by Stephen Deas
'And if I bring her joy?'
'Then I will have misjudged you.' She bowed and spun away.
'That hardly seems an equitable arrangement,' he called after her, but she didn't turn back. Poor Lystra. He'd expected to see her weep at the prospect of leaving her family and being forced to give herself to a man who she'd doubtless been taught to believe was a monster. Yet she hadn't. If anything, she almost seemed excited.
And now I begin to see why.
Another princess appeared in front of him. Jehal screwed up his face, trying to remember who she was. One of King Silvallan's brood, he thought, as they swept through the crush of bodies. Over in one corner, over the music, he could hear some sort of commotion. Drink had got the better of a pair of his knights. Others were quickly pulling them apart. He thought he heard the scrape of a sword being drawn, but there were no screams and the music didn't stop, so presumably nothing came of it. He tried to dance his way to Zafir's sister, to start laying a few foundations there, but all he got was an endless stream of distant relatives, and they all wanted something.
Suddenly, he was immensely glad that the day was nearly over. Tomorrow the dragon-lords and their courtiers would be on their way back to Clifftop, where they could be Lord Meteroa's problem for a night before they finally left for palaces of their own. He slipped away from the dancing and made his way outside. His head was foggy, and when he tried to shake it clear, it only got worse. Too much wine? Or had Zafir poisoned him after all?
Meteroa appeared at his elbow. 'It's nearly time, Your Highness.'
'I'll be glad when this is done.'
'I would have thought you'd be enjoying this, Your Highness. Prince Tyrin and Princess Jesska have vanished, one suspects to one of your solars; Prince Loatan and Princess Kalista got as far as drawing knives on each other before your guards intervened, and those are merely the highlights. I shall of course have a detailed report waiting for you at your convenience, once you are free of your bride.'
My bride. 'Tell me, eyrie-master, about my bride. How do I look at her?'
Meteroa frowned. 'I would say, with an expression of intrigued interest. Magnificently played.'
Except I wasn't playing. 'Mmm. And how many queens and princesses have been unable to resist the temptation to fondle a drunken prince when he's naked?'
'Queens Shezira and Zafir have both politely declined and will be attending Princess Lystra. Queen Fyon, however, accepted with great enthusiasm. I believe she forbade her daughters from joining her.'
Jehal groaned. Queen Fyon -Aunt Fyon – was Narghon's wife. She was grey and sagging, at least ten years older than Aliphera had been. Rumours had once abounded in both palaces that she and King Tyan had been lovers as well as brother and sister. The number of heirs she'd borne for King Narghon certainly spoke of her enthusiasm.
'Princess Jaslyn will also attend you, I believe.'
Jehal almost choked. 'I think you must be mistaken.'
Meteroa looked hurt. 'I am an imperfect servant, Your Highness. On occasion.'
'She made it quite clear in there that she hates me.'
'I'll see to it that she doesn't poison you, Your Highness.'
Jehal snorted. 'See to it that Queen Zafir doesn't poison my bride, if you please. I want Lystra wide awake when I take her. Zafir has an assassin's ring on. Keep an eye on her.' He thought he saw Meteroa smirk, but before he could launch a rebuke a bell began to toll. Meteroa clapped him on the back.
'It's time.'
'A long time ago kings and queens married in the same way as everyone else.' Jehal took a deep breath and rubbed his eyes. His head still felt fuzzy. In the sky above, the stars shone brightly. A silver crescent moon hung on the horizon, out over the sea. A breeze blew up from the harbour, bringing a strange mixture of smells: of the sea and rotting fish and ammonia, and of rose and myrrh and sandalwood from the incense burners strewn across the palace gardens.
'That was before the Seven Princes and the War of Thorns.' Meteroa started to guide Jehal back towards the feasting hall.
'I know, I know, and Speaker Vishmir finally locked Prince Halim and Queen Lira in the Tower of Air and refused to let them out until Lira was pregnant with an heir, and that was the end of the matter. Much as I admire Vishmir's no-nonsense approach, I don't think he meant it to become standard practice.'
