Angus Wells: Lords of the Sky

This latter, I comprehended, was to the cost of the Ahn, who had, after all, been first come to Kellambek, but as the Dark Folk were enemies of the God and become the Sky Lords, I accepted what the mantis told me quite unthinking, save for one question.

“Why,” I asked him one winter’s evening as we sat before the fire in his little cottage beside the cella, “does the God allow the Comings? If we Dhar are his chosen people, and the Ahn are his enemies, why does he not destroy them?”

Had I been already precocious, I was worse now, and my question clearly took the good mantis aback. He delivered a sound blow to my head and then murmured a prayer that the God forgive me my ignorant heresy. Then, as I rubbed at my stinging ear and bit back tears, he thought to offer an explanation.

In the Dawntime, he told me-a trifle nervously I thought, as if this were a matter he had rather not discussed-the Dhar had worshipped false gods, the Three Deciders, and for that sin had earned the displeasure of the one true God. Even now, albeit we had come to the true faith, we must suffer for that sin, the memory of the deity being, naturally, prodigious. Until such time as this original sin should be forgiven, we must suffer the depredations of the Sky Lords in penance for our transgression.

That seemed to me harsh. I had not, before that evening, even heard of the Three Deciders-so why should I, or Whitefish village, pay for a sin not of our commitment? I wondered, albeit briefly then, being not much used to wrestling with such theological mysteries, if it had not been better had we Dhar made peace with the Ahn, so that they should never have fled to become our enemies. My ear still burned, however, and I held my tongue. That church of which our village mantis was a lowly representative was a power in the land, an authority unquestioned, versed in the God’s mysteries and invested with the temporal interpretation of his will. I elected to accept the ritual explanation.

Before I attained my manhood, I saw the Sky Lords’ boats again.

The first was too far out to sea and too far south to present any threat to the village, and after a while it passed out of sight.

The second time I was at sea. It was midsummer, a little after the Sastaine festival, the days long and gentle as the Fend’s soft swell. Dusk approached, the sea a match to the sky’s transparent blue, glinting bright where the westering sun laid bands of gold across the water. We were bringing in a filled net when Battus loosed his hold, eliciting a curse from my father that became a gasp as he followed my uncle’s gaze to where the sky was marred by a distant shape. I recognized it on the instant and saw that it must pass north of our position, save it change direction. Still, it rode very low and I felt a mixture of excitement and dread.

My father said, “In the God’s name, are the Sentinels asleep?”

And Thorus replied, “I think perhaps the Sky Lords own new magicks,” which set a chill on my spine, for I heard a great doubt in his voice and found myself reminded of the priest’s talk of ancient sin.

Then my father said, “Best we bring this net in and turn for home, I think.”

We had our catch aboard and the boat turned about before the Sky Lords had advanced more than three fingers’ width across the blue. There was no wind to speak of, and so Battus and Thorus manned the oars, my father the tiller, leaving me free to watch. Or act as valiant lookout, I chose to think.

So it was I saw for the first time what the magic of the Sentinels could do.

I saw the darkening sky grow brighter above the closest island. It was akin to the jack-o’-lantern fires that would sometimes dance over the marshier fields above the village, pale and pink as a wound at first, then stronger, like a kindling flame. Then it became a column of searing red that sprang skyward to envelop the airboat, wrapping about the cylinder. For a moment that seemed to me a very long time, it bathed the vessel, then came an eruption of light and I saw the airboat broken like a spine-snapped beast, falling down in a great ball of flame, mundane now, trailers of smoke dragging behind it. There was a sound, as of distant thunder, and the Sky Lords’ craft went down to meet the sea. In a little while there was only a single plume of smoke that drifted leisurely shoreward, merging with the sky.

Thorus said, “I believe they are awake,” and my father chuckled, nodding, and we turned again for home.

The third airboat I saw was an anticlimax after that.

It was sighted late in the year before I left for Durbrecht, when the season hung undecided between autumn and winter, the winds contrary and the Fend choppy. It was clear from the first that the airboat must pass south of Kellambek’s farthest shores, and I wondered to where. Later I questioned the mantis, but he professed ignorance, pointing out to me that argument still continued as to whether the world be flat or round, and if the one, then the Sky Lords must pass over the edge; if the other, then they should likely perish for want of food and water. Either fate suited him.

I was then fifteen, my manhood now in sight, the past three years flown as years do, unnoticed save in their remembrance. I had come to realize the mantis had little more to teach me, that his knowledge was boundaried by his calling, limited by that dogma I yet accepted whilst sensing larger truths beyond its narrow borders. I had learned-courtesy of sore ears and more than one flogging-either to hold back my less orthodox questions or to put them circumspect. The matter of the Sky Lords’ fate I left to destiny.

I had also discovered another interest. For some time now I had grown increasingly aware that I was not alone in my approach to adulthood. It was obvious, from the blemished skin and fluctuating voices of myself and my friends, that we grew. It was equally obvious, from other, far more appealing signs, that those girls with whom we had roughly played as children matched us.

I was intrigued by this new aspect life revealed, and there were (this in all modesty) not a few daughters who flirted with me, for all I passed the next year sporting a ferocious crop of pimples and was seldom sure whether my voice should come out squeaking or gruff.

But as the spring approached the days lengthened, and in direct proportion the time left before I should depart shortened.

When the time came, it was very hard. Nor is it a time on which I care to dwell overlong, and so I tell it brief.

The ceremonies celebrating the coming of age of both Tellurin and Coram preceded mine, and both were followed within days by their betrothals.

My own ceremony approached, midway through that spring. I waited on word from Rekyn. I grew somewhat surly when none came, wondering if the commur-mage had forgotten her promise. The day dawned bright, and I rose early, before my parents even, walking out alone through the village to the Cambar road, where I climbed a tree to peer nervously northward. Tonium found me there, sent by my mother to bring me back for the ritual preparations, and took great delight in my discomfort until I reminded him that did Rekyn fail to come and I remain in the village, his own hopes of advancement must be dashed. That was small satisfaction as I trudged homeward to bathe and dress in the breeks and tunic my mother had lovingly stitched for this propitious day.

Dressed, I went at my father’s side to the cella, where the mantis waited, clad in his ceremonial robe, no longer my plump tutor, but the representative of the God. As was customary on such days, no boats put out, but all the villagers stood watching outside the cella. Alone, I followed the mantis inside. There he spoke to me of manhood, of its responsibilities and duties, of the God and our debt to him. I gave the ritual responses and drank the sacred wine, ate the bread and the salt, he drew back my hair and tied it in manhood’s tail; and all the while my ears were pricked for the sound of hoofbeats, the jangle of harness.