by Angus Wells
I gave her oats and water and went to find Madrys, whose holding this was.
He was in the hall, a thin young man whose red hair was plastered slick to his skull. He rose to greet me, and when I made my excuses for this late arrival, he waved a weary hand and told me he knew of the road’s difficulties. He introduced me to his wife, Rynne, whose pale yellow gown was patched dark at breast and armpits. She held a baby that mewled, his tiny face bright red; for him and all the children, I felt most sorry. There was an air of lassitude in this hall; only the commur-magus Tyrral seeming unaffected by the heat. I was invited to take ale chilled in the well and sat sipping as Changed servants fanned us. Their efforts seemed only to stir the overheated air that had succeeded in pervading even the cool stone of the keep.
I gave brief report of my journey from Amsbry and had back the news that Tarvyn had not long since seen two of the Sky Lords’ little craft, as if they came to check their occult handiwork. Madrys appeared resigned or drained of optimism, though he assured me his warband stood ready to fight. Tyrral was more sanguine. Indeed, he treated his aeldor brusquely, as if the younger man’s apathetic mood irritated him. As soon as was polite, I asked if I might bathe and change—and was shocked to be told fresh water was in short supply. I had thought the snowmelt must fill the aquifers.
I remained only a few days in Tarvyn. I gave them my best stories, tales of glorious victories and great battles, but received only a lackluster response. For all Tyrral put on a brave face, there was a feeling of despair about the keep, as if aeldor and warband had already given up. It saddened me, but also it threatened to affect my own spirits.
Also, I was now close enough to Whitefish village I thought of reunions, of seeing again my kinfolk and childhood friends, and that spurred me to impatience. So, pleading an urgency imposed by my delayed arrival, I made my excuses soon as was decent and left that sad keep behind me.
Within seven days I saw the boundary stones that marked the limit of Madrys’s holding and the commencement of Cambar land. Within seven more I came home.
It is a strange experience to go home after years away in a wider world. I had left Whitefish village an innocent, eager to experience the marvels of Durbrecht and all that lay beyond. Even then, I had had that double-edged gift of memory, and it fixed my home in my mind as it had been and was that day I departed. The village and its folk had been all my world, and I could yet conjure clear those impressions of my youth, so that—for all I knew I had changed—still I perceived my home immutable, preserved thus in my mind as the lapidaries set insects or flowers in glass. But places and people, both, shrink as we grow. Things change, and yesterday is a country of the memory that is no longer quite what you recall; even for a Mnemonikos.
I came north up the inland road, turning to the coast along the track that crested the pine-clad cliffs of my infancy to run down to Whitefish village. The meadowland there was parched, the grass sere, the soil cracked as an ancient face. The trees stood desiccated, needles fallen too soon crackling under my gray mare’s hooves. I halted atop the bluff, suddenly nervous. Below me stood a huddle of rude cottages such as should barely fill one of Durbrecht’s plazas. Along the beach stood fishing boats, beyond them the Fend, brilliant under the remorseless sun. There was no breeze—I had not felt a breeze in days—and the village baked. It seemed to me a poor, rough place, and I felt ashamed to think it so: I heeled my mare and took her down the slope.
I felt an odd admixture of anticipated pleasure and wariness as I reined in outside my parents’ cottage (I could no longer properly think of it as home) and dismounted. A woman with gray streaking her hair rose from a chair set in the shade of a sailcloth canopy, wiping hands slimed with fish scales on her grubby apron. Her hands were rough and red and her face darker than I recalled. I felt my heart lurch. I said, “Mam,” and she smiled and cried out, “Daviot,” and ran to embrace me. I hugged her. Her head reached no farther than my chest. She seemed frail. When she leaned back to study my face, there were tears in her eyes, and she gazed at me as if she could not believe I was truly there.
I said, “You’re well?” and she nodded, and held me tighter, and began to cry against my shirt. Almost, I wept for the joy of seeing her again. I felt embarrassed, but after a while she stilled her weeping and let me go, wiping at her eyes.
