Arabelle

Arabelle pulled up sharply over the churning sea, the crests of the waves just licking the underside of her wings. She had dived too low and now she beat her wings furiously to regain altitude. Arabelle did not know these winds at the edge of the world. Here on the last stretch of sea before the Maelstrom, the winds crashed into each other in a panic. Normally unruly winds would not have fazed her. Each wind had a certain cadence, a secret heartsong to call and respond to, and Arabelle relished their unspoken challenge to be mastered. But tonight she did not have time to sing to the wind. Tonight she had a mission small in form but great in import.

Arabelle turned towards her chest. There, in a makeshift sling of vines, two tiny eyes twinkled back. Cradled against her chest lay a creature that had not been seen in the land for thousands of years: a human child. The child did not cry. He did not struggle. Instead, he stared wide-eyed at the dark fury and mystery of the world around him. Amidst the tempest, his gray eyes were pools of calm and looking into them, Arabelle almost forgot she was racing against the winds, against time.

Lightning illuminated the child, revealing skin as pale as lifeless marble. Arabelle shuddered, remembering how just days ago his skin had gleamed with a bronze incandescence, how he had tottered through her forest with twigs in his hair and dirt on his cheeks, so clearly lost yet so determined, back when the pale whiteness had been no more than a small blotch on his hand - a birthmark, she had thought.

Arabelle did not remember precisely when she had decided to help the child, but she did remember how the child had never feared her, not when she had emerged from the brush nor when she had scooped him up and flown him to her willow deep within her forest. It was almost as if he had been waiting for her to find him.

From within her willow’s curtain, the two of them had watched as day after day, the hues between the leaves burned from gold to rouge. There she had cleaned his scratches with her tongue, fed him with the fruits of her forest, and warmed him with the fire of her belly. Often during moments like these, she would lean in close to the child and breathe in his scent, a fresh, flowery fragrance that whispered of other worlds. With her nostrils blowing warm steam onto his face, the child would take a deep breath with his own all too tiny lungs and furiously blow air back at her as if to say look, I too am a great and fearsome dragon! And this would always make her break out into throaty laughter and leave the child giggling and roaring away. For his blustery spirit, she had called him Gale.

But as the days passed a change took hold of Gale. His small frame quivered. His roars became racked by coughs. She watched in terror as each day Gale deteriorated further before her. Soon the pale mark had spread up his arm, past his elbow, and crawled menacingly towards his shoulder. And now she knew it to be no birthmark, but a curse.

Arabelle tried to treat the disease with rarified flowers, phosphorescent roots, and ancient words of dragonsong - whatever remedies she knew magic or nature to afford. But all her knowledge failed her. Now Gale refused to eat or drink and a clammy fear gnawed at Arabelle's bones. Without another second to waste, she had bundled Gale up and left her forest-isle to seek help from those wiser than her.

* * *

Up ahead Arabelle could see the ancient tower rising from the sea like a severed tree trunk. Atop it, perched like a nest of stone, stood Keeper's Roost, the Council’s amphitheater. The Roost was old, the tower far older. Some legends claimed the tower had once stood twice as high but had been toppled in an ancient war.

Arabelle darted through one of the Roost’s arches and spiraled down to land. Here the wind and rain sounded faint. A powerful magic held the storm at bay. Arabelle shook off the sea rain and inspected Gale. He trembled terribly. She blew her warm breath over him and held him close, willing his trembling to cease. Hold on just a little longer, she thought.

She looked up at the vertiginous spire of arcades. The ancient visages of stone dragons glared back. The columns of the arcades depicted councilmembers that had come before and the wings of these stone dragons came together to form the Roost’s many arches. At the center of the Roost stood a dais inscribed with a map of Venamar. Roiling spirals decorated its edges, depicting the Maelstrom whose walls no dragon had ever breached.

Keeper's Roost was the last safe haven before the Maelstrom - or it had been since its founding. Water dripped down the columns and cold currents blew through the arcades - places where the magic had cracked. Arabelle wondered how much longer Keeper's Roost would hold, how much longer until the Maelstrom swallowed up the world.

