29
Twenty-one days before the Black Mausoleum
The rage came, unsought but with a purpose to be relished. The dragon burned what little was left to burn, smashed rubble and ruins already ground to dust. It flew in ever wider circles, searching and searching and always knowing it would not find what it was looking for.
Until, unexpectedly, it did.
The dragon’s talons hit the earth. The little one was deep under the ground, too deep for claws to dig out, and so the dragon felt at the little one’s thoughts, moving straight and steady. It watched until it saw where the little one would go. It sniffed out the old magics, still lingering under the earth, sorceries of a familiar scent, creations of those who had made the dragons themselves, the silver ones, lost but not forgotten. Never forgotten.
It took to the skies once more and followed the scent of the old magic. It searched for the place where it ended, the place where the little one must surely emerge. It would wait there, silent and hungry. Yet as it reached the great river and began its hunt, another scent, stronger by far, pulled it away. A heady scent this, powerful and old. Something of the silver ones and something else, even greater. It followed and found a thing it had not seen for almost a hundred lifetimes. A floating city. Half finished, pulled through the sky by a dozen dragons in chains. The sight made it pause. It wondered what this could mean. The makers returned? Joy, then? Or rage at its abandonment, at what its makers had done to the world? Amazement that they were not forever gone? Wonder, more than anything. Wonder at what could bring them back.
Which made the disappointment all the worse, for as it flew closer, it understood the truth. There were no makers here, no silver ones, no half-gods, only the endless chatter of the little ones, swarming and teeming as they ever did. Little ones with a toy they did not understand.
It was a dragon. It could have only one retort.
Fire.
30
Twenty days before the Black Mausoleum
The alchemist was sleeping as he crept past her in the cave. Snoring. Curled up beside the shivering shit- eater. He crouched beside her, silent as a shadow, just looking. A lot of thoughts came and went. Things he could do and things he couldn’t. Things he wanted. Outside, after he moved on, he laughed at himself. If the alchemist hadn’t made him her slave, what would he do different apart from take her? Nothing. He’d go with her and her shit-eater to the Raksheh just to see, even though he knew it couldn’t possibly be true.
For a few seconds he wondered what he might do differently if he was the alchemist, but it didn’t take long to reckon the answer to that. Nothing. Nothing at all. He’d have made him into a slave and the shit-eater too. Safest thing. Practical. Didn’t make it any better.
He’d seen the specks in the sky by then, plenty of them, but it took him a moment longer to see the castle and to realise what it was. To realise that it wasn’t supposed to be there, that the Farakkan flood plains had never had such a fortress. When he saw that it was moving, he forgot about the alchemist. Almost forgot about the dragons. Just sat and gaped.
The dragons were pulling it. Couldn’t see any chains or ropes, not from such a distance, but he could see the dragons. Could see where they were and the way they flew. Something was burning too. A haze of smoke hung in the air not far from the fortress. The wind brought him the smell of it, slight but unmistakable.
He’d heard a lot of stories in his time and made up a few too, but this? Yet here it was, right in front of him. A castle. Moving. Dragons pulling it.
Dragons in ropes and chains. Dragons had claws. Talons. Teeth. Dragons smashed and burned. Dragons didn’t shackle themselves.
Someone else had done this.
When the alchemist finally came out, he offered her his hand. She spurned it. Couldn’t say he blamed her, but it made him laugh anyway.
‘I don’t suppose there’s any point to asking you what it is?’ he asked, once he’d let her see it all for herself. The expression on her face was all he needed. Just like the tunnels under the Silver City, just like the bronze doors and their statues that came to life, she hadn’t the first idea. He shook his head, wondering to himself. If anyone was supposed to know about this sort of thing, it was alchemists, wasn’t it? And here she was, ignorant as he was and twice as useless.
‘Changes things a bit,’ he said softly.
‘Does it?’
‘I been watching a while. You can see it’s moving? The dragons are pulling it. You ever see a dragon put itself in a harness? Tie a knot? Splice a rope?’
She shook her head. ‘They can’t. They don’t have the…’ Yes, the truth was dawning on her now.
‘So that’s where we’re going.’
‘There must be people there!’
He nodded. ‘Men.’
‘And they must have… The dragons aren’t burning them!’
‘Not yet.’
‘So they’re…’
‘Men who can still tame dragons. Yes. So that’s where we’re going, right?’ he said again.
‘Yes! Right now!’ She got up as if to make her way back down between the rocks to the cave and the waterfall. He raised a hand to stop her, almost grabbed her arm and then pulled away at the last moment. Must not touch!
‘No, alchemist. At night. In the dark.’
‘But there aren’t any dragons.’
He supposed she meant apart from the twenty-odd flying around the floating castle. ‘Might be true now. Might not be when we’re halfway there, crossing the plains with nothing but mud for cover and no potion to hide our thinking. Be dark by the time we got there anyway. Better to wait.’
She hesitated, then sat down again. ‘What if it’s gone?’
‘We follow it. It’s not moving fast. Not moving much at all.’ But it was moving.
‘They could take us up the Yamuna. They could take us all the way to the caves!’
Had to laugh at that. That was alchemists for you. Got something in their heads, took a dragon to knock it out again. Sometimes not even that. ‘Maybe they got other plans.’
‘Who can it be? It can’t be Hyrkallan. Could it be Speaker Lystra’s riders? But how did they get this far south? And where did it come from? How did they find it? There’s nothing… unless… There are books… There are lots of books I haven’t read. Secret books, only for alchemists of a higher rank. Maybe Jeiros…’ Her words petered out.
‘There were lots of books in Sand,’ muttered Skjorl. ‘Used to be a monastery there. Strange things in some of those. We got stuck down in the caves for weeks there. Dragons all over the place. Burned it to ashes and then smashed it flat. Like everywhere else, I suppose. Then baked everyone in their own cellars. We got there after that, but there were still dragons. Tunnels under the monastery were deep so that’s where we hid. Don’t read words, but there were pictures in some of those books. Strange things. Not like this, but strange. Animals. Not dragons, not snappers, but something in between. Sand lizards with six legs. A thing that looked like a caterpillar the size of a city. Burning rocks falling from the sky. I was in Outwatch too when it fell. Strange place that. Like the Pinnacles,
