Ghlent: The Autobiography of a Rainbow Dragon

By Ashley Abbiss

This is the life story of the great dragon hero, ‎Ghlent, told in his own words. ‎

From being almost murdered, seriously injured, ‎and effectively orphaned before he’d even been ‎hatched two hours, Ghlent went on to not only ‎survive, but thrive despite being an oddly-coloured ‎freak that some thought shouldn’t have been allowed ‎to live. Although at times facing prejudice and ‎bullying, he became a prominent member of dragon ‎society, and he ended his life as one of the most ‎famous and revered dragons of his own or any other ‎generation.‎

Ghlent lived during one of the greatest periods of ‎turbulence and change in the history of Dragondom. ‎He hatched at the height of dragon glory and ‎civilisation and he ended his life in one of the darkest ‎periods of dragon history. ‎

In between, he witnessed, and in some cases ‎influenced, many changes and pivotal events. He saw ‎the relationship between dragons and humans go from ‎the interaction of a few dragons with a handful of ‎dragon-obsessed humans to a formal treaty with the ‎king of Noranda, and he saw Dracos grow from a ‎purely dragon enclave to a thriving, semi-independent ‎state within Noranda, where dragons and humans ‎ruled and lived together in harmony. ‎

He saw dragons and humans learning how to ‎work together to build a brave new world, and he saw ‎that world almost destroyed when the prejudices and ‎bigotry of others led the world into a bitter war. ‎Desperate times sometimes call for desperate ‎measures, and Ghlent was instrumental in instituting ‎some of those measures; measures aimed at the very ‎preservation and survival of Dragonkind.‎

Ghlent can tell you about the origins of Dracos, ‎about how dragons and humans came to befriend each ‎other, and about the causes of the first war. He can ‎tell you which was the first settlement in Dracos, how ‎the dragons’ treaty with the king of Noranda came to ‎be, and why the First Families considered themselves ‎pre-eminent in Dracos. He can certainly tell you how ‎much of the legend of Ghlent you ought to believe. ‎

He can tell you all these things because he was ‎there. From the vibrancy and hope of the golden days ‎of dragon civilisation to the depths of despair and ‎loss, from a poor, orphaned dragonet to the great hero ‎of Dragondom, Ghlent saw it all. He lived it all.‎

There are three ways this story can be approached. ‎As a stand-alone novel; as an introduction to the ‎world of the Rainbow Dragonesque novels; or, if ‎you’ve already read those books, as a prequel that fills ‎in some of the background history that you will have ‎read about in the books.‎

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ashley Abbiss
• Release date: Jan 10, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463620571

Ashley Abbiss

Hello there. I’m Ashley Abbiss. ‎I live and write in beautiful New Zealand, where I live with one large dog, who looks nothing ‎like Friend from my Daughters of Destiny books. She is, however, almost as intelligent and definitely as ‎opinionated, and if she can’t quite speak in the way Friend does to Niari, that doesn’t really ‎hold her back much!‎I write fantasy, mostly of the epic variety. Let me say right up front that if you’re looking for a quick read, you’re in the wrong place. But if you like a substantial, ‎satisfying story that you can really get your teeth into, stick with me. I may have something ‎you’ll enjoy. There’s no graphic sex in my books. If that’s what you want, you’ll have to look ‎elsewhere. There is violence, and there is swearing, though mostly of the ‘s/he swore’ variety, ‎nothing overly graphic or offensive. I also write about strong, independent female characters, ‎so if your taste runs to something more macho, or something more frilly and helpless, this may ‎not be the place for you. ‎I’ve always loved wandering in different worlds, be they fantasy or science fiction, although ‎lately I tend to prefer fantasy. The only proviso is that they have to be believable worlds, ‎worlds that feel real, that have depth and scope – and they must, absolutely must be fun to ‎visit. I read for escape and entertainment, and I don’t really want to escape from this world ‎into one even grimmer. Trouble, tension, and danger I can deal with, what sort of story would ‎there be without them? Where would Pern be without Thread, Frodo without Sauron, Harry ‎Potter without Voldemort? But there has to be hope, and there has to be a light touch. Happy ‎ever after does have a lot going for it, even if initially it’s only a very small light at the end of ‎a long, dark tunnel. My personal favourites include Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy, Anne ‎McCaffrey’s Pern series, and the fantasies of David Eddings, and lately, they’ve been joined ‎by J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and a few others. Of those, David Eddings was probably my ‎greatest inspiration.‎I began to wonder if I could create my own world, one just as believable and multi-layered as ‎theirs. Could I create a world with its own history, geography, social structure, deities, and all ‎the rest? One that hung together? That a reader could believe in? It became a challenge, one I ‎really wanted to see if I could meet. So I dusted off my writing skills, learned a few more, ‎cranked up the imagination, and got busy. I’d always been good at creative writing, but ‎though I’d made a few attempts to write after I left school, none of them came to anything. ‎That was until I started writing fantasy. Suddenly, I knew I’d come home. ‎I quickly discovered that I’m not the sort of writer who can plan a book (or a world!) before I ‎start. I just can’t do it. But I can create characters, and suddenly the characters took on a ‎reality of their own and took over the stories, often to the extent that they actually surprised ‎me. And the stories worked. Their world worked. Sometimes I had to go back and fix the ‎odd contradiction, but mostly it worked and was very natural and organic. Even though my ‎first attempts were pitiful, I knew I’d found where I belong. I persevered, I learned, I wrote. ‎I discovered that the characters are key for me. Once I get them right, they tell their own ‎story. I was away. There were dark days during which my stories became my refuge, my ‎characters my friends. And I kept writing. There were happy times when I didn’t need a ‎refuge, but my characters were still my friends, and they drew me inexorably back. I kept ‎writing. ‎And now, I hope my characters may become your friends too, my worlds ones where you also ‎like to walk; perhaps even your refuge from dark days. Come join me in a world where magic ‎is real and the gods are near, where beasts talk and men and women achieve things they never ‎dreamed they could. But most of all, come and have fun! ‎Happy reading.‎Ash.‎

