Almanac Imperium

“There weren’t always dragons in the valley.” The corpulent and wizened old man begins to recite the words from the Holy book, but thinks better of it with his enfeebled mind. “As the book says, it was at one time barren, in the time of fires and smoke that seemed to seep from every vein of this world, devoid of water. Nearly devoid of life until the great ones deigned to grace us with the remembrance of who we are, all in this world, who we were and who we would become.” The old man’s face falls with his animated gesture, all of him seems to settle into the weariness that comes with war and age, no matter how high born, even he, the son and father of barons.

He considers his words longer than any of the others around the table, his Chancellor, The Thane, a man only a few decades younger than he, and a friend of more than six hundred years, certainly had heard his words before. His own sons, Larkin, just returned from war, Threyn and Streup, still too young for battle, could also utter his very next words, better than they could recite the scriptures, and none of the three had yet seen two centuries in full. Their true guest, the wounded Maleran man-at-arms appears engaged with the Baron’s eyes and recitations, but his mind is very much on other matters.

The Baron lifts his hand and points to the lantern cluster in the center of the great oval boarwood table that has been in his family for two thousand years, his own House and dynasty for that entire span, and makes an attempt to grow the fueled flames with his bare fingers. In the moment his Nereid valet, Pontus, his shining oiled olive skin and blue-gray eyes unmistakable even in dim light, appears and stokes the flame tween his own finger and thumb and the fire grows so that the shadows fall away from the faces of the those at the great table.

“Now, my liege, we live in a world where the lily-milk flows and ferments, new creatures of land, sea and sky, big and small and smaller still, all are birthed every moment of every day as if the world we inhabit should not be missed by any life which seeks to thrive.” The Chancellor’s voice is strident and clear. He would not let his old friend, who hadn’t seen battle or war in an eon, maugre the exalted spirits of those who had barely escaped the brimstone of human vanity that is war on this very evening. “I believe the Lord-Baron and our entirety would indulge in more lily-milk.” The Chancellor implores to the air and Pontus again appears bearing a gilded gourd-a-plenty.

The Baron looks at the soldier’s stance, one that the young man assumes even while seated at the table. His own sons opposite him look more farm-reared than soldier-raised, much less the son of the Baron and Lord-Pasha of the Dark Rim, Vice-Lord of the Nereid Coast and Knight Gallant of the Maleran, which were his self-same titles and one day their own.

The Chancellor takes a chalice in his hands and offers it towards the baron, in supplication and bonhomie. The Baron takes his own and raises it to his friend. “To the future my lord, Baron.

“To the future my friend and brother.” The Baron and Chancellor balance the chalice on their lips for a moment before tasting the lily-milk.

“There was a time in the older world when the March-Lords or their gallant sons kept the dragons from the Malaran Seas and this our coastal city-state, but now the war and the apparent armistice means the dragons now breed with abandon and foster the demi dragons and their terrible wrath.”

Tilia enters the room bearing the Holy Honomicon, flanked by a Nereid girl, Lestia Antus, who follows her with a ballams-wood stand which she places a few feet from the table. Tilia waves her hand as she allows the great book to fall to the page and two waxless candles, floating flames, appear and frame her auburn hair and the drop-jewel tiara that lays on her head, which bows ever so slightly and reverentially.

“And yet we shall be saved by future Mater and Mater born” from rumors of wars by the good and holy scriptures before we supp.” The Chancellor stands and the other men follow his politesse.

“A reading from the Honomicon, the Third Book of the Lamentations of Men, Chapter one,“ Tilia purrs and the Man-at-Arms is taken by the softness of the epicene voice as she begins to recite the words in a lyrical tongue that shows she has studied the High Arts and nobly born. “In the post-mordial eons and the epoch after, there was land as far as the eyes could see, dry and far across the curves of the once and future water’d planes of all the world. When those of flesh could walk against the wind with fool’s hope and promise of a time to come.”

“Shantih Shantih Shantih.” The room responds in unison. Behind Tilia, the fireplace ignites in their soft but potent art.

