Chapter 13 - Into Hiding

“A touch on the starboard ailerons,” Hualiama instructed. “The other starboard–Islands’ sakes, and your other left foot!”

Her trainee pilot overcorrected. The Dragonship groaned and shuddered as the crosswind caught the balloon side-on. Lia said, “Like this, you rustic oaf.” She tapped rapidly on the foot pedals while simultaneously supplying thrust to the port turbines, returning them to an even keel.

“Sorry,” said Inniora. “We peasants of the realm don’t exactly grow up piloting Dragonships.”

“Get your grubby paws off my nice clean Dragonship controls, peasant,” said Lia.

“Is that a royal order, your infinitesimal tininess?”

Lia scowled unconvincingly up at her new, head-taller friend. “Are you as clumsy as you are deaf? Don’t make me come up there to shout in your ear.”

Flicker twitched his wings in befuddlement. Humans. Worse, Human girls. Trying to fathom them was like trying to grasp the Mystic Moon as it sailed by. This banter had continued for over an hour while the Dragonships plotted their course to the monastery. The day was bleak and squally, with low clouds shrouding the Island-massif ahead, and dull grey Cloudlands roiling below under the impetus of capricious winds–not the sort of day to be piloting fat, lumbering balloons between the Islands. He perched on a mound of supplies–sacks of vegetables, spiced dried meat and coils of rope–stacked neatly either side of the navigation cabin. Each Dragonship had to bear their share of the load, Lia had explained, given their limited lifting power.

The entire notion of Human air-travel between the Islands struck him as a hazardous affair.

The dragonet’s nostrils smoked with jealousy as he watched Lia explaining which controls worked the ailerons one more time, showing Inniora the precise level to make her settings, before clipping the lines in place. “Once they’re set, there’s no need to fiddle with them,” she instructed. “It’s like playing a harp. You manage that much with your work-roughened fingers, farm girl.”

“Shall I till your ribs with my hoe?” suggested Inniora, indicating the towering two-handed sword scabbarded on her back.

“By the time you reach that weapon, I could have carved my initials on your churlish intestines ten times over.” Lia smiled at Flicker. “You’re rather quiet over there, o jewel of the skies. Those turric-root sacks can’t be very comfortable. Come here.”

Flicker exhaled a curl of fire, crisping a stowaway giant pincher beetle. He snapped up the paw-sized insect and crunched indelicately, burgundy legs waving from his mouth, as he destroyed his snack.

Such a male, Lia teased.

That’s what all the females say, he agreed readily. You know, if you chose to display more of your hide, you’d have that handsome monk sharing fresh kill with you.

Er … His mental picture evidently puzzled her.

Why reject him?

It’s the honourable thing to do, Flicker. But her eyes seemed smokier than usual, almost shadowed.

“When you leak over Human graves, Lia, what does that mean?” the dragonet inquired. “Do you lose your courage? Are your tears supposed to water those flame bushes you placed over each grave? Why don’t you sing the flame songs?”

She chuckled, “The word you’re looking for is ‘crying’, Flicker. We grieve that a soul has passed on, just as you dragonets believe the flame-soul returns to the invisible fires of eternity. But you’re wrong about my courage–if anything, I’m more determined than ever to see Ra’aba brought low.”

“Grief exposes weakness.”

“Grief strengthens,” Hualiama shot back, earning herself a hiss of disapproval. “It tempers and refines, focussing a person on things that truly matter. Surely, there is no pleasure without pain? Joy becomes meaningless in a world without suffering.”

“Therefore I should wish you’d suffer more?” snapped Flicker, before shutting his jaw with a snap louder than that which had just entered his voice. “I’m sorry, Lia. Shards take it, what a stupid thing to say!”

Lia simply extended her hands. A flip of a wing later, he nestled in her arms, and extended his serpentine neck to rub his muzzle against her cheek. She scratched Flicker just behind his skull spikes, the spot where he loved it most.

“Jealous old lizard, aren’t you?” she whispered into his ear canals.

How did she know his moods so well? Testily, he said, “You Humans always think jealousy is a negative emotion.”

Though his fire curled past her nose, Hualiama did not flinch. Instead, she performed her powerful, indefinable magic. In a tone that squeezed his third heart and made his fires surge, she said, “I am jealous of our friendship, Flicker. So few people would understand, but you … how can I describe it? You make my Island shiver with happiness.”

“While this conversation confuses us yokels beyond redemption?” But Inniora tempered her response by tickling Flicker beneath the chin.

He purred, “What’s a yokel? You really must teach me more Human insults, Lia.”

