She suited him, he decided. He didn't mind keeping her alive.
As each day began to fade they slowly made their way back, chewing on raw pieces of meat. The Scales was always there when they returned, waiting for them. Every day they came back later than the last, but he never said anything. He didn't eat much either. He was slowly wasting away, waiting for his dragon to come back from wherever she'd gone.
Twice Kemir saw other dragons in the distance. He watched them, little specks in the sky, until they were gone. They never found Snow's ravine.
Snow slept for four weeks, not two. By then the Scales was little more than skin and bone. Kemir and Nadira had left him there with his dragon as they did every morning. When they came back, after dark, he was gone. The dragon was awake. The air smelled of gore.
Meat!
Kemir froze for a moment, then pushed Nadira back the way they'd come. 'Run! Now!' He lowered the remnants of the wild pig he'd killed to the ground. He could feel the dragon inside his head, almost insane with hunger, eyeing him up.
'Alchemists,' he said loudly. 'I'm going to take you to the alchemists, remember. Eat me and you'll never find them.'
He stepped back away from the pig. The dragon lunged forward and snapped it all up in a single gulp.
Hunger! Feed! There was a tinge of anger in there as well.
'Where's Kailin?'
The dragon withdrew slightly. He could feel something in its thoughts that might have been shame.
Little One Kemir, it spoke in his head more quietly this time, I have been gone for a long time. I am very, very hungry. I need to feed, and I cannot hunt until I have sunlight. It is best that you leave.
Kemir retreated back down the ravine and spent the night huddled with Nadira, shivering, trying to keep warm. Without the heat of the dragon, a night on the mountain, even out of the wind, was unpleasantly cold.
By morning the dragon was gone. They made a quick search for Kailin, but there was no sign of him, and Kemir's heart wasn't really in it. When the dragon came back, late in the afternoon, its snout and claws were stained with blood, and its breath was foul. It looked fat, Kemir thought.
They flew north because that's where the alchemists laired. The dragon never said what had happened to the Scales, and Kemir never asked.
The Dragon-King's Tithe
The rider, if his Hatchling Gold has bought him favour, may visit many times before a suitable dragon is hatched. On each visit he will bring a gift to the eyrie-master, and these gifts are of the utmost importance, for their quality and generosity will
determine the care with which the chosen dragon is raised.
When a suitable dragon is finally hatched, a price will be set by
the dragon-king himself. This price is the Dragon-King's Tithe
Usually the tithe is agreed far in advance, yet until the price is
paid the rider can never quite be sure that it will not change.
Sometimes the tithe is everything that the rider possesses;
sometimes it is nothing at all.
39
Parting
Jehal awoke from a restless sleep. His dreams had been troubled – always running, always being watched, always chased, always having to look over his shoulder – and everywhere he ran the walls, the trees, even the rivers would burn and melt and the heat would force him to run again.
He slipped out of bed and padded to the window. Kazah, his pot-boy, was slumped on his stool, snoring loudly. Jehal opened the shutters to let in the light. Kazah didn't stir. That was what Jehal liked best about the boy. Aside from being a deaf mute and blessed with a loyalty that put Jehal's hunting dogs to shame, Kazah slept like the dead. Jehal could have an all-night orgy, and the boy would be none the wiser.
Outside, the sun was creeping over the horizon. Ships bobbed on the water out in the estuary of the Fury River. In places the water seemed to be on fire, burning in the dawn sun. Jehal shuddered and turned away. The sight of it reminded him too much of his dreams. There wasn't a little golden dragon with ruby eyes perched on the sill outside. That was the important thing.
He padded back to his bed, sat down, pulled a strip of white silk out from under his pillow and wrapped it around his eyes. His sight blurred, shimmered and shifted, and then he was somewhere else. He was in the Tower of Air in the Adamantine Palace. In Zafir's bedchamber, out of sight under the bed.
He listened. He could hear breathing. Her breathing. Relaxed and restful, as though she was asleep. He didn't hear any snoring. If Hyram had been there with her, there would have been snoring. Then again Hyram rarely came to her, and when he did, he rarely stayed. Usually Zafir went to him and then slipped back to her own bed once he was asleep. Sometimes when she came back in the middle of the night, barefoot, hugging her clothes to her, she looked desperately sad. Other times she looked angry. Yet other times she would look around the room, searching for his little golden dragon, and then she would stand in front of it naked, and blow him a kiss, or mime being violently sick or slitting someone's throat. Whether she meant him or Hyram, he was never quite sure.
Sometimes, in the morning, she would look for him too, and if they were both alone, they'd whisper to each other through little golden ears and watch through little ruby eyes.
That would be later, though. This was much too early for Zafir. Under her bed the little golden dragon twitched its head and skittered across the floor. It flapped its wings, so fast that they vanished into a blur, and lifted off the ground; then settled itself at the head of the bed, a couple of feet away from Zafir's head, and stopped, staring at her. Jehal took a deep breath. She was fast asleep. Sometimes when she was sleeping, she was breathtaking. He could have stared at her for hours.
He shook himself, took the white silk off his eyes and slipped it back under his pillow. Then he put on the other silk, the black one.
Well, my lover, let us see who you've been spying on today.
The answer wasn't much of a surprise. Zafir's Taiytakei dragon had secreted itself in Lystra's room, where it usually was. Zafir clearly had nothing better to think about than how often he was sharing Lystra's bed. Which was pleasantly predictable of her. Jehal grinned to himself and kicked Kazah's stool. The trouble with Zafir's jealousy was that it was a challenge. It made him want to see how many times he could bed his wife without his lover and her spy-dragon catching them at it.
It was depressingly easy too. But then if it had been harder, he'd probably have done it even more.
He kicked Kazah's stool again. The pot-boy jerked upright and then fell over sideways. He jumped to his feet, ramrod straight, and saluted.
Message for my wife. Jehal and Kazah had their own sign language, a bastard hybrid of the signals that the dragon-knights used when they were flying together, the signs that some thieves used, and other bits that they'd simply made up themselves. Jehal was having the boy taught to read and write too, but he was so slow that one of them would probably be dead before he got anywhere.
Kazah nodded. Having a private language meant no one else understood what Jehal was telling Kazah to do. Several times he'd sent Kazah to Lystra to arrange a rendezvous knowing full well that Zafir was watching him.
Wake her up. She is to come to my bed. Tell her I want her. Kazah smirked and Jehal grinned back. That gesture wasn't particularly hard to translate. Tell her to shut all windows and doors first. Tell her that eyes are watching her. He gave Kazah a kick and watched the boy scurry away. Then he closed the shutters, blocking out the dawn light, lay back in his bed and sighed.