'You were right. Liang was right. Tsen looked the kwen over. 'The dragon-rider did this to you. But couldnt you see how much she hated you? He might have told his tongue to be careful but all things considered there didnt seem much point. Not that his tongue ever listened to him anyway.

'I saw. You should have put her down like the rabid dog she was right at the start.

'Yes. The people of Dhar Thosis, Tsen thought, would probably agree. 'But I didnt. Because of you. She played me well, Shrin Chrias Kwen. She made me into a fool.

'She played us both, TVarr. And Tsen couldnt find much to argue with there.

Chrias walked stiffly back into his tent and returned dragging Kalaiya. 'You know the next thing Im going to do, Tsen? Im going to have you beg. Im going to have you beg for your woman. He patted himself between the legs. 'It hurts but it all still works, and there are plenty here who have the sickness already yet barely notice. Shall I pa.s.s her around between them in front of you while you watch? You can think of me dying slowly of this cursed plague and you can think of her dying of it too. He bared his teeth. 'Everyone knows about you, Tsen. About time she had a proper man, isnt it? Beg me not to do it. Beg, TVarr!

Tsen twisted on the ground and spat at him but Chrias dodged the spittle. He came suddenly close and ripped Tsens tunic open, looked between Tsens legs and laughed.

'Some people said you were secretly a eunuch but now we all know better. So it just doesnt work, eh? But youve still got a hole in that fat a.r.s.e of yours. Beg well enough and Ill spare your woman and pa.s.s you around instead. Maybe being b.u.g.g.e.red by a dozen soldiers will finally light some fire in you, TVarr.

'Your many b.a.s.t.a.r.ds must be so very proud of you, Chrias!

'I hope so. Chrias pushed Kalaiya away. 'What makes me hate you, Tsen, what really makes it beyond the pale between us, is that you actually think Id do that. You loathe me for being a kwen. You think Im an animal and yet you barely know me at all. What wrong has she ever done me? None. What sort of monster do you think I am? Ill hang you, quick and simple, and then Ill let her go, Tsen. You can have that much as you die. He turned and walked away. 'String him up.

Out across the desert, somewhere under the storm-dark, Tsen heard the shriek of a dragon.

Diamond Eye launched himself off the edge of the eyrie, spread his wings and glided out over the pre-dawn glow of the storm-dark. Zafir felt him looking, searching. Eggs were difficult. Eggs werent living things, not yet, just waiting vessels of flesh and bone until somewhere a dragon died and its soul came looking for a new home. The gla.s.ship then. Bellepheros had said thats how theyd been taken. Gla.s.ships had a taste to them. Shed found even before Dhar Thosis that Diamond Eye could feel their presence even when he couldnt see them. Something about the enchantments that made them fly, though other pieces of gold-gla.s.s seemed dead.

They flew to the edge of the storm-dark, dropped beneath it and immediately found the gla.s.ship floating over the desert with its gondola open, resting on the sand. No one came out to gawk and Diamond Eye already knew there was no one here alive. Zafir landed and slid off his back to see anyway. There were a handful of bodies outside the gondola and two more inside. Zafir ignored them. She ran her fingertips over the walls. They came away grimy with a greasy black ash.

The eggs werent here. She stayed a while, circling the gondola on foot, looking at the tracks. There were a lot and it would have been easier to see them from the back of a dragon but she was afraid that the wind of Diamond Eyes wings would disturb the sand and wipe them away. As she looked she felt a sharpness from the dragon. Diamond Eye surged towards her as a killer appeared.

'You came back with Sea Lord Shonda and without the elemental Man who escorted you. You will return to the eyrie now and I will come with you. You will await the Arbiter. You will do this or I will end you here.

Zafir stamped her foot, shook her head and snorted. 'Your kinsman died under Shondas lightning. You have his body. See it for yourself. But perhaps in the confusion of the stolen eggs, of the eyrie plunging to its doom, of Shondas confession, perhaps they didnt know. Perhaps the killers broken corpse was still lying in Shondas savaged gondola, unnoticed. Pity. She should have had Diamond Eye dangle him as well in front of that crowd a sea lord and an Elemental Man. She smiled. 'My dragon will find your missing eggs for you.

