Lords of the Sky

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 there, 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.

“The Mnemonikos hold all our history in their heads,” the commur-mage said softly. “All the tales of the Comings; all the tales of the land. They know of the Kho’rabi; of the Sky Lords and the Dragonmasters: all of it. Without them, we should have no past. The swords they bear never rust or break or blunt-”

“They bear swords?” I interrupted eagerly, finding these mysterious Rememberers suddenly more interesting. “They’re warriors, then?”

The commur-mage smiled and chuckled and shook her head. She said, “Not swords as you mean, Daviot,