Silver Kings: The Splintered Gods Part 3

'Ravens flew from Dhar Thosis to Vespinarr on the day the city fell, he said. 'Shonda knows what has happened. They would have reached him before I reached Senxians palace. h.e.l.l be looking for us. As big as the desert is, it wont take him long to find us. Its a race now Shonda or the Elemental Men. Tsen shook his head. 'I left in too much haste. I should have sent a raven to Khalishtor at once. Another mistake.

He paused and then put a hand to Chay-Liangs shoulder. 'h.e.l.l come with the best and most deadly of what his money can buy for him, Liang. He wont wait for the Crown of the Sea Lords to decide whats to be done. h.e.l.l seize everything we have in the name of his "friend" Senxian and offer the new lord of Dhar Thosis some marvellous reparation. Hes probably prepared a suitable puppet already, skulking somewhere in the shadows. Probably even made that deal before Dhar Thosis burned. h.e.l.l take everything that was ours and destroy every threat to his ambition. QuaiShu will be allowed to live because hes a broken old man who cant string two sentences together any more, but only so they can try him and hang him for the look of it when it suits them. The rest of us? He drew a finger across his throat. 'h.e.l.l kill every last one of us if he has even the slightest reason. You, me, Kalaiya, all of us. The only ones he wont kill will be the ones who deserve it most.

His eyes drifted to the far side of the wall, to the dragon staring down into the maelstrom beneath them. Hed never seen it do that before. Usually it stared across the dragon yard, eyeing everyone with greedy hunger, or else it stared at the sky. At night in particular it sometimes looked up for hours, as though mesmerised by the stars.

'Whatever he does, however terrible it is, you mustnt stand in his way. He needs your alchemist. Make sure he needs you too. You must survive, Chay-Liang, no matter what fate comes to the rest of us. Close your eyes and look away. Hold the truth close to your heart and never let him see that you have it. Keep it until you can destroy him. His grip on her shoulder tightened. 'But when when that time comes, Liang, you must annihilate him. You must remove him from existence, utterly and completely, or h.e.l.l grow back like a badly excised cancer.

Chay-Liang met his gaze and, G.o.ds help him, even looked sorry for him. 'Perhaps if you hanged the rider-slave yourself before they came it might help show she acted without your order?

'No. Tsen shook his head. 'I will hang beside her for letting it happen, no matter the who or the how, and so I should. He leaned into Chay-Liang and hissed in her ear, 'I played a stupid game and I lost, but I will take him down alongside me before he does it again. Ill not hang the dragon-rider and nor should you. Not until she speaks. Shes the one other person who knows the truth and she has nothing to lose by telling it! He let out a bitter laugh and pulled away, shaking his head. 'Although if you have any useful enchanter tricks to spirit me away to a quiet little countryside villa while making me appear to be dead and hanged, Ill become a most enthusiastic listener. I have one, you know. In the Dominion, a hundred miles along the coast from Merizikat. With a nice orchard full of apples and a winery. And a good bathhouse.

'Sh.e.l.l die as soon as she speaks. Im sure she knows that.

Tsen stopped, struck again by the memory of the two of them in his bath together, how shed knocked the poisoned wine out of his hand after so carefully putting it there in the first place. Why? He still hadnt the first idea. 'So will I, he said. 'And you know, I sometimes wonder how much that matters. Maybe we promise to send her home.

He watched his enchantress closely after he said that and saw the conflict plain across her face. The dragon gone and the rider-slave with it: dead would be better but gone was still good. Then hunger to get it done. And happiness for the alchemist who would surely go too. And then sadness, and for the same reason. Rather too much sadness, Tsen thought. He kept on watching though, until the play was done, and then squeezed her shoulder. 'You made her armour. She ruined it. You should start making more. If you have something Shonda needs then he wont kill you until its finished. Be slow. Let it buy you time. Make a few adjustments to keep her in line if you like.

He let Liang go, and together they watched the dragon again. It was staring at the pillar of the G.o.dspike going on and on and vanishing into the deep blue of the desert sky overhead. Tsen stared too. You didnt get a blue like that at sea, nor in Xican or Khalishtor though in Khalishtor you rarely got anything except rain-cloud grey. Only in the desert a blue like this.

'Do you think it knows what the G.o.dspike is? he asked.

