Long Live the King

Jehal leaned against a well near the edge of the Adamantine Eyrie. Jeiros sat with his back to it, his useless legs stretched out on the muddy ground. Finding chairs for two cripples was proving to be a problem.

‘The trouble with dragons,’ Jehal mused, ‘is never the monsters themselves.’ Keeping the weight off his damaged leg was making his back stiff. It was tempting to sit in the dirt with Jeiros, but that wasn’t what a speaker should do. Wasn’t what a grand master alchemist should do either, for that matter, but Jeiros didn’t have much of a choice. He’d be lucky to ever walk again. ‘The trouble always comes from the people who ride on the back of them.’ Jehal’s leg hurt whatever he did with it, a steady throbbing that never went away. The alchemists would have something for that, now they were here. Herbs, potions, anything, something that was stronger than Dreamleaf. He watched wearily as the last of his riders came in to land. The sky above the Mirror Lakes was a deep grey, like the slate roofs of the city. Evening rain clouds, carried up by the wind from the Raksheh and the sea beyond.

Eventually Eyrie-Master Copas conjured up a litter from somewhere. Jehal climbed in, slowly and laboriously. Jeiros sat beside him, lifted in by two of the bearers. The alchemist didn’t say anything and his eyes were closed. Most probably he was asleep.

‘We could have flown all through the night, straight from the Pinnacles, and been here in the morning, bright and early. The dragons wouldn’t have minded. I know they don’t much like flying in the dark but they’ll do it if you tell them. No, it’s the riders. Needing sleep and food and rest and to empty their bowels. We lost the whole day.’ He prodded Jeiros and waved a pouch of Dreamleaf at him. ‘Can dragons fly for ever? Do they actually need to rest at all? Does anyone know?’

Jeiros had a faraway look, either because his thoughts had been miles away or because he really had been asleep. ‘No. And yes and yes.’ He took a pinch of leaf and started to chew on it. ‘We did experiments on that sort of thing a long time ago. They don’t exactly wear out. But if they don’t rest and eat and drink, then eventually they overheat and then they burn up from the inside and die.’ His eyes came into focus on Jehal’s face. ‘The trouble with dragons, Jehal, is that they exist.’

Jehal. Not Your Holiness, just Jehal. After all they’d been through he couldn’t hold it against the alchemist. He watched the dragons. They were hungry and irritable and were tearing with zeal into the terrified animals that the Scales had herded out of their pens. Those like Wraithwing who’d sated themselves were already curled up to rest. ‘They do make a mess.’

‘A mess? Pray we don’t see what a mess they make.’ Jeiros stretched and then winced. Every movement was pain. Jehal knew how he felt. Look at us. A pair of cripples. ‘We should have wiped them out when we had the chance. It took a sorcerer, a true half-god sorcerer. Thousands and thousands of people died. Probably tens of thousands. We gave ourselves up with the poison in our veins. We killed them and we tamed them and we hunted out their nests and smashed their eggs. Perhaps we could have destroyed them. But no. We tamed them. We thought we were so clever.’ He spat bitterly. ‘Why did you keep me alive, Jehal? All I want to do now is kill every dragon here.’

‘Yes, well you won’t be doing that just yet. I kept you alive because you kept me alive. Besides, the realms need their alchemists whether I like it or not.’ And let’s not forget that you’re probably the one person who’ll stop the Night Watchman sticking my head on a spike the moment I hobble through the palace gates. But we won’t mention that, eh?

‘They won’t thank you for it.’

‘Yes, yes. The apocalypse is coming. Tell me, Jeiros, because it’s been bothering me for months, this potion of yours – why don’t you just make more?’

‘If only it was so easy. Truth is we’ve never been able to make quite enough. We get by. Now and then, when there is a strong speaker, we have a quiet cull, spread over two or three years. We don’t tell the kings and queens, just let them think it’s some sort of disease. It goes by unnoticed. We did it with Vishmir, Ayzalmir, a few others. So then most of the dragons are hatchlings, and we can stockpile potion. As they grow into adults, we very slowly start to run out. In time we have to do it again. The rogues who attacked the Redoubt didn’t affect what we could make, but they destroyed what we had stored. Ruined the lot. And then there was the war. The Red Riders. Evenspire.’ He wrinkled his nose.

Jehal waited. ‘You didn’t actually answer my question,’ he said.

