After finding the correct door, Pip ascended a broad, soaring spiral staircase lit by what she assumed at first were oil lamps, but she quickly discovered they burned on their own with no discernable source of fuel. She ducked involuntarily as two tan buzzards zoomed past her head and down into the lamp-lit depths. She tiptoed to the centre of the staircase, and looked first up, and then down. Her hands clutched the guardrail. Great Islands! That was some fall … but someone had strung light nets across the space, she saw, and vertical ropes which the white monkeys scaled with tremendous speed and agility.
She began to count levels. Had Master Shambles–Shambithion, she corrected her errant thoughts firmly–said seventeen, or seventy? She should ask the next person she saw.
A gaggle of green-robed students pelted past her, cheerfully shouting insults at each other and laughing like a flock of parakeets. One threw a rotten tinker banana at another. Pip trudged on and on. The school was enormous. It was a jungle of stone, no place for a Pygmy warrior.
By the time Pip exited the stairwell at the seventieth level, courtesy of a sympathetic servant woman’s helpful directions, her heart had sunk so far she imagined it was beating between her toes. She padded through a hall so enormous she seemed no larger than an ant creeping between the immense marble columns, and out of the door on the far side into a sunny garden complete with three waterfalls cascading at least twenty levels down the sides of the buildings around it, creeping vines, deep grass, and a bench where a small, tan girl sat plucking at a harp. Her skilful, tinkling notes mingled with the sounds of the flowing water. Pip let out a breath she had not known she was holding.
Now this place she could grow to love.
The girl raised a pair of jungle-green eyes, which twinkled as merrily as the water tumbling behind her shoulder. She had an elfin beauty about her. Although she was small for a big person, that still had to make her more than a head taller, the Pygmy girl thought. Her smile showed perfect white teeth. “Islands’ greetings, stranger. Are you lost?”
Pip smiled back. “I’m trying to find Master Kassik.”
“In trouble, are we?” Her eyebrow arched. “Casitha, fourth year, the only student without a Dragon.”
“I–um, what?” spluttered Pip. “I’m Pip. Sorry.”
“Mercy, you really are fresh off the Dragonship, aren’t you?” The green eyes did not seem to judge Pip’s confusion. Students had Dragons? This place was
insane
. “Where do you hail from, petal?”
“Sylakia, sort of. I mean, the Crescent Islands, actually.”
“By the Islands, you aren’t a Pygmy, are you? Master Adak’s a Pygmy. You’re a little late for joining the school year.”
“I had an unusual journey,” said Pip, truthfully. If one of the Masters was a Pygmy, then it followed that the Academy must regard Pygmies as people. That was a relief. “Could you help me report to Master Kassik? Zardon instructed me to speak to him.”
Casitha leaped up and seized her hand, chattering, “Of course I’ll help you. I’ll take you to his office Dragon-swift. Fellow Southern Islanders, we are. I come from Yelegoy Island, a tiny place just south of Remoy which isn’t more than a week’s travel from your Crescent Islands. We’re all petite. But you take the proverbial painted parrot. You’re barely up to my shoulder. Islands’ sakes, you don’t mean Zardon, as in the wise old Red
Dragon
, Zardon?”
“That’s him.”
“Zardon let you ride him?” At Pip’s hesitant nod, she almost shouted, “That’s so unfair! You aren’t even a student yet. You are so lucky, you have no idea. Nobody rides Zardon. It’s unheard of.”
“Oh.” Pip followed Casitha through a doorway which bored straight through the trunk of a wide tree, and turned left into a long hallway. At the end were two white Dragon statues. Even at a distance, they towered over her. Pip disliked their glassy stares.
She paused. “Casitha, what’s Master Kassik like?”
“As tall and straight as a spear,” Casitha replied at once. “Jeradian warrior. White hair. He looks stern, but he has the finest heart in the Island-World. Watch out for his assistant Alathion, however. Everyone hates him. He’s like one of those yapping little dogs, forever barking at students and making the staff unhappy. Come on. Let’s see if the Master is in.”
Halfway down the hallway, Pip turned again to Casitha. “Isn’t the Dragon Rider Oyda meant to be from Yelegoy Island?”
Casitha tossed her mop of curly chestnut hair. “Famous, beautiful, incredibly capable Oyda. Yes, she rides Emblazon, the strongest of all the Dragons. I’m supposed to fill her shoes. Right. Can I tell you how easy that is?”
Casitha and she nodded at exactly the same time. They understood each other.
“Am I allowed one really stupid question?”
“Fifty,” said Casitha. “We were all new, once. Some of us still feel left out.”
“I’m sorry, Casitha,” she said, softly. Pip drew from her bubbling pool of questions. “What kind of school is this? I don’t understand. Students have Dragons? Dragons sunbathe on the roof? You live inside a
volcano?
