“You herders…” Feran shook his head.
“Do you really think anyone wants me back?” Alucius asked. “Besides you, maybe?”
“You’re a hero. I don’t know what you’ve been doing, but whatever it was, I’d wager it worked.”
“Oh, it worked,” Alucius admitted. “You won’t have any trouble with any of the traders or the Talent-twisted. The Lord-Protector has agreed to let you move the Guard to Iron Stem. The torques of Madrien don’t work, and they won’t ever work again. The Lord-Protector has promised not to change the customs in Lanachrona. Lustrea and Deforya are still a mess…but they’re far enough away that they won’t be a problem for a while. Oh…and none of the Tables work, and they won’t.”
“How did all this come to pass?” Feran’s tone was dry and detached.
“It just happened,” Alucius said blandly.
“I don’t think so. You’re the hero. The one in the old poem.”
“I doubt that,” Alucius replied. “But even if I were, heroes don’t make good commanders. Neither do herders. We’re loners by nature, and everyone can tell that. I’ve created enough unrest. After we finish, I’ll write out my resignation as colonel, and my recommendation that you succeed me. It will be accepted. If you have trouble…send me a message.”
Alucius saw no point in saying that the Lord-Protector had already agreed.
“Just like that?”
“Just like that,” Alucius replied.
Feran laughed, a sound filled with humor, irony, and sadness. “You’ve done great and terrible things, Colonel. You’ve done them in ways that no one who wasn’t there will ever believe.”
“That’s probably for the best,” Alucius replied.
“What will you do?”
“Run the stead, and whatever else needs to be done.” Including exploring and learning from the Hidden City. And spending time with Wendra and Alendra.
“I suppose it really is for the best,” mused Feran. “For you, too. You’re changed. I can see it. Whatever you’ve done, even just what I’ve seen, being a mere colonel would be a letdown.” Feran smiled sadly. “In a way, I suppose it’s almost a tragedy.”
“A tragedy?” questioned Alucius.
“It is when you’ve been covered in glory, saved three lands, and defeated every foe in battle, and probably done more that I don’t know, all before you’ve turned thirty years.”
“You mean before I had a chance to truly grow up?” Alucius’s words held gentle irony. “It may be better that way. I don’t have to spend the rest of my life seeking glory…or whatever.” He smiled at Feran. “You don’t either, you know? Just be solid in the way you are.”
Feran smiled in return. “I can always threaten to call you back.” He paused. “For Fifth Company, maybe for all the Guard, I’ll be Colonel Feran. You’ll be ‘The Colonel.’”
Alucius shrugged helplessly. “After I write the resignation, we’ll get Wendra and go over to Elyset’s for supper.”
“So long as you pay. You’re still colonel until the Lord-Protector accepts that resignation.” Feran grinned at Alucius.
163
Twilight had just fallen across the Iron Valleys when Alucius, Wendra, and Alendra reached the point on the high road where they turned off onto the lane leading to the stead. When Alucius and Wendra had stopped at the cooperage in Iron Stem, Kyrial and Clerynda had been glad to see Wendra and Alendra, and even Alucius. But there had been a reserve, far more than with Feran…or with the Lord-Protector.
Alucius had considered that reserve as they had ridden northward on the ancient high road, and finally he spoke. “Your parents were relieved to see us, but almost as relieved to see us off.”
“Of course…they never thought their daughter would marry the hero or the lamaial. They just thought you’d be a good herder who would give back the heritage of the land to their daughter, and that we’d just be a good little herder couple. They don’t know what happened, and they don’t want to know, and they’re afraid they might learn. They can tell that I’ve killed people, and worse, and it frightens them. Daughters aren’t supposed to do that.” Wendra patted a complaining Alendra. “It isn’t that much farther, little one, not that much farther.”
“Feran said the same thing, when we met while you were tending Alendra. Before dinner. He said I was the hero. I never did understand that poem. Not really,” Alucius said. “I certainly wasn’t a hero. I did what I could, and I was fortunate.”
“There were more than a few who wanted to be the hero, dear one,” she replied. “The barbarian in Illegya, the Matrial and the Regent, the Praetor, even that ifrit…”
“Tarolt,” Alucius supplied.
“That wasn’t what the poem was about,” Wendra continued.
“What was it about?” asked Alucius. “Besides a dream about restoring the faded glory of the past, a glory that wasn’t really ever there?”
“What is a hero?” she countered.
“Heroes are the people that everyone recognizes.”
“That doesn’t define a hero.”
“You tell me.”
“Someone willing to sacrifice himself for other people. In a way, the soarers were heroes. They sacrificed themselves for us, for all of us. We didn’t make any sacrifices like that,” Wendra pointed out.
“What’s the point of sacrificing…” Alucius suddenly broke off as he understood. “That’s it.”
“What is?” This time Wendra looked puzzled.
“The ifrits believed that survival justified any action, and they would sacrifice any world and any people for their way of life. The soarers believed that no sacrifice was too great to maintain life as it had been. They were both wrong.”
“You’re saying that the poem was wrong, too.”
“Maybe…it was meant to be wrong.” Alucius shifted his weight in the saddle, looking ahead toward a stead still out of eyesight. “It doesn’t ever say whether the hero or the lamaial was in the right, now that I think about it.”
Wendra laughed. “We won’t ever know that.”
“In a way, in one way, the ifrits were right,” mused Alucius. “So were the soarers, and neither really saw it.”
“Oh?” Wendra’s tone was light.
