The Sky Warden & the Sun (Books of the Change)

by Sean Williams

  “Of course, Jarmila.” Mage Van Haasteren bowed his head so low behind them that his black hair brushed Sal’s cheek. “I respect your judgment in these matters.”

  “Indeed.” She smiled more widely still at that, then uttered a single, barking laugh. “Ha!” With a brisk wave, she commanded that Shilly come around the table and sit in the chair she had vacated. “Let’s take a look at that leg of yours, my girl.”

  Van Haasteren guided Sal away as the elderly mage unbound Shilly’s dressing and examined the scars. Although they were some distance across the room, Sal could feel the buzzing of the Change as she did so, and saw a startled expression cross Shilly’s face. The old woman’s knobbled fingers traced strange patterns across the leg, lingering in some places for almost a minute, then darting elsewhere without warning, like a bird looking for seeds in the grass.

  “Does this hurt?” she asked Shilly.

  “No.”

  “This?”

  “Ouch, yes!”

  “Good. Tell me if you feel anything here.”

  The probing intensified around the knee, then continued down her shin.

  “What’s she doing?” Sal whispered to Van Haasteren.

  “Laying the groundwork for true healing,” said the mage in a soft voice. “You don’t repair a major wound by sticking the pieces together and forcing them to bind. That’s like building a house by stacking chunks of wood one on top of the other. You have to shape the pieces, guide them as they bond, make them one. You paint a map for the tissue to follow, then leave it to grow into the shape you desire. If Jarmila is successful, this will be the last time Shilly or you will use the Change upon her leg. It must be allowed to mend at its own pace, or else it will not mend true.”

  Sal thought about this for a second, then asked, “Does this mean she might not be lame?”

  “If Jarmila is successful, she might not be, yes.”

  A measure of relief trickled through him. Not having the leg between them would make things easier. Shilly might have absolved him of blame, but he wouldn’t be surprised if her present resentment of him was grounded in part in that injury. He was the cause of it all, ultimately.

  The Mage Erentaite finished her examination by gripping Shilly’s foot with both her hands and breathing deeply over it. She didn’t seem to be doing anything at all, as far as Sal could tell, but he knew better than to discount the old woman’s skill. The hairs on the back of his neck were still tingling, and he knew too little about the Change to make any judgment.

  The elderly mage stirred, but still she wasn’t finished. She reached out with one hand, cupped it around Shilly’s head, and drew her close. They whispered softly to each other for a moment, then drew apart. Shilly was released with one last pat. She gathered up her crutches and stood, looking puzzled.

  “Teach them, Skender.” The Mage Erentaite folded herself gently into the chair and closed her eyes. “I will return in one week to see how things are going. If you approve, I will take them to Ulum to give them their robes.”

  “Yes, Jarmila.” Van Haasteren bowed once, and led them out of the room. As they passed through the door, Sal caught a flicker of movement high up in one shadowy corner. He pulled back just long enough to see what caused it.

  It was another lizard. Not the same sort as the one in his bedroom, but around the same size. Its eyes reflected the light as he let himself be guided from the room, and he wondered if the Keep was full of such creatures. Maybe they kept insects down, and were encouraged to stay. There might be hundreds of them sharing the spaces with the humans who lived there. He hoped not. Their unblinking intensity unnerved him.

  The Mage Van Haasteren, silent, as though the elderly mage had given him much to think about, led them along a series of corridors until they reached the main tutoring room. There he introduced them to the rest of the students and outlined what they could expect to do in the coming days. Their acceptance into the Keep wasn’t final until it was ceremonially formalised by the Mage Erentaite in Ulum granting them the rust-red robes of the school, but Sal saw the light in Shilly’s eyes and could tell what she was thinking.

  She was on her way. The second stage of her education had begun. It was up to her, now, to prove that she was worthy. Her fate rested in no one else’s hands but her own.

