Dragon Queen

by Stephen Deas

  ‘Exactly. But not mine. Yours too. All of ours.’ She did that sometimes, reminded him of the last little crevasse between them. How he owned her; and when she did, it was like being stabbed. Then Kalaiya reached across the water and stroked his cheek and the flash of bitterness was gone as quickly as it came. Tsen clapped his hands with happy glee. ‘Let sea lords and their heirs pore over their charts and maps and their reports. Let Jima Hsian worry about Aria. It’s not like he has anything much else to do!’ And as the conundrum comes to a head, my sea lord arrives with dragons. Why, any suspicious-minded fellow might see the telltale hand of some particularly clever hsian in such a confluence of circumstance. Very clever indeed …

  ‘Jima Hsian is not the oaf you picture him to be, my master.’

  ‘Master?’ No, he certainly is not. ‘Have I upset you?’

  ‘You’re thinking about your dragons again. You’re not really here.’

  ‘I am thinking about dragons. I can’t stop.’ He laughed ‘I’ve been thinking about dragons for years. Years and years while Quai’Shu frittered away our fleet’s fortune and got us into this quicksand of debt.’ He leaned towards her. ‘I had no choice. I went to him with the quiet suggestion that maybe, just maybe, it was time to behave a little more – sail and sea help me, me of all creatures, saying a thing like this – responsibly; and then he brings back the alchemist and a plan and now there really are going to be dragons after all. They’ll be here very soon. I think … I think I’m actually scared, Kalaiya.’

  ‘Can I see them when they come?’

  Tsen looked longingly at his glass of wine, almost empty. If he didn’t raise more money soon then he’d be selling his private cellar just to get by, but the lords of Vespinarr with their bottomless pockets would pay anything at all when it came to dragons. Baros Tsen T’Varr and his lord Quai’Shu would see to that.

  Kalaiya poked him with her toe under the water. She pouted. ‘You’re not even listening to me!’

  ‘No.’ He hung his head. ‘I came here to tell you that you’d come with me when I left again and to celebrate that with you and to be away from everything else, and I’ve failed, abjectly failed.’

  ‘I asked, master, if I can see these dragons when they come.’ Her eyes said she was playing with him this time, not truly cross.

  The air quivered. The candle flames flickered. At the edge of the shadows the steam swirled. Tsen felt it through the stone and the water. They were suddenly not alone. Kalaiya squealed and Tsen’s heart paused in its beating for a moment as the shape of a man moved closer through the steam; and then he breathed out again as he saw it was the Watcher and not some other Elemental Man sent to kill him.

  ‘LaLa! You startled me!’ He spoke as kindly as he could manage but he couldn’t hide the edge of fear swiftly turning to ire. Death by Elemental Man mostly happened to kwens and hsians because they were more the kind of people who harboured ambitions, while t’varrs were a different breed; but still, under the circumstances … He turned to Kalaiya. ‘I’m sorry, my dear. Don’t be afraid. The Great Sea Council mostly prefers us t’varrs to murder each other in more genteel ways, with banks and money and trades and exchanges, and in these I am in my element. LaLa’s old-fashioned ways only come out when one of us is backed into a corner with nowhere left to go.’ He threw up his hands in mock despair. ‘At which point everyone goes for the throat in an unseemly scramble for the spoils while the drowning take as many of the vultures with them as they can before the corpse of their fleet is picked clean.’ He tutted. ‘I can’t imagine why. But I am neither drowning nor a vulture and we are far from such a corner.’ Although by no means as far as I would like.

  The Elemental Man stood there, distant, wreathed in steam and pointedly silent. Tsen sighed and stood up. On his feet, the water reached his hips, steam rising in coils and curls around him. ‘I’m sorry, Kalaiya. It seems this may be a matter for which you must leave us.’

  She went without a word. He watched her go, mute and demure, but underneath he could tell that the appearance of the killer had shaken her. Perhaps he was the only one who knew her well enough to see, but then, who could blame her? This had been his time. Hers. Theirs. ‘I will make it up to you,’ he called after her. ‘You’ll see both dragons and the desert. I promise.’

