Scepters

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “What if he doesn’t find me?”

  He will not find you.

  The certainty in the soarer’s words chilled Wendra.

  You must learn greater use of your Talent. We will try to teach you. If you learn, you may rejoin him in his efforts against the ifrits.

  “How do you know he will fight them?”

  He has no choice.

  “What if I cannot learn what you want?”

  Then, in time, you also will perish, for the ifrits will seek you out and use your body and expunge your mind. In greater time, all that you know and love will also perish.

  Wendra was silent, trying to assimilate what the soarer had said. If she did not learn, she and all she loved would be lost?

  Now…you will learn more about the threads of life, and how they may be mended—and unraveled…and how you may do so more quickly…

  Wendra swallowed. But she listened, and she held Alendra tightly.

  122

  Alucius had heard nothing about Halanat on Septi, nor during the day on Octdi. Nor had the feeling from the wristguard changed. He tried not to pace too much in his small study, but he couldn’t help but worry about Wendra—and about Tarolt, the shadowy trader that everyone followed but was never seen. Alucius had to believe that Tarolt was another ifrit, but he was hesitant to confront another trader immediately. He had the feeling that the meeting would be just like the one with Halanat—and that only one person would leave. Having two traders drop dead after meeting with him within days wasn’t something he wanted to deal with, and the alternative was worse. At the same time, he worried about what might happen if he didn’t do something fairly soon. He didn’t want to deal with an attack by the Regent and whatever Tarolt might be planning at the same time.

  He struggled through more inventories and planning, and reports, all the while trying to reach some decision on how to deal with Tarolt. Finally, late on Octdi, Alucius looked into Feran’s study for the third time in less than a glass, but this time Feran had returned.

  “Yes?” asked the older officer. “Did you need something? I was out going over some things with Faisyn, and the schedule for replacements from Sudon.”

  “How about some supper at the Red Ram? I’ll pay.”

  “That’s a hard offer to refuse,” Feran replied with a grin, “even for a newly affluent majer.” He set aside the dispatch he had been reading and stood. “That can wait. It’s basically a report from Soulend saying how cold it’s been and how nothing has happened since harvest.”

  “What does Sordet want?”

  “Replacement lancers for those whose terms are up, and some assurance for two squad leaders that they can actually get stipended.”

  “The Lord-Protector pays the stipends these days, but Frynkel’s been delaying them by a season. He hasn’t said whether that applies here. I don’t like doing that…”

  “But you’re thinking about it?” asked Feran.

  “I worry that we don’t have enough experienced squad leaders and that the ones we promoted to captain need all the experienced squad leaders they can keep for at least a month.”

  “So that just before the Matrites attack, we get rid of the stipended ones?” Feran’s voice was dry.

  “You’re right. Do you think we ought to promote early, and overlap?”

  “That might not be a bad idea.” Feran reached for his riding jacket. “You’d better get your jacket. It’s as cold as Soulend outside.”

  “Winter’s supposed to be ending.”

  “Tell the wind out there that.”

  Alucius reclaimed his own riding jacket, and the two walked out of the headquarters building, across the courtyard, and through the narrow archway in the south wall, turning west toward the tavern.

  Despite the signboard with the ram upon it, more a nightsheep painted in red than a town sheep, most of the Guard officers called the old redstone building on the corner after the proprietress—Elyset’s.

  The graying Elyset was the one to meet Alucius and Feran. Her eyes sparkled, and she looked at the insignia of both collars. Then she smiled. “You two have come up in the world—especially you, Colonel. The last time you were here…was it majer?”

  “It was.” Alucius couldn’t help grinning. “The last time I was here, you told me about the chicken, but I’d been hoping for quail.”

  Elyset laughed, but the sound died away quickly. “I didn’t remember last time, but you were the one who stopped the barbarians in Deforya and got decorated by the Lord-Protector. Right?”

  “Unfortunately. Then, after a couple of years, he ordered me south, then back here.”

  “Good thing. Guard hasn’t done so well since then.”

