by Stephen Deas
‘They’re getting closer!’ The man was breathing hard. She was slowing him. And then everything fell into shadow and he screamed. She hit the ground like a sack of turnips, winded and too weak and bruised to move, and that might have been what saved her. A huge shape blotted out the sun and snatched the man who’d been carrying her into the sky; and then the sun was back, and with it a wind like a hurricane that picked her up and threw her across the ground as though she was a leaf.
Dragon. She couldn’t bring herself to move. Stay still. Don’t struggle and above all don’t run. Dragons can’t resist it if you run, and no one who runs ever gets away. Ever.
Could it feel her thoughts? She wasn’t sure. She’d taken her last dose of potion back before the outsider settlement. Two weeks, give or take a couple of days. Yes, it could probably feel her then, and dragons hated alchemists with a fury. She sighed and closed her eyes and waited to die.
‘Get up!’ Hands were shaking her. Siff. ‘Get! Up!’ He was cutting the ropes around her feet, wrapping another one around her hands. ‘Get up, alchemist! We’re nearly there.’ He hauled her up, pulling her by her wrists. The dragon was in the air past the waterfall. Turning.
For a moment she caught a glimpse of movement in the rocks up the slope behind her. There was a man, his head and shoulders popping up. He had a bow. Was aiming at . . .
Her?
Skjorl?
No. Couldn’t be.
‘Come on!’ Siff pulled her hard enough to tear the skin of her wrists. She cried out. The man with the bow was out in the open now, running down the slope towards them, little streams of stones clattering in rivers around him as he came. And yes, it was Skjorl. He had his axe. She’d know him anywhere. Great Flame, did she laugh or did she cry? And he had someone else with him too. Another Adamantine Man.
‘Run, you stupid witch!’ Siff screamed and pulled at her. ‘Not from them! From the dragon!’
The dragon was coming back. You learned, when you worked with them for as long as she had, to read their flight. It was going for the Adamantine Men. She dropped back to the ground, squealing at the pain in her wrists, but she wasn’t going to run. ‘No! Stay still!’ It would burn them if they ran.
The Adamantine Men knew it too. They were fifty yards away, right at the bottom of the slope at the start of the open empty space that had once been a landing field. They were seconds away from her but now they veered away, diving for cover as the dragon swooped down on them, strafing them with fire. The earth shook, the very air quivered in shock, and then a wall of heat and wind and the stink of scorched earth picked her up and roared and rolled her across the grass.
The dragon turned again and landed where the Adamantine Men had been, hard enough that Kataros was almost thrown up into the air. The rocks on the slope to the path and the Moonlight Garden shuddered and shifted. A boulder the size of a horse tumbled down, bouncing past the dragon and into the river amid a hail of smaller stones.
Halfway up the slope a massive chunk of rock shifted very slightly. It was as big as a barn. Kataros held her breath, waiting for it to slide and bring the whole slope down on all of them, but it only shifted the once and then held still.
The dragon’s tail slashed the air, the tip hissing like a whip past her head, so close she could almost touch it. It had to feel her, didn’t it? Don’t think! Don’t think! But it had its mind elsewhere. The dragon took two quick steps away and lunged towards wherever the Adamantine Men had gone. A hot wind rushed over the ground as it tried to burn them out.
‘Can we run now?’ Siff’s eyes were wild. This time she let him pull her away. The dragon was tearing at the hillside, digging after the Adamantine Men at the foot of the high stone bluffs below the Moonlight Garden. It roared. Frustration. Kataros ran faster. Blood. A drop of blood was all she needed. Whatever Siff had inside him, it stopped her from mastering his will, but she could still burn him and there were other things too. If she could find anything that was alive, she could make it hers. Snakes, spiders, scorpions. Snappers even. Let the forest give her a weapon, any weapon . . .
Siff pulled her in among more tumbled boulders, behind an enormous rock towards an opening in the ground, too regular to be a cave. Her steps faltered. Even in the sunlight she could see how it glowed. It was a tunnel, like the passages, of all places, within the flying castle!
