The Pygmy Dragon by Marc Secchia Page A

dress Arosia had brought her. It was the finest linen she had ever worn, soft and comfortable. People wore clothes. Beasts in zoos wore nothing at all.
    “Here we are,” said Arosia.
    Her eyes rose, awed. Three stories tall and many rooms wide, the house was larger than the village she remembered. How could big people need so much? Pip had never felt smaller as she ascended to the front door, which was twelve feet tall in carved mahogany hardwood. One servant smiled warmly at her. The other sniffed as though he had just seen a scrawny rat crawl up the stairs.
    The chains jingled softly as they entered a towering hallway, so large it housed an entire prekki fruit tree. Arosia led her upstairs, to her parents’ bedroom, she said. Pip took in the fine furnishings and paintings on the walls, the trophies of Balthion’s time in the Crimson Hammers, the elite armed forces of Sylakia’s Island, where he had been a powerful commander, a Second War-Hammer. He had lost his leg in a battle against a wild, feral Dragon. The same Dragon had burned much of his left arm and side, leaving scars he had once allowed her to finger in melancholy fascination.
    Pip was only just tall enough to see over the mattress of his vast bed. But there was Balthion, bright eyes crinkling into a smile, his hair and beard neatly trimmed for the first time since she had known him. He gave a glad cry.
    Arosia helped her clamber onto a stool at his bedside.
    They talked Pygmy. It was like old times. They ate a Sylakian delicacy together, a pot of slow-roasted ralti meat stew served with saffron rice, curried yoghurt and crusty mohili bread. Pip ate until her stomach creaked at the seams. Arosia kept breaking off more chunks of bread for her and scooping out the best portions of meat.
    Balthion introduced her to his children. Duri was away visiting relatives, but she met his four younger brothers and Balthion’s wife Shullia, who welcomed Pip with a hug and a kiss on her forehead. “So this is the imp who has stolen your heart, Balthion? What a sweet child.” Shullia’s eyes twinkled. She had iron-grey hair and a way of looking so directly at Pip, she felt as though Shullia knew everything about her already. “You’d hardly make a rajal’s dinner, girl. They could feed you a little more.”
    Shullia’s sweet, potent perfume made Pip cough. “You’ve been helping our Duri, I hear,” she said. “His grades have shot from the Cloudlands to the moons above. Balthion says you’re quite the fighter.”
    “Not too many compliments, Shullia,” Balthion advised gruffly.
    Pip ventured a smile. “Thank you, Lady Shullia.”
    “Oh, lady this and lady that? Nonsense, child. When I was your age, I ran barefoot through the puddles of lower Sylakia Town. I was quite the scamp. As poor and homeless as one of those monkeys they have you living with.”
    Just then, boots click-clacked in the hallway.
    “Daddy.” A girl swished in through the doorway. “I’ve come back from the Academy of–oh, roaring rajals, is this the native from the zoo? The one you’ve been trying to civilise?”
    A chill breeze seemed to have swept into the room. Pip was aware her mouth had dropped open, but the girl’s tone of casual contempt caught her so by surprise that she could think of nothing to say. The girl was half a head taller than Arosia, also fine-featured, but beneath a formal white headscarf her eyes were the grey of stormy skies. They dismissed Pip without need for speech.
    “Telisia,” said Balthion. “May I present Pip? Pip, this is my eldest daughter–”
    “I thought I smelled monkey droppings on the way in,” said Telisia, pinching her nose delicately. “And you’ve lent the native one of your dresses, Arosia? Adorable. Don’t forget to burn it afterward.”
    Pip caught a stricken look from Balthion as she dropped her gaze. She felt sick. Beside her, Arosia and Shullia stiffened until they resembled the bars of the climbing frame in Pip’s