Chay-Liang chuckled. 'Im not sure it knows much more than that its hungry. She sighed. 'If you come out here at night, the G.o.dspike has a light to it. But if you do, remember to bring a blanket. Its a bitter cold under the stars up here. She left him there, staring. Presumably she had things to do. Presumably Tsen did too. He just couldnt think what any of them were.

She was right about the cold. He came out again to look at the G.o.dspike that night because yet again he couldnt sleep and, well, because there were probably only a handful of people across the whole of TakeiTarr whod flown above the storm-dark cloud and stared up at the spike in the darkness and he wasnt sure that hed have another chance; but in the end there wasnt much to see. A dim pale glow, barely even visible and quickly lost among the sparkle of stars. After hed looked at it for a while, he made the mistake of walking out over the wall and across the rim to the very edge of the eyrie itself, standing in the howling wind and looking over the lightning-tossed storm below. He stood, swaying, almost hoping that a sudden gust might catch him and make him stumble. Toss him over the edge, but it didnt. Mostly, after that, he stayed in, down in his bathhouse with Kalaiya and his wine. His Bronzehand finger tingled now and then but he ignored it. There wasnt much to show any more. All that was left was waiting for his killers to come and guessing which ones would get to him first.

6.

Silence The dragon Silence darted and danced through the underworld of Xibaiya until it found a waiting egg. It eased into the dormant skin as a man might slip on an old shoe and was reborn as flesh and bone. The sensation was a familiar comfort and yet always new. Every skin was different. What colours will I be? What s.e.x? Will my tail be long? My neck? How many fangs shall I have? All these things were a joy of discovery with every hatching, yet this time it paused and held back the urge to writhe and smash its way to freedom. Inside its egg it opened its brand-new inner eye and let its senses roam, searching for thoughts and other things to which the little ones were blind.

Within its egg the dragon called Silence remained quiet. It found much and looked at all the things its mind could touch in this strange and wonderful place where it soon would be born, filled with alien thoughts. It found sorceries that were fresh and strange and one that was ancient and familiar and colossal and overwhelming, older than the dragon itself. Something made before its first ever dawn, remembered from a joyous lifetime more than a thousand years ago.

It looked and bided its time. Men with ropes and chains were always watching, waiting for an egg to hatch. Men with lightning too, which was new. It slid inside their thoughts and sang songs of faraway dreams. It watched and listened and waited with a patience that strained its nature for the moment to be free. While it did, it wove mysteries into the wandering memories of those who watched over it, lullabies to make them dull.

When the killers came, flying on their weaves of magic and sorcery, the dragon felt them first.

The Lords of Vespinarr

7.

The Dark of Night Zafir sat on a wooden stool, eyes wide, and stared at the door to her prison. The soft glow of the walls echoed the night, full and deep with the moon clear and bright. There had been places in the Pinnacles like this. Empty white stone halls inside the mountain where no one ever went because there was nothing there except pristine colonnades and arches carved into walls that led nowhere. Light came from everything in those places. Even in the Octagon, her mothers throne room, the light had been like this. All of it left behind by the Silver King. So she knew it was night, the time of the deep dark, and that the moon was up and that everything slept, perhaps even her dragons.

Everything but her.

Her head throbbed with fatigue. Her brow was knotted. She yawned with every other breath but sleep had abandoned her to unwept tears, to frustration and despair. Always at this hour, always the same, ever since shed let them bring her down here. Let them, and now every night she went through it over and over again in an endless loop she was powerless to stop. She could have gone anywhere after Dhar Thosis. Diamond Eye had burned its houses and smashed its palaces, rent their gla.s.s towers to ruin and crashed their gla.s.ships into myriad splinters. Hed killed the sorcerous a.s.sa.s.sin sent to stop her and shed left the ground a-glitter like desert sand in the midday sun, awash in a sea of smoke and flames. With a storm of victory in her heart, she could have gone anywhere. She could have declared war on them all.

Yet when Tsens soldiers had come, shed been shivering, dripping wet from his stupid bath and almost naked. She could have been six years old again. She hadnt even tried to fight. What was the point? Over and over she ran the memories in her mind, wondering why. She touched a hand to her breast and murmured to herself, 'No mercy for pretty Zafir.

Her slaves came every day. They brought her food and water and a fresh chamber pot. Myst and Onyx, named after dragons shed once owned. From the way their eyes brushed over her, she still had their hearts, but they never spoke, not here. When they came, they always came with others. Men, watching. Listening. Zafir never saw them but she felt their presence. And an absence too; for she always saw the hole where the third of her slaves had been. Brightstar, murdered by Shrin Chrias Kwen before shed even set foot on Taiytakei soil. Shrin Chrias Kwen whod sent his men to rape her so that she could understand what it meant to be a slave among the Taiytakei.

