Dragon Queen (51 page)

The mask was probably why he hadn't noticed the arrival of the glasship that now hung over the edge of the eyrie, its golden gondola sitting on the wall opposite the monstrous copper dragon. The dragon wasn't looking at the glasship though; it was looking at Bellepheros. It hadn't taken its eyes off him from the moment he'd strung the hatchling up. In fact it had hardly moved at all.

Bellepheros sighed. The gondola was Baros Tsen T'Varr’s
personal egg. The t'varr was back and doubtless that would mean all manner of trouble over how many hatchlings Bellepheros had killed. But he'd done what needed to be done. He could manage what they had now. He could make enough potion and had enough Scales and they'd survived the first few weeks and no dragon had woken or escaped. And that, he told anyone who'd listen, was a minor miracle.

There was a woman crossing the yard towards him. Dressed as a slave and with her hair cut short, it took Bellepheros a moment longer than it should have to recognise her.

‘Holiness!’ He stiffened. Zafir stopped fifty yards away. The adult dragon shifted, very slightly. Now it was looking at her too. The hatchlings were away on the far side of the yard, hidden from view behind the huts and tents of the Scales built around them. There were Taiytakei watching him too, but at a distance. He'd told them to keep away, as far as they could, and they had. They didn't know what to make of him, any of them.

Zafir was alone. ‘Stay back!’ His words were muffled by his mask and she probably couldn't hear him but he didn't dare get too close. ‘The hatchling was fresh from the egg.’ Hatchling Disease was simply something that happened, whatever you did to avoid it. The Scales, the ones who worked with the dragons all the time – even with the best potions he could make – still died. Those back in the realms sometimes lasted ten years or more but it got them all in the end. They simply stopped being able to move. Eventually they suffocated because they couldn't breathe, or starved because they couldn't eat, but usually the alchemists dealt with them quietly long before it went that far. Most Scales were eaten by their own dragons in the end, out of sight where no one else would see, and by the time the disease was that far gone almost every one of them was happy to die. A Scales that far gone was long past caring about anything except the handful of dragons they loved.

For some reason the disease was working faster on the Scales he'd made here, that or his potions were missing something. He gave them a year at most and probably a lot less. Alchemists? Some of them only lasted weeks before they showed the first symptoms, some of them years, some even longer but they all eventually caught it one way or another. It wasn't so bad if you took your potions
every day and weren't exposed too often. If the disease found a way through his leathers and his mask today then it would get a little worse; but he'd take his potions and it would slow to its usual imperceptible crawl again and he'd lose his sleep each night to far more pressing troubles. Speakers, though? Dragon-kings and dragon-queens? They were kept away. The disease stayed within the order. Within those who'd been conditioned and trained and bred and fed potions since they were babies to control it. Kept to those who understood how dangerous it could be.

Zafir kept on coming. Bellepheros shook his head. Was she mad? He walked towards her quickly to keep her away from the dead hatchling. This was when they were at their absolute worst and surely she knew that!

‘Holiness!’ he gasped. He had to stand right in front of her to stop her.

‘Master Alchemist.’ She was smiling, peering at him, through him even, eyes as full of hunger as they always were and with a touch of madness too. Looking past him to the monstrous dragon perched up on the wall, quivering with want.

‘Holiness! Stay back! The hatchling is . . .’ Zafir held out her arm and pulled back her sleeve and showed him her skin. In the crook of her elbow a tiny patch was rough where it should be smooth. No bigger than a fingernail but there was no mistaking what it was. Bellepheros looked at her agape.

‘Yes, Master Alchemist. I have the disease already. So your dead hatchling hardly matters to me. Now tell me—’

‘How?’ he blurted. She hadn't been near the eyrie. She hadn't been near the hatchling he'd brought with him to the Taiytakei city; and that one had been made clean, washed and washed and washed again until all residue of the egg must surely have been gone, and yet she had it, and if
she
had it then who else might have it too?

‘When the dragons hatched out at sea, Bellepheros. It was a hatchling minutes fresh from the egg and it was awake. It remembered. It . . .’ She ran a finger over the red mark that ran down the length of her neck and looked at him for a long time. ‘Tell me you can stop it. Tell me you can make it go away.’

