alert Sapphurion. After that we find our King, and lay our plans to overthrow Ra’aba.” Unexpectedly, the dour monk chuckled, “What could be simpler?”
Flicker said, “A shame we can’t recruit a Brown Dragon to rescue Grandion, Lia–if one trapped him, surely another can blast him out?”
“No,” Lia said thoughtfully. “We need to secure the Dragon’s obligation to our cause. The scrolls of Dragon lore I read suggest that a life-debt holds great weight in Dragon society. That is, if he doesn’t consider it his duty to blast me for being on Ha’athior–oh. Blast … aye!”
Hualiama startled everyone, including herself, by leaping to her feet with a shout of triumph. Somewhat sheepishly, she found her seat again. Master Jo’el threw her a pointed look.
“Hydrogen bomb,” she blurted out.
“What’s the wretched girl talking about, Flicker?” Ja’al winked at the dragonet.
Flicker shrugged. “Been raiding the berry wine again, Hualiama?”
She knew he was referring to her flirtation with Grandion–the flirtation of a moth with a candle-flame. Green is the colour of jealousy, dragonet, she growled.
To the monks, Hualiama said, “I was thinking about how dangerously volatile hydrogen gas is.” Their blank looks only made her press on doggedly, “So, I thought … what if we made a long balloon and stuffed it down the tunnel, filled it with hydrogen, and then just blew the side off the mountain?”
“Brilliant!” crowed Ja’al.
Flicker beamed at her, showing every one of his tiny fangs. “You’re a genius, Lia. That Dragon had better have somewhere to take cover, though.”
“And you’d better have a very, very long fuse,” said Master Jo’el. “Or, run very fast.”
* * * *
“So, Human girl, let me understand the flight of your thoughts,” said Grandion, not long after the meeting concluded. “You propose to blow up this mountain with me still inside. If I survive, you want me speak to a mad Dragoness on your behalf, and find out the terrible secret of why you remember being raised by Dragons on Gi’ishior–a secret which might spell the end of all Dragons, if Ra’aba is right?”
“That’s about it,” said Lia, miserably. The incredulity in his voice was unmistakable. Mercy. Now she wished she had been less honest with him.
“In exchange for undertaking this crazy quest, you will rescue me?”
“Aye–no. I will rescue you anyway. After that, you have a free choice, Grandion.”
“Oh, a free choice? Your Highness is exceedingly kind.” His sarcasm stung, delivered with all the rich nuance of a Dragon’s vocal capability. “Perhaps you’re hoping the fabled draconic oath of obligation will force me to accede to your request? Did you read that in an old scroll somewhere?” Lia grimaced, about to reply, but Grandion cut in, “Girl, Dragons are creatures of high intelligence. I am not some stupid rock-dwelling lizard to be led about by the likes of you!”
His pronouncement came accompanied by a roar of fire which heated the rock she stood upon. Sweat pearled upon her brow. She must stink of fear; her courage, winged away to another Island.
Lia cried, “Grandion, you’re taking this entirely the wrong way.”
“Am I?”
“You could try trusting me! I’ve cared for you for three months!”
Ungrateful, despicable beast! She had to make him agree! Aye, her words had been less than eloquent. They had been desperate and broken–but surely, even this dim-witted lump of a Dragon could grasp the depths of her need? The sweep of events that drove her to stand upon a forbidden Island, that drove her to rise again and again above the murderous designs of Ra’aba and his minions? The grief of a family lost and now a friend kidnapped?
“Then why insult and threaten me, Human girl?” growled the Dragon, more puzzled than menacing. “You already hold my life in your paw. Do you not possess the power to leave me here?”
Heartache and loss abounded in her life, and now Lia faced more. The glut of her misery and woe would overspill a terrace lake. She who thought she knew Dragons … was a prize ralti sheep. Lia had misread Grandion and crash-landed the Dragonship of her hope on the rocks of his oh-so-Dragonish stubbornness and pride.
Naked despair thickened her voice as Hualiama replied, “If you knew me at all, Grandion, you’d understand that no power exists in this Island-World that could persuade me to abandon you to die beneath this mountain.”
Her words seeped away and returned to spark a roaring in her ears. Lia searched her deepest feelings. She saw ripples perturbing the magical veil of the Island-World, concentric circles diving inward