Silver Kings: The Splintered Gods Part 9

Nothing.

Tuuran let out a long breath and let himself slump. However hard his heart was thumping, he couldnt say there wasnt a piece of him that hadnt seen this coming.

19.

The Gold Dragon By the time Liang had her little golden dragon up by the gondola in the dragon yard, MaiChoiro Kwen was already within. The dragon fluttered onto the gondolas crown and crept down the side, its golden claws click-clack tapping on the gleaming silver. Liang had it poke an eye around one of the windows where she hoped the Elemental Men wouldnt see. It pressed its ear to the silver sh.e.l.l.

'. . . every person within this place shall be subject to this order and is forbidden to leave under pain of execution. Lord Shonda of Vespinarr is required to present himself to this place until his non-complicity can be proven . . . The Elemental Man speaking had his back to her. He was standing up, reading from a scroll of parchment. From what Liang could glimpse of it, the writing was marvellously ornate and the scroll was bound to bone and silver rollers.

MaiChoiros face darkened in outrage. He clenched his fists and banged the table. He looked more angry than surprised. Liang didnt hear what he said. Something about Lord Shonda. He didnt like his master being summoned, was that it? She grinned to herself. I bet . . .

The Elemental Man sat down but kept talking. Something about Tsen and QuaiShu and Shrin Chrias Kwen. Liang couldnt hear much of it through the sh.e.l.l of the gondola until the killer stood up again and resumed from the scroll: '. . . found guilty shall be returned to the Crown of the Sea Lords in Khalishtor to be publicly hanged by the neck until dead, their bodies to thrown into the sea unless execution is deemed more expedient to be carried out here. He paused, took a deep breath and went on. 'The Arbiter places the remaining witness, the slave Zafir, under the protection of the Elemental Men until such time as judgement is pa.s.sed.

In her study Liang laughed and shook her head. 'Her? Of all of us, her?

'This is ridiculous. MaiChoiro was sitting very still. 'I was a prisoner here!

She didnt hear what happened next because Bellepheros burst into her room. 'Li! What are you- He stopped as she ripped the silk from her eyes.

'Hush! She waved him to sit on the bed beside her. 'The Elemental Men are talking to MaiChoiro Kwen. Im eavesdropping. So be quiet!

'But we- 'Quiet! She put the silk over her eyes again and shifted back into the golem dragons artificial sight. The smile on MaiChoiros face made her want to punch him.

'. . . are forbidden from approaching her, speaking with her or attempting any contact. The Arbiter will have the truth of what happened and then the slave Zafir will be hanged and the dragon she rides will be destroyed. This is not the ruling of the Arbiter of the Dralamut but the decision of the Elemental Men. The slave Zafir is decreed a sorceress to be executed accordingly.

Beside Bellepheros, Liang gleefully clenched an exultant fist. 'No more nor less than she deserves, she muttered. Get rid of the monster and get rid of the rider, and even Belli must quietly rejoice. It wasnt even killing, if what he said was right, simply making its spirit find another egg, an egg that was somewhere else. All they were doing was making it smaller.

'What? Belli nudged her. 'What is it? In the gondola MaiChoiros expression had gone from a smile to horror. That was delicious too and made her want to laugh out loud. They still have designs of keeping these monsters?

'Theyre going to hang your dragon-queen. She leaned into him. 'Let her go. Theres no hope for her, Belli.

Beside her she heard Bellepheros sigh. 'Come back to the hatchery, Li. I still need your help.

MaiChoiro was whining like a hurt puppy now, about how the dragon was no more dangerous than a gla.s.ship or a lightning cannon, that it was simply a weapon. He wheedled on and on about the Ice Witch and Aria and other nonsense that really made no difference. Liang didnt hear it all but she didnt need to. The Elemental Men clearly didnt care. Excuses, thats all they were, though Liang wondered now whether it had ever crossed any minds what might happen if they did take a dragon across the storm-dark and sent it against the Ice Witch, and the Ice Witch turned it back on them, and how stupid theyd all look.

Belli squeezed her hand. 'Li! Leave it be. Please.

Liang watched for another minute, but the Elemental Men seemed largely done with MaiChoiro. She sighed and unwrapped the silk from her eyes and patted the alchemists hand. 'Come on then. She tried a smile. 'Sometimes Im not entirely sure which one of us is the slave.

Belli grimaced. 'Both of us. They walked together back through the tunnels, Bellepheros wincing now and then at his knees, which always gave him trouble, and Liang wincing at the bruises she still carried from the night the Vespinese had come.

'A right pair we make, she said.

