Scion of Cyador

 by L. E. Modesitt, Jr.

Copyright © 2000

Edited by David G. Hartwell

Jacket art by Darrell K. Sweet

Jacket design by Carol Russo Design

A Tor Book Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

175 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10010

Tor® Books on the World Wide Web: http://www.tor.com

 

 

From Inner Flaps:

   Scion of Cyador continues the story begun in Magi'i of Cyador. Exploring the rich depths of the history of Recluce, Magi'i of Cyador introduced Lorn, a talented boy born into a family of Magi'i. A fastidious student mage who lacked blind devotion, Lorn was made into a lancer officer and shipped off to the frontier-a career that comes with a fifty percent mortality rate.

   Having survived his extended stint fighting both barbarian raiders and the giant beasts of the Accursed Forest, Lorn has proven himself to be a fine officer . . . perhaps too fine an officer. As his prowess has grown, so has the number of his enemies and rivals. Too much success has made him a marked man. When he returns to his home, both he and his young family become targets while all of Cyad is in upheaval over deadly political infighting. But Lorn is now hardened, a deadly fighter himself, especially when the Empire is at stake.

   Scion of Cyador is the completion of another grand story in the Recluce saga.

 

 

To Lee and Sheila:

   may their house prosper

 

 

CHARACTERS

   Kien - Magus, Senior Lector, "Fourth Magus"

   Lorn - Son of the Magus Kien

   Vernt - Younger son of Kien

   Jerial - Eldest child and daughter of Kien

   Myryan - Youngest child and daughter of Kien

   Nyryah - Consort of Kien

   Toziel'elth'alt'mer - Emperor of Cyador

   Ryenyel - Consort-Empress of Cyador

   Chyenfel - First Magus and High Lector

   Kharl Second Magus and Senior Lector

   Liataphi - Third Magus and Senior Lector

   Abram - Senior Lector

   Aleyar - Healer, daughter of Liataphi

   Ciesrt - Magus

   Jysnet - Lector

   Hyrist - Senior Lector

   Rustyl - Magus

   Syreal - Daughter of Liataphi, consort of Veljan

   Tyrsal - Magus

 

LANCERS

   Rynst - Majer-Commander, Mirror Lancers

   Luss - Captain-Commander, Mirror Lancers

   Allyrn - Captain

   Brevyl - Majer [commanding at Isahl]

   Cheryk - Captain

   Dettaur - Sub-Majer

   Eghyr - Captain

   Ikynd - Commander [commanding at Assyadt]

   Lhary - Commander [Western Regional Commander, Cyad]

   Maran - Majer [Patrol Commander, Geliendra] Sypcal Commander [Eastern Regional Commander, Cyad]

 

MERCHANTERS

   Bluoyal - Merchanter Advisor to the Emperor [Bluyet Clan]

   Denys - Merchanter [Bluyet Clan]

   Eileyt - Enumerator [Ryalor House]

   Fuyol - Merchanter [Head, Yuryan Clan]

   Kernys - Merchanter [Head, Kysan Clan]

   Neabyl - Emperor's Enumerator [Biehl]

   Ryalth - Woman merchanter [consort to Lorn]

   Sasyk - Chief of Guards [Dyjani House]

   Tasjan - Merchanter [Head, Dyjani Clan]

   Veljan - Merchanter Heir [Yuryan Clan]

   Vyanat - Merchanter [Head, Hyshrah Clan]

   Vyel - Merchanter, brother of Vyanat

 

 

Part I - Lorn'alt, Cyad Overcaptain, Mirror Lancers

 

 

I

 

If Cyador be the paradox of Candar, and supporting that paradox be indeed the duty of each of the Magi'i of the Quarter, then how must each magus approach that duty so as to support the way to the Steps of Paradise?

   One scholar magus might say, "Support the Emperor of Light, for he is the one who must balance the Mirror Lancers and the Magi'i against each other, and against the growing might of the merchanter clans, who know but the greed for gold and the pleasures of the moment."

   A magus who tends the chaos-towers might declare, "Take care that the chaos-towers endure while they may, for without the towers, Cyador is no more than any other land set upon our world."

   Still another might claim, "Set forth rules for the Magi'i that they may lead all by their example and purity of devotion to chaos and the people who revere it."

   For all that the Magi'i descended from those of the Rational Stars, the ways in which the duty of a magus could be set forth are myriad, and like unto chaos itself, often resembling itself, yet never the same and always changing. Each magus, from the most to the least devoted, will have a vision of that duty. Some will hold that by increasing their personal mastery of chaos, they will serve Cyador, the Magi'i, and chaos in the best fashion possible. Others will declare that mastery of chaos must always serve others first, for the magus who places himself before duty will always be corrupted into believing that what is good for him is good for all.

   Yet neither be right, for a magus who serves only others will fly from one master to another, for each who asks of him becomes a master. A magus who elevates his mastery above all, would make all others his servant. Thus, a magus must be neither master nor servant, but one who walks the narrow path between. A magus without dedication to chaos will have no soul, and one who worships it blindly, no sense.

   That dilemma sets forth the true paradox of the Magi'i, that we must master chaos without being mastered by it...

         Paradox of Empire

         Bern'elth, Magus First

         Cyad, 157 A.F.

 

 

II

 

Lorn opens the door to the small upper-floor balcony, checking to see that the spring weather remains warm in the late afternoon. With a nod, he closes the door and turns to take in the main room of Ryalth's quarters-the low ebony table, the straight-backed black oak armchair that is Ryalth's favorite, the settee opposite it, and on the other side of the room, the green ceramic brick privacy screen that protects the main door from the inside. To his right is the alcove that contains the circular eating table and two armless chairs. To his left is the narrow archway to the bedchamber, and beyond that, the small bathing chamber.

   He smiles as he looks at the portrait of Ryalth as a young girl. In it, she wears a high-necked green tunic, and a thin golden chain. The floor of the main room displays ancient blue wool carpet with a border of interlocked ropes, surrounding a woven image of a blue-hulled trading ship under full sail, the ill-fated ship once owned by Ryalth's merchanter father, and the one on which her parents had perished.

   "Are you ready?" calls the redheaded lady who is his consort, as well as the head of the newly ascendant trading house-Ryalor House. Lorn sometimes still has trouble believing that she has incorporated his name into that of the trading concern she has established, even if he had helped her in the years before they were consorted.

   "Yes. I was checking to see that it was still warm out." He crosses the room and steps into the bedchamber. There, he adjusts his sabre and the collar emblems on the new Mirror Lancer uniform that Ryalth had arranged to have waiting for him when he had returned from his previous duty station. His efforts in battling the Accursed Forest had destroyed all but one of his Mirror Lancer uniforms, and that one he had worn on the firewagon trip back to Cyad. "Is it?"

   "It's very pleasant." He smiles at her as he steps away from the narrow mirror set on a stand against the bedchamber wall. "Still... I almost wish that we were not going to my parents' for dinner again. I don't have that many days left before I have to leave for Biehl."

   "They were charming the night before last." Ryalth eases past Lorn and before the mirror, touching her short red hair with the silver-backed and tortoiseshell comb. "And they don't keep us late. They do understand."

   "That was because it was only them and Jerial. Vernt and his consort-to-be, and Ciesrt and Myryan will be there tonight." He steps forward and puts his arms around her waist, then kisses the back of her neck. "You smell so good."

   "I'm glad you think so." For a moment, she leans her cheek against his. "You don't mind being here? In my quarters?"

   "They're our quarters, and you are my consort, and I like being here with you."

   "My rooms are so... modest, compared to your parents' dwelling."

   "Nothing is modest when you're there."

   "Such flattery."

   "Not flattery. Truth," he insists.

   "Truth is in the mind of the speaker," she counters. "The mirror reflects what is, and the image is of modest quarters."

   Lorn laughs. "Are you ready?"

   "It is not going to rain, is it, O magely one?"

   "No... I checked, remember? It will be warm this evening. And I'm not that much of a magus."

   "More than you admit."

   Lorn does not answer, but hugs her and kisses her neck again.

   "I like walking with you, knowing you can wear your uniform."

   "Some may still think you my mistress," Lorn teases.

   "Not if I wear the blue-and-green cloak."

   Lorn laughs. "You can wear green, if you wish, now that we are consorted. Could not I wear blue, without subterfuge?"

   "You could, but I like the cream-and-green better."

   Lorn recalls a question he has failed to ask. "And how would the honored Bluoyal, the Merchanter Advisor, feel about a lancer wearing blue?"

   "You didn't worry about that for years." She smiles. "Why now?"

   "Because no one knew who we were." Lorn pauses. "What of Bluoyal? When Eileyt speaks of him, his mouth puckers, as with a sour fruit. Eileyt is usually so careful. Since he is the senior enumerator of Ryalor House, that is good. But he didn't conceal his distaste of Bluoyal to me, not at all."

   "You are my consort," Ryalth points out.

   "What of Bluoyal?" Lorn asks again.

   "Bluoyal... I try to avoid him."

   "Is he like Shevelt?" Lorn's eyes harden as he recalls the Yuryan Clan heir he had removed years earlier because of the man's attempts to use his position to force himself on Ryalth.

   "No." She shakes her head. "No. Bluoyal is effective at telling the Emperor the problems the merchanters face, but he wishes all to pay him great homage for that effectiveness. He also was one of those who brokered the means for Liataphi's daughter to consort with Veljan."

   "Oh... so, in a way, Veljan owes his position to Bluoyal and the Magi'i?"

   "With some, that pearapple was hard to swallow."

   "He has not bothered you?"

   Ryalth smiles. "Save for collecting our-Ryalor's-scorth, no."

   "A twentieth part of your revenues?"

   She shakes her head. "It is called that, but it is but one part in fifty of the revenues after expenses." She drapes a light cotton cloak over her shoulders, blue with a green-and-cream border. "Best we go. I would not have your parents looking askance at me for delaying their son."

   "They would blame me," Lorn points out. "Not you."

   Ryalth shakes her head as she walks from the bedchamber and toward the privacy screen and the outer door. "They yet have that black angel-cursed Magi'i sense that all is their responsibility, and yours, as you are of the elthage blood. I can't even be responsible for delaying you."

   Lorn opens his mouth, then closes it as he sees the sparkle in her eyes. "I'll hold you responsible... but just when you are." He opens the door for her.

   "I hope so."

   Once they have descended the stairs, they walk uphill along the Thirteenth Way, and then westward on the Road of Perpetual Light, in toward the center of Cyad for the three very long blocks before they reach the dwelling where Lorn was raised.

   "We'll be first," Lorn says.

   "Because your brother will wish to exert his superior position by later arrival, as will Myryan's consort?"

   "I think Ciesrt just will wish he weren't coming, but he doesn't wish to offend father."

   "Not Myryan?" Ryalth lifts her eyebrows.

   "Ciesrt believes consorts are appurtenances."

   "I am glad you do not believe such."

   "You would scarce let me," he counters.

   They laugh in the mild spring air, ignoring the carriages and wagons that pass along the Road of Perpetual Light. Lorn's eyes take in the Palace of Eternal Light to the west, and all the other white granite and sunstone structures that rise in the marvel that is Cyad, the shining city, the city beside which all others pale. The words of one of the verses from the silver-covered book come to mind, the book from Ryalth's heritage she had entrusted to him so many years before.

 

   The city, Cyad, lost light like a star,

   The dream, Cyad, guiding near and far.

 

   He smiles to himself. Cyad is indeed a special city. Then he turns his eyes to the dwelling ahead.

   Jerial meets Lorn and Ryalth at the door to Lorn's parents' dwelling. The healer wears a green tunic so dark it is almost black, and her black hair is cut short. "You always look so good, Ryalth." She studies her brother. "Did I tell you I like her?"

   "I believe you have. Several times."

   "You might as well go on up." Jerial shuts the door and steps around the inside privacy screen. "Mother and I thought we would eat on the upper portico tonight. It is warm, and the breeze is gentle."

   "We're the first?" Lorn asks.

   "Except for Father and Mother."

   Lorn and Ryalth climb the three flights to the fourth and topmost level of the dwelling in which Lorn was raised.

   Lorn's mother is waiting at the uppermost landing. "You look wonderful, Ryalth. I like the cloak."

   "Thank you." The redhead inclines her head.

   "I did persuade Myryan and Ciesrt to come tonight." Nyryah raises her eyebrows. "Ciesrt wanted to know if Vernt would be here. He was pleased to know that Vernt is bringing his consort-to-be. That's Mycela. I do not believe you have met her."

   "I have not had that pleasure. In fact," Lorn adds dryly, "I had not had the pleasure of knowing he intended to take a consort until the other night when you told me."

   "He has been seeing her since the turn of fall." Nyryah turns, and the three walk toward the southwest corner of the upper level, toward the roofed but open-air area flanked with columns that adjoins the warm-weather dining area.

   They have barely taken their first steps when the door to the study opens behind them, and the white-haired Kien emerges. He walks toward them with the barest hint of a shuffle. "Greetings, Lorn, Ryalth. It's been such a long time since I've seen you two."

   Lorn smiles.

   Ryalth laughs gently.

   "You'll have them here every moment, dear, if you aren't careful," cautions Nyryah.

   "Not even a old magus like me could manage that," counters Kien. "Lorn will be gone again to his station in Biehl in less than an eightday."

   The four walk slowly toward the portico dining area.

   "The harbor always looks so beautiful from here," Ryalth observes. "You have such a wonderful view."

   "We are fortunate," answers Nyryah. "At times, I sit here in the late afternoon and watch the clouds and the ships."

   "Lorn!" Vernt appears behind them, accompanied by a blonde young woman who is laughing at something.

   Lorn and Ryalth turn and step toward the two recent arrivals.

   "Lorn, Ryalth, this is Mycela." Vernt smiles at the blonde. "This is my elder brother Lorn and his consort Ryalth. As you can see, Mycela, Lorn is an overcaptain in the Mirror Lancers, one of the youngest, I would venture, and Ryalth is the head of Ryalor House, one of the newly prominent trading houses in Cyad." Vernt smiles happily.

   "How nice to meet you both." Mycela's smile is not quite simpering, Lorn and Ryalth bow ever so slightly to the white-clad younger woman.

   "Mycela is the daughter of Lector Abram'elth," Vernt explains.

   Jerial slips by Vernt. "Ciesrt and Myryan are on their way up. She stopped to get something from her old room."

   "You recall my sister Jerial," Vernt says.

   "You wear green," Mycela says, wide-eyed, as she bows to Jerial.

   "I am a senior healer, and without consort," Jerial says with a shrug. "The green is more appropriate."

   "You do have such an unusual family, Vernt." Mycela giggles slightly. "They do so many things."

   "Lorn!" calls Myryan as she appears behind Vernt, who steps back for Ciesrt and Myryan.

   Ciesrt inclines his head to Vernt. "I am most glad to see you here." He bows slightly to Vernt's consort-to-be. "Greetings, Mycela."

   Mycela giggles momentarily. "Greetings, Ciesrt."

   "Perhaps we could sit down, now that Ciesrt and Myryan are here." Nyryah gestures to the dining table on the covered upper balcony, set as always, and as Lorn can recall from his childhood, so that all but Nyryah can look downhill and south directly at the harbor-and to the west and slightly uphill at the Palace of Eternal Light. Twilight lingers, and the sky remains the purple maroon that is beginning to fade, but the lamps set in brackets on the columns have already been lit. In the harbor, the white stone piers glimmer above the darkness of the water and before the Great Western Ocean farther to the south. The Palace remains an edifice of shimmering white, and light beams from its windows, from the innumerable lamps within its high-ceilinged corridors and halls.

   Lorn and Ryalth are to be seated across from each other at the southern end of the table, with Nyryah at the end between them, and Jerial to Lorn's left and Ciesrt to Ryalth's right. Vernt and Mycela flank Kien, while Myryan sits between Jerial and Vernt. Lorn nods at Ryalth. "If you don't mind could we change places?"

   A faint smile crosses Jerial's face, but vanishes near-instantly, as the two consorts trade seats. A blank expression appears on Mycela's face.

   As soon as Lorn takes the seat that had been Ryalth's, silence settles on the table, and all look to the north end.

   "In the blessing and warmth of chaos, in the prosperity which it engenders, let us give thanks for what we receive." From the north end of the table, the white-haired Kien speaks clearly, then lifts his head and smiles. "It is so good of all of you to be here tonight."

   The dining table around which the nine sit is covered with a pale green linen cloth, and set with glistening white porcelain plates. Quyal-the cook-appears with a large platter that holds fowl breasts covered in a thick cream sauce, and sets it before Kien. Kysia-the head of his parents' household, whose wages had been supplemented for years by Ryalth, secretly at first-follows a covered dish from which steam rises, and with a silver tray holding thin slices of dark sun-nut bread.

   Lorn takes a sip of the wine-Alafraan-and glances at Ryalth, murmuring, "You had this sent here."

   She smiles. "It was the least I could do, after all your parents have done."

   "It was most thoughtful," Nyryah adds.

   Lorn's lips curl into a rueful smile.

   "You are not here long, are you, Lorn?" asks Ciesrt.

   "No. I'm between duty assignments, and I'll be leaving on oneday."

   "Where will you be going?" Ciesrt follows up.

   "To head the port detachment in Biehl."

   "You'll be the one in charge?" asks Mycela. "The head officer?"

   "That's what my transfer orders say." Lorn smiles and passes the nut bread to his mother, after taking a slice for himself. "The port detachments protect trade and ensure that the tariffs are collected fairly."

