‘That’s it,’ Ellony murmured. ‘Speak to them, Rav.’
Rav could see them clearly now, as if they were real women of flesh and blood. He had never before heard the words he had spoken, yet in some way he was remembering them. His invocation gave the dragon daughters substance. He saw the greed in their glinting eyes, their flexing fingers. He remembered them too, as if they were women he had known in a previous life. Thrope was recognisable by her silvery shimmer. Her hair and body glowed with it and she wore a close-fitting garment of gleaming grey like sharkskin. Behind her stood Misk, who had once been the bane of his father’s life. Her hair and skin were dark iridescent green and her garment was a trailing mesh of weed and shells.
‘Let us in,’ said Misk, ‘then we will take you.’
‘We will walk with your limbs,’ said Thrope. ‘See with your eyes.’
Jia was close to him, plucking at her skin with long indigo claws. She had dark blue skin as if it was dyed by the ink of an octopus, and her hair was a similar colour braided with turquoise pearls. Her body was swathed in a sheath of fish-skin that gleamed wetly in the dim light. ‘How empty you are, little man. Let us inside. We will fill you with unimagined strengths.’
‘No,’ Rav said. ‘Lead us.’
The daughters pressed close to him and he knew that if he weakened only slightly, they would seize his body and never give it back. ‘I command you!’ Rav cried. ‘In the name of your mother, Great Foy. Lead the Dragon Heir to the sea!’
The dragon daughters hissed together and drew back. ‘You are cruel and selfish!’ said Thrope. ‘Still, that is the way of men. Take my hand. I am she who is closest to you. I am your guide.’ She moved her long fingers in a slow undulating gesture. ‘Comec’
‘No,’ Rav said. ‘I won’t touch you. Just lead us.’
Thrope folded her arms, and in the dim light, it looked as if she had more than the human complement. ‘If you will not take my hand, how can I lead you? Stupid child!’
Rav hesitated and looked to his sister. ‘They want to touch me. They want to lead me by the hand.’
‘Do it!’ Ellony said.
Rav was sure Ellony didn’t know enough about the dragon daughters to give such advice.
‘You ask us to help you, yet you hold us in contempt,’ said Jia, her grin revealing rows of hooked teeth. ‘Such arrogance!’
Tentatively, Rav extended one hand. He could see it was shaking. He could still whip it back.
But Thrope leapt forward and grabbed hold of him. He uttered a shrill cry and Ellony threw herself against him, wrapping her arms around his neck. The whole world spun around them, bolts of bright colour shooting past. Then they were flying into darkness.
There was no ground beneath their feet, no walls around them, just a swirling void, filled with hectic blots of light and the laughter of the dragon daughters. Rav was aware of Ellony’s arms around him and even though he could not feel his own limbs, tried to imagine he was holding her just as tightly.
A mighty flash of brilliant green radiance broke over them like a wave. Rav felt pressure against his skin; they were swimming through water that glowed with shooting motes of bright green radiance. He had the body of a fish, and could feel the unfamiliar way its muscles worked. A beautiful creature of long waving fins and shimmering scales swam beside him, and he knew it was his sister. The dragon daughters were undulating shapes to either side, swimming like dolphins, their arms pressed against their sides, their long hair and gowns waving like weed. Exhilaration spumed through Rav’s body. He had never experienced such a sense of liberation. It was like flying.
They swam into a forest of vast undersea growths, which might have been plants or creatures. Long stems were rooted to the cyclopean rocks, while immense umbrella-like hydra heads swayed far above. Rav sensed other creatures swimming around them, invisible but curious. The dark ocean rang with their resonating calls.
The forest ended at the lip of a precipice. Below, Rav saw a mighty triangular edifice that was unlike any building he had ever seen before. It looked alien, as if it had never really been part of this world.
‘The Temple of Foy,’ Ellony said, her voice entering his mind.
The walls of the temple were covered with bizarre creatures that clung to it like molluscs, possessing elements of crustacean, fish and human forms. Some adhered to the weed-curtained stone with crablike claws, their bodies emerging from gigantic coiled shells. Others were like little children with perfect human bodies. But their heads were like octopi, adorned with long tentacles that vibrated in the ocean currents. Yet more were like merfolk from fairy-tales, with fish tails and waving hair, but their faces were terrifying.
