When Ery was Eight...

When Ery was eight...

"Your mother is dead," they told him, "She was called to the sky by Dau-Pen."

Ery knew better. Dau-Pen was Father's god, a strong god. Mother was not strong. She let Father do what he wanted, even when it hurt her. She didn't have any servants of her own. She never went out, and didn't have friends come visit, like Father. Sometimes Ery wished that she had friends, so they would make her happy like Father. He wasn't sure what sort of friends she would have, but he knew they'd be different from Father's. Maybe he'd like them.

Nothing really changed, at first. The garden room was kept up, even though nobody used it any more. Her bedroom was dusted, and the servants still changed the bed twice a month. At first, he thought Mother might be a ghost, and then he hoped she was, and then he realized they were just pretending, like Father pretended not to be drunk or not to be worried about the accounts.

When Erith was ten...

"You are going to school," they said, "As befits a gentleman of your birth."

They tried to make it sound like fun, but Erith wasn't so sure. They had invaded his house, these people, and pretended that they liked him, just because they were Mother's family. He didn't like them; they were strangers, but kept acting like Mother with a word or gesture or the color of their eyes, and then not being Mother at all.

The garden room was not as nice as it had been when Mother left, and Mother's bedroom had been given to a series of Father's special friends, and now these strangers were everywhere in the house, telling Father how sad it all was and how the boy had his mother's eyes. He didn't; he had his own eyes. He used them from hiding, when he could, seeing how they moved and talked, seeing which ones were friends and which only pretended to be. When he couldn't hide, he stood quiet as Mother's ghost, and soon they ignored him again.

They were here because an old man had died, and he had hated Mother, so now they all loved her. The old man had thrown Mother out when she married Father, and all these people who said that it was so tragic had let it happen. He didn't like them, or their Fourth House. He was fairly sure he wouldn't like their school. But it was a way out of his Father's house, which was worth almost anything.

When Rithma was fourteen...

"Merchant's brat," they had called him, when he started at Master Elegium's. "Halfblooded Noble." They only beat him up once, and enough of them got hurt doing it that they weren't eager to try it again.

Rithma didn't care. He was at school, and learning more about the world. He didn't want to make fortified wines like his father; his mother's quiet death had shown him the end result of the tinctures his father added to the wines, cordials, and brandies he sold. After learning more of the Fourth House of Talloth, he was none too eager to follow that path either. Like his mother's garden room, his cousins' concern had eventually withered. An arranged marriage to some near-noble desperate for even half-blood legitimacy was perhaps the best he could hope for.

There were other paths, though. He could be any of a dozen kinds of hangers-on, with shining examples all around him. He could be a poet, living in poverty and selling bad verse, or a lover, charming gifts from lonely men and women and breaking their hearts. After a brief experience, he decided not to be a duelist, either. Scribe, and eventually sage, seemed the path best suited to his nature, and endless hours of study started him on his way.

The duel, brief as it was, gained him a reputation of sorts. Like all the fights he had been in since he arrived, he had lost decisively. And, like all those other fights, he had gone into it knowing he was going to lose, and determined to do as much damage as possible before that happened. It made him a hard target, and ensured him very little in the way of repeat business. This time, his strategy was mistaken for courage, and Simcornaion of the Fifth House claimed him as friend.

When Erith was sixteen...

"Hey, Erith," they asked him, "Do you want to go out drinking later?"

Friendship continued, and grew into more. Erith made Sixth Form, then Seventh. He and Simcor became the focus of a small group of the best and most daring students, sneaking off the school grounds for illicit parties and beer, pulling pranks, and venturing into the city for adventures of various sorts. All in all, he was getting quite the reputation as a rake, and he was rather proud of it.

Then one night, it all fell apart. An old man they were roughing up turned out to be a Great One, and not to have that title by chance. He brought them back to the school wrapped in sheets of air, demanded an audience with the Head Prefect, and got it. Erith and Simcor were dismissed from the school that night.

Simcor was reclaimed by his House, and eventually joined the army. His family bought a geas, forbidding him to see or speak with Erith again. Erith wasn't so lucky; he tried going home to his father, and left after a week, without revealing that the visit was anything more than a break from the school. The halls were full of bitter memories, and the air reeked of drugs and incense. Planless, he returned to the city.

When Erithmaeon began...

"I'm sorry," they said, "But we don't have any work for you today."

He was too old for apprenticing, but tried anyway, at every crafter and merchant he could find. None had work for a large boy that a small one couldn't do as well. He had started fights in too many bars and restaurants to find employment there, and his reputation, once a thing to be proud of, kept most of the gentle-born from seeing him when he came to call. The underworld, refuge of most of the dispossessed, was his father's territory; if he ran bets or drugs, his father would know within the week. Before too long, Erith was trading a day's labor sweeping or carrying for a day's food or a night of shelter. Before too much longer, he knew, he would have to become one of the street predators, or be one of their victims.

The worst of it, though, came when he went into a rug-merchant's, hoping for a chance to wash tiles or beat out the rugs. The merchant was the same old man he had tried to beat up on the night his old life ended-the Great One.

The merchant called him back, however, when he tried to leave. Remembering the sheets of air, he stayed. It seemed there was a good chance he had the gift of magery. If he was looking for a position, there might be one here, if he were qualified, and if he were able to work diligently. There were, the Great One explained, certain questions about his moral character, which must be satisfied before the training could begin.

It was an offer he never regretted accepting.