“Yes.” Gonat and Evox groaned. They mentally pushed and goaded the frisky foals into their stable before Edeard could heap any more tasks on them. The whole courtyard resonated to the hoots, snarls, bleating, and barks of various genera. With the apprentices now capable of basic sculpting, the guild had suddenly doubled its hatching rates. There were a full twenty defaults in the stables; Akeem had consulted with Wedard on building more. The majority of the animals still went out to the farms, but most houses in the village had cleaned out their disused nests and asked for a ge-chimp or a monkey. The demand for ge-wolves since the Witham caravan had increased dramatically. It was what Edeard had wanted, but he was still disheartened by the way the older villagers refused to let him give them a simple refresher course in instruction, gruffly informing him that they had been ordering genistars around since before his parents were born. True enough, but if one had been doing it wrong since then, nothing was going to change and they would wind up with a lot of badly behaved genistars cavorting around Ashwell, annoying everyone. Edeard surreptitiously tried to make sure that the village children had a decent grounding in the ability. The Lady’s Mother, Lorellan, helped in her own quiet way by allowing Edeard to sit in on her instructions to the village youth. Nobody dared to protest that.
Edeard reached the main hall and sped up the stairs, pleased to be away from the courtyard. A further side effect of their guild’s rising fortune and greater genistar numbers was the stronger smell seeping out from the stables. He had moved out of the apprentice dormitory the week Evox had arrived, taking over a journeyman’s room. “I can’t confirm you as a Master yet,” Akeem had said gravely, “no matter what you did beyond these walls or how proficient you are. Guild procedures must be followed. To be a Master, you must have served at least five years as a journeyman.”
“I understand,” Edeard had replied, secretly laughing at the formality. Lady help us from the way old people try to keep the world in order.
“And I’ll thank you to take the guild a little more seriously, please,” Akeem had snapped.
Edeard had wound down his amusement rapidly. Akeem seemed able to sense any emotion, however well hidden.
His new room actually had some furniture in it: a decent desk he had commissioned from the Carpentry Guild and a cupboard and chest of drawers he needed to store his growing new wardrobe. His cot had a soft mattress of goose down. After some gruesome disasters, he eventually had got the finer points of the laundry ritual over to his personal ge-monkey, so once a week he had fresh sheets scented with lavender from the herb bed in the compound’s small kitchen garden—also now properly maintained.
He washed quickly, using the big china jug of water. The guild compound wasn’t yet connected to the village’s rudimentary water pipe network, but Melzar had promised that would be done by the end of the month. Both he and the smithy were trying to design a domestic stove that would heat water for individual cottages, producing various ungainly contraptions with pipes coiled around them. So far the pipes had all burst or leaked, but they were making progress.
Edeard scraped Akeem’s ancient spare razor over his straggly chin hairs, wincing at the little cuts the jagged blade made. A new razor was next on his list of commissions—and a decent mirror. The ge-chimps had left a pile of newly washed clothes from which he chose a loose white cotton shirt, wearing it with his smart drosilk trousers. He had found several weaver women in the village who would make clothes for him in return for ge-spiders. Akeem called the unregistered trade enterprising, cautioning that it must not interfere with their official commissions. He still had the boots he had bought in Witham, a little worn after a year, but they remained comfortable and intact; the only problem was how tight they were becoming. He had put on nearly two inches of height in the last year, not that he had bulked out at all. His horror was that he would wind up looking like Fahin as he put on more height without the corresponding girth.
He opened the top of the small stone barrel in the corner opposite the fire and removed the leather shoulder bag. It was one place relatively immune from casual farsight. He checked that the bag’s contents had not been discovered by the other apprentices and slung the strap over his arm.
“Very dapper,” Akeem observed.
Edeard jumped, clutching the bag in an obviously guilty fashion. He had not noticed the old Master sitting in the main hall. Everyone had been trying to duplicate the way the bandits had shielded themselves, with varying degrees of success. Edeard was not sure how much mental effort Akeem put into the effect; he’d always had the ability to sit quietly and blend naturally into the background.
