The adamantine palace

by Stephen Deas

  He could see the city too, and the Adamantine Palace, all laid out some half a mile beneath him through the haze of spray from the falls.

  Mine. It's all going to be mine.

  Behind him Wraithwing splashed in the waters of the Diamond River. A shadow passed overhead and moments later another dragon came in to land. The two dragons looked at each other curiously. The newcomer dived into the water and started to drink. Its rider sauntered towards Jehal. She took off her helmet.

  'I was wondering whether you'd come. You have some explaining to do,' said Jehal. He had to speak loudly to be heard over the roar of the waterfall.

  Zafir smiled. She didn't say anything but sat beside him and looked over the edge.

  'You should be careful,' said Jehal. 'You could fall.'

  'We could both fall.'

  'I watched you come up from the eyrie. You didn't bring any riders with you. No one knows where you are. No one knows who you're with.'

  She put a hand on his arm. 'Did you bring any riders, Prince?'

  'Of course not. You never know who might have lined their pockets.'

  'How far did my mother fall?'

  Jehal shrugged. 'We're higher now. You stole my potions. And you've been writing letters to Hyram.'

  She didn't look at him. 'You've been to see your new family. How is Queen Shezira?'

  'Do you feel threatened, my love?'

  'Not at all. Do you?'

  'Not in the least.'

  'I didn't steal your potions. I took them because you told me to.'

  'I told you to take one.'

  'Hyram's got them now.'

  'I know.'

  She looked at him, and the flicker of a smile played at the corner of her lips. 'And I know you know. I saw your little golden dragon sitting on the windowsill, watching us with its beady ruby eyes. How many more of those have you got?'

  'Only that one and the one I gave to you. They were a wedding present from the Taiytakei.'

  Zafir raised an eyebrow. 'It was almost worth marrying your little starling then. And what do they want, the Taiytakei?'

  Jehal shrugged. 'To see me prosper, I suppose.'

  'That doesn't sound like the Taiytakei.'

  'They want what they always want and what they can never have. A hatchling.' For a few seconds Jehal stared out into the void over the city below. Sitting up here with his feet dangling over the empty air, he almost felt he could fly. No dragons, just him. It would be easy, wouldn't it? To let go and soar and be free of it all. No more Hyram, no more Shezira. No more watching his father's glacial crawl towards death. No more constant battling of wits with the Taiytakei and all the others that surrounded him, fawning at his feet for favours while all the while hiding poisoned daggers behind their backs. No more-

  No more Zafir. He turned and looked her squarely in the eye. 'Well?'

  'Well what?'

  'Did Hyram tell you that he tortured me?'

  'No. He said he hadn't been very kingly.' She spat. 'As if that was somehow a change.'

  'Well he's not a king, is he, so I suppose we shouldn't be surprised. He wasn't very good as a torturer either. Maybe I should send him one of mine for next time. In fact he was so inept I had to show him how to make a proper job of it. We're beyond words now, he and I. I think I have to muster my dragons when I go south.' He shook his head. 'I'm at a loss. I didn't think he'd dare anything so bold.' Now he laughed. 'I almost had some respect for him, for a moment, until he let me go. Now if he'd killed me outright and taken the consequences, why I think I might even have given him a round of applause. And then I think of him rutting with you after I left, and I just want to paint the palace with his blood.'

  'Don't!' Zafir shuddered. 'He doesn't deserve even to exist in your thoughts.'

  'Ahh.' He took her hand and kissed it. 'You're very sweet, my lover.'

  Zafir pulled her hand away. 'Don't touch me. I don't want anyone to touch me. I tried to think of you when I let him have me, and now when I think of you, I think of him.' She shivered. 'It's horrible.'

  'Antros was always supposed to have been quite the lover. Hyram didn't share his talents?'

  'He was drunk, selfish, boorish and pathetic. I had to do everything for him. Didn't you see with your little Taiytakei toy?'

  'I saw you writhe and wriggle under him. I heard your squealing too. Quite a show, I thought.'

  'Mercifully quick.' She made a face. 'If you saw it all anyway, don't ask me any more. What's Shezira up to in the Purple Spur? She's making Hyram nervous, and you going there didn't help that at all.'

