Lords of the Sky Read online

  That set them all to arguing and muttering, some perplexed, some fearful; some to suggesting that this was but a single event, a foray attempted and failed, that the boat had somehow succeeded in defeating the winds and the emanations of the Sentinels; some to forecasting a strengthening of Ahn-feshang’s magic and a new Coming.

  Then, though, I had more immediate concerns—to wit, my mother, who sent Tonium looking for me with word that did I fail to appear at home on the instant, I might anticipate punishment of a magnitude that should render a Kho’rabi attack the merest prickling.

  I hurried back, ignoring my smug and envious brother, and found myself—the grossest ignominy, I thought, given my new-proven valor—ordered to scrub cooking pots before I was allowed to eat. She did not cuff me, which at the time I failed to realize was token of her thanks for my survival, but neither would she speak to me; nor much to my father when he returned, holding him in some measure responsible for my disobedience.

  I ate and sulked my way to an early bed, only a little mollified by the open admiration of Delia who, as we lay on our pallets, insisted on a whispered retelling of all that had happened. I admit to embroidering the tale: for my little sister’s ears the Kho’rabi arrows fell in swarms about me, their boat so close above, I saw the grimacing faces of the fanatic death-warriors, felt (this not entirely untrue) the horrible strength of their magical sigils, the malign power of the sorcerer-steersmen.

  In time, even my adoring sister was sated with the tale, and her snores joined those of my brother. I lay longer awake, reliving the day and vowing that when I reached my manhood I should quit Whitefish village to be a soldier in Cambar Keep and defend Kellambek against our ancient enemies.

  The next dawn, I saw my first real soldiers.

  Robus, mounted on his old slow horse, had reached the aeldor’s holding during the night. The watchmen had brought him before the lord, who had immediately ordered three squadrons to patrol the coast road, one to ride instanter for Whitefish village.

  They arrived a few hours after sun’s rise, dirty, tired, and irritable. To me, then, they looked splendid. They wore shirts of leather and mail, draped across with. Cambar’s plaid, cinched in with wide belts from which hung sheathed swords and long-hafted axes, and every one carried a lance from which the colors of Kellambek fluttered in the morning breeze; round shields hung from their saddles. There was a commur-mage with them, clad all in black sewn with the silver markings of her station, a short-sword on her hip. Her hair was swept back in a tail, like our mantis’s, but was bound with a silver fillet, and unlike her men, she seemed untired. She raised a hand as the squadron reached the village square, halting the horsemen, waiting as the mantis approached and made obeisance, gesturing him up with a splendid languid hand.

  I and all the children—and most of our parents, no less impressed—gathered about to watch.

  The soldiers climbed down from their horses, and I smelled the sweat that bled from their leather tunics as they waited on the mage. She, too, dismounted, conferring with the mantis, and then followed our plump and friendly priest to the cella, calling back over her shoulder that the men with her might find breakfast where they could, and ale if they so desired, for it seemed the danger was gone.

  I felt a measure of disappointment at that: I had become, after all, a warrior, and was reluctant to find my new-won status so quickly lost. I compensated by taking the bridle of a horse and leading the animal to where Robus kept his fodder. I had never seen so large an animal before, save the sharks that sometimes followed our boat, and I was—I admit—more than a little frightened by the way it tossed its head and stamped its feet and snorted. The man who rode it chuckled and spoke to it and told me to hold it firm; and then he set a hand on my shoulder, as Thorus had done, and I straightened my back and reminded myself I was a man and brought it to Robus’s little barn, where it became docile as his old nag when I fed it oats and hay and filled the water trough.

  The soldier grinned at that and checked the beast for himself, taking off the high-cantled cavalry saddle, resting his shield and lance against the wall of the pen. I touched the metaled face of the shield with reverent fingers and studied his sword and axe. He turned to me and asked where he might find food and ale, and I told him, “Thorym’s tavern,” and asked, “Shall you fight the Kho’rabi?”

