Silver Kings: The Splintered Gods Part 10

'Do you think shed do it?

'Who? He frowned at the retort. Almost a shame to use it. They never got really clean again, not really clean.

'Charins sails, Belli, you havent been listening! Li rolled her eyes and threw back her head. 'Your precious dragon-riding slave who ought to hang. The one thing MaiChoiro Kwen got right. Would she do it?

'Do what? Bellepheros put the retort back onto the desk and picked up his cup of qaffeh instead. 'Li, my queen desires her freedom. If you want something of her, why dont you ask her?

'Because she hates me!

'Because you hate her.

'And with good reason!

Bellepheros laughed. 'I dont mean this personally, Li, for youre far better than any of the dragon-lords I used to know, but her Holiness Zafir was a queen and your people made her into a slave. Does her resentment truly surprise you? Thing was, with Li, it seemed that it did. Youre a slave. You might as well get used to it, and actually its not so bad if you keep your head down and do as youre asked. You should be grateful for what we give you. 'Its different for me. I was always a slave to the dragons. I took that path willingly and knowing what it was. And even I begrudge what your people took from me. I begrudge the manner of it. The sense of ent.i.tlement and privilege, the quiet a.s.sumption that your way and your lives and your culture are somehow better. You take for granted many things you should question. Not all your achievements are gifts to be shared and received with fawning grat.i.tude.

Li snorted and poked at his cup. 'Tell me that the next time I put some Bolo in front of you. He supposed she meant it as a joke, and maybe when it came to Bolo she had a point, but he didnt smile.

'Her Holiness doesnt drink qaffeh, and if she eats Bolo then she does it very discreetly.

'The truth! I need her to tell them what MaiChoiro said, Belli. Just the truth. Is that so hard?

'Do you think she doesnt understand? Bellepheros laughed and drained his cup and stood up. 'She was born to these games, Li. She has something that others want and sh.e.l.l extract the best price she can before she gives it up. She probably knows perfectly well that its the only thing keeping her alive. Can you blame her for clinging to it? They want to kill her. You want to kill her. You seem to want that very much.

Li glared at the table. 'Cant see many who would blame me for that, given what shes done.

'Never mind the rights and wrongs. Shes not stupid.

'Even you wanted to kill her once.

A silence hung between them. Bellepheros opened his mouth and then closed it again, trying to frame an answer, to tell her that yes, he had, and how grateful he was that shed stopped him, but that didnt change things.

'Im sorry, Belli. That was . . . Li looked at him with her big brown eyes as if struggling for words until a slave knocked on the study door. She jumped up like a jack-in-the-box and opened it and an old Taiytakei shuffled in carrying a silver tray and a crystal bottle. He looked around for a table or a bench with some s.p.a.ce on it, didnt find one, and then looked helpless until Bellepheros took some books off his desk and put them on the floor. The slave set down the tray. He bowed deeply. 'Apple wine from Baros Tsen TVarrs cellar. The lady Kalaiya wishes to share it with those who were loyal before the . . . he coughed and looked over his shoulder '. . . before the murdering Vespinese b.a.s.t.a.r.ds drink it all. As he backed away and Li laughed, Bellepheros stole a look at her. She had a lovely laugh and a lovely smile. Honest and unforced.

'I have work, he said when the slave had gone. 'But Ill talk to her. Her freedom for the truth and the hatchling hunted down. How can you do it though? Theyll never let her go. Never.

'Ask her anyway. I was thinking perhaps, if we have to, we should all go. You and me and her, running away on the back of her dragon. Li snorted derisively. 'She flies it; you feed it potions; Ill find us a way to cross the storm-dark.

Bellepheros roared with laughter. 'How far before you push her off? Do we get to cross the eyrie wall?

'Not before she pushes me off, I suspect.

