Dragon Thief (26 page)

“Active solace; repeated acts of mollification,” Kal smirked.

“Ugh! You’re repulsive.”

Perhaps he ought to attempt an explanation, or at least a few lies. “We talked, first. I drank too much Mejian brandy, but they were just asking so many questions, all about Tazithiel and me and–”

FREAKING IDIOT!
Jalfyrion had no Storm power, but his thunder knocked Kal sprawling. The Dragon shouted, “I must go warn them. Jisellia, keep this benighted fool right where you can see him. Don’t let him out that door.”

With that, the stolid Red scrambled out of his roost, striking the doorpost so forcefully in his haste that dust poured from the ceiling.

Kal tried a suave dusting-off of his trousers, but it took him four attempts to find his own legs, whereupon he remembered the absence of said trousers. “So, Jisellia. It’s just the two of us.”

“Aye, one drunken null-brain and one Dragon Rider,” she said, indicating the wide arched doorway to her inner bedchamber. “Kal, go sleep it off. Take the bed. I’ll sleep next to Jalfyrion and we can talk in the morning.”

“Only if you join me.” Kal winked at the pretty Rider.

“Haven’t you had enough for one day?”

Kal summoned up his failsafe grin, indicating where she ought to be checking for the answer to her question.

Jisellia gasped and studied her toes, blushing up a firestorm. “Evidently not.”

He sauntered closer, driven by forces he recognised, but seemed unable to withhold, especially with a few too many drinks under his belt. Kal reached out. “Come, my fireflower petal. Let us test the softness of your bed together.”

The girl moved toward him, eyes demurely downcast. Kal chuckled. Oh, aye. He was beyond awesome.

Then, her fist blurred upward from the level of her belt as the petite warrior put the full force of her body into a swingeing uppercut. The last Kal knew was a blossoming of astonishment as a small fist kissed the point of his jaw perfectly.

* * * *

The danger-instinct of a hardboiled heckler of all types of laws, rules and governmental systems woke Kal instantly, but sadly, delayed perhaps twenty seconds too long before pricking him like the point of a Dragon’s battle-sharpened talon. He roused in a sweet, curtained four-poster bed with rose-coloured curtains. There were roses hand-stitched on the covers and roses on the bedside table. The walls were painted in a shade of rose and aye, the room smelled of roses–what else?

Less rosy was the fact that an Indigo Dragoness had discovered him, a flagrantly unclad thorn, lying smack in the middle of a lady’s rose-filled boudoir. Dragoness-Tazi seemed vexed. Kal could not imagine why.

“Tazithiel! Stop!” cried Jisellia, charging into the room. “This is not what you think.”

“No?” Her tone conveyed so much honey, Kal knew she meant to drown him in it. “This isn’t what exactly, Rider Jisellia?”

Well, he was rather saluting the morning. Kal drew up a pink, fluffy cushion lest the lady-folk be distracted by his masculine attributes. “Uh …”

“One wrong word, Kal, and I’ll burn this roost down!”

“I can explain!” cried Jisellia. Helpfully, she wore nothing more than a light pink towel. She must have been bathing when Tazithiel muscled her way in.

“No, I can,” said Kal.

The Dragoness fairly trembled with the effort of holding back her fire. “Don’t try to weasel your way out of this one, Kal.”

He said, “I did absolutely nothing with J–”

Tazi interrupted, “To think I came to apologise. What a ralti-brained laughingstock I am.”

“But I didn’t–”

“What has Aranya driven us to, Kal?”

“Well, I–”

“Let’s leave this Academy. Today.”

“Islands’ sakes, Dragoness! Can I finish a sentence? Just one?”

As Kal took a deep breath, marshalling his thoughts, Jalfyrion poked his muzzle through Jisellia’s doorway, making Tazithiel scuttle sideways in surprise. Despite two Dragons fire-breathing in an enclosed space, Kal had to smooth the chills on his arms.

The Red growled, “Aye, what did you do with my Rider?”

Oh to be two years old and be allowed to throw a proper tantrum. Kal only wished. With the utmost clarity, he enunciated, “Nothing. I did nothing at all with Jisellia. Do we all understand the meaning of the word ‘nothing’? I did not touch her, breathe on her or mishandle her person in any way. I know this looks bad. Mostly it’s down to three tankards of Mejian brandy and some woeful judgement on my part, alright?”

