The King of the Crags

by Stephen Deas

  “Oh, they are.” Semian was still smiling. “Hyrkallan just doesn’t know it yet. He and the others who haven’t been touched by the fire, they’ll leave soon enough. But you can stay. I still have hope for you. Come.” He tugged Jostan into motion again. “Whatever Kithyr and Nthandra had to say to each other, I’m sure it’s said.”

  He was right: the blood-mage was gone when they returned. Nthandra was almost asleep, and as Jostan and Semian lay down one either side of her, she made no move to go to either of them. Jostan felt the weight of his arms and his legs and his head pressing him into the ground. A good fight was always a guarantee of a good night’s sleep. The last thing he remembered was Nthandra’s hand, snaking between the blankets, reaching out and holding his own, squeezing tight. She almost seemed happy. And then the darkness engulfed him and sucked him down into a place so dark and so deep that he thought he might never escape; and as he sank he dreamed, and in his dreams he saw his friend Semian, crying out against the tyrannies of the speaker. He saw riders rally around him, a few at first, then dozens, then thousands, and among those faces were riders he knew were his friends. He saw the riders rise as one and descend upon the Adamantine Palace from all sides, an irresistible tide of fire and scales. He saw the speaker and her lover caught naked and whipped; he saw Queen Shezira freed and given the Speaker’s Ring. He saw the realms rejoice and sleep in peace. And amid the teeming happy crowds, through the endless celebration, he saw Princess Jaslyn, smiling at him, reaching out her hand. He saw everything that he wanted to see and he felt a presence at his shoulder, an old and wise and respected mentor whose name he couldn’t quite remember, whispering softly in his ear.

  Do you see? This is how the world should be . . .

  The dream stayed with him, more real than the waking world, when Semian shook his shoulder an hour before dawn and told him to get dressed and put on his armor.

  “I had a dream,” he said. “I dreamed that we set the realms to rights.”

  In the moonlight he saw Semian smile, no trace of surprise on his face, as if he’d seen it all too. “Yes. And that is how it shall be.”

  Jostan dressed and then reached out to wake Nthandra but Semian stopped him.

  “No, Jostan. Let her lie. Let her sleep. Come. It’s time to wake the others.”

  In a daze he followed Semian from tent to tent. Everywhere riders awoke with a happy puzzlement in their eyes and spoke of dreams. They dressed as Semian asked and followed him until they all stood outside Hyrkallan’s tent, waiting patiently. I know what this is, Jostan thought, and yet it was a dreamy thought, and one that didn’t seem to have much weight. He half noticed Kithyr sidle in among the crowd, the last of them, pale and shaking and yet with a hungry gleam in his eyes. His head felt full of clouds. Am I drunk?

  As Hyrkallan emerged, the riders watched him in silence. Twenty pairs of eyes followed him as he moved among them. Semian was in the middle, standing awkwardly, tipped slightly to one side from the wound that Zafir’s mercenaries had given him.

  “What?” Hyrkallan shouted, when he couldn’t bear their stares anymore. “What?”

  They were looking at him, not at Rider Semian, but somehow he was their heart. Jostan could feel it, even in himself. And the blood-mage, standing next to Semian now. Shanzir, Hahzyan, even GarHannas, who really ought to have known better. Hyrkallan was looking at them all, sizing them up. Jostan could almost read his thoughts. Why did I do this? Why did I even start this stupid, doomed crusade?

  For Queen Shezira, Jostan wanted to say, to him, but his mouth stayed firmly closed. For the queen you served for all your life, the queen you love more than anyone can know. Except me. I know.

  Hyrkallan threw his helm to the ground. “You want glory?” he screamed at them all. “Then do what riders have done since time began and serve your queen. You!” He pointed at one of King Valgar’s men. “Go home. Serve your queen. When Speaker Zafir turns her eyes to the north, Almiri will need every dragon Valgar had. You!” He was pointing straight at Jostan. “Go home and serve yours. Serve Queen Jaslyn.” Jostan blinked and tried to listen, and yet the words seemed to slide over him like water over a stone, never sticking in his mind, never quite heard. Hyrkallan clenched his teeth and a shiver of fury ran through him. “You!” He stabbed at GarHannas. “Why are you even here?”