'A dragon-queen, an irritable old alchemist and a cranky enchantress flying away together on the back of a furious dragon? Bellepheros laughed again, shaking his head. 'What are you thinking, Li? Somewhere under there she really meant it though, some little part of her anyway, and that wasnt the Li he knew. She was troubled then, and deeper than she let on.

Li picked up the bottle and peered at the amber wine inside. 'I hear she roams hundreds of miles. Hours every day, taking the dragon to feed while two Elemental Men always watch her. Im thinking that I dont understand why they let her live. And Im certainly thinking that I dont see what difference it would make or why it should bother them if she hunts for your hatchling while she flies.

'We shall see, eh? Bellepheros clucked and left Li there in his study and walked up through the white stone tunnels. They glowed bright today, like the sunlight outside but never so dazzling. Zafir found the tunnels cramped and small and oppressive but theyd never struck him that way; but maybe that was just him being used to living under the ground. Alchemists spent a lot of time in caves because caves were safe from dragons. Hed grown used to it over the years and had never much liked the vast open s.p.a.ces of the deserts and the plains, even back in his old realms and certainly not here. The craggy moors were easy enough, and forests, and the City of Dragons at the foot of the Purple Spur was manageable too. Mountains, they were best of all. As long as he was at the bottom of them and not at the top. Heights . . . He shuddered. Heights were worse than open s.p.a.ce. Far worse.

Out in the dragon yard the wind caught his robe and whipped the hem around his feet. He was heartily sick of this blasted wind. It had a caprice to it that lifted up tunics and whipped a cloak over a mans head when he least expected it, but underneath lurked a more sinister malevolence that blistered skin and flayed the edges of everything. It was a relentless grind, leaching the strength out of them all, battering and wearing him down until he was too tired to think. The only one who seemed not to care was Zafir, but then a rider was more used to wind.

Diamond Eye was perched on the far wall, staring at the G.o.dspike as ever. Bellepheros sighed. Down in the yard, surrounded by walls, he could pretend he was on the ground, nestled close to the earth. Once he climbed up . . . He shuddered as he thought of being on the top of the wall, the wind rattling and shaking him, looking out and seeing yet again where they truly were, miles above the ground with a huge black storm circling beneath them, dark purple lightning flas.h.i.+ng in its depths. Flame! The storm was so wide you couldnt even see the ground, even though the desert air was bright and clear.

Heights. Hed never done well with heights. Never had and never would though he hadnt the first idea why. A healthy fear of falling? Well yes, but . . . He shuddered, remembering the day hed first met Li and shed flown him off through the air on a tiny disc of gla.s.s. Hed been sick. Hed nearly fainted and fallen off. Probably would have done if the Adamantine Man Tuuran hadnt been there to catch him. And then none of this would have happened.

The thought caught him mid-stride. He faltered. Best not to go there. Just best not to. Instead, he took a breath and forced himself to look up at the wall. Zafir would be there somewhere, up next to Diamond Eye in the gold-gla.s.s shelter Li had made. He couldnt see her now but shed barely left the dragons side since the Vespinese had tried to hang her, and the dragon wouldnt let anyone near except him and the two slave girls who still devotedly served her theyd even made their own little shelter outside the walls on the rim. No one else dared venture near Diamond Eyes perch.

He wandered across to the hatchery, inspecting the hatchlings and exchanging a few words with the Scales. He checked under the chain nets where the eggs were kept. Any excuse. Maybe, if he was lucky, one of the eggs would hatch that would give him a reason not to go up onto the wall but the eggs were all resolutely quiet. With a sigh he wandered back and forced his feet to turn the rest of him to the looming bulk of the dragon. d.a.m.ned monster cast a shadow right across the eyrie this late in the day.

Someone was ahead of him, he saw, climbing up the steps in the wall. He wondered who it could be. A Taiytakei in the white tunic of a slave, but that was common enough.

