Authors: Stephen Deas
Crazy Mad bared his teeth and hissed, ‘If I see them again, I'll rip them to bloody shreds! You told me, after you came back from your flying castle over the desert, that you'd found out who all the Taiytakei lords were and what their cities were called and the flags and insignia and all that.’
‘That's true. Although fat lot of use it is to a slave.’
‘You saw the ship that brought the warlocks and took them away again, Tuuran. Where did it come from?’
Tuuran picked up his pennies and stood up, swaying slightly. ‘I like you, Berren Skyrie Bloody Judge Crowntaker Crazy Mad, whoever you are. But I was a slave and no one tells slaves where things are to be found. You want your grey dead men, you'll have to ask one of
them
.’ He waved and bellowed something across the tavern floor and sat down again. ‘The night-skins. Our masters. Black on the outside but they bleed like the rest of us. Go ask one of them. You know where to find some? Deephaven, I'd say.’ He smiled and sighed as a tavern boy filled up his cup. ‘The flags said the ship came from one of their cities. Dhar Thosis. For what it's worth, I happen to know that. But don't ask me where it is because I haven't the first idea.’
An emerald glasship hung beside Baros Tsen's eyrie, carefully out of the way of the long snouts of the black-powder cannons. There wasn't much it could do about the dragon though. Tsen supposed Vey Rin simply trusted him, which was comforting in a way: at the very least it proved that Rin couldn't read his thoughts.
They stood side by side on the battlements watching the dragon fly. The rider took it into the air every day now. It was a little miracle, he thought, that she hadn't turned on the eyrie and destroyed them all. She was a terrible slave, utterly the worst sort, wild and with a dark vein of self-destruction inside that fed her and made her impossible to control or even to contain. Slaves like that were almost always put down, yet so far Tsen hadn't done that and she hadn't burned them all either. Perhaps he had that same vein hidden in him somewhere. Maybe that was why he didn't just go back to his orchards and make wine and build bathhouses for people like Rin. It seemed that he and this unruly slave somehow got along, in their strange way.
Tsen glanced at Rin and for a moment struggled to remember what exactly it was that had brought them together all those years ago in Cashax. Half his memories of those days were lost in a haze of wine and Xizic and Devilsmoke dens. Tsen had been the leader of the pack back then. Maybe a dozen of them at times – rich, young, soulless and cynical, Taiytakei destined for power and greatness, all of them. He struggled to even remember most of the names now. They'd done whatever they could to make each day wilder than the last. Things that were best forgotten sometimes but Tsen remembered them clearly. For a while he'd been the worst of them all. And then things had happened and people had died, badly, and the others had drifted away and suddenly he and Rin were the only ones left, and Rin had dragged him out into the desert to go
hunting desert men with a slaving gang who'd been only too happy to have a couple of rich boys with their sleds slumming it out in the sands. His heart hadn't been in it any more by then. In fact most of the time out among the dunes he wasn't sure whether he even had a heart at all.
Thirty years later he knew that he did. It had taken quite a while but he'd found a certain peace again.
And so would it be so bad to give in to wisdom and let it all go and live a long quiet life somewhere doing the things I love?
But the more he looked at Rin, the more all those old memories kept coming back and the more he knew that yes, it would.
Ah, the follies of pride
.
‘I've explained matters as succinctly as I can to Sea Lord Quai'Shu,’ said Vey Rin. ‘He doesn't seem to be terribly . . . coherent.’ Overhead the dragon twisted in somersaults, jinking and rolling into a series of tight turns far too fast for a lightning cannon to follow. Rin wasn't really looking – didn't seem to care at all – but Tsen often came out to watch the dragon when it flew now. Not that he wanted to actually get onto the back of the thing – the thought made him shudder every time – but he
did
find himself wondering what it felt like up there. He'd sailed sleds over the desert after all, him and Rin and the rest of them. From what he remembered, it had been a lot of fun.
‘Quai'Shu has lost his mind, Rin. He and coherence parted long ago and you knew that before you came.’
Charades and masquerades. Is that all we are?
‘At least he's still alive. How much longer before your wager with your friend Meido is done?’
‘A little under two months.’
Your friend Meido? What have you promised him?
He wondered at his own irritation.
