Chapter 4 - A Dragonet's Pet

FIve days of fighting with monkeys, snakes, a nest of black wasps, thorn-ferns and more vines than Hualiama ever wanted to see in a lifetime, garnished with Flicker’s inimitable blend of witty commentary and ingenious insults at her lack of progress, brought her to a place Flicker deemed ‘good’–a protruding ledge with an unparalleled view over the Cloudlands. Putting her hands on her knees, Lia decided she’d smack the snarky dragonet just as soon as she had the energy to do so. She was cut, bruised, abraded and covered in blotchy red spots from the wasp stings. Never had she looked less like a member of the royal household. Never had she looked more like a Dragon’s breakfast, chewed up and spat out.

Then, she punched her left arm to the sky and shouted, “Yes! We’ve done it! We’re less than a third of the way up.”

At that instant, Flicker nipped her ankle-bone.

“Blast it, you overgrown dragonfly,” she gasped, clutching the spot.

Swoooosh! Lia’s semi-collapse turned into a headlong dive as a massive pair of wings pummelled the air above her body. Windroc! Flicker screeched and flared his neck-ruff as he raced to take on the windroc. Lia scrabbled for her dagger, palmed it, and watched without daring to breathe as the bird gyrated casually on its wingtip, returning for another pass.

She had to find shelter. Vines, bushes, anything would do as opposed to standing in the open while a red-eyed, feral windroc lined her up for a snack. Close up, the bird looked as big as a Dragon–sixteen feet in wingspan, talons which could clasp her head like a fruit, and a cruel, hooked beak which opened now to express its fury in a long, ear-splitting shriek. A five-foot girl and a two-foot dragonet faced the Island-World’s most fearsome avian predator.

It struck Lia that any self-respecting Dragon would have this windroc for a snack. It was only the size of a several months-old Dragon hatchling, after all–a thought which offered as much comfort as a seat atop an active volcano.

Her world seemed to narrow to those talons. Lia crouched, balanced on the balls of her feet. Flicker! The dragonet tangled repeatedly with the windroc, aiming for the eyes. The girl swayed, aiming a dagger-strike at the feathered body. The bird passed overhead again, snapping at her, and Lia had a new cut on her left forearm, five inches long, down to the bone. Great Islands, she had not even seen its strike. Instead of cutting the body, her blade had torn a gash in its wing.

A strategy popped into her mind.

As Flicker and the windroc looped away, scrapping and screeching at each other, Lia snatched up the length of vine she had been using. Cut it off the belt, fool! She secured the vine to the base of a shabis-berry bush, deep-rooted and tough. Her shaking fingers failed to form a slipknot. No time for that. She threw together an overhand knot and braced her trembling knees, trying to calculate the angles as the windroc swooped for a third pass. Mercy, that creature was lethal. One snap of its beak would slice Flicker in half, but the dragonet dodged with great agility … he was hurt! His right wing hung at a poor angle.

Quicker than thought, Hualiama switched hands to hurl her dagger, burying it in the bird’s skull just behind the eye. The windroc barely flinched. Then she tossed her loop of vine at the onrushing bird and dived again, skidding across the bare rock. Talons plucked the material of her skirt and scored fiery pain across the back of her left thigh. From the corner of her eye, she saw the loop catch on the windroc’s neck. The rope jerked taut. The bird crash-landed on its beak.

Rolling, groaning, knocking her broken arm about … Lia was searching for a way back into the fray when Flicker broke free of the dazed predator.

Shelter! he squeaked, trying to take to the air.

She caught his tail. Dragging the hapless dragonet behind her, Lia ducked beneath a dense thicket. More harsh caws came from the sky as a half-dozen windrocs fell upon their luckless fellow-creature and within a couple of minutes, reduced it to a pile of bones and feathers.

* * * *

My tail, if you please! Flicker grumbled.

“Sorry.”

I’ll make you sorry, you straw-headed … here’s your dagger. With a fine, Human-like bow, Flicker presented the dagger to Lia. My compliments.

You were–Hualiama stumbled, struggling with her limited Dragonish. Switching to Island Standard, she said, “Awesome! So brave.”

Can’t leave you to wander around these cliffs on your own, Human-Lia. Now, why don’t we get away from these nasty windrocs and I’ll show you the best cave in the world. He mock-snapped at her. Don’t you dare pick up a dragonet by his tail. It’s demeaning.

