by Stephen Deas
‘After they tried to kill you?’ laughed Jasaan. ‘I hope that’s a joke.’
‘What else? The Spur? For what? To tell everyone there’s no hope? That the Pinnacles is filled with dragon-riders who murder alchemists and have learned nothing from the miracles of the Silver King that surround them? That I found not just the Black Mausoleum but the Isul Aieha himself, only to watch him walk away? To tell them that all is ash and join again our steady demise of starvation and hopelessness?’ All the reasons she’d left in the first place. The mountain that flew. The half-god called Black Moon. Dragons who obeyed the will of men. All that. She could take that back to the Spur once she knew what they were, once she knew why and how. She waved Jasaan away. ‘Go and find some food.’
They stayed a night and a day in the ruined village, and the next night too. Jasaan turned out to be as good a fisherman as Skjorl had been. It wasn’t much and they ate it raw, too scared of dragons to light a fire, but any alchemist knew their plants, and Kataros found a few they could eat and so at least they didn’t starve. She didn’t want to leave, didn’t really have the strength yet, and there was no getting the bulk of their canoe down past the gorge and the cataract in the river and so it would be walking for now, but there was nothing here, not really, just surviving each day as it came, waiting for her potions to run out and then for some passing dragon to notice them. She told Jasaan they had to go and tried not to let him see how weak she was, but there was no hiding it, and in the end she gave up and let herself lean on him. Let him do the work, let him hold her, his warmth a token against the fatigue of despair; and after the first night of walking, as they huddled together under cover and watched the dawn light start to rise, she burst into tears, and Jasaan held her and rocked her gently to and fro, and she hardly even noticed he was there, far away in memories.
‘I wanted to see the world,’ she whispered. ‘I didn’t want to do what alchemists are meant to do. I wanted to love. I wanted to laugh and get drunk and climb mountains, not sit in caves and study books.’ She shuddered. ‘I was at Hammerford when the dragons came. I saw an Elemental Man and a blood-mage fight for the Adamantine Spear. I saw a man throw it into the face of a dragon and turn it to stone, and then later I saw him dead. I found the spear in the river, after it was done, and later Jeiros found me and sent me home, and the spear came with me, and that’s why, sometimes, they call me the spear-carrier. But all I ever did was pick it up and hold it a while.’
Jasaan hugged her. The pain and the grief ebbed, washed out in tears. She felt herself fading, succumbing to exhaustion. The endless months under the Spur, hungry and hopeless.
‘I hate dragons, Jasaan. I hate them,’ she murmured and fell asleep in his arms.
They followed the Yamuna at night, walking beside its banks. There had been people living on the plains once, thriving here. It wasn’t a place of cities but of an abundance of villages clinging to the riverbank. Kataros walked through what was left of them, what had once been huts and halls, most smashed and burned. Sometimes the only sign was a field of stumps, blackened and splintered but still stuck stubbornly in the earth. The river started to change, losing its clarity and purpose and spreading across the plain in sluggish brown. Another hard night of walking and the shattered houses now hung on stilts, lifted off the ground. Makeshift boats littered the fields. They were everywhere, scattered among the flotsam and jetsam of the dragons’ passing and the river’s spring floods, little fishing rafts no more than a few poles lashed together, picked up and dropped at random as the waters fell. Kataros had passed them with Skjorl on the way up the river and had known she’d find them again, and so as soon as she spotted the first she had Jasaan help her carry it into the water. They drifted through the nights after that, resting, carried by the river, conserving the last of their strength. There was nowhere to hide in the day, no hills, no trees, not any more, no caves, no cellars, no rocks, only flat fields full of wild grass going on and on, a slight rise here, a dip there, but she remembered how Skjorl had found them a cluster of rocks, a pit in the ground or maybe simply a mound of rubble. They spent one day dozing under a pile of old boats carefully arranged around the stump of a tree. Anything to hide them from the sky while the sun was up, while her dragon-blood potions masked their thoughts and hid the truth of their presence.
On the way up the river with Skjorl she’d seen dragons every day. On their own more often than not, but sometimes in twos and threes and towards the end a dozen at once, and every one of them flying away from the Raksheh. Now the skies were clear. Maybe she simply slept while they passed, but their absence struck her.
