The Onyx Dragon (6 page)

They chatted on as they passed through a layer of cool, wispy cloud and rose slowly into the luminous suns-shine above, which reflected off the underlying layer of pristine white cumulus with blinding intensity. Between the patches of cloud, Pip from her Dragon’s-eye perch could look over the rugged mountain tessellations of Jeradia laid out like a stark warning to the unwary traveller, great bands of basalt and granite interspersed with unexpected hints of rose quartz and even glints of bronze and copper deposits. To the North, a second layer of cloud lay perhaps a league and a half beneath their altitude, the impassable, apparently impermeable Cloudlands. One could almost imagine walking out over that deathly tan carpet; no need to remind any Human or Dragon of the dangers essayed every time one chose to travel beyond an Island’s shores.

An hour’s flying caught them up to the Dragonwing, for the others had not chosen to wait for the tardy couple–or, Pip suspected, Silver had dawdled just a touch in order to spend time in private with her.

Shimmerith greeted them with, “School’s in session, class. Gather around.”

“School in the air?” Maylin groaned. “Pip, you put her up to this, didn’t you?”

“No, I did,” said Master Kassik, in his Dragon form a hulking Brown who looked capable of boring through mountains if the mood took him. “We’ll not waste a single hour aloft. Shimmerith will teach magical offensive and defensive techniques, Emblazon and Oyda are in charge of battle tactics, I will lecture you on Dragon lore until it oozes out of your respective ears and ear canals, and Master Balthion will cover the arts and cultures of the Crescent Isles.”

“What about me?” asked Nak, managing to sound affronted.

With great dignity, Kassik said, “You, noble Dragon Rider, are in charge of entertainment.”

O
N ITS NoRTH-EASTERN
tip, Jeradia Island carved away into the Cloudlands with a final, defiantly jutting headland that seemed to indicate the way to the Spine. Sultry black granite and obsidian cliffs three miles tall dwarfed the Dragonwing as, following an hour’s rest on the ground, the Dragons hurled themselves bodily into the void. Pip and Maylin whooped for joy as their Dragons raced neck-and-neck in a mile-and-a-half vertical plunge before swerving away into a horizontal sprint that whipped a warm breeze through Pip’s unruly curls, and turned Maylin’s long, glossy hair into a raven’s wing behind her head. Not far behind, they heard Arosia’s unrestrained laughter bubbling away as Chymasion pulled out of his dive, followed by a duet of wild yells from Kaiatha and Durithion. A characteristic bugle trumpeted from Tazzaral’s throat, resounding off the cliffs. A quarter-mile overhead, Kassik, Emblazon and Shimmerith forged stolidly into a brisk headwind, leaving the shenanigans and foolery to the juvenile Dragons.

“This is how to cut class,” Maylin yelled across to Pip.

“Don’t tell Emblazon. His idea of teaching fledglings aerial combat prowess is to shoot fireballs at their rumps.”

Silver put in, “Some people do rather beg for it.”

“Thanks for the support, boyfriend.” Silver had positively awoken since his thrashing at her paws, not half as serious a character as she had judged him to be. Pip said, “I wonder if the Spine continues under the Cloudlands all the way to Jeradia? Maylin?”

Maylin pretended to clap her hand to her forehead in realisation. “I knew we shouldn’t have left Yaethi behind. She’d have consulted a centuries-old scroll of secret Dragon lore inked by the Ancient Dragon scientists in order to memorise the precise measurements of every possible landmass within a thousand leagues. In lieu of which–”

Silver said, “We look for disturbances in the Cloudlands. Clouds swirling about a half-hidden peak down there could be a clue, or smoke and outgassing from volcanic vents, or at night, a shallow, active volcano may backlight the clouds from beneath. In Herimor, it is common for Islands to float due to the action of
hentioragions
–that is, a large family of swarming Dragon species which infest the underside of Islands in their millions and builds nests from skin-covered, helium-filled nodules. We call them Bloats.”

Unexpectedly, Emmaraz performed an aerial half-bow. “Thank you for the instruction,
Master
Silver.”

Pip, Maylin and Emmaraz burst out laughing.

“Ah, but I have barely begun to disseminate the all-conquering vastness of my wisdom,” said Silver, suddenly changing his wingbeat so that he imitated a fowl strutting through a village, “for the
ragions
are a vast class of sub-draconic creatures notable for their extraordinarily effectual gas-producing physiologies, some specimens of which float lazily through the air like your Dragonships, while others literally employ gas propulsion using rearward-facing, sphincter-controlled orifices–a novel use of bodily functions. And trust me, you don’t want to fly downwind from one of those, either.”

