Lords of the Sky

“My parents served Kembry Keep,” he said. “I was born there. I came here when I was ten years.”

“Would you go back?” I asked.

He studied me a moment, his expression enigmatic. Then he shrugged and said, “One keep is much as another to we Changed. Lord Yanydd is kinder than the aeldor of Kembry, but otherwise there’s little difference.”

“But your parents,” I said. “Would you not see them again, were it possible?”

“It’s not,” he said. “I cannot travel as do you, free. Why dwell on the impossible?”

His tone was fatalistic, and I could not discern any regret in his expression or stance. I frowned: I spent much time dwelling on the seemingly impossible. I pondered the possibility of peace with the Sky Lords, I thought on the condition of the Changed, I wondered about the dragons of legend. It seemed to me that dreams were necessary. I said as much to Lan.

He smiled then and said, “Perhaps that is a difference between us, Daviot. We Changed have not the same feelings for family and past as you Truemen. Our lot is different-perhaps dreams should only bring us pain.”

“You’ve no feelings for your family?” I asked him.

“I think not as you do,” he answered. “Magic made us from the beasts, and beasts have few feelings for their sires, eh?”

“But you are not beasts,” I cried. “Don’t name yourself an animal!”

“I don’t,” he said gently. “But neither do I claim the same affection for kin and hearth as Truemen.”

I nodded, accepting. I thought perhaps I grew so ardent in my feelings for the Changed that I began to think them mirrors to my image. But they were not-as Lan pointed out, they were descended from animals, and though they were now (of this I should not be dissuaded) become far more than their progenitors, still they lived their lives to a different rhythm than I and my kind. It did not render them inferior, only different.

“But dreams,” I said. “Surely you have dreams?”

“Yes,” he allowed me, “but they are our dreams, and not like yours, I think.”

“Tell me,” I asked. “What are they?”

He shook his head, his expression veiled. “We hold our dreams private, Daviot.”

His voice was quiet, but in it I heard steel. I thought a moment to press him, and then that such as he had little enough privacy I should presume to intrude on those small areas that were his alone; not if I thought to name myself his friend. I said, “As you wish,” and he smiled again, nodding his gratitude.

“Perhaps one day you shall know them,” he said.

I said, “That should be an honor, Lan.”

He looked at me awhile, as if I puzzled him, and then he said softly, “You are a strange man, Daviot.”

The snowfall continued fourteen days, and then the sky cleared. It was good to see the blue again and the sun, for all the temperature dropped so low Mhorvyn now lay beneath a covering of white frozen hard as stone. There was no wind; the air was a knife. Water froze in the wells and cisterns, and the smoke of bonfires hung thick as folk sought to melt a way to the precious liquid. Streets that had previously resounded to the scrape of shovels now rang with the clang of pickaxes. To touch metal with ungloved fingers was to lose flesh. Yanydd opened his warehouses to distribute food stored against the possibility of siege. Ice sheeted in the harbor and the coves. The fishermen, though now able to put out, reported a dearth of fish. From the mainland, the farmers reported the ground iron hard, defying plow or harrow.

It was the same, so Laena advised me, throughout Dharbek, worse in the north. Both the Slammerkin and Treppanek were frozen over, and folk already spoke of famine. I had no great eagerness to travel in such conditions, but I had my orders and so I prepared to leave.

My last meal in Mhorvyn Keep was a solemn affair, for whilst the aeldor and the commur-mage still held their belief of Sky Lords’ magic private, it was quite impossible to quell suspicion. I had heard talk in the town, and the warband openly mooted the likelihood of occult manipulation. Also, these honest folk had grown fond of me, and I of them; I had not felt so grieved by departure since leaving Krystin in Tryrsbry.

Still, I put on as cheerful a face as I could muster and thanked them for their hospitality, urging they remain in the warmth of the hall when I at last rose to gather up my packs. I had sooner it be that way, I told them, and in deference to my wishes they came only so far as the great door.

Yanydd saw me well provisioned, my saddlebags bulked out with food and extra clothing (what little was not already on my back), and I went to the stables swathed like some mummer. My gray mare was shaggy under her winter coat and plumped by grain and leisure. She objected to the saddle, and it took some time and some adroit maneuvering to get her readied. She sensed departure and welcomed it not at all. As I led her out, I found Lan watching me. We had already said our farewells, and I was surprised to find him there. Obviously, he had slipped away from the keep, for he wore only tunic and breeks and shivered despite the braziers that warmed the stable.

“This weather suits me ill,” he said, “but there’s a thing I’d give you.”

I clutched the mare’s bridle as she stamped and gnashed her teeth, wondering what this thing could be. The Changed had few enough possessions they could afford to donate parting gifts. Thinking to be kind, I said, “Your company’s been gift enough, my friend, and all you’ve told me-your trust. There’s no need for more.”

He smiled and brought something from under his tunic, holding it toward me. It was a length of plaited hair, red and white and black, woven in alternating strands. I tethered my irritable horse and took it from him. I was not sure what it was, save a trinket given in token of burgeoning friendship, of trust between us.

I said, “My thanks,” and Lan raised a hand, silencing me.

“I’ll likely be missed ere long,” he said, “and you must go. But I wanted you to have this. There are Changed who will know its meaning and give you help, should you need it.”

There was an urgency in his voice that told me this bangle was far more than some simple token. I nodded, and he gestured that I hold out my wrist so that he might tie the thing in place.

Again I said, “My thanks,” and was about to ask elucidation, but he smiled and clasped my hand and said, “It may prove useful, Daviot. Ward it well, and do Truemen ask what it is, say no more than a trinket.”

Then, before I could say more, he moved away, swift into the shadows at the stable’s farther end. I heard a door thud closed. I looked at the bracelet, touched it, wondering at his enigmatic words as I pulled on the gloves that were another gift of this keep. The gray mare kicked a stall, reminding me that folk looked to see me emerge: I loosed her tether and led her out into the icy air.

Yanydd and his kinfolk saluted from the door, and I raised a hand in answer, then I mounted and turned my horse to the gates, on through them into the streets of the town. There were few folk abroad, save the Changed working to clear the terrible weight of snow, and to them I nodded as I passed.

I continued downhill to the barbican, where the guardsmen huddling around their brazier bade me ride careful over the causeway. I saw no sign of hazard from the sea, which lay as calm as any ocean in winter, but as I ventured out onto the neck I (or more precisely, my mare) found it slick with treacherous ice. She shrilled a protest as her hooves slithered on the sleek black surface, fighting the reins so that after a while spent in useless argument I dismounted and walked her across. We both of us were thankful to reach the farther side, for all it seemed even colder, and I paused, calming her.

The village here was all but lost under the snow, the cottages white mounds marked by their chimneys and the dark shapes of cleared doorways. All down the beach the boats lay drawn up from the water, their nets and rigging ice-rimed, glittering under the cold sun. It was a sight both beautiful and terrible. I wound my scarf closer about my face and turned my back on Yanydd’s holding, climbing the gently sloping land in a northeasterly direction.

I could not afford to delay. With luck I should reach shelter by nightfall; without the blessing of fortune I must sleep out, and I was by no means certain either my mare or I could survive a night in such awful cold. I put heels to her flanks and urged her to a canter. She responded eagerly. I think she hoped to outrun the chill.

We climbed away from the village, up through the blighted orchards and the plantations. That far the way was cleared; then we faced the unhidden effects of the blizzard.

The road disappeared. Before us lay a seemingly unending snowfield, barely interrupted by rocks that would normally have stood tall as a mounted man, and snow-drowned trees. I slowed the mare, not wishing to founder in some drift, and wondered how we should survive: it seemed impossible that we could cross such a depth of snow.

That night I found the steading Yanydd had promised and took shelter there, repaying hospitality with a story and the answering of many questions. The farm folk were not much heartened by what I told them, but I urged them to a faith I could not quite share, and in the morning they saw me well fed, vowing themselves ready for whatever might come.

They had no better idea than I what that should be.

I went on, eastward now, around the southern edge of Kellambek. It was a longer route than the trade road across the massif, but I’d no desire to chance the mountains in such weather. I’d lay no odds on surviving that and thought none could argue my choice. Did Durbrecht wish me hasten, I’d make poor speed dead.

Even so, it was no easy path I chose. Indeed, for most of the way there was no path visible, and I must go by instinct, guided by instructions received and what few signs of the marked road remained. There were but three keeps between Morvyn and Whitefish village and few enough settlements. The land rose up to meet the tumbling flanks of the massif, where the great central mountains fell down into the southern sea, and those slopes were the domain of shepherds, empty of much other habitation. There was no natural shelter, and as the day aged I grew worried.

The sun westered fast and a wind got up, edged as a razor, skirling snow in ghostly clouds. As dusk fell, worry became fear. My mare needed rest and warm stabling; I no less a fire and walls about me. Here there was nothing: the landscape was smooth as a clean-scraped plate. I pressed on for want of alternative. Then, past a huddling ridge of snow, in the slope’s lee, I saw what I took to be a shepherd’s hut. I saw a chimney but no smoke nor light. I wondered why no dogs gave warning of my approach. I felt uneasy: the sun was lost behind the ridge and twilight shrouded the lee, shadow vying with the sparkle of starlight and moonglow. I reined in and hallooed the place. When only silence answered, I shouldered the door open and went inside.

I found a single room, sizable and neat. It was sparsely furnished, the hearth cold. It was eerie.

My gray mare nickered impatiently, urging me to haste in search of stable and fodder. There was an outbuilding, but it was mired so deep in snow, I saw no way to clear an entrance and elected to grant my horse the hospitality of the cottage. I took her reins and brought her inside. She promptly kicked a chair. I bade her show some better manners, which she answered with a snort and snapping teeth, and so I stripped her down and rubbed her off, then doled her a measure of oats. That soothed her, and as she ate I set logs in the hearth and got a fire started. I was somewhat guilty at rendering this tidy home a stable, but I saw no other choice. I thought I should restore it on the morrow.

I ate. I even found a jar of distilled wine and helped myself to a cup or two. Then, with murmured thanks to my unwitting hosts, I stretched myself on the larger of the three beds and went to sleep.

That night I had a strange dream. I recall it as clearly as those others I have told. Indeed, it was linked to those others, as if some spirit of that oak grove beyond Cambar had touched me and set the dream in my head; save it now seemed to unfold like a story I could not quite understand. This is what I dreamed:

I stood again in the hurst, again enveloped in swirling gray mist, but now a brume cold as the night outside. Icicles hung from the oaks, and the ground was thick with snow. I looked about, once more finding the spectral figures of warriors locked in battle. Not of my own volition, I shouted and they ceased their fighting, all lowering their blades and axes as they turned toward me. I felt very afraid, for all they offered me no harm but only stood, a silent circle, watching me or waiting on me to shout again. I felt they expected something from me, but did not know what.

Then all were gone, and in their place stood a great throng of Changed, and they, too, were silent. Unthinking, I took my left hand from my staff and held it up, that all might see the bracelet I wore. The Changed murmured at that, but their voices were like the wash of waves and I could not discern precise words, nor gauge the import of what they said. I raised my hand higher, and it was as if my ears were unstoppered. What they said was “Urt’s Friend,” and the mist and the snow were gone, the wood lit by warm sunlight.

I raised my head. For a moment I was blinded by the sun, then my vision cleared and I saw the sky cloudless, and then abruptly filled with shadow. I heard a sound like distant thunder or the rumble of water over rocks. I felt something immense approached, something awesome and terrible in its grandeur. I raised both amulet and staff, not knowing why they should protect me or if they would. The branches of the oaks trembled; leaves fell. I was suddenly aware I stood alone. I wanted to run and could not. I wanted to cower and could not. I could only stare as the darkness coalesced.

I cried out then; I did not know whether in fear or triumph. Perhaps both, for what I saw was confirmation of a dream, a merging of hope and wonder, and very terrible.

I saw a dragon.

It was vast. Great wings, leathery and clawed like a bat’s, beat rhythmically, holding the massive bulk of the body stationary above me. I felt the beating of its wings as must a ship’s sail bellied by a storm. I felt its breath hot on my face, dry and arid as sun-baked stone. I saw such jaws as might easily encompass a horse and its rider, set with fangs akin to sword blades. A serpentine neck extended from huge shoulders, the body hided in smooth glossy blue, sleek as armor. The limbs were heavy with muscle, the forequarters shorter than the hind, all ended in articulated paws that were tipped with sharp, curved talons, all large enough to grasp a man. A tail limber as an octopus’s tentacle lashed behind. I should have been smashed down by the wind of its hovering, but I was not. I stood staring, my gaze met by great yellow eyes that observed me with an alien intelligence. I felt myself judged.

What conclusions this oneiric beast reached, I did not know. I was trapped by its yellow orbs as surely as any rabbit was ever held by an eagle’s implacable stare. I was lost. I felt no longer myself but a husk, as if the dragon leached out my spirit, as if it looked not at me but into me, into those secret places I kept hidden.

Then the beast craned back its great craggy head and screamed. It was the howl of a hunter, the shriek of a storm wind, the grinding of rocks in the bowels of the world. All of those: it dinned inside my head and drove me at last to my knees. And when I rose, the dragon was gone.

I opened my eyes and yelled in unalloyed terror as I felt hot breath on my face, saw eyes that I knew were real peering down at me.

My mare snorted and backed from the bed, tumbling furniture on her way. I sat up, groaning, rubbing at my eyes. I felt weary, as if I had not slept at all. I thought the dream should vanish, but it did not: it remained precise in my memory. I staggered from the bed, my legs unsteady as I found the water bucket and drank deep before giving the pail over to my horse. I was trembling, and sweat beaded my brow. I took the jug of distilled wine and gulped a cup, then sat, slumped against the table.

It was an effort to rise. I conjured the image of the dragon. I wondered if it was a true image or merely the product of my imagination. I went to the fire and stoked the embers, adding a few logs against the cold pervading the room.

My mare had soiled the floor, and I cleared her dung before heating what was left of last night’s stew. I fed her and tidied the cottage, then broke my own fast and doused the fire. I saddled her and led her out, still bemused by the odd dream. I swung the door closed and mounted. A trickle of smoke rose from the chimney, soon lost against the dawn-time gray. It was very cold, but the sun flirted on the rim of the eastern horizon, and I thought the worst of the night’s chill should be soon gone. I felt no wish to linger.

I never learned what became of the inhabitants of that cottage, though I was told their names the next night, when I sheltered in another lonely shepherd’s hut. The general opinion was that their bodies would be found come the thaw. If the thaw came: none were too sure of that.

Were they killed by this occult winter, they were not the only ones. The toll of lives and livestock was heavy throughout all Dharbek. Folk died in the lonely places, of hunger, of the cold; in the cities and settlements, too, as food grew short; fishermen drowned as ice-caked boats capsized. Deer froze in the wilderness, and wolves came down from the highlands to prey on penned sheep and cattle. I saw it all as I wound my way eastward, thankful that I survived.

I was rounding the southern coast, and Whitefish village lay not too far distant. I came to Amsbry on a day the wind hurled frozen snow like needles against my face, and I was grateful for the warmth of Perryn’s hall, the strong stone walls and stout wood shutters. It stood like an eagle’s aerie atop a cliff, and beyond the land ran down broken to the east coast. They were on short rations-all Dharbek was on short rations now, I heard-but it seemed rich fare to me after long days sharing what poor shepherds and farmers could spare. I reported all I had seen along my way to Kydal, who was commur-mage there and not much older than I, and I had back what news she could give me. It was not much, nor different from all I’d got along my way: unlikely winter prevailed, famine threatened, the Great Coming was anticipated. I remained three days and then set off for Tarvyn, which lay some nine days away.

Those nine days stretched into thirty.

I quit Amsbry with the sun a silver disk in a steel-hard sky. There was no cloud, and the snowfields shone bright, undisturbed by wind. By the midpart of the day a breeze came out of the east. I paid it no attention at first, more concerned with boiling my tea. Then my mare whickered, and when I glanced toward her, I saw she stood with head raised, her nostrils flared. She seemed expectant, and I thought perhaps she caught the scent of wolves and rose warily. A flank of hillside loomed above us, a shallow valley below, pines straggling thin over the slope. I saw no sign of predators and went to where the mare stood. She greeted me with an almost amiable snort, her head tossing, her hooves pawing. I saw that her ears were up and her eyes not rolling, which I took for confidence. I did not understand her behavior: she seemed frisky, coltish, which was not at all her way. I stroked her neck, and to my surprise she allowed it, even going so far as to nudge me in return. I frowned; then gasped as I smelled what she had sooner known: the breeze was such a draught as heralds spring.

That night we found shelter in a village. Rhysbry, it was called, and it boasted a tiny inn where I was made welcome, bed and board offered in return for my stories. I told but one: the folk of that place, who had passed the last months snowbound, were entirely occupied with the weather’s shifting. All their talk was of the breeze; of its scent and strength, its promise. Spring came, they said, and soon the snow should be gone. My weather lore was no less than theirs, and I must agree it was a spring wind; but even knowing all I did of the sorcerers’ beliefs, still I could scarcely credit so sudden an ending of the Sky Lords’ winter.

The next day, however, the gusting came again, and the sky was a warmer blue, the sun golden, and the air warm enough I shed my scarf. By noon, I rode without my cloak. By dusk, my mare’s hooves left deep prints in which water puddled, and when I halted at a shepherd’s cottage, I must walk her awhile to cool her. That night I threw off my blanket.

As I readied for departure the shepherd, whose name was Tarys, gave me warning.

“You ride for Tarvyn, no?” he said, and when I confirmed this: “Then best ride careful, Daviot. ’Tween here and the keep, the way’s all valleys and ravines, and does spring come on us swift as this God-cursed winter, there’ll be flooding with the melt.”

He stabbed a thumb skyward in emphasis. I looked up and saw a spring sky; the air was balmy, and I suspected he might well be correct. I thanked him, and he ducked his white head, declaring that he’d not see a Storyman drowned. I mounted my mare and turned her east, thinking that he gave me sound advice: I came to accept the winter fled.

Clear of the high country, the slopes were forested, and all that day water dripped relentlessly from the branches overhead, and the snow beneath my mare’s hooves grew soft, rivulets forming to trickle downslope. For all I sweated under it, I donned my cloak. I studied the valley bottoms and ravines carefully and saw the streams there swollen, no longer iced, but running swifter and gray with snowmelt. In the afternoon, as I crossed a valley, I heard a rumbling from the far slope and saw a great mass of snow break loose, trees and boulders tossing in its passage, leaving behind a scar of muddy brown earth. I began to worry again.

I found no shelter that night, for I was forced to detour from my route by three more avalanches. I made camp atop a ridge spread with looming cedars that no longer dripped, which in itself was disturbing, for they should not have dried so soon. Neither should the ground there have been visible yet. It was as though the seasons accelerated, winter fleeing before onrushing spring in a matter of days. I wondered what manner of summer might follow.

