Alector's Choice

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  An assistant who vaguely resembled Kylana, Dainyl thought, looked up. “Submarshal? Can I help you?”

  “The Highest?”

  “Sir… he and Marshal Shastylt are in Ludar today. He hoped to return this evening.”

  “Oh. I’ve been traveling. If you would tell the Highest that I’ve returned.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll make certain he knows.”

  “Thank you.” With a nod, Dainyl turned and made his way to and up the hidden staircase, out through the Talent concealed stone doorway, and through the Hall of Justice. Outside, the fat and chill flakes of a spring snowstorm pelted him.

  It took almost a quarter glass before a hacker and carriage drove by the Hall. It took less time than he had waited to get back to Myrmidon headquarters, since there was no reason to go to his house, not when Lystrana would not be there for glasses. The interior of headquarters was welcomingly warm as Dainyl stepped inside, still carrying his gear.

  “Welcome back, sir,” offered Undercaptain Chelysta, landing by the duty desk.

  “Thank you.” Dainyl smiled, gesturing toward the win-low from where the duty officer could see the flight stage. “Fourth squad has the duty? Is anyone flying?”

  “Viosyna lifted off on the dispatch run to Ludar before he snow came in. I told her to hold there until she was sure he storm had blown through.”

  “Good. What else has gone wrong while I’ve been away?”

  “You mean outside of the mess in Iron Stem, the missing skylances in Dereka, the wild Talent in Hyalt, the rebellion in Dramur, the furor in Coren, the floods in Catyr, or the missing pteridon and Cadmians on the North Road?”

  Dainyl managed to offer an ironic smile. “Let’s start with the missing pteridon and Cadmians. Does this have anything to do with the Cadmian relocation from Scien to Norda?”

  “Yes, sir. An entire company of Cadmians vanished riding south to Norda. An unseasonal blizzard hit, and there’s no sign of them anywhere. Third Company in Alustre sent two pteridons to Pystra to see if they could find the Cadmians. One pteridon is missing.”

  “Missing? How could a pteridon be missing?” Sometimes a rider had a mishap, and the pteridon returned with-out the flier, but there was no record of a pteridon and rider vanishing. Not in recent years, at least. “Could they have landed somewhere to wait out a storm?”

  “We don’t know,” replied Chelysta. “It’s never happened before. We heard on Londi, and they had been missing for a week. The report’s on your desk.”

  “What about Iron Stem?”

  “The mines are open, but third squad has been patrolling there…”

  “What about the skylances? Are more of them missing?”

  “One more. No one knows how it happened.”

  Considering then-Majer Dhenyr hadn’t known how the first disappearances had occurred, that there was nothing new on the second wasn’t exactly surprising. “Hyalt?”

  “Yuasult lost Synetra to the Talent wielder, but they flamed him down, finally. Everything’s under control there.”

  “Coren?”

  “The marshal’s been handling that, and he hasn’t said anything, sir.”

  “What about the floods?”

  “Catyr. That was another case where the locals logged a section of the lower mountains, in a place where we don’t usually overfly. They had warm rains, and some of the hillside slid across the river. Then there was more rain, and a big lake built up behind the mud—”

  “The mud gave way, and all that water washed downstream and flooded the town?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Dainyl almost wished he hadn’t asked. “Are Quelyt and Falyna around?”

  “Quelyt has the day off. He did a long message run to Salcer and back yesterday. Falyna was out in the squares a while ago.”

  “I’d appreciate it if they weren’t sent on any more runs without first checking with me.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Dainyl headed to his study. As he had feared, there were eports stacked on his desk, but as he read through them, it was clear that they added only a few details to what he had already known or to what Undercaptain Chelysta had told dim. There were no reports from Dramur, but then, there was no way for there to be any. There were no Myrmidons there. Dainyl had no doubts that the situation had gotten worse. It couldn’t have developed any other way.

