Lance of Earth and Sky (The Chaos Knight Book Two) (25 page)

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.

A
piercing whistle, softened by the walls of the ship but still shrill, woke Vidarian from troubled sleep before dawn the next morning.

He dressed quickly, and when he emerged into the pale blue of predawn with Rai following on his heels, Rivenwake was alive with activity, this time with a seriousness of purpose. Gone were the jubilant calls from the market; now the merchants tied down their wares, sealed barrels, and prepared goods of a different kind. Casks of powder and crates of lead rolled down the floating walkways; sailors drilled and smiths fed their forges as the free people of the West Sea Kingdom prepared for war.

On the
Luminous
, he went first to the relay chamber, the natural gathering point for information across the entire armada. Iridan, Isri, and Khalesh gathered there, Iridan with his gemstones dim and the other two with heavy eyelids that spoke of late nights and heavy burdens. An array of devices lay before them on the table, and a steady stream of messengers flowed through the chamber, removing some and adding others. Rai padded up to the table and sniffed it, then sniffed at Iridan.

?
, came his thought, a wordless note of curiosity surrounding Iridan's sharp smell.
Metal
, Vidarian thought back.
Clockwork man.
The wolf was getting bigger again; with only a slight lift of his head he could now see over the edge of the table.

“I heard a pipe whistle,” Vidarian began.

“
They've sighted imperial scout-ships
,” Iridan said. “
Not here, thankfully
,” he added, when Vidarian's eyes widened. “
In the Outwater. Searching
.”

“Skyships?” Vidarian asked.

“Afraid so.” A new voice, this time, but equally tired—Malloray, entering the chamber with a tray piled with
kava
and meatrolls. There was even a plate of raw chicken for Rai; Isri must have told him that Vidarian and the wolf had arrived. In spite of the intervening months he still wasn't quite used to living with telepaths. “They must think you're quite important. One of our scouts says the flagship is flying the banner of Admiral Allingworth.” Malloray set his tray down, then put the plate of chicken on the floor for Rai.

“They've been sounding all morning,” Khalesh added. “Did you just hear that one?”

Just then, the relay sphere at the center of the table brightened. Iridan opened two latched panels on either side of his palm, baring a blue lens embedded within, and placed his hand over the sphere. Light poured through it, and, miraculously, a moving picture began to take shape in the air above it.

“Lovely trick,” Malloray murmured, squinting at the picture. Iridan adjusted his hand until the image sharpened into recognizability.

It was a scout, his hair whipped by a stiff wind over the Outwater. His mouth moved, and Iridan spoke, but not with his own voice. It was higher, and accented—the voice of the scout: “
Reporting from the third waypoint, sir! We've spotted the ships! Reports that it was Admiral Allingworth're right true, sir! They 'a'ven't spotted us, but we're circlin' some distance away—hope to keep ourselves from discovery for as long as we can!
”

“Well done, Rioque. Stay out of sight, stay safe, and we'll look to your midday report,” Malloray answered.

The sphere's light faded, and Iridan took back his hand.

“I've got to go out there,” Vidarian said. “I've got to speak with Allingworth. He'll listen to reason about all this. They must have sent him for diplomatic purposes.” Khalesh and Malloray looked doubtful, and Vidarian pressed again. “He's the most important man in their war right now. They wouldn't pull him from the line if the object were simple destruction.”

“You'll need a skiff,” Malloray said. “One of ours will do. And Sea Kingdom ships will have to follow beneath you.”

“They haven't much chance against skyships, have they?” Vidarian asked quietly, not wanting to, but unable to avoid it.

To his surprise, Khalesh smiled, a vicious expression. “That's our job.” He waved a hand over the table.

“All these bits? What are you doing?” Vidarian picked up one of the elemental tools. It flared as he touched it and he nearly dropped it again.

“They've been working on converting the
Viere
into a skyship for some time, apparently,” Malloray said. “Khalesh and Iridan have been conscripted into speeding up the process.”

Khalesh shook his head. “Not a lot of good we are thus far. We need power sources.”

“I saw a merchant among the tradegoods rafts,” Vidarian said. “He had a strange lot of elemental artifacts—including a prism key.”

The eye Khalesh turned on him was a mixture of interest and reproach at the reminder of their last interaction with a prism key, namely the one containing Ruby. But his curiosity won out, and he grunted a question. “Whereabouts?”

“Past the grocers and the growers, the luxury rafts farthest down the main walkway from the
Viere
,” Vidarian said.

“We'll go presently,” Malloray said, picking up a pair of relay lenses. He stepped back out the door and shouted for a messenger before he put them on. Then he was looking deeply into the relay sphere, his eyes somewhere far away. When the messenger appeared, he blinked, and said, “Summon the emperor, if you would. I have his Qui ambassador here, as requested.”

Iridan and Khalesh were intent on their devices, and so Vidarian withdrew, wanting to seek out his skiff and get under way as fast as possible. Isri followed him, walking quietly out into the hall and shutting the door after Rai trotted out behind them.

The sight of her reminded Vidarian of how far they had come since the opening of the gate. As strange, quiet sadness accompanied those thoughts, for so many reasons.

