“That would be helpful,” Alucius said politely.
“Now…I doubt I will see you again, sir, but it has been a pleasure. Majer Keiryn will be here in about two glasses to escort you to dinner. I had not realized that it was to be with the marshals. If there is any change, either I or the majer will let you know.”
“Thank you. You have been most helpful.”
“My pleasure, sir.” Gueryl bowed, then departed.
Once the door was closed, Alucius walked back into the sitting room and to the windows. The two on each end were open, and a faint cool breeze rustled through the chamber. For a time he stood there, not really seeing the palace, considering.
The captain had been truthful in all that he had said. So, from what Alucius could determine, had the marshal. While the captain certainly had not been told what his superiors did not wish revealed, the apparent truthfulness of the marshal, and his casual mention of what had happened in Dereka were a powerful message. That message had been delivered with understated and great impact.
Amid the luxury of his guest quarters, Alucius still wondered what the Lord-Protector wanted.
92
Prosp, Lustrea
Vestor studied the waist-high black lorken cube that bore a shimmering mirror surface, bordered in lorken as well. The smooth-finished wooden sides continued downward another third of a yard beneath the stone floor and rested directly on the granite bedrock. The floor of the small chamber, less than ten yards square, had been completed around the cube in green marble tiles scavenged from the ruins beyond the center of Prosp. The wall columns and facings had come from other ruins, although the color of the marble matched. The roof over the chamber had been completed just the day before, and little else of the structure that surrounded the chamber had been finished, save for that roof and the outer walls.
Vestor glanced at the polished surface of the Table once more, one of the components that had been fabricated far earlier than the Praetor had known. He took a look toward the unfinished marble archway before extracting the sheet of parchment that had come from the Praetorian archives, then the newer matching sheet that he had created before he had left Alustre many weeks before.
Laying a sheet on each side of the mirror surface, he bent down and extracted a small assembly of crystals from the case at his feet and set the assembly in the middle of the Table. He studied the sheets, and readjusted one of the crystals, then another. Finally, he took the ancient device that resembled a light-torch from his tunic, readjusting the focus on the discharge end.
After a moment of studying the ancient manuscript, then the newer one, he took a deep breath and flicked on the modified light-torch, focusing it on the prismlike receptor crystal.
A web of ruby light flashed from the assembly—which vanished. Then a series of patterned interlocking lights flared across the mirror surface, burning into the flat crystal before disappearing. The lorken cube shivered ever so slightly, as if minutely aligning itself and settling into the granite below.
For a long moment, there was silence.
Then, from the mirror surface rose a thin tendril of silver mist, followed by a second tendril, of ruby. Both thickened into cablelike—or serpentlike—tentacles.
With a frown, Vestor stepped back from the roiling silver and the ruby mist tentacles that reached upward, but the twin coils of roiling silver and ruby mist swirled out of the Table and into the chamber, entwining themselves around the Praetorian engineer before he could take another step backward.
“No…no!” Then, seemingly against his will, Vestor’s mouth closed abruptly, and he stood two yards back from the Table, swaying, as if in a struggle against an unseen enemy.
The twin mists suffused his body, slowly vanishing.
Vestor stood stock-still for a time.
One of the Praetorian Guards stepped through the uncompleted marble archway. “Sir…I heard something. Are you all right?”
Vestor straightened, brushing his tunic, and offering a smile. “I was just surprised. I’m fine. I haven’t felt this good in years. Many years.”
“That’s good, sir.” The guard stepped back quickly.
Vestor smiled sardonically and looked down at the new and fully functioning Table of the Recorders, murmuring to himself. “He created it well, indeed he did. With three, now we can begin.”
He stepped forward to the Table.
93
Majer Keiryn—tall and redheaded—had indeed arrived almost precisely two glasses after the departure of Captain Gueryl. He had escorted Alucius down two levels and to the eastern end of the headquarters building to a private dining room, empty when they stepped into it. The single circular table was covered in a shimmering white linen, with blue linen napkins. Each of the four places was set with silver cutlery, platters and plates of cream porcelain rimmed in gold and blue, and with two goblets set before each of the four diners. On a side table were several bottles of wine in the amber bottles.
“The marshals should be joining us shortly, I’m certain.” Keiryn paused. “Your exploits have created quite a stir, you know. It’s not often that an overcaptain takes command and wins a massed battle with hundreds of companies. And even less often that Talent-creatures like pteridons are involved.”
“It was as much a matter of luck as anything,” Alucius lied.
“I doubt that luck had much to do with it. According to Marshal Wyerl, you have seldom if ever lost a fight, and you have more combat experience than almost any officer in Corus today.”
“I have fought more than I would have wished, but I am certain there are other officers equally experienced—” Alucius stopped as the door to the dining room opened, and two men in Southern Guard uniforms stepped inside.
The majer stepped forward. “Marshals…”
“Good evening, Majer,” said Alyniat, easing forward and inclining his head to Alucius, “Overcaptain.” He half turned to the older and slightly shorter marshal. “Marshal Wyerl, I’d like to present Overcaptain Alucius of the Northern Guard.”