Hualiama peered ahead to the monastery’s Island, frowning. “The truth is, I didn’t know much about friendship before you pulled me out of the sky, Flicker.”

Human courage was inexplicable, Flicker decided. A creature like his Hualiama, often riddled with self-doubt and thoughts unshaped by a protective warren, so wounded by life and maimed by her enemies, still chose to spread her wings and soar. The idea practically turned his hide inside-out. Dragons valued physical size and prowess. Little Lia possessed neither size nor raw physical strength, but her heart was a hidden jewel, blazing with star-fire. She had the audacity to laugh at her fate, to struggle on and to overcome.

These events drove her toward a cliff-edge, Flicker sensed. The true plunge would come soon.

The dragonet asked, What’s bothering you, Lia?

She said, Am I imagining it, or do I sense something out there? Her face suddenly turned as grey as storm clouds. Ra’aba … he’s near.

A frisson of flame ignited the dragonet’s body. Flicker leaped into the air. I will scout. And he darted out of the open doorway of the navigation cabin, leaving the two girls staring at him from behind the crysglass.

* * * *

“What was that?” asked Inniora.

“Aye, what was that?” inquired Master Jo’el, right behind them.

“Master!” Hualiama gasped. “Don’t sneak … sorry, Master. I had a sense–”

“A premonition?” His lean face seemed graven in stone. “We call this the Great Dragon’s voice. Learn to listen with your entire being, Hualiama. Open yourself to the currents of the Island-World, from the groan of Islands shifting upon their roots to the song of the stars above. Be not too busy to listen. Even the lowliest beetle has a voice. Know him, and you will know what is abroad in the world.”

Master Jo’el’s long, spiderlike fingers came to rest on Lia’s head. A link. A bridge for the passing on of knowledge. Jo’el said, “It is a small magic, but one with enormous power. A sixth sense, if you wish–intuition and more. Open yourself, like this.”

Unfolding. In a time measured by an eye’s blink, yet which stretched like her despairing sensitivity upon the Dragonship’s gantry before Ra’aba flung her overboard, Hualiama saw the world painted anew. From the great bellying storm-clouds to the tiniest mote floating across the leagues between the Island-mountains, she saw bonds and influences and harmonies, a song of fiery magic as old as the aeons yet experienced by her for the first time. White-golden fire radiated from her being, concentric circles racing outward, perturbing and penetrating the magical fabric of the Island-World.

“He’s behind those clouds,” she said, pointing.

Her legs crumpled.

Next she knew, Master Jo’el held her in his arms, his lean frame surprisingly strong. His smile touched his features with terrible beauty, at once majestic and profound. He said, “We begin to discern the Great Dragon’s will for your life, Hualiama. There comes now a time of hiding and training, of decoding and learning the secret ways, and for this, you will work harder than ever before in your life. It will change you, Lia. That I can promise.”

Lia only knew that her mind soaked up the essence of the Master’s words like dry soil desperate for nurturing rain, while her ears seemed so wide open, she could hear his thoughts behind the sounds uttered by his vocal cords.

Jo’el’s smile gentled. “What you just did takes most Masters many years to learn. Yet that is the way of Hualiama, is it not? She is never content to give just half of her life-Island. Nay, Lia would summon even the impossible to her aid. Look, the dragonet comes.”

Lia, Lia, wailed Flicker, shooting back to the Dragonship in a blur of wings and talons. What was that magic? It was you, Lia! It was … oh!

Master Jo’el eased her to her feet. “She is well, dragonet. Just a little too enthusiastic, that’s all.”

Of course, Flicker’s eyes filled with fire. “I cannot leave your side but for a second and you are sticking your wings into danger. You are–what’s the word …”

“Incorrigible?” suggested the Master.

“Worse than incorrigible!” he snapped, winding his body around her neck. His eyes, churning faster than Lia had ever seen them with swirls of yellow flame, glared at her from mere inches away. “What did you do? What did you see? Truly, your behaviour is–”

Inniora supplied, “Intolerable? Insufferable? Insupportable?”

“Any of those words!” howled the dragonet. “All of them!”

Just then, the gloomy clouds clinging to Ha’athior’s slopes shifted slightly, revealing the unmistakable oblong shapes of two Dragonships leaving their volcano. Twin purple flags fluttered behind the foremast of each vessel. No Human eye could see the detail from that distance, but they knew the symbols of royal Fra’anior–the volcano for the royal house, and the windroc for Ra’aba.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

The Roc had been visiting. What ill did this bode for the monastery?

