The Adamantine Palace (25 page)

Queen Zafir bowed and kissed his ring. 'Speaker. You flatter me.'

He looked at her. He couldn't stop looking at her. She was Aliphera at her best, her hair piled up on the top of her head to show off the curves of her neck, the same deep red riding clothes, the same carved amber dragon hanging at her throat, the same russet folds of furs to keep her warm against the wind. Everything about her glowed.

'Y-You're wearing your m-mother's furs.'

Zafir bowed her head. 'Since she died I've taken to always wearing something that was hers. To honour her memory. I hope you're not offended.'

'C-Come.' Hyram offered her his arm, which she took with a smile. 'I-I have to apologise to you, Queen Z-Zafir. I once 1-loved your mother very much. I should n-not have said what I did after you were crowned.'

She met his eyes with sadness. 'No, Speaker, you should not. Prince Jehal killed my mother. We both know that now.'

He looked away and bit his lip. 'I d-don't know. I-It may have been an a-accident.'

'I think he was on her dragon with her when she died.'

'I kn-know he was.'

For a moment Zafir tensed. 'You know?'

'Y-Yes. H-He told me. I was n-not very kingly while he w-was here, but I did learn a g-great deal.'

'Then I am keen to know more.' She was still tense. Idly, Hyram wondered why.

'I know that e-everything you told me was true. I kn-know I should have paid more heed to your 1-letters. I know I d-did you an injustice. P-Please forgive me. Tell me, how are the rest of your family?'

She seemed to relax. 'My sister still grieves. Uncle Kazalain has sworn an oath of vengeance. He stomps and shouts and drinks and bellows for war and has no idea who he should fight.' She gave him a thoughtful look. 'Mostly he vents his anger at Queen Shezira. He has this foolish notion that you might have defied the old pacts and chosen Aliphera to succeed you. He has his sons beside him, but that is all. As for the rest, the whole realm is shocked with sadness.' Then she smiled at him, and he couldn't help himself.

'Y-You are every bit as beautiful as your m-mother, Queen Zafir. I hope you know that.'

'You're too kind, Speaker. But tell me more about Jehal. I came here thinking you would ask me lots of questions, and how clever I would seem to know even some of the answers. But you already know far more than I do.'

He led her to the edge of the eyrie, where a line of carriages waited to carry Zafir and her entourage to the palace. There he left her while a hundred servants buzzed about, carrying cases and sacks and boxes to the four corners of the palace. He'd given her the Tower of Air again, hoping she'd understand that he meant to honour her. When he'd summoned her, a part of him had meant to accuse her. He might even have treated her as he'd treated Jehal, with a bit of mild torture and the truth-smoke. Now the thought appalled him. What was he thinking? The Viper deserved it for a hundred and one other tilings, but Queen Zafir?

She was exactly as he remembered her mother. Her clothes, her hair, her jewellery, the way she spoke, the way she held herself. A part of him knew that she must have done it deliberately; another part didn't care.

In the evening they dined in the great hall of the palace, with the golden carved heads of the previous forty-four speakers looking down on them. Zafir walked in with a dozen gleaming dragon-knights behind her, all dressed in the deep reds and autumn browns that Aliphera had favoured. She wore Aliphera's own favourite dress, and the sight of her brought tears to Hyram's eyes. So much regret.

As they ate he quietly told her everything he'd done to Jehal, and everything Jehal had said in return. She listened quietly. Her eyes seemed to tell him that he'd done the right thing.

'It doesn't matter whether he pushed her or whether she fell,' she said softly, when he was done. 'He is responsible, and I hate him for it. I used to like him. There was a time when ...' She looked down. 'There was a time when I hoped he would marry me and not Princess Lystra. But now ...' She shuddered. 'She's welcome to him. I should have listened to you a long time ago, and so should my mother. There will not be a war, Speaker, I promise you that. But I will have vengeance. I can promise you that too.'

He got drunk. It lessened the symptoms of his illness, but that was only ever an excuse. Mostly, it lessened the bitterness and the regrets and the pain, the other illness that ate away at him from deep inside. Except tonight it didn't; it made him worse and filled him with maudlin sighs, until he found himself telling Zafir everything. It was all he could do not to break down into tears. In front of all his knights and hers that would surely have been the end of him. Through it all, she watched him. She didn't say anything, but her eyes seemed filled with sympathy. He'd expected her to tell him that he was stupid, that he was a fool, that what he'd done to Jehal threatened the peace of the realms, that he was an idiot for mourning a woman he'd barely known, and that death was death and he should be glad of the years he'd had.

