They passed Mistress Mya’adara hurrying down to the infirmary. “Huh,” she commented. “That Nak’s shirt yah wearing, Pip?”
“I can explain, Mistress–” Pip was only talking to her back. “See, Oyda?”
With an irritable hiss, Oyda said, “You act like you’re still in the jungle sometimes, Pip. With you it’s, ‘Oh look, Nak, I’m just so teensy and cutesy, oops, lost my shirt.’ Now you’re an Onyx Dragon, basking in all the wonder. Haven’t you ever asked yourself why you always have to be the centre of attention? Didn’t you get enough back–” She muttered something under her breath and implored the sky, “I’m sorry, Pip. I hate my tongue, sometimes.”
Back in the zoo? Pip bit her lip so hard she tasted blood. Here she was, bemoaning her lack of stature even as a Dragon–was she not grateful to be alive? Was this how she repaid Master Kassik’s trust in her? How Oyda’s outburst stung!
She turned to the Dragon Rider, and hugged her. “Sorry. I’ve been a bad friend.”
Oyda stiffened, but then she chuckled as she placed her cheek against Pip’s head. “I guess a Dragonish nuzzle is the best I can do. I didn’t mean to roar at you. Forgive me?”
“Of course.” Pip hugged her harder.
“Ouch. Gently, you pocket rajal–well, I can’t use that one any more, can I?” Oyda’s waspish mood seemed to ease. “Do you think it’s the Dragon in you that makes you so strong?”
“I wish I knew.” They walked in a companionable silence up to the first year dormitory. “Oyda, stop me if I’m going right off the Island with this,” said Pip, cautiously. “You like Nak, don’t you?”
The pretty Yelegoy Islander quirked an eyebrow at her.
“Why don’t you capture his attention, Oyda? You could, so easily. One look from you and Nak would be your slave forever.”
Oyda’s laughter rippled like melancholy water. “His eye wanders, Pip. He doesn’t care for me.”
Pip clucked her tongue in annoyance
“How long have you known him, Oyda? I heard you met when you were in the first year and he was in third. What is this–nine years on? Ten? And you still haven’t worked out that he worships the Island you walk on?” The older Rider made no reply. “I know he’s impossible sometimes, and I haven’t helped–and I can’t believe I’m speaking up for him … oh, Oyda. I only want you to be happy.”
She nodded distantly. “I understand, Pip.”
When they parted, Pip waited in silence outside the dormitory for a time, watching the Yellow moon wheeling slowly overhead. She hoped she had not just caused Oyda to hate her. Could a Dragon fly to the moons, she wondered? To the stars? The other students would be relaxing or studying. She felt far from that, now.
Rather than facing her friends just then, Pip felt a need for a different friend. She slipped through the school’s shadows and dark byways to the garden where Hunagu had made his home.
The Oraial understood her–and she needed that understanding more than ever. But she needed to tell him about being a Dragon. How could she ever explain?
* * * *
“Pip,” said Master Kassik, four evenings later. “Come in. You need to hear Zardon’s report.”
Pip had been expecting one of two things–a flying lesson from Zardon, or a telling-off from the Master following her unexpected transformation in the middle of unarmed combat class. Her opponent, one of Prince Ulldari’s friends, had fainted after his punch struck Dragon-Pip on her flank. Pip rather fancied being a Dragon. She leered toothily at Ulldari, who stumbled backward in fright. Funny how people had suddenly decided that bullying a Pygmy Dragon was a different prospect.
Her eyes tripped over the crowd in Kassik’s office. “Master Balthion.” She bowed to him. Casitha, Nak and Oyda, Mistress Mya’adara … but where was the most obvious attendee of all, the old Red Dragon, Zardon? Kassik’s office windows had been pushed open. Emblazon’s chin rested just inside the room. The rest of him was doing a fine job of blocking the view outside. Next to him lay Blazon. The resemblance between father and son struck her forcibly, now that she saw them close together. No wonder the Master’s office had such big windows.
She was the last to arrive. Maylin patted the space next to her. “Room for a little Dragon?”
Pip snarled viciously at her friend. What? Her hand leaped to her mouth. “Sorry, Maylin,” she mumbled, mortified.
“It’s the Dragon in you speaking,” said a familiar-sounding voice. “Sit down, Pip.”
We have much to discuss. Hurry up, little one.
Pip’s gaze jumped to a familiar white-haired old man, with brilliant blue eyes–the old man from the zoo! “Zardon?”
You’re …
her mind reeled.
How come you didn’t know I was a Shapeshifter, that first time in the zoo? We spoke Dragonish.