* * * *

In the caves deep beneath the volcano lay a secret complex comprised of living quarters, training facilities, and the great libraries of Human and Dragon lore. Here, Lia and Inniora set up new rooms, and Lia began her training.

“This is Master Khoyal of Archion Island,” Master Jo’el introduced them. “He is the only master with first-hand knowledge of the art of Nuyallith.”

Lia stared at the age-bowed monk. He moved as though his hips were fused in place–how was he meant to teach her to dance? She scuffed the sand with her toes, looking around the large but low-ceilinged training chamber as she considered how to respond.

Master Khoyal said to Jo’el, “I’m afraid ‘first-hand’ is an inappropriate descriptor, young man.” Lia blinked–if Master Jo’el was young man, what did that make her? A tadpole wriggling in her mother’s womb? His rheumy eyes turned upon the royal ward. “You’re a Princess, yet not. How shall I call you? Aye, your beauty blows as the gentle winds upon the misted terrace lakes of my home Island. I shall call you ‘zephyr’.”

Whatever was wrong with the name ‘Lia’?

Khoyal said, “My great-grandfather was a master of Nuyallith. I have from him many scrolls of lore, which for reason of their great age will require copying to fresh scrolls. That will be your first labour, zephyr. Jo’el, my boy, we’ll need desks, ink and quills … over there. We shall set aside that chamber for study. I need rope. A laver of water to be set here in the cavern floor. Quick as a dragonet, boy!”

Hualiama stifled a giggle that threatened to land her in hot lava with Master Jo’el.

“Zephyr!” said Khoyal, clicking his fingers rudely at her. “You will swim the underground lake two hundred times every day. We’ll need bars for gymnastic exercises–boy, are you still standing there? Where’s that little scamp, your nephew, with my scrolls?”

Master Jo’el scurried off.

Lia nodded. She had seen the underground lake, through a short tunnel off the cavern where they berthed and maintained the Dragonships. It had to be five hundred feet across if it was an inch. The Master would have her swimming miles every day. Good. But, copying scrolls? What kind of training was that?

“Two hundred laps,” said the Master. “A lap counts as there and back.”

Grr. Double that.

Ja’al arrived, carrying such a great armful of scrolls he could barely see where he was going. Lia smelled the mustiness from where she stood.

“Put them in that cave,” directed Master Khoyal. “Hurry up with the rest. Don’t dawdle!” The Master smacked her arm with his cane. “Idle hands, zephyr? Go help Ja’al carry those scrolls.”

The crack of his cane became a metaphor for her new life beneath the Island, hidden from Ra’aba’s prying eyes and, undoubtedly, his spies. Master Khoyal valued hard work as the path to mastery. “Eighteen hours of work. Nine to sleep,” muttered Lia, copying a scroll carefully. She eased her bruised knuckles, punishment that morning for a spelling error. “Only eighty laps today? Lazy little zephyr.” She had to stop lest she sink to the lake-bottom.

Khoyal was not unkind, but she was starting to dream about his whispery commands, when she was not suffering through sweat-soaked nightmares about a certain Dragon’s fate.

Hualiama eased her back. She and Flicker had spent their entire rest day–and the night, returning at dawn–searching up and down the avalanche site. Surely the Tourmaline Dragon was buried beneath ten thousand tons of rock? No sound, no sign, no possible route had they found, not even a hint of a crack that might lead within the Island. Her fancy new magic skill had been resoundingly silent.

Next week’s rest day, however, promised more entertainment. She would take Ja’al to meet Amaryllion.

“Coming to bed?” Inniora asked, sleepily.

“Just finishing this scroll.”

“If your head drops any lower, you’ll fall asleep and start drooling all over your work.”

“I do not drool!”

“Except over my brother.”

Lia huffed, “Inniora! He’s taking his vows tomorrow. End of Island.”

“Well, over that Blue Dragon, then–what was his name?”

“I don’t know. Fibber. I do not drool over Dragons.”

“Except when you dream about them,” Inniora said. “You talk in your sleep.” Lia favoured this with an expression no Princess should ever have made in public. “If I wanted to know your secrets, all I’d have to do is ask you questions while you sleep. Say, who’s Qualiana?”

Lia rubbed her eyes wearily. “Mate of Sapphurion the Dragon Elder, Red Dragoness. Over one hundred feet in wingspan, powerful healing capabilities beside the usual Red affinity for fireballs and lava attacks–why?”

“Night before last you mentioned her name, clear as the twin suns rising over Iridith.”

“Qualiana? Why would I dream about her?”

“Squirmy, aren’t you?” Inniora grinned. “To bed!”

