Corean Chronicles 3 - Scepters

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Alucius smiled. "I'm not that familiar with Dekhron. I've spent most of my time in the Guard and militia out fighting. Could you point me in the direction of your father's house?"

  "Oh… take the avenue north one block, then follow the street west almost to the end. There's a wagon carved in a plaque by the door." Halsant nodded and turned.

  Alucius watched for a moment before walking back along the row of bales and leaving the warehouse.

  Fewal and Dhaget looked at their colonel as Alucius left the warehouse and remounted the chestnut.

  "We're off to see his father, another trader called Halanat. I hope he's where he should be." Alucius eased his mount back up the avenue, then westward on the next street.

  That street extended a good half vingt to the west before it ended, but even from several hundred yards away, Alucius could Talent-sense the purplish feel that seemed to envelop the two-story dwelling set slightly farther back from the street than the houses on either side. The ornamental shrubs that flanked the wide front porch seemed to droop lackadaisically, as if winter had been hard on them. The grass was sparse and dying, and not from winterkill.

  With no hitching posts in front, Alucius dismounted and handed the chestnut's reins to Dhaget. "I shouldn't be all that long, but I'd guess this Halanat might have more to say than his son did."

  The two lancers acknowledged the words with a nod.

  Alucius took the two steps up to the covered porch, glanced up at the ancient carved wagon plaque beside the door, then lifted the heavy brass knocker and let it fall. The thud echoed harshly in Alucius's ears. After several moments, a thin-faced and graying woman, without a dual lifethread but with a heavy purple aura, opened the door. She frowned quizzically.

  "Alucius, madam. Halsant said that I could find Halanat here." He smiled as warmly as he could manage.

  "He doesn't handle the factoring anymore. That's Halsant, and he's down on the river."

  "I'm not here about trade," Alucius replied politely. "I've just talked to Halsant, and he suggested I needed to talk to his father…"

  "If you must…" With a resigned sigh, she stepped back into the foyer and held the door, inclining her head toward the closed door to her right. "He's there. As always."

  "Thank you." Alucius bowed his head briefly, then stepped to the door, behind which he could sense a well of purple. For just a moment, he paused before depressing the door lever and entering the room. He closed the door as he stepped inside.

  Halanat sat behind a wide table desk, with stacks of parchment and paper set across the side facing Alucius. The herder saw not one image, but two. His eyes took in a round-faced trader with nondescript brown hair wearing a dark gray tunic trimmed in brilliant blue. His Talent-senses showed him another sight entirely—that of a man whose lifethread had been possessed by an ifrit. That lifethread was not the normal brown or tan or yellow, or even that of a herder—black or black shot with green, or even black shot with purple or pink, or the dual pink and black threads he had seen with the torques of the Matrial. Instead, there was the thinnest of brown threads, a lifethread of Corus. Entwined and twisted around that thin brown thread was a pulsing purpled rope of an ifrit lifethread, and that purpled ropelike thread dwindled southward into the distance, but not all that far, Alucius felt.

  Although Alucius had suspected as much from what he had sensed already, he still had to restrain his total shock at seeing the trader so possessed.

  "You are bold, Colonel—or should I call you herder?"

  "Titles don't matter. You should know why I'm here."

  A momentary expression of puzzlement crossed Halanat's face. "I must say that I cannot imagine why—especially alone and without a company of loyal Northern Guards with you."

  "There are several outside." Alucius nodded slowly. "Even more might have been more prudent after your last effort of some years ago." He had no proof that the trader had been involved in the attempted assassination effort with more than twenty bravos just after Alucius had been released from the Northern Guard some two years before, but it was worth suggesting.

  "What effort?"

  "The one that cost you more than two hundred golds," Alucius replied. "Or have you forgotten? Did all those golds mean so little?"

  A cool smile crossed the trader's lips, but did not reach his eyes. "And you let it pass for so long before suddenly appearing to accuse me of whatever this might have been? "

  "I'm not suggesting anything. You know what you did, and I'm saying it."

