Alector's Choice

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “When the Code says that a man who steals for his family, cause they’re starving, has to be treated the same as a fellow like Polynt, who just robbed and killed when he felt like it—there’s something wrong there.”

  Mykel thought for a moment. “Theft is theft. If you treat it differently, then everyone will have an excuse, and there won’t be any justice. What’s wrong is when a man who is able to work is driven off his lands and turned into a thief because he has no choices left. That’s what happened in Jyoha.”

  “Happens more than there, sir.”

  Mykel took a deep breath. He didn’t have a good answer for what Alendyr had said, and they were headed back to deal with prisoners and escaped prisoners, and some of them were probably no different from the men Mykel and Fifteenth Company had killed in Jyoha. “I’m sure it does. I’m sure it does.”

  The two rode another half vingt before Alendyr spoke. “You’re being quiet, sir. Something we need to do?”

  “No. I was just thinking.” Actually, he’d been thinking about several things, including Rachyla. There was something about her that drew him, and he couldn’t pinpoint it. He couldn’t even come close. She was attractive, but he’d met more attractive women. She was intelligent, but he’d met other women who were. She came from wealth, but from Mykel’s point of view, that was a disadvantage, because he’d never have wealth, and probably wouldn’t know what to do even if someone settled a pile of golds on him.

  “About what, sir?”

  “More than a few things.” Mykel grinned widely. “Women. Golds. I was also thinking about the road.”

  Alendyr said nothing.

  ‘There are eternastone roads everywhere—except here. Why would that be?“

  “Because we don’t need them? You get here by ship, and ships don’t need high roads.”

  “That’s true enough, but Dramur is a big island. It’s farther from one end to the other than it is from Elcien to Lu-dar or from Tempre to Hyalt, or lots of places that have high roads. Maybe they wouldn’t fight so much here, if they had better roads. The only decent road is this one, from the port to Dramuria—” Mykel laughed abruptly. “Of course.”

  Alendyr looked at Mykel questioningly.

  “I’m just a Cadmian captain. It’s trade and people. The roads are links for trade to places where there are either goods or the people to buy them.”

  “But… sir, there’s the road from Iron Stem to Eastice. It’s more than five hundred vingts, and there aren’t as many folks on that road once you leave Iron Stem as there are here in Dramuria. Same’s true for the road to Soupat, or the one from Dereka to Aelta.”

  Mykel cocked his head. “I thought I had an answer, but you’re right. There must be some reason, but I can’t see it. Turning road paving into eternastone takes golds ?nd some special equipment that the alectors use.”

  “Maybe they’re planning for where there will be more people,” suggested Alendyr.

  “That makes as much sense as anything,” Mykel agreed, although he wasn’t certain about that, either.

  After another hundred yards, he shifted his weight in the saddle, but gingerly, and looked blankly at the road for several moments. He was headed back to the mine, and he’d never even been inside the stockade, and that was where the prisoners were escaping—or vanishing.

  He took a deep breath. He really needed to see the mineworks, much as he dreaded doing so. Maybe… just maybe, that would tell him something. If it didn’t, he wouldn’t feel guilty or as though he’d overlooked something.

  58

  Almost a glass passed from liftoff at the Cadmian compound before the pteridon cleared the highest points in the Murian Mountains west of Dramuria. From there the pteridon glided westward on wide blue wings, slowly descending across the more densely vegetated western hills. Falyna had followed, as Quelyt had earlier, the road that ran through the lower section of the mountains south of the mine.

  After they had crossed the mountains and started downward, Dainyl could see the differences between the east and the west sides of Dramur, differences far more pronounced at the end of winter than they had been when he had earlier surveyed the area. In the west, the trees were even greener, and the fields that had just been tilled earlier were showing a green fuzz.

  As before, Dainyl saw no carts or wagons on the higher reaches of the road, but scattered riders and wagons appeared on the road once they flew over the cultivated lands in the high, rolling hills.

