Wetting her lips, Lia said, “Where am I?”
“A small Isle called Brezzi-yun-Dazi, a day’s flight southwest of Haozi. What of our–”
“Saori’s alive,” Hualiama assured them. “At least, I last saw her alive near Merx Island aboard the Dragonship of Prince Qilong.” Stony silence greeted these words. “As for my purpose, I hunt a Dragon.”
Before she could blink, steel menaced her heart. Naoko growled, “You
hunt
a Dragon?”
“I … seek a Dragon,” Lia corrected hastily.
The short blade did not waver an inch. “A soft foreign woman flies across the Island-World in search of a Dragon?” Naoko’s eyebrows rose toward her shaven skull. “I suppose you expect us to believe you commune with the Dragon-spirits, and that the Blue Moon is in truth a vast prekki-fruit hanging in the sky?”
Hualiama chose softness for her reply. “Honoured Naoko, is it not a saying of these Islands that one must first know one’s enemy, before deciding exactly how to despatch them to the spirits?”
Akemi said dryly, “It is, youngling. Are you our enemy? A Dragon hunter?”
Miki entered the tent, holding a bowl of fragrant-smelling soup, but she paused at the tense scene. Then, her broad face broke into a smile. “Food before fighting, ladies!”
Ignoring the giantess’ attempt at humour, Naoko pressed the blade’s point against Lia’s breastbone. She snarled, “I’ll have answers before wasting precious dragon pepper soup on this snake-tongued foreigner!”
“Ah, the growl of the daughter repeated in the mother,” said Lia, forcing out a chuckle. “Before she knew me, Saori broke my finger. She was Qilong’s captive. He had stolen her from a slaver near Sylakia Island and intended to marry her. Do you know Prince Qilong?”
A chorus of snarls and spitting on the ground assured her that they knew the same Qilong she did.
“Anyways, Saori appears to have fallen for my brother instead. Could I please taste the soup, Miki? My stomach’s gnawing its way down my legs as we speak.”
“Sounds exactly like Saori–or my Naoko,” said Akemi. “A family of hot-peppers, we are. Speak, girl. Is your brother worthy of our Saori? Which Dragon do you seek, and why? For you must know that our people venerate Dragons, and these my kin-sisters will be asking themselves, ‘What does a weak foreign woman know of the Dragonkind? Can she be trusted?’ ”
Hualiama retorted, “How do you measure worth? Shortness of hair?” And they could just stuff that up their collective fumaroles! “My brother is Elka’anor, Prince of Fra’anior. Impressive enough for you?”
Hunger sharpened her words. Or was it the fire speaking? She muttered, “I’m Princess Hualiama, a royal ward of Fra’anior Cluster. Please call me Lia and I … mercy, I apologise for destroying your camp. I’m so sorry. Was anyone hurt?”
“A child has a broken arm, nothing more,” said Naoko, accusation writ in every syllable.
“I didn’t exactly aim for your tents!”
Naoko snapped back, “I didn’t say you did.”
Lia glowered at her soup, which had turned the inside of her mouth into a lava pit. She had the impression that even the soup’s spiciness was meant as a test. As she stroked her hair deliberately to emphasize her differences from these grim warrior-women, blue sparks flew from her fingertips. Great. Her anger faded. If they venerated Dragons, she would tell them her tale from Amaryllion’s perspective.
With studied calm, she said, “When I was stranded on Ha’athior Island, I befriended a dragonet called Flicker and an Onyx Dragon called Amaryllion, who was the last of the Ancient Dragons. Amaryllion gave me a quest which has brought me to your Island. Which Dragon was it you said you worship?”
Sagging jaws surrounded her. Hualiama decided that a touch of petulance on her part was worth that reaction.
When the stories were told, Naoko and her warriors withdrew to deliberate. Stuffed to the ears with warm soup and delicious bread, Lia drifted off into a nightmare about Razzior burning her and Grandion, both of them lying chained and helpless in a foetid dungeon while the Orange Dragon’s cruel, mocking laughter filled the dark halls. She awoke to a hand clutching her shoulder.