   "I imagine it will provide a respite after fighting the barbarians and the Accursed Forest," suggests Kien. "And it is somewhat closer to Cyad."

   "What of the Accursed Forest?" asks Vernt. His brow furrows. "What exactly do lancer patrols do there?"

   "We ride along the walls to see that no wild creatures escape. We also maintain order and guard the Mirror Engineers while they repair any walls that the Accursed Forest has damaged."

   "The Forest damages walls?" asks the wide-eyed Mycela.

   "Some of the trees that fall across the ward-walls are more than twenty cubits thick and nearly as hard as stone. They occasionally damage the wall and the wards that contain the Forest creatures." Lorn glances at Ciesrt. "I understand that the Forest project is coming along."

   "I believe so, but that is not something that I do." Ciesrt shrugs. "There are rumors, but your father would know far better than I."

   Vernt and Lorn glance at the oldest magus.

   Kien smiles wryly. "I, too, must plead silence, except to say that there is a project, and if it works as it may, Cyad will need far fewer lancers to patrol the Accursed Forest."

   After a moment of silence, Ciesrt looks across the table at Ryalth. "Myryan has said that you are head of a trading house."

   "Ryalor House," Ryalth confirms.

   "And you are truly the head of it?" Ciesrt asks. "Did you come to that because your parents had no sons?"

   "Actually, Ciesrt," Lorn says smoothly, "she created it and built it from a clanless trading room into one that rivals many full houses. She is most skilled, and I was quite fortunate to prevail upon her to be my consort."

   "Oh." Ciesrt frowns.

   "There are not many lady merchanters who head houses, are there?" asks Myryan, her eyes twinkling.

   "I know of only one other," Ryalth admits. "She is much older."

   "Did she not inherit her position?" asks Jerial.

   "I believe such, but I do not know for certain." Ryalth's words are cautious.

   "So... Lorn is right," Jerial says. "You're the first woman in generations to head a trading house by your own ability, and perhaps the first to build one."

   "I have had assistance. Those who work for me are good." Ryalth smiles. "And Lorn has been a great inspiration."

   "He usually is," adds Kien, with a dry laugh, "even for those who have not wished such inspiration."

   "Father!" Myryan mock-protests.

   Kien finishes his fowl breast before looking at his younger daughter and raising his white eyebrows. "Your brother makes an impact wherever he goes. He always has. Talk to his friends, like Tyrsal and Dettaur."

   "Where is Dettaur these days?" asks Ciesrt.

   "The last we heard he was second-in-command or something at Assyadt," Jerial answers. "He writes occasionally, but he does not write of what he does."

   "He still writes?" Lorn asks.

   "He has hopes," Jerial says.

   "He must be an important officer," offers Mycela. "If he is in charge of something, that is."

   "He approaches women like a campaign," Jerial adds, "as if we were to be assaulted and captured. That is difficult." She smiles at Mycela. "At least for those who are healers."

   Lorn looks across the table at Myryan. "How is the garden coming?"

   "This year it's much better. Ciesrt powdered some limestone, and Ryalth had a cartload of stable manure delivered last fall. We still have jars and crocks of things, and I'm hoping that this year will be even better."

   "She is wonderful with the garden." Ciesrt beams. "She coaxes the best vegetables and fruits from the land. I doubt any young magus has a consort so marvelous. And she cooks so well, too, and everything in the house is so neat, and clean."

   "I will have to visit you, and learn your secrets," Mycela says. "I would not wish Vernt to lack for anything."

   Lorn swallows and takes refuge in another sip of wine as the domestic conversation continues. Ryalth smiles at him gently, taking a sip from her own goblet as well.

   "This time, we do have a proper dessert," Nyryah announces, after all have finished what they would eat, "the special creamed pearapple tarts." She looks at Lorn. "And there are enough for two apiece."

   Lorn feels himself flush slightly in the dim light, hoping the others will not notice, and takes a sip of the Alafraan.

   Nyryah gestures, and Kysia and Quyal appear beside the table to remove the dinner platters and to place a small plate before each of the diners. Her plate, and that of Jerial, have but one tart. All the others have two. Lorn waits for all to be served and for Ryalth and his mother to begin before he takes a bite. He nods as he swallows. "They are good."

   "You've always thought so."

   "I think I'd best learn the recipe for this dessert," says Ryalth, with a laugh. "My cooking is far simpler, but... his favorite dessert..."

   "Keep the cooking simple," suggests Jerial. "You haven't spoiled him yet. Don't start now."

   "My own sister," Lorn laments, offering a sad face. "Brush the crumbs from your chin, if you wish to look truly sad," Jerial counters.

   Lorn laughs. So does Ryalth.

   In time, the tarts vanish, and the conversation dies away. Lorn nods to his mother, then his father. "I thank you both, and everyone else here for coming. I would that I could stay longer, but I have been traveling for days, and a few nights' sleep, I fear, has not made up for the travels and a long season with the Accursed Forest."

   "It has been so good to have you and Ryalth here with everyone," Nyryah beams. "But we will see you more, won't we?"

   "You will," Lorn promises. "As we can." He smiles and extends his hand to Ryalth.

   The redhead stands, then bows to Nyryah, then to Kien. "Thank you both so much."

   "I'll come down with you." Jerial slips away from the table and follows Lorn and Ryalth down from the table.

   As the three walk down the steps to the front door, Jerial says, "I'm glad you got to meet Mycela."

   "What do you think of her?" Ryalth asks quietly.

   "She's perfect for Vernt," Jerial replies sweetly.

   Lorn winces.

   "I thought so, too," agrees Ryalth.

   Both women smile.

   After they are well clear of Lorn's parents' dwelling and Jerial has closed the door, Ryalth turns to Lorn. "I like Jerial."

   "She likes you. That is most clear."

   "You noticed that all the outside consorts were placed at first on one side of the table?" Ryalth says as they walk slowly eastward through the still-warm evening.

   "I did what I could," Lorn says.

   "I know." She reaches out and squeezes his hand. "Mycela didn't understand."

   "Neither did Ciesrt. I'm not sure Vernt did. Jerial did. She smiled when we switched places."

   "Was your mother displeased?"

   "I'm not sure. There was no other way to set up the table, not by lineage, but I didn't like it."

   "I'm glad you're the way you are."

   Lorn squeezes her hand, and they continue eastward along the Road of Perpetual Light, back toward the quarters that have become his as well as hers.

 

 

III

 

In the late, late afternoon, just before twilight, the Emperor Toziel'elth'alt'mer and his Consort-Empress Ryenyel stand on the uppermost balcony of the Palace of Light, ten tall stories above the gardens. His tall but slender frame seems stooped under the silver robes he has worn to the last audience of the afternoon and not removed once he has departed the small audience chamber. Ryenyel wears a tunic of vivid green shimmercloth, and flowing trousers of a lighter shade, colors which enhance her mahogany hair and lightly freckled complexion.

   The warm and moist spring breeze comes from the east, whispering past them and past the fluted bars on the grillwork with enough force that there is a trilling and humming from the bars-a sound both pleasant and loud enough to foil eavesdroppers, as intended by the builders of the Palace some eight generations previous. While cupridium flowers might have served the same function, the Palace of Light contains no such fripperies, nor any statuary. All lines are clean, elegant, and without decoration, almost totally without even carved inscriptions.

   To the south, and downhill, beyond the trade quarter and the warehouses, are the white stone piers of the harbor of Cyad. Scaffolds rise around the two white-hulled fireships at the Mirror Lancer pier. One of the fireships the Emperor knows will never move again under its own power, and is being cannibalized to refit the second ship, the Ocean Flame. At the piers to the east of the scaffolds are tied two three-masted ocean traders, deep-sea vessels, neither of which is Cyadoran, and a pair of coasting schooners, one Sligan, one Spidlarian.

   North of the piers and below the Palace, the sunstone walks and white-granite paved streets shimmer in the late-afternoon sun. The shops and scattered cafes to the west sport immaculate green-and-white awnings.

   "Bluoyal'mer tells me that all is well with our trade," reflects Toziel, his right arm around the waist of the Empress. "Yet few ships in the harbor fly our ensign. And the Emperor's Enumerators report that tariff collections have declined each year."

   "Perhaps not all the tariffs are being collected," suggests Ryenyel. "Can the Hand of the Emperor-"

   "No. The Hand can send orders, but his effectiveness is lost once he leaves the shadows and is known."

   "First Magus Chyenfel'elth must know who he is."

   "He doubtless does, as we have discussed, but it is not to his advantage to reveal such." Toziel laughs. "Nor to ours." The Emperor shakes his head slowly, without taking his eyes from the City of Light spread out below him. "The chaos-towers are failing, and I am forced into supporting the plan of the First Magus to use all the chaos in those remaining around the Accursed Forest merely to confine the Forest so that it will not overrun eastern Cyador. That means those towers can no longer charge the lancer firelances or the chaos-cells of the firewagons." Toziel shrugs. "Is this the beginning of the last long afternoon of Cyad?"

   "The chaos-towers in the Quarter of the Magi'i here in Cyad yet function," the mahogany-haired Empress points out, "and will for some years yet, according to the First Magus."

   "Some years is not that many, as we know, and, while he would certainly wish it so, I have some doubts about Chyenfel's predictions."

   "How could you choose otherwise, my love, even if he is too hopeful?"

   "I could not, for the Forest is worse than the barbarians of the north. They can be contained with cupridium lances and blades, if with greater losses, but only some form of bound chaos will contain the Accursed Forest." A mirthless chuckle follows his words. "We know this, and yet, like a schoolboy, I must talk to soothe my soul over choices between evils. More Mirror Lancers will die. The merchants will lose more ships to pirates and raiders, and there will be unrest among the merchanters-"

   "There is already, with Tasjan's plotting and his hiring of Sasyk to head his greenshirt guards," Ryenyel points out.

   "Who could fault him for hiring a former Mirror Lancer officer?" Toziel's words are light, but his eyes are dark. "Especially in these times. Tasjan will turn any questions about Sasyk against me. And, amid all the changes, most in Cyad, and throughout Cyador, will fault me, for they have neither seen nor experienced the power of the Forest."

   "That is always so," replies the Empress gently. "Folk care for but the removal of that which they know will harm them or for the addition of that which will benefit them. Few care for actions which benefit all, but slightly, if it means they receive less. Always it was so, and always will be. For that, there is an Emperor."

   "Yet I must not seem to plan nor plot, for those who do are thought cold and calculating, no matter how they care for their peoples, no matter what benefits they bring, no matter how many lives they save."

   Ryenyel nods. "That, too, is why there is an Emperor."

   "Yet all these troubles would come to pass while I am Emperor?"

   "The Magi'i have warned of such for many years, that the towers would fail, that what the ancients built would not last forever." Ryenyel places her hand over his-the one that rests on her right hip-and squeezes her fingers around his hand.

   "At such times, I am almost glad we have no heirs," he muses. "For whoever follows me... whatever scion there may be... if there is one..."

   "There will be... we have time," she reassures him.

   "With a gaggle of Magi'i who plot, and a Majer-Commander of Lancers who believes them fools not to see the danger of the barbarians, and a Merchanter Advisor who doubtless abuses his knowledge and position to line his pockets and undermine Cyador, even as he protests that he maintains it?"

   After a moment of silence, Ryenyel replies. "Your Majer-Commander, the most honorable Rynst, has come to understand that Bluoyal only wishes the towers and the lancers in order to support the merchanters' trading ships. Rynst also understands that while he cannot brook Chyenfel, the First Magus can be trusted far more than the Second. Or even Chyenfel's protege, young Rustyl."

   "Only because Rynst fears Bluoyal more than the Magi'i." Toziel snorts.

   "Bluoyal treads a devious and deadly path. He would ensure that the Mirror Lancers and the Magi'i do not see that their interests are closer to each other's than to his."

   "Rynst and Chyenfel have always seen such. We have talked of this before. Neither can afford to trust the other allied to Bluoyal. Yet they know that both Magi'i and Mirror Lancers are few indeed outside of the three cities. They cooperate like a pair of giant cats against a pack of night leopards. Most carefully."

   "And when the towers do fail?"

   "We will need far more lancers against the barbarians. Bluoyol's successors will find they still need lancers, but not until many perish, and more than a few vessels are lost."

   "Thus, all will continue as today," she replies.

   "It will not seem so, not to most. The emperors to come will either be powerful Magi'i or inspire loyalty within the Mirror Lancers, because it appears that either lancers or Magi'i can destroy an Emperor."

   "Bluoyal believes that the merchanters will purchase the Palace of Light in years to come, perhaps sooner. We need to watch him, more closely, far more closely, for a merchanter rising would bring down Cyador more swiftly than the Accursed Forest or the barbarians."

   "So has said the Hand, but he has also advised that we have time, and that Bluoyal will overreach himself before such can occur."

   "Would that I could take comfort in that," says the Empress, leaning her head against his shoulder.

   "Seldom is he wrong... most seldom."

   "If he is...?"

   "If he is, if we fail, then blood will stain the sunstone of the Palace so deeply it cannot ever be lifted." He looks down and studies her drawn face. "I tell you this often, but... You give too much to me."

   "What else would I do, dearest? We know there is no one else."

   "Not yet."

   As he speaks, her fingers lift to rest lightly on his cheek.

   The orange glow of twilight floods from the hillside to the west, and the white stone piers of the harbor shimmer gold.

   The Emperor and Empress stand on the balcony and watch the gold fade.

 

 

IV

 

Sitting at one end of a long table in the corner of Ryalor House, in gray light of a stormy spring morning, Lorn reads through the stack of papers that Eileyt has set before him. The senior enumerator has assured Lorn that the papers have several examples of shady trading practices.

   Outside of several clear errors in addition, Lorn has found nothing. He finally beckons to Eileyt, and when the gray-eyed man nears, says, "I don't think I'm seeing what I should be seeing."

   Eileyt turns over the first three bills of lading, then points to an entry halfway down the fourth one. "Look at that closely."

   Lorn looks at the entry: Cotton, 20 bales, dun, Hamor. "Hamor grows dun cotton, but all they usually export is the good white. Look at the parchment-and it is parchment, which is another clue."

   "It looks like it's smoother there, but just around the word dun."

   "There's more space around the word dun, too." Eileyt nods. "With parchment, you can use it like a palimpsest, take a sharp knife and scrape off the letters, then write in dun instead of white."

   "But why? Why don't they just rewrite the bill of lading?"

   "It's sealed below. A trader gets caught counterfeiting a seal, and he loses a hand. An 'error' in a bill of lading merely costs some golds in fines, but most of such 'errors' are never found. The tariff on white cotton is a gold a bale. It's a silver on dun cotton, and you can get that from Kyphros or Valmurl or even out of Worrak in Hydlen."

   "But they all come from beyond Cyador," Lorn says. "That is right," Eileyt says patiently. "But... if the Imperial tariff were a gold on Kyphran dun cotton, then people would use carts and smuggle it along the beaches below the lower Westhorns, and some dishonest merchanter in Fyrad would mix it with his real Kyphran stock and it would be hard to tell without counting every bale, and the Imperial Enumerators don't have the bodies or the days to do that. At a silver a bale, and the tariff is the same for a bolt of the finished cloth, it's cheaper and faster to ship the dun cotton, or any cotton from Kyphros, than smuggle it. Hamorian white cotton goes for five golds a bale these days... and dun for one. So... on this shipment, the trader could pocket nearly eighteen golds, just by changing one word on the lading bill. And he can claim, if he gets caught, that it was a mistake. If the Hamorian seal's intact, and a magus can see that, then all he'll get is a three-gold fine, maybe ten-. But most won't catch something like this."

   "But the finished cotton... that's more like ten a bolt, and they're easier to carry," Lorn says, recalling his early trading adventures with Ryalth.

   "Why would anyone import the bales all the way from Hamor? They're bulky."

   Eileyt nods. "Good. That's another reason to suspect this. Anyone can look at a bolt of finished cotton and see the difference between Hamorian white and Kyphran dun, but raw cotton-that's another story. Might even be something hidden in the bales, as well."

   Lorn shakes his head, but he has asked Ryalth and her people to show him what they can about forbidden trading practices, even though it is unlikely he will be directly involved, except when called in by the Emperor's tariff enumerators, if he ever is. The more he learns, the more small references tell him how intertwined everything is-such as Bluoyal's involvement in the consorting between Syreal and Veljan that, because of Lorn's killing of Veljan's older brother Shevelt, has led to a greater possible influence by the Magi'i in the affairs of one of the leading merchanter houses. That underscores why he would like to know enough to be able to ask his own questions should such arise. His experience with patrol tactics and the Accursed Forest was enough of an example of not knowing enough, to confirm his decision to learn what he can in the few days he has in Cyad. He is also coming to realize that it is far better-and less costly to all involved-to act before others act... rather than when it is obvious to all that one must act.

   So he might as well learn what he can, since Ryalth cannot give up work, especially since spring is far busier for Ryalor House than Lorn ever would have imagined.

   He looks back through the bills of lading again, looking for odd spacing, improbable goods, anything.

   On the next to last, he finds something-or thinks he does.

   "A hundred stone of zinc tools?" he asks. "Is this a cover for iron blades? It's a metal and almost the same number of letters."

   "That's more dangerous, because iron-bladed weapons carry high tariffs, and selling them in Cyad or failing to declare them for shipment elsewhere can send a trader to prison," Eileyt says. "But some traders like to buy Hamorian blades and sell them elsewhere in Candar." The enumerator hands Lorn another set of lading bills.

