The adamantine palace

by Stephen Deas

  Getting there took them the rest of that day and most of the following morning. The smell led them too it in the end, the stink of burned wood laced with something else, something sweet and fleshy. The dragon was there, tangled among the trees it had shattered in its fall. Its wings were twisted and broken, but most of it was intact and still so warm that Sollos could feel the heat of it pushing at him through the air. Here and there its scales were black with soot. Its eyes had already turned to charcoal. Tiny swirls of steam or smoke still curled out of its mouth and nose.

  Kcmir pulled out a knife, ran up to its flanks, touched the scales and then jumped away yelping.

  'Bugger me! Ow! It's hot! Really hot.'

  There was the slightest sound from underneath one of the dragon's broken wings. Instantly, Sollos had his bow and an arrow at the ready.

  'Who's there?'

  Slowly, a streaky black figure emerged. For several seconds Sollos stared. Then the man wiped some of the soot off his face, and Sollos breathed out. The alchemist.

  'Lady Nastria's sell-swords.' The alchemist slumped to his knees. 'Thank the flames. I got… Um. I got lost, you see. And then it started to rain, and I was cold and I couldn't sleep, so I started to climb up, looking for somewhere dry. I saw the flicker of the flames up the mountain through the trees. Well, I knew it must have been a dragon come down during the battle to still be burning. Which meant it would be warm and there would be shelter, you see, so when the sun came up I came here instead of going to the river. Um. Sorry if I caused you any trouble. How did you find me?'

  'We didn't,' said Kemir, and he pointed to the dead dragon. 'We found this. You just happened to be here, but since you are, maybe you'd like to be helpful. You see, I'd quite like to take some of the scales off this dragon. Think of it as a bonus for rescuing the queen's alchemist.'

  Huros shook his head. 'You can't. Not yet. It's not hot enough yet.'

  Sollos watched Kemir frown. 'It's blistering. You could cook food on it.'

  'Um. Yes. Actually, do you have any? I'm a bit… Well, I haven't eaten anything since… Since you know.'

  Kemir moved sharply towards the alchemist. He still held his knife. 'Listen, you! I want some of these scales. You can have some too. Plenty for everyone. You know about dragons, so you tell me how to get them. I know about knives, and I'm going to use this one. It can be on you or it can be on the dragon.'

  Which was as bald a threat as they came, Sollos thought, but the alchemist didn't seem to get it. 'You can't,' he said. 'You simply can't.

  'Why the fuck not?'

  'It's not hot enough. It's only been dead for a day and a half. It's started to burn up from the inside now, but it takes days for the skin to char. Come back in a couple of weeks with a heavy hammer. You'll be able to smash the poor thing up into pieces then. Underneath the scales it'll be nothing but ash. If you've got a cleaver that's sharp enough and heavy enough, you could have a go at getting the bones out of the wings, I suppose. I don't think you'll get very far with a knife, though.'

  'A couple of weeks?'

  'I'm afraid so.'

  'But the knight-marshal and all her riders will be back by then.'

  The alchemist nodded, and suddenly Sollos found himself wondering whether the man was quite so stupid after all. 'Yes. I sincerely hope so.'

  11

  An Act of War

  When it became clear that the white and her escort weren't coming to Drotan's Top, Shezira tried to sleep. When dawn broke, she finally gave up trying. The search parties left before the sun had finished clearing the mountains. In the middle of the afternoon the first hunter spotted a column of smoke rising from a river valley close by. Dragon cries echoed through the mountain valleys, and by the early hours of the evening Queen Shezira was sitting by the side of the river yards away from where her riders had been attacked. A dozen hunters circled overhead, keeping watch. She'd already seen one of her war-dragons, Orcus, dead amid the craggy forest. Lady Nastria reported that the hunters had found another. Which left one more still missing, and of course it was the white.

  Snow.

  Her hands were trembling, she realised. That was how angry she was. Nastria was questioning the survivors. Dragons were shambling about the place, clumsily cracking boulders and trees alike, unattended, swishing their tails and stretching their wings, either one of which could kill man in a blink if they happened to be in the way. It wasn't good enough. No one was talking to her. No one was telling her who had done this to her dragons, who was responsible, who had dared…

  She stood up. 'Marshal!'

