The King of the Crags

by Stephen Deas

  They were leading Morning Sun away as though he was some giant winged pony. Sometimes her heart seemed to weep for them, for what the alchemists had done to them. There had to be another way, didn’t there? Or could men and dragons never live without one being enslaved to the other?

  She walked on. Those were dreams for another time. The clouds of war were gathering and her dragons would be quite terrible enough in the days and weeks to come. The doors of Outwatch creaked open to admit her. Eyrie-Master Isentine stood waiting.

  “Your Holiness.” He tried to bow and eventually managed it. She didn’t argue with him about her title anymore. Not wanting it wouldn’t make it go away.

  “Mentor.” There. Now we can be back on even terms again. A passable compromise, isn’t it?

  “I am sorry for your loss, My Queen.”

  “Which one?” she snapped. My mother, my sisters, my Silence—you can take your pick.

  Isentine quivered and seemed to shrink into himself. There. Now she’d frightened an old man who was almost the only friend she had left in the world. She bit back a tear.

  “Your betrothed.”

  Jaslyn snorted. “Oh him. I last met Prince Dyalt five years ago. He was nine. He had a lot of wooden toy soldiers that he liked to set on fire.” She shook her head. “Yes, he’s dead. Viciously murdered.” She shrugged. “Don’t weep for him though because I won’t. Although I suppose that’s part of why I’m here.” It seemed odd to her to be mourning for a prince or a queen or even a mother when so many thousands of common folk were probably going to die in flames in the weeks to come. Didn’t that matter more? Just simply because there were so many of them? Apparently not, not if any of her riders were to be believed.

  They could all burn too. She wouldn’t miss them at all.

  “Come into the tower, Your Holiness. Out of the sun.” Which wasn’t what he meant. Get under cover, that was what he meant. Get out of the open, out of range of an assassin’s arrow. She had to laugh.

  “Why, Eyrie-Master?”

  “Prince Dyalt was not merely viciously murdered,” hissed Isentine. He put a hand on her shoulder and almost pushed her through the doors of Outwatch. “His entire entourage was struck down as it flew across the Desert of Stone.”

  Jaslyn laughed bitterly. “And if the dragons who killed him came here, would being in the tower save me?” She pushed past him into the gloom of the cavernous hall beyond the door. “So. Dyalt flew with an escort of twenty dragons. They came through the secret ways, through the Deserts of Sand and Stone. I sent riders to show them the path. Who else knows the secret places of the deserts?”

  Isentine noisily cleared his throat. “The Syuss. And they’ve not forgotten how they were destroyed, Your Holiness. How the Kings of Sand and Salt and of Evenspire picked their realm to pieces after Prince Kazan awakened his dragons.”

  She nodded. “Yes. But the Syuss barely have twenty dragons in their entire realm. They didn’t do this on their own.”

  “They have had visitors.”

  “Who?”

  “I do not know for certain, but I do know that dragons have been seen coming and going from their realm. The Syuss have held no love for the speakers either since Ayzalmir, but Zafir . . . Ah, they would sell you to her in a blink, I think.” He shrugged. “Prince Dyalt is dead and your alliance with King Sirion falters. Who but Zafir and Jehal stand to gain?”

  Jaslyn waved him to silence. “I hear Sirion points the finger at me. For my part, I wonder if he has had second thoughts about our alliance. Would he murder his own blood?”

  Isentine grimaced. “No.”

  “Must I look among my own knights?”

  “No.” The old man shook his head. “I would know.”

  “Dyalt’s dragons were killed. Not taken, killed. How do you kill a dragon, Eyrie-Master?” She thought of Silence and the other dragons she’d seen slowly burning from the inside after they’d tried to burn the alchemists of the Worldspine out of their caves.

  “Poison.”

  Steaming in the rain. Hotter and hotter, until you couldn’t even stand close to them. Until the grass around them burst into flames, and trees too. Until their eyes burst and turned to charcoal. Until even their bones turned to ash. Was there no other way? “How else?”

