This would not do. She could not fail her mission at the first hurdle.
Reaching deep into the corridors of her memory, Lia summoned the snarky laughter of the dragonet she had loved. How Flicker had loved to roost on her shoulder, curving his hot belly around her neck while pretending to pick lice from her hair with his talons. When she danced for him, fire had saturated his eyes and his talons curled in delight. At the very last, the Ancient Dragon had bid her dance as a parting gift, and Lia had spun across his mighty paw even as she danced among the paws and knees of the Lesser Dragons now, and the fire–oh, the glorious white fire–had filled her up to her throat, and burned in her being as though she would never be cold again, and the dragonet’s fire-soul had taken wing to dance with her. Who else in history had danced for an Ancient Dragon?
Heat exploded in her chest. It rippled along her limbs, crackling from her toes as she soared into a graceful aerial flare, imitating a dragonet’s outspread wings. Lia shimmered with white-golden fire, and the world shimmered before her half-shuttered eyes. Faster. Hotter. Lighter on her feet, flitting like flames embracing a dry twig, weaving Flicker’s dragonet-song into her dance. Swooping low. Sprinting five steps before springing upward, a triple somersault flowing without need for thought, now a series of the tight pirouettes Flicker had so loved to show off, because even a bat could hold no bragging rights over a dragonet when it came to aerial dance skills.
Thus, Lia danced for the Dragons.
Visions overcame her. She was lighter than air, burning brighter, flying so high her slippers seemed to prance upon invisible cushions, now the finale, the volatile inner potential no longer able to be withheld. The Dragons would know her spirit? Then see this!
She landed, exultant, and found herself wreathed in flame.
Hualiama gasped, “What?”
She threw herself to the ground and rolled over and over, trying to snuff out the fire.
P
anting inelegantly, CHOKED
with fear, Lia lodged beneath the arch of a draconic paw.
“Hush, little one,” said a well-remembered voice. Magic soothed her as a babe had once been soothed by a Dragoness. The paw lifted.
Alive. She was alive, and hale. Pushing up to her knees, Hualiama rubbed her arms and patted her hair in disbelief. Great Islands! What had become of the fire? Why had she not burned up? That was rather more of her spirit than she suspected Sapphurion had bargained for, but as she looked up at the Blue Dragon, past Qualiana’s talons which were still curved protectively about her, she perceived a fearful glint in his eye.
Rising, she stepped out from beneath Qualiana’s brooding presence.
“How is it that six years ago, a diminutive girl was able to defeat the preeminent swordsman of Fra’anior Cluster?” the Blue Dragon growled.
She had to find her voice. Lia grated, “As you see, Sapphurion, I have power. I was taught the forms of Nuyallith by a master, and have made them my own.”
“As you battled for the Human kingdom, you accused Ra’aba of being your father.”
“He is my father.”
“Can you prove it?”
“He tried to murder me, and when he failed, he sent Razzior in his stead to burn me. Isn’t that proof enough?” Fire roared twenty feet from Sapphurion’s nostrils. Apparently not. Lia began, “Your records will show, mighty Sapphurion, that two decades ago, an envoy came from the East to Gi’ishior–”
The Blue Dragon thundered, “I don’t want fireside tales, I want proof!”
Aye, well said,
growled Andarraz.
Child of the Dragon, she called herself. I remember it well.
As the Dragon’s thunder subsided, Lia shouted, “That man killed my friend with
ruzal
; you promised me Dragon justice! What does it matter, unless Ra’aba is dead? He’s alive, isn’t he?”
“Insolent mite!” Sapphurion roared, pounding toward her. His massive paws shook the ground beneath her feet as though he beat an impossibly enormous drum. “How dare you accuse–”
“Her accusation rings true,” Qualiana snarled, right over the top of Lia’s head.
“Don’t interrupt!”
“Then speak, though it burns your pride!”
As Qualiana and Sapphurion’s fires mingled twenty feet above her head, Hualiama wanted to jump up and down, yelling, ‘I’m down here. Speak to me.’ In a moment she’d be squashed between two bickering Dragons and that would spell a messy end for the Dragonfriend. Yet suddenly, Sapphurion’s muzzle descended to waft the scorching breath of his nostrils across her face.
He hissed, “Ra’aba escaped.”
Qualiana sighed–and it was only that sigh which stopped Lia from screaming her fury to the five moons. Her father was alive! Fomenting discord, no doubt, contaminating Dragons with his strange mental powers … but she must remember why she had come. Sapphurion’s Island-roots ran deep. He would have his reasons for mistreating her like this. Could she forgive him? And navigate a way out of this terrace lake of strife she paddled in?