“There’s no one living who is not but a lodger upon the land. We are born, we strive, and we pass. You can only tend and pass on the land.”
“So philosophical.”
“So much a herder,” he countered.
“That’s why we’re riding home, instead of using the ley lines. But, for all that, your mother was right. You are the soarer’s child.”
Alucius looked at Wendra. “The old song—it’s Alendra’s as well.” Before Wendra could reply, he recited the last part of the words, slowly,
“But the soarer’s child praise the most,
for she will rout the sanders’ host,
and raise the lost banners high
under the green and silver sky.”
“You say that well.”
“You said I was a soarer. So are you. What does that make her?”
Wendra turned in the saddle, her smile and eyes bright. “Ours. The land’s.”
In the darkening sky to the east, just above the Aerlal Plateau, both Asterta and Selena shone full across the Iron Valleys, and across the stead just ahead of the three riders. Three riders coming home.
Tor Books by L. E. Modesitt, Jr.
Note: Within series, books are best read in listed order.
-----
THE IMAGER PORTFOLIO
The continent of Solidar—once Lydar—is home to a strange and rare breed of magic user. Imagers can bring into being almost anything they can imagine…but their power is dangerous to themselves as well as to others, and their life expectancy is short. Because they are both feared and vulnerable, Imagers must live separately from the rest of society. Some are exploited by ordinary people with political and economic power…while others are wise enough to build a future when thei
r powers may put to the service of the common good.
Imager
Imager’s Challenge
Imager’s Intrigue
Scholar
Princeps
Imager’s Battalion
Antiagon Fire
Rex Regis
Madness in Solidar (forthcoming)
THE COREAN CHRONICLES
Corus today is a world of contending countries, of struggling humans, strange animals, and elusive supernatural creatures. It is still a place of magical powers, but only a few people are Talented enough to use them. Alucius is one of those people. With Corus changing again, Alucius and his Talent will have a central role to play.
Legacies
Darknesses
Scepters
Alector’s Choice
Cadmian’s Choice
Soarer’s Choice
The Lord-Protector’s Daughter
Lady-Protector
THE SAGA OF RECLUCE
L. E. Modesitt, Jr.'s bestselling fantasy novels set in the magical world of Recluce are among the most popular in contemporary fantasy. Each tells an independent story that nevertheless reverberates though all the other Recluce novels to deepen and enrich the reading experience.
The Magic of Recluce
The Towers of the Sunset
The Magic Engineer
The Order War
The Death of Chaos
Fall of Angels
The Chaos Balance
The White Order
Colors of Chaos
Magi’i of Cyador
Scion of Cyador
Wellspring of Chaos
Ordermaster
Natural Ordermage
Mage-Guard of Hamor
Arms-Commander
Cyador’s Heirs
Heritage of Cyador (forthcoming)
THE SPELLSONG CYCLE
When Anna Marshall is transported from her boring and frustrating life in Ames, Iowa, to the very different world of Erde, she finds out that for the first time in her life she’s uniquely powerful. In Iowa Anna was a music instructor and small-time opera singer, but on Erde her musical ability makes her a big-time sorceress.
The Soprano Sorceress
The Spellsong War
Darksong Rising
The Shadow Sorceress
Shadowsinger
THE ECOLITAN MATTER
Follow the conflict between the corrupt interstellar Empire and the Ecolitan Institute of the planet Accord. The Institute must fight—first for their independence, and then to prevent the worst disaster in human history.
Empire & Ecolitan (comprising The Ecolitan Operation and The Ecologic Secession)
Ecolitan Prime (comprising The Ecologic Envoy and The Ecolitan Engine)
THE FOREVER HERO TRILOGY
Modesitt’s first major work. In the future, Earth is a desolate ruin, until its degenerate human outcasts kidnap a boy of immense native intelligence and determination—who grows up to become the force behind a plan to make Earth flower again.
The Forever Hero (comprising Dawn for a Distant Earth, The Silent Warrior, and In Endless Twilight)
THE GHOST BOOKS
In this alternate history world, the United States never came into existence, Russia is still ruled by the Romanovs, and ghosts are not mere superstition but have a literal physical reality—and political implications. Your crimes can haunt you, and the ghosts of your crimes are visible to others.
Of Tangible Ghosts
The Ghost of the Revelator
Ghost of the White Nights
Ghosts of Columbia (comprising Of Tangible Ghosts and The Ghost of the Revelator)
OTHER NOVELS
The Hammer of Darkness
The Parafaith War
Adiamante
Gravity Dreams
The Octagonal Raven
Archform: Beauty
The Ethos Effect
Flash
The Eternity Artifact
The Elysium Commission
Viewpoints Critical
Haze
Empress of Eternity
Timegods’ World (comprising Timediver’s Dawn and The Timegod)
The One-Eyed Man
-----
Sign up for author updates at: tor-forge.com/author/lemodesitt
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this novel are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.
SCEPTERS: THE THIRD BOOK OF THE COREAN CHRONICLES
Copyright © 2004 by L. E. Modesitt, Jr.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.
Edited by David G. Hartwell
A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.tor.com
Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Modesitt, L. E.
Scepters: The third book of the Corean Chronicles / L. E. Modesitt, Jr.—1st U.S. ed.
p. cm.
“A Tom Doherty Associates book.”
ISBN: 978-0-7653-1042-2
I. Title.
PS3563.O264S377 2004
813’.54—dc22
2003026585
Scepters Page 74
