Thunderwyrm I

‘I’m only saying, Maerk, that I do subscribe to cosmicism. We’re their playthings; they say Khynigosh can freely curse men to Therianthropy – you know that rumour about the royal court, with the skinchanger – how can that mean us anymore than nothing to them?’ Fiara called over the playing winds above Scarshire. ‘It doesn’t matter, anyway, Sava is all the proof I need.’

Scarshire, her home. The most powerful Cardinal Region in Loullands, if not the wealthiest on that cusp of the Fourth Epoch, had its regional capital – the Archduchy of Cliffhaven – atop a jagged platform amidst the majesty and bustling solitude of the mountain cliff of Silversalt. Silversalt stood most grand along the bony ridges of the Seashells: chalk white weathered into a mighty slate casing. Silversalt was a fierce climb, even via the well-kempt Squalltoll Passage. A worthy climb, though, for at the end of that passage was the city of Cliffhaven; Cliffhaven of clouds, Cliffhaven of the howling squall, and the crossroads that stretched all across the Seashells, from Clyreton to Louweridge and everywhere in-between. The castle-cities of the Whitewalls and the Summeroses, the Roost and Maben; even the Old Causeway, an ancient cobbled path wide enough for whales and sunken deep into the weathered stone, stretching northernmost to the bastion of Hille. Hille of blood, Hille of warders. And to the south-west of Hille, the capital of all Loullands: Brighthelm un-besieged.

They were all hives and beetle-mounds from the soaring heights of the spine of Fiara’s Quaiggar, Thunderwyrm. Little insect’s homes, if they were even glorious enough to clamber amongst the clouds; if not, then from a Quaiggar’s back they were little more than dust blown in white wind.

The air flowed, and the world spun. The horizon boded adventure, of those distant tales of foreign lands, of foods and spices, smells and places. Yet the sky was the House of Squall’s home; and if their heir wished to be such a cosmic nihilist, none should tell her not. No man should tell the daughter of the Stone of Brighthelm, the King of Loullands, otherwise.

‘Not this again,’ one bastard-born lowly monk said. Maerk Gaile, on his third year of field-practice, assigned at the Cathedral of Borwiian in Cliffhaven. The Squalls were in need of a priest at the time; King Boeris had no objections. ‘The Celestials prove you’re wrong. And Heironymous Sava doesn’t care about you or me or any of this; he’s fundamentally functionally dead. He doesn’t work the way they do; the way they’re supposed to. You know that. Besides, be a little more positive.’

‘No, Maerk. It’s not about positivity or optimism anyway. Sava exists if the rest of our gods do, and their combined existence, too, proves I’m right,’ Fiara rebutted. Her home was in those winds. Winds that howled through the halls of Cliffhaven; winds that whistled over loose scales on the serpentine neck of Thunderwyrm. ‘Your blind faith proves they grew you ignorant over in that monastery. You’ve a sharp mind wrongly dulled.’

Maerk, aspiring Chiron of the Celestial Faith, was an optimist by nature of his deep belief in the goodness of the Transcendent beings. Innately, there was credence to his thought, for they had blessed life and all that was good, or so they said. But in truth, that goodness stretched only as far as compartmentalising things that mortals could never comprehend. And the Celestial Faith would never let anything fall uncategorised as loving or hating. Nothing except war. But there was a comfort in letting the mind rest with those musings. A Quaiggar had no legs or arms or hair or speech beyond their clicks. Where men had skin, Quaiggar had creamy and gilded scales that littered two muscular wings and the tendrilous body of a skywhip, with the capacity for matriarchs to spout a mane full of silvery feathers. How different they were from Loulmen or Oberon. Surely, something greater willed them so; surely, that something greater was as omnibenevolent as they were omnipotent. That is how the Celestial Faith would have you think.

‘You are the sole heir to the throne of Brighthelm. Your family have ruled for over three Aeons, three-hundred-and-fifty years, yet you think the gods are out to get you, is it Fiara? You’re named after The Matron Herself!’ Maerk had made sure to fly his Quaiggar, a juvenile, smooth in marble scales with a cream underbelly and a sharp snout, as tight as it could to Fiara. Its glowing layers of flesh-armour skewered the light of the cerulean sky.

