Dragon Queen sk-2

by Stephen Deas

  Around the walls were tiny round windows, right up by the improvised ceiling like the portholes of the ship that had brought him to Xican. He elbowed the other slaves aside. Some of them grumbled and some of them shouted their outrage. One or two bowed their heads and kept out of his way. He heard them talking, whispering about who he was and what he'd done in the alchemist's room the night before, punching a palace slave in the face and making his nose bleed. Either way, through glares and shoves and by sheer size, by the time the glasship was loaded Tuuran had quietly established among the other slaves that, however many lightning bolts you had branded on your arms, you bloody well gave up your window to an Adamantine Man.

  The view as they left the Palace of Leaves was breath-stealing. They rose, Tuuran and the others all craning their necks and bending their heads to peer outside, while right over their heads the women were lying on the floor, squinting through windows that for them were by their feet. They were so close through the thin wood that he could smell them, jasmine and lavender and cheap Xizic wafting through the planking. He watched the Palace of Leaves fall away beneath them, its huge gold-glass wheels spinning slowly just below the clouds, and then the rest of the City of Stone and the Grey Isle itself, smaller and smaller, looking like some behemoth porcupine dropped in a sea just a little too shallow to cover it.

  ‘Great Flame!’ He shook his head in awe. ‘And you live here? Do you even see it?’

  The palace slaves turned their backs. They scorned him when they weren't being afraid of him, but a soft whisper came through the boards from above: ‘Magnificent, isn't it?’

  ‘The world I knew, it had nothing like this.’ Through the haze the bulk of the island rose to a great plateau. The same spikes of rock that jutted out of the sea to make the City of Stone grew here too, but snapped and broken and tumbled down among each other. Maybe he was wrong, maybe if he'd crossed the realms on the back of a dragon he'd have seen a dozen wonders like this. Maybe.

  ‘Nor mine,’ whispered the boards above. ‘Come to the other side. Come and look ahead.’ He followed the whisper and crossed the gondola, elbowing and barging his way through a sea of growls and mutters and surly resentment. ‘Do you see it?’ asked the whisper when they were together again, and he did: the other flying ship of glass, the one with the alchemist, rising ahead of them, a golden gondola hung by chains from another sun-bright wheel like those that lifted the palace. He stared at it, amazed. It made him feel small again, uncomfortable. He understood dragons well enough but not this, and he knew he never would. He shivered, half in awe, half fearful, except it couldn't really be fear because Adamantine Men had long since left fear behind.

  He turned and looked around the room. At the roundness of it, at its curved floor and metal walls. ‘We're in one of those too, aren't we?’ He bit his lip. Witchery and blood-magic again! But there was nothing to be done.

  ‘Of course we are.’ The voice above giggled at him.

  He turned back to the window. He didn't dare let the other slaves see him looking afraid, even if he knew he wasn't. ‘Who are you?’ he asked.

  ‘A slave, of course,’ said the whisper. ‘You're the new one, aren't you? The one who comes from the place they call the land of the dragons? Do they really have dragons there?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And are they terrible monsters?’

  She felt so close. He turned and stared at the boards and wondered if he was strong enough to rip a hole. ‘Terrible enough,’ he growled. ‘But not as terrible as I am. What's your name?’

  ‘I already told you.’ She was laughing at him.

  He bared his teeth at the sky outside. ‘Well, slave, whoever you are, I wish you were down here where I could see you.’

  ‘I think for now I'm very glad that I'm not.’

  The world outside turned suddenly white as they rose into the cloud and stayed that way for the whole two days they flew, almost as if whoever was piloting wished them to see nothing. There was not much to do except get in the faces of the other men and whisper sweet nothings at the women above, though no one whispered back after that first ascent. They were all much too demure in the Taiytakei way for such things. Or, as the sail-slaves back on his galley had it, tight-legged prudes.