   It is nearly midday when Lorn walks into Ryalth's inner study. She looks up from a ledger.

   "You have a nice study here," he observes.

   "Merchanters call them 'offices,' dearest... remember?" She smiles. "But if you want traders to think you know less than you do, just call them 'studies.' "

   "Thank you. That might be wiser. I can see why you're the trader, and I'm not." He shakes his head again.

   "We work better together," she says.

   "Do you have to work all day?"

   "Zerlynk is coming in midafternoon. He had made an offer on cordage. I picked up some raw hemp from a Sligan trader last year, and got some peasants near Desahlya to turn it into rope. It's not top-line, and I'll not try to sell it as such, but we should make some silvers on it. After he goes, I can leave."

   Lorn nods. "You're busy. I'll see what else I can learn."

   "You might talk to Kutyr. He knows more than he'll tell me." Ryalth smiles again.

   "He might not tell me, either."

   "If you flatter him..."

   Lorn shakes his head ruefully, then smiles, and turns.

 

 

V

 

Because the core of a fully-functioning tower maintains an isochronic/isotemporal barrier of approximately 1,000 nanoseconds, this temporal "dislocation" effectively provides not only the points of energy polarity which generate the raw power, as described above, and an insulation from the local temporality, but what can also be loosely described as a recharge impact on local spatio-temporal random-amplitude "chaotic" energy events....

   Observation indicates that proximity to the tower engenders a sensitivity to and an ability to impact and/or manipulate local spatio-temporal random amplitude events.... Such sensitivity, if not disciplined and trained, could adversely impact the continued operation of the towers.

   ...Oversensitization and disciplined training must be rigorously monitored in view of the macular cellular degeneration already observed among personnel with high exposure within the operating confines of the basic tower system. This is, as noted previously, in contravention of previously established principles and tolerances....

   In addition to degenerative effects caused by excessive proximity to the towers, similar effects have been observed in those individuals among the non-technical cadre with an aptitude for manipulating such local spatio-temporal random-amplitude events. It is recommended that such individuals be placed so that they also can be monitored, and, if necessary, disciplined, in order to assure maximum operating continuity for the remaining tower cores.

   Establishment of a hierarchial social structure may prove necessary, should these effects persist, since the conditions and infrastructure for continued technical education and understanding may be limited...

         Recommendations

         Personnel Manual [Revised]

         Cyad, 15 A.F.

 

 

VI

 

Tyrsal and Lorn are seated in the garden at the rear of the sprawling and massive two-storied dwelling that overlooks the harbor from the western bluffs of Cyad. The air is cooler than in Cyad itself.

   "You have a good view of the harbor here," Lorn says.

   "Not so good as that of your parents," answers the redheaded mage. "And it was a long walk to the academy. Mother was not sympathetic to my riding or using the carriage. That's why I stay with my sister and her consort most nights these days-out of habit, I suppose." He shakes his head. "I dislike mornings."

   "The house is yours, isn't it?" Lorn asks.

   "I suppose so, but it's really Mother's, and it wouldn't be right to take it from her." Tyrsal smiles. "Besides, I can just claim I'm a poor junior magus, and that way, none of the Lectors will push me into consorting with someone I don't like."

   "Like Aleyar or Syreal?" asks Lorn, with a grin.

   "Syreal's sweet. What she sees in that block Veljan, I don't know. I don't know Aleyar."

   "So you'd still consider her?" Lorn pursues. "They say she's sweet and pretty, too."

   "Are you trying to complicate my life? Or just end it?" asks Tyrsal. "I don't think it would be good for my health to deal with Liataphi all the time."

   "What about Ciesrt's younger sister?" Lorn's eyes twinkle.

   "You want Ciesrt as..." Tyrsal shakes his head. "I'm sorry. It's hard to believe. Myryan is so nice. Ciesrt doesn't deserve her." He pauses. "Anyway, Rustyl has asked Ciesrt's sister, and she'll say yes to him. He's ambitious and a favorite of Chyenfel. So while she'll put him off for a time, in the end, she'll agree."

   "Kharl'elth will give her no choice," Lorn suggests.

   "You were so smart not to consort into a Magi'i family," Tyrsal says.

   "As if I had much choice," Lorn points out.

   "You could have had your pick of the lancer girls." Tyrsal grins. "But you did much better. Ryalth is beautiful, and she's smart."

   "You've scarcely talked to her, except at dinner the other night, and I don't think you said a dozen words."

   Tyrsal draws himself up in offended dignity. "I listened. You learn when you listen." His eyes smile, and then he laughs. "You haven't said much about your new duty. You don't like going to Biehl?"

   "It's not the assignment. It's what's behind it. I'm too young to be an overcaptain, and I've too little service. Zandrey had almost eight years before they made him one, and I've had four, five if you count officer training."

   "They're losing a lot of officers to the barbarians, Lorn."

   "I'd bet I'll only be there until I get set up to make some mistake... or until I get promoted again and sent to an impossible assignment against the Jeranyi or some such."

   Tyrsal laughs. "Nothing's impossible for you. You'll have it figured out before they send you. Didn't you say you were studying bills of lading and the tariff rules? Did anyone suggest that to you?"

   "It's obvious. If you have to enforce trade rules, best you know something about them. I still won't know the local situation, and that could be a mess." Lorn takes a deep breath and holds up his hand. "I know. You're going to tell me that while it's obvious to me, it isn't obvious to other lancers." He offers a wry expression that is not exactly a smile. "I'm not other lancers."

   "That's what I keep telling you. You're always thinking ahead."

   "I try." He pauses. "But that's dangerous, too. People think you're a plotter or a schemer. Or cold and calculating, and they watch you twice as closely."

   Trysal laughs again. "That's why you never tell anyone anything."

   "Would you?" Lorn glances at the harbor and then stands. "I need to go. Ryalth should be almost done with the exchange-"

   "And you don't want to miss a moment with her!"

   The overcaptain grins at the second-level adept magus. "It doesn't take a chaos-glass to scree that."

 

 

VII

 

The cool spring rain patters on the roof tiles, collects there, and then flows in streams over the eaves, collecting in the rain gutters that line the structures and the white granite roads and ways of Cyad. Within Ryalth's rooms, Lorn and his trader lady sit side by side in the bedchamber, propped up on the bed with pillows. On the table beside the bed a single lamp is lit.

   Lorn holds a narrow, green-tinted, silver-covered volume in his hands, the one Ryalth had given to him to keep for her, years before, and insisted he read. "I've carried it everywhere, and yet there's still not a mark on it." He turns the book in his hands. "I still wonder how it came to your mother."

   "She never said. She just said it was special."

   Lorn nods, wondering how special... and whether the book is another subtle indication of how unusual Ryalth is-and why. "You read from it often?" Ryalth asks.

   "Not every night. I couldn't when I was on patrol, and I didn't want to take it with me."

   "Every eightday?"

   "Usually." He smiles. "Sometimes more often."

   "What do you think about the ancients now?"

   "I don't know about the ancients." He frowns. "The writer was melancholy. They might not all have been like him."

   "Wouldn't you have been, if you'd come from the Rational Stars to a wilderness? That's what Cyador was, back then."

   "I'm not sure it still isn't." Lorn laughs.

   "We have the prosperity of chaos, and the chaos-towers, and the roads and the harbor, all the things they built," she points out. "People are still unhappy."

   "Not all of them."

   "Some..." he teases.

   "Enough." She takes the book from his fingers, closes her eyes, and then opens it at random, handing it to Lorn. "Read this one."

   "You haven't seen it."

   "Read it, please." Lorn clears his throat.

 

   Chaos, and the promise of light,

   Order, beckoning lady of night...

   Should I again listen to which song?

   We have listened oh so long.

   Should I again fly on learning wings?

   We have learned what yearning brings.

 

   "That is melancholy," she says. "Let's try another one. You pick it."

   "And you read it," he replies. She nods.

   Lorn closes his eyes and lets his fingers riffle through the smooth and heavy pages, finally stopping and handing her the open volume.

   "This one always puzzled me," she says as she looks at the slanted and antique Anglorian characters.

   "Read it," he suggests.

   Ryalth's voice is low, almost husky as she brings forth the words.

 

   Cyad is no home for souls of thought,

   who doubt the promises they have bought,

   for the Magi'i offer Chaos as a Step to all.

   The lancers back with fire their call,

   their faces of cupridium's silver-white

   reflect each other's chaotic light.

 

   Should Sampson pick this temple,

   here too, he would be blind,

   his eyes untouched,

   his simple trust

   lost in the reflections.

 

   She closes the volume. "I always wondered who Sampson was. He had to be blind, but the words suggest he wasn't always, and yet, that he would be in Cyad, because everything reflects everything else, and gets lost in the reflections."

   "And that doesn't happen?" Lorn laughs. "Think about the big dinner with my parents the other night, and the way Vernt and Ciesrt kept looking at each other. And Mycela, the way she just wanted to be a perfect consort, reflecting Vernt's every wish."

   "That's somehow sad, too." After a moment, she adds, "You have to go the day after tomorrow. Would you read the one about pears now?" She hands him the volume.

   He flips through the pages until he finds the words and begins, his voice soft in the dimness of the bedchamber.

 

   Like a dusk without a cloud,

   a leaf without a tree...

   ...to hold the sun-hazed days,

   and wait for pears and praise

   ...and wait for pears and praise.

 

   After he sets the book on the table by the bed, he turns down the lamp wick, and lets darkness fill the room. His arms slip around her, and hers around him.

 

 

VIII

 

The two most senior Mirror Lancer officers sit across a polished table desk from each other in the capacious study on the highest floor of the Mirror Lancer Court, two blocks west of the Palace of Eternal Light. A light drizzle falls outside the antique panes of the windows that date to the ancients, but the day is bright enough that none of the polished cupridium wall-lamps are lit.

   His eyebrows lifting slightly, Rynst'alt looks at Luss'alt. "I understand that I as Majer-Commander of Mirror Lancers have transferred young Captain-pardon me, young Overcaptain Lorn-to the port detachment at Biehl, and that he is on his way there, or will be, most shortly."

   "Yes, ser. He was assigned to the northeast ward-wall, and he saw more fallen trees and creatures in little more than a year than most patrol captains do in a full tour."

   "So you decided he should be transferred to a duty with which he has no experience, not by his family, nor by his education?" Rynst smiles brightly at his Captain-Commander, then leans back in the chair upholstered and covered in green shimmercloth.

   "The Emperor's Enumerators are the ones who apply the tariff and port laws, ser, and Overcaptain Lorn need only support them."

   "An officer who has been commanding in combat and against the Accursed Forest will sit back on his mount or behind his table and accept their word? Do you think that likely?"

   "Most officers would be pleased with such duty, ser."

   "Pleased or not, is it wise? With Bluoyal's kin everywhere? How do we know that Bluoyal does not have some relative in Biehl?"

   "I thought it wise, ser," Luss replies stiffly.

   "You mean that the Second Magus thought it wise?"

   Luss does not quite meet Rynst's eyes. "Overcaptain Lorn has also been seen walking with a lady merchanter-the head of Ryalor House," Luss says. "She has suddenly become most powerful. Out of nowhere, one might say, and that seems rather odd, especially for a woman."

   "A woman who comes to power easily can be vanquished easily. Were he walking with the daughter of Liataphi, I would be concerned, Luss, but a merchanter? Even a wealthy merchanter cannot influence the Magi'i, and no merchanter can be more of an influence upon the Palace of Eternal Light than Bluoyal already is."

   Luss looks impassively through the light rain at the gray water of the harbor, and the darker water of the Great Western Ocean beyond.

   Rynst points at the polished reflector of the lamp on the corner of the desk. "Cyad is like that reflector, Captain-Commander. Or like many reflectors set opposite each other. Each and every action is mirrored in every other. I know that you know what I do and plan, and you know the same of me, and each of us hides in the open behind those reflections." A cold smile crosses the Majer-Commander's mouth. "You are a good second-in-command, Luss, so long as you allow me to think for you. You allow Kharl to direct your thoughts... and there will be no one to protect you, for the Magi'i certainly will not. Nor will the merchanters. Especially Bluoyal."

   "He seems most capable, ser."

   "He is too capable for the merchanters, Luss." Rynst pauses. "Rather, he is seen as too capable. Being seen as such is more dangerous than being so. As for young Overcaptain Lorn, I would watch what Kharl wishes of him. You know that Kharl's son is the consort of the overcaptain's younger sister, of whom young Lorn is most fond?"

   "I had heard such, ser."

   "That other ambitious young magus to watch-Rustyl-he is pressing a suit for Kharl's daughter. Watch the honorable Second Magus far more than the overcaptain. Keep such in your thoughts when you meet with the Second Magus. Also keep in mind that the First Magus cares little for the Second, and that all the Magi'i respect the fourth magus far more than the three with titles. There is a reason why they call Kien'elth 'the Fourth Magus.' He is most capable-and also young Lorn's father. We are fortunate that he has no ambition to become First Magus." Rynst pauses. "Then, given the first three Magi'i, perhaps we are unfortunate."

   "Yes, ser." Luss's brows lift ever so slightly.

   Rynst gestures toward the door, suggesting that the meeting is at an end. "For all that, I could not have planned it better. I suggest that you consider why that is so before your next clandestine meeting with the Second Magus."

   "As you suggest, ser." Luss's face is impassive as he stands and offers a perfunctory bow.

   "I do look out for you, Luss, even though you do not see it as such. You might also ask whether my actions and advice have benefited you. Then ask the same of what others offer." Rynst returns Luss's bow with a curt nod.

 

 

IX

 

Lorn stands on the uppermost level of his parents' dwelling, looking to the south and out across the harbor of Cyad. The rains of the previous days have cleared, and the late-afternoon sky is a brilliant green-blue. The breeze is crisp, but not strong, and only scattered whitecaps dot the harbor to the south.

   "I'll be leaving on the early firewagon tomorrow," Lorn tells his mother.

   "I'm glad you came by this afternoon." Nyryah smiles warmly. "And so is your consort, I am sure."

   Lorn flushes slightly.

   " The study door opens, and Kien stands there on the edge of the portico, blinking as if the light has momentarily blinded him. Still, his words are incisive. "Lorn, I would like a few words with you."

   "You usually do, dear," observes Nyryah.

   "Yes, I do." The magus smiles. "These days, I am given less and less time in which to deliver them."

   Lorn grins and follows his father into the study. Kien closes the door, firmly, and gestures to the chairs before his table desk. Lorn settles into the chair on the left and waits as his father seats himself. For a time, Kien does not speak, but steeples his fingers together, and purses his lips.

   "Lorn... you will be leaving tomorrow, I understand." The older man looks across the broad polished study desk. "For port duty in Biehl."

   "Yes, ser."

   "There are several matters we should discuss." Kien blinks, then nods. "First, I did wish you to know, as if I have not already made my feelings obvious, that you have picked most wisely in your choice of consort, far more wisely than many will understand until you are much older."

   "Thank you. I was fortunate in finding her."

   "You were fortunate in finding her, but wise to hold to her." Kien pauses. "There is far more to your consort than meets the eye. I would be most surprised if there is not a significant Magi'i heritage."

   Lorn nods. "Nor I, although there is little overt evidence." He wonders about the silver volume of verse. Is that evidence? Or serendipity?

   "Second," Kien continues, "I am going to request that you relinquish the claim of the firstborn to Vernt. I do not ask this for Vernt, but for Jerial."

   Lorn nods. "I understand. You have a document?"

   Kien points to the parchment on the front of the table desk. "You do not question that?"

   "Ser... I will either be successful as a Mirror Lancer officer-and will not need the claim-or I will not, in which case, neither I nor Ryalth would need it."

   The older man nods slowly. "You understand fully that you will have claim to but a quarter?"

   "Yes, ser. But that will be many years from now."

   "I certainly hope so," Kien says with an ironic twist to the words, "but one must make provisions."

   Lorn notes the words, and wonders. But he stands and takes the pen, reading and then signing the document.

   "I will register that in the Quarter tomorrow. And I do appreciate your thoughtfulness and consideration."

   "Yes, ser."

   Kien leans back and purses his lips. "Finally, I have one observation and a few questions I would like to pose to you. The observation is that while Cyad is indeed a marvelous city, its people are like those anywhere else. I ask you to consider that. The questions... well... I would prefer that you not answer them, but think upon them during your firewagon trip to Biehl-beyond that, if you feel the need."

   Lorn finds his eyebrows lifting. Questions?

   "There are but three questions. These are: " 'What is it that allows Cyad to exist?'

   " 'Could all the might of the Mirror Lancers here in Cyad, or all the might of the Iron Legions in Hamor, prevail against the will of those who live in such lands?' " 'Are those who direct power or chaos the source of either?' "

   Lorn concentrates on the questions, trying to hold them in mind.

   Kien extends a single sheet of paper. "I have held this for a time, but you are old enough to ponder these."

   Lorn takes the sheet, and sees that it holds the questions his father has just asked.

   "My son... these are not idle questions. Nor are they the overly philosophical musings of an aging magus. They are not mine, by the way, and you may, in time, discover the source. That source is not important, but pondering the questions is most important for a Mirror Lancer who aspires to command beyond a patrol company. You are leaving for what may be your most dangerous duty."

   Lorn frowns.

   "Dangerous, because you will have time to think, because you will be flattered, and because you will discover, if you have not already, that the world is both far simpler than you have ever imagined, and far more complex." His father laughs. "Call the last my question. 'How can the world be more simple and yet more complex?' I leave that to you, for now."

