Emperor Mage

Blinking huge eyes in the sunlight, the speaker came to the foot of the wall. She was followed by two smaller males.

Daine wished she could meet the god who had moulded these creatures. There was a god with imagination. The source of the shattered bones had to be those powerful jaws, equipped with strong teeth. The least of these creatures weighed more than she did. On their fours they were tallest and heaviest at the shoulder, their spotted fur covering slablike muscle. Their hindquarters were low and short, but strong. Small tails sported jaunty tufts at the end.

‘They’re beautiful,’ she breathed.

‘Spotted hyenas,’ Numair said at her elbow. ‘From the grass plains of Ekallatum, far to the south. Night hunters, for the most part – see the eyes? They have the strongest bite of any mortal predator – it crushes even the bones of water buffalo. Hyena packs are matriarchal—’

‘Matri-what?’ she asked. Kitten voiced an enquiring whistle of her own.

Numair smiled. ‘Their society is ruled by females. Each pack is led by sisters.’

‘Sensible of them,’ Daine said, grinning up at him.

‘Excuse me.’ It was Varice. She bore down on them with a brittle-looking smile. ‘I’m sorry. These animals aren’t to be shown to visitors. I don’t know why the emperor keeps them, when he doesn’t even like them … Numair, Daine, please come back. There’s another part of the menagerie you haven’t seen.’ Linking her arm through Numair’s, she led him away from the hyenas.

Come back sometime, offered the female hyena. Me and my boys are always around.

‘I’ll do my best,’ Daine promised. ‘C’mon, Kit.’

When she caught up to the rest of the group, the prince led them through a second barred gate. ‘This is my uncle’s other collection,’ he announced. ‘Each and every one was captured and brought here for causing trouble for humans.’

Kitten screeched. Daine hushed her, but felt like screeching herself. The cages in this wide courtyard, none of them as pleasant as those for the mortal animals, held immortals. Brass plates on each cage identified killer unicorns, griffins, the flesh-eating winged horses called hurroks, and giant, lizardlike hunters known as Coldfangs. Here, too, she saw unlikely combinations of human and animal: giant, human-headed spiders called spidrens and centaurs of both the peaceful and blood-hungry kinds, the former with hooves and hands, the latter with talons.

To her surprise, one cage held a man and a woman with steel-feathered wings and claws instead of arms and legs – Stormwings. The male had a pale, intense face, aquiline nose, and fixed, hungry eyes. The female’s nose was hawklike, her dark eyes imperious. She had been beautiful in her youth, it was plain, and now, older, she was haughty and commanding.

Daine looked at Kaddar. ‘I thought your uncle was allied with the Stormwings!’

‘He is,’ replied Ozorne’s nephew. ‘The price of the pact with the Stormwing King Jokhun was that Queen Barzha and her mate Hebakh be kept here. Believe me, she would have caused as much havoc in Carthak as Stormwings have in the north, if my uncle had not made the alliance.’

Daine was trembling. ‘What do you feed them?’ she asked, shaking off someone’s restraining hand. ‘Do you bring folk in and scare them, so they can live on that? And these cages are too small. The griffin can barely open its wings.’ Kitten muttered unpleasant things in dragon.

‘They don’t need food, and they don’t require more room,’ said Varice impatiently. ‘You know these monsters don’t fall ill and die. Unless you kill one, they live forever. Would you rather let them raid villages and destroy crops?’

‘We mean no criticism of the way the emperor chooses to run his domain,’ said Duke Gareth. His eyes locked on Daine with a message she couldn’t ignore. She looked at her shoes, biting her lip before more rash words spilled out. ‘Daine speaks only because her bond with all creatures gives her a dislike of cages. Your Highness, my lady, I regret to say I am not as young as I was. Might we find somewhere shaded, and sit for a moment? Your sun is fierce, even this early.’

Their group streamed out through the gates. Daine alone hesitated, staring at these captives. She had no reason to like spidrens, Stormwings, hurroks, Coldfangs, and their kind. Too much of her time in Tortall had gone to fighting immortals like these. Stormwings in particular had caused her, personally, a great many problems. She ought to be glad these were locked away from doing more harm – oughtn’t she?

At midmorning she returned to her rooms, to find an old servant woman there, straightening things. ‘Don’t mind me,’ she said, her grin revealing a handful of teeth. ‘You sit down. I won’t be but another minute.’ She flicked a duster over one of the carved screens.

Awkward and unsure of what to say, Daine sat on a chair. She guessed this was a slave, though she was much older than the other palace slaves that she had seen. The woman’s dress was undyed cotton, looped over one bony shoulder and hanging just to skinny knees. She wore straw sandals. Her only ornament, if it could be called that, was a tattooed bracelet of snaky lines that twined around each other.

Putting aside her duster, the old woman took the pillow from the bed and plumped it. ‘You’re from up north, aren’t you?’ she asked. ‘Up Tortall way?’

Kitten trotted over and tugged the woman’s dress, chattering loudly.

