Lance of Earth and Sky (The Chaos Knight Book Two) (21 page)

“Believe me, Vidarian, war was the last thing I wanted. But Qui invaded. They started this.”

“We can end it. Call for peace.”

The look the emperor gave him was somewhere in between incredulity and disappointment. “After the blood they've shed? There can be no easy peace.”

A quiet had spread through Vidarian, a resolve that came purely from the center of a mad storm. “Your majesty, you know that my loyalty and my family's loyalty to the Alorean Empire is absolute. We have served you for generations.” He took a breath. “But what's here,” he tapped the book. “Is not our empire. If the Company can wage war, and stop you from policing even within your own borders, this is no longer the Alorean Empire.”

“Careful, Vidarian,” Lirien said, and the hard emotion in his eyes said he was straining to remain Vidarian's friend. “You tread close to treason.”

“It is not, your majesty,” Vidarian said, voice taut with diffidence. He turned to Malloray. “My friend, will you check to ensure our privacy?” Malloray blinked, and started to rise, but Vidarian lifted a hand. He stopped, Vidarian nodded slowly, and then he understood, taking his seat again. His eyes drifted shut for several moments, and Vidarian waited.

“None listen,” Malloray said, opening his eyes again. “And I have set some—precautions—that will warn us if they should try.”

Vidarian thanked him solemnly, then turned back to the emperor. He hesitated, weighing the look on Lirien's face, the soul-deep tiredness, the man on the edge of wielding an authority he did not want to wield. “Your majesty, I think you need to leave the Imperial City.”

Lirien stiffened, not quite jumping, but jerking his head upward in surprise. He squinted, lips pursed, obviously waiting for Vidarian to say he was joking and present him with the real plan. When he realized no such explanation was coming, he reddened, slightly. Elegantly. “No emperor in a thousand years—”

That wasn't entirely true, but now was not the moment to correct him. “You wouldn't be retreating,” Vidarian insisted. “The Company is singularly business-minded. They do not benefit from an outright abdication of your throne.” At the word
abdication
Lirien's face flushed again and Vidarian hurried on. “But they must be reminded of your value if you are to reassert your bargaining position—and regain control over your empire and people.” At this last he allowed a bit of hardness to creep into his voice. If his father had known that his own emperor had indebted himself to the Alorean Import Company…

“The goddesses know I have lost my leverage here,” the emperor said, at once on the edge of despair and with a father's regret.

“Come with us, then, your majesty, and negotiate from outside the city. Couch it as a morale tour for your people.”

Lirien snorted, looked into his glass, and took another drink. “With you, is it?” His sad smile, pained and friendly, took any sting from the words.

“We'll have the gryphon clans, the fire ones at least, and the loyal remnants of the Sky Knights.”

“What you propose is very likely suicide,” Lirien said. Then he sighed, and drained his glass again. “But it is an honorable death. And you are correct.” The defeat in his voice was excruciating. “The empire has not been truly an empire in my lifetime. Perhaps this is its chance to be so again, if only for a moment.” He set his glass on the table, and Vidarian could feel him gathering strength. “A royal voyage. We will take the
Empress Cimeria
.”

“I'm afraid we can't take that ship, your majesty,” Vidarian said. “Who knows what the Company will have equipped it with. But we should send it away. Perhaps to Rikan?”

“A ruse,” Lirien said.

“Malloray, can you send a message to the chief steward, and tell him to prepare the
Empress Cimeria
for an imperial flight to Rikan? And—the
Luminous
, for a reconnaissance flight, destination not to be disclosed.”

Malloray blinked. “It's done,” he said.

“Thank you, my friend.”

“And we will bring that bloody automaton,” Lirien said, and the growl that crept into his voice now, evoking the lion for which he was named, made the hair on the back of Vidarian's neck rise. “If Justinian wants him, he shall not have him.” Now was also not the time to inform him that he so precisely echoed Oneira's hurt words. For a moment, Vidarian felt a pang of sadness for Iridan, even if he could not trust him: torn between one manipulating hand and the next, wanting only—so he said—to reunite with his brother and sister.

“I'll see to it myself,” Vidarian said only.

“I hope you know what you're doing, Captain,” the emperor murmured.

W
hen Vidarian left the emperor's office, a single steward—a short, dark man who moved with a purpose that, in spite of what appeared to be duller livery, said he outranked the “front” palace stewards—filed in to speak with Lirien. Before Vidarian had even left the hallway, the man was jogging out, calling to three more of his staff. And by the time Vidarian reached the main palace, the east wing was a hive of activity.

Vidarian made a circuitous route, anxious to avoid even idle curiosity. He found his legs taking him automatically toward the skyship field north of the palace, and decided this was a plausible enough place to go. As he walked, he organized his thoughts. The memory of Ariadel still burned like a brand in his mind, but he convinced himself that every step he would take to fight for the empire was to fight for her, and for their child. There were several people whose aid he wished to call upon, and most could be reached from the
Luminous
's relay room—but one must be convinced to leave the city.

