The Order of the Scales

by Stephen Deas

  Still, he might have tried it anyway if it hadn’t been for Lystra and how immensely in pain he was. The pain was mostly from the old wound, Shezira’s revenge on him. The scar was still intact, but underneath it felt like all the muscles of his thigh that used to be attached to his groin had ripped away. Probably they had. The leg was useless now. Even with his staff he could barely walk. He’d chewed on Dreamleaf until the walls started talking, but the pain never went away.

  And then there was Lystra, his queen, his love, the one who’d brought the world tumbling down simply by being. She wouldn’t like it very much if he had her sister poisoned, and so Jaslyn got to live. Jehal turned his mind to other matters of revenge instead. There were, after all, plenty to choose from. He thought he might start with Furymouth.

  Wraithwing was ready to fly. The dragon felt angry, restless. Something. Hungry maybe. Jehal could feel a quivering urgency in the way he moved. He took hold of the rope ladder and started to climb onto Wraithwing’s back, one step at a time. Hopping up with his good leg, hauling himself with his hands, letting the other leg hang limp and useless. They could have used a crane and a harness, but that would have been too much. He would mount on his own. On the day he couldn’t do that any more, he might as well take the Dragon’s Fall. Except if he couldn’t climb on, he wouldn’t even be able to do that.

  By the time he was in his saddle, he was sweating and gasping for breath as though he’d run all the way from the bottom of the Tower of Air to the top. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to push the throbbing in his leg away. The midday sun burned down on his back. Hyrkallan and Sirion were somewhere up in the sky, far away. Jehal waved his hand. Wraithwing began to run. Around him half a dozen dragons took to the air. Instead of joining the hunt, though, they turned south. If anyone saw him go, what were they going to do? Besides, most of his riders had already gone. Quietly, inconspicuously. A hundred dragons leaving all at once, people would notice. A hundred leaving in dribs and drabs through the day? At a time like this? Invisible.

  As soon as they were in the air, arms wrapped themselves around him. Lystra rode behind him. She had his son with her. An idiot risk, perhaps, if he was flying to war, but he’d been without her for far too long. Besides, you never quite knew what would happen when your back was turned. Jaslyn would have stood watch over her little sister, he was sure of that, but in the end he couldn’t bring himself to fly without her, not after everything that had held them apart. And once he’d told her where he was going, he would have had to have had riders hold her down to keep her from flying with him.

  He skirted the edges of his realm, circumspect in his approach. They passed the night in the wild hills near where the Worldspine kissed the Endless Sea. Hardly anyone lived out here. Those who did had scant regard for dragons or their riders but enough shrewdness to know when to run. He lay wrapped in furs, staring up at the stars with Lystra by his side and their son snuffling between them. Like a common man with his wife and his son might do. No pageants for us tonight, no massive tents that take an hour and a dozen men to erect so I might sleep without a breeze on my face. I like the breeze. This was where everything had started. In these wooded hills. Not far from here was the little valley where Aliphera’s shattered body had finally been found. He looked up. There were no clouds up there tonight. Through the haze of Dreamleaf, time seemed to stop. Here, the world was almost perfect.

  Almost. Pity about the pain that simply wouldn’t go away.

  Lystra started to snore. The baby coughed and wriggled. He wondered if he should tell her. Maybe if she knew everything he’d done, the world might suddenly start to turn better.

  Don’t be such a sentimental idiot. Words won’t mend your leg. They won’t put Aliphera’s bones back together. They won’t put Shezira’s head back on her neck nor Meteroa’s either. They won’t make anything different at all except she’ll know how much of a bastard you really are, and then there’s a good chance she just might not like you any more. Which would be a bad thing. So keep your mouth shut. Let her think that none of this is your fault and make sure you get rid of anyone who says otherwise. How does that sound? No, don’t even bother to answer that, because we both know how it sounds.

  It sounded like his uncle. Who was dead, he reminded himself. Callous and mean and eminently practical. Hadn’t worked out too well for him in the end.

  Things worked out for him for a good long time, and you’re smarter than he was. Stick with what you know, Jehal. Don’t suddenly try to be something you’re not.