'No. You will not fly again. My knife awaits you.

Zafir climbed onto Diamond Eyes back, buckled on her harness and then held up her arms in surrender. 'So be it.

She smiled again as he sat behind her and strapped on his harness nice and tight.

The Elemental Men appeared around Shrin Chrias Kwens camp simultaneously. There were only three but that didnt matter. One rose from the sand not far from the gallows close to the camps heart. Another flickered in at its edge, behind the kwen but in Tsens line of sight. He didnt see the third until later.

'Do not run! ordered the first.

'Killers! roared Chrias. 'Circles!

Tsen watched, fascinated. Surely the only sensible thing to do was to throw yourself face down into the sand and lie very still, but Chria.s.s soldiers scurried together into tight circles of fighting men, blades drawn. The kwen had four soldiers close around him.

'The Way! he shouted, whatever that was, and the cl.u.s.ters of soldiers all started moving at once, racing for the pavilion at the heart of the camp.

The Elemental Men vanished. One appeared out of the sand in front of Chrias and stabbed up. A soldier screamed and sank in a spray of blood. By then the Elemental Man had already flickered over the top of them. His bladeless knife flashed down. He vanished as a second man fell with blood pouring out of his mouth, appeared behind a third and ran him through from behind. Chrias and his last bodyguard ran, not that running would save them.

Kalaiya was suddenly on her feet. 'Stay down! Tsen screamed at her, but she ignored him. She picked up a sword from one of the dead soldiers and ran to his side.

The killer appeared again in front of Chrias and the fourth soldier, knife outstretched. The soldier ran straight into the bladeless knife. It pa.s.sed through his armour without a pause and sliced his heart in two. The kwens hand flicked sideways, quick as a striking snake. The Elemental Man vanished and appeared crouched at his side. His bladeless knife flashed at Chria.s.s ankle and the kwen was suddenly missing a foot. Chrias screamed and went down. The Elemental Man rose slowly, stumbled, then sank to his knees and toppled into the sand.

Kalaiya sawed through the ropes around Tsens wrists and feet. She gripped his arm, shaking like a leaf in a gale, eyes wide, quivering with fear. Her fingers were as rigid as an iron band. 'What do we do? What do we do?

Tsen wished he knew. Lie down and stay very still and wait for it all to be over, that was what they ought to do. Trouble with that was what happened later, when the killers realised who he was and hanged him. First Sivan, then Chrias, now the killers. He had, he decided, enjoyed better days.

'We run, he whispered, wondering if those were the most foolish words hed ever say.

Diamond Eye powered into the sky, past the edge of the storm-dark and on. Higher and higher. The Elemental Man behind her was tense. The dragon felt his unease and so Zafir felt it too. She angled towards the eyrie to ease his mind, still climbing until they were a little above it, and then she dived, gently at first to build a little speed.

The great cliff, she murmured. Do you remember it? Do you remember what we used to do? The plunge, a mile straight down without a pause. There was a way to lie to keep the wind from slipping between rider and dragon and tearing them apart. Riders went there to learn. The ones who didnt get it right, sometimes they learned, sometimes they died, but everyone went one way or the other sooner or later because when it came to a fight gone wrong then down and fast was the only way to live.

Diamond Eye tucked in his wings, twitched his tail and dived, a sudden plunge straight past the eyrie and on at the waiting storm-dark, ever faster until she felt the wind tearing at every part of her. She leaned forward as far as she could, turning her head and pressing her visor against Diamond Eyes scales. If the killer behind tried to stab her now, the hurricane would rip his arm out of its socket. Through the dragon she felt the Elemental Mans fear. It drove her on, faster and faster until she didnt dare even move a finger.

Break him. She couldnt speak. Until the wind rips him apart.

