Scion of Cyador (47 page)

Luss nods, belatedly, then frowns after he turns and begins to walk toward the staircase that will carry him to the lower level and the walkway to the west, and toward the
Mirror Lancer Court
.

XC

The long table in the dining room of Ryalth’s house-and Lorn’s, too, he supposes-is set for seven. The linen is cream, trimmed in green-and-blue, and the cutlery is an antique silver. The light comes from the antique bronze wall lamps with their recently and brightly polished reflectors. Lorn sits at one end of the table, with Mycela at his left and Jerial at his right, and Ryalth at the other end, with Ciesrt at her left and Vernt at her right. Myryan sits between Ciesrt and Jerial.

“Beautiful silver,” Myryan says to Ryalth, although she avoids touching the knife.

“It’s one of the few family heirlooms I was able to keep,” the trader replies. “That, and a few pieces of furniture and the carpet in the sitting room.

“Family things are important,” announces Mycela.

As she speaks, Lorn pours another two fingers of Alafraan into her glass, keeping it below a third full. He takes a last bite of the marinated and spiced fowl dumpling, then smiles at his consort.

“They are,” Ryalth agrees. “Would anyone like more-of anything?”

“I could stand another of those dumplings, thank you,” Ciesrt says.

Ryalth passes the casserole dish.

“A bit more bread for the sauce,” Vernt adds.

“Lorn, what will you be doing for the Majer-Commander?” asks Ciesrt as he serves himself two more dumplings. “Are you working directly for him, or for one of the commanders who reports to him?”

Lorn laughs. “I don’t know. He told me to spend time with my consort and family, and to report back an eightday from next oneday. He said I’d be doing some writing, since I wrote well and quickly. So I could just be another junior majer acting as a scrivener. I’ll find out then, I suppose.”

“You couldn’t ask him?” asks Mycela, sweetly. “You are a hero, they say.”

“I’m not a hero,” Lorn says politely, “but even if I were, heroes don’t question the Majer-Commander, not that way.” He smiles. “Just as Vernt wouldn’t ask the First Magus why he was picked to do”-Lorn looks at his younger brother-“whatever you’re doing now.”

“Oh… I didn’t think of it that way.” Mycela smiles sweetly at Vernt.

“That makes sense,” Ciesrt announces. “I certainly wouldn’t ask any of the three Magi’i why I was tasked with something.”

“Even your father?” asks Jerial, a glint in her eye.

“I might say something bland, to see if he’d offer an explanation, but I wouldn’t ask. We learned that as children.” Ciesrt shakes his head.

“Do you ever run across any of those I was student with?” Lorn asks, not caring whether Ciesrt or Vernt provides an answer. “Like Tyrsal or Rustyl?”

“I see Tyrsal sometimes,” Vernt answers. “He works in the chaos-cell section for Lector Stumlyt. I haven’t seen Rustyl, except in the corridors, in years, I don’t think. The First Magus sent him to Fyrad to work with the Mirror Engineers, they said, and then to Summerdock to work on the harbor. He was gone for a while. He just got back, maybe three eightdays ago.”

“He was on the
Great
Canal
,” Ciesrt mumbles as he finishes a dumpling. “Thought he was something special, working with the highest of the Mirror Engineers and then the older first-level adepts when he got back. Still tilts his nose.”

“He always did,” Vernt adds. “Ever since he discovered he could draw chaos out of the natural world. He’s not the only one, but he thinks he is.”

“Maybe someone is encouraging him,” suggests Myryan.

“Why? So they can make him First Magus in another halfscore of years?” sneers Ciesrt.

“I thought he was going to be Ceyla’s consort,” offers Jerial.

“It is most likely,” Ciesrt admits. “He is handsome in his way, and she finds him most intriguing. Father has also suggested that she has few-enough choices left among the Magi’i.”

“You do not sound pleased,” Jerial adds.

“He can be all right at times, and I suppose we’ll get used to him.” Ciesrt shrugs. “He is talented. There is little question of that.”

“Maybe he wants to be Emperor,” says Mycela. “You know, the Empress can’t have children. They don’t have any.”

“Dear, Magi’i can’t take the Malachite Throne,” Vernt says gently.

“But… the Emperor has an elthage title,” Mycela protests.

“His Mightiness also has a merage and an altage title,” Jerial points out. “They’re all honors.”

