The Price of Faith

by Rob J. Hayes

  “Jezzet,” the empress’ voice snapped Jez out of her reverie. She realised, with no small amount of concern, that the entire court, including the giant, toothy lizard, were watching her. “Would you stay and talk a while?”

  Jez smiled and inclined her head. “With pleasure, empress.”

  “The rest of you will leave,” the empress said in a tone that left no one doubting it was an order.

  Some of the magistrates made derogatory noises in Jez’s general direction as they pushed themselves to their feet and shuffled from the court. Hideo Rurin gave her a long, pointed stare down his beak of a nose but he wouldn’t say anything in front of the empress. The magistrate had been one of the most outspoken regarding Jez’s presence in court and had already lost his first born son due to his opinion displeasing the empress. He made no attempt to hide that he blamed Jez for his son’s execution.

  Neither the Dragon Herald nor the Dragon Knights gave any hint of leaving, they would stay and protect their empress in case anything should happen. The only time the little empress was not under heavy guard was when she was in the sky with her dragon and then she was out of reach of even the most skilled assassin.

  Drake Morrass waited until the last of the magistrates had shuffled from the hall before standing. He crossed the distance between himself and the dais in a few easy strides and boldly climbed it, leaning down and whispering something into the empress’ ear. The little woman giggled, kissed Drake and then waved him away. The pirate captain sketched a lazy bow more suitable to Sarth than the Dragon Empire and sauntered towards the exit, winking Jezzet’s way as he went. She snorted and shook her head but he paid her no mind, striding past her with his head held high and his boots clicking on the surface of the polished stone floor.

  No sooner had the door closed behind Drake, the empress was on her feet. She rushed towards Jezzet and waved at her to stand.

  “Up. Up. Please,” the little woman said with a broad smile, she took hold of Jez’s arm as if to lift her. “No need to be so formal now they’re all gone.”

  Jez pushed onto her feet. She and the empress were almost of a height but Jezzet was lean and well-muscled where the other woman was slight and dainty. She looked too fragile to ride a dragon, let alone the largest of all the dragons, but Jez had seen the spectacle with her own two eyes and knew it to be truth. Still, she took no small amount of satisfaction in knowing she could snap the empress of the Dragon Empire like a twig.

  Back by the dais the matriarch rumbled out a low growl. The Dragon Empress stopped and turned towards her dragon, cocking her head to the side a little, then she turned back to Jezzet.

  “She senses danger from you,” the empress said with a girlish smile. “Do you mean me harm, Jezzet Vel’urn.”

  Careful, Jez. Remember what Catherine used to say. The truth can be your shield but too much can make it your noose.

  “Never that, empress,” Jez said holding up her hands in a placating manner. “I was simply wondering at how slight you seem today. It amazes me how you can ride that thing.”

  Again the dragon let out a low growl but the beast was settled onto its back legs and didn’t seem to be in any mood to rush forwards and eat Jezzet, though she had no doubt the creature could. Jez had once seen the matriarch bite a horse clean in half. Only the serpents that lived in the deep sea could match such a feat and, unlike dragons, Jez had never seen one of those.

  “She doesn’t like being called a thing,” the empress advised.

  Jezzet looked over at the matriarch and bowed. “I apologise.”

  “I told her she must have been mistaken,” the empress surged on, taking Jez by the arm and walking her towards the balcony. “But she said she sensed something from you, aggression maybe.”

  “I promise you, empress…”

  The little woman waved away Jez’s words. “She is immature still. She makes mistakes. Seventeen maybe young for a woman but for a dragon it is younger. Come.” She pulled Jez out onto the balcony and then shoved a small hand in front of her face. “Drake gave me a ring, isn’t it wonderful!”

  Jez almost laughed at the wide smile on the empress’ face. “Does it bite?” she asked.

  For a moment the smile dropped and the empress looked confused. “It is a ring, Jezzet Vel’urn. It could not bite.”

  Powerful and naïve, such a dangerous combination.

  The ring looked to be made of silver; two bands were interwoven, looping over each other again and again. Along each band something was written but it was in a language Jez did not understand.