Whatever it should be, I did not think I should need wait long to find out. Day by steady day, the temperature rose. I could no longer follow my chosen path, for I must all the time ride around landslips or find some way over streams become rivers, rivers swollen to torrents. Valleys lay waterlogged, bridges were washed away, and fords become impassable. Pastureland was rendered quagmire, swaths cut through timber. I saw animals-sheep and cattle and horses, deer and wild pigs, twice bears-washed drowned and bloated past me. Sometimes I saw human bodies, tumbled by so swift, I could not tell whether they were Truemen or Changed. When I found the road, it was awash with mud and ofttimes blocked by the detritus of landslides. Farms and villages stood wet and miserable, and everywhere folk told sad tales of ruined planting, of fields lost to the excessive melt, of deaths by drowning or landslide. They forecast a poor harvest, if any harvest at all might be reaped. And all the while the heat increased, until all the snow was gone and it seemed Kellambek was become a land of swamps and lakes. It seethed under the sun, vapors rising thick as mist from ground that dried as rapidly as it had flooded. Save our world was somehow drawn closer into the sun’s orbit, there could no longer be any doubt that frightening magic was brought against us.

By the time I reached Tarvyn, the floods were gone and the earth baked as if midsummer were come. Rivers that had run in spate were now thin streams, streams were dry gutters. Trees that had been denied the chance to bud stood withered, what grass had not been washed away lay sere. There were fires in the hills and dread throughout the land.

Tarvyn Keep stood beside the sea, where the southern ocean met the Fend. The sun sparkled off slow waves and the still air was heavy with the odor of rotting seaweed. Boats stood along the beach with tar oozing melted from their caulking, their crews lounging idle, paying me only the slightest attention, as if the heat leached out their curiosity. I rode in shirt-sleeves, a cloth wound around my forehead to hold off the sweat that would otherwise blind me. My gray mare had long since lost her springtime friskiness and walked sullen, her head low, panting in the excessive heat. She seemed not even to have the vitality of her usual ill temper. Nor was I in much better fettle. This heat-and belief in its origin-drained hope as surely as it leached energy. I thought it must be very hard to fight in such weather.

We plodded slowly to the keep’s entrance, and I announced myself to gatemen whose look reminded me of boiled lobsters. They waved me by as if that effort cost them dear. As I crossed the yard, I saw folk all languid in the heat, stripped to decency’s minimum of clothing. There was no breeze, for all the sea was but a stone’s throw distant, and the aeldor’s banners hung limp from the tower. I dismounted, shirt and breeks clinging wet to my body, and walked my horse into the stable. It was thankfully a little cooler there, but not much, and the Changed ostlers who came to offer help plodded like their equine forebears. I gave them the warning that had become my custom and saw to the mare myself. She made no protest as I removed her tack and rubbed her down, not even her habitual attempt to bite me. I thought I had rather suffer her temper than see her thus.

I gave her oats and water and went to find Madrys, whose holding this was.

He was in the hall, a thin young man whose red hair was plastered slick to his skull. He rose to greet me, and when I made my excuses for this late arrival, he waved a weary hand and told me he knew of the road’s difficulties. He introduced me to his wife, Rynne, whose pale yellow gown was patched dark at breast and armpits. She held a baby that mewled, his tiny face bright red; for him and all the children, I felt most sorry. There was an air of lassitude in this hall; only the commur-magus Tyrral seeming unaffected by the heat. I was invited to take ale chilled in the well and sat sipping as Changed servants fanned us. Their efforts seemed only to stir the overheated air that had succeeded in pervading even the cool stone of the keep.

I gave brief report of my journey from Amsbry and had back the news that Tarvyn had not long since seen two of the Sky Lords’ little craft, as if they came to check their occult handiwork. Madrys appeared resigned or drained of optimism, though he assured me his warband stood ready to fight. Tyrral was more sanguine. Indeed, he treated his aeldor brusquely, as if the younger man’s apathetic mood irritated him. As soon as was polite, I asked if I might bathe and change-and was shocked to be told fresh water was in short supply. I had thought the snowmelt must fill the aquifers.

I remained only a few days in Tarvyn. I gave them my best stories, tales of glorious victories and great battles, but received only a lackluster response. For all Tyrral put on a brave face, there was a feeling of despair about the keep, as if aeldor and warband had already given up. It saddened me, but also it threatened to affect my own spirits.

Also, I was now close enough to Whitefish village I thought of reunions, of seeing again my kinfolk and childhood friends, and that spurred me to impatience. So, pleading an urgency imposed by my delayed arrival, I made my excuses soon as was decent and left that sad keep behind me.

Within seven days I saw the boundary stones that marked the limit of Madrys’s holding and the commencement of Cambar land. Within seven more I came home.

It is a strange experience to go home after years away in a wider world. I had left Whitefish village an innocent, eager to experience the marvels of Durbrecht and all that lay beyond. Even then, I had had that double-edged gift of memory, and it fixed my home in my mind as it had been and was that day I departed. The village and its folk had been all my world, and I could yet conjure clear those impressions of my youth, so that-for all I knew I had changed-still I perceived my home immutable, preserved thus in my mind as the lapidaries set insects or flowers in glass. But places and people, both, shrink as we grow. Things change, and yesterday is a country of the memory that is no longer quite what you recall; even for a Mnemonikos.

I came north up the inland road, turning to the coast along the track that crested the pine-clad cliffs of my infancy to run down to Whitefish village. The meadowland there was parched, the grass sere, the soil cracked as an ancient face. The trees stood desiccated, needles fallen too soon crackling under my gray mare’s hooves. I halted atop the bluff, suddenly nervous. Below me stood a huddle of rude cottages such as should barely fill one of Durbrecht’s plazas. Along the beach stood fishing boats, beyond them the Fend, brilliant under the remorseless sun. There was no breeze-I had not felt a breeze in days-and the village baked. It seemed to me a poor, rough place, and I felt ashamed to think it so: I heeled my mare and took her down the slope.

I felt an odd admixture of anticipated pleasure and wariness as I reined in outside my parents’ cottage (I could no longer properly think of it as home) and dismounted. A woman with gray streaking her hair rose from a chair set in the shade of a sailcloth canopy, wiping hands slimed with fish scales on her grubby apron. Her hands were rough and red and her face darker than I recalled. I felt my heart lurch. I said, “Mam,” and she smiled and cried out, “Daviot,” and ran to embrace me. I hugged her. Her head reached no farther than my chest. She seemed frail. When she leaned back to study my face, there were tears in her eyes, and she gazed at me as if she could not believe I was truly there.

I said, “You’re well?” and she nodded, and held me tighter, and began to cry against my shirt. Almost, I wept for the joy of seeing her again. I felt embarrassed, but after a while she stilled her weeping and let me go, wiping at her eyes.

All in a rush she said, “Oh, Daviot, you’ve come home. You’ve grown so. Shall you stay?”

“Only for a little while,” I said. I felt abruptly awkward, not wishing to dampen her joy with news I’d soon be gone. “I’m ordered north, to Cambar first, but then on.”

She stared at me, smiling as only a mother ever does. “You’re taller,” she said. “And so grand, with your fine horse. Is that a Storyman’s staff? Are you truly a Rememberer now?”

“Yes,” I told her, and she beamed.

“Your father will be so proud.” She touched my cheek. “I’m proud. Our Daviot-a Storyman!”

I shrugged, embarrassed, and asked, “Where is Da?”

“At the beach,” she said. “Daviot, he’ll be so pleased to see you.”

I said, “And Delia and Tonium-where are they?”

My mother blinked then, and sniffed, and I saw pain in her eyes. “Tonium was drowned,” she said, at which I felt a stab of grief for all we’d not much liked one another. “Delia wed a lad from Cambar-Kaene-and lives there now.”

I said, “I didn’t know about Tonium. I’m sorry.”

She shook her head, dismissing grief. Fisherfolk learn that early. “How should you?” she asked. “You away in Durbrecht. We heard the city was attacked, and I feared for you. Oh, Daviot, it’s so good to see you. Are you truly well? You look thin. Do you eat enough?”

Those questions mothers ask came in a flood that I could scarcely dam with my answers. I felt twelve years old, but finally she took my hands and declared that we must find my father, lest I spend all my time repeating myself. I asked that I first might stable my mare, and so she walked with me to Robus’s barn, where I rubbed down the gray horse and saw her watered. I warned Robus of her temper, and he studied her and me with wary eyes, as if I came back some lord, unsure how he should address me. I thought him plumper than ever, and aged. I promised him a story later; I promised all the village a story, but after I had greeted my father and my other kin. As my mother and I walked to the beach, he was trotting amongst the cottages, shouting the news that Daviot was come home a Storyman.

My father sat with Battus and Thorus, working on their boat. Save that gray streaked their hair and their faces wore more lines, the years might not have passed. Then they rose, and I saw that for all that time and hardship had left their marks, still these three were hale. My father took my hand. He must tilt back his head to meet my eyes. Then he smiled and said, “Daviot,” and took me in his arms, which told me he was still strong, for I felt my chest crushed, my breath expelled by his fierce embrace. I felt a great surge of love for this aged man, so that my throat clogged and for a while I could not speak, only hold him and whisper, “Da,” as if I were a child again.

Thorus and Battus each shook my hand, and Thorus pointed to the knife I wore. He said, “You’ve the blade still.”

“I’d not lose a good knife,” I told him, and he nodded, taciturn as ever.

Work ceased: we went to Thorym’s aleshop. He, a tad gaunter but otherwise not much changed, greeted me as a long-lost friend. He filled us mugs in welcome as all the village folk gathered.

It was strange to see their faces again, sprung sudden on me without the softening acceptance of slow-passing time. Tellurin and Coram both came, grown men now, with shy-eyed wives at their sides, children staring nervously from the shelter of their mothers’ skirts.

A mantis arrived, not my old tutor (he had died two years agone, of a summer fever) but a thin young man, intense of face, whose name was Dysian.

We drank; I was plied with questions. I asked how they had fared through the winter, and how they did now in this tropic summer.

The answer was no more, neither better nor worse, than I had expected. I had heard much the same along my way and should hear it all up the coast. The winter had been harsh-the Fend too storm-tossed for safe fishing, the catches too poor; some had drowned; some had died of the cold. The sudden thaw, the sudden summer made things no better-without a wind, the fishing remained hard; it seemed the ocean grew too warm, there were few fish. There had been no winter planting, nor in the brief spring; now there was no point-seedlings died in this heat. Water was in short supply, the brooks arid, the springs become drying puddles.

The afternoon aged. A mild spring evening should have followed, but it seemed the sun’s passage was hindered, the hard gold-silver disk lingering like a glaring eye in the unbroken blue above. I opened my purse to hand Thorym hoarded durrim, that the ale keep coming. None seemed disposed to leave, and after a while, by some unspoken agreement, a meager feast took shape. I felt both proud and guilty that I be deemed worthy of the honor and determined that they should have the very best of me when I told my tales.

So we ate and drank as the sun moved slowly westward, sultry twilight finally cloaking the village in shadow. The heat did not abate, as if the gibbous moon that climbed above the Fend took the sun’s place to scorch the land. I thought then of how this used to be so peaceful a time. The sea’s slow wash had been a lullaby then, the breeze a balm; men would gather to sup ale, and mothers would set children abed. Innocent days: gone now. I looked about, aware of tension, aware that folk drank less to slake thirst than in search of comfort. There was a somewhat fevered air to their celebrating, as if my presence afforded an excuse to indulge, perhaps to forget for a little while what cares should face them with the morrow’s dawning. I found a sadness growing in me, for them and all Dharbek. When I rose to speak, I think I made good my promise to myself: no aeldor in his keep ever had better storytelling of me.

By the time I was done, full night had advanced. Mothers gathered reluctant children and folk began to drift away. In time only those who had been closest, and Dysian, remained. The women left us, all save my mother, who sat beside me, sometimes touching my sleeve as if to reassure herself I was truly there.

Coram said, “So you’ve fought the Sky Lords, eh?”

I nodded, not much wishing to speak of that, for my mother’s sake and my own. Dysian muttered, “May the God curse them. May he destroy them all. He’ll not allow the cursed Dark Ones to overrun his chosen country.”

I considered his faith blind. It seemed to me the God, if he existed, paid Dharbek little heed. Still, I’d no wish to make the Church my enemy, and so I said mildly, “I’d not venture to interpret the God’s will, but it’s the opinion of Durbrecht and the Lord Protector that likely the Sky Lords plan their Great Coming this year, or next. … No one is sure. The God willing, the sorcerers will find ways to strengthen the Sentinels and halt them-”

I broke off as Dysian snorted and my mother gasped. My father said, “What should we do?”

It was strange to hear my father ask advice of me: things change. I said, “Do they come, I doubt they’ll attack the villages.”

I spoke with far more confidence than I felt, but I’d no desire to see fresh tears in my mother’s eyes or rob my father of hope. I held back my doubts and kept my secrets close.

My mother yawned then, and I realized it was only my presence kept her. The moon was overhead by now, and were I not come home, she’d have been long abed. No less the others, who seemed now to linger only in hope of comfort I could not give them, save with soft words that skirted around what I believed was the truth. I emptied my mug and declared myself weary.

“How long shall you stay?” my father asked.

I hesitated. I was both tempted to linger and eager to be gone. It was far easier to assume a brave face amongst strangers, to tell folk I’d not met before and should soon enough leave that all should be well, but amongst these old friends, my parents, it was hard. Almost, I told him I must depart with the dawn, but I thought that should be unkind, that it were almost better I had not halted here at all. So I smiled and said, “Tomorrow, Da. But then I’d best go on. They’ll have sent word from Tarvyn, and Cambar must expect me.”

“Best not keep the aeldor waiting,” he said, in a voice aimed at reminding the others that his son consorted with the mighty.

That night I slept in my old bed and dreamed I was a child again, carefree.

I woke to the smell of baking. My mother knelt by the hearth, smiling as I emerged, indicating the biscuits she made. They had always been a favorite delicacy, and I voiced my thanks even as I wondered if she could afford such largesse. I thought it should hurt her more did I protest and so said nothing, but went out to the well. As I drew up the bucket, I saw the rope was lengthened: I used only a little water.

We ate-the biscuits and thin porridge-and spoke of the years betwixt my departure and now. I said little of Rwyan, and save for expressing sympathy, they were tactful enough not to press me. I promised I should visit Delia. Then we all three walked to the beach, where Thorus and Battus waited. It was not long past dawn, but already the sand was hot, the air turgid. There were no clouds nor any breeze, and the sun seemed to blister the sky. The Fend rolled lazy, as if this awful heat robbed even the sea of vitality. We launched the boat, and I usurped Thorus at the oars-it was pointless to raise the sail. I brought us out to the fishing grounds and sat panting. My body had forgotten what hard work this was.

From the tiller my father fixed me with a look I remembered well. It was the way he had studied me when I was caught in some unadmitted prank. It was a look that said he knew what I held back, but had sooner I confess of my own volition. I felt immediately guilty.

He stared at me awhile longer and then said, “So, do you tell us? There are no women or children to frighten out here, and we’d know the worst if it’s to come.”

I had thought I hid my true feelings. From any others I likely had, but these had known me from my birthing, and my father saw deep into me, past my defenses. I wished then I had not come home. I sighed and began to speak.

I told them all I had seen, and all I believed (save for that one sighting of Kho’rabi and Changed together), and when I was done, there was silence, broken only by the mewing of optimistic gulls.

I was thankful that we spoke no more on such matters. By unspoken consent we turned our conversation to the mundane-or what in such times passed for mundane-talk of catches and the problems this heat afforded honest fishermen. We went a long way out, farther than ever I had been as a boy, far enough the southernmost of the Sentinels was just visible, low against the horizon. I wondered if Rwyan might be on that island. Perhaps she turned her blind eyes to the sea and found a boat there and thought of the fisherman’s son she had loved. I pushed those thoughts away and took a hand as we set the net. There was still too much pain in those memories.

Our catch was poor, and after some hours we turned for land. It was the midpart of the afternoon then, and I sat helping my father with his floats as my mother prepared our evening meal.

We ate alone, but when the meal was done went back to Thorym’s aleshop, where folk already gathered in expectance of my stories. The night was no cooler than before, and it seemed to me that even the bats darting amongst the cottages flew slower. It was the bats, seeming tiny reminders of my oneiric dragon, that prompted me to recount one of the oldest of all the tales.

It was the story of the Last Dragon, and seldom told. Indeed, it was argued in Durbrecht that it had no place in our canon, for its veracity was disputed. One school of thought maintained that it was our duty to tell only such stories as were anchored firm in historic evidence, and as this had no such authority, it was best forgotten. Another, however, held that all the folk tales had a place, being part of our past gone into legend. I thought there was no harm in such old tales, and much to be lost did we forget them. Besides, I liked the story for itself.

When I was done telling it, there was a murmur of appreciation and some few chuckles.

“In the God’s name,” my father declared, “what allies the dragons should make, eh? Think on it-did the Dragon-masters live still, they might bring the beasts out against the Sky Lords. That should give them something to think about, no?”

There was laughter at his words, but I felt an odd chill run down my spine. He echoed things I’d said in Durbrecht; things I’d wondered on since. I felt-I could not define it-a kind of presentiment, as if, unwitting, he spoke with an augur’s tongue. I shaped a smile and laughed with the rest.

Thorym said, “That they would, were they not all dead and gone.”

Dysian said, his tone censorious, “The dragons preyed on men; the God gave us magic to use against them. Better put your faith in him than creatures of legend.”

I saw my father cast a dark look the mantis’s way, and my mother touch his sleeve as if in warning. I thought this intense young priest was not much liked in the village, but none spoke up against him.

I said easily, “Should it not be a fine thing, though, Dysian, if the God saw fit to give us back Dragonmasters and dragons for allies?”

He said, “What use such dreams? Both are long gone, and we must trust in the God, not fables.”

I shrugged, and motioned for Thorym to fill his mug (at which, I noticed, he did not protest), and said, still casual, “But did the God see fit … our sorcerers might ride the sky to bring their God-given magic against the Kho’rabi wizards and their boats.”

“Pah!” was all his answer, and he sank his long face in his mug. I grinned across his head at my father.

However, we spoke no more of dragons. I told another tale-that of Naeris and the White Horse-which was acceptable to Dysian and held the others rapt until its ending, and by then the hour was again late and folk began to disperse. I’d no wish to face more questions and so murmured to my mother that I’d find my bed, as I must depart on the morrow. I suspect she’d have sat all night awake to spend more time with me, but I saw her eyes grew heavy. Nor would I see my father spend more of his hard-earned durrim. My own hoard dwindled, and I had determined to leave some small coin in gratitude and as succor against the harsher times foreseen, so I said my goodnights and rose, offering my mother my arm.

That night I dreamed I walked in Cambar Wood again, and again the dragon hovered, and again I felt the creature judged me. I woke sweaty and confused and lay a long time awake listening to the small night-sounds of the cottage, the faint call of the sea. I pondered long on that and all the other dreams, wondering if they were some random invention of my imagination, conjurations of the bits and pieces of knowledge I accrued, or sendings from some power I could not define.

