Dragonfriend - Marc Secchia Page 0,168

slave. I have much to learn about Humans. I would learn much more from you, given the chance.”

“Oh,” said Lia, ambushed by this unexpected torrent of feelings. “Oh … is that so?”

“By my wings, it is.”

When she did not speak, Grandion’s head swung away. His muscles coiled.

“Wait!”

The Dragon turned so sharply, he almost knocked her over.

“I feared you,” the Human girl said, raising her hand hesitantly. It hovered just above the scales of his left eye. “You’re a monster of fire and magic, and there’s just so much of you, I oftentimes felt … overshadowed. Obviously.” Lia chuckled softly. “Everything about you is just so predatory, Grandion, and so forbidden. Forgive me–” she forced the words out in a breathless rush “–if I treated you as an animal.”

With the tiniest movement, he shifted to nuzzle her hand. He remembered! Helpless captive to her heart’s hegemony over her thoughts, Hualiama whispered, “Grandion, for me it was that day at Horness Cluster, after we evaded the Human fleet from Yorbik, when I touched you like this. And you, with your paw, you held me just so … as if I were precious, and infinitely cherished. Not grasping an object as you said, but–”

“Like this?”

Warmth enclosed her back and shoulders. The Tourmaline Dragon drew her close, tender to the shuddering of her body against his paw.

Lia whispered, “It was indeed a revelation.”

“I wish I didn’t have to leave,” he said.

“You must. You promised.” Hualiama wiped her eyes, knowing she had to release her Dragon now, before the anguish destroyed her. “Be reconciled to your family, Grandion, and become the Dragon I know you want to be.”

“Thank you, Lia.”

When he winged away, she watched until the faraway speck of blue merged into the evening sky. The ledge suddenly seemed chill and vacant. Only her memories remained, drifting like an unseen fragrance upon the volcanic breezes.

A Human girl walked alone through the underground halls of holy Ha’athior. Every so often, her hand would touch her shoulder where Flicker once sat, and she imagined him warming her neck and chattering nonsense into her ear. Her steps slowed. Straw-head. No kissing that monk–whom he had so memorably nicknamed ‘egg-head’. She would never look at a monk in the same way again.

Poor Master Jo’el. He had perished defending an ungrateful king from his own folly.

Hualiama wandered down through the maze of tunnels, wishing she knew the answer to that most unanswerable question of all–what now?

Would the part of her soul that winged with a Tourmaline Dragon across the Island-World, return to her whole? What would become of her father? Would she be required to testify against him? Lia knew she must trust Grandion, and not live in fear of her fate. She must resolve to keep Flicker in her heart.

Amaryllion’s eye was wide open. He waited for her.

Weary beyond exhaustion, Hualiama seated herself on the stone barely two feet from the fiery surface of that great orb and buried her face in her hands. Her thoughts spun off in strange directions. She pictured herself flying a Dragonship to Gi’ishior to defend her father in the courts of the Dragons … she remembered Ianthine’s warning about possessing the power to escape her Dragon-forged prison. Had she unwittingly effected the Maroon Dragoness’ escape? And what of the mystery of her mother’s detestable bargain with Ianthine?

An enormous emptiness seemed hollowed behind her breastbone. The kingdom, saved, at the expense of her friend’s life. Shattering.

Lia muttered, “Any wisdom for a broken heart, o Ancient Dragon?”

“Time will temper thy grief, little mouse,” he rumbled, with great kindness. “Much remains to be learned of thy destiny. Now, thy task is to rest and sleep, and to forget.”

She gazed into the wall of his eye. Lia said, “Perhaps I might step within your fires, and thus forget.”

“Nay, I meant that I will touch thy mind.”

“But I don’t want to forget!” she protested. “My memories are precious–please, Amaryllion, you cannot rob me thus, painful as it might be. I am not crushed. I will survive.”

When he spoke, his voice acquired an unexpected edge of iron. “These are not my reasons. Thou art a Human of a mere fifteen years and several months’ age, little mouse. Thy knowledge of this Island-World and its dangers, and the forces of darkness entrenched against thee, vanishes into insignificance in comparison to the wisdom of an Ancient Dragon two thousand years thy senior! I adjudge that thou must forget, and forget thou shalt, even this conversation. Do not question my decision.”

“Amaryllion, I do trust you.” Hualiama swallowed. “If I cannot question you, then I must beg you. Please, for the sake of all we’ve shared … please. Don’t do this to me.”

Heavily, the Ancient Dragon replied, “Many of thy lifetimes have I watched and waited. The sense of mine hearts, the leap of my fires, the tingling of deep knowledge in my seventh sense, all point to one fact. We must wait. The fire burns brightly, but the coals are not yet ready. And while we wait and grow in our understanding, greedy and fey eyes will fix upon thee and thy life. Dragonish eyes. Human eyes. I shall wait beneath this mountain. And thou wilt understand, one day, that it was for the best.”

Lia could not contain the bitterness that crept into her reply. “It has already been the worst day of my life. Why not truly crown my Island?”

Amaryllion blinked, a shuttering of that vast eye which in no way diminished its power, although the cavern flickered through twilight to utter darkness, and back to the fire of his gaze. “What is thy meaning, Dragonfriend?”

“Do what you will, beast!” Lia burst out, trembling so hard she flung tears into his eye. The teardrops sizzled briefly against its surface. “Maybe you wish to wipe me out and start afresh, as the dragonets do–why not a better, more compliant Hualiama? One who neither tramples upon ancient taboos, nor questions her elders? This is not wisdom–”

When an Ancient Dragon sighed, Ha’athior Island trembled on its foundations. Such a sigh shook her now. The wind of his breath whistled away through the caverns, and a distant rockfall rumbled before falling silent.

“I see you as one of my fathers,” she whispered, half statement, half plea. “The father of my spirit. One who understands the flame within me.”

“I am honoured,” he said.

There were times Hualiama simply could not find it within herself to believe Amaryllion. How he condescended to a mere Human! What ancient lizard would truly be honoured that a miniscule Human of fleeting life and uncertain destiny should consider him a father?

Truly, I do not understand the nature of thy flame, he said in Dragonish, while his monstrous chuckle rattled her bone-deep. Surprised? Aye. This is the enigma I spoke of before. Thou art mystery unfathomable, Hualiama Dragonfriend, a child of the endlessly unpredictable, many-faceted, impossible to define power we so inadequately describe as ‘magic’. And that, o delight of mine Dragon hearts, is why I must bid thee sleep. Not to change thee, but to guard thy very soul.

A deep, brooding thrumming filled her senses. Hualiama resisted, unwilling to forget. Her eyes drooped.

Lay thee down, little mouse.

She pillowed her head upon a rock beside the Ancient Dragon’s titanic eye.

Sleep, o child of the Dragon. Dream much, live much, love much, and forget just a little, and only for a time.

Hualiama slept. She dreamed of the whisper of tourmaline-laced wings greeting the flames of a twin-suns dawn, and of a faithful dragonet trilling to her, ‘Fly, Lia, fly!’