  She fingered her own ring; a plain wooden band on the third finger of her left hand. Thanquil had given it to her in order to resist the compulsion. It was a charm designed to fool an Arbiter into thinking Jez was telling the truth. He had given her the ring in Sarth, to dupe Arbiter Kosh. Jez had still never taken it off since.

  “He’s handsome and kind and he knows just where to touch me,” the empress was saying.

  The last thing Jez wanted to talk about was sex. Yet another reason to miss Thanquil. “Kind?” she said with a laugh. “Are we talking about the same Drake?”

  Again the smile slipped from the empress’ face, she cocked her head and stared at Jez who got the distinct impression there was a conversation happening she was not privy to. “Do you miss him?” the empress asked as she turned and walked further onto the balcony.

  Jez followed the little woman. “Do I miss Drake?”

  The empress shook her head, from behind all Jez could see was the thick bind of hair trembling. “Arbiter Darkheart. I could order him back here. I could send one of the princes to find him. It would take no more than a week.”

  “No. Thank you, empress,” Jez said. “He has a job to do…”

  “But you don’t agree with it?”

  “It is not the job I disagree with, more the employer.” Jez had to admit being so quizzed by the empress of the Dragon Empire was more than a little strange and she couldn’t help but notice the herald had followed them out onto the balcony. It was times like this she really hated being unarmed.

  A Blademaster without a blade…

  A growl floated out onto the balcony and Jez turned in time to see the matriarch lumber into view, its giant head and beady eyes peering out at her.

  “You feel threatened,” the empress said.

  Jez snorted. “Just don’t much like talking about it. Me and Thanquil… We argue about it. Don’t reckon it’s something I should discuss with others.”

  Again the empress gave her a girlish smile, this time full of concern and sympathy. “Isn’t that what friends do? Talk about their problems. I miss Drake when he isn’t here. He sails off for months at a time doing… Whatever it is he does.”

  “Pirating, I’d wager.”

  “Yes I suppose so. I miss him when he’s not here.” She sighed. “Cei am, cha am.”

  The matriarch lumbered out onto the balcony and towards the two women. Jez tried her best not to show any fear as the huge creature approaching but it paid her no heed either way . It stopped a few feet from them and lowered its head. Jezzet had never seen the beast so close before. Its head was as big as a carriage and each tooth the size of her arm. How such a thing could fly was beyond her. How the little woman standing next to her had the courage to ride it was something entirely different. A low keening sound escaped the dragon’s mouth and the empress nodded.

  “Would you like to eat?” the empress asked, her attention back on Jezzet again.

  Jez shrugged. “Where I grew up you never passed up the offer of a meal.”

  “I’d like to hear about it. Where you grew up. I’ve seen much of my empire from the sky but you must have seen all sorts of things. Drake tells me stories; tales of evil places full of violence and blood and sex. He tells me of a vile race of creatures called the Drurr and a land where the dead walk. He tells me of giant sea creatures that dwarf even my dragon and wars fought with thousands upon thousands of men.

  “He promi
ses there are glades in the deepest southern forests where ancient spirits take the form of people and entice humans, convincing them to give their lives to the spirits willingly. I’ve heard him tell of a city built all of white stone that shimmers in the sunlight, of demons that can steal a man’s soul and of Gods that walk the earth.”

  The empress smiled and looked away. “I’m never certain how much I should believe. Will you tell me your stories?”

  Jezzet suppressed a sigh. There best be wine to go with that meal. “Of course, empress.”

  Jezzet

  “You knew the Black Thorn?” Sally asked, his eyes wide in his freakishly large, and disturbingly round, face. After hearing that Jezzet had spent a full day entertaining the empress with stories the big soldier had demanded to hear each one she told. He had accepted most of Jez’s stories of sex, violence and miraculous escapes with a stoic and repetitive nodding but the moment she mentioned Thorn, Sal’s jaw dropped.

  “I did.”

  “Did you… you know…”

  “Fuck him?” Jez snorted. “No.”