“Thank you,” Edeard replied. He self-consciously tugged at the bottom of his shirt.
“Off out, are you?” Akeem asked with sly amusement, he gestured at the long table set for five. He had made nothing of the bag.
“Er, yes. My tasks are complete. I’ll start sculpting the new horses and dogs for Jibit’s farm tomorrow. Three of the defaults are ovulating; the males are in their pens.”
“Some things are definitely easier for other species,” Akeem observed, and gave Edeard’s clothes another meaningful look. “So which of our town’s fine establishments are you gracing tonight?”
“Um, I can’t afford the tavern. It’s just me and some of the other apprentices getting together, that’s all.”
“How lovely. Are any of your fellow apprentices female by any chance?”
Edeard clamped down hard on his thoughts, but there was nothing he could do about his burning cheeks. “I guess Zehar will be there. Possibly Calindy.” He shrugged his innocence in such matters.
For once Akeem appeared awkward, though he had put a strong shield around his own thoughts. “Lad, perhaps sometime we should talk about such things.”
“Things?” Edeard muttered in alarm.
“Girls, Edeard. After all, you are sixteen now. I’m sure you notice them these days. You do know what to ask Doc Seneo for if uh … circumstances become favorable.”
Edeard’s expression was frozen into place as he prayed to the Lady for this horror to end. “I … er, yes. Yes, I do. Thank you.” Go to Doc Seneo and ask for a phial of vinak juice? Oh, dear Lady, I’d rather chop it off altogether.
Akeem sat back in his chair and let his gaze rise to the ceiling. “Ah, I remember my own youthful amorous adventures back in Makkathran. Oh, those city girls in all their finery; the ones of good family would do nothing else all day long but pamper and groom themselves for the parties and balls that were thrown at night. Edeard, I so wish you could see them. There isn’t one you wouldn’t fall in love with at first sight. Of course, they all had the Devil in them when you got their bodices off, but what a vision they were.”
“I have to go or I’ll be late,” Edeard blurted. Someone of Akeem’s age should not be allowed to use words like “amorous” and “bodice.”
“Of course.” The old Master seemed amused by something. “I have been selfish keeping you here.”
“I’m not that late.”
“And I don’t mean tonight.”
“Uh …”
“I’m not up to instructing you anymore, Edeard. You have almost outgrown your Master. I think you should go to Makkathran to study at the guild in their Blue Tower. My name may still be remembered; at the very least my title demands some prerogatives. I can write you a letter of sponsorship.”
“I … No. No, I can’t possibly go.”
“Why not?” Akeem asked mildly.
“To Makkathran? Me? It’s—no. Anyway, it’s … it’s so far away. I don’t even know how far. How would I get there?”
“Same way everyone does, my boy; you travel in one of the caravans. This is not impossible or remote, Edeard. You must learn to lift your eyes above the horizon, especially in this province. I would not see you stifled by Ashwell. For that is what surely will happen if you remain. I do not want your talent wasted. There is more to this world, this life, than a single village alone on the edge of the w
ilderness. Why, just traveling to Makkathran will show you that.”
“I will hardly waste my talent by staying here. The village needs me. Look what has happened already with more genistars.”
“Ah, really? This village is already nervous about you, Edeard. You are strong, you are smart. They are neither. Oh, don’t get me wrong; this is a pleasant place for someone like me to live out my remaining days. But it is not for you. Ashwell has endured for centuries before you; it will endure for centuries yet. Trust me. A place and people this stubborn and rooted in what they are will not vanish into the back heart of Honious without you. I will write your letter this week. The Barkus caravan is due before the end of the month. I know Barkus of old; he owes me some favors. You can leave with them.”
“This month?” he whispered in astonishment. “So soon?”
“Yes. There is no benefit in delay. My mind is clear on this matter.”
