from between the buildings. There were about a score of riders, led by a black-bearded man whose fine clothes told me he was the aeldor Brython. On his right, the side on which the tavern lay, rode a young man with yellow hair wearing tunic and breeks not unlike my own, but of better cut and finer material. My headlong passage brought me almost into collision with his startled horse, and he mouthed a curse as the animal skittered, ears flattened. Instantly two riders, their plaid and the swords they carried marking them for members of the war-band, urged their mounts forward, straight at me. I thought them likely to ride me down, or beat me with the flats of their blades, and veered away, seeking refuge, an arm raised in defense.
Brython called them to a halt, reining in. “He came off the galley,” he said, and fastened eyes of a startlingly pale blue on my face. “What’s about, lad, that you come in such haste?”
“Forgive me, my lord.” I shaped a sketchy bow. “I’ve a friend sick on board, and I’d find a herbman.”
“A seasick sailor?” It was the yellow-haired young man who spoke. “What manner of vessel am I committed to?”
This, I realized, must be Cleton. I said, “Not a sailor,” and wondered if I should add “my lord.” I decided not: we should, after all, be fellow students soon enough. “His name is Pyrdon,” I explained, “and he’s Durbrecht- bound, like me.”
“Ah, a kindred Mnemonikos-elect.” I saw that Cleton’s eyes were the same pale hue as his father’s, which made them seem cold and distant until he smiled. “Then best a remedy be found instanter. Mathyn, do you go swift to the keep and have Naern prepare a nostrum. Bring it to us on the boat, if you will.”
A soldier swung his horse around and galloped back the way they had come. Cleton returned his eyes to me and said, “So …”
He frowned an inquiry, and I said, “Daviot.”
“So, Daviot, do you come introduce me to our captain? I, by the way, am Cleton.”
He reached down from his saddle, and we clasped hands. I fell into step beside him as the column walked on toward the
Brython returned the salutation and said, “A man’s gone to bring a remedy for your sick passenger, captain, so you’re delayed awhile.”
Kerym nodded, glancing irritably at me. Cleton caught his look and said calmly, “You’d not deliver a sick man to Durbrecht, would you, captain?”
Kerym reddened somewhat and shook his head vigorously, mouthing unctuous denial. I enjoyed his discomfort, and decided that I should like Cleton, did he continue in this manner. I saw that although his clothes were grander, he carried no more baggage than I, and that himself, waving away Kerym’s offer of a crewman for porter with the pronouncement that he was now merely one more Mnemonikos-elect, no different to his companions Daviot and Pyrdon.
The statement seemed to me designed to put Kerym in his place and simultaneously elevate me. I grinned, and then caught Cleton’s eye as he winked and grinned the wider.
We waited there, Brython engaging Kerym in conversation as Cleton questioned me, much as I had interrogated Pyrdon. He was an easy fellow to talk with, putting me at my ease so that I soon felt there was no barrier between us, despite the very different circumstances of our births.
Before long Mathyn returned with the herbman’s potion and his instructions as to its use. Brython insisted, politely but with no argument brooked, that Kerym wait while Pyrdon swallow the vile-smelling concoction, and our hasty captain was forced to curb his impatience as Cleton and I tended our unfortunate companion. Cleton himself administered the draught, wondering aloud if he should not require a measure before we reached our destination. In point of fact, he was an excellent sailor, as at home on the waves as I, and I realized he pretended for Pyrdon’s sake. I liked him better by the moment.
In a while Pyrdon declared himself somewhat recovered. Certainly he regained a measure of his color and took a few mouthfuls of ale, and Cleton said his final farewells, and Kerym was at last permitted to depart.
We three young men stood together on the foredeck, watching Madbry dwindle behind us. Ahead lay Durbrecht and a future none of us anticipated, I the least of all.
The journey was the pleasanter for the company of Cleton and Pyrdon, whose recovered health revealed him to be as I had guessed: a cheerful, good-natured fellow, if a trifle timid. He was clearly in some awe of the aeldor’s son, even though Cleton took pains to assure us we were all equal, and his easy manner contained no hint of pride or superiority. Still, both Pyrdon and Kerym tended to deference, whilst I took him at face value. I suspect that was because both our captain and the tanner’s son had dealings with the aristocracy, and some sense of rank, whereas I had no experience other than of Bardan and his kin, and they had shown me only kindness. So I accepted Cleton for what he declared himself to be: only another student.
Nonetheless, I remained somewhat intrigued that he should forgo his life in Madbry’s keep for that of a humble catechumen. It seemed to me he gave up more than he would gain, and one fine evening as we watched dolphins sport about the bow, I asked him why.
“What’s the third son of an aeldor to look forward to?” he asked in reply. Then answered himself: “My oldest brother will inherit the title, and Decan stands to make a better marriage than I. Did I stay, it should be as a hanger-on, reliant on Mordan’s charity. That, or find myself wedded off to some hold-daughter too homely to win herself a first or second son. I’d sooner stand on my own feet.”
He paused, grinning, and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, looking melodramatically about. “And I’m none too good a soldier, Daviot, for I’ve little taste for taking orders and a thirst for knowledge. I’d learn all I can about this land of ours. And how better do that than as a Mnemonikos?”
I considered a moment, then said, “I think we shall have to take orders in the College, Cleton.”
“Then I think,” he said, his voice and handsome face so solemn, I at first took him seriously, “that I shall likely find myself in trouble.” I laughed with him as the gravity quit his features.
Of the remainder of that voyage there’s little enough of import, save that as we closed on the eastern ingress of the Treppanek, airboats were sighted.
It was late in the afternoon of the fifth day. Kerym had the sail up to catch the breeze and the oarsmen bent to their sweeps, driving the
There were three, coming swift toward us, a little to the north, on a course that would carry them above the line of the Treppanek. They hung lower in the sky than any I had seen before, so that the sigils decorating the vast tubes supporting the baskets were clear; or would have been, had they not seemed to burn and writhe like living things, as if the magic imbued in the arcane forms clawed at the air like the arms of swimmers. The sky about the cylinders was itself distorted by the sorcery of the Kho’rabi wizards, roiling and boiling, tinged with red, as if the Sky Lords trailed fire in their wake. As with that first I had seen, I thought I saw nebulous creatures, elemental beings, dancing about the bloodred craft, speeding their passage faster than any natural wind might drive them. The sun was to our west, but shadow raced ahead of the airboats to encompass our galley, bringing with it a dreadful chill, a numbing stillness to the air. I shivered, hating that malign aura. At my side I heard Pyrdon mouth a prayer that the God defend us, Cleton utter a string of oaths. I saw that in moments their path and ours must coincide. I clutched the hilt of my dagger, a useless gesture, but somehow comforting.
The airboats closed on the coast. They came so low, I saw the pale blurs of faces looking down from the black baskets. I heard Cleton say, “They make for Durbrecht,” his voice leached of its usual humor. I felt as if some occult hand reached down into my belly, squeezing tight and horribly cold. I felt afraid and knew that it was more than any natural fear-that was to be expected, faced so close with the terrible Kho’rabi knights. This was far greater; it was as if the shadow that darkened the galley, the sea itself, robbed me of hope, as if the magic of the
