Two hours’ steady hiking brought her to the place where Amaryllion had lain for so long. Stumbling across one of his scales, Lia decided to roll it up to the small stone pedestal where she and Flicker used to sit and converse with the Ancient Dragon. As she sweated and groaned over shifting the seven-foot diameter black platter of Dragon scale-armour up the slope, the wind lamented with desolate mien through the now-empty halls of Amaryllion’s abode. The hours she had spent in this cave! Learning, chatting, laughing, singing and being instructed in Dragon lore by Flicker and Amaryllion, Dragonkind’s diametric opposites in size yet kindred spirits in their love of legend and fable, and in their caring for a vulnerable Human waif.
All that was left was to cherish memories fled to the everlasting fires of the Dragonkind.
The crystals above lit the cave almost to a daylight brightness, brilliant and magical. She rubbed her arms. There was a special quality about Ha’athior, a sense of the nascent, as though anything imaginable could emerge from the chrysalis of possibility. What? Lia knew she would not seize her destiny by standing in this cave, yet she tarried.
She regarded her reflection in the polished, slightly glittering surface of the scale once she had set it against the pedestal. Serious greenish-blue eyes stared back at Lia from the pearlescent black surface, as though reflected upon a starry night sky. Shadowed, smoky eyes. Wells of mystery framed in an elfin face, the eyes a fraction larger than might be expected, giving her a waiflike appearance that earned itself a kick of her foot in the sand and a snort, “Islands’ sakes, girl, you fought Dragons! Rode Dragonback! What’s bitten you now?”
Was this the price of forgetting six years of her life?
She should not blame the Ancient Dragon. Aye, he had done wrong. But who knew if those powers that sought her, the prophetic, Dragonish powers, those fey and greedy watchers of whom Amaryllion had warned, might have located and destroyed a Human girl before she was prepared for whatever burden of fate the future held?
Zing!
Her Nuyallith blades sprang free of their sheaths. She remembered! Forms and patterns of combat, grounded in dance, flowed like the wind caressing an Island’s curves. At the speed of thought, the matched blades cut through the air. Blades forged in Dragon fire, as supple as her limbs yet far stronger. Form upon form. All that she remembered. Ja’al had not completed his task of transferring Master Khoyal’s memories of the Nuyallith forms to her, Lia recalled, spinning into a ferocious series of intersecting cuts called the
Dance of Dragonets
technique. On and on she danced, driving her body with all the ferocious power only grief could summon.
Finally, Hualiama finished her martial exercises, panting, “You’ll need more of that to get in shape.”
Aye, much more talking to herself, and she’d be dancing on the winds like a dragonet.
Hualiama whirled, and set her feet upon the trail.
* * * *
Night had fallen, Lia sensed, but the interior of the Dragon library knew no darkness. “Ha. I knew you could find it again,” she congratulated herself. “Pity about the thousand tunnels you searched fruitlessly beforehand.”
Hualiama had stumbled upon this library once before. Then, as now, the sheer scale of the place astounded her–a Dragon-sized library in a vertical column, perhaps an old volcanic pipe, thousands of feet tall. The walls were lined with leather-bound books and racks of scrolls. At intervals, wooden beams spanned the width of the column, and held giant reading plinths which stood eighteen feet tall, she estimated. Far overhead, a huge crystal formation blazed with an inner light that reminded her of Amaryllion’s Dragon fire, and at intervals down the walls, similar formations provided ample lighting. Lia grinned, examining the crystalline structures with an engineer’s eye for symmetry, detail and function. Magical lighting! Everything was Dragon-sized.
Gingerly, Lia crept out of the crack between the bookshelves, and set herself the spider’s task of finding her way to the platform fifty feet beneath her position. Gripping the shelves was the easy part. Finding finger-holds between the books was another matter. The tomes on these shelves stood eight feet tall and probably weighed more than half a dozen unruly royal wards all rolled together.