‘Not now, dearie,’ the slave told her, apparently comfortable with a dragon in the room. ‘I have things to do.’

‘Over here, Kit,’ summoned Daine.

The slave laid her hand on Kitten’s muzzle. ‘Enough,’ she said, black eyes dancing wickedly in a seamed face. The dragon was instantly silent. Turning back to the bed, the woman grappled with the slippery eiderdown.

Daine barely noticed Kitten’s abrupt silence. Her upbringing got the better of her, and she stood, placing Zek on her seat. Ma had not raised her to sit idle, not when housework was to be done. She also had not been raised to let an elder work without aid. ‘Here, grandmother – let me help. Kit, move.’ The dragon ducked under the chair. Together the girl and the old woman bared the sheets on the bed and began to neaten them.

‘Yes, I’m from Tortall,’ Daine said. ‘From Galla, before that.’

‘Your first trip to Carthak? What do you make of us Southerners, eh? D’you like it here?’

It occurred to Daine that the woman might be a spy, there to get information from her. ‘It’s all right,’ she said hesitantly. ‘It’s very different from home, of course.’

‘It’s in trouble, you know – the empire.’ The gnarled old hands were busy, tugging and straightening. ‘Famine in the South, five years running – did they tell you? Locusts – folk out of work – wells drying up. It’s as if the gods have turned their faces from the emperor.’

‘It – it’s not my place to say,’ Daine stammered.

‘You ought to look around a bit. Really look. Long as you’re here. The priests don’t like the omens, you know. They whisper that a cold wind’s blowing from the Divine Realms. Might be next time you visit Carthak, it won’t be here. Hard to argue with gods, when they’re done being nice to mortals.’ Briskly she patted the coverlet into place.

Daine blinked at the woman. Her words sounded too much like what the badger had said. And weren’t slaves supposed to be quiet and timid? None of the others had talked to her like this one did: all they’d said was ‘Yes, Nobility,’ ‘No, Nobility,’ and ‘Right away, Nobility.’

‘Do you think the gods are vexed with Carthak?’ she asked, digging her hands into her pockets.

The slave ran her duster over the writing desk. ‘Ask them to show you the temples,’ she advised, apparently not hearing Daine’s question. ‘The shrines. They used to be the glory of the empire. Now they think mages and armies are imperial glory. They think – the emperor thinks – he doesn’t need the gods.’ Wickedly, she reached with the duster and flicked the end of Kitten’s nose as the dragon peered out from under the chair.

Kitten sneezed, then squealed with outrage as her scales turned angry red. Her voice rose as she hooted and chattered with fury. Daine begged her to be quiet, but there was no silencing the dragon this time. The girl knelt and clamped her hands on her muzzle. ‘Stop that this instant!’ she ordered. ‘Look at Zek – you’re hurting his poor ears, and you’re hurting mine!’

Kitten glanced at Zek. The marmoset sat gravely on the back of the chair, paws over his ears. Slowly turning a sullen grey, the dragon whistled what sounded like an apology.

‘She wants discipline,’ remarked the old lady, sounding breathless. ‘Her own folk would never allow her to speak out of turn.’

Concentrating on Kitten and Zek, Daine had taken her eyes off her visitor. When she turned to ask the servant what she had meant, she discovered that the old woman had dragged the tiger-skin rug from under the bed and was attempting to stand with it bundled into her arms.

Daine’s reaction was automatic. ‘Here, grandmother – I’ll take that,’ she said, holding out her hands. ‘Just tell me where it goes—’

The woman dumped the bundle into Daine’s grip, and white light flared. Kitten shrieked as the skin began to writhe. The girl dropped it, horrified. Her head swam, and she toppled over, landing on her hands and knees next to the fur.

As she gasped for air, the skin rippled. The great forepaw, by her toes, flexed. Long, razor claws shot out, then resheathed themselves. By her nose a hind paw stretched, then braced itself on the floor. The rump, no longer flat on the stone, wriggled. Slowly, as if a body filled the empty hide, the cat got to its feet, hindquarters first, then forepaws. The tail lashed.

Daine scooted away from it. ‘Grandmother, you’d best get out of here!’ she cried.

The door opened. A slave peered in, seeing first Zek and Kitten by the chair, then Daine. The door hid the rug from her view. The slave knelt and bowed her head, putting her right fist on her left shoulder. ‘You called this unworthy one, Nobility?’

‘No,’ said Daine. ‘I mean, yes, I mean—’

The slave touched the floor with her forehead. Daine lunged to her feet. ‘Please don’t do that,’ she pleaded, not sure if she spoke to the slave or the tiger. ‘I don’t – I can’t – I’m not a Nobility, all right?’

‘Forgive this one’s faults, Nobility. What do you need? This unworthy one is here to serve.’

She took a breath and got herself in hand. ‘Please get up. And – where’s the old woman?’

‘Old woman, Nobility?’ asked the slave. ‘There is no old woman here.’