Lance of Earth and Sky

Their three hosts escorted them to the Viere d'Inar. As they ascended the gangplank, Marielle gave commands for meat and whatever else they should request to be given to the gryphons, and food and water offered to the crew of the Luminous. An odd crawling feeling spread across Vidarian's stomach as they crossed the familiar deck of the Viere, peopled as it was with unfamiliar crew. It felt like an insult to Ruby, and he wondered if it would have felt worse had she remained dead.

Marielle led them to the captain's stateroom, and even before Vidarian saw the relay sphere that now sat at the center of its main table, he recognized it. Someone had changed the decor—gone were Ruby's Targuli carpets, and thin geometric Rikani ones replaced them, likewise the linens. Even as he was cataloging the changes, Marielle turned to her two officers.

“Anglar, Yuril, there are matters I wish to discuss with our guests privately.”

“Your majesty—” Anglar, the bigger one, made it two words into his objection.

“Need I ask you again, sir?” The evenness of her tone was a greater threat than steel.

“No, ma'am.” He bowed stiffly and left the stateroom, stealing a glare like a jealous tomcat at Vidarian as he did so.

When the door was shut behind him, Marielle gestured them to the velvet-upholstered chairs, pouring tea into four cups with her own hand. “If you have need, we have elemental channeling stones you are welcome to,” she said to Iridan, addressing him as she would any other guest. His eyes glowed appreciatively.

“How did this happen?” Vidarian asked, as soon as they'd settled into their chairs.

“It's as unlikely a thing as can be imagined, I grant you,” Marielle said, taking a long draw on her tea. “I was captain of the Ardent, you knew.”

Vidarian nodded.

“We hit a squall off the coast of Ignirole—not surprising for that time of year, but its strength was. A wild thing, unnatural. It was all we could do to keep the rig upright. We came out of it, but the Viere —” she knocked on the deck with the heel of her boot—“was waiting, looking for easy prey among the jetsam.” Thoughtfully, she rolled her silver teacup between her hands, then took another long pull on it. “We gave it an honorable fight, but 'twere never a hope. They boarded us.”

Vidarian winced. He well imagined the misery she must have felt, newly a captain and her first commission lost to pirates.

“I had a choice. I could fight, and if I won we would all become pirates—citizens of the West Sea Kingdom—or I could refuse to fight, and they'd slaughter us all.”

“They offered you combat?” Vidarian said, surprised.

“Aye. Foolishness. The captain was a young pup named Warrick. Thought himself invincible, thought he'd make an example out of a woman-captain from the landers.”

“What did you do?”

“I killed him,” she said, and in the hesitancy, even regret, in her voice, Vidarian recognized the Marielle he had known. “I hardly meant to, but he was an oaf of a boy had no business on either end of a sword. Ran right into me.”

“Did you…?” The beginning of the question escaped Vidarian before he could think better of it.

In answer, Marielle turned over her wrist and pulled back the sleeve from her forearm. There, just below her palm, was the mark, a pattern inked from reed needles into her skin, a blue dragon, albeit a small one. “Stupid boy,” she said softly, her thoughts far away in a memory.

“You could have gone home,” Vidarian said.

Marielle shook her head. “Not then. If we'd fled, they'd've filled our hull with lead. They don't permit anyone to just pick off a monarch—even a temporary upstart of one, as he was, having successfully seized the Viere—and sail away.”

“But you've always hated pirates,” Vidarian said, aware that he sounded plaintive.

Marielle looked up over her cup, a tired glance that Endera would have been proud of. She turned to Lirien and gave him a little deferential nod. “Yer pardon, majesty, but I hope you've enough a head on your shoulders to know what a mess the admiralty has become.” Lirien sighed, but didn't answer, and Marielle took it for agreement and turned back to Vidarian. “To save my crew, I told them I'd take the crown I'd won—and once I saw this place,” she gestured roundly with her cup, “and met their people, I saw what the Sea Kingdoms had become, and how badly they needed leadership. Also how badly the world needs them.”

