Dragonfriend (16 page)

Master Ja’alkon’s rubicund face broke into a smirk.

“After all,” said Yiiba, “who else has ever broken into our monastery, let alone the Chamber of Dragons?”

Ouch, double-wince as the Master of Secrets did what he did best, slipping in the unseen, unanticipated dagger. Maybe living in a cave was not so bad after all. Maybe she could beg Amaryllion to pop over the gap and swallow this ridiculous house of macho egotism and … she’d say, ‘Well, who’s laughing now? I’ve been hiding an Ancient Dragon in my pocket.’

Hualiama smiled involuntarily.

Gritting his teeth, Master Jo’el hissed, “Hualiama, what exactly do you find so funny? Do you think we’ve taken you in for any reason save duty to our King?”

She, and many others in the arena, gasped, Ja’al loudest of all.

No place in the Island-World had ever felt lonelier than the centre of that training arena. Lia knew it as a roaring in her ears, a melting of self into the storm. The Master’s words speared her soul. She had believed in this man; entrusted her life into his hands. Now the truth emerged. Hualiama was a burden. A duty. Master Jo’el had never wanted a royal ward in his monastery, nor had he viewed her bid to learn weapons-craft as more than a frivolous waste of time. Lia burned. A shaking began in her toes and worked up her body, wracking her with pain as violent and consuming as the fire the Orange Dragon had breathed into her cave.

What she had fought for was as the dust beneath her feet. She knew that his eyes measured Hualiama, and found her wanting.

In flat, definitive tones Master Jo’el said, “While you’re stood on that sand giggling like a parakeet, Princess, Ra’aba is out there, abusing and maltreating your people–”

The tearing of cloth arrested his speech.

Lia ripped the buttons off her shirt, sobbing as she fought her way free of the material. She whirled abruptly, facing away from the Masters, screaming into the mortified silence, “Look! See the gift Ra’aba left me!”

The use of two mirrors in her small chamber in the apprentice halls, had allowed Hualiama to examine her back. The scar ran jagged, angrily red, from behind her right shoulder blade to her left hip-bone. Despite Flicker’s best work, it was unsightly–only marginally more hideous than the wound the Master had just dealt her.

She turned, pointing just above her belt. “And before he threw me off the Dragonship, he stabbed me, here.” The dagger’s entry-points were puckered, two-inch scars in the indentation between her abdominals. The blades had exited right next to her spine, practically shaving the nerves which would have left her paralysed.

Unseeing, swaying as the memory cast a soul-shadow within her, she cried, “I tried to kill him. At the last, as he pushed me against the railing, I pierced him in the throat … but Ra’aba was too strong. He’s still alive and I failed. I failed all of Fra’anior.”

Clarity pierced her awareness. Despair coiled python-like about her throat, choking the living pith out of her. Ra’aba’s life had been hers to claim, if only for the briefest moment. Had her hand only been surer in the strike, had she flung the sword but an inch higher … her eyes blurred. Pain burned her scarred back as though the wound were bathed in Dragon fire.

Silence smothered the arena.

Only the abrasion of breath against her raw throat told Lia she was alive.

She rasped, “I need you to teach me, Master Jo’el. But, more than that, I need you to
believe
in me. I don’t have the strength. I can’t do this alone.”

Lia sank to her knees. An uncontrollable juddering shook her body as Master Joel’s words hammered her once more. Brutalising. Ruling with a Dragon’s iron paw. She had seen it in Ra’aba’s eyes. Not just casual contempt for another life. No, he had taken pleasure in dealing her that cut. She shuddered at the memory of his perverse delight as he drove the dagger deep; the hatred as he twisted the blade, soul-destroying. Lia had known Ra’aba since her girlhood. What drove him to wrest the kingdom from her father? To attempt her murder? What despicable passions had he concealed behind a dutiful nod, or a half-smile as he watched a child dancing for her parents?

She felt dirty. Lia desperately wanted to vomit out the memory of him, to purge Ra’aba from her body and from her mind.

Feet entered the periphery of her vision. Master Joel gathered her shaking hands in his own. “No, Lia,” he said, quietly. “It is we who have failed you.”

“Nay, Master I …”

“Aye. In your suffering, I sense the fires of the Great Dragon himself. We have not seen you for who you truly are. We must pledge ourselves to do more. Need we move the Islands to find a way, we shall.”

He meant this? Through veils of blurry tears, Lia saw a raw, fatherly vulnerability writ on the tall monk’s face–an expression she would have given the Island-World to have seen, just once, from King Chalcion.