Liang looked at the bottle on Bellis desk and smiled. Shed made that. A simple piece of gla.s.swork long since drained of any enchantment. Early work, but her work nevertheless. Maybe Kalaiya remembered and had sent it deliberately, a little message along with Baros Tsens apple wine. In her spare moments Liang felt for her. Everything she was had been founded on Tsen, and now he was gone and she was nothing, just a bed-slave like any other, wrinkled at the edges and unlikely to find any great favour. Shed fallen from the top of a mountain into a deep dark hole and all in a matter of days. There were probably plenty of slaves whod spent years envying her and t.i.ttered at her fall, but she deserved better than that. Theyd had a strange thing, Kalaiya and Tsen. Shed actually liked him.

Ill buy her, Liang decided. She has half a lifetime left. Let her live it in peace.

She poured herself a gla.s.s. Maybe they could take Kalaiya with them. She wasnt sure what use the slave might be but she probably knew more of Tsens secrets than anyone except Tsen himself, and Tsen probably had more secrets than there were grains of sand in the desert. If there were hidden caches of treasure, secret alliances, debts unpaid, favours, then Kalaiya might know them. Things like that were currency for a man like Tsen, things you couldnt put your finger on, ethereal and traceless.

Would it make a difference? She frowned. It actually might. Leaving on the dragon wasnt much of a plan and she hadnt been serious when shed said it, but . . . could there actually be some sense to it? More to the point, could it achieve something even if it could be done? Steal the dragon while no one was looking? Vanish in the night. Or poison it and send it away send Zafir with it if she could, but quietly Liang knew shed never fool the dragon-queen so easily. Sink into the underworld of a city like Cashax where even the Elemental Men would have trouble finding her. Make their way to a s.h.i.+p bound for the dragon-realms. Vanish. Hope the Elemental Men wouldnt follow. With Kalaiya and all Tsens old debts and favours in their pocket, it struck her that it might even work.

But no, that was the cowards way. If she had to hang for MaiChoiro Kwen and Sea Lord Shonda to be exposed for what they were, so be it. She sipped at the wine. It was good. Shed forgotten. Tsen had given her a bottle once but that was long gone. This one, if anything, was better. She smiled to herself. She actually felt slightly drunk and she hadnt felt that for the best part of a year, not since shed been sent here.

Bellepheros tried not to think of the wind up on the wall. The slave ahead was carrying a tray with a bottle balanced on top. Carrying it in one hand. Good luck with that in the wind; but the slave climbed the steps with ease. Bellepheros felt a pang of envy. Even thinking about going up there was making his knees wobble.

Practice, thats all . . .

He could see Zafir now, sitting behind Diamond Eye. She was dressed in a simple white slaves s.h.i.+ft, her long legs crossed under her. He couldnt tell if her eyes were closed but she looked as though she was meditating, a novelty among dragon-lords who were usually as restless as their mounts. As the slave with the tray approached, Zafir got up and walked to meet him, and then without any warning kicked the tray out of his hand. The bottle went flying and something else too. Bellepheros ran up the steps, the wind and the horrible empty s.p.a.ce all forgotten for a moment. The slave staggered and cried out. Zafir stooped and picked something off the ground and came up in a fighting crouch. The slave stooped to a crouch too, his hands weaving in front of him.

Bellepheros hauled himself onto the top of the wall. The wind smacked into him and almost knocked him tumbling back. He steadied himself and then stopped dead because Diamond Eye was watching the fight with a fierce intensity, snarling, fangs bare, wings half opened, tail swis.h.i.+ng, held on the very brink of striking. But Zafir was stopping him. Why?

Zafir slashed the air. The slave jumped back and then forward again, rolling inside Zafirs guard, only he wasnt quick enough and she must have seen the strike coming. As he tumbled towards her, she took a nimble step sideways, right to the edge of the wall. Bellepheros caught a flash of the sun as Zafir brought her fist hard into the mans back. The slave collapsed and lay still. By the time Bellepheros reached them, he was lying in a pool of blood. Zafir crouched low beside him, nose almost touching the ground, one hand on his head, pressing him into the stone, with an ear c.o.c.ked to listen to any last words he might have had. She was snarling softly. She was also in the way and Bellepheros couldnt see the mans face, couldnt see if he was alive or dead. If he was alive then it wouldnt be for long but there might be something to be done about that . . . He glanced about, looking for watchers.

