by Angus Wells
It was all stone, but with a faded carpet on the flags underfoot. I had never set foot on a carpet before. A lantern hung from the center of the ceiling, and opposite the narrow bed there was a washstand, beneath the window an ottoman. I went to the washstand, wondering who had removed my clothes and where they were, and drank deep of the wondrously cold water, then applied a liberal quantity to my face and head—carefully, for the needles were not yet gone from my skull. I found my clothes in the ottoman and quickly dressed, belted on my dagger, and belatedly remembered to tie back my hair. I felt simultaneously hungry and nauseated by the thought of food, nor sure whether I should remain or quit the chamber. I knelt on the ottoman as I pondered, marveling that the window be paned and thus allow me clear sight of the yard below.
I was on the west side of the keep. Beyond the encircling wall I could see planted fields and grazing sheep, woodland in the distance, hazy at this early hour. Within the confines of the wall I recognized a smithy, the farrier’s hammer already clanging, a small building I thought must be a fane, and others I could not define. The yard was busy, soldiers in their plaid striding to and fro, women, children, dogs, a few cats. I was entranced and might well have spent the entire morning observing all this unfamiliar activity had Rekyn not come for me.
She knocked at my door, which was unusual enough, and it was a moment before I thought to bid her enter. In place of her black riding gear she wore breeks of dark leather and a belted tunic, a long dagger sheathed there. She smiled, holding out a beaker of horn, and said, “Day’s greetings, Daviot. I suspect you’ll welcome this. Perhaps without a fight today.”
For an instant I found no memory at all of the previous night’s closing and frowned, then blushed as she explained and I remembered. I took the draught and drank it down, wincing at the taste and my embarrassment.
Rekyn settled on the bed, her gray eyes on my face. “Now tell me of last night,” she said. “All that you remember.”
I guessed this was a test of some kind. I composed my thoughts, much aided by the herbalist’s skill, and recited all I could recall
When I was done, Rekyn nodded in satisfaction and I felt my discomfort evaporate as she said, “Excellent. The ale does not fuddle your memory.”
“Thanks to you.” I gestured with the beaker. “And this.”
“That helped.” Her face grew solemn. “Most men forget what they do when in their cups.”
I frowned and said, “But last night Sarun, the others, all spoke of the Storymen as drinkers. Does drink obliterate memory, how can they? Why do they?”
“Sarun and his kin spoke mostly in jest,” she told me, “albeit in jest there’s often truth. Aye, the Storymen do drink. Indeed, they’ve something of a reputation for their capacity, and often enough it’s the only payment offered for their tales. But also, they are not as most men. I suspect that whatever accident of blood gifts them with memory gifts them, too, with the ability to drink and still remember. I’ve not the how of it, but I believe that must be the way. Now, do we see if any breakfast’s left us?”
I found, to my surprise, that my appetite was returned: I nodded, and we quit the room.
As we ate, Rekyn told me that a trade ship was anticipated within the next few days and that it would take me north, save—an ominous reminder and grim portent of the future—the Sky Lords come again to delay the sailing.
I digested this thoughtfully, vaguely aware of the women who now began to clear away the detritus of the morning meal, and when Rekyn suggested we investigate the environs of the keep, I agreed eagerly.
It felt odd to me to venture abroad so late in the day, and I thought fleetingly that my father would be long asea, with Tonium in my place. A moment’s nostalgia then, rapidly replaced with wonder as we crossed the court to where Andyrt and others of the warband exercised. Sarun was with them, greeting me with a brief wave before returning to his sword-work. Andyrt hailed me, but no more than that, and with Rekyn I stood watching the flash of light on darting blades, listening to the clangor of steel on steel.
They wore helms and thick-padded jerkins, sewn with plates and nets of metal, but even so I thought surely men must be sore hurt at this practicing. I was right and before long saw a man miss his defensive stroke and take a blow that sent him reeling, his face gone abruptly pale. Andyrt caught the mistake and halted his own combat to roughly curse the luckless fellow for his carelessness before sending him off to a thin, bald man in a green tunic who stood behind a table spread with sundry pots and bandages and bottles.
