‘Alchemist?’
Grand Master Bellepheros. Older and thinner than she remembered, but it was him. He stepped away from the others and bowed. ‘Your Highness.’
‘I was crowned a queen, Bellepheros, to follow my mother, and then Hyram named me speaker. I've held the Adamantine Spear and it drank my blood.’ She shivered at the memory then held out her hand so he could see the Speaker's Ring still on her finger. Through everything, no one had thought to take that away. He stared goggle-eyed in disbelief, and then his eyes glistened and his jaw dropped. He fell to his knees in front of her and pressed his face to the floor the way her slave maids had done before Shrin Chrias Kwen, and a bubble of joy burst inside her.
‘Holiness,’ he murmured, and for that she would have made him a king, right there and then, if she could.
‘Rise, alchemist.’
The Taiytakei soldiers stared at them both in open amazement. Bellepheros struggled up, his old knees giving him trouble. As he rose, he stumbled and grabbed her arm. Zafir froze, flitting from crowning him to hanging him in a cage for the crows in an instant, but as he finished pulling himself up, his cheek brushed her ear. ‘Do not bow to them, Holiness,’ he breathed so quietly that no other would hear. ‘They need us both.’
She smiled and took his hands in hers. Not a king! For that I will crown you an emperor! ‘It's good to see you again, Grand Master. We thought you dead.’ Bellepheros. Grand master alchemist. She'd barely known him. The last time she'd seen him had been in Furymouth at Jehal's wedding, spitting derision at him while her insides turned in knots, desperately afraid that he might peel back the riddle of her mother's death and unravel what she and Jehal had done. Before that she could barely remember him existing. Afterwards. . After he'd gone she'd wished him back, but only because of spiteful vicious-minded Jeiros who'd taken his place. Yet here he was. An ally!
‘The Taiytakei took me. As you see, Holiness.’
The smile stayed while she tried to look inside him to see what else was there. ‘They took a great deal more,’ she began, but then saw from his darting eyes that she should be wary. She looked past him at the other men. More black-cloaks in their gold-glass armour and one more who wore a plain sable robe woven with simple coloured strands along its hem from his collar to his feet.
The floor trembled as the glasship rose into the air. She almost stumbled.
‘Perhaps you would care to share the view, Holiness?’ Bellepheros gestured to the nearest window and grabbed for the rail beneath it. ‘It is an interesting experience. Very different from dragon flight.’
‘Slow,’ she said. She moved beside him to watch as the ship fell away. The movement of the gondola was imperceptible at first; as it rose higher it began to sway a little, much like the ships down below rocking back and forth in the sea. Six more glass discs hung over the Taiytakei fleet. The closest, she saw, was being loaded with dragon eggs.
‘Indeed. But comfortable,’ said Bellepheros. ‘How many do they have?’
It took her a moment to understand that he meant the eggs and not the glasships. ‘Hundreds, I think. A good few hatched at sea. I don't know what became of them.’
‘The Taiytakei have them. I beg to ask, Holiness, how could they have taken our speaker?’
Zafir smiled and put a hand on his, wondering what news he'd had of the dragon realms since he'd been taken. None? But she couldn't be sure. ‘A long tale for another time, Grand Master. They took me when I tried to stop them stealing these eggs.’ A tiny little truth. He could have that much. ‘How many of these flying things do they have?’
‘I don't know, Holiness. Many, but I'm rarely permitted to leave my eyrie.’
‘You have an eyrie?’
He nodded. ‘The Taiytakei have made one.’
She turned from the window and looked at him. There was something in his words that caught in his throat. Shame, was it? And she saw it in his face too. ‘You helped them.’ She couldn't keep the hardness out of her voice. He nodded. ‘Are you not a slave then, alchemist?’
‘I am, Holiness.’
‘Yet you helped them? After what they've done?’
Bellepheros bowed his head. ‘My duty is to keep the dragons in check, Holiness. Always and only that. I tried to dissuade the sea lord who took me. I failed.’ He looked up again, now with a note of defiance. ‘And it was right that I did. If I hadn't helped them to be ready when these dragons came. .’ He shook his head. ‘I have done my duty, Holiness, as I always have.’
‘They could all burn, Master Alchemist, and I wouldn't shed a tear.’ She leaned close, ready to whisper in his ear, Let their dragons awake. Let them reap what they have sown. Let them burn, all of them. But he was an alchemist. ‘When we are alone, let me tell you what they have done to our home. See if you might reconsider where your duty truly lies.’
Abruptly Bellepheros turned around. He began pointing to the other men in the cabin. ‘These two, as you may have already imagined, are our master's soldiers. Our master in practical ways is Baros Tsen T'Varr. Through these men he will hear every word we say. They are his ears. This one — ’ he pointed to the man in the middle, the one in drab black beside the rainbow colours of the soldiers ‘- this one is our sea lord's very own Elemental Man. Our master is the only sea lord to own such a magician outright. Do you know, your Holiness, what an Elemental Man is?’
Zafir pursed her lips. Thank you, alchemist, for demanding that I show my ignorance. ‘I have heard many stories, Master Alchemist. It would take a shrewd mind to discern the fact from the fiction.’
‘Indeed it would, but our stories are largely true. They are killers of monsters, men who can become the wind, the water, fire or earth. I've come to know this one very well. I am sure you'll come to know him too.’
Ah. A spy then.
Bellepheros turned back to the window. The fleet was receding now, the city coming closer. ‘Khalishtor, Holiness. The City of Gold and Glass. Imagine it as our City of Dragons. It is the centre of their realms yet a place where no one lord holds sway. The enchanters abide here, those who make such wonders as this glasship and other creations that will briefly amuse your eye. The navigators too, the ones who guide the sea lords’ ships across the Endless Ocean and the Sea of Storms. At the Palace of Glass the sea lords hold their court.’ Bellepheros glanced at the other men behind them. ‘Our master intends to present us and one of his dragons. He wishes to show us off.’ Zafir watched the old alchemist as he talked. He'd shown her already where his loyalties lay. Unleashing the dragons the Taiytakei had brought with them, letting them grow wild and untamed, letting them loose to do what dragons would do, in that he'd fight her tooth and claw; so for now she put the thought aside and stared out at the city as they drifted closer. It sprawled between two headlands. More ships cluttered the bay between them, closer to the land than Quai'Shu’s fleet had come. Towers of glass or diamond rose in a circle from the far headland, glittering golden in the late afternoon sun. Between the headlands the buildings were packed in close and tight. A handful of the floating glass discs hovered in the air near the sea. Everything sparkled.
‘That is where the Elemental Men are made.’ Bellepheros pointed to the single mountain that rose behind the shore among gently sloping hills, its peak decked in a cloak of cloud, and then to the glass spires on the far headland. ‘And there are the enchanters.’ His voice dropped. ‘There is little love between them.’ A touch to the way he said it told her this was a thing for her to remember.
Smoke rose from a far point in the city near the sea. As Zafir watched, one of the hovering discs drifted towards it. Behind the press of buildings along the shore, strips of green and stands of trees sat among wide squat buildings. The glittering was golden glass, more of it in the more open parts of the city. A spire here, a tower there. Occasional black obelisks rose among them, several beneath flying glass discs. Tethers?