Dragon Thief (24 page)

The lesson she delivered was as much about grace as it was about concentration. Her defence seemed languid, yet she had a world of time to nullify any attack. In quick succession, she scored five strikes against Riika, drawing blood twice despite the fact that they fought with blunted training daggers. Behind him, people were laying bets as to whether Riika would even land a blow. Evidently Mistress Zaethiell owned a formidable reputation.

“Summon your inner rajal, Riika!” someone yelled.

“Come on!”

On the far side of the arena, Master Haxu was shouting for Zaethiell. Kal turned to the Dragon Rider behind him. “Ten drals says Riika wins the next point.”

“Twenty,” said the man.

“Done and bargained for.”

Intently, the combatants circled each other, testing, feinting, clashing and breaking apart just as quickly. Zaethiell’s longer reach kept Riika at a distance, preventing her from landing a blow. Yet Riika had the persistence of the jungle-born. Deflecting a stunning triple-strike with her wristlets, she dove in and was rebuffed. Kal saw her lick blood off her lips again. Was this a result of the additional exertion? She appeared to be tiring. Just a ploy? Not her style.

Kal wished with all his jaded, blackened heart, he could assume her pain and illness upon himself as he had once shouldered Tazithiel’s burden to keep them flying through the storm.

She did it again. Riika
changed
.

Barely had his thought formed, when Kal sensed a flow toward the Pygmy girl of an indefinable nature, as if his own shade had touched her being to infuse Riika not with strength, but with the capability to reach within and find a new expression of her true self. Kal’s senses came alive to an outpouring of her spirit, the suggestion of an inner jungle cat. Raising her daggers, Riika’s feet tore the sand as she charged Zaethiell. Elegant defence was no match for the fury that swamped the Mistress. Parry! Parry! Feint and strike! Adjusting faster than the eye could follow, Riika moved adjacent to the Mistress’ outthrust arm and delivered a spinning kick to the side of her chest.

So brutal was the blow, it lifted Zaethiell bodily and hurled her ten feet across the arena. She crashed against Kal’s knees.

Riika was on her in a flash, slashing with the knife and ripping with clawed fingernails, snarling like a starving Dragoness bolting a juicy haunch of meat. Even when her knife went spinning, Riika continued to attack with unrestrained fury. Pure, animalistic instinct drove her toward the kill, before the Indigo Shapeshifter thrust them apart with a burst of her Kinetic power. Riika shimmered against that shield, almost breaking through in a welter of madness, before the light of sanity suddenly returned to her eyes. She crashed to her knees.

“Well, that was unexpected,” whispered the Mistress of Knives. “What power do you call that, girl?”

“I-I-I … don’t know what came over me.”

Beside him, Tazithiel wiped a splash of blood from her nose. “Clearly, Pygmies have magic.”

Master X’atior strode over to Riika to place his hand upon her shoulder. “Rest. The testing is over. Dragons, will you aid me with a verdict? That finale was too quick for me to follow.”

The Dragons had a brief and rancorous conference before Jalfyrion growled, “We can score the combat with and without knives, as is your custom, but I believe the student may have broken the rules.”

Riika laughed curtly. “I confess, I bit you twice and threw a head-butt, Mistress. My apologies. I was … feral, I guess.”

“Apologies?” Zaethiell dabbed at her eyebrow, bleeding freely over her left eye and down her bruised cheekbone. “It’s been years since I enjoyed such a fine match. I’d be honoured to offer you a rematch any time, or just to spar with you, student Riika. Such ferocity!”

Jalfyrion rumbled, “In the matter of armed combat, Riika scored clean nine strikes to Zaethiell’s fifteen. Zaethiell therefore wins at knives. I’m afraid that under these insane rules only Humans could devise, biting disqualifies the student from unarmed combat, despite that she prevailed twenty-nine strikes to four.”

Evidently, the Dragons found the idea of not biting uproarious. Even Tazithiel chuckled and shook her head in disbelief.

The stout Master X’atior seized Riika’s hand for the traditional kiss, blowing once upon her knuckles, circling his free hand twice in front of his face, and kissing her palm three times. “For the first time in Academy history, a student has won her Testing against the Masters.”

“Bah!” called Master Jandubior, recovering at the arena’s edge. “Test her some more!”

Kal yelled across the sand, “After you, I insist!”

