The Elemental Men Chay-Liang didnt see the Vespinese who knocked her down. She felt something hit the back of her head, felt herself dragged and dropped and kicked and then a great wind, and then mercifully she was left alone. When she finally managed to get up again, groggy as a sailor after his first night back in port, theyd taken away her wand and all of her globes of gold-gla.s.s. Soldiers led her back to her room and shut her behind the iron door shed made to keep out the Elemental Men. She sat on the bed, nursing her head and wondering what to do, musing on the small a.r.s.enal of devices that littered her shelves and floor, but she must have fallen asleep almost at once, because suddenly the white stone walls were bright with the orange light of dawn and the Vespinese were hammering on her door.

In the bright morning sun they led her to the dragon yard. A gla.s.ship hovered over the hatchery, its chains wrapped around the remains of the ship that had crashed in the fight, lifting the pieces too large to be carried by hand. The soldiers watching the slaves at work werent wearing their armour but lightning wands still dangled from their belts and their hands hovered close. Away on the eyrie wall Diamond Eye sat watching the G.o.dspike. Four hatchlings that had broken free in the night sat around him. On the opposite side of the eyrie the sunrise over the desert lit the sky with orange fire.

A Taiytakei in long robes of shimmering emerald and blue feathers stood in front of Liang and snapped his fingers in her face. A tvarr. An important one by the braided hair that ran past his waist and his voluminous robes, but not from the same stratum as Tsen or MaiChoiro Kwen. His sleeves flapped in the wind. 'Is it always like this up here? This wind? He swept his hand across the dragon yard and then frowned and glared at the sky as a particularly vicious gust knocked him a step sideways. Liang looked about. Scales were standing huddled among the eggs. They looked wretched this morning.

'Sometimes gets worse, she said, not bothering to raise her voice. The Vespinese cupped a hand to his ear.

'Pardon? he shouted.

Liang dragged him into the shelter of the tunnel mouth, stepping around the mangled iron door. In the light of day it looked as though a dragon had stamped on it.

'I said it sometimes gets worse, she said icily.

He nodded thoughtfully. 'I am Perth Oran TVarr. For your slaves everything will be much as it was. Theyll hardly notice the change. For you its a bit different. MaiChoiro Kwen favours throwing you off the side of the eyrie. The alchemist says he has to have you. You will make it all work as it did before, thats all I ask.

Liang took a moment to look the emerald and blue tvarr up and down. He was old and with some grey in his hair, the two of them probably much of an age. Maybe that made things easier. Tsens words came back to haunt her. Whatever he does, however terrible it is, you mustnt stand in his way. You must survive, Chay-Liang. Hold the truth close to your heart and never let him see that you have it. Keep it until you can destroy him . . . And now the moment had come. She would do as Tsen had asked and meekly lie down for the b.a.s.t.a.r.d Vespinese, would she?

Yes, if it meant she could burn them later. So she told Perth Oran TVarr, who might have been a perfectly decent person, that she would help as best she could. She asked where she could find Bellepheros.

'He says that he needs you, his Scales, food and water for the dragons, the rider-slave to fly the big one and otherwise to be left alone. I need you to doc.u.ment all of this and tell me precisely what is required and in what quant.i.ties and why and what it is for. I also need you to explain this "Statue Plague".

Liang nodded. 'I need to start at once with what was destroyed in the fighting. The hatchery is ruined and there are hatchlings loose. She could see Bellepheros for herself now, out in the wind leading a handful of Scales coaxing the hatchlings at Diamond Eyes side back into their chains. Docile all of them, far too docile, and it put her on edge. Maybe they were simply mesmerised by the maelstrom of the storm-dark and the G.o.dspike. She tried to tell herself that but didnt really believe it. She couldnt shake the notion that they were waiting for something.

Perth Oran TVarr was looking at her expectantly. Liang nodded.

'Yes, yes. Ill start at once. She hurried after the alchemist; and when Belli turned and saw her coming, the relief on his face was obvious. He couldnt help grinning.

