Yes. All the trivial little palace things that Jeiros and Ta.s.san haven't dealt with because they're too busy saving the realms. I'm hardly in a hurry, am I?

By the time he was thinking of putting his boots on, the waves of pain had faded into something that was more a reminder of something sharp than anything truly unpleasant. Gentle snores came from under the furs. Jehal pulled them back and let his eyes wander over the curves underneath. We could try again. Maybe the second time won't hurt so much?

He was still pondering when someone started hammering at his door and a dragon shot through the air right past his windows, the wind of its wings ripping through the open balconies, staggering him. One silk curtain tore free and dived away into the void, sucked into the dragon's wake. The woman in his bed was suddenly forgotten. Jehal was out and down the stairs before he could even begin to think. Are we under attack?

Vale was waiting for him at the bottom. Of course he was. He bowed, just a fraction late, just a tad too high and an instant too abrupt. 'Your Holiness.' He smiled thinly, reading Jehal's face. 'No, we are not being attacked. If we were, I would be on the walls, supervising our defence.' He glanced at Jehal's bare feet. 'Shall I find you some shoes?'

'Only if you have nothing better to do,' Jehal snapped. 'Why is a dragon flying so close to my bed? Whoever was guiding it should be hanged.'

Vale gave the faintest of shrugs. 'As you wish. They are your riders, Your Holiness. I have asked them before to avoid the palace. There is always the risk that my scorpioneers will not recognise them. I'd be disappointed if we had some sort of an accident. My men have been practising, Your Holiness, and they are really quite good.' Which was certainly true. Day in, day out, Vale had men on horseback charging around the palace flying target kites from their saddles. The parts of the Hungry Mountain Plain that were in range had become so littered with scorpion bolts that when they'd stopped for a day and offered a penny for each bolt returned to the palace, they'd come in by the cartload.

'The dragon was a messenger, Your Holiness. There are dragons ma.s.sing north of the Purple Spur,' said Vale, when Jehal didn't speak. 'I will be glad to make an example of the rider, nonetheless, if that is your command.'

A spike of dread momentarily nailed Jehal's feet to the earth. 'Hyrkallan or Sirion. Or both?'

'Both.' Vale's face didn't betray him at all, but Jehal was sure he heard the faintest twitch of glee in the Night Watchman's voice.

Yes, we both know you'd be rid of me in a flash if you could have either of them as speaker. But you can't. Sirion is Hyram's cousin and Hyrkallan is just some jumped-up dragon-knight. He might be the jumped-up dragon-knight who kicked me out of the sky over Evenspire, but that doesn't mean you can make him speaker.

Jehal allowed himself a slight smirking smile, the sort calculated to get under Vale's skin. If anything can. 'Well, so? What do they want? Come to pay their respects? Come to pay homage to the dead. If that's the case, I hope your men have been keeping themselves busy in the eyries, raking through dragon-s.h.i.t for any sign of Zafir. If there's anything left, it should have come out by now, after all.' What did come out of the wrong end of a dragon? Something, Jehal knew that much. Did anything survive of the bones and armour of a dragon-rider unfortunate enough to become a dragon-snack? He had no idea. Maybe it all burned to ash on the way through. Meteroa. Meteroa would know about that. When it came to dragons, Meteroa knew most things.

Vale bowed another one of his insolent little bows. 'Grand Master Jeiros is having a new ring forged. I am not hopeful that we will find the one Zafir wore.'

'Perhaps finding the spear will be a little easier?' But the spear had gone somewhere else. And Jeiros must do something about that.

'Lord Hyrkallan and King Sirion, it seems, wish to parley. With you.'

'And why am I hearing this from you, Vale Ta.s.san? Where is Hyrkallan's messenger?'

'Hyrkallan's messenger, as you call him, is a rider from your own guard, seized over the Purple Spur. He is in the Gateyard, Your Holiness. The message he bore was sealed and for me. I can't imagine why or whether he has others. Hyrkallan also says you may keep the dragon, as a token of his good faith.'

'I can keep my own dragon. How very kind.' Jehal stared at Vale. Why? Why don't they simply swarm across the mountains and fall on us? 'Tell me, Night Watchman, if the full force of the north came at us, would we hold?'

Vale smiled and shook his head. 'No, Your Holiness. Not even if the Adamantine Men fought to the very last. There would be very little to fight over by the time they were done, however. Perhaps that is what concerns them.' He half let out a derisive sn.i.g.g.e.r, and for a moment Jehal wasn't sure at whom it was aimed.