“He did nothing with me,” Jisellia confirmed. Kal decided he would be grateful for all eternity she did not mention what he had done and with whom.

The Indigo Dragoness’ belly-fires made the room sound like the innards of a Dragonship furnace engine. “One of you is lying. I opt for the woman. You’ve been making moon-eyes at my Kal since we first met.”

“Tazi, she’s with him. Suffering volcanoes!”

Kal’s lunge was a fraction of a second too slow. The incensed Dragoness snapped Jisellia up in her paw; Kal bounced off her rock-hard knuckles. “One false twitch of a wingtip, Jalfyrion, and I’ll pulp this Human between my talons.” The Red growled horribly in his throat. Tazi shook her prey. “The truth. Now!”

The thief said, “Tazi, I’m the one you want to punish here; I’m the unfaithful bastard. Let Jisellia go, and deal with me. Please. Red, do something. Convince her.”

Tazithiel bore down with the strength of a Dragon. Jisellia screamed.

Striking Tazi on the paw, Kal shouted in Dragonish,
It’s not me she wants, Tazi, it’s him!

You miserable cretin, he’s a Dragon. She wants you.

Jisellia was turning alarming colours as Tazithiel stopped her breath. Kal pleaded,
Jalfyrion, please, put us out of this misery. Show her.

The huge Red Dragon shuffled his paws, trapped.

Suddenly, the Indigo paused. Her fire-eyes whirled at Kal.
Show her what? You males were colluding before. I hate it when you keep secrets, Kal.
Poor Jisellia gasped a relieving breath, her colour pinking up nicely. “We women would appreciate a few explanations. Kal’s naked in your roost, but he smells of other women and not you, Jisellia. I realise that now. Why are you protecting him, and Kal is protecting … Jalfyrion?”

The Red Dragon shot Kal a desperate look; far too much revealed. Jisellia’s eyes, peeking over the top of Tazi’s paw, communicated a million unspeakable questions. With a sigh, he backed out of the doorway he could not fit through. Air imploded, rattling the crysglass windows.

A footstep.

A man stood framed in the doorway.

Dragoness and Dragon Rider shared identical expressions of shock. For one, Kal thought sourly, Jalfyrion was naked. Of course. Shapeshifter transformations never worked well with clothing. Worse, he was truly a man built in the mould of a Dragon. Jalfyrion’s Human-form was short but muscled like a champion wrestler, his shoulders resembling packets of boulders rolling beneath skin so lean, every vein and striation stood out as if etched by a master sculptor. His eyes blazed yellow, filled with draconic power.

He said, “I’m a Shapeshifter. I am Jalfyrion.”

Kal was not jealous. Freaking feral windrocs, he could chew that man’s liver out and feed it to the buzzards! Abandoning his pillow, he strolled over and clasped the Shapeshifter’s forearm in the way of Southern Isles men. “Welcome to the Human world, Jalfyrion.”

Tazithiel purred at Jisellia, “Well? Toothsome enough for you?”

“He’s beautiful!” she gasped. Covering her mouth with her hands, she tottered out of the Dragoness’ grasp. “Oh, my … two naked chunks of manhood in my room? Am I dreaming? You. Out!” Kal happily obliged. “You! On my bed, snip snap! Quick wings.”

“Uh …” Jalfyrion blushed with all the heat and fire of a Dragon.

Jisellia tapped her foot dangerously. “Think I’m letting you escape after this? You’re my prey, now. I’ll give you a count of three, Jalfyrion, before I start doing things to you that will make even our Kal sprint out of this cavern, squealing in embarrassment.”

With a grin, Kal used his grip on Jalfyrion’s arm to propel the man toward his Human-love. “Submit to your fate, Jalfyrion. I assure you it won’t be half as awful as you think.”

The Dragon Rider’s quivering finger indicated the door.

Kal snapped, “Tazi! Move your gorgeous scales. I have some grovelling of my own to do. And, oddly, Jalfyrion has just given me an idea of how to burgle Endurion’s fortress.”

Jisellia and Jalfyrion did not appear to be listening. Strange, that.