By the time they had finished the cry-violet salad and the lamassu cheese had ripened on the table enough to eat, the conversation had also grown from war and religion to magic and the arts. Tilia supposed she was the most learned of such matters of the arts at the table and would get a chance to unveil the quiet and handsome soldier that had graced their table with heroic tales and even wounded, had an almost regal bearing.

“Is it true, Sir, that the Maleran don’t care for conquest, it is magic which has propelled them to the upper strata of society that means the March-Princes can be suitors for the Emperor’s daughter,” Tilia says with conviction. She has no patience for her father’s opinions on the subject. She knows it is magic and not conquest that has created the Tria and it’s House. Their dedication to the High Arts gave them land and peoples and dragons even. In fact, Man-at-Arms, do you practice… the High Arts?”

“Of course he does. All of the Maleran do to a fault. In fact, do you have a twin?” Threyn asks.

“I have two,” the Maleran responds.

“It is common now, I have heard… the practice?” Larkin asks.

“Yes indeed my family does practice the High Arts and have achieved some notoriety in it… religiously. I am scion to the noble house.”

“How so? By blood or marriage?” The Chancellor interjects.

“I’m told it’s a bit of both.”

“Ahhh you would have made a suitable bride for my daughter were she of the mind to let me choose. But noble blood and noble rank are different matters. Are you set for the Guild now that your soldier’s life is near to finish?”

“I’m not so sure blood and rank are different in my case, but I will assume the lesson of your years. My family will require me to study with the Guild, Sire. It is expected for at least a few years.”

“Poor boy… I hope you will be allowed some fun company before dedicating your life to the High Arts. Perhaps my daughters have some friends of rank to amuse your heart and mind.”

“Father, we’ve only just pulled arrows from the man at arms. I think he’s more worried about recovery right now and getting through the forest and seas hostile to the March-Princes,” Tilia implores.

"Of course I'll welcome your safe recovery from these last battles and will do all in my power to get you through the forest and the ever present darkness that hangs about it," the patriarchy offers anew.

“He will be knighted anew when he returns for his triumph in battle," Larkin says assuredly.

"Chancellor, see to it that our finest falconers, arrow-men and knights accompany our young Hero through that dark valley that have erstwhile kept us safe and insulated, the Baron announces.”

“So, why three for every generation?” Threyn chimes in to the conversation sounding nearer to his sister as he has barely broken a century in this world.

"Well, it began after the first of the water wars, when the male population was sacrificed for three generations - and the Maleran were either going to vanish or be conquered. So in one generation we were able to refine the art enough to control the future of our kind," the man-at-arms explains with patience and precise words.

“Yet you still practice the multiple births. Your poor women,” Tilia teases.

“Only the oldest noble houses do so now. The others have seemed to have lost interest. They think we have nothing else to learn in this time and are content with few children. They want to bide our time eating, drinking, and cavorting… making babies for their own edification and marvel.”

“So you are nobly born?” Tulia lays her arms about the table and leans towards the injured knight.

“Yes, I claim scion of several noble houses.”

“And… So your house?” She presses on.

“Let’s just say you’ve heard of the houses of my lineage but I am nothing without it except a man, young and seeking to lay claim to my own destiny.”

“What is your noble house?”

“My maternal House is that of Aeolus and of Stantz my father is of House Tria.”

“House Tria and…?”

“House Tria.”

“Patrilineal descent twice over, just like the Princes. You must be high up in the succession… Does your branch have a substantive title?” She comes again quickly but the Baron stands and raises his chalice again.

“Well if we do not dine with a March-Prince tonight? Cha’ la’im.” Her father throws back the lily-milk again after the customary toast. They all laugh, except the man-at- arms, Tilia notices. A minor branch, Tilia supposes, maybe one of the carefree cousins that waste their time on idle and vainglorious pursuits, not like their near mythic cousins and rulers.

“It is said in these lands that your cousins will make good rulers fit for title and consorts of imperial aims.”

“If I do not return within a fortnight, those aims will come to naught.” A hush falls over the table. They feel this knight’s truth is more than his own hyperbole.

“Pontus, summon the bards." Threyn implores to the air and in an instant the Euterpenes appear in unison as if a single body, with their willow rods and frangipani chalk at the ready.

