by Stephen Deas
Would it make a difference? She frowned. It actually might. Leaving on the dragon wasn’t much of a plan and she hadn’t been serious when she’d said it, but . . . could there actually be some sense to it? More to the point, could it achieve something even if it could be done? Steal the dragon while no one was looking? Vanish in the night. Or poison it and send it away – send Zafir with it if she could, but quietly Liang knew she’d never fool the dragon-queen so easily. Sink into the underworld of a city like Cashax where even the Elemental Men would have trouble finding her. Make their way to a ship bound for the dragon-realms. Vanish. Hope the Elemental Men wouldn’t follow. With Kalaiya and all Tsen’s old debts and favours in their pocket, it struck her that it might even work.
But no, that was the coward’s way. If she had to hang for Mai’Choiro Kwen and Sea Lord Shonda to be exposed for what they were, so be it. She sipped at the wine. It was good. She’d forgotten. Tsen had given her a bottle once but that was long gone. This one, if anything, was better. She smiled to herself. She actually felt slightly drunk and she hadn’t felt that for the best part of a year, not since she’d been sent here.
Bellepheros tried not to think of the wind up on the wall. The slave ahead was carrying a tray with a bottle balanced on top. Carrying it in one hand. Good luck with that in the wind; but the slave climbed the steps with ease. Bellepheros felt a pang of envy. Even thinking about going up there was making his knees wobble.
Practice, that’s all . . .
He could see Zafir now, sitting behind Diamond Eye. She was dressed in a simple white slave’s shift, her long legs crossed under her. He couldn’t tell if her eyes were closed but she looked as though she was meditating, a novelty among dragon-lords who were usually as restless as their mounts. As the slave with the tray approached, Zafir got up and walked to meet him, and then without any warning kicked the tray out of his hand. The bottle went flying and something else too. Bellepheros ran up the steps, the wind and the horrible empty space all forgotten for a moment. The slave staggered and cried out. Zafir stooped and picked something off the ground and came up in a fighting crouch. The slave stooped to a crouch too, his hands weaving in front of him.
Bellepheros hauled himself onto the top of the wall. The wind smacked into him and almost knocked him tumbling back. He steadied himself and then stopped dead because Diamond Eye was watching the fight with a fierce intensity, snarling, fangs bare, wings half opened, tail swishing, held on the very brink of striking. But Zafir was stopping him. Why?
Zafir slashed the air. The slave jumped back and then forward again, rolling inside Zafir’s guard, only he wasn’t quick enough and she must have seen the strike coming. As he tumbled towards her, she took a nimble step sideways, right to the edge of the wall. Bellepheros caught a flash of the sun as Zafir brought her fist hard into the man’s back. The slave collapsed and lay still. By the time Bellepheros reached them, he was lying in a pool of blood. Zafir crouched low beside him, nose almost touching the ground, one hand on his head, pressing him into the stone, with an ear cocked to listen to any last words he might have had. She was snarling softly. She was also in the way and Bellepheros couldn’t see the man’s face, couldn’t see if he was alive or dead. If he was alive then it wouldn’t be for long but there might be something to be done about that . . . He glanced about, looking for watchers.
Abruptly Zafir sat up. ‘He’s gone,’ she said. She didn’t look up as Bellepheros stood behind her. ‘I didn’t want him to die so quickly. Flame! I wanted to know who sent him. Which one of them it was. You could have used truth-smoke . . .’ She cocked her head.
‘Who is he?’ Bellepheros asked. Zafir clenched her fists. She drew back and Bellepheros finally saw the dead slave’s face.
‘I knew,’ Zafir said. ‘I knew what he was going to do before he knew it himself. Diamond Eye showed me.’ She kicked the corpse. ‘Who sent you?’
It was the face of the slave who’d brought the bottle of wine to his study. Zafir was still talking but Bellepheros didn’t hear. He was already running.
*
They’d get a long way on the dragon, Liang knew they would. How far? She wasn’t sure. She ought to be able to work it out. Ought to, from what she’d seen, but how could she know how long they’d have before the Elemental Men found them? Silly idea anyway. Never meant it. Couldn’t understand why it wouldn’t leave her alone. They’d have to poison the dragon before they left. Which gave them how long? Belli had told her how it would work. Her and Belli, running away. Never mind the rest, the rest needed to go away. They’d get to the sea, would they? She wasn’t sure why they’d bother. Didn’t make much sense, did it? She’d do what she’d promised first.