‘Have you seen any?’ she asked Jasaan. The Adamantine Man shook his head.
‘Not one.’
‘Isn’t that strange?’
He shrugged and frowned. ‘Lucky is all.’
They passed the mouth of the Ghostwater with its secret tunnel to the Silver City and the Undergates of the Pinnacles. The Ghostwater came that way, under the ground from the Moonlit Mountain, but it was too deep to wade against it, and too swift to pole a raft, and so they walked up the valley to the scarp slope at the far end where the river crashed out of its cave on its way to the Yamuna. From the top of the slope three distant peaks stood out against the sky, pale grey fingers thrust against the far horizon. Side by side Kataros and Jasaan stopped.
The Pinnacles.
‘Are you sure of this?’ asked Jasaan. ‘You know they kill alchemists there.’
‘I know. But the flying mountain …’ She didn’t know what to say. It had to be there. If it wasn’t then she didn’t know where else to go. ‘I don’t know what else to do,’ she whispered.
‘Go back to the Spur. Back the way we came, Kataros spear-carrier.’
‘I can’t. Not with nothing.’ Adrift on the waters of the Yamuna she’d already given that all the thought it deserved. A motley band of ragged survivors, of queens and princes and alchemists and Adamantine Men slowly dying out, trapped, alchemical lamps their only light, air choked with smoke and the sewer reek of decay, scraping the most meagre living they could while they waited in hopeless apathy to die? No. She was Kataros the spear-carrier, who had brought the Adamantine Spear from Hammerford, for all the good it had done anyone, and though it was her home she wouldn’t go back again with nothing. The Silver King had given her a purpose, even if she didn’t understand it.
She scanned the skies. Empty. Not a single dragon. Where have you all gone?
‘Not with nothing,’ she said again, and set off across the plain.
23
Hard Things
Twenty-eight days after landfall
Tuuran lay naked on his back, sprawled on silk sheets across a huge bed that had once belonged to a king. Onyx lay on one side of him, propped on an elbow, wrapped in silk as thin as gauze and feathering his chest with her fingertips. Myst lay on the other with her hand resting between his legs. And that ought to have been just fine, except nothing was happening. He could feel Myst’s hand well enough, and that was that. A big limp lack of interest. He couldn’t understand it. Whoring, drinking and fighting. Three things at which every Adamantine Man excelled.
He pushed Myst away and sat up. Off in the next room one of the babies cooed and started babbling to itself.
‘Flame! Can’t they be quiet?’ His voice sounded harsh, even to himself. Kept wondering whether one of the babies was his. Could have gone either way, that. Could have been almost anyone’s, but he found that the not knowing bothered him. He got up and prowled towards the curtain door. That must be it. The babies with their incessant noise. No doors, no privacy, no quiet, no respite. Putting him off. Just knowing they were there all the time, right close by. How was a man supposed to relax?
‘I’ll go.’ Onyx brushed past to the little ones. As Tuuran turned back, Myst sat up, the silk sheet draped provocatively around her, hiding her skin and yet showing it off in little fla
shes. Other days that would have been enough on its own for him to stand to attention, right there and then. Today? Nothing.
‘You’re tense.’ Myst smiled at him. ‘I have Xizic oil. A little massage …’
‘I’m not tense!’ Tuuran snapped. ‘It’s …’ He shook his head and looked for his clothes.
‘You know that before we served our mistress of dragons, we were trained and sold as bed-slaves.’ Myst slid off the bed. She sidled up to him and ran a hand down his side. He flinched away. ‘It happens far more than you suppose. To every man at times.’
Tuuran rounded on her. ‘What? What happens?’
Myst glanced downward. ‘That. It can be that a man’s mind is—’
Tuuran lunged, ripped by the fury of humiliation. He caught himself with his hand about to grab her by the throat. And then … and then what, exactly? He snarled and snapped away from her.
‘Would that help?’ she asked.
‘Would what help?’ Tuuran snatched at his tunic and pulled it over his head.
‘To be rough.’ She looked him in the eye. ‘Some men like that. For some men it helps.’