  The gondola came down at last, long after dark in the middle of some city, into a wide stone-flagged yard surrounded by tall walls full of windows. The ramp doors opened and Taiytakei soldiers hustled the slaves quickly out. Tuuran's eyes peered at the night, looking at the women as they came down from above. The palace slaves stood and shivered and grumbled. Tuuran stretched his legs and flexed his muscles and made sure he was seen, while their gondola and its ship of glass rose once more to make space for the alchemist and the witch to land in their place. As soon as it came down and the gondola ramp opened, the witch marched the alchemist straight out, past them all and across the yard and through grand iron-bound doors, snapping her fingers at Tuuran and a pair of soldiers to follow in her wake. She strode through a long magnificent hall draped in night-time shadow, through another great iron door and away into the city, all breathlessly fast as if the fate of the world depended on it only to stop after half a mile to stand in front of an old palace. For the purpose, as far as Tuuran could tell, of talking at it.

  ‘I wanted to show you at least one thing while we were here.’ The witch was out of breath and so was the alchemist. ‘It dates back to the Mar-Li Republics, to before the Elemental Men.’ Tuuran puffed his cheeks and looked about. The alchemist seemed interested but Tuuran was bored and hungry and deadly restless after two days cramped up in a cage in the sky. He paced around. ‘It used to be the home to Zinzarra's lords, but when they went they left it to rot. Yet they still guard it.’ It seemed odd to Tuuran to guard a place with its windows and doors all bricked shut, and if they were guarding it, they didn't seem to be doing much a job of it. He couldn't see any actual guards, for a start. And maybe the alchemist thought something similar, but he never had a chance to ask because suddenly there was another Taiytakei sauntering down the street, and he would have walked right up to them if the two soldiers hadn't blocked his path. He stopped courteously enough but his eyes stayed a little too long on Bellepheros. Tuuran's skin prickled. Old instincts put him on edge.

  ‘I do apologise so much for this,’ said the stranger. ‘It's so hideously embarrassing that I don't even know your name. So, ah, Alchemist from the Land of Dragons will have to do. And again, further apologies for the nature of this meeting. .’

  The soldiers advanced to force the newcomer away. He retreated without complaint, not bothered at all. Such an easy manner in front of two armed men made Tuuran wish for his sword. And he kept talking too, and at Bellepheros, not even at the witch.

  ‘Ordinarily we'd make arrangements for a time and place in a quiet and civilised manner and I'd give you a day or two to settle your affairs. Things being as they are, I'm afraid I must insist on here and now. I can only beg you forgive me for such rudeness.’

  The words made little sense but the way they were said had Tuuran already moving towards Bellepheros. The two Taiytakei soldiers reached for their swords but faltered and staggered as the stranger walked between them, pushing them lightly aside. One stumbled to his knees, clutching his throat. The other crashed to the ground. The witch went for the golden wand at her belt.

  ‘I'm so sorry about your soldiers.’ The stranger had a hand in one pocket. His eyes were firmly on the witch now, not looking at Bellepheros at all, but his words had been for the alchemist. The alchemist who was simply watching, bemused.

  There was a second man somewhere.

  The realisation hit Tuuran a moment before he saw the other assassin and by then he was already moving, hurling himself at the alchemist's back.

  The witch levelled her wand. Quick as a snake, the first assassin whipped some silvery thing out of his pocket and held it in front of him, pointed at the witch. The second drew back his arm and threw knives, one, two, three, all at the alc
hemist's back but a half a second too late. Tuuran took them all, one in the arm, one the shoulder and one to the chest. Deep, each one of them. The arm and shoulder would hurt. The one in the chest, he knew, had probably killed him. The assassin now went for his sword; so did Tuuran, only he didn't have one, so he pulled the knife out of his shoulder instead. He was bleeding like a stuck pig. The assassin's sword was a long pointy thing, the sort for running people through. The two of them faced each other.

  ‘Well,’ said Tuuran, ‘you can kebab me and finish me off if you like but you're going to look very stupid when I ram your own knife in your face before I die.’