He shook his head. Youngsters. They probably wouldn’t leave their cavern for a week. Then again, with the right sort of apology, might Tazithiel demand the same of him? Maybe. When she finished sharpening his femurs for toothpicks.

T
AZITHIEL whistled between
the peaks, delivering powerful, concentrated fireballs left and right, targeting dead tree-trunks placed in the form of crosses along a dry canyon-bed.

“Left!” cried Kal, picking off a target she had missed. His four-foot Dragon arrow thumped into the target just half a foot below a perfect centre.

“Shot! Darn it. Above, Kal!”

He twisted in the saddle and pinned a tumbling windroc carcass meant to represent an attack while Tazithiel took out a boulder shot at them by a lurking Brown Dragon. Her instinctive lightning-bolt provoked a bellow of rage from somewhere amidst the rocks.

Kal roared with laughter. “Got him, my beauty!”

The final run down the obstacle course demanded Tazithiel’s utmost concentration. Fire and arrows rained down upon them and molten boulders sizzled through the sky as ten Dragons attacked in concert. The Indigo jinked, clipping an outcropping and snapping a wing-strut in the process. Kal bolstered and adjusted their shield, deflecting three accurate boulders and a Red Dragon’s lava-attack with an economy of effort. Great Islands, Aranya’s techniques and teachings actually worked. Storm winds roared from the Dragoness’ throat, sweeping aside four nets and the empty shell of a Dragonship. She broke up a formation of five lurking Reds before they could block the way.

“Right. Here comes the big one.”

“I love the way you talk about your mother!”

Hooting hysterically, Dragon and Rider slewed around a corner and stretched for the prize, a white-painted boulder set upon a mountaintop, guarded by a monstrous Amethyst Dragoness. Tazithiel dodged a blue-hot fireball and then bugled in shock as white-fires eclipsed the sky, shutting out everything. Roaring rajals, that Aranya had a surprise up every sleeve–er, under every scale? By instinct alone, Tazi avoided two more of Aranya’s miniature fireballs, but one shot a hole through her right wing.

Kal knew he had messed up the shield. Again. No mind.
Picture the goal, Tazi. Like this.

Get it blind?
she snarled, snaking unseeing through a field of white. The Indigo neutralised an incoming fireball with a counter-strike of magic-encased ice, creating an explosion that punched them sideways in the air. Her wingbeat stuttered; Kal tried to reach in to neutralise the pain, but the Dragoness was too battle-mad to sense his offer of help.

TAZITHIEL!
Her challenge shook the nearby peaks, a thunderclap.

Watch for the ambush. I sense her. Use my power, Tazi.

She accelerated so fast Kal imagined the Dragoness had stood on his chest. Massive purple talons scythed the air a foot beneath Tazi’s belly as she reacted with Dragon-speed, adjusting so rapidly that they performed an aerial somersault right over her shell-mother’s mountainous spine spikes and, clutching the boulder, shot gratefully away.

Aranya’s exasperated thunder chased them into the evening sky.

Rising with powerful thrusts of her wings, the Amethyst Dragoness joined her shell-daughter aloft.
Alright, students and Riders. Let’s wrap it up for today.

Watching the fire-blackened Dragons limping upward, their Riders shaking their heads and checking equipment and injuries, Kal had to admit that Aranya did not shirk when it came to injecting realism into their lessons.
Aye,
her voice intruded in his mind.
Keeps you youngsters alive. Fascinating use of Shadow power, Kal.

Shadow?

Later, Rider.

It was two weeks since Tazithiel and Kal’s reconciliation, and the Indigo Dragoness was battling her way to fighting fitness. The Indigo put on a brave face, he thought, but Kal sensed tenderness as every wingbeat stretched her abdomen. Aye. Not fully healed yet.

The Amethyst Dragoness called the forty-strong Dragonwing together to discuss the successes and failures of the exercise, which had taken place in a mountainous badlands region a couple of leagues from the Academy volcano. The mixed group of new graduates and experienced Dragon Rider teams was battered, bruised and blowing heavily, but Kal saw smiles and enjoyed the rough jests the bolder Dragons and Riders tossed at each other as Aranya outlined the salient highlights or deficiencies of their various performances.

