Master Kassik gave her a verbal roasting, just as her friends had threatened. Pip stared at her toes, scrunched up in his thick carpet.
“You’re the smallest student, but a Dragon-sized troublemaker,” stormed the Master, making a tight turn in front of his desk and marching back across his office. The buttons, medals and honours on his Jeradian War-Hammer’s uniform cast winks of light all around her. She dared not meet his gaze. “You drop from the sky, bamboozle that witless Green Jalador, irritate Alathion, assault a Prince–and I still haven’t heard the end of that incident from Udalia Island, may I tell you–break my Weapons Master’s arm, and rile up all of the Dragons! You’ve barely been here a month and you’re wearing a path to my door. What do you have to say for yourself, eh? Eh?”
“I apologise, Master Kassik.”
The Master unexpectedly made a growl worthy of any Dragon. “And then my Journeyman calls you for cheating in front of your entire class. Unbelievable!” He threw up his hands. “I’m surprised you didn’t hear my shouting at that Island-sized idiot from wherever you were up the volcano. You came second in yesterday’s exams, Pip. Second.”
“I’m very sorry, Master.”
“No, you’re not!” he roared, and then pulled up with a low chuckle. “Not for that, anyway. Only Yaethi beat you.”
He was not as angry as he was pretending to be. Why? More and more, the ways of big people confused her. Or was it just as Kaiatha had whispered, that someone who had grown up in a zoo, needed to learn how to be a Human? Surely her humanity–her humanness, rather–was inborn, as natural as breathing? If she read him right, Master Kassik was proud of her. Why then the anger?
She said, “Truly? Master, you checked how many hundred–”
“We know our students, Pip. Unless there are any surprises. Always possible. And, word of warning, young lady–we’ll set different types of questions, next time.” He flashed a big, Dragonish grin at her. “No more running away, Pip, please. My sanity depends on it. Promise?”
Careful what you promise to a Dragon, or to Master Kassik, Pip thought. He did strike her as very Dragonish in his behaviour, sometimes. He certainly had a Dragon’s temper hidden behind that commanding officer’s calm exterior.
“Master Kassik, I promise.”
He held her gaze until with a nod, he declared himself satisfied. Unexpectedly, he barked, “Alathion! Send them in.”
Kaiatha, Maylin and Yaethi joined her on the carpet. Pip imagined it should have been red, not brown. That would have matched Master Kassik’s display of temper. She had thought him so dignified. But he was also a warrior, a commanding officer. Her verbal thrashing could probably be heard halfway around the school.
Quietly, Yaethi handed her a tunic top. Pip drew it over her head. Her undressed state as she was hauled through Master Alathion’s office had caused him to turn as purple as a prekki-fruit.
“Students,” he said, perching on the edge of his desk. “Thank you for joining us. I believe Pip belongs here in this Academy, with us. But I am concerned. What shall we do about the bullying?”
“Have Emblazon threaten the class, Master?” suggested Maylin.
Kassik chuckled behind his hand. “I considered that. Yaethi?”
“Master, she needs to re-sit today’s examination. It isn’t fair, what the Journeyman did. And it’s not fair if she’s placed second not having finished half a paper.”
Pip smiled at her friend. Yaethi was a stickler for fairness, to the point that a simple swap of students in the line for food could send her into a towering rage. She was also one of a select few who possessed real magical powers, and was taking extra lessons in how to direct her magic or shield against attacks.
“Consider it done, Yaethi. Kaiatha?”
“Feed their carcasses to the windrocs, Master.” Everyone stared at the normally shy Kaiatha. She coloured richly, as rosily as the ruby-coloured headscarf she wore in addition to her floor-length Fra’aniorian gown. Pip was surprised to see her noticeably pointy ears outlined beneath the silken scarf material; they had been learning about Island-cultures recently as they delved into the modern history syllabus. She added, “I don’t like bullies.”
Yaethi said, “You could put a Dragon’s eye on–”
“Silence,” commanded Master Kassik. “We do not discuss the forbidden lore. I need to think. This situation needs to be addressed in a way that does not make it all about you, Pip, or the harassment will only worsen. Leave it with me. You are dismissed. Go sleep. All of you.”
Maylin protested, “But our exams …”
“I’ve moved the entire examination schedule by a day on account of one student.” He rolled his eyes at the ceiling. “Never before in the history of this school. Say, ‘Thank you, Master Kassik.’”
“Thank you, Master Kassik,” they chorused.
“Now get out of my office. And you, Pip–much as I enjoy our little chats–stay out!”
At breakfast, taken as usual in the dining hall, Pip was surprised to be patted on the back by a number of students and even several sympathetic Mentors and Journeymen. Each Mentor was an adult in charge of a student dormitory. Pip’s Mentor, Hailia, was a brusque Jeradian woman with twin six summers-old girls who seemed to think Pip was a child just like them, and existed for the sole purpose of playing their endless imaginative games. Her husband Tana was a Red Dragon Rider.