  Jehal laughed. 'Really? Why now, I would never have thought of that. Yes, a little more distrust between them can never hurt, but I'm afraid Queen Shezira has returned to her eyrie. I had her delight of a daughter to waste my charms on instead.'

  'Almiri?'

  'No, not the nice one; the one that's made of the same flinty stuff as her mother. The one that thinks she's a dragon born human by mistake. Jaslyn. The one who asked me whether I was poisoning my father while the Maiden's Regret had me.' He laughed. 'I shall have to thank Queen Fyon for that. She's a bit sharper than I've given her credit for. No, I had a frosty welcome to say the least. I might have said one or two things out of place. Perhaps she was kind enough to put that down to my exertions of the previous days.' He laughed again. 'They were still trying to find their missing dragon, and now they've lost another one.'

  Zafir raised an eyebrow.

  'Seems they tracked their white down, and it turned on them. Princess Stone did her best to make sure I didn't find anything out, but there's a dragon out there with a broken wing. They've lost an alchemist and I saw a rider in a pretty poor state. Apparently someone put an arrow in his leg, so the white's not flying around aimlessly on its own, that's for sure.' Not the white. His white. 'When I left, they were trying to work out how to put their injured dragon down.' Jehal scratched his chin. 'They had quite a lot of alchemists there, now that I think about it. More than I would have expected. And of course I now know exactly how many dragons she's got out there and have a shrewd idea how many riders too. She didn't like me paying attention to that sort of thing.' He shrugged. 'Still, I'm quite impressed. They're up to something, and I still haven't got the first idea what it is.'

  Queen Zafir shook her head and looked away. 'Prince Jehal, that won't do at all. They may make Hyram nervous, but they bother me too – so many dragons so close by.' She stopped and peered down at the city. From the Adamantine Eyrie the tiny distant shape of a dragon was rising into the air. 'You're going to have to go.' She stood up.

  'Pity. I'd been hoping to have you for rather longer.'

  'I'm sure you had.' Zafir whistled. Her dragon looked up from where it was splashing in the river with Wraithwing. 'But we can't risk anyone seeing us together now. You need to be gone before that dragon gets high enough to see Wraithwing and Emerald Mirror together.'

  Reluctantly, Jehal got to his feet. He was going to have to explain to Wraithwing that he couldn't simply throw himself over the precipice and spread his wings, that he'd have to take to the air the hard way. He sighed, and then to his surprise Queen Zafir launched herself into his arms, pressing herself against him.

  'I wish we had longer too,' she murmured.

  Jehal stroked her hair away from her face and purred, 'I thought looking at me made you think of Hyram.'

  Zafir made a face. 'It did until I got up here. Now it just makes me think of you without your clothes on.'

  He kissed her and let his hands begin to wander. 'It won't be for much longer, my lover.'

  'Give me the strength not to murder him in his bed, Jehal.'

  'Give me the patience to wait for you.'

  'I have to lie with that crippled oaf. All I think of is you with your starling-bride, and then all I want to do is slit his throat and then hers and be done with all this.'

  With a great effort Jehal let her go. 'You keep that thought close to your heart, my Queen, and keep your mind on Hyram.'


  She snorted. 'No fear there. For as long as I can bear it, he'll think of nothing but your potions, my mother's face and the hole between my legs.'

  Jehal reached out to stroke her face one last time, then turned towards Wraithwing. He waved over his shoulder. 'Once he marries you and makes you speaker, you can cut as many throats as you like.'

  'I'll hold you to that, Jehal,' she called after him. 'He'll be first. You can choose who comes second, you or your starling.'

  38 The Ravine

  The dragon was hurt. Kemir hadn't noticed that when they'd taken to the air in the middle of the night. In fact, he hadn't noticed much, clutched in the dragon's claws and hurtling through the night air at speed. The ground flashed past in the moonlight, not far beneath him but quite far enough to smash him to pieces if the dragon let go. The monster's wingbeats rippled through the air like thunder. For the second time in his life, he prayed.

  In the dragon's other foreclaws the Scales held on tight to the woman, whoever she was, while she in turn screamed and shrieked herself hoarse.

