Cadmians Choice (3 page)

Lystrana smiled,
warmly, but faintly. “You’re worried about going to Alustre tomorrow.”

“Wouldn’t you be?”
Dainyl laughed softly. “We’ve lost six pteridons in less than two seasons. With
only eight companies of Myrmidons, that’s a concern, especially if the ancients
are planning something. All but two have been lost east of the Spine of Corns,
and that’s under Alcyna’s jurisdiction. Do you think she and Brekylt will be
pleased to see me, especially under those conditions?”

“You’ve never met
her, have you?”

“The last time I was
in Alustre was something like thirty years ago as a captain. She was a senior
majer, and not interested in a former ranker who would never be more man a
captain.”

Lystrana laughed. “She’ll
have to talk to you now. You’re her superior.”

“Technically, we’re
equals.” He reached out and lifted die goblet, inhaling the aroma of the Syan
Amber before taking a small sip and savoring it.

“You’ve been
designated as Shastylt’s successor.”

“That can always
change. Tyanylt was his successor.” Dainyl did not have to emphasize the irony
of his words.

“They won’t replace
you immediately. They need you as an example.”

“Ah, yes, the alector
who rose through the ranks. I could almost do without that, except mat you’re
right. It would look untoward if anything happened to me immediately, unless,
of course, it could be attributed to Alcyna and Brekylt.”

“You think that
Zelyert and Shastylt worry about Brekylt attempting to replace them?” asked
Lystrana softly.

“They’re worried, and
because Zelyert’s recorder can’t tell what alectors are doing, I’m their
stalking pteridon.”

“No recorder can use
a Table to view Talent, except an alector standing before a Table and using it.
I certainly wouldn’t want them using one to watch us.” Lystrana gave a mock
shudder.

“For all that,”
Dainyl went on, “I’m not certain that it’s just that they think Alcyna and
Brekylt want to replace or remove them.”

“What other reason
could there be?”

“What if they don’t
want the Master Scepter to be transferred to Acorus? And Brekylt does? Or has
proof that’s what they intend?”

“You don’t believe
that... ?”

“I don’t know, but I
should have considered the possibility sooner. Zelyert has stressed the
fragility of the ecology here and the slowness of lifeforce growth. He’s truly
concerned about that, for whatever reasons he may have, and he’s hinted that
lifeforce growth on Efra has been far easier and more productive man here on
Acorus. He and the marshal disagreed with Tyanylt, and when I met with the
Duarch, he said that Shastylt and Zelyert did not see everything, although they
thought they did. Khelaryt also said that there was great danger in not
transferring the Master Scepter here, because those who controlled Efra were
even more calculating than those who claimed to serve him.”

“If what Khelaryt
says is true, that is a frightening prospect.”

“I don’t think the
Duarch was mistaken about any of that, even if he is shadowmatched to the needs
of the Archon. I think he struggles against the shadowmatch conditioning.”

“Anyone with Talent
so great could not help but do so, yet the Duarches have such power that some
restraint is necessary.” Lystrana sipped from her goblet. “There are so many
currents beneath everything, and I fear they are strengthening.”

“Can you tell me how?
Or why?” Dainyl looked through the darkness at his wife, an alectress perhaps
more powerful than he was by virtue of her position as the chief assistant to
the High Alector of Finance in Elcien.

“We’ve talked about
it, dearest, over and over. Life-force on Ifryn is fading rapidly. There are
fewer alectors on each world than the last, and yet the lifeforce needs are
higher. I’ve heard rumors that more senior alectors are trying the long
translation from Ifryn. My highest has reported that several wild translations
have translated into Table chambers across Coras.”

“What does a wild
translation look like?”

“Anything ... half
alector, half sandox, or part pteridon. Those are the commonest ones. The worse
appear away from the Tables, anywhere on the world, and then vanish within a
glass, their lifeforce spent. Those who almost make the translation appear in a
Table chamber, in some monstrous form or another. They seem to be drawn by
someone using the Table to travel or communicate.”