  When she was gone, and only then, the Watcher bowed and fell to his knees. He shuffled closer, a dark shape in the gloom and the steam. It was the sort of quaint tradition that made Tsen laugh, since they both knew that one of them was a deadly sorcerer-assassin, guardian of the very fabric of creation and honed in his skills from the moment he’d been born, while the other was a fat naked man standing in a bath. And he kowtows to me while my slave freely shows her scorn. It was a strange world. Tsen sat back in the water. And why not? ‘Come on in, if you like.’ Not that the Watcher ever would.

  ‘I apologise from the well of my soul, Hands of the Sea Lord,’ whispered the Elemental Man. Tsen smiled. They were all so … traditional.

  And that was about when the Watcher’s exact words sank in, and Baros Tsen would never think those lovely thoughts of the quiet life of a t’varr again. From the well of my soul. Even in the heat of the water his skin prickled. ‘Who, LaLa? Who is dead?’

  ‘Zifan’Shu is murdered.’

  Quai’Shu’s heir. Ah well. Dim-witted jackass. Never liked that one anyway. ‘How? And aren’t you and the Picker supposed to stop things like that?’

  The Watcher never raised his eyes from the floor so Tsen didn’t get to see his face. He was good with faces. One little virtue in a sea of vices, as he put it himself, but he was a hard man to lie to. It was a skill he found useful mostly when gambling. ‘I was in a different world.’ The Watcher’s voice gave nothing away. ‘The Picker was already dead.’

  ‘The Picker is dead?’ Tsen shook his head. ‘An accident? No. Someone … someone killed an Elemental Man?’ That was supposed to be impossible, wasn’t it?

  ‘He was killed by a dragon, Hands of the Sea Lord. Sea Lord Quai’Shu …’ the Watcher seemed to struggle for a moment to find the right words ‘… has lost his mind.’

  Tsen’s own thoughts stuttered, fumbling for a place to start. ‘Lost his mind? With grief, you mean, for his son?’ Hardly seemed likely, knowing Quai’Shu.

  Ah yes, and then of course it had to come, that stupid sly little thought. The sea lord is mad? His heir is dead? He’ll need a new one then, won’t he? One who can see out his vision. And there’s no reason for it to be someone who’s tied to him by blood, none at all. It could be anyone. A kwen or a hsian. Or a … a t’varr?

  Shut up! Stupid nasty little thought. Could at least have had the decency to wait until later when he was alone.

  Then a different and more chilling thought chased it out. ‘The fleet?’ Not much point in being the sea lord of nothing after all …

  Quiet, you!

  ‘There is some damage but most remains intact.’

  ‘Some damage? LaLa, some is a word of terror to a t’varr, especially when what follows is damage. What damage, exactly?’ He shook his head, paused and frowned, still trying to put the pieces together. ‘And how do you know, LaLa? Where have you been? You were supposed to be in the middle of an inhospitable desert watching my alchemist and Chay-Liang. Not so close to the sea, that.’ With the words out and their taint of suspicion hanging between them, he found himself again pondering the incongruity of a sorcerer-assassin who could turn into wind and fire and rain being questioned by a naked man in a bath. A possibly very short-lived naked man in a bath. That was what came of being a sea lord’s t’varr, he supposed.

  ‘The moon sorcerers themselves came.’ The Watcher soun
ded awestruck now. ‘They brought the dragons. They … they showed us what happened. Chay-Liang and I.’

  ‘Dragons? There are dragons now?’ Father and daughter, where does it end? ‘Last I heard we were trying to steal eggs. Are you telling me now that there are dragons, on top of everything else, sitting in my eyrie, a thousand miles from here, wondering what to do with themselves?’ That was the t’varr in him. People were dead. For all he knew the world might be ending, but if it was, the offence was that it wasn’t ending according to the proper plan. ‘Eggs,’ he said again, wagging a finger that apparently couldn’t restrain itself. ‘Hatched in secret and revealed in their own good time.’ Live dragons? Xibaiya! Do the Vespinese know? Who else? And what are they worth? He frowned. Nasty little thought again, away with you! ‘Are they … burning everything? Should we pack our chests and flee across the storm-dark while we still can?’ He’d thought he was joking when he started that sentence but by the end he wasn’t so sure.

