The Island-World was not ready for such a miraculous magic. It would lash out and destroy them before allowing their magic to take root.
Yet, it was beautiful. And neither of them knew it.
* * * *
From the sharp-fanged black Isles of Horness Cluster, the trio travelled ever southward, following the snaking ridge beneath the Cloudlands, topped here and there with Islands peeking shyly above the cloud cover. Most were too low, too close to the poisons down below to contemplate as a stopping-over place, but they perched one night atop a column of rock just fifty feet wide, a second night upon the flank of a constantly spitting volcano, and the third, a goodly distance down the flank of the Western Isles at the latitude of Rolodia Island and a hundred leagues or more north of Naphtha Cluster.
Having been chased into shelter by a massive storm, they waited it out in the shelter of an old Dragon roost, while the winds shrieked a dreadful song and the rain poured so mightily that they could scarcely see five feet outside of the cave mouth.
“Once this blows over, our search truly begins,” said Grandion.
Lia did not even pause her Nuyallith forms as she replied, “I say we’ll find them between Naphtha and Ur-Tagga. Flicker?”
“Exactly two hundred and fifty-seven miles south of Naphtha,” chirped the dragonet. “Lia, do you remember that morning when we sang and you danced upon Grandion’s back? I sensed the fire of magic in your dance. These Nuyallith forms you practice are also a channel for the inner fire. If you learn to release your power through those blades, or release their inherent power …”
She landed with a sharp cry, splitting an imaginary opponent in half. “I might stand a gnat’s chance in a storm of beating Ra’aba?”
“A large gnat,” said the dragonet, illustrating with his claws.
“Perhaps as much as a yellow finch,” agreed Grandion.
Hualiama stuck out her tongue at the two of them. “Don’t overdo the encouragement there, my faithful escorts.”
Flicker chuckled, “Right. Try this. You’ll storm the palace, Hualiama, scattering all before you with the might of your wrathful presence, and slay Ra’aba with one glance of your burning eye.”
“You will strike him with such power that his teeth will rattle off the Mystic moon,” growled the Tourmaline Dragon, “following which you will dice his body into a million tiny pieces and scatter them from here to Herimor, not missing a single square inch of Cloudlands in between.”
“I don’t think that’s mathematically possible,” the dragonet disagreed.
Lia snapped, “Oh, just forget I spoke!”
She wanted to shout ‘men!’ But that would merely insult them. Did they not realise, or care for her feelings, that she must destroy her real father in order to reclaim the Onyx Throne for her adopted father? Oh, and all of this at the behest of Amaryllion, who she called her Dragon father? What irony could possibly bite deeper than this?
Ra’aba had toyed with her, that day on the Dragonship.
Surely, he could not know she was his daughter? What was the connection between her and the prophecy? Who had Ra’aba killed with his own hands, twice? Her mother? No. If Hualiama had not been lying on the floor, silenced by the Nameless Man, she might have seen the Roc’s eyes and known the truth for what it was–a truth which swirled about her like leaves tossed in a wind, eluding her grasp. The Orange Dragon’s attack, the exact shade of the zeal in Razzior’s eyes as he prepared to incinerate her with his Dragon fire …
The world seemed to flicker through darkness.
“Lia?”
Flicker was on her shoulder, crooning in her ear.
“Oh … what happened?”
“You cried out. You’re cold! So cold, what’s the matter?”
“I was thinking about the day the Orange Dragon attacked me. You remember that, don’t you? Of course you do.” Hualiama rubbed her temples. “I don’t feel very well. Flicker, I’m still struck by this instinct, as I think about what Ra’aba said about the prophecy, that he and Razzior are linked, somehow. More than allies. More than creatures who take joy in evil deeds. There’s … something … and I’m missing it. Perhaps it’s a power of ruzal–you remember, Amaryllion suspected the touch of ruzal on my life.”
Flicker nodded. “It stands to reason. If Ianthine somehow knew you as a babe, then maybe that’s the touch Amaryllion spoke of.”
“Why would a Maroon Dragoness steal a child from its Human mother? What would she stand to gain?”