Lance of Earth and Sky

By 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.”

Renard seemed not to hear him. “I have another coat and trousers in the back that may work, quickly stitched. Appalling as it is to consider you going before the emperor in such a state,” he said. “I told them I'd have nothing to do with it, but they went and got a bloody decree. I made Emiran swear my name would never be connected with this debacle or I'd ensure the tailors' guild blacklisted him for life.” His birdlike eyes turned to Calphille and he gasped dramatically. “And they said absolutely nothing about you, my dear.” He didn't wait for her to answer, but clapped his hands and shouted, “Giselle!”

A harried face poked into the colonnaded doorway at the rear of the salon just as Renard drew breath to shout again. He took Calphille gently by the elbow and steered her toward the face. “Take miss—” a look, and Calphille gave her name, “Calphille to the arbor room and fit her up with a gown from the Countess Bel'Maritai's collection.” He tilted his head conspiratorially toward Vidarian. “Silly waif won't know it's gone, and anyway she's on ‘holiday’ what with all the commotion.” Calphille shot a startled glance at Vidarian, but let herself be escorted down the hallway.

When Renard turned back to Vidarian, it was not unlike meeting the eyes of one of the elemental goddesses. “First—a bath, a thorough one. It's prepared in the water chamber, just up the hall.” He turned immediately to Isri without waiting to see if Vidarian would comply, and opened the velvet cloak with long, clever fingers. “A terrible shame to hide such beautiful plumage,” he murmured, brushing one of Isri's primaries when she nodded permission to his proffered hand. Vidarian revised his estimation of the man at the look of kindness and apology he now directed at her. “But the common folk can be barbarians.”

Ruby gave a venomous mutter about “uncommon” folk, the first she'd spoken since their landing. Vidarian couldn't help but agree, though he snuck off to the ordered bath before he could risk Renard's attention again.


Two hours later, Vidarian, Calphille, and Isri were ensconced in separate chambers. Renard had moved like a whirlwind and left Vidarian with three of the best-fitting sets of clothing he'd ever owned, and yet another warning that they had never met. Vidarian had assured him of total secrecy, and another under-steward had come to direct him to his chambers.

The rooms were, of course, palatial, with the water chamber alone easily twice the size of his cabin on the lost Empress Quest. In the sleeping room, the velvet-curtained bed was the largest he had ever seen, and the dark, heavy furniture, resplendent with silver-work, was surely worth more than the Quest herself had been at the market's height a decade ago.

All of this washed over Vidarian, barely noticed. He was here to see the emperor, and his door was unguarded. The under-steward had left him in the room, wary of the pup, whose spines still emitted the odd spark of electricity, without any instruction. And the pup, in the way of young things, had promptly curled up on the cool stone floor of the water chamber and fallen asleep.

Vidarian eased out into the marble-tiled corridor and closed the door behind him as quietly as he could. He listened for any sign that the pup had awakened, but there was only silence. Quietly he turned, rehearsing a story about searching for the kitchens in hunger—not entirely untrue—in case he should meet a servant.

But after nearly an hour of wandering through hallways—some indoor, some open to the outside and the balmy, flower-scented evening air—he realized that suspicious servants were the least of his problems. The palace was massive, sprawling, and utterly indecipherable.

He was about to turn back to his chambers—assuming he could even find them, which was a big assumption—when Ruby spoke again, after more hours of silence.

* Left, left, right. *

“What?” he said, startled into answering her aloud. He looked around, relieved that they were alone.

* Left around this corner, left again at the end of the hallway, then right, across the courtyard. *

“Are you just guessing?” Vidarian was genuinely hungry now, and on the edge of irritation. Ruby offered no answer, so he followed the directions. He was sure he'd been down these corridors before—but the courtyard she directed him to was a new one.

* Down the stairs, third door, down the hallway. *

“How do you know this?” he said quietly, looking around again for observers.

* I don't know. * A hint of real worry colored her voice, but beneath it the strange tone he'd heard from her before, distant and diffuse.

She continued to direct him, only once leading them astray—* Strange, that wall wasn't there… *

Finally they came to an underground room deep in the heart of the palace. This one was guarded, and Vidarian offered a hasty and mostly true explanation of his imperial summons to the two pikemen who flanked the plain stone door.

The two guards exchanged looks, and the one on the right opened the door and disappeared inside. Vidarian barely had time to prepare another explanation when he reappeared again. To his surprise, he beckoned Vidarian inside.

A low ceiling in the next hallway forced the guard to angle his pike, and he bore it carefully down a series of mazelike passages. Just when Vidarian was sure he was being escorted out of the building by some other exit, the guard stopped before a final door, flanked by two more guards.

One of the guards opened the door—this one wooden and heavily carved—and the bluish light that spilled from the chamber beyond blinded Vidarian for several long moments.

When his eyes adjusted, it took him another long interval to make sense of what he was seeing.

Nine men and women sat evenly spaced around a circular table of heavy polished stone. The blue light came from thick glass lenses that they all wore. All but one of them were murmuring continuously, though none of them, as far as he could tell, were saying the same thing. In the center of the table was a glittering sphere, a glass orb larger than a gryphon's head, also glowing with blue light and worked all over with holes laid out in geometric patterns. It reminded him of the amplifier, the glass device he'd used to magnify his fledgling elemental abilities against the Vkortha, so long ago.

The ninth figure, a young man sitting closest to the glowing sphere, wore a simple gold circlet at his brow.

“Welcome, Captain,” the emperor said, standing and pulling the blue lenses from his eyes with weary hands, “to Val Imris—and the Relay Room.”