by Stephen Deas
‘Let her Holiness hunt it,’ Belli urged her. ‘I’ll persuade her.’ He stopped. He must have seen the look on her face.
After the Bolo bread, she forced some more food into him and even ate a little of the thin tasteless gruel made for the slaves and captives herself. She took him back to his study and tried to convince him to get some sleep – he was exhausted and ready to collapse – but he simply refused, and so in the end she left him to drag the Scales back out of their cots to the hatchery and work on through the night. She could have done with some sleep herself but stayed up for a while instead, writing an inventory for Perth Oran of all the things the Vespinese were going to have to find from somewhere if they wanted to keep their dragons. They’d question everything, of course, and then waste hours of her time making her explain what every single little thing was for. She supposed she shouldn’t complain. They were right not to trust her.
She tried to sleep when she was done, but of course now she was wide awake, and sleep, elusive at the best of times, wanted nothing to do with her. So she went back outside to the cold and the wind and the night and found Belli still there, exhorting his Scales to keep working. It must have been past midnight and the poor man was staggering about, hardly able to keep himself upright against the buffets of the wind and about to do himself an injury if someone didn’t stop him. She sent the Scales away, and when Belli kept on with his protests she dragged him inside and virtually carried him back to his room. He growled and snapped and snarled at her all the way until she laid him on his bed and made him some warm tea and slipped in a little something to help him sleep. She felt a bit guilty about that and so curled up beside him and stroked his hair – what there was of it – and waited for him to close his eyes. Five minutes later he was snoring. Liang drifted next to him. Maybe he was right to worry about the hatchling coming back. It had gone after Zafir and destroyed his laboratory before it left. They were lucky he’d taken to keeping some of his things in his study.
She must have fallen asleep too, because the next thing she knew she was alone in the alchemist’s bed and the white stone tunnels were bright with their daylight glow. When she went to the dragon yard to look for him, she saw the Vespinese had built a wooden platform and were busy erecting a set of gallows. She found Belli back with the Scales, trying to raise the chain net over the hatchery. He looked pleased with himself and the rubble from the night before was gone. ‘We need a glasship, Li,’ he shouted as he saw her, ‘to lift the chains.’ Which was how they’d done it before, silver chains lifting the net into place while dozens of slaves laboured beneath to raise the frame that would hold it.
‘How did you clear the rubble?’ she asked. No ‘Thank you’ for last night, she noted sourly.
He pointed, and Liang saw the rider-slave lounging against the wall, watching with that irritating smirk on her face. ‘Her Holiness had the dragon get rid of the worst of it. It carried the larger pieces away and look!’ He pointed to the eyrie wall where pieces of gold and iron and glass were mounded up against it. ‘It flapped its wings and blew the smaller pieces clear! We can take the rest from there whenever we like. It’s out of the way, and now we can get the chains up again.’ He looked so happy that she hadn’t the heart to tell him there was no way he’d get the Vespinese to lend him a glasship.
‘There might be something else I can do,’ she said at last. The first framework had been wood and iron but gold-glass would do just as well, and it wasn’t as if they were short of the stuff at the moment. It was literally lying at their feet. ‘I could grow it into shape and we wouldn’t need a—’
A shout from one of the watchtowers cut her off. Liang watched as a group of Vespinese soldiers went running up, and a few minutes later as they came out again, manoeuvring awkwardly along the wall and down the steps to the yard, carrying a body. They laid it on the white stone. When Liang went to see who it was, they pushed her away, but she got close enough to see the face.
Baros Tsen T’Varr, there couldn’t be any doubt. He looked smaller dead than she remembered him. Shorter. For some reason he was naked.
‘At least cover him up.’ She turned away, suddenly feeling sick, and bent over against the eyrie wall. The Vespinese ignored her. A pair went running into the tunnels, full of excitement. Liang watched them and spat. Once she decided she wasn’t going to throw up after all, she straightened herself and smoothed her robes. Tsen. They’d had their differences, plenty of them, with the rider-slave top of the list, but he’d seemed a good man at heart and she was going to miss him. The sleepy voice, the sharp sparkling intelligence behind it, the glasses of apple wine out on the eyrie walls in the starlight, talking about how the world might be changed. Of course all that was before the dragons, before Quai’Shu went mad, before the rider-slave murdered his heir and Tsen got it into his head to be the next sea lord of Xican. She couldn’t really blame him for any of that. As sea lords went, he’d have been as good as any. It wasn’t as if he’d actually wanted to burn Dhar Thosis.
