Angus Wells - The God Wars 03 (64 page)

           
"You brought Andyrt's horse to
stable, no? Tell me about his horse and his kit."

           
"It was brown/' I said,
confused. "A light brown, with golden hair in its mane and tail. Its
hooves were black, but the right foreleg was patched with white, and the hoof
there was shaded pale. The saddle was dark with sweat, and the bucket where the
lance rests was stitched with black. The stirrups were leather, with dull metal
inside. There were two bags behind the saddle, brown, with golden buckles. When
he took it off, the horse's hide was pale and sweaty. It was glad to be rid of
the weight. It was a gelding, and it snorted when he took off the bridle, and
flicked its tail as it began to eat the oats I brought it."

           
The commur-magus clapped a hand
across my eyes then, the other behind my head, so that I could not move,
startling me, and said, "What weapons does Andyrt carry?"

           
"A lance," I told her, for
all I was suddenly terrified. "That he left in Robus's stable. Twice a
man's height, of black wood, with a long, soft-curved blade. Not like a fishing
hook. Also, a sword, an axe and a small knife."

           
The hands went away from my face and
I saw the commur-magus smiling, Andyrt grinning approvingly. The mantis looked
less pleased. The others seated around the table seemed wonderstruck: I
wondered why, for it seemed entirely natural to me to recall such simple things
in their entirety.

           
"He's the knack, I think,"
the commur-magus said.

           
And the mantis nodded and said,
"I'd wondered. I'd thought of sending word to Cambar."

           
"You should have," said
the commur-magus.

           
Andyrt looked at me with something I
can now, older, recognize as awe in his eyes. Then, only a decade of my life
gone by, I preened myself, aware that I was, somehow, special; that I had
passed a test of some kind.

           
"Are his parents agreeable, he
should go to Dur- brecht," the commur-magus said. "This one is a
natural."

           
A natural
what
, I did not know,- nor what or where Durbrecht was. I frowned
and said, "I'd be a soldier."

           
"There are other
callings," said the commur-magus, and smiled a small apology to Andyrt.
"Some higher than the warband."

           
"Like yours?" I asked,
emboldened by her friendly manner. "Do I'have magic in me, then?"

           
She chuckled at that, though not in
an unkind way, and shook her head. "Not mine," she advised me.
"And I am only a lowly commur-magus, who rides on my lord's word. No,
Daviot, you've not my kind of magic in you,- you've the magic of your
memory."

           
I frowned anew at that: what magic
was there in memory? I remembered things—was that unusual?—I always had.
Everyone in Whitefish village knew that. Folk came to me, asking dates,
confirmation of things said, and I told them: it was entirely natural to me,
and not at all magical.

           
"He's but twelve years
old," I heard the mantis say; and saw the commur-magus nod, and heard her
answer, "Then on his manhood. I'd speak with his parents now,
however."

           
The mantis rose, like a plump
soldier attending an order, and went bustling from the tavern. I shifted awhile
from foot to foot, more than a little disconcerted, and finally asked,
"What's Durbrecht?"

           
"A place," the
commur-magus said, "a city and a college, the two the same. Do you know
what a storyman is?"

           
"Yes," I told her, and
could not resist demonstrating my powers of recall, boasting. "One came to
the village a year ago. He was old—his hair was white and he wore a beard—he
rode a mule. He told stories of Gahan's coronation, and of the Comings. His
name was ..." I paused an instant, the old man's face vivid in the eye of
my mind; I smelled again the garlic that edged his breath, and the faint odor
of sweat that soured his grubby white shirt. ". . . Callum."

           
The commur-magus ducked her head
solemnly, her face grave now, and said, "Callum learned to use his art in
Durbrecht. He memorized the old tales there, under the Mnemonikos."

           
"Nuh . . . moni . . .
kos?" I struggled to fit my tongue around the unfamiliar word.

           
"The Mnemonikos," the
commur-magus nodded. "The

           
Rememberers; those who keep all our
history in their heads. Without them, our past should be forgotten; without
them, we should have no history/'

           
"Is that important?" I
wondered, sensing that my soldierly ambitions were somehow, subtly, defeated.

           
"If we cannot remember the
past," the commur-magus said, "then we must forever repeat our
mistakes. If we forget what we were, and what we have done, then we go blind
into our future, like untaught children."

           
I thought awhile on that, scarcely
aware that she spoke to me as to a man, struggling as hard with the concept as
I had struggled to pronounce the word, the name: Mnemonikos. At last I nodded
with all the gravity of my single decade and said, "Yes, I think I see it.
If my grandfather's father had not told him about the tides and the seasons of
the fish, then he could not have told my father, and then he should have needed
to learn all that for himself."

           
"And if
he
did not remember, then he could not pass on that knowledge to
you," said the commur-magus.