Alyniat’s blond hair, Alucius could see now that he was closer, was as much silver as blond, and there was a web of fine wrinkles radiating from his eyes. Wyerl’s short-cut hair was irregularly mixed silver and brown, and despite the dark circles under his eyes, the man radiated a youthful charm.
“I have wanted to meet you for quite some time, Overcaptain Alucius.” Wyerl offered a truly boyish smile. “You have a fearsome reputation.”
“I can do little about what others say, Marshal.” Alucius inclined his head. “I fear that they have made me into something that I am not.”
“That is true of all who fight for a living and survive.” Wyerl laughed softly, then motioned to the table. “We might as well be seated.”
The two marshals sat across from each other, with Alucius facing Majer Keiryn. No sooner were all seated than two orderlies appeared and immediately poured a pale amber wine from one of the bottles into the smaller goblet in front of each officer.
Wyerl lifted his goblet. “To our guest.”
“With my gratitude for your hospitality,” Alucius replied, lifting his own goblet.
The wine seemed excellent to Alucius, although he was well aware that his experience in judging such was most limited.
The orderlies vanished and reappeared to set a small plate atop the one before each diner. On the small plate was a pastry no more than the width of three fingers. Alucius watched, and then used his fork to take a small and flaky section. Whatever was inside was warm, and both sweet and spicy at the same time, with an overtaste of butter and something else that he did not recognize.
“Do you like the charysa?” asked Alyniat.
“It’s good. I’ve never had it before,” Alucius admitted.
“Like most officers, I’ll wager he’ll eat almost anything first and judge afterward,” suggested Wyerl. “I’d also wager there’s little he doesn’t like.”
“Only honeyed prickle slices,” Alucius admitted.
“I cannot say I’ve heard of that,” Alyniat ventured.
“It’s a cactus that grows in the quarasote lands. To me, it tastes like oil and sawdust, but it was a family favorite. After eating that growing up…” Alucius shrugged expressively.
The marshals laughed. After the slightest of hesitations, so did Keiryn.
“How was the fare in Dereka?” asked Wyerl.
“Mostly troopers’ fare, except for the one banquet for officers hosted by the Landarch. That was plains antelope with a plumapple sauce. It was good.”
“Never had that,” mused Alyniat.
The plates that had held the charysa were whisked away, and replaced by greenery lightly covered with oil and grated cheese and nuts. The dressing tasted like an almond oil.
“You should enjoy the next dish,” suggested Wyerl.
Alucius even recognized it—feral hog—lightly seasoned with peppers and accompanied by apple slices quick-fried and cut like lace potatoes.
“The guard offers a bounty on the wild hogs,” Alyniat said. “Too many of them, and they rip up the bottomland crops. So we offer a silver for each one that’s fresh. The stead holders get paid for doing what benefits them, and we get some good meat.”
“How does it compare to the plains antelope?” asked Wyerl.
“It’s good. They’re different. They’re both too rich to eat all the time,” Alucius said.
“Not for the Landarch, I’d wager. Doesn’t his palace date back?”
“It’s built of gold eternastone. I’d guess that means it was built before the Cataclysm,” Alucius acknowledged.
“You had said that the Landarch actually decorated the courtyard walls of his palace with nomad breastplates?” asked Marshal Wyerl.
Alucius had indeed, but to no one in Tempre. “He had that done, sir. I counted—estimated, really—that there were more than three thousand on the walls in the front courtyard. His submarshal said that there were as many in the rear courtyard, but those I did not actually see.”
“Six thousand dead. Really quite an achievement, don’t you think?” Wyerl looked to Alyniat. “And killing pteridons, as well.”
“Without all that much help from the Deforyans, I’d imagine.” Alyniat looked squarely at Alucius.
“They did their best,” Alucius temporized.
“Most of their officers above captain are the sons of the large landowners, aren’t they?”
“From what I saw. Their captains are really more like senior squad leaders,” Alucius admitted. “They seemed better at handling the lancers.”
“What sort of marksmen are they…?”
“Did they say anything about where they normally stationed the lancers…?”
As Wyerl pressed his questions, in between answering, Alucius finished the main course, and saw his platter noiselessly removed. Next came dessert, orange-cream in color and molded in an oval with a raised seal upon it—that of the Southern Guard.
Alucius took a small bite, and found it sweet, creamy as it looked, and tasting of almond and orange.
“You’re a herder by birth, and you’re the heir to your stead, I understand,” said Alyniat. “Yet you entered the militia as a trooper. Was that not unusual?”
“I didn’t have a great deal of choice. The Council entered a conscription order, and I was the only son on the stead. They set the buyout so high that it would have destroyed the stead.” Alucius understood that the two already knew what he was telling them, and he had a good idea where the discussion was headed.
“Yet herder families are reputed to be…shall we say, wealthy,” suggested Wyerl.
Majer Keiryn exuded quiet bewilderment, and that bothered Alucius more than the leading questions.
