Read The Gift of Charms Online

Authors: Julia Suzuki

The Gift of Charms (4 page)


C
ome on, Yoshiko!’ Ketu huffed very early one morning. ‘Time for a flying lesson! We shall spend the morning practising at the flying rock!’

Yoshiko looked back at him warily, the remains of his breakfast still on his muzzle.

He had filled out, Ketu had noticed, during his first few months of Fire School. Ketu hoped that the fire-training exercise would do him good, knowing that Kiara fed their son so many treats.

Yoshiko loved dragon puffs, a sweet sticky delicacy found in the centres of bulbous flowers from the Mida clan forests. Yoshiko had plumped out thanks to these sugary snacks that he loved to toast in their
cave fire until they were crunchy. This gave Igorr and his friends even more reason to laugh at him at school.

* * *

‘By the time we get back you won’t need to travel with me to school any more,’ Ketu declared. ‘I’m taking you to a special rock where I learned to fly at your age,’ he continued encouragingly. ‘No one should be there but us. You can practise all you want freely.’

His son climbed aboard, and with a wave from Kiara they were soon airborne, floating through the mists of Dragor. Ketu gave an expert sweep of his wing and brought them east, taking them out towards the dragons’ Burial Ground where he could see the faded Red Seventh Moon seasonal tributes left to honour the dead.

They cruised closer to a large rock under which a river ran, and Ketu landed, folding his huge wings under himself. Yoshiko hopped off his back and gazed in awe over the edge. The waters beneath them looked calm and still, but it was a long way down.

‘Is this where I try?’ he asked.

Ketu nodded. ‘This is where my elder brought me to practise and his elder before him. Most clans have their own special flying rock.’

As he spoke a sudden gust of wind made them both look up. Gandar landed heavily beside them both with Igorr staring smugly, seated on his back.

‘I see you’re in my son’s flying-practice spot,’ said Gandar, eyeing Yoshiko with obvious derision. ‘How funny that you’ve brought a hatchling not yet ready to fly.’

Ketu tried to reply calmly, though Yoshiko noticed a vein in his neck was throbbing. ‘You know this is my clan’s training location,’ he replied. ‘The Nephans have always had this rock and other clans have honoured that since we all came to Dragor.’ Ketu paused as if to reflect on his own words then continued. ‘But at the last Council gathering I attended our leader Kinga insisted upon friendship and sharing amongst all clans. So I shall respect that and welcome you to share the rock.’

Gandar threw his head back haughtily.

‘Such gracious words, Ketu! But let me tell you this. I will use whichever flying rock I want whenever I want with your permission granted or not. My youngling Igorr already far excels your son at fire breathing,
and he shall be far better in all his dragon skills. In fact I see no reason why we should have to waste time watching your hopeless little dragon,’ he made a scornful motion with his wings. ‘Yoshiko will be falling in the water all day,’ scoffed Gandar. ‘I doubt he can fly at all.’

Ketu’s eyes suddenly flashed fire and Gandar raised himself even higher on his haunches, clearly enjoying the effect he was having on the other adult dragon.

‘You Nephan clan dragons think you have a right to everything just because one of your kind is voted as Dragor leader,’ he continued. ‘Just because Surion and his father Goadah led us to Dragor you now think the red dragons are better at taking charge of the clans. Every dragon knows the purple Alanas have the greatest stamina in the skies. It should be us who make the decisions and rule right now.’

Ketu did all he could not to retaliate. He had heard the same argument so many times before. This strain of bitterness was well known in Dragor. Many of the Alana clan felt that the Nephans had ruled for too long, and that their own kind should have a chance as leaders, rather than simply acting as catchers of fish. But the Council knew that the rebellious Alanas would
cause more problems than they solved if given the task of ruling, and for decades had voted to keep Kinga in rule, a red Nephan.

‘Where our sons learn to fly has nothing to do with Nephan leadership or anything else,’ replied Ketu. ‘You know that this is our ancestors’ flying place, and today we landed before you did, but again I repeat that, since the clans must get along in Dragor I am happy to share the rock.’