“Sirs, a little night music for your adoration,” the chief Euterpene calls and they begin the demulcent dirge that will prove joyful and soporific.

*****************

A few hours on and the man-at-arms enters the bedchamber with his arms over the fellow soldier Larkin and his younger brother Threyn. They allow his considerable weight to fall on their weaker shoulders though he is a full breast length taller than Larkin and weighs near twice Threyn in mass. Threyn is amazed by the size of the Maleran knight, and wonders if the women of his land are of similar size, or would they dwarf him as this one does. Larkin considers the skin of the knight, and the feel upon his own for perhaps the last few times, and a tear begins in his hear that he knows will fill his soul before the next fortnight. When they enter the woods, the valleys and the seas, there will be no time for longing or lust, only danger and fear. He does know that he would die for this Maleran who has a hold on him and his soul that he has never made privy before. Threyn takes a clumsy and exhausted step away from the bed as Larking lingers at its edge.

“May I send in a nurse to prepare you for slumber?” Larkin looks at him directly until it proves too much in the quiet of the room.

“If you bring me a wash basin, there will be no need for… other attendance save your keep.” The Maleran looks past Larkin to his brother. “Good night young baron, I hope my injury of body, and insult of form have put you off the ways of war and man.”

“They have so touched me as to wax my ambition, but exalted your deeds and strength of character. Good evening, my good knight.” With the studied words, Threyn takes leave into the darkness. The Maleran takes note of the boys exquisite manners and means to ask his comrade who could be responsible for his education and tutelage in absence of his concubine mother. Confidence and poise in one just over a century is unheard of in parts south of the Rolling Seas.

“My sister trained him well…” Larkin tells him with eyes that have not moved from the striking visage of the Maleran, scarred across one of the angel-whisper-green eyes there, yet as stunning as a prince.

“How is it you know my mind so well? And then not at all, Larkin, Hero of the Last Battle of the Aberyn?”

“The nature of every being is solitary even when it gives all.”

“I have cherished our flight to safety thus far. Your people and your family both have made me most welcome as a hero at my word.”

“And mine. I am their lord and my father the most generous of rulers.

“I must leave in two days time, Larkin of the Dark Rim.”

“I know you must. We want to insure your safe return. I personally do too.”

“It is not possible. Your father is old and you will soon be Baron. I cannot ask your House for such a sacrifice after the legion you offer may not return. It will take you one hundred years to return and time is never certain or kind, to lords or lovers. I must go alone.”

“I will not hear of it.”

“You cannot go.” The Maleran takes Larkin's hand in his and pulls it to his chest. “There is a different course you must take in my return. It has been foreseen. You and your house must oblige.”

*****************

The Chancellor moves his great chair closer to the baron, whose drink has not stupored him, but has cast a maudlin cloud about his person, one familiar to his oldest friend. As he adjusts the griff-feather pillow that comforts his bones, Tilia enters the room as silent as a titmouse and there lingers in the shadows.

“What tempers you my lord?’ The Chancellor says though he wishes the musicians nor the children had not gone.

“These days are meant to be the last of battle before the great peace, that has been foretold. “

“Indeed they must be.”

“But, even the victory at hand, strange and pyrrhic if we haven’t the resources to return the man-at-arms to the Maleran coast. Had the Malerans not spent twelve years in the surprise attack they would have discovered the uneasy peace in the Rolling Seas. They, the Maleran, will see that the forests and the waters of its edges are untamed for miles through a near ocean of untamed people and creatures.”

“This is already knowledge, my Lord. The uneasy peace is not the responsibility for one single fiefdom in the Maleran Princedom.”

“If we cannot vouchsafe this Knights return, the March-Princes will have no choice but to intervene. It will be the talk of all the Baronies of the coastal realm. ”

“We will vouch safely. We have our enchanters, alchemist, archers, falconers, lammasu and griffon at the ready. An entire legion for a knight.”

