‘I. .’ The pain was ebbing fast now, a great weight wrapping itself around his thoughts in its place, a smothering blanket of fatigue and it took him, or maybe the Elemental Man did turn them both to wind after all because the next thing he knew they were back where they'd started, in a courtyard outside an open golden gondola. He recognised the smell of stale sweat. When he forced his eyes open, everything was blurred.
‘He still needs my help,’ said the alchemist shortly.
‘Belli. .’ But Tuuran had come to know that edge to the alchemist's voice while they'd been at sea and the witch must have learned it too. The one that said he wouldn't take an argument. ‘Very well. Watcher, seal us in.’
The Elemental Man set him down on a table. Tuuran's eyes swam reluctantly into focus at last. Yes, a gondola, but not the one that had flown him here. This one felt bigger. The Watcher stood over him and then vanished, dissolving into the air. A few seconds later Tuuran heard him speak again, this time at the gondola door. ‘There are no others of my nature here.’
‘One of you must be close, though,’ said the witch. Bellepheros was busy cutting at Tuuran's clothes.
‘Why?’
‘The alchemist came to Xican three days ago. We were one day in the palace. No glasships left the Palace of Leaves — they were not permitted — and the jade ravens were kept caged. It was too important. Yet the Regrettable Men were waiting and they nearly took him.’ The witch sounded close to tears. ‘Stupid, both of us. I thought he'd be safe a while longer, I really did. I hoped-’
The Watcher's voice betrayed nothing. ‘Not all jade ravens are held in the palace nor do they all belong to Sea Lord Quai'Shu. But do not assume they knew your destination, Lady Chay. The Regrettable Men number enough to await you up and down the western coast in every city you might pass if they had been warned you were coming. You've brought slaves. It would be easy enough to turn one of them. Nor would it be so hard to guess where you would come and to pay eyes to watch the skies.’
The witch stamped her foot. ‘No one has Regrettable Men standing around waiting in every city from here to Vespinarr! That would be a sea lord's fortune of jade!’
‘Yet less than our lord paid for me, lady.’
‘Quai'Shu must know, if he hasn't already left again. Please tell him!’
‘I will. And I will go to Shevana-Daro and see if the Regrettable Men await us there too. Zinzarra allies itself with Cashax and thus with Dhar Thosis and all who stand opposed to Vespinarr, while Sea Lord Quai'Shu kisses the mountain lord's ring. Our lord has few friends here. Shevana-Daro remains aloof from these squabbles. If there are Regrettable Men awaiting you there, it will be informative.’
He was a poor liar for an assassin and the Elemental Man clearly had something entirely else on his mind, but Tuuran was in no place to give that much thought. The witch either couldn't tell or didn't care.
‘As you will, Watcher. My concern has become to deliver Bellepheros to Baros Tsen T'Varr and his flying eyrie without him dying on the way. There will be no more stops.’ Her voice changed as she turned to the alchemist. ‘I'm sorry, Belli. It will be a long journey and there was a great deal I'd hoped to show you. . the Crown of the Sea Lords in Khalishtor. But we can see that from the air, the Lighthouse at Negarrai too. Perhaps Vespinarr will be safe. We could have stayed there for days. You would have found much to your liking.’
‘Never mind that.’ The alchemist was poking at Tuuran's chest, at the hole in it that ought to have killed him. Tuuran tried to lift his head to see what the alchemist was doing and found that he could, just about, but the alchemist put a finger between his eyes and pushed gently back, forcing him to lie still. ‘Be quiet, Sword of Narammed. You came close to dying today.’ He was poking at the shoulder wound now. ‘This won't hurt as much as the last, but it will sti-’ Whatever he said, a blur of agony swallowed it. Tuuran convulsed.
‘What are you doing to him?’
‘The leaf of the spiderwort stops the bleeding in its tracks. The ones I have here are soaked in Dreamleaf to take away the worst of the pain. Things I happened to have with me when you took me.’ There was a bite to the alchemist's words but Tuuran was in no state to appreciate it. Right now he felt as though the alchemist had ripped his arm right out of its socket and if there was any Dreamleaf in there then it was certainly taking its time to be noticed.
‘To take. . away. . the worst?’ he gasped.
‘Spiderwort is a poison, my friend. It kills through sheer agony.’
‘I. . can believe you.’
‘Ach, you're an Adamantine Man. You're supposed to be immune to pain.’
‘Apparently not. . as immune. . as I would like.’
Bellepheros held up his hand and rummaged for something. ‘Has anyone got a knife?’ Tuuran was still clutching one. He managed to lift his hand enough to show Bellepheros, who took it. Last Tuuran had looked, he'd still had at least one other stuck in him somewhere too.
‘Belli!’ The Witch gave a little gasp of alarm.
‘O Chay-Liang! If I was going to kill anyone then I could have poisoned either of us in a hundred different ways by now.’ The alchemist tested the edge and then delicately sliced open the flesh on the heel of his hand. ‘This will hurt too, I'm afraid.’ He wiped a few drops of his blood onto a finger and then pressed it into the wound on Tuuran's chest. He did the same with the other cuts. And yes, it hurt, but not like the leaves had.
‘Blood-magic,’ hissed Tuuran. ‘We do not. . suffer a blood-mage. . to live!’
‘Well if this is blood-magic then you'll have to kill an awful lot of alchemists,’ snapped Bellepheros. ‘A blood-mage uses the blood of others. Usually without their consent. An alchemist uses his own. That's the difference and the whole difference. When I start murdering virgins on altars to meddle with forces best left to slumber, then you can put on your armour and take up your sword and spout your righteous claptrap. When I'm saving your life, you can be quiet!’
Tuuran started to laugh. ‘I think I like you, alchemist.’
‘You'd better! Now shut up and lie still while I stitch these closed. They'll heal in a few days, far faster than you might otherwise expect. You have my blood to thank for that. You'll feel enervated for a time. I advise a great deal of fresh air and exercise.’
‘He's going to spend the next two weeks in a space about the size of this one with a dozen other slaves,’ said the witch caustically.
‘Then if they are slaves for whom you have a fondness, I suggest you find a particularly enthusiastic partner to accompany him. He'll need some way to release the energy I've just put into him. The usual outlet for Adamantine Men, from what I've seen of them, is either whoring or breaking heads. Give him the former or the latter will surely follow.’ Bellepheros held up a threaded needle so Tuuran could see. ‘Do you prefer men or women?’
‘Bellepheros!’ The witch's outrage made Tuuran laugh again. ‘You cannot possibly expect me to do such a thing! It would be. . beyond inappropriate hardly begins to encompass it!’
‘I will find a way to. . OW!’ Tuuran gasped again as the needle bit his skin. Manage. I will find a way to manage.
They kept him in their gondola that night. He felt the glasship rise and listened, in and out of a fitful sleep, to the alchemist and the witch talking of this and that, of his realm and of hers and of dragons. Mostly of dragons, for they were why the alchemist was here; and dragons, he found, were not as unknown among the Taiytakei as he'd supposed. They had no living ones of course but they had legends. The symbol of the city of Vespinarr was three dragons twined together with a lion. Dragons were said to live deep under the mountains of the Konsidar with the mysterious people that the witch called the Righteous Ones, a race apart. Dragons had once roosted on a place called the Dul Matha where they had warred with the stone titans of the sea, both of them spawned by the monstrous Kraitu and the great sea serpent the Red Banatch. There had been dragons long ago in the City of Stone, even, before men had ever ventured there. They'd been turned to obsidian and flint in the Splintering but pieces of them could still be found here and there, fused into the mountainsides. All stories, of course, none of them real.