Cadmians Choice (29 page)

“You were busy, sir.
I took a quick trip to Blackstear.”

“Why did you go to
Blackstear? Just to see it?”

“I haven’t been
there. That’s true, but I went to see if the recorder or her assistants had
noted any actions by the ancients.”

“In Blackstear?”
Despite Shastylt’s dubious tone, the marshal closed the study door.

“The ancients like
cold areas—and high ones. The land is much higher leading up to the Black
Cliffs. And it’s cold. We can’t check places like the Aerial Plateau, but I
thought it was worth a glass or two to talk to the recorder there.”

“What did you
discover?”

“There are people and
livestock missing. Some of the Reillies are complaining. There’s unexplained
Talent use.”

Shastylt frowned,
then nodded. “It is a ley node, and high there.”

Dainyl had no idea
what he meant by a ley node and waited for his superior to continue.

Shastylt did not and
looked at Dainyl.

“Do you still think
they’re concentrated somewhere on the Aerial Plateau?” Dainyl finally asked.

“There, or high in
the Spine of Corus.”

“If they do have a
redoubt or something up in the Aerial Plateau,” asked Dainyl, “how could we
even bring an attack against them?”

“For the moment, we
would have to wait, and attack when they enter our lands. As the lifemass on
Acorus grows and the air warms, we can employ the road-building wagons and cut
a highway from the south, from, say, Deforya, one by which we can send the
Cadmians against them.”

“I have my doubts
that rifles would be effective.” That was as much as Dainyl could say without
revealing his own experiences.

“We would have to
equip them with some variation of lightcutters, and the casualties would be
high. More troubling is the strategy that it appears they are developing.”

Dainyl had an idea,
but decided against saying it outright. “Using attacks against Myrmidons and
pteridons to require us to draw more on the lifewebs?”

“Exactly. If we are
required to draw on the lifeweb for shields, that will reduce the lifeforce
available before it can be built into a higher and self-sustaining capacity.”

Left unsaid was the
point that too little lifeforce would certainly mean that the Master Scepter
would have to be transferred to Efra, rather than Acorus.

“Did you find out
anydiing else?”

“No, sir.” Dainyl
smiled wryly. “Except how cold it is in Blackstear.”

“Have we had any more
reports from the Cadmians about Iron Stem or Hyalt?”

“One more predator in
Iron Stem. It killed some herders, but the Cadmians took care of it. Third
Battalion is still training the new troops in Southgate.”

“If anyming happens,
let me know. I’m off to the Hall of Justice.” Shastylt turned, opened the door,
and departed leaving Dainyl to his reports—before he began reviewing Dhenyr’s
first attempt at a logistics projection for me coming seasons.

In the dimness of
dawn, Mykel walked to the mirror in his quarters. He had not slept all that
well, thinking as he had about Rachyla—and about what she had said. Had he
changed that much in the season since he had last seen her? Had she? Or had his
emerging ability to sense the auras of people merely revealed more of who and
what she was?

He’d never heard of a
“dagger of the ancients” before going to Dramur, much less encountered one of
the ancient soarers. He’d never heard of anyone who had met one. He had a
better idea what the soarer had meant by developing his talent, but no real
guidance on how he should. The sole advice on that had come from Rachyla, who
had told him that the alectors would destroy him if they ever discovered he was
a dagger of the ancients. He’d half-dismissed that at first. Now, especially
after traveling on the alectors’ ship and sensing what lay within it, he had
the definite feeling she’d been right, although he couldn’t have explained why
in any logical fashion.

He also could not
help but wonder how a dagger of the ancients had found its way to Rachyla’s
grandsire. From what she had hinted, it had been his undoing in some fashion,
and she felt the dagger would do the same to Mykel.

Standing in the cool
morning air, he looked at himself—a taller-than-average lander, with a broad
forehead under short and fine blond hair, light green eyes, moderately wide
shoulders, and short-fingered hands with large palms. His chest still showed a
pinkish scar where he’d been shot, a wound that should have been fatal, but had
not been.

Did the mirror show
or reflect auras?

