Communicating across an area as vast as the upper continent isn’t without its difficulties. For one, there isn’t a single road system interconnecting the entire empire, the landscape cuts-off several regions into land-locked islands making it nearly impossible to link. And beyond that, the scale of serving all imperial citizens isn’t trivial.

The only way to accomplish such a task is with careful organization and a lot of wings. The Imperial wyvern corps had once been vital in conquering these lands, so what better way to serve them now.

The worm-like Draconids were a semi-intelligent race distantly related to the ancient dragons of yore. They’d cooperated with the tribes in these regions for thousands of years, but it was only once Empress Yuzui’s great-great-grandfather harnessed them for war that their true power became apparent.

The wyverns and their riders were highly respected and over the decades became an unofficial motif of the empire. Scholars would ride them to distant villages, aid-workers to disaster zones, and imperial proclamations would shade the sky in wingbeats.

There’s a saying in some parts, that all a village needs is a hole in the ground and a perch in the air.

And reality wasn’t far from the truth, the bureaucrats in charge of incorporating new villages and outposts did favor the inspection of public latrines and the wyvern post over the other facilities. The thought process was, if they were diligent in those structures, the rest would probably get there. And beyond that, an unstable sixty-foot-tall wooden pole in the center of a new village wasn’t something the empire wanted. So that inspection was taken pretty seriously.

“We’re seriously supposed to climb that?” Cpt. Harrigon asked with a weary look at his unrequested roommate.

Shaking his head Guilaq points a finger to one of the ropes stretched tight to an anchor fixed far from the base. “It’s perfectly safe, they’ve been tested extensively. Scholars have calculated the breaking points of the cording it’s something like 600 Hul per Gul/Junt”

“I’m not worried about that. Whatever that means.” The Captain said with a shiver as the tower grew larger the closer they got. “It’s so high up, and the ladder is just rusty steel spikes. You can’t be serious.”

In his mind, Guilaq couldn’t rationalize a fear of heights with the man who’d regaled him this past week with stories of soaring miles above the clouds. He thought he’d picked up a fairly accurate mental image of the man, so he expected him to be thrilled to ride a wyvern. This wasn’t exactly a common occurrence, so even Guilaq was giddy to mount a real imperial Wyvern again, yet all Chance was talking about was having to climb the perch without a rope.

“If you’re worried about falling it’ll be fine.” Guilaq eventually said in order to ease the man’s fears. “A few broken bones are easy to handle.”

“Yeah; you’ve said that. But pain is pain.” Chance argued with another shake of his head. “Can they not just land on the ground, and then get a running start?”

“Not in this muck.” Guilaq explained with a sloppy footfall. “Look, like it or not we got an Imperial invitation. I’m honor bound to respond to the summons, and while you are my guest, you’re also a potential threat and my prisoner. So you’re getting on that lizard; one way or another.”

Clicking his tongue with a roll of his eyes, the Captain muttered out a few curse words before eventually following in-step behind Guilaq.

When they arrived at the small building at the foot of the massive wooden pillar, Guilaq presented the attendant with a small slip of paper which he compared to one he had on file.

Immediately the attendant began with a canned explanation of safety procedures which both men completely ignored as they followed him to the base of the tower located deeper in the building.

Fear of heights aside, the climb wasn’t terrible. Chance was happy to find each rung of the ladder, which had been pounded securely into the pilar, was heavily coated in grey paint which made them easy to see against the pillar and added grip as well. Nearing the top, two thinner branches jutted from the perch easily allowing each of the massive, winged reptiles plenty of room to loom overhead.

“I’ll ride the top one.” Guilaq called from a few rungs above Chance. “Ask the rider if you need help getting on.”

“We aren’t riding the same one?” This was the first Chance had heard of this, he figured the other wyvern was for something else.

“We prefer not to have three on at a time.” One of the riders explained from a short distance away atop his wyvern. “We’ll take good care of you both though. It’ll be a flight you’ll never forget.”

“Heh,” Chance chuckled as he neared the rung level with the wyvern perch. “We’ll see about that.”

A few moments later, with a lunge, each wyvern unfurled its wings and powered into the sky beating against the air with pure strength.

Chance had spent decades flying in just about every winged aircraft imaginable. But this was entirely different. The wyvern responded to the wind and chose its routes with some kind of deeper insight. It would spend times gliding gracefully with strong gusts, and other times it would dive for updrafts and swirl seemingly at random before eventually erupting with powerful wingbeats.

