by Stephen Deas
Jaslyn stood stiff and awkward. The hiss of rain splashing on the pools bubbling from the Silver King’s fountain filled the silence that hung between them, the whistle of the wind through ruined stone. Zafir wiped the rain from her eyes.
‘It used to make me angry that you drove me from my home.’ She took a deep breath and sighed. ‘Actually, it still does. You drove me into the sea.’
‘You brought me here to kill me,’ said Jaslyn coldly. ‘So can’t you just be done with it?’
‘I hear you woke a dragon.’
‘My Silence. They say I’m mad. Even my lord Hyrkallan.’ She spat his name with loathing.
‘Yes. I heard your dragon’s name was Silence.’ Zafir pulled down the collar of her dragonscale coat. Cold rain on her skin. She ran a finger along the scar Silence had given her, then drew back her sleeve and touched the inside of her elbow where the Statue Plague had started to mark her. ‘These are both gifts from your Silence. Now I must bow to my alchemists and beg for their potions or else die a slow lingering death.’ The old anger fluttered through her, capricious in its vengeance. ‘Diamond Eye bit off her head. Though we both know you can’t kill a dragon, not really. I suppose she’s here somewh—’
Jaslyn clamped her hands around Zafir’s throat. She pushed as if trying to lift Zafir right off the ground, throwing them both towards the summit’s edge in the storm. The uneven ground made her stumble. Zafir forced her arms between Jaslyn’s and pulled apart, breaking her grip. They lurched and clashed heads. Zafir reeled, staggered, tripped and fell, splashed into a puddle. Jaslyn picked up a rock to smash Zafir’s skull, but Halfteeth was on her before she could bring it down. He pulled Jaslyn away and then held her while another Adamantine Man offered Zafir a hand.
Zafir howled at them over the wind: ‘Go away! Both of you, or I’ll have you thrown off this mountain!’ Yes, this was what she’d been missing. She shoved Halfteeth. ‘Go! Go on! Leave us!’ The anger. Anger was her engine. She picked herself up and pushed at Jaslyn. ‘Is this what you want?’
‘You have no idea.’ Jaslyn grabbed her again, trying to drag her to the edge of the cliffs. A swirl of wind staggered them. Rain lashed across Zafir’s face, left her half-blind. She broke free, danced towards the summit edge overlooking the Silver City. The cliffs here were sheer almost all the way to the ground, but everything was lost in a haze of grey. Zafir turned. Beckoned.
‘Come, then.’ She backed away as Jaslyn advanced. The rain was getting under her armour now, cold and damp and clammy.
‘You have no idea,’ Jaslyn said again, ‘what I did because of you.’ Halfteeth and his men were circling. Zafir screamed at them to go away and leave her alone, and yes, they’d be damned, and Tuuran would feed them their balls, but she was their speaker, their queen, and let it be just the two of us. Dragon-queens alone!
She stopped with her back to the cliff, wavering in the wind, her feet on the edge. She cocked her head. She was grinning, on the edge of madness. Maybe the two of them had something in common after all. ‘Well? What did you do?’
‘They told me you were dead over Evenspire. Lystra was trapped. Prisoner or worse. So I had to get her back. I had to.’ Jaslyn lunged and then skipped away, uncertain. She flicked the rain off her face and came again. ‘Nothing else mattered. I gave myself to Hyrkallan.’ She was trembling. Hunger and anger and disgust and loathing. ‘I pitched my dragons with your Viper. I gave myself away like a piece of meat, and it was all for Lystra, and all because of you. Because of you and Jehal. Because you couldn’t let him go.’
‘Me?’ Zafir bared her teeth. ‘I’d force-feed Jehal his own manhood if he was still alive.’
‘No, you wouldn’t! You’d kill Lystra so you could have him again. You’d kill anyone who looked at him. But he’s dead now, and my sister is far away under the Spur where you can’t touch her.’ Shaking again. Despite the cloak, Jaslyn was soaked to the skin. ‘And nor can I. And all I want is to fly again, to touch the sky and ride a dragon and be with her. But I can’t, and it will never be, not now. So put an end to me, if that’s what you brought me here to do. Put an end to this droning, dull, sad, suffocating mimicry of life.’ Jaslyn paused, keeping a distance between the two of them. Four or five strides. ‘Jehal’s dead, Zafir. Dead. Your lover. A dragon killed him. He died badly, the way that shit-stain prick deserved, and no one mourned him, not one single tear. But I can tell you this, Zafir: I can tell you that at the end he loved my sister, not you.’