   The overcaptain nods slowly.

   "I do not need to tell you to be most careful, and to listen more than you speak. You have learned that already. Remember that silence can be either a truth or a lie. Make certain your silence is taken as you mean it." Kien stands. "I could prattle on into the night, and your consort would be upset with me. So I will not, but know that I wish you well, and that no matter who you may have believed, I always have." He steps around the desk, awkwardly.

   Lorn understands, and he hugs his father for the first time in years. "Thank you."

   Kien nods, not speaking, and his eyes are bright. Finally, he says, "Best you go to Ryalth, and enjoy what time you have left."

   As Lorn steps away from the study door, he can sense the cold chill of a screeing glass, and that chill is not that manifested by his father.

   Keeping an pleasant expression, he hugs his mother a last time before he starts down the steps to the front door.

   Again, Jerial is the one who stands by the door. "Be good to Ryalth tonight."

   "I will."

   "I know." Her smile is softer, not the professional expression of a healer.

   He gives her a hug. "Thank you for being so good to her."

   "She is good for you. Far better than any could imagine. She and I understand each other, and that is good." Jerial squeezes Lorn tightly. "You be most careful."

   "I will."

   Lorn finally releases his older sister and steps around the privacy screen and down the steps to the Road of Perpetual Light.

   How is the world simpler and yet more complex? His father's last question rolls through his mind.

 

 

X

 

Honored ser, you summoned me." The tall man is slender, and his blond hair is both thick and fine, and shimmers as the light from the study window strikes it. His green eyes are pale, intent, as he straightens from his bow to the First Magus.

   "Please be seated, Rustyl." Chyenfel's sun-gold eyes do not waver as he watches the handsome younger magus settle into the golden oak armchair across the table from him. "Being a discerning young magus," the First Magus finally adds with a deliberate emphasis on each word, "you have noticed that all is not as it once was in Cyador. I would have your thoughts on such."

   "Honored ser, it would be presumptuous to assume that you have not already noted all I might say. So I will but touch on each matter. First, the chaos-towers are failing, yet all of Cyador depends on the energies of those towers. Few feel that the towers are failing, because they cannot imagine that. Instead, they feel as though the Magi'i are using the chaos-towers as a weapon to gain more influence over the Mirror Lancers and the Malachite Throne. Second, the outlanders have noticed that there are fewer fireships. We see more Hamorian traders and greater numbers of raids by the barbarians of the north. Third, the older merchanter houses and clans, those who have supported and understood Cyador, are being supplanted by newer houses, and, for the first time in memory, a trading house of note has been founded and operated by a lady trader." Rustyl smiles. "I have little against her, for she embodies the spirit of what once all merchanters in Cyad embodied, but it is disturbing that one of the newer and stronger houses must be created by a woman, when there are so many young men among the merchanters."

   "Go on." The voice of the First Magus remains calm. "What else?"

   "The Emperor is aging, rapidly, yet hides such, and has taken no steps to name a successor, perhaps for fear that such will disturb all of Cyad. He relies ever more on his consort, and turns from the main advisors-you, the honorable Majer-Commander of Mirror Lancers, and even from his once-favored Merchanter Advisor." Rustyl offers a far fainter smile. "Then there are those who have the skills to serve the Magi'i, but have placed themselves ahead of the calling of chaos." Rustyl shrugs. "I doubt not that there are many other manifestations that all is not well, and those may be beyond my knowledge and experience, but these are among those that I see."

   "You see much of what others see and of which they will not speak." Chyenfel steeples his fingers before him, purses his lips, and pauses for a long moment, which stretches into silence before he finally speaks again. "There are also other cities in Cyador where your observations would be valuable. And where your presence would be noted, most quietly."

   A pleasant smile remains on Rustyl's face as he waits. "On threeday," Chyenfel says, "you will go to Fyrad to work with the Mirror Engineers."

   Rustyl nods, if slightly. "I stand ready to carry out your wishes."

   "You will be most helpful and most deferential, as you have been here.

   You will attempt to grant others any credit for what you accomplish. When you cannot do such, you will share such credit. If aught goes wrong, you will take the blame and find yet another solution, for which someone else will share the credit."

   "Yes, ser."

   "You will not proceed to the Accursed Forest, and you will disavow any knowledge of the sleep wards. You may note politely that such is the project and the work of the First Magus. Do you understand why?"

   "Would that be because the chaos-towers surrounding the Forest will no longer be able to charge the firelances of the lancers and the entire project will be regarded less than favorably?"

   "It would appear so." Chyenfel nods. "After several seasons, when it appears appropriate, you will be dispatched to Summerdock, where you will employ your skills and powers to assist the Mirror Engineers in improving the port facilities there. Throughout Cyador, over the few coming years, all must know of you, but only in passing, only as one who is experienced and trustworthy, as one who is young enough not to be totally bound to the old ways, but one who can use and help others with those ways in meeting the needs of the present."

   Rustyl bows his head. "I understand and appreciate your foresight and wisdom."

   Chyenfel laughs. "May you always do so, but old as I am, I do not see that you will. Remember that, should you reach my exalted age. The young always demur to power, even as they scheme to obtain it and consider how they could employ it in far better or more effective ways than their elders." A second laugh follows. "If we are successful, both in your work and your consorting, your turn will come, Rustyl. But mine is not over yet." The First Magus gestures. "You may go."

   As the blond magus closes the study door, the smile fades from Chyenfel's lips.

 

 

XI

 

Lorn places the bronze key in the lock of the upper-floor quarters that had been Ryalth's and are now theirs, but the door has already been unlocked. He steps inside. Ryalth stands just behind the privacy screen.

   "You surprised me. You made your way here from Ryalor House earlier than I had thought," he admits.

   "This is our last night together. I thought you would be awaiting me." Her smile is nervous, tentative. "I hastened from the Plaza."

   "I am sorry. I was saying good-bye to my parents and Jerial, and before that, Myryan. She wasn't at their dwelling, and I had to find her at the infirmary. I returned as quickly as I could." He steps forward and hugs her, brushing her cheek with his lips and murmuring in her ear, "I'm glad you're here."

   After a moment, she returns the embrace, and they remain pressed to each other for yet a time. Then she eases back, her hands holding his, his fingers cool around hers, her fine eyebrows lifting. "You took a while."

   "My father had more than a few words of advice." He forces a wry smile. "And some questions. He gave me a sheet of them." Lorn raises the parchment. "He told me to consider them, to ponder them on the firewagon trip to Biehl."

   "He accepts you for what you are, yet can offer but little assistance- unlike your brother, for whom he can do much," suggests the redhead.

   "That may be." Lorn frowns. "He also offered an observation, almost as if I were a child, that while Cyad is a marvelous city, the people are as others. Why would they be otherwise?"

   "Because, dearest, you still believe that a great city must come from great people." She offers a sad smile. "A great city can come from but a handful of great people, and the acceptance of the rest, who are grateful and pleased to benefit from the labors of the few. You have said as much yourself, yet I am not sure you believe it." Ryalth slips her hands from his and crosses the main chamber to the cooler, where she bends and searches, before lifting out an amber bottle of Alafraan. "I did save a few bottles for us here."

   " 'Save'?"

   "You will need some in Biehl." She grins. "Someone has to take care of those details." The grin fades. "You are worried."

   "My father. He does not look strong... and he insisted on having a private talk with me." Lorn shakes his head. "Some of it, I don't understand. He practically threatened me years ago to stay away from you. He told me I must break off the relation with you, that it was not appropriate, and now he says I could not have picked a better consort anywhere, and my truthreading shows that he means such."

   "For that, for us, I am most glad." Ryalth uncorks the Alafraan and half fills two goblets, then recorks the bottle. "Perhaps the warning was to assure that you followed your heart and beliefs, and not custom."

   "It has to be... but... that would mean..." Lorn shakes his head once more. "It would mean that he doubted from the first that I would be a magus. Yet he pressed me to excel in those studies and kept telling me how a magus must love the study and use of chaos above all."

   "Is all that not true? Would you be what you are had you not done so well in those studies?"

   "No," Lorn admits. "But that would mean he expected... all that from the beginning."

   "He is your father. How could he not know?" Ryalth laughs gently. "We never expect the perception from our parents that we do from others who are wise."

   "He has given me hints, but I seldom felt his use of the chaos-glass in following me."

   "He knows you well enough that he needs no glass."

   Lorn's smile is rueful. "And all these years, I thought I directed my own course."

   "We never direct our courses solely, dearest of lancers." Ryalth extends a goblet to her consort. "Not even the highest do."

   "We like to think so." He takes the goblet. "We like to think that the man-or the woman-makes the times, not that the times make them."

   Ryalth's smile is gentle. "Thank you for including women. The original saying does not." She raises her goblet, then sips. "Much of what we think is illusion, dear consort, grasped for comfort."

   Lorn lifts his goblet as she does, then sips the Alafraan. "I'm glad I didn't have to wait another year to see you. Or have you travel all the way to the Accursed Forest."

   "As am I, but... An eightday is scarce enough to greet, let alone part."

   "Better an eightday than no time together at all."

   She nods slowly, then looks at Lorn for a long time. "I can travel to Biehl more easily... than to Jakaafra... or someplace like Syadtar or Assyadt."

   "Because it's a port city?"

   "I can make a trading run. I know Fyrad, for I grew up there, but Biehl I do not know, and it would be best for Ryalor House that I do."

   "Why Biehl?" he asks in spite of himself.

   "Jera is the closest barbarian port, and many of the coasters run between the two. I would see what they trade that we know little of." She takes another swallow of the Alafraan, far larger than is her custom. Her deep blue eyes are large and near-luminous as she looks once more at Lorn. "I will write you of trade, for I can ensure my scrolls go but to you while you are in Biehl. I would not talk more of trade this evening. Nor of duty."

   She sets the goblet on the table and moves around it toward him.

   He sets down his goblet. As their arms go around each other, Lorn wonders at the sense of vulnerability he senses beneath her competent exterior... What is he missing?

   But that wonder lasts but for a moment as their lips meet, and another type of marvel replaces the wonder.

 

 

Part II - Lorn alt, Biehl

 

 

XII

 

As Lorn walks northward from the square in Biehl where the firewagon stops, within two blocks, he reaches the harbor area. To his right are the piers, and to his left-westward-is a short row of structures-their lower levels plastered and whitewashed. Both plaster and whitewash are worn away in places, exposing the old yellow brick beneath. The second stories of those buildings that have upper levels are of weathered planks, whose whitewash has mostly flaked away.

   His eyes flick from the faded sign bearing the crossed candles of a chandlery, to a cooper's shop, and then to another building with no sign. Turning, his gear in hand, Lorn studies the three harbor piers-crude timber structures, weathered and splintered in places, not at all like the white stone piers of Cyad, Fyrad, or Summerdock. The piers jut out into the river that begins somewhere in the western reaches of the Hills of Endless Grass. Two schooners are tied at the middle pier, and an oceangoing brig at the outer one. The innermost, although empty, is more for smaller craft, Lorn suspects, and perhaps for fishing vessels unloading.

   Both piers and the small city of Biehl lie on the western side of the River Behla. On the eastern side, there is a smaller town, and but what appears to be a dilapidated single pier, part of its shoreward side rising out of a mud-bank or sandbar. From what the firewagon drivers had told him, the Mirror Lancer compound lies north of the piers and farther west on a low bluff overlooking the Northern Ocean, or that stretch of water where the Northern and Great Western Oceans meet.

   The odors of dead fish, mud, and salt water mix in the cool breeze blowing off the blue-black water north beyond the harbor. Streaks of white top the short and choppy waves in the harbor.

   Since Biehl has no carriage for hire, not that the firewagon drivers knew, Lorn resumes walking, past the outermost pier, and the brig that bears a dark blue ensign-that of Spidlar, he thinks. Ahead the ground rises, and the uneven cobblestones of the road give way to granite paving stones, cracked and no longer set evenly but still more level than the stones of the road that flanks the harbor. The handful of trees yet bear winter-gray leaves, showing that spring comes later in Biehl.

   The bluff is little more than a hill less than twenty cubits higher than the water of the harbor, and the Mirror Lancer port compound is small. That Lorn can tell even as he walks toward the gates. The yellow brick walls stand little more than five cubits, and extend less than a eighty cubits on a side away from the gates-oiled golden oak, and open.

   A single guard looks warily at the approaching Mirror Lancer officer.

   Finally, the stripling speaks. "Ser?" His voice squeaks.

   "I'm Overcaptain Lorn." He shows the lancer the seal ring. "I couldn't find a carriage; so I walked."

   "Ah... ser... there be none for hire here."

   "I suspected such. Which is the headquarters building?"

   "On the left, ser, but there be no one there but Squad Leader Helkyt, ser."

   "That's fine." As he steps through the gates, Lorn realizes that the young guard doesn't equate him with an incoming detachment commander.

   He studies the two weathered yellow-brick buildings in the middle of the compound, each long and narrow, and what appears to be a stable set against the rear wall. The roofs of all the structures are of a split gray slate, and there are patches of moss growing from between splits in the slate. Some moss also grows in the cracks between the ancient granite paving stones of the courtyard.

   An open door beckons from the headquarters building to Lorn's left, and he walks toward it. There, he steps into the foyer and sets down his gear, then moves through the archway into a corridor. On the right-hand side of the corridor is another door, ajar, and Lorn peers in. The gloomy room is shallow and broad with a dais on which is a table desk with two chairs behind it. The space before the dais is vacant, and the stone tiles of the floor are dusty. Faint cobwebs adorn the closed window shutters. : The overcaptain turns to the door on the other side of the corridor, also ajar. He looks through the span-wide opening. Inside what appears to be a study, a senior squad leader leans back in the weathered oak chair, his boots propped on a footchest of the type that contains Mirror Lancer records. His eyes are closed, and he snores, intermittently. To his right is a closed door, presumably to the commander's inner study.

   Lorn backs away from the doorway, wondering what else he may find. He leaves his gear in the foyer and walks slowly along the side of the building. Leaves have drifted into the corners between the courtyard paving stones and the bricks of the walls, scattered over dirt packed against the cracked and faded yellow bricks.

   From the building across from the one containing the port-detachment studies, three lancers emerge. They stop and look at each other. Lorn can hear the murmurs.

   "...young officer..."

   "...overcaptain's bars..."

   "...some senior commander's son... think it's the new commander?"

   "...nah... too young... only send old dungblowers here."

   As Lorn turns toward the three, the murmurs die away, and they walk briskly toward the guard at the compound gate. Lorn turns back toward the door leading into the headquarters, but before he goes more than a halfscore of steps, the squad leader who had been snoring scurries from the building toward Lorn, fumbling a soiled green garrison cap into place over thinning gray hair.

   "Ser?" The heavyset senior squad leader stops, then bows. "I'm Overcaptain Lorn. I'm here to take over command of the port detachment. Is there a commanding officer here, or did he leave before I reported?"

   "Ah, ser... Overcaptain Madlyr, he died of a flux... almost half a season ago. We'd been wondering when someone would come."

   "I'm here." Lorn pulls forth the order scroll. "I didn't get your name, Squad Leader."

   "Helkyt, ser. Helkyt." He takes the scroll. Lorn shows the seal ring.

   "Ah, yes, ser." Helkyt pauses. "That your gear in the headquarters foyer, ser?"

   "It is. I thought I'd take a look around... while you were resting." Helkyt flushes, but continues. "If you'd like, we can go to your quarters, and you can drop your gear there first."

   "That would be fine."

   Lorn steps past the squad leader with the thinning blond hair and the overround, jowled face, and walks into the headquarters foyer, where he reclaims his bags. He nods to Helkyt, who turns and walks northward along the side of the building.

   The commander's quarters are on the second level of the headquarters building at the end away from the entrance Lorn had found first. There is a staircase directly up from the foyer, and the hollowed sunstone steps are dusty. The six-paneled door is of golden oak, and there are separations in the wood around the panels.

   With the bronze key Helkyt has produced, Lorn unlocks and opens the door and steps into a small square foyer. The floor is of alternating green and cream diamond-shaped ceramic tiles. Lorn looks to the right. Through the archway is a small room, a study with a built-in bookcase, and a narrow desk. Before the desk is a straight-backed oak chair with a scrolled back- an ancient chair, or an old chair with an ancient design.

   On the left is an open door that shows a small bedchamber with a narrow single bed.

   Lorn steps ahead into the large main room, which contains two settees, upholstered in a green velvet, two armchairs and a low table, and several armless chairs set against the walks. Two of the chairs flank a sideboard. On the left outer wall are four narrow windows. On the right inner wall is a set of open double doors that show a larger bedchamber. Lorn steps through the doors and sets the bags on the green-tiled floor. A modest double-sized bed without posts and with a low headboard is flanked by two tables with tarnished bronze lamps set on each. A faded green shimmercloth spread covers the bed. On one side of the small door that leads to a bathing chamber is a dressing table. On the other are two oversized armoires, set side by side. The bedchamber also has four narrow windows that match those in the main room.

   "Ser... Some commanders, years back, ser, they brought their consorts."

   "Mine might visit," Lorn says, "but she won't stay long."

   "Ser?"

   "She's the head of a trading house."

   "Yes, ser."

   Lorn turns and leaves the bedchamber.

   "Ser... ah... I'll tell Daelya that you'll be needing the quarters cleaned."

