‘Mistress, they don't live here all year. They come in the cool seasons but in the hot season they follow the river past the Tzwayg to the foothills of the mountains.’ Yena glanced uncertainly at the alchemist again. Liang rolled her eyes.
‘Well then.’ Belli was shaking his head. ‘I'm afraid-’
Liang interrupted: ‘How long before they leave, slave?’ Here was the far edge of the salt marshes. Already far enough away from where they'd been told to be.
‘I think two or three months, mistress.’
Liang nodded, her mind made up. ‘Yena, there are other slaves here from the desert. Many of them.’ Most of them in fact, since Tsen T'Varr hadn't felt the need to look all that far for men to staff his eyrie. ‘Ask among them and find out everything you can about these creatures. Find one who knows them well and send them to me.’ She fixed a glare on the alchemist. ‘They're here now. When they move we'll follow them. Would that be acceptable? If not, please explain to me why.’
‘I. . I suppose.’
He suddenly smiled. Liang closed her eyes and raised her head and thanked all the gods she wasn't supposed to believe in. ‘Right! Well then! Since that's settled, what do we do next?’
‘Men,’ he said firmly. ‘The ones who will become Scales. Has to be men. No women.’
She didn't quite understand what he meant by a Scales. Some sort of carer for the dragons. A handler, perhaps, but there was clearly a lot more to it than that. Sometimes he made it sound almost like a servant, at other times like a lover. Whatever they were, she supposed she'd find out soon enough. She led them up the wall and down the inside, away from the rim and into the round white-stone yard, still musing. The walls had steps on both sides. Walls didn't generally make it nice and easy for someone to climb to the top from the outside otherwise what was the point? But whoever had built these had had other ideas and it bothered her that she couldn't fathom what they were. Why build a wall that was no more than a steep hill? Why build one at all on a castle that floated in the air? The inner structure of the eyrie was an even deeper curiosity. Five passages that spiralled inwards underground from the walls, meeting in one central chamber, the biggest and deepest by far — and the one that Baros Tsen, in his bizarre wisdom, had decided to make into his personal bathhouse. He'd blocked off all the entrances bar one, making it impossible to get from any one of the five spirals to any other without coming out and crossing the yard. And then each spiral had a structure of its own, a mystery of random rooms and branching tunnels. She'd drawn one of them out a few days ago, carefully mapping the paths and passages with Belli ambling around beside her, deep in thought. It was something to do while the eyrie moved from place to place. When she'd looked at what she'd drawn it had made no sense.
‘It looks like the coil of a new fern on the cusp of uncurling,’ Bellepheros had said when he peered over her shoulder. And he was right, and it irked her that she hadn't seen it and he had.
One of the spirals housed Tsen and Chay-Liang and the alchemist and anyone else of any importance. One housed the slaves who looked after them. Tsen had kept another for the slaves who were still building parts of the eyrie — or would as soon as Bellepheros stopped moving it about — and that one would house the soldiers later. The other two were for the alchemist to use as he saw fit and the first thing he'd asked for had been men to become his Scales. No special skills are required. I'll see to that. Which was a stupid thing to say in front of the t'varr since they'd now be the cheapest slaves that Tsen could possibly find.
Those same slaves were now lined up in the yard, waiting for them. The dragonyard, she'd decided it would be called. As they came close, Bellepheros put a hand on her shoulder and stopped.
‘You understand,’ he whispered, ‘that the men I choose will all die. A good Scales can last a decade but the Hatchling Disease will take them despite the best potions I can make. Their skin will harden until they can no longer move or breathe. They will become human statues. Only the Scales may have contact with a newly hatched dragon and they will have quarters of their own, isolated from the rest. We call it the Statue Plague. There's no cure, Liang, and it can be spread among men by. .’ he looked awkward for a moment ‘. . by contact. Between bed partners for the most part, but by blood too and it takes a while for it to show, by which time it can spread far and wide. Unchecked, those who have it will live a month or two but they may not even know they have it at all for several weeks. There have been occasions in our history when the disease has escaped an eyrie. Half a city was once burned by dragons to contain it. Scales may not have wives or children and they may not have lovers outside their own kind.’ He frowned. ‘Not that they often do, the disease being what it is.’ He looked slightly uncomfortable again — for her, because he knew she squirmed inside talking so openly about things like that. ‘It's why many alchemists are celibate too. Aside from the Scales we are most at risk and all of us contract it sooner or later. For those who don't deal with hatchlings every day I can make potions that will slow it to a stop, but I can only make it for a few dozen, not for thousands upon thousands. Once dragons hatch here, the men who are to become our Scales may never leave this eyrie. Ever.’
‘I will see they are contained.’
‘When the dragons first arrive I will give the chosen Scales a potion that I will make for them. One that, for want of a better way of putting it, will make them fall in love with their dragons. By the time the disease shows, they won't much mind their condition. By then they shouldn't want to leave, so that part will be easy for you. It would be better to raise them properly, teach them for the task from childhood so they know nothing else. That's the way we've always done it in my homeland, but. .’ He stopped and stared. Tuuran had gone on past them and was now eyeing up the slaves, one after the other. He pulled each one out of the line, looked him in the eye and then either shoved him back or pushed him to one side into a second group.
‘Belli? What's your slave doing?’
‘I have no idea. Tuuran! Stop it!’
Tuuran didn't even turn around. ‘I will not, Master Lord Alchemist. The ones I'm taking away are the ones that come from our realm. From our home, Lord Grand Master. The others don't. You'll not turn slaves taken from our land into Scales. And look, no night-skins at all. Why's that? Taiytakei too good to be made into Scales, even the ones of their own that they turn into slaves?’
‘No, it's-’ But Tuuran wasn't listening.
Liang put her hand on her gold lightning wand. ‘To keep your master safe!’ she snapped. ‘That's why there are no Taiytakei slaves here! Because I didn't want a Regrettable Man slipping in among us. Does that satisfy you, slave?’
Bellepheros put his hand on top of hers. ‘Let him.’
Liang flared. ‘I put up with a great deal from that slave of yours, Belli. More than I would from any other and more than I would from many who are not. But this, this is ridiculous! I will choose who will be your Scales, not him!’
‘Li!’ Bellepheros was shaking his head. ‘No, Li, I will choose, and I would have done the same as he is doing, except when Tuuran is finished I'm afraid I must upset him and insist that it will be the men from my own land who become my dragon keepers. They will have seen the beasts and understand what they are and they may better resist the Statue Plague. The handful of times when one of your people has contracted it, its progress was noted as being swift. He's doing my work for me, I'm sorry to say. How long before the dragon eggs come?’