Dragon Thief (20 page)

“I’ll have words with you, Kalzion! Come here!” Kal bit back an urge to kiss her properly. What a girl! She dragged him off a ways, growling, “You grubby Sylakian farmer! How dare you … Kal, what the hells are you doing here? They’ll kill you. Every student and Dragon Rider has seen your picture–the Queen literally spat lightning when she briefed the Riders. The order is to kill you on sight.”

Bah. That Aranya couldn’t find ice in the middle of a hailstorm! Who did she think she was dealing with, some peasant dunce turned pickpocket who constantly tripped over his own feet?

“How’s Tazithiel?”

“Your Indigo? Rumour has it she’s not yet woken up. Never seen an injury like it, they say. The Queen herself has been healing her. Tazithiel needs you. Of course, that’s why you’re here.”

“Aye. I could not leave my Dragoness.”

Jisellia said, “How can I help?”

Kal kissed her cheek, decorously but gratefully. “Jisellia, words fail me. You’re amazing. Tell me where I can find the infirmary, and direct me to Queen Aranya’s chambers. I need to set right a misunderstanding.”

He lied, but Jisellia did not know it. Kal listened closely as she gave instructions, holding her hand in the manner of old friends. He did not miss the special gleam in her eye. Kal mentally added Jalfyrion to his list of wrongs to right, after he extracted his own neck from the noose.

When Jisellia had given him the information he required, Kal melted into the night.

* * * *

Wrath drove him to Aranya first. What hope for Tazithiel, if he died? Kal knew his motives were selfish, but the fire that drove him seemed born of a soul he had never before discovered. Righteous fury, his old Master Ja’amba would have said. Kal shuddered, clinging to an ivy-clad wall ten stories above a small enclosed garden. Purity was not in his makeup. His soul was tainted forever. Yet could this Kal, this freebooter who wished for liberation from past misdeeds, carry through what he intended? Only when he saw her, would he know.

Kal wreathed himself in his old friend called shadow.

Using a climbing hook tied to his left forearm to make up for the loss of his hand’s use, he scaled the wall steadily.

Up to the mosaic crysglass windows. Kal peered within, seeing only darkness, but what he sought could not be seen with the naked eye. He obeyed a slight prickling on the nape of his neck. Not this one. Swiftly, he tried four windows. Here. This one was unguarded. With great care, Kal picked the window-lock and spent a good ten minutes examining the frame before easing it open with even greater caution. A mere change of air pressure could wake a sleeper. The faint susurrus of Aranya’s breath sounded right. Working his shoulders through the narrow frame, Kal scanned the floor. Cunning. A magical trap worthy of the name lay just below the window, exactly where an intrepid intruder’s feet might land. Easing his body to the left, Kal landed soundlessly in his tacky climbing slippers, right behind the drapes.

A further twenty minutes saw him ghost across the outer chamber, a study, toward the inner chamber. An open scroll upon her desk outlined the terms of her death-warrant. Slay on sight, indeed! Who by the sulphurous, ever-burning pits of Fra’anior itself did this woman think she was? The most powerful Enchantress in history?

Aye, so she was. Star Dragoness. Queen. Destroyer of the Sylakian Empire. Saviour of the Dragons. Aranya of Immadia owned not just a legend, but a personal library of legends. Kal palmed his dagger. Here came the test.

A delicate tracery of magic enshrouded her inner bedchamber. Aranya took no chances. Every inch of wall, floor, ceiling and doorway was guarded by faintly shimmering wards; if he looked closely, they appeared to be runes of starlight inscribed in long, intertwined sentences upon thin air. Poised like a spiral-horn deer sensing a hunter, Kal hesitated. No. Tazithiel needed him alive. Should he proceed with slaying the Queen, would it change his fate?

But Kal had not survived forty-four years of skulduggery and delinquency by playing the shrinking violet. In his world, there was always a way out, a miniscule chance which had to be grasped with perfect timing; the space between actions and consequences which, when navigated with finesse, yielded unexpected results.

Reaching out, he stroked a line of runes with his fingertip, breathing in Dragonish,
We’re friends, you and I. I’m but a breeze passing through. Nothing to fear here if you will bend.

Not so much the words, but the attitude, the mental space he carved for himself. The runes yielded to his presence but did not set any alarm bells jangling.

Again he caressed the air.
Dance with me, my magical friends.

Kal parted her protections like a shroud and passed through into the inner gloom.

Approaching Aranya’s bedside, Kal moved like a zephyr soughing over a mirror-calm lake, the barest hint of a ripple of existence. This was his skill. His power.

