Silver Kings: The Splintered Gods Part 5

Her face though. Her face was perfect. The same face that had looked at him almost every day for all that time. See, Tsen? What a fool you are! All these years . . .

Well that stupid voice could shut itself up right now. This is a pile of horse c.r.a.p. Im not that bad a judge of character. 'And youre going to do it now? After how many years?

Kalaiya slapped the water impatiently. 'Im not here to kill you, you idiot. What in the name of the unholy Konsidar would be the point of that when I could just do nothing and let Shonda have you. Im getting you away. Hes here! Listen!

Tsen listened. There wasnt much, but he felt the stone walls of the bath tingle now and then, the faintest vibration running through the stone. There was little that could do that except the black-powder guns.

That or the dragon is dancing very energetically and for no apparent reason.

'Hes here and you are going to lose. Come on! Kalaiya held out her hand again, and this time Tsen took it because if the Vespinese really had come then he certainly didnt want them to find him surprised and naked in a bath. He let her wrap the towel around him and hurry him into his clothes. When he was done, he looked at her long and hard. He stared at her face. He couldnt believe it was her and yet he couldnt believe it wasnt. Could she have a twin? 'Who are you? Is this a game? Because if it is, its not funny. His Kalaiya knew better than to play games though. Youve known this woman for twelve years, Baros Tsen. Every feature, every curve, every line, every wrinkle, every pore. Look at her! She is who she is.

Yes, yes, but really? In my hour of greatest need the slave I quietly adore becomes a Regrettable Man and rushes to save me? If he heard that in a story hed p.i.s.s himself with laughter at the absurdity of it. The beautiful a.s.sa.s.sin who falls in love with the man shes sent to kill? Oh, please!

Well then, what? A golem sent by Shonda? Does that sound any better? Look at her!

The eyrie quivered again. He scowled. The Vespinese had come that could hardly be any more obvious and yet why was it Kalaiya, of all people, who was here to warn him? I have kwens for this, not slaves! Kwens and soldiers. Where are they? He looked at Kalaiya, if that was who this truly was, bemused, trying to decide. She smiled back at him and rolled her eyes. 'Come. Time to go. Dont tell me you dont have a secret escape plan?

Tsen shook his head, bewildered even more because escape had been the one thing hed never considered and she knew it. And yes, maybe now he was wis.h.i.+ng he had considered it, and yes, standing proud at the prow of his sinking s.h.i.+p had seemed all well and good when it hadnt actually happened and yes, now that that same s.h.i.+p was apparently on fire with the sea lapping at his feet it seemed . . . well, less well and good, but hed always known it would be this way. That was the point. Hed made a choice: no desperate escape plans. No chance to take the cowards way at the very end and run. To his disappointment he found that a part of him, right now, was very keen indeed on the cowards way.

The night-black silks were awkward and ill fitting and so thin that he felt almost naked. Shes not real? Then what is she, a golem? Dont be absurd. He didnt know what to believe. He kept thinking he should shout for his guards and then he looked at her face and was struck dumb. She took his hand and tugged him towards the iron door of the bathhouse and he came slowly, resisting but never quite pulling away. 'Show me, he said. Yes, yes, stall for time, for surely all the G.o.ds in which we do not believe forbid that you should come over suddenly decisive at this time of crisis.

'See for yourself. She hurried him out of the bathhouse, not the way shed entered but through the tunnels that led up to the Scales and so they didnt pa.s.s the alcove where the slaves kept the oils and the towels.

Whatever this was, getting to the surface and seeing it with his own eyes was imperative, and so now he followed as fast as he could. Kalaiya led him through the Scales quarters, running ahead through the rising spiral pa.s.sage. The lower rooms were empty, deserted, unused, but he could hear the commotion as he came closer to the top. The Scales the slaves who cared for and fed the dragons had stumbled out into the night-glow of the tunnels wondering what was happening. The eyrie shook and trembled, explosions too powerful to be lightning. Tsen tried not to look as he pushed past. The Scales disturbed him. They carried the Statue Plague, the Hatchling Disease the rider-slave had given to Chrias and would have given to him as well. They were all slowly dying, their skin turning hard until they couldnt move or breathe, and yet none of them seemed to care. That was the worst part. The dullness they carried.

