Legacies

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  'Sulkyn?" suggested Alucius.

  'Right."

  'What else do you do?"

  'Believe me, that's enough. Sometimes, you'll make five-six runs a day."

  'Is there another messenger service for messages from Hieron to places like Zalt or Dimor?"

  'Those are the distance runs. You really don't want them. They operate out of the Southside Depot…"

  Alucius listened and asked more questions, listened some more before saying. "I don't want to bother you more, but I appreciate your explaining. I've never done much besides fight."

  Both Lysan and Gero laughed.

  'Well… maybe we'll see you besides in the mess."

  Alucius shrugged. "That's up to Overcaptain Haeragn, whenever she gets back."

  'Well…" Gero glanced at Lysan, "she's still in Faitel. Will be for two-three more days.

  'Then I should know before long," Alucius suggested.

  'Don't count on that. Jesorak'll keep you as long as he can."

  After leaving the two messengers, Alucius headed back to the Eltema Post library. The single room was larger than the one at Zalt, but not that much better equipped, except with local maps, which showed signs of having been perused, possibly by the messengers.

  In the dimming light, even with the aid of the wall lamp, it took more than a glass before he found what he needed, a hand-drawn map of the lanes and roads leading into the Matrial's Park and residence. He already had located a map of Hieron and traced out a fair copy of the roads leading from Eltema to the Matrial's residence, and he noted where the west portico was, and how to approach it.

  With Haeragn returning before long, he had little time.

  As full night fell, and the lamps were dimmed, Alucius left the library and slipped through the shadowed courtyard to the main training building. While he wished he had more time, it was all too clear he did not, and he had one more task to undertake.

  There was only one problem. Not only were the doors locked, but, from his vantage point in the shadows, he could see the guards.

  He headed back to his own bunk. He'd have to handle the last chore during the day.

  After the last stint of the morning in sabre instruction—mounted—Alucius stabled and groomed Wildebeast before making his way to the quarters bay, where he washed up, then headed to the training squad leaders' staff room. By then, it was close to midday, and his stomach was growling, slightly, but definitely.

  Heltyn was sitting on the left side of the long narrow table, near the door, pouring over a short stack of papers. "How did it go?"

  'Some of them still don't know that a sabre has only one side that cuts. Most of those that do are pretty good, except for the two that think it's an axe."

  'We're having to try to train more captives without arms experience," Heltyn pointed out. "They've got it even worse at the trooper school in Salcer."

  Absently, Alucius wondered how his grandsire had stood it—either when he'd been a militia training officer or when he'd undertaken to train Alucius. "You be a while?"

  'Not that long."

  'I'll be back in a bit." Alucius walked out of the squad leader's staff room and headed back in the direction of Undercaptain Sulkyn's room—and Overcaptain Haeragn's, as well.

  As he turned the corner, he looked down the corridor. The only people were thirty yards away, and heading in the same direction he was. He used his Talent to create the same kind of screen he had at Salcer, one that created the impression of an empty corridor space around him.

  Taking care to move silently—boots clicking on the stone in a seemingly empty section of hallway wouldn't be at all helpful—Alucius slipped toward the undercaptain's room. He hoped she was at the officers' mess. The open door disabused him of that possibility.

  He stopped well short of Sulkyn's door. Now what?

  He could see a squad leader walking briskly along the corridor. He waited until the man passed, then had to wait for a captain to pass as well. Neither even looked in his direction.

  Finally, he eased past Sulkyn's open door, still holding the screen, his heart beating faster. The undercaptain never even looked up from the papers on her table desk.

  Alucius's Talent told him that no one was inside the room used by Overcaptain Haeragn. Hoping he remained unseen by the undercaptain, Alucius eased the inward-opening door back and stepped inside, careful to close the door behind him slowly and silently.

  He surveyed the space, without touching anything.

  There was a stack of papers in the center of the table, with a smaller piece of paper on top, held down by a polished wooden weight into which had been inserted an insignia of sorts. He looked at it, realizing that it resembled the ancient seal of the Alectors, a circle containing an enamel portrayal of a balance scale suspended from a red sabre. There were several words inscribed in the ancient silver that bordered the enamel. Alucius couldn't read them.

  He could read the words on the paper, little more than a notation that the papers represented personnel decisions deferred until Haer-agn's return. He decided against trying to read any of them. His time was short, and Sulkyn's note to her superior confirmed the fact that Haeragn was expected back at Eltema Post very soon.

  Instead, he slipped to the cabinet in the corner, perusing one drawer as quickly and quietly as he could, then a second. In the third drawer, he found what he needed—a recent message from one sub-arms commander Benyal urging Haeragn to find ways to increase the number of captive trooper trainees, given the heavy losses sustained by the Madrien forces. Alucius slipped it inside his tunic, along with the copy of Haeragn's reply on a sheet of message paper, with "Eltema Post Training Center" across the top, the first time Alucius had seen that. It took him several moments more to find blank sheets of the same message paper, which also went inside his tunic.