  "You can say whatever you want," Halanat stated. "That doesn't mean it's true."

  "It's true enough, and now there are wild pteridons roaming the steads. That is also your doing—or that of those working with you. As were the supplies you sent to the prophet, and the excessive number of golds you received In return."

  "That is to be expected. Supplying a rebel can be dangerous… and costly. You expect a factor to risk that for normal rates? Surely, you are not that naive, Colonel."

  "And the wild pteridons?"

  "Times are changing." Halanat rose, still smiling coldly. "Do you wish to leave? You might prevail here, but you cannot stand against what will be."

  Alucius could feel the chill inside himself. How many more of the ifrits had invaded Corus? And how? "Seldom is anything inevitable."

  "Ah… the arrogance of youth." Halanat continued to smile.

  Why didn't the ifrit attack? Because he knew Alucius could win? Because he was waiting for assistance? What had Alucius done before? After the slightest of hesitations, he sent out a slim Talent-probe, the strongest he could muster.

  In return, the Halanat-ifrit hurled a blast of purplish lifeforce at Alucius.

  Alucius slipped the purple force aside, in a fashion similar to the way in which he might have handled a sabre slash.

  The trader slammed back with another blast of intense purple Talent-force.

  Again, Alucius slip-parried it. Then, recalling his training with the soarer, he concentrated on seeking the nodes beneath and within the ifrit lifethread, the thread that was linked to something to the south.

  The trader threw up a purpled shield, blocking Alucius's probe, and reached for a drawer in the table desk.

  Alucius formed a golden green wedge of life-Talent and let the force flare around him, then struck once more, aiming at the most prominent node linking the ifrit lifethread to the trader.

  Halanat froze for a moment, perspiration bursting out all across his forehead in droplets that flew from his face in all directions.

  Alucius slid his probe under the purple shield, twisting and unraveling the smaller lifethreads within the node. As he did, he could sense heat rising in and around him, and sweat popping out on his own forehead. His efforts felt like clumsy fumbling and as though time all around him had slowed to a crawl as his Talent-probe knifed into the node of the ifrit's lifethread.

  Suddenly, the trader's ifrit thread vanished in a spray of tiny purple threads, and Halanat stood there, wavering on his feet, his eyes widening. His hand twitched, and he pulled a double-barreled pistol from the now-open drawer.

  Unable to reach the trader in time, Alucius slashed a second Talent-probe at the trader's now-unprotected and remaining lifethread node, keeping his lance of golden green tight and focused. With a spray of brown and green, Talent-threads and Talent-shards vanished as they flared into the air.

  The pistol clunked dully as it struck the rich Hyaltan carpet. After a moment, Halanat pitched forward and crumpled against the table desk. His lifeless body slid sideways and sprawled across the carpet, covering the pistol.

  Alucius stood stock-still, breathing hard. He'd forgotten just how much effort Talent-battles took. He took several more deep breaths before slowly turning. He opened the door to the entry hall carefully, but the foyer was empty. Closing the study door behind him, he crossed the foyer and stepped out onto the porch, then made his way down the stone walk to where the lancers waited with the chestnut.

  "Si
r?"

  "Dealing with factors can be… trying. Everything is in coins. He admitted that they supplied the prophet and was proud of it."

  "Sir?"

  "He said that profit was necessary for a trader. I had to tell him that he could no longer expect excessive profit from the Guard. There wasn't much more that I could say." Alucius wiped his still-sweating forehead, then took the reins from Dhaget and mounted. "He was rather agitated when I left. Most agitated." Alucius forced a crooked smile. "That was the least I could do under the circumstances."

  He guided the chestnut back eastward on the long street, back toward Northern Guard headquarters. Much as he disliked the idea, he needed to find Tarolt before long, but he had no idea exactly where to begin.

  He'd have to claim, if anyone accused him, that he and Halanat had argued, and that Halanat had pulled the pistol and gotten so agitated that his heart had just stopped. But, somehow, he doubted that anyone would say anything.