  “A little more to the south here, toward that estate with the two villas,” Dainyl called forward, remembering a large riding area, one suitable for training horse troopers.

  “Yes, sir.”

  The pteridon banked, then straightened, heading toward the villas of the estate.

  Dainyl watched closely as they neared the large estate, then smiled coolly as he saw dust rising from the flat riding area to the north and east of the villas.

  “Someone’s riding hard there,” shouted Falyna.

  The pteridon blanked slightly right, then leveled out on a course directly toward the riders, about five hundred yards above the ground as the pteridon swept over the eastern stone wall. Some of the dust had begun to settle, since most of the riders had reined up to watch as the pteridon flew overhead.

  All the riders were scattered in squad-sized groups across what Dainyl had earlier thought to be an outdoor riding arena. They all wore deep blue tunics—exactly the same color—and all had scabbards attached to their saddles. Dainyl couldn’t see what weapons were in them.

  “You see what I see, sir?” Falyna called back.

  “Horse troopers, I’d say. You up for a low pass back over them?”

  “We can do that, sir.”

  “Better have your lance ready, just in case.”

  The blue-metaled lance was in Falyna’s hand even before Dainyl had finished speaking. For his own part, the colonel reached out with his Talent to draw lifeforce for shields.

  The pteridon banked steeply southward into a tight turn, losing altitude swiftly, until they were headed back over the exercise yard at little more than a hundred yards above the ground. Dainyl leaned slightly to his left for a better view.

  All of the riders had reined up and watched as the pteridon swept toward them. Several riders had pulled out rifles, but someone yelled something, and the troopers lowered the weapons. At the lower altitude, Dainyl could see that the riders also wore sabres. That suggested that the troopers might also have been trained with the blades before obtaining the rifles—or that the seltyr had other uses for the force.

  “Another pass, sir?” called Falyna, as the eastern stone wall passed under the pteridon.

  “No. That was enough. Climb back up and head west again.”

  The pteridon’s wings beat more strongly as the Talent-creature began a climbing left turn.

  The seltyr—or his captain—had been smart enough not to fire on the two Myrmidons, and that indicated that someone was well aware of what a skylance could do.

  “They had rifles out,” Falyna said over her shoulder. “Good thing for them they didn’t try to use them.”

  “Yes, it was,” Dainyl called back. “We need to look at some more estates.”

  “There’s one to the north.”

  “Head over there.”

  The pteridon straightened on a northwest course. Dainyl shifted his weight in the second saddle and readjusted his harness. He still wasn’t flying enough not to get uncomfortable—and they had at least two more glasses before they would return to Dramuria.

  The next estate—one that Dainyl had not overflown before—had a square field that had been heavily ridden— but no horses or men were out or visible. Still, the field suggested that someone had been training or exercising sizable numbers of troopers.

  “Sir!” called Falyna. “To the north!”

  Dainyl glanced northward, where he saw a line of thun-derheads rising on the horizon. “Let’s start back!”

  “On our way, sir.�
��

  Dainyl continued to study the ground beneath the pteri-don’s wings as the Talent-creature slowly climbed eastward. Clearly, more than a few of the western seltyrs had their own private horse companies—and at least one was armed with rifles—Cadmian-style rifles in all probability.

  He found it impossible to believe that the marshal and the Highest did not know that, not with their access to the Table in the Hall of Justice. The real questions were whether all the high alectors and the Duarches knew, whether the marshal and the High Alector of Justice were keeping the information for their own purposes, and whether the High Alector of Justice and the marshal had done even more than withhold information.

  The other question was more personal. Why had he not had Falyna flame down the horse troopers? He’d had that right. Because, he told himself, the troopers were following orders, and killing one set of troopers wouldn’t have solved anything—and even the seltyr who had armed them would likely have escaped. That raised another set of questions, as well.

  Dainyl didn’t like thinking about any of those questions, especially about their implications. The only fact in his favor was that a Table did not reveal alectors and Talent-creatures, so that no one with a Table would have been able to determine where Dainyl had been and what he had observed. That was slight consolation.

