The King of the Crags

by Stephen Deas

  Around them all lay the palace walls. Not particularly tall, but they were wide enough to drive a horse and cart right around them. In fact there were several ramps to allow the Adamantine Men to do just that when they were putting their scorpions up. More than anything else, that was what the walls were for: to mount the hundreds upon hundreds of scorpions that would defend the speaker from the dragons of her enemies. The walls, as of now, were empty. Zafir hadn’t seen fit to deploy her arsenal. That would show the realms that I am afraid, Jehal . . .

  Jehal stood in the wind and chuckled to himself while his gaze wandered and explored the world outside the palace. Below the low slopes of the Palace Hill, the City of Dragons fed and decorated itself with the wealth and power that oozed from the speaker’s presence. Somewhere down there too were the barracks of the ten thousand men of the Adamantine Guard. Past the city, the Diamond Cascade falls poured out from the peaks of the Purple Spur, the water falling so far that it never quite reached the ground but instead filled the city with a perpetual misty haze. The bottomless Mirror Lakes glittered and gleamed and rippled in the breeze. Beside them, the Adamantine Eyrie was currently filled to bursting with riders and dragons from the realms to the south. Very empty of dragons from the north. Through a different arch, the Hungry Mountain Plain stretched away to the south, to the chasm of the Fury River and Gliding Dragon Gorge. Beyond that, far away, lay the warm hills and valleys and meadows of Zafir’s home, and then his own, Furymouth, and the sea, and beyond that, perhaps, the lands of the Taiytakei sailors and other places Jehal had never seen. To the east, the plains rolled and twisted into the foothills of the Worldspine, the dominion of the King of the Crags. To the west, they grew slowly more broken and wooded until they reached the Sapphire River and then rose sharply to meet the moors and bogs of King Silvallan’s realm. To the north, beyond the wall of the Purple Spur, the plains became the great deserts of sand and stone and salt that wrapped the northern realms.

  He looked back at Zafir. I stood here naked once, at the windows, when Hyram was about to make you a queen. Looking down at all that was going to be mine. If anyone had seen me here they would have known we were lovers, you and I, and all would have been lost. But they didn’t. He tried to look away but it was hard. Too hard. For all her flaws, she was still beautiful. I watched you so many times, through the eyes of the Taiytakei dragon. I watched you writhing and moaning under Hyram, drawing him in to you, and I watched you make yourself sick each time he left. And I watched you writhing and moaning alone, just for me, knowing my eyes were there.

  So many fond memories. Below them was the room where he’d watched Zafir poison Hyram and then destroy him as cruelly as she could. Where he’d finished what she’d started and broken Hyram’s mind. Where he’d struggled with himself not to throw Hyram off one of the balconies when he was done. Here, from this arch, was where he’d watched, that same night, as Hyram had thrown himself off another one right in front of Queen Shezira, spouting gibberish about kings and queens who’d been dead for decades.

  And now . . .

  And now he was slowly getting bored. He sighed and his eyes fell away from Zafir’s skin. The Night of the Knives, they called it behind Zafir’s back and to her face too. The night Valgar tried to have her assassinated and Shezira pushed Hyram off his tower, if you were inclined to believe Zafir’s version of events. The night that Zafir imprisoned a king and a queen, the first time that a speaker had done such a thing in nearly a hundred years. The night that the riders of the north had fought with the Adamantine Guard and left more than a hundred corpses strewn across the palace. The night that the Red Riders had been born.

  That had been a month ago. The next day, High Priest Aruch had placed the flawless shaft of the Adamantine Spear into Zafir’s hands and her reign had begun. And then . . .

  And then? And then nothing, that’s what. More than a month of kicking my heels around the palace when I should be back in Furymouth, watching over my realm. A month of listening to Zafir bellyache about Lystra. A whole month of nothing to do except . . .

  Jehal looked at Zafir’s naked shape, sprawled out before him. Well it could be a lot worse, and one must confess to having found a few diversions, I suppose.

  Above the bed, two pairs of ruby eyes looked down at him from the rafters. Jehal stared back at them. Two golden mechanical dragons, wedding gifts of the Taiytakei, imbued with magics that let him look through their eyes. Perfect spies and yet now he had no one to spy on. He had to wonder, sometimes, why they’d given him such precious things, and why he’d given one of them to Zafir.

