The Onyx Dragon (22 page)

Pip peered over his shoulder, nodding. Right. That should be easy to find, the westerly fork being shorter than the south-easterly.

“From there, head for the smoking Island. South again, you will find its four sisters. One is shaped like a Dragon’s foot. There you will find your village, burned seven summers ago by the big-person slavers. Many warriors were lost, but the tribe is still strong. Will you give that old leopard No’otha a message from Cha’òbít?”

She nodded. “I will be your mouth.”

Rising, the warrior hawked up a decent gobbet of spit and covered her left cheek in a spray of red-stained spit.

* * * *

Pip ran back to where she had left the others. “Found them!” she yelled.

“What’s that on your cheek?” asked Oyda.

“Phew,” said Nak, fanning his face. Emblazon promptly snaffled the Rider into his paw, effectively blinding him. Nak yelled unhappily inside his instant confinement.

Silver’s eyes bulged in his suddenly rosy-cheeked face. “What’re you wearing, Pip?”

“Not wearing,” said Duri, scathing of tone as he deliberately averted his eyes. “Did I ever tell you how Pipsqueak first appeared to me?”

Nak managed to call between Emblazon’s knuckles, “Is there any chance under the heavens you could persuade Oyda into Pygmy gear, Pip? Please? Have mercy on a poor, piratical reprobate whose head you never fail to turn.”

“You first, I insist,” snorted Oyda, but she had a wink for Pip.

Quickly, Pip summarised her meeting with the Pygmies. “Cha’òbít’s nephew is–ah, married, I guess you big people would say–to No’otha’s granddaughter. That’s a tribal blood-tie.”

“And the spit?” asked Kaiatha, evidently itching to wipe Pip’s cheek. Lack of neatness always vexed her.

Pip scratched her chin. Roaring rajals, how did one translate all these cultural nuances? “Greeting and obligation. No’otha will owe Cha’òbít for helping me. Therefore we should find a way of paying or honouring No’otha first … Islands’ sakes, it’s complicated. Can we go find my tribe now?”

Freshly released from Emblazon’s paw, Nak imitated a child’s piping voice. “Are we home yet?”

For that, he received a punch on the shoulder that knocked him clean off his feet. Pip winced. “Ah, sorry, Nak. Stronger than I thought.”

The Dragon Rider rubbed his shoulder, astonished. “Suffering windroc spit, girl. I’m standing right behind you in the next battle.”

“What about Tik?” asked Shimmerith.

“Cha’òbít did not offer help,” Pip noted. “But I’d hope that with the right questioning we could find out who Tik’s relations are, and then ask amongst the tribes. It might take months.”

Arosia said, “Pygmies love children. Helping orphans is a high honour.”

This was definitely an occasion for wrinkling her nose at Arosia. Being reminded of her own culture was itself a reminder of what she had lost. Pip’s gaze returned to her discomfited boyfriend–and what she had gained. Although he did seem too easily shocked.

Reaching out to lace her fingers into his, Pip said, “This isn’t flaunting, Silver. Animals, even Dragons, are clad in their own hide and that’s enough, isn’t it?”

Silver nodded. Gulped.

Nak smirked, “The problem is that her hide is just so flaming fabulous, isn’t it, Silver? We men understand these–
urk!
Emblazon …”

The Dragon inquired solicitously, “Oh, Dragon Rider. Did that hurt?”

Pip settled for wrapping herself in a travel cloak as they soared over the Islands once more, following Cha’òbít’s guidance to the letter. Strange how Emblazon was sometimes so arrogant-male Dragon, doing what he wished, and other times he became an immovable stickler for protocol. Thus they flew the neat, prescribed zigzag, each point ticked off in officious tones by the Amber Dragon. Soon, the Dragonwing skirted the actively spitting volcano Cha’òbít had mentioned and headed south toward its ‘four sisters’, connected to the volcano by several mile-long vines. The easternmost Island, right on the edge of the Crescent, was indeed shaped like a Dragon’s foot, with two rugged peninsulas pointing almost due north, and a further three splayed out upon its southern aspect.