  59

  Despite the aches in his back and shoulder, and a headache that had pounded at him half the night, Mykel struggled awake well before dawn on Duadi. The afternoon before, when thunderstorms had just pelted the area and he had felt even worse from a long day—even if there hadn’t been any snipers on the road—he’d finally arranged to meet one of Meryst’s squad leaders at the guano mine a half glass before dawn so that he could inspect the mine before any miners arrived. There clearly weren’t enough miners or Cadmian guards to work at night.

  Khelsyt—the squad leader—hadn’t been that pleased with Mykel’s request.

  Mykel had insisted. “Miners are disappearing. You want me to tell this Myrmidon colonel that I don’t even know where it’s happening? He already took care of Majer Va-clyn with that light-cutter torch of his.”

  “Yes, sir. Half glass before dawn,” Khelsyt had agreed, tiredly. “I’ll have an overseer there to show you around.”

  As Mykel struggled into his uniform and made his way to the stable in the dim light of a morning that had come too early, Mykel half wished that, bad as he’d felt the night before, he’d just insisted on seeing the mine then. At the time, he’d thought he’d feel better after another night’s sleep. He did, but not that much better, and he had no idea why he had a headache.

  Two scouts—Sendyl and Jasakyt—were saddling their mounts when Mykel arrived at the ramshackle shed serving as a stable. Mykel’s breath puffed white in morning air that was far colder than it had been recently, doubtless because of the icy rain and hail of the evening before.

  “Good morning,” Mykel said.

  “Sir… we figured that lifting a saddle with that arm…” offered Sendyl.

  Mykel glanced into the stall. His chestnut was saddled. “Thank you. I am a bit stiff in the mornings.” When he stepped into the stall, he checked the girths, but the two had done a good job, for which he was definitely thankful. He slipped his rifle into the scabbard and led the gelding out of the shed. He mounted easily, but carefully. Even so, a jolt of pain went through his shoulder. The two scouts joined him immediately, and the three rode toward the mine road.

  “We’re going into the mine, sir?” asked Sendyl.

  “Just for a little while. After talking to the colonel, it came out that none of us has ever been in it, and I couldn’t explain why no one had.” All that was true, if totally misleading, but Mykel doubted the colonel would object to his seeing how the mine was laid out and operated.

  Sendyl and Jasakyt exchanged knowing glances. Mykel let them think that the colonel had picked on Fifteenth Company and its captain.

  As they neared the outer gates of the prison compound, the sentries looked at the three riders. The gates opened, then closed once they were past. The gray paving stones were damp from the intermittent rain of the night before, but the sky was clear. A chill wind blew out of the northwest. The road was wide enough for three abreast. Mykel rode in the middle.

  “Did either of you see anything interesting or different while I was in Dramuria?” he asked after they had ridden several hundred yards.

  “No, sir. Pretty quiet for once,” replied Jasakyt.

  “Out on the road, that is,” added Sendyl. “One of the squad leaders from the locals told me that another two min-ers just disappeared. One moment, they were loading a cart, and the next they were gone.”

  “Like that?”

  “Overseers said that the miners hid before going down into the mine, and then the others told the story,” Sendyl said.

  “No one saw them or discovered tracks or anything?” asked Mykel.

  “No, sir. But how would anyone get out of a cave in the rock?”

  Mykel had a very good idea, but he wasn’t about to offer it. “That’s a good question.”

  “Strange place, if you ask me,” murmured Jasakyt.

  Mykel looked from the graystone paving blocks of the road to the still-grayish green sky, and then to the rocky hillside above the road and its walls. He should have inspected the mine right after Fifteenth Company had been assigned to patrol the mine and mine road. Then again, there were so many things he should have done—going to spread formations immediately, sending copies of his reports to Colonel Dainyl, talking to Rachyla more, perhaps even going to Colonel Dainyl earlier about the majer. Was he always going to learn things later than he should—and perhaps pay for it the next time with his life rather than a wounded shoulder?

