by Stephen Deas
He walked along a narrow ledge carved into the sheer side of the cave. Jaslyn followed nervously. Lystra stayed where she was. The ledge was rough, a foot wide or sometimes less, and the Salt Pool was far below. Small niches had been cut into the wall, tenuous handholds to offer an illusion of safety. Meteroa moved carefully and methodically. 'The menagerie may interest you, Your Holiness, if you have an interest in dragons.'
The ledge ran for some fifty feet before it opened out into a wide natural gallery. There were more skeletons here, much smaller than the monsters hanging over the bulk of the cave. These were hatchlings, so small they must have been fresh out of the egg.
'We've been breeding them like this since the realms begun, Your Holiness.' Meteroa smiled again. 'Not many of our visitors are privileged to come down here but I know this isn't wasted on you. And you are our king's sister now. The interesting ones are back here.'
One of the hatchlings had two heads.
Jaslyn stared at them in disbelief. Half of them were deformed. Two heads, two tails, four wings…
'Blood-magic,' said Meteroa with a curl of disgust, although whether he meant it or it was feigned Jaslyn couldn't tell. 'A few of our kings have had a taste for it. They were set on breeding a new kind of dragon. This is what they got. They never had any success. Fortunately the local penchant for blood-mages has died away. We work with the alchemists now, using potions to try and evolve the breeds.'
'You want to breed a dragon with two heads?' Jaslyn couldn't contain her disbelief. Meteroa laughed.
'No. It's all about the colour of the scales, the timbre of their sheen, that sort of thing. That's why Jehal so wanted your white dragon.
A new strain, a new bloodline, perhaps we could have done something different. You breed your dragons for speed and strength; we're known through the realms for the most colourful dragons.' He chuckled again. 'In different times, an alliance between our realms would have been a happy time for me. I would have spent a great deal of time in your eyrie and you in mine. We could have traded secrets, eyrie-master to eyrie-master. We could have traded bloodlines. I had high hopes for what our eyries might produce if they worked together. Who knows – maybe those dreams are not quite lost?' He talked on and on and Jaslyn soaked up every word. Meteroa knew what he was doing and he knew his dragons. She got lost in them and almost forgot why she was there. Other things slipped in. Jehal's imprisonment, his injury, his recovery. The poisons Meteroa had found in the kitchens. The sabotage to the saddles of Lystra's horses. A dozen other ambiguous little clues, all of them pointing to Zafir. Evil, wicked Zafir.
'King Jehal was so sure he would keep her in check. I'm afraid he rather seems to have failed.' Meteroa sighed. 'Queen Lystra lives at Clifftop now because it's safer. I trust the alchemists and the Scales here more than my own riders and certainly more than the servants in the palace. I had thought we knew all of Zafir's secrets, but I'm afraid we rather failed there too. It's all quite depressing. Come, Your Holiness. We've left your sister for long enough. If we delay any further she may have one of her foolish moments and try to follow us.'
The eyrie-master retraced his steps. Jaslyn followed, easing her way uncertainly along the ledge. When they returned, Lystra was sitting on the edge with her feet dangling over the Salt Pool, tossing stones down into the water. She glared at them both.
'Meteroa, you've taken my sister away for far too long and I'm immensely bored. I am cross with you.'
Meteroa bowed. 'I am deeply sorry, Your Holiness. To make amends, I shall arrange a great entertainment for you. I shall leave at once. I trust you will be safe in the care of your sister.' He turned to Jaslyn and his face became serious. 'There are men I trust not far away. You will be left alone. If you are not, you should assume that whoever approaches von means you harm. You are armed?'
Jaslyn nodded.
'Good. I suppose, apart from myself, you're the one person I will leave alone with my queen until my king returns.' He suddenly looked weary and shook his head. 'It has been a regrettably interesting few weeks. I will not be far away.'
With that he turned and walked slowly away into the tunnels. Jaslyn stood alone with her sister, staring out into the cave, breathing the damp salt air. For a long time they were silent. Then Lystra held out a hand and Jaslyn took it.
'There's another path,' said Lystra in a whisper. 'You can climb down to the cave mouth. Then there are steps carved into the cliff to take you back to the top. It's very steep and very slippery and you'd like it. Shall we?'