“Shut your chirping parakeet-mouth. Better still, give me something to tease you about. There’s a man in your life, isn’t there? Ja’al was hinting. And, what reason under the twin suns could there possibly be for me to copy so many scrolls, blast them into a volcanic ruin!”

Lia jumped as Flicker chirped in her ear, “So that you learn, zephyr, and don’t just skim through the scrolls as you’re wont to do. Knowledge must be internalised before it can be reproduced as skill.”

Both girls chuckled at his flawless imitation of Master Khoyal.

A spiralling triple-loop showcased the dragonet’s skills as an aerial acrobat. Eyes a-whirl, he added, “Ask Inniora about Chago, straw-head.”

“Chago?” Lia turned on her three-legged wooden stool. “What would you like to tell me about Chago, Inniora?”

She swatted at Flicker as he whizzed past. “Nothing.”

Hualiama needled, “We are talking about Chago, Sub-Captain of the Royal Guard, right? The tattooed giant from the Western Isles?”

The taller girl developed spots of colour below her cheekbones. “He’s half Fra’aniorian.”

“I know … isn’t the story that he inherited his height from his Fra’aniorian father and his brawn from his Western Isles mother? He’s rather Dragon-esque, wouldn’t you say?”

“I’d say that flying pest of yours had better watch his wings!”

* * * *

To her mortification, Hualiama wept her way through Ja’al’s vows. Duty. Fidelity. Service and honour. The words were beautiful and poetic, but Ja’al’s elation as he spoke his vows, struck her as a hundred times more beautiful yet. His soul knew peace; she had done right. She would suffer this wound and lock it away in her secret storehouses of grief and loss.

Flicker wound his body around her neck, purring, Are these happy tears? Or sad?

She wiped her eyes. How’s about ridiculous tears, Flicker?

Hualiama. Attend.

Dragonet and Human stiffened alike. Amaryllion? she ventured.

It is I. His voice must surely judder the Islands off their foundations, Lia thought, as a mental earthquake faded into the recesses of her mind. The Ancient Dragon rumbled, I wish to meet with thee tonight. Bring he who speaks his vows. Now, Fra’anior shall bestow honour upon him.

Having entered the Chamber of Dragons through a secret tunnel, Hualiama, Flicker and Inniora stood concealed behind a rich tapestry to observe proceedings. Ja’al and his family knew they were present, but none of the other monks knew. Flicker had snidely advised Lia of legions of young monks wailing and lamenting in the halls for weeks as they mourned her absence. Lia snidely introduced her elbow to his ribs.

The Chamber was a unique meeting-place. A rough-hewn, round obsidian table dominated the room, surrounded by chairs each carved of a single monolithic block of stone or gemstone which represented a Dragon’s colour–ruby, emerald, sapphire, onyx, jade, a brown stone she did not recognise, and a white that could be diamond, only Lia could not imagine any diamond being large enough to seat a person in comfort. Ja’al stood at the far end of the room, between the twin golden statues of Dragons, their forepaws raised and clasped together to form an archway above his head.

JA’AL OF FRA’ANIOR!

This time, the room did quake. Hualiama grabbed Flicker as he voiced an involuntary squeak; his talons stabbed her right bicep, but she kept silent. Every monk gasped except for Master Jo’el, who looked gallingly unperturbed.

KNEEL, JA’AL.

Somehow, Lia sensed that this new voice, fraught with ageless power and majesty, spoke through Amaryllion. How could this be? Where did Fra’anior speak from, and what gave that most kingly of Ancient Dragons the ability to speak through space and perhaps even time, to interrupt at this very moment?

Ja’al knelt as though his knees had felt a scythe.

Great Dragon? He fell face-down. How may I serve thee?

I accept thy vows, thundered Fra’anior, the many-headed Black Dragon of legend. I bless thee with wisdom and Dragon fire, and with the power to seek justice for my people. For all are mine, Human and Dragon alike. Care for these my children, as I shall surely care for thee. I name thee Ja’al the Just, the divider of truth. Know that my paw shall rest upon thy shoulder all of thy days.

With that, the mighty voice vanished.

Stunning. Those gathered departed in reverential silence.

* * * *

Inniora’s back and right arm flexed, every muscle leaping into definition as she strained upward to tuck her chin briefly over the exercise bar. “Five.”

“Roaring rajals, would you look at her?” grumbled Hualiama. “What girl in their right mind manages five one-handed pull-ups in a row, Flicker?”

“Not you,” said the dragonet, helpfully.

“Oh, go chase a mosquito somewhere! Better yet, how’s about fishing up a few trout for dinner?”

