Dragon Queen

by Stephen Deas

  ‘Many. How many thousands dwell in Bom Tark, Tsen?’

  A scream rang out from one of the towers. A welcome distraction from an uncomfortable thought. Rin had put a slave in a cage up there and lined it with silver to draw the eyes of his jade ravens, his messengers to and from Vespinarr while he was here. One was perched on top of the cage now, the size of a hawk but with feathers of a deep iridescent green and an emerald beak like the emerald of Rin’s glasship. Rin kept his eyes on the dragon while Tsen watched the bird. The jade ravens made his skin crawl; he’d been glad to be rid of them after Quai’Shu lost his mind and now Rin had brought them back again. They came from Qeled and they were, as far as Tsen could tell, fitting ambassadors of their realm. The silver drew the raven to the cage, but it was the slave it was after. The bird hopped down and squeezed through the bars. The slave kicked out but the raven was too quick. It flapped and jumped and dodged and pecked the man on the foot. It couldn’t have been more than a tiny puncture but the slave only had time for one pitiful scream as he turned green and then shattered, transformed by the bird’s poison. The jade raven poked at the debris and began to devour the fragments, the broken chunks of what had once been flesh, pecking at them then hopping from one to the next like a crow. From a distance it seemed as though the birds turned men into glass, but that wasn’t true. Hard and brittle but more of a resin, like amber or Xizic. Tsen shuddered. More monsters. As if we don’t have enough of them. He had a dim idea that someone at the Great Sea Council had said something about letting them loose to trouble the Ice Witch. A thing already done? He wasn’t sure. But if we do then I’m quite sure it won’t be the Ice Witch they devour.

  Rin was watching the dragon come in to land. It came down hard. Tsen didn’t know whether it was the dragon or the rider that liked to do that but they did it every day, and so every day the castle shook to its core. Wherever you were, the stone trembled under your feet to tell you that the monster was back. Zafir threw off her riding leathers and swaggered past them, hips swinging. Rin stared after her. ‘That’s some slave you have there.’

  ‘Yes. I suppose so.’ Every flight was the same; and after every landing, after the dragon announced its return, she sauntered across the eyrie in front of everyone with such a fierce magnetism that every slave and Taiytakei alike stopped to stare. Look at them. All except me and the alchemist. It’s the dragon, you cock-brains, not her!

  ‘But she is a slave. Send her to me.’ Even Rin. Tsen shook his head. He wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry.

  ‘I’d keep my distance if I were you,’ he said quickly, before Rin let out something stupid that he’d have to make up for later by driving Tsen even harder into his corner. ‘She kills. Even when Chrias Kwen wouldn’t take no for an answer it cost him one of his black-cloaks.’ Now there was a thing he still hadn’t made into any sense. They had loathed each other before and now they loathed each other even more. He struggled to imagine what Chrias had been thinking, making such a fool of himself. Did he see it as some unkind little victory? If he did, Tsen thought he was wrong. Her eyes say otherwise, Chrias my dear sweet enemy. Her eyes say it was hers. Not that I much care, but I do wonder how that can be. What has she done to you? Something bitter, I hope. You brought it on yourself and so you deserve it. I’d ask but – wait – I can’t, because you’re not here, because you’re off assembling a fleet and an army for our dear friend Rin while he helps you into Quai’Shu’s cape. Not that I’m supposed to know anything about that … He tried to hide his unease behind a laugh. Rin didn’t much like it but as far as Tsen was concerned he could choke on it. ‘I wouldn’t wish to explain to Lord Shonda why he’s suddenly missing both his brother and his t’varr. I imagine he’d be irked.’

  The jade raven was fat and bloated now, dopey and slow but it came when Rin called in clicks and whistles, hopping out of the cage and the ruins of the slave who’d once stood there. It flapped lazily onto Rin’s arm. Tsen couldn’t help but recoil a few steps, but the bird didn’t seem interested in him. It preened a few of its feathers and then settled. Rin gently tugged the silver ring from its leg. He stood calm as he squinted at it with the bird on his arm, a lethal enigma of a creature made by sorcerers long dead and that no one understood, and Tsen wondered at the absurdity of Rin’s blind belief in his own invulnerability; but then the dragon shifted on its wall across the eyrie and he felt the castle tremble under his feet again and laughed at his own absurdity instead.