Bellepheros didnt answer, but when they reached the dragon yard he stopped and glared at the gondola. 'Ive seen their sort before. I know what they can do. Their kind brought me here. They took away my freedom so theyve already done the worst they can. Diamond Eye is a catastrophe waiting to happen. Ill kill it for you with a happy heart when its not needed any more. But the hatchling that escaped, you show me that abomination dead first.

They almost killed themselves getting the last chain nets back up but eventually managed it, Liang pillaging gold-gla.s.s from the rubble of the crashed gla.s.ship and reshaping it into struts and beams and arches. Without a tvarr to watch and shout at her, she was profligate, but it was draining to work with gold-gla.s.s that had already been formed and set once before, and it was late and long after dark when they were done. She felt so tired that for once she might actually sleep instead of lying awake in bed worrying about things she couldnt change. The hatchery at least was now back as it should be. One of her many problems gone away.

She bade Bellepheros goodnight outside his study and, since no one else was there to see, hugged him. It confused him he had no idea what to do and it was hard not to laugh. She left him there, bewildered, and went to her workshop and opened the iron door. As she did she felt a breeze, and then an Elemental Man stood before her. He held her little gla.s.s dragon in his hand.

'You have something to say, enchantress?

Liang glanced at the strip of black silk still on her bed and nodded. She pushed past him and flopped down beside it. 'You dont need to keep the rider alive to hear what pa.s.sed between her and Baros Tsen TVarr and MaiChoiro Kwen, she said. 'It was MaiChoiro Kwen, not Tsen, who gave her her orders.

'So you say, lady, but how do you know?

'Because I was there. Hidden and unseen but there. Tell that to your Arbiter. I heard it all with my own ears. Close the door on your way out now. Id like to know I wont be disturbed.

For a moment the killer was silent. He put the golden dragon down beside her. Then she felt a stirring of the air, and when he spoke again his voice had moved. 'We do not expect to see this toy again. Goodnight, Chay-Liang of Hingwal Taktse.

She heard the door close.

20.

The Abyss Dawn burst over the desert horizon. For Tuuran and the other slaves it meant they could see where they were going again, not so much chance of stumbling and bringing down the pole. Hed lost track of how far theyd gone now. A legion of Adamantine Men might march thirty miles a day across open country, but the slaves were roped together and slow. Half that perhaps then, and theyd been going ten days, or maybe eleven or was it twelve? Hed stopped counting when Crazy Mad did his thing and left.

On other days the slavers sent an advance guard ahead as the sun rose. Tuuran had learned to watch for them, a dozen men on humpbacked horses who rode off as soon as the light was good enough to see by. A few hours later, as the heat was beginning to bite, the slave train would crest a rise or traverse a canyon or reach the top of a trail and find a camp waiting. The slavers were hardly kind but they knew better than to damage their merchandise. They gave out water and stale bread and, when they ran out of that, a paste of crushed beans and a bowl of seeds cracked and boiled soft. After eating, the slaves were left to rest until the sun sank close to the ground. Late each afternoon they cleared the camp to earn another round of water and set off again.

On this morning the vanguard stayed with them. As the sun rose, the slavers reached a stream, a rare thing in this heat-blasted landscape of bare broken stone, and stopped a while to let their animals drink. One by one they freed each group of slaves from the pole that held their arms and let them crouch together by the water, still tied at the feet but with their hands their own. They drank and drank, all of them, the first running water Tuuran had seen since the sea. When they were done, each group was led away, one mounted slaver in front, two on foot behind with their spears held close. Tuuran stood at the front of the men of his pole when their turn came. He looked the slavers up and down and knew that he could, if he wanted to, take either the one off the horse or the two on their feet, but he couldnt do both and so he did nothing and followed meekly as the stream cut sharply into the rock in a series of steps and cascades. A ravine closed around them, and Tuuran understood there was no way out except forward or back.

Other dribbles of water joined the stream as they walked, tiny trickles that poured over the edge high above. The air in the ravine was pleasant, damp and cool even as the day wore on and the sun rose high. By midday they were walled between two straight cliffs of sandy red stone, walking through a gentle rush of water no deeper than his toes over a bed of gravel and littered stones. The endless marching wore at his feet and his hips. Everything ached but he was better off than most. The slavers had already had to slow the march twice. Most of the other slaves were used to soft work, some of them used to no work at all. Some hadnt even been slaves before the dragon came. It was easy to pick them out, the ones with no brands who complained and screamed and begged, the ones given the least mercy. The rest took it all with stoical resignation, an unpleasant interlude in a life that had never been their own to begin with. Even the slavers themselves knew they might be taken by others one day, bigger, stronger, better armed. The great cities and their palaces, their sea lords and their fleets and their pageants, were devourers of men and their dignity, endless in their appet.i.te, and those whod once been citizens of such a city found no mercy now. A few withdrew into themselves, silent and dull-eyed, trying to understand what had happened to them, why, and how their lives had been turned so utterly upside down. Tuuran would have told them not to bother. Questions like that didnt have any answers worth knowing. s.h.i.t happened and that was the end of it.