  “What was he like? Before…”

  “Before he died? Harsh. Harsh and violent. Fun. Loyal to a fault though the bastard always tried to hide that. He wasn’t nearly so bad as all the stories made him out to be but he also wasn’t someone you would want to be on the wrong side of.”

  “Was a bad day when I heard he died. Like being told Trolls don’t exist, some of the magic gone out of the world.”

  For you maybe, for me it was like losing one of my friends. Don’t have that many left.

  She let Sal keep talking while she once again tried to reconcile the two versions of the empress she had come to know. When alone with Jezzet, Rei Chiyo was much like any pampered young woman. She was full of restless energy and eager, even desperate at times, to share her new experiences with her new friend. More than once Jezzet had to sit silent and politely listen to some of the things the empress and Drake did to each other in private. While not a single one of those things was enough to make Jez blush that did not mean she wanted to hear about them from the seventeen year old ruler of the largest empire in the world.

  And that’s the other version of Rei Chiyo; the Dragon Empress.

  While Jez had seen the empress bounce up and down, giddy from explaining the virtues of Drake Morrass’ smile, she had also seen the empress order the execution of her own people as if they weren’t people. One of the magistrates had come to court begging the empress’ permission to find another wife because his own had looked at a servant in such a way that had made him jealous. The empress had ordered the deaths of both the magistrate's wife and the servant and had granted the vindicated man permission to remarry and, if he should choose, disinherit all of his current children.

  That the little woman could be so callous one minute and so vibrant the next not only scared Jezzet but angered her almost to the point of violence.

  A fitting end to Jezzet Vel’urn; slain after brutally murdering the Dragon Empress in front of her own dragon. Reckon I’d make a few history books.

  Of course the giant flying gecko was her other worry. The beast had a worrying ability to read Jez’s mind, or at least sense her feelings when around the empress.

  There was a time when you wanted to come to this bloody kingdom to see a dragon, Jez. Well now you’ve seen one, up close and far too fucking personal and I’ve decided well and good; I don’t like dragons.

  “Strut shift is coming,” Lei said, his first words all day.

  “It worries me how you can sense the shifts, Lei,” said Jaeryn as he planted his feet and waited.

  Jez looked at Sal. Sal looked right back and shrugged. They were both sat on a couple of crates and were about as stable as they were ever likely to be but that didn’t mean a damned thing when a strut shift was coming and Lei had proven time and again he was never wrong about such things.

  “Gonna be a bad one, Lei?” Jez asked the thin Soromo native. He shrugged in reply but the smirk on his face told Jezzet he knew more than he was letting on.

  Jez didn’t fully understand why the strut shifts occurred, something to do with forces far beyond her own imagination, she reckoned, but she knew what they were. From time to time the buoyant stone rings that kept Soromo afloat moved. Some of the rings would float a bit higher, taking less of the city’s weight, whereas others would sink under the newly distributed pressure.

  With results ranging from disorientating to ‘Oh shit, why am I on my arse and what’s that heavy thing about to crush me.’

  They all waited. And waited. And waited. Just when Jez had decided Lei was finally wrong it happened and the city gave a lurch.

  There was a reason the city of Soromo was built as it was, essentially hundreds of islands of wood and stone all lashed together. If it had been built as one massive island it would snap and collapse under the strain of its own weight when the first shift hit. The island they were currently on was in a harbour district and built long and low but even so Jez could see things shift and heard the crash of unsecured items experiencing the thrill of gravity. Some of the other areas of the city had a far more pronounced experience with entire buildings taking on distinct leans and the odd scream punctuating the crisp night air and sending roosting birds scattering into the sky.

  Jez, ever nimble and more graceful than a shark in water accepted the new tilt to the world with fluid ease. Sal was not so lucky. It was only the big man’s second strut shift and his first was barely noticeable. This one sent him tumbling from his crate to the wooden floor and he almost tumbled into the waterway. It would have been an easy thing to laugh at his misfortune and once she might have but Jezzet wasn’t the same person any more. She braved the still rocking deck beneath her and stood, extending a hand to help Sally regain his feet. Lei joined her and together they pulled him up.

