The Shadow Dragon launched off the side of the toppling Tower.
Z
uziana OF REMOY
clutched her ride as best she could as the Shadow Dragon spread his mighty wings, trying to manage all of their weight at once. He accelerated into a long, steady swoop, aiming a growl at the shouting chaos on his back.
Can’t you sort out the mess up there, Zip?
Ardan said.
And put up a shield? And make room for Kylara? And stop clawing holes in my back with your teeny little talons?
Zip knew that the Shadow Dragon was grinning by the timbre of his mental voice.
Aye. Fly straight and I might manage.
Shall I mount up now?
Aranya asked.
On me,
said Ardan and Zip, simultaneously.
The Immadian laughed.
Sounds uncomfortable, you two. Zip, here. Let me help with Yolathion. Gently, now …
Together, they slid Yolathion into position across Jia-Llonya’s legs, face down. Aranya helped Jia belt herself to the spine-spike behind her, while Zip saw to Kylara and the strange doctor, setting them into position in front of and behind Jia, respectively.
Plopping herself down between Zip’s spine-spikes with a sigh of evident relief, Aranya said, “Will you do this Rider the honour, Zip?”
A soft bugle escaped Zip’s throat as she tilted her wings to catch the breeze. “Let’s burn the heavens together, as Dragon and Rider,” she cried, launching off the Shadow Dragon’s back.
Slowly, as if intending to sail into the sky, the Tower of Sylakia tilted in a westerly direction. The rumbling sound deepened as the slide gathered momentum, millions of tons of rock in inexorable motion. The Shadow Dragon angled northward, racing to take them beyond the probable path of its fall. The other Dragonwing, four Reds and a Green, scattered as they too saw the danger–all thoughts of pursuit tossed to the winds, necks outstretched and wings beating so hard they clapped together beneath the Dragons’ bodies. Craning her neck, Zip searched the Cloudlands near the Tower’s base, uncertain as to what she had seen, or felt … there!
“Great Islands, Aranya, did you see that?”
Her Rider said, bleakly, “No, Zip. What did you see?”
“Well, I saw–I thought I saw–the body of a Land Dragon down there. It was
huge,
like a green island broaching the clouds. You don’t think it pulled the Tower off the side of Sylakia, do you? Why would it do that?”
Zuziana was in such a state of high agitation, it took her a number of wingbeats to realise the oddity of Aranya’s question. Whatever mountain of a beast’s back she had just seen slipping beneath the Cloudlands, Zip knew it was unmissable from a height of two or three miles, even with a Human’s inferior sight. She had flown Dragonback often enough to know that for certain. But it was Aranya’s tone that truly troubled her.
However, the spectacle of the Tower toppling into the Cloudlands rendered her speechless; the demise of what should surely be immutable. For many minutes Zuziana simply paced Ardan, until it was obvious they were well clear of danger and the Tower vanished into the Cloudlands in a bizarre, irreverent silence. Surely they should hear it crash somewhere, she thought. Surely it deserved the recognition of a shattering impact, flinging plumes of rock and dust into the air, gouging a trench several miles long.
“Shame you neglected to tie Thoralian’s tail to the Tower,” said the Azure Dragoness, hearing herself force cheer into her voice. “Petal …”
“I’m alright,” said Aranya, but she averted her face. “Zip, have I told you how incredible you are? Burgling the Tower and all. I heard someone else did it first, but then an Azure Dragon did it with more style. When they write your legend, they’ll be telling how you flung it into the abyss with a titanic firebolt loosed from the twin suns themselves.”
Zip sighed. “Petal, what’s the matter with your eyes?”
Her Rider raised her chin in a haughty gesture that was old-Aranya, but Zuziana knew her too well to be fooled. Her gaze was off-centre, the once-clear amethyst gaze turned milky, almost opaque. Her Dragon sight brought out the details far too clearly.
“What did Thoralian do to you? I’m your friend, Aranya. You can tell me.”
The proud expression crumpled. Aranya put her forehead to the spine-spike just in front of her, clutching it as if for safety, and her shoulders began to tremble. “I’m so scared,” she said. “I’ve lost my magic and my Dragon and … he stole my face, Zip! He stole my face! Can you imagine what that’s like? Oh … ralti sheep droppings, of course you can. Of course. You, of all people …”
“Petal,” Zip soothed.
