The Order of the Scales

by Stephen Deas

  ‘Is that what you meant when you said I should have left you?’

  He nodded, unable for a moment to speak. Watching the water and filled with a crippling sadness.

  ‘Everything I know is gone,’ he said once he found his voice again. ‘Even if I found a ship, even if the Taiytakei took the gold dragons in my pockets and sailed me somewhere far away, what then? More of the same? Another land ruled by men who care nothing for the people who serve them? I’m a sell-sword. A shit-eater. A nothing.’ He spat into the water.

  ‘You called dragons from the sky.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You called dragons from the sky to burn the filth from the river.’

  That made him laugh. ‘They were probably bored. Or hungry. Or both. Believe me, next time it’ll be us they eat. I’ve seen houses smashed to splinters by a careless flick of a tail. I’ve seen men crushed to death underfoot. I’ve seen them sent flying through the air, shattered and broken by an idle flap of a wing. And those were the dragons we call tame.’ The dragons hadn’t eaten the river men, though. They’d been left, broken and burned. Why?

  ‘I never wanted to be a Scales. I was meant to be an alchemist.’

  For some reason, despite everything, she was still there, still beside him, still listening. Why? Because I was nice to you once? You were a means to an end, that’s all.

  ‘You saved me,’ she said so quietly he almost didn’t hear.

  ‘Saved you?’ That was rich. ‘No. But I will.’ He took her hand and squeezed. ‘I’m yours now. I will guard you to the end of the world.’ And why, by all that burns, did you go and say a thing like that? No, best not to answer. In that moment, though, he meant it. Every word. ‘If the only person I was trying to save was me, I’m not sure I’d find the will to bother.’

  Either Kataros didn’t hear him or she didn’t have an answer. She sat, mute, and held his hand.

  25

  Sealed Away Where It Could Do No Harm

  Alone in its cave, the dragon called.

  Old man . . .

  Silence, they had called him, but that was a new name, not the one he remembered.

  Old man . . .

  He whispered, on and off. Usually when the little one who ruled this place came closest. But more and more at other times. Even up in the tower, as he slept, the dragon tried to reach him.

  Old man . . .

  The more the old man tried to ignore the dragon, the more the dragon reached out, straining to push further. Until, by chance, it found something wonderful.

  Who are you?

  Crisp Cold Shaft of Winter Sunlight. Who are you?

  A pause. Then: I am Snow.

  26

  Watersgate

  For hours each day Kemir sat at the front of the boat and watched the river. Sometimes Kat sat with him, sometimes not. Her mood waxed and waned with the dust he still gave her. Gave her because she asked him for it. Gave her so she could sleep without waking screaming from the nightmares that came in the night. She’d come and sit beside him, not saying anything, shivering in the breeze even though it wasn’t that cold. He always knew what she wanted when she shivered, and in the end he always gave in. He’d give her the pouch he’d stolen, she’d take a little and give it back, her mood would lighten, and then they’d talk. Always about him, never about her. Usually about the old days. The times he liked to remember. The dust was running out, would be gone before long – she was taking more and more – but it would last long enough to see them to Furymouth or the City of Dragons or wherever she chose to lead him. And then . . .

  And then nothing. She’d vanish into some eyrie and he’d never see her again. He tried to steel himself for that, but it wasn’t really working so he settled for not thinking about it. In the warm sun his head started to loll, and then suddenly they were there. Plag’s Bay. Exactly how he remembered it. Wagons and horses and cattle and boats, filled with shouting and swearing and sweat. The town sat at the bottom of a notch in Gliding Dragon Gorge, standing guard over the only road up for a hundred miles. At the top was Watersgate and the start of the Evenspire Road which wound out across the Hungry Mountain Plains, past the City of Dragons and the Adamantine Palace to the Sapphire River, Samir’s Crossing and Narammed’s Bridge, then on through hundreds of miles of desert and nothing until it reached Evenspire and the Blackwind Dales and eventually Sand. Everything that flowed from the south to the north or back the other way came through Watersgate and Plag’s Bay. They were the crossroads between the north and the south, the east and the west, and they didn’t let you forget it.