All in a rush she said, “Oh, Daviot, you’ve come home. You’ve grown so. Shall you stay?”
“Only for a little while,” I said. I felt abruptly awkward, not wishing to dampen her joy with news I’d soon be gone. “I’m ordered north, to Cambar first, but then on.”
She stared at me, smiling as only a mother ever does. “You’re taller,” she said. “And so grand, with your fine horse. Is that a Storyman’s staff? Are you truly a Rememberer now?”
“Yes,” I told her, and she beamed.
“Your father will be so proud.” She touched my cheek. “I’m proud. Our Daviot—a Storyman!”
I shrugged, embarrassed, and asked, “Where is Da?”
“At the beach,” she said. “Daviot, he’ll be so pleased to see you.”
I said, “And Delia and Tonium—where are they?”
My mother blinked then, and sniffed, and I saw pain in her eyes. “Tonium was drowned,” she said, at which I felt a stab of grief for all we’d not much liked one another. “Delia wed a lad from Cambar—Kaene—and lives there now.”
I said, “I didn’t know about Tonium. I’m sorry.”
She shook her head, dismissing grief. Fisherfolk learn that early. “How should you?” she asked. “You away in Durbrecht. We heard the city was attacked, and I feared for you. Oh, Daviot, it’s so good to see you. Are you truly well? You look thin. Do you eat enough?”
Those questions mothers ask came in a flood that I could scarcely dam with my answers. I felt twelve years old, but finally she took my hands and declared that we must find my father, lest I spend all my time repeating myself. I asked that I first might stable my mare, and so she walked with me to Robus’s barn, where I rubbed down the gray horse and saw her watered. I warned Robus of her temper, and he studied her and me with wary eyes, as if I came back some lord, unsure how he should address me. I thought him plumper than ever, and aged. I promised him a story later; I promised all the village a story, but after I had greeted my father and my other kin. As my mother and I walked to the beach, he was trotting amongst the cottages, shouting the news that Daviot was come home a Storyman.
My father sat with Battus and Thorus, working on their boat. Save that gray streaked their hair and their faces wore more lines, the years might not have passed. Then they rose, and I saw that for all that time and hardship had left their marks, still these three were hale. My father took my hand. He must tilt back his head to meet my eyes. Then he smiled and said, “Daviot,” and took me in his arms, which told me he was still strong, for I felt my chest crushed, my breath expelled by his fierce embrace. I felt a great surge of love for this aged man, so that my throat clogged and for a while I could not speak, only hold him and whisper, “Da,” as if I were a child again.
Thorus and Battus each shook my hand, and Thorus pointed to the knife I wore. He said, “You’ve the blade still.”
“I’d not lose a good knife,” I told him, and he nodded, taciturn as ever.
Work ceased: we went to Thorym’s aleshop. He, a tad gaunter but otherwise not much changed, greeted me as a long-lost friend. He filled us mugs in welcome as all the village folk gathered.
It was strange to see their faces again, sprung sudden on me without the softening acceptance of slow-passing time. Tellurin and Coram both came, grown men now, with shy-eyed wives at their sides, children staring nervously from the shelter of their mothers’ skirts.
A mantis arrived, not my old tutor (he had died two years agone, of a summer fever) but a thin young man, intense of face, whose name was Dysian.
We drank; I was plied with questions. I asked how they had fared through the winter, and how they did now in this
tropic summer.
The answer was no more, neither better nor worse, than I had expected. I had heard much the same along my way and should hear it all up the coast. The winter had been harsh—the Fend too storm-tossed for safe fishing, the catches too poor; some had drowned; some had died of the cold. The sudden thaw, the sudden summer made things no better—without a wind, the fishing remained hard; it seemed the ocean grew too warm, there were few fish. There had been no winter planting, nor in the brief spring; now there was no point—seedlings died in this heat. Water was in short supply, the brooks arid, the springs become drying puddles.
