The Red Plague Affair

Chapter Sixteen Barely, But Sufficient

The gryphon riders of the Skystream Guard were often chosen by the beasts themselves. It was not unheard of, even in these modern times, for a gryphon to descend from the sky and hover over a boy (or, very infrequently, a girl), buffeting them to the ground with wingbeats. To be plucked from a child’s life and thrust into the training to ride Britannia’s winged steeds was a shock some failed to endure.

Those who did found themselves with new names, scrubbed and shaven like a Collegia orphan, and drilled intensively before being allowed to see one of the creatures again.

Gryphons did not forgive a single mistake, and their riders had to be naturally resistant to the strange aura of lassitude that dropped over their usual prey. There was a martial practice of movement – the Shields were taught this, in addition to their other training – that allowed a rider certain advantages against even such a large, winged carnivore, and certain tricks with their traditional longcrook with its sharpened inner curve allowed them to direct the beasts.

The riders sometimes even slumbered with their charges, and there were stories of deep attachment between Guard and beast; from the gryphons they learned peculiar charter symbols that did not seem to disturb the æther but were nonetheless effective. Among the Skystream there were charioteers as well, those who could hold two or more of the beasts in check while they drew one of Britannia’s shield-sided conveyances.

A gryphon chariot was light and afforded little protection from the elements. Boudicca had not been the first vessel to ride one into battle at the head of her armies, but it was said she had been the one to design better chariots. Certainly very little in their manufacture had changed since her ill-fated reign, and a citizen of the Isle from her time – or even Golden Bess’s rule – would instantly recognise the high sides, rounded back and the queer metal-laced reins crackling with strange charter charms. Geared wheels and runners, cunningly designed to shift as the terrain made necessary or flight made unnecessary, were alive with crawling coppery light.

Mikal leapt lightly into the chariot, his hand flicking out to take the reins from the charioteer. Muscle came alive on his back as the two gryphons – both tawny with white feather ruffs, their beaks amber and their wings moving restlessly – tested his control.

Shields, made resistant to the aura of lassitude by their membership in their ancient brotherhood, could commandeer a chariot. Carefully, of course, and only if the need was dire. Of course, very few of sorcery’s children would consider such a conveyance under even the worst and most pressing circumstances.

There was no time. Rail to Dover and a ship from thence would simply not do. And the sooner Emma laid hands on the man, the sooner she could… do whatever was necessary.

“Prima,” Mikal said, his head turned to the side. The gryphons heaved, and he stiffened, wrapping the reins in his fists. They settled, grudgingly – a Shield’s strength was sufficient.

Barely, but sufficient.

The charioteer hopped down, his boots, with their curious metal appurtenances to keep them fastened to the chariot’s floor, clanking briskly. He offered his hand, and Emma stepped gingerly up. She almost fell onto Mikal as the gryphons heaved, hissing their displeasure at being bridled and their further rage that they would be bearing her.

If Eli had been there, he would have buckled her in. As it was, the dark-eyed boy with an old, white claw scar down the side of his shaven head slid the straps over her, bracing her back against the front of the chariot and snugging the oiled leather across her shoulders and hips. Mikal slid the toes of his iron-laced boots through the iron loops on the floor and tested them as he kept the gryphons contained.

The charioteer glanced at her and she nodded. Anything she said would not be heard over the angry screeching. Unlike the Skystream, Mikal wore no goggles; his eyes hooded as Emma reached out, her gloved hand settling on his boot. A simple charm sprang to life, vivid golden charter symbols crawling over his cheeks – they would keep the wind from stinging his flesh too badly, and trickles of ætheric force would slide into him, easing the strain. Had she another Shield or two, they could have shared the burden.

But she did not. And now she wondered if her penance would be the death of her, and of her remaining Shield as well.

How strange. Her cheeks were wet, though they were not flying yet. I do not believe Mikal can be killed.

What a sorcerer could not compass was a weakness. To think the unthinkable was their calling; to lose the resilience of intuition-fuelled phantasy was to begin a slow calcification that was, to any Prime, worse than death and the precursor of annihilation.

“———!” Mikal yelled, and the charioteer sprang aside lightly as a leaf. The back of the conveyance latched shut, and gears slid. The great doors before them were inching open, and late-afternoon light scored Emma’s tender eyes behind the leather and smoked glass of the goggles. The things were dreadful, but at least they kept the light at bay.

The chariot’s runners squealed as the gryphons heaved. The ascending ramp, bluestone quarried and charm-carried across the Isle long ago, bore the scars of generations of gryphon claws and the scrape of numerous chariots, its slope pointing at a filthy-fogged Londinium sky.

Emma shut her eyes. The chariot jolted, and she felt the moment Mikal slightly loosened his hold, both psychic and physical, upon the beasts.

Motion. The straps cut cruelly as the beasts lunged, runners ground against oiled stone, and the great shell-shaped doors – their outsides still bearing the scars of the Civil War and Cramwelle’s reign of terror – had barely finished creaking wide enough before the gryphons dragged their burden into the sky. The chariot’s gears and wheels spun gently in empty air, the temperature dropping so quickly Emma’s breath flashed into ice crystals before her face. Her stomach, left behind, struggled to keep up, and her fingers clamped on Mikal’s ankle.

No, I do not believe in his mortality. And yet I am afraid.