“I had not thought to bring you into a war,” he murmured.

A soft thrumming sounded from Isri's chest and throat—laughter, he realized, or a kind of it. “You assume that, before we entered the Great Gate, my people were accustomed to peace,” she said, and when the laughter faded her voice turned downward into sadness. “Which we were not. And even if we had been…” Now the laugh was half sigh, and sliding quickly somewhere darker. “You know her.
Adrasti
. They—you—call her Starhunter. I have seen things, Vidarian, that our world ought never see.”

“The seridi,” Vidarian said, an echo of their living nightmares coming back to him, making him shiver. “They say things—”

“They are still seeing those visions of which I speak,” she said sadly. “They are trapped in them.”

“They're real, then? The visions?” Somehow the question, though distant and seeming inconsequential, felt critically important.

“To them, yes,” Isri answered simply, crest-feathers just lifted in mild surprise. “They exist in those visions. They're quite real to them. But where they come from we don't know. Certainly other worlds, many of the other worlds that
Adrasti
can see and travel to, worlds beyond our ken. Even times, we think. Ages past and possibly even future.” She started down the hall, then turned back, and Vidarian nearly ran into her. “Have you been sleeping?”

Vidarian didn't know how to answer. He also couldn't remember the last time he'd had a truly solid night's sleep, one not plagued by nightmares that would wake him panting and disoriented, spectres of dreams fading like threads of old spiderweb.

“It's good if you can sleep,” Isri said, her cheek-feathers lifted in a tentative smile.

“I—have nightmares,” Vidarian confessed.

He would have continued, but just then Lirien came striding down the hallway, a small entourage in tow. One of the attendants was the scribe who had annotated the council meeting. Vidarian stepped out of the way, and Lirien smiled as he passed.

“Qui?” Vidarian asked.

Lirien nodded. “I've made contact with our ambassador. He's been trapped in the embassy in Shen Ti, but Iridan was able to make contact with a dormant relay sphere there. It will take some doing, and time, but I intend to reach Emperor Ziao.” A hardness, and a fire, had stolen into Lirien's bearing. For the first time since they'd left the palace, Vidarian began to see the rebirth of the empire, and a new kind of future.

Before he could leave, another authority would need to be convinced. Vidarian strode up the gangplank to board the
Viere d'Inar
, rehearsing repeatedly the explanation he would provide to Marielle for his journeying alone to treat with the admiral.

What he saw at the edge of the main deck stopped him in his tracks, and drove all thought of persuasion from his mind.

Altair crouched in the center of the deck, legs folded as neatly as a statue's, his wings half-spread with wingtips brushing the deck. His eyes were narrow slits, and eddies of invisible wind lifted the feathers all over his body. Around him sat a circle, evenly spaced, of glowing, fist-sized blue gems, and before him sat an elaborate device, roughly square, made of metal wheels all interlocking and studded with more blue elemental tubes.

Altair's eyes opened wide, and beneath them, the
Viere d'Inar
stirred, rose.

Vidarian flailed with his arms, catching at the rail. Beside him, Rai hissed, spreading his wings partway and cutting into the gangplank with his claws.

The ship only lifted a scant inch or two out of the water, but its rise was faltering, far from steady. After much shifting and rocking, it stabilized—then sank back into the water with a soft crash as hull met wave once more.

Now Altair was shuddering, coming back to himself. He blinked, and the white haze that had misted across his eyes faded, returning sense to them. His wings drooped with exhaustion. Nonetheless, when he came back to himself, his beak lifted in a smile of greeting.

“We'll have this old sea queen converted in no time,” a cheerful voice said behind them. It was Marielle, ascending from the main ladders with a double-armful of iron and leather equipment. She set it down next to Altair—not getting too close, for the volatile wind energy crackled between the elemental stones at random intervals—and came up to meet Vidarian. When she drew near, she held out her hand for Rai to sniff, which he did, cautiously, his wide striped tail flicking back and forth as he did so. “Altair has been a tremendous help. Without his touch to fill and calibrate these salvaged controls, we wouldn't have a prayer of getting into the sky.”

“Speaking of which,” Vidarian began, by now having totally abandoned his carefully rehearsed argument.

“The sighting whistles,” Marielle said, her voice darkening like clouds over afternoon sun. “You want to go and meet that imperial admiral. By yourself, I'll wager.”

“Well, I—”

“You'd better leave quickly if you want to run advance of the rest of us,” she said only. “And I'll send two ships with you, of course. Not a terrible lot they'll be able to do from the water—but Ulaine and his partner captain the best gunnery ship we've got. They'll suit you.”

Taken aback by Marielle's forthright agreement to his dangerous mission, Vidarian could only nod, and finally salute, to which Marielle raised an acerbic eyebrow, and only smiled. “I take it you'll have notified them already,” he added, once he began to get an inkling of how much further she'd thought the plan through.

“They'll be waiting for you at the northside docks. Don't make them wait too long.”

He bowed then, though it was odd for so many reasons, and turned to go.

“Vidarian.”

Slowly he turned back around.

“Keep them safe for me.”

He smiled, making the pledge to himself as well as her. “I will—your majesty.”