'Shes weak, Lady Arbiter, he said. 'She needs rest and to be left alone, but no, her memory shouldnt be affected. No reason to think so. He gently patted Liangs shoulder. 'A few days and youll be on your feet and shouting at me about her Holiness again. Although I think youll like what the lady Arbiter has done to her. Then he leaned over and whispered in her ear so quietly that she could barely hear. 'You have my blood in you now, Li. It will help you in other ways. The next time anyone poisons you, remember me.

He withdrew, the woman took his place and Liang saw what was strange about her. Her face was painted, half black and half white. She had gold-gla.s.s shards crossed upon her chest, sparking and glittering over dark silk. 'I know who you are. Youre our judge sent from the Dralamut.

The Arbiter tapped Bellepheros on the arm. 'You may go now, alchemist, but not far if you please. Be about your work. She didnt wait for him to leave but drew a piece of gold-gla.s.s from her sleeve. She shaped it into a disc that hovered in the air beside her, pushed it gently to Liangs side and sat on it. She smiled. It might have been a friendly smile but the painted mask made it alien and unsettling. 'What did he whisper in your ear, Chay-Liang?

'That I have his blood in me and that it will help me in other ways. Thats where his magic lies. In his blood.

'Help you in what ways, enchantress?

Liang shrugged. 'I dont know. He didnt say. She glanced nervously past the Arbiter to Belli as he walked out the door but he didnt look back. He trusted this woman then.

'And earlier, when you both thought I wasnt looking. He has a secret hes keeping from me about you. What is it?

'I think . . . Liang started to laugh which still hurt and felt her cheeks burn at the same time. 'Lady, I think hes uncommonly fond of me for a slave.

'And you uncommonly so for a mistress. The Arbiter snorted. 'That secret is none of my concern, although calling it a secret is a bit like calling the G.o.dspike small, which it simply isnt. She tried a smile again and it still didnt work. 'I mean the other secret: he knows something about who poisoned you. What is it?

'He didnt say. Liang closed her eyes. She had no idea what Belli had meant and now she was glad she hadnt asked because it meant she could be truthful and yet not betray him. 'I suppose he thinks hes found a clue.

'Tell him to share it. I will let him help if it suits me and you can tell him that too. When Im done here then you can all poison and burn each other as much as you like. While I stay, it stops. She smiled again but it didnt touch her eyes.

'I will tell him, lady.

The Arbiters voice changed abruptly. Suddenly they werent master and servant, with the Arbiter giving the orders and Liang meekly compliant, suddenly they were old friends sharing their little guilts and confidences. It was a subtle change and yet complete, as though the Arbiter had quietly shifted into an entirely other person. 'I was an enchantress once, she said. 'Since Im a navigator, you know that. I learned my craft at Hingwal Taktse as you did. And yes, your suspicions are right: that does make me Vespinese. Ironic that I should be Arbiter when this happens and my own people come under question. Is that why they did it, if they did anything at all? Did they think they might sway me? I know you learned some of your craft in Khalishtor too. Im sure it was very different. She frowned. 'May I ask you, what is that smell?

Liang coughed it still hurt and managed to lifted herself so she was almost upright at last. 'Cloves, lady.

'Cloves? Are we in a kitchen? The Arbiters eyes glittered and little wrinkles formed at the corners.

'Alchemy. Liang smiled back. 'I dont claim to understand it. I am Chay-Liang.

'I know. And I am Arbiter Red Lin Feyn, but you already knew that too. Im glad to find you alive.

Liang met her eyes, watching her steadily. They were unusual eyes for a Taiytakei, somewhere between lavender and violet. 'Lady, Im certain that Lord Shonda is a very clever man, as clever as he is rich and powerful. But he knows the Arbiter of the Dralamut is above such things. I doubt it even crossed his mind. She paused, gauging the Arbiters face for any reaction and seeing nothing. 'I cant speak for his character because Ive never met him. MaiChoiro Kwen, whom I have met, is a reprehensible insect who probably thinks he can buy you with some pretty beads just as he thinks he can kill me with wine that has turned a little.

'Ah. The Arbiter smiled a little more. 'So you believe it was MaiChoiro Kwen who poisoned you?

'Yes.

'Why would he do that?

'To silence me.

The smile faded. The Arbiter c.o.c.ked her head. 'And why would he want to do that? What would you be saying?

'I would be saying that I heard him tell the rider-slave where to fly and what to do. That he detailed to her the defences of Dhar Thosis. That he gave precise instructions for the burning and slaughter of another sea lords city.

The Arbiter widened her eyes in mock surprise. 'My, my. When you have your strength you shall tell me more. She c.o.c.ked her head. 'But how did he know that you would say these things? Were you there when he said them?

'Yes, Lady Arbiter, I was.

'And he knew it and said them anyway? The frown was real this time.

