The Adamantine Palace (27 page)

The air got colder. Finally the dragon landed in a field of snow, tumbling in a spray of powder, while Kemir thought for the umpteenth time that night that he was going to die. The beast took them to the edge of a narrow ravine and jumped in, gliding down into total darkness. When it landed at the bottom it let them go and fell asleep almost at once. Kemir huddled up against the dragon's warmth and fell asleep as well, drained beyond exhaustion.

When he woke up, he knew something was wrong. The dragon's breathing was laboured, and the Scales was sitting by its muzzle, stroking its nose. This close, in the daylight, the dragon seemed even larger than it had the night before. Its head dwarfed the Scales; its amber eyes were larger then an open hand; its teeth ...

Kemir didn't want to think about its teeth. Instead he looked up. The ravine was steep and narrow, so narrow he was surprised that a dragon could fly into it at all. He wasn't sure how any of them were going to get out again, and he was hungry. And if it wasn't for the dragon, they were all going to get very cold very quickly. The Scales didn't have any flying furs, while the woman, it seemed, didn't have anything else.

'I've seen you before,' he said to the Scales. 'What's your name?'

'Kailin.' The Scales didn't look up.

'What about her?'

'Her name's Nadira.'

'What's the matter with her?' When she wasn't screaming, she looked dull and vacant. She was sweating and shivering.

The Scales didn't answer.

'Who is she?' The Scales didn't answer that either. Kemir shrugged. 'What's up with your dragon then?'

'Her name is Snow. She's hurt.'

'Is it bad?'

'I don't know. She must have damaged herself when she fell into the river with Tempest. It looked like she broke Tempest's wing.' Kailin shook his head sadly and looked nervously at Snow. 'If she did, they'll have to put Tempest down, poor thing.'

'Poor thing?' Kemir scratched his head. 'How do you put a dragon down?'

The Scales flashed him a warning glance. 'Be careful. She's sleeping, but you saw what happened in the river. I don't know for sure, but I've heard stories that the alchemists give them something in their food. They go to sleep and then they burn from the inside.'

'I've seen that.' Kemir nodded. 'That's what happens when they die.'

'I wouldn't know. I've never seen a dragon die.'

'Well if it happens with this one, we won't have to worry about staying warm for a while.' He looked up at the walls of the ravine. No. Just staying fed. 'I don't suppose you have any idea where we are?'

The Scales shook his head. It didn't take long to discover that the Scales didn't have any food, water, shelter, spare clothing or any of the basic necessities for surviving out in the wilderness. He'd had a dragon, though. Apparently that was enough.

He left them to it and set off down the ravine, following the trickle of water that bubbled along the bottom. As he pressed on, the ravine grew gradually steeper and narrower. He passed countless caves. That's the Worldspine for you. Riddled with holes like a honeycomb. Yawning caverns big enough for an army and tiny holes barely enough for a man to crawl into. He began to see overhanging trees above, casting everything into shadow. The sides pressed in closer and closer; the trickle of water grew into a rushing stream that ran faster and deeper around every bend. Abruptly the cliffs on either side fell away and he emerged into the middle of a steeply sloping forest. He circled around to the top of the ravine and sat on the edge, looking out through the gap in the trees. He was high up in the side of a mountain valley. One that looked exactly the same as every other mountain valley.

Great. Nice one. That really helped. Shall we walk all the way back now?

He sat there for a long time, staring, until finally he muttered something and Sollos didn't reply, and it hit him, hard, that his cousin was gone forever. They'd spent a good part of their lives with only each other for company, although it hadn't always been that way. They'd roamed the realms, selling their sword arms, but this was where they'd been born, here in the Worldspine. They'd killed perhaps a dozen dragon-knights between them, but only because other dragon-knights had paid them to do it.

And now Sollos was gone. Their contract with Knight-Marshal Lady Nastria was finished and he was back where it had all started. He had his bow, his knives and his wits, which ought to be enough to survive out in these valleys. He didn't owe anything to the poor fools he'd left in the ravine. He was entirely free to do whatever he wanted.