  GarHannas turned a dangerous shade of red, but he didn’t move. Didn’t speak.

  Jostan bowed his head. Hyrkallan had gone too far. Even he knew it. Screaming and shouting at young blades like Jostan and Shanzir was one thing. Screaming at someone like GarHannas only made him look stupid. He’d lost them.

  “Lead us, Rider Hyrkallan.” It was GarHannas who spoke. None of the rest wanted him.

  Hyrkallan shook his head. “No. I’m leaving you. I’m going back where I belong. Where we all belong. I’m going home, and I’m going to serve my queen by making the north so bloody dangerous that Zafir won’t dare lift a finger against a single hair on Queen Shezira’s holy head. You should join me.” He looked straight at GarHannas now. “You can piss about in the mountains all you like, but twenty dragons aimlessly burning peasants in the Spur won’t even get Zafir’s attention. I’m going, and if I ever have to come back, I’ll have the whole fucking horde of the north with me, five hundred dragons and fifty thousand men. That’s where I should be and so should all of you.”

  Jostan was barely listening now. Hyrkallan shook his head in disgust.

  Semian spoke so softly that it seemed he was whispering, yet his voice was clear. “Jaslyn heeds a knight-marshal. Shezira needed a knight-marshal, a proper one, not one who could barely hold a sword. A marshal who would lead and conquer, not one filled with so much guile that she was strangled by her own schemes. Lady Nastria is dead, and now you’re going to have what should have been yours a long time ago. You would never have let this happen.”

  Hyrkallan’s brow furrowed and for a moment he looked lost and confused. Then he shook it off. “Sell-swords. Shit-eaters. That’s what we’re worth to Zafir. She probably doesn’t even know we exist.” He grinned then and laughed. “If you really want to sting her, burn her eyries.” He spat. “Yes, Rider Semian. Go burn her palace. If you can.” They were all still looking at him in silence. “A pox on all of you.”

  They watched as Hyrkallan left them, great in his day yet now old and worn. No one said a word. Or maybe GarHannas had said something. Jostan wasn’t sure. They all watched B’thannan fly away into the dawn sky and vanish, and then they stared, lost in thought perhaps, or lost in wonder, or simply lost.

  “Riders!” The crack of Semian’s voice jerked Jostan awake. He felt as though he’d been sleeping and someone had tipped a bucket of water over him. He shook himself and looked around.

  Next to him, Shanzir almost fell over.

  “What happened?” she whispered. She looked confused.

  A dozen yards away, GarHannas held his head in his hands.

  “What have we done?”

  “Riders!” shouted Semian again, “Red Riders! Hyrkallan is gone. He has left us, but we remain. We are the Red Riders! We were forged together and we will follow our purpose to our death if that is what the fates demand. I say again, we alone remain! I will lead those who will have me, and we will take the fight to where it belongs. We will fly our dragons to the walls of the speaker’s palace and we will make her burn! Stay or go, but do it now.”

  Most of them stayed. All except GarHannas and a couple of others, who milled around aimlessly, confused and desolate, only to be herded toward their dragons and sent on their way with rude haste. Semian couldn’t hide his glee once they were gone. He stood with the blood-mage beside him and smiled, nodding. It made Jostan feel sick. And yet I stay. Why?

  He couldn’t listen to another of Semian’s speeches so he stumbled back toward their tent to find Nthandra, only to be met by a scream. As he drew near, she staggered out, wearing only a shirt, her hands pressed between her legs. There was blood running down her thighs. J
ostan froze; his stomach turned to lead. His face and his hands went numb. He felt distant tears roll down his cheeks. In a flash, he knew exactly what this was. This was the sacrifice Kithyr had demanded.

  “Oh . . .” He couldn’t speak. His lips were made of wood and his tongue tasted of ash. He reached for her and she recoiled, shrieking and wailing like an animal. Then she looked at him as though he was mad. He wasn’t sure, through her grief, that she even knew who he was.

  “The blood-mage. He did this.” He shook his head. Any moment now he was going to be sick. She’s just a girl. “I am so sorry. I knew . . .” He was shaking, horror and rage flooding together. She’s too young to be a rider. “I should have . . .” He was after her right from the start, from the moment we came . . . “I’m sorry, Nthandra of the Vale. It’s too late, I know, but I’ll stop him, Nthandra. Whatever it is, I’ll stop him.” He sighed and held his head in his hands, then screwed up his face and screamed at the sky.