Akemi said, “Bad dream? Come, I’ll show you where we make our ablutions. Then it’s back to the pallet with you, youngling. This day’s seen enough fighting with storms, fates, Dragons and Eastern Isles warriors. Even Fra’aniorian spirits demand their rest.”
Lia was glad for the darkness to hide her blushing.
When they returned to what she realised was Akemi’s tent, the old woman bustled over to tuck her in with an oddly familiar air, as though Lia were her own daughter. She said, “We call this a futon, not a pallet. Comfortable?”
“It’s wonderful, thank you,” said Lia, meaning it.
As if struck by an afterthought, Akemi turned to the Fra’aniorian Islander, saying, “One thing about your story doesn’t ring true, Hualiama. I’m a mother. I know of no mother in this Island-World who’d allow their daughter to pursue a Dragon, alone, across the breadth of the known Islands.” Holding Lia’s gaze, she added, “Is this Tourmaline Dragon a …
special
friend?”
The Princess knew her face gave far too much away. She wanted to bury its burning in the pillow-roll, but instead, she tried to meet Akemi’s gaze with an innocent arch of her eyebrows.
“Besides the fact that the timeline of your story is impossible using any Dragonship technology yet invented,” the old woman said, with a kindly twinkle in her eye, “I know a few things about young women’s hearts. Keep your peace; hear my tale before you judge me a nosy old woman, for I’ve a tale to tell. I too have a special friend–a Dragoness called Yukari. If pressed, she’ll admit she’s an Aquamarine Dragoness and possibly the oldest living creature in the Eastern Archipelago. When I was young, my village on Jaoli Island burned down in a bamboo forest-fire. Yukari tried to save as many as she could, but my parents and brothers perished in the blaze. I was severely burned.”
Her rich accent, so strange to the royal ward’s ear, caused a succession of vivid images of that bygone time to parade through Lia’s mind. Magic? Her words seemed simple enough …
“Yukari took me to her lair, cared for me and healed me. When I was strong again we returned to the site of my village, but the survivors had moved on. My people are nomadic, moving from place to place in the two hundred and fifty square-league bamboo forests of Jaoli Island. I could have spent ten lifetimes searching for them. Though I was but ten summers, I made a decision. I studied at Yukari’s paw for two decades.”
Suddenly, Lia understood. “You’re a Seer.”
“Very good, youngling,” said Akemi. “Yukari was blind. But as you may know, oftentimes those born with what we regard as disabilities, have greater gifts than our own. Such is Yukari’s gift. She would love to meet you. I suspect you’d have a great deal in common. We became friends, and more than friends. Such we still are. That’s why I see the fire burning in you. That’s why your story, while neatly and cleverly told, does not ring true.”
“Aye,” Lia admitted.
Apparently unfazed, the old woman changed the subject. “Naoko has a cunning plan. We will trade you to the Warlord of Gao-Tao Island. A prisoner-swap. Gao-Tao lies in the far south, past Haozi. That’s where we believe your Tourmaline Dragon is being held. If the rumours hold true, they alone, south of the Lost Islands, possess a cage capable of holding Dragons. We’ll trade you for our kin. You convince the Warlord you have magical powers. He’ll feed you to the Dragon.”
“Which is when I pray it’s Grandion they’re holding–”
Akemi nodded. “You’d have to go weaponless, as a prisoner. Is his life–or yours–worth the risk? A chain of risks. Should one link fail, you’ll perish.”
Hualiama measured the old woman shamelessly with her eyes. “You’re planning to keep my weapons here, hoping I’ll return to you?”
“Aye.”
“What makes you think that Grandion isn’t in the north, in the Lost Islands?”
“He might be,” said Akemi. “Yukari told me a Tourmaline Dragon had come to her, seeking word of a lost scroll of ancient Dragon magic. She knew of two possible locations, south and north.”