Instead, when he was done she leaned towards him and spoke into his ear.

'I can't bring my mother back, Hyram,' she whispered. 'But your sickness, if it truly is the same as King Tyan's, now there I may be able to help you.'

'The V-Viper claims he has a p-potion,' Hyram slurred. 'The a-alchemists know nothing about it. You s-said you had some i-information. In your letter.'

She leaned further towards him. 'He gets his potions from the Taiytakei, but I can do better than that.' From somewhere she produced a small vial. 'He was bringing a sample with him when he came to the palace to answer your summons. I dare say he meant to taunt you with it.' She giggled. 'I stole it when he spent the night at my eyrie on his way here.' She opened the vial and poured a few drops into his wine and then a few into her own. 'I thought about asking my alchemists what it was, but you know what they're like. A year from now they might come back with an answer or they might not. I've had it tested.' She lifted up her goblet and swallowed. 'It's not poison, I know that much. It's a bit ...' She giggled again. 'It's a bit like a mild dose of Maiden's Regret. Of course, I don't know if it will help you with your sickness, but I'm sure it can't do you any harm. If you can believe anything Jehal says, it doesn't make the sickness go away, only keeps it at bay for as long as you take the potion. If you stop taking it, the sickness comes back again.'

Hyram stared at his wine. He sniffed it.

'It tastes terrible. It doesn't go well with wine either. Brandy is better.'

'Y-You tried it before?'

Zafir shrugged. 'I wanted to know what it would do before I offered it to you. Obviously I didn't try it until I knew it wasn't poison.'

'B-But it came from the Viper.' Hyram shook his head. The room was blurring before his eyes. 'It c-could be anything.'

She sat back in her chair, moving away from him. 'You don't have to drink it, Speaker. If you do, and it works, I have more.'

'How m-much more?'

Now she laughed. 'Enough for a few months. Enough to see you to the end of your time here. I know where he gets it too. I can tell you, if you want me to.' She leaned into him again. 'Drink it, Hyram. Don't let Jehal win. Be young and strong again, the way my mother wanted to remember you.'

Her closeness, the warmth of her through his clothes, made him shiver.

'What have you got to lose?'

He stared at his wine. He was still staring at it as the feast came slowly to an end. When he meandered away to his bed, he took the goblet with him, still half full. In the morning, he decided. In the morning I'll as\ her for another dose. Jeiros can take it. He can tell me what's in it. He can tell me if it's safe. In the morning. He put the goblet on the table beside his bed and tried to sleep, but sleep wouldn't come, and the goblet seemed to stare at him.

If you were Antros, you'd drink me, it seemed to say. If you were you, you'd drin\ me. If you don't, then who are you? Queen Zafir is right. What have you got to lose?

'Everything,' he whispered, and hoped the goblet would hear him and leave him be, but instead it seemed to laugh.

'Everything? You've already lost everything. And here I am, offering it all back again, and you turn me away? Who are you? What are you? Are you already a ghost?

Trembling, he reached out and took the goblet in his hand. She'd put some into her own cup, hadn't she? And drunk it down. He'd seen her do it. She was right, wasn't she?

That's right, murmured the goblet, as he put it to his lips. Drink me down. Be a man again. Be a man.

Be a man.

37

An Accommodation

Kemir crept out from the trees. In the middle of the river the wounded dragon paused from its howls and turned to look at him; quickly Kemir retreated, but the dragon didn't seem very interested in him. He couldn't see Rider Semian anywhere.

Maybe he got crushed in the fight.

That would be too much to hope for. Kemir ran through the forest beside the river until he rounded a bend and the dragon couldn't see him. Then he crossed over and crept back again. Still no Semian. The dragon hadn't moved either. He watched it for a while, searching for the courage to go out into the water where Sollos lay.

When he finally found him, he wondered why he'd bothered. Sollos was dead, and he'd known that from the moment he'd seen Rider Semian drive down his sword. He helped himself to Sollos's bow, his arrows and his pack.

