Aranya (Shapeshifter Dragons) (13 page)

“Roaring rajals,” she said to herself, borrowing one of Zip’s favourite sayings.

Aranya imagined leaping upon Garthion as a Dragon and biting his head off. Ha! But what would Yolathion have said? His seven feet were the height of her shoulder when she crouched down. How would he ever accept her, gleaming Dragon fangs and all? She was not displeased with her sleek, deadly appearance. But that hardly mattered when it came packaged as a Dragon, did it?

Nak spent two days covering Dragon anatomy in minute detail, including
the care of claws and fangs, the types of parasites which could burrow beneath the scales or infect the gums, and the treatment of wounds, sprains and strains. He bade her practise listening with her Dragon senses. He told her that she could stop listening when she could tell what type of butterfly was fluttering on the far side of the dell. “You’ve the patience of a gnat,” he told her cheerfully. “Listen again.”

Aranya growled, “And what’s the use of this?”

Nak said, “Close your eyes. Listen.” Dragon-Aranya heard him pick up a stone. She heard it zip through the air and strike her flank. “Imagine a dark night. That was a crossbow quarrel headed right for your belly. How else would you avoid it?”

Aranya learned patience. She learned to listen for
hours at a time. She practised focussing her Dragon sight until she was proficient at seeing a fly landing on a branch in the forest behind the hut, from a hundred paces distant. She sniffed the air until she could tell a male ralti sheep from a female, and could smell out which of the fifty herbs Oyda loved to sprinkle in her cooking and baking, just from a whiff of chimney smoke. She was made to pluck sword-grass blades with her talons until she could pick them precisely with either her forefeet or hind feet. She even managed to learn to speak in her Dragon form without burping in Nak’s face, which he accused her of the first time.

But she could not breathe fire.

Once her shoulders recovered–the heavy bruising having faded through a deep wine-purple colour into sallow yellows beneath her Human skin–the next stage of her Dragon training involved running up and down the dell flapping her wings until Nak and Oyda both were satisfied that her injures were sufficiently healed. She only tripped and shovelled up dirt with her nose twice. She dined on another wild ralti sheep. Nak declared she had behaved herself with decorum this time.

Aranya kissed him on the cheek for that comment.

One evening, sitting with Oyda in the kitchen beside the fireplace, while Nak snored peaceably in his bed next door, she said, “You think trying to get a message to my family should wait?”

Oyda nodded, her eyes softening with sympathy. “It should, Aranya. Sylakia monitors all communication between the Islands. We’d have to be incredibly creative–and lucky–not to bring the Sylakian hammer down on your family.”

Aranya winced.

“Maybe, when you’ve learned to fly, you can make your way up to Immadia secretly?”

“Good idea.” But Aranya hated to think of how her family had to be mourning her death. “I’ve also been thinking of going back for my friend Zuziana. I can’t bear to leave her–what if Garthion recovers? She already knows about my fire. Even if it were just a flying visit, so to speak …”

“I see the sadness in your eyes, petal.”

“I wonder what one Dragon who hasn’t even learned to fly yet, could do against the Sylakians?” Aranya stirred her redbush tea listlessly. “I don’t think all Sylakians are evil, of course not. But when one power takes over all the Island-World, it cannot be good. One day, I’d love to find out where the Dragons went. Even you don’t know that.”

“There’s plenty this old woman doesn’t k
now, Aranya. Sounds like you have a small Island’s worth of things on your mind. You know, if you did choose this Zuziana for your Dragon Rider … well, we should first consult Nak about how you might burgle the well-guarded Tower of Sylakia. Right now, you’re hidden here in this little corner of a large Island. But the theft of the Princess of Remoy, however delighted Nak might be at the prospect of another young woman gracing this house, will inevitably reveal your presence. You must think upon that.”

“I’d love
to see Zip’s expression.”

Oyda’s face darkened. “And when she sees you’re a Dragon? Are you ready for that?”

