Free Athyra by Steven Brust Page B

witchcraft is about.”
    “But you said before you ought to get involved, and now you’re saying you should stand apart.”
    “Got me,” said Vlad, smiling.
    Savn waited for him to continue. After a moment Vlad seated himself on the cliff.
    “Not stand apart in actions,” he said. “I mean, don’t be afraid to form general conclusions, to try to find the laws that operate in the actions of history, and to—”
    “I don’t understand.”
    Vlad sighed. “You should try not to get me started.”
    “But, about the Athyra ...”
    “Yes. There are two types of Athyra. Some are mystics, who attempt to explore the nature of the world by looking within themselves, and some are explorers, who look upon the world as a problem to be solved, and thus reduce other people to either distractions or pieces of a puzzle, and treat them accordingly.”
    Savn considered this, and said, “The explorers sound dangerous.”
    “They are. Not nearly as dangerous as the mystics, however.”
    “Why is that?”
    “Because explorers at least believe that others are real, if unimportant. To a mystic, that which dwells inside is the only reality.”
    “I see.”
    “Baron Smallcliff is a mystic.”
    “Oh.”
    Vlad stood abruptly, and Savn had an instant’s fear that he was going to throw himself off the cliff. Instead he took a breath and said, “He’s the worst kind of mystic. He can only see people as ...” His voice trailed off. He looked at Savn, then looked away. For a moment, Savn thought he had detected such anger hidden in the Easterner that it would make one of Speaker’s rages seem like the pouting of a child. In an effort to distract Vlad, Savn said, “What are you?” It seemed to work, for Vlad chuckled slightly. “You mean am I a mystic or an explorer? I have been searching for the answer to that question for several years now. I haven’t found it, but I know that other people are real, and that is something.”
    s<-\ guess?”
    “There was a time I didn’t know that.”
    Savn wasn’t certain how to respond to this, so he said nothing. After a moment, Vlad added, “And I listen to philosophers.”
    “When you don’t kill them,” said Savn.
    This time the Easterner laughed. “Even when I do, I still listen to them.”
    “I understand,” said Savn.
    Vlad looked at him suddenly. “Yes, I think that you do.”
    “You sound surprised.”
    “Sorry,” said Vlad. “You are, I don’t know, better educated than most of us from the city would have thought.”
    “Oh. Well, I learned my ciphers and history and everything because I filled the bucket when I was twenty, so they—”
    “Filled the bucket?”
    “Don’t they have that in the city?”
    “I don’t know. I’ve never heard of it, at any rate.”
    “Oh. Well, I hardly remember doing it. I mean, I was pretty young at the time. But they give you a bucket—”
    “Who is ‘they’?”
    “Mae and Pae and Speaker and Bless.”
    “I see. Go on.”
    “They give you a bucket, and tell you to go out into the woods, and when you come back, they see what’s in the bucket and decide whether you should be trained for apprenticeship.”
    “And you had filled yours?”
    “Oh, that’s just a term that means they said yes. I mean, if you come back with water, then Bless will try you out as a priest, and if you come back with sticks, then, well, I don’t really know how they tell, but they decide, and when I came back they decided I should be apprenticed to Master Wag.”
    “Oh. What did you come back with?”
    “An injured daythief.”
    “Oh. That would account for it, I suppose. Still, I can’t help wondering how much of that is chance.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “How often a child picks up the first thing he sees, and ends up being a cobbler when he’d be better off as a weaver.”
    “That doesn’t happen,” Savn explained.
    Vlad looked at him. “It doesn’t?”
    “No,” said Savn, feeling vaguely annoyed.
    “How do you