Not the best time to be worrying about that, TVarr! The eyrie shuddered, almost shaking him off his feet, a great heave far worse than the firing of the cannon. He s.h.i.+vered as he stumbled, wondering if that was the eyries magic failing at last. Maybe they were all falling to their doom. All things considered, would that be so bad?

Kalaiya was waiting for him at the top. She caught him and pulled him on. 'Come on! She was strong and her voice was urgent. He slowed and looked at her but she didnt flinch. The Kalaiya he knew, the one hed quietly fallen in love with years ago, shed have been terrified by this. All these years and she wasnt the person hed thought she was? It broke his heart. How? How had she done it? Day after day after day the same flawless mask and hed never seen through it, not once? Him, a tvarr to a sea lord no less, who read people at a glance every day. How?

Because shes not who she seems and you know it. He slowed again. 'Are you really my Kalaiya? But if not then how did she have Kalaiyas face?

Kalaiya-or-maybe-not gave him a quick look. 'I have a sled by the watchtower overlooking the hatchery. Do you want to live? Because if you do then we have to reach it before Shonda does.

He closed his eyes and ran on, up and out into an annihilation of sound and light. Lightning flashed everywhere, men ran and howled, waving ashgars, hurling themselves at each other in murderous frenzy. Sleds shot across the dragon yard. The smashed remains of half a gla.s.s.h.i.+p lay on its side in the middle of the hatchery, right in front of them, broken eggs and hatchling flesh scattered around it. A gondola lay rolled onto its side against the wall, and not far from it was a second, just reaching the level of the dragon yard, its ramp opening. Soldiers in gla.s.s-and-gold armour jumped out and threw lightning every which way as they did. A rocket fizzed from the wall and exploded among them, a handful of his own soldiers ran howling to meet them while the golden rim of the gla.s.s.h.i.+p glowed brighter and brighter until it dazzled, and then there was a crack of thunder so loud he felt the shock of air hit him and he almost fell over. He couldnt think any more. He couldnt tell who was with him and who wasnt. Lightning thundered and the eyrie shook and every thought was murdered in his head, stillborn in the chaos of noise and light and screaming wind. On the far wall sat the great dragon, perched on the edge of his eyrie. Doing nothing. Watching.

'The rider-slave! Where is she?

'Too late for that, TVarr. Kalaiya-or-maybe-not yanked him out into the mayhem where he really didnt want to be, but he was so slack-jawed and dazzled that he didnt think to pull away. The hatchery watchtower was right above them. Kalaiya ran up the steps to the top of the wall, pulling Tsen huffing and puffing after her, then let him go and vanished into the tower. The wind hit him hard as he crested the wall. He teetered for a moment, almost tumbling back down the steps. Nice. A hundred men trying to kill you and you break your own neck to save them the trouble? He just about caught himself. Somehow, almost falling seemed to calm him. He was still terrified enough to s.h.i.+t his pants, but he could think again now. Think! That was the thing. Every instinct apart from his eyes told him this wasnt Kalaiya. But how . . . ?

Thunder rumbled and cracked all around him. Lightning flashed. The screams and shouts of men came and went. Rockets flew off the walls, striking at the Vespinese as they landed. Out across the storm-dark, more gla.s.s.h.i.+ps were drifting closer. Scores of them though still far away. He ducked into the shelter of the tower, fearful hed be hit by a stray bolt of lightning. Yes. Yes, I want to run . . . Time for betrayals and broken hearts later.

A dead soldier lay on the floor. Even through the wind and the scorched tang of the air, Tsen could smell the freshness of the mans blood.

Well, in case you were still wondering, isnt that an answer? Kalaiyaor-maybe-not was climbing onto the roof. He cringed and winced as another shattering bolt of lightning struck the eyrie from the gla.s.s.h.i.+p floating above. He reached for his wand but of course he didnt have it; hed left it in the bathhouse. The ground trembled as a barrage of rockets peppered the gla.s.s.h.i.+p with explosions. There was an ear-splitting crack, louder even than the lightning, a brilliant flash and the golden rim of the gla.s.s.h.i.+p went suddenly dull. Up in the heart of its great disc, among the smaller discs that all spun in different ways, something wasnt right. It started to tilt. It was coming down, and he knew he should probably run away now, any way at all, but he didnt know how, didnt know which way to go. So he just stood there. Pathetic fat old tvarr.