The slavers kept them going right through the night this time, and in the morning too, and by then it was hard even for Tuuran. At least it was all downhill.

The ravine widened. The cliffs arced away around a wide strip of flat land bounded by high sharp hills on one side and a colossal abyss on the other, a great rift in the landscape that ran for miles and delved so deep into the ground that its floor was lost in darkness. One vast knife wound stabbed into the earth. The river ran over the edge of it and Tuuran wanted to run and look but there were slavers everywhere and a large camp ahead of them. Half a mile away, on the other side of the abyss, jagged ruddy cliffs rose towards the sun. Tuuran stopped to stare, and the other slaves behind him stared too. Hed never seen such a rift but hed heard the Taiytakei speak its name: Queverra.

The slavers prodded them on with a bored anger, their hearts not really in it any more. As they left the canyon behind and staggered on across the open ground beside the abyss, a dozen men on horses trotted over. One was the skinny desert man from Dhar Thosis, the rest Tuuran had never seen before. Skinny pointed to him. The others dismounted and cut Tuuran loose. 'Pale skin. Step forward.

Tuuran looked about for anything that might do for a weapon, then bent down and picked up a stone. He tossed it from hand to hand a couple of times, stepped forward and held up his arms so everyone would see his brands. 'I have a name. And have you forgotten the promise I made you?

The other slaves backed away as best they could. Skinny laughed. 'You have a stone. What will you do with that, slave?

'My name, when I had one, was Tuuran. I earned the right to have it back the hard way. I pulled oars and then ropes on a galley collecting more slaves for men like you who sailed the seas of worlds that werent my own. He dropped his arms and looked at the stone. 'This? Why, I might just split your skull with it if you come close enough.

'Keen to die are you, slave?

'No keener than any man, but nor am I afraid of it.

'Then live, slave whose name is Tuuran. What realm were you born to?

'The realm where there are dragons.

Skinny paused, then dismounted. 'Some of my men say they saw a dragon a few nights back.

'So they did.

'Others say it was a dragon who burned Dhar Thosis.

'That it was. It had help from a great many men, though I dare say it didnt need it.

'What else did you see on the night you saw a dragon, Tuuran who has earned his name?

Tuuran eased down onto his haunches. He made a show of putting the stone down and rose again. Letting him have his name probably meant they werent planning to kill him, not yet. Probably. 'I saw the return of the Silver King, who tamed our dragons.

'And what is this Silver King?

'A half-G.o.d sorcerer. Beyond your understanding or mine. Worse than any dragon, I dare say, or better by far. Depends what he wants. Depends if youre on the wrong side of him or the right.

'You serve this man?

Tuuran laughed. 'I serve no man. No man, no monster, no G.o.d, no magician, no one but the dragon-queen of my far-off realm.

Skinny made a show of looking about him. 'Well, Tuuran who has earned his name, I see neither dragons nor queens about me. Just a lot of men with sharp spears and hungry bellies. You belong to me now, pale skin. Well see about your name.

'Oh youll get a good price for me. Guard me well and keep me shackled, and once Im sold, spare a moment of pity for the man who thinks he owns me. Tuuran shrugged. 'Or give me my axe and run fast and far. Youre still the first one Im going to kill.

Skinny rolled his eyes. 'The man who came with you from the city of Dhar Thosis. You know him. Hes this Silver King, this half-G.o.d sorcerer is he? Yet he seemed to me just a slave like any other. How is this, slave who might be called Tuuran?

Tuuran shrugged. 'Youd need a man far less ignorant than I am to answer that. The dragon brought it out of him, of that much Im sure. Why? Given you some trouble, has he? Although after what hed seen, if Crazy had come this way then it was something of a surprise there was anything here but ash.

'He came this way, slave. He paid no heed to anything around him but went into the Queverra. He can stay down there for all I care. Skinny shook his head and climbed back onto his horse. 'Keep this one close. Watch him. Ill have fingers and heads from the lot of you if you let him escape. But I dont want him hurt. He grinned at Tuuran. 'At least not yet, although if his eyes blaze silver like the other then you should either run or throw him into the abyss, Im not sure which. And give some thought, slave who might be called Tuuran, to where you are. No water, no food, just desert and sun and snakes and scorpions for a hundred miles.

'And a dragon. Tuuran laughed back at him. 'You might want to keep a piece of your mind on that. They get very hungry, you know.

