Dragon Thief (21 page)

The Indigo Dragoness seemed frozen. Kal could not imagine what she was thinking.

“At the time, I was struck down by a magical Shapeshifter illness. That is when the creature discovered me. I was never certain what I dreamed in my fever-dreams, for I sensed an unborn eggling cry out to me, just once. Then it vanished.”

Aranya touched her sleeve to her eyes. “My late husband, the Shadow Dragon, thought me mad. He was too old to join me, but I searched fruitlessly for seven years.”

“So, I get to call you old woman?” Kal touched Tazi’s cheek tenderly.

“Don’t! Don’t believe her lies, Kal!” Tazithiel cried. Aranya twitched as though struck across the face. “She abandoned me. As if a Star Dragoness couldn’t find her own egg!”

The Immadian Queen began to say, “Star Dragon eggs have a way of–”

Tazithiel screamed a word in Dragonish; a word that burned Kal’s mind with dark fires, bitter on the tongue and bitterer on the soul. He had never heard a Human throat utter such a sound, for all intents and purposes, a death-rattle.

“Tazi!” Kal clutched her close.

Her chest heaved as though she intended to vomit. Instead, Tazithiel shrieked,
You’re no mother of mine! Get out of my sight! OUT!

The blast of her Storm power knocked Aranya off her feet, but Kal suspected she had chosen to accept the blow as a kind of penance. Tazithiel began to scream again, but a bloody froth blew off her lips. Yozora, swooping with startling speed for a venerable Dragon, laid his paw across her back as his power poured forth. Tazi slumped in his arms, unconscious.

Kal stared at Aranya. The woman looked haunted, as though that scream had ripped her soul from her body and tossed it into the Cloudlands. She scrambled to her feet, turned and fled.

He thought to feel vicious satisfaction. Instead, there was only grief.

* * * *

The following day, he and Aranya met briefly at the entrance of the infirmary.

“How is Tazithiel?” asked the Queen, as grey as the cloudy skies. For the first time, she threatened to look her age, Kal thought uncharitably.

“Better. Yozora’s pretty upset, though. He says you had no right–”

“I have every right!”

“Do you?”

Aranya’s hands clenched at her sides. Her definite chin lifted, so much a mirror of Tazithiel’s mannerism, Kal wanted to laugh. Stubborn as Island-foundations, the pair of them. “I will not rescind my death warrant. Step outside this cavern, and I will have you executed.”

“I spared your life, in case you hadn’t noticed,” said Kal.

“Couldn’t find the courage?” Aranya jeered. If only she knew, but he could not say it. She already thought the worst of him. “I spared yours, which makes us even. You don’t want me as an enemy, Kallion of Fra’anior. I remember that boy from Immadia. You stole something indescribably precious to me and by all reports, you have not been a good man for a single day since. Quite the opposite.”

Kal bristled, “Who appointed you Justice of the Island-World and arbiter of good and evil? Besides, if I want to leave this cavern, I will. A hundred Dragons including you and all your Star magic couldn’t stop me, as already proven.”

“You … Gi’ishior?” she gasped.

A smirk played about his lips. “I decline to answer your baseless accusations, o Queen.”

“I will not stand for these insults!” Lightning haloed her hands; but Aranya did not strike. “For my daughter’s sake alone, Kal, I will swallow your disrespect. You have her ear. You will convince Tazithiel that she requires training–with me. Or that filthy Green will have his filthy way with her again, and there’ll be nothing I can do to stop him.”

His blood boiled. Insults, aye. But the mention of Endurion made all manner of murderous, vengeful feelings swamp his rational mind. Words spilled out. “I’ve been the one training your daughter. And, I’m pleased to report, she is truly talented on the pillow-roll. An exceptional student.”

Freaking windrocs! That came out so obnoxious, he impressed even himself.

The colour of Aranya’s rage threatened to overwhelm the rather fetching shade of her amethyst-coloured Helyon silk dress.

But he did need information. “Sorry,” he growled. “I’m just riled. Look, lady, can we reset this whole business? I do respect who you are but I don’t know you, and you don’t know me.”

The amethyst eyes bored into his. Beauty, power, majesty–Aranya really was all the legends said she was, Kal decided. He began to feel a feather-touch upon his mind, but it seemed the Immadian Enchantress withdrew. Perhaps she knew the temptation of power. She must know it better than any person alive; the restraint of that power, he could also respect.

“I will offer you a boon,” he said. “A peace offering.”

“In exchange for what?”