I fell asleep again sometime before dawn and did not wake until my parents’ movements roused me. I rose quickly, knowing that a parting no easier than before awaited me, and anxious to have it done. I bathed and dressed, thinking to put on my mended shirt, and then packed my saddlebags. Behind the curtain veiling my bed I quietly counted what coin I had left. I held back a few durrim for myself and concealed the rest beneath a pillow. My parents would find it after I was gone, when it should be too late they insist I take it back. Bags and staff in hand, I went out to break my fast.

We ate-grilled fish this morning-and I kissed my mother, embraced my father. They both put on brave faces as they escorted me to the barn and watched me saddle the gray mare. My mother cried a warning as the horse snapped her displeasure, and I assured her this was a daily ritual to which I was long accustomed arid she need not worry. (Useless advice to any mother!) I gave Robus a durrim for the stabling and mounted. I had thought to escape without fuss, but as I walked out I found Thorus and Battus, Tellurin and Corum, waiting to see me off: there was an exchange of good wishes, a clasping of hands. I feared my mother would weep. I leaned down to kiss her once more, raised a hand to my father, and turned away. My mare aided me then, for she rolled her eyes as the village folk pressed close around and set to bucking. I fought her still, but none came near after that and I was able to ride out with no prolonged farewells. They trailed after me to the cliff path, as if I were some lord with his retinue, and I waved once, and heeled the mare, and urged her swift up the slope.

The white banners of mourning hung listless over Cambar’s tower, and all the keep folk wore the ribbons on their sleeves. I was saddened when the gatemen told me Bardan was dead, slain the past year in battle with the Sky Lords, for I held fond memories of that bluff and kindly warrior. Sarun was aeldor now, and once I’d seen my mare stabled, I went to pay my respects.

I found the heir seated in the hall, alone save for a handful of warriors and a few servants. He was not much changed physically, but as he studied me with those hawkish eyes, I discerned a greater authority in him, an air of somewhat weary responsibility. At first he did not know me: I bowed, formally announcing myself, and he 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 gone. I was eager to see her at closer quarters: I dried myself hurriedly and dressed no less hastily, then quit the chamber for the hall.

It was empty, save for servants, and when I inquired after the whereabouts of the commur-mage and Sarun, I was told they spoke in the aeldor’s private quarters. I deemed it unseemly I should disturb them there and so waited in the hall. Before long, warriors began to drift in, those who had gone with Rekyn travel-stained and weary, those who had remained about the keep no less agog for word. A Kho’rabi vessel had been sighted, and Rekyn had led two squadrons in pursuit. In the ensuing fight five men had died and nine more been wounded. It was a victory, but comrades were slain; in the aftermath, the heat of battle cooled now, they seemed poised between elation and mourning. I saw women led weeping from the hall, and others joyous in their relief that their menfolk survived. I drew a mug of ale and found myself an obscure corner, where I should not intrude.

Then I was summoned to Sarun’s chambers, and the news I got was dramatic as the summer lightning that struck out of the sun-scorched sky.

The aeldor sat pale-faced behind his father’s desk, a dagger turning restlessly in his hands, as if he would find some target for the blade. Rekyn sprawled in a chair, still dusty. She seemed shocked, her green eyes dark with doubt. On both their faces I saw expressions of disbelief. I felt uneasy: this chamber held an atmosphere that set my skin to prickling.

Rekyn said, “Day’s greetings, Daviot,” and laughed bitterly. It sounded as though dust clogged her throat. “If that be right on such a day.”

I had anticipated a warmer welcome and felt a moment hurt. “Day’s greetings, Rekyn,” I returned cautiously. “It’s good to see you again. Sarun told me of Andyrt, and I-”

She shook her head, stilling my tongue. “Old grief,” she said. Her voice was curt, but I saw the flash of pain in her eyes. It dawned on me that she and Andyrt had been lovers.

Sarun gestured at a chair, and I sat, nervous. Their bodies no less than their faces told me some matter of tremendous import awaited announcement.

There was silence awhile, as if they both digested unpalatable news. I watched them, alert. I had seen such expressions before, on the faces of bereaved folk who cannot entirely grasp that a beloved is dead and would yet reject the irrevocable. I shifted uncomfortably in my chair. Then Sarun let go a gusty sigh and indicated Rekyn should speak.

The commur-mage turned toward me. She was older but little different, save for faint lines upon her brow, the arcs that curved from her nostrils to the corners of her mouth. She swallowed a long measure of ale and closed her eyes a moment.

Then, without preamble, she said, “The Lord Protector Gahan is dead.”

“What?” I started forward in my chair: I understood her preoccupation now. Gahan was not old. He had fewer years than my father. “How? Have the Sky Lords attacked Kherbryn?”

“No.” Rekyn shook her head. “He took a sickness, a little while agone. None thought it serious. Only just now, when I sent word of the Kho’rabi, did I hear of his death.”

She broke off, as if she could scarce believe what she told me. I had never thought to see her so disconcerted. I looked to Sarun and on his face saw alarm. I said, “There’s no doubt?” I knew there could not be; I wanted there to be.

“None.” Rekyn’s voice was bereft of its usual confidence. “Four days ago, he died. The palace herbalists-the chirurgeons-none could name the illness or the cure. They were helpless. They could only watch as he died.”

“How could … ?” My voice tailed off. Suddenly the heat in the room seemed more than I could bear. I loosed my shirt and, all protocol forgotten, reached for a mug, drew myself ale. Sarun offered no objection; he seemed not to notice.

“How could the Lord Protector take ill?” Rekyn shrugged, her brief smile sour. “Like any man, Daviot. Like any mortal man. There are some suggest he was poisoned.”

My mouth dropped open at that. It was unthinkable! The Lord Protector was guardian of Dharbek, temporal head of the Church, commander of all our soldiers: the keystone of our world.

“Who’d poison him?” I asked, aghast.

“Were that known, they’d be dead now,” Rekyn answered. “It’s a suspicion only.”

“No Dhar.” Sarun spoke, his voice grim. “I’d stake my life no Dhar would commit such a crime. Surely it was the Sky Lords.”

“Perhaps.” Rekyn saw me frown as I wondered how even the Sky Lords with all their occult powers might gain access to the Lord Protector, and she addressed herself to me. “They’ve a new tactic now-the God be praised we’ve not seen it here yet. They tow rafts behind their skyboats, loaded with the rotting carcasses of dead animals. They cut the rafts loose to fall on the cities, scattering the fouled meat. In this heat …”

She shrugged expressively. I felt my mouth go dry. In this heat there was already disease abroad. Not bad here along the coast, but in crowded cities, where likely refugees fled to swell the busy streets, it must be a dreadful weapon. It seemed to me an abomination. I said, “Was that the cause?”

“None know,” she replied. “Only that Gahan took sick and died. I doubt the Lord Protector could have been fouled thus. I know for certain only that he is dead.”

“Taerl is Lord Protector now. Or shall be, after the ceremonies.” Sarun barked a bitter laugh. “Sad ceremonies those shall be, eh? Gahan’s funeral followed by Taerl’s dedication.”

“Taerl’s no more than a lad.” I spoke softly: I thought that must be a dreadful responsibility, to assume the mantle of Lord Protector so young.

“He’s sixteen years.” Rekyn echoed my own thoughts. “In the God’s name, what a burden to set on him. Even with Jareth appointed Regent.”

“Jareth?” Sarun sent the dagger clattering across the desk as he rose to fill his mug. “Jareth’s likely to prove the heavier burden.”

I knew what prompted his distaste. Jareth was koryphon of Mardbrecht, the greatest of the Border Cities. That alone vested him with much power. That he was wed to Gahan’s younger sister gave him more-a claim, after Taerl (who was not yet wed), to the office of Lord Protector. Did Taerl die childless, Jareth could claim the High Throne of Kherbryn by marriage right. He was not a popular man, Jareth. It was said he made the land along the Slammerkin his kingdom, and that his tithes were enforced with a strictness bordering on the extortionate. It was said he built himself a palace to rival Gahan’s, and that he lusted after the office of Lord Protector. He had his sycophants, but I wondered how many would take his cause in battle, for he was also said to be a leader who commanded from behind.

Even as I nodded, Sarun muttered, “There are enough must object to his regency. Did he claim Kherbryn for his own …”

I asked, “Would he dare?”

Sarun only fixed me with a dour look; it was Rekyn who answered, “Jareth and Yraele have a daughter, no?” I said, “Avralle, yes.”

“Who is,” Rekyn went on, “now fourteen years of age.”

I saw it in the instant. It had not occurred to me before, because I had not thought Gahan should die so soon. I gasped and blurted out, “And in two more shall be of marriageable age.”

“Indeed,” Rekyn said. “And is Jareth regent for those two years, he might well persuade Taerl to choose his daughter for a wife.”

“Which should bind Jareth closer still,” I murmured.

“Closer?” Sarun interrupted with a snarl. “By the God, it should in all effect give him Kherbryn. He’d be Lord Protector in all but name. Perhaps that, too, does his ambition run higher than his courage.”

“And there are enough object to Jareth that some,” Rekyn turned sharp eyes on the young aeldor, “might oppose him.”

“Civil war?” I looked from one to the other. “When the Sky Lords threaten the Great Coming?”

“Not all see so far ahead as you,” said Rekyn. “There are some might well forget the greater threat.”

“I think,” said Sarun, “that which is the greater threat-Jareth or the Sky Lords-is a matter of some debate.”

I asked, “Why did Gahan name him regent?”

“That shall likely remain a mystery.” Rekyn’s voice was tired, and as she went to fill her cup, she groaned, stretching her back as if too long asaddle. “Gahan was on his deathbed when he named Jareth. Perhaps he could think of no other. Perhaps-”

Sarun’s laughter cut her off. It sounded to me like the barking of an angry hound. “Jareth came south fast enough once he’d word. By the God, he must have killed horses to reach Kherbryn so swift!”

“Perhaps Yraele persuaded Gahan,” Rekyn went on. “She’s ambitious for her husband. However it came about, the fact remains.”

“Perhaps Jareth had Gahan poisoned.”

Sarun ignored Rekyn’s gasp. He could not ignore her words, for they came furnace-hot and sharp as edged steel. “Hold such thoughts to yourself, Sarun. For Cambar’s sake! For the sake of Gwennet and Bardaen; for your unborn! Were that voiced abroad, how long do you think you’d live?”

Sarun shrugged, though he now wore a somewhat shamefaced expression. He took up his dagger again, running a thumb along the edge. “I’ll not voice them,” he muttered. “But I’ll wager I’m not the only one to hold them. For the God’s sake, Rekyn-can you tell me you’ve not wondered? Gahan dead so sudden, and Jareth come arunning? Perhaps magic was used on Gahan, to slay him or persuade him.”

“No sorcerer would stoop so low!” Now the commur-mage’s voice was a whiplash. “I know not what killed the Lord Protector, but there’s no sorcerer come out of Durbrecht would soil themselves so.”

Sarun looked chastened. Indeed, I found Rekyn frightening then. I said, “But Taerl shall be Lord Protector, Jareth only Regent. And that no longer than it takes Taerl to attain his twenty-one years.”

“For three of which Jareth shall stand at his shoulder,” Sarun said, but softer now. “Whispering in his ear; and perhaps in two, his whispering shall persuade Taerl to wed Avralle. What do you know of Taerl, Daviot?”

I was a moment taken aback. I frowned, harvesting memories. Then I said, “Not very much, save he’s Gahan’s son by Elvyre, who is six years dead. He spent two years in Mardbrecht; two in Durbrecht. It’s said he’s a quiet fellow, with a great love of horses.”

“He’s young and feckless,” said Sarun. “He’d sooner ride than govern. Oh”-this with a glance at Rekyn that said he did not forget her warnings-“I’d not speak against him. Were Gahan yet alive, I’d not doubt the boy should be whipped into shape, and I’d pledge fealty when the time came. But now? Do the Sky Lords come, Jareth will command; and Jareth’s not the man for that task. In the God’s name, I like this situation not at all.”

“I suspect your sentiments are shared throughout Dharbek.” Rekyn spoke dryly. “Indeed, I’d wager this very conversation echoes up and down the land. But still it remains that Jareth is named regent. The why of it may be questioned, but there is no doubt at all that Gahan named him. And with what we face, accord is needed, not argument.”

Sarun nodded, but his face was sour. “Think you Jareth shall command us well?” he asked. “Do we face the Great Coming as you sorcerers believe, shall Jareth lead us or sit safe in Kherbryn?”

“Do the Sky Lords come as I believe,” Rekyn said, “then I think Jareth shall be no safer in Kherbryn than any other place. I think there shall be nowhere safe in Dharbek.”

I sat listening with half an ear, offering no further comment. They spoke somewhat in circles now, of factions and rivalries, of blood lines and marriage treaties, of who should support Jareth and who oppose. Did it come to open war, I thought Sarun should lead Cambar’s men in rebellion, so fervent was his dislike. I was not sure Rekyn would support him. I thought that-just as the commur-mage had said-there must be keeps throughout all Dharbek ringing to the same words. I thought this death could not have come at a worse time. Gahan was popular; better, he was wise. He was a leader, which it appeared Taerl could not yet be. And was Sarun’s animosity shared, then Jareth’s appointment seemed more likely to foment dissent than promote union. I felt an awful fear that the Sky Lords should mount their Great Coming against a land torn by civil strife.

I heard Rekyn ask a question and let go my musings.

“You understand, Daviot, that what’s been said here must remain between us? You’ll not speak of it elsewhere?”

Almost, I smiled: I grew well versed in the keeping of secrets. I said, “I understand: I’d not betray you. But when I return to Durbrecht? The College will have an accounting of me then, and I’ll be asked what mood pertains where I’ve been. Am I to hold silence then?”

Neither spoke immediately, and when an answer came, it came from Rekyn. It seemed Sarun deferred to her in such matters. “I think,” she said slowly, as if each word unwound her thoughts, “that you had best speak openly then. Your College and mine both have say and sway in Dharbek’s affairs, and perhaps it were better the mood of the holds be known. But not until you return, eh?”

I was glad to find my bed that night, though sleep was harder found. I lay on sweat-damp sheets, the air thick, the light of the now-full moon seeming warm as if the sun yet held sway. How long I lay awake I was not sure, but I did eventually sleep, for the dream came back.

It came distorted, without its usual strange coherence, so that when I woke, I retained only fragments, as if my memory failed me. I was once more in the wood, but there was no mist, and I looked across a sun-washed sea to distant islands. Then the sky grew black, and dread possessed me. I heard the weird singing of elementals, and through the darkness came the red cylinders of the Sky Lords’ boats. I cowered, and the sky was black no longer but the color of blood. Beams rose from the islands, clawing at the skyboats. Where they struck, the skyboats blazed and fell, but there were so many that each gap was on the instant filled. They covered the heavens from horizon to horizon. I heard Rwyan scream my name, and I stood on a beach of bleached white stone, my love beside me.

She said, “Daviot, hurry! We’ve little time. Save we act, all’s lost.”

I turned to ask her what she meant, but a great wave rose up, that I saw was made by the beating of a dragon’s wings. A shadow passed over me, and my head rang with the creature’s scream.

It landed on a cliff where black pines grew, Whitefish village below. Then cliff became city wall and the village became Durbrecht. The city burned, the walls lay ruined, and where the College of the Mnemonikos should have stood was an open place, at its center a splendid catafalque surrounded by mourners. I glimpsed Urt amidst the rubble, Rwyan at his side, and took a step toward them, then was frozen by the dragon’s scream.

I stared up, unable to disobey the imperative in that cry. The dragon perched on its hindquarters, a jet-armored Kho’rabi clutched in one sword-taloned paw. The Kho’rabi swung a useless blade against skin impervious to his blows. The dragon raised the struggling man. I watched aghast as the great head dropped, jaws opening, and the dragon bit the Kho’rabi. The body fell separated, and the dragon opened its jaws wide, again emitting that piercing scream. I was suddenly surrounded by Kho’rabi, but they ignored me, raising long bows to send black arrows volleying at the dragon. The missiles made no impression on the sleek blue hide, and the dragon seemed not to notice them, save it spread its wings and beat them three times, which sent the Sky Lords tumbling like windblown leaves. I could not understand why I was not blown away, but I stood untouched and alone as the beast folded its vast wings and fixed me with its yellow stare.

It seemed less terrible, albeit indifferent to the corpses strewn about its taloned feet. I thought its look benign. It seemed to call me, and I beckoned Rwyan and Urt on as I began to climb the broken wall. I knew that could I reach it, the beast must give me answers, though I did not know the questions I should ask. I scrambled upward, but as I approached the dragon, the sky was filled again with the Kho’rabi vessels, and it spread its wings, readying to fly. I shouted, begging it to wait, but it launched itself, and the beating of its wings tumbled me down. I heard Rwyan say, “Daviot, we must-”-And I woke.

The sheet was tangled at my feet, and sweat drenched me. My head ached and my limbs were heavy as I rose, stumbling to the pitcher. The water was tepid, but I drank and doused my head, and then stood, my chest heaving, against the sill, staring out. It was not yet full dawn, but the sky already possessed a leaden intensity, and the air was hot as noon on a midsummer day. The keep’s thick stone was warm as an oven’s. The yard below was silent, but I could still hear the sound of the dragon’s wings. The chamber seemed suddenly too small. I turned from the window and washed, then pulled on shirt and breeks, my boots, and went out.

Changed servants moved sleepily about the hall. I thought they seemed less troubled by the heat than Truemen, though their movements were leisurely. I asked a cat-bred woman if I might have tea, making sure she caught sight of my bracelet. She showed no more sign of recognition than Tal, but she brought me tea and fruit and bread, for which I thanked her.

I broke my fast and sat awhile as the warband appeared. Of Rekyn or Sarun, there was no sign, but Andolyne came in holding Bardaen’s hand. The dowager gave me the day’s greetings and took a place with a weary sigh, favoring me with a wan smile.

“Oh, but this heat, Daviot,” she murmured. “I can hardly bear it, but poor Gwennet …”

“She’s close?” I asked, and Andolyne nodded, answering me, “Garat stays by her. He says any day now.” She shook her head. “Sad times, no? That a babe be born with Gahan dead and the Great Coming likely.”

“Sad times indeed,” I agreed. “But all well …”

Bardaen set to tugging at my sleeve then, demanding a story, and I took him on my knee, giving him the tale of Dryff and the Boar of Draggonek. By the time that was told, the hall had filled and Rekyn found me. I looked at her with brows raised in question, and she nodded, ruffling Bardaen’s hair. By unspoken consent, we said nothing of Gahan or what had passed in Sarun’s chamber, but talked instead of calmer days. She’d have a full accounting of all my time in Durbrecht and after, and I found myself recalling memories tucked away in the drawers of that mnemonic chest that dead Martus had described. I went into no great detail about my friendship with Urt or my too-brief time with Rwyan, and I said nothing at all of Lan’s bracelet or that sighting of Kho’rabi and Changed together. It saddened me that I should be less than honest with so old a friend, but I thought Rekyn’s first duty was to Dharbek and to Cambar, and that did I reveal my secrets, she would likely see no choice but to report them to her College. I felt trapped in my own dissemblance.