Igorr hopped down from his elder’s back looking not the least bit embarrassed at the scene. ‘Let’s practise over here,’ he said, pulling at his elder’s wing and pointing to an area on the other side of the rock. ‘Away from Feddy.’ His elder nodded. ‘As you wish, Igorr.’ Then they moved over to the far side.

Ketu looked down at Yoshiko inquisitively as Igorr called him by the nickname, but the younger dragon only shrugged.

‘It’s the name that the Alanas all call me at school,’ he murmured, trying to sound as if he didn’t care, but the look on his elder’s face pained him enough that tears rose up. Yoshiko turned away to hide his face, as a strange feeling started rising in his stomach. It reminded him a little of the time he’d first blown fire
but it wasn’t a warm glow that he felt, but something thick and dark.

Taking a deep breath Yoshiko tried to shake the feeling away, but it stayed rooted inside him.

‘See the river below?’ asked Ketu, pointing down with his wing. ‘This keeps you safe. It looks like a long way down, but the distance is helpful. You will need to get plenty of air under your wings.’

He noticed his son’s anxious face. ‘Don’t worry, the worst thing that can happen is you will hit the water!’

Yoshiko looked over to Igorr and saw the purple dragon was staring at him mockingly. Then suddenly, Igorr dropped like a stone over the edge of the rock. The beating of air could be heard and a few seconds later Igorr crested triumphantly up into the sky. He flapped low over the rock for a moment, and then sank back to his elder’s side.

‘Did you see?’ crowed Gandar. ‘My point has been proved to you. We Alanas are the best! Yoshiko will never fly as well as Igorr.’ He turned back to his son. ‘Show them again,’ he said. ‘Take another flight.’

Igorr looked scared for a moment. ‘My wings need a rest,’ he said. ‘I don’t know if I can make it a second time so soon.’

Gandar looked angrily at him. ‘Do it again, Igorr. Do it now!’ he ordered. ‘Stop complaining.’ And with that he pushed Igorr back towards the edge. The look of triumph had gone from his son’s face as he spread his wings again and threw himself from the edge.

This time there was a much longer pause before he rose, and when finally Igorr’s purple wings drew him above the rock his face had paled from its deep violet shade. He barely managed to rise above the edge of the rock, and then dropped, throwing a single wing on to the ledge to save himself before hauling his large body over.

Gandar’s expression was stony as his son tried to right himself panting and sweating with the exhaustion. He turned away from him in disgust. ‘Useless,’ he hissed. ‘You are simply not trying, Igorr. I could do so much better at your age.’

The intense feelings that Yoshiko had been fighting now grew to a peak. He unfurled his own wings and charged towards the end of the rock, flinging into the empty air.

He descended, feeling the rush of cool water racing up to meet him, his wings beat without him thinking about it, and in a moment he was rising into the air. It almost felt too easy. Yoshiko flapped again, and the
motion sent him spiralling up far higher than Igorr had done.

Feeling free and joyous he let the natural shape of his body lean against the sky, with the breeze billowing beneath him he coasted on the air as he’d watched Ketu do so many times before. He stretched them out as wide as he could and made a large and graceful circle over the rock.

Yoshiko took a quick look below, expecting to see Ketu looking up proudly at him, but to his surprise all the figures on the rock were staring with horror.

Disconcerted he brought his wings inwards, wheeling unsteadily down, and landing in a clumsy tumble on the floor.

Ketu ran towards him and caught him up in his wings.

‘Yoshiko, what’s wrong with you?’ he asked. ‘What’s happened to your scales?’

Yoshiko shook his head in confusion, seeing that both Igorr and Gandar were also looking over at him in alarm.

‘What is wrong with your son, Ketu?’ asked Gandar, sounding frightened. ‘He has turned Alana.’

Yoshiko looked down to see to his horror that it had happened again. He had changed colour. This time he was glowing purple, from head to toe.


Y
oshiko, is it?’ said the dark blue dragon with huge silver spectacles hanging from his pointy snout. ‘Come inside.’

Kiara and Yoshiko stood up to enter the doctor’s cave.

The Herb Doctors had the huge task of keeping the dragons of Dragor healthy, treating ailments like sore throats, backache and broken claws. Many dragons were given specially prescribed herb potions to cure their illnesses.

