Dragon Queen sk-2

by Stephen Deas

  Bellepheros digested this. He frowned. ‘An enchantress?’ he asked again.

  ‘I told you. A witch.’ Tuuran hissed and pointed at the golden wand hanging from the belt of one of the soldiers. ‘They make the rods that summon lightning and ships of glass that fly through the air and every other abomination that breaks the natural laws of the world.’

  A cradle hung beside the scaffolds. Ropes reached up into the sky. The Taiytakei woman in white and her guard walked onto it. Bellepheros squinted up to the top of the cliff. His eyes were getting used to the daylight now. Soldiers nudged him forward after the woman. An abomination that breaks the natural laws of the world. That sounded a lot like dragons. Then he staggered and grabbed at Tuuran's arm as the cradle unexpectedly jerked and began to rise. The ship fell away beneath them, first the deck and then the masts. In the natural amphitheatre of the harbour dozens more ships waited, packed closely together. Some were pressed against the cliffs, swarms of men scurrying back and forth; others sat further out and rocked in the gentle swell of the sea. Through the windows in the grey stone of the cliff Bellepheros caught glimpses of spacious rooms, of Taiytakei men and women. He saw them sitting at tables together, drinking wine, eating their meals. He saw them dressing and undressing. He saw children, and men and women entwined naked together. None of them looked to their windows as he passed. They seemed oblivious, as though it simply didn't matter who might look in on them. The other Taiytakei, he noted, looked carefully away, but he was an alchemist, ever curious about everything, and so he stared and took it all in. He could feel how much the soldiers either side of him didn't like it.

  ‘It's rude to stare, Lord Master Alchemist,’ said Tuuran. ‘They're prudes at heart, these Taiytakei.’ Then he leaned close and his voice dropped. ‘I am yours,’ he breathed. ‘Say the word and I'll take them over the edge to their doom.’

  Bellepheros glanced down. They were past the top of the tallest mast now and halfway up the cliff. There were five Taiytakei with them on the cradle, the woman and her four soldiers. He wondered if Tuuran was really strong enough throw all five of them over the edge at once. Perhaps, but then what? Would it get either of them home? Of course not.

  He gently shook his head and put a calming hand on Tuuran's arm. ‘Patience, Tuuran.’ He was beginning to see. His weapon would be his knowledge. What he knew. That was why they'd taken him and it was what they wanted from him. He would hold that over them, and if they tried to take it by force, well, as an alchemist he knew a hundred different ways to kill himself, and if that was to be his choice in the end, it would be his alone. No need for others to die, not even these Taiytakei.

  The woman with the glass lenses over her eyes was looking at him. Perhaps she read his mind or read his thoughts from his eyes, for she raised an eyebrow and smiled. Bellepheros blinked in surprise. She had a lovely smile. He hadn't expected that.

  ‘You are our most honoured guest,’ she said. ‘Whatever you require, I will give it to you. Whatever you ask for, you will have.’ She glanced at Tuuran. ‘You will build an eyrie for Sea Lord Quai'Shu, and if you must have a grand hall carved of solid gold and a harem of a thousand women from across the many worlds of the storm-dark to do it, so it shall be. Whatever you wish for, you will have.’

  ‘I wish to go home,’ said Bellepheros tartly.

  The woman's face didn't flicker. ‘That one wish only Sea Lord Quai'Shu can grant.’

  ‘Well, we'll start with a library then,’ he snapped. If she thought he could be bought through his vices then she might as well know what they were. ‘Books. As many of them as you can get. Every eyrie should have one.’ And I'll find out who you are. I'll find out everything about you; and in time I'll find a way to use what I learn against you, for I am a patient man.

  ‘Books?’ Her lips pursed. ‘Excellent! So be it. But you might have to share.’ A light danced in her eyes. ‘I like books too.’

  As the cradle rose further, the windows in the cliff face became larger and more ornate, easily wide enough for a man to climb in and out. ‘Are you the lady of this city?’ asked Bellepheros.

  ‘Lady of this city?’ The woman laughed and the easy creases in her face told Bellepheros that she was a friend to laughter. ‘This is the city of Sea Lord Quai'Shu. I am a servant. One of many. But for now I am your mistress.’ She smiled again. ‘Or your helper, or your t'varr, or however you prefer to see me.’

  ‘My friend Tuuran says you are an enchantress.’