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

I’m reliably informed that, on the day I hatched, there was a brawl on the hatching grounds. That’s something that had never occurred before, and hopefully, will never occur again. Since the hatching grounds are supposed to be sacrosanct, it was perfectly scandalous, and it caused an absolute uproar.

That day is many years in the past now, but it was such a shocking occurrence that dragons still talk about it from time to time. And it was all because of me. Probably not the most auspicious start to my career. It all arose from the fact that it is customary among Dragonkind for grossly deformed dragonets to be eaten.

Let me hasten to assure you that that’s not quite as gruesome as it sounds. A hatchling’s hide takes an hour or two to harden in the air. It’s quite soft at hatching. A quick bite to the back of the neck causes instant death, and then the body is disposed of in the most practical way. The custom eliminates weakness and keeps the species strong.

At least, I assume that’s why it developed. It’s a kindness, really. A dragon that can’t fly can’t hunt and will almost certainly starve to death. And besides, it’s been shown on numerous occasions that outward deformity most often signals internal troubles as well. Magical healing is a wonderful thing, but even it can’t heal everything. A quick, merciful death at hatching is better than a slow and often painful death later.

Actually, it’s really an instinctive thing. We don’t have a lot of those, to be honest. Dragons are highly intelligent beings, and therefore, not as bound to instinct as the lower animals. A few instincts, however, remain strong, and that’s one of them. A parent, upon seeing that its offspring is grossly imperfect, will fall upon it and devour it.

There were some among the adults, apparently, who thought my mother should have done that to me. Fortunately for me, she disagreed. That’s what caused the fight. Mother was never one to suffer fools gladly, and I understand that the suggestion enraged her. When some busybody suggested that, if she wouldn’t do it, they would do it for her, she reacted violently. Did I mention that female dragons are fiercely protective of their young? That’s another instinct that remains strong.

When the busybody stalked onto the hatching ground, neck extended and fangs bared, and approached me where I sat among the shards of my shell labouring to dry my wings and work blood into the membrane, Mother attacked. Of course, the busybody responded in kind, and that was that.

It was just lucky that all the eggs had hatched and most of the young were already off the hatching ground and enjoying their first meal, or it could have been very bad. As it was, I was among the last to hatch and I and a couple of others were the only ones left. The others were quickly whisked away to safety by their mothers. My mother, of course, was in the thick of the battle and intent on her enemy. Dragons tend to be single-minded when they’re fighting. I was forgotten.

They say that very young dragons don’t remember, but I wonder about that. Certainly, I don’t remember my hatching. Everything I’ve told you so far is what I’ve heard from others about that day. But I do have a recurring dream sometimes. In that dream, I’m very small, and there are large dragon feet stamping all around me. I try to run, but I fall over. I generally wake up just as a large foot is about to crush me to death.

I do wonder if that dream isn’t a primitive memory of that day because apparently, that’s exactly what happened, minus the bit at the end about being crushed to death, of course. Newly-hatched dragonets are weak and clumsy. Their legs and tails are short, their heads are too big for their bodies and, rather like a butterfly, their wings are damp, wrinkled and essentially useless until they dry out and blood is pumped into the membrane to unfurl them.