Lia said, “Tell me of the north.”
“The Lost Islands are another world, youngling. Nobody goes in there, and nobody, to my knowledge, has ever come out. Even their Dragons are said to be a wild breed, different from what we find here in the East.” Her restrained delivery nonetheless struck Hualiama like powerful hammer-blows. “They’ve never been under the command of the Dragons of Gi’ishior. They war constantly against the Humans of the Lost Islands–and I cannot say how the Dragonkind resist the fabled magical power of those Human Enchanters. We call them the Dragon-Haters. Men with power over Dragons, power to dash Dragons against cliffs. Had Grandion travelled north, I believe you would’ve dreamed of his death.”
Only the muted keening of Hualiama’s grief broke the tent’s stillness.
Extending her hand, Akemi took Lia’s hand in her own. Her manner trumpeted dignity, empathy and a searing brand of honesty. “Did you ever play the game of writing on hands, Lia?”
“Aye.”
“Some words are too treacherous to be spoken. You believe Razzior seeks you. If he possesses something of yours, he might be listening to this conversation, even now.”
The missing Nuyallith blade? Lia could not believe … yet she must. Why had Akemi not invoked this game before, in that case, for now they had revealed their plan to a listening draconic ear, surely? The past was a stream flowing off an Island’s cliff, blown to mist by the wind.
With her finger, she wrote on Akemi’s palm,
Aye.
“What is between you and the Tourmaline Dragon, Hualiama?”
She wrote,
Unbreakable, shared oaths.
“And?”
I rode Dragonback.
Akemi’s indrawn breath and the involuntary tremor of her hand, betrayed her response. Released now, Lia’s words flowed:
He is my Dragon. I’m his Rider.
Six years have passed,
wrote the old woman, her finger trembling with pent-up emotion.
Yet you seek him?
Hualiama hesitated long before she replied,
I seek him.
When Akemi only shook her head, Lia added on her palm,
I fear much has changed.
A fragile smile swept over Akemi’s lips. Silently, she clasped Lia’s hand to her heart. Tears flowed freely down her wizened cheeks. Then she wrote,
The old taboos are broken. We will aid you.
Aloud, Akemi said, “The reason we live in tents is because of Dragons. There is a new way of war in the East, pioneered by Razzior, who commands the Dragons in rebellion against Sapphurion. The way is total annihilation. Attacking in massed Dragonwings of up to fifty Dragons strong, they systematically raze an Island until all life on it has fled, or is burned to ashes. That’s what happened to Eali, my home Island, and Saori’s, too.”
Again she wrote,
This power of seeing is called a Dragon’s Eye. Do you understand?
He can focus on me?
If you aren’t shielded. Grandion will know how … I can protect a little.
Fishing down her bodice, Hualiama withdrew the White Dragoness’ scale and held it out to Akemi for inspection. The old woman’s eyes danced approval.
Perfect. This will work.
Using her thumb, Akemi traced a series of arcane symbols upon Hualiama’s brow.
As an irresistible power caused her eyes to flutter shut, she remembered whispering, “Why do I scent Fra’anior in your magic, Akemi?”
“Very perceptive, youngling. My grandmother was a Fra’aniorian. Now, draw the cocoon of safe sleep about yourself. May you dream of Dragons.”
Only one, Hualiama wanted to say. A Tourmaline Dragon.
T
He SOUTHERN REACHES
of the Eastern Archipelago were aptly named the Dragon’s Tail. Swathed in the rich jade of the tufted bamboo forests which garnished a tracery of cobalt-blue lakes and waterways, the Islands beyond Haozi made Hualiama picture a garden designed and tended by Dragons. The Isles faded away to the south and east, like a long, curling Dragon’s tail slowly dipping into the Cloudlands.
