the end he screamed and sobbed like everyone else. There was only one thing he could cling on to: I didn't have her killed.
Eventually it stopped. Jehal slumped, exhausted. Hyram looked him up and down.
'C-Can you still hear me, Viper?'
Jehal made no response. Best to pretend he'd passed out. Then Hyram slapped him.
'Don't p-play coy with me, boy. My man knows h-his work. I know you can h-hear me. Would you like a r-rest, Jehal?' Hyram dragged the brazier closer. His hands were shaking.
'You should get some help with that, old man,' breathed Jehal. 'Before you hurt yourself.'
'M-Master Bellepheros gave everyone in y-your eyrie the truth-smoke.'
'Master Bellepheros stood up in front of my father's court, in front of King Silvallan, Queen Shezira, King-'
'Yes, yes. He found n-nothing. Q-Queen Shezira found nothing. She even s-sent her daughter to ask you while y-you were reeling with M-Maiden's Regret and f-found nothing.'
Ah. So that's what that was about. 'Because there is nothing to find, old man.'
Hyram finished moving the brazier closer to Jehal and sprinkled dust over the coals. Wisps of white smoke coiled up into the air. 'I will show them h-how it is done. Master Bellepheros could not bring his s-smoke to you. N-Not allowed. But I can. Breathe deep, Prince V-Viper. The torture was only a b-bit of fun for me. Now you'll c- confess it all and be hanged. I w-win.' Hyram began to totter away.
'This is a war you're starting, Speaker. Everyone will turn on you. Everyone!'
'N-No they won't.' Hyram almost seemed to smile, but the twitching muscles in his face twisted it into a sneer. 'Even if I'm wrong. N-No one cares, Jehal. Why b-bother? In a few months I'll b-be gone anyway, one way o-or another.'
'If that's truth-smoke, old man, then ask me about the potion I brought with me. The one that eases my father's pain. The one that might cure your symptoms. Ask me about that, you old cripple, and then ask me what it would take from you to ever, ever get your hands on any of it. Ask what you'd have to give me. You're sick. You're dying, and it's the slowest, most degrading death you can imagine. I will relish every day of watching you ebb away. Ask me, Hyram!'
Hyram seemed to chuckle. 'W What makes you think I would have to g-give you anything at all?' He walked away and Jehal was left alone. The smoke risking from the brazier grew thicker and thicker. He could smell a sweet aroma with a strange sickly perfume. Truth-smoke.
Now what? Truth-smoke wasn't perfect. The alchemists liked to pretend that it was, but a clever and determined man could still fool an inept interrogator. Or do the alchemists spread that rumour too, so that we always pay them to do our truth-seeking instead of doing it ourselves? Never mind. I'm clever. I'm determined. Is Hyram inept? No. He's clever too. But what if… I have to make him stupid. How? Can I do that? We'll have to see.
The smoke was getting to him. His head was light and he was starting to lose track of where he was. I didn't have Aliphera killed. She fell off her dragon. It was an accident. I wasn't there. I was sick in bed. He stopped. He couldn't remember what he was thinking about. There was someone else in the room. He couldn't move and he wasn't sure why. And he was hurt. He couldn't remember how that had happened either.
'You were m-mumbling to yourself,' said the voice. Jehal forced his eyes to focus properly. Ah yes. Hyram.
'You're old.' He giggled.
'They say that the w-words a man mumbles to himself as the s-smoke takes him are the lies he wants to tell. What do you think about that?'
Jehal grinned. 'I think that sounds very clever.' A very distant part of him, he realised, did know where he was and what was happening to him. It was as though that part had been locked away in a faraway place. It was jumping up and down and shouting at him, trying to tell him things, but he couldn't hear it.
'So. L-Let's start with what you said. You didn't have Aliphera killed. I-Is that true?'
'I didn't have her killed.' Jehal yawned. 'I was there. Why can't I move my hands?' The faraway part of him was shouting and screaming something. If he tried, he could almost make it out.
'Because they're t-tied to a wheel. You were there? What do you mean you were th-there?'
'I was with her.' He stared at Hyram. 'On the back of her dragon with her when she fell off. I wasn't ill that day. Your alchemist was so close to the truth of it. She did hide something when she flew out of Clifftop, and Prince Meteroa too, when he came back. Me. We went to such trouble, she and I, so that no one would ever know I was with her. Weeks of careful thought. And now here you are with your silly smoke and now you know.'
'You were w-with her?'
'Why, Speaker Hyram, you don't look well at all. I was in her saddle pack. I'd been seducing her for months. Little glances, little touches. She wanted me, old man. Oh, she ached for me. I just had to look at her and she got wet. So she smuggled me onto her dragon so that no one would know, so we could fly away and just fuck all day.' He leered at Hyram.
'No!'
'Yes, old king.'
'I a-asked you if you were 1-lovers. You said n-no!'
'You were torturing me. I lied so you'd stop. You didn't want to hear it, but you should have believed Queen Zafir. Devious little bitch that she is.'
Hyram's shaking was getting worse. He was clenching and unclenching his fists, pacing up and down in front of the brazier. The faraway voice in Jehal's head was still shouting things. Something about Hyram. Jehal frowned.
'Does it bother you, old man?' he asked. 'Does it trouble you?' He twisted his head from side to side, trying to hear what the voice was saying. Goad him? Make him angry? He looked at Hyram again. 'Does this make you angry?'
Hyram hit him. 'Yes. D-Did you kill her?'
Good. There was blood in Jehal's mouth. 'The ground did that. When she fell. Do you want to know why she fell? You do, don't you. Do you want to know why she wasn't strapped into her riding harness? Can't you see it for yourself? Do you want to know whether her body was naked when they finally found her?'
Hyram hit him again.
'Did she fall or did I push her? Is that what you want to know? Or do you want to know whether it was before or after I'd had her?'
This time Hyram hit him in the stomach. 'Shut up!'
'Maybe you'd like to know how many times I took her?'
'Shut up!'
Jehal coughed. 'No. You wanted to know the truth, old king, and so that's what you're going to get. I was her lover. I was with her when she died. I wanted to have her on the back of her dragon. Have you ever fucked on the back of a dragon in flight, old man? It's a thrill, but it's stupid. People fall.' He cocked his head. Keep talking. 'Do you want to know what she was like, Aliphera? Do you want to know how she moaned when she came? Do you want to know what she liked best of all? Do you want to know that she liked it from behind? Do you want to know what she would whisper when I slipped my fingers inside her? Is that what all this is for? Because you can never have her for yourself and you want to know what it was like? Ask away, old man. I can tell you everything?
That was as far as he got. Hyram, rigid with rage, let out a roar. He swore and screamed at Jehal, hitting him again and again. When it stopped, Jehal had a vague idea that it was because some men in veils had finally dragged the speaker away. Throughout it all Jehal grinned.
I win.
34
Kemir
He was lying on his back. He was soaking wet and freezing. Ice-cold water rushed around him. The tumble of stones that littered the river bed pressed into his back. He had a death grip on a man he vaguely knew, a knife
