The Onyx Dragon (31 page)

“I trapped it. My powers alone brought the ravening creature to heel, and I unleash it only on the foes of true-fire Shapeshifters.” The Marshal wet his lips delicately. “The traitorous Fra’anior granted the Land Dragons knowledge of the magic which summons Shadow Dragons from beyond the fabric of our universe. They desire to steal this Island-World for themselves!”

Pip’s tongue uttered words before she could think the better of her reaction. “Shurgal did that?”

Re’akka’s fingers snapped the stem of the crystal goblet he had just raised to his lips. He stared at Pip, his throat working as he appeared to fight an insane desire to leap across the table and slay her. “How do you know of Shurgal?”

“I know the Land Dragons seek the First Egg for themselves,” she hedged, hoping Leandrial would not slap her like a mosquito for the half-truth. “They stalk you even now.”

She was hard-put not to imagine the Marshal and all his progeny having eyes that popped out on stalks at her statement. She heard someone whisper, ‘So the report from Fra’anior Cluster spoke true?’ Re’akka’s eyes darted in that direction, silencing the offender.

Pip could not believe she had been so wrong. The Marshal cast himself as the world’s defender against the Shadow beast and the saviour of all Shapeshifters, destined to restore the beauty of that first creation. The Land Dragons were usurpers, the Ancient Dragons traitors. That part did ring true. What reason could Fra’anior and his kin possibly have to abandon the Island-World, unless they themselves could not combat the Shadow Dragon? Which left her … where, exactly? On the wrong side in this conflict? Herself a traitor to her race, the Shapeshifters? She saw it all now, so clearly. She must surrender her powers to this noble cause. It was the only way.

Her mental armour wavered as she grieved her wrongdoings.

Then, she caught from the corner of her eye a tiny nod from the Marshal as he directed Silver’s next statement. Mercy! Pip pretended to choke on a coil of what looked remarkably like a fern’s tendril but tasted like charcoal mixed with greasy pod-chillies. Genuinely foul, she had to admit, searching within for some sign that the oath-magic had been turned against her. What she identified was her inner fragility. Day after day of unrelenting torture had left its mark, now she was questioning her own mental processes, trapped in a mire of self-doubt. All she knew was that Re’akka must gain no foothold. She must stand firm.

Silver was relating the past, the story of their brave journey across the Rift in search of the singular power which would bring it all together. The Word of Command.

Pip wished she could reach to kick him beneath the table. Deserter! He was already lost, incapable of standing against the Marshal–or could she hope he was playing a double-game, just as the Marshal’s double-bluff had almost slipped through her defences? No. He must be the Marshal’s gormless quisling. Or not. What plan had he devised before throwing himself upon Re’akka’s tender mercies? If he was still in his sound mind, she must never reveal it. Well, here was a teeth-gritting conundrum.

When Silver’s monologue wound to an end, two dinner courses later, Pip tried to school her expression into vacancy. “Have you seen the First Egg, Silver? What’s inside that will help the cause?”

The Marshal’s eyes flickered ever so slightly. “Lore. Power. The greatest font of magic left in this Island-World.”

“The Egg’s power will defeat the Shadow?”

“Of course.”

Pip pretended confusion. “Then I … I will never give up, Re’akka. I mustn’t, because … no. You can’t make me.”

Re’akka raised his glass. “Perhaps a viewing of the Egg is in order, in good time. After Silver’s loyalty has been tested by torturing you.”

“I won’t do it, shell-father. You can’t make me.”

He was either a great actor, or completely in the Marshal’s power. It was only with the greatest effort that Pip kept her voice firm. “He’s weaker than you, Re’akka. How do expect him to succeed this time?”

The Marshal’s smile grew into a masterpiece of devious brilliance. “You’re a poor actress, girl, and you’re trying to deceive one who hails from a culture of deceit. Give it up.”

Pip jutted out her chin, glaring at Re’akka. “Your games have failed, old man.”

His laugh was pure mockery, a Dragon’s fireball fired into the heart of her defiance. “Besides, we both know your weakness, don’t we, Pip? You’re a jungle animal. And that’s an angle of attack you cannot possibly counteract.”

* * * *

Human-Silver ached to kiss her contorted face. Kiss away the screaming. Kiss away the pain and tears. The accusation he read in every glance. Yet could she only have seen through to his anguish, veiled beneath nine layers of the finest Herimor-style mental trickery he and his shell-mother could devise … Pip’s boldness had forced his paw. That knowledge only exacerbated his guilt.

