Lords of the Sky (53 page)

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.

R
wyan 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.