The Adamantine Palace (26 page)

'Who are you?' The Scales was looking up at him, still dazed with sleep, not quite understanding.

'My name is Kemir. I was a sell-sword working for your queen until one of her knights murdered my cousin. I want to help you.'

The Scales blinked and rubbed his face. A part of him looked terrified; another part looked vaguely surprised and seemed to be looking past Kemir rather than at him. Kemir felt a coldness. He started to turn and caught a glimpse of the tip of the dragon's tail snaking through the air towards him. He swore and dived away, but the tail was too quick. The next thing he knew, he was being lifted up into the air.

'Scales! Damn you! Call it off! I'm here to help.'

Help? What do you mean?

The thought seemed to come from outside him, but that was a ridiculous idea and he dismissed it. 'You left one of the dragon-knights alive. Now there are more of them. They're coming. I tried to slow them down, but they're coming after you. Call it off!'

How many are coming?

'Four knights. No, five. But two of them are too hurt to worry about.' This time he couldn't shake it. The question had come into his mind, but the Scales hadn't uttered a word. 'How ... ?'

The ground fell away. The dragon was rising, lifting its head, lifting him up into the air at the same time. He hung helpless as it snorted and growled. A rush of warm rancid air engulfed him.

How many dragons are coming?

Very carefully, Kemir looked down at the Scales standing on the river bank twenty feet below him. The one who'd been sleeping, a woman he now saw, was looking up at him as well. She looked pasty and pale in the moonlight, and was shaking.

'Scales. I think your dragon is talking to me.' Have I gone mad?

No. How many dragons?

'Snow!' The Scales was wringing his hands. 'Don't hurt him. No more! Please!'

Thoughts tumbled through Kemir's mind so quickly that they tripped over one another. The dragon can think That was terrifying enough. The dragon can hear what I think That was worse. The dragon killed half a dozen knights. That was better. It did it because it wanted to, not because someone told it to. That was either the best or the worst; he wasn't sure which.

He regarded the dragon. A calmness settled inside him, a mixture of hope and resignation. Shitting himself wasn't going to do much good just now. 'Two new dragons. They were going to send one after you. To watch. The other was going to go for help. By the middle of tomorrow morning there might be a dozen dragons looking for you. You want to escape, don't you?'

I want to free the others of my kind.

'My name is Kemir. I want to help you.'

No, Little One Kemir, you do not. All I see in you is death and vengeance. You want to kill dragon-riders. I am simply a means to that end.

'No dragons, no dragon-knights.'

The tail squeezed a little tighter. Your fear has a sharp and pleasant tang to it. How will you help me, Little One?

Kemir tried to pull himself free. The dragon hadn't pinned his arms, but all his struggles were futile. He still had the knife that he'd used to threaten the Scales. If he stabbed the dragon's tail, would it drop him? Would it even notice?

I will crush you before you blink, Little One. Again: how will you help me?

'I'll help you kill dragon-knights. Any way I can.'

I do not wish to kill dragon-knights. I wish to free my kind.

'Then I'll help you kill alchemists. You asked where they were. I can tell you.'

The dragon looked at him for a long time and then slowly lowered him to the ground. Then we have an accommodation, Little One Kemir. Alchemists. So be it. The dragon turned to look at the Scales, but Kemir still heard its voice inside his head. More dragons come, Little One. We must fly. Now.

38

The Mirror Lakes

The Mirror Lakes, clustering around the City of Dragons, were generally thought to be perfectly round and perfectly bottomless. The ground didn't slip gently and gracefully away under the water; it simply stopped. In the myths of the dragon-priests the Divine Dragon moulded the world from clay and then baked it hard in the flames of his breath. The people of the city weren't the most religious of folk, but they generally agreed that if the priests were right, the Mirror Lakes must have been where the dragon-god stuck his claws into the clay to hold it tight while he did his work. Strange and monstrous creatures were rumoured to inhabit the lakes, rising to the surface sometimes in the middle of the night, swallowing boats whole and then sinking again, disappearing without trace.