Dead. Zafir already knew, but Jaslyn’s last sting caught her and made it suddenly real. She barked a harsh laugh, threw back her head and let the rain wash over her. ‘So I’m denied the pleasure of killing him myself? But that was half the reason I came back!’
‘And the other half was Lystra, was it?’ Jaslyn was breathing hard, almost ready to charge. Halfteeth’s men were hiding where they thought Zafir wouldn’t notice, but they were too far away to make any difference. Zafir let a sneer cross her face. Slowly, with every ounce of disdain she could muster.
‘I came back because this is my home. So Jehal’s little starling was why you sided with him when you hated his every pore? For sister Lystra? Because you loved her? And then what? She ran away with him and left you here, did she?’ The look in Jaslyn’s eye. Murder and pain. Zafir spread her arms to Jaslyn and to the storm. ‘Come on then! Between them they spurned us both, and I have already stood where you stand, ready to throw myself into the void. In a golden gondola hanging over the great cloud of the storm-dark that lies at the heart of Takei’Tarr, faced by a sorceress who had made me into a slave. I could have charged her down and hurled us both to our end, and yet I didn’t, because I am not worthless. So here I am. Come then, Queen Jaslyn of the north, queen of Sand and Stone, queen of Flint. Of all you three sisters you have by far the most of your mother in you, and she would not have flinched. Come, unless you have nothing left, unless you truly are worthless. I lost Jehal long before Evenspire. I know that. And you lost your sister Lystra too. I can tell you that at the end she loved Jehal, not you. I look at you and I know.’
Jaslyn screamed. She charged, and Zafir didn’t try to get out of the way, but let Jaslyn crash into her, let herself take one step back and then another and find nothing but air. Let them tip over the edge together and fall.
‘All for her.’ Jaslyn held her tight, screaming in Zafir’s face as the wind howled past them. It tore the cloak off her back and ripped at Zafir’s dragonscale coat. ‘No one else mattered. And my mother gave her to that shit-eater!’
The wind tore Jaslyn away. Zafir spread her arms and closed her eyes. Amid the screaming panic of falling was an odd shred of serenity. Of relief. Was that how it was for Jaslyn too? Probably not.
I shouldn’t be afraid.
No. Diamond Eye’s claws folded gently around her.
Her as well.
The wind was too strong for her to open her eyes and look into the teeth of it. If anything they fell faster now, raindrops scouring her skin like a thousand tiny daggers; and then she felt Diamond Eye spread his wings and gently slow and level into a glide; and then the rhythmic lurch and rise as he climbed back to the mountain’s summit. Dimly, over the rush of air, she realised that Jaslyn was still screaming. Not the shrieks of unfettered terror that usually came with being caught in a dragon’s claws, but furious howling sobbing wails of despair. It mattered to her that much did it, to hurt me?
Diamond Eye didn’t answer, but she could see into his thoughts, and through them into Jaslyn. She could see the fractures, the broken pieces that were held together as best Jaslyn could manage, but which would never properly mend.
I suppose I look like that too. It was hard to really hate someone when you could see into their soul.
Yes. Diamond Eye reached the top of the mountain and landed. He lowered Zafir and then Jaslyn carefully to the ground. He stretched his wings over them, a moment of shelter from the
wind and the rain, not that it made much of a difference. Little rivulets ran against her skin underneath her dragonscale.
Hold her down. But be kind. Zafir crouched beside Hyrkallan’s reluctant queen, the last echoes of her own fury fading inside her head. ‘I hear you once thought that dragons should be free. You’ve seen what comes of that. Diamond Eye is free. The other dragons who fly with me … not so much. They remember and have woken, but they are beholden to the Black Moon, half-god brother to the Silver King. But you shouldn’t hear it from me. Hear it from my dragon. Hear him thunder.’ Tell her the story of the Black Moon. Answer her questions.
She turned her back, blocked the two of them from her mind and walked away, waiting for it to be done. She scanned the skies for other dragons. Not one, not a single speck. They could be lurking up above the cloud, of course, but if they were anywhere near then Diamond Eye would feel their thoughts and tell her, wouldn’t he?