‘I don’t want to hurt you.’ He couldn’t stand this.
‘You wouldn’t. It would be pretend.’
No, no. That wouldn’t do. Too angry. Didn’t trust himself. He turned away and tossed his belt onto the bed. Myst came up behind him and put a hand to his back.
‘I have another idea.’
‘No.’ He pushed her away. Done with this. ‘It’s not working. Shouldn’t even be here anyway, not with this stupid plague. I should go. Her Holiness will be back soon.’ Maybe that was it. Knowing Myst and Onyx were hers. Or maybe it was the curse he carried, the Hatchling Disease, maybe it did things, made things not work any more. Or maybe it was the Black Moon with his knife, cutting everyone and making them into his slaves. Her Holiness said he’d never cut Myst and Onyx, that they were beneath his notice, but Tuuran wasn’t so sure. He couldn’t talk to the alchemist because the Black Moon certainly had cut him, and because he was the grand master. Halfteeth and Snacksize, the Black Moon had cut them too, and anyway they were his soldiers and he was their Night Watchman. Couldn’t talk to her Holiness because she was her Holiness. Couldn’t talk to Myst and Onyx because they were her Holiness too. Couldn’t talk to … couldn’t talk to bloody anyone.
Or maybe it was that the Black Moon had gone and hadn’t come back, and so Crazy had gone too, and more and more Tuuran feared that that was the last he’d ever see of the only real friend he’d ever had.
Best not to think about that.
‘Wait here. If you want to dress then dress. It’ll take me a minute to get ready.’
Myst swished through the curtain and left. Tuuran finished dressing and then slumped back on the bed, propped up against a mound of pillows. Didn’t have time for this. Stupid idea anyway. Snacksize and her dumb ‘Hey, boss, you need to blow off some steam’ ideas. Too many things needed doing, and it wasn’t like when they were on the island. Had had too many things then too, but none of them had mattered quite the same. Was the difference between the exhaustion of climbing a mountain because the mountain was there and you wanted to climb it, and the exhaustion of trying not to drown. Nothing was any fun any more.
He punched a pillow. Hard. It didn’t make him feel any better. Just more angry. He got up. Paced. Prowled. Was about to go, and then her Holiness came in and he froze, paralysed for a moment with alarm. Dressed in her gold-glass dragon-queen’s armour and he could feel how she was naked underneath, even with her hair tied back in a dragon-rider’s plait and with a mask covering her face.
Took a moment before he spotted her skin was the wrong colour, night-black where her Holiness was pale. Myst, dressed up, but just for a moment he’d thought it was Zafir, and his heart was still thumping, and now of all things he felt himself stirring. Myst strode to him, grabbed him by the balls and pushed him back and back against the bedroom wall.
‘You know what you want, Night Watchman. So take it.’ She pushed him away, turned her back, lifted the gold-glass armour over her head and dropped it onto the bed, stood naked with her back to him, erect and proud and waiting.
Tuuran looked down. Not the only thing erect and proud all of a sudden.
‘Not that way.’ The words caught in his throat. If he half-closed his eyes he could see Zafir again, naked with her back to him outside the island caves, both of them soaking wet. ‘I have the Hatchling Disease. You know that.’
Myst dropped a lamb-gut sheath tied at the end. ‘And you know what to do with that.’ Her voice was haughty, imperious, almost a perfect mimicry of Zafir.
A dam seemed to burst inside him. He stepped up behind her and pressed himself into her buttocks and reached around to cup her breasts and pulled her into him, slid one hand up to her throat and round her neck and the other between her legs. They parted for him. Myst gave a little moan as he pushed his fingers inside her. A part of him was back in Furymouth, high up in the tower of a burned palace, drunk that night they’d first made land. He closed his eyes, and Myst was Zafir.