“Not totally,” Ryalth says. “His mother was merchanter, his father a Mirror Lancer before he became Emperor, and one of his grandsires was from the Magi’i.”

Lorn keeps a straight face, letting the silence drag out before turning to Ciesrt. “Whatever the Magi’i did with the
Accursed
Forest
, it did free up more lancers to fight against the barbarians. And the lancers are grateful. I thought you’d like to know.”

“I thought you defeated them all.” Mycela’s voice is puzzled. “Or killed them all.”

“Those in the northwest,” Lorn explains. “There are still the Cerlyni in the northeast, and unless someone else follows up on what I did, in a few years the Jeranyi will be back to raiding south of the Grass Hills again.”

“Didn’t you sack the port where they were getting their blades?” asks Ciesrt.

“We did, and we burned the warehouses and took all the blades and brought them back. But trading blades is profitable for the Hamorians, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there were traders back there by fall, or next spring at the latest.”

“Do you trade blades?” Mycela looks wide-eyed at Ryalth.

Myryan looks down, and Jerial covers her mouth for a moment.

“No. I’d rather not sell something that could kill my consort,” Ryalth says politely. “Or any other lancer.”

“Oh, I guess that would not be a good idea.” Mycela smiles.

“I’m glad she doesn’t, for many reasons,” Lorn says quickly, and with a laugh. He can sense that Myryan is having trouble not rolling her eyes or giving some outward sign of her feelings. He glances at Vernt, then at Ciesrt. “Since it’s done, can either of you tell me what the Magi’i did in the Accursed Forest?”

The two lower, first-level adepts exchange glances. Then Vernt nods. “I shouldn’t say how it was done, but the result was a combining of order and chaos to put the
Forest to sleep, so that it is like any other forest, or mostly so. Some large animals will escape, I imagine, but they won’t be as big as the ones in the past, and they’ll get smaller, more like the ones in the swamps along the river and the forests above the delta. That’s why some lancers are still patrolling. And it’s really not safe to enter it. So the walls will have to be maintained.”

Lorn nods. “The growers will complain for a time, I’m sure.”

“The peasants always complain about everything,” Ciesrt notes. “If it’s not the Magi’i or the Mirror Lancers, it’s the merchanters or the weather.”

“Usually the merchanters,” Ryalth says lightly. “We’re grasping and greedy, and few think about how much it costs to bring anything from anywhere.”

“But they always say there would be nothing without food,” Ciesrt answers with a laugh.

Lorn sits stock-still for an instant, thinking about one of the questions posed by his father over a year earlier.

“You look surprised, Lorn,” Jerial says.

“I was just recalling something Father said along those lines years ago.”

“I don’t recall him talking about peasants,” Vernt muses.

“Not peasants,” Lorn replies. “About what allows Cyad to exist. And that’s food… except I think what he meant was that the lands of Cyador have to produce not only enough food for the peasants who grow it, but enough for the people of the cities. And there has to be enough that the peasants will sell it willingly.”

“They never sell anything willingly, do they?” asks Mycela.

“I think I see what Father meant,” Vernt says. “There are not that many Magi’i or Mirror Lancers…”

“Exactly,” Jerial adds. “Nor healers. Nor Mirror Engineers.”

“Nor gardens,” finishes Myryan.

Ryalth merely nods, a knowing smile on her lips.

Ciesrt frowns, and Mycela smiles blankly.

Lorn lifts the bottle of Alafraan. “Would anyone like any more? Before we start on dessert?”

Jerial grins at Ryalth, and, after a moment, so does Myryan. Vernt shakes his head ruefully.

XCI

Lorn has found the cushions to the wooden-framed settee that is on the front veranda of the house, a dwelling that is somehow both new and yet familiar to him, and has set them out. In the late afternoon of early summer, he sits there on the veranda, holding Kerial in his lap. He wears a stained pair of uniform trousers and an old undertunic-both more suited to caring for an infant than to a lancer’s study.

“Your mother will be home before long.”

“Gaa… ooo…” A chubby hand gropes toward Lorn’s mouth, and Lorn lets the boy touch his cheek and jaw.

A dull clunk echoes across the front garden and past the fountain.

Lorn smiles. “I think that’s her.” He lifts the boy to his shoulder and stands as the iron gate opens.

Ryalth steps through it and out from behind the privacy screen.

Lorn moves down the walkway and past the fountain and the mist of cool spray that fans from it in the hot afternoon sun.

