by Stephen Deas
A flicker of a thought that didn’t belong to any of the pieces he carried inside him. A child of the sun . . .
Crazy Mad muttering to himself wasn’t anything new. Tuuran had mostly stopped listening, but this time he caught the last few words because something had changed. The voice wasn’t Crazy’s any more.
‘A child of the sun.’
Crazy’s eyes burst into brilliant moonlight silver. All of a sudden Tuuran could see everything around him as though it was the middle of the day. He staggered as the other slaves on his pole lurched and lost their step. Crazy Mad stopped dead. The ropes around him simply ceased to be and the pole over his head was gone too. The slave behind stumbled into the back of him and dissolved into a cloud of black ash. Tuuran stared aghast. No pretending it hadn’t happened, not this time.
A hundred yards off in the scrub among the loose rocks he saw a dragon. A hatchling. In the darkness it had been invisible. Now it was clear for everyone to see, except everyone was staring at Crazy Mad.
‘Dragon!’ Tuuran would have pointed but his hands were tied to the pole. A flash of lightning dazzled him, brighter still than the light pouring out of Crazy Mad’s eyes. The thunderclap made him wince. Crazy staggered. Another lightning bolt hit him and then another, thrown by the slavers with their wands, each one strong enough to kill any man it touched and probably anyone unlucky enough to be standing next to him too. They ought to have hurled Crazy Mad through the air like a leaf in the wind. After the third Crazy didn’t even flinch any more. He stood there, all that silver light pouring out of him, and simply didn’t notice.
The slaves next to Crazy suddenly found themselves free. They bolted, only they weren’t running for freedom, they were running to get away. Everyone was suddenly shouting at once. The slaves bound to Tuuran tried to run too, except the pole and the tethers around their feet made it impossible. One tripped in his haste, lost his balance and fell, and his weight on the pole was enough to bring them all down in a tangled heap of arms and legs. Another pole of slaves was shuffling away as fast as possible; yet another had fallen; the slavers were screaming their heads off and dashing this way and that like crazed geese, bawling at everyone to get down on the ground while everything threw up crazy shadows, bathed in the eerie moonlight glow from Crazy Mad’s eyes.
A bolt of lightning hit the pole of slaves trying to get away. The slave at the back arched and threw himself into the rest and then hung, a deadweight among them, and down they went. When Tuuran looked again, the dragon had gone. Or maybe it was hiding. He’d never heard of a dragon hiding but then he’d never heard of a man’s eyes turning silver and lighting up the night as bright as day, nor of anyone who could swat aside lightning as though it was nothing. Or maybe he had, but only in stories that the soldiers of the guard used to tell each other around their fires late at night, tales of the Isul Aieha, the Silver King, the half-god who’d come with his Adamantine Spear when the dragons had flown free, who’d shown the first blood-mages and alchemists how to tame them.
‘Crazy! Crazy Mad!’
The air was awash with shouts and moans and wails. Crazy didn’t move. He hadn’t moved a single step since the moment this had started.
‘Berren! Skyrie!’ Tuuran paused a moment because he was a simple man who saw the world in simple ways. ‘Isul Aieha!’
Crazy heard the name and spun round as though he’d been stung. He took a step towards Tuuran and then stopped again. The slavers were still throwing lightning. Crazy shifted, caught three bolts in the palms of his hands in quick succession and threw them straight back the way they’d come, and after that the slavers gave up and slipped away into the shadows, fear getting the better of them as it should have right at the start. Through it all, Crazy’s eyes were locked on Tuuran. He came closer and crouched down. The wails from the men around grew louder. They tried to scrabble free. Futile, bound as they were, but they tried.
Stop.
The air fell still. All sound ceased. The slaves stopped their struggles. Everything froze. Everything. It took a moment for Tuuran to realise it. No rasping breaths, no hiss of the breeze, nothing, not even his own heartbeat. He couldn’t even shift his eyes. It was as though Crazy Mad had stopped time itself and slipped them both outside it, and now those burning silver eyes bored into him. Neither of them spoke a word. Tuuran couldn’t have, even if he’d thought of something to say. Crazy Mad still moved as though nothing had changed, but this Crazy didn’t need to speak. Tuuran felt something dive into him and take whatever it wanted.