  As did his fate, Sal supposed. He found himself unexpectedly envying Shilly’s certainty. She’d known exactly what she wanted and where she wanted to be, and now she had it. If only, he thought, his own journey could end so neatly.

  When they had been welcomed near the bridge the previous day, Sal had been surprised at the small number of people to appear. He had assumed that there were more elsewhere. But at breakfast that morning, the number had still been small, and when Raf confirmed during their introductory lesson that there were only eighteen full-time students at the Keep and just the one full-time teacher — the Mage Van Haasteren — and that it had always been that way, Sal had been less disappointed than he would have expected. He had imagined the Keep as a teeming community of scholars and students at the heart of the Interior. Instead, it was an outpost on the fringes of society — a retreat rather than the sort of university he had read about. Deep down, he was relieved not to be thrust into the centre of an enormous educational machine, as he imagined the Haunted City to be.

  Their introductory session gave them an overview of how the lessons generally worked. The Mage Van Haasteren tutored the senior students who, in turn, tutored the juniors. That way, lessons were repeatedly reinforced and no one was permitted to coast along. Easily the least experienced of anyone at the Keep, Sal tried to make up for it with sheer determination. After the first visualisation session he knew the patterns they had been asked to memorise at least as well as he knew the Cellaton Mandala.

  Bethe took them for theory that afternoon, reintroducing them to some of the concepts that Lodo had already touched on — briefly with Sal, in more detail with Shilly. He got the feeling that the student overseer was sounding the depths of their knowledge to see just how much they would need to be taught. Sal did his best to imply that he knew more than he did, but he didn’t think she was fooled. After the session, Bethe took Skender aside and arranged for Sal to receive special tuition from him in the evenings. The boy was initially reluctant to receive more work but, upon realising that it would give him more time with his new friends, soon cheered up.

  “We’ll have you up to speed in no time, old boy,” he said, clapping Sal on the shoulder and grinning like a wild cat. “I’ll show you how to get around this place without being seen, too, if you like,” he added in an undertone.

  Sal wasn’t keen on the idea of crawling up and down the crumbling cliff face, but he was warmed by the boy’s ready acceptance and trust. A new chore roster was drawn up to include the new students. Shilly wasn’t exempt, even with her leg, although she would be confined to cooking duties for the time being: preparing vegetables, washing dishes, and other work she could do while seated. Sal had cleaning, with Bethe, and was glad for that. She was friendly to him outside of classes, and he could tell that Raf was slightly jealous of the attention he was getting, even though the redhead was a lot older and a lot better at the Change. He kept finding ways to keep Sal, Shilly and Skender busy.

  “Concentrate,” said Raf fiercely, during their third lesson with him. The redhead held Sal’s left hand in his right one. Raf’s right hand was in Shilly’s left. The three of them and four other students, Skender among them, all with hands linked, formed a ring in one corner of the main tutoring room. In the heart of the ring was a cloudy white glow. The cloud was a simple, confined version of the background potential, and the game they were playing was called Blind. Blind was normally played between two or three people in a kind of free-for-all. Sal had first played it in Lodo’s workshop against both Lodo and Shilly. The version they were playing pitted two teams of three against each other, with Raf
as a kind of adjudicator.

  “Concentrate, Skender. I’m watching you.” Raf’s eyes were tightly closed; he didn’t need sight to see the match before him. Each team had a hoop, a spike and a bulging cavity, shapes woven from the cloud itself — as though teased from cotton wool and able to move around the surface of the cloud, directed by the minds of the players. The objective of the game was to immobilise the opposition in any conceivable way: the spike could pin both hoop and cavity, while the hoop could be swallowed just as easily as it could capture. Blind was characterised by periods of intense scrutiny, as each team member sized up all the others, followed by flashes of rapid motion, almost too fast to follow.

  Sal and Shilly had been snapped up by Skender to play with him. Cautious at first, and undisciplined, they had lost twice in a row. On the third game, Sal was determined to do better. The problem was, he didn’t know how to go about it. Playing Blind as part of a team was very different to playing for himself.