Aranya caught her breath. “I–no. No, I’m not. Oh, I hate this, I hate it! Oyda, please don’t think me ungrateful–”

“You’re not.” Oyda placed her hand upon Aranya’s and squeezed gently. “But I’ve lived
on this Island-World too long not to know you’ll want to seek your destiny, Aranya, Dragon Shapeshifter and Princess of Immadia. It cannot be denied. Tomorrow, we need to help you leave the nest.”

“Do you think I’m ready?”

The old woman’s face softened. “You’ve done it once before, petal. This time, the push will be with a hand of love.”

And those were the words that accompanied Aranya to sleep. Precious, precious words, she thought, hugging her
knees in the darkness of her bedroom. Where did people as kind and unselfish as Nak and Oyda come from? How had she landed on their doorstep?

Life was strange.

Being a Dragon was even stranger.

The following morning, she stood on the
very edge of the cliff. Aranya shivered even though she was not cold. “Spread your wings and make a decent jump away from the edge,” said Nak. “You’ve done this before. I want a quick glide, a turn and a landing. Mind the wind. It might waft you higher than you expect.”

Aranya gazed over the Cloudlands. Her Dragon hearts, all three of them, thumped in her chest and belly. “I’m not sure I can move, Nak.”

“You’re thinking with your Human mind. You’re a Dragon. Dragons fly. They are born to fly. Even one as pretty as you, who would make any self-respecting male Dragon fly sideways into a cliff for a mere glimpse of your scales, can fly.”

“Nak, you do wonders for a girl’s ego.”

“And you do wonders for my–shh, here’s the old sheep herself, now.” Nak raised his voice. “Come to see her fly, o precious queen of my soul?”

Oyda stumped along to join them. “My, you picked a perfect morning, Aranya. Now remember, this is your second flight. Let’s make it better than the first.”

Nak cried, “Ha! The insult. Who’s been mentoring her, may I ask?”

“We’ll see, husband.”

Aranya shuffled closer to the edge. So much for loving high places. It was different when you were planning to jump from nice, solid ground into the endless void. She looked up at the White moon, which had beaten Iridith into the sky this morning, and sighed. She was crazy. She wasn’t just one-moon-touched. Dragon-Aranya spread her wings to test the breeze. She checked each of her wings for the umpteenth time. They certainly looked useful for flying. Her wingspan was over forty feet, perhaps fifty if she stretched to her utmost.

What she had was a brain like a basket of rotten prekki-fruit. The Cloudlands were far below, but her Dragon sight could make out every detail of the copper and cobalt hues of the morning. Was it volcanoes stirring them from beneath, she wondered?

“Yah!” bawled Nak, belting her across the hindquarters with his cane.

It wasn’t so much t
he pain as the surprise that made her leap. One moment she was safely perched on the rocks, the next, she was airborne and wailing her heart out–which, in her Dragon form, meant bellowing so loudly that every last one of Nak’s sheep turned tail and bolted for the safety of the forest. Aranya tried to level out. She was flying! Actually, she was almost upside-down. She righted herself with a violent wobble and searched anxiously for Nak and Oyda. Oh dear, she really was flapping above nothingness. Her Human brain wanted nothing to do with this.

She closed her eyes and tried not to think. Suddenly,
Aranya found herself drifting gracefully through the air as though she had flown a thousand times before.

But the moment she opened her eyes again, Aranya panicked. Help! People don’t fly! She needed
an Island beneath her feet. Nak, Nak … there they were. Phew. Just feel the wind embracing her hide, she told herself. This was supposed to be joyous. But she was terrified.

Now all she needed to do was land
without ploughing the dell with her nose.

Aranya came screaming in low. Nak leaped for cover as she hurtled overhead. Remembering her lessons, Aranya cupped the air with her wings and landed neatly not on her legs, but on her tail. She promptly toppled sideways like a felled tree.

Next she knew, a little man kicked her in the neck, chuckling, “I see we need to work on our take-offs and landings, my precious purple puffball.”

His kick did not hurt at all. With a flexion of her talons, Aranya righted herself. “Very well, little manikin. I’ll do it again.”

She did. Badly. Four botched landings and a scrape of the prekki-fruit tree later, Aranya finally managed to just about land on all fours with a modicum of grace. She grinned wryly at Nak, which meant showing off a thicket of teeth, she realised belatedly.