  The three rode another half vingt before Sendyl cleared his throat. “Sir, how long are we going to be here?”

  “I don’t know, and I don’t think the colonel does, either.”

  The mine gates opened as the three rode toward them and creaked shut as the three passed into the stockade that surrounded the bluff holding the mine and the crude loading docks.

  Khelsyt waited beside one of the empty wagons. “You can tie your mounts there.” He pointed to the loading dock. “You’ll be out of here before we bring the prisoners in for the day.”

  Mykel dismounted and walked his mount to the dock. Already, his nose was beginning to twitch. The odor, more like a stench that combined the worst features of sewage and manure, hung heavily in the air.

  Standing by the timbered mine entrance was another figure, a man clad in what once might have been green, but was now a shapeless gray-brown coverall. His expression was stern, just short of grim.

  “Nophyt, this is Captain Mykel. The Myrmidon colonel sent him for a quick tour.”

  Mykel inclined his head slightly. “I’m sorry to bother you, but…”

  “When an alector wants something, the rest of us don’t get much of a choice,” replied Nophyt.

  “Nophyt is the head overseer, really more of a mining engineer,” explained Khelsyt.

  “Much as anyone needs an engineer here,” replied Nophyt. “Bats took an old lava tube, and the branches off it, just kept hanging there and dumping their droppings into it, until it got all filled up, or mostly so. Now they use the caves farther north. I figure that someday, we’ll be mining those. Asked Director Donasyr why we weren’t already, and he said that there were only so many folks with the golds to pay for the guano, and, besides, it’d last longer if we only mined one cave at a time. Anyway, I make sure that they dig out the shit evenly so that we don’t get a wall of it falling on someone. Check the rock walls, too, every night and every morning, just to make sure nothing’s developed a crack.”

  “Do the prisoners have to chop away rock in places to get to the guano?” Mykel asked.

  “Sometimes. Either floors or the places bats get into where people can’t. In another month, looks like we’ll be opening up a gallery to get to a low
er cave where they did that.” The overseer gestured toward the weathered timbers that framed the entrance. “Better get moving.”

  From the bracing and the irregularities, Mykel could see that the mine entrance had once been a cave mouth.

  At the entrance, Nophyt picked up a metal-and-glass oil lamp, already lit. “This is the main gallery. It was blasted out and enlarged a long time back.” He walked back through the gallery to the rear, where a sloping tunnel led downward. In the middle of the tunnel floor were ruts worn into the stone. A heavy rope lay between the ruts. Mykel’s eyes traced the rope to a windlass. Iron supports for the windlass had been set in holes in the lava.

  “Once a cart’s full they jerk the cable, and the windlass crew cranks it up.”

  Nophyt walked down the tunnel on the left, and Mykel followed, with the scouts behind. Khelsyt did not accompany them on the long walk down to the next level.

  “Lower gallery here,” announced Nophyt. “The cave branches off here. We use smaller carts down here. Some places, we just have pits, and they hoist the shit up in baskets.”

  Mykel tried not to swallow or breathe deeply, but he almost felt dizzy from the stench as he followed the overseer along one of the cave branches. Absently, he noted the irregular sides of the tunnel or cave, but the smooth floor. In some places, but far from all, the overhead was timbered and supported, although most of the timbers looked old and cracked.

  They passed a wooden barrier on the right side of the cave tunnel.

  “What’s that?” asked Mykel.

  “Drop tube. Goes straight down. So far as we can tell, not much guano on the sides, and the bottom’s a good two hundred yards, maybe more.”

  The overseer headed down another long and gently sloping tunnel, walking and explaining, until he stopped in an open space surrounded by darkness. Without the oil lamp held by Nophyt, which cast but a circular glow, and not a terribly strong one, the cave would have been pitch-black.

  Mykel thought that the air wasn’t that good, although the odor seemed less. Then, it might have been that he was getting used to the stench.