‘The sentence is pain,’ said a woman's voice.
The Taiytakei touched his wand. The light inside it dimmed a little and then Bellepheros reeled as the air cracked like a lash and lightning jerked across the deck. Tuuran screamed as it threw him into the air. He fell so hard that Bellepheros felt the planks shiver under his feet, and lay twitching and whimpering. The alchemist stared. An Adamantine Man learned to take pain more than any other man, and here was one of them curled up and wailing like a whipped child.
The Taiytakei with the wand glowered at Bellepheros and marched away. Bellepheros turned to see the woman who'd saved Tuuran. She wore gleaming white robes which looked as though they meant something, but he had no idea what. Strangest of all, she wore two round pieces of glass bound across her eyes, like the curved glass of a Taiytakei farscope. They made her eyes oddly big. He didn't know what to make of the look on her face. Sizing him up, perhaps. Staring at her didn't seem to trouble her; rather she seemed curious, intrigued, disdainful and perhaps a little disgusted. He couldn't make out her age but she certainly wasn't young. She wasn't tall, but the armoured Taiytakei around her made her seem shorter than she really was. She watched him watching her until he looked away.
Two armoured men hauled Tuuran to his feet. He was still shaking even when they dragged him over and threw him at Bellepheros. ‘This one is yours now, slave. You'll be accountable.’
Bellepheros helped Tuuran up. An odd feeling that, him at his age helping an Adamantine Man to his feet. ‘You're shivering.’
‘So would you if you felt their lightning so strong. Thank you, Lord Master Alchemist. I owe you my life. They'll make you regret this though.’
Bellepheros nodded towards the woman in white. ‘Thank her.’
‘I will not!’ Tuuran shuddered.
‘Why? Who is she?’
‘An enchantress.’ Tuuran made a sign against evil. Bellepheros frowned and stole another glance at the woman. She was still watching. ‘An enchantress? What does that mean? A blood-mage?’ There were no magicians of any other kind in the dragon realms. He shook his head. If that's what she is and the Taiytakei have stolen dragon eggs at last, they can suffer the consequences and all my oaths be damned.
Tuuran shook his head again. ‘No, not that. A witch!’
The woman turned and swept away. Taiytakei soldiers pushed Tuuran and Bellepheros in her wake to a gangway that reached from the side of the ship to the platforms on the cliffs. ‘Why didn't you run?’ Bellepheros asked.
‘If I'd tried then they'd have killed the whole crew, every one of them,’ said Tuuran. He glowered at the Taiytakei soldiers. ‘And also I can't swim.’
Bellepheros digested this. He frowned. ‘An enchantress?’ he asked again.
‘I told you. A witch.’ Tuuran hissed and pointed at the golden wand hanging from the belt of one of the soldiers. ‘They make the rods that summon lightning and ships of glass that fly through the air and every other abomination that breaks the natural laws of the world.’
A cradle hung beside the scaffolds. Ropes reached up into the sky. The Taiytakei woman in white and her guard walked onto it. Bellepheros squinted up to the top of the cliff. His eyes were getting used to the daylight now. Soldiers nudged him forward after the woman. An abomination that breaks the natural laws of the world. That sounded a lot like dragons. Then he staggered and grabbed at Tuuran's arm as the cradle unexpectedly jerked and began to rise. The ship fell away beneath them, first the deck and then the masts. In the natural amphitheatre of the harbour dozens more ships waited, packed closely together. Some were pressed against the cliffs, swarms of men scurrying back and forth; others sat further out and rocked in the gentle swell of the sea. Through the windows in the grey stone of the cliff Bellepheros caught glimpses of spacious rooms, of Taiytakei men and women. He saw them sitting at tables together, drinking wine, eating their meals. He saw them dressing and undressing. He saw children, and men and women entwined naked together. None of them looked to their windows as he passed. They seemed oblivious, as though it simply didn't matter who might look in on them. The other Taiytakei, he noted, looked carefully away, but he was an alchemist, ever curious about everything, and so he stared and took it all in. He could feel how much the soldiers either side of him didn't like it.
