Stephen Deas - The King of the Crags

I am not going to grovel. I am not going to justify myself. I did what I did. She only knows this through Jehal, and who knows for how much longer he will be back in favour? I will pray to our ancestors it is not for long.

He took a deep breath. 'I think it's remarkable.' He bowed, trying to shake the sense of foreboding away. 'Miraculous almost, that any of the rebel riders survived. I'd have thought they would have all plunged to their deaths or been crushed by their own dragons.'

Zafir gave a coy smile. 'There, you see. Was that so hard? Don't pretend you're a fool, Vale.'

'I could not be what I am and be a fool, Your I loliness. I am, however, very much a servant.'

She snorted. 'So is Jeiros, or at least I think that's supposed to be how it works. You wouldn't know from the way he talks, would you?'

That's because his concerns are greater than yours. He, at least, has the good of the realms in his heart. Now there's a man who would make a most excellent speaker, although he'd never wish for it.

'I shall take your silence for agreement, Night Watchman, but only this once. You can go back to being terse and uncommunicative as soon we're outside again. Right here I want both your advice and your ears. You were wondering about the prisoners. Well, they're not in the best of shape,' she admitted. The truth, which of course she didn't want to tell him, was that they had all fallen to their dooms, and that she'd brought the bodies back to the palace for her pet blood-mage to play with. But he imagined that he wasn't supposed to know about Kithyr.

They passed a body lying on a table. A dead rider, still in his dragon-scale armour. Half of his head was missing and his chest and one arm had been shattered and crushed. Vale raised an eyebrow. 'Well that one certainly isn't.'

'A few of them escaped, you know,' she said, idly playing with her hair. 'Apparently Jehal's dragon ate the ringleader. Although other indications are that he escaped.'

Vale's lips puckered with scorn. 'Ah yes. The mysterious red rider. Anyone can paint their armour red. And they can just as easily wash it off again.'

'There are whispers in the streets that the red rider is Lady Nastria, Queen Shezira's knight-marshal. It's a pity we don't have the little bitch's body to hang from a gibbet to put an end to that.'

And have the alchemists poke around at her corpse? Would you really want that? Some of them still practise a little blood-magic, you know. No, I imagine it is far better for you that she stays wherever she is. 'I have searched high and low, Your Holiness. I do not think she could have escaped.' No, that would be too much to hope for. A pity. I think I would have found her most interesting company for a few hours, [nd then I'm quite sure I would have had to kill her.

'I have wondered, Night Watchman, whether your searches have been as thorough as they could have been.'

Oh enough! 'I don't mind the pretences and the facades, Your Holiness, but I do hate to waste my time. I assume she's somewhere at the bottom of the Mirror Lakes, weighted down with stones.'

Zafir smiled sweetly. 'I thought they were bottomless.'

'Then she is still sinking. All the better.'

'I'm not so sure. The red rider seems to have become absurdly popular with the common folk. I'd like to put an end to him.'

Then start acting like the Speaker of the Realms instead ofsome little tyrant who's desperately afraid that she's going to be overthrown at any moment. But he couldn't say that. Didn't want to say that. Besides it was all too late now. Incompetence begat unrest, unrest begat turbulence, and turbulence was about to beget out-and-out war. Almiri and Prince Sakabian had seen to that. Instead he shrugged. 'You have the Adamantine Men, Your Holiness, and that means you have nothing to fear. Besides, as I said, anyone can paint their armour red. How do you know you haven't got the red rider.'

Her eyes gleamed in the torchlight. 'I don't.' They reached a crossroads in the underground passages. A breeze blew across their path, carrying with it the smell of graveyards. Zafir turned towards it. 'Let's find out. Either way, I will need to convince the people of it. I will need another cage prepared, Night Watchman.'

'That one has been ready and waiting for quite some time, Your Holiness.' For me or Jehal, I was never sure which.

The passage became more of a tunnel, sloping down deeper into the earth. Once, a long time ago, before the Adamantine Palace had been built around it, the Glass Cathedral had been a stronghold all on its own. That had been back in the times when the dragons were free and the people who had lived around the Mirror Lakes were food. Every place that had a history going back to those times inevitably had a huge and complicated burrow of tunnels underneath it. That or there was nothing left except a note in the history books, recording how many people had died when the dragons had finally razed it.

Vale wrinkled his nose. He didn't like tunnels, he didn't like being underground and he particularly didn't like these tunnels. It didn't seem all that long ago that Lord Hyram had dragged Jehal down here and put him on the torture wheel. Not his finest moment.

He shuddered. Even on the wheel, Jehal had won.

The smell was getting worse. Vale had never been down this far into the tunnels. 'Is this all one vast oubliette?'

Zafir shrugged. 'I don't think any of my predecessors were too picky about where the bodies ended up. And it is a long way back to the surface.' She shook her head and rolled her eyes. 'With so many steps, what's a poor torturer to do? Spend all his time lugging bodies back and forth. I suppose the smell adds to the general ambience.'

'Then perhaps I should spend some time here, in case I might find Lady Nastria?'

Zafir shrugged, which was enough to tell Vale that Nastria's body hadn't ended up here. No, the lakes. It had to be the lakes.

They reached a roughly hewn square room. Alchemical lamps struggled feebly against the gloom. Vale could see two men chained to the walls. Other figures lurked in the shadows.

He sniffed the air. He ought to have smelled a taint of truth-smoke. And the men lurking in the shadows, if they were real torturers, should have been wearing veils. He made a face. 'I hope these men are still alive. I don't know why you want me to hear their confessions, but if they're dead, this has been a waste.' No, best not to make too much of that. The whole exercise was a sham and they both knew it, but for some reason Zafir seemed convinced that it mattered. As though hearing from a tortured dragon-knight that Almiri had kept the Red Riders supplied would make a difference. As far as Vale could see, no one cared; pretending that they did only made Zafir seem a fool. He knew exactly what she wanted. She wanted him to obediently hear what she wanted him to hear, and then take it back with him to a council of kings and queens, parrot out the words and give her the excuse that she wanted for war. As if it mattered. It would make no difference, even if it was true! And even if it did, you're the speaker. Tell me what to say and I will obey.

'Oh you'll hear them.' Zafir favoured him with another faint smile, the toothy sort that would probably have meant sleepless nights to lesser men. She led him towards the closer of the two captives. The man, what was left of him, was hanging limply from chains manacled to his wrists. As Zafir and Vale drew near, a tall man in a leather apron moved to intercept them. He bowed low.

Vale bowed back. Hello, Kithyr. This is why Zafir brought me instead of jeiros, isn't it? Because Jeiros would have known you at once for what you are. And you think I don't? How stupid must you thin\ I am?

'This man looks more like a butcher that a torturer.'

Zafir waved a hand. 'Not having been down here before, I wouldn't have the first idea.' She looked down at the man in the apron, still bent double. 'So who are you, and why are you standing in my way?'