“Stop, have mercy,” hooted Maylin, clutching her stomach. “Whatever you do, please don’t tell that story to Nak. We’ll never hear the end of flatulent Dragons.”

To the tune of Silver protesting the accuracy of his teachings and Maylin pulling his wings until the young Dragon howled with mirth and rage, the students and their young Dragons swept across the khaki-tinged Cloudlands, rising to a flying altitude of two and a half miles above that deathly realm, which the balladeers called ‘the blight of the Island-World’. No-one, not even the Dragons, knew why the base of their world was covered in an everlasting, impenetrable layer of gases, but everyone knew a terrible end awaited anyone or anything that fell into the Cloudlands. Their acidic wash afflicted even the lowest-lying, hardiest lichens. Only Land Dragons dwelled in those toxic depths, Pip believed, able to survive the immense pressures and heat, and the poisons of their native demesne.

In her heart, she cried,
Leandrial, how will we defeat this enemy? How will we return the First Egg to you?

Nothing stirred. The Cloudlands brooded in immovable majesty. Life clung to the paltry rocks peeking above that vast, rolling cloudscape, a precarious perch between the billows below and the rain-bringing, life-giving clouds above. Why had the Ancient Dragons chosen to carve their Island roosts out of such a forbidding landscape? Simply because this was where they had arrived? Was the whole Island-World like this, or did the rumour of a world beyond the Rim-Wall Mountains convey the nub of an inexpressible truth?

Pip turned in her seat to gaze back at Jeradia. A farewell. A bastion of life, of her brief history, already slipping away into the horizon. All that mattered out here was the will to keep flying across an unconquerable domain, the strength and magic of a Dragon, and the spread of great, multi-jointed wings upon the warm, redolent breeze.

She said, “Silver, is Dragon flight all about the physics and mechanics involved, or is there a certain amount of innate magic a Dragon must employ in order to stay aloft?”

“I would not presume to steal Shimmerith’s thunder,” he said, “but the answer is, ‘of course’. Look at the size of a Kassik or an Endurion. Do you truly believe all that tonnage can stay aloft for hours on end without the use of magic, or manoeuvre in combat situations with such speed and facility that one simply must conclude the existence of magical compensation for the forces of momentum and gravity?”

“I … don’t know, Silver.”

“Well, then I’d better return you to teacher, hadn’t I?”

For that, he earned a kick of pure frustration.

* * * *

When Emblazon chose to vent his fury, he could be heard from a quarter-league away. Right now, he was delivering his considered opinion to Chymasion Dragon-style, which meant both barrels of his nostrils smoking and flaming, a thundering telling-off and a bristling display of aggression. The hatchling wobbled in the air.

Pip winced, losing concentration as her part of the pneumatic shield she had formed with Silver failed. Her Dragon grunted and released his construct. The pneumatic shield was basic to many more specialised forms of magical shielding–aerodynamically optimised shields to aid Dragon flight, oxygen and heat retention for high-altitude flight, or equally, gas exclusion to counteract rare Grey Dragon poison gas attacks, and the all-important projectile weapon shield for combat. A powerful Blue could even form a shield capable of resisting Dragon talons and fire. Somehow, Pip had assumed shields would be simple. Innate magic, perhaps, or instinctive to all Dragons. Now she had a blinding headache and it was barely mid-afternoon. And she knew the topic of shields for an art-form in its own right.

Nak said, “Let me guess. Chymasion said he was rested enough, fine to fly all the way to the Spine Islands. See the droop of his wings? He’s ready to drop out of the sky and we’re still four hours from land.”

“He’s just a hatchling,” said Kaiatha, nibbling the end of her braid.

“Shimmerith. Silver. With me,” said Kassik, banking sharply. “Durithion–keep leading your Dragonwing Northeast.”

“Uh, me? Sir?”

“You’re in command, Dragon Rider,” the Master replied with the blunt lack of humour of a professional soldier.

Pip chuckled at the way Duri jerked upright in his saddle, as if he had sat on one of the barrel-cacti that dotted Jeradia’s dry, mountainous upland deserts.

The Brown Dragon’s gaze flicked to her.
Cork it, Pipsqueak.
But his mental tone belied the talon-sharp words, communicating bright notes of fond amusement.
Today is all about lessons. Shimmerith, can you touch Pip? She appears to be running a slight fever.

I am?

Some Dragons see in the infrared spectrum,
Shimmerith explained, winging closer as she reaching out with her right forepaw.
Remind me to add Dragon sight to my lessons, Nak.
He saluted nonchalantly, intent on the confrontation between Chymasion and Emblazon.
Here, Pip. Hold steady, young Silver. I must touch her with my paw. Actually, little one, attend very closely. I believe you may possess this healing power.

Er, her or me?
asked Silver.

