The Brown Dragon hulked over the Silver Shapeshifter. Extending his longest foreclaw, he symbolically touched it to the base of his captive’s pale throat. “We will speak, Silver. Do us the courtesy of honest answers, and we will deal courteously with you according to the code of Dragon lore, which you and your kind have spurned. We, at least, will behave honourably. If you choose otherwise, or attempt escape or coercion, we will deal with you less kindly, torturing you with every means at our disposal until your life wings from your body. Verox is particularly adept with slow-acting poisons. I assure you, death would be sweet succour compared to what he is capable of.”
“Lie still, Pip,” said Rajion. “This is going to hurt.”
In his Human form Silver seemed so diminished and young, considering all the grief he had caused. She wanted to hate him. The faces of her slain classmates accused her. How could she harbour even a jot of sympathy for the vile Silver Dragon?
Pip hardened her hearts.
L
IKe MinDLESS Beasts,
the Herimor troops had attacked to the very last. Human-Pip, visiting Master Kassik in his office three days later, following her release from the infirmary, reflected upon his words. Her bandaged torso itched madly; the good itch of healing, Mya’adara and Rajion assured her.
In a voice like gravel rolling in a swift-moving flood, Kassik told her how the last troop of one hundred soldiers had stood firm even against two dozen Dragons. They refused to lay down their weapons. Pip, watching the Master from the corner of her eye, thought long about the admiration and sorrow mingled in his voice.
“You should not speak too much,” Casitha admonished him. Her presence was akin to cool waters rippling around the Master of the Academy. She wore an attractive green dress, and judging by the way the Master’s eyes dwelled on her, Pip was not the only one who thought her friend looked beautiful, a bud finally gifted the love required to bring forth the blossom. Casitha said, “You’ve a sore throat and a beastly cold.”
“Huh,” he said. “Pip has honourable wounds. I boast this ralti-stupid head cold.”
“You’ve wounds, too, Master.” Casitha squeezed his shoulders. She smiled at Pip, seated on the couch opposite. “He just won’t admit them.”
“I’ve no wish for you to call me Master, any longer,” said he, laying his hand upon hers.
“Save on the pillow-roll?”
Casitha meant to whisper her words into his ear from behind, but Pip’s high-pitched giggle told her how badly she had failed to keep her comment private. Casitha blushed so furiously she did not know where to look.
“I’m not sure that’s entirely appropriate for student ears,” spluttered Kassik. It was the first time Pip had seen him so discomfited. Fascinating. “And you can just wipe the ‘you look so sweet together’ smirk off your lips, young lady,” he said to Pip. “I need to have words with you about that Silver Dragon. You mean to see him, don’t you?”
Her friends must have tattled. Pip stared out of his crysglass windows at the mist-shrouded volcanic peaks outside. “If I’m allowed …”
But Casitha dropped a kiss on the Master’s cheek. “As long as you remember how it is between us, Kassik, and give our Pipsqueak the grace she deserves.”
Judging from Kassik’s expression, he would dearly have loved to forbid whatever relationship or feelings he suspected between the two of them. Instead, he said, “We need you to interrogate him, Pip. This is a hard thing I ask of you. But for our sakes, for the sake of the Island-World, you must extract the truth from him.”
“Master, haven’t you interrogated Silver already?”
“Ay.”
Pip searched his eyes. “What did he say?”
Kassik said, “He’s an honourable young Shapeshifter, Pip, insofar as he understands the concept of honour. But I plan to deliberately keep you in the dark.”
“Oh.
Oh.
You’re … using me.”
“Exactly.”
He seemed unrepentant and determined; Casitha nodded her agreement just behind him. Pip modified what she had been about to say. “That’s very honest of you, Master.”
“Would you rather Kassik lie, Pip?” asked Casitha.
“Wear something pretty,” he added.
He could probably hear her teeth grinding together across the room. Dangerously soft, Pip said, “I plan to wear my razor ribbons. Is that what you had in mind, Master?”
His savage smile was far more his Dragon side than the Human sitting on the couch. “Indeed it is, Pip. Indeed.”
* * * *
Pip’s knee-length, Helyon silk turquoise dress concealed Oyda’s body armour on her torso. Her scalp still ached from her friends tugging at her curls for an hour. They would not be wrestled into submission–not with hot water, soap, oil or warm irons. Just like her personality, Maylin teased. Pip made sure Maylin saw her strapping her Immadian forked daggers to her belt with a purposeful mien. The razor ribbons adorned her hair. She wore a child’s tiny slippers, jewelled fit to grace royalty.
