The thought made him shudder. He had a favourite corpse now?

He put a knotted half-dried bladder in his shoulder bag and hurried out, through the hatchery and across the dragon yard to the spiral of tunnels where he and Li had their studies and their workshop and laboratory. Now was a fine time for what he had in mind. Perth Oran TVarr had already gone below, doubtless off to shout at the lesser tvarrs who served him, who could shout in turn at their kwens, who would then bawl at their men to go and do something about feeding the hatchlings. Li was still sleeping off the poison. The killers would be busy. Her Holiness . . . He looked up. The gondola had lifted and drifted, out past the rim.

Ah well. Her Holiness and a sorceress. Let them sort it out between them. Kept them both out of his way. After what hed seen, he couldnt wait any more.

The iron door to his study was closed. The Elemental Men had insisted on putting a guard outside but the iron door was why hed kept Li here in the first place. That and it was easier than trying to move her. She was in his bed and he was camped in his laboratory.

'Anyone come by? The guard shook his head. Bellepheros bent and inspected a corner of the door where hed wedged a piece of leaf against the frame. 'Then you might as well come in. Theyd said they were putting a guard on Li, but he hadnt had a single moment to work in peace since shed been poisoned. Eyes, always eyes watching him. He had a bad feeling that it was about to get a lot, lot worse, and for a moment, inside the sanctuary of his study, everything hed just seen suddenly hit him all at once. He stood in the middle of the room, then bent double, gasping for breath. He felt sick. The woman was a sorceress! When hed tried to speak through the web of silence shed wrought, hed felt his blood curdle in his veins.

No, he couldnt be sick. He just needed to do this now. Quickly.

The guard was frowning. 'You all right?

'The Arbiter has come. That shut him up. Bellepheros shook himself. No time for trembling now, old man. Later . . . Li was on the bed where hed left her, wrapped in all the blankets he could find. He put a hand on her brow. As far as the watching guard could tell, that was all he ever did, check on her and force a little water into her now and then he and the guard both took a good swig of it before they fed any to Li but what hed forced into Li when hed found her dying on his floor hadnt been a potion but his blood, pure and strong, and there were consequences to doing a thing like that. The first and most important consequence was that Li wasnt dead, but there were others. He closed his eyes, reached into his own blood and through it across the bridge hed made to Chay-Liang. Blood-magic. The terrible temptation every alchemist had to face. He had a hold on her now whether he wanted it or not. He could, if he chose, compel her to his will. He could read her feelings and perhaps even her thoughts. He could make her a slave far more than shed ever made one of him. Not that he wanted to. Not that the thought didnt appal him. But he could.

The poison in her veins was a villainous one and Li was still fighting off its last claws. Another few hours, maybe another day. He straightened. 'Not long now. If she wakes and Im not here then you must send someone to find me. Do it straight away. Sh.e.l.l be thirsty. Give her water.

The Taiytakei smiled. He looked relieved happy even but then Bellepheros thought he caught a hint of something else. Something anxious and then a glance at the water jug.

'Ill make sure its pure, Bellepheros said. Not that he had any reason to suspect this particular Taiytakei of anything, but still . . . He forced a smile. 'I have a couple of ch.o.r.es to see to. Actually, no, I can give her something else that might help. Would you mind getting me the decanter of wine from the desk in my laboratory? He took the bladder from the dead cook out of his bag and poked a tiny hole into it with a scalpel, then squeezed the goo inside into a small clay bowl. It stank, the most noxious smell imaginable. The Taiytakei, whod come to peer over his shoulder, recoiled.

'Unholy Xibaiya, alchemist! What is that?

Telling him it was the rotting liquefied brain matter of someone whod once cooked food for them both didnt seem politic. 'It has a particular name but basically its fermented dragon s.h.i.t, he lied, then glanced back and grinned. The soldier had retreated to the door. 'You get used to the smell.

'You do?