The afternoon aged. A mild spring evening should have followed, but it seemed the sun’s passage was hindered, the hard gold-silver disk lingering like a glaring eye in the unbroken blue above. I opened my purse to hand Thorym hoarded durrim, that the ale keep coming. None seemed disposed to leave, and after a while, by some unspoken agreement, a meager feast took shape. I felt both proud and guilty that I be deemed worthy of the honor and determined that they should have the very best of me when I told my tales.
So we ate and drank as the sun moved slowly westward, sultry twilight finally cloaking the village in shadow. The heat did not abate, as if the gibbous moon that climbed above the Fend took the sun’s place to scorch the land. I thought then of how this used to be so peaceful a time. The sea’s slow wash had been a lullaby then, the breeze a balm; men would gather to sup ale, and mothers would set children abed. Innocent days: gone now. I looked about, aware of tension, aware that folk drank less to slake thirst than in search of comfort. There was a somewhat fevered air to their celebrating, as if my presence afforded an excuse to indulge, perhaps to forget for a little while what cares should face them with the morrow’s dawning. I found a sadness growing in me, for them and all Dharbek. When I rose to speak, I think I made good my promise to myself: no aeldor in his keep ever had better storytelling of me.
By the time I was done, full night had advanced. Mothers gathered reluctant children and folk began to drift away. In time only those who had been closest, and Dysian, remained. The women left us, all save my mother, who sat beside me, sometimes touching my sleeve as if to reassure herself I was truly there.
Coram said, “So you’ve fought the Sky Lords, eh?”
I nodded, not much wishing to speak of that, for my mother’s sake and my own. Dysian muttered, “May the God curse them. May he destroy them all. He’ll not allow the cursed Dark Ones to overrun his chosen country.”
I considered his faith blind. It seemed to me the God, if he existed, paid Dharbek little heed. Still, I’d no wish to make the Church my enemy, and so I said mildly, “I’d not venture to interpret the God’s will, but it’s the opinion of Durbrecht and the Lord Protector that likely the Sky Lords plan their Great Coming this year, or next. … No one is sure. The God willing, the sorcerers will find ways to strengthen the Sentinels and halt them—”
I broke off as Dysian snorted and my mother gasped. My father said, “What should we do?”
It was strange to hear my father ask advice of me: things change. I said, “Do they come, I doubt they’ll attack the villages.”
I spoke with far more confidence than I felt, but I’d no desire to see fresh tears in my mother’s eyes or rob my father of hope. I held back my doubts and kept my secrets close.
My mother yawned then, and I realized it was only my presence kept her. The moon was overhead by now, and were I not come home, she’d have been long abed. No less the others, who seemed now to linger only in hope of comfort I could not give them, save with soft words that skirted around what I believed was the truth. I emptied my mug and declared myself weary.
“How long shall you stay?” my father asked.
I hesitated. I was both tempted to linger and eager to be gone. It was far easier to assume a brave face amongst strangers, to tell folk I’d not met before and should soon enough leave that all should be well, but amongst these old friends, my parents, it was hard. Almost, I told him I must depart with the dawn, but I thought that should be unkind, that it were almost better I had not halted here at all. So I smiled and said, “Tomorrow, Da. But then I’d best go on. They’ll have sent word from Tarvyn, and Cambar must expect me.”
“Best not keep the aeldor waiting,” he said, in a voice aimed at reminding the others that his son consorted with the mighty.
That night I slept in my old bed and dreamed I was a child again, carefree.
I woke to the smell of baking. My mother knelt by the hearth, smiling as I emerged, indicating the biscuits she made. They had always been a favorite delicacy, and I voiced my thanks even as I wondered if she could afford such largesse. I thought it should hurt her more did I protest and so said nothing, but went out to the well. As I drew up the bucket, I saw the rope was lengthened: I used only a little water.