The killer tried to turn into air but he couldnt, not so close to a dragon. He moved at last, reaching in despair for the harness shed tied so tightly, and that little twitch was enough. The wind caught him, ripped him up and flipped him back and snapped his neck and his spine both at once. Diamond Eye felt him go. The dragon spread his wings, arced and spiralled and slowed their fall and settled into a long gentle glide across the surface of the storm-dark. Zafir felt his glee. Maybe he felt hers too. She unstrapped herself and the dead Elemental Man, slowly and carefully lest she lose her balance, then pushed him until his body fell, tumbling into the dark clouds of the maelstrom. She watched him go and then rose to stand on Diamond Eyes back and spread her arms, braced against the rush of air, feeling it push against her. She took off her helm and closed her eyes and let the wind tug her hair and scour her face. She howled. In her mind she stepped into the void and fell beside the killer down into the clouds and whatever end waited there. Fell and fell into a place where even her ancestors would never find her. She tried to see a reason to do it, or a reason not to, or anything that would make a difference one way or the other. All she saw was the Adamantine Man, wagging his finger.

He was a slave now. Ten years, give or take, for the gift hed given her.

When she opened her eyes, she eased herself down and strapped herself into the harness once more.

49.

The Easy Way Deep beneath the maelstrom the darkness was close to absolute. The G.o.dspike was far behind, very gently aglow, a faint haze in the distance. On the horizon ahead, out over the desert where the storm-dark ended, Tuuran could see stars. Crazy Mad urged his humpbacked horse into a gallop and Tuuran followed as best he could. Apparently it didnt bother Crazy that he couldnt see his hand in front of his face. Apparently it didnt bother his linxia either.

'Come on, big man! Crazy looked back over his shoulder, his eyes shining with silver moonlight. Fine so maybe Crazy could see his hand in front of his face.

'Its not so easy for us mortals, you know!

At the far edge of the storm-dark, Flame knew how many hours later, Crazy stopped. Tuuran let out a good long sigh, slumped sideways in his saddle and let himself fall to the sand. There were stars again here, at least in the part of the sky that wasnt blotted out by the storm-darks purple gloom, and he could see where he was going again. On the whole he liked that better than careering through the pitch-black on the heels of a madman.

'Its up there, Crazy said. Tuuran had no idea how anyone could know, but Crazys eyes were still bright burning silver, and this was the Crazy Mad who now and then turned people into ash, and Tuuran thought he sometimes did that for no particular reason other than that they were there, and so he was happy to take Crazys word for it. But then, as he watched, a star winked out and winked back again, high above, and then another, and he knew that Crazy was right and hed seen a dragon.

Crazy turned his linxia around and went pelting off almost back the way theyd come.

'Where the b.l.o.o.d.y Xibaiya . . . ? Tuuran scrambled back onto his mount and shouted, but now they were going full tilt again, and Crazy Mad couldnt hear him, and apparently it didnt bother him that theyd been out here all b.l.o.o.d.y night with not a moment to rest. On the bright side, Tuurans legs had stopped complaining about all the climbing, if only so his back could gripe about the riding instead.

Miles and miles and miles more pa.s.sed under the storm-dark until Crazy suddenly stopped and pointed: up in the sky beneath the cloud a bright star was coming down. A gla.s.ship. Crazys eyes faded to a glimmer and he set off after it, which seemed pointless to Tuuran, a gla.s.ship being what it was, and so he felt a bit stupid when the gla.s.ship mocked him by coming right on down to the ground and stopped with its gondola an inch above the sand.

Crazy pulled up a good way short, watching, and now Tuuran could hear the distant rumble of other riders not far away and then shouts coming closer. He couldnt see much except the glow of the gla.s.ship until a haze of figures arrived around it, lit up by the glare of its spinning heart. Must have been pushing a hundred men and half a dozen wagons with them.

After a bit the riders and their wagons went away, splitting off in four separate directions like they were in a real hurry or there was a devil after them, but none of that seemed to bother Crazy. He eased closer to the gla.s.ship once the riders were gone, walking his linxia through the jumble of tracks until they reached the gondola. He dismounted and went inside and Tuuran followed. Crazy hardly seemed to notice the dead men lying in the sand outside, nor the live one in the gondola, sitting propped against the wall, gasping with a spear stuck through him. 'We can use this, right? he asked. 'We can use this to get up there.

Tuuran shrugged. 'Never saw how they worked.

Crazy poked the man by the wall. 'You. You dying or living or what? How do you make this thing work?

