by Stephen Deas
Vale’s lips puckered with scorn. “Ah yes. The mysterious red rider. Anyone can paint their armor red. And they can just as easily wash it off again.”
“There are whispers in the streets that the red rider is Lady Nastria, Queen Shezira’s knight-marshal. It’s a pity we don’t have the little bitch’s body to hang from a gibbet to put an end to that.”
And have the alchemists poke around at her corpse? Would you really want that? Some of them still practice a little blood-magic, you know. No, I imagine it is far better for you that she stays wherever she is. “I have searched high and low, Your Holiness. I do not think she could have escaped.” No, that would be too much to hope for. A pity. I think I would have found her most interesting company for a few hours. And then I’m quite sure I would have had to kill her.
“I have wondered, Night Watchman, whether your searches have been as thorough as they could have been.”
Oh enough! “I don’t mind the pretenses and the facades, Your Holiness, but I do hate to waste my time. I assume she’s somewhere at the bottom of the Mirror Lakes, weighted down with stones.”
Zafir smiled sweetly. “I thought they were bottomless.”
“Then she is still sinking. All the better.”
“I’m not so sure. The red rider seems to have become absurdly popular with the common folk. I’d like to put an end to him.”
Then start acting like the Speaker of the Realms instead of some little tyrant who’s desperately afraid that she’s going to be overthrown at any moment. But he couldn’t say that. Didn’t want to say that. Besides it was all too late now. Incompetence begat unrest, unrest begat turbulence, and turbulence was about to beget out-and-out war. Almiri and Prince Sakabian had seen to that. Instead he shrugged. “You have the Adamantine Men, Your Holiness, and that means you have nothing to fear. Besides, as I said, anyone can paint their armor red. How do you know you haven’t got the red rider?”
Her eyes gleamed in the torchlight. “I don’t.” They reached a crossroads in the underground passages. A breeze blew across their path, carrying with it the smell of graveyards. Zafir turned toward it. “Let’s find out. Either way, I will need to convince the people of it. I will need another cage prepared, Night Watchman.”
“That one has been ready and waiting for quite some time, Your Holiness.” For me or Jehal, I was never sure which.
The passage became more of a tunnel, sloping down deeper into the earth. Once, a long time ago, before the Adamantine Palace had been built around it, the Glass Cathedral had been a stronghold all on its own. That had been back in the times when the dragons were free and the people who had lived around the Mirror Lakes were food. Every place that had a history going back to those times inevitably had a huge and complicated burrow of tunnels underneath it. That or there was nothing left except a note in the history books, recording how many people had died when the dragons had finally razed it.
Vale wrinkled his nose. He didn’t like tunnels, he didn’t like being underground and he particularly didn’t like these tunnels. It didn’t seem all that long ago that Lord Hyram had dragged Jehal down here and put him on the torture wheel. Not his finest moment.
He shuddered. Even on the wheel, Jehal had won.
The smell was getting worse. Vale had never been down this far into the tunnels. “Is this all one vast oubliette?”
Zafir shrugged. “I don’t think any of my predecessors were too picky about where the bodies ended up. And it is a long way back to the surface.” She shook her head and rolled her eyes. “With so many steps, what’s a poor torturer to do? Spend all his time lugging bodies back and forth. I suppose the smell adds to the general ambience.”
“Then perhaps I should spend some time here, in case I might find Lady Nastria?”
Zafir shrugged, which was enough to tell Vale that Nastria’s body hadn’t ended up here. No, the lakes. It had to be the lakes.
They reached a roughly hewn square room. Alchemical lamps struggled feebly against the gloom. Vale could see two men chained to the walls. Other figures lurked in the shadows.
