Dragon Queen

by Stephen Deas

  ‘The sail-slave who was given to this one. Where is he?’ The shout came from beside him, loud and sudden enough to make him flinch. A Taiytakei drew a wand from his belt like the ones Bellepheros had already seen, glass woven with filaments of gold and glowing brightly with an inner light. Across the whole ship everything stopped. The air hummed with sudden tension. Every sailor froze and put down what they were holding and dropped to their knees, all except one who turned slowly to face them. Tuuran. The Taiytakei levelled his wand at the Adamantine Man. ‘You know what you’ve done, sail-slave. You’ve broken the law of the sea. The sentence is death.’

  The window. The storm-dark.

  The Taiytakei’s eyes narrowed. Bellepheros shoved him. He was an old man, still half dazzled by the light and bewildered by everything around him, but it was enough. The Taiytakei lurched, the wand wavered and Tuuran was still standing.

  Another soldier seized Bellepheros, a rough hand on his shoulder spinning him round, and yet another punched him in the gut. All the air flew out of him. Bellepheros doubled over, gasping. The Taiytakei with the wand ran a finger over it, dimming the light inside. He pointed it at Bellepheros now instead. The alchemist looked up helpless, still trying to breathe. The air between them snapped and flashed. Pain hit him in the shoulder and flared all over. He sagged. If it hadn’t been for the soldier holding him up, he would have fallen to the deck.

  ‘You are still a slave, however much the sea lord wants you.’ The Taiytakei with the wand turned back to Tuuran. As far as Bellepheros could tell, the Adamantine Man hadn’t moved. Hadn’t even tried to run. He was just standing there, ready to take his fate.

  Bellepheros finally sucked in a lungful of air. ‘I need him!’ he shouted. ‘I need him to do my work!’ Tuuran would not die for him, not for showing him a secret. He reached inside himself, into his blood. He’d use what he had, here and now if he had to.

  ‘Liar.’ The Taiytakei ran his finger along his wand. Its light grew fierce once more.

  ‘I will not work unless I have him!’

  ‘You’ll do as you’re told, slave.’ The Taiytakei levelled the wand.

  ‘You will give me what I ask for to build an eyrie for you or the dragons you bring to me will roam free and burn your kingdoms to ash!’ Bellepheros was shaking but there were things that needed to be said. ‘I am the keeper of the dragons! I have defied dragon-kings when the need arose. You have taken me against my will from my life and my home but you can not make me do what you wish without my consent. Kill me, hurt me, threaten me and you will get nothing. I require this man! I demand him.’

  The look on the Taiytakei’s face didn’t change. A slave was a slave and there were no exceptions. But then his eyes shifted and he looked past Bellepheros and the soldiers who held him, and Bellepheros saw the wand lower a fraction.

  ‘The sentence is pain,’ said a woman’s voice.

  The Taiytakei touched his wand. The light inside it dimmed a little and then Bellepheros reeled as the air cracked like a lash and lightning jerked across the deck. Tuuran screamed as it threw him into the air. He fell so hard that Bellepheros felt the planks shiver under his feet, and lay twitching and whimpering. The alchemist stared. An Adamantine Man learned to take pain more than any other man, and here was one of them curled up and wailing like a whipped child.

  The Taiytakei with the wand glowered at Bellepheros and marched away. Bellepheros turned to see the woman who’d saved Tuuran. She wore gleaming white robes which looked as though they meant something, but he had no idea what. Strangest of all, she wore two round pieces of glass bound across her eyes, like the curved glass of a Taiytakei farscope. They made her eyes oddly big. He didn’t know what to make of the look on her face. Sizing him up, perhaps. Staring at her didn’t seem to trouble her; rather she seemed curious, intrigued, disdainful and perhaps a little disgusted. He couldn’t make out her age but she certainly wasn’t young. She wasn’t tall, but the armoured Taiytakei around her made her seem shorter than she really was. She watched him watching her until he looked away.

  Two armoured men hauled Tuuran to his feet. He was still shaking even when they dragged him over and threw him at Bellepheros. ‘This one is yours now, slave. You’ll be accountable.’