She saw few Dragons, but the tallest jinsumo trees of these Isles, which invariably crowned the highest mountain or the most windswept cliff-tops with their mighty four hundred-foot boughs, housed many dragonet nests in the nooks and crannies of their fantastically gnarled trunks and branches. Hualiama could never tire of drinking in such sights. She leaned over the gantry of their slim, fast Dragonship for hours on end, when she was not debating the finer points of Dragonship construction with several of the warrior-women who had teased out her penchant for engineering and innovation, or pestering Naoko for stories about Dragons. Saori’s mother was a fine storyteller when the mood took her.
Slowly the Cloudlands assumed the jade tint of the Islands, until four days out of Haozi Island, they sighted the rocky fortress-Island of Shinzen, Warlord of Gao-Tao, undisputed ruler of this wild, untouched corner of the Island-World.
In the secret places of her heart, Hualiama whispered,
Grandion. I come.
Hualiama washed her hair and brushed it out until it gleamed like a white-golden waterfall afire with magic. She donned a traditional Eastern face veil and suffered her hands and arms to be lashed to a short bamboo pole tucked between her elbows, behind her back. So naked without her swords! A disgraced Princess had no right to feel humiliated.
Taking brushes in hand, Naoko painted her eyes and forehead with great skill to resemble a firebird of Fra’anior, which Hualiama had described to her.
Naoko squeezed her shoulders. “Ready, Hualiama?”
“Aye.”
They brought the Dragonship to a landing in a wide open field before the towering, two-hundred-foot battlements of Shinzen’s underground fortress, great black granite ramparts surmounted by catapults, war crossbows and flame throwers, amongst other weapons unfamiliar to Hualiama. No person came to greet them. Naoko and her troop of warriors were forced to march up to the mighty, forged metal doors and pound upon them to demand entrance.
The doors rumbled open to reveal a small army drawn up in what Lia realised was an outer courtyard. A portcullis and a dark tunnel guarded the entrance to the fortress proper. But before that stood fifteen ranks of soldiers clad in shining banded armour, bearing halberds eight feet tall. Yellow pennants flapped jauntily in the warm afternoon breeze, matching the yellow suns-blazons on the soldiers’ uniforms and neat, round shields. Raising her eyes to the battlements, Hualiama estimated at least a further two hundred crossbowmen standing alertly, weapons tensioned and ready, above them. But her eyes dropped immediately to a tall, broad throne of jade stone upon which a giant of a man took his ease, resplendent in golden armour, his dark hair flowing over his back and shoulders, while an eye-popping arrangement of moustaches and his beard reached midway down his stalwart chest.
The Warlord.
Copying Naoko and her warriors awkwardly, Hualiama knelt in the middle of a courtyard so spotless, she imagined it must have been licked clean by legions of unhappy slaves. For that was her sense of this place. Despair, aye, and a brooding malice as if the flagstones and walls themselves cried out for justice, which could never be found beneath the twin suns. She must keep her gaze lowered at all times, but Lia could not keep from glancing beneath her lashes at Shinzen, especially when he rose from his seat to thump, step by step, down toward his visitors.
Great Islands! Never had she imagined a man like this! He appeared to grow taller the closer he approached. The leather belt bracing his belly was ten inches wide. She felt the thud of his boots through her knees. He wore no weapons, but a man his size had no need of them. Shinzen could wrestle Dragons, she imagined. It was not just a trick of perspective. As he drew close to Naoko, who was no stripling, Lia realised that the Warlord was half again as tall as her. Nine feet tall? More? He stood head and shoulders taller than Miki, who seemed to have captured his fancy, for he leered at her, his teeth startlingly black beneath lips as red as blood.
“Naoko of Eali!” he boomed. “It has been too long. I hoped you had brought me a proper woman to grace my bedchamber–” his thick finger stabbed at Lia “–not some pathetic, foreign waif. I’ll snap her like a twig.”
As Naoko and the Warlord swapped formal greetings, Hualiama marvelled at the depths of terror she felt. She wanted nothing more than to pull up a flagstone and hide beneath it. Her fear of the man was so visceral, it reminded her of Dragon-fear. Aye, that soul-lost shiver when she considered him … Shinzen had a peculiar brand of magic, dark and malevolent, as if an oily shadow lurked within his prodigious being. Mercy, pray this monster did not choose her for his bedchamber. He would destroy her. Whatever had she been thinking, placing herself in such a man’s power?
