A tangle of fading sapphire traces marked my breast and belly. Kol stepped back and cocked his head to one side, then walked around behind me.
“Stathero hath taken no offense at thy intrusion. Its likeness forms the gard on thy back, and here”—his finger traced an outline on my breast—“I have a thought we may find a sea star, a dog whelk, perhaps other beings from my own sianou.” He sighed, and rueful resignation scribed his face as clearly as his dragon. “To carry so clearly the markings of the places thou hast touched…and so early…those things, too, are not usual.”
Twisting my head in an attempt to see my back near broke my neck. That the marks faded into silver as the sun rose higher did not help. I closed my eyes and pretended I did not feel like some marketplace oddity come from savage lands to swallow fire and juggle hoops.
“Come, Valen. Thy tasks and lessons have scarce begun. And we must leave my sire’s sianou that he may examine this night’s work in peace. Thou’lt come to envision thine own gards, as their use becomes a part of thy nature. If thou art fortunate, their line and color will please thee.”
We began the long climb down Stathero’s jagged south face, a matter that consumed all my attention. Down, even in daylight, was at least as terrifying as up in the dark. Yet from the number of questions that tumbled out of me when my feet at last touched the ground, at least a bit of my mind had been working.
As we hiked down the mountain, away from Stathero and Stian, Kol responded to my barrage of queries with studied patience.
“The gards fade naturally in sunlight, save when we dance or otherwise focus our needs upon them. Once fixed in design, they do not change. Some believe they express a truth about the spirit who wears them…
“Wearing coverings, such as human garb, that hide the gards inhibits our use of them and the power they carry. Excessive covering and lack of use will weaken them. To travel the paths of linked remembrances requires full use of the gards…
“Males with maturing bodies oft bind their loins for dance training to ease soreness, but they cannot persist in it too long else they’ll not progress as they should…
“Yes, we sleep and eat and drink, though not so frequently as humans. Of course we enjoy it. We do not understand why Picus’s ‘one god’ prizes dirt and hunger. The sea doth not starve itself of rain to satisfy the requirements of the Everlasting…
“We do not understand human gods at all, though every human tries vigorously to explain them. The long-lived, as all things—sea and sky, humans and beasts—are both subject to the Everlasting and a part of it. The Law of the Everlasting has charged our kind to tend the land and sea. Thus in our work we seek beauty, balance, vigor and harmony to match that we see in the Everlasting. But even among the long-lived lie disagreements as to the exact nature of the perfection toward which we strive…
“No! As vayar I pledged to answer thy questions as far as I am able. But I cannot and will not discuss the Canon with a halfbreed stripling, though you were to stand twice my size or manifest talents to make your present ones seem small. Thy tasks are other and will never be concerned with the dance.”
And this last answer drove me to distraction. “You’ve told me the world is dying,” I said, as we trotted down the mountainside, “and I believe you. I’ve seen it. My prince, Eodward’s son, a man who studies and reveres the Danae, has brought your archon news of those you call the Scourge—the Harrowers. We fear the Harrowers have some larger plan that threatens your kind. Ignorant as we are, we cannot guess what that might be or what must be done about it. That is what he hoped to learn from the archon…the reason he gave me up to them.” I told myself that knowledge was Osriel’s aim, not solely the power to aid in his unholy mystery, as Elene feared.
Kol listened carefully, gravely, his body poised in interest. But his response, when it came, remained unchanged. “Humans can do nothing. Nor can halfbreeds. I will not discuss this matter with thee.” Which declaration, along with his troubled expression, told me that all of this most certainly had to do with the Canon, and that no matter my wheedling or pleading, he would not budge. All I could do was stay close and hope to change his mind. Perhaps Saverian would have more luck with the monk.
“Attend, stripling!” As we descended into the forest that wrapped the lower slopes of Aesol Mount, Kol broke his broody silence. “If thy walking gards are to be of use, thou must learn. Unless…Perhaps thy human half flags?”
His scorn grated, especially as it reminded me how long it had been since my restless night on the sand and Saverian’s lusciously fat and gritty eggs. “I’m here to learn,” I said.
He acknowledged my declaration with a jerk of his head. “Recall the crowned fir I showed thee. Dost thou see something like here in the daylight? Yes…there. Now consider the one that stood on the ascent from the meadow—the same in its shape against the sky, in its smell and taste, in its presence in the wood, though its location differed greatly…”
As dreams of food and sleep crept into my bones with the allure of nivat, Kol forced me to dredge up every recollection of the path we had been walking when I had asked about his mode of traveling—the slope of the land to either side as well as what had lain under our feet, the configuration of the stars, which I could not remember, and the taste of the air, which, to his surprise, I could. And then he bade me close my eyes and consider the new marks I wore, explaining that it was easier to begin this teaching while I yet could feel the burning of their newness.
“I’ve no expectation that thou’lt accomplish a shift so soon. Subtle moves give always the most difficulty to a stripling. The touch needed is not a grand jequé, but only a small leap from one manner of thinking to another. Haste leads to error. Thou must remember to—”
“Just so. I understand.” Impatient with his tedious schooling, I glared at the treetop. I was accustomed to wielding magic, and the memory and instinct he described as bound into my new markings were but another form of it. My mind held to the recollections and reached into the faint blue aura that I envisioned near my heart, grasping the power I found there…
…and I was tumbling head over heels down a steep gully, snagging limbs and hair on rocks, wild raspberry thorns, and rotting timber. My sublimely graceful vayar, gards gleaming silver in the morning sunlight, stood on the path at the verge of the gully, one arm wrapped about a stately fir, laughing at me. It was worth the uncomfortable exercise to see him laugh. If his grieving made the mountains weep, Kol’s merriment made the sunlight shimmer.
“Another lesson, my cocky stripling,” he said, once on the near side of sober again. “One must remember to decide a position for one’s feet, else one may topple from a mountaintop, step into a lake or tar pit, or slide…most wretchedly…into a ravine.”
I struggled helplessly in my nest of raspberry thicket and rotted hawthorn, laughing, too, despite my humiliating display, the painful scrapes and bruises atop my already tender skin, and the long, steep climb awaiting me. Even beings of legend could not always get things right.
When at last I climbed onto the path, I stretched out my blood-scoured arms. “Tell me, vayar…”
“The gards survive all but the most violent wounding,” he said, all seriousness again. “On our way, we shall practice closure. Clearly thou didst not find true closure at Stathero, if thine ears yet reported sound. Stone hath no voice.”
“Nay, vayar, I heard them, even Stathero…”
Kol refused to believe my claim to have heard the speech of stones. Evidently the exercise was supposed to result in the silence I ultimately found. He set me other problems as we walked: to describe the scent of thistledown from one particular withered plant along the path, to isolate the feel of salt spray on the wind, carried from the northern sea. Some I managed, some I did not. But I felt more in control of my senses, and came to believe I could learn to pick and choose what I saw and heard.