Dragon Thief (39 page)

Now Tazithiel joined them, unspeaking, for Kal realised mother and daughter had already said their farewells. For the longest time, four sets of arms held on, desperate to deny what must be. Some might think them a mismatched family, Kal knew. Some must hate such powers. He did not know how Aranya could choose this moment to depart, but perhaps even she must at last bow to the dictates of destiny.

The Star Dragoness’ mantle would pass to Tazithiel, the egg for whom Aranya had tarried over a hundred years.

“I will always be with you,” Aranya repeated, her voice choked, yet strangely exultant. “Now, I must join those who shone before me. I must go home.”

She slipped away from her family as white-fires flared in her limbs. The exquisite Fra’aniorian gown she wore burst into flame, but the Queen was beyond withholding her fires now. She transformed. An Amethyst Dragoness loomed before them, her eyes ablaze with starlight, her body growing whiter and fierier by the moment.

“May I request company on my final flight?” she rumbled.

Tazithiel bowed. “Of course, mother.”

“Aranya, please!” Riika cried.

Even as her inmost fires roared, lambent, Aranya still spared concern for the half-Pygmy girl. She said, “It has been the highest honour, Rider Riika. Will you not burn the heavens with me? And know that I will always smile upon you from above?”

They rose on dawn’s wings, upon the radiant fires that each day beamed life upon the Island-World, and winged toward the dazzling eastward-facing cliffs of golden black, from which a waterfall touching twenty-one miles high poured rainbow-hued streamers of salt water down into the Cloudlands.

A league from the incandescent cliffs, Aranya said, “Know that my heart is filled with love’s fires for each of you. Until the stars sing, my friends, will you sing for me?”

Kal, Riika and Tazithiel gulped.

For a second Aranya of Immadia hovered in place, a White Dragoness with just a hint left now of her famous gemstone scales, the greatest Dragoness of her age. Then, starlight flared, nigh blinding the threesome. A streak of white fire arrowed toward the centre of the gap in the black cliff, three leagues above the Cloudlands.

Tazithiel sang of the first starlight that pierced the darkness, singing with clarion sweetness in a variant of Dragonish language Kal did not recognise, for its words were droplets of star fire and its notes a glissade of starlight dappling upon still lakes, incendiary and thrilling, ethereal and devoted. After a moment, song rose in Kal’s breast. He added sonorous notes of grief to shade and provide depth to the Indigo Dragoness’ song. Riika joined them a heartbeat later, singing in Ancient Southern, words and bird-trills and clicks that imbued their song with the gladness of green and living things, the teeming life of the Crescent Isles jungles of her first home.

Whiteness plunged into the waterfall. Vanished? Kal held his breath. No. Suddenly, the waterfall was ablaze, lit from within by intense, radiant beams of white-fire.

Quietly, mind to mind, Kal asked,
What’s she doing?

Tazithiel said,
The Dragoness of yore outshines the very suns!

Aye. For the longest time, Aranya has been mother to our Island-World. Keeping it for the next generation. Sacrificing all, especially her own life. She loved like no other before her.

She loves still,
said the Dragoness.
Watch …

Above!
Riika cried.

Kal startled. His daughter had just spoken Dragonish? Riika, standing between the spine spikes just ahead of him on Tazithiel’s back, seemed transfixed by the light streaming through the waterfall. Mesmerising, aye. But Kal himself stood up now, staring, for expectation stroked his spine with a rajal’s paw of wonder, at once delicate and terrifying.

NOW!
Magic erupted. It punched the breath out of Kal. He thought he saw a single, luminous beam of white strike Riika’s countenance.

Aranya had spoken?

The cliffs began to draw apart, northward and southward. Faster and faster. The waterfall’s roar swelled, becoming deafening, growing greater and greater in flow and volume until the mind failed to grasp the sheer scale of the spectacle. Thunder shook the Rim-Wall Mountains. Water erupted from the gap, spraying leagues wide and deep, falling from a height of miles overhead, but this was no rain.

Shield!
Kal bellowed.

A lake dropped upon their heads. An ocean, blinding, relentlessly pummelling the Dragoness and her Riders. He triggered his Shadow power, but Tazithiel cried,
Riika! Oh Kal, she’s gone!

Gone? Swept away. How had they failed to keep her within their shield?

Thoughts arrowed between Dragon and Rider. Down. Dive to seek Riika. They plummeted into a screaming drop, tumbling with the water, searching with every sense alive. The din made shouting useless so they called out in telepathic Dragonish, finding it almost impossible to hear even their own thoughts. The world was water, cool and salty, a Cloudlands-bound torrent, and Kal knew what they wanted would feel like a boulder within that flow, a hardness of Human substance, so he flung out his Shadow power without stinting, chopping great swathes through the deluge.