“On that, we can agree,” Vidarian said, seeing his opening. He told her of their flight from the Imperial City, of the Company's machinations—without mentioning, in Lirien's presence, the imperial debt—and what Ariadel had told him, of the prison camps full of Qui.

Marielle's face grew progressively graver, and then darker, the more Vidarian spoke. When he mentioned the prison camps, she cursed roundly. “It explains other news we've received. Lifan, the Quest's little windreader—she's disappeared.”

Vidarian's stomach sank. “How do you—?”

Marielle glanced at the relay sphere. “One thing the Kingdoms learned to do very well from the beginning was to maintain lines of communication. I had gotten wind of Lifan's disappearance some months ago. Thought it odd, especially with Ellara watching over her. They'll have taken her, I'm sure of it.”

A cold anger rolled through Vidarian's veins. He thought about how he would dismantle the Alorean Import Company, if it took his last breath and beyond. “Surely, the West Sea Kingdom has power to bring to this cause. I need to destroy those camps.”

Marielle's expression was grave. “There's little choice, then. I don't have the authority to provide what you're asking for.”

Surprise pulled him out of his reverie of vengeance. “I thought you were the West Sea Queen.”

Marielle shook her head. “Not that simple, 'm afraid. The Kingdoms make it look like their monarchies are absolute, but there are protocols—strict ones, for things like this. It requires a Sea Council.” Vidarian blinked, and she continued. “You think this place is big now, wait until you see it with every pier filled. The last one convened to confirm my rise to Queen.” The word sounded even stranger coming from Marielle. She set down her cup, stood, and went to the door. None of them were surprised when her burly officer, whom she called Anglar, was hovering just beyond.

“Mr. Anglar,” Marielle said, and the big fellow straightened. “I've called a Sea Council. See to it.”

“At once, your majesty.”

When he'd left, Vidarian said, “How do you get used to that?”

Marielle chuckled, her green eyes tired. “I try not to think about it.”


The next morning Vidarian ventured out into the floating city, crossing from pier to pier. He carried a mug of kava from the ship; its hot bite was sharpened by the heavy, cold air that had come in over the water with the dawn hours.

Far from the sleepy village the place had seemed by late afternoon, by morning it was a bustle of activity. There was some logic to the way that they made use of the narrow raft bridges, but he couldn't make sense of it, and eventually stopped at an unused spar and stood aside.

Across the network of bridges, far from where the Luminous and Viere d'Inar moored, a pair of familiarly-shaped figures bobbed in the water to starboard of the great Rivenwake structure. They were pelican-gryphons, and as he had only ever seen one before, Vidarian assumed one must be Arikaree—yet, as he squinted at them, it was clear neither was he. The water-gryphon had returned to his people with the opening of the Great Gate, and Vidarian had not seen him since he'd reappeared with An'du. These two, at the very least, must be members of his flight; Thalnarra had never spoken of more than one small group of the pelican-gryphons. Even as he watched, another ship glided between them, hiding the creatures from sight.

When he returned to watching the stream of merchants, tiny delivery carts, and sailors, a passing fruit vendor noticed his confusion and pressed half of a ripe mango into his palm, all while waving away any attempt at payment. In moments the vendor had reentered the trail of passersby and quite vanished.

Vidarian bit into the mango, more out of a desire to free his hand than hunger, but blinked with surprise as the rich, bright, spectacular flavor hit his tongue. The fruit was perfectly ripe, its flavor like pure liquid sunlight, a taste he'd only experienced once before when, in his childhood, his father had sailed to the far southwestern islands where mango trees grew. But those were miles away—these mangoes must be grown here in Rivenwake, miraculously on one of the garden-rafts.

Emboldened by the fruit's tap-dance across his senses, he ventured back out onto the raft-bridges, and this time managed to move with the stream of travelers long enough to come into some kind of trading district.

