Her mouth fell open. ‘Sea Lord, may I ask what. .’
The white-cloak pulled his golden wand from his belt.
‘No! Sea Lord! Please! Do not!’ She saw Zafir between the white-cloak and the dragon. The slave was shaking her head but she was smiling, the bitch was smiling. Even as the white-cloak raised his wand and pointed it at the dragon, Zafir dropped to one knee, ducked and pressed her hands over her ears. Liang looked away. The noise shook the eyrie, lightning as strong as a wand could make, a crack of thunder so loud that even the hatchlings at the far end of the dragon yard stopped snapping at one another and turned to look. The lightning hit the dragon square on the nose. Tsen and Bronzehand and a few of the white-cloaks who hadn't had the wit to see what was coming and look away reeled and staggered, stunned by the noise and the light. Liang looked back, horrified. The dragon bared its teeth. Its eyes narrowed and its wings flared, sending a wind along the battlements that almost knocked her off her feet, but that was just the dragon keeping its balance as its tail whipped around from behind its legs. The dragon-slave threw herself flat as though she knew exactly what was coming but the white-cloak didn't see it at all. The end of the tail took him from the side like a mountain falling from the sky. It hit him with such a force that his armour exploded, pieces flying off it in all directions. It probably shattered every bone in his body as it hurled him hundreds of feet into the air, away over the edge of the battlements. Liang watched him fall to the desert far below. He didn't scream.
Everyone moved at once. The white-cloaks all went for their wands. Zafir was on her feet, running straight at them, but the dragon was quickest of all. Its head shot forward. Frighteningly fast, faster than Liang had ever seen it. Its eyes were locked on Sea Lord Shonda and Liang's blood ran cold. It knew! It had seen the sea lord give the order and it knew! Its mouth opened and Liang could feel the heat of it.
‘No! Stop! All of you stop!’ Zafir was between the dragon and the white-cloaks, one hand thrust out each way, palm up. ‘Do not, do not, do not!’ Her voice cut the air. The white-cloaks had surrounded Shonda, wands all raised. Shonda somehow managed to stay still. Zafir turned her head slowly to the dragon, hands still up. ‘No!’ she commanded it again. ‘You may not.’ They stared each other down, dragon and rider, for ten long heartbeats, and then Zafir's head snapped back to the white-cloaks. ‘That was foolish. Now withdraw or it will eat you.’ She pointed a finger straight at Sea Lord Shonda. ‘It will eat him. It's not stupid.’
‘Sea Lord. .’ Tsen had misplaced his voice for a few seconds, but now he found it again. Another handful of heartbeats passed and no one moved. Then Shonda turned his back on the dragon and walked with deliberate slowness away.
‘We have seen enough,’ he said, and Liang had to admire his control. He was shaking, but only enough to see if you really looked.
49
Blink. Two soldiers stood in front of the Watcher, backing quickly away. The next moment he was behind them. They fell as blades thin as a hair slit them open.
The glass palace of Elesxian was small as palaces went. Xican was a nothing place, dull and lifeless except for the docks and the sailors who came and went with the sea lords’ fleets. A fine place for listening to the wind though, and for learning what moves were afoot among the lords who sent their fleets this way. The quickest paths to both the Dominion and the dragon realms lay through the storms that danced across the seas off Xican.
Blink. A half-shut door, two men on the far side desperately trying to close it. Glass, not that glass would keep him at bay for long. They were too slow and there was a gap and it was enough, and he was through and behind them. The bladeless knives flashed and blood sprayed across their glitter. Wasteful to kill so many. Shameful for one who'd learned to move like a ghost in shadows but he wasn't here to kill, not really.
Blink. A screaming servant saw him and ran. A Taiytakei. A little kwen or a t'varr, lowest of their rank, quivering in a corner, perhaps hoping he wouldn't notice him. He walked on past, blood dripping from the blades that could not be seen. He wasn't here to kill. He was here to teach.
They'd sealed the glass palace itself. Hardly a surprise since he'd let them know he was coming so that they could do precisely that. Now he would enter it anyway and show them how futile it was to even try. That, after all, was the point. That was the lesson.
Blink. A glass door. Sealed. The last and only entrance to the inner palace, to Elesxian's inner heart. He tapped and listened to the music that the glass played for him and then reached out a hand and set it quivering to the same song. The door shattered. The enchanters were always finding ways to mix metal and glass together to try and defeat an Elemental Man and the Elemental Men were constantly proving that it could not be done.
Blink. Another door. Gold. Gold or silver that wouldn't shatter, that was far better but even then not perfect. A gold door? It was new. Elesxian's palace had changed since last he'd been here. No matter.
There were more soldiers coming from behind him. Ones that didn't turn and run. He blinked behind them and slashed but for once the bladeless knives didn't bite.
Stoneguard. Xican's little secret, although not as secret as Elesxian liked to think. Golem soldiers made of stone, enchanted to life and merged in some way the Watcher didn't understand with sword-slaves. Creatures made of stone who moved as men. Enchanters’ work, a darker side of the golems they made for digging and tunnelling the ever-growing City of Stone.
They lunged at him but he wasn't there.
Creatures made of stone.
Perfect.
He was inside them.
50
Ah, the joys of hosting one's betters! How can one ever get enough of it? They went through the motions. Tsen was good at that and always had been. A part of his mind listened to Lord Shonda and his questions, and to his own answers as he guided the Vespinese lords around his eyrie. He showed them the hatchlings and the alchemist, the Scales and the dragon-scale skins they were drying. All the while another part of him thought of his bathhouse deep in the eyrie's heart and of Kalaiya. He'd need her tonight, her soothing words, her presence and her scent. I nearly died today he could tell her, and she'd laugh at him, but it was true. He was quite sure the dragon would have eaten them all if its rider hadn't stopped it. A part of him wondered why she'd bothered, and yet another part of him wouldn't have blamed her at all if she'd just let it rip them all to pieces. What sort of idiot walks up to a monster like that and hits it with a lightning bolt? He supposed he should admire the loyalty of Shonda's white-cloak for doing it at all. Makes you wonder how loyal the rest of them will be when the next time comes.
‘A good test of your control of the beast,’ Vey Rin T'Varr said while Shonda was talking to the enchantress and the alchemist. They were the only words to come from his old friend from long ago, and the cynic in Tsen decided that Rin was only saying them to distract him from listening in on whatever Shonda was talking about. Not that he needed to. Shonda's agenda was obvious. He was a sea lord and his thoughts were sea lord thoughts: How can this be mine? Rin himself didn't seem interested in the hatchlings or the alchemist or indeed anything. Because you're only here to talk about all that money I owe you? Ah well, considerate of you not to pretend otherwise.