Dragon Queen sk-2

by Stephen Deas

  But who? With the sea between them, he knew better now. No one even knew he was missing. He had until dusk? ‘Wands that hurl lightning?’ he asked instead.

  ‘You'll see them.’ Across the water the sun was already sinking and the colours of the world were collapsing. In the distance little boats with sails rode the waves; on the hill above Furymouth, overlooking the sea and the mouth of the Fury river, the Veid Palace stood in silhouette. Prince Jehal, who might or might not have been a murderer, and his dragons. Resentment made Bellepheros's skin burn. For being here. For the kings and queens sitting in their palaces, ignorant and doing nothing to help him. For whoever had thrown Aliphera from her dragon and dragged him from his sanctuary in the first place.

  Tuuran clenched his fists. He looked ready to smash through the side of the ship with his bare hands. ‘Do you hear? All those sounds, those little movements? We're leaving. They were getting ready before you were even aboard.’ He raised his branded arm. ‘I earned this pulling oars on one of their galleys. It says I'm a sail-slave and not an animal. I know every sound a ship makes. I've also heard it said that the high alchemist has the power to call the dragons to him. I never much believed it, but if you can, you should do it now!’

  Bellepheros shook his head. He'd worked a splinter loose now and he pricked himself with it. A little blood on the fingertip. He reached for it with his mind and his shoulders sagged. Still nothing. ‘Alchemists cannot call dragons, Tuuran.’

  The ship began to turn. Tuuran stared through the window until they were out of sight of land. ‘I'd hoped, at least, to see a dragon one more time,’ he said. There was despair in his voice now. Bellepheros just felt bewildered. Numb.

  The ship rolled slowly. Back and forth, back and forth. He started to feel sick. A dull spark of anger began to flicker inside him. Anger at the world. At this Adamantine Man, this servant of the speaker, for not conjuring a miracle. Anger at the door for staying closed and barred. Futile, but still no helping it. The Taiytakei had always wanted dragons. And if they had dragons then they would need an alchemist. Although it would have been kinder, Bellepheros thought, to steal one who was younger.

  And if they really did have dragons, then what? What would he do?

  ‘What do they want with you?’

  Bellepheros laughed, full of bitterness. ‘The Tyans of Furymouth moved their eyrie further down the coast many years ago. To keep the dragons and the Taiytakei apart. Dragons and ships are a poor mix. There's been more than one fleet burned to the water outside Furymouth, but that's not why they moved their eyrie. They moved their eyrie to keep the Taiytakei away from their dragons, not the other way around.’

  ‘Ayzalmir,’ murmured Tuuran.

  Bellepheros looked at him in mild surprise. ‘An Adamantine Man who's heard of Ayzalmir?’ He chuckled for a moment before his thoughts turned bleak again. ‘No, Speaker Ayzalmir never burned the Taiytakei fleet. It was his edict that scourged them from the realms north of Gliding Dragon Gorge but the lords of Furymouth never took it to heart as others did. I was thinking of older times.’ He rubbed his fingers to his temples and winced at the knot growing in his stomach. ‘Tuuran, I am an alchemist. They have dulled my powers for now but I'm no use to them like this. They will let us go home. I will see to it.’

  ‘Vishmir and Narammed.’ Tuuran shrugged. ‘The sun and stars of the Adamantine Legion.’ He shifted heavily on the bed beside Bellepheros, his feet resting on a trunk, knees hugged to his chest. Bellepheros frowned and Tuuran half-smiled. ‘Small cabin, I know. You'll have it to yourself once there's nowhere else to go. After I was taken, I found I wasn't the only one from this realm. I've not met any other Adamantine Men but the King of the Crags does a healthy trade in Outsider slaves. They're full of stories, those ones.’ He shook his head. ‘You won't make them let us go, alchemist. You won't. You haven't seen who they are, not really. When you do, you might not even want to.’

  The last of Bellepheros's anger drained out of him. ‘They can't keep me this way. They have to let me use my alchemy. When they do. .’ He wasn't sure. But he'd find a way. Blood-magic wasn't the way of the alchemist and was mostly shunned, but they learned at least a little. It wasn't really any different from making potions, after all. Just more. . direct.

  Tuuran was still shaking his head. ‘I'd heard of you before they took me. You weren't grand master then but you were going to be. Everyone in the palace knew it. You went on your big journey around the nine realms and wrote it all down.’

