Scepters

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “When do you intend to leave?” asked the marshal.

  “Londi. I’d thought we’d take a measured pace, with mounted drills every morning and individual weapons practice and drills every evening. The individual practice won’t tire the mounts, and if I can instill good habits in tired men, they’ll hold.”

  “You and Overcaptain Feran make a good team.”

  “He’s very solid and very practical, sir.”

  “That seems to be a trait of the north. Along with ruthless idealism implemented pragmatically.”

  “For all the procedural niceties, sir, I did not ask for this assignment.”

  “I know. It is recorded as my suggestion to the Lord-Protector. If you’re successful, we both will profit.”

  Alucius didn’t see how having to follow Colonel Weslyn would be any great profit to him or to his family—or the stead. He could see all too easily the disasters that would follow if he succeeded to command of the Northern Guard—let alone those that awaited him if he failed earlier.

  “I’ve been away from Tempre too long,” Frynkel continued. “Marshal Wyerl has requested my return so that he can leave to take personal command of the Lord-Protector’s forces defending Southgate and the trade highways.”

  Alucius nodded.

  “I wish you well, Majer, for both of our sakes, and trust I will see you in Tempre before too long, reporting your success in dealing with the rebels.”

  While Alucius understood that the marshal wanted to end the meeting, there were too many unanswered questions. “Sir…there are a few matters…”

  “Yes?”

  “Supplies. The post at Hyalt has been taken. It’s unlikely that we can count on local support for rations or feed, at least not much past the south of Tempre. I’d like to request some supply wagons…”

  “In Lanachrona?”

  “Especially in Lanachrona, sir. I would doubt that the Lord-Protector would wish us to forage off his own people…”

  Frynkel took a deep breath. “We can make arrangements. What else?”

  “More information. There are maps, but the only reports we have are a season old. What kind of weapons and mounts do they have? How many are there? Where did they come from?”

  Frynkel shook his head. “You have all the information I have. That’s all the information anyone in Lanachrona has. We sent in scouts. Not a one returned. Since the first traders and crafters fled, no one else has appeared coming north or east out of Hyalt.”

  “No one?”

  “No one.”

  “You expect me, with three companies, to deal with something like this?”

  “I never told you it would be easy, Majer. The Lord-Protector is stretched thin everywhere.”

  Just how thin Alucius had not realized. He took a slow breath.

  All in all, he spent another half glass with the marshal before finally saying, “Thank you, sir. We’ll do all that we can and appreciate your support.” He paused, then asked, “By your leave, sir?”

  “You have my leave and best wishes.”

  Alucius rose, trying to make the movement fluid, when he felt anything but graceful. Frynkel said nothing more as Alucius left the study.

  He walked back across the courtyard to his quarters, thinking. Frynkel had used him to solve a problem at Krost Post, exactly as the Lord-Protector was planning to do in Hyalt. That underscored his own problem. He had more planning to consider so that he was not merely reacting when he reached Hyalt, and that meant some intensive study of the maps of the area around Hyalt. The lack of information bothered him, because it strongly suggested the ifrits might be involved. But how could he tell?

  He smiled, faintly, ironically. There was one simple aspect to the day’s events. Now that Fedosyr and Jorynst were gone from Krost, Alucius could finish his letter to Wendra and send it off. Again, he pushed aside his worries about her and Alendra. He doubted he’d be sending many dispatches from Hyalt, and for a glass or two of the evening ahead, he didn’t want to think deeply about what lay ahead, even if he would have to in the glasses and days before him.

  42

  Dekhron, Iron Valleys

  Even in harvest, it is chill here,” observed Sensat, closing the shutters against the twilight. He moved to the iron stove set against the outside wall of the study, where he opened the stove door and thrust in a generous shovelful of coal before setting the shovel against the hearth wall and propping it against the base of the scuttle.

  “Acorus is a cold world,” replied Tarolt. “You knew that.”