Not really. Bellepheros coughed and made a face. 'Well . . . Out of sight he p.r.i.c.ked the heel of his hand with the scalpel and dripped three drops of his own blood into the bowl. 'Could you get the wine? When the Taiytakei didnt move, Bellepheros let his shoulders slump and gave a little sigh. 'Right. Yes, yes, the whole tiresome matter of never having a moment alone with Li. Not that he wanted one, but having someone watch everything he did in his own study, he could have done without that. He sprinkled a little powdered obsidian into the bowl, dripped in three drops of moonshade and a half a dozen of clove oil. The clove oil didnt actually do anything useful, but he liked the smell of it a whole lot better and it went some way to mask the stink of rotting brain. 'Ill take this to the laboratory and then it can go to the hatchery in a bit. It can stink out there instead of in here. He forced a smile for the watching guard and stirred the pot until everything was mixed together nicely. 'Right. Wine. He walked out with his pot. The soldier didnt see the scalpel he took with him, hidden up his sleeve.

He came back without his stinking pot and carrying a silver tray which he set down on the desk. He poured a little wine onto a piece of clean cloth, took the cloth to Lis bed, about to squeeze a little into her mouth, and then stopped and looked at the Taiytakei soldier. The soldier looked back. There were two gla.s.ses on the tray. 'A little wine will help her recovery Bellepheros grinned ' but perhaps we should do as we do with her water? He poured a little into each cup and let the soldier choose which one to drink. They raised their gla.s.ses to each other. The soldier grinned too as he knocked it back.

'This from old Tsen TVarrs stock, is it?

Bellepheros shrugged. 'I dont know. I dont drink much, to be honest. The lady Chay-Liang found it . . .

There were several things he might have said or done next but he didnt do any of them because the iron door was still open and now two women in white tunics were standing there, looking nervously inside. Bellepheros sighed. Zafirs slaves. 'What does she want now?

'Master alchemist. Myst and Onyx both bowed as though they didnt know what to make of him. He was a slave too, so no better than they were, but then so was their mistress, who almost seemed to run the eyrie sometimes, and Bellepheros was the one person now that Tsen was gone that she treated with anything other than contempt. 'Master alchemist, can you come please? Our mistress asks.

'Tell her to come here, he snapped. 'Im in the middle of something.

They bobbed and bowed and shuffled their feet and didnt go away. 'Lord alchemist, our mistress will not come. But she . . . asks kindly for you to attend her. And we beg you, both of us. Please.

Bellepheros looked at them hard. Zafir sent them now and then with petty errands and asked him odd little questions and sometimes demanded his presence. So far hed obliged her. This time . . . this time he was half-minded to refuse and send them away, but something about them was off. They were worried. They were also the only two people in the eyrie whod do anything except breathe a great sigh of relief when the Elemental Men finally hanged Zafir, but for the time being he had good reasons to want that day to be a little way away. 'I dont suppose she wants to start hunting the hatchling that burned my laboratory, does she?

'We are to tell you that she will consider it.

Bellepheros glanced at Li, at the soldier and at the wine. He took a deep breath. The air stank of cloves and something rotten, but all that could wait a little. 'Very well. He shrugged an apology at the soldier. 'I wont be long. Keep her safe and let no one enter until I get back.

The soldier followed him out and closed the door and resumed his post. Bellepheros didnt bother with the leaf this time this time he was quite sure that the soldier would keep Li safe. He followed Myst and Onyx out into the wind and up to the wall where Diamond Eye perched, staring at the G.o.dspike. Zafir lay on the dragons back, basking in the sun. As Bellepheros approached, she beckoned him to climb and join her. Bellepheros rolled his eyes. Yes, he understood why she wanted him up there, because the Elemental Men couldnt come so close to a dragon without turning back into flesh and bone and so Diamond Eyes back was the safest place for them to talk without being overheard. But really? The ladder flapped and swung in the wind. Heights and open s.p.a.ce both made him sick with anxiety, and he was an old man and his knees hated climbing anything at all, even gentle steps. Besides, it wasnt right for an alchemist to sit on the back of a dragon. They did it when they had to but it wasnt how the world was supposed to work. Dragons and alchemists, oil and water.

'Holiness . . . She probably couldnt even hear him from up there over the wind, and even if she could it wouldnt make any difference. He took a deep breath and steeled himself. Shed left s.p.a.ce for him to sit in front of her as always, but this time, as soon as he was up, she reached around him and pulled him tight up against her and locked her arms around his waist.

'Holiness . . .?

'Didnt you ever want to fly, alchemist?