There! Saw something …
Tazithiel lurched.

Vanished again. A voice screaming above the thunder. Did he imagine something fey, screaming words which made no sense? The touch of a terrified mind?

Faster, Tazi–down! Use all your strength! No ….

She sobbed,
I can’t fight this, Kal. It’s too powerful.

Why the hells do you have to fight everything, Dragoness?
In his excitement and terror, Kal’s words were a barely-coherent howl.
Flow. Swim in the stream. This is nothing but thick air.

Kal meant to thump sense into the frightened Dragoness, but through their bond, he detected the exact moment when his words translated into the spark that fired her belly-furnaces, stabilising her wings and reigniting her strength. Tazithiel swam like a fish. Vertically, downward. Incredulous mirth spilled from her lips. Now the secondary nictitating membranes swept her eyes clear, and her voice firmed.

Do that Shadow-sweep again, my Rider-heart. Open this little puddle for us.

Her fire spurred him to greater effort than ever before. Shadow power surged from Kal with torrential force, blowing through the magic-tinged waters in an explosion of his own making.

Yes! There she is!

That’s not my Riika,
Kal blurted.
That’s … that’s a …

Water descended again as his power stuttered. Before the Indigo Dragoness could do more than begin a furious scream, Kal hurled himself outward again.

Tazithiel swept across the flood, stretching out, missing her grab as the flood pounded her tail downward, but nothing in the Island-World could have prevented Kal from taking his chance. For the second time in two days, Riika bowled him over. Kinetic power snatched them onto Tazi’s upper left flank.

Kal gripped his daughter as though her life depended on it, and his too. Pain slashed his side.

Great Islands, Razorblades!
he yelled.
Pack the razorblades away!

Dad?

Aye, you gorgeous–

What happened, Dad? Why am I–

Dragoness. You’re a beautiful Dragoness.

G
OLDEN SCALES, TRIMMED
with obsidian flares and borders. Kal held a Dragon hatchling, gaping at her with such a surge of wonder and pride that his heart threatened to explode. Her colour was impossible–a rich molten gold was the best he could describe it, with flashes of pure black edging each perfect scale, and the same black tracing the details of her talons, wing primaries and struts, her teeny skull spikes and ear canals. A Gold Dragoness. Riika in her Dragon manifestation measured ten feet long from muzzle-tip to tail, and was already heavier than an adult man. Her physique was compact, iron-hard muscle beneath surprisingly supple Dragon hide. And her eye-fires! Golden fire, a colour not one of the Academy Dragons had ever boasted.

Riika cleared her throat with an involuntary burp of fire.
Dad?

Aye, daughter?

Stop staring. It’s embarrassing.

Kal roared with delight. Pure Riika. Enough snarkiness to sink a Dragonship.
You haven’t seen yourself, have you? Take a look at your paws.

Of course I have … uh, paws? Alright, this is bizarre.

Rule number one of Dragonhood,
said Kal.
Even when you can fly rings around me, you still have to obey your father or I will paddle your backside.

Tazithiel, peering over her shoulder with eyes never more a-whirl with excitement, said,
Rule number two. Big Dragons swat cheeky little Dragons. Now sit tight, you two. We’ve an escape to pull off.

Riika tried to pout, but discovered that pouting over fangs was not straightforward. She settled for a cute little growl, which evidently did not impress the growler either.
Fine. Are you two going to act like overprotective mother ducks, or what?

Or what,
said Kal, at exactly the same instant as Tazi snarled,
Call me a duck? You just earned your first smack, hatchling.

As the deluge continued to drench their shield, hammering Kal, Tazithiel and Riika steadily Cloudlands-ward, Kal settled into his saddle and drew the Dragoness onto his lap. He would not be able to hold her thus for long, he reminded himself, for baby Dragons grew at a ferocious rate. He worked with the Indigo Dragoness to re-establish their shield, shaping it to better defeat the pounding waters.

Spitting fire between her fangs with the effort, Tazithiel upended herself and strained against the flow.

Riika stared at her tail. Kal would have stared too. Imagine having a tail?
Dad, what am I? Dragons don’t come covered in gold, do they?

Tazithiel growled,
I’ve never seen or heard of a colour like yours. But you’re definitely a Dragoness. Everything about your form and magic, your command of Dragonish and the tenor of your fires proclaims this: you are Dragonkind.

A Shapeshifter, like you?

Aye, little one.

Kal said,
As Aranya predicted, Tazi, she’s a unique Dragon-beauty. Riika, you’re a new kind of Dragoness for a new world, and I for one cannot wait to discover what Dragon powers you will command. Now come, Indigo-eyes. Let’s shake a wing for your mother’s home-leaving.