'Heirs are important.' For a moment Meteroa's face went as blank as a mask. Then he smiled politely. 'Ask Hyram.'
Jehal laughed. 'Heirs are dangerous. Ask Aliphera. Oh, wait, you can't. She's dead.' He sniffed the air again. 'Whoever arranged the incense burners should be whipped; they're not doing their job at all. Did you put the scent vines around the east window of the bridal bedchamber as I asked?'
Meteroa nodded. He pushed Jehal back towards the feasting hall. The dancing had stopped. Princess Lystra was standing in the middle of the floor. Everyone was looking at him, but he didn't have time to see any more before a gang of knights launched themselves at him. The next thing he knew, he was whisked off his feet and being carried high in the air. People were shouting and cheering. When he strained his neck to look, he could just about see Princess Lystra being escorted away by two queens, her mother on one side, Zafir on the other.
He closed his eyes. They weren't even out of the feasting hall before groping hands started to tear his clothes away. Over the ribald jokes of his riders he could hear Queen Fyon laughing. He shuddered. The women were always the worst.
They carried him high over their heads, parading him in front of everyone they could find, until they reached the Sun Tower in the centre of the palace. They almost dropped him there, trying to carry him up the narrow spiral stairs, but apparently they were quite prepared to risk that rather than let him walk. By the time they got him to the top he was dizzy, but he wasn't given any time to think about that. Someone was already pressing a goblet into his hands. One of Silvallan's nieces. What was her name?
'Maiden's Regret!' shouted a voice to a chorus of laughter. 'The Maiden!'
He drank it down as he was obliged to do, and prayed silently that the riders around him weren't as drunk as they seemed. Mentally, one part of him listed all the dragon-kings and -queens who'd been poisoned on their wedding nights. Another part slowly started counting, ticking off the seconds before the Maiden's Regret took hold of him. It would be longer than most, he'd made sure of that.
They finished stripping him and put him into his wedding shift, a pointless wrapping of cloth designed to fall apart at the lightest touch. By now the room was spinning, but he still had a few minutes before the potion took him completely.
One by one, the riders, the princes, the princesses came to him with ritual offerings of advice for the night to come, and then left.
'Maiden's Regret loosens the tongue!' shouted a voice. True, he thought. That's what the alchemists were using in my eyrie, with their truth-smoke. On my Scales and on my soldiers. He grinned. What a waste. All those men and women left half-mad with lust.
'It loosens everything.' More laughter.
Meteroa must have been beside himself. I must write to Hyram, thanking him on behalf of Cliff top's whores. He started to laugh.
'Are you murdering your father?' Jehal blinked. The question seeped into his consciousness like honey dripping off a spoon. Jaslyn. That's who the voice was. Princess Jaslyn. Because hadn't Lord Meteroa said she was coming? And he didn't remember seeing her before.
Why not? urged a voice inside him. Why not tell her the truth and be done with it. Everyone wants to know. Make her go away.
He opened his mouth, but a hand shut it for him. 'Get out of here, you little witch. How dare you! Shoo! Shoo!' The hand let go of him. 'I'm so sorry, nephew. Treat your bride kindly but not too kindly. I'll wager she likes a little roughness that one. Most of us do.'
Jehal looked up and smiled. Queen Fyon, but she was going now, turning away. Hadn't he been about to say something? Whatever it was, it was gone.
It seemed that he blinked,
and his knights were gone too. That's right. Maiden's Regret fools with your sense of time. You haven't got long before it takes you now. Not long at all.
There was a door. That's what he was supposed to do. Go through the door. And before he'd even finished thinking it, it was done, and up another spiral of stairs, and the stupid wedding shift was already falling off, and then he was naked and standing in a room with eight sides, with windows in all the walls, every one open, with a floor strewn with pillows and blankets and mattresses stuffed with everything from down to straw, and Lystra was standing in front of him. She was far gone with the Maiden, swaying slightly from side to side, and her eyes were black and immense.
A little droplet of fire seemed to fall inside him and gently explode. Princess Lystra opened her mouth and reached for him. He swayed towards her.