'Li! He came towards her. She brushed past him, haughty, letting out the undertow of angry resentment and . . . was that a flash of shame? Yes, it was.

'You told them you needed the rider-slave, did you? she snapped. 'Well youll not have her. Sh.e.l.l not fly that monster. If that means it has to eat the bodies of the dead, so be it.

The horror on his face crushed her. 'Li!

So much else they needed to say and she was so desperately glad to see him alive, but the Vespinese were all watching and she couldnt let them see . . . Theyll use us. Play us off against each other.

'What else? she hissed. 'He hasnt eaten for two weeks and Ill not let her out again. Your beloved slave brings nothing but ruin. Let her go, Belli. Let her die as she deserves.

'Will you let me poison it then? he snapped, the old argument theyd always had.

Liang snorted. 'Do that and theyll hang us both!

'Then she must fly him!

No. She couldnt keep this up. She pulled him close and hissed in his ear, 'We just quietly get on with what needs to be done and we do what they say. We are mistress and slave to them, nothing else. We keep our heads down. The time will come. Ill say more when theyre not watching. At least the wind meant you didnt have to worry about anyone short of an Elemental Man eavesdropping on your conversations.

She tried to set her mind to the hatchery and what theyd need to repair it, but it was hard while Belli and the Scales were still getting the hatchlings back into their chains. Every time a dragon moved her heart jumped, expecting to see Belli ripped to pieces in a flurry of claws and fire, but the hatchlings submitted with a meekness that, if anything, was worse. Just like her, they were hiding something.

When Belli was done, they picked their way together through the mess of the hatchery. The Vespinese had lifted the biggest pieces of the shattered gla.s.ship out of the way and dumped them on the other side of the eyrie wall, another heap of junk out on the rocky rim. The ship had fallen on some of the eggs and smashed them to pieces. Shreds of crushed unborn dragon lay scattered about. Each one carried the threat of the Statue Plague, and Bellepheros was as keen as the Vespinese to clear those away. A job for the Scales. And for him and for her; and so she waited until he was ready and then they wrapped each other up in their leather ap.r.o.ns with their gauntlets and masks and goggles. 'Well burn them afterwards, he told her. 'Just to be sure. He meant the leathers. The pieces of dead dragon could go over the rim, down into the maelstrom below.

They set to work, she and Belli with the Scales, counting the eggs and the hatchlings and telling the other slaves what to do and generally trying to restore the hatchery to some sort of order before anything actually hatched. She felt a fraud. What she ought to be doing was everything she possibly could to bring these Vespinese b.a.s.t.a.r.ds to their knees.

She picked up a piece of gold-gla.s.s the size of her head and dumped it in the crate on the sled beside her at least they had no shortage of those now then winced in disgust as she moved part of the collapsed net of chains and found a dragons severed talon underneath. She shouted and waved to one of the Scales to do something about it. The net had to go back up and Belli was as anxious about that as he was about everything else. Back up and the hatchery restored as quickly as could be. She hoped that obeying Perth Oran TVarr would be easy for Belli after that because it certainly wouldnt be easy for her. There would be a reckoning, probably sooner rather than later, one she fully expected to end with her falling off the rim one dark night, but Belli . . . ? All he had to do was carry on with what hed done before. Bellepheros and Baros Tsen had never seen eye to eye, and a change of master probably didnt mean that much to him. Perth Oran was right it shouldnt matter to a slave. Shouldnt matter to an enchantress either but she found that it mattered very much. MaiChoiro had sent Zafir and her dragon to kill thousands upon thousands. That Zafir had actually done it made her every bit as despicable, but if you absolutely had to give her credit for anything at all, she didnt hide and pretend to be anything but what she was. 'Monsters, both of them.