It is done. Diamond Eye let Jaslyn go. The dragon cocked his head, that curious and amused look he had, waiting to see what she would do.
Zafir stood by the edge of the cliff. She spread her arms.
‘Well?’ she called. ‘Shall we go again?’ When Jaslyn didn’t move Zafir swept her arm over the vista of the mountain top, its ruined fortress and temple and gardens, the haze of raindrops shattering as they hit stone, mist and spray swirling in the wind. ‘Dragons should be free? You’ll pardon me, I hope, if I’m sceptical. You’ve seen what they do.’
Jaslyn shrank away. She was shaking. Sodden. Freezing cold and almost naked now her cloak was gone. Her thin tunic stuck to her. She got to her feet alone and walked without a word to the edge of the cliff beside Zafir, stood there and looked down.
‘You should have let me fall,’ she said. ‘All is ruin. There is no hope.’
‘And it’s all my fault.’ The words stuck in Zafir’s throat. She’d meant to spit them out with scornful derision, a question mocking the notion, but from the way they hung in the air beside her they sounded more like a confession.
‘I don’t want life in a world like this.’ Jaslyn walked off the edge. Zafir grabbed at her and caught her arm. They almost went over together again. She ended up lying by the edge, holding Jaslyn dangling her by her wrist.
‘Let go of me!’
‘The world is what it is,’ cried Zafir, ‘and we’ve got what we’ve got, and you might hate me to the very core, but what does it make you if you run away? A coward! And that is not what you are! Nor was your mother, nor your sister!’ Her voice softened. ‘Lystra fought me, axe and sword. I stacked the odds against her and she did it anyway, and she very nearly won. She wasn’t afraid. I would make a different world in so many ways, and so would you, but you have to want it.’
‘Let me go!’ Jaslyn was struggling now, trying to pull herself loose, slowly dragging Zafir further over the edge.
‘Flame, woman! You know I can just have Diamond Eye catch you again. I see your lust for little Lystra, so much more than the affection of one sister for another. Lost middle sibling, starved of a mother’s love? Is that your excuse? Mere neglect? How I wish I’d shared that fate.’ Zafir’s jaw clenched tight. All the venom she held for the world, and suddenly she could see that Jaslyn held the same, and she was slipping inexorably through Zafir’s fingers, and Zafir found she desperately didn’t want Jaslyn to die. ‘You deserve better! You want to hate me? Here, then. See who I am.’ Show her. ‘Take a good long look at the scars I carry inside me.’ Show her everything. ‘See them! If still you want to fall then so be it. But ride with me and you’ll ride on the back of a dragon once more, and I swear I will take you back to Lystra’s side.’ They’d gone to war. Bitterest enemies, and yet underneath so alike that it made Zafir choke. Diamond Eye pulled it out of her, showing it to Jaslyn, the princess locked away in the lightless room, cold and scared, afraid but more fearful still of what would happen when the door opened, more afraid of that than of anything in the world.
Jaslyn stopped struggling. Zafir hauled her up. For a moment they lay side by side, the two of them gasping, rain spattering them both, wiping it from their faces, drenched and bedraggled.
‘I don’t want your loyalty,’ panted Zafir. ‘But will you help me make this world into something different, or do you still just want to die? Because if it’s death you want then go ahead.’
‘Lystra.’ Jaslyn rolled to her feet. Zafir stayed where she was, lying on her back. If Jaslyn decided to pick up a rock and bash her brains out now, Diamond Eye would either stop her or he wouldn’t. ‘Lystra is the Speaker under the Mountain. What will you do with her?’
Zafir rose to her haunches. She held out the Speaker’s Ring on her finger. ‘There’s only one speaker, Queen Jaslyn. Lystra has the spear. She has the last alchemists. I’m afraid I will need them both. But I’ll not hurt her, if that’s what you want. She can have her mountain. Her realm. You can have it together if you want.’ The Black Moon would take the spear anyway, probably from both of them, and after that not much else would matter. Poor broken princess. ‘When was the last time you flew, Jaslyn?’
Jaslyn shuddered. ‘When we flew to war.’
‘You miss it, don’t you?’ Zafir touched a finger to Jaslyn’s cheek, stood and circled her close, purring softly. ‘It’s a part of what we are, isn’t it? We dragon-queens? Without them we are diminished. Like losing an arm and a leg. Hopping and shuffling where once we could run.’