Kal swallowed as new-model Kal’s mind served up an option the King of Thieves would have laughed off the Island in an instant. Curse this conscience that kept intruding at the most inopportune moments! He wrestled with the idea, beat it with a mental stick and booted it brutishly in the tender parts where such ideas deserved to be booted. Bah! The notion only surged to the fore, tenfold stronger.

“Goodwill,” he gritted between clenched teeth.

“Done and bargained for,” rapped the Queen. With her ability to mask her emotions, Kal decided, she could make a master card-player. “What do you offer?”

He hauled a Fra’aniorian bow out of the threadbare closet of those manners he reserved for moments of genuine emotion. On second thoughts, he sank to one knee and bowed his head. “O great Queen, I offer you the scale of a White Dragoness.”

Aranya’s expression registered only disdain, but her hand shook so hard she could barely accept the gift. With a nod, she withdrew.

Following after the Queen with his eyes, Kal believed she was crying.

T
RY AS HE
might, Kal could not shake the spectre of an Amethyst Dragoness who had shouldered her way between him and Tazithiel. Shell-mother and daughter passed terse messages to each other through Kal or by messenger monkey until Tazi ordered him not to leave her side again. Kal felt like a sliver of meat mashed between a huge slice of sweetbread on the one side and a titanic one on the other. Despite the fact that Aranya’s Dragoness was three hundred and forty feet long and could peer into the twelfth story of an Academy building without trying, Tazithiel stymied her mother’s every action or overture. How alike they were in verve, obduracy and beauty!

The feud developed with the speed of a Dragon hatchling learning to fly. The mere mention of Immadia became enough to tip Tazithiel into a towering rage. She chafed at the speed of her healing. She suffered Aranya to apply her healing power, only to find snide ways of snubbing her mother every time the Queen attended her bedside.

Kal wore as thin as an aged scrolleaf.

Thus, it came as a huge relief to him to receive a message hawk from Riika nine days after he had burgled the Academy and apparently enflamed every Dragon within a hundred leagues as the story of his daring stunt leaked out, triggered by a Dragoness fishing the stinking, bloating corpse of a ralti sheep out of an ostensibly sacred lake. Kal shrugged. “Oops.” Aranya, who had come by one evening to lay the charge, stalked out of the infirmary, ripped her priceless dress to shreds as she transformed, and lit the entire league-wide caldera with a fireball that had to rival an erupting volcano.

Kal yelled something snarky about her still owing him a butt-kissing; Tazithiel laughed so hard that Yozora had to come and administer painkilling herbs and magic.

Aranya’s Dragon-rage was a phenomenon of majestic intimidation.

“Back before you know it,” said Kal, patting Dragon-Tazithiel next to her eye. “Rest up while I go smuggle my daughter into this den of fiery conceit.”

“I am rested.”

Knowing better, he still had to try. “Tazi–”

Low, volatile fires rumbled in her belly. Finally. He had not heard that healthy sound since Endurion had struck her down. Yet Kal knew her anger burned against him, never far from the surface, for Tazi knew he meant to mention Aranya one more time. Never had he imagined that discovering her true mother would affect the Indigo Dragoness in this way.

He waved casually. “May you drool over naked thieves dancing through your dreams to filch your incomparable scales, thereby furnishing a new industry in jewellery-making.”

Tazi pushed him along with a waft of hot hair. “Fly strong and true, my Rider.”

Kal flew as far as the entrance to the Dragonship landing field, where a smirking soldier informed him that a certain Kallion of Fra’anior was banned from leaving the volcano. Queen’s orders. Oh, and she was away for a week. Kal flung a stone at an unsuspecting purple-banded parakeet on his way back, and felt a crass fool for doing so. The bird was only singing. What he needed was a bigger bird.

His gaze veered to the smaller trio of volcanoes–smaller being relative, since their peaks had to be at least a mile tall–with alert interest. Aye. A bigger bird.

Late that evening, a troupe of sweating labourers lugged a cart full of ralti furs, which by marvellous coincidence just happened to be destined for Jalfyrion’s roost, all the way from the complex of storage caverns beneath the Academy buildings, across the field, down the winding path, past the green lake and four thousand feet up the mountainside. Kal rode inside like the King he was. He liked this method of stealing about. Much better than actual exertion. And so he passed once more beneath hundreds of unsuspecting draconic noses.

“Sheepskins?” Jisellia sounded puzzled. “Jalfyrion’s sleeping–I guess he placed the order.”