She was already buckled into her harness. He saw it coming a moment before it happened, let out a pained little gasp and closed his eyes with a volley of silent oaths, and then Diamond Eye flared his wings and jumped and he was tipping sideways and the only things stopping him from falling were Zafirs arms wrapped around him. The huge vast emptiness suddenly all around him made him want to scream. He screwed his eyes tight shut and prayed he wouldnt be sick. Couldnt look. Couldnt. And there was nothing to stop him falling except those arms which could let go at any moment . . .

Zafir pulled him straight again. He knew they hadnt banked, knew that Diamond Eye was simply gliding straight over the maelstrom of the storm-dark far below them, but his tongue had swollen so much it seemed to fill his mouth, his heart was thump-thump-thump against his ribs as if trying to break free, and much of his insides desperately wanted to escape by whatever way they could. Mustering all the will he could find, he righted himself and risked a look, then quickly closed his eyes again. 'Holiness? He couldnt manage any more than that.

She hissed in his ear. 'This may be the last time I fly alone.

Diamond Eye began a turn, making slow lazy circles, spiralling lower towards the storm. They pa.s.sed under the dark belly of the eyrie, lit up now and then by purple flashes of lightning.

'You dont serve me any more, alchemist. You serve them.

'Holiness, I . . . He stopped as she let him go and shoved him in the back instead. He felt himself slip, screamed and flailed to keep his balance and then she had him again, yelling in his ear over the tearing wind.

'Dont! Dont you dare blow sugar up my a.r.s.e. Your loyalty is long gone. So be it. You want something from me and I want something from you. Then let us bargain, you and I. Diamond Eye swooped and Bellepheros let out another howl of terror as he felt the dragon drop away beneath him and his stomach tried to scale his throat and jump out of his mouth. Zafir held him tight. He doubled over and threw up, spattering the dragons scales and his own robes, and all the while he felt her head pressed against his own, her lips right up to his ear, close enough to brush his skin. 'I have something to show you, she said. The dragon dived towards the storm then levelled and skimmed its surface in a gentle arc. 'Look down, alchemist.

He didnt want to look down. He didnt want to look anywhere at all and would rather have kept his eyes firmly closed until she either threw him off or took him back, but if he was going to look at anything then he preferred the dark speck of the eyrie high above or the bright looming spire of the G.o.dspike. The evening sun was on it, making it shine with a pale orange fire. It was vast. Huge, as Diamond Eye curved towards it, and so unspeakably tall. When he tried to look up to where it must touch the sky, his eyes kept sliding off it. He tipped sideways.

Zafir shifted with him, easy and a.s.sured. Her grip tightened. 'It sucks you in, doesnt it? What is it, alchemist? Do any of them know? It means something to Diamond Eye. Ive half a mind to wake him up and ask him.

'Holiness! She couldnt hear him though, not a word he said, not over the wind.

'Down, alchemist, I told you to look down!

He forced himself. The storm-dark lay spread out around them as far as he could see. The emptiness forced its way into him. The sheer size of it seemed to swell inside his lungs, filling them tight so he couldnt breathe. He gasped and squirmed but Zafir still didnt let him go. Dark churning clouds flecked with flashes of purple lightning, just as hed seen when the Taiytakei had brought him on their ship from Furymouth to Xican and Tuuran had smashed open the shutters on the window in his cabin and shown it to him. The vastness overwhelmed him. The s.p.a.ce devoured him. Heights and open s.p.a.ces. He screamed. Couldnt help himself. 'Stop! Stop! Take me back! I beg you! A roaring that wasnt the wind filled his ears. He pitched forward. The next thing he knew someone was shaking him, and for one blissful moment he thought it was Li and hed been sleeping in his bed and it had all been a horrible dream, until Zafir pulled him upright and grabbed his head in her hands.

'I said down, alchemist. The lightning. Look at the lightning!

He looked at the lightning and whimpered and wailed, eyes watering in the wind. 'What, Holiness? What am I supposed to see? I have crossed the storm-dark as you have! Yes, this is the same. I know that. They all know that! What more must I see? Please take me back!

'Watch, alchemist. Wait. Patience.

Bellepheros quietly closed his eyes. Her Holiness was behind him so she couldnt see. Diamond Eye circled. On the back of a dragon with nothing to keep him safe except Zafir, with the storm-dark churning beneath them, every second felt like hours.

