Sword of Fire and Sea (The Chaos Knight Book One) (21 page)

At length, and as they were prepared to depart, Aldous and Altair emerged from the former's study, still chattering but more conscious now of those around them. Vidarian was impressed that they'd managed to reckon the time on their own, until he saw an apprentice emerge behind them and exchange a nod with Ariadel.

Ariadel's departure from her father was not without a few tears, and it pulled at Vidarian's heart to separate them so quickly after so long and perilous a journey. The few days on the islands had been a respite, not just for the warm sun and clear air, but from the strange voice that spoke to him as well. The presence in the ocean still nagged at him: he would swear that the one who spoke to him during the storm first was Nistra. But the second—the one that had invaded his thoughts so many times now? Had the magic in his mind grown wild, developed a personality of its own? It certainly seemed capable of it.

The kitten, now, was inseparable from Ariadel, and looked quite pleased with itself. Either natural maturation or its time as a spider had favored it: it was sleeker, seemed not quite so desperate for food, though it still ate its own body weight daily, it seemed. Aldous had exclaimed with wonder the first time Ariadel had shown him its trick of shapechanging, and inspected it closely; Thalnarra had also been impressed, but more reservedly.

The gryphoness, the largest of the three if he didn't count the fisher-gryphon's overlong neck and head, had benefited from the attentions of the field healer that lived here on Aldous's island. The man's talent was small, but made a difference: her cuts were not quite so vivid, and would hold together in flight this time.

As the apprentices helped Thalnarra and the other two gryphons into their harnesses, the gryphons spread their massive wings, testing flexibility and the strength of their harnesses. Finding both satisfactory, they sat back on their haunches, waiting for Vidarian and Ariadel to board.

“I thank you for your hospitality and invaluable advice,” Vidarian said, clasping Aldous by hand and elbow in a formal Imperial gesture learned from his father. “I know little of such things as fate, but knowing what we know now, I should think our course doomed without either.”

Aldous chuckled, shaking his head. “I suspect you would have found your way, if indeed fate is involved, as I suspect she is. Thank you for bringing a little sunshine to an old man's island retreat. And remember,” he smiled broadly, magnanimous as the gentle tropic wind, “what I said about the knees.”

“Of course, sir,” Vidarian agreed, and stepped back hastily to the craft where Ariadel waited, perched on its newly padded center seat. He vaulted into the craft beside her and sat, reaching for the rope ties they'd fixed to the craft's sides to help keep them from pitching out. The craft Vidarian had ridden before had no such precaution, but he wasn't about to replicate that particular design if he could avoid it.

As soon as Aldous and his apprentices stepped back to the tree line to give them clearing, the gryphons began to beat their wings, each giving two to stretch the muscles before leaping into the air and laying about with earnest. The craft lifted steadly, its counterweights balancing as intended, and they rose steadily into the air.

The island, its house, and its inhabitants dwindled rapidly as the gryphons circled higher. Whitecaps on the waves crashed against the shore, and soon they could see the other two islands, one north and one east, bare of inhabitation it would seem from here. Far below, the
Viere d'Inar
angled toward the northern coast, and Maladar's Horn with its ever-present storm. He wished them better luck with it, and watched the ship move through the waters for as long as he could, until they passed through a layer of clouds and mist that obscured the world below.

An'du, the great whale of the inland sea, was the last known possessor of the storm sapphires. How they would find her, much less convince her to relinquish them, he had little idea—and he had two days in the air to figure it out.

D

At noon on the second day the trees thinned out below into a meadow, and then into a sparse grassland as they arrowed northeast. A glint on the horizon was the Karlis River, and it widened toward late afternoon into the glittering expanse of the An'durin. By sunset, the whole of the inland sea dominated their horizon, and distantly, at its far northern shore, was the shadow of the An'durinvale, the dark forest that half-wreathed it.

The gryphons dropped altitude as they drew nearer to the expanse of water, turned to dark glass by the sun sinking below the skyline behind them.

They made camp, foraging for fallen wood and grass for a fire, the five of them silenced by the presence they knew waited in the water. The gryphons tore the earth, digging shallow sleeping holes and lining them with grasses before they flew off to hunt. Vidarian and Ariadel made a cold supper out of provisions from the yawl, and were preparing the night's campfire when the gryphons returned. When Ariadel moved to light the fire, Thalnarra stopped her.

