He turned and looked around the room. At the roundness of it, at its curved floor and metal walls. ‘We're in one of those too, aren't we?’ He bit his lip. Witchery and blood-magic again! But there was nothing to be done.
‘Of course we are.’ The voice above giggled at him.
He turned back to the window. He didn't dare let the other slaves see him looking afraid, even if he knew he wasn't. ‘Who are you?’ he asked.
‘A slave, of course,’ said the whisper. ‘You're the new one, aren't you? The one who comes from the place they call the land of the dragons? Do they really have dragons there?’
‘Yes.’
‘And are they terrible monsters?’
She felt so close. He turned and stared at the boards and wondered if he was strong enough to rip a hole. ‘Terrible enough,’ he growled. ‘But not as terrible as I am. What's your name?’
‘I already told you.’ She was laughing at him.
He bared his teeth at the sky outside. ‘Well, slave, whoever you are, I wish you were down here where I could see you.’
‘I think for now I'm very glad that I'm not.’
The world outside turned suddenly white as they rose into the cloud and stayed that way for the whole two days they flew, almost as if whoever was piloting wished them to see nothing. There was not much to do except get in the faces of the other men and whisper sweet nothings at the women above, though no one whispered back after that first ascent. They were all much too demure in the Taiytakei way for such things. Or, as the sail-slaves back on his galley had it, tight-legged prudes.
The gondola came down at last, long after dark in the middle of some city, into a wide stone-flagged yard surrounded by tall walls full of windows. The ramp doors opened and Taiytakei soldiers hustled the slaves quickly out. Tuuran's eyes peered at the night, looking at the women as they came down from above. The palace slaves stood and shivered and grumbled. Tuuran stretched his legs and flexed his muscles and made sure he was seen, while their gondola and its ship of glass rose once more to make space for the alchemist and the witch to land in their place. As soon as it came down and the gondola ramp opened, the witch marched the alchemist straight out, past them all and across the yard and through grand iron-bound doors, snapping her fingers at Tuuran and a pair of soldiers to follow in her wake. She strode through a long magnificent hall draped in night-time shadow, through another great iron door and away into the city, all breathlessly fast as if the fate of the world depended on it only to stop after half a mile to stand in front of an old palace. For the purpose, as far as Tuuran could tell, of talking at it.
‘I wanted to show you at least one thing while we were here.’ The witch was out of breath and so was the alchemist. ‘It dates back to the Mar-Li Republics, to before the Elemental Men.’ Tuuran puffed his cheeks and looked about. The alchemist seemed interested but Tuuran was bored and hungry and deadly restless after two days cramped up in a cage in the sky. He paced around. ‘It used to be the home to Zinzarra's lords, but when they went they left it to rot. Yet they still guard it.’ It seemed odd to Tuuran to guard a place with its windows and doors all bricked shut, and if they were guarding it, they didn't seem to be doing much a job of it. He couldn't see any actual guards, for a start. And maybe the alchemist thought something similar, but he never had a chance to ask because suddenly there was another Taiytakei sauntering down the street, and he would have walked right up to them if the two soldiers hadn't blocked his path. He stopped courteously enough but his eyes stayed a little too long on Bellepheros. Tuuran's skin prickled. Old instincts put him on edge.
‘I do apologise so much for this,’ said the stranger. ‘It's so hideously embarrassing that I don't even know your name. So, ah, Alchemist from the Land of Dragons will have to do. And again, further apologies for the nature of this meeting. .’
The soldiers advanced to force the newcomer away. He retreated without complaint, not bothered at all. Such an easy manner in front of two armed men made Tuuran wish for his sword. And he kept talking too, and at Bellepheros, not even at the witch.
‘Ordinarily we'd make arrangements for a time and place in a quiet and civilised manner and I'd give you a day or two to settle your affairs. Things being as they are, I'm afraid I must insist on here and now. I can only beg you forgive me for such rudeness.’
The words made little sense but the way they were said had Tuuran already moving towards Bellepheros. The two Taiytakei soldiers reached for their swords but faltered and staggered as the stranger walked between them, pushing them lightly aside. One stumbled to his knees, clutching his throat. The other crashed to the ground. The witch went for the golden wand at her belt.
‘I'm so sorry about your soldiers.’ The stranger had a hand in one pocket. His eyes were firmly on the witch now, not looking at Bellepheros at all, but his words had been for the alchemist. The alchemist who was simply watching, bemused.
There was a second man somewhere.
The realisation hit Tuuran a moment before he saw the other assassin and by then he was already moving, hurling himself at the alchemist's back.
The witch levelled her wand. Quick as a snake, the first assassin whipped some silvery thing out of his pocket and held it in front of him, pointed at the witch. The second drew back his arm and threw knives, one, two, three, all at the alchemist's back but a half a second too late. Tuuran took them all, one in the arm, one the shoulder and one to the chest. Deep, each one of them. The arm and shoulder would hurt. The one in the chest, he knew, had probably killed him. The assassin now went for his sword; so did Tuuran, only he didn't have one, so he pulled the knife out of his shoulder instead. He was bleeding like a stuck pig. The assassin's sword was a long pointy thing, the sort for running people through. The two of them faced each other.
‘Well,’ said Tuuran, ‘you can kebab me and finish me off if you like but you're going to look very stupid when I ram your own knife in your face before I die.’
The assassin was looking past him and Tuuran realised he hadn't heard the thundercrack of the witch firing her wand. His heart raced, because that meant the first one was still there and he certainly couldn't hold off two; and then a figure appeared behind the assassin who'd thrown the knives. Literally appeared as if he'd been standing there all along but had been invisible until now. He wore a black robe edged with strands of colour that all washed out to a silvery grey in the moonlight. As he appeared, he made a slight movement and the assassin's hand fell off and landed on the street with a wet thud. Blood sprayed from the stump over the wide stones. The assassin just stood, dumbfounded, and let himself bleed. Black-robe flicked something from his empty hand. Tuuran didn't see what it was, but the assassin screamed as though he'd had his testicles crushed and finally clutched the stump of his arm. The stream of blood over the road petered out and then stopped. The assassin's whole arm, Tuuran saw, had withered and turned black. He felt light-headed. The lights further down the street had blurred a little.
Black-robe leaned close and whispered in the assassin's ear, ‘Go and tell your regrettable masters that this one is out of their reach. Whoever asked you to do this will be obliged to seek a return of their jade. Now go, and stay gone.’
The now one-armed assassin bowed and backed away. His face was a rictus of pain and he spoke through gritted teeth. ‘We are but poor mirrors. We know this. But when, may I ask, did you become guardsmen? We are knives, not shields.’