The King of the Crags mof-2

by Stephen Deas

  'Most of your dragons are at Southwatch,' huffed Isentine. Of course they were. She'd sent them there, after all, to stand guard over Almiri in case the speaker brought war across the Spur.

  'Yes.' And the few she'd left here spent most of their time in the Worldspine. Wasting their time searching for the remains of the white dragon that had nearly killed her.

  'I might have found the dragon you're looking for.'

  The words grabbed hold of her as surely as a strong pair of hands. She froze. For a moment she thought he meant the white.

  'What?'

  'There's been another hatchling, Your Highness. A male. A hunter.'

  Jaslyn's heart climbed into her mouth. 'What colour?' 'Deep blues and greens, Your Highness.'

  Jaslyn started walking again. An overwhelming disappointment settled around her. Not the dragon she was looking for. Not her Silence.

  'But he's a vicious one, Your Highness. He won't eat or drink anything we bring him. He attacks the Scales. He'll die before the end of the week. I've never met anything quite like it. We've always had hatchlings that wouldn't take and there have been a lot of them lately, but this… this is exceptional. I might even have put him down if it wasn't for your order.'

  'Does he speak?'

  Isentine didn't reply. As far as the eyrie-master was concerned, it seemed that anyone who thought dragons could talk probably believed in ghosts and gods and all manner of other foolishness. It didn't help that the one time Silence had spoken to Jaslyn, as he lay dying, he hadn't spoken as such; rather, his thoughts had mingled with hers.

  Or maybe she was going mad.

  Silence had been ash-grey. He was dead now, but in his last thoughts he'd told her that he would be reborn. He'd told her that dragons lived in an eternal cycle of birth and death. No one had ever thought to mention this to Jaslyn before, but Isentine had confirmed, when she'd pushed him, that the alchemists believed this was true. It was a secret passed down among them, shared only with kings and queens. She was as good as a queen, he'd said, so now she could know. She'd nearly hit him for that.

  They don't remember, though. They don't speak. He'd told her that too. Jaslyn didn't know whether she believed him or not but she didn't want to, and so she was looking, hoping that out of all the eyries across the realms, Silence would be reborn to one of hers.

  One of my mother's…

  'I'm looking for a sooty grey, Eyrie-Master.' It sounded like madness, but when she'd spoken to the alchemists, they'd looked at her with shifty eyes as though she'd uncovered some secret that she wasn't meant to know. Several secrets, in fact. They wouldn't tell her, and when her demands grew more threatening, they haughtily reminded her that, for now at least, she was a mere princess, and that the alchemists of the realms answered only to kings and queens. Only Isentine would answer her questions and she no longer trusted even him.

  She walked past the yawning doors that led into the cavernous halls of Outwatch, on to the edge of the scarp slope. The wind was strong there, tugging at her hair. At the bottom of the slope was a lake. Above it, caves studded the cliffs, dark holes leading into the tunnels of the eyrie. She couldn't look at a cave now without a shudder of fear, without smelling smoke, without starting to cough and choke, but if she closed her eyes she could imagine herself at Clifftop, Jehal's eyrie in the southernmost corner of the realms. A place almost as far away from Outwatch as it was possible to be, but another eyrie built over underground caves and tunnels at the top of a cliff looking out over water. If she tried, she could bring back the smell and the sound of the sea, of the waves breaking at the foot of the cliff. Of Lystra, standing next to her, looking around at her new home with wonder in her eyes and laughter on her lips.

  If you were here, I could do this. I miss you, little sister.

  She opened her eyes again, dispelling the sound of the Sea of Storms and bringing back the hot dry desert winds that filled her mother's realm.

  'You will take me to this hatchling, Eyrie-Master.' She had to see, after all, even if it wasn't her Silence. Probably he'd been born in another eyrie, far away. If he'd been reborn at all. If it wasn't a myth.

  'He will try to eat you, Your Highness.'