  After that he stood inside the closed door, using his Talent-senses to make sure the corridor was clear. He didn't need someone seeing a door open itself, or call the attention of an officer who might have Talent to such an occurrence.

  He felt as though he had waited a quarter of a glass before the corridor was clear enough for him to leave the overcaptain's room and close the door behind him. There was the slightest click. Alucius froze.

  The undercaptain looked up, and then back at her papers.

  Once Alucius was certain she was concentrating on them, he slipped past her door. Twenty yards farther on, when no one could see, he released the screen, with a silent sign of partial relief, and made his way around the corner and to the squad leaders' staff room.

  Heltyn looked up as he entered. "Where did you go? Ready to get something to eat?"

  'Had to relieve myself," Alucius explained. "I'm ready. It's going to be a long afternoon, after yesterday." And he had much to do after his formal duties were over.

  'It probably will be. Jesorak didn't say anything, but word does get around. Sometimes, it's more effective if we don't say anything at all."

  Alucius could see that. He was learning, later than he should have, why his grandsire often had said little—to great effect. But then, he felt, he was learning much, also later than he should have.

  After supper Alucius made his way back to the library. There, with a large and ancient history book propped open beside him for cover, he inspected the two messages he had taken from the overcaptain's file.

  They were both fairly lengthy—one reason why he had chosen them—and had a text that would allow a follow-on from the over-captain.

  For all his hopes, it took him more than two glasses to write out the very short message, supposedly from Overcaptain Haeragn. The message itself wasn't all that difficult, but copying the hand that had written it was. It didn't have to be perfect, but it had to pass a cursory inspection.

  Finally, he studied the third copy he had made, skipping past the formalities of the headings and salutations to the short text.

  … in further reference to your earlier message, I have given this much thought while
in Faitel, despite the difficulties. We have been trying to train captives whom we would have turned to the public labor pool in earlier years, but the training staff has also been reduced, and the casualties in training are now higher. If the Westerhills perimeter remains quiet, and the Lanachronans do not mount another heavy assault upon Zalt, it may be possible to supply replacements for depleted companies. It is unlikely that we can train enough captives to do more than that…

  Once he was certain that his forged message was totally dry, he slipped all three messages inside his tunic and made his way through the dim halls of the barracks in the direction of the courtyard—and the bay that held the messengers.

  As he neared the archway into the bay, he moved more slowly, and quietly, and raised a screen that suggested only empty shadows. After easing around the edge of the archway, he could see that he almost didn't need the screen.

  A single squad leader—not someone Alucius had met—was on duty—if on duty meant asleep in a wooden chair under the call bell. His breathing was not quite a snore, but almost.

  Rather than take the sash and dispatch case of the slumbering messenger, which would be most likely to be missed sooner than others, Alucius moved toward the row of bunks and footchests. Most of the bunks were occupied with sleeping men, and most had stowed their gear neatly with cases and sashes out of sight. On the fourth footchest were both a sash and case along with a hastily discarded set of uniform trousers.

  Ever so carefully, Alucius removed both sash and case, and gingerly made his way out of the bay and back toward his own spaces, still holding the screen until he neared the archway to his own bay. Then he released the full screen and concentrated on making sure his hands looked empty as he walked into the bay and toward his bunk. He slipped case and sash into his footchest and under a tunic, then straightened.

  'It's late." Heltyn looked up sleepily from his bunk as Alucius sat down and pulled off his boots.

  'I know. I was reading in the library. There's so much I still don't know."

  'You won't know your sabre hand from your elbow if you don't get some sleep."

  Alucius offered a low laugh. "You're right. Turn over. I'll probably be asleep before you are." He was lying about that. His heart was still beating too swiftly.

  Alucius quickly saddled Wildebeast. His skullmask—unused for more than a year—was inside his shirt, above his nightsilk undergarments. The dispatch case and sash lay under some loose straw in the back of the manger. The green scarf was in his saddlebags, along with a spare uniform. In just a few moments, he was supposed to report to the staff room to meet Jesorak. He could still do that. He could, and no one would be the wiser. No one would ever need to know what he had done so far.

  Alucius swallowed, not easily, because his mouth was dry. Did he really want to try this? He thought of the wrongness of the pink threads, the massive web converging on the Matrial's residence, of the innocent man he had seen killed in the square when he had been a captive, and of all the militia troopers slaughtered by the crystal spear-thrower. He also thought about his grandsire—and his father, who had died doing what he had felt was right.

  How could Alucius ever return to the Iron Valleys if he had not at least tried to remedy what he knew was wrong? He'd felt the wrongness from the beginning, even before he had learned how to see the threads and webs, but he'd been more worried about his own personal problems. Did he want to spend the rest of a life wondering if he could have done something? Yet… could he? Was he deluding himself to think that he could?

  With a deep breath, he slipped the sash out of the manger and brushed away the loose straw, then eased it over his uniform tunic. Next came the dispatch case into which he had already placed the forged message. He walked to the back of the stall and checked the stable.

  There was no one close.

