by Stephen Deas
‘A good test of your control of the beast,’ Vey Rin T’Varr said while Shonda was talking to the enchantress and the alchemist. They were the only words to come from his old friend from long ago, and the cynic in Tsen decided that Rin was only saying them to distract him from listening in on whatever Shonda was talking about. Not that he needed to. Shonda’s agenda was obvious. He was a sea lord and his thoughts were sea lord thoughts: How can this be mine? Rin himself didn’t seem interested in the hatchlings or the alchemist or indeed anything. Because you’re only here to talk about all that money I owe you? Ah well, considerate of you not to pretend otherwise.
Nasty little thoughts.
Tsen had planned to show them around the inside of the eyrie too, including the alchemist’s laboratory and the quarters where the Scales lived – wearing the alchemist’s leathers and mask and with dire warnings, of course, which would only have made them all the more keen. He might have taken them to his own study. He had a sumptuous feast prepared but it was all wasted. Shonda stayed for scarcely more than an hour and never left the dragon yard after he’d almost got himself eaten – was that what a dragon did? Or would it have burned them? He hadn’t seen the dragon’s fire yet, but that’s what they did, wasn’t it? Burned you and then ate the charred mess that was left? He realised he didn’t know. He’d have to ask.
He bowed and kowtowed and did all the things he was supposed to and pushed Quai’Shu’s disc up to the gondolas to make the pretence of a formal farewell. Quai’Shu was muttering under his breath, something he’d been doing more and more and none of it made any sense. They watched Shonda leave. Meido and Bronzehand followed him, little ducklings paddling furiously to stay close to their mother leaving Tsen alone with Vey Rin T’Varr and the business that really mattered. The two stood side by side, watching the Vespinese glasships recede into the sky with the sea lord and Quai’Shu’s sons safe in their thin silver shells.
‘I don’t think,’ said Vey Rin, stroking his chin, ‘that I will ever see a glasship in quite the same way again.’
Tsen said nothing. They’d been t’varrs together for years. Long before that they’d actually been friends – real friends – two wild young things who thought the world existed for their amusement and pleasure without much of a care in the world or thought for the consequences of what they did. Nowadays they were sometimes friends, sometimes adversaries, always too much of one to fully be the other, but they still had an understanding. They’d come to know each other well enough to know each other’s silences.
‘I’ve always rather taken them for granted,’ said Rin after a while. ‘It never had occurred to me how fragile they really are. Now it does.’
My monster could rip a gondola from its chains as easily as you or I might pluck a flower. It could throw it through the sky as you or I might throw a ball for fun. That about right? Frightening, is it? I suppose it must be. ‘Glasships have their lightning cannon,’ said Tsen mildly. And whatever else your enchanters have secretly done to them.
‘And you really haven’t seen what happens when you fire one at that thing?’ They were still staring at the gondolas, watching them fade into the desert haze, little gleaming pricks of light in the sky.
‘I really haven’t.’ And now you can have some fun trying to decide whether to believe that or not, and I can have some fun too trying to guess which way that goes. We already both know what worries you: that I have tried it and that the dragon survived. What then, eh? ‘I was thinking,’ he added, ‘of not finding out at all. If the cannon kills my dragon then I will have to wait for the little ones to grow. If the dragon kills the cannon then I can imagine a few sea lords might find that a touch upsetting.’ Which is like saying the dragon is a touch big, even if we all know that the Elemental Men would never allow me to turn my monster against my dear friends in the Great Sea Council.
‘Uncertainty can be your ally only for a while, my friend.’
‘True, but there are no lightning cannon in Aria.’
‘Point.’ Vey Rin turned away from the drifting points of colour in the sky. For a while he stared at the dragon. The monster was watching the gondolas too and you had to wonder what it was thinking. Nothing, if you believed the alchemist, but Tsen wasn’t sure that he did. The creature watched the world around it with far too much purpose in its gaze.
Rin shivered and pulled his eyes back to Tsen. ‘And that is something I should like to discuss. Along with one or two other more tedious matters.’
Money. Tsen smiled. ‘Of course, old friend. The usual?’
‘Yes, I would like that.’ Vey Rin smiled back and for once he really meant it. They walked together across the yard, past the dragon on the battlements. Zafir was sitting beside it again, head tipped back, sprawled under the desert sun. Rin pursed his lip. ‘Interesting slave you have there.’
‘Oh, I have several.’
‘I think you’ll particularly want to watch that one.’
Really? Why, I don’t think that would ever have occurred to me without you mentioning it. Thank you so much, you patronising sod. ‘I think we have an understanding.’ We have a something, anyway.
‘You have other slaves who can ride the dragon?’
Tsen laughed. No point in even trying to lie about that. ‘You think I’d use her if I did? It is being arranged, Rin, as with many other things. Our lord had planned for hatchlings and eggs. The adult is an unexpected bonus to which we are adjusting as best we can.’
‘I’d adjust quickly if I were you.’ They walked into the cool shade of the spiralling tunnels. ‘We might talk about how Vespinarr can help you with that.’