  “Careful,” said Skender, their team’s loop, warning Sal’s cavity away from a feint by the other team. They spoke using a simple technique Shilly and Skender already knew, but which Sal had had to belatedly learn, using the background potential as a channel between them. It wasn’t as simple as talking aloud, and he was awkward at it at first, but it saved them from exposing their tactics to their opponents. “Come around a bit to your left. Nudge Chema off course.”

  “Which one’s she?” Sal asked.

  “The spike. And the brown-haired girl opposite you, with the dangerous gleam in her eye.”

  “The one who almost pinned you before?”

  “Exactly. Watch out for her. She’s fast.”

  Sal edged closer to the spike, wary of any sudden moves. “So how come I get to be her shadow?”

  “Concentrate, you two,” snapped Shilly, her brooding silence broken by the need to compete. “They’re about to try something.”

  “How —?” asked Skender, but didn’t finish the sentence. As Shilly had predicted, their opponents suddenly burst into motion, their hook and cavity darting around behind Shilly and their spike stabbing at Skender, hoping to force him into a mistake. Swoop and clumsy counter-swoop followed. Sal was, for the most part, ignored. He blundered forward in an attempt to save his friends, and the other team abruptly called off the attack.

  “Thanks, Sal,” said Skender, swooping across the cloud to avoid one of the other players. “It was getting tight there for a moment.”

  “I didn’t have a choice,” he said. “I wouldn’t last a second without you guys. I’m too slow.”

  “Being fast is no asset,” said Shilly, “if you don’t know where you’re going.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Skender.

  “It means we’re tackling this the wrong way. What are they doing that we’re not?”

  “Winning, mainly.”

  The other team pounced again, scattering the three of them to the far corners of the cloud. The second wave of their attack concentrated on Sal this time, and he was hard-pressed to fend them off. Only by holding his ground with his cotton-wool maw opened as wide as he could make it, did he manage to deter them long enough for Shilly and Skender to find an opening. They managed to repel the advance, just. After a minute’s chaotic posturing, it was back to the waiting game.

  Raf, observing the activities in the cloud with his mind, chuckled softly. Sal took the chance to catch his breath, while Skender skated through the cloud like a mosquito, never staying still for longer than a split second.

  “This is ridiculous,” said Shilly.

  “Except as an exercise,” Skender responded.

  “An exercise in futility.”

  “Now, now. You’re honing your skills, aren’t you?”

  “Only our skills at losing. What are you getting out of it?”

  “A much needed thrashing, as my father might say. So maybe you’re right.” Sal didn’t need to check Skender’s face to confirm that he was joking. “We might as well forfeit and save ourselves the embarrassment.”

  “No! There has to be a way.” Shilly’s determination rose in proportion to her frustration. “They’re not winning because they’re better than us. They’re winning because they’re working as a team. We’re just running in circles around each other. If we could somehow put your speed and Sal’s brute force together ...”

  “One thing’s for sure. We’d surprise the pants off them.” Skender dodged a brief attempt to trap him in one corner of the cloud. “Any ideas?”

  “Well, I can see what they’re doing, even if I don’t know what the tactics are called. They’re not moving randomly, like us. They only pretend to until it’s time to attack. You can tell when they’re about to attack because they freeze for a second to check that everyone’s ready — then they move.”

  “You can see that?” Skender sounded as surprised as Sal felt. “I just fly by the seat of my pants and assume everyone else does too.”

  “No, there’s definitely some sort of pattern behind this.” Shilly watched closely as their opposing team wafted around them, feinting then pulling back. “See? The loop’s trying to edge you out of the way, Skender, so she can take that upper point. Once she’s there, we won’t be able to shift her. While Sal’s in the middle, their own cavity is forced to one side as well, and they won’t want that. They’ll try to push Sal out soon, then bring their spike down here —” an image came with her words, indicating a spot near her that was currently empty “— and then they’ll make their move.”