To win his father’s trust, he must torture Pip to the utmost of his considerable expertise. Love did not beat the beloved. Yet he was either too dim-witted, or too cowardly, to conceive of another way.

He was also so depleted, sweat ran in rivulets down his face and neck.

The inmost layer screened off his true self, first locked away and then veiled in the guise of latent fears. The third and fourth layers were a construct and a shield, a compliant mind concealed behind an armoured psychic shell, identified by that oxymoronic notion of false true-self indicators. Should Re’akka breach the outer layers, this one should convince him he had reached the depths of Silver’s psyche. The fifth to ninth layers comprised another fake mind and three layers of disparate, powerful mental shields–exactly what the Marshal would expect. The trouble was the strain of keeping up all that pretence.

With a final mental blow that would have snuffed out most Dragons’ minds like a pair of fingers pinching out a candle, Silver collapsed on the torture-plinth beside Pip. He coughed and spat blood on the floor.

See, shell-father, my devotion to you.

Re’akka did not respond, but Silver knew he was watching. Always watching.

Pip lay limp against the manacles. Only the pulse in her neck and the slight rising and falling of her chest betrayed the life still flowing in her veins. For that, he was grateful.

Briefly, Silver considered killing himself. Too good a fate.

Her head turned. He felt her breath stirring the air over his ear. Then a thought, just a faraway echo of a whisper,
Sacrifice was my right.

She knew! Almost, Silver’s reaction betrayed him, but he clamped down at the last instant.

Her eyes touched his. Drew him in. Wells of darkness, inhabited in their depths by a curl of living flame. She spoke not a word. She did not formulate a thought in Dragonish. Pip knew the Marshal would be listening and watching. She examined him as if his every secret was hers to know. Then, she changed. She opened herself and drew him in by a magic Silver could not begin to fathom.

To gaze that deep was a soul’s journey. He dived into profundity so immeasurable, a Silver Dragon experienced a sense of vertigo for the first time in his life, for it seemed he could see into her very soul.

There, where onyx power enwrapped a glimmer of starlight.

A
Bevy of seRVANTS
roused Pip and bade her follow. Lord Zardon commanded her presence. She stumbled behind, before collapsing, too weak to walk more than a few steps. The last session with Silver had been brutal, for he had learned much and grown in power since their encounter in the Natal Cave. Did he draw power from the First Egg, as she suspected the Marshal did in secret?

And then there had been that moment of connection–could she hope? Was it but a spark of compassion she had seen there in a mind dominated by the Marshal, or was Silver playing a deep game? Sacrificing himself, becoming her substitute?

He must think she could not wrest the Marshal’s secrets from him. Truth be told, he was right. Pip recognised that now.

The servants returned to kick her into motion.

“Stop.”

Pip glanced up, holding her ribs. “Zardon. One more broken bone hardly matters at this point, does it?”

The tall, elderly Shapeshifter regarded her with asperity. “Dying is not written in the plan. On your feet, Pygmy warrior.” When she only groaned something about feeling more like a slab of tenderised meat than a warrior, he swooped unexpectedly to gather her in his arms. “Patience is not a draconic character trait, either. No, be silent. Your chatter annoys me.”

Zardon? Pip did indeed hold her tongue, for his behaviour did not ring true. Heavens, he was strong for such an old-timer. He carried her with ease along corridors and up flights of stairs, quickly entering parts of the underground warren Pip did not recognise. Black, spiky Assassins repeatedly checked his progress and allowed them to pass without comment.

He said, “We have forged far into the Middle Sea, out of sight or reach of land. Escape is impossible. The time has come to take you to the First Egg, to test your animal strength there.”

Pip said nothing, but found the temptation to rest her head against his chest too much to deny. Zardon had been a father to her. For the first time since her flight to Eridoon Island, she began to cry–not sobbing or moving in any way, just tears leaking from her eyes to wet his chest and crooked arm, and her plain green, sleeveless tunic top. Zardon did not appear to notice. On and on he walked through the well-lit granite tunnels, until at last Pip sensed a change in the air–no, the presence of magic.

“Behold, the imprinting chambers,” said Zardon. “Fresh recruits are brought here to undergo the month-long imprinting process, which is powered by the First Egg’s magic. As if that were not potent enough–no Dragon can stand to be in the presence of such a font of magic for long–the imprinting relies on
urzul,
a variant of an ancient, foul magic called
ruzal,
which Hualiama Dragonfriend believed to have been banished from the Island-World. She banished
ruzal
, but
urzul
is said to be native to the Theadurial
,
those creatures which parasitize Land Dragons. It is common knowledge that Shurgal offered Marshal Re’akka this lore in exchange for the First Egg’s return.”