He tried to sense
what his own aura might be, but the mirror revealed nothing. The only
impression he felt was one of darkness surrounding himself. Did he have an aura
as black as Rachyla’s? Or was he imagining things?

Finally, he shrugged.
He certainly had no way to tell what his aura was like, not that was reliable,
anyway.

He finished dressing,
and stepped outside onto the balcony of the senior officers’ quarters. There,
for a quarter glass, he stood in the long shadows of sunrise, watching as
rankers crossed the paved courtyard, trying to sense their auras. While he had
noted auras in passing, he had not taken the time to just watch before. He had
difficulty in discerning any aura at all if a ranker was much more than twenty
yards away, although there were some few whose auras were clear from twice that
distance. He had watched for only a short time before he realized that people
with black auras had to be rare. He sensed not a single one anywhere close to
as dark as Rachyla’s, and only one ranker whose aura betrayed even a trace of
black. None showed the flashes of green.

He also suspected
that auras indicated something about the lands where people were born, because
the majority of rankers from the Southgate Cadmians had auras centered in “color”
around a tannish yellow, while the majority of those from Third Battalion bore
shades of browns, ranging from reddish brown to golden brown. He still had not
sensed any more of the pinkish purple shade shown by the navigator’s mate—or by
Hersiod. Could that coloration result from being close to the alectors? Certainly
the mate was, but why would Hersiod show such coloration? Or could that have
been a result from the time he and Colonel Herolt had been briefed by the
Myrmidon officer? Yet the colonel hadn’t carried the pinkish overshade.

Although he would
have liked to confirm more of what he had observed, he needed to eat and
prepare for the long day ahead. He walked down the narrow steps to the
courtyard and hurried toward the officers’ small mess.

Two local Cadmians
stiffened as he approached.

“Carry on.” Mykel
smiled.

“Yes, sir.”

Behind him, he caught
a few words.

“... Crelyot saw him
on the range ... never missed...”

“... doesn’t put up
with sowshit...”

“... Delast overheard
... majer’s lived through wounds’d kill an alector...”

How had that gotten around?
Mykel had never said anything, but some of the rankers from Fifteenth Company
might have. He frowned. Was his hearing better—or was he just more aware?

When Mykel entered
the mess, Rhystan looked up from where he sat at one of the three tables. Loryalt,
Dyarth, and Fabrytal were seated in the corner table. All three avoided looking
at Mykel as he walked toward Rhystan.

“You mind if I join
you?” Mykel knew Rhystan wouldn’t and couldn’t object, but he still felt he
should ask.

“No, sir.”

Mykel sat down on the
other side of the small table. Within moments, the Cadmian orderly had set a
platter and a mug before him. Mykel’s eyes dropped to the platter—fried goat,
some slices of a soft white cheese, slices of quince that had been preserved in
something acidic, and overtoasted bread.

“It gets to you,
doesn’t it?”

Mykel laughed. “I
manage not to think about it until I get here.”

“... don’t know how
he can ...” The murmur was from Loryalt, but Mykel ignored it.

“How was that ball
the other night?” asked Rhystan.

“I was as out of
place as a Squawt at a Reillie wedding.” Mykel took a swallow of the cider,
except that it was cider cut with the same fruit juice he hadn’t recognized
from the first—and had decided not to ask about. Still, it was better than ale
in the morning. “I think the least costly gown worn by any of the women would
have taken more than a year’s pay. Make that two years’ pay. I had to dance
with some of the unmarried women—that’s what the custom is ...”

“A great trial, I’m
sure.”

“Dancing wasn’t, I’ll
admit. But you have to ask their parent or their escort. One little snot—he was
the brother of the young woman—called me an undercaptain.” Mykel had almost
said “captain,” but decided the exaggeration was more politic. “Another young
woman said that one dance was enough.”

Rhystan shook his
head. “I was already getting the feeling that they don’t like Cadmians.”

“Oh ... they like us
well enough, just so long as we stay in our compounds and only appear when
called. Like well-trained guards.” Mykel took a bite of the goat. He still didn’t
like it, but that was what there was to eat.

“That’s always the
way it is. Worse here than Dramur, I think.”