After the debriefing, the return journey took the Dragonwing over ranks of shattered, coniferous peaks and jagged, shadowed ravines.

Truly, Dragon country,
said Tazithiel, reading his thoughts.

Aranya just told me I used Shadow power. I’ve never heard of it before.

Your sneak-about power has a name?
Tazithiel chuckled mentally.
I thought the only Dragon who ever boasted that power was the Shadow Dragon, Aranya’s husband. But he was a unique Dragon, able to penetrate any shield, fortress or barrier. They say he flew below-ground like an Anubam, only he disturbed nothing in passing. Strange coincidence, isn’t it?

Kal always appreciated how with Dragonish, it was possible to say one thing and mean completely the opposite, or to add a million nuances such as questioning one’s own statement, humour, irony, accusation, or referencing the different colours of fire and Dragon-scale, each of which conveyed their own sea of complexity. To ‘strange coincidence’ Tazithiel had added a genealogical interrogative, a ring of truth-in-harmony-with-being and a spritely hint of laughter to lift his spirits.

Strange indeed,
he replied, just about inserting a suggestion that they should investigate.

One more unanswerable question for our scholars,
Tazi said.
I wonder what Riika has prepared for dinner?

Prepare to be spoiled,
said Kal.

Being Riika, she kicked Tazi and Kal out of their own kitchen and slammed the door, but the smells around the roost were enough to make a man slaver, let alone a Dragoness. “What’re we eating?” Kal called through the door.

Riika belted out a lively ballad, rather tunelessly.

“Off to the shower with you,” said Human-Tazi, slipping into a silk bathrobe. “No smoky half-fried Riders at my dinner table, thank you very much.”

“I’ll soap your back,” Kal offered.

“Oh?” An indigo eye winked coyly at him. “Though, the object of your attentions cannot possibly be my back. You, Kallion, remain an incurable liar.”

“Your back is a wonderland of beauty, o Princess of the pulsating engines of my life.”

“I’m about to punish you for ever looking at another woman, never mind two kitchen strumpets. Drunk or not, Kal–”

“Aye. I spited you. No words will ever convey the depths of my regret. I don’t deserve you, Tazithiel.”

So many layers to this woman. For a second, Kal saw smoke curl between her lips. Then, the seductress rematerialized with Shapeshifter-like facility. “You’ve learned another Dragon power, Kal. Sincerity. I find a sincere man … irresistible.” Seizing his belt with her hair, she dragged him off to the shower room, cooing, “What you deserve is a tyrannical temptress in your bathtub. You can start apologising at the top and work your way down. Slowly.”

After that, a certain amount of washing did occur, although randomly and with a severe lack of concentration. Dressed in their formal finery, arm in arm, the thief who stole a Dragoness and the Dragoness who stole a thief approached their dinner table, positioned beside the roost’s crysglass windows to catch the best light. The table was set to a jungle theme, with plates artistically designed to resemble rajals’ heads, windroc-feather napkins and a bottle of the finest Crescent Isles wine, produced according to a secret Pygmy recipe, cooling in a laver shaped like a Dragon’s roaring mouth.

Riika sashayed in with the first course, clad only in a loincloth and an artfully draped panther-skin; barefoot, wearing jungle flowers in her hair. “A starter of ring-sliced Crescent Isles flame-fruit accompanied by a trio of wild water-cow cheeses and spicy mohili crackers,” she announced.

Kal clicked his fingers in the Fra’aniorian fashion. “You continue to astonish, o jungle maiden.”

“I’m taking classes,” she smiled.

There followed a five-course meal full of non-stop hilarity and tasty dishes as the threesome dissected Kal’s newly-formulated plan to penetrate Endurion’s citadel and steal the all-important Scroll of Many Hands, as the scholars had now accurately identified it. The lore within remained a mystery, however. All they knew was that to wait for Talon to master his power would be suicidal at best.

“Aranya’s intelligence missed the fact that parts of the citadel are built to deny Dragons entry,” Kal revealed. “The shield is the first layer of protection, clearly triggered by Dragon magic. Then there’s a layer of traps surrounding the inner fortress, but beyond that, an area tunnelled into a type of living rock, the legend says, which cannot be penetrated even by Brown Dragon powers. The tunnels are too small for Dragons. That, my friends, is where Talon will be hiding his treasures. He stations a Dragon at every entrance and has a hundred troops guarding his inner sanctum, day and night. Within, all is unknown. We will need to tread delicately. As delicately as the Queenly Shapeshifter skulking outside our roost.”

