The wyvern’s venomous spray was, by far, the worst physical pain that I ever experienced in my life. I slept almost all the first day, waking only long enough to drink a thin broth provided by the cyclops healer, Xijuma. The first time I woke, Rennin held me up while Elana fed me by hand. The second time I woke, it was Derrek who held me upright, and I was able to feed myself. I barely even stirred as I was carried from the warmth of the tent, through the cold open air, to the warm bed in Darjaran’s wagon.
I was in the wagon when I finally regained full consciousness, and it took me a few moments to realize where I was. The space felt more enclosed than I had imagined looking at it from without. I lay in Darjaran’s bed, swaddled in blankets. To my left was a bookshelf and what looked like a writing desk. Above me hung a lantern, providing both light and warmth to the tightly enclosed space as it swung gently with the motion of the wagon. In the shadows beyond my feet lay the door. I couldn’t make out their words through the thickness of the walls and the creaking of the wagon, but I could faintly hear my companions and Darjaran talking above me. I could only sit up for a few moments, but once I had figured out where I was, I felt no real reason to do so.
For the first time in weeks, perhaps months, I relaxed. I still hurt. My whole body ached, not just the wounds on my face and chest, but also my heart and lungs and guts. But, at least for the moment, no one needed or expected anything of me. We were under the protection of Darjaran and his guards. Derrek and Rennin were there to back him up if needed. All that anyone could reasonably expect of me, at least on the road, was to lie here and heal. And that’s what I did.
Elana was the first to check on me after I woke.
“Hey, you,” I said, an idiom more intimate in Tanirinaal than in Vencar.
Elana smiled, a gesture I could just barely see in the twilight.
“I’m glad to see you awake,” she said.
“I’m glad to be awake.” I laughed, then coughed. “And alive, for that matter.”
Elana laughed, too, and took my hand gently.
“We were all worried,” she said.
“I was, too,” I admitted.
She sat with me for a while, telling me about the view of the canyon from the bridge, the river sparkling far below in the dawn light, and how Rennin – not usually afraid of heights – had looked straight forward the whole time they’d been crossing, unable to face the sheer scale of the canyon and the bridge. Then she patted my hand and left me to rest.
Rennin brought me lunch, and kept me company while I ate. He didn’t have much to say, other than that he, too, was glad to see me recovering.
“I wonder if the cat-things are venomous, too,” he said.
I laughed, then coughed.
“I hope we never find out!”
Derrek came to check on me, too, later in the afternoon. I didn’t particularly want to see him, but I still appreciated the gesture.
“We’ll be stopping in a few minutes,” he said. “There’s a sandstorm coming in, and they want to make camp before it hits. We’ll help you move to the yurt as soon as it’s up.”
“Thank you,” I said.
He stood awkwardly just inside the doorway for a moment too long. Then he turned and left.
And that was how we made our journey to the next city. In the mornings, they would load me into the wagon after breakfast. I would ride there for most of the day, alone except for when Elana or Rennin would come to bring me lunch. When we stopped for the night, I would wait in the wagon until they’d made camp. The cyclops healer, Xijuma, would check my temperature and change my bandages and give me medicine to take with my evening meal, and then I would be moved carefully to our waiting yurt.
Elana and Rennin tended to most of my needs. Derrek kept a respectful distance, as much as was possible in the close confines of our yurt. But it was his head next to mine when we laid down around the warmth of the stove – head to head and foot to foot – and it was he who woke in the night to see me to the latrines, or find more pain medicine, or whatever I needed.
Though I could not quite bring myself to be thankful for the injury that won me the courtesy, I was deeply grateful for the days spent in Darjaran’s wagon. Somehow, it was a more soothing sort of solitude than my room in the suite the archon had provided.
I was still weak, but I was walking short distances by the time we reached the first inland city-state of the sao`ashan Holy Empire. As Derrek had predicted, our reception in Dhavad was much like our arrival in Khrigo City. With letters of introduction and a sao`ashan guide, we did receive a slightly warmer initial welcome: the embassy where we were lodged was finer than the one where we had spent our first night, and we were joined for dinner by a representative of the local archon – singular, in this case – who invited us to introduce ourselves and tell our tale at his palace the following day. As Rennin had been when we came to Khrigo, I was given use of a wheeled chair. Unlike Rennin’s, which had been a less sophisticated design, mine had two large wheels with handholds that I could use to move myself, and two smaller wheels for balance. But dinner with the archon was a perfunctory affair: where many of the sao`ashan of Khrigo City had been aloof and distant, the Lord Archon Ragatt of Dhavad was bored bordering on disdainful. Come morning, we were all – even Darjaran – extremely grateful to leave.