Rekyn said, “That’s Garat, our herbalist and chirurgeon. You’ve him to thank your head’s not hurting.”
We went to watch, seeing Garat remove the soldier’s jerkin and examine his shoulder—which was dislocated—with fingers as gentle as his curses were ferocious. I had never heard a man so foul-mouthed, nor seen one so tender in his ministrations. His mouth was thin and seemed angry until he smiled and asked me how my head felt. I told him it was entirely cured and offered my thanks, at which he shrugged angular shoulders and cursed me for a fool that I drank with more excess than experience. Laughing, Rekyn declared that she had best remove me from his company ere I become as corrupted of language as he, and we wandered randomly about the yard. It was, in effect, a small village, self-contained and easily defended. Save, I thought, from aerial attack: I ventured to make the point.
“’Tis true,” Rekyn agreed. “Indeed, at the time of the last Coming the Kho’rabi wizards sent their magicks against the keep. See?” She pointed at the ramparts of the great turret, and I saw blocks there paler than their elder kin, the surrounding stones blackened as if with fire. “Two airboats there were, and both grounded inland. There was a great battle.”
I said nothing, but she must have read the enthusiasm on my face, for she smiled a little and went on: “The boats grounded to the west, and the fylie marched on Cambar. You noticed the wood there? That was the place of battle. It was a mere copse then, but so many brave men died there that Ramach, who was Lord Bardan’s father, decreed it should be left uncut, a monument.”
I promised myself I would, had I the time, go there. I asked, “Dhar and Sky Lords lie there together?”
Rekyn nodded. “Aye. For Ramach deemed the Kho’rabi valiant foes.”
“And you?” I asked. “What do you say?”
She hesitated a moment, then shrugged. “I am neither philosopher nor theologian, Daviot, but I agree with Ramach. This was once their land, and they surely came a very long way to meet their fate. Why not accord them that poor solace? Bardan, too, decrees the wood sacred.”
I felt my question was not entirely answered and frowned, fearing I went too far, as I said, “Are they not then evil?”
“I have never met one in the flesh,” she answered, turning toward me as we strolled, “and so cannot say for sure. The priests will tell you so, and perhaps they are right. Perhaps the Sky Lords are the God’s punishment for the sins of our fathers; perhaps they are only warriors sent into battle by their own priests. I’ll not judge them until I’ve spoken with one and learned more of their ways.”
This seemed to me sensible and I ducked my head in agreement. “Has anyone?” I asked. “Spoken with a Sky Lord?”
“No.” Rekyn shook her head, the loose black tail of her hair flying. “No Sky Lord was ever taken alive. Do they not fall in battle, they fall on their own blades. It seems they count it a great dishonor to be taken captive.”
“They kill themselves?” I asked, aghast, for this ran utterly contrary to our own teachings.
“Rather than be taken alive,” Rekyn confirmed.
I swallowed, digesting this as we completed our perambulation and went out through the gates. As we ambled leisurely down the avenue, my mind was only half on the grandeur of the houses; the other half wrestled with the notion of a folk so savage as to take their own lives. It was a thing too strange, too enormous, for my young mind to properly encompass. I wondered what manner of men were the Sky Lords,
that they did this.
“So, shall we eat?”
Rekyn’s question brought me from my musing, and I saw that we had come to a building I now recognized as a tavern. I nodded dumbly: my experience of such establishments was limited to Thorym’s humble aleshop, and I did my best to assume an air of sophistication, a pace behind Rekyn as she found a table by the inner wall and settled casually on the bench there.
As we ate, Rekyn spoke to me of Cambar, of its trade and commerce and people, opening my eyes still wider to the world beyond Whitefish village, which even in the short time since I had left dwindled in my sight. It was strange that the place that only two days before had been the whole compass of my existence could so swiftly become so small a thing. It felt that betwixt sleeping and waking my narrow world was being replaced with another, larger place, and my excitement mounted as the commur-mage spoke. I listened rapt until she drained the last of her ale and suggested we find our way to the harbor.