From where Jehal sat, perched at the top of the Diamond Cascade falls, one could see that the lakes weren't perfectly round at all. He was fairly sure they weren't bottomless or inhabited by monsters either, but no one had ever proved that, one way or the other. Vanishing boats, he thought, were more likely to be the work of thieves, and any monsters that inhabited the lake were probably of the human variety.

He could see the city too, and the Adamantine Palace, all laid out some half a mile beneath him through the haze of spray from the falls.

Mine. It's all going to be mine.

Behind him Wraithwing splashed in the waters of the Diamond River. A shadow passed overhead and moments later another dragon came in to land. The two dragons looked at each other curiously. The newcomer dived into the water and started to drink. Its rider sauntered towards Jehal. She took off her helmet.

'I was wondering whether you'd come. You have some explaining to do,' said Jehal. He had to speak loudly to be heard over the roar of the waterfall.

Zafir smiled. She didn't say anything but sat beside him and looked over the edge.

'You should be careful,' said Jehal. 'You could fall.'

'We could both fall.'

'I watched you come up from the eyrie. You didn't bring any riders with you. No one knows where you are. No one knows who you're with.'

She put a hand on his arm. 'Did you bring any riders, Prince?'

'Of course not. You never know who might have lined their pockets.'

'How far did my mother fall?'

Jehal shrugged. 'We're higher now. You stole my potions. And you've been writing letters to Hyram.'

She didn't look at him. 'You've been to see your new family. How is Queen Shezira?'

'Do you feel threatened, my love?'

'Not at all. Do you?'

'Not in the least.'

'I didn't steal your potions. I took them because you told me to.'

'I told you to take one.'

'Hyram's got them now.'

'I know.'

She looked at him, and the flicker of a smile played at the corner of her lips. 'And I know you know. I saw your little golden dragon sitting on the windowsill, watching us with its beady ruby eyes. How many more of those have you got?'

'Only that one and the one I gave to you. They were a wedding present from the Taiytakei.'

Zafir raised an eyebrow. 'It was almost worth marrying your little starling then. And what do they want, the Taiytakei?'

Jehal shrugged. 'To see me prosper, I suppose.'

'That doesn't sound like the Taiytakei.'

'They want what they always want and what they can never have. A hatchling.' For a few seconds Jehal stared out into the void over the city below. Sitting up here with his feet dangling over the empty air, he almost felt he could fly. No dragons, just him. It would be easy, wouldn't it? To let go and soar and be free of it all. No more Hyram, no more Shezira. No more watching his father's glacial crawl towards death. No more constant battling of wits with the Taiytakei and all the others that surrounded him, fawning at his feet for favours while all the while hiding poisoned daggers behind their backs. No more--

No more Zafir. He turned and looked her squarely in the eye. 'Well?'

'Well what?'

'Did Hyram tell you that he tortured me?'

'No. He said he hadn't been very kingly.' She spat. 'As if that was somehow a change.'

'Well he's not a king, is he, so I suppose we shouldn't be surprised. He wasn't very good as a torturer either. Maybe I should send him one of mine for next time. In fact he was so inept I had to show him how to make a proper job of it. We're beyond words now, he and I. I think I have to muster my dragons when I go south.' He shook his head. 'I'm at a loss. I didn't think he'd dare anything so bold.' Now he laughed. 'I almost had some respect for him, for a moment, until he let me go. Now if he'd killed me outright and taken the consequences, why I think I might even have given him a round of applause. And then I think of him rutting with you after I left, and I just want to paint the palace with his blood.'

'Don't!' Zafir shuddered. 'He doesn't deserve even to exist in your thoughts.'

'Ahh.' He took her hand and kissed it. 'You're very sweet, my lover.'

Zafir pulled her hand away. 'Don't touch me. I don't want anyone to touch me. I tried to think of you when I let him have me, and now when I think of you, I think of him.' She shivered. 'It's horrible.'

'Antros was always supposed to have been quite the lover. Hyram didn't share his talents?'

'He was drunk, selfish, boorish and pathetic. I had to do everything for him. Didn't you see with your little Taiytakei toy?'

'I saw you writhe and wriggle under him. I heard your squealing too. Quite a show, I thought.'

'Mercifully quick.' She made a face. 'If you saw it all anyway, don't ask me any more. What's Shezira up to in the Purple Spur? She's making Hyram nervous, and you going there didn't help that at all.'