  “Knowing it in one’s mind and feeling the chill seeping into your bones on all but the warmest of summer days are two different matters.” Sensat pulled one of the chairs closer to the stove and seated himself. “It’s not just the chill. It’s everything.” He gestured at the shelves and the books set upon them. “This, this is one of the largest collections of what passes for knowledge in all of Corus. The paintings, they are as child’s drawings. The sculpture is crude, raw, unfinished. The buildings are low and squat. Save for the handful of towers surviving from the Duarchy, nothing soars. Nothing challenges the eye or the spirit.”

  “If you miss Efra so much, you could chance a return.”

  “And risk becoming a wild translation? One world-translation in a lifetime is quite enough.” Sensat took a deep breath. “Can I not miss the soaring spires of Deconar? Or the high domes of Peshmenat? Can I not regret not having listened more intently to the lilting compositions of Ghefari?”

  “You can. I miss them as well,” Tarolt replied. “But there will be no spires in the future, no music for the ages, no domes that span the skies…not if we do not complete and strengthen the grid. Not if we do not prevent the ancient ones and their tools from again acting against us.”

  “Always the ancient ones…”

  “Once-powerful pastoralists, who would try to pass their lack of ambition on to dull steers.” Tarolt shook his head. “Steers who have no concept of art, of architecture, of beauty. They would leave their world a dull mudball drying in the eternity of time, accomplishing nothing, striving for nothing, becoming nothing.”

  Sensat stood and walked to the stove, opening the door and adding more coal. “You’re right. I’m still cold, though.”

  “Dull steers worthy only of providing the lifeforce for achievement and glory,” Tarolt said quietly. “Remember that.”

  43

  Under the soft light of the wall lamp in his quarters, Alucius leaned back in the old wooden chair, ignoring the creaking as his weight shifted, and blotted his forehead. The night was as warm as some summer days on the stead, and he doubted that he’d ever get used to the heat of the south. Places like Hyalt and Soupat—or Southgate—were even warmer. He glanced over at the nightsilk skull mask that lay folded on the corner of the desk. Wearing it in the current weather, even at night, would leave him a mass of sweat. Still…it might prove useful at some point.

  After taking a swallow from the water bottle he had set on the corner of the desk, he eased back forward, studying the map, his eyes following the narrow roads to the west of Hyalt. The map didn’t show how high the hills were, or how steeply they might climb into the eastern side of the Coast Range, but from the way the roads curved on the map, it was clear to Alucius that the terrain was anything but level. After a time, he took the calipers and began to measure the distances, writing them down on a sheet of brown paper.

  He had to hope that the maps he had been studying were indeed correct, or mostly so. He’d learned over the years that few were totally accurate, but if the roads he had measured and studied went roughly where the map said they did, then he could at least attempt the strategy he had in mind. Then, too, he told himself, once he got to Hyalt, he might have to rethink everything.

  Would there be more of the strange Talent-creatures in Hyalt? Or was it too far south for them? Or did it matter? While the soarers did not appear in the south, he had the feeling that the creatures associated with the ifrits would not be
limited by heat.

  No one seemed to know much about the revolt in Hyalt, except that the followers of the True Duarchy had appeared with weapons early on an end-day morning and slaughtered an unprepared and badly outnumbered garrison. Alucius had decided that a thorough reconnaissance was the first step, including staying well away from the town of Hyalt in the beginning. The more information he could gather before acting, the better.

  His lips quirked into a half smile. He already had a reputation for being almost impulsive and ruthless, and he wasn’t sure that he was truly either. Ruthless? The ifrits had been ruthless.

  He paused. Did every effective officer rationalize his actions that way? Did the ifrits?

  After a long silence, he returned to studying the map and making notes.

  When he was finished with the maps for the night, he’d write some more on the letter to Wendra. It was always more pleasant to end the day—or night—thinking of her.