  The air got colder. Finally the dragon landed in a field of snow, tumbling in a spray of powder, while Kemir thought for the umpteenth time that night that he was going to die. The beast took them to the edge of a narrow ravine and jumped in, gliding down into total darkness. When it landed at the bottom it let them go and fell asleep almost at once. Kemir huddled up against the dragon's warmth and fell asleep as well, drained beyond exhaustion.

  When he woke up, he knew something was wrong. The dragon's breathing was laboured, and the Scales was sitting by its muzzle, stroking its nose. This close, in the daylight, the dragon seemed even larger than it had the night before. Its head dwarfed the Scales; its amber eyes were larger then an open hand; its teeth…

  Kemir didn't want to think about its teeth. Instead he looked up. The ravine was steep and narrow, so narrow he was surprised that a dragon could fly into it at all. He wasn't sure how any of them were going to get out again, and he was hungry. And if it wasn't for the dragon, they were all going to get very cold very quickly. The Scales didn't have any flying furs, while the woman, it seemed, didn't have anything else.

  'I've seen you before,' he said to the Scales. 'What's your name?'

  'Kailin.' The Scales didn't look up.

  'What about her?'

  'Her name's Nadira.'

  'What's the matter with her?' When she wasn't screaming, she looked dull and vacant. She was sweating and shivering.

  The Scales didn't answer.

  'Who is she?' The Scales didn't answer that either. Kemir shrugged. 'What's up with your dragon then?'

  'Her name is Snow. She's hurt.'

  'Is it bad?'

  'I don't know. She must have damaged herself when she fell into the river with Tempest. It looked like she broke Tempest's wing.' Kailin shook his head sadly and looked nervously at Snow. 'If she did, they'll have to put Tempest down, poor thing.'

  'Poor thing?' Kemir scratched his head. 'How do you put a dragon down?'

  The Scales flashed him a warning glance. 'Be careful. She's sleeping, but you saw what happened in the river. I don't know for sure, but I've heard stories that the alchemists give them something in their food. They go to sleep and then they burn from the inside.'

  'I've seen that.' Kemir nodded. 'That's what happens when they die.'

  'I wouldn't know. I've never seen a dragon die.'

  'Well if it happens with this one, we won't have to worry about staying warm for a while.' He looked up at the walls of the ravine. No. Just staying fed. 'I don't suppose you have any idea where we are?'

  The Scales shook his head. It didn't take long to discover that the Scales didn't have any food, water, shelter, spare clothing or any of the basic necessities for surviving out in the wilderness. He'd had a dragon, though. Apparently that was enough.

  He left them to it and set off down the ravine, following the trickle of water that bubbled along the bottom. As he pressed on, the ravine grew gradually steeper and narrower. He passed countless caves. That's the Worldspine for you. Riddled with holes like a honeycomb. Yawning caverns big enough for an army and tiny holes barely enough for a man to crawl into. He began to see overhanging trees above, casting everything into shadow. The sides pressed in closer and closer; the trickle of water grew into a rushing stream that ran faster and deeper around every bend. Abruptly the cliffs on either side fell away and he emerged into the middle of a steeply sloping forest. He circled around to the top of the ravine and sat on the edge, looking out through the gap in the trees. He was high up in the side of a mountain valley. One that looked exactly the same as every other mountain valley.

  Great. Nice one. That really helped. Shall we walk all the way back now?

  He sat there for a long time, staring, until finally he muttered something and Sollos didn't reply, and it hit him, hard, that his cousin was gone forever. They'd spent a good part of their lives with only each other for company, although it hadn't always been that way. They'd roamed the realms, selling their sword arms, but this was where they'd been born, here in the Worldspine. They'd killed perhaps a dozen dragon-knights between them, but only because other dragon-knights had paid them to do it.

  And now Sollos was gone. Their contract with Knight-Marshal Lady Nastria was finished and he was back where it had all started. He had his bow, his knives and his wits, which ought to be enough to survive out in these valleys. He didn't owe anything to the poor fools he'd left in the ravine. He was entirely free to do whatever he wanted.

