The reign of Istar

'Come back in two days,' she said. As he turned to go, she laid her hand on his arm. 'And come back often after that.'

He noticed how clear her eyes were, how soft her voice could be.

'You'll need to talk, and I — ' She looked suddenly embarrassed and straightened her gown, patted her hair over her ears. 'You're like no one I've met. I love strange places and strange men.'

As he left, he heard her singing, in a clear, young voice, ' 'Return his soul to huma's breast…'

' Moran had sung the song himself, in a voice cracked with grief, two days ago. To his surprise, he came back to see her within a week after the funeral.

On the front wall of the classroom hung a tapestry (on loan from the permanent gallery of the city fathers) picturing knights riding silver and gold dragons, aiming lances at red dragons and riders. The dragons, woven in metal thread, glittered disturbingly in the grim gray hall.

The novices were excited. Two of them were leaping benches in mock swordplay, and almost all of the rest were ringed around the term's first fight: two boys, rolling on the floor.

Moran strode into the room, carrying two breastplates. The boys froze in place, then drifted to seats. Tarli's lower lip was bleeding. Another novice — Saliak, Moran noted — had bloody knuckles.

Oh-ho, Moran thought. It's starting already. He walked in silence to the flat table below the tapestry and turned to face the novices, who were now sitting quietly on the low wooden benches. Only Tarli, sitting apart from the others, was too short for his feet to touch the floor.

Two other novices sat apart: the ungainly tall boy, and the fat one. Moran, from long experience, knew that the three would be targets in the barracks.

He slammed one of the breastplates on the table. It clanged loudly. All the boys jumped.

'This,' he said coldly, 'is the armor of a Knight of the Sword. The hole you see was made in combat, by a lance.'

This,' he said, slamming the second breastplate on the table, 'was worn in the last week of drill by a novice, training to become a squire. The hole was made in practice, by a lance.

'The holes are exactly alike. So were the wounds — both fatal.'

In the silence that followed, a number of boys glanced at each other nervously.

'Can a lance really go through armor like that?' Tarli asked with interest.

Silently, Moran turned the breastplates around, showing the small exit holes the lance points had made. One of the novices gagged.

Moran looked and found him. 'Janeel. You have something to say?'

The boy coughed, cleared his throat. 'Sir, if it would help the training, my father knows a true healer.'

Moran said flatly, 'While you are training there will be no plate armor and no healers.'

He let that sink in. 'The greatest favor that I can do the Knights of Solamnia is to kill any of you who can't defend yourselves, before you fail in the field, where other knights are depending on you. When a novice dies, I offer thanks to Paladine that it happened here and not later. That is why' — he lowered his voice slightly — 'I give you every chance to die that I can manufacture, before you are even squires.'

Moran moved to the door at the back of the room. 'I'll be back. If any of you want to leave, do it now.' He eyed Saliak, who already had the look of a leader. 'Don't shame anyone into staying. That's a little like murder.'

He walked out and went to reinspect the drill equipment.

A short time later he walked back in and went straight to the front. When he turned around, he saw a group of frightened but determined novices, who had just learned that honor could be fatal but were willing to be honorable.

Where Tarli had been, he saw an empty space.

He was relieved, both for the boy and for himself, but he also felt a sudden, sharp disappointment that only the Mask kept him from showing.

'Those of you who remain,' he said, 'may die for it. Some in training, some in service, and some in combat — yes, even in these times.' The pain of this next story was duller after all these years. 'The knight I first squired for was killed in combat. I have vowed, since then, to prepare each novice well for an honorable life and a fitting death.'

They stared at him, and he let it sink in. For the first time, these boys were getting some sense of what their deaths might look like. They were also feeling, for the first time in their lives, grown-up courage.

He looked at the faces in front of him and felt relieved that Tarli had left; the boy had an innocence that would be destroyed by training -

A terrible growl came from directly underneath Saliak, who let out a startled, high-pitched shriek, leapt straight up, and scrambled over the second and third row of benches to find the door. Most of the others jumped, but settled back embarrassedly.

Saliak made it almost to the door before he turned to see. Smiling innocently, Tarli crawled out from under the front bench. He took a seat in Saliak's place.

Saliak slunk back and sat next to Tarli.

Tarli, bright eyed and grinning, said to Moran, 'Excuse me, Sire.'

The Mask stayed in place, not acknowledging what had happened, but Moran didn't miss the stony glares of the embarrassed novices, or the utter hatred on the face of the humiliated Saliak.

Tarli, Tarli, Moran thought with a surprising rush of exasperated fondness, I couldn't have charted a rougher path for you than you just mapped out for yourself.

When class was over, Rakiel stepped out from behind the dragon-covered tapestry. He'd been observing. 'What do you think of them?' he asked.

'The usual,' Moran answered shortly. 'Too much ambition, too much energy, not enough thought.'

Rakiel chuckled. 'And can you make them think?'

'Fear can.' Moran looked out the window, saw Saliak take an ill-advised swipe at the back of Tarli's head. Tarli heard it coming — how, Moran couldn't imagine — and ducked the blow. Saliak stumbled. Tarli, stepping aside, let him fall. Saliak, without getting up, threw a well-aimed stone, which struck Tarli in the shoulder.

Moran turned from the window. 'This afternoon we start with the first lance drill. That would scare anyone. They'll think about what they're doing, from then on.'

'Even that Tarli?' Rakiel shook his head. 'Face it, he's not fit to be here. He's a head shorter than any of them, and he's making enemies already.' He grimaced with distaste. 'Moreover, he plays jokes like a kender. Frankly, I don't think some paltry lance drill will make him think.'

' 'Some paltry drill'? Perhaps you should try it, then.'

Rakiel glanced at the tapestry; his eyes lingered on the lance points. 'Some other time. Draconniel tonight?'

Moran glanced pointedly at the niche behind the tapestry. 'I'll be observing the boys tonight. Over dinner? It would be my pleasure.' And, oddly, it was a pleasure. At least Rakiel was someone to talk to.

The oddity didn't escape Rakiel. ' 'Your pleasure'? Really, Moran, you must be starved for company.'

He was lonely for the first time in his life.

He spent most of the summer with her. first he told her about places he'd visited, then he talked about talisin and how it had hurt to see him die in some minor skirmish with a bunch of goblins. Finally he told her his deepest secret: that he was no longer sure what being a knight meant, and that he wondered whether or not, by doubting the measure, he had violated the oath. Loraine laughed, as she often did, and told him he was too serious. He tried to ruffle her hair, as he often did, and as always she ducked away under his hand. Every morning that summer, Moran woke up angry. At night, anger turned to passion, as it sometimes does to make aging men feel young. He lay awake for hours the night Loraine, leaping up, kissed his nose (he caught her, as he always did) and said, 'I hope your honor is never as soft as your touch.' is it, he wondered? Do I want to stay a knight and live for a war that will never come, or would I rather give my whole life to Loraine? That was eighteen summers ago, shortly before Tarli was born.