‘I . . . I have potions, Holiness.’ Not ones to cure, though. Potions
to arrest the disease, to slow it, to almost but not quite stop it. But to get rid of it? No. ‘There are . . .’ He shook his head. Did she need to know? Perhaps she did. ‘There are . . . there are consequences of the disease that I cannot treat, Holiness.’

Her face grew brittle. No, she didn't like
that
at all. ‘You'd best enlighten me.’

Not here
. He looked around. The Taiytakei watchers were keeping their wary distance but he never knew for sure where the Elemental Man was hiding. He hadn't seen much of the Watcher in the last few days, but for all Bellepheros knew he was lurking in the stones right under their feet. He cast his eyes about, floundering for a place and a way to be sure they weren't overheard. He nodded to the dragon as he did. ‘Will you fly it, Holiness? They're all restless and agitated. Something here vexes them and they won't settle. It would be . . .’
It would be a blessing to have someone fly that monster, just to burn some of its energy
.

Zafir glared at him. ‘Of course I'll fly him! Tell me what I need to know!’

The glasship from Khalishtor! It was still hovering over the eyrie, its golden gondola resting up on the walls, open and empty. He nodded towards it. ‘Come, Holiness!’

Bellepheros hurried towards the wall. They wouldn't have much time. Zafir called after him, ‘Alchemist! Stop! I have asked you a question.’ Anger streaked her words. Bellepheros tore off his apron and his mask, left them on the ground and began to climb the steps carved into the inner face of the wall. They were steep and tall and went hard on his knees. He glanced back and at last Zafir turned and strode after him. At the top he walked straight for the gondola, praying to the Great Flame that she'd follow him in. He didn't dare run lest the Taiytakei start wondering what he was doing, and he couldn't bring himself to grab her and pull her with him either – she might be a slave but she was still the speaker of the nine realms and he was still her servant, still her master alchemist. But she did follow him, anger sharp as a knife written into every movement. As soon as he was inside the glasship's golden egg he touched a spot in the wall and the ramp closed behind them, sealing them in.

‘Alchemist!’ She was furious now.

Bellepheros whipped around to face her. ‘We don't have much time, Holiness, before they come for us, so I ask you to please listen! The Watcher. The Elemental Man. He cannot enter here when the door is closed. Gold and silver and their golden glass – the Elemental Men cannot pass through them but if you are not encased in any of those then you must assume he's there, somewhere, in the walls or in the air, listening. We can speak freely here, Holiness. Here and now but nowhere else.’

‘Alchemist . . .’ Dark clouds filled her eyes. But he needed this,
needed
to tell her these things and there might never be another chance.

‘Yes, yes. The Statue Plague.’ He bowed his head. ‘The disease is voracious among these Taiytakei. Worse than I've ever seen. They have no resistance to it. Or perhaps there's something to the nature of their world that encourages it to thrive. Or perhaps . . . perhaps my potions are not as strong as they were.’

Zafir's eyes were savage. ‘You
will
keep it contained, alchemist. You
will
.’

‘Of course, Holiness.’ He bowed again. ‘There are other—’

‘Other
what
?’

‘Listen! Holiness! Please! I will treat your disease as best I can. It can be slowed – stopped, even, if you keep away from eggs and the youngest hatchlings – but it cannot be removed. Drink my potions and do as I say and it will not spread further. Do not share your blood or your bed with any other or the disease will pass to them.’ His shoulders drooped and he shook his head. ‘You cannot bear heirs. They will die. I'm so very sorry.’

Zafir looked aghast. ‘Heirs?
That's
the first thing you think I need to hear?’

Bellepheros was still shaking his head. ‘I'll warn Baros Tsen T'Varr if you wish. Perhaps that's for the best. But listen! Listen! I'll tell you more later, everything you want to know, you have my word. What matters now is this: the Elemental Man,
he's
the danger, to you most of all. I'll help you to fly, I'll help them to make whatever is needed – harnesses, armour, everything – but you'll have that man at your shoulder every moment of your life now and you must know that he's there. He'll hear every word and see every deed. Whenever the time comes and you turn on these men
who have enslaved you, I will not stop you nor will I speak of it, but my duty above all, above either my freedom or yours, is here among these dragons now. I must keep them from waking. There is no one else who can. Do you understand what a woken dragon means, Holiness?’

