Master of Dragons Read online

  You are changing my vision, sang Liandra.

  Not my doing.

  Liandra smiled sceptically. Vranesh had only a semi-respectful relationship with the truth.

  Let us call it coincidence, Liandra sang.

  Something had definitely changed. She could see far further than usual and the detail was tighter. She almost fancied she could see all the way to the Arluii range, or perhaps the Saraeluii, impossibly far to the east.

  Tell me what you can see, sang Vranesh.

  Liandra narrowed her eyes as the dragon swung around, giving her a sweeping view of all that lay beneath them. Stark sensations crowded into her mind. The intensity was almost painful.

  ‘I see lights in the dark,’ she said softly, speaking aloud again. ‘Just pinpricks. Are they watchfires?’

  They are the lights of cities, sang Vranesh.

  ‘Ah, yes. That is Tor Alessi, along the river to the coast. And Athel Maraya, deep in the forest. How is this possible? And that must be Athel Toralien. They are like scattered jewels.’

  What else do you see?

  ‘I see the forest in between them,’ said Liandra. ‘I see the whole of Elthin Arvan resisting us. We are invaders here. The forest is old. It hates us.’

  Vranesh wheeled back round, pulling to the east. Her body rippled through the air like an eel in water, as sinuous as coiled rope. It does not hate. It just is.

  Like the dragons, Liandra sang.

  There are many things we hate. What else do you see?

  Vranesh flew eastwards. The dragon’s speed and strength in the air were formidable. Liandra doubted any were faster on the wing, save of course the mighty Draukhain. Ahead of them, blurred by distance and the vagaries of magical sight, reared the Saraeluii. Liandra had visited them many times, always in the company of Imladrik. Those mountains were truly vast, far larger than the Arluii, greater in extent even than the Annulii of home.

  They daunted her. The dark peaks glowered in the night, their flanks sheer and their shadows deep. She had never enjoyed spending time in those mountains – that was the dawi’s realm, and even before war had come it had felt hostile and strange. She looked hard, peering into the gloom. She began to see things stirring.

  I see armies, she sang, slowly. As Vranesh swept across the heavens in broad, gliding arcs, she saw more and more. Huge armies. I see forges lit red, like wounds in the world. I see smoke, and fire, and the beating of iron hammers.

  It was as if the entire range were alive, crawling like a hill of angry insects. Pillars of smog polluted the skies. The earth in the lightless valleys shook under the massed tread of ironshod boots.

  Endless, Liandra sang, inflecting the harmonic with wonder. So many.

  Vranesh swung around again. Now you see what your scouts have seen. You see why you are needed. The storm is coming. It will roll down from those mountains soon and it will tear towards the sea.

  Liandra sighed. She understood why the dragon had shown her such things. Kor Vanaeth cannot stand, she sang.

  I did not say that. But you should think on where your powers are best employed. You should see what choices await you.

  Liandra’s mind-voice fell silent. She had always known that hard decisions would come again. Like water returning to the boil, she felt her ever-present anger rising to the surface.

  They killed thousands at Kor Vanaeth, she sang bitterly.

  They did. We both saw it.

  Liandra clenched her fists, just as she always did. The gesture had become habitual. I wish for nothing but to see them burn.

  The druchii first, sang Vranesh. Now the dawi. Can you really kill them all?

  The night seemed to gather itself around her as the dragon soared. It toughened her resolve, helped her to see things clearly. Salendor was already preparing to march, to bring the war back to the stunted ones before they could seize the initiative. Perhaps he was right to.

  I cannot, she sang savagely, feeling the lava-hot energy of the beast beneath her. But you can.

  Sevekai awoke.

  For a long period he didn’t try to move. The spirals of pain were too acute, too complete. More than one bone was broken, and he saw nothing from his left eye. A vague, numb gap existed where sensations from his limbs should have been.

  At first he thought he might have been blinded. Then, much later, the sun rose and he saw that he had awoken during the night. Little enough of the sun’s warmth penetrated down to the gorge floor, though – the difference between night and day was no more than a dull, creeping shade of grey.

