Lords of the Sky

I agreed and asked him if he was not wed, at which he shook his head and said bluntly, “I was. The cursed Sky Lords slew her.”

I voiced condolences and asked, “In Arbryn?”

He shook his head again, setting the mass of his darkly curling hair to waving, and answered me, “On the Treppanek, east of Durbrecht. She sailed with me. We were Rorsbry-bound two summers past when an airboat passed over.” He drained his mug in one long gulp and shouted for more. “They were crippled-low overhead-and they dropped their God-cursed fire on the ship. Kytha died, and half my crew. The ship sank. Had it not been for Drach, here …”

All this he told me in a low monotone that I recognized was a chain binding his grief. His dark eyes were expressionless, but as his voice tailed off, I saw tears run down his cheeks, leaving moist trails over his tan. He coughed and rubbed at his face. “Drach loaned me the coin to purchase the Dragon and new oarsmen,” he finished.

I said, “I’m sorry,” and he grinned without humor and returned me, “Why? It was not your doing.”

I shrugged, not knowing what else to say. And then I had a kind of revelation. I realized at that moment what I had not seen before-that I had become lost in my own grief, which was but a single small fish in a shoal of woes. It was arrogance and selfishness to think I swum alone: all around me there were folk had suffered as much or more, and to single out myself, to allow self-pity free rein, was a weakness, an act of egoism. I doubted Rwyan would approve. I vowed to set aside my own concerns and attend more carefully those of others.

That night, in the room I shared with Drach, I slept soundly, and when I woke I felt enlivened, as I had not since Rwyan’s going. I would not forget Rwyan, but neither would I dwell any longer on her loss.

Thus my journey passed far more enjoyably than I had anticipated. I practiced my storytelling on my fellow passengers and even the crew-Nyal was a kinder master than Kerym and treated his Changed oarsmen, if not as equals, then at least better than mere beasts-and studied the riparian landscape with eyes that seemed newly opened. When I thought of Rwyan (which was still often enough), it was with a sweetly fond nostalgia that was only sometimes pierced by the barbs of my dismissed grief. I had, I suppose, accepted what Cleton had told me: that our parting was inevitable and that to grieve over that which I could not change was a pointless scourge.

And then we came to Arbryn.

Thyrsk was aeldor here, and I had it from Nyal that he had but one son, Kalydon, and that his wife was dead of a fever these past three years. I knew no more, save that Arbryn prospered-which I could see from the pastel- painted houses and well-tended gardens-thanks to its advantageous position, being well-situated to handle trade from farther down the coast and the Treppanek, both. I thought it a pleasant, sleepy place that appeared untouched by the Sky Lords. The streets were clean, and I was greeted with cheerful cries as I walked toward the high stone tower that stood like the axle hub of a wheel at Arbryn’s center, behind its own wall, and showed no sign of attack.

Four days I lingered there, wandering the town by day’s light, welcomed in the taverns and the squares where I told my stories, passing the evenings in Thyrsk’s hall. The hold’s sorcerer sent word to Durbrecht along that magical chain that connects the keeps of Dharbek, informing the College of my safe arrival, but what response, if any, came back, I know not. Storymen are governed by few orders, save to tell their tales and keep their eyes and ears open, and I was at liberty to choose my own path and my own timetable. It was a heady freedom.

A side from the practice of our calling, there are three prime considerations about a Storyman’s life that seem seldom to occur to our listeners, who appear to believe we arrive by magic and depart by the same process.

The first is the act of traveling itself. I was commanded to go from Arbryn to Mhorvyn before the year’s end; the how of it was left to me. I had one pair of stout boots, and save in heavy rain when my healed leg was wont to ache, I was fit as any soldier. The length of Kellambek, however, is a considerable distance, and the more time I spent traveling, the less I should have to speak and listen. I had some few coins, but insufficient to purchase a horse or a mule. I could hope to find passage with some merchant’s caravan or at some point to obtain a mount, but in the meanwhile I had only my feet.

The second consideration is food. An empty belly makes for slow walking and a short temper. Indeed, it was not unknown for Storymen to starve in the wilder parts of Dharbek’s interior. I did not anticipate that fate, for my tales would earn me sustenance, and if they did not-well, this was a fertile landscape, and I could likely scavenge enough to see me through.

Third is warmth: the road grows cold and wet at times. Indeed, this is why we wanderers were sent out at the year’s turning, when we might expect clement weather at the start of our journeying. I knew there should be rain along my way, but summer would come soon enough, and by winter I hoped to be ensconced in Mhorvyn Keep.

Consequently, I set out from Arbryn in fine spirits. I had ventured to hope Thyrsk might gift me with a mount, but his generosity did not stretch quite so far, and I departed afoot. I thought that did I acquit myself well enough as I progressed, I might earn such a reputation as would persuade some aeldor to present me with a horse come the spring foaling. (Optimism is a necessary part of a Storyman’s nature; without it we should tread a very hard road.) It was a thing I could hope for, and meanwhile I had no complaints. I set out along the paved road that followed the coast south to Dunnysbar.

I reached the village after nightfall, my arrival announced by a pack of dogs that came yapping at my heels. I applied my staff and my boots, being in no great good humor, and sent my attackers snarling into the shadows as I made my way toward the light of a hostlery. I was welcomed there and promised all the ale I could drink in return for a story or two, though I had to pay for my dinner and chose the free accommodation of the stables over the cost of a room.

The next two nights I slept beside the road, warmed by a fire of fallen branches, fed the first on a rabbit I snared, hungry the second. The third night I found shelter in a farm, where I was fed and offered a place by the hearth, which I shared with four great shaggy dogs. Such is a Storyman’s lot.

In Darsvyn Keep I found a welcome equal to that I got in Arbryn, and I lingered there five days. Ventran was a taciturn man, but his wife, Gwenndynne, more than made up for her husband’s solemnity, and their children-of whom there were five, and all young-took after her: I spent a large part of each evening in that keep with a child on either knee, another hung about my neck, and the rest at my feet. Ventran was of the College’s opinion-that the Sky Lords planned invasion. The keep’s sorcerer, a fair-haired young man from east Draggonek whose name was Tyris, agreed, and the four of us sat long into the night, discussing the Lord Protector’s preparations and what the year should bring.

There was an alarming development of the Sky Lords’ magic.

I first had the news from Kaern, aeldor of Dursbar, some eight weeks after leaving Arbryn. Spring was already turning into summer in these milder western climes, and I had been three days in Dursbar without news of Durbrecht or the east since my departure. I had dared hope the attacks of the previous year should not be repeated, that the gloomy prognostications of the College and of Kherbryn had been unfounded, that the Sky Lords had given up. I was wrong: only the tactics had changed.

It was early one fine evening, the sun still bright on the slate rooftops of Dursbar, when I was invited to attend Kaern in his private chambers and found the aeldor with Trethyn, who was the commur-mage here. Kaern was a young man, come only recently to his station following the death of his father in a hunting accident. Trethyn was twice his age. Both were typical westcoasters: dark of hair and swarthy of complexion, their faces tending to a stern demeanor. On this bright evening they were both grim, and as Kaern motioned me to a chair and pushed a cup toward me, I felt the chill fingers of presentiment dance down my spine.

“There’s news come from Durbrecht,” Kaern said as I filled my cup with the golden wine for which his hold was famous.

In itself this was not surprising: the Sorcerous College acted as a gathering house for information, receiving and digesting reports from the keep sorcerers and disseminating that information throughout Dharbek. It was as if an unseen web spread over the land, every touch upon its fabric notified to Durbrecht, from whence news was