The Lord-Protector's Daughter

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Late in the afternoon, less than a glass before time to close, Mykella rose from the table. “I’ll be back shortly, Maxymt.”

  “As you wish, Mistress Mykella.”

  She smiled pleasantly as she departed. At a measured pace, she walked to the main staircase, past the guards stationed at the upper landing, and down to the main level of the palace. Then she turned left and walked eastward for almost a hundred yards before stopping at an unmarked oak door. She opened the door and stepped into the long and narrow accounting chamber. One of the tables was empty—the one usually occupied by Shenyl.

  The young clerk closest to the door was the only one she did not know by sight, and that meant he was Wasdahl. He glanced up, then stiffened. “Mistress Mykella.”

  “Wasdahl, have you seen Shenyl?”

  The youth swallowed. “No, Mistress. He hasn’t been in today. He must be ill. He never misses a day.”

  Haelyt, the older and graying clerk in charge of the clerks, cleared his throat.

  Wasdahl closed his mouth.

  “Mistress Mykella,” Haelyt said firmly, “he is absent today. No one knows why. He has been most diligent in the years he has been here. Might I help you?”

  “I am most certain that you could, Haelyt, but it is a small matter and would require your searching for an entry that Shenyl would know easily. I will see if Shenyl is well tomorrow. Thank you.” Before the older clerk could protest, Mykella smiled, then turned and slipped back out through the door.

  Her thoughts churning, she forced herself into a deliberate pace back along the lower corridor, avoiding those few functionaries and factors in the corridor, then nodded to the guards at the base of the main staircase as she passed to make her way back to the upper Finance study.

  25

  After an uneventful dinner, where Eranya chattered about how wonderful the formal dinner would be on Octdi, and how she loved meeting people from all across Corus, Mykella and her sisters retired to the parlor. Because Mykella did not wish to talk, she claimed a history she had not read before. Salyna addressed her needlework.

  Rachylana talked. “…you’d think we’d made Father miserable. He seems determined to have us all matched and married off in the next year…and who in her right mind would want to go to Dereka? At least in Southgate, you wouldn’t freeze, Salyna.”

  “I’d rather not go either place at the moment.”

  “You can’t stay here.”

  “Why not? We all don’t have to marry rulers or heirs, do we? I’m certain there must be a Seltyr or High Factor’s son who might actually be intelligent and able to converse and who might feel gratified to have me, rather than obligated.”

  “Father won’t allow it. You know that.”

  “He’s never said that.”

  “He doesn’t have to. That’s the way things are.”

  Mykella’s eyes had been flicking across the words of the history, as she half-read, half-listened, when she stopped and re-read the section in the middle of the page.

  …of all the thousands who strove on that battlefield, when the Ancient appeared to Mykel, few indeed saw her, for their eyes could not encompass her. A larger group, two score or so, beheld Mykel surrounded by an unworldly green glow. The others saw nothing….

  Mykella nodded to herself. Even back in the times of Mykel the Great, few could see the soarers. That didn’t help her any, but it made her feel a bit better.

  “Where would you rather go, Mykella?” asked Rachylana, turning to her older sister, “Dereka or Southgate?”

  “There’s no point in expressing a desire,” replied Mykella. “We won’t be allowed to choose anyway. Father and the envoys will work it all out, and we’ll be told that it’s our duty and destiny, and to make a good household wherever we’re matched.”

  “They say that the Northcoast women can have lovers besides their husbands,” ventured Rachylana.

  “I’m certain they can,” replied Salyna. “Many of them are trained in arms. That happened because they needed women as well as men to hold off the Squawts and the Reillies after the Great Plague. The women there were smart enough to keep training their daughters in skills with weapons.”

  “You would know that. Is that where you want to go, then?”

  “It won’t happen. Lady Cheleyza is from there, and Father will want to make ties elsewhere.” Salyna looked down at her needlework.

  “You handle the needle as if it were a dagger,” prodded Rachylana.

  “You need finesse with both.”

  Mykella went back to concentrating on her book.

  Before long, Rachylana slipped away.

  Mykella extended her Talent senses, but Rachylana had left and was not standing outside the parlor door, listening. No one else was, either.

  After several moments, Salyna lowered the needlework frame. “What’s the matter?” she asked Mykella quietly. “You’re avoiding talking to everyone again. Is it Kiedryn? Are you still worried about the missing golds?”

  “I can’t help but worry. I think it’s more than the golds, but I don’t know what, and I can’t seem to find out what it might be.” Before Salyna could say more, Mykella asked, “Did you find out anything about Berenyt?”

  “Her name is Clyena, and she’s the sister of one of the Southern Guards in Berenyt’s company. She’s a maid for Lady Cheleyza.”

  That didn’t surprise Mykella. “Cheleyza probably introduced them, or made sure Berenyt noticed her. I’d wager Clyena is overpaid as a maid.”

  Salyna nodded. “Or she gets clothes or food for her family or something like that. But isn’t it safer and better that way?”

  “I suppose so, but do you think Berenyt will stop seeing others after he’s matched and married?”

  The blonde shook her head. “Is there anything I can do?”