Since dragonets rely on their wings to help them balance, they’re not very good at walking until that process is complete. With those big heads, they tend to be top-heavy. As I said, the tail is short, so it doesn’t really compensate for the head. The result is that they fall over a lot. That’s what happened to me.

I tried to dodge as my mother and her opponent fought around me, but all I really managed was to plough my nose into the sands of the hatching ground, fill my nostrils with sand, and come up sneezing. I don’t know whether anyone realised I was there or not at first.

I ducked and dodged to the best of my ability, bleating in terror as I tried to get out of the way of those stamping feet, but the sounds I made were drowned out by the snarls of the two opponents, and I would have been hard to see with all the movement going on above me.

Eventually, one of those feet came too close and I screamed in agony as it trod on my wing. The wing is a delicate piece of engineering. The bones that form the framework are light and quite fragile, the membrane is delicate, and there are a lot of nerve endings, which makes them very sensitive.

Take my word for it, having a wing injured hurts; a lot. I imagine I was a fairly pitiable sight at that juncture. An adult dragon is no lightweight. That stamping foot had crushed the bones of the outer half of my wing and shredded the delicate membrane between them.

The injury must have been excruciating, but it did at least have the virtue of alerting everyone that I was there before I was crushed for real. I’m told that I was flopping around, crying in agony and not even able to get on my feet, I was in such a bad way.

No one knew whether it was my mother or the busybody who stood on me, but it very nearly did the busybody’s job for her. If any foot had come my way then, I wouldn’t have been able to get out of the way. In fact, I’m told that I was only semi-conscious and probably wouldn’t have even seen it coming.

That was when Moon Queen intervened. She levitated me out of there to safety and called Blue-green Queen to see to my injured wing.

Meantime, that little bit of drama had caused a lull in the fight and, before they could start in again, Pewter Queen sent some of the other dragons in to break it up. A group of them surrounded each of the antagonists, making it impossible for them to reach each other. After a couple of minutes of unsuccessfully trying to break out of the cordon, they both began to calm down and the danger was past.

Actually, I suspect that that process was hurried along as they began to feel their wounds. Both were bleeding from several places, and some of the wounds were quite nasty. There hadn’t been much quarter given. There were lacerated wings, bitten tails, shoulders and necks, and great bloody gouges left by teeth or claws.

My mother had a great chunk torn from the side of her neck, and one of her broken fangs was found embedded in a deep wound in the busybody’s leg. Just as soon as the calming-down process was complete and everyone was sure there was no danger of the fight breaking out again, the crowd of con taining dragons was replaced by a crowd of healers.

That wasn’t the end of the matter, of course. Mirlya, my beautiful Violet mother, and Wittaira, the Bronze Busybody, had attacked and injured each other, violated the sanctity of the hatching grounds, and put the lives of hatchlings at risk. These were not small crimes.

Actually, assaulting each other probably wouldn’t have bothered anyone too much. Dragons can be argumentative at times, and fights are not all that uncommon. This one, however, had been particularly vicious. A little bit of blood and a fang mark here and there are nothing to get excited about but tearing great chunks out of each other is rather frowned upon.

And the other two charges were about as serious as it got. Dragons don’t really have a lot of use for things. Our material culture is sparse; the Dragonstones, seats of the queens, the hatching grounds below them, our libraries - yes, dragons can read and even write using magic - and our art – dragons are fond of jewels and are great workers in stone and metal – are about it. We don’t wear clothes, of course, or live in houses and, being hunters, we don’t even store food.

Perhaps because of the sparsity, what we do have is uncommonly precious to us. We will occasionally gift a piece of our art to some person or creature who we feel merits it, but very few beyond we dragons ourselves even know about it. There are high plateaux in the mountains, inaccessible except by air where we work on and display our art. Dragons will often go and enjoy it, but we don’t invite outsiders. We prefer to keep it to ourselves.

But I digress. How I got off onto dragon art, I really don’t know. I was about to tell you about the hatching grounds, actually. They’re very precious to us partly, as I say because we don’t have a lot of material culture, but of course, they’re also where the eggs hatch. Every dragon begins his or her life right there, on those sands, and when they die, they are laid out there prior to disposal. Thus, the sands encompass the entirety of a dragon’s life.

They represent the cycle of life and the continuation of dragonkind. Dragons are deeply spiritual beings, and the hatching sands, enclosed and protected by the eight tall pillars of the Dragonstones, are the closest thing we have to a temple. They are literally sacrosanct. We do not even walk on them except to deposit our eggs, to lay out our dead, or to walk off them when we hatch.

