Crowchanger (Changers of Chandris) (14 page)

He led the prince across the courtyard, towards the oldest part of the Aerie: a cloistered area leading to the great hall. Casian drifted another thread of aiea towards the lad, with the same disconcerting effect. If he didn’t know better, he would swear the boy was a talent. This could set an interesting precedent. His father could not possibly insist on Casian standing down if Deygan’s heir was also a changer, unless Deygan set Jaevan aside, and he was hardly likely to do that. Anyone could see that the king loved his eldest son.

As they walked, a shrill note sounded on the other side of the wall separating the outer courtyard from the lake and fields beyond. Out there somewhere one of the novices or apprentices was learning to change, finding their own kye in the Outlands and joining with it to transform into a bird. Not yet able to do it without the pipe, evidently—that was the next stage. Finding one’s kye without it being called to you by the linandra was harder, yet most changers managed it reliably within a few weeks.

Casian turned to explain all this to Jaevan, then chuckled quietly to himself. No need. The boy would not have heard it. Only changers could hear the call of a linandra pipe: changers and their kye. But when he saw the boy, he froze. Jaevan stood, head tilted towards the sound and his arms clasped across his abdomen. Casian did not want to believe what he was seeing.

“Are you all right, Highness? Can I get you a drink of something?” No, this could not be happening. Not here. Not now. Not with the prince in his care.

The lad’s eyes were full of tears, but he blinked them away. “That noise. It cut through my head and then it hurt here.” He clamped his hands tighter to his stomach.

Casian stared at the boy, hardly able to believe it. Jaevan had clearly heard the pipe and the only way that was possible was if he was a changer. Jaevan was how old? Twelve? Thirteen? On the young side for the change yet. But occasionally a youngster would have symptoms for some time before the onset of the change. Casian had experienced them himself—somewhat like growing pains, odd cramps that came and went. It could be months, even years, yet before the young prince would need to come to the Aerie to be trained. From the terrified look in his eyes, the boy had worked it out for himself. Could he have guessed before the visit?

“Please, Casian,” he whispered, straightening cautiously and wincing as if in anticipation of pain as he released his hold on his body. “Please don’t tell my father. Don’t get me wrong; I’d love to be a changer. I’d love to learn to fly like you do. But I can’t be one. It isn’t possible. I’m his heir. Please promise me you’ll not tell him.”

Casian promised, but he thought his vow would likely bring the boy more trouble in the long run. As the change progressed, a stray call within earshot could make him transform whether he wanted to or not. Without a master to guide him he would be vulnerable to predators or to overflying. But until the boy’s changing became common knowledge, as it surely would, Casian had a hold over him. His failure to compel the boy at this first meeting was just a setback. He could learn to manipulate him, he was sure, and then he would have the future king of Chandris at his command. One step on his own route to the throne.

Chapter 14

S
everal months had passed, and Ayriene and Sylas were settling into a routine—getting to know each other better. So far, Ayriene thought, it had gone well. Sylas had been quiet for the first week or so out of the Aerie. He missed Casian, that was clear enough, although at least the pair had been on good terms when she and Sylas left. Part of it was nerves, she was sure. His confidence was so battered by his recent experiences that he faltered over the simplest tasks. It was only when he realised she meant to teach him, and did not expect him to know everything straight away, that he began to thrive.

That evening they found a place to make camp. Rain had come and passed, and they found shelter under a rock overhang. Sylas’s skill with the sling brought meat to eat, and a brace of skinned and gutted dheva sizzled and dripped fat as they cooked on a makeshift spit over the fire.

Ayriene reached behind her and grasped a handful of spongy green vegetation. She grimaced as it squished between her fingers.

“And this is.?”

Sylas smiled. Even while he was cooking their dinner his lessons continued, but Ayriene could rarely catch him out. He proved to have a prodigious memory for plants and their uses, and every night he stretched out with Ayriene’s herbal and committed yet more to memory.

“Imanha moss. Low-growing plant that likes riverbanks and other damp spots.”

Riverbanks indeed. It was not so long since he had recoiled in horror at a stream a mere pace across, thinking it would be like the poison rain that fell in the desert. The first time he saw Ayriene scoop water up in cupped hands he pulled her away, thinking she was certain to die if she drank it.

“Usage?”

“As a poultice for drawing out infection, or as a salve. The salve doesn’t last long, though. You need to make new batches regularly, or it loses its efficacy.”

“Anything else?”

He reddened slightly. “As a balm after childbirth if the mother has torn. It helps prevent infection there, too.”

She chuckled, then caught the laugh back when she saw his crestfallen face. “I’m sorry. I just find it hard to believe that your family lived all together in one room, then came to the Aerie where changers appear naked in front of you when they transform back, and are still so easily embarrassed.”

