The Silver Sorcerer

Zafir had a knife in her boot. The pain split her in two but she bent double, reached the sheath, pulled out the knife, took hold of the rope and started to cut. Her lungs burned. Her ears thrummed as the corpse of the dragon took her ever deeper into water ever darker. Her mind started to slip, to wander. She thought she heard musical laughter for a moment, but her hand never stopped sawing, never gave up the urge to live, no matter what. And then suddenly she felt the weight go away and she was floating again and the music was getting louder and she could see light again.

And then she was lying on her back, lying on something solid and hard. The air smelled of the sea. Strange shapes towered over her, vast pillars reaching for the bright and blinding sky. Masts.

The silver man with the white face and the bloody eyes was looking down at her again. There were other faces too, this time. Dark faces marked with tattoos. Taiytakei. They didn’t say anything, only stroked their chins and looked at her. One by one, a forest of little sounds touched her. Creaking wood. Straining ropes. The wind whistling in and out of the rigging. The shuffle of feet on the deck. Distant voices, orders barked far away. The calls of seagulls wheeling overhead.

‘Is she alive?’ asked one. His accent was so thick that she could barely understand him. Not like the Taiytakei she knew from Jehal’s court.

The man with the white face and the eyes of blood nodded solemnly. One of the others prodded her.

We have preserved her. Three voices in her head speaking together, the same words at the same time, discordant and cacophonous. One was the voice she’d heard before, she was certain of that. The silver man. The others . . . she had no idea. Couldn’t even guess. She is the speaker-queen.

The Taiytakei stopped. They stared at her.

‘That can’t be. Are you sure?’

Yes. The white face drew closer and the voices inside her separated, became more intimate. And you desired life, so life you have received.

Unwise.

You have made a debt.

A responsibility.

Why would we?

Where is the spear?

She tried to sit up. Her muscles ached and complained but did as they were told. The horizon sprang into view, rocking slowly from side to side, disorientating. She could feel the deck of the ship moving underneath her. There were at least a dozen Taiytakei gathered around her and more nearby. The silver man with the white face wasn’t alone either. There were three of them. At least that explained the voices. Where am I? What happened to me? She glanced over the side, looking for her dead dragon to remind her that all this was real, except it wasn’t there. Because it sank beneath the waves. Great Flame, am I going mad? Am I dead?

‘I am Quai’Shu.’ One of the Taiytakei reached out a hand to her. His hair was white and thin, his dark face wrinkled. His hands were knobbly skin and bone. The arm he held out to her was shaking. He looked frail and insubstantial enough that a good gust of wind would pick him up off his feet and throw him off the ship.

Zafir still held the knife she’d used to cut herself free. She reached out to accept the offer of help with her other hand and rose shakily to her feet. Behind her back, she gripped the blade. A cautious thought stopped her doing anything rash: the memory of the dragon beneath her, snuffed out like you might snuff out a candle. She might take this one and hold a knife to his throat and then what?

‘What do you want?’ she hissed.

‘Dragons, Your Holiness,’ said the old man. My, but it had been a long time since anyone had called her that. Certainly Tichane hadn’t. He’d called her lots of other things, but never that. He was probably dead now, and she was glad. Underneath he’d had all the spite of Jehal and almost none of the charm.

‘You can’t just take dragons!’ Zafir almost laughed. What were they going to do? Sail off with a hatchling in the hold? She steadied herself. She’d seen ships from afar when she’d been to Furymouth. They were always there, out in the harbour, the Taiytakei. Wheedling and begging and poking and prodding and trying to get closer to the one thing they wanted. Everything ached, but in front of the old man she felt strong again. The Taiytakei sailors wore thin open shirts and short skirts and not one of them held a weapon. ‘And when they hatch, to eat you or burn you or both, how will you control them?’ She was a dragon-queen, who lived and flew and commanded monsters. Armed when they were not. She would cut through them like dragon-fire.

She staggered slightly, catching herself as the pitching of the deck caught her unawares. One ankle was still weak from her duel with Lystra. Stupid girl.

Quai’Shu smiled at her. ‘As you do, Your Holiness. With your alchemy.’

‘No alchemist would ever sell you their secrets.’