  ‘The alchemist is dealing with them, Hands of the Sea Lord.’ The Watcher touched his brow again to the slick marble of the floor. Tsen’s head was drowning him in possibilities now, far more than he could manage all at once. He had to pause, if only for a moment.

  ‘Are they … are they everything Quai’Shu said they were? Wild uncontrollable fire-breathing monsters? Unstoppable, yet tamed by this alchemist? They are tamed, yes, LaLa?’

  The Elemental Man raised his eyes and met Tsen’s gaze. Not something he was supposed to do to a sea lord’s t’varr but Tsen decided he’d take it as a compliment this time. ‘They have left one full-grown adult. It is magnificent, Baros Tsen T’Varr. Unlike anything I have ever seen, and I have seen a great deal. I do not fear any man in any realm, nor any beast, but I fear this dragon.’ The Watcher’s eyes went back where they were supposed to be. ‘Hands of the Sea Lord, yes, they are tamed but the alchemist urges you to return as swiftly as you can to the eyrie. He—’

  Tsen cut him off. ‘No, no. The fleet will be here in a few days. I can’t leave until I’ve seen it for myself. Do they still carry anything interesting or have all the eggs hatched and mysteriously flown to my eyrie by the hand of some mostly mythical wizards?’ My eyrie? He raised an inner eyebrow at himself. How easy that came. ‘No, I need him to come to me. I need him to bring one of these dragons. A manageable one.’ Stupid thoughts came at him now as they always did, ones that had no business giving themselves a voice: This is no way to take a bath. ‘I’m sorry to treat you as a messenger but a jade raven won’t be as quick and so I need you to do this for me. Make these arrangements at the eyrie and then return here and be with me when the fleet arrives and we shall see for ourselves whether Quai’Shu has yet found the mind again that he so carelessly lost.’

  The Elemental Man didn’t withdraw, which struck Tsen as odd as their conversation was clearly finished. ‘Hands of the Sea Lord, the fleet is not coming here.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘They have set course for Khalishtor.’

  ‘Well, who told them to do that?’

  ‘I suppose our sea lord.’ The Watcher bowed and backed away now, shuffling on his knees until he almost vanished in the steam-haze in the far corner of the bathhouse. There was a pop of wind and a swirl of mist and he was gone. Tsen sank slowly back into the water. The edge had gone from its heat, or maybe he was just getting used to it. His glass was all but empty. Still, he’d enjoy it for as long as he could. And there I was, complaining away at the burden of my work when it was merely ordinary.

  He sent for Kalaiya again. All the preparations he’d made to receive the eggs would have to change. Stick everything in a ship and sail to Khalishtor, he supposed, and all his people too. That alone would keep half the palace busy. But it wouldn’t be quick enough. Glasships. He’d have to use the house glasships. And then if Quai’Shu had lost his mind then the Council of Sea Captains in Khalishtor would have to be told. He’d need to talk to the fleet treasurer before that could happen. He’d need to know how truly bad it was. And there were other arrangements to be made. The council’s debate on the Ice Witch that Quai’Shu had quietly paid a great deal of money to postpone until the proper time.

  Kalaiya, when she returned, eased into the water beside him and wrapped her hands around his face and kissed his brow. People saw her with him and assumed so much. There he goes. Him and his slave. They had no idea.

  She pushed up beside him, turned and put a finger to his nose. ‘I have a wager for you.’ She smirked. ‘One I think I’m going to win.’

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Oh, go on then. Every man had his vices, after all.

  23

  The Kwen

  Slowly, through their thick accents, Zafir understood what her broken birds were. Bed-slaves, harem girls, except she’d gutted the master of their harem and now they had no one to serve. They should have been pleased then, she thought, but they weren’t.

