‘Tsen!’ Elesxian suddenly threw back her head and snarled. ‘That impotent! What fool dragged him out of his bath and told him he could have a say in this?’
‘He's not stupid, Elesxian.’
‘Our sea lord named my father to follow him, not that fat fool. Gods! You came here to replenish our fleet? With what? Do you have money? My coffers are beyond empty and frankly I have no idea who will lend to me. I've already sold more than you'd care to hear and I have little left but my city. Shall I auction it off piece by piece? And our t'varr who made this calamity will now be the one to save us from utter catastrophe? I doubt even the great Shan Su could have pulled us from this mire, but Tsen? Tsen?’ She made a strangled noise and shook her head. ‘Open the ramp! I may as well hurl myself into the abyss right away and save myself the pain of waiting. And by whose command? Who chooses that it will be Tsen?’
‘The Great Sea Council will choose if there is choosing to be done. But our lord is not yet gone and so much may happen.’
Elesxian hissed, ‘It should be me! I am my father's heir!’
‘And that, my lover, is why I am here.’ The kwen smiled.
Elesxian didn't. ‘But you came too late. I already have a guest. A snake but I can hardly be rid of him since he holds most of my debts.’
Shrin Chrias Kwen looked through the window; there, high up amid the floating glass discs that held the Palace of Leaves in the sky, was a glasship with a pure silver gondola. Silver for Vespinarr. ‘They send their minions? Send them back.’
‘Minion?’ Elesxian barked a laugh. ‘This is no minion! This is Shonda's own brother. Straight from Khalishtor. He didn't even bother going home first.’ She spat. ‘Though he's been free enough with my jade ravens since he came and shows no sign of going away.’
Chrias nodded. He would have held her if she'd wanted it, but mostly his thoughts were veering to the murderous again. Vey Rin T'Varr. Another one.
44
You wanted something done, you did it yourself. Not something Bellepheros was used to but he was finding out the hard way. In the realms when he wanted something done he had dozens of alchemists at his beck and call and hundreds of Scales. Thousands of people across the nine kingdoms. Strictly speaking the eyrie masters of the realms were his too, and that meant he could call on their dragons. Strictly speaking, even kings and queens were his to command and so were all their dragons too, not that he or any other grand master had ever actually tried it because they all knew exactly how that would end but, strictly speaking, he answered to no one.
Now what he had were a handful of dull-minded Scales and nothing else, which was why he was standing right in the middle of the white stone of the dragon yard, as far from anywhere else as he could be, dressed in leather coveralls spattered in blood, gasping for air and holding a big axe that was too heavy for him. He wore leather gauntlets that reached up to his shoulders and a leather mask with large round glass eyepieces covered his face. Everything was tightly buttoned together. Behind him a newborn hatchling hung from a wooden frame as tall as a house. It had been winched up by its back claws and it was quite dead. A large barrel full of its blood sat beside its half-severed neck. Bellepheros leaned on the axe and tried to catch his breath. Too old for this. Much too old.
The mask was probably why he hadn't noticed the arrival of the glasship that now hung over the edge of the eyrie, its golden gondola sitting on the wall opposite the monstrous copper dragon. The dragon wasn't looking at the glasship though; it was looking at Bellepheros. It hadn't taken its eyes off him from the moment he'd strung the hatchling up. In fact it had hardly moved at all.
Bellepheros sighed. The gondola was Baros Tsen T'Varr’s personal egg. The t'varr was back and doubtless that would mean all manner of trouble over how many hatchlings Bellepheros had killed. But he'd done what needed to be done. He could manage what they had now. He could make enough potion and had enough Scales and they'd survived the first few weeks and no dragon had woken or escaped. And that, he told anyone who'd listen, was a minor miracle.
There was a woman crossing the yard towards him. Dressed as a slave and with her hair cut short, it took Bellepheros a moment longer than it should have to recognise her.
‘Holiness!’ He stiffened. Zafir stopped fifty yards away. The adult dragon shifted, very slightly. Now it was looking at her too. The hatchlings were away on the far side of the yard, hidden from view behind the huts and tents of the Scales built around them. There were Taiytakei watching him too, but at a distance. He'd told them to keep away, as far as they could, and they had. They didn't know what to make of him, any of them.
Zafir was alone. ‘Stay back!’ His words were muffled by his mask and she probably couldn't hear him but he didn't dare get too close. ‘The hatchling was fresh from the egg.’ Hatchling Disease was simply something that happened, whatever you did to avoid it. The Scales, the ones who worked with the dragons all the time — even with the best potions he could make — still died. Those back in the realms sometimes lasted ten years or more but it got them all in the end. They simply stopped being able to move. Eventually they suffocated because they couldn't breathe, or starved because they couldn't eat, but usually the alchemists dealt with them quietly long before it went that far. Most Scales were eaten by their own dragons in the end, out of sight where no one else would see, and by the time the disease was that far gone almost every one of them was happy to die. A Scales that far gone was long past caring about anything except the handful of dragons they loved.
For some reason the disease was working faster on the Scales he'd made here, that or his potions were missing something. He gave them a year at most and probably a lot less. Alchemists? Some of them only lasted weeks before they showed the first symptoms, some of them years, some even longer but they all eventually caught it one way or another. It wasn't so bad if you took your potions every day and weren't exposed too often. If the disease found a way through his leathers and his mask today then it would get a little worse; but he'd take his potions and it would slow to its usual imperceptible crawl again and he'd lose his sleep each night to far more pressing troubles. Speakers, though? Dragon-kings and dragon-queens? They were kept away. The disease stayed within the order. Within those who'd been conditioned and trained and bred and fed potions since they were babies to control it. Kept to those who understood how dangerous it could be.
Zafir kept on coming. Bellepheros shook his head. Was she mad? He walked towards her quickly to keep her away from the dead hatchling. This was when they were at their absolute worst and surely she knew that!
‘Holiness!’ he gasped. He had to stand right in front of her to stop her.
‘Master Alchemist.’ She was smiling, peering at him, through him even, eyes as full of hunger as they always were and with a touch of madness too. Looking past him to the monstrous dragon perched up on the wall, quivering with want.
‘Holiness! Stay back! The hatchling is. .’ Zafir held out her arm and pulled back her sleeve and showed him her skin. In the crook of her elbow a tiny patch was rough where it should be smooth. No bigger than a fingernail but there was no mistaking what it was. Bellepheros looked at her agape.
‘Yes, Master Alchemist. I have the disease already. So your dead hatchling hardly matters to me. Now tell me-’