Jeiros actually laughed. ‘I won’t tell you what goes into it, Speaker. Even Vioros doesn’t know that. Outside those who actually live in those caves, there are three of us who know, and only because we’ve done it ourselves. I’ve made that potion, Jehal. It’s simple enough. There’s just one thing that goes into it that matters, but that one thing . . .’ He shook his head. ‘We bleed for it, Jehal, we alchemists, and if our blood was all that mattered we would bleed ourselves dry. Only then there would be no more alchemists. Some harvests only yield what they yield and there is simply nothing more to be done.’ He laughed again. ‘Perhaps we should have bled ourselves to death for the rest of you. Perhaps we have. Not that it would make any difference.’

Jehal shrugged. ‘Look on the bright side – when it happens, whatever it is, maybe no one will live long enough to form an opinion on how much of it is actually your fault.’ Or mine.

‘Your indifference is touching.’ Jeiros looked at his feet. Bent and useless. Someone had put splints on him, but ankles smashed like that would never set right.

‘And your relentless gloom is relentlessly tedious.’ The litter lurched into motion, heading towards the eyrie gates. Jehal cast his gaze around, looking for his wife and the carriage she’d promised to find for him to take him up the hill to the palace. Riding dragons was one thing. Riding horses was a pleasure he had to leave to others now. No great loss. They were dull, stupid, uninspiring creatures. A bit like most of the lords I have to look forward to now that I’m home. Yes, that was a much more cheery thought. Hyrkallan and Sirion trapped in the Pinnacles without a dragon between them. Shezira’s other daughters with them. Valmeyan and Tichane dead. Zafir most likely dead too. Let’s face it, who’s left? Silvallan is probably shitting bricks wondering whether he’s next. At this rate I’ll have to invite the Syuss back to the council. They’ll have more dragons than any of the rest of us soon. Another little nugget to chew on. The Syuss had always hated Hyram. They’d hated Antros and Shezira and Valgar. The names were different now, but the hate would still be there. With a bit of prodding and stirring all manner of troubles might arise there. Played right the north could be a lot of fun in the years to come. But that can wait. When you tidy your house, you start with the bits you actually live in. First things first. Vale Tassan here I come. Say one thing for dragons: once you’re on the back of one, it doesn’t matter how much of a cripple you are. Boy, woman, man, half-man, put us on a dragon and none of that matters. What matters is that the monster obeys. When that happens, we become gods.

The litter stopped. Jehal tumbled out, catching himself with his staff, and hobbled towards Lystra and his waiting carriage. He and Jeiros would each deal with their own rogues. A fair and equitable arrangement.

As he limped closer, soldiers on horseback converged on the carriage. Adamantine Men. For a moment his heart missed a beat, but when they drew their swords, it was to salute him. So Vale knows I’m coming. I suppose it’s probably easier to kill me in the palace than down here. Too many witnesses . . .

The carriage door flew open. Lystra threw her arms around his neck, almost strangling him. His bad leg buckled. For an instant it seemed he would fall, dragging her out of the carriage to roll around in the mud. A fine sight that would have been – the speaker and his queen grappling in the dirt – but she had enough strength to pull him in instead. He half sat, half fell on the seat beside her.

She smiled at him, eyes wide with excitement. ‘Do you know I’ve never been here. Not since I was a little girl. You have to show me everything. There must be so many marvellous—’

He shut her up by kissing her, which still usually worked. So many marvellous things. Yes. Pity that most of them want to kill me. In a pause for breath he glanced out the window. The still waters of the Mirror Lakes lay dull and flat under the evening sky. Behind them the City of Dragons sat in a shimmer of mist. Her towers sparkled, painted in silver and gold. Money, opulence, decadence, too much of all of them. My kind of place.

Behind the haze of the city, the half-seen cliffs of the Purple Spur rose into the twilight. Somewhere above and beyond them, in the gaps between the clouds, the first stars of the evening twinkled. The sky. Closeted up in a carriage was no way to travel.

Although it did have some advantages, as Lystra soon showed him, and he almost didn’t notice when they rolled to a halt inside the palace gates twenty minutes later. He was still smoothing down his shirt as the door opened to reveal two lines of Adamantine Men formed up to greet him. Two lines and one man in the middle, bowing precisely as low as he should to greet the Speaker of the Realms. The speaker, Jehal noted, not a king. Interesting.

‘Vale Tassan. What a pleasure to see you again.’ Jehal stood up, wincing. Behind him Lystra gathered herself together with an embarrassed little cough.

The Night Watchman straightened. ‘Your Holinesses. The palace is in order.’ There were men everywhere, Jehal began to see. Soldiers on all the walls. Scorpions packed together as closely as they would go. Even scorpions down in the Gateyard, trained up at the sky.