  Through the gloom-laden hall of Outwatch, Isentine led the way to an immense pit lit by hundreds of alchemical lamps, a hole in the earth fifty feet across with a spiralling staircase clinging to its side. They went down. He walked slowly, clutching at the guardrail bolted into the stone. Jaslyn had lost count of the number of times she'd come here, yet she'd never been all the way to the bottom. They reached the hatchling caves, but the stairs and the pit went on. She always found herself wondering how many people had slipped and plunged down into the inky blackness, and whether they were still there, still falling. When she asked Isentine what was down there, he only shrugged and told her it was flooded, that no one went down there any more.

  He led her off the staircase towards one of the higher caves. Jaslyn clenched her fists until her knuckles went white and her fingernails gouged her palms. This used to feel like home. She'd pause and take a deep breath and fill her lungs with the smell of dragons. Now what she remembered was being trapped underground with dragons trying to kill her and all she ever smelled was the memory of choking in the smoke.

  'The hatchery isn't far, Your Highness.' As if she didn't know. She'd told Isentine everything because Lystra wasn't here and she had to tell someone. She couldn't tell anyone else. If she closed her eyes that made things ten times worse; the stench of smoke in her mind grew so strong that she was almost sick. She tried thinking of cold mountains and running water but that didn't help either. Nothing helped. Nothing would. Except maybe if she found the reincarnation of one of the dragons that had nearly killed her. Maybe then. Maybe when she understood why.

  'Here.' The eyrie-master stopped at the entrance to a cavern gouged out of the side of the cliff. The end of the cave was open to the sky. Jaslyn wanted to run to it, to embrace the sky and the freshness of the air, but Isentine had a hand on her shoulder. He was offering her something.

  'What is this?'

  'Against the Hatchling Disease, Your Highness.'

  Which she should have known without having to ask. Cross with herself, she took the ointment from him and rubbed it over her hands and face. It was brown and smelled of mud. Then she went over to the opening. With the wind whistling around her, the claustrophobia and the smoke eased away.

  A hatchling dragon was chained to one wall. It couldn't have been more than a few days old, skinny and sickly, but it must have been ten feet long already from the tip of its nose to the end of its whip of a tail. They came out like that, all scales and bones, usually dark-coloured. They uncoiled from their eggs like a flower opening from a bud, painfully and slowly. Sometimes it took them days to stretch themselves out. They'd lie there dozing as their skin dried and shrank. And then, usually, they'd wake up and eat everything in sight. Unless they were one of the difficult ones, like this one.

  Jaslyn knew at once that this wasn't the dragon she was looking lor.

  'It refuses to eat and attacks any who come close to it,' said Isentine. 'The usual for a hatchling that fails, though more aggressive than most.'

  'It attacks them because it's hungry.' Jaslyn looked at the dragon curiously. It was curled up with its eyes closed, pretending to be asleep. She wasn't quite sure how she knew, but secretly it was watching them.

  'No doubt. But we've had hatchlings like this much more often these last months. Since…' Isentine trailed off, but Jaslyn knew what he would have said. Since the white dragon attacked the alchemists. Since Silence died. He clasped his hands and looked at the floor. 'They won't eat unless they've made the kill themselves.'

  'This isn't Silence.' Jaslyn stepped closer, cautious but curious. The dragon knew she was there, she was sure of it. And she'd left her helmet up above. The rest of her was still covered in dragon-scale armour, but if the hatchling spat fire at her face-She didn't have time to finish the thought. The
dragon lunged and snapped its jaws. Fire burst out between its teeth, aimed straight at her eyes. She ducked and raised her hands to shield herself, but the fire didn't even reach her and all she felt was a waft of hot air. The hatchling must have been desperately weak. Then the chain around its neck jerked tight and it collapsed on the floor, seemingly too drained to move.

  'Did you read my mind, little one?' she asked, absently. 'Is that how you knew to strike at my head? Or was it simply obvious?' She turned to Isentine. 'This one's going to be dead in a few hours if it doesn't feed.'

  The eyrie-master nodded sadly. Jaslyn looked back at the baby dragon. She wanted to stroke it and nurse it, but even as weak as it was, it was quite capable of biting her arm off. She crouched down and looked it in the eye, careful to keep her distance.

