Lords of the Sky

by Angus Wells

  A serving woman said, “That was bravely fought.”

  I looked at the woman I had sought to defend and said, “My name is Daviot. I am a student in the College of the Mnemonikos.”

  She said, “My thanks for your gallantry, Daviot.”

  Her voice was musical, almost husky. I stared at her. I suppose I preened; certainly I basked in what I thought must be her admiration. I asked, “And your name?”

  She said, “Rwyan,” and touched her gown. “I am with the Sorcerous College, as you can see.”

  I said, softly, “Rwyan.”

  I had jested before, but I fell truly in love at that moment.

  We looked at one another. I thought her sightless eyes fathomless as the ocean. I wanted to drown in them. I willed her to share my feelings. She said, “I had best be on my way.”

  I gasped. She could not go now! Surely not. I said, “Shall I escort you?”

  Rwyan shook her head and smiled. “I think I shall be safe enough now,” she said, and gestured at the green lanterns. “And you’ve doubtless business here.”

  I blushed then and began to deny the obvious. Then halted, for I had no wish to lie to her. There seemed such a purity to her blind gaze, I knew she would recognize dissemblance. There seemed to me no disapproval in her words, or face, or stance; instead, a great understanding. I thought her likely wiser than me. I shrugged and grinned.

  “I’ve duties to attend,” she said.

  Hopefully, I asked, “You’ll not take wine with me?” Gestured at the now-impatient Cleton and added, “With us?”

  I wanted her to know I should sooner spend time in her company than go on to my destination.

  She said, “Again, my thanks—but, no. I must not linger.”

  I said, “I’ll take you to the street’s end, at least. Lest you be molested again.”

  She indicated the street with a toss of her head that set lantern light to dancing in her hair like witchfire, entrancing. It was not so far, her smile said. Aloud she said, “I think your friend grows impatient. And after so brave a show, I think I shall be safe. Fare you well.”

  She moved a step away, and I aped the mariners: I touched her sleeve, not wanting her to go.

  “When?” I mumbled, disconcerted.

  “When what?” she asked.

  “Shall I see you again?”

  She smiled and said, “I do not know.”

  I gathered up my disordered thoughts as best I could; forced my tongue to some semblance of coherence. “I must,” I said. “See you again, I mean. I cannot lose you now.”

  “Lose me?” She laughed. No bells, no kithara, no harp could sound so wondrous. “How shall you lose me? Do you own me, then?”

  “No,” I said swiftly, lest she think me no better than some amorous street brawler. “But to know you are here, in Durbrecht, and never see you again—that should be torture.”

  “A true Storyman,” she murmured. “Your tongue drips silver.”

  There was such humor in her voice, I could not help but smile. I shook my head and said, “Words are too poor a coin to pay you tribute, Rwyan, but all I have. May I see you again?”

  She paused, her face become a moment pensive, then ducked her head. I think the Sky Lords might have landed on the city then and I not noticed. I think had a fallen foe arisen to put his knife in my back, I should not have noticed.

  “My College allows me no more time than does yours you,” she said, “but when we’ve such freedom … Do you know a tavern called the Golden Apple?”

  I said, “No, but I shall find it. When?”

  “When next we’re allowed,” she said. “I can offer you no more.”

  “It’s enough,” I said. “I shall be in the Golden Apple when next I may. I shall haunt it. They shall think me an alehound. I’ll take a room there.”

  “Then perhaps I shall find you there,” she said. “But now, truly, farewell.”

  Her smile lit the street bright as that Sastaine day’s sun. I bowed extravagantly and heard her laugh again. I stood watching until she had reached the end of the street and was lost to my enraptured sight. She did not look back, but I thought perhaps her sorcerous talent told her I gazed after her. I hoped it did.

  “By the God,” said Cleton, “I’ve seen puppies with that same expression.”

  “I’m in love,” I said. “Truly.”

  “She was pretty enough, I suppose,” he said, “but gone now. And none too easy to find again. So—shall you stand here until the watchmen come to take us in disgrace back to the College? Or find shelter with a more available mistress?”