Me. It's aimed at me. Who else, after all? He sighed, waved a bored hand and turned away. 'Very well, very well, let them come. Twenty dragons each and a hundred men between them, including servants. The usual promises of hospitality if anyone feels they're necessary, but really it's not as if we're at war with each other.' Ha! Try making Hyrkallan see it that way!

Vale blinked. 'Your Holiness, they have requested that you and the Lesser Council come to meet them at Narammed's Bridge.' He raised an eyebrow. 'I have informed you ahead of the council, but I imagine they will be eager to agree.'

Jehal turned back and beamed at Vale. 'Marvellous.' Yes. So absolutely marvellous I'd better be careful I don't faint with delight. So I can either sit here and do nothing while the Lesser Council and Shezira's b.l.o.o.d.y avatars quietly settle on a new Speaker of the Realms that will clearly not be me, or else I can go with some vague hope of putting a stop to whatever they're planning and conveniently put myself within easy reach. He gave short sigh. Right then. As long as I keep out of reach of Hyrkallan's arm plus the length of one sword, I suppose we'll get on just fine. He forced the smile a little wider. 'Whenever they propose, Night Watchman. The sooner the better. Won't it be nice to put all this behind us.'

Vale bowed deeply. 'I would like almost nothing more, Your Holiness.'

Jehal shooed him away and then watched him go. As long as you get to watch me dangle in one of Zafir's cages, eh? Pity I had them all cut down after Evenspire. Jeiros was no use either. The alchemist had the power to pull Vale's strings if he really tried, but the poor man was too busy watching potion supplies across the realms slowly run dry. In the Palace of Alchemy they were talking about a cull, about sending orders to every eyrie-master to poison their dragons. No one had bothered to mention this to Jehal he was only the speaker, after all but it was hard to get particularly worked up about something so inane. At a time like this not one single eyrie-master would heed such an order. The fact that Jeiros was thinking of it merely served to show how distracted he was. At some point, he supposed, he would have to have the master alchemist explain why they couldn't just make more of the stuff.

We can agree on one thing: we need this phony war to end. The way I want it to.

He took his time while Vale prepared the palace for battle, just in case picking his best clothes, then picking his nails, idling away his time while his servants and soldiers rushed around. When they were finally done, he hobbled out of the Tower of Air, the wound in his leg still aching from the morning. Riding a horse was a pleasure Vale and Shezira's crossbow had taken from him probably for ever; instead he allowed himself to be carried in a covered chair down the hill from the Adamantine Palace. He was surprised by how peaceful it was. They didn't hurry no need for that and he was left with little to do but stare at the glory of the City of Dragons, with all its little square towers, the ornate palaces around the edge of the nearest Mirror Lake. The cliffs of the Purple Spur behind the city seemed larger and darker than usual, while the water of the Diamond Cascade glittered and shimmered in the morning sun. Now and then, as the wind changed, little rainbows came and went, chasing each other up and down the cliff amid the falling spray. All very pretty.

Or at least it would have been if the rain wasn't still tipping out of the skies. You didn't notice these things, he thought. Not when you were forever riding around here and there, this way and that, getting to some place as fast as you could on the back of a horse or better yet a dragon. He'd never been one for stopping to admire the scenery back when he'd been a prince. Then he'd become a king, and now he was Speaker of the Realms. He was where he'd always wanted to be, and there was nowhere else to go. There was nowhere to race to any more. Nothing to do but stop and take a look at what was around him.

The impatience came back quickly enough, though. Once he was on Wraithwing's back in a cloud of warm steam, getting slowly wetter and wetter while he waited for Jeiros and Aruch and the Night Watchman to follow him. Cursed dragons kept you warm in the cold, but ancestors help you if it rained after you'd flown them hard. He'd seen whole eyries vanish in a cloud of tepid fog so thick that a man couldn't see his hand in front of his face. You didn't go out in an eyrie fog, not unless you wanted to get stepped on.

Suddenly there was Jeiros, and the Grand Master Alchemist of the Nine Realms was climbing up onto Wraithwing's back as well. The alchemist slid in behind Jehal and began strapping himself into his harness.

'Well this is unexpected,' said Jehal as Jeiros settled himself. 'Comfortable there? I thought we were all obliged to fly on different dragons.'

'Is it always like this when it rains? I don't remember. I did most of my eyrie time in Bloodsalt. If it rained there we thought the end of the world was coming.' Jeiros flapped at the mist. 'The Lesser Council must not fly together. Any of us can fly with you. I got here first.' He sounded uncomfortable.

