by Stephen Deas
'No. Q-Queen Aliphera was t-too wise not to see through you, Prince V-Viper. I want to k-know why you had her k-killed. And how.'
'I didn't.'
The torturers reached for him again. This time they didn't stop for a long time. Jehal gritted his teeth, but in the end he screamed and sobbed like everyone else. There was only one thing he could cling on to: I didn't have her killed.
Eventually it stopped. Jehal slumped, exhausted. Hyram looked him up and down.
'C-Can you still hear me, Viper?'
Jehal made no response. Best to pretend he'd passed out. Then Hyram slapped him.
'Don't p-play coy with me, boy. My man knows h-his work. I know you can h-hear me. Would you like a r-rest, Jehal?' Hyram dragged the brazier closer. His hands were shaking.
'You should get some help with that, old man,' breathed Jehal. 'Before you hurt yourself.'
'M-Master Bellepheros gave everyone in y-your eyrie the truth-smoke.'
'Master Bellepheros stood up in front of my father's court, in front of King Silvallan, Queen Shezira, King-'
'Yes, yes. He found n-nothing. Q-Queen Shezira found nothing. She even s-sent her daughter to ask you while y-you were reeling with M-Maiden's Regret and f-found nothing.'
Ah. So that's what that was about. 'Because there is nothing to find, old man.'
Hyram finished moving the brazier closer to Jehal and sprinkled dust over the coals. Wisps of white smoke coiled up into the air. 'I will show them h-how it is done. Master Bellepheros could not bring his s-smoke to you. N-Not allowed. But I can. Breathe deep, Prince V-Viper. The torture was only a b-bit of fun for me. Now you'll c-confess it all and be hanged. I w-win.' Hyram began to totter away.
'This is a war you're starting, Speaker. Everyone will turn on you. Everyone!'
'N-No they won't.' Hyram almost seemed to smile, but the twitching muscles in his face twisted it into a sneer. 'Even if I'm wrong. N-No one cares, Jehal. Why b-bother? In a few months I'll b-be gone anyway, one way o-or another.'
'If that's truth-smoke, old man, then ask me about the potion I brought with me. The one that eases my father's pain. The one that might cure your symptoms. Ask me about that, you old cripple, and then ask me what it would take from you to ever, ever get your hands on any of it. Ask what you'd have to give me. You're sick. You're dying, and it's the slowest, most degrading death you can imagine. I will relish every day of watching you ebb away. Ask me, Hyram!'
Hyram seemed to chuckle. 'W What makes you think I would have to g-give you anything at all?' He walked away and Jehal was left alone. The smoke risking from the brazier grew thicker and thicker. He could smell a sweet aroma with a strange sickly perfume. Truth-smoke.
Now what? Truth-smoke wasn't perfect. The alchemists liked to pretend that it was, but a clever and determined man could still fool an inept interrogator. Or do the alchemists spread that rumour too, so that we always pay them to do our truth-seeking instead of doing it ourselves? Never mind. I'm clever. I'm determined. Is Hyram inept? No. He's clever too. But what if… I have to make him stupid. How? Can I do that? We'll have to see.
The smoke was getting to him. His head was light and he was starting to lose track of where he was. I didn't have Aliphera killed. She fell off her dragon. It was an accident. I wasn't there. I was sick in bed. He stopped. He couldn't remember what he was thinking about. There was someone else in the room. He couldn't move and he wasn't sure why. And he was hurt. He couldn't remember how that had happened either.
'You were m-mumbling to yourself,' said the voice. Jehal forced his eyes to focus properly. Ah yes. Hyram.
'You're old.' He giggled.
'They say that the w-words a man mumbles to himself as the s-smoke takes him are the lies he wants to tell. What do you think about that?'
Jehal grinned. 'I think that sounds very clever.' A very distant part of him, he realised, did know where he was and what was happening to him. It was as though that part had been locked away in a faraway place. It was jumping up and down and shouting at him, trying to tell him things, but he couldn't hear it.
'So. L-Let's start with what you said. You didn't have Aliphera killed. I-Is that true?'
