At the tail end of the crowd before the citadel, I could not see the captain’s reaction to the emissaries of Abasalomi’s sovereignty. But if this was indeed what she had been waiting for, then I daresay she was pleased.
In the end, it was the shining Lost Azure in brazen daylight that marked our place in the empty sky. For many weeks it seemed the Absalomese royal vessel had been searching for ours, but our course the captain alone knows, and so they searched in vain, sending alares every which way, to every port near to where we had docked last. It is no easy endeavor to search for a lone vessel in the open skies, much less for one among the few that could brave the severest parts of them. Difficult to say, then, that the hierogram’s manifestation was alone their guiding mark, and not fate itself that had brought the prince’s servants sufficiently close to descry it.
As it was, our people resumed their place in the citadel as we awaited their vessel’s arrival proper. Inside the Citadel’s hall, the stand on which I engraved the hierogram had been long removed. Momentarily I was lost on whether to stay or go. My part was done, but none had given me a new order, and I dreaded asking the nearest figures of authority available in the mates.
Not that I was something to single out among those remarkable people, and I could have slipped away without aught all the wiser. But then I would risk irritating them should the need for me suddenly arise.
Even as the Anemone poured inside, exchanging their own speculations of what to come, some guesses grander than my scant imagination, a hand rested on my shoulder. Turning, I saw Litzia with her customary unreadable expression, who then guided me inside. Perforce, I found myself in the back of the ranks to port.
All about us, chatter filled the air, and little effort was made to maintain a solemn silence in the captain’s presence. She cared not for it. And all knew she favored her alares, and would even tolerate them to a greater length than she would her close aides.
Though only a little way back, and still so many tall and imposing women flanked us, it was a comfort to get away from the captain’s line of sight. Presently the immortal was whispering something in the private earshot of the first mate, I chanced the wyverness brows knit. But it came and went so quickly, and she answered my staring with a wiry smile. So did the one on her other side.
A young and amiable-looking blonde she was, her amor a corslet of steel. An arming sword hung on her waist, a runestaff her back.
“Litzia told me of you,” said the human girl, who I now assumed to be Litzia’s pair. Earnest curiosity sparked in her eyes, and her eyes were indeed revealing things, a stark contrast to Litzia’s. “I used to think your kind a myth, you know. To be sure, we had tales, but only of fae things in your regard. So I did not think you any more real than nymphs.”
“Some are,” Litzia said in a conversational tone, “the nymphs, not those vulgar tales told of them in market corners and dubious tomes, mind. But there are nymphs.”
“Do they now?” Begonia broadened a smile and her eyes glittered child-like, “You could never imagine such things back in the village. Azures and nymphs, and—and everything. You really have to travel to really know what the world is about, eh?”
A question in bad taste, to be sure, to ask an azure of all people. But it did not bother me. Not that any azure could be truly bothered by slights, intended or not. It was also the lighthearted way she carried herself, something near to innocence. And then to put her beside Litzia, the difference was simply striking.
And I wondered too, if that visibly repressed smile on Litzia’s face was not my first true glimpse past her semblance and into her true nature.
I had plenty of time for idle talks with them, though Begonia and I did not find in Litzia a talkative company, we shared our tales aplenty. It seemed the knight had been born in a village, and had only left the place very recently. I was not told her circumstance or what had led her from a seemingly ordinary village girl into an ordained pledge in so short a time. Enough to bewilder me, she must have some untold extraordinary talents then to be admitted a place among the Anemones.
At length, a ruckus was raised outside, and ship ahoys could be heard even in the hall.
When their entrance had been granted, a party of ten in green livery entered bowing. Leading them was a man draped in a himation of deep scarlet. Presently, they assumed the drawn-out procession of diplomatic greetings to flatter their appointed sovereign. Too complicated, too overflowed with needless acts and empty words to be listed out in full. Suffice to say that the captain grew dangerously bored in the process.
“Dispense with your trifles,” she said, waving a hand with ire, “Another word of it and redder in blood your outfit shall be.”
The emissary caught his tongue, and spoke no more.
Even a prince’s own representative is but a little thing before the Last of the Dragons.
Quietly then, he waved his aids. One rose and stepped up, facing the ground all the way, lest he glimpsed the shining eyes, and handed over a coffer, which he himself proffered with both hands overhead.
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One could sense his breathlessness.
If I pitied him, and I could not, I was soon relieved from the luxury to do so. The captain sent her gaze across the hall, as though aware all this time, and laid it precisely upon where I stood.
“Azure, fetch it to I,” she said.
Without a moment to spare, I wended my way across the lines of alares, rushing with little by way of dignity. I would rather make a fool of myself than leave the captain waiting.
The box felt light in his hands, labored as they were in raising it. Still, the trembling did not cease even when relieved of the burden. As soon as it was taken away, he fell back to his party, seeking some desperate shelter from the doom hanging over his people’s heads.