And entirely trapped. He couldn't walk away from what he and Sollos had been. Not on his own. Not while Rider Rod was still alive. And then there was the dragon, and the glimmer of a possibility that he couldn't ignore no matter how unlikely it was to bear fruit. Trapped. Utterly trapped. Revenge was what he wanted. Revenge, not just for Sollos but for all the others, for every Outsider who'd ever burned. Which meant staying with the dragon and the Scales and the woman, whoever she was.

Which meant keeping them alive.

'Bollocks!'

The shout echoed around the valley and faded, lonely and unanswered. He sighed, clambered down from his rocky perch and strung his bow. It took him a couple of hours to track down a decent meal and another hour to skin and fillet it. Hiking back up the ravine took twice as long as walking down it. By the time he got back, he was exhausted and hungry. As far he could tell, he'd been gone for about ten hours and none of the others had even moved. Maybe the woman had rearranged her legs. He threw himself down and closed his eyes.

'Is your dragon up to starting a fire for us?' he asked.

The Scales shook his head. 'She's in torpor. They do this when they're hurt. She'll sleep until she's better.'

'Well how long is that going to be?'

'If she's broken a rib, two or three weeks.'

Kemir opened his eyes again and looked up at the sky framed by the sides of the ravine. He laughed. 'Two or three weeks?'

'Yes.'

'So all we have to do for all that time is hide her from Queen Shezira's riders and not starve to death. Oh, and we can't actually move from this spot, because if we do, the two of you will die of exposure.' He closed his eyes again and shook his head. 'Curse you, dragon. Curse you for everything.' And he set about keeping them alive.

The Scales was useless; all he did was sit beside his dragon and stroke her scales. The woman spent her time staring into space with her mouth hanging open. Or else she shivered and shook and screamed about things that made no sense. Some sort of fever, Kemir thought, and it went on for so long that he was sure she'd die. She didn't though, and eventually the fever broke. At least when she was well again she had some idea of how to survive. After the first few days she took to coming with him. She didn't even have have any boots, but it didn't seem to bother her to clamber over the stones and the moss in bare feet. Each day she came with him to the end of the ravine and then waited while he hunted. When he was done he'd start a fire, and they would sit and watch the flames. They didn't speak, but there was a sense of something shared between them. Of surviving whatever the cost. Every day he'd give her the choicest piece of whatever he'd killed, and then they'd lie down next to each other and doze. She didn't say much, and she often seemed to drift away. Lost somewhere far away. Or else she had fits and screamed. She seemed to understand when he wanted to be alone. Sometimes, when he touched her, she flinched and froze. And sometimes, when he remembered again that Sollos was gone, he saw in her eyes the same fierce hunger for revenge as he felt inside.

She suited him, he decided. He didn't mind keeping her alive.

As each day began to fade they slowly made their way back, chewing on raw pieces of meat. The Scales was always there when they returned, waiting for them. Every day they came back later than the last, but he never said anything. He didn't eat much either. He was slowly wasting away, waiting for his dragon to come back from wherever she'd gone.

Twice Kemir saw other dragons in the distance. He watched them, little specks in the sky, until they were gone. They never found Snow's ravine.

Snow slept for four weeks, not two. By then the Scales was little more than skin and bone. Kemir and Nadira had left him there with his dragon as they did every morning. When they came back, after dark, he was gone. The dragon was awake. The air smelled of gore.

Meat!

Kemir froze for a moment, then pushed Nadira back the way they'd come. 'Run! Now!' He lowered the remnants of the wild pig he'd killed to the ground. He could feel the dragon inside his head, almost insane with hunger, eyeing him up.

'Alchemists,' he said loudly. 'I'm going to take you to the alchemists, remember. Eat me and you'll never find them.'

He stepped back away from the pig. The dragon lunged forward and snapped it all up in a single gulp.

Hunger! Feed! There was a tinge of anger in there as well.

'Where's Kailin?'

The dragon withdrew slightly. He could feel something in its thoughts that might have been shame.

Little One Kemir, it spoke in his head more quietly this time, I have been gone for a long time. I am very, very hungry. I need to feed, and I cannot hunt until I have sunlight. It is best that you leave.