  No, that wasn’t right. He knew exactly why he’d given one to the Speaker of the Realms.

  He took another step forward, out onto the balcony until his toes curled over the edge. This time, if anyone saw him, what would it matter? The whole palace knew they were lovers.

  This isn’t what I wanted. I thought I did, but I was wrong. He glanced back at Zafir, watching her chest slowly rise and fall. If I was speaker, what would I do? Bathe in the power, in the glory, in the knowledge that there was no higher place to be? Yet I see now that the view from up here was far better when it was forbidden.

  Shit.

  Of all the things that might have happened, of all the things he’d planned for, of all the fates that might have befallen him on his path to this place, here was an outcome he’d never foreseen. He was bored.

  Jehal walked back to the bed. He let his eyes linger on Zafir for one last time and listened to her breathing, slow and untroubled. You understand, don’t you? That’s why you can’t simply let Shezira go. Because then it would be over. He leaned down and gently kissed her hair. “Have a care, my lover,” he whispered. “Listen to your advisers, for they’re no fools. And please let us not become enemies.”

  He picked up his clothes, quietly dressed, and slipped away.

  9

  A QUESTION OF PRIORITIES

  Vale Tassan, Night Watchman, commander of the Adamantine Men, most feared soldier in the realms, bowed his head and waited.feared soldier in the realms, bowed his head and

  “What do you mean, he’s gone?” For a moment Speaker Zafir went rigid. Vale thought she might be about to throw something at him. Speakers came and went and Queen Zafir was the fourth that Vale Tassan had lived to see. If he’d been permitted an opinion, it might have been that the others had been immeasurably better. Since he wasn’t, he did exactly as tradition and the law demanded. He bowed precisely as low as was required, ready for whatever orders would come his way.

  “He has left the palace, Your Holiness,” he said calmly and quietly.

  “Idiot. Where did he go?”

  Vale bowed again. The action was mechanical, a reflex honed over years. He didn’t have to think about it anymore. “To the eyrie, Your Holiness. He went with most of his riders to the eyrie, woke up Eyrie-Master Copas, demanded his dragons be roused and they all flew away, Your Holiness. I believe they flew west, toward the Worldspine and Drotan’s Top. What’s left of it.” Which put him heading toward the Red Riders, but Vale saw no need to mention something so obvious.

  If anything, the speaker’s anger grew. Vale watched, calmly indifferent. Adamantine Men were chosen almost before they could talk. Usually they were orphans or unwanted children of poor folk who couldn’t afford another mouth to feed. Some were bastard by-blows of higher-born men, conveniently pushed away to a place where they wouldn’t cause any trouble. In the Guard, blood didn’t matter. Everyone was the same. Vale might have been the son of a king or a fool, but in his own mind he was a son of the Guard, nothing more and nothing less. He’d stood in shield walls with his brothers, the ones who managed to stay alive, for more than twenty years. Together they defied the strength and fire of the dragons. He might have been alone before the speaker’s throne but he always felt his brothers at their posts and at their work, not far away. Queen Zafir’s anger meant nothing to him. He waited, silent and still, for her to send him away.

  “In
the middle of the night.” Zafir shook her head.

  “At dawn, Your Holiness. They flew at dawn. As soon as there was enough light for the dragons to fly.”

  “He hasn’t gone west, Tassan. He’s gone south. Back to his home and his starling . . .” She hesitated. Vale saw it. Other words had been lining themselves up to come out and she’d bitten them back. Vale stood motionless and thought about Speaker Hyram. Hyram the clever and wise. Hyram, who had presided over a decade of peace and prosperity throughout the realms. Hyram, who for reasons Vale would never know had named Zafir, the least worthy candidate by far, to succeed him. And who’d been pushed off a balcony for his trouble. He should have named the King of the Crags. That would have stirred up these fat, soft kings we have nowadays. A proper speaker.

