‘The less time we spend here, the more likely we are to live,’ Skjorl told her, not that she ever asked him to slow down. Maybe he saw the strain in her face, but she wouldn’t complain, not to him. He’d stop if she told him too, she knew that; he’d walk slower if she asked, stand on his head or go and drown himself in the river if she demanded it, but for now he was doing what needed to be done, driving them on.
She saw the forest as they settled down to hide on the fourth day, distant hills above the plains, lit up by the rising sun. The river was already starting to change, from a wide sluggish brown to clear and flowing with purpose. The fields were away from the river now, more uneven, the earth harder. By the end of that night the villages they passed were still shattered and burned but the houses weren’t built on stilts any more. They were past the flood plains. Towards the next sunrise they came to the ruins of another village, a few stones houses on the edge of the hills. They were scorched, their roofs gone; they were black and empty shells half tumbled down, but carved over one doorway Kataros saw the outline of a dragon, worn and faded. She saw it and knew exactly where they were.
‘Looks as good a place to stop as any,’ muttered Skjorl. ‘One more day in the open. Another night of walking and then we should be in the trees. You can rest a bit then.’ He put Siff down and wandered around the buildings, looking to see what was there. Kataros stayed where she was. There weren’t any bodies, not that she could see, and by now all they ever saw were bones, but still… The dragon was the sign of the Order of the Scales. Of the alchemists. She doubted she would have known any of her kin who had died here, but that’s what they were. Kin. The order had a house here because it was close to the Raksheh. She knew it, had even come here once. You could ride a boat, if you were willing to brave the worms, all the way down the Yamuna from here; or you could ride a different boat up to the forest, but somewhere nearby were rapids that no boat could pass, and so the order had built this place, a way station for their own, with rooms to dry herbs and roots, to salt them or roast them or mix them with oil or water or vinegar or with blood.
Skjorl came out of one house and went into another.
‘There’s a trail from here to the forest,’ she told him, but he didn’t seem to hear. In the light of the half-moon the ruins cast shadows that merged together, one after the other. If she let herself drift, they all merged into one. She supposed she ought to feel something in a place like this. Sadness. Loss. Something, at least; she’d felt a sadness when they passed through the burned-out towns and villages by the river after all, so she ought to feel it here as well, oughn’t she? But she didn’t. All she felt was indifference, nothing more, nothing less. If the Adamantine Palace hadn’t burned, her brothers and sisters would have made her a Scales. They would have dulled the spark within her and fed her their potions and made her fall in love with a monster, and never mind that she was as good an alchemist as any of them. She’d liked her men, liked her wine, liked other things. She’d said things that she shouldn’t and they’d flogged her for it, and she’d gone straight out and done it again.
She looked up at the moon and the fitful clouds and picked absently at the hard skin on her knuckles, the first stages of Hatchling Disease. Siff and Skjorl had both drunk her blood. They’d have it too now, although it would take a good while to show. The alchemist’s curse: I can give you a potion to help with that. Just one little thing: if you drink it, it’ll slowly turn your skin to stone. She hadn’t exactly been pretty to start with, but then an alchemist wasn’t supposed to care about such things. An alchemist’s thoughts were always lofty.
Indifference. The alchemists had given her much. They’d taken much too. Dragons had made her what she was, not men, except perhaps the one called Kemir.
‘There’s a cellar here.’ Skjorl came out of another ruin. He looked pleased with himself. Then she saw he was holding something, one in each hand. Bottles. ‘We stay here for the day,’ he said. ‘Don’t know if any of what’s down there is stuff we can eat, but I’m happy.’ He took a swig from one of the bottles and bared his teeth. ‘Still good. A sight better than the rotgut we used to drink back when there was anything more than water.’ He wrinkled his nose. ‘Have a look. You’d know better than me.’
He sauntered over to where he’d left Siff and made as if to lift the outsider over his shoulder again.
‘Piss off, doggy.’ Siff’s eyes were open. Droopy but open. ‘I can walk.’
‘Suit yourself, shit-eater.’