The air was thin now. Theyd moved the eyrie somewhere high. Shed felt that and the headaches that came with it for a while.

The walls stared back at her, silent and still. The door to her room was an ill-fitting iron thing that didnt belong, wedged into an opening in the soft glow of the white stone walls. Shed seen iron doors sprout everywhere before they took her, forced into places where no door was ever meant to be, but the stone never yielded. Never chipped, never scratched, smooth and pristine as if freshly polished, everywhere except for the scar in the eyrie wall where Diamond Eye had lashed it with his tail on the first day shed flown him. Iron and stone everywhere, pressed up against one another, hostile and resentful but given no choice. Two parts that could never be one. Implacable foes without any means to fight but both with an endless will to resist. That was something she understood. They were her companions now.

A twelvenight and three days. Shed counted.

Her eyes wouldnt even blink. The tears of wishing were enough to keep them moist. Now and then one tipped over and ran down her cheek, but only here in the depths of night where no one would ever know. They were going to kill her for what shed done, but she wouldnt let them see her weep because theyd think she was afraid or felt some regret, and they couldnt have been more wrong. In the skies over Dhar Thosis, Diamond Eye had broken the last of her fear and taught her to be free. And as for regrets? Yes, she had plenty enough, but not for anything shed done in this world.

I want to go home.

And as they always did, night after night, her thoughts turned to the nine realms shed ruled as speaker, to the lands of the dragons. She roamed those memories, searching for something and never finding it. Surely there was something there to long for, to yearn to reclaim, yet all she found was a bitter emptiness. The Pinnacles, her home, should have brought memories of warmth and closeness and comfort, yet all she remembered was fear and doubt where the only escape had been the deep abandoned places found in long hours wandering alone. Shed tried to murder her fear there, stabbed it a dozen times and thought that might exorcise it but found shed only changed its form. Not better, not worse, merely different. In the daylight, when the fire was inside her, she hated everyone whod ever touched her for what theyd done. Here and now, small and alone in the dark, she only felt pity. Pity for them, pity for her. Pity for everyone. Hollow, thats what she was. An empty sh.e.l.l. And as the tears ran freely down her cheeks, she knew exactly why shed spared Baros Tsen TVarr. Because everything she ever touched turned to ash. Because there was no point in anything, because nothing would make any difference in the end because nothing ever did. Because of Tuuran, the Adamantine Man shed found again in Dhar Thosis, who was her only memory of any kindness.

Chay-Liang spent most of her nights up on the walls of the eyrie. She couldnt sleep anyway and the cold and the wind helped clear her head when she was too tired to work on Tsens new armour. She paced back and forth, turning now and then to face the incessant gale in the hope it would blow the cobwebs out of her head and help her see more clearly. Maybe Tsen was right maybe his cause was lost but there had to be a way to bring the b.a.s.t.a.r.d mountain king down with him, didnt there? It burned inside her, the injustice. The dragon-queen Zafir should hang or burn in her own dragons fire and the Vespinese with her, but the world didnt work like that. Yet there had to be a way!

Low towers dotted the eyrie walls. Watchers scanned the eastern horizon for the pinp.r.i.c.ks of light that would be their first sight of Shondas gla.s.ships when he came and he would come. He had to she couldnt see any way Tsen was wrong about that. Shonda would come and wipe the slate as clean as he could, wipe away all trace of his own hand in what the dragon had done to Dhar Thosis. If he won, the truth would all be down to her.

She cursed. It frightened her. Thats what it was, all this pacing and grinding her teeth fear. And fear burned into anger, and that made her snarl because that was how that witch of a rider-slave worked: fear crushed into rage. She hissed at the wind. She was an enchantress! A mistress of Hingwal Taktse! She had power. There had to be something! Again and again she ran defensive strategies through her head. That was a kwens work, and Tsen had a decent enough kwen supervising the eyrie defences, but he was out of his depth with this. They all were. As soon as we see the Vespinese gla.s.ships, we tow the eyrie to keep as much of the storm-dark between Shonda and us as possible. Make them cross over as much of it as we can. Maybe they will fear their gla.s.ships will fail and fall. Maybe they wont dare . . . But of course they would dare, because everyone who mattered knew that gla.s.ships hardly ever failed and Shonda had hundreds. A few dozen men lost? So what? Hed drive them on regardless.

