Lance of Earth and Sky (The Chaos Knight Book Two) (6 page)

Vidarian thrashed, unthinking, on the deck, and this time Calphille reached to steady him. When the stun wore off, he straightened, anxiety and grief hitting him like a wall from the wolf pup.

As his vision slowly returned, punctuated by more blasts of lightning off the bow, he saw a shape still standing at the forward rail, and wondered if the pup had been burned standing up, seared in place.

But then the shape moved. A howl split the air, muffled to Vidarian's still-impaired hearing, but distinct.

*
Impossible!
* Ruby had kept her thoughts to herself throughout the whole journey so far, but now radiated astonishment.

//
Control that creature!
// Altair thundered, his voice bitter and sharp like lightning-struck wood. //
It's calling down the storm!
//

Lightning flashed again, mercifully distant, and the pup barked joyously at it again. Altair was right—the pup was
calling
the lightning. And it was answering!

That wasn't all. Another shape within the storm was bearing down on the craft, too small to be one of the gryphons.

Her feathers were black, nearly invisible against the dark clouds, except for streaks of white around her eyes and at the tips of her primaries. Clawed feet, large and strong, caught the forward rail easily, and she perched there like a gargoyle, haloed with a blue aura of electricity.

Mad as it was, Vidarian prepared for a fight, for a stream of insane babbling followed by an elemental attack. But the strange seridi only looked down at the pup and laughed, reaching out to ruffle his fur.

At this Vidarian called out a warning, which, too, was unnecessary. An arc of electricity flashed out from the pup's spines, strong this time, but the seridi's aura absorbed it harmlessly.

“He has a good spirit!” the new visitor cried, her beak parted in a seridi smile at Vidarian.

“Glad to hear it!” he shouted. “Could you—ah—”

“Oh! Of course!” Her feathers slicked down in what would have been sheepishness in a gryphon and he guessed was the same for seridi. Then she made a strange twisting motion with her hands and the storm tamed instantly: lightning vanished, thunder grumbled into silence, the sky itself around them lightened. By the time she pulled her fingers apart again, shafts of sunlight were breaking through the clouds.

*
Such quickness!
*

Living or…whatever it was she was now…Ruby had never impressed easily, but in this case Vidarian could hardly disagree. Not only was this seridi equipped with a level of elemental ability yet unseen in this age, she was
accustomed
to it, used it as easily as touch or speech.

Altair and Thalnarra glided closer to the craft, exchanging greetings with their new guest. Isri, who must have fallen from the craft at the lightning strike, performed an interesting full-body shake in midair that sent water droplets flying from her feathers, then came to a delicate landing on the aft rail.

“I am Alikai, of the Alar seridi,” the newcomer said to Vidarian, and then added, to Isri, “first storm-wielder, second speaker to Sia'kalia.”

//
You call the goddess by her ancient name,
// Altair said.

She parted her beak slightly in a smile: //
I did not know she had taken a new one, sky-brother. But the wind has always worn many names.
//

“They call her Siane now,” Isri said gently. “Have you spoken with your clansfolk, since coming through the gate?”

*
She doesn't know!
* Ruby said, exactly as Vidarian realized the same thing. Now the seridi's facial feathers were roused with nervousness.

“I have not, mindspeaker.” Her crest, black striped with thin lines of white, lifted as she bowed her head in embarrassment. “I must confess my relief at escaping the gate was so great that I flew aimlessly with the wind, then created this storm, and have ridden it since.”

“You should go to your people, who remain at the gate,” Isri said, stepping down from the rail and carefully crossing the craft to take Alikai's hands in her own. “Much needs to be done. Many did not emerge from the gate whole.”

The black-plumaged seridi nodded, her head still lowered, droplets clinging to her long eyelashes. “I have been foolish, indulging in storm-play out here.”

//
We all emerged from the gate changed, and owe no apologies for tending first to our own recovery,
// Isri said. Rarely did she use her formidable telepathic ability to project speech, but when she did, the warm light of her spirit engulfed all who listened with strength and compassion.

Alikai nodded, and lifted her head, dashing tears away with a fingertip. “I will return. Thank you for calling to me.” She smiled again at Vidarian, and held her hands out to the wolf pup, who eagerly trotted to them. “Take care of this one,” she said, rubbing his eye-ridges. “I haven't seen his like in quite some time!”

The next three days of flying went smoothly, without unnatural storm or mishap. By night they landed and the gryphons hunted, and they rose to the air again with dawn's light. When they could see the ground, Calphille kept Vidarian occupied with questions as to which people lived where, what villages lay below them, and the names of rivers that had shifted in their beds since last she saw them. He tried not to be grateful for the distraction, but her curiosity was infectious.

Inhabited territories grew more numerous the farther northeast they traveled, and on the fourth morning, thick banks of fog obscured much of the ground below. When they finally peeled away toward midmorning, revealing strips of heavily developed land, Vidarian confessed himself stumped.

“I don't remember this city,” he admitted. “It must have been a village when I was a child, now far grown.”

