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  A Most Refined Dragon

  Paul Anton Chernoch

  A Most Refined Dragon

  Copyright © 2015

  Paul Anton Chernoch

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publisher and copyright owner.

  Published by Paul Anton Chernoch

  Material Used by Permission

  All Scripture quotations are taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV®.

  Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

  Table of Contents

  Map of Kibota

  Chapter 1: The Cricket’s Last Song

  Chapter 2: Window of Opportunity

  Chapter 3: White Talon

  Chapter 4: Delegation

  Chapter 5: The Fountains of Ramcanopa

  Chapter 6: Faithful River

  Chapter 7: Flight across Clawtill Plains

  Chapter 8: Crisis at Maricova Gash

  Chapter 9: Red Fury

  Chapter 10: Detour Through Marbush

  Chapter 11: What the Osh Pits Spit Out

  Chapter 12: Supplanted

  Chapter 13: A Seed is Planted

  Chapter 14: Mishap at Seremarid Gap

  Chapter 15: Carried Back

  Chapter 16: Kiboteshk

  Chapter 17: The Lonely Dragon

  Chapter 18: The Refinery

  Chapter 19: Dangerous Words

  Chapter 20: Before the Octojurata

  Chapter 21: Blood Fury

  Chapter 22: Death

  Chapter 23: Bittersweet by Barge

  Chapter 24: The Holding Pens

  Chapter 25: The Grand E-scent-ials of Happiness

  Chapter 26: Walking on Eggshells

  Chapter 27: Unrest

  Chapter 28: Danger at Sea

  Chapter 29: Losing the Air

  Chapter 30: Reaver Psychology

  Chapter 31: The Wells of Borgash

  Chapter 32: Rounding Up the Thunder

  Chapter 33: The Hornskoffler's Apprentice

  Chapter 34: The Accession at Redbridge

  Chapter 35: The Necromancers

  Chapter 36: The Census

  Chapter 37: Knock, Knock

  Chapter 38: Behind Door Number Three

  Chapter 39: Nehenoth

  Chapter 40: The Rainbow Bride

  Glossary

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  My first debt is to the writers whose books and movies inspired this one: Ann McCaffrey and her Dragonriders of Pern series, Lin Carter and his Green Star Saga, Alice Hoffman whose book became the movie Practical Magic, J.R.R. Tolkien who gave us The Hobbit, C.S. Lewis and his Narnia Chronicles, and the prophets who gave us the Holy Bible. Special thanks to Bob Lind, and his endearing yet haunting song, "Elusive Butterfly".

  My second debt is to my critique partner Victoria Ria, whose suggestions and enthusiasm kept me going and helped me restart a project that I had tabled for several years.

  Thanks also go to my beta reader, Michelle Love, whose enthusiasm helped me during the interminable querying phase.

  Map

  Chapter 1: The Cricket’s Last Song

  Morning, March 15th, 2008. Agotaras Springs. The World of Kibota.

  Apart from “advising” her obstinate older brother, nothing pleased Shorassa more than the love songs of crickets, but tonight their song was wrong. Panes of coarse glass with colorful streaks and dimples lined the great curve of the woman’s semicircular bedroom. The windows caught the last rays of a setting half-moon. She pushed matted, black hair from her eyes, held up her arm and turned it over. Beads of sweat ran down the line of white blisters along her vein. It had spread an inch since yesterday. Shivers wracked her body and she pulled her quilt tight.

  Crickets were nature’s gossips, spreading news across the continent. The brave insects seldom chirped about their fear of bird, snake and frog, but tonight the males ceased their sonnets, leaving the ever-silent females to take up the alarm. Brown as molasses, tall as trees and as long as rivers, twin terrors from the west and south were slithering closer. They had a will bent on consuming the whole world of Kibota, and they were strong.

  They’re not real, it’s the fever. Shorassa wheezed. One last shiver shook her pale frame and the fever broke. The chirping ceased and the scattered bird warbles paused. In the silence, she knew the only life in imminent danger was hers. She stared at a half-woven tapestry of a silver fruit tree mounted on a wooden frame to her left. Her hand stopped shaking. Steady enough for one more day before my loom.

