The Tyrant's Law (Dagger and the Coin) (54 page)

“And my soldiers?”

“They stand at ready.”

Inys bowed his head, his wings widening in an expression of unease. Erex nuzzled him again.

“Tell the slaves to prepare themselves, Drakkis. I am sick at heart and want this ended. One way or the other, let us finish this madness now.”

Drakkis Stormcrow turned, lifting her arms so that all the signalers among the uncorrupt could see her. In each unit, her gestures were echoed. In silent array, the uncorrupt shifted. Then, trundling out of the depths of the hidden city, the dragons came. Ust and Manad were first, broadening their crests in respect before taking the two of the uncorrupt in each of their foreclaws, then, beating their wings to hover, two more in each of their hind. They rose up into the distant sky, the first of his desperate and improvised army. Then Mus and Sarin. Then Costa and Saramos. Forty-eight times, his allies came and gave salute. He saw the resolve in their eyes and smelled both distress and resolve in their scents. At the last, only one dragon came out. A third-year still pale at the tips of her wings, her scales the blue white of glaciers. She flared her crest, and Erex stepped down beside the child and flared her own. The sorrow in Inys’s breast was almost unbearable.

“Return to me when this is done,” Inys said, his gaze locked deep with his lover’s, “and I will make you the empress of the wide world.”

“If being empress is the price of being at your side, I will pay it,” she said. They blew flame at one another, he prayed not for the last time. And then Erex and her youngest cousin gathered the last of the uncorrupt slaves and rose to the sky. Inys stood alone in the great hall. Alone apart from Drakkis.

“We must go, master,” she said. Her voice was gentle.

“Is there no other way?” Inys asked, though he knew the answer. Drakkis did not speak. She knew her place. Morade had to believe Inys destroyed or he would not return to the island. There could be no echo of him in Aastapal or in this hidden fortress. There could be no scent of him in the wind or taste of him in the water. He reached down a claw, scooping up his slave, and then rose himself. By the time he reached the open sky, his soldiers were little more than dots on the distant horizon.

The sleeping chamber stood at the side of the sea. The green of its lid called to him as he sloped through the air. He landed gently beside Drakkis’s kite and let the slave loose.

“Do not fail me,” Inys said.

“My life is yours for the taking, master,” Drakkis said. “When the task is finished, I will return and wake you.”

Inys pulled up the lid of the sleeping box. The slaves had put a bed of soft cotton there for him, and tiny torches burned in sconces set along the wall. As he stepped down into his hiding place, Drakkis Stormcrow strapped herself into the kite.

“Drakkis,” he said.

“Master?”

“You are a slave plotting to kill dragons.”

“I am, master.”

“There are many people who would have me put you to death for that alone, Morade or not.”

“If it is your will that I die, then I will die. But I beg to live long enough to see you named emperor before that.”

Inys smiled. He had the impulse to blow fire at the slave, though he knew that even such small affection would destroy her. Instead, he folded his wings pulled the lid closed over himself and sealed the jade against all intrusion. Only a small path remained, too small for even a new-hatched dragon to pass through. The passage that Drakkis would take when the war was over and Morade defeated.

Inys settled, closed his eyes. Invoking the silence was difficult. His mind was unsettled. It kept racing ahead of him, toward the sinking of the island and the surprise attack. The legions of the uncorrupt holding formation against the madness of corrupted slaves. The final battle of generations of war, which he could win only by subterfuge and dishonor. Only by sending his lover and his friends to fight in his place. Only by using the schemes and mechanisms of his cleverer brother.

But at last, the silence came. Time became nothing. He became merely flesh. All the cycles and systems of his body passed into nothing, waiting only for the voice of his slave to recall him to himself.

The silence was not meant for dreams, and yet dreams came formless and unreal. He had the inchoate sense of being adrift in a windless openness, floating without effort on an open and empty sky with neither land nor sea below him, but only an endless expanse of air. Then the sense of a presence, alien and unwelcome that almost drove him up from the depth of the silence. He felt uneasy and restless, like a hatchling trying to sleep when it wasn’t tired or else too much so.

Time passed without Inys. Even the sensation of waiting was gone. Inys surrendered to not-being.