  Bellepheros gaped. It had never occurred to him that the Taiytakei might read his words. Now he had to wonder: what had they learned? Was that how they knew his name? Was that why they'd chosen him? ‘Who was speaker when you were taken, Master Tuuran?’

  ‘His Holiness Hyram of Bloodsalt had just taken the spear and the ring. Does he still speak for the nine kings and queens?’

  ‘His time is almost done, but yes, he does.’

  ‘I hope his reign was a good one. I remember when Antros died. You all thought he'd be another Vishmir.’ He shook his head. ‘There could never be another Vishmir though. Not without another Anzuine, and the Adamantine Guard would never allow that.’

  ‘He's been good enough.’ Bellepheros clucked his tongue. ‘The vultures are circling as they always do when a new speaker is due.’ Aliphera's death — was it an accident, or was it the start of some great plan? He'd never know now. ‘Tuuran, how did an Adamantine Man end up a slave to the Taiytakei?’

  ‘Stupidity.’

  ‘Be patient. I will take us home.’ He put a hand on Tuuran's shoulder. ‘I will make them take us home.’

  The cabin door burst open as the sun finally set. Three black-skinned Taiytakei stood there, dark as night but with eyes like candle flames, with shirts and coats made of feather rainbows, brilliant and dazzling and ever-shifting. Two of them carried glass wands tinged gold, with wire in fine patterns wrapped around them, glowing with a fierce inner light. They waved them at Tuuran. ‘Out, slave!’

  Tuuran moved slowly away and past them, head bowed. When he was gone, another Taiytakei appeared, an old man with wrinkled skin and grey hair that was turning white. The first Taiytakei looked suddenly drab. This old one had colours in his clothes that Bellepheros had never even seen, braids in his hair that reached almost to the floor and a cloak of feathers that looked like a shimmering between dragon fire and liquid gold. He had a presence too, the sort that Bellepheros knew well from his time among the kings and queens of the dragon realms. He was a man who ruled, who was obeyed. Bellepheros bowed his head.

  ‘Alchemist.’ The old man pursed his lips and stared hard.

  ‘I am Bellepheros.’ Bellepheros didn't look up. Dragon-kings and — queens would have had him on his knees, face pressed into the dirt. ‘I am the grand master of the Order of the Scales, master alchemist of the nine realms. I am keeper of the dragons.’

  ‘No longer. When the dragon eggs I will bring you hatch, can you master them?’

  ‘I can, if I so choose.’

  ‘Keeper of the dragons? You may keep that name. You will build me an eyrie, Keeper of the Dragons. If you do not, you will die.’

  He understood, in this old man's voice, that he would never return home, no matter what he did, that no threat would be enough, nor anything he could promise. They had taken him from his land and his life and his family — for that was how he thought of his Order of the Scales — and he would never come back. The old man believed it with a certainty that was absolute, and when the alchemist looked up and met the old man's eyes, what he saw there showed no remorse, no doubt, no miracles, no meticulously planned escape. He had the eyes of a true dragon-king, but still Bellepheros held his gaze. ‘If you have dragons then I will build an eyrie. Not because you ask it of me but because that is my calling. And when I am finished, you will wish that I had not, and you will bring me back to my home, and you will beg me to take my dragons with me.’

  4

  The Storm-Dark

 
; The Taiytakei gave him books to read to amuse himself. They were in their own language but it wasn't so different from the language of the dragon-kings and he mastered it easily enough. For two hours each day Tuuran came to sit with him. Bellepheros wasn't sure why, but he was thankful for the company and a familiar face. Someone he could talk to about the things he knew, the lands he'd travelled and the faces he'd never see again. He tried asking Tuuran about the Taiytakei but the Adamantine Man wasn't much use for that, not past how they treated their slaves and how to sail their ships. He claimed to have seen their city from a distance once, with towers of glass and gold that touched the sky and gleaming discs that flew through the air, slow and clumsy and fragile things beside a dragon, he thought, and if it sounded fanciful, well maybe dragons sounded fanciful too if you hadn't grown up spending your days with them flying overhead. Sometimes they spent their time together looking out of the window, at the endless grey sea. Other times Bellepheros read aloud. The Taiytakei even had a copy of the journal he'd written almost a decade ago which described the land that had raised them both. He spoke his own words while Tuuran lay on the bed and listened, rapt like a child being told stories by his father. Sometimes his eyes glistened, though he tried to hide it.