'No.' Jaslyn squeezed her sister's hand, then crouched down and put her ear to Lystra's belly. Lystra began to stroke her hair. 'Two more months. And they won't let you fly?'
'Meteroa doesn't want me to fly.'
'But he has to do what you say.'
'No, he has to do what Jehal says.'
Jaslyn put a hand next to her ear. 'I can feel the baby! It's moving.'
'Yes.' Lystra hugged Jaslyn's head. 'Isn't it magic?'
'On the back of a dragon is the safest place in the world,' whispered Jaslyn. 'Why won't they let you fly?' She stood up and held Lystra tightly. Why won't they let you fly?'
Lystra laughed softly. 'Why won't you climb the cliff with me?'
'You might fall.'
'Yes. I might fall.' She pulled away and held Jaslyn's hands. She was still smiling. 'I can't be the Lystra you remember. I have to be a queen now. Soon I will have to be a mother.'
'The speaker is trying to kill you.'
'Jehal will keep me safe.' She spoke with conviction. Love even. Jaslyn winced. The hurt was like a knife.
'Come back to Outwatch with me.' Her voice was trembling. 'We'll slip away in the night when he's not watching you. Speaker Zafir won't know where you've gone. You'll be safe.'
Lystra squeezed Jaslyn's hands. 'Of course she'll know where I've gone. No, Jaslyn. A part of my heart is always yours, but my place is here.'
'Lystra! Sister!' How to make her understand that Jehal was a monster. That he was vicious, that he was a murderer, that he had no love for anyone but himself, that as likely as not he was Zafir's lover. The very woman who's trying to murder you. He doesn't care about you. You're nothing to him. Just something to be veiled behind screens, making babies and heirs until he tires of you. He'll take what he wants, bleed you dry and crush you. Like Aliphera. Like Hyram. Like Mother.
She wanted to say all of those things, but the words stuck in her throat. She saw Lystra's wide eyes and knew she couldn't wound her sister with them. That even if she did Lystra wouldn't believe her. That Jehal, for now, had won. The understanding made her weep, despite herself.
'You don't belong to us any more, do you?' she croaked.
They held each other tight, and then Lystra kissed her. A long, lingering kiss. The sort meant for lovers. 'I will always be your sister, Jaslyn. Promise me we will never be enemies.'
Jaslyn bit her lip and nodded. 'Never. I promise. Promise me you will stay safe.'
'I will.'
'I miss you, little Lystra. I will never, never let anyone hurt you.'
'I know. I miss you too.'
For a long time they stood together, holding hands. Jaslyn wept in silence. Eventually she turned and led Lystra back into the tunnels, back to the eyrie-master's men. Then she left the tunnels, summoned her riders and her dragons and put Clifftop behind her as quickly as she could.
Meteroa watched her go, soaring away into the afternoon skies. 'How very sudden and very rude.' He sniffed and gave his queen a queer look. 'What did you say to her?'
'Nothing. Nothing that she didn't know before she came here.' Her voice was flat and gave nothing away. Inside, Meteroa smiled. Very good, little one. Very good.
She was looking at him, he realised. She cocked her head. 'Why did you lie to her about the halchlings?'
Meteroa shrugged. Did I lie? I don't even remember. He grimaced.
'I apologise if this offends you, Your Holiness. Doubtless I shouldn't say such things about another q
ueen, but your sister is very strange. Hatchlings. What a question to ask.' Now he laughed. You know, I can't remember the last time someone asked me a question and I hadn't the first idea why they were asking it.' 'But why did you lie?'
Meteroa smiled. Because I didn't like not knowing why she asked. Because I didn't like the way she looked at me. Because I think she's dangerous in a way that even Jehal wouldn't understand.
He couldn't say any of that though, not to his queen, so he settled for something else that was equally true. 'Because I'm not a particularly nice fellow, Your Holiness. I've made a career of it. Sometimes I lie simply because I feel like it. Because I can. Keeping my eye in, so to speak.'
He winked, but Queen Lystra didn't see. She was looking back to the sky, watching her sister fade into the clouds.