When her feet found the platform, she breathed a sigh of relief. Now to scale a plinth. This task was harder, but Lia had a core of adamantine stubbornness second to none, as her brother Elki liked to point out. Often. And loudly! Hugging the smooth wood with her legs, Lia crept like an inchworm to the top, and hauled herself over the top edge of the tilted surface which should hold books or scrolls, only, to her intense annoyance, it was quite empty. Flying ralti sheep! Of course she had not checked …
Welcome, Dragon-kin.
More than a few of her platinum strands probably turned pure white as she yelped in surprise.
Speak, and this library shall fulfil your wish.
I … umm …
The library said,
May I present a menu of options?
Sure.
Why not a talking library? Lia perched on the edge of the plinth.
Surprise me.
Granted, hatchling. Here’s the last reference examined by a visitor. You will appreciate the subject.
Hatchling? There was a case of mistaken identity if ever … the breath whooshed from her lungs as from the shelves opposite, a massive tome worked itself loose and skimmed over to her on unseen wings. Hualiama ducked as it thumped down on the plinth. With a frantic rustling, the pages flipped themselves to the desired position.
Clambering down the side of the book, Lia decided that she did not entirely appreciate the way that matters Dragonish made one feel no larger than a gnat. Then, the beautifully illuminated page’s title caught her eye. Gold leaf and fanciful dragonets bearing the runic script aloft could not diminish the horror that sliced like a blade of ice into her innards, exactly where Ra’aba had stabbed her in the lower belly before he threw her off his Dragonship.
Ruzal.
How had the library known? Who had been reading about
ruzal?
Hualiama’s eyes jumped convulsively to the text.
‘
Ruzal
. A branch of spoken magic offering unparalleled control of the mind and emotions of the target creature, similar to a Word of Command but more restricted in effect.
Ruzal
is regarded as a corrupt or debased form of magic due to the damage it may cause to the subject and wielder alike. For example, a powerful word of binding in
ruzal
magic is–’
Lia bit her lip. What was this script–Dragon runes? She eyed the complex character pensively. Perhaps it was better she did not learn the magic which both Amaryllion and the Nameless Man had detected in her, the power of which Ianthine the Maroon Dragoness claimed mastery. Ianthine, who had identified the traitor Ra’aba as her blood-father, had also been the one to rip Lia from her mother Azziala’s bosom … Hualiama touched her head to the page as the memories assailed her. Fighting her father. Defeating him. Heavens above and Islands below, what had Sapphurion’s Dragon justice meant for him?
For six years, she had barely thought about the man they called the Roc. Oh, the blessed curse of forgetting!
An icy claw touched her neck.
Lia screamed, lost her balance, and came within an inch of tumbling off the plinth. An outthrust hand halted her fall, snagging the lip which kept the book in place.
Dangling from three fingers, Lia found herself facing a Dragon’s head formed from blue mist, which swirled around deep, hollow eye-sockets that although empty, fixed upon her with terrible, inhuman force. The mist-beast snarled,
Intruder!
N-N-No!
she stammered.
I’ve lived on this Island–
Be silent, creature!
Suddenly, a chill attacked her throat, stealing her ability to speak.
Art thou a Dragon? Nay, the Guardian Spirit finds neither wings nor Dragon fire. And thou wouldst steal the secrets of
ruzal
? Thief!
Hualiama trembled, yet she flung a thought at the creature,
But I know Amaryllion. I have–
Silence!
Even her mental voice cut off as though instantly frozen by the breath of the creature that flowed toward her now, seeping around and enveloping her body, rendering Lia powerless. She floated away into a space dominated by the depthless nothingness of the Guardian Spirit’s eyes. A necrotic chill settled in her bones. Never had death seemed more inviting. Yet there was a spark in her that refused its succubus allure, clinging on with the tenacity of ivy to stone, and the breath of her life fanned it into a glow. Abnegation.
I am the child of the Dragon.
Always, in extremity, this idea seemed to shield her.
I am fire.