But as the fog cleared further beneath them, it did not reveal the rolling green hills he remembered from boyhood. The same tightly packed buildings ranged over height and valley alike, spreading from horizon to horizon. With a sudden shock he realized that there would be no separation—this strange sea of never-ending structures
was
Val Imris, the Imperial City.

B
y noon they drew within sight of the tall walls of the city proper, and three pairs of familiar black-and-white wings launched from a guardpost below, rising to meet them. Vidarian signaled the gryphons and Isri to keep to their course; the steady wingbeats of the Sky Knights indicated they were in no hurry. It took the better part of an hour before they drew within hailing distance.

In truth, Vidarian had expected some form of escort long before they came within the outer boundaries of Val Imris, and at the sight of the three “knights” the emperor had sent, he began to wonder if his anxiety about the summons was entirely misplaced. Of the three riders, one was properly equipped and old enough to have earned some of his scars honestly. The other two were striplings: a thin girl whose ferocious expression could not make up for her small size, and a boy several sizes too small for the battered armor he wore. The emperor must not be too concerned about them if he sent children to escort them to the palace.

He braced himself for a confrontation, but the salute that the lead knight gave them was, if anything, more deferential than etiquette required. He brought his horse, a handsome tricolor with gleaming black wings, up alongside the craft. Without being asked, Isri and the gryphons had given them a wide berth as they hovered to talk. “Captain Rulorat?” the knight called, and when Vidarian answered in the affirmative, he introduced himself as “Caladan Orrin-Smyth, Master Handler of the Imperial Ironhart Wing.”

The “captain” was not lost on Vidarian. “Caladan Orrin-Smyth, of the Nirea Orrin-Smyths? Are you a fourth son, sir?” The Orrin-Smyths were an old merchant family—the alliance of two even older ones, in fact—and their loyalty to the imperial family was legendary. The fourth son of every generation was given to the emperor's protection by way of the imperial Sky Knights.

The man smiled and touched his visor with a gauntleted hand. “I am, Captain. My father, Pavel Orrin-Smyth, spoke well of his trading with Rulorats, and with your mother's family, also.”

“I had not counted on finding friends at the capital,” Vidarian admitted. “I appreciate your volunteering to escort us?” He trusted Caladan's diplomatic upbringing to interpret his tone as: why are a Master Handler and two apprentices sent to greet us, rather than a wingleader?

Caladan's friendliness faded and his mouth hardened to a thin line, only for a moment, but long enough for Vidarian to realize he had misstepped. “You've not heard the news,” he began. “There is much—”

A whisper of wings from above them, and Isri, looking tired, landed on the edge of the
Destiny
, swaying it enough that Vidarian stepped back from the rail to avoid being pitched out. Calphille offered her arm to Isri, but they all turned at the soft cry that one of the apprentices let loose at the sight of her.

The girl rode a royal, if a young one, its pelt still mottled with yearling gray but distinctly giving way to iridescent black. Vidarian thought at first she was simply surprised, as he had been, to see a seridi for the first time. But the girl's reaction wasn't simple shock—it was fear.

//
I'm sorry,
// Isri said, speaking telepathically out of uncertainty at the knights' reactions, //
my kind are not so equipped to hover as gryphons are.
//

“This is Isri, Elder Mindspeaker to the Treune seridi—” Vidarian began, but stopped at the look in Caladan's eyes, even darker than before.

“Winged demon,” the boy apprentice muttered, and though Caladan raised a hand to silence him, the rebuke Vidarian expected never came, which started a slow flush of anger creeping up his neck.

“She is an envoy from a people that have suffered much,” Vidarian said slowly, reining in his temper with each word. For her part, Isri was silent, watching.

//
What's gotten into them?
// Thalnarra growled, sharp eyes reading the knights' discomfort from her far circling distance.

Caladan kept greater mastery over himself than his young charge, but he, too, eyed Isri with fear and suspicion. “Not long after all the…changes…began, these creatures started to appear. Word is that they caused the Court of Directors to fall dead.”

“Where have you heard such things?” Vidarian demanded, command coming back to him from many a tossing storm deck. Inside he still reeled: was it true? The Court of Directors—all dead?

*
Where do you think they heard them?
* Ruby said, soft but arch. *
The emperor must blame someone to keep a grip on the throne, and it seems he doesn't want to blame
you. *

Caladan wavered before Vidarian's determined outrage, but said nothing, letting silence stretch between them. Ruby radiated smugness.

“Perhaps you had better escort us to the emperor,” Vidarian said, dragging them back into the safer realms of protocol.

The knight's relief was palpable, but incomplete. “We're instructed to bring you to the palace,” he agreed. “His majesty's attendants await you there.”

There was something he wasn't saying, but better to take it up with someone in charge, Vidarian decided, and so he nodded, to Caladan's further relief. “Please lead the way, sir knight.”

The promised attendants were waiting in a courtyard just within the palace walls. Caladan and his apprentices led the way, and as they came closer to the ground, citizens and palace folk alike turned their heads to follow their passing, but upon sight of the
Destiny
and the gryphons, lifted their hands and whispered or shouted.