  A fluttering against her window made her sit up and unfasten the latch, whereupon a black blur hopped in and landed on the sill. It was the last cricket of the night. Shorassa whistled, then puckered her mouth and added a trill. “Hello, I’m Shorassa. Do you have a message for me?” My doctor thinks he’s so smart. He can count cricket chirps to find the temperature, but has no clue what they’re saying. She was proud to be the only creature with hands – the only human – patient enough to learn their language.

  “May Ker-cheek trouble you with a recitation?”

  The way the cricket dragged and the barely audible chitter of its response spoke of a long journey. Shorassa drew a painful breath and rubbed her index fingers together. “I am honored. No cricket has every shared their departure song.” She slid open the blind on the glass oil lamp on her nightstand.

  And so the cricket sang in the dancing shadows, with an accent strange.

  “Ker-jeek, Ker-jeek,

  I sing from high-branch to laugh at eager beaks…”

  Shorassa made a swooping hand-shadow of a hungry bird. The cricket leaped, then wiggled its antennae disapprovingly.

  “Ker-jeek, Ker-jeek,

  I leap before tusked fan-fan teams to dance upon their ploughs…”

  Outside Jory, her younger brother, strained to tighten the harness on an immense, four-legged beast with three deadly tusks set amid the fleshy ridge on its brow. When the hungry draught animal bellowed, the cricket hopped on top of Shorassa’s head. “That tickles!” Shorassa giggled.

  “Ker-jeek, Ker-jeek,

  I make my bed in serpent coils and never fear those fangs;”

  Shorassa twirled her finger in her hair and began to braid it, sending the cricket hopping onto her bed to avoid strangulation. If crickets can scowl, it was scowling.

  “Wind-whipped desert sands strip bare the trees,

  But see! Ker-jeek! I hold my wings!”

  The wind came up, rattled the window and blew the strutting insect from its spot. Shorassa thrust out her hand, caught it before it fell into the lamp’s flame and held it in her palm, antennae aquiver. How brave a face you try to put on things. She blew it a kiss and it stood tall.

  “Ker-jeek, Ker-jeek,

  Fair lady crickets salute across the worlds

  Ker-jeek, Ker-jeek,

  When I sing.

  Ker-jeek, Ker-jeek,

  Now I salute the one I once outran;

  Consuming all, it reunites within

  Its belly, our whole cricket family,

  Ker-jeek, Ker-jeek,

  So for us all now I sing,

  Ker-jeek, Ker-jeek,

  The last cricket song.”

  “You mean you haven’t gotten to the song yet? That was just the intro?”

  Ker-jeek shook his little head. “Reports of your patience were overstated. It is clear why none of my kind share their departure song with you. Is this how you treat yo
ur family?”

  “Better, actually.”

  “Then I fear I must continue. Perhaps you will learn manners from my tale, for crickets–”

  “Who do not understand the meaning of the word ‘quiet’ – I’m sick and it’s been hard to sleep with all this cricket racket, you know.”

  “Sadly, my story will not give you rest.” The brave insect chirped at length about their history until its legs were tired.

  Shorassa dipped her finger in the pitcher of water beside her bed and offered a drop to the cricket. While it sucked it up gratefully, she recognized its accent. She got so excited that her hand flexed involuntarily and she almost crushed her visitor. It had crossed over from the other world! “Brave Ker-cheek, you have traveled far to tell me all you know, but you have not told me what I need to know. Have you no tidings of – her?”

  “I spoke so you would remember us, selfish girl!” chirped the cricket in her palm. “Please remember us!”

  “If I die, how can I share your stories? Could other crickets not recite your deeds for Menagerie? Surely the Claws would fill many tablets with your tales.”

  “The Browns of Menagerie are eager to hear of rain and drought, of health of leaf and bud and size of flock and herd. The Claws have not patience for our stories as they once did.”

  “I promise to remember,” said Shorassa. “But please, no one on this world has seen the bride. Has she been seen on yours?”

  “Last summer, the fireflies told us the stars were whispering of she who is seven and two and one, but we do not know if she is the bride.”