”
Casitha clucked her tongue. “I bet that scale-brained old fire-breather told you all sorts of useless and fanciful tales on the way here and conveniently forgot to tell you what exactly you’d be doing in this school, right? Ay, I’m right. But I’m still jealous. Petal, this is Dragon Rider Academy. Students come here from across the Island-World to study to become Dragon Riders.”
The other girl’s expression informed Pip that her jaw was sagging open like a wide-mouthed river carp sieving for food. “Rider … school?” she gasped. “Are you serious?”
Bright, happy giggles exploded out of Casitha. She clutched her stomach and doubled over, laughing so hard that tears leaked out of her eyes.
“
Casitha!
” A voice like a rusty blade cut across her laughter. “What is the meaning of this awful racket? You’ll disturb the Master.”
Casitha stopped wiping her eyes and knelt, bowing her head. “Master Alathion.” She motioned for Pip to do the same.
Dark eyes burned down the hallway. Alathion, a small, dapper man wearing what Pip assumed was meant to be a fashionable robe, pranced down the hallway toward them with a tap-tap-tap of his high-heeled boots. Only a stork walked like that. Pip pressed her knuckles to her mouth to stop a giggle in its tracks. With that name, he had to be Sylakian. She knew what Sylakian Islanders thought of Pygmies.
“Explain yourselves, students.”
“Master, this is Pip,” said Casitha. “Zardon the Red asked her to speak to Master Kassik about becoming a student here.”
Pip said, “Master Alathion–”
Alathion sniffed in her direction. “Stand up straight when you’re addressing your elders, child. How did you get here?”
“Master, I flew Dragonback.”
“And–merciful heavens, are you wearing a rajal skin? How did you get through the gate?”
“I spoke to Jalador. He let me pass.”
“He let you pass?” Alathion yelped. Pip jumped. “What use are Dragon defences if they let any child clad in reeking animal skins simply wander into the school premises unannounced?” He clutched Pip’s arm with fingers as cold and clammy as a wet banana skin. “Come to my office. You will explain everything to me, and I mean
everything
. And if I find you’re lying about the great Dragon Zardon, you had better wish … Casitha. Dismissed.”
M
aster Alathion STOOD
Pip in a corner of his office. “Wait here. Master Kassik is an extremely busy man.”
Pip knew how to wait. She had waited seven years to escape, only to be kidnapped by a Dragon. But now, she found herself hopping from one foot to the other. Alathion’s desk, front and centre in his plush office, was the biggest, shiniest, most impressive piece of furniture she had ever seen. Hunagu could have sat behind it with ease. To the left of the door stood two rows of three further, much more modest desks. Each had a block of wood with the word ‘scribe’ on it, not the person’s name. Each desk was covered in scrolls and journals and piles of files, and was occupied by a harried-looking man or woman.
They ignored her.
Strutting sparrow-like from desk to desk, Alathion barked non-stop at his scribes. ‘Haven’t you signed the contract? What’s keeping you?’ ‘Where are my supplies?’ ‘The roof of block nineteen. Is it finished yet?’ His gold-ringed finger tapped a journal. ‘This mentoring schedule is all wrong. How many times do I have to tell you, the third year students …’
After an hour or so of this, Pip began to wonder if she had been forgotten.
Her eyes crawled up the walls. Paintings. Certificates and honours. Clearly, the Master was extremely well qualified for his job and needed everyone to know, in large gold letters, that he had been the best student in his year. The carpet tickling her toes was very fine, and smelled like the ball of white ralti wool Balthion had once shown her during a lesson. Through another impressive wooden door, which stood a little ajar, she could see through into what had to be a huge office. A carved wooden rajal in the corner stood taller than her, life-size.
Pip stiffened. Someone was in there. She could feel him. She
knew
it was Master Kassik.
Now, here was a dilemma. How did she know who was in the next room? Why that tell-tale shiver of awareness? How long was she prepared to wait for Master Alathion, who had looked at her as he might have looked at the sole of his boot to see what unpleasant insect he had squashed in passing? He pored over a scroll, oblivious.
Her heart skipped into her throat as Pip stole through the door, jungle-silent.
Tiny bare feet padded across the thick rugs lining the office floor. Pip blinked at the bright light streaming in through the curved, floor-to-ceiling crysglass windows which ran the length of a long, wood-panelled room. Oddly, she smelled wood polish mingled with a more pungent aroma of wet earth. Then she realised that the office was divided by two curved stone planters, which were filled with vegetation so familiar to her that tears sprang to her eyes. Jungle vines! A pot-bellied piper tree with its distinctive, flame-orange gourds! Carved animals clustered in the corners, making the entire room resemble a jungle scene.