She ignored them both and went inside. Skjorl had left the trapdoor open. Something between a ladder and a steep set of steps went down into the darkness. She climbed inside and made her way carefully down to the little square of moonlight that shone through the ceiling. Beyond, around her, everything was almost pitch black. A little light gleamed from a rack of dusty bottles where Skjorl had found whatever he was drinking.
She found she was angry with him for that. Not that she had any good reason to be, but he’d taken something from the dead here, something that he didn’t even need. There’d been no reverence, no respect, no pause to wonder at the lives that had been lost here; he just took for himself without a thought. Odd, she thought, to resent him for that amid her own indifference.
On the floor next to the rack of wine bottles she found a little box carefully stocked with alchemical lamps. It was tucked out of the way where no one would ever see it, but when you were an alchemist you came to know where to look. Everywhere she’d ever worked had caves or tunnels or cellars; at least, everywhere that was near dragons, which was anywhere an alchemist was likely to go. They all had their lamps, kept where they were needed, and you acquired an instinct about where to look for them. She took one out of its box. She’d made them herself once — a little cylinder of thin brown glass, a small cup of Kyamberan’s potion filling the glass halfway, then a disc of waxed paper, carefully sealed on top. When it was dry, fill the top half of the lamp with caveworm essence and seal it shut. Some lamps had a hole in the top with a small stick you could use to poke at the seal between the two halves. Others were closed and had to be shaken to break the seal and make them to work. Every alchemist learned to make lamps. If she looked, she’d probably find all the pieces she needed right here.
Age had done no favours to the seal inside and the lamp started to glow almost as soon as she picked it up. A dim and cold white light slowly filled the room. The Adamantine Man had been right: there was a workshop here, or part of one. There were benches, chairs, a rack on the wall filled with pots of powders of dried herbs and roots… and a skeleton in the corner.
She jumped back and almost dropped the lamp. The skeleton sat slumped with its legs sprawled out, its skull lying on the floor beside a pile of empty bottles. He — she maybe — was still dressed in a few rags. The skeleton had a knife resting between its fingers. The other arm was across its lap. She could almost see his end — the last alchemist of the Raksheh, lost and alone among the ashes, furious dragons overhead, too scared to leave his cellar, slowly starving, finally caving in to despair and cutting himself deep and simply letting the blood flow.
‘Any food down there?’ shouted Skjorl from the trapdoor. Kataros jumped again. ‘See you found some light.’
‘No. No food.’ She hadn’t looked, but no alchemist with his head on right would keep food in the same place as he kept his materials. There were far too many ways that could go wrong.
‘Raw fish again then.’ On their second day along the river the Adamantine Man had found a tattered fishing net half buried in the mud. Ever since, he’d been obsessed with using it. No more roots and berries, even though they were plentiful; Skjorl wanted meat. As it turned out, he was a decent fisherman, and he came back every dawn with three or four of them, expertly gutted, and it never seemed to take him very long. Kataros’ stomach turned. Roots and berries she understood.
As soon as she heard Skjorl’s footsteps recede, she went back to looking at what the alchemists here had left her. Most powders kept well enough if they stayed dry, and most roots and leaves too, although you could never be sure there wasn’t any contamination. Did she need anything?
‘So.’
For the third time she almost jumped out of her skin. Now it was Siff, crouching at the top of the steps. She’d forgotten about him; she’d grown so used to him being mute and slung across the Adamantine Man’s shoulders.
‘Can I come in?’
‘Yes.’ She watched him come down the ladder. He moved slowly, carefully and cautiously. ‘Finding your strength again?’
‘Yes, I’m on the mend,’ he said when he got to the bottom. He met her eye. ‘Don’t feel like I’m closer to the ghosts of my ancestors than I am to living any more. Thanks to you, I suppose. Doggy gone for a bit?’
‘Skjorl is fishing for us.’ Siff’s contempt for the Adamantine Man was fine enough when it was to Skjorl’s face. Alone with him, she found it uncomfortable. Maybe it was being in a room with one way out and him standing between her and it, or maybe it was that the Adamantine Man he so despised was the one who carried him and caught the food that was giving him back his strength. Maybe it was both.