  Alucius took another long breath and blotted his forehead once more. He'd hoped otherwise, but he had known that there was always the possibility that the ifrits would return. And it was clear that their return was linked to the prophet—and possibly to the Regent of the Matrial. He just didn't know how—or how many ifrits there were, or where.

  Chapter 118

  Northeast of Iron Stem, Iron Valleys

  « ^ »

  Wearing her vest over a long-sleeved shirt, although with nightsilk undergarments, Wendra stood in the equipment room of the maintenance barn, careful not to inadvertently swing the carrypack that held Alendra into any of the heavy machinery. She lifted the handle of the antique crusher out of the housing, setting it and the attached iron piston carefully on the oak workbench that seemed equally ancient. Tilting the crusher's housing slowly, she poured out the fine granular powder that she had just ground. She measured out a half cup of the powdered crushed quartz and used a funnel to ease the powder into the bottle she had brought from the main house.

  She'd have to go back to the kitchen and the cooler to add the goat's milk and heat the makeshift formula before she fed the orphaned night-lamb that was bleating mournfully in the crib pen beside the main barn. Even with the goats supplied by Kustyl, feeding and caring for the lamb had been hard, but none of them wanted to see the lamb die—early unseasonal birth or not—and especially not after losing four nightsheep over the fall and winter. That the lamb was the second that needed hand-raising in less than two seasons didn't help, either. After she fed the lamb, she needed to check the spindles in the processing tank to see if they were ready for spinning.

  Something murmured outside the closed windows of the workroom. Wendra cocked her head and listened, wondering if Lucenda had come back for something. Royalt had taken the flock, after having let her take the nightsheep on the previous two days.

  She smiled to herself. No one on the stead ever turned back for anything, especially Alucius, and she'd come to understand why after living with Lucenda and Royalt. She tilted her head. There was a greenish sense outside, almost like that of her husband, and the silence of a still day, which was welcome because the winter had been long and blustery and cold.

  "Yes, it has been, little one," she murmured to Alendra, who was neither quite sleeping nor quite awake in the carrypack.

  Wendra replaced the crusher handle and piston, then picked up the bottle and stepped out of the maintenance barn, carefully closing the door behind her. With everyone gone for the morning, she couldn't go around leaving doors open.

  Out on the stoop of the stone building, she thought she heard a song without words, a haunting song that enfolded the stone building. It was definitely a song and not the wind. The melody was not quite recognizable.

  The herder looked eastward, squinting from under the edge of the eaves into the early-morning light. Already, Royalt and the nightsheep flock were well out of sight, beyond the nearer ridges.

  A glittering flash of golden green washed over her—from her left. She turned, and her mouth opened as she beheld a soarer hovering at the end of the porch, closer than she ever had seen one. The green-tinted wings blurred the light, wings that appeared almost crystalline one moment and diaphanous the next. The soarer's face was that of a beautiful girl child with short golden and translucent hair. An expression that might have been a smile crossed the small mouth. The silver green eyes remained fixed on Wendra. The soarer wore no garments, but the golden mist that surrounded her feminine figure served just as well to conceal her shoulders and torso.

  Only once had Wendra seen a soarer from closer than a vingt away, and this one was less than five yards from her. There was an enormous difference in seeing one from two thousand yards or even fifteen—and from five. So Wendra watched, listening, as the soarer hovered.

  The soarer was beautiful, not as any woman might be, but of itself, and Wendra drank in that beauty, entranced.

  For a long moment, she stood there.

  Then, out of nowhere, a hand grasped her right shoulder, a hand that felt like warm stone, a hand that belonged to a squat figure less than two-thirds her size. The sander was tan, and its skin sparkled in places, as if diamonds or crystals shone through its rough skin. Like a person, it had two arms and two legs, hands and feet, a pair of eyes, and a mouth and nose. It wore no clothes. Sanders never did.

  Wendra jerked her head around and tried to pull away from the sander. Although the top of its head came but to her shoulder, its hand held her arm so tightly that she could not break free. She lashed out with her knee, driving it into the creature's body. Her knee felt as if she had rammed it into a stone wall, and a wave of pain seared up through her thigh and down to her toes simultaneously.