'It was done in Baros Tsen TVarrs gondola. We had removed the pilot golem and I was hiding in its place. There was an Elemental Man too, but he had become air. MaiChoiro had no idea he was overheard.

'That sounds a lot like a trap, Chay-Liang.

'Because thats exactly what it was, lady.

The Arbiter took a deep breath and let it out slowly. 'Then why, Chay-Liang of Khalishtor, if you were hidden and he didnt know you were there, would he want you dead? Who did you tell?

For a moment Liangs thoughts all crashed into each other. Shed been ready to let it out, every bit of it, word for word as well as she could remember. She shook her head. 'Tsen knew. And Belli. I told Belli.

'Just him?

She nodded.

'No one else? Are you quite sure?

'Quite sure. Her voice was a whisper. Nothing made sense any more. 'Oh, and one of your Elemental Men when they came.

'I see. The Arbiter nodded and looked thoughtful for a moment. 'One of my killers. Who should then have told me and yet I have heard nothing of this. She took a deep breath and wriggled on the gold-gla.s.s disc, settling herself. 'So be it. Perhaps we should do this now if you have the strength. All of it, if you please, from start to finish leaving no part out. Word for word if you can, who said what and to whom concerning the burning of Dhar Thosis. She took Liangs hand for a moment. 'Once were done, no one will have cause to poison you again.

So Liang described how shed hidden, what shed heard MaiChoiro Kwen say to the rider-slave, what Tsen had said to Zafir and what Tsen had said to the Watcher when the Kwen had gone, sending the Elemental Man to put an end to it before it could start. She felt as though she talked for hours and the Arbiter kept asking her to go back, back, always back to things that had happened before. Shondas visit, when the Vespinese had provoked the dragon by throwing lightning at it and the rider-slave had saved Shonda from being burned. Vey Rin TVarr and his jade raven. Shrin Chrias Kwen and his hatred of Zafir and his rivalry with Tsen to be the next sea lord of Xican. As much as she could remember. She could see the picture the Arbiter was drawing out of her. Tsens hunger to humble and humiliate the Vespinese who wanted his dragons. How hed tried to string them and wrap them and tangle them in their own schemes. Was it a sense of justice that had driven him or simply a desire to be free of the debt Xican owed them? She didnt know, and now that Tsen was dead they never would. The Arbiter moved to the aftermath, to Tsen vanishing away to Dhar Thosis and what Liang had done while he was gone or perhaps more to the point, what she hadnt done; the coming of the Vespinese and the failed hanging of Zafir, the Elemental Men; and finally her own confession, after it was all done, that shed been present when MaiChoiro Kwen had given Zafir her orders. By then Liang was too tired to even remember what she said.

'Do you notice, whispered the Arbiter, 'how everything revolves around the rider-slave? You see how she chooses who lives and who dies? The Arbiter smiled then, almost in admiration. 'And you all call her a slave.

'I would have hanged her months ago, murmured Liang.

She didnt notice when the Arbiter left, only that Red Lin Feyn was suddenly gone and that the light in her room had changed to the moonlight of the small hours. She must have fallen asleep, probably in the middle of answering a question. Hardly appropriate, but she struggled to feel any guilt. Arbiters, when they convened their courts at all, did so in the Dralamut, and mostly concerned themselves with arcane disputes about trade ent.i.tlements and access to storm-dark lines. For the most part the sea lords kept their arguments quiet or else settled them in other realms where the Arbiter and the Elemental Men didnt see and didnt care. That was how it had been for a hundred years and more.

'Li? Are you awake?

She started and sat up. Through the quiet moonlight glow of the walls, Belli was keeping watch over her but instead of sitting beside her bed, he was hunched in the shadows in a far corner. He shook his hand and a light glowed between his fingers. He came closer. The smell of cloves was on him. The room reeked of it, stronger than she remembered.

'Do you feel better now?

'I . . . Liang stretched and rolled her feet off the bed and sat up. 'Actually I do. She stretched again. The aches and the fatigue had gone, almost as if theyd never been.

'The blood. He came and stood over her. 'Did you tell her?

'I told her everything, Belli. If it was MaiChoiro Kwen who sent the poison, why did he do it? How did he know I was there? Belli, I never told anyone at all except you and one of her killers.

The alchemist set down his lamp and stood over her for a moment, a silent shape in the gloom. He sounded subdued, almost hesitant.

'Belli? Is something wrong?

'If you can stomach it then I have something to show you. He paused and then picked up the lamp again and looked about, nervous as a thieving child. 'Are we alone? Can you tell?

The iron door was closed. Other than that she had no idea. 'Isnt there a guard outside?

'I convinced him to let me in and leave us be. Something about the way he spoke sounded off. 'Actually I needed his help. He came to her and took her hand. 'I need you to put mistress and slave aside for a moment, Li. Do you trust me?