“My proof is that the Maroon Dragoness swears to my parentage,” she said, softly. “I can show you my memories as I did before, mighty Sapphurion.”
“Trust the word of Ianthine?” Tarbazzan the Brown interrupted. “What manner of fools do you take us for, girl?”
“Aye,” growled Andarraz. “A true word, mighty Tarbazzan. What if Ra’aba has taught her the power of
ruzal?
Is this not his scheme? What Human child would dare approach the Dragon Elders with such a ridiculous tale, had she not been coached? Child of the Dragon? Prophecies of a third great race in the Island-World? Slug spit and windroc droppings!”
He capped his speech with a gout of flame that he aimed upward, above the other Dragons.
Before Sapphurion could speak, Haaja added, “Memories are easily implanted. Ianthine has twisted your mind, child. Of course you believe her lies. That’s her power.”
In a small voice, Hualiama said, “My mother is Azziala of–”
“The Dragon-Haters? I remember her,” said the Brown Dragon. “She left suddenly. Strange business.”
Balling her fists, Hualiama shouted, “Because Ra’aba assaulted her right here in your precious Halls of the Dragons, and you did nothing to protect her! Nothing!”
“Filthy accusations, you worm!” roared one of the Reds, pouncing.
Before she knew it, Qualiana’s paw snaffled her up and the Red Dragoness clashed with her fellow-Red, shoulder to shoulder, with an impact that rattled Hualiama’s teeth. The Dragons cuffed each other before Sapphurion charged between them, knocking the Reds apart with a surge of his magic.
There was a hot silence of panting, sulphur-tanged breaths and clenched claws.
From the safe haven of Qualiana’s paw, Lia called, “I remember returning in Ianthine’s paw and you, Qualiana–you rescued me from Ianthine and gave me to the Human King for adoption. These are not lies! Why would Ianthine carry a Human child halfway across the Island-World were there nothing to gain by it?”
“Why indeed?” said Zulior, looking to Sapphurion for his lead.
It’s impossible! How could that shape-twister be her father?
Andarraz demanded.
Is there more to this
ruzal
than we suspect? The Maroon Dragoness roams free. No Dragon is safe …
Silence!
Sapphurion commanded.
Even these walls have ears.
Mercy! Pray that the Dragons thought her speeding heart was merely due to anger or fear, and not the terrifying knowledge that Ianthine had escaped her draconic imprisonment. No wonder Amaryllion had feared for her safety.
The Blue Dragon loomed over her. “How can we trust one touched by
ruzal?
”
“I gave my gift in good faith …” Lia’s voice trailed off under the force of his glare. Her temper finally boiled over. “Why do I sense I’m the only one trying to help Grandion here?”
“Do not speak that traitor’s name–”
She screamed, “What kind of father are you? What father abandons his child, and tries to murder them?”
“You rode on his back!” Sapphurion’s bellow shook the cavern.
“Did it kill him? No!” she howled right back, feeling the veins in her neck and forehead bulging strangely. So much fire, so much anger, she could more easily have corked an erupting volcano than keep silent now. “Infect him? No! Diminish one drop of a leagues-wide terrace lake of Dragonish pride and obduracy which he has clearly inherited from his shell-father … no! And do you know what? He departed a better Dragon for the experience, Sapphurion; worthy in wisdom and deed, a nobler beast altogether. I’m honoured–aye, honoured and grateful, to have played some small part in his life! So when Grandion returned to his family, intent on making something good of his life, what in a Cloudlands hell did you do?”
“I obeyed our law!”
At last, Sapphurion’s cry betrayed real pain. She had pushed him too far. Qualiana made a half-step to intervene, but since Lia and the Dragon Elder had been exchanging verbal fireballs from a distance of just a few feet, his paw was faster by far. Not for the first time in her life, the Human girl found herself the captive of an enraged Dragon.
Squeezed in a grip of iron, Lia gasped, “I want to go after him, Sapphurion. Grant me that pittance, I beg you. Tell me where to find him.”
Deliberately, the Blue Dragon’s fangs ground down on what Hualiama recognised as the terrible pressure of a vast fireball readied in his fire-stomach. Sapphurion snarled, “We cannot trust a Dragon-slayer.”
Lia nodded slowly, feeling sick. “For what it’s worth, I regret killing Jinthalior.”
Andarraz cried, “Regret? A craven apology! Dispose of the Enchantress now, Sapphurion!”
Flying ralti sheep, what a stupid mistake! Hualiama swallowed hard as Sapphurion’s muzzle pressed closer, flame clearly visible down the tunnel of each nostril. “Aye, I regret taking a Dragon’s life,” she said, forcing scorn and resolve into her voice. “As for that Green, mine was the hand of the Great Dragon’s justice that terminated his cowardly, miserable existence. He died exactly as he deserved–in dishonour.”
