Chapter 6 - Waterfalls of Dragons

Fra’anior Cluster’s Hot season marked two months of dry heat, wracked daily by violent electrical storms fuelled by the enormous, ever-burning power of the mighty caldera. In the Human-inhabited lands above, the weather would have turned to an unendurable scorching of the twin suns, blasting and browning the grasses and withering the crops. People rested during the heat of the day. Two and a half miles below the rim-Islands, the warmth pressed in as though Lia were stuck inside a Dragon’s fire-belly. Flicker lazed in the full glare of the afternoon suns-shine, while Hualiama sheltered beneath the shade of a prekki tree nearby. She had no desire to turn herself into a fried egg, unlike the dragonet.

“You call that clothing?” Flicker asked, not bothering to crack open an eye.

“That’s right, clothing. In a manner of speaking.”

Lia eyed her new top judiciously. It would not pass for decent apparel in any royal court of the known Island-World, she imagined. Her options were limited, for the material of her attire that fateful morning when Ra’aba staged his revolt had not been designed with rough living in mind. Her ankle-length skirt had now been shortened to mid-thigh, in order to provide enough material to fashion a brief halter top from the remaining scraps.

“Why ‘in a manner of speaking’?” asked the dragonet, mimicking her delivery with the skill of a parakeet.

“Because it doesn’t cover enough of my skin.”

Needlework was not a Hualiama strong point. Fixing Dragonships? Any day. Tinkering with her solo Dragonship was one of her favourite pastimes, adjusting the rigging or figuring out better ways of harnessing an engine’s power. Grease was good. Tiny needles and fine lacework were not. She yelped and sucked her finger. Definitely not!

Explain this nudity taboo to me, said Flicker. Are your female parts not attractive to a male of your kind, that you must cover them up?

Flicker! She clicked her fingers rudely at him. My parts … um …

Tell me, what would a Human male find attractive? Your long, pale straw?

Aye, my straw! Lia had finally learned the word in Dragonish, and her tone turned waspish as he teased her again. I guess … they might …

And your haunches? He grinned toothily. I’ve observed Human males are similar to dragonets in this regard.

I refuse to answer that question, you rude, crude creature.

Lia drew the length of fabric across the middle of her back, brought it around her ribs, crossed it over the essentials, and drew the ends together behind her neck. She tied a knot and adjusted the fit self-consciously, hoping that the dragonet might change the subject.

Flicker continued, So, Human males don’t mind you covering your hide? This is ‘polite’ in Human society?

How do I look?

The dragonet’s eyes whirled with lively curiosity. Hualiama was certain there was another rash of questions coming from the inquisitive dragonet, or one of his ever-sharp insults. He simply did not understand clothing. Neither did she, in this heat, but the thought of dashing barefoot over the blistering black ledge to their little rock pool on the far side of the ledge was too much to contemplate. Was she desperate enough? Nay.

If I confess I don’t find you attractive, that’s bad, right?

Lia burst out laughing. Aha, you remembered that lesson! Well done, Flicker.

So, should I say your breasts are well-formed? Shapely?

Heat exploded into her face. “No!” Lia shouted, trapped between mortification and horror. “Don’t you dare! That’s male dragonet culture, Flicker–your display rituals–the dancing, the flaring wings, stalking a female and breathing fire. Humans are more subtle … well, not always. Islands’ sakes! Let’s talk about something else.”

Well, does their size matter?

“We are not discussing the size of my … my–end of Island!”

Flicker pretended to be hurt, although the curl of fire that escaped between his fangs told Lia that he was unrepentant. We discussed how Dragons find physical size attractive, he protested. Why can we not discuss your size?

“Because it’s too personal,” said Lia, fanning her face with her hands. “I’m not a stick and I’d thank you not to notice.”

Although, she had lost weight–as might be expected after being stabbed in the belly, tossed to the windrocs, and having to survive on a diet of raw fruit and meat thereafter. Her skirt sagged on her hips. Her already toned dancer’s body had turned gaunt. Such royal comforts as she had enjoyed, now seemed to belong to another life.

It’s strange how Humans have fires, too, offered the dragonet. Hold still–another Dragon.

Lia followed the faraway red speck with her gaze, shrinking further beneath the tree. That’s the third Dragon this week. What’s going on, Flicker? Do you think the Dragons have found us?