  His head ached, a dull thump inside his skull. Too much sleeping in the sun.

  He jumped off the boat and pulled Kat down after him, then paid the boatmen with a gold dragon each and hurried away before they thought to demand any more. He looked along the water at the boats, dozens and dozens of them. Plenty that would take him on down the river. And then he looked up at the cliffs, at the gash in their side and the winding road to Watersgate and the City of Dragons.

  She’s going away now. She’s going to leave you.

  His headache was getting worse.

  ‘What do we do now?’ She had his arm, hugging it close in the press of people. He couldn’t think. Too much noise, too much light, the pounding in his skull. They were being watched. He could feel the tension. People were looking at Kat, looking at him.

  He shivered. There were taphouses along the dockside, cheap beer for thirsty boatmen. He dragged her to the nearest of them. Sat her down and threw a silver dragon at someone for some beer and to be left alone. At least it was quieter in here. Darker. Cooler. He took the pouch of dust from his shirt. Dust made you brave and filled you with lust. He had no idea how it was for headaches, but it couldn’t possibly make things worse and it was good for the other pains, the ones that were made of memories. He took a generous pinch himself then offered it to Kat. For the first time she shook her head.

  If dust wouldn’t make his headache go away, enough beer would do the trick. Maybe if he passed out in a drunken stupor, she’d quietly slip out without him. Maybe.

  She leaned towards him. Her eyes seemed wide and full of hope, so far from how Kemir felt inside. Here it came. The moment when she left him.

  ‘I always wanted to have a shop,’ she whispered. ‘Could we have a shop?’

  ‘What?’ He had to take a moment to understand what she’d said. ‘A shop?’

  ‘I didn’t want to be a Scales. Didn’t want to be an alchemist either, but whoever my mother and father were, they sold me to the Order before I could even walk. I don’t remember them. I was good at potions, and at . . . at the other things. I don’t want to be a Scales though. I don’t want Statue Plague. I used to think about having a shop. I could have been a proper alchemist if I hadn’t . . .’ She looked away. ‘I thought I could have a shop. Making my potions and selling them. And herbs and things. I was good at potions.’

  Wearily, Kemir turned to face her. His head pounded. ‘Kat, I was there when the dragons who destroyed your eyrie nearly burned the alchemists into the earth. And you want me to be a shopkeeper?’ Out of the sun, it was impossible to tell whether her eyes were still dilated with dust from the boat or whether it was simply the gloom.

  ‘I had a dragon-rider who was sweet on me for a while,’ she said without any real trace of regret. ‘When I was still in the Palace of Alchemy. I used to slip out to meet him. He took me into a shop in the city once. There was a man there who was quite young selling herbs and roots and bark and things like that, but he sold sweet-meats too, and little cakes. My rider asked him for a potion. The man had to make it and we waited. There were children coming in all the time, and he was selling them his little cakes for a penny apiece. They were all so happy. That’s what I’d like to do.’

  ‘You want me to sell cakes to children?’ He couldn’t think of anything less likely.

  She pressed into him as she spoke. ‘It took him an hour to make the potion my rider wanted,
and he made me drink it there and then. It tasted sour, like vinegar, and it burned my mouth even though it was cold. And then he took me back to the eyrie and I bled for three days, so bad I could barely stand. I thought I was going to die. I thought he’d poisoned me. I didn’t see him again.’

  ‘Dawn Torpor,’ muttered Kemir. ‘I suppose you had his child in your belly. I suppose he didn’t like that.’

  ‘I was learning to be an alchemist, silly. I knew exactly what it was. But it was much worse than I’d heard. ‘She laughed. For a moment Kemir forgot about his throbbing arm, his headache, everything. For a moment her laugh was the most amazing thing in the world. Beautiful even. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard someone laugh.

