The alchemist snorted and then shrugged. ‘Very well. If that's how it has to be. Do you see the big dragon with the harness? I'm going to poison it now. To manage it.’
He started to get up but Chay-Liang pushed him gently back. ‘Belli! Sit down! You'll do no such thing and nor am I done with you here either. The sea lord-’
‘Has no say!’ snapped Bellepheros. This time he pushed past Chay-Liang and pulled the wires off his head. ‘I built this eyrie for a dozen hatchlings raised one by one from their eggs, not fifty all at once! Poison it is. I'll do it right now. It was going to have to be this way anyway.’ He marched out of the workshop into the passage, heading back for the dragon yard. Chay-Liang ran after him, shaking her head.
‘Belli! I agreed to the poisoning of the others but destroying the adult would be against his wishes! Donot do this!’
The Watcher let them pass and listened to them go, arguing back and forth, then screwed up his strength and turned into the wind and blew past them and was waiting for them when they reached the dragon yard. The monstrous copper-gold dragon was where he'd left it, squatting on its haunches in the middle. It stared at him again. Even with his back to it he felt its eyes on him. As the alchemist came out of the tunnels, The Watcher drew his bladeless knife again and held it straight out, pointing at the alchemist's chest. ‘Can you see the end, slave, where the air ends and the business of cutting begins? Keep walking as you are and you will find it.’
The alchemist stopped, then nodded and folded his arms. ‘You couldn't simply walk, eh?’ He glanced at Chay-Liang. ‘I relish the chance to visit one of your cities, Watcher, I really do, but I don't wish to return to an eyrie filled with dead Scales and woken dragons! The adult needs to be fed and it needs to drink and if that cannot be done then it must go. I will not leave until either I see either a means in place to do this or the dragon is dead. Stab me, cut me, whatever you like, I simply will not.’ He growled. ‘I was ready for eggs, not for this!’
‘I think you've made that clear enough, Belli.’ Chay-Liang touched a hand to his shoulder but the alchemist shook her off. The Watcher felt the dragon's eyes fixed on them. He shrugged.
‘There are plenty of beasts in the Lair of Samim.’
‘But they are down there!’ The alchemist threw back his head and rolled his eyes as though he was talking to an idiot. ‘They are not up here! Or does one of you have a magic wand you've forgotten to mention — Flame knows you have enough between you — to summon the entire herd that this monster and its little kin will devour each and every day as they grow? No?’ He clenched his fists and took several deep breaths. ‘Watcher, the hatchlings I can manage where they are but an adult is always flown to its food, and we have no one here who can do this. Either you give me time to find an alternative or it dies. Almost certainly I'll have to kill it anyway.’ He turned to Chay-Liang again. ‘Choose. Between you. You know I'd prefer to be rid of it.’
‘You did not prepare a. .’ The Watcher wasn't certain what word to use. Rider? Pilot? Navigator?
‘I expected eggs!’ The alchemist had to stop to take breath again. ‘I have everything prepared for hatchlings but not for this! I have no one here who can ride this dragon.’
‘It has a harness, does it not? Then I will fly it.’
‘You?’ The alchemist howled with laugher. ‘Go ahead! I'll watch. You Taiytakei love to make your wagers — I'll make one with you. About how long you'll last.’ He folded his arms and stood back. ‘Go on! Riders are trained for years together with their first mount raised as a hatchling. They learn together. It requires a certain way of thinking and you certainly can't simply snap your fingers and make one. But you are an Elemental Man, and surely it cannot be too difficult, eh? It's only a dragon after all!’
‘Belli!’ Chay-Liang grabbed his arm. ‘Enough! Mind your tongue!’
The alchemist rounded on her. ‘Why should I?’
‘Because he's an Elemental Man and you're a slave!’
Bellepheros snorted in disdain. ‘Whoever and whatever, I'm correcting his ignorance! And yours, apparently.’
The Watcher left them to their snapping and slowly walked across the dragon yard to look at the monster more closely. He probably could — if he absolutely had to — merge with the air and appear on the creature's back. And there was a harness of sorts, from where it had been ridden before the moon sorcerers had taken it.
The dragon followed him with its unwavering stare.
He didn't even know how to ride a horse. What was the point when you were an Elemental Man?
‘Thought better of it yet, magician?’ called the alchemist with a scornful snort. ‘I once told your master he'd have to bring me a rider. Someone who was trained. Someone who could train others. One of us might learn, but it'll take months that we don't have and I dare say a good few false starts. That dragon is hungry now. So, either bring me a herd of animals for it to eat or may I please put it down?’
The enchantress seized his arm and pulled him round. ‘No, Belli!’ She glared at the Watcher. ‘But he is right: we have no way to feed this monster yet and so you can not take him away, not now.’
‘Enchantress?’ The Watcher slowly shook his head. ‘It is not a matter for debate. It is your lord's will.’ And so it was, and so he would see to it, and yet here they all were glowering at one another, doing nothing while the copper-gold dragon with its eyes like glaciers glared at them all. Hungry and getting hungrier. The Watcher stretched out his arms and tipped back his head and forced himself to merge with the air. He had to grit his teeth and summon all his strength and still he almost failed. The dragons were doing this to him. .
Understanding hit him like an arrow in the heart. It was there in the dragon's eyes as it looked at him — it was doing this to him and it knew. And he was afraid then because he'd never met anything like this before or even heard of it — something that could take away the very essence of what he was, and as he raced to the ground and felt the flow of the world ease around him until it was as effortless as ever, the relief was joyous. He reached the sand below the eyrie and kept on going, deep and far, revelling in the freedom before he circled back to find the inevitable camp of desert nomads that had grown up. It wasn't far from the eyrie, paid by Baros Tsen T'Varr for a steady stream of food and water and anything else that the alchemist required. Most of what the eyrie needed was ferried through the air by discs and sleds and glasships, but those were expensive and a t'varr was a t'varr, always trying to save his sea lord's silver.
There were a few dozen men and perhaps twice as many desert horses. The Watcher walked among them making the necessary arrangements. When it was done he blinked away again. Blissfully easy down on the ground, although even there he still felt the tissue-pull of resistance, yet harder and harder as he fought his way back. He lingered for a moment, watching the alchemist and the enchantress from high above. They were too close. She had him beguiled but she was blind to how much of a hold on her she'd given in return. The Hands of the Sea Lord would have to be told. .
The dragon tipped back its head and looked straight up and right at him. He was the wind, he was invisible and made of air, and yet it knew he was there. How? Maybe the alchemist would have an answer for that? He flew down and turned to breathless flesh again atop the walls, pausing to hide his weakness before he returned in footsteps across the open white stone of the dragon yard and bowed before Chay-Liang and her slave.