‘Move!’ Siff hauled at the ropes around her wrists. Kataros winced. Yet the alchemist in her wanted to see now, had to, no matter what happened afterwards.
‘It’s like the castle,’ she said. ‘It’s the same. Look at it. You didn’t know, did you?’ There. That made him stop. In the castle he hadn’t been himself.
‘Is it? I don’t remember.’
‘What’s inside, Siff?’
‘Come and see.’
The earth trembled. Siff dragged her deeper. The light here was soft and soothing and came from everywhere, just like in the castle over Farakkan. ‘What’s inside you, Siff? What did you find?’
He yanked harder, angry. ‘When I found this place, I thought it must have been made by alchemists. But you didn’t make this, did you? Someone else made it. I didn’t know that until your riders brought me to the Pinnacles and I saw that too. You didn’t make that either.’
‘That was the Silver King’s palace.’
‘Yes.’ The passage went on and on, dead straight, sloping down into the earth. ‘And so was this.’
‘The Black Mausoleum.’ She whispered it to herself, a test to see whether she really believed. Although what else could it be?
But no, alchemists knew better. The alchemists, the grand master and a handful of others, they knew what had happened to the Silver King. They kept that secret to themselves, but they’d happily tell you there was no Black Mausoleum, no tomb. Treasure, yes, there might be that, and secrets and powers and, yes, even a way to master dragons. But no half-god.
Siff dragged her on. Down and down into the earth, dead straight until the walls and the ceiling fell back and opened up into a dome-shaped chamber, tilted slightly into the earth, far too perfect to have been made by men and so large she could barely see the other side. The walls were smooth as glass like the passages in the flying castle, like parts of the Pinnacles, like the tunnels that had taken her from the Silver City to the edge of the Yamuna. Siff was right. The Silver King had made this.
A ring of arches stood under the centre of the dome. They were ornately carved from the same white stone and they reminded her of the Pinnacles too. There had been arches there just like these but set into the walls. As her eyes grew used to the gloom, she could see little changes in the light in places around the edge of the chamber. Other passages.
‘What is this, Siff?’
He ignored her and pulled her towards the arches.
‘Where do those tunnels go? Do you know?’
Again no answer. In the middle of the circle of arches sat a flat slab, perfectly round and perfectly white. Siff pulled her towards it, right into the middle. ‘Here. See, alchemist!’
He left her standing there and held out his hands. His eyes changed, filling with glowing silver. The tiny snakes of moonlight curled from his ruined fingertips out towards the arches. They reached further and further, strained and pulled at him. As the first one touched the nearest arch, a silver mirror flowed from the edges to fill the space. One archway after another, until his snakes had touched them all and he had made a circle of mirrors all around him; the moonlight snakes shrank back to Siff’s fingers, but the mirrors stayed.
‘Look!’ he said, full of awe and wonder, and Kataros could only feel the same. ‘Look!’
He stepped in front of one mirror and reached towards it; the snakes from his fingers leapt forward again and the silver rippled as they dived into it, and then it shimmered and changed. Instead of a mirror Kataros saw a gateway to another place. A place filled with liquid silver, an endless rippling ocean of it with a giant moon above.
‘Look!’ he cried again. ‘L
ook, alchemist. That is where your Silver King has gone. There! Don’t you want to follow him? Don’t you want to see what’s beyond? Tell me, alchemist. Tell me you want to see!’
Kataros stared. She’d never seen anything like it.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I want to see.’
63
Jasaan
Jasaan jumped and raced and hauled himself along the path up through the rocks. There was no turning his head, no looking back. Skjorl would do what he could. If he fell, that wouldn’t be a bad thing either. Let him stand long enough for Jasaan to reach the alchemist and then finally fall – more than likely that’s exactly what he wanted.
The path climbed up beside the waterfall, went on higher into the bluffs and then vanished to follow the river again. Jasaan passed the place where they’d left Parris to stand guard, out of the way of the fight, or so he’d thought. Parris was gone. When Jasaan glanced over the edge, he saw where. They’d pushed him over. He probably hadn’t even lifted his sword.