If Rekyn sensed my concealments, she gave no sign but suggested we walk into the town. She would, she promised, bring me to the cottage that Delia shared with Kaene. I agreed, though first I’d see my horse was well-this heat was no kinder to animals than to men, and we had a long journey ahead of us, was I to make my way north up the coast and then along the Treppanek to Durbrecht.

We went to the stables, where a Changed ostler with a bandage about his forearm advised me my mare was indeed as foul-tempered as I had warned. I looked her over (it seemed by now she tolerated me somewhat or had decided to call a truce) and found her fit enough. Rekyn eyed her and said softly, “’Twas Andyrt first put you on a horse, no?”

I said, “It was; and by the God, I ached after.”

She chuckled at that, as I’d hoped she should, and shook her head, murmuring, “Old grief. Best left behind.”

I nodded, saying no more. Mnemonikos are not alone in harboring memories. Ours are just clearer, held with a precision, a clarity, that is ofttimes heartbreaking.

We walked leisurely from the keep into a town drained and dulled by the oppressive heat. Awnings that would not in a normal year have been unfurled until months later shaded the buildings, and the few folk we saw moved lethargic. Most held to the shade. We went down to where the fisherfolk beached their craft, and Rekyn pointed out a cottage.

“Do you go greet your sister,” she suggested, “and I’ll await you in the Flying Fish.”

I nodded, studying the cottage. It was twin to my parents’, with a little yard before, a vegetable patch behind. The vegetable patch was arid, what few shoots showed, withered and limp. The smell of rotting seaweed hung familiar in the air. I thought it should be good to see Delia again: she had always been my favorite. Eager, I went to the door, which stood open beneath a canopy fashioned from an old sail, and called her name.

My sister came out, an inquiring frown on her pretty face. She wore a scarf about her hair, and her hands were floured. I knew her immediately, for all she was a woman now, full grown and become beautiful.

She stared at me a moment, recognition dawning slowly. I said, “Do you not know your brother, Delia?” and her face lit up, and I was almost felled as she flung herself into my arms.

“Daviot! Is it truly you, Daviot? I scarce knew you. You’re a Storyman? Shall you stay?”

She led me inside as she spoke, the words a tumble, question piling on question-all those things a sister demands of a brother not seen in many years. I answered her as she saw me seated at a rough table, a cup set in my hands and thin yellow beer poured me. She was well, yes; and happy: Kaene was a good husband. He was out fishing now-the God grant him success-in a boat half-owned, hopefully soon theirs, save this weather leached the Fend of fish. They had no children as yet-a blessing, given such troublous times-but later … And I? Had I been to Whitefish village? I’d heard of Tonium’s death? Mam and Da, they were well? She and Kaene sailed south as time and work allowed…. Where had I been, where did I go? Did I stay in the keep? I’d heard, then, of Bardan’s death?

We tossed news back and forth, and I could hardly drink my beer for holding of her hands. It was good to see her again.

In time, I told her I must go, that Rekyn awaited me and I’d duties now. She offered me bed and board, which I declined, explaining it was expected I should stay in the keep. I thought the feeding of an extra mouth should cost her and Kaene dear. I promised to come back, had I the opportunity, and assured her that I looked forward to meeting Kaene. I might well speak in one of the taverns, I told her, and she bade me let her know which that she might hear me. Her pride in my accomplishments embarrassed me. We embraced, and I walked away.

I found Rekyn in the Flying Fish, a tankard of ale before her. She called for another as I took a chair. When it was brought, I asked, “Does Cambar suffer much?”

“No worse than any other hold.” Rekyn leaned back, stretching out her long legs. She wore her leathers still and her sword, as if she thought she might be momentarily called to battle. “Sarun’s set stores aside, but does this heat continue, he’ll likely need open his warehouses to feed the hold-folk.”

Her voice was grim, and I studied her face before I spoke again. “Does your College not seek answers?” I asked her.

“Seek, aye,” she returned me with a cynical chuckle. “But find? As yet, no. The Kho’rabi wizards command such magicks as we’ve never guessed at-they surpass us in the occult talent. And Jareth commands our armies now.” She raised her mug in mockery of a toast. “By the God, Daviot! Gahan could not have died at a worse time. Dharbek suffers now; by Sastaine, we’ll know famine. There’s disease in the cities, and that must worsen as this heat continues. Did you know there’s been rioting in Durbrecht?”

I shook my head, horrified.

“In Durbrecht and in Kherbryn, too,” she went on. “This last sevenday, word came that a merchant’s caravan was ambushed crossing the massif. In Lynnisvar a grain boat was attacked by starving folk, and the aeldor must bring his war-band to drive them off. Does it continue so, we’ll see chaos before the Sky Lords come.”

“Surely Jareth must take some action,” I said, though I was unsure what might be done.

Rekyn shrugged and drained her tankard. I called for more ale. When we were alone again, Rekyn said, “The Changed grow troublesome, too. We’ve not seen it here as yet, but there are Changed have fled their masters to go wild into the mountains, or to cross the Slammerkin. Not too many as yet, but should enough take flight … the God knows, we’d see chaos then.”

The results of that action. I had already pondered. I thought-fleetingly-that did Truemen treat the Changed better, they should be more likely to stand by us. I did not think that was a view to put to Rekyn now, and so I said, “They go to Ur-Dharbek? Can that be a kinder land?”

“Who’d know?” she gave me back, and laughed again, with a bitterness I’d not before seen in her. “Jareth, perhaps? He’s, after all, from the greatest of the Border Cities.”

Old memories flung themselves to the forefront of my mind; old questions came, too tempting to ignore. “Is there truly so little known of Ur-Dharbek?” I asked.

I watched Rekyn’s face as I voiced the question and as she answered. I was not certain what I saw there: alarm, perhaps, or concern, though for what I could not guess.

She said obliquely, “You’ve an interest in that place, eh?”

I spread dismissive hands. “I’ve an interest in all this land: I’m a Storyman.”

“But your College told you nothing?”

I suspected she dissembled. Not for the first time, I wondered why. I answered, “Nothing more than all know.”

“But you’d know more than all?” Her eyes locked on my face. “Why, Daviot? Is there so little in this land that you must delve the mysteries of Ur-Dharbek?”

“Are there mysteries?” I returned.

She chuckled then, her head shaking slightly as if in disbelief of my persistence. I thought the laugh better humored. “This interest in the Changed has brought you trouble ere now, no?” Her eyes did not leave my face. I was once more minded of the dragon’s gaze, but now I frowned surprise that she should know this. She saw it and said, “Oh, Daviot, take off that startled look, and I’ll tell you what you’d likely learn in time, save I suspect you already guess somewhat of it.”

There seemed real amusement in her eyes now. We both supped before she spoke again.

“Are you not told to bring back word of what you see along your Storyman’s road? Of the keeps’ moods, their readiness for war?” Her fine, dark brows rose, and I nodded mute agreement. “And no less are we sorcerers commanded to report on you. Had you not thought as much?”

I said, “I’d wondered-aye, I’d suspected it was so.”

“Then a word of warning,” she said gently, “from a friend. Have a care what questions you ask. Perhaps show less of this feeling for the Changed. Your friendship with your servant served you ill, no?”

I was abruptly aware of the bracelet on my wrist. Almost, I took my hand from the table to hide the bangle, then knew it for foolishness. Did Rekyn know it for what it was, then it was too late to hide it. Did she not, then best make nothing of it. I said defensively, “He was my friend. Is that wrong?”

“In some folk’s eyes, it is,” she said. “I’d not say it so, but there are others…. Jareth, for example, is known to scorn the Changed.”

I said, “Without them, we’d know chaos. You said that much yourself.”

“So I did.” She nodded. “And so it is; or would be, did worse come to worst.”

Her voice trailed off, and for a moment she stared into her ale. Her face was clouded, and she toyed absently with a strand of dark hair. I had not thought to see Rekyn so irresolute. I waited, sensing she reached a decision of some kind. I was agog but curbed my impatience, for I felt she was about to speak of things, if not forbidden, then seldom said. I was minded of conversations with Lan: I thought perhaps another piece of the puzzle should come my way. Rekyn raised her head to look me in the eye again, and I saw her choice was made.

“Likely I should not tell you this,” she said quietly, “but I’ve a feeling about you. I cannot explain it, save”-she smiled and sighed a laugh-“save were I a seer, I’d tell you destiny sits on your shoulder. So-you’ve wandered abroad enough to see how much we depend on the Changed?”

I said, “Without them, Dharbek should be helpless, I think.”

“We’ve come to depend on them perhaps too much.” Her handsome face was grave now, and her eyes flickered about the room, as if to ensure she was not overheard. “And likely there are those amongst them know it. I think those who flee across the Slammerkin must.”

She paused. I saw this was no easy thing for her to say and asked, “But shall you sorcerers not employ your magicks to create more? Enough to replace those who flee?”

I was surprised when she shook her head; amazed at her words. She said, “No, Daviot. We cannot.”

My jaw gaped, and I could not suppress the gasp that escaped. Rekyn frowned, green eyes flashing a warning. I closed my mouth and set my hands about my tankard as if to anchor myself, leaning toward her across the table.

“We cannot,” she went on in a voice only I might hear. “There’s none can say exactly why, though some claim it’s to do with our migration south. We found that talent when we dwelt in Ur-Dharbek, they say; when the dragons hunted us and we must create prey for them. Since we crossed the Slammerkin, we’ve had no need for the talent. Instead, our magic was bent to conquering Draggonek and Kellambek, and then to defeating the Sky Lords.”

She fell silent as the serving woman came asking if our mugs needed replenishment. We drained them and sat unspeaking as the red-haired woman fetched us fresh. Then Rekyn continued: “All the efforts of my College were given to the creation of the Sentinels, to mastering those gramaryes that enable us to meet the Kho’rabi wizards in battle. We saw the Changed already made bred young-there seemed little need to create more through magic when nature gave us sufficient. Now, it appears we’ve forgotten the way of it.”

“How can you forget?” I asked.

Her lips curved in a smile empty of humor. “We’re not Mnemonikos, Daviot,” she said. “Perhaps did we not guard our secrets so close, but had entrusted those gramaryes to your kind…. But no matter; we did not, and there it is.”

“But,” I asked, bewildered, “how can you forget a talent? Surely once developed-”

“Perhaps forget is the wrong word,” she said. “Perhaps it’s that we took our talent down a different road; perhaps it was some thing intrinsic to Ur-Dharbek, or our need then. Whatever, we’ve lost it now.”

“Do you say that the sorcerous talent is a thing of the land?” I must remember to hold my voice low, as if we engaged only in casual conversation, and that was no easy discipline. “That where you are shapes what you are?”

“Some do,” she told me. “For my own part, I know not. But I could not take some beast and make of it a Changed.”

I shook my head even as a thought burst inside. I stared at Rekyn and said low-voiced, “Do you say we Dhar some how gained the talent whilst we sojourned in Ur-Dharbek? Because we lingered there?”

It was rhetoric: I sought to pin down my sudden thought, but still she confirmed me, “Some say it so, aye.”

“Then if they be correct,” I murmured, “shall the wild Changed not develop sorcerous abilities?”

It was as though a shutter lifted to expose a bright-lit room, or a torch were ignited to spill brilliance where before there had been only shadow, and I was dazzled. I felt pieces of the puzzle join; there was no complete picture yet, but I saw its outline grow clearer.

Rekyn faced me square across the table, and I was again minded of the dragon’s gaze. “Likely,” she said. “It’s suspected, at least.”

I said, “By the God!” For all the heat, I felt a chill course down my spine.

“Now do you understand why your interest in the wild Changed has found such disapproval?” she asked me, and when I nodded, dumbstruck: “I should not have told you this. Such knowledge is forbidden, and I break a vow in the doing. Do you voice it, then likely you and I both shall find ourselves on the scaffold.”

I nodded. I was too intrigued then to feel any fear. That would come later, but in that moment I felt only awe; and a tremendous curiosity. I asked her, “How many know this?”

“We sorcerers,” she said, “the master of your College, the Lord Protector, the koryphons; none others. It’s a secret close-guarded.”

I licked my lips, staring at her. Close-guarded? Aye, for what should be the outcome did the folk of Dharbek-Truemen and Changed both-learn of this? Even were it no more than suspicion, it must turn our world on its head. I thought the Changed should surely abandon the land to flee north, to gain that power that was now the sole property of their masters. I thought Truemen should fight to halt them. I thought there should surely be such chaos delivered us all as must hand Dharbek like some festival gift to the Sky Lords. I stared at Rekyn and felt fear stir behind my wonderment.

“Did you speak aught of this,” she said carefully, “then likely Sarun-or any aeldor-would have your tongue torn out before execution. And mine with it.”

I said, “Aye,” aware my voice came hushed and hoarse. “Save not likely, but surely. But Rekyn, why do you tell me?”

She shrugged then, a smile haunting her mouth as puzzlement misted her eyes. “I cannot say,” she told me. “Not beyond that I’ve a feeling about you. I can explain it no better, save perhaps the telling shall serve to bind your questioning tongue.”

“Bind it?” I snorted bitter laughter. “Rekyn, you float a lure before my curiosity and tell me do I chase it, I must die.”

“Were you not already chasing it, in your own way?” she gave me back. “You go from keep to keep asking your questions-What does this sorcerer know of the wild Changed? What that of Ur-Dharbek? You show open friendship of the Changed; you deal with them as equals, never hiding your beliefs. Oh, Daviot, leave off that face! I’ve told you we’ve a duty to observe, just as you do. In the God’s name, my friend, you hold the history of the Dhar in your head; you’ve knowledge few others possess. With all of that and clear evidence you perceive the Changed as little different to Truemen, think you you’ve not raised hackles? There are some have urged you be called back to Durbrecht-found some position within your College, where your curiosity might be tight-reined, you all the time watched. Save you’ve won yourself a reputation as the finest Storyman in decades, you’d be there now; and warded close as any prisoner.”

I was, I must admit, flattered that I had earned such a reputation. I was also shocked that the College of the Mnemonikos should curb investigation: I had thought we Rememberers were above such things, that it was our bounden duty to seek knowledge, no matter where it lead. I was, too, alarmed: I’d no wish to lose my freedom or my life.

“Shall I be?” I asked somewhat nervously.

“No.” Rekyn shook her head, smiling warmly. I was grateful for that reassurance. “So long as you watch your tongue, you’re safe. And now you know the reason for the doubts you’ve raised, perhaps you’ll step a little wary.”

“I shall,” I vowed. I made that promise to myself as much as her. It was not, I thought, the same as promising I’d do nothing.

“Then we shall speak no more of this,” she declared. “I’ve a fondness for you-I’d not see you end on the scaffold.”

I smiled my gratitude and asked, “One last question?” And when she sighed and gestured, I continued: “What purpose the Border Cities?”

“Much like the Sentinels,” she replied. “Save they ward the Slammerkin shore.”

“Against invasion?” I frowned. “Can the wild Changed have become so powerful?”

Rekyn confirmed it. “Against that fear,” she said. “Against the possibility the wild Changed find magic and look to use it against us.”

I emptied my mug in silence. A thousand thoughts buzzed in my head, each one birthing myriad others. I thought I should like to be alone awhile to digest all this, but Rekyn set her tankard down and suggested we return to the keep. I nodded dumbly and followed her out.

Rwyan had learned much since first she came to the Sentinels, but never the magic of unlearning. Sometimes she wished she might possess such knowledge, to obliterate that memory of Daviot that lay always in the hinder part of her mind like a wound that would not heal. It was a foolish notion, impossible to achieve, and she berated herself for entertaining such useless fancies. She had a duty here; the God knew, if the worst fears of the sorcerers were realized, she had a desperate duty ahead. But still she could not forget him.

She had tried. She had taken a lover briefly and when his attentions grew boring to her, another, but he had lasted no longer, and after that she had spurned all advances. Now none looked to bed her but accepted her as celibate, which was, they murmured when they thought she should not hear, a pity. That amused her, for she agreed; but could find no way to change her feelings. Sometimes she allowed herself to wonder if Daviot felt the same way, or if he now followed his Storyman’s road with a woman or found comfort in the keeps. But did he, she told herself, still he’d not forget her-his talent would not allow that.

She sighed, dabbing at her face with a sleeve. There should have been a breeze so high atop the cliffs, but there was none. The pines stood silent under a sky that seemed a canopy of hammered blue, so bright as to shine silvery. Had she turned her head, she knew the vast column of the tower looming above the island would have blinded even her occult sight. The sun was a merciless eye, searing all it surveyed. The Fend spread like puddled mercury, calm as a millpond. No sails broke that expanse; even the gulls that rode the warm air seemed lethargic, their mewing dulled, as if they lacked the vitality to protest such heat. Rwyan wondered how long the Sky Lords would maintain this magic, and if the sorcerers of Dharbek should ever find a countering sortilege. She wondered how Daviot fared in such weather.

Too often, she dreamed of him, and those dreams were strange. She had mentioned them to Chiara-who dismissed them as no more than foolish fancy-and to the adepts, who were more sympathetic, if little more helpful. None could offer either interpretation or remedy, and the draughts the island’s herbalist had prescribed had served only to lock her longer in that oneiric world she walked with Daviot.

With Daviot and others she did not recognize.

She sighed again, closing her eyes against the blinding sky, and allowed her mind to wander.

At first she had dreamed of their shared past, of times together and the things they had done, embarrassed when she woke by the flush that suffused her cheeks, the pleasant languor that pervaded her limbs. But then, gradually, the tenor of the dreams had changed, past memories fading into a strangely shifting pattern.

Sometimes she would see Daviot striding purposefully down a lonely road, she hurrying behind. An airboat would drift unnoticed above him, and she would call out, but he seemed not to hear or to ignore her, and then she would run after him, laboring up a slope he climbed with ease, to disappear over the crest. She would reach the ridgetop and find the road ahead empty, the surrounding fields sere, the woodland bleak. She would stare about, calling his name, but there was never an answering shout, and night would fall as she stood alone.

Sometimes she would find herself in a crowd, in a town square or the hall of a keep or the common room of an inn, always at the rear as Daviot intoned some tale she could not properly hear. She would endeavor to push through the throng, to announce herself, but always, before she could reach him, his tale would end and she find herself suddenly alone again, passersby ignoring her as if she were invisible.

Those dreams she could explain to herself. They seemed obvious as the earlier, happier, conflations of memory. But now … for some time now she had found the dreams menacing and mysterious and could not at all understand them.

She would glimpse Daviot in a clearing in a misty wood, all gnarled and ancient oaks, the grass littered with the empty armor of Dhar warriors and Kho’rabi, as if once, long ago, a battle had been fought amongst the trees. She would hear him call her name, and sometimes others she did not know. She would see him turning warily around, as if he saw what was invisible to her, and she would go toward him, aware that danger threatened. She would see a Changed she guessed was Urt moving slowly through the mist from the far trees and know they must meet, come together to save Daviot from … she did not know what, save that overhead there came a sound like thunder, as if gigantic wings beat against the sky. She would look up then, but see nothing, only darkness and fog torn by the reiving of Kho’rabi wizardry, and hear Daviot call her name, forlorn. She could never come close to him, no matter how hard she tried, and even as she heard him shout, the mist would thicken, swirling, until she stood alone and there was no sound at all.

