Stephen Deas - The King of the Crags

Kithyr scraped even lower. 'Holiness. I'm the physician.'

Zafir raised her eyebrows in mock bewilderment. 'A physician? Here? Forgive me, but that seems a little out of place.'

'I make sure they don't die, Your Holiness.' He gave a noncommittal shrug. 'For when people want to talk to them again. Usually, once they talk, the torturers don't worry too much about what happens to them afterwards. Chopped up and fed to whatever dragons are in the eyrie, I suppose.' He caught Zafir's glare and bowed again, muttering apologies for his crudeness. Vale kept a stony face. Zafir would have most men whipped almost to death for the slightest lapse of proper respect and here was her blood-mage practically pissing on her boots. Or is this a test? Perhaps if I didn't know who this man truly was, he'd already be wallowing in his own blood while I ground his face into the ground. He put a hand on his sword and took a step forward in case. At least the blood-mage had the decency to look afraid for an instant, before Zafir touched her hand to his arm.

'Don't.'

'If one of my men spoke to you with such disregard, Your Holiness, I would have him drawn and quartered on the spot.' He glowered at the magician. Here we are, all pretending that we don't know what each other is. What a farce this has become.

It didn't get any better. The blood-mage pretended that a dead man was alive and made him talk, and Vale pretended not to notice that anything was out of place. They heard names and places, all of it exactly what Zafir wanted to hear. None of it seemed desperately new or exciting. Vale dutifully committed it to memory. Most of the kings and queens of the realms abhorred blood-magic to the point where they'd see poisonings, high treason and a few murders as trivial by comparison. Since the men doing the confessing were already dead, Zafir would keep them well away from Jeiros. When she summoned Almiri to a council of kings and queens, it would be Vale's word that would condemn another queen to her death. Although this time at least there can be no doubt. This evidence is false, yet Almiri has most certainly aided the Red Riders. Her guilt is beyond question.

When they were done, Zafir seemed pleased. Vale was only bored and depressed. His mind wandered. He quite wanted to wrap his hands around Zafir's neck and squeeze. He was fairly sure that most of the other kings and queens wouldn't have minded at all, although they'd still put him in a cage by the gates as a matter of principle. He'd be disappointed if they didn't.

Yes. And the last time I broke with my orders and all the traditions that lie behind them, look what happened. All of this. There are reasons for our creed, and I would do well to heed them.

'Can we go yet?' he asked. 'I have preparations to make.'

That got him a strange look – annoyance, contempt and something else all wrapped up together. 'If you can contain yourself, Night Watchman, I'm not done here yet. I want to know more about the red rider.'

Inwardly, Vale snorted and rolled his eyes. 'There is…' There is no Red Rider. Just an opportunistic knight dressed up in an old prophecy.

Zafir was looking at him, frowning. He bowed, but that obviously wasn't enough. Well then, I shall choose my next words carefully.

'I do not believe in myths and prophecies and phantoms, Your Holiness. That is the way we Adamantine Men are made. I do not pretend to understand the universe, but I do not believe in ghosts. The red rider is a myth. It is quite possibly nothing more than the random mutterings of an ancient priest so addled with Souldust that even his own acolytes once admitted that half of everything he said makes no sense.' He shrugged and cast Kithyr a glance.

The look he got back was icy. 'The prophecies are truth, Night Watchman,' said the magician.

Vale glared back at him. 'Belief like that turns men into fools. I suppose for the likes of you that might be an improvement, physician.' Be that insolcnt to me again and we'll see just how magic your blood is, mage.

'And in what do you believe, Night Watchman?'

'I believe in what my eyes can see and what my hands can touch. I believe in fire and steel and blood.'

The dead man chained to the wall stirred and moaned again and slurred something to the effect that he hadn't known anything about any red rider. Vale gently bit his tongue and watched the blood-mage carefully. I knew Nastria and she was no fool. She pointed you out to me once. There, she said. There goes my pet blood-mage. Do you know why I keep one? But she never said. What bargain did you make with her? What did you offer that she would deal with the likes of you? And Zafir? Does she even know what you want?

Suddenly he didn't care any more. He took the speaker by the arm. 'Since you ask me to have opinions, Your Holiness, then I have one for you. Enough of this. I will stand before the council of kings and queens and tell them what I have heard. I would have done that anyway. Had you given me a script, I would have repeated it aloud. We are yours, Your Holiness. We serve without question.' Vale laughed bitterly. 'Look at the man! He'll be a corpse before nightfall if he's not already and he's not lying to you. There is no ghost, only a ragtag band of dragon-riders that your lover has destroyed, and I will not stand here in this stink for another five minutes when I could be breathing fresh air. There is much to do. I hope you are as ready as we are for what your dragon-war will bring.'

Zafir shook him off. She gave him another strange look that he couldn't decipher. 'If you serve me, Night Watchman, do so by being silent. I begin to see why I preferred you as you were.'

She made him wait through all five of those minutes and another five besides before she gave up. The rider didn't know anything. No one wore red. Hyrkallan had purloined the name as something of a joke and then he'd left them. After that, the ringleader was a religion-obsessed rider who wasn't related to anyone important. Semian. Vale had met him, once, maybe twice, and the man had barely exhibited powers of conversation, let alone anything strange, mystical or apocalyptic.

Finally, finally, she gave up, although Kithyr promised she would hear the testimony of other 'survivors' if she wished. They hurried out of the tunnels under the Glass Cathedral, leaving the blood-mage and the torturers and whatever other forsaken breeds of men lived down there behind them.

'Tichane,' she snapped at Vale as they emerged into the night. 'Get me Prince Tichane.' In the lantern light she looked flushed and breathless. 'No.' She stopped. For a long time she stared at him, almost right through him. He a was full foot taller that her, twice as wide and probably three times her weight, yet that gaze made him feel small and insignificant.

'No,' she said, more quietly this time. 'As you were, Vale Tassan. Send for Prince Tichane. Walk with me.'

She crossed briskly to the Tower of Air and climbed the steps two at a time all the way to the top. At the entrance to her rooms, Vale hesitated. Zafir beckoned him on. She left doors open behind her as she walked in, stripping off her clothes, waving orders to the servants who tended her. Vale took a deep breath and followed. This wasn't right. This was no way for a speaker to behave. There had been speakers and Night Watchmen who were lovers before. No good ever came of it. And I do not desire you, woman. I would rather have one of the whores that make their homes around our barracks. At least I know they are clean.

By the time he caught up with her, she was naked. 'Your Holiness…'

She turned and smiled at him. 'I did not give you leave to speak, Night Watchman. But I do wonder why it is that whenever a man sees a woman undress, he always assumes so very much?' She stepped past him into a room where the air smelled of warm damp and spices. A bath was waiting for her. Her smile never faltered. 'When Tichane comes to me, I would rather smell of sweet perfume than have that grave-mould of the tunnels hanging from me. But I need you to linger a while. Dismiss my servants. Examine my rooms and make sure they are empty. Then come to me.'