For Wittaira and my mother to fight a minor war on them was sacrilege and a serious crime, as was putting the lives of newly-hatched dragonets at risk. As with any species, our young are our future. Except for the humane disposal of the unfit in the interests of keeping the race strong, they are to be nurtured and cared for by all, not trampled in a brawl.

Their behaviour was considered not just illegal, but perfectly scandalous as well. Therefore, when the healers were done, the Council of Queens took over. It was their job to sit in judgment. Wittaira and my mother were brought before them, and I gather that I was the main exhibit.

And no one had even thought to feed me yet. It’s hard work breaking out of that shell, and dragonets are ravenous when they’re born. The first thing that happens is that they’re led over to where a pile of freshly-hunted meat, carefully cut into pieces small enough that a hatchling won’t choke on them, has been laid out ready.

Or, at least, the first thing that normally happens. The other hatchlings were already there, squabbling over the best bits and making total pigs of themselves as they sated their birth hunger, but no one had thought about me. They were too busy concentrating on the outrage that had been perpetrated out on the sands and what to do with the culprits.

I cried, apparently, but everyone thought it was because Blue-green Queen was still working on my injured wing. It was a nasty injury and, even as she listened to the evidence in the trial, Blue-green Queen was down on the ground with her snout touched to my wing, completing the healing.

Actually, although she was by far the best healer of her generation, she was unable to quite heal all the damaged nerves. The injury was just too extensive. Although the wing looked as good as new, it’s always been a little weak. Just the tiniest bit, you understand. I can fly just fine, and in fact, unless that wing is under extreme stress, you’d never know there was anything wrong with it at all.

But when it came to games and aerobatics, or aerial combat, come to that, I was never as good as the other dragons. I’m not quite as agile in the air, and even now that wing tires more quickly than the other and tends to ache if it’s pushed too far. In fact, as I age, that’s becoming more of a problem, and nowadays, even a normal hunt is something of a mission.

But once again, I digress. It was Moon Queen who finally realised what was distressing me. That’s not very surprising, I suppose, since perceptiveness and sensitivity to emotion is what Moons are famous for, but I’ve always been grateful to her for that. As soon as Blue-green Queen had finished with the healing of my wing and had taken off to fly up to her Dragonstone perch, Moon Queen created a pile of meat right in front of me.

I’m told that I fell on it with such voracity that the entire court stopped to watch in indulgent amusement. Well, I ask you, what would you have done, newly-hatched and starving and left without food? And with an injured wing to boot. I don’t imagine having been in such pain helped any, either. Anyway, once they’d stopped gawking at me, the court returned to its deliberations.

If everyone has now finished watching the little one feed, Pewter Queen said with some asperity, let us resume. By the way, Mirlya, does your dragonet have a name?

His name is Ghlent, my mother said defiantly.

She must have been thinking about that since I hatched, I think, because Ghlent is a masculine version of a name usually given to females, Ghlentlara, which means something like ‘beautiful rainbow’. I think she was trying to make a point, don’t you? Even the usually imperturbable Pewter Queen blinked at that one.

Most appropriate, was Pewter Queen’s only comment. And now, Wittaira, we will hear your explanation for your presence on the hatching grounds and your subsequent behaviour.

The dragonet that Mirlya hatched is obviously abnormal, Wittaira said. You only have to look at him to see that, and that’s just the surface. It’s cruel to keep him alive and allow him to suffer.

My mother snarled at that and tried to interject.

Silence! Pewter Queen said severely. You will have your say shortly, Mirlya. Right now, the court is hearing from Wittaira. If you can’t stay quiet, I will have you removed until it is your turn to speak.

Mother winced at that and apologised and promised to keep silent. Probably, I think, she realised that she would have a much more difficult time trying to refute Wittaira’s claims if she didn’t know exactly what she said to the court.

Proceed, Wittaira, Pewter Queen ordered.

Since Mirlya didn’t appear to have the courage to do what was necessary, Wittaira said, "I offered to help out. I quite understand that it can be difficult to make such a decision, but the welfare of the dragonet must be paramount. The poor little fellow is obviously abnormal, and that can only be indicative of deeper problems.

"It’s extremely selfish of Mirlya to keep him alive just because she doesn’t want to lose him. It is much better for all concerned to give him the bite and try again next year. I was simply trying to help. I certainly didn’t expect to be the victim of such a vicious and unprovoked attack for my trouble, though.

