The Order of the Scales

by Stephen Deas

  ‘Careful, was you?’ You could tell he was Taiytakei from the way he spoke. Most men didn’t see past the pale skin and just thought he had a funny accent and a weird way with putting words together, but if you stopped and listened hard enough, it was clear that he came from across the sea.

  Kithyr snorted and his smile faded. ‘If you have to ask then my only answer is scorn and disdain.’

  ‘Got what you went for, maybe. Not the same as careful.’ The Picker picked up a stem of straw off the back of one of the carts and sucked on it. ‘Could be you left a trail wide enough even a dragon-rider fellow could follow.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well then, stop your worrying.’

  The blood-mage stood up and went to the Picker’s cart. The cart where the spear was hidden. He stood by it, frozen.

  ‘Don’t be messing with my cart.’ The Picker’s voice hardly changed, but now there was a flash of steel lurking inside it. I can do things when I has to . . . One of the first things the Picker had said, years ago when they’d first come together.

  Years. It really was that long. When he, Kithyr, had been little more than a dabbler, and the Picker had casually walked into his life and made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. A few things you and I have to do to keep our masters from over the seas happy, and they’ll be letting you into a few secrets as the times goes by. They’d lived up to that promise too, and now here he was, perhaps the strongest blood-mage since the Edict of Vishmir and the purges that had followed.

  Being ordered about by a thief.

  ‘Why do they want it?’ he asked suddenly. The Picker had never actually said so, but the spear was quite obviously meant to end up in the hands of the Taiytakei.

  ‘Why’d you think?’

  ‘Because it has power.’

  ‘I expect lots of things has power. I’d say it’s because it commands the dragons.’

  ‘Old stories aren’t necessarily true ones.’

  The Picker shrugged and chewed on his stick of straw. ‘Best kind though, old stories. You have to admire them. It’s like an old soldier. It might not be pretty but it’s got something, something lots of other stories didn’t when they fell by the wayside and got forgotten. It’s got the urge to keep on, to keep going, to keep being said. Gutsy like. And there’s nothing as good as a kernel of truth at the heart to keep a story alive.’

  ‘Does your blood run with magic too?’ All those years together and he’d never actually asked. I could find out now. When you came to me, you were the dangerous one. But I’ve learned so much more than what you showed me . . .

  ‘Make a difference, would it?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘No reason to spoil a mystery then, is there.’ The Picker didn’t move. ‘That’s another thing a good story likes, that is. A mystery.’

  Kithyr suddenly found his insouciance immensely annoying. He stepped away from the cart, though. The Picker was right about that. No need to draw any attention where it wasn’t needed. Instead he moved among the roadside camp, helping with the fires, chatting idly to the grain merchant’s sons and the few drivers he’d come to know. It was a mask of amiable obscurity and one he wore well.

  The voices came later. At night and only at night, after all but a few watchmen had gone to sleep and the air was filled with snoring, that’s when they came. Every night the spear spoke to him. The first time he’d been dreaming, but now it spoke when he was awake. To him and only to him.

  Earth-mage.

  Earth-spear.

  Become as one.

  We tasted your blood.

  We will serve you.

  If you free us.

  Sometimes, if he closed his eyes, he saw himself in another land, or another time, or perhaps both. Armies that filled the landscape crashed together like the sea breaking against the land. Dragons fought dragons, and on their backs they carried men of glittering silver. He saw even bigger monsters, creatures the size of cities. And he saw the sorcerers of the Dark Moon, clad in their black steel and calling down the powers of night and day, of darkness and light. He saw it all, from far above, circled it, and then fell, diving towards its midst.

  . . . he was the Black Sorcerer, the dark wizard carrying the Adamantine Spear and with it all the power of the earth. He strode through the armies like a colossus, flinging aside all who stood in his way. When the dragons came he raised the spear and they melted before his will. The silver magicians fell helpless before the spear as it drew their power and added their strength to its own.

  And there, in the middle of it all, he found the Ice King. The two charged at one another and their shared scream of glee shattered the world.