She pushed such thoughts away and refocused on the task at hand. At the center of the dais stood the object of her journey: a silver brazier clearer than a new moon. Arabelle approached the brazier and bowed her head. Inscribed beneath it in the ancient dragon tongue lay the words:

From Night we took the kiss of death

From Day we took the breath of life

We wane towards the Undying Hearth

On stolen winds and borrowed light

No one had lit the brazier in recent memory, and in all the tales she had heard as a dragonling, only dragons of immense power ever lit the brazier. She took a long, steady look at Gale. Despite his frailty, something resolute shone through in his agate eyes.

She inhaled deeply, reverently, and then, she blew out a lungful of golden fire over the brazier. She continued to blow, exhaling all the fire she could muster. She felt the magic of the brazier take hold of her, the ancient bowl thirstily drinking up her flame, demanding more - more than she had to give. Arabelle felt pulled into a vortex. Her head spun. She couldn’t breathe. Then, with black creeping at the edges of her vision, the brazier let go. She could hear Gale crying. She gasped, gulping lungfuls of crisp night air.

A blue-white light now wavered at the center of the brazier. She stared at the brilliant pinprick, hating it for the toll it had exacted on her, admiring it for its preternatural beauty. She watched as the light floated upwards like a star - then it exploded. The blue light engulfed the amphitheater. She averted her eyes and shielded Gale as beams erupted through the hundreds of arches out into the darkness, far into the world beyond.

Arabelle stared out into the stormy night. Untold miles away, a mote of light flickered into being - then another, like stars born on earth. Far beyond what her eyes could see, beacons were lit. A path of starlight for any who would follow it. The Fires of the Council had been lit. They would be seen by dragons throughout the land, and for the first time in over two thousand years, the Council had been summoned.

* * *

Assembled atop the tower were dragons representing all the lands and waters of Venamar. Present were Brogost the Red, known as much for the heat of his flame as the fire of his temper, Roanoke the Watcher, a blind mountain dragon and the oldest member of the Council - even Drakir the Silent had come down from his frosty reaches of the North. Several dragons of lesser orders crowded behind the councilmembers and she caught sight of Councilmember Milnore, a wiry yellow dragon, blowing smoke rings in the back. Other dragons stood perched atop the grand arcades, shaking off the rain from their long journeys. Finally, with the arrival of the last councilmember, the brazier’s fire went out of its own accord. A voice rumbled through the stone of the tower and called the Council to order.

“Who is it that summons the Council, even now amidst the Maelstrom’s rising? Who is it that dares disturb Venamar’s peace?” It was Bosca who spoke. Bosca’s scales gleamed like dark emeralds and his black horns curved fiercely back onto themselves. Three legendary scars raced down his neck, earned whilst slaying the goldsick dragon, Orin the Mad. Arabelle pushed her way toward the front of the assembly until she stood opposite Bosca.

“It is I, Arabelle, guardian of the forest-isle of Tresa.”

Bosca’s eyes widened in recognition.

“Pray tell, why does a dragoness from a far-flung isle see fit to light the ancient fire?” The contempt in his voice was unmistakable. Though many a dragon would have flinched, Arabelle only stood taller and flared her wings. Growing up as Bosca’s daughter came with its advantages, however few.

“I come seeking aid.”

“What help could possibly require the attention of not just one councilmember, but the entire Council?” spat Brogost.

A voice piped up from the back. “Come now Brogost, what’s the rush? You’ll get back to that cozy little crater of yours soon enough. I’m sure she has her reasons.” Milnore glanced at Arabelle curiously before returning his attention to his smoke rings.

Arabelle stepped onto the dais and approached the brazier. She was surprised to find it cool to the touch now. She took in the amphitheater, packed to the brim with dragons of magnificent size. She saw herself reflected in the brazier, jade and slender as a river. She hesitated. Her heartbeat thumped in her chest - and next to her heartbeat, a smaller one, almost imperceptible, tapped away. Still covering Gale with her wings, Arabelle placed him on the brazier and squeezed his hand in an unspoken promise.