  He sat back in his chair. Over the winter and the first days of spring, everything had gotten worse. He couldn’t recall as many problems hitting at once. He also didn’t believe in coincidence, but he couldn’t see a common cause—except in the cases of Dramur, Catyr, and Coren, where one consistent factor was lander greed, tied to a lack of understanding about the fragility of the world’s lifemass.

  It wasn’t that the schools didn’t teach about natural balance; it wasn’t that the landers and indigens hadn’t been told that mature forests were better for the world. It was that lifeforce couldn’t be measured except through Talent, and steers didn’t have any. So, without a way to see the truth with their own eyes or senses, when golds were involved, steers just let those teachings fall away—unless the alectors stepped in with skylances or sent in a Cadmian battalion.

  Yet, there was more at work than golds. He still had no idea why he was being kept, so indirectly and yet so obviously, from heading back to Dramur. It seemed clear enough that the marshal and the Highest wanted things to go wrong there, but Dainyl still couldn’t figure out why. Was it to weaken the Cadmians? Or because they disliked the culture being built up by the seltyrs and needed an excuse to destroy it, in a way that would be seen as justifiable by landers outside of Dramur? The latter was certainly possible. From what he’d seen, he didn’t care much for the way the seltyrs controlled the island. That possibility was some-thing he could broach, at least in a veiled way, with the marshal.

  He went back to studying the reports, then reviewing the accounts, a task he would be more than happy to turn over to his successor, whenever Dhenyr reached headquarters.

  The marshal arrived in the duty coach right after the fourth glass of the afternoon, presumably after having used the Table at the Hall of Justice to return to Elcien. He stopped at Dainyl’s door. “If you have a moment, Submarshal?”

  Dainyl stood immediately. He not only had the moments, but wanted to hear what Shastylt had to say. He’d hoped the marshal wouldn’t be too long in returning, because he was looking forward to seeing Lystrana, and not late in the evening.

  Dainyl followed the marshal, closing the door to the marshal’s study. He waited for the senior alector to seat himself before settling into one of the straight-backed chairs.

  Shastylt looked tired, one of the few times that Dainyl had seen him that way, with redness around the edges of his eyes and a sense of lagging lifeforce. His left eye twitched several times. “How was Lyterna, Dainyl?”

  “Most interesting. Asulet clarified a number of things.”

  “He has that habit.” Shastylt’s tone was dry. “I assume you’ve read all the reports?”

  “Yes, sir. I also talked to the duty officer to see if anything new had happened.”

  “Is there? I would hope not. Enough has gone awry in the past few weeks without something else.”

  “I didn’t see a report on the floods in Catyr. Everything else was covered.”

  “Catyr is another example of lander stupidity and greed. It just came at a bad time, but it’s manageable.”

  “I don’t like the report that we lost a pteridon,” Dainyl said bluntly. “We’ve never lost one, to my knowledge.”

  “In the early days, we lost a few to the ancients.”

  “Is that possible? Now?”

  Shastylt took a long and slow breath. “The North Road is le northernmost high road in Corus, and the coldest. The ncients have always preferred cold and the north. There are occasional sightings, still. It is possible.”

  “What else could it be?”

  “The Highest does not know of anything else, but one
way or another, it is worrisome. I sent a message to Asulet asking for his thoughts. He said that was the most likely possibility.” Shastylt looked across the wide desk, a desk that held neither reports nor papers, and steepled his long fingers together. His eyes looked at Dainyl without really eeing the Submarshal. “I’d like you to brief Colonel Dhenyr when he arrives the day after tomorrow. I’m going to be tied up with the Highest, and with the Duarches’ Council. They’re asking questions about the problems in Iron Stem and Hyalt, and now the High Alector of Trade is claiming that the way we handled Coren has created trade problems that will affect lifeforce adversely.”

  “From what I have read in the reports,” Dainyl replied, “what was happening there before the Myrmidons got involved was having an even larger negative impact on life force. You don’t let people chop down older growth forests without some significant impact.”

  “Exactly. Unhappily, the High Alector of Trade seems to feel that we should be overflying every old growth forest in Corus.”