Master Jo’el said, “Your probation is over, Hualiama. For the first time in our history, we followers of the Path of the Dragon Warrior accept a female student as Apprentice.”

A dignified ripple of applause travelled around the arena, broken by Lia’s shriek of delight.

* * * *

Flicker attended the soft sigh of Hualiama’s breathing. Behind her shuttered eyelids, her eyes darted about as though running for their lives. Where did she go in her shell-dreams? Even the smallest hatchling did not dream as she did. “Let’s fly together,” she mumbled, and rolled over. “Uh … fire, not the fire …”

If ever a person yearned to shed her skin and don Dragon-hide, it was his straw-head. Even Amaryllion’s two-thousand-year reserves of patience had cracked slightly at her obsession with all things Dragon. Lia. Flicker’s eyes streamed with inner fire as he regarded the Human girl. If he had a shred of Dragon sense, then he knew that this one was destined for great deeds–despite the fact that she was woefully Human, and not even as capable as a dragonet. Poor creature. This process they called training was really just an excuse to thrash young Humans until they displayed some strength. Why would their elders do this? Flying training was best done with love, not by beating hatchlings with sticks. Worse, their declarations that they actually enjoyed it!

When the tall one who resembled a reed had shouted at her, Flicker had been on the cusp of attacking them when Lia exploded like a proper Dragoness and displayed her scars for all the bald, tattooed men, and they had suddenly made friends and there was a cheering ceremony that made his scales itch. There was no understanding the madness of these Humans.

Could it be some kind of disease? Hopefully, nothing infectious.

Flicker scratched his chin. Would he develop fungus, too, if he kept learning from these Humans? No dragonet would take him for a mate if he had facial fungus! And as for these Human males who chose not to take mates, how insane was that? Surely, they all saw how perfect his Lia was? Indeed, she had created endless waves among them, like smoke billowing into a wasps’ nest.

Now, his sensitive ears detected a noise in the corridor outside her room. Here came the younger, less fungus-faced ones. Ha. More moons-madness. Fascinating.

The door creaked open. Eight young monks filed into the room, their eyes gleaming in the semidarkness as they surrounded their intended victim, fast asleep on her pallet. The one called Ja’al, who Lia liked to show her teeth to, motioned him to move aside.

“Don’t you dare hurt her,” Flicker growled, baring his fangs.

“We won’t.”

One of the others counted silently on his fingers,
One, two … three.

Flicking the thin covering off the sleeping girl, the apprentices pounced. A strong hand muffled her shrieks as they hastily bundled Lia into a sack. She kicked and thrashed, trying to bite the hand that muffled her cries. Flicker almost assailed them. She was terrified! Lia managed to elbow one of them in the jaw, but the young man only laughed, and with at least six bodies holding her down, Lia had no chance.

“Shut the trap,” hissed Ja’al, tying the sack shut. “This is a friendly kidnapping.”

The sack shifted. A muffled voice emerged, “Uh, Ja’al? Is that you?”

“No, it’s a Dragon. What do you think?”

Three of them grabbed the rough canvas sack and lifted Hualiama off the bed.

Flicker?
Her voice sounded in his mind.
Where’s my brave protector?

Laughing in the corner,
he said.

You! I’m going to … I’ll peel you like a fruit!

Chuckling wickedly, the monks trotted up the corridor with their captive, who sounded rather underwhelmed by the experience. Flicker flitted sentinel-like behind them.

“Where’s Master Ja’alkon?”

“Snoring,” said Ja’al, with a wicked chortle. “Terraba-juice in your drink will do that.”

“Good. Hurry. Where are the others?”

“Already outside.”

With the excitement of a troop of dragonet hatchlings attending their first communal singing, the apprentices filed out of the main temple building into the cool pre-dawn gloom. They jogged along a path Flicker had noticed previously, which led to an outcropping above the crater lake which the dragonets favoured for teaching fledglings how to fly. Flicker narrowed his eyelids to an anxious crack, unsure how Lia would respond to this after her experience of being thrown off a Dragonship. They handled the sack with due care on the climb, however, soon appearing on the ledge two hundred feet above the water.

As her tousled head emerged from the canvas, Lia spluttered, “I’m not sure I appreciate–”

“The new apprentice will remain silent,” said Ja’al. His sapphire-blue eyes sparked noticeably. Flicker chirped animatedly to himself. A Human who had magic? Fascinating. “In a moment, you will demonstrate the high jump for us. Usually the apprentice is stripped for their maiden flight, but given your special situation, we have prepared a modest outfit for the occasion. Put this on.”