I felt far more at home there, amongst familiar sights and sounds and smells. Even so, it was very different to Whitefish village. Many of the boats were larger, and to the north of the anchorage I saw two galleasses nodding on the tide’s ebb, their lateen sails furled, their oars stowed. Near where they rode at anchor there was a squat stone building I did not think was a warehouse, a throng of large, impressively muscled men lounging about the doors. Rekyn saw where I looked and told me, “Lord Bardan commands two warships.”
She paid the men scant attention, but they fascinated me. I had never seen shoulders so massive, nor chests so deep; I thought they must be powerful warriors. And yet there was something about them I could not quite define, a difference—something in the shape of their skulls, their broad foreheads and deep-set eyes—that set them apart from the men of Andyrt’s warband. As I watched a man in Cambar’s plaid emerged from the building and called some order that sent four of the giants down to the harbor’s edge. Two barrels stood there, huge casks I assumed they would shift on rollers or a cart, and even then only with difficulty. Instead, they took each cask, one man to either end, tilted it, and lifted it as if it weighed nothing, carrying both back to the building easily as if they bore no more than panniers of fish. I gasped, hardly able to believe men could be so strong.
Rekyn noticed the object of my amazement and said, “Each galleass is rowed by Changed. Those are bull-bred.”
Her tone was casual, as though such prodigious strength were entirely natural; as though the presence of Changed were entirely normal. To her it was; to me it was yet another thing of wonder.
“I have never seen Changed before,” I said.
“You have.” Rekyn smiled at my disbelieving frown. “Bardan keeps several bull-bred about the hold, for the heavier work. And not a few as servants. Those are cat- or dog-bred, of course. In Durbrecht you’ll see far more. Likely, do you elect to remain beyond your first year, you’ll have one for a body-servant.”
A servant? My servant? My jaw fell, and Rekyn laughed anew.
“It is felt,” she advised me, “that those training to become Mnemonikos are better employed in study than in such trivial matters as the cleaning of their quarters.”
“Did you have one?” I asked her. “When you attended the Sorcerous College?”
“A cat-bred female,” she answered, a hint of fond nostalgia in her voice. “Mell was her name.” Her tone changed, and it seemed to me a door closed behind her eyes. “When I left, she fled across the Slammerkin into Ur-Dharbek. I’d not thought Mell would go to the wild ones.”
I feared, from Rekyn’s expression, from her colder tone, that I trespassed on forbidden ground. But I was to become a Storyman, and how should I pursue that following save I asked questions? “Wild ones?” I queried.
The commur-mage nodded absently, yet a little lost in some private past. “The lands of the Truemen end at the Slammerkin,” she murmured, “and beyond lay those lands given over to the wild Changed. The Lord Protector Philedon decreed it so—that the dragons have prey to hunt and need not venture south.”
I did not properly understand her reticence—she had evinced little enough on most other subjects—but I felt it sure enough. I said, in what I hoped was an easy way, “The mantis spoke somewhat to me of the dragons. He said they are dead now, or gone away into the Forgotten Country.”
I thought for a moment Rekyn had not heard me, but then she nodded again and said, “Perhaps they are. Certainly, they prey no more on Truemen; and men do not venture into Ur-Dharbek.”
“Nor the Changed—the wild Changed—come south across the Slammerkin?” I ventured.
“No,” was all the answer I got, and I set my wealth of questions aside for some later time.
But I approached the hold with better-opened eyes, surveying the folk I saw, assessing who was Trueman and who Changed. The smith, I guessed, for he possessed the massive frame of the men (I could not think of them as beasts) I had seen at the harbor, and when I watched the serving folk, I thought I discerned aspects of the feline in several of the women, canine in more than one man. Rekyn was clearly indisposed to discuss them further, and I wondered if some taboo existed; I deemed it wise to hold my tongue. Besides, we found Andyrt in the hall and he called us over, so that we were soon embroiled in conversation with jennym and soldiers, and I found myself quaffing yet more ale.