Naoko said, “ She is called the Firebird of Fra’anior, Shinzen. A magic-user, like you.”
“Aye?” Shinzen twirled a moustache briefly. “Fine. Bring me the offering.”
Grasping the bamboo pole, the warriors dragged Hualiama forward and cast her roughly at Shinzen’s feet. He wore open sandals rather than boots, for which they might have to tan an entire ralti sheep’s leather, she imagined. She gasped. He had six toes … a vast paw slapped her back, drawing a second, more pained wheeze from the Human girl. Shinzen raised her effortlessly, dangling by her elbows, bringing Lia up to his face for examination. His breath reeked of the garlic these Easterners loved. He must eat it by the barrel-f. Black-in-black eyes fixed upon her, their soul-shadowing power making her feel naked and dirty inside, as though he had already violated some part of her being with a mere glance.
“The Firebird of Fra’anior, you say?”
“An Enchantress of Fra’anior, Shinzen,” said Naoko.
His eyes glittered like pits of onyx. “The gift is acceptable. Pray she lives up to her reputation, or we shall have reason to visit you again, Naoko.”
“She will please the Dragon-spirit.”
“Aye? That beast grows fat on my prisoners.”
Lia winced involuntarily as a wailing began in her spirit. No! Grandion was no man-eater. This had to be another, feral Dragon, a beast who supped on the forbidden flesh of Humans … she wanted to scream at Naoko to save her, but Shinzen was already turning to toss her causally at four of his men. Her tongue seemed to be glued inside her mouth. The foursome crashed to the ground with Lia on top of them.
“Release the prisoners to this rabble.”
With that, Shinzen clearly dismissed the matter from his mind. He marched away toward the portcullis, bellowing contradictory orders in several directions.
Tossing a cloak over Lia’s head, the soldiers dragged her away into the coolness of Shinzen’s underground lair.
* * * *
Once she was locked in a cell in a corridor lined with such cells, the four soldiers searched her body with no small relish, before cutting the ropes off Lia’s arms and abandoning her to her own devices. Now she was grateful she had listened to Akemi and left all of her more unusual gear behind, save for a few lock picks cunningly hidden behind her belt buckle. Vials of poison or metal files would have been found. Grinning, groping apes! She mentally reserved a special place in her future roost with Grandion just for them. They would make fine footstools.
Could Grandion be a man-eater? What a horrifying thought. Surely not Grandion–but he was a Dragon. They were hardly paragons of mercy.
Underground, there was no marking the passage of time. A servant brought her a simple meal of bread, vegetables and water, but refused to engage in conversation. By the time the four stooges returned, hours later, Lia had exhausted herself in fear and self-recrimination.
“Shinzen will see you, foreign filth,” the foremost soldier greeted her.
They conducted the Princess though a seemingly endless warren of tunnels and locked doors to a hall filled with opulent divans, rugs and cushions, where musicians played and acrobats performed, and Shinzen disported himself with his guests. The smell hit her like a clenched fist, exotic spices and sweat and an undertone of strange, oily magic. She tried not to look too hard at what some of the guests were wearing–or not wearing–or to imagine what might be going on in the darker corners of this barbarous, drunken orgy. Thick smoke curled around Shinzen’s mighty frame where he lounged on a divan clearly purpose-built for his bulk, sucking smoke up a clear pipe running from a strange, bubbling brazier.
Winding through the crowd, the soldiers brought her before the Warlord and thrust Lia to her knees.
“The firebird, mighty Shinzen.”
His eyes were too bright. The Warlord looked her over, before grunting, “Why’s she wearing such dross? Foreign filth–no, leave her clothes. Come here, girl.”
