Dragonlove Read online

  Lia cast her mother a sharp glance. She had a habit of expressing her adopted daughter’s feelings as if they were her own. She appreciated empathy, but it could also cut deep.

  They pulled on their costumes of crimson and orange Helyon silk, and wound the red feathers symbolising the mythical Firebird into each other’s hair. Her mother’s waist-length hair, which had not felt the cut of scissors since her sixteenth birthday, was as raven-dark as Lia’s was fair. Shyana was a classic Fra’aniorian beauty, with all the lissom height Hualiama lacked, a graceful heron beside her daughter’s wren-like, diminutive frame.

  With a deft touch of the face-paints, Shyana drew flames radiating from her daughter’s eyes. “Today, we shall fly as Dragons,” she said. “Thy hair is as unbound as the Dragon-flight of our mighty brethren. See, how it ripples like the twin sun-spirits gracing a terrace lake.”

  Shyana was often mystical, a quality that drove Chalcion up the proverbial cliff. He thought her obtuse. But Lia often wondered if her mother wasn’t somehow bonded, as the monks believed, to the spirit of the legendary, many-headed Black Dragon Fra’anior. She saw the world through a different lens. Also, her mother knew the truth–that there was an inner freedom in dance, an expanding of the senses, a joy in movement and expression that Lia found nowhere else.

  The intensity of the Flame Cycle dance demanded her utmost concentration, the movements complex and haunting, evoking the fiery spirits of Dragons. Ga’allio played for them with great skill, while Ari sang the poetic vocal passages, which described how Dragons’ spirits were born in flame.

  Lia yearned for the flame. Sometimes, when she performed this dance, the blaze felt so close that if she could only reach out to grasp it, she would become a living flame, dancing beyond the bounds of her mortal flesh, that she could leap and spin with the grace and ease of any dragonet and take her place amongst the stars of the heavens. She burned with an inner fire, flickering and flaring, twirling her limbs like dancing flames … she reached deeper, coveting the very core of the dance, to combust and expire …

  Hualiama Dragonfriend, please, come soon!

  Amaryllion? Ecstatic laughter bubbled in her mind. Look at me, I’m Fireborn just like a Dragon. I soar upon volcanic winds–

  His deep groan wrenched silence from her, a pool of stillness amidst the dance. Thou art the uncontainable song of fire, little one. I must give up mine spirit. Come to me before the Jade moon waxes to its fullness.

  A-A-Amaryllion?

  Understanding crashed down upon her. Hualiama faltered, and fell.

  “Lia?” The Queen cradled her head. “She’s fainted. Ga’allio, ring for a glass of prekki-juice! Lia–child, you’re burning up!”

  “I was the flame, mother.”

  Shyana clasped her daughter to her bosom. “Aye, my precious petal. I know how you long to fly. But after yesterday’s punishment, and your confrontation with the Dragons the day before, I demanded too much of you. I’m sorry.”

  Almost, almost it was on the tip of her tongue to voice her needs–her Dragonship, and an excuse to disappear for a day or two. How on the Islands would she gain that privilege when her father had just banned it? Grovel? Until the previous year, Lia had spent two weeks of each season training with her warrior-monk friends at their secret monastery offshore of Ha’athior, but Chalcion had forbidden her visits, deeming them ‘inappropriate.’ Later, she had discovered that Zalcion had instigated the ban.

  Instead, the storm-surge of her emotions veered in an unexpected direction.

  “Thy song hath beguiled my Dragon hearts, o brother,” she sang, shamefully misusing a line from Dragons of Yore.

  “And thy song hath animated mine,” he adlibbed in tuneful response.

  That was no line from a song. Bands of iron gripped her chest. Oh, by the great volcano itself! Wheezing unmusically, Hualiama managed to gasp, “And wilt thou sing again, with me?”

  “Aye, my sister. I will sing … forever!”

  In realisation of what she already knew, Ari’s crescendo struck a prodigious note. The word ‘forever’ reverberated around the Palace, alarming birds in the gardens and making the Dragonets squeal in amazement.

  Queen Shyana’s hands flew to her mouth. “Oh, Ari–oh, my precious son. You spoke!”

  Lia wept.