“And the Rolling Seas? The arms of our barony are untested with the Waywards, the Range Porspians…. And no one had yet beheld the eyes of the demi-dragons or their keepers.” The Baron rest his elbows on the table and his head falls heavy into his hands. “I am too old for worry, my old friend. I am too settled in peace fgfor more talk of war. The Malerans…”

“Cannot judge what they have not seen themselves in battle or cause. I will turn to my Priestess and my books for guidance. You turn to the safe return of your heir-apparent and the noble cause that will gain your house stature and title.” The Chancellor place an arm on his brother’s person and feels the ache of an uncertain future.

Tilia, eyes like onyx plates carved by the Porspian conscripts, backs out towards the door and only the sound of the bolt latching alerts the Chancellor to the former’s presence.

*****************

At waters edge in the glow of the western twin moons, Amphytrion and Alcmene, Tilia leans against the weight of the griffin, even though the beast is still too young to have grown her talons in full she could support a dozen of the young lady. On the back of the beast and imperceptible to any whose eyes had not adjusted to the light, Tilia begins to unravel her satchel and lay the contents along the hide of the gentle winged creature who sits as though carved in Boarwood, breathing only once in a full day’s time.

The man-at-arms would need something more practical than old stories from old men. He would need all the help that he and she could muster. She wrote in the ancient scribe and trimeter of the old ways bequeathed by the matriarchal line that stretched one thousand years. Though she could not take all of it seriously, the alchemy and such that the Sisterhood had instilled, she knew hard work and understanding of what they could control of the elements, through the Good Magic as the old ones had said. What she didn’t understand she could ask the Mother Immaculata of the A'esthera, her second and third sights were always insightful to a fault and cleverly told, and continued her education in the High and A’estheral Arts. They called her the witch as a child a thousand years ago, and now the entire Barony was at her feet. She had seen the past and future as one, and disseminated both freely

As much as Tilia tried to perfect the books of the Honomicon and the old languages, as much as she practiced and worked till her fingers were singed, she could never be a true priestess of the Sisterhood. She, the daughter of a Baron, would marry a lowly baron if she were lucky. Her sister had been the dynastic match - she had been married to the House of Bilan- and she was now chatelaine of the wind and dust strewn Bilan Castle in the Place of the Sweeps, but Tilia knows she a is a lady-placeholder to strengthen an alliance afforded any surprise riff in the fiefdom. Her marriage, if her father chose, would be to some Lord - simple and agrarian grand perhaps, who knew her dower and her title were both in reach and considerable. This to her was the worst possible future she could foresee. Remaining at the center of the Dark Rim, children and ennui her only comfort in the land where Arts and culture were lacking. Maybe she would study and put off the prospect of marriage until her older brother assumed the Baron Regency. But he would have no children, of that she was certain. Seeing him attempt to marry had led him to the war that had brought him back with the man-at–arms now with them for recuperation, and with whom both she and her elder brother are smitten.

At the witching hour on the second rising of the moon since the man at arms arrival with her brother, Tilia walks with Lestia down the long corridors of the castle, with their crypt-like silence, in the light of the moons, and leaves through the cellar doors on the west of the baronial edifice. As they walk, Lestia braids her hair like her own, in the intricate Nereid way, in anticipation of the skyward journey.

It is bright and clear and the ladies feel the warm winds on their shoulders as the youthful griffin flies low in the skies beneath the clouds and over the city south of the castle. It is the most quiet time of the night and even the farmers and miners have hours to go before they arise to dawn. The beast lands at the palace of the Priestess as the buck owls begin their mating calls and the crickolyns dance upon the dewdrops in the the wee hours of the morn. Tilia and Lestia dismount quickly and learnedly and are greeted by the opening of the palace doors. A gnome-troupe stands in their hemp gowns at the entrance and Galadron, the eldest of the she-creatures, steps forward to usher them in.

“Holiness… Your noble guest has arrived.” the Gnomess sirens to the Priestess, startling her from her books. “ May I present The Lady Tilia, Validepasha of the Dark Rim, Lady Gallant Hereditary of the Maleran, Sister-Novice to the A'estheral Order.”

“Thank You, Galadron,” she responds to the Gnomess as Tilia and her maid enter. “We must amend your titles soon, Sister Tilia.” The voice of the Mother Immaculata is soothing and Tilia as always feels a mirth and warmth in it that is a comfort to a motherless child.