  Even without calculating, Dainyl knew that sort of overflying would have taken every moment of the year for the hundred and eighty odd pteridons of the Myrmidons, not to mention what the drain on the world lifeforce would have been.

  “What about the situation in Dramur?” asked Dainyl. “It will have been several weeks by the time I return, even if I leave first thing on Sexdi. With all that is happening here, it might be best if I returned there to see if I could wind matters up there. That way, I could return here, and help deal with some of the other problems. Several of them look to be even longer-running than Dramur… and more serious.”

  Shastylt nodded. “The Highest and I talked that over earlier today. That might be best.”

  “What do you think about the seltyrs and the growers on Dramur?” Dainyl asked.

  The marshal shrugged, then gave a half smile. “Like most landers, their concern is for golds and comfort. They are more ruthless than most in power, but that is because Dramur is an island, and other landers cannot easily challenge them.” He raised his eyebrows. “You think that they should be replaced?”

  “I had not made plans in such a direction, but I have thought about what might happen if they had taken matters into their own hands in my absence.”

  “You should follow what you think, Dainyl. Dramur needs to be settled quickly, now. Since there is an ancient tunnel there, also, you might take care to avoid it… in view of what may have happened at Scien.”

  Dainyl caught the word “now” and kept his face pleasantly interested, as well as maintaining a tight Talent-hold over his feelings. “I will be most careful. I’ll leave first thing on Sexdi… after I’ve briefed the colonel on Quinti. In the meantime, is there anything else you’d like me to handle?”

  Shastylt tilted his head before speaking. It was a pose. “Not at the moment. You may have to brief the Highest and the Duarches on the situation in Dramur once you have resolved it.”

  ‘Then, by your leave? You are doubtless rather pressed…“

  The marshal laughed once, a sound not quite humorous, and forced. “Pressed is a very good way of saying it. If I’m not summoned again, we’ll talk tomorrow about what I’d like you to emphasize when you brief Dhenyr. You might give that some thought.”

  Dainyl closed the study door firmly but quietly on his way out.

  He’d definitely gotten the impression that whatever the marshal and the Highest had planned in Dramur had not gone at all the way that they had anticipated. Now he’d be stuck cleaning it up, and it was likely to be messy and bloody, because they’d practically forced it to get out of hand. He just wished he knew why.

  79

  Lystrana was waiting in the foyer of their dwelling when Dainyl stepped through the doorway and out of the snow flurries that had come and gone all day. The warmth of her smile erased—for those moments—the concerns that had preoccupied him most of the day. He moved toward her, but she was faster, and had her arms around him before he could set down his gear.

  “I’m so glad you’re back safely,” she murmured in his ear, still holding him tightly.

  “Did you ever doubt it?”

  “Not from you… but there are stories about those who never leave Lyterna,” Lystrana admitted, easing back.

  “I met some of them.” Dainyl shook his head sadly. “They do the menial work there. They’re prisoners in all but name. They have to be the ones who can’t use the Table, though.”

  “That means they were born here.”

  “Or thrown through the long translation tubes blind. That was also done.”

  Lystrana’s face froze for an instant. “It was?”

  Dainyl nodded. “I learned a great deal while I was there.”

  “You can tell me later.” Her head inclined toward the kitchen. “Sentya will have supper ready before long. We can settle at the table and talk about other things.”

  “I’ll take my gear upstairs and be right back.” He gave her another hug, brushing her smooth alabaster cheek with his lips, then stepped back and hurried up the stairs.

  It took him but a few moments to hang up his clothing and set his spare boots on their rack. Everything he brought back was clean, thanks to the very industrious menials of Lyterna.

  A glass of amber wine stood at his place at the table, with one before Lystrana as well. Once he had seated himself across from her, she lifted the purple-tinged crystal. He lifted his as well. There was the faintest ringing cling as the goblets touched.

  “To your safe return.” Her smiling face glowed.

  “To all safe returns.” He was smiling as broadly as she was. He took a sip of the wine, savoring it. “What is this?”