Jehal laughed. 'Really? Why now, I would never have thought of that. Yes, a little more distrust between them can never hurt, but I'm afraid Queen Shezira has returned to her eyrie. I had her delight of a daughter to waste my charms on instead.'

'Almiri?'

'No, not the nice one; the one that's made of the same flinty stuff as her mother. The one that thinks she's a dragon born human by mistake. Jaslyn. The one who asked me whether I was poisoning my father while the Maiden's Regret had me.' He laughed. 'I shall have to thank Queen Fyon for that. She's a bit sharper than I've given her credit for. No, I had a frosty welcome to say the least. I might have said one or two things out of place. Perhaps she was kind enough to put that down to my exertions of the previous days.' He laughed again. 'They were still trying to find their missing dragon, and now they've lost another one.'

Zafir raised an eyebrow.

'Seems they tracked their white down, and it turned on them. Princess Stone did her best to make sure I didn't find anything out, but there's a dragon out there with a broken wing. They've lost an alchemist and I saw a rider in a pretty poor state. Apparently someone put an arrow in his leg, so the white's not flying around aimlessly on its own, that's for sure.' Not the white. His white. 'When I left, they were trying to work out how to put their injured dragon down.' Jehal scratched his chin. 'They had quite a lot of alchemists there, now that I think about it. More than I would have expected. And of course I now know exactly how many dragons she's got out there and have a shrewd idea how many riders too. She didn't like me paying attention to that sort of thing.' He shrugged. 'Still, I'm quite impressed. They're up to something, and I still haven't got the first idea what it is.'

Queen Zafir shook her head and looked away. 'Prince Jehal, that won't do at all. They may make Hyram nervous, but they bother me too -- so many dragons so close by.' She stopped and peered down at the city. From the Adamantine Eyrie the tiny distant shape of a dragon was rising into the air. 'You're going to have to go.' She stood up.

'Pity. I'd been hoping to have you for rather longer.'

'I'm sure you had.' Zafir whistled. Her dragon looked up from where it was splashing in the river with Wraithwing. 'But we can't risk anyone seeing us together now. You need to be gone before that dragon gets high enough to see Wraithwing and Emerald Mirror together.'

Reluctantly, Jehal got to his feet. He was going to have to explain to Wraithwing that he couldn't simply throw himself over the precipice and spread his wings, that he'd have to take to the air the hard way. He sighed, and then to his surprise Queen Zafir launched herself into his arms, pressing herself against him.

'I wish we had longer too,' she murmured.

Jehal stroked her hair away from her face and purred, 'I thought looking at me made you think of Hyram.'

Zafir made a face. 'It did until I got up here. Now it just makes me think of you without your clothes on.'

He kissed her and let his hands begin to wander. 'It won't be for much longer, my lover.'

'Give me the strength not to murder him in his bed, Jehal.'

'Give me the patience to wait for you.'

'I have to lie with that crippled oaf. All I think of is you with your starling-bride, and then all I want to do is slit his throat and then hers and be done with all this.'

With a great effort Jehal let her go. 'You keep that thought close to your heart, my Queen, and keep your mind on Hyram.'

She snorted. 'No fear there. For as long as I can bear it, he'll think of nothing but your potions, my mother's face and the hole between my legs.'

Jehal reached out to stroke her face one last time, then turned towards Wraithwing. He waved over his shoulder. 'Once he marries you and makes you speaker, you can cut as many throats as you like.'

'I'll hold you to that, Jehal,' she called after him. 'He'll be first. You can choose who comes second, you or your starling.'

38 The Ravine

The dragon was hurt. Kemir hadn't noticed that when they'd taken to the air in the middle of the night. In fact, he hadn't noticed much, clutched in the dragon's claws and hurtling through the night air at speed. The ground flashed past in the moonlight, not far beneath him but quite far enough to smash him to pieces if the dragon let go. The monster's wingbeats rippled through the air like thunder. For the second time in his life, he prayed.

In the dragon's other foreclaws the Scales held on tight to the woman, whoever she was, while she in turn screamed and shrieked herself hoarse.