Scepters

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “About half, maybe more. She’s very good.”

  “You wouldn’t have brought her if she wasn’t.”

  “I didn’t want to,” Alucius admitted.

  Faisyn shifted his weight from boot to boot.

  “You can go outside, if you want,” Alucius said. “I need to wait here, just to make sure someone else doesn’t try to sneak in through the underground entrance down there.”

  “You want two of the men here?”

  “Two should be enough.” Alucius walked to the window and opened it wide. Then he pulled out one of the chairs and seated himself. “If you’d leave the front door open.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  On his way out, Faisyn dragged the one ifrit back into the foyer.

  Shortly, two troopers appeared. “Sir?”

  “In here.”

  Alucius recognized only one of the two, the generally hapless Sylat. “You can sit down. We’re just here waiting for Majer Feran…and to make sure none of the Talent-twisted sneak in from down there.” He inclined his head to the stairwell.

  More than a glass passed before Alucius heard the wagon drive up. During that time, he drank almost an entire water bottle.

  Alucius could sense that Wendra accompanied Feran. He stood as his wife and the majer entered the room. “Sylat…you two can report back to your squad leader.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The two lancers inclined their heads to Feran and slipped out.

  Feran waited until the three of them stood alone. He studied Alucius. “It’s still you, isn’t it?”

  “Same man who played leschec with you in Emal, when you complained that you didn’t see why you bothered,” Alucius said dryly. “Same officer who watched you go off griping about protecting an oilseed works…owned, as we later found out, by Yusalt’s esteemed father.”

  Feran nodded. “You’re different. The same, but different.”

  “Come on down the stairs. You’ll see why.”

  Feran looked at the dead ifrits more closely. “Those…what are they? I’ve never see people like that.”

  Alucius caught the amused smile that flitted across Wendra’s face. “That’s what someone truly twisted and possessed by Talent looks like. The one second from the end was Tarolt. He just projected an illusion when he met people. That was probably why he didn’t meet that many people. It took too much effort. There are five more down below.” Alucius led the way. Feran followed, and Wendra came last, patting Alendra with one hand, her rifle in the other.

  Once in the lower room, Feran gestured toward the black lorken-framed oblong. “Is that one of those Tables?”

  “Yes. Tarolt built one here. That’s how he knew where people were.”

  “Can you use it?”

  “Probably,” Alucius said, “but using it for long turns people into…those.”

  An expression of distaste crossed Feran’s face. “The more I find out about Talent…the less I like what I discover.”

  “Talent’s like any other form of ability. It’s easy to misuse, and the results are ugly when it is.”

  Feran gestured toward the body of the largest ifrit. “Never seen anyone that big before. You think he was someone important?”

  Alucius looked at the dead ifrit. “He was the most powerful one. I don’t suppose we’ll ever know who he was.” After a moment, he walked over to the five chests set in front of the Table. He opened each of the lids in turn, revealing the contents.

  Feran surveyed them. “There must be thousands of golds…”

  “Close to ten thousand, I’d guess,” Alucius said.

  “They had that much…and they let…the Council…?”

  “Some of it they got later, I think, but they never would have let the Council know.”

  Feran’s lips tightened. “They make hogshit smell sweet.”

  Alucius nodded.

  “What do you plan to do with the golds?”

  “I’d like to buy back our independence, but it’s too late for that. We’ll send a third of it to the Lord-Protector and we’ll keep the rest to pay for moving the Northern Guard to Iron Stem—and for equipment and supplies. We’ll be honest. We’ll tell the Lord-Protector. He’ll be happy to get three thousand golds. He’s already agreed to the move, and now it won’t cost him.”

  “You don’t think he’ll want more?” asked Feran, skepticism evident in every word.

  “After what we’ve done? I don’t think so.” Alucius laughed. “Besides, who would he send to collect it?”

  In turn, Feran laughed. Wendra smiled.

  The silence drew out.

