The Pleasure of Memory (10 page)

Luren jumped up and grabbed the sentry’s horn, and then he kicked his way up over the neck until he straddled it. From there he leaned forward over the wide head on crossed arms to better observe what Chance was looking at. “What are you seeing there?” he said down to Chance.

“The power source in this one is weaker than it should be. Look at these cracks on the face here. It—”

“It means the cohesive force of the caeyl energy is failing the stone,” Luren said quickly.

“Exactly. The force driving the sentry has somehow been drained.”

“Drained? How do you mean?”

“It’s as if the energy is leaking, probably dissipating into the ground beneath the sentry.”

“You mean it’s being reabsorbed by the earth.”

“Yes. The earth’s a natural conduit for caeyl energy. Unless we reinforce the sentry at regular intervals, its energy will eventually drain away into the ground. I suspect that’s also a factor in why our caeyl energy has been decaying these past several decades. And yet, what I don’t understand is why the damned thing’s charge is so weak. I recharged the sentries just last year. Their charges should’ve been good for at least another eight or nine years. I don’t understand why it’s failing so quickly.”

“Well, supposing the energy actually is failing,” Luren said, “The sentry was still functional enough to find you down here in the forest, was it not? And it delivered the information to you, just as it’s supposed to, didn’t it?”

“Your point?” Chance said.

He was only half listening to the boy. The sentry’s information was weighing on him. What if the beast was right? What if something actually were amiss this time? What if the Vaemyn had indeed crossed the border? Impossible though he knew that construct to be, he was still losing appetite for questions.

“My point,” Luren said, “Is that the sentry may have a depleted energy level, but it was still functional enough to find you and deliver the message. So why would you doubt its accuracy?”

“Because the Vaemyn would never send warriors into my Na te’Yed, that’s why. Such an act would trigger an automatic declaration of war by the Allies, a war the Vaemyn could never hope to survive. No, it’s an absolutely ridiculous notion.”

“Is it?” Luren said.

The boy’s question was dead on, and Chance felt a pang of guilt for not being straight with him. Perhaps he was protecting the boy from worry. Then again, perhaps that wasn’t it at all. Perhaps he was simply denying the possibility for his own peace of mind. Not that it mattered. Either way, he was starting to feel sick, and it had nothing to do with the wine.

He decided to regroup. “The Vaemyn wouldn’t jeopardize my trust and goodwill by entering this forest uninvited. And they’d never violate their treaty with the Allies; the cost to their civilization would be catastrophic. No, it has to be something else. I’m guessing the sentry saw Vaemysh foragers and somehow mistook the information.”

“Well, you know best,” Luren said with a shrug of his eyebrows, “I mean, you’re the mage, after all. I suppose a hundred and eighty-odd Vaemyn marching into Na te’Yed is exactly the correct number required for foraging, yes? That’s probably why no mules. Don’t need them with that many warriors to carry the roots and herbs they’ll be looking for.”

Chance sighed. Though the boy was barely sixteen, he’d been born with the rarest of honors, the Birthsight. He’d been self-aware since the instant he entered this world. Physically and emotionally, he may be an adolescent, but intellectually he was far more than a decade older than his years. He’d mastered reading in infancy and learned to analyze what he read by the time he was a toddler. He’d been offering intelligent advice to Chance since he was five years old.

“All right, Luren,” Chance said as he leaned into his staff, “Something’s brewing in that monstrous little brain of yours. What’re you thinking?”

Luren offered a proud, albeit toothy grin. “Well, I have to wonder why the sentry would see foragers and mistake them for warriors, stating the precise numbers of the parties, describing their battle regalia and all? I mean, if its energy’s failing, isn’t it more likely it wouldn’t see anything at all than to create information out of the air? If its energy were too low, it wouldn’t have the power or direction to make facts up. At least, I wouldn’t think so. But then, you
are
the mage in the household.”

Chance closed his eyes and pinched the flesh at the bridge of his nose. The cursed headache was not retreating. He suddenly felt very tired.