‘Why won’t you let me in?’ he growled. ‘Why?’ he pushed her against the wall and pulled her hips back into him, ran his hands over her skin, fingers clenched like claws, aching stiff with a lust and passion and hunger more than he could remember. He fumbled his way into the sheath, spread her legs and thrust inside her, deep. Myst squealed. ‘Why? Why won’t you let me in?’ One hand tight around her throat, the other pressed into her crotch as he took her. Myst gasped and moaned for him, and a part of him knew perfectly well it was her, not Zafir, that it was all an act, but a part of him believed because that was what he wanted. ‘Why won’t you let me in? Why won’t you help me?’ He came quickly and hard, groaning like he’d been stabbed, and Myst cried out too and he was still driving inside her because he still wanted more, but slowly the haze lifted. He drew back. Let go. Stared at Myst still pressed against the wall, both of them panting and heaving. Wide-eyed and wild.
She turned to look at him. Grinned and then laughed. ‘Well, that worked!’
‘Yes.’ He looked at her, uncertain for a moment. The skin of her neck was livid where he’d clutched her throat. For a moment he wasn’t quite sure who he was any more. Myst looked him up and down, still with a bewildered grin.
‘That was quite something.’
‘Yes, it was.’ Tuuran looked away. Looked at the floor. Anywhere else. ‘I’m sorry. Did I hurt you?’
‘No. And you did nothing you should be ashamed of.’ She touched a hand to his shoulder. ‘Tuuran?’
‘Yes?’ He was still panting, out of breath. Twitchy like a wild animal, battered by the flurry of emotion. Whatever it was they’d done he hadn’t seen it coming. Wasn’t quite sure what he’d let out either, and whether it would go meekly back again.
‘She doesn’t let anyone in, not really. Not even us.’ Myst ran her fingers down his arm and kissed him between the shoulders, then handed him his boots. Tuuran sat on the bed and made himself decent. ‘Halfteeth is waiting outside.’
‘Does she talk to you about anything at all?’
‘Lots of things, Night Watchman.’ Myst smiled. ‘Most of them you know. She doesn’t talk about her sister, if that’s what you were wondering, nor about your friend the half-god. Nor much about you either. You all trouble her in your different ways, and she keeps her troubles to herself.’ She brushed past him, all swish and lingering fingernails, and rolled her eyes at the crying from the room next door. ‘Your son is hungry all the time. I wonder where he gets that from?’ She gave him an arch look.
Tuuran caught her arm. ‘Her Holiness really doesn’t say anything about Berren? About going to look for him?’
‘Not to us.’ Myst hesitated, then she turned and looked Tuuran in the eye and cupped his face and kissed his lips. ‘She talks of the Black Moon now and then, a
nd rails at the absence of her eyrie. I couldn’t tell you whether or not she’ll be pleased to see him back when he returns, but if she is then I can tell you she’ll be the only one. I’m sorry.’
Not as sorry as he was. But then why should any of the rest of them care? Crazy Mad Berren had been his friend. The rest had only ever known him as the Black Moon, tyrant slave-maker and half-god.
It falls to me then. Which wasn’t a particularly cheery thought, and so he went outside to see what Halfteeth wanted, and found him and Snacksize together, Halfteeth hefting a heavy hammer, Snacksize leaning on a second beside him.
‘Disturb you, did we?’ asked Halfteeth, one eyebrow raised so high that Tuuran thought he was about to strain himself. ‘Sounded like maybe we should come back later.’ He sniggered. ‘Didn’t mean to interrupt anything.’
‘You OK, boss?’ asked Snacksize. She was trying not to smirk. She’d heard the things he’d said while he was with Myst then. Bloody Enchanted Palace with no bloody doors.
‘I’m fucking marvellous,’ grunted Tuuran. He looked at their hammers and nodded. Pushed past them and headed up for the Octagon. ‘And don’t you worry, Halfteeth. I came when I was good and ready for you.’
Behind him Snacksize almost dropped her hammer.
‘Yes, boss,’ snickered Halfteeth. ‘We know. I think most everyone inside the mountain probably knows that.’
‘Right.’ Tuuran ground his teeth. Mood he was in wasn’t one for Halfteeth and Snacksize and their smut. ‘Good to know. If I need to hear any more about that, I’ll be sure to say so.’
‘Anything you ask, we’ll, uh, let you in on it, boss. Yes.’
Snacksize made an odd sort of strangled noise.
‘And if there’s—’
Tuuran stopped dead and spun on his heel. He grabbed Halfteeth by the throat, almost lifting him off the floor. ‘Halfteeth?’
