we’re taken there, though why I cannot say.”
Rwyan said, “By the God,” in a hushed voice, her own fears forgotten in light of the picture I painted. Then: “Daviot, why did you not speak of this before?”
“I’d not much to say,” I returned her. “That I suspected?”
“You saw Changed and Sky Lords come together!”
Her voice accused me. I said, “Aye, the once, in a lonely place. Had I spoken out then, what should the outcome have been? A pogrom? Good honest folk like Pele and Maerke made suffer? Innocent Changed punished for crimes not theirs?”
I think that had we not found ourselves in such circumstances, Rwyan would likely have reported all this to Ynisvar’s mage, certainly to her College. Such was her sense of duty. But then, had matters proceeded normally, I’d have been put ashore at Ynisvar and she known none of it. As it was, I found it a palliation to unburden myself, even though she stiffened and pulled away from me, her forehead creased in a frown.
I’d believed her lost twice now: I’d not lose her again. I said, “Rwyan, do you believe me a traitor?”
She made no reply, as if she pondered the question. I went on, “Had I spoken of all this, think you the keeps should not have sent the warbands out against the Changed? Guilty and innocent alike? Think you there’d not have been terrible bloodshed?”
I waited until she nodded silent agreement. “And think you we Dhar treat the Changed fairly?” I asked her. “In Durbrecht, I named Urt my friend, and he gave no offense save to aid you and I to meet. He did no more than Cleton, yet he was banished to Karysvar-sold off, as if he’d no say in his own fate; no more say than any Changed. We
“But they’re not! They’ve feelings like any Trueman. I’ve had kindness of them, and I’ve seen fear in them. I’ve played with their children. In the name of this God you call on, they have children and marry and love, just like Truemen. Yet we see them as beasts still, to be bought and sold, their lives decided for them, as if they’d not minds of their own, could not think. I know they do. I know them for folk neither worse nor better than we Truemen.
“So-knowing that-should I have consigned them to pogrom, to annihilation? I saw only a handful deal with the Sky Lords-perhaps some renegade group, gone into the hills. I know not; only that I’d not see such as Pele and her little ones, or Urt, brought down for a thing not their doing. I tell you, Rwyan, our hands are not clean in this.”
There was a long silence. Tezdal sat across the cabin, his bruised face grave as he studied us. I felt the galleass shift course slightly, moving farther out to sea. Ayl looked to avoid shipping, I supposed. At that moment I did not care. I thought nothing at all of the future, only of Rwyan’s response.
The moments stretched out. I feared she condemned me, that that sense of duty she held so firm must stand a barrier between us, my confession the death knell of our love.
But this was my Rwyan, who was ever a woman unique. She took my hand, and my heart leaped. She said, “Daviot. Oh, Daviot, how long you’ve lived with this.”
I said, “There was no one I dared tell. Save you.”
She said, “You give me much to think on. I’d not seen the picture so large till now.”
“You don’t condemn me?” I asked. “You don’t name me traitor?”
“Most would.” She smiled. Faint, I thought. “I think likely all would. But then, I think any other Storyman would have straightway reported what he’d seen; and none save you perceive it so.”
“I could not do otherwise.” I shrugged, seeking those words that might explain a decision I had not properly comprehended then and did not entirely now. “I feared to see the innocent suffer.”
“You’d ever a fine conscience,” she murmured, and her smile grew warm. “I cannot condemn you for that. Traitor? No, for you did only what you believed was right. And shall I condemn the man I love?”
I sighed and touched her cheek, knowing I had not lost her. Rather, I had found her again, more truly than before, for there was no longer anything hidden between us, only honesty and trust. I felt a great wash of relief.
She leaned against me and said, “Now, do you tell me why we’re kidnapped? Why we are taken to Ur- Dharbek?”
I said, “I think the Changed perhaps inhabit Ur-Dharbek just as we Truemen occupy Draggonek and Kellambek; perhaps they’ve cities. It would seem they’ve the means of communicating with their kin in Dharbek, and they must possess some knowledge of magic.”
I hesitated then, for what I now suspected must surely frighten Rwyan, and she had already suffered enough. But she urged I go on.
I said, “Perhaps they’d learn to use it better; or learn how you employ your talent. Perhaps they took me for what I know of Dharbek, And Tezdal …” I glanced at the Sky Lord. His presence opened vistas of speculation for which I cared little. “Perhaps they league with the Kho’rabi….”
I was surprised to hear Tezdal laugh. I turned toward him, motioning that he explain.
“Save they can give back my memory,” he said, “what use shall I be? Can your sorcerers not return it, shall these others? And I owe my life to Rwyan. I’ll not betray that debt.”
His eyes challenged me to refute him. I could not: I ducked my head in agreement. I think it was in that instant I came truly to accept him. He was no longer a Sky Lord but only a comrade, caught in shared adversity. I believed him and trusted him, and that was a strange realization. But then, it was a strange day.
We sat awhile in silence, digesting all we’d said. Then Tezdal asked, “Shall the Sentinels not bring their magic against this boat?”
“Why?” Rwyan stirred in my embrace. “Save they’ve cause for suspicion, this shall appear only another ship traveling up the coast.”
“But when we do not arrive in this Durbrecht of yours?” he asked.
“Then the Sorcerous College will wonder,” she replied. “But it shall be too late then, no?”
“Perhaps not.” I was by no means certain I welcomed the direction of my thoughts, for they led to a parting of our ways. “Your College expects us?”
Rwyan nodded. “Word was sent secretly.”
I said, “The coast of Draggonek’s a longer reach than the Treppanek. So do we fail to arrive, shall the sorcerers not alert the keeps? We might be halted ere we reach Ur-Dharbek.”
“Perhaps.” Her voice was thoughtful; I heard uncertainty. “But the precise time of our arrival was never known, so they might assume the ship sunk, do the Sky Lords attack. Or Ayl has some plan.”
She touched the silver links as she spoke, nervously, and I kissed her hair. Quiet against my chest she whispered, “Daviot, whatever becomes us, know that I love you.”
I smiled at that, elation for a moment the hottest of my emotions. There seemed not much more to say, and we fell again into silence.
The days passed, the one blending furnace-hot into the next. We were fed well enough, and at night allowed brief freedom to walk the deck. We spent our time in talk and such fitful sleep as prisoners find, needed less for its restoration than as refuge from boredom. I told my tales, first those I thought should not offend Tezdal, then all of them. He showed no affront when I spoke of the battles between his people and mine, but rather a keen interest, as if he hoped to find in the stories some clue to his past, some reminder of who he was. I sought to help him down that road. I employed all those techniques taught me in Durbrecht, employed every artifice at my disposal; but none worked. His past remained a mystery.
He showed me those exercises his body remembered, telling me how he’d used them on the rock, and we performed the routines together.
Rwyan told of his finding, and of her life before and after. We confessed to the lovers we’d taken and consigned them to our separate pasts. We talked of magic, openly; of that possessed by the Dhar sorcerers and of that strange command of the elementals and the weather that the Sky Lords owned. I learned much of Dharbek’s sorcerers, and she of what it is to be a Storyman.
At night, in whispers, Rwyan and I spoke of our dreams and were surprised at the similarities we discovered. It was as though our minds had somehow remained all the time linked, despite the leagues and years that had lain between us.