Kemir retreated back down the ravine and spent the night huddled with Nadira, shivering, trying to keep warm. Without the heat of the dragon, a night on the mountain, even out of the wind, was unpleasantly cold.

By morning the dragon was gone. They made a quick search for Kailin, but there was no sign of him, and Kemir's heart wasn't really in it. When the dragon came back, late in the afternoon, its snout and claws were stained with blood, and its breath was foul. It looked fat, Kemir thought.

They flew north because that's where the alchemists laired. The dragon never said what had happened to the Scales, and Kemir never asked.

The Dragon-King's Tithe

The rider, if his Hatchling Gold has bought him favour, may visit many times before a suitable dragon is hatched. On each visit he will bring a gift to the eyrie-master, and these gifts are of the utmost importance, for their quality and generosity will
determine the care with which the chosen dragon is raised.
When a suitable dragon is finally hatched, a price will be set by
the dragon-king himself. This price is the Dragon-King's Tithe
Usually the tithe is agreed far in advance, yet until the price is
paid the rider can never quite be sure that it will not change.
Sometimes the tithe is everything that the rider possesses;
sometimes it is nothing at all.

39

Parting

Jehal awoke from a restless sleep. His dreams had been troubled -- always running, always being watched, always chased, always having to look over his shoulder -- and everywhere he ran the walls, the trees, even the rivers would burn and melt and the heat would force him to run again.

He slipped out of bed and padded to the window. Kazah, his pot-boy, was slumped on his stool, snoring loudly. Jehal opened the shutters to let in the light. Kazah didn't stir. That was what Jehal liked best about the boy. Aside from being a deaf mute and blessed with a loyalty that put Jehal's hunting dogs to shame, Kazah slept like the dead. Jehal could have an all-night orgy, and the boy would be none the wiser.

Outside, the sun was creeping over the horizon. Ships bobbed on the water out in the estuary of the Fury River. In places the water seemed to be on fire, burning in the dawn sun. Jehal shuddered and turned away. The sight of it reminded him too much of his dreams. There wasn't a little golden dragon with ruby eyes perched on the sill outside. That was the important thing.

He padded back to his bed, sat down, pulled a strip of white silk out from under his pillow and wrapped it around his eyes. His sight blurred, shimmered and shifted, and then he was somewhere else. He was in the Tower of Air in the Adamantine Palace. In Zafir's bedchamber, out of sight under the bed.

He listened. He could hear breathing. Her breathing. Relaxed and restful, as though she was asleep. He didn't hear any snoring. If Hyram had been there with her, there would have been snoring. Then again Hyram rarely came to her, and when he did, he rarely stayed. Usually Zafir went to him and then slipped back to her own bed once he was asleep. Sometimes when she came back in the middle of the night, barefoot, hugging her clothes to her, she looked desperately sad. Other times she looked angry. Yet other times she would look around the room, searching for his little golden dragon, and then she would stand in front of it naked, and blow him a kiss, or mime being violently sick or slitting someone's throat. Whether she meant him or Hyram, he was never quite sure.

Sometimes, in the morning, she would look for him too, and if they were both alone, they'd whisper to each other through little golden ears and watch through little ruby eyes.

That would be later, though. This was much too early for Zafir. Under her bed the little golden dragon twitched its head and skittered across the floor. It flapped its wings, so fast that they vanished into a blur, and lifted off the ground; then settled itself at the head of the bed, a couple of feet away from Zafir's head, and stopped, staring at her. Jehal took a deep breath. She was fast asleep. Sometimes when she was sleeping, she was breathtaking. He could have stared at her for hours.

He shook himself, took the white silk off his eyes and slipped it back under his pillow. Then he put on the other silk, the black one.

Well, my lover, let us see who you've been spying on today.

The answer wasn't much of a surprise. Zafir's Taiytakei dragon had secreted itself in Lystra's room, where it usually was. Zafir clearly had nothing better to think about than how often he was sharing Lystra's bed. Which was pleasantly predictable of her. Jehal grinned to himself and kicked Kazah's stool. The trouble with Zafir's jealousy was that it was a challenge. It made him want to see how many times he could bed his wife without his lover and her spy-dragon catching them at it.