Lance of Earth and Sky

Huge golden eyes met Vidarian's when he woke again in his palace chamber. He flinched, and they changed: shrinking and darkening, pupils widening. They became Rai's eyes, and the wide, striped cat face became the thornwolf—and barked.

The sound rattled Vidarian's skull, and as he sat up, the burning complaint of his arms and legs told him he'd again been asleep for more than a day.

Rai barked again, then yipped with surprise as he slid backwards, his claws ripping at the carpet. Brannon's head popped up when Rai was safely away from the bed; the boy had dragged the wolf away by his tail.

“Sorry, milord…Captain,” Brannon corrected his address before Vidarian could start to object. Rai lunged forward again, but the boy gamely threw his own weight against him.

“How long have I slept this time?” Vidarian asked, rubbing eyes that stung with the stiffness of disuse. The room seemed not to have changed, but Thalnarra was not there, and for a moment her absence stung like a mother's disregard.

“Three days, m…sir.” The boy grunted as Rai changed back into the winged tiger, but not with surprise. At this size Rai easily lifted the boy up and made his way back toward the bed, but Brannon swung his legs down and dug into the carpet with his heels. When this proved ineffective, he dug into his pocket, and Rai froze at the sound of crinkling waxed paper that emerged. He stopped, and Brannon gave him a bit of dried fish from the bag. Rai tore it up delicately and with full attention.

Good, the wolf-turned-tiger offered, “sharing” with Vidarian the taste of the pungent fish. He tried not to gag.

“Would you know where Thalnarra is, by any chance?”

“In the fields out back,” Brannon said, pushing Rai's wide nose away from his pocket now. “She'll be wanting to know you're awake, sir. An' see you, even, if you're up to it.”

As if his three days of sleep had just released all of their pent-up energy into him at once, Vidarian pushed himself out of bed, anxious to discover what he had missed. His legs gave way as soon as his weight was upon them, and he swayed, thumping into the bedpost. Rai whined, and Brannon visibly swallowed a startled yelp.

Instead the boy pointed to the bed. “You should at least eat first, sir? They've sent a tray.”

After everything, it still hurt his pride to be grateful for the excuse to sit back down. Feeling was crawling back into his limbs, and not quietly; it was all he could do to remain still as his skin prickled over nerves that had turned to stinging nettles. Rai, wolf-shaped now, rested his chin on Vidarian's knee and sighed.

Brannon brought the promised tray from its place by the door and set about fussing with the linen and silver. Vidarian waved him off, then tossed him the currant-studded bread roll, ignoring Rai's accusatory stare. The boy bit into the roll and pulled more fish from his pocket to soothe the wolf's hurt feelings.

The porridge today was a lumpen one, heavy with fruit and some kind of congealed grain that tasted faintly unpleasant but must have been medicinal for the way that it rushed strength into his wasted muscles. By the end of it he was beginning to feel real alertness wake in his mind. With alertness came awareness of a certain week-long-bed-rest stench, and so he spared the time to wash thoroughly in the marble water chamber.

The hot water seemed to take off at least two layers of his skin, and so when Brannon and Rai led the way to the north parkland, the air stung his face.

It was strange to think that only ten days ago these fields beyond the north palace wall had been filled with skyships. Now only a handful remained, most actively undergoing repair. All that was left to mark the absence of the rest—which Allingworth had moved to defensive positions or currently led against the Qui—was an expanse of trampled grass and the occasional dropped tool or gangplank.

The yawning field was an uncomfortable reminder that the Imperial City itself had few defenses when it came to skyships; they were being deployed as soon as they could be discovered and their crews trained.

Rai dashed ahead as soon as their feet had touched the grass, and now bounded through the underbrush that separated one field from another.

“He seems to have even more energy than he did before.” Vidarian shaded his eyes to look ruefully after the young wolf.

* The first change invigorates them, * Ruby said, and Vidarian started at the sound of her voice, which was dreamlike and distant. * He's likely relieved—like a bird molting, or a snake shedding its skin. *

“How do you know that?”

* It's in here. *

“In where?”

But Ruby didn't answer. Brannon lifted his fingertips to his teeth and whistled long and loud. Rai dashed back toward them, running as fast and low to the ground as his long legs would take him.