A brilliant flash of light made him flinch and blink, bright enough to startle him even with his eyes shut. More purple lightning, only this time it was too bright to have come from inside the maelstrom so it must have come from . . .

'Did you see it, alchemist? Did you see?

Bellepheros took a deep breath and wondered whether Zafir had finally tipped into madness, whether shed always been slightly mad, whether she was more mad than before or whether this was the same madness and he just happened to be in the way of it. Times like this he understood exactly why Li wanted rid of her and the sooner the better. Theyd all been mad in some way or other, the queens of the Silver City, the mistresses of the Pinnacles surrounded by the lost works of the Silver King.

'It came from the eyrie, alchemist. From the eyrie!

Bellepheros nodded. 'Yes! He hadnt seen anything at all but he supposed she must be right. Lightning from the belly of the eyrie, where flares of purple played back and forth. Lightning to the storm-dark. Was that what she wanted him to see? That the eyrie and the maelstrom were somehow connected?

'They are the same, alchemist.

Maybe she was right. He tried to forget about being afraid and Zafirs madness and let that idea settle inside him instead, almost grateful for something else to occupy his scattered thoughts. The eyrie and the storm-dark. They were . . . what? Talking to each other? Something. Did the Taiytakei know? Presumably they did but perhaps . . . Did they ever fly under the eyrie as Zafir had done? Did they ever see it? What if they didnt? Was there a use to this knowledge?

Diamond Eye was rising now. Zafir pressed her cheek against his again. 'Well? Are they? Are they the same?

'I . . . I dont know.

'Do they know?

'No. Im not sure they do. That was a revelation even to him. But no, now he thought about it, he rather thought that the Taiytakei didnt have the first idea.

Zafirs voice dropped to something that was almost a snarl. 'Alchemist, they say that everything that enters the storm-dark is destroyed, that only they have the sorcery to prevent this. What if theyre wrong?

Bellepheros took a few deep breaths. The fear was easing a little, and he was fairly sure now that Zafir didnt mean to pitch him off to fall to his doom, but that didnt stop him from sinking forward as soon she let go of him, from pressing himself into Diamond Eyes scales still sticky with his own vomit and hugging them tight. What are you trying to say? But he couldnt open his mouth to speak. He could barely even breathe.

Zafir flew towards the G.o.dspike. Diamond Eye circled it, higher and higher until the eyrie was below them, and then the gla.s.ships that carried it, and then the others that floated higher still and on until they were alone in the sky and Bellepheros was gasping for air and his head was thumping for lack of it. 'Now look up, Zafir hissed.

Bellepheros risked a glimpse. The G.o.dspike rose into deep blue sky, on as far as he could see. He screwed up his face but all he could think of was how he wasnt getting enough air and how his heart was racing and his head felt ready to explode and he thought he might be sick again and, dear Flame, he was surely going to die out here . . . 'Holiness! Please! Enough! Let us go back! He closed his eyes and started to sob. He could feel her shaking. Laughing at him perhaps. His fingers were going numb and his face too. The air was as cold as ice and his robes were too thin, though the heat of the dragon underneath him and Zafir at his back kept him from shivering. 'Please! he whimpered. 'Holiness, please!

Diamond Eye arced away from the G.o.dspike and swirled in a shallow spiral dive for the eyrie. The dragon landed gently and lowered his head to the ground so that when Bellepheros tried to climb down and missed his footing on the ladder because he was shaking so much and crashed instead in a jumble of arms and legs to the eyrie wall, the fall wasnt so great that he broke anything. He lay there for a while, feeling his bruises, drained and spent. Getting up was just too much. Blessed dear solid ground again. He wanted to hug it, to spread himself across it as widely as he could like a man might smear b.u.t.ter over bread, but he didnt get the chance. Zafir jumped down beside him and hauled him to his feet. He was still quivering with cold and fear and he stank of his own puke, but he had enough awareness to see how things had changed between them. Time was, shed never have stooped to something as menial as helping him up.