As they emerged from the far side of the thicket, Hualiama gave him one of those looks which stirred his belly-fires. “I don’t understand what I did to annoy you, Flicker, but I’m sorry. Very sorry. Sorry with your favourite intestines slathered on top?”

She giggled in that lilting way that never failed to amaze him. Lia had the best laugh. Carefree, bubbling, even a little wild. She reminded him of a storm in motion, he decided. Flicker’s seventh sense told him that she was the kind of creature who could shake the world. He purred to himself, knowing that she’d be changing nothing without his help. Straw-head would have been rotting in the Cloudlands …

“O mighty Flicker,” said Lia, bowing toward him with an elaborate Fra’aniorian hand-twirl, “slayer of the dreadful windroc, saviour and protector most gallant of maidens trapped down league-tall cliffs, will you ever forgive me?”

Well, said Flicker, strutting and puffing up his chest fit to burst, I’d do the same for anyone in trouble, Lia. But he knew he would slay ten windrocs for her smile.

The girl stopped in her tracks. “Mercy … my soul …”

She must realise what he already knew, that this ledge jutted out two hundred feet or so from the Island’s main body, offering unparalleled, panoramic views. To the north and south, the Island-massif curved away into the distance, a vertical mountain-slope as far as the eye could see. To the west, Flicker saw a few Islets–just mountain peaks, really, apart from one inhabited Island which the Humans called Ya’arriol–sticking up out of the Cloudlands. Even the Ancient One would not tell him what lay beneath that ever-shifting, ever opaque realm. Four or five miles to the southwest, a slender volcanic cone abutted the main Island, lush and green, wreathed in multi-coloured flights of dragonets, making the sharp, perfect cone seem to shimmer with living lights.

That was the place of the Great Dragon, a place of worship.

Hualiama stood motionless, as though wishing to devote her entire being to drinking in that beauty, eyes and mouth and pores all striving to know it, taste it, inscribe what she perceived on her heart. “W-What a-are those?” she stammered, pointing at the volcano.

“Dragonets,” said Flicker.

“So many?”

He coiled, intending to leap up onto her shoulder to comfort her, when he realised he was seeing the strange Human phenomenon called happy-tears. Flicker settled for rubbing against her legs like a cat.

“Oh, my poor darling, you’re hurt,” said Lia, scooping him up.

He pointed with his foreclaw. “Look. Dragons.”

Lia narrowed her eyes. Could she see that far? He was beginning to wonder how good her eyesight was, because she did not appear to see details which were instantly clear to him. He felt a distinct jolt in her body as she spotted the Dragonwing of six huge Reds. Her heart pounded against his flank. Was she afraid? It was men who had done this to her, not the Dragonkind.

Inside, said Flicker. Why are you afraid of Dragons, Lia?

She scuttled across the rock, making for a round cave-entrance he pointed out for her. Me afraid die, she said. “Forbidden.” No Human-Island.

Oh. So that was what the Ancient One had meant! Flicker tasted the strange word. It was similar to the idea that Dragons did not want dragonets invading their roosts, but carried deeper, darker undertones that he neither understood nor enjoyed.

Flicker bared his fangs at her.

* * * *

Lia angled rapidly for the cave. “Forbidden. It’s bad, not allowed … you don’t go to a forbidden place. If you do, they throw you off a Dragonship.”

When the dragonet did not appear to comprehend, Lia imitated the cry she had made before. Aaaah! She mimed a person falling into the Cloudlands.

By the Great Dragon’s breath! Every one of Flicker’s talons unsheathed as his paws contracted, making Hualiama gasp in pain. He said, Oh, shards take it. I’m sorry. Please …

She held him tighter. “What’s a few more cuts, little one?”

Sorry. The dragonet’s flexible neck extended. He rubbed cheeks with her. Hualiama flinched slightly in surprise, but quickly covered her mistake by imitating him, making a contented noise.

She said, “Umm, you smell … what is that smell?”

Flicker’s nostrils flared as they stood before the round cave entrance, wide enough for any Dragon to slip inside, enjoying the warm breeze issuing from the depths of the mountain.

Lia wondered if she was not imagining something, but it was the strangest cave-smell. Not damp. No, nor musty. Just a hint of moisture, yet this was … she could not say. It reminded her oddly of Dragon fire billowing before an attacking Dragon, only this smell was sweet and not acrid like smoke, suggesting dizzying mysteries and hints of long-forgotten magic. She imagined the Island’s roots were steeped in wonders beyond Human comprehension.

Flicker sprang lithely down from her arms. Come, straw-head.