  But that was the problem. That’s exactly what he was doing. Trying to be the same man he’d been a year ago, when all this had started, and he wasn’t liking it. It wasn’t fun any more.

  Ah. So now you’re the nice Jehal we’ve all been missing for, well, since the moment you were born, really. Some other Jehal, who doesn’t make a habit of getting rid of anyone in his way. A Jehal who thinks about something beyond sitting on the throne he thinks his father should have had. Don’t you think it’s a bit late for that?

  He had a lot of enemies now, it was true. He doubted they’d simply let him walk away.

  And let’s not forget the inordinate time and the elaborate plans to lure every woman who crosses your path into bed. It would be a lot quicker and easier to just punch them in the face and rape them. Probably a lot more honest too. Might there be the odd grudge there?

  No. Not fair. Like who?

  Who exactly are you at war with? And, if you could possibly manage to be frank for a moment, you really don’t care about what you’ve done to any of them.

  He turned and looked at Lystra. I care about this one.

  Because she’s so immeasurably stupid and naive she believes that somewhere there’s something nice in you. There isn’t. If getting it up didn’t hurt so much right now, if you could actually walk even a little bit, you’d be off after some young virginal dragon-rider just to prove you still had it in you. She’d probably even let you go if you asked nicely, that’s how much dumb faith she has in you. Entirely undeserved and entirely misguided.

  He reached a hand to stroke Lystra’s hair. She sighed and shifted but didn’t wake up. They’d barely had a chance to talk about what had happened in the Pinnacles, but the bruises on her face told their own story. Another reason to go after Zafir.

  While the world burns. Yes. Go on, Jehal, pursue your little grudge. Much more important for you two to prove once and for all who’s the better bastard. As if it’s going to make any difference when the alchemists run out of potion.

  Still hadn’t asked Jeiros why he didn’t simply make more.

  He snorted and snuggled up close to his wife. The baby stirred and then whimpered. When it came to the dragons, there really wasn’t much he could do.

  Lystra was looking at him, her eyes open now. ‘Why are you awake?’ she whispered. ‘Is it the baby? I heard him make a noise. He’s probably hungry again.’

  Is he? Jehal had no idea how you were supposed to tell. Babies happened to other people, preferably a long way away from him. He watched as Lystra opened her shirt and then winced as the baby started to suckle. Ancestors! How small they are. He tried to grin. ‘If you put it like that then I’m hungry too.’

  Lystra ignored him. ‘What are we going to call him? He’s more than a month old. He deserves a name.’

  ‘Hyram.’ Jehal laughed. ‘I don’t know. Antros? But there are already too many of them in your family.’

  ‘Tyan. After his grandfather.’

  ‘Who went mad.’ And we won’t be calling him Meteroa either. ‘I’d like to call him Calzarin. After my little brother.’ Who went mad too.

  ‘Calzarin. It’s a nice name.’

  ‘Yes.’ He rolled onto his back and stared up at the stars. Nice name. Nice face. Nice arse too, or at least Meteroa obviously thought so. Not so nice on the inside though. We did that to him, Meteroa and I. We ruined him, each in our own way. Tore him up from the inside out. Meteroa with lust and me with loathing.
Now look at us all. Are you watching, little brother? Because I don’t feel guilty at all. You deserved everything I did to you, and if you were alive now I’d probably smash your head with a rock. And yes I might be a cripple, and yes I might not be the speaker for very much longer, and yes the realms might be about to burn to ash around me, but I’m alive, little brother. Alive and at least very briefly happy, which is more than you ever were. So if you’re feeling smug, you can go choke on it.

  There were times, he thought, when you had to be realistic about things. Sometimes being alive had to be enough of a victory. And however it ends, I so nearly came away with everything. You can’t tell me you wouldn’t have done the same, any of you, dear ancestors. We have the same venom for blood. Hyram called the Veid Palace a nest of snakes. How right. How pathetically right.