She met Bosca’s eyes. “I come seeking aid not for myself, but for one who cannot ask for it.” She moved her wings aside to reveal Gale. There was an audible gasp, then silence. The distant rain pattered.

Alone atop the dais, surrounded by a hundred hulking dragons, Gale looked smaller than ever. She felt as if she were serving the babe on a platter to them - and indeed, that was not far from the truth. She knew that for many of the dragons assembled, the child, however helpless, brought to life an enemy thought buried, a war turned myth. Arabelle suppressed an urge to rush back onto the dais and pick Gale up, to call the whole thing off and flee back to the safety of her willow. But she needed the Council’s help.

Bosca turned to her violently. “What is this abomination you bring into the Council’s presence?” he roared. “Where did you find it?” Anger dripped from his voice.

Arabelle stared back defiantly. “I was flying over my isle when I came upon the child near the coast. I continued on to search for others -”

“There are others?” Drakir hissed, to the surprise of many. His pink eyes probed her, penetrating, calculating. She could see dragons shifting anxiously behind him.

Arabella turned to the winter-scaled dragon. “No. Almost immediately I found a man, presumably the child’s caretaker, pale and lifeless in a shipwrecked vessel. No footprints other than the child’s marked the sands.” As she spoke, she remembered the pang she had felt for the child’s loss. But she did not mention this.

“There is something else,” she continued. “The man, he showed no sign of injuries yet his skin bore an unnatural whiteness to it. I believe he was taken by whatever illness now grips the child. I failed to heal him so now I come to you, esteemed councilmembers, to seek your aid in saving his life.”

She could feel the mood in the amphitheater shift. She had placed the dragons in control again. The power to provide or withhold life rested entirely on them. With the threat of humans no longer so imminent, the dragons examined the child again.

* * *

“Guide me to the child.” This time it was Roanoke who broke the silence. It was the first time anyone had referred to Gale as a child, and this gave Arabelle some reassurance, at least enough to guide the old dragon to where Gale lay.

Roanoke cleared his throat. “It is no coincidence that the child comes to us at these times. Every day the Maelstrom devours more of our world. Our lands forget their magic and our winds forget their songs. These things I can see, for though I have lost my sight of the here and now, so too have I gained sight of what may come to pass. I call upon the mists of our ancestors so that those assembled here may see through sightless eyes.”

Roanoke opened his eyes, revealing irises as stark as the moon. Then the old dragon parted his lips and breathed on the child. A glittering mist enveloped Gale. The cloud began to condense, to take shape and solidify until there was no longer a child before them but rather the specter of a darkly-clad man. The man’s eyes were shadowed by a short cap, but his cheek had a crescent-shaped burn that contorted his lips in a cruel grimace. Arabelle shuddered. She wondered if this was a vision of Gale, fully grown.

Shadowy clouds formed behind the man and more specters lined up behind him. Each man wore the same cap that hid their eyes, the same dark uniform. The phantoms began to march in place and many of the dragons nearest the dais took a step back. Amidst the soldiers, the mists whorled upwards, tracing branches in the air. A tree of mist now hovered above the dais and at its base lay a thin, sickly-looking dragon. The dragon curled up defensively around itself and roared at the men like a caged animal.

The burn-scarred man raised his arm and the uniformed men descended on the helpless dragon. Arabelle lunged forward to stop them. The mists swirled and disappeared, revealing the child, trembling on the brazier just as before. The phantoms were gone, but their shadow loomed heavy on the room.

“Ghosts, nothing more than ghosts.” Brogost’s brash voice echoed in the amphitheater. “The humans are gone. Everyone knows that.” But there was an odd coloration to his voice that made his words ring hollow.

“The child will lead them to us!” hissed Drakir.

“He will bring death upon us all!” yelled another.

“It will take time to unravel what the mists have shown tonight,” Roanoke intoned, but panic was already spreading. Arguments were breaking out.