She shuddered. There were probably a lot of ghosts in Dhar Thosis right now who didn’t have much sympathy with that view. It occurred to her then to wonder whether Tsen had killed himself. He didn’t seem the sort, and why in Xibaiya was he naked? And the body had no obvious marks or lightning burns . . .
Mai’Choiro Kwen came striding out of the tunnel with a dozen other kwens and t’varrs and even a pair of hsians, all with long braids and bright flowing feathered robes streaming sideways in the wind, shining gold and crimson and emerald.
‘String him up,’ he bawled. He was grinning like a snake with a cornered mouse, barely containing his delight.
‘What?’ Liang started towards him but the soldiers held her back. The kwen shouted more orders as he walked away: ‘String him up. Hang him by his feet and get everyone up here to see it!’ He was going to make an example of Tsen. Give a little speech about the terrible things the t’varr had done and how this was the price for them. The hypocrisy made Liang’s blood boil. If the Vespinese hadn’t taken her lightning wand she might have used it right there, and hang holding on to the truth of what she knew until she could bring the whole lot of them down together. She turned back to the hatchery, trying to block out what was happening around her. She couldn’t think.
Tsen’s slave Kalaiya came running. The soldiers around the body caught her and dragged her away but not before she saw and started screaming. Liang ran to put an arm around her and held her while she sobbed, then took Kalaiya back into the tunnels and into Belli’s study and found her something stiff and strong to drink. It was the least thing she could do and, whatever happened next, surely neither of them wanted to see it. She tried to get Kalaiya to lie down but the slave wouldn’t have it.
‘Twelve years. I’ll watch and weep for him. He deserves that.’
Liang couldn’t imagine wanting her last memories of anyone, least of all someone she’d come to respect and perhaps even admire, to be of their corpse hanging upside down to be mocked and flogged, but Kalaiya wouldn’t be moved, and so Liang reluctantly returned with her and stood and watched. The yard was full. A squad of Vespinese in brilliant green with gold-plumed helms guarded Baros Tsen T’Varr’s body, which hung as Mai’Choiro had told them, twisting and swinging by his feet in the wind. Around them were the slaves and captive Taiytakei who’d served Tsen until yesterday, then more Vespinese soldiers in a ring to make sure they did as they were told and watched as they were meant to while Mai’Choiro Kwen played out his piece of theatre. Tsen’s Taiytakei were solemn and dour and anxious but not the slaves. Some were laughing and chattering to each other as though it was all some marvellous spectacle. Liang wanted to slap them. He was your master. He was a good one. Maybe a slave didn’t care two hoots whether their master came from Xican or from Vespinarr. Probably not. They should though, she thought. They should.
Six Vespinese at the gallows broke off and marched straight for the hatchery. For one heart-stopping moment Liang imagined they were coming
for her. One hand reached for the wand they’d taken away; the other clutched at a piece of gold-glass. The soldiers came right at her but then carried on, ignored her completely and surrounded the rider-slave. Zafir gave a tiny shake of her head and might have wagged her finger at them but they never gave her the chance. Two seized her arms and held them behind her back while two more forced a hood over her head. Between them, they frog-marched her to the gallows. Liang gritted her teeth and growled under her breath, ‘Good riddance.’ Yet even now the rider-slave walked with her head held high, as proud and haughty as it was possible to be with her face hooded and her arms behind her back and four soldiers practically lifting her off the ground in their hurry to get her to the scaffold. She didn’t stumble, not once, and Liang found herself caught in a fleeting moment of admiration. She shivered. Loathsome woman . . .
Mai’Choiro Kwen climbed onto the scaffold. He slapped the sagging flesh of Baros Tsen with a short whip then put on a gold-glass circlet. His voice rang clear over the roar of the wind, unnaturally strong as he poked at Tsen again: ‘Sixteen days ago Baros Tsen T’Varr attacked the city of Dhar Thosis. The palace of Sea Lord Senxian was torn down.’