“Yes and no.” Mykel
paused. “In Dramur, no one wanted us around. I’m not so sure that they looked
down on us so much. Here, we’re welcome to spend blood and sweat to protect
them, but not to get too close.”

“It could be.”
Rhystan sounded doubtful.

Mykel looked to
Loryalt. “How is Sacyrt fitting in with Seventeenth Company?”

“Sacyrt? Oh ... the
one from Second Battalion that you tranferred from Fourteenth Company. He’s a
cold one, but he’s been keeping in line. Keeps to himself, Clastyn says.”

“That’s probably for
the best.” Mykel still worried about the ranker—his dark aura had held such
reddish ugly streaks—but he couldn’t do much except suggest that the
undercaptain and his squad leaders keep an eye on the man.

Loryalt frowned, but
didn’t reply.

After a moment,
Rhystan spoke. “It’s too hot here. Be glad when we head out. Are you still
looking at next Tridi?”

“If we don’t get rain
or worse.”

“Rain? What’s that?”
Rhystan snorted.

“It’s what falls from
the clouds in the winter here. That’s what they tell me.” Mykel had to force
himself to eat the soft and slimy cheese. “You’re scheduled for drills against
the First Hyalt this morning. Bhoral’s worried that some of the troublemakers
there are getting too high an opinion of themselves.”

“They probably are.
Their last drills were against Thirteenth Company. You want us to press them?”

Mykel nodded. “Fifteenth
Company will do the same against Second Hyalt.”

“I suppose tomorrow,
we’ll go against Thirteenth?” Rhystan raised his eyebrows.

“Seventeenth.
Fifteenth will go against Thirteenth.”

Mykel could sense the
unease among the undercaptains, and that was good, because some of them had
inflated ideas of how well their men were performing.

Rhystan, his back to
the undercaptains, grinned at Mykel.

Just past midday on
Novdi, less than a glass after he had returned from Myrmidon headquarters,
Dainyl looked out the sunroom windows at the gray skies and drizzle. Novdi was
usually only a half day of duty, and matters had been so quiet that he’d felt
perfectly justified in leaving sharply at noon, especially since Lystrana had
worked late the night before and dropped into bed exhausted—both from a
last-moment review of shipbuilding accounts and from an overactive unborn
daughter’s antics of the night before. Since Shastylt had left headquarters by
midmorning, there was no point in staying any longer than normal.

He turned as he
sensed Lystrana’s approach. “I’d hoped it would be warm and sunny.”

“I know. So had I.”

Dainyl glanced back
at the clouds.

“Jeluyne’s exhibition
is this afternoon in the lower hall of the Duarch’s Palace,” Lystrana ventured.
“It’s the last day. The quartet will be playing, too. After that we could have
something to eat at Eanthyro’s. We could give the girls the rest of today off,
and all of tomorrow.”

“Are these her
paintings of Elcien and Ludar?” asked Dainyl warily. Jeluyne was an older
alectress who was a friend of his mother.

“They’re supposedly
quite good. Khelaryt has selected one for his permanent gallery.”

“I’m sure that they’re
excellent. She’s an outstanding artist.”

“If we see your mother
there, we won’t have to call on her so soon.”

Dainyl could sense
the humor behind his wife’s words. “We might as well. I haven’t been to many of
the recent social events, and it would be nice to eat out.”

“I’ll tell the girls,
and I’ll be ready in less than a quarter glass.” Lystrana smiled and hurried
off.

It was more like half
a glass later, at a time when there was a lull in the rain, when Dainyl stepped
outside and put up the banner indicating the desire for a carriage. Zistele and
Sentya had already left, hurrying off to the eastern market square, the one
favored by the younger landers and indigens. Dainyl and Lystrana stood in the
foyer, the door ajar so that they could watch for a carriage.

Since they were going
to the Duarch’s Palace, if not for a formal event, Dainyl wore his blue and
gray dress uniform. Lystrana wore gray shimmersilk trousers with a blue shirt
and a dark gray vest, both slightly looser than Dainyl knew she would have
preferred, although her childbearing status was not yet that visible.

“It’s too quiet,” he
mused.

“You’ve been saying
that for days.”

“I have, and I know
that Brekylt hasn’t stopped whatever he’s plotting.”