She squeezed her nose and screwed up her eyes. Her head was starting to hurt. She stared at the apple wine. She hadn’t drunk that much. Only a glass, wasn’t it? But when she tried to see how much was left, the bottle kept blurring and stretching and rippling and tipping sideways. Her head tipped sideways to follow it but the glass kept on going until suddenly the whole world jumped up off the ground and hit her.
Even lying on the floor, the bottle kept moving. She wasn’t sure why.
Xican. A ship. The key was the ship. She could hide them from the Elemental Men but there were only so many ships, only so many navigators. They’d be watching. She’d need a favour. A blind eye. How was she going to do that again?
Oh yes. Kalaiya. That’s right.
Liang giggled. She could hardly keep her eyes open. There was a pain in her head and then a bloom of light as if a star was exploding, but so slowly that she could see each and every ray that came out of it.
For a moment she saw the bottle in a bubble of clarity. Nearly full. She’d hardly had any wine at all. See! Hardly had any at all . . .
She closed her eyes. She wasn’t sure why.
The Arbiter
22
The Arbiter
Red Lin Feyn, daughter many generations removed but tied by blood to the uniquely revered Feyn Charin, watched the world through the windows of the Dralamut library. The view outside looked as it always did: a peaceful steep-sided valley in the foothills of the Konsidar, its slopes partially terraced with groves of orange trees. Pocket herds of goats grazed on spiked grasses between thorny bushes. A sparrowhawk, riding the thermals, called to its mate. Red Lin Feyn watched it fly, flapping for a few seconds then gliding, flapping and gliding, always the same. Only the sparrow-hawks did that.
As she watched, something in the library changed. She went from being alone to being watched, she was certain of it. The air didn’t move, the wooden floor didn’t creak, not a single grain of sand fell from the stone walls or from the mortar between them, but she wasn’t alone. She could feel the presence.
‘Show yourself,’ she whispered.
The Elemental Man emerged from the air across the library with such softness that Red Lin Feyn didn’t feel it at all. ‘Lady.’ Thirty feet away but she’d known he was there. She was getting good at this. She didn’t turn round.
‘Killer.’ There would be no more acknowledgement than that.
‘Your ship awaits, lady.’
Her ship.
Her eyes stayed on the valley outside. If she tried hard, really, really tried, she might have sensed the disturbance in the weave of the world made by the enchanted glasship come to take her to the desert. ‘Do you know, killer, how much of his life my Father of Fathers spent on these walls? How much more of his energy he devoted to this fortress than to all those things for which you remember him. He rebuilt it, enhanced and added and subtracted. He structured all the storage we have now. The cellars are lined with enchanted stone to preserve provisions. His work, killer. This library? More than half of it came here in his lifetime. Hundreds of years old and yet how much has changed since he died?’ Her arms swept past the shelves and shelves of books, the tables covered with astronomical instruments. ‘Whispers say that my Father of Fathers owned a copy of the Rava and that he read it from c
over to cover. They say he kept it from you and that it’s still here.’ She was taunting the killer now. She did that with all of them. They never rose to it.
‘Why would he do that, lady?’
Lin Feyn shrugged. ‘No one knows. Perhaps because your kind had him under your eye even then.’
The Elemental Man came closer. Lin Feyn felt the swish of air, heard the rustle of his clothes but still didn’t look at him. It was important not to trust the eyes alone. Important to teach the other senses. ‘We gave him this, lady. He was tied to us from the very start. We watched him as we watch you now, all of you, with such a close eye.’ He paused. ‘You are a sorceress. We call you by another name but that is what you are.’ He moved a little closer, so close she thought she might touch him if she were to lift and stretch out her fingers. She didn’t know this one. His voice was new. He wasn’t one of the usual visitors, who would have known better than to engage her in this particular conversation. ‘I am told, lady, that Feyn Charin lived to his very end in fear of the Crimson Sunburst. He believed she was not destroyed and that her return was imminent. He asked us to protect him.’