As they followed the doctor, Yoshiko stared at the hundreds of jars of herbs that filled the shelves of his cave. Many sets of crystal wands hung from the ceiling like icicles.

‘Come sit before me, youngling,’ said the doctor looking over his glasses. ‘What seems to be the problem?’

‘We don’t know what to make of it,’ Kiara said. ‘My son seems to be changing colour. When he was learning to fly he changed from red to purple, and he has just told us that when he first blew fire, a similar thing happened, but that time thought he turned orange.’

‘Never heard of this before,’ the doctor replied. He reached his arm up and selected a particularly long crystal. He then began tapping it against Yoshiko’s chest, listening intently.

He nodded, took out a charcoal stick, made some notes on his slate and then drew out the hatchling’s wings as wide as they could go. ‘Take a deep breath,’ he said. ‘Now again.’

Yoshiko obeyed, letting his wings rise and fall.

The doctor dropped them back down again, and pulled out a small torch from his desk that he lit with a small puff of fire. He shone the light into Yoshiko’s eyes and ears. Finally he had him step on to a set of scales, and wrote down the numbers.

‘Well. It’s all pretty clear to me,’ he said finally, settling back down on to his haunches. Kiara looked anxious.

‘There is nothing medically wrong with your son,’ said the doctor. ‘His vital signs are healthy, and his general physical form is good,’ he continued, eyeing Yoshiko. ‘But his wings are strangely made for a Nephan and will take some adjusting to,’ he added. ‘Very large and not so nipped-in at the sides as you might expect; in fact they are the biggest wings I have ever seen on a dragon his age.’

The doctor tapped the underside of Yoshiko’s wings.

‘Some odd scales here too,’ he said, pointing. ‘These seem like they haven’t quite joined up with the rest of him.’

Yoshiko had never noticed before, but could now see that he had many ridges that looked like hooks, hanging away from the wing rather than lying flat as they were supposed to. He closed his wings self-consciously.

‘If you don’t like the look of them I can clip them off,’ said the doctor.

He made a cutting motion with his talon. Kiara shook her head and gasped loudly.

‘Then just leave them be,’ he continued, catching her expression.

The doctor put his equipment back into his desk and sat back.

‘One thing is for sure though – he clearly is overfed,’ he said, pointing towards Yoshiko’s rounded stomach. ‘All things added together probably make him all the more keen to prove himself with the other dragons.’

Kiara tried to reassure Yoshiko by laying her arm on top of his.

‘You are seeing the scales lose a little of their colour,’ said the doctor looking at Yoshiko directly. ‘You say you went orange when you were making fire? And purple in the presence of some Alana dragons?’ he continued. ‘I expect what you saw was the reflection of the fire itself on your scales, and the second occasion, well, you were by a river which may have reflected the light back on to you.’

Kiara looked bewildered. ‘I am informed by his father that he definitely went purple,’ she said.

The doctor shook his head dismissively. ‘He is perfectly healthy.’

‘Doctor, there are several witnesses of these colour changes!’ insisted Kiara.

But the doctor wasn’t listening. ‘Come back to me only if there is something serious. I have no time for trivial issues,’ he said, signalling the conversation was closed.

Yoshiko hopped down off the desk and Kiara rushed him out of the door.

‘Come on,’ she said, throwing her wing around him, ‘let’s go home and toast you some dragon puffs on the fire.’

D
uring the seasons that followed, Yoshiko learned to accept that he could sometimes change colour, but did his best to hide it from his classmates at Fire School. He found that he changed colour more often when he was upset and he strove to keep his feelings from spilling out into his scales.

Igorr had tried to spread the word about what he had seen at the flying rock, but to Yoshiko’s relief the idea seemed too strange for the others to believe him.

All of the younglings were improving their skills. Yoshiko could now fly all the way to school, and he and Amlie went together, relishing the freedom of the skies. As their elders had instructed, however, the younger
dragons never flew over Cattlewick Cave, taking the longer route to avoid the solitary mountain.

They often tried to guess who or what the mysterious dragon Guya might be. Their vivid imaginations had concluded together that he must at the very least have super-strength.

