It was awful.
It was uncomfortable. It was smelly. The heavy, bitter tars of lamp oil mixed with something fetid and putrescent. The small straddle ‘seat’ that was installed between the girders of its back ridges kept on jumping and twisting up and down, and I was forced to throw my arms about Abioye’s waist (of all people!) for fear of flying off! By the time Inyene’s keep rose into view, with the lights of its burning wall lanterns making it look like a vast crown in the night, my thighs and hips felt battered and bruised with the constant knocks of the wood and metal supports that the outer plates of scales were riveted atop.
But pain, at least, was something I had long ago learned to bear. I gripped Abioye’s waist tightly (surprising how slim it was, I thought, having imagined he would be pudgier under the soft linens that he wore) as I peered around his shoulder.
“How are you flying this thing!?” I shouted, and Abioye leant to one side to show me where there appeared to be, at the front of his seat, a series of handles that he could either pull or push to direct the thing’s flight.
“A lot of it is instinctual!” Abioye called.
It has no instincts! I hissed but held my tongue. Anything I could learn about these monstrosities surely would help defeat them.
“The Earth Light energy, or whatever it is, seems to make it respond a lot like a living creature, anticipating my actions and movements. It’ll keep beating its wings without me, for example – Look!” He suddenly let go of all of the different levers, and I let out a small yelp of fear as the entire dragon fell downwards by a couple of meters.
But the gears and levers carried on jerking, twisting, and swaying all on their own nonetheless, as the mechanical beast did indeed, continue to beat its wings.
“Ha!” Abioye said, and I realized that he had been showing off.
If you want to impress me, I thought, maybe NOT using the reanimated bits of a dead dragon is the way to go. Before I could point out this bit of wisdom to him however, the walls of Inyene’s keep were already rising ahead of us.
“Narissea,” Abioye suddenly hissed to me as we rose in a swoop that would take us over the outer wall. “You’ll have to pretend to be a servant, I – I’m sorry,” he said.
“Just what you wanted,” I mumbled and felt him cringe under my hands.
“And what about me?” Montfre however, clearly not so eager to relinquish his first taste of freedom in more than a decade, ever since he had first started working for Inyene. “Do I have to be your servant too?”
“Well…” Abioye didn’t sound sure. “If anyone asks…”
The walls of the keep swept below us, along with large bronze lanterns blazing on their metal tripod legs, surrounded by groups of Inyene’s guards holding their crossbows slung over their shoulders underneath them. Surely the guards should have been looking out over the mine or the mountains – but most of them were more concerned about being warm. I wondered if that also meant that they weren’t a hundred percent loyal to Inyene and would rather run than try to stop a black dragon.
Ymmen? I thought, knowing that he would be able to hear me.
“Of course, I can hear you. Ymmen and Nari are—” He said a dragon-word, which I didn’t understand. But it came with the feeling of wholeness, like the way that the Plains are whole with all of their different animals and habitats and weathers, all being a part of the same thing. That was us, me and the dragon – different, yet a part of something greater than either of us.
The thought gave me courage and joy that I would be able to do this.
“I am close,” Ymmen’s thoughts in my mind reassured me. He was faster than the mechanical dragons, and so long as we could get back to the battlements or a rooftop I trusted Ymmen to be able to get us out. Through our bond, I could feel the dragon raise himself up and start to sweep higher and higher far above us, with Tamin in his claws. I hoped that Tamin was still enjoying it!
On the other side of the outer walls were three wide halls that connected the defenses to the central keep itself. Each of them had long flat walkway-roofs, and it was one of these that Abioye used as his landing spot. The wings of the mechanical dragon clattered and whirred in fury, and once again the entire construction started to shake and judder as we were lowered to the roof before finally coming to a halt. Abioye released the handles and, as soon as he had slid down from the thing’s back, the blue Earth light started to fade from the creature’s eyes, leaving just the black smoke rising from its maw.
“Narissea.” I was surprised when Abioye had turned to raise his gloved hand up at me. For a moment I looked at it, wondering what on earth he meant, before I realized that he was offering to help me dismount. I accepted his hand, feeling the steady grip he had on my forearm as I slid from the saddle and down the dragon, his touch lingering even after I’d caught my balance.
“Oh no, don’t mind me,” Montfre grumbled beside us as he wobbled and half tumbled to the stones beside us.
Even though I had spent almost four years seeing Inyene’s keep, I was still unprepared to see it this close-up. There were distant towers and ruins here and there across the Plains, but now that I was right next to its huge stones I could only marvel at all the time that must have gone into fitting them together. I marveled at the effort – and also the stupidity.
Why would a people be so scared as to need such high walls? I thought. But even I had to admit that there had to be a fair bit of skill involved too. Abioye was already marching towards the archway into the large round keep itself, the entryway decorated with stylized dragons, one on each side forming the outer pillars, and leaning over to capture the keystone in the center, which looked like a crown.
“Ah, this was an old Torvald outpost.” Abioye saw me looking. “I think it’s why Inyene chose it,” he said distractedly as we swept into a wide hallway, lit with lanterns. The floor was a checkerboard mosaic of black and white tiles. “My sister had some crazy notion that High Queen Delia had this place built, so, naturally that is why we ended up here,” he said as we walked.
On either side of us were more archways, and when I looked into them, they appeared to lead into large and airy rooms, some with banqueting tables and others just with tables piled high with guards’ shields and suits of armor. The keep looked deserted and under-used for such a large space.
To be honest, the inside of the keep was a bit of a letdown. I was expecting lines of thuggish guards in every room, brandishing clubs and swords and crossbows. I wasn’t expecting it to look so… haphazard.
“Down there.” Abioye pointed to where the hallway ended in another door, but also with a grand set of stairs leading to the left. He took us down them and I saw that they were curving around a large interior room. There were more lanterns on the stairwell, and I started seeing drapes as well – all of a deep red velvet. The stairs and walls looked swept and gleaming clean. We turned the corner once again.
And there I saw her… Inyene the Queen, standing there in all her power.
But it was only a statue, standing to one side of a set of iron-bound double doors. I shuddered at how lifelike the stone was. Its edges were crisp or smooth, with no signs of weathering – clearly a newly carved installation. It showed a righteous Inyene standing proudly with her chin up and with long hair flowing around her shoulders. Crouching at her side was a perfectly carved dragon. On her brow was a crown, and in one hand she held a scepter – clearly a replica of the one that Montfre had made as he gasped in outrage when he saw it.