Chapter 7: Back to Civilization

Skinner accompanies his dinner guest to a city called Diahlar, City of the Sun.

 

Chapter 7: Back to Civilization

Over the course of their conversations, Skinner learned a great deal. Mostly he was happy to have local names for the plants and animals now so familiar to him. He was also delighted to find that the stranger was unfamiliar with some plants and animals, and that he, Skinner, would have the privilege of naming such species. His guest knew the broadhorns as kulu, the large lizards as guweg, and did not differentiate among species of bear—they were simply bears.

Eventually Skinner proved himself more stubborn or more wily, he was uncertain which, and got his guest’s name before divulging his own. After three weeks of preparation and planning and learning, they sat down to a meal of roasted tubers and vegetables. Skinner’s mind raced with new knowledge, his pride swelled for having taught his mentor so much about local flora.

“So,” Skinner said in an offhanded manner. “We’re going . . . where did you say?”

“Diahlar,” the stranger answered.

“And Diahlar is ruled by . . .” Skinner prompted.

“Gaylosha Lytesidhe.”

“And Socrates?” Skinner mused aloud.

“Staying here.”

“And we’re walking through . . .” he pushed on.

“Down the Western Skyteeth, across the desert forests of the Dark Tribes to the verge of the Eastern Skyteeth, south to Diahlar.”

“Right,” Skinner nodded. “And I’ll address you as . . .”

“Master Danalaka,” the elf said casually, then looked up and grinned. “You’ve done very well on your first lesson,” Danalaka told him. “Now you can work on the second . . . ah . . .”

“Skinner,” he grinned widely, his eyes gleaming triumph. “So what’s the second lesson?”

“Silence,” Danalaka said, his own smile turning to a gleeful grin of triumph. “You should know, by the way, that my race is nothing akin to the elves. We are the varhi. We are closely related to the dhari. You will learn more at the Diahlarium, where you are to be mentored and educated.”

Skinner nodded, raising his eyebrow and wondering as loudly as possible how long this lesson would take.

“I’ll let you know,” Danalaka closed his eyes and dropped off to sleep.

Used to it, Skinner did not mind silence. He prepared his traveling gear carefully, eager to see a city. But when Socrates came to bid him goodbye, he found the silence excruciating. He knelt and stroked the wolf and wept. Socrates licked his face as though to reassure him that this parting was not a permanent arrangement. Finally, Danalaka pulled Skinner up by the scruff and shoved him to the path that led to the foothills.

He passed the entire day moping as they made their way from his cave down into the valley and beyond. They followed the river until late afternoon, past rapids and waterfalls, down steep slopes and sometimes having to scale down with the help of Skinner’s braided ropes, which Danalaka found impressive as well as fascinating. Finally, past a particularly rough stretch of rocky steeps, Danalaka led him to the bank of the river, where he had hidden a small skiff. They continued down the river until moonrise.

At the lower altitudes, summer was still in its full glory. They came down at last into a vast plain populated with spotty stretches of forest. Danalaka stuck his staff in the river behind the boat like a rudder, and all the time he held it there the boat moved steadily along.

“Your turn,” he said wearily after they stopped for lunch. “Just . . . where’s your staff? You need your staff for this. It’s used to focus your power and thus to propel the craft.”

Skinner smiled, refraining from reply. He held his hands open and shrugged, showing that he was empty-handed.

“Humph!” Danalaka snorted. “It appears that we are stuck here until you learn to summon your staff without speech.”

Skinner smiled and shrugged, then turned to load and board the boat.

Danalaka stared at him, realizing that Skinner had taken position in the rear. Skinner smiled and shoved off, paddling the boat along with a wide stump of wood he had gotten off the shore. They moved swiftly on as he paddled, but not as quickly as they had moved with Danalaka propelling the boat.

Skinner grew tired after a few hours of paddling. Stubborn as he was, though, he refused to let the burning in his arms and shoulders keep him from progressing. He popped a marlbutton into his mouth with a twig of nogroot and pushed himself to the limits of his endurance.

By nightfall he could no longer move his arms. His head throbbed with the exertion as much as his back, arms, and shoulders. But when the vhari asked after his health, Skinner smiled and hopped out of the boat. He stretched and paced the cramps out of his legs and hips.

Skinner slept soundly that night. He awoke early the next morning, the sky barely lightened by dawn’s prelude. His body protested as he rose and gathered their gear. Danalaka was gone. He made a cursory search around their camp, then closed his eyes and used his inner senses to locate his new mentor. It took only a moment, Skinner sensing him despite a masking spell Danalaka was using to test him.

He stared at the trunk of a willow-like tree he knew to be his mentor. When Danalaka maintained the disguise, Skinner crossed his arms and spread his feet to shoulder width preparatory to a long wait. Still the willow remained a tree. He called his luminorbs up, then stared at them as though they answered an unasked question.

Kandor! He verbalized the name internally, willing the staff to his right hand. In less than an eyeblink, the staff materialized. He reached out with it and tapped its butt against the willow, which suddenly became his mentor. Without comment, they both boarded the boat again and traveled to the lake below Maltran’s Well.

From the Well, they traveled by foot. It took eighteen days for them to make their way up the foothills and into the Eastern Skyteeth. On the morning of the nineteenth day, they walked into the magnificent walled city of Diahlar. Skinner gaped about in childlike wonder from the time he first saw the tall, slender towers and domed buildings tall enough to be seen over the wall, which Skinner guessed at twenty to twenty-five feet at the lowest bastions.

