Solamnic. You will put on the armor, and then… well, we shall see what happens. I trust that the armor will do its job.'
It did not sound all that foresighted to me. And yet Bayard's words were bolstering, as if he believed that something would come to pass when I put on the armor. Instantly I thought of legends: of Arden Greenhand, whose magical armor would change into a cloud at his bidding, or of Sir Lysander of Hylo, whose breastplate bore a map of the world that could transport him across the continent to any body of land he touched upon that map.
And yet, despite our tugging and tying, the armor I wore was secondhand, far too loose for me, and far too ordinary. Not only was it scarcely the stuff of legends, it was not a bit magical or fanciful or even all that attractive to begin with.
'The armor's job here seems to be to weigh me down and net me in its laces, sir,' I argued. 'But I am sure you have a deeper insight into this mystery.'
'Luskinian ethics,' Bayard said proudly.
'I beg your pardon, sir?'
'Surely you know the luskin, Galen? Surely Gileandos taught you that much.'
'My education has been uneven, sir, guided by Gileandos's gin and whim, it seems. I obviously don't know what you want me to know about the luskin. A little gray bird, as I recall. A sometime singer who relies on the other birds to raise its young.'
'Who in their youth behave as sparrows or starlings,' Bayard added. 'Or wrens or whatever, depending on whose nest their mother chooses to leave them in.'
'All well and good, Bayard, and masterful natural history. But I don't see-'
'Luskinian ethics. 'If you look like one and are treated like one, the time will come when you act like one.' '
'This is not a great insight, sir.'
'Nonetheless. Finish with the armor.'
As I assembled myself quietly, giving last attention to the polish of the helmet, its crest, and its foolish feather, which looked as though a bird-a luskin, I hoped devoutly-had plunged to its death atop my head, Raphael returned bearing a sword the likes of which I dreaded he would bring back-a big, two-handed appliance as long as I was tall and heavy enough to set me unbalanced as I walked. I lifted it over my head with a grunt, then painfully slipped it into the scabbard at my waist, where it rested awkwardly, a good six inches of its blade still uncovered.
'I fear I have cracked through my eggshell into an eagle's nest,' I complained to Bayard, who chuckled again and shook his head.
I shivered, and not with the wind that was rising higher and higher again, rattling the windows and coursing underneath the sill, where it staggered the flame of a candle and lifted a paper from my desk. Raphael moved quickly to shut the window more tightly as Bayard stepped to the door and, opening it, turned and beckoned to me.
It was an ominous image, as though again I was called into the heart of the stones.
Yet this ceremony was what I had trained and waited for, the moment I had achieved despite the predictions of almost everyone in Castle di Caela. Gathering whistle and gloves, I stuffed them into the pocket of my tunic and, my hands clammy but unshaking, pinned my cape about my shoulders with the opal brooch.
'Tonight you could almost pass for chivalrous, Galen,' Bayard conceded as I followed him into the corridor and, in a swim of candles and music, descended the stairwell into the Great Hall.
I remember that night only fitfully. The torchlight from the sconces in the Great Hall of Castle di Caela shone brightly and deeply on the dark tables and the flushed faces of visitors-for after all, I had delayed matters, and wine had passed freely in the meantime.
It shone on the faces of my Pathwarden kin: my father, proud, rising to his feet in spite of himself with some of his old military firmness as Bayard handed me the sword. The others, noticing the old man's gesture and mistaking it for something we did at such times in Coastlund, stood also.
Nobody ever knew it was Father's private way of thanking the gods that one of his sons-even if it was the least promising of the three-had finally put on Solamnic armor. But Sir Robert stood, and Ramiro, and Brandon after them, and then even those self-important bluestockings Elazar and Fernando.
Dannelle di Caela stood also, though she did not seem to revel in it. She stared through me with those brilliant green eyes, and I hoped devoutly that she did not believe the rumors. In dismay, I realized I had forgotten her glove entirely and that the single foolish feather was my helmet's only adornment.
I remember the chant of an elven bard, the choiring women who heralded my approach to the place of honor on the raised platform. My brief but full enjoyment of the scarcely hidden contempt on the face of Gileandos, and the faint, surprising remorse I felt to see Alfric stand in my honor, his eyes dull, expressionless, and distracted, as though he labored under a strange and mortal disease.
I remember the ceremony itself. Remember kneeling as Bayard, Sir Robert, and my father stood before me, their large hands on the pommel of my sword, and the solemn words I must keep secret passed between us in whispers as the music swelled and deepened. Then the Vow of the Sword, the Crown, and the Rose-to defend, to adhere, and above all, to understand.
Then Bayard's hands pressed upon my shoulders and turned me to face those gathered in the hall, and my eyes passed over all of them.
Over Brandon, who stared toward the huge marble fireplace, unfocused and sad, as though he looked through the flames onto a distant, wronged country.
Over Ramiro, who stopped wrestling with a side of beef long enough to pay polite attention to what transpired on the platform in front of him.
Over Marigold, who mouthed something delightful and alluring and almost obscene when she caught my eye.
Over Dannelle, who turned away.
Then over Gileandos, distant and disdaining. Over Alfric, who looked up at me with a strange half-smile, then averted his eyes, staring disconsolately at the untouched food on his platter.
Bayard stepped down from the dais into the midst of my people, his big hands raised in solemn triumph. Flanking him, my father and Sir Robert marched to their seats, their years falling away with each measured step until, standing beside their chairs, softened and redeemed by the shifting firelight, you could squint and see them as they must have appeared a half century before in the pass at Chaktamir, the Nerakan army bearing down on their small but resolute band.
All eyes were on me now, all the guests facing me. I raised my borrowed sword, and like the older Knights had told me would happen, like none of the wise men-not even Gileandos — could ever explain, the blade of the sword shimmered with a thousand colors: through greens and yellows and reds into others I cannot name because I had never seen them until this night.
Through it all, the choir sang a ceremonial hymn as old as the Age of Light:
From the dark, color-spangled hall, a man's voice- Fernando's, I believe-joined in the chorus. Then Bayard took up the song, and Father, and the others.
I tried to join in, but the words shifted in and out of my recollection. Instead of the images of the six ages of
