around her, the several thousand confused Dragon Assassins and a thousand or more Academy defenders? And what of the Humans and younglings left in the Academy itself? Who would know the fate of an Island-World deprived of its most majestic and magical of denizens?

All these, she carried not upon her shoulders, but within her heart.

One last piece must be slotted into place.

Pip turned to Silver. I need a favour, Silver. I need you to trust me and do exactly as I ask.

His flame-eyes took in her trembling. Questions swirled in his eyes and within his mind. Yet she could not speak, and she could not intimate that she had a plan, for she suspected that the Nurguz had long since learned to read the minds of Dragons, and to manipulate them just as it had manipulated Marshal Re’akka from the first.

What was its intent? Once, it had roamed abroad freely, acting to concentrate all draconic magic in one place. Right here–this had its plan all along. Now, the creature was growing and changing as it fed with uninhibited abandon. Perhaps the glut of food would allow it to transform, Shapeshifter-like, into a greater state of being, to ascend, or to lay eggs or bud or whatever it did to spawn its young?

She asked, Do you trust me?

I must. After all I have done to you, Pip, apologies will never suffice.

Speaking rapidly to Silver via a private telepathic link, Pip outlined those elements of her plan she could. The other Dragons gathered around, some congratulating each other, but most wanted to ask Pip that most important question. How would they defeat the Nurguz?

Silver shook his head slightly. He knew she had withheld. He knew she understood his reticence; perhaps it was guilt that moved him to a display of unquestioning trust. The Silver Dragon winged over to Shimmerith and Nak, and Emblazon and Oyda. Listen to me, he said, and turned the full, hypnotic power of his mind upon them.

Pip conferred with the Dragon Elders, and with Yaethi and Arrabon, Arosia and Chymasion, meantime watching Shimmerith and Emblazon covertly. Shortly, they whizzed away to the Academy under Silver’s compulsion. Hopefully, if his mental trickery was worth its Island’s-weight, they would proceed straight to the library, to Yaethi’s private room where the scrolls of the Order of Onyx were locked away, and perform a swift and essential burglary.

She could not stop trembling. This was the only way. The only possibility she could think of, and it was utterly crazy. Unthinkable.

In the five minutes it took the two Dragons and their Riders to perform the task Silver had burned into their minds, the Nurguz murdered over a hundred fire-souls. It even had the Dragon Assassins lining up to be eaten. The Academy Dragons would be next, if it took a moment away from guzzling to understand that some Dragonkind were not as mesmerised as others. She saw Sapphire and Amber winging away to the North, making a tremendous speed, unnoticed by the increasing fractious group around her.

Please, may sweet Oyda and precious Nak be safe. Please let Shimmerith and Emblazon fly strong and true, far away on the winds to Fra’anior Cluster, where they must hide in the Natal Cave with the priceless scrolls until this creature passed from the Island-World.

A starvation diet was in order.

Pip lowered her head, beseeching Fra’anior and Hualiama and her Pygmy ancestors for the strength to accomplish what she must do next.

Chymasion. Silver. Kassik. Arrabon. Stand with me. Lend me your strength.

This was no request. It was an order from the smallest of Dragons, yet one who had chosen to carry the mantle of a Star Dragoness. It was not a Word of Command, but it might as well have been.

Summon your Blues and your Browns, your Reds and your Greens. We have work to do. Silver and Chymasion, assemble the Dragons’ minds and focus them on me. This will take all of our courage and strength.

And may there be life for all.

Strength swelled within her, brought into sharp focus by Chymasion. Pip quickly reviewed the Commands she would require, assembling them into intricate interdependent structures, choosing some, abandoning others, discarding entire trains of thought. The draconic magic brought her more minds to work with, an expanding of consciousness and capacity that Pip pushed to its fullest, drawing especially on Yaethi’s understanding of the numinous, Silver’s precise mental control and Kassik’s blunt practicality, for what she desired was delicate, unprecedented, rife with danger. One mistake could destroy them all.

The Nurguz fixed its eyeless regard upon her.

<Query?><Feed>

Pip grew, stilling the restless murmuring of lesser minds within her ambit of control. Ay, she could be this creature striding the Island-World, and all would be forced to bow before her, even as they bowed to her now. The power infusing her being was immense, an endless terrace lake of draconic potentials, all of it hers to command and control. So many minds. So much life, it fizzed through her veins like Dragonsong. She was uncontainable. Unstoppable. Nothing was beyond her now. She could reach to the stars or crack open the secrets of the Ancient Dragons; she could become one of them, a magical prodigy who crossed between worlds, commanding the respect and awe of all.

Who would dare to call her ‘little one’ ever again?

Once, she had been just like Tik … Pip stilled, picturing that precocious mite. Shame shadowed her mind. Distress and self-loathing. Was she mad, thinking to step into the Marshal’s paws?

