‘If that is your intent then go ahead, slave. Shall we go together? We may as well. The Elemental Men will wipe us from the very memory of the world itself for what you've done.’
A slight smile curled her lips. ‘For what I've done.’ Beside the bath the decanter of apple wine sat in a brass bowl of iced water on a small stone pedestal. She reached across him and took it, filled her cup and then smashed the decanter on the bath's marble rim. She picked up a shard of glass and ran it across the palm of her hand. Blood dripped into the water. Tsen tried not flinch; not that he was particularly afraid but simply from the sight of her. She was a savage, and her blood and her nakedness tied his insides in knots. He forced himself to be still. ‘I want my freedom, Baros Tsen T'Varr.’ Blood dripped from her fingertips and splashed into her wine. Tsen winced again. Such a waste. ‘Are you not clever enough to give it to me?’ She stretched out her arms and her legs. Bruises from the battle of Dhar Thosis stained her pale skin. ‘I knew another man like you once. He was almost as cunning but not quite. Much better between the silk though.’
‘I am not interested in your sex, slave.’
‘I know.’ She laughed again. ‘And I'm thankful for that, and so should you be, because if you were interested, then by now I'd have opened your throat. I'd be bathing in your cooling blood, waiting for your soldiers to burst through the door to finish me. Call me slave again and I may yet do so. My name is Zafir. I am mistress of the Silver City and speaker for the dragon-kings and dragon-queens of my realms. We both know you didn't mean me to destroy that city. So now set your mind to sending me back where I came from, and I will set mine and my dragon to aiding you. I trust you're clever enough to do that, at least? You may keep the alchemist if you must but I want the Adamantine Man who once served him. You should find him easily enough. He was in Dhar Thosis too, so I imagine he's now with your kwen if your kwen survived the battle.’
‘Chrias?’ For a moment Tsen looked at her hard. ‘I happen to know that he did. We have ways, he and I.’ He watched for any reaction. Irritation or annoyance, perhaps, but if there was a flicker of anything, it was glee. ‘Would you like to see him?’
Zafir shook her head, although he saw the instant of hesitation. ‘Give me what I want or I will find another who will. Your friends from the mountains, perhaps?’
For a moment Tsen ignored her. He reached over the edge of the bath to the pedestal with its brass bowl, reached into the water and flipped all the ice out to the floor, then dipped his middle finger into it. ‘Quai'Shu had an enchanter bind us all together, years ago.’ He held up his other hand and raised his little finger. ‘Jima Hsian, though Jima was quick to find a way around it.’ Then his first finger. ‘Bronzehand. Come. See.’ The water in the bowl was already shimmering. ‘We may see through one another's eyes as and when we wish, unless precautions are taken. Many sea lords bind their kin and their kwens and hsians and t'varrs together like this.’ He watched the water in the bowl. ‘Most of the time we keep each other blind, but not today.’ Through the kwen's own eyes he saw Chrias in a gloomy room, staring at the soft skin on the inside of his arm, the place where slaves were branded. Staring and staring and rubbing at something. By the look of things he'd already rubbed it raw, or else it was a burn from the fighting in Dhar Thosis. Hard to tell. He glanced at the dragon slave but she made no move to see for herself. When he looked back into the water, Chrias was walking through a door and then along a passage, following one of his black-cloaks. They were at sea, on board a ship. He waited long enough for Chrias to get up to the deck and look about and see that land was nowhere in sight. ‘I wonder what he's up to. Running as far and fast as he can with a hold full of Shonda's silver if he has any sense.’ He shook his head and pulled his finger out of the water. ‘I will consider your proposal, Dragon-Queen.’
Zafir smiled and sighed. ‘To life and its potency.’ She raised her glass and then saw that his was empty, leaned across and tipped some wine from her own into his. Tsen forced himself to smile back.
‘To life, Dragon-Queen, although I am bewildered by the idea that either of us may cling to it for much longer.’
The wine was tainted by her blood and it would spoil the taste. He pretended not to notice as he lifted the glass. The smile on her face stayed exactly as it was, fixed in place.
‘I'm glad Shrin Chrias Kwen wasn't killed,’ she said. ‘And you may keep that middle finger. I'm so looking forward to watching him die.’
84
She watched Baros Tsen T'Varr lift his glass. He was looking at her as he did it. She raised her own and then hesitated and didn't quite know why. Shrin Chrias Kwen would die, slowly and in agony, knowing that she had killed him. Tsen would see it all happen and know that without her the same fate was his. All he had to do was drink. It was perfect.
And yet she hesitated.
She couldn't get the Adamantine Man out her of head. Hadn't been able to ever since she'd left Dhar Thosis. There were some who said with little sneers in their voices that the Speaker's Guard were all the same, that they couldn't be told apart except by themselves and that that was exactly how it should be. There was nothing in the way the one in Dhar Thosis had moved to make Zafir think she'd seen him before, but she remembered his voice as though she'd heard it only yesterday.
Leave her be, you fat prick!
The Pinnacles. His knife. And though it had made no difference, he'd never said that it had been her, not him, who'd murdered her mother's consort; and for that she'd sent him to Furymouth to be a slave. She'd done it to save him. And now here he was.
Dragons were uncaring and hostile and utterly ruthless. They were monsters that devoured anything they found to be weak. She'd long ago grown to learn that their riders were the same. Worse because they had to be. Everyone around her. Her as well. The monsters made them what they were. They had no choice. None.
Baros Tsen touched his glass to his lips.
Bellepheros watched the dragon-queen's return. He watched where she went and he watched as Baros Tsen T'Varr followed her down into the eyrie, and he saw the horror and the utter disbelief on the t'varr’s face. Then he went back to his study. Each step felt heavier than the last. He sat at his desk and held his head in his hands for a long time. He picked up the bottle of liquid silver that he'd brought with him all the way from Furymouth. He looked at it, felt the weight of it. It was the poison that Quai'Shu had given to one of the princes of the dragon realms so that he might murder his rivals. It was subtle and it killed slowly. Its fumes in the air brought on a madness, but in such a gradual way that no one ever saw until the venom had saturated the bones and the organs of its victim and corroded them from the inside.
He stared at it. I am not like them. I cannot be. I fight with words. Only words.
But he still didn't put the bottle down.
Zafir lurched suddenly forward and slapped the glass out of Tsen's hand. They stared at one another, each as surprised as the other. Then she turned quickly and climbed from the water, throwing on her shift. She stooped and picked up the bladeless knife of the Elemental Man.
‘The Adamantine Man who served our alchemist,’ she said again, and her voice was twisted and choked. ‘By whatever gods you believe in, find him. Bring him here! And when you do, you fall on your knees, Baros Tsen T'Varr, and you thank him. You thank him as though you owe him your life. Because you do.’
Then she was gone and Tsen had no idea what had just happened. None at all.