Liang started. She hadnt meant to say that aloud but Bellepheros hadnt noticed; in fact he probably hadnt heard anything at all over the wind. He was standing in the middle of the surviving eggs, looking at the pieces of the broken ones, counting for the third time, beckoning her over. When she looked, he lifted his mask and yelled at her, but she didnt catch what he said. She was about to go to him when a thought struck her and she crouched down and peered at the stone of the dragon yard. A gla.s.ship had fallen here last night. Crashed down and smashed to pieces with enough force to crumple a half-inch iron door and pulverise everything beneath it. Yet the white stone was undamaged. Not even scratched. Not the faintest hint of a mark. Smooth as gla.s.s. She pondered that and then looked across the yard to the place where the eyrie wall was chipped and cracked. A dragon had done that. She shuddered.

'One went into the tunnels last night, Bellepheros shouted when she got up and went to see what hed found. 'It went for her Holiness. There was an odd look on his face. He seemed to struggle for words. 'It burned my laboratory. Is it dead? I dont see the body. Where is it?

Liang shook her head. It wasnt that shed forgotten or thought it didnt matter; it was just . . . it was just that there were so many other things to worry about, and what could they do? Nothing. It was gone, and that was that. She frowned, shook her head and gestured to the ruined hatchery, but when the day ended and they dragged their weary bones out of the wind and to the tunnels, she made qaffeh for them both in her workshop and broke out some Bolo bread and told him what had happened, all of it. When she was done, Bellepheros gazed at her in horror.

'It came out of the egg awake? It knew? Great Flame, we have to find it!

Liang snorted and shook her head. 'No. We have to keep our heads down and do as were told and hope they dont kill us. Then we have to find it. He might, she thought, have shown some sort of concern for her, what with having faced down a dragon all on her own. But he was lost in this, entirely lost. He was terrified. She sighed. 'Belli, its gone. Its already out in the desert somewhere, and itll be no more dangerous tomorrow than it is today, nor the day after or the next. We have time. Well rebuild the hatchery. Well make sure no others escape. Let this matter with Shonda and Tsen resolve itself. When the Elemental Men come well tell them, and theyll hunt it down and kill it and well help them as best we can. My promise to you.

'And how long, Li, before they come?

'A few days, perhaps. It could be any time.

'A few days? He grabbed her and stared into her face. 'Its a woken dragon, Li! Do you know what that means? Its aware! It thinks! It remembers! A hundred lifetimes! And theyre clever, Li, as clever as we are. If it goes to ground in the desert then theyll never find it! Perhaps not for years, until it comes from nowhere fully grown and another city goes up in flames. He was trembling, still shaking his head. 'Or worse what if it comes back here, Li? What if it comes back to the eyrie? It could do that today or tomorrow. It could be here right now, lurking under the rim. How would we know? What if it freed the others? How could you possibly stop it? Li, we have to tell them!

Liang frowned. I stopped it all on my own last night, you know. She glared at him and then sighed again. 'Oh, Ill talk to Perth Oran TVarr then. And she would, but he wouldnt listen. He wasnt the sort. Not like Tsen. 'Shonda has a hundred gla.s.ships with lightning cannon. She made a face. 'I expect that should be enough.

'Let her Holiness hunt it, Belli urged her. 'Ill persuade her. He stopped. He must have seen the look on her face.

After the Bolo bread, she forced some more food into him and even ate a little of the thin tasteless gruel made for the slaves and captives herself. She took him back to his study and tried to convince him to get some sleep he was exhausted and ready to collapse but he simply refused, and so in the end she left him to drag the Scales back out of their cots to the hatchery and work on through the night. She could have done with some sleep herself but stayed up for a while instead, writing an inventory for Perth Oran of all the things the Vespinese were going to have to find from somewhere if they wanted to keep their dragons. Theyd question everything, of course, and then waste hours of her time making her explain what every single little thing was for. She supposed she shouldnt complain. They were right not to trust her.

