Free The Splintered Gods by Stephen Deas Page B

the maelstrom beneath them. He’d never seen it do that before. Usually it stared across the dragon yard, eyeing everyone with greedy hunger, or else it stared at the sky. At night inparticular it sometimes looked up for hours, as though mesmerised by the stars.
    ‘Whatever he does, however terrible it is, you mustn’t stand in his way. He needs your alchemist. Make sure he needs you too. You must survive, Chay-Liang, no matter what fate comes to the rest of us. Close your eyes and look away. Hold the truth close to your heart and never let him see that you have it. Keep it until you can destroy him.’ His grip on her shoulder tightened. ‘But when when that time comes, Liang, you must annihilate him. You must remove him from existence, utterly and completely, or he’ll grow back like a badly excised cancer.’
    Chay-Liang met his gaze and, gods help him, even looked sorry for him. ‘Perhaps if you hanged the rider-slave yourself before they came it might help show she acted without your order?’
    ‘No.’ Tsen shook his head. ‘I will hang beside her for letting it happen, no matter the who or the how, and so I should.’ He leaned into Chay-Liang and hissed in her ear, ‘I played a stupid game and I lost, but I will take him down alongside me before he does it again. I’ll not hang the dragon-rider and nor should you. Not until she speaks. She’s the one other person who knows the truth and she has nothing to lose by telling it!’ He let out a bitter laugh and pulled away, shaking his head. ‘Although if you have any useful enchanter tricks to spirit me away to a quiet little countryside villa while making me appear to be dead and hanged, I’ll become a most enthusiastic listener. I have one, you know. In the Dominion, a hundred miles along the coast from Merizikat. With a nice orchard full of apples and a winery. And a good bathhouse.’
    ‘She’ll die as soon as she speaks. I’m sure she knows that.’
    Tsen stopped, struck again by the memory of the two of them in his bath together, how she’d knocked the poisoned wine out of his hand after so carefully putting it there in the first place. Why? He still hadn’t the first idea. ‘So will I,’ he said. ‘And you know, I sometimes wonder how much that matters. Maybe we promise to send her home.’
    He watched his enchantress closely after he said that and saw the conflict plain across her face. The dragon gone and the rider-slave with it: dead would be better but gone was still good. Then hunger to get it done. And happiness for the alchemist who would surelygo too. And then sadness, and for the same reason. Rather too much sadness, Tsen thought. He kept on watching though, until the play was done, and then squeezed her shoulder. ‘You made her armour. She ruined it. You should start making more. If you have something Shonda needs then he won’t kill you until it’s finished. Be slow. Let it buy you time. Make a few adjustments to keep her in line if you like.’
    He let Liang go, and together they watched the dragon again. It was staring at the pillar of the Godspike going on and on and vanishing into the deep blue of the desert sky overhead. Tsen stared too. You didn’t get a blue like that at sea, nor in Xican or Khalishtor – though in Khalishtor you rarely got anything except rain-cloud grey. Only in the desert a blue like this.
    ‘Do you think it knows what the Godspike is?’ he asked.
    Chay-Liang chuckled. ‘I’m not sure it knows much more than that it’s hungry.’ She sighed. ‘If you come out here at night, the Godspike has a light to it. But if you do, remember to bring a blanket. It’s a bitter cold under the stars up here.’ She left him there, staring. Presumably she had things to do. Presumably Tsen did too. He just couldn’t think what any of them were.
    She was right about the cold. He came out again to look at the Godspike that night because yet again he couldn’t sleep and, well, because there were probably only a