Beside the window, legs akimbo and arms clasped behind his back, stood a green-robed giant of a man, gazing out over the volcanic view his office commanded. So tall was he and so still his stance, Pip mistook him at first for a dark statue. The incredibly detailed profusion of silver brocade on his robe accentuated that impression, as well as the tall, formal Jeradian
falki
headgear, an ornate crown-like cap that added a further half-foot to his already commanding stature.
Her creeping forward was arrested by the movement of his arm, rising to shade his eyes as he squinted at something she could not see. Pip suppressed an urge to sneak up on him and yell ‘boo!’ Now that she was this close to Master Kassik, she did not know what to say or do. She waited.
Beside the spotless, modest desk located next to one of the planters, Kassik’s office was filled with curios from around the Island-World. She saw beautiful clay pots decorated with beads and shells, a display of at least a hundred different types of daggers, and metal and bamboo flutes in styles for which she had no names. The walls were hung with paintings; one, a painting of a Brown Dragon, filled a twenty-foot span and was so realistic is seemed to leap out of the wall at her. Pip gasped slightly.
The man whirled. His hand dropped to his dagger as he scanned the room with the alert eyes of an experienced warrior. Pip saw it all–the moment of recognition, an intruder identified, the immediate scan of his surroundings to see if any other enemy lurked nearby. When she made no threatening move, his shoulders dropped slightly, but his hand did not drop from his dagger.
“Master Kassik?” At his slight nod, Pip bowed in the manner of Pygmies. “I am Pip.”
“I’m Kassik.”
Calmly, the Master’s deep-set hazel eyes assessed her. She had the impression that he missed little. In fact, a slight tingling of her skin informed her that his examination involved more than just his eyes. Pip did not avoid his gaze. Great Islands, he was tall! Kassik’s face was lined like old leather beneath a fringe of pure white hair which curled beneath the
falki
, but despite his apparent age, his shoulders were square and his back held perfectly straight, giving him an air of enormous dignity.
If semi-naked Pygmies sneaked into his office every day, he did not show it.
The silence stretched. Pip wondered if this was some kind of test. Had she been foolish, creeping into his office? Had Zardon truly sensed something of worth in a Pygmy girl he snatched from a zoo?
A smile broke across Master Kassik’s face like the suns burning through a cloudbank. “Well, Pip. I sense you are not a casual visitor. Do you have a message for me? Come, sit.”
At his gesture, Pip moved down a couple of steps to a set of comfortable couches. She scrambled up into one, her cheeks reddening as she realised how small she must seem to Master Kassik. He, dropping his heavy cloak over the back of a chair and placing his
falki
on a free seat, seated himself opposite her. His hazel eyes concentrated on her with disturbing power.
She said, “I was sent to you by Zardon the Red Dragon, Master.”
“Ah, how is the old fire-tosser?”
Pip did not know what to make of the glint her comment sparked in the Master’s eye. Haltingly, she began to tell him a little of her journey. But her tale soon ground to a halt beneath the intensity his gaze.
“How is Zardon, Pip? The truth, if you will.”
Kassik spoke mildly, but Pip knew he had sensed her covering up for Zardon’s fragmented state of mind. She squirmed as she recounted the Red Dragon’s visions. Abruptly, she began to shiver; a creeping sense of horror settled in her bones. But he seemed intrigued enough to ask several detailed questions. Just then, Alathion burst in, all a-bother.
“You little rat …” he began to snarl at Pip. “Master. I am sorry for the disturbance. She sneaked in behind my back.”
“No mind, Master Alathion,” said Kassik. “Do please send a monkey for Mistress Mya’adara. I believe we may have ourselves a new first year student, here.” Alathion stiffened as though he was about to say something malicious, but Master Kassik added, “And, could you arrange a meal? Pip has travelled far. Fruit, Pip? A little cold meat?”
Before she could speak, Pip’s stomach spoke up for her. She blushed. “Thank you, Master.”
“Alathion?” he said.
“At once, Master,” said Alathion. He withdrew, shutting the door behind him.
Kassik formed a tent of his long fingers. His gaze returned to that unnerving intensity, before which she feared her inmost secrets would be laid bare. “So, permit me to ask you the question I ask all prospective students, Pip. Out there in the Island-World, fifteen thousand youngsters apply to this Academy every year. Of those, we select between one and two thousand students to start our first year. By the second year, we shall have whittled the class down to the best one hundred. What makes you think, Pip, that you deserve to study at the Academy? And what would you make of this opportunity, should I offer it to you?”
“Oh, I don’t deserve it, Master,” Pip replied at once, before trying to corral her errant thoughts. “I–well, Zardon seemed to think I was worth kidnapping. He said I had done magic.”
“Ay? What about
you
, Pip?”