Hualiama’s skin crawled as Shinzen drew her into his stinking, sweaty embrace. She needed to pretend no reticence. “Look,” he pointed with the pipe at a trio of sloe-eyed beauties clad in wisps of Helyon silk, who simpered on cue. “Those are real women. What’re you planning to show me? Hedonistic practices from your Island?”
“I-I’d gladly d-dance for you, mighty Lord Shinzen.”
“Dance? How boring. I’ve a hundred dancers.” He mauled her right thigh with his fingers. “No meat on these bones. What Dragon would want this?”
“I dance with fire, my lord.” If only she could shoot a fireball of her own down his throat, Lia imagined, yelping as he squeezed her tightly against his stomach, the Island-World would be a better place.
“Flaming torches? I’ve jugglers–”
“No. I make my own fire, my Lord. Magical fire.”
Suddenly, his eyes narrowed. Hualiama sensed a fearful intelligence there. It was all a sham. Lies and subterfuge. Shinzen was very, very intrigued by her statement and he was not half as drunk as he pretended.
“I’ll show you why I’m called the Firebird of Fra’anior.”
And then if he could kindly toss her to the Dragon, her life would end at the point of a talon and nobody need concern themselves with the rise of a third race in the Island-World. Perfect.
Shinzen raised his hand languidly, creating an instant hush. “Clear a space. This luckless wench would dance for us.” Turning to Lia, he added, “Bore me, and you’ll be dancing for my soldiers in the barracks. They’ll take any trash, foreign or none. After the first hundred finish with you, you’ll be begging for the mercies of my pillow-roll.”
His booming laughter chased Lia out into the space between his guests.
Frightened and fired up in equal measure, Hualiama spoke briefly with the head musician, a flute-player who clearly found speaking to a foreign woman a distasteful affair. She settled for
Chasing the Wind
, the energetic yet haunting penultimate dance from her favourite
Flame Cycle.
But she found that the flame had deserted her. Suddenly she was graceless Lia, awkward and unsure of herself, ensnared in the coiling terrors of her own imagination.
Grandion! The memory of his fire slipped into her mind, the day he had burned her in the tunnel beneath Ha’athior Island. Though flame filled the halls of her mind, her magic remained stubbornly quiescent. She saw Warlord Shinzen yawn. No. His handling repelled her, for a Dragon’s paw was all the touch she desired. Frantically, Hualiama sifted through her memories, the dance growing jerky, her limbs heavy … and in a flash, she saw Grandion soaring into a sky dark with Green Dragons. She sensed the Blue Dragon power called ‘Storm’ swelling in his belly, and gasped as the first sparks crackled off her toes as she extended into a split leap. Touchdown. Here came the fire! Mercy … soaring again, whirling, a shower of sparkling blue. Her audience inhaled and clicked their fingers in approbation.
Joining in the quickening tempo, the Fra’aniorian dancer built up to the finale. She launched her body into the leaps with mounting joy. Grace became her wings, the swirling robes of her fire. The song of her soul escalated, drawing her closer to the fire, her limbs wreathed in beauty, her hair spinning about her like a golden halo as she swung her head in a series of increasingly violent rotations, the death-throes of a Dragon. This she knew. Grief tinged the expression of her joy, the sparks growing darker, through aquamarine to a deep sapphire.
Flare! Arms pointed at the ceiling, blue lightning blasted from her fingertips. Lia leaped lithely aside as masonry exploded from the point of impact. Flare! The crowd yelled and ducked as lightning crackled above their heads.
“Stop her!” someone screamed.
A clean, sharp scent, like the freshness of the Island-World after a storm, struck her nostrils. This was spectacle enough for the Warlord, surely? Her hands ignited as she swept into the complex, rippling passages that spoke of storm winds sweeping over the Island-World, as the Dragon-lovers took their tumultuous parting, separated in body but united in their fire-souls. Lia’s feet barely seemed to touch the floor. The stench of burning fabric wreathed her spinning body. Upon every dragonet-light step, blue sparkles burst from her neatly-pointed toes.