The knights were only too happy to pass them into the palace's care, and had taken back to the sky even before Vidarian could help Calphille, her legs stiff from the long flight, out of the ship.

A steward wearing a sash clasped with the imperial seal stepped forward to welcome them as the shadows of the departing knights passed over their heads. “We welcome you on behalf of his imperial majesty,” he began, and Vidarian moved to clasp his hand.

“We've traveled far at the emperor's request,” Vidarian said, “and are of course anxious to know how we can be of service.”

He'd summoned all of his available diplomacy, but the steward still seemed taken aback. “Of course—Captain,” he said, relaxing slightly when Vidarian nodded approval at the title. “We are charged to see to your comfort at the palace, beginning with your rooms and—” his gaze dropped in flickering assessment of Vidarian's clothing, “fresh attire.”

With their months of travel, of life-and-death struggle, Vidarian abruptly realized it had been more than a season since he had last thought about what he looked like. In the steward's delicate discomfort he saw himself in the eyes of a courtier: battered, stained, carefully wrought manners worn away by the destruction of all that had been familiar to him. To survive this—the imperial palace!—he would have to do more than summon a little diplomacy. “We would be most grateful for your hospitality and assistance,” Vidarian said, letting genuine embarrassment creep into his voice. Long ago, his father had trained him on the value of sincerity, especially where it was least expected.

The steward relaxed further, enough for a rueful smile. He snapped his fingers at one of the three assistants. “Marcelle, if you will see to stabling the captain's—” his eyes roamed across the gryphons “—creatures in the guest barn—”

//
If by ‘barn’ you mean ‘guest quarters stocked with live game for guests to consume,’ please by all means lead the way. We have flown more than three days at the emperor's pleasure and are quite famished.
//

The steward's eyes bulged at every other word, and he gasped aloud when he realized that the “creature,” Thalnarra, was in fact speaking to him. By the end he had broken out in a cold sweat and was stammering incoherently.

One of his assistants, a boy—no more than ten winters, or Vidarian would eat his shoe—instead stared at the gryphons with a wild sort of joy, his eyes shining. “They—they could quarter in the old empress's garden?” he said, voice high and shoulders tense, awaiting reprimand.

The steward spun, a look halfway between relief and consternation washing over his wrinkled features. He turned from the boy, eyes narrowed, to Vidarian, and relief won out when Vidarian nodded. He had no idea if the garden was appropriate, but they must have been referring to the late Dowager Empress Celaine. She had died a decade ago, and with the emperor not having taken an empress, the garden was likely shuttered.

“It will be quite overgrown,” the steward warned, but hope lingered beneath his beleaguered grasp at authority.

//
All the better,
// Thalnarra replied, her mind-voice cultured and genteel, exuding cinnamon and myrrh. //
We may cut our beds from the vegetation.
//

The steward winced, doubtless imagining the destruction of imperial roses, but the squeak of his young assistant drew all eyes again: “And the hunters have just returned with a spate of venison. I heard Itara complaining she didn't know what to do with all of it.”

//
Perhaps this bright lad could escort us and see to our accommodations,
// Thalnarra pushed, and this time her voice carried a hint of carnivorous urgency that sent the steward blanching again. The boy, however, practically hopped with delight.

“Yes, yes,” the steward said finally, wiping sweat from his pate, “Brannon, see to them, and—whatever they need.”

“Yes, sir!” Brannon chirped, and dashed toward Thalnarra, surprising a yelp out of one of the other assistants, an older girl close enough in features to be his older sister. She grasped at him, too late, and blushed.

“They won't hurt him,” Vidarian said, taking pity on her. His reassurance only earned him a daggerlike
they'd better not
glance before she remembered herself and stared at her feet, turning red again.

//
If he behaves,
// Thalnarra said, all carnivore gone from her tone, which had turned grandmotherly. //
Please lead the way, Brannon.
// The boy bowed with the meticulousness of much practice, then turned without a second glance at the rest of them. Thalnarra and Altair—who had watched with silent amusement—followed.

“And if you'll be so kind as to follow me,” the steward said in a rush, picking up the shreds of his dignity.

The steward—whose name Vidarian never got—shepherded Vidarian, Calphille, Isri, and the pup (permitted with a token grumble—Isri he seemed not to “see” at all) through several open-air corridors. They came at length to a salon with floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out on a carefully cultivated garden and pond. Once there, he quickly waved his assistants out the door and fled.

“Talrick, a model of gentility as usual, I see.”

Vidarian turned toward the voice, which came from a tall, thin man in an elegantly trimmed coat. Before he could introduce himself, the man spoke again.

“You are Vidarian Rulorat, captain of I know not what. I am Renard, and this fitting never happened.” The man advanced, a heavy velvet cloak draped across his left forearm, and looked Vidarian up and down. “Reports of your size were apparently overestimated,” he sighed, pursing his lips. “I accounted for some exaggeration, but clearly not enough.”

“I do apologize for the state of my clothes. Anything you can do will be greatly appreciated.”