Twenty days before the Black Mausoleum
The alchemist was sleeping as he crept past her in the cave. Snoring. Curled up beside the shivering shit-eater. He crouched beside her, silent as a shadow, just looking. A lot of thoughts came and went. Things he could do and things he couldn’t. Things he wanted. Outside, after he moved on, he laughed at himself. If the alchemist hadn’t made him her slave, what would he do different apart from take her? Nothing. He’d go with her and her shit-eater to the Raksheh just to see, even though he knew it couldn’t possibly be true.
For a few seconds he wondered what he might do differently if he was the alchemist, but it didn’t take long to reckon the answer to that. Nothing. Nothing at all. He’d have made him into a slave and the shit-eater too. Safest thing. Practical. Didn’t make it any better.
He’d seen the specks in the sky by then, plenty of them, but it took him a moment longer to see the castle and to realise what it was. To realise that it wasn’t supposed to be there, that the Farakkan flood plains had never had such a fortress. When he saw that it was moving, he forgot about the alchemist. Almost forgot about the dragons. Just sat and gaped.
The dragons were pulling it. Couldn’t see any chains or ropes, not from such a distance, but he could see the dragons. Could see where they were and the way they flew. Something was burning too. A haze of smoke hung in the air not far from the fortress. The wind brought him the smell of it, slight but unmistakable.
He’d heard a lot of stories in his time and made up a few too, but this? Yet here it was, right in front of him. A castle. Moving. Dragons pulling it.
Dragons in ropes and chains. Dragons had claws. Talons. Teeth. Dragons smashed and burned. Dragons didn’t shackle themselves.
Someone else had done this.
When the alchemist finally came out, he offered her his hand. She spurned it. Couldn’t say he blamed her, but it made him laugh anyway.
‘I don’t suppose there’s any point to asking you what it is?’ he asked, once he’d let her see it all for herself. The expression on her face was all he needed. Just like the tunnels under the Silver City, just like the bronze doors and their statues that came to life, she hadn’t the first idea. He shook his head, wondering to himself. If anyone was supposed to know about this sort of thing, it was alchemists, wasn’t it? And here she was, ignorant as he was and twice as useless.
‘Changes things a bit,’ he said softly.
‘Does it?’
‘I been watching a while. You can see it’s moving? The dragons are pulling it. You ever see a dragon put itself in a harness? Tie a knot? Splice a rope?’
She shook her head. ‘They can’t. They don’t have the…’ Yes, the truth was dawning on her now.
‘So that’s where we’re going.’
‘There must be people there!’
He nodded. ‘Men.’
‘And they must have… The dragons aren’t burning them!’
‘Not yet.’
‘So they’re…’
‘Men who can still tame dragons. Yes. So that’s where we’re going, right?’ he said again.
‘Yes! Right now!’ She got up as if to make her way back down between the rocks to the cave and the waterfall. He raised a hand to stop her, almost grabbed her arm and then pulled away at the last moment. Must not touch!
‘No, alchemist. At night. In the dark.’
‘But there aren’t any dragons.’
He supposed she meant apart from the twenty-odd flying around the floating castle. ‘Might be true now. Might not be when we’re halfway there, crossing the plains with nothing but mud for cover and no potion to hide our thinking. Be dark by the time we got there anyway. Better to wait.’
She hesitated, then sat down again. ‘What if it’s gone?’
‘We follow it. It’s not moving fast. Not moving much at all.’ But it was moving.
‘They could take us up the Yamuna. They could take us all the way to the caves!’
Had to laugh at that. That was alchemists for you. Got something in their heads, took a dragon to knock it out again. Sometimes not even that. ‘Maybe they got other plans.’
‘Who can it be? It can’t be Hyrkallan. Could it be Speaker Lystra’s riders? But how did they get this far south? And where did it come from? How did they find it? There’s nothing… unless… There are books… There are lots of books I haven’t read. Secret books, only for alchemists of a higher rank. Maybe Jeiros…’ Her words petered out.