“At least I’m getting the jump right, aren’t I?”

“Give me a Dragon kiss,” he cried. Nak planted a smacker on the end of her nose. “Right, Dragon, a little rest while we discuss the finer points of your astounding ineptitude at this simple task. Tortoises fly more elegantly than you. I fly more elegantly than you. Those sheep are hiding more in embarrassment than in fear, by now.” He waved his cane beneath her nose. “The sight of thy beauty streaking across the face of the Jade moon should strike awe and wonder into the hearts of thy numerous admirers. Few sights in this Island-World are more marvellous than a Dragon in full flight. When her Dragon fire billows before her, what can stand against?”

Aranya snapped playfully in his direction.

“Back, thou glorious raiment of the dawn,” he growled, cutting the air with the cane as though he wished to dice her up with a sword. “Down, thou companion of the suns’ brilliance. Am I not thy Prince? Art thou not resplendent in all thy scaly, reptilian glory?”

“That you are, you silly man. I thought you
taught me that Dragons are warm-blooded?”

“Then fly, thou precocious Dragon. Fly!”

She flew, and allowed her Dragon instincts to take over. Wind filled her wings. It caressed her scales, thrilling her with the sensation of swimming through the air like a fish. A thousand unfamiliar scents teased her nostrils. Her Dragon hearts welled up with such a fierce joy it burst out of her throat in a series of bugling calls of delight. What rapture! She knew she was made for this. Everything about her Dragon body was streamlined. She had power and grace and catlike reflexes. Her wings responded to the tiniest changes in air pressure and direction, flexing and trimming and rising and falling with a living rhythm all of their own. She swooped over Nak, carolling her exultation to the hills and skies.

He waved and danced and generally acted like a complete lunatic.

Later, when Aranya had practised at least fifty take-offs and landings, and was so exhausted she overshot the hut on her final landing and plowed another large furrow into their meadow, Oyda emerged to scold her inside. “She barely has energy left to transform,” she reproached Nak. “She’s just a fledgling.”

“But flying is just so … oh, Oyda, what can I say?”

“The sparkle in your eyes says it all, my petal.”

For sheer happiness, Aranya danced about Oyda and bent to kiss her cheek. “I think you deserve a kiss, too. You’re just too proud to ask.”
She threw her aching arms around the old woman. “How could I ever, ever repay you for all you’ve done?”

Oyda reached up over Aranya’s shoulder to wipe her eyes. “This is thanks enough.”

“But I’ve eaten up all your bread–”

“Aranya, you’ve much to learn in this life. My old Nak has so much Dragon gold hidden back in that hut you wouldn’t believe it. We live simply because we believe there are things in this world no Dragon’s hoard can buy. Cup of tea?”

Typical. Just when she thought she knew them, Nak and Oyda sprang another surprise on her.

“Actually, I’m starving. Is that your berry and prekki pie I smell baking?”

“Let me rustle up a little snack.” Oyda’s eyes twinkled. “All that flying must make a girl as hungry as a Dragon.”

“Hungrier,” growled Aranya, so Dragon-like that her
words stopped in her throat.

Oyda chuckled, “Aye, a Dragon.”

Aranya coughed and squirmed. “Oyda … did I hear in your tone a lesson about Dragons and gold?”

“Put some clothes on, petal, before my Nak bursts a blood vessel.” The old woman waved her wooden rolling-pin in Aranya’s direction. “Think you know me that well, eh, you scamp? Two lessons
then, since you insist. One, a Dragon’s insight is different to a Human’s. Learn to use them both, since you as a Shapeshifter have that opportunity. Two, Dragons are acquisitive by nature. Unfortunately, in my experience, hoarding turns a Dragon mean. Gold, jewels, crowns–all those glittery things do something ugly to a Dragon’s heart.”

“Hearts–three hearts,” said Aranya, emerging from her room dressed in a simple peasant smock. “Where’s Nak?”

“Snoring up a thunderstorm.”

“Already?” she asked. “How do I look, Oyda?”