'Ah.' Yes, remind me again that I'm merely some near-worthless figurehead.

'I imagine that Wraithwing's back will be the safest place to be, will it not?'

'That depends very much on whom you fear, master alchemist.' How easy it would be for one of our pa.s.sengers to suffer some terrible misfortune. Let's not pretend that I wasn't tempted to have the Night Watchman fall out of his harness once he was a few thousand feet up in the air. Jehal gave a bitter laugh. 'No, since you're the one who makes sure I don't wake up in the middle of the night being dragged out of my bed by a gang of Adamantine Men. I suppose I should be happy to have you close.'

Jeiros smiled and gently shook his head. 'Vale understands your worth.'

'Yes.' But is that enough? 'If this is a trap, Wraithwing will be a prize target for Hyrkallan's riders.'

'Yes, and that's why I'm here, to deter such treachery, although I think it unlikely. I thought you might pick another.'

He'd had the same thought, but what was a speaker to do? Hide all the time? Show how weak and fearful he was? No. Enough of hiding and skulking. Enough of poisons and knives in the dark. 'I've never been to Narammed's Bridge.'

'There's wasn't much to see even before the Red Riders burned it down. Only a few fields and some farms, some huts and a stone house. Hyram used to keep a good stable there with some very fine horses, but Sirion took them after Hyram fell.'

'Is there actually a bridge?' What did you say? After Hyram fell?

'There was, once. I don't know if it survived the fire.'

'You don't know?' After Hyram fell? Not after Hyram was pushed?

'For a time it was the only bridge across the Sapphire River. Before Narammed became the first speaker. Afterwards it used to mark the end of the speaker's realm and the start of the Evenspire Road.' The alchemist shrugged. 'Vishmir built a bigger bridge at Samir's Crossing. There are probably dozens of other places with Narammed's name on them and I don't doubt that a few more of them happen to be bridges. This one just happens to have an eyrie built beside it.' He frowned. 'Had, at least, before the Red Riders burned it. It was where Narammed hammered out his peace with the northern eyries. It has a symbolism for them, I suppose.'

'Do you think Shezira killed Hyram?' Jehal didn't change his tone at all. Just dropped casually into the conversation as if it hardly mattered at all.

Behind him, Jeiros stiffened. 'It's a bit late for that, isn't it, Your Holiness?'

'I suppose it is. But still relevant, don't you think? Given who we're going to see?'

'The Speaker's Council declared her guilty . . .'

'Zafir declared her guilty.' Jehal twisted to show off his teeth. 'You said fell, not pushed, just now. You think it was an accident. You think Shezira was innocent.'

'Vale-'

'Vale knows. I know. Now it turns out you know too. We all know. Shezira never touched Hyram.' He twisted himself further towards the alchemist. 'I tried to stop her. You let Zafir murder her, you and Vale.'

The alchemist's face hardened. 'You were the one who put her on the throne, Your Holiness.'

'Yes. You've got me there.'

Jeiros' expression remained stony. Jehal turned away. I suppose of all of us you're the least to blame. If you knew how much I miss her, you'd have to wonder at my sanity, master alchemist. Mine and hers. If I could bring her back, I just might. The pain of losing her, now she was gone, was almost a physical thing. He had to pinch himself to remember that Zafir would have murdered Lystra and probably, eventually, all of them.

He closed his eyes and tried to forget the smell of her, the taste of her, the touch of her, until at last the rest of the dragons were finally ready, until Wraithwing powered into the air and set off to fly the few short hours around the edge of the Purple Spur to Narammed's Bridge.

That was, until the grand master alchemist signalled him to land high in the empty peaks and told him that Zafir wasn't dead after all. As Jehal's dragons circled uncertainly overhead, Jeiros whispered it in his ear where no one else would hear, and when Jehal shook his head and wouldn't believe a word of it, the alchemist showed him what had come from the Pinnacles.

His uncle Meteroa's ring, still wrapped around his finger.

The Outsider.

Your ways are not our ways. When your world crumbles, you may expect nothing from me but laughter.

Crossing Over.

The first thing that broke his fall was the top of a tree and an explosion of soft snow. Kemir tumbled down, twisting and crashing off sloping branches, clutching at them with his gauntleted hands, ripping out fingerfuls of twigs and spines and more snow. Something punched his face, twisting his helm sideways so he couldn't see. He clattered off a branch hard enough to wind him even though the dragon-scale armour took the worst of it. His shoulder ricocheted off another branch. Pain burst through the length of his arm. He screamed and then the freezing white ground slammed into him and knocked his breath away.

