Marie Brennan: Within the Sanctuary of Wings

“Do I even want to know what that was?” Tom asked.

“As there is nothing we can do for it now,” I said, “perhaps it is best if we just continue on.”

We made it to the great entry hall without further incident, and stood to one side, where we could not be glimpsed through the towering double doors. We had not been there long when I heard the footsteps of a great many people approaching, and then someone saying something in Yelangese. I turned just in time to see a Khiam Siu captain wipe the floor with a silk drapery, clearing away a souvenir left behind by one of the dragons before his emperor could step in it.

“Oh dear,” I said involuntarily. “I, ah—my apologies.”

If the incident troubled Giat Jip-hau, he did not show it. Perhaps his mind was so occupied by the impending ceremony that it simply could not accommodate any new sources of agitation; certainly mine would have been. He merely said, “Will it work?”

“I believe so,” I said. Then, because that was clearly insufficient: “Yes.” I prayed it was true.

He answered with a brief nod, and his entourage swept past us to the doors.

The roar from outside was tremendous when Giat Jip-hau appeared. I peered around a pillar long enough to see him raise his hands for silence, and obtain the closest approximation to it one can hope for from such a large crowd. But even had I been able to understand more than a dozen words of any Yelangese tongue, I would not have been able to listen to his oration; my leashed dragon was very determined to chew upon the gilded carvings of another pillar, and it was all I could do to keep her from swallowing a mouthful of wood and gold.

In a way, I was grateful for her mischief. It kept me from dwelling overmuch on what came next.

Thu seemed to appear out of nowhere, almost vibrating with excitement. “It is time.”

Tom and I emerged from the great entry hall into dazzling sunlight and the renewed roar of the crowd. It seemed all of Tiongau was arrayed in the plaza below us, and every last one of them was shouting at the sight of the two ci lêng —for I have no illusions that a pair of Scirling strangers occasioned any notice, when there were azure dragons to see. The common people of Tiongau would never have seen the beasts except in paintings, and their presence next to the self-proclaimed emperor of Yelang was as wondrous to them as the sight of a Draconean had been to me.

But we had only begun to astonish them.

Three shadows passed overhead, and the crowd fell to dead silence.

Ruzt, Kahhe, and Zam had leapt from the roof above. Wings spread to their fullest extent, the sisters glided over the assembled dignitaries and down the palace stairs to a point equidistant between the emperor and the crowd. They stood there long enough for people to see them clearly, and to know that these were no humans dressed in masks and silk wings; they were draconic humanoids, creatures out of legend. Then they turned, wings and ruffs spread a little in display, and ascended the stairs once more to where Giat Jip-hau waited.

In this manner did the Draconeans make their public entrance to the world of humans.

All our pains to keep them secret came to fruition in that instant, and it was worth every ounce of effort. What might have been a moment of terror transmuted to wonder instead, as the Draconeans raised their hands to the sun and spoke a blessing in the local tongue that invoked an admixture of beliefs: a ceremony of Atlim’s design, one part Draconean, one part Yelangese, and one part pure invention. Giat Jip-hau stepped forward, and Thu laid a golden robe over his shoulders; and in a powerful voice that carried to the far side of the plaza, he proclaimed himself the first Khiam emperor.

And the azure dragons danced.

Tom and I had unclipped their leashes while the sisters spoke their blessing. Following Kahhe’s whistled signals, the two ci lêng flowed forward, executing a circle around Giat Jip-hau, down the steps a short distance, and back up again to where Tom and I waited.

For the dragons to be present at his proclamation would have been a boost to the new emperor’s legitimacy—but they were only ci lêng, the dragons permitted to high officials, not the hong lêng that symbolized the emperor himself. But for the Draconeans to appear, as if conjured from nowhere, and for the ci lêng to dance at their command… could there be any clearer proof of his blessed state?

The Khiam Revolution did not achieve victory that day, of course. Although a great many people rose to their banner after Tiongau, quite a few did not; and the Taisên fought tooth and nail to retain their power, including many pitched battles that I was glad to sit out. By the time I left Yelang, almost a year later, the success of the Khiam Dynasty was a foregone conclusion, but the fighting still continued; by then we had repeated the grand display half a dozen times, to prove that the events in Tiongau were not simply a tall tale. Not all breeds were amenable to even that minor degree of training, but it did not matter: the story spread, and influenced public opinion wherever it went. Whatever the Taisên thought, the war was won on the day that a hong lêng circled Giat Jip-hau in front of the captured Imperial Palace.

The challenges for my Draconean friends were tremendous. They remained miserable in the heat, especially when we visited lowland regions; and Zam even expressed grudging sympathy to me at one point, saying, “Now I think I understand how you felt when we were chasing the yaks.” Taisên agents made eight separate attempts to assassinate them, none successful. Thu told me it was a sign of desperation, that they would risk being blamed for such an act; but this of course is small comfort when one cannot sleep with both eyes closed. (They also tried to assassinate me, I think out of spite. I was far less of a threat to them than either the Draconeans or the new emperor.) It was a relief when I could finally install myself in a room in the Imperial Palace, safe behind a cordon of both Scirling and Khiam Siu guards.

By then my thoughts and Tom’s were increasingly bending toward Scirland, despite the grand events occuring around us. “Will you come with us back to the Sanctuary?” Ruzt asked one day. Their exile had ended; the elders, well pleased with what they had done, were permitting them to go home.

A part of me wanted to say yes. We had been through so much together; it was strange to imagine being parted from my Draconean friends. But not only was the Sanctuary not my home, I had little desire to return there—at least, not so soon. I wanted the company of my own countrymen, the ease of speaking my native tongue, the comforts of my home in Falchester. I could not have any of these yet; but I could have my husband.

“Suhail is in Tser-nga now,” I said. “Your elders will be negotiating with the Tser-zhag king soon, and I should like to be there for that. It will be a good deal faster if I sail to the other side of Dajin, instead of tramping through the mountains—and a good deal safer, too.”

Ruzt’s wings fluttered. “And you do not want to go back.”

Before I could frame a response to that, she waved it away. “I understand, Zabel. Isabella. For you, it is a difficult place. But you will always be welcome in our house.”

“And you in mine,” I said reflexively. Then I laughed. “Though I will understand entirely if you decline to sail to the far side of the world to visit me.” The sea had been even more daunting a sight than the plains of Khavtlai; it would be a very long time before any Draconean ventured out upon it.

Thu accompanied Tom and myself to the port of Va Nurang, where a Scirling naval ship was bringing a set of proper ambassadors to establish relations with the new emperor. That same ship brought a letter, addressed to me. I went boneless with relief when I saw it was from my son—for he would not write to me unless word had reached him that I was alive.