32
The Hunters and the Hunted
Snow was soaring high when the riders came out of the Worldspine, just as Kemir knew they would. Five dragons, all fast-flying war-dragons, each with two riders. They were wary, flying in a loose diamond formation, one low and close to the ground, another up high, above the little puffs of cloud that hung in the air, and then one to each side and the last dragon hanging back. Kemir didn't know too much about flying dragons, but he knew that riders looking for a fight flew close together where they could quickly support each other. These ones were expecting the sort of trouble that would make them turn and run. In hindsight, that should have been a warning.
As if it would have made any difference. There was probably a right way to attack the diamond. Kemir had no idea what Prince Lai's Principles had to say, but if he had had to guess, he'd have said go for the one at the back. Snow, however, had never heard of Prince Lai. She simply climbed higher, then tucked in her wings and dived out of the sun, smashing into the dragon at the top of the diamond. The impact would have hurled Kemir far into the air if it hadn't been for his harness; as it was, the straps nearly tore him in half and he slammed forward, breaking his nose on Snow's back. The two dragons curled around each other, plummeting out of the sky together. Kemir didn't see what happened to the riders, but they must have been in the middle when the two dragons collided – probably now nothing more than a big bloody smear with bits of armour sticking out.
For a moment everything vanished into a white mist as they fell through a cloud. By the time they emerged, the dragons were apart. Snow had something dangling out of her mouth. She shook her head and it flew off through the air, leaving a streak of fine red mist to dissolve in the wind.
'Ow! Damn you, dragon, you nearly killed me!' He held on to her, arms spread wide, white-knuckled fingers locked around her scales. The other dragon was diving for the ground now and Snow wasn't far behind. He could see the ribbon of the river and the town that Snow had burned, a slight dirty haze that still hung over it.
There. One free. Four to go. She didn't slow down, but arrowed on towards the next dragon, wings folded back, wind howling around her.
'Alive! Take a rider alive!' bellowed Kemir, as if anyone could hear a thing at such a speed. He screwed up his face and tried without much success to shield his eyes with his hand. 'Can't you ever control yourself?'
Why?
'Useful food, remember.' How is it useful?
The riders on the next dragon had seen Snow coming now. She was flying too fast for them to get out of the way, but they'd turned their scorpion to fire at her.
No, not at her, at her rider. At him. Kemir threw himself flat. A few moments later he felt a pinch of pain from Snow as the scorpion bolt hit her. He had no idea where. Didn't care much either. It hadn't struck him, that was what mattered. You could probably shoot a hundred scorpions into a dragon without doing much more than make it very cross.
No! The dragon's fury slammed into him like a hammer and Kemir roared with anger without really knowing why. He clenched his fists and would have sat up straight in Snow's saddle, except as soon as he moved the wind almost ripped him off her back. Then Snow hit the other dragon like a thirty-ton battering ram. He was thrown up into the air, the harness almost tearing his legs off this time as both dragons lurched sideways. The other dragon was twisting to present itself as all claws and teeth, but it wasn't fast enough. Snow snapped at it with her teeth, raked it with her claws and lashed it with her tail. The teeth got one dragon-knight, the claws got the second. Kemir wasn't sure what the tail did because he was too busy ducking as the other dragon's tail snaked around Snow's neck and sliced the air where his head should have been. Rage filled him. Dragon-rage.
Poison, Kemir. Their bolts are poisoned!
Thoughts jumbled on top of each other, some that were his, some that were not. That if they were shooting scorpions with dragon-poison on them, they weren't shooting at him. That Snow ought to flee now, back to the lake. Back to the glaciers, if she could make it. That he didn't care, that she should stay and kill and kill and then run for the glaciers. How many poisoned bolts would it take to bring a dragon down? One? Ten? A hundred?
The one between my teeth still has thoughts. They are not useful thoughts, Kemir. I want to eat him.
'Do you know he's not poisoned too?'
Snow shuddered. She spat the knight out of her mouth. He sailed away through the air with a forlorn cry and fell out of sight. 'Alive!' screamed Kemir. 'Take one alive!'
Why? Snow turned, throwing Kemir sideways. They were getting close to the ground now. If Kemir hadn't had about a hundred more pressing things to do, he could have counted the trees and the animals in the fields beneath them.