Never added it up, Pip. I was blind, only thinking of you as a magic-using potential Rider.
She said,
Ah, that makes sense.
Kassik said, “Your audience, Zardon.”
“This is a council of war,” said Zardon, at once crisp and formal. “Recently, I travelled southward in search of a peculiarity I had detected in the doings of the Island-World. Partly, we know this strangeness as the Shadow Dragon Emblazon scared away from our Academy.”
She sat with alacrity next to Maylin, riveted on his words.
“Ay, and the mysterious ‘Master’ Rambastion referred to,” Emblazon put in.
“I have not discovered the whole truth behind that,” said the old man. “But it does point to a Human intelligence or involvement, or a Shapeshifter. I suspect one of the Herimor Marshals–which could mean a being from any of the three races. Nevertheless, this is what we know. The Dragons of Herimor have indeed levitated an entire Island across the Rift.”
“Surely, they captured one of the mythical Land Dragons and used that to transport this Island,” Blazon objected.
Zardon shook his head. “I saw clearly beneath it. Friends, they moved an entire Island. This bespeaks inconceivable magical power. But I could not even get close, because of the cloud of Dragons which surrounded that Island–Dragons like Rambastion, his kin and kind. There were so many in number, they darkened the very skies. I do not exaggerate.”
Balthion interjected, “The Night-Red Dragons, they call themselves, or the Dragon Assassins.”
Pip felt her eyes grow wide. Next to her, Maylin shivered rather violently.
Softly, Kassik added,
Dragons, the truth must be made known to our Human friends, even these young ones. It is hard, but necessary.
“Ay. Their work is to hunt Dragons,” said Zardon. “They hunt them down, and kill or capture them. I saw them bring many wounded or captive Dragons to their floating Island. What happened there, I know not, but the Dragons entered and did not reappear. From afar, I sensed a great and controlling evil hid within the Island. I have never seen Dragons work together in such numbers, nor for so clear a purpose. They hunted and acted as with one mind, as if they were one creature.”
“You’re saying the Dragons are controlled from within the Island?”
Zardon nodded. “Ay, Kassik.” With a wave of his hand, he caused a picture to form briefly in the air before them. Pip saw an Island at least a league in diameter floating above the Cloudlands. Swarming around it as if they were a cloud of bats–if only they were bats–were uncountable myriads of dark Dragons, riding the winds in clouds as thick as volcanic ash from an eruption. Pulsing within the Island she sensed …
Everyone jumped.
“Get off me, Pip!” shouted Duri.
“Oof, you weigh a ton,” groaned Kaiatha.
Maylin simply punched her in the flank.
“Control your transformations, Pip,” admonished Zardon.
Shuddering, the Pygmy Dragon leaped onto the floor, scoring a bloody furrow in Maylin’s right thigh before she realised that her claws were extended in fright. “Sorry,” Pip whimpered. “I … sorry, everyone. I was just so
afraid,
and I know what Master Kassik’s about to say. Sorry, Maylin.”
“I’m fine,” said her friend, pressing down on the wound with the palm of her hand.
Kassik growled, “What was I going to say?”
Cheeky hatchling.
“Master,” Pip bowed her head. “Only a Dragon with the power of Command will be able to penetrate that Island.”
Grimly, he said, “Indeed, Pip.”
“Mind control of Dragons is meant to be impossible,” Balthion pointed out.
“So is levitating an Island,” Yaethi noted. “They’re using the Island as their base, aren’t they, Master Zardon? Who ever heard of such an idea?”
“Ay. They’re systematically eradicating us Dragons.” Zardon sounded tired and dispirited, Pip thought. And no wonder. “The Island-World is about to be filled with refugees–Dragons, fleeing their advance. We have to help the Southern Academy … and call in all our allies. That’s their first goal. If that Academy falls, we’re next.”
“We can discuss this until the windrocs drop into the Cloudlands,” said Master Kassik, quelling Blazon’s and Emblazon’s angry denials. “And we will. But I have a proposal–for you youngsters, especially. Listen closely.”
His bright eyes considered each Human, Shapeshifter and Dragon in the room, one by one, before settling finally on Pip. “We must help our Southern Dragon-kin. Blazon, you will prepare and lead a Dragonwing to fly south at once.”
“Ay,” the Dragon nodded. “Zardon, we will need your strength and wisdom.”
“At your command, Blazon.”
“Moreover, we need answers,” said Kassik. “Ignorance will doom us. What is this Island? How can these Night-Red Dragons of Herimor command such power? What is this Shadow Dragon which hunts, and who or what is it hunting for? Secondly, there is Pip’s power to consider. We need to learn about the Word of Command. Such knowledge is to be found in one place–the Fra’anior Cluster, the greatest repository of Dragon lore in the Island-World. Will you fly to Fra’anior, Pip?”