Within, just off the main tunnel which plunged unknowably far into the mountainside, Lia found a cosy round chamber, lit from above by daylight filtering through a clear, star-shaped crystal. Toward the back of the cave she saw two small pools, one bubbling and the other mirror-still.

A Dragon’s roost, said Flicker.

Wow!

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The dragonet showed her a depression in the centre of the cave. “Eggs, here.”

Soft, warm sand greeted her toes. Lia gazed around in delight. What colour might the mother Dragon have been? Then, a frisson cased her spine in flame.

White. A hunted Dragoness, frantic, laying her eggs in the cavern while she checked the entrance a hundred times, wondering if she should block it to prevent him from finding her, brooding over her clutch of three Dragon eggs, each easily three feet in length, then knowing a searching presence, the great, many-headed Black Dragon seeking her with all the powers of his magic and cunning … concealing the eggs deep underground, summoning one to care for them, sheltering her unborn young with her own pearlescent power, and then departing the cave to submit to the Black Dragon’s chastisement …

Lia’s legs folded beneath her. Her head struck the sand. She heard Flicker’s shriek as though it came from a great distance, and when she dreamed, it was about Dragons fighting.

* * * *

Her right arm took a further three weeks to heal to the point where she could grip light objects without gritting her teeth, and raise her hand above the height of her shoulder. In that time Lia eased back into her daily exercise and dance routines, much to Flicker’s bemusement. They set up a home of sorts in the cave. Even the worst of her bruises and lesions healed up, thanks to the dragonet’s medications, and she worked diligently on learning to speak Dragonish.

Flicker taught her how to mend a rent in a dragonet’s wing. The thin, supple wing membrane was also extraordinarily sensitive, so he first had her find the right combination of herbs–numb wort, tergaroot and pungent wandering monk’s-flower–which Lia helped to prepare two ways, firstly for eating and secondly, for smearing on the wound to numb it. Then, having readied thorn needles and thread, she was equipped for the task. Fra’aniorian lace embroidery, regarded as the finest in the Island-World, was an art form of which Hualiama had only ever scratched the surface. Flicker made her demonstrate her sewing skills on leaves before he allowed her near his wing. This triggered a hissing-contest between Human and dragonet.

She drew together the ragged edges of his wing membrane and set her nimble fingers to the task, starting by gluing together two severed wing struts, which to her resembled cartilage but were clearly much stronger, and then working on the surface itself.

Lia muttered, “Your wing surface is amazing. Are these all tiny muscles along here? Get your muzzle out of the way, silly.”

Shards take it, straw-head, I’ll bite you if you make a single mistake with that needle.

“Will you pack the fangs away?”

A Dragon’s wing has three joints, Flicker began in his pompous lecturing tone, pointing at them with his tongue.

Hold still, she replied in Dragonish.

He sniffed, Listen to your teacher, you ignorant talking ape.

Shall I sew your lips together? Lia replied, with her sweetest smile.

How’s about I chew your flapping ears into an actually pretty shape? The dragonet seemed pleased by her rippling laughter. Now, the shoulder joint is also the primary wing joint, anchoring the major flight muscles to the keel bone of the chest. The secondary wing joint is akin to your elbow, but it bends forward through one hundred and ten degrees or more, and can be fixed in place by the action of the muscles. And the tertiary joint here, toward the end, is like your wrist, but much more useful, of course.

Oh, of course, Hualiama put in, biting her lip as she concentrated.

Each joint adjusts individually. The arteries which feed the muscles and wing membranes run along a groove in the inner side of the wing bones, where they are best protected. Flicker flared his wing struts at the end of his wing. Ancillary muscles work the wing struts, allowing the entire surface an unparalleled adaptability of movement during flight. Do you understand so far?

Enough. Lia was pleased. Her Dragonish was starting to come much more naturally now, although he still used words she did not understand. How’s this?

Adequate, I suppose, as far as Human work goes.

Lia bared her teeth at the wall. For a creature who had saved her life, Flicker could rile her like stinging-nettle rash.

During this healing time, Lia’s thoughts turned to the outside world. She observed the Fra’aniorian Dragonships flying by overhead on a regular patrol schedule, and reasoned that Ra’aba now exerted absolute control over the Island-Cluster. Her situation was hopeless. Marooned, she was powerless to leave the Island unless she could grow wings of her own. Should she leave, she had no allies. Should the Dragons find her living on their holy Island … Hualiama sighed. Yet, she was daily gaining proficiency in Dragonish. Surely that gave her an edge, even a tiny one?