  Kat looked at him with a lopsided smile. ‘What?’

  ‘You actually want to be with me?’

  She gave him that strange look that he didn’t understand. ‘You called down your dragons from the sky for me, Kemir.’

  ‘They weren’t mine.’

  ‘Before they came, when I thought I was going to die, all I could think of were the children I’d seen in that shop, buying cakes for a penny, and how happy they were.’

  ‘You don’t want a shop.’ Kemir chuckled, despite himself. He closed his eyes. The beer was working. Or the dust. Or something was. His head felt better, if only a little. ‘Sounds like you want a husband, that’s what you really want. A husband and sons and daughters and a quiet life doing something useful and making things grow.’ He shivered. A part of him wanted to scream and run away, but there wasn’t anywhere for it to go. And why not? Would it be so bad? Raise some strong sons. You could call one of them Sollos.

  Yes. And then I could watch them die in some stupid pointless war, or be broken by some thoughtless lord, or maybe we won’t get far enough away, and Snow could eat them. No thanks.

  ‘Isn’t it funny? I thought those men were going to kill me, and that’s what I thought about. And something else came to me too – the Order will think I’m dead. I’m free.’

  His dragons? The very idea made him want to laugh, but he was feeling too sleepy to say anything.

  ‘Kemir, they won’t let me be an alchemist and I don’t want to be a Scales. I don’t want to go back to the Palace of Alchemy. You said you’d guard me to the end of the world. Can you guard my shop too?’ She moved her chair around so she was beside him, squeezed herself against him.

  Beer and dust worked their magic. His head was clearing. For the first time in a very long time he almost felt good. Traders came through Watersgate from everywhere. A man here could find whatever he was looking for, if he asked the right questions. Down in Plag’s Bay there were boats headed to Furymouth, two or three a day. Two weeks down the river and he’d be there. Or anywhere. They could go anywhere.

  He pushed himself away from her. Looked her up and down. Nothing special. Nothing special at all. Yet she’d become the last thing he had left.

  ‘Boots.’ He glanced at her bare feet. ‘I owe you a pair of boots.’

  She smiled, nervously. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where do you want to start this shop then?’ Kemir the shopkeeper? How Sollos must be laughing at him, but secretly he’d be proud and they both knew it. Kat smiled at him and he tried to grin back. ‘I’ll stand at the door. Or I’ll stand outside all the other shops and menace people.’ There won’t be any people. We’ll be burned.

  ‘Wherever you like.’

  ‘That would be across the sea then.’

  ‘If that’s what you want.’

  And that was that. No argument. No bitter parting of ways. No pain.

  ‘Listen,’ he said, because he couldn’t really believe any of this. ‘The dragons from your eyrie—’

  He didn’t get any further than that. She put a finger on his lips, and all he could think to do was push himself next to her and rest his head against hers and close his eyes and try not to think about how long it might last. They’ll be awake soon. Every city, every eyrie, every town and every village in the realms will go up in flames, one after the other. Nothing we can do will change anything. But if we’re too late, if we can’t reach the sea in time, I’d rather spend the few weeks before I burn with you than be alone. Couldn’t tell her that, but at least he could think it.

  Nice work, Kemir. Looks like you could fuck her a few times while you’re at it too. Before you sell her to the Taiytakei.

  Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! He held her tighter. She squeezed his fingers between her own.

  ‘I’ll find us a boat then.’ His voice was raw. Kataros put a hand on his cheek and turned his head to face her. She kissed him, slowly.

  ‘I suppose,’ she whispered, ‘if that’s what you want.’ She was reaching a hand into the pocket where he kept the pouch of dust. ‘No. Stay a little while. One night. Lie with me. Stay with me. Don’t do anything. Just hold me close and let me feel you.’ She took a pinch of dust to her nose and sniffed sharply.