  Her call cracked through the air like a whip, and Lady Nastria jerked as though she'd been stung.

  That's right. Come running when your queen calls you…

  Nastria bowed, deep and low, careful to observe every protocol and display of respect, and then dropped to one knee. Shezira wanted to hit her for being so cautious. Or maybe she simply wanted to hit someone, anyone, whoever happened to be in her way.

  'Who survived, Knight-Marshal?'

  Nastria kept her eyes to the ground. 'Your alchemist and a pair of sell-swords, Your Holiness. They were on the ground with the Scales and your white dragon when the attack came.'

  'Did they see who did it?'

  Nastria shook her head. 'No, Your Holiness.'

  A savage impulse gripped Shezira. She drew a knife and put its edge against the bare skin at the back of Lady Nastria's neck.

  'Have you asked them how they dare still to be alive when my dragons are dead?'

  'Your Holiness, there is little-'

  'Have you asked?' she roared.

  'No, Your Holiness.' Nastria shook her head very slightly. Shezira felt the hand that gripped the knife urging her to bite into flesh.

  'Who chose the dragon-riders to escort my white, Knight-Marshal?'

  'I did, Your Holiness.'

  'Who brought in those sell-swords?'

  'I did, Your Holiness.'

  'Who chose the route? Who chose the numbers of dragons that would fly? Who said that I should not fly my white to the palace for fear of what Hyram might do to her?'

  There was a pause. 'I chose the route, Your Holiness.'

  'Who said I should not take my white to Speaker Hyram's eyrie?'

  Nastria didn't reply.

  'Answer me, Knight-Marshal, or I will have your head here and now.'

  'Then have it, Your Holiness, for that idea was yours, not mine.'

  Shezira froze. For a second she seemed to go numb. Then she withdrew the knife. 'Yes. It was, wasn't it? And you chose the riders, but I would have chosen the same. I wouldn't have sent sell-swords, but I don't suppose they stole my dragon. Very well. Someone has betrayed me, Knight-Marshal, and they will die for this. Get up.'

  Nastria rose. She was shaking, Shezira saw. Good. You should be.

  'I will find them, Your Holiness.'

  'Yes. You will. Now where is my daughter?'

  'Lystra is at Drotan's Top under guard.' Nastria frowned, confused for a moment. 'As you ordered. With the supplies and as many riders as we could spare.'

  'Not her. Jaslyn.'

  'Flying guard, Your Holiness.' They both looked up at the dragons circling overhead.

  'Get her down. I wish to speak with her.'

  Shezira looked blankly around her as her knight-marshal stumbled off. They were in the middle of nowhere, in some piece of wilderness that could have been claimed by any one of three kings, but in reality wasn't claimed by any. The steep sides of the valley were covered in trees with nowhere for dragons to land except the river. No one lived out here.

  Two kings and a speaker. Valgar, Valmeyan and Hyram. Any one of them could have flown dragons here and no one would have known. I should add Aliphera's heir as well. All she'd have to do is skirt Drotan's Top, which is hardly a difficult thing to do. But which one of them did this?

  She dismissed Valgar at once, since there was no way he'd be able to hide a white dragon without either her or Almiri find
ing out about it. Hyram then? She'd mistrusted him enough that she hadn't brought the white to the Adamantine Palace. The old Hyram, he might have done something like this…

  But…

  She shook her head, trying not to think of the broken and pathetic thing that had masqueraded as Speaker of the Realms. Maybe not Hyram. This new Queen Zafir? Audacious, perhaps, to start a war within days of gaining your crown, but she wouldn't be the first. Or Valmeyan, the King of the Crags?

  She paced back and forth. Valmeyan. Yes. Easy to hurl the blame at a reclusive king who hadn't left his mountain strongholds for more than twenty years and showed no interest in the affairs of the other realms. Not so easy to prove, though, and not so easy to exact retribution against a king who has more dragons than any other two of us put together. Shezira snorted. She didn't even know where Valmeyan's eyrie was. One rumour said far to the south, close to the sea and King Tyan's realm. Another rumour said it was much closer, near the source of the Fury River, only a day from Drotan's Top. Other rumours said other things. She would have to find out.