Abruptly Zafir sat up. 'Hes gone, she said. She didnt look up as Bellepheros stood behind her. 'I didnt want him to die so quickly. Flame! I wanted to know who sent him. Which one of them it was. You could have used truth-smoke . . . She c.o.c.ked her head.

'Who is he? Bellepheros asked. Zafir clenched her fists. She drew back and Bellepheros finally saw the dead slaves face.

'I knew, Zafir said. 'I knew what he was going to do before he knew it himself. Diamond Eye showed me. She kicked the corpse. 'Who sent you?

It was the face of the slave whod brought the bottle of wine to his study. Zafir was still talking but Bellepheros didnt hear. He was already running.

Theyd get a long way on the dragon, Liang knew they would. How far? She wasnt sure. She ought to be able to work it out. Ought to, from what shed seen, but how could she know how long theyd have before the Elemental Men found them? Silly idea anyway. Never meant it. Couldnt understand why it wouldnt leave her alone. Theyd have to poison the dragon before they left. Which gave them how long? Belli had told her how it would work. Her and Belli, running away. Never mind the rest, the rest needed to go away. Theyd get to the sea, would they? She wasnt sure why theyd bother. Didnt make much sense, did it? Shed do what shed promised first.

She squeezed her nose and screwed up her eyes. Her head was starting to hurt. She stared at the apple wine. She hadnt drunk that much. Only a gla.s.s, wasnt it? But when she tried to see how much was left, the bottle kept blurring and stretching and rippling and tipping sideways. Her head tipped sideways to follow it but the gla.s.s kept on going until suddenly the whole world jumped up off the ground and hit her.

Even lying on the floor, the bottle kept moving. She wasnt sure why.

Xican. A s.h.i.+p. The key was the s.h.i.+p. She could hide them from the Elemental Men but there were only so many s.h.i.+ps, only so many navigators. Theyd be watching. Shed need a favour. A blind eye. How was she going to do that again?

Oh yes. Kalaiya. Thats right.

Liang giggled. She could hardly keep her eyes open. There was a pain in her head and then a bloom of light as if a star was exploding, but so slowly that she could see each and every ray that came out of it.

For a moment she saw the bottle in a bubble of clarity. Nearly full. Shed hardly had any wine at all. See! Hardly had any at all . . .

She closed her eyes. She wasnt sure why.

The Arbiter

22.

The Arbiter Red Lin Feyn, daughter many generations removed but tied by blood to the uniquely revered Feyn Charin, watched the world through the windows of the Dralamut library. The view outside looked as it always did: a peaceful steep-sided valley in the foothills of the Konsidar, its slopes partially terraced with groves of orange trees. Pocket herds of goats grazed on spiked gra.s.ses between th.o.r.n.y bushes. A sparrowhawk, riding the thermals, called to its mate. Red Lin Feyn watched it fly, flapping for a few seconds then gliding, flapping and gliding, always the same. Only the sparrow-hawks did that.

As she watched, something in the library changed. She went from being alone to being watched, she was certain of it. The air didnt move, the wooden floor didnt creak, not a single grain of sand fell from the stone walls or from the mortar between them, but she wasnt alone. She could feel the presence.

'Show yourself, she whispered.

The Elemental Man emerged from the air across the library with such softness that Red Lin Feyn didnt feel it at all. 'Lady. Thirty feet away but shed known he was there. She was getting good at this. She didnt turn round.

'Killer. There would be no more acknowledgement than that.

'Your s.h.i.+p awaits, lady.

Her s.h.i.+p.

