The Price of Faith (20 page)

“Last time, Blademaster. Put down your swords.”

Better locked up and alive than free and dead, Jez.

She held the façade for a few more seconds before straightening, dropping her swords and taking a step backwards. The Dragon Knights wasted no time in rushing in to secure her. Gauntleted hands grabbed her, shoving her this way and that. A foot kicked in to the back of her knee and Jez went down, collapsing into the grass with her arms still held out. She gave an involuntary cry of pain as one of the knights pinned her arms behind her back and manacles were fixed around her wrists. A hand wrapped around the back of her neck and Jez found herself wrenched back to her feet to face the lead Dragon Knight. Another hand grabbed hold of her hair from behind and wrenched her head backwards. She glared deadly daggers at the man in front of her.

“Blademaster Jezzet Vel’urn,” the Dragon Knight said in a formal tone. “By order of the Dragon Empress Rei Chiyo I place you under arrest until such time as she deems you ready for trial.”

The man grabbed Jezzet by the chin and stared down into her face. She didn’t struggle, she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. “You killed two of my men.”

A fist connected with her gut with such force Jez felt the lights go dim. The wind was blasted from her and her body simply couldn’t remember how to breathe. She slumped, gasping and the men holding her let go. She hit the floor and writhed in pain, still trying to draw breath.

“Nothing permanent,” she heard the Dragon Knight say. “And nothing visible.”

When she woke Jez could honestly say, she hurt. The knights had worked her over good and proper after she had lost consciousness and though her face was blessedly free of swelling, a small mercy but at times like this she was willing to jump on any that happened to be going, the rest of her was not. Her entire body felt stiff and she ached in every limb. Her laboured breathing convinced her she had at least one broken rib and… It suddenly dawned on Jezzet that she felt wet.

Opening her eyes Jez’s spirits sank even further. She felt wet because she was wet. She was lying on the floor in a good inch of stale, reeking, standing water. Three stone walls surrounded her and on the fourth side were steel bars, slick with some sort of green substance. A constant and nauseating dripping sound seemed to permeate her very being and threatened to drive her to despair.

Jez let out a loud sigh and ordered her body up. It didn’t respond. A horrifying thought occurred to her and Jezzet quickly thrust her hand down her underclothes and felt between her legs. She sighed again in relief.

“Well at least they didn’t rape you while you were out, Jez.”

“Do you always talk to yourself?” came a familiar voice from somewhere in the gloom.

Normally Jezzet would have been up in a shot, ready to face whatever and whoever was there but her body was sluggish and unresponsive. With more effort than she knew she had she pushed herself up onto her knees and then onto her feet. The entire left side of her body was soaked and her hair was plastered across her face. She moved it from her eyes and peered into the darkness beyond her cell.

There was little light down here in the dungeon. She knew, in fact, that she was currently underwater and the only thing that kept the water out was the sturdy design of her cage and a complex system of pumps that managed to remove all but the one inch of water she was currently standing in. There was no bed in her cell and only a small, floating wooden bucket for waste.

You’ve been in worse prisons.
A sentiment she knew was true but then she’d been in better too.

“Looks like you fought back,” the voice said again and Jezzet gave a groan as she recognised the owner. “I opted not to take a beating. Reckon I came out better off.”

Past her own bars and a little to the left Jez could just about make out a figure leaning against bars of his own. That the bastard clearly had better night vision than her only served to make her more angry.

“They at least tell you why you’re here, Drake?” Jezzet asked, turning around and leaning her back against her bars with a painful moan. “All I got was
you’re under arrest and here, have a free beating.
”

Drake chuckled and let out a sigh. “Aye. It seems the empress is the jealous type, Jezzet and she ain’t too fond of our burgeoning relationship.”

“What relationship?”

“Well she has this idea in her head that me an’ you are fucking.”

Jez groaned again. Some of the feeling was starting to slip back into her body and along with the dull ache came a roaring fire of anger that the crazy little bitch could actually think she’d cheat on Thanquil with Drake. “Where the hell did she get such an idea?”

“Hideo Rurin told her,” Drake said, “apparently he had some sort of proof.”

