by Lou Anders
“I don’t see why not,” said Thianna.
“Very well,” said Orm. “Then I suppose I won’t roast you alive today. I promised you answers if you undertook my quest. Are you satisfied that you have been paid?”
“In full,” said Thianna. She knew that was the only answer the dragon would accept, the only answer it was safe to give.
“That is good,” said Orm. “Thianna Frostborn, Karn Korlundsson, I release you from my service.” Beside him, his sister made a coughing noise in her long throat. Orm scowled at her, but he added, “And I, the Defender of Caldera, offer you my gratitude.”
“Nicely done, brother,” Orma said.
Beside her, Karn bowed. And Thianna wisely did too.
Orm rose into the air.
“Now I will return to Sardeth. You may call it a ruins, but it’s my ruins. And I have much to think about. Perhaps it is time to take a more active interest in the world. Perhaps I have done enough this century. But I intend to sleep on it for now.”
With that Orm beat his wings and began his long journey westward.
Orma took to the air after him.
“I better get back to Gordasha, and Acmon,” she said. “I’ve got a city to rule, after all. Karn, what are your plans? You would be an honored guest in my realm for as long as you like.”
“Thank you,” he said. He looked at his friend. “I need to get home soon, but I don’t think we’re quite done here.”
Orma nodded her large head.
“When you are ready, make your way to Gordasha. You’ve certainly earned a ride home if you want it.”
“Thank you,” said Karn, who recognized the honor being done him.
Then the Dragon Queen of Gordasha joined her brother in the skies.
“What do we do now?” asked Sirena. “The city is a mess. The queens are gone. There’s a path of ruin carved right through Caldera like a slice cut out of a pie.”
“You’ll rebuild,” said Thianna.
“I don’t know how to build,” said her cousin.
“So you’ll learn. The dactyls can help.”
“So can the helots,” added Karn. “Though if I were you I would grant them both citizenship immediately.”
“And a seat at the table,” said King Herakles, joining them.
“I’m not in a position to grant anyone anything,” said Sirena.
“No?” said Thianna. “I seem to recall you were being groomed to be queen once upon a time. Caldera doesn’t need a Keras Keeper anymore, and there is a job opening. It will be a different city from the one you expected to rule over, and it will only be a city, not an empire. You told me that night in the tower that I had to do the right thing for all of you. Now it’s your turn to do the right thing for your people.” Thianna waved her hand to take in the lower districts. “All your people.”
“But how will we protect ourselves? How will Thica survive? The city-states will go back to warring among themselves and then we’ll fall prey to other nations all over again.”
“I might have an answer for that,” said Karn. When Thianna gave him a surprised look, he continued. “I visited the Sanctuary of Empyria recently. There’s a certain sphinx there, not to mention an army of kobalos, who would love to see the Empyric Games reinstated.”
“The games?” repeated Sirena, considering the idea.
“You already use game play in your politics,” said Karn. “This would be a lot more fun, and less deadly, than live Queen’s Champion. And it was used to forestall warfare in the past. No reason it can’t be again.”
“I like the idea,” said King Herakles. “What do you say, Your Majesty? We could make it our second joint decree, after freeing the helots and granting everyone citizenship who wants it.”
“I’m not sure,” said Sirena. “Could it work?”
“Of course it could,” said the king. “We can talk it over across some spanakopita. And I can show you Caldera Under Caldera.”
“What under what?”
“He’ll fill you in,” said Thianna.
Sirena stared at her cousin.
“We are not friends, Thianna,” she said. “You were the cause of all my troubles. But also their solutions. We are no longer enemies, but I am not sure what we are.”
“That’s okay,” said Thianna. “I know what we are. We’re family.”
—
Thianna sat in the warm bathing pool and resisted the urge to use her frost magic to chill the water. She didn’t think her friends, new and old, would care for a change in temperature. They had turned the huge square-shaped pool into an impromptu swimming pond. Karn was on one side of her and Desstra on the other. Beside the Norrønur, Asterius the minotaur was enjoying blowing bubbles through the water with his snout. Beside the elf, Daphne’s foliage was looking particularly green as she soaked in the tub. They had arranged for a stool to be placed in the pool as well so that Jasius the dwarf didn’t need to bounce on tiptoes to stay above water.