“I can’t see well out of my right eye, Zip. The left is bad–just shadows and vague shapes. The pox can make a person go blind. He deliberately had me infected, Zip. Deliberately!”
“I’m so sorry.”
Aranya’s answering laughter was hollow, almost sepulchral, giving Zip the soul-lost shivers all over. “Is this the price you and I have to pay, Zip?” Aranya asked. “When they’re free from Thoralian’s tyranny, do you think the peoples of the Island-World will thank us for these scars we’ve earned?”
“Battle scars,” said the Princess of Remoy.
“Battle scars? How glorious you make it sound. My head says it’s worth the cost–oh, Zip! But my heart’s a terrace lake of bitter waters.”
As surely as the moons moved around the Island-World, she was going to kill Thoralian for this, Zuziana vowed. The Azure Dragoness knew a killing rage, her fires and lightning powers literally sizzling inside her belly. As she struggled to contain her feelings, Zip’s gaze swept the skies ahead of them, then to the rear. There was no pursuit, nor any sign of the creature she had glimpsed ducking back into the Cloudlands. How could anything live down there? Surely, a living creature of that size was impossible?
She said, “It seemed so uncomplicated when we set out to bait the Sylakians. Had we known? I’d like to think we’d still have had the courage to set out on that first flight, Aranya.”
“I’ve lost now, Zip. I’m so … beaten.”
“Wounded, not beaten,” the Dragoness replied, but her hearts were not in her words. She had never heard Aranya sounding like this, the undertone of defeat that weighed on every word. Her own scars, she could hide beneath her clothing. Aranya would have no such luxury. She asked, “What’s that collar you’re wearing? It feels–”
“Evil,” said Aranya.
* * * *
When Zuziana suggested seeing through a mind-meld, this provoked a low, resentful cry, “What use is a half-blind Dragon, Zip? Tell me. You have to see crossbow bolts in battle!”
“We’ll get there, petal.”
Aranya knew she’d hurt her friend. Angry with herself, she too scanned the skies for signs of pursuit, until the Azure Dragon gently assured her that the only Dragons which had survived the Tower’s fall had retreated to Sylakia’s mainland.
Her new, darkened world required courage of a different type, she was learning, and Aranya recalled her friend’s struggles only too well. Zuziana might never nurse a child, which for a Remoyan mother, was unimaginable. Quietly, she leaned over the Dragoness and poured out her heart for over an hour, during which Zip, unusually for her, said not a single word.
Then, Aranya stood up. “Let’s get this collar off.”
“Petal! Don’t do anything foolish.”
Aranya forced levity into her voice. “Hold on. I get to call you petal, now. The Azure Flying Petal of Remoy. And you will address your Rider with due respect.”
Zuziana’s chuckles were equally born in a murky, hopeless place. Curving her neck until her muzzle pressed up against Aranya’s leg, she sniffed hugely and offered Aranya a toothy Dragon smile. “Mmm. How do Riders taste, do you think?”
“Stop it, you … you petal-ish fiend.”
The Dragoness waggled her long, forked blue tongue at her friend.
“Rude Dragon–fine!” Evidently, that Nak-like offering was far too feeble. Aranya cudgelled her brain.
Thou, whose suns-shine illuminates my heart.
Thou, the rainbows gracing my storm’s aftermath.
Smiles, through welling tears.
When a Dragon’s storm powers became uncontrollable, Aranya thought, to be told that she was the rainbow after the storm … she should cherish those words forever. And if Zip kept doing that, she’d weep all the way back to Fra’anior, when she had made up her mind to case her heart in stone. No more distractions. No inner turmoil. She had to focus on regaining her magic, if she could, and defeating Thoralian.
Aranya stepped onto Zip’s upraised paw, and was being cradled with care while Zip tried to slide her talons beneath the collar to pop the rivet at the back, when Ardan winged over with a such a bellow of outrage, it shook them to the bone. “What are you two doing?”
