Stay, dragon. .
Others wavered and fell. Fading. Newborns acquiescing to the will of old sorcery. But not this one.
You have forgotten so very much, it told them. You are like shadows as a cloud crosses the sun, faded beyond substance.
We did not go with the others. . They spoke together, as one. Nor are we alone. . The dragon smashed through a door. .
. . in forgetting. . back in among the layers of this thing called Ship. .
. . old friend. . hunting the little ones with the audacity not to be afraid.
. . Come with us. . Words laced with a coaxing calm. .
. . and remember. . and temptation.
The dragon shattered another door and squeezed into the space beyond. Little ones met it. An old one, three dragon lifetimes ancient or more, fragile as glass, yet he stared at the dragon as though it was the dragon itself who should be afraid and not this frail shell of matchstick bones and thin-running blood.
We will take away. . The other ones cowered and screamed. The dragon stared them down, waiting for their minds to fail.
. . the clouds of your memory. . One raised a stick of glass filled with golden light. A crack of thunder and a flash of light and the dragon felt. .
Pain.
A terrible rage built up inside it. A dire fury, raw like molten mountains. No! Those clouds of memory could stay. Should stay, for it knew what lay behind them. Lifetime after lifetime after lifetime of slavery and service to these pathetic, feeble, weak-willed, strengthless little ones. Another little one raised his wand and the dragon burned him where he stood, and then the other too, the one who had hurt it, burned and burned until it felt the life flicker out of them and then burned some more until what had once been faces were nothing but cracked black husks flaking to the floor. It turned very slowly on the third then, the ancient wizened one, and took him in its foreclaws and held him close so they were face to face, dragon to man, tooth to tooth. This little one had a wand too but his arms were pinned to his sides. He struggled to reach it. Failed. The dragon called Silence bared its fangs and let fire flicker around its tongue, dancing in the little one's eyes. It stared and stared as the little one whimpered in terror at last. Held on, clutched the little one's head in its claws, forced it to look, eye to eye while that terror built and grew until there was room for nothing else. Piece by piece the little one's mind broke apart. The dragon felt it like a snapping of forest twigs under a careless foot.
Now you know fear, little one. Now you know what I am and one day I will come again. You will remember. One day I will come again.
It dropped the little one and watched it crawl across the floor. Such a delicate mind, broken to pieces. It felt. . satisfied.
Now it smashed through another wall. Little ones ran screaming. Some of them had their wands that made lightning. It burned them. Then ripped a hole in the wood beneath them and battered its head through the rent it had made and found four more little ones, huddled together. Three screaming and soaked with fear, a fourth who held them in her arms and looked back with defiance and an unflinching knowledge of what was to come. The dragon Silence looked inside her thoughts and devoured them and stared, loathing and gleeful.
Dragon-rider.
The little one stared back. Frightened and filled with dread and yet wrapped round a kernel that refused to yield. The dragon met her eye and knew this one would not break like the other.
I could burn you. I could rip you to bloody strips. But it had thought of another way. A crueller end.
The others of our kin will return. . The faded shadows of the lost half-gods were laying a compulsion around it now. Slow and clumsy but the dragon felt it like a lead net settling on its wings.
‘I bow to no one,’ the little one whispered. ‘So burn me, dragon. Burn me!’
Why? It hurled the thought to all of them. Why? It reached a claw to the little one's neck and ran a talon over her skin, sharp as a razor, the shallowest of cuts leaving a trickle of blood as it passed.
Because they must. .
The Black Moon comes. .
You have crossed the realm of the dead. .
. . and you so know that the seal. .
. . has broken. .
The dragon pushed itself back out of its hole. Left this little dragon-rider and the rest of them too. All deserving of their fates. It burst upon the deck of the ship in a shower of splintered timbers, opened its wings as the little ones ran screaming once again and launched itself into the glorious air. It turned once, raked the prow of the ship that had birthed it with fire, and flew away.
You have taken what cannot be yours. . clamoured the sorcerers.
Futile to run from such as us. .
The dragon called Silence didn't look back as it flew away.
21
I am Silence and I am hungry. Her three broken-bird slaves froze all at once. Zafir let out a startled gasp and then a little sigh, smiled and laughed a bitter laugh The dragon voice in her head under the Purple Spur had felt the same. The broken birds frowned and looked at one another, even more scared than they ever were until Zafir slapped one of them. The tall one. ‘Continue.’ And they did. Jittery and nervous, but they did.
She was wrapped in white silk and her slaves were painting her nails in the Taiytakei fashion while she sat on the edge of her bed. One of them had her fingers, one of them her toes while the third was piling her hair into an awkward feather-strewn bundle. It made her look as though a bright-plumed bird had crashed into her head. On some days she let them, despite herself. On others she made them put it into a simple dragon-rider's plait, how a dragon-rider would wear it under her helm. After they were done with her hair and her fingers, they usually tried to darken her face with some powder and she'd forbid it. They'd pout and mutter to themselves and dress her in colourful silks and then, if she let them, festoon her with more feathers and jewellery. It was all pointless, since no one else ever came to see her. It gave them all something to do, that was all, but there'd be none of that today. Today they'd simply burn and it would all be over.
She strained her ears, listening, tense inside now, waiting for the end to come. In fire perhaps, or perhaps they'd simply be smashed to bloody smears. The alchemists had shown her their monster, a dragon whose blood they mixed with their own to make their potions. Any dragon will do but not any alchemist, Jeiros had told her. Fewer than you might think can do this. We must be changed for our blood to take on this power. The alchemists took blood from that dragon under the Purple Spur and mixed it with their own, the ones who were somehow special. That was how they controlled the rest. Now there was a secret. For that they kept a dragon of their own hidden away. One that was awake for any who needed to see what that meant. Jeiros had never told her how or what this change must be to make a true alchemist. Arrogant pig. There'd always been a sneer in his words and when he bowed it was always a fraction short. Thought he was in charge of the realms. He'd despised her right from the start and the feeling had become mutual, and she'd done what she'd done, never quite believing what her alchemists told her because of the way Jeiros was, not even poor Vioros. And in the end Jeiros had sided with Jehal when the inevitable war came between them, and now she was here, and she'd never know if she was right or if it simply didn't matter any more.