From those dreams she would wake trembling, held a moment in panic’s fist, instinctively gathering her power to send against … nothing; only the dawn light pervading her chamber. And then she would attempt to set the dreams aside, to tell herself they were no more than the fevered imaginings of a foolish lovesick woman who had better forget what she could not have and bend her mind to what was real.

But as with the man himself, she could not quite dismiss the images. They lingered, a mental redolence she could never fully shake off. Nor did learning or labor, or nostrums or advice, serve to rid her of either the dreams or the memories, for all she threw herself into her duties with an energy designed to exorcise the ghosts.

That, at least, was one benefit: she did not languish, and if she pined, then her pining prompted her to work the harder. Hard enough she progressed, the older adepts Advised her, swifter than most Talented. Within the first year she had been raised, no longer a humble student, little more than a source of occult power for those more skilled than she, but tutored in the usage of that power, in its summoning and direction. By the end of her second year, she was declared adept; now she joined the others in the white tower, working with the crystals to focus that terrible energy on the intruding skyboats.

That had been unexpected knowledge, that the crystals both augmented and focused the natural abilities of the sorcerers. That was a thing no more than hinted at in Durbrecht, known for sure only to the senior Adepts and those consigned (Rwyan was almost tempted to think, condemned) to the Sentinels. Even the Lord Protector was vouchsafed only deliberately vague knowledge of some sorcerous device, and the Mnemonikos knew nothing at all. Rwyan and all those like her were sworn to secrecy.

They were called crystals, but they were far more than that: as different to the baubles cut and polished by the lapidaries as were those ornaments to pebbles. They had first come, she had learned, from Tartarus, the Forgotten Country. The earliest Dhar sorcerers had found (none could any longer say how) that the stones strengthened their natural power; through the stones they had learned to commune with the dragons and become Dragonmasters. The stones came south with the people, hoarded by the sorcerers, as they went into Ur-Dharbek, and then on, across the Slammerkin and the Treppanek. And all the time, the sorcerers had drawn strength from the stones, as if they lived symbiotic, the glittering chunks of quartzlike material invested with a crystalline vitality that none could properly understand or explain, only use.

With them, to those standing always in close proximity, there was a growth of power. It was, Rwyan thought, as if the crystals were hearthfires on a winter night, their blaze warming those closest to them, useless to any standing beyond the aegis of the heat. Thus were only the most talented of the College sent to the islands, only the most gifted of those allowed entry to the guarded chambers that held the strange stones; Chiara was somewhat piqued that she could not yet attend. Rwyan wondered if the crystals and her dreams were somehow linked.

It was an idle musing. She could no more understand the workings of the stones than those long versed in their use: they granted power, not knowledge. Neither was their employment without hazard-to remain in close proximity for too long resulted in madness or in a draining of the occult talent, as if the flow of power became reversed, leaving the victim a mindless shell. No sorcerer remained indefinitely on the Sentinels, and the crystals were shielded behind walls of lead and stone, exposed only at need. Were she not dismissed earlier, she knew she must depart the island in ten or fifteen years-a lifetime!-to live in Durbrecht or find place in some keep as commur-mage. Meanwhile, however, she sensed her powers expanding, growing, as if accelerated by the unseen pulsing of the crystals. She knew there was a dreadful insensate energy in the stone behind her and that it might be shaped and directed, by those with the talent, to blast the Sky Lords’ vessels from the heavens.

She thought it sad (though she was careful to hold the notion to herself alone) that such occult power be used bellicose. She wondered what might be achieved, did the Sky Lords not force her kind to bend the crystals to warfare. She supposed she was not, for all she owned recognized ability, a good mage: Chiara would never have entertained such thoughts.

But then Chiara had never sat with Daviot, building an imaginary world of maybe and perhaps and fanciful supposition, where dragons still flew and peace was forced on Kho’rabi and Dhar alike.

And I think of Daviot again! I must not; I cannot, for it hurts too much.

She rose, shaking out a gown damp with sweat, and “looked” a last time across the smooth surface of the Fend. It was as though the sea steamed; the coastline of Kellambek was a shadowy blur on the horizon, a faint, dark line drawn through the shimmering heat.

Had Daviot ever sailed such a sea? Might he, even now, stand somewhere on that vague shore, staring toward the Sentinels, remembering?

She brushed an errant strand of hair now more golden than red from her face and turned away, resolute. There were duties to attend, lessons; come dusk, she must take a turn on watch in the tower. The vigilance of the Sentinels was never-ending: to allow thoughts of Daviot to intrude when she must be alert against the danger of the Sky Lords was to be derelict of her duty. She found the path and began the long descent.

She had reached the foot of the path when the summons came: The Sky Lords come! To your posts, now!

She registered confirmation and her presence, and began to run toward the tower, all thoughts of bath and fresher clothes forgotten.

She was but one of the many racing to Dharbek’s defense, the island become abruptly a place of organized confusion. No more than a handful of Adepts would join their talents directly to the crystals’ power, but for that score there would be another, living conduits between the wielders and the human fodder lending their ability to those who sent the magicks against the intruders. She had liked the experience not at all, when she had been amongst the suppliers of occult strength. It was needful and she had submitted without demur, but she could never quite overcome the feeling it was a thing vampiric, as if the used-ho matter the purpose or the need-gave up some part of their souls. She enjoyed it little more when she took the part of conduit, for there seemed to her something of the pander about that, and always, after, she must find a tub and scrub herself. She was glad (albeit a gladness tinged with guilt) that now she would stand amongst the senders, distanced from the others.

All these talented, she thought, with such power in them, and all of it bent to destruction. We can wash the sky with fire, but not one of us can truly find an answer to the Sky Lords’ magic. Must it be so, always?

The thought was traitorous, and she pushed it away, composing her mind in readiness for what was to come. She was at the tower’s door. Alrys and Demaeter stood there, ushering her inside, pointing unnecessarily to the arched opening on her left, where sorcerers already mounted the winding stairway to the column’s topmost level. The stairway rose, spiraling up the tower’s interior, lit now by globes of heatless white floating overhead, the walls unbroken by door or window until there came a second arched entry. Here the twenty channelers gathered, settling into high-backed chairs placed in a circle in a bare chamber. Rwyan clambered on until she reached the topmost level, where the tower stood open to the sky. There were no chairs here, nor decoration of any kind, only the chest-high walls that granted a wide view over the Fend, and the pedestal supporting the crystal, that no more than waist-high, carved of black basalt, the stone in a hollow at the center, the shields removed.

It was so small a thing to hold such power. She might have held it in both her hands, and it looked no more than a knob of agate, lumpy, and banded with layers of pale color, all shifting and shining under the sun. So small, so insignificant to those without the talent; to the sorcerers, so powerful, its strength a palpable force. Rwyan felt the familiar tingling run through her body, as if all her nerves throbbed. It was a seductive sensation: there were some had fallen so deeply under that crystalline spell, they gave up their minds, even their lives to it. She shuddered, fighting off the temptation to touch the stone, to feel its power and let it drink of hers. That would come soon enough; instead, she directed her attention to the sky.

There was no disruption of the blue. Neither gulls nor kittiwakes, indeed no birds at all, ventured close to the roofless chamber, and she could not “see” the promised skyboats. She turned her face toward Gwyllym, whose mental broadcast had sounded this alarm. He had the watch, with Jhone and Maethyrene, and she could even now feel the faint vibration deep inside her skull that told her he communed with those below. His eyes were closed in concentration, and so she “looked” to the others. Jhone stood with her head raised, cocked slightly to one side, as if she listened to the silence. Maethyrene was turning, frowning as she counted the Adepts emerging from the arched doorway. Rwyan caught her eye and raised her brows in silent question.

The hunchbacked woman nodded, jabbing a thumb skyward. “No doubt of it, they come.” Her voice was deep and musical. It seemed almost she sang the words. “Either a full-blown skyboat or a flock of those God-cursed little ones.”

Jhone said, “They come swift. The little boats, I think.”

Gwyllym said, “All below stand ready. Do we prepare?”

They grouped about the pedestal. Rwyan waited nervously for Maethyrene’s command.

“Let us be ready.”

She said it mildly, but none were slow to obey. Rwyan stared at the crystal, opening her mind to its magic, feeling it enter her, shocking as sudden immersion in freezing water, startling as an unexpected blow. For an instant nausea gripped her and she gagged, her sight gone. Then calm, the linkage with the minds below, not conscious, but as if she drank of naked power, was become insuperable. It was a heady sensation and always at first disconcerting. She was herself individual and at the same time a part of a greater whole, a unit in the gestalt formed with her fellows, joined in purpose and power. As her vision cleared, she “saw” the crystal pulsing, faint streamers of multihued light flickering like umbilical cords between the stone and those around it. She had not known she staggered until she became aware of Gwyllym’s thick arm about her shoulders. She smiled her thanks and turned as he did, eastward, to where the enemy came.

They were the little boats, a score or more, bloodred cylinders hung within the disruption of the air caused by the elementals that drew them onward. Beneath were suspended the black baskets, like dories, containing the Sky Lords. She felt the weirdling magic of the aerial spirits, wild, angered by such enslavement, and beyond that the cold confidence of the Kho’rabi wizards, the implacable meshing of their sorcery, defensive and eager to strike.

Now!

Maethyrene’s command was swifter than speech; obeyed no slower. As one, all twenty sorcerers summoned the power and sent it against the Kho’rabi vessels. Light pierced the sky, brighter than the sun, redly glittering lances of brilliance striking at the sanguine vessels, the sable baskets.

Five exploded. Rwyan felt the dying, the painful stab as human life ceased, assuaged by the rejoicing of the elementals as the spirits were freed, the sense of triumph that came from her companions. Terydd gloated: he enjoyed this too much. From Jhone and Gwyllym she felt a sorrow akin to her own, but steeled with the certainty that this battle must be fought. She gathered herself, pushing regret aside. The crystal pulsed-the Dhar sent out their minds in waves of pure destructive energy.

Light flashed, magic dueling with magic. That of the Sentinel was visible, that of the Kho’rabi wizards unseen, but still it was akin to the blades of master swordsmen, an occult struggle, parry and riposte, attack and counter. More skyboats burst in balls of searing fire. Rwyan heard the howling of the elementals; felt the grim determination of the Sky Lords, their anger.

Again and again the terrible beams struck out. The skyboats were reduced to twelve now; now seven. Five shot by safe, all the power of the guiding wizards bent on staving off the magic of the Dhar, on driving the elementals like madly lashed horses to the shore beyond the Fend. Of the remaining two, one erupted directly overhead. Rwyan felt the heat of its destruction; felt stuff touch her and struggled against horror as she knew blood and pieces of flesh rained on her. As though from far away, she heard Waende scream and saw the brown-haired woman scrubbing at a face all bloodied, ignoring the sparks that smoldered on her gown. Beyond the tower’s retaining wall she saw the second skyboat falling, flame and smoke streamered behind. The Kho’rabi wizard was slain and the spirits he controlled fled-she could feel the absence: the vessel was no more than a burning boat, rudderless, impotent now.

It drifted toward the mainland, southward a little, the canopy of the supporting balloon blazing, the basket beneath afire. The dark shapes of men leaped from amongst the flames, falling down and down to the waiting sea. Rwyan felt Jhone’s prompting and gathered herself, preparatory to striking again. Abruptly there was no need: flame ate the canopy, and the gas inside exploded. For a moment a ball of fire hung in the sky, a small second sun. The basket, trailing oily smoke, fell away. It seemed to fall forever, and then the sky was clear.

Gone. The God be praised, they’re gone.

Maethyrene’s sending was more relief than triumph.

There are no more. Yet.

Jhone slapped absently at a curl of scorching hair.

Aye, it’s done.

Gwyllym sent word to those below.

Rwyan felt the linkages break, threads of occult energy tugging at her mind as if reluctant to quit their hold, and stepped an instinctive pace back as she broke her own communion with the crystal. The stone ceased its fervent pulsing, and she felt again that sense of loss, as if something precious were snatched from her. She dismissed it, fighting the desire to remain awhile longer one with the stone, blind a moment before she summoned her weaker magic to restore her “sight.” Across the width of the tower’s top she “saw” Waende weeping, Terydd holding her, using a sleeve to wipe blood from his lover’s face. She looked down and “saw” her own gown stained. She felt weary, drained, and more than a little queasy; she was uncertain whether because she had slain men or because of the crystal.

“Enough.” Gwyllym sounded not much better, but he squared his great shoulders and forced a tired smile. “Jhone, Maethyrene, do we remain until fresh watchers come? You others may go; rest. You did well. Those designated for tonight’s watch will be replaced.”

Rwyan needed no more prompting.

In her chamber, she shed her gown and filled a tub. The green linen was speckled with droplets of red and the pinhole marks of burning. In better times it might have been abandoned, but since the supply ships came so infrequently now, she decided it must be washed and repaired. But later; now she wanted only to languish in the bath, then scrub herself clean.

Scrub my flesh clean, she thought. Inside, I shall still feel soiled.

She could not understand why: she had done her duty, left no choice by the Sky Lords. She was unsure exactly what she felt … guilty? Certainly, such encounters as this day’s left her with the feeling she was rendered somehow unclean. Yet the enmity of the Ahn was implacable-the God knew, she had felt that, like a foul dark wave coming from the skyboats-and there were few others of her kind felt any compunction at slaying the ancient enemy. Not all exulted in the fight, as did Terydd and some of his ilk; some, like Maethyrene, radiated a solemn resignation, but none felt any real regret. So why did she? Almost, she could wish she were less gifted, her talent weaker, so that she had not been chosen for the Sentinels but ordered to some keep. There seemed to her something close to obscenity in the battles the Sentinels fought, as if evil were brought out to oppose evil. Likely it should be a simpler life in a keep.

Would it, though? she wondered as she sank herself in the tub. The keep sorcerers fight when the Sky Lords ground their boats, so what difference? Either way men die.

She began to wash hair matted with blood, coated with ash, watching the water change color. Perhaps, she mused, it’s to do with the crystal Or to do with me, solely. Perhaps I’m not the stuff from which true patriots are fashioned. Perhaps I’ve not the stomach for war and should be no better as a commur-mage. Perhaps I listened too close to Daviot, when he spoke of our driving the Ahn from their homeland. When he spoke of-no! I’ll not think of him.

Angry with herself, she rose to find the pump and sluice her body. It was always, she realized, after she had linked with the crystal that she thought the most of Daviot, dreamed the more. It was as though the stone opened some portal to grant memory better ingress. She dried herself (thinking it was near pointless in such heat) and tugged on a clean gown. She was hungry, and there would be company in the refectory to alleviate her megrims.

When she found it, the long room was already crowded: such magic as had been used today edged the appetite. Rwyan “saw” Gwyllym-like her, fresh bathed-deep in conversation with Cyraene and Gynael, Chiara listening even as her eyes wandered. The blond woman saw Rwyan and waved, indicating a place beside her. Rwyan smiled, somewhat tentatively, and nodded, making her way across the room. She hoped that with more senior sorcerers present, Chiara would not babble as usual about the day’s events, not evince such bloodthirsty fervor. She wondered if she grew testy: in Durbrecht she had not thought of Chiara’s chatter as babbling. Likely, she decided as she joined them, it was because Chiara found such pleasure in those things Rwyan herself found distasteful. She supposed they both had changed since coming here. She held her smile in place, aware that otherwise she might have scowled, as Chiara greeted her eagerly, already speaking of the fight.

“Better than a score, so Gwyllym says; and all but five destroyed. I wish to the God I’d been with you.”

Rwyan waved that one of that day’s servitors bring her ale and food. “Do you?” she asked. “It was not very pleasant. I’ve been washing off Kho’rabi blood.”

“Dark blood that can no longer threaten Dharbek,” said Chiara fiercely. “Like battle honors.”

Rwyan fought irritation. “Poor Waende was drenched,” she said, looking around. “Is she here? Is she well?”

Gynael said, “She’s abed. Not hungry, she says, and somewhat disturbed. Marthyn gave her a sleeping draught.”

“Best she not take a watch for a while,” said Gwyllym. “But you, Rwyan, are you well?”

“Save for a burned gown.” She smiled. She’d not say here she felt unclean. “Save for that, aye.”

“Good.” He nodded kindly. “Me, I’ve an appetite after that squabble.”

“How,” asked Chiara, “can you name it a squabble?”

“Easily.” Gwyllym chuckled, catching Rwyan’s eye and winking. “Now, shall we speak of gentler matters?”

Chiara was about to protest, but Cyraene patted her hand and bade her quiet. Rwyan could not decide whether she wanted to laugh or shake her friend as Chiara pouted, but at least she obeyed her lover, and the conversation moved away from the fight.

Not far: it was difficult to avoid discussion of the Sky Lords, of their newfound magic, and the likely imminence of the Great Coming.

None there doubted its approach; the sole question was when, and on that opinions differed. Rwyan favored no one opinion over another. Sometimes, secretly, she entertained the wish that somehow there be a peace forged; but that was surely no more than idle indulgence: the Dhar would not give back the land taken from the Ahn, any more than the Sky Lords would relinquish their claim. Not willingly; not without it be forced on them both. And how should that be accomplished?

Unless, came the errant thought, Daviot’s dreams be true, and we find the dragons and make them our allies.

“Rwyan?” Gwyllym’s voice intruded on her musing. “Where do you go, Rwyan?”

Before she could shape a reply, Chiara said, “Dreaming again! Of whom, Rwyan?”

“I thought,” she said, favoring her friend with a glare, “that it were better to end this war before too many die.”

“Were there a way, aye.” Gwyllym nodded soberly, his craggy face grave. “But there is no way; not that I can see.”

“Destroy the Sky Lords!” Chiara’s pretty face became a harpy’s mask, her voice strident. “Send every one of their God-cursed skyboats down in flames! Build boats of our own, to take the battle to them and lay waste their land!”

Her hands clenched in angry fists; her blue eyes flashed. Rwyan heard Gwyllym sigh, thinking he grew as bored with Chiara’s fanaticism as she. Even Cyraene looked askance at she younger woman.

Gynael said, “You know we cannot build such boats. We can only endeavor to destroy theirs.”

Her tone was soft, as if she delivered a reprimand to a willful child. Chiara turned defiant eyes on the silver-haired woman, lips parting to reply. Before she had chance to speak, Cyraene took her hand, still fisted, and patted gently. “Little one,” she murmured, “you must learn to curb that ardor. You waste your anger, dreaming of what cannot be. We’ve our magic; they, theirs-so it is, and we must accept at.”

For a moment, Chiara seemed about to argue, but then she nodded, her flushed cheeks paling. Rwyan was surprised Cyraene could affect her so; and grateful, for she was in no mood to suffer another eruption. Mildly, she said, “Were it only possible to speak with the Kho’rabi. Perhaps …”

Chiara interrupted with a snort laden with contempt. “You listened too much to Daviot, Rwyan. His mad dreams taint you. I give you Cyraene’s advice-leave off dreaming of what cannot be.”