He wasn't dead. It took him a moment to realise that, another moment to realise that he was freezing cold. That was something to be grateful for. Cold numbed the pain.

Also he couldn't breathe. His helm was gone and his face was pressed into the crushed snow.

He tried to move. Had to. Managed to lift his face and gasped a deep breath. Cold or not, his arm shrieked every time he so much as touched it. Broken. Definitely broken.

He managed to roll onto his back. The other arm seemed to work and so did his legs. His ribs and his spine snarled with a hundred stabbing pains, but nothing was actually refusing to move. He wasn't hacking up blood, so that was good.

He'd been thrown down a mountain by a dragon. For a few seconds panic overtook him. He scrambled to his feet, clawing and kicking his way out of the snowdrift and never mind how much everything hurt. The snow was deep on the slope here, held in place by the press of trees. He clutched at a trunk, eyes screwed shut, weeping at the pain. Another part of him wanted to laugh. He was alive. Thrown down a mountain by a dragon and he was alive. The tree branches had broken his fall as well as his bones, the snow and the dragon-armour had done the rest. Ancestors! It was enough to make a man want to climb right back up, kick the dragon in the face and shout, Missed me!

Yes. If he could move at all. The pain was crushing now, coming at him from everywhere. He sagged. Climbing anything was out of the question. If he hadn't been afraid of how much it would hurt, he might have curled up into a ball and simply rolled the rest of the way down the slope.

No, no, no. Stop. Think. You're an outsider. You survive. The pain will go, but now you need to move.

Shelter first. A place the dragons couldn't reach him. He had no idea whether Snow had meant to kill him or simply hadn't thought before tossing him away. Our kind. So f.u.c.king fragile, eh? Well here I am, dragon. Still breathing.

Shelter. Food. Then water, although it was the Worldspine, so water was easy. And so were the food and the shelter, come to think about it. Back where the alchemists had been hiding. Made him want to laugh.

He started to make his way down the slope among the trees, wading down through snow that reached well past his knees, stumbling and staggering his way from one tree to the next, stopping at each to catch his breath. Every few steps he lost his balance and tipped over, falling as best he could to protect his broken arm. And then he had to get up again. By the time he got to the bottom of the slope, he was exhausted, gasping for breath. He had no idea how long it had taken. There weren't any dragons, though. Snow hadn't come for him.

He was near the lake, or what was left of it. The bridge he'd found last night was gone, the nice neat little channel that had been dug beneath it had vanished too, both washed away without a trace. Where the sluice had been was now surrounded by a wide expanse of mud and slime. Here and there rivulets ran through a dozen and more new channels gouged out of the earth. The last trickles, rushing to find a way down the mountain. There was nothing left except one pole driven deep into the ground, the post that had once held up one end of the sluice itself. That and the huge sheet of ice, sprinkled with a fine dusting of snow, shattered into giant shards as thick as his wrist.

Kemir stared at it. He'd done this. Done it for Snow. Joined in the spirit of smashing and burning.

Ungrateful . . .

He looked back, up through the steep stand of conifers towards the castle. He'd been struggling through the trees and the snow for what felt like hours, but the castle wasn't that far away, now that he looked back. The dragons were still up there, all four of them. As he looked, one of them pushed the remains of half a tower over the edge of the slope. Stones as big as horses tumbled down into the darkness under the trees. The forest shuddered. Pieces of masonry big enough to crush a house toppled over and chased each other, driving a miniature avalanche before them. A tree cracked and toppled sideways, shaking loose a cloud of snow.

Kemir ran, limped, jogged and staggered towards the ruin where the alchemists had been. There were still patches of snow and ice, but most of it here had melted to slush. He tried not to think about how he must look. More lurching than running, cradling his broken arm. When he reached the stair, he went down on his backside, sliding from one step to the next. There wasn't much grace or dignity to it, but at least he wouldn't trip over and kill himself.

He reached the bottom. Knew he was there by the change in the smell of the air, the whiff of charred earth. With his one good hand held out in front of him, he shuffled back and forth in the darkness until he found a wall, then another, and then the pile of debris that half-blocked the pa.s.sage onwards. Hauled himself over it, whimpering with every movement. Snow had said there was someone else down here. Probably another alchemist. He'd been putting that out of his mind, concentrating on one thing at a time getting to shelter but he was going to have to think about it now, down here in the gloom. Didn't have his bow that was somewhere up the slope by the castle where the dragons were. Didn't have any arrows with him any more, what with being thrown down a mountain. Nor two working arms. Knives then. Softly creeping closer, a quick stab in the neck and he'd be done. And then just lie here until the dragons went away and his arm got better or else the food ran out. Whatever happened first.