She tried to sleep when she was done, but of course now she was wide awake, and sleep, elusive at the best of times, wanted nothing to do with her. So she went back outside to the cold and the wind and the night and found Belli still there, exhorting his Scales to keep working. It must have been past midnight and the poor man was staggering about, hardly able to keep himself upright against the buffets of the wind and about to do himself an injury if someone didnt stop him. She sent the Scales away, and when Belli kept on with his protests she dragged him inside and virtually carried him back to his room. He growled and snapped and snarled at her all the way until she laid him on his bed and made him some warm tea and slipped in a little something to help him sleep. She felt a bit guilty about that and so curled up beside him and stroked his hair what there was of it and waited for him to close his eyes. Five minutes later he was snoring. Liang drifted next to him. Maybe he was right to worry about the hatchling coming back. It had gone after Zafir and destroyed his laboratory before it left. They were lucky hed taken to keeping some of his things in his study.

She must have fallen asleep too, because the next thing she knew she was alone in the alchemists bed and the white stone tunnels were bright with their daylight glow. When she went to the dragon yard to look for him, she saw the Vespinese had built a wooden platform and were busy erecting a set of gallows. She found Belli back with the Scales, trying to raise the chain net over the hatchery. He looked pleased with himself and the rubble from the night before was gone. 'We need a gla.s.ship, Li, he shouted as he saw her, 'to lift the chains. Which was how theyd done it before, silver chains lifting the net into place while dozens of slaves laboured beneath to raise the frame that would hold it.

'How did you clear the rubble? she asked. No 'Thank you for last night, she noted sourly.

He pointed, and Liang saw the rider-slave lounging against the wall, watching with that irritating smirk on her face. 'Her Holiness had the dragon get rid of the worst of it. It carried the larger pieces away and look! He pointed to the eyrie wall where pieces of gold and iron and gla.s.s were mounded up against it. 'It flapped its wings and blew the smaller pieces clear! We can take the rest from there whenever we like. Its out of the way, and now we can get the chains up again. He looked so happy that she hadnt the heart to tell him there was no way hed get the Vespinese to lend him a gla.s.ship.

'There might be something else I can do, she said at last. The first framework had been wood and iron but gold-gla.s.s would do just as well, and it wasnt as if they were short of the stuff at the moment. It was literally lying at their feet. 'I could grow it into shape and we wouldnt need a- A shout from one of the watchtowers cut her off. Liang watched as a group of Vespinese soldiers went running up, and a few minutes later as they came out again, manoeuvring awkwardly along the wall and down the steps to the yard, carrying a body. They laid it on the white stone. When Liang went to see who it was, they pushed her away, but she got close enough to see the face.

Baros Tsen TVarr, there couldnt be any doubt. He looked smaller dead than she remembered him. Shorter. For some reason he was naked.

'At least cover him up. She turned away, suddenly feeling sick, and bent over against the eyrie wall. The Vespinese ignored her. A pair went running into the tunnels, full of excitement. Liang watched them and spat. Once she decided she wasnt going to throw up after all, she straightened herself and smoothed her robes. Tsen. Theyd had their differences, plenty of them, with the rider-slave top of the list, but hed seemed a good man at heart and she was going to miss him. The sleepy voice, the sharp sparkling intelligence behind it, the gla.s.ses of apple wine out on the eyrie walls in the starlight, talking about how the world might be changed. Of course all that was before the dragons, before QuaiShu went mad, before the rider-slave murdered his heir and Tsen got it into his head to be the next sea lord of Xican. She couldnt really blame him for any of that. As sea lords went, hed have been as good as any. It wasnt as if hed actually wanted to burn Dhar Thosis.

She shuddered. There were probably a lot of ghosts in Dhar Thosis right now who didnt have much sympathy with that view. It occurred to her then to wonder whether Tsen had killed himself. He didnt seem the sort, and why in Xibaiya was he naked? And the body had no obvious marks or lightning burns . . .

MaiChoiro Kwen came striding out of the tunnel with a dozen other kwens and tvarrs and even a pair of hsians, all with long braids and bright flowing feathered robes streaming sideways in the wind, shining gold and crimson and emerald.