“I’m willing, Master. But I’d need help.”
The old Master stood suddenly, clasping his hands behind his back. “So, here’s my proposal. We desperately need more Riders for the battles to come. I have on my desk a scroll which arrived this very morning. It originated, coincidentally, from an Island which at least one of us knows very well–Kaiatha.” He turned to the Fra’aniorian Islander, who squirmed on her seat in surprise. “The Dragons of Ya’arriol have made us a bold offer. They request prospective Dragon Riders to attend a graduation of their class of fledglings. They are very specific about the types and temperaments of students they want. I have a few people in mind. Would you happen to know any keen students?”
Utter silence greeted his words. Each person was thinking the same thing in his or her heart–‘could he mean me?’ Yaethi said, “Wouldn’t it be against the rules, Master?”
The tall Master flashed her a brief but kindly smile. “I, the Brown Dragon Kassik, Master of this Academy, say: ‘Burn the rules in a Cloudlands volcano, Yaethi.’ What say you?”
She smiled tremulously, a flush of hope entering her cheeks.
“I want you, Yaethi.” His finger rose, stabbing. “Casitha. Maylin. Durithion. Kaiatha. Pip. Emblazon and Oyda, and Nak. We fly to Ya’arriol Island.”
W
hen master kassik
invited them to fly to the Fra’anior Cluster, Pip did not imagine that the trip would take a week to organise. The school was immediately enveloped in chaos–Master Alathion’s worst nightmares given wings and life. Besides readying a Dragonwing to fly to the Southern Academy, there were the school’s defences to see to. Pip had never imagined what might be hidden in the caverns behind the school buildings, from camouflage netting and war catapults to metal sheeting to protect the buildings from Dragon fire. Classes were cancelled. Every single student worked their fingers to the bone instead, transforming Dragon Rider Academy into a fortress.
The afternoon after Master Kassik dropped his surprise into the laps of Pip and her friends, Imogiel the Hatchling-Mother caught up with her on the roof of the first year boys’ dormitory as she worked with a team on fixing the metal sheets in place.
Flying lessons for the Onyx Dragon,
she announced.
Kassik’s orders.
Now?
What better place to launch than off a building?
“Pip?” Maylin grabbed her arm. “Why’ve you turned more grey than brown?”
Pip wished her friend would sometimes be less direct. “I feel queasy,” she said. “Imogiel’s here for flying lessons.”
“Snip snap,” said Imogiel. “Transform yourself, little one.”
“I’ll hold your clothes,” said Yaethi, ever-practical.
“I want to see this.” Maylin’s eyes were bright. Pip would dearly have loved to bite her. Who was the one about to leap into thin air?
In short order she had managed to transform, destroying her forgotten underwear in the process, and she stood beside the golden form of Imogiel, eyeing an eight-story drop to the field below with trepidation churning her stomach into an eel-pit.
But Imogiel was unexpectedly gentle and thorough. “Your musculature proclaims you more than a hatchling,” she said. “You’re ready to fly. The main problem sits right inside that skull of yours. You think you can’t do it, but trust me, your body knows how.” She showed Pip how to hold her wings. “The basic gliding position looks like this, a slight tilt from the horizontal. Don’t extend to the maximum. Three quarters is enough for today. To land, cup your wings and beat downward. Absorb the shock with flexed knees. Good. Show me again.”
Her tail should act as a rudder in the air. Pip flared her wings, testing the slight breeze. The feedback from her senses was staggering. Every breath of wind teased and tickled her body almost unbearably, making her feel as if her nerve endings were on fire. Imogiel assured her that the feeling was normal. Then, with a bugling cry of, ‘Follow me,’ she leaped off the edge of the building. Pip tried to follow, lurched, and nearly fell on her nose as her claws refused to unclench.
Maylin and Kaiatha chuckled behind her.
“Come on, petal,” Kaiatha laughed. “Relax. Watch how natural Imogiel is in the air.”
“Of course I’m natural, I’m a Dragon in my native element,” snorted Imogiel, hovering fifty feet or so from the building. “Don’t be afraid, Pip.”
“Stop jostling me, Maylin.”
“Claws in and wings out,” said the irrepressible Easter Islander.
“Islands’ sakes, why don’t you go jump off a building?”
Pip willed her claws back into their sheaths. Somehow, she could not shake the impression that Pygmy warriors were not meant to soar on the breeze with a deft flip of their wings.