“Taking off this collar, o Shadow Dragon,” said Zip.
Ardan’s eyes bulged. “And if you drop her? If you–”
Aranya interrupted their glaring at each other by saying, “I have two of the finest Dragons in the Island-World to catch me. I couldn’t fall ten feet without one of you two scooping me up. And, this Lavanias collar must come off. Tell him, Jia.”
“I-I couldn’t argue with a Dragon.”
“Arguing with him is fun,” said Zip.
“And I think of you as a blue wasp up my left nostril.”
With a mental warning to the two Dragons to stop squabbling like hatchlings, Aranya said, “Jia, in my vast experience with a Dragon Rider, all of several months now, I’ve learned a few things about teamwork–”
“First, we should set a course,” said the Shadow Dragon. “Zip? You carry a map in your head.”
The Azure Dragon’s alert gaze took in the position of the moons in the lightening sky. Vast Iridith waned into the north-west horizon, while White was a tiny point of light almost directly south, and the full glory of Jade blazed jewel-like above where Aranya thought the Spits should be.
“Three points more westerly, Ardan,” said Zuziana. “Aranya, our first stop is Seg Island. Nak said we might find a Dragons’ Highway to help us skirt the Spits. Apparently, they’re too high for a Dragon and Rider to fly over–and easy to become lost in if you choose to fly through. But the lower Spits around the edges should be easy to navigate.”
“Are we skipping Fra’anior?” asked Aranya.
“Straight to Noxia from Seg to catch up with your father,” said Zip. “The warrior monks of Fra’anior are travelling with him–aye, we’ve a few things to tell you. They have healers. And we’ll have your story, too. We heard a great deal from Nak and Oyda …”
Unbidden, Aranya’s eyes flicked to Kylara, sitting very straight-backed between Ardan’s tall spine-spikes. She saw dimly, but enough to grasp the Warlord’s response.
Not everything,
she said to her Dragon companions.
Not if you want me to live.
Nak told me,
said Zuziana.
She already suspects,
Ardan added.
Aranya, you and I–
Can never be together, Ardan.
How Aranya wished for Dragon fire to cleanse the heartache those words cost her!
I’m scarred inside and out. I cannot be any use to anyone like this. You must choose Kylara, and love her well. It is over between us.
Zuziana sighed so heavily, it dipped them twenty feet in the air before she rose again.
He whispered,
I am so grieved for you, Aranya. Horrified, and spoiling for a fight with Thoralian. Thou, my soul’s eternal–
Don’t, it’s too distressing. Please.
Aranya stared into the distance, unseeing. Numb. Finished with all that the soul-fire had cost her, with anything to do with the fascinating Shadow Dragon.
Ardan, it cannot be.
Only if that’s what you truly want, o jewel of Immadia.
Aranya sucked in a breath, mentally and physically. Time for the most terrible lie of her life.
It is, Ardan
.
She wondered why Fra’anior did not roar so loudly, it should break her mind and drive her insane. But there was only silence from the Ancient Dragon. With a squeal of metal and a soft ‘plink’, the rivet behind her neck snapped. Aranya lifted the hateful collar from her neck, thinking she might keep it, to study it, or to remind her of Thoralian’s treachery.
Very softly, pitched so that only Aranya could hear, Zip breathed, “You’re letting Thoralian win.”
“Then he wins,” said the Immadian, swallowing her nausea, the self-loathing, the despair as deep as the Cloudlands.
Flying into a perfect, cloudless twin-suns dawn over the Island-World, Aranya knew she could see little of it. She turned her gaze to the first sun’s dazzling face, letting the warmth fill her, be a balm to her desolation, hoping the breezes might blow her to a new destiny–one she chose, the destiny of a ruined woman robbed of her gifts and graces, and cast into a Cloudlands volcano. Let Zuziana disapprove. This was the result of an Immadian Princess’ arrogance. Yolathion, dying. Jia, losing her baby. War sweeping across the Island-World, sparked by two friends who tried to make a difference. Genocide at Naphtha Cluster. Even Ardan, deeply wounded during his battles inside the Tower, wincing a little with every wing-stroke. Storms, burning, dying. She was the epicentre of it all.