by Angus Wells
My head was aswim with unshaped notions that I could not articulate, and so I asked, “When is the next Coming?”
“Be it as before,” Martus said, “in twenty years.”
“Shall we be ready?” I asked.
Cleton said, “The keeps are ready,” and Martus nodded and amplified: “As is the Lord Protector, so are the koryphons and the aeldors of Dharbek sworn to defend the land. For that reason they maintain the warbands, even in peaceful times, that the Sky Lords never find us unready.”
I thought on things Andyrt had told me and said, “But our soldiers are not enough.” I smiled an apology to my friend and went on, “Save the Sentinels be strengthened, how shall we defeat them?”
“The Sentinels are strengthened,” said Martus. “Even now the strongest of the young sorcerers are sent, to lend their untrained power to the adepts.”
I frowned and said, “But still—the three boats that came …”
Martus smiled somewhat grimly, nodded, and said, “They overcame the Sentinels, aye; but the strengthening goes on now, and soon, I think, shall be unpassable.”
That raw young sorcerers were taken from their College was indeed true—but that the Sentinels should soon be unpassable? I must wonder at that: we Dhar knew nothing of the Ahn, save we had once defeated them and they had fled. We knew they returned out of the east, but not from where. We knew they commanded powerful magicks and that their warriors came to slay us, but nothing of their ultimate goals. Perhaps they were bent on our destruction, dedicated to the reconquest of the land that was once theirs; perhaps purposed only to revenge.
I could only nod, accepting, and hold to myself the thought that save we could destroy the Sky Lords in the air, before they reached our shores, we must forever live in dread of the Comings. An image entered my mind then of the Sky Lords locked in combat with the dragons of legend. It was an exciting thought, but fleeting and I set it aside as Cleton spoke.
He was ever more practical than I, and son of an aeldor, his thinking shaped by familiarity with his father’s warband. Pragmatically he said to Martus, “We saw those airboats as we entered the Treppanek—all three, unharmed. They had passed the Sentinels, then, and were not brought down until they closed on Durbrecht. How was that?”
“The Sorcerous College,” said our tutor. “Save for the Border Cities and the Sentinels, Durbrecht’s the greatest concentration of mages, and some of the most powerful: their work, it was. They sent their magic against the Sky Lords and slew them ere they could ground.”
He paused, and I could see from his expression he was concerned that the more timid amongst us might find cause for fear. He set a confident smile on his mouth and added, “I think we could not be in a safer place. We’ve the Sorcerous College and the koryphon Trevid’s warband, both, to protect us.”
Cleton nodded, satisfied, and I heard a murmur of relief from the timorous.
Our lessons with Martus were like that: an account of a Lord Protector’s life was likely to become a debate, a discussion of why and how, questions asked and answered before we returned, often as not days later, to the original topic. He instilled in most of us, beyond the basics of our technique and the history he taught us, a desire to learn, a curiosity that prompted us to investigate, seeking ever more information with which to fill the drawers of our memories.
For that year we knew mostly peace. We heard of airboats burned over the Fend, and twice saw the great ships erupt in explosions of terrible fire within a league of Durbrecht. Once there was a great alarum, when an airboat grounded east of the city and Trevid sent his warband out in full force to confront the Kho’rabi. The city was loud that night, and Cleton persuaded me to an adventure.
Word had come from the Sentinels that a ship had eluded them, passed from mage to mage along the line of keeps down the Treppanek. We were told the warband rode, but even had we not received that information we should have known something was afoot, for the streets outside the College rang with the nervous cries of the populace and we could hear the thunder of urgent hooves, the clatter of armor and bridle bits. It was evening, our lessons were done, and we had eaten. Cleton and I had repaired to a secluded part of the College grounds, a storage area close by the north wall, where he continued my secret instruction in the martial arts. Since dusk, when word first came, our conversation had been of the landing and the koryphon’s response, and we were agog with curiosity.