It was strange to call the collections of rafts “districts,” but they could be nothing else. Rivenwake was a city, with a city's specialization of tasks—the massive flat garden-rafts tended to cluster together, as did the different rafts for cloth-selling, grocery, herbery, and more.

The merchant's-way onto which he'd stumbled seemed to be a hybrid of several raft types, repurposed for small shops like those in the central Val Harlon tradegoods market. And like Val Harlon's, the noise here was deafening, as shopkeepers shouted over the passing travelers and over each other in an attempt to ply their wares. Vidarian moved along with the eddy of the raft-bridges, but at length stepped off onto the quietest of the merchant rafts he could find.

It was an elemental lights shop, or perhaps a curio shop that happened to have a terrible lot of lights. They hung from the steel canopy of the place, bunched up in clusters or spread out in lines, dozens of lights in more colors than he had seen even in Val Imris.

As he passed through one of the two narrow aisles, still taking in the scenery more than genuinely perusing the wares, another kind of sparkle caught his eye, deep red:

A prism key.

The shape, size, and color of it were all unmistakable; what he would have called a “sun ruby” mere months ago. And as then, it should have been nearly priceless.

This fact did not deter him from making an embarrassingly modest offer to the wizened shopkeep tucked into a tiny cubby in the rear of the raft. He expected denial, even derision, but what he got instead in response to the entire contents of his leather coinpurse still came as a surprise.

“Eh? I bain't a-been'n land fer forty year, m'boy! What use've I fer yer shiny bits? Gold fer'ma teeth maybe?” The old man took his silence for confusion—which it was, but at his accent, not the meaning of the words—and made a shooing notion with his hands. “Gitchee tootha moneychanger, lad, they's a'visitin' by sailers what might've use fer Alorean silver.”

Vidarian was taken aback, and tried to hide exactly how much. He'd never met a sailor who would turn down silver, yet the old merchant's point was clear and reasonable. Still, for the sake of appearances he tried to argue him into taking the coin and changing it himself, but the old man would have none of it. Finally, he left the shop, glum about departing without the prism key, but educated in the ways of this strange place that Marielle had roosted.


Time slipped away quickly in the labyrinthine market quarter, and shortly the sun had advanced high in its march, signaling the convening of the council in a few short hours.

Vidarian found Lirien on the Luminous's pier, sitting next to Tepeki, who held a book in his hands. As Vidarian approached, the boy set the book carefully aside, gestured to Lirien, and leapt off the pier. Midway through the air, he changed, his body rearranging itself to become the otter. He struck the water smoothly, cutting below its surface with hardly a splash, then bounced up again to whirl and cavort through the water.

“He's remarkably well read,” Lirien said. “His people long ago made translations of many of the Alorean classics, and it seems they've bartered for books for ages.” While they watched, Tepeki spun again in the water, and changed shape as he did so, this time into a strange hybrid form. Vidarian had seen An'du like this—from the waist down, a whale, she'd remained human across the rest of her body, though larger than she was in her full human shape. Similarly, here Tepeki was smaller, half boy and half otter, and kept several otter details, including the tiny black claws that tipped his tiny, clever fingers. A long and powerful tail let him leap high out of the water, performing, before he swam back to the pier.

Lirien was watching the boy, his thoughts transparent: was Tepeki a different race, or a different species? When he appeared to be a boy, did he think like a boy? When he was an otter, were his thoughts human? Were Calphille's, as she slept with branches outstretched in the palace's north field?

Standing up in the water again, Tepeki gave another strong thrash of his tail and leapt, sailing up onto the pier. He landed on human arms and otter legs, and Vidarian was sure he was flaunting the strangeness of his hybrid body to the emperor.

“You're a superb swimmer,” Lirien said, declining the challenge. Tepeki turned boy again, his otter pelt blurring into fur-clothed human legs, and he took his seat again on the edge of the planks, sluicing water from his hair.