  “You’re not finished, are you?” Feran said slowly.

  “No.”

  “I didn’t think so. You have that…air.”

  “I’m going to ask you for yet another indulgence and favor,” Alucius said. “I’ll need a guard posted around the building. They’re to stop anyone from leaving until Wendra and I return.”

  “Where are you going? How long?”

  Alucius gestured to the Table. “They can be used for travel. With Talent. There are two more of these.” He gestured to the dead ifrits. “And a number more of those Talent-twisted.”

  “And I suppose you two need to save Corus from them?”

  Alucius forced a laugh. “Something like that.” He paused. “Do you want another bunch like the prophet’s lancers or the Matrial’s torques?”

  “These…did that?”

  Alucius nodded. “And more. They brought those pteridons and skylances we fought in Deforya.” Alucius didn’t mention that they’d brought them millennia earlier. They had brought them, and it didn’t matter when.

  Feran was the one to laugh. “If it were anyone but you, anyone at all…”

  “Thank you.”

  “When are you leaving? How long will you be gone?”

  “As soon as we can. We won’t leave until we eat, and until the lancers have dragged out the bodies, and until you’re ready to take the golds back and lock them up. I think it would be better to get some oil and burn the bodies.”

  “So do I. But I’d like all the squad leaders to see them.”

  Alucius nodded. “Post sentries outside. Don’t let anyone out but Wendra or me.”

  “They couldn’t create an illusion like you?”

  “It wouldn’t be very good. Any of them who knew me are dead. I don’t think any of them even know about Wendra. Not yet.”

  “It’s been quite a month, Colonel. Quite a month.”

  Not nearly so much of a month as it would be, reflected Alucius—one way or another.

  154

  Just after late midmorning in Salaan, Alucius and Wendra stood between the archway to the stairs and the Table. Each had one of the heavy scepters recovered from the ifrits, but each scepter was strapped to an empty sabre scabbard, secured with a tie around the leg just above the knee. The power of each scepter, black and silver, seemed to cast light and shadows, but light and shadows seen only with Talent.

  “You think the scepters will show us where the master scepter is?” asked Wendra. “The one the soarer told us to find?”

  “I don’t know, but if it’s a master scepter, it has to be stronger than these, and we could sense these halfway across Corus, once we knew what we were looking for.”

  “If it’s not in a case, or shielded,” Wendra pointed out.

  “We’ll have to risk that.”

  “Risk what?” asked Feran, coming down the steps from the conference room.

  “Not being able to do what we have to,” Alucius replied.

  “You look…armed.” Feran’s eyes went to the scepters. “Those…they don’t feel right.”

  “They aren’t. That’s why we need to return them.”

  “You’re not going to explain more, are you?”

  “It’s better that we don’t.”

  Feran raised his eyebrows, but didn’t reply.

  In addition to a scepter, Alucius and Wendra each carried a herder’s
rifle. All the cartridges they carried had been heavily infused with lifeforce. Alucius had strapped a cartridge belt over his nightsilk herders’ vest. He had decided against wearing the heavy riding jacket, based on the heat in the Table building and the soarer’s statements that the ifrits’ world was far warmer than Corus. Both he and Wendra carried water bottles as well as travel food within their garments, and Wendra had folded extra cloth and clothing for Alendra around and inside her jacket and tunic.

  Feran stepped to one side. “All you want is a guard around the building?”

  “That’s right. Not in here.”

  “How long will you be gone?”

  Alucius shrugged. “I don’t know. A day, a week…If we’re not back in a month, then you’ll have to worry about the…Talent-twisted ones yourself.” He’d almost said ifrits, but the word would have meant little to Feran. “Their clothes are like nightsilk, except stronger. Head shots are best. Right now, I don’t think there are any left west of the Spine of Corus. There are two Tables in Lustrea, and an old Table in the ruins of Blackstear, not that there’s any way for the Northern Guard to reach any of them.”