It was late summer then, the days long and the nights light. I remember a full moon, pale yellow, hung in a cloudless sky. Our practice was interrupted by the sounds from beyond the wall, for we would halt, trying to discern what was shouted or what the latest passage of horsemen meant, and then fall to discussing what we would do, were we in Trevid’s shoes. Finally we left our exercises altogether and only listened.
Cleton eyed the wall, and in the moonlight I saw a smile curve his lips. He turned it on me, and it was like a challenge.
“We could climb that,” he said.
It was as if he made only a casual observation, but I knew him well by then. I said, “We are forbidden. Would you spend the rest of the year shoveling dung?”
He gave no answer except that smile and crossed to stand beneath the wall. After a while he said, “My father keeps his walls smooth. This is rich in handholds.”
As if experimenting, he probed a crack, found another, and was soon perched like a fly above me. “We might gain the top and watch,” he called. “No more than that.”
I knew him and he knew me: well enough that he was confident I would follow. He clambered higher; I went after him.
We gained the vertex and lay flat across the width. We were on a level with the upper windows of a repository. My fingers stung where the sharp-edged niches had inflicted small cuts, and I had torn one nail. I sucked the wound as a half-squadron galloped past below us. They were mounted archers.
“They go east,” said Cleton.
“The Sky Lords grounded to the east,” I said. “They’re going to the east gate.”
Cleton nodded absently and turned his face in that direction. Durbrecht was encircled by a protective ridge, and atop that was the city wall. I could see beacons there, and a multitude of individual torches shifting and flickering in the night.
Cleton said, “It would be interesting, eh?”
I said, “Is dung interesting?”
Cleton said, “We’ve come this far.”
I said, “Yes,” and my friend was promptly sprawled across the wall with his feet probing the outer surface for holds. I sighed as he slipped over, still smiling.
The descent was harder than the climb, but we reached the street safely and huddled a moment in the wall’s shadow. A full squadron of lancers went by without a glance in our direction.
The warband was long gone by the time we reached the gate. Above us on the wall beacons burned, and we could see soldiers moving there. A squad of halbediers approached, and Cleton asked the jennym what went on. The officer returned him the suggestion we go home, leave what fighting there might be to those trained for such duty. We hung about a while, but nothing exciting arose to capture our attention, and before long we agreed we should return.
This time I thought the College wall looked higher. The moon certainly was higher, and I thought we had been longer gone than we had anticipated. I was correct.
We climbed the wall and worked our way back down the inner side. The College was ominously quiet, light showing at only a few windows. There was none at all in our dormitory as we slunk like thieves in the night along the edges of the quadrangle. We reached the door, and I was indulging in a measure of self-congratulation (and relief) when a familiar voice spoke our names.
I was convinced then that Ardyon possessed a sixth sense in addition to keen eyesight, excellent hearing, and an ability to conceal himself. I suppose they are qualities desirable in a warden. He emerged from the shadows silent as a ghost, tapping his caduceus in a most threatening manner against one narrow shoulder. C
leton and I stood rigid, like rabbits frozen by a fox’s gaze.
Ardyon stepped close, bending forward a little with his nostrils flaring. I realized he sought the smell of liquor on our breath. When he found none, he nodded and took a pace back. “Where?” he asked.
Cleton it was who answered. “We went to the east gate,” he said. “We thought it an excellent opportunity to observe the deployment of Trevid’s warband. We hoped to learn from it.”
I was impressed by his quick wits and sheer audacity. If Ardyon shared my admiration, he gave no sign. He only said, “You knew it forbidden.”
Cleton nodded and said, “I persuaded Daviot we should go.”
“No,” I said. “There was no persuasion. I went of my own will.”
Ardyon sniffed. He had a way of sniffing that could chill the blood. “At least you’re honest,” he said. “What did you see?”
“Not much,” I said. “The warband was gone and the gate closed.”
Ardyon nodded again. Then he said, “Find me when your morning’s lesson is done,” and turned away, fading back into the shadows.