  “That’s what I heard.” Alucius paused, then added, “Might just be me, but I missed Colonel Clyon.”

  Elyset snorted. “So did the few old-time officers left. Got word that they’re happy to see you.”

  “So far.”

  The proprietress turned to Feran. “You should have come here more often. Gheravia was asking about you.”

  “Now that I’m a majer, you mean?” parried Feran.

  “She liked you when you were a captain, Majer.”

  Feran shook his head, as if to deny it.

  “She did, but…I’d better get you two settled.” Elyset turned and escorted them to a corner table, one adjoining the hearth, in which several large logs were burning on a deep bed of red and white coals. “Good table here for a chill evening.”

  Alucius settled himself into one of the four armless wooden chairs, the one of the two that afforded a view of the front entrance. Feran settled into the other one.

  “Don’t have quail today, but the noodles and fowl are good. Cutlets are tough. Wouldn’t even have ’em to serve, except some of the senior rankers, they won’t eat anything else.”

  “Habits.” Alucius laughed.

  Elyset bent down, leaning toward Alucius, and lowered her voice. “Tarolt and Halanat been talking about you, I think…herder majer and then colonel…Don’t know why…thought you ought to know.”

  “Thank you. Can you tell me what Tarolt looks like?” Alucius kept his voice low.

  “White-haired, sturdy, eyes sort of purple, white skin—got little hands and a mean smile. Always wears black. Built a new place out on the point. Only house there, now that Hanal’s place burned down. Didn’t tell you that.” Elyset shrugged and straightened.

  “Appreciate the tip about the cutlets,” Alucius said loudly, winking and managing to slip a silver from his wallet and into Elyset’s hand.

  “You don’t like something, and you don’t come back. We always need people to come back.” She grinned. “Even if it takes some herders years and becoming a colonel.”

  “But they remember,” he returned.

  “That’s what we hope. Grenna will be along in a few moments.”

  Despite the banter that had surrounded Elyset’s warning, the whole exchange left a cold feeling in Alucius’s guts, especially since the proprietress had no sense of purpleness. He glanced around the Ram, but only two other tables were taken, one by a grizzled crafter with a woman clearly not his wife, and the other by two bravos in brown.

  “What did she say?” asked Feran.

  “Told me that Tarolt and Halanat had been talking about me.”

  “Speaking of Halanat…Sanasus said he died yesterday. Found him dead last night. Didn’t you go see him yesterday morning?”

  “I did. He was the trader, or his wagons were, who was supplying the prophet. They had the same silver-wheel sign. I found that out. We exchanged a few words, and then I left. I don’t think he was very happy with me.” Again, everything Alucius said was true, but not the whole truth.

  “Must not have been. Word is that he got so angry his heart stopped.”

  “It couldn’t have happened to anyone who deserved it more,” Alucius said dryly. “Not that it will stop his son from doing the same sort of trading if he gets the chance. I also think Tarolt�
�s tied up in it all, but there’s no real proof there. I’ll have to look into that before long.”

  “Like everything else?”

  “What’ll you have?” asked Grenna as she stopped at the table. Despite her obvious physical charms, the server was a woman barely out of girlhood.

  “What do you have?”

  “Drinks are same as always—wine, ale, lager. Today, the stew is boar, better ’n usual. Vedra chicken with the thick noodles. Lamb cutlets…and lymbyl.”

  Alucius could do without the lymbyl. “The ale…and…ah…fowl and noodles.”

  “Make that two,” added Feran. “Ale also.”

  “Be three coppers for the chicken, and one for the ale.”

  Alucius showed a silver, leaving it on the table.

  “Be back with the ale, sirs.” With a nod, Grenna moved away from the window table.

  The day had been long, and Alucius was tired. The chill with the wristguard bothered him, especially because he didn’t know what it meant or what had happened. The silence surrounding Halanat’s death wasn’t all that good, either, he thought. And spring was coming, with all the possible problems with a Matrite attack. He looked down at the surface of the table.