//
He should be exploring the other half of his abilities
, // she said, and Ariadel looked at Vidarian, then nodded.

Vidarian regarded the pile of grass and branches for some time before he reached out with the smaller, brighter sense within him, the erratic one that snapped and snarled as it could against his water sense. In attacking the water within him, as it did perpetually, it turned and lashed out at his own essence, and without quite realizing what he was doing he snarled back at it as he would a dog. It quailed, dipping in what he would swear was apology, and cooperated as he reached out to the stacked sticks. It seized upon them hungrily, and flames leapt up with alarming quickness. As the light and heat flared, something, too, flared inside him, opening, and for a moment every detail of his surroundings was revealed in instant clarity, as if he were more awake than he'd ever been in his life. Then the fire crept back inside of him, coiling, to bicker with his water sense again, and the feeling faded.

//
A little rough, but well done
, // Thalnarra said sleepily, settling into her bed of grass. Vidarian and Ariadel followed suit, climbing under blankets they'd spread across more of the ubiquitous summer-burned vegetation.

Yes, well done
, a voice whispered in his head, half giggling. His arms clenched involuntarily around Ariadel, who looked up at him in sleepy askance, but he forced himself to smile and shake his head, relaxing. She closed her eyes, but as Vidarian looked out over the still waters of the An'durin, spangled over with stars and dark heavens, it was some time before he closed his.

They woke to thin light and cold air, a heavy fog that had obscured the sun and drenched the world in white mist. The fog stopped a spare handspan from the surface of the An'durin, as if some unearthly force kept it from touching the water and what lay beneath. All was quiet.

“We're going to have to go out on the water, to talk to her,” Vidarian said, though none too keen on the idea of piloting a mastless yawl on such a large body of water. The gryphons, with the exception of Arikaree, didn't like it, either; the pelican-gryphon tested the water with his claws, then proceeded to wade in and swim, buoyant as a gigantic duck. Thalnarra watched from the shore, and Altair took to the sky; his long, sharp wings allowed him to hover effortlessly high over the water.

They unloaded the yawl of all its cargo and took supple branches from a young tree, heavy with leaves on their ends, to use as makeshift paddles. The pebbled shore made launching the yawl a simple exercise, and soon they were paddling laboriously for deeper water. While they launched, a wind picked up, swirling from Altair's tiny form high above them; a slow cyclone spun mist away from the surface of the lake in a cone that met his glowing claws at its pinnacle.

Just as the silt-lined sandbar disappeared beneath them, dropping into cloudy depths, An'du appeared.

For a split second she was a shadow beneath them, and then she was breaking the surface. For Vidarian it was a dizzying memory—the massive whale, easily six times the length of their small craft, was exactly as he had pictured her in his vision at the Vkorthan island.

She rotated in the water, her movements turning the yawl as well. In a moment her massive head was at the prow.

Your presence
, An'du said, and by their reactions Vidarian saw that Ariadel heard her also—not as gryphons spoke, from a respectful mind distance, but straight inside their heads.
I know you. Please, come closer.

“Vidarian—” Ariadel began, but Vidarian was already leaning out across the water.

An'du's great eye rolled toward them as she turned on her side, then gave a powerful pulse of her tail to lift her great anvil-shaped head out of the water.
Don't be afraid
, she said, as Vidarian drew back into the boat.
We are rarely quite what we seem.

When her nose touched his outstretched hand—slick and suppler than the finest leather-she vanished.

Thrashing suddenly in the water was—impossibly—a woman. Her skin was mottled green, a shadow of what An'du's had been, and, as she writhed, it became clear that her whale body remained below her waist, though much diminished in size, complete with broad white tail and frond-like camouflage.

Her head broke the surface, followed by her body, as her powerful tail propelled her up to “stand” above the water. Her hair—a deep green—clung to her face, and as she brushed it from her eyes, she laughed, high and full. She spun in a circle, arms akimbo. Vidarian looked away from her bared chest, though it didn't seem entirely necessary: the skin there was covered with pale mottling, but otherwise smooth, without human feature. When she swam toward the yawl, her size became clearer: she was easily half again the size of a normal woman, and would have towered over Vidarian if they stood side by side.