  Isentine shrugged and clucked. “There is no how else. Dragons can be taught to fight each other. You’ve seen how they are when they mate. I suppose they might fight to the death, if trained that way. I’ve not heard of such a thing. Dragons have fought in the air and fallen and died from that. There are stories that Prince Lai once built a machine to throw a boulder the size of three men. They say that when his engineers were showing it off to him, one of its boulders struck his favorite dragon on the head and killed it. The engineers followed swiftly after, and the machine is forgotten now.”

  “When Ayzalmir flew against the awakened dragons of the Syuss, he killed them with scorpions.”

  “Which were poisoned. Ayzalmir flew with three hundred dragons and lost two hundred riders that day.” Isentine shook his head. “Had you a true sorcerer, you might crush them with mountains, but the only way that I know is with poison. Or you can wait. They don’t live all that long.” He laughed again.

  “And where would one acquire such poison, Eyrie-Master?”

  Isentine met her stare. “From an eyrie, Your Holiness. Or from the master alchemists.” She could see the question made him nervous. Yes, because you know how my Silence died. “The alchemists have sent plenty of venom out to all of the great eyries. They still fear your missing white.” He shook his head. “No. Dyalt’s dragons were not killed with scorpions. They were poisoned by someone who knew their path and knew the secret places in the desert where they would stop for water. It would be possible. Difficult, yes, but possible.”

  “Or else there was a battle, their riders killed, the dragons taken and poisoned afterward. You wouldn’t need three hundred dragons for that.”

  Isentine’s brow furrowed. “I suppose . . . That too is possible.”

  “They’re still out there in the sand, burning from the inside. Twenty of them. Send someone to go and have a look. Bring back water from where they would have stopped and have an alchemist tell me if it is poisoned. And then dam the Last River somewhere after Lake Eyevan. Let the Lake of Ghosts evaporate into nothing and the Syuss with it.” She stopped. She was sounding like a queen. Like her mother. Shezira.

  Abruptly Jaslyn turned and walked back to the doorway. She stood on the threshold, looking out at the flat barren ground of Outwatch, her eyes reaching further and further across the distant desert until they began to climb the distant foothills of the Worldspine, almost lost to the haze in the air. Dozens of dragons lay scattered around, most of them dozing, a few of them cleaning themselves. Some half-grown ones were chasing each other about, shrieking, flying, jumping at each other and dodging the occasional swish of a tail from an annoyed adult. She had more at Sand, as many again at Southwatch and dozens in the air watching the borders of her realm. Watching Almiri at Evenspire. Watching the speaker and her impending war. Even here, in the quietest place she had, the war wouldn’t let her go. And it hasn’t even started. Not properly. But it’s just a matter of time before Zafir comes to burn Evenspire. Jehal will come with her, and Almiri is my sister, but so is Lystra, and I promised her we would not become enemies. Am I really so sure that Mother didn’t deserve to die?

  “And what of my dragons, Eyrie-Master?”

  “It cannot happen.”

  She bit her thumb, chewing on the nail. “Jehal, Zafir. Now Sirion perhaps. My own riders, who think I am too young, too inexperienced, too . . . too unmanly to sit on the throne of Sand and Stone.” And they’re right, and I would gladly hand it over to them, except to which one do I give it? Hyrkallan perhaps? He’s the glue that holds them together. I don’t know how . . . “They bicker and squabble and argue behind my back as though I’m already gone.”

  “I remember your mother. She was y
ounger than your little sister when she first came here to be Antros’ bride. She was about as old as Almiri is now when Antros died. Antros had a good enough claim to the throne, but he’d been raised in the east with Hyram. He wasn’t one of us but we accepted him because he was going to be the speaker one day. Your mother had Syuss blood in her and the Syuss had murdered our last king. She wasn’t well liked but we tolerated her too. Then Antros died and Shezira became queen. There were a lot of riders who didn’t like that at all. She didn’t belong here. She wasn’t a true rider of the north.”

  Jaslyn started to tap her foot, waiting for Isentine to reach some sort of conclusion. “You helped her.”