Her eyes stayed on the valley outside. If she tried hard, really, really tried, she might have sensed the disturbance in the weave of the world made by the enchanted gla.s.s.h.i.+p come to take her to the desert. 'Do you know, killer, how much of his life my Father of Fathers spent on these walls? How much more of his energy he devoted to this fortress than to all those things for which you remember him. He rebuilt it, enhanced and added and subtracted. He structured all the storage we have now. The cellars are lined with enchanted stone to preserve provisions. His work, killer. This library? More than half of it came here in his lifetime. Hundreds of years old and yet how much has changed since he died? Her arms swept past the shelves and shelves of books, the tables covered with astronomical instruments. 'Whispers say that my Father of Fathers owned a copy of the Rava and that he read it from cover to cover. They say he kept it from you and that its still here. She was taunting the killer now. She did that with all of them. They never rose to it.

'Why would he do that, lady?

Lin Feyn shrugged. 'No one knows. Perhaps because your kind had him under your eye even then.

The Elemental Man came closer. Lin Feyn felt the swish of air, heard the rustle of his clothes but still didnt look at him. It was important not to trust the eyes alone. Important to teach the other senses. 'We gave him this, lady. He was tied to us from the very start. We watched him as we watch you now, all of you, with such a close eye. He paused. 'You are a sorceress. We call you by another name but that is what you are. He moved a little closer, so close she thought she might touch him if she were to lift and stretch out her fingers. She didnt know this one. His voice was new. He wasnt one of the usual visitors, who would have known better than to engage her in this particular conversation. 'I am told, lady, that Feyn Charin lived to his very end in fear of the Crimson Sunburst. He believed she was not destroyed and that her return was imminent. He asked us to protect him.

'She was his mentor. Why would she turn on him?

'He turned on her, did he not?

'No. Lin Feyn rounded on the killer and met his eye. 'How do you know this? What is this "I am told"? Told by whom? Were you there, killer? Did you know him?

'No, lady. You know that we live no longer than ordinary men. His voice was soft and soothing. She knew the tone. Shed learned it herself years ago. Coaxing. Softening her to do what he wanted in this case to get into the s.h.i.+p waiting to take her to the desert. She closed her eyes and took a long deep breath and turned to face him.

'Im not your p.a.w.n, killer, and your kind are not untouched by what QuaiShus tvarr has done. I will not simply give whatever answer it is they want to this. Ill do what I see is right and not s.h.i.+rk the consequences.

The killer bowed. 'Nor will we, lady. We will be your eyes, your armour and your lightning.

'I would rather have my own eyes, thank you. She pushed past him, out of the library and into the open elliptical heart of the Dralamut with its layer after layer of concentricity above her, its sloping balconies and whitewashed walls. Three long sweeping curves of steps rose from the ground to the flat stone rooftops. The gla.s.s.h.i.+p was waiting for her, floating over the yard, sunlight sparking inside it and splitting into rainbow glimmers. As the great outer disc turned, little sons and daughters of light danced and played with the shadows to the rhythm of its languorous...o...b..t, chasing each other from one side of the yard to the other and away again as each surrendered to the next of its myriad brothers and sisters. The waiting gondola was silver and jade. Silver and jade for Vespinarr so it was the Vespinese who would be taking her. They were the closest, and the Dralamut was built on land they claimed quietly and delicately and with much politeness as their own. Vespinarr, whose lord QuaiShus tvarr claimed had brought all this to pa.s.s.

'When I next sleep, you are to go ahead of me, killer. We will stop in Vespinarr. You will find me a different gla.s.s.h.i.+p to carry me on from there. Go to Tayuna. Sea Lord Weir will be happy to oblige you. You can have it waiting for me by the time I arrive in the Kabulingnor.

The ramp into the gondola was open. The Elemental Man vanished with a slight whiff of air. By the time she reached it, he was standing inside, waiting for her. 'It is safe, lady.

He didnt need to say it. Like it or not, he and the others of his kind were going to be her guardians, vigilant for a.s.sa.s.sins and murderers everywhere she went. It gave them the perfect excuse to spy on her, night and day.