  Waves lapped noisily against the side of the harbour as the shift in weight from the city displaced water on an epic scale that Jez didn’t even want to think about. Turbulent water worried her almost as much as deep water and here the stuff was both. Not that Jez let fear rule her life these days but that didn’t mean she wanted to take unnecessary risks and deep, turbulent water seemed like the very definition.

  “They’re late,” said Jaeryn, apparently un-fazed by the recent re-aligning of the city. “If they don’t deliver, Drake can’t blame us can he?”

  It took Jez a moment to realise that Jaeryn was asking her. She shrugged. “They’ll be here, Jae. People don’t tend to survive pissing off Drake Morrass and not delivering his cargo would be a good way to do just that.”

  “Sure, sure. It’s just it’s good pay, really good. Maybe even enough to… you know, move up a class. Get my family, get us all out of the Breakers.”

  The Breakers was the nickname given to the very outskirts of the city of Soromo. Those districts tended to be newer and less-well maintained. The ravages of the Emerald Sea and its accompanying elements were worst out in the breakers and it was not unheard of for people, especially children, to go missing, either from falling into the waters never to be seen again, stolen by one of the beasts that called the sea its home and only came up from the depths to feed, or even the occasional kidnapping.

  Slavery is only illegal if you get caught, Jez mused to herself. And children fetch a high price. Easier to train to be docile.

  Jaeryn had latched onto the idea of working for Drake, dreaming he could secure himself some more permanent work in Soromo, work that would pay better. The man wanted the best for his family and though Jezzet could understand she was not so certain that working for Drake Morrass was the way to achieve his goal.

  “Is that them?” Sal asked, pointing a finger towards the open water. He looked far from comfortable with the way the city was still rocking.

  It was a wide boat, low and heavy in the water and rowed by a number of people. Jez made a quick count of six oarsmen and a man with a monoscope standing at the fore of the little boat. He was big an
d no mistake but by the colour of his skin and the slant of his eyes he was no doubt a native to the empire.

  As the boat pulled closer Jez could see the cargo shack, a small room no more than ten feet long and wide sat at the back of the boat. It was an outdated boat design but not one she was unused to seeing. Sails were not used on the waters of the Emerald Sea and to even think of raising canvas in the city of Soromo was a good way to find out what the dungeon looked like. Though Jez had never been there herself she had it on good authority that it was wet and to be a permanent resident you'd need to be able to hold your breath for a very long time.

  “Nobody say or do anything to mess this up,” Jaeryn said, all his usual smiles long gone now.

  Sal gave Jez a poignant look. “I think he’s talking to you, Vel’urn.”

  As the little cargo boat drew closer the oars stopped rowing, the men attached to them taking a grateful rest from the strain of pulling against the water.

  “Which one of you is Jaeryn?” called the big man standing at the fore of the boat. He’d put away his monoscope, revealing a light pair of wire-glass spectacles giving him a learned appearance. Though close enough to talk the boat still floated outside of boarding distance. If Jezzet and the others did want to get aboard without permission they’d be taking a dip in the Emerald Sea along the way. Now she could see the man up close she had to admit he was ugly as all the hells with only a horseshoe of mud-brown hair around his head that managed to make it look altogether too small for his body.

  “That’d be me,” Jae shouted back. “We all set to go.”

  The man on the boat studied the little guard crew for a while, his eyes lingering on Jez for an period of time that bordered on being rude to the point of an insult, before nodding his assent and ordering his rowers to take them a bit closer to land and then shipping the oars in favour of the poles that were often used to navigate Soromo’s waterways.

  Jezzet was first aboard when the boat touched dry land. She hopped over the little railing and stood face to face with the man in command. She squared her shoulders, adopted a smirk and stepped aside as Sally leapt onto the boat. The Five Kingdomer was taller than the boat man but not by much. Definitely broader though, the man in charge may be tall but his bulk’s gone to fat. Not even a challenge, if it comes down to it.