  “You think so?” Skender sounded dubious.

  “Yes. There’s more to winning this game than just flying fast.”

  “Apparently so. Okay, then. What do we do in response?”

  “We let them think we’re falling for it. Sal, move out of the centre like they want, but not too far. Skender, stay roughly where you are until I say. I’ll come around here, like this...” Her spike dodged past the other team’s loop, then flew in a tight figure eight in front of her.

  As predicted, their opponent’s cavity took the centre position, once Sal had moved.

  Sal participated in the strange ballet with distant fascination. He could see what Shilly meant about the other team’s tactics, but only after she described it to him. He couldn’t predict it. There were too many variables to take into account, too many dimensions. A simple game of Advance, on a flat board with only two players, was complicated enough for him.

  “Okay, Skender, move to your left and down, but don’t make it look like you’re going anywhere in particular. I want you on the opposite side to Sal.”

  Skender moved, and the other loop instantly took his place. The opposing three players held that position for a bare instant — just as Shilly had said they would — then they attacked.

  The loop swooped down on Shilly, who was forced to duck out of the way, toward the hostile cavity. Skender rushed forward to help her, but their spike was in the way. When Sal clumsily propelled himself forward, their opponents backed away for a brief moment, but then regrouped in a new position with Shilly pinned between their cavity and Sal able to retreat in one less direction.

  Their loop jumped forward to enclose her. She saw the threat before Skender could point it out to her.

  “Watch out, Shilly!”

  “I see it! Sal, back up. Skender, come round and down right. Further. Now jump forward. That’s it! Sal — to your right, into that opening — quickly! Good.”

  Sal felt himself caught up in the rush of her directions. Even if they didn’t make sense at first, they always proved to be sensible. She managed to extricate herself from her sticky position and almost immediately turned the attack back on their opponents. Sal found himself as surprised as the other team’s spike when he bore down on her from above and almost swallowed her whole. Then their opponents’ cavity was under a combined attack from Skender
and Shilly, and it looked as though the tables might finally have been turned.

  So intent was Sal on trying to swallow the other team’s spike that he didn’t see the loop come up behind and past him. It darted for Shilly, swinging like a lasso. When Sal saw it, he put all his effort into one powerful leap forward — so powerful it set the cloud between the six contestants sloshing like water in a barrel. He misjudged his leap and missed the loop, but the strange currents circulating as a result of his effort put everyone off balance. Sal himself reeled from both the visual disorientation combined with an odd dragging sensation, as though the universe was drifting out from under him.

  The opponent’s spike was the first to recover. She speared Sal and Skender before Shilly even noticed, and by then it was too late. The game was lost.

  Shilly broke the circle with a curse, and the cloud vanished.

  “Much better,” said Raf, opening his eyes and stretching. The other team accepted his praise with pride, particularly Chema, the girl who had appeared as their spike in the game. She nodded at Sal without any trace of gloating.

  “Promising indeed,” Raf went on. “Sorry, Sal and Shilly, that you had Skender to hold you back. We’ll try again tomorrow and see if we can’t rearrange the teams a little.” Skender thumbed his nose at the redhead, who ignored him completely. The rest of the students climbed to their feet and picked up their books. It was time for meditation, then lunch. In the afternoon they had visualisations and mnemonics, in groups according to their ability, and after that they had a theory refresher. Chores would keep them busy until the evening meal was ready, then the rest of the night was theirs to study or relax.

  To Sal it was daunting and stimulating at the same time. He had so much to learn, even with Skender’s help, and he didn’t want to distract Shilly from her own studies. Although her anger had cooled to the point where she tolerated his presence outside lessons, she was barely talking to him unless she had to. There had been no repeat of the crutch-throwing incident, but the tension was still there, bubbling in the background. Ever since the decision to accept them into the Keep, she had been grimly determined to work hard and she would let little distract her. Whatever the Mage Erentaite had whispered to her that day, it appeared to have left her focused completely on the job at hand, rather than her feelings.