He sniffed the air. He ought to have smelled a taint of truth-smoke. And the men lurking in the shadows, if they were real torturers, should have been wearing veils. He made a face. “I hope these men are still alive. I don’t know why you want me to hear their confessions, but if they’re dead, this has been a waste.” No, best not to make too much of that. The whole exercise was a sham and they both knew it, but for some reason Zafir seemed convinced that it mattered. As though hearing from a tortured dragon-knight that Almiri had kept the Red Riders supplied would make a difference. As far as Vale could see, no one cared; pretending that they did only made Zafir seem a fool. He knew exactly what she wanted. She wanted him to obediently hear what she wanted him to hear, and then take it back with him to a council of kings and queens, parrot out the words and give her the excuse that she wanted for war. As if it mattered. It would make no difference, even if it was true! And even if it did, you’re the speaker. Tell me what to say and I will obey.
“Oh you’ll hear them.” Zafir favored him with another faint smile, the toothy sort that would probably have meant sleepless nights to lesser men. She led him toward the closer of the two captives. The man, what was left of him, was hanging limply from chains manacled to his wrists. As Zafir and Vale drew near, a tall man in a leather apron moved to intercept them. He bowed low. Vale bowed back. Hello, Kithyr. This is why Zafir brought me instead of Jeiros, isn’t it? Because Jeiros would have known you at once for what you are. And you think I don’t? How stupid must you think I am?
“This man looks more like a butcher than a torturer.”
Zafir waved a hand. “Not having been down here before, I wouldn’t have the first idea.” She looked down at the man in the apron, still bent double. “So who are you, and why are you standing in my way?”
Kithyr scraped even lower. “Holiness. I’m the physician.”
Zafir raised her eyebrows in mock bewilderment. “A physician? Here? Forgive me, but that seems a little out of place.”
“I make sure they don’t die, Your Holiness.” He gave a noncommittal shrug. “For when people want to talk to them again. Usually, once they talk, the torturers don’t worry too much about what happens to them afterward. Chopped up and fed to whatever dragons are in the eyrie, I suppose.” He caught Zafir’s glare and bowed again, muttering apologies for his crudeness. Vale kept a stony face. Zafir would have most men whipped almost to death for the slightest lapse of proper respect and here was her blood-mage practically pissing on her boots. Or is this a test? Perhaps if I didn’t know who this man truly was, he’ d already be wallowing in his own blood while I ground his face into the ground. He put a hand on his sword and took a step forward in case. At least the blood-mage had the decency to look afraid for an instant, before Zafir touched her hand to his arm.
“Don’t.”
“If one of my men spoke to you with such disregard, Your Holiness, I would have him drawn and quartered on the spot.” He glowered at the magician. Here we are, all pretending that we don’t know what each other is. What a farce this has become.
It didn’t get any better. The blood-mage pretended that a dead man was alive and made him talk, and Vale pretended not to notice that anything was out of place. They heard names and places, all of it exactly what Zafir wanted to hear. None of it seemed desperately new or exciting. Vale dutifully committed it to memory. Most of the kings and queens of the realms abhorred blood-magic to the point where they’d see poisonings, high treason and a few murders as trivial by comparison. Since the men doing the confessing were already dead, Zafir would keep them well away from Jeiros. When she summoned Almiri to a council of kings and queens, it would be Vale’s word that would condemn another queen to her death. Although this time at least there can be no doubt. This evidence is false, yet Almiri has most certainly aided the Red Riders. Her guilt is beyond question.
When they were done, Zafir seemed please
d. Vale was only bored and depressed. His mind wandered. He quite wanted to wrap his hands around Zafir’s neck and squeeze. He was fairly sure that most of the other kings and queens wouldn’t have minded at all, although they’d still put him in a cage by the gates as a matter of principle. He’d be disappointed if they didn’t.
Yes. And the last time I broke with my orders and all the traditions that lie behind them, look what happened. All of this. There are reasons for our creed, and 1 would do well to heed them.
“Can we go yet?” he asked. “I have preparations to make.”
That got him a strange look—annoyance, contempt and something else all wrapped up together. “If you can contain yourself, Night Watchman, I’m not done here yet. I want to know more about the red rider.”
Inwardly, Vale snorted and rolled his eyes. “There is . . .” There is no red rider. Just an opportunistic knight dressed up in an old prophecy.