* * * *

Flicker’s eyes leaped from the faraway Dragon to his rosy-cheeked companion.

The Human girl’s ever-busy hands had turned to the matter of fashioning another hunting sling, having broken the previous three. Securing a length of vine between her toes, she shaved it with her dagger using long, steady strokes. As the dragonet watched her working, he wondered at these strange Human customs of manners and taboos and politeness; their many-layered, complex disguises for truth. Who should care if she covered herself to her knees with a piece of cloth, or to her ankles? Only Humans. If he could observe her interacting with others of her kind, he might find a few answers.

“Another sling?” he enquired.

“I don’t have the tools to build a decent bow,” said Lia. “I’m not as good with a sling, but I can hit a moving target one in three times. I need to hunt tonight.”

“I’m ready,” said Flicker.

Her green eyes flashed a warning at him.

“Or you can practise your skills,” he amended hastily. “You’re very stubborn.”

Stubborn was his latest Human word, and it described Lia well, he felt, in the way that she focussed on problems until she solved them. She never gave up. It pleased him that they were so alike in this–well, with one exception. Ra’aba, the fungus-face who had thrown her off the Dragonship. Fear of him shrivelled her soul.

His belly-fires fulminated at this thought.

Lia glanced up. “Indigestion, Flicker?”

The dragonet bared his fangs lazily. “I expect a young, juicy lemur this time, not a tough old piece of goat sinew.”

She made a mocking half-bow. “Any further wishes, your blazingly majestic draconic highness?”

Indeed, I have a modest list–

“Shall I scribe my list on your green lizard-hide?”

“Ooh, sharpening our little fangs, are we?”

Lia giggled, “You should brush your fangs. Your breath stinks. Rotten meat.”

“I’ll just burn it out,” said Flicker, breathing a curl of fire toward her toes.

She jerked her feet away. “Islands’ sakes, that’s hot!”

Despite their shared laughter, Flicker’s thoughts were in another warren entirely. She was right. He should ask the Ancient One what they could do, for he had no desire to be chasing his Human friend down another cliff. Perhaps a hundred dragonets could carry her to another Island in a net made of vines? He brightened briefly, before realising that if a Dragon saw them leave, she was dead anyway. The dragonet’s eyes narrowed, scanning the skies.

Dragons patrolled up there. Why?

If he had still been part of the warren, the latest news would have been at his talon-tips. Could there be war between Humans and Dragons? Or a less sinister explanation?

He said, Please be careful, Lia. Don’t go far.

I won’t. Now, her eyes lit upon him with disconcerting force. Are you ready to tell me what happened in the warren, Flicker?

Quietly, he said, I am, and I thank you for protecting my mind, Lia. What Mother Lyrica intended, what you saved me from, is called ‘first impression’. He searched for the right words, knowing he still needed to simplify his language for her to understand. It is a process which wipes the mind clean, returning it to the state in which a hatchling begins their life in the warren. It is … retuned. It does not remember the past.

The tear which reached her chin, sparkling there for an instant before dropping to the ground between her legs, shocked him. Was she an empath? How else could she feel his pain so intensely? How had she wrested him from Lyrica’s power? The Ancient One must know.

Flicker added, Harmony is paramount in the warren.

She wailed, What have I done to you, Flicker? What have I done?

He rushed to her, crooning, rubbing muzzles with the Human girl. It was my choice. I made my decision long before I met you, Lia.

Her weeping excoriated his soul.

* * * *

Heavy-hearted, Hualiama hunted in a most unusual night–a moonless night. With five moons crowding the sky, aside from the myriad stars, Island-World nights were almost never devoid of light. Iridith the yellow, Jade the green, the Blue and Mystic moons, and White, all dominated the skies in their various orbits and periods. For just three nights a year, and only for a few hours at most, a night might be moonless. Then, the glory of the stars blazed with a rare and breathtaking brilliance.

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Lia could not shake the concern that she had unwittingly ripped Flicker from his home, from his loved ones, and from all of his kind. How could that be good for any dragonet? Yet he assured her he was happy, and better off without them. Truth be told, the prospect of being a faceless clone in a community of clones terrified him. How had she beaten the red dragonet? Hualiama concluded that in her extremity, she had somehow been able to exploit the magic indwelling that cavern to withstand the warren-mother’s power.