She didnt let go. Instead she pulled him close into an embrace and whispered in his ear, 'You want me to hunt your missing dragon. I will give you that. Then she pulled away, but for a moment she kept a hand on each of his shoulders and looked him in the eye. Standing straight they were exactly the same height, but Bellepheros always felt as though he was the smaller of the two. Zafirs eyes, when she stared for long enough, could set things on fire. 'Make her take it off me. She tapped the gold-gla.s.s circlet around her head. Bellepheros blinked. He hadnt even noticed it until now. Zafir leaned in and kissed him on each cheek and then let him go. The wind pulled at him. He felt hopelessly unsteady. Not that the wind ever changed but his legs werent working the way they were supposed to today, not now anyway. He staggered and stumbled and then stayed where he was. The wall wasnt tall and it wasnt even steep where it sloped away to the rim, but he simply couldnt move. Too much s.p.a.ce everywhere he looked. Too much emptiness. It had drained him. He was spent. Utterly gone.

Zafir laughed, and Myst and Onyx took his arms and helped him as far as the steps to the dragon yard. The rest he managed on his own. When he got back to his study he was still shaking. The door was closed and the Taiytakei guard c.o.c.ked his head. 'Theres an Elemental Man in there now, master alchemist.

Bellepheros went in anyway. As soon as he opened the door, the smell of cloves and rotten brain hit him like a smack in the face. The Elemental Man, if he was here at all, was keeping himself invisible. Bellepheros waited a moment to see if hed appear but the air stayed still, there was no wisp of breeze and no figure materialised out of any corner.

'Look after her, he muttered and sat down at his desk and poured himself a large gla.s.s of wine and knocked it back in one long swallow. Maybe that would help with the shakes. Then he put the gla.s.s back on the silver tray, took the wine back to his laboratory and locked it away there, careful because it wasnt just wine any more. The blood hed dripped into it while no one was watching had made this wine into something else, and now that something else was inside the guard who stood by his door.

The laboratory reeked of cloves. The smell would linger for weeks now and he could thank her Holiness for that. He picked up the offending pot and took it out. On his way back to the hatchery he pa.s.sed the guard on his door again. 'Keep her safe, he said. 'Make sure no one does anything to hurt her.

The guard screwed up his nose and flapped at the air as he nodded. Bellepheros smiled and reached inside himself and through the blood-tainted wine. 'Keep her safe, he said again, and knew that the soldier would do exactly that because now he had no choice.

Satisfied, he returned to the hatchery and the larder full of corpses and left his clay pot smelling of cloves beside the dead slave whod poisoned Li, waiting for it to thicken. It hit him then what Zafir had been trying to show him. That the eyrie and the storm-dark were somehow connected. That the G.o.dspike was made of the same white stone as the dragon yard and the walls and tunnels and towers and that the G.o.dspike pierced the storm-dark.

She was asking if the eyrie might survive in there. She was asking if they might go home.

26.

Abyssal Powders Chay-Liang opened her eyes. It seemed as though only a moment had pa.s.sed and yet the whole world had changed around her. She wasnt on the floor but lying in a bed. She was still in Bellepheross study but it was a lot tidier than she remembered. She supposed that meant hed finished sorting out the mess from when the hatchling had burned his laboratory and was doing his work there again and not here.

She sniffed. The study smelled of cloves. Her head swirled as soon as she tried to move, but not before she saw a figure watching her from across the room. He stood in the shadows. She couldnt see his face.

'Belli?

The figure vanished. Perhaps it had only been a shadow, a trick of the light and there hadnt been anyone there at all. She lay back. Nothing exactly hurt but she had no strength and she could barely breathe. Her head was working though, her thinking, and that was what was important. She remembered everything until her eyes had closed, how it had felt, how confused shed been, the vial under Bellis desk that had seemed to matter so much, but all that urgency was gone now and the confusion with it. Someone had poisoned her. Someone who had access to Baros Tsen TVarrs cellars. Which narrowed it down to the Elemental Men and probably a dozen of the Vespinese, which was tantamount to not narrowing it down at all, although if the Elemental Men wanted her dead then presumably they had better ways of doing it. Doubtless MaiChoiro Kwen had been behind it. A better question to ask was why she was still alive.

'Li!

She turned her head and winced as her eyes blurred. She tried to sit but it was beyond her. Bellepheros hurried to her side. An Elemental Man in black robes came in after him and then a woman wrapped in shimmering midnight-blue, someone Liang didnt know but who moved all wrong. Stiff and awkward.

