The Pleasure of Memory (9 page)

“What is it?” Luren asked.

“Quiet!”

The sound was indistinct. It was soft and susurrating, yet determined, and it was quickly growing louder. He handed the water skin off to Luren as he climbed back to his feet. As he studied that green ceiling, his stomach knotted. He suddenly realized exactly what it was, and he couldn’t believe it.

Luren stepped in front of him with his face turned to the treetops. “Oh my gods!” he practically shrieked, “It’s a—”

The forest ceiling exploded in above them. A wall of sunlight flooded down on them, pushed on by an impending wave of branches and debris. Chance threw Luren back into the wall and sheltered him with his own body as the first branches pounded the wet dirt behind them.

Wreckage from the trees rained down on the road. Fractured wood barraged the dirt, some pieces large enough to shake the earth on impact. A fierce wind quickly whipped up around them, whisking the debris up into a cyclone of grit and leaves. A huge bough smashed against the stairs, showering them in splinters. A branch large enough to leave a mark, smacked Chance’s shoulder. He cursed and pressed himself harder into Luren and the wall.

Though it seemed to last forever, the storm actually ran its course in short order. The memory of the chaos soon echoed off into the forest, and the world fell naturally back into silence, save for the last whisper of twigs and leaves trickling from the damaged treetops.

Chance peered back over his shoulder. What he found was exactly what he’d expected, and the sight of it sent his blood boiling. Squatting in the middle of the road a dozen yards back was a large winged golem.

He released Luren and marched toward the creature. “Again?” he demanded, “What the devil are you doing here?”

Luren ran past him and slid to a stop before the beast, watching in obvious wonder as the expansive wings slowly wound down. “A winged sentry!” he cried out, “Finally!”

Chance steadied himself by brushing the dirt from his arms as he braced his patience. He was feeling far less enthusiastic than the boy was. The stone golem squatted in the dirt like an ornamental lion. The great head was mantis-like and as big as Chance’s torso, and hanged low before its trunk. The eyes were widely spaced at each corner of the triangular head, and were as large as melons. They glowed with a brilliant cobalt-blue light. Intricately ringed horns erupted from the top corners of the head and curled around to the front of the face, the tips terminating just beneath the outside corners of the eyes. It squatted on thick haunches with heavy, clawed feet. Its wings were twenty feet wide and slowly undulating above it. All in all, the creature gave the impression of a skinny, wormy, winged gargoyle wearing an insect’s head.

Luren was already dancing around the creature with a ridiculous grin possessing his face. “I can’t believe it!” he yelled, “I’ve visited the sentries a hundred times, but I’ve never seen one animate. You’ve always refused to show me. You said you wouldn’t waste the caeyl energy for a demonstration.”

“And I stand by it,” Chance said as calmly as he could manage, “The energy needed for animation is significant. I can’t spare it just for your entertainment. You know that. It’s not a joke.”

Luren edged in between him and the sentry and grabbed the sentry’s face, which was hanging nearly a yard above him. “My gods, they look even bigger when they animate. Don’t you think?”

Despite his exasperation, Chance had to admit it was an impressive sight. From a distance, the sentry appeared solid. Only on close inspection did its ethereal nature reveal itself. It was translucent at the center, becoming nearly transparent at the very edges of its form. The outlines of the trees behind the creature were barely visible through its body, though the image was vague and distorted. As he watched, the wings slowly folded and tucked into place so that their apex towered a dozen feet above the beast. Then it shuddered oddly, and the blue light in its eyes faded to stone as it returned to its natural solid state.

“I knew I’d be able see through them during animation,” Luren said, “But I didn’t realize I’d be able to see...well,
through
them.”

The appearance of the sentry had pushed Chance’s headache fully into the fire. And though he had no appetite for lessons right now, he had no choice but to comply. An apprentice’s role is to ask questions, a master’s is to answer them. Besides, the damned sentry wasn’t going anywhere. He could make rubble of it later.