Perhaps the very proof of her humanity, which she had prized since she could remember, was the temptation that inveigled her now. No, she was Pip. A bit wild at times, but that was just the jungle in her. A girl who stood just three feet, eleven and a half inches in her habitually bare feet, should not try to be any taller or smaller, greater or lesser, than she had been made to be. That she should hold the fate of thousands of souls in her paws humbled her. She must be faithful to the end, not shirking her duty, not taking what did not belong to her.

We’ll travel together, she said softly, bathing all those waiting minds in love.

The Nurguz sensed her defiance. Her mischief-making. Its song rose in her mind. Blocking it out by reciting one of Nak’s less appropriate ballads under her breath–probably shocking some of these very proper Dragons right out of their scaly hides–Pip used her massed power to carve deep beneath the Academy volcano, excavating the entire area while sealing the volcanic base with cooling rock. Powerful strings of Words of Command rattled from her lips. All the while, the Nurguz tried to feed; Pip denied it, fighting to allow but a trickle from the massed minds, spreading out the demand. With great cunning, the Nurguz switched modes of attack multiple times, trying to break the security of their net. One Dragon fell, their light winking out. Another two. Pip forced herself to work faster.

She tried to think harmonic magic to block the creature, but it was too distracting. Finding latent Kinetic magic in Silver’s mind, she borrowed his power to split the First Egg out of the Island. Almost, she abandoned Eridoon, before remembering all the souls and Dragons who must still be inside. She floated the Egg next to the Island, moving both with excruciating slowness out over Jeradia’s cliffs, even though she supplied wind to try to speed the process.

Two more Dragons lost. Another cluster of three.

Sending her mind roaming far, Pip chased Shimmerith and Emblazon. She chased them on, enjoining, Fly like the wind, my friends. Burn the heavens as living comets and return to me when the Balance has reached its fruition.

They raced onward, making over thirty leagues per hour toward Fra’anior Cluster, taking with them five precious scrolls to continue the Order of Onyx’s work. They would return. That was the Order’s very purpose, to protect such knowledge.

Goodbye, precious ones.

Now, having separated out the Egg, Pip exerted her massed power to levitate the entire volcano, just as Re’akka had raised his Island. The tremendous strain seemed to help the Dragons work together against the Nurguz; for four long minutes, then six, they denied it, and the creature slipped aside to consume another five Dragon Assassins. Ay, it lived to feed. Pip gritted her teeth.

Now to swallow an Island.

Her greatest mental construct yet shimmered into being, a latticework of power cocooning Eridoon, the volcano and the Egg. There was no way under the heavens she could have achieved this without Silver and Yaethi. Her hearts hammered as she dug deep of her own strength and abilities. Her strength is Onyx. That fabled strength elevated her now, raising thousands of Dragons up with her along with the air upon which they hovered with gentle, unmindful wing-strokes, as she shifted her entire burden out over the Cloudlands.

Leandrial! Pip cried. There was no answer.

She had to continue, for the Nurguz pounded her Dragonwings with fresh zeal, siphoning off vast quantities of draconic magic. Pip struggled to hold it together, to control the outflows as the Shadow creature supped gleefully on the banquet held hapless before it by Pip’s power. The lattice wavered.

Leandrial, arise!

Still the Cloudlands gave no answer. They were half a mile offshore now. Had any single creature remained behind to watch, they would have seen a volcano sailing along on the breeze toward a floating Island. Beside the Island fluttered a small black Dragoness, shepherding an Ancient Dragon’s egg which was many times her size. Where the Academy had been, deeply gouged scars leaked streams of lava, as though Jeradia Island wept the blood of its heart.

The Nurguz pounced! With a scream, Pip staggered through the air. That cold! That reaming, terrible touch, the alien hungering sucking her dry … she wrenched away, for her need was greater, and her will stronger, and her desire for life, unquenchable.

INFOLD!

The volcano shimmered, then seemed to fold in on itself as it travelled through space, entering the most impermeable of substances–the skin of a Dragon’s egg. She screamed again, tearing from herself the strength to proceed to Eridoon Island.

INFOLD!

The Island and all its citizens shuddered at a Command that changed flesh to fire, and matter to white-fires. In the wink of an eye, it vanished as though it had never existed. All the Shadow creature supped upon now was air. It shifted with blinding speed, settling over Master Kassik and Chymasion. Frantic with need, it tried to drain them in one gulp.

Infold my beloved Silver, she laughed, for a Pygmy’s laughter was of the stars. All of us, together. She gave of her own life to Kassik and Chymasion, before they slipped away into the Shadow forever.

Nothing remained for the Nurguz save an Onyx Dragoness still searching the Cloudlands as she allowed the First Egg to fall. Ensconced in the final bubble of her dimension-shifting magic, Pip fell alongside the Egg, for the infolding magic could only be created from within the field of magic, trapping the wielder inside their own creation. This was the ultimate danger in wielding the Word of Command, a warning spelled out forty-three times in the text she had memorised in the Pygmy cave. From this course of action, there could be no escape.