Bellis hands were rough and calloused, stained and leathery from years of alchemy. He lifted her head and tenderly propped her up and then yelled at the Elemental Man to go and get some pillows. Liang laughed when he did that, except it ended up as more a wince and a whimper because, d.a.m.n it, it hurt!

'So typical . . . of you . . . to send a killer . . . for pillows.

'Never liked them. Let them run errands. How do you feel?

'Like a dragon hit me. Liang tried to peer past Belli at the woman, but shed turned her back and was inspecting the shelves and Bellis book collection, running her fingers down their spines one by one. 'Whos that?

'If a dragon had hit you then Id have been cleaning up the mess with a mop and a bucket. You were poisoned. Bellepheros shook his head. 'And this lot were worse than useless. I tucked you up here to keep you away from them and theyve been . . .

Liang squeezed his hand. The iron door. It made her smile, that look of concern on his face, and she knew hed kept her here because it was the easiest place to keep an eye on her, the place where he spent the most time, so he could work and be with her both at once. She knew because shed have done the same. 'Happy about that, were they? she asked wryly.

'Not particularly, no. He put on a stern face. 'They were supposed to keep you safe and abjectly failed and, as I pointed out, if it wasnt for me then youd be dead, and since Id stuffed you full of my potions theyd best let me take responsibility for whatever happened next. I . . . He stopped, suddenly realising what hed said. 'Oh Li, Im so sorry.

'Its funny, she said, smiling so he knew it didnt matter. 'I was lying on the floor. I dont remember you finding me. I just remember there was a vial under your desk, rolling around down there. It seemed the most important thing in the world. Stupid.

Bellepheros snorted. 'That? Yes, you were . . . you were talking about all sorts of things while the poison worked through you. He shook his head. 'The vial? Its nothing. The potion her Holiness took the night the Vespinese came, when the hatchling broke free.

'I remember!

'It came down here to hunt her. He frowned. 'I keep wondering why it did that.

'Belli! Now she was annoyed. 'I do remember! It tried to kill me, d.a.m.n it! And I sent it packing with a few good strokes of lightning, not that anyone seems to have noticed or cared. But Belli was looking across the room now, distracted by his own thoughts and eyeing the woman who was eyeing his books, deep furrows etched into his face. He shook his head, then turned back and crouched beside her and made a show of putting a hand on her brow to see if she was feverish. He pulled each eyelid back one after the other and peered into her eyes, then stood up again. 'The poisons gone. Youll be fine in a day or so.

'Who did it? Who? And had the poison really been meant for her? Or had it been meant for Belli? Perhaps for both of them?

'The slave who brought the wine, but as to who sent him . . . The Elemental Man returned with pillows and a sour look. He said nothing, but the way he dropped them on the bed spoke loudly. Belli ignored him as he busied himself sitting her up. 'The same slave who brought the wine went for Zafir with a knife. She took it off him and killed him with it. It wasnt just any knife either. It was one of those the Elemental Men carry. The ones where you cant see the blade. He glanced over his shoulder at the woman, still browsing, then threw a filthy look at the killer and made a face. 'No one knows where this particular slave came from, of course. Hes not one of Tsens and now hes dead.

'MaiChoiro. But if the same a.s.sa.s.sin had tried to murder Zafir then perhaps the poison had been meant for her . . . Did someone know what shed seen?

'Probably. Bellis voice dropped. 'I may have a way to find out but it needs some thought. Its a, ah . . . questionable thing to do. And Liang was about to ask him what he meant by that, but then the woman turned from Bellis books and Belli put a finger to his lips and stepped away.

'How is she, slave? The womans voice was quiet but carried the power and command of a sea lord addressing his fleet. 'She seems well enough to talk, at least.

'Recovering. Belli touched a finger to Liangs wrist, feeling her pulse. 'The poison is gone. Im afraid I still dont know what it was. Not something Ive encountered before, but that merely means it didnt come from my homeland. He turned and leaned towards Liang again. 'I kept the bottle though, Li. Ive given it to them and kept a bit for myself. Well find out in time, I promise you.

'Is her memory affected?

Liang frowned. 'My memory? She pulled herself up a little higher, winced and let Bellepheros ease her back down.