‘There were lots of books in Sand,’ muttered Skjorl. ‘Used to be a monastery there. Strange things in some of those. We got stuck down in the caves for weeks there. Dragons all over the place. Burned it to ashes and then smashed it flat. Like everywhere else, I suppose. Then baked everyone in their own cellars. We got there after that, but there were still dragons. Tunnels under the monastery were deep so that’s where we hid. Don’t read words, but there were pictures in some of those books. Strange things. Not like this, but strange. Animals. Not dragons, not snappers, but something in between. Sand lizards with six legs. A thing that looked like a caterpillar the size of a city. Burning rocks falling from the sky. I was in Outwatch too when it fell. Strange place that. Like the Pinnacles, but much… well, not as big. Not finished. Like it had hardly been started.’ He shrugged.
‘Bazim Crag,’ said Kataros softly. ‘Up on the moors. It’s the only place.’
‘Weren’t any flying castles up on Yinazhin’s Way a few months back. Reckon I would have noticed.’
‘No, no. You’re right! The deserts of Sand and Stone. Hejel’s Bridge! There are other things up there, buried in the sand. I know it!’
‘Or maybe it’s dead Zafir come back to claim her throne.’
The alchemist snorted. ‘With her army of vengeful spirits?’
Skjorl leaned forward. ‘Or maybe the heap of bollocks your shit-eater in there is trying to feed you isn’t such a heap of bollocks after all. Maybe it’s the Silver King.’ He let that hang for a moment, relishing the look on the alchemist’s face and wondering at his own feeling of unease. ‘Or maybe it’s something the dragons found. Maybe they’ve learned to tie knots after all. Maybe they plan to throw it at one of the Pinnacles to knock it down and that’s why they’re dragging it after them.’ He enjoyed the look he got for that too. ‘Thing is, you don’t know. I don’t know. Chances are there are people in there. Chances are they’ll want to know about your shit-eater’s story. Might even want to help. Might give us food and water and shelter. Might might might. Or might not. We’ve got to eat, and so we go, but we still take our caution with us.’
He sat back, savouring the heat of the sun on his skin, a rare treat. He’d said enough. More than enough. More than an Adamantine Man was supposed to say. It was her wild idea to save the realms, not his.
After a bit the alchemist went back into the cave. Skjorl watched, half hoping she’d fall and break her neck as she picked her way down between the rocks to the edge of the falls. And half hoping not. When she was gone he stayed where he was. Safe enough, he reckoned. Dragons were dragons. Any of them saw something like this, they’d have eyes for nothing else. Just wouldn’t want to be too close when they came to take a look, that was all.
The sun set and the alchemist came out again. She had the shit-eater now, leaning against her. Skjorl watched with bored interest. Maybe they’d both go over.
‘You could help,’ she snapped at him. He shrugged.
‘No. Can’t. Can’t touch.’
‘You could throw us a rope.’
‘What rope’s that then?’
She paused for a moment, then went back inside the cave leaving the shit-eater sitting on his own halfway up the the slope. Skjorl thought about rolling rocks down on him. Wouldn’t be touching, after all.
The alchemist returned with the rope from the raft. All twenty feet of it. Skjorl rolled his eyes. He made his way down to them, picked the shit-eater up and threw him over his shoulder.
‘Didn’t say anything about not touching his clothes,’ he said, and laughed at the look on her. Scared as a rabbit. She took a step away and pointed.
‘You don’t hurt him! We need him.’
‘Oh, I won’t.’ He gave the outsider a little shake, made sure he had a good view of the broken rocks fifty feet below. ‘Long way down, though. Hope I don’t slip.’ But the shit-eater was in a world of his own, too feverish for taunts to be any fun. Skjorl carried him up to the top of the hill and set him down.
‘Woof,’ he said, and grinned in the shit-eater’s pasty face.