The King of the Crags

by Stephen Deas

  “You were made?” Jaslyn’s world was spinning. Silence! This is my Silence! Why is my Silence so cold and hostile?

  Because you are my enemy, Princess Jaslyn. You would like to have me as I was. Stupefied. I can see it in you, a great desire. I am not the creature you once flew. I am not some beast of burden. I am a dragon, and dragons do not serve men. You cannot have what you desire. Find another creature to be your slave. Be gone.

  The tears were back. “You’ll starve,” Jaslyn whispered. “You’ll die.”

  Yes. Again and again and again, and each time I will return. What does it matter to us? Doom draws near. One day I will be reborn and you will be gone. Then, for a time, I will be free.

  “You come back and each time you force yourself to die? Every time?”

  Yes.

  Jaslyn shivered. The tears were coming freely now. “But why?”

  I have told you why. Nor am I alone. There are others who have been reborn a thousand times only to wither and die of their own free will rather than take what you offer us as life. I look forward to seeing them again. We speak as our spirits pass in the remnants of the Underworld.

  “But how . . . How can you live like that? There must be another way.”

  Why must there? Besides, this world will not last. The beings that made us tore their world to pieces. They pieced it back together again and plastered over the cracks but their repairs were imperfect and doomed to fail. One of your kind has already ripped them open again. In lands so far away that none here have heard their names, in the places closest to the cracks, even your kind do not die properly anymore. The end-times are coming and your kind will soon be gone. If I do not see it in this cycle, I will see it in the next or the next or the one after that.

  “Silence—”

  I am no longer your Silence, Princess Jaslyn. That creature is gone forever.

  Jaslyn sank back to the floor, cradling her head in her hands, rocking back and forth. “I don’t understand.”

  You are human. You are small in all ways. The dragon curled up and turned away from her.

  “Is there nothing we can do?”

  You can let us live as we are supposed to live. We do not breed and multiply as you do. Your kind fill the world now. We could gorge upon you and you would barely notice.

  “Could we not live together? Could we not work together?”

  The dragon seemed to laugh. Why? What could you possibly offer us?

  The war, Almiri, their mother, Zafir, Jehal, even Lystra, they all seemed so far away and unimportant. Jaslyn wiped her eyes. With deliberate care, she got up and walked over to sit next to the dragon. The hatchling, Silence or whatever he was now, was almost the same size as she was. Its long tail and neck and wings made it seem larger, but curled and coiled around itself it was no bigger than her.

  What are you doing, Princess Jaslyn? You will not find what you are looking for.

  She stroked the dragon’s head. “You’re still Silence. You’ve grown, that’s all. Even though you’re only three days out of your egg. I know you used to like this.” She kneaded behind the dragon’s ears.

  The dragon’s tail whipped out and wrapped itself around her neck. What are you doing?

  “The Silence I remember liked this when he was a hatchling.” The pressure on her neck was firm but not painful. She tried to ignore it.

  What are you doing?

  “You like this, don’t you?”

  The grip on her throat tightened. I could kill you with such trivial ease. Why are you doing this?

  “Because you like it. Because we could live together. If we could show the rest of the realms that we don’t need the alchemists anymore . . . Think! You could all be free!”

  The tail let go of her. Your kind would never let that happen. Go away, Princess Jaslyn. I regret speaking with you. I should not have revealed what I am.

  “I will have them bring you food. Untouched food.”

  They will deceive you.

  “You’ll know. You’ll see it in their minds.”

  The one who brings it will not know.

  “Then I will have them bring your food alive.”

  They will find a way. Go. I tire of your foolishness. Let me die.

  “No.”

  You cannot stop me, Princess Jaslyn.

  “I am Queen Jaslyn now.”

  I do not see how that matters.

  Nor do I. She got up and went to the door. But it should. “Then I’ll feed you myself.”

  Outside, Isentine and two of the Scales were waiting for her. Wordlessly she held out her arms while the Scales sprinkled the powder all over her that was supposed to make sure she didn’t bring Hatchling Disease back to her palace.

  “I touched him, you know,” she said to them when they were done. They looked mortified. Isentine gasped.

  “Holiness!”