  When he finally summoned up the effort to shift position, the agony nearly made him pass out. He tried three times to pull himself to his knees. He failed three times. Only on the fourth attempt, dizzy with the effort, did he drag himself into something like a huddled crouch.

  He was terribly, horribly cold. The shade seemed eternal. The rocks around him were covered with thin sheens of globular moss. Moisture glistened in the underhangs, dripping quietly. When he shivered from the chill, fresh pricks of pain rushed up his spine.

  Awareness came back to him in a series of mismatched recollections. He remembered a long trek into the mountains with the others. He remembered Drutheira’s black-lined eyes staring into his, the raids on trading caravans deep in the shadow of the woods and then the dull-faced visage of Kaitar.

  Kaitar.

  That name brought a shudder; he couldn’t quite remember why. Something had been wrong with Kaitar. Had he died? Had something terrible happened to all of them?

  Sevekai’s forehead slumped, exhausted, back against the rock. He felt his lips press up against moss. Moisture ran into his mouth, pressed from thick green spores. It dribbled down his chin, and he sucked it up.

  It was then that he realised just how thirsty he was. He pushed himself down further, ignoring flaring aches in his back and sides, hunting for more water.

  Only when he had trawled through shallow puddles under low-hanging lichen and licked the dribbling channels from the tops of stones did he feel something of a sense of self-possession begin to return. He lay on his back, breathing shallowly.

  He had fallen a long way. He could see that now, twisting his head and gazing up at the sheer sides of the gorge. A hundred feet? Two hundred? He should be dead. The rubble that had come down with him alone should have finished him off.

  Sevekai smiled, though it cracked his lips and made them bleed. It was all so ludicrous.

  Perhaps this is death, he thought. Perhaps I shall haunt this place for a thousand years.

  He looked up again. As his senses became sharper, as his mind put itself back together again, his thoughts became less fanciful.

  For fifty feet or so below the ruined ledge he’d fallen from, the rock ran straight down, a cliff of granite without break or handhold. Then, as it curved inwards towards the gorge’s floor, it began to choke up with a tangled mess of briars, scrub and hunched trees. Down in the primordial gloom, a mournful swathe of vegetation had taken hold, clinging on grimly in the perpetual twilight. It was dense and damp, overlapping and strangling itself in a blind attempt to claw upwards to the light.

  For all its gnarly ugliness, that creeping canopy was what had saved him. As Sevekai gazed upward he could see the path he had taken down – crashing through the branches of a wizened, black-barked shrub before rolling down across a clump of thornweed and into the moss-covered jumble of rocks where he now found himself.

  It was still unlikely. He should still have died.

  He let his head fall back again. He could feel the heavy burden of unconsciousness creeping up on those parts of him that still gave him any sensation at all. Night would come again soon, and with it the piercing cold. He was alone, forgotten by those he had trekked up into the mountains with. He knew enough of the wilds to know that strange creatures would be quick to sniff out wounded prey i
n their midst. He was broken, he was frail, he was isolated.

  A crooked smile broke out again, marring the severe lines of his thin face. He felt no fear. Part of him wondered whether the plummet had purged fear from him; if so, that would be some liberation.

  I will not die in this place, he mouthed silently. He did not say the words to encourage himself; it was just a statement of belief. He knew it, as clearly as he knew that his body would recover and his strength would return. The scions of Naggaroth were made of hard stuff: forged in the ice, sleet and terror of the dark realm. It took a lot to kill one – you had to twist the dagger in deep, turning it tight until the blood ran black.

  He had killed so many times, had ended so many lives, and yet Morai-Heg still failed to summon him to her underworld throne for reckoning.

  Even as the light overhead died, sending Sevekai back into a dim-lit world of frost and pain, the smile did not leave his face.

  I will not die in this place.

  Chapter Six

  Yethanial looked up from her work, irritated. She had slipped with her last stroke, jabbing the tip of the quill across the vellum. The servant was well aware of his crime, and waited nervously.