   Lorn nods. "If she could do that this afternoon while you and I talk over the situation here..."

   "Yes, ser. She is your cook, also, ser."

   The remaining rooms of the quarters consist of a dining room with a table large enough to seat a dozen, a kitchen with a huge ceramic stove that must be generations old, a breakfast room, and a back pantry, off which are service side stairs down to the courtyard.

   Lorn nods to himself as he completes the quick tour and studies Helkyt. "I'd like to look at the barracks, and the stables, and everything else."

   "Now... ser?"

   "Now." Lorn smiles. "How will I know what you are talking about unless I see it?"

   "Yes, ser." Helkyt's professional tone does not quite cover the dismay and resignation in his voice, but he turns and leads Lorn back down the steps. They cross the dusty paved courtyard to the other long building, entering through the double doors in the middle.

   The odors of age, urine, and spoiled food assault Lorn before he has taken his second step into the barracks building. He glances around. The plan is similar to that of the barracks at Isahl, with two barracks areas flanking an open center mustering area.

   Lorn turns left.

   "Ah, ser... The north end has been closed for some time."

   Lorn nods and keeps walking past the columns. While the bunk frames remain, it is almost impossible to discern them for the discarded materials scattered over and around them. Lorn can make out rotted timbers, empty and broken barrels, a twisted firelance shaft, several sets of shutters, and splotches of liquids on the tiles.

   He turns and walks back through the mustering area, heading toward the area in use.

   "Officer in the barracks!" Helkyt announces.

   The first two bunks are unoccupied, bare horsehair mattresses sitting in frames, without even footchests at their base.

   Two lancers stand before footchests at the next set of bunks. Both are young, certainly younger than Lorn had been when he began lancer training. They wear but smallclothes. Lorn raises his eyebrows.

   "They had guard duty at the gates last night, ser."

   Lorn nods. "You can get some rest for now."

   "Yes, ser," the two reply in near unison.

   The remainder of the bunks are empty, but blankets lie strewn carelessly over mattresses, and dust has gathered in corners. Three of the footchests are open, and one lacks hinges and a lid.

   Lorn's boots find sticky patches on the tiles as he walks along the barracks bay. He turns and walks back past the reclining lancers and out through the mustering area. Finally, he stands in the clean air outside the barracks.

   He looks at Helkyt. "Let's see the rest."

   "Yes, ser."

   As he follows the rotund squad leader, Lorn only hopes that the stables, the armory, the storerooms, and other sections of the compound will prove less in need of cleaning and repair.

 

 

XIII

 

On the first morning after his arrival in Biehl, Lorn sets the list he has written up on the wide desk in the administrative headquarters. Then he surveys the room more carefully than he had the day before. Like everything else in the Mirror Lancer compound at Biehl, the study Lorn has as a compound commander is larger than those he has seen elsewhere-and far older. None of the five manuals in the built-in oak bookcase has been opened in years, if not generations, as Lorn discovers when lifting one and discovering that a thin strip of leather from the binding remains stuck to the wood of the shelves.

   Fine cracks adorn the antique golden oak table desk, and he has never seen the like of either the ornate swirled bronze lamps or the wall sconces in which they rest. The chair behind the desk is large-and heavy. Dust puffs from the wide green cushion that covers the seat when Lorn plumps it. He rubs his nose, managing not to sneeze.

   The window is stiff, but he eases it open enough to let in some of the moister and cleaner outside air. Then he reseats himself behind the desk, glancing toward the two chests filled with less than perfectly kept records, the study of which had occupied much of the previous evening.

   After a deep breath, he clears his throat and calls, "Helkyt!"

   The door opens, and the squad leader appears. "Yes, ser?"

   Lorn motions for Helkyt to take one of the chairs on the other side of the table desk. He waits for the man to seat himself, and for a bit longer, before he begins. "We have more than a few matters to take care of around here, Helkyt," Lorn says with a cheer he scarcely feels.

   "Yes, ser." Helkyt's voice is even, wary.

   "First, best you know why I was sent here."

   "That had puzzled me, ser, I must admit."

   "You may have heard that the barbarians have been increasing their attacks to the east and the south of here. Isahl, Inividra, Assyadt-they've all had more and more attacks by larger and larger groups."

   "I hadn't heard that, ser, but there's much we don't hear in Biehl."

   "The Majer-Commander needs more trained lancers." Lorn waits.

   "Ah... so..."

   Lorn nods. "You understand that with the barbarians becoming more active... well... the Emperor does need more lancers in Assyadt... and we can either train them or find ourselves being transferred. All of us."

   Helkyt tries to avoid swallowing.

   "We both would rather recruit and train more lancers. That means we'll have to clean up the north wing of the barracks, and start acquiring more mounts, and sabres. We can only do a little of the firelance training here, because those lances are needed elsewhere, but I'll be seeing if we can be sent a few more, just in case the barbarians decide to come westward from Jera. It also means that we'll have to be ready to begin training no later than the turn of summer."

   "The turn of summer, ser?"

   The overcaptain gives the senior squad leader another smile. "I'm certain you can help me work this out, Helkyt. I'd much rather rely on someone of your experience in Biehl than to break in someone new."

   "I am sure we can meet the Majer-Commander's requirements, ser. Ah... will there be other officers... company captains?"

   "I was led to believe that I have the first opportunity here, Helkyt. I'd like to be able to work it out between us. If it proves to take too long, though, there could be several officers arriving, and the Majer-Commander would just bring in an entire new cadre."

   "I am most sure we can work out matters, ser. Most sure."

   Lorn leans back in his chair, but only slightly. "I am most pleased that you feel that way. Both the Majer-Commander and His Mightiness are known to reward success as surely as they punish failure. We would both prefer the rewards, I believe."

   "Yes, ser. Yes, ser." Helkyt nods his head twice, quickly.

   "Now... let's talk about what we can do immediately. The payroll first, because it affects how many new lancers we can train. I've been looking at those records."

   Helkyt remains impassive in his chair, but his eyes flicker.

   "The numbers don't add up." The overcaptain shrugs. "We cannot change the past, and I won't pass judgment on what has happened." He pauses. "But it won't keep happening. We have a payroll enough for two companies of lancers. We have less than one company. We aren't recruiting that many young lancers, and I would guess many of their skills are suspect. So... we'll have to make sure the lancers who aren't so good get retrained, as well. I'd like you to begin organizing the training program-both for recruits and for those who need more training. Pick the two best riding lancers for mount and formation training and the two best for sabres. They can be the same men, or they can be different. I may help out, as I can." Lorn frowns. "At first, with the sabre training, we'd best pad the blades to begin with, at least until the younger ones know which side has an edge and which does not."

   Helkyt nods his head up and down slowly, then takes out a piece of squarish cloth and blots his forehead.

   Lorn ignores the gesture and continues. "I'll meet with you and with the men you've chosen first thing tomorrow." He looks at the next item on his handwritten list. "The pay chest is the next thing. There's much of that payroll that seems to have disappeared. I'm sure that if you looked, you could find some of it. We're going to need it." Lorn smiles at Helkyt. "I'm also sure that if a good portion of the missing silvers and golds turn up and we accomplish what the Majer-Commander has in mind, he wouldn't want to bother himself with sending more officers here."

   Helkyt nods slowly. "There are perhaps somewhat less than a hundred golds in the chest in the strong room, and some two hundred silvers. I might be able to find some others, placed elsewhere for safekeeping, now that we know what the Majer-Commander has in mind."

   "I'm certain you will do your best." Lorn smiles briefly. "Now, how does our payroll get here?"

   "We get a chest every other eightday," replies the senior squad leader. "I take the travel chest to the Emperor's Enumerators, and they fill it, and the guards and I bring it here and put it in the strongroom until we pay the men on sevenday."

   "When you do next receive that payroll?"

   "The day after tomorrow."

   "Good. From now on, each time you do that, we'll count it here in the study, and we'll both sign a record showing how much we received." .;

   "Yes, ser. I'll talk to the enumerators."

   "That's a good idea. They should know what the Majer-Commander has in mind, too, especially before they provide the next payroll."

   "I would think so, ser."

   "I'll have to meet with them. Perhaps we should do it together."

   "Ah... yes, ser."

   Lorn smiles again. "I want to make sure that we're supplying them with the services they need."

   "You said your consort was the head of a trading house, ser?"

   "Yes. I've learned a great deal from her."

   Helkyt smiles. "I am certain the enumerators will wish to learn that the commander has some understanding of trade and merchanters."

   "You might send them a message to that effect, but I think we should meet with them tomorrow, as early as possible."

   "Yes, ser."

   Lorn glances at his handwritten list again. "The north wing of the barracks. We'll need to hire a cart or a wagon and carry all the junk off. Is there a rag-picker here in Biehl that might pay us something for the cloth and the wood?"

   Helkyt's face blanks.

   "You need to find out if there is. Also, we'll need to see about whether there enough cuprite for the coppersmith to pay us..."

   Lorn stops as Helkyt's eyes begin to glaze over. "I've offered enough for now. Why don't you start on working out who can do the training?" He stands. "We'll talk later."

   Helkyt lurches to his feet. "I will have those names for you shortly, ser. Most shortly."

   The smile does not leave Lorn's face until the senior squad leader closes the door behind him.

 

 

XIV

 

In the spring evening, sitting at the desk in his quarters' study, Lorn examines the payroll and expense-draw figures once more. He shakes his head. Without additional golds, he cannot afford both mounts and saddles for two full companies, even if he does not recruit the second new squad until midsummer. He may be able to draw upon the District Guards. He shakes his head once more, then jots an addition to his list. He needs to send a message to the District Guard Commander, and then visit the commander, for another aspect of his duties is to ascertain and verify the numbers and capabilities of those guards-something that has not been done in years. He sets aside his list and picks up the payroll figures again.

   After yet another series of mental calculations, he sets aside the reckonings, knowing that unless he can obtain good horses more cheaply or saddles or... something... he will not reach his goals, and so many of those goals are but within his own mind. Knowing what he must do, he tries not to dwell on the audacity required. Yet, without audacity his future is dim indeed. And without knowledge as well, he reminds himself.

   He laughs to himself. Still... he assumes that a man can make the times, when it is not at all clear that such is possible, or even that the times make the man. He will see; he must see.

   He slips the chaos-glass from the single drawer and sets it on the polished wood. While Lorn knows that he must be successful in using the glass in order to survive and prosper, it has been difficult enough to follow those in the glass with whom he has little connection. Yet a chaos-glass would prove most useful as a battlefield tool-if only to see where the barbarians-or any enemy-might be riding.

   Lorn concentrates. This time takes longer, far longer, than when he has sought individuals he has met or known about, before the silver mists clear and display a view of riders. The image displayed is that of a raider band. Lorn's only problem is that he has no idea where the barbarians might be, or what might be their destination.

   After releasing the image, he takes a deep breath. Will he have to use the glass to map the northwest section of the Hills of Endless Grass? Or perhaps if he tries to call up an image of Jera?

   He concentrates once more-and is rewarded with the vision of a town that appears much as Biehl must from above-except Jera appears to be on the north side of the River Jeranya. The sparkling in Lorn's eyes slowly turns into needles, then narrow stilettos that stab at the back of his eyes as he tries to make out individual sections of the town in the glass.

   When he finally releases the image, his head is pounding, and tiny knives continue to jab through his eyes and into his skull. He sits with his eyes closed, well into the darkness, massaging his forehead, trying to rub away the throbbing that follows extensive use of the chaos-glass. Finally, Lorn opens his eyes, slips the glass into the drawer, stands, and lights the lamp. Then he takes out the pen and a fresh sheet of paper and begins to write, slowly, carefully. First come the letters to his parents and Jerial, then a shorter one to Myryan, and finally, the one with which he would have preferred to have begun. But had he started with it, the others might not have been written.

   When he is finished with the last letter, the one to Ryalth, he looks over the scroll he has written-drafted most carefully, since he has no way to send a scroll through merchanters he can trust and thus must dispatch this scroll through the normal firewagon/courier system.

 

My dearest,

   The trip to Biehl was itself most uneventful, but coming here has been far different from anything either of us could have imagined. To begin with, there was no one to relieve, since the previous overcaptain was an older officer who died over a season ago. As result of his untimely death, even more has been required than I had first thought because much has been neglected. The city, rather more of a large and old town, sits on the west side of the River Behla, to the south of the Northern Ocean... When the winds blow, it can be chill indeed...

   It appears as though my duty here will also require recruiting and training young lancers so that I may provide trained men for service elsewhere, as required by the Majer-Commander. This is in addition to refurbishing the compound and providing lancers as necessary for the Emperor's Enumerators, who have done without such support and presence at least since the death of the previous overcaptain.

   With quarters far larger than I ever could have imagined, and even suitable for a consort-at least to visit, although they are ornate in the old style, I do have some space in which to think, and to read in quiet. And I have a serving woman, consorted to one of the older lancers, who cleans and also cooks my evening meal. Although her meals are simple and plain, they are far better than the food at my earlier duty assignments... Because all has been so busy in dealing with the unsettled situation created by the untimely death of the previous overcaptain, I still have not had a chance to spend much time in the town itself or to determine what wares might be unique... but I have not forgotten that such is necessary...

   I do miss you, and trust that all continues well with you.

 

   He sets the scroll aside to dry, and sits back for a moment in the ancient and not terribly comfortable chair. Somehow, the quarters remind Lorn of the silver-covered book, almost as if they call up the time of the ancient writer. Biehl is an old town, and it is possible that the compound walls may date from the early years of Cyador, but the quarters date back perhaps three generations, certainly no longer.

   With the scrolls still drying, Lorn picks up the slim silver volume, as unmarked as when Ryalth had first pressed it upon him, despite its being carried back and forth across Cyador. He opens it and fingers his way through the pages, until he reaches one of the more enigmatic verses.

 

   I hear the lonely Magi'i

   imprisoning their chaos-souls

   in the corridors of their quarter,

   forging firewagons, ships, and firespears

   to ensure an old world never reappears.

   I hear the altage souls lifting lances

   against what the future past advances,

   while time-towers hold at bay

   the winters of another day,

   what we would not face

   what we could not erase...

   until those towers crumble into sand

   and Cyad can no longer stand.

 

   Lorn frowns as he pages through the book and finds the other verse, the one that shows Cyad as far more. He reads the first two stanzas out loud.

 

   In this season, the stones are sharp and clear,

   from decisions once made in hope and fear,

   those traditions grafted from stars long lost,

   distant battles fought without thought of cost

   lands wrenched from the grasp of order's dead hand,

   that refugees could build a fruitful land.

 

   Cyad, from your green and streets of white stone

   will come the first peace this poor land has known.

   From the Rational Stars and the three ways

   will follow hope and justice for all days...

 

   Lorn murmurs the rest of the poem's words to himself once. The same writer, and in one case he has written of the greatness of Cyad, and in the other, of its inevitable fall. Lorn frowns. Cyad must not fall-not in his life.

   He closes the book slowly. The writer had felt all those years ago that the towers would fail, and yet he had persevered. Lorn frowns. Had he? The book offers no guarantee of such. There are no verses saying what became of the writer, nor any hints as to how the slim volume came into the hands of Ryalth's mother.

   Lorn glances out the window into the darkness that has fallen on the compound. He is trying to rebuild the garrison and compound. Can it be done? Can Cyad be re-formed to retain its greatness without firewagons, without fireships, without firelances? Will it remain Cyad?

   And what is Cyad? He wonders, still without an answer to his father's question, not one that satisfies him. All those questions, and the melancholy words of the ancient writer, bring up once more the other question, simple enough, yet also without a simple answer. Do the times make a man, or can a man make the times? Was the ancient writer produced by the pressures of creating Cyador, merely reacting to those pressures? Or did he direct them? Since Lorn knows not who the man was, he has no answers, and the words of the writer offer no absolute assurances of either.

   Lorn shakes his head, ruefully, yawning. Such philosophical speculations will not help in accomplishing what he must. He yawns once more, then stands and turns out the light. He has much to do on the morrow, as he does on every morrow.

 

 

XV

 

The two men stand on the end of a white stone pier at which no vessels are tied. Under the heavy clouds of a chill spring day, the wind creates small whitecaps on the choppy gray-blue waters of the harbor of Cyad. Halfway toward the shore are two groups of guards, each by a separate bollard. One set of guards is clad in green uniforms, with gold trim, the second and smaller group in shapeless blue. All the guards watch the two merchanters who face each other.

   Both men are beardless and wear blue shimmercloth. One is ponderous, tall, heavy, and his brown eyes seem almost hidden by heavy lids. His dark brown hair, though trimmed carefully, is thinning and lank and flops in the wind. The second merchanter is of average height, and trim. His hair is sandy-colored, tinged with silver-gray, and his eyes are hazel.

   The heavy merchanter looks down at the smaller man. "Most honored Clan Head Tasjan, I have heard that there are those in the Dyjani Clan who murmur about the need for change among the merchanters."

   "There are always those who wish change." Tasjan's voice is a mellow and deep bass, surprisingly for one so slender.

   "The words are for more than change. There is talk about who will be Emperor."

   "There have always been some who ask, 'Is it not time for a merchanter Emperor? Can we not support with our blades and golds someone who will live in the years to come? Can we not do away with those who revere the cracked and failing vase of the past?' " Tasjan laughs. "I have heard such questions since I was a boy. So have you."

   "Such questions are dangerous now," Bluoyal observes. "Because the Emperor is aging, Bluoyal? Or because he is less than satisfied with his Merchanter Advisor?"