And of course, I had to defend myself. I don’t think anyone here would deny that I have that right? I might have been seriously injured had I not done so.

Wittaira, I am told, nodded around as though she had just scored a winning point before retreating so my mother could come forward.

Mirlya? Pewter Queen said. Have you anything to say in your own defence?

As it happened, she had quite a lot to say.

Wittaira claims that my son is deformed, Mother said in a ringing voice. "But by what right does Wittaira presume to make such a judgment? All of Dragondom knows that it is up to the parent to make any such determination. Did Wittaira lay my egg? It is my right, not hers, to determine whether my son is healthy.

"And I say he is. I say that a strangely-coloured hide is no reason to put him down. Look at him. All his limbs are there and in proportion. His head is not misshapen. He breathes, he eats, his heart is strong. I say he is perfectly healthy. I did not give him the bite, not because I was timid or reluctant to do what was necessary, but because there was no reason to give him the bite.

I say my son is a perfectly healthy dragon with odd colouration, and that is all. And that being the case, how could I not defend him against the murderous intent of Wittaira, who had no right to interfere in the first place, and certainly no right to kill my son?

At that point, I’m told that Mother looked Pewter Queen straight in the eye.

If the colour of my son’s hide is sufficient reason to put him down, she declared, then every Pewter must have the same sentence passed on them.

And there, she rested her case. Although, I’m fairly sure that’s not how one is supposed to address the Queen of Queens!

Actually, although my mother classed me as a Pewter, I am rather an odd one. True, my base colour is a misty grey which fits right into the Pewter spectrum. But when I move and the light plays over my hide, instead of the expected uniform iridescence, my hide ripples with every dragon colour.

It’s almost as though I have a striped, multi-coloured hide and the Pewter colour is an overlay, just as iridescence is for an ordinarily-coloured dragon. I didn’t know it at the time, of course, but I am rather a curiosity. There’s never been a dragon known that had the colouring I do. I suppose, when you get right down to it, Wittaira did have grounds for doubting my fitness. I am something of a freak.

Although Mirlya is quite right that under normal circumstances it is up to the parent to determine the fate of the hatchling, Pewter Queen said, doubt has been raised about the fitness of this little one, and it would be remiss of the court to not address these doubts. Blue-green Queen, if you would please examine him thoroughly and give the court a full report on his health and fitness? Then we can determine once and for all whether Wittaira or Mirlya is correct in their assessment.

Blue-green Queen swung her head around to regard Pewter Queen. I would remind the court, she said almost as tartly as my mother, that I have just finished healing the dragonet’s wing, and I am neither so inexperienced nor so incompetent as to fail to notice the kind of gross deformity that is being proposed.

The Blue-green Queen we had then was somewhat elderly and definitely peppery when someone crossed her, and particularly if she thought her competence was being called into question. She had a kind heart underneath all that, though. I always rather liked her.

But just so there is no confusion, she went on, I hereby state that there is nothing at all wrong with the dragonet that Mirlya has hatched. He is perfectly healthy. There is some slight nerve damage to the wing that was injured, but even so, he is likely to do very well indeed, odd colouration notwithstanding.

And she glared around at everyone as though daring them to contradict her. I gather that Wittaira opened her mouth, but quickly closed it again when Blue-green Queen’s glare landed on her.

There! my mother crowed. There, you see? Even Blue-green Queen agrees that there is nothing wrong with my son. I was perfectly within my rights to defend his life against the murderous intent of Wittaira. She had no right to interfere in the first place, and she would certainly have killed a perfectly healthy dragon if I hadn’t intervened to protect him.

CHAPTER TWO

I am not aware of having given you permission to speak, Mirlya, Pewter Queen said sternly. And I have to tell you that these outbursts are not helping your case. Do not forget that, even if you are judged to be justified in this, you still have the charges of sacrilege and endangering the hatchlings to answer. However, in light of Blue-green Queen’s testimony, I hereby declare that the dragonet hatched by Mirlya is healthy and therefore entitled to the same rights as any other hatchling. Anyone attempting to molest him will answer to the court just as they would if they harmed any other, normal-coloured dragonet. Further, I declare that his colour is not to be held against him in any way.

May I speak, Pewter Queen? Moon Queen asked.

Pewter Queen inclined her head in acquiescence.

Then, I hereby declare, Moon Queen stated, using the legal formula that bound a queen by her word, that henceforth, the dragonet hatched by Mirlya shall be under my personal protection. I pledge myself to be responsible for his welfare, and I will be overseeing his upbringing and education.

I understand my mother baulked a little at that. As I’ve said before, dragons are very protective of their young. That makes them rather possessive, and the prospect of someone else having an interest in me probably bothered her somewhat.

