Lance of Earth and Sky (The Chaos Knight Book Two) (32 page)

At her words, Meleaar gave an almost sheepish nod of his beak, and Vidarian looked closely at him, reevaluating all of their conversations.

//
Obnoxious, isn't it?
// Thalnarra continued, when stunned silence answered her, //
Brawn, beauty, and an exceptionally rare talent.
// Then, privately to Vidarian: //
You didn't think we kept him around just because he's pretty, did you?
//

Actually, I did
, he thought back at her, not knowing if she would hear, but she, Meleaar, and Malloray all chuckled.

“Continue with your story, sirrah,” Marielle said, idly spinning a curved sharkskin-handled knife by its pointed tip on the table. The lacquer would be the worse for it, but it had the desired effect on the officer, who swallowed.

“I've never seen the device myself, obviously,” he said, stretching for arrogance and reaching only awkwardness with his wrists bound behind him. “I've seen diagrams. If you bring me parchment…?” He eyed the stack of paper at the empty secretary's place at the table.

“Why should we believe you?”

The officer sputtered, a single hopeless note that ended in a shake of his head. “Why not? They won't come back for me. I'm as good as a fugitive now.” He tilted his head to one side. “And if I give you what you want, you'll remember and reward me.”

“Don't be so sure,” Marielle said dryly, spinning the knife again.

The rest of them exchanged looks, and Isri leaned forward, staring at the man. She stood and approached him, picking up a sheet of the paper and a wrapped stick of charcoal beside it. The officer beamed, twisting in his chair to bring his wrists toward her, but she gently shook her head. When she reached him, she placed her left hand on his forehead and took up the stylus with her right. “Imagine it,” she said.

Flummoxed and flushing from it, the man looked about to reply, then took a deep breath. “Fine,” he said.

They both closed their eyes, and Isri's charcoal began to move, tracing a diagram of an elemental device onto the parchment. Gradually it began to emerge: tubes and crystal spheres and elemental gems, as well as a marking that indicated placing a strap from it around the arm of a seated human. Isri drew for several minutes, setting down one line and then another, erasing yet another line and redrawing it with a swipe of her pencil.

At last the charcoal stopped, and Isri set it aside, nudging the parchment across the table to Khalesh. The big man accepted the parchment, then turned it around twice, looking at it from one angle after another.

“Mothers protect us,” Khalesh whispered. Vidarian wanted to ask him what on earth he meant, but his eyes were riveted to the page. “If this is right—these two devices together could be used to wipe out an entire race. Or more than one race.”

The table erupted in intense conversation. It went on for several moments before Marielle banged on the table with the lapis pommel of her knife. “Come now!” she chided them. “But aye, Khalesh, I admit I'd like to know what you mean by that. What do you mean by ‘race’? Which two devices? And destroy them how?”

Khalesh spun the parchment on the table, pushing it toward them. He indicated two spherelike devices on it, each dotted with holes. “You see these? They're relay spheres.” He tapped three more points. “And an elemental triangulation system. They've bridged two known devices.” And then the strap. “This connects to a given person's essence.”

They all continued to stare at him, and he tapped the parchment hard with a huge forefinger. “This is a location device, a finder, but with this kind of power, it's meant to find not just one other person, but every person who is
like
the person they connect to it. Or,” he looked to Isri and then Thalnarra, misery heavy in his eyes. “Species, I think. If the species is nonhuman.” Silence fell again, and he jabbed the parchment once more. “Don't you see? The only reason you would have for locating every single member of an entire species is to attach a weapon to this device, which they appear to have modified it to create.” He indicated another part of it.

//
And they have this device already?
// Thalnarra said, skeptical. //
Why haven't they used it?
//

“They don't have it yet,” the officer said. “But they know how to build it. They're missing some of the parts. I don't know which.”

“Ariadel said the rumors were they were going to test a weapon on the prison camp.” Marielle said, her voice harsh with dismay.

Vidarian rested his forehead in his hands. “And Tepeki feared something exactly like this. A killing weapon that could annihilate his entire clan.” When he raised his head again, he looked around the table, meeting each set of eyes in turn. “We need to get to it before they do.”

“How do you propose we do that?” Endera asked.

“We ask the entire empire. Both empires,” he added. “We use what they don't have—numbers.” Pushing himself to his feet, Vidarian circled the table, taking up a pair of relay glasses. “Malloray, Iridan, Meleaar—can you make this sphere reach every relay sphere on the continent?”

Man, gryphon, and automaton exchanged glances, measuring. They were silent for several long moments, and then Iridan nodded. “
We can.
” He placed a polished brass hand on the relay sphere in the center of the table, and Vidarian's glasses began to glow. Malloray joined him, closing his eyes.

“
At your leisure
,” Iridan said at last.

“Citizens of Alorea,” Vidarian said, willing strength into his voice, reaching into his memories of Lirien's imperial addresses. “Citizens of the world. Most of you do not know my name. Neither do you know the names of the men and women who have taken it upon themselves to decide the fate of our world in secret, to seize power and destroy entire populations for their own gain, to rule in small numbers over an enslaved people unfortunate enough to be born without wealth. You do not know the names of the imperial citizens that the Alorean Import Company imprisoned against their will, leaving them in the southern desert to die.” He paused then, knowing every moment of silence across the sphere would seem an eternity, but needing to gather his thoughts.