  Bellepheros helped Tuuran up. An odd feeling that, him at his age helping an Adamantine Man to his feet. ‘You’re shivering.’

  ‘So would you if you felt their lightning so strong. Thank you, Lord Master Alchemist. I owe you my life. They’ll make you regret this though.’

  Bellepheros nodded towards the woman in white. ‘Thank her.’

  ‘I will not!’ Tuuran shuddered.

  ‘Why? Who is she?’

  ‘An enchantress.’ Tuuran made a sign against evil. Bellepheros frowned and stole another glance at the woman. She was still watching. ‘An enchantress? What does that mean? A blood-mage?’ There were no magicians of any other kind in the dragon realms. He shook his head. If that’s what she is and the Taiytakei have stolen dragon eggs at last, they can suffer the consequences and all my oaths be damned.

  Tuuran shook his head again. ‘No, not that. A witch!’

  The woman turned and swept away. Taiytakei soldiers pushed Tuuran and Bellepheros in her wake to a gangway that reached from the side of the ship to the platforms on the cliffs. ‘Why didn’t you run?’ Bellepheros asked.

  ‘If I’d tried then they’d have killed the whole crew, every one of them,’ said Tuuran. He glowered at the Taiytakei soldiers. ‘And also I can’t swim.’

  Bellepheros digested this. He frowned. ‘An enchantress?’ he asked again.

  ‘I told you. A witch.’ Tuuran hissed and pointed at the golden wand hanging from the belt of one of the soldiers. ‘They make the rods that summon lightning and ships of glass that fly through the air and every other abomination that breaks the natural laws of the world.’

  A cradle hung beside the scaffolds. Ropes reached up into the sky. The Taiytakei woman in white and her guard walked onto it. Bellepheros squinted up to the top of the cliff. His eyes were getting used to the daylight now. Soldiers nudged him forward after the woman. An abomination that breaks the natural laws of the world. That sounded a lot like dragons. Then he staggered and grabbed at Tuuran’s arm as the cradle unexpectedly jerked and began to rise. The ship fell away beneath them, first the deck and then the masts. In the natural amphitheatre of the harbour dozens more ships waited, packed closely together. Some were pressed against the cliffs, swarms of men scurrying back and forth; others sat further out and rocked in the gentle swell of the sea. Through the windows in the grey stone of the cliff Bellepheros caught glimpses of spacious rooms, of Taiytakei men and women. He saw them sitting at tables together, drinking wine, eating their meals. He saw them dressing and undressing. He saw children, and men and women entwined naked together. None of them looked to their windows as he passed. They seemed oblivious, as though it simply didn’t matter who might look in on them. The other Taiytakei, he noted, looked carefully away, but he was an alchemist, ever curious about everything, and so he stared and took it all in. He could feel how much the soldiers either side of him didn’t like it.

  ‘It’s rude to stare, Lord Master Alchemist,’ said Tuuran. ‘They’re prudes at heart, these Taiytakei.’ Then he leaned close and his voice dropped. ‘I am yours,’ he breathed. ‘Say the word and I’ll take them over the edge to their doom.’

  Bellepheros glanced down. They were past the top of the tallest mast now and halfway up the cliff. There were five Taiytakei with them on the cradle, the woman and her four soldiers. He wondered if Tuuran was really strong enough throw all five of them over the edge at once. Perhaps, but then what? Would it get either of them home? Of course not.

  He gently shook his
head and put a calming hand on Tuuran’s arm. ‘Patience, Tuuran.’ He was beginning to see. His weapon would be his knowledge. What he knew. That was why they’d taken him and it was what they wanted from him. He would hold that over them, and if they tried to take it by force, well, as an alchemist he knew a hundred different ways to kill himself, and if that was to be his choice in the end, it would be his alone. No need for others to die, not even these Taiytakei.

  The woman with the glass lenses over her eyes was looking at him. Perhaps she read his mind or read his thoughts from his eyes, for she raised an eyebrow and smiled. Bellepheros blinked in surprise. She had a lovely smile. He hadn’t expected that.