  He pursed his lips. That was a thought he should not have had. Zafir wasn’t looking at him though, so presumably she hadn’t noticed. She was looking at Prince Tyrin instead. Tyrin was the fourth or fifth son of King Narghon and Queen Fyon, which made him a cousin of some sort to Jehal. So much had changed in the last month that Vale found himself alarmingly vague about who was who. Princes and princesses seemed to come and go and he was starting to lose track. He supposed he ought to care but somehow he didn’t.

  The speaker cocked her head. “And do you know anything about this, Tyrin?” Tyrin was a decade younger than Jehal and clearly wanted to follow him in every possible way. He was looking at Zafir right now; his eyes were stripping her naked and he was wondering how long it would be, with Jehal gone, before she came looking for another lover.

  A muscle twitched in Vale’s cheek. Were they always so transparent?

  Tyrin licked his lips. “I went to the eyrie with him. He offered to let me ride with him back to the south but I declined. My place is here, Your Holiness, to serve you in any way I can.” He half-smiled, half-leered. If Zafir couldn’t see what was on his mind then she was surely the only one in the room.

  “Why, Prince Tyrin, did he go?” Her face changed. An almost imperceptible smile, perhaps. A slight change of posture, a slight widening of the eyes, the raising of an eyebrow. Vale couldn’t say exactly what had changed but the effect was electric. Yes, she seemed to say. You might yet have me. Even Vale felt it, though the look wasn’t meant for him. Tyrin’s jaw hung open. If Tyrin hadn’t been sitting down, Vale was sure he would have fallen over. Instantly, Speaker Zafir had made him her slave.

  He felt a grudging admiration. That was what a speaker did. A speaker ruled. This is why we don’t think, he reminded himself. We are the speaker’s swords and spears, her shield and armor. Nothing less and nothing more.

  “He may, ah, be gone for some time, I think, Your Holiness.” Which wasn’t the question Zafir had asked at all but Tyrin’s mind was too firmly set on one thing to be working properly anymore.

  Zafir’s face didn’t change. No twitch of anger or impatience, despite her rage of only a few minutes ago. “Why, Prince Tyrin? What do you think will be keeping him in Furymouth?”

  “He said he’d had a premonition, Your Holiness. Someone was going to die, someone very close to him, he said. He needed to go back, he said. To see if they could be saved.”

  “And who was this someone, Prince Tyrin? Did he say?” Vale heard the slightest change in Zafir’s voice. A brittleness beneath the seductive softness. To Vale the danger seemed obvious. Zafir had set a bear trap right in front of Tyrin’s feet. He wondered if the prince would manage to spot it.

  “His father, King Tyan, I assume. They say he’s been getting steadily worse ever since he returned home.” Vale kept his face still. Well done, little boy. But was that deftness or blind luck?

  Zafir pursed her lips. She sat back into her throne, lounging there with the same affected boredom as Prince Jehal would have done. And Tyrin too, if he hadn’t been so on edge. “Very well. Let us begin then. Away, Night Watchman. Jeiros, dazzle us with news from the Order.”

  Acting Grand Master Jeiros, acting head of the Order of the Scales and chief alchemist of the realms, stepped nervously out in front of the throne. He’d taken a long time to adjust to his position, Vale thought, but was just now starting to act the part. His predecessor, Bellepheros, who should have lasted a good few years more, had simply vanished one day nearly six months ago. Coincidentally, on his way back from Furymouth. Vale supposed that Grand Master Jeiros had spent most of the first few months expecting his former master to reappear.

  “Your Holiness,” he began. He sounded confident these days. “We are continuing to audit eyries in an attempt to ascertain whether—”

  “Yes, yes, yes. You’re still counting dragons, trying to work out whether the one that got away died or survived.” Zafir straightened and stamped her foot. “When you have an answer, I’ll be delighted to hear it. Until then, I do not wish to hear daily complaints about how difficult it is.”

  “Your Holiness, if you would order a search of the Worldspine—”

  “And give Jaslyn and Almiri an excuse to fly their dragons right up to my doors? They might say they were searching, Grand Master, but that would not be what they were doing. If the white dragon is dead then it has been reborn to an eyrie. If it isn’t, it hasn’t. As you are so fond of reminding us, the number of dragons in the world never changes, so if the white died of your poisons, you can answer your question by counting them. Counting, Grand Master, is surely not too great a challenge, is it? Even Prince Tyrin can count. So when you can tell me that one of them is still missing then I shall listen with more open ears. Until then, no more excuses, alchemist. Now bring me other news.”

