we don't know that. But we know that their spirits go in an endless cycle. They're not like us. They remember their past lives, or rather they would, if they awoke. Do you know how many times dragons have escaped us and awoken from their stupor?' Jehal had never heard of such a thing happening at all, at least not until the white dragon at the redoubt. It must have shown on his face because Jeiros smiled. 'No, Prince Jehal, the redoubt was not the first time. There are dragons out there among us who have awoken before. Who have awoken and been destroyed. Who have returned as a hatchling, remembering everything that happened to them. Knowing everything that we do to them.'
'And then you do it to them again.'
'If we can, yes.' Jeiros nodded. 'If we can't then they die. You see, Prince Jehal, there is a great deal that even you don't know. Knowledge we hold for kings and queens and the masters of our order, and for them alone.'
'Kings and queens and master alchemists? Why so miserly?'
'Knowledge is dangerous, Prince Jehal. You of all people understand that. Knowledge is a means to power. '
Jehal laughed, even though that always hurt. 'And there I was, imagining that you were hoarding all this knowledge simply to give your order a reason for being.'
The alchemist didn't bite. If anything, he sounded sad. 'Seventy years ago, a rider happened upon some of our secrets. He took it upon himself to free his dragon of our potions. He thought they would be more powerful, and indeed they are. His dragon ate him. Then it ate a lot of other people too. It destroyed a realm. Nor was that the first time.'
'I've never heard of this!'
'Oh you but have, Prince Jehal. You know almost everything about it. The story of a realm ripped apart by its own royal family's infighting? Their eyries destroyed, their riders slain, their dragons stolen? A realm rendered so weak that those around it simply helped themselves to the pieces. A realm that barely exists any more, with no king, no queen. A realm whose people shift in endless wandering though the Sea of Sand…' 'The Syuss.'
'The Syuss. You see. You do know the story.' 'But that was… I thought that was…'
The master alchemist was smiling again. 'Prince Kazan? Civil war? A revolt against the oppressions of King Tiernel? No. Kazan was the rider stupid enough to awaken his dragon. Twelve other dragons went missing trying to find him. Fortunately half of them didn't have time to wake and still it took the intervention of three neighbouring realms and Speaker Ayzalmir to put an end to it. Hundreds of riders were killed. Most of what you think you know is true, the picking over the pieces afterwards, the destruction of the realm as it was. But the beginning…' Jeiros grinned broadly. 'Not what you think. There are always the same number of dragons in the realms, Prince Jehal. This is why you have so many eggs in your eyrie and yet so few of them hatch, because no egg can hatch until another dragon dies. But do you know why? Do you know how many? When they do hatch, a quarter of hatchlings only last a few days. Again, do you know why? Do you know how the dragons were tamed? No, you don't.'
'No, there you are wrong, Master Jeiros.' Jehal screwed up his face as he shifted slightly in his bed. 'I know that story. The last of the great wizards sucked all the magic out of the realms in one mighty spell…' He stopped. Jeiros was trying not to laugh.
'Forgive me, Your Holiness. The stories of the Adamantine Spear and of the last great wizard and other such mumbo-jumbo. These are stories for children, not for kings, not even for princes.' He cocked his head. 'You know how the dragons at the redoubt were defeated, poisoned by their own greed. The Embers trace their traditions back to the first free men. We fed our first potions to the wild dragons in the only way we knew. Then we sought out their eggs. At first we killed the hatchlings, but then we found we could use them. It made finding the rest a lot easier.' He chuckled. 'No, the symbols of the speaker are a ring and a spear, but that is all they are, symbols. They might have had a power once, but not any more.'
Jehal narrowed his eyes. 'Are you lying to me, Master Alchemist? I had thought the Silver King tamed the dragons.'
Jeiros' face didn't give anything away. 'We guard our secrets well and if you understood them, you would guard them too.' He reached the door and bowed. 'Good evening to you, Prince Jehal. When you are a king, we will speak of these matters some more.'
'One moment, Master Alchemist. How much of this does Zafir know?'
Jeiros shook his head. 'She is a queen, Your Holiness, and the speaker. She knows as much as she needs to know. More than you.' With that, he bowed one last time and left. Jehal closed his eyes. That's a lot to thinly about and I don't have the strength these days. One at a time then. The Syuss. He reached into his memories, trying to think, but all the stories he could remember were filled with holes. He could feel himself drifting, losing his concentration. That was the Dreamleaf messing with him. Better Dreamleaf than constant burning agony. He shuddered. If anyone ever wanted to torture him again, all they'd have to do was bring him back to this room, pull out a chamber pot and wave it at him.
Jeiros is bound to have a book. He can lend it to me. Maybe he can lend me someone to read it too, so I don't have to find the energy to sit up.
He wasn't sure whether what happened next was a dream or a memory. He was drifting into sleep and then he was wide awake and the room was much darker; in between, he'd been the speaker, riding to war, clutching the Adamantine Spear in one hand and a cage full of birds in the other. When he let the birds out of their cage, he wasn't sure whether he was Ayzalmir, bringing order and peace to a ruined realm, or whether he was Zafir, and the birds were chaos and death.
A cold certainty gripped him, that someone else was in the room. He strained his ears. Kazah was snoring gently but Kazah didn't count. He could feel someone else. A presence lurking in the shadows, silent and invisible and yet very much there.
'Who are you?' He spoke quietly, almost at a whisper, but in the stillness the words sounded loud. Calm though. At least they sounded calm.
Now he saw a shadow move. He started to rise, but that sent a spear of pain through him.
'Shall I light a candle?' asked the shadow. 'I don't want to wake the boy.'
'I don't converse with ghosts and shadows. Let me see your face.' Jehal slipped his hand under his pillow. He had a knife there, always.
'Are you sure?'
'Yes, I'm quite sure, thank you.' I should be shouting for the guard, except most likely they let him in.
'Very well.' The shadow walked away from Jehal's bed to the far corner of the room where a night candle burned. The shadow lit another and slowly returned. Now Jehal could see. The shadow had a man's face. One he'd seen before.
'I know you. You were one of Shezira's men.' Now I really should be shouting for the guard. But the voice. That was much more recent.
The man laughed very softly. 'Are you afraid of me, Prince Jehal?'
'I am unaccustomed to strangers slipping into my room at night. It sets me on edge.' The voice. I know the voice. He wasn't a rider.
'Whereas I am very much accustomed to it. I've been in here with you before. Do you remember? We made an agreement. As deathbed visions go, I like you. That's what you said. Ringing any bells?'
'Ah.' Jehal's mouth felt very dry. 'I'd rather hoped you were a hallucination. I liked you a lot better that way.'
'And I liked you a lot better when you were nearly dead.' 'Who are you?'
'I have many names. Kithyr will do. I am a blood-mage. No one else could have saved your life and I meant every word about putting the poison in your blood right back where it came from. I have it stashed carefully away, should I ever need it. You are mine, Jehal.'
'Right.' Jehal's fingers closed around the hilt of his knife. Never mind the pain. One quick strike and it's over. Then you can scream. 'So now you want something from me in return for my life. And if I don't give it to you, you're going to kill me? Do you really think that's going to work?'
The candle threw strange shadows over the blood mage's face.
It made his features shift and blur and change so they were almost impossible to read. 'Taking the poison out of your wound also took a great deal from me, Prince Jehal. I told you then that what I truly want for that is not yet something that is yours to give. What I want now is more of a first instalment, and much more in your gift. What interests me now is money.'