She sat. The gondola was comfortable, made for the likes of a sea lord or perhaps one of his closest tvarrs or kwens or hsians, the sort they might use to make their leisurely journeys up and down the western coast of TakeiTarr. The larger lower level was panelled in a pale hardwood, stained henna-red and inlaid with pieces of brilliant jade. Everything shone, sparkling bright and clean. Pinp.r.i.c.ks of light snapped at her from every silvered corner and gilded curve. Wherever she looked, she found a reflection of her own face, stretched and distorted, a thousand different aspects and personalities tied by a single name. Windows girdled the gondola at a comfortable eye level, wide ellipses framed in gold and carved with the dragons and lion of Vespinarr. Lin Feyn inspected them. They werent the work of a true master but they were done well nonetheless.

The same could be said of the other furnis.h.i.+ngs a simple large table, a pair of chaises longues and six small silver cabinets fixed around the walls. A bronze tray lay on the table with an exquisite enchanter-made crystal decanter. Someone had already poured a cup of water for her. Towards the front where the pilot golem sat a skeletal silver staircase arced to the upper section. A carved rose-wood bed covered in silks and a feather-stuffed mattress waited for her beside an immense cabinet and a battered old chest the only thing here that was hers. The servants of the Dralamut had already brought her clothes and costumes and personal things. Stacked beside the bed were books from the library, those she thought she might want or need.

She went to the table, took the decanter and the gla.s.s and left the gondola, emptied both and refilled them from the fountain in the centre of the Dralamut. Then she returned. When she closed the ramp behind her, the gondola rose at once.

'Vespinarr. We will make that the first stop.

The Elemental Man bowed. He moved to one of the tinted gold-gla.s.s windows and opened it, which caught her attention. A gondola like this rarely had openings of any sort, because openings were a way for the killers to get inside. 'I will be waiting for you in Vespinarr, lady. The killer gestured to a sheaf of papers on the table beside the bronze tray. They were held down by a silver paperweight in the shape of a dragon and hadnt been there when shed first entered. 'I will have more for you when you reach the Visonda landing fields. He bowed and vanished, a slight gust of a breeze whispering around the gondola as he left. Red Lin Feyn, Arbiter of the Dralamut, closed the window behind him and settled back into a chair. She picked up the papers and began to read.

The first pages were an account of Sea Lord QuaiShus decade-long quest to steal dragons from the dragon-lands, beginning with how he had acquired the services of not one but two Elemental Men an unprecedented purchase and one which made her quite certain that the Elemental Men themselves must have desired QuaiShu to succeed. The doc.u.ment was silent on this but there was no other explanation. The hidden fathers and makers of the Elemental Men had called dragons to TakeiTarr. Why?

She had no answer and nor did anything written here. The doc.u.ment explained how far into debt, princ.i.p.ally to Lord Shonda of Vespinarr, the lords of Xican had allowed themselves to fall in order to buy these men. It detailed the exact mechanics of how QuaiShu had stolen dragons and eggs and all the necessary handlers, how hed built his own eyrie in the desert under the stewards.h.i.+p of his tvarr, Baros Tsen. Red Lin Feyn read slowly and carefully. The theft had been admirably done with precision and care, and whoever had written this clearly thought the same. It left her wondering who that was and whether the lords of Vespinarr had known anything about it.

There followed a single hastily scribbled page on the nature of the monsters themselves. It was a hodgepodge of notes, broken sentences, single words and unanswered questions, irritatingly uncertain and incomplete. Nothing offered any clue as to why her presence had become necessary. Finally came the burning of Dhar Thosis itself, the confessions and accusations of Baros Tsen TVarr, the reports of the first Elemental Men to arrive, their secret watch over the eyrie barely hours after the Vespinese had seized it, their intervention when it had seemed necessary and why, and the testimonies they had gathered since. Others might have jumped straight to the end, but Lin Feyn was patient and methodical and wouldnt have been here if she was otherwise. Now that she was armed with an understanding of QuaiShus grand design and of the monsters hed brought back, she read over these events with a new mind.