“Hm, looks like it hurts.” Luren laughed.

Chance ignored him.

Luren slipped off the sentry’s neck, hung for a moment by its horn, then dropped to the dirt. “Well,” he said as he picked up the pack, “What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know,” Chance said, finally, “You’re probably right. The only thing I know with certainty is that the information is untrustworthy. The idea of warriors in these parts, Vaemysh or otherwise, is…I don’t know, a challenge to embrace. Surely the Baeldonian patrols would’ve contacted me by now if—”

“The Baeldonians abandoned their patrols of the valley,” Luren said too matter-of-factly.

Chance looked over at him. “Excuse me?”

“Six months ago. That’s the news Jhom brought you last winter, right?”

Chance realized with some disappointment that he was absolutely right, but still sent the boy a reprimanding look. “Are we perfecting the art of eavesdropping now, Luren?”

“I’m useless to you if I’m uninformed, Chance. I swear to Calina, you compromise my education by trying to protect me all the time.” Luren pulled a large green apple from his tunic pocket and bit into it.

Chance watched the boy eat. After all these years, the lad was still something of an anomaly to him. Perhaps if Luren had been his own son rather than his apprentice, he’d have a better bead on him. Perhaps it would’ve made him a better master to the boy.

“Well, it doesn’t matter,” he said at last, “I'll have to go up to the valley's edge and investigate. Sentry Four is the closest. If it has a weak charge, I’ll come back to the house and we can head out tomorrow to recharge all eleven of them. The Hangman’s Gloves will just have to wait.”

The boy was before him in an instant. “Let me go!” he said through a wet mouthful of apple, “I can run up there and be back by early afternoon. I'll be really careful, I swear it!”

Chance could barely hear him over the volume of his thoughts.

“I know how to check them,” Luren pressed eagerly, “I can get there and back faster than you, too. You know I’m right.”

The words suddenly found form. “What?” Chance said, “No, absolutely not. I want you safely back at the house until I figure out what’s going on.”

“But, Chance, you promis—”

Chance threw up a hand. “You’ll do as I say, boy. This isn’t the time to argue.”

“But I—”

“This isn’t a republic. You’re not a senator. This isn’t up for a vote. Nod if you understand.”

“Yes, sir,” Luren said exactly as though he didn’t mean it, “By. Your. Will.”

Chance crossed arms and looked down his nose at Luren. “Sentry,” he said as he watched the boy’s well-practiced pout, “Fly over the sentry posts on the southern rim, and scan for any signs of movement in the forest north of the river from here east to Graewind Castle. When you've done this, return to my house and wait for me. Do you understand your orders?”

“My orders are understood, Lord.”

“Good. Go, then.”

The command barely left his lips before the beast’s solidity faded and its wings gracefully unfurled to their full span and began to undulate.

As always, Chance marveled at the size of the grand wings. The sentries’ abilities weren’t due solely to his caeyl enchantment; simple physics dictated that a creature of such bulk required an enormous wingspan, no matter in which dimension of time-space it coexisted.

Soon the wings were beating at full measure and the massive beast began to hover. A whirlwind of dirt and litter raged around them as it inched upward.

Chance pulled the boy back to the wall and they once again buried their faces into the stone to avoid the debris stirred up by the sentry's liftoff. Chance's long hair whipped at his face as he squinted past his shoulder at the retreating beast. Soon the only evidence the sentry had been there at all was the jagged blue patch of fresh sky gaping through the canopy above them and the deep ruts left in the dirt where it’d squatted in the road.

Chance coughed and brushed himself free of the dust as the great whooshing of wings faded above them. Luren was already in the middle of the road staring up in awe at the blue hole.

“Curse my ignorance in creating those monsters!” Chance said to the sky, “Miserable things are supposed to protect us, but I swear they’ll kill us yet. I should’ve created foervang runners instead of winged sentries. In fact, my master urged me to do just that, you know. Foervang runners are more efficient he told me. Foervang runners can link essences and operate like a hive, he told me. Foervang runners can make complex decisions. But, did I listen? No! I was too busy stroking my arrogance.”