  Rin peered at the message ring, struggling with the tiny words, then threw it high into the air over the rim of the eyrie. It glittered once as it caught the sun and then vanished towards the sands below. He clapped a hand on Tsen’s shoulder. Tsen flinched – Rin still had that damned bird perched on his other arm. ‘Well, there’s a thing. The Great Sea Council has agreed to turn your dragon on the renegades and outlaws of Bom Tark.’ He smiled. ‘It seems that not one lord raised an objection. I dare say there will be quite a turnout to come and watch.’

  Tsen winced. He only had himself to blame. Bom Tark. A few thousand runaway slaves. He’d made the suggestion before he’d seen the dragon fly. A few houses burned and a few hundred slaves killed, he’d thought, and then it would be done, but he knew better now. It wouldn’t be that way at all, not with that monster and not with her. A chill ran over him and prickled his skin, even under the blaze of the sun. And a dozen glasships hovering overhead filled with fat old men like me. Hsians and kwens and t’varrs and maybe even sea lords peering out from their nice safe gold-glass windows. Scratching their chins and complaining about the wine as thousands die, clucking their tongues and furrowing their brows and making notes, complaining about the smoke spoiling their view and and feverishly wondering who might burn next. And my dragon-rider … He shook his head. She’d leave no room for doubt. She’d be perfect. Meticulous and ruthless and utterly thorough. She’d leave Bom Tark a black scar on the jungle coast. Every ship and building burned, every single man, woman and child dead. Worst of all, she’d delight in it.

  ‘Are you cold?’ Vey Rin raised an eyebrow.

  ‘I am disheartened.’

  ‘You are also, to remind you in your own words, drowning in debt. The dragon is all you have. You have to use it or sell it, Tsen, and you know that perfectly well. Lord Shonda would buy you in a flash. Live your life with us in every bit as much luxury as you live it now. Full of comfort but empty of any danger. Grow your apples and make your wine and spend your days in your bath with your slave. Why not, Tsen? Really, why not?’

  ‘While you burn whatever amuses you?’

  Rin’s face went cold. That was the end of their friendship, such as it was now, right there, which only went to show how little it had been worth. ‘Aria, T’Varr. I speak to you as one of our discipline to another but you’re not the only one who might one day be lord of Xican. Don’t imagine that Lord Shonda doesn’t speak to the others.’ He frowned. ‘What’s happened to you, Tsen? You saw everything so clearly not all that long ago.’

  Tsen laughed in his face. ‘Your lord can speak to whoever he wishes. The dragons are here and they’re mine. They will go where I say.’

  Rin shook his head. ‘Your thinking has grown muddy, old friend.’ He didn’t wait for an answer but instead walked towards the dragon. A Scales sat beside it, but neither the alchemist nor the rider was nearby. Safer to be close to them when they’ve flown than when they haven’t, but safest of all to simply stay far away. They can be careless even when they are not malicious. The alchemist had told him that weeks ago and Tsen had been perfectly glad to heed his warning.

  ‘Rin!’ Tsen stopped fifty paces short, safely further than the length of the dragon’s tail. Rin didn’t. ‘What are you doing?’ In a flash of madness he found himself almost hoping that Rin did get too close, that some accident did happen. And then I s
hould just get on with it and burn the Kabulingnor while I’m at it? Idiot! Shonda would murder us all!

  Rin turned and Tsen could see the strain on his face, the fear. ‘I want to touch it,’ he called. ‘Before I go.’

  ‘Are you mad? You sound like Chrias. He did the same, but he’s a kwen and you expect that sort of foolishness from kwens! Rin, please!’

  Rin walked right up to the dragon. The Scales was waving him back but the Scales was a slave and Rin was a t’varr, the Hands of the Sea Lord Shonda. He reached out and touched the dragon’s foot. The dragon didn’t seem to notice. Rin backed away, turned and walked as fast as his dignity would allow and it was over and no one had died. Tsen found he was sweating and panting and he hadn’t even moved. Rin was shaking when he came back. He still had that bloody bird on his arm too.

  ‘Are you happy now, Rin? Or would you like to dive off the rim of my eyrie and see if my dragon can catch you? Would that be enough excitement for you?’