  “It’s something from Syan. Zestafyn recommended it, and I had Zistele buy some for us. How was the flight out?”

  “The weather was clear and cold, but we didn’t run into any storms. I’d forgotten just how wide the grasslands are. It’s almost six hundred vingts from the west side of the Lower Spine Mountains to Lyterna…” Dainyl went on to describe what he had seen on the flight, and the view of the Vault in the late afternoon.

  “Alector… alectress…” murmured Sentya, standing by the table with two bowls of steaming oarfish chowder.

  “Oh… I’m sorry, Sentya,” Dainyl said. “I didn’t see you there.”

  “Sir, I liked hearing what you saw.”

  Dainyl caught a touch of wistfulness in her voice. It reminded him how fortunate he was to be able to fly and to see so much of the world. “That may be,” he replied with a laugh, “but I wouldn’t want your arms to fall asleep while I kept talking.”

  The older serving girl slipped a bowl before Lystrana, then the other before Dainyl.

  “Thank you, Sentya,” said Lystraria.

  After the day’s chill, the chowder was more than welcome, and neither spoke for a time.

  “What’s happened at the palace?” Dainyl finally asked.

  “Very little in our area. We’ve had to transfer additional funds to Alustre and to some of the regional centers with problems.”

  ‘Things like the floods in Catyr?“

  Lystrana nodded. “We can’t pay for the reconstruction costs. The locals will have to do that, but we’ll have to send in a supervisor to make sure that they don’t cut corners, and that they do the necessary reforestation. Even so, that puts us farther behind in growing lifeforce mass.”

  “The locals won’t like bearing the costs.”

  “They never do.” Lystrana took a sip of the wine. “They cause the problem because they want golds, and they never think of what other difficulties they’re causing. Then they complain when we insist that they remedy things. They think that you can keep abusing the world, as if there were no costs at all.”

  Zistele appeared and removed the empty bowls, and Sentya reappeared with two platters. One held cheriaf, pasta tubes filled with a mixture of minced beef, cheese, spices, particularly mint, and covered with a golden white sauce. The second platter held deep
poached onions.

  Dainyl nodded to his wife, then served himself after she had. “It’s good to be home.”

  “How long can you stay?”

  “I have to leave on Sexdi morning. The situation in Dramuria is probably worse. We don’t have any reports, but I don’t see how it could have improved.” He took a bite of the cheriaf, savoring it. He supposed he should eat the onions, but he couldn’t say that he looked forward to them with as much relish as he had the cheriaf.

  “That seems to be the case all over Corus.”

  “You don’t think it’s coincidence?”

  “I admit to some doubt,” replied Lystrana.

  “That makes two of us.”

  They shared a smile.

  “Do you think that the snow will affect the apple tree in back?” asked Lystrana.

  “It hasn’t flowered yet…”

  After that, they said little beyond pleasantries while they ate.

  After they finished, Lystrana stood. “Let’s go to the sitting room. It’s more comfortable.” She walked to the sideboard, where she poured two small snifters of the golden brandy. She handed one to Dainyl and seated herself in one of the corner chairs, holding her snifter so level that the brandy barely moved.

  Dainyl doubted he could do that, and set his brandy on the side table before sitting. “You think the weather will turn springlike before long?”

  “About the time you leave.” A mischievous smile appeared on her face.

  Once the girls had finished clearing the dinner and retired to their quarters for the evening, Lystrana looked at her husband. “I’d like to hear about Lyterna.”

  “I’m not certain where to begin.” Dainyl took a sip of the golden brandy. “Asulet met me. I never really talked to anyone else, except in passing or in trivialities. He is the High Alector of Life form Creation, in practical terms, even if he doesn’t have the title…” Dainyl went on to explain all that had happened, and all that Asulet had conveyed to him. “… he as much as warned me not to trust High Alector Zelyert.”

  “You’ve known that all along.”

  “Zelyert and the marshal have an agenda, and Dramur is tied into it. I’d thought it was mostly Dramur, but I’m getting the feeling that is only a portion of it.”