  As she tried to pull back from the sander, a second ironlike grip took her left shoulder. Another sander had appeared from nowhere, seemingly sliding out of the sandy soil and leaping onto the porch.

  Trapped and held tight by the two sanders, Wendra glanced toward the soarer, who still hovered in at the end of the porch.

  "What do you want?"

  Neither the sanders nor the soarer answered.

  "Why are you doing this?"

  Again, none of the three replied.

  "Why?" Wendra demanded. "Why me?" She gathered together her Talent-force and began to reach out for the life-node, as Alucius had taught her.

  Do not… The soarer wrapped a greenish force around Wendra's probe. We mean you no harm, but you must come.

  The two sanders said nothing, but then, Wendra had not expected that. Not even as they lifted her—each using but a single arm and hand—and carried her down the steps as if she were a lamb or a child. They walked northeast—toward the Plateau—and away from the southeast, where Royalt had ridden out a good glass earlier.

  Wendra did not scream or yell. There was no one within vingts who could have heard her.

  Chapter 119

  « ^ »

  Slightly more than a glass after morning muster on Octdi, Alucius returned from the strong room, where he and Sanasus had counted out and checked the payroll. Normally, and once things were more settled, that would be handled almost entirely by Sanasus, but Alucius still felt that he needed a better understanding of some of the mechanics of how headquarters worked.

  Not for the first time, he was beginning to see why Royalt had never even entertained the idea of making a career out of the militia—and probably would not have, even if he had not had the stead to return to. Everywhere Alucius looked, there were reports, and accounts, and he couldn't do much of anything himself—just order and advise and wait… and hope that things were done right.

  With a deep breath, he picked up Sanasus's report on logistical needs for the next two seasons. He was not looking forward to reading it, but he needed to know, especially if he wanted to carry out his project of moving the Guard to Iron Stem.

  A chill, bitingly cold, slashed across Alucius's wrist. He looked down, even as his Talent enfolded the black crystal of the wristguard. Although the wr
istguard remained chill, not quite unbearably so, he could sense that Wendra was healthy. But why the chill?

  Had something happened to Alendra?

  For a moment, he felt that he could not breathe, but he pushed that thought away. The chill had to be related to Wendra. He swallowed. It felt almost like the times when he had used the ifrits' Tables. But there weren't any Tables in the northlands. Were there?

  He just looked at the wristguard. The chill continued. That it did told him that, whatever was happening, it wasn't a Table, because the Table transport was faster. But what could it be?

  He just sat there behind the desk, looking at and sensing the crystal, but the chill continued.

  After a time, he looked down at Sanasus's careful handwriting and the column of figures below. The letters danced before his eyes, and they made no sense whatsoever.

  Finally, he stood up and walked to the window, looking out at the hazy sky.

  Abruptly, as suddenly as it had come, the chill lifted from the wrist-guard, and the pulse from the crystal remained strong—and somehow warm. That was only slightly reassuring for the young colonel.

  Alucius looked at the wristguard, but it offered no answers beyond indicating that Wendra was healthy. He did feel that, had anything happened to Alendra, there would have been some continuing sign of distress from Wendra. Beyond that, he could only hope and trust that Wendra and Alendra were not in danger.

  He couldn't just ride out—not when what he did with the Northern Guard might affect their future as well—and even if he did, it would be a long day and well into the night before he could reach the stead. And if Wendra had been transported by a Table… going home wouldn't help at all.

  But the chill, and what it might have meant, nagged at him.

  Chapter 120

  Dekhron, Iron Valleys

  « ^ »

  At the sound of the knocker on the door, the white-haired man in black left the study and walked across the foyer. He frowned as he looked through the side window and saw the figure standing outside in a heavy winter coat. After a moment, he opened the door and stepped back. The younger man stepped inside the foyer, ushered in by a wintry blast of chill air, and Tarolt closed the door. He did not offer to escort the newcomer beyond the foyer. "Yes?"