Isul Aieha.
Abruptly the world began to move again. There was sound and Tuuran’s ears filled once more with wails of fear. He blinked. Crazy was crouched over him, only now the light had gone and Crazy Mad was just Crazy Mad, and Tuuran had never seen such a despair in any man.
‘Crazy?’
‘There was a dragon in my head. It took my memories. It showed me everything.’
‘Crazy! Cut us loose!’
‘What am I, Tuuran?’ Crazy backed away. ‘What am I? There’s no joy any more. No kindness. Nothing warm and nothing soft. Nothing.’
He disappeared into the darkness. Tuuran yelled after him. ‘Crazy! Crazy! Cut us loose, you mad daft bastard. You leave me here and I’ll hunt you down, so help me you selfish piece of . . .’ But Crazy Mad was gone.
Nothing.
Tuuran let out a long breath and let himself slump. However hard his heart was thumping, he couldn’t say there wasn’t a piece of him that hadn’t seen this coming.
19
The Gold Dragon
By the time Liang had her little golden dragon up by the gondola in the dragon yard, Mai’Choiro Kwen was already within. The dragon fluttered onto the gondola’s crown and crept down the side, its golden claws click-clack tapping on the gleaming silver. Liang had it poke an eye around one of the windows where she hoped the Elemental Men wouldn’t see. It pressed its ear to the silver shell.
‘. . . every person within this place shall be subject to this order and is forbidden to leave under pain of execution. Lord Shonda of Vespinarr is required to present himself to this place until his non-complicity can be proven . . .’ The Elemental Man speaking had his back to her. He was standing up, reading from a scroll of parchment. From what Liang could glimpse of it, the writing was marvellously ornate and the scroll was bound to bone and silver rollers.
Mai’Choiro’s face darkened in outrage. He clenched his fists and banged the table. He looked more angry than surprised. Liang didn’t hear what he said. Something about Lord Shonda. He didn’t like his master being summoned, was that it? She grinned to herself. I bet . . .
The Elemental Man sat down but kept talking. Something about Tsen and Quai’Shu and Shrin Chrias Kwen. Liang couldn’t hear much of it through the shell of the gondola until the killer stood up again and resumed from the scroll: ‘. . . found guilty shall be returned to the Crown of the Sea Lords in Khalishtor to be publicly hanged by the neck until dead, their bodies to thrown into the sea unless execution is deemed more expedient to be carried out here.’ He paused, took a deep breath and went on. ‘The Arbiter places the remaining witness, the slave Zafir, under the protection of the Elemental Men until such time as judgement is passed.’
In her study Liang laughed and shook her head. ‘Her? Of all of us, her?’
‘This is ridiculous.’ Mai’Choiro was sitting very still. ‘I was a prisoner here!’
She didn’t hear what happened next because Bellepheros burst into her room. ‘Li! What are you—’ He stopped as she ripped the silk from her eyes.
‘Hush!’ She waved him to sit on the bed beside her. ‘The Elemental Men are talking to Mai’Choiro Kwen. I’m eavesdropping. So be quiet!’
‘But we—’
‘Quiet!’ She put the silk over her eyes again and shifted back into the golem dragon’s artificial sight. The smile on Mai’Choiro’s face made her want to punch him.
‘. . . are forbidden from approaching her, speaking wi
th her or attempting any contact. The Arbiter will have the truth of what happened and then the slave Zafir will be hanged and the dragon she rides will be destroyed. This is not the ruling of the Arbiter of the Dralamut but the decision of the Elemental Men. The slave Zafir is decreed a sorceress to be executed accordingly.’
Beside Bellepheros, Liang gleefully clenched an exultant fist. ‘No more nor less than she deserves,’ she muttered. Get rid of the monster and get rid of the rider, and even Belli must quietly rejoice. It wasn’t even killing, if what he said was right, simply making its spirit find another egg, an egg that was somewhere else. All they were doing was making it smaller.
‘What?’ Belli nudged her. ‘What is it?’ In the gondola Mai’Choiro’s expression had gone from a smile to horror. That was delicious too and made her want to laugh out loud. They still have designs of keeping these monsters?