  “When was this star-girl born?” Shorassa held the fading cricket by her ear.

  “She is not, but will be soon.”

  Shorassa blinked a tear. “If she’s the bride and she’s not yet born, she’ll arrive too late to help a dying weaver. I’ll never live to see my twenty-fifth year.”

  Ker-jeek stood erect. “I did not say born. She will simply … be.” Then he declared his final stanza:

  “Though death claim on Kibota

  My last cricket breath,

  By laugh and chirp

  It will not rob me of my mirth;

  Ker-jeek, Ker-jeek,

  In starry meadows, ‘neath a fairer moon,

  Ker-jeek, Ker-jeek,

  I hopped across the land of my birth;

  Ker-jeek, Ker-jeek,

  I will serenade again,

  Ker-jeek, Ker-jeek,

  Your fields, O blessed Earth.”

  As Ker-jeek lay down and died in her hand, Shorassa sat numb. The warnings filling her dreams were real. I have to tell the other crickets to sound the alarm. House and meadow were silent. Dawn’s here; too late for crickets ‘til evening. What good would it do if she did alert the crickets of her need? Who else understood their language? Only the Claws of Menagerie, whom the crickets did not trust.

  Shorassa gently set Ker-jeek’s body on the windowsill and gazed out at the last stars. Helpfully, the crickets also taught her how to sing with the fireflies, who blink their refrain in continent-wide displays watched by the celestial orbs. The stars in turn conduct their cosmic discourse through coronal mass interjections and gamma-ray outbursts. When stars talk, people listen. Shorassa longed to shout to dancing pulsars, so they could broadcast her plea across the galaxy. Yes, her need was urgent enough for a firefly song. No! Fireflies hatch in June, but it’s only March.

  The first rays of sun struck the uneven window, refracting a rainbow glow onto her skin. She yanked her hands back and rubbed them against each other to wipe the rainbow shimmer off. “Taunting me!” She pounded the windowpane and shook her fist at the sun. “Every morning you discolor me, but I’ll never live to see the real Rainbow Bride. Can’t you see she needs my help?” And we need hers. The crickets’ warning is useless without her to guide us. “Where is she? Who is she?”

  Her exertion produced a coughing fit that summoned footsteps. “I’m alright. Leave me alone, Shoroko.” She poured a glass of water from the pitcher on her nightstand. The footsteps stopped at the door, then retreated.

  Snorts, stomps and clucks from the barn across the yard meant the animals were ready for another ordinary day. A tiny cricket had found its way to her world from Earth, but all her people could accomplish was farming with iron ploughs pulled by draught animals. Arrows, spears and harpoons would not protect them, and sailing ships could only bear away a few. The woman picked up a glass box from her table and set it in her lap so she could begin her ordinary day. She reached in and pushed aside leaves and twigs. “Hiding again? Where’s my favorite memora worm?”

  The door swung open and her brother stomped in with a breakfast tray. “Are you talking to bugs again, sis?”

  “That’s because they listen to me.” She took a zaff-berry muffin in her left hand and munched away, while poking through the box with her right index finger. She uncovered a stringy, white ball. “You made your tent! Soon you’ll get your new body. Lucky. I wish I were getting a new body.” To her brother she said, “You can leave now. It’s story time. Don’t look at me like that. I’m not delirious.”

  “Shorassa, you acted delirious when you were well, so how would I tell the difference? I stomped about looking to squish the chirping pest that woke me, but I’ll need a bigger swatter if I’m going to tackle such a fat cricket.” He ducked the stream of water she splashed his way. “I’ve got to brush Fear. Shout if…”

  “I won’t.”

  After Shoroko left, Shorassa held up the twig attached to the chrysalis. “Listen carefully, little memora worm. I don’t want my dreams to die with me, so I’m sharing them with you. Remember me.”

  * * *

  Little worm, the journey began on this very farm eighteen years before you were hatched when a latch clicked and the door connecting the barn to the paddock slid open. A tall, skinny boy who was cruelly ignoring his wonderful, little sister emerged from the shadows. His rough, tan shirt and brown trousers made him look like the beast he was dragging behind on his lead rope, a half-striped, equine, manure machine.