Rwyan shrugged agreement, not wishing to fuel argument. Tempers grew short in such heat, and likely Chiara was right: Daviot had seeded an idea in her, and likely it was wild as the notion of Dhar airboats, or living dragons.

“Gently, gently.” Gwyllym’s tone was moderate, but beneath lay the steel of authority. “Could we build skyboats, aye-but we cannot. Could we speak with the Sky Lords, aye-but we cannot. We can only do our duty, and that shall be hard do we quarrel amongst ourselves.”

Rwyan said, “Forgive me,” thinking she had done little to warrant apology. Still, she’d not lose Chiara’s friendship, for all the woman grew tiresome. Had I such vehemence, she thought, I’d likely be happier. Surely I’d not entertain such doubts as plague me.

Almost, she smiled at that-another impossibility-but she held her face solemn, attentive again as Gynael said slowly, “Upward of a score, Gwyllym? Why so many, think you?”

The big man shrugged, rough-hewn features expressing incomprehension.

Gynael lowered her wrinkled face as if in thought. “As many came against every one of the Sentinels, and as many were felled. Would they make such a sacrifice? It seems costly to me.”

“The Sky Lords count lives cheap,” said Cyraene.

“True,” Gynael said, her hoarse voice contemplative. “But even so, it seems to me a terrible waste. It prompts me to wonder if all their scouting is not done. If they’ve garnered all the knowledge of Dharbek they need.” She smiled sadly. “I think that what we saw today was a testing; perhaps the last. We’ve seen none of the great vessels in a year or more; nor lately the little skyboats. Now, of a sudden, they come like flies to a midden. Why should that be, think you?”

Her rheumy eyes found Rwyan’s face, and as none other spoke, Rwyan said, “They’d know what magicks we command. Discover if we’ve learned aught to defeat them this past year.”

“I think it so,” said Gynael. “I think they sacrifice their little boats to gain that knowledge.”

Beside her, Rwyan felt Chiara stiffen and “saw” her hand find Cyraene’s. The dark-haired woman’s face was paled; her sharp white teeth worried her lower lip. Across the table Gwyllym sat with clouded visage, his eyes intent on Gynael. His deep voice was a rumble as he said, “The Great Coming.”

“I’d guess it so.” Gynael nodded, then smiled as if amused by their expressions. “Why such startled faces? Is this not what we expected?”

Aye, Rwyan thought, it is. But to expect a thing and to face it are not the same. We are not ready; we’ve not the magic.

“I’d thought,” said Cyraene, her voice hushed, “to have more time. To find the key to defeating their magic …”

Her words tailed off. Gwyllym vented a bass chuckle devoid of humor. “As the seasons they send against us,” he murmured, “so the clock runs faster.”

“Too fast,” whispered Cyraene.

That night, Rwyan dreamed she flew. She sat astride a great winged creature that was simultaneously incorporeal and substantial. She felt the beat of massive wings, the rise and fall of vast ribs, the rush of air that washed her face and streamered her hair, but she could not see the beast. No matter how hard she tried, she could not quite capture its image, so that even as she knew she hurtled through a sky darkening to star-pocked night, borne aloft by what she knew must be a dragon, she felt she was alone, upheld by nothing more than a dream. She grew afraid then, thinking that she must tumble down to the sea below. And Daviot was there, before her, her arms about his waist, her cheek rested snug against his back. She raised her face to nuzzle his hair, and he turned, smiling confidently.

He said, “You see? The dragons live still.”

And she asked, “Where do we go?”

He pointed ahead, and Rwyan saw they had flown through the night, the darkness gone, replaced by the rising sun lifting from a horizon spread with three mountainous islands.

She asked, “Is that not the domain of the Sky Lords?” And he answered only, “Aye.”

Then, from one island, there rose a skyboat, rushing toward them. Rwyan saw the sigils glowing malign along the flanks of the bloodred cylinder and heard the eerie singing of the elementals. In the black basket beneath the cylinder, she saw the glint of sun on metal as bows were drawn. She felt the Kho’rabi wizards summon their magicks to send against her, against Daviot, and readied her own, unsure her strength should be enough to defeat so many.

She said, “Daviot, I’m afraid.”

And he answered her, “What other choice is there?”

Rwyan woke then, the question still loud inside her head. She could not understand it; nor, all that day, could she forget it. She told no one, for she could not believe any on the island should own the answer; and it was, after all, only a dream.

In the tense days that followed, the dream returned nightly, always the same, unchanged and inexplicable. Rwyan set it aside as best she could and endeavored to concentrate on her duties. That was no easy task, for like all on the island, she waited on the summons to battle. When she walked abroad, she was not alone in looking often at the sky, and all the time that part of her attuned to the minds around her listened for the call that should send her to the tower and the crystal, to war.

One night a storm arose and she neither dreamed nor slept very much for the crash of thunder and the vivid illumination of the lightning that danced across the sky. She dared hope the tempest was herald of the occult summer’s ending, but she was disappointed: the heat did not abate, and the next morning the air was again cloying, the sun a baleful eye overhead.

Then, when the storm was gone as if it, too, had been only a dream, her life was irrevocably changed.

The sun, although barely a handspan above the horizon, transformed the sky to a sheet of flawless blue silvered by the rising heat. The boundary line separating the heavens from the unbroken surface of the ocean was indiscernible, air and water merging in burnished union. No motion of waves disturbed the one, nor cloud the other: only the shimmering blue existed, fierce as a furnace, painful to observe and soul-destroyingly empty. The coruscating glory of the dawn was a brief memory, the interim between darkness and day burned off in an eye’s blink, like gossamer feather fallen in fire. What little cool the night had brought was gone as swiftly, replaced by the intensity of the ascending sun.

The man turned slitted eyes from his observation to study the rock on which he lay, optimism flaring and dying as swiftly as the dawn. It had not changed since he had last seen it, despite his hope that he was somehow, in some manner he could not comprehend, caught in a dream that would end with the night. That forlorn solace evaporated as he cast his eyes-what color were they? he wondered-over the oblong slab of unblemished white.

It was exactly as he recalled, and he knew that if he summoned the energy to rise and step out its confines, it would measure fifty paces by nineteen, slanting a little upward after the thirtieth pace, sloping about its perimeter into the ocean. That vast womb seemed to wait, patient, knowing that in time it would have him, just as it had welcomed the bleached bones he had cast upon its waters, as much to introduce some disturbance, some leavening of the awful monotony, as to rid the stone of the empty-eyed reminders that death stood close by his shoulder. They had provided a small measure of grim amusement as he tossed them out over the featureless water, watching the splashes, wondering what features had fleshed the skulls, what musculature once decorated the bones of arms and legs, the cages of the ribs. He doubted they had been fat, not in this place; but what expressions had they worn when death reached out to touch them, telling them the time had come? He grimaced at the melancholy thought, wondering what his own would be, wondering what he looked like now.

His body-those parts of it he was able to see-was tanned and hard, the belly flat, the muscles firm, laced with corded sinew. His fingers told him his mouth was wide and full-lipped, his nose broad; the hair that fell long about his face was straight and black; but the composition of his features, for all his attempts to catch his reflection in the sea, remained a mystery. As much a mystery as his name, or how he came to be here.

He eased stiffly to a sitting position, limbs grown adjusted to the hard contours of the stone cramping, his mouth dry, the tongue sticky, salted with the scent of the sea. To stand was an effort that spun his head, exploding brilliance behind his eyes, but he forced himself to it, flexing shoulders, turning a neck stiffened in fretful sleep to and fro until his body had resumed some degree of mobility. He performed a series of exercises he could not remember learning, their execution ingrained, habit.

Then with nothing better to do, he sat again, sighing.

He did not know how he had come here, nor how long he had been on this desolate slab, as unsure of those things as he was of … everything.

It was easier to enumerate those things he did not know than his knowledge of himself or his whereabouts. He did not know his name or the place of his birth; he did not know how this ocean that surrounded him was named; he had no idea how he came here, which in turn led to the thought that he did not know if he had enemies, or friends, a family, a wife, or children. He did not know what he looked like, or how many years he had lived, or how he had lived them.

He knew so little: and that was the most frightening thing of all.

It seemed he was born full-grown upon this rock, birthed by the ocean itself perhaps, that awesome mother waiting to take him back, watching implacable as the sun fried his brain and pitched him into madness.

What might he do then? Plunge into the depths and drown? Or die withered by thirst and heat, his skin tightening over his bones until it cracked and fell away, leaving, finally, only a skeleton, perhaps for some other such as he to find. He was aware that he did not fear death in the same way that he knew such exercises as loosened his cramped limbs, but not how or why, and that blankness, that absence of memory, of self-knowledge, was the most galling aspect of this strange limbo.

He grunted, rising again, seeking in movement refuge from such melancholy contemplation. He was not dead yet, and whilst blood still pulsed in his veins, he would not give up, not turn to find death but flee from that embrace. He shaded his eyes, staring over the remorseless blue toward the scattering of similar rocks that jutted above the water. They were empty of life, though he suspected they held their caches of bones, offering no escape. He had thought of swimming to the closest-until he had seen the dark fins that occasionally clove the surface of the sea, judging from their size that the bodies beneath were sufficiently large to possess maws capable of swallowing him. In time, perhaps that would seem the more preferable option; but not yet. No: he was not ready yet.

He walked to the farther extension of the rock and crouched on the rim, peering down. Yesterday-or was it before yesterday? Time blurred in the amnesiac miasma of his memory-he had caught two crabs here, where the stone slab descended in a sharper curve to form a shallow bowl before slanting at a steeper angle into the depths. There had been more, moving about the pool, but he had been able to snatch up only two before the rest scuttled to the safety of the ocean. Neither was large, though he had received a painful abrasion from the pincers of one before smashing its shell against the stone, and the extraction of the raw meat did more to tell him his teeth were sound than assuage his hunger. But they had offered some sustenance: now there were none, and the scraps of broken carapace he had set out in faint hope of catching fresh water should rain fall or dew form were empty, dry as his own arid mouth. He swept them aside, seeing them fly over the smooth surface of the ocean, watching the small splashes they made, and pushed wearily to his feet.

Back, fifty paces to where the rock swept gently into the water, the stone was already warm beneath his bare soles. Soon it would be too hot to tread, and he would huddle, drawing in upon himself, seeking to reduce the area of skin exposed to the sun, cupping his hands over his head as he felt the rays burn into his mind, removing them only when he felt the heat become too great to bear and it seemed his flesh must take flame and burn. Then he would fight the temptation to dive into the seductive water, knowing that he must either give himself up or emerge salt-caked, easier prey to his fiery enemy, those parts of him already burned screaming silently at the saline caress.

The darkness was little better, though it brought a slight lessening of the heat, for then it seemed the ocean woke, great bodies moving within its suspension, half-seen things rising and diving, black bulks etched by the same moonlight that silvered the water, filigree patterns formed by the ripples. He looked then on stars he could not name, though he knew instinctively-or felt he did-in which direction north lay, and east, south, west, though he could not say what lands boundaried the water. Indeed, he could not say that the sea ended, could not be sure it did not extend forever, circling back on itself, this unknown world in which he found himself ocean-girt and he the only living human creature on it. Save that he felt in his bones his homeland lay to the east; and that others had preceded him: there was skeletal evidence of that.

He clung to the belief that he had come here through human agency: thus might he hope to escape by the same means. Perhaps some vessel would pass and take him off. Or grant him the boon of a boat; water and some means of shelter, at least.

Or perhaps not, said the unseen figure waiting at his shoulder. If men cast you away here, why should men succor you? Why should they not pass you by?

“Because they are men,” he answered, “and not all men can be so cruel.”

Can they not? Death asked mildly. Do you know that?

He paused before he shook his head and said, “No,” hearing soft laughter at the admission.

“You are not there,” he said, “I am talking to myself. Perhaps I am going mad.”

Perhaps, came the response.

“No,” he said, and shivered despite the heat, and drew his hands down over his face, tasting the sweat that already beaded his palms. “Go away.”

He forced his watering eyes to focus, studying his hands, hearing Death’s soft chuckling-or the steady murmuring of the sea, he was not sure which-as he fought despair.

They looked strong, his hands, callused about the bases of fingers and thumbs, across the palms, as if accustomed to wielding some implement. Hair grew dark from the backs, divided by the pale traceries of old scars, that patterning continued along his forearms: the blazons of remembrance. He sensed his past there, knowledge of himself: what he was, and what he had been, elusive as a rainbow’s ending. He struggled to pursue the hints, to chase them down, like a man seeking to define a fading dream. It was as if he tried to clutch fog in his hands: hopeless. He blinked as heavy droplets of perspiration ran down his forehead and clung thick to his lashes, clouding his vision like tears: he wiped at his face, his concentration breaking. He ground his teeth and shook his head lest he weep, unaware that innate pride shaped the movement, glancing up to see the sun risen higher, wondering how much longer he could last.

Not long; not without shade and fresh water, food. Already his lips cracked, and it seemed he could feel the swelling of his tongue, the engorged flesh cloying to the roof of his dehydrating mouth, tender against his teeth. Soon his skin would blister, likely the relentless shimmer of sky and ocean would blind him, and then …

I shall have you, said Death.

“But not yet,” he answered.

Why not? demanded the unseen speaker, gently. You must come to me in the end, and what reason is there to prolong this suffering?

“I do not know who I am,” he said. “I want to remember.”

Is that a reason? Death laughed, dismissive as the softly echoing sea. Does it matter who you are? You are a man alone on a rock in an unknown sea. What more need you know?

“Who I am,” he said. “What I am.”

You are nothing, said Death. You are a sack of flesh stretched over bone that soon will scorch and wither and come to me.

“Then wait,” he said. “Wait until I am ready.”

You draw out your agony, said Death. No more than that. You condemn yourself to needless suffering. There is no one to witness this, no honor in it

Honor: he felt the sharded strings of his memory tugged. “There is me,” he said.

And you are no one, Death countered. Come to me.

“No!” He shouted now, the sound startling him, so that he looked up and saw the sun had passed its zenith and was moving toward the western horizon. “You see?” he told his adversary; told himself. “I have survived another day.”

Death did not answer, and the man slumped afresh, his breath a ragged panting that seared his lungs until the sun once more touched the water, a great ball of burning gold that lanced flame over the soft undulations of waves, the sky darkening to the east, as if the descending orb drew behind it a curtain. It disappeared, and for a little while the sky was a glory of crimson, of salmon, of coral. Then blue velvet pricked with stars and the slender crescent of the moon. The air cooled, and he sighed, luxuriating in that benison, heaving unsteadily to his feet, that he might feel the faint breeze that briefly wafted the air over all his tortured body. He felt his sweat dry and become cold; something splashed, unseen in the darkness. He groaned, lowering himself, and curled upon the rock, closing eyes that still saw the sun, reminding him that so long as he clung to life, he must face it again.

Finally, he slept.

The next day, he woke as the first rays spread like molten metal over the sea.

His lids were heavy, the orbs beneath hot, itching as though their moisture were leached out and drawn into the sun. He thought of rising, but the effort seemed too much and he lay watching the water grow brighter, until it became too bright, driving pinpricks of pain into his skull. His skin, too, felt it, crawling with the heat, and that galvanized him to action: he husked a curse and tottered to his feet. Perhaps there would be crabs again in the pool. Slowly, delicate as a dancer or a drunken man, he moved toward the farther end of the rock. The fifty paces had become eighty now, and the incline steeper. His muscles felt drained of moisture, knotting, movement painful. He halted at the rim, closing his eyes against the nausea that gripped him, fighting the dizziness that roiled his senses as he lowered himself cautiously to his knees.

The pool remained empty, as if the taking of the two crustaceans had rendered it forbidden territory to their fellows, the clear water shimmering, pricked with myriad points of brilliance that stabbed his vision, inflaming the dull ache inside his skull so that it pounded against the confining bone.

This is quite pointless, said Death. You will find neither food nor water. There is only suffering here.

“And you,” the man answered, curling up on the rock, his knees drawn up to his chest, his arms encircling his spinning head.

And me, Death agreed affably. Your true companion. “You name yourself my friend?” he demanded. Of course, Death said. Do I not offer you release from this pain?

“Then tell me who I am,” he challenged. “Tell me that, and then perhaps I will come to you.”

Do you not know? asked Death.

“No!” he croaked. “I cannot remember. Tell me!”

I could, Death said. I know it as I know all men’s names. Come to me, and I shall tell you.

The man thought on that awhile, still huddled, his eyes closed. It seemed to him, not knowing himself, that he was not afraid of dying but loved life more. “Not yet,” he said.

Death’s laughter was soft: the lap of undulant water on stone. Why delay it? Why suffer? You have no hope-come to me.

“I live,” he said.

But you do not know who you are, Death said.

“But still I live.”

Crouched, curled, his arms wrapped about his head, he could not see, but he thought Death shrugged, negligently. “Tell me who I am,” he repeated, “and then perhaps I shall agree.”

There was a shadow on the featureless sea, a blur of darkness that flickered in and out of his sight on the swell. Perhaps it was some trick of Death’s, to convince him of the futility of clinging so obstinately to the frayed thread of his life. But as he squinted, willing the vision to be real, it coalesced into solidity: a boat, blue painted, propelled toward him by four sweeps, the shapes of men at prow and stern. He fell to his knees, careless of the abrading rock, bracing himself on trembling hands, and mouthed a silent prayer of thanks. He did not know if there was a god or gods; or if there were, whether or not he believed in any deity, but still he gave up thanks, and said to Death, “You see? You shall not have me yet. I have beaten you.”

Death gave back no answer: the boat came closer. He thought it a fishing boat, though why he could not say, nor how he should know one vessel from another. He knew only that it offered salvation: he raised his arms, waving.

None on the craft returned his wave, and rather than coming straight on, to where its passengers might find landing, it turned aside. The man’s mouth, already open, gaped wider at that, and he croaked a hoarse denial, forcing himself to rise, tottering ungainly as he turned to stare in horror, hands outthrust, as if he would draw the boat to him. Almost, he plunged into the sea, to swim to the vessel, but for all his fear it should abandon him, he knew the effort of traversing that distance would be too great, that he must drown before he could reach his goal.

He peered through narrowed lids as it swept down the brief length of the rock, its outline shimmering in the heat haze, vague through the curtain of sweat that coursed his face. Four burly men manned the oars, he thought, and another the tiller. A man and a woman stood at the prow, their faces mere blurs, though he felt they studied him.

As if they fear me, he thought. And then, Why? What am I, that anyone should fear me? Who am I?

The moments it took for the craft to go by were an eternity in which hope died; then flared anew as the boat turned, circling the rock. He stood, turning with it, his head spinning with the motion, so that boat and sea and sky merged in a whirling of brilliance. He did not know he fell, did not feel his wasted body strike the stone. He no longer cared: in that instant Death might have claimed him and he gone un-protesting; that should have been preferable to this rise and fall of hope, this torment. He closed his eyes, teeth grinding, hands knotting into fists. Had his body been capable of producing such moisture, he would have wept, for despair consumed him then. And then through despair came anger: did these folk toy with him, he would not grant them the satisfaction of his suffering. He would face them and curse them as a man, on his feet. He did not know why that was so important, but he forced his eyes open and his body upright. He could barely stand, and the sun was fire on his skin, and for a while he could see nothing save the molten light of the water and the sky.