‘You’ve been busy.’

Vale bowed again. ‘While the speaker is away, it is my duty to defend against any invader.’

‘Ah. Just so we’re both clear and there are no misunderstandings, do I count as a speaker or as an invader or as both?’

The Night Watchman didn’t twitch. ‘You are the speaker until the Lesser Council says otherwise. Or another is chosen by the council of kings and queens.’

Jehal snorted. ‘Well there’s a distinct shortage of both of those at the moment so I wouldn’t hold your breath.’ He grimaced and hauled himself down the steps of the carriage, then walked towards the Speaker’s Tower, leaning heavily on his staff.

‘Your leg seems worse, Your Holiness.’

‘I fell off a dragon and hung there for a little while. It did me no favours.’

‘I will have one of my physicians sent to you.’

‘If he has a fine collection of spare legs and is able to replace this with a new one that has not previously been shot through by a large crossbow then, please, as soon as you can. Otherwise I really wouldn’t bother.’

‘As you wish.’ Nothing. As always, the man gave away nothing. He could be seconds away from killing me or he could loyally serve me for a decade. It could be either and I’d never know which was coming. And that alone was a good enough reason to get rid of him.

‘I have a job for you, Night Watchman. An order. One that should suit you very well.’

Vale said nothing. He looked straight ahead, keeping perfect pace with Jehal. He didn’t look tense at all. He didn’t look much of anything except ready. But ready for what?

‘Well don’t you want to know what it is?’

‘I exist to serve, Your Holiness. That is what I am for, and my men with me. From birth—’

‘To death. The guard obeys orders. Nothing more, nothing less. I’ve heard that so many times, Vale, and I have yet to believe it. So now I mean to put it to the test. I want you to go, right now, with as many of your men as you deem necessary. I want you to find the rogue dragons that Jeiros is fretting about and I want you to kill them for me. Is that something you can do?’

Vale licked his lips. ‘Unlikely, Your Holiness. But if that is your wish, I will do my utmost. If that is my fate, I will succeed. If not, I will die in the attempt.’

‘Yes, please. Do you think you could succeed and then die of your wounds afterwards?’

‘Jehal!’ He’d forgotten Lystra, padding silently behind them. Jehal turned and flashed her a smile.

‘A little joke, my love. Vale, you’re still here. I believe I gave you an order.’

‘And I will obey, Your Holiness. Indeed, I have already embarked upon your mission.’ They were drawing close to the Speaker’s Tower. Its doors remained shut. The soldiers on either side made no move to open them. Jehal felt a sharp twinge of fear in his belly. Here it comes. The knife.

‘The doors to my tower appear to be closed, Night Watchman, and your men are not opening them. Should I be concerned?’

‘Yes, your Holiness. Yes, you should.’ Vale gestured towards the Glass Cathedral. ‘This would be a better place.’

Jehal didn’t move.

‘The tunnels, Your Holiness. For you and your queen and your son. You will be safe there.’

‘What?’

‘You’ll hardly recognise them. If all does not go well, I dare say there are enough supplies for you and your household to last for some time. Months, perhaps.’

‘What are you talking about?’ The twinge of fear was turning into something more.

Vale took a deep breath and sighed. For once he turned to face Jehal and looked him in the eye. For once he looked tired. ‘There is a cage, Jehal. You can hang me in it if you want to, or perhaps I’ll hang you, but either will be a cause for celebration because it will mean we have survived. It will mean we are alive. It will mean it still matters. I don’t need to go anywhere to follow your orders. I am as ready as I can be. I have taken dragon poison and so have all my men. Up on the peaks by the Diamond Cascade are some thirty dragons and not one of them with a rider. One is white.’ He gave a bitter laugh. ‘They’ve been there for two days. I can only assume it’s you they’re waiting for. And now you are here.’ He turned briefly to look at Lystra. ‘Unless I am mistaken, the realms of the north are gone, Your Holiness. I am sorry.’ Then back to Jehal. ‘Go to the Glass Cathedral. You will be looked after. I have done everything I can.’

His face said the rest. Everything wasn’t enough. Not by a very long way. Jehal felt numb.

‘I have always kept lookouts on the edge of the Spur, Your Holiness. They are there to watch for dragons. Any who might threaten the city. They signal to me with mirrors, or with smoke and fire. They are still there. I think the dragons have chosen to let them live. They want us to know they are coming.’ He bowed, and for a moment looked old and tired. ‘Take what pleasure you can from the night, Your Holiness. In the morning they will come.’