Stephen Deas - The King of the Crags

Meteroa gave a little bow. 'I shall take that as a compliment. But were you not bored when you left the speaker's palace? Was that not why you came?' He raised an eyebrow but didn't wait for an answer. 'No matter; if you're bored then this should please you. I have news.'

Jehal shook himself. Meteroa had a gleam in his eye, one that always meant trouble. 'You never bring good news, Eyrie-Master. I'm not sure I should listen to you. Lystra, I'm sure, will have sweeter words than yours.'

Meteroa sounded bored too, but then he always sounded bored. 'Oh, I'd like nothing more than for you to go and spend a few more days closeted away with your queen. Running this realm is so much easier when you're not around to interfere.'

'You're supposed to run my eyries, not my realm, Meteroa. Still, if you wish me to scurry away then by all means tell me I have yet another ambassador from the Taiytakei pleading to speak with me.'

'They have been a little busy of late.'

'Haven't they just.'

'Always scheming.' Meteroa yawned. 'Should I assume now, as a matter of course, that the Taiytakei are to be dealt with by the lord chamberlain or some such minor functionary?'

Jehal almost laughed. The lord chamberlain was supposed to be the eyes and ears and voice of the king. Strictly, even Jehal had to defer to the chamberlain's orders, although the last chamberlain to try that had retired from his office in something of a hurry some years back. 'What a fine suggestion. I sometimes wonder if we should give them a hatchling. Or an egg or two. Let them live with the consequences.'

'My Prince! As you have so pointedly observed, I am your eyrie-master, and that is the worst treason to escape even your lips for a good long time. I should be fleeing as fast as I could to send word to the speaker and the grand master of the alchemists.' He shook his head. 'That you should even speak it. Jeiros would shriek for your head at the mere whiff of such a thing.'

'Oh pish-tosh! I wasn't advocating we should give them any potions. Only a hatchling.' Meteroa was still glowering. Jehal sighed. "Well I thought the idea of one of their ships drifting back into port with nothing left alive except an awake and very hungry dragon was rather amusing.'

Meteroa's look was acidic. 'A veritable earthquake of hilarity, I'm sure. But no, Your Highness. It is not the Taiytakei. This is news that concerns your bride and it will not wait.'

'Oh well, now I am suddenly quite convinced that I shall not like whatever you're so eager to say. I should warn you that I have been considering breathing new life into certain ancient traditions regarding the bearers of bad news.'

'Then I shall dress it up otherwise. Wondrous news, Your Highness. The speaker has called a council of kings and queens. Oh joyous, joyous times.'

Meteroa's voice was so dry it could have swallowed the sea. Whatever good humour Jehal had been nursing left him right then. 'She's putting Queen Shezira on trial, isn't she?'

'Yes. And King Valgar too.'

'Oh screw Valgar. Inconsequential king with an inconsequential voice.'

'But with a not-inconsequential queen, Your Highness.'

'Yes, yes, married to Lystra's big sister. You didn't suppose such a thing would slip my mind, did you? But still inconsequential beside Shezira.' He clasped his hands tightly together. 'Zafir will demand Shezira's head and she'll probably get it. Jaslyn will take Shezira's throne and Almiri already speaks for Valgar's realm. Put the two of them together and they're as strong as the King of the Crags. Put Sirion with them and they'll split the realms clean in two. War, fire, death, destruction. Everything burns.'

'Perhaps.' The eyrie master raised an eyebrow. 'However, I cannot help but observe that it will likely all happen very far away from Furymouth.'

'Furymouth may be far enough removed, Eyrie-Master, but I am not. I am precisely in the middle.'

'And very adroitly done, Your Highness. I bow to your talent for blending strategy and mischief. A lover on one side and a bride on the other. You may jump to one or the other as it pleases you. As the tides of their fortune wax and wane and they quietly rip each other to pieces.'

Jehal could have slapped him. 'You are naive and short-sighted sometimes, uncle. If they rip each other to pieces, it may be of little consequence to us, but it will not be quiet. It may be a surprise to you, but I would prefer not to see the realms torn to shreds, and that is most certainly what such a war would do. You might as well give the Taiytakei that hatchling and the potions to go with it. That might be all that's left.' He paced. 'Since I intend to follow Zafir to the speaker's throne, I would prefer to rule more than a desert of ash. No, I shall stand between them.'

'Not choose between them, My Lord?' Meteroa raised an eyebrow.

'I have made one speaker, Eyrie-Master. When I make another, it will be me. No.' Jehal pursed his lips. 'No choosing. Not yet. I shall answer the speaker's summons and attend her council. I shall argue with passion and conviction that the realms will be safer if Queen Shezira lives. And then we shall see.'

'I'm afraid to say, Your Highness, that you are quite pointedly not invited to the council. Your father may attend and his voice will be heard. Not that anyone, even if he is able to speak on that particular day, will understand a word of what comes out. You, however, are courteously advised to stay home and keep feeding the starlings. Whatever that is supposed to mean.'

Jehal hissed. 'Oh! Believe me, Eyrie-Master, the speaker could not have made her meaning more clear. Nevertheless.' He looked at Meteroa long and hard. 'Zafir can do what she likes with King Valgar, but if she executes Shezira, both of Lystra's sisters will go to war. That must be stopped.'

Meteroa raised an eyebrow. 'I trust that Princess Lystra and I will no longer be hearing complaints of boredom?'

Jehal suddenly grinned. 'That depends on how long it takes me to change Zafir's mind. You may go, Eyrie-Master.'

Alone, Jehal's grin fell away. He stared blankly into space. He'd put Zafir on the throne. He'd always known he might not control her but he'd never given it much thought.

And now it's time that I did. He turned and walked briskly towards his father's apartments. Something else was long overdue, something to which he'd given a great deal more thought over the years. Something best done quickly while he had the will to do it. When he reached his father's rooms, he sent all the servants away with orders to find Lord Meteroa and bring him. He waited until they were all gone and then stepped inside, through the antechambers and into his father's sickroom. A long dark room, lit only by the embers of the hearth and thin curtains of sunlight that squeezed through the cracks in the shuttered window. A room he'd come to less and less over the years. I used to come here every day, in the beginning. I'd hold your hand and look for any signs that you were getting better, filled with a strange melange of fear and hope in case there would be a miracle. But you weren't and there wasn't. You were always getting worse and miracles, it turns out, are for fools.

Prince Jehal sat by his father's bed and took his father's hand. He leaned towards the old man's ear.

'I know you can hear me,' he whispered, soft as silk. 'I know your mind is still alive in there, even while your body wastes away. Even though you can't speak, can't feed yourself, can't do anything much but lie there and stare, I know you can hear me. If there's anything you have to say, this is your last chance to say it. Spare me the complaints that I never come to see you though. I know I've not been a good son, but then a better son might have come from a better father, eh. I have to go away again now. Queen Zafir is waiting for me. I made her want me, Father, and now I might have to destroy her. I did the same to her mother, Aliphera. Does that make you sad, Father? I know you liked Aliphera. I think you'd like Zafir better though. She squeals like a pig. Oh, I'm sorry.' Jehal gently wiped his father's brow. 'I suppose I shouldn't speak of such things. Do the women I send to your bed still give you any pleasure? I hope so. I picked them myself.'