Robert Silverberg - Nightwings

“I am the Rememberer Elegro,” he announced portentously.

“I bring you Basil’s shawl.”

“Come. Follow.”

He had emerged from an imperceptible place in the wall where a sliding block turned on pivots. Now he slid it once more and rapidly went down a passageway. I called out to him that my companion was blind and could not match his pace, and the Rememberer Elegro halted, looking visibly impatient. His downcurving mouth twitched, and he buried his short fingers in the deep black curls of his beard. When we had caught up with him he moved on less swiftly. We pursued an infinity of psssageways and ended in Elegro’s domicile, somewhere high in the tower.

The room was dark but amply furnished with screens, caps, scribing equipment, voice-boxes, and other aids to scholarship. The walls were hung with a purple-black fabric, evidently alive, for its marginal folds rippled in pulsating rhythms. Three drifting globes gave less than ample light.

“The shawl,” he said.

I produced it from my pouch. It had amused me to wear it for a while in those first confused days of the conquest—after all, Basil had left it in my hands when he fled down the street, and I had not meant to wrest it from him, but he obviously had cared little for its loss—but shortly I had put it away, since it bred confusion for a man in Watcher’s garb to wear a Rememberer’s shawl. Elegro took it from me curtly and unfolded it, scrutinizing it as though looking for lice.

“How did you get this?”

“Basil and I encountered one another in the street during the actual moment of the invasion. He was highly agitated. I attempted to restrain him and he ran past me, leaving me still grasping his shawl.”

“He told a different story.”

“I regret it if I have compromised him,” I said.

“At any rate, you have returned his shawl. I’ll communicate the news to Roum tonight. Are you expecting a reward for delivering it?”

“Yes.”

Displeased, Elegro said, “Which is?”

“To be allowed to come among the Rememberers as an apprentice.”

He looked startled. “You have a guild!”

“To be a Watcher in these days is to be guildless. For what should I watch? I am released from my vows.”

“Perhaps. But you are old to be trying a new guild.”

“Not too old.”

“Ours is a difficult one.”

“I am willing to work hard. I desire to learn. In my old age curiosity is born in me.”

“Become a Pilgrim like your friend here. See the world.”

“I have seen the world. Now I wish to join the Rememberers and learn of the past.”

“You can dial an information below. Our access banks are open to you, Watcher.”

“It is not the same. Enroll me.”

“Apprentice yourself to the Indexers,” Elegro suggested. “The work is similar, but not so demanding.”

“I claim apprenticeship here.”

Elegro sighed heavily. He steepled his fingers, bowed his head, quirked his lips. This was plainly unique to him. While he pondered, an inner door opened and a female Rememberer entered the room, carrying a small turquoise music-sphere cradled in both her hands. She took four paces and halted, obviously surprised that Elegro was entertaining visitors.

She made a nod of apology and said, “I will return later.”

“Stay,” said the Rememberer. To myself and the Prince he said, “My wife. The Rememberer Olmayne.” To his wife he said, “These are travelers newly come from Roum. They have delivered Basil’s shawl. The Watcher now asks apprenticeship in our guild. What do you advise?”

The Rememberer Olmayne’s white brow furrowed. She put down her music-sphere in a dark crystal vase; the sphere was unintentionally activated as she did so, and it offered us a dozen shimmering notes before she switched it off. Then she contemplated us, and I her. She was notably younger than her husband, who was of middle years, while she seemed to be hardly past first bloom. Yet there was a strength about her that argued for greater maturity. Perhaps, I thought, she had been to Jorslem to renew her youth; but in that case it was odd that her husband had not done the same, unless he prized his look of age. She was surely attractive. Her face was broad, with a high forehead, pronounced cheekbones, a wide, sensual mouth, a jutting chin. Her hair was lustrous black, contrasting most vividly with the strange pallor of her skin. Such white skin is a rarity among us, though now I know that it was more common in ancient times, when the breed was different. Avluela, my lovely little Flier, had displayed that same combination of black and white, but there the resemblance ended, for Avluela was all fragility, and the Rememberer Olmayne was strength itself. Below her long slender neck her body blossomed into well-set shoulders, high breasts, firm legs. Her posture was regal.

She studied us at length, until I could scarcely meet the level gaze of her widely spaced dark eyes. Ultimately she said, “Does the Watcher regard himself as qualified to become one of us?”

The question appeared aimed at anyone in the chamber who cared to reply. I hesitated; Elegro did likewise; and at length it was the Prince of Roum who replied in his voice of command, “The Watcher is qualified to enter your guild.”

“And who are you?” Olmayne demanded.

Instantly the Prince adopted a more accommodating tone. “A miserable blind Pilgrim, milady, who has wandered here on foot from Roum, in this man’s company. If I am any judge, you could do worse than admit him as an apprentice.”

Elegro said, “And yourself? What plans have you?”

“I wish only refuge here,” said the Prince. “I am tired of roaming and there is much thinking I must do. Perhaps you could allow me to carry out small tasks here. I would not want to be separated from my companion.”

To me Olmayne said, “We will confer on your case. If there is approval, you will be given the tests. I will be your sponsor.”

“Olmayne!” blurted Elegro in unmistakable amazement.

She smiled serenely at us all.

A family quarrel appeared on the verge; but it was averted, and the Rememberers offered us hospitality, juices, sharper beverages, a night’s lodging. We dined apart from them in one section of their suite, while other Rememberers were summoned to consider my irregular application. The Prince seemed in strange agitation; he bolted down his food, spilled a flask of wine, fumbled with his eating utensils, put his fingers again and again to his gray metallic eyeballs as though trying to scratch an itch upon the lobes of his brain.

At length he said in a low, urgent voice, “Describe her to me!”

I did so, in detail, coloring and shading my words to draw him the most vivid picture I could.

“She is beautiful, you say?”

“I believe so. You know that at my age one must work from abstract notions, not from the flow of the glands.”

“Her voice arouses me,” said the Prince. “She has power. She is queenly. She must be beautiful; there’d be no justice if her body failed to match the voice.”

“She is,” I said heavily, “another man’s wife, and the giver of hospitality.”

I remembered a day in Roum when the Prince’s palanquin had come forth from the palace, and the Prince had spied Avluela, and ordered her to him, drawing her through the curtain to make use of her. A Dominator may command lesser folk that way; but a Pilgrim may not, and I feared Prince Enric’s schemes now. He dabbed at his eyes again. His facial muscles worked.

“Promise me you’ll not start trouble with her,” I said.

The corner of his mouth jerked in what must have been the beginning of an angry retort, quickly stifled. With effort he said, “You misjudge me, old man. I’ll abide by the laws of hospitality here. Be a good man and get me more wine, eh?”