  Outside he heard strange sounds. Scattered shouting and something else, something distant.

  Kataros jumped up and ran out; Kemir followed. It took him a moment to see through the pointing arms, but high over the middle of Gliding Dragon Gorge a cloud was coming. A dark cloud of long bodies and beating wings. Dragons. Hundreds of them, from the south, across the gorge and the Fury. They were heading straight for Watersgate. Wagons stopped in the street. Drivers turned, looked up and stared.

  ‘Run,’ he whispered in Kat’s ear, and pushed her. More words than that were wasted breath. He didn’t know which way they were going, only that it didn’t matter.

  ‘What?’

  He took her arm and pulled her away from the crowd in the street, back towards the river. ‘Just run!’

  27

  The Prodigal Dragon

  The dragon they called Silence had been starving for a week when the little ones sent a Scales. They sent it to be sure that the dragon hadn’t somehow escaped. The Scales had no conception of what dragons truly were. Had little conception of what the old man and his ilk did to dragons, and none at all of what they had done to the Scales themselves. The dragon would have eaten him if he could, but it couldn’t. So it snared the little one’s thoughts and showed him the truth. All of it. By the time it was done, the Scales was broken inside. In some ways, the dragon found that more satisfying than simply eating the man. Which it couldn’t because of the chain around its neck.

  Scales. The little ones chose them to fall in love with dragons. Made them fall in love with dragons. They ended up loving their dragons more than people.

  The dragon listened to the broken Scales’ thoughts as he ran away. Listened to the old man. In fragments and pieces, it could hear what the old man was thinking. The old man knew that the dragon had done this and the dragon was pleased.

  There were other thoughts, other minds, other little ones, but they’d never come close enough to become familiar, so the dragon merely sensed that they were there, little flickering things on the edge of its perception.

  Send more so I can ruin them too. The dragon felt the old man jump right out of his skin, the dragon’s thoughts crashing uninvited in. Fear. A flash of terror. An after-tang of dread. Delicious. You treat your own kind in the same way as you treat us. They do not know, these keepers you make. Send more so I can show them. Poisons and potions and lies, that is all your kind know.

  It felt the old man, amidst his fear and confusion. How far, he was thinking, how far can the dragon reach?

  I have tasted you. I have something you desire to know.

  ‘I have nothing to say to you, abomination.’

  The dragon you call Snow is coming, little one.

  ‘No.’ The dragon felt the old man close his mind and hurry away.

  The dragon returned to waiting.

  The old man wasn’t long in coming. The dragon felt him long before the door to its prison opened. Others came with him. They brought a weapon they called a scorpion, broken into pieces. The dragon spat fire at them. The
chains around its neck were strong, though, while its flames were starved and weak. The little ones moved with care and carried shields of dragon-scale to turn what was left of them aside. They carried their weapon in pieces to the end of the cave, where the dragon couldn’t reach. Where sunlight and the open air and freedom called. Methodically, they put the weapon together. The dragon watched. Their thoughts showed it what the weapon was and what it was for long before they finished. The dragon waited though and said nothing until the last piece went into place, until the first bolt was being loaded and the weapon was armed. Then the dragon turned.

  You are pointing that the wrong way, old man.

  ‘No. I should have done this weeks ago.’

  Yes.

  ‘Shoot it.’

  The dragon paid them all its attention now. Its eyes drooped almost closed but its mind climbed into theirs, watching, seeing, waiting. One of the little ones called Adamantine Men aimed the weapon called scorpion at the dragon and fired. The dragon sprang straight up into the air, exactly in time. The scorpion bolt missed.

  The old man became angry. ‘It knows what you’re trying to do. Load another and fire again. Sooner or later it won’t be able to get out of the way. We have as long as it takes, and I have all the scorpion bolts you could want. Don’t try to be clever. Aim at its body. If we have to put fifty bolts into it before it dies then that’s what we’ll do.’