Back home, outsiders were called shit-eaters because they had to grovel in the dirt for their food. What people forgot was that in the mountains and the forests finding food could be tricky. Turned them into sneaky bastards, born with hunting in their veins. Two of them were hiding behind the next big rock. He felt them more than he saw them as he ran past; when they came out and lunged, he hurled himself forward so their stabs came up short and skittered off his armour. He was already swinging his sword as he turned. What did they have? Spears? Wooden poles with metal tips. He split one in half with his first swing and pressed them back towards the rocks where Parris had fallen. They were terrified, and so they should have been, and when they turned and fled he let them go and ran on up through the stones, along the ledge above the river. At the end of the ledge the path vanished into a steep scree of loose stone and boulders. The outsiders and the alchemist were at the bottom. For a second Jasaan paused. An eyrie? Had there been an eyrie here?
‘Nice of you to send two more my way,’ said Skjorl behind him. When Jasaan turned to look, there he was, every bit the monster. His armour was spattered in blood. It dripped down the shaft of his axe and over his gauntlets. His eyes were hungry and mad. He pointed. ‘And there they are. Give me your bow . . .’
His voice trailed off. His eyes weren’t looking at the ground any more. They were looking at the sky.
‘Oh my. Will you look at that.’
Jasaan turned.
There was a dragon in the sky, diving straight towards them. Something about the way it flew struck him as familiar, as if he’d seen it before.
‘You again.’ You could hear the grin on Skjorl’s face. He nudged Jasaan but was talking to the dragon. ‘Remember this one? All the way from Bloodsalt.’ He pushed past and started to run down the slope looking for cover. ‘Come all this way for me, have you?’ he shouted. ‘Think you can do better this time?’
Mad. He was mad.
The dragon swooped across the field. Jasaan dived for the steepest part of the slope he could find and a large rock that stuck out of it. He took cover as best he could and peered out. There was nothing else to do. The dragon had either seen him or it hadn’t.
It skimmed the ground, wings out wide, a roar of wind, mouth open and filled with fire. It snapped up one outsider and ate him in a single gulp, and its wings powered it up again. Jasaan saw the alchemist and the other outsider thrown across the ground by the wind of its passing. Mouth still wide and full of fire, its eyes were staring straight at him.
No. Not at him. At Skjorl! Great Flame! Was this truly the dragon from Bloodsalt? The one that had killed Quiet Vish? Had it really followed Skjorl all the way here, looking for its revenge? That wasn’t right! That wasn’t what dragons did!
He cringed behind his rock and curled up tight, hiding his face and hands. Fire washed the slopes clean, burning everything that would burn, on and on, a roar wrapped around his head, smothering, drowning him. Its heat crept in through the cracks in his dragon-scale, around his arms, scorching the skin of his face and burning away his hair. And then at last it was gone, and the ground didn’t thunder and quiver. It hadn’t tried to land, not yet. Just as well – a dragon landing amid the scree would have brought the whole lot down. It would have killed them all. Buried alive or crushed, take your pick.
He looked up, searching for the monster, but he couldn’t see it. It must have flown through the gap in the cliffs, over the river and out the other side of the falls. It would be back though. He turned to the field. To the outsider and the alchemist.
They were apart. A chance! He drew the bow off his back. Dragon bone didn’t burn. He reached for an arrow . . .
The bow had no string any more. Two charred pieces dangled, one at either end, and that was it. He swore in frustration, and now the outsider was by the alchemist again, trying to drag her to her feet. ‘Stay still, you idiot!’ he shouted, but his words were lost in the roar of the falls.
‘Come on!’ That was Skjorl, breaking from cover, skittering down the slope, running, sliding. ‘Get her before that bastard comes back.’
Fat chance, but he couldn’t stay where he was either. Even if the dragon couldn’t land on the slope, it could burn him out if it tried hard enough. Or throw boulders – it had already shown that it knew that trick – or it could smash at him with its tail or kill him with its claws and jaws. No, couldn’t stay where he was.