“And yours, Mother Immaculata.” They embrace and the Priestess is loathe to release Tilia as she empaths her unsettled mind and heart.

“Something vexes thee more than I have seen.”

“What hath thou seen holiness?’

“Tonight, I sing of arms and of a man...”

“I’ve heard this one, Mother.”

“This time I am inclined to portentousness for a man exiled for conquest, must return in the darkness of the night to fulfill a prophecy. The birth of greatness of a noble house and the rise of a queen are at stake.”

“Is there a need for me to tell you what I have gleaned?”

The Priestess places her hand on the stone about the Lady’s forehead and closes her eyes. The Nereid’s eyes widen as if the magic is too much for her to behold but in only a moment it is done.

“You have been busy girl. A novice no longer. You are my sister and will need your sorors' strength for what is to be.”

The Mother Immaculata takes Tilia to her great place of work in the center of the chamber and begins to call the solemn words, then sits before the blue flame, its’ sparks shedding spinel dust about the table and covering the herbs and stones that lay a clutter.

“Listen to my sister-child for every word I speak is of great importance for the Maleran's keep. What you will expect in the forests of the Dark Coasts are no secrets, of this is certain. First will be the dire-dragons in the valley’s but they are easier to command respect than many others. Dire-dragons, not be the least of your worries, but certainly not your most pressing concern. House Tria may have conquered, but they have not subdued their principalities in many areas of the Eight Rolling Seas and along the coastal forest is no different. Take with you the honey-metal sap for their nourishment, though it is up to you to get them to partake for once they do their minds will be on nothing else. Past their throng there will come the water's edge and the Wayward Nereids, who would force the truth from those that have traversed their part of the sea and which will continue to offer water until men, unused to the never ending spring would themselves drown. These Nereid are not like Pontus, or your handmaiden here. This ilk are nefarious and malicious. They will require all the fire you can summon to instill fear and subservience." The priestess takes another deep breath from the spinel flame and continues.

"Then there will ne the fellow seafarers to the Waywards, the mutinous Range Porspians of the former Sea Ranges. It is true that they have begun to develop distinct differences from their counterparts loyal to the Tria, those sort at the Rolling Seas edges, who are as evil as their counterparts are good, but their ways and minds are loyal to the old Triton empire. Their use of fire and water in their battles has quickly become the stuff of legend and myth."

It had never occurred to Tilia to worry but she now understands the Maleran will be in one camp and her own brother with the Legion will be their chief distraction from the forces of the Rolling Seas who would not let men cross the waters in peace.

"If the most hideous fawna and semi-mortal beings are not deterrent, then the flora was there. The curling, weeds of angel-whispers will provide challenge for even the wisest and most fit of mortal men, with its constant growth and silken cocoons which a man could ne’er escape. Followed by the Linne-moss which grows a mile in only a few moments and could consume a man whole if he settled too long and was not quick to leave its downy leaves."

" The stickeens-wolves, which eat the linne-moss and its leaves and that howl when it is trampled as the aroma makes them insatiable. They are descended of the dogs of ancient lore and the trampled moss send them into fits that will of course warn the demi-dragons and their dragoman keepers. This will be a most fearsome challenge with which to contend. If you are to survive the rabid stickeens, then the demi-dragons, you will to the Maleran shores be lifted by the Porspirians of the Mer.

“Now Mother Immaculata, you must tend to matters far more personal. The knight entertains my fancy.”

“You already know better and yet you will not heed my admonition. Still more of him is difficult to discern which tells me there is some art at play. the divination is strong and my sight with him is poor. You must keep your wits and your descendants shall gain a crown. If not, you will parish and Threyn your youngest sib will be the next Baron and Lord- Pasha of the Dark Rim.”

“So I am to go with the legion?”

"No my sister, you are to go with the knight. Alone and unbeknownst to him until you reach the Rolling Seas.”

A cold sweat covers Tilia's body nearly in its entirety as she realizes what fate has in store for her, and her noble house, on the occasion of the arrival of the Maleran knight.