Dragon Queen (29 page)

The thought came to him that he was much larger and stronger than the alchemist and so perhaps a small dose of poison wouldn't trouble him? He tasted the food some more to be sure. It seemed like it was his duty. After he was done, the furious slaves carefully rearranged everything to make it seem untouched. He watched them at it and laughed some more and shook his head.

The alchemist took his time with his ablutions. The palace slaves dressed him when he emerged and then he picked at the food with little interest. If he noticed that half had already gone, he didn't show it. When he was finished, the slaves would have done more if he'd asked but he sent them away. Tuuran watched them go. ‘Is this how life is in the Palace of Alchemy?’ he asked. Food made for them? Servants and women at their beck and call? Sounded fine enough. Certainly looked it.

‘We put on our own clothes and the food is distinctly inferior.’ Bellepheros had a faraway look on his face and Tuuran saw something there that stabbed like a knife. A hunger, a desire, a curiosity and a passion and, most of all, a wonder. He'd seen that look before on a woman's face, besotted with him after he'd shown her what an Adamantine lover could be like. She'd called it love. And he felt
a touch of it too, but what
he
felt was awe, and awe wouldn't stop him from trying to go home. What he saw in the alchemist, that was the seed of something more.

‘You'll get comfortable here, Lord Grand Alchemist. Careful with that.’ He wrinkled his nose and sniffed uneasily. The room smelled of sweet fruit and a touch of Xizic. Seductive. He looked away and back again at the alchemist in case he was wrong but he wasn't.

‘In the Palace of Alchemy we're masters of our own destiny. Here I am not. They can never hide that.’ The alchemist snorted but that look in his eye didn't shift one little bit.

‘You will. I would.’

The alchemist waved at the food. ‘Help yourself. Enjoy it while it's here.’

Tuuran dutifully tried a little bit of everything again. ‘Better than ship's rations, that's for sure.’ He looked longingly at the door, wishing for the women magically to reappear. For all he knew this was the one night he'd have in this palace and then he'd be back to the sails or the oars. Or maybe the slave he'd punched was more important than he'd thought and they'd simply throw him into the sea after all. ‘It won't last.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Because I've been a slave to the Taiytakei for years and it never does.’

The Taiytakei came for the alchemist the next morning, and it turned out that Tuuran was right about the one night in the palace. When Bellepheros came back he looked angry and scared and bewildered all at once.

‘We're going to the desert,’ he said.

Tuuran nodded. ‘Just remember who you are, Lord Master Alchemist. Remember who you were and remember where you came from. Just that.’ Bellepheros still had that look, though, and Tuuran's words tasted ashen in his mouth, as though they already knew they were wasted.

27

The System of the World

Chay-Liang watched the alchemist because watching him was a quiet joy. There'd been something about him from the moment she'd first seen him. Yes, he was a slave, and yes, he was a pale-skinned foreigner, but the way his eyes darted from one thing to the next made all of that meaningless. She could see him
thinking
, that was the joy, and not the sort of thinking that she saw from the sea lords and t'varrs and hsians and kwens that filled her life. Not the
how-do-I-get-what-I-want-from-you
thinking that made her sick to the pit of her stomach but the
what-is-this-how-does-it-work-where-is-the-door-to-understanding
thinking that was her own, which had surrounded her among the enchanters at Hingwal Taktse when she'd been an apprentice there and a journeyman, and even in her early days as a mistress of her craft.

She led him into the gondola beneath the waiting glasship. It was a shame that the Palace of Leaves had been so cleverly built that one simply opened one bronze door and then another and stepped from palace to gondola without even realising; although given how the alchemist had taken to their arrival, maybe it was better this way. Perhaps drifting through the sky would come a little easier in a room of his own with only a handful of little glass windows looking over the outside world. It would be like the cabin on a ship, except larger of course and made of gold.

‘Your slave cannot come with us,’ she said as she showed him where they would both be living for the next two weeks. A gondola was a small place to be confined for so long but the opportunity was too good to miss. He'd have nowhere to go and nothing to do and no one else to talk to. Just the two of them and the mindless golem automaton that was their pilot; and by the time they reached the Lair of Samim, perhaps he would have told her everything he
knew, everything there was to learn about dragons. She was eager for that, for the knowledge he had.