The man got slowly up off the floor. He kept twitching and writhing as though he had some sort of madness inside him. Tuuran moved to one side. The man had a big slash in the back of his robe as well as the spear in his gut. He was soaked with blood. Odd thing the robe looked a lot like an alchemists robe but the man inside was clearly Taiytakei.

Crazy Mad prodded him. 'Stop jiggling and answer!

The madman spasmed and doubled over. He picked up a sword and rammed it into Crazy Mads belly as he came up. Or at least he tried to. He might have done a good job of it too if Crazy hadnt been who he was, wriggly as an eel, but Crazy saw it coming, dodged sideways and caught the madmans arm. His eyes flared brilliant silver. The sword turned to black ash and the madman gasped and gaped, pretty much like Tuuran did inside each time he saw it happen. The madman stumbled back, tripped and scrabbled back to the wall of the gondola. Tuuran winced, imagining how much it must hurt, all that banging about with a spear stuck through the middle of you. Amazing the man wasnt already dead.

When he couldnt scrabble any further, the man with the spear through him closed his eyes. He started mumbling something to himself over and over. Tuuran didnt much like the sound of the mumbles but Crazy didnt seem to mind. The words meant something. Tuuran backed away, but Crazy went and crouched beside the madman and lifted his face.

'You know me then? Who am I? asked Crazy.

'Black Moon, whispered the madman. He was weeping tears of blood. Tuuran edged to the gondolas ramp and checked outside, making sure he had a good clear open s.p.a.ce in case he suddenly had to run like b.u.g.g.e.ry. Crazy put his other hand to the madmans brow. The silver in his eyes, bright as lamps, lit up the gondola, but the madman didnt look away.

'Youd best tell me everything, earth-touched. Crazys voice was gentle and hard all at once. Kind and yet irresistible. The madman whimpered. For a long time he didnt say anything and the two of them stayed as they were, Crazy with one hand on the madmans brow and the other lifting his chin, the madman looking into Crazys eyes like he was having his soul sucked right out of him. Then, very slowly, Crazy let go. 'Loyalty is a touching thing, he said softly. Tuuran took another step back. 'Clever thought, using a dragons soul. Clever of you to know what they really are. But it wont work without the dead G.o.ddess. It took both of us, and shes not there any more. Where did she go, earth-touched?

No answer. Crazy shook his head. And then he chuckled, a nasty little sound that set the hairs on the back of Tuurans neck scrambling down his spine looking for a way out. The light faded from Crazys eyes. He stood up and sounded like his old self again. Berren the Crowntaker, or Skyrie, or the b.l.o.o.d.y Judge, or whatever he chose to call himself that particular day. 'You have a debt, skin-shifter, he said. 'Pay it and then be gone.

The madman looked as though he hadnt the first idea what Crazy was talking about, and then something flashed in his eyes and he nodded. Crazy went outside and hauled in a pair of corpses. The madman crawled over and put his hands on them. Their skin started to move and writhe as though filled with maggots. Tuurans eyes bulged. He gagged and took another step back but he couldnt stop himself from staring. The faces of the dead men were changing; worse, they were changing into faces he knew the eyries tvarr and his slave woman. Months had pa.s.sed since hed last seen them but he still remembered.

'Good, said Crazy and caught the madmans arm. 'Now be done.

There wasnt any ceremony to it. Nothing more than that simple sentence and then the madman dissolved into black ash before Tuurans eyes. Tuuran let out a howl and ran. Then stopped. Took long deep breaths. Adamantine Man. Not afraid of anything. No fear at all. Made to kill dragons. But Flame, holy Flame . . .!

Crazy caught his arm. Tuuran whirled and reached for his axe, not that it was going to do him a blind bit of good, but the silver light was gone now. Crazy was just Crazy again, whatever that meant. He looked at Tuuran. 'Whats up, big man?

'Whats up? Whats up? s.h.i.t, Crazy, you just turned a man into dust. Or ash. Or some other c.r.a.p I dont understand. Like you did in Dhar Thosis. Like you did to those slavers. Like you did to who the Flame knows else!

Crazy shrugged as though it was barely worth a mention. 'Well, now I know we cant get up there with this. But I also know another way. Things to be done, big man. Things to be done.