Not-Kalaiya jumped back into the tower. She grabbed his face and turned it and he knew he had to run away right now if he wanted at all to live, and yet still he didnt, because it was still her face, and if he was going to die then that was what he wanted to see as he faded. 'Look, Baros Tsen! Look!

His eyes blurred with tears. 'Youre not- he began. Youre not my Kalaiya.

'No. She caught hold of something and pulled. Tethered to the outside of the tower, a sled appeared as if shed lifted an invisible blanket. She twirled her hands as though she had something in them and then wrapped whatever it was around herself as if putting on a shawl. From her neck down to her knees, she vanished. Tsens mouth fell open. 's.h.i.+fter skin, she whispered. 'Do you understand now what I am?

s.h.i.+fter skin? But her eyes . . . 'Youre not her. Youre not.

Not-Kaliaya shook her head. 'Your slave is who you think she is, nothing less, nothing more. I borrowed her face because I knew you wouldnt come here without her. She touched his cheek and a horrible pain flowed across his face and into his head. He felt his skin writhe as something terrible happened inside him. She caught him as he fell. He waited as the lights went out for some last snide remark from his little voices but they had nothing to say, not for this.

11.

The Spire of the World The dragon Silence hurled itself through the tunnels. There was blood in the air and war on the wind. There were dragons, dulled maybe, but perhaps they would have followed had it asked. Perhaps if it had spoken its thoughts into theirs and broken their chains then they would have turned on the little ones, but as Silence reached the open air, it swiftly forgot them amid the chaos of thunder and lightning as the little ones fought one another. And it might have circled and listened to their thoughts and revelled in them, in their pain and hope, in their despair and fear, but it saw, as it took to the wing and slipped into the darkness of the night past a falling gla.s.s.h.i.+p, what lay below.

The storm-dark. It had seen it before, in the life before this at the end when the moon sorcerers had thrown its flesh into the sea and sent its soul to Xibaiya. An unravelling of the very stuff of matter. Silence dived and skimmed the surface, tasting the scent of it, touching its smell, and it knew as it did that it had been right. But this was different. In tiny subtle ways but there was a smell and a taste of a wrongness, of the creeping hole of the Nothing it had found in the realm of the dead. It tasted the Nothing here in the air. The dead G.o.ddess and the Black Moon, her killer, were no longer the walls and door to the prison that had kept the Nothing locked away.

The battle raged above, forgotten. A vast disc of gla.s.s, spinning slowly, fell past the dragon, too slow for gravity alone to be at work. A silver orb dangled beneath from a dozen chains, half of them broken. The dragon watched the gla.s.s touch the Nothing and piece by piece cease to be. Not shattered or smashed or burned or transformed or destroyed but annihilated, every piece of history and future taken away. Matter that was not and had never been. The dragon watched and remembered its purpose, why it had chosen this place as it flew across the roiling black clouds and the purple lightning, the shroud that kept the Nothing ever out of sight. It circled the G.o.dspike, unexpected and vast, piercing the cloud and piercing the Nothing as well, an impossibility standing proudly before it. The dragon Silence flew closer and touched the shaft with its talons and then flipped away. It knew this stone well.

Bellepheros cowered under Diamond Eye, sheltering from the wind and the fight and the bursts of lightning. The Vespinese on their gla.s.s sleds scoured the yard in circles, hurling their thunderbolts until nothing moved. Others landed, throwing themselves in waves against the beleaguered defenders until, hopelessly outnumbered, Tsens men finally surrendered. Most of the Vespinese then headed off into the tunnels while a few handfuls stayed in the dragon yard, stripping the survivors of their gla.s.s and gold, rounding up everyone who was still alive to pile the bodies of the dead. Amid the smashed ruin of the fallen gla.s.s.h.i.+p, some of the hatchlings were loose from their chains. Like Diamond Eye, they were oddly still and strangely quiet. They kept looking up at the great red-gold dragon while Diamond Eye himself stared fixedly across the eyrie. Bellepheros squinted. The dragon was looking at two figures standing together and yet apart, but the gla.s.s lenses Liang had made for him were down in his laboratory, and without them he couldnt make out who the figures were.