  'Can you hear me in there? Can you understand? Do you remember?' What had Silence said to her as he was dying. I remember the flames. 'Do you remember the flames?'

  The dragon cocked its head and gave her a quizzical look, surprise mixed with hatred. A look that said Yes. She waited to hear it speak inside her head, but nothing came. They stared at each other for a few seconds, and then the dragon closed its eyes and laid its head down on the floor. Maybe she'd imagined it. Just seen what she so desperately wanted to see.

  She turned away, away from the dragon and away from Isentine as well. She didn't want either of them to know of the despair that was welling up inside her. Instead she stared out of the cave, at the sky and the distant fields.

  You delude yourself, little one. You do not understand.

  Jaslyn almost jumped out of her skin. She whirled around, but the dragon hadn't moved. Isentine was looking at her curiously. 'Did you…' Did you hear? But she could see the answer to that straight away. No.

  'Did I?' He peered at her.

  Did I imagine it? 'Bring it something, Eyrie-Master,' she said. 'Something alive that it can kill for itself.'

  'We already have, Your Highness.' She sensed the reproach in his words. Of course they'd tried. They tried with every dragon, as hard as they could. 'Every-'

  'I know, I know. Every hatchling is precious. Do it again. This time, don't let the alchemists near whatever you bring.'

  She still couldn't bring herself to look at him. The tone of the silence was enough to tell her how much he disapproved of her order.

  'They won't allow it,' he said at last.

  'Then don't tell them.'.The alchemists would forbid it, she realised. They'd tell her, again, that she wasn't the queen of this realm and that they answered only to kings and queens. She didn't even rule her own eyrie. The thought didn't help her, but at least it gave her a little anger, anger that she could harness into motion. She swept out of the cave, past Isentine and back towards the pit, heading out to the fresh air and the open skies as fast as she could. The look the hatchling had given her would haunt her, she knew. Was it the look of a spirit that knew what was waiting for it, one prepared to die and die and die again, over and over, rather than become a slave to the eyrie alchemists? Or maybe she was imagining all that, and the look was simply one of hunger and despera-tion. She'd never know. Isentine would never defy the Order. By tomorrow, the hatchling would be dead.

  When she reached the surface again, a messenger was waiting lor her. 'Your Holiness.' He bowed, and this time she couldn't be bothered to correct him. 'Rider Hyrkallan has returned to South-watch.'

  11

  Little Sister

  Lystra stood at the window. This was her window, high in King Tyan's palace, at the top of one of the towers, in a solar where her husband had once bedded his lovers. The place where he'd brought her, on their wedding night. The room didn't have much to offer except a luxurious bed and an extravagant view. Most of the windows in the palace looked south towards the sea, but here Lystra had found a view that reached out over the walls of the city, over the sweeping breadth of the Fury River flood plain, and out towards the distant and invisible north. Sometimes she squinted, imagining that if she tried hard enough she might see all the way to the Adamantine Palace, to her lover, her husband, her lord, her prince. To the father of the child growing inside her. He'd been away for a long time. Too long. She was pining.

  Sometimes when she'd had enough of thinking and wondering about Jehal, she'd think about her sisters instead. Almiri, who was strong and clever. Almiri, who Would always find a way, somehow, to make everyone happy again. And Jaslyn. She thought about Jaslyn most of all. Thin, hollow, mean Jaslyn, who burned on the inside with passions clenched tight and buried deep within her. Starved middle sister.

  Jaslyn whom she missed more than anyone else.

  She had ladies to keep her company and they amused her well enough. But when she came to this window she sent them away. Even Lord Meteroa, Jehal's strange uncle, the eyrie-master who ruled far more than an eyrie, knew better than to bother her when she was at her window.

  She was surprised then when she heard footsteps shuffling slowly up the stairs. The tread was unfamiliar. Not Meteroa, who walked briskly and usually viewed a staircase as a challenge to be overcome as rapidly as possible. Not one of her ladies either; they would have coughed to warn her they were coming.

  She let her eyes wander for a last few seconds, dreaming that she would see a speck in the sky that would be Wraithwing, Prince Jehal's dragon, bringing him home. Then she turned, facing the door.