“A great shadow is upon us,” he continued, looking into the sphere. “We will need every hand, every eye. The time for division is over. A new age is upon us, one in which we must decide whether we choose a life tailored to a chosen few, or a life that can sustain, a life where people across Andovar can live in peace with one another, not as all-powerful bearers of force, but as brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, human and gryphon and seridi and shapechanger. I ask you to look beyond the barriers that separate us and look to each other, for strength and healing in our changing world.

“Will you join me?”

W
hat an amazing and strange year this has been.

Sword of Fire and Sea
appeared in June 2011, and, like its predecessor, this book owes its existence to a cast of many at Pyr: Lou Anders, editorial director (2011 winner of the Hugo Award for long-form editing!); Catherine Roberts-Abel, Jacqueline Cooke (art department), Jade Zora Ballard, and Bruce Carle in production; Jill Maxick in publicity and Lisa Michalski in marketing. I'd also like to thank Steven L. Mitchell, editor in chief, Jon Kurtz, president, and the rest of the fine folk at Prometheus Books, for continuing to fan the flames. Beyond Pyr, Gabrielle Harbowy lends her eagle-gryphon-like copyediting eye, and Dehong He honors us with yet another amazing cover.

This book is dedicated to my grandparents: Nellie and Harry, whom I did not know but whose influence permeates and sustains my father's family today, and Dorothy Lee and Masato Asakawa. I am incredibly lucky to have grown up knowing grandparents who were not only strong and loving, but truly heroic. My grandfather grew up on a pier (literally on a pier; there are photos) in San Diego, and in 1942 at age sixteen was sent to the Japanese Internment Camp in Poston, Arizona. While it would be easy for the events of the next several years to calcify a person's life, it is my grandparents' reaction in the decades following that define them to me as heroes: an absence of bitterness, a joy in life, and a deep knowledge that we are every day responsible for creating and fighting for the society that we live in. I inherit from them a good part of my overactive sense of justice and a lifetime of inspiration.

Lastly, of course, my husband Jay was instrumental in my surviving the writing of this book. The perils of a second book are many, but that's a story for another time (and another place: say,
erinhoffman.com
?).

Some of you joined the journey early on, and, as promised, I'd like to thank you here. What follows is the list of the first one hundred members of the World of Andovar page on Facebook (
www.facebook.com/andovar.world
). As of the writing of this author's note, the page's membership is at 2,135, and by the time you read this hopefully it will have continued to grow. Thank you all for joining the great gryphon cause of 2011…and beyond!

Mandy Heiser

Bruce Harlick

Ellen Denham

Jason Wodicka

Ronya McCool

Shannon Ridler

Sherry Peters

Adria Laycraft

Matthew S. Rotundo

Jamie Ridler

Susan Shell Winston

Rita Oakes

Julie Miyamoto

Barbara Barnett-Stewart

Stephen Gallagher

Charles Tan

Jocelyn Johnson

Lana McCarthy

Edward Heiland

Beth Langford

Karen A. Romanko

David J. Corwell

Marty Brown

Link Hughes

Sheri Rubin

Christy Marx

Sharon Axline

Tracy Seamster

Sharon Keir patry

Jeremy Nusser

Andrew Carroll

Katie Connell

Michael Dore

Caroline Yim

Erik J. Caponi

Shannon Drake

Caroline Wong

Ethan Benanav

Lucy Snyder

Carolyn Koh

Karen Jungsun Lee

Melissa MyWorld

Kimberly M. Rosal

Melissa Tomney

Kate Marshall

Emily Mei

Ken Wallace

Burke Trieschmann

Michael McCormick

Rod Hannah

Devin Hoffman

Allen Varney

Tina Tyndal

Jennifer Crow

Zoe Zygmunt

Trudy Marie Brutsche

Mary Rodgers

Lynda E. Rucker

Fred Kiesche

Kathy Whitlock Slee

Gabrielle Harbowy

Bill Spangler

Scott Oden

Mihir Wanchoo

Julia Mary Breidenbach

Rachel Brook

Andrew Mayer

Jill Maxick

Susan Griffith

Brandon K. Markham

David Alastair Hayden

Jon Sprunk

Rene Sears

Clay Griffith

Lou Anders

Frederick V. Wolfe II

Matthew Thomas Scibilia

Andrew J. Cooper

Jason Ridler

Michal Todorovic

Justin Howe

Michael J. DeLuca

James Hall

Marc Destefano

Erica Hildebrand

Shara Saunsaucie White

Jamey Stevenson

Reg Rozee

Maggie Della Rocca

Greg Johnson

Jonathan Rodgers

Annalise ‘Bents’ Fahlstrom

Brenda Cobbs

Sean Dumas

Jane Pinckard

Geoffrey Jacoby

Kristin Jett

Wes Unruh

Douglas Paton

Corvus Elrod

E
rin Hoffman is a video-game designer, author, and essayist on player rights and modern media ethics. She lives in northern California with her husband, two parrots, and two excessively clever dogs. For more about her work, and the world of Andovar, visit
www.erinhoffman.com
.