More and more Vespinese landed. They poured along the walls and through the five iron doors into the tunnels and pa.s.sages that spiralled through the stone, rooting out anyone who was left to resist. Bellepheros sat down, miserable and cold, and huddled against the dragons warmth. Out over the great cyclone of the storm-dark the Vespinese fleet drifted closer, so slowly that by the time they reached the eyrie, Shondas victorious soldiers were herding everyone into the yard, dividing them by caste. Slaves. Scales. Tsens soldiers. Kwens and tvarrs and hsians. Bellepheros squinted and finally saw Zafir, still with her head held high as soldiers pushed and shoved her. A body hung limp beside her, dragged between two Vespinese.

Li! His heart jumped. The soldiers dropped her on the ground. She lay still for a moment then rolled onto her side. One of the Vespinese kicked her. He would have kicked her again but Zafir stepped between them. Diamond Eye suddenly s.h.i.+fted. The soldier drew back his fist. Zafir didnt move. Even as the punch knocked her down, Diamond Eyes wings flared, and Bellepheros had only a moment to throw himself as flat as he could and grab the edge of the wall before the wind of the dragons leap grabbed him by his cloak and tore it away and almost flipped him into the air. His cloak fluttered off into the night, drifting away to die in the maelstrom below as Diamond Eye skimmed the dragon yard. There was a short sharp scream as the dragon plucked up the soldier whod struck Zafir and then crushed him, still in mid-air, bits splattering over those below. Diamond Eye tossed the mangled corpse among the Vespinese, landed softly on the far wall and turned his back to stare at the G.o.dspike again. For three long breaths no one moved, waiting to see what would happen next. When Diamond Eye stayed where he was, the Vespinese slowly returned to sorting their prisoners. They left Zafir and Li well alone.

Bellepheros picked himself up. The Vespinese still hadnt seen him. He ducked over the far side of the wall, rolled and stumbled down its slope onto the eyrie rim, scrambling through the ruins of black-powder cannon, around the cranes that dangled over the edge, through the rubbish and detritus. Li was the worst, insisting that nothing ever be thrown away, and so the rim was covered with piles of wood and stone and metal and boxes of broken gla.s.s as well as coils of rope and heaps of half-cleared sand. He circled the eyrie until he was close to Diamond Eye again and then stopped. A mile below swirled an utter darkness, fractured by violet flashes deep within. The G.o.dspike rose before him, punching through it all, lit by its own starlight glow, a dim light climbing to the heavens and perhaps beyond. In that moment he thought perhaps he understood why the dragons stared at it so to them everything else was small. So immeasurably insignificant.

He shook himself and scrambled clumsily up the shallow slope of the wall and stood beside Diamond Eyes talons as he had before, carefully out of sight. The sky was getting lighter. He hadnt thought much of it, scrambling round the rim, but the eyrie was lit up now by a light brighter than any full moon the light of the gla.s.s.h.i.+ps cl.u.s.tered above, a hundred of them jostling for s.p.a.ce, their lightning-cannon edges glowing bright white, illuminating each other and the dragon yard below. They lowered more gondolas as he watched. Soldiers crowded the eyrie and lined the walls, making everything theirs while the remnants of Tsens men stood in beaten huddles, ringed by soldiers in gla.s.s and gold. The yard fell quiet save for the rush of the wind. The faint glow of a hundred lightning wands gleamed off the white stone of the yard.

No one came close to the dragons.

Soldiers marched out of the tunnels. They had Tsens prisoner with them, MaiChoiro, the kwen of Vespinarr. There was some shouting but Bellepheros couldnt make any words out over the constant rush of wind. MaiChoiro dragged one of Tsens men away from the rest. Lightning flared and thunderclapped. The man arched and lurched across the stone, twitched a while and then lay still. MaiChoiro moved on, inspecting his prizes. He stopped by Zafir, and all at once Diamond Eye quivered and changed in the snap of a finger from boredom into a killer on the brink of attack.

'Dont, whispered Bellepheros, as if the dragon would either hear or pay him any attention. It felt the threat to its rider in the Taiytakeis thoughts and that was all that mattered. Theyd seen it once already. How stupid could they be?

