blurted out, I’m just enormously honoured, o Ancient Dragon.
Somehow, Amaryllion’s eye conveyed the essence of a mental bow. Likewise, Hualiama of Fra’anior, I extend the most sulphurous greetings of the Dragonkind to thee. Be not afraid. Flicker told me of thy suffering today, little mouse.
Little mouse? Such a description should make a person bristle, but instead, Lia found a smile curving the corners of her mouth–an uncertain smile which doubtless betrayed the hysteria rampaging through her mind as she thought, at least the Ancient Dragon did not choose to call her ‘gnat’ or ‘gadfly’ or something worse! She was talking to a … to a Dragon-mountain … great Islands! She wobbled.
Quick as a flash, Flicker landed on her shoulder and twined himself about her neck, crooning softly. Lia found that her fear evaporated like a thunderstorm’s puddle vanishing beneath the full glare of the twin suns. Magic? It had to be. Nothing could prepare a person for such an experience, for the soul-crushing magnitude of a legendary Dragon’s physical and mental presence. Flying ralti sheep, people worshipped these creatures!
Squeezing her eyes shut, Hualiama sucked in a deep, calming breath. Flicker saved my life. Twice, now. I was not hurt, o Amaryllion, but I am … greatly shaken.
Aye, he rumbled. His fiery gaze blossomed with colours of apricot and streamers of turquoise, as if to underscore the deeply affecting gentleness she sensed in him now. To behold the visage of death is no trivial matter, little mouse. To know how narrowly one has escaped the clutches of a murderous claw, chills the very soul-fires. Tell me, how came thee to Ha’athior? Who is this Lia whom Flicker holds in such high esteem? Spare no detail in the telling, for mine ears hunger to hear thy tale.
Faintly, she said, I must start then with the unknowns of my birth, great one. For I was discovered by Dragons upon Gi’ishior Island. How I came to be found, and how I came to the royal household, I cannot say.
Lia hesitated, wondering why an Ancient Dragon should be interested in a life like hers. She was not long-lived in comparison to him, for she deduced from the timbre of his voice that he was ancient indeed, nor had she been greatly successful or notable in many endeavours. She must seem like a gnat, buzzing near his ear. Where were his ears? Somewhere up … there? Yet the great creature seemed content, and his hearts beat steadily in her hearing, and Flicker seemed unafraid–awed, but unafraid.
How much of this beast lay beneath Ha’athior Island? Part of her brain–a foolish part, admittedly–wanted to calculate his size. If Amaryllion’s eye was twenty feet across and the Orange Dragon’s evil orbs had measured perhaps eight inches apiece, or a little more, that made this Ancient Dragon, if she could assume the proportions held true, some thirty times the size of that Dragon … her mind boggled. Over half a mile long! Even her mind stammered, ‘N-N-No!’ She could not contemplate it. Imagine such a creature falling upon Fra’anior’s small, pretty city, with its lush gardens and rose-festooned walkways where tall, graceful women walked together with their Helyon silk umbrellas angled against the suns’ heat? A thousand Islands and more cried, ‘The horror!’
Sit thee down, Lia, Amaryllion invited her, as if blithely unware of her thoughts. Tarry awhile.
So that was how Lia found herself sitting cross-legged before an Ancient Dragon’s eye, with a dragonet on her lap, speaking with them, and before she knew it, the remaining hours of night had tiptoed by unnoticed.
Hualiama curled up and slept beneath Ha’athior, in the presence of an Ancient Dragon.
Chapter 9: Charming Monks
IF ASKED LATER, Hualiama would have been unable to recall how many days she spoke with the Ancient Dragon, for beneath the roots of Ha’athior Island, time assumed a surreal, imprecise aspect, neither demarcated by the twin suns or the moons’ waxing and waning, nor measurable by any other ordinary means. She sat or paced about, or even danced and performed her exercises, while Amaryllion looked on with lively interest and allowed her to pose question after question, debated points of consequence with her, and recounted the histories of the Dragonkind with perfect, unfailing accuracy. She slept and woke, and he was there. Lia sang ballads and sagas and histories for him, as many as she could remember. Flicker brought them food, but the Ancient Dragon seemed to need no sustenance. She wondered if he existed by magic alone.