  “Rather deep in thought, aren’t you?” suggested Feran.

  “I’ve been thinking—about a lot of things.” Alucius paused. “What do you think about moving the Guard headquarters to Iron Stem?”

  “You want it closer to home?” Feran grinned.

  “That makes it harder to do, in a way. It’s more because of the way things have changed. We really don’t have to worry about the Vedra as a boundary, but it takes a day longer to get dispatches from the west here, and more than a day longer to send supplies west.”

  “And you wouldn’t have to worry so much about the factors and their plots.”

  “I won’t be colonel forever,” Alucius said. “It would make things easier for whoever follows me.”

  “You thinking about riding off?”

  “No.” Alucius shook his head. “I’m just trying to get things to work better.”

  “Your ales, sirs.”

  Alucius looked up. He’d hadn’t noticed Grenna’s return—and that wasn’t good. “Thank you.” He offered the silver.

  “I’ll take them when I bring the chicken.”

  Alucius took a swallow of the ale. He hadn’t realized how thirsty he’d been until he was looking at a half-empty mug.

  “Little thirsty there,” said Feran.

  Alucius looked at Feran’s equally depleted mug.

  Both men laughed.

  Alucius saw Grenna approaching and watched as she set a crockery platter with a full half chicken and a pile of noodles smothered in a cream sauce before him, then before Feran, along with a basket holding two small loaves of still-warm bread.

  “Be four coppers each, sirs.”

  Alucius tendered a silver and a smile. “Thank you—and two more ales.”

  She handed back two coppers. Alucius left them on the table.

  From the first bite, he liked the chicken. He almost could put aside his concerns about the ifrits and how to deal with Tarolt. His worries about Wendra were something else, and he could only hold to the fact that his herder’s wristguard had shown no sign of injury to her. But he still worried.

  Two more mugs of ale arrived before he’d even gotten a third of the way through the chicken. Alucius sent Grenna off with five coppers.

  “Being colonel, it’s not like what you thought, is it?”

  “I think I knew, but being colonel is harder than just knowing.”

  “True of everything,” Feran mumbled. “Don’t get shot at as much here.”

  “Maybe you don’t.”

  “You’re the kind that gets shot at everywhere,” Feran pointed out.

  In time, Alucius and Feran finished their meal and their ale.

  As he rose from the table in the tavern that was becoming more crowded with faces he didn’t recognize, Alucius glanced out through the narrow window onto the darkening and chill street outside the Red Ram. He left another copper on the table, then began to walk toward the doorway, followed by Feran.

  Alucius nodded and moved aside as two well-garbed men he did not recognize stepped inside the tavern.

  Elyset appeared from the other side of the foyer and smiled at Alucius. “Have a good evening, Colonel.” She offered a broader smile to Feran. “Majer.”

  “Thank you, Elyset.” Both officers inclined their heads.

  As Alucius stepped outside he could hear part of the exchange.

  “Colonel…didn’t expect to see him here…just him and the majer…”

  “…say he’s brave…”

  “There’s brave, and there’s foolish…”

  The words didn’t exactly help his feelings or his mood as he began to walk back to his too-empty quarters and a night when he would sleep restlessly at best, worried about all too many matters, and especially about Wendra.

  123

  Novdi, as an end day, was a half day at headquarters, but Alucius was still in his study in early afternoon. Earlier, he’d inspected Fifth Company, the barracks, the armory, then spent some time with Feran discussing the possibilities for changing the basing positions of Northern Guard companies, especially those around Harmony and those that might be able to provide reinforcements, if necessary.

  He kept checking the wristguard. From what he could tell, Wendra was fine, but the uncertainty nagged at him.

  At Dhaget’s knock on the doorframe to his study, where he had left the door open, Alucius stiffened.

  “There’s a young fellow here to see you, sir. Says his name’s Korcler.”

  Alucius could feel a chill run through him, down to his bones. “Have him come right in.” He stood.