  The assassin was looking past him and Tuuran realised he hadn't heard the thundercrack of the witch firing her wand. His heart raced, because that meant the first one was still there and he certainly couldn't hold off two; and then a figure appeared behind the assassin who'd thrown the knives. Literally appeared as if he'd been standing there all along but had been invisible until now. He wore a black robe edged with strands of colour that all washed out to a silvery grey in the moonlight. As he appeared, he made a slight movement and the assassin's hand fell off and landed on the street with a wet thud. Blood sprayed from the stump over the wide stones. The assassin just stood, dumbfounded, and let himself bleed. Black-robe flicked something from his empty hand. Tuuran didn't see what it was, but the assassin screamed as though he'd had his testicles crushed and finally clutched the stump of his arm. The stream of blood over the road petered out and then stopped. The assassin's whole arm, Tuuran saw, had withered and turned black. He felt light-headed. The lights further down the street had blurred a little.

  Black-robe leaned close and whispered in the assassin's ear, ‘Go and tell your regrettable masters that this one is out of their reach. Whoever asked you to do this will be obliged to seek a return of their jade. Now go, and stay gone.’

  The now one-armed assassin bowed and backed away. His face was a rictus of pain and he spoke through gritted teeth. ‘We are but poor mirrors. We know this. But when, may I ask, did you become guardsmen? We are knives, not shields.’

  Black-robe shook his head. ‘The Regrettable Men of Vespinarr, of all the people in the world, should know better. We have always been shields. That was our first and only purpose.’

  Tuuran looked behind him. The alchemist was standing exactly as he had when the fight began — bemused and without a clue. The witch looked stricken and the two Taiytakei soldiers lay dead on the street, as did the man who'd killed them, the first assassin, who'd now become somehow separated from his head.

  When he looked back again, the second assassin was gone too, vanished into the night. Tuuran looked at the severed hand on the street. A hand and half a forearm. Black-robe's blade, whatever it was, had cut through the bones as though they were butter.

  He was breathing hard. There was a rattle in his throat. He felt dizzy and he couldn't stop looking at the hand. What kind of blade could do that? ‘You're just going to let the other one go?’ he gasped.

  Black-robe looked down the street. ‘Regrettable Men,’ he said when the killer was gone. ‘From Vespinarr.’

  The alchemist seemed to wake up. ‘I thought you said this Vespinarr was your friend!’

  ‘Vespinarr is the city where the Regrettable Men make their home. Any may buy them as any may come to Mount Solence and ask us for our blades. Such friendship is traded for jade, nothing else.’

  ‘Are you hurt?’ The witch was all over Bellepheros now, holding on to him, poking and prodding. Something had changed between them since the Palace of Leaves. An affection that hadn't been there before, her for him. It made Tuuran smile. Things came at the most unexpected times. He looked down. His shirt was soaked with blood and he still had a knife stuck in his chest. If he pulled it out, he had a bad feeling about what would happen next.

  ‘Yes, yes, I'm not hurt. Did he. . Did they. . Did they mean to kill me?’

  Tuuran tried taking long deep breaths to keep the dizziness at bay. He couldn't really just stand here with two knives sticking out of him. . What was it that an Adamantine Man did? Obeyed orders, first and last and always. But obeyed whose orders? The Night Watchman. The speaker, but when there was no Night Watchman here and no speaker either? Well, he'd sworn himself to the alchemist, the next best thing, so he supposed he could die content.

  The witch still only had eyes for the alchemist. ‘I'm so sorry, Belli. I thought we'd reach the eyrie before anyone even knew you were here.’ Tuuran blinked. He'd been in the middle of wondering whether his ancestors from the legion would manage to find him this far from home, caught up in another world, but Belli? Belli? All that he'd been thinking, all that stuff about duty and honour and how being knifed in the street to save the grand master of the Order of the Scales was as a good and noble a way to die as any. . and now the witch had gone and. . Belli? He started to laugh. Great heaving guffaws. Belly laughs, which only made him bleed all the more. His knees were shaking. He could barely stand.

  ‘What's wrong with you, man?’ snapped the alchemist.