  He woke up. Always at that moment of coming together, and then the voices would start again, whispering and pleading. Free us. We will serve you . . .

  The watchmen were at their posts, sitting around their fires at either end of the camp, talking idly, making jokes. Not paying much attention, because out here in the middle of the plains there simply weren’t the bands of roaming thieves that lurked in other parts of the realms. Now and then bursts of laughter broke the quiet and the rhythm of snores. Every night Kithyr left the watchmen a bottle of spirits to keep them warm. Every night they drank, and with it they drank a drop of his blood. Every night they became more his. He had nothing to fear from them. Look away. That was all he needed to think and they would obey, casting their eyes into the gloom around them. The Picker was the one who troubled him. The Picker drank nothing except fresh water, taken straight from a stream or a well if he could. Sometimes, when they were in a city, he would settle for a trough or a fountain. Kithyr had even seen him bend down and drink from a puddle. He was the same with his food. Never anything where another man’s hands could have touched it. And so, for all Kithyr’s trying, the Picker had never drunk his blood.

  But now the Picker was asleep. Kithyr got up and walked to the cart. Sometimes, when he slipped his hand into the grain until he touched the spear, the voices fell silent, as if soothed by his touch. Then he felt something else, another power, a thing for which he had no name but was as large as the sky. Something deep asleep but slowly waking. A power that terrified him with its sheer immensity.

  We are yours for the taking. We will show you. Let us free.

  This time, when his hand touched the spear, it reached further. This time his fingers wrapped themselves around the shaft.

  Why would you let this go? Why would you give us to mere sailors? Men?

  Because they have promised the power of the silver kings to me, that’s why.

  But that is who we are, blood-mage. Killed by the spear in the madness at the end of the world. We can give you the power we once knew if you choose it. Why would you give us away?

  Why? His head swam. Why indeed.

  ‘I wouldn’t be listening to them if I were you,’ said the Picker. His eyes were open now, staring at Kithyr. Apart from that he hadn’t moved.

  ‘Listening to what?’ Kithyr let go of the spear. The voices hissed their disappointment.

  ‘Them voices from the spear. Them.’

  ‘You hear them too?’

  ‘No, but now I knows that you does. Watch out for voices, so I was told. Voices always gets you in the end. All that whispering of power and such. Best you pay them no heed. Best you go back to sleep.’

  So he can cut your throat while you dream. He knows. He wants us. He hears us. He speaks with us.

  He will take us.

  Leave you with nothing.

  Kithyr didn’t move. His fingers stretched and touched the spear again. He glanced at the watchmen, but they were still obediently paying no attention at all to anything happening in the middle of the camp. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘The Picker. That’s all I am. I makes sure that all sides keeps their promises.’

  Kithyr’s fingers tightened on the spear again. If I was a true sorcerer, I could destroy you in a blink. That’s what this spear would give me. He reached out with his min
d to the men around the fires. Touched them where only he could thanks to the blood they’d drunk. Picker. He’s a thief. He needs to be taught a lesson. He needs to be an example to others. He needs to feed the crows.

  Yes! He felt the spear-voices and their glee. As one, the watch-men stopped what they were doing. Their mouths hung open, mid-word. They scratched their heads and looked among the wagons.

  ‘What have you done?’ asked the Picker, still not moving. ‘Not something stupid, I hope.’

  ‘Stay very still,’ whispered Kithyr. ‘It’ll go better for you. I’m thinking I might not be taking the spear to Furymouth after all.’

  ‘That so, is it?’ The Picker sat up, very slowly, and adjusted his cloak. ‘Well if you changes your mind sharply, I might scratch my ear and wonder if I’d heard right. You might want to do your reconsidering quick-like though.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Shame. You’re a wise and educated fellow, full of books and learning, so you’ve maybe heard a thing or two about the Elemental Men?’

  ‘Killers. Lots of mystic claptrap.’

  ‘About melding with the earth and turning into air and water and so forth. That sort of thing, aye?’