Ryalth smiles as she nears father and son. “Were you a good boy?” She bends forward and brushes Kerial’s cheek with her lips. “Were you good for your father?”

“Gaaa… waaa…”

“Yes,” Lorn translates.

“I’m glad.”

The two walk side by side past the fountain and then under the veranda roof. Lorn and Kerial follow Ryalth through the doorway and down the steps into the front foyer.

“I need something to drink. I’m thirsty. But we can go back out on the veranda.” She smiles again. “I’m glad you found the cushions. That’s something I’ve been meaning to do.”

Kysia appears as they step into the kitchen.

“Do we have any juice?” asks Ryalth.

“All we have is wine and ale-or water,” Kysia apologizes. “I’ve been looking for juices, but they’re all vinegar or wine right now. The peaches are late this year, and even the greenberries…”

“Ale.” Ryalth says. “If you don’t mind.”

“Ah… two, please,” Lorn adds.

The gray-eyed Kysia grins, then scurries through the big kitchen, before returning with two beakers nearly filled with amber liquid.

“Thank you.”

“And supper?” asks Kysia.

“Whenever it’s ready. I’m hungry, but not starving,” Ryalth says. “Don’t you and Ayleha hurry it and spoil anything. We’ll be on the front veranda.”

The red-haired trader carries the two glass beakers and their amber contents back through the house and foyer, up the steps, and out to the veranda, where she settles onto one side of the settee. Lorn settles onto the other side, shifting Kerial so that the boy is on his lap, half facing his mother, held by Lorn’s right arm.

With his left, Lorn takes the beaker Ryalth offers. “Thank you.”

“Thank you for taking Kerial. It made the day much easier.”

“Waa…” offers Kerial tentatively.

“In a moment,” Ryalth says. “Let your mother have a sip of her drink. You can wait, you little piglet.” She takes a long swallow of the ale.

“How did it go with the Austrans?”

“Not that well.” Ryalth sighs after another swallow of the amber ale. “They’re talking about larger guarantees on the inbound cargoes, and unless we open a warehouse in Valmurl or send someone there… or unless I buy another long-haul ship or even two, which we don’t have the golds for…”

“You’ll start losing coins one way or the other?” Lorn gives Kerial a gentle squeeze.

“I fear so. Now that there are fewer fireships, we can see the lack of respect growing.”

“I don’t think there ever was any in Hamor,” Lorn says.

“There wasn’t anywhere, but people behaved as though there was.”

“Whaa… ?” asks Kerial.

“A few more moments, dear.” Ryalth takes another swallow of the ale.

“Respect is always based on power, I think,” Lorn replies. “From the scrolls I did get, I thought we had lost the towers on four fireships, and other lands know that.”

“Five, at least. They’re hiding them in a cove near Dellash-the end of the island away from Summerdock.”

“We’ll start losing the towers in Cyad before long.”

“Why the fireships first? Because the salt is harder on them?”

“That, and the ships move. Over the years, even with the temporal barriers, that puts more strain on them. There won’t be one left in another five years, I would guess.”

“No one is saying much, but they’ve laid the keels for warships with sail and cannon.”

Lorn shakes his head. “We could build chaos-fired steamships. We should.”

“Is that… ?”

“It’s all in my father’s papers, even the plans he took from the forbidden archives. I’ll need to make copies… maybe for Vernt and Tyrsal, when the time comes.”

“He thought you could make it happen.”

“As a junior majer?”

“You’ll be more than that,” she predicts.

“That doesn’t look likely.”

“It will happen. It has to.”

“I won’t argue with you. I usually lose.” He grins, then adds, “If it does, I hope it’s in time to prevent the worst.”

“You think it will be that bad?”

“What do you think? You saw the way Ciesrt and Mycela reacted at dinner the other night. They don’t understand, and too many of the Magi’i and Mirror Lancer families are like that.”

“Can you make the stone real?” she asks.

He smiles at her reference to the first time he had told her his ambitions, but the smile fades. “I don’t know. I’m not sure I know how. I know what to do if I could get there, but getting there…” He shrugs. “The papers will help, if I can figure out how to apply what he’s given me… If I get the opportunity.”

“See what you learn working for the Majer-Commander.” Ryalth shakes her head. “Your furlough has gone by so quickly. You’ll have to go back on duty in three days. Almost two eightdays doesn’t seem very much after all you did and all the time you were away.”