Lamp in hand, she descended a spiral staircase beneath the school, prepared to do battle with a Silver Dragon Shapeshifter.
There were many secrets beneath the Academy’s foundations, she had learned. A gruesome discovery for her was the Shapeshifter cells. Carved deep into the volcanic bedrock by the labour of Jeradian convicts and war prisoners, they were deliberately sized small to prevent a Shifter from transforming into their Dragon form. The ingress was so narrow that even a burly soldier would have to turn his shoulders sideways to fit through. She had to pass though several locked metal gates, and a section which could be collapsed remotely.
Master Kassik had whispered to her that Silver’s cell was watched by a Dragon’s eye–a secret, magical means of spying undetected. The eye was linked to a guard station at the ground level.
Her every word with Silver would be monitored.
Pip eased down the steps, holding her stomach. Her half-healed puncture wounds ached. Her slippers whispered on the warm stone. At least this was not a damp, rat-infested dungeon. The underground volcanic activity kept the temperature comfortable. The staircase led to a single, narrow tunnel, with other tunnels branching off it, leading to the individual Shapeshifter holding cells.
Following Kassik’s instructions, she took the third tunnel to the left. Her lamplight winked off tiny, silvery veins in the dark stone walls. She would not want to be trapped in a place like this. It was no place for a Pygmy from the jungles; no place for a Shapeshifter Dragon. The weight of ancient rock pressing down upon her was palpable. But that was not the reason for her dry throat, or the tripping of her heart. What if she had to fight that treacherous sense of connection with him, which threatened to tear her heart asunder?
Pip saw light ahead. On an impulse, she shuttered her lantern.
The cell was a simple hollow carved at the tunnel’s end, barred with a solid metal grating somehow fused into the rock. There was barely room for the door to swing open and a narrow bench for sitting on. The cell was no more than ten feet by five. Inside, Silver lay on a narrow bunk, very still indeed. The Lavanias collar peeked from beneath the neckline of his plain, white linen shirt. His left wrist was chained to his waist, the right remained free.
Pip paused to observe.
At length, he said, “I can hear you. More questions, Kassik?”
“Islands’ greetings, Silver.”
His body jerked as though she had struck him. To her consternation, Silver immediately hid his face in his pillow-roll. “You.”
“I … uh, came to see how you are, Silver.”
“So, they’ve sent in the big weapons at last?” he said, a breathy, fearful whisper.
“Oh, yes, humungous weapons,” said Pip, an edge creeping into her voice. “The deadly mouse.” When he made no reply, she added, “I’m here to talk, not to roast your rump as you deserve.”
Still, Silver would not look at her. Pip leaned against the bars, fighting back a Dragonish surge of irritation. She had even dressed up for him! Fine. Unshuttering her lantern to improve the light from the single lamp hanging from a hook on the wall, Pip seated herself on the bench. She could wait.
She had barely managed three circles of her dangling feet before she realised she would be the first to grow impatient. She said, “I’m done trying to kill you, Silver.”
“You shattered my ribs,” he mumbled. “It took a team of five healers two days to find all the pieces.”
“Your cowardly attack with the Heripedes killed fourteen of my friends, and nine soldiers. That’s the kind of person you are, Silver–attacking hatchlings, trying to get me eaten, sending monsters in the night–”
“Kassik and I talked about that attack,” Silver said. “Hasn’t he briefed you? I had nothing to do with it.”
“Liar.”
“I’m not lying.”
Wasn’t he? Pip’s gaze burned the back of his neck. “Why are you afraid, Silver?”
He shuddered again. At first, she had thought he was playing some kind of game. Now, she was not so certain. Extending her awareness as best she was able in her Human form, Pip listened–and knew his pulse was elevated and his breathing uneven. A slight, rancid sweat exuded from the region of his neck she could see, below his left ear. He was terrified.
On an impulse, she switched tactics. “Yes, Kassik ordered me down here to interrogate you with my Pygmy magical powers,” she said, watching his reaction minutely. “We’re skilled in the ancient arts. You see, beneath the Human part of you is the animal, the habitation of the base passions, instincts and fears.” She smiled grimly. Yaethi would be delighted by her use of their recent conversation to scare Silver witless. Just look at him curling up on the bed. “I can creep amongst your darkest, most primal fears, Silver, and–”
“You do already!” His shriek brought her up short. “All I see is your black eyes burning through my dreams, day and night, and I can’t sleep. I can’t close my eyes but that you’re there. How do you do that, enchantress? Torturer.”