A simmering impatience to put his plans into action crept through his body as he forced himself to nonchalantly stroll across the skyship field. He exchanged waves and greetings with the sailors and carpenters who moved continuously among the ships, and feigned surprise when he heard that the
Empress Cimeria
was being prepared for an imperial visit to allies in Rikan. After three passes around the field, during which he surreptitiously checked the preparations for the
Luminous
, he permitted himself escape.

Vidarian left the skyship field and jogged to the stables, where he asked for and obtained three horses. Beyond the palace gates, Val Imris was alive with activity even at this early hour, and he only dared urge his mount to a dignified trot lest he attract the attention of the constables.

He didn't remember Khalesh's home being so far from the palace, and expected to see the wooden sign with its gear-and-flame symbol around every turn. By the time he arrived on the correct street, he nearly missed the sign again, so many times had his hopes been raised and dashed. Without dismounting, he kneed his horse up the three slate steps to Khalesh's door—quite to the gelding's flattened-ears disapproval—and knocked.

If the big man was surprised to see Vidarian, horsed, at his door, he didn't show it. He did take a look to right and left, as he had the first time Vidarian had visited, but then cheerfully asked, “How can I help you today, Captain?”

“There's someone I'd like you to meet,” Vidarian said.

Khalesh eyed the horses trailing behind Vidarian. “And I take it this someone is not within a day's ride of the city. I do have my own horse, you know.”

Vidarian hadn't, but it was obvious. The little apartment where Khalesh lived was on the second story, up a flight of stairs that immediately followed the front door. Below it, evident now by the grassy scent of straw and grain, was a small stable. “I should have thought of that,” he admitted. “But I'm on a rather tight schedule. Bring your horse, and your things; the horse can remain at the imperial stables.”

“Remain?” Khalesh asked, his thick eyebrows lowering.

“Where we're going,” Vidarian looked pointedly at the sky, “You won't need him.”

The Animator looked at him, brow furrowed, then his eyes suddenly widened. “How much time?”

“Minutes,” Vidarian said. The gelding pawed impatiently at the slate in unintended emphasis.

Khalesh nodded, then disappeared back into his house and shut the door.

Various clanks and crashes sounded from within, and Vidarian looked nervously up and down the street. What was Khalesh worried about his neighbors seeing or hearing?

Promised minutes later, the Animator was pushing open the half-rotted stable doors with a woven lead-line clamped between his teeth. A shaggy grey mare followed him, loaded with saddlebags full of books, and Khalesh had two more such thrown over his shoulders and under one arm. The other arm wrapped around a wrought-iron cage that contained the huge squawking bird Vidarian had passed by on his first visit. Only now, at this vantage, it was quite apparent that underneath its colorful feathers the bird was made out of metal and wire. Its eyes glowed orange.

“Rrawk?” the bird squawked, once the sunlight hit it and it noticed Vidarian. “Hello!”

Vidarian flinched back, spooking his horse. He wrestled it back to composure, and Khalesh apologized. “It's remarkable,” Vidarian cut him off.

“She,” Khalesh grunted, setting down the cage and belting the saddlebags onto the rear horse. He lifted the cage on top of the saddle and lashed it down, then, with easy strength and surprising agility for a man his size, lifted himself into the saddle of the middle animal.

Vidarian spared a few moments for him to settle onto the new mount, then kneed the gelding back toward the palace. He didn't dare trot with the mechanical bird fixed rather tenuously to that saddle, but he pushed to a fast, smooth walk.

“Are we fleeing the city?” Khalesh murmured.

“Not
fleeing
,” Vidarian said, and the Animator made a sound of agreement indicating quite clearly that he did not believe at all.

“But we're leaving,” Khalesh said. “Quickly.”

“Yes. Is that a problem?”

“Not at all. I just should have watered my plants.”

“Perhaps we can send a messenger,” Vidarian said, before he realized that the big man was laughing at him.

At the palace, Vidarian gave their horses to the stableboys, instructing them to take Khalesh's belongings and stow them aboard the
Luminous
. Khalesh started to object to his bird being trusted to children, and Vidarian told them to find Brannon and bring him to the stables. In minutes, the boy was there, and Vidarian asked him to take the bird directly to the gryphons aboard the ship, and to trust it to no other.

“You'll find no better protectors at the palace,” Vidarian assured Khalesh, when he still looked nervously after Brannon, who carried the cage awkwardly but carefully across the field.

One of the other stableboys—a sharp-looking child with dirty blond hair and an air of trouble about him—Vidarian pressed into service also, asking him to lead them to the Arboretum along the least traversed routes. When he understood the task, the boy first looked suspicious, but gradually lit up as Vidarian and Khalesh proved genuinely interested in his “secret” routes. Khalesh, for his part, had clearly never been to the palace before, and visibly relaxed when the stableboy's guidance brought them quickly away from polished marble and hammered gold.

