Lords of the Sky

gave such a start as set the great gray hounds lounging at his feet to barking. He shouted them silent and looked me up and down, a slow smile stretching his narrow lips.

“In the God’s name,” he said at last, “Rekyn gave word of your coming, but I’d not recognize you. You’ve grown, Daviot. You went from here a stripling lad; you come back a man, grown. A full-fledged Storyman, at that.”

I smiled and shrugged. He called that ale be served me, waving me to a seat across from him. Before I accepted, I said, “Sympathy for your loss, Lord Sarun; honor to your father. He lives in my memory, may the Pale Friend grant him peace.”

Sarun nodded, his smile an instant bleak. “He died well,” he said. “For all his years, his sword was blooded when he fell.”

“The Dowager Lady Andolyne?” I asked. “She’s hale?”

“Hale, aye,” he answered. “Hale, but grieving yet. There’s much happened here since you last saw this keep. You’ve had word?”

“No.” I shook my head. “I was five years in Durbrecht, studying. This last, I’ve traveled the west coast. I’ve had no word at all.”

He grunted, toying with his cup, and offered no immediate elaboration. I saw now he had changed more than I at first suspected. It was not physical but a hardening of his eye, a harshening of his voice, as if the years had set a steeliness in him, honing him. He seemed tense, ready to spring. He made me think of a sheathed sword.

“The Lady Gwennet is well?” I asked when he did not speak.

“Aye, she’s with child,” he told me. “Our second. My mother’s with her now, and Garat.”

“May the God favor mother and child, both,” I said formally.

“Life goes on.” He drank. “Some die, some are born. I think there shall be more die ere long.”

“You believe the Sky Lords will attack this year?” I asked.

“It seems likely.” He shrugged and favored me with a sour grin. “But do they or not, still we’ll know death here-from famine or fevers, does this cursed heat not abate.”

He confirmed what I already feared or knew. I inquired after his brother.

“Thadwyn’s wed,” was his reply, “and gone to Ryrsbry Keep now I’ve an heir.”

“And Rekyn?” I asked. “Andyrt?”

“Rekyn’s yet commur-mage,” he said. “She’s out hunting one of the Sky Lords’ God-cursed boats.”

“They’re seen again?” I watched him toy with the ribbon wound about his sleeve. “I’ve not encountered any since the year turned.”

“Aye.” He barked an angry laugh. “They’re seen again and have been since this unnatural summer began. They come and go like God-cursed hornets, and for every one we destroy, there seem two more. Rekyn’s her work cut out.”

He made no mention of Andyrt, and I supposed the jennym rode with the commur-mage. I said as much, and Sarun shook his head.

“Andyrt was slain,” he said. “Two years agone, now. The great skyboats came thick that year.”

I stared, momentarily lost for words. Foolish as it was, I had never thought Andyrt might die. In the eye of my memory I saw the jennym clear, as he had looked that day he came to Whitefish village and let a simple fisherman’s son carry his helm. Andyrt it was had first helped me astride a horse, had promised a place in Cambar’s warband, did I not become Mnemonikos. Andyrt had shown me the oak grove. I counted him a friend; I felt an emptiness open inside me. It was as if another piece of my past were stolen, gone like Rwyan, like Urt or Cleton. Save they, as best I could know, lived still while Andyrt was irrevocably gone.

I heard Sarun say, “I’m sorry, Daviot. You were close, no?”

I nodded, reaching for my cup. I drank deep and forced grief back. To Sarun I said, “He was a good man.”

“He was,” said the aeldor. “May the Pale Friend grant him peace.”

I’d no wish to dwell on loss, and so I asked, “One child already, you said?”

“A boy. His name is Bardaen, after my father.” Sarun’s stern face softened. “He’s scarce four years yet, but he bears himself well. You shall meet him later.”

“I should like that,” I said. “It’s good to be here again, Lord Sarun.”

“Plain Sarun will do,” he told me. “I’ve poor patience with ceremony.”

Like your father, I thought: I smiled.

“So,” he declared, “would you bathe and rest? You come from Tarvyn, I understand, and that’s lengthy road.”

“I stopped along the way,” I told him, “at Whitefish village last. But, yes-I’d scrub the dust away.”

I was, in fact, not very dirty, thanks to my mother’s ministrations, but the thought of a tub, of hot water, was pleasant.

“So be it.” Sarun beckoned a servant and gave the Changed instructions that I be shown to a chamber and a bath provided. “Tonight you can tell all you’ve witnessed along your way. Rekyn should be returned by then, and we’d both hear what mood pertains in the villages.”

“You shall,” I promised, and followed the servant from the hall.

It felt near as strange to be in Cambar as it had to return to Whitefish village. In many ways a Storyman’s life is timeless. Save we be given permanent duty in some keep, we travel. Save we be summoned to the College as Mnemonikos-tutor or some other senior office, we travel. We put down no roots, name only Durbrecht our true home (and that not often seen), and so have none of those unnoticed calendars that mark the passing of time for other folk. We see no children grow, build no homes, our possessions are only such as we can carry. We exist in a curious limbo, and to come back in so short a span to two places so important to me was somewhat unsettling.

The more so when I was brought to the chamber I’d occupied on my first sojourn here.

I set my staff against the wall and crossed to the window. The shutters were closed in a vain attempt to fend off the heat, and I threw them open, leaning on the wide sill. The land lay hazy before me, shimmering under the sun, but in the distance I could just make, out the oak wood. It was a gray-green shadow, vague as the grove of my dreams. I thought I did not much wish to go there again. I turned away, smiling at the patiently waiting servant. My sleeves were rolled and Lan’s bracelet in clear view, but the Changed seemed not to recognize the ornament. I crossed my arms, deliberately turning the knotted hair, but still the blunt face showed no expression save patience. I thought perhaps he saw only a bangle, meaningless, and that thought introduced another: did the bracelet mean nothing to him, then not all the Changed could be privy to the mysterious society Lan had shown me.

I smiled at him and said, “I am Daviot. Your name?”

“Tal,” he said. “Shall I arrange your bath, Master Daviot?”

I nodded.

He left the room and I stood awhile, absently turning the bracelet, pondering Lan’s words. There are Changed who will know its meaning and give you help, should you need it. It may prove useful, Daviot. Ward it well, and do Truemen ask what it is, say no more than a trinket. There had seemed to me then, and did still now, a promise given with the gift. It had seemed to me a passport of some kind into that society Lan had revealed, and I had assumed it should be recognized by all the Changed. Now it appeared otherwise. I began to wonder if the culture of the Changed was no less intricately layered than that of Truemen. Perhaps Lan represented some faction, some group from which Tal was isolated. I thought Urt must be a member-Lan had known of him, and our friendship had clearly counted in my favor. I studied the bracelet, frowning, more intrigued than ever.

Then Tal came back, two hulking bull-bred Changed bearing a tub and water, and I set aside my musings in favor of the idler luxury of the bath.

As I lay there I heard a clattering from the yard below, as of armored riders, and distantly I thought I heard Rekyn’s name called. I leaped from the tub, careless of the puddles I left behind as I crossed to the window and peered down. I saw a double squadron of horsemen dismounting, Cambar’s plaid bright through the dust that cloaked them. Rekyn was there, dust on her face and raven hair, paling her black leathern gear. I saw bodies lifted down, and several wounded. I turned away, seeking a towel, and when I returned to the window, Rekyn was