One of his knives was missing too. Just gone. Probably buried in the snow under the trees somewhere. Still had the other one, though. One was enough. Only had one good hand anyway.

At least the light was still there, off in the distance, the same shadow hundreds of yards away. Steady this time. He shuffled along the tunnel, propping himself up against the wall, trying to be quiet. There was still plenty to trip on. He pa.s.sed pa.s.sages, dark and lifeless, one, two, then the third, the other stairs leading back to G.o.ds knew where. As he reached the light, he heard a noise, a sort of rasping, gasping noise. He gripped the knife in his good hand. His left hand, which wasn't his better hand. Then he peered around the corner.

The refuge was as he remembered it. Beds, table, pots to p.i.s.s in. The food was still there, and the lamps too. Three dead bodies on the floor with Kemir's arrows in them. And a woman. Sitting at the table with her head in her hands and her back to him. She had no idea he was there.

He held the knife tighter still. The easy thing, the wise thing, would be to creep around behind her and send her the way of the rest of them. He didn't know how he'd missed her when he'd come down before. Must have been lurking in the shadows at the back, invisible in the dark. Chances were she'd seen him. Would remember him. Couldn't be many folk came creeping down these tunnels, after all . . .

Dragon-riders, alchemists, same difference. He was about to take a step, but then hesitated. He'd never cut a throat with his off-hand before. Never done it with one hand. Wasn't sure he knew how. Best to bury the knife in her back then. Or into her neck. His hands and feet wouldn't move, though. Stabbing a weeping woman in the back was enough to make him at least pause.

So what if she's a woman? Makes no odds. Why should it?

Maybe she wasn't an alchemist. Maybe she was just some serving girl they'd dragged down here to amuse them while they waited for the dragons to go.

Or maybe she is an alchemist. Get on with it!

His feet still weren't moving. If he made a noise, he didn't hear it, yet the woman suddenly looked up, right at him. She blinked, saw the knife and then jumped up, skittering away to the other side of the table. Scared witless. He searched her eyes. No sign of anything except what you'd expect when you'd just spotted someone creeping up on you with a knife.

He was so G.o.ds-d.a.m.ned tired. The knife quivered in his hand. He slumped against the wall and let out a low moan of pain. 'I thought . . .' Thought what, Kemir? Go on, talk your way out of this one. He closed his eyes for a moment and found it hard to open them again. G.o.ds, but it was dark. 'Can you help me?'

'Who are you?' Her eyes were wide and wild. 'Are you an alchemist?' She was young, when he finally forced his eyes open again. Alchemists were always old, weren't they? But it was hard to say in the strange half-light of the shelter, in the dim white glow of the alchemical lamps that lit it.

She shook her head.

There was food on the table. A bit old and a bit stale, but it was still food. Kemir lurched to the table, crashed down into a chair and slumped across the table. He was ravenous. 'You're the only person I've seen alive. Dragons have destroyed everything.' He coughed, which still sent pains ripping through his chest. Not good. Maybe Snow had done more than break his arm.

'You . . .' She was looking at the knife. Kemir glanced at it, still in his hand. A good killing blade. Snuffed a few in its time. She wouldn't be much of a problem. Small and scared and fragile. Even as broken as he was. For the second time he stepped through in his head exactly how he'd kill her.

Dragon-riders, alchemists, same difference.

No. He was sick of killing.

The dead men on the floor with the arrows sticking out of them told him he was a liar, that he wasn't sick of killing at all. He was afraid, that's what it was. Afraid of being alone. Afraid of dying with no one to hold his hand. That was more like it.

'No,' he said. He let go of the knife and pushed it across the table. 'I don't want to hurt you.' And then he watched, willing her to believe him. She didn't say anything. Just stared. Kemir shrugged. The less said the better. 'First I knew about anything was the roof coming down. Spent the night buried in rubble. Couldn't see a thing. Managed to get out in the end. There's dragons up at the castle, tearing it to pieces. Lake's gone. Empty. Everything else smashed to bits and burning.' He narrowed his eyes. Looked down at the three dead men with arrows in them. 'Did you see them, the ones who did this?' The knife was still there, still in reach if he needed it.

She shook her head.