  Rin’s eyes were wide. He grinned, and for an instant he wasn’t a t’varr but just a man, one that Tsen had once rather liked. ‘I remember a Baros Tsen who would have raced me to be there first.’ He stared at the dragon. ‘It’s so …’

  ‘Big?’ That was a word for the dragon. Big.

  ‘Yes, but not just its size.’ He was gasping for breath. ‘We’re safe here? Yes? Out of its reach?’ There was a quiver in his voice. Fear. Not surprising after what he’d just done but there was more, something …

  Rin clucked and clicked his tongue and lifted his arm. The jade raven launched itself into the air and flew straight at the dragon. Tsen stared in disbelief. ‘Rin!’ His mouth stopped working and simply hung open. No words. He had no words for this.

  ‘I’m sorry, my friend,’ and for once Tsen truly believed him, ‘but Lord Shonda commands it.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘There are sorcerers in Aria.’

  The bird landed on the dragon’s back. The dragon ignored it. ‘Couldn’t you have at least tried it on one of the small ones?’ Tsen wanted to punch someone. No. Because if it works then everything changes and I have almost nothing and Shonda has the power again. And to think I called you a friend once. You bastard!

  The dragon’s head snapped round. The jade raven jumped into the air. The dragon shot fire, missing it but spraying flames across half the dragon yard as the bird flew between its legs. The dragon stamped, the shock shuddering through the whole castle. Tsen staggered into Rin. ‘You stupid t’varr! What have you done?’

  The bird flew out into the open space outside the eyrie. The dragon’s tail flicked out, precision perfect. The jade raven plunged at the last moment, but the dragon seemed to anticipate the dive. The very end of the dragon’s tail caught the raven like a whip and the bird exploded in a cloud of gleaming green feathers that hung for a moment in the sky before they floated slowly away. What was left of the bird fell towards the desert and out of sight, as broken as the slave it had just eaten.

  ‘It didn’t work.’ Rin’s eyes gleamed. ‘It didn’t work, but it felt it!’

  Tsen gaped. ‘And are you pleased or disappointed? I have a mind to put your name to my Elemental Man for that.’ And he might have said more, or simply pushed Rin off the edge of the eyrie himself, but now the dragon had turned. Its eyes fixed on Tsen and Vey Rin and it stared, exact and calculating, hungry and malevolent. Tsen cringed. The alchemist had said fifty paces but even a thousand would have felt futile now. He couldn’t move and the monster was towering over them both and it seemed almost as though it was inside his head, pinning him to the stone beneath his feet. When it came it came fast, crushing the Scales beneath its feet as though it had forgotten he was there, intent focused entirely on Tsen. He felt himself falling apart on the inside and still he couldn’t move. Was this what happened to Quai’Shu?

  The dragon lowered its head right down, as big as a cart, with eyes like glistening boulders of glacier ice and teeth like swords.

  ‘Rin,’ whispered Tsen in such a broken voice that he wasn’t sure he’d even spoken at all. ‘It was Rin.’

  The dragon’s eyes shifted very slightly, and then it reached out one massive claw and picked up the t’varr from Vespinarr. For an age everyone was frozen where they were, Tsen still rigid with dread, Rin held in the dragon’s claw high up in the air, eyeball to eyeball with the monster. A strange noise echoed over the eyrie, and it took a moment for Tsen to realise what it was. Rin. Screaming.

  ‘Put him down! Put him down!’ Dimly Tsen registered that the alchemist was shouting too, but the dragon didn’t move and the alchemist was left to wave his stick in futile anger until at last the rider came out and told the dragon to leave Vey Rin T’Varr alone. Much to Tsen’s surprise, Rin was still alive.

  Later they had to help him to get into his gondola. He didn’t say much. Tsen didn’t think he’d be saying much for a long time, but at least Shonda still had his brother. He might need a new t’varr now, but no one had died and so they weren’t going to war, and maybe there would be an Elemental Man coming for him or maybe not, but with a bit of luck not as long as he gave Shonda exactly what he wanted and sent the dragon to burn Dhar Thosis.

  The thought made him smile and weep both at once. Shonda had something else now too, something unexpected. He had someone who understood exactly what had happened to Quai’Shu.

  For what that was worth.

  Goodbye, Rin, old friend.