Gently, Kal augmented his Dragoness’ flight with his rare power. They sliced through the falling water as a Dragon’s talon slicing through fresh ralti meat, striving to return to the suns-shine.

* * * *

One second, water roared and frothed against their shield. The next, the Indigo Dragoness shot into the crystal-clear early morning, and the trio found themselves rising above a waterfall of inconceivable extent and volume. Kal stared over what had been a vast lake hidden behind a pair of doors at least twenty miles tall and perhaps ten miles thick; still the cliff-doors withdrew, widening the waterfall and deepening its voice. He clearly saw a deep blue sky through the Rim-Wall. The subterranean waters gleamed with the radiance of a starry being hovering beneath an immense archway of stone, midway between the old world and the new.

Fra’anior’s Way stood open.

Solemnly, the star bowed, as if inviting Kal, Riika and Tazithiel to explore the tunnel. He watched the waters slowly receding. There, at the limit of his vision, he saw another barrier slowly, evenly sliding downward, tracking the waters with a margin of a quarter-mile or so–protecting whatever lay beyond, he assumed, from the flood which thundered into the Cloudlands on this side.

A silvery voice chimed,
Today a Sun Dragoness is born, first of her kind. Welcome to the Island-World, Riika. The stars sing with you. She is born!

Rising, Riika genuflected gravely. Kal grabbed her tail to prevent her from pitching onto her nose.

Until we meet again, my beloved ones. Farewell.

Tazithiel and Kal bowed with the deepest respect.

Kal said,
Go burn the heavens, Star Dragoness.

Goodbye, mother.
Tazi began to drop her head, but a movement of that blazing point of light stopped her.

I will miss you in body, daughter. But my spirit will remain with you.

The light sped away beneath the Rim-Wall Mountains, making for the world beyond at a terrific, ever-increasing velocity. As she moved, Aranya lit the underside of the mountain with the brilliance of pure starlight. She whizzed into the open and then curved upward, vanishing from sight behind the peaks.

Kal sighed.
That’s it, then.

The Indigo Dragoness chuckled sadly.
Kal, when will you learn that with Dragons, it is never quite over? Be patient. Look up.

Less than a minute later, a dazzling star soared over the summit of the Rim-Wall, streaking toward the East with a long comet-trail of white, as though Aranya still wore one of her favourite Fra’aniorian lace gowns with their unfeasibly long trains. Kal’s head twizzled as she passed overhead. Great Islands, how fast was she flying? And it seemed to him, as Tazithiel turned so that they could follow Aranya’s flight without breaking their necks, that silvery laughter drifted down from the heavens like the warmest of rain, and that while there might be a shade of sorrow at her departure, what the Star Dragoness knew most of all was the overwhelming joy of a homecoming.

Eastward she soared, far beyond the farthest boundaries of the Island-World, angling for a star Kal saw twinkling just between the twin suns and the horizon, a blue star of particular clarity and brilliance.

The stars joined. Separated. They
danced
for joy
.

“What?” Kal breathed.

Tazithiel said, “That’s Hualiama. I believe her name means ‘blue-star’. Aranya is with her family at last.”

“But …” Kal wanted to say it was impossible. There were stars all dancing along the horizon, dark and light, white and blue … those were her family? Was the Shadow Dragon, his illustrious ancestor, up there too?

Suddenly, the stars appeared to wink as one. Instantly, threads of light speared back toward the watching trio, as thin and strong as spider-silk, haloing the two Dragonesses in cobalt and amethyst fire, respectively, and Kal in a third thread of shadow which had incongruously taken form and dark radiance, defying any physical laws he could imagine.

May the blessings of the Dragonkind blaze upon you and your kin all your days,
said a chorus of voices.

Fire flooded his soul, darkly resplendent.

Tazithiel glanced at him with a smile that said, ‘What did you expect when you joined a family of Dragons, Kal?’ He would gladly have slapped her, but for the tongues of amethyst fire eddying in her fire-eyes. Was this a passing on of the flame, according to the Dragon lore he knew?

He said, “Does this make you the reigning Queen of Immadia, Tazi?”

She coughed a fireball of shock.

Kal grinned broadly. Ah, he still had the touch.

The beams of light faded as quickly as they had shone. Beneath the twin suns Kal observed a new cluster of stars, brilliant enough to shine despite the full flood of daylight–that would have the Dragon astronomers scratching their scaly chins!

Tazithiel said, “I believe they’re waiting for us.”

“Waiting?” Kal echoed.

“You brainless Human,” growled Riika, and then clamped her jaw shut with a horrified squeak.
Did I just say that? Sorry, Dad. Uh … I meant to say, of course they’re waiting for us to fly through to the new world.