'I didn't have her killed.' Jehal yawned. 'I was there. Why can't I move my hands?' The faraway part of him was shouting and screaming something. If he tried, he could almost make it out.
'Because they're t-tied to a wheel. You were there? What do you mean you were th-there?'
'I was with her.' He stared at Hyram. 'On the back of her dragon with her when she fell off. I wasn't ill that day. Your alchemist was so close to the truth of it. She did hide something when she flew out of Clifftop, and Prince Meteroa too, when he came back. Me. We went to such trouble, she and I, so that no one would ever know I was with her. Weeks of careful thought. And now here you are with your silly smoke and now you know.'
'You were w-with her?'
'Why, Speaker Hyram, you don't look well at all. I was in her saddle pack. I'd been seducing her for months. Little glances, little touches. She wanted me, old man. Oh, she ached for me. I just had to look at her and she got wet. So she smuggled me onto her dragon so that no one would know, so we could fly away and just fuck all day.' He leered at Hyram.
'No!'
'Yes, old king.'
'I a-asked you if you were 1-lovers. You said n-no!'
'You were torturing me. I lied so you'd stop. You didn't want to hear it, but you should have believed Queen Zafir. Devious little bitch that she is.'
Hyram's shaking was getting worse. He was clenching and unclenching his fists, pacing up and down in front of the brazier. The faraway voice in Jehal's head was still shouting things. Something about Hyram. Jehal frowned.
'Does it bother you, old man?' he asked. 'Does it trouble you?' He twisted his head from side to side, trying to hear what the voice was saying. Goad him? Make him angry? He looked at Hyram again. 'Does this make you angry?'
Hyram hit him. 'Yes. D-Did you kill her?'
Good. There was blood in Jehal's mouth. 'The ground did that. When she fell. Do you want to know why she fell? You do, don't you. Do you want to know why she wasn't strapped into her riding harness? Can't you see it for yourself? Do you want to know whether her body was naked when they finally found her?'
Hyram hit him again.
'Did she fall or did I push her? Is that what you want to know? Or do you want to know whether it was before or after I'd had her?'
This time Hyram hit him in the stomach. 'Shut up!'
'Maybe you'd like to know how many times I took her?'
'Shut up!'
Jehal coughed. 'No. You wanted to know the truth, old king, and so that's what you're going to get. I was her lover. I was with her when she died. I wanted to have her on the back of her dragon. Have you ever fucked on the back of a dragon in flight, old man? It's a thrill, but it's stupid. People fall.' He cocked his head. Keep talking. 'Do you want to know what she was like, Aliphera? Do you want to know how she moaned when she came? Do you want to know what she liked best of all? Do you want to know that she liked it from behind? Do you want to know what she would whisper when I slipped my fingers inside her? Is that what all this is for? Because you can never have her for yourself and you want to know what it was like? Ask away, old man. I can tell you everything?
That was as far as he got. Hyram, rigid with rage, let out a roar. He swore and screamed at Jehal, hitting him again and again. When it stopped, Jehal had a vague idea that it was because some men in veils had finally dragged the speaker away. Throughout it all Jehal grinned.
I win.
34
Kemir
He was lying on his back. He was soaking wet and freezing. Ice-cold water rushed around him. The tumble of stones that littered the river bed pressed into his back. He had a death grip on a man he vaguely knew, a knife held at the man's throat, and an enraged dragon glaring down at him. It already had Sollos, crushing him in its tail. Kemir's mind froze. He couldn't think. He was going to die.
He could feel the Scales' skin, soft underneath, hard and brittle as glass where it was flaking away. Will a knife even cut him? 'I know where they are!' he shouted, if only to make the noise in his head go away. 'I know how to find them.'
The rage in the dragon's eyes faded to a simmering anger. It peered at him and snarled, and then it threw Sollos up into the air and caught him with its tail again, holding him head down just inches above Kemir's face.
Tell me!
'Don't tell it!' croaked Sollos, and then he screamed as the tail tightened around him.
Kemir squeezed his arm into the Scales' throat. 'If I tell you and let this one go, you'll burn me.'
Mountains. I see mountains in your mind. They are close. Tell me or I will burn you both.