Chance could see no connection between the rider’s grip and the wyverns movements so he could only assume the wyvern knew where it was going without need for steering.

He wasn’t aware of when it occurred but somewhere along the flight, he realized he was smiling ear to ear, and no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t shake it.

Based on the movements of the sun, the flight likely lasted a few hours, but to the middle-aged pilot it felt like mere moments. He wanted to continue flying like this forever, but the growing view of the busy capital city of the empire was proof it was nearly over.

Basking in the last of the rushing winds, the man took a careful look at the expansive city unfurling beneath him. Again, he’d never seen anything like it. There were a few larger cities in the mid-continent, but nothing came anywhere near this scale.

The roads, while measured as carefully as can be, were a wiry mess of askew cobble and flagstone constructions. Immediately Chance could tell main roads from auxiliary ones, and the arrangements of each seemed logically placed as opposed to cobbled together like most cities tended to be.

While the roads seemed a familiar construction, the buildings again struck him as fantastically foreign. They appeared to be carved directly out of solid stone blocks, and some even took the aesthetic to the extreme living in what looked like perfectly square or rectangular stone buildings.

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Stylings changed ranging from the familiar peaked rooves all the way to impossible-looking abstract structures.

It was only when he saw a store with a realistic stone out-cropping and tree jutting from its rooftop did he glean a hint as to how these odd buildings were formed.

“It’s real stone-” He absentmindedly muttered as the realization became obvious. A few of the extremely simple cube shaped ones even had small divots where ropes might have once been strung to haul them into place.

His assumption was accurate, the only point he wasn’t aware of was the techniques used to shape the quarried blocks, Arna & Reynolds would approach it either with ultrasonic carving chisels or maybe laser ablation, but obviously those weren’t available to the empire. No matter how much he pondered it, Chance couldn’t think of a method.

He thought about asking the rider in front of him but even at their reduced speed the wind was far too loud to hear even himself speaking. He could only hold onto the question until they finally reached their destination.

They passed several tall perches like the one they had taken off from, but the wyvern ignored them all as-if it knew where to go inherently.

Finally, after meandering over the city for quite some time, the wyvern swooped down into a dive as it spotted the perch it was searching for. Chance sucked in air without even thinking as his body instinctively began flexing from the legs up to counter the rush of g-forces.

“Hick… Hick…” He quietly muttered under his breath in a rhythmic pattern to match the muscles flexes.

The purpose of the technique is to prevent blood rushing too quickly to your brain, knocking you unconscious. He’d practiced the technique so much during his years flying over combat zones that it had become a reflex he even caught himself using while bouncing over speed bumps in a grocery store parking lot.

As with that, the dive didn’t necessitate it as it only reached around 3 G’s, still for a moment the winged creature truly felt like a living aircraft.

As he caught his breath, the wyvern opened its wings wide and hurtled to a stop with its talons extended to the perch.

Chunks of wood and padding ripped through the air as the talons snapped around the perch securing the wyvern safely to its branch. The perch swung slightly as the massive weight was added to one side, but after a few seconds another gust of wind countered it as the second wyvern landed a dozen feet above them to the left.

It was only now that Chance realized he hadn’t seen the other wyvern Guilaq had ridden ever since they left the village. He felt reassured knowing they’d both safely landed, at this point Guilaq was the only person Chance trusted in a ten-thousand-mile radius.

The perch they had ended up landing on was much different from the one they’d taken off from, or even the ones Chance had seen as he was flying above the imperial capital, it attached directly to a tall tower the jutted off a massive ornate building.

It also, fortunately, didn’t require Chance to risk his body by climbing a rickety ladder. Instead it had a seat that hooked into a complex array of pulleys inside the pillar. When Chance arrived at the elevator an attendant fiddled with a few ropes, tying off two of them and untying the third.

“Go ahead.” The attendant graciously motions with a hand holding tight to the rope.

Chance trusted the process and lowered himself carefully onto the simple platform. Once he was holding on, the attendant slowly released his grip on the rope allowing a counterweight at the bottom of the pillar to slowly lower Chance down into the tower below.

Eventually he passed through an open trapdoor where another attendant was prepared to ease the seat onto a locking mechanism.

“Welcome to the city of Inolok.” The attendant announced with a deep bow after Chance lifted himself from the platform. “You’re welcome to rest and clean-up down at the end of this hallway while you wait for you companion.”