The dragon shifted on its perch. It gleamed in the moonlight. It had been staring up at the G.o.dspike all night without moving and she found its stillness unsettling. Shed come to know the dragons as restless creatures, but coming here had changed them and she didnt know why. Nor did Bellepheros. Even the hatchlings spent hours doing nothing but staring at the G.o.dspike, stock still, giving an impression of thinking that made her skin crawl. Dragons werent supposed to think. Bellepheros had been adamant about that. As long as he fed them his potions, they were stupid and dull, and that was still quite bad enough! A ma.s.sive indestructible fire-breathing monster the size of a small galleon, with wings as wide as a gla.s.ship and a bad temper? Yes, even the hatchlings were quite bad enough indeed when no one but the rider-slave could control them. Thinking, though . . . Liang shivered.

The great dragon Diamond Eye turned its head to the western horizon and stared at that instead. Chay-Liang frowned and raised her farscope to one eye but saw nothing. Her frown deepened. She might not be able to see anything but the perhaps the dragon could. The Vespinese would come from the west. She shifted uneasily from foot to foot. Or maybe its nothing. Maybe its bored with the G.o.dspike at last.

'Get the alchemist. Maybe its nothing wasnt good enough. She looked at the dragon hard. 'What do you see? she whispered. Pointless, and she didnt dare go up close to it, but Bellepheros had told her that when they werent kept dull by his potions, they spoke straight into your head, although mostly only very briefly when they werent burning and killing and eating anything that talked back. Maybe theyre like cats. Maybe its nothing at all. Another flicker of lightning from the storm-dark and now itll stare for hours waiting for it to come again?

It turned and looked at her then. A lazy glance straight at her that near as anything stopped her heart, as though Bellepheros was right and it had been reading her mind. When it looked away again, her chest thumped fit to burst. For a moment she couldnt move and almost toppled in the wind. She backed away from the dragon and kept on going, looking at it and nothing else until she reached one of the little towers on the wall. Even then she was too frightened to do much except stay where she was until she saw Bellepheros crossing the dragon yard towards her. He was in his sleeping hat and had a thick cloak wrapped around him. Stupid. Im jumping at ghosts. The look didnt mean anything. It couldnt, could it?

d.a.m.ned wind. It was incessant, a remorseless roaring across the eyrie that wore them all down and frayed her edges, as if they werent already frayed enough. It kept pulling the alchemists cloak away as he walked and he kept having to tug it back. He yawned when he reached her and didnt smile. From the look of him and the way he kept rubbing his eyes, hed actually been asleep for once when the soldiers had roused him.

'Sorry, she mumbled, since sleep was a rare enough thing for either of them these days. He looked at her, frowned as though he hadnt heard what shed said over the wind, then shrugged.

'You look like youve seen a ghost, he shouted.

'It looked . . . This wasnt going to work. She pulled him close so she wouldnt have to yell. 'It looked at me, Belli. I want to know what its thinking! Has it seen something?

The alchemist gave a wry smile and chuckled. When her face didnt change, he took her hand between both of his. 'Its thinking that its hungry, Li. Its thinking that it wants to eat us. Its thinking that it wants to fly. Its thinking that it hasnt seen its rider for far too many days. Its restless because . . . His words trailed off and Liang knew why. It was restless because dragons were always restless, but that wasnt true any more, not since theyd come to this place. Beside the G.o.dspike, the great dragon was the most tranquil shed ever seen it.

'I think theres something out there, she said. 'It keeps staring across the storm-dark. I want to know what it sees. Is there a way? Is it Shondas gla.s.ships? Even with my farscope I dont see them. I dont know, Belli it just seemed odd.

'Dragons have senses other than sight. Bellepheros sighed. 'Its her Holiness you need, not me.

The rider-slave. Zafir. Thered been a moment after Zafir had come back from burning Dhar Thosis when Belli had been set on poisoning her. Sometimes Liang wished she hadnt stopped him. Heartless callous manipulative vicious murdering horror of a human being, thats what Zafir was. Liang growled and gritted her teeth. 'Get her. The dragon was still peering intently into the night. There was something there. She swore with such venom that Belli took an alarmed step back. 'If Shondas out there then your stone-hearted queen can tear his gla.s.ships out of the sky. Sh.e.l.l like that. Yes. Sh.e.l.l like that far too much. She watched as Bellepheros hurried away, and quietly swore again. Best send someone to get Baros Tsen out of his bed too, eh?