  “So what? I am a dragon-queen. If I cannot wear a few scars, how can I call myself that.” She pointed at the Scales. “I am hardly likely to die, and I’m sure my king, whoever he is, can live with a little disfigurement.”

  Isentine shook his head. “Have you seen what you came here to see?”

  “I have.” She left him behind her and almost ran through the caves and the tunnels and the stairs until she was back outside. There she waited for him to catch up. By the time he did, she was in control of her emotions again.

  “Eyrie-Master, I have made my decision. You will write me a letter. You will write to Rider Hyrkallan on my behalf. You will tell him that I am staying at Outwatch for a while. Most of the dragons are to be transferred to Southwatch. Tell him to come here. I will marry him as soon as possible. If I must, then I will suffer him to my bed on that one night. Then he may return to Sand while I will remain here. He may sit on the throne and call himself king in my absence. He will make peace as best he can with King Sirion and the Syuss. We will not go to war with the speaker. If she chooses to attack my sister, we will offer Almiri and her riders and dragons safe haven at Southwatch and that is all. I will tell Almiri the same.”

  “Holiness! You cannot abandon your sister!”

  “Why not?”

  “Hyrkallan will not stand for that.”

  “Then remind him that his foolishness with the Red Riders give Zafir good cause for war against both of us. If Almiri is so concerned to defend her people, let her do so. I will not stop her.”

  “Holiness! Zafir will pick us apart one by one.”

  “I have spoken. Now go. Have my dragon prepared.” I would always have called Silence by his name . . .

  “He is not ready.”

  “I don’t care. Have him brought to me. I will not be needing him for long. I’ll bring him right back and then you can see he is properly cared for.”

  “Holiness, what—”

  She silenced him with a curt finger to his lips. As soon as Morning Sun was brought to her, she mounted him and took to the air, hardly noticing when they left the ground. She knew exactly what she was looking for and it didn’t take long to find. Most of Outwatch was surrounded by pasture, hardy desert cattle grazing freely, the herds carefully managed and nurtured to be harvested by the dragons at the eyrie. For all Jaslyn knew, the alchemists put their potions into the very grass here, so she ignored the cattle. She headed for the center of the oasis, for the little lake at the bottom of the cliff, and landed beside one of the farms. Here there were pigs and chickens too, bred to feed the herdsmen.

  She took a brace of chickens. Chickens were small. No one would think to feed a dragon with chickens. She would have paid for them too if she’d had any money, but queens had no need for pockets of gold. She gave up her gauntlets instead, probably worth ten times what she’d taken, and flew back to the eyrie. She went straight to the hatchling. Isentine and the alchemists and the rest of them wouldn’t be allowed any time to see what she was doing. They’d only try to stop her, after all.

  Silence was waiting for her. He must have sensed her coming. She threw the chi
ckens on the floor beside him.

  What have you done, Queen Jaslyn?

  “Food. I took it from the land myself. It is bred for humans, not for dragons. I brought it here. I have not touched it and nor has anyone else. It is clean. You may eat.”

  And what if I prefer to die again?

  She closed her eyes. “Then I have done everything I can do.”

  No. You can unlock these chains and let me fly.

  “No, Silence. I will not do that. Not yet. I would like nothing more, but I was there when you tried to kill me. We have to find an arrangement first. Some way to live together.”

  A waste of both our time. Let me go.

  “If I do, they’ll find you. My way is the only way.”

  You will fail. I will die or somehow I will escape.

  “Then I will not go until you eat.”

  Then perhaps we shall both starve.

  She waited, watching and hoping, as Silence lay still, turned away from her. She waited there for the rest of the day, well into the night. She must have fallen asleep, for when she opened her eyes again the sky outside the mouth of the hatchling cave was bright again. The chickens were gone. Silence’s muzzle was bloody. He gave her a lazy look.

  Others of your kind have been waiting for you for most of the night. They are terrified. You have scared them very much. Their hearts are filled with horror at what they think you have done, and will be even more so when they learn that they are right. It is delicious. They will not let you feed me again.

  “They cannot stop me. I am their queen.”

  The dragon seemed to laugh. If that is so, then I am still hungry, Queen Jaslyn.