  “Not now.”

  “I’m going to bed. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “In the morning.” Mykella smiled. “Thank you.”

  Salyna returned the smile, then turned and left.

  Mykella forced herself to read another full page of the ancient, and generally boring, history before standing and making her way from the parlor back to her chamber. There she waited until the corridors seemed quiet before raising her concealment shield and slipping out her door. She took care to walk as quietly as possible down the main staircase, taking her time.

  Once she reached the Table chamber, she opened the door gingerly, ready for anything, but all she saw and sensed was the lambent purple glow. Her first effort was to see if she could find Shenyl.

  While the mists swirled across the silvered finish of the Table, they did not part to reveal anything. Mykella frowned. In the past, the Table had either remained silvered or shown the mists followed by an image. Was there something wrong, either with her or the Table?

  She concentrated on seeking Joramyl, but the mists appeared and vanished nearly instantly, displaying an image of her uncle with another man, again in the entryway study of Joramyl’s mansion. The other man was not dressed as a Derekan, but in the white shimmersilk tunic and trousers of a Seltyr of Southgate.

  Her father had said that the envoy from Southgate would not be arriving in Tempre for several days more. Admittedly, Joramyl’s mansion was just outside Tempre, but…or was the man just a Seltyr who had traveled to Tempre for trading purposes?

  Again, Mykella felt hamstrung. By next week, she would know whether the man she now saw was the envoy, but she couldn’t very well risk telling her father that the envoy was already meeting with Joramyl because she didn’t know if the Seltyr were the envoy, and she couldn’t explain how she knew…and if she tried, most likely Joramyl would lie, and her father would believe his brother over her.

  An ornate silver and crystal wine decanter sat on the polished wood table, and before each man was a matching silver and crystal goblet. Both smiled a great deal as Mykella watched the conversation, but even without hearing their words or being able to sense their feelings, sh
e doubted that either set of smiles was anything but a facade.

  Finally, she let the image fade.

  Now what?

  She looked at the Table. Did any of the other Tables offer a place from which she could escape? She could only try. She tightened her lips, then vaulted up onto the Table, concentrating on the greenish blackness below.

  This time, her descent into the bitter cold below was swifter, and she immediately tried to sense one of the light-beacons that she had not tried before, trying to determine which might be closest. In some fashion, although it was muted, the crimson and gold seemed closer than the brilliant gray-silver. She focused on the crimson and gold. As before, for a time nothing seemed to happen. Then the beacon rushed toward her and surrounded her.

  Mykella staggered as she rose out of the greenish blackness, taking several steps on uneven sand before her hip slammed into a low stone wall—the edge of another stone depression. She glanced around hurriedly, but she saw and sensed no one. She stood in an empty chamber, in the kind of square pit that had once held a Table, she judged. The air around her was far colder than in Tempre, and much thinner. Again…she felt that she was belowground. A single ancient light-torch on the wall illuminated the chamber, if faintly, and she faced an ancient door with a lever handle.

  Mykella clambered out of the pit and studied the chamber around her more closely. As with the Table chamber in Tempre, there were no furnishings, just bare stone walls. At that moment, she realized that the walls themselves held the faintest illumination, and that sense of light was neither green nor purple, but gold, a gold that she sensed, not saw. The walls, ancient as they seemed to be, bore not a single mark. They reminded her of something else. After a moment, she nodded. They were gold eternastone. But…the only place in all Corus where there was gold eternastone, or so she had read, was in Dereka.

  Had she finally gotten somewhere that might be useful? She looked at the door, then walked toward it, almost afraid to depress the lever, to find it locked or blocked beyond by stone. Finally, she pressed the lever, and pulled on the door. It creaked, but it opened toward her, revealing a narrow set of stone steps leading upward.

  Mykella slipped through the doorway and began to climb. Each step she took raised a cloud of dust, and her nose began to itch. She stifled a sneeze with the back of her hand, because, if someone waited above, she certainly didn’t want to alert them. At the top of the stairs was a small foyer, with another ancient door. She gently depressed the lever, easing the door away from her. She heard nothing and sensed nothing, nothing except rows of…something.

  Immediately, she raised her concealment shield before stepping into what looked to be a large room, filled with rows and rows of barrels. A warehouse of some sort? Ahead of her, down an aisle between the barrels stacked three deep, was a faint glow. She eased toward it, finally coming to a low and wide window. The glass and sill were dusty, as if no one had cleaned either in years, yet there were no spiderwebs or signs of insects.

  Mykella rubbed a patch of the glass as clear as she could and then peered out into the darkness, lit but by the pearly glow of Selena and scattered lamps. Below the building itself ran a paved yellow road, with shadowed grooves carved into the stone by years of wagon wheels. To her right, to the north, she thought, she could see something outlined vaguely in the full light of Selena—a structure that held the gold glow of ancient eternastone.

  She wanted to laugh, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to stop. She was trying to stop plots, and she didn’t want to be matched and married to the Landarch’s heir and live in Dereka…and where was she? In an ancient gold eternastone warehouse in Dereka.

  She turned and walked back to the stone steps and down to the Table chamber that no longer held a Table, and then into the sandy depression. She concentrated on the darkness beneath.