“I won’t have to handle a birthing, will I?”

“Most villages have women who serve as midwives, but in an emergency you should know what needs to be done.” She pulled off a leg of meat and handed it to him. “You did well. You have earned yourself your meat tonight.”

Not that she would ever have withheld it, if he had not been word perfect on his lesson. The boy was diligent, as Jesely had said. For all his difficulties at writing, which he assured her were because he used his left hand, his reading was adequate and getting better with practice. And like every young man she had ever known, his stomach seemed permanently empty.

He had grown another finger’s width in the months since they had left the Aerie, but thank the Creator he seemed to have stopped, at least for the time being. If Cowin and Jesely were typical Chesammos he still had some bulking up to do; he did not yet have their breadth of shoulder and depth of chest.

For a mercy, he did not spend his spare time chasing the girls—or boys—in the villages they passed through. She expected he had found company along the way—girls often smiled encouragement at her good-looking apprentice, and so did some of the young men. But there had been no lasting involvements, and for the time being, that suited her fine. The more attention he paid to his studies, the better the healer he would become, and the sooner he could support himself if necessary.

Towards the end of their journey, Adwen had been showing more of an interest in the local girls than she liked and she had taken pains to introduce him to the appropriate pages in the herbal. Bastards in most of Chandris’s villages were known as ‘changers’ children,’ their fathers having flown and left them. Adwen had taken her instruction on such matters with a smile and a joke, but Sylas would be another matter. As far as she knew, Sylas was only interested in male partners, but she couldn’t afford to take any chances. Probably leaving a marker in the herbal for him to find would be her best option, she reflected, watching her apprentice ripping meat from bone and licking the grease from his fingers.

“We head into the uplands tomorrow. Are you ready?”

He nodded. “I want to see a forest. Wood is so scarce in the desert. I want to see trees and trees and trees as far as I can see, like Casian told me about.”

“I think we can manage that.” She tipped her head to one side to consider him. “You know we will most likely see upland Chesammos while we are there.”

“They work in the fields. Master Jesely told me that. The upland Chesammos and the desert Chesammos have become sundered. Once we were all one race, each working according to their skill and receiving according to their need. The Irenthi changed all that, and now the uplanders and the desert dwellers might as well be different races.”

He was matter-of-fact, but had an air of sadness. The Chesammos had once owned the whole island. She was not sure how their systems had worked, but he was not the first who had told her of this means of providing for everyone—a far cry from the way things were now. The Chesammos were free people who might as well be slaves, as it stood. In the lands she had visited where slavery was legal, slaves were a valuable commodity. They were well-kept, fed and clothed. The average slave lived in better conditions than many of the desert Chesammos. No wonder they had heard rumours of rebellion as they had travelled the island. Sylas had not mentioned them, but she wondered how much of it he had taken in—whether he sympathised with what they were trying to achieve. He was safer with her than among his own people, at any rate. Healers were respected; changer healers doubly so.

At least the lad seemed happy to be travelling. Chandris was not large, but it had a stunning variety of environments. From the desert of the south to the rainforests in the north, and the mountain range that formed the island’s spine, she planned to visit them all. Ayriene had been stunned to discover how little Sylas knew of the island on which he lived. He knew only the area close to Namopaia, the Aerie, and the route he had to take between them. He had only seen the sea from a distance; he had never seen a forest, or a farm, or any of the other things Ayriene took so much for granted. It gave her pleasure, showing him this small part of the world and witnessing his wonder at what it contained.

“So long as you know,” she said. “We will head north and east tomorrow and we should be in Redlyn the day after. Now, suppose you show me how you’ll make that imanha moss salve?”

He grinned, taking a jar of oil from his pack and setting a small pot in the embers of the fire. The boy had a sure way about him, and he picked things up quickly. He was not Adwen—would never take Adwen’s place—but she had to admit it was good to have company by the fire of an evening. She settled down to watch him set the oil infusing.

Sylas thought he was prepared for what he was to see in Redlyn, but when it came to it he was not. The Chesammos there looked a lot like him and had the distinctive build of his race, but there the similarity stopped.

If he had stopped to think, he would have realised that they would not live in ash brick huts. Just as wood was a prized commodity in the desert, so was brick elsewhere, used mainly for the castles and mansions of the wealthy. These Chesammos lived in houses of wood and willow, thatch and skins, as did the Irmos, of whom there were many. They wore Irenthi-style clothing, although in fabrics much less fine than any Irenthi would be seen wearing.