Thus we passed what little remained of the afternoon, and in a while the candles and lanterns were lit against the burgeoning dark, and servants came out to set the tables for the evening meal. The aeldor and the Lady Andolyne appeared with Sarun and Gwennet, greeting me as friendly as before. Thadwyn, I learned, was gone north to Torbryn Keep in amorous pursuit of Lydea, daughter of the aeldor Keryn. Bardan questioned me concerning my day and I, emboldened by his easy manner, expressed my wish to see the site of his father’s battle with the Kho’rabi.
He and Andolyne exchanged a glance at that, and then he tugged his beard and said quietly, “Are the woods gone from Whitefish village, then?”
“No,” I said, “but no battle was ever fought there.”
“It’s naught but trees, Daviot,” he told me, serious now. “There’s no fine monument, nor trace of the fight. Only trees.”
I suppose my disappointment showed on my face, for he chuckled then and said, “But if you must, so be it. Andyrt, do you take the time on the morrow? I’ve matters to discuss with Rekyn anyway.”
I thought the jennym’s face clouded a moment; surely his response was delayed. From the corner of my eye I saw Bardan nod, and then Andyrt favored me with a wicked smile. “We’ll ride out there, eh?” he suggested.
I voiced enthusiastic agreement, picturing myself astride one of Cambar’s great warhorses, Thorus’s gift-dagger become a sword, myself in Cambar’s plaid.
The reality, I discovered the next day, was somewhat different.
Andyrt sat proud on the warhorse whilst I was brought a pony. A pretty enough beast: a gray-dappled mare with gentle eyes and, I was assured, a no less gentle gait. An ostler I suspected was horse-bred led her out and helped me mount. I climbed astride and felt myself raised a disconcerting distance from the ground, warily clutching the reins and then the saddle as the placid animal shifted under me.
Over his shoulder Andyrt called, “Ware the cobbles, Daviot. Do you fall, they’re somewhat hard.”
Fortunately for me, his humor did not extend to leading me into a fall. He held his own mount to a walk as we circled the Wall and turned westward across the pasture land, and as we rode he instructed me in the basics of horsemanship. I was far more concerned with the simple act of staying in the saddle, but I filed his comments in my memory, albeit I could barely comprehend how the shifting of leather against the animal’s neck, or the touch of a heel to its ribs, should steer it in one direction or another did it choose to ignore those hints. A boat I could understand; this swaying, undulating beast was a mystery. Still, I did not tumble, and felt I regained some measure of dignity. One day, I thought, I should become
as confident a rider as my companion.
We went on at a slow pace, past grazing sheep, a herdsman who waved a greeting, over a little brook, more grass. The wood spread before us, all green and shadowy in the early morning sun. It was a plantation of oak, the tall trees rustling in the wind off the Fend. Andyrt reined in a little distance off, my pony halting less in obedience to my urgings than in parody of his stallion, innocently threatening to dislodge me as she lowered her head to crop.
“The wood,” Andyrt said needlessly, gesturing at the timber. “There’s little enough to it.”
“Can we enter it?” I asked.
“If you wish.”
I felt he hesitated an instant, and as he swung limber from the saddle I saw him make the sign of warding. I did not, for as I strove to climb down I felt my legs and buttocks shafted with pain and become as straws, quite inadequate to the task of supporting me. I clutched at the saddle, leaning for support against the pony, which stirred, threatening to topple me. I heard Andyrt chuckle and gritted my teeth, pushing gingerly clear of my equine prop as I forced my back straight and turned on unsteady legs toward the wood.
“The first time always hurts.” Andyrt said. “Folk think you need only climb astride a horse and sit there, but there’s more to it than that. I’ll ask Garat potion a bath for you when we return.”
“My thanks,” I said, and then: “I’ve much to learn.”
Andyrt said, “Aye,” and cheered me by adding, “but I’ll wager you make a good enough horseman in time.”