‘They’re going to hang your dragon-queen.’ She leaned into him. ‘Let her go. There’s no hope for her, Belli.’
Beside her she heard Bellepheros sigh. ‘Come back to the hatchery, Li. I still need your help.’
Mai’Choiro was whining like a hurt puppy now, about how the dragon was no more dangerous than a glasship or a lightning cannon, that it was simply a weapon. He wheedled on and on about the Ice Witch and Aria and other nonsense that really made no difference. Liang didn’t hear it all but she didn’t need to. The Elemental Men clearly didn’t care. Excuses, that’s all they were, though Liang wondered now whether it had ever crossed any minds what might happen if they did take a dragon across the storm-dark and sent it against the Ice Witch, and the Ice Witch turned it back on them, and how stupid they’d all look.
Belli squeezed her hand. ‘Li! Leave it be. Please.’
Liang watched for another minute, but the Elemental Men seemed largely done with Mai’Choiro. She sighed and unwrapped the silk from her eyes and patted the alchemist’s hand. ‘Come on then.’ She tried a smile. ‘Sometimes I’m not entirely sure which one of us is the slave.’
Belli grimaced. ‘Both of us.’ They walked together back through the tunnels, Bellepheros wincing now and then at his knees, which always gave him trouble, and Liang wincing at the bruises she still carried from the night the Vespinese had come.
‘A right pair we make,’ she said.
Bellepheros didn’t answer, but when they reached the dragon yard he stopped and glared at the gondola. ‘I’ve seen their sort before. I know what they can do. Their kind brought me here. They took away my freedom so they’ve already done the worst they can. Diamond Eye is a catastrophe waiting to happen. I’ll kill it for you with a happy heart when it’s not needed any more. But the hatchling that escaped, you show me that abomination dead first.’
They almost killed themselves getting the last chain nets back up but eventually managed it, Liang pillaging gold-glass from the rubble of the crashed glasship and reshaping it into struts and beams and arches. Without a t’varr to watch and shout at her, she was profligate, but it was draining to work with gold-glass that had already been formed and set once before, and it was late and long after dark when they were done. She felt so tired that for once she might actually sleep instead of lying awake in bed worrying about things she couldn’t change. The hatchery at least was now back as it should be. One of her many problems gone away.
She bade Bellepheros goodnight outside his study and, since no one else was there to see, hugged him. It confused him – he had no idea what to do – and it was hard not to laugh. She left him there, bewildered, and went to her workshop and opened the iron door. As she did she felt a breeze, and then an Elemental Man stood before her. He held her little glass dragon in his hand.
‘You have something to say, enchantress?’
Liang glanced at the strip of black silk still on her bed and nodded. She pushed past him and flopped down beside it. ‘You don’t need to keep the rider alive to hear what passed between her and Baros Tsen T’Varr and Mai’Choiro Kwen,’ she said. ‘It was Mai’Choiro Kwen, not Tsen, who gave her her orders.’
‘So you say, lady, but how do you know?’
‘Because I was there. Hidden and unseen but there. Tell that to your Arbiter. I heard it all with my own ears. Close the door on your way out now. I’d like to know I won’t be disturbed.’
For a moment the killer was silent. He put the golden dragon down beside her. Then she felt a stirring of the air, and when he spoke again his voice had moved. ‘We do not expect to see this toy again. Goodnight, Chay-Liang of Hingwal Taktse.’
She heard the door close.
20
The Abyss
Dawn burst over the desert horizon. For Tuuran and the other slaves it meant they could see where they were going again, not so much chance of stumbling and bringing down the pole. He’d lost track of how far they’d gone now. A legion of Adamantine Men might march thirty miles a day across open country, but the slaves were roped together and slow. Half that perhaps then, and they’d been going ten days, or maybe eleven or was it twelve? He’d stopped counting when Crazy Mad did his thing and left.
