Lords of the Sky Read online

  MUTINY

  The oarsmen left their benches now, converging on Rwyan and Tezdal. I saw the Sky Lord leap forward, defending her. He had done better to rely on her magic: a fist struck his head, and he went down. Rwyan felled the attacker, and the rest hesitated, spreading out before her. They no longer seemed bovine but more akin to those wild bulls that roam the slopes of the Geffyn. Then I saw Ayl reach into his belt and fetch a length of chain that glittered in the sun. He clutched the thing in one fisted hand and ran forward along the deck. I saw that he moved behind Rwyan and opened my mouth to shout a warning. A hand that covered half my face clamped down, stifling the cry, so that I could only watch, helpless, as Ayl leaped down.

  Rwyan turned too late. The Changed was already at her back, his fingers oddly delicate as he snapped the necklace in place. Rwyan screamed, and there was such horror in her shout, it wrenched my soul. At last the suffocating hand let go.

  I shouted, “Do you harm her, I’ll kill you!”

  Ayl called back, “No harm, Daviot. We’d have you all alive.”

  I cried, “Rwyan! Rwyan!”

  She moaned, unsteady on her feet, swaying as if stunned. She said, “Daviot? Daviot, I’m blind.”

  ALSO BY ANGUS WELLS

  The Books of the Kingdoms #1: Wrath of Ashar

  The Books of the Kingdoms #2: The Usurper

  The Books of the Kingdoms #3: The Way Berneath

  The Godwars #1: Forbidden Magic

  The Godwars #2: Dark Magic

  The Godwars #3: Wild Magic

  Exiles Saga #1; Exile’s Children

  Exiles Saga #2: Exile’s Challenge

  The Guardian

  For John Stewart,

  with thanks for all the good music.

  Mnēmonikos: Greek, from mnēmōn mindful, from mnasthai to remember.

  Mnemonics: noun. 1. the art or practice of improving or of aiding the memory. 2. a system of rules to aid the memory.

  When I was in my twelfth year, I saw the Sky Lords.

  I was born in Kellambek, in a village named Whitefish, for its chief source of food and revenue. It lay some seven leagues south of the river Cambar, on a cove shaded by cliffs where black pines grew and the wind blew warm off the Fend through all the long hot summers. Through childhood’s eyes I see the sky forever blue, the sea like rippled silk torn by the fishing boats, the hearthfire in winter merry, the shutters secure against the cold. Through those eyes taught in Durbrecht, I know this was not so: in summer, the air stank of fish and tar and sweat; in winter, draughts blew and the sea roared angry. Both memories are mine, and I think perhaps both are true.

  My parents were fisherfolk. My father was named Aditus and owned a boat crewed by himself and two others, one my uncle, Battus, wed to my father’s sister, Lyrta; the other a taciturn man named Thorus, a widower, who seemed never to smile save when he held a cup or spoke with me. My mother was named Donia and, like my father, smiled a great deal, though I think that between the netting and the gutting of the fish and the tending of we children they had little enough, in reality, in which to find such good humor. But they did, and I suppose that is the way of simple folk who accept what is unquestioningly and lack that spark (or curse?) that looks for change. I had one brother, Tonium, and one sister, Delia, both younger by a descending year apiece.

  I was a fisher-child. I played on the sand, amongst the beached boats or amongst the black pines. I hoarded shells and bird’s eggs. When the brille swarmed, I waded in, knee-deep, to haul the nets. I swung a sling and pulled girls’ hair; fought with other boys and listened to the stories of old men. On the cliff above the village I had a secret camp: a fortress great as the Lord Protector’s keep, from which I and Tellurin and Coram and all the rest defended Whitefish village against the Kho’rabi. Sometimes I was a Kho’rabi knight and with my bark-peeled blade wrought slaughter on my friends, though I always liked it better when I had the part of a Dhar warrior—a commur, or a jennym, even a pyke—for then I felt, with all the intensity of childhood’s fierce emotions, that I fought for Kellambek, to hold off those invaders the Sentinels could not prevent from crossing the waters of the Fend, Those were carefree days when, in the ignorance of childhood, I knew only that the dawn be sunny and I should go to play again.