  A six-year-old girl (who happens to be me, little worm; I want you to tell the story right) followed her brother out of the barn. “Switches and ropes and buckets of oats are all you care about! It’s my birthday. ‘Roko, play with me!” I tossed a bundle wrapped in cloth onto the grass outside, climbed atop the fence and dangled my legs. “To you it’s just farming and eating. You’re never going to break that quagga. If you play with me, I can teach you hero stuff.”

  The boy’s answer was a snort. He even sounded like the beast! This colt had reverse coloration from the others on the farm. It was tan in front, black-and-white-striped in back, and ornery all over. I had black pigtails, or rather pawg-tails, as we don’t have real pigs here like they do on the other world, just nasty, smelly things with small tusks and a tendency to burrow out of every enclosure known to Hands. I was not ornery, just determined.

  “Stop calling me ‘Roko! Do I call you ‘Rassa?” The boy kept his full attention on the animal. He had a long switch in one hand and walked the beast in a circle.

  “No, you call me worse,” said I. “Please, please, PLEASE play kings and queens with me, Shoroko.”

  “You don’t even have a crown.” The quagga snorted and reared up, and Shoroko danced about to avoid getting stomped.

  My brother was rude, but he was smart. I furrowed my brow. Of course I needed a crown. “I need a hero to win it for me.” I batted my eyes.

  “Fine. Come back when this menace is ready to ride.”

  I slapped the rail and spit. The pout forming on my lips changed to a grin and my angry eyes twinkled. What? You question how I could see a twinkle in my own eyes? I’m telling the story, worm! Anyways, I hopped down in the outer grass, unrolled my surprise, and held up a pair of bows. “Look what I made! We can do archery!”

  Shoroko turned and scowled. “You’re only six. They’ll never work.”

  “You’re sore because you’re no good. How will
you slay scary monsters like old Nimrod did if you don’t practice? We can learn together.”

  “The Lissai fight the monsters. We farm. Quit bothering me.”

  I grabbed an arrow, strung my bow, drew the string and held it near my face.

  “No! Don’t you dare!” He pointed his switch at me.

  Thwip. The arrow flew, glanced off the hind quarters of the quagga, struck the latch on the pasture gate and made it swing open. What followed was the fading sound of escaping hooves.

  “Sho-rascal!” My brother had three names for me, and that one suited me that day. His squeaky voice cracked with the anger and pain of a boy not ready to be a man. Years later, I’m still not sure he’s ready.

  Rascally me smoothed out my long, blue skirt with white polka-dots (which I sewed myself), adjusted my backpack and walked down the lane. “If I wear a crown, he’ll have to treat me like a queen.” Crowns must be colorful, so I’d pocketed biscuits and dried fruit in case the journey was long. The edge of the field yielded thorny roses, a good start. South and west I tromped, acquiring gilded lily and daffodil by the forest eaves. The shadows of the wood whispered mysteries, and I forgot my quest in my thirst to explore. When night fell, I put my hands on my hips. “Queens need comfy beds.” I stuffed some upper branches with lots of grass and fell asleep.

  Morning light revealed minty sprigs by a stream. Some went into my ringlet, and some my belly. I sat on a boulder overlooking a gorge and rubbed my calloused feet. “A lady should have a palfrey to ride.” I whistled. The muffins were running low. “One of my servants ought to be attending me. Course I’ve never seen a palfrey; no one I know has, but ‘Roko says they’re like quaggas without the stripes. Know-it-all.” I whistled again.

  Even six-year-old girls know not to expect nature to answer their wishes. Then again, the animal neighing and pawing the ground at the edge of the clearing was not a girl. I spun about, opened my mouth wide and clapped. “Hooray! You came!”

  The gloriously white beast had a silky coat and glassy hooves.

  “You are so much taller than ‘Roko’s quagga. He’s going to be so jealous!”

  The animal waited while rascally little me approached, then knelt so I could mount. A hard, brown spot occupied the middle of its forehead.