Such proximity was highly unorthodox. Behaviour not right for prospective Chirons, nor any men, to a princess. And mountmaster Twyner of Whitewall was not prepared to let it continue. He slithered his beast, the matriarch Quaiggar of Cliffhaven, Junothor the Prismscale, through the skies and wetness of cloud between them. ‘Riders,’ he shouted in the endearing whimper of age-demanding-authority, ‘we are completed for today. Back to Cliffhaven, for King Boeris the Sixth is expected soon.’

‘Father’s close?’ Fiara ask with awe. The Stone of Brighthelm, King of Loullands, was riding to his ancestral home for his wife’s birthday. Fiara had made a fine gown for her mother’s prestigious occasion, using the silks sold by a southern merchant on his way to the Eggshells in the north, when he came by to pay his due for using the Squalltoll Road. The queen deserved something so pretty as Fiara had been sure to create. She’d stained it in amethyst dye, same as used to stain their banners, but layered a trim of pearly white, and a flowing tail that would drift as a butterfly’s wing when she walked, all regal and proud.

But more than simple celebration of birth, such a day promised vast relief. There was a lot involved in running one’s husband’s Cardinal Lands in the shadow of their grace, exerted from some exalted seat many moons ride from home. His ascension had come late, yet still too soon for their marriage of love. Grandfather Injonem, the Aged and the Prosperous, had hogged the birthright crown of the House of Squall for some one-hundred-and-one years. His death was expected, but when it came there was still a great shock. He seemed undying, until the moment he died.

‘Indeed, your father makes progresses through Chilternshire on his journey. I believe the Hedets are hosting him for this eve,’ the mountmaster replied.

‘The Hedets know finery,’ Maerk added. ‘Your lucky father. As if the gods had blessed the House of Squall.’ Fiara and Maerk shared a laugh. He threw a playing fist on her shoulder, something Twyner was far from pleased to see.

‘Now off with you both. One mustn’t keep a king waiting, nor meet him in fatigue, nor greet his majesty in riding attire. I know how long it takes the youth of this day to be ready, even after sleep. And Queen Archduchess Leoise wants deep slumber of us all this night. A grand feast is promised that should persist long into the early hours upon the Stone’s arrival.’

The three Quaiggar riders were met with two of Fiara’s household, riding much closer to the keep and distant enough that she had almost forgot of them. The skies do that to a Squall, her father had told, when we are on the backs of Quetz and Quaiggar we lose our sense of duty. A saying truer-speaking there never was. They were wards first, but suitors a close second, sent by their wealthy fathers to earn favour and the possibility of the heir’s hand.

Into the Grand Balcony of Cliffhaven Keep did they find roost. Amongst the home of the tame Quaiggar. For their nest was in the keep, as the keep was nested in the grand city, and the city nested in the great spine of rock that walled the kingdom of Loullands off from the rough Prism Strait and the distant Eastern Isle of Harjebh, home of the Oberon, across from it. The Grand Balcony was a vista sublime.

Prism itself, the Harjebhian capital of Philosophy, was in clearest view. Each reaching tower pierced the clouds above like pikes adorned with exotic warheads, alluring one across for promises of beauty or artistry. Yet none voiced their allure. For so recent was peace between Loullands and Harjebh, that people were still fearful of the wrath of that once-potent empire of coercive avarice. Now the Oberon of Harjebh were a species concerned with inventions and thought, and to Fiara, that was all so spectacularly quaint.

But the Prism Strait was the inverse. For there was liquid chaos. ‘I see red most. What of you?’ Maerk asked. His words were speaking to her mind; such an ability perhaps the gods did gift their most pious. And Maerk spoke truer, for there was a clear streak of crimson in those harsh waves, amongst the ever-shifting hues of lilac and sapphire that were more fluid in their bearing of golden seafoam.

‘Red’s about right,’ Fiara replied.

‘Now that I look again I see purple most.’

‘The colours of our banners, tricking you, I’d say.’

‘Perhaps,’ Maerk said with deep pondering. ‘Though, perhaps, it is only because that’s what I see. Not everything’s so symbolic, princess Fiara.’ His voice was thick with the wax of a sly quip.

