Bone, Fog, Ash & Star (36 page)

Charlie looked around at the sea full of colossal dragons and laughed a little. “What could the Faeries possibly do against
these?”
he asked.

Swarn’s dragon lurched up out of the water and flew over the expanse of foreleg and shoulder of the Dragon that had spoken to them. It settled on the hard, bright scales between the wings.

“Come.” Swarn’s face was bright with joy. “They will take us to see the Dragon Lord.”

“Oh. Do we want to…see the Dragon Lord?” asked Charlie nervously, but Swarn did not reply. With a great roaring of water, the Dragons emerged from the sea like islands being uprooted, and wings many kilometers long beat the air. The Dragon’s back was so huge there was little fear of falling as it flew eastward, towards the dimming horizon.

As they flew through the night, many more islands that proved to be Dragons rose into the air to fly with them. They could no longer see the approaching Faeries in the dark.

When dawn came, the sun inching up over the horizon, they saw what appeared to be the end of the world. The sea poured over the edge, and nothing lay beyond it, nothing at all but the sky. The horde of Dragons flew out into the nothingness, shut their wings, and began to drop.

They plunged, dropping with the sea, for miles. There was a faint, echoing roar, perhaps the sea landing somewhere far below, but they could not see. The roar grew louder and the air was hazy with spray. Another world came suddenly into view. The Dragons stretched their wings out again and coasted over bottomless, twisting towers of rock, cliffs and arches, all gleaming like the inside of a seashell, smoothed and shaped by wind and water. Vast caverns hung with glistening moss. Dragons sat poised upon clifftops or curled in canyons and caves. The shining stone was everywhere cracked and riven with black lines. Here and there, empty black calderas smoked. A mist of sea-spray hung over it all.

The Dragon landed high on a cliff and stretched out its foreleg, enabling them to scramble and slide to the ground without injury. Swarn remained standing on the creature’s great claw and said to Nell and Charlie:

“Wait for me here. If I do not return, my dragon will know the time for you to go.”

Her face was changed. She seemed younger, almost. Not less weathered and lined – but rejuvenated.

“What do you mean, if you dinnay return?” cried Nell. “Swarn –”

But the witch was gone. The Dragon rose above them and they cringed in its shadow. The wings came down and the wind knocked them to the ground. It soared away, lost quickly in the spray, leaving Nell and Charlie to scramble to their feet, push their damp hair out of their faces, and look around at the marvelous world they found themselves in.

“It’s incredible,” said Charlie.

“Even if I dinnay get back in time for my test,” said Nell, “it’s worth it, aye, just to see this.”

“You’ll make it back,” said Charlie. “You’ll ace that exam and get a huge scholarship to Austermon and become the best cetologist in Di Shang. I cannay imagine anything stopping you, Nell, short of the end of the worlds, and praps not even that.”

And there, finally, with the Immortal Dragons filling the sky, atop a shining cliff at the end of the world, she put her arms around his neck, pulled him to her, and kissed him.

~~~

The Dragon took Swarn further east, to a plateau ringed by smoldering dark calderas. There sprawled a monster of unspeakable size. Swarn had felt the power of this creature calling to her before they had come across the first of the Dragons in the Far Sea. She thought she had felt it from as far away as Lil – perhaps she had felt it her whole life. This was the Lord Dragon, first among the Immortal Dragons, the Child of the Ancients. It lay across the plateau and did not stir as the Dragon that bore Swarn to it landed a short distance away. Swarn had been riding on its foot, her arm clinging to the ridges of its bony talons. When it set down, she leaped to the ground and strode towards the Lord Dragon, knelt and bowed her head. The Dragon blinked slowly, wrinkled lids closing over eyes like black lakes and then rising again. Swarn had been pleased to find that the strange, archaic language of her cliff dragons was indeed derived from the language of the Immortal Dragons and that she could communicate with them. But with the Lord Dragon, there was no need of language.

Master of the Flame.

This was the Dragon’s greeting to her.

Lord Dragon, why do you call me master? I am only your servant,
was her reply.

If my servant, then I am Master of the Flame. But our land is without fire. The sea comes and encroaches and our power wanes.

Can you repel the Faeries?
Swarn asked the Dragon.
They are coming for the Gehemmis.

The Lord Dragon showed no sign of perturbation.

Those who come are Faeries only in name. The First among the Faeries, my brothers and sisters, are gone further west than even the Faeries of Tian Di know. They are stronger, greater, purer than the Faeries of this world, who are but shadows of what they will become. Likewise are we but shadows of what we were, since the Mage stole Flame from us. Without Flame, we are too weak even to fly across the Far Sea to Tian Di. Some Dragons go by sea to seek our stolen Flame, but they do not return. I think that on the journey, they become creatures of the Deep and forget their first allegiance. Tian Di was a wasteland that became a world, now two worlds, and our world disappears slowly, swallowed by the sea. But you have come to us, Master of the Flame, and so there is still hope for us.

Yes, hope. Swarn felt it fill her up, like taking a deep breath of air after being long submerged underwater. She thought she was beginning to understand.

So the old stories are true – the Dragon Mage stole the source of your power, the Flame, and used it to Make the mortal dragons.

It is true. Though we are Immortal, a Dragon without Flame is barely worthy to be called Dragon. Our Realm is robbed of Magic and we are weak. How the Mage took our Flame, what Magic he employed, we do not know. How to regain it, also a mystery. But I have felt you coming. I know what you command. What can you offer us, Master of the Flame?

All her life, Swarn thought, her flesh had bound her Magic too tightly. Her power had been struggling from the day of her birth to be free, to exist as a force only, to perform this task. That was the battle within her, the endless struggle against her self, Magic pushing against constricting bone and skin. Stirring within her now was a Magic she had never learned, something that had dwelled within her all this time, waiting for this moment.

I offer myself. To return the Flame will require Great Magic. It will require all my power. All that I am.

The Lord Dragon blinked his black lake eyes at her slowly.

You will become one with the Flame.

She felt something unfamiliar opening up within her: joy.

Yes. But in return, I ask for the Gehemmis.

If you do this, you can never return to what you were.

She found herself holding a folded sack of thinnest dragon scale, small enough to fit in the palm of her hand. (Goodbye, palm of my hand, she thought, and tried to stop herself from whooping with laughter). She opened the sack and looked at the black dust inside.

Ash
, said the Lord Dragon.
What was burned in the Making.