  'Mother!'

  Shezira shook herself back to the present. Jaslyn was standing rigid in front of her, looking as angry as ever.

  'Jaslyn.'

  'You called Silence down. What do you want, mother?'

  Shezira glared. 'Go back to the eyrie,' she snapped. 'Go now, and do not stop until you get there. Tell them that Orcus is dead, and most likely Titan and Thorn as well. Do not tell them anything else. Then bring every hunting dragon I have back with you. Jehal can take his pick as a wedding gift, and I do not care which one it is or who it belongs to. The rest I will send back here and they will scour these mountains. We will need another alchemist as well, and supplies to keep a dozen dragons and their riders out here in the wilds for as long as it takes.'

  Jaslyn shook her head. 'Send your knight-marshal. I shall stay here until all our dragons are found.'

  'You will not! I am your queen, daughter, and you will not forget it! You will do as I say now, and when you return from Outwatch, you will fly with me to watch your sister wed! You will have no part of this search.'

  They stared at each other, mother and daughter, anger burning the air between them. Finally Jaslyn cast her eyes to the ground. 'If you find who did this to Orcus, I want them to burn,' she hissed. '1 want to see them burn.'

  Shezira nodded. 'At last something on which we agree. Obey my command and I'll grant you that wish.'

  Jaslyn marched back to her mount, and Shezira watched her go. You got all that was worthwhile out of Antros but without his stupidity. Such a pity you insist on spending all your time with dragons. You could have made someone a good queen. You could have had my throne when I take Hyram's ring. You'd do better than Almiri will.

  She sighed and clenched her fists. All around, her riders were about the business of setting up a camp. At other times she liked these nights with the stars over her head, with no maids waiting on her hand and foot. Not tonight, though. Tonight her dragon-knights would circle grimly overhead while she slept – if she slept – on watch for a mysterious enemy who would, likely as not, never appear.

  The sun set and Shezira retired to her tent. She tossed and turned and snatched a few meagre hours of fitful rest. When she rose, she almost sent them all back to Drotan's Top. Staying out here, so exposed, was dangerous. It's what Antros would have done, though. Perhaps that was why she stayed. She didn't know.

  They found Thorn two days later, riderless but unharmed. The day after that they found Titan. The white, though, had vanished, and by the time Jaslyn returned with a dozen more dragons Shezira was resigned. The white was gone. By now she could be anywhere. One day she would find who had done this and there would be blood and fire and pain, but for now her perfect white was lost.

  One little thing troubled her, as they turned their faces back towards the south, towards King Tyan and Prince Jehal, towards Furymouth and the sea. They never found the body of the Scales.

  12

  Lystra

  'At last!'

  Jehal yawned and stretched. He'd taken to sleeping through part of the afternoons, simply as a way to make the time pass. Queen Shezira and her flight had been expected five days ago. Dutifully, albeit at the last possible minute, he'd left behind the pleasures of his father's palace in Furymouth and ridden to the eyrie at Clifftop to greet her. Except she hadn't come, and the eyrie was a full day on horseback from the city, and there was absolutely nothing to do except look at his dragons and listen to the noise of the waves crashing against the cliffs.

  He'd been on the point of going back, but now the Queen of the North had finally arrived. Either that, or someone else was flying thirty-odd dragons towards his eyrie.

  Maybe it was more alchemists. As he dressed himself, he smiled. Hyram had sent twelve of them, including the old sorcerer himself, Bellepheros. They were crawling all over his eyrie, dragging in his men, his riders, his soldiers, his servants, his Scales, even their own kind, the alchemists who served King Tyan's dragons. Every day Jehal made a point of going to watch them at their work. Every day they took a few dozen of his people and filled their lungs with truth-smoke. They asked their questions: What do you know about Queen Aliphera's death? Do you know how she died? Did you have any part in it? Every day they got the same answers. They were so sure of themselves, and yet, in the days since they'd arrived, they'd found out nothing. When he was watching them, Jehal would smile a lot and ask how else he might be of help, and try to not to laugh at the frustration on their faces. In a few more days they'd be done with the eyrie and would move on to the palace at Furymouth. It was an intolerable imposition, of course, but one that was almost worth bearing simply to watch them fail.