‘Not everything’s so boring, either, monk Maerk.’

Maerk squinted one beryl eye. ‘That has no ring to it.’

‘Your head does,’ Fiara snapped, ‘an ugly ring of monk hair. That little circlet will never suit you. You know, you used to have such lovely hazel flows.’ Both shared a smile.

‘I’m sorry that not everyone can have the auburn river that a princess does,’ Maerk said. ‘I’d have argued a little more with the cathedral tenders had I known the most important woman in the realm once thought I had lovely hazel flows.’ There was something more than the innocent exchange of friends in his words. He was always complimentary, but his tongue grew more silver with every passing moon.

Fiara slid from the neck of her beast. A creature limbless save its thick wings was an odd beast to most, though there is a certain charm in those violet iris-slits that wins so many over. Should they remain a sceptic, a Quaiggar’s blessing truly was in their mastery of the air; for they bend the wind to their order as a lord does to their subjects. Thunderwyrm had been a slow-learning thing, but Fiara had grown with her; they had learnt from their mistakes to rise with elegance above the rest.

Fiara turned from Maerk and lay a loving palm on Thunderwyrm’s snout. Its twisting body tight in one of the many grand arches that layered, in threes, the walls of the balcony roost. She was just as affectionate back, grumbling in a low tone something kind. ‘At least Quaiggar know when to stop calling me a princess,’ Fiara said over her shoulder.

The reply came from gaunt Lord Haebyrling, one of those two suitors. He was not at all of the feebleness of Maerk; taller by a head than both the princess and the monk, and of gilded locks. A lone braid dangled in front of his ear, as the rest of that golden head was tied tight back. The Haebyrlings were a family known amongst gossiping circles as the most blessèd in cheekbone, though for an honour they paid in the price of the thinnest lips. For a suitor of Fiara of Cliffhaven, that was a true blow. ‘My Lady, would it please to take my arm?’

Fiara was obligated to respond in the format she was addressed. ‘It may please. Where is it you wish for your arm to take me?’ In spite of her misgivings of Haebyrling’s sly attitude, he was a fair man, and likely just as at odds with the broad shoes of the political nation one must learn to fill as she was. Their difference was in mind; Haebyrling was dull as a plank board, yet without any of the grandeur of the gallant jouster or the cunning duellist. His smile was a crooked thing when it showed itself; worse even than the permanent smirk of Leach, the other suitor.

Maerk snickered, ever-amused at the formalities of courtly life.

‘Quiet monk-boy,’ Haebyrling demanded in a darting glance. ‘I’m aware monasteries are dull places, though it is the compulsion of a priest to stay neutral in the affairs of the magnate. The fact I have to remind you once again proves you a slow learner. It is any wonder they accept your caste amongst the prestigious ranks of our devout clerics.’

‘It is any wonder you think yourself anything more than heir to a lesser duchy,’ Maerk replied. ‘Calling yourself magnate… You’re just embarrassing, Haebyrling.’

‘I needn’t remind you the punishment for interfering with noblewomen. It is my good word against yours, bastard mongrel. So stand down quiet. Why don’t you pray? You should be praying.’ There was little remorse in the words of gaunt Lord Haebyrling. Rather, an impish sneer came as Maerk stuttered and tripped on his words and his shoulders fell loose.

‘Your Lady is not a woman loving of hateful men,’ Fiara said. There was much more than distaste on her lips, but formalities held as they must. ‘Come Maerk, I wish to pray.’

‘You wish to pray is it? I can make you plead, gorgeous lady,’ Leach the Lordling called from behind Haebyrling. That was amusing, apparently, for they both revelled in their laughter. Fiara was in no mind to admire either. They were far from worth her hand.

‘The princess should have your head for that. Perhaps it is you who should plead,’ Twyner of Whitewall vociferated in a howl that filled the balcony. It was the same noise that silenced the denizen Quaiggar, and such did it then. Not a breath was taken for the moments following. Even the weakest voices can make the poor of heart cripple, Boeris had once said.

Fiara left the men with a face disgusted and stormed away in the noise of hooves on stone through to the inner keep. Maerk walked alongside, though his gait was far less sure.