The Adamantine Palace by Stephen Deas Read Free Book Online

presence again.’
    He nodded brusquely and waved over some of his attendants. He and Shezira walked in silence away from the eyrie, the attendants following. Mouth-watering words gushed from their lips, describing the pleasures of the mind and of the flesh that awaited her, but Shezira barely heard them. It should be Hyram telling me these things, not his courtiers. Has the sickness become so bad that it’s robbing him of his speech? How long before he can’t even walk any more?
    Carriages were waiting to take them to the palace. Then they had to wait for Jaslyn and Lystra and Lady Nastria and the other riders Shezira had brought with her, and after that there were endless rituals and formalities to observe, and then the obligatory feast to honour guests, none of which interested Shezira at all. At least Hyram had put some effort into it. Tiny alchemical lamps festooned the vast spaces of the Chamber of Audience. There were hundreds of them, thousands, strung out on lines like little glow-worms, hundreds more studding the vaults of the ceiling like stars so that it seemed they were feasting outside under the sky. Statues surrounded them, larger than life, silent guardians carved in granite. All the speakers who had ever ruled the realms, watching over them. Above them, marble dragon heads reached out from the walls, peering down from the shadows, sullen and brooding. Little lamps were hidden in their mouths to make them glow. As they entered, voices hushed to whispers or stopped altogether, awed by the Speaker’s hall. Then the feast began, the noise resumed and the hall filled with servants running to and fro with cups of wine, platters of roasted meat, huge pies and colourful glazed pastries twisted into the shapes of dragons and men.
    An adequate effort.
    She sat or stood next to Hyram for the entire time, yet she couldn’t talk to him. At least not about what she wanted. At the end of the feast, when Hyram stood up and wobbled and declared that he was retiring to his bed, Shezira watched him go, then slipped away to follow him. The Hyram she remembered would almost always slip away to bed early after a feast, it was simply a question of whose bed. This time, though, as she watched, he staggered and meandered his way towards the Glass Cathedral. She followed him inside, half expecting to find him locked in an embrace with some dragon-priestess. Instead, she found him prostrate at prayer.
    She knelt beside him at the altar and looked up at the face of the dragon glaring down at them. Hyram stank of wine.
    ‘I should thank you for your hospitality,’ she said. Hyram didn’t seem to hear her. She shivered. Somehow, the Glass Cathedral was always cold.
    ‘This p-place is a lie,’ said Hyram suddenly.
    ‘What?’
    ‘The G-Glass Cathedral. It’s a lie.’ He turned to look at her. His face was flushed and he was either about to burst out laughing or fall about weeping.
    ‘Are you drunk?’
    ‘It makes the t-tremors better. Three bottles of wine and I c-can almost believe I am well again.’
    Shezira raised an eyebrow. It was true that Hyram didn’t seem to be shaking as badly now, but he couldn’t keep his eyes focused on her while he was talking, either. ‘Are you sure that’s not the wine, lying to you?’
    ‘Does it matter?’
    ‘I suppose not.’
    Hyram nodded, as though that was the end of their conversation. He lifted his face towards the stone dragon above them, closed his eyes and sighed. ‘Please . . .’
    Shezira shifted uncomfortably. This wasn’t the Hyram she remembered at all, and she wasn’t quite sure what to do with him, except maybe help him up and show him to his bed.
    He started to climb unsteadily to his feet. Instinct made her offer a hand to help him, but he shied away from her as though she’d offered him a snake by mistake.
    ‘I wouldn’t even be here i-if my brother . . . if Antros hadn’t died. It should have been Antros who got this place. You and him. H-He was supposed to