  The speaker's alchemists had almost unlimited power, but there were a few things they weren't permitted to do. Inflict their potions on someone of royal blood, for example. Which was a pity for them, since unless they were going to conjure up Aliphera's ghost and question her, that was the only way they were going to find out what had happened. Jehal had put a great deal of thought and effort into Aliphera's death, and so there was a certain pleasure to be had in watching the alchemists flounder.

  But only to a point. Having them here was also a humiliation, an insult that couldn't be ignored and for which Hyram would have to pay.

  Jehal pulled on his boots and looked at himself in a mirror, carefully adjusting his clothes to make sure everything was exactly as it should be. He couldn't really complain, he thought. This business with the alchemists would just make him feel that bit more justified in doing what he'd been going to do anyway.

  There. He was shrewd enough to see through his own vanity, and he could cut a dashing figure when he wanted to. He nodded to himself in the mirror and walked briskly away, to the stairs that would take him down to the landing fields. It wasn't going to be enough to simply murder Hyram, he decided. Something more was called for. Some sort of vivisection, that would be more like it.

  He marched out through the gaping doors of Clifftop and into the open air. Hundreds of soldiers were running to their positions, forming up into wedge-shaped phalanxes. Jehal wasn't sure whether this was supposed to be a show of strength or a display of respect. He ignored them, as he was sure Queen Shezira would do, and looked up. Dozens of dragons were circling overhead. Four were already coming in to land, plummeting towards the landing fields in near-vertical dives. Jehal put Hyram out of his mind; for now he had an entirely more delicious problem to deal with.

  The four dragons unfurled their wings, three slender and elegant hunting dragons and one brutish war-beast. They hit the edge of the landing field hard and at exactly the same time; even at that distance the air shook and the earth trembled under Jehal's feet. All four stood exactly where they had landed without taking a single pace forward. Which, he supposed, was meant to show him how skilled the riders were. Well it doesn't. That's the dragon doing the work, not you. All you're showing me is that your trainers and your Scales are as
competent as they ought to be.

  He almost expected to see the four riders slide out of their saddles and march towards him in perfect synchronisation; instead, if anything, they seemed to be arguing.

  Then one of them – it had to be Queen Shezira – took the lead and the others fell in behind. Jehal and his eyrie-master, Lord Meteroa, walked out to meet them. In the periphery of Jehal's mind he noted all the other things that were happening: the guards of honour carefully formed up, marching to exactly where they were meant to be, the Scales taking the visiting dragons to the feeding paddocks while the best of his own were lined up for inspection, harnesses and saddles polished and gleaming. None of this mattered at all unless someone made a mistake, and since Meteroa never made mistakes, Jehal largely ignored it. He needed his attention for the queen whose daughter he was about to marry.

  Shezira stopped an instant before Jehal. She met his gaze with a stare of her own. Her eyes weren't exactly cold, he thought, but certainly not warm. And relentless. Above all, that was his impression of her.

  Good. I could do with a decent challenge. He smiled and took one further step. Queen Shezira held out her hand, and Jehal bowed to kiss the ring on her middle finger. As he did, he was already looking past her, at the three woman behind her, who were presumably her daughters. One with a plain flat face, beady little eyes and an angry look, one rather more delicious, clearly the youngest, shy and nervous but not too shy and nervous, peeking back at him through her eyelashes. And the one at the back, who looked the oldest, plain and unassuming, with her eyes cast to the ground and much darker skin than the others. There was something kinetic about that one, as though any at moment she would burst into violent motion. She set Jehal on edge.

  Oh gods and dragons, I hope it's the young one she's here to give me.

  'Queen Shezira.' Jehal bowed again, deeper this time. 'Welcome to Clifftop.'