'There are mountains all around you, dragon. Burn me and you'll never know which one.' Above him, Sollos screwed up his face in agony as the dragon flexed its tail again. Then the monster looked up. Abruptly, it let go of Sollos, turned and ran down the river. A few seconds later, it was rising into the air. Kemir could see two dark dots moving against the clouds high above. Reluctantly, he let go of the Scales and ran to Sollos.
'Are you all right?'
Sollos sat up. Blood covered his face from a shallow gash in his scalp and he held his left hand gingerly. 'Nothing that won't get better.'
'Do your legs work?' Kemir glanced over his shoulder. The Scales was standing up, looking into the sky, dazed and lost. Sollos got up.
'Well enough.'
'That's good. I'll grab him. Let's get running.'
'Wait! The riders.'
Kemir grimaced. 'What about them? They're all dead.'
'No, they're not.' Sollos pointed. In the middle of the river an armoured figure was staggering to his feet. Kemir grinned. Rider Semian. What luck!
'Well that can soon be corrected.' He raised his voice. 'Hey! Rider Rod! Over here.'
'Wait.'
'I'll make it quick. We'll get out of here before his friends come back.'
'Wait!'
Kemir growled. 'What?' Rider Semian was stumbling through the water and the stones towards them.
'Who was telling the white dragon what to do?'
'I don't think anyone was telling it what to do.'
'But that's not right.'
Kemir shrugged. 'Maybe, maybe not. I know shit about dragons, except what they do when they have riders on their backs.' He fingered a knife. Semian was getting closer. He looked bewildered, as though he hadn't the first idea what had happened. Easy prey.
'Let me talk to him.' Sollos picked his way over the stones towards the dazed dragon-knight. From above, a series of soul-rending shrieks echoed through the valley. Kemir winced.
'Rider! Rider Semian! Are you all right?'
Semian didn't say anything. His face was strangely blank. Kemir felt the hairs on his neck prickle. Danger! He took a step towards them. 'Sollos!'
Semian's mouth was half-open, his eyes vacant and distant, but when he moved, he moved with a sudden speed and purpose. In the blink of an eye he had drawn his sword and run Sollos through. Sollos gave a little grunt and doubled up. As Semian pulled free his sword, Sollos crumpled and fell into the water. Kemir found he couldn't move.
'Sollos!'
Semian lifted his sword and thrust down, burying the point in the exposed skin at the back of Sollos's neck.
'Sollos!'
Semian turned to look at Kemir. The vacant stare had gone.
'You bastard!' Kemir hesitated. Fury and revenge surged through him, demanding retribution, immediate and bloody. Yet Semian was armoured. He was a knight. And he'd been so unexpectedly quick.
I'm afraid of him. The realisation was horrifying, almost as bad as seeing Sollos die. If I fight him, he might actually win. I'm afraid of him. And he's not afraid of me.
Semian came slowly towards him. There could be no doubting his purpose now. He knew exactly where he was and exactly what he was doing.
'You and me, sell-sword. That's what you wanted.'
'He never drew his sword. He was trying to help you. You're filth. You and your kind.'
'It's clear.' Semian's eyes were wild. 'You were a part of this all along. Both of you. You made a fool of me, but I will redeem myself with this.' He waved his sword in the air. 'Now I have the vile stain of a traitor on my blade, I can barely bring myself to hold it in my hand. Quick now, man, before 1 can stand the stink no more. Let us be done. Kill me if you can, or add your blood to his.'
Kemir took a step away, keeping his distance. 'Killing you here and now, that would be too quick. I want to watch you die slowly.'
'Are you too great a coward to fight me, sell-sword?'
The rage surged again, but the fear kept it in check. 'One day there'll be a shadow in an alley, and I'll be in that shadow with my bow, waiting for you. You'll never know. You'll never see it coming.' Kemir scuttled away through the rushing water and the rocks, putting more distance between them. Semian would never catch him dressed in so much dragonscale, and he didn't try. The knight simply stood and watched him retreat.
'Coward.'
'You'll never know!' Kemir turned and ran. When he'd crossed the river and reached the trees, he looked back again. Semian was still standing there, stock still, out in the open. A perfect target. Kemir took his bow from his shoulder and started to string it. Seventy, eighty yards. A man in armour. If he's stupid enough to stay still, I'll probably hit him. I won't kill him. Then I can finish him slowly. Yes, that would be perfect.