Then shapes formed, six, standing in a semicircle before him, between him and the boat, that held to the rock by a seventh figure who clutched the painter and eyed him warily. No less the others: six men in loose shirts and breeks of linen, short-swords in their hands, their expressions guarded. The woman wore a shift of the same plain linen, hair the color of polished copper shining in the sun drawn back from the oval of her face in a loose tail. She was lovely, he realized, and at the same time that she was blind: her eyes were large and green and fixed intently on him, but she studied him with something that was more than sight.

He thought, Magic, she wields magic, and did not know how he knew it.

He looked from their faces to the blades, and into his mind unbidden came the thought that he could not defeat them all, not so weak, not unarmed. He straightened, realizing he had dropped to a crouch, his hands extended, the fingers held rigid, ready to strike.

Almost, he laughed at himself, barely able to stand like a man, but preparing to fight. What am I? he wondered, and said as best he could past swollen tongue, from dry throat, “I am …” and fell silent, shaking his head. But not so much he should lose sight of them. “Who are you? Do you come to save me or to slay me?”

They frowned at that and exchanged sidelong glances, one to the other, and a tall broad-shouldered man in whose big hand the short-sword seemed no more than a knife said something he could not comprehend.

He decided they were not intending to kill him: was that their intent, they should surely have struck by now. He said, “Water,” and when the tall man’s face furrowed afresh, he gestured at his mouth, aping the act of drinking. The tall man spoke again, but still the words remained incomprehensible.

He waited, thinking that he could not stand much longer, that whatever innate discipline had set him on his feet must soon give sway to weakness and he fall down. He did not know why that thought was so distasteful; he wondered why he could not understand these people, or they him. He said, “Water, for the love of …”

He could not think whose love should merit that gift, but he heard the woman speak and saw the tall man nod, then turn to another, smaller, and murmur something that sent the slighter figure stepping backward to the boat.

A canteen was passed him, cautiously, as if the donor feared he might strike out.

He mumbled, “My thanks,” and brought the flask to his lips.

As he raised it, the tall man spoke warningly and touched swordpoint to flesh. The others moved a little way apart, muttering low. Again, he could not say how he knew they voiced cantrips, but it seemed the air crackled with the power they summoned. Do they slay me now, he thought, at least I shall die with my thirst slaked. He essayed a smile, ignoring the touch of steel against his throat as he began to drink.

At first there was no taste, only an easing of a pain become so familiar, he had not known he felt it. He let the blessed moisture trickle over his tongue, into his throat, and moaned at the pleasure. He began to swallow, the water tepid, but to him like some mountain spring, cool and achingly desirable.

When the tall man took the canteen from him, he snarled, trying to retain it, to gulp down more. He was too weak to resist, but from the corners of his eyes he saw the others tense. He thought, Like warriors. Like warriors who fight with magic. He raised his hands, licking off the droplets spilled there, and saw the woman draw closer.

She touched the canteen, and then pointed at his mouth and at his belly, clutching her own midriff in parody of sickness. He guessed she told him that to drink too much should harm him, and he nodded. She smiled and touched her breast, uttering a single word. At first he did not understand, and she repeated it, indicating herself again. He wondered what she meant, but then she touched the tall man and said a word, and he surmised she spoke their names.

Their names were unfamiliar, as if his tongue were not shaped to utter them, but he did his best, encouraged by the woman, and finally managed: “Rwyan,” and “Gwyllym.”

The woman nodded confirmation, smiling, which he found reassuring, and stabbed a finger at his chest. He said, “I do not remember,” and shrugged. She pointed again, pantomiming her failure to understand: he shrugged again and shook his head helplessly.

She turned away then and spoke with the one whose name sounded like Gwyllym, which seemed as odd a name as hers, though why that should be, he could not say, and the tall man nodded and called to the others. They drew closer, surrounding him, and one went to the boat, returning with shackles. Proximate, he felt their magic on his skin, like the sting of salt, and the prick of their swords, and offered no protest as they fettered him, his wrists and ankles cuffed, connected by a chain. He wondered why they were so afraid of him.

They walked him to the boat then, and though he did his best to tread out the length of the rock, his knees buckled and he would have fallen had the tall man not given him the support of a brawny arm. He felt ashamed when he could not climb unaided on board but must be lifted, babe-like, and set down in the prow, huddling there, the man and the woman watchful to either side as the others settled to tiller and sweeps.

He watched the rock recede as the oarsmen backed the boat, thinking that Death might appear to admit defeat, to acknowledge his victory, but there was nothing, only a length of bleached white stone that seemed to float on the blue expanse of sea, and he turned away. He did not know if he was rescued or brought to some other fate, but they had given him water and so, he assumed, intended him to live at least a while longer. Did they mean to slay him, he hoped he might die fittingly.

He struggled to focus his eyes on their course, to see where they went, but he was consumed with a tremendous lassitude, as if rescue drained him of the last reserves of his energy; as if, his fate now placed in the hands of others, he might for a little while let go his hold. The motion of the boat was gentle, a pleasant rocking that lulled him, for all he could not understand why he was chained or why he provoked such fear in his rescuers. I live, he thought. For now that must be enough, though I’d dearly know my name. Lethargy crept over him, and he closed his eyes, letting the weariness take him.

When next he woke, shadows told him dusk had fallen. He saw that he was in a room plastered white, beams of dark wood spanning the ceiling, a glassed lantern suspended from the centermost, a single window, shuttered against the heat, set in one wall. Two men, brawny and with swords belted to their waists, settled on chairs. There was little furniture besides the bed: a small table, the two chairs, pegs on which clothing might be hung. There seemed no more to learn for now, and he lay back; his fetters were not uncomfortable, and the bed was very soft. He felt stronger, enough that he might test his bonds. They remained in place, affixed to head and foot of the bed, but soft cloth now warded his wrists and ankles against chafing, and his body was slick with some unguent that soothed and cooled his sunburned skin. He slowly turned his head and saw a man, a stranger, and the woman called Rwyan, seated across the room. He opened his mouth, feeling more ointment on his lips, and said, “Please, water.”

They turned to him at that and spoke, and the man quit the room with a nervous backward glance. The woman rose, filling a pannikin that she brought to the bed. He was not so much recovered as he had thought, and she slid an arm about his shoulders to raise him that he might drink. He would have gulped, but she allowed him only a sip, and then another, doling the water slowly into his parched mouth, speaking all the while in a soft, calm voice. When the pannikin was emptied, he smiled his gratitude, and she lowered him gently back.

As she returned the cup, the door opened to reveal an angular, round-shouldered man carrying a bulky satchel, moonlight glinting on a hairless pate. The prisoner watched as the bald man spoke with the woman, then snapped his fingers, the action producing a flame that he touched to the lantern. As light filled the room, the prisoner saw that the woman now wore a loose gown of green and that her hair was unbound. He thought again how lovely she was, but then his view was blocked by the bald man, who touched his chest and said, “Marthyn,” which seemed to be his name.

He said no more but set down his satchel and began to rummage through the contents. When he produced a phial and measured out some drops of a pale yellow liquid, the prisoner hesitated only an instant before swallowing the decoction: for reasons he could not define, he felt safer in Rwyan’s presence, and when she saw him hesitate, she smiled and nodded encouragement.

The liquid was tasteless; it filled him with a pleasant languor, so that he drifted midway between sleep and waking as the man called Marthyn examined his body and applied a fresh coating of the unguent. He was only dimly aware of the men who entered, on Marthyn’s call, to remove his fetters and turn him gently over. He was asleep when the manacles were replaced.

Light filtering through the shutters woke him next, though whether one night, or several, had passed, he could not guess. Rwyan was gone, and the man who had sat with her, in their places two men who might have been twins. They turned toward him as he stirred, and in their eyes he saw suspicion. Not fear, he thought, but wariness. As if they were confident, but yet cautious. He said, “Rwyan?” and one of them shook his head, pointing at the door, then touched his chest and said, “Darys.” The other stabbed a thumb and said, “Valryn.” The prisoner repeated their names and said, “I’m hungry.”

Darys shrugged and brought him water, which he drank, the liquid prompting his stomach to rumble, so that Darys chuckled and spoke with Valryn, who went to the door and called through it.

After a while, Marthyn came to apply a fresh coating of the unguent and feed him droplets of a blue liquid, then spooned broth between his lips. It was a small bowl, but it filled him as if it were a feast, and afterward he slept again.

He woke to day’s light, once more not knowing how much time had passed, thinking it likely not much, for Darys and Valryn still played the parts of nurses, or guards. He needed badly to void his bowels, which was difficult to express, though he at last succeeded; Valryn drew his sword as Darys unlocked his fetters and helped him rise. The chains were fixed again about his wrists and ankles, and he was brought to an alcove. He was chagrined that he must still rely on another to walk, more that both men watched as he satisfied his need. He found some small comfort in the thought it were better men observed him than that Rwyan or some other woman had been present.

After, he was returned to the bed and chained again in place.

So the days passed, at first in confusion but then to an emerging pattern. He drifted less, remained longer awake. Under Marthyn’s ministrations his body healed, sun-ravaged skin becoming whole, his strength returning. He ate; at first only broth or gruel, but then more solid food-fruits and vegetables and meat. He saw that his guardian nurses were changed daily, and that while they were usually men, sometimes women took a turn. He liked none of them so well as Rwyan, for she seemed the only one not much afraid of him, nor so wary. Most seemed to perceive him as they might a wild animal, half-tamed and potentially dangerous. He knew somehow that he was strong and that he could fight, but he felt no animosity toward these people-save they kept him chained-and he did not understand why they held him so. He wished he understood their speech, or they his, for then he could tell them he intended no harm and would not seek to hurt his saviors. Rather, that he was indebted to them, that he owed them his life and would lay it down before offering them injury.

As he recovered, so his curiosity increased. He was a full-grown man, but of his life he remained innocent as a babe, as if the sea itself had birthed him on that miserable rock. He was of different stock to the folk who tended him-their language told him that much-but from whence he came and in what land he found himself, he had not the least idea. He determined to learn and commenced to ply those who sat with him with questions. It was a dissatisfying process, a matter of gestures and repetitions that enabled him to identify objects, to learn simple words. His mind, it appeared, was quick enough, for he soon could ask for water, or food, the latrine; he could offer thanks and greet newcomers, but true communication remained impossible. He gleaned more from the attitudes of his tutors: some refused to indulge him, some were reluctant, some few enthusiastic; but in all of them he felt still that wariness, and in some a loathing he could not at all understand. It emphasized his loneliness.

In time he was strong enough to stand and walk unaided, and then confinement began to chafe. He pantomimed excursion and felt resentful when he was at first refused. Rwyan was the most sympathetic, and to her he put, as eloquently as he might, his desire to walk abroad. She understood, and nodded, and later spoke with Marthyn, who frowned tremendously and muttered, mostly to himself, in a tone the prisoner knew was dubious. Marthyn left and returned with Gwyllym and several others, who stood in animated conversation as the man lay chained, watching their faces, cursing his incomprehension. He beamed and said in their language, “My thanks,” when finally his fetters were unlocked and they informed him he should be allowed to leave the room.

He was given a shirt and breeks, which reminded him for the first time of his nudity, though he did not feel embarrassed by that. The manacles were a worse indignity, but at least the chains were lengthened enough he might walk without too much difficulty. When he ventured out, two men were always with him, swords sheathed on their belts and heavy staffs in their hands. He did not mind: to walk again under the open sky was a joy, for all he must bear the curious stares of all he encountered, as if he were some strange-ling beast taught to walk upright.

Within a span of seven days he was fully limber, recuperated from his ordeal, vigorous enough he should, had he not been hampered by the chains, have outdistanced his escort. He was allowed the freedom of the open spaces but not the buildings, and those he avoided anyway, for there were always folk about them, and their reaction to his presence disturbed him. He preferred to wander the terraces and the heights, especially when he discovered Rwyan might be often found there.

When he found her, he would sit, a respectful distance off, and seek to plumb her mind. She offered no objection but took the role of pedagogue as if it were a welcome relief from troubled thoughts he could not comprehend, only wonder at. As best he could, he expressed his gratitude, telling her he owed her people his life. He felt she understood; he did not understand why she smiled so sadly. He thought there was much strangeness in the world.

One night, alone in his room-he was still chained, and both the door and the single window were locked, but none now remained with him-he remembered his name. He did not know how it came back, it was simply, suddenly, there in his mind, and when he said it aloud, it was familiar: “Tezdal.” He felt more whole for that, as if such knowledge of identity anchored him firmer in his confused world; he felt less a cipher.

In the morning, when the door was opened and his guards entered with food, he touched his chest and said proudly, “I am Tezdal.”

They looked sharply at him, and one fingered his sword, but then they spoke, and soon Gwyllym appeared, and the hunchbacked woman called Maethyrene, who pointed at him and spoke his name as if it were a question.

He nodded, smiling, and said, “Yes, I am Tezdal.”

Gwyllym spoke, but save for a few words and phrases the pattern and meaning remained a puzzle to Tezdal. He thought the big man both pleased and excited, Maethyrene equally disturbed, and then himself grew alarmed as they urged him to dress, suddenly impatient. He had thought they should be pleased by this small prize hooked from the fog of his amnesia, but it seemed instead to galvanize them, as if the utterance of his name rendered him somehow more dangerous. He was allowed no breakfast but was hurried from the room to a long colonnaded building, its white stucco brilliant in the morning sunlight. There was nowhere cool even so early in the day, but inside the building the heat was not so fierce, the hall to which he was brought shadowed and very quiet. His alarm increased as he was pushed roughly to a chair and his chains fastened, securing him in place. For an instant anger flared at such treatment, and he strained against his bonds. Then he saw a sword drawn partway from the scabbard and the unmasked hatred in the bearer’s eyes, and he subsided, panting and more than a little afraid: it came to him, for the first time, that there were some here would willingly slay him.

He sat, waiting as the hall’s quiet calm was lost to uproar, folk he had known only as tranquil bursting in with voices raised and startled eyes studying him with unfathomable expressions. For a while confusion reigned, the chamber filling, becoming crowded, and he could only look about, wondering what occasioned such excitement.

He saw Rwyan amongst the throng, but she was deep in urgent conversation with Gwyllym and gave him no more than a tentative smile, as if she, too, were become unsure of his intentions or his probity. Marthyn came, to place a hand upon his brow and stare into his eyes. As if, Tezdal thought, he checks me for fever, or madness. Why is my name so important? Then, as Marthyn moved away and all began to take chairs, facing him like some court of inquisition, he thought, Perhaps it is not my name but my remembering of it. He wished he understood their language better.

But he did not, and he could only sit silent as they debated … My fate, he thought as one after the other rose to speak, enough gesturing in his direction that he could entertain no doubt but that they spoke of him. He could not be sure, but from the looks some wore, the tenor of their speech, he suspected they called for his death, as if his remembering of his name condemned him, branding him guilty of crimes of which he had no knowledge. Others seemed less sanguine, but he could not much better interpret their voices or their faces, only hope they spoke up on his behalf.

Surely, he thought as the morning aged and the colloquy went on, they would not take me off the rock and nurse me back to health only to execute me because I claim a name. I am not their enemy; I am not a danger to them. Having saved me, why then slay me?

The shifting of the light filtering through the shutters told him noon had passed before a decision was reached. What it was, he could not tell, only that he was loosed from the chair and marched from the hall. He tried to find Rwyan in the crowd, hoping to glean some information from her face, some indication of his fate, but she was lost to sight, armed men pressing him close on all sides, as if they feared he might somehow escape, and he was brought to the great white tower.

He had never ventured close to that keep before: the aura of power he had felt the first time he saw it had persuaded him to avoid the place. He did not understand why, only that he felt easier keeping his distance, as if the tower plucked forgotten memories, were in some way he did not comprehend threatening. Now he was escorted to the doors, through to a flight of stairs that wound windowless upward, and uneasiness grew.

He fought the sensation, refusing to give way to fear. Perhaps they intended to fling him from the parapet; if so, he would die as a man should. He steeled himself as a door was opened and he stood beneath the sky. The aura was stronger here, and his eyes were drawn irrevocably to the crystal resting on a pedestal of black stone at the center of the floor. It seemed possessed of occult life, pulsing as the unroofed area filled. Somehow he knew these people communicated with the stone, though how or for what purpose, he had no idea, save that it must be to do with him.

Then his arms were gripped, and he was urged closer to the crystal. He felt a great reluctance, but would not let it show, and so walked straight-backed forward, as if he were not at all afraid. Seven gathered in a circle about the pedestal. Amongst them he recognized Rwyan and Gwyllym, Maethyrene; the others were strange to him. His belly lurched as they began their ritual: he told himself that was only hunger and knew he lied. He watched, compelled, as the stone shone brighter, lines of glittering light flashing out to touch the seven, bathing them in scintillating nimbus. Then he cried out and fought his captors as the light embraced him, and he felt touched by nameless power, as if unfleshed fingers probed his mind. Darkness fell.

Rwyan sat sipping tea and thinking as she studied the sleeping man.

Tezdal An odd name, a Kho’rabi name: there was power in names.

By the God, but his remembering of his own had demonstrated that. It had thrown the island into uproar, as if that small retrieval had rendered him abruptly no longer a curiosity but a threat. And yet surely he was the same man who had come gently enough to seek out her company, come seeking knowledge to fill the vacuum of his amnesia. He had worked hard to express his gratitude; had, as best she could understand him, told her he offered no harm, was indebted to his saviors. She had believed him then-should she not now? Should the remembering of his name so change the situation some now called for his execution? They had known what he was from the start, when the fishing boat had sighted him, alone and naked on that forsaken rock. He could scarcely have been aught else but one of the Sky Lords fallen from a burning airboat. They had agreed he should be rescued and brought back to the island, that they might learn what they could from the first Kho’rabi ever taken alive. They had never thought to find a man without recollection of his past, all his awareness limited to his brief existence on the stone.

And that had been the irony of it, that his memory was gone, and he had no more idea who or what he was than some storm-beached fish. Had he possessed his memory then, he would have been questioned, the occult power of the crystal bent to plumbing whatever secrets he held. Amnesiac, his mind was locked secure, was innocent as a babe’s, denying them entry. They had not known quite what to do and so had delayed decision.

Some, even then, had spoken for his death, and that had seemed to Rwyan, for all she knew he was the enemy, akin to seeking the death of a child. It seemed to her that his loss of memory obliterated his past, as if he were truly newborn. So she had spoken against so extreme a measure, suggesting that his innocence was no enmity but a chance to learn, perhaps eventually to communicate with the Sky Lords. Gwyllym had supported her, Maethyrene, Jhone, and Marthyn, enough others the vote had come down in Tezdal’s favor: he should be granted his life, so long as he represented no threat.

Now he had won back his name, and the cry went up again, born of ancient hate, of inbred fear, that with that first step taken, he should become again a Sky Lord and therefore should die.

“And what use that?” Gwyllym had demanded. “We’d as well have left him on that rock and saved ourselves the effort of a hard day’s rowing. We wanted him alive, that we might question him; we got him alive. Were we wrong, then?”