To her surprise, Maylin smacked her sharply on the flank. “You are not a petal. You’re a Dragon. There’s a mighty furnace of magic and Dragon fire within you.”
“You’ve been taking lessons from Nak.”
Maylin merely thumped her friend again. Then her voice rose, throbbing with such an agony of passion that Pip startled more than at either hit–neither of which could have hurt a Dragon. She cried:
Stoke thy fires, thou Dragon-hearted daughter of flame,
Rend the storm with thy mighty wing unfurled,
Graciously salute the dawn.
The words galvanised her. Pip could not have pointed to a particular magic in the quote from Istariela, the Star Dragon, but her friend’s raw outburst fired her courage. Her hearts leaped as a trio before settling into a steady, pounding rhythm. Her belly-fires surged. Her long throat swelled. Pip’s challenge exploded out of her, a crackling rumble like thunder breaking from the heart of a dark storm. Imogiel back-winged instinctively, baring her fangs. Above, the Dragons patrolling the skies above the school bugled the alarm and cast about for the source of the unfamiliar challenge.
An Onyx Dragon launched herself upon the warm afternoon zephyr, exultant. Laughing, crying, singing, now howling her joy to all who could hear, she shot forward as though fired from a war catapult. She spiralled toward the suns, driven by a wildfire of frenzied emotions. Awe and wonder consumed her. Joy unconfined! She was flying! Pip left Imogiel wallowing far in her wake. Instead, she joined the Dragons and Riders aloft–Blazon, Verox, and Emblazon with Oyda aboard. She babbled something nonsensical but ecstatic as she approached them. Pip whizzed around Blazon so fast that her head spun, yet her Dragon senses kept her aloft, answering to her experimentation with such a thrilling blend of speed and agility that she could not help herself. Backflips. Pirouettes. Swirling somersaults and wings furled, tumbling through the air before righting herself with a twitch of her wings. Barrel-rolls and high-speed twirls. The air itself played with her, pockets of warm and cold, buffeting and caressing her Dragon scales. Pip laughed until she hiccoughed. She laughed until her flanks hurt.
Song rose to surround her, glorious Dragonsong, drawn from the throats of many Dragons buoyed upon the wings of her elation, flotillas of Dragons young and old rising above the cluster of smaller volcanic peaks into the natural amphitheatre of the main volcano, filling the skies with a multitude of colours and a swelling chorus of spine-tingling harmonies. Echo built upon echo in that great space. Notes of wordless Dragonsong rang bell-like all around her, setting Pip’s entire being a-quiver with delight, until the air within the volcano vibrated with their music and it seemed to her that the crescendo should propel her to the very stars.
They danced. The Dragons danced, and Pip danced with them.
Nothing in her life would ever be the same again.
* * * *
She paid for her exertions in pain. “Yah shoulders won’t fall off,” Mistress Mya’adara grunted. “Rub this ointment where it hurts, three times a day. Dragons dancing. Dragonsong. Ah never heard the like. Yah beautiful, girl.” She flicked away a tear Pip pretended not to notice. “Now get yah to work. Ah’ve other patients to see.”
Pip threw her arms around the massive Western Isles warrior and gave her a quick, Dragon-fierce hug. Then she ran to join the work team greasing the runners of the six-foot thick retaining doors on the inner caverns, the place where the students would retreat if a battle went badly against them. Later that afternoon, she directed Hunagu in helping to haul catapults and war crossbows up to strategic locations around the school buildings. The Oraial Ape could lift an entire crossbow emplacement on his own. He hauled stacks of crossbow bolts and piled catapult shot next to the weapons. Gone were the dark granite and pretty rose-quartz block walls, covered now in netting and protective metal sheeting. The main entrances were fortified with boulders hauled into place by Hunagu or the Dragons.
Impressive. Master Kassik seemed to have anticipated anything from a ground assault to a full-scale Dragon invasion.
She remembered the shadow over her cage, and shuddered. Rambastion had said, ‘My Master seeks word of an Ancient Power.’ She was not one of the Ancients. That was impossible. But maybe that power inside the floating Island had sensed her, or the shadow was its sending, seeking those who could or would stand against the invasion. None of the news from the south had been good. The rumours said that hundreds of Dragons had already been slain.
Now, she was a Dragon Shapeshifter. She was vulnerable. Pip chuckled at her thoughts, drawing a puzzled glance from Durithion, working alongside her. More vulnerable than she had been, caged in a zoo? At least she had claws, wings and a heart for the fight.