They passed into narrow servants' hallways, and though they were not forbidden, it was as if they entered a secret world. There was an etiquette to the narrow passages, and fortunately the stableboy—who shyly had provided Elan as his name—knew all of the side-nooks and detours that would keep them out of the path of the rapidly moving stewards, maids, and pages that were the legitimate travelers.

When at last Elan opened a narrow stone door, Vidarian had no idea where they were—until he saw the cathedral-like arches of the Arboretum tree canopy. Twinkling through it was the light of the sun-sphere, and the purpose for the door—which Vidarian had not ever seen or knew existed—was right beside it: a divided little trough of several colors of birdseed.

Vidarian searched through his pockets for some token to give the boy, but had found nothing of appropriate value when Khalesh pulled a tiny metal sphere from a pouch at his waist. It was made of a lacework of brass laid over another lacework, and another beneath that in intricate succession—and when Khalesh breathed onto it, the interior spheres spun and shone with a pale blue light. Elan was old enough to insist it was far too lavish a gift, but young enough to accept it once Khalesh applied light insistence. The boy cradled it between his hands, bowed, and dashed back out the door to show off his prize.

The only sounds in the Arboretum were natural ones: the twitter of birds as they sang or battled over seed, the soft bubble of fountains. Vidarian didn't realize he was straining for any sign of Justinian's voice until he saw Khalesh anxiously watching him. He smiled an apology, then started down the path toward the main building where he'd first met Iridan, silently rehearsing what he would say if he encountered either Justinian or Oneira.

Iridan wasn't—quite—alone. Vidarian could detect a soft buzz of conversation, almost as though he were hearing a conversation in the next room, and in another language. When Iridan heard their approach, he turned, and suddenly his voice became coherent and audible. “
Good afternoon, Captain.
”

Khalesh's soft gasp as he saw and heard Iridan was suddenly worth all of his ribbing and superior attitude. Vidarian had not told him
whom
he wanted him to meet, and Khalesh, large and fierce-minded though he was, now openly shook with reaction as he pulled a pair of amber-lensed spectacles from his pocket and fitted them to his face.

Iridan tilted his head. “
And who is your friend?
”

“This is Khalesh vel'Itai. He is the last Animator in Val Imris,” Vidarian said.

To Vidarian's surprise, Iridan startled—or rather, that was the only way Vidarian could describe his reaction. His gems all flared in unison, and the mechanisms that slowly rotated in his chest picked up speed. He stood, and strode toward them to clasp Khalesh's hands in his own. “
Thank you, friend Vidarian, for bringing me such a treasure
,” he said, radiating gratitude and hope.

“Extraordinary,” Khalesh murmured, hoarse.

Guiltily Vidarian realized Iridan must have assumed he'd brought Khalesh to assist in his search. Knowing that it was useless to try to deceive him, Vidarian said, “I must confess, Iridan, I brought him for another task beyond assisting in finding your sibs, though I hope he will help you with that also.” Iridan's bright face turned toward him. “We have been summoned to another journey, this one to assist the emperor.” He tried to put as much feeling into his words as he could, hoping Iridan would read his desire for discretion.

“
I am at the emperor's service
,” Iridan said, an evenness to his cadence that said he understood. “
Have I time to pack a few things?
”

Guilt sparked in Vidarian's chest again when he felt his eyebrows lifting with surprise. Of course it would be possible for the automaton to have belongings. “We can spare a few minutes,” he managed.

“
Thank you
,” he said, then turned and disappeared down a passageway leading deeper into the underground hall.

On the table, Ruby sat, still cradled in the jewelry box Oneira had provided for her. To either side of the sun ruby that housed her were a pair of small sapphires. Though he didn't need to, Vidarian went to the table and knelt beside it, putting the jewelry box at eye level. “Ruby?” he said.

*
Oh, hello, Vidarian,
* Ruby said.

Beside him, Khalesh stiffened. He'd clearly heard her, and realized what she was. Vidarian lifted a hand to stop him from speaking. “We're about to depart on another skyship journey.”

*
Enjoy yourselves.
*

Vidarian blinked, a chill curling in his stomach. “I—had thought to bring you with us.”

*
I should stay here. Oneira is sourcing the parts for my body.
*

Unease rolled off of Khalesh, and Vidarian was thankful for Iridan's absence. “I've spoken with an Animator,” Vidarian said, turning again to shake his head at Khalesh lest the man think of speaking to Ruby directly. He took a deep breath when he turned back to Ruby. The last thing he'd wanted was to deliver Khalesh's pronouncement under the pressure of an imminent departure. “He…strongly believed that your…condition…should not be connected to an automaton body. That we should find another solution.”

Ruby was quiet for a moment, and the hope sparked that she would listen. Then—

*
What have I got to lose?
* she said. The quiet, tired defeat in her voice cut deep, eroding Vidarian's resolve.

“Your sanity,” he said, after reaching for and discarding many wrong words. “He said—”

*
I have precious little sanity left, Vidarian,
* she cut him off. *
I'm afraid you'll have to take this journey without me. I know where it leads.
*