‘Maybe he mixes up potions for dragons to give them more vivid dreams,’ said Yoshiko as they flew to school one morning. ‘Perhaps he has special eyesight and swims to the depths of the Great Waters by night, gathering glitter-fish to decorate his cave. And maybe on the top of his head is a huge metal horn for him to burrow through rocks,’ he added.

They’d long since exhausted the general rumour about Guya, which was that he must have broken some law, making him a bad dragon.

At school they trained every day to make fire, Amlie had taught herself to blow complicated shapes through each nostril, and though Igorr taunted him for his lack of talent as a fire-blower Yoshiko could now at least make basic flames.

Yoshiko and Amlie had made new friends: a female dragon from the Mida clan with large dark brown eyes called Cindina, and a triple-horned male dragon
named Elsy from the Effram clan. Both Cindina and Elsy had warned Yoshiko of a mean joke that Igorr and his friends had attempted to play on him by moving the target further away during their fire practice and they had been friends ever since.

The four dragons now regularly ate their midday meal together.

‘What do you think about doing some Fire Pit training soon?’ asked Elsy one day, as they munched on handfuls of stone-baked chips washed down with sorrel juice. ‘We have toughened our scales from the heat made during fire-making practices and none of us need whale-fruit for protection any more.’

Yoshiko looked out wistfully to the Fire Pit at the front of the Fire School entrance where he could make out the peak of the flames that heated the cave to red-hot temperatures.

‘The Fire Pit is just full of Alanas,’ he replied in a fearful tone.

Elsy shook his head. ‘Not only Alanas,’ he said. ‘Other clans go there too.’

Yoshiko was silent. He knew what Elsy was about to suggest.

‘We should try it out now,’ Elsy announced. ‘Let’s try
walking in the big Fire Pit. We can’t be scared off by Igorr and his crew.’

Amlie gulped down her juice in excitement.

Yoshiko looked at Elsy’s scales, which were shiny and somewhat toughened. Yoshiko knew that Elsy had been exposed to the intense heat from the pot-making furnaces in his clan. He examined his own softer covering.

‘Come on, Yoshiko.’ Amlie was on her feet and tugging him up eagerly. Cindina looked worried. ‘I’m not coming,’ she said, looking warily at Yoshiko as if to warn him away. ‘I hate the feeling of so much heat. Besides, I want to keep my scales smooth.’ She tapped her delicate orange-coloured skin.

Elsy took hold of Yoshiko’s wing. ‘Come on, Yoshiko!’ he said. Looking at his friends’ eager faces, Yoshiko didn’t know what to do. Cindina was already retreating back to the school entrance.

‘OK, then,’ he said reluctantly. ‘But don’t blame me if we all suffer the scale-aches tonight.’

‘No chance,’ said Elsy as he raced off towards the Fire Pit, fanning out his wings to move him faster as he went.

With a delighted look at Yoshiko, Amlie copied him,
running across the main crescent making a squealing sound.

The Fire Pit loomed on the other side of the crescent and today appeared particularly dark and sinister-looking.

Igorr and his friends were standing near to it, and when they saw Yoshiko a great sneer went up.

‘Hey look! If it isn’t little Feddy!’ said Igorr loudly. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve come to show yourself up again and go crying home to your elders?’

‘You’re no superdragon yourself!’ retorted Elsy, narrowing his eyes at Igorr. ‘You’re not yet walking into the fire and I can see you’re still using whale-fruit on your ears. In my clan even the babies don’t need such a thick coating of protection.’

Igorr frowned, and Yoshiko noticed, even though he stood some distance away, that his purple ears were indeed dripping with the tell-tale fruit.

‘It’s true, it’s true, look at that jelly dripping everywhere,’ shouted one of Igorr’s friends loudly. Cries of laughter rang out and Igorr’s embarrassment seemed to make the whale-fruit run down his face even more.

Igorr looked towards some of the older Alana dragons at the Fire School, wondering if they would
take an interest in defending a youngster from their own clan. But the burly dragons were too preoccupied, striding purposefully towards the hottest depths of the pit, every muscle on their faces in concentration, sweat pouring from their snouts.