He turned away, mounted up and rode hard off into the desert, and Tuuran watched him go and swore a lot and clenched his fists, and then, when he really couldnt think of anything else to do, rode after him; and after a bit, the sun came up and they reached a camp in the desert where all h.e.l.l was breaking loose.

Soldiers ran screaming in all directions. A few had the sense to throw themselves down. Those were the ones who lived. Briefly. Tsen wasnt sure how many Elemental Men were here now, but at least two. They appeared, killed and vanished again, flickering in and out, there and gone as fast as a bolt of lightning. They ripped two fighting circles to shreds so fast that the last soldier died while the first was still falling to the sand. Those who saw didnt wait for it to happen to them too. Tsen wondered what made them think they could get away from the killers, but since he was running too then maybe it was best not to ask because maybe that made him every bit as stupid as they were. Missing foot or not, even Chrias was doing his best, limping and falling and crawling and hopping. He was heading for the same place as Tsen and Kalaiya the pavilion with the cave where the dragon egg had gone.

A killer appeared behind and above the kwen and landed on his back, knocking him down. Tsen threw himself to the ground. Chrias roared. The Elemental Man wrenched the kwens helm off his head and brought the pommel of his bladeless knife down hard. He vanished again. Chrias twitched, lifted his head, dropped it, lifted it again, clawed his way another couple of paces across the sand and then fell still. Kalaiya pulled Tsen up again and they kept running. He wasnt sure why the pavilion and the cave. Maybe it was a place to hide but inside, Tsen was already laughing at himself. Hide? From a killer? Next stupid thought?

Zafir wheeled Diamond Eye over the storm-dark. Shed killed an Elemental Man where no one would know but it was only one. She didnt know how many there were. Dozens. For all she knew there were thousands. No matter. From now on, as the chances came, she would take them one by one.

She turned back over the maelstrom. Diamond Eye whipped the fringes of its darkness with the wind from his wings. She aimed him for the nearest place where there were men and dived over the lip of the storm, thinking she might burn them, all of them, whoever they were, and lay out her challenge to the killers that remained: Take me if you can.

Khalishtor. The Crown of the Sea Lords in Khalishtor, their great palace of government with its shimmering gla.s.s jewel floating high overhead and filled with navigators shed seen it and dreamed of smashing it down, of Diamond Eye rending it to splinters with tooth and claw and tail, shattering the thirteen towers of the Crown and smashing the gla.s.s bridges they called the Paths of Words. Khalishtor . . .

There was already a fight sprawling across the ground. There were killers. How long before they came looking for her? How long before someone had enough of her and made the circlet on her head constrict and crush her skull.

But doll-womans not here . . .

Perhaps Khalishtor was too far. Vespinarr then. Closer. Burn the richest city in all the worlds to cinders. She pulled away, skimmed over the heads of the men fighting in the sand and veered west but Diamond Eye circled back. Just the once but he did it on his own, as though searching for something. Zafir let herself sink into him and found a whiff of a taste that he wanted, that he wanted enough to forget her for a moment, and when she let herself drift deep inside him, she understood the scent was the one hed found in Dhar Thosis. The short man whod been with Tuuran. The one who called himself Crowntaker.

She shivered. The Adamantine Man was here?

Tuuran frowned. He had his axe at the ready for the soldiers scattering out of the camp but he was beginning to see he wouldnt need it. The Taiytakei were scared as rabbits and didnt give a s.h.i.t about him and Crazy, or anyone at all except themselves and getting away as fast as they possibly could. Seemed odd to be riding into the middle of them, but that was Crazy for you. It took until they were a little closer to see why the soldiers were running and screaming. Other men Tuuran couldnt count how many because they moved so quickly were moving between them, appearing out of the air to cut someone down and then vanishing again. Well, hed seen a man like that before. The Watcher had been one, and the Watcher had carried him when hed been dying from an a.s.sa.s.sins knife in Zinzarra. All in all the Watcher hadnt seemed so bad, but Tuuran had seen what he could do too. You didnt p.i.s.s off an Elemental Man, not unless you were mad or really dim.

