‘A month at the outside.’ Bronzehand smiled and opened his hands.
‘You clearly haven't seen our t'varr’s dragon fortress,’ scoffed Meido. ‘You won't get a Regrettable Man inside it and no one here can afford an Elemental, not any more. I say three months before our kwen or his lady find a way.’
‘Someone already did,’ said Tsen quietly, still gazing at his wine, but none of them seemed to hear. He glanced around the table but no one caught his eye. Do I really think one of these sent a Regrettable Man to murder my alchemist? No. They're not that stupid, any of them.
Chrias Kwen scowled. ‘What are you saying?’
‘Natural causes, I'm sure.’ Meido shrugged.
‘Three months, Baran Meido?’ Tsen was suddenly on his feet, not quite sure why or what he was going to say but timing was everything. Fortune and timing, and this moment needed to be seized. Bewildered by what was happening around you or not, you didn't get to serve a sea lord for a decade without an instinct to grasp every opportunity as it drifted by and Quai'Shu had practically handed him his own boots. ‘I'll take that wager. I'll make it six.’ He offered his arm and grinned.
‘Six. And I'll take your eyrie and your dragons if I win.’ Meido smiled.
Of course you will. ‘And I'll take everything you have in Vespinarr if you lose.’
‘Wait!’ Elesxian jumped up. She almost threw herself at the pair of them but the great table was in the way. Too late. Oh dear, oh dear. Tsen smiled at her and Chrias Kwen as he and Baran Meido clasped arms on their wager. Have we just agreed that one of us will succeed Quai'Shu, one way or the other? No, we have a wager. Much more important!
‘The eyrie is not yours to give, T'Varr,’ snarled Chrias.
‘It is our lord's.’ Tsen bowed to them all. ‘I merely wager the onerous task of looking after it for him.’
‘Against the heavy burden of our interests in Vespinarr.’ Meido smiled too. Good. They had an agreement. All I have to do is keep our lord alive through six months and a stream of assassins that will no doubt start very soon indeed. And now out. Tsen left the council room in Quai'Shu’s wake, hurrying through the glass cage that surrounded it and into the creamy open marble halls of Xican's tower within the Crown of the Sea Lords. The atrium was an indulgence of open space, half the height of the whole tower, the roof almost lost in the vastness overhead. Two sides of the tower were raw gold-glass, the one facing in towards the amphitheatre of the Proclamatory and the other facing out towards the sea. They let in the sun — when there was sunshine to be had instead of the usual Khalishtor rain — and so the tower was bright, even down at its feet. Men and women in peacock robes moved back and forth, some with cloaks and some without but all with feathers here and there, anything and everything from a single quill braided into their hair to a forest of plumage. Like every Taiytakei they wore their hair in braids, in different numbers and colours and lengths and Tsen could look at a man or a woman, look at the colours and the patterns, the feathers and their braids and know exactly their function, who they were, their family, to which sea lord they were tied, where they came from and where, most likely, they were going. Each of us in his place and our place on display for all. Starting with the hair, and if your braids don't reach down to the backs of your thighs then you're simply not worth my time. Sorry but there it is.
He waited outside Quai'Shu’s private rooms until the sea lord emerged again, clothes changed, scented and sweet. Six black-cloaks and LaLa came with him. Not quite a guarantee against any assassin but certainly an open threat of the consequences that would follow.
‘Well you don't look happy, killer. Does our plotting not amuse you?’
‘It saddens me, Hands of the Sea Lord, that I have to wonder which of you will be first to try and poison my lord.’
‘I can tell you it won't be me.’ And what other wagers were made after I left? Some, for sure. Alliances, bargains, some to be honoured, others to be betrayed. The usual goings-on of a sea lord's council. He grinned to himself. Pleasant though to hammer a wedge between Meido and his niece. Perhaps we should look and see if we can find another? ‘If I — if we — can see that he lasts six months, Baran Meido has thrown his support behind me. If not? Well, then the eyrie and the dragons will be his and I will be his servant. Lady Elesxian was most obviously unamused so I would say she and Chrias Kwen are my enemies for now, but it will be Meido who tries first, LaLa. I am sure enough of that to give you good odds on a wager of our own, if you like.’
They guided Quai'Shu towards the wall facing the Proclamatory, to the rising glass platform that would take them to the Paths of Words, the narrow glass bridges that reached from the towers of the Crown's outer ring to its silver heart and the Great Sea Council. Tsen sat Quai'Shu safely in the middle where he couldn't fall, then shielded him from darts and arrows with his black-cloaks. He tapped the glass with his black rod and then found his eyes darting from place to place, already looking for the first of Meido's killers. Now there's a thought. Did he have that wager in mind before he even came? Wouldn't put it past him.
No. Couldn't think like that or he'd go mad before even a day was out, and so he forced himself to be still and looked at the view. Even a sea lord never tired of this: the sun low behind him already setting the horizon aglow and firing the rippling sea. Orange light filled the void around him like a memory of a time when the world had burned and the pale stone walls were tinged pink as if with blood not quite washed away. In front of him the other twelve great towers gleamed and flickered, their shapes catching the sun and then losing it again as Tsen and his sea lord rose. The mighty coliseum of the Proclamatory was lost in an abyss of shadows. Above it the Paths of Words glittered while the evening sun turned the silver sphere of the Great Sea Council to a burnished copper. Much higher still, the vast glass Star of the Navigators shone like a jewel at the peak of a copper-gold crown. There lived the handful of men and women who held the knowledge to cross the storm-dark, the key to every sea lord's power.
It wasn't always this way. There was another world once, brighter than this one and whole. He glanced at LaLa. However hard your sort try to make us forget. With no Endless Ocean and where the storm-dark didn't rage. Where every artifice of the enchanters would seem pale and shallow. A lost world. Useless to dream of such things and it might not even be true, but still. . Tsen stared up at the Star. Thing is though, if it is true, how did it fall? I'd like to know, because here in front of me is the font of every sea lord's power and I wonder how easily that too might fall.
In the light of the setting sun the Star seemed to glow as though it was on fire and suddenly all Tsen could think of were dragons. He shuddered. And now I'm just letting my imagination get melodramatic — clearly I need Kalaiya here to slap me to my senses. He poked LaLa, because there was something about poking an Elemental Man that always brought him sharply back to the here and now. ‘Bronzehand has bowed out and allowed himself to be sent to Qeled.’ Along with half of what Baran Meido had promised in his wager, Tsen suddenly realised. Cunning bastard. Gives away half his power to remove one rival and then negates his sacrifice by a wager of everything he has. Yes, too cunning by half. ‘Jima Hsian remains as enigmatic as ever. He's a hsian though. If he saw this coming then our lord would already be dead.’ He could say things like that to LaLa. Not to anyone else. Perhaps I should stop calling you that now? If I was you I really wouldn't like it. But there's that little devil that says I have to.