Scepters

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  SCEPTERS

  L. E. MODESITT, JR.

  SCEPTERS

  The Third Book of the Corean Chronicles

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  In memoriam:

  For my father, both hero and preceptor

  …The brave, the craven, those who do not care,

  will all look back, in awe, and fail to see,

  whether rich, or poor, or young, or old and frail,

  what was, what is, and what is yet to be.

  There is a time, and it will come, years hence,

  when one will find the scepters of the day,

  those scepters more and less than what they seem,

  with the might to bring life itself to bay.

  In those ages, then, will rise a leader,

  who would reclaim the glory of the past,

  and more, as he would see it, in the sun,

  to make sure the dual scepters will always last.

  Then too, the lamaial will rise, but once,

  Where none yet will suspect, nor think to dare,

  and his hidden strokes may kill aborning,

  Duality of promise bright and fair.

  For which will live, and which will prosper?

  Who will rule the lands, in faith or treason?

  One called lamaial or the one called hero,

  for one would seek a triumph, the other reason.

  Excerpts from:

  THE LEGACY OF THE DUARCHY

  Contents

  I. THE SCEPTER OF THE PAST

  1 Hyalt, Lanachrona

  2

  3 Dekhron, Iron Valleys

  4

  5

  6

  7 Hieron, Madrien

  8

  9

  10 Tempre, Lanachrona

  11

  12 Tempre, Lanachrona

  13

  14 Salaan, Lanachrona

  15

  16 Dekhron, Iron Valleys

  17

  18 Tempre, Lanachrona

  19

  20

  21 Hieron, Madrien

  22

  23 Dekhron, Iron Valleys

  24

  25

  26

  27 Alustre, Lustrea

  28

  29

  30

  31 Dekhron, Iron Valleys

  32

  33 North of Iron Stem, Iron Valleys

  34

  35

  36

  37 Hieron, Madrien

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42 Dekhron, Iron Valleys

  43

  44

  45

  46

  47 Tempre, Lanachrona

  48

  49 Alustre, Lustrea

  50

  51

  52 Alustre, Lustrea

  53

  54

  55

  56

  57

  58 Salaan, Lanachrona

  59

  60

  61 Tempre, Lanachrona

  62

  63 North of Iron Stem, Iron Valleys

  64

  65

  66

  67

  68 North of Iron Stem, Iron Valleys

  69

  70

  71

  72 Alustre, Lustrea

  73

  74 Salaan, Lanachrona

  75

  76

  77

  78

  79

  80 Tempre, Lanachrona

  81

  82 Prosp, Lustrea

  83

  84

  85

  86

  87

  88

  89

  90 North of Iron Stem, Iron Valleys

  91

  92 Hieron, Madrien

  93

  94 Prosp, Lustrea

  95

  96 Salaan, Lanachrona

  97

  98

  99

  100

  101

  102

  103

  II. THE SCEPTER OF THE PRESENT

  104

  105 North of Iron Stem, Iron Valleys

  106

  107

  108 Dekhron, Iron Valleys

  109

  110

  111 Hieron, Madrien

  112

  113

  114

  115

  116

  117

  118 Northeast of Iron Stem, Iron Valleys

  119

  120 Dekhron, Iron Valleys

  121 The Hidden City, Corus

  122

  123

  124 Salaan, Lanachrona

  125

  126 The Hidden City, Corus

  127

  128

  129 Salaan, Lanachrona

  130

  131 Northeast of Iron Stem, Iron Valleys

  132

  133 The Hidden City, Corus

  134

  135

  136 The Hidden City, Corus

  137

  138 Tempre, Lanachrona

  139

  140 Salaan, Lanachrona

  141

  142 Salaan, Lanachrona

  143

  144 Salaan, Lanachrona

  145

  146 Norda, Lustrea

  147

  148 Salaan, Lananchrona

  149

  150

  151 Salaan, Lanachrona

  152

  153

  154

  155 Norda, Lustrea

  156

  157 Norda, Lustrea

  158

  159 Norda, Lustrea

  160

  161 Tempre, Lanachrona

  162

  163

  Tor Books by L. E. Modesitt, Jr.

  Copyright

  I.