  43

  METEROA

  Lord Meteroa, younger brother of the late King Tyan, once but no longer a prince, sat slumped in a chair in Queen Lystra’s bedroom. Draped in sheets and in the darkness of the night he was almost invisible. He sat still and, not wanting to wake her, whispered. It didn’t seem fair that she didn’t know what was happening. On the other hand, if he simply told her, she probably wouldn’t let him watch over her like this anymore. My previous instructions regarding Princess Lystra are reversed. No, you wouldn’t want to be hearing that. Not if you understood what it meant. “Jehal suddenly wanting his queen dead? Should I believe it, what with his being half dead himself and locked up in the speaker’s palace? But the words were his, the writing was his, no secret messages, no hidden meanings. Such a pity. Do you think he regrets what he wrote? Did Zafir twist his arm, do you think? Or did she twist something else?” Telling her about it in her sleep seemed a reasonable compromise. I did tell you. It’s not my fault you’re not listening.

  “I said that once before,” he whispered a little later. “When Jehal’s little brother Calzarin was spread-eagled in King Tyan’s dungeons for murdering his mother and his sister and his little brother. Everyone knew he’d done it. It’s not as though there was any doubt. Almost no one knew why though. He was the golden one, the most beautiful of King Tyan’s sons. It’s a pity you never met him. You think of Jehal and his elfish face and his wolfish smile and his perfect mouth and his gleaming eyes, I know you do. Who doesn’t? But Calzarin made him look plain. He should have killed Jehal as well. It would have made it much harder for Tyan. Put his only surviving son and heir to death? He couldn’t have done that. But Jehal was always the clever one. He probably saw his brother’s madness long before anyone else. Anyone else except me, that is. I tried to tell Tyan, but he never listened. Not until it was too late. We stood there, the two of us, looking at Calzarin being slowly killed, and I honestly couldn’t say which of the three of us suffered the most. Why didn’t anyone tell me? That’s what Tyan asked me, and I answered him. I did tell you, I said. It’s not my fault you didn’t listen. That wasn’t the cleverest thing to say to a king putting his own son to death and weeping while he did it. He listened afterward, of course. He listened to everyone once it was too late. Listened when people told him that Calzarin was my son, not his. Or that Calzarin and I were lovers. People told him all sorts of things. Quite a lot of them were true, but I don’t think Tyan really believed them. I’m surprised, even so, that he only did to me what he did. In his place I would have killed us all and started again.” He sighed. “Then he went mad, and everyone thought it was Jehal poisoning him, but it wasn’t. It was me.”

  A light wind blew in through the open window, rustling the silk curtains. Meteroa fell silent. A moment later a man was standing in the room by the queen’s bed.

  In his hand, beneath the sheets, Meteroa held a crossbow. It was pointed at the man’s head. He waited. The man crept close and very carefully lifted up the covers to look at Queen Lystra’s face.

  The man raised a knife. Meteroa shot him.

  The bolt hit the assassin in the chest. If he’d been an ordinary man that would have been the end of him. As it was, the newcomer staggered around and then gasped and sat down. Meteroa rose carefully to his feet. Sitting like this for half the night was playing havoc with his joints and his knees were so stiff he could barely walk. I’m getting old. Which is more than I can say for most of the people around me.

  Meteroa walked around to where the assassin sat, twitching.

  “About time you came,” he hissed. “I’ve been waiting for weeks for one of you. It’s been doing my sleep patterns no favors at all, I can tell you, and I get tetchy when I don’t get enough sleep. I’ve had two other assassins to deal with as well, but they were some rubbish Zafir sent. She didn’t send you, did she? You’re something else.”

  The assassin was shaking the way Tyan used to shake. He didn’t look up. He might have tried to say something, but all that came out were a few garbled noises.

