Stephen Deas - The adamantine palace

Slowly, the dragon reached down with one forelimb. She opened her claws. There was a man curled up in there.

Holy Ancestors, Sollos thought when the man got up. It's the Scales. He looked well enough. A bit stiff and battered perhaps, and he walked a little awkwardly, but for a man stuck on his own in the Worldspine for a month he was remarkably alive. Maybe having skin as hard as stone that flakes like slate helps with that.

Rider Semian and Master Huros came running out of the trees. They ignored him and went straight towards the dragon. Kemir came after them and stopped at his shoulder.

'Oh well! That's going to make all this a lot easier.' He grinned.

'She's very tense.'

'Who?'

'The dragon, you idiot. Look at her.'

'Mmmm.' Kemir nodded. 'Ready to run. Wouldn't you be? Do you suppose she even remembers her knights after all this time. How do you know she's a she-'

Sollos shushed him. The Scales was walking towards the dragon-knights. He seemed very unsure of himself.

'That's enough!' Rider Semian held up a hand and stopped the Scales when they were still a good twenty feet apart. Semian had the alchemist beside him and one other knight. The rest of the riders were still slowly spreading out, edging towards the trees. Sollos did the same.

'Um, what is your name, Scales?' shouted the alchemist.

The Scales replied, but quietly. Sollos couldn't hear him.

'Scales Kailin. We, er, are here to take you home. You and your dragon.'

'Queen Shezira will congratulate you herself,' called Rider Semian. 'Her dragon is still intact, and has not been lost. She will be greatly pleased. There may be a reward.'

The Scales said something else. Sollos screwed up his eyes and strained forward, as if that might help him make out what the Scales was saying.

Then Kemir had a hand on his shoulder and was tugging him back towards the forest. 'I don't like the way this is going.'

'Did you hear him? What did he say?'

'He said no.'

Kemir was right; Sollos could see that by the way that the alchemist and Rider Semian were standing.

'This is not a request, Scales,' shouted Rider Semian. 'This is an order!'

Kemir was still edging back into the trees. He was stringing his bow.

The alchemist suddenly Stepped forward and walked up to the Scales. Sollos had no idea what they were saying, only that the alchemist looked very determined, and the Scales looked, well, if anything, he looked stunned. Aghast.

Something in the air changed. Sollos felt an irrational anger build up inside him. The Scales was gesturing frantically at the alchemist, trying to make him… Trying to make him stop? The dragon had lowered itself to all fours. It was utterly still. Sollos could feel the tension radiating from it like waves of heat.

Kemir put a hand on his shoulder again. 'You know what? I think we should back off a little way further.'

'Yes.' He took a step backwards. Then another. 'Yes, I think we should.'

When the dragon moved, it was so quick that Sollos barely saw it. Its head and body stayed exactly where they were; its tail, all hundred feet of it, flicked like a whip. In the blink of an eye it flashed over the dragon's head. The tip coiled around the alchemist, lifted him up into the air and held him inches from the dragon's bared teeth. For long seconds everyone froze except for the Scales, who sank to his knees, wrapping his arms around his head. And then everything happened at once.

The Wordmaster

The City of Dragons stood behind the Adamantine Palace, squashed against the mountains of the Purple Spur and the Diamond Cascade Waterfalls. The city was a small one by the standards of the realms, but rich, filled with jewels and knights, lords and ladies. To either side of both the city and the palace lay the shimmering waters of the Mirror Lakes. To the south-west, the only open approach to the speaker's domain, were the Plains of the Hungry Mountain, the fertile grain basket of the central realms. On a good day a man in the palace looking out of the windows at the top of the Tower of Air could see all the way over them to the Fury River gorge, a hundred miles south of the city. Today, though, someone had built a very tall temporary wooden tower not very far from the palace gates, and the air beyond was hazy and tinged with grey. A keen pair of eyes might have made out two figures standing on the top of the tower. They might too have made out that the haze over the plains was the dust kicked up by the ten thousand marching men of the Adamantine Guard, preparing themselves for the ceremonies of the weeks to come.

It would have taken exceptional vision, though, to see that those figures on the tower top were the speaker himself, Speaker Hyram, and a master alchemist of the Order of the Scales. Or that the speaker's shaking was worse than usual, that his face was flushed with what might have been excitement but was more probably rage, and that the master alchemist was looking decidedly pale.

'N-Nothing?'

The alchemist was Grand Master Jeiros, Second Lord of the Order of the Scales. The possibility that he might now be the first lord accounted for a good part of his discomfort. He bowed as low as he could without falling over.

'Nothing, Your Holiness. Grand Master Bellepheros stated his conviction before the the whole of King Tyan's court. No one tampered with Queen Aliphera's mount before she left and she was not attacked in the air. If there was murder, it did not originate within King Tyan's eyrie.'

'A-And that is all?'

'Prince Jehal pressed him hard in front of many witnesses. Master Bellepheros would not say whether Queen Aliphera's death was malice or misfortune, although he did allude to some sly goings-on between Aliphera and Tyan's brother. Prince Jehal was considerably displeased.'

The speaker spat. 'Tyan's brother? That gelding Meteroa? Nonsense! W-What of Q-Queen Zafir?'

'We have found nothing to implicate her.'

Hyram growled. 'A-And then B-Bellepheros disappears.'

The second lord scraped another bow. 'Taken by force. Prince Jehal reports that all his guards were found dead, most with their throats slit. Of the master himself…' Jeiros shrugged.

'P-Prince Jehal says!' Hyram spat. 'D-Don't believe a word f-from that viper.'

'Your Holiness, Master Bellepheros chose his words to the court of King Tyan with great care. Implications were presented, not in what he said but in what he did not say. He did not say that Queen Aliphera's death was an accident, Your Holiness.'

'Of c-course it wasn't!' Hyram stamped impatiently. 'D-Do what you need to f-find out who took him, Jeiros. N-Now, concerning the other matter? H-Have you got to the bottom of h-how Prince Jehal is k-killing King Tyan yet?'

Jeiros squirmed. 'Your Holiness, there is still no evidence that King Tyan is being poisoned at all.' He pursed his lips. 'We have learned, Your Holiness, that there may be some truth to the rumours that Prince Jehal has found something that improves his father's condition. It is a little…' He frowned. 'It is unclear,

Your Holiness. There are… there are hints of some potion he has acquired.'

Hyram snorted. 'I-If it's a potion, i-it's from one of you. G-Get to the point!'

'Your Holiness, that is the point. It does not come from the order. We…' He hesitated, but there was no going back now. 'We think it comes from outside the realms.'

Hyram's face went dark; he started to cough and his tremors seemed to grow more pronounced. It took a while for Jeiros to realise that the speaker was laughing at him.

'Y-you have singularly f-failed, Master Jeiros. Y-You have no answers for me, a-and now this? S-So be it. Go, M-Master Jeiros. I will summon Queen Zafir and P-Prince Jehal and I will f-find out who murdered Aliphera, a-and then I will tell y-you which alchemist is making p-potions for Jehal.'