“Your mom’s apartments,” said Karn, smiling. “Now yours?”
“If I want them,” said Thianna.
“You aren’t sticking around, then?” asked her friend, a hopeful note in his voice.
“I need to, for a while,” she said. “I want to learn more about my mother’s people.” She glanced around the room. “About my mother. But don’t worry, I don’t think palace living is really my style. Bathing is nice, though.” She splashed Karn, who splashed her back.
When the resulting splash fight had died down, she spoke again. “What about you, Norrønboy? Ready to get back to farm life?”
“Almost,” Karn said. “When I’m sure you’re really all right here. I can take a hippalektryon to the Fortress of Atros and catch a boat to Gordasha from there.”
“What about you, then, Long Ears?” Thianna asked Desstra.
“I can’t go back to Norrøngard,” replied the elf. “Maybe I’ll stick around.”
“Still think I need a bodyguard?” asked the giantess.
“Maybe not,” said Desstra. “But maybe you still need a friend.”
Thianna smiled. “I can always use another of those,” she said.
Karn was glad to see his two friends getting along. It had taken long enough.
The frost giant looked around at the group. “I’d say everything turned out for the best.”
“From a rose, a thorn, and from a thorn, a rose,” said Daphne. “That’s what we say in Dendronos.”
Karn smiled. Then he rose from the pool and walked to where Talos was seated at a table, studying a Queen’s Champion board.
“Care for a game, Karn Korlundsson?” the automaton asked.
“I wouldn’t mind,” said Karn. He took a seat opposite the metal person and began to arrange the pieces for his side. “But answer one thing first. I never understood why you joined us on the board. And that’s not all. When I played the hostage princes and princesses, I won too many times for a game with so much chance.”
Talos studied Karn for a moment.
“Do you still have the die I gave you?”
For answer, Karn reached into his clothing and placed the die upon the table.
Talos picked it up, indicating one of the pips carved in its surface. As Karn watched, a slender needle slid from one of the automaton’s fingers. Talos pressed on the pip with the needle, which punctured easily.
“Wax?” said Karn.
Talos nodded. Tilting the die, he shook a small lead weight out of it.
“It was rigged?” said Karn. “You cheated on my behalf?”
“I judged that your victory was important.”
“Why?”
Then the automaton reached a bronze finger to tap Karn’s ring. Karn looked first at the silver emblem of the Order of the Oak, then at the Talosian.
“You’re—” he began.
Talos held a warning finger to metal lips.
“We all are. Their allies of old,” the automaton said. “An ancient obligation. Now fulfilled.”
Karn was amazed. In fact, he was so surprised that he almost lost the game.
—
That evening, Thianna took the time to freeze the enormous bathing pool properly, then covered it with a tapestry she had borrowed from the wall. She stretched out on the huge block of ice, enjoying a bed large enough to accommodate her for the first time in months. Staring up at the tiled mosaics on the ceiling, she felt closer to her mother than she had in years. And she felt good.
Then she felt something else. A familiar tug at her mind. She rolled over and crawled off the ice. There was a balcony in an adjoining room with a view over the cliffs.
Stepping into the cool night, she was not surprised to see the wyvern hovering outside her quarters. Talaria’s wyvern. Thianna stared at the reptile that had carried her mother all those years ago. She only existed because of its courage.
Talaria was the first to sympathize with our kind, it said, obviously reading her thoughts. She was brave. Noble. Quite an exceptional girl. As humans go, of course.
“As humans go.”
Her daughter shares those characteristics.
“Thank you,” she said aloud.
No thanks is needed, it said in her mind. Not from you anyway.
“I only finished what she started,” said Thianna. “She wanted the wyverns to be free.”
Wyverns, said the reptile. Wyverns is what the humans called us. It is not our name. It is not what we call ourselves.
“What do you call yourselves?”
Suddenly the air was full of reptiles as hundreds of the newly freed creatures rose up from the cliffs below to hover in the air. All the adults and all their newborn children. The beat of their collective wings blew like a small wind in her face.
