The Adamantine Palace (41 page)

'Don't touch me! Never touch me!'

'T-The s-sickness ...'

'Is getting worse, is it? Yes, my lord, this potion is a little different. It'll happen much more quickly now. I pray that the Ancestors leave you as useless as King Tyan, and quickly.'

He had a dagger on his belt. Somewhere. He had to reach for it three times before his hands closed on the hilt. 'Y-You ... y-you ...' he gasped, 'vile ... w-wicked ...' There was a chair between them, but he had the dagger in his hand now. A huge pressure was building in his head.

'Me? And what about you, my lord?' she hissed and darted away behind a table. 'You betrayed Queen Shezira, the most powerful friend you had. You've broken your clan's pact. And for what? Who do you think I am? You take me in my own bed and then you moan my mother's name in your sleep. I was never anything more to you than some thing to keep your memories burning. Oh, and the potions, let's not forget the potions.'

Hyram stumbled around the table and lunged. Zafir jumped nimbly out of the way. 'I-I ... l-loved--'

She sneered at him, dripping scorn: 'You loved yourself, my lord.'

'I l-loved A-A-Aliphera.' He felt obscenely drunk and his head was about to explode. Zafir's face swam in and out of focus. He wanted to reach out and grab it and destroy it, to smash her into bloody pulp, but his arms and legs felt as though they were made of lead. Sometimes it didn't seem to be Zafir's face at all that he saw, but Jehal's, laughing at him. He took another few steps and slashed the air with the dagger; Zafir was too quick for him.

'Well she never loved you, my lord. She despised you. You made her sick.' She darted forward and spat in his face at the same moment as he launched himself at her. He felt the dagger snag on her clothes and she gave a little yelp. He staggered a few steps forward as Zafir twisted away. She cursed and he heard the crash of something falling over. The pressure inside his head was crushing. The world was slowly losing its colour. He turned around. Zafir was scrabbling on the floor, trying to get up, clutching her side.

'You cut me,' she hissed.

Til do ... more th-than c-cut you, y-you w-whore.' He was made of stone, but inside was pure fire. His vision seemed to compress as he stepped over her, until all he could see was her face and everything else had dissolved away. He was splitting, falling away into elemental pieces. He raised the dagger to plunge into her flesh and brought it down, and then something crashed into him and everything went dark. He couldn't move and he couldn't see, but for some reason he could hear voices. He could hear Zafir shouting for her guards. And he could hear the Viper.

62

River Treasure

Kemir watched from a distance. Men were emerging from the river, clutching their enormous shields and struggling to pull their ridiculous crossbows from the water. They weren't wearing any armour. In fact, when he squinted he could see they weren't wearing anything at all. They were painted, however, covered in swirling patterns that had somehow resisted the water.

He frowned and idly strung his bow. They were mad. He wondered, for a second or two, whether the patterns painted onto them were some kind of blood-magic so that dragon fire wouldn't hurt them. Only for a second or two, though, before Snow felled a dozen of them with a single blast.

Then Ash was among them, and Snow backed away and left him to it. The other three dragons, the ones they'd found at the eyrie, stopped what they were doing and watched. Even as Ash was finishing off the soldiers one of them scuttled forward and snatched one of the bodies, gulping it down. Ash turned and roared. For a moment the last few Guardsmen were forgotten as the dragons squared up. Then the other dragon lowered its head and backed away.

In the space of a minute the soldiers all died. They didn't manage to erect a single one of their crossbows; Kemir wasn't even sure they'd tried. It was almost as though they knew they were doomed, and preferred to die quickly in battle than slowly choke to death. He stretched and ambled towards the aftermath in case any of them had had anything worth looting. Not likely, since they were all naked, but there might be a ring or a talisman on a chain. Pointless really, robbing the dead out here. Even if he did find anything, then what? He stared at the river, as bodies and shields floated past. So futile ...

One of the shields moved. At first Kemir thought his eyes had played a trick on him, but when he stopped and watched carefully, he could see feet sticking out from underneath. They were kicking.

Slowly he pulled an arrow from his quiver and drew back his bowstring. He fired the arrow into the middle of the shield. Even at such a short range, it didn't go in very far, but it went in far enough. The water thrashed and splashed, and suddenly there was a man scrambling to his feet on the far bank. Kemir drew out another arrow and then stared in amazement.