Whatever pa.s.sed between Zafir and MaiChoiro, the wind stole their words. A Vespinese kicked the back of Zafirs leg, forcing her to kneel. Diamond Eye flinched and bared his teeth, fire building inside him. With a sigh of exasperation Bellepheros jumped up and ran along the wall, flapping his arms and shouting, making as much fuss and noise as he could over the howl of the wind, hoping someone would notice him in the gloom. 'MaiChoiro Kwen! Your Holiness! Do not! For all our sakes, do not! He reached the nearest steps and came down as fast as his old knees would take him, but by the time the Vespinese noticed, MaiChoiro had already moved on and Zafir was still alive.

At the bottom of the steps soldiers seized him. When Bellepheros told them who and what he was, they dragged him to MaiChoiro, but the kwen only shook his head and waved them away after asking, 'And you, alchemist. Do you know where Baros Tsen TVarr can be found?

White. Impervious. The eyrie had been the same. The enchanted stone of the half-G.o.ds before they fell. The Silver Kings. The dragon Silence flew higher, on and on, chasing the very top of the spike until the air was gone and the desert stars were joined by a million more, and the mile upon mile of the swirling maelstrom was made small by the limitless world stretched beneath it. At the very top the dragon Silence sat and perched and knew that no other creature had ever been to this place, not a single one in the whole course of history. From its height atop the world it reached out its thoughts and searched and searched until it found a fragment of something remembered, like a reflection or an image cast in smoke, fleeting and flickering but impossible to forget. It was far away, but the dragon knew it of old, and the treacherous gift of the stars it carried too. It knew them from before the world had shattered into splinters and been so haphazardly st.i.tched back together.

For a long time it watched, long after the battle in the eyrie was done. It watched and it thought until finally it spread its wings and let itself fall.

I see you, the dragon whispered.

Crazy Mad

12.

The Desert Tuuran stroked his axe. 'Im hungry.

They separated. Tuuran went one way, Crazy the other, circling the house and coming up on the night-skins one from each side. Up close Tuuran could smell the taint of smoke on the soldiers clothes. Hed spotted the night-skins heading away and was reckoning to slip in behind them, so it was a bit of a surprise when he almost walked straight into them coming towards him. Must have turned to head for home. Just luck who saw whom first, but maybe luck figured she owed him for making him a slave. Either way, he took that luck and rode it, let out a roar, jumped out of the trees in front of them and took the first night-skins head clean off. The second got his wand half-raised before Tuuran caught him with the backswing, caving in his ribs. The wand went off, blasting lightning into the ground. The Taiytakei dropped to his knees. Blood poured out of his mouth. He fell over, face first, and didnt move.

'b.l.o.o.d.y b.o.l.l.o.c.ks. Tuuran stamped out the smouldering fire from the lightning bolt. 's.h.i.+t, f.u.c.k and b.u.g.g.e.r. Now theyd have to be keeping their eyes peeled for the rest of the day, watching out in case any other night-skins had heard and came looking.

He heard another noise then, jumped up and had his axe ready in a blink, but it was only Crazy rus.h.i.+ng in from the other side. Behind Crazy, Tuuran saw a dozen eyes cowering in the shadows. Faces. Slaves.

'Yeh, said Crazy. 'I thought we pa.s.sed a few night-skins having a bit of a doze a few miles back. Good of you to wake them up.

Tuuran wiped the blood off his axe. 'Bit of a dragons t.e.s.t.i.c.l.e, that. Wed do best to drag these b.a.s.t.a.r.ds somewhere away from where their friends can find them. He glared at the cowering eyes in the trees and raised his voice. 'Were slaves like you. Were not going to hurt you. You can come out now, or run away. Its up to you, but frankly I could do with some help here, thanks. Heavy b.u.g.g.e.rs these night-skins, especially in all that armour. Mind you dont slip on the mess, though. Mostly its blood but I think that bit over there might be brains.

Once hed rooted the slaves out from where they were hiding, Tuuran paced up and down, taking a good look at them, same as he used to with new slaves taken for the galley oars only with a lot less shouting. They were a mixed lot: a couple of night-black Taiytakei men from the deserts with brands on each arm, three brown-skinned women from the southern reaches of the Dominion and an olive-faced man from Crazys old home of Deephaven. The women had one brand each and the man from Aria had none at all. Tuuran showed off his own.

