‘The greatest library in the world,’ she said wistfully.
Soldiers huffed and puffed up from the valley to see whose glasships had come and asked them kindly to leave. She obliged them, but as they left she couldn't help circling the Dralamut one last time. ‘They have copies of the Rava,’ she said. ‘More than one. An original, I've heard. And astronomical instruments and notebooks that belonged to the Crimson Sunburst herself. Those sort of things would get you killed anywhere else. The Elemental Men can be very. . rigid. I suppose that's the word. But within the Dralamut they turn a blind eye.’
Bellepheros let out a weary sigh. ‘We have our own great library in Sand but I'm sure it's not as exciting as yours.’ Something had irritated him today and so she let him be. He had his moods. They came and went but she knew what they were: sickness for his old home. For his old comforts and his old friends and there was absolutely nothing she could do to help him. It was strange how she felt sorry for him now. When they'd left she'd been set on making him want to stay. Now she found herself wishing for another way. Something that could give all of them what they wanted but she couldn't think for the life of her what that might be.
They passed over the mountain city of Vespinarr. Vespinarr held more marvels than half the rest of the world together, yet as they came close he barely even looked out of the window. ‘Your world is full of miracles,’ he told her when she asked him why. ‘And you've tried very hard, Liang, to make me see them for what they are, and I do feel privileged to have seen them at all. You've made my home seem small and tawdry by comparison and you've been nothing but kind and, had it come another way, I think I would be exhilarated. But it was my home and I should dearly like to see it again.’
‘I know, Belli.’ She took his hand and sat beside him. ‘And that's one thing I can't do for you, however much I might wish it. Quai'Shu will not let you go. But I have seen your sadness and I have given some thought to it. Perhaps, when the eyrie is built and the dragons are come, perhaps then there will be a way. Perhaps we might have more of your alchemists here. You could send them to us to look after our dragons and in return we'll teach them some of our ways and send them back, richer and wiser. It might take years to make a dream like that become real and I know that patience is a hard thing to ask of any slave, but you, I think, can understand better than any other I've met.’
The alchemist put his other hand on hers and turned to look her in the eye. His face was hard but with hope. ‘Could it really be like that? Really? We both know it will not be our choice to make. Either of us, for either world.’
‘But would you not rather come as friends and allies than as slaves?’ The smile that flickered at the edges of his lips as he thought about it was beautiful. His eyes gleamed. ‘We will make it so, Belli. You and I. We have just begun.’
He chuckled. ‘You will need more alchemists if you ever get your dragons.’ He turned away from her, smiling now, and looked out of the window at the Silver Mountain of Vespinarr, Mazanda's Peak and the huge sprawl of the Kabulingnor Palace that was its crown. ‘I don't know, Liang. But what you say does have much to recommend it, it really does. Even to a dragon-king. Whoever is speaker might agree to it, given the right encouragement. Or if they came here and saw it all for themselves. I tremble to imagine what your people could offer instead of slave ships!’
She squeezed his hand. ‘And a sea lord too, Belli. Let this be a great exploration between us. When the dragons come and we've shown T'Varr Baros that his eyrie works as it should, we'll tell him that he must have more alchemists than just one. We will make it so, you and I, and you will go back to your land filled with books and scrolls and the knowledge that I've given you. And I'll come with you and I'll bring my glasship and you'll show me all the places of wonder in your lands as I have shown you mine.’
‘You won't bring a glasship,’ he said. ‘I won't let you.’ Nor would she, for such grand and complex pieces of her art didn't take well to crossing the storm-dark and almost inevitably failed.
‘It was a fancy, Belli, that's all. Don't spoil it.’
The smile had spread right across his face. His hand squeezed hers back. ‘Liang, if you ever let me go and come to my world, I won't take you like this. Staring out at the earth below from behind glass as it drifts slowly by, that's not how my land wishes to be seen. I'll find a rider to take us and you'll come with me on the back of a dragon.’
She put an arm around him. ‘Build the eyrie, Belli. Make it work. Bring our worlds together.’
He shook his head even as his smile remained. ‘Perhaps I will, Liang. It's a pretty picture you paint for me and I will admit it has a possibility to it, and I believe you mean every word of it. But a picture it remains, a sketch of an idea made as much to placate me as anything else, and nothing changes the truth that the choice is not ours to make, neither yours nor mine, and wanting does not make things real. Dragons don't belong here, Liang. Dragons are monsters. They are terrible, terrible things, and no good will come of this, whatever dreams we build. They might destroy you before you even know what's happening.’
She gripped him tight, fearful to let him lose sight of the future she'd shown him. Fearful to lose it herself. ‘I know it will be long and hard. But see the world always as you want it to be, Belli, not how you fear it may end. Walk towards that world with every step of your life and your progress may surprise you.’
He turned to her and raised an eyebrow. ‘One of your desert philosophers?’
‘No.’ She let him go. ‘Just me.’
31
The glasships landed twice each day to let everyone stretch their legs for an hour. Tuuran saw the alchemist now and then, walking beside the white witch. Sometimes he watched them — usually they talked a little while and then went their separate ways and sat or walked alone — but most of the time he was with Yena. They ran together through trees and hid in shady glades and, when she let him, they stripped each other naked away from the eyes of the other slaves and he devoured her skin like a starving man. All those sterile years at sea with the choice between abstinence or another sail-slave, that and the alchemist's blood, had left him with an insatiable appetite for the girl. He couldn't get enough of her, and he made sure it was good too. All those years from long ago in the brothels around the City of Dragons had taught him how to make things last and he stayed inside her until she squealed and moaned and shuddered against him, until her fingers clawed his skin.
‘Don't you ever think about running away?’ he asked her afterwards as they lay together, already knowing they'd be late back to the gondolas.
‘Where would I go?’ She rolled him onto his back and straddled him and ran a finger over the ugly great scab on his chest and kissed it for luck. To make it heal clean, she said — and it had healed, and far faster than any wound ever should just as the alchemist had said. Every time Tuuran looked at himself, the scars left him queasy. Blood-magic. The worst magic of all.