Trapped beneath his fierce gaze, Pip felt compelled to offer what was hidden in her heart. She said, “Master, I grew up in the jungle. I lived seven summers in a Sylakian zoo.” Kassik made a tiny but audible intake of breath at this, but did not interrupt. “Zardon stole me from my cage and dropped me here without much explanation. In truth, I can offer you little, but I do know you would be offering me the world … freedom …”
Pip choked up. She wiped her eyes, feeling littler and more foolish by the moment, and stumbled on, “And education. A new life. Master Kassik, I’m not ungrateful. I don’t know about your other students, but I do know that no-one would appreciate it more, nor work harder to earn your trust, than I would.”
“Freedom. A new life.” He sighed very deeply, but suddenly, he sat back and smiled as though she had delivered the most joyous news. “Ideas of humble yet supreme power. Very good. We shall eat, and wait upon Mistress Mya’adara, and then you shall tell us all about this Pygmy girl from the Crescent Islands. Who is Pip? Why do you speak with such a musical accent? What are your skills? Have you any education at all, having lived in a zoo? I want to know everything.”
Pip bowed her head. She had expected to feel intimidated by Master Kassik. Instead, she felt a warm welcome, and perhaps, a kindred spirit.
* * * *
Mistress Mya’adara was a Western Isles warrior from the Naphtha Cluster. She seemed as wide as she was tall, and her sleeveless tunic revealed tattooed arms so muscular they could have furnished a rajal without dishonour. Although she overshadowed Pip like a giant jungle tree, she had an easy smile and an irresistible way of getting exactly what she wanted. Pip noted the huge scimitar belted at her waist. The Head of First Year Students seemed more than capable of using it to carve up Dragons–or errant students.
With dizzying speed, she showed Pip the first year classrooms, the practice field and the vaulting dining hall, where all the students, Journeymen, Mentors and Masters habitually took meals together. Dinner was not yet ready, so they whipped down eleven levels and across five buildings to the infirmary, where Mya’adara had her apartments and the first year dormitory complex was located. Pip liked the vine-covered buildings at once. There was more vegetation than stone, it seemed. This tour was accompanied by a barrage of information.
“Ah have trunkfuls of clothes mah girls have grown out of, Pip,” she explained, in her broad Western Isles brogue. “When they was six summahs old, but no matter, no mind. Yah a Pygmy. Yah just made the way yah are. Like me.” She flexed her biceps.
Pip said, “Do you eat whole melons for breakfast, Mistress?”
Mya’adara laughed heartily, clapping her on the shoulder. Pip stumbled. “Sorry. Good joke! Did yah shrink in the wash?”
“I can do anything a big person can,” Pip replied, with a forced chuckle. Her accent was funny. ‘Shreenk.’ ‘Yah’ for you. But she had a sweet, wholesome way about her.
“I know yah can.” Mya’adara’s eyes, however, appraised her with intensity similar to Master Kassik’s. Pip hoped she was not thinking how small she was compared to the other students. “Yah got lakes full of fish to catch up on, Pip. Yah ready? First year class has already been cut down by a third. Yah join late, yah collect their jealousy, girl. Yah have to catch up on all yah academic subjects and weapons before the examinations. Four weeks, yah got. Shall I speak to Master Shambithion about a deferral?”
“I don’t want any special treatment,” said Pip.
“Ah can imagine not.”
Pip knew the Mistress had seen right through her bravado.
A half-hour of vigorous rooting about in Mistress Mya’adara’s storage room secured Pip clothes enough to furnish half a village of Pygmies, and shoes. She eyed the shoes distrustfully. Wouldn’t they make her feet stink? But Mya’adara was very firm about the need for clothing. ‘This isn’t a jungle, Pip. Yah dress decent.’
She lugged a canvas holdall down to the infirmary, a vast cavern beneath the student dormitory buildings. A blast of hot air snatched Pip’s breath away as she entered. The cave was gigantic, easily large enough for a Dragon to fly right in through the entrance which yawned away to her left. In places, pretty red crystals peeked through the rock, and it was brightly lit by the same lamps she had seen in the stairway. Her nostrils tingled at the tang of smoke and the sweet aroma of many medicinal herbs; a healing smell. Pip liked the place at once.
“It’s set up for Dragons and their Riders,” said the Mistress, leading her down a few steps to the cavern floor. “Beds and roosts together. Yah wouldn’t believe the fuss, if yah separate Dragon from Rider. Such a whining and complaining! Over there’s Cardiata, the Yellow fledgling. Broke her right primary wing bone in aerial combat training last week. Shimmerith, who belongs with Nak–that wastrel snoring up a storm in bay four–she has a fungal infection of the bowel. Painful. And this magnificent creature is mah Rajion.”
Rajion curved his neck to eyeball Pip. He was a vast Red Dragon of a magnificent crimson hue, with lower jaw fangs which curled up past his upper gums, giving him a permanently smiling expression–the type of smile a Dragon offered its prey before eating it, Pip thought with a shudder. Rajion was missing most of his left hind leg, and the outer third of his left wing.