  He led Wildebeast out of the stall, then cast a loose screen. The idea was to create a general idea of "messenger" without revealing a face.

  Outside the stable, he mounted. No one seemed even to look his way as he rode out of the courtyard and through the open gates. Once beyond the walls, he turned Wildebeast westward, and as he passed the corner shops, and the small chandlery, an older woman waved. Alucius waved back, wondering whose face she had seen. He continued to ride west along the paved redstone road that led to the intersection with the north-south high road.

  After he was a good vingt west of Eltema Post, he released the bit of Talent-power that blurred his face. While it was highly likely that someone would eventually figure out what he had done, he thought he had a good chance of getting away with the first part of his plan, only because no one would expect a squad leader to ride toward the Matrial and into a place where he could be so easily destroyed.

  Once he was inside the residence… he pushed aside those thoughts and shifted his weight in the saddle. Wildebeast whuffed, as if he sensed his rider's unease.

  Wildebeast carried Alucius westward with an easy stride, and Alucius realized that this was the first time in years that he had ridden anywhere alone. He held to the center of the road, as he'd seen other messengers do, and kept his eyes forward. Even so, he could see the neat dwellings and the sheltered courtyards, and feel a certain order.

  Yet he could also feel a tension beneath that order—or was that his tension?

  Before all that long, he arrived at the redstone ramp that rose to meet the roadbed of the north-south eternastone high road that divided the city into its eastern and western halves. He crossed the high road just after two traders' wagons that were heading southward, seemingly empty. He headed down the ramp on the far side, and then, later, past the circular paved square where he had seen the public execution where a guilty woman and an innocent man had been killed. The area was empty, and he took the road that curved to the right and around the northern side of the Park of the Matrial. The park was enclosed by a low redstone wall, only about a yard and a half high. The residence was roughly in the center of the park, set upon a low hill that, to Alucius's eyes, looked as though it had been built just for the residence.

  While there were trees amid the grass, most were low evergreens and junipers. The white stone pathways were bordered by knee-high boxwood hedges, and beyond each hedge was a narrow flowerbed, although none of the green plants there showed blooms. The grassy expanse of the park was vacant except for a small flock of white sheep and a herder.

  Alucius tried to use his Talent to see exactly where the purple-pink torque threads converged, but from the north all he could tell was that they seemed to reach below ground somewhere on the south side of the residence.

  He was grateful he had not seen any other messengers, nor heard any coming after him.

  The road continued to curve around the park until it was headed south. Then he neared the pair of gate posts on his left. He turned Wildebeast toward them, and the narrower way beyond that led to the Matrial's residence. The single sentry—in green and purple—watched as he rode toward her. Almost without looking, she waved Alucius through.

  Once he was inside the gates and riding through the grounds, a faint scent of some flower wafted past Alucius, although he had seen no blooms. So quiet were the stone lane and the park that Wildebeast's hoofs on the stone sounded preternaturally loud.

  On the lane, he could sense more clearly that the torque threads wove together into a treelike trunk that ended somewhere in the hill on which the residence was built. He frowned as his Talent revealed that the residence was more like four levels, with only two above the hill.

  He rode up to the west portico, and glanced around, then saw what he was looking for—a pair of bronze hitching posts near the base of the stone steps, each circled with a pink enamel band.

  Two guards—women in green with purple cuffs on their tunic sleeves—stood above it. They watched as Alucius dismounted and tied Wildebeast to the left post. They wore sabres and holstered heavy pistols, the first Alucius had seen in Madrien. With only his sabre, Alucius definitely felt at a di
sadvantage in weapons. So far as he could tell, neither guard had any Talent.

  Then, one stepped forward. "You're new."

  'Very new. Alucius, reassigned from Fortieth Company in Zalt."

  The hard-faced guard nodded. "Soon as we get to know you messengers, they send you someplace else. Who's it for?"

  'Sub-arms commander Benyal. That's what the duty officer said."

  'That figures." The guard turned. "Follow me. She's on the lower level."

  'How many levels are there?" Alucius asked naively.

  'Just two." Her words and feelings had the ring of truth, and that meant the existence of even lower levels was kept from most people, because guards usually found out almost everything.

  The guard walked briskly, but not at a headlong pace, and Alucius followed, trying to use his Talent to sense any officer who might be looking for him.

  Inside the archway was a stone-walled foyer ten yards square, and at the front sat an undercaptain behind a small table from where she could watch everyone who entered. She studied him for a moment, but said nothing as he walked past following the guard who headed for the corridor leading from the back wall on the southern end of the east wall of the foyer. The residence had a feeling of age, almost as if the very stones felt older than they were, and there was a faint odor, some where between flowers and incense, that reminded Alucius, in an odd way, of his grandmother. He frowned, because he did not recall her wearing any scent.

  The two entered a rear corridor about four yards wide, and within ten yards, they passed a window on the right, revealing an inner courtyard on the same level, but open to the sky. Ten yards past the window, they walked by another, slightly smaller corridor. "Where are we going?" Alucius asked politely.