“All right, boy,” he said as matter-of-factly as he could manage, “Tell me why you can see through them during animation.”

“That’s easy!” Luren reached up on his toes and slapped the beast’s mantis head as if to confirm its solidity. “For matter to animate, it has to be forced outside its normal niche in the ethereal matrix. Once it’s coaxed between its native time-space and the caeylsphere, it can defy the natural laws regulating it.” Luren paused at that, and then shrugged and looked over his shoulder at Chance. “Well, maybe not defy them exactly. More like bend them.”

“I’m impressed,” Chance told him. He meant it.

“Inserting a sliver of your caeyl gem into the sentry infuses it with your energy,” Luren continued, “It allows you to force the stone into an animated state. I understand all that from an academic standpoint, but actually seeing it happen is...well, it’s amazing! It’s like the sentry has its own Bloodlink.”

Satisfied, Chance looked at the sentry. “Your approach was unacceptable,” he said to it, “You were reckless. You might’ve killed us storming through the canopy that way!”

The sentry remained motionless.

Chance’s anger flowed like molten lead. He wanted nothing more than to turn the beast back to mud right then and there. Unfortunately, he couldn’t, not with Luren watching anyway. He was the boy’s master, after all. He had an example to set. So, rather than indulge his anger, he steadied himself and asked as calmly as he could manage, “Sentry, what are your primary rules of function?” It was a test of the creature’s ethereal integrity.

The beast shuddered again. Its bulbish eyes flamed with a nearly blinding blue light. The stone head wavered and grew translucent as it reanimated. Its response was slow and deliberate, emitted in a gravelly monotone. “The foremost function of a caeyl Sentry is to protect the life and safety of its creator, Lord Chance Gnoman. The secondary function of a caeyl Sentry is to monitor the borders of Na te’Yed for—”

“Enough!” Chance shouted, pounding his staff into the gravel. “Enough,” he repeated, shaking his head, “I’ve heard enough.”

The creature solidified again.

It was clearly functional enough to answer the test questions accurately. Still, its reckless entry had pretty well ruined a perfectly tuned headache. Through a locked jaw, Chance heard himself mutter, “You’re a cursed piece of—”

He caught himself before he could finish. He sent a guilty glance down at Luren who quickly threw his eyes up toward the hole in the canopy. The boy was fighting a smirk.

“Don’t you start,” Chance said to him.

“I didn’t say a thing.”

“This pile of rubble and glue claims to understand its function, and yet this is the fourth false alarm in two years. The fourth!”

“Oh, you know it’s a false alarm already,” Luren said, “I’d say that’s pretty insightful. I mean, considering you haven’t even heard its explanation yet.”

“The last visit from a sentry was to report a whisper of Watchers traveling along the valley’s rim.”

“I remember,” Luren said seriously.

“A whisper of Watchers, for gods’ sakes!”

“I know that.”

“And do you remember that this reported infraction turned out to be Friss and Graen Cole and their crew?”

“I do remember that,” the boy said.

“They’re longtime friends. And they’re not even Vaemysh, for gods’ sakes!”

“I know that as well,” Luren said, grinning, “And before that, the sentries came out of stasis to report sighting Sarrigh. But you—”

“Sarrigh!” Chance said, seizing the argument, “Yes! Exactly! Sarrigh, who’s been buying elixirs from me for forty years, who comes into the forest at least twice a season.
Every
season!”

“So that’s your evidence it’s another false alarm?”

Chance scowled at that. “Don’t you be insolent with me.”

“It’s not insolence,” Luren said, “I’m just saying, I think you should stop berating it and just ask the necessary question. Then you’ll know the facts and you can stop throwing your tantrum.”

Chance bristled, but immediately steadied himself. Though he sincerely loathed admitting it, the boy’s logic was inarguable. “You’re right,” he said grudgingly, “It’s this damned headache. It’s making me irritable.”