'But these dont matter any more, he said. 'Were all the same now. He looked at them hard and then decided he might as well have said the moon was made of lettuce and it would have made more sense. He sighed and had the men help him carry the dead soldiers off the path and then asked why they were all out here instead of inside the grand stone house right here next to them, which presumably had lots of useful things inside it like food and wine and places to hide and things for hitting people. Or was that because there were already people inside whod barred the doors? They told him no, the house was empty, but the doors were locked and they didnt have a key. That, Tuuran replied, was pretty d.a.m.n pathetic. He showed them how a big axe could pa.s.s very nicely for a key when it had to, and they went in together and scoured the place like starving rats. Food, water, wine, fruits, Xizic, silk sheets, gold, jade, silver all that a freshly freed slave could want except for a s.h.i.+p to take him home.

They made a feast for themselves and he asked them who they were and had them tell their stories like he used to on his galley. The desert men had stupidly complicated names, something like Bzaiyan Barrati and Josemarinn DulTarras, names that probably meant something very important to them but simply wouldnt stick in Tuurans head. He took to calling them Tall and Short. Same as on the s.h.i.+ps hed sailed, because slaver galleys picked up oar-slaves and sail-slaves from all over, with as many names and skins and voices as you cared to conjure and all with their own G.o.ds and devils and cities and songs, and there wasnt a sail-slave hed met yet who could be bothered with getting his tongue around any name too long to be shouted across the deck in one loud bark. Desert Taiytakei, it turned out, had a fondness for selling each other to the city slavers, which was was how Tall and Short had ended up in Dhar Thosis. Tuuran told his own story after hed listened to theirs, the way he used to at sea. Made them brothers, that did.

The women and the man from Aria came from further up the island. Slave stories were all the same: slavers showed up and you were too weak to stop them and too stupid or too slow to run away, thats what they all came down to in the end, but Tuuran listened to theirs too because that was the courtesy every slave gave to every other, no matter what tale they spun. While they were eating and sharing their stories, the olive-skinned man from Aria slipped away and didnt come back. Crazy went looking, though Tuuran couldnt imagine why. If a man wanted to do his own thing then he reckoned a man should be left to do it, but Crazy went out anyway. Didnt find him.

Day after day they stayed hidden in their little palace, waiting out the soldiers, eating food the fleeing Taiytakei princelings had left behind and drinking their wine and their water. Crazy mostly kept to himself, away from the other slaves, sitting in corners and staring into s.p.a.ce, or else he went off wandering for hours, night and day, even while the Taiytakei soldiers were still scouring the Eye for anyone theyd missed. Trying to understand who he was and what he should do, Tuuran supposed. For his own part he mostly stayed inside the walls, carefully out of sight, and when he wasnt keeping watch on the road in case any soldiers happened along, he wandered from room to room. Wrapped in silk sheets, he dozed on rich feather beds. He rummaged through chests and shelves and closets. He dressed himself in a Taiytakei robe of bright copper-orange feathers and found a white fur cloak and pranced around in it for a while issuing absurd orders until even Crazy Mad smiled. He dressed Tall and Short as masters of the house and gave the brown-skinned women fine dresses. He found a gold-gla.s.s sled in the cellars and dragged up a keg of wine and they all drank together until his head was swimming. They rode the sled around the house, screaming and laughing, and then in the pantry he found a cask of something fiery and strong and got them all so blind drunk that in the morning he couldnt remember for sure exactly who had f.u.c.ked who the night before.

When his head cleared, he found some fine silk s.h.i.+rts big enough to fit him and a pair of strong leather boots that werent but had decent soles. He spent the rest of the day fixing the boots, watching the road.

The Taiytakei soldiers stayed another day and then at last they left. The morning after they were gone, a single gla.s.s.h.i.+p drifted out of the desert. Tuuran watched it float slowly across the burned-out ruins of the city and then out to sea, rising to crest the cliffs of the Dul Matha. It lingered a while and then went on its way and they were alone. It was a sign, Tuuran decided, that they should leave. Crazy shrugged and picked up his pack. Tuuran gathered the rest of the slaves together, told them he and Crazy were leaving and that they were all welcome to come along, and then started to pile the sled with jugs of water and wine and sacks of fruit.