Over the hubbub of laughter, X’atior bellowed, “Arise, student Riika, and claim your victory!”

Smiling shyly in the face of a tremendous roar of acclaim, Riika rose to take her bows to the traditional eight compass points. It was on the fifth bow that Kal saw pain’s shadow wing across her face. Clutching her chest, Riika collapsed.

“W
E SHOULD bE
with Riika,” Dragoness-Tazi grumbled.

“Yozora wants her to have breathing space,” said Kal. “One more time on the shield, Tazi, then I’m ready to pack it in. That Queen just dragged my brain backward through a patch of jiista-berry bushes.”

I wish …

Wish what?
Kal focussed on adding his power to the mental net the Indigo Dragoness had built, striving to achieve the meld Aranya had described to them. A shield built by two minds became more than the sum of both.

Tazithiel circled the volcano gingerly, half a mile above the rim.

This is not going to sound pretty, Kal. I wish she’d dote upon me as she does over that Pygmy girl.
The Dragoness snarled in frustration as their joint effort collapsed.
I know, Riika’s ill. I’m recovering. We train together for hours every day, but all Aranya does is push, push, push. Endurance. Dragon powers. Read these fifty scrolls. Next she’ll have me doing mental gymnastics while I dodge fireballs flying upside-down with my eyes shut.

Kal said,
Anyone would think she’s fond of you.

Anyone would think my shell-mother chooses odd ways to show her regard.
But Tazithiel spread her wings, gliding down over the school.
Having you up here learning with me has been invaluable, Kal. We’re growing closer as Dragon and Rider. Complex shields might defeat us, and I still can’t fly for more than half an hour at a time, but I do feel much more … honed. A unit. I’m starting to know myself and my capabilities. You, too.

Aye. You’re doing better with your shell-mother every day, Tazi.

Really, Kal? Do you think? I’ve been trying so hard, especially to respect her efforts for Riika. There hardly seems an hour she isn’t in the infirmary.

Kal shivered as the memory of Aranya springing down to the arena floor played through his mind. Her despair. The outpouring of her power; the convulsions her magic sparked in his daughter as the Queen stanched the inner bleeding. Later, Yozora reported a tear in Riika’s coronary artery. Seconds more, and she would have bled to death on the sand.

He said,
Aranya told me she had found something special to show us when we returned from training today.

Why didn’t you tell me?
Folding her wings, the Indigo Dragoness threw safety and healing to the winds.
Stupid man!

Slow down, Tazi. You’ll hurt yourself.

Of course, he was talking to twenty-odd tonnes of flying granite-for-brains. All of these Dragons seemed as stubborn as cinderblocks and as docile as the innards of meriatite furnace engines. Consequently, Kal had despatched agents of his own to spy on the Queen’s spies as they investigated Endurion and Talon’s roost, plans and powers. He had to see the job done right. The King of Thieves had also put the boot into the Academy’s security arrangements, not without the need for the Amethyst Dragoness to throw the not inconsiderable weight of her authority behind his plans. Kal preferred to run a tight Dragonship–with a couple of mouse-holes left for personal breathing space. It was amazing what his vigorous onslaught had turned up.

A posse of his most fearsome warriors would arrive by Dragonship from Yin’toria within the week. Warriors to put the fear of volcanic hells beneath this Academy. Warriors led by the redoubtable Kahuni-tor Ral’tuxi, an arthritic seventy year-old spinster from the outlying Isles of Rolodia. The thwack of her cane had been known to reduce the most cynical men to weeping lumps of prekki fruit mush, and the stroke of her quill-pen to obliterate edifices built over the course of decades. Aye. Kal’s grin widened. Accountants. There was no force to match their primal fury.

The flare of great, multi-jointed wings brushed the rock face above the infirmary cave as Tazithiel braked for her landing. She groaned. Kal growled an unsympathetic word and made to dismount, only to be forced to dance an inelegant sailor’s jig on her back as the Dragoness immediately whirled and ducked inside the infirmary. Thankfully, a grab for her row of secondary spine spikes saved his blushes. Tazi stalked over to Riika’s pallet, bugling softly with pleasure to see the half-Pygmy sitting propped up against her pillows, smiling wanly.

“Did you see this slop Yozora feeds me?” she greeted them.