But what surprised him most were the earrings. The menfolk still wore the twisted wire and bead, but some wore them in both ears, not just one. The women wore them, too: simple affairs so as not to get in the way while working, but no woman would have worn an ear wire in the desert. Most shocking of all was the bead. A few wore linandra, but many more wore beads of other colours—a pink coral here, a clear quartz there—of the sort worn by Irmos for decoration. The custom of piercing had been kept after the sundering of the desert Chesammos and the uplanders, but the ritual importance of the wire and its bead had been lost.

Ayriene tugged at his sleeve. “You’re staring,” she warned him. And he was, but they stared back. He had stubbornly clung to his old clothes, loose-fitting, bound at wrists and ankles to keep out ash. And he was the only grown man without the ear wire. That was enough to set him apart in any Chesammos settlement.

A man approached, a few years older than Sylas, but taller. Looking round, Sylas saw that this man was far from the tallest. Better diet and fresher air made these uplanders thrive, it seemed.

“Welcome, healer. Cousin. My name is Erlach,” he said, giving Ayriene a respectful bow, deeper than those accorded even the Irenthi in the south. He made the sign of the Lady to Sylas, joining thumb and fingertips and raising his index fingers to his lips. Sylas returned the salute, grateful that this, at least, was the same as at home. “We have been looking forward to your visit, healer. We have our own herbalist here, but she anticipates learning much from you. And we have a young man with a broken arm which has not healed, and one with a knife gash that has become infected. Both injured while gathering the fruit and nut crops.”

Erlach had none of the accent Sylas was used to. From his voice he could have been Irmos, or even Irenthi at a push. Looking around, he saw many dark Irmos children playing in the streets, even some with fairer skins. In the desert, his people clung to the old ways, told the old stories, preserved their bloodlines. Here, with the prospect of a better life for those with some Irenthi blood in their veins, the preservation urge did not run as deep. Within two, maybe three generations, he estimated, there would be few people left here who could claim pure Chesammos blood.

Sylas shifted to Chesammos to ask their host if there were anywhere they could wash, any food and water to be had after their journey. He was aware of Ayriene’s eyes narrowing and wondered if he had given offence. The man laughed nervously.

“If I understood you correctly, my house is at your disposal. You will find fresh water and food there, and beds, if you need to rest after your journey.” Erlach replied in fluent Irenthi, then flushed when he saw Sylas’s expression. “My Chesammos is rusty, I am afraid, and I would be embarrassed to try in front of one who obviously speaks it well. We rarely use the language now, even amongst ourselves. My parents both speak it, if you wish to converse in your own tongue.”

Sylas’s spirits fell. He had thought at least to speak a little Chesammos here, but the young man slapped him across the shoulders.

“When you have rested maybe we can speak a while, cousin. I would like to hear of the southlands and how you fare there. I hear there are… changes afoot.” Erlach cast a cautious glance at Ayriene, but she was making a good attempt at seeming not to hear. “There will be a gathering in your honour tonight.”

“Wrestling?” Sylas could not keep the eagerness from his voice. “Will there be wrestling? I am out of practice, but I am accounted good in my village. I would love to try my skills against some of your men.”

Erlach moistened his lips. “Wrestling? Why… no. Not tonight. We rarely wrestle now, if truth be told, but if you enjoy sports we have a game I can show you. I will need some of my friends to come back from the fields, but we can teach you, if you wish. The rules take time to explain, but I’m sure you will pick it up.”

Sylas smiled in what he hoped was a polite fashion. The beauty of wrestling was that you could practice any time, as long as you could find a man willing to be your opponent. But having to gather a group—and
rules
! How many rules could a game need?

“I think maybe I shall rest a while. On reflection, I am tired after our long walk.”

Erlach brought his face closer to Sylas’s and whispered urgently. “I must see you alone. I hear that Chesammos plan to rise up against the Irenthi. That they gather weapons.”

“Here?” Sylas checked over his shoulder in case they could be overheard. “You have weapons here?”

Erlach looked aghast. “No, not here. We are a small community, as you see, integrated with the Irmos. There is little revolutionary spirit in this village. But one of the villages to the south of here will join, I believe. I only hope the rest of us will not be drawn into your conflicts. It cannot end well.”

He showed Sylas and Ayriene to the small dwelling that had been prepared for them. They washed and lay down on their first proper beds in many days. Sylas stared at the ceiling. Sleep would not come, despite his tiredness. This place was not Chesammos: not as he knew it. But then his own people were leaving the old ways, in a far more radical way than these villagers. Weapons? He could hardly picture Chesammos men armed with daggers and knives and spears. His mind recoiled from it.

Chandris was hard for Chesammos—had always been hard. But now it was no longer safe.