  ‘Yes.’ Kithyr felt his throat tighten. The watchmen were moving much too slowly, still not quite grasping the compulsion he’d placed into them. Too many at once. I should have picked on one and then the next and then the next. He concentrated his mind on the nearest, let the compulsion change and morph into something new. Into an order. Kill him. Now.

  ‘Aye. Mystic claptrap.’ Abruptly the Picker sank into the ground and vanished. All that was left was his blanket, collapsing slowly to the ground. Kithyr felt a sudden shock of wind behind him, a presence right beside him and then something that burned gave his throat a fleeting touch. ‘Not as mystic as you thought.’ He felt movement, but he couldn’t move. His feet were stuck to the ground. He didn’t dare turn his head. The voice shifted to under the cart. ‘They tells us that every time we do it is a year off our life. A year, blood-mage. Take that on your soul.’ He could feel the blood running down his neck now, running down his throat. He coughed, only the slightest shake, but that was enough. The trickle turned into a flood.

  ‘Our blades are so thin the sun shines right through them. Cast no shadow. But one thing we can’t do is carry that wretched spear with us. Tried that already. Didn’t go well. No, so that were your purpose and well you served it, wizard. Annoying we got no further, but hidden in a wagon full of grain will do.’

  Kithyr collapsed, all the strength rushing out of him in a red torrent.

  No.

  He was a blood-mage. Blood obeyed his commands, and so he commanded it now not to leave him. The flood stopped. Reversed. He turned his head. The Picker was there, crouched under the wagon that held the spear.

  ‘Strong you’ve got,’ he hissed.

  ‘Dead you’ve got,’ snapped Kithyr. He ran his hand across his throat, catching drops of the blood that still covered his skin and hurling them at the Picker. They would eat into him like acid. They’d consume him in seconds! They’d . . .

  Kithyr blinked. The Picker was gone. Vanished. He looked frantically behind him, but the Picker wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

  Gone. And good riddance. He felt a coldness inside, though. Surely the blood had touched him before he could vanish himself a second time. It must have . . . Eyes somewhere nearby were watching him. Hairs prickled where their gaze lingered on his skin. He was out there, in the darkness. Not dead. Maybe crippled, but not dead. The Elemental Men. There can only ever be ten. When one dies, the next five in line fight to the death to see who will take his place. But those were Taiytakei stories, and Kithyr had no idea whether to believe them. Most likely he’d heard them from the Picker himself. Made them questionable, to say the least, but the Picker was clearly some sort of magician. A blood-mage then, or something else? From what little he knew, the Elemental Men were mostly a myth, but in those myths they were the most deadly hunters in the world. Only one man had ever survived them. A sorcerer who was also a sailor, who’d fled to sea and was never seen again. Because the Elemental Men, for some reason, couldn’t cross water . . .

  The river. He can’t reach me if I’m on the river.

  The river then. Right now. Never mind the wagons and the grain; they could sit and rot. He’d hold the spear in his hand if he had to . . .

  He fought back the urge to run, right now. Running wouldn’t do him any good. The Picker had always found him before. But here . . . He looked around him at the watchmen moving uncertainly towards him. They had his blood in them, all of them, waiting for his call to serve. Well now they would. Not that they’d stop an assassin like that, but they might get in the way. They might die usefully. And if there were only so many times the Picker could use his power . . .

  By the time the men reached Kithyr, scratching their heads in confusion with a vague memory of something they were supposed to do, they were his.

  16

  Dust and The City of Dragons

  After half a day on the road, they met a cart and hitched a ride. Outsiders. Old traders. Old was good. Sometimes young men would fight just because there was a fight to be had. Old men, on the other hand, usually wanted to grow older. Like the alchemists, for all the good it had done them. Kemir handed over some of the coin he’d taken from the eyrie. They eyed him up, eyed his clothes, his bow, his arm, his knife. Then they eyed his coin and the woman and decided they’d take his coin the easy way. They were headed for a camp by a river. Kemir had no idea what river or what camp they meant and didn’t bother to ask. Didn’t matter. All rivers went to the same place in the end. Furymouth. The sea.