“It has been centuries,” she said, brushing hair away from her face and opening her eyes, “since I have known my true shape.” An'du's eyes were inhumanly large and without whites, filled instead with deep brown iris and pupil. She smiled at Vidarian and Ariadel, then held the expression, as if testing it.

Vidarian looked at Ariadel, but she only shook her head, as astonished as he. “We came to ask you about the storm sapphires,” he said, stunned into the obvious.

Her smile brightened, savvy. “Of course you would. And I will give them to you, for your coming signals the long-delayed awakening of my people. You have no idea how long we have waited.”

“How many are you?” he asked, before he could help it. “And where?”

“Many,” she said, her smile dwindling at last into seriousness. “And through all the oceans of the world. But the tale is long, and you haven't time.” She dropped down into the water then, and dove. Seconds later, there was a pulse from below the water that rocked the boat again—and An'du was a whale once more. She continued to dive, disappearing from their sight, but in three breaths was returning again, and, as before, when she lifted her head from the water near Vidarian, she became the half-human creature again.

An'du gagged, and Vidarian reached toward her out of reflex, tipping the yawl, but she recovered on her own, spitting out two large blue stones. She touched them to the water, and they shuddered in her hands—deep within, they echoed with lightning and swirled with cloud.

Vidarian held out his hand, but An'du shook her head, closing her hands over the blue stones. “When you depart, so too will my ability to hold this shape, until the gate is reopened.”

“Reopened?” he said in surprise, exchanging a look of confusion with Ariadel.

An'du flicked her tail, sending a ripple through the water. “There are two paths,” she said. “In one, you seal the gate; in the other, you reopen it. You must know the consequences of each.”

“And you can—become yourself—if I'm here…or if the gate is open. But I can't—”

“Certainly not,” An'du agreed, dipping below the water for a moment and surfacing again. “You can't remain here. But part of you can.” She traced the surface of one of the sapphires with a fingertip, and lightning echoed beneath it.

Vidarian's hand went to the pouch at his side. It stayed there, not removing either of the stones that lay inside. He looked at Ariadel.

“It seems a fair bargain,” she offered, still clearly subdued by the thought of opening the gate, and An'du smiled.

“The stone will be destroyed upon my death,” he said. “I think it only fair to warn you.”

“I only need it until the gate is opened,” she said. “If you should do so, the awakening will begin, and I will even return it to you, if you wish.”

“No,” he said, and drew the emerald from his pouch. His heart quickened as he touched it, a tremor of recognition pulsing through his senses. “I give it to you in trade. I've trusted you in my darkest hour, and need all the allies I can get.”

They exchanged the stones, and as the sapphires fell into his hands, it was with a great weight, and he struggled to regain his balance. Overhead, Altair cried out, a piercing cry that cut the air, and the sky darkened.

“You must control them,” An'du warned. “Especially when they're near the sun rubies. The gate must be opened with both, but they will not be content to be near each other.”

Vidarian sat back in the yawl, wrapping his hands around the stones and extending his senses over them. They pulled him in like a funnel cloud, and he fought for control, gripping them in his mind. The sky lightened, reluctantly, and the cold bite that had hung in the air eased. Deep inside him, from within the braided core of his elemental senses, something tested the power of the sapphires, and exulted.

“I wish you luck,” An'du said seriously, rolling the emerald between her fingers in a way that made Vidarian shiver and turn back to her. In the early morning light, her dark eyes cast down and bathed in the light of the emerald, she was strikingly beautiful, if equally alien. “You will have enemies, changebringer, that will not end with the gate's opening—or sealing. Allies you need, and you will have, but the powerful have the most to lose, and so will resist what you bring with all their strength.” Her hands closed around the emerald, dousing her face with shadow. “Luck, indeed, for all of us.”

When they returned to shore with the sapphires, Arikaree, after stepping away from them long enough to shake the water from his feathers and fur, approached Vidarian, his eyes fixed on the blue stones. Vidarian's hold on them felt like pulling a sail filled with the wind; he was not fatigued yet, but he would be. And so when the pelican-gryphon extended his foreclaw, palm open, Vidarian tipped the stones onto it with a measure of relief.