           
"No," I allowed, "but
I want to be a soldier."

           
"But," said the
commur-magus, gently, "you see the importance of remembering."

           
I agreed; a trifle reluctantly, for
I felt that she steered our conversation toward a harbor that should render me
swordless, bereft of my recently-found ambition. I looked to Andyrt for
support, but his scarred face was bland and he hid it behind his cup.

           
"The Mnemonikos hold all our
history in their heads," the commur-magus said softly. "All the tales
of the Comings; all the tales of the land. They know of the Kho'rabi; of the
Sky Lords and the Dragonmasters: all of it. Without them, we should have no
past. The swords they bear never rust or break or blunt . . ."

           
"They bear swords?" I
interrupted eagerly, finding these mysterious Rememberers suddenly more
interesting. "They're warriors, then?"

           
I blushed (and pouted, I think) as
the commur-magus smiled and chuckled and shook her head. She said: "Not
swords as you mean, Daviot. I mean the blade that finds it scabbard here,"
she tapped her forehead, "in the mind. And that—my word on it!—is the sharpest
blade of all.

           
Think you this/' she tapped the
shortsword on her hip now, "is a greater weapon than what I wear
here?" She tapped her head again. "No! The blade is for carving
flesh, when needs must. The knowledge here," again she touched her skull,
"is what can defeat the magic of the Sky Lords."

           
"i'll face a Kho'rabi
knight," Andyrt said, "and trade him blow for blow. I'd not assume to
trust steel against their mages, though—that's a fight for your kind, Rekyn:
magic against magic."

           
It was the first time I had heard
the commur-magus referred to by name. I watched her nod and smile, and heard
her say, "Aye—to each his own talent. Do you understand, Daviot? You've
the strength of memory," Rekyn said. "All I've heard from you this
day tells me that—and that's a terrible strength, my friend. It's the strength
of things past, recalled; it's the strength of time, of history. It's the
strength of
knowing
, of knowledge.
It's the strength that binds the land, the people. Listen to me! In four years
you become a man, and when you do, I'd ask that you go to Durbrecht and hone
that blade you carry in your head."

           
So intense was her voice, her
expression—though she used no magic on me then—that I heard proud clarions, a
summons to battle,- and, still, confusion.

           
"Is Durbrecht far?" I
asked.

           
"Leagues distant," she
answered. "You should have to quit this village, your parents."

           
"How should I live?" I
asked—I was a fisherman's child: I had acquired a measure of practicality.

           
And she laughed and said, "Be
you accepted by the college, all will be paid for you. You'd have board and
lodging, and a stipend for pleasure while you learn."

           
A
stipend for pleasure
—that had a distinct appeal.

           
"But how," I wondered,
"should I earn all that?"

           
"By learning," she said,
solemnly and urgently. "By learning to use that memory of yours, and by
learning our history."

           
"Not work?" I asked, not
quite understanding: to be fed and bedded without labor? How could that be for
a boy from Whitefish village?

           
"Only at learning," she
replied.

           
I pondered awhile, more than a
little confused. I looked to where Andyrt's helm lay, observing the dented
steel, the sweaty stains on the leather straps, the sheen of oil that overlay
the beginnings of rust. I looked at the jennym's sword hilt, leather-wrapped
and indented with the familiar pressure of his fingers. I looked at his face
and found no answer there. I said, "Is Durbrecht very big?" I asked;
and she answered, "Bigger than Cambar."

           
"Have you been there?" I
demanded.

           
"I was trained there," she
said. "I was sent by my village mantis when I came of age. There is a
sorcerous college there, too, besides that of the Mnemonikos. I learnt to use
my talent there, and then was sent to Cambar."

           
I scuffed my feet awhile in the dirt
of Thorym's tavern, aware that I contemplated my future. Then I looked her in
the eye again and asked, "If I do not like it? May I come back?"

           
"If you do not like it,"
she said, "or they do not like you, then you come back. In the first year
they test you, and then—be you unfit; or they for you—you come back to
Whitefish village."

           
"Or to Cambar Keep," said
Andyrt. "To be a soldier, if you still so wish."

           
That seemed to me a reasonable
enough compromise. What was a year? A spring, a summer, an autumn, and a
winter: not much time, then. But sufficient enough that I might see something
of the world beyond Whitefish village. See this wondrous city of Durbrecht;
learn there to use this thing Rekyn saw in me, and—more important then, when I
was young—learn the martial arts. And if it did not suit me, or me it, then I
could ride out from Cambar Keep with Andyrt and his squadron.

           
It seemed an opportunity no boy
could, in his right mind, refuse. "Yes," I said.

           
LORDS OF THE SKY

           
Coming
soon wherever Bantam Spectra books are sold.