The Tyrant's Law (Dagger and the Coin)

dreams, and yet dreams came formless and unreal. He had the inchoate sense of being adrift in a windless openness, floating without effort on an open and empty sky with neither land nor sea below him, but only an endless expanse of air. Then the sense of a presence, alien and unwelcome that almost drove him up from the depth of the silence. He felt uneasy and restless, like a hatchling trying to sleep when it wasn’t tired or else too much so.
    Time passed without Inys. Even the sensation of waiting was gone. Inys surrendered to not-being.
    Excuse me. You need to wake up now.
    Awareness, but only the faintest prick of it, there and then gone again. Easy to ignore, easier to forget. The silence washed back in.
    Hey! Nap time’s over! Wake the hell up! I don’t think this is going to be that simple. Do you think maybe there’s some sort of ritual or … I don’t know. A magic drum or something?
    Awareness again, deeper. And this time, there was a sense of fear in it. He felt as if he were under a vast ocean, the weight of the water pressing him down. He had fallen too far into the silence. He had swum too near to death. Inys tried to come to himself, to reach up from the abyssal depths of his body to something else. He forced his eyes to open and had the sensation of light. He was still too deep to know what the light was or what it meant. He was not even seeing. Not really. Only he knew that somewhere, there was light.
    He struggled like a drunkard to gather the pieces of his shattered mind, and felt them slipping from his grasp. Felt the silence reaching up to take him again.
    It’s time to wake up.
    He grabbed for the voice. The words were strangely inflected, as all slave tongues were, but they existed. They were real. He could actually feel the words in the dreamed flesh of his claws, and he dragged himself along them, up into the realm of mere slumber. He managed enough awareness to know that something was wrong. He was ill or drunk or poisoned. He couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t let himself sleep.
    You need to wake up now.
    He breached from dream to the world. The light became real. A torch in a slave’s hand. And another behind it. His body felt wrong, sluggish and dim. The straw he’d slept upon was gone and he felt grime and filth on his scales and in between them. The slave was wrong too. It carried a culling blade, though. The one behind it smelled corrupt. He reached out with his mind and felt Morade’s weapon writhing in the slave’s blood, but it didn’t move to attack.
    “Drakkis?” Inys managed, and his voice sounded weak and cracked in his own ears.
    The nearer slave shook its head.
    “I’m Marcus Wester. That’s Master Kit.” It was the same voice. The one that had called him back.
    “Morade,” Inys said. “Does Morade live?”
    “No,” the slave said. “I’m going to have to go with no on that.”
    Inys felt the relief pour into his soul. He tried to rise, but his body felt so weak. So heavy . The air smelled of rot and ice and the sea. He shook himself, trying to bring his mind to bear, and reared up on his haunches. Every muscle in his body was stiff, slow, and unresponsive. The sense that something was wrong grew.
    “Where is Erex?” he asked. “And Drakkis? What’s become of Drakkis Stormcrow?”
    “Well,” the slave said. “I may have some bad news about that.”

Dramatis Personae
    Persons of interest and import in The Tyrant’s Law
    IN SUDDAPAL
    The Medean bank in Suddapal
    Magistra Isadau, voice of the Medean bank in Suddapal
    Kani, her sister
    Jurin, her brother
    Salan, his son
    Merid Addanos, her cousin, and
    Maha, her daughter
    various cousins and servants of the house
    Cithrin bel Sarcour, apprentice to Magistra Isadau
    Yardem Hane, personal guard to Cithrin, also Enen
    Roach (Halvill)
    Kilik rol Keston, a merchant
    Samish, a rival of the bank
    Karol Dannien, a mercenary captain
    Epetchi, a cook
    IN IMPERIAL ANTEA
    The Royal Family
    Aster, prince and heir to the empire
    House Palliako
    Geder Palliako, Regent of Antea and Baron of Ebbingbaugh
    Lehrer Palliako, Viscount of Rivenhalm and his father
    House Kalliam
    Clara Kalliam, formerly Baroness of Osterling Fells
    Barriath
    Vicarian, and
    Jorey; her sons
    also Sabiha, wife to Jorey, and
    Pindan, her illegitimate son
    and various former servants and slaves, including
    Andrash rol Estalan, door slave to House Kalliam
    Benet, a gardener
    Alston, a guardsman
    Steen, a guardsman
    Vincen Coe, huntsman formerly in