Still the storm lurked, occluding the entire southern horizon in towering grey-black battlements. In fact, they were so close now that the storm almost appeared to be reaching around the Dragonwing, a flanking manoeuvre of dangerous cloud-armies pregnant with lightning and magic. The Marshal’s doing? Pip had to wonder. No further Assassin of Night-Reds had appeared; those which had winged north had vanished into the distance and not returned. She could not shake the sensation of being watched. Shurgal? The Marshal? The Dragon of Shadow? Some other power?

Too many enemies.

Seen from Cinti’s back, nothing looked familiar. Pip turned to speak to Silver, seated right behind her, when the rearward view to the broad-based volcanic cone snagged her eye. Her jaw sagged. That crack in the cone’s rim, leaking a slow, meandering trail of hot orange lava. That cloud of smoke or ash hanging just over the summit, the dense tropical vegetation clinging to vertical cliffs on the eastern face … o heart, keep beating! O lungs, don’t forget how to fill and empty!

Silver reached out to squeeze her arm. “This is it, isn’t it?”

“Ay.”

Pip buried her head in her arms; Silver rubbed her back companionably. “It’s going to be perfect, Pygmy girl. You’re going home.”

Chymasion called over, “I still can’t master penetrating that jungle in search of life, Pip. You’ll have to go in on foot.”

Hunagu made his feelings plain with a snort that conveyed the superiority of Ape jungle skills over those of Dragons. Oyda immediately laid a warning hand on Emblazon’s shoulder, but the Amber Dragon had clearly determined that matters Ape were beneath his dignity. He landed Hunagu gravely on a huge, moss-mottled branch and watched the chosen trio sally forth–Pip, Chymasion and Hunagu.

They were back in less than half an hour. “Wrong scent-memories,” Pip explained.

“Wrong stink,” Nak translated for everyone.

“That’s your boots,” Pip retorted. “Trust me, I’ve suffered multiple near-death experiences in the vicinity of Nak’s boots.”

Nak beamed at her. “Trust me, I hire only the finest roost-help for cleaning my beautiful Shimmerith’s lair. Who else can count a Pygmy Dragoness for a pillow-changer and bootlicker?”

“Recently upgraded to boot-burner,” Oyda put in.

Right. Fourth place on her menu went to Oyda. “Move on!” Pip sang out.

The next peninsula, the more easterly of the Island’s two ‘toes’, was much more promising. After being dropped off midway along a quarter-mile branch in a spot where Dragons could land, Hunagu immediately sniffed the air approvingly. “No stinky Human boots,” he said approvingly, in his best Island Standard. “Come, Pipsqueak. Here good-good hunting.”

Pip sniffed too. Magic, a touch of bird guano, and the pungent odour of a saprophytic gourd-vine dangling nearby. She automatically checked for ripe fruit, plucked one and made a neat incision into the orange stem with her dagger. Sweet, sticky green
mikku
-juice, tasting like anise and honey. Yum!

After a short swig, she passed it back to Cinti. “Give that to Tik, please.”

She followed the Oraial Ape along the branch, hooting softly to find out how far he had progressed.

Brushing aside a veil of leaves, Hunagu shinned down a secondary trunk as though it were the easiest of stepladders and struck out into the Island’s interior. Cool green enfolded them. Pip noted familiar birdcalls and a chill trickle of premonition or anticipation on the nape of her neck. This was it. Home soil. Not that they were on home soil as yet, but another swift descent from Hunagu, a hundred-foot drop taken with the help of trailing lianas and an Ape’s incredible facility with tracing a pathway in any conceivable direction through the wildest of jungles soon brought her feet into contact with cool, rich black soil. Chymasion landed soft-pawed right behind her.

Once more, they wended their way in between the mighty jungle giants, every footfall deadened by the soft mulch underfoot, every breath hushed for reasons Pip could not quite fathom. She eased into a Pygmy warrior’s habitual alertness. Now, her footfalls did not even squelch. She disturbed no leaf or twig in passing. A touch awkward, but that feeling was already fading.

Astonishing,
said Chymasion, after an hour had passed in utter silence.
Not all around us is botanical. I see in these trees a tracery of magical pathways akin to those in a Dragon’s being. The reason underpinning the outstandingly massive botanical growth upon these Islands, is magical. Naturally. Or unnaturally, if you prefer.