  What did I know then of the Comings?

  Little enough: to me, the Kho’rabi knights, the kingdom of Ahn-feshang, they were legends. When I was very young—too young to laugh at the threat—my mother used to tell me that should I disobey her, a Kho’rabi knight should come and take my head. I spent some small time cowering beneath my blanket at that, but as I grew older, sneered. Kho’rabi knights—what were they to me? Creatures of legend, of no more account than the fabled dragons of the Forgotten Country, who had gone away before even my grandfather was born.

  But then I saw the Sky Lords.

  It was the end of summer, when the winds off the Fend shift and blow westward. The sky was a cloudless cobalt blue, hot and hard, the sun a sullen eye that challenged observation. The sea was still, unrippled. I was on the sand, passing my father the tools he needed to sew gashes in his nets. Battus and Thorus worked with him on the skein: they had decided to forgo the evening tide and spend the dusktime in repairing.

  Thorus was the first to see the skyboat, dropping his needle as he sprang to his feet, shouting. My father and my uncle were no slower upright, the net forgotten on the warm sand. I followed them, staring to where they pointed, not sure what it was they pointed at or what set such fear in their eyes. I knew only that my father, who was afraid of nothing, was indeed afraid. I felt the fear, like the waft of sour sweat, or a drunkard’s breath. Battus shouted and ran from the beach toward the mantis’s cella.

  I remember that Thorus said, “They come again,” and my father answered, “It is not the time,” and then told me to run homeward, to tell my mother that the Sky Lords came, and she would know what to do.

  As all the men not at sea gathered, staring skyward, I lingered a moment, wondering what held them so, what set them so rigid, like the old, time-carved statues that guarded the entrance to the cella.

  Against the knife-sharp brilliance of the sky, I saw a shape. It seemed in that moment like a maggot, a bloated grub taken up by the hot late-summer wind, a speck against the eye-watering azure, that drifted steadily toward me. I felt my skin grow chill with apprehension.

  Then my father, knowing me, shouted again, and I ran to our cottage and yelled at my mother that the Sky Lords came.

  I think that then, for the first time, I truly knew what terror they induced.

  Tonium and Delia fashioned castles from the dirt of our yard, grubby in a manner I—the older—was too adult to entertain. My mother screamed at them, bringing them tearful to her arms, she so distraught she found only brief, hurried words to calm their wailing as she gathered them up. The bell that hung above the cella began to sound, sonorous in the late-afternoon air, its clanging soon augmented by a great shouting from all the women, and the old men, and the howling of confused and frightened children who, like me, knew only that something unfamiliar occurred to induce fear and near-panic in our parents. My mother snatched Delia’s and Tonium’s hands in hers, shouted at me to follow, and drew my siblings, trotting, away from the house toward the cella. The mantis stood atop the dome. The sinews in his fat arms stood out like cords from the effort of his bell-ringing, and his plump face, usually set in a smile, was grim, his head craned around to peer at the shape approaching across the sky. All around me I heard the single word Kho’rabi, said in tones of awe and terror, but for all the panic, I was fascinated. I watched as the mantis gathered up the skirts of his robe and slid ungainly down the sloping side of the dome. Robus, who owned the only horse in Whitefish village—a
venerable gelding sometimes used to haul stricken boats from the winter surf, but more usually to drag a cart up the coast to Cambar town with catches of fish to sell—waited nervously. He had belted an ancient sword to his waist. All the men, and not a few of the women, carried weapons of one kind or another: fish knives, axes, mattocks. The mantis spoke urgently with Robus, and though I could not hear what was said, I perceived it had a great effect on Robus, for he dragged himself astride the old horse and slapped the gray flanks with his rusty blade, sending the animal into a startled, lumbering trot out of the village, in the direction of the Cambar road. Then the mantis shouted that all should follow him and led the way to the cliff path, up through the pines to the fields beyond, where a track wound by drystone walls to a wood where caves ran down into the earth.

  In the confusion I became separated from my mother, and as I watched the worried faces of those who passed me, I succumbed to childhood’s temptation.