Not yet not yet not yet!
He had seconds before he lost any idea of what he was doing. With all that was left of his will he started counting windows. Second on the left from the door. Faces east. That one…
He pushed Princess Lystra towards that window. 'Stars,' he murmured. 'Look up at the stars.' He stood behind her, wrapping his arms around her, and peered through the air to another tower and another window. The window was still dark. Queen Shezira wouldn't have had time to get back to her rooms yet. A pity, because he'd wanted her to see him take her daughter. A sort of prelude to everything else he was going to take, and she wasn't even there.
But then the Maiden came, and Lystra was grinding herself against him, and there could be no more waiting.
22
Scorched Earth
It took the rest of that day and most of the next to reach their destination, picking their tortuous way along the floor of a valley, among hundreds of rivulets that bubbled and splashed among a sea of strewn rocks and streaks of sand and gravel. On either side of them forested slopes rose sharply towards rocky peaks. It rained relentlessly. Every now and then one or other of the riders missed his footing and slipped. By the end of the first day all of them were limping.
Which serves them right for trying to hike in heavy armour, Sollos thought.
In the evening Curly Beard and the other Outsiders sat sullenly silent, huddled under the thickest of the trees, seeking what shelter they could get from the rain. When they looked at the dragon-knights, their eyes glittered with a mixture of greed and hate. The knights glowered back. Sollos and Kemir took it in turns to snooze, but no one else got much sleep. Strangely, the alchemist seemed the most anxious of them all.
As soon as dawn broke, Curly Beard jumped to his feet and declared it was time to move on. With great reluctance, Rider Semian handed over the promised gold. Curly Beard disappeared back down the river with three of his friends and the sack of coins, leaving two of the Outsiders to guide the knights onwards.
'If we went after them, we could still catch them,' muttered Kemir.
It took barely an hour for the other two Outsiders to abandon them. The first slipped away in the woods when one of the knights fell and broke his hand. The other one, when he saw that he was the last, simply ran, trusting the sureness of his feet on the rocks, knowing the knights could never catch him. Rider Semian declared the man a traitor and ordered him shot, but by the time Sollos had his bow strung, the Outsider was too far away. He sent a couple of arrows after the man to keep Semian happy and then pretended to listen while the knight told him how poor a shot he was.
Slowly, Sollos realised that the knights didn't know what to do. He watched them dither and wondered what profit there might be from leaving them to their fate. Six riders and one alchemist, alone in the mountains…
He looked up. Sure enough, high above, he saw a speck in the sky. The knights had someone to watch over them.
'You! Sell-sword!'
Sollos looked around. He assumed it must be one of the knights, but it was the alchemist, pointing a finger at him.
'Master Huros. Enjoying yourself?'
'I, urn… Certainly not. I require your help. It is clear that the correct course of action is to proceed in the direction we were being led. Please explain this to Rider Semian.'
Sollos cocked his head. 'Why don't you explain it to him yourself, Master Huros?'
'Because Lady Nastria made it quite plain that you two had knowledge of these mountains.' The alchemist made a noise in his throat. 'Um. He will listen to you, and we must press on.'
'Must we? I thought we might go back. Burn those naughty Outsiders for being so ill-mannered.'
'No, Sword-Master Sollos, we must press on. If, uh… if those men were telling us the truth, we cannot be far from the dragon. Turning back will waste days. I repeat, we must press on, before-'
'Before what, Master Alchemist?'
'Um. None of your concern. All that matters is that we reach the dragon quickly.'
Sollos thought about that. There didn't seem much to gain from leaving the riders to fend for themselves, but in the end what made up his mind was that the alchemist had actually bothered to call him by his name. With a sigh, he hauled himself to his feet. He didn't bother telling the riders where he was going and didn't bother looking back when they shouted at him, simply gestured at them to follow. Eventually they did.
Kemir was the first to notice the smell. The rain had stopped in the middle of the day, and for the last few hours they'd walked on in glorious sunshine. Apart from his feet, Sollos was feeling almost dry when Kemir abruptly stopped and sniffed the air.