We ate—the biscuits and thin porridge—and spoke of the years betwixt my departure and now. I said little of Rwyan, and save for expressing sympathy, they were tactful enough not to press me. I promised I should visit Delia. Then we all three walked to the beach, where Thorus and Battus waited. It was not long past dawn, but already the sand was hot, the air turgid. There were no clouds nor any breeze, and the sun seemed to blister the sky. The Fend rolled lazy, as if this awful heat robbed even the sea of vitality. We launched the boat, and I usurped Thorus at the oars—it was pointless to raise the sail. I brought us out to the fishing grounds and sat panting. My body had forgotten what hard work this was.
From the tiller my father fixed me with a look I remembered well. It was the way he had studied me when I was caught in some unadmitted prank. It was a look that said he knew what I held back, but had sooner I confess of my own volition. I felt immediately guilty.
He stared at me awhile longer and then said, “So, do you tell us? There are no women or children to frighten out here, and we’d know the worst if it’s to come.”
I had thought I hid my true feelings. From any others I likely had, but these had known me from my birthing, and my father saw deep into me, past my defenses. I wished then I had not come home. I sighed and began to speak.
I told them all I had seen, and all I believed (save for that one sighting of Kho’rabi and Changed together), and when I was done, there was silence, broken only by the mewing of optimistic gulls.
I was thankful that we spoke no more on such matters. By unspoken consent we turned our conversation to the mundane—or what in such times passed for mundane—talk of catches and the problems this heat afforded honest fishermen. We went a long way out, farther than ever I had been as a boy, far enough the southernmost of the Sentinels was just visible, low against the horizon. I wondered if Rwyan might be on that island. Perhaps she turned her blind eyes to the sea and found a boat there and thought of the fisherman’s son she had loved. I pushed those thoughts away and took a hand as we set the net. There was still too much pain in those memories.
Our catch was poor, and after some hours we turned for land. It was the midpart of the afternoon then, and I sat helping my father with his floats as my mother prepared our evening meal.
We ate alone, but when the meal was done went back to Thorym’s aleshop, where folk already gathered in expectance of my stories. The night was no cooler than before, and it seemed to me that even the bats darting amongst the cottages flew slower. It was the bats, seeming tiny reminders of my oneiric dragon, that prompted me to recount one of the oldest of all the tales.
It was the story of the Last Dragon, and seldom told. Indeed, it was argued in Durbrecht that it had no place in our canon, for its veracity was disputed. One school of thought maintained that it was our duty to tell only such stories as were anchored firm in historic evidence, and as this had no such authority, it was best forgotten. Another, however, held that all the folk tales had a place, being part of our past gone into legend. I thought there was no harm in such old tales, and much to be lost did we forget them. Besides, I liked the story for itself.
When
I was done telling it, there was a murmur of appreciation and some few chuckles.
“In the God’s name,” my father declared, “what allies the dragons should make, eh? Think on it—did the Dragon-masters live still, they might bring the beasts out against the Sky Lords. That should give them something to think about, no?”
There was laughter at his words, but I felt an odd chill run down my spine. He echoed things I’d said in Durbrecht; things I’d wondered on since. I felt—I could not define it—a kind of presentiment, as if, unwitting, he spoke with an augur’s tongue. I shaped a smile and laughed with the rest.
Thorym said, “That they would, were they not all dead and gone.”
Dysian said, his tone censorious, “The dragons preyed on men; the God gave us magic to use against them. Better put your faith in him than creatures of legend.”
I saw my father cast a dark look the mantis’s way, and my mother touch his sleeve as if in warning. I thought this intense young priest was not much liked in the village, but none spoke up against him.
I said easily, “Should it not be a fine thing, though, Dysian, if the God saw fit to give us back Dragonmasters and dragons for allies?”
He said, “What use such dreams? Both are long gone, and we must trust in the God, not fables.”
I shrugged, and motioned for Thorym to fill his mug (at which, I noticed, he did not protest), and said, still casual, “But did the God see fit … our sorcerers might ride the sky to bring their God-given magic against the Kho’rabi wizards and their boats.”