Zafir was looking at him, frowning. He bowed, but that obviously wasn’t enough. Well then, I shall choose my next words carefully.
“I do not believe in myths and prophecies and phantoms, Your Holiness. That is the way we Adamantine Men are made. I do not pretend to understand the universe, but I do not believe in ghosts. The red rider is a myth. It is quite possibly nothing more than the random mutterings of an ancient priest so addled with Souldust that even his own acolytes once admitted that half of everything he said makes no sense.” He shrugged, and cast Kithyr a glance.
The look he got back was icy. “The prophecies are truth, Night Watchman,” said the magician.
Vale glared back at him. “Belief like that turns men into fools. I suppose for the likes of you that might be an improvement, physician.” Be that insolent to me again and we’ ll see just how magic your blood is, mage.
“And in what do you believe, Night Watchman?”
“I believe in what my eyes can see and what my hands can touch. I believe in fire and steel and blood.”
The dead man chained to the wall stirred and moaned again and slurred something to the effect that he hadn’t known anything about any red rider. Vale gently bit his tongue and watched the blood-mage carefully. I knew Nastria and she was no fool. She pointed you out to me once. There, she said. There goes my pet blood-mage. Do you know why I keep one? But she never said. What bargain did you make with her? What did you offer that she would deal with the likes of you? And Zafir? Does she even know what you want?
Suddenly he didn’t care anymore. He took the speaker by the arm. “Since you ask me to have opinions, Your Holiness, then I have one for you. Enough of this. I will stand before the council of kings and queens and tell them what I have heard. I would have done that anyway. Had you given me a script, I would have repeated it aloud. We are yours, Your Holiness. We serve without question.” Vale laughed bitterly. “Look at the man! He’ll be a corpse before nightfall if he’s not already and he’s not lying to you. There is no ghost, only a ragtag band of dragon-riders that your lover has destroyed, and I will not stand here in this stink for another five minutes when I could be breathing fresh air. There is much to do. I hope you are as ready as we are for what your dragon-war will bring.”
Zafir shook him off. She gave him another strange look that he couldn’t decipher. “If you serve me, Night Watchman, do so by being silent. I begin to see why I preferred you as you were.”
She made him wait through all five of those minutes and another five besides before she gave up. The rider didn’t know anything. No one wore red. Hyrkallan had purloined the name as something of a joke and then he’d left them. After that, the ringleader was a religion-obsessed rider who wasn’t related to anyone important. Semian. Vale had met him, once, maybe twice, and the man had barely exhibited powers of conversation, let alone anything strange, mystical or apocalyptic.
Finally, finally, she gave up, although Kithyr promised she would hear the testimony of other “survivors” if she wished. They hurried out of the tunnels under the Glass Cathedral, leaving the blood-mage and the torturers and whatever other forsaken breeds of men lived down there behind them.
“Tichane,” she snapped at Vale as they emerged into the night. “Get me Prince Tichane.” In the lantern light she looked flushed and breathless. “No.” She stopped. For a long time she stared at him, almost right through him. He a was full foot taller that her, twice as wide and probably three times her weight, yet that gaze made him feel small and insignificant.
“No,” she said, more quietly this time. “As you were, Vale Tassan. Send for Prince Tichane. Walk with me.”
She crossed briskly to the Tower of Air and climbed the steps two at a time all the way to the top. At the entrance to her rooms, Vale hesitated. Zafir beckoned him on. She left doors open behind her as she walked in, stripping off her clothes, waving orders to the servants who tended her. Vale took a deep breath and followed. This wasn’t right. This was no way for a speaker to behave. There had been speakers and Night Watchmen who were lovers before. No good ever came of it. And I do not desire you, woman. I would rather have one of the whores that make their homes around our barracks. At least I know they are clean.
By the time he caught up with her, she was naked. “Your Holiness . . .”
She turned and smiled at him. “I did not give you leave to speak, Night Watchman. But I do wonder why it is that whenever a man sees a woman undress, he always assumes so very much?” She stepped past him into a room where the air smelled of warm damp and spices. A bath was waiting for her. Her smile never faltered. “When Tichane comes to me, I would rather smell of sweet perfume than have that grave-mold of the tunnels hanging from me. But I need you to linger a while. Dismiss my servants. Examine my rooms and make sure they are empty. Then come to me.”