   "Remember, Tasjan, I was the one who calmed Fuyol when he wo have hired blades to dismember you and your heirs, and the one who counseled patience."

   "I appreciate your efforts, my old and valued friend." Tasjan shrugs. "Yet none would accept his golds, and now he is dying, and all look the other way."

   "There was the matter of a Dyjani trade plaque," Bluoyal points out. "And a Brystan sabre refinished in cupridium. And the Dyjani are the ones who trade most in sabres from Brysta-the only ones, as I recall."

   "Everyone knows we alone trade in such arms, excepting, of course, Bluyet House, which also does, but we know that the Emperor's Merchanter Advisor is far above suspicion," Tasjan replies. "That is why it was meaningless. It was an easy way to cast suspicion."

   "And why," asks Bluoyal with a laugh, "would anyone wish to cast suspicion upon the most honorable Dyjani Clan? Because you are all so beloved?"

   Tasjan returns the laugh. "We are most beloved, for we are the most successful at competing with the Hamorians in all that they do."

   "Beloved or not, most honored and ancient friend, now is not the time for merchanters to raise questions. Time favors us more than action. Rynst grows older by the day, and without him, the Mirror Lancers will not know which way to point their blades. Chyenfel holds to life by sheer force of will against chaos, and when Kharl succeeds him, chaos will meet chaos, for the Second Magus will not support young Rustyl as a successor to the Malachite Throne-nor anyone supported by Rynst." Bluoyal shakes his head. "The Second Magus would be Emperor, and yet he cannot see that few even within the Quarter of the Magi'i will support him."

   "He is a powerful mage, as is his son," Tasjan counters. "The fourth magus, who has balanced all, is failing, many say, and his daughter is consorted to Kharl's son. Many would support Kharl because he has a son, and for the sake of the daughter of the fourth magus, and to ensure that there would be an heir. The Empire cannot stand another Emperor without heirs, not in these times."

   "And when the Second Magus fails... then what?" asks Bluoyal. "Will you then offer yourself as the man of the merchanters-or of the people?"

   "I cannot imagine that happening," Tasjan replies.

   Despite the cool wind, Bluoyal blots his forehead with a pale blue square of cloth that momentarily covers his entire visage. His brown eyes are hard as he studies the slender, sandy-haired merchanter. "You have talked of the failure of the Magi'i to others. Why will you not admit it to me?"

   "Because you meet too often with Chyenfel and Kharl." Tasjan shrugs. "I will not admit such even now. I do believe, as do you, that there will come a time when a merchanter must sit upon the Malachite Throne. When that time will be, I do not know. Nor do you."

   "You wager that time will be soon, and you are the merchanter, and your guards under Sasyk will make sure that at least some will make you such an offer."

   Tasjan smiles. "While I would scarce refuse such, who would ever offer that to me-the head of the oh-so-beloved Dyjani Clan? As for Sasyk, you know that he is but to protect the interests of the House."

   The older and heavier merchanter shakes his head ponderously. "You play with chaos-flame, my friend."

   "You will be burned by such flames sooner than I, Bluoyal, for you are far closer to them, and Cyad is less than kind to those who cannot balance the chaos of chaos and the chaos of man."

   "You seem most concerned for my welfare."

   "I am, indeed, for if you fail, who will be Merchanter Advisor?" asks Tasjan. "I would not wish it to be Veljan, for reasons we all know. Nor Vyanat, who is all that you claim I am. And beloved as I am, who would wish me? Does that mean we would see someone like Kernys? Or the lady trader, the one who makes us look magnanimous in our petty revenges? No... I would much prefer you not fail."

   "For now," suggests Bluoyal.

   "But, of course." Tasjan laughs. "Would you have me lie outright?"

   Bluoyal laughs as well, even as he lifts the wide blue cloth to blot his perspiring face once more.

 

 

XVI

 

In the early-morning light that brightens his overcaptain's study, Lorn pores over the map of Biehl before him, trying to link what he has seen so far in the town with the old cartographic information. Some material he can see is outdated, for the map shows four piers in the harbor, and several structures that may have been warehouses that exist no longer.

   His earlier perusal of the records in Helkyt's study also shows that at one time, the commandant of the compound had been a majer or sub-majer, and that there had been three companies quartered in the compound. He straightens and shakes his head, knowing he must act quickly and decisively, even before he knows enough to do so. He also knows that such actions must show as little as possible, for an intelligent officer who is young for his rank is already suspect.

   "Ser?" Helkyt peers in the study door. "Have you been here long?"

   "Since around dawn, I think." Lorn laughs. "Come on in and tell me about the Emperor's Enumerators. Close the door."

   Helkyt closes the door and takes the seat nearest the wall. He brushes back a thin and long strand of blond hair, unconsciously swirling it over the top of his scalp where most of his hair has already vanished. "Mayhap... mayhap, ser, as you said, best you know about the Emperor's Enumerators here in Biehl, afore you visit such." Helkyt's brow is perspiring, despite the cool air in the study.

   "Tell me," Lorn says easily.

   "There be three enumerators-Flutak, Neabyl, and Comyr. Senior Enumerator Flutak," Helkyt says, "he is in charge of administering and collecting the tariffs here. Neabyl inspects the vessels to ensure they carry no contraband, and Comyr is the most junior. He will do whatever the elder enumerators request."

   "How long has Flutak been the senior enumerator?"

   Helkyt shrugs uneasily. "He has been such long before I was posted here."

   "And you have been here?"

   "Near-on eight years, ser."

   "Does Flutak spend much time with the local traders and merchants? Or does he have relations among any merchant house?"

   Helkyt moistens his lips. Finally, he speaks. "Not that I'd be knowing, ser, not for certain. Some say he has powerful relatives in Cyad. In Biehl, he is said to be close to the olive-grower Baryat... mayhap others, but those I've not heard."

   Lorn nods. "What about Neabyl?"

   "He came but five years ago, and Comyr three."

   "Do any of them have consorts here?"

   "Flutak has none, though it is said he has a mistress, the youngest daughter of Baryat. Baryat holds many lands to the south and west. There it is drier and more sunny."

   "Are many barrels of olives shipped from Biehl?"

   "More olives than most anything else, ser. Excepting clay, and that is worth far less."

   What Lorn does not understand-or fears he does-is the most obvious nature of what Helkyt reveals.

   "And Neabyl?"

   "His consort lives in Summerdock, and it is said that she will not so much as visit Biehl. Comyr-he is young, and has none, none that any would know."

   "I don't suppose you would know who those powerful relatives of Flutak might be, or whether they might be related to any in major trading houses?"

   "That I would not, ser."

   "You can return to whatever you were working on, Helkyt. We'll depart to see the enumerators in a bit. I have a few notes I would like to make."

   "Yes, ser." Helkyt rises gingerly.

   Lorn adds several items to the personal list that has gotten alarmingly long in less than the full day since he arrived in Biehl, then leaves his study.

   In the outer study, Helkyt looks up from a stack of papers. "Ser?"

   "I'll meet you at the stable."

   "Be there in a moment, ser, if you will."

   Lorn nods and slips out, past the door to the unused room across the corridor, the room that seems designed to be an audience chamber or some sort of official function space. Outside, the wind is stronger than earlier, but warmer and out of the south.

   He is met at the stable by an ostler who, like many of those at Biehl, is older-white-haired and missing a good fraction of his teeth. "I be Chulhyr, ser." He looks at the uniform speculatively.

   "I'm Lorn, the new overcaptain. I arrived yesterday, but you were not here, Helkyt said." Lorn smiles. "I need a mount. If you could recommend a good one..."

   "You be wanting a stallion, ser?"

   Lorn laughs. "I'd like a mount that will do as I wish and not argue about it."

   The ostler laughs back. "Yes, ser."

   As Chulhyr is leading out a chestnut mare, Helkyt hurries across the courtyard and arrives, breathing heavily. The ostler looks at Lorn. "She be having a will, but a firm hand be all you need."

   "Thank you." Lorn studies the mare, then swings himself up into the saddle, where he checks the Brystan sabre. Then he and Helkyt ride across the courtyard.

   "Have you found anyone to cart off the rubbish?" Lorn asks as they ride through the compound gates and past another too-young lancer guard.

   "I'll be knowing that this afternoon, ser."

   "And you'll have names for instructors?"

   "Yes, ser."

   Lorn nods. "Tell me about the places we pass, if you would."

   "Yes, ser." Helkyt clears his throat. "There be the warehouse for the olive-growers, where they store the olives while they season, and beyond that be the potters, save that Aluyt casts but the large jars for seed oils and the like...."

   Lorn listens as they ride back toward the harbor, trying to fix the names and the structures in his mind, and match them to the map he has studied earlier. As when he had first entered Biehl, he sees few souls out and around the ancient town.

   The enumerators' single-story building stands west of the piers, and slightly to the south of the chandlery, a square structure fifty cubits on a side, partly hidden from the rest of Biehl by a tall hedge. The green shutters are freshly painted, the panes of the windows clean of the salt that streaks the panes of the lancer barracks and, indeed, even of the windows of Lorn's quarters.

   Lorn and Helkyt rein up at the side of the structure, where there are several stone hitching-posts, dismount, and tether their horses, before making their way to the square arched doorway. Inside is a narrow table, at which is seated a brown-haired young man in blue, whose tunic bears thin cream-and-green piping.

   "Master Squad Leader," says the enumerator.

   "Comyr," returns Helkyt, "this be Overcaptain Lorn. He is the new commander of the Mirror Lancers, and he has come to call on the senior enumerators."

   "They had heard of such, and both will be glad to see you, Overcaptain." Comyr bows. "If you would but come with me." Comyr ushers them through a set of double doors into a large room, similar to the one in the lancers' headquarters building, except two men are seated at the table on the dais, with several stacks of paper between them.

   The two rise. Both senior enumerators wear the same type of uniform: blue tunics over green trousers, with cream-colored web belts. On the forearms of their sleeves are two gold slashes.

   "Senior Enumerators, this is Overcaptain Lorn," Helkyt announces. "Overcaptain, Flutak... and Neabyl."

   Flutak bows. He is a broad man, almost totally bald, but with a muscular form that any barbarian might indeed admire. Although he is cleanshaven, his eyebrows are white and bushy, and white hairs straggle from his ears. "I am pleased to see that Biehl once more has a capable lancer officer." His voice is a mellow tenor.

   "And I, too." Although Neabyl is small, black-haired, and wiry, he speaks with a deep baritone.

   Lorn bows but slightly in response.

   "And what might we be doing for you, Overcaptain?" asks Flutak.

   "I was just here to tell you that I have been sent to Biehl by the Majer-Commander to train and rebuild the garrison, and to take a more active role in supporting the Emperor's Enumerators." Lorn smiles easily. "I thought it best you know that."

   "Perhaps we should talk for a moment." Flutak moves gracefully toward the corner of the room and returns with two armless oak chairs. He sets one at each end of the oblong table. All four men seat themselves at the narrow oblong table.

   Flutak looks at Lorn, as if suggesting he begin.

   "As you may know," Lorn says slowly, "the barbarians have increased their attacks in many places on the northern borders of Cyad, and more trained lancers are needed to deal with these attacks. It was noted that Biehl has both the space and the facilities to recruit and train young lancers, and that the payroll is adequate to handle such." Lorn smiles. "So it is that I find myself here."

   Flutak smiles easily, a smile that reminds Lorn of the late Majer Maran. "We have indeed heard of the depredations that the Mirror Lancers have faced in the field against the barbarians, and many had thought that the compound might even be closed, and its lancers sent elsewhere, for certainly lancers are scarce needed in Biehl itself. So I am most glad that is not the case, and so will those merchants who sell to the compound and the lancers."

   "Yet, it is passing strange that more have not arrived with you," observes Neabyl.

   Lorn shrugs. "It is scarcely strange. The Majer-Commander believes this task can be accomplished by an overcaptain. If it cannot, doubtless a majer and an undercaptain will follow. There may be an undercaptain before long, in any event, but it makes little sense for him to arrive until there are tasks for him to undertake."

   The faintest flicker of a shared glance passes between the two senior enumerators.

   "I understand that you inspect the cargos being ported here, and collect the imposts on such, and ensure that contraband, such as iron weapons and the like, does not makes its way from vessels trading here. What other duties do you perform that a lancer would be unlikely to have great knowledge of?"

   "We provide the payroll for the compound," says Neabyl with a smile.

   "That I understood, and for such we are grateful." After a moment, Lorn asks, "And I suppose you keep records of the ships that port so that one may compare from season to season and year to year?"

   "That we do, and send the tariff revenues to Cyad."

   "And perhaps with a stronger lancer presence, tariff revenues to the Emperor might indeed increase."

   "The enumerators have never needed to rely on the lancers for that," suggests Flutak.

   "Then, you are indeed fortunate here, for that is not so in all ports," Lorn replies evenly. "In any case, I did wish to inform you of that, and to assure you that, because of my deep and abiding interest in trade, I am indeed willing to support your efforts to carry out your duties to the Emperor and the Land of Light, as may be required by the Emperor and the Majer-Commander..." Lorn pauses, then adds, "and, of course, by you... as necessary."

   "Overcaptain Madlyr had begun to take some interest in tariffs and trade... but he died rather suddenly after taking such an interest," observes Flutak smoothly.

   "That was most unfortunate." Lorn smiles, his eyes cold. He concentrates on fixing the man's face in his mind. "But perhaps it will be to everyone's advantage that the garrison here is restored with the protection of trade in mind."

   "We would all look to the advantages of all," agrees Flutak. "I see you do not maintain quarters here," Lorn observes before either enumerator can follow up on his last words.

   "There is little reason to do such. Biehl has heretofore been such a peaceful port, with little need of lancers and guards."

   "Of that I am certain, and certain it will continue as such," Lorn agrees, "for the lancers are being trained for their abilities against the barbarians, and there certainly are none here."

   "No, indeed, Overcaptain."

   Lorn rises. "I do thank you both, and I look forward to working with you as most necessary." He bows fractionally. The enumerators rise more slowly. "It is good to see you, a young and vigorous overcaptain here in Biehl, and we do hope that our experience will prove of assistance to you, Overcaptain," replies Flutak. "And that you will see fit to draw upon it."

   "My thanks to you, and I am most certain that I will draw on your experience." The overcaptain inclines his head a last time before he turns and departs.

   Lorn does not speak again until he has mounted the chestnut and they are passing the harbor piers on the return to the compound. "They have a new building, one of the few I have seen in Biehl."

   "It is but four years since it was built." Lorn studies the piers. The brig and one of the schooners have sailed, but a fishing boat is tied at the innermost wharf, where baskets of fish are being unloaded into a small cart.

   "They did not seem pleased," suggests Helkyt.

   "I doubt they are." Lorn laughs, "Lancer officers are never seen as totally welcome, but I am certain that they will be helpful and most supportive. I need to jot down several things, Helkyt, when we get back to the study. Then, after that, we may need the mounts again."

   "Yes, ser." Helkyt remains silent as they continue riding, the expressions on his face varying from concern to puzzlement as he occasionally casts a sidelong glance at Lorn.

   Two lancers are sparring almost desultorily in the shadowed northeast corner of the compound as Lorn and Helkyt ride to the stable. Lorn nods to himself.

   "How she be, Overcaptain?" asks the ostler after Lorn reins up outside the stable and dismounts.

   "Fine, but I will be needing her for a longer ride shortly."

   "The exercise, that she can use."

   "She will be getting more." Lorn smiles before turning and walking quickly across the courtyard. Helkyt scurries to keep pace with him.

   Once back in his study, Lorn begins to jot down all his impressions, and where and about what the enumerators had lied. It seemed like almost every other sentence uttered by Flutak bore either a degree of untruth or a veiled threat, and Lorn has two sheets of paper before he is finished. He shakes his head before he calls the squad leader. "Yes, ser?"

   "Helkyt, we're going to take a ride in a few moments. It may take a large part of this afternoon as well. Do you know where Flutak and Neabyl maintain their quarters?"

   "Ah... It is said..." Lorn raises his eyebrows. "Yes, ser."

   "Good. We will take a ride, with several of the local lancers who may know about Biehl. You will point out all the places any overcaptain should know. Those will include the dwellings or quarters of the enumerators, prominent local merchanters, shipowners, factors... any crafters who might supply goods for the compound. It would be well for me to know such."

   "Yes, ser. That I can see."

   Lorn stands. "I will meet you in the stable in a few moments. I need to get something from my quarters."

   Helkyt nods.

   "And you need to find two lancers who were raised here and know the town and the gossip."

   "Yes, ser."

   Lorn ushers the senior squad leader out, then closes the door to his own study, and walks out into the courtyard, along the headquarters building until he reaches the main stairs to his own spaces at the north end. The dust has been swept from the quarters, and the aroma of baking bread comes from the antique oven, although Daelya is nowhere in sight.

   Lorn reclaims the chaos-glass from its hiding place in the armoire under his smallclothes and carries it into the front study. There, he closes the door and slides the bolt in place before he takes out the chaos-glass and concentrates.

   The silver mists appear, then fade, and a figure swims into view. Flutak sits alone at the oblong table. His brow furrows, and he glances out the window. The enumerator mutters something, but no one joins him while Lorn watches.

   Lorn finally releases the image. Flutak definitely bears watching.

   The overcaptain locks the door and hurries down the front steps to the courtyard and across to the stable where Helkyt and two lancers wait, already mounted. In the warm afternoon sunlight that pours through a clear green-blue sky, Chulhyr holds the reins to the chestnut.