'String him up, he bawled. He was grinning like a snake with a cornered mouse, barely containing his delight.

'What? Liang started towards him but the soldiers held her back. The kwen shouted more orders as he walked away: 'String him up. Hang him by his feet and get everyone up here to see it! He was going to make an example of Tsen. Give a little speech about the terrible things the tvarr had done and how this was the price for them. The hypocrisy made Liangs blood boil. If the Vespinese hadnt taken her lightning wand she might have used it right there, and hang holding on to the truth of what she knew until she could bring the whole lot of them down together. She turned back to the hatchery, trying to block out what was happening around her. She couldnt think.

Tsens slave Kalaiya came running. The soldiers around the body caught her and dragged her away but not before she saw and started screaming. Liang ran to put an arm around her and held her while she sobbed, then took Kalaiya back into the tunnels and into Bellis study and found her something stiff and strong to drink. It was the least thing she could do and, whatever happened next, surely neither of them wanted to see it. She tried to get Kalaiya to lie down but the slave wouldnt have it.

'Twelve years. Ill watch and weep for him. He deserves that.

Liang couldnt imagine wanting her last memories of anyone, least of all someone shed come to respect and perhaps even admire, to be of their corpse hanging upside down to be mocked and flogged, but Kalaiya wouldnt be moved, and so Liang reluctantly returned with her and stood and watched. The yard was full. A squad of Vespinese in brilliant green with gold-plumed helms guarded Baros Tsen TVarrs body, which hung as MaiChoiro had told them, twisting and swinging by his feet in the wind. Around them were the slaves and captive Taiytakei whod served Tsen until yesterday, then more Vespinese soldiers in a ring to make sure they did as they were told and watched as they were meant to while MaiChoiro Kwen played out his piece of theatre. Tsens Taiytakei were solemn and dour and anxious but not the slaves. Some were laughing and chattering to each other as though it was all some marvellous spectacle. Liang wanted to slap them. He was your master. He was a good one. Maybe a slave didnt care two hoots whether their master came from Xican or from Vespinarr. Probably not. They should though, she thought. They should.

Six Vespinese at the gallows broke off and marched straight for the hatchery. For one heart-stopping moment Liang imagined they were coming for her. One hand reached for the wand theyd taken away; the other clutched at a piece of gold-gla.s.s. The soldiers came right at her but then carried on, ignored her completely and surrounded the rider-slave. Zafir gave a tiny shake of her head and might have wagged her finger at them but they never gave her the chance. Two seized her arms and held them behind her back while two more forced a hood over her head. Between them, they frog-marched her to the gallows. Liang gritted her teeth and growled under her breath, 'Good riddance. Yet even now the rider-slave walked with her head held high, as proud and haughty as it was possible to be with her face hooded and her arms behind her back and four soldiers practically lifting her off the ground in their hurry to get her to the scaffold. She didnt stumble, not once, and Liang found herself caught in a fleeting moment of admiration. She shivered. Loathsome woman . . .

MaiChoiro Kwen climbed onto the scaffold. He slapped the sagging flesh of Baros Tsen with a short whip then put on a gold-gla.s.s circlet. His voice rang clear over the roar of the wind, unnaturally strong as he poked at Tsen again: 'Sixteen days ago Baros Tsen TVarr attacked the city of Dhar Thosis. The palace of Sea Lord Senxian was torn down.

Bellepheros was at her side. 'Stop them, Li! You have to stop them!

'How, Belli? Why did it have to be her all the time? Why couldnt he do it himself? 'What do you want me to do? She shook her head. 'Besides, I agree with him. She deserves it. Best to get it done. Even if it left her carrying the truth alone.

Belli seized her arm, turned her and pointed to the eyrie wall behind them. Diamond Eye was watching intently. His huge unblinking eyes were fixed on the scaffold and his mouth hung slightly open, fangs gleaming bare, a soft halo of fire burning around them. Liang thought about that for a moment and then, inside, she started to laugh.