A dragonet’s laughter bubbled from her lips. Lia sensed the Guardian Spirit baulk. Encouraged, she willed the bright fire forth. White-golden, the magical fire cloaked and protected her. She imagined wings. Claws. Eyes like Grandion’s, churning with the compelling infernos of the Dragonkind. The deathly chill receded momentarily. Her feet touched the wooden platform beneath the plinth.
Lia stared at the creature. Now was neither the time nor the place to figure out how she had provoked the Spirits of the Ancient Dragons. How glibly she had evoked them before, back on the Receiving Balcony. How her skin crawled now.
She looked, and perceived death lurking in the shifting mists.
A backward step brought the chill mist a step closer. Delicately they danced, shadowing each other’s progress, over to the wall. She saw scroll racks here. These should be easier to climb than the massive bookshelves.
The mist bulged as though the Dragon opened its jaws.
Intruder!
I possess the gift of a dragonet’s fire-soul,
Lia replied. But her voice was far less assured than she would have preferred.
Permit me to leave, and I will not trespass again.
The blue mist stirred restlessly, veils of colour sliding over each other, coalescing around the black-in-black eyes. She touched a shelf.
TRESPASSER!
To her surprise, Lia’s white-fires flared up, repelling the assault. No time to reflect on how that had happened. She began to climb. Quick! With a vast, angry hiss, the creature slammed into her fire again. It recoiled. The mist-beast slithered toward her, creeping along the scroll racks, clearly intending to prise her loose.
Lia kicked out.
Begone, spirit!
The mist-creature’s thundering shook her, but Hualiama kept a white-knuckled grip on the scroll racks. She lashed out with her legs, but the cold seemed as blades sliding through her flesh. Summoning the magic, she tried to warm herself. Blades in her back! Hualiama screamed as pain flared along her old scar-wound, the one Ra’aba had dealt her. Groaning, she dangled above the vast volcanic pipe. The creature coiled and swayed nearby, seeking another, more crippling attack.
‘You always take blows right on that definite little chin of yours, zephyr,’ she remembered Master Khoyal, her Nuyallith teacher, admonishing her. ‘Sometimes the path of valour is retreat. Or simply, to flee. The dead do not fight half as well as the living.’ The pain gave her Khoyal’s kind of courage. Abandoning her stand, Lia fell to monkey-climbing the wall as though her life depended on it. As she angled for the exit, her route took her out over the chasm, a pipe thousands of feet deep and all of it, lined with the expansive lore of the Dragonkind. There were many platforms down there. Should she fall from this height, visiting one of those platforms would be the last thing she remembered.
DIE, INTRUDER!
Cold thundered over her, as though she had dived beneath an icy waterfall. Lia found herself screaming back almost as loudly. Oh, for a Dragon’s wings! Aye, she was naturally agile, but this was a series of frantic grabs and thrusts, almost missing a grip as she transitioned over a section of bookshelves, launching herself at last into the jagged-mouthed little tunnel from which she had emerged, dragging her feet up behind her …
Lia shouted furiously as talons of ice gripped her ankles. A monstrous force began to haul her backward. Though her fingers clawed at the stone and her muscles bunched, the Guardian Spirit suddenly seemed to possess the tonnage of an adult male Dragon.
No! She would not yield!
Amaryllion, I need your fire now!
Her shriek echoed through the tunnels of Ha’athior Island.
Her bones felt deep-frozen. Her legs and hips dangled in the air. Lia clutched an outcropping with both hands, but her fingers began to slip, a quarter inch, now two inches, as the creature exerted its strength.
Then, her cry returned as fire. Beautiful, clean, crystalline fire shot toward her in a form that suggested a dragonet’s wings, as if she had somehow evoked the power of Ha’athior’s magical crystals which had sustained Amaryllion’s life for so many centuries.
Flames blossomed around Lia, unfolding in vast yet transient petals of colour, blue and white and gold. The pressure vanished. With a terrible cry, the Guardian Spirit released her legs.
Heaving herself into the tunnel with a dancer’s upper body strength, Lia surged to her feet, and fled as though she had indeed grown wings.