‘She was his mentor. Why would she turn on him?’
‘He turned on her, did he not?’
‘No.’ Lin Feyn rounded on the killer and met his eye. ‘How do you know this? What is this “I am told”? Told by whom? Were you there, killer? Did you know him?’
‘No, lady. You know that we live no longer than ordinary men.’ His voice was soft and soothing. She knew the tone. She’d learned it herself years ago. Coaxing. Softening her to do what he wanted – in this case to get into the ship waiting to take her to the desert. She closed her eyes and took a long deep breath and turned to face him.
‘I’m not your pawn, killer, and your kind are not untouched by what Quai’Shu’s t’varr has done. I will not simply give whatever answer it is they want to this. I’ll do what I see is right and not shirk the consequences.’
The killer bowed. ‘Nor will we, lady. We will be your eyes, your armour and your lightning.’
‘I would rather have my own eyes, thank you.’ She pushed past him, out of the library and into the open elliptical heart of the Dralamut with its layer after layer of concentricity above her, its sloping balconies and whitewashed walls. Three long sweeping curves of steps rose from the ground to the flat stone rooftops. The glasship was waiting for her, floating over the yard, sunlight sparking inside it and splitting into rainbow glimmers. As the great outer disc turned, little sons and daughters of light danced and played with the shadows to the rhythm of its languorous orbit, chasing each other from one side of the yard to the other and away again as each surrendered to the next of its myriad brothers and sisters. The waiting gondola was silver and jade. Silver and jade for Vespinarr – so it was the Vespinese who would be taking her. They were the closest, and the Dralamut was built on land they claimed – quietly and delicately and with much politeness – as their own. Vespinarr, whose lord Quai’Shu’s t’varr claimed had brought all this to pass.
‘When I next sleep, you are to go ahead of me, killer. We will stop in Vespinarr. You will find me a different glasship to carry me on from there. Go to Tayuna. Sea Lord Weir will be happy to oblige you. You can have it waiting for me by the time I arrive in the Kabulingnor.’
The ramp into the gondola was open. The Elemental Man vanished with a slight whiff of air. By the time she reached it, he was standing inside, waiting for her. ‘It is safe, lady.’
He didn’t need to say it. Like it or not, he and the others of his kind were going to be her guardians, vigilant for assassins and murderers everywhere she went. It gave them the perfect excuse to spy on her, night and day.
She sat. The gondola was comfortable, made for the likes of a sea lord or perhaps one of his closest t’varrs or kwens or hsians, the sort they might use to make their leisurely journeys up and down the western coast of Takei’Tarr. The larger lower level was panelled in a pale hardwood, stained henna-red and inlaid with pieces of brilliant jade. Everything shone, sparkling bright and clean. Pinpricks of light snapped at her from every silvered corner and gilded curve. Wherever she looked, she found a reflection of her own face, stretched and distorted, a thousand different aspects and personalities tied by a single name. Windows girdled the gondola at a comfortable eye level, wide ellipses framed in gold and carved with the dragons and lion of Vespinarr. Lin Feyn inspected them. They weren’t the work of a true master but they were done well nonetheless.
The same could be said of the other furnishings – a simple large table, a pair of chaises longues and six small silver cabinets fixed around the walls. A bronze tray lay on the table with an exquisite enchanter-made crystal decanter. Someone had already poured a cup of water for her. Towards the front where the pilot golem sat a skeletal silver staircase arced to the upper section. A carved rose-wood bed covered in silks and a feather-stuffed mattress waited for her beside an immense cabinet and a battered old chest – the only thing here that was hers. The servants of the Dralamut had already brought her clothes and costumes and personal things. Stacked beside the bed were books from the library, those she thought she might want or need.
She went to the table, took the decanter and the glass and left the gondola, emptied both and refilled them from the fountain in the centre of the Dralamut. Then she returned. When she closed the ramp behind her, the gondola rose at once.
‘Vespinarr. We will make that the first stop.’