He eyed Crazy and slowed, waiting to see what he was going to do, because this he had to see Crazy with his eyes turning people into ash and a gang of killers who could appear and vanish at will. Interesting one to watch, that, but preferably from a good safe distance. But Crazy simply rode up to the edge of the melee and threw his swords into the sand, climbed off the back of his linxia and calmly lay down with his hands spread wide. He looked back at Tuuran. 'Come on, big man. This is how we get up there!

A Taiytakei soldier in armour howled past Tuuran, face twisted and stricken with fear. An Elemental Man appeared in front of him, sliced his head clean off without moving anything except his arm and then stepped aside to let the body fall. He lingered long enough to catch Tuurans eye and then disappeared. Tuuran got the message, dropped his axe, lay down and kept half an eye on Crazy in case he suddenly got up and kicked off again, but he didnt.

Off in the centre of the camp he could have sworn he caught a glimpse of the fat old Taiytakei tvarr Tsen from the eyrie, and then a dragon flew overhead and he couldnt see s.h.i.t for all the sand in the air.

The dragon flashed overhead and Tsen couldnt help but look at it, so ma.s.sive and so close with its wings and its neck and its tail outstretched. Vast. Overwhelmingly huge. And he was still paralysed when the wind that came behind picked up the pavilion, tossed it into the air and threw it away, picked Kalaiya and even Tsen himself off their feet and threw them bouncing and rolling across the sand. He heard Kalaiya yelp as she landed on him, but before he could blink, the air filled with sand.

Tsen stumbled to his feet. He could hardly see a thing but he knew the pavilion had been right in front of him, and behind it, in a cleft between two rocks, was the cave. Or maybe it wasnt a cave; maybe the rocks were the old walls of some long-ruined tower and it was an entrance, but it didnt matter, it really didnt a way out was a way out. He dragged Kalaiya, coughing and spluttering and never mind the Elemental Men now was the time to run when none of them could find their own feet, none of them could see, these few seconds before the air cleared and sprinted faster than he ever thought he could. The cleft loomed out of the haze. They ran inside and a gloom fell over them. The pa.s.sage sloped slightly down. When his eyes adjusted to the dark, he saw a soft glow ahead from the rim of a shaft, lit from the bottom.

'Tsen! Kalaiya was looking back. It took him a moment to realise what she was showing him: recessed into the stone either side of the entrance were two huge bronze doors. They were clearly ancient but at the same time pristine and shiny. He tugged at one to see what would happen and of course it wouldnt move, exactly as hed known it wouldnt, except that when Kalaiya tugged too, it suddenly did, and once they got it going it swung easily as though the hinges had been oiled that very morning, and then it occurred to him that maybe they had, because maybe this had always been the skin-shifters way out, because gla.s.ships didnt travel fast, and he was hardly going to get very far drifting out over the desert in full view of every Elemental Man who happened to pa.s.s by.

The other eggs. Hed said he only needed one really but more would be useful. They were decoys. Distractions . . .

The second door closed as easily as the first. It had a huge bronze bar across the back. Together, he and Kalaiya swung it in place. The strike of it rang like a bell as it slid home and locked the doors fast. For a moment he stood and looked into the blackness, wondering how hed managed to get away and which of the G.o.ds he wasnt supposed to believe in was favouring him right now. Had to be one of them, though knowing the luck hed had of late it was only so he could find the dragon egg in time for it hatch and eat him.

The shaft with the light at the bottom was bigger than hed realised, big enough for the sled with the egg to descend through it that or the sled had vanished into thin air and was lined with the same white stone as the pa.s.sages inside his eyrie. Someone had built crude wooden steps held up by rickety scaffolding spiralling around the inner circ.u.mference.

Kalaiya took his hand. 'Tsen . . .

'I know, he whispered, and squeezed. 'I know. If Sivan was coming this way then perhaps he has someone waiting to meet him. He glanced at the doors. 'But I cant go back, not out there. He stopped to take a long look at her. 'You can, though. Theyre not looking for you. But back to what if Sivans plan had worked and the eyrie was gone? 'Perhaps youd be safe? Couldnt see how, though.

Kalaiya shook her head. Tsen took a deep breath and they started down.