We are in your debt, Talaria’s reptile said. For now, and for all time. You have given us back the skies. And the Skyborn thank you.
“The Skyborn,” repeated Thianna. It was a beautiful name.
Then the Skyborn turned as one and flew away from Caldera, never to return.
As Thianna watched them go, she wondered if her ability to communicate mind to mind with reptiles would fade now that the horn was destroyed. Or would it always be a part of her? It didn’t matter either way. She was Thianna Frostborn, daughter of the giant Magnilmir and the human Talaria, child of Ymiria and Thica. She was whole now, and she had the whole of the world to explore.
Arachne (uh-RAK-nee): Once upon a time, a woman dared compare her beauty to that of the goddess Casteria. For her vanity, the goddess turned her into a monster, the first of her kind. These days, the arachne are a race of half-human, half-spider people. In females, a human torso rises up from a giant spider’s body, with eight beady spider eyes in place of two human ones, a thirst for warm blood, and a bad reputation where it comes to visitors. The males, large spiders without any human characteristics, are just as vicious as the females but less interested in making conversation with their food.
Asterion (ass-TEER-ee-on): The king of the minotaurs (see minotaur) rules from the city of Labyrinthia. He chafes under the yoke of the Calderans but knows that the time is not yet right for rebellion.
Asterius (ass-TEER-ee-us): The young son of the king of Labyrinthia, Asterius would rather see his father fight and lose than bow the hoof to the queens of Caldera. He’s champing at the bit for a chance to prove himself and can be stubborn as a bull, but watch saying cattle metaphors around him if you don’t want to catch the wrong side of a horn.
Caldera (kahl-DAIR-uh): The capital city of Thica ever since 920 AG, when the Thican Empire was reformed by Timandra II. Caldera is an island, the cinder cone of a dormant volcano in the center of an actual caldera. The city is composed of citizens, all of whom are soldiers and female, freedmen called perioikoi, and state-owned serfs known as helots. The perioikoi and the helots far outnumber the citizens, but somehow the leaders of Caldera aren’t the least bit nervous about this.
chimera (kye-MEER-uh): A creature with a lion body and three heads: one lion, one goat, and one serpent. The goat’s head breathes fire. The other two only have a nasty bite. Still, as far as the chimera’s prey is concerned, three heads aren’t better than one.
Cratus (KRAH-toos): God of the forge and metals, Cratus the Smith is revered by the dactyl dwarves and all Thican blacksmiths. His brothers and sisters tried to kill him when he was born because of his deformities, but the dactyl dwarves hid him underground until he was strong enough to protect himself. These days he has better relations with his siblings.
Damnameneus (dahm-nahmeh-NAY-oos): A famous mathematician, engineer, and inventor who lived more than 1,500 years ago, Damnameneus was a dactyl dwarf who is credited with dozens of inventions. During his lifetime, he built the famous Claw of Damnameneus—an enormous crane with a hook that could lift ships out of the water and capsize them—for the city of Zapyrna. He also oversaw the construction of the first of the giant parabolic mirrors that protect the Thican coastline. A restless overachiever, he designed far more than he could build. Among his unfinished designs were plans for a submersible vehicle and several more war machines.
Daphne (DAFF-nee): Seedling of the Council of Elders, princess of the forest kingdom of Dendronos, Daphne is a young dryad. Though not the bravest tree in the woods, she has hidden talents waiting for the chance to flower.
Dendronos (den-DROH-nohs): A city in northern Thica, Dendronos is grown from out of the forest by citizens who sing the trees into their desired shapes. The people of Dendronos are called Dendronosi. But they don’t object to being called tree folk. Visitors to their city, however, are advised to leave their axes at home.
Drakon (DRAK-on): The Thican word for dragon. But what’s in a name? A dragon by any other name is just as fierce.
dryad (DRY-ad): A female tree person.
drus (droos): A male tree person.
empusa (em-PYOO-suh): A female vampirelike creature with living flames atop her head in place of hair. Their flames burn higher and hotter as they become angry, but you don’t want to stick around for that.
