Tsen talked of an army of dragons but he spoke in terms that were absurd and Zafir could only shake her head. A year? A hundred dragons? But it would take ten before they were grown to their full size. Did he mean to go to war with a hundred yearlings? Even her Adamantine Men would have destroyed them, no need for any blood-mages.
A Taiytakei in a cloak so cleverly made that he seemed to be garbed in flames rose and asked Tsen how much all of this would cost. The answer came in words that Zafir didn't understand but the meaning was clear enough. Something preposterous. Around their circle the Taiytakei fell to laughter and derision and discord as the soldiers bustled her and the alchemist and his hatchling away again. And that was that, and Zafir laughed as she left because for all their gleam and colour and glamour they were so much like her own Council of Kings and Queens. So deliciously, delightfully familiar and so utterly pointless. With no speaker, how did they ever do more than bicker?
It was as she walked away that she touched a finger to the soft skin inside her elbow and noticed a roughness there. She stopped and stared in horror at the first little whiteness on her own skin. She knew it for what it was at once — she'd seen it enough times after all — but it was too soon by far to have come from the hatchling Tsen and Bellepheros had brought today so maybe she was wrong. . And then she understood. The hatchling dragon on the ship. The woken one that had so very carefully cut her with its claw and then let her live. It had done this to her. It had given her the dragon-disease.
41
High in the gold-glass tower, back across the Paths of Words, Baros Tsen sank deeper into the water, deeper and deeper until his nose and his eyes were all that broke the surface. Like a crocodile, back when he had space for such frivolous thoughts. A big fat happy crocodile. But not so happy now.
He surfaced. The bathhouse here was nothing like the one buried in the bowels of the Palace of Leaves in Xican. Here was far above the ground with a gold-glass roof and walls. Anyone who happened to pass over the top of the tower on a sled or a disc could look right down and see him in all his glory if they were curious enough. And the bath was far too small, and they never got the water quite right, and the Xizic oil wasn't the oil he liked, and the steam just made the glass absurdly slippery and, really, it was a surprise no one had yet broken their neck in here. .
At least it was dark outside now and, since he hadn't brought any lamps, no one would know he was here. Dark was good. Dark with a bit of moonlight in between the gathering rainclouds. He sat very still and when the water was smooth enough for him to see his own dim reflection, he wagged his finger at it. ‘You know what? That could have gone a little better. Just a bit. Maybe, perhaps, without the part where they all started laughing.’
His reflection stared back at him. At least the bath wasn't glass too. Someone had kindly lined it with the same black marble they'd used for the tower, with the gold flecks. In the dark they glowed. It gave him the odd sense of seeing his own face loom over him out of the night sky.
‘Go on. Say something. And it had better be something useful.’ A plague of dragons to scourge away the curse of the Ice Witch and her sorcerers across the storm-dark in Aria. And it wouldn't come for a year or two because that was how long it would take for everyone to be ready, and the dragons would be bigger then, big enough for men to ride on their backs.
If Quai'Shu had been able to speak it would have been different. He was the master of that, not me. I read them; he's the one who would take their minds and transform them. And I thought my dragons would be bigger.
It had been an odd failure though. Too thorough and complete to quite make sense, as if someone had been ready for his play and carefully laid the ground against him in advance. He should have brought the grown one. Maybe that would have made a difference, if they'd all had to traipse outside to even see it. But then again maybe they just wouldn't have bothered.
‘Did it come from within?’ He looked at his reflection and his reflection shook its head. No. Just like the assassins trying to kill the alchemist, no one from Xican wanted to see the eyrie fail. They wanted to see him fail but not the rest, because if they destroyed the rest then what was there to inherit save an insurmountable debt? ‘Well then, if not from within, who wants to see a sea lord fail?’
His reflection laughed. Who wants to see a sea lord fail? Why, everyone. .
He stopped, suddenly aware he wasn't alone. He stayed very still, listening, until he was sure that he knew who it was and then turned. ‘LaLa, a bath is a man's private personal place. I come here to be alone, not to be bothered, even by you.’ Even when I come with Kalaiya, it's not what all the rest of you all think it is. Not that I care a whit. ‘You'd better be here to tell me that Quai'Shu’s dead or something equally grave.’ I could put metal doors on my eyrie bath-house and line the walls and floors with brass to keep you out. My petty little thumb up my petty little nose to you. Shall I do that?
The Watcher lit a lamp. He bowed. ‘Sea Lord-in-Waiting, I do not come with news.’
‘That's a relief. It's been a long enough day as it is. And why do you keep calling me that when I'm not? Quai'Shu is our sea lord. I'm merely his t'varr, LaLa, and we've seen there are plenty of others equally keen to step into his shoes. One or two of them might even be better at it.’ And even if they're not, they'll certainly think it now. Well done, Tsen, well done. But who was it who set the trap? ‘They're all preening themselves, but do you know what outcome I would most like? I would most like my sea lord to recover his wits and lord it over us all for another ten years more, that's what I would like. And if he doesn't, I might still change my mind and content myself with what I have, you know. Wisdom and the desire for a long life both recommend it and I can hardly complain about the conditions of my current position. Certainly far less than I'd complain about losing it. Besides, after today I'm inclined to wonder if almost any of the others might make a better job of it. What happened in there, LaLa? We were ambushed, that's what, and I had no idea it was coming. Would you care for some apple wine?’
The Elemental Man shook his head as Tsen knew he must. Only water fresh from river or sky, untouched by the hand of any man. ‘Our master Quai'Shu chose you, Hands of the Sea Lord. Do you not wish to be master of Xican?’
Now there's a question. ‘Which one, do you suppose, will try to kill me first? Would you care for a wager?’
‘I do not wager, Hands of the Sea Lord.’
‘No.’ Tsen sighed. ‘You're really no fun at all, LaLa. And, in a way, that's why I'm not screaming for the guards outside. Fat lot of use they'd do me anyway. But which one. Pick one.’
‘None of them. I am your protector.’
‘What? And you think because of that they won't dare? How very pleasantly optimistic — but you're not my protector, LaLa. You belong to Quai'Shu.’
‘They will not see the difference now.’
‘Well I suppose I hope you're right but I can't say I don't have my doubts.’ Tsen sat upright and poured a glass for himself. He savoured the fire and the apple in his mouth and let out a heavy sigh. ‘I should have stayed where I was happy. With my orchards.’