“You did. Says so on this scroll,” said a male voice, the one who had griped his way up the mountain with a never-ending, never-repeating stream of invective. Kal thought he had heard every colourful curse known to a Jeradian, including all its surrounding Islets. He had thought wrong.

Jisellia said, “Park your cart. I’ll deal with it.”

“Sign here, lady.”

Quill scratched on scrolleaf; the men departed.

Silence. Hmm. Kal contemplated wriggling out from beneath the load, but he needed to be certain those men had truly left. Perhaps a nice nap was in order. He could sneak up on Jisellia at his leisure.

That was when a Dragon’s paw tipped out the cart, dumping Kal on his head.

“Aha!” shouted the Rider. “Caught.”

“Ouch. What way is this to greet a friend?” he complained.

Jalfyrion’s expression suggested he had discovered a rat hiding in his bed. “You’re like a curl of sulphurous smoke, impossible to grasp in one’s paw! We Dragonkind plan to teach you a long overdue lesson.”

“If you Dragons weren’t all sleeping with your fire-eyes open–
yie!
” The clash of fangs almost trimmed his stubble.

Jisellia leaped between them. “Stop!”

The Red Dragon snarled, “By the First Egg, he dares insult the Dragonkind.”

Perhaps insolence was not the most advantageous way to ask for help. Bowing very deeply, Kal gripped his dignity by the scruff of the neck and essayed, “My esteem for the Dragonkind grows hourly in this place, o formidable Red Dragon. The wiles of a master peculator with four decades of experience have barely sufficed to succour my insignificant Human presence from the raging splendour of all the fire-souls which surround me.”

“He vexes and flatters in the same breath,” Jalfyrion purred.

Jisellia rolled her eyes. “What maverick nonsense are you intent on perpetrating in our roost, Kal?”

He glanced about the Dragon roost, curious to see how Dragons lived with their Riders. Vaulting, curtained crysglass panels framed the entryway, which led to a spacious chamber built to house a Dragon. Jalfyrion evidently slept in the outer chamber, from which position he could best protect his Rider, Kal noted. Several other chambers led off the main living space, some sized for a Dragon, some for a Rider.

Jisellia, with a coy bow, said, “Ablutions through there. That’s our cooking alcove in the back, complete with cold storage to keep large quantities of meat fresh. When I’m not sleeping in here, beside Jalfyrion’s neck, I have a private chamber through those hangings.”

“I love your paintings,” said Kal, admiring several sprawling works. The detail was exquisite; the Dragons so lifelike they almost flew off the canvas. “Who’s the artist?”

“Your nemesis.”

“Uh–Aranya?”

Jalfyrion growled, “Most of us address the Amethyst Queen with a modicum of respect, Rider Kal. What do you seek here? State your purpose without fancy words.”

“I ask your aid to help me fetch my daughter Riika from Jos, to bring her back to the Academy.”

“A daughter, Kal?” Jisellia turned to her Dragon. “What say you, Jalfyrion?”

After his opening mini-lecture, Kal expected an even fierier response from the Red. Instead, he fixed his burning gaze upon Kal. “This strikes me as a worthy pursuit. Illegal, but completely worthy.”

Jisellia’s annoyance evaporated; she bounced on her toes, saying, “I fear you may just have spoiled our boredom, Kal, with a nefarious yet irresistible proposal. Consider us your students. How do you propose to fly out beneath the eyes of all those Dragons out there?”

“Saddle baggage.”

* * * *

“You are nothing if not old baggage, Dad,” said Riika, once she had dispensed with the embarrassing business of being hugged. “And you smell like a sack of mouldy old boots.”

Grimy but happy-looking, Riika met them as arranged at the Dragonship port outside of Jos. Kal scratched his beard with unwarranted vigour. When he was young, any old field passed for a Dragonship port. Now there were gantries and assigned landing bays, a busy cargo operation and even an area cordoned off for Dragons–fireballs and hydrogen dirigibles tending to mix with unhappy results for anyone stuck within the blast-radius. Kal’s businesses had recently hired several unfussy Dragons to act as fast couriers between Islands, a highly profitable side-line.

Bah. Who cared for drals? He had a daughter.

“Dad!” A Pygmy-sharp elbow bruised his ribs. “I’ll teach a windroc to peck that silly smile.”

“Jalfyrion, Jisellia, may I introduce my daughter Riika. I can’t stand the little harridan, but I suppose I have to do my duty.”

The Red Dragon blinked, clearly misinterpreting a Human’s sarcasm, but Jisellia laughed brightly, “She does look like you. It’s the air of incessant mischief and the diamond spear of a chin, methinks.”