  ‘I told you I was not to be disturbed,’ said Yethanial.

  ‘Yes, my lady, but he would not accept my word. He is highborn, and refuses to leave.’

  Yethanial looked down at her work again. At times she wondered why she cared so much. No one other than her would ever read it.

  ‘Tell him to wait in the great hall,’ she said. ‘I will see him there.’

  The servant bowed, and made to leave Yethanial’s chamber.

  ‘Wait,’ she said, lifting her head. ‘What did you say his name was?’

  ‘Caradryel, of the House of Reveniol.’

  ‘I have never heard of it.’

  ‘From Yvresse, I believe.’

  Yethanial shook her head. ‘There are more noble houses in Ulthuan than there are trees in Avelorn. What does that tell us?’

  The servant looked uncertain. ‘I do not know, my lady.’

  Yethanial shot him a scornful glance. ‘Deliver the message. I will come down when I am ready.’

  He was waiting for her in Tor Vael’s great hall. ‘Great’ was somewhat optimistic; the space was modest, capable of holding no more than several dozen guests, bare-walled and with only a few drab hangings to lighten the stonework. The fireplace was empty and had not been used for years. Yethanial did not often entertain guests; as she had often complained to Imladrik, she found their conversation tiresome and their manners swinish.

  The present occupant lounged casually in one of the two great chairs set before the granite mantelpiece. His long blond hair was artfully arranged, swept back from a sleek face in what Yethanial supposed was the latest fashion in the cities. He wore a long robe of damask silk, a burgundy red with gold detail. It looked fabulously expensive.

  Yethanial walked up to him. He did not rise to greet her.

  ‘My servants tell me you will not leave,’ she said.

  Caradryel raised a thin eyebrow. ‘That is not much of a greeting.’

  ‘I have important work. State your business.’

  He settled into the chair more comfortably. ‘Ah, yes. The scholar-lady. You are spoken well of in Hoeth.’

  Yethanial paused. ‘Hoeth? You bring word from the loremasters?’

  Caradryel laughed; an easy, untroubled sound. ‘Loremasters? Not my profession, I’m afraid. I only use parchment to light fires.’

  Yethanial folded her arms. She knew that she must look impossibly drab next to him in her grey shift and barely-combed hair, and cared nothing for it. ‘Then you are running out of time here.’

  ‘Something I am sure you must be short of, so I will come to the meat of it.’ He pushed himself up higher in his seat. ‘I was serving in the fleets, sent there by a father who despairs of my ever performing gainful service to the Crown. He is wrong about that, as it turns out, but that is not something you or he need worry about. My time aboard ship turned out to be instructive, though not in the way he hoped for.’

  ‘I am just burning to know how.’

  Caradryel flashed her another smile – the effortless, artful smile of one who has spent his life flitting through the privileged circles of courtly classes. ‘I saw a strange thing. We were attacked by corsairs. I have never been one to scare easily, being of the view that my destiny is almost certainly a great one and thus the gods have a clear incentive to keep me alive, but I admit that I did not like the way the situation looked. I had made my preparations to meet death in a suitable manner when, quite unexpectedly, salvation came out of an empty sky.’

  Yethanial struggled to control her impatience. Caradryel clearly enjoyed the sound of his own voice and fancied himself a storyteller. She could see the steady confidence radiating from his languid frame and wondered what, if anything, justified it.

  ‘A dragon rider, my lady,’ Caradryel went on. ‘Rare enough even on the fields of war. Vanishingly rare in the open seas. When the shock of it had faded, I reflected on that. I could not help but feel that my earlier judgement had been vindicated: I am being preserved for something special. That is a comfort to me, as you might imagine.’

  ‘Or a delusion.’

  ‘Quite; time will tell which. But here is the thing: the rider was your husband, the King’s brother. When this became known, the crew of the ship fell into the kind of fawning adulation that is embarrassing unless directed at oneself. And that prompted me to think further on it.’

  ‘Any brevity you can muster would be welcome,’ sighed Yethanial.