‘Look who we have brought to you!’ crooned the dragon daughters. ‘The Dragon Heir and his priestess. It is as it always was.’
At once, the Ustredi began to disengage themselves from the temple and pulse towards their visitors. They surrounded a fish-maiden, whose dark green hair was woven with a treasury of jewels. Her face was not ugly, but not beautifully either. It had rudimentary fishlike features, with wide eyes and mere slits for a nose, which pulsed like gills. Her mouth was wide and thick-lipped, adorned with feline whiskers at each corner. A set of lovely fin-like veils, similar to the tails of the stately fish that swam in the pools of Tatrini’s garden, hung from her cheeks and chin. Her eyes glittered gold and green like mysterious opals from another world.
‘I am Hargat,’ she said, ‘you may know me as queen of this realm.’ Her voice was nothing more than a guttural gobbling sound, but Rav could understand her language. It was clear that Ellony did too, because she was brave enough to answer in the same peculiar tongue.
‘Greetings Queen Hargat,’ she said. ‘Thank you for this audience.’
‘Have you brought gifts, humans?’ Hargat asked. ‘Where are our gifts?’
‘We have no gifts,’ Ellony replied, ‘for the old domain is under attack once more. We need your help.’
‘You are Palindrakes?’
‘Yes, we are. Help us fight the creatures of fire and the old contract shall be restored.’
‘The Palindrakes closed their hearts and minds in fear,’ Hargat snapped, exhaling a plume of angry bubbles from her nose. ‘I do not know what I smell in your blood. What happened between your people and mine was before my time.’
‘My brother here is the Dragon Heir to Caradore,’ Ellony said. ‘I am a priestess of Foy. Valraven has returned to you in spirit, to undo the wrongs of the past. Please help us, for we alone cannot combat our enemies.’
‘It is in our history that you used to bring gifts,’ Hargat said. ‘That was the way.’
‘We will give you gifts,’ Ellony said patiently, ‘but at this time we come to you in need. Our ancestors came from this realm. We are kin. Do not close your senses to us.’
Rav felt incapable of communicating with the Ustredi queen. She was both enchanting and hideous, and he sensed that she did not understand human morals, as he could not understand hers. She might order her people to devour them.
The Ustredi swam around Rav and Ellony, peering into their faces with wide lidless eyes. ‘We want no commerce with fire, great queen,’ one of them said, a creature that looked like an ancient merman, encrusted with barnacles. ‘We have been estranged from the Palindrakes for centuries. What have we to gain from re-establishing this contact? Think what have we to lose by fighting for the dry skins.’
‘But now is the time to put things right, make them as they are meant to be,’ Ellony insisted. ‘We are kin.’
Hargat hung in the water before them, her face without expression, as if she lacked the physical ability to show any. But Rav sensed her considering Ellony’s words. ‘Fire invaded our realm,’ she said, as if thinking aloud. ‘The djinn were importunate and never paid for their effrontery.’
‘And now they walk upon the soil of Caradore,’ Ellony said, ‘attacking those who would be my father’s allies. If you rise
to aid us now, the djinn will not expect you.’ She paused. ‘You can come onto land, can’t you?’
‘We can come as the mist and the rain,’ said Hargat. ‘There is no place in the elemental realms where we cannot go.’ She threshed her mighty tail, tossing lesser Ustredi aside in the current it conjured. ‘We will do this thing, my people. We will quench the arrogance of fire. Although the empty air and the hard rock are not our natural realms, the land of Caradore was once our ally. If the revered kings and queens of ages past still lived this day, they would rise and conquer, avenge the hurts inflicted upon them. Rise, my people, rise!’
As one, the Ustredi surged past the twins, creating a maelstrom of frothing bubbles. Rav was tossed up in the current, no longer able to guide his movements. He felt as if his form was changing back into human. He was gulping water, drowning. Blindly, he groped for his sister’s hand, found her fingers firm and sure reaching out for him.