Bellepheros was at her side. ‘Stop them, Li! You have to stop them!’
‘How, Belli?’ Why did it have to be her all the time? Why couldn’t he do it himself? ‘What do you want me to do?’ She shook her head. ‘Besides, I agree with him. She deserves it. Best to get it done.’ Even if it left her carrying the truth alone.
Belli seized her arm, turned her and pointed to the eyrie wall behind them. Diamond Eye was watching intently. His huge unblinking eyes were fixed on the scaffold and his mouth hung slightly open, fangs gleaming bare, a soft halo of fire burning around them. Liang thought about that for a moment and then, inside, she started to laugh.
The Vespinese had Zafir at the scaffold. They pulled away her hood, tied her arms behind her and then hauled her up to the gallows and forced a gag into her mouth. All around the dragon yard Vespinese soldiers had their lightning wands in their hands, pointing at the dragon on the wall.
‘She knows the truth.’ Liang shook her head. ‘Mai’Choiro has to silence her.’ She had no doubt that Zafir would have spat in the kwen’s face given the chance, but the gag wasn’t for that. The gag was to stop her calling for her dragon, wasn’t it?
Mai’Choiro’s voice rang out again. ‘The actions of Sea Lord Quai’Shu and his house attack the very foundations of our life.’ Belli tugged at her arm so hard he almost pulled her over. ‘The Sea Lord Quai’Shu will stand trial for the actions of his house –’
‘The night they came! Didn’t you see? One of the soldiers struck her, and the dragon . . . If they kill her, the dragon will go berserk. I thought he meant to let her live. I never told . . .’
‘– in the Crown of the Sea Lords in Khalishtor, where he will be judged by his peers.’
Liang put a finger to Belli’s lips to silence him and slowly shook her head. ‘With gag and blindfold, surely she can’t call her monster.’
‘As for this slave –’
‘She doesn’t need to speak to call him! It will know anyway.’
‘– Baros Tsen and Shrin Chrias –’
‘Then we’d better get out of the way, hadn’t we?’ Let it happen. Let Mai’Choiro hang Zafir and let the dragon burn him in his turn. Justice for all of them.
‘– t’varr and kwen to the Sea Lord Quai’Shu –’
Belli started to protest. Liang grabbed his arm and marched him to Perth Oran T’Varr. ‘T’Varr, the Scales are required elsewhere. May I return them to their duties?’ When he shook his head she pointed up to the gold-red dragon on the wall. ‘They are needed, T’Varr, to calm the dragon whose rider your master means to hang.’
‘– all three will hang, their bodies to be cast into the storm-dark –’
Perth Oran stared at Diamond Eye. He seemed to shrink a little and then nodded. ‘Whatever needs to be done, enchantress.’
Liang pushed Belli away. ‘Get them underground. You too. Quickly.’ She looked around the dragon yard. The Vespinese soldiers had their wands raised, waiting for the dragon to move. Three glasships hung overhead. They’d dropped close and their rims glowed sun-bright, their lightning cannon charged and ready to fire. On the scaffold two men were shaping gold-glass. Enchanters. It stood to reason that Shonda would send one or two of his own.
‘What are you going to do?’ asked Bellepheros
Liang laughed and shrugged. ‘I’m going to let it happen.’
‘But you can’t . . . You have to stop them!’
‘Stop them? No.’ She couldn’t look at him. His face was that of a child whose favourite toy had just fallen down a well, struggling with the notion of never having it back. ‘Besides, I doubt there’s anything I could say. Let them learn the hard way.’
‘But you . . . Li!’
She pushed him away again. ‘Go, you daft old man, before it’s too late.’
‘She saved you, Li! Do you not remember what—’
Liang almost threw him towards the hatchery and the doorway to the tunnels. Whatever it was he wanted to say, she didn’t want to hear it, not now, not until it was done and too late. She turned, heart pounding. Maybe the Vespinese lightning would be enough to kill the dragon or maybe it wouldn’t. Either way, the world would be a better place. Good riddance. Good riddance to both of you! Up on the scaffold Mai’Choiro finished his oration. A Vespinese soldier lowered the noose towards Zafir’s neck and stood back. Two others started towards her . . .