The woman lay sleeping with her face turned away from him, her Shapeshifter hair blanketing her pillow-roll and torso in all its extraordinary, multihued glory, exactly as the fables told–tresses of black and auburn, blue and white, ochre and saffron, and many hues besides. She was not a three hundred year-old hag. Oh no. In form Aranya was a slender woman, perhaps mid-twenties in appearance, but the hand upon her pillow-roll betrayed the slightest tracery of age. Impossible! She seemed no older than Tazithiel. Shapeshifters and Dragon Riders lived long, but this … he shook his head. Well, her legend ended here. If he could move. If only his hand would rise, but it seemed to be clamped against his side by a force more mystical than magical.

Kal
knew
he must not kill her.

Faint-hearted fool! Was he not the King of Thieves? A man never before moved by beauty or legend, who held nothing sacred beneath the twin suns?

His pulse crashed in his throat. Ears buzzing, every fibre of his being groaning with the exertion, he raised the dagger. Aranya rolled over, murmuring, “Mother? Is that you?”

No! Kal inhaled … a faint, aghast wheeze of breath. Scandal!

Her eyes flicked open. Luminous with power, jewel-like and oh-so-familiar, yet she did not appear to behold the would-be murderer looming over her bed. The thief held his breath, poised, immobile.

The Shapeshifter Dragoness’ eyes shuttered. She settled against the pillow-roll, smiling in her sleep. “Oh, Izariela, how I long to be with you.”

This changed everything. He had to move. Get out of this room, before he screamed and railed against the absurdity of fate. Tazithiel, oh Tazithiel! How could he explain? Only a lifetime’s experience drove him past the paralysing shock to action. He summoned the will to direct his hand to place the dagger, point facing away from the Dragoness, next to her pillow-roll.

A simple message: I chose to let you live.

Kal retreated through the curtain of magic, trembling with adrenaline and despair. Tazi needed him more than ever, now.

The foundations of her world were about to be annihilated.

And the crowning insult? He could never have her.

K
AL DID nOT
recall descending from Aranya’s window, nor finding his way to the infirmary. Low lamplight glowed warmly against a vaulting cavern roof, showing him an open infirmary some one thousand feet wide and twice that depth. There were many bowl-shaped beds for Dragons and their Riders, only a few occupied, and a more traditional section for Humans over against the wall to his left hand. The scent of acrid, tangy medicinal herbs filled his nostrils. But Kal had eyes for one Dragoness alone. Tazithiel!

She breathed.

A perfunctory check of his surrounds revealed no medical personnel present. Kal ran despite the jolting pain in his wrist.
Tazi, oh, Tazithiel, I’ve come! It’s me, Kal. Darling Dragoness, dear one …

The Indigo Dragoness reclined on her left side in one of the open Dragon bowls. Someone had made her comfortable upon heaps of ralti furs, even mounding them carefully beneath her neck. Kal observed that the stitching along her belly had been recently removed; the wound was clean and neatly closed, and there was almost no sign or smell of infection. He knew Dragons healed rapidly, but this was astonishing. Her flank rose and fell evenly, but as he watched, her right forepaw clenched and she whimpered, perhaps caught in the throes of a dream.

“Are you Tazithiel’s Rider?” The Dragon’s fantastically deep voice behind his shoulder made Kal leap like a frightened hare and lose a good few years of his life. “I sense you are.”

A hoary old Blue Dragon loomed over him, blind in both eyes. Kal began to stammer a reply, but the Blue only chuckled in a slow, easy manner, “You’ve made your oaths?”

“Aye.”

“Then leave me to deal with the Queen’s rash orders, youngling. Besides, I like to make up my mind about people in my own good time. Go to your Dragoness. She’s been pining for you.”

Kal stared. The Dragon’s accent was Eastern, and he had four wings rather than the usual two. “Go to her? How?”

“My name is Yozora,” said the Dragon. “I am the healer here, and in my infirmary, even Queens must bide their turn. You will first whisper in Tazithiel’s ear and then make yourself snug in her paw. A Dragon’s palm is more sensitive than you may think. A gentle stroking motion here–” he indicated with his talon “–will communicate via the magical pathways of her being. Don’t dawdle, youngling. Even I grow antiquated waiting for you.”

“I … don’t know where her ears are.”

“Ignorance admitted opens the mind to understanding,” said Yozora, seeming pleased by this confession. “Those three holes on the side of her head are the ear canals.” Kal stood on his tiptoes to bring his mouth close to one of the fist-sized earholes. “Tell her everything is well. The balance of the harmonies in your lives is restored; together, you will arise as a fresh flame awakens from the kindling.”

Kal decided he liked the philosophical old Dragon, although he doubted his ability to deal with the Queen of Arrogance. He did not understand how Yozora had sneaked up on him, but perhaps blind Dragons saw more than he supposed. After whispering all sorts of prekki-mush nonsense into the Indigo Dragoness’ ear for a few minutes, Kal made himself comfortable in her paw as Yozora had suggested. A shudder passed through the great draconic body. Her talons curved about his frame, and it seemed to him that something within Tazithiel relaxed, for her breathing seemed less laboured and her heartbeat stronger than before.