“Now you tell me.” He
paused. “Is that why some translations fail? What about the wild translations?”

“That’s one reason.
Some of the creatures—they’re creatures even if they were once like us—survive,
and some do not, but those that do must be killed as well, because they have
great strength and little intelligence.”

Dainyl shook his
head. “The more I learn, the more I fear.”

“With each new world
we transform, as Asulet told you, we lose more knowledge and technology. Here
on Acorus, no one realized that the ancients still survived—”

“I wonder about that,”
mused Dainyl. “I know Asulet is one of the oldest, and he’s close to the Duarch
of Lyterna, if Lyterna had a Duarch, but he never said that. In fact, he’s
hinted that everyone knew there were still ancients. Now ... they might have
died out had we not worked to increase and improve the life-forms.”

“You think the Archon
and his advisors miscalculated?”

“Alectors must never
miscalculate, according to the Views of the Highest. What is it?” Dainyl
frowned, trying to recall the passage. “Ah, yes, we must see the universe as it
is, not as we would have it be, and we certainly should not follow the
irrational path of calculating based on what we wish an outcome to be.”

“You’re being
cynical.”

“A little. But Asulet
was very clear in pointing out how many hundreds died establishing Lyterna.
Could it not be that there weren’t enough alectors with knowledge and not
enough lifeforce to find and force an entry to another world? Wide as the
universe is, worlds that will support us are few.”

“So they avoided the
ancients, calculating that they would die off in time?”

“That’s my feeling,
and that calculation was based on wistful thinking ... or the irrational as
declared in the Views of the Highest.” Dainyl finished the last of the brandy
and set the goblet on the side table. “Now that we’ve warmed Acorus and
life-form mass and lifeforce are increasing once more, the ancients are
recovering as well.”

“There’s not enough
lifeforce for us both, is there?”

“You would know that
far better than I, dear one,” Dainyl demurred.

“Not if we must take
another thousand alectors in translation from Ifryn in the next few years.
Those are the numbers set forth by the Archon.”

Neither mentioned
that those thousand Ifrits would be the survivors—and that more than two
thousand would perish attempting the long trip through the world translation
tubes. Nor did they discuss the thousands of Ifrits who would never have the
opportunity even to attempt the arduous Talent-journey from Ifryn to Acorus.

Dainyl shook his
head.

“What is it?”

“I don’t know exactly
what Shastylt has in mind, and whether he’s hoping Alcyna will find a way for
me to suffer an accident, or for me to force her and Brekylt into unwise
actions. I have no certainty about what Shastylt and Zelyert are planning, or
whether they’re right or the Duarch is. I have no idea whether the ancients are
preparing for some sort of attack, where it might occur, and how it might take
place—only that they have the ability to destroy weapons and creatures I grew
up believing were invincible ... and yet I’m supposed to project absolute
certainty and confidence?”

“Isn’t that what
shows leadership?” Lystrana asked with a soft laugh. She rose from her chair
and extended a hand in invitation.

Hand in hand, they
went up the stairs to their bedchamber.

Later, as he lay
beside the sleeping Lystrana in the darkness, he could sense, ever more
strongly, the lifeforce of their daughter within Lystrana. Were all unborn
children so strong in potential Talent? Or was he sensing what he hoped, rather
than what was? What did the future hold for Kytrana? Or was that, as well, all
too dependent upon what he did in the seasons and years ahead?

He looked up through
the darkness at the ceiling overhead.

Dainyl supposed he
could have requested the duty coach to take him from the house to the Hall of
Justice where he would begin his translation to Alustre, but he felt that was
an abuse of position. Every morning Dainyl

was in Elcien, a
hacker named Barodyn—an indigen, of course—drove Dainyl to Myrmidon
headquarters. Lystrana had calculated that the three coppers each way were far
cheaper than having a personal carriage, what with the stable and horse and
driver that would have been required.