  * * * *

  Jade would wax to fullness in three days. Hualiama spent two of those days trying to determine a course of action which would not lead to her exile on a remote boulder somewhere in the Cloudlands. Echoes of the past, brought into sharp relief. Six years before, with the help of a Dragon and a dragonet, she had rescued her family from exile. And what did her impossible-to-please father make of her endeavours? Disgraceful. Difficult. Ungrateful foundling. An inferior creature compared to her royal-born siblings.

  Would she sacrifice her future for an Ancient Dragon?

  In a word, aye. Such was the cost of friendship.

  Inconspicuously, during that second day, Hualiama began to gather the necessary items. That evening, she dressed in a dark green Helyon silk outfit crafted by her friend Inniora, which had a cunningly split long skirt to allow ease of movement, and a modified tunic top which concealed an arsenal of unusual implements and weapons. Soft, flexible black shoes minimised any sound she might make. She hung a matched pair of Immadian forked daggers at her belt. Lia’s Nuyallith blades, freed from their customary double-sheath upon her back, bounced against her right thigh beneath her skirts. Armoured wristlets sported hidden slots for a half-dozen throwing knives and a set of lock picks. Lia secreted a fifty-foot length of climbing rope in her backpack. She braided her platinum hair and tucked it away beneath a black headscarf. Over all this, she donned her ordinary evening clothes.

  Lia walked to the door, cracked it open and saw her mother’s eye regarding her sternly. “Mother!”

  “Going somewhere, daughter?”

  Wishing her heart would leap back into her chest, Hualiama muttered, “What makes you think that?”

  Shyana pushed her way into Lia’s chambers and thumped the door shut behind her. “Petal, you aren’t running away, are you?”

  “No.” No, because she refused to give Zalcion the satisfaction. “Just a short trip, and before you begin the lecture, Mom, I will not tell father and I do not expect him to approve.”

  “Hush, petal. Is this truly important? Life and death?”

  Pursing her lips, Lia nodded.

  “It’s not about Flicker?”

  “No.”

  “Something to do with the Dragons?”

  Hualiama examined her toes, knowing that whatever she answered, her mother understood her so well she’d guess the rest.

  Shyana touched Lia’s chin. “Look at me, my precious fireflower.”

  “Mother! Oh … I do love you.”

  With a gentle yet infuriating smile, the Queen said, “What would you say if I told you I had your Dragonship checked and refuelled today?” Lia collected her jaw from somewhere in the region of her toes. “Aye, petal. We’re about to take an urgent trip–Elki and I, and a nameless piece of baggage which may or may not resemble someone called Hualiama, who also happens to be the most rascally Princess ever to walk this Island.”

  Hualiama hugged her mother Dragon-fiercely.

  * * * *

  Queen Shyana won past the guards by the simple expedient of sending them off to collect various items she had conveniently forgotten. Sickness in the Palace, she said. She urgently needed fresh supplies of herbs. Lia hid in the bottom of the Dragonship’s basket, covered in sackcloth, while Elki tried to find the right Island.

  “You custom-rigged this ship, you rotten little rajal,” he hissed. “No wonder you’re always tinkering with it.”

  Hualiama’s chuckle was designed to irritate. “Need a few instructions, brother? The stove is over there.”

  “I know how to light a stove … Islands’ sakes, what’s this bit up here?”

  “Just get us aloft and I’ll rescue us from yo
ur gross ineptitude.”

  Elki booted her leg ‘accidentally’ on the way past.

  Her brother would not budge from the controls on the way to the westernmost village of Fra’anior Island, but he did question Lia in detail about her modifications.

  “Bah,” he muttered as they neared Ha’arria village, three hours later. “I suppose I have to go herb-shopping with Mom while you have fun in your floating laboratory, short shrift. Don’t do anything naughty–like stepping onto hallowed ground, baiting Dragons or letting Dad catch wind of your return, just to pick a few random examples.”

  “Love you too, Elki.”

  Hualiama tossed out the anchor, which dragged them to a halt above a small meadow just outside the village.

  Before she climbed down the rope ladder, Queen Shyana said, “You will be careful, won’t you, petal?”

  “For the tenth time, Mom–aye!”

  Further down the ladder, Elki made a rude noise.

  “And you won’t go too far?”