When a Dragon wished to crush her beneath its impossibly enormous paw, she could plead for her life in fluent Dragonish. Bravo!

Flicker was a strange one. Lia grew accustomed to him flying away to be with his warren, but sometimes at night, she missed the warmth of a curled-up dragonet. Where did he sneak off to for hours on end? And how, by the fires of Fra’anior itself, did he know so much about Humans?

One night, Lia pretended to be asleep so that she could watch for his departure. He flew deeper into the caves, not up-Island to meet his family. Odd. Should she confront him about it? Or just keep her impertinent nose where it belonged? Flicker could be touchy about the most unexpected subjects, such as his habit of slurping up intestines, or the way he cracked the knuckles of his paws, which invariably made her wince. Perhaps she could try to follow him?

The following day, Lia was bathing in the warm pool, singing to herself as she rubbed a natural soapstone on her legs, when a flight of dragonets swooped into the cave, all a-chatter with excitement–perhaps a dozen in number, mostly reds, but she also saw yellow and two light-green, almost identical dragonets among them. Lia had not realised how much dragonets’ shades could vary, but seeing all the reds together, she immediately picked out a range of colours from coppery red through to a deep burgundy. Several dragonets had underparts which were definitely more orange than pale cream.

A pretty yellow dragonet sang out, Found you, Flicker!

Another dragonet gasped, A naked ape! Look, every dragonet!

A chorus of alarm rang out. Leaping eggshells … by my mother’s paws … disgusting … it stinks … careful, it might be dangerous!

At the top of his lungs, Flicker shouted, Quiet, you troop of chattering monkeys! She’s friendly. Don’t scare her and she won’t harm you.

Flicker, what’re you doing with this creature? the yellow dragonet demanded.

Flicker flickering flick flick, chattered one of the reds.

Is this your pet, Flicker? Are you keeping a pet?

In seconds, a dozen curious pairs of eyes ringed Lia. Half of the dragonets perched on the edges of the warm pool or clung to the walls, while the others zoomed around her at high speed, enjoying a game of aerial acrobatics. Hualiama wished she could follow their rapid-fire chirping. Clearly, she was an object of great wonder and speculation. She began to cover her breasts with her hands before halting the movement with a chuckle. Dragonets cared nothing for nudity–all they had was Dragon hide, and that suited them perfectly well. Could this be Flicker’s family? Hualiama observed them curiously, trying to separate the slender, quicksilver females from the slightly more thickset males, noting the differences in musculature and facial features and scale-patterns.

Flicker was clearly vexed, breathing out sharp gasps of fire and flaring his wings at his fellows. Go away, he snarled, baring his fangs. She’s my pet. Leave us alone.

To Lia’s surprise, the chattering died away as the dragonets appeared to communicate as a group, without need for speech. She sank down in the water in order to present a less threatening posture. The scrolls said to do this in the event of a rajal attack. Presumably, whoever wrote that scroll had been eaten immediately, or should have been for offering such advice, for a rajal was a coal-black feline common to the Islands of Fra’anior which stood taller than Lia at the shoulder. Rajals were not known for their delicate table manners.

The pretty female, a striking yellow topaz colour with amber detail on her wing struts, spine spikes, claws and muzzle, minced toward Flicker with what Lia took to be a coquettish air. He mock-charged her, but the female stood her ground, her fiery orbs alight with curiosity. Whatever aggression had flared between them appeared to blow over, for they rubbed muzzles, took a fluttering dance-step together, and touched wingtips, left and right.

Flicker turned to Hualiama, saying, This is Shimyal, a member of my warren. She was concerned about my lengthy absences.

Lia smiled thinly. Fiery greetings, little one.

Shimyal shook her head. These animals speak?

I’m teaching her.

Lia understood this little exchange, and was distinctly unimpressed. The female seemed equally underwhelmed, volleying a tirade of chirps at Flicker which had the unmistakable air of a reprimand. Without thinking, Lia bared her teeth at the dragonet.

Danger! Shimyal squealed. The dragonets took off in a swarm, mobbing her; Hualiama fell backward into the water, protecting her face lest any of those razor-sharp talons seek her eyes, as Flicker had attacked the windroc. The dragonets dived underwater with ease. She received sharp cuts on her head, arms and back. In moments, red clouded the pool, before the dragonets suddenly reversed course and fled. Lia broached, coughing water out of her lungs.