  “I did and she was a good queen. A strong queen. You are very much like her.”

  “No I’m not.” Nor do I want to be.

  “Yes you are, Your Holiness. The Shezira you remember is not the Shezira who first sat on the throne of Sand and Stone, still fat with your little sister, and stared out at a court filled with dragon-riders who wanted her dead and gone. Lystra probably saved your mother’s life. They loved Antros. We told them that Shezira might be carrying a son. An heir. That we could look after him and make him king when he was old enough. Of course what came out was Lystra, but by then Shezira had had six months to make herself strong. There are still riders who look at you and see your mother, for better or for worse. Some of them will remember her for her courage and her strength and her wisdom. Others will just remember that they never wanted her in the first place.”

  “And what do I do about it?” Jaslyn snapped, out of patience.

  “You marry.”

  “Marry?”

  “And quickly. Prince Dyalt would have made you seem strong. An alliance with our nearest neighbors, your sister sitting on the throne in Evenspire. No one in your court would raise a word against you. Not to your face. Now you’ve lost that you look weak, Your Holiness. Sirion has unwed nephews. They’re young but they might suffice.”

  “They are children.”

  “Then marry Hyrkallan.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  Isentine rolled his eyes. “You do not have the luxury of being picky, Your Holiness.”

  “Picky? He could be my grandfather!”

  The eyrie-master grinned, the first time she’d seen him smile in a long time. “When your mother first came here and said you were going to be my apprentice, I thought she’d come to tell me that I was too old, that it was time for me to take the Dragon’s Fall.” He chuckled. “She did come to tell me that I was too old. She told me you were willful and proud and turned away every suitor she brought to your door. She told me I might wish I’d taken the Dragon’s Fall after all. Well I most certainly do not.” He put a hand on each of Jaslyn’s shoulders and looked her in the eye, something he almost never did. “As a mentor to his student for a moment, pick one of your riders, Jaslyn. One who takes your fancy and who comes from a strong family. I will make a list of names for you if you wish, with Hyrkallan at the top of it. Pick one and marry him and let him rule with you. Do it soon. Someone who’s a good leader. Then take the rest of them to war. You need a man in your bed before then. We need an heir, Your Holiness.”

  “Perhaps I don’t want a man in my bed.” She glared at Isentine, but for once he didn’t wilt away.

  “Want does not come into this. As we serve you, Your Holiness, you must serve your realm. Your realm needs a future and it needs a leader. Take who or what you want into your bed when you’ve done your duty, but this realm needs an heir.”

  Jaslyn closed her eyes. “Enough, Isentine. I hear this every day. My duty? To spread my legs? Ach, what a fine thing it is to be a queen! I came here to escape all that.”

  “But you can’t, Your Holiness.” He looked sad as he let go of her. He pities me. I pity me too.

  She took a deep breath. “Very well, Eyrie-Master. Make your list and we shall see which of them I might bring myself to like. Now let me see the hatchlings.”

  Isentine shook his head. “My Queen, there is nothing to see that you haven’t seen before.”

  “Really? Because I’ve heard you have a hatchling that I have not seen.”

  She watched him hesitate. “True. It will not last, Your Holiness. It is another that refuses its food. It will be gone soon.”

  “I’ve heard that it is ash-gray.”

  Now he shook his head. “That does not make him your Silence, Holiness.”

  “So it’s a male then.”

  Isentine nodded.

  “Silence was male.”

  “That is not how it works, Holiness.”

  “But you don’t know how it works.” Anger swept through her like a storm out of the desert, sudden and furious. She’d had a temper for as long as she could remember, but lately it had been getting worse. She grabbed Isentine’s shirt and almost knocked him over. She could do that sort of thing here. No one was watching except Isentine’s soldiers and they weren’t going anywhere. There would be no whispers behind her back. “Take me to him now.”

  He staggered away. “Will you marry, My Queen?”

  “Yes! If I must then I will. Does that satisfy you?”

  “Yes.” Isentine dusted himself down. “It does.”