  Nothing happened. It was as though a barrier lay between her and the greenish darkness beneath where the Table had once been.

  How could there be a barrier? Was she trapped in Dereka?

  She swallowed. There had to be some reason, something different, didn’t there?

  She tried again, but all that happened was that her boots slipped on the sand and she had to steady herself by reaching out to the stone edge of the Table pit. Even that felt clumsy, as though something blocked her from touching the stone.

  What was happening? She had to think. Something had to be different.

  Then…she shook her head…and dropped her concealment shield.

  Almost immediately, she could sense and reach out to the greenish black below. Gratefully, she let herself sink into the depths. As the blue beacon of Tempre hurtled toward her, she sensed the slimy purpleness she associated with the Ifrit. But she had to return. Who knew what would happen if she tried to stop her travel?

  When she emerged on the Table in Tempre, a heavy coat of frost covered her nightsilk tunic, and an icy fog appeared around her. She couldn’t help shivering as she eased herself off the Table. A wisp of purple drifted upward.

  Mykella fumbled mentally, but began to erect the kind of barriers she had used before. The purple wisp retreated, and the image of the distant Ifrit appeared in the mirrored surface of the Table.

  You have returned. A harsh smile appeared on the white face. You have learned much, it appears, but there is so much more you could learn…with the proper instruction.

  “You were not interested in instructing me before.” Mykella remained a good step back from the Table, and that made it difficult to see the Ifrit, given the height of the Table and her own less than impressive stature.

  The language is no longer as it once was, and I did not realize that you were a descendant of one of the changed ones.

  “It took me a while to understand your words.”

  The white-faced Ifrit nodded. Most here had thought that those who could use the Tables had perished, but there were some who argued that if your ancestors had had the foresight to merge with the world life-thread, they would survive, if not…precisely…in the form they had had before.

  “My ancestors looked like you?” Mykella shuddered inside.

  Not all of them, most likely, but some must have, or you would not be able to use the Table. Nor would you have learned so much so quickly.

  “You are not here on Corus.”

  No.

  “Where, then?”

  On Efra.

  Efra? She’d never heard of a land or a city called Efra. Then she thought of exactly what he had said—On Efra. She swallowed. He was on another world. How…how could that be? She just stood there for a long time before replying. “Is that where my…ancestors like you came from?”

  No. They came from Ifryn. Some used the Tables to come to your world, and some to Efra. There was a great battle on your world, and contact was lost. Because some Tables still functioned, we knew life remained, and we have tried to reach you over the years.

  Mykella had the feeling that he was not telling the entire truth, not that she could sense it through the Table, but something was not quite right.

  “I need to think about this.” Mykella stepped back farther from the Table, still holding the shields she had raised earlier.

  Think carefully. We will talk later.

  Slowly, Mykella backed away, watching the Table with eyes and senses until she was out of the chamber. Then she closed the door and moved quickly down the corridor, climbing the stone steps to the main level of the palace.

  She had no more than returned to her chambers and settled onto her bed to pull off her boots when she sat up straight. She could sense a green miasma seeping out of the stones of the outer wall. Then the ancient soarer appeared.

  “What is it?” asked Mykella.

  The Ifrit will ensnare you with partial truths. None of your ancestors were as he is.

  “I didn’t think so. I couldn’t believe that.”

  Others like you, across Corus, did have ancestors such as he, and they are not as their ancestors were. They are
like you, and their children and their children’s children will remain so.

  “He mentioned a battle. Was that the Great Cataclysm? Who was fighting?”

  There was a battle. It was between the evil Ifrits and those who had come to understand that what had been occurring would kill the world. We helped those who would save the world, but most of us and most of those we helped perished. All those who would have destroyed the world perished. It was indeed a Great Cataclysm. Those few of the good Ifrits who lived became as you, as they always should have been. That is why you must oppose the one who wants you to help him. He would again bring evil into this world, no matter what else he tells you.

  With those words, the soarer began to fade, then slipped into the stones and down toward the greenish blackness beneath the palace.

  Mykella watched, or sensed, what the soarer had done.

  Could she do that? Just slip down through the stones?

  Her entire body shivered, reminding her just how exhausted she was.

  Another time, she decided, as she finished disrobing for bed. As she drifted into sleep, a vagrant thought crossed her mind…something about not being able to shield herself in the depths or when traveling through the darkness.

  26

  The soarer’s presence might have been comforting, or Mykella just might have been totally exhausted. Whatever the reason, she slept soundly and without nightmares and awoke refreshed on Octdi morning. She remained cheerful until after breakfast, when she made her way down to the lower level of the palace and to the accounting chamber.

  Haelyt immediately turned and bowed as Mykella entered. “Mistress.”

  “I don’t see Shenyl. Have you heard from him?”

  “Haven’t you heard, Mistress?” asked Haelyt. “He was attacked and murdered by brigands the night before last, apparently on his way home. We just got word this morning.”

  “Oh…” Mykella shook her head. She’d feared just that, but having it confirmed still upset her. “Oh…” She did not speak for a moment. “Was he married?”