  I had forgotten the sailors. When I looked, they were huddled against the wall of a tavern, drunkenly attempting to mend their injuries. A doorman followed my glance and called, “No need to fear the watchmen, lads. These sots will not lay complaint against you.”

  He emphasized his assurance with a menacing swing of his cudgel and a fierce leer in the direction of the wounded men. The westcoasters took the hint and shook their heads. Cleton and I called thanks and went to Allya’s house.

  I felt somewhat guilty as we entered and our cyprians flew into our arms. I thought of Rwyan, but then Thais pressed her lips to mine and promised unmentionable delights in honor of the day. I was but eighteen, and the fight had warmed my blood: I set unspoken promise aside and looked to the reality of the woman in my arms.

  But all the time I lay with Thais, I saw Rwyan’s face.

  I had not thought ever to see my friendship with Cleton weakened, but in the months that followed my first meeting with Rwyan it was tested. That it did not break was a mark of its depth, of the regard we felt for one another. Of the two of us, I was the milder, the more malleable—save in those matters I felt instinctively demanded greater investigation. It was Cleton, more often than not, who led me into our escapades, but I who earned the reputation of rebel. Indeed, had I not demonstrated such talent for our art—so Decius once advised me—I should have been expelled. I could not blindly accept: I found a need to question that ofttimes drove my tutors close to distraction.

  I argued that we had driven the Ahn from their ancestral homeland and thus must surely accept some measure of blame for the Sky Lords. I wondered if we might not reach some accommodation with them, and thus end their attacks. These arguments I lost, for I could not say how we might discourse with them or, did it by some miracle become possible, what treaties might be made.

  It became a small bone of contention betwixt Cleton and I, one that we gnawed on in our chamber, and over ale. An aeldor’s son, he was raised to his father’s code, taught from infancy that the Sky Lords were our implacable enemies, that we or they must one day stand victorious. I could not see how we might hope to defeat them, or they to conquer us, and began to perceive both Dhar and Ahn as locked in an endless cycle of bloody war. Such arguments we customarily agreed were drawn, and left them. I believe Cleton knew himself close to losing his temper at such times and held himself back for fear of friendship’s destruction. He was a good man.

  Of my burgeoning fascination with the Changed, we spoke not at all. Cleton disapproved and elected to remain silent on that matter, whilst I spent longer and longer in conversation with Urt, which Cleton could simply not understand. He saw me—so he admitted in an unguarded moment—akin to a man overly fond of a pet hound, pointlessly discoursing with the beast, which had nothing of interest to offer in return save its mindless devotion. I knew him to be wrong, for Urt, albeit descended from canine stock, was no mindless creature but, I came to learn, as intelligent as most men. From him (even though he still held much back) I gleaned much knowledge of the Changed. I came to see that just as Durbrecht was underpinned with cellars and catacombs, so there existed beneath the society of we Truemen one of the Changed. There were more of them in the city than there were Truemen, but they were like ghosts—they existed side-by-side with us, but unseen, unnoticed, ignored. I hesitated to ask Urt the questions that sprang to my lips when I realized that: If you
are so many, why do you serve us? Why do you not rise up and make yourselves the masters?

  I thought on that, and on how many centuries had passed since first the sorcerers made animals into the semblance of men, and how those progenitors had bred, until whole lineages of Changed existed, and then I would wonder if sufficient time had not passed that the Changed were become a people in their own right. And if so, whether we Truemen still had the right to use them as we did. But I could not find an answer.

  Nor could I learn much more of Ur-Dharbek than that it was there, across the Slammerkin, and that none went there save the Changed. It was grown akin, it seemed, to the Forgotten Country, Tartarus of old, and save in terms of legend, none spoke of it or were interested in it. Urt would speak of it not at all.

  I applied myself to the problem and came away frustrated, and intrigued by another.