  44

  Alucius studied the small hall in which he found himself, a vacant space ten yards long and half that in width. The walls were of pink marble with a tinge of purple, and at intervals of five yards half pillars were set within the marble—or against the stone. Alucius could not tell which. The stone pillars were of goldenstone, not gilded, but golden throughout. Overhead, slightly more than five yards above him, curved a ceiling of the same pink marble. All of the stone was so precisely fitted that his Talent could detect no sign of joints or of mortar. The floor was of octagonal sections of polished gold and green marble, each section of green marble inset with an eight-pointed star of golden marble, with the narrow arms of the star outlined in a thin line of brilliant—and unfamiliar—metal.

  The walls seemed to have shifted, and Alucius glanced around. There was no one but him in the chamber, and there were no wall hangings. He realized that he had not seen a doorway, and he turned to look behind him. There was no entrance there, either.

  How had he gotten into the chamber? He did not see a Table anywhere.

  Again, there was the sense that the walls had shifted, and Alucius tried to figure out what had happened. He studied the chamber. It was smaller—now only eight yards in length and four wide.

  He took two steps forward and looked back. Nothing had changed, and there were still no doors anywhere.

  The walls shifted once more, and now the chamber was but five by two and a half yards, and the ceiling was less than four yards above him.

  He reached out and touched the marble of the wall, cold, but not freezing. As he withdrew his hand, the walls shifted once more, then again almost immediately, so that he was standing in a chamber smaller than a cell, surrounded by hard stone less than a yard away.

  He tried to reach out with his Talent, to find a way out, but he could sense nothing but stone, hard stone.

  The walls shifted again, so that he had to turn sideways. Sweat poured down his forehead. He had to get out…somehow. He had to—

  Alucius bolted upright in the wide bed in the senior officers’ quarters. The sudden movement sent twinges through his aching body. Sweat was indeed streaming from his face and chest. He swung his feet over the side of the bed and stood slowly. He walked to the window, looking out into the darkness, but he still felt closed in. So he turned and made his way to the door. He opened it wide and stepped out into the darkness, breathing the cool air deeply.

  After several moments, he finally turned and stepped back into the quarters, closing the door gently. He walked slowly back to the bed, where he lowered himself to sit on the edge, all too aware that many of his bruises had a ways to go before they stopped aching. As he sat on the edge of the bed, he used the back of his hand to blot the cooling sweat from his forehead.

  He’d never had a dream quite like that, with the walls closing in on him, but he had to admit that in some ways, that had been how he’d felt in having to agree to the Lord-Protector’s “request.”

  After a time, he stood and walked around the room, still trying to cool off, still wondering what else lay behind the walled-in feeling.

  45

  The three companies left Krost Post promptly after breakfast on Londi morning, even before the post’s muster. By then, most of Alucius’s bruises had turned vivid shades of yellow and purple, and while the worst of the aching had subsided, he was still stiff. He hadn’t had another wall dream, for which he was thankful, and he’d written out a simple command structure and selected his three lancer messengers. He’d studied the maps of the Hyalt area and made some initial plans. He’d also sent off another letter to Wendra, and he could only hope that all was going well on the stead. His wristguard showed that she was healthy, and that was good. After his meeting with the marshal, he’d also managed to obtain not only the supplies, but also a large amount of blasting powder—and the wagons and teams to carry them.

  Because he also had decided to spend part of each day riding with each of the company commanders, he was riding at the head of Twenty-eighth Company with Deotyr, at the front of the column on the high road that ran all the way to the coast in Madrien. They would turn southward in something less than a week, onto the high road to Hyalt, days before they could have reached the Coast Range, let alone Madrien.

  The midharvest sky was hazy, without actual clouds, and windless, making the morning seem warmer and dustier than it was. Still, one advantage of the eternastone roads was that there was far less dust raised, and that meant the company bringing up the rear didn’t have to breathe nearly so much dust and grit as on the back roads.