  ‘You are our most honoured guest,’ she said. ‘Whatever you require, I will give it to you. Whatever you ask for, you will have.’ She glanced at Tuuran. ‘You will build an eyrie for Sea Lord Quai’Shu, and if you must have a grand hall carved of solid gold and a harem of a thousand women from across the many worlds of the storm-dark to do it, so it shall be. Whatever you wish for, you will have.’

  ‘I wish to go home,’ said Bellepheros tartly.

  The woman’s face didn’t flicker. ‘That one wish only Sea Lord Quai’Shu can grant.’

  ‘Well, we’ll start with a library then,’ he snapped. If she thought he could be bought through his vices then she might as well know what they were. ‘Books. As many of them as you can get. Every eyrie should have one.’ And I’ll find out who you are. I’ll find out everything about you; and in time I’ll find a way to use what I learn against you, for I am a patient man.

  ‘Books?’ Her lips pursed. ‘Excellent! So be it. But you might have to share.’ A light danced in her eyes. ‘I like books too.’

  As the cradle rose further, the windows in the cliff face became larger and more ornate, easily wide enough for a man to climb in and out. ‘Are you the lady of this city?’ asked Bellepheros.

  ‘Lady of this city?’ The woman laughed and the easy creases in her face told Bellepheros that she was a friend to laughter. ‘This is the city of Sea Lord Quai’Shu. I am a servant. One of many. But for now I am your mistress.’ She smiled again. ‘Or your helper, or your t’varr, or however you prefer to see me.’

  ‘My friend Tuuran says you are an enchantress.’

  ‘Your slave is right. I am Chay-Liang. You are Bellepheros the alchemist. I’m afraid enchanters rule over no cities, more is the pity.’

  Your slave? The soldier had said the same after they’d picked Tuuran up off the deck. Bellepheros hadn’t taken it in before. Been too busy trying to breathe. ‘And what is it that an enchantress does?’

  Chay-Liang didn’t answer at once. But as the cradle reached the top of the cliff and Bellepheros could finally see what lay beyond, she stretched out her arm. ‘This.’

  He looked out over the City of Stone. Grey spires rose up around him like the three mountains of the Pinnacles in miniature, but hundreds and hundreds of them, jumbled together, packed in rows and clumps like the discarded teeth of some titanic monster. Sheer walls rose to jagged spikes and fell into dark chasms. Far below, in places between them, he saw black water. The sea perhaps. There wasn’t a flat surface to be seen and every spire was speckled with black spots like the pox, except now that he’d ridden the cradle he knew them for what they were. Windows.

  But Chay-Liang wasn’t pointing at the miraculous city of stone that lay before them. The enchantress was pointing up. To the golden palace that hung from the sky.

  6

  The Palace of Leaves

  The Palace of Leaves hung over Xican. Beside Bellepheros, Tuuran gaped in slack-jawed awe. It was hard not to. More than a dozen discs of gold-tinged glass floated high in the bright sky, each as wide as a war-dragon’s outstretched wings. A hundred chains of Scythian steel, with links as thick and long as a man, tethered them to the cliffs below. From beneath, the discs were a dazzling brightness so fierce that Bellepheros could only look at them sideways. From the ground a cluster of glass and gold spires and a few of black obsidian reached up like fingers. Tiny bridges of glass joined one tower to the next, wires of light that sparkled in the sun. Great silver and gold eggs hung beneath the discs, suspended by gleaming chains. In its midst Bellepheros saw a ship, masts and sails and all, simply suspended in the air.

  The enchantress Chay-Liang took a glass ball the size of a fist from the bag at her belt. She had three wands there too: one of black stone, one of pale golden glass like the lightning wands that the soldiers carried, and one of silver. She stepped off the cradle and held the glass ball in front of her. Bellepheros watched in fascination, torn between the detail of what she was doing and the overwhelming immensity of what rose above them. He settled for watching her. It was easier than trying to stare at the blinding miracle that floated in the sky.

  The glass ball bulged and flattened and grew into a disc ten feet wide that hovered in the air at the enchantress’s feet. She looked pleased with herself. ‘A perk of being what I am,’ she said, looking straight at him. She was showing off, and he laughed because the idea that this woman wanted to impress him struck him as absurd, that she somehow felt the need amid the dazzling marvels that surrounded them.