Excuse me. You need to wake up now.

Awareness, but only the faintest prick of it, there and then gone again. Easy to ignore, easier to forget. The silence washed back in.

Hey! Nap time’s over! Wake the hell up! I don’t think this is going to be that simple. Do you think maybe there’s some sort of ritual or … I don’t know. A magic drum or something?

Awareness again, deeper. And this time, there was a sense of fear in it. He felt as if he were under a vast ocean, the weight of the water pressing him down. He had fallen too far into the silence. He had swum too near to death. Inys tried to come to himself, to reach up from the abyssal depths of his body to something else. He forced his eyes to open and had the sensation of light. He was still too deep to know what the light was or what it meant. He was not even seeing. Not really. Only he knew that somewhere, there was light.

He struggled like a drunkard to gather the pieces of his shattered mind, and felt them slipping from his grasp. Felt the silence reaching up to take him again.

It’s time to wake up.

He grabbed for the voice. The words were strangely inflected, as all slave tongues were, but they existed. They were real. He could actually feel the words in the dreamed flesh of his claws, and he dragged himself along them, up into the realm of mere slumber. He managed enough awareness to know that something was wrong. He was ill or drunk or poisoned. He couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t let himself sleep.

You need to wake up now.

He breached from dream to the world. The light became real. A torch in a slave’s hand. And another behind it. His body felt wrong, sluggish and dim. The straw he’d slept upon was gone and he felt grime and filth on his scales and in between them. The slave was wrong too. It carried a culling blade, though. The one behind it smelled corrupt. He reached out with his mind and felt Morade’s weapon writhing in the slave’s blood, but it didn’t move to attack.

“Drakkis?” Inys managed, and his voice sounded weak and cracked in his own ears.

The nearer slave shook its head.

“I’m Marcus Wester. That’s Master Kit.” It was the same voice. The one that had called him back.

“Morade,” Inys said. “Does Morade live?”

“No,” the slave said. “I’m going to have to go with no on that.”

Inys felt the relief pour into his soul. He tried to rise, but his body felt so weak. So
heavy
. The air smelled of rot and ice and the sea. He shook himself, trying to bring his mind to bear, and reared up on his haunches. Every muscle in his body was stiff, slow, and unresponsive. The sense that something was wrong grew.

“Where is Erex?” he asked. “And Drakkis? What’s become of Drakkis Stormcrow?”

“Well,” the slave said. “I may have some bad news about that.”

Dramatis Personae

Persons of interest and import in
The Tyrant’s Law

IN SUDDAPAL

The Medean bank in Suddapal

Magistra Isadau, voice of the Medean bank in Suddapal

Kani, her sister

Jurin, her brother

Salan, his son

Merid Addanos, her cousin, and

Maha, her daughter

various cousins and servants of the house

Cithrin bel Sarcour, apprentice to Magistra Isadau

Yardem Hane, personal guard to Cithrin, also Enen

Roach (Halvill)

Kilik rol Keston, a merchant

Samish, a rival of the bank

Karol Dannien, a mercenary captain

Epetchi, a cook

IN IMPERIAL ANTEA

The Royal Family

Aster, prince and heir to the empire

House Palliako

Geder Palliako, Regent of Antea and Baron of Ebbingbaugh

Lehrer Palliako, Viscount of Rivenhalm and his father

House Kalliam

Clara Kalliam, formerly Baroness of Osterling Fells

Barriath

Vicarian, and

Jorey; her sons

also Sabiha, wife to Jorey, and

Pindan, her illegitimate son

and various former servants and slaves, including

Andrash rol Estalan, door slave to House Kalliam

Benet, a gardener

Alston, a guardsman

Steen, a guardsman

Vincen Coe, huntsman formerly in the service of House Kalliam Abatha

Coe, his cousin

House Skestinin

Lord Skestinin, master of the Imperial Navy

Lady Skestinin, his wife

House Annerin

Elisia Annerin (formerly Kalliam), daughter of Clara and Dawson

Gorman Annerin, son and heir of Lord Annerin and husband of Elisia

Corl, their son

House Daskellin

Canl Daskellin, Baron of Watermarch and Ambassador to Northcoast

Sanna, his eldest daughter

Also, various lords and members of the court, including

Sir Namen Flor

Sir Noyel Flor

Cyr Emming, Baron of Suderland Fells

Sir Ernst Mecilli

Lord Ternigan, Lord Marshal to Regent Palliako

Sodai Carvenallin, his secretary

Sir Curtin Issandrian

Sir Gospey Allintot

Fallon Broot, Baron of Suderling Heights

and also Houses Veren, Essian, Ischian, Bannien, Estinford, Faskellan, Tilliakin, Mastellin, Caot, and Pyrellin, among others