Pip bit back an aghast laugh. This was what he thought of her?
He moaned, “All my mental powers have come to nought in the face of your assault, the power of your … the insatiable, ravaging power of … it’s a
perversion!
”
Pip reeled at his words, those verbal punches to her gut, to her mind, bruising her feelings. She gasped, “What? Islands’ sakes, what are you talking about?”
“You. I can’t even say …”
Perversion? Her? “You’re so ralti-stupid,” she shouted. “I’m not doing anything to you!”
Finally, he turned to face her. His eyes struck her as shadowed, full of suffering. He said, “There you sit, just a pretty girl from the primeval jungle. You’re so tiny, it fools people into thinking you’re harmless. A Pygmy in a cage–ay, we knew all about that. Know your enemy, they said. My father warned me.
You
are the weapon. And I don’t mean resisting my mental dominance or breaking all of my ribs–which still hurts, you wretched little rajal–or even bringing me low, to this place.”
Suddenly, words seemed to be spilling out of him, like a suppurating wound which had been lanced. “All I knew, you broke with your sweetly brutalising insights–you, my torturer. What is the honour of a hatchling-killer, I asked myself? Why are we clearing the Island-World for the inevitable elevation of the Shapeshifters, who are born to rule? What do I know of friendship? Nothing. All I see is your black eyes, endlessly accusing. I can’t get you out of my head. You dwell in my thoughts. You judge. I can’t think anymore, but you are there.”
Oh no. Pip’s hands twisted in her lap. She saw the answer, and it made her want to run and jump off the Island …
“Everything was simple before … you.” Now he was pleading, sitting up, gazing at the stone floor between his bare feet. “I shielded. You can’t possibly have known I was in Shimmerith’s roost.”
“The attack lacked intelligence.”
“But–”
“I thought Prince Ulldari was you, Silver. And, it just made sense.”
“There it is. Magic. Your hold over me.” Pip stared at the top of his head, thoughts flocking in her head like migrating birds come to rest beside a terrace lake, unsure again. What did he mean? “There, in Shimmerith’s roost, you stayed my hand by this power. I had a sword to your throat–explain that to me? A week before, I would have beheaded you without a thought.”
“You hesitated. You wanted to capture me.”
“Capture or kill,” he said. “I failed.”
“Silver, look at me.” Pip raised her chin, trying to iron the severity out of her smile. “Why are you shaking? Look at me.”
He shook his head. To her astonishment, a tear splashed near his foot. “I don’t understand, Pip. How can you … shiver my Island like this? Provoke me? Terrorise me? Turn all the glory to regret, and the sweet taste of victory to ashes in my mouth? I had all my defences prepared. Every eventuality covered. Every possible artifice, every–”
Inanely, an image of Nak’s lecherous grin entered her mind. “Except for a glimpse of a Pygmy’s nude backside? Which unravelled a mighty Silver Dragon?”
Silver’s shoulders shook with a spasm of laughter. “You …”
“Silver–”
“You’re incredible! Even now, you sting me, you confound and madden–”
Pip decided she was too embarrassed to continue that line of attack. “Silver,” she interrupted. “Since you know my history, why don’t you tell me yours? Who is your father? This Marshal from Herimor? Why are you killing Dragons?”
The tension around his mouth morphed into a silly, engaging grin. “Are you telling me, little Pip, that your magic is the mysterious, inescapable power of femininity?”
“Mighty little me?” That was all she trusted herself to say.
“Well, then you really are a weapon.”
Mercy. Now there was a backhanded compliment if she had ever heard one. Silver’s eyes, which had been lacklustre before, now brimmed with the intricate, hypnotic gleam she had come to recognise as magic. The Lavanias collar was supposed to damp his magic, she thought, her heart fluttering with panic. But now it was her turn to drop her eyes from the flashing twin blades of his gaze.
Thankfully, Silver chose to begin telling her about his life in Herimor, as if by speaking he sought to keep her at bay. Pip listened in growing fascination to his description of an unfamiliar world of political intrigue and assassinations, of great families of Dragons and Shapeshifters embroiled in ever-shifting rivalries. Poisonings seemed to be a pleasant pastime in Herimor. A ‘gilded greeting’ was a euphemism for a pretty, ornate dagger between the ribs–preferably tipped with a toxic cocktail of poisons to ensure the job was done right.