“The new ge-cats …”
“I can manage, Edeard. Please, don’t make this any more difficult for me.”
Edeard walked over to the old Master. “Thank you, sir. This is”—he grinned—“beyond imagination.”
“Ha. We’ll see how much you thank me in a year’s time. The Masters of the Blue Tower are not nearly as lax as I have grown. They will have a fine time beating obedience into you. Your bones will be black and blue before the first day is half-gone.”
“I will endure,” Edeard said. He laid a hand on the man’s shoulder, for once allowing the love he felt to shine in his mind. “I will prove you right to them. Whatever happens, I will endure it for you. I will never give them cause to doubt your pupil. And I will make you proud.”
Akeem gripped the hand, squeezing strongly. “I am already proud. Now come. You are dallying while your friends carouse. Leave now, and I will have yet another fine meal with our three juvenile dunderwits, listening to their profound talk and answering their challenging questions.”
Edeard laughed. “I am a bad apprentice, deserting my Master thus.”
“Indeed you are. Now go, for the Lady’s sake. Let me summon up what is left of my courage, else I shall flee to the tavern.”
Edeard turned and walked out of the hall. He almost stopped, wanting to ask what Akeem had meant by “they are already nervous about you.” He would inquire tomorrow.
“Edeard,” Akeem called.
“Yes, Master?”
“A word of caution. Stay silent that you are leaving, even to your friends. Envy is not a pretty blossom, and it has a custom of breeding resentment.”
“Yes, Master.”
The sun had dropped to the top of the rampart wall by the time Edeard hurried up a lane off the main street, heading for the granite cliff at the back of the village. Already the glowing colors of the night sky were emerging through the day’s blue like trees out of morning mist. Old Buluku was directly overhead, the vulpine serpent manifesting as a violet stream that slithered through the heavens in a fashion that none of Querencia’s few astronomers could ever fathom. It certainly did not shift with the seasons or even orbit around the sun. As Edeard watched, a sliver of electric-blue light rippled lazily along its length, a journey that would take several minutes, too weak to cast a shadow across the dry mud of the lane. Odin’s Sea already was drifting toward the northern horizon, a roughly oval patch of glowing blue and green mist that visited the summer nights. The Lady’s teachings were that it formed the heart of the Void, where the souls of men and women were carried by the Skylords so that they could dream away the rest of existence in quiet bliss. It was only the good and the worthy who were blessed with such a voyage, and the Skylords had not been seen in Querencia’s skies for so long, they were nothing but legend and a faith kept by the Lady’s followers. Protruding from the ragged edges of Odin’s Sea were the reefs, scarlet promontories on which Skylords carrying the souls of those less worthy were wrecked and began their long fall into Honious and oblivion.
Edeard often wondered if so many unworthy humans had been carried aloft by the Skylords that there were simply no more of the great creatures left. It would be so typical that humans should bring such casual destruction to this universe. Thankfully, the Lady’s teachings said that it was humans who had declined in spirit; that was why the Empyrean Lady had been anointed by the Firstlifes to guide humans back to the path that once again would lead them to the Heart of the Void. It was a sad fact that not many people listened to the Lady’s kind words these days.
“Calling to the Skylords?” a voice asked.
Edeard smiled and turned. His farsight had kept watch on her since she had stepped out of the church ten minutes earlier—one of the reasons he had chosen this particular route. Salrana emerged from the shadows of the marketplace. Behind the deserted stalls, the church curved up above the rest of the village buildings with quiet purpose. Its crystal roof glimmered in refraction from the altar lanterns.
“They didn’t answer,” he said. “They never do.”
“One day they will. Besides, you’re not quite ready to sail into the Heart yet.”
“No, I’m not.” Edeard could not quite match her humor. He might as well have been traveling into the Heart given the distance to Makkathran. How will she cope with me leaving?