So it was I learned something of the culinary arts, for our punishment this time—in addition to stable duties—was that we help in the kitchens. Being unskilled, we were set to peeling and paring, washing and scrubbing, with barely time left to snatch a mouthful of the food we readied; and in the evenings, after, we must return to the horses and their voluminous output. I thought it unfair we had earned such a sentence in return for no more than a shut gate and a few soldiers.
However, our adventure and its outcome were not without some harvest of knowledge.
Primarily, that Ardyon was inescapable; ubiquitous, it seemed to me. But also that whilst the College would mete out punishment for such infringement of its rules, it tacitly applauded the initiative demonstrated. A Mnemonikos-elect who showed such independence was safe from expulsion. Not from punishment—most assuredly not!—but he would not lose his place in the College Indeed, there were only three expelled during my time there—one for theft, one for the rape of a younger student, and one for a knifing.
And I came to know the Changed better.
As was the way throughout Durbrecht, the menial tasks about the College were performed by them. They cooked our food, tended the horses and the gardens, cleaned the rooms and courtyards. They were a mostly silent, always subservient, presence we scarcely noticed—they were simply there, and we accepted them as we did the statuary or the birds that left their droppings on the stone for the Changed to scrub away. Working with them in the kitchens I came into greater contact with them and began to perceive them not as faceless menials but as individuals, with quirks and characteristics as personal as any Trueman’s.
Oh, there was an undoubted degree of anonymity to their features and physique did I only glance unthinking, as most Truemen did—just as dogs of a particular breed are indistinguishable one from the other to the eye of the inexperienced, or as one ox looks much like another. But to the kennelmaster and the farmer, each is different. And I saw that these biddable creatures were each different. There was a cook—Ard was his name—who sang softly as he worked; a kitchenmaid, Dala, was always smiling; Taz, who could lift and carry two full sacks of potatoes with ease, told jokes (not usually funny, but he always laughed hugely). I came to know their names, and them, and I think the power that lies in names edged my awareness keener: I began to see them as people.
Cleton would have none of it. To him, accustomed in his father’s hold to the presence of Changed, they remained faceless. It was one of the few things we disagreed on, and we chose, for the sake of our friendship, to leave it undiscussed. But just as Martus’s tales of the dragons and the Dragonmasters had sown a seed, so did this experience, and after I was thought somewhat an eccentric because I called the Changed by name and gave them greeting when I met them.
So did my first year in Durbrecht pass. Not very different from any student’s, save Cleton and I perhaps found more than our share of trouble. We learned, we listened, we observed, we memorized. Whitefish village became, consciously, my past: I could not imagine returning there, save as a Storyman. Nor did I any longer contemplate joining Bardan’s warband. Martus, the College, had opened my eyes wider than had Rekyn, and I saw ahead the full breadth of the world I might explore as a journeyman Mnemonikos. It lay before me like a lure before a hungry fish: I was avid to take it and swallow it.
Summer faded into autumn, and that season into winter; the spring came. I was seventeen when Decius summoned me and questioned me and told me I might remain, did I wish.
My answer was a heartfelt Aye!
My second year in Durbrecht began with a winnowing of we newcomers. Of the students with whom I had shared the dormitory, three were deemed unfit to continue and five elected to return home. I was not sorry to see Raede and Tyras counted amongst that number; delighted that Cleton remained. Martus was no longer our tutor, his place taken by Clydd, who lectured us on history and the art of storytelling, and Bael, whose duty it was to hone our mnemonic skills. Keran made good his promise to teach us the martial arts, and I at last learned to ride, thanks to Padryn; from Telek we learned something of herbal lore and the chirurgeon’s art. It was a busy year, the pace much quickened. I was mightily occupied, rushing from the chambers where Clydd spoke to the gymnasium where Keran waited; hurrying, sweaty, from there to Telek’s herb garden, or his surgery; on to the stables and Padryn, thence to Bael, lesson after lesson. Sometimes it seemed that even we, gifted with the talent of memory, dedicated to its practice, should not be able to store so much information.