The dragon's fury coursed through him.'So we can ask him questions!' So I can kill him myself. 'About dragon-poison and scorpions.' So I can feed him his own entrails while he's still alive. 'About how many times they think they need to hit you!' So I can crush his skull with my bare hands.
The last three dragons were closing now that Snow no longer had height and speed to her advantage. They were trying to position themselves around her, to trap her. A scorpion bolt fizzed through the air past Snow's head. Another punched straight through the thin skin of her wing.
'Go go go! Now!' Kemir urged. The curtain of the dragon-rage was lifting at the edges. Behind it, his own feelings began creeping through. Fear. Alarm. A certain uneasy dread. 'They've fired. Take them before they can load another bolt!'
Snow veered, twisted and powered towards the nearest dragon, her whole body shuddering as her wings ripped the air. The straps of the dragon-rider harness groaned and Kemir felt something at the bottom of his spine pop and creak. Snow closed the gap, but not enough before the other dragon turned and pulled away. A scorpion bolt from above bounced of Snows nose. She shrieked in frustration, turned sharply and launched a futile charge at another of the dragons. That one danced away too. The riders knew what they were doing. Kemir could just about see that now. They'd be happy to keep their distance and pepper Snow with their poisoned scorpions for as long as it took to wear her down. He clung on, gritting his teeth as Snow pivoted and whirled back and forth. Her wings strained, her seething tail slashing the air, but each dragon she chased only powered away while the other two closed and took their shots.
'That's what you get for being stupid,' muttered Kemir. He could still feel the fury, smouldering waves of it pulsing out of Snow like a bad hangover, but he was its master now.
Stupid, Kemir? When I fall out of the sky, I shall be sure to land on my back!
'Stupid because you landed in the middle of a town and burned half of it to the ground. Stupid because hundreds of people saw a riderless white dragon. Stupid because you never stop to think-You just smash and burn and eat people.' He flinched as another scorpion bolt split the air nearby. Snow was climbing again, hauling herself steeply up towards the little scattered clouds, but Kemir could see straight away that they were too small and too few to offer any cover. Why am I shouting? Because it makes me feel better, that's why. 'What did you expect? Did you think they were going to come out here after you and form up in an orderly line to be
eaten?' Wind tore past Kemir's face, almost pulling his words out of his mouth. He could barely open his eyes. Proper riders had riding helmets with special visors for this sort of thing. He pushed himself forward into Snow's scales again. In the end, he was helpless up here.
Her scales were hot.
Your thoughts are a distraction, Kemir. They are not helpful.
'My thoughts are a distraction? Well, why don't you just land and let me off then? Then you can blunder about on your own. It's not like you listen to me anyway and then I won't have to worry about being shot at by giant arrows any more!'
Kemir!
'Hey, you know what? Next time you burn a town you could jump inside their heads and ask them to bring some nice tasty donkeys when they come back to hunt you. They're not stupid, Snow.' In fact so far they've been cleverer than you. He tried to think the last thought quietly. Not quietly enough, Kemir.
Valmeyan's dragons were faster than Snow. She wasn't quite fully grown. Maybe that was why, or maybe the mountain men simply had better dragons, war-dragons, stronger and faster and more enduring. Snow had five bolts in her now and more would come. Sooner or later they'd get enough poison in her to bite and she and Kemir both knew it. She reached the level of the clouds and wove through and in between them. The other dragons settled in around her, patiently awaiting their chances.
I must go back to the mountains. To the lakes.
Into a cloud. Everything white. Turn. Out again into the sunlight.
Kemir could see exactly where that would lead. Snow meant to hide under the water again. 'And what do I do?' The other dragons might be able to follow her but their riders couldn't. They'd wait for her until she came out again. And, in the meantime, they'll amuse themselves chasing after me. Three of them on dragons and me on foot. I'd be better off staying with Snow and hoping to discover a miraculous talent for breathing water. 'They won't give up,' he shouted. 'They'll stay with you for as long as it takes. Sooner or later you'll have to come out to eat. They'd be waiting for you.' There. He could even believe that might be true.