‘I’d like to see you do it better as you are so full of yourself,’ Igorr finally retorted. Elsy grinned, and dropped his school net to the ground by Amlie. ‘You just watch me!’ With that Elsy walked calmly to the Fire Pit entrance and strode a good way into it.

He emerged triumphant with only the slightest trickle of sweat on his upper lip as the crowd cheered.

Igorr set his mouth meanly. ‘Now I’d like to see Feddy here walk the same path,’ he said. ‘The little Nephan has had so little contact with fire – look at his skin.’

Yoshiko looked back at him, desperately trying to stay calm. He felt the sensation he always got before he changed colour and the last thing he wanted was all the dragons present to see him transform.

‘It’s not a competition, Igorr,’ he said. ‘I didn’t come here to wage a war of words with you, and you know that no other dragons have the naturally hardened scales of the Effram clan, which Elsy comes from.’

Igorr’s mouth opened in a delighted smile as he
regained full confidence. ‘Awww. What a shame. He is afraid!’ he chanted. ‘Thinks he can stand there and watch me being mocked. The loser has come to walk the Fire Pit and now he is too frightened!’

Amlie barged forward as best she could, puffing her tiny chest out. ‘He is not frightened to do anything you could do, Igorr,’ she said. ‘You couldn’t walk the same route that Elsy just managed. You are nothing but a sad, mean, nasty bully. Leave Yoshiko alone to walk the fire his own way and when he is ready.’

By now most of the older dragons had stopped their own practice and grouped to watch the argument escalate between the younglings. Some had even sat down to watch as they cooled down out of the fire.

Seizing the opportunity to humiliate Yoshiko further, Igorr began to chant. ‘Walk! Walk! Walk! Come on! Show us you can manage to walk into the Fire Pit!’

Igorr’s friends joined in and then some of the crowd followed. Something inside Yoshiko began to fizz, and to his horror he realised he was changing colour. His talons were tinged yellow, and he knew that soon the shade would wash over his entire body.

Yoshiko blinked his eyes as he willed the colour to go away with all his heart, but instead he felt the sensation
rising further and did the only thing he could think to do in the circumstances. He spread his wings and launched himself into the air, putting as much distance between himself and the Fire School as possible.

As he rose he could hear Igorr’s taunts were loud and more victorious. As he turned, leaving the school far behind him, he looked down at his body to see that he had changed bright yellow like the sun.

Before Yoshiko could help himself large tears began to fall, he flew on and on with blurred vision before finally landing untidily on a distant mountain. He tried to take a deep breath to calm down, but no calmness came, and instead he felt himself entirely overwhelmed with despair.

‘My life is pointless,’ he said suddenly to himself, wondering at how true it all sounded when he said it out loud. A torrent of anger took hold of Yoshiko and he began pacing up and down. ‘I was the last in my clan to breathe fire,’ he said, as if checking off a list of his failures. ‘I am heavy and clumsy. I have stupid supersized wings, and now everyone at Fire School thinks I am a total coward.’

More tears fell as he considered the unfairness of everything. What had he done to Igorr and his friends to
deserve their treatment of him? The idea of isolation at one of Dragor’s many distant outposts appealed to him.

‘There is no happiness ahead for me,’ he said, before collapsing back down on his haunches with a heavy sigh.

To his great surprise his lament was met with an answer.

‘What are you doing here?’

Raising himself up cautiously, Yoshiko rubbed away the tears and peered out into the distance. There he saw the outline of a dragon carrying a basket of freshly picked herbs and roots.

‘Who are you?’ asked Yoshiko, alarmed to see an elder on this deserted mountain. As the dragon drew closer it was without doubt the strangest sight he’d ever seen. Yoshiko noticed that his horns were thick and greying to suggest a great age, but unlike most elders this dragon had pronounced muscles all over his body, and the glistening turquoise eyes of a newborn. His scales were a deep ocean-blue, some rising in rows as if to form waves. He looked completely different from others of the Saiga clan, as if he was of an entirely different species.

‘Surely you have heard of me?’ asked the dragon. ‘This is my mountain, after all. I am Guya.’

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