  39

  That Which Determines Destiny

  They put the dead sell-sword on the back of a dragon and flew him to a quiet place by the river, well outside the town. Jeiros mixed his own blood with a pinch of Abyssal Powders and tipped the congealing mess into the corpse’s mouth. Then he took a deep breath and tried to ignore the smell. The body was already starting to turn in the heat and it had been a long time since he’d talked to a dead man.

  ‘Hello, corpse,’ he whispered as the head twitched, as the eyes rolled beneath gummy lids and its mouth opened with a quiet moan. He started with the spear. Then the rogue dragons in the Worldspine. Back beyond that to the white, to the attack on the Redoubt, the white dragon’s first awakening, the attack on Queen Shezira’s wedding party that had started it all. He listened patiently to it all. When he was done he had the body burned. The trouble with waking the dead, as he’d learned to his cost, often came with putting them back to sleep again. Dragons sorted that out easily enough.

  A Scales. The sell-sword had been with a Scales, of all people. A should-have-been-alchemist who’d done something stupid and been demoted to a Scales. Kataros. Name didn’t mean anything.

  An almost-alchemist who’d seen the spear turn two dragons to stone. Who would know the spear for what it was. Who very probably had a sizeable chip on her shoulder. Marvellous.

  ‘You know what annoys me?’ he grumbled to Vioros when he was done. ‘Someone started this. Someone tried to steal the white, and that’s when she escaped. And I have no idea who did it.’

  ‘That annoys you?’ Vioros looked at him as though he was mad.

  ‘I’d at least like someone to blame.’

  ‘Valmeyan.’

  He shrugged. ‘Probably. Now he’s dead, I suppose we’ll never know.’

  They flew the short distance back to Hammerford along the Fury, skimming the river in the futile hope that the mystery almost-alchemist might happen by some miracle to be drifting along on a boat in plain sight. Jeiros wondered idly what would happen if you fed Abyssal Powders to a dead dragon. If such a thing was even possible. That was the trouble with being an alchemist. You almost couldn’t help wondering about things like that. You couldn’t help wondering about a spear that had shown up where it wasn’t supposed to and had turned a pair of dragons into statues as close to right under your nose as made no difference either. The dead man was only a sell-sword. How did he know the difference between the Adamantine Spear and some other spear that just happened to be all metal and shiny? How had he made it work? Damn thing had sat in the Adamantine Palace for two hundred years without showing the slightest sign of being magical, despite all the legends it carried. And then, just when you needed it, it woke up. Yes, you had to wonder about that.

  And while you were in a wondering frame of mind, you had to ponder what a blood-mage and some mysterious fellow who could apparently appear and disappear at will were doing with it. And why they’d chosen to steal it at this particular point in history and not last year or next. You had to think about the how too. And what a blood-mage and King Jehal had to do with one another. No, you couldn’t help wondering all of those things, even though you knew perfectly well that you weren’t likely to get a quick answer to any of them, and what was likely to be the end of the world wasn’t much more than a week away unless you did something about it right here and now.

  He sighed. He’d been grand master of the Order of the Scales for over half a year now, and he couldn’t think of a single time when he’d actually enjoyed himself. His predecessor, Bellepheros, had at least enjoyed himself sometimes, Jeiros was fairly sure of that. And then just when it was all about to get difficult, you vanish. What did you know, old man?

  There was something more to all of this. Something he was missing. He’d have to talk to Vioros about that. Assuming they both lived long enough to have a proper conversation.

  In Hammerford Jehal’s riders were waiting for him, agitated. A pair of them stood either side of a woman sitting disconsolate on the burnt earth, battered and bedraggled. A third rider was with them. All four looked confused and alarmed, as though they hadn’t a clue what to do. The third rider was also holding a spear. The spear. Unmistakable. Unbelievable, but there it was, somehow showing up again where it was needed. Jeiros had to rub his eyes to be sure, but no, it was still there. The spear that apparently had decided to wake up and kill dragons. If he peered hard, he might even have recognised the woman from some quieter moment in the Palace of Alchemy.

  ‘Found her flapping about on the edge of the river on a fishing raft,’ said the first rider, one of Hyrkallan’s northerners. ‘Trying to steal it.’