  ‘We all weep for what we've lost,’ he said when he caught Bellepheros looking. ‘My brothers were the best warriors the world has ever seen. I will never find their like again.’ He clenched his fists and screwed up his face. ‘I was made to kill dragons! Not for this.’

  ‘Men are more terrible than dragons,’ said Bellepheros, although he knew it wasn't true.

  ‘Men are more cruel, but not more terrible.’ Tuuran slammed a fist against the wall. ‘If there was a way, if it would serve a purpose, I'd smash this ship apart.’

  ‘Patience, Tuuran. I will change their minds yet.’ His magic was coming back, slowly and in fits and starts. He was fairly sure he knew what the Elemental Man had used to poison him now. Could have done something about it too if he'd had his travel chest with him, but that was gone. They'd taken everything. No matter. It would come back, and then he'd be far from helpless.

  ‘We'll cross the storm-dark soon. After that, there's no hope.’

  ‘The storm-dark?’

  ‘You'll see.’ Tuuran puffed his cheeks and let out a long sigh and held his head in his hands for a moment. ‘It's hard,’ he said, not looking up. ‘I've been a slave on their ships for so long I'd forgotten what it was to be anything else. Now I wish it had stayed that way.’ With an effort and another deep sigh he straightened. ‘But it didn't. What words did you write of us in your journals, Lord Alchemist?’

  Bellepheros peered out through the cabin window. The view was always the same now. Grey seas, grey skies, the horizon swaying back and forth between them. ‘That Narammed created your order as he created mine. That you followed him without question. That. .’ He chuckled and stopped. ‘You know your own stories, Tuuran. Watersgate. Samir's Crossing. On those days you were as terrible as any dragon.’ Then he shook his head. ‘My words don't do you justice. Vishmir's dragon-killers. He armed you with weapons bought from the Taiytakei. Did you know that? Better than any steel forged in the nine kingdoms. Far better. Was Vale Tassan the Night Watchman when you were taken?’

  Tuuran nodded. ‘Giant and ruthless but always fair. Never asked anything he wouldn't give himself. There were few of us who could match him. What happened to him?’

  ‘He still commands the guard.’

  A rare smile flirted with the corners of Tuuran's lips. ‘If a man could stop a dragon by glaring at it, Vale would be that man.’

  ‘He has little love for alchemists but he does what needs to be done. Always.’ Bellepheros looked out of the little window across the sea. The sun was low in the sky. He thought back to the Picker and frowned, remembering the things he'd said when the two of them had been alone on the road. ‘You must know the legend of the Speaker's Spear? That Narammed slew a dragon with it?’

  Tuuran snorted his derision.

  ‘You don't believe it then? I think the Taiytakei do.’

  ‘They believe in nothing. Godless creatures. But either way, men don't slay dragons with steel.’

  ‘Is it steel? I don't know what it is. But I think the Taiytakei greatly desire to own it.’ He was talking to himself, he realised. Voicing his secret thoughts.

  ‘It's just a spear.’ Tuuran shrugged and stood up and drew out the cabin key from under his shirt. He opened the door. ‘There's going to be a storm soon. We'll come on it after nightfall. The storm-dark. It's no natural thing but the Taiytakei must cross it to reach their home. They'll shutter and bar your window, my Lord Alchemist. You'll think it'll be the end of us. Everyone does, the first time they cross, but don't fear it. Like the wrath of the Great Flame and the Silver King and the old gods themselves all rolled together, but it ends and by some miracle the ship remains whole.’

  The sun set not long after Tuuran left him. The sky darkened and the clouds grew thick and ugly. The ship lurched and heaved while the waves rose and wore white caps of foam. The wind snapped and snarled, the decks creaked and groaned and the stars winked out one by one as the storm clouds devoured them. Outside someone closed the shutters on his window, and when Bellepheros tried to open them again he found they were barred. He lay on his bed, breathing hard. His stomach clenched into a knot. The air smelled strange. Unnatural. He'd tasted air like this once before, deep in the bowels of the Pinnacles amid the creations of the Silver King. The pitching of the ship grew worse. Abruptly he threw up into the bucket beside his bed, retching until there was nothing left, then groaned and lay back and closed his eyes; and so he almost didn't notice when the cabin door opened again and Tuuran slipped back in. The Adamantine Man sat beside him and the first Bellepheros knew of it was a cup of something hot and bitter pressed into his hand.