“I understand, Riika.” Kal patted her head fondly; he almost lost a finger for his trouble.

Riika spat a word he had definitely not taught her.

The Indigo Dragoness said,
Watch out for your Dragon feelings and reactions, youngling. Think upon your nickname. You’re sharper than a razor now, faster than a flitting dragonfly, and everything will feel as though it is driven by wildfires.

Too freaking right,
muttered Riika.

And if you’re going to knead my lap like a kitten, can you at least keep your talons sheathed?
Kal inquired.
I’d rather not juggle a basketful of knives in that exact spot.

I know how to hold a thief ransom,
Tazithiel suggested snidely.

Kal decided to field-test the Indigo Dragoness’ remarks. Without warning, he bellowed at the top of his lungs, “Westward, ho!”

Tazithiel jerked as though stung. Riika sprang fifty feet off Kal’s lap in a single bound, before discovering that hatchlings of her size needed to learn how to fly. The Indigo netted her with a burst of Kinetic power.

Seconds later, two Dragonesses blasted Kal with the full fury of their indignation.

Kal Shadowed, and laughed until his invisible sides ached.

* * * *

The outpouring of water continued unabated even though the level appeared to be dropping steadily. The Rim-Wall reservoir had been so mind-bendingly enormous that it took time to empty, while the flow created a roiling disturbance in the Cloudlands for leagues beyond the mountains. Kal wondered how long it would take for weather patterns to change. How many cubic leagues of water had already drenched the abyssal depths? Perhaps there were Land Dragons below, laughing and sporting in a new lake.

Tazithiel gathered herself and winged toward the gap in the mountain. Fra’anior’s Way was definitely large enough for an Ancient Dragon, Kal supposed, trying to measure what he saw with some modicum of objectivity. What he now recognised as doors rather than a cliff-face had drawn back to their full extent, opening a gap of easily one hundred leagues across, if not one hundred and fifty. The far boundaries were indistinct, hidden behind swirling veils of mist. Tazithiel had estimated the original crack as six leagues tall, not counting whatever portion might still be concealed beneath the Cloudlands. And the depth? The tunnel carved through the entire Rim-Wall, as far as the horizon. But the dark tunnel tantalised and deceived his mind. Several hundred leagues, he guessed, perhaps as many as four hundred, for the air was amazingly clear, not cluttered with smoke and volcanic ash as Fra’anior’s air was year-round.

As the Indigo Dragoness entered the mountain charily, Kal saw that more amazingly still, the water reservoir had been housed in a chamber several times taller than its outer doors. Somewhere up above, sheets of great radiant crystals hung like the finest chandeliers of a King’s ballroom, lighting parts of the cavern but leaving others in deep shadow. Several miles within, the waterfall’s great thundering began to grow muffled; Riika’s eyes glowed in the gloom, creating a fiery pool of light around her and Kal.

Nervously, the half-Pygmy Shapeshifter said, “Tazi, you spoke all night with Aranya. Did she give you a special task? Further vital information, not limited to, ‘You’re an ingot-sized excuse for a Dragon who will laze in the suns to gain unspecified but undeniably mighty suns-powers?’ ”

“You’ve also been picking verbal leaves out of Kal’s scrolleaf,” Tazithiel needled. “She did make one minor suggestion, namely, rolling back the Cloudlands to expose the world beneath and solving the riddle of its toxicity.”

“Oh, only that trifle?” sniped Kal. “Today, we dispatch a Star Dragoness to the skies and discover a new world. Tomorrow, we shall solve the ills of the old one. What shall we do next week, my pair of darling fire-hoses? Paint the Islands purple and cause it to rain monkeys from clear skies?”

“Someone’s not taking this very seriously.”

Kal growled, “Riika, someone chafes at being handed a few Islands’ worth of troubles. It’s unfair.”

Tazi began, “Now, Kal–”

“No, Tazi! Aranya lumps this on your shoulders and then soars off to her twinkling glory in the skies above? How is that fair or right? Tell me.”

“She did put it differently to what you seem to think, Kal.”

“Oh? She added an offhand ‘please’ at the end?”

The Dragoness said, “No, she called it the redemption of the Ancient Dragons’ original creation.”

Kal’s jaw popped open. “What?”

“And before you break out in a rash at my use of monkish language, the paramount task of Star Dragons in this Island-World is, literally, to keep or restore the Balance of the Harmonies. Aranya said that the Cloudlands were the greatest imbalance in this Island-World, and while I respect my dear departed shell-mother, I cannot help but wonder that if the most powerful Dragoness in history could not solve this trifle, as you term it, how in the hells she expects us to accomplish what she could not?”