He nodded. ‘We have taken one of your alchemists. We know your secrets.’ He cocked his head. As he did, she caught sight of a white silk strip knotted to his belt. There was a black one next to it, and others besides. The golden dragons. Jehal’s wedding gift. They have must have been planning this even then. Her lips drew back. She snarled at him. ‘Valmeyan? He gave you the dragon eggs from Jehal’s eyrie, I know that much. Did he give you an alchemist as well? What did you give him?’

The old Taiytakei looked sad for a moment. ‘He wanted to build an empire. We gave him you, Your Holiness.’

‘But I am not yours to give,’ she hissed. ‘Take your eggs and burn!’ She had her knife in front of her now, sweeping through the air towards his neck before she’d finished speaking. The Taiytakei seemed rooted to the spot.

NO!

The knife turned to dust in her hand and puffed away. Zafir lost her balance. She stumbled across the deck and almost fell.

Quai’Shu looked at her sadly. ‘I did not expect anything better,’ he sighed and turned his back on her. ‘Whoever she is, you can get rid of her now. Turn her inside out or something.’

‘Her life is ours. Do you presume to take it, Quai’Shu?’ The voices of the silver sorcerers startled Zafir. The words came from three mouths at ones. Aloud they still spoke as one, in a harmony that was almost musical yet still as twisted and discordant as it had felt in her head. The old man hesitated. Paused. Didn’t move, didn’t turn back, but for an instant he froze.

Zafir leapt at him again. They’d disintegrated the knife in her hand, but she still had the one in her other boot. This time an invisible force slapped her away. She stumbled back, lost her balance and fell to the deck.

‘Do with her as you wish.’ The silver men dispersed into glittering mist and drifted up into the air. She followed them with her eyes towards the other dragons she’d brought with her from the Pinnacles, ridden by her three most trusted riders. They now hung motionless, frozen in the sky as though time, for them, had stopped. The silver mists reached them and seemed to whisper in the dragons’ ears. Even the Taiytakei seemed transfixed, watching the alien sorcerers ascend to the sky.

The old Taiytakei turned now, looked at her. He was still shaking, but it was only his age, not nerves. Or maybe it was suppressed laughter. Another one, taller, younger, but still skinny and frail-looking whispered in his ear. The old man frowned. Shrugged. Then nodded. Smiled, looked at Zafir, looked at the other man again and nodded once more. Then he turned and walked slowly away across the deck. The second Taiytakei stepped towards her. His eyes ran over her, carefully and methodically. He smiled at her, all greed and desire. ‘A queen from the land of dragons. You will fetch a fine price.’

One sight of the look in his eye and she knew what was on his mind. What was on the mind of most men when they saw her. She wasn’t sure whether it made her want to laugh or cry. Men. You’re all so pathetically predictable. Slowly, laboriously, she pushed herself back to her feet. The old Taiytakei was gone now, vanished off the deck. The younger one turned his back to her for a moment, gesturing, shouting words she didn’t understand at the sailors around him. For one bizarre moment she found herself thinking of Jehal. Missing him. At least he’d made no pretence of being anything else. At least, until Evenspire, he’d lived up to his promise.

She palmed the other boot-knife up her sleeve. Sailors were coming over now. She watched the Taiytakei who thought he owned her and clasped a hand to her breast. His eyes tracked the movement. She saw them glint, but he didn’t move.

‘Hold her.’

The first sailor reached out and grabbed her. She jumped straight at him, knocking him back. The sailor gave a yelp of surprise and let go. For a moment she was free. She had no doubt about what came next. The whole world narrowed down to the one Taiytakei who presumed to own her. To own a dragon-queen. She sprang at him and knocked him over and they fell, locked together. By the time they hit the deck she had the knife back out of her sleeve and was busy stabbing him.

‘Not.’ Stab. ‘Yours.’ Stab. ‘To give!’ Stab. Flecks of spittle flew from the corners of her mouth. Bodies piled on top of her – one, two, a dozen maybe – trying to pin her down and hold her still. She stabbed a few of them too, and then something hit her arm and her hand went limp and a moment after that the whole ship got up and hit her around the head.

She wondered, briefly, why she hadn’t dived into the sea to drown instead of killing the Taiytakei. But that last moment of clarity didn’t last long enough to give her an answer, and then everything was loud and black.