With a brace of lemurs slung over her shoulder and a small vine net of ripe fruits weighing on her belt, Lia trudged back along a familiar trail. In this darkness, a misstep was inevitable, so she felt for each step before trusting it. She should have waited until dawn to hunt.

Just before midnight, she approached the ledge. All was still.

Of course, Flicker was not inside the cave. Lia sighed. Another night-time jaunt for the dragonet, after she had instructed him to stay put? Incorrigible pest! She’d have his hide for this. About as incorrigible as a certain girl she might name, Hualiama chuckled. They made a perfect pair–scoundrels to the core!

Lia padded outside to make her ablutions near the picturesque hundred-foot waterfall at the southern edge of their ledge. Sleep? She was too keyed-up to feel sleepy, despite the water’s soothing burble. How many people in the Island-World were privileged to see the stars on a night like this? Stretching out on her favourite flat rock, she knitted her fingers behind her neck and began to name the constellations with quiet resolve–the Dragon Rampant, the Fisherman, Fra’anior’s Breath and the Sky-Strider.

She should not allow her mind to wither from disuse.

Half of the sky was cut off by the black cliff soaring above her, but to the south and west and north, the monumental expanse of the Island-World cast the doings of a not-truly Princess of Fra’anior into insignificance. If it was true that Dragons had made Humans, she mused, who had made the moons and stars?

Perhaps great star-faring Dragons ruled the cosmos. It was their eyes gleaming up there in the darkness, all-seeing and omnipotent, crossing the unthinkable distances of space and time by the power of Dragon thought and magic. Lia chuckled. Any race with that kind of power could enslave Humans at the snap of a talon. More likely, they would not even need slaves. The Dragons of Fra’anior seemed to correlate Humans with an annoying swarm of mosquitoes. Occasionally, they might need to swat a few, especially if they dared to stray into Dragon territory.

Her nose wrinkled. Funny … now she detected a whiff of that same smell she had noticed when she first entered their cave with Flicker. Cinnamon? Crystal magic? Suddenly restive, Hualiama glanced about her. She could not remember rightly, but the small pool seemed to have taken on a new shape–at least, had that huge boulder lain next to it, two nights before? Had it been dislodged during a storm, they would surely have heard the impact from half a mile off.

Now her mind served up monkey-babble for thought. Hualiama’s eyes returned to the velvet skies. That gleaming expanse of stars … wow!

She whispered, “If I were a Dragon, I’d fly to the stars.”

“Me too.”

Lia gasped. “Flicker? Is that you? Don’t scare me like … aaah!”

The stars blotted out. Hualiama rolled instinctively, but thumped into something hard. Before thought could intrude, she switched direction, slipping free of a grasping talon the size of her leg. Dear sweet … ‘Roll!’ her mind shrieked. ‘Leap!’ Another swipe splintered the rock beside her thigh. Lia was up, sprinting, screaming as she ran for her life. A massive shadow sprang away from the cliff face. A wing swept down ahead of her. Lia’s nose smacked into a hard, leathery surface. She bounced straight into a Dragon’s paw, which flattened her with irresistible power.

Dragon-thunder reverberated against her eardrums, “How dare you run from me?”

An Island stood atop her back, three rock-hard digits crushing her shoulders, ribs and thighs into the stone. The vast rasp of the creature’s breathing filled her world. Lia distinctly felt the heat of its breath wash over her back, but her world had reduced to a simple need: oxygen. Only that. The night became blacker as her lungs heaved against the impossibly massive compression of a Dragon’s grasp.

A wheeze escaped her lips. “Please …”

The Dragon spat, “Please what?”

“Can’t … breathe.”

“As if you deserve another breath, trespasser.” However, the paw did lift, if only an inch.

Her heart rattled painfully up near her throat, a mouse thrashing in a steel trap. She could not see much from her position, but Lia sensed something of the size of this predator. The Dragon’s talons felt as thick as her thighs, and terminated in foot-and-a-half blades visible beyond her nose. By the timbre of his voice, she imagined a young male Dragon, not a fully-grown adult, although she had no way of knowing how she arrived at this conclusion.

People did not just sit down to lunch with Dragons.

Again, the hot, enigmatically redolent breath stirred her hair. In a growl that turned the pit of her stomach into a bowl of quivering prekki-fruit mush, the Lesser Dragon rumbled, “You dare to live on holy Ha’athior, little Human? Tell me why I shouldn’t give you a short flight from a great height?”