'You! Murderer!'

Rider Semian stared back at him. He was naked apart from a long thick shirt that reached his knees and a sword belt. He still held his shield and had a bottle hanging around his neck on a piece of string. Kemir held an arrow in one hand and his bow in the other. Semian was only a few yards away but the river was too wide to jump. Kemir grinned.

'You're a dead man.' Without looking away, he put the arrow to his bowstring. 'You can't reach me, and you need to be a lot further away before I'm going to miss. So what's the matter with you? Too much of a coward to die like the rest? Or is that what they were for? Were they all supposed to die, all the little soldiers, so that you, a rider, could live?' He drew back the bowstring.

Semian didn't move except to shift behind his shield so that Kemir could only see his head. 'Who are you working for, sell-sword. Who bought you?'

'No one.' Kemir laughed. 'For the first time in far too many years. Just settling an old score.' He might have gone on -- tried to explain to the rider why he was helping Snow, how dragon-riders had destroyed his family, his friends and everyone he knew. There was a courtesy to killing a man, and part of that was making sure that he understood why he was marked to die.

Then again Semian hardly deserved any courtesy, so Kemir just released the arrow.

Semian yanked up his shield, which quivered as the arrow hit it exactly in front of his face.

Kemir's arm shot back for another arrow. At the same time Semian took a huge leap into the middle of the river. In mid-air he flipped his absurd shield sideways and hurled it at Kemir. As Kemir nocked his second arrow, he ducked and twisted sideways, but the shield was so big it caught the top of his bow, almost tearing it out of his hands. He dropped the arrow and nearly fell over.

By the time he'd regained his balance, Semian was scrambling up the near bank of the river.

'You'll have to do better than that, sell-sword.'

Kemir hesitated. Knives or arrow? Arrows were more certain, but Semian was maybe too close.

He went for another arrow anyway. No shield to hide behind this time. Semian drew his sword. He sprang the last few yards between them and swung. As Kemir let the arrow go, the tip of the sword clipped his bow. The arrow went went wide, and then the rider was on him. Kemir launched himself at Semian and the two of them tumbled to the ground, arms locked around each other, rolling back towards the river. Kemir had one hand around Semian's wrist, pinning his sword. His other hand went to the rider's throat. Semian let the sword go and punched Kemir in the face, hard enough to make his vision swim. They rolled apart. Kemir sprang to his feet and drew out his knives. Semian was up too. Unarmed. His sword lay between them.

'Last time you were the one surrounded by allies and dragons. Now it's me.' Kemir tipped back his head and roared, 'Hey, Snow!' then bared his teeth at Semian. 'Show me which dragon is yours, so I can feed you to him after I've killed you.'

'I don't see you surrounded by allies,' said Semian. He took a step back. He still had the bottle on a string around his neck; now he lifted that over his head. 'I see only you.'

'This time, I have the dragons.'

Semian kept his eyes on Kemir as he flicked the stopper out of the bottle. Kemir lunged forward. Semian skittered backwards.

Kemir shook his head.

'Ah ah! No special potions from your friends the alchemists. You should have drunk those before you came out.' Semian was even further from his sword now.

'This is poison, sell-sword.' He slowly put the bottle to his lips and tipped it back.

'Is it slow and painful?'

'I believe so, yes.'

'So I could still carve you up and watch you bleed slowly?'

'Oh, you misunderstand.' Semian glanced back towards the caves. 'It doesn't kill humans' He dropped into a fighting stance. 'I'm unarmed. Are you going to try your luck with those knives of yours, sell-sword? Or do you have something else you should be doing?'

63

Fangs of the Viper

Cold air brushed Hyram's face. He opened his eyes. He was flat on his back and Jehal was crouching over him. They were outside in the open air somewhere. It was night, and he was alive, barely. When he tried to throw out an arm to grab the Viper by his throat, he could barely move. His limbs tingled. They weren't really awake yet.

'You're shivering, old man.' Jehal spoke softly and quietly, as through someone was sleeping nearby. 'Are you cold? Or are you sick? Which is it, do you think?'

'I-I have n-nothing to s-say to you, V-Viper.'