Sollos stopped as well. He wrinkled his nose. There was… something, something slightly familiar.
'Soul Dust,' muttered Kemir, keeping his voice low so the dragon-knights, a few dozen yards behind them, wouldn't hear.
Sollos shook his head. 'No. There's something right enough, but it's not Dust. Dust doesn't smell like that.'
'It does when you burn it.'
Sollos shrugged. 'It can't be. No one here burns Dust.' He swept his hand across the empty landscape. 'Do you see anyone burning Dust?'
Kemir glared at him. 'No, obviously I don't, because if I did, I'd be pointing at them. Just because you can't see the shit on the bottom of your boot doesn't mean it doesn't stink, and I'm telling you, that's the smell of burning Dust.'
Five minutes later Sollos sniffed again. This time he smelled smoke.
They looked at each other. Then Kemir started to run as best he could over the scattered rocks. The riders shouted. Sollos paused for long enough to yell at them to smell the air, and then set off after Kemir. Around the next bend of the river they skidded to a stop.
Kemir pointed to the scorched scar at the edge of the forest. 'Do you think that's the settlement we were supposed to be finding?' A few charred pieces of wood were still smouldering. The rest of whatever had been here was ash, but that wasn't what caught Sollos's eye.
'Bugger the settlement.' He pointed up the river.
At first glance it might have been a huge white boulder, but there was something too regular about it, too smooth. The boulder, when Sollos looked closely, had eyes that looked back. As he watched, the boulder slowly unfurled its legs, wings and tail and turned into a dragon.
Kemir gave a little whoop of joy. 'Finder's fee!'
Sollos touched Kemir on the arm, a gesture of caution. 'Something isn't right about this. There's no rider.'
'Of course there isn't. We were there, remember. When the other dragons attacked? Fire, shouting, running for our lives? Am I ringing any bells?'
Sollos edged sideways, out of the middle of the river bed, heading for the cover of the forest. The dragon was watching, and there was something altogether too intelligent in the way it was looking at him. 'We never found the Scales.'
'That's because he's dead.'
'Then why this?' Sollos began to step faster. 'Dragons never flamestrike unless someone tells them to.'
'Maybe it was hungry.'
'Maybe it still is.'
The dragon moved. Sollos grabbed Kemir and ran.
Tipping th
e Scales
For ten years, as the dragon is matured, the gifts must continue, and those whose gifts are found wanting will find their dragon,
when they take it, perhaps a little dull in its scales, not as
vigorous in its flight or as tight in its turns as they had hoped.
When his dragon has finally matured, the rider will visit the
eyrie for one last time. A final round of gifts is made, and then
rider and dragon are introduced. The dragon is his.
Before the rider leaves, it is customary for one last payment to be
made: a small gift to the Scales, the man or woman who has fed
and watered and nurtured the dragon since it was an egg. The
dragon-princes call this gift Tipping the Scales
23
Snow
A torrent of flames poured from the sky, swallowing her and the Little One beside her in its fury. The river waters steamed. Stones cracked in the heat.
She felt the presence of the other dragons in the sky long before she saw them. Different minds, different thoughts made up of different sounds and colours, but that didn't bother her at first. Other dragons came and went all the time, and the Little Ones never seemed afraid. And then she'd felt their thoughts change, the colours darken and sharpen and fill with fire. She knew what was coming.
An instant before the flames struck, she spread out her wings, tenting them over her head and over the Little One beside her. Instinctively. Protecting her eyes and the Little One. The other Little One, the one who'd been angry and shouting, the one who rode on her back and told her what to do, he was too far away for her to save. She felt his thoughts snuff out, and that made her a little sad. Little Ones burned so easily.
A second flamestrike engulfed her. The fire warmed her, but didn't frighten her. The Little One was afraid, though. Sharply, suddenly filled with fear. She felt it from all of them, but especially from the one beside her. And pain. The Little One was in pain. And panic. And terror. The emotions rolled into her from the Little One. She didn't know what to do with them. She'd never felt these things before. Bad things that made her want to run away.