Vale did as he was told. “We are alone,” he growled.
“Now close the door.”
Vale did that too. He clenched his fists as Zafir stretched herself out in front of him. Her legs were long and athletic. There was strength there, he thought. Speed too.
“You look uncomfortable, Night Watchman.”
Vale bowed. Silently he took a deep breath and counted slowly to ten.
“King Jehal did very well to rid me of the Red Riders, don’t you think?”
Vale nodded. “Yes.” Suspiciously well. “One wonders how he was able to succeed when others have failed for so long. Clearly he is possessed of unusual tactical acumen.” Yes. Clearly.
“As soon as he returns with his dragons, we go to war with Evenspire. That probably means we go to war with Queen Jaslyn as well. Are you ready?”
He nodded once more and started counting to ten again. Stop exposing yourself to me, woman!
“King Jehal kept nearly all the spoils of the fight. Even those dragons that used to be mine. I believe my riders accounted for a third of his force, yet they returned with three captured beasts and report that Jehal took twelve. That is hardly equitable.”
This was old news. Vale kept his face carefully expressionless and waited for whatever was coming.
“Why do you think he would do such a thing?”
Vale took a deep breath. “I could not say, Your Holiness. I could not even guess.”
Zafir smiled and stretched her arms and yawned. “Be sure you’re very ready, Night Watchman. King Jehal has asked a favor of me concerning you. Did you know that?”
“It is expected.”
“He would like to do a lot worse than put you in a cage.”
The feeling is mutual. “I exist only to serve Your Holiness. From within a cage or without.”
“I will not let him have you, Vale. I don’t quite know if I can trust him. But still, should he come here and I am for some reason indisposed, I have orders for you. You are to accommodate him. You are to honor him as king and as an ally to the speaker’s throne. You will let him in, Night Watchman. If I am missing or dead, you will let him in. You will treat him exactly as if he was my husband, Vale. Is that clear?”
Vale kept his f
ace still, but inside he grinned. “As your husband, Your Holiness.” And we all remember what happened to the last one, don’t we?
“Good. Now go away. I need to be at my best for Prince Tichane. I gather he has been visiting the Syuss, of all people. Imagine! One wonders what in the realms they could have found to interest him.” She smiled blandly. “Yes, indeed. One wonders.”
41
THE QUEEN OF SAND AND STONE
Morning Sun flew a lazy circle over the fields and towers of Outwatch and then slowly came in to land. When the earth stopped shaking, as Jaslyn slid down from his shoulders and jumped to the ground, she wondered for a moment whether it was her. Whether she was somehow cursed. Today should have been her wedding day. Not exactly the joyous celebration she might have wanted, but at least it could have been over and done with. Prince Dyalt of Bloodsalt would have been hers, and she his. The throne of sand and stone and the throne of salt, united. Tied by blood.
Unfortunately, someone had emptied most of Prince Dyalt’s blood into the desert. And that had been the end of that.
No one was here to welcome her. No one was supposed to be. She walked across the baked and blasted earth toward the tower. When she’d left Morning Sun well behind, a pair of Scales scurried out from wherever they hid and ran to tend to the dragon. Jaslyn stopped to watch them. She felt deliciously exposed. Flat open ground all around her, open skies above, no guards, no soldiers, only dragons.
Dumb, drugged, stupid dragons. She knew it all. Strictly she was still a mere princess since she hadn’t gone to the Adamantine Palace and had the speaker put a crown on her brow. But only the most desperate of her enemies denied her title now. The old Queen of Sand and Stone was dead and the north needed a new one. It wanted a king too, and a few heirs to match. What she wanted, it seemed, was neither here nor there. She’d wondered for a while whether she might merge her realm with Almiri’s. They could rule together, two sisters side by side. As far as Jaslyn was concerned, Almiri could have had it all.