‘It's rude to stare, Lord Master Alchemist,’ said Tuuran. ‘They're prudes at heart, these Taiytakei.’ Then he leaned close and his voice dropped. ‘I am yours,’ he breathed. ‘Say the word and I'll take them over the edge to their doom.’
Bellepheros glanced down. They were past the top of the tallest mast now and halfway up the cliff. There were five Taiytakei with them on the cradle, the woman and her four soldiers. He wondered if Tuuran was really strong enough throw all five of them over the edge at once. Perhaps, but then what? Would it get either of them home? Of course not.
He gently shook his head and put a calming hand on Tuuran's arm. ‘Patience, Tuuran.’ He was beginning to see. His weapon would be his knowledge. What he knew. That was why they'd taken him and it was what they wanted from him. He would hold that over them, and if they tried to take it by force, well, as an alchemist he knew a hundred different ways to kill himself, and if that was to be his choice in the end, it would be his alone. No need for others to die, not even these Taiytakei.
The woman with the glass lenses over her eyes was looking at him. Perhaps she read his mind or read his thoughts from his eyes, for she raised an eyebrow and smiled. Bellepheros blinked in surprise. She had a lovely smile. He hadn't expected that.
‘You are our most honoured guest,’ she said. ‘Whatever you require, I will give it to you. Whatever you ask for, you will have.’ She glanced at Tuuran. ‘You will build an eyrie for Sea Lord Quai'Shu, and if you must have a grand hall carved of solid gold and a harem of a thousand women from across the many worlds of the storm-dark to do it, so it shall be. Whatever you wish for, you will have.’
‘I wish to go home,’ said Bellepheros tartly.
The woman's face didn't flicker. ‘That one wish only Sea Lord Quai'Shu can grant.’
‘Well, we'll start with a library then,’ he snapped. If she thought he could be bought through his vices then she might as well know what they were. ‘Books. As many of them as you can get. Every eyrie should have one.’ And I'll find out who you are. I'll find out everything about you; and in time I'll find a way to use what I learn against you, for I am a patient man.
‘Books?’ Her lips pursed. ‘Excellent! So be it. But you might have to share.’ A light danced in her eyes. ‘I like books too.’
As the cradle rose further, the windows in the cliff face became larger and more ornate, easily wide enough for a man to climb in and out. ‘Are you the lady of this city?’ asked Bellepheros.
‘Lady of this city?’ The woman laughed and the easy creases in her face told Bellepheros that she was a friend to laughter. ‘This is the city of Sea Lord Quai'Shu. I am a servant. One of many. But for now I am your mistress.’ She smiled again. ‘Or your helper, or your t'varr, or however you prefer to see me.’
‘My friend Tuuran says you are an enchantress.’
‘Your slave is right. I am Chay-Liang. You are Bellepheros the alchemist. I'm afraid enchanters rule over no cities, more is the pity.’
Your slave? The soldier had said the same after they'd picked Tuuran up off the deck. Bellepheros hadn't taken it in before. Been too busy trying to breathe. ‘And what is it that an enchantress does?’
Chay-Liang didn't answer at once. But as the cradle reached the top of the cliff and Bellepheros could finally see what lay beyond, she stretched out her arm. ‘This.’
He looked out over the City of Stone. Grey spires rose up around him like the three mountains of the Pinnacles in miniature, but hundreds and hundreds of them, jumbled together, packed in rows and clumps like the discarded teeth of some titanic monster. Sheer walls rose to jagged spikes and fell into dark chasms. Far below, in places between them, he saw black water. The sea perhaps. There wasn't a flat surface to be seen and every spire was speckled with black spots like the pox, except now that he'd ridden the cradle he knew them for what they were. Windows.