Would Meido be so bad? Of all the rest, would he really be so bad? No, he wouldn't. So why not just let him have it?
But he couldn't.
Why? Because I can do better, damn you all, that's why. And because Meido would give Shonda what he wants, and for some reason I simply can't bear to let you have these monsters, Rin. Because you and Shonda never really changed
.
Rin shook his head. ‘My brother is growing impatient. He doesn't wish to wait for two months. He wonders with whom he should speak regarding matters that affect the future of our business together.’
Tsen watched the dragon, a distant speck in the sky now.
With her
.
With that
. He wondered, as always, if today would be the day she simply didn't come back. ‘I suggest the Great Sea Council, my friend. Or for matters less public, perhaps my Lord Quai'Shu.’ Tsen smiled, though Rin knew him far too well for that to work.
‘I didn't come here to be mocked, Tsen.’
‘And I won't be the one to set that monster on Dhar Thosis. I see no profit in it.’
Rin shrugged. ‘All debts paid and you see no profit?’
‘Oh, if my dragon is destroyed by Senxian and his stone titans and his lightning cannon then you'll find some other way to keep me in your pocket; and if by some miracle my dragon destroys his city, the Elemental Men will rip
both
of our houses to pieces and I shall be too dead to even wag my finger at you and say
told you so
. Perhaps I might ask them to take my corpse to yours and re-enact the scene. How many thousands dwell in Dhar Thosis?’
‘Many. How many thousands dwell in Bom Tark, Tsen?’
A scream rang out from one of the towers. A welcome distraction from an uncomfortable thought. Rin had put a slave in a cage up there and lined it with silver to draw the eyes of his jade ravens, his messengers to and from Vespinarr while he was here. One was perched on top of the cage now, the size of a hawk but with feathers of a deep iridescent green and an emerald beak like the emerald of Rin's glasship. Rin kept his eyes on the dragon while Tsen watched the bird. The jade ravens made his skin crawl; he'd been glad to be rid of them after Quai'Shu lost his mind and now Rin had brought them back again. They came from Qeled and they were, as far as Tsen could tell, fitting ambassadors of their realm. The silver drew the raven to the cage, but it was the slave it was after. The bird hopped down and squeezed through the bars. The slave kicked out but the raven was too quick. It flapped and jumped and dodged and pecked the man on the foot. It couldn't have been more than a tiny puncture but the slave only had time for one pitiful scream as he turned green and then shattered, transformed by the bird's poison. The jade raven poked at the debris and began to devour the fragments, the broken chunks of what had once been flesh, pecking at them then hopping from one to the next like a crow. From a distance it seemed as though the birds turned men into
glass, but that wasn't true. Hard and brittle but more of a resin, like amber or Xizic. Tsen shuddered.
More monsters. As if we don't have enough of them
. He had a dim idea that someone at the Great Sea Council had said something about letting them loose to trouble the Ice Witch. A thing already done? He wasn't sure.
But if we do then I'm quite sure it won't be the Ice Witch they devour
.
Rin was watching the dragon come in to land. It came down hard. Tsen didn't know whether it was the dragon or the rider that liked to do that but they did it every day, and so every day the castle shook to its core. Wherever you were, the stone trembled under your feet to tell you that the monster was back. Zafir threw off her riding leathers and swaggered past them, hips swinging. Rin stared after her. ‘That's some slave you have there.’
‘Yes. I suppose so.’ Every flight was the same; and after every landing, after the dragon announced its return, she sauntered across the eyrie in front of everyone with such a fierce magnetism that every slave and Taiytakei alike stopped to stare.
Look at them. All except me and the alchemist. It's the dragon, you cock-brains, not her!
‘But she
is
a slave. Send her to me.’ Even Rin. Tsen shook his head. He wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry.
‘I'd keep my distance if I were you,’ he said quickly, before Rin let out something stupid that he'd have to make up for later by driving Tsen even harder into his corner. ‘She kills. Even when Chrias Kwen wouldn't take no for an answer it cost him one of his black-cloaks.’ Now there was a thing he still hadn't made into any sense. They had loathed each other before and now they loathed each other even more. He struggled to imagine what Chrias had been thinking, making such a fool of himself. Did he see it as some unkind little victory? If he did, Tsen thought he was wrong.