I thank you, Moon Queen, Mother said as graciously as she could manage. I admit, the prospect of having to share my son is difficult for me, but it has already been shown to me, (here she shot a venomous glance at Wittaira, I understand) that his odd colouring may subject him to prejudice and even physical harm. The interest and patronage of one as powerful as yourself may be necessary to protect him.

Also, the outcome of her trial had not yet been decided, and I think Mother realised that, with the seriousness of the charges facing her, she might not be around to bring me up herself. Having a readymade surrogate available and willing was probably a good idea, and she knew that Moon Queen would take good care of me if it came to that.

With that all decided, the trial could proceed. There was, of course, no need to call witnesses since the eight queens had all been present and seen exactly what happened, so Pewter Queen moved straight on to the sentencing.

Since I had been declared healthy, that put Wittaira in the wrong and Mother could legitimately claim to have been fighting in my defence. That meant that Wittaira automatically became the aggressor in the eyes of the law and my mother was seen to have been merely reacting to that aggression. And that, of course, became a mitigating factor for everything else, which is the only reason that Mother escaped severe punishment.

Wittaira was convicted of the attempted murder of a dragonet, of attempting to usurp the right of a parent, of violating the sanctity of the hatching grounds and of endangering the lives of dragonets. She argued or tried to, that she had believed she was acting in my best interests, but the court rejected that since she actually had had no right to make any decisions about my future in the first place.

There was no mention of wounding my mother. As I said before, dragons getting into fights isn’t all that unusual, and I guess the other charges were quite enough to be going on with since they were some of the most grievous crimes a dragon could commit.

She could have been sentenced to death, actually, but Pewter Queen said that she didn’t wish to sully the celebration of new life with an execution, so Wittaira was exiled instead. In those days, there were many dragons and Dragondom was expanding. Only Dragonville remains now, of course, since the dragon numbers were decimated during the war, but back then, we had many enclaves scattered throughout the world, and most were busy, growing places.

The one where Wittaira was sent wasn’t one of those. It was situated right up near the polar ice, which is a wretched place for heat-loving dragons to live. It existed, if you were wondering, because there were rich gem deposits nearby that were valuable to us. Even today, we still send expeditions there from time to time when we run short of raw materials for our art.

I think Pewter Queen chose it because it was the most miserable place she could think of. But there Wittaira would have to live out her life, helping to mine the gems, until and unless the queens recalled her. At least she could be grateful that she was still alive to complain about it, I suppose.

As for my mother, she was convicted of violating the sanctity of the hatching grounds and of endangering the dragonets, but the fact that she was defending me from Wittaira was seen as a definitely mitigating factor. She got off quite lightly, with just a five-year banishment, and to a much nicer place than Wittaira.

However, she couldn’t take me with her, and that upset her somewhat. But she knew she’d got off lightly, and she also knew that Moon Queen had pledged herself to take care of me, so she accepted the sentence with as good a grace as she could manage. Let me hasten to explain here that she wasn’t forbidden to take me. It wasn’t part of her punishment. The Queens wouldn’t be that cruel.

No, the reason I couldn’t go with her was that there was no way to get me there. Young dragons can’t fly until they grow a bit bigger. Their wings need to develop and grow, and their bodies take on a more aerodynamic shape before that can happen. And Mother couldn’t carry me all that way in her mouth, which is the usual method of carrying a very young one.

We have a sort of scruff, I suppose, a place at the base of the neck where there’s a gap in the back ridges until we’re about a year old, and an adult can pick a dragonet up and carry it by that quite painlessly. But of course, that isn’t designed for long-distance flight.

There’s a hollow between the wing and the dorsal ridge where females often carry dragonets too young to make a long journey on their own, but that can only be used for dragonets who are old enough that their hides have hardened and they have some immunity to the cold. Our bodies can’t tolerate the cold of the high air when we’re very young. There was simply no way for me to go with her.

So there I was, not even a day old, and already effectively orphaned. In case you’re wondering, male dragons take no part in the upbringing of their young beyond the actual mating that conceives them, so my father wasn’t available. He would have been off doing his duty, wherever that took him.

Justice can be a brutal thing at times, punishing the innocent who are associated with the guilty as well as the guilty ones themselves. That day, I was as much its victim as Wittaira and my mother. It was just as well for me that Moon Queen had decided to take me under her wing, otherwise, I may well have starved. The newly-hatched, as I have said before, are clumsy and unable to fly. We can barely walk. We’re definitely not equipped to hunt our own food.

