Daniel Abraham - The Tyrant's Law

“Dar Cinlama?” Geder said, reading the name from the petition.

“Lord Regent. Thank you for hearing me out. I was afraid your other business might eat the day,” the man said. There was an amusement in his voice and a sureness of purpose. Even though his words were appropriate and acceptable, they gave the sense that they were equals, two men speaking as men instead of a dusty petitioner before the guiding hand of the Antean Empire. Geder envied him his certainty and disliked him.

“You want me to fund a mission to … where?”

Cinlama smiled.

“If I was sure of that, it would already be too late. Someone would already have found it.”

“It?”

“What there is to be found. The Temple of the Sun. The Salt Scrolls. The lost books of Erindau.”

“Those were forgeries,” Geder said, pouncing too quickly. Cinlama smiled.

“The ones presented so far have been. The true ones are still out there. That’s the thought, isn’t it? My father and his spent their lives in the lost places where the dragon’s roads don’t go. I’ve climbed caverns mankind hadn’t touched in centuries and found carved stone at the bottom. There’s mysteries out there still. Treasures going back all the way to the Dragon Empire. Gems and jewels. Books of knowledge and magic. Devices from the war we don’t even remember except in stories we tell the kids to get them to sleep.”

“And you know how to find these marvels.” Geder loaded the words with skepticism.

“I know how to look. Finding’s a gamble, but if it pays out, there’s no higher prize.”

No was already on his lips when Geder glanced over at Basrahip. The minister’s eyes were wide, his brows lifted. The pretense of prayer and contemplation were gone, and in their place something that could have been alarm or delight. Geder swallowed his refusal and waited, but Basrahip neither nodded nor shook his head.

“Um,” Geder said. “I will have to consider my answer.”

“My thanks for that, Lord Regent,” Cinlama said, smiling.

Geder leaned toward his guard captain. “See him somewhere safe. And don’t let him leave.”

The captain nodded, but there was a hesitation in it.

“You mean the gaol, my lord?”

“No. A guesthouse. Or put him in one of the gardens. Just … just don’t let him leave.”

After that, Geder heard a shepherd asking recompense for his flock, slaughtered by a drunken priest, but by then the joy had gone out of it. He called the halt and withdrew, his guard walking ahead and behind. He stopped at a dry fountain, a copper dragon almost lost to verdigris throwing itself toward the sky, the bodies of the thirteen races of humanity drawn along behind it. Or, looked at differently, pulling it down. Basrahip came shortly thereafter, his face pinched in thought.

“You heard something?” Geder said. “The adventurer. You … I mean, do you think he means what he says?”

“He does,” the priest said. “He did not mislead you, Prince Geder. He seeks what he claims to seek. I would speak with him, if I might.”

Geder pulled his hands into his sleeves, warming his fingers with the ends like mittens.

“I thought as much. I had the guard take him somewhere comfortable and hold him.”

“You are good to us,” Basrahip said, but he seemed distracted. “This man’s errand may be of importance. For time beyond time, the dragons have envied and hated the goddess. If buried shells survived the fire years, we must know. His coming may be the hand of the goddess in the world.”

“Oh,” Geder said. “Then you think I should accept his petition?”

Basrahip put a thick hand on Geder’s shoulder.

“I will speak with him and know more. The goddess’s web is wide as the world and deeper than oceans. Nothing escapes her notice. If he is indeed sent by her, we must honor him.”

“I suppose we will, then,” Geder said. “If the conversation goes the way you hope.”

“My thanks, Prince Geder.”

“I’m chosen by the goddess to bring peace to the world. Really, whatever she says needs to be done, we should do it,” he said.

For the most part, he meant it. The little tug of reluctance was only caution and a rational skepticism. They were in the early stages of a war, after all. They might need to buy food or mercenaries, and if the coin was already spent, that would mean levying taxes or borrowing. So it was best to be certain. He was Lord Regent of Antea. He was the most powerful man in the world. This Dar Cinlama was a wanderer and a beggar, and if Basrahip was enthusiastic about him, it was only because the Dartinae man might be an apt tool for Geder’s projects. That was all. Of all people in the world, Geder told himself, surely he had the least reason to be jealous.

Marcus

No one knew how long the dragons had ruled the world, only that they had. The greatest empire that could be imagined had spanned the seas and lands of mankind and for all anyone knew more besides. The skill and rigor of the dragons had bent the nature of the world to their desires. The thirteen races of humanity and the dragon’s roads were two of their great works that had survived, but many others had passed away. Great cities had floated in the distant air, competing with the clouds for space in the sky. Poems and chants had been composed by inhuman minds with such complexity and beauty that a lifetime’s study still might not do them justice. Devices had been built that set the stars themselves in order and laid plain the books of fate.

Or perhaps they hadn’t. A lot of history could be lost in a generation. One of Marcus’s grandfathers had been a minor noble of Northcoast who’d kept his grandmother as mistress. The other had been a sailor who’d made his money fishing cod and avoiding port taxes. All he knew of them was a dozen or so stories he’d heard as a boy and likely misremembered.

The ages since the fall of the Dragon Empire had swallowed that a thousand thousand times over and left only legends and stories, roads and ruins.

What little there was, though, still had the power to awe.

Larger than the palaces of Northcoast or Birancour, the vast stronghold spread out before them, sinking down into the flesh of the earth level upon terraced level. Ivy clung to the spiral towers and magnificent stone arches. A few brave trees had forced their way through seams in the great blocks of dragon’s jade, their bark bellying over the pavement and their roots spidering out in the vain search for deeper soil. Black water pooled in the low places, thick with slime. Bright-plumed parrots fluttered and complained from the trees and the towers, and tiny scarlet frogs leapt from leaf to broad leaf with a ticking sound like dry twigs breaking. Stepping out from the jungle canopy for the first time in days, Marcus stared up at an open sky the color of sapphires.

“My God ,” Kit said.

“Wouldn’t think it’d be so easy to hide something that big,” Marcus said. “Any thoughts as to what we do from here?”

“I expect that reliquary itself will be in the deepest part of the ruins, guarded and barred.”

“The intent being to keep out people like us.”

“Yes.”

“Wish I’d brought a pry bar,” Marcus said. “We should find shelter for the night. This isn’t our territory, and those very hospitable Southlings who told us none of this existed won’t be pleased we proved them wrong.”

“Can you imagine it, Captain?” Master Kit asked. “This was a citadel of the dragons. These walls have stood here since before the war. Humanity might well have been feral when these stones were set.”

“Or they might have caught us all as slaves to set them. Careful. Snake.”

“What?” Kit said. Then, “Oh.” He moved to the side, and the black-and-silver serpent slid away down the steps toward the dark pools below.