Jehal smiled. 'That is a relief. If you'd got it in your head to make a long speech about what a terrible person I am, I might just have thrown myself off the balcony here. Anything to make it end.'

'Y-Y-You'll ...' He couldn't make his mouth work properly. His face was turning numb.

'Never get away with it? Is that what you were going to say? You must be losing your mind, old man. I already have. Do you know where we are? We're in your palace, old man. You're surrounded by your own guards.' Jehal frowned and shook his head. '"There goes our lord, so drunk he can't stand straight again." That's how easy it is.' He laughed. 'Of course we're friends ever since I backed your speaker, aren't we? I wonder if any of the soldiers I've just walked past were the same ones you had with you down under the Glass Cathedral when you tortured me.' Jehal reached down and picked up something from the shadows beside him. 'You've been wanting to know this for a long time.' He held up a small round bottle made of thick smoky glass. Then he pulled a sack out of the shadows as well. When he tipped the bottle over the sack, a glittering silver liquid dripped out. 'Yes, I have been poisoning you. You've got two very fine poisons in you already, in fact. A little Nightwatchman in your drink to start. Then a little prick from a needle dipped in Frogsback.' Jehal held a needle in front of Hyram's face. 'Gave you that just a couple of minutes ago, when you started to stir. It should be working by now. If you stop breathing, that means I've got the dose wrong, and I'm going to feel quite foolish. If you don't, well then you should recover from it in a few hours. I do like Frogsback. This though ...' Jehal stroked the bottle of silver liquid. 'This is special. It's the vapours. Even in tiny doses they slowly destroy your mind. Very, very slowly. Of course in bigger doses they act rather more quickly.'

With that, the Viper straddled Hyram and forced the sack over his head. Hyram tried to struggle, but he was so weak that he might as well not have bothered. He also tried not to breathe in, which was equally futile.

'You can't smell them,' said the Viper. Hyram felt the rest of the bottle being tipped over his head. 'A little pot of this in your bedroom for a year, that's all it took. That and someone to stir it up from time to time. A sort of scum forms on the top after a while which keeps the vapours from forming. Otherwise it's perfect, don't you think?

'Didn't you start to have a problem with your pot-boys about a year ago?' Hyram could tell that Jehal was grinning, simply from the sound of his voice. 'Kept disappearing, didn't they? I don't suppose you thought anything of it. A different one every few months. Did you even notice? No? Shame on you, old man. You should always pay attention to your pot-boys. They're almost invisible yet they know all your secrets. They know who you take to your bed; they know who you talk to in the middle of the night. They sleep in the same rooms as us. They know every nook and cranny and corner of our sleeping lives. They breathe the same air.' The Viper chuckled. 'So you had to keep having new ones, before the vapours could affect them. Don't worry, they've all been well looked after. Oh, but then you probably don't care, do you, because you didn't even notice them. No, you're probably too worried about your own predicament just now. I suppose I can understand that.'

The Viper's voice receded, as though he was standing up.

'Don't bother trying to move or shout out, old man. I hope you've learned by now that a Viper's bite is poison.' He laughed. 'But you had one little victory. I assume it was you who stole Queen Shezira's white dragon. Since it wasn't me, and it wasn't Zafir, and I sincerely doubt that King Valgar would dare do such a thing. But you ... What was it? You couldn't bear the thought that I should own such a prize? And now Shezira's never going to know. Pity.' He patted Hyram on the shoulder. 'Goodnight, old man, and goodbye. I'm going to leave you now, surrounded by your Adamantine Guard. In a little while Zafir will come and take your hood off, and then she'll call in some of your loyal men, the ones you set to guard her door. They'll carry you back to your bed to sleep off the stink of wine that's on you. Sleep in peace. By tomorrow morning, when you see me again, you won't even know who I am.'

The Viper walked away. Hyram heard his footsteps fade to nothing. Inside the sack he tried to turn his head, twisting it as far as he could from the fumes that he couldn't even smell. When he tried to pull off the sack, it was like slapping himself with slabs of dead meat. His arms flailed with a will of their own. They wouldn't do what he wanted them to. He couldn't move his fingers at all. He tried shouting but all he could do was rasp. Out here on the balcony, no one would hear him.