Dragon and Shapeshifter chuckled together.

Quite unexpectedly, Pip sensed a familiarity in her surroundings, almost a mental ‘click’, or as Dragons would say, a change of aerial orientation. She pointed out a faint, heavily overgrown trail to Hunagu, who hooted in accord with her assessment, charging ahead more aggressively. Then he paused, gesturing for her to take the lead. Pip jogged ahead, increasing the pace still further. The pace of a Pygmy warrior on the hunt. Every few steps she scanned the trail ahead and the trees above and to the sides. They passed through a few rare patches of dappling suns-shine, detoured where a twenty-foot tall branch had crashed down across the trail, and crossed two ravines on branch-bridges, or in Chymasion’s case, a leap, a gentle glide and a deft landing.

In her heart, Pip agonised over a cold truth. This trail had not seen use for many moons. In all likelihood, her people were not on this Island any more. Yet her village called to her. It sang a song which could not be denied. They climbed a four thousand foot ridge into the day’s heat, before finding on the far side, a small half-moon pool of water on the edge of a vertical drop.

Pip walked right to the still pool’s lip, next to a trickle of a waterfall, and peered over the edge. “We used to do this as children.”

“Do what?” asked Chymasion.

“Jump into the plunge-pools. A series of four. I remember the last being very high indeed.”

For a moment, Pip paused to gaze at the wall of leafy jungle pressed up against the cliff,
chenki,
lime-green
orbík
and flowering
tiû’ti
trees in the main. Thousands of trumpet-shaped pink flowers, as large as a Jeradian serving-platter, stretched forty feet upward from their branches, yearning for the suns-light. Jungle- mountains, these had once been. Now she knew a far wider world, accessible by a Dragoness’ wings, yet to be in this place was to know again the tininess of the Human frame in contrast to the stolid ranks of jungle giants, a sense of insignificance in the light of the natural world’s overwhelming power. Those Ancient Dragons must have been moved by wonder, she realised. An appreciation of beauty. A love of stark, forbidding landscapes and mighty Island-sculptures. World-building. Modelling. Perhaps even … loving what they had wrought. Ay.

With a soft whoop, she leaped into space.
Splash!
Icy water revived her. Pip gathered her weapons, forged ahead to the edge of the next pool, and leaped again.
Swish. Splash!
Now a short leap, and then a quick gathering of her balance atop the final, tallest leap. Two hundred feet into a narrow, pitch-black draw stuffed with foliage. Down below was an apparently bottomless plunge-pool, black as the night.

Suddenly reckless, Pip leaped into the dark, careless of whether her friends followed her or not. This was her quest. Her homecoming.

The fall was long enough to know the thrill of immediate danger. What if new boulders had tumbled into the pool in the last time of rains? What if it was no longer safe?

Forming her body into a rigid spear, Pip struck the water, feeling a stinging slap against her soles. She plunged deep in a tornado of bubbles. Kick! Swim! For an interminable moment, it seemed the surface would be too far. She broached with a yell of wild delight.

Now, the village was not far. A quarter-mile, perhaps less. Every tree was her friend. She knew each bend in the trail. Her feet did not need to be told where to tread. Chymasion shook the branches not far behind. Hunagu, too, would be down that cliff in moments. Perversely, Pip wanted to win this race. Her legs blurred. Weaving. Balancing. Unstoppable, now.

She skidded to a halt in an open space, nestled in a bright natural clearing in the heart of the jungle. How had the Sylakian slavers ever found this place? A dozen rude huts stood around the clearing’s edge, cleverly concealed beneath sheltering boughs. Opposite, she saw a blackened and flame-split tree. There was the hut from which she had rescued the Pygmy children and taken them to the sacred cave. Here was the place she had taken her stance, defying the armoured big people as they destroyed her village and murdered her people.

All was abandoned. All was dead, save for the warrior waiting in the precise centre of the clearing.

No’otha!