  ‘Your slave is right. I am Chay-Liang. You are Bellepheros the alchemist. I'm afraid enchanters rule over no cities, more is the pity.’

  Your slave? The soldier had said the same after they'd picked Tuuran up off the deck. Bellepheros hadn't taken it in before. Been too busy trying to breathe. ‘And what is it that an enchantress does?’

  Chay-Liang didn't answer at once. But as the cradle reached the top of the cliff and Bellepheros could finally see what lay beyond, she stretched out her arm. ‘This.’

  He looked out over the City of Stone. Grey spires rose up around him like the three mountains of the Pinnacles in miniature, but hundreds and hundreds of them, jumbled together, packed in rows and clumps like the discarded teeth of some titanic monster. Sheer walls rose to jagged spikes and fell into dark chasms. Far below, in places between them, he saw black water. The sea perhaps. There wasn't a flat surface to be seen and every spire was speckled with black spots like the pox, except now that he'd ridden the cradle he knew them for what they were. Windows.

  But Chay-Liang wasn't pointing at the miraculous city of stone that lay before them. The enchantress was pointing up. To the golden palace that hung from the sky.

  6

  The Palace of Leaves

  The Palace of Leaves hung over Xican. Beside Bellepheros, Tuuran gaped in slack-jawed awe. It was hard not to. More than a dozen discs of gold-tinged glass floated high in the bright sky, each as wide as a war-dragon's outstretched wings. A hundred chains of Scythian steel, with links as thick and long as a man, tethered them to the cliffs below. From beneath, the discs were a dazzling brightness so fierce that Bellepheros could only look at them sideways. From the ground a cluster of glass and gold spires and a few of black obsidian reached up like fingers. Tiny bridges of glass joined one tower to the next, wires of light that sparkled in the sun. Great silver and gold eggs hung beneath the discs, suspended by gleaming chains. In its midst Bellepheros saw a ship, masts and sails and all, simply suspended in the air.

  The enchantress Chay-Liang took a glass ball the size of a fist from the bag at her belt. She had three wands there too: one of black stone, one of pale golden glass like the lightning wands that the soldiers carried, and one of silver. She stepped off the cradle and held the glass ball in front of her. Bellepheros watched in fascination, torn between the detail of what she was doing and the overwhelming immensity of what rose above them. He settled for watching her. It was easier than trying to stare at the blinding miracle that floated in the sky.

  The glass ball bulged and flattened and grew into a disc ten feet wide that hovered in the air at the enchantress's feet. She looked pleased with herself. ‘A perk of being what I am,’ she said, looking straight at him. She was showing off, and he laughed because the idea that this woman wanted to impress him struck him as absurd, that she somehow felt the need amid the dazzling marvels that surrounded them.

  She smiled back and offered him her hand. He supposed she thought he was impressed, and yes, a part of him was. But mostly he was seeing again how much he mattered to these Taiytakei, and the more he saw it, the more it woke the dread inside him. When it came to potions and dragons he could teach them everything he knew and it wouldn't make a blind bit of difference. They probably weren't going to like that, when they finally understood what made him what he was and why none of them could ever be the same. They certainly weren't going to be happy to let him go home.

  ‘Are you coming?’ The enchantress stepped onto the glass and beckoned him again to follow.
The Taiytakei soldiers hesitated — it seemed they didn't know quite how they should treat him any more — and settled for shoving Tuuran onto the disc instead. Bellepheros followed, reluctant, bemused and anxious and wondering what came next. As soon as he was on, it rose into the air and his heart jumped into his mouth. He stumbled. At his feet the glass was as good as invisible. The city and its jumble of stone was falling away. They were climbing into the void between colossal spikes below and the brilliant palace above and everywhere he looked was huge open space. He staggered again as his stomach tied itself in knots and his legs quivered and started to give. He was going to faint! The woman in white was smiling at him, amused at his terror. Space! So much space! Too much space! The starkness of her black skin against the white of her robe struck him hard. He was gasping. He was going to faint. He closed his eyes and clung to the nearest body and never mind who it was. Great Flame! Such sorcery as this! Not even in the works of the Silver King. .

  ‘Mind him! You'll have Abraxi out of her grave if you let him fall!’ He barely heard over the rushing in his ears. Hands gripped him tight, easing him down. A voice whispered in his ear.

  ‘I have you.’ Tuuran. ‘Witchcraft and blood-magic, but we're stronger, Lord Alchemist. We're stronger! Cling to that!’