The suns blazed through the huge, iron-barred crysglass windows of the dining hall, so dazzling that their knives and spoons threw sparkles around the table. Maylin and Kaiatha cheerfully discussed plans for their day. Yaethi had decided the time was best used for extra study. The others wanted to go swimming at a pond at the eastern end of the huge grassy balcony that stretched outside the dining hall. The terrace wall on the far side was a favourite place for Pip to sit and gaze out over the mist-wreathed volcanoes.
What should she do about Hunagu? And the Shadow Dragon? Pip searched for answers in her bowl of Jeradian porridge, which was richly spiced as always.
“Pipsqueak.” Durithion slipped into the seat next to her. “Alright?”
Pip caught an arched eyebrow from Maylin, opposite, for whom romance blossomed in the breath of every breeze. She flushed. “Hey, Duri. Have I got a story for you–um, but first, can I write to your family on Sylakia? I didn’t–”
“Did that already, scrap.” Duri made a droll face at her expression. “Couldn’t let Telisia get the first word. I told them everything. It’ll be a few weeks before we get a reply.”
“I should write, too.”
“I think you’ll hear Dad’s scream all the way from Jeradia.” Duri sighed. “Wish I could have been there. They would’ve found the footprints in the cage. Can’t miss those. He probably thinks a Dragon ate you.”
“Ah’ll eat yah myself,” said Mistress Mya’adara, hauling Pip effortlessly out of her seat. “Yah get to bed, yah wicked runaway. Ah scare easy, girl. What yah do to mah poor heart?”
“Sorry if I made you angry, Mistress–”
“Angry?” Mistress Mya’adara drew herself up to every inch of her six feet and six inches and bawled, “Yah want to see angry? Ah’ll boot yah scrawny behind to the next volcano, girl! The worry yah caused, Ah can’t tell yah. Now, yah scram! Ah’ll have none of yah backchat and ‘Ah’m just a cutesy little bundle of pranks, Mistress Mya’adara.’ Yah three feet nothing of pure trouble. Well, trouble’s bit yah this time!”
To a chorus of laughter from the students and various well-meant cuffs and threats from the Mistress, she chased Pip out of the dining hall.
An afternoon’s swimming and relaxing was just the tonic she needed. Pip stretched luxuriously, warmed from below by the glittering, black volcanic sand next to the small pond, and the suns-shine from above. The day was so sultry, she just wanted to fall asleep again. How could anyone wear actual clothes for swimming? These big people were so silly about nudity. And how could Yaethi study in this heat? But she lay next to Pip on the blanket and pored over a scroll on Dragon anatomy. Stomachs. Claws and wing-struts. Every bone and joint and strut had its own name. Pip wondered if the names had not been purposely mangled by a vindictive scholar bent on vexing generations of students.
Maylin sat in the middle of a group of boys–Duri’s first year friends–laughing uproariously at some joke or other. Duri had somehow tempted Kaiatha into the water with him. The graceful Fra’aniorian Islander was usually so shy … Pip’s eyes widened. They were holding hands underwater! Durithion, unusually dark-haired and dark-skinned for a Sylakian, was trying not to appear too pleased with himself, but he behaved as a cat whiskers-deep in cream. Pip tried to tell herself she was pleased for her friend, but she sensed an annoying depth of jealousy in her response.
“You told Master Kassik about the Shadow Dragon?” Yaethi asked.
“Yes, that was before he started shouting at me.”
“We heard. Who didn’t?” Pip groaned loudly. “What were you doing there in the forest, Pip? You’ve broken the school rules twice now.”
“I miss the jungle,” Pip offered, rather weakly. “I … well, you know I speak Ape, Yaethi. I made friends with some monkeys there. I didn’t want anyone else to know because they already call me names.”
Yaethi seemed to accept this half-truth. “I wish I could speak to the messenger monkeys,” she said. “I could find out a lot that way.”
“Or create chaos.”
“Yeeeesss,” Yaethi smiled. “A whole Pygmy mud pool of fun.”
“Hey!”
“Master Shambles is your new admirer. You should just hear him extolling your powers of memory.” Yaethi grinned wickedly. “Maybe you should ask him about the Shadow Dragon.”
Pip snapped her fingers at Yaethi, a rude gesture on Jeradia. “Zardon said I’d be safe here.”
“Even a Dragon has to be wrong sometimes,” her friend pointed out. “You said he was as loopy as a fledgling doing aerial cartwheels.”
“He’s not loopy.”
“See? You’re crazy about Dragons. Maybe … maybe mighty, magnificent, muscular Emblazon floats your Dragonship. Does he?” She elbowed Pip slyly.
Pip yelped, “He does not.” She lowered her voice as a dozen curious stares came her way. “Yaethi, you stop teasing–you stop yanking my hawser this instant. Oyda will fry you like a grasshopper if you–”
“Yeeeee-uck.”
They both laughed.