The next city-state, Havashanava, was closer, only two days on the road, and to our great gratitude it was more sincerely hospitable. The Twin Archons of the city – the Exile Lord and Lady Ridinum and Rudana – did not suffer us to be put up in a common embassy. Instead we were made guests of their cousin, Ashanashava, and treated with great warmth. Meeting the Exile Twin Archons, I got my first real hint of what that third gender meant to the sao`ashan. Ridinum was a powerfully built man – for lack of a better word – who favored a sorcerer’s coat and trousers, which showed off their massive physique. Their skin was the color of night, and their eyes were the same pearlescent white as their fanged teeth and cruel-looking claws. Rudana was svelte and effeminate and wore a sleek garment unlike anything I had yet seen in the Empire, its back open to make room for their enormous wings. Rather than the headband so popular in Khrigo, they hung strands of pearls and gemstones from the ram’s horns that curled up and back from their brow. They were not as generous as the archons of Khrigo, but they were – or seemed – genuinely friendly, and bestowed upon our party a vast swath of fine indigo silk from which we might make garments of our own liking.
It was nearly two weeks before I was strong enough to spend a whole day in the cold and wind, atop the wagon with my companions. And as grateful as I had been for the solitude, the time alone to deal with my fears and my feelings, I was equally grateful to be in their company once again.
I was sitting at the helm, watching the lands spread out before us, when Rennin gave away that we did not need Derrek to translate for us. Darjaran had been flirting mildly with Derrek from the beginning. He had, it seemed grown somewhat outrageous while I was bedridden.
“Yma Rinlo,” he had been laughing. “Once more your savage tongue strikes true! Better to come between Jor twins than to oppose your will.”
“Coming between Jor twins,” Derrek had replied, “is precisely where every cyclops wishes to be, so perhaps that only complicates the question of your intention when crossing me. Are you a man who likes to be defeated, if by the right opponent?”
I was able to keep my face composed mostly by virtue of being absolutely stunned to discover that pun translated so directly between the languages of the giants and the Compact. Perhaps Elana made a face as well, I was looking the wrong direction, but it was Rennin who let slip a bark of laughter, long before Derrek had a chance to relay the exchange – if he even intended to.
There was a long moment of stunned silence, then Darjaran laughed, too.
“So many secrets, Yma Rinlo!” He shook his head. “Truly, you are a priestess of the Stars.”
He did not ask how many of us had mastered his language. He simply began addressing us directly. I believe that he had long suspected our growing fluency, and gave up the pretense with only a little less relief than we did. Derrek, freed from translation duty, took my old post at the back of the wagon. For the next two days, his most frequent response to any comment or quarry was, “I’m sorry, I wasn’t listening.”
It was a total of nine weeks of travel and thirteen city-states – none as hospitable as Khrigo City; none as dismissive as Dhavad – before we reached the splendor of Ghol Vidar. At every stop, Derrek did his best to guide us through the courtesies of sao`ashan diplomacy and buffer us against the powerful personalities and high expectations of the archons who hosted us, and the wildly varying attentions of their giant servants. We accumulated such an abundance of gifts that Derrek and I each had to fabricate a new wizard’s chest to contain them all – a process which fascinated Darjaran, comedy of errors though it threatened to become, atop his moving wagon, and the secret of which he kept as gleefully as he did our fluency.
The weather grew ever colder, and lightning flashed ever more frequently across the sky. We traveled through rainstorms and snowfall, and fought always against frigid buffeting winds. Darjaran took no notice of these changes, but the giants felt them almost as keenly as I did, and my poor human companions struggled desperately. The rocky, sandy desert of the Lightning Plains, with its iconic pillars of weathered stone eventually came to an end. The first sign that we were crossing into what Darjaran and Derrek called the White Steppes was the slow rise of the land, followed by rolling foothills, and then to vast, grassy plains split by chasms that dwarfed anything we had seen so far, save the cursed canyon in the Holy Lands, below the charnel plain. Each week of travel passed more slowly than the last.
Then, at last, Ghol Vidar rose in the distance.
I had seen a handful of the great cities of the Compact, travelling with Elana. The capitals of Georg and Handar, huge fortified cities of wood and stone and slate: the one atop a great hill overlooking lush fields and orchards; the other reaching out into the sea. King’s Seat in Namora, a fortified city of fortified estates. My own Queen’s capital, Tanirinaal, greater than all of them, came closest in splendor: emerging from the forest like a flower opening to the sun, houses built and grown in, around, and under the great trees, orchards and herb gardens in the spaces between them, sculptures and art gardens along the roads and in the city squares.