Many of the kitchen staff had been drafted into the preparations, so the students helped out by waiting on tables for the Masters and Journeymen, and scrubbing pots and pans in the kitchens. Pip’s dormitory had been tasked with serving the Masters’ table, but the place seemed strangely empty without the usual jostle of Dragon Riders and Journeymen, many of whom had flown south earlier in the week.
“Quick, Pip, the meat platter,” said Kaiatha, shoving her in the right direction.
“Master Shambithion’s always grumpy at dinner time,” said Maylin, hefting a bowl of salad. “Hurry up, Pipsqueak.”
“The platter’s bigger than her,” Duri said sympathetically, helping her balance it on her shoulder. “Yum. Spicy roast leg of ralti sheep with onion and tarragon gravy, served on a bed of roast sweet tubers. I’m starving.”
“How he stays so lean while eating like a Dragon is a mystery to me,” said Kaiatha.
“Mmm, you just fancy his rippling abdominals,” Maylin teased, heading out of the swinging door into the dining area.
“I-I do
not
,” Kaiatha spluttered, turning the colour of a sliced beet. “You stop sniggering, Pip.”
“I said nothing.”
Pip pressed the swinging doors open with her foot and trudged up to the Masters’ table. Great Islands, they could have loaded her platter a little less to the rim. The scent of rich, thick gravy teased her nostrils as she approached their table. Her stomach growled in appreciation.
“Over here!” Shambithion cried at once, waving his dagger in the air.
“Salad first, Shambithion,” said Mya’adara.
“Pass the bowl. More
jalti,
” Master Shambles, as the students liked to call him, was evidently in a merry mood. Serving himself a plate-load of greens, he waved the serving spoon at Pip. “Don’t go anywhere with that meat, mighty Pygmy scholar. Amazing memory, she has. I’ll have the platter right in front of my nose. Clear room, everyone.”
At her height, Pip could not reach over the bench and the cups, plates, candle-stands and spice shakers to place her load in the middle of the long trestle table.
“Up with you, Pip,” laughed Shambithion, taking her elbow.
She wobbled up onto the bench, caught her balance, and leaned over to place the platter carefully between the Masters. “Jolly fine balancing act there,” said Master Yaer, the first year History teacher, seated opposite. He had clearly had two or three too many goblets of
jalti,
the malted beer the Jeradians so adored.
“Wait, student Pip,” Shambithion ordered, not relinquishing her elbow. “I shall now demonstrate the noble art of carving roast leg of ralti, Garragarra Island style, in the aid of your further education. You see, this dish is our Island’s speciality. Seventeen spices. Six herbs. Green rahlik stalks especially imported from Garragarra itself. It should tarry at least ten hours in the oven, no less, and the gravy is a secret recipe provided by none other than I. Breathe deep, student, of the very essence of divinity.”
Shambithion’s long, spider-thin fingers wafted the scent toward her nose. Pip’s nostrils flared. Oh … heavenly! Her taste buds tingled. Her mouth became wet with saliva. The rich scent of meat burst upon her awareness as never before.
“Now, we carve delicately toward the moist, still-red centre,” said Shambithion, warming to his task. “The secret is the thinness of the slice. See? Not dry, just a perfect pink alongside the bone. Oh, see how the meat submits to the merest touch of the blade? Next you douse it in gravy, roll it up just so with your fingertips, and–roaring rajals. You have yourself a Garragarra treat.”
His fingers brought the morsel to her mouth. Pip’s eyes closed. Meat … the pink magnified, a hint of blood pulsing through animal veins. Her vision shimmered. Pip snapped for his hand, but her mouth was in a totally unexpected place, buried in someone’s plate of roast tubers. She froze. What had just happened?
A clear voice shrieked in the shocked silence, “What? Who put a
Dragon
in my salad?”
Maddened by the scent still titillating her nostrils, Pip swung about and buried her muzzle in the platter of meat, knocking tables, chairs and Masters flying in all directions. All was food. Food was life. Meat was the food of Dragons and nothing else mattered in the Island-World. Her mouth sizzled with wondrous tastes. Snarling with pleasure, she bolted great chunks of ralti meat, barely bothering to chew.
“Pip! Pip!” Fingers snapped in front of her eyes. “Pay attention.”
“Um … Nak?”
“Will you stop guzzling Master Shambithion’s special dinner and pay attention? You are sitting on top of Mistress Mya’adara, standing on my foot, and making a perfect spectacle of yourself.”
Pip protested, “But she’s twice my size.”
“Not when you’re your Dragon-self, you witless lump of–”
“Oh. Oh, great Islands.” Pip slithered off the table, trying to mind where she put her paws. She knocked over a Master behind her and snapped a bench in two. “Sorry, Nak. Sorry, everyone.”