  No, we are not! Bellepheros didn't feel strong at all, but words like witchcraft and blood-magic made him open his eyes a fraction because this was clearly neither of those things and that sort of ignorance had always annoyed him.

  No, opening his eyes was a mistake. The terror had him straight back again. Everywhere he looked, he saw sky. Even dragons had never made him feel so small. His head began to spin. He closed his eyes again and shut them tight. Wind pulled at him and whipped at his robes and his hair, playful and gleeful as though it wanted to nudge him over the edge and watch him fall and then laugh at him for being so utterly trivial. His fingers dug into Tuuran's arm. He wanted to be sick. He'd looked dragons in the eye and now he carried the dread of the storm-dark in the pit of his stomach, yet he'd never felt as sharp a terror as this.

  He swayed as Tuuran lifted him up. The Adamantine Man's easy strength helped him. ‘We are arrived, Lord Alchemist. The ground is stone again.’

  Bellepheros opened his eyes a crack. He caught a glimpse of pale golden glass walls, of a gaping hole and of the sky beyond and a cold white marble floor. He staggered forward and then his legs buckled and he fell out of Tuuran's arms to his hands and knees. Solid stone. Even if it was floating in the sky, it felt like the ground and that was enough. A blessed relief. He stared at the veins in the marble for a second or two and then threw up. Pathetic. What must they think of me? He stayed where he was, trying to breathe.

  ‘Bellepheros?’

  The woman. Gentle hands reached under his arms and lifted him back to his feet. Hers, and when his eyes remembered how to focus, the concern on her face seemed real enough, even if a part of her was laughing at him. She looked odd with those glass lenses over her eyes. Owlish.

  ‘If anyone ever invites you to walk the Path of Words, you should probably decline.’ She smiled and pulled him away. As they moved, two women in white belted tunics ran from alcoves where they had stood like statues and started to clean the mess he'd made on their floor. Pale-skinned. Slaves again. The enchantress wrinkled her nose and made a face. ‘You've been in these clothes since the Picker took you, haven't you? Your travel chest will arrive shortly. Really, I don't see why they couldn't have taken some other clothes out for you and let you have them. I'm afraid you smell quite. . strong. And that won't do for when you meet the sea lord. You'll need some new ones. Do you have a preference? I know you have a liking for silk in your realm. Did you know that silk was something you stole from us? Old history and mostly forgotten now but it caused a great deal of trouble once.’

  Bellepheros tried not to look at anything except the floor. The space around him was huge and filled with light. The ceiling was far above, if there was a ceiling at all, and the walls were all the same gold-tinged glass. If you peered you could see the clouds and the harbour and the city outside, all of it adding to the sense of nakedness around him. ‘Alchemists are used to tunnels and caves,’ he muttered. ‘Not great spaces like this.’ It was the emptiness that oppressed him, more than the size. There was no one else here except a few slaves standing patient and still in their alcoves and the soldiers who'd come with Chay-Liang. A place like the Speaker's Hall in the Adamantine Palace, where many could gather when the occasion arose yet rarely used. It had no sense of life. For all its perfect beauty, it felt cold and dead.

  ‘I thought you rode great beasts through the skies where you come from.’

  ‘If you mean the dragons then you're thinking of dragon-riders. Alchemists rarely. Sometimes we sit on their backs, but it's a rider who commands them and we have saddles and harnesses that hold us fast. We certainly do not float in the air with no apparent means of support.’ He shuddered. The last few minutes were a horror he'd probably never forget.

  The enchantress laughed. ‘I'll have your rooms changed then if it's a cave you want. I'll send new clothes to you. Silk?’

  ‘Yes, yes!’ The more they walked across the marble, the further the far wall seemed to be. He felt himself shrinking.

  ‘Colours?’

  ‘Any!’ Anything to get away from this unbearable empty openness!

  ‘Colours matter a great deal here, Bellepheros. You'll be the keeper of our lord's dragons. What colour are dragons?’

  It made him laugh. What colour are dragons? He kept forgetting, amid his misery, how little the Taiytakei knew of his home. ‘All manner of colours. They don't care.’