  Just as the wild Changed were relegated to myth, so were the dragons and the Dragonmasters. Oh; we students heard tales of their exploits, stripped of that disapprobation that had attached since their efforts failed and sorcery became our bulwark against the great flying beasts. We were told (somewhat vaguely, for we delved here into a past so long ago, it was misty even to the Masters of the College) how they had come to truce with the dragons. How some had even mounted on the beasts and flown—like gods! I thought—borne aloft by the great wings to climb the sky. How some had fallen into such communion that they forsook the company of men and chose to live amongst the dragons.

  “What if,” I asked both Clydd and Bael, “the dragons live still? And the Dragonmasters? What if they joined with us in combat against the Sky Lords? Might they not defeat the Kho’rabi?”

  Bael answered me, “And were all the legends true, we might send virgins out to capture unicorns and ride them against our enemy.”

  And Clydd told me, “Likely the dragons are all dead, and the Dragonmasters with them. And are they not, our past teaches us they’ve little love of men. Surely, we’ve none now might commune with the creatures, so how should we persuade them—do they live—to aid us?”

  I responded, “But if the dragons are gone, what point to the Border Cities?”

  He answered with a question: “Would you empty them?”

  Doggedly, I said, “No. But what’s their point now? They were built to hold Dharbek safe from dragons, but if there are no more dragons, what’s their point? Save to contain the wild Changed? Are they such a danger, then?”

  Clydd fixed me with a look I could not interpret. It reminded me somewhat, somehow, of Urt’s expression when I ventured onto this ground. He said, “A city is its own point, Daviot. It exists because people live there; its reason shifts with time.”

  I saw that he hoped this was answer enough, and I denied him that hope: “And the wild Changed?”

  Someone sighed dramatically. A voice I could not identify whispered, “Daviot rides his hobbyhorse again.”

  Clydd shrugged and said, “If they are a danger, the Border Cities protect us from them. No Truemen go there, so I cannot answer you with any great authority, but I think they are not.”

  It seemed to me an unsatisfactory answer. It seemed to me a gap in our knowledge, as if even the Mnemonikos chose to forget or to ignore Ur-Dharbek and the mysterious wild Changed. It seemed to me our duty to investigate. But before I had opportunity to pursue that line of thought, Clydd changed the subject and led the class into a discussion of Kherbryn’s founding, and I was left momentarily defeated.

  I could raise far more questions than I was able to answer; nor could my tutors satisfy me, save to pass down that learning they had had from their instructors, which was again, as with Cleton, much to do with dogma. I determined to explore these avenues for myself. I gained a reputation as an eccentric.

  And there was Rwyan.

  I could not forget her. Even were I not gifted with that talent that would soon make me Mnemonikos, but solely with the memory of mortal men, I should not—could not!—have forgotten her. It was as if her presence had blazed so fierce in that moonlit street, she was branded on my mind. Gifted with my talent, I could conjure her image precise. I could define the contours of her cheek and forehead, the angle of her nose, the shape of her lips. I could see, imprinted on the screen of my closed eyes, her hair, her eyes; and did, often, as I lay upon my bed or gazed from the window of our chamber. I knew myself in love with Rwyan and could not be with her. I think that sometimes our eyes may alight on one particular person and a spark be struck that kindles an undying fire that knows not the boundaries of distance or time, but burns unquenchable. Such is, I sometimes think, the curse of Truemen, or the gift, I know not which, only that I loved Rwyan in a manner incredible and unsuspected. I wondered if it were not easier to be as the Changed, governed not by the alchemical processes of love but by those simpler biological imperatives they inherit from their animal forebears.

  I visited Thais still, but less often, and in the way that a man visits the gymnasium—to stretch and test his muscles. She knew it and said nothing, even when, at the height of our passion. I would sometimes cry out Rwyan’s name. I thought of Rwyan. I wanted Rwyan. I spoke of Rwyan.

  Cleton was the recipient of my longings, for both ours and the Sorcerous College frowned on such liaisons, deeming them impractical, a hazard to concentration and future duty. Had Rwyan been a cyprian or some city lass, there would have been no difficulties, for it would have been understood that such a relationship was foredoomed, save the woman follow me down my Storyman’s road. But future Mnemonikos and future sorcerer—no: both were callings that demanded a single-minded concentration. Such couplings were not expressly forbidden, but I knew that if the College learned of my intention—which was to pursue Rwyan, no matter the consequences, no matter the disapprobation—ways would be found to thwart me. Consequently, Cleton was sworn to secrecy.