“Oyda and Nak,” said Yaethi. “That’s the answer to matchmaker Maylin’s riddle.”
“Nak?” Pip squeaked, and bit her lip unhappily. “Oyda doesn’t like Nak.”
“Ah, but their Dragons like each other,” Yaethi said, archly. “I’ve seen the way Shimmerith blushes like a Northern Isles maiden whenever Emblazon looks at her.”
“You’re ralti-silly. Dragons do not blush.” Shimmerith did not care for Emblazon, she had said. “The only person who’s going to be blushing around here is you, if you don’t get your pale skin out of the suns-shine right away. Mentor Hailia made me promise–”
“And you listened to her? Loosen up, girl. Better still, find yourself a boyfriend. Don’t you like Duri?”
“Duri’s taken.”
Pip could have kicked herself. Yaethi’s eyes snapped to the still pool, where Duri and Kaiatha were immersed in earnest conversation, oblivious to anyone or anything else in the world. A wicked smile curved her lips. “Ooh … he’s positively steaming in there.”
“What are you plotting, Yaethi?”
“We should cool him off, Pip. Double Dragon bomb?”
“Sure.”
They raced each other to the edge and leaped toward Duri and Kaiatha, tucking up their legs and arms to make as much of a splash as possible.
“Dragon bomb!” they yelled.
Durithion looked up, and was swamped.
By the end of examinations week, Pip was more tired than she would have believed possible. All she had been doing was sitting and writing. But the dining hall was abuzz with excitement that final afternoon, as the staff and students gathered for the traditional end-of-exams feast. The kitchen had been a madhouse all week, generating such wonderful smells that every time Pip walked past, she wanted to drool like the school’s entire population of jallada cats, great tan-and-brown striped beasts who stood waist-high to her, who had gathered to meow piteously outside the kitchen windows in the hope of scraps.
Each segment of the school population was dressed in their formal robes–purple for the first years, emerald for the seconds, bright yellow for the third and fourth years, black for the Journeymen and Mentors, and crimson for the Masters. Pip, to her annoyance, had endured a tailor’s sniggers as he cut her robes down to make them fit.
Glorious suns-shine, so rich and golden Pip imagined she could swim through the beams like a trout, blazed through the great crysglass windows to light the colourful gathering. At the clear blast of a bugle, the Mentors and Journeymen stood up, climbed onto their bare tables at the head of the hall to tumultuous cheers from the students, and began the traditional dance. Every year, the tradition was to make up a more wildly descriptive and funny song in praise of the kitchen staff, before the food would appear magically through the swinging doors along the side of the hall. The Masters gathered on the stage and began a counterpoint chant, ridiculing the efforts of the Mentors and Journeymen.
“Smell that food,” groaned Maylin. “I could eat a whole ralti sheep myself.”
Pip goggled. She had only just seen her first ralti sheep grazing near the kitchen that week. The sheep had been seven feet tall at the shoulder, an ambulatory boulder with improbably short black legs. It was probably sizzling under a Dragon-sized grill right now.
“I could eat like a Dragon,” agreed Duri, who was sitting opposite Kaiatha.
Pip grinned at him. “Did I tell you about the time Zardon ate over two hundred blackwing stork eggs?”
“Oh, do you have to bring up the fact that you’ve flown on a Dragon, again?” Yaethi sniped, rather more waspishly than Pip thought necessary.
“Don’t listen to her. Yaethi’s talking Dragon farts,” Maylin put in. “Sulphurous, suppurating Dragon farts.”
Yaethi flashed her a blistering glare across the table.
Just then, a bugle began to blast somewhere outside the hall. Pandemonium ensued as the confused students shouted and joked and looked for the source of the commotion.
“Silence!” thundered Master Kassik. His voice stilled the entire hall–some kind of magic, Pip realised. “It’s a lockdown. Students, sit still and keep quiet. Masters and Journeymen, to your posts.”
“A lockdown?” Pip whispered to Kaiatha, growing alarmed as the doors began to slam shut. A number of the Masters raced outside before the hall’s main doors were barred and locked.
“You missed the orientation,” she whispered back. “It’s an alarm.”
“Or an attack. How exciting,” said Maylin.
The students nearest the windows made a rush for the barred crysglass, pressing their noses against the panes. Immediately, cries of excitement and disbelief rose from those who could see.
“What’s that?”
“Islands, it’s an Ape!”
“No way, that’s a Dragon.”
“It’s a giant Ape, stupid.”
Suddenly, Pip had a sickening realisation. She leaped up onto a table, but still could not see over the crowd. “Duri! Lift me up.”
He stared at her. Several of the Journeymen shouted for the students to calm down.
“They’ll send out a Dragon,” Pip heard someone say.
A Dragon? Pip gasped as Duri hoisted her into the air. Her eyes leaped frantically from window to window. There, peaceably ambling across the open field, was Hunagu.
Oh, no …
“Oh, yes!” shouted one of the Mentors. “Here comes Shimmerith, everyone.”