Down below, the alchemist and the outsider were struggling with each other.
‘Come on come on!’ screamed Skjorl. ‘Move, you cripple!’
Jasaan looked behind him. Still no dragon, but it was only a matter of time. It would come between the cliffs and across the river any moment now. Fast. They’d barely have a chance to see it, never mind do anything about it. Down at the bottom of the slope they’d be in the open.
‘No, Skjorl! We don’t have time!’ He was right. This wasn’t him being scared, even though he was. Not cowardice this time. Just . . . being right.
Skjorl’s run faltered as he sensed it too. His head snapped from side to side. He pointed. ‘Cave.’
Made sense. That was what they’d come here for, wasn’t it? The endless Aardish Caves, which peppered the bluffs here like a honeycomb, so deep and numerous that Vishmir had managed to hide his tomb in one and no one had ever found it. And so had the Silver King, if what the riders had said was right. The frustration was a knife though.
Over his shoulder there was the dragon again, screaming over the river in a turn so vicious it made the air shudder enough to crack trees. Fire lit up the cave, fierce orange, the hot air swirling past him, scorching his hair a second time, stinging his skin, and then a wind picked him up and threw him further in. Dragon-scale armour was at its best when fire came from behind. Adamantine Men weren’t stupid.
The ground shook. A slab of stone sheared from the cave wall ahead, shaken loose by the shock of the dragon landing. Jasaan stumbled and skidded to his knees, knocked over by the tremor. As the light of the fire died, he picked himself up again. Skjorl had stopped exactly deep enough inside for the dragon’s fire not to reach him.
‘Where’s your shield?’ he asked.
‘Back with some snappers. Where’s yours?’ snapped Jasaan.
‘Back in the Pinnacles. Never had a chance to get it. Ankle troubling you again, I see.’
‘How’s your hand?’
The dragon was out there, blocking the daylight. Jasaan could hear it tearing at the stone at the mouth of the cave as if it could dig them out. The ground shook as it roared and stamped in fury.
Skjorl’s voice, when he spoke, was right by Jasaan’s ear. ‘So, friend, old wounds aside, are you strong from toe to crown.’ The ritual of greeting and parting and luck among Guardsmen, but barbed with bile. They both knew what Skjorl thought of him.
Jasaan felt himself tense. ‘Yes, I am. And you?’
Skjorl growled. ‘Insatiable.’
‘So we are strong. Why are you here?’
‘I came for the alchemist. And you? You and your riders. Are there any of them left?’
‘Did the one on the beach fall?’
‘Was still standing when I left.’
‘He was the last.’
Light flickered as the dragon backed away to lash at the entrance with its tail. A torrent of stone fell around the mouth of the cave. Skjorl grasped Jasaan on either side of his head. ‘Did you come for the alchemist, Jasaan?’
‘Yes.’
‘And when the outsider and the dragon are done for, what will you do with her?’
‘I will take her home, Skjorl.’ He forced himself out of Skjorl’s grip and turned to face him. ‘Why? What would you do with her?’
64
Siff
He stared at the arches, at the liquid mirrors within them, at the silver sea beyond the gate made of moonlight.
Home.
Not his home. Home for whatever was inside him. A seed planted when he’d come this way by chance. A seed growing all the time. He wondered, for a moment, why he’d ever left, why he hadn’t stayed here and gone through the gate, and then he remembered. He was looking for something, something that had been missing and now had been found.
He reached for the arch. Its surface felt like he was dipping his fingers into a bowl of warm water. The scene inside rippled.
‘There,’ he said again, voice soft with wonder. ‘That’s where your Silver King went. He didn’t die. He went home.’
‘No.’
‘Yes, alchemist.’
‘No, Siff. That’s not what happened. Siff, listen to me. I’m an alchemist, and there are things known to us. Histories. Perhaps the Silver King built a mausoleum for himself here before he died just as Vishmir did. Perhaps, perhaps not. Perhaps he built many. But he did not come here to die.’