The Vespinese had Zafir at the scaffold. They pulled away her hood, tied her arms behind her and then hauled her up to the gallows and forced a gag into her mouth. All around the dragon yard Vespinese soldiers had their lightning wands in their hands, pointing at the dragon on the wall.

'She knows the truth. Liang shook her head. 'MaiChoiro has to silence her. She had no doubt that Zafir would have spat in the kwens face given the chance, but the gag wasnt for that. The gag was to stop her calling for her dragon, wasnt it?

MaiChoiros voice rang out again. 'The actions of Sea Lord QuaiShu and his house attack the very foundations of our life. Belli tugged at her arm so hard he almost pulled her over. 'The Sea Lord QuaiShu will stand trial for the actions of his house 'The night they came! Didnt you see? One of the soldiers struck her, and the dragon . . . If they kill her, the dragon will go berserk. I thought he meant to let her live. I never told . . .

' in the Crown of the Sea Lords in Khalishtor, where he will be judged by his peers.

Liang put a finger to Bellis lips to silence him and slowly shook her head. 'With gag and blindfold, surely she cant call her monster.

'As for this slave 'She doesnt need to speak to call him! It will know anyway.

' Baros Tsen and Shrin Chrias 'Then wed better get out of the way, hadnt we? Let it happen. Let MaiChoiro hang Zafir and let the dragon burn him in his turn. Justice for all of them.

' tvarr and kwen to the Sea Lord QuaiShu Belli started to protest. Liang grabbed his arm and marched him to Perth Oran TVarr. 'TVarr, the Scales are required elsewhere. May I return them to their duties? When he shook his head she pointed up to the gold-red dragon on the wall. 'They are needed, TVarr, to calm the dragon whose rider your master means to hang.

' all three will hang, their bodies to be cast into the storm-dark Perth Oran stared at Diamond Eye. He seemed to shrink a little and then nodded. 'Whatever needs to be done, enchantress.

Liang pushed Belli away. 'Get them underground. You too. Quickly. She looked around the dragon yard. The Vespinese soldiers had their wands raised, waiting for the dragon to move. Three gla.s.ships hung overhead. Theyd dropped close and their rims glowed sun-bright, their lightning cannon charged and ready to fire. On the scaffold two men were shaping gold-gla.s.s. Enchanters. It stood to reason that Shonda would send one or two of his own.

'What are you going to do? asked Bellepheros Liang laughed and shrugged. 'Im going to let it happen.

'But you cant . . . You have to stop them!

'Stop them? No. She couldnt look at him. His face was that of a child whose favourite toy had just fallen down a well, struggling with the notion of never having it back. 'Besides, I doubt theres anything I could say. Let them learn the hard way.

'But you . . . Li!

She pushed him away again. 'Go, you daft old man, before its too late.

'She saved you, Li! Do you not remember what- Liang almost threw him towards the hatchery and the doorway to the tunnels. Whatever it was he wanted to say, she didnt want to hear it, not now, not until it was done and too late. She turned, heart pounding. Maybe the Vespinese lightning would be enough to kill the dragon or maybe it wouldnt. Either way, the world would be a better place. Good riddance. Good riddance to both of you! Up on the scaffold MaiChoiro finished his oration. A Vespinese soldier lowered the noose towards Zafirs neck and stood back. Two others started towards her . . .

Bellepheros still had that look of bewildered horror on his face. He ran to Perth Oran TVarr, grabbing his arm and shouting something that was lost in the wind. Oran looked up at Diamond Eye, fear spreading across his face. Liang tried to watch all of them at once. The dragon leaned forward, stretching out its wings. Most of the a.s.sembly had their backs to the great beast but not the men on the scaffold. They were watching it. MaiChoiro and the dragon stared straight at each other. Oran jumped up and down and shouted, but over the wind MaiChoiro surely couldnt hear him. Oran started to run but the gallows were halfway across the dragon yard . . .