  The woman started forward. ‘Master alch—’ Which was as far as she got before one of her guards kicked her in the back. Jeiros snatched the spear and gave it to Vioros. Best to seize it before one of the riders thought of taking it back to the Pinnacles to give to Jehal. He cast a brief eye over the woman from the river. He had no idea who she was, but he was sure he’d seen her face once before. He could see the traces of Hatchling Disease on her, just the start of it. On her way to being a Scales, just as the sell-sword had said.

  He gave her to Vioros as well. Jehal’s riders closed around them. He could see the riders from Sand eyeing them up, ready to keep this stupid war going for another round. Well good. Let them eye each other. It would serve as a distraction.

  So now we have a weapon. One we thought wasn’t real, but one that can apparently turn a dragon into stone. If they would be kind enough to come at us one at a time, I might even find that useful. But there were a thousand dragons at the Pinnacles. If he started stabbing them one after the other, someone was bound to notice and make him stop. And then when they’d taken it from him, there would be arguing, fighting, bloodshed, over whether it would be Jehal or Hyrkallan who held it at the end of the day. No. There were betters plan than that.

  He took Vioros aside. ‘This is our hope. This kills dragons. We have this one thing, and that is better than none. Go to the Adamantine Palace. Find the Night Watchman. Tell him this from me. Tell him I will do my part and he must now do his. Tell him it’s black. Pitch black. Tell him exactly that and nothing else. Is that clear? And then give him the spear.’

  ‘Pitch black.’ Vioros looked shaken. ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Vale knows what it means. When you’re done with that, collect as many alchemists as you can. Seize the palace eyries and put an end to any dragons you do not need. Keep a few, though. A small number. There’s enough potion for that. If I’m not with you in two days, assume I am dead. You will go to every eyrie in the realms. The Night Watchman has already sent men with hammers ahead. Do what needs to be done. Poison every dragon, smash every egg. It won’t be perfect, but it might be enough to save us. Keep a handful, though. Use the stockpile of potion at the Redoubt. There will always be dragons. Vale will need them to hunt the ones that have awoken.’ He nodded to the woman. ‘When you have a moment after all that, find out what she knows.’

  That probably wasn’t what Vioros had wanted to hear, but it was all he was going to get, and he was a good enough alchemist to do what he was told.

  ‘Now.�
�� Jeiros rubbed his hands and made sure he spoke loudly enough for all the riders around him to hear. ‘Let us see this hidden den of alchemists our dead sell-sword friend told us about. Perhaps there will be some potion there.’

  It took Vioros a moment to remember, but he’d done his job well before they’d left. A gang of townsfolk appeared almost out of nowhere as Jeiros walked back into the ruined town. He quietly paid them in gold and they hurriedly led him to a cellar half filled with a mish-mash of barrels, kegs, anything that would hold water. By the time Jeiros opened the door, they’d all melted away. For the riders who came with him, Jeiros went through the pretence of discovering a secret stockpile of dragon-taming potions. Hard to feign the enthusiasm, the glee, the surprise, the joy even, that he ought to feel. Hard to believe anyone would even fall for such a ruse. Certainly any alchemist would have seen through it at once. But none of the riders seemed particularly surprised. Because we are alchemists, and people believe what we say? Or because you simply don’t care and pay such little attention to us? I would like to think the first, but we all know better.

  Did it matter? Jeiros didn’t care. What mattered was that he had dozens of barrels filled with river water that everyone believed contained potions and that they were loaded onto the backs of his dragons. Jeiros watched Vioros leave for the Adamantine Palace. To Vale with the spear, where it might be some use. He had a sinking feeling they wouldn’t meet again and he could see that Vioros was thinking that too. Ha! Now you know how I felt when Bellepheros chose to simply vanish. May your ancestors watch over you. And if you choose to fly to Furymouth and the sea, at least deliver my message first.

  As soon as he’d seen Vioros safely gone, Jeiros flew straight back to the Pinnacles and the chaos that had once been Queen Zafir’s eyrie. Dragons, everywhere he looked. And he had nothing to feed them or keep them tame.