He said, “She’s gone.”
“Gone?” I shook my head helplessly. “How mean you, gone? Gone where?”
He stepped a pace forward, and I thought he was about to touch me again, as if the word he brought were such as should require he comfort me again. Instead, he raised both hands and let them fall to his sides. He said, “To the Sentinels.”
“What?”
I started from my seat. I know not what I thought in that moment-to hobble my way to the harbor, perhaps. To find and halt her boat. I cried out as pain lanced my wound, and fell back, staring at his face, gesturing that he continue.
He said, “As soon as the fighting ended, it was decided the Sentinels must be strengthened. Kherbryn itself was attacked, and the Lord Protector sent word the Sorcerous College must send as many near-adepts as might be spared. Your Rwyan was one.” He closed the gap between us now and did touch me, pushing me gently back as I sought to rise again. “Her boat sailed two days ago. I have only just gotten word from Lyr.”
I said, “Two days ago.”
My voice was harsh. The pit I had sensed earlier gaped wide, beckoning me. Urt crossed the room to where Cleton and I kept a keg of ale. He filled a mug and gave it me. I drank automatically. The ale tasted sour; or my mouth was filled with despair’s ash.
Urt looked a moment out the window, and then at me again. “She left a message with Lyr,” he said.
Dully, I asked, “What is it?”
He paused an instant, as if summoning up a memory, then said, “‘Tell Daviot that I love him. Tell him that I shall always love him, but I cannot refuse my duty. I must go where I am bid, as must he in time. Tell him I pray he recovers. Tell him I shall never forget.’”
He fell silent, and I asked, “Was that all?”
He said, “Yes, that was all.”
I nodded. My eyes were open but I saw nothing, for they filled with tears. That I had known this must eventually happen, that we should be someday parted by our callings, meant nothing. It was no comfort: the day had come too soon-would always have come too soon-and I knew only grief.
I cursed my calling then, for as I sat there my memory conjured her face in precise detail, and I knew it should always be there, reminder of my loss. I drained the mug and held it blindly out to Urt to refill. And I cursed my calling anew, for it denied me even the temporary oblivion of drunkenness. Even did I wish it, I could not forget her. She would always be with me. I heard Urt say, “I am sorry, Daviot,” but I gave no reply. I could not.
I had never felt so alone as I did then.
Despite the immense fatigue that gripped her, Rwyan remained on deck, her face turned resolutely back toward Durbreeht. It was an effort to focus those senses that replaced her sight, harder for the draining of her occult energies during the fighting and after, but somewhere within the ravaged walls Daviot lay wounded and she could not allow herself to succumb to the temptation to sleep. She could not, she knew, “see” him, nor would he be aware of her observation, but it seemed to her a kind of farewell. It seemed to her she left a piece of her heart there.
The city stood battle-scarred in the early-morning light, like a warrior resting on his bloodied sword, hurt but undefeated. Gaps showed in the ramparts, and in the harbor scorched hulks lay half-sunk, masts thrust from the Treppanek like skeletal fingers clutching at the sky. In the fields beyond the walls great columns of black smoke rose from the pyres of the Sky Lords’ dead. Durbrecht’s slain would find resting places in the mausoleums-for the Kho’rabi there were only the bonfires, like obscene celebrations of hard-won victory. Few enough celebrated, she thought. Rather, there was a licking of wounds, a fearful anticipation of the next attack, the horrid certainty that it would come. And would Daviot be still there, she wondered; and would he survive again? She felt her eyes grow moist, slow tears roll down her cheeks, trailing in their wake a resentment of the duty that tore her from the man she loved.
She thought, It is not fair. And then upbraided herself for that weakness, that traitorous thought, and sternly told herself, I am a sorcerer, he a Mnemonikos, and we both of us knew this must come to pass. We both of us have a duty we cannot forgo.
But still the pain lingered, and she wiped a hand across her tears, watching until the steady sweep of the oars had carried the galleass far enough along the Treppanek that Durbrecht was lost, its position marked only by the black funerary columns.
She felt a hand upon her shoulder then and turned to find Chiara at her side. The blond woman said gently, “It cannot be helped; and you knew it should happen.”
“You sound like Cleton,” Rwyan said. “Daviot told me he held the same opinion.”
“How else could it be?” Chiara shrugged. “Best that you forget him.”
“I know.” Rwyan dried the last of her tears and endeavored to smile. “But I cannot.”
“In time you will.” Chiara stroked her friend’s hair. “Perhaps on the Sentinels you’ll meet another. One of our kind.”
“No!” Rwyan shook her head.
Chiara sighed. “Are you so certain?” she asked. “Shall you give your heart to a man you’ll likely never see again?”
Rwyan said, “Yes,” and felt Chiara’s hand drop from her hair, heard the small intake of frustrated breath.
“At least rest,” Chiara suggested. “The God knows you must be weary enough.”
Rwyan nodded and turned from her observation, going with her friend to the cabin assigned them.
It was already crowded, littered with bodies and baggage, the bunks taken by those sisters gone earlier to rest, all weary as Rwyan. There was little enough space left even on the floor, but they found a place and stretched out. Chiara was soon aslumber, but for all Rwyan’s weariness, sleep was hard to find. The cabin was warm with the press of bodies, redolent of skin and breath and the unfamiliar odors of a ship. The small square window was open, but what ventilation it allowed was poor, the breeze coming from the east, heated by advancing summer. The brothers of the Sorcerous College slept on deck and should until the galleass reached its destination, and she wished she might join them. That, however, was deemed immodest, and so the females must fit themselves as best they might into the ship’s scanty private accommodations. If she could not sleep, she decided, she would meditate.