Bellepheros still had that look of bewildered horror on his face. He ran to Perth Oran T’Varr, grabbing his arm and shouting something that was lost in the wind. Oran looked up at Diamond Eye, fear spreading across his face. Liang tried to watch all of them at once. The dragon leaned forward, stretching out its wings. Most of the assembly had their backs to the great beast but not the men on the scaffold. They were watching it. Mai’Choiro and the dragon stared straight at each other. Oran jumped up and down and shouted, but over the wind Mai’Choiro surely couldn’t hear him. Oran started to run but the gallows were halfway across the dragon yard . . .
Too late. The soldiers on the scaffold pushed Zafir towards the noose. The dragon leaned further forward, its wings spreading in ever-wider menace. Somewhere in the cordon around the crowd a Vespinese soldier lost his nerve and fired his wand. A crack of thunder boomed over the wind and the lightning struck the dragon on the nose. It bared its teeth. Mai’Choiro looked sharply away. As he opened his mouth, the dragon screamed and kicked off from the wall with such force that Liang felt the eyrie shift under her feet. It didn’t lunge for the gallows but lurched sharply sideways. Liang slapped her hands to her ears and screwed her eyes shut . . .
All three glasships fired at once, a deafening roar that shook the air and knocked soldiers and slaves alike to their knees across the dragon yard. After the flash Liang opened her eyes again. They’d missed, all three of them. The dragon had anticipated them and now shot over the dazed and dazzled crowd, blotting out the sun. Shouts filled the air, rising over the roar of the wind. The soldiers who weren’t still rubbing their eyes fired their wands and threw their lightning but the dragon hardly seemed to notice. Mai’Choiro dived off the platform. Liang caught a glimpse of Zafir as the two enchanters on the scaffold threw a shield of golden glass around it, and then the dragon obscured everything. It smashed the gallows and the glass and the platform into splinters and matchwood and probably did as much to the two enchanters too. Tsen’s corpse flew through the air, limbs akimbo like a doll, soared fifty feet and smacked into the wall. The dragon rose over the far side of the eyrie, climbed and arced up and then around and came back.
Liang bolted for the nearest wall, cringed and shaped her piece of gold-glass into a shell around her as she’d done facing the hatchling, waiting for the dragon to fall on them in torrents of fury and fire. Slaves ran screaming – a few Vespinese tried to stop them, but only for a moment and the
n they turned and ran too. More lightning lashed the dragon as it wheeled in the air. Panic swept the dragon yard. There were Taiytakei who’d seen this dragon burn the desert sand to glass and plenty more who’d never seen a dragon at all until today but had heard from breathless messengers what it could do. Whatever sense of their own might the Vespinese had had, the dragon smashed it into splinters as they saw it for what it truly was, and for a moment Liang thought she understood what it must be like to ride such a creature.
Not that that helped her much. She crouched in her shell and waited for the dragon to open its mouth, for the fire to come and the dragon yard to turn into a blazing inferno, but the dragon simply swooped, flared its wings, flapped hard once and rose sharply away. The wash of air plucked the nearest slaves and soldiers in handfuls off the ground and scattered them like a farmer scattering seeds. All across the yard the shock of the dragon’s passing shoved fleeing screaming men in the back like a mule’s kick, sprawling them to the stone. The wind slammed into Liang’s shield. She saw the dragon rise over her. In its foreclaws it carried Zafir.
The dragon powered between the helpless glasships. It skimmed over them, smashed the heart out of the nearest with a single lash of its tail, gripped the glasship’s great disc with its hind claws before the vessel fell out of the sky, and levered it sideways through the air before landing on the back of the next. The first glasship, stricken, slid sideways and down, tipping and falling faster all the time. It clipped the eyrie rim as it plunged towards the storm-dark below, chipping a shard the size of a house from its outer disc and cracking it to the core. Lightning from its half-charged cannon arced across the stone. The glasship tumbled out of sight.