Ghol Vidar outshone all but the last, and I may fairly be accused of bias in that assessment. We could see it rising above the plain for days, growing ever nearer: great square edifices rising from the cliffs, and layers of fortified walls spreading out from the base and down into the valley. A pair of great rivers flowed from the snowy heights above, through the heart of the city and into the stunningly verdant valley below. As we descended the far side of the valley, we could see steam rising from the ground at dozens, maybe hundreds of points, each surrounded by a patch of green fields.
“The heights are carved from the living rock of the mountain,” Darjaran told us, “and the waste-rock used to build the walls around city below.”
It took us two days to cross that valley, the city looming ever larger as we made our slow approach. Snow fell constantly by then, but the road we followed wound between the steaming hot springs and geothermal vents so that it was always wet but never icy. Farmers’ huts dotted the landscape, and from time to time we saw Jor or cyclops tending to their roofs or yards. A few even raised hands and waved to us, a gesture which our guards and guides returned but which our host ignored.
As we broke camp that last morning before approaching the city walls, we could see a large company gathering at the gates above us. As we wheeled slowly upland, they marched down to meet us. The closer we came, the more details emerged: banners flapping in the wind, boxy silhouettes that might be wagons or palanquins, sunlight glinting off armor and polearms. Darjaran was nonplused, but his giants were clearly nervous.
It was a little after noon when our ascending caravan met the descending party. Two dozen giant soldiers in gleaming armor and shining livery of white and green and gold. A half dozen exceptionally massive Jor carrying three large palanquins, from which emerged a trio of sao`ashan in similar colors.
There was a quick exchange between one of the sao`ashan and Darjaran, not in the common language he and Derrek called the giant’s tongue, but in the celestial dialect we had so seldom heard. Darjaran bowed low, then turned to us.
“These ones have come to escort you into the city,” he said to us. “An escort worthy of a tyrant and her companions.”
We had long suspected that word of our company arrived ahead of us, but this was the first time that our arrival had been so openly anticipated.
Elana nodded.
“Thank you, Darjaran,” she said. “You have been a most gracious guide and host. We have enjoyed your company, and we hope the journey has been as profitable to you as it has been to us.”
“This one has done very well,” he said with a grin. “And it has been a great pleasure, your grace.”
He nodded to each of us and gave Derrek one last flirtatious smile, then turned away as our armed escort approached to help us down from the wagon, then led us to where the liveried sao`ashan waited for us.
“Great Tyrant Elana Traiana,” said the first of the three, elaborately dressed in a green dalmatica, draped in a white and gold stole, and dripping gold-set pearls and emeralds. “The Archons of Ghol Vidar offer you and your companions formal welcome to the Holy Empire.”
“We thank you for your welcome,” Elana replied with more dignity than most could muster while swaddled in heavy winter leathers and furs.
With a great deal of ceremony, we were divided into the three palanquins. Elana and Rennin went with the leader. The second claimed me, introducing herself as Rhinaloa, and personally helped me into our palanquin. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Derrek led away to the third.
Of the various palanquins I had been offered in the Holy Empire, this was by far the largest and most comfortable. The seats were well padded, and the piercework of the walls was obscured by heavy curtains that my guide closed behind us. The space was completely dark for a moment before she ignited a crystal mage-light mounted into the ceiling. I had been looking forward to seeing the city, but I was also glad to be out of the ever-present wind.
Rhinaloa was among the smallest of the sao`ashan that I had seen, almost childlike in the seat across from me. She smiled at me warmly, her pale eyes scintillating in the steady but dim light of the crystal and her dainty hands crossed in her lap.
“We will depart soon,” she said, speaking the language of the Compact in the stilted accent I recognized as the translation spell. “Will you take refreshments?”
It was lunch time, so I nodded.
“Please,” I said.
She gave no signal that I could see, but our door soon opened to admit the head and shoulders of a cyclops bearing a charcuterie board and a pot of tea. Even as he arrived, Rhinaloa folded a table out from the opposite wall. When the cyclops had gone, she poured us each a cup of tea.
“Khanaarre of Tanirinaal,” she said to me when we had drank our first cup. Her voice was soft and sweet, despite her uncanny accent. “The archons of Ghol Vidar welcome you to the Holy Empire. You are the first of your people to grace this city since the great rebellion and exodus, and we fear the significance of that may have been overshadowed by the glory of the tyrant in whose company you travel. We hope that no offence has been given, and beg the opportunity to apologize and make amends.”
No one since that first archon in Khrigo City had acknowledged or even seemed to notice that I was not the same species as my companions. I had more than half wondered if the sao`ashan had forgotten the elves, or if they had failed to recognize me as such. I had also wondered if they found our people’s history too delicate or embarrassing a matter to discuss. Rhinaloa’s suggestion had also crossed my mind.