She sent a soldier to do that too and then paced the walls, staring out at the night, trying to spot whatever it was that the dragon could see, snarling to herself at her own foolish anger. The dragon-slave. Nothing but poison from the very start, a slave who refused to be enslaved, who walked about the eyrie as though she owned it, who treated Bellepheros as though he was her own personal minion and yes, that rankled. Who had two slaves of her own who danced at her every whim even though slaves should never own other slaves. Tsen should have locked her up right at the start and broken her properly but instead hed let her get away with it. Hed tried to be her friend! Unbelievable! She should drag the soulless witch out of her cell and throw her off the edge of the eyrie before Shonda got hold of her, thats what she should do. Should have done that a long time ago . . .

'Gla.s.ships! The lookouts on the south tower raised the first cry. Liang put her farscope to her eye again and this time she saw them, bright specks like drifting stars, far off in the night and coming from the south instead of the west. Dozens of them, although they were still so far that they were hard to separate from the stars on the horizon. Her heart jumped to a faster beat. Xibaiya! They come! A mile below them the maelstrom of the storm-dark flashed and flickered, dull sparks of purple lightning arcing deep inside it. Shed known for days that this moment waited; now her blood turned to ice and her bones to water.

She barked at another soldier, fear adding a sharpness to her voice, 'Get Baros Tsen TVarr now! Tell him Shonda comes! Belli hadnt come back. No matter they had time yet. The gla.s.ships were miles away. It would be another half an hour at least before the eyrie came in range of their lightning cannon. Plenty of time to set a dragon in their midst.

The dragons eyes, though, remained set firmly to the west. For a moment it turned its head to look at her a second time. A glance, that was all, freezing her thoughts and pinning her feet to the stone. It met her eye and, Charin help her, curled back its lips to show its fangs, and she could have sworn it was smiling, as though it knew something it cruelly chose not to share. And then it turned back, leaving her reeling, back to where it had been looking before, only now its head turned as though it was following something that was rising and getting closer and closer and . . .

Every hair on her skin p.r.i.c.kled. She felt suddenly sick and clutched at a wall beside her. 'Holy Charin . . . She ran.

Lightning lit up the eyrie in a flash of stunning brilliance. Liang gasped and whimpered at the shock of it. The thunderclap staggered her. On the eyrie rim a black-powder cannon exploded. She reeled, dazzled and dazed, and then a wave of air and light smashed across the dragon yard and knocked her off her feet. As she tried to blink the light out of her eyes and shake the ringing from her ears, darkness fell again; and then she saw the vast shape of a gla.s.ship rise slowly past the eyrie rim, over the wall, huge and glittering, a monster from the depths, the golden rim of its outer disc glowing bright as it charged its lightning cannon to fire again. It was close, right on top of them. It had come up from beneath and they hadnt seen it.

But Shondas gla.s.ships were still miles away, far out of range . . .

Decoys.

Lit up by the glow of the lightning cannon, a swarm of sleds rose around the gla.s.ships disc and danced like fireflies towards her. Liang closed her eyes as a scream built up inside her.

8.

Silence and the Dragon-queen The dragon Silence strained its senses, listening. Its mind felt sharp and bright, filled with a thousand years of memory. The taste of the thoughts around it changed. A sharp delicious tang of dread drenched them all, harsh and urgent. Strife. Conflict. Men were coming. They were distant but getting closer, fast and full of hostile hunger. The watchers with their pikes and chains set to stand over their precious eggs were looking away. The dragon Silence felt them reel and stagger; even inside its sh.e.l.l, through closed eyes, it saw the first dim flash of light.

Now!

Inside its egg the dragon Silence bunched its muscles and clenched its claws. It built a fire as hot as its new body would allow and burst its sh.e.l.l apart. It leaped and spread its wings and spewed forth flames. The scattered men with their hooks and nets were too slow. It was free.

I am Silence, the dragon whispered to the air, and I am hungry.