G
rizzled OLD WARRIORs
only ever seemed to grow tougher and gnarlier with age, until their skins resembled dried, shrunken fruit and their character somehow became etched upon their features, as if age drew back the veil almost every person wore over their true selves. No’otha’s visage communicated honour, unspoken power and curiously, a gentleness that transcended an expression seemingly carved of forbidding granite. Three circular, raised ritual scars adorned each cheek. The striking ochre war-paint of a Pygmy warrior streaked and swirled across his face, neck, and upper torso and arms. He held a four-foot flint-tipped spear at ease in his right hand, the butt resting against his left instep. Twin daggers adorned his hips, and a Pygmy bow was slung crosswise upon his back. Puckered burn-scars ran the length of his hard-muscled left thigh.

Yet she also saw a person like her. Mahogany skin. Tightly curled black hair, short-cropped as befitted a warrior, now streaked with grey. Each sideburn sported a rare crimson
chentis
-feather that curled beneath his jawline, symbolising his status as the tribe’s leader. No’otha was short yet strong, just four and a half feet in height, but as wiry as a side of dried meat. His sole garment consisted of a scrap of loincloth which had clearly seen many years’ service.

Pip knelt and stretched out face-down, making the traditional obeisance of a Pygmy child to a respected elder. Perhaps she had grown out of such a greeting, but in her culture, the status of adulthood was extended by invitation only, and the Naming ceremony had to take place before one was regarded as being of age.

“This girl abases herself, Elder No’otha.”

“How does a stranger speak with familiarity?”

“The stranger is Named by her tribe. This girl has not had the privilege of the Ceremony of Second Naming. Therefore, she is nameless until Named.”

This followed the traditional formula of greeting which Master Adak had suggested would be the likely response of her tribe. Inwardly, Pip reeled. It seemed No’otha had been waiting for her.

No’otha clicked his fingers. “Arise and regard me, child.”

For a measureless time, the old warrior’s unreadable black eyes appraised her. Pip was not certain he recognised her; she met his gaze steadily, refusing to be cowed. This was proper behaviour for a warrior. Yet she trembled, for were his eyes not an echo of her own? An element of magic, a concealed light within the darkness much like the depths of her gaze when she observed herself minutely in a mirror–did this denote draconic magic? Or just a fancy on her part?

At length he said, “Why sully ground hallowed by the spirits with your presence, stranger?”

“This ground knows this girl, for it saw my birth and my first step,” she replied. “From womb to cord, from cord to life, from life to a living-death and resurrection from the place of big-person evil, the blood of this girl’s life pulses without ceasing.”

“What is your battle name, child?”

Pip half-turned, presenting the outer portion of her left calf for his inspection.

Silence. It seemed to Pip the entire abandoned village held its breath. Then she heard a teardrop plink beside her foot. That was shocking. She had never seen a Pygmy man cry like this–not in the face-tearing fashion of formal grieving, but in a silent upwelling of his deepest feelings. No’otha looked away to the overarching trees, fighting to master his emotions.

Then he clasped her in a huge, rib-bending hug. Unthinkable! That an elder should so much as touch an Unnamed young female …

He said, “You are no stranger. You are this tribe’s lost heart-stone. This precious one who was dead, is alive!”

Throwing back his head, No’otha vented a long, ululating cry of untrammelled jubilation.

* * * *

Many explanations followed. No’otha seemed unfazed by the presence of Chymasion and Hunagu, but the retelling of her story kept him clenching his right fist over his heart and hissing in repeated expressions of wonder. Pip had forgotten Pygmies did that. She had also forgotten they spat not just for greeting, but for blessing. For the second time that day she wore a fine gobbet, this time upon her neck. No’otha’s face darkened as she reflexively began to wipe it off, then halted the movement.

“I abase myself,” said Pip. “This girl has forgotten much.”

And she spat back in his face.

No’otha chuckled in fierce pleasure, before cocking his head. “Ancient Ones approach. Take cover!”

Barely had he, Pip and Chymasion dived into the nearby bushes, when a huge flight of Night-Reds roared overhead. Pip estimated their number at over two hundred strong. Dragons wheeled and dived amongst the foliage, growling to each other with low-voiced, monotonous regularity as they searched the undergrowth, up and down trees, and every nook and cranny. Her tracks! Pip’s head jerked in horror, but Chymasion’s voice instantly entered her mind.

Hunagu swept them away from the ridge onward.