Yozora growled, “Budge an inch from that Dragoness’ side, Rider Kal, and I will do to you far worse than Queen Aranya promised, word of a Dragon. If you need anything, ask.”

An abeyance, at least until the morning, when Aranya’s fury would bring the cavern down. To Kal’s surprise, cradled in Tazithiel’s warm paw, sleep stole him away faster than any master pickpocket had ever filched a wallet.

* * * *

“Kal.”

“Shapely … shapely-Shifter,” Kal mumbled, enjoying a most gratifying dream. “Kiss …”

Soft lips turned his insides to liquid fire.

“Great Islands, that’s so good … great Islands!” Kal sat bolt-upright. “Great joyful dancing Islands, where did you spring from? Tazi! Lie down!”

“I am lying down.”

A most agreeably nude girl lay on the pile of furs nearest his right hand, so serene. She had the longest eyelashes he had ever seen. His heart lurched so hard, he feared permanent damage had been done. All that remained of her wound was a puckered red scar running from her lower stomach up toward her heart. She looked pale and shaky, but he had to confess, alive was a beautiful state of being.

Kal buried his head against her shoulder, shaken by the storms ravaging his soul.

She held him. “It’s alright, Kal. I’ll be fine. Oh, what happened to your wrist?”

“It’s nothing.”

“It’s broken, you silly man.”

“As if that matters! How are you–why–what–are you?”

Her smile warmed all the Islands of his world. “You brazen reprobate. Must I wear a shirt before a coherent word will fall from your lips? Yozora came by this morning. I was awake … just watching you sleep. I thought I dreamed, but you’re here.”

He gripped her fingers, fierce yet fragile of mien. All he trusted himself to say was, “Aye.”

“He laid down the law,” Tazi added. “Apparently, a Shapeshifter must receive treatment in both forms before she can be fully healed. So I had to transform. Doctor’s orders.”

“Can I get you anything? Do anything? How’s the stomach? And your heart? What about–”

“You can get that bone set.”
Yozora. A moment, please.

Tazithiel nodded off while Kal was having his wrist splinted and the windroc peck in his buttock cleaned up and stitched by an older nurse who clearly hailed from the humourless school of patient persecution. A medical student appeared to spread a blanket over the Shapeshifter and to giggle, pink-cheeked, at the location of Kal’s wound.

“Blasted windroc mistook my buttock for a hunk of meat,” Kal commented to the student. “I must look tasty. Do you think I look tasty, nurse?”

The walking battle-axe, a matron not shy of sixty summers and evidently more than accustomed to dealing with Dragon Riders, snapped, “About as tasty as a goat’s hairy behind, boy! Now lay down with your Dragoness before I lay you out with my fist, hear me?”

The dark Western Isles fist that waved beneath his nose looked well-used. Besides, the matron’s biceps were thicker than his thighs. Kal subsided meekly. “Aye, matron.”

“What? You calling me old?”

He could not let that pass. “Thou, o dusky Western Isles beauty?”

The matron clipped her gawping student efficiently over the earhole. “Ignore his honeyed lies, girl. And you, I’ll have none of your drivel and windroc-jabber. For shame, a grizzle-bearded old vagabond like you hooking up with that sweet fireflower blossom?”

Kal tried his signature grin.

The matron flounced off with a toss of her long, intricately braided black hair. “And keep your grubby paws off my students, hear?”

Just then, Kal heard thunder outside the cavern. Odd. Usually his weather-nose would inform him of approaching storms. He pulled up his trousers, trying to decide if it was worth risking the Matron’s wrath just to tease this student. Then he saw who was storming toward him, face set like the thunder without, and Kal managed to pinch the wrong part of his anatomy quite neatly as he fumbled to look at least partly decent for the Queen of Immadia.

“You!” Aranya’s voice shook the cavern. “Did I or did I not order you to stay away from that Dragoness?”

Tazithiel stirred; Kal knelt at once by her side, while from the back where the stores were kept, Yozora bugled, “Silence! Who dares disturb my patients?”

If ever he had seen a storm in motion, Aranya was that storm as she crossed the cavern with a snap of wind and a growl of thunder attending her queenly train. She wore a modern Fra’aniorian lace gown in Immadian violet, with an intricately-worked lace bodice depicting dragonets dancing over a volcanic lake, set off by a darker under-shift, with a train of just three feet. A plain golden circlet adorned her brow. Her hulking Dragoness prowled behind, the ghostly Shifter-Dragon’s emotions reflecting and amplifying those of the Human woman. But Kal had neither risked his neck nor his precious, throbbing buttock to be stomped upon, bullied or chargrilled by a stray royal lightning bolt.