And regardless of what they'd spoken of before Vidarian's arrival, it was clear Tepeki intended to steer the conversation straight to what was in his heart. “She's not one of you,” Tepeki said at last. “She is of my people.”

“But yours are sea-folk,” Vidarian said. “An'du told me of your five clans.”

“It is not right that you should be with her,” Tepeki insisted, ignoring Vidarian.

“Perhaps you are correct, my young friend,” Lirien said. Tepeki cast a satisfied look at Vidarian, and so missed the sadness in Lirien's voice. It was not a sadness that faded easily or was forgotten; it gave the lie to his words. All this was lost on the Velshi boy, who grinned with triumph and leapt back into the water, shivering into his otter form and capering through the waves.

“I hope you are keeping your own counsel when it comes to Calphille,” Vidarian said, sitting next to Lirien on the pier.

Lirien turned a glance on him that was purely imperial. “On all things.”

It was not a good place to make his next appeal, but time was slipping away. “On the subject of the Sea Council, my friend…” The emperor's eyebrows lifted, even as he frowned ever so slightly. “All who care for you would prefer that you remain safely in the Luminous. I can conduct whatever business there may be.”

“Certainly not,” Lirien said, as mildly as he would have asked for milk in his tea.

“Your majesty,” Vidarian pressed, twisting the irony in the title with deliberate care. “These pirates are dangerous. My family has treated with them for nearly a century, and there's no telling—”

Lirien shook his head, reaching out to clasp Vidarian's shoulder to take the sting out of his disagreement. “I can't let you do everything for me, my friend. And it is idleness that's created all this. You can't expect me to sit by like a closeted princess.”

“You were hardly idle,” Vidarian said, taken aback and again stunned by the strangeness of the entire affair.

“I am also responsible,” Lirien replied. He ran a hand across his sleeve, and the embroidered emblem there. “Perils of the station.”

“And I hope I am not responsible for introducing you into yet more such.”

“Shall we bicker over this? Perhaps ritual combat?”

“I'll bring the gryphons, at least,” Vidarian said at last.

Lirien smiled. “I hoped you might.”


Thalnarra and Altair were not the only two gryphons at the council meeting, as it turned out.

The council meeting was held in the largest stateroom of the Viere d'Inar, a chamber so heavy with gilt-chased mahogany cabinets and a monstrosity of an oval dining table—all hailing, if Vidarian's history was correct, from the opulent age of Alorea's third emperor—that it likely served as the ship's primary ballast all on its own. As children, Vidarian and Ruby had never been allowed in this room, and so entering it now was nearly as intimidating as its occupancy of nearly a dozen hardened pirate captains.

Fortunately the stateroom was in the aftcastle, sparing the gryphons the indignity of stairs. The wide stone stairways of the elemental temples were one thing, but Vidarian shuddered to think of what their talons would make of the narrow ladders leading down into even the Viere's broad holds.

Vidarian had told Marielle of his intention to bring Thalnarra and Altair, as well as Iridan and the emperor—a tense conversation that had been half request and half negotiation. At first Marielle had resisted the idea of bringing the emperor to the council at all, sharing many of Vidarian's concerns, but at length she had been convinced by its simple expediency. And while she was clearly not much enamored of the idea of two more large gryphons in her grand stateroom, she saw the sense of their inclusion as well. Iridan's presence she accepted with only cordiality, and again Vidarian was surprised by the ease with which she seemed inclined to include him.

The third gryphon was halfway familiar: one of the pelican-gryphons he'd seen out on the pier, here in the flesh, larger than he'd remembered Arikaree being by a good head-height. The knack he'd developed for deciphering gender on the goshawk, kite, and hawk-gryphons was useless here, though he suspected that the creature's sheer size hinted at a “she.”

Lirien had dressed carefully for the occasion, in a partially formal variation on his black silk robes. As he had in the palace, he wore a simple circlet of gold embossed with the imperial insignia. He stood with Vidarian, Iridan, Thalnarra, and Altair far aft of the doorway, around the narrower end of the oval table, as the rest of the captains filed in. Those who did not look with wonder at Iridan stared openly at the emperor with a mix of expressions varying from curiosity to open hostility, but took to their seats without issue.