Sweet relief. Pip replied,
Pray they don’t find our companions on the far side of the Island.

Shielded telepathy allowed them to speak freely even as a Night-Red blundered by not ten feet from their hiding place. Beside her, No’otha kept utterly silent, speaking to her with his fingers. Pip caught only every second word or so, but understood enough to be reassured that the tribe, two Islands away, would be sufficiently well-hidden to confound even the attentions of the Dragonkind. Still, she listened for what she felt must be the inevitable discovery of Emblazon and the rest of their Dragonwing, but the search appeared to proceed fruitlessly, for after a heart-stopping hour or so, the Marshal’s Dragonwing upped paws and moved on with that peculiar synchronicity of action that she had several times observed.

As if wishing to erase the stench of the Night-Reds’ presence from the Island’s heart, the heavens promptly opened with a breathtaking peal of thunder and unleashed a titanic rainstorm. Pip withdrew from beneath the bushes she had been using for cover, as sodden as the foliage around her, and joined No’otha beneath a sheltering bough. She eyed the wind-lashed treetops above the village with appreciation. Roaring rajals! And the wise old warrior was bone-dry, having of course anticipated the storm’s arrival. Grr.

“Tonight, you and I shall walk the jungle ways to our peoples’ home,” No’otha announced, picking up their conversation as if it had never been interrupted. “Your companions will await our judgement and ceremonies.”

“So this girl can be Named right away?” Pip asked.

“In a moon’s time,” the Pygmy warrior replied equably.

“A moon! Elder No’otha–”

“My decision is made.”

Pip did not know how to approach the matter, but her fuming consternation was evidently an open scroll to him.

“You disagree?” His arms folded like stringy vines across his chest.

“I beg haste,” said Pip, unable to exclude a quaver from her voice. A whole moon! The Academy would be destroyed and the Marshal’s genocidal designs concluded long before then. “These enemy Dragons do not sully Pygmy territory without reason, Elder No’otha. This girl would urge the tribe, she would plead–”

“I would see this Dragoness.”

“This girl–what?”

“The Dragoness.” No’otha’s musculature seemed stiffer than old roots now, but Pip could have sworn she saw a twinkle cross his eye as briefly as a firefly flitting behind a leaf. “First, I wish to see this Dragoness you described.”

“B-b-but … don’t you trust me? Does this girl’s word not–”

“I see my trust girded about your right bicep,” said the old warrior.

“Then …” Pip clamped her mouth shut.

No’otha added, “Did I not tattoo those runes with my right hand, as unknowing of their meaning as you? I knew a Pygmy child. She returns a young woman. She claims a fabled form, colour-kinship with the Ancient Power himself. Her tongue is no instrument of forked speech. And a Pygmy Elder sees such rare power gathered in her breast–” he made a complex sign with his fingers Pip did not recognise “–therefore, these old eyes wish to behold a miracle.”

She breathed, “A miracle?”

Pip’s mind reeled between twin poles of No’otha setting arbitrary conditions and his assertion that her Onyx Dragoness’ colour somehow made her a relative of the mightiest of the Ancient Dragons, the Onyx Fra’anior himself–he of seven-headed majesty and the mythical ability to raise storms. Her Shapeshifter heritage? Ludicrous. She was the titchiest of Dragons. Instead, Pip focussed on his purse-lipped nod. It was a miracle, indeed. Yet Zardon had sniffed out her magic from a hundred Isles away. Oh, mercy–should she conclude the Marshal or his pet might be able to do the same?

In rapid-fire Dragonish, Pip explained her fears to Chymasion. He noted quietly that a Shapeshifter’s transformation did appear to create a detectable magical signature or resonance, although he had not studied the matter in detail. Could other, sensitive Dragons detect this resonance from afar? If Zardon’s mysterious capacity had somehow been connected to the Balance, or even been prophetic as some Dragon philosophers believed of the seventh sense, she added, then they should exercise due caution and warn their Shapeshifter companions as soon as possible.

Chymasion’s best magic-dampening shield prickled over her skin, then spread across the immediate area. Pip noticed No’otha rubbed his arms as if he had felt a chill, and Hunagu voiced a wordless grumble of complaint. Animal senses? Intriguing. She shucked her weapons and clothing rapidly. No’otha looked on inquiringly.