“No. The danger is clear.” Bosca’s voice carried the weight of lead and quashed the rising din. “We cannot imperil ourselves - all of Venamar - on account of one trespasser. We shall not kill it. We are not killers like his kind.” he sneered. “But we will not help the human. The Council has spoken.” Bosca turned his back to Gale and began to walk away.

Many puffed fire in assent. Others looked like they wanted to speak, but Arabelle knew none would dare defy Bosca. She knew Gale had been given a death sentence and that she had failed him. Arabelle felt an inexorable yell rising from her chest and before she could stop herself she heard a strangled cry escape her lips. “By withholding aid you kill him!” Arabelle rushed towards Gale. “I will not watch him wither and die!”

Bosca turned. “The Council has spoken,” he growled.

“No, you have spoken! And I refuse to listen to you any longer!”

“Enough, daughter!”

“I came here, seeking aid. Is that not the Council’s duty as Keepers of the Hearth, as guardians of Venamar?” With each word, she inched closer to Gale. “And yet you have not only refused aid but pinned the sorrows of an ancient war on a sick and helpless child.” She was now within arm’s reach of him. “So it seems I was wrong to trust in the Council.”

The next moments happened in a flurry of wings and claws. To this day, dragons disagree on the battlelines drawn that night. Arabelle snatched Gale from the brazier and flew straight up. All around her, wings began beating as dragons took flight to stop her. She did not expect to get far. Surely at any moment they would swoop in and rip Gale from her grasp. Instead, fights broke out, dragon against dragon. Though many feared the child, it was clear not everyone agreed with Bosca’s sentencing.

Arabelle careened upwards, dragons wrestling about her. She dodged and feinted, outmaneuvering her assailants. She was halfway up the Roost now. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a dragon closing in on her - Drakir. Drakir stretched his claws to grab her tail. She could almost feel his talons digging into her. A yellow form rammed into him. She looked down to find Drakir and Milnore wrestling viciously and bringing down several other dragons with them.

She crested the uppermost arcade. She was out. But she and Gale were far from safe. Several dragons had escaped the brawl and flew in close pursuit, Bosca leading the pack. Her heart sank. There was no way she could outmaneuver Bosca, not out here in the open.

In an act of desperation, she banked hard, making straight for the Maelstrom. Its black cloud wall crackled menacingly. Most of her pursuers retreated immediately, but Bosca and a few others pressed on, fuming, “Arabelle this is not rebelliousness - this is suicide!”

“You seemed so ready to sentence someone else’s child to death just moments ago,” she called back, tears stinging her eyes. She was furious with her father. More than that, she was disappointed. Arabelle was at the edge of the Maelstrom. The last few of Bosca’s lackeys turned back. Now it was just the two of them.

Bosca’s tone shifted. “Listen to me daughter, turn back! Even if you survive the Maelstrom -”

Arabelle almost did turn back for she now heard in her father’s voice something she had seldom heard: concern. But she had seen the look in the councilmembers’ eyes: fear, prejudice. She knew that nowhere in Venamar would be safe for Gale. No cure could be sought here. The child’s only chance lay through the Maelstrom. She dove into the storm and Bosca’s words were lost to her.

* * *

Arabelle prepared for the coming assault: for sharp hail to cut through her wings, for lightning to knock her out of the sky. Instead, a viscous atmosphere engulfed her. Her movements grew sluggish as if she were swimming rather than flying. She pushed forward but an opposing force, like a web, pulled her back, fighting to keep her in its grip. She was slowing, sinking into the Maelstrom’s dark mire. She kicked. She clawed. She spewed all her remaining fire at the darkness. She felt the storm’s web fraying and suddenly she was free, flying between clear skies and sparkling sea. Far off on the horizon, she could just make out the faintest glimmer of a distant city.

She turned to face the darkness she had escaped, but when she turned there was no sign of the Maelstrom at all. No lightning. No cloud wall. Only the faint haze of dissipating rain. Arabelle wheeled about, but she knew the Maelstrom would be impossible to miss. It simply wasn’t there.