‘I’m sure that will be most pleasant.’ You mean we might talk about how much more debt I can accrue and what you’d want for it, and how difficult my life might become if I don’t do things as you want them done? Yes. A delight indeed.
He led Vey Rin down into the depths of the eyrie and the bathhouse. As they walked thorough the curling white stone passages with their quiet light, they gossiped and idly speculated on the nature of the eyrie itself. As much a wonder as the dragon in its way, but it had sat abandoned in the desert for decade after decade, floating above the sands because no one had found a use for it. An inexplicable oddity, too dour and drab to be a palace, a thing of almost no value at all and yet still a mystery and a miracle. Just because it has slept and done nothing for all these years, don’t imagine there is no danger dormant within it. Thank you, Jima Hsian, for those last words to keep me up at night.
The baths were ready for him as they always were. He let Rin have a good look at them, though there wasn’t much to see. The chamber at the eyrie’s heart was a hemisphere of white stone that glowed too brightly in the daytime, just right at twilight and was a little too dim at night. Tsen had tried to think of ways to change it but the stone did what the stone did and it turned out there wasn’t much to be done about it. Ten white stone archways ringed the centre of the room. They weren’t much to look at, not ornamented in any way, just arches. Somewhere in the middle, when they’d first found this room, had been a plinth of yet more white stone. Tsen supposed it was still there but now his bath filled the space inside the arches. Black marble flecked with gold, the same as he had in Khalishtor. Shallow steps between each arch led up to the bath. He’d thought at the time it was a shame they hadn’t been able dig through the white stone and set the bath into the floor as it should have been; now he knew a little more about what this white stone did, he didn’t mind so much, even if it was all a bit of an ugly hodgepodge.
Vey Rin walked around the outside of the cavern and then up the steps to the bath and dipped his hand into the water. He didn’t say a word, but when he came back to Tsen he nodded. They left the last of Shonda’s white-cloaks and Qu
ai’Shu’s black-cloaks outside, disrobed, then let the eyrie slaves take their clothes and close the iron doors to the bathhouse behind them. The only doors Tsen had told Chay-Liang to leave as they were.
‘My quiet place.’ Tsen smiled once they were alone. He walked up the steps and eased himself into the water. The slaves had got the temperature just right for once and his old favourite Xizic oil too. His, not Rin’s. Rin preferred the subtler Xizic of Shinpai. ‘A shadow of my bathhouse in Xican and a mere speck of dirt beside your own in the Kabulingnor, but one makes do as one can.’
‘Apparently one does.’ Rin slipped into the water beside him, clearly unimpressed. Tsen gestured to the white stone of the cavern, glowing as it always did.
‘Even my enchanters cannot mark this stone. It is impenetrable to them in some way.’ He shrugged apologetically. ‘It has forced many compromises into my design.’ Ha! And there’s a thing you probably didn’t know when you came here and I probably shouldn’t have told you at all, but there you go and now I have. Startling enough to merit a word with your lord and a small panic at Hingwal Taktse, I should have thought. I’ll tell Chay Liang to expect some guests shortly, shall I? Little moments like this came between them rarely. He made sure to savour it. He could see Rin thinking, trying to decide whether he was lying. I wonder how you would take it if I told you how impenetrable my stone is to certain others too, eh? Elemental others, but I think I’ll continue to keep that little jewel to myself.
‘Will your usual slave not join us?’
Yes, and thank you for that little needle-nod to my weakness. ‘Kalaiya? Do you think she should?’ Of course not, not when we’re here to discuss the future of both our lords, or do you already know that I’ll tell her everything anyway?
‘Perhaps not.’
Tsen nodded. ‘It is a place, after all, to be alone. For words to be spoken that will not spread.’
More slaves brought food from the abandoned feast. He told them to take the rest and to share what was left among everyone, slaves too. No reason not to be generous sometimes. The two of them ate and talked of old times. They chewed over how things were when they’d been younger men, of how things had changed over the years. Vey Rin talked for a while about his family and his many sons and daughters. Tsen stayed quiet for that, listening with little to say of his own. I envy you, in a way. All that love if only you can find the time for it and choose not to waste it. All that life. Just never what I wanted. At least Rin knew him well enough not to pry. They both knew he had his Kalaiya, that he loved her more than he loved his own lord and that he’d never taken her to his bed, not once. A mystery to everyone, even to Tsen himself.
They ate and talked until the apple wine came and the doors closed and they were alone again. Rin smiled into his glass. ‘How are you managing, Tsen? Well, I hope?’ Which could have meant almost anything, but there was the slightest change in his posture which said, Business now, and so Tsen knew exactly what he was talking about: Quai’Shu’s fleets and the money to keep them going.
‘Adequately, under the circumstances.’ Of which you are probably even more aware than I.
‘Good.’ Liar. ‘If there is any help you wish from your friends in Vespinarr, you have but to ask.’ Rin eased back into the bath, letting the water lap at his chin.