Although to be fair, if such an outcome had been likely, I think Pewter Queen would have given a different judgment, perhaps delayed my mother’s punishment until I was able to go with her. She had, after all, just judged me worthy of life and ordered that no one was to harm me. She could hardly have harmed me herself, even indirectly.

But delaying the punishment would have been a most unusual occurrence. Dragon justice is normally swift. Wrongs are addressed as they happen, and punishments handed out while the offence is still fresh in everyone’s minds. So that day, while Wittaira and my mother were escorted off on the first leg of their respective journeys to their places of exile, I went home with Moon Queen.

I can’t really speak to my state of mind, of course, since I don’t actually remember this part of my life, but I imagine I wasn’t too distressed by the day’s events. Newly-hatched dragonets are basically just walking appetites. Like babies of any species, their early days consist almost exclusively of eating and sleeping.

They’re not aware of much beyond their immediate needs, so I probably didn’t even realise that anything unusual was happening, at least once my wing stopped hurting and my belly was filled. In fact, since I’d been provided with food by the good graces of Moon Queen, I was probably sound asleep by the end of the proceedings. That’s what usually happens once a dragonet’s belly is full.

I don’t think I really missed my mother. I was too young, as I say, to realise what was happening. As long as someone was willing to take care of me and provide for my needs, that was all I cared about. As I grew older, I began to think of Moon Queen as my mother, although I never really felt any great bond with her, and I don’t think she felt any with me, either.

She had agreed to take care of me, and she did. In fact, I probably did better than I would have with my own mother. I had the very best housing, food, and later, education available, and there was a whole platoon of attendants to see to my every need. But of Moon Queen herself, I actually saw very little.

As Queen of the Moons, she was a busy dragon, and I was largely left to the ministrations of her assistants. Fortunately, she had plenty of those, so there was always someone free to take care of me. In truth, I think I was closer to some of them than I was to Moon Queen herself. I barely laid eyes on her apart from periodic interviews when she would ask me about my schooling and my hopes and dreams for the future and whether I needed anything.

She was very generous in that way. I had everything I could have wanted in material terms; good food, the best care, the protection of Moon Queen herself and the very best in education. As the ward of a queen, I had status among the other dragons. I was, in fact, a little prince. There was certainly no lack there.

I even had affection of a kind. Moon Queen herself was kind but rather aloof. I really believe that she cared for me in her own way, but she wasn’t the sort of dragon to show her emotions much, which sometimes made her seem rather cold and distant. It wasn’t her fault. It was just the way she was made.

Some of my attendants became very fond of me and I of them. However, I never bonded deeply to anyone, the way one usually does to a parent, for instance. I had friends, but I didn’t really belong to anyone, if you follow me, in an emotional sense, anyway. I grew up independent and something of a loner.

True to Blue-green Queen’s prediction, I did very well despite that. I grew fast, thanks to good food and plenty of it, and before long I was a sturdy little dragon, bursting with health, full of energy and dashing about all over the place, getting into everything and generally causing mayhem, just like any other youngster of my age. I certainly kept my carers on their toes, I understand.

I had a slight problem learning to fly properly though, because of the weakness of the wing that had been injured. As I said before, it was only a little weak, but when you’re just learning to manoeuvre in the air, any imbalance can be a serious problem. I tended to wobble around in the air, and my changes of direction didn’t always go as planned.

Once again, I was lucky that I had Moon Queen as my guardian, otherwise, I might have been semi-crippled for life. She arranged for the very best experts to work with me. I’d already had the very best of medical care, of course, so there was nothing more to be done there. But Moon Queen arranged for experts in rehabilitation and dragonet development to examine me.

They worked out a regimen of exercises to both strengthen the wing as much as possible and teach me how to compensate for any ongoing weakness. I must say, they did a wonderful job. As I’ve already said, by the time they’d finished with me, unless that wing’s under a lot of stress, you wouldn’t know there was anything wrong with it at all.

As soon as I could fly properly, I was placed in a creche with other youngsters my own age for most of the day. It was time for me to begin my education. I imagine that was a vast relief to my carers, who could now get back to their proper work helping Moon Queen for the better part of the day and were no longer required to chase around after me.

My first lesson, I recall, was short, sharp and painful, and it wasn’t delivered by the tutors. I’d never thought of myself as anything but a normal dragon, but some of my fellow creche members soon disabused me of that notion. Dragonets, like the young of many other species, can be vicious. They tend to pick on anyone different, and I was about as different as it got.