Dragon-thunder reverberated in the cavern. The Elders made a concerted rush for her. Sapphurion calmly sprang aloft, leaving his kindred to slam together beneath him in a ferocious melee of talon, fang and fire. Then he descended, voicing a full-throated challenge backed by a touch of Storm power. Thunder rolled in the distance. The Dragon Elders scattered, giving his wings and tail a respectful berth.
Setting Lia down between the Dragons once more, he growled, “For the third time, I declare to you, Human girl, that we Dragons will never trust one infected by Ianthine’s madness. Tell me who sent you hence, or give me some other sign, and I will tell you what you wish to know of Grandion. This is the word of a Dragon.”
What could sway him? Every way lay impossibility. Appeal to the Dragons who had raised her, and thereby destroy Sapphurion’s credibility as leader of these Dragons? Speak to them in Dragonish? That would only earn her a faster flight into the Cloudlands. Should she reveal her presence at Amaryllion’s final fire-song, against the Ancient Dragon’s wishes? No. She had shown the Dragon Elders the dragonet’s fire-gift, but that seemed insufficient.
She realised she had one more secret. A name.
Quietly, Lia said to the Blue Dragon, “To you alone will I reveal the name of the one who sent me, Sapphurion. Please, lend me your ear-canals.”
His superior Dragon-grin reasserted itself at once. Hualiama recognised the pride, the assumption that he had triumphed in their battle of wits and upheld his dominance at the top of the Dragon hierarchy. Sapphurion smirked, “There are no secrets between Dragons.”
“Please …”
How could he not understand the appeal in her voice? Simply, because he chose not to. The Blue Dragon growled, “To all of us, or none, Hualiama Dragonfriend. Prove the worth of your oath.”
May she own the courage of a dragonet.
Moving as though gripped by a dream–or a nightmare–Lia slipped out of Sapphurion’s uncurled talons, and took several steps backward. On reflection, several steps more seemed appropriate. Andarraz’s expression suggested he thought she was about to turn tail and bolt. Lia had no such intention. No more begging for her. No more bargaining with a Dragon for his son’s future, whatever ruin thereof might remain to be succoured.
Pain marshalled its forces in her stomach. Hualiama imagined at first she had a case of the worst heartburn imaginable, but it escalated rapidly beyond that, as though the mere thought that she might speak a Dragon’s secret name had unleashed a terrible, incendiary power. So afraid! Lia knew a fear that froze the very living pith in her, for there was no telling how the Dragons might respond to her forthcoming declaration. She stumbled backward, trapped in a maelstrom of terror and fire.
The Dragon Elders stalked her sinuously, Zulior and Andarraz flanking Sapphurion, Haaja and two mountainous Reds flanking them. Even Qualiana looked murderous, her tail flicking from side to side.
Lia’s throat and chest swelled as though wishing to morph into the capacity of a far larger beast. A rushing of mighty flames filled her ears. She must swallow it down! Her eyes bulged. She had to plug her mouth before the pain struck … yet air sucked down into her lungs as though drawn by the vortex of magic indwelling her now.
The Dragons froze.
BEZALDIOR!
* * * *
Lia felt as though her lungs had emptied inside out. A thunderclap of sound ripped out of her throat, evocative of Amaryllion’s triumphal bellow in the Dragon graveyard. It smashed into the massed Dragon Elders, lifting them off the ground, flipping them over with the ease of a cook flipping slices of sweet-tuber in a frying pan. Sapphurion wheezed as he thumped down flat on his back, all four paws scrabbling at the air. The other Dragons fared no better. Gasps and groans filled the momentary stillness her shout had demanded. Even the sounds of the Dragon community outside of the cavern hushed in response.
Perhaps one should never speak a word of such power, aloud.
Suddenly, hot liquid flooded Hualiama’s mouth. She wiped it automatically, drew back a hand smeared in crimson.
Her knees buckled.
With a low cry, Qualiana scrambled to her paws, fixated on Hualiama.
Little one …
her mate Sapphurion moved fast, but not as fast as the distressed Dragoness. Magic enfolded her, a touch more tender than hand or paw ever knew.
We’ve hurt you, little mouse.
Stabilise her, Qualiana,
Sapphurion ordered.
We need to finish this now, and take the girl for treatment.
What does this mean, Sapphurion?
Andarraz sounded dazed and confused.
The Blue Dragon said,
It means she knew the Ancient Dragon. He sent her to us. And as we saw, a mystery: the fire we remarked upon during her dance–that was a touch of Dragon fire.
Haaja spat,
Only the most blasphemous legends suggest that the Ancient Dragons left a touch of their fire inside of every Human!