Drawing himself up, he said, “Before you keep your vow by kissing my thieving backside, o Queen, I need to draw your attention to a bigger problem.”

Aranya snapped, “I saved that Dragoness’ life!”

Peaceably, Yozora put in, “Actually, his was the magical signature I found inside Tazithiel’s heart. He healed her first.”

“I did?”

The Queen did not even blink. “Nonsense, he’s a filthy thief and the leader of an outlaw rabble. I have not placed a price on his head and signed a death warrant to see my orders flouted, Yozora. I want him tossed out of my Academy, preferably into the nearest volcano. Now.”

Aranya spat sparks, but Kal did admire a beautiful woman in a towering passion. He could stir them up, couldn’t he? He began to speak, but the aged Blue cut him off effortlessly. “He and the Indigo Dragoness are oath-bound. I say he stays for her healing. Look into the Dragoness, milady, and know it for yourself.”

Aranya’s eyes dipped. Kal had no need of the tremor of her hands, nor her soft gasp to betray the moment of recognition, for the peal of thunder that shook the school had to wake every man, woman and child for miles around. Tazithiel’s eyes snapped open. Focussed on Aranya’s face. The thief caught his breath. In a second, there came a second crash of thunder, a smaller daughter-echo of the first.

A silence developed which was so deep and powerful, it was as if a Dragon had taken them each by the throat and squeezed with its paws. Mirror-souls, mirror-persons. They were unquestionably of the same lineage, for Kal perceived Aranya and Tazithiel as identical twins in feature and form, the only differences being the hair and eyes, and Tazi’s dusky skin-tone to Aranya’s much paler Northern looks. Indigo eyes locked with amethyst. Tazithiel’s distinctly night-blue locks, identical in abundance and the exact same volume of wave and curl, matched Aranya’s multi-coloured Shapeshifter heritage. Otherwise? Not even a master gemstone assessor could tell these two jewels apart. Kal found the effect disconcerting.

Tazithiel’s fingers rose, wondering, to touch Aranya’s cheek. “How?”

The Immadian was humbled. Broken. Tears welled and spilled. “I never imagined my lost egg would come home,” Aranya whispered.

Yozora said, “This is what your Balance power suspected, great lady. The harmonies between your magic and hers now blaze before me. Shell-mother to shell-daughter. Tazithiel is your kin, the offspring of your loins.”

Deep puzzlement creased Tazi’s brow. “I don’t understand. Kal … oh Kal, what does this mean?”

He cleared his throat. “I rather suspect you’re a long-lost Princess of Immadia, Tazithiel. You do look weirdly alike, almost royal sisters. I imagine that your Mejian shell-parents always knew you were not their egg, or someone switched … eggs? Is that possible?”

“Aye, your heritage is of Immadia,” said the Queen.

The Indigo Dragoness’ knuckles whitened against her blanket. “And you signed a death warrant for my Rider–did I hear right, mother, if a creature like you may be called ‘mother’?” Yozora tried to hush her, to calm her down, but Kal could have told the Blue he might better have tried to bottle a Cloudlands tempest. Tazi snarled, “How exactly does a Dragoness lose an egg? Just what kind of a mother are you, mighty Star Dragoness?”

Aranya choked out, “One who has laid fourteen children untimely in the grave, child, and seen many more pass on. A mother soul-shadowed by grief.”

“And you
lost
me?” Tazi coughed, choked and clutched her stomach with a low groan. Sweat broke out on her forehead; Kal tried to hold her, but she shoved him aside with strength born of fury. “Answer … how could you not have known?”

“I remember that day.” The Queen’s whisper was a desert of desolation surrounding a green oasis of hope. “One hundred and twelve years, three months and four days ago it was. In Herimor. I know not how your egg came to join us north of the Rift, shell-daughter. I was gravid with my seventh clutch of nine. A double-clutch.”

“How many children do you have, lady?” Kal blurted out.

Muted now, Aranya’s tones took on the lilt of her native Immadia. “Thirty-six, I thought–but now I know the number for thirty-seven. Thirty-six have passed on to the eternal fires; one was lost, but now she is found. There is a beast of Herimor they call the
guzzar-guzzak
, which translates as–”

“The egg thief.” Tazithiel turned her head away.

“It’s a type of Dragon which possesses a magic ancient even among the Dragonkind, a magic of shadow and deception, as is so much of Herimor’s magic and heritage. It’s odd.” She smiled, but there was such a well of sorrow in her expression, Kal feared he might drown. As he encircled Tazithiel with his arms, she shook as though a hammer had tapped a knell upon her spirit. Aranya said, “If you cast your mind back to your eggling-dreams, Tazithiel, you’ll probably remember that moment. I was never certain about the number of eggs in my clutch. Dragonesses lay three eggs in a clutch, you see. A double-clutch is highly unusual. Seven? Unheard-of … yet it must have been.”