“My mother says I’m scrawny enough to give her a case of the blister-fever,” said Inniora, dropping lithely to the ground. “Your turn.”

“Scrawny? You’re all muscle and bone.”

Lia found herself the recipient of a quirky grimace. Inniora said, “It’s ralti-stupid, I know, but I’d trade four inches of height and a sackweight of muscle any day for a few of your curves.” The dragonet sniggered; Lia mentally suggested he tie his neck in a knot. “Though, my mother was aggrieved that any Princess should look so manly. She’s promised to alter some clothes for you.”

“Manly? Hualiama?” Flicker was laughing so hard, he had a case of the fiery hiccoughs.

“Flicker, this is girl talk.” Lia pointed at the cave entrance. “Trout!”

Oh, can’t I talk clothes and curves with you, Human girl? It’s such fun–

“Get out!”

He sulked out. Meantime, Lia regarded the bars of their exercise frame with a jaundiced eye, trying to stop blushing up a storm. She was developing a healthy hatred for their daily regimen, and that dragonet and his penchant for stirring up trouble … Inniora pasted a diplomatic half-smile on her lips, but Lia sensed she was howling with mirth inside.

Lia said, “Right. Twenty-eight today?”

After Lia had completed ten pull-ups, Inniora said, “So, that was a surprise for Ja’al. Does Fra’anior always speak at these events?”

“Not that I know of … twelve …”

“Eleven. You didn’t touch your chin to the bar. And where exactly are you sneaking off to this evening?”

Between bouts of stretching her scarred back, Lia grunted, “Why won’t the Master let me … dance, Inniora? All I do … is blasted exercises … and copy blasted scrolls … and spend blasted hours admiring my reflection … in that blasted pool … meditating on what I’ve learned.”

Master Khoyal said, “Finish your set, Lia. Then I would speak with you both.”

Her breath streamed out in a long, frustrated hiss. Great. Could Inniora or Flicker not have warned her?

When, groaning and quivering, Hualiama had forced herself to complete her twenty-eighth repetition, she dropped to the sandy cavern floor and accepted a cloth from Inniora to mop herself down. They knelt, attentive to the Master’s words.

“I’m sorry, zephyr,” he said, unexpectedly mournful. “I’ve been too preoccupied with trying to work out how to train you. You see, I’m a Master, but I am no master of Nuyallith. All I remember is the hours I spent watching my great-grandfather training here, in this very chamber, and trying to copy him. But thus far, our experiments have failed. You could polish your patience. What chews at the roots of your Island?”

“Minor things,” she said absently, fixated on what he held in his hands. “Ra’aba, the prophecy, my family’s fate, the inexplicable stirrings of my magic, and the Tourmaline Dragon’s misfortune …”

“Aye, such a pawful even an Ancient Dragon should struggle to hold.”

“Aye,” whispered Lia. “Those blades, Master … I feel them.”

Kneeling with considerable difficulty, the Master placed his burden on the ground between them. Two slightly curved blades, each just over three feet long, nestled beside each other in a double scabbard of an unfamiliar style–Lia noted plain leather and straps meant to hold the slender scabbards not upon one’s belt, but upon the back. The swords were unadorned, yet the craftsmanship of what she could see was exquisite. But it was their nature that made her heart gallop into her throat. It was as if the swords pulsed with an inner energy, yearning to spring free of their confinement, to sing in the wielder’s hands with a wild, lethal song.

“Tomorrow, you will start dancing with reeds,” said Khoyal. “But today, Hualiama of Fra’anior, I offer you these Nuyallith blades. They belonged to my great-grandfather. I would be greatly honoured if you were to accept them.”

“I am not worthy, Master.”

“Not ready,” he corrected. “Draw the blades–just a few inches will suffice.”

Reaching out, she grasped the two hilts as though expecting a shock, but there was none. The swords voiced a silky, metallic song as they slipped out of the scabbards. The blades were perfect, inscribed with a runic script that ran down the centre channel. The strangely dark blade in her left hand exhibited a slight sheen of blue, the right a ruddy hint, as though a living flame indwelled the metal.

“It is said that these blades were forged from the pure ore of a meteorite,” said Master Khoyal. “The metal is incredibly light and flexible, yet the blades hold their edge like no other. Seventy years on, you can still shave with these. Strangest of all, is what my great-grandfather told me of their forging. Can you sense it?”

Lia said, “It’s impossible. Metal cannot hold magic.”

“He said these blades were forged in a flame hotter than any furnace.”

“Dragon fire,” she said.

“Aye, zephyr. Forged in Dragon fire.”