They crossed the brush to the second field, and Altair and Thalnarra both reclined in the grasses, their wings half-spread under the midmorning sun. With them were three Sky Knight apprentices and their young steeds: the boy who had bonded to the small colt three days ago, Brannon's sister, and a gangly young girl Vidarian didn't recognize.

As they drew closer, Altair's voice reached them:

// And if your opponent was an archer? //

“Sky Knights are archers, too,” the boy said.

// So you would fire on them? // The gryphon's blue eyes pinned as he tilted his head at the boy.

“Cross-dive,” Brannon's sister—Linnea, Rai pushed the name on him—said, almost too quietly to hear.

Altair's tufted ear twitched in her direction. He dipped his beak, gesturing for her to continue.

“The combat training manual recommends a cross-dive against a mounted archer,” she said. Her hands were clenched around the mane of the royal foal—who had filled out nicely, and now glittered violet and green at her socks and sloping head.

// Correct, // Altair said. Then his aquiline head tilted toward Vidarian. // Welcome, brother. We are assisting these young ones with their training. //

When she caught sight of him, Linnea flushed anew, but to his surprise, she gently patted her steed on the head and then stood to advance on Vidarian.

He froze, unsure what to make of her approach. At first, she wouldn't meet his eyes, but finally she lifted her head and fixed him with a determined stare. He still wasn't sure what to expect, and never would have guessed that she would next pull a hanging pendant from her waist pocket and hand it to him.

Vidarian accepted the pendant gingerly, letting it lay across his palm. It was a simple stone oval framed in darkened steel. When he turned it, the stone gleamed with purple-black iridescence. He realized what it was, and inhaled. “Is this…?”

“It's from Trakari's eggshell,” Linnea agreed, dropping her eyes with embarrassment only for a moment. “It's a gift. If it weren't for you, she would have died.”

“You should thank Rai, really,” Vidarian said, surprised at his own diffidence. “Without him, we'd never have known that the eggs were even hatching.”

Linnea turned to face Rai, who noticed her attention and immediately bounded over to leap into her arms. She staggered under his weight and laughed with delight. Along with his shapechanging ability, Rai was learning how to more tightly control and maneuver the shocking spines, an endless relief.

// Vidarian can teach you much about wind patterns and navigation, // Thalnarra said.

“I'd be pleased to,” he said, addressing both of them. “But your wingleader wouldn't want you here, I'd wager.” The girl flushed, confirming his suspicion, but her jaw firmed.

“There's nothing we can learn from the other knights,” Linnea said, and beneath the steel of her defiance was a wounded heart that cut at Vidarian's own. “They won't say I'm a real rider, and anyway they spend their days drunk into stupidity.”

“What happened to them?” Vidarian asked. The knights were clearly in a shambles, but no one had yet explained why.

“Their steeds are rebelling,” the other boy said, pushing himself to his feet. “Half of 'em can't even get in the saddle. They're trying to hide it, though.”

“The old ways aren't working, not since the steeds started shapechanging,” Linnea agreed.

“And getting smarter.” The boy reached down to scratch between the ears of his foal.

“Well,” Vidarian said, extending his hand for Linnea's royal to sniff, “we can certainly do something about that. I seem to have surrounded myself with excessively intelligent creatures.”

Altair snorted, a strange sound from his hooked beak, and called them all back to his combat puzzles.

// You are performing courier duty, flying at three bars' height… //


They practiced and played and lay in the sun until afternoon faded into evening and the sun was beginning to fall behind the trees. The oldest apprentice had a fully-grown sky steed; Rai and the steed wrestled in their winged cat forms, winning whoops and whistles of delight even from the two gryphons.

Just as Vidarian was going to present the apprentices with a navigation puzzle his father had begun his own lessons with as a boy, a portly imperial messenger came trotting into the field, panting with fatigue.

“Captain Rulorat,” the man said between breaths, relieved and just a touch annoyed. For a moment Vidarian worried that word had gotten back to the Sky Knights that he and the gryphons were instructing their apprentices, but then the man pulled a cream envelope from his sleeve. “The emperor was pleased to hear of your recovery, and invites you to dine this evening—and witness a musical performance by the miraculous metal creature called Iridan.”