  ‘For the sickness,’ Tuuran said. Bellepheros forced himself up. As he did, a sudden sway of the ship banged the cabin wall against him.

  ‘Great Flame!’ He sniffed the cup and groaned again and then laughed despite himself. ‘I could tell you everything that went into this just from the smell. I know better remedies but it will do.’

  He drank. Tuuran pushed at the shutters but they didn't give. ‘They keep us slaves away from the storm-dark, locked up in the hold. Every crossing.’ He bared his teeth, a carnivore's grin. ‘I told them you might die of fright if you didn't have someone to hold your hand so they let me come up to look after you, but I know you don't need me, Master Lord Alchemist. I did this for me, not for you. I want to see it. I've heard more stories about it than I've heard of Vishmir and Narammed put together. I want to see if they're true.’

  Bellepheros resisted the temptation to lie down again and try to fall asleep. Tuuran's potion was working, at least a little, although with his travel chest he could have made something far better. ‘They want me to make an eyrie for them,’ he mumbled.

  ‘Yes, I know. It's obvious, isn't it?’ Tuuran pushed at the window again. ‘I've crossed the storm-dark a dozen times. I might never find a way home again, but I'll see the damn thing before I die.’ When the window didn't give, he punched it, then lay on the bed and kicked it, blow after blow until something cracked and then on until the shutters flew open.

  The sky flashed purple.

  Bellepheros forgot the snakes writhing in his belly. The night was black as pitch, the stars and moon all gone and swallowed up by the tide of darkness. The sea glistened, a faint blue-green phosphorescence lighting up the churning waves. The wind howled and swirled and then another bolt of purple light split the sea and the sky, jagged and blinding bright, lighting up the waves like the midday sun.

  ‘Lightning,’ hissed Tuuran. ‘The lightning. So that much is true.’

  Another flash and then another and the wind sucked them deeper into the storm. Even the sea seemed to rush towards it, the waves crashing and climbing over one another, pushing them on. The gale caught the broken shutters and smashed
them against the hull, over and over. It screamed and whistled through the ropes and the rigging somewhere above. Banshee wails ripped the air, rising and fading. The ship rolled and heaved and pitched and the purple lightning flashed and flamed and danced through the sky. The storm drew Bellepheros in, wrapped him up and held him like a dragon's stare until the ship bucked mightily, tipping him and Tuuran onto the floor together. The Adamantine Man was laughing. ‘Imagine this deep in the hold, Master Alchemist, among the rats and the bilge water! Imagine it! Men falling over, tumbling into each other in the pitch black! Can you see why they piss themselves? Death stares at you there but I didn't fear it, not once, not ever, for I am Adamantine, made to face dragons!’

  Bellepheros struggled to his knees and clutched at the bed. The ship pitched forward, swinging his legs out from under him. Tuuran rolled and slammed into the door, then hauled himself to his feet. He was grinning like a madman, swept up by the violence around them while the lightning outside cracked again and again, bright and a vivid violet like nothing Bellepheros had ever seen. ‘This is not natural!’

  ‘No.’ Tuuran shook his head gleefully. ‘Even the Taiytakei don't understand it, though they'll never admit it, not to the likes of us.’ The ship groaned. A loud crack reverberated through the hull. ‘But the best, the best is yet to come. We're close to the middle now. They say-’

  Tuuran didn't finish. Or perhaps he did and Bellepheros simply didn't hear. The heaving and rolling of the ship abruptly stopped. The clouds vanished, the lightning and the sea too, and now outside there was nothing at all, and through that nothing the ship drifted silent and still. All that sound and fury, suddenly gone. Tuuran's eyes gleamed. ‘Always in whispers, in the dark, they talked about it,’ he said. ‘But none of us had ever seen it.’ He pointed at the emptiness outside. ‘That, my Lord Alchemist! Make that your mistress! A thing deeper than dragons and they don't understand it. I couldn't begin. But you!’ His gaze bored into Bellepheros. ‘You, Lord Master Alchemist, you who have tamed dragons, you can make it ours! I've risked my life for you to see this. Remember that. Tame the storm-dark and one day take us home!’