He was not the only one growing up that summer. Salrana also had put on several inches over the last couple of years; her shoulders were broad as if she was growing into a typical sturdy farmer’s girl, but whereas her contemporaries were thickening out, ready for their century of toil on the land, she remained slim and agile. Her plain blue and white novice robe had grown quite tight, which always made Edeard glance at her in an inappropriate fashion. Not that there was any helping it; she was losing her puppy fat to reveal the sharpest cheekbones he’d ever seen. Everyone could see how beautiful she was going to be. Thankfully, she still suffered from pimples and her auburn hair remained wild and girlish; otherwise, being in her presence would be intolerable. As it was, he viewed her friendship with delight and dismay in equal measure. She was far too young to be wanting to bed, though he could not help wondering how long it would be before she was old enough. Such thoughts made him fearful that the Lady would strike him down with a giant lightning bolt roaring out from Honious itself, though of course Her priestesses did marry.
Irrelevant now. Even if I do come back, it won’t be for years. She’ll be with some village oaf and have three children.
“You’re in a funny mood,” Salrana said, all innocent and curious. “Is everything all right?”
“Yeah. Actually, it is. I’ve had some good news. Great news.” He held up a hand. “And I will tell you later, I promise.”
“Gosh, a secret, and in Ashwell. Bet I find out by noon tomorrow.”
“Bet you don’t.”
“Bet me what?”
“No. I’m being unfair. It’s a private thing.”
“Now you’re just being cruel. I’ll pray to the Lady for your redemption.”
“That’s very kind.”
She stood close to him, still smiling sweetly. “So are you off up to the caves?”
“Er, yeah. One or two of the others said they might go in. I thought I’d see.”
“So when do I get asked?”
“I don’t think Mother Lorellan would want you in the caves at night.”
“Pha. There’s a lot of things the good Mother doesn’t know I do.” She shook her hair defiantly, squaring her shoulders. The aggressive pose lasted a couple of seconds before she started giggling.
“Well, I’ll pray she doesn’t find out,” he told her.
“Thank you, Edeard.” Her hand rubbed playfully along his arm. “Who’d have thought it just a few years ago? Both of us happy. And you, one of the lads now.”
“I was in a fight before they accepted me.” I killed people. Even now he could still see the face of the bandit before the man smashed into the tree, the astonishment and fear.
“Of course you were; that’s a typical boy thing. That’s why
you’re going into the caves again tonight. We all have to find a way to live here, Edeard. We’re going to be in Ashwell for a long, long time.”
He could not answer, just gave her a fixed smile.
“And watch out for that Zehar. She’s already bragging how she intends to have you. She was very descriptive for a baker’s apprentice.”
“She. Is? She wants …?”
Salrana’s face was devilsome. “Oh, yes.” She blew him a kiss, giggling. “Let me know the details. I’m dying to know if you can really do such wicked things.” Then her back was to him, her skirt held high by both hands, and she went racing down the slope, giggling all the way.
Edeard let out a long breath. His emotions were as unsteady as his legs. If there was ever a reason to stay in Ashwell, he was looking at it. His farsight followed her long after she had turned a corner onto the main street, making sure she was safe as she ran along on her errand.
There were a number of caves burrowing into the cliffs behind Ashwell. A lot of them had been expanded over the decades, modified into storerooms for the long winter months, where the temperature and moisture hardly varied. Several of the larger ones were used as barns. Edeard was not interested in those. Instead, he headed for a small oddly angled fissure in the rock on the western end of the cliff only thirty yards from where the encircling wall began. He had to scramble up a pile of smoothed boulders to reach it, then grip the upper lip and swing himself into the darkness. Anyone larger than he would have real trouble passing through the gap; he’d be able to use it for only another year or so. Once he was inside, the passage opened up and the soft background babble of the village’s longtalk cut off abruptly. His immediate world contracted to a dank gloomy blackness; even his farsight ability could not perceive through such a depth of rock. All he could sense was the open cavity around him. Only after he had gone around a curve did he see a glint of yellow light ahead.
The Void Trilogy 3-Book Bundle Page 25