“Iridan?” Vidarian said, forgetting for a moment his anxiety. “Music?”

His disbelief cracked the messenger's marble veneer. “Damndest thing, is't not, milord? I'm told the music is the most amazing you'll ever hear. Makes grown men cry, and babes sleep as though enchanted.”

// We should send these younglings back to their stable. Doubtless they'll be doing chores into the night as it is. //

The messenger jumped when Thalnarra spoke, but made an admirably quick recovery, turning to give her and Altair a little bow. “I'm given to understand you both were of critical assistance at the Lehrian border engagement. We're all deeply grateful.”

// You speak like a soldier, sirrah. //

He drew himself up. “I was, milady. And may be so again, with what's been brewing.”

“With Qui? I should think the imperial forces…” Vidarian trailed off at the man's solemn expression.

“Not just Qui, Captain.” His voice lowered. “There's rumors of rebellion in the western provinces. Attacks—sabotage.”

“I'd heard none of this,” Vidarian said, turning to Thalnarra and Altair, who also twitched their beaks in agreement.

“It's rumor,” the messenger allowed, “but the kind as usually turns out truer than not, ye ken?”

Vidarian nodded, and caught the worried looks of the three apprentices. “The emperor surely is acting on them even as we speak.”

They murmured loyal agreement, and the cloud over their expressions lifted slightly. More, at the moment, would be difficult to ask.


As with his last imperial supper, they had left him just enough time to rush back to his chambers, scrub the field dirt and animal musk from himself, and fall into clothing that he hoped would pass muster for an imperial event.

When he'd returned from the skyship battle, there had been a hand-tailored imperial captain's uniform waiting in his wardrobe, which he only now discovered. Unsure if it had been Renard's doing, Allingworth's, or both, he donned it, and tucked Linnea's pendant behind its white silk dress scarf.

The performance and dinner were to be held in the Arboretum, which both unsettled Vidarian and piqued his curiosity. The heavy doors were held open this time by ornate brass pillars, and hanging blue lights led guests along the garden paths.

It may as well have been a completely different place for how they had transformed it. Far from being overgrown, every hedge and tree and hanging vine had been meticulously trimmed. Flowers bloomed and filled the room with their rich and wild fragrances. The sun-sphere high above had been dimmed to a pale blue light, casting the twisting paths and hanging branches in false moonlight. It was deeply beautiful, but Vidarian could not help the dropping sensation in his stomach.

There were perhaps a dozen guests, all fantastically garbed. The ladies in particular bore jewelry that changed color with their movements. Vidarian had never heard of or seen such gems before; they must have awakened with the gate. The emperor was surrounded by such ladies, and after a moment's hesitation Vidarian abandoned any hope of speaking with him.

He turned, and met intricately worked brass and lavender gemstone eyes. Beside the metal figure stood Justinian, resplendent in heavily embroidered robes, recognizable by his porcelain mask.

“It's a pleasure to meet you, Captain Rulorat,” Iridan said, quite as if they had never met before. A chill crept down Vidarian's spine as he tried to ascertain politic from sincerity. But Iridan's metal face revealed nothing.

Justinian—at least, Vidarian was certain that it must be Justinian—gestured, a rolling movement with his hands. And he kept gesturing until Iridan spoke again.

“Please pardon my friend. A terrible accident rendered him unable to speak. He wishes me to tell you that it is his pleasure to meet you as well, and that he has heard much about you from the emperor.”

Vidarian stared, poleaxed. Clearly this was politicking—Justinian must have remembered their meeting. Or didn't he? No—surely this was some elaborate ploy. “I'm—pleased to meet you both as well.”

“I do hope that you'll enjoy the performance.”

“I'm sure that I will.”

A small gong sounded, and the guests drifted toward the chairs that had been assembled in a particularly brightly lit clearing. Iridan bowed, and turned that way himself, his body rotating silently on perfectly worked hinges.

Vidarian made his way to an empty seat in the second row, and their brass-bodied performer took his place beside a fountain of flowers set in front of the chairs.