Even that was difficult, for all that had passed this year ran pell-mell through her mind, defying the disciplines of meditation like a runaway horse careless of bit and bridle, one event piling upon another, and all the time Daviot’s face imposing itself between.
At least Urt had been able to bring word, and she able to send back a message via Lyr, so she knew Daviot lived and that his wound was not unduly serious. He would limp awhile, Urt had said, but in other ways was entire. That, Rwyan told herself, was a comfort, though she would have loved him had he been crippled or scarred, and found herself conjuring the image of his face. She was pleased that had not been marked, for it was a pleasant visage. Not handsome like his friend Cleton, but neither homely. It was, she supposed, a face typical of Kellambek: wide of brow and mouth, the jaw square, the nose straight, the eyes a blue that was almost gray. She thought then of the way those eyes studied her-as if they marveled, intent on some wondrous discovery-and of the feel of his thick black hair between her fingers; and that prompted memories of other things-of flesh smooth over hard muscle, of embraces-and she groaned with the sense of loss.
Beside her, Chiara turned drowsily, mumbling an inquiry, and Rwyan murmured an apology and willed herself to silence, seeking to banish that intrusive image. She willed herself to think instead of her duty. That had greater call on her loyalties than mere personal desire: it was the belief of the Sorcerous College that the Sky Lords planned a full-scale invasion.
Rwyan stirred on her hard bed, not much pleased with her contemplation. Her talent was not yet so well defined, nor yet so well tutored, that she could direct her magicks against the invaders-that would be taught her on the islands-but she possessed, like all her companions on this voyage, the innate ability. The power lay within her, and when the airboats had crowded the sky over Durbrecht, and when the Kho’rabi had roamed the streets, the adepts had drawn on that power, taking it like draining blood from her veins. That she had given freely-it was her duty and her desire-could not erase the image of vampiric leaching. She thought it must have been like that in the earliest days. Daviot had told her tales, as they lay together, of folk taken for witches, for wizards, for vampires, blamed and burned for wasting deaths. They had likely been, he had said, sorcerers whose power was unrecognized, who had drawn from others with the talent, unthinking. Did the Sky Lords come again, as she felt sure they must, before she was fully versed in the usage of her talent, then the adepts of the Sentinels would require that leaching of her again. And when she became adept, then likely she must play the vampire.
It was not a thought Rwyan welcomed. For all it was necessary, she found it distasteful. She wished there were some other way to overcome the Ahn wizards. Which brought her mind back to Daviot, for he had spoken of another way.
He had smiled as he told her-she thought how white and strong his teeth were-but behind his laughter she had heard a wondering, an echo of a scarce-shaped dream. Suppose, he had said, that the great dragons still live. Suppose there are still Dragonmasters, hidden in the Forgotten Country. Suppose they could be persuaded to fly against the Sky Lords. We could defeat them then, surely. Think on it, Rwyan! The dragons battling with the Sky Lords! Surely, did the dragons patrol the skies there should be peace.
He had laughed then and shaken his head, dismissing an impossible dream. She thought how boyish he had looked as embarrassment overtook his enthusiasm, and how she had agreed and put her arms about him and drawn him close again in that little room above the inn. She could recall it so precisely….
In the God’s name! Rwyan ground her teeth, her eyes screwed tight closed against the threat of tears. Do I remember so well, what is it like for Daviot? To remember as he is able must be a curse.
She pushed the shared hurt away as best she could, ordering her mind to contemplation of more practical matters. To end the endless cycle of the Comings was a noble dream, but the dragons were not-could not be-the answer. They were dead, the Dragonmasters with them. And even did they survive, it must be in the wastes of the Forgotten Country, in Tartarus, which none could reach save they cross Ur-Dharbek, and that none did. That was the domain of the wild Changed-no Trueman ventured there.
Fleetingly, she wished she had been sent to the Border Cities. When Daviot was sent out as Storyman, he might go there. Might even be assigned a residency in some aeldor’s keep. And did the God, or whatever powers wove the strands of both their destinies, look on them with favor, then she would be mage of that keep, and they be together again.
But the God was not so kind. She was bound for the Sentinels, and Storymen did not go there. Those islands were the domain of the sorcerers alone, and whilst she must remain there, likely Daviot should be sent awandering Draggonek’s west coast, or Kellambek’s, so that all the Fend and the mass of Dharbek stand between them. Or-an awful thought!-the Sky Lords would come again over Durbrecht and he fall to their wizardry, or a Kho’rabi blade.
Rwyan pressed her face against her pillow that her cry not disturb her companions. There were some amongst them, she knew, had taken lovers not of their own calling and left them without tears. She wondered, briefly, if they were the more fortunate, and told herself, No, they cannot be. If they can part so easily, they cannot have loved as I do.
An errant, hurtful thought then: Shall Daviot forget me?
And the answer: No. How can he?
And then: But shall he find another love? Shall he meet someone to take my place?
And the answer: It may be so, but it shall not affect what I feel. I love him, and I shall always love him.
It was little enough comfort, near as much pain, but Rwyan clutched it to her as sheer exhaustion finally lulled her troubled mind and granted her the respite of sleep.
And the galleass, propelled by its Changed oarsmen, moved steadily along the Treppanek, past the wreckage of fallen airboats and the ravaged keeps that marked their passage. Eastward, toward the gulfs meeting with the Fend, toward the Sentinels: Rwyan’s future.