A sharp impact jarred Rav’s body and he rolled onto his side, gasping. He found he had fallen to the floor in the old cellars of Caradore. What they had experienced must have been a vision, yet his clothes were wet through, his hair lank and dripping around his shoulders. Nearby, Ellony was dragging herself to her feet, weighed down by sodden skirts.
‘I think they will do as we asked,’ Rav said.
Ellony wiped her hair from her face. ‘They will,’ she said.
A voice hissed close to Rav’s ear. ‘Do you want to see, Dragon Heir?’
Rav jumped in alarm and turned to see the inhuman face of Thrope just behind him. Her sisters stood nearby, watching him with a hungry intent. These were no spectral creatures of vision or dream. They were real, standing on two feet. He could smell the briny perfume of their skin. Perhaps they would never vanish again. It was clear that Ellony too could now see the daughters. Her eyes were wide, but she was not afraid. Rav saw excitement and awe on her face. ‘Do you know me?’ she demanded.
Jia stepped towards her. ‘You are the future sea wife,’ she said. ‘Yes, I know you. I came to your aunt Pharinet once. She knows me too.’
‘You will not do to me what you did to her!’ Ellony said.
Rav was astounded by his sister’s courage. He would never dare to speak to a dragon daughter in that way.
Jia merely smiled. ‘How wide your eyes are, sea child. They observe so much. Too much. Fear is like wine to us, but the finest liquor is, of course, a free spirit. Share your light with me and I will speak with you. There is much I can teach you.’
‘I won’t let you hurt me,’ Ellony said.
‘You have more than enough light for your needs,’ Jia said. ‘It is the warm human breath that mists from your breast. It is the spark that keeps you alive, the engine within you that creates more and more of it. Can you feel it?’
‘Yes,’ Ellony replied. ‘I have done so for a long time.’
‘Come,’ Thrope said. ‘There will be time in the future for this discussion. You summoned the Ustredi, now observe the results.’
The dragon daughters formed a circle and held out their hands. Tentatively, Rav placed his fingers into the icy damp grip of Thrope on his left and Jia on his right. Thrope took Ellony’s right hand, while Misk took her left. Then Misk and Jia completed the circle.
Rav closed his eyes and for a moment felt completely at one with Foy’s daughters. They belonged to him and to Ellony, to his father and mother, his aunts, Niska, everyone of Caradore. Whatever had happened in the past had been wrong, but perhaps the dragon daughters themselves had not been at fault. They manifested in the form in which they were summoned. Bayard had called them up full of greed and pride and they had become a reflection of that. Perhaps it was Rav’s task now, and Ellony’s too, to reinvent the spiritual guardians of their family. As if Thrope could read his thoughts, he felt the gentle pressure of her fingers against his own.
I love you, Rav thought clearly, and he meant it.
At once his essence surged out of his body through the crown of his head. He perceived his sister and the dragon daughters as four balls of spinning multi-coloured radiance around him. Below, he could see their bodies standing upon the cold wet floor of the cellar, hands joined, eyes closed.
As one, the company sizzled up out of the cellars, through the castle, across the yard, unseen by anyone. They fizzed high into the air and for some moments, gambolled around each other, revelling in the freedom and exhilaration of their flight. Conflict and battles were forgotten. This was the heritage of the Palindrakes, this liberty, this joy. Thrope whizzed right through Rav’s essence, mingling herself with him, conjuring strange ecstatic sensations. He was caught in the web of her aura and she dragged him behind her, out towards the forest. Men were fighting there, but they appeared insubstantial. More real were the creatures that fought among them.
Rav saw the Ustredi attacking the creatures of fire that Ellony had described. Some of the sea people were monstrous crustaceans that could crush and rend with their enormous claws. Others were many tentacled, and when they grabbed the fire elementals, so they hissed and shrivelled, quenched by the power of water. A soldier, who appeared as no more than a ghostly shadow, flailed his arms wildly against an elemental attacker. Rav saw an Ustredi scuttle towards the conflict and nip off the fire creature’s head with its pincers. The soldier continued to wave his arms, yelling, as yet unaware he was no longer under attack. He could see nothing.