The Elemental Man bowed. He moved to one of the tinted gold-glass windows and opened it, which caught her attention. A gondola like this rarely had openings of any sort, because openings were a way for the killers to get inside. ‘I will be waiting for you in Vespinarr, lady.’ The killer gestured to a sheaf of papers on the table beside the bronze tray. They were held down by a silver paperweight in the shape of a dragon and hadn’t been there when she’d first entered. ‘I will have more for you when you reach the Visonda landing fields.’ He bowed and vanished, a slight gust of a breeze whispering around the gondola as he left. Red Lin Feyn, Arbiter of the Dralamut, closed the window behind him and settled back into a chair. She picked up the papers and began to read.
The first pages were an account of Sea Lord Quai’Shu’s decade-long quest to steal dragons from the dragon-lands, beginning with how he had acquired the services of not one but two Elemental Men – an unprecedented purchase and one which made her quite certain that the Elemental Men themselves must have desired Quai’Shu to succeed. The document was silent on this but there was no other explanation. The hidden fathers and makers of the Elemental Men had called dragons to Takei’Tarr. Why?
She had no answer and nor did anything written here. The document explained how far into debt, principally to Lord Shonda of Vespinarr, the lords of Xican had allowed themselves to fall in order to buy these men. It detailed the exact mechanics of how Quai’Shu had stolen dragons and eggs and all the necessary handlers, how he’d built his own eyrie in the desert under the stewardship of his t’varr, Baros Tsen. Red Lin Feyn read slowly and carefully. The theft had been admirably done with precision and care, and whoever had written this clearly thought the same. It left her wondering who that was and whether the lords of Vespinarr had known anything about it.
There followed a single hastily scribbled page on the nature of the monsters themselves. It was a hodgepodge of notes, broken sentences, single words and unanswered questions, irritatingly uncertain and incomplete. Nothing offered any clue as to why her presence had become necessary. Finally came the burning of Dhar Thosis itself, the confessions and accusations of Baros Tsen T’Varr, the reports of the first Elemental Men to arrive, their secret watch over the eyrie barely hours after the Vespinese had seized it, their intervention when it had seemed necessary and why, and the testimonies they had gathered since. Others might have jumped straight to the end, but Lin Feyn was patient and methodical and wouldn’t have been here if she was otherwise. Now that she was armed with an understanding of
Quai’Shu’s grand design and of the monsters he’d brought back, she read over these events with a new mind.
When she finished, she read it again. Not because the words were in any way unclear but simply because once wasn’t enough to make herself believe what they were telling her. Soldiers of Xican and a single dragon had destroyed a sea lord’s city and palace. They had killed Sea Lord Senxian himself. A hundred ships sunk, perhaps more. Dozens of glasships shattered. The sea titans, the ancient guardians of Dhar Thosis, plucked from the water and dashed against the cliffs. Quai’Shu’s kwen and much of his fleet and all of his army vanished out to sea and not yet found. Baros Tsen T’Varr’s admission of his own guilt and his astounding accusation that she couldn’t ignore.
She read from the beginning a third time, slowly and carefully without skipping a single word. She finished again still without an idea as to why Sea Lord Quai’Shu had set himself to do this thing, nor why Sea Lord Shonda would do what Baros Tsen T’Varr had claimed, nor why the t’varr himself had acted as he had. Madness. Though she knew where the real answer to all those things would lie. Greed. Power. Envy. Fear.
She read through yet again, setting her mind to favour the Vespinese, letting herself imagine them wholly innocent and falsely accused to see how the subtleties behind the words would change. Then once more with Tsen as a callous killer, then as a buffoonish dupe, then with all of them as unwitting puppets of the Elemental Men themselves. Each perspective shed a different light but all, in the end, to little purpose. Every motive remained cloaked in shadow.
The most telling passage of all lay in a few buried words from Baros Tsen T’Varr’s own confession. He claimed to have sent an Elemental Man to make it all stop, to bring the dragon back before it carried out its orders and to rein in Shrin Chrias Kwen. Not only had this Elemental Man failed, the killer had himself been killed. Lin Feyn wondered why Baros Tsen would say such a thing if it was a lie and discovered she couldn’t find any reason. She shivered then, because an Elemental Man should not fail, and yet here was a story that began with one failure and ended with another and had a third in between. If Tsen’s confession was true then Quai’Shu had found something to unbalance the five-hundred-year peace that the Elemental Men had brought with them when they emerged from the Konsidar.