Flicker? Flicker, what just happened?

The dragonet chased his kin out of the cave before returning with a patently smug air. I told them you’d curse them with an unspeakably horrible Human disease.

A … what? She did not understand entirely, but it sounded unwise.

I just saved your hide!

The Human girl flinched as his flame heated the skin of her knee. Sorry, Flicker. She added, “I made a royal mess of that. Will you be alright? Your family, I mean?”

* * * *

It was as he had feared. Flicker knew that this news would be with the warren-mother within an hour. Lia’s cuts appeared to be superficial. She needed to fend for herself.

I must go, he said, firmly.

He tried not to dwell upon how clouded her eyes appeared as he winged out of the cave. Flicker beat his wings furiously, trying to catch up with his warren-brothers and sisters as they bolted skyward, fleeing as though a hundred windrocs snapped at their tails. He scented their fear. Fool! He should not have spoken so unwisely. Lia could not curse anyone or any creature. She simply did not have it in her. But what he knew, his superstitious brethren did not. They believed every word.

Three vertical miles he chased them, far to the north of the cave where he had left Hualiama, and still he could not catch them all. He overtook Seroth and Gleam and Dynoc the green dragonet, but none of the others, who were quicker flyers than he. He crossed through the layers of air that sometimes seemed to collect around the volcano, each trapping their particular fragrances, pollens and grits within a narrow horizontal band. Storms broke up those bands, but they quickly re-established themselves. Flicker passed through a patch of jiista-berry pollen so thick it caused him a sneezing-fit, before orienting rapidly on the clump of obsidian boulders which marked his warren’s territory.

No hope now.

Flicker flashed across the cliff, cutting his approach as finely as he dared, before flicking his wings to bank ninety degrees. He shot beneath the fallen giant draggor tree which concealed their warren’s entrance and barrelled straight into four guards holding up a rude net.

Shards! Flicker screeched, striking the tunnel wall hard.

Tangled in the netting, he stood little chance against four older dragonets. He was smaller but stronger than any of them, but had too much respect for his elders to do more than submit to the symbolic bite just behind his skull-spikes.

The warren-mother will see you, young Flicker, said the oldest of the four, called Windstorm. Will you come willingly?

I obey, he replied automatically. If he did not, he would be cast out, warren-less, without hope of finding a mate or a territory in which to settle.

Windstorm nodded. Remove the net. Escort him to Mother Lyrica.

The acrid odour of fear and disquiet already drifted up the tunnels. Flicker’s scales prickled with a Dragon sense. He knew the interview was not about to proceed in his favour. What lie could he tell? None. Lyrica would sniff it out in a wing-flip. He could only put on a show of meekness and hope that Lyrica’s punishment would not be too severe.

They moved as a group through the warm, dry warren tunnels, the two older dragonets jostling him from behind so that Flicker was forced to keep a dragonet’s sharp eye out lest he tread on the tails of the two ahead. This was a lesson impressed on hatchlings as soon as they left the shell. Respect the elders. Give their wings and tails a courteous berth. As they passed the living tunnels and birthing chambers, Flicker became aware of many a watching eye, a whisper of comment and disbelief that accompanied his progress into the centre of the warren, to the place of the hive-mind.

Even here, a slight breeze kept the air fresh. A careful, aeons-old design of multiple adjustable inlets and outlets ensured adequate ventilation of the warren. They came to a cavern larger than any other, lit by magical, refractive crystals which lent the cavern a creepy, shifting appearance, never still, ever bathed in dancing rainbows.

As Flicker entered the throne-cavern he saw the warren-mother Lyrica crouched upon a pedestal formed from a single flower-like ruby. At five feet in length the elderly red dragonet hulked over him, for dragonets grew throughout their lives. She regarded him gravely above the bowed backs of her subservient Twelve, the communal mind-members–those dragonets who were old and no longer fit to fly, who served the warren with their minds, at the expense of their bodies. All they knew was to open their mouths for food and water, and that others took care of their needs.

Lyrica’s eyes burned with the power of the Twelve within her, and when she spoke, he heard many echoes in the timbre of her mental voice, voices within voices. Flicker. This has gone too far.

He bowed his muzzle to the stone. Mother Lyrica.

Will you share your memories with us, that we might judge what has been?

She phrased this as a question, but coming from Mother Lyrica, it was also an immutable command. Nevertheless, a spark of an idea leaped into Flicker’s mind.

I obey, he said, and prepared a sequence of the right memories for her.