  “Not beyond our Cluster, Mom. I promise, I swear on all five moons–”

  “Why don’t you throw in all the stars in the heavens while you’re at it, sister?” Elki drawled. “We still wouldn’t believe you.”

  Hualiama yelled, “Elki! Step on his head, Mom.”

  Thankfully, it was not uncommon for Dragonships to fly after dark. Most nights of the year the moons provided plenty of illumination, a blessing for some–the righteous, the King liked to say–less so for pirates and smugglers, and blasted awkward for those royal wards who may or may not be planning to sneak onto the hallowed ground of Ha’athior Island.

  Dragon fire take it!

  As if buoyed up by the last rays of a gloriously fiery Fra’aniorian suns-set, Lia’s Dragonship floated westward off the cliff-tops toward Gi’ishior Island, home of the Dragons. The journey to Ha’athior was slightly further around the volcanic rim this way, but the direct southerly route from Fra’anior Island was deemed too dangerous due to the presence of feral Dragons.

  Lia’s single-handed or solo Dragonship consisted of a segmented balloon measuring twenty-four feet in length, three segments filled with hydrogen gas, and a further five with hot air. A simple stove-and-pipe arrangement allowed the pilot to burn wood, coal or any other combustible material to produce hot air, or to melt meriatite stone to produce hydrogen gas for additional lifting power. A lightweight woven reed basket dangled beneath the balloon, holding Hualiama and her equipment. Strong, flexible horizontal masts furnished the ship with its characteristic ‘Dragon wings.’ Hualiama’s design gave her Dragonship two masts rather than the traditional single mast atop the vessel, each canted at thirty degrees from the vertical. A complex system of ropes and pulleys for working the reinforced Helyon silk sails all terminated within easy reach of her chair.

  Next, she warmed up another of her customisations, connecting the drive belts of the port and starboard propellers to a gas-powered gear system affixed to the sides of her stove. They chugged into motion, propelling the Dragonship against an insistent breeze sweeping from the northwest. Like most solo Dragonships, there were further propellers at the stern and bow, and above and below, to aid manoeuvring in any conceivable direction. Lia angled the propellers to provide both lift and thrust–the higher she flew, the better chance she had of gliding to a safe landing should problems arise.

  After popping a chunk of dense jalkwood into the stove, her Rascally Highness trimmed the sails to catch the wind as she swung the dirigible’s nose to point southeast. Usually, she would follow the semicircle of rim-Islands down to Ha’athior, because the caldera’s rising vapours could be unpredictable. She judged the breeze steady enough to mitigate the danger of a shortcut. She perched on the pilot’s stool, clicked the gearstick a notch to engage the stern propeller, and began to pedal.

  A hot, sticky Fra’aniorian night enfolded her.

  Chapter 3: Crystal Lair

  Over a league beneath Lia’s Dragonship, the caldera’s lava lakes cast a ruddy glow upon the fat underbelly of the dirigible balloon. Miles-tall cliffs festooned with dense tropical vegetation and trailing vines dropped from the Islands into the caldera, before the heat and poisonous gases strangled any plant life except for lichens. Dragonets, birds, monkeys and other flying and burrowing rodents and insects inhabited the cliffs in their millions. Half a mile offshore the silence was profound, a brooding presence in its own right, a beast of mystery and magic.

  Softly, she sang to herself to while away the hours.

  Gi’ishior seemed busier than usual. By the light of the Jade, Mystic and Blue moons, Lia tallied at least ten Dragons patrolling the skies above the tall, slender volcanic cone said to house the Halls of the Dragons, and a steady stream of Dragonkind arriving and departing on mysterious errands. What was a Dragon city like, she wondered? How did Dragon mothers chastise their hatchlings? Did Dragon parents ever abandon their eggs, as she had been abandoned?

  As Lia turned southward, again maintaining a good separation from the Islands in order to trim the distance she needed to fly, she clambered aloft to unfurl the spinnaker, a big-bellied triangular sail which billowed to fullness as it caught the breeze. The masts creaked as the dirigible leaned over, gathering speed. Such strange names for sails–jibs, topgallants, even a moonraker. She had found the idea of a spinnaker in an ancient, crumbling scroll in her father’s archives, and copied it, adding a few ‘Lia’ touches. How well that described the melody of her life! Could she never be satisfied with things as they were?