“Sure, blame the headache,” Luren said on a laugh, “Better yet, blame the wine.”

Chance cringed, but again resisted his darker urges. He turned back to face the sentry who was waiting as patiently as the boulder it was. The beast was one of many created long ago at the end of the Fifty Year War to guard the border between the north and south forest at the great valley called Fe’tana by the Vaemysh and Farswept Green by everyone else. He reminded himself that they existed for surveillance, not conversation, that their answers were always monotonously black and white, meaning any questions he asked had to be carved the same way.

He had to change tack or they’d be there all day interrogating the creature. “Why did you leave your post, sentry?” he asked carefully.

“I bring news of movement in the forest, Lord.” Silence.

Chance tightened his grip on his staff. “And are you willing to share with me the nature of the movement?”

“I am, my Lord.” Again, silence.

Chance fought back a scream. “Miserable rock piles,” he growled, “I should scrap the lot of you and start from scratch. You’ve been a pain in my—”

Luren smothered another laugh. Poorly.

Chance sent a calculated glare down at him. “Amused?” he asked.

“Perhaps a bit,” Luren confessed.

“This lump of rock might’ve killed us. You understand that, yes?”

“So you’ve said. But I doubt your threats will make it any smarter.”

“I’m not threatening it. I know how to deal with a sentry. I built them a good century before you were even born, after all.”

Luren shrugged. “Didn’t you teach me that the sentries operate as they do because they possess the rule of your basic intelligence?”

“I don’t know what you’re—”

“I mean they function as an extension of your intellect. By condemning their stupidity, you’re really condemning yourself.”

Chance opened his mouth to retort, but quickly realized he had no strategy left but retreat. “You’re too smart for your own good,” he said for lack of something smarter.

Luren shrugged. “I had a good teacher. It’s not his fault wine hates him so.”

Chance watched the boy stroll around the sentry. He was extremely proud of him, proud of the master caeyl mage he was destined to become. He deserved a better master.

He looked back to the sentry. “What exactly did you come to report?”

The blue eyes flamed and the statue blurred back into animation. “Two parties of Vaemyn were spotted. We observed them crossing the river near the Field of Light. The eastern party numbered one hundred two. The western party numbered eighty-three. Each party was comprised of Vaemysh warriors.”

The temperature of the forest plummeted. Chance considered the sentry’s statement in stunned silence.

Luren reappeared beside him. His eyes reflected Chance’s own disbelief. “I guess you should’ve asked that question straight out of the gate,” he whispered.

Chance didn’t look at him. “How do you know they were warriors?” he asked the creature.

“The Vaemyn were adorned in battle dress, Lord. They bore weapons unnecessary for foraging. They carried no mules.”

“Mules?” Luren asked.

“Domestics,” Chance said, “Indentured Vaemyn from the servant class. To bear the weight of their foraging harvest.” Chance’s headache tightened its straps. “Battle dress,” he said as he studied the sentry, “That’s impossible.”

“Is it?” Luren asked.

Chance looked down at him. “Excuse me?”

“Impossible?”

“Of course. It’s ridiculous.”

Luren seemed to think about that, and then he asked, “Have the sentries ever accurately reported warriors in the forest before?”

Chance had to pause at that. “Yes,” he said as he considered it, “They reported one authentic infraction twenty or thirty years ago. After a fashion, at any rate. They were indeed warriors, just as the sentries described, but it wasn’t an invasion force. They were a posse. They were pursuing one of their own, a renegade and murderer.”

“So you don’t doubt the sentry spotted Vaemysh warriors, you just don’t believe they’re an invasion force?”

“I don’t know,” Chance said honestly.

He looked at the sentry. After a moment, he held a fingertip just above the surface of one of the sentry’s radiant blue eyes and began making a circling motion with it. Soon, a whirlpool of dark blue grain formed in the glowing eye and followed the direction of his finger like drops of ink stirred into dirty milk.