  It irked him, who saw it as infatuation and nothing more, a needless threat to my chosen future.

  “In the God’s name,” he would cry, torn between frustration and irritation and amusement, “you’ve seen her but the once. How can you think yourself in love with her?”

  And I would answer simply, “I am. I cannot explain it or help it, but I am.”

  And he would tell me, “Daviot, heed me—ere long you’ll be a Storyman and she a mage. You’ll go your separate ways and likely never meet again. Forget her!”

  And I would return him, “I cannot. Even be it hopeless, I cannot.”

  And he would sigh, or groan, and clench his fist, mocking a blow, and mutter, “The God grant you come to your senses, for there’s no reason in you. She’s bewitched you.”

  And I would tell him cheerfully, “She has.”

  Even so, for all his argument, he would come with me to the Golden Apple, where we became as well known as at any of our favorite alehouses.

  I saw her not at all for the remainder of that summer and came close to despairing as the season turned and the rains of autumn began. But that flame still burned, and I still clung to my hope as winter spread its cold cloak over the land.

  Then, on the feast day of Machan, when the sky was a sullen gray and the wind blew knife-edged from the north, skirling the first flakes of winter’s snow, I encountered her again. Cleton and I sat by the hearth, our cloaks drying on chairbacks, tankards of mulled ale in our hands. The day was already dark, and we must soon return to the College; I had thought it another fruitless venture. Then she entered the tavern, and it was as if the sun descended to walk the earth. She was with several of the Sorcerous College, both male and female, but I saw only her. She wore a cloak of dark brown wool, with a hood she threw back as she came in. Her hair was bound up. Her neck was pale and long and slender. I thought of how it should feel, did I press my lips to that intoxicating flesh. I rose to my feet and called her name. Her companions—none of them were blind—looked toward me. She turned her face and I saw her smile, and though she said my name but softly, it sounded to me a clarion. I quit my place and went to her
, taking her hands. I said, “It has been so long.”

  She blushed and nodded. I wondered why she looked surprised; embarrassed, even. Had she thought I would not wait? At her side a fair-haired woman smiled and said, “So this is the Mnemonikos, eh?”

  Rwyan said, “Daviot, this is Chiara.”

  I mumbled some acknowledgment, but my eyes were firm upon her face. No boat was ever anchored surer. I said, “Shall you sit with me?”

  She nodded again and called some apology to her companions. I was at first disappointed that she asked Chiara to accompany us, but then remembered Cleton and bade the woman a warmer welcome. We went to the hearth, and I called for mulled ale.

  I had rehearsed this often enough: I had so many pretty speeches prepared, so many reasons we should be alone, so many stratagems. All fled me as I gazed at her face, and had she not introduced her friend to Cleton, I think I should have sat unspeaking, content to stare, to drink in her beauty. As it was—as is the way of these matters—our conversation was largely of the commonplace. How did our studies go? How hers? What news of the Sentinels? Did her college believe the Sky Lords were defeated? Too soon she was reminded she must return, and we were parted, with no better a promise of another assignation than before.

  I saw her only once more that winter and in much the same circumstances, though I did then succeed, thanks to the aid of Cleton and Chiara, in steering her a little distance away, to the poor privacy of a corner, where I told her I loved her.

  She frowned then and asked, “How can that be? You scarce know me, even.”

  “But still,” I said, “I do,” and took her hand in both of mine.

  I was terribly afraid she would loose my grip; afraid she would laugh or name me foolish. But she did none of that, only faced me with her lovely sightless eyes and pursed her lips as if she struggled with some doubt, or sought words she could not find.

  I saw hope in her expression and gathered up my courage and whispered, “I love you, Rwyari. From that first moment I saw you, I have loved you. Shall you tell me you feel nothing for me?”