  He said, “I think they’re likely gone, praise the God,” and I wondered why a soldier would be thankful his enemy was not there.

  I brought him to the tavern and fetched him a pot of ale as his fellows gathered, and Thorym, delighted at the prospect of such profit, set fish to grilling and bread to toasting. His name was Andyrt, and as luck would have it, he was jennym to the commur-mage, a life-sworn member of the warband and, I realized, fond of children. He let me crouch by his side and even passed me his helm to hold, bidding the rest be silent when they looked at me askance and wondered what a child did there, amongst men.

  I bristled at that and told them I had stood upon the sand with hook in hand, ready to fight, as the Sky Lords passed over. Some laughed then, and some called me liar, but Andyrt bade them silent and said that he believed me, and that his belief was theirs, else they chose to challenge him. None did, and I saw that they feared him somewhat, or respected him, and I studied him anew.

  He was, I surmised, of around my father’s age (though any man, then, of more than twenty years was old to me) and traces of gray were spun into his brown hair. His face was paler than a fisherman’s, but still quite dark, except across his forehead, where his helm sat. A thin cut bisected his left cheek, and several of his teeth were missing, though the rest were white—the mark of a sound lord’s man’s diet—and his eyes were a light blue, webbed round with tiny wrinkles. His hands were brown and callused in a manner different from a fisherman’s, marked by reins and sword’s hilt and lance. To me, he was exotic; glamorous and admirable.

  I ventured to pluck at his sleeve and ask him what it took to be a warrior and find a place in the warband.

  “Well,” he said, and chuckled, “first you must be strong enough to wield a blade and skilled enough in its wielding. Save you prefer to slog out your life as a pyke, you must ride a horse.”

  At that, several of his companions laughed and raised their buttocks from Thorym’s crude chairs, moaning and rubbing themselves as if in pain.

  “Often for long leagues,” said Andyrt, himself chuckling. “You must be ready to spend long hours bored, and more drinking. To hold your drink. And you must be ready to kill men; and to be yourself killed.”

  “I am,” I said, thinking of the beach and the skyboat; and Andyrt said, “It is not so easy to put a blade into a man. Harder still to take his in you.”

  “I’d kill Kho’rabi,” I told him firmly. “I’d give my life to defend Kellambek.”

  He touched my cheek then, gently, as sometimes my father did, and said, “That’s an easy thing to say, boy. The doing of it is far harder. Better you pray our God grants strength to the Sentinels, and there’s no Coming in your lifetime.”

  “I’d slay them,” I answered defiantly, thinking I was patronized. “How dare they come against Kellambek?”

  “Readily enough,” he told me, “for they lay claim to this land.”

  “You fight them,” I said. “You’re a warrior.”

  He nodded at that. A shadow passed across his face, like the cold penumbra of the Sky Lords’ boat. He said, “I’m life-sworn, boy; I know no other way.”

  I opened my mouth to question him further, to argue, but just then the commur-mage entered the tavern, our mantis on her heels like a plump and fussing hen, and a silence fell.

  Andyrt began to rise, sinking back on the sorcerer’s gesture. The black-clad woman approached our table, and two of the warband sprang to their feet, relinquishing their places. I found myself crouched between Andyrt and the commur-mage, who asked mildly, “Who’s this?”

  Andyrt said, grinning, “A young warrior, by all accounts. He stood firm whe
n the skyboat came.”

  The mantis said, “His name is Daviot, elder son of Aditus and Donia. I understand he did, indeed, run back to join his father on the beach.”

  The commur-mage raised blue-black brows at that, and her fine lips curved in a smile. I stood upright, shoulders squared, and looked her in the eye. Had I not, after all, proved myself? Was I not, after all, intent on becoming a warrior?

  “So,” she said, her voice soft and not at all mocking, “Whitefish village breeds its share of men.”

  That was fine as Thorus’s praise; as good as my father’s hand on my shoulder. I nodded modestly. The commur-mage continued to study me, not even turning when Thorym passed her a mug of ale and set a fresh plate of fried fish and bread before her, bowing and ducking. She waved regal thanks and Thorym withdrew; her eyes did not leave my face, as if she saw there things I did not know about myself.