  I was afraid—how should I not be?—but I was also intrigued, fascinated to know the why of it. I felt a stone grind my foot, between my sole and my sandal, and I ducked clear of the throng to dislodge the annoyance. As I unlaced my sandal and shook out the pebble, I saw the last of the villagers go by, five grandfathers in rear guard, clutching old swords and flensing poles. They were so anxious, they failed to spot me where I crouched beside a wall, and in moments a cloud of dust raised by hurried feet hung betwixt me and them. I laced my sandal and, with the unthinking valiance of innocent youth, turned back toward Whitefish village.

  I knew my mother would be angry when she found me gone, but I soon enough dismissed that concern and ran back to the cliff path.

  I halted amongst the pines, where they edged and then fell down over the slope, looking first at the village and then at the sky. The village was empty; the beach was lined with men. The sky was still that steel-hot blue; the shape of the Sky Lords’ boat was larger.

  I could discern its outline clearer now: a cylinder of red, the color of blood; the carrier beneath was a shadow, like a remora suckered to a shark’s belly, sparkling with glints of silver as the sun struck the blades of the warriors there. I wondered how it had come up so fast. I watched it awhile, my eyes watering in the sun glare, picking out the strange sigils daubed over bearer and basket, fear and fascination mingling in equal measure. I looked back and thought perhaps I should have done better to go after my mother and find the safety of the wood, where the ancient crypts ran down into the earth.

  Instead, I ran down to the village, through the emptied houses, to the beach, to my father.

  He did not see me at first, for his face was locked on the sky, etched over with shadows of disbelief. He stood with a flensing pole held across his chest, high, the curved blade striking brilliance from the sun. Thorus stood beside him, and in his hand was a sword, not rusted like Robus’s old blade but bright with oil, darker along the edges, where the whetstone had shaped cutting grooves. It was a blade such as soldiers carried, and for a moment I stared and lusted after such a weapon.

  I suppose I must have made a sound for my father turned and saw me, Thorus with him, though their faces bore very different expressions. My father’s was angry; Thorus’s amused. I felt a fear greater than anything a Kho’rabi knight might induce at the one; pleasure at the other.

  My father said, “What in the God’s name are you doing here?”

  I would likely have run away then, back through the village and up the cliff path, across the fields to the wood, far more afraid of the look gouged over my father’s face than of any Kho’rabi knight. But Thorus said, “Blood runs true, friend,” to my father; and to me, “Best find yourself a blade if you stand with us, Daviot.”

  My father said, “God’s name, man, he’s only a boy,” but I was swelled with pride and honor and found a discarded net hook that I picked up for want of better weapon and strode to stand between them. Thorus laughed and clapped me on the shoulder hard enough that I tottered, and said, “Blood to blood, Aditus.”

  My father’s face remained dark, but then he grunted and nodded and said, “Likely they’ll pass over. So, you can stay, boy. But on my word, you run for the caves. Yes?”

  I nodded, without any intention whatsoever of keeping my word: if the enlarging shape of the Sky Lords’ boat dropped fylie of the Kho’rabi knights upon us, I planned to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with my fellow warriors. I planned to die gloriously in defense of Whitefish village, in defense of Kellambek.

  I watched the ship grow larger, my hands tight on my hook. It came up faster than any natural wind might propel it. It seemed like a great, bloody wound on the face of the sky. I saw the glimmer of the magic that drove it, trailing back from the pointed tail like the shifting translucence of witchfire’s glow. It seemed to move the faster for its proximity with our coastline, as though propulsion were augmented with attraction, speeding as it drew nearer. The sea gulls that were a constant punctuation of the sky fled before it, and I suddenly realized that the cats that prowled the shoreline were also gone; likewise the handful of dogs our village boasted. That seemed very strange to me—the absence of such familiar things—and I glanced around, my valor threatened. I saw that my father’s knuckles bulged white from his tanned hands, and that Thorus’s lips were spread back from clenched teeth in a kind of snarl. I realized then that a terrible silence had fallen, as if this unexpected Coming drove stillness before it, or the presence of the Sky Lords absorbed sound. No one moved; there was no shuffling of feet on sand; even the waves that lapped the beach went unheard. I stared in shared dread, feeling the shadow of the boat fall over me, which it should not have done, for the sun westered and that shadow should not—nor could—have reached us yet. I trembled, for all my youthful bravery, in its cold. It felt as though a hand reached out from the grave to pluck at my heart, at my courage. I shivered and saw that my father did the same, though he sought to hide it from me, looking down at me and smiling. I thought his smile was like the grin I had seen on the faces of drowned men.