By the time the carers at the creche intervened, I was bleeding in several places and bleating in distress as a mob of dragonets attacked me. I was rescued and taken very good care of and my attackers punished. There was a lot of fluttering and tutting, I remember. I didn’t understand at the time, of course, but now I think it was probably because they’d allowed Moon Queen’s ward to be harmed and they were afraid of the consequences.

They were right to be, as it turned out. Moon Queen herself turned up the next day and set the whole place by the ears. To say that she was furious would be a gross understatement. Her interest in me may not have been very personal, but she was definitely concerned about my welfare and prepared to stick up for me. The carers were severely chastised, the parents of the offending offspring were given the sharp edge of Moon Queen’s tongue on the subject of their methods of raising their dragonets, and I was moved to a new creche.

I did better there, but I had learned one short, sharp lesson that I’ve never forgotten. I was different, and when you’re different you’d better keep your claws and fangs sharp and be willing to use them. Unfortunately, the experience merely reinforced my loner tendencies. I was slow to make friends and I was frequently in trouble for fighting.

I’d learned, you see, not to wait for them to make the first move. As soon as a fight seemed inevitable, I would get in first. It did have the virtue of meaning that my tormentors frequently came off worst. But it also had the inevitable result that I was blamed for starting the fights. I got a reputation as something of a troublemaker and a ‘problem child’.

Two things saved me. The first was that I was just as likely to get into trouble defending someone else as myself. In fact, I got a bit of a reputation for sticking up for the underdog, and those underdogs were very grateful. I became very popular with those students and so I tended to make what friends I did from among them.

They were sometimes dragons who, like me, were in some way different, but they were also often the mild-mannered, scholarly types who tended to be the natural prey of bullies. And that led directly to the second thing in my favour. Because so many of my friends were intellectual types, I was influenced by them and became interested in intellectual pursuits myself.

I became this peculiar mix of aggressive and scholarly. The tutors weren’t overly impressed by my aggressive tendencies, but they thoroughly approved of my academic ones, especially since I was good at them. I had a good brain, and as time went on, I discovered a thirst for knowledge in myself that I hadn’t known I possessed.

There was another spin-off of that that became apparent as we grew older and learned how to read and write. That was that our interests often led us to spend time in the library, and that was a place that the bullies, being mainly dragons who were uninterested in intellectual pursuits, didn’t bother with. The library, therefore, became our haven as well as feeding our hunger for knowledge.

Another thing that strengthened my commitment to learning was that being good at my studies earned me the approval of my teachers, and for a lonely dragon who didn’t really feel deeply loved by anyone, that approval became an acceptable substitute.

And then, as I entered my sixth year of life, my mother returned from her exile. We met and, at Moon Queen’s insistence, I spent some time with her. She was very, very beautiful, with long, lean, elegant lines and a hide of a startling dark heliotrope colour and iridescence of a light cobalt, the same as her eyes. I liked her very much, and I think she liked me, but there was no real bond there. We were two strangers.

My head might know that Mirlya was my mother, but my heart said differently, and I couldn’t change that. It wasn’t really anyone’s fault unless you blame Wittaira, whose interference had set the whole sad chain of events in motion. If not for her self-righteousness, we might have had a chance.

May the First Dragon preserve us from busybodies. They do so much damage while meaning well. Or, at least, claiming to mean well. But recriminations are pointless. It was just one of those things. After all, when had we had time to bond? I’d barely hatched before Mother was sentenced to exile, so we’d never had the chance to even get to know one another, let alone form a lasting bond.

We had a lot of fun together, but my mother didn’t stay long. Shortly before my sixth birthday, she accepted a posting to another enclave and moved on. I think she realised that there wasn’t really a place for her. I didn’t need her. Moon Queen was happy to carry on providing for me.

In fact, she already had me booked into the best school Dragondom had to offer. I had a good life with her, much better in terms of opportunity and material comforts than anything my mother could have provided me with. I think perhaps she felt that she had nothing to offer me.

I’d like to be able to say that I missed her, but the truth is, I didn’t. In fact, her going was something of a relief because it removed that tension, that feeling that I had to choose between her and Moon Queen. That’s difficult enough when you’re an adult but believe me, it’s unbearable pressure when you’re only five years old.

Later, when I was grown, I made contact with my mother again and we became good friends, but at that point in my life, she simply didn’t matter. The small gap her leaving made in my life closed painlessly over and life settled back into its accustomed rhythms.

CHAPTER three

Well, that was my infancy. We can now skip several years, during which nothing of note happened. Or, at least, nothing worth noting here. For me, of course, they were very important years. I grew, I developed, I learned. The bullies had learned by then to leave me