Kal and Riika both growled, “Hey!”

“Unexpected depths to your Island, Kal,” said his fellow-Rider, touching his arm familiarly. He distinctly heard Jalfyrion’s belly-furnace protest the action. “Alright, Jalfyrion? A haunch of meat or a drink before we go re-burgle the Academy?”

Kal suspected the Red Dragon would rather tear a strip off his Rider. Bah. That was Jalfyrion’s fault, and the Dragon could just stew in his own juices for all Kal cared.

Riika said, “I’ve sourced information, none of it promising. I take it you haven’t resolved anything at the Academy?”

“Not a whole lot, no,” Kal admitted. “Tazi hates Aranya, the arrogant Amethyst still wants to run her foreclaw through my chest, all of the Academy Dragons loathe my guts and it appears that our Indigo Dragoness is a lost Princess of Immadia who also happens to be Aranya’s shell-daughter. How am I doing thus far?”

He collapsed in stitches of laughter at Riika’s expression.

* * * *

Fed and watered, Jalfyrion hurled himself at the bright afternoon sky as though he personally wished to assault the moons and smash them between the Islands. Kal marvelled at the differences between Dragons. Jalfyrion was all muscle and power, beating the air with every wing-stroke as if it had caused him grave affront. Tazithiel was hot quicksilver flowing over diamond edges. She had power. Aye, there was a truth, yet she possessed a fiery sinuosity of flight-expression that to his mind, elevated her above any other Dragon he had seen fly. Old-Kal used to despise comparisons. He drove himself beyond the Islands to prove he was not as other thieves, perhaps afeared of being thought common. He was cleverer. Bolder. More brutal.

Now, he learned from comparisons. Seeing Tazithiel alongside her mother allowed him to glimpse a vision of what she might become. Pride, passion and power. It killed him to see pain and bitterness consuming her life, for as she healed in body, the wounds of her soul seemed only to fester.

Riika’s journey to Mejia had been difficult, but successful in part. She reported that Endurion led a group of Dragons based at a huge, ancient roost upon an Island-spit half a league off the mainland. They were avowed adherents of draconistic philosophy, which in its simplest expression asserted the innate superiority of Dragons over Humans. They followed the old traditions, including the oppression of a Human slave population, regular sport in the form of razing Human villages and slaying unwary travellers, and disrupting Mejia’s trade with other Islands. But their entertainment of choice consisted of preying upon Shapeshifters. They had honed their killings to a terrible pitch of efficiency, as Tazithiel knew all too well.

“Assassins!” spat the Red Dragon. “They model themselves upon the Dragon Assassins of yore!”

Endurion’s Rider remained a mystery, therefore–both his origins and the fact that these Dragons appeared to follow his lead unquestioningly. “Word is he’s an Enchanter or Shapeshifter from the East,” Riika explained. “He’s called Talon. Theories about his true power or nature abound. But I discovered several fascinating snippets of information. One, Talon has mind-powers, as we know, but this power manifests in a peculiar way. He appears to have uncovered an ancient scroll of powerful magic called
Ernulla-kul-Exarkin.
Does that mean anything to you, noble Jalfyrion?”

He shook his muzzle. “Sounds like Old Dragonish to my ear, little one, and I am no scholar. I’d hazard a guess from the word-root that it has to do with hands or paws. How did you get someone to reveal this?”

“I … encouraged his free speech.”

Kal winced; Riika, peeking out of her saddlebag beside Jisellia’s left thigh, made an apologetic clucking sound with her tongue. “Sorry, Dad. But I judged it important.”

Jisellia’s white-knuckled grip on her saddle horn suggested she did not want to know. Kal did. She meant torture. The Guild of Assassins were renowned for their ability to turn the unwilling into loquacious informants.

He said, “I trust your judgement, Razorblades. What did you uncover that justified this action?”

Jalfyrion snorted an approving fireball at an inoffensive passing cloud. “Is the suppression of Shapeshifters not reason enough?”

Kal kicked the Dragon surreptitiously through his saddlebag, located to Jisellia’s right side.

Riika said, “The scroll describes a power of many hands or many minds, which somehow allows Talon to manipulate the physical realm in unprecedented ways. So as we saw with Tazithiel, he was able to seize the Dragoness in many places at once, almost as if he controlled the air around her, opening her up for the killing blow. Similarly, Talon controls the insides of Dragons’ minds. That’s what this man said. He controls them at a level deeper than conscious thought–including their Dragon Riders, who are of course slaves to the Dragons they serve.”