Lia took the garment in hand. It took her a few moments to figure out their plan. She scowled, “It’s a monkey suit.”

Ja’al said, “Oh, is it?”

One of the others, a thickset young man called Ya’orra, chuckled, “As you are such a fine dancer, Lia, we felt you might brighten our morning with a monkey dance, first.”

A treacherous snort of fire escaped Flicker’s muzzle.

Lia glared at him. “In my future kingdom, dragonet, you will be summarily demoted from royal companion to royal door-stopper. Do we understand each other?”

“Oh, not at all,” said Ja’al. The monk bowed to Flicker. “We do not insult the noble beasts of the air, Hualiama. Flicker, you have my permission to dream up a suitable punishment.”

The dragonet stretched lazily. “I like this Human tradition called hazing.”

* * * *

Dancing in a monkey suit was not so bad, until Hualiama discovered the itchy-powder the crafty apprentices had placed inside. This made her scratching rather too authentic. Lia begged to be allowed to jump, but her classmates forced her to keep capering and aping monkey noises for a further twenty minutes before allowing her the ‘privilege’ of jumping.

Great Islands, the water looked as though it was a mile away. Cold sweat beaded Lia’s neck. She had to do this, but her feet seemed to have put down roots.

“Need a friendly push?” Ja’al asked.

Lia knew that her stricken look gave far too much away.

“Look, Lia, we’re out to have fun. Still, given your story, there’s not one of us who’d force you to jump.”

“This is the tradition, isn’t it?” she asked, trying to decide if the wobbling of her heart was due to the height, or to his gentle understanding. He
saw
her. All the jewels of royal Fra’anior could not buy such a precious commodity.

“Aye.”

She cleared her throat hurriedly. “Any other advice?”

“Keep your body straight and don’t hit the water side-on, or you’ll be wearing the bruises for the next month.”

The Human mind was capable of peculiar forms of lunacy, Lia decided, and one of those was leaping off a rock into space. Nothing to it, except the sensation of her stomach flying up into her throat, chills running up and down her spine, the wind roaring endlessly in her ears as she fell–take a breath, idiot!
Smack!
She fell deep into a world of blue, her soles stinging, heart pounding, bubbles effervescing all around her body as she kicked for the faraway, silvery-gleaming surface.

She whooped as she broke into the air.

“Clear the way!” hollered Ja’al, making shooing motions with his hands.

Hualiama struggled through the water, weighed down by the monkey suit.

Shouting, “This one for the Dragon!” the monks came pouring off the rock high above her, a shower of young monks in blue robes fluttering through the air.

To Lia’s shock, Ja’al caught himself just above the surface. Levitation? Grinning at her disbelief, he shucked his robe to reveal a set of abdominals which could easily have doubled as paving stones, tossed the garment to the water’s edge, and then gracefully upended as he ‘dived’ into the cool volcanic lake. Lia wanted to hit somebody or something. Why could she not enjoy
that
power? And what madness had bitten the serious young monk? Now he was the leader of all the mischief-making? She certainly preferred this Ja’al to the unsmiling one.

Later, at lunch, Hualiama’s task was to wait on the Masters at their table, serving them fresh berry juices and wines, a selection of freshly baked breads, and spicy baked trout from the lake.

Ja’al whispered in her ear.

“No … no!” stammered Lia, turning a hot shade of pink. “I couldn’t.”

“It’s his birthday.”

“I am not singing–”

“Well, we learned the Dragons’ Praise birthday song, didn’t we?”

Lia pinched his arm. “Have I told you how little I like you?”

“Not more than ten times since this morning.” Ja’al drew a hand-harp from behind his back. “Oh, look, I just happen to have an instrument with me. Shall I play for you, or would you prefer to accompany yourself?”

“I’d prefer to bite you.” Her treacherous mind served up an image of Ja’al just before he dived into the lake. Perhaps something other than a bite was in order …

Ja’al strummed an overly dramatic set of chords upon his harp, quieting the dining hall. “Masters, tutors and apprentices,” he called. “Today is Master Jo’el’s birthday. We apprentices have arranged a special surprise. Hualiama will sing the Dragons’ Praise for our noble Master Jo’el, may the sulphurous fires of the Great Dragon himself ever burn within him.”