On other days the slavers sent an advance guard ahead as the sun rose. Tuuran had learned to watch for them, a dozen men on humpbacked horses who rode off as soon as the light was good enough to see by. A few hours later, as the heat was beginning to bite, the slave train would crest a rise or traverse a canyon or reach the top of a trail and find a camp waiting. The slavers were hardly kind but they knew better than to damage their merchandise. They gave out water and stale bread and, when they ran out of that, a paste of crushed beans and a bowl of seeds cracked and boiled soft. After eating, the slaves were left to rest until the sun sank close to the ground. Late each afternoon they cleared the camp to earn another round of water and set off again.
On this morning the vanguard stayed with them. As the sun rose, the slavers reached a stream, a rare thing in this heat-blasted landscape of bare broken stone, and stopped a while to let their animals drink. One by one they freed each group of slaves from the pole that held their arms and let them crouch together by the water, still tied at the feet but with their hands their own. They drank and drank, all of them, the first running water Tuuran had seen since the sea. When they were done, each group was led away, one mounted slaver in front, two on foot behind with their spears held close. Tuuran stood at the front of the men of his pole when their turn came. He looked the slavers up and down and knew that he could, if he wanted to, take either the one off the horse or the two on their feet, but he couldn’t do both and so he did nothing and followed meekly as the stream cut sharply into the rock in a series of steps and cascades. A ravine closed around them, and Tuuran understood there was no way out except forward or back.
Other dribbles of water joined the stream as they walked, tiny trickles that poured over the edge high above. The air in the ravine was pleasant, damp and cool even as the day wore on and the sun rose high. By midday they were walled between two straight cliffs of sandy red stone, walking through a gentle rush of water no deeper than his toes over a bed of gravel and littered stones. The endless marching wore at his feet and his hips. Everything ached but he was better off than most. The slavers had already had to slow the march twice. Most of the other slaves were used to soft work, some of them used to no work at all. Some hadn’t even been slaves before the dragon came. It was easy to pick them out, the ones with no brands who complained and screamed and begged, the ones given the least mercy. The rest took it all with stoical resignation, an unpleasant interlude in a life that had never been their own to begin with. Even the slavers themselves knew they might be taken by others one day, bigger, stronger, better armed. The great cities and their palaces, their sea lords and their fleets and their pageants, were devourers of men and their dignity, endless in their appetite, and those who’d once been citizens of such a city found no mercy now. A few withdrew into themselves, silent and dull-eyed, trying to understand what had happened to them, why, and how their lives had been turned so utterl
y upside down. Tuuran would have told them not to bother. Questions like that didn’t have any answers worth knowing. Shit happened and that was the end of it.
The slavers kept them going right through the night this time, and in the morning too, and by then it was hard even for Tuuran. At least it was all downhill.
The ravine widened. The cliffs arced away around a wide strip of flat land bounded by high sharp hills on one side and a colossal abyss on the other, a great rift in the landscape that ran for miles and delved so deep into the ground that its floor was lost in darkness. One vast knife wound stabbed into the earth. The river ran over the edge of it and Tuuran wanted to run and look but there were slavers everywhere and a large camp ahead of them. Half a mile away, on the other side of the abyss, jagged ruddy cliffs rose towards the sun. Tuuran stopped to stare, and the other slaves behind him stared too. He’d never seen such a rift but he’d heard the Taiytakei speak its name: Queverra.
The slavers prodded them on with a bored anger, their hearts not really in it any more. As they left the canyon behind and staggered on across the open ground beside the abyss, a dozen men on horses trotted over. One was the skinny desert man from Dhar Thosis, the rest Tuuran had never seen before. Skinny pointed to him. The others dismounted and cut Tuuran loose. ‘Pale skin. Step forward.’
Tuuran looked about for anything that might do for a weapon, then bent down and picked up a stone. He tossed it from hand to hand a couple of times, stepped forward and held up his arms so everyone would see his brands. ‘I have a name. And have you forgotten the promise I made you?’
The other slaves backed away as best they could. Skinny laughed. ‘You have a stone. What will you do with that, slave?’
‘My name, when I had one, was Tuuran. I earned the right to have it back the hard way. I pulled oars and then ropes on a galley collecting more slaves for men like you who sailed the seas of worlds that weren’t my own.’ He dropped his arms and looked at the stone. ‘This? Why, I might just split your skull with it if you come close enough.’