   "Thank you, Chulhyr. She's a good mount."

   The ostler bows, and retreats.

   Helkyt gestures to the two lancers. "This is Nayhul, and this Kurbyl." Nayhul is brown-haired and older, his face bearing a certain weathering, while Kurbyl is black-haired and fresh-faced.

   "Good." Lorn mounts the chestnut. "You two and Squad Leader Helkyt are going to give me a tour of Biehl."

   The three nod.

   "I'd like to ride back along the harbor road, and the piers, and have you show me the crafters and important factors in town first, then the dwellings of the more noted local families," Lorn explains as the four ride out through the gates.

   As they head down the slope, Nayhul coughs gently. "What is it, Nayhul?"

   The older lancer gestures to the right, to the west, at a large section dug out of the hillside that adjoins the one on which the compound sits. "There be the clay quarries of Jahlyr and his family. Fine clay for china, and crockery, so fine that the Spidlarians ship it all the way to Spidlaria," offers one of the young lancers. "And even some from Hamor."

   "He is wealthy?" Lorn asks.

   "Most so. Beyond, you see the villa?"

   Lorn studies the brick structures on the far side of the hill, whose roofs and upper levels alone are visible from the road. "It looks large."

   "They have many dwellings there, and stables, and a warehouse, and even a pool for bathing."

   "Is there a large tariff on clay?" Lorn asks Helkyt.

   "That... I would not know."

   They pass the olive warehouse and then near the ocean piers. At the outermost pier in the harbor rides a two-masted deep-sea vessel, with an ensign of red and gold-Hamorian. "Do you know what the Hamorians come here for?" Lorn asks. "I cannot imagine that there is great enough wealth here for them to offload large cargoes."

   "They buy most of all salted fish," offers Kurbyl. "My sire has sold some. And the china at times, and olives."

   "I take it you didn't like being a fisherman," Lorn says. "I much prefer a mount to a boat, ser. And a dry bunk." The other riders laugh at the wry tone of the youngest. "Anything else the Hamorians buy?"

   "Mayhap some scented oils," ventures Helkyt. The other piers are empty.

   Lorn points to the crossed-candles sign, as if to ask about the chandlery. "The chandler, he is Reycuh, but he is not much of a chandler," says Nayhul. "But Fuycyl, he is a most excellent cooper."

   "Most excellent," adds Kurbyl. "My sire pays a copper more for his barrels for the salted fish he sells to the Hamor traders."

   At the chandlery they turn southward, and Lorn listens as Nayhul offers explanations and names for almost every structure or dwelling they pass.

   "The blue house... that be where the entertainer Fyella lived... old now, but my grandsire remembers her.... the yellow shutters... the cabinetmaker... and over there be Systyl, the chemist, with his powders and potions... The firewagon portico... that all lancers know..."

   Before long they have left the center area of Biehl and follow a more winding road toward the southwest.

   "Here be the dwellings of those of import, ser," offers Nayhul. "Over there, the reddish tower, that be the watchtower of Master Duplyr, above his mm."

   In time, perhaps a kay more to the northwest, Lorn notes a long villa that sprawls across a low hill. "Whose dwelling might that be?"

   Helkyt shifts in the saddle, but does not answer.

   Nayhul finally answers. "That be the dwelling of one of the Emperor's Enumerators, the big one with no hair."

   "Is that Enumerator Flutak's dwelling, Helkyt?"

   "Ah... I believe so..."

   "It is rather... substantial," suggests Lorn.

   "It be the grandest in all of Biehl. So said my grandsire," adds Kurbyl, the younger lancer. "Near-on threescore builders worked on it for three seasons."

   "And the villa on the next hill?" Lorn asks. "That be the olive-grower Baryat," Helkyt says slowly. "His daughter is Flutak's mistress?" Lorn asks. "Ah... that is rumored..."

   As he turns his head, Lorn catches the look between the two lancers, who clearly have not heard that rumor. A faint smile crosses the overcaptain's lips. "Rumors... one must be most careful with them... If they are untrue, then the innocent suffer, and if true..."-Lorn laughs gently- "then often the innocent also suffer." Helkyt frowns.

   "Ser?" asks Kurbyl, as Lorn has hoped he will.

   "If a rumor is false, then those about whom it is told suffer. If it is true, then those about whom it is told often make those who tell the truth suffer." He shrugs. "That is why rumors are dangerous, especially about an Emperor's Enumerator."

   Another look passes between the two lancers, and Helkyt shifts his weight in his saddle once more, most uneasily.

   After the group has ridden almost another kay with more explanations of dwellings, and a sawmill, almost in relief, Helkyt gestures. "See! We have circled Biehl, and we ride toward the piers once more."

   As they ride back through the compound gates, Lorn smiles, for he knows how to find Flutak's villa, and has accomplished a few more tasks.

   "Thank you," he tells the two lancers as he dismounts. Then he turns to Helkyt. "And thank you, Helkyt. Before long, I will know my way around Biehl without guidance." Lorn looks at the late-afternoon sun, then adds, "I think I'll work on some things in the study in my quarters. I may not see you until tomorrow. Then, we'll need to go over the plans for getting the old barracks ready and setting up training sessions for the current lancers."

   "Ah... yes, ser."

   Lorn turns to the waiting Chulhyr. "Thank you."

   "My pleasure, ser. My pleasure." The ostler takes the chestnut's reins and leads her back into the stable.

   Lorn walks back to his quarters. In the small study, with the shutters closed to dim the strong, late-afternoon light, he tries the glass again, seeking the Emperor's Enumerator.

   This time Flutak is not alone, but ushering a man from a room-and the room is not in the enumerators' building, but one of white stone-presumably the lavish villa Lorn has seen earlier in the day. The thin man who leaves bears twin daggers at his belt, and a coil of black rope. Lorn does not recognize the man personally, but there is little question what kind of profession he represents.

   "So... more than a few rats in the granary." Lorn laughs harshly, then replaces the glass he knows he will be using more than he ever intended when Jerial had given it to him. He needs to make some preparations for the evening ahead, including using the glass to see how best to approach Flutak's villa, and in particular, his bedchamber.

 

 

XVII

 

Daelya has left a small stew in a pot, and a loaf of fresh bread, for Lorn's evening meal. Sitting in the breakfast room off the kitchen of his quarters, Lorn begins to eat both, wishing he had even Byrdyn to sip with it, but from what he can tell, there is no spirit factor at all in Biehl, unless the chandler or some other factor also trades in wine or spirits. Then, he has not had time to look, and wine is the least of his problems.

   He is not sure whether his posting to Biehl is a test, or another attempt to remove his presence from the lancers-a presence apparently unwanted by some-or both, with different players trying to use him for differing purposes. His thoughts skitter to the questions his father had posed, particularly the first, for which he yet has no truly satisfactory answer: What is it that allows Cyad to exist? Other cities exist without chaos-towers, he knows, and without Magi'i. Other cities exist without emperors or harbors or without the riches that Cyad possesses. He snorts. Biehl exists, wretchedly, without any of those. All cities have people and structures, or they would not be cities, but those are answers far too simplistic, especially for his father.

   The second question-"Could all the might of the Mirror Lancers here in Cyad, or all the might of the Iron Legions in Hamor, prevail against the will of those who live in such lands?"-suggests an equally simplistic answer. That answer is obviously no, and the answer is so obvious Lorn wonders why his father asked such a question. "Are those who direct power or chaos the source of either?" The answer to the third question is yet an equally obvious negative.

   Yet Kien'elth is far from a stupid or obvious father and magus. So why has he posed such questions to Lorn? What does he wish Lorn to see beyond the questions? And the last unwritten question is so general the answer could be anything. How can the world be simpler and yet more complex than possibly imagined? The complexity is easy enough to see-in people like Maran and Flutak and even his father. The simplicity is something he has his doubts about.

   Lorn still has no answers with which he is comfortable when he finishes eating. He washes out both pot and platter in the bucket of soapy water Daelya has left, then rinses them with the clean water in the pitcher and sets them in the rack on the table to dry. He walks slowly from the breakfast room where he has eaten alone, back to the study, where he looks down at the glass, concentrating once more.

   Once the silvery mists clear, Lorn can see that the assassin now meets with two other men in a dim room. Lorn watches but for a moment, not wishing to spend energy on the glass when it will tell him little for the moment. As the image fades, he picks up the crude map he has drawn out, of the road and the best way to reach Flutak's villa. He hopes that Flutak remains alone, for the overcaptain knows he cannot afford to lurk and wait, or to dally.

   Lorn also hopes that Flutak's assassins arrive relatively early in the night so that he can complete his own tasks before daybreak. He has few doubts that Flutak will act quickly, before Lorn can discover how much of the payroll is being diverted-and tell anyone else.

   Lorn shakes his head as he considers what faces him. If he does not act against Flutak and the assassins quickly, then he will spend all too much time merely avoiding getting killed, and likely fail in his assigned duties, which will require all his efforts, so deplorable is the state of the post at Biehl. Yet if anyone can prove Lorn has acted to stop his own assassination, he will be considered inept if he fails and ruthless if he succeeds-and coldblooded, either way.

   His laugh is bitter. Why is it that people feel that revenge is justified, and acceptable, and that one is hot-blooded and human to undertake it, yet that to quietly prevent it is cold-blooded and ruthless-even if, in the end, far fewer souls suffer? Just from studying the payroll records, from looking at Flutak's villa, and from seeing the man immediately hiring an assassin, Lorn can tell the depth of corruption. But most would want greater proof. Greater proof will likely be Lorn's death, and he is unwilling to allow that. So he must act.

   While he is uneasy about the decision, he cannot see any other option that will allow both his survival and his success at Biehl.

   So... while he waits for the assassins he knows will come, he sits down in the twilight to consider again his sire's first question-the essence of what allows Cyad to exist. All cities exist because the people wish to live there, and can do so better than elsewhere. Why? Or how? Trade? But trade requires that people produce more of a good than they require, and they must have enough food and shelter to survive.

   Finally, he nods, and dims the lamp in the study, then walks to his bedchamber, where he dims and then shuts off that light. Like most Magi'i, his night senses are excellent. Except for detail work such as writing or reading, he needs no illumination.

   In the darkness, he studies again the firelance he has removed from the armory earlier in the afternoon, more fully charged now than then, and sets it against the molding of the double doors to the bedchamber.

   Then he returns to the study, where he concentrates on the image of the man he had seen in the afternoon, and followed in the glass through the early evening. Three shadowy figures ride down a narrow lane, past what Lorn believes to be the clayworks to the south of the compound.

   Lorn watches in the glass, then lets the image fade, nodding. He steps back to the breakfast room and eases the window open partway, enough to hear any sounds in the courtyard, should there be any. Then he waits, sitting in the chair where he had eaten.

   When he believes yet enough time has passed, he slips back to the study and checks the glass again. The last of three figures is sliding down a rope from a brick wall-the compound wall. Lorn returns to the breakfast room, bringing the firelance with him, and sets it in the corner by the archway between kitchen and breakfast room. He unfastens the sabre scabbard and lays it on the table, after drawing the Brystan blade. Then he stands in the darkness that is like early twilight to him, waiting.

   How long he waits, he is not certain, but he can sense the three men padding up the back service steps to his quarters, and the slight click of a brass key in a lock is confirmation enough for Lorn.

   The three ease into the kitchen, and, without a word, two slip through the side archway into the main room and across it to the closed double doors of the large bedchamber. A shorter figure remains in the kitchen by the door.

   In the darkness, Lorn slides into the kitchen. The sentry peers forward, clearly expecting the return of his compatriots. Lorn moves, bringing the chaos-enhanced Brystan sabre across the other's throat, and knocking the heavy truncheon aside.

   The gurgle is barely noticeable, but the dull thud of the man's body falling and the clunk of his weapon seem to echo through the kitchen.

   Lorn ignores the sounds and retrieves the firelance in three steps, moving to the door between breakfast room and the main chamber.

   "He's not there!" hisses a voice.

   "The study!"

   Lorn raises the firelance, using his chaos-senses to focus the firebeam tightly. Hssst! Hsst!

   "Aeei!" One brief scream is the only sound that may leave Lorn's quarters.

   He takes a deep breath, and moves to the two bodies, each sprawled with most of its skull burned away. Lorn swallows back the bile that has risen into his throat, standing there for a brief moment. Although the three had come to kill him, he dislikes becoming an assassin himself, save that he has little choice. He could not have captured them, and even had he, they would have said little, and he would have looked foolish trying to charge Flutak with hiring assassins. Then, he would have to kill the next set of assassins, if he could, and avoid other dangers-from possible poisoning to any; thing else Flutak could devise-each time with fewer advantages than the time before.

   He finally bends down and searches the figures, but none bears anything that might prove useful, except for the gold and silver coins in their wallets, two daggers, a truncheon, and a short straight sword with a double edge. Lorn repeats the process with the dead sentry in the kitchen.

   Then he drags all three figures out to the front, tiled foyer. There he lifts the firelance again, playing the chaos carefully across the bodies, trying not to burn the paneled walls or the woodwork. In a short time, nothing remains, except for a few metal items.

   The worn broom from the kitchen is sufficient to sweep the ashes out onto the landing outside the door, and a rag removes most of the blackness from the tiles. It is also sufficient to wipe away the blood in the kitchen.

   Lorn slips the weapons into the armoire he has not used, and then wraps the shoe nails in the soiled cloth, setting that in the back bottom corner of the armoire. After relocking both doors, he forces himself to the study, and despite his slight headache, focuses the glass on Flutak.

   The silver mists swirl, revealing that Flutak is in his bedchamber, apparently alone, reading a scroll by the light of a lamp on the table beside the bedstead. Lorn lets the image lapse, then turns and leaves the study.

   He reclaims the Brystan blade and scabbard, and the firelance, before he departs his quarters by the front door, which he locks as he leaves, not that locking seems to have had much effect. The courtyard remains quiet, as is the stable, and no one disturbs Lorn as he saddles the chestnut.

   "Easy, girl... easy."

   It takes him longer than it would the ostler, but before too much time has passed, he rides across the courtyard.

   "Who goes?" comes the voice of a guard. "Show yourself."

   "Overcaptain Lorn. I'm taking an evening ride."

   "Ser?"

   Lorn slows the chestnut so that the lancer can see his face. "I trust I will not be too long."

   "Ah... yes, ser."

   "Good evening, Lancer."

   Lorn guides the mount out the gate and down toward the harbor, toward the west road that will turn southward. The air is chill, a cold wind coming off the Northern Ocean with a dampness that promises a cold rain.

   Once he is past the piers, Lorn turns westward, following the winding road, one hand ready to reach for the firelance in its holder, but the road remains dark and empty, and deserted as the chestnut carries him westward and south. While he does not know Biehl well, with the ride of the afternoon, his night vision, and his chaos-senses, he can find Flutak's villa-and the enumerator's bedchamber.

   Still, in the darkness, the ride takes far longer than Lorn had recalled- or perhaps it seems but longer-until he is finally riding up a gentle slope toward the sprawling hillside villa. Below the villa on the south side of the slope is a stable, but Lorn guides the chestnut more to the north, where he finds a slender sapling beside the road. There he dismounts in the darkness and ties his mount to the tree.

   Firelance in hand, he eases through the small olive orchard until he is less than a hundred cubits from the villa. For a time, he listens, and casts forth his chaos-senses, but he can sense only three figures moving-two sentries by the front door, and a third somewhere in the rear.

   Lorn circles toward the rear of the villa, where he scales-slowly-a low brick wall in a spot shielded by what feels like a pearapple tree. Concealed by darkness and the tree limb, from the top of the wall Lorn studies the small courtyard.

   The guard, who had appeared to be half-dozing on a stool, sits up abruptly as the Hamorian killer mastiff glides toward the wall beneath Lorn, growling softly.

   "What is it? Another cat?" mumbles the guard.

   The huge mastiff growls, again from below Lorn, then lunges upward.

   Lorn levels the firelance, using it quickly on the guard, before the man can give an alarm, and then on the mastiff. He waits for a moment, but the faint thud of the guard's falling body goes unnoticed.

   Lorn drops into the rear courtyard, where he uses more of the charge to ensure no trace of either guard or mastiff remains. He tosses the coins and metal nails over the wall before setting the guard's blade carefully on the stool and easing his way toward the rear door.

   His senses can detect no one within the house who is moving, although there are servants or retainers sleeping in the south wing of the dwelling. The two guards in the front remain where they have been.

   Is Flutak the noble and honest enumerator demanded by his position?

   With significant portions of the Mirror Lancer payroll never delivered? With three guards and a deadly Hamorian mastiff? The largest villa in Biehl? Hiring three assassins to go after Lorn as soon as Lorn has suggested all is not as it should be?

   The only sounds are those of the wind in the privacy hedges. Lorn's lips curl ruefully. Acting before anyone suspects such action has certain benefits, except that Flutak had also acted that way. Lorn hopes that he has foreseen more than has the enumerator.

   The rear door, shielded by a token privacy hedge before which the sentry had been stationed, is barred from within. Lorn studies it for a moment with his chaos-senses, then lifts the lance and places it against the slight gap between the door and the frame. He triggers the lance, willing the chaos into a tight line.

   His forehead is damp by the time the chaos has burned through the heavy bar, but the door remains closed. Lorn lets his chaos-senses touch the plate on the inside lock. His forehead is far warmer by the time the bronze bolt slides back under the pressure of focused chaos. Then, and only then, will the latch lift, allowing the door to swing wide, silently.