By noon, Skinner sat enjoying the mineral baths in the academy hall of the Diahlarium, a temple complex dedicated to the sun god Diahl. They had been greeted with great enthusiasm, and Skinner understood that his mentor was highly esteemed within the city, especially within the temple.

Over the next several months, Skinner reacclimated himself to civilization—as well as he was able. He was treated well by the monks who rarely spoke to him, though he had learned that he was the only one in the city under an aegis of silence. He listened attentively to everything he could, learning about Diahl, the city named in Diahl’s honor, and the social drama within the temple and the heart of the city.

Danalaka introduced him to the instructors of the academy and enrolled him in numerous courses, telling Skinner that he was to earn a Gent’s degree over the next three years of study before commencing a serious study of Sorcery. Skinner nodded silently and did as he was directed. Given some choice of course load, he chose metallurgy over botany and engineering over zoology, thinking he likely had more accurate texts than the Diahlar Academy.

The faculty was rich in diversity, but Skinner harbored a strong prejudice against their philosophy of education. While he was very happy with their emphasis on practice and experimentation, he found their constant testing and quizzing onerous and impractical. Practice proves knowledge, he repeated as a kind of mantra each time they pushed a written test on him.

Over the three years of his undergraduate education in Diahlar, Skinner studied everything he could get his hands on. His small dorm had, when he first moved in, been an icon of elegant simplicity. By the time he accepted the medallion denoting him as a Gent of Diahlar, a small silver disc engraved with a sun symbol in which a smiling but stern face was captured, his bedchamber was crowded with stacks of books six to ten deep and great mounds of parchment on which his notes were scribbled and illustrated.

“So,” Danalaka asked him during the celebration after the ceremony, “what do you hope to study now?”

Skinner smiled at him. Though he had had his first two glasses of wine since coming to Diahlar, he was used to controlling his tongue by now. He had long since ceased to wonder when his mentor would grant him permission to speak again, content with being a silent observer.

“You may speak now,” Danalaka smiled. “That lesson was over long ago. I was simply curious as to how stubborn you are. More so than I.”

“Stubborn?” Skinner’s voice was rough from disuse. “No. Greedy.”

“Greedy?” Danalaka’s tone was higher, his eyebrow rose. “How do you figure; greedy for what?”

“Knowledge,” Skinner smiled. “Thought it was part of the deal.”

Over the twelve-week break between sessions, Skinner apprenticed himself to a nearby blacksmith. For his Lord’s degree, Skinner chose a double focus in metaphysical studies and the newest discipline available, Infusion. This second discipline he had to compete to pursue. Only five students per session were allowed due to the heavy emphasis on research, cost of materials, and general danger involved.

He worked from dawn to dusk at the smithy and studied assiduously each evening. Uncomfortable with his performance in theurgy incantation, Skinner applied himself to understanding it better previous to beginning the next session. He read every book in the public collection of the academy’s famed library, and then searched other sources for better, deeper lore.

“I need better resources for theurgy research,” he told his mentor.

“Try the Scriptorium,” Danalaka shrugged.

“Read everything there,” Skinner mumbled. He had opened one of the scrolls lying on a low table in Danalaka’s ornate office. The suite of rooms was lavish with works of art: pottery, statuary, paintings, sculptures, extravagant rugs and tapestries—and a shelf dedicated to fetishes carved by Skinner. The furniture was ornately carved of deep-hued wood marbled with twisting grain unlike any wood he had seen elsewhere.

“Well,” Danalaka smiled, arching an eyebrow, “I guess you know all there is to learn, then.”

“Nonsense,” Skinner snorted, laying aside the scroll, which he was disappointed to find was nothing more than an inventory of temple laundry. “You know far more than those tomes hold. I’ve heard you incant supplications and demands these sources never guess at.”

“Didn’t realize you paid such close attention,” Danalaka smiled. He walked over to a hidden door and unlocked it with a word. He disappeared into a dark chamber beyond for a moment, then returned with an enormous book.

“This is the last remaining codex of the ancients,” he said, pride beaming from his eyes. “They knew much more than we—and commanded such great power . . .”

“Sure, sure,” Skinner muttered, his eyes burning with appreciation and boring into the book. “Always like that, isn’t it? Some ancient culture with all the power and all the knowledge and we, the present generation, always a shadow of those mighty ghosts—”

“You’re close to blasphemy,” his mentor smiled gleefully. “No,” Danalaka held up his hand to check Skinner’s words. “Don’t apologize. I am unoffended. Believe me, I find that irony likewise—and reject it.

“You’re the first of my apprentices with the fortitude to study this,” he patted the treasured book. “I once showed it to an unfortunately inept student; he was consumed by it. His mind just vanished into the pages—that’s what led us to research Infusion, the investment of powers into the inanimate.”

“So,” Skinner cocked his head to the side. “So, are you offering this to me for study?”

“Yes,” Danalaka’s intense whisper was like a prayer.

“What’s your price?” Skinner asked, eyes narrowed.

“Carve me a Gambit set in your own style—no matter the material.”

“I’ll have them to you by start of session,” Skinner promised, gleeful as a schoolboy. He carried the tome back and studied it every possible moment he could, filling his mind with its lore. When his mind needed rest, he used his hands to carve the intricate pieces of the gambit set, the white from glistening marble and the black from obsidian he had gotten from a Kota Hoku trader.