It jumped high for freedom and flew into an unseen web of chains overhead. For a moment it was caught. It shook itself free. The men who were waiting for it were fast but not as fast as a dragon already listening to their thoughts. A dazzling flash of lightning blinded them all, and in their hesitation Silence burned them where they stood. Its newborn fire was weak. The little ones didnt char and die on the spot but turned and ran and stumbled and even screamed before they fell, but fall they did. Good enough. The dragon caught the closest and clawed out his spine and then bit the head off a fleeing second. Lightning flashed again, thunder roared and the noise and the light surged into the dragons blood, urging it on. Out of nowhere a little one ran past and staggered and fell to his knees. Silence tore him down and ate him. There was always a hunger fresh out of the egg and fury came easily to any dragon, but that fury had snared them once long ago. The dragon Silence forced back the rage and made itself wait for a moment. Pause. It had come back with a purpose. It struggled to remember.

The hole in Xibaiya. The unravelling of creation. The empty prison. You came to find the Black Moon and force him back where he belongs before the Nothing consumes even dragons.

The dragon Silence closed its eyes and listened to the rumbles of thunder that werent thunder at all, to the cracks of lightning though there was no storm. It reached into the thoughts that filled the eyrie and tasted war and delicious fear. Beyond, out in the skies, it found a scattered haze of hunger and elation. In the moonlight it scurried away, leaving eggs still waiting to hatch, out from under the nets and tents of chains to the sweet open air where the little ones would never hold it. On the threshold of its freedom it paused, lurking in the shadows.

There was a thought beneath it. A mind it had tasted before, the mind that wouldnt break after it had snapped the mighty sea lord QuaiShu. The dragon Silence scratched at the old white stone of the dragon yard with its claws but it didnt fly. It listened.

The dragon-queen was still alive.

Chay-Liang cringed and cowered as another flash of lightning exploded over the roar of the wind, as another black-powder cannon was blown to pieces. Shrapnel zinged through the air past where she lay. A soldier nearby toppled as something hit him and his head disintegrated into a smear, a cloud of red caught in the wind, garishly lit up by another flash. A second gla.s.ship was rising past the rim. Across the yard the hatchlings were straining at their chains. Liang staggered to her feet, stared in disbelief, and then threw herself flat again as a score of sleds shot out of the darkness over the wall, each with a Vespinese soldier flinging lightning at anything that moved. Tsens men poured out from the tunnels. They hurled lightning of their own. Sparks cracked and fizzed over gla.s.s-and-gold armour and the night filled with flashes and thunder. The great dragon on the wall snapped at a sled that flew too close, s.n.a.t.c.hing the rider off its back and swallowing him in one gulp. Liang felt its tension. She fumbled in her pockets until she found a globe of gla.s.s and shaped it into a makeshift shield. She stumbled to her feet and looked wildly about. The shield would keep the lightning at bay but only if she had it facing the right way.

'Tsen! she screamed at anyone who would listen. 'Get the tvarr! And get the dragon-rider! The witch would have to ride without her armour tonight.

The first gla.s.ship rose further over the eyrie, drifting towards the centre of the dragon yard, its golden rim shining bright as the sun until it discharged again, another thunderous arc that blew yet another cannon to smithereens. Liang ran, jinking back and forth, half-blind, turning the shield to wherever the worst of the lightning seemed to be. More armoured soldiers were running from the tunnels into the dragon yard, into the teeth of the storm. A sled shot overhead, far faster than the rest, tumbling end over end, swatted by the dragons tail. Mostly the Vespinese kept away from the monster. Who wouldnt?

More sleds poured over the rim. The noise and light left her dazed and dizzy. She tripped over something and sprawled flat. Lightning shot all around her, death to anyone without gold-gla.s.s to protect them, but the real battle would be fought hand to hand. Think! The shield shed made was no subst.i.tute for armour. A single bolt would fry her skin and stop her heart. The notion struggled up through the terror and she held on to it and stayed where she was, lying very still with the shield on top of her. The Vespinese circled, picking off anyone who wasnt wearing armour, and then began to land, coming down in groups and jumping quickly clear while Tsens soldiers charged into them as fast as they could, howling and shrieking and swinging their spiked ashgars, trying to batter the enemy down before they could establish a foothold.

As the melee spread, the rain of lightning eased. Liang picked herself up again and sprinted through the chaos, bolting for the nearest entrance into the spiralling pa.s.sages under the dragon yard. There she stopped, breathing hard, shaking with exertion. She winced as another crushing thunderbolt picked out one of the watchtowers. On the far side of the eyrie yet another black-powder gun blew apart. The guns were useless. Gla.s.ships were supposed to fly high and drop fire, and the cannon were built to point up at the sky. They were supposed to be mounted on the ground, around harbours and fortresses where gla.s.ships couldnt come from below, not on a floating castle three miles in the air. It made her think of the dragon-queen again. What shed said when Tsen had first shown her his cannon and asked if he might shoot her dragon out of the sky. Shed laughed at him. I will come at you low and fast. That is the dragon-riders way. I will see your face as you burn. Apparently Shonda had thought the same.