“I was created to assist in diplomacy,” Iridan began, his torso swiveling at his waist as he turned to address the guests. Despite his distance from the seated guests, his voice carried with preternatural ease, as though he were right in front of Vidarian. “As you have experienced, my voice is simultaneously telepathic and aural. It is beyond language, and indeed beyond words' intent. No creature may successfully practice deceit in my presence without my knowledge. Yet my creator's path in generating this effect passed through music, the universal language of beauty and truth. Music, perhaps, was always intended to be my greater purpose, for a time without deceit.”

And with this, he began.

At first there was no sound, and then—the barest thread of vibration. The audience leaned forward, grasping for it; Vidarian found himself moving with them before realizing what he was doing. A rhythm emerged: it was a subtle clicking, the brush of a leaf against a window, and yet it pulsed, slowly but steadily increasing in tempo.

Then, the most extraordinary sound. Iridan's jaw opened only slightly, and what issued forth was something like a violin, something like a horn, but exactly like neither. It seemed to cut straight to the soul, and then it began to dance, capering through melodies and rhythms that called to mind spring winds, chirping birds, spreading hills.

The glowing gems at Iridan's arms and shoulders pulsed more brightly then, and more sounds emerged: the soft, buttery pluck of a harp, the low solemn burr of a stone flute.

Music transported them, pulled them away from the Arboretum with its soft sun-sphere and marble fonts, sang of the stars on a summer evening, of distant worlds. There was truth here, the truth Vidarian had felt to his bones when the Starhunter showed him the world beyond the gate. He was there again, caught up in its majesty, its splendor, its terror. A melancholy crept through—lines of melody rose and fell as if looking for a companion, leaving space for a song that never materialized—but the sense was fleeting, replaced by surety, a plucking overture.

And Iridan brought them back again. Gradually the other instrument sounds faded, made their gracious exits, and the horn-violin remained, accompanied only by low and steady notes from the stone flute. They returned to the Arboretum, heard the little night birds chirp softly from their nests, saw the blue lights against the leaves once more.

* Four were made, * Ruby said, and a dozen faces turned toward Vidarian as sharply as if he'd thrown water at them.

Ruby? he thought wildly. What are you doing? But she did not hear him.

* Four were made, * she said again, a strange and distant cadence in her words, as if someone else spoke with her voice. The sun ruby in Vidarian's pocket grew hot, glowed red. * Iridan, the youngest, brass-voiced, singer of truth. Modrian, brother, silver-voiced, chanter of law. Arian, sister, golden-voiced, keeper of verse. And the fourth— *

Justinian turned, his hands at his face—and the mask slipped away, falling. Gasps from the audience covered the sound of the mask striking the sand path and breaking in two.

Iridan shook his head, a strange and human movement from his gem and metal body. He seemed to awaken from a trance. As he looked out over the audience, he took a step backward, startled to see them all watching him.

The emperor stood, lifting his hand to Iridan in concern, but to no acknowledgment.

Iridan turned, the stiffness in his movements betraying a return of memory, of betrayal. “Justinian, my friend? You know of the existence of my brother and sister?” The fourth he did not mention, as if he hadn't heard it.

Justinian stared, his jaw slack. He looked out at the audience, wild with shock—and suddenly froze, his eyes widening even further.

In the front row, Oneira's face, perfectly painted and framed by her precisely sculptured hair, lost all of its poise. She stared at Justinian, the shock and betrayal written for an instant in her eyes, telling Vidarian that Justinian had never revealed himself to her. Shock melted into grief, then lit into rage, only for a fraction of a moment. Then she lifted her skirts in white-knuckled hands and strode from the clearing without a word.

The guests all stood in a flurry, and the Arboretum erupted into shocked conversation. The emperor's face was already an unreadable mask, which said as clearly as Oneira's that he, too, had not known that Justinian lived. Vidarian stood and carefully made his way to the exit by means of a winding path that looped far from the main clearing.

“What happened?” he said softly, once he was sure he was out of hearing range of the guests.

* The music…called something out of…this shell. I need to get out of here, Darian, * Ruby said softly. * This…thing, * she shoved an image of the sun ruby at him, and the feelings that clung to it were revulsion, horror, fear that gripped his stomach. * It makes me think things that I don't know…and now…that wasn't me, saying those things. It wasn't me. *

“It's my fault, not yours,” he said, and the truth of the words cut at his throat. “We'll get you back to your ship. I promise.”