Monstrous irony! A bleak, chopped-off laugh fell from her lips. Hualiama shuddered as the terrible grip intensified, grinding her jaw against the rock. Somewhere behind her, anger throbbed in the Dragon’s belly, the same fires she heard inside Flicker, only a hundred times larger. His hold was so powerful, Lia could not even turn her head to gaze up at him. All she knew was an awesome voice a mere foot from her quivering back, rich and deeply resonant. So noble. So formidable, and so utterly alien to her experience, vibrating right through her body as though her very bones thrummed to his prodigious tune. How many times had Lia unknowingly flattened an ant beneath her heel? This Dragon could do the same, should he so choose.

“Speak!”

“I-I’m s-so awfully sorry o mighty Dragon,” she babbled, “someone else threw me down this cliff just recently and that’s why I’m here a-a-a–” she tried to halt the chattering of her teeth “–I’m laughing because I’m so terrified, mighty Dragon, and I know you probably think I’m insane but I’m not, and–”

“Silence!”

Lia tasted blood in her mouth from biting into her lip.

“Control your tongue’s flapping, girl,” he snarled, in a tone that did anything but help. “Pray you give truthful answers, or I swear your life shall be spilled this night!”

Four tries later, she managed to breathe, “Aye.”

He said, “Which Dragon threw you down here? How did you survive?”

“I always wanted to meet a Dragon, but not quite like this,” Lia ventured, speaking her thoughts aloud. “Um … I mean, it wasn’t a Dragon at all. A man tried to murder me, before throwing me off his Dragonship.”

“Who?”

“The man who’s now the King, I suppose–Captain Ra’aba. He–”

“Ra’aba!”

A baffling stress on the word, a crack of real thunder right above her back. At once, Hualiama understood that this Dragon knew exactly who Ra’aba was, and … hated him? Disapproved? There were so many nuances in the way her captor bit off that single word. What did it mean?

The claws loosened slightly. “Why are you so important, girl, that Ra’aba wanted you to fly into the Cloudlands? Who are you?”

“I’m Hualiama, the–”

“–adopted Princess of Fra’anior,” finished the Dragon.

Great leaping Islands! Her father’s fears, given voice. Icy claws clamped her belly as though the Dragon had seized a pawful of her entrails. King Chalcion had always claimed that the Dragons knew far more about Human dealings than they let on. If this monster knew who she was–a no-account royal ward of the Human royal family–then what else did he know? Were the Dragons secretly meddling in Human affairs and politics, as everyone seemed to ‘know’ but could never prove?

Yet her contradictory heart sang in the presence of a Dragon. Hualiama became aware of an expanding of purpose and understanding, as though his attack had released a swarm of thoughts like a thousand-strong flight of dragonets scared into flight, chaotic and vibrant and alive. She could not process all that she felt. It was too unruly, too visceral. How absurd was it that her skin thrilled to a Lesser Dragon’s touch, even though he meant to trample her? That her nostrils tingled, desperate to take in the sulphur and cinnamon scents of a formidable male Dragon? She was off-the-Islands crazy, Lia told herself, unhinged by distress and fear.

The Dragon demanded, “How did you survive, little Human?”

“With the help of a dragonet, I landed in a tree.”

A great rumble in his belly resolved into what she realised was the Dragon’s laughter. “You cheated Ra’aba? What courage … girl, you’ve no idea what you’ve done.”

Abruptly, his claws tightened across her back, pinning her as though she were locked behind dungeon bars. Hualiama groaned, but the Dragon did not relent. He snarled, “Princess, attend my words well. I was never here. You never saw a Dragon who warned you to lie low for the next three days. Don’t stick your insolent little nose out of that cave, no matter what you hear. Do you understand me?”

“Aye, mighty Dragon.” Lia despised the way her voice squeaked.

“You need to get off this Island. I don’t care how you do it, just leave. Should you be found here by another Dragon, no power in this Island-World could keep you safe.”

The pressure vanished. Nauseous with disbelief, Lia had strength only to lie motionless, her eyes squeezed shut. Any moment now, a talon would slice across her neck … the Dragon’s paw would stamp down … instead, a cool breeze wafted across her bare back.

Her wide-flung eyes spied the very tip of his tail as the Dragon dropped off the cliff.

