It had not been a week since that day in the slave cabin, where the wyverness Litzia had bound me to a debt beyond my worth. What it entailed, she never told me, save a promise of its usage in our future. Ours – that is a word I dreaded to speak of her and I. She frightened me for being what she was, but all the more for what her many mysteries betokened. But troubles of still greater scale soon came.
Scarcely a day after my health had allowed for watchkeeping again, a boatswain sought me to pass the order for attendance at the Citadel. Even as I stared back dumbly, she eyed my person up and down, then took me in haste to her private cabin, where I was lent a fresh tunic and trouser, forcefully so. And so it was that before I could fully process the gravity of my situation, I had been ushered to the captain’s seat of power.
Two guards armed with engraved oaken staves stood before the place, their livery of interlacing motifs mirroring that of the carved threshold. At the boatswain’s word, they flung the gate open. In we went under their watchful gaze, even the woman of some authority by my side was stiff.
It was a long and high-ceiling hall, litten by tall prisms on either side, richly carpeted and adorned in damask. On another day the sheer size of which would have dwarfed the senses and instilled fears by way of its solemnity. Today, however, a great host populated it, who not only befitted their surroundings with a festive air, but were further exalted in turn, and awed all the more: The Order of the Anemones.
Alares they were, knights and wyverns assembling in full at their best appearance to honor their mistress the captain. Deadly, dignified, but also beautiful beyond measure. Their plates of gold and silver glittered in the filtered light, armed with steel and runic gears or robed in fine silk and jewels. The hall was as though a grove of treasure housing their presence, while themselves fitting nymphal attendants to a goddess. Though a knightly order, in them there was not the uniformity and impressive strictness of a standing army. Each was colored with individuality, of staves in strange shapes and exotic garbs from all corners of the skies; each being fine warriors of great repute gathered from far and wide, who had earned the captain’s favor and privilege to the Hall of Wreaths.
They arrayed in ranks on either side, creating a pathway to a dais at the hall’s end. There officers of the highest ranks had gathered, and beyond them no less than a dozen of retinues: stewardesses in dresses of black and pristine white, guards in the livery of the fiery chariot on a saffron field. Yet above them, at the highest level of this raised stage stood the vessel’s mates – Justitia, Lex, and Pax – silver-haired and silver-eyed; cloaks dyed in the blue hour’s color, so that they seemed the morn’s last lingering cold and bright stars.
But at the side of their mistress, even the shining ones paled in comparison. It was she who captained the Daybright and her crews of thousands, she who is feared and worshiped. At her behest, the finest alares among those who’d ever soared had gathered here. And kings and queens bow to her without exception. Her might she cleverly hid in a mere human guise, yet in no way concealed hints of divinity. By appearance she was a slightly bored woman of unreadable years and endless youth, at once of natural and otherworldly fine features. Unlike her fancy creatures, her cloth was austere in contrast: jacket and breeches trimmed with gold. She bore no arms, neither were there jewels or runes on her person. Her rosy tresses adjoined upon her head, and from whence fell in long thick masses over the arms of the ivory throne, spreading above but never quite touching the carpeted floor. Her eyes were harsh like blinding lights, that one could never look long enough to discern the hues therein. It is said that these eyes could discern truths from lies and see into mortal hearts. But I could not think of any who would dare lie in her presence.
At my entrance, the captain brightened.
There was no escaping her consideration anymore, though it was vain in the first place to hope otherwise. Even knowing so, my blood ran cold and my veins shivered as Justitia, chief of the mates, ordered me forth. Azures know only fear, and fear we know better than any.
With my head bowed low, compelling so by the bright gaze, I marched between the ranks of alares to the dais.
There, a clear, echoing voice, yet as soothing as breaking waves, addressed me – “What be your name, azure orphan?”
“The crew call me Star, ma’am. I have no other name, for ever since my finding, I have only served on this ship.”
“Then you were born to my service,” she remarked, “and aptly so. The rune of Lost Azure writ on my mast is your hand, is it not?"
“Nay, ma’am.” I shook my head, “I dare not take its credit, for I was aided in large part by another.”
“That you were aided by one of my warriors is no secret, even so your authorship is unquestionable. Well so, my child, I shall have you invoke the rune now. Lex!”
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At her bidding, the second mate rustled her blue cloak and stepped forth as two maidservants flanked her. Promptly the servants placed a stand between me and the dais, then a clay tablet atop.
Lex produced a graver from her cloak and handed it to me. Those very hands that had meted uncounted lashes on my kind and some. I shuddered at them as I received the tool. It was silver and in the size of a marlinspike, and though the pointed end was keen, its base was a stylized rose of hardwood. As it lay cold in my hands, I ventured a look at the mate. She stared back with nary an emotion, then returned to her place beside the throne.