Tazi and Riika startled.

Setting down his fluted crystal goblet, Kal rose and called clearly, “Queen Aranya. Do join us, if you would.” Very softly, he added, “Aranya’s not the only one who can lay a trap.”

Riika giggled. Tazithiel looked as though she had swallowed a wasp.

Stepping through the doorway, the Immadian Queen greeted them regally. “I’m sorry to disturb, but I believe you’ll need my help with your plan.”

Tazi snapped, “Because we’re incapable of thinking for ourselves? Or do you want to take over?”

“Neither, shell-daughter. I want to be of help.”

“Oh, I’ll believe that when–what’s that?”

Riika held out a prekki fruit. “Pray stuff this fruit in your gob, noble Dragoness.”

“I … you … what?” spluttered Tazi.

The half-Pygmy scowled impishly. “I’ve heard and seen quite enough. You two ought to be ashamed of yourselves. And I refuse to be the grounds for your constant quarrelling.”

“Who told you that nonsense?” cried Tazi.

Riika’s smile was a brittle lament. “I’m no fool, Indigo-eyes. Don’t treat me so. Nor you, Aranya. I won’t be here forever to compete over, and when I’m gone, you two need to be mother and daughter.”

Silence. Kal wiped his eyes. Mother and daughter hung their heads identically.

The girl said, “I’ve been reading the lore about my people compiled by Balthion of Sylakia and Pip, the Pygmy Dragon. Among Pygmies, when relationships break down, they have a special ceremony they use to foster reconciliation. Please indulge me. Because this hurts. Love can hurt, and I’ve precious little time to do what I can–aye, I’m laying the guilt on thick. Forgive me.”

The two tall Immadians bent over Riika, and held her close. Muffled voices promised, “We will.” “We’ll do better.”

Removing her loincloth, Riika said, “Sorry
I hadn’t thought to arrange a better symbol. This is a … cord of binding. The translation suffers, I’m afraid. Hear me now. Pygmy lore teaches that the heart is a treacherous beast. By binding wrist to wrist, and pulse to pulse, we bind life together as it ought to be bound.”

So saying, she tied Aranya’s left wrist to Tazithiel’s right.

“The heart is fey and prone to relapse. So we bind two hearts together for a period of time, to allow the connection time to develop. A week is usually the minimum.”

“A week?” the Queen gasped.

Tazithiel sniffled and accepted a cloth napkin from Kal to wipe her nose. “You can’t even manage a week with me, shell-mother?”

Sternly, Riika said, “This symbol is not to be removed save perhaps for dressing. Not for the toilet, not for sleeping, and definitely not for eating. In fact, for this week neither of you is allowed to feed or drink by yourself. You must each serve the other.”

The Shapeshifter Dragonesses eyed each other uncertainly.

“I suggest we deny them daggers, or this might not end well,” Kal suggested, torn between laughter and horror. Did Riika know what manner of fuse she had just lit?

Standing between the two women, each a head and a half taller than her, the Pygmy laid her hands upon their bowed wrists, dipping her own head until her dark curls cascaded over their arms. She murmured in Ancient Southern, the language of Pygmies. Seven times, as she spoke, she plucked the binding cloth. Kal watched Tazithiel and Aranya, neither of whom seemed to know where to look. At length, Riika kissed the cloth with great tenderness. “There. It is done.”

“What was the last part, Riika?” asked Tazi.

Aranya said, “It was a blessing, but the forms were so ancient I didn’t understand most of it.”

“It’s based on the blessing Pygmy mothers speak over the umbilical cord,” said Riika. “Because life flows from mother to child via the umbilical cord, my people treat it as sacred. Often, they will preserve the placenta and cord and carry them together with the baby for the first month of life. The cord is only severed after that month, when the attachment is accomplished. The binding ceremony symbolises the original connection between mother and child, teaching us how life flows through relationship. Should that cord be severed, we believe it must be restored by returning to the original font, the life-giving connection within the womb.”