The slavers turned and left, and when it came to it, Tuuran held up his arms and let them tie him back to his pole and lead him through the camp and push him into a pen with the rest. Skinny had a point about there being nowhere to run, and Tuuran had long ago settled on the notion that alive was better than dead. Chances would come, the way chances always did for a patient man. So he took his water when they brought it and made no fuss and ate his food, every last drab sc.r.a.p of it, and settled back and closed his eyes to sleep. Crazy was somewhere near here, was he? Maybe he wouldnt punch the stupid b.u.g.g.e.rs lights out for leaving him then. Not if he came back and did something about it.

Crazy Mad. Maybe thinking about him as he closed his eyes was why he had Crazy in his dreams. Crazy and his wild stories of being the b.l.o.o.d.y Judge, of being ripped out of one body and tossed into another by some mad warlock. In his dreams he saw the sorcerer theyd killed in Dhar Thosis, the one hed seen on the galley when Tuuran had thrown Crazy into the sea to hide him.

Hide him?

Because the warlocks were looking for him, that was why. It had been obvious. And because of the tattoos theyd had in the same strange writing hed seen on the pillar in Vespinarr when the Elemental Man theyd called the Watcher had taken him from Baros Tsens eyrie to send him back to sea. Tuuran had never quite understood why the Elemental Man had been so interested in Crazy, only that he was, and that Tuuran was supposed to find him again and watch him, and that doing so was supposed to earn him his freedom, though a fat lot of use that looked like it would be now. But still, right there was reason enough to make his way back to the dragon of Dhar Thosis. That and the dragon-queen who rode it.

He felt a strange surge of something there. A flash of interest that seemed out of place, quickly gone.

Why?

In Vespinarr the Watcher had taken him to an ancient obelisk whose name hed never bothered to remember. Something to do with Crazy Mads scars, if thats what they were. The marks on his leg. The obelisk had weird writing on it. He only vaguely remembered what it looked like now, but he recalled how the writing and the marks on Crazys leg and the tattoos on the back of the a.s.sa.s.sin whod ripped out a piece of the alchemists throat up on the eyrie were all alike. Mostly, though, what he remembered was how they were the same as some of the old writing hed seen in the dragon-lands. In the dragon-queens palace inside the Pinnacles. A world away but the marks had been the same, sigil for sigil for sigil . . .

He was trying to remember. Trying so hard that it woke him up. He sat and rubbed his eyes, fuddled for a moment by sleep. The Watcher had sent him to find Crazy. To watch him and watch for the warlocks. The grey dead men, he called them.

Why?

He didnt know. Never had.

The sigils had been like the tattoos on the a.s.sa.s.sin whod tried to kill Bellepheros.

Hed gone. Willingly. Glad to be away from the alchemist and what he was doing. Glad to be going back to sea. Glad to see Crazy Mad again.

What did they want?

What of the knife?

What is he?

Who were they?

Where is this Watcher?

And then the last thing Crazy Mad had said, after his eyes had become his own again. The dragon was in my head. Taking my memories. It showed me everything . . .

Tuuran sat bolt upright and hissed, awake as if someone had thrown a bucket of ice in his face. The dragon was back. It was right here and rifling through his head like he was some dusty old book. 'You little s.h.i.t! Where are you?

There, out in the darkness, hardly visible at all, a shape of shadows in the desert night. But there nevertheless, its eyes agleam in the moonlight, not far from the cage where Tuuran sat and staring right back at him. The dragon hed seen on the night Crazy Mad had gone crazy again. It was a hatchling barely out of its egg, not that that made it any less deadly to a man trapped in a cage with no axe and no dragon-scale to shield himself. Tuuran bared his teeth. Slowly he stood up, kicking the snoring slaves around him. 'Come on then. You know what I am.

I know. And I am hungry, Tuuran.

For a moment he caught a flash of something. Of being somewhere else. Of being the dragon in the mind of some other. I will think of you as I kill him, little one.

Then came the fire.

21.

In the Blood 'The whole eyrie in quarantine and were not allowed to even move. Li was in one of her huffs again. 'They might as well drop us into the storm-dark, dragon and all. Its three hundred miles of desert to the nearest city and that happens to be Dhar Thosis, so thats no use. Whos going to bring everything we need to survive out here? They were in the alchemists study, since his laboratory was still a charred mess from when the hatchling had escaped. Lis workshop looked, if anything, even worse. Not that a dragon had run around smashing everything and setting fire to it, that was just the way her workshop was all the time.

Bellepheros mumbled into his cup and nodded agreeably. He had no idea, but then he never had. He was merely a slave and that sort of thing was someone elses problem. 'Im just glad you didnt get hurt in all that fighting. Its not your trouble, Li. When it came to troubles he had enough of his own, the first being to persuade Zafir to take Diamond Eye hunting after the missing hatchling. He picked up a gla.s.s retort on his desk and stroked it absently. It was beautiful work, Lis own.