   The wide tiled room he enters is empty.

   Ignoring the intensification of his headache, Lorn slips down the short corridor to the bedchamber, wondering if he will need to burn through another bar. He does not. Like most chambers within Cyadoran homes, the door has but a latch, and that lifts easily as he slides into the chamber, where the sole sounds are the loud snores of the sleeping enumerator.

   Hssst! The firelance flares once.

   From the far side of the bulky enumerator's body, a more slender figure bolts upright, her mouth opening.

   Hsst! The firelance flares again, although Lorn's fingers are shaking as he lowers the weapon. He stands stock-still for a moment, swallowing silently. He knows he had no real choice, not after killing Flutak. Had Lorn not used the lance a second time, all would know what he has done, with a witness-and probably escaping servants who would also know, not to mention the guards in the front.

   Nor can he afford to ride out, night after night, not after killing a mastiff and a guard. His lips tighten, even as his eyes burn momentarily. Why were there always innocents caught up with those who are less than honest?

   Could he have done aught else? He knows that he will ask that question more than once as, slowly, he sets the firelance against the wall. Then, as he has done before in his own quarters, Lorn drags both figures onto a space of tile clear of rugs and upholstery, and plays the firelance across both, using his chaos mastery to direct and intensify the chaos-flames. There are no metal items to worry about. There are brown patches on the bed linens, but he can do nothing about those. Nor can he change what he has done, instantly reacting to kill the woman.

   With another silent sigh, he eases back down the corridor and out the courtyard door, carrying the two pieces of the door bar. He climbs back over the wall, making a wide circuit of the villa.

   The chestnut remains tied to the golden oak sapling. "Easy there..." Lorn unties her and mounts quickly, still carrying the wooden bar.

   He rides slowly and carefully away from the villa. Neither the glass nor his chaos-senses had revealed the woman's presence until he had killed the enumerator. Had he spared her, Lorn would likely have doomed himself. As it is, he treads a narrow and dangerous path.

   He can tell himself that the woman was not totally innocent. The fact that she was probably the daughter of the olive-grower Baryat, who has doubtless been receiving special treatment from Flutak, suggests that the conspiracy to divert tariffs is not solely Flutak's doing. The elaborate luxury of the villa and the guards only testify to Flutak's corruption. Any woman who partook of the fruits of that corruption has made a choice.

   But did she, really? Lorn knows his own sisters have few real choices. Was this woman any different?

   Yet... what choices did Lorn have? If he had spared her, she would have given an alarm, and all too soon the trail would have pointed to Lorn.

   Could Lorn have found some more clever way to deal with Flutak?

   Perhaps his father could have, but Lorn has already found that his strengths do not lie in scheming, but in acting. With all the schemes already laid against him, he fears that not to act swiftly would have been his undoing.

   And innocent men do not hire assassins immediately upon meeting a Mirror Lancer officer who only pledges to carry out his duty.

   But... that does not change the sickening feeling that twists Lorn's guts. Nor the anger that goes with his sadness and regret. Anger that he is faced once more with situations where no choices are perfect, and anger at himself for not foreseeing the complications.

   Lorn rides slowly along the road back toward the compound.

   A kay farther along toward the harbor, he drops the door bar's sections into a drainage ditch. His head throbs, and even in the darkness, he is seeing double images. He has drawn far more chaos from around him than is wise, and used it far more than he would have preferred, and partly in ways he regrets... and will always regret.

 

 

XVIII

 

Lorn is at his study desk early the next morning-though not at dawn, not after the long night he has had, and the dreams about the young woman, who has appeared in them... pleading, her face taking on Myryan's countenance, perhaps because Lorn had never really seen her visage. For a time, he looks blankly in the direction of the open window.

   Trying to push away the image of the pleading figure, he tries to draft the phrases that may prove useful in dealing with Neabyl, the remaining senior enumerator, when Helkyt appears.

   "Ser?"

   "Yes, Helkyt?"

   "There be a problem, ser."

   Lorn raises his eyebrows. He can think of several, though they seem trivial compared to his dreams of Flutak's mistress. "Yes?"

   "Mayhap not a problem, but a matter most strange."

   "What might it be?"

   "You see, ser, there is a man. His name is Drakyt. None knows how he lives, but folk die, usually from blades stuck in them in the dead of night, and thereafter Drakyt has coin enough for good raiment and the best ale."

   Lorn nods for Helkyt to continue.

   "This morn, the guards heard mounts outside the walls, and when they went to see, there were three horses tethered there on the west side, well away from the gate. One of the mounts was a black that none but Drakyt can ride, or so 'tis said." The senior squad leader pauses, then continues as he sees that Lorn will not question. "There was also a hempen seaman's rope, tarred black, fastened over the wall. But none have seen any men within the compound."

   Lorn shrugs. "Perhaps the guards scared them off. Until they show up to claim their mounts, all we can do is stable the mounts. When they return, we'll charge them for feeding their horses and put the charges in the payroll chest. Every copper will help. You might pass the word to the folk around the compound that's what we're doing."

   "But... if they return not?"

   "Say... in half a season, the mounts belong to the Mirror Lancers." Lorn looks at Helkyt. "Or do you think it should be longer?"

   "I know not...." Helkyt frowns. "This Drakyt is not one to anger."

   Lorn laughs. "How would that anger this fellow? He leaves his mount, and the Emperor's Mirror Lancers feed it and take care of it? And we ask to be paid for the feed and care?"

   "Ah... ser..."

   "Yes?"

   "It is said you went riding late last evening, and returned far later." Helkyt purses his lips. "You did not see or hear the mounts?"

   "I didn't see a soul around the courtyard or outside the walls," Lorn replies most truthfully, if not with the entire truth. "If I had, I am certain all of the compound would have heard."

   "Most strange." Helkyt bows, still frowning. "I will tell Tashqyt to have the mounts stabled."

   "Tashqyt? He's one of the junior squad leaders? Dark-haired, with a square beard?"

   "Yes, ser."

   Lorn nods. "I'm trying to put faces to names. Is there anything else?"

   "No, ser."

   "Will we have a cart to carry off the rubbish from the north barracks?"

   "This very morn, ser. Two." Helkyt smiles, an expression of relief.

   "Good. I knew you could do that." Lorn rises. "All this talk about stray mounts reminded me. I need to talk to Chulhyr. I shouldn't be gone long."

   "Yes, ser. I be going to the enumerators for the payroll, after I task Tashqyt with the stray mounts."

   Lorn nods, and the two men separate as they leave the administrative building. Helkyt heads for the barracks, while Lorn crosses the courtyard through the light but cold rain that has turned the paving stones a darker sheen of gray. Despite the rain, Lorn nods, smiling, at the younger lancers who already are carrying debris from the north wing of the barracks into a nondescript cart. A worn and near-swaybacked mule stands in the harness.

   At the stable, Lorn draws Chulhyr aside. "You know mounts well, do you not? Exceptionally well?"

   "I might say so, ser, better than all but the farrier, and Spherl." Chulhyr frowns, waiting. "Have you found the chestnut wanting?"

   "Dark angels, no," replies Lorn with a light laugh he does not feel. "We will be getting more lancers. We will be needing more mounts, and I would prefer it not be known yet. Can you scout around... ?"

   "Ah... that I can do. And now is a good time, for last year's harvests and trading were not so good as in other years." The ostler pauses. "How many?"

   "Enough for another company by autumn."

   Helkyt and four other lancers enter the stable to find and saddle their mounts. The senior squad leader inclines his head as he passes the overcaptain. The lancer following him carries a small chest.

   "It might take that long unless you wished to pay more than such would be worth," Chulhyr replies slowly.

   "We have some time, but that's why I wanted you to begin looking as you can."

   "Yes, ser."

   "Let me know when you have some you think we should purchase. You know where my study is."

   Chulhyr nods. "I will bring you word, ser."

   "Thank you."

   The overcaptain walks back across the courtyard under gray clouds that appear lighter than before. Behind him, he hears the sound of hoofs on stone as Helkyt and the lancers set out to pick up the payroll.

   Back in his study, Lorn writes several more thoughts on his list of items that need action. He had forgotten to ask Chulhyr about saddles and riding gear-whether there remained saddles from the time when two full companies had been quartered at Biehl and, if so, how usable they might be. Each idea begets more problems, and more work.

   Then Lorn goes back to his plans for the enumerators.

   He has finished what he can plan, drafted a scroll to the District Guard Commander in Ehlya suggesting that he will be visiting in the near future, and is working on the outline of a lancer training program at Biehl when the door from the outer study opens, then closes.

   Thrap! Even before the sound of the knock dies away, Helkyt puffs into the inner study.

   "Ser... ser..."

   Lorn looks up from the draft of the training program.

   "Ser... ah... there is a problem... with the pay chest. Senior Enumerator Flutak cannot be found."

   "Cannot be found?"

   "No, ser."

   "Doesn't anyone know where he is?"

   "All Neabyl would say is that he was missing from his villa and that no one knew where he had gone." Helkyt shrugs.

   "Just because he's gone off on furlough or whatever doesn't mean we don't get paid," Lorn points out, forcing annoyance to creep into his voice.

   "He is not on leave or furlough, ser. That is what Neabyl says."

   "That shouldn't be a problem." Lorn frowns. "Isn't Neabyl a senior enumerator as well?"

   "Yes, ser. But he does not wish to release the payroll without the assent of Flutak."

   Lorn stands, then walks to the window, as if considering what Helkyt has conveyed. After a time, he turns. "Helkyt... this is a problem. We are entitled to a full draw of two companies, is that not true?"

   "Yes, ser." There is the hint of a quaver in the squad leader's voice.

   "Then, copy out that which we are entitled to. Underneath that, write that Overcaptain Lorn certifies that this is the payroll to which the Mirror Lancers in Biehl are entitled on this date, and that he has signed for its receipt." Lorn smiles. "We do not wish that our lancers not be paid, do we?"

   "No, ser."

   "And make two copies. On the second, place a line for Neabyl to sign, saying that he has received a copy and disbursed exactly these funds."

   Helkyt nods slowly. "But he will not sign such or hand over the payroll."

   "After you have drawn these up, we both will ride over to the enumerators' building, and I think we should take a full squad... say, in battle dress."

   Helkyt swallows. "Ah..."

   "The Emperor's Enumerators serve the Mirror Lancers, even as we support them." Lorn gestures. "Now, if you would send out word for the squad to be ready, and then draft those two statements..."

   "Yes, ser." Helkyt nods twice, quickly.

   It is nearing midmorning when the senior squad leader returns with the two drafts of the payroll account statements.

   After he has read them closely, Lorn stands. "These will do. If the squad is ready, we will go visit Senior Enumerator Neabyl."

   "Yes, ser. They await us in the courtyard."

   "Good." Lorn slips on his winter jacket, waterproof at least, and follows Helkyt out.

   Although he has not asked, the chestnut is saddled and waiting. As Lorn and Helkyt ride out through the gates, through a rain that is changing to a light drizzle, in the column behind them, Lorn can hear the murmurs.

   "...enumerators not like this..."

   "...think I'd worry more about the overcaptain not liking it..."

   "...first time... had a commander with a blade for a backbone..."

   Lorn just hopes he won't cut himself too badly with that blade, or that he has not done just that already.

   The waters of the harbor and the Northern Ocean beyond are flat and dark gray, and the piers are empty as the lancers ride past. At the enumerators' building, Lorn reins up, and the lancers do as well.

   "Remain in formation, mounted," Lorn orders. "We will be a bit, but I'm sure you won't mind, since it is your pay we're getting."

   There are a few smiles.

   Lorn and Helkyt walk into the building, followed by an older lancer who carries the empty pay chest.

   Neabyl comes out from the large room to meet them. He glances from Helkyt to Lorn, then past them to the squad of lancers remaining mounted in formation before the building. He bows. "Overcaptain... I see that Squad Leader Helkyt has conveyed our difficulty."

   Lorn nods at the doorway to the larger room with the dais, then walks past Neabyl and into the room. After a moment, the senior enumerator follows, an annoyed expression on his face. Behind him slips Helkyt. Lorn gestures for the squad leader to close the door, and Helkyt does.

   "Overcaptain..."

   "I see no great difficulty," Lorn says mildly. "We are owed a payroll. You are a senior enumerator of the Emperor, and you can provide such."

   Neabyl shrugs. "I would not presume..."

   "Are you not in charge here when Master Flutak is not?" Lorn asks.

   "Ah, yes, Overcaptain."

   "And do not the accounts for the payroll list what should be paid?"

   "I do not have those..." Neabyl's voice is apologetic.

   Lorn smiles. "I understand. I thought this might present a problem." He extends the first sheet of paper, drawing it from his jacket. "Here is our account for payroll and our draw for expenses for the eightday. I checked these against the original authorization for the garrison, the one signed by the Majer-Commander, and by the head of the Emperor's Enumerators in Cyad."

   Neabyl studies the paper. "I would not know."

   "I do. And the Majer-Commander would be most unhappy if his lancers were not paid. You do not have a record. So, if you will note, I will sign the paper so that all will know that you carried out your duty." Lorn pauses. "And you will sign an identical one saying that you disbursed these golds, and only these golds, to me as the payroll authorized on this date. In that fashion, when Master Flutak returns, he will have records, and there will be no question as to what funds were disbursed."

   "Ah..."

   "And you can use this as the basis for future accounts in the event that Master Flutak and your records cannot be found."

   "That is true..." muses Neabyl. After a moment, he nods. "Yes, that indeed might prove beneficial to all, and I must say, I do like the idea of exchanging account statements for disbursals. It might remove any future... unpleasantnesses."

   Lorn smiles. "One cannot undo the past, and change what has been, but one can change what will be."

   "You have a persuasive way with words-and accounts, Overcaptain."

   "Perhaps." Lorn continues to smile, adding, almost casually, "And... Neabyl... if by any chance there might be some shortages in the accounts, and if by chance Enumerator Flutak indeed does not return, it might be wise to report such... with the steps you have taken, such as this, to ensure they do not recur."

   Neabyl's face blanks. After a long moment, a forced smile returns. "Your advice is not only persuasive, ser, but most wise, and should such eventualities be such, you can be assured that I will follow your words to the letter."

   Lorn nods.

   Neabyl returns the nod. "I will see that Comyr brings up a chest, and then we will count it, and sign your papers. I am sure none will fault our caution."

   "None will fault it, I am sure," Lorn agrees.

   As Neabyl leaves the large room, Helkyt glances at Lorn. "Ser... you talk as if Flutak will not return."

   "That is because Master Neabyl acts as if he will not. Otherwise, there would have been no difficulty. Neabyl would be happy doing as Flutak has always done. That he would not, suggests that Flutak may have departed, not to return." Lorn adds in a lower voice, "Perhaps because all is not as well with the accounts as should be."

   Helkyt swallows.

   "As I told Senior Enumerator Neabyl, we cannot change what was- only what will be. And that we will do." Lorn continues to smile faintly as they wait for Neabyl to return. He knows he runs the risk of allowing Neabyl to seize golds and blame the shortage on Flutak, but there is nothing he can do about that, not without revealing more than he dares.

   Nor can he ever reveal how he killed an innocent because he acted quickly against the guilty and the corrupt.

 

 

XIX

 

Lorn yawns as he leaves the kitchen in his quarters, after washing the dinner dishes. When he had been a mere lancer officer, under the command of others, he did not have to worry about dishes, but he had little space to himself, either. He yawns again as he walks toward the study. The day, and the previous night, have been long indeed, especially with the nightmare of the grower's daughter, whose face resembles Myryan's. Yet there is more that he must do... much more.

   Even so, his thoughts drift back to Flutak... and the young woman. The woman was... is another matter, as his nightmares testify.

   So far as Flutak was concerned, his mind is clear. While he may not have proof that would convince a justicer, he knows the depth of the enumerator's corruption. Neabyl's reaction was almost confirmation in itself. Lorn knows that, had he not acted against Flutak quickly, then any later action would be laid to his doorstep. One factor which removes him partly from suspicion is the unwillingness of most to believe a new officer would act so quickly and decisively... or that he would have the means so soon after arriving. Lorn takes a deep breath. For better and worse, he has acted, and cannot undo those actions. Nor has he yet discovered how better he might have acted.

   Once in the study, he closes the inner shutters and slips the chaos-glass from the single drawer of the desk. After he sets it on the polished wood, he begins to concentrate, first on the name and image of Baryat, the olive-grower whose daughter Lorn has killed. The silver mists fill the glass, and then clear.

   Baryat-gray-bearded and muscular-sits at a long table, flanked by three younger men, who appear to be his sons. The bearded man thumbs the edge of a knife, then speaks. While Lorn cannot hear the words, he can see the vehemence behind them. One of the sons brings a fist down on the table.

   Lorn watches for but a short while, before letting the image lapse. Even so, his eyes are watering, and his head aches. For a time, he sits before the glass, his eyes closed, pondering. How much is the grower's vehemence based on the loss of his daughter, and how much upon fear of discovery of corruption? Will Lorn ever know?

   As he tries to rest before he uses the glass once more, Lorn's thoughts skitter from Baryat to traders, to those in the Mirror Lancers like Maran who would see him dead and vanished.

   Finally, he straightens, knowing that he must practice more, and become more adept at using the glass to see lands where he has not been, and to become able to translate those views into maps-and the other way around. He takes a deep breath, and concentrates once more upon the glass before him and upon controlling the silver mists.