Pip said, “Instead, the Marshal floated his Island to a place he thought beyond any Land Dragon’s grasp–north of the Rift, high in the sky.”

“The Marshal will keep his word.”

She had the strength to laugh. “Ay, he hoped the Land Dragon would perish in the Rift-storms. He’ll keep his word at a time and a place that suits him.”

This received no response.

Pip peered through a Dragon-sized crysglass doorway. There was not much to see–two Reds halfway through the transformation process, their scales already darkened, but the final features of gnarled talons, blackened gums and extended, flaring skull-spikes had not yet fully matured. The Reds appeared to be asleep, or hibernating. She observed a shield glinting slightly in the air a few feet inside the doorway, probably to protect onlookers from contamination by that magic.

Zardon explained the processes of imprinting and re-imprinting, which the Dragon troops were required to undergo twice a week. The Marshal liked to keep control. Pip suddenly wondered when last Zardon had been imprinted. He seemed so … normal. Compassionate. More alive than before.

Still cradling his charge, the Shapeshifter moved through three further sets of double doorways, each twice as thick as the last. They opened and shut on silent runners. Before the third, she already tingled at the presence of magic. As that door cracked open, she wanted to gasp but could not.

Torrents! Waterfalls! Dragonsong and Dragon-beauty, singing at a pitch indistinguishable from the roar of a mighty, Cloudlands-bound river! The Egg filled a large cavern, twenty times larger than Chymasion’s egg had been, curving up and down and to either side of her, glowing with a faint radiance that reminded her once more of horiatite. Along the fifty-foot tunnel that led to that moon-like egg, the rock had begun to transform into gemstone, as though the Egg’s magic had transformed its fundamental nature. Did horiatite itself originate with the shells of Dragon eggs? Regardless, it was beautiful, having that silvery-crystal sheen which had appeared to mesmerize Zardon.

Abruptly, Zardon’s presence enfolded her, muting the blast. He said,
This is the only place on this Island safe from the Marshal’s seeing eyes, Pip. Here, we can talk at last.

Oh, Zardon.
She flung her arms around him, as best she could reach.

This is not another ploy of the Marshal’s.
Already, his shield wilted beneath the phenomenal, never-ending discharge of the First Egg’s magic.
I am who you saw here before–ay, Pip, I realise now that it was always you watching me, and I am … ashamed.

Please, don’t cry.

Ay? To weep is the least I can do for this Island-World, thou, o gift to my soul.

Pip gulped as he returned her hug. Mercy.

He said,
You’re a gift, because I know you are the one, Pip. I smelled it from the first. You have rare powers; I have one of my own–foresight. I know few things any more, and am a husk of my old self, but I know you will prevail, Pip. I know it as surely as the twin suns rise in the East, as surely as I know you hold in your paw the power to stop the twin suns in their tracks.

Placing Pip gently on her feet, Zardon explained that he had brought her to the Egg that she would understand the wonder and beauty of it, the majesty, the power that seethed restlessly within. The Egg was a power-source, the means by which Dragons traversed the vast distances between stars. It was a time-capsule, a place where the passage of time slowed almost to stasis. No-one knew if a Dragon lived within the Egg. It had never communicated, nor if life was present, did they know if it would take the form of a hatchling or the fires of a Dragonsoul. But all knew the Ancient Dragons had hatched from eggs like these.

Pip tottered forward, awash with wonderment. She laughed,
You came from such a vessel as this, Fra’anior? You, too, were once a hatchling?
How great a shell-mother should hold such an egg as this in her egg-sac? She spread her arms, drinking from the awesome font of magic.

Then, she realised that was what the Shadow creature did, and sighed up a small gust of air.

The Shadow is a trans-dimensional creature,
said Zardon.
Perhaps all we see is a manifestation, like an echo or mirror-image drawn from another dimension. I believe it exists only because of magic. Moth to candle-flame. Once, it was smaller and slower, but the creature is insatiable. It demands more and more of the Marshal, and I know neither what holds it at bay, or holds it within the physical confines of our Island-World. Its hunger seems to be a survival imperative.

Pip turned to him, eyes shining.
I’ve thought of that. Starve the beast, it may die. But how? We’d all be dead.

The Shadow creature has demanded to see you,
he said.

W-W-What?

She thought she had misheard. She must have. That thing did not speak–but she remembered its eerie regard, that sense of recognition and feline curiosity. That sense of being the prey.