Marielle sat at the head of the table, a black geode in front of her acting as a ceremonial gavel, a wiry bespectacled girl with a large leather-bound book and a quill sitting just behind her. She began the council meeting as soon as all the captains had taken their seats, leaving no room for chatter. “Thank you, Captains, for your swift attendance of this three-hundredth and thirty-second meeting of the West Sea Council,” she began, and struck the table heavily with the geode. “I would also like to welcome our new council members, Shaman Te'lu of the Traenumar, and Kiowa of the Kado'a fisher-gryphons.”

The one she called Shaman Te'lu could have been An'du's brother, though he was white of hair and had a bluer tone to his pale green skin. Like An'du, he was a giant of a man in human form, requiring an oversized chair brought down from one of the sitting rooms. He nodded and smiled to Marielle's greeting, an unassuming openness to his features that Vidarian liked immediately.

All told the council itself numbered nine, including Marielle; in addition to Kiowa and Te'lu, there was a sun-hardened thin man of dark features, a short broad-shouldered man also of unclear nationality, a small and precise-featured Rikani, a slim Ishmanti with her long hair in hundreds of tiny braids, a tall blonde Alorean whose even stare reminded Vidarian painfully of Ruby, and a pair of surprisingly young men who both wore captain's-rank badges for the same ship.

“We convene for one reason,” Marielle continued, looking around the table. “As your seconds will have told you, we are approached by the Alorean Emperor, Lirien Aslaire, with an offering of partnership in repelling the Alorean Import Company from the continent and the West Sea. Attending Lirien—” Vidarian watched the emperor out of the corner of his eye for any sign of reaction to the familiarity of Marielle's address, and relaxed when he saw none—“is the automaton Iridan, created by the Grand Artificer Parvidian, and Captain Vidarian Rulorat, called gryphon-friend, who bridges many cultures, including our own.”

“He's a lander,” one of the captains sneered, a whip-thin fellow with a greasy black mustache, Maresh under all his grime, Vidarian thought. Though from the sound of it, calling him from Maresh might result in bared steel. An island it might be, but an island was still land. “Soft and dry as barn-cat bones.”

“He is no lander,” Marielle said, and however long she'd been here, the pirates knew well enough to take her casual tone for the threat it was. “And you'll button your insults, Kalil, or we'll settle it here between us.”

Kalil bared his teeth, a shocking and animalistic gesture, but said no more.

“I welcome Emperor Lirien and Captain Rulorat to this council,” Marielle said, steel under the wool-frankness of her tone. “And open our discussion with a question for the empire. If the West Sea Kingdom agrees to provide martial support for your resistance and expulsion of the Alorean Import Company, will you extend in return a binding peace agreement recognizing the sovereignty of the West Sea Kingdom over all our disputed territories, lasting at least three generations?”

Vidarian drew in his breath, and a soft rustle behind him sounded as the gryphons lifted their neck-feathers. None of them had expected Marielle to move so quickly into a negotiation—but even as his mind reeled with what she was suggesting, Vidarian saw the brilliance of it: by forcing the emperor to extend his agreement first, she would make it nearly impossible for the council to refuse. To do so, if Lirien would support her offer, would be to reject what their forebears had striven for with blood and gold for the better part of a century. Though he strained, Vidarian did not dare even look at the emperor, for fear of his reaction.

Silence stretched across the table.

// I know little of your human empires, // Altair said, his voice pitched for Thalnarra and Vidarian alone. // But this is a great concession, yes? //

Very great, Vidarian thought back, and as he did so Iridan's head turned slightly toward him. He reminded himself again to beg some kind of thought-training from Isri. The Alorean Empire and the Sea Kingdoms have warred for nearly a hundred years.