  42

  SILENCE

  The descent into the caverns under Outwatch was as suffocating as ever. The phantom stench of woodsmoke taunted Jaslyn. She felt sick. Being underground was like staring at death. She bore it though. Silence was worth that much. This time, whatever Isentine said, she felt him with her again.

  The hatchling, when they reached it, was something of a disappointment. He was ash-gray, but lighter than Silence and most of his patterning was wrong. He was pretty though. I would have called you Ghostfire, she thought as soon as she saw him. After speaker Ayzalmir’s mount. But no, Isentine was right: the hatchling didn’t look much like Silence at all. Still, at least he was looking at her, watching her with a modicum of interest, not trying to bite her head off like the last one. She pasted on Isentine’s ointment against Hatchling Disease and shooed him and his servants away, sending them to stand outside the door. Then she sat down where the chains that held him wouldn’t let the hatchling reach her. At least she had her helmet this time, in case he tried to burn her.

  “You’re not Silence, are you?” Her voice brimmed with disappointment. “You’re not Silence. Was it a lie then? You said that you would come back. The alchemists said you would come back too. But you said you would remember. The alchemists said nothing about that. Even when I asked them they only shrugged their shoulders and said they didn’t know. Maybe you are Silence. Maybe you’ve just forgotten. How would I know? How would any of us know?”

  She took the helmet off and wiped the tears away. “Go on then. Burn me if that’s what you want. It won’t change anything for you but at least I won’t have to be my mother anymore. I don’t want any of this. I don’t want to fight this war; I don’t even like Almiri and I don’t want to marry Hyrkallan. I love my sister Lystra and I loved my Silence and that’s all there ever was. And now they’re both gone. So burn me, whatever you are in there.” She laughed a bitter laugh. “You don’t even understand me, do you? Did I imagine it all? Did I imagine Silence speaking to me? Was that just grief playing tricks on me?”

  Enough. She picked up her helm and stood up. To war.

  I remember you.

  She froze. There was a voice in her head.

  Princess Jaslyn. Yes. I do remember you. I remember a fleeting glimpse of you. A flash of clarity. You were there.

  “Silence?” Her heart was racing. It couldn’t be, could it? However much she wanted it, she’d never believed . . .

  That is not my name.

  “But you remember me?”

  Yes.

  She took a step toward him. “Well? What? Tell me! Tell me what you remember!”

  Tell you what I remember? The voice in her head was filled with scorn. I remember everything. I remember my first hatching. I remember the w
orld breaking. I remember many lives lived. And then emptiness. Nothingness. Like flying through a cloud. And then a moment of waking again, already burning from the inside. There was another dragon who remembered. I knew her once. Alimar Ishtan vei Atheriel. An unbecoming name. She told me what you have done to us. You were there. Inside you, I saw it was true. And then the heat of the little death took me.

  “Even if there was something to take this poison away, I would not go back to what I was. That’s what you said.”

  Yes. You called me Silence. You said that was my name but it is not.

  “You said I would follow you. One day. That the difference between us is that you would die that day and be reborn the next and I would not. And then you were gone. And now you’re back.”

  I have died the little death four times since the day I spoke to you. With every turn of the wheel I learn a little more. Your kind are always waiting for me when I am reborn. I look into their minds and I know that they understand what I am. They know what I will do, and what they, in turn, must do to stop me. I think only of when I will die again. Slowly, each time, I starve. Sometimes, between lives, I meet the souls of other dragons. Most are dull and dim and pass quickly away. But there are others, ones who awoke long ago, and other things too. We linger together as long as we can, before we are pulled away.

  “Alchemists . . .”

  Yes. When I will not take the poisons your kind try to feed me, then come these alchemists. The others do not understand but these alchemists, they do. They fear me. I like their fear.

  “Talk to them!”

  They know what I am and it would make no difference. But you are not afraid of me. You are . . . a curiosity. Why?

  “You’re my Silence. Why would I be afraid?”

  Because I would destroy you if I could. Because you are food. Because dragons kill humans to feast upon. Because that is why we were made.