  And entirely trapped. He couldn't walk away from what he and Sollos had been. Not on his own. Not while Rider Rod was still alive. And then there was the dragon, and the glimmer of a possibility that he couldn't ignore no matter how unlikely it was to bear fruit. Trapped. Utterly trapped. Revenge was what he wanted. Revenge, not just for Sollos but for all the others, for every Outsider who'd ever burned. Which meant staying with the dragon and the Scales and the woman, whoever she was.

  Which meant keeping them alive.

  'Bollocks!'

  The shout echoed around the valley and faded, lonely and unanswered. He sighed, clambered down from his rocky perch and strung his bow. It took him a couple of hours to track down a decent meal and another hour to skin and fillet it. Hiking back up the ravine took twice as long as walking down it. By the time he got back, he was exhausted and hungry. As far he could tell, he'd been gone for about ten hours and none of the others had even moved. Maybe the woman had rearranged her legs. He threw himself down and closed his eyes.

  'Is your dragon up to starting a fire for us?' he asked.

  The Scales shook his head. 'She's in torpor. They do this when they're hurt. She'll sleep until she's better.'

  'Well how long is that going to be?'

  'If she's broken a rib, two or three weeks.'

  Kemir opened his eyes again and looked up at the sky framed by the sides of the ravine. He laughed. 'Two or three weeks?'

  'Yes.'

  'So all we have to do for all that time is hide her from Queen Shezira's riders and not starve to death. Oh, and we can't actually move from this spot, because if we do, the two of you will die of exposure.' He closed his eyes again and shook his head. 'Curse you, dragon. Curse you for everything.' And he set about keeping them alive.

  The Scales was useless; all he did was sit beside his dragon and stroke her scales. The woman spent her time staring into space with her mouth hanging open. Or else she shivered and shook and screamed about things that made no sense. Some sort of fever, Kemir thought, and it went on for so long that he was sure she'd die. She didn't though, and eventually the fever broke. At least when she was well again she had some idea of how to survive. After the first few days she took to coming with him. She didn't even have have any boots, but it didn't seem to bother her to clamber over the stones and the moss in bare feet. Each day she came with him to the end of the ravine and then waited while he hunted. When he was done he'd start a fire, and they wo
uld sit and watch the flames. They didn't speak, but there was a sense of something shared between them. Of surviving whatever the cost. Every day he'd give her the choicest piece of whatever he'd killed, and then they'd lie down next to each other and doze. She didn't say much, and she often seemed to drift away. Lost somewhere far away. Or else she had fits and screamed. She seemed to understand when he wanted to be alone. Sometimes, when he touched her, she flinched and froze. And sometimes, when he remembered again that Sollos was gone, he saw in her eyes the same fierce hunger for revenge as he felt inside.

  She suited him, he decided. He didn't mind keeping her alive.

  As each day began to fade they slowly made their way back, chewing on raw pieces of meat. The Scales was always there when they returned, waiting for them. Every day they came back later than the last, but he never said anything. He didn't eat much either. He was slowly wasting away, waiting for his dragon to come back from wherever she'd gone.

  Twice Kemir saw other dragons in the distance. He watched them, little specks in the sky, until they were gone. They never found Snow's ravine.

  Snow slept for four weeks, not two. By then the Scales was little more than skin and bone. Kemir and Nadira had left him there with his dragon as they did every morning. When they came back, after dark, he was gone. The dragon was awake. The air smelled of gore.

  Meat!

  Kemir froze for a moment, then pushed Nadira back the way they'd come. 'Run! Now!' He lowered the remnants of the wild pig he'd killed to the ground. He could feel the dragon inside his head, almost insane with hunger, eyeing him up.

  'Alchemists,' he said loudly. 'I'm going to take you to the alchemists, remember. Eat me and you'll never find them.'

  He stepped back away from the pig. The dragon lunged forward and snapped it all up in a single gulp.

  Hunger! Feed! There was a tinge of anger in there as well.

  'Where's Kailin?'

  The dragon withdrew slightly. He could feel something in its thoughts that might have been shame.

  Little One Kemir, it spoke in his head more quietly this time, I have been gone for a long time. I am very, very hungry. I need to feed, and I cannot hunt until I have sunlight. It is best that you leave.