Empyric Games (em-PEER-ik): Athletic festivals traditionally held at the Sanctuary of Empyria that served as both a way to honor the Twelve Empyreans and a means to channel the aggression of rival city-states away from war and into athletic competitions. The last Empyric Games were staged in 799 EE as Timandra the Magnificent’s conquest of Thica rendered them unnecessary.
hamadryad (ham-uh-DRY-ad): Unlike other tree folk, hamadryads are stationary. They appear as actual trees with faces on their trunks. The oldest and wisest hamadryads of Dendronos serve as the town elders, making political decisions for their more mobile kin. They are very happy in this role and think walking is overrated.
helot (HELL-uht): Slaves more comparable to serfs who have the right to marry, practice religious rites, own personal property, and retain fifty percent of their labor. However, helots are required to receive a set number of beatings per year regardless of wrongdoing to remind them of their slave status. Being too physically fit is punishable by death, but being out of shape is also punishable (though less severely). Once a year the Calderans declare ritual war on the helots, allowing any citizen to kill them with impunity.
Herakles Hammerfist (HAIR-uh-kleez): The secret king of the dactyl dwarves of Caldera Under Caldera, Herakles is fond of his subjects, his kingdom, his dinner, and his namesake fists that are so very good at thumping people.
hippalektryon (hip-uh-LEK-tree-on): A hybrid animal that is half horse and half rooster. Hippalektryons have the forelegs and head of a horse but the wings and hindquarters of a rooster. Their plumage is always yellow but their coats vary in color. Hippalektryons are among the fastest mounts in the world, but be sure to keep plenty of hay and chicken feed around or you’ll be going nowhere fast.
Ithonea (ee-thoh-NAY-uh): A port city on the western coast of Thica, Ithonea is a city of twisting narrow streets winding up a hillside. It is broken into districts by ancient Gordion fortifications and has a population tha
t is predominantly human and satyr. Ithoneans can be traditionalists, though, so visitors are advised to dress like the locals and avoid overly barbarian fashions.
Jasius (JAY-see-oos): A young dactyl dwarf in the city of Caldera, Jasius is embarrassed that his beard still hasn’t come in. Despite this he’s ready to make his mark on the world.
Keras Keeper (KAIR-iss): A hereditary position, the title refers to the Calderan female whose heritage enables her to master the magic of the Horn of Osius. Keras is the Thican word for horn. While it’s a great honor to be Keras Keeper, it’s not an honor one can safely refuse.
kobalo (koh-BALL-oh): A little creature native to Thica but similar to the goblins found in parts of Katernia. The kobalos are impudent, mischievous, and thieving, but they enjoy games and are excellent cooks.
Labyrinthia (lah-BRIN-thee-uh): A city of minotaurs. The streets of Labyrinthia are laid out like a maze marked by tall inner walls. Houses are built into these walls, hanging aboveground so the bull men and kine women can run through the streets on festival days. The city is surrounded by a large circular wall with four gates at each of the cardinal points. Visitors are encouraged to tour the impressive Palace of the Double Ax, but try to avoid the head-butting contests.
Leta (LAY-tuh): Formerly a soldier under the command of Sydia, Leta was the sole surviving Calderan from the Battle of Dragon’s Dance. Shamed at her failure to retrieve the Horn of Osius, she aided Karn and Thianna in their quest to find a second horn, only to snatch it away from them at the end of their quest. For her triumph, she’s since been promoted to head of the Keras Guard, but she’d love a chance to eliminate a certain half giant, Norrønur, and dark elf if given the opportunity.
Mega Hydra (MEG-uh HIGH-druh): A hydra is a multiheaded sea serpent found in the waters surrounding Thica. A Mega Hydra is like a normal hydra, only mega.
Melantha (muh-LAN-thuh): One of the two co-monarchs who rule the Thican Empire, Melantha is Land Queen. Her forces ride the hippalektryons whose incredible speed give the city of Caldera supreme mastery of the land. Somewhat milder-tempered than her fellow monarch, Melantha rarely contradicts the Sky Queen directly, though she has been known to soften Xalthea’s edicts here and there.