The one presently forgetting to flap his wings.

They bounced in the air as Silver resumed his wingbeat with a distinctly sheepish air. Pip almost expected him to bleat rather than breathe fire, but she hid that thought far from her hot-blooded boyfriend’s awareness. Shimmerith first synchronised wing-strokes with Silver, then descended to touch Pip carefully with her fore-talon. Pip almost ducked. One wrong move and the Sapphire Dragoness could swipe her head off her shoulders like a Pygmy harvesting breadfruit gourds for breakfast. Her headache evaporated.

Did you sense that?
Shimmerith said.

Ay. That was interesting,
Silver replied.

Pip waved her good arm crossly. “Hello? Another person is present.”

What would you call that type of sight, mighty Shimmerith?

Now Silver was being awfully formal. The girl stilled her surging irritation, coughing a little as a smoky tickle teased her throat. Really? Did this mean her Dragon powers were returning? Shimmerith had drifted off to a position a wing’s-length from Silver’s starboard flank, from which the Sapphire Dragoness gazed at the pair of Shapeshifters with a typically inscrutable draconic expression.

Ay, a pair of Shapeshifters–my thoughts exactly, Pip.
Silver drew a deep breath.
For a moment, with the benefit of Shimmerith’s unique inner sight, the sixth sense of Dragons, I saw your Onyx Dragoness form somehow … coalescing, or emerging … as though her perception conveyed a power which summoned your second-soul from the far realms, and upon examining you more closely, I perceived that your Shifted form was also wounded, as if its spirit were injured in an exact mirror image of your physical, Human flesh. I do not understand. Why is this, Shimmerith?

The Dragoness said,
Who’s the Shapeshifter, youngling? You? Or both of you?

She wriggled with evident pleasure at her joke.

Silver also squirmed as his mental processes clearly kicked off in a number of directions. Pip could almost see figurative smoke pouring out of his ear canals. He said,
Because the poison was multiphasic. I’m right, aren’t I, o Sapphire of all wisdom?

Sapphire of wisdom? Somehow, with the benefit of the Dragonish language’s elaborately constructed, multi-layered semantic contextual indicators, the thought made sense, although it shivered Pip’s brain to think this way. Still, she did not grasp the insight he had evidently achieved. Not in the slightest.

Can we uncomplicate the Island Standard enough for a simple jungle girl to understand?
she complained.
Multiphasic? Second-soul?

Silver chuckled,
You’ll have to introduce me to this simple jungle girl, Pip, because I haven’t met her yet.

Grr!

Pip, my precious fourth eggling,
Shimmerith said, pouring motherly egg-love into her words,
all Shapeshifters, from the time of Hualiama Dragonfriend onward, have believed in the doctrine of ‘one soul, two manifestations’–the two interchangeable manifestations of the Shapeshifter’s form are coexistent, but appear to shift between the physical, spiritual and magical realms in ways no Dragon science has ever fully explained. The place where your Dragoness lives while your Human form appears to us, fully corporeal–fully enfleshed, so to speak–is called by some ‘the far realms’. This is esoteric speculation, of course, the province of Shapeshifter philosophers. But the proof of oneness lies in what Silver just described–when one form is wounded, so is the other. The two are intimately connected. And what do you conclude from this, youngling?

Silver blinked, ambushed by her abrupt switch of direction.
That to treat a Shapeshifter wounded in this way, one must treat both manifestations?

Very good, Silver.

What’s the ‘multiphasic’ bit, then?
Pip asked.

She did not need to see Silver’s muzzle to know his smirk for what it was.
Work it out, little one.

Grr! The Dragons laughed, even Master Kassik, who must have been eavesdropping. Pip abandoned her growling, feeling her face heat up to a fine glow of embarrassment. Why did she always have to end up at the bottom of the hierarchy, the littlest one? She was worth more!

You are worth more, Pip. Infinitely more.
Her head jerked; Kassik gazed upon her with such a surfeit of burning pride, any possible protest dried up in her throat.
When your feelings are so powerful, they broadcast to those with ears to listen. Now hear me. This ‘littleness’ which feeds your fears and constrains your thinking is a lie. A filthy, stinking, burn it in the nearest volcano, LIE!

Every Dragon’s head jerked about as his telepathic shout blasted across her.

Kassik gentled his voice into fatherly gruffness.
Lies of the heart are the most powerful lies of all. The mind analyses, rationalises, discards. The heart is truly a Dragon of a different colour, Pip, and I say that true greatness is not hewn from deeds of paw and feats of strength. True greatness is founded in the exploits of a pure and noble heart. You saw Emblazon brought low after he betrayed us at Ya’arriol Island, yet it was not your strength of paw that restored him to his true-fires. It was a deed of great heart.