What?

To say her world had been shaken was an understatement. The Islands dangled from the sky. The stars burned in her heart. She had just been attacked by a Dragon on their holy Island, and she would live to see another dawn? Dragons were not supposed to behave as though they felt compassion. Lia played and replayed their conversation in her head. Three things stood out to her–her crazed laughter, which had triggered an incomprehensible shift in his attitude, the Dragon’s knowledge of who she was, and the sheer incredulity and joy infusing the Dragon’s voice as he spoke of her cheating Captain Ra’aba.

Nothing about their encounter made a jot of sense.

She had not learned the Dragon’s name. Islands’ sakes, she did not even know what colour he had been! In all her dreams about an encounter with the amazing, magical Dragons, she had never imagined she would count herself fortunate not to be scraped off the underside of a Dragon’s paw. Such raw, animal power! She shivered.

At least, in one more irony, she had learned that Dragons could make mistakes. He thought she was important. How little a Dragon knew.

* * * *

When Flicker returned to the cave, he looked for straw-head in her customary sleeping-place, the hollow where the Dragoness in ages past must have brooded over her eggs. She was not there. Instead, the Human girl watched him from the hot pool, neck-deep in the steaming water, the expression in her eyes unfathomable.

“Ah … good hunting?” he chirped.

“If you count becoming the prey as good hunting, yes,” said Lia.

Flicker coughed fire involuntarily. “What?”

“Oh, if you must know, a Dragon ambushed me last night but left me alive–while you were nowhere to be found.”

Flicker’s wings pulsed in shame. “Shards take it, Lia, I’m sorry.” And here I’m the one who preached at you about friends always looking after each other’s wings.

He thought she would demand to know where he had been, but instead, Hualiama recounted the incident for him. “What do you make of it, Flicker?”

“I don’t understand either,” said the dragonet. “You should have been smeared across the rocks and your entrails scattered for the windrocs.”

“Nice–thanks for that image.”

He vibrated his wings very rapidly against his flanks, indicating the dragonet sense of humour under adversity. Flicker said, You’re right, the Dragons seem to know far more about Human politics than they rightly should. Dragons are devious creatures. How can they spy so effectively? Are they employing an unknown form of magic? More importantly, we need to escape from this Island, because I can assure you, to receive only a threat from a Dragon is such a blessing, you cannot believe it. Usually they deal with their problems without delay.

“Hence the detail about my entrails?”

“Indeed. If only you had wings!”

“Aye, meantime, I’ll climb down into the caldera, walk barefoot across the lava flows to the next Island, holding my breath all the way, and climb that one? Or shall I just hitch my belt to a passing windroc?”

He blinked his eye membranes at her sarcasm.

“Oh, Islands’ sakes! I’m sorry, Flicker. I’m not angry with you.”

Flicker wondered if the Ancient One would have a clever idea for how a Human girl could escape an inescapable Island. Could she build herself a gliding apparatus and soar across on the thermals? Flag down a passing Dragonship? They had to assume that all Human Dragonships belonged to Ra’aba. Attracting his attention would spell an ugly end for his friend–just as abrupt and messy an end as that Dragon, by all law, logic and legend, should have dealt her. What did this portend? He shook his head as though he had an insect stuck in his ear-canal.

Poor Lia. Her heart was so wrapped up in her people, just as a dragonet’s hearts were tied to his warren and Dragon-kin. Yet, there was a quality about the Human girl he simply could not place his paw upon. She was never deceitful, but she was mysterious. Aye, by his wings, that word suited her like wings suited a dragonet’s back. Could it be that in hurling himself off the cliff after her, he had thrown himself into the greatest adventure of his life? Of any dragonet’s lifetime? The thought of the praise-songs the dragonet-kind would compose to acclaim his deeds filled Flicker’s belly with warm, pleasant fire.

The dragonet suggested, “You could flaunt yourself without any coverings. Wouldn’t that attract every Human male within a hundred league radius to your aid?”

“Flicker!” The girl’s eyes filled with fire. “You are in so much trouble!”

She chased him around the cavern, calling down hilarious mock-curses upon him as the dragonet evaded her grasping fingertips. Eventually, Flicker allowed himself to be caught and chastised.

That was when they heard Dragons roaring deep beneath the Island, like the sound of a faraway waterfall.