  Then the great shape was directly above us, and I thought that this must be how a lamb feels, when it feels the shadow of an eagle darken its vision. I craned my head back, shivering, seeing that the airboat hung high above us, and where it rode the sky, strange prancing shapes showed through the blue, as if elementals sported there.

  I looked to my father and saw his face grim; at Thorus, who raised his sword above his head like a talisman. I looked up, nearly overbalancing, as the Sky Lords’ ship floated, serene and ghastly, over my home.

  Some arrows fell, unflighted by the height, and fired, I think, in amusement; a fisherman named Vadim even caught one in his hand, that feat producing a shout of encouragement from all the rest.

  And then the ship was gone, passed beyond the cliff and out of sight.

  It was both disappointment and relief to me: I had anticipated glorious battle; I was also glad that horrible weight had passed. I enjoyed the way my father held my one shoulder, Thorus my other, and both told me I had played my part, even as men went running to the cliff to follow the ship’s passage.

  I went running with them, still clutching my hook, for they all still held their weapons. I was suddenly possessed of a dreadful fear that the ship had gone past the village to land in the fields—the wood—beyond and disgorge the Kho’rabi knights to massacre my mother and my siblings and all the others hiding in the caves. But Thorus hauled me back and shouted at my father that the wind was wrong, and whatever magic the sorcerers of Ahn-feshang commanded, it was not enough to ground the boat to disembark the fylie.

  Even so, I was not satisfied, nor my father, until we topped the path and saw the ship drifting on over the wood, disappearing into the haze of the afternoon sun, like blood drying on a wound.

  Several of the younger fishermen ran to the wood then, to tell the mantis and his charges that the danger was gone by. They emerged, laughing and praising the God for his mercy. Then I basked in the admiring gaze of my friends, for they had all o
beyed and hidden, and I alone, of all the children in the village, had remained. I swung my hook in vivid demonstration of how I should have fought, coming close to harming more than one innocent onlooker until my father took the tool from me, his face stern.

  My mother’s, when she found me, was haggard and she raised a hand to strike me, but my father halted her, speaking softly, and she sighed, shaking her head, her expression one I did not then understand. Tonium and Delia stared at me in awe.

  We went back to the village, and Thorym, who owned what passed for the village tavern, announced that he would broach a keg in celebration of deliverance, promising a mug to every man who had stood his ground on the beach. My mother returned to our cottage, like all the other women, to prepare the evening meal, for by now the day grew old and the sun stood close to setting, but I succeeded in avoiding her and insinuated myself amongst the men. After all, had I not stood with them?

  Thorym paused when he saw me in his taproom, unsure—it was not our custom to allow children ale until they reached their fourteenth year and were deemed young men. But Thorus shouted that I was a warrior born and had sided him and so earned my sup. The rest shouted laughter at that, and my father first frowned and then smiled, torn between disapproval and pride, but then he said I might take a sip or two, for it was true that I had stood my place like a man.

  I had never held a mug of ale before, and it was all I could do to stretch my hands around the cup and lift it to my mouth, but I was aware that all there watched me and I raised the mug and drank deep. And immediately choked, spitting out the sour-tasting brew and spilling half the cup over my feet, blushing furiously.

  My father took it from me, glancing angrily at Thorus as he urged me to try again, and suggested that I go make peace with my mother. My reluctance must have shown, for he allowed me one more sip before finally retrieving the mug and sending me from the tavern. I went outside, but no farther, skirting around the wall to where a window allowed me to spy on the men and listen to their conversation. It told me little enough, being mostly concerned with the unlikely Coming of the airboat, which they agreed was out of time, its appearance unseasonal. I gathered, from what they said, that none had anticipated sighting the Sky Lords for years yet, when the Worldwinds were due once more to shift. Not even the mantis could offer explanation, save that the sorcerers of Ahn-feshang had developed new usage of their occult powers.