“With the land and the equipment, many would reckon us well-off,” Alucius admitted, “but compared to the value of all that it takes to operate a stead and produce nightsilk, the golds we take in are few indeed. And we must purchase the solvents from Lanachrona. That requires extra golds for the distance they must be carried.”
“There are not many herders, these days, are there?”
“I don’t know the numbers of people, but I would judge that there are less than a hundred steads that produce nightsilk, and fewer every year. Most of the steads in the north and west have been abandoned in the last ten or twenty years.”
“Why might that be?” asked Wyerl.
Alucius could tell that question was a divergence, and that the marshal was truly interested in the answer—beyond the other agenda.
“There has been less rain over the past generation, according to my grandsire. Quarasote cannot live where it is too wet, but without some rain, the bushes will not produce enough new growth for the nightsheep to eat.”
“New growth?”
“Even a nightram cannot eat the spines once they are more than a year old. They harden into spikes that can scratch steel and run right through a man or mount.”
“Quarasote is that strong?”
“That was one reason why the Matrites had trouble, even though they outnumbered us. They thought that by attacking from the north, where we have few people, they could sweep down the high road from Soulend.” Alucius smiled. “But the midroad runs through the quarasote hills and flats. You can’t run a horse through them, especially an untrained mount. We knew the back trails. I don’t know the exact numbers, but they lost something like ten companies for every one we lost.”
Wyerl nodded. “That’s good to know. Still…those lands must be pretty barren…some of them.”
“Toward the Westerhills west of Soulend, there aren’t many steads left. It’s been drier there.”
“There’s not much room for more expenses, then?”
“No,” Alucius admitted, waiting.
“So any higher tariffs on herders could force more of them off their land?”
“Higher tariffs might well do that,” Alucius admitted.
“Even to your stead?”
“I have not seen the accounts in some time.” Alucius shrugged. “My grandsire has been keeping those.”
“And your wife is a herder as well?”
“She comes from a herder family.”
“It would be a shame to have to give up that heritage.” Wyerl looked to Alyniat. “Don’t you think so?”
“It certainly would be.” Alyniat laughed. “We might not get any more officers like the overcaptain.”
Alucius relaxed slightly, sensing that the message—or one message—had been delivered.
“I see that you didn’t like the almorange,” observed Marshal Wyerl, glancing at Alucius’s empty dessert plate.
“Not at all, sir. Not at all.”
“It’s one of my favorites, as well…”
With those words, and the feeling behind them, Alucius knew that the marshals had delivered the first message, even if he had no idea exactly what the Lord-Protector wanted. Did he want Alucius to head an expedition somewhere else? Attack the Matrites in Dimor? Or lead an effort to take over Deforya?
Or was it something else altogether?
94
On Octdi morning, Alucius woke early, his stomach growling. Not wanting to wait for someone to tell him how and where to eat, he washed up and dressed quickly, then set out to see if he could find someone who could tell him where the officers’ mess might be—or where he could get something to eat.
He decided to ask the formal guards stationed by the staircase, walking right up to the pair and looking directly at the older one. “Where is the officers’ mess—or where I could get some breakfast?”
“Ah…that’s on the first level, sir, halfway down the west end. They’ll serve for another glass.”
“Thank you.”
“Yes, sir.”
There was a brief conversation behind him, but so low that Alucius could not pick it up without obviously stopping and eavesdropping. Finding the officers’ mess was easy. Alucius just followed two young captains, if discreetly, and stepped up to th
e long table behind which stood several orderlies. He listened, then, when the others had taken their ale and platters, stepped up and ordered, “I’d like egg toast, with the ham and biscuits. And the ale.”
The nearest orderly looked at Alucius’s uniform. “Ah…Overcaptain?”
“That’s right, Northern Guard. Here on orders.”
“Just a moment, sir.” As he had with the captains, the trooper filled the platter and handed it to Alucius with a beaker of ale.
“Thank you.” As Alucius stepped away with the platter of egg toast, ham strips, and some sort of biscuits and gravy, he could hear the conversation behind him.
“Don’t know if he…”
“What does it matter? ’Sides, if he’s the one, you want to tell him no?”
With a faint smile, Alucius looked over the officers, then picked a graying overcaptain sitting by himself.
“Would you mind if I joined you?”
The overcaptain appeared startled, then grinned. “No, I’d be most pleased. I didn’t think any of us would get to talk with you. You are the one who took on the nomads in Deforya?”
“Alucius—that’s me.” He slipped into the chair across from the older officer.
“Paerkl, that’s me. I’m here temporarily to provide information to the mapping engineers.”
“Mapping engineers?”
“They rotate companies to do recon in places where we don’t have good maps. See if we can find anything left from the Cataclysm—roads, artifacts—and then we bring back information. So I’ve got a week to go over all my drawings and maps, and then it’s back to Hyalt.”
Alucius nodded, his mouth full of egg toast.
“Is all that true about the nomads having more than a hundred companies and pteridons?”
“Don’t know about everything people are saying. They had over a hundred companies and pteridons. There were maybe twenty-five companies of Deforyan Lancers, and we had five companies. One Southern Guard, four Northern Guard, and Majer Draspyr—Southern Guard—was in command.”
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