  “No, you won’t,” said a voice behind him. An edge burned across his throat. His mouth filled with something hot and salty and he started to choke. He staggered and coughed and blood gushed out of his mouth. He turned and then fell over. He could hear singing. The Picker was standing over him, holding a knife so thin that you could see right through it. Or you could have, if it hadn’t had Jostan’s blood all over it.

  “Suppose you should have gone with the others.” The Picker shrugged and walked away, and all Jostan could see was the sky, fierce and bright. The singing was getting louder. He heard Semian somewhere far away, bellowing promises of blood and fire and victory, and then the singing swallowed everything.

  And then it stopped and there was nothing.

  TWO

  OF PRINCES AND QUEENS

  8

  THE LOVERS

  Can I kill your bride yet?” Speaker Zafir curled her arm around Prince Jehal and stretched her long neck, tilting back her head, inviting Jehal to sink his teeth into her throat. He duly obliged, nibbling gently at her skin. A few feet to one side of him was a bed. Their bed, high up in the topmost room of the Tower of Air, scattered with silk sheets from the silkworm farms on Tyan’s Peninsula. His farms.

  “That would hardly be wise, my love.” A few feet the other way was a gaping open arch. More silk fluttered in the breeze. Beyond that, a tiny balcony; then nothing but air and the hard ground of the Speaker’s Yard a hundred feet below. He liked it up here. For the view across the palace and the City of Dragons beyond and then the sheer dark cliffs of the Purple Spur and the glittering rain from the Diamond Cascade.

  And yes, for the bed too. Although sometimes, when push came to shove as it always did when they were alone, he wondered what would happen if he pushed for the window instead. Two speakers falling to their death in such quick succession would show such a lack of imagination though . . .

  “I was wondering whether to have her poisoned, or whether I should simply slit her throat.”

  Tedious, tedious. Jehal put on his best smile. How many times had they talked about this? He gave a petulant little sigh and stepped away from her, a little closer to the arch and the empty air. “Must we go over this again? Lystra is Queen Shezira’s daughter. Her other two daughters are already riled enough. They have well over three hundred dragons between them and they want your head. The speaker is supposed to weld the realms into a unity of peace and harmony, not start a war. You should let Shezira and King Valgar go.”

  Zafir snorted and turned away from him. “Let them go, let them go—that’s all you ever say. I’m beginning to think you’re far too attached to this new family of yours. Let them go? Why? So Shezira can wage war on me? I’d rather face the skinny little rag of a daughter that rests so uncomfortably on her throne. So Valgar can stir trouble on my borders? Let his feeble-minded wife be the thorn in my side.”

  She was flaunting herself, letting him see the slit of her undergown, the long gash of naked skin beneath, all the way to the small of her back. She knew exactly what she was doing, of course. He felt himself stir. “Not so feeble, my love. She is undoubtedly supporting the Red Riders.”

  Zafir threw back her head and laughed and brushed her fingers over the silk sheets on the bed. “The Red Riders? Twenty dragons loose on my borders, and so far all they’ve done is burn a few peasants. If that’s the best she can do then I’ve no fear of her. No, they’re just loose ends that our idiot Night Watchman failed to clean up when Shezira murdered my husband. Let them brood in the Worldspine for a few weeks. They’ll go home soon enough.”

  “They stole five of your dragons and they burned Drotan’s Top.”

  “And I’ve already taken three of them back. They tickled my feet, Jehal, that’s all. Drotan’s Top was some huts on a hill. And they didn’t burn it. They didn’t dare.”

  “I remember your face when you first heard the news, my love. Dark and stormy as the Endless Sea.”

  She pouted at him. “They won’t be allowed to do it again. The Red Riders are barely even a nuisance now. I’m inclined to let them be for a while. We can make some sport with them after I kill their queen.”

  Jehal shifted on his feet. “They make me nervous.” If I were you, I’d stamp on them. But I’m not, and sometimes it amuses me to watch you falter. He smiled at her. “Hyrkallan leads them and he’s no fool.”

  Now she yawned. “Then he’ll know to give up and go home.”

