Stephen Deas - The adamantine palace

The Mirror Lakes

The Mirror Lakes, clustering around the City of Dragons, were generally thought to be perfectly round and perfectly bottomless. The ground didn't slip gently and gracefully away under the water; it simply stopped. In the myths of the dragon-priests the Divine Dragon moulded the world from clay and then baked it hard in the flames of his breath. The people of the city weren't the most religious of folk, but they generally agreed that if the priests were right, the Mirror Lakes must have been where the dragon-god stuck his claws into the clay to hold it tight while he did his work. Strange and monstrous creatures were rumoured to inhabit the lakes, rising to the surface sometimes in the middle of the night, swallowing boats whole and then sinking again, disappearing without trace.

From where Jehal sat, perched at the top of the Diamond Cascade falls, one could see that the lakes weren't perfectly round at all. He was fairly sure they weren't bottomless or inhabited by monsters either, but no one had ever proved that, one way or the other. Vanishing boats, he thought, were more likely to be the work of thieves, and any monsters that inhabited the lake were probably of the human variety.

He could see the city too, and the Adamantine Palace, all laid out some half a mile beneath him through the haze of spray from the falls.

Mine. It's all going to be mine.

Behind him Wraithwing splashed in the waters of the Diamond River. A shadow passed overhead and moments later another dragon came in to land. The two dragons looked at each other curiously. The newcomer dived into the water and started to drink. Its rider sauntered towards Jehal. She took off her helmet.

'I was wondering whether you'd come. You have some explaining to do,' said Jehal. He had to speak loudly to be heard over the roar of the waterfall.

Zafir smiled. She didn't say anything but sat beside him and looked over the edge.

'You should be careful,' said Jehal. 'You could fall.'

'We could both fall.'

'I watched you come up from the eyrie. You didn't bring any riders with you. No one knows where you are. No one knows who you're with.'

She put a hand on his arm. 'Did you bring any riders, Prince?'

'Of course not. You never know who might have lined their pockets.'

'How far did my mother fall?'

Jehal shrugged. 'We're higher now. You stole my potions. And you've been writing letters to Hyram.'

She didn't look at him. 'You've been to see your new family. How is Queen Shezira?'

'Do you feel threatened, my love?'

'Not at all. Do you?'

'Not in the least.'

'I didn't steal your potions. I took them because you told me to.'

'I told you to take one.'

'Hyram's got them now.'

'I know.'

She looked at him, and the flicker of a smile played at the corner of her lips. 'And I know you know. I saw your little golden dragon sitting on the windowsill, watching us with its beady ruby eyes. How many more of those have you got?'

'Only that one and the one I gave to you. They were a wedding present from the Taiytakei.'

Zafir raised an eyebrow. 'It was almost worth marrying your little starling then. And what do they want, the Taiytakei?'

Jehal shrugged. 'To see me prosper, I suppose.'

'That doesn't sound like the Taiytakei.'

'They want what they always want and what they can never have. A hatchling.' For a few seconds Jehal stared out into the void over the city below. Sitting up here with his feet dangling over the empty air, he almost felt he could fly. No dragons, just him. It would be easy, wouldn't it? To let go and soar and be free of it all. No more Hyram, no more Shezira. No more watching his father's glacial crawl towards death. No more constant battling of wits with the Taiytakei and all the others that surrounded him, fawning at his feet for favours while all the while hiding poisoned daggers behind their backs. No more-

No more Zafir. He turned and looked her squarely in the eye. 'Well?'

'Well what?'

'Did Hyram tell you that he tortured me?'

'No. He said he hadn't been very kingly.' She spat. 'As if that was somehow a change.'

'Well he's not a king, is he, so I suppose we shouldn't be surprised. He wasn't very good as a torturer either. Maybe I should send him one of mine for next time. In fact he was so inept I had to show him how to make a proper job of it. We're beyond words now, he and I. I think I have to muster my dragons when I go south.' He shook his head. 'I'm at a loss. I didn't think he'd dare anything so bold.' Now he laughed. 'I almost had some respect for him, for a moment, until he let me go. Now if he'd killed me outright and taken the consequences, why I think I might even have given him a round of applause. And then I think of him rutting with you after I left, and I just want to paint the palace with his blood.'

'Don't!' Zafir shuddered. 'He doesn't deserve even to exist in your thoughts.'

'Ahh.' He took her hand and kissed it. 'You're very sweet, my lover.'

Zafir pulled her hand away. 'Don't touch me. I don't want anyone to touch me. I tried to think of you when I let him have me, and now when I think of you, I think of him.' She shivered. 'It's horrible.'

'Antros was always supposed to have been quite the lover. Hyram didn't share his talents?'

'He was drunk, selfish, boorish and pathetic. I had to do everything for him. Didn't you see with your little Taiytakei toy?'

'I saw you writhe and wriggle under him. I heard your squealing too. Quite a show, I thought.'

'Mercifully quick.' She made a face. 'If you saw it all anyway, don't ask me any more. What's Shezira up to in the Purple Spur? She's making Hyram nervous, and you going there didn't help that at all.'

Jehal laughed. 'Really? Why now, I would never have thought of that. Yes, a little more distrust between them can never hurt, but I'm afraid Queen Shezira has returned to her eyrie. I had her delight of a daughter to waste my charms on instead.'

'Almiri?'

'No, not the nice one; the one that's made of the same flinty stuff as her mother. The one that thinks she's a dragon born human by mistake. Jaslyn. The one who asked me whether I was poisoning my father while the Maiden's Regret had me.' He laughed. 'I shall have to thank Queen Fyon for that. She's a bit sharper than I've given her credit for. No, I had a frosty welcome to say the least. I might have said one or two things out of place. Perhaps she was kind enough to put that down to my exertions of the previous days.' He laughed again. 'They were still trying to find their missing dragon, and now they've lost another one.'

Zafir raised an eyebrow.

'Seems they tracked their white down, and it turned on them. Princess Stone did her best to make sure I didn't find anything out, but there's a dragon out there with a broken wing. They've lost an alchemist and I saw a rider in a pretty poor state. Apparently someone put an arrow in his leg, so the white's not flying around aimlessly on its own, that's for sure.' Not the white. His white. 'When I left, they were trying to work out how to put their injured dragon down.' Jehal scratched his chin. 'They had quite a lot of alchemists there, now that I think about it. More than I would have expected. And of course I now know exactly how many dragons she's got out there and have a shrewd idea how many riders too. She didn't like me paying attention to that sort of thing.' He shrugged. 'Still, I'm quite impressed. They're up to something, and I still haven't got the first idea what it is.'

Queen Zafir shook her head and looked away. 'Prince Jehal, that won't do at all. They may make Hyram nervous, but they bother me too – so many dragons so close by.' She stopped and peered down at the city. From the Adamantine Eyrie the tiny distant shape of a dragon was rising into the air. 'You're going to have to go.' She stood up.