  They saw him now. Until then he'd been invisible. Invisible in the way that slaves always were. Now the witch was looking at him, horrified as though she hadn't either the first idea what to do nor any inclination to come closer. The black-robe was gentle though. He looked at each of the wounds, murmuring to himself, dismissed the one in the arm, said something about stitches over the one in the shoulder and then shook his head at the last.

  ‘Well,’ grunted Tuuran, ‘I could have told you that.’

  ‘When the knife comes out there will be a great deal of blood. You may die or you may not. Pray to your gods, slave, if you think that will help.’

  ‘I don't have any,’ Tuuran spat.

  Black-robe nodded. He seemed to approve, not that that helped either. He looked at the witch. ‘What would you have me do?’

  The witch flustered. ‘Can he walk?’ She froze, mouth open, looking back and forth as though an answer would come up to her through the night and shake her hand. The alchemist fiddled at his pouch. He drew out a dried leaf and stepped up to Tuuran, pushed black-robe gently away and eased his leaf a little way into the chest wound, beside the blade. Tuuran growled and gritted his teeth. It stung like fire.

  The alchemist looked him in the eye. ‘I'm sorry, my friend. This will hurt. But better than dying, I imagine.’

  ‘What are you-’

  ‘Scream. I'm told it helps.’ Bellepheros whipped out the knife from Tuuran's chest and pushed the leaf deep in its place.

  He screamed. It was like breathing liquid fire.

  29

  Knowledge

  Loud enough to break mountains, the screams of an Adamantine Man. They learned it, practised it, honed it. A roar to crumble the spirits of lesser men, a howl to send pain and fear to another place so that they could go on, no matter what the damage, and do what must be done. But this pain the alchemist had given him was something else. Stronger even than him. Tuuran fell to the road. For an instant he thought he must be dead but to his surprise he was still breathing.

  ‘What in the name of the Righteous Ones did you do to him?’ The white witch.

  ‘Saved his life, that's what,’ said Bellepheros sharply. ‘Your man will have to carry him somewhere he can be cared for.’

  The witch spluttered. ‘The Watcher? You're talking about an Elemental Man! If the Elemental Men say the sea lords must jump, they will jump. You're so keen to learn our ways, learn that one!’

  Bellepheros snorted like a horse. ‘From what I've seen, they're hired hands like any other.’ He cocked his head at the Watcher. ‘Is that not so?’

  ‘The arrangement with Quai'Shu is. . unusual.’ The Watcher shrugged. Lying on the road, twisting in pain, Tuuran watched the two squaring up. It would have been funny if he wasn't in such blistering agony. He paused to refill his lungs and screamed again. The Witch stepped between them.

  ‘Whatever it is, he is not my man!’ She looked at Tuuran. He
couldn't read her face in the gloom, couldn't tell whether he was seeing pity and compassion or whether she just wanted to leave him to die in the street and get away.

  The alchemist shrugged. ‘Well I can't lift him and neither can you, and your other men appear to be dead. Should we just stand here and shout for help then?’ Tuuran watched, blurry-eyed, as the alchemist peered over his nose at the black-robe. ‘And I have met your kind before, you know. It was one of you who took me. He had all sorts of strange questions that, under the circumstances, I was less than inclined to answer. Do you have questions? If you do, and I answer them, will you carry this man for me?’

  Tuuran tried to move. An Adamantine Man was not carried! If an Adamantine Man couldn't walk it was because he had no legs. But the pain ran through his chest like flames, like a dragon that had him pinned to the earth. He managed to curl his fingers. Great Flame, alchemist, what have you done to me?

  The witch looked at the Elemental Man. ‘I am sorry,’ she said, but by then the Watcher had Tuuran and was hoisting him over his shoulders. Tuuran heard him grunt at the effort of it. Yes, I'm heavy! So put me down! I can walk!

  ‘The blades were meant for your alchemist.’ The Elemental Man staggered under Tuuran's weight. ‘I was not quick enough and I would not have stopped them. Your friend owes you his life, sail-slave, but you have saved me a humiliation. I am in your debt, and those are rare words from my kind.’