‘I need him,’ the alchemist said, and she smiled and nodded and then shook her head.

‘No, you don't.’

‘Well, then, I want him. Your master promised me anything for which I asked. Save my freedom, naturally, the one thing I wish for most of all.’

His petulance and the little flash of impotent anger made her laugh. ‘I know you do and I've already arranged for him to travel with the other slaves. He'll make a fine bodyguard for you.’

‘I don't need him for
that
! Do I?’

His ignorance was refreshing. It made her smile and warm to him even more than she already had. ‘Let's hope not.’

‘I want to go home.’

For now you do
. That was her other challenge for the next two weeks. As well as siphoning away all his knowledge she meant to show him the glories of the world in which she lived. His curiosity and fascination with it were already doors into his mind, ajar, ready to seduce him with ideas and possibilities, and it would be better that way, surely, than making him work by threats and force. One day, she hoped, she could lead him right up to the gangway of a ship home, offer it to him and watch him say no.

She took his hand and led him to the window, charmed by how he flinched away from the sky, and pointed to the palace and showed him its parts. ‘Do you see the old ship suspended in the air? Her name is the
Maelstrom
and she is nigh on five hundred years old. Feyn Charin, the first enchanter to cross the storm-dark, reshaped her for that crossing, not far from here. She was the first ship of her kind, the first to cross between worlds. Do you know how many worlds there are? Yours and ours are but two.’

The alchemist shrugged. He was feigning boredom but he couldn't quite hide the spark in his eyes. She kept hold of his hand and led him away from the window to the desk that was hers and had been for years.
Her
gondola,
her
glasship.
I made this. All of it
. She'd tell him that when he was ready but that wasn't now.

‘I'm more used to travelling alone,’ she said. ‘I had them put these curtains in. You have a bed and a desk of your own on your
side. I'm sorry it's cramped. I'm sure you're used to more grand surroundings.’ She knew he wasn't.

She unrolled a map of Takei'Tarr and pointed. ‘This is Xican and the Grey Isle. We have to cross the sea to Zinzarra. Two days without a stop, I'm afraid. I brought books for you to read. After that we travel down the western coast through the heartland of my people. I'll show you what places I can as we pass them. The aqueduct at Shevana-Daro, the Palace of Glass and the Crown of the Sea Lords at Khalishtor, and Mount Solence, home and birthplace of the Elemental Men. Negarrai with its lighthouse. Abaskun, and Sigiriya with its amphitheatre. Here is Hingwal Taktse castle where I learned my art, home of the Vespinese College of Enchanters. I'll take you there if I can.’ She ran a finger up and down, inland of the western coast where all the cities lay. ‘These are the mountains of the Konsidar. We'll cross at the far southern end and perhaps stop for a day in Vespinarr itself, here, the greatest city in the world. Then another day into the southernmost reaches of the desert to the salt marsh of the Samim.’ She couldn't help but smile. ‘Read the books I have for you and you'll find our oldest stories are rife with monsters. The Red Banatch and the Kraitu of Dhar Thosis. Zaklat the Death Bat.’ The smile turned to a laugh. ‘Stories from before the Splintering. Here.’ She took one of the books and took off her glasses so she didn't have to squint, then opened it and flipped the pages until she found the Samim. ‘“A giant scorpion a hundred feet long with a hundred legs, seven poisonous tails and three pairs of claws, each of which could cut a horse in two. Around its mouth parts, seventeen venomous snakes so poisonous that their mere breath brings death to lesser creatures.”’ She closed the book again. ‘In stories of the desert the Samim never leaves its lair, content to give birth to all the poisonous creatures of the world. The Samim isn't real, of course, just an idea, an old monster whose time has long gone, but above its lair you and I will give birth to new ones. Tell me about what an eyrie should be. What else will we need?’

He looked at her as though she was mad. ‘Food. A great deal of food. Great herds of wild beasts. Dragons are forever hungry.’