  Three days after the dragons broke loose, the Taiytakei sighted land. They sent her down from the decks and bolted the chain still around her wrist to the roof beams and she was a prisoner again. The urge to fight them burned her but she let them do it, played out her act of compliance for now. She watched from her window as the ships of the fleet arrayed themselves in the shelter of a cluster of tiny islands, and when her own vessel turned on its anchor with the shifting of the wind, she saw the line of a distant shore. Caught between the turquoise ripples of the sea and the bright deep blue of the sky, a single cloud-shrouded mountain rose behind the glimmer of a city nestled in the gentle sweep of a bay. That night she saw fires burning across the shore and gleaming lines of light. The next day, up on the headlands at either end of the bay, towers glittered and shone when the sun caught them just so, towers as tall as her own Tower of Air, perhaps greater still. Her stomach fluttered with anticipation. When she was alone she looked long and hard at the chain on her wrist.

  ‘Where are we?’ Little boats rowed constantly back and forth across the still sea. The Taiytakei were confused. She could feel it in the air. Every sailor knew what to do, every ship, every captain, every soldier, every slave and yet they had no leader. They were a perfect but headless machine.

  ‘Khalishtor, mistress.’ She still had her three broken birds, though one of them truly was broken now from the sight of the dragon and often simply stood, mouth open, eyes blank and looking at nothing. Zafir called her Onyx for want of her real name. Onyx in memory of the dragon Jehal had stolen over Evenspire. There was Myst, who’d kept her wits and who clearly worshipped her but still didn’t speak. And Brightstar. All names she’d given them after favoured dragons from her eyries. They were ignorant and knew almost nothing but they were all she had.

  ‘And what is Khalishtor?’

  ‘Their greatest city.’ Brightstar talked, although not much. Her skin was lighter than the others and she spoke with an accent that Zafir had never heard.

  ‘Their capital?’

  ‘Their Caladir,’ said Brightstar emphatically. Zafir had no idea what she meant. Their City of Dragons? Let that be good enough.

  ‘What will they do with me?’ It was hard not to be scared now. Alone at night she lay awake, wondering why they kept her alive at all. Yearning for home and a life she’d never really had, but even if she somehow got away and returned, surely all that waited for her now was to hang in one of her own cages outside the Adamantine Palace, food for the crows. The war had come and she’d lost. Sometimes, in the dead of night, she wept and then hated herself for being so weak. And looked at the chain again and remembered wrapping it around her neck; but to her that way seemed weaker still.

  On the second morning at anchor a speck in the sky drew her eyes over the glitter and gleam of the city. A d
ragon, she thought at first, for what else could it be, but it glistened and shone like a star while dragons were always dark. As she stared, she saw another and then another, drifting over the sea towards the ships, slow like clouds and not like dragons at all. As they drew nearer she saw how they pulsed and flickered, catching the sun’s light now and then. They were … She had no idea. Shapes in the sky. Discs of gleaming glass tinged and rimmed with gold, great wheels within other wheels all slowly spinning, sky-ships floating with no means of support. The outermost wheel, the largest by far, lay flat, turning slowly around four more inner discs, smaller and smaller, nested one within the other around the innermost sphere and all at different angles, each spinning faster than the last. Lines of gold caught the sun and glittered like a spider’s web within the glass and a single orb hung beneath each great disc, golden eggs suspended from delicate silver chains.

  Sky-ships the size of dragons. No sails, no masts, no oars, no wings. They came to the fleet and hung above it and Zafir stared at them like a child, as she might once have stared at her first dragon if dragons hadn’t been a part of her life for as long as she could remember. The orbs descended on their chains until she couldn’t see them any more. She thought, as they came lower, that she saw little round windows in their golden shells.

  ‘What are those?’

  ‘Glasships, mistress.’ Brightstar and Myst were staring too, as awed as she was. ‘Beautiful, mistress.’

  Beautiful. The word broke their spell. Zafir looked away. ‘Perhaps. But they are not dragons.’

  The sun crept overhead and the glasships floated away. Another frenzy of boats flitted among the fleet and Zafir passed the long hours counting them, seeing where they went. As the sun set fire to the far horizon, Myst brought her a silver bowl of steaming stew and a tall glass of clear liquid with bright crimson leaves floating in it. Brightstar brought fresh clothes. Onyx had a small chest.