He'd almost forgotten the dragons when there came another shriek, so loud and close that he flinched. A moment later the entire river exploded. Water and stones flew everywhere as two dragons crashed into the river bed, locked together, teeth and claws sunk into each other. One of them was the white. The other was dark brown with flashes of iridescent green on the insides of its legs. It had a rider on its back, but he quickly disappeared as the dragons thrashed and rolled in the water. Then the thrashing stopped and the dragons parted. The white dragon was limping. The darker beast got up, nosed at something in the water and roared. One of its wings was clearly broken, and it seemed to barely notice the white now.
It was still in the way, though. Kemir ran a few dozen yards through the trees, following the river, but Rider Semian had gone.
The Scales was still alive. Somehow. Stumbling blindly though the stones. The white dragon picked him up in one claw, turned and ran.
Kemir watched them go. Inside him something broke.
35
The Dragon-Queen
Hyram went out to watch Zafir's dragons fly in to the Adamantine Eyrie, but his mind was still on Jehal. After the debacle of the truth-smoke, he'd been left with three choices. The most appealing was simply to have Jehal killed while he had the chance, but that would have been war, and above all the point of the speaker was to make sure there was never another dragon-war. Keeping him in the dungeon had some appeal as well but wouldn't achieve anything. When Shezira succeeded him as speaker, she'd let him go however much she thought he was guilty. Better to set him free sooner rather than later and see what he did.
Except that hadn't worked either. Instead of flying south, where Hyram could have kept an eye on him, Jehal had flown west, to Drotan's Top. From there he'd gone north, supposedly to join Queen Shezira's interminable and futile hunt for her missing dragon. Shezira knew all of her riders far too well for Hyram to have a spy among them, and so now the Viper was at large. He'd show up sooner or later, but Hyram would have felt a lot more comfortable knowing what Jehal was up to. He wants to be speaker. He knows I'd die rather than betray Shezira for someone lie him, so perhaps
he's thinking of who comes next. Who will she name in her turn? Does he think that marrying Princess Lystra will make it him? She'll name Valgar surely? If he's still alive.
Queen Zafir's dragons landed one after the other. A twitch started in Hyram's cheek and wouldn't go away. Valgar's getting old. In ten years he'll be as old as I am now, and Jehal the perfect age. Maybe that's what he has in mind.
After everything he'd learned in the last few days, he wasn't sure how he should approach Queen Zafir. She'd told him that Aliphera and Jehal had been lovers and she'd been right. She'd told him that she didn't think Jehal had murdered her mother, and she might have been right about that too. He wasn't even sure he cared any more. Aliphera had soiled herself with the Viper, she of all people. She deserved to die. If her death was an accident, Hyram's only regret was that she hadn't pulled Jehal down with her. I should put her out of my mind. Even if Jehal didn't fell her, he's still murdering his own father. He could hang for that. Best that I forget her forever.
Except there she was, standing in front of him, exactly as he remembered her from twenty years ago, glorious, radiant, beautiful beyond compare. He felt a fool and ashamed of himself. Old and crippled. How could he stand before her?
'Your H-Holiness.' He bowed. It's not her. She's gone, remember. It's her daughter. But she looks so much like her. I'd never really seen it before, but she does.
Queen Zafir bowed and kissed his ring. 'Speaker. You flatter me.'
He looked at her. He couldn't stop looking at her. She was Aliphera at her best, her hair piled up on the top of her head to show off the curves of her neck, the same deep red riding clothes, the same carved amber dragon hanging at her throat, the same russet folds of furs to keep her warm against the wind. Everything about her glowed.
'Y-You're wearing your m-mother's furs.'
Zafir bowed her head. 'Since she died I've taken to always wearing something that was hers. To honour her memory. I hope you're not offended.'
'C-Come.' Hyram offered her his arm, which she took with a smile. 'I-I have to apologise to you, Queen Z-Zafir. I once 1-loved your mother very much. I should n-not have said what I did after you were crowned.'