'Goodbye, cousin.' He turned Sollos over and very gently removed an amulet from his neck, then turned his back on the body and picked his way into the trees. He carefully buried the amulet. Next he set about looking for any tracks that might have been Rider Semian's; he didn't find any, but as the sun slipped behind the mountain peaks two more dragons swooped silently into the valley and landed in the river. Kemir watched them come in through the trees. He strung his bow and crept closer until he could see them properly. The dragons were splashing in the water, cooling themselves down, while their riders clustered by the shore. Four dragon-knights. No, five.

He clenched his fists. He could see Semian again. Still alive. He strained his ears to hear them. The breeze, such as it was, carried their words towards him.

'We saw Storm's Shadow on the way in as well,' said one of the others. Kemir couldn't see his face. 'Mias was riding her, wasn't he? No sign of him though. What happened?'

'We found the white. The Scales was with her. He wouldn't give her back. He set her on us.' Semian shook his head. 'All the others are dead. The alchemist too. Everyone except one of the sell-swords. They were in with the Scales somehow.'

Kemir nocked an arrow to his bow. The breeze carried the scent of the dragons too, a light whiff of ash and charcoal. He savoured it. If he could smell them, then they couldn't smell him. You lying, murdering bastard. I could kill you where you stand. Right now.

'Mias and Arakir got back before they were done. The white attacked them in the air. I didn't see what happened to Mias. The white must have got him.' Semian glanced towards the dragon with the broken wing. 'Arakir was on Tempest. I saw him and the white come down into the river, fighting each other. Arakir was crushed, Tempest has a broken wing and I think a broken foot as well. The white was hurt too. She headed upriver. She was limping and I didn't see her fly. The Scales was still with her and the surviving sell-sword escaped as well. I suppose he's long gone now.'

No, I'm right here. Kemir squinted down the length of his arrow. Where should I shoot you, Rider Rod? In the face? In the throat, as you did for Sollos. Not in your heart, because there's nothing there. Slowly he lowered the bow. This was too easy. Semian could die here and now. Vengeance would be served, but Sollos would still be dead.

There was the little matter of the four other dragon-knights too, but they were armoured and Kemir was sure he could vanish into the forest before they could turn their dragons on him. But merely putting an arrow into Semian wasn't going to be enough. There had to be pain and suffering. He had to die slowly, piece by piece.

'We saw the white. It's a couple of miles further up the river,' said one of the other riders. 'We'd seen Storm's Shadow, and then we saw Tempest. Ancestors! What do we do? Should we go on to the white? It's getting dark.'

Piece by piece. Kemir raised his bow again.

'No.' Semian screwed up his face. 'Yes. No. Was Storm's Shadow hurt?'

'It's hard to say.'

'Go and find out. If Storm's Shadow can fly, take her back to the camp. Tell them what happened and that we need another alchemist. Tell them we've found the white and bring them back here. Someone will have to stay here with Tempest. The rest of us--'

The first arrow struck Semian in the leg, just above the knee. Semian howled, staggered and fell back into the water. The second arrow struck one of the other riders in the back. The third arrow hit the wounded dragon in the neck, which only made it hiss and snap. Kemir didn't stop to fire a fourth; instead he jogged a little deeper into the forest and then turned and followed the path of the river. The knights wouldn't follow him into the trees, he was quite sure of that, and the dragons would never find him in the dark. Not killing Rider Semian, he discovered, was immensely satisfying. Killing him was something he could only do once. He smiled to himself. I can put arrows into his arms and legs again and again and again.

It took him well into the night to find the white dragon and the Scales. The dragon was curled up next to the water, sleeping. The Scales was huddled next to it. As he crept closer, he saw another body too, gently snoring. He slipped up to the sleeping Scales, crouched beside him, slid out a knife and slowly pulled back the man's cloak.

'Scales!' he hissed, glancing up at the dragon. He gave the man a gentle shake. 'Scales!'

The man stirred. The dragon's breathing didn't change.

'Scales!'

The Scales opened his eyes. Kemir touched his lips with the point of his knife. 'Quiet, Scales. If I was going to hurt you, I'd have already done it. Rut if you wake up your dragon ...'