  “You stood upon the beach?” she said, her voice gentle, speculative as her gaze. “Were you not afraid?”

  I began to shake my head, but there was a power in her eyes that compelled truth, that brought back memory. I set Andyrt’s helm carefully down on the cleanest patch of dirt between the chairs and nodded.

  “Tell me,” she said.

  I looked awhile at her face. It was dark as Andyrt’s, which is to say lighter than any in the village, but unmarked by scars. I thought her beautiful; nor was she very old. Her eyes were green, and as I looked into them, they seemed to obscure the men around her, to send the confines of the tavern into shadow, to absorb the morning light. It was like staring into the sun at its rising, or its setting, when only that utter brilliant absorption—green now, not gold or red—fills up all the world.

  I told her everything, and when I was done, she nodded and said, “You saw that the cats and dogs—the gulls, even—were gone?”

  “Then,” I told her, and frowned as an unrecognized memory came back. “But this morning the dogs were awake again, and the cats were on the beach. And the gulls”—I pointed seaward, at the shapes wheeling and squalling against the new-formed blue—“they’re back.”

  “Think you they fled the Coming?” she asked.

  “They were not there then,” I said. “The sky was empty, save for the boat. I think they must have.”

  “Why?” she asked me, and I said, “I suppose they were frightened. Or they felt the power of the Sky Lords. But they were gone, then.”

  She sipped a mouthful of ale, chewed a mouthful of fish and bread, still staring at me. I watched her face, wondering what she made of me, what she wanted of me. I felt I was tested and judged. I tried to find Andyrt’s eyes, but could not; it was as though the mage’s compelling gaze sunk fishhooks in my mind, in my attention, locking me to her as soundly as the lures of the surf-trollers locked the autumnal grylle to their barbed baits.

  “Your father,” she said, surprising me. “What did he hold?”

  “A flensing pole,” I answered. “Thorus held a sword. I told you that.”

  She nodded, wiped her mouth, and asked, “Who caught the arrow?”

  “Vadim,” I said. “But it was an easy catch: it was fired from so high.”

  She turned then to the mantis, and my attention was unlocked as if I were a fish burst free of the hook. I looked to Andyrt, who smiled reassuringly and shrugged, motioning for me to be silent and wait. I did, nervous and impatient. The commur-mage said to the mantis, “He’s talents, think you?”

  The mantis favored me with a look I could not interpret and ducked his head. “He’s a memory,” he agreed—though then I was unaware of what exactly he meant—and added, “Of all my pupils he’s the best-schooled in the liturgics: he can repeat them back, word for word.”

  “As he did this Coming,” said the commur-mage, and turned to me again.

  “You brought Andyrt’s horse to stable, no? Tell me about his horse and his kit.”

  “It was brown,” I said, confused. “A light brown with golden hair in its mane and tail. Its hooves were black, but the right foreleg was patched with white, and the hoof there was shaded pale. The saddle was dark with sweat and the bucket where the lance rests was stitched with black. The stirrups were leather, with dull metal inside. There were two bags behind the saddle, brown, with golden buckles. When he took it off, the horse’s hide was pale and sweaty. It was glad to be rid of the weight. It was a gelding, and it snorted when he took off the bridle, and flicked its tail as it began to eat the oats I brought it.”

  The commur-mage clapped a hand across my eyes then, the other behind my head, so that I could not move, startling me, and said, “What weapons does Andyrt carry?”

  “A lance,” I told her, for all I was suddenly terrified. “That he left in Robus’s stable. Twice a man’s height, of black wood, with a long, soft-curved blade. Not like a fishing hook. Also, a sword, an axe, and a small knife.”

  “Where, exactly, on his body?” asked the mage.

  Her hands were still about my face, blinding me; frightening me, for all they rested gentle there. I said: “His sword is sheathed on his left side, from a wide, brown belt of metal-studded leather with a big, gold buckle that is a little tarnished. The axe is hung to his right, in a bucket of plain leather. The knife is in the small of his back.”