“What proof?”

Again Drake chuckled. “My confession.”

Thanquil all but fell from the dragon when it touched down with a bump on the upper tier of the palace of the Dragon Empress. He slid from its back and dropped the six feet to the ground where his legs promptly buckled and he found himself kneeling on the stone landing platform praying to Volmar he never had cause to ride a dragon ever again. His one and only consolation was at least it was not yet raining though somewhat fittingly the storm that he had started back at Fort Tallon had followed them all the way here and was threatening to engulf the city in its violent, wet rage.

There was a man waiting for them on the landing platform; he was young and skinny with hands too big for his arms and an unfortunate slant to his face that made him seem permanently spooked by the entire world. The Dragon Prince Yun was a sickly man given to frequent periods of illness and a variety of unfortunate disorders including a facial tick. He was exempt from the constant warring of the other princes on account of his illnesses and so took up permanent residence in the palace of Soromo, the only Dragon Prince afforded such a luxury.

It was prince Yun’s dragon who had been tasked with carrying the Herald to fetch Thanquil and while he was thankful of the speedy flight back to the capital city he was not altogether pleased by the journey itself; terrifying ordeal only began to describe the experience. But Thanquil was here now and he found himself with a pressing need to see Jezzet right away.

“Thank you, prince Yun,” Thanquil said as he forced himself to his feet and struggled to stop his knees from buckling. The Dragon Herald Travine slid down from the dragon’s back and moved to stand behind Thanquil.

“I wonder if it understands me,” Thanquil continued motioning towards the dragon.

“He is not an
it
, and he understands you just fine,” Yun said with an affronted tone and a twitch that bordered on looking painful.

“I apologise,” Thanquil said before turning to the dragon. “Thank you.”

The beast responded with silence and a penetrating gaze that almost had Thanquil dropping his own eyes to the ground. Then the dragon looked away and took a few small steps forward to rest its head on the ground in front of prince Yun. The prince met the dragon half way and embraced the creature’s massive, square head.

Thanquil felt a hand on his shoulder and was gently steered away by the Dragon Herald. “It is unusual for a dragon to be so far parted from its prince.” It was the only explanation the Herald offered as he pushed Thanquil toward the stairs that led down from the balcony.

“I wish to see Jezzet Vel’urn immediately,” Thanquil said with all the conviction he could muster. He had not dared ask the Herald what her charges might be while riding on the back of the dragon and after what he calculated to be a full day’s travel he was still none the wiser. The suspense was frustrating to say the very least.

“The Empress wishes to see you first.”

Thanquil felt his jaw clench with the anger that bubbled up from deep down. “I don’t give a damn what your empress wants. You will take me to Jezzet now…”

“Or what?” the Herald asked, still walking ahead of Thanquil and not even bothering to look behind to check whether the Arbiter was still following. “You would do well to acquiesce to her demands, Arbiter. She holds your woman’s life in her hands and she does not respond well to threats, insults or coercion. Do not attempt to use your magic on her.”

Thanquil was well aware that threats, insult and coercion counted for roughly all of the tools at an Arbiters disposal and as the empress was royalty she was exempt from any form of suspicion or interrogation by an agent of the Inquisition. Only an Inquisitor would be allowed to question the little ruler and that would likely start a war neither Sarth nor the Inquisition could afford. The Dragon Empire’s armies were fractured, each faction following a Dragon Prince but should their empress be threatened they would galvanise in a moment and that was a force no other kingdom in the known world could hope to stand against.

“This best be quick,” Thanquil growled determined to have the last word as a petty victory.

“It will take as long as she wants it to take,” the Herald replied in annoyingly neutral tone.

“And how long will that be, I wonder.”

“Cei am, cha am.”

Thanquil ground his teeth but said nothing more, only followed the Herald in silence through the dark corridors.

There was something about being encased in stone on a floating city that worried Thanquil. Boats he could cope with, though he never liked to be surrounded by so much water under any circumstances, but the idea of a floating city was beyond the pale. He had lived here for almost six months with frequent trips into the nearby settlements but he had never quite managed to find his legs. He was forever imagining the city was swaying from side to side and found he could never walk in a straight line.