At the entrance to the royal pavilion, a group of men were holding off attackers of both human and elemental nature. Something within the pavilion glowed a bright crimson and Rav knew that this was Bayard. The light increased in brilliance as he observed it. He was sure that someone, or something, was feeding him strength. It Bayard got any stronger, he’d burst out of the tent like a fireball. Rav called to Thrope with a loud thought and she was there beside him in an instant.
‘I know what you behold and you are right,’ she said. ‘Your grandmother lies in a cave close by, spawning spirits of fire: the djinn.’
‘We must stop her,’ Rav said.
Without further communication, Thrope led him out over the trees and then down into the darkness of the forest. She was a spiralling sphere of light ahead of him, leaving a trail of sparkling vapour.
They came to a glade, where gouts of fiery light burst like belching magma out of a narrow cave entrance. Thrope and Rav shot into the cave, but the flames tried to repel them. Rav felt their hissing anger as they beat against him. He could feel his essence burning up in their searing heat. Desperately, he called out to Thrope with his soul. At once, her essence expanded around him and enfolded him in cool, comforting light. The flames could no longer touch him.
‘This is our land,’ said Thrope, a soft whisper in his soul, ‘this is our site. What we have here are interlopers, who do not know they lack the power to harm us. It seems we must teach them.’
In the inner chamber of the cave, they found Tatrini lying on her back on the cold stone floor, her body writhing as if in pain. Her hands were hooked above her breast, clawing the air. Thousands of little flames burst out of her skin and danced from her open lips. They flew up into the air and mingled, drawing strength from one another. This was the elemental lava that was erupting from the cave, fuelled by Tatrini’s intention.
Thrope released Rav from her essence and manifested as a tall woman of water, who stood over Tatrini’s prone form. ‘Oh how you suffer, queen of fire,’ Thrope murmured. ‘See how your body twists and shudders. This is costing you dear and the full price has yet to be paid.’ She extended her hands and a shimmering fluid rained down from her long fingers. When it hit Tatrini, it hissed and turned to mist. Tatrini uttered a hoarse cry, her face contorted into an ugly expression of pain. It was as if the cold liquid burned her. Her body was becoming drenched, so that she could no longer generate the children of fire. Those that still remained within the cave exploded in sparks, with audible pops and whistles like festive fireworks.
Tatrini o
pened her eyes. She looked old and tired, as if an inner light had been extinguished. Her hair hung dripping over her face and her hands shook as she pushed it from her eyes. Rav watched his grandmother blinking and gasping in the gloom. Thrope’s silvery gleam was the only source of light.
‘Tatrini Malagash, you have violated our sacred place,’ said Thrope. ‘You have no business here in the domain of the women of Caradore, with your alien magicks.’
Tatrini sat up abruptly and looked around herself. Rav knew she could not see the dragon daughter, but when she looked in his direction, she murmured his name. He was clearly visible to her.
‘We had to stop you,’ he said. ‘What you were doing was wrong.’
‘Rav,’ Tatrini said, reaching towards him with a trembling hand, ‘my little warrior. Remember your training. This is part of all we have worked for. You mustn’t interrupt me.’ Her eyes were glazed. Clearly, she did not think it strange that Rav should suddenly appear there. In a way, she was dreaming.
‘I am not your creature,’ Rav said. ‘I command the dragon daughters now. This is my father’s realm.’
‘Ravc’
He raised one arm and pointed at her. ‘Your fire is quenched, in the name of Foy and all the denizens of Pelagra. There will be no more fire in this place.’
The rock around them began to shake and crack. Tiny fissures appeared within it and then water began to drip down from the roof in a hundred narrow waterfalls. It pushed through the stone, crumbling it, creating wider channels for itself. Chunks of rock fell to the floor and shattered, throwing up muddy spray. The cave was rapidly filling with water, a deluge.
Tatrini looked weak and dazed, sitting in a widening puddle, while stone crashed down around her. Rav was suffused with pity for her. ‘Get out of here or you’ll die!’ he cried. ‘Get up, Grandmama. Get up!’