  Jeiros paused for a moment. He was angry, Vale saw. That’s how far his confidence had grown. A month ago he would have been quivering. The speaker and her master alchemist were at odds. In their own different ways they were the two most powerful figures in the realms. Things like that made Vale uneasy. As Jeiros talked about the rebuilding of the alchemists’ redoubt, Vale carefully catalogued all the other things that made him uneasy. The Red Riders. Queen Shezira locked in the Tower of Dusk. Anything about Prince Jehal. The Speaker’s Council—the council had long ago become a farce, that was worst of all. Three of the dragon-realms didn’t even have a voice and Speaker Zafir was plainly bored by them. Now that Jehal was no longer present to entertain them with his wit, who would be first to abandon it? Prince Tichane, who spoke for the King of the Crags? Lord Eisal, who listened for King Sirion? Prince Sakabian, Zafir’s own cousin? One of the others? The alchemists, perhaps? Or would the speaker herself be the first to go?

  Vale, however, was the commander of the Night Watch, and so he would come as he was called and he would listen, even if it was to the empty walls. Today what he heard was the master alchemist of the realms explain how they were still rebuilding the redoubt where the Order made the potions that kept the dragons in check. He heard Jeiros describe in terse detail the damage that had been done by the smoke that the white dragon had blown into the caves, the current poor quality of the whatever it was that they harvested in there, their shortages of men and resources. In a very roundabout way, what he thought he heard was that the potions that kept the realms alive might soon run short. That a wise man would begin planning now for a cull of dragons. No one else though seemed to quite hear the same thing. When Jeiros was done, Zafir batted him away with some scalding remark. No more men would be forthcoming. The same answer as she’d given him day after day after day for weeks now. Vale, who had ten thousand soldiers sitting idle in their barracks, couldn’t help but wonder why.

  Other men came and went, most of them with little to say of any interest. Vale listened anyway. A war was coming. It was obvious, and yet no one seemed concerned. The council was split, Vale decided, into two equal halves. Those who were too stupid to see and those who simply didn’t care.

  And then there was him, who would likely be expected to fight it. Presumably none of the rest of them were that bothered if the odd city full of their own people burned, as long as they kept their
precious eyries. A cull. His heart beat faster at the thought. Would that not be for the best? At the very least it would make them pause and think.

  At last the one man who might have something interesting to say got to his feet. Zaster, the old palace spymaster. “Your Holiness, there have been movements among the dragon-knights of the north.” Even Zafir straightened very slightly. Now she was only pretending to be bored.

  “Go on.”

  “Princess Jaslyn has left Outwatch and returned to Sand. Several dragons have been seen heading for the Desert of Salt. She may remain reluctant, but she is negotiating her marriage with King Sirion’s son, Prince Dyalt.”

  Zafir glanced at Lord Eisal, who shrugged. “Shezira promised her to my lord in exchange for his support.”

  “And then murdered Hyram, my husband and your lord, when that wasn’t enough.” Zafir wrinkled her nose and turned back to Zaster. “And what about Almiri and Evenspire?”

  “My spies have seen several dragons flying from the Spur to Almiri’s eyrie. And a war-dragon flying back again, heavily laden.”

  “Is that it? You’ve seen a dragon? I could have told you that myself. My riders have eyes too, Zaster.”

  “Yes. The war-dragon your riders saw, Your Holiness.” Zaster bowed low. “B’thannan. Rider Hyrkallan’s mount. It confirms that he is leading the rebellion, Your Holiness.”

  “Pshaw!” Vale winced. The speaker had half a goblet of wine dangling from her fingers. She’d been known to throw it at councillors who annoyed her. “What else? Will you dazzle us with the revelation that the sun rises in the morning and sets at night? Of course Hyrkallan leads this insurrection. And Almiri? How much is she helping them? What about Sirion? Does he send aid to them too? Tell me something useful or be silent. I want proof of these treasons, not hearsay!”