Her eyes say otherwise, Chrias my dear sweet enemy. Her eyes say it was hers. Not that I much care, but I do wonder how that can be. What has she done to you? Something bitter, I hope. You brought it on yourself and so you deserve it. I'd ask but – wait – I can't, because you're not here, because you're off assembling a fleet and an army for our dear friend Rin while he helps you into Quai'Shu’s cape. Not that I'm supposed to know anything about that . . .
He tried to hide his unease behind a laugh. Rin didn't much like it but as far as Tsen was concerned he
could choke on it. ‘I wouldn't wish to explain to Lord Shonda why he's suddenly missing both his brother and his t'varr. I imagine he'd be irked.’
The jade raven was fat and bloated now, dopey and slow but it came when Rin called in clicks and whistles, hopping out of the cage and the ruins of the slave who'd once stood there. It flapped lazily onto Rin's arm. Tsen couldn't help but recoil a few steps, but the bird didn't seem interested in him. It preened a few of its feathers and then settled. Rin gently tugged the silver ring from its leg. He stood calm as he squinted at it with the bird on his arm, a lethal enigma of a creature made by sorcerers long dead and that no one understood, and Tsen wondered at the absurdity of Rin's blind belief in his own invulnerability; but then the dragon shifted on its wall across the eyrie and he felt the castle tremble under his feet again and laughed at his own absurdity instead.
Rin peered at the message ring, struggling with the tiny words, then threw it high into the air over the rim of the eyrie. It glittered once as it caught the sun and then vanished towards the sands below. He clapped a hand on Tsen's shoulder. Tsen flinched – Rin still had that damned bird perched on his other arm. ‘Well, there's a thing. The Great Sea Council
has
agreed to turn your dragon on the renegades and outlaws of Bom Tark.’ He smiled. ‘It seems that not one lord raised an objection. I dare say there will be quite a turnout to come and watch.’
Tsen winced. He only had himself to blame. Bom Tark. A few thousand runaway slaves. He'd made the suggestion before he'd seen the dragon fly. A few houses burned and a few hundred slaves killed, he'd thought, and then it would be done, but he knew better now. It wouldn't be that way at all, not with that monster and not with her. A chill ran over him and prickled his skin, even under the blaze of the sun.
And a dozen glasships hovering overhead filled with fat old men like me. Hsians and kwens and t'varrs and maybe even sea lords peering out from their nice safe gold-glass windows. Scratching their chins and complaining about the wine as thousands die, clucking their tongues and furrowing their brows and making notes, complaining about the smoke spoiling their view and and feverishly wondering who might burn next. And my dragon-rider . . .
He shook his head.
She'd leave no room for doubt. She'd be perfect. Meticulous and ruthless and utterly thorough. She'd leave Bom Tark a black scar on the jungle coast. Every ship and building burned, every single man, woman and child dead. Worst of all, she'd delight in it.
‘Are you cold?’ Vey Rin raised an eyebrow.
‘I am disheartened.’
‘You are also, to remind you in your own words, drowning in debt. The dragon is all you have. You have to use it or sell it, Tsen, and you know that perfectly well. Lord Shonda would buy you in a flash. Live your life with us in every bit as much luxury as you live it now. Full of comfort but empty of any danger. Grow your apples and make your wine and spend your days in your bath with your slave. Why not, Tsen? Really, why not?’
‘While you burn whatever amuses you?’
Rin's face went cold. That was the end of their friendship, such as it was now, right there, which only went to show how little it had been worth. ‘Aria, T'Varr. I speak to you as one of our discipline to another but you're not the only one who might one day be lord of Xican. Don't imagine that Lord Shonda doesn't speak to the others.’ He frowned. ‘What's happened to you, Tsen? You saw everything so clearly not all that long ago.’
Tsen laughed in his face. ‘Your lord can speak to whoever he wishes. The dragons are here and they're mine. They will go where I say.’
Rin shook his head. ‘Your thinking has grown muddy, old friend.’ He didn't wait for an answer but instead walked towards the dragon. A Scales sat beside it, but neither the alchemist nor the rider was nearby.
Safer to be close to them when they've flown than when they haven't, but safest of all to simply stay far away. They can be careless even when they are not malicious
. The alchemist had told him that weeks ago and Tsen had been perfectly glad to heed his warning.