Stephen Deas - The King of the Crags

There goes a prince, he thought with a certain amused wonder, who things he is far cleverer than he actually is.

He let Jehal's words roll around his head for a few seconds until he knew what he was going to do with them. Then he set to correcting the disarray inflicted upon his maps.

One by one they arrived. Six of the Syuss on the back of a pair of jet-black hunting dragons. King Narghon and twenty of his riders. King Silvallan and six of his Golden Guardsmen. Rumours raced back and forth through the palace that Princess Jaslyn had left her eyries in the far north and was coming with a hundred dragons. On the next day she was coming with two hundred, then three; then she was coming alone and in disguise. The speaker's eyries around the palace were overflowing with Jehal's dragons and Sirion's and those of the other kings, but mostly with Zafir's. Many of her riders were here now and nearly all of her adult dragons, all scouring the Purple Spur. There were always at least a dozen dragons in the skies above the Adamantine Palace, watching in case Hyrkallan's traitors crawled out of their caves once again. From his perch up on the Gatehouse Jehal watched them all come and go. He spent more and more of his time up there, looking down over the eyries. He was waiting for the Night Watchman. Putting himself in Vale's way. Looking for an answer.

An answer I'm not going to get. He was there again on the evening before the council that would decide the future of the realms. He looked down along the palace walls, thick with scorpions. If I was Vale, I would stay silent. I'd leave me to get on with it and then make my decision as it suited me.

He sighed. It didn't really matter which way the Night Watchman jumped. Well, unless you were worried about the small matter of the thousands and thousands of people who would burn in a dragon-war, and the tens of thousands who'd probably starve afterwards. But as long as it stayed in the north, nothing that particularly mattered would get damaged. The easy route, of course, was to make sure the council made the right decision in the first place. Narghon would do as he was told: specifically he would do as Queen Fyon told him, and now that Tyan was dead, Fyon was left as the eldest of Jehal's family. Silvallan wasn't stupid and had nothing to gain from taking Shezira's head. Sirion though… which way will you jump? I can see Zafir's touched you, but I can't see how. What did she offer? And how easily are you taken in? He'd spent a lot of his time on Siron, making sure that little whispers reached him. The right little whispers. He was the key, but all he had to do was stay silent. Inaction would suffice. Should I just tell you that your cousin wasn't pushed, that he simply fell? I could tell you how it all went. I could tell you that I pushed him right up to the edge, until he was teetering on the brink, but that the last step was his own. I could tell you that I saw him. I could even show you how. Is there a punishment for any of that? I suppose when you consider everything else, there probably would be. What with all the poisoning and so forth.

That, in many ways, would be the best thing for the realms. To stand up in front of the council and tell them exactly how he'd driven Hyram mad. Tell them everything he'd done. Leaving Zafir carefully out of it. Shezira would be spared. The north would be appeased. Zafir would be blameless, her position secure. At the very worst they'd exile him. He'd be forced to spend his time in Furymouth with his queen. Wasn't that what he wanted anyway?

No. That's only half of what I want and so it's not going to happen.

Jehal watched the Night Watchman pacing his walls, and knew that he wouldn't get an answer. Finally he retired to his bed in the Speaker's Tower. Hyram's bed, not many months ago. When he slept there though, Hyram's ghost couldn't be bothered to haunt him. Instead he always dreamed of home. Of years long ago when King Tyan had been strong and well. Of Lystra in his arms. Of the Taiytakei and their strange and magnificent gifts. Of the last thing he'd done before he'd left Furymouth. Night after night he saw himself poised over his father's bed, the pillow in his hands, watching the last light in his father's eyes finally die.

Except tonight his father wasn't his father but Lystra, and the pillow wasn't a pillow but a knife, and the bed was covered in blood, and her mouth and eyes were wide with terror and she spasmed and writhed, and however much his heart filled with horror at what he'd done, he couldn't leave her like that, and he would lift the knife to finish her, blinded by his own weeping, except that no matter how hard he tried, she wouldn't die, and the screaming only got louder…

The nightmare woke him up. He lay in the darkness of his room, staring at the ceiling above his bed, listening to Kazah, his pot-boy, snoring. His heart slowly stopped its pounding. Outside, the palace was quiet.

He got up and walked to his windows, opened them and stepped through to the balcony outside. Hyram's rooms, Hyram's balcony, where Hyram and Shezira had stood that fateful night. Hyram had had three different poisons in him by then. He shouldn't have been able to move and yet he'd dragged himself outside. Where Shezira had found him, rambling and not making any sense.

Jehal stood where Hyram had stood. He peered down. He'd watched it all unfold through the eyes of the little mechanical dragon, his wedding gift from the Taiytakei. Shezira had never touched the former speaker. He could say that, if he wanted to. But then he'd have to admit that Hyram only fell because he'd flown the Taiytakei dragon straight at Hyram's face. He'd thought he was being so damn clever, but all he'd done was make a mess of a perfect plan.

Zafir had married Hyram. Hyram had made her speaker. All the hard work was done. Hyram would have lost his mind over the months that followed. No one would have been surprised when he fell off his own balcony once he couldn't even wipe his own arse any more. Lystra would die in childbirth. He and Zafir would rule the realms together for two decades. Longer, if they could find a way. Their enemies might have their suspicions, but suspicions were all they could ever be.

Down below the stones were dark. Too dark to see if Hyram's blood still stained them. It could still have been perfect. But Shezira was there when Hyram fell, and now Zafir was intent on casting what might have been a tragic accident as a murder. Because, if Shezira is gone, I really have no reason left not to slit Lystra's throat. We both know that I have to choose and choose soon. Ah, Zafir, impatience will always be your undoing. So now I have to decide what I want. Do I want you? Do I want Lystra? Do I want your throne?

He sighed. Shezira wasn't going to die. Sirion would dither and abstain. Narghon and Silvallan would call lor her to live. Zalu would stand alone and lose. And she would blame him. Now was no time to be uncertain. Before the council and whatever consequences it brought, he would have to decide between his lover and his queen, otherwise it would all go on and on and on, and before you knew where you were, he'd have to avert another dragon-war. No, one of them would have to die, and soon. No room for kindness, no room for mercy.

He wandered back inside. There was another hour before dawn but the air was still and stiflingly hot and the nightmares had destroyed any possibility of sleep. He kicked Kazah awake.

Bring me light! he snapped in brusque gestures. Words were lost on Kazah, who was as deaf as a wall. They spoke in signs, in a bastard language of their own devising. Kazah hurried away and was soon back with a candle.

Clothes! Jehal took the candle to a table by the balcony and rooted around until he found a quill and some ink and some writing paper. Behind him, Kazah was holding a tunic and trousers. Jehal dressed himself. Then he sent Kazah away. He sat down and stared at the empty page in front of him.