~~~

Charlie and Nell passed the earlier part of the day in a state of stunned, joyful wonder on the cliff. As the day waned, however, they grew damp and cold from the spray that filled the air as well as terribly hungry, and Swarn had still not returned. So it was with great relief that they spotted her standing on the head of a Dragon flying towards the cliff, wings spread so far they seemed to have no end. It landed on the cliff and Swarn strode down between the two vast ponds of its eyes, along its long nose, and leaped to the ground as if casually jumping off a roof.

“Thank the Ancients you’re back!” Nell began eagerly, rushing forward, and then she stopped, her mouth dropping open.

“What in the worlds…” murmured Charlie, just behind her.

Swarn was changed. Her white hair shone like strands of pure light. Her skin, which had always looked like worn old leather to Nell, was smooth and dark and glowing. Her eyes shone like black jewels and her flesh almost seemed to flow, as if she were not made of bone and muscle anymore but a kind of liquid that held her shape.

When she spoke, her voice resonated, clear as a bell.

“This is the Gehemmis of the Dragons,” she said, handing it to Nell. “You must take it to Eliza.”

“OK,” Nell faltered. She took the folded sack in her hand. “Are you nay coming?”

Swarn smiled – not her usual wolf-like grin, but a real smile.

“Tell Eliza to have patience. She is young and has borne much, but we all become what we must. Wish her farewell from me.”

“Farewell? Swarn, what’s happening?”

“Balance is being restored,” said Swarn. She threw back her head. A terrible screeching sound burst from her throat. Swarn’s dragon’s head shot up and the creature came to her swiftly, bowing its head towards her. Her high, wild keening continued. The dragon swayed its head almost as if it was dancing to the awful sounds she made. Charlie and Nell backed away, putting their hands over their ears. Then Swarn’s dragon emitted a long sigh and green flame poured out of it and onto Swarn.

“No!” shouted Nell, starting to run towards them, but Charlie grabbed her and pulled her back. Swarn did not appear to be burned by the flame. It flowed into her, flickering in her and around her. The dragon was keening now, the two of them swaying and wailing together, until the last of its fire flickered out of its mouth and it dropped its head, exhausted. Swarn screamed a command. The green fire burned in the air all around her, burned on her skin and her hair without consuming her. The dragon turned to Nell and Charlie and bowed its neck.

“Come on,” said Charlie. “It’s time for us to go.”

“But…” Nell gestured helplessly towards Swarn. “What’s going on?”

“I dinnay know,” said Charlie. “But we’ve got the Gehemmis. Whatever happens next, I dinnay think we want to be part of it.”

Nell scrambled up onto the dragon’s neck behind him. The dragon took to the air, flying up through the spray. Nell looked back at Swarn. She was glowing brighter and brighter with green flame, her chanting rising and filling the air. She became a white light at the center of the flame, and then the chanting crescendoed and she burst into fire. The green fire ran along the dark cracks in the rocky cliffs and leaped from the smoking calderas. The land of the Immortal Dragons was suddenly alight, and all the Dragons were roaring together.

“What just happened to her?” cried Nell, but she could not hear her own voice.

Swarn’s dragon shot straight up, followed at a distance by the Immortal Dragons. Over the edge of the cliff of falling water, they could see the legion of approaching myrkestras, line after line stretched across the sea. Swarn’s dragon continued to rise, straight up into the clear reddish sky, high above the Faery army. Below them, the Immortal Dragons roared, their green flame bursting onto the green sea.

The sea surged up and Swarn’s dragon still rocketed skyward, out of reach. The sea turned back in a giant wave that grew rapidly, higher than a mountain, higher than ten mountains, and still Swarn’s dragon rose above it. Nell and Charlie clung to the dragon’s neck, dizzy and terrified, as the sea chased them ever upwards. The rows of myrkestras began to scatter and rise, but not fast enough. The sea roared towards them, loomed over them, then hurtled down and swallowed them.

The sea roiled and churned, fire and water, and when it settled Charlie and Nell and the cliff dragon were alone in the sky.

STAR

Chapter

~23~

The Vermilion Bird’s feathers were softer than anything
Eliza had touched before. She longed to caress it, bury her face in its softness, but she did not dare. It was a being of great power after all, and great intelligence too. It might be proud enough to throw her off if she were so presumptuous as to stroke the feathers she held now in a firm grip.