Stephen Deas - The adamantine palace
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- Название:The adamantine palace
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An adequate effort.
She sat or stood next to Hyram for the entire time, yet she couldn't talk to him. At least not about what she wanted. At the end of the feast, when Hyram stood up and wobbled and declared that he was retiring to his bed, Shezira watched him go, then slipped away to follow him. The Hyram she remembered would almost always slip away to bed early after a feast, it was simply a question of whose bed. This time, though, as she watched, he staggered and meandered his way towards the Glass Cathedral. She followed him inside, half expecting to find him locked in an embrace with some dragon-priestess. Instead, she found him prostrate at prayer.
She knelt beside him at the altar and looked up at the face of the dragon glaring down at them. Hyram stank of wine.
'I should thank you for your hospitality,' she said. Hyram didn't seem to hear her. She shivered. Somehow, the Glass Cathedral was always cold.
'This p-place is a lie,' said Hyram suddenly.
'What?'
'The G-Glass Cathedral. It's a lie.' He turned to look at her. His face was flushed and he was either about to burst out laughing or fall about weeping.
'Are you drunk?'
'It makes the t-tremors better. Three bottles of wine and I c-can almost believe I am well again.'
Shezira raised an eyebrow. It was true that Hyram didn't seem to be shaking as badly now, but he couldn't keep his eyes focused on her while he was talking, either. 'Are you sure that's not the wine, lying to you?'
'Does it matter?'
'I suppose not.'
Hyram nodded, as though that was the end of their conversation. He lifted his face towards the stone dragon above them, closed his eyes and sighed. 'Please…'
Shezira shifted uncomfortably. This wasn't the Hyram she remembered at all, and she wasn't quite sure what to do with him, except maybe help him up and show him to his bed.
He started to climb unsteadily to his feet. Instinct made her offer a hand to help him, but he shied away from her as though she'd offered him a snake by mistake.
'I wouldn't even be here i-if my brother… if Antros hadn't died. It should have been Antros who got this place. You and him. H-He was supposed to be the new speaker, not me. That was the arrangement. I-I would have inherited my father's throne, not my cousin Sirion. I would have been a king. I was going to m-marry Aliphera. Did you know that?'
Aliphera? Shezira shook herself. She hadn't the first idea what Hyram was talking about. Did he even know what he was saying? She got up. 'You are drunk. Let us talk in the morning instead.'
'It had to be one of us, but everyone liked A Antros better, didn't they. Except you. And Aliphera.' He looked at her suddenly. 'I never quite worked out whether y-you had Antros killed or whether it really was an accident.'
She slapped him. He staggered back and fell over. 'You are too drunk, Hyram. You forget yourself.'
Hyram wiped his face and picked himself slowly to his feet. 'You liked Aliphera too.'
'I respected her.'
'Well I l-liked her. I was going to marry her once. But then…' His face grew distant. For a moment Shezira thought Hyram was simply going to fall asleep in front of her. 'Things happened. It would have b-been a good match, though. She was always the sensible one from that lot in the south. If I had married her, I'd have to have made her s-speaker after me, though, wouldn't I? And that wasn't the arrangement. S-So I did what I was supposed to do. I will honour the p-pact. That's what you c-came here to ask, isn't it?'
Shezira sighed. 'I came here to pay my respects to the Speaker of the Realms. I did not expect to find myself in a midnight tryst with a drunkard.'
Hyram peered at her. 'Promise m-me something.'
'Promise you what?'
'Promise m-me the truth. Tell me one thing, and I will p-promise that you will have this palace after me.'
'I am not, by habit, a liar, Hyram.'
'When Antros died, w-was it you who cut his harness?'
Shezira clenched her fists. 'Everyone who was there saw what happened. We were hunting snappers, as we often do. When we saw the pack, several of the dragons dived. His went with them. He always wore his harness too loose, and on that day, he wore it much too loose. He fell. He shouldn't have, but he did, and it wasn't the first time either. For some reason, his legbreaker rope was too long. It caught him all right, but he ended up hanging underneath his dragon. He was dragged along the ground and through the trees for about a mile before we could make his mount come to ground. I've never seen a dragon so agitated. Antros was dead when we reached him. It all happened in front of a dozen witnesses. No one pushed him and no one cut his harness.'
Hyram gave her a reproachful look. 'You n-never liked him, though.'
'Oh, I was young and he was well into his middle years!' Shezira stamped her foot. 'He was going to be the next speaker one day. He'd already had one wife and she hadn't given him any children. That's what he wanted me for. Heirs. I was a dutiful wife, Hyram, and he was a dutiful husband. I was in awe of him. I didn't have time to like him.' She sighed. 'It might have been a little different if I'd given him a son, but all I gave him were daughters, one after another. He never even saw Lystra.'
'Hmmm.' Hyram suddenly sat down. He sounded sad. 'No sons for Antros, no s-sons for me. The end of our line.'
'You can still sire sons.'
The speaker looked up at her, shaking. Shezira couldn't tell whether he was laughing or sobbing. 'L-Look at me, woman. Who would have me? Would you have me? You should have done. By rights, you sh-should have. After Antros was gone, you should have married me in his p-place.'
Shezira sighed. 'Yes. But my childbearing ended with Lystra, as you were so keen to point out.' She looked down at Hyram and shook her head. Not the man she remembered. Not the man she wanted to remember. The old Hyram had reminded her of her dead husband. This one… She didn't know whether to despise him or pity him. She turned away. 'Besides, you blamed me for Antros. You still do. Somewhere in your heart, you think I had a hand in it.'
When Hyram spoke again, his words were so quiet that Shezira almost didn't hear them. ' Aliphera f-fell off her dragon too.'
She laughed. 'That's ridiculous.'
'If Antros could f-fall off, why not her?'
'Antros was arrogant. Aliphera was always meticulously careful.'
'I've sent B-Bellepheros to King T-Tyan's eyrie to find out.' He grimaced. 'Yes, th-that's where it happened, and that's where you're g-going. So I think I should w-warn you to have a care. P-People die around the Viper.'
'The Viper?'
'Prince Jehal. H-He's a snake, you see. A p-poisonous snake. A Viper.'
'Then I will be very careful. Some people seem to think he's poisoning his own father. Could that be true, do you think?'
'W-Why don't you find out? Because I'd very much 1-like to know. A g-gift for me.' He stood up and spread out his arms. 'In exchange for all this.'
'It's cold in here,' said Shezira. She was tired, and seeing Hyram like this had killed all the joy that the palace had given her. 'I shall retire. I will think on what you've said.'
'I-I remember the first time I came here. I thought the Glass Cathedral would be a palace of light and colour. But it isn't. It's old, cold dead stone, its skin burned glassy by dragon fire so long ago that no one can even remember how it happened.'
Shezira turned slowly away. 'Go to bed, Hyram. Get some sleep.' She walked away.
Hyram stayed where he was, staring up at the stone face of the dragon altar.
'Th-This place is a lie,' he said again.
8
The Attack
A torrent of flames poured from the sky, swallowing the white dragon and her Scales in its fury. The river waters steamed. Stones cracked in the heat. Huros stood stock still. He was fifty, sixty, maybe seventy yards away. A little part of him that wasn't paralysed with fear noted that this was too close. At the last instant he turned his face away, as a wall of hot air and steam seared his skin and slapped him back towards the woods. He caught a glimpse, as he did, of the stranded rider, the one who'd been shouting at the Scales, catapulted into the air, snatched from the ground by the dragon's tail. Of the Scales himself, there was no sign.
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