“Jeradian porridge,” said Aranya, returned to her Human form, seated on a low stool beside Riika’s bedside. “Hearty and nutritious, youngling. Eat up.”

Riika sniped, “It’s so green I feel I may as well go graze outside.”

“Healing herbs.” The Queen’s eyes crinkled at the corners. “When they start impersonating angry kittens, you know they’re getting well.”

Kal dropped onto Tazithiel’s left elbow and somersaulted deftly to the ground. “Applause?”

Everyone ignored him. Bah.

The girl said, “Dad, I woke up this morning missing three days of my life, to find the Queen of Ages drooling on my pillow. The shock. Unspeakable.”

Aranya hissed, “I do not–”

“Wet patch.” Riika pointed. The Queen’s eyes bulged. “So, how’s the training going? Aranya has been struggling to fully express what dismal students you two are.” Dragon-Tazi sat with a thump that shook the infirmary, clearly fighting back an urge to belt a few manners into an incorrigible teenager. “We lost a Dragon and a Rider to Talon yesterday.”

“Who?” Tazi and Kal chorused.

The Queen said, “Evanion was the Rider, and his Red Dragoness, Khellzira of Gemalka.”

“Khellzira was a Shapeshifter; both were your descendants,” said Kal, earning himself a shocked glance from Aranya. “I’m sorry.”

Woodenly, Aranya said, “They were supposed to stay away from Endurion’s roost. Evidently, there’s a magical shield or warning system around their Island. Khellzira and Evanion came too close and set off some kind of alarm. Next they knew, Endurion and Talon appeared and Khellzira just fell out of the sky. It felt like a ‘squeeze’, one of the other Riders said. Probably stopped Khellzira’s hearts. Talon let the others go.”

“It’s a warning,” said Kal. “He’s toying with us. We have to get that scroll. And, before you forbid us, lady–”

“She won’t,” Riika interrupted.

“I won’t?” Lightning crackled between the Immadian Queen’s palms. She snuffed it out with a sigh. “If you weren’t so ill, little one, I’d turn you over my knee and tan your backside for being cheeky enough both to be right, and for saying so to my face. Listen. Yozora and I put you in an induced coma for three days, hoping to work on your poisoning–but it is not something we have ever encountered before and thus far, it has proven to be beyond our powers to correct. Let me explain. Kal, would you uncover that picture and hold it up?”

Picking up the two-by-two foot picture, Kal began to unlace the canvas covering.

Aranya said, “The original artwork hangs in the Great Hall of Immadia. I had this copy brought from Gi’ishior. Look closely. Do you recognise this young lady?”

As a group, jaws dropped. Riika whispered, “It’s me, isn’t it?”

“Not quite,” Kal mused. “My guess would centre upon a famous graduate of this Academy.”

“Bravo, Kal,” Aranya smiled. “This is Pip’úrth’l-iòlall-Yò’oótha.”

The Pygmy girl’s eyes grew round. “Roaring rajals, Aranya, you speak Ancient Southern just like a Pygmy. That’s her battle name, if I guess correctly? But the picture …”

“I painted this portrait over two hundred years ago.” The Queen’s eyes grew distant, as if memory had overtaken the present. “Pip was my friend. The Pygmy Dragon, they called her. Astonishing likeness, isn’t it, Riika? That’s why I find you so … every time I see you, I feel as though I have travelled back in time. You’ve Shapeshifter magic in your bloodline. Masses of it. Pip and Silver, your ancestors, were both incredibly powerful Shapeshifters. Pip had extraordinary strength, unmatched courage, and the rarest of Dragon powers, the Word of Command. Silver was a Herimor Shapeshifter gifted with mental powers such as I have never encountered, before or since. Dragon powers are inherited down the generations, sometimes fading or becoming latent, sometimes resurfacing unexpectedly.”

“But Riika isn’t a spontaneous Shapeshifter,” Kal pointed out.

“Which brings us to
yi’tx’txi’taxnayt’x
,” agreed the Queen. “Of the little we do know about this toxin, we understand it has a threefold action, poisoning the physical, magical and spiritual aspects of the victim. Many Shapeshifter poisons act similarly; this one was Dramagon’s own special concoction, his ‘crowning achievement’, to quote the scrolls. Who knows what he purposed thereby? I was once poisoned, and it removed my ability to shift into Dragon form for some time. Yozora and I agree Riika has magic. You Shifted, Riika, and aye, I do mean similarly to how a Dragon Shapeshifter transforms.”