I learned a great deal: History, of course, and the recounting of a good story, but also those more practical things that would enable us to live easier as Storymen. I learned to recognize the medicinal herbs and to prepare such decoctions as could ease pain, clear drink-fuddled heads, and such like. I learned to set broken bones and how to stitch a wound. I learned, as I have said, to ride (and employed Telek’s lessons in the learning!) and came at last to sit a horse without discomfort. From Cleton I had already acquired a basic knowledge of the martial arts, but now Keran refined that, and I became a proficient fighter, learning how to defend myself with my hands and feet alone, or with a quarterstaff, also with a sword, a knife, and a bow. It was a round that seemed sometimes endless, we students like sponges soaking up information, scurrying like busy ants from one tutor to another.
But we enjoyed greater privileges and, in fact, were granted more time to ourselves. We no longer slept in the dormitory, but had rooms of our own. Cleton and I (somewhat to our surprise, for we had thought our escapades might prompt the College to separate us) were assigned a chamber together. It was a plain room, with a curtained alcove that held a privy and a washstand, but there were two comfortable beds, a shared wardrobe, a stove, and a window that looked onto a garden. To me it was the utmost luxury. And to that prodigality of comforts was added a thing undreamed of: we had a servant.
Urt was his name, and we were advised he should tend us so long as we remained in Durbrecht. Cleton took this in his stride—he had grown with servants about him—but to me it was a thing of wonder, and I was ofttimes chided by my friend for performing those tasks he deemed properly belonged to Urt. I was not used to servants and found it difficult to leave my bed unmade, or my clothes unfolded, despite Urt’s quiet presence. No less did Cleton wonder at my interest in the Changed, for whilst he was always kind, as a man is to his horse or hound, he could not understand my desire to speak with Urt.
Indeed, Urt himself found it at first disconcerting and met my attempts at conversation with the same bland subservience I had discerned in Bors. But I persevered, and as the days went by I won his confidence and learned something of his life. He held much back but still I garnered knowledge that few Truemen bothered to investigate.
He was of canine stock, a few years older than I and unwed himself. His parents were owned by a merchant dwelling in the Border City of Rynvar, a
nd he had been sold at the age of ten to the College, where he had been a servant since. He dwelt with the other Changed in the College and was as proud as I of the small chamber given him when he was promoted to the rank of body-servant. This, he told me, was a post much prized by his kind, for it conferred a certain status and was, besides, far easier than the drudgery of stables or kitchens. Such duties were the province of the duller species, those of equine stock or bull-bred, from which announcement I realized there was a hierarchy amongst the Changed. I had not thought on that before, but from Urt I learned the canine- and feline-bred considered themselves somewhat superior to all save those of porcine stock.
He told me much, for I was intrigued and very patient and bent myself to drawing him out. It was then no more than a somewhat vicarious interest, a fascination with a life of which I had no experience, with which I had only recently come into contact. That I was the son of simple fisherfolk, still an innocent, made it easier, and in time he spoke more freely. Save when I asked of Ur-Dharbek and the wild Changed: then he faltered and denied all knowledge, and fell silent.
“But surely you must know something,” I insisted.
I sat perched on the sill of our window, awaiting Cleton’s arrival. It was a festival day, Sastaine, at the height of summer, and we were granted freedom from our lessons. We planned to spend it wandering the city—which we were now allowed to do unsupervised. Urt was sweeping the bare boards of the floor and shook his head without meeting my eyes. I watched him, thinking it very difficult to tell him from a Trueman. He was a little shorter than I, and slender, his features somewhat angular but not unhandsome, and in his plain breeks and tunic he looked entirely human. It was only when I studied his coarse gray hair and looked into his eyes, which showed no white, that I might clearly perceive him for Changed.