'Trust you? She brushed his hand away. 'I did until now. What have you done, Belli?

'Nothing yet. But its what I could do. I never told you . . . He trailed off.

'Told me what?

He didnt answer but walked off into the shadows. 'Come.

She took a few steps towards him and stopped. A hand flew to her mouth. There was a body lying face down flat on the floor against the far wall. When he put the lamp down beside it, she saw it was the slave whod brought the poisoned wine. The dead man had a huge gouge in his back and his tattered tunic was covered in dried blood, presumably where Zafir had stabbed him. Liang jumped back. 'Whats he doing here? How did you get him here?

'I . . . I convinced the guard to help me. She couldnt see his face but she could hear the darkness in his voice. 'Li, there are things we learn as alchemists. Knowledge we swear not to use but learn nevertheless. There are things I can do that Ive not told you. Im afraid youre going to start to feel that now.

'What do you mean? He was scaring her.

'You have my blood in you. It is a connection between us. I will know where you are if I choose to look for you. I will know how you feel. It may work a little the other way sometimes. I promise I will never pry. I only did it to save you from the poison.

The pain in his voice at least was honest. She closed her eyes. 'Very well, Belli. I trust you. Because in the end, yes, she did.

He looked around the room and bared his teeth the way he did when he was anxious and uncertain. 'If Im wrong and there are hidden eyes here to watch us, watch us well. You will not like what you see but watch to the end and listen. He looked at Liang and his face seemed haunted. 'Li, you wont like this either. He rolled the dead man over and lifted him so he was sitting against the wall and then opened the dead mans mouth and upended a thimble of black treacle-like ooze over the dead lips until it fell in one sticky gobbet onto the dead mans tongue.

Liang took another step away. Shed never seen Belli like this. Anxious snakes squirmed inside her. 'What are you doing?

'All the alchemy I do with dragons is done with blood, theirs and mine. Everything becomes a matter of blood in the end. Bellepheros waited another moment and then crouched in front of the dead man. 'h.e.l.lo, corpse, he whispered as its head suddenly twitched.

Liang jumped away, shaking her head, crying out, 'No! No no no!

The dead mans gummy eyes opened one after the other. His lips parted and a quiet moan eased between them. Liang backed further away. 'No! Belli! What have you done?

'He will tell you. The alchemists voice was a hoa.r.s.e whisper. 'Ask him, Li. Ask him who put the poison in our wine. Ask him who told him to do it. Ask him who tried to murder you. Ask him and he will tell you everything.

Even as something broke between them, she knew he was doing it for her. She knew that, just as she knew that she could never look at him the same way ever again.

27.

Orders Back in her gondola, Red Lin Feyn pored over what shed heard and picked it apart, sorting fact from opinion, evidence from circ.u.mstance. She found she was inclined to believe the enchantress. Nothing about Chay-Liang struck her as deceptive, and shed grown exceptionally good at knowing when she was being deceived. It was odd then that the enchantress claimed to have told the gist of her story to a killer and yet none of her killers had thought fit to relay it. Remiss to the point of treason.

She sighed. The killers were hiding things. So be it. She would sit in her gondola and hold her court, and one by one they would stand before her. All of them. She was the Arbiter of the Dralamut, with power of life and death over everyone and anyone until the question put before her was resolved, and the Vespinese needed to understand this with a clarity to put the waters of every mountain stream in the Konsidar to shame. So did the Elemental Men. She snapped her fingers. Two of the killers materialised beside her and bowed. 'Fill this table with food, she told them. 'Things that may sit here a while. We begin.

MaiChoiro Kwen came first. Lin Feyn asked her questions and listened to what he said. Shed half-expected lies, for MaiChoiro to protest his own meek innocence and for the blame to be placed squarely on Baros Tsen TVarr, but instead he admitted freely everything that the enchantress claimed. Yes, hed given the rider-slave her orders. Yes, hed told her exactly what to do and how the citys defences lay and in what order she must subdue them. Yes, yes and yes. But as to why? Because Baros Tsen TVarr had threatened him with the most dire and terrible death if he didnt reveal all he knew of Dhar Thosis murdered under the ground and his body left in an unmarked cave. Hed spoken under duress, and there was no order given to burn the city. Hed balked at that.