  The shuffling stopped outside. The world fell suddenly silent. All at once, Lystra was afraid. 'Who's there?' Silence.

  With a fluttering heart, Lystra took a step towards the door and then stopped. She could hear breathing, low and rasping. 'Who is it?'

  'Princess Lystra,' whispered a voice, 'do you love your husband?'

  'Who are you?'

  'Do you love him, Princess Lystra?'

  'Yes, of course.' She took another step towards the door. Lord Meteroa was forever forbidding her this and that, warning her of the constant dangers of assassins sent by the speaker, although why the speaker would want her dead was something he could never quite explain. She'd never paid his warnings much heed. Not until now.

  'No,' growled the voice. 'Not the right answer. Do you love him? Does your heart yearn for him? Would you give yourself away for him, body and soul? Would you die for him?'

  'Yes.' She bit her lip. She knew at once what Jehal would have said: Yes, but do I really have to? Or: Of course, but only when I'm very old, or something like that. He would have made her laugh. At that moment she wished he was there with her more than ever.

  'And he for you.' A figure stepped into the doorway. He threw hack his hood and Lystra squealed and wept for joy.

  'Jehal!' She threw herself into his arms, staggering him.

  'Careful, careful!' She couldn't see him properly for happy tears. He held her tight, just the way she wanted him to. 'Ancestors! Next time I make a surprise return, I shall make sure I stand a little further from the top of a long and steep and winding stair before I reveal myself!'

  'You've been gone for such a long time!'

  'Now that is just so typical of your sex,' he chided. 'A prince has to work, you know. Weeks away without you, far from home, alone and friendless, toiling away for the good of my kin. Work, work, work, and when I finally limp home, exhausted and saddlesore, all I get are complaints about how long I've been gone.' His grip on her didn't loosen though, so she knew he was joking.

  'I wasn't complaining.'

  'No, well, Lord Meteroa got to me before I could find you hidden away up here, and he most certainly was. After that, I dare say you could have thrown daggers and chamberpots and screamed abuse at me and I would barely have noticed.' He pushed her back into the room, still crushing her to him. 'Oh look, a bed.' His voice turned sly. 'Or did you somehow know that I was coming back?'

  She didn't bother to reply: she was too busy kissing him. And she couldn't have said whether she was pulling him or he was pulling her or whether the bed was somehow pulling both of them. She stopped him though, when t
hey were nearly naked, and put his hand on the side of her belly.

  'Feel!' she said, and watched his face. The baby inside was kicking, feeding from her own excitement perhaps. She watched his eyes light up, watched his mind working, frantically searching for words and, for once failing. Watched an amazed little smile creep across his lips.

  'Your son,' she whispered.

  12

  Diplomacy in all its forms

  'I'm grateful you came. This used to be Hyram's favourite place.' Zafir stood high above the City of Dragons, perched on a tiny shelf of rock overlooking the top of the Diamond Cascade Valley. Hyram had brought her here, before she'd become the speaker. Afterwards she'd come here with Prince Jehal. Today, she had a king beside her, watching the water rush by, hundreds of yards beneath their feet. Set back from the edge behind her was a tiny lodge, a single room squashed under an overhang. From the bottom of the cliff it was invisible; even from above it was almost impossible to spot unless you knew it was there. It had become a secret place passed clown from one speaker to the next. One of several, tucked away up here among the silent crags of the Spur.

  T know. We came here often in the earlier days of his rule. Before the shaking sickness took him.' King Sirion, Hyram's cousin, stood beside and slightly behind her. Zafir made sure that she was right at the edge. The wind pulled at her. If Sirion wanted to push her over, it would hardly be any effort at all.

  'Shezira came up here with Hyram a few days before she killed him. This is where he told her that we were to be wed. She must have stood here, beside him, like we are now. She must have known at that moment he would not name her to follow him. I wonder why she didn't push him over the edge there and then.'

  'Perhaps because she is a true queen, born and bred, forged of steel and honour.' Sirion's words were stony. 'I do not easily believe these stories of murder.'