‘I . . .’ He could see straight away that she didn't. Someone had shown her the dragon they kept under the Purple Spur, the woken monster weighted down in chains. Every speaker was shown the same. A dragon, true and undimmed, and yet they rarely understood because the dragon was chained and held in a cavern too small for it to ever escape. It was a rare speaker who had the vision to see what it would become, free and in the sky and with its chains shattered.

‘No. It doesn't matter. The Elemental Man. Whatever you do, you must think his eyes are there. One slip and he will know. Enchanter's glass, gold, silver – he cannot penetrate those things and that's why they build with them. There may be others, but if there are I don't know of them.’ He glanced out of the windows. Taiytakei soldiers were hurrying towards the egg. They didn't have much time. ‘There's something else. The dragons. They're . . .’ How to make her understand? ‘There's a reason why there are no Elemental Men in the realms, no enchanters, no artificers, no navigators, no sorcerers, no warlocks, no arcane priests, mages or whatever else they like to call themselves. The dragons . . . they
eat
their power. They drain it from the world. I've seen it already. The Elemental Man – when he comes here, the dragons make it hard for him. It might be a way to stop him. But it's making the dragons restless too. They have a vigour and an energy to them, more than I've ever seen. You must know this. Be wary when you ride them . . .’ The soldiers had reached the egg. Bellepheros closed his eyes. There would be punishment for this. They wouldn't know what he'd said but they'd know he'd come here to deal in secrets and somehow defy them.

Zafir tore at her silk tunic and raked her hands through her hair. One hand snaked around his neck. For a moment her fingers dug into his throat and he felt how strong she was. She was quivering with anger. She hissed at him, ‘Never forget who I am, alchemist.’ Then she took his other hand and pulled it to her. As
the egg split open once more, she pressed him to a wall, her face to his. She was hard and soft under his fingers. She held him exactly for the moment the ramp opened and the soldiers outside stared at them, then let out a little groan and breathed in his ear, ‘Let them think this is why. But do not forget this, alchemist. Any of it.’ She stepped away, shameless, licking her lips, all curves and shadows beneath the disarray of her silk, then stopped and looked at him again, puzzled. ‘What were you doing, alchemist, out there with that dead hatchling?’

‘More eggs are hatching, Holiness. I need their blood for my potions.’

‘Every dragon, alchemist.’ She shook her head as though they were back in the realms. ‘Every egg that hatches is a dragon and every dragon is precious. If you were my eyrie master and this was my eyrie, I'd have you hung to die in a cage for that.’ She smiled at him, smiled at the Taiytakei soldiers, straightened her tunic and strode out of the egg, swinging her hips. The soldiers’ eyes followed her along the wall.

‘But you are not my eyrie master, Holiness,’ he whispered. Did she know how many hatchlings were lost every week and every month in every eyrie across the realms? Did she know about the dragons who hatched and snapped and hissed and wouldn't eat because they'd already woken in some previous life and knew exactly what awaited them? Who starved themselves rather than take his alchemists’ potions, who wilfully withered and died and were reborn again, over and over and over? One egg in four failed but they were the same handful of dragons, again and again. Did she know?

Beside Bellepheros the air popped and there he was, as expected. ‘I had understood that alchemists were celibate.’ The Elemental Man's voice was flat and empty of either feeling or judgement. His face was flushed and he was out of breath.

‘You understood very wrong then.’ Bellepheros blinked. ‘We prefer our own kind, that's all.’
Because we carry the disease and so we keep to ourselves, because we know what it would mean to spread the plague
. But he couldn't say that because then they'd know it wasn't just the Scales who would catch it. Sooner or later it would spread. The Elemental Man would be busy that day. He shrugged.
‘We have the same needs and urges as everyone else.’ Apparently more than he'd thought. The feel of Zafir's skin against his fingers wouldn't leave him alone. He was a man after all. Old, perhaps, but it had been a very long time since he'd felt a woman's touch.

‘Do not come here again, alchemist,’ said the Watcher.