The Pleasure of Memory by Welcome Cole Page A

he watched, the wings slowly folded and tucked into place so that their apex towered a dozen feet above the beast. Then it shuddered oddly, and the blue light in its eyes faded to stone as it returned to its natural solid state.
    “I knew I’d be able see through them during animation,” Luren said, “But I didn’t realize I’d be able to see...well, through them.”
    The appearance of the sentry had pushed Chance’s headache fully into the fire. And though he had no appetite for lessons right now, he had no choice but to comply. An apprentice’s role is to ask questions, a master’s is to answer them. Besides, the damned sentry wasn’t going anywhere. He could make rubble of it later.
    “All right, boy,” he said as matter-of-factly as he could manage, “Tell me why you can see through them during animation.”
    “That’s easy!” Luren reached up on his toes and slapped the beast’s mantis head as if to confirm its solidity. “For matter to animate, it has to be forced outside its normal niche in the ethereal matrix. Once it’s coaxed between its native time-space and the caeylsphere, it can defy the natural laws regulating it.” Luren paused at that, and then shrugged and looked over his shoulder at Chance. “Well, maybe not defy them exactly. More like bend them.”
    “I’m impressed,” Chance told him. He meant it.
    “Inserting a sliver of your caeyl gem into the sentry infuses it with your energy,” Luren continued, “It allows you to force the stone into an animated state. I understand all that from an academic standpoint, but actually seeing it happen is...well, it’s amazing! It’s like the sentry has its own Bloodlink.”
    Satisfied, Chance looked at the sentry. “Your approach was unacceptable,” he said to it, “You were reckless. You might’ve killed us storming through the canopy that way!”
    The sentry remained motionless.
    Chance’s anger flowed like molten lead. He wanted nothing more than to turn the beast back to mud right then and there. Unfortunately, he couldn’t, not with Luren watching anyway. He was the boy’s master, after all. He had an example to set. So, rather than indulge his anger, he steadied himself and asked as calmly as he could manage, “Sentry, what are your primary rules of function?” It was a test of the creature’s ethereal integrity.
    The beast shuddered again. Its bulbish eyes flamed with a nearly blinding blue light. The stone head wavered and grew translucent as it reanimated. Its response was slow and deliberate, emitted in a gravelly monotone. “The foremost function of a caeyl Sentry is to protect the life and safety of its creator, Lord Chance Gnoman. The secondary function of a caeyl Sentry is to monitor the borders of Na te’Yed for—”
    “Enough!” Chance shouted, pounding his staff into the gravel. “Enough,” he repeated, shaking his head, “I’ve heard enough.”
    The creature solidified again.
    It was clearly functional enough to answer the test questions accurately. Still, its reckless entry had pretty well ruined a perfectly tuned headache. Through a locked jaw, Chance heard himself mutter, “You’re a cursed piece of—”
    He caught himself before he could finish. He sent a guilty glance down at Luren who quickly threw his eyes up toward the hole in the canopy. The boy was fighting a smirk.
    “Don’t you start,” Chance said to him.
    “I didn’t say a thing.”
    “This pile of rubble and glue claims to understand its function, and yet this is the fourth false alarm in two years. The fourth!”
    “Oh, you know it’s a false alarm already,” Luren said, “I’d say that’s pretty insightful. I mean, considering you haven’t even heard its explanation yet.”
    “The last visit from a sentry was to report a whisper of Watchers traveling along the valley’s rim.”
    “I remember,” Luren said seriously.
    “A whisper of Watchers, for gods’ sakes!”
    “I know that.”
    “And do you remember that this