  ‘Our beloved ruler, Caledor the Second, has returned to Ulthuan. His victory in the east has bolstered his strength at court, but he is not without enemies, who think him vain and unwise. Factions exist that wish for an end to the fighting in Elthin Arvan. They would not move against him openly, but there are other things they can do to undermine a king. I know how the courts work, my lady, and so does he. The crown does not suffer rivals. Caledor will act; he may have already done so. Your husband, you should know, will not be suffered to remain in Ulthuan.’

  Yethanial smiled thinly. ‘And you understand all of this from one chance encounter at sea.’

  Caradryel shrugged. ‘That was the start of it. I have friends in all sorts of interesting places, and they tell me the same thing. A story is being whispered all across Ulthuan, passed from shadow to shadow.’ He gave her a sad, almost sincere, smile. ‘Lord Imladrik will be sent back to the colonies, my lady. Nothing can prevent it.’

  Yethanial felt her face grow pale. ‘Is this why you came?’ she demanded. ‘To pass on tittle-tattle and gossip?’

  ‘Not at all. I can do that far more productively in Lothern.’ Caradryel rose from his chair and bowed floridly. ‘I came to offer my services.’

  For a moment, Yethanial was lost for words. As she struggled, Caradryel kept talking.

  ‘They say your husband is the greatest dragon rider since the days of the Dragontamer. Having seen his prowess at first hand, I have no doubt they are right. When it comes to the arts of state, though, he is a neophyte. My guess is that he thinks statecraft beneath him, as do you. You despise the likes of me; you think us gaudy parasites on the real business of life. Of course you are right: we are parasites. But necessary ones.’

  Caradryel fixed her with a serious look, the first he had given her.

  ‘I can help him,’ he said. ‘I can guide him. When he is alone in Elthin Arvan, beset by enemies on both sides of the walls, I can give him counsel. Believe me, he will need it.’

  Yethanial’s surprise ebbed, giving way to anger. Caradryel must have been half her age, and yet felt free to lecture her as if speaking to a child. She drew closer to him, noticing for the first time that she was taller.

  ‘Save your counsel,’ she said cold
ly. ‘It, and your presence here, are not welcome. I do not know to whom you have been speaking, nor do I care to. My husband’s business is here in Tor Vael and it is no one’s concern but his and mine. You clearly have little regard for the sensibilities of this house, so let me enlighten you: three dozen guards stand ready on the far side of this door. Should I order it, they will rip those robes from your back and drive you all the way back to Yvresse for the sport of your long-suffering subjects. I am close to giving that order. If you disbelieve me, feel free to provoke me further.’

  Caradryel met her gaze for a little while. His blue eyes flickered back and forth, as if testing her resolve, or perhaps his own. Eventually they dropped, and the smile melted from his face. ‘So be it,’ he said, adopting a breezy, resigned tone without much conviction. ‘I made the offer. That is all I can do.’

  Yethanial said nothing. For some reason, her heart was beating hard.

  Caradryel bowed. ‘I was told you were a shy soul, my lady, much taken up with books. I see that you have been undersold.’ He started to walk away. ‘Should you change your mind–’

  ‘I will not change my mind.’

  ‘Just in case, I can be found at Faer-Lyen. You will not have to look hard; I have many friends who know me well.’

  ‘How fortunate for them.’

  Caradryel smiled again ruefully, reached the doors, and took the handle. He almost said something else, but seemed to change his mind. He bowed, turned on his heel and slipped through them. As he departed, his damask robes gave a final flourish.

  Yethanial watched him go. Only once the doors had closed did she look down at her hands. They trembled slightly.

  She had spoken as firmly as she was able, something she disliked doing. Perhaps it had fooled him. She had not fooled herself, though. His prediction had shaken her; his assertiveness had shaken her.

  She stirred herself, ready to climb the stairs to her chamber and start the process of writing again. As she prepared her mind for the labour, though, she knew it would not come easily this time. The moment had gone. Other thoughts would preoccupy her now, ones that she had believed consigned to the past over thirty years ago.