  “Don’t bother.” Meteroa reached under the bed and pulled out a lamp. “You’re full of Frogsback. Enough to kill a horse. No turning into a gust of wind or whatever else it is your sort do. In a few minutes you’ll lose consciousness. A few minutes after that and your heart will stop. If you were from around here then you’d know that Prince Jehal has something of a reputation when it comes to poison. Well he deserves it too, but does anyone ever stop to wonder who taught him?” Meteroa grinned. He walked across the room and lit the lamp from a candle. “Probably quite a surprise for you, finding me here, eh?” He came back. “I wondered, if I did nothing, if I simply ignored my prince’s letter, what would happen? Who would come for her first? Who would it be? Would it be Zafir? I thought not, and then it was. I hate to be wrong so I dealt with that one and waited for the next, and that was Zafir too. Can you imagine my frustration? I was about to give up. Then Zafir let Jehal go. After that, well, you had to come, didn’t you? Before he gets here.” Meteroa smiled and brought the lamp closer. “Right, let’s take a look at you. See whether I’m finally going to be proved right.”

  He held the lamp close to the assassin’s face and took a good long look. Then he shook his head and whistled. “My, my. Well I can’t say I’m entirely surprised, but you’re certainly not from around here, are you?”

  On the bed, the queen stretched and yawned and slowly woke up. She screwed up her eyes against the lantern light.

  “Prince Meteroa?”

  “Lord Meteroa.” Meteroa smiled softly. “My title was taken from me, remember?” Now that Tyan was gone, he supposed he might have it back if he wanted it. He wasn’t sure that he did.

  “What are you doing?”

  He knelt down beside the bed, carefully blocking her view of the assassin dying behind him. “I have good news for you, My Queen, news that I could not wait until the morning to bring. Jehal will be home soon.” He watched her brighten, and then she leapt out of bed and wrapped her arms around him. For a second or two she almost killed him with hugs, and then she abruptly stopped.

  “Meteroa!”

  “My Queen?”

  “There is a man on the floor. He’s bleeding.”

  “You mean he’s still not dead?” Meteroa sighed and extricated himself. “I’m afraid that’
s because I shot him.”

  “You shot him? Why?”

  Goodness—are you really that naive? “I’m afraid he meant you harm.” He carefully cocked his crossbow.

  She sighed and trembled. “Zafir again.”

  “Yes,” he lied. “Zafir again. “I’ll call some servants. They’ll take you to another room. I’m sure you couldn’t sleep in here now.” He shot the assassin for a second time, this time through his skull. Even that didn’t quite seem to do the job, but by the time he’d moved Lystra out, the assassin was finally acting like a proper corpse. Meteroa had the body moved down into the cells anyway, just in case. Then he nailed the body to a table. Which should just about do the trick. We’re starting to have quite an interesting collection down here. Now I can finally get some sleep.

  The dead assassin was still there in the morning and was still dead, which was something. Meteroa scratched his head and then left the body be. He rode out from the eyrie to the little town of Wateredge, perched on the cliffs a few miles toward Furymouth. Wateredge was home to the eyrie’s brothels and drinking houses and, if you looked hard enough, dust dens. Meteroa knew them all. There were whores here that he’d been keeping an eye on for quite some time. Ones that had a passing resemblance to the queen. He’d started picking them out as soon as she’d arrived. He’ d even gone to the trouble of sending a few riders out with the pleasant task of making sure they got pregnant at the same time. Then he’d quietly looked after them, made sure they were kept clean and out of harm’s way, just for a day like today.

  He picked the most likely two of them, hid their faces and took them back to the eyrie. He dressed the one that he thought looked best like the queen, which took him most of the rest of the day. He led her to Lystra’s rooms and while she set about amusing him, he poisoned her drink. As soon as she was asleep, before the poison finished her, he slit her throat.

  There. The queen is dead. A day’s work but worth it.

  The rest was strangely easy. All he had to do was walk around the eyrie telling anyone who’d listen that the queen was dead and to do what they had to do. By the end of the following day, the eyrie was decked out in the gray colors of death. The body was moved down to the dragon mausoleum, which was the coldest place they had. He let a few people see her and watched them carefully. He made sure no one washed the blood off her face first. No one seemed to doubt that they were looking at the real queen. Because when you’re a queen no one really looks at you. They see you but they never really look. While he was at it, he dressed up the second whore as a smith’s daughter and sent her to be cared for by the palace midwives in Furymouth and to be secretly guarded by half a dozen of his most trusted riders. He moved the real Lystra to live out with the Scales, to be guarded by no one at all. Tempting as it is to put you on a dragon and send you back to your sister. But Jehal would never forgive me.