At last, an impossibility.

Infold me.

She heard the Nurguz scream at a register that lashed her soul with dark-fires. The scream communicated despair and loss, the final shriek of an otherworldly appetite that would never be sated again. Pip shone brightly now, too far beyond the material realm to be damaged. She fought to remain as her own magic enwrapped her in its white-fire folds, refusing to surrender to the decision that would isolate all she held dear from the physical world, secreting those treasures within the time-capsule of a star-travelling First Egg. There, they would await a day when another would summon them forth in perhaps the strangest draconic birth the Island-World would ever know.

As the First Egg accepted her draconic soul, she saw a huge paw breach the Cloudlands.

Finally. Her beloved Dragons were safe.

NOT The End!

Thank you for joining Pip in this epic adventure! I hope you enjoyed the Dragonride. Although the Shapeshifter Dragon Legends series concludes with this second volume, this is not the end of Pip’s tale.

You will want to read Book 3 of my Shapeshifter Dragons series, the sequel to Aranya and Shadow Dragon, for a few enjoyable surprises. This volume is coming in 2016.

Until then, may you burn the heavens!

About the Author

www.marcsecchia.com

Marc is the bestselling author of over a dozen fantasy books. Born in South Africa, he lives and works in Ethiopia with his wife and 4 children, 2 dogs, a rabbit, and a variable number of marabou storks that roost on the acacia trees out back. On a good night you can also hear hyenas prowling along the back fence.

When he’s not writing about Africa or dragons, Marc can be found travelling to remote locations. He thinks there’s nothing better than standing on a mountaintop wondering what lies over the next horizon.

If you enjoyed this story, please consider leaving a review on Amazon.com, or reading one of my other works. Every review matters and I read them all!

Where you can find me:

Amazon Author Page

Goodreads

Twitter: @marcauthor

Facebook

Email: marcsecchia@gmail.com

Website: www.marcsecchia.com (sign up for my newsletter here)

Other Books by Marc Secchia

Shapeshifter Dragons: (Young Adult and older readers) Three allied series of bestselling Dragon adventures. Prepare to wing away to a unique world of mighty Dragons and volcanic Islands above the deadly Cloudlands!

In chronological order (Island-World timeline):

Dragonfriend series: Dragonfriend, Dragonlove and Dragonsoul (coming in 2016)

Shapeshifter Dragon Legends series: The Pygmy Dragon and The Onyx Dragon

Shapeshifter Dragons series: Aranya, Shadow Dragon and Part 3 is planned for 2016

Standalone Book: Dragon Thief

The IsleSong series: (Young Adult and older readers) A story for anyone who loves the ocean and its whales, salt water in their hair, and the gentle rasp of beach sand between their bare toes. This story will transport you to a beautiful, unspoiled ocean world where people have to rely on Whales to travel between the islands. A world where danger can, and does, lurk beneath any wave.

The Girl who Sang with Whales (IsleSong Book 1)

The Shioni of Sheba series: (Middle Grades and older readers) Unique African historical fantasy adventures set among the myths and legends of ancient Ethiopia.

Shioni of Sheba #1: The Enchanted Castle

Shioni of Sheba #2: The King's Horse

Shioni of Sheba #3: The Mad Giant

Shioni of Sheba #4: The Sacred Lake

Shioni of Sheba #5: The Fiuri Realms

Shioni of Sheba Box Set – Books 1-5

Epic fantasy (New Adult and Adult readers) Epic length tales of unique worlds and powers.

Feynard

The Legend of El Shashi

Table of Contents

The Onyx Dragon

Map of the Island-World

Chapter 1: Giant Mischief

Chapter 2: To War!

Chapter 3: Hatchlings

Chapter 4: Animals Inside and Out

Chapter 5: Ambush

Chapter 6: Old Lizards, Old Friends

Chapter 7: Refugees

Chapter 8: Antics at Archion

Chapter 9: Sylakia

Chapter 10: Dragon Renegade

Chapter 11: Dragonwing

Chapter 12: Over the Islands

Chapter 13: Images to Confound

Chapter 14: The Ways of Apes

Chapter 15: No’otha

Chapter 16: Questions of Heritage

Chapter 17: Homecoming

Chapter 18: Wedding

Chapter 19: Jungle Jinx

Chapter 20: The Order of Onyx

Chapter 21: Blockade

Chapter 22: Inside the Island

Chapter 23: Interloper

Chapter 24: Shades of Impossibility

Chapter 25: Egg Lore

Chapter 26: Running with Dragons

Chapter 27: Archaic Lore

Chapter 28: Beneath and Beyond

Chapter 29: Dragons a-Brewing

Chapter 30: Scholarly Approach

Chapter 31: Dragons, Attack!

Chapter 32: Big Lizards can Fly

Chapter 33: Treachery

Chapter 34: Infolding

About the Author