Child of the River by Paul J. McAuley

Author:Paul J. McAuley [McAuley, Paul J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 057560168X
Publisher: Gollancz
Published: 1998-09-24T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen: The Palmers

Yama discovered the knife at the bottom of his satchel on the first evening of his journey to Ys in the company of Prefect Corin. Yama had given the knife to Sergeant Rhodean that morning, because Prefect Corin had said that it was not the kind of thing an apprentice should own. The Prefect had been quite specific about what Yama could and could not carry; before they had set off he had looked through Yama’s satchel and had removed the knife and the carefully folded map of Ys and the horn-handled pocket-knife which had once belonged to Telmon. Yama had been able to take little with him but a change of clothes and the money given to him by the Aedile. He had the copy of the Puranas and the anchorite’s coin, which he wore around his neck, inside his shirt, but because they had been given to him so recently they did not yet seem like proper possessions.

Sergeant Rhodean must have slipped the knife back into the satchel when Yama had been making his farewells. It was sheathed in brown and white goatskin and tucked beneath Yama’s spare shirt and trousers. Yama was pleased to see it, even though it still made him uneasy. He knew that all heroes carried weapons with special attributes, and he was determined to be a hero. He was still very young.

Prefect Corin asked him what he had found. Reluctantly, Yama slipped the knife from its sheath and held it up in the firelight. A blue sheen slowly extended from its hilt to the point of its curved blade. It emitted a faint high-pitched buzz, and a sharp smell like discharged electricity.

“I am certain that Sergeant Rhodean meant well,” Prefect Corin said, “but you will not need that. If we are attacked, it will do nothing but put you in danger. In any case, it is very unlikely that we will be attacked.”

Prefect Corin sat crosslegged on the other side of the small campfire, neat and trim in his homespun tunic and gray leggings. He was smoking a long-stemmed clay pipe which he held clenched between his small even teeth. His ironshod staff was stuck in the ground behind him. They had walked all day at a steady pace, and this was the most he had said to Yama at any one time.

Yama said, “That is why I gave it away, dominie, but it has come back.”

“It is not regulation.”

“Well, but I am not yet an apprentice,” Yama said. He added, “Perhaps I could make a gift of it to the department.”

“That is possible,” Prefect Corin allowed. “Tributes are not unknown. Weapons like that are generally loyal to their owner, but loyalty can be broken with suitable treatment. Well, we cannot leave it here. You may carry it, but do not think to try to use it.”

But after Prefect Corin had fallen asleep, Yama took out the knife and practiced the passes and thrusts that Sergeant Rhodean had taught him,

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