'Leaving for where? they asked him, and he could only shrug. 'But the only ways from Dhar Thosis are across the desert or the sea.

'I dont see any s.h.i.+ps.

They thought he was mad. Maybe he was. Hed seen enough to have a good idea of what the desert was like, from up in the eyrie, serving Grand Master Bellepheros back before theyd sent him away for being too much trouble. Mostly what he remembered was an endless sea of big and hot and empty. He had a go at Tall and Short, trying to talk them into it, but they only laughed and thought he was daft; and so in the end it was just him at the front dragging the sled and Crazy Mad beside him, slipping out into the night. They pulled the sled to the sea and then walked along the sh.o.r.e, and Tuuran saw that Crazy never once looked back. They reached the ruined bridge and waited for the tide to ebb enough to pick their way across the causeway. The path was choked with rubble and splinters that cast odd lumpen shadows in the moonlight where the bridge had spilled its guts into the water. Tuuran kept his eyes peeled in case the rock golems that had survived the dragon decided to come back, but all he saw were waves and surf.

'Theyre long gone, said Crazy.

The far side was much as Tuuran remembered it: smashed-up houses with gaping holes in them and streets filled with debris. The air still carried a tang of ash and lightning over the smells of sea and mud, while moon-born shadows peopled the night-time ruins with ghosts. The flames were long out, the ashes still and cold, but as they walked Tuurans feet kicked up a fine grey dust which swirled around them and smelled of soot. Now and then he heard noises, the skitter of tiny feet or paws, the rattle of a loose board, the sc.r.a.pe of a s.h.i.+fting pebble, and he couldnt shake the sense of a hundred eyes watching their progress.

Further on, bodies littered the streets in lonely cl.u.s.ters, scatters of men caught by rockets or lightning or the dragons fire. They lay as theyd fallen, untouched for all this time, ripening in the warm spring days. Even in the cool night air the stench of death and rot wafted in pockets strong enough to make Tuuran gag. Men, women and children, black-skinned Taiytakei, slaves of all colours. Ordinary people, not soldiers. Some lay sprawled in the street, others in piles in little squares around enchanted fountains which still chattered with clear sparkling water. Now and then clouds of silvery birds rose from the corpses and cawed their resentment before settling again after he and Crazy pa.s.sed. Tuuran was glad to put his back to them.

The outer fringes of the city werent as bad, and as the sky over the sea began to lighten with the approaching dawn Tuuran climbed a small stone tower. It didnt seem possible that no one had survived and so he looked over what remained of Dhar Thosis, searching for fires or smoke or other signs of life. The rooftops nearby were a colourful patchwork of clay tiles, reds and browns and ochres and- He started. There were fires burning on the ridge overlooking the city. A line of four of them, strung out but too close not to belong together. Four fires, so maybe . . . fifty people? He took a good long look at where they were and climbed down again. Elsewhere the city seemed dead. Any other survivors were too wary to come out of their holes. The soldiers had only been gone a day, after all.

'Theres people up on the ridge, he said when he came back down. 'Slavers, maybe.

Crazy seemed to give that some thought. 'I want a s.h.i.+p to take me home, he said. 'You want to find the woman who flies dragons. Theres nothing for either of us here so its either the sea or the desert. He shrugged. 'And like you said, I dont see any s.h.i.+ps. Theyll want paying though. He set off again. Tuuran let Crazy pull the sled a while and rummaged through the bag of stuff hed looted from the sea lords palace. Silver coins, golden feathers, jade carvings, polished stones, anything that had caught his eye. Like a magpie.

'Plenty here, he said.

