"What have you lost, Aeron?" Eriale asked softly.
He threw his hands in the air. "You couldn't understand."
The girl's face hardened. "Try me."
Aeron bit back a sharp retort. Kestrel and Eriale did not deserve his anger . . . nor did Fineghal, to be honest. He'd made his own decisions. He'd pursued Fineghal that first day, begging the elf to show him how to work the magic. And the wizard had warned him from the beginning that Aeron lacked the patience, the temperament, to follow the Tel'Quessir path.
"Imagine that you discovered one day that you lived near the sea, and that it was your heart's desire to become a sailor. You find someone who can teach you what you need to know, and you learn enough to sail within a mile or so of the shore. You don't have the skills yet to voyage wherever your heart would take you, but you can smell the strange far lands on the wind, you can feel the waves telling you of the places they might take you, and before you is the great wide sea, with nothing but your own inexperience and limitations to keep you from great voyages. Then you find that you will not be permitted to learn the last of what you need to know. So there you sit, at the shore, the sea always in your sight to taunt you with the thoughts of what might have been."
Eriale fell silent. She weighed Aeron's words, her eyes dark with reflection.
Kestrel stopped his work and turned a long, thoughtful gaze on Aeron. "Some would say that it would be better to get up and leave the seashore, in that case," he said. "Return to wherever it was you first came from and content yourself with being the person you were born to be."
"I don't know if I can do that."
"I've told you before of my days in the Overking's army, before Morieth's Revolt. They were good days, with stout comrades and a battle or two I fought in and survived. But the time came for me to lay down my arms and go home, and I did. Yet I knew many soldiers who never really went home. Oh, they returned to their farms and towns and took up their trades again. But in their hearts, they still lived in the days of their youth. And they were sadder for it, Aeron, because they couldn't find the spirit for life they'd had before, and they spent their days trying to recall it." Kestrel returned to his knife work. "We could use your help, Aeron. I'll have land to clear, timber to cut, a house to raise. In my experience, good hard work is the cure for a lot of ailments."
Because he loved Kestrel as his father, Aeron made himself think about the forester's words, but he couldn't bring the image into focus; every cell in his body seemed to shrink away from the prospect. He reached into the pouch at his waist and removed the wax-sealed letter marked "Telemachon," weighing it in his hand.
I've got to try it, he realized. "I'm sorry, Kestrel, Eriale. My road doesn't lead to Saden."
Six
A cold, gusty wind blew across the bright waters of the Inner Sea as Aeron disembarked in the crowded dock district of the city of Cimbar. The great city was a marvel beyond Aeron's comprehension. Everywhere he looked, myriads of people seethed and swarmed, engaged in a thousand activities. The docks were cluttered with the ships of many lands, and the broad roadstead within the city's seawalls was crowded with more riding at anchor, a floating forest of masts and spars. Drifting along with the press of people, Aeron shouldered his pack and headed into the city.
Dodging through the crowd, Aeron climbed up a steep hillside. Cimbar sprawled across several low hills that met the Inner Sea between two high, proud headlands about a mile apart. Aeron soon discovered that he'd landed in the part of town known as New Cimbar, which clustered around the western headland and its apron of hills. This was the commercial district, covering almost twice the territory of Old Cimbar around the eastern headland.
From Aeron's vantage high on the flanks of the hills of the new city, he could make out several majestic monoliths rising over the Old City, great pyramids of crumbling stone that towered over the white palaces and forums of the city's center. "What are those?" he asked one passerby, a merchant's tout carrying a thick ledger crammed full of cryptic notes.
"The pyramids?" The fellow gave Aeron an odd look. "New in town, eh? The biggest one is the Great Temple of Gilgeam, deserted by the Untheri when Tchazzar drove them back to their own lands four hundred years ago. It's naught but a landmark now. The little ones surrounding it are temples and shrines built to honor Untheri gods, back when Gilgeam was master of this land."
"Are any of them still in use?" Aeron wondered.
"No, not by the Untheri," the tout laughed. "Some of the philosophers hold their schools by the minor pyramids, and many of the city folk use them as meeting places and places of debate. You can see the Sceptanar's palace there by Gilgeam's pyramid."
Even in provincial Maerchlin, Aeron had heard of the Sceptanar. The faceless ruler of Cimbar, the Sceptanar was reputed to be a mighty mage and was considered one of the few kings strong enough to claim the title of Overking of all Chessenta. Aeron studied the alabaster citadel of the city's king for a long moment. To his surprise, a great dark crowd clustered around the palace gates, roiling and clashing in a sea of discontent. "There's some kind of riot going on over there," he said with some alarm.
The merchant shook his head, disappointed but not concerned. "The Mob," he said. "The demagogues have been stirring them up, claiming that Tchazzar the god-king will return someday and depose the Sceptanar."
Even though Aeron was half a mile from the scene, he could hear the dim roar of hundreds of voices shouting, and smoke drifted skyward from unseen fires. "Why don't the Sceptanar's soldiers disperse them?"
"Cimbar balances on three legs, lad. The Sceptanar, the baseborn Mob, and the noble senators, who look after their own pockets. If the Sceptanar backs the Mob into a corner, they'll burn the whole city to spite him, and the high senators will step in to pick up the pieces. No, the Sceptanar knows that it's his task to look for enemies outside of Cimbar's walls, and until the demagogues actually try to overthrow him, he'll let them be. Our city has more pressing concerns than hooligans and rabble-rousers."
Aeron stared. The great city, overrun by rioters in the streets while its overlord watched idly-he never would have believed it if he hadn't seen it with his own eyes. He felt acutely conscious of his rural upbringing; nothing in Maerchlin had prepared him for this. He let his eye rove past the Sceptanar's palace across the old acropolis. On the seaward side of the hill from the king's palace, a jagged stump of an obelisk speared the sky like a broken sword blade, barely clearing the skyline of gleaming buildings opposite him. "What's that jagged building?" he asked.
"That's the Broken Pyramid, once the stronghold of the Untheri mages who ruled Cimbar. It's said that the Untheri shattered it themselves rather than allow it to fall into our hands when Tchazzar led us against them. Those buildings nearby are the university."
"The university? That's where I'm going."
"You don't strike me as a philosopher or sage, so you must be an artisan. What is your craft?"
"You misunderstand me. I intend to study at the College of Mages."
The merchant snorted. "If you say so. You'll want to head for that building there on the seaward point of the acropolis." The stump of the Broken Pyramid was ringed by a low wall and several bland stone buildings covered by brown vines. The elevatation isolated the tower and its surroundings from the city proper; its nearest neighbors appeared to be a small number of walled palaces that shared its lofty vantage, and then the cluttered streets of the docks and merchants' homes. "I'll leave you to your studies," the merchant said, "although you shouldn't consort with wizards, lad. Magic is dangerous stuff."