  As Ha’athior loomed before her after seven hours’ sailing, a Yellow Dragoness suddenly rose from the darkness to fix Lia with a scorching gaze. She was as sleek as a trout, with coppery overtones on her upper body fading into a pale eggshell yellow in the underparts.

  “Hualiama,” she growled. “Mighty Sapphurion said you’d be quick to trespass.”

  Lia raised her chin, disguising her anxiety behind a thin-lipped smile. “I’m not trespassing, o mighty Dragon. The air is free for Dragon and Human alike.”

  This comment provoked a fifteen-foot plume of flame that passed dangerously close to her Dragonship’s nose. “As cheeky as my hatchlings! Know this, little Human–we Dragons are watching. Always watching.”

  “I was just–” the Dragoness wheeled away. Lia sighed, “I’m just parking at the warrior monastery offshore of Ha’athior. Thereafter …”

  Aggravated but unsurprised that the story of her intrusion on the hallowed Dragon Isle had spread amongst the Dragons, Hualiama set her course to skirt Ha’athior Island’s northern shore. Passing through the gigantic cleft between Ha’athior and Janbiss Island to the north, the Dragonship left the caldera in its wake as it sailed out across the crimson-tinged Cloudlands, that bottomless realm of poisonous clouds that lapped around the base of the volcano, a league and a quarter beneath her current altitude. Lia trimmed the sails, swooping toward a tiny, obscure volcano just offshore of the holy Island.

  Here, she had lived. Trained. Studied. Learned to dance with weapons. Collected more bruises than a girl should have in a lifetime. And–if she were allowed to confess–charmed the beards off more than a few of the warrior-monks.

  An unexpected freshening of the breeze slewed the Dragonship about, making Lia leap to the controls. She dropped the spinnaker and raised two stormsails aloft to improve stability, before reefing in the side-sails to further reduce her speed. A touch of the controls cut off the flow of hot air to the balloon. Soon, the Dragonship began to lose altitude.

  Lia coasted in over the volcano’s rim, the bottom of her basket trailing barely a dozen feet above the rock. She crossed a small crater lake, glistening in the moons-light, and downed anchor beside the dark temple of the Great Dragon–a building so ancient, not even the Dragons knew who had built it.

  A monk materialised out of the darkness, calling softly, “Hualiama!”

  Ja’al! Lia’s heart lurched into her throat.

  He said, “The most sulphurous greetings of
the Great Dragon to you.”

  “And may his everlasting fires burn within you, Master Ja’al.”

  The young monk’s teeth glinted briefly at their formality. Sweet Ja’al, still so volcanically handsome–and still so committed to his monkish vows. They had kissed, once. Had he forgotten that day? Judging by the pinch of rose enflaming his cheeks, perhaps not. She must bind her treacherous heart for his sake. Lia forbade her lips to curve upward, and failed. Ja’al’s colour deepened.

  The monk cleared his throat awkwardly. “We heard the King forbade you to train here, Lia. Therefore, you should not–”

  “I’m not.”

  “Now that I recall, I saw a dragonet fly by. I shall moor this stray Dragonship beneath the trees.”

  “Thank you, Ja’al.”

  Only the simplest of words could be risked, or her heart would tear loose of her ribcage and pounce upon the monk, a beast of passion unchained. Her lower lip quivered.

  With a soft word of thanks, Hualiama wrenched herself away and loped into the night.

  Briefly, her path led past the monastery building, gutted by the Dragon attack which had led to her friend Inniora’s kidnapping, but now rebuilt. The no-longer-secret stairway lay concealed in the crack between a huge boulder and a gnarled, ancient prekki tree. Within, the darkness was pure sable. Lia felt for the steps. Right. Hustle, girl! Down forever, until she felt dizzy. Dash away the tears. No time for regrets. Twisting through the tunnel below to the lower slopes of the volcano. Here, an ancient prekki-fruit tree leaned over the gap between the Islands, just a hundred feet wide but two miles deep. A blood-red lava flow glowed down there.

  Six years ago, she had found her way across this divide with the help of a braided vine. Now, a knotted rope hung from a branch seventy feet above her head. Lia untied it from an iron ring set in the prekki tree’s trunk, and ran the makeshift cord through her fingers.

  Beyond this point, she would earn a swift flight from a great height, or an even swifter claw through the chest.