“The transformation flowers from within a soul,” said Pip, using a clever trill that hearkened to a flower-bud’s first unfurling. Wow. Ancient Southern expressed the idea perfectly.

Then, she stepped away and transformed.

Radiant magic folded inward and outward simultaneously, as if her Dragoness flowered right through the retreating non-substance of her Human flesh, for an infinitesimal instant, the twin aspects of her life being indistinguishable from each other.

A thought resounded in her mind,
Hualiama, Shapeshifter-mother, were you the naissance of my Dragon-fires?

Or could the prospect be infinitely more threatening, involving the awesome Onyx progenitor of all Dragonkind?

She gazed down at Elder No’otha from a new height, four or five feet above his head. No’otha’s eyes rose in wonder. Pip inclined her muzzle graciously. “I greet you as Pip, the Pygmy Dragoness.”

No’otha performed a genuflection she had never seen a Pygmy make before, falling to one knee, head bowed, his interlinked hands forming a sign like Dragon wings rising above his grizzled thatching. “I abase myself, Ancient One. I worship your mighty right paw.”

“No, you don’t!” she blurted out.

* * * *

An hour after dark that evening, Pip stood upon the root of a jungle way, ready to embark upon her journey into adulthood.

In the storm’s aftermath, all smelled new. Pip, returned to Human form, felt invigorated, as fresh as the moisture glistening on the jungle boughs surrounding her. First, the Pygmy Elder had directed her through the ritual bathing and cleansing of her person, including a scrub made of ooliti oil mixed with fine river sand, leaving her skin tingling and sparkling. His part in this process was to sit cross-legged on a boulder above the final rock pool she had leaped into earlier, with his back firmly turned, while he sewed her an outfit of special jungle leaves, barely more than a garland meant to encircle the hips. He anointed her head, ears, eyes, nose, lips, fingers and toes with another fragrant oil supplied from his scant possessions secreted near the village, while speaking over her a long and complex incantation in Ancient Southern which Pip did not entirely understand. This represented the cleansing of the mind and its senses.

“Usually, the tribe gifts the candidate with the weapons of an adult,” he had said, painting her cheeks in the likeness of a jaguar with the shaped, blunted tip of a branch. “But since you plan to leave immediately, that seems a foolish waste of resources. No mind. Your life is gift enough.”

Pip suppressed an urge to slap his hands as No’otha rapidly and deftly painted swirls all over her upper torso. Mercy, she had changed. She shivered as he wrote runes in ochre paint around her midsection, above her leaf garland, and vertically down each of her thighs. Silver would never have dreamed of touching her so intimately, yet in her culture, Master Adak had told her, this was an acceptable, even noble task, usually reserved for a tribal Elder. He shaded her eyelids with iridescent blue eye-shadow prepared from crushed beetle shells, and outlined her lips, nostrils, eyebrows and ears in crimson. Perfect.

The entire process of preparation took over four hours, by which time, her Dragonwing had begun to fret over her fate. Chymasion came in for a roasting from Emblazon as the Amber Dragon passed overhead, searching, but the hatchling assured his shell-father all was well.

Pip had returned to converse briefly with her companions, not enjoying the identically glazed looks that greeted her from both Nak and Silver as they took in her outlandish appearance.

“Jungle princess,” Silver whispered as she departed.

How easily he redeemed himself.

Where she stood, the huge roots of an Island-linking vine burrowed into the Island’s very heart, according to Pygmy lore. The vine itself was over thirty feet wide at its base. As it looped out of the jungle canopy, it sprouted further ancillary tendrils that supported the massive vine by winding themselves around branches and tree trunks. Here, its size made the vine a veritable highway. Out there, the storm’s remnants buffeted the vine playfully; she sensed a slight trembling through her bare feet. She remembered how vines came to be, how the seed-pods explosively ejected their missile-shaped seeds on a particular night once a decade, firing them a distance of over a mile from the Island. Silken thread linked the young vine to its base. Should the connection be made successfully, the vine grew rapidly and tenaciously to its full strength, also fruiting five times a year. Magic. It had to be magic. Yaethi would have been enthralled.