Luren laughed.

“Take my mistakes as a lesson, boy. The advantage of flying eyes is the ability to survey a vast area in a short amount of time, but it’s incredibly expensive in terms of caeyl energy. The price of flight is the loss of independent thought. There’s never enough power for both. I’ve ended up with flying idiots for my trouble.”

Luren laughed. “Listen to you. How can an animated object be an idiot? Besides, a foervang runner may be fine in the plains, but here in the mountains you’d need a hundred of them to cover the area patrolled by one winged sentry.”

“I know, I know,” Chance said, “But the fact remains that my decision to make winged sentries came from pride, not logic. I was young when I built them, and damned impressed with myself. When one is full of oneself it leaves little room for duty or responsibility to others.”

Luren rolled his eyes. “I’m sure that’s supposed to have some deeply insightful meaning for me since you serve up the same lesson at least once a week. And I’m equally sure that I still don’t have a clue what it means.”

“No obvious lies,” Chance said, squeezing the boy’s shoulder.

“It’s not a lie; it’s selective listening. I learned it from my master.”

Chance took the backpack from him. “You're a good apprentice, Luren,” he said as he helped the boy slip it onto his back, “And you’re well on your way to becoming a great man and a powerful mage, but right now, I need you to listen to me. I want you to follow my instructions without question or hesitation.”

A cloud passed over the boy’s face. “I know what you're going to say.”

Chance gripped his shoulder again and squeezed it with equal parts warmth and authority. “This is most likely just a caeyl malfunction,” he said, “But I'm responsible for the buffer zone this forest creates, so I don’t have the luxury of ignoring it. I’m going to check out a couple of the sentries and scout the valley rim. It’s possible I’ll be gone overnight. I need you to help me by tending the animals and minding the house. It’d be a good time to clean that fouled chimney, too. I’m tired of waking with ash in my mouth.”

Luren rolled his eyes again. “Right.”

Chance picked a twig from Luren’s hair and stroked the tangled blonde locks back into place. “I promise you can help me charge all the sentries when I get back. It’s time you learned basic animation anyway.”

The boy pulled his head free and turned away. He walked sullenly back toward the steps leading up to the path. “I'll do it because you want me to,” he said as he climbed the narrow stairs, “But it doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

“You just mind the house, boy. And if Sarrigh happens by for the pox elixirs, they’re ripening in the root cellar. Give him those with the red leaf stamp, not the blue ones.”

“Yes, O mighty lord and master,” Luren said as he backed away, “By your will, your Lordship. Just promise you’ll be careful out there. I’m too busy to come save your butt.” Then he turned and disappeared into the ferns above.

He was barely out of sight before Chance’s humor was dead and buried. He immediately crossed the road and climbed up into the forest on the opposite side.

The land here inclined less severely than the hill leading up to his house. However, it’d change soon enough as he neared the ridge of steep cliffs overlooking the wide valley separating the northern and southern forests. There, it was a half-mile higher than the valley floor.

The appearance of the sentry had completely shattered an already miserable morning. It had to be a malfunction. The notion of a Vaemysh invasion was simply too preposterous to chew. It’d been two hundred years since the Vaemyn last entered these woods with blood in their eyes, and the price of any manner of invasion would be unacceptably steep to their people. They’d been the cause of too many wars over the last thousand years, and the Allies had made it clear they’d not tolerate another at the Vaemyn’s hands.

Yet, another voice murmured from deep back in the doubting recesses of his mind, a thin, timid voice that whispered his bellowing confidence into silence: And what if it’s true?

If the news held any truth at all, if the Vaemyn had indeed sent warriors into Na te’Yed, the consequences were greater and more severe than anything he’d faced in his lifetime. It would shatter the stability of the entire region and lead to a war like no one alive had ever witnessed.