Too late. The soldiers on the scaffold pushed Zafir towards the noose. The dragon leaned further forward, its wings spreading in ever-wider menace. Somewhere in the cordon around the crowd a Vespinese soldier lost his nerve and fired his wand. A crack of thunder boomed over the wind and the lightning struck the dragon on the nose. It bared its teeth. MaiChoiro looked sharply away. As he opened his mouth, the dragon screamed and kicked off from the wall with such force that Liang felt the eyrie shift under her feet. It didnt lunge for the gallows but lurched sharply sideways. Liang slapped her hands to her ears and screwed her eyes shut . . .

All three gla.s.ships fired at once, a deafening roar that shook the air and knocked soldiers and slaves alike to their knees across the dragon yard. After the flash Liang opened her eyes again. Theyd missed, all three of them. The dragon had antic.i.p.ated them and now shot over the dazed and dazzled crowd, blotting out the sun. Shouts filled the air, rising over the roar of the wind. The soldiers who werent still rubbing their eyes fired their wands and threw their lightning but the dragon hardly seemed to notice. MaiChoiro dived off the platform. Liang caught a glimpse of Zafir as the two enchanters on the scaffold threw a shield of golden gla.s.s around it, and then the dragon obscured everything. It smashed the gallows and the gla.s.s and the platform into splinters and matchwood and probably did as much to the two enchanters too. Tsens corpse flew through the air, limbs akimbo like a doll, soared fifty feet and smacked into the wall. The dragon rose over the far side of the eyrie, climbed and arced up and then around and came back.

Liang bolted for the nearest wall, cringed and shaped her piece of gold-gla.s.s into a sh.e.l.l around her as shed done facing the hatchling, waiting for the dragon to fall on them in torrents of fury and fire. Slaves ran screaming a few Vespinese tried to stop them, but only for a moment and then they turned and ran too. More lightning lashed the dragon as it wheeled in the air. Panic swept the dragon yard. There were Taiytakei whod seen this dragon burn the desert sand to gla.s.s and plenty more whod never seen a dragon at all until today but had heard from breathless messengers what it could do. Whatever sense of their own might the Vespinese had had, the dragon smashed it into splinters as they saw it for what it truly was, and for a moment Liang thought she understood what it must be like to ride such a creature.

Not that that helped her much. She crouched in her sh.e.l.l and waited for the dragon to open its mouth, for the fire to come and the dragon yard to turn into a blazing inferno, but the dragon simply swooped, flared its wings, flapped hard once and rose sharply away. The wash of air plucked the nearest slaves and soldiers in handfuls off the ground and scattered them like a farmer scattering seeds. All across the yard the shock of the dragons pa.s.sing shoved fleeing screaming men in the back like a mules kick, sprawling them to the stone. The wind slammed into Liangs shield. She saw the dragon rise over her. In its foreclaws it carried Zafir.

The dragon powered between the helpless gla.s.ships. It skimmed over them, smashed the heart out of the nearest with a single lash of its tail, gripped the gla.s.ships great disc with its hind claws before the vessel fell out of the sky, and levered it sideways through the air before landing on the back of the next. The first gla.s.ship, stricken, slid sideways and down, tipping and falling faster all the time. It clipped the eyrie rim as it plunged towards the storm-dark below, chipping a shard the size of a house from its outer disc and cracking it to the core. Lightning from its half-charged cannon arced across the stone. The gla.s.ship tumbled out of sight.

Looking for somewhere to shelter before the dragon brought the other two gla.s.ships down on top of them all, Liang glanced up. The dragon was sitting on the second gla.s.ship with Zafir beside it, gazing at the scurrying little figures of men beneath it, at the terrified slaves and the men of Vespinarr running this way and that, wild with dread; and Liang stared back, wondering not for the first time what kind of creature it really was, what it could become if Bellepheros stopped feeding it his potions, how such a monster had ever come to exist and what it must have taken to tame it. She was still wondering when the dragon lazily turned its head to look at something else.