Even before he had left on his most recent witch hunt, even before his most recent argument with Jezzet, he had decided it was time to move on, time to move away from this cursed city. Jez’s arrest only confirmed that it was indeed time to leave. Both of them had always wanted to see a dragon but now that they had Thanquil found he would rather have left them as creatures of legend and fanciful tavern talk. The reality of the beasts were that they were loud, smelly, worryingly intelligent and dangerous on a scale he had never before witnessed. It was sheer luck he had survived his encounter with Prince Naarsk’s dragon long enough for the Herald to arrive and he knew it.

They arrived at the great hall doors, little more than sheets of paper truth be told and Thanquil knew first hand just how little privacy they truly afforded, and the Herald turned to him with an odd expression.

“She is hurting, Arbiter. I would advise… caution and tolerance.”

Almost, Thanquil asked the Dragon Herald Travine about Jezzet’s crime. They had travelled a long way together and all that time they had spoken little. Thanquil had been far too scared to ask the question lest the Herald take offence to the subversion of his will and throw the Arbiter from the back of the dragon. They had been quite high up and Thanquil had never quite managed to master the art of flapping his arms fast enough to fly.

The Herald slid the screen door open and stepped through and Thanquil followed the man into the massive hall. He counted sixteen Dragon Knights and with their training that was likely enough to kill him sixteen times over should he say the wrong word. Four stood by the screen door, watching, waiting and alert. The other twelve stood close to the dais and the dragon bone throne. The empress sat upon the throne, rigid and harsh, wearing the bulky robes of her office and an expressionless mask as unreadable as stone. Behind her lounged her dragon, the matriarch, and Thanquil couldn’t help but be awed by its size. It seemed so long ago but it was barely a day since he had fought with Naarsk’s dragon and almost died. This dragon was easily half again as big as Naarsk’s and, Thanquil assumed, half again as dangerous.

He stopped before the dais, a good distance and a dozen Dragon Knights between him and the little empress. He did not bow, nor kneel, to do so would be inappropriate. Thanquil was an Arbiter, a representative of the Inquisition, he answered only to the council and to Volmar and this empress was surely neither.

He waited, his gaze levelled firmly at the girl on the throne, and said not a word though the suspense was a grating, painstaking pit in his stomach. He could feel his hand trembling in his pocket and then it closed around something small and wooden, too small to be a rune and made of sturdier wood. He realised then it was a single lat and though he did not remember stealing it from the Herald it bolstered his resolve and calmed his nerves in a way that only two things ever could; thieving and Jezzet.

“I have summoned you, Arbiter Darkheart,” the empress said eventually when it became clear Thanquil had no intention of speaking first.

“I had noticed, Empress, and you provided such an excellent escort though for a Herald he does seem a little laconic.”

A painful silence erupted into the great hall as all waited for the empress’ reply. “The Blademaster Jezzet Vel’urn has been arrested.”

Thanquil shook his head. “About that…”

“On the charge of having a carnal relationship of my own paramour.”

Thanquil couldn’t help the bark of laughter that burst from his lips and he couldn’t help but notice the tensing of two nearby Dragon Knights.

“That’s… She didn’t… It’s not true.”

The Dragon Empress opened her mouth to speak but Thanquil cut her off, taking a step forward despite the deadly force dedicated to preserving the girl’s life, and raising his voice a notch. “Release her at once. You have no right to hold her. The charges are false and, even if they were not, if sleeping with Drake Morrass is a crime you’ll have to arrest half the Pirate Isles. Release her.”

The dragon behind the empress stirred and let out a growl, dark eyes fixing on Thanquil and boring into his own. “You dare to order me?” the empress shouted.

Thanquil was about to raise his own voice and shout back when he caught the Herald’s minute shake of his head. It dawned on him then that attempting to strong-arm the empress might be a bad idea. Unfortunately diplomacy was not one of the Inquisition’s teachings because there could be no negotiation with heretics. However, given that the empress was neither a heretic nor, judging by Thanquil’s brief knowledge, entirely sane, he decided perhaps negotiating with the woman might be more fruitful than getting himself executed.