The outskirts of Dhar Thosis seemed as deserted as the rest, but Tuuran knew better because he saw signs now and then: a flicker of movement that was too big to be a dog or a lizard; a body too recent to have died in the battle; one time he heard the sound of running feet. He felt eyes on him again, only here the eyes were human, peering out through cracked walls and from behind closed curtains. Here, on the fringe of the desert, the streets, where there were any at all, were trampled sand and dirt. The houses were a mishmash of wood, of pieces of stone and mud brick, mostly simple huts. Doors were strips of sailcloth and roofs too. They pa.s.sed burrows dug into the sand framed with old wood with hanging canvas or pieces of sacking for doors. When Tuuran peered inside, he found they were only a few yards deep, little more than places to sleep out of the sun. They were cool but they were empty, and after the third he stopped looking. Sometimes, when he was sure he was being watched, he stopped and held up his arms, palms outward, showing off the brands of a sword-slave, the lightning-bolt scars of the lord of Xican. He wore them with pride now, those brands, for the sea lord of Xican had faced a dragon and it had broken his mind, and Tuuran had faced many and never wavered once. Each time he showed off his brands he felt the air fall still and dead as if the streets themselves held their breath. Those brands had been here before.

Tuuran and Crazy walked on. The sea was a mile to their backs now and the land was barren earth where nothing grew but tufts of spiny gra.s.s. As they climbed the ridge, Tuuran could see men moving about or sitting under sun shelters around their morning fires. They ignored him at first, then, with the drilled precision of a legion of the Adamantine Guard, a dozen of them stopped what they were doing, picked up spears with bulbous hafts and blunt hooks near their points for tripping and clubbing and beating, and started down the slope. Tuuran stopped and held up his hands, showing off his brands and making a gesture of peace.

'Were here to trade. He glanced along the ridge at the shelters but he didnt see anything that looked like a slave cage. He opened his bag and took out a golden owl. Everyone liked gold, didnt they? He cast a sideways glance at Crazy Mad. 'If they come for us, you got my my back, right?

The desert men came on, calm and without fuss, but they kept their spears high. A sinking sensation wormed through Tuurans guts. He dropped the golden owl back into his bag of treasures and took the axe off his back instead, shook his head and set his eyes on the leader of the desert men, a narrow wiry man, tall but thin.

'Oi! Skinny! You dont want to do this. You might have the numbers but youll be first. You will be first.

A charge, a feint with the point of the spear and then a hook at the legs, thats what hed do, and Tuuran would jump over the hook, move in and split the skinny s.h.i.+t with his axe right down the middle. But they didnt charge and they didnt stop coming either. They circled him instead, keeping their distance, cautious but penning him and Crazy together. Crazy hadnt bothered to draw his sword.

'You come one way or the other, slave, said the skinny desert man.

Tuuran roared at them, 'Well then? I say I kill three of you before you touch me.

Skinny shrugged. 'At least with us you get food and water.

'Got food and water here, thanks all the same. Tuuran gritted his teeth. 'Crazy, at least draw your sword. Youre good for a handful of these camel s.h.a.ggers. The two of us, we might just take them.

They wouldnt though. Twelve was too many unless Crazy did the thing he did when his eyes went all silver and turned men into greasy black ash, which was sort of what Tuuran had been counting on. Admittedly, Crazy claimed that that hadnt ever actually happened and Tuuran hadnt actually seen it either, just an empty s.p.a.ce where three men had been only a few seconds before and two screaming women and a cloud of sticky black dust in the air. But then there was the whole business about the holes in Crazys armour, like something had gone straight though him and yet never cut his skin.

Crazy drew his sword, slowly and carefully, held it sideways in front of him and dropped it onto the sand. 'Let it be, big man. Theyre taking us where we want to go after all.

'What?

Crazy walked to the ring of desert men, arms held up. He dropped to his knees in front of them and bowed his head. Tuuran watched in disbelief as two of them tied his hands. The silver eyes never came. No one turned into dust. Nothing happened at all. Crazy just let himself be taken; and after that making a fight of it all on his own didnt seem to make much sense. Tuuran let his axe fall too, let his s.h.i.+eld hang and stared as three of them led Crazy away. The others gathered close, keeping their spear points an inch from his skin while Skinny tied his hands. They led him to the top of the ridge, following Crazys footsteps in the sand, and now he felt stupid because on the other side of the ridge, carefully out of sight, dozens of crude slave pens stood. Most were full. Slaves. Hundreds of them.

They pushed him and Crazy into a cage together. Skinny bared his teeth and smiled. 'See, its not bad. Tuuran just gave him a look. Short and sharp and straight in the eye to let him know that he wouldnt be forgotten.

13.