  “What do we do here, if you…?” Feran didn’t finish the statement.

  Alucius understood. “Use enough powder to fragment the entire building and drop it around the Table. Explosives won’t destroy the Table, but rock piled deep on top of it will keep it from being used.”

  “Hope it doesn’t come to that,” Feran replied.

  “So do we.”

  Wendra offered a tight nod of agreement. Within the carrypack, Alendra waved a small fist.

  Alucius jumped onto to the Table, then offered a hand to Wendra. She took it, and they stood side by side on the Table. Alucius nodded to Feran, then concentrated on the darkness of the translation tube beneath them. He and Wendra began to sink into the Table.

  The purpled blackness of the ifrit tube was every bit as chill as Alucius had recalled, a bone-biting cold that combined with a sense of foreboding. He focused on the deep and long purpleness that stretched endlessly into a faraway depth lost beyond the reach of his thoughts. He pushed away the idea that, once they pursued that purple tube, they would never return, and concentrated on reaching whatever lay in the distance, a distance that the soarers had suggested was farther away than some stars. In the chill of the purple tube, he sensed warmth—Wendra and Alendra—streaming with him.

  The chill blackness of the tube walls contracted, then twisted, and even though Alucius knew that his body could not move, he felt as though he were being pummeled by the sides of the tube, as though the very walls had projections that reached out and struck him, buffeted him, twisted and turned him. With each timeless instant, the chill that permeated him grew deeper, crept further inside him, slowed his thoughts. Yet he concentrated on that distant purpleness, a landmark, much as the Aerlal Plateau had once been for a herder youth.

  Time passed in the timelessness of the translation tube, instants, years, both, neither…time unmeasurable by sluggish thoughts. Alucius clung to the goal, and to Wendra’s warmth and presence, as he knew she clung to him and to Alendra.

  More time passed, and the intolerable chill of the tube and the purple blackness that surrounded the herders warmed slightly, and the purpleness became brighter. In the near distance, Alucius began to sense Table arrows, not just the handful of those on Corus, but a comparative plethora, as many as fifty.

  They had decided that they would simply try to get as close as they could to whatever resembled the scepter and showed great power, probably purple pink power. Except…Alucius couldn’t sense anything like that. For all of the Table arrows, there were none of great intensity, none even as strong as the golden green portals of the soarers had been. All the Table arrows were faint—and none were of purple or pink. Yet all were close, and there seemed to be no way to tell which of them might be close to the master scepter.

  Feeling the chill again creeping into his bones, Alucius pressed toward the purple gold arrow, trying to convey that sense to Wendra. As his thoughts carried him toward that near yet faint arrow, he could sense Wendra’s presence moving beside him.

  A thin shimmering veil of silvered purple rose before them. Alucius formed a spear of lifeforce, enfolding him—and Wendra and Alendra.

  The thin purple silver barrier shattered…

  155

  Norda, Lustrea

  Waleryn frowned, then hurried down the stone steps to the Table. Behind him came two ifrits in their shimmering green and maroon garments, each a good head taller than the shadow-engineer.

  The former Lanachronan lord and heir stepped up to the Table, ignoring the ifrits, his brow furrowed in concentration. The ruby mists replaced the mirrored surface, revealing the empty Table chamber in Prosp. Waleryn nodded. A second image replaced the first, and that was the Table chamber in Salaan—also empty.

  For several moments, the shadow-engineer just stood before the Table. Finally, a long tube appeared, projected into the space above the Table. Each end of the tube connected to webs of purpled darkness, although the web at one end consisted of but five branches.

  Waleryn studied the web of purpled darkness projected above the Table, his eyes fixing on a point on the tubular segment glowing a luminescent shade that appeared black, gold, and green, in turn, and yet none of those colors precisely.

  “Is something wrong?” asked the young muscular ifrit who stood at the former lord’s left shoulder.

  “Someone’s making a translation. They’re using energies I haven’t seen.”