Riika’s voice was a tiny whisper, “I don’t understand.”

“You summoned your latent powers. Either they were always latent, or the poison made them so.”

“She’s a Shapeshifter, shell-mother?” asked Tazithiel.

“No. At least, Yozora and I don’t think so. What do you think, Kal?”

He sighed. Why not expose another of his secrets? If it helped Riika, or helped save lives, would this not constitute a new-Kal noble deed? “I have not seen any Shapeshifter manifestation in Riika,” he admitted. “Just before she demolished the Mistress of Knives, I did see an image of a black jungle cat, perhaps a Crescent Isles jungle panther, I believe. Riika–”

“Pictured a cat, and
became
it,” the girl breathed. “Physically? I really, truly don’t understand any of this, Aranya. Help me.”

“Peace, little one. Yozora and I theorise that this is a mental power, such as what your ancestor Silver displayed. Kal, will you please finish?”

“I detect Shapeshifters,” he said. “I see them magically, similarly to how I see constructs of magic.”

Suddenly, heat radiated from Aranya. Though the Queen did not move a muscle, Kal sensed deadly peril thick in the air. She pressed, “And?”

“Kal?” Tazithiel’s paw clamped down on his shoulder. “Calm down.”

“This is not easy. The Queen hates me already and I fear to set my neck upon her personal chopping block.”

The Indigo Dragoness loomed over her mother, menacing. “Aranya, you will–”

“I can’t believe I’m about to say this.” Aranya groaned softly, wringing her hands. “Fine. Setting aside the morals and values of a lifetime, Kal, I give you my word as a Star Dragoness. You have immunity for whatever you are about to confess in your twisting, sweating, helpless panic over there.”

Only Tazithiel’s paw prevented Kal from leaping at the Amethyst Shapeshifter and throwing his life away in the process. Terrible, reckless heat filled him up to his throat. “Fine, o Queen. First, I have the power to sneak past any Dragon as though I am merely a shadow. I only identified it recently, but I evidently used this power to stroll unscathed past all the Dragons of Gi’ishior.”

Behind her, the image of Aranya’s Dragoness sprang into snarling being.

“Second, I can see Shapeshifters. Don’t ask me how, but I can see your Dragoness behind you right now, and I know your transformation is close. Tazithiel told me Shapeshifter manifestations exist in another plane of reality. Setting aside hundreds of years of philosophical debate, I see your Dragon-existence right there behind you. Heights of emotion improve this ability. For example, see that Rider on the third bed over? She’s a Green Dragon Shapeshifter.”

“Very good,” said Aranya, disguising her disquiet with a slim, elegant hand stroking her chin. “An impossible Dragon power roars to life in the form of a disreputable Fra’aniorian. Why should we be at all concerned?”

Kal clenched his fists. His heart pounded in his throat like a blacksmith’s forge at full blast. “Third, I am who your spies will report tomorrow they suspect I am. You’ll never find any proof bar my word, o Queen, but I have been royalty in my own right, in my own realm. I am, or was, the man known as King Ta’armion, the considerably less upright and ignoble borrower of his royal name and title. I am the King of Thieves. Retired.”

Tazithiel groaned, “Oh, Kal. Did you have to?”

Aranya seemed on the verge of an explosion. Whatever emotions raged inside of her, igniting those amethyst eyes, she seemed incapable of speech. Iron will and perhaps the strength of her vow saved him, but Kal knew that their mortal enmity was assured. For three hundred years, this woman had carried the torch of peace, justice and honour throughout the Island-World. He was her diametric opposite. O twisted fate! The irony of his relationship with Tazithiel only took on new dimensions every time he thought about it.

To his amazement, however, the Indigo Dragoness spoke for him. Clasping him in her paw, she said, “When Kal came to steal my treasure, mother, he never expected to steal a Dragoness’ heart. I never expected to steal him, but I did. And though I have learned much of his past deeds, I have never been more certain that Kal had begun to find the Isle of redemption long before my Dragon fire ever warmed his thieving rump. Consider what he achieved with Riika. She tried to assassinate him; Kal turned her into his daughter. Today, we learned she has a beautiful heritage. This would have been impossible without Kal. He has even promised to finance your Academy from the proceeds of his legitimate businesses.”