Basraship, minister of the spider goddess and counselor to Geder Palliako

also some dozen priests

And also various thugs, workers, tradesmen, and thieves, including

Aly Koutunin, mother to

Mihal, a criminal, and also

Sarai, a recent bride

Ossit, a thug with three friends

IN SARAKAL

Mesach Sau, representative of the traditional families in Nus

Abden Shadra, head of a traditional family

Silan Junnit, member of a traditional family

Sohen Bais, member of a traditional family

IN BIRANCOUR

The Medean bank in Porte Oliva

Pyk Usterhall, notary

Maestro Asanpur, a café owner

IN NORTHCOAST

The Medean bank in Carse

Komme Medean, head of the Medean bank

Paerin Clark, bank auditor and son-in-law of Komme

IN HALLSKAR

Milo of Order Murro, a young man

Kirot of Order Murro, an old fisherman and keeper of secrets

Ama of Order Murro, keeper of the lodge house

THROUGHOUT THE GREATER WORLD

Marcus Wester, mercenary captain

Kitap rol Keshmat, former actor and apostate of the spider goddess

The Players

Cary

Hornet

Smit

Charlit Soon

Mikel

Sandr

Dar Cinlama, a hunter of ancient treasures and seeker of lost places

also his lieutenants, Korl Essian

Emmun Siu

Merrisen Koke, a mercenary captain

also, his men

Callon Cane, a convenient fiction

THE DEAD

King Simeon, Emperor of Antea, dead from a defect of the flesh

King Lechan of Asterilhold, executed in war

Feldin Maas, formerly Baron of Ebbingbaugh, killed for treason

Phelia Maas, his wife dead at her husband’s hand

Dawson Kalliam, formerly Baron of Osterling Fells, executed for treason

Alan Klin, executed for treason

Mirkus Shoat, executed for treason

Estin Cersillian, Earl of Masonhalm, killed in an insurrection

Magister Imaniel, voice of the Medean bank in Vanai and protector of Cithrin

also Cam, a housekeeper, and

Besel, a man of convenience, burned in the razing of Vanai

Alys, wife of Marcus Wester

also Merian, their daughter, burned to death as a tactic of intrigue

Lord Springmere, the Mayfly King, killed in vengeance

Akad Silas, adventurer, lost with his expedition

Assian Bey, collector of secrets and builder of traps, whose death is not recorded

Morade, the last Dragon Emperor, said to have died from wounds

Inys, clutch-mate of Morade, whose manner of death is not recorded

Asteril, clutch-mate of Morade, maker of the Timzinae, dead of poison

Drakkis Stormcrow, great human general of the last war of the dragons, dead of age

An Introduction to the Taxonomy of Races

(From a manuscript attributed to Malasin Calvah, Taxonomist to Kleron Nuasti Cau, fifth of his name)

The ordering and arrangements of the thirteen races of humanity by blood, order of precedence, mating combination, or purpose is, by necessity, the study of a lifetime. It should occasion no concern that the finer points of the great and complex creation should seem sometimes confused and obscure. It is the intent of this essay to introduce the layman to the beautiful and fulfilling path which is taxonomy.

I shall begin with a brief guide to which the reader may refer.

Firstblood

The Firstblood are the feral, near-bestial form from which all humanity arose. Had there been no dragons to form the twelve crafted races from this base clay, humanity would have been exclusively of the Firstblood. Even now, they are the most populous of the races, showing the least difficulty in procreation, and spreading throughout the known world as a weed might spread through a rose garden. I intend no offense by the comparison, but truth knows no etiquette.