There were fifteen of the Taiytakei left by the end, and they were all as terrified as small children. Tuuran reckoned hed counted nearly a hundred dead too stupid or full of their own luck to throw themselves on the mercy of the Elemental Men. He wondered how many had got away and decided it was probably none. The survivors were rounded up and kept out in the desert sun for half the morning, sweating fit to drop, until a gla.s.ship picked them up and carried them away. It was the same gla.s.ship he and Crazy had found in the night, left under the storm-dark, with greasy black ash all over the walls. Tuuran kept away from that. Hed looked about for the fat old eyrie master but hadnt seen him, so Tsen had got out some other way. That or hed been caught in the fight, but Tuuran reckoned Tsen to be a smart one, too smart not to know when to give up.

Another thing that struck him was the man in the fancy armour who was missing a foot and probably wasnt going to last all that long. The other Taiytakei were making a big fuss of him and seemed very keen to make sure that however long he lasted, they could at least get him up to the eyrie. It wasnt odd that he only had one foot more luck than anything that, under the circ.u.mstances and it wasnt odd that the Elemental Men treated him so well, not with all that flashy armour and those silks and the length of his braids. No, what was odd was that his skin was all hard and flaking. Take off that armour and hed be a Scales. One with not long to go at that. He was bleeding a lot too. Tuuran kept well away. No one seemed to be bothered where all that tainted blood was ending up.

Crazy nudged him. 'Told you wed do it the easy way, he said and grinned. Time was, Tuuran had liked that grin because it meant trouble and mischief round the corner, and hed had a soft spot for Crazy Mads brand of trouble and mischief once, back when Crazy Mads brand of trouble and mischief had meant bashing heads. Time was, but not any more. Now it meant turning people into ash.

'And then what? Whats waiting for you when we get there? But Crazy only shrugged. Didnt help that the b.u.g.g.e.r kept touching that golden knife of his. He held it out in the open but somehow the Elemental Men just didnt seem to see it.

The shaft went so far down into the desert that Tsen didnt much like the idea of climbing back up again. It was wide enough for a dragon, if one had wanted to squeeze down it, although that would have been a quick and thorough end to the steps and their uncertain scaffolding. Halfway down, when he could see the bottom more clearly, he called out, but no one answered. A thousand steps, maybe? Deeper than the shaft the skin-shifter had found out in the desert near the ruins of Uban, but he wasnt surprised when he got to the bottom and there were two more bronze doors like the ones he and Kalaiya had already closed behind them. They were open. Tsen stepped through into a tunnel wide, reaching off in both directions, straight as an arrow and going on for as far as he could see, lined with white stone walls alight with their own soft starlight glow. Exactly like the one hed seen with Sivan. Tsen discovered that he wasnt much surprised. If hed had any doubts that Sivan had meant to come this way himself, the tunnel silenced them.

The sled with the dragon egg was in front of him. When he climbed onto it, he saw a black rod. He wasnt really expecting it to work but he tried it anyway. The sled shivered and lifted a few inches off the ground. He held out his hand to Kalaiya and tried to estimate how many times the steps had circled the shaft and which way the tunnel ran. East to west, he thought, and if hed got it right then one way went off towards Uban and the other way headed east toward Dhar Thosis and the Queverra. Madness, it was all madness, everything hed seen and been through these last few days. What did he want with a dragon egg? Nothing. What if it hatched? Well then it would eat them, wouldnt it? And there wouldnt be a thing he could do. Then why in Xibaiya take it?

But the egg was too heavy for him to move. And whichever way the tunnel went, they were hundreds of miles from the edge of the desert and they had no food and no water. They werent going to just leave the sled and walk, not if they wanted to get anywhere alive. Tsen chuckled to himself and shook his head, took Kalaiyas hand and sat on the front, feet dangling over the edge. 'I have no idea where we are or what this is or where it leads, my love. For all I know this tunnel leads to nowhere and this egg will hatch and we will die.

Kalaiyas eyes were bright with determination and wonder. 'I thought I was going to die so many times, Tsen. So many times in these last weeks. Ive grown accustomed to it and it doesnt frighten me any more. I was a slave. A nothing to be played with for sport. No more, Baros Tsen. You are no longer tvarr to the sea lord of Xican and I am no longer a slave.