‘It’s death,’ said Jaslyn flatly.
Will you let her ride you? She felt for Diamond Eye. You are never some toy to be passed about, but I win peace here if I win this woman.
Diamond Eye cocked his head. An angry tilt this time. If you command then I must obey. The cut of the Black Moon’s knife demands it.
I ask, dragon. That is all.
Diamond Eye considered. He bared his fangs and glared at Zafir and then at Jaslyn. Once only. I promise nothing more.
I do not ask for promises. They are always broken.
The dragon seemed to laugh, some old dark memory welling inside him that he kept to himself. Zafir turned to Jaslyn. ‘I cannot give you a dragon. They are not mine to offer. But Diamond Eye will take you to the sky. I have asked and he accedes. I have earned that, and perhaps one day you will do the same.’ She took Jaslyn’s hand. ‘Give me a bond of peace from you and your riders. You will fly again, and I will not hurt your sister.’
‘And her son?’
For a moment Zafir closed her eyes. She’d forgotten, and remembering was like another knife in the ribs. Lystra had been carrying Jehal’s child. A son, was it? So the bastard betrayer had an heir. ‘And her son,’ she said at last.
‘And I really will fly again?’
Zafir laughed. ‘Ask my dragon, Queen Jaslyn. Do not ask me.’
Jaslyn dropped to one knee. She took Zafir’s hand and kissed the Speaker’s Ring. ‘Then you are the speaker of the nine realms and queen of the Silver City, and no man who rides dragons in my name shall question that it is so.’
Zafir tried not to laugh. So po-faced and serious. When was the last time any of Jaslyn’s riders had taken to the skies?
‘Why me, Zafir? Why not Hyrkallan? My riders will follow his commands before they follow mine.’
‘Because men always imagine themselves to be masters, Queen Jaslyn, and I’ve had enough of that.’ Zafir cocked her head. Maybe she’d been hoping to see a smile, but Jaslyn’s plain face remained a mask of tragedy. ‘Besides, do you honestly think I might win him over?’
Jaslyn shook her head.
‘Neither did I. So there was that too.’
‘I never did like him. Once we were married I learned to loathe him.’
‘What do you want me to do with him?’
‘Whatever you like.’
They walked together to the entrance, to the Queen’s Gate and the High Hall and the Grand Stair beyond,
out of the rain at last, dripping a wet trail behind them. Halfteeth and two Adamantine Men followed three steps behind. When they reached the Octagon Zafir threw off her sodden dragonscale and told Halfteeth to find Jaslyn a guardsman, and to mind her body with his life. ‘Find her armour too,’ she said, ‘and some dry clothes.’ She told him to get lost then, but he didn’t, not straight away. Instead he bared his handful of remaining teeth. Maybe it was meant to be a grin. He nodded towards the throne.
The Outsider woman Tuuran liked was waiting there, short and wiry with lethal eyes. Snacksize? Zafir frowned. Stupid demeaning name, but hadn’t she been on the eyrie with Tuuran over on the other mountains? Thick as thieves these days, her and Halfteeth and Tuuran.
Halfteeth’s grin grew wider. He bobbed and trotted away. Zafir glared. The silks she wore underneath her dragonscale were damp from the rain and already uncomfortable. They kept sticking to her.
‘Well? What is it?’
‘Tuuran asks if you wouldn’t mind having the dragons tow the eyrie back over here, your Holiness.’ Snacksize paused.
‘He does, does he?’ Halfteeth hadn’t quite gone, she saw. He was lurking in the shadows by the passages off into the Enchanted Palace.
Snacksize nodded. She beamed. ‘On account of us finding someone he reckons might be your sister.’
Jaslyn was forgotten. ‘What?’
‘He seemed to know her. Reckons she’s Zara-Kiam. That’s right, isn’t it?’
Zafir ran straight back up the Grand Stair, feeling the eyes on her back, and Halfteeth with his silent mocking crooked laughter. She called for Diamond Eye and raced out without waiting to dress in dragonscale and glass and gold, skin stinging in the rain, climbed onto the dragon’s back and flew him straight to the eyrie. She landed hard, rain-drenched, clothes clinging to her, slid off and fell and twisted her ankle in her hurry, the same ankle that had never been quite the same since her duel with Lystra back when the realms weren’t ruled by dragons. Tuuran must have seen her coming. He was waiting for her.