‘The western edge of the Lair then, closer to Hanjaadi and the Bawar Bridge.’ She chuckled. That would
not
please Quai'Shu, nor
his Vespinese allies, nor probably the Hanjaadi. Baros Tsen T'Varr would have to move his flying eyrie even closer to the Jokun river than it already was. Maybe further north too.

‘Dragons are death,’ said the alchemist suddenly. ‘We tame them because we have no choice. I'd destroy them if I could. If there was a way. So would you if you really understood them.’

She held his eye across the desk, looking for the lie in what he'd said, but no, he meant it. ‘Then make me understand, Bellepheros of the dragon lands. I'm not your enemy.’ She frowned. ‘Would you really destroy them?’

‘Yes.’ He shook his head. ‘You just don't understand what you're doing.’

‘Then why
don't
you?’

‘Because I don't know how!’ He closed his eyes and sighed and his shoulders slumped. ‘Besides, you have sea lords and their like to tell you what you may not do. We have our dragon-kings and -queens.’

‘And what do
they
say?’

The alchemist leaned towards her across the map. ‘You know what
they
say. They say the same as your lord says here!
They
say that every dragon is precious and to be saved if it possibly can.
They
would likely murder us all rather than lose their precious monsters. And
I
would destroy every dragon in existence if such a thing could be done, and for no better reason than that very greed!’ The force in his voice was enough make her step back. ‘Although there
are
better reasons than that. Many.’ He turned away, the passion in his words slipping to defeat. ‘But what does it matter? Kill a dragon if you can. It just comes back again, born in another egg somewhere.’

Chay-Liang rolled away her map, slowly and deliberately.
This. Exactly this
. ‘Really?’

The alchemist rolled his eyes. ‘Oh, what harm is it for you to know? It hardly makes a difference and if it helps you understand why what you're doing should not be done . . . As far as we understand, the number of dragons never changes. For an egg to hatch – and there are many,
many
eggs across the dragon realms – elsewhere a dragon must die. And the dragon that is reborn will be the same dragon as the one that died. Not the same shape, not the same colour, perhaps not even the same breed, but the same essence. The
same soul, if you will. The same thoughts and memories, when they're not dulled away by my potions.’

‘Are you saying they're immortal?’ Now there was a thing. A puzzle more for the Elemental Men, perhaps. Something that just came back when you killed it? They wouldn't like
that
one little bit. Chay-Liang wasn't at all sure that she did either but then maybe she hadn't properly understood what he meant.

‘You might say so.’ Bellepheros closed his eyes and tipped back his head with a great sigh. ‘Within my order such things are held secret from the kings and queens who think they rule us, and for good reason.’ He looked at her hard. ‘You're not like a dragon-king, I can see that. Your masters embark on madness, Chay-Liang. Madness, and you as well if you believe that what they're asking me to do is good and wise and for the better of all. The dragons
remember
, Chay-Liang. When they're reborn, they remember the lives they used to have and they do not think fondly of our kind at all.
Little ones
they call us when they're awake and we're nothing to them but food. My alchemy may keep them dull for you for a while but even if you keep me here until I die, I am already old and I won't live for ever, while
they
will. Bring dragons to this land and sooner or later they'll wake. It may not be for years and perhaps neither you nor I will live to see it – and I
will
do everything in my power to stop it – but it
will
happen; and when they do then all your pretty palaces will mean nothing.’ He stopped for a moment and looked her in the eye. ‘And your palaces
are
wonders, Chay-Liang, and I wouldn't see them shattered and burned even though your people have taken me from my home and my family and everything I know and love, and all out of greed.’ He took her hand from where it held the map and squeezed it between his own. ‘What I offer you is the truth, Chay-Liang. If dragons come then I will do all I can to keep them at bay, but I cannot be here for ever and then what?’ He smiled, almost in tears at the certainty of his own words. ‘I know what you think. You think you can make more alchemists. I could teach another. One of your own kind. You, perhaps. You might even promise that I could go home once I'm no longer necessary. You think this alchemy is something that I can pass on. But it's not. Whether I want to or not, I cannot make another alchemist who can tame dragons.’