“Aye,” some had said in answer. “Wrong to save him, wrong to nurse him, wrong to let him live now.”

“Are our worst fears realized, and the Great Coming imminent,” Gynael had said, “then that should be a waste. Alive, what might we not learn from him?”

“What use is a man without his memory?” had come the countering argument, from Demaeter.

“What danger from a man without his memory?” Rwyan had asked. “To slay him now would be murder, no more.”

“To slay a Kho’rabi is not murder!” Demaeter had shouted, outraged. “It cannot be.”

“He’s an extra mouth to feed when food grows short,” Cyraene had said. “He cannot speak our language-what can we learn from him?”

“What we hoped to learn before,” Gwyllym had declared, and asked that Marthyn speak.

“His name,” the herbalist had said, “is the key. Without that, there could be no unlocking of his mind. Now that he’s remembered it, however … it’s my belief we may use the crystal’s power to gift him our tongue.”

As cries of protest had risen, Gwyllym had shouted, “That was ever our intention! In the God’s name, did you dissenters think to learn his? Do we give him our language, then perhaps we can unpick the strands of his memory and all our efforts not be wasted.”

Some had argued then that it was a dangerous course, that Tezdal might be a Kho’rabi wizard and that to bring him to the crystal serve only to augment his power. Also, that he might in some manner harm the stone; or that, empowered by magic, he find some means to harm the Sentinels themselves.

And Gynael had climbed stiffly to her feet and managed somehow, for all her eyes were rheumy, to imbue her gaze with scorn. “Are we so weak, then?” she had demanded. “Shall we not set a warding on him? Even be he a wizard and not a mere warrior, think you he’s so powerful he shall overcome all of us? I say we’ve an opportunity here none have before known. I say we betray ourselves do we not seize it.”

It had been those hoarse-spoken words, Rwyan thought, that had swayed the conclave. There had been some further debate, but opposition had faltered, and finally it had been agreed Tezdal be brought to the crystal and they endeavor to put the Dhar language in his head. Rwyan had felt sorry for the uncomprehending man as he was hauled away to the white tower.

That had been seven days ago, and for all that time Tezdal had slept, not waking even when Marthyn dripped broth laced with restorative herbs between his lips. He had drunk and slept on. He soiled the bed and did not wake when he was lifted off, the sheets replaced. His chest rose and fell, breath came soft from his mouth, but his eyes did not open. Rwyan wondered if the gramarye had sent his mind into limbo, if perhaps the crystal had absorbed him in some way, leaving behind an empty husk.

She had much time to wonder, for it was agreed that of all on the island, she was the one most sympathetic to the sleeping man. She was the one most likely to win his trust. Hers was the company he had sought out, and therefore hers was the face most likely to reassure him when-if-he woke. Marthyn had confided in her his doubts: Tezdal might not wake, but sleep his life away. He might wake mad; he might regain consciousness aware he was a Sky Lord taken by the Dhar. He might awake still empty of his memory. Whichever, it was better Rwyan’s be the face he saw first; and better he remain securely chained.

It was a duty not entirely to her taste, for it held the flavor of trust betrayed. But she could not refuse, for she was yet a mage, with duty to her land acknowledged, and though it was no easy task to spend her days and nights cooped in the little room “watching” him sleep, she accepted. There was, too, that she pitied him. She could not now perceive him as an enemy: he was only a man, alone in an unfamiliar world; perhaps, even as he slept, aware that around him were folk would slay him, had they their way. She could not help but feel sorry for him. And somehow, he reminded her of Daviot. There was something-she could not precisely define it-about his look, the angle of his jaw, the shape of his skull, his glossy dark hair, that summoned those memories she had easier lived without. Almost, she had mused, as if blood were shared; as if the fisherman’s son from Kellambek and the Kho’rabi knight had some ancient ancestral linkage.

She sighed and rose, stretching muscles cramped from too long without movement, turning her occult sight on the window. Dusk was fallen. She heard the milch cows lowing, goats bleating; from the olive groves a nightingale sang. She lit the lantern, not wanting Tezdal to wake-if he should wake, ever-to darkness. He had suffered, she thought, frights enough.

She went to the door, smiling at herself as she eased it open, as if she had sooner not disturb him than wake him with the sound. She stepped outside, arching her back and tilting her head, wishing for a breeze that was not there. She turned her face skyward, finding the gibbous moon hung low in the east. At least there had been no more skyboats come since that raid that had delivered Tezdal.

Which likely means, she thought, that Gynael was right, and that was a final probing of our defenses. In which case, how long before the Great Coming? Have the Sky Lords learned all they need now? Do their manufactories build the armada? Their wizards harness the elementals?

The waiting, she decided, was the hardest part.

And do they come soon, what shall happen to Tezdal?

She heard a sound then, unfamiliar and therefore distinct, through the murmur of voices, the calling of the goats and the nightbirds. It was the sound of metal chinking, as if chains were tested. She spun around, mouth opening to smile and cry out at the same time as she “saw” her charge.

He shifted on the bed, stirring as might a man waking from a very deep sleep, turning slowly, first on one side, then the other, arms and legs extending so that his chains were strained in their fastenings. Rwyan went to him, drawing up a stool, leaning over him.

His eyes opened.

For a moment they were sleep-fogged, unfocused, then intelligence sparked, and recognition. “I’m thirsty.”

She smiled and said, “Yes, Tezdal,” and fetched a cup, holding it to his lips.

He drank and said, “My thanks,” then raised an arm as far as the chain allowed and said, “You bind me still. Why? Am I so dangerous?”

She said, “Some fear you are, or might be. Do you remember my name?”

He said, “Rwyan,” and smiled. “You were always the kindest.”

Then amazement widened his eyes, and his jaw dropped open. “I understand you.” He said it slowly, as if testing the words, as if they fit unfamiliar on his tongue. “I speak your language.”

She said, “Yes. How much do you remember?”

He frowned then, and thought awhile, and finally said, “I woke with my name. Tezdal. That seemed to frighten some of you, and I was taken to a hall, where people spoke. I thought they discussed what to do with me. Then I was brought to that tower and to a jewel that shone. A magic stone, that gave off light and … touched me. After that …”

He shrugged, rattling the chains. Rwyan said, “It was decided to gift you with our tongue. We channeled the crystal’s power to teach you, that we might converse.” He nodded, staring at her face, wonder on his. Rwyan continued, “That was seven days ago. You’ve slept since. I feared …” She laughed and shook her head. “Needlessly, it seems. What else do you remember?”

His face darkened then. “A rock,” he said. “A bare forsaken rock in a sea I did not know. I spoke with Death there. A boat came-you were on it, and you took me off. You and a tall man called Gwyllym. You brought me here and nursed me back to health. Then I remembered who I am.”

“Who are you?” she asked.

He said, “I am Tezdal,” and frowned again. “But more than that …” The chains rattled as he shook them. “I know you chain me, but I do not know why. I do not know where I came from, or why you fear me.”

“I don’t fear you,” she said.

“Then loose me.”

She shook her head. “I cannot. That must be decided by others.”

“Am I dangerous?” he asked, his face puzzled now. “Am I a madman? A criminal?”

“No, neither of those.” Now she frowned. “You’re a Sky Lord; a Kho’rabi.”

Lines creased his forehead. “I don’t understand. What are those names?”

“You don’t know?”

“I’ve heard them said, I think. But …” His head turned in slow negation. “They mean nothing to me.”

Rwyan’s lips pursed. There seemed no guile in him: she believed him. She said, “I must summon others. Do you wait, Tezdal, and perhaps they’ll agree you may be loosed.”

“I should like that,” he said, so solemnly she must smile.

She nodded and closed her eyes, sending out a call. He wakes. He speaks our language now, but I think he remembers no more.

We come. Wait.

She opened her eyes. It was easier to focus her talent for sight with them open, and long ingrained habit. She smiled reassuringly and said, “Not long. They come now.”

“You’re a sorcerer.” His voice was hushed, as if the fact had not sunk in before. “Are all here sorcerers?”

“We are,” she said. “We defend Dharbek.”

“Dharbek?” His face expressed incomprehension.

“You’ve much to learn,” she told him. “Be patient. We must all of us be patient.”

His smile grew cynical then, and he shook his chains. “I’ve little choice, eh?”

Rwyan said, “No. Not yet, at least.”

It was again full council and, save Tezdal was not this time present, as heated as before.

Gwyllym spoke: “In the God’s name, we argue around and around like a dog chasing its own tail-getting nowhere. He hides nothing. He’s nothing to hide! How much proof do you need?”

Demaeter said, “More. Enough we can be sure that sending him to Durbrecht shall not be sending a viper to the land’s heart.”

“I think he’s hardly a viper,” Gynael said, her hoarse voice become a rasping croak from the lengthy debate. “He seems to me more like a man lost, adrift from both his homeland and his own past.”

“Save he be a Kho’rabi wizard,” said Cyraene. “And conceals his power.”

“There’s no magic in him.” Marthyn’s voice was edged with irritation. “On that I’d stake my life.”

“Perhaps you do,” said Alrys.

“May the God grant me patience.” Marthyn shook his head, adding in what was not quite a whisper, “I need it, dealing with fools.”

“I’d not deem it foolish to be wary.” Alrys chose to ignore the slur. “Do we err, then better it be on the side of caution.”

“Do we take your cautious path,” Marthyn returned, “then he’ll live out his life on this island.”

“Save he be executed,” Cyraene said.

“No.” Demaeter shook his head. “On that at least we’re agreed-to execute him now should be akin to murder.”

“Unless he is a wizard,” Cyraene muttered.

“In which case,” said Gynael wearily, “he’s a wizard so accomplished as to defeat all our investigations. In which case, he’s likely more dangerous here than on the mainland. In which case, it must surely be safer to send him to Durbrecht.”

Maethyrene lent her support: “We can learn nothing more here.”

“No; on that, at least, we seem in accord.” Gwyllym rose to address the assembly. His sheer bulk commanded attention: Rwyan hoped it should command agreement. “Does he remain here, it shall be as a man without a past. What shall he be, then? A servant? We’ve never had servants; we’ve no Changed to fetch and carry for us. Shall we make a menial of him?”

Cyraene muttered, “It should be fitting,” and Alrys chuckled, nodding agreement.

Rwyan said, “Was it not that first made the Ahn our enemy? Shall we repeat that mistake?”

Faces turned in shock toward her, outrage writ there. That she questioned was, their eyes said, grossest assumption. She was grateful for Gwyllym’s calm smile.

“There’s truth in that,” he said, voice raised over angry muttering, “but I’d not now debate our past. Save I say we should not forgo our ancient customs. I’d not see him made a servant any more than I’d have Changed on the Sentinels. Can we agree on that?”

There was a murmur of acceptance, a ducking of heads; reluctantly from Cyraene, Alrys.

Gwyllym waited until he had silence again. Then: “So, here he’s useless to us-as has been said, another mouth to feed. We cannot restore his memory, and without that he’s nothing. In Durbrecht, however …”He paused, gray eyes moving slowly from face to face. “In Durbrecht is the College of the Mnemonikos, whose talent is remembering; who understand memory better than we and possess such techniques as might restore his. I say we send him there.”

“And our own College,” Gynael said, forestalling Demaeter’s protest, “which can surely deal with one forgetful Kho’rabi; wizard, or no.”

“And on the way?” the plump sorcerer demanded. “What of that?”

There was a pause. Into it, Rwyan dared speak again. “I’ve spent more time with him than any of you, and I tell you he’s no threat. He deems us saviors, himself indebted.”

“Perhaps,” said Cyraene, her voice smooth, venom in the words, “you’ve grown too close. Did you not once disgrace yourself with a Rememberer?”

Rwyan felt a chill at that reminder; instantly replaced with anger’s heat. “I loved a man, aye,” she said. It was an effort to hold her voice calm: she had sooner slapped the woman. “And when I was bade come here, I left him. I know my duty.”

“And have you found another man?” Cyraene asked with malevolent mildness. “One no more suitable?”

“I’ve not,” Rwyan answered curtly; and could not resist adding, “neither do I cull the newcome for lovers.”

The older woman’s face paled with affront, but as her mouth opened to vent reply, Gwyllym said, “Enough! Shall we squabble like spiteful children, or speak as adults?”

Rwyan said, “I’m sorry.” Cyraene shrugged, arranging her gown.

Demaeter said, “I ask again-what of the journey to Durbrecht? How can we know him secure along the way?”

“Deliver him from keep to keep,” suggested Jhone. “Let the commur-mages take him, with a squadron from each warband.”

“Slow,” said Alrys.

“And,” said Gynael, “unlikely to be much welcomed by the aeldors. Are our fears realized and the Great Coming begun, the keeps shall need their sorcerers and their soldiers.”

Gwyllym ducked his head. “That’s true,” he said. “A boat should be simpler and swifter. But first-are we agreed that he goes to Durbrecht?”

Again a pause, a murmuring as individual discussions were voiced; finally a nodding, a rumble of consent.

“So be it.” Gwyllym turned slowly, eliciting agreement from each of them. “He goes to Durbrecht. Now let us debate the how of it.”

Maethyrene said, “A supply ship?”

“When shall the next come?” Alrys demanded. “Most are commandeered to supply the holdings.”

“We might request one of Durbrecht,” Jhone suggested.

“And be refused,” said Demaeter. “Or wait the God knows how long.”

“Send to Carsbry then,” Jhone offered. “Let Pyrrin divert a boat or send one of his own galleys.”

“Has he one to send,” said Gwyllym thoughtfully. “And there’s another thing-I’d see Tezdal delivered whole, alive. Think you a galley out of Carsbry, with warriors on board, should treat a captive Sky Lord kindly? Remember, both Pyrrin’s sons were slain.”

“They’d more likely slay him,” said Cyraene. Rwyan thought she concealed her pleasure at the notion.

“We could protect him,” Maethyrene said. “Send our own escort.”

Cyraene’s protest was genuine: “We’ve a duty here! We dare not weaken our defenses.”

“Then it would seem we reach impasse.” Demaeter folded chubby hands across his belly. “For I’ll not agree to sending him anywhere save he’s warded by magic.”

Gwyllym frowned, nodding acceptance. Rwyan said, “Perhaps there is another way.”

Again, their faces turned toward her, some still hostile, others curious. Gwyllym motioned that she explain, and she said, “I think that the warbands would likely slay him, perhaps even some keep sorcerers. I’d suggest he go clandestine-that we advise only Durbrecht of his coming and none others. We might send one of our own boats to Carsbry and find some ship going north from there.”

“Not without he’s warded,” said Demaeter obstinately. “And as Cyraene points out, we cannot spare guards for such a journey.”

“We might,” Cyraene said, her eyes sparkling as they fixed on Rwyan, “send one. Perhaps one powerful enough to hold the Kho’rabi in check, but not so great as to weaken the island’s magic.”

Demaeter nodded, Alrys voiced agreement; others joined them.

Rwyan saw a trap set and sprung: she was not sure she minded. She said, “I’d go, be it your wish.”

Jhone said warningly, “It would be no easy journey, child.”

“Yet we’re agreed it must be done,” said Cyraene.

Rwyan found Gwyllym studying her speculatively. She said, “I swear Tezdal is no threat. I trust him.”

“With your life?” asked Gynael.

“With my life,” answered Rwyan.

Cyraene smiled feigned friendship and said, “I say we accept Rwyan’s proposal.”

Gwyllym asked, “Are you sure?” And when Rwyan ducked her head, “Let us vote on it.”

It was soon cast. Some there were glad enough to see themselves rid of the Kho’rabi, some of Rwyan; her friends voted honestly, in favor of what seemed to them the best proposal. It was decided she should go with Tezdal to Carsbry, claiming herself a mage returning from a sojourn on the island. She would ask of the aeldor Pyrrin that he arrange passage north for them, to Durbrecht if that were possible, if not, then to some other keep closer to the Treppanek, where she might find another ship. She would be given coin enough to facilitate the journey; they wished her the God’s speed.

There was only a single point of dissent: Demaeter would send Tezdal out in chains. Rwyan had not known she commanded such eloquence as she argued that.

How, she demanded, might such bonds be explained? They should look most odd, no? Was Tezdal a prisoner, then surely he would be delivered to the aeldor. And what manner of prisoner would come from the Sentinels, save a Sky Lord? Which announcement they were surely agreed was not to be bruited abroad for fear Tezdal be slain out of hand.

No, she told the fat sorcerer with a firmness she had not known she possessed, was this subterfuge to work, then all must appear normal. There could be no chains.

And should he regain his full memory and turn on her?

He would not, of that she was certain; too, she was not without defenses. She had the talent, no? She could ward herself well enough against a single man, surely?

“I believe you can,” said Maethyrene. “But even so-do we agree he goes unfettered-you must still explain his presence. He cannot be your servant, for we’ve no servants here. What is he then? Why does he accompany you?”

There was a murmur of agreement, of doubt. Cyraene frowned as if disappointed. Rwyan thought a moment on the argument and smiled. “I am blind,” she said, “so let him be my eyes. A man hired off a supply ship to act as guide and servant. The God willing, that explanation should satisfy most folk.”

Demaeter voiced protest but the rest nodded approvingly, and once more it had been Gynael who set the seal on it.

“I am old and I grow weary,” she had said. “I’d eat, and find my bed. Rwyan’s the way of it, and wise for one so young. We’d send the Kho’rabi to Durbrecht, and it seems to me that save we do it as Rwyan suggests, he’ll likely be torn apart on suspicion alone. Be that the case, then we’ve wasted all our time, and I’ve not so much to waste. I say be done! These are perilous times, and they call for desperate measures. Is Rwyan confident, then let him go loosed as she suggests. I trust her.”

Gwyllym had lent his support, but the silver-haired woman had swayed the doubters, so that his vote was little more than a formality: it was finally agreed, the details settled. It was left to Rwyan to advise Tezdal.

She had not realized how nervous she had been until she quit the hall and walked out into the baking heat of the afternoon: it seemed cooler than that shadowed interior. She paused, opening hands she had not known she clenched, and saw the indentations her nails had left in her palms. Why do I care so much? she asked herself, and could offer no rational answer, save that she did and would not see Tezdal either slain or made a mindless servitor. Is it wrong? The God knows, he is a Sky Lord, and they are our enemy. Then: No! He was a Sky Lord; now he’s just a lost and lonely man and likely trusts no one but me. Is that reason enough?

She made her way toward his room-his cell-lost in thought, careless of those she passed, even when several called to her wanting to know the council’s decision. To them she gave vague answer, barely aware of what she said, absorbed in her musings.

Everything she had told the Adepts was true. She did trust Tezdal; she did not believe he would harm her. There was something about him, something in his demeanor, that told her he spoke honestly when he spoke of owing his life.

But do I betray him? she wondered as the path wound through a grove where goats and sheep ambled lazily about her. I take him from imprisonment here, but surely to another kind of jail, in Durbrecht. What shall they do with him there, the Mnemonikos and the sorcerers of the College? Shall he be chained again, fed and watered like some animal, his mind a toy to be dissected?