Next to the throne, the chief mate signaled me over. A steward by her side carried another coffer, richly adorned and looking of great import. I needed not be told how much more valuable the contents of these boxes were than my existence. The weight of which indeed came to be a greater burden upon realization. What foul object could have captivated the captain’s attention so?
With a quick, dirty flick, almost of no care for its value, the chief mate flipped open the envoy’s offering, revealing an orb of dull grayish shade. She stared into it for a few seconds, then, this time cautious, picked up the orb by the tips of her fingers. She repeated the gesture with her aid’s box, bringing out an iridescent polyhedron. Just like the other one, I could not tell of what material it was made. They both emitted a distinct coldness, a strange grimy feel as if peering into a casket whose bones and fleshes had long since turned to dust.
I ventured a look at the chief mate’s face as she brought the treasures together. It was unreadable. At length, she replaced them. Promptly, without another second of delay, yet unflappable, she moved at a hastening pace to the captain. The Dragon leaned over.
Then she laughed out loud. The ancient, terrible laughter filled the hall, and each of us, I knew even the brave Anemones, was shaken. At length, it diminished to lighthearted chuckles. She bade the chief away with the treasure.
“You surprised me, mortals,” her clear as spring voice rang out lightheartedly, as high as the breeze upon mastheads, “indeed you brought me the thing I sought. For that, your life is spare. But let no one daresay I reward not my servant. Name your desire and my hoard shall enrich your master for as long as he lives.”
To my surprise, the men had not found relief in the captain’s pardon. They stood perfectly still along the floor. While they were halting, the chief mate dismissed me to Litzia’s side again. When their leader spoke again, the tremble was still there.
“To serve well my lady is our greatest honor!’ lamely, he said.
“Out with it! I have no time for your game which I may spend on my new toy. Say, or keep your peace and be forever in regrets.”
The man swallowed and gathered his nerves during the lasting moments of his silence. But surely the head of such an envoy must have been chosen for some singular courage.
“Pray mistress,” he said, “our Prince seeks only one reward if you see fit. And for His Highness to obtain it, our people shall ever be grateful to your kindness. We wish but for one thing: the Lodestone of Raiser Xango.”
This caused in his followers involuntary twitches.
None comprehended well the measure of his request. Rich were the captain’s hoard, and many strange and unknown treasures had spent centuries locked within, far without living memory. Only the chief mate turned to our captain. “They bid an unthinkable price, mistress. Whatever shall we make of their lives?” There was no air of jesting in her question. Even so, the corner of the captain’s mouth curled.
“You think so, Justitia? I am of a different opinion. What is a human god’s relic to what I seek? Besides, I find their news entertaining. Go now, fetch them what they have paid for with a price more dearly than they could imagine.”
“Our people and His Highness are eternally grateful, mistress Aurora!”
So the chief mate went. But the guests weren’t yet pardoned.
“Tell me then, emissary,” she asked, “have your champion indeed been found? At what time and under what star did it transpire?”
“It is indeed as you said,” answered the emissary, “the one-He-sent came to our Prince under the First Wyvern, very nearly a full year had passed since, he who shall restore our nation to glory!” In that manner, the many details of the date and the month, the astrological facts, were confessed in full to our eager mistress, of which I could scarce recall, save the marked interest from our captain.
Incidentally, First Wyvern is one of my favorite constellations to gaze upon at night. But that has nothing to do with this.
“Ha,” the captain snorted, “your kind make so grand your own little quarrels. Empires ever rise and wane, the discovery of a heaven-sent warlord can hardly change the threads of fate. But we shall see. My mate has returned. Take your prize and be away.”
Justitia was back, with a pair of alares at her rear, on one’s hands a veiled tray. They halted before the envoy, waiting for the captain’s permission, which was granted. The men rose and unveiled the silk cover. On the tray was a small rock, crude looking and blackened.
If the emissary had a way to verify the rock’s authenticity as the so-called lodestone, they did not show it, only in haste they claimed the thing and as soon were away.
When the hall was cleared of outsiders, it seemed now that my part was indeed done. The first mate once more said something to the captain’s ears only, something that felt like a hushed caution. Her expression unchanged, but I imagined her disturbed after giving away that cursed-looking stone. The captain answered her, and in doing so, looked my way. My heart stood still. And yet with alarming defiance, Litzia by my side returned her steel gaze. I shrunk and slunk away, back to my place among the slaves and the deckhands.
It’s a silly thing to accuse an azure a coward, as well blame the clouds for their substanceless. Desires, quarrels, schemes, and plots among those abaft were things I could not care for, save to stay away as much as could. And just one time pulled near enough to catch a whiff is already more than I could handle. I wished only to never be called upon again.
Even as I left, a furtive look over my shoulder showed a Litzia heedless of my departure. Her answering gaze of defiance had not relented, and nothing in the world seemed to matter as much as the one she was beholding with hatred.