“Thank you.” Chance awkwardly responded, glancing around curiously at the various mechanism of the lift.

Ignoring him, the attendant adjusted a few ropes before eventually releasing the mechanism locking the platform in-place. Instead of shooting up however, a smaller counterweight had been swapped so the platform eased back up to the top. Once it was out of sight, the attendant tied off a few ropes and watched for a marker to appear telling him to stop.

Eventually his job was complete, and he returned his attention to the hole in the ceiling, waiting for the next passenger to arrive.

Chance had already seen this part, so he followed the hallway the attendant had indicated towards and found the rest area he was told about.

A few chairs sat around an ornate table on one side of the room and on the other, a pair of wide cushions sat opposite each other separated by a narrow platform arranged with teacups and short candelabras.

Unsure how to sit on the latter, he pulled out a heavy wicker chair and settled into it with a groan.

A few minutes later, Guilaq arrived and immediately began to laugh when his eyes landed on Chance’s wild wind-swept hair. “I think the helm-hair was better.”

“Helmet hair.” Chance corrected with a shake of his head. Brushing his hands into his hair to check, it felt like Guilaq was indeed correct. It was a wonder the attendant didn’t laugh as well the moment he spotted him.

“Washroom’s over here. Come on.” Guilaq motioned towards the door beside him before wrenching it open and stepping inside.

“Good guess?” Chance asked absently before struggling out of his seat and following Guilaq into a sweet-smelling washroom.

In the center of the room, opposite a tall mirror sat a basin of cold water with fragrant herbs floating at its surface. Guilaq could identify them as Gipsweet and Terriant flowers, both were used frequently in medicines and perfumes but only the extremely wealthy would consider bathing in them, and beyond that only one would stock them in a reception washroom.

Guilaq took his time splashing the water into his face and hair until satisfied with what reflected in the mirror and then he stepped aside so Chance could do the same.

Eventually they both appeared somewhat presentable, so they returned to the waiting room where a butler soon arrived to receive them.

Chance was aware of what was happening, but the gravity of meeting the ruler of an empire was difficult to come to terms with.

He’d met the president of the United States before, well he’d shook his hand at least, and that wasn’t too big of a deal. It barely even topped his most liked post on twitter. How big of a deal could meeting an empress be?

Or perhaps that’s just how he was calming himself mentally. It’s hard to say, he was well trained.

“You should not speak unless spoken too, you should not return a question with a question, you should not mention the gate of Hiritis, you should only refer to ‘her highness’ as such, you should not mention the Empress Sarataq nor should you mention an imperial private matters, you should-”

He continued ad nauseum until eventually Guilaq made it clear he understood protocol and he also wouldn’t let Chance open his mouth. Recognizing that this wouldn’t end otherwise, Chance happily agreed to the stipulation and zipped his mouth with a mock salute.

Both gestures were meaningless to the man.

“Very well,” The butler said with a heavy sigh. “I will send word that you have arrived, and we will call for you once her highness is available.”

Chance grumbled a few words in his head, but he tried not to let them show as he masked them with a grateful smile.

Once he had finally left, Guilaq turned a funny expression to Chance.

“Awful big hassle, right?” He asked with an annoyed shrug. “It used to be even more strict too.”

“You’ve been here before?” Chance asks to confirm his suspicions.

“Yeah, I wrote a response to Empress Sarataq’s forty-fifth proclamation— few years before she died— ended up getting invited to discuss my opinions directly. Must’ve been fourteen at the time so, it was a pretty memorable trip.”

“I see.” Chance nodded with a new-found impression of Guilaq. He’d assumed the man was just a random villager with a bit of intellect but apparently, he really was a prodigal young scholar.

“Ah, would you mind bringing some Ma’amouls and a pot of white tea?” Guilaq asked a young woman in a bright white toga as she arrived to refresh the water in the washroom.

“Of course.” She happily responded with a deep bow.

Chance had to halt himself from glancing down the loose-fitting robe as the woman bowed, so instead he tried to guess what a Ma’amoul might be.

Perhaps a long cookie for dipping in tea? Or maybe it’s a serving method for the tea? That made sense, drink tea out of a ma’amoul, sure.

Finally, the beautiful young woman sauntered out of the room allowing Chance to breath and toss a shocked expression to Guilaq.

“Welcome to the imperial palace.” Guilaq merely chuckled with a shrug. “It’s a whole other world.”

“I’m starting to see the appeal of this imperial stuff.” Chance laughed with another shake of his head.