She heard giggling from her sling. Arabelle looked to find a ruddiness had returned to Gale’s cheeks. She crooned with delight - but what came out was a croak. The sound startled her. Her throat ached, no doubt from all the fire-breathing of the past night. Gale for one did not seem to mind her croaking. Instead, he set about imitating her and she heard a series of gleeful hisses emanate from the sling. She smiled despite her exhaustion. “Nearly there,” she said, but her throat struggled with the words. Gale roared back agreeably and they flew off towards the distant city.

* * *

Soon Arabelle was flying over the city’s towers, each one inset with large crystal panes that glittered in the sunlight. These towers looked just like the tower of Keeper's Roost, only taller - just as the legends had said.

Arabelle wondered if Gale and his parents had once lived here. Ever since they had crossed the Maelstrom, the child’s health had improved dramatically. The paleness had receded to the size of a bugbite - and that too was fading. It was almost as if his affliction was not born of disease but distance, like an uprooted tree that, unable to take to foreign soils, begins to wither away. His miraculous recovery strengthened her belief that this world, so foreign to her, was known to him.

Arabelle coughed. The city air tasted bitter as if it had mixed with something foul and in doing so, had ceased to know itself, had forgotten its song. But it wasn’t just the taste. Flying in this air Arabelle felt heavy - heavier than she had ever felt. She strained, panting and beating her wings hard to keep aloft. But it was no use. She felt gravity coil around her. And then, for the first time in her life, her wings failed her. She began to fall. A terrible truth dawned on her: the air here was bereft of magic and would not sustain her. She sang to the wind, begged for its help, but the wind did not listen, could not listen. The wind of this city had died long ago.

She crashed against the ground, sheltering Gale from the impact. A sharp pain arced up her right shoulder. She hobbled to her feet. All around her the air filled with screams.

Arabelle lay in the middle of a street. Wheeled vehicles surrounded her like giant scarabs and poles sprouted from the ground like metal trees. A large vehicle had crashed into her and now lay on its side like some wounded beast. Several humans were crawling out from its metal carapace. Many more humans were fleeing in terror.

Against the wave of fleeing humans, a lone figure held his ground. Arabelle recognized him immediately. She recognized him before she saw his dark uniform or the burn on his cheek. She knew him like a shadow she had never looked upon, but that had followed her through every step of her journey. It was the scarred man from Roanoke’s mists.

The man whipped out a short black instrument like the pommel of a sword and pointed it at her. She heard two cracks like thunder and felt hot ingots dig into her hip. Arabelle shrieked in pain. She shielded Gale with her wings - more cracks. The lead cut through her wings. Arabelle roared, fleeing down the road. She had to keep Gale safe. Glancing back she saw the uniformed man jump into a vehicle and heard a shrill noise start up like a bird in pain. Arabelle knew she had to put as much distance between herself and that sound.

All around her metal machines veered and crashed, spewing the terrible fumes that had killed the air. Her heart fluttered. Her wounds burned. And now more vehicles were emitting the horrible wailing noise - and they were gaining on her.

She pressed her wings tightly against her body and ducked into a dark alleyway. The sirens subsided. Here the air was filled with dank, rotting smells, but at least it did not burn like the fumes of the roads. Gale was sobbing, but she had nothing to soothe him with. Her tongue was dry. Her knees trembled. She just wanted to lie down and sleep - at least here in the darkness, they could hide from the city. Arabelle closed her eyes.

A breeze wafted through the alleyway, its caress cool on her face. She noticed another scent now, fresher and lighter, mingling in with the cloying smells of putrefaction, a scent that reminded her of verdant forests and lush grasses. She rose and exited the alleyway, chasing after the scent. She leapt over metal vehicles, bounded off the sides of buildings, crashed through stalls. Nothing would get in her way.

Suddenly the buildings disappeared and she was running through a forest. She could hardly believe it, much less explain it, but here at the center of the city, amidst the brambles of concrete and steel, stood an island of green. The forest’s borders were harsh and rectilinear, much like the urban grid she had just escaped. An unnatural order held sway here, but it was a forest nonetheless.