  “Isn’t that good?”

  “They’re translating back to Efra. It has to be the lamaial. I warned Trezun and Lasylt. The fieldmaster said everything was under control.”

  “Can’t you stop them? You have to.”

  Waleryn shook his head. “I’d have to depower the entire grid, and we don’t have the master scepter here. The only way to do that is Table by Table. No one can do that in time. And if we did…” He looked at the ifrit.

  “We’d all die, is that it?”

  Waleryn nodded. “So would Efra…or all Efrans, because there isn’t enough lifeforce to repower the long translation tube, and the master scepter hasn’t been moved. The lamaial or the ancient ones might even be wagering that we would depower the tube, thinking that we would not know what would happen.”

  “They wouldn’t do that.”

  “How do you know that?” countered Waleryn. “In their day, they were far more ruthless than we are. They sacrificed most of their people—and thousands of the Talent-steers—to sever the great translation tubes.”

  “You’re not supposed to know that.”

  “About history? Or about the master scepter and the power requirements? Or as a mere shadow-Efran, you mean?” Waleryn snorted. “It’s obvious from studying the flows of lifeforce.”

  “You have to do something,” insisted the other ifrit.

  “Tell me what,” suggested Waleryn. “Does one of you want to try a reverse translation?”

  The two offered no reply.

  Waleryn released the projected image and stepped back from the Table. “The fieldmasters on Efra will have to stop him. If they can.”

  “You doubt that they can?”

  “It will not be easy. He must have the scepters. Otherwise, why would he attempt the translation?”

  The two ifrits exchanged glances, but did not speak.

  156

  Purpled silver flowed away from Wendra and Alucius like mist and…

  …where they stood, the air was warm and humid. Frost boiled away from both Alucius and Wendra. Around them was a Table room, but one unlike any Alucius had seen. The walls were not just blank expanses of polished stone, but works of art, with carved friezes illuminated from within the stone and illustrated so well that the images seemed caught in midstep, or in midaction. Above the friezes were wall murals, similarly colored, running all the way around the chamber.

  Seeing two figures through the mist
dissipating from around them, Alucius brought up his rifle. A bored-looking ifrit with silver blond hair turned, and his mouth dropped open. Agonizingly slowly, his hand fumbled for the light-cutter hand weapon holstered at his belt.

  Crack! Alucius’s single shot struck the ifrit in the chest, exploding through the man.

  Alucius turned, but the second ifrit, also blond, who had begun to run toward the archway opening onto a set of steps, went down from a single shot from Wendra.

  The two herders looked at each other.

  Alucius gaped, for the Wendra who viewed him was not the Wendra with whom he had stepped into the portal. Nor was the child in the carrypack the same Alendra. Wendra was more angular; her brown hair had turned black, and her eyes had gone from gold-flecked green to violet flecked with green. She looked more like the Matrial than she did like his wife. Yet…her lifethread was the same brilliant green.

  “You look like an ifrit.”

  “So do you,” she replied. “Your hair is black.”

  “Yours, too.” He paused.

  “The soarer,” Wendra began, “she said something about a world affecting someone who translated.”

  “We’ll have to worry about that later. I just hope we look normal when we get back.” If we get back. Alucius scanned the Table room once more, a chamber that looked more like the Landarch’s palace than what he thought of as a Table chamber. His eyes skipped over the friezes and the murals, which depicted ships such as those he’d seen in the murals in Dereka years before, and pteridons, and sandoxes—but the colors and proportions were different—and all the ifrits had blond hair, not black.

  He looked sideways, taking in the light-torches on the wall. Then he scrambled off the Table.

  “The one in the other corner,” Wendra suggested.

  Alucius hurried toward the torch she had suggested, using a twist of greenish lifeforce to break the Talent-lock, before he turned the bracket. Absently, he noted that he didn’t seem to have to reach up as far. Were the brackets lower?