  She smiled back and offered him her hand. He supposed she thought he was impressed, and yes, a part of him was. But mostly he was seeing again how much he mattered to these Taiytakei, and the more he saw it, the more it woke the dread inside him. When it came to potions and dragons he could teach them everything he knew and it wouldn’t make a blind bit of difference. They probably weren’t going to like that, when they finally understood what made him what he was and why none of them could ever be the same. They certainly weren’t going to be happy to let him go home.

  ‘Are you coming?’ The enchantress stepped onto the glass and beckoned him again to follow. The Taiytakei soldiers hesitated – it seemed they didn’t know quite how they should treat him any more – and settled for shoving Tuuran onto the disc instead. Bellepheros followed, reluctant, bemused and anxious and wondering what came next. As soon as he was on, it rose into the air and his heart jumped into his mouth. He stumbled. At his feet the glass was as good as invisible. The city and its jumble of stone was falling away. They were climbing into the void between colossal spikes below and the brilliant palace above and everywhere he looked was huge open space. He staggered again as his stomach tied itself in knots and his legs quivered and started to give. He was going to faint! The woman in white was smiling at him, amused at his terror. Space! So much space! Too much space! The starkness of her black skin against the white of her robe struck him hard. He was gasping. He was going to faint. He closed his eyes and clung to the nearest body and never mind who it was. Great Flame! Such sorcery as this! Not even in the works of the Silver King …

  ‘Mind him! You’ll have Abraxi out of her grave if you let him fall!’ He barely heard over the rushing in his ears. Hands gripped him tight, easing him down. A voice whispered in his ear.

  ‘I have you.’ Tuuran. ‘Witchcraft and blood-magic, but we’re stronger, Lord Alchemist. We’re stronger! Cling to that!’

  No, we are not! Bellepheros didn’t feel strong at all, but words like witchcraft and blood-magic made him open his eyes a fraction because this was clearly neither of those things and that sort of ignorance had always annoyed him.

  No, opening his eyes was a mistake. The terror had him straight back again. Everywhere he looked, he saw sky. Even dragons had never made him feel so small. His head began to spin. He closed his eyes again and shut them tight. Wind pulled at him and whipped at his robes and his hair, playful and gleeful as though it wanted to nudge him over the edge and watch him fall and then laugh at him for being so utterly trivial. His fingers dug into Tuuran’s arm. He wanted to be sick. He’d looked dragons in the eye and now h
e carried the dread of the storm-dark in the pit of his stomach, yet he’d never felt as sharp a terror as this.

  He swayed as Tuuran lifted him up. The Adamantine Man’s easy strength helped him. ‘We are arrived, Lord Alchemist. The ground is stone again.’

  Bellepheros opened his eyes a crack. He caught a glimpse of pale golden glass walls, of a gaping hole and of the sky beyond and a cold white marble floor. He staggered forward and then his legs buckled and he fell out of Tuuran’s arms to his hands and knees. Solid stone. Even if it was floating in the sky, it felt like the ground and that was enough. A blessed relief. He stared at the veins in the marble for a second or two and then threw up. Pathetic. What must they think of me? He stayed where he was, trying to breathe.

  ‘Bellepheros?’

  The woman. Gentle hands reached under his arms and lifted him back to his feet. Hers, and when his eyes remembered how to focus, the concern on her face seemed real enough, even if a part of her was laughing at him. She looked odd with those glass lenses over her eyes. Owlish.

  ‘If anyone ever invites you to walk the Path of Words, you should probably decline.’ She smiled and pulled him away. As they moved, two women in white belted tunics ran from alcoves where they had stood like statues and started to clean the mess he’d made on their floor. Pale-skinned. Slaves again. The enchantress wrinkled her nose and made a face. ‘You’ve been in these clothes since the Picker took you, haven’t you? Your travel chest will arrive shortly. Really, I don’t see why they couldn’t have taken some other clothes out for you and let you have them. I’m afraid you smell quite … strong. And that won’t do for when you meet the sea lord. You’ll need some new ones. Do you have a preference? I know you have a liking for silk in your realm. Did you know that silk was something you stole from us? Old history and mostly forgotten now but it caused a great deal of trouble once.’