When she finished, she read it again. Not because the words were in any way unclear but simply because once wasnt enough to make herself believe what they were telling her. Soldiers of Xican and a single dragon had destroyed a sea lords city and palace. They had killed Sea Lord Senxian himself. A hundred s.h.i.+ps sunk, perhaps more. Dozens of gla.s.s.h.i.+ps shattered. The sea t.i.tans, the ancient guardians of Dhar Thosis, plucked from the water and dashed against the cliffs. QuaiShus kwen and much of his fleet and all of his army vanished out to sea and not yet found. Baros Tsen TVarrs admission of his own guilt and his astounding accusation that she couldnt ignore.

She read from the beginning a third time, slowly and carefully without skipping a single word. She finished again still without an idea as to why Sea Lord QuaiShu had set himself to do this thing, nor why Sea Lord Shonda would do what Baros Tsen TVarr had claimed, nor why the tvarr himself had acted as he had. Madness. Though she knew where the real answer to all those things would lie. Greed. Power. Envy. Fear.

She read through yet again, setting her mind to favour the Vespinese, letting herself imagine them wholly innocent and falsely accused to see how the subtleties behind the words would change. Then once more with Tsen as a callous killer, then as a buffoonish dupe, then with all of them as unwitting puppets of the Elemental Men themselves. Each perspective shed a different light but all, in the end, to little purpose. Every motive remained cloaked in shadow.

The most telling pa.s.sage of all lay in a few buried words from Baros Tsen TVarrs own confession. He claimed to have sent an Elemental Man to make it all stop, to bring the dragon back before it carried out its orders and to rein in Shrin Chrias Kwen. Not only had this Elemental Man failed, the killer had himself been killed. Lin Feyn wondered why Baros Tsen would say such a thing if it was a lie and discovered she couldnt find any reason. She s.h.i.+vered then, because an Elemental Man should not fail, and yet here was a story that began with one failure and ended with another and had a third in between. If Tsens confession was true then QuaiShu had found something to unbalance the five-hundred-year peace that the Elemental Men had brought with them when they emerged from the Konsidar.

She looked at what she had. Vespinarr, the richest city in the world. A scheme cast over more than a decade, backed and aided by the invincible Elemental Men themselves and yet a creature that could kill them? As she read from the start one last time, she knew that hers had become, briefly, the most powerful voice in the world.

The killer was waiting for her as hed promised, in the landing fields at the foot of the Silver Mountain by the Visonda Palace of Vespinarr. There were dozens of gondolas and seven gla.s.s.h.i.+ps tethered there, gold-tinged gla.s.s discs slowly rotating as they drew energy from the black enchanter monoliths that ringed the field. Horses and elegant carriages stood waiting while a steady trickle of flying sleds moved back and forth to the Visonda itself. There was even a gla.s.s-and-gold carriage shaped like a sailing s.h.i.+p, floating a little off the ground.

'This is how the sea lords and their minions live, she murmured. 'Swathed in gifts from their enchanters.

The killer bowed and kept a respectful distance. 'Sea Lord Weir sends his greetings and wishes you luck. The gla.s.s.h.i.+p from Tayuna will be here tomorrow.

'Ive read your papers, killer. We will fly this gla.s.s.h.i.+p to the Kabulingnor itself. I will require your presence.

The killer frowned and Red Lin Feyn smiled behind her Arbiter mask. She understood. His first thought would be: Sea Lord Shondas kwen, whoever holds that t.i.tle here with MaiChoiro indisposed elsewhere, will shoot an uninvited gla.s.s.h.i.+p out of the sky. His next thought would be the realisation of his responsibility to prevent that. The one after would be that she was deliberately provoking a battle of wills that Lord Shonda, possibly the most powerful man alive, must somehow lose.