When Dainyl stepped
through the gates of the front courtyard on Quattri morning, two glasses
earlier than usual, in the gray of dawn, he wore the traveling uniform of a
Myrmidon officer—a blue flying jacket over a shim-mercloth tunic of brilliant
blue, both above dark gray trousers, with a heavy dark gray belt that held his
lightcutter sidearm. His collar bore the single stars of a submarshal. He
carried a set of saddlebags that held a spare uniform and personal toiletries.

The morning sun had
not yet climbed barely above the dwellings to the east, and possibly not even
above the waters of the back bay separating the isle from the mainland, when
the hacker reached back from his seat and opened the carriage door. “Good
morning, Submarshal, sir.”

“Good morning,
Barodyn.” Dainyl climbed into the coach and closed the door, settling onto the
hard seat as the hacker eased the coach away from the mounting block.

The driver guided the
coach through two turns and headed west on the boulevard, bordered by the
public gardens of the Duarch. The main boulevard extended from east to west,
down the middle of the isle from the bridge in die east to the gates at the
Myrmidon compound at the west end of the isle.

As always, Dainyl
spent a moment taking in the gardens, although they looked bleak in the early
spring, despite the precisely trimmed hedges and stone paths. The fountains
flowed, but the topiary that included a lifelike pteridon, a rearing horse, and
a long hedge sculpted into the likeness of two sandoxen and a set of transport
coaches looked more like a framework of sticks. There was only a hint of the
greenery that would fill out the images when the warmer days of late spring
finally arrived.

Ahead to his left was
the Palace of the Duarch, south of the boulevard. Flanking the palace were two
towers— pointed green cylinders that almost melded with the silver-green sky to
the west. Across the boulevard from the palace and the towers was the Hall of
Justice, whose golden eternastone glowed even before the morning light struck
it.

Dainyl nodded
solemnly. He might have smiled had he not been worried about the journey ahead.
For him, Table travel was too new to be taken casually, especially not when
Table “accidents” had been known to happen to those out of favor with the most
powerful of the High Alectors.

Still, he reflected,
as he often did, that Elcien was indeed a marvel, built on an island of solid
stone. The stone-walled shops with their perfect tile roofs were set around
market squares that held everything produced on Acorus. Vessels from across the
world disgorged their goods from the wharves and docks on the southern shore
into endless warehouses.

The hacker eased the
coach to a halt. “Submarshal, sir?”

After he stepped out,
Dainyl extended two coppers, plus an extra copper, although the trip was only
half the distance of his normal morning ride.

“Thank you, sir.”

As the first rays of
the morning sun struck his back, carrying his gear, Dainyl marched up the wide
golden marble steps of the Hall of Justice toward the goldenstone pillars that
marked the outer rim of the receiving rotunda. Above the architrave connecting
the pillars—thirty yards above the polished stone pavement—was a frieze
depicting the aspects of justice conveyed by the Duarchy. From the cornice over
the frieze angled a mansard roof of man-sized green tiles glinting metallically
in the early light.

Dainyl crossed the
receiving rotunda, far too early in the day for petitioners to have assembled,
his boots barely clicking on the octagonal sections of polished gold and green
marble. On the far side, he turned left toward a pillar behind and beyond the
dais. He summoned a hint of Talent and would have vanished to the sight of
those without Talent, had any been present at so early a glass. Then he reached
up and turned the light-torch bracket. The solid stone moved to reveal an entry
three yards high and one wide, and a set of steps beyond leading downward and
lit by light-torches.

The warmer and
moister air surrounded him as he stepped through the entry and the stone closed
behind him. At the base of the staircase, he turned right along a stone-walled
corridor until he reached a doorway on the north side.

A single alectress
appeared, glanced at Dainyl, then nodded. “Submarshal. Will we expect you back
shortly?”

“Several days, I
would judge, at the least. The Marshal and the Highest have requested I go to
Alustre.”

“Have a good trip,
sir.” The alectress, an assistant to the High Alector of Justice, stepped back
into her study.

Dainyl released the
hidden Talent-lock, then opened the door, and