* * *

Deep within the rectangular forest, she found a patchy willow that afforded just enough shelter from the outside world. Arabelle huddled there in its shade and admired the child, nestled against her chest. Arabelle felt his warmth, his small breathing pushing against her own deep breaths. She wrapped herself more tightly around Gale and nuzzled him. He grinned and nuzzled her back. Gale was safe. He was healthy. That was all that mattered. There beneath the scraggly willow, she could almost fool herself into thinking the two of them were back on her forest isle. But those days seemed so long ago, and the thought of it grew hazy in her mind.

The shrill wail that had chased her through the city returned and crescendoed. Red and blue lights flashed off the trees. Within minutes, uniformed men had erected a fence around the willow and a crowd began to gather behind it to watch the spectacle. She could see uniformed men shuffling between the trees, surrounding her like a noose.

Arabelle tried to say something, to explain to the humans that she meant them no harm, that she came only to save the child. But only hisses and roars escaped her throat. She cried desperately, for the child, for herself, for all the creatures of this land, for she now understood that in this land without magic, all the creatures had lost their power of speech.

She looked into the crowd of shocked and sweaty faces, searching desperately for a way out. Instead, the humans shouted and hurled trash. She had seen this fear before, back on Keeper’s Roost. As her gaze moved over the crowd, a swirl of bright green caught her attention.

Arabelle focused her gaze on a woman, almost unnoticeable amidst the throng. Her eyes slanted beautifully like silver raindrops. But it was not her striking eyes that had caught Arabelle’s attention. The woman wore a sleeveless garment, and there on the woman’s arm, Arabelle saw a long, slender river of jade wrapping upwards. At her shoulder, the line of the river split in two to form a roaring mouth. Arabelle could not understand how this could be, but there could be no doubt: here, unknown distances from Venamar, this woman bore the image of a forest dragon on her arm. Arabelle did not know this woman, but it seemed that somehow, inexplicably, the woman knew her, or at least of her kind.

Arabelle locked eyes with the woman and felt an immediate familiarity, a secret kinship in them. The woman’s eyes glimmered mysteriously and then, as the guards were occupied with some rowdy humans jostling the barricade, the woman rushed through a gap in the fence and ran to Arabelle. The guards did not notice until the woman was halfway to the dragon, and by then, they were too frightened to pursue her.

The woman came to a stop in front of Arabelle. Now this close, Arabelle could see the woman’s eyes were not merely familiar, they were known to her. Arabelle had seen them every time she had looked into Gale’s face. Instantly, Arabelle knew what she had to do. She had to be quick for her heart could not bear it. As long as Gale remained with her, he would be in harm’s way. Arabelle picked Gale up and pressed the boy into the woman’s chest.

The woman buried her face against Gale and wept. And in the space of those tears, the whole world seemed to fade. There was only the heartsong of fates twining and unwinding. The woman, Gale’s mother, turned to Arabelle and lifted her hand. Arabelle pressed her muzzle against the mother’s palm and in its touch, Arabelle felt safe and loved, and she rejoiced in knowing that these hands would carry Gale.

Arabelle looked at the child. She looked at the fuzzy head she had licked each morning, the tiny hands that had hugged her every night, and she gazed into those serious gray eyes she had fallen in love with. Arabelle leaned forward and blew warm steam into his face. Gale puffed his cheeks and blew a mighty gust back. Gale’s mother removed her hand and turned, and Arabelle cried as Gale, her dragonling, was carried away.

Arabelle watched the two of them until they disappeared into the crowd. Her child was gone. She had not felt it when she had departed her forest isle, nor when she had crossed the Maelstrom, nor even when the winds of this foreign land had failed her. No, it was only now that she felt her entire world ripped away.

With the child secured, the uniformed men emerged from the brush. Their faces were pinched with anger, their beady eyes squeezed with fear, and one among them wore a furious scar on his cheek. She saw the scarred man raise his arm toward her.

Arabelle closed her eyes and raised her head to the skies. She spoke to the leaves of distant breezes, and to the trees of lost forests and ancient soils, and mustering up the last of her voice, now only the hoarsest of whispers, she sang to the wind.

Above her, the leaves of the old willow rustled.