  60

  An Orphan Boy from Shipwrights’

  He lay in bed at night, wide awake, shaking and sweating and shivering. Trembling at the memory of a dream he could barely hold but to which he clung with every finger of memory hooked into it like talons. All his people were dead. His family. But he knew who he was and he knew his purpose.

  In his dream he’d been someone else. More than someone else. The hooded man with the half-ruined face and the one blind eye had been there.

  He’d been begging, pleading on his knees. There was someone inside him. Another name. He scratched and scrabbled at the dream, clawing at it to drag the memory back but it wouldn’t come. All he remembered was the name.

  Skyrie.

  Berren Crowntaker, the Bloody Judge of Tethis, sat up, fists clenched and eyes wide. He was surrounded by straw and everywhere was dark, so dark he couldn’t see even a glimmer around him. He didn’t know where he was. Tethis? The Pit?

  The shades from his dreams lingered. There was another pit, one they remembered but that he’d never seen. In another dark place lit by a column of golden light and the broken goddess of the dead earth was there and the Black Moon, and he’d come so close. So close to …

  So close to what? It made no sense.

  He stared around him. The dream was fading but in the darkness he could still see it. He saw a woman bent over a man, and the man had an arrow in him and he was going to die; and the woman was trying to save him, but that didn’t matter because the woman needed to die too because she was the last lock on the gate he’d so very nearly opened, and there was something about her, something inside her that made her like him, more than one person at once, but there was another voice far away calling him and his hands wouldn’t move, wouldn’t make that last tiny little gesture to make him free, and the rage and the frustration and the despair were like tidal waves crashing through him one after the other.

  He roared and jumped up off the floor and lunged for the door he couldn’t see. ‘Leave me alone!’ Not my memories. Not my memories. It was there somewhere. He knew it. He still couldn’t remember where he was but he knew this place. He fumbled for the wall.

  A hand landed on his shoulder. ‘Great Flame. Again?’

  He jerked. Tuuran. And with his name the memories that didn’t belong shattered to glittering shards and faded like smoke in the win
d and yes, he knew where he was: he was in Deephaven. The place he’d once called home. Deephaven, looking for Taiytakei and their ships to take him to Vallas Kuy.

  ‘Come on. Out, out!’ Tuuran was pushing him through the door into a passage every bit as dark as the room where they’d been sleeping. He thrust Berren ahead of him up a steep flight of stairs. There was light here now. Gleams and slivers of something bright at the top. A trapdoor onto a rooftop.

  Deephaven. His head was clearing. He remembered now. They’d found a ship and worked their passage up the coast and he’d let himself sink away again and for a time he’d become … the other one. Skyrie. Still in there. Lurking. Hiding. But now he was where he’d been born and Skyrie was the weak one, and he wanted this, this place with its memories.

  Tuuran pushed the trapdoor up and Berren almost fell back down the steps as he reeled from the brightness outside. It was the middle of the day. He climbed up and looked, and all his strength was suddenly gone because he was here again and seeing it was like a punch to the gut. Twenty years since he’d trained with the sword-monks of Torpreah when they’d come to Deephaven for a summer. The start of a civil war, his master had said, but it had come to nothing. Twenty years and yet he could see Tasahre as though it was yesterday, dying at his feet as he knelt beside her. He blinked and shook his head, trying to tear himself away from the past and the deck of that ship, from the Emperor’s Docks and the Deephaven he’d known half a lifetime ago, but he couldn’t. It had gripped him from the moment they’d sailed round the Blue Cliffs and the needle-like spikes of Deephaven Point. When the ship had brought them into the bay, it had all come crashing back. He’d seen the city from the sea before, but only the once, from the ship that had taken him away all those years ago. The docks were still there, the castle-like House of Records at one end where the harbour masters lived, the great warehouses, the Old Harbour Watchtower at the other leaning like a drunkard over the Kingsway but still not fallen down. He stared at it all, fifteen years old again, the Bloody Judge and the Crowntaker both names that hadn’t yet found him. Just Berren, the thief-taker’s boy, the day after his life was shattered. He felt as though he’d stepped back in time, as though he’d gone back to those days to walk through them again, only this time he was walking backwards ever further into the past. He’d watched the city come closer and he’d wept, because if he was walking backwards through his life he knew exactly what happened next; and also because he knew that he wasn’t, that the sensations weren’t real, and that however hard he wished, he wouldn’t be seeing his Tasahre again.