“No insult has been given,” I said after probably too long a pause. “I am here as a companion to the Vencari prince, not as a representative of my own people.”
Rhinaloa inclined her head slightly.
“We are grateful to hear it,” she said. “And if you decide you do wish to represent your people’s voice, we will be grateful to hear that, too.”
So saying, she offered me a selection of unfamiliar cheeses from the board. I took it, considering her words and her offer as I ate a few bites.
“Did not Dano`ar pass this way?” I asked. “The archons of Khrigo City and our caravan driver both remembered him.”
Rhinaloa blinked.
“The dragon bard? Certainly. What of him?”
The others had called him that, too. He was known as such in the Compact, as well, but … Had he never acknowledged his elven heritage? Had he kept it secret or had they simply never asked? Was I revealing something I should not? Too late, now.
“His father was an elven sorcerer,” I said.
“One sees,” she said, clearly perturbed. “One had misunderstood.”
I felt a little bad about that. I also felt a dark sliver of satisfaction, that I had managed to inflict at least a modicum of my own discomfort on the people who had held mine as slaves, no matter how long ago it had been.
After a time, another giant appeared to reclaim our tea pot. Shortly thereafter, our palanquin was lifted and we began to ascend toward the city. Rhinaloa had recovered her poise by then, and made polite conversation, asking how I had found my travels so far, and if I had found the hospitality of the other archons to be acceptable. I had, and I said so. I had also enjoyed travelling, despite my battle with wyvern venom. I spoke of the beauty of the Lightning Plains, however alien to me, and of the meticulous courtesy of nearly everyone we had encountered.
Even as I spoke, though, I wondered how things would have been different if we were not so carefully sheltered from the common people of the empire – if we were allowed direct contact with the giants, or even with more sao`ashan of Darjaran’s rank. And I wondered how my companions were faring in their palanquins. I could assume they had been offered tea and food, as well. Elana and Rennin were likely enjoying similar inquiries regarding the hospitality we had received. Was Derrek having a similar conversation, or was he facing something more like an interrogation?
It took us more than an hour to reach the city of Ghol Vidar. To my relief and delight, once we had crossed into the city and were sheltered from the worst of the wind, my hostess drew open the curtains and I was able to look out on the city, some, as we passed through it. As a whole, Ghol Vidar was more austere than many of the cities we had seen: the buildings were all built of stone, with few architectural flourishes or public art to interrupt the grey granite geometry of the city’s design. Instead, the monotony was broken up by endless strings of colored flags that hung in irregular patterns over the roads, and the colorful and elaborate tapestries that hung over or out of nearly every window. The blocks from which each building were made grew larger and more regular the higher we climbed, mortared walls of irregular fist-sized chips giving way to blocks that began brick-sized and grew and grew until they were as large as the masonry stones of any giant city we had yet seen. By late afternoon, we had reached neighborhoods where the buildings were carved from the living mountain. And it was into one such estate that we were carried and, at last, released from the palanquins.
We had enjoyed a wide assortment of lodgings in our months in the Holy Empire: luxurious but impersonal suites akin to Georgi hotels or Namoran taverns, used by travelers and merchants of rank but without strong local contacts; guest rooms in the palaces of archons and their relatives, or in the very temple palaces of governance; once, even, in the abandoned mansion of a recently exiled dissident. Architectural styles had varied almost as much as social context: ornate mansions, replete with gardens full of arches and sculptures; fortified estates where one might comfortably wait out a siege; warrens of small, interconnected rooms; vast open spaces with ceilings held up by magic and columns rather than walls.
Our estate, this time, was a freestanding piece of solid stone with crenellations along the wall, under a series of steep roofs, each slightly smaller than the one above it so that each level overhung the one below. A heavy iron gate that admitted us, single file, to a small and easily defensible courtyard with a second iron gate on the far side.
When we disembarked from the palanquins, that second gate admitted us to the house, proper, where we were met by a pair of Jor twins in white and blue livery.
“Your honors,” they greeted our guides with a deep bow, then turned to us. “Most noble guests.”
They took our heavy coats and showed us all to a sitting room on the second floor.
As defensible and austere as the exterior of the estate had been, the interior was welcoming and comfortable. Landscape paintings hung on the cheerful blue walls of the halls we passed through. The sitting room, itself, was long and narrow, full of green and fragrant hothouse plants that turned to face the long south-facing window wall, which overlooked the city and the valley below. Cushions and low tables dotted the room in configurations we had not yet seen, which I guessed to be sized for either sao`ashan or giant.
“Please make yourselves comfortable,” said the sister of the pair. “Your baggage is being handled, and your host will be with you shortly.”
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