  “Don’t be so sure, my love. He might just burn something that matters first.” He moved behind her and ran his fingers along the skin of her spine. “Show some grace. Let Shezira go. Let the cloud of suspicion hang over her for the rest of her reign. Let everyone wonder whether Hyram fell or whether he was pushed. The longer you hold her, the more your enemies will rally under her banner. Let her go and some will start to question her. Your Red Riders will quietly fade and disperse.”

  Zafir waved him away. “The world thinks Valgar tried to have me killed. I’d look laughably weak if I let him go.”

  Here we go again. “Fine, fine. Hang Valgar if you have to hang someone. But let Shezira go.”

  “She pushed my husband off a balcony.”

  “No, she didn’t. He was drunk and he fell, and you were glad to be rid of him. Not only is that something that most of the kings and queens will believe, it happens to be true.” Not quite true, actually, but that’s one little secret I’ll keep to myself.

  “I want Lystra gone, Jehal. Before she gives birth to your heir. Otherwise I’ll have to get rid of both of them, and that means two assassins and paying twice as much money. Better to get them both together, eh?”

  On some days the window called more loudly than on others. He growled, a mixture of frustration and desire, pushing the thought away. Not yet. “I am here, my love. Lystra is far away, pining for me no doubt, as any woman would, but not actually having me. I am here, I am yours and only yours. I haven’t even touched another woman since you took the Adamantine Spear in the Glass Cathedral and became mistress of the realms.” Although the ancestors know how I’ve been tempted. More and more of late. I might start with your vapid little sister.

  She turned back to him and smiled. It always worked, appealing to her vanity. A hand reached out and stroked his cheek. “O Jehal, I find that very hard to believe. Is it really true?”

  “You know it is, my love.” He wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her close again. “I have eyes only for you, no matter how far away you are.”

  “Mmm. Don’t I know it.” She had a lecherous look on now. Almost done.

  “If Lystra dies, her sisters will see your hand in it, guilty or not. You’ve taken their mother, whom they feared. They grumble and moan and rattle their swords, but that’s all. Take the sister they love and they’ll fly straight for your throat.”

  “My throat or yours?” Zafir tipped her head back again. She shivered as Jehal wrapped his fingers around her neck.

  “Both.” He pushed her back, hard and fast enough to startle her, until she was pressed
against the bedroom wall. An arch to either side. See, that’s how easy it could have been. His other hand felt for her knee and then started upward, pushing its way between the silken layers of her gown. She gave a little gasp and pushed herself into him as he found the heat between her legs.

  “I know how much you like to talk of murder.”

  “No. This is just the only way I know to shut you up.” He tugged at the drawstrings of his trousers. Her hands moved to his, eager to help.

  “Then I’m sure we’ll talk of murdering your starling-bride again,” she murmured. After that she didn’t say much for quite a while. Not unless the squeals and moans carried some veiled meaning beyond the obvious.

  Afterward, when Zafir fell asleep in his arms, Jehal lay awake. He stared at the ceiling of the great open chamber at the top of the Tower of Air. The walls around them were little more than a ring of huge arches opening out onto the balcony that encircled the upper level of the tower. He got up and went to stand in one, naked, teased by the wispy gauze of silk that hung rippling in the warm breaths of wind that puffed off the plains. Spread below lay the Adamantine Palace, the heart of the speaker’s power. Four huge open yards, each large enough to assemble two thousand men, and overlooking each yard was a massive tower. The Gatehouse first, the oldest, the strongest and the largest tower in the palace, where the alchemists and the Night Watchman and the other senior servants made their beds. Then the vast space of the Gateyard, lined with stables and barracks. After that, the elegant Towers of Dusk and Dawn, black granite and white marble, the Fountain Court and the squat bulk of the Speaker’s Tower, the place where the speaker and his or her servants traditionally made their home. Then the largest space of all, the Speaker’s Yard, wrapped around the hulking misshapen tumor of glassy stone that was the Glass Cathedral. After that, the palace became a little smaller. The Tower of Air was the tallest tower in the palace, but it was slender and lacking in space, a fitting monument to the vanity of the speakers. Finally there was the Circle Court, the azure Tower of Water and the City Tower. Proper towers again, fit for visiting kings and queens.