  ‘Then I will choose.’ She sighed as they reached the far wall at last, then stopped beside it and took the black wand from her belt and tapped it to the glass. A clear slab descended from above, jutting from the gold-tinged wall. Bellepheros forced himself to look up. High above his head hung a great golden egg, suspended by chains from the glass discs in the sky. There was no telling how big the egg might be but the discs beyond filled his sight. There was empty sky between them and the open top of this tower. A tiny black hole beckoned from the bottom of the egg. That was where they were going, was it? His head started to spin. He looked away. Took a deep breath. His heart was pounding again and they hadn't even started.

  The enchantress put a hand on his arm. ‘Close your eyes.’

  ‘Yes. And I'd like to sit down too.’

  Tuuran sat beside him, legs dangling over the edge. The Adamantine Man was staring at everything like an apprentice on his first visit to the caves under the Purple Spur, or like Speaker Hyram when Bellepheros had taken him there and finally shown him the truth about dragons. Or perhaps, more apt, like a virgin in his first brothel.

  ‘Does height not trouble you?’ Bellepheros asked him bitterly.

  ‘Height? I'm a sail-slave.’ Tuuran chuckled. ‘A sail-slave who's afraid of heights doesn't last very long. If the floor was pitching and heaving beneath us, the wind howling and the rain flaying the skin off my face, I'd feel quite at home. Height? No. But glorious as these sights may be, Lord Alchemist, I don't like not seeing what holds me from falling. It reeks of witchery.’

  Witchery? What did that even mean? But then the glass began to rise and Bellepheros stayed very still, face screwed up tight and tense as a drumskin. He cried out in fear when they emerged from the top of the tower and the sudden wind snatched at him and blew him sideways; and then, when Tuuran held him tight, wept at his own frailty, shaking helplessly. When the wind died and the glass stopped, he stayed very still, curled up tight, arms wrapped around his head. He dimly heard the Taiytakei soldiers move away but mercifully they left him alone. He sat still until the shaking stopped. It felt like a long time. Then he let out a great sigh and warily opened his eyes. He gasped and almost sobbed with relief. The glass had lifted them into a hall panelled in bronze and wood, with the sky decently pushed aside by the pleasant familiarity of walls and a floor
and a roof over his head. He took a few deep breaths, carefully ignoring the bright hole in the floor though which they'd arrived. The illusion helped. Unfortunately his mind knew all too well that an illusion was what it was. It kept reminding him. Kept him thinking about the huge emptiness that lay not far through every wall and floor. Kept him quivering inside, sapping his strength and poisoning every thought.

  The enchantress was looking at him, eyes agleam with curiosity. ‘More to your liking?’ He nodded. She clapped her hands. Slaves, docile men and women with downcast eyes, emerged from their alcoves. Chay-Liang beckoned to them and then to him. ‘See to our guest.’ She smiled and patted him on the arm. ‘They'll look after you. Anything you want, just ask.’ And he felt too ill and too scared to remind her that all he wanted was to go home; and just now he wasn't even sure that he wanted that, because that would mean more floating through the terror of the empty open air on flimsy sheets of glass.

  The enchantress and the Taiytakei soldiers led, and when the slaves beckoned him and Tuuran to follow, he did. They took him away to rooms that were spacious and comfortable and took their leave with a few vague words that he didn't really hear. Inside, rugs lay across the floor in patterns of rich reds and pale blues, the knots thick and deep under his feet and almost as soft as fur. Tapestries hung from every wall, mostly desert scenes in orange and gold. One was nothing more than a vast expanse of empty sand with a single mighty tower that rose into a swirling maelstrom of black cloud. It caught his eye because in the cloud tiny slivers of silver and purple gave the impression of lightning.

  The bed was made of solid gold with a mattress of the softest down and silk sheets that slid over his skin like liquid. A dragon-king could have guested here and not been disappointed. After his old squitty stone cells in the Palace of Alchemy he wasn't sure what to do with rooms like these, but apparently that didn't matter because he had a half-dozen slaves to show him. They prepared a bath, and while he soaked in the water and tried not to think about the open sky just outside, they brought a small pile of books for his table. A History of the Mar-Li Seafaring Republic and a collection of journals and diaries. When he was clean they dressed him in a plain white silk tunic, so light it left him feeling naked. They laid out bronze trays of food, simple bread, a dozen different fruits from tiny bright purple berries to something that was a brilliant yellow and as big as his head, and a plate piled with strips of pink salted fish with ten tiny pots for dipping in, each with a different pungent flavour. Bellepheros gingerly tried a bit of most things and then settled for largely just eating the bread.