In exchange for a piece of my dragon? Tsen smiled. ‘I am ever grateful. I’m sure there is something.’ Yes, we both know there’s no avoiding this, given how much I owe you. Yes, you can have a piece, and no, not as much as you want. He leaned forward. ‘The Great Sea Council’s concerns regarding Aria interest me greatly. The dragon is a powerful weapon. It can be taken across the storm-dark, that much we already know.’ And push me hard enough and I might just try and go on without you, and we can both imagine how painful that would be for everyone.
‘Perhaps we should consider a cooperative proposal?’ No, I won’t push you that hard. Too risky. Too uncertain.
‘Perhaps we should.’
‘The council will need to understand what else will be required.’ I want to see what your dragon can really do so we both know how much it might be worth.
‘Yes.’ Well, it’s not like I didn’t see that coming. ‘I was thinking of a demonstration. Bom Tark.’ And that look of shock you should be wearing on your face right now … Except there was no such look. If anything Rin looked disappointed.
‘Bom Tark? Why?’
Tsen frowned. Rin didn’t like this idea at all. Tsen had expected surprise, perhaps a little admiration for such audacity but not this, not disapproval. Was he frightened? But that wasn’t the Rin who’d gone slave hunting across the dunes thirty years ago, and it left Tsen thinking he’d missed something. Enough sparring then. ‘Where else, Rin? The dragon is a monster. A weapon. Bom Tark is a city of slaves, of outlaws and renegades ruled by no one, commanded by none and outside our law. It’s been a thorn in the Great Sea Council’s side for a century. How many times have we contemplated getting rid of them? But each time it’s just not important enough for anyone to take the risk that they’ll lose more than they gain. I have nothing to lose and a great deal to gain. Bom Tark. One dragon. Even Shonda would have to pay attention.’
‘He would.’ Rin nodded. ‘But Bom Tark is … useful. Sometimes.’
‘And now it can be useful to me. By burning. If the dragon can do it there then it can do it in Aria. One terrible beast. Let it ravage half their empire and let them wonder where it came from. We won’t destroy them completely. Just enough to cripple them for another generation and pull the Ice Witch out to where the Elemental Men can finish her.’ The look on Vey Rin’s face was still all wrong though. This wasn’t him being appalled that Bom Tark was a city of ten thousand slaves and refugees and Tsen was talking about burning it. It wasn’t about all the little uses the sea lords found for them either, the things that had kept them from being scorched off the map of Takei’Tarr in swathes of lightning long ago. For a moment Tsen was lost. What are you thinking, old friend?
‘Bom Tark would serve as a demonstration for the council, I suppose. But …’ But? Something … bigger? I thought to take you aback with the scope of my ambition and now you tell me that yes, you’re taken aback, but by the lack of it?
Tsen raised his hands in defeat. ‘You’ll have to be a little more clear, Rin. You have something on your mind but I don’t see it.’
Rin leaned forward and bared his teeth. ‘There is one thing. Something that would wipe our slate clean. No debt, and Vespinarr will claim no part of your dragon or your eyrie or anything else. Your debts to others are another matter but I’m sure they’re quite manageable.’
Yes. As you well know, since you’ve quietly bought most of them. Tsen could barely think. The enormity of what Rin was offering was staggering. All our debts? No part of my dragons? So it cannot be anything but a trap. ‘I struggle to imagine, my friend, what could be worth so much.’ He tried to laugh. ‘You’ve beaten me. Enough. What share of this eyrie and these monsters do you want? Let us haggle and be done with it.’
Rin shuffled around the bath until they were sitting beside one another. ‘Do Bom Tark for the council if you like, but I’m not interested. You know what I want to see scorched? Think about it.’ His fingers drew a shape in the air. An unmistakable outline of two islands. With a flourish he put a little bridge between them and shuffled away back to his side, smiled and raised his glass. Tsen was too stunned to move. ‘Where is your other little pet anyway? What do you call him? LaLa? You must like to live with danger, my friend. I wonder: why is your lord so driven to collect such weapons?’
‘Quai’Shu keeps his own counsel there.’ Although I suppose we could ask him if he wasn’t demented. His head was full. You
want me to burn where?
Vey Rin clambered out of the bath. ‘You might want to have him check up on your friend Jima Hsian. Strange friends he has recently. Unlikely ones, all things considered, and you might find it clears your mind to my proposal.’ He stretched. ‘I think we’re finished. You’ve done some nice design here, given what you had to work with. You always did have a taste for how a bathhouse should feel. If this all turns bad for you, Tsen, I have a place for you in Vespinarr. You’d do a much better job of this than I ever did. We could go to the tiger pits together like we used to.’ Rin chuckled and shook his head. ‘An evening with you and we haven’t made a single wager? You must be working too hard.’
Tsen followed him out, even though all he wanted was to stay exactly where he was and have Kalaiya come and join him to tell her about the madness that Vey Rin T’Varr had just put in his head. But he didn’t. Partly because what kind of a host would he be to let Vey Rin see himself out, and partly because of that last little needle there. I could live in Vespinarr? I could be a part of your family? I could be your bathhouse designer? One tiny step above a sword-slave? I don’t think so, Vey Rin T’Varr.