What I was to do was clear, only I had no idea as to how. I did it once, to be sure, while I was blind and dumb. Of the rune’s shapes and making, I had not even the slightest recollection. Panic seized me.
For a small eternity I stood there in attendance of the fearsome captain, her officers, and the entire Order of Anemone. Presently, I turned my gaze, desperately searching in the ranks of warriors. To port, some way in the back, I found Litzia, grim of face, staring back. I could not read her any better before, and dared not ask for aid. The captain knew of her part in the hierogram crafting, if she thought I needed it again, she would have bid so.
Lex said impatiently, “Lay to, azure. The graver is yours, imbued with my own power, and the slate also. You need but set down the strokes.”
I did not see her face, but the captain did not give voice to doubt. She knew well what I was about. The thought gave me a little confidence, and Thea’s guess rang true in my head: the captain wouldn’t have bid so if she did not believe I could do it. But it inspired in me only enough to touch the graver on the tablet. My head was empty.
In the end, that was enough. It needed but a touch on the surface, as I thought back of that day aloft the mast, for my hand to move as though carried by a steady wind. Even before the first stroke was complete, the second came willingly to my vision, and I knew it done ere lifting my hand from the tablet. A complex shape of no fewer than a dozen etched lines laid with writhing power dripped from the graver tips, forming the shape of a skewed polygon. I held my breath for an endless second.
The only sign betokened its coming to life was a soundless throb, dull beneath the constant mumbles in the hall, the distant hollers on deck, and my own drumming heart. But I heard it well, and knew what it was. It had a familiar feeling not unlike recognizing oneself in a dream, facing as though one’s reflection was a stranger, as though my consciousness had been dissolved into the surroundings, and I stood like naked before hundreds of pairs of eyes in the hall.
At once, in unison, a chorus of deckhands’ voices pierced the oppressive silence of the hall.
The captain rose and the officers fell in a line behind her. Even as she made her first step from the ivory throne, a dozen alares broke from the Anemone’s ranks and preceded their mistress. Then there were the servants and the rest of the Anemones. Swept aside in their wake, I went last. When finally I emerged from the citadel behind the long line, all over the deck were sailors’ faces lifting skywards.
In plain daylight, stars could be seen. Stars of pale light and glowing saturated blue overlaid the azure sky, but only those to form the constellation of our season. But much greater were they than at night when they fit neatly in one’s palm, instead occupying half of the heaven’s expanse, stretching some way from port over to starboard, so that one could cast their gaze to either side of the envelope and still there would be elements of the Lost Azure.
That such a spectacle could come from the work of my hand was something I could not comprehend. And still the truth of it lay before my eyes, with which I could but stare dumbly.
As I looked, some of the deckhands were cheering in good spirits. For many days there had only been the celestial beings and the unvaried even fog over the Underland to grace our sight in this season of cloudlessness and hibernating winged beasts. Before the citadel, overlooking the quarterdeck, the captain beheld all this, but I could not tell if all this was to her purpose. She had wanted a hierogram of Lost Azure, and it I gave her. But to what end, none knew but herself.
For a long while she stood, as though waiting.
There’s a saying about our captain: when she moves not but waits for aught, the world comes a-begging at her doorstep.
There are many layers to this saying, but for the present, its face value was enough. New cries rose once more in chorus across the deck to port.
“Wing ahoy!”
To which all cast their gaze. While we admired the invoked constellation, a wing-borne figure was headed our way, and presently had grown visible enough for the slithering shape of a pair of alares to be discerned.
Ere long, I could descry a white sheet on his hailing flag, and that he bore the livery of a gentry house. His pair was a sable wyvern, of membrane wings of black and horns of silver.
Before a round of our armed guard, he landed on the forecastle, as soon leaped from the beastly partner of thrice his size. A man indeed he was. So was his companion, who stood now also as a liveried alaris where an instant before the serpentine beast had been. Escorted by the guards, they marched aft, in one’s hand the white flag, the other’s a banner of similar design to the badge of their livery.
When they halted at last and bowed low before the quarterdeck, their breathing was hard from rushing at full speed; their faces paled before our fully assembled host of warriors.
In a booming voice, though somewhat winded and shaken, the knight spoke loud, “Hail, Lady Aurora of the Dawn, Last of the Dragons. As commanded by our sovereignty, the Prince Galeas of the Principality of Absalom, we are come as your servants. As a token of His Highness’ goodwill, we bring a humble offering for your hoard, a treasure known to have been long desired by your godhead!”