  The hands went away from my face and I saw the commur-mage smiling, Andyrt grinning approvingly. The mantis looked nervous. The others seated around the table seemed wonderstruck; I wondered why, for it seemed entirely natural to me to recall such simple things in their entirety.

  “He’s the knack, I think,” the commur-mage said. “Not my talent, but that of memory.”

  And the mantis nodded. “I’d wondered. I’d thought of sending word to Cambar.”

  “You should have,” said the commur-mage.

  I preened, aware that I was somehow special, that I had passed a test of some kind.

  “Are his parents agreeable, he should go to Durbrecht,” the commur-mage said. “This one is a natural.”

  A natural what, I did not know, nor what or where Durbrecht was. I frowned and said, “I’d be a soldier.”

  “There are other callings,” said the commur-mage, and smiled a small apology to Andyrt. “Some higher than the warband.”

  “Like yours?” I asked, emboldened by her friendly manner. “Do I have magic in me, then?”

  She chuckled at that, though not in an unkind way, and shook her head. “Not mine,” she advised me. “And I am only a lowly commur-mage, who rides on my lord’s word. No, Daviot, you’ve not my kind of magic in you; you’ve the magic of your memory.”

  I frowned anew at that: what magic was there in memory? I remembered things—was that unusual? I always had. Everyone in Whitefish village knew that. Folk came to me asking dates, confirmation of things said, and I told them: it was entirely natural to me, and not at all magical.

  “He’s but twelve years old,” I heard the mantis say, and saw the commur-mage nod, and heard her answer, “Then on his manhood, I’d speak with his parents now, however.”

  The mantis rose, like a plump soldier attending an order, and went bustling from the tavern. I shifted awhile from foot to foot, more than a little disconcerted, and finally asked, “What’s Durbrecht?”

  “A place,” the commur-mage said. “A city and a college, the two the same. Do you know what a Storyman is?”

  “Yes,” I told her, and could not resist demonstrating my powers of recall, boasting. “One came to the village a year ago. He was old—his hair was white and he wore a beard—he rode a mule. He told stories of Gahan’s coronation, and of the Comings. His name was”—I paused an instant, the old man’s face vivid in the eye of my mind; I smelled again the garlic that edged his breath, and the faint odor of sweat that soured his grubby white shirt—“Edran. He stayed here only two days, with the widow Rya, then went on south.”

  The commur-mage ducked her head solemnly, her face grave now, and said, “Edran learned to use his art in Durbrecht. He memorized the old tales the
re, under the Mnemonikos.”

  “Nuh … moni … kos?” I struggled to fit my tongue around the unfamiliar word.

  “The Mnemonikos.” The commur-mage nodded. “The Rememberers; those who keep all our history in their heads. Without them, our past should be forgotten; without them, we should have no history.”

  “Is that important?” I wondered, sensing that my soldierly ambitions were somehow, subtly, defeated.

  “If we cannot remember the past,” the commur-mage said, “then we must forever repeat our mistakes. If we forget what we were, and what we have done, then we go blind into our future.”

  I thought awhile on that, scarcely aware that she spoke to me as to a man, struggling as hard with the concept as I had struggled to pronounce the word Mnemonikos. At last I nodded with all the gravity of my single decade and said, “Yes, I think I see it. If my grandfather’s father had not told him about the tides and the seasons of the fish, then he could not have told my father, and then he should have needed to learn all that for himself.”

  “And if he did not remember, then he could not pass on that knowledge to you,” said the commur-mage.

  “No,” I allowed, “but I want to be a soldier.”

  “But,” said the commur-mage, gently, “you see the importance of remembering.”

  I agreed a trifle reluctantly, for I felt that she steered our conversation toward a harbor that should render me sword-less, bereft of my recently found ambition. I looked to Andyrt for support, but his scarred face was bland and he hid it behind his cup.