  THE SCEPTER OF THE PAST

  1

  Hyalt, Lanachrona

  Light fell upon the priest. That single ray of illumination, shaped by the ancient master-carved lens in the ceiling of the long and narrow chapel hewn out of the red rock cliffs, bathed the celebrant. His green tunic and trousers, trimmed in purple, shimmered. So did the alabaster makeup that covered his face. The blue-silver threads in the black short-haired wig picked up the light, creating a halo around his face. The black boots, with inset lifts, reflected light as if they too were burnished mirrors.

  A long chord echoed through the temple, but the priest did not speak until all was silent.

  “When our forebears turned their backs on the True Duarchy, then the One Who Is turned away and let the Cataclysm fall upon Corus…” The celebrant’s voice seemed to come from everywhere, yet nowhere.

  More than a hundred worshippers stood with bowed heads, heads covered with black scarves of mourning. Only a handful dared to look from lowered heads toward the front of the temple.

  “The Cataclysm did not have to happen. The misery and suffering did not have to come to pass. And why did it come to be? How could so many be so blind?”

  The only response to his questions was silence.

  “The Duarchy of Corus bestowed peace and prosperity upon all the world, for generation upon generation. Ne
ver was there so fair a realm, so just a world. Never were so blessed the peoples of a world. Never had so many benefited so much. And then, in an instant, it all vanished…”

  In the next-to-last line of worshippers stood a dark-haired figure in gray. He was a head taller than those around him, and his face paler. The weave of the wool of his traveling cloak was somewhat finer. His head was bent slightly less than the heads of others, and his eyes never left the celebrant. The faintest hint of an amused smile appeared from time to time at the corners of his thin lips.

  “…as the Mantra of Mourning declares…Ice flowed from the skies. The air that had been so fair, and perfumed, became as thin and as acrid as vinegar. Streams dried in their beds, rivers in their courses, never to flow again…All that had been beautiful and great perished and was lost. And for what reason?”

  After a momentary silence, the priest answered, “Because people were selfish and thought only of themselves. They turned their backs on the True Duarchy, and when they did so, they turned their backs on the One Who Is…for the Duarchy was indeed His creation…

  “…in this world of transitory glory, when warlord succeeds warlord, and battle follows battle, and evil follows evil, we must persevere. We must have faith in the One Who Is. We must follow the path of righteousness to restore the old truths. For only by the instrument of the True Duarchy shall we be redeemed. Only by restoring the true creation of the One Who Is shall we once more see peace and prosperity, faith and faithfulness…”

  The traveler in gray nodded, appreciatively, and continued to listen.

  “…even today, the troubles continue. The hills to the north and west have become so dry in your lifetimes that they support nothing but twisted trees and spiky thorn, and yet the unbelievers do not see. Even here in Hyalt, where it is obvious, they do not see…

  “…when the only deity is gold, when the only rule is power, when the only law is that laid down by the longest blade, by the deadliest rifle, no man can be safe, and none can find security. There are no arts, no fine buildings, no wondrous words, nothing but gold and blood…”

  The traveler continued to listen, until at last came a hymn and the concluding refrain:

  “…for the beauty of the skies and sea,

  the full return of perfect harmony,

  the blessings of the True Duarchy

  and for the One Who Will Always Be!”

  After the hymn, the priest turned to the worshippers. “Praise to the One Who Is! And for His creation of the Duarchy!”

  “And for His creation of the Duarchy!” repeated the congregation.

  “Praise to the One Who Is! For He will come again in glory!”

  “For He will come again in glory!”

  “Praise to Him and His True Duarchy! For all that was and will be!”

  “For all that was and will be!”

  The single ray of light vanished, plunging the cavern temple into total darkness for a long moment. Then, slowly, more indirect light filtered into the temple as the skylight portals, with their gauze-covered panes, were uncovered.

  The sanctuary at the front of the temple was empty.

  The gray-clad traveler made his way forward, toward the side entrance leading to the chambers of the celebrant. His fingers touched briefly the outer garments over the heavy leather wallet hidden beneath his cloak and filled with golds.