  “Captain…” Alucius began, once they were settled into an easy riding rhythm, “I haven’t had much of a chance to talk to you and Captain Jultyr. I was wondering. Where are you from?”

  “Cersonna, sir.”

  “I’m not that familiar with many of the places in Lanachrona beyond Tempre, Krost, and those along the River Vedra. Where is Cersonna?”

  “It’s on the high road to Indyor, just east of where the road crosses the Vyana,” replied the young dark-haired captain. “There’s not much there, except for cattle and grasslands.”

  “How did you come to join the Southern Guard, then?”

  “When you come from a cattle-running family, and you’re the youngest of five, your choices aren’t what they might be elsewhere.”

  Alucius nodded. “You can’t split lands and a herd that many ways.”

  “The lands mostly. We’re not as dry as places like Soupat or Hyalt, from what they say. A square will only graze so many head. That’s over time, but if you overgraze one year, unless you’re lucky to get a monsoon winter, you’ll have to sell off part of the herd the next, or they’ll all lose weight, maybe starve.” Deotyr paused. “You’re a herder, though. Isn’t it the same for nightsheep?”

  “They graze quarasote, not grass, but it’s like that in a way. If they don’t get the better quarasote, their wool isn’t as strong, and that cuts its value, but it doesn’t cut the processing costs. They probably won’t starve, but the herder running them might.” After a moment, he asked, “What’s the biggest danger to your cattle? On the steads, we’re always on the lookout for sandwolves and sanders, but I’ve heard that there aren’t many south of the Vedra.”

  “No, sir. The snakes get a few, but grassdogs are the problem. They run in packs, and they can take down a straggler in moments…”

  Alucius listened, letting Deotyr enlighten him on the details of cattle-running in eastern Lanachrona.

  In time, the junior officer looked at Alucius. “Sir…they say that you’ve been in battles all over Corus and wounded many times…”

  “And you want to know if it’s true—or how much is true?” Alucius smiled. “I started out as a scout in the Iron Valley Militia…” He tried to summarize the campaigns and the wounds quickly. “…I guess that makes something like three times where I wasn’t expected to live and three other times where I had minor wounds. I’ve been in fights in every land west of the Spine of Corus except Ongelya.” Alucius didn’t i
nclude the fourth severe injury, where the soarer had nursed him back to health, or his times in Lustrea, fighting the ifrit engineer.

  Deotyr was silent, so silent that the loudest sound was that of hoofs on the eternastone road.

  Alucius decided not to push. He had almost two weeks of riding before they reached Hyalt.

  After a time, the young captain cleared his throat. “Sir…what can we expect in Hyalt?”

  “Trouble,” Alucius said with an ironic laugh. “The kind that always happens when people think they’re so right that they can’t believe that anyone else could be right or be better at what they do.” He waited a moment before he added. “Like Majer Fedosyr.”

  “Majer Fedosyr? Sir…”

  “That seems so unlike a revolt? It’s an example. The Northern Guard fought Lanachrona to a standstill twice. That’s history. The Iron Valleys agreed to union with Lanachrona not because they were defeated in battle, but because they had no golds left to pay the militia or to purchase supplies. Because Lanachrona took over the Iron Valleys, the majer wanted to believe that the Northern Guard was somehow deficient in its training and arms skills. He could not force himself to acknowledge that it was otherwise. Because he could not, he broke every rule for a demonstration match. He even threw acid-dust at my face. People who can’t judge their beliefs against what happens in the world around them, who cannot see what is…they’re much like Majer Fedosyr. The True Duarchists believe that a duarchy that has not ruled in thousands of years will provide a better life for them than the Lord-Protector. Yet the Lord-Protector is one of the more enlightened and intelligent rulers in Corus. One only has to ride through other lands to see this. But the True Duarchists have yet to see this, and it is most unlikely that they will.”

  “I thought folk in the Iron Valleys don’t care much for the Lord-Protector.”