Lords of the Sky

though some carry arms to protect themselves, and all are versed in the martial arts. I mean the blade that finds its scabbard here”-she tapped her forehead-“in the mind. And that-my word on it!-is the sharpest blade of all. Think you this”-she tapped the short-sword on her hip now-“is a greater weapon than what I wear here?” She tapped her head again. “No! The blade is for carving flesh, when needs must. The knowledge here”-again she touched her skull-“is what can defeat the magic of the Sky Lords. How say you, Andyrt?”

The jennym appeared no less surprised than I by this abrupt question. He set down his mug, brows lifted, and wiped a moustache of foam from his mouth.

“I’ll face a Kho’rabi knight,” he said, “and trade him blow for blow. I’d not assume to trust steel against their wizards, though-that’s a fight for your kind, Rekyn: magic against magic.”

It was the first time I had heard the commur-mage referred to by name. I watched her nod and smile and heard her say, “Aye, to each his own talent. Do you understand, Daviot? When warrior faces warrior, with blade or lance or bow or axe, I’d wager my money on Andyrt. But a sorcerer of Ahn-feshang could slay Andyrt with a spell.”

“But I’ve no magic,” I protested. “But I’m strong enough, and when I attain my manhood, I want to be a warrior.”

“You’ve the strength of memory,” Rekyn said. “All I’ve heard from you this day tells me that-and that’s a terrible strength, my friend. It’s the strength of things past, recalled; it’s the strength of time, of history. It’s the strength of knowing, of knowledge. It’s the strength that binds the land, the people. Listen to me! In four years you become a man, and when you do, I’d ask that you go to Durbrecht and hone that blade you carry in your head.”

So intense was her voice, her expression-though she used no magic on me then-that I heard proud clarions, a summons to battle; and still confusion.

“Is Durbrecht far?” I asked.

“Leagues distant,” she answered. “On the north shore of the Treppanek, where Kellambek and Draggonek divide. You should have to quit this village, your parents.”

“How should I live?” I asked. I was a fisherman’s child: I had acquired a measure of practicality.

And she laughed and said, “Be you accepted by the college, all will be paid for you. You’d have board and lodging, and a stipend for pleasure while you learn.”

A stipend for pleasure-that had a distinct appeal.

There was little real coin in Whitefish village, our transactions being mostly by barter, and the only coin I had ever held was an ancient penny piece I had found on the beach, worn so smooth by time and wave that the face of the Lord Protector whose image marked it was blunted, indiscernible, which I had dutifully given to my father. The thought of a stipend, of coin of my own, to spend as I pleased, was mightily attractive. Nonetheless, I was not entirely convinced: it seemed too easy. That I should be paid to learn? In White- fish village we learned to survive. To know the tides and the seasons of the fish, to caulk a boat, to ride the storms, to bait a hook and cast a net; for that learning, the payment was food in our bellies and blankets on our beds. We expected no more.

“But how,” I wondered, “should I earn all that?”

“By learning to use that memory of yours,” she said, solemnly and urgently, “and by learning our history.”

“Not work?” I asked, not quite understanding.

“Only at learning,” she replied.

I pondered awhile, more than a little confused. I looked to where Andyrt’s helm lay, observing the dented steel, the sweaty stains on the leather straps, the sheen of oil that overlay the beginnings of rust, pitting the metal like the marks I saw on the cheeks of boys-men!-older than me. I looked at the jennym’s sword hilt, leather- wrapped and indented with the familiar pressure of his fingers. I looked at his face and found no answer there. I said, “And I’d learn the martial arts, too?”

Rekyn nodded: “You’d learn to survive.”

“Is Durbrecht very big?” I asked, and she answered, “Bigger than Cambar.”

“Have you been there?” I demanded.

“I was trained there,” she said. “I was sent by my village mantis when I came of age. There is a Sorcerous College there, too, besides that of the Mnemonikos. I learned to use my talent there, and then was sent to Cambar.”

I scuffed my feet awhile in the dirt of Thorym’s tavern, aware that I contemplated my future. Then I looked her in the eye again and asked, “If I do not like it, may I come back?”

“If you do not like it,” she said, “or they do not like you, then you come back. In the first year they test you, and then-be you unfit, or they for you-you come back to Whitefish village.”

“Or to Cambar Keep,” said Andyrt. “To be a soldier, if you still so wish.”

That seemed to me a reasonable enough compromise. What was a year? A spring, a summer, an autumn, and a winter: not much time, then. But sufficient that I might see something of the world beyond Whitefish village. It seemed an opportunity no boy could, in his right mind, refuse.

“Yes,” I said, and added after a moment’s thought, “do my parents agree.”

“We’ll ask them,” said Rekyn.

I followed her gaze and saw my mother and my father coming with the mantis toward the tavern. They both seemed disturbed, though in different ways. My mother’s face was set in a pattern I recognized from those times I, or my siblings, had been hurt more seriously than was our habit; my father’s was stern and confused at the same time. I had seen that look when he balanced the chance of a good catch against the advent of an approaching storm. I waited, all my pride dissolved.

My mother curtsied and my father bent his knee, which added to my confusion, for such formality was unlike them and told me that they regarded this woman to whom I spoke as an equal, as their superior. I felt embarrassed for them and, by extension, for myself.

But Rekyn smiled and rose, greeting them courteously as if they were some lord and lady come avisiting the keep, and motioned soldiers away to clear places, holding back a chair for my mother and thanking them both for granting her their valuable time. I shuffled my feet, studying the dirt, and only when I looked up did I see that all the soldiers save Andyrt were gone, and only Rekyn and the mantis and my parents remained. I paced a sideways step closer to my father, who set a hand on my shoulder and said, “I thought to find you at the boat. We’ve a net to mend, remember.”

I mumbled an apology, immensely grateful for Rekyn’s intervention: she said, “The blame is mine, friend Aditus. I kept him here to speak of his talent.”

“My lady?” my father said, and I saw that he held the commur-mage in some awe.

Rekyn said, “Not lady, friend. That title’s for greater than I. I am called Rekyn. I’d speak with you of your son’s talent, of his future. But first, ale?”

My parents exchanged glances, awkward and embarrassed as I; they looked to the mantis for guidance, and he beamed and ducked his head, impressing chins one upon the other. Rekyn beckoned Thorym-himself awed by such attention-over to our table and asked that mugs be brought.

“Your son has a great talent,” she said when they were served and Thorym gone, though not far enough he could not overhear such tasty gossip, “and I’d speak with you of that.”

I thought then that my mother looked frightened. My father’s face stayed stolid. I had seen it thus when he rode a boat into the teeth of the wind and the waves howled up over the gunwales: it frightened me, so that I heard little of the conversation that followed.

I know only that, at its ending, Rekyn and my parents were friends, and that it was agreed that on my attaining manhood I should be allowed to decide my own future: to go to Durbrecht, or seek a place in the Cambar warband, or remain in Whitefish village.

That agreement was sealed with more ale than either of my parents was accustomed to drink at that early hour, and neither was entirely steady on their feet as they quit the tavern. I rose from where I had squatted, idly stroking the dust from Andyrt’s helmet, to join them-this I remember clearly-and my father looked a question at my mother, who nodded, and then my father said to me, “I go to mend the net. Do you come with me, or remain here with Rekyn?”

I think that sometimes there comes a precise moment, a fragment of time, crystallized, trapped forever in