  2

  The wind moaned over the top of Westridge, hissing through the quarasote that had grown up following the Cataclysm and that had come to dominate the arid lands of the Iron Valleys in the tens of centuries that followed. Alucius half stood in the stirrups, stretching his legs. He settled back into the saddle of the gray gelding, drank in the cool and dry morning air, and smiled to himself. He looked to the northeast out across the ridge before him, and the expanse of land empty except for quarasote and sand and red soil—and the predators and prey that were unseen, except to those who knew how to understand the Iron Valleys or to those with Talent, who could sense the lifethreads that wove the world into a unified whole.

  A good summer morning, he thought, bending forward and thumping the gelding on the shoulder. “We’ve got a ways to go.”

  The lead ram was already five hundred yards—a quarter vingt—ahead of the last ewe, and they were barely four vingts out from the stead buildings.

  The faint flash of green gossamer radiance washed over Alucius, and he half turned in the saddle. A single soarer hovered in the silver-green sky of morning, her wings shimmering against the sky and the sheer stone ramparts of the Aerlal Plateau to the east. The herder’s eyes took in the feminine form of the soarer, then darted back to check his flock almost immediately.

  He had not seen a soarer in almost two years—since he had left the hidden city. Nor had he and his Talent sensed the green radiance of one in all that time. And all the times he had seen one of the soaring winged figures had meant change—and usually trouble.

  He cast forth an inquiry. What now?

  The soarer vanished without a response. One instant, she was there. The next she was not. While she had not felt familiar, Alucius had not been close enough long enough to tell for sure if the soarer had been the one who had instructed him during his brief captivity in the hidden city.

  His hand touched the hilt of the sabre at his belt. He glanced down at the rifle in its leather saddle case. Even with the massive cartridges used in a herder rifle—with casings bigger than the thumb of a large man—rifles were usually not all that effective against the kind of trouble she foreshadowed. Rifles were most useful against sandwolves and, sometimes, against sanders—and necessary, since both would prey on lone nightsheep…and especially on ewes and lambs. Rifles were useless against ifrits, but Alucius had never seen one near a stead—not surprising, since he’d only seen two in person in his life, three if he counted the Matrial, and he had not really even seen her.

  A soarer above Westridge in the morning, reflected Alucius, was so infrequent that he almost wanted to turn back to the stead to tell Wendra about it. But what could he tell his wife, except that a soarer had appeared, then vanished without a word or gesture?

  Outside of the Iron Valleys, soarers—and even sanders—had already become a myth for most of Corus, one told in tales that included the Myrmidons and alectors of the long-vanished Duarchy—the millennium recalled by most of Corus as one of peace and prosperity. Both the duration of that reign and the prosperity and fairness of the Duarchy had been lies and exaggerations of the cruelest sort, as Alucius had discovered in his battles as a Northern Guard officer, but since he had no way to prove what he had discovered—except by revealing his Talent in a world that feared and mistrusted it—the lie lived on, a comforting tale of a golden past. Some folk—especially the savants from Tempre—said the soarers were never there at all, that they were but mirages created by light and the fine, mirrorlike dust worn off the quartz ridges that lined the natural parapets of the Aerlal Plateau by the endless winds. Alucius knew better. So did any of the double handful of nightsheep herders around Iron Stem.

  Alucius nodded as he glanced back at his flock. Two of the nightrams edged toward each other. Their curled black horns—knife-sharp on the front edges, and strong enough to bend a sabre—glittered in the morning sun. Red eyes shone out of black faces, and the black wool that was tougher than thick leather, more valuable than gold, and covered their two-yard-long bodies and broad shoulders, gave them a massive and menacing appearance. A nightram could gut a single sandwolf, although the sandwolves were even larger, with crystal fangs more than a handspan in length, but the sandwolves hunted in packs and tried to pick off ewes and lambs, or older and weaker nightrams who strayed from the flock.

  One of the nightrams pawed the ground, and Alucius could sense the antagonism between the two males. He eased the big gray gelding forward, reaching out with his Talent to project disapproval and separation. Both of the black-wooled rams looked up. Alucius could sense their frustration, but they separated. Herding nig
htsheep was a chancy life, and impossible, often fatal, if the herder didn’t have the Talent to make his feelings known.