“I will,” Lirien said, and around them Vidarian could feel the energy in the room quicken. Like it or not, they accepted the emperor's authority, perhaps even revered it, and to reverse the imperial position toward the Sea Kingdoms was to change the course of Alorean history itself.

“But we won't,” Kalil growled. Marielle made an exasperated noise, but he ignored her. “What guarantee do we have that he'll keep his word? Why would he not throw us overboard the moment he dared? We've received nothing but the boot from the Alorean Empire, and I say faugh to his peace offering.” He looked ready to spit, and only narrowly contained himself, but his eyes widened with fervor. “Perhaps we should move on imperial territory while we know them to be distracted!”

A chorus of objections rose around the table, and Kalil shouted back to them: “They'd do the same to us!”

The table devolved into three separate arguments carried on simultaneously. The pair of young captains—their closeness and familiarity reminded Vidarian of the co-captainship his grandfather and grandmother were said to have—derided and mocked Kalil, who puffed up with fury, while the other captains fell into separate arguments about territory and trade routes respectively. Marielle pounded the table with the black geode until Vidarian feared it would crack.

“They seek to pull us into a war of their own making!” Kalil shouted, pushing himself to his feet and glaring across the table. “This war with Qui is as ridiculous as the imperial squabbling that began the Sea Wars our forefathers and foremothers abandoned to create this kingdom! And we are called here to discuss a peace agreement with the same madmen?”

“A century ago, our forebears warred over this very issue,” Vidarian said, thumping the table with his fist. “The separation of the empires and the common people caught between them. And you—” he pointed at the Maresh captain, who glowered—“would have us sail into another war with each other even as you decry the foolishness of the conflict with Qui.” Kalil puffed up again, but Marielle banged the table, and Vidarian's interjection served to distract him long enough for the other captains to continue a real discussion.

“Qui control over the Eastern Sea has been a choke hold on the Sea Kingdoms for decades,” the blonde captain said, looking around the table for confirmation. “If we could open relations there…”

“It would mean a world of expansion and trade,” the Rikani captain said. “You know that I of all of us have least love for the Qui, but neither do I believe that war with their ports is in our interest. By opposing the Alorean Empire in this resistance, do we not in fact support the Qui Empire?”

“But he's talking about war on the empire itself,” the broad-barreled captain said. He had been quiet during the bickering, but when he spoke now, the others paused and listened. “War from within.”

“On the Company,” Lirien corrected gently, leaning forward. “I will establish the imperial position. They will do their best to cloud it to the populace, but we have evidence on our side.”

“And communication,” Iridan added. Thirteen heads turned toward him. “Proper use of the relay spheres should allow us to cut through the lies they will attempt to spread, at least in the larger cities that have working relay rooms.”

“It sounds like we've moved on to tactics,” Marielle said into the silence that followed Iridan's words. Undoubtedly they were all considering what the presence of the automaton meant. How much more ancient technology did the Company still hold in reserve? “I'll therefore call a vote. Those in favor of supporting the Alorean Empire in its repulsion of the Alorean Import Company, in exchange for a peace treaty recognizing the West Sea Kingdom as sovereign over the territories now held and known as the Outwater, indicate your agreement.”

Around the table, hands lifted, heads nodded, “aye”s were pronounced. The scribe at Marielle's right hand scribbled furiously.

“Those opposed?”

Kalil muttered a general obscenity at all of them, folding his arms across his chest and glaring nowhere in particular.

“We must meet them on the open ocean,” Marielle said. “They must not be permitted to learn the location of Rivenwake.”

A chorus of agreement answered her, and she rapped the table with the geode again, ending the council. One by one the captains stood, moving toward either Lirien or Marielle, proffering greetings or battle strategies. Others approached the gryphons, and Iridan—between them, Vidarian moved to catch Marielle's eye, only long enough for a smile of thanks. She returned it, guardedly, and he did not need to be a mindspeaker to read the caution there, the resolve; once again, the true work now would begin.