and expanding outward simultaneously, their consequence, cataclysmic.
Even the silence held its breath.
She must speak her heart. Slowly, she added, “Grandion, you once spared my life. Therefore, I swear upon the sacred Spirits of the Ancient Dragons, and all that is dear to me, that I shall devote my life to succour yours, o mighty Tourmaline Dragon, and I promise to protect the Dragonkind against whatever terrible fate the future may hold.”
An overpowering stillness seemed to amplify around her oath, a power of truth she had never known existed. Though they existed as two separate beings, though the gulf between Human and Dragonish understanding was as measureless as the depths of the Rift storm, yet it seemed to Hualiama that a delicate yet unbreakable magical chain had come to link her heart to the Dragon’s third heart. When had that transpired? Sometime during her months of one-sided caring for Grandion? A shared fate which had drawn her to him before she ever knew his name? A destiny which lay together, beyond the Isles?
All she knew was that their hearts beat as one, and that the rhythm of that pulse was her life, throbbing out a miraculous, unstoppable torrent of magic, until her heart could bear no more …
The Dragon made a sound like a low, crooning sob, and when he spoke, it was with raw, quivering emotion. He declared, “Though it flies against every current of reason, I swear that I shall do everything in my power to aid and honour your oath, Hualiama of Fra’anior–out of my free will as a creature of flame and magic–for the gift of life must be honoured by all creatures under the twin suns, lest we fall into the Cloudlands and be lost forever.”
All the Island-World must marvel at these vows.
Magic swelled and undulated between them like the breath of a dawn wind misting the surface of a terrace lake. No breath would pass Hualiama’s throat. For a moment the veil of the unseen and unknowable seemed to draw aside, granting her a glimpse of the world-spanning ramifications of their simple words, a multi-dimensional tapestry of fate drawing together in a single time and place, lending now the infinite complexity of a universe of possibility. All would change. The Nameless Man’s cusp of history was already receding into the past, immutable.
Unthinking, in Dragonish, she whispered, I thank thee, noble Dragon.
My soul-song gladdens the very stars, gracious Hualiama.
And so, having secured Grandion’s agreement to hide as far up the narrowing crack as he possibly could, the place where he said a trickle of water entered his cave, Lia returned–nay, fled–to the monastery to prepare her hydrogen bomb. Ten monks had worked for hours on gluing together sacks ten feet long and seven feet tall, connecting them with long hoses of hollow chengis vine.
Master Jo’el showed her the fuse he had braided and prepared. “It needs another two hours to dry,” he explained. “You’ll have five minutes after you light this to get as far away from that cave as possible. Do you have the hydrogen still? Enough meriatite stone and acid? Bellows and a pump?”
“All is prepared, Master.”
“Ja’al will help you set up the still. I want no-one else setting foot on the Holy Isle, for if that Dragon should seek revenge, we must minimise our transgression.”
“Aye, Master.”
She dared not speak of what had transpired between her and the beast. It was too fresh, too fragile to risk, trembling like a baby bird within her breast.
“Three hours of darkness remain. By dawn, be undercover. The sacks will take hours to fill with that small still. Take heart. Perhaps tomorrow evening, or the day after, you shall be ready. Pray Ra’aba does not return before that hour to complete his evil labours.”
Working rapidly, Hualiama and Ja’al ferried the necessary equipment over to Ha’athior Island. She worried about Flicker. Gi’ishior was a huge flight for a dragonet. Though dragonets were quick, they did not enjoy the stamina of Lesser Dragons. Flicker had estimated it would take him two or three days to reach Gi’ishior. He would stop at the hidden monasteries to rest. With one eye glued to the skies for Dragon-sign, Ja’al and Lia lugged their equipment around the treacherous path to the avalanche site. They stuffed everything down the hole and dragged the huge bags of Dragonship material to their desired locations along the tunnel.
Ja’al peered over her shoulder. “So, this is a hydrogen still?”
Lia nodded, biting her tongue as she concentrated on assembling the