Lies. Some of it. Not all, but someone had reached him. Lin Feyn watched his eyes as he spoke, and his hands and his knuckles, his brow and the way, just sometimes, his upper lip tightened as if trying to pull his nose to cover his mouth. He had a bitterness to him and an anger but not much fear. He knew he was doomed but he was trying to save something and she wondered who or what and why. She played with him a while, seeing if she could tease it out of him, but no. Eventually she let him go. By then it was dark and so she busied herself writing notes on everything shed heard and sorting them into piles. When she still couldnt sleep, she left the gondola and walked the eyrie walls, looking down at the storm-dark and then up at the dim gleam of the G.o.dspike, at its monumental reach disappearing up among the stars. Everything changed at night, everything except the wind which still howled across the walls. The white stone of the empty dragon yard turned silvery-grey while every shadow seemed blurred and restless as if tossing in dream-filled sleep, about to awake and race away into the night. She was alone except for the two killers who drifted through the air around her, unseen. She felt the G.o.dspike wanting to crush her with its size, the storm-dark calling out, luring her towards it, begging her to try and bend it to her will. Charins daughter of daughters . . . Where no one would see, she smiled and wagged her finger at it.

One day.

She took her time circling the walls, gazing up at the bright glitter of the gla.s.ships above, counting them, counting the stars, looking to see if they were the same. Maybe tomorrow shed call only a few to be questioned and then fly her own gla.s.ship around the rim of the storm-dark and look at the lesser monoliths that bound it. She might examine the one that was cracked. Others kept watch on it, doc.u.mented and recorded the slow creep of the storm-dark out of its cage and wrung their hands without the first notion of what to do or what it meant, but it would be interesting to see it for herself.

Shed come out into the night half-dressed. Not as the Arbiter, because the winds out here would catch her firebird robes and the headdress like a pair of sails and whisk her off into the sky. She might raise a sh.e.l.l of gla.s.s around her, but even the Arbiter of the Dralamut had no power over the wind. Tonight she was Red Lin Feyn, nothing more. Apart from her and the killers who flitted around her, the only other living things up here in the night were the dragon and the slaves who slept at its side.

Her walking was taking her towards them. The dragon had already turned to watch, letting her know she was seen. In the moonlight its golden-red scales were silvery black. She stopped at what she thought was a properly respectful distance. 'I mean you no harm tonight, nor your mistress, she told it. As far as she knew, the creature couldnt understand her and she was wasting her time. It seemed a harmless gesture nonetheless.

The dragon c.o.c.ked its head and then looked away as though losing interest.

Curious.

She walked on, wary now. Behind her a killer became flesh. 'Lady, we cannot protect you from the monster.

'Nor could you protect me from it when I came, nor can you protect me from it in the morning. So tell me, killer, what difference does it make? The creature can move, you know. No. She waved him away. 'I make my own protection.

The killer looked unhappy. 'We will be close, lady. He furrowed his brow a little as he returned to the air, as if concentrating hard. As if it was an effort.

Also curious.

She found herself wondering to which killer Chay-Liang had told her secret, and the seed of an idea appeared in her thoughts. She walked on, faster, until she was at the dragons side by the gold-gla.s.s shelter Chay-Liang had made for the rider-slave and the two girls who served her. She tapped on it and then tapped on it again when no one woke. When still no one moved, she crawled inside and touched the rider-slave to shake her, and in that moment Zafir had a knife in her hand and leaped with such speed that she had the tip at Lin Feyns throat in a blink.

They stopped, both of them, the point of the knife pressed to Lin Feyns skin, her own fingers halfway to her mouth, ready to blow and crush the rider-slaves skull. Her killers, she noted, were conspicuously not here and not doing what they were supposed to do.

'I could cut your throat, hissed Zafir.

'Really? Red Lin Feyn met her stare. 'Are you sure? If you are sure, why dont you? I am sure you will not. She let her hands fall to her sides.

'Take this thing off me.

Red Lin Feyn smiled back at her. 'No. Because if I did that, then you would cut my throat to make sure I couldnt put it back on again.

Zafir snarled. The knife flicked across Lin Feyns skin. She gasped, thinking for a moment that the rider-slave had called her bluff, but no, that wasnt the look in the slaves eyes. Sullen resentful anger, not vicious glee. Zafir had marked her, that was all.

One of her killers appeared at the entrance, red-faced and sweating. 'Lady Red Lin Feyn slapped the palm of her hand against the air in front of her. The killer flew backwards, hurled away with enough force to kill a normal man.

'You should leave us be, she called after him, 'since you clearly cannot be of use. We will have words about this in the morning. She smiled at Zafir. 'See. We are alone. Although of course they werent. Both killers would be lurking silently as the air around them. Or they should be.

'I wear your mark, you wear mine. The rider-slave sneered. She sat back and put the knife away. 'Well? Was that worth it?

Through the gold-gla.s.s, the dragon never moved, never flinched. You see? You know, dont you? You know I dont want to hurt you, not today. Red Lin Feyn touched a hand to her neck. The cut was a deep one. There was going to be a lot of blood and there wasnt much she could do about it. The killers would be mortified and so they should be. We cannot protect you from the monster? Perhaps next time they might be a little more specific as to which monster they meant.

'Tell me what I want to know, dragon-queen.

Zafir c.o.c.ked her head. 'If I do that then I have nothing left and youll hang me. Or at least youll try.