  The brown-haired youth, a young man almost old enough for conscription, hurried into the study and began to speak even before he lurched to a stop on the other side of the desk. “I said I’d come, Alucius. I’ve been riding since well before dawn. Brought two mounts. Your grandsire insisted. That’s because…”

  “What happened to Wendra? You wouldn’t be here otherwise, would you?”

  “No, sir. No one knows, sir. She’s just gone. Royalt and Grandpa Kustyl…they’ve been searching everywhere. They said you’d know if she was all right.”

  “She’s alive and healthy, but something happened yesterday morning,” Alucius said. “Before midmorning. No one knows where she is?”

  “No, sir. Your grandsire, he took the flock yesterday,” Korcler said. “Wendra’d been out the two days before. Said she didn’t see anything, not even a sandwolf. Your ma, she came to town. When she got back in the afternoon, Wendra was gone. So was little Alendra. No mounts missing. No tracks. Only thing they found was a bottle, filled with ground quartz, for that lamb born in midwinter. It was lying on the porch of the equipment building. No goat’s milk with it, just the quartz.” Korcler stopped, catching his breath. “Your grandsire said no one else had been there. Leastwise, there were no signs. Her herding jacket was still in the house. She…she just…vanished.”

  Alucius stepped forward and put a hand on Korcler’s shoulder. “Thank you. I’d worried. I didn’t know. I appreciate the long ride, and your coming to tell me.” He didn’t know what else to say. Wendra gone? Vanished? Without a trace? But how? The questions swirled through his scattered thoughts.

  “I didn’t want to be the one, but…there wasn’t anyone else.” Korcler looked up at Alucius, then fumbled inside his jacket, coming up with a folded paper. “Your grandsire wanted you to have this.”

  Alucius took the paper. For a moment, he looked at it blankly, before he finally unfolded it, and began to read.

  Alucius—

  By now, Korcler has told you of Wendra’s disappearance. I wanted you to know that it is most unlikely that she was kidnapped or taken by riders. There are no hoofprints in either the snow or the dirt, or even the dust on the porch where she vanished—just so
me smudges. There are no signs of boots, and nothing is missing. I cannot tell you where to seek her, or how, save that it appears most unlikely that she remains nearby, and likely that Talent will be required.

  Nor do I know if you dare to leave your duties, or if doing so will prove useful. I do fear that all is connected, but I could not say why.

  All our hopes and thoughts are with you, and with her and Alendra.

  The signature was that of Royalt.

  Alucius lowered the message.

  “What did he say?” asked Korcler.

  “What you told me,” replied Alucius, his voice heavy. “More or less.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “What I have to,” Alucius said. “We’ll get you settled in my quarters, and you can ride back in the morning, once your mounts are rested.”

  “You’re not going to tell me?”

  “No. How could I? I’m not even sure.” Alucius turned and took his heavy winter riding jacket, the one doubly reinforced with nightsilk, off the peg on the wall and pulled it on. “We’ll get your mounts into the stable, and ready mine. You can rest in the guest chamber.”

  “I can go with you.”

  “No. Not this time. Your horses are tired, and it wouldn’t be a good idea. Not at all.”

  “You won’t tell me.”

  Alucius shook his head and motioned for Korcler to leave the study. “Go on out. I’m right behind you.”

  In the main area, he looked at Dhaget. “I’ll be leaving for my quarters, Dhaget, after we get young Korcler’s mounts stabled for the night. He’s my wife’s brother, and he’ll be spending the night in the quarters before he leaves in the morning. You can go now.”

  “You’re sure, sir?”

  “You spend more than enough time looking out for me.” Alucius forced a laugh. “Go.”

  He and Korcler led the two mounts to the officers’ end of the stable and stalled them side by side. After that, Alucius took Korcler up to the quarters, where he sat the young man at the table in the kitchen with bread and cheese and some slices of ham shoulder.

  Alucius went to his chamber and changed into his riding uniform, with the new nightsilk undergarments and the new vest under his tunic, and the heavy winter riding jacket. He also took out both rifles and his ammunition belt.