The Marshal will take you to the beast soon, Pip,
said the Shapeshifter, his eyes softening, his face bathed in white-fires as Pip’s vision slipped toward what she had sensed in Chymasion.
All exists in a delicate balance–the Egg, the Marshal, Shurgal and the Shadow Dragon. And now, you. You are the wild magic.

Again, Pip thought he had misspoken. The word was so close to
white-fires
in Dragonish before one added the draconic linguistic trickery that subtly modified the target meaning. Wild magic. But Zardon seized her hands, squeezing them as though he could by some force beyond words or compulsion or draconic magic, infuse her heart with strength. His eyes gleamed with power; his manner slipping toward that fey flash of almost-insanity she remembered from before.

He cried,
What is thy battle-name, mighty Pygmy warrior?

Uh … paean of the Black Dragon’s soul-fires?
Whatever a paean was. She had an idea it might be an archaic word meaning ‘song’. Poetry certainly moved Kaiatha to raptures. Perhaps this Pygmy girl was learning to be mystical, too.

Then call upon your progenitor, your soul’s breath, the Dragonsong of your elemental power!

Pip scratched her chin, baffled. Zardon seemed inordinately proud of his pronouncement, beaming at her with quite the silliest joy wrinkling his eyes until they almost disappeared from sight. Evidently, she was the greenest neophyte in the ways of mysticism.

Then, without any warning whatsoever, he swooped, seized her leg and swung her upside-down into the air!

Whimper!
Zardon ordered, striking her shoulder without great force.
The Marshal approaches.

* * * *

As the third metal set of protective bulkheads slid apart, Silver braced himself for the deluge of magic. What he was not prepared for was the sight of Zardon dangling Pip by her left ankle, apparently enjoying a touch of Pygmy-bashing sport. Judging by his shell-father’s malicious chuckle, Re’akka found the prospect amusing in a rather different way.

Zardon shook her like a Dragon holding up a leg of mutton. “Marshal. New orders?”

“Bring her.”

The grizzled Shapeshifter slung Pip unceremoniously over his shoulder, growling, “She’d only slow us down. The captive’s having trouble walking.”

* * * *

So malevolent, as if he had not just hugged her. Pip was amazed at the facility these big people displayed for lying and twisting the truth. Except Silver. She had hoped to draw him out, to detect some sign that the Marshal had not turned his mind, but she sensed nothing at all. No spark of compassion. He had laughed as he tortured her mind, and spared not an iota of his brutal power. Even invisible wounds needed time to heal. He knew what he had done, how he had hurt her; he knew he was the Marshal’s lackey.

Even now, Silver said, “No need for kneecaps to work magic, is there? Get anything out of her, Commander?”

“She squealed like a wild pig,” said Zardon. “But I gained nothing useful.”

“Would imprinting break her shield, Silver?” asked Re’akka.

“Undoubtedly. But my investigation showed that the
urzul
constructs deliver unpredictable results when applied to the higher Dragon powers,” Silver noted. “We might lose access to the Word of Command altogether.”

Exactly what she had concluded! Weariness washed over her, rather than elation. She wished nothing more than for this vile game to play out to its end. Yet her death would not serve anyone well. That was the one fate, surely, no one could afford. Yielding her life was a non-option. Therefore she must face the dark-fire beast, and defeat it.

Silver said, “What do you make of her mental shield, shell-father?”

He considered this at length, his yellow eyes glittering with an unholy light as he examined Pip.

Meantime, the trio of Shifters wafted up a vertical shaft on a cushion formed by the Marshal’s Kinetic power. Shortly, they broke into the open air, beneath a starry night sky, and dropped lightly to the ground. A bare circle some one hundred feet in diameter had been cleared of forest. Pip breathed deep of the scent of untainted air, so sweet. She groaned involuntarily as she spied her destination–the same metal plinth used for all her torture, complete with manacles and a few fresh bloodstains. Hers, of course.

Perhaps there was one more chance. Could she attack the Marshal while he busied himself with the Shadow Dragon?

But while Zardon and Silver applied the manacles, Marshal Re’akka took his sweet time constructing a shield around her. “No magic or Command here, Pygmy girl,” he said. “Wouldn’t want you panicking and trying to run away–not that there’s anywhere to run to out here, anyway, not for five hundred leagues. And in your state you won’t be flying anywhere soon.”

That was a Pygmy spear of truth.

He said, “Shell-son, her mental shielding is unique. I suspect a subliminal Word applied to a standard psychic bastion-ward, with additional hardening elements. Quite beautiful, in fact.”

Pip’s head jerked to stare at him. “Beautiful?”