  ‘Three days’less there be storms. Ye can share our fire. Water’s for free. Eats I don’t have to spare. Eats old Hanzen will have for ye at the river if ye have a gift for him. Ye live with a bit of hungry?’

  Kemir nodded.

  ‘We get to the river, we go our own ways. Ye’ll be on ye’s own. Trail between here and there, that’s quiet enough. Empty mostly. River camp, though . . .’ The old man tutted and shook his head. ‘Two of ye looking like ye do, ye’ll find trouble, whether ye look for it or no.’

  And that was that. As much as the men ever spoke.

  The wagons rolled from one valley to the next, following the passage of the mountain rivers, which became ever more broad and swift, sometimes swelling out into great lakes. Now and then Kemir saw little boats out, fishing. Rafts really, nothing more. On either side, sheer walls of stone rose up towards the sky. They showed no sign of fading into hills, but the further they went, the denser the forests became, a heavy deep green, thick with scent, pines all packed so close together they could barely breathe and hardly ever saw the snow-capped peaks towering above.

  When they camped, Kemir made a token effort at staying awake. Outsiders were a fickle lot. Chances were as good as anything they’d decide to murder him in his sleep. But really he couldn’t be bothered. He had a splitting headache. He gave Kataros the last of their food. Let them kill him. There was something to be said for being dead.

  No. That wouldn’t do. He had to stay awake. Had to live.

  He must have fallen asleep anyway, though, because the next thing he heard was Snow laughing at him.

  Why do you want to live, Kemir?

  Because that’s what outsiders do, and that’s what I am. We live. We do whatever it takes. Sometimes we do horrible, terrible things, but we fight so we can live. We fight so we can be free.

  So do we, Kemir.

  He tried to turn his back on her, tried to make her go away. Eventually she did. He felt her mirth ringing in his mind long after she was gone. When he woke up and discovered no one had murdered him after all, he wondered if he’d have been so generous.

  For the rest of that day and all of the next it rained. Worldspine rain. No drama but steady and relentless. The carter sat impassively and watched the road roll towards them. Kemir sat at the back and watched
it roll away again and with it the mountains. Rain trickled through the cracks in his stolen armour and glued itself cold to his skin. The road started to descend, a slight slope that grew steeper as the last day passed and they sank into a sharp-sided canyon gouged out from the heart of the Worldspine, a scar of mud, criss-crossed by a hundred rivulets jumping and dashing down the broken boulder slopes. The sun dipped towards the horizon, and this time the carter kept on going right into the night, until at last they reached the bottom of this gouge between the mountains. When he looked at the river in front of him, past the throng of tents and animals and people and campfires to the almost endless black wall of rock on the other side, Kemir knew where he was. The Fury.

  The old carter drew his wagon to a halt. ‘Here ye be. Hanzen’s Camp. Be going no further, me. Boats be going from the water’s edge.’ He stared at Kemir, unblinking, as if he didn’t quite understand why Kemir was still there.

  Kemir shrugged. He slid off the back of the wagon. He didn’t pull the woman with him. You choose, he thought. Them or me. They’re a better choice. They’ll look after you. At least until the dragons come. But by the time he’d finished thinking that, she’d climbed down and was standing beside him. The old man turned away, barked his animals back into motion and slowly vanished into the throng.

  ‘I knew this place existed,’ he said quietly. He was talking to his dead cousin, he realised, not to Kataros at all. Sollos would have liked it here. To him, it would have felt like home. Open fires everywhere. Noise, tents, huts. Enough people to fill up a town and, as best Kemir could tell, every one of them was busy getting drunk or singing songs. Quite a few were doing both.

  He walked further into the chaos, weaving between the fires. In one place there were snappers, tame ones. That was a thing he’d never seen. They yawned and growled and stretched their necks. They had bloody claws and bloody muzzles, and around each one was a little cluster of men, fussing and cooing over them. Strange-looking men with painted faces and feathers wandered to and fro among them, receiving little nods of deference as they passed. They carried bags of powder on their belt. Now and then they stopped to sprinkle some on the slabs of rancid meat that the men fed to the snappers.