She heard a dragon scream. A hatchling. Another crack of lightning shattered the night, one from the eyries own lightning cannon now, turned to point back into the dragon yard, blowing a cl.u.s.ter of sleds to pieces and hurling screaming Vespinese high into the air. In the flash of it she saw something move in the shadows, too fast and too large to be a man. It was the shape of death, of teeth and claws and wings and a long whipping tail. Liang hissed.

'Tsen! Where in b.l.o.o.d.y Xibaiya was Tsen to tell them all what to do? Amid the lightning flashes she saw the hatchling again, bounding across the open yard, ripping men apart as it went, oblivious to who they were. Straight for a tunnel entrance on the opposite side of the eyrie. The one that would take it to the dragon-slave.

And, she realised, to Belli.

Liang forgot her fear and raced in its wake.

An unfamiliar rumble trembled her cell and jerked Zafir from her drifting thoughts. She wiped her eyes and straightened. A second tremor followed. It felt like Diamond Eye slamming into the dragon yard after a glorious flight, except no one flew Diamond Eye any more.

The black-powder cannon. Baros Tsen had shown them to her once, weapons for shattering a gla.s.ship and maybe even a dragon if it would stay still for long enough. She understood. Other Taiytakei had come to hold Tsen and her to account for the lives shed burned. Shed hang or whatever it was the Taiytakei did to the most vile among them. She looked to see if she was afraid and found that she wasnt. If anything it was a relief.

'Holiness! A hammering on her door. 'Holiness! Holiness! Are you awake? Rise, please, Holiness! We have need of you!

She recognised the alchemists voice, the only other voice shed heard in six months that came with the familiar accent of her homelands. Her alchemist, though she doubted she owned his heart any longer. Laughter ambushed her, though the spasms that shook her were as bitter as juniper. 'You have need of me, Grand Master Alchemist? Need? What do you know of need? What do any of you know of need?

'Holiness! Bellepheros banged on the door again did he forget that this was a prison, opened from without and not from within? 'The enemy are upon us! You must come and ride Diamond Eye and tear them down.

'"Must" now, is it? I must? The laughing edged into screaming. 'Must? Yet she was tempted she might at least admit it, if only to herself. Yes. Ride the dragon once more and die in fire and lightning, tearing her enemies to pieces. Better than this slow, cold, lonely end. 'Tell me, alchemist, will they hang me a second time for this? But still, to ride . . . Better than a rope. Better than . . . Wasnt it better to die free?

She thought all these things, still laughing her bitterness, entirely trapped by her own design because no, in the end she couldnt refuse, not if it meant she could fly; and yet as she opened her mouth to answer, to say yes, to say shed ride her dragon once more for Baros Tsen and d.a.m.n them all, her thoughts awash with possibilities and doubts . . . As she did, her mind seemed to sharpen and she felt aware of another presence listening, except there was no one. It took a moment before she understood what this new feeling was.

A dragon. One that was awake and listening to her thoughts.

Diamond Eye? A flicker of hope came and then guttered and died. Not her Diamond Eye. Shed know. The dragons thoughts had a familiar taste. It had been inside her before. The dragon from QuaiShus ship. The one once called Silence. The dragon that had driven QuaiShu mad.

Her laughter turned hard and cold. 'Bellepheros! Alchemist! There is a hatchling very close and it is awake and listening to us. The dragon that had cut her and given her its disease and then left her to die in lingering agony. 'Run, alchemist! Now! Why warn him? Did she think she was saving him? And if she did, why? Because he kept the dragons tame and kept the Statue Plague at bay? Fat lot of use when the Taiytakei meant to hang her. Fat lot of use when a dragon had come to devour her. And yet . . . alive wasnt dead. As long as he was alive then he would keep her Diamond Eye tame for her to fly. Alive could mean a glimmer of hope, even if she couldnt find it.

The alchemist didnt answer. Through the iron door she couldnt hear whether hed fled or was still there, but she could feel the mockery in the dragons thoughts as they wandered through her own. 'Hes still here, she whispered. 'QuaiShu. The Taiytakei who thought to steal us both. Still here.

I taste him.