A man was standing on the wall where no man had been a moment ago. Then Liang saw another and another, coalescing out of the air around the eyrie; and as she watched, one appeared in the dragon yard beside the broken body of Baros Tsen, another winked into existence beside the ruined scaffold, and another beside MaiChoiro Kwen, holding out a bladeless knife in warning.

The Elemental Men had come.

14.

A Memory of Flames The dragon Silence plunged out of a sky so high and vast that only a dragon could understand it. The stars watched it leave them. The dragon spread its wings wide and seemed to glide, though it was still so high that there was no air to lift it. It fell, mile after endless mile, until the ground came to welcome it and the sun rose before it. Broken crags and cracked stone pa.s.sed beneath, dry and almost dead but never quite. Scars in the brown earth marked where rivers once ran and might run again. Further towards the rising sun, broken cliffs rose out of the earth, misshapen things, crumbled scattered mesas packed ever closer until they merged into a plateau.

As the dragon flew on, it felt a whisper and changed its course. It flew over the top of a great chasm in the earth, a bottomless thing. A wind seemed to suck at it though the air was still, dragging it down. Calling it. It felt the touch of Xibaiya deep beneath the earth, the realm of dead souls through which every dragon pa.s.sed between each life. It flew on and away.

In Xibaiya the Nothing slowly grew, the unravelling thing, the crack in the essence of everything summoned by the Black Moon to shred the world as the age of the Silver Kings reached its end. The cataclysm of the Splintering and the birth of the storm-dark. The dragon Silence had been there and had seen the crack first made; and then again, in Xibaiya, as it pa.s.sed between its many lifetimes. It held those memories in iron claws of purpose now. The Nothing seeping from its cage, unravelling everything it touched, the essence of matter and life dissolved to foam and smoke. The dead earth G.o.ddess and her slayer, who had held the Nothing at bay for so long, gone.

Or not. The dragon Diamond Eye had tasted the Black Moon. Silence had felt the memory burn inside the fog of drowning that was the great dragons stifled mind. The dragon-queen had given that taste a face and now the dragon Silence hunted. Among the canyons and the mesas below it, it sensed little ones. Thoughts. It fell out of the sky and tracked the incessant inner murmurings of the little ones. When it found them, it fell on them and s.n.a.t.c.hed one away and perched itself on the ledge of a cliff and ate him. A black-skinned man. It hadnt seen his like for such a long time, but it had seen them once, in that very first lifetime when the G.o.ds themselves had gone to war and dragons and sorcerers had fought and died until the Black Moon broke the world with unleashed imaginings.

Blood tasted good. A fresh kill, and now it wanted more.

It struggled to remember. How was the Black Moon free once again?

It was a child of the sun . . .

But that could not be.

Perched on pinnacles of stone, reaching out to drink in the world, the dragon Silence found again the presence felt from atop the G.o.dspike. A touch of something immense. The ghost of an echo of a memory of the greatest half-G.o.d of them all. The Black Moon. The G.o.d-killer.

I see you.

The sun set and the stars came out to mock it once more. The dragon Silence flew on. The plateau broke into a landscape of swirling stuttering stone and sand that led it to the sea, to a broken city and a place where a mighty monolith of stone rose from the waves, a place remembered from long ago when the Silver Kings had left their chaos and their dragons and their monsters amid the endless legions of little ones. It circled and swooped and settled on the top of a single tower made of gla.s.s and gold, a strange sorcery, weak and fragile when set against those it remembered, yet one not tasted in its many lives before.

It had been here long ago and in another life. There had been other relics. The remnants of creatures made to fight the G.o.ds and others of its own kin too. It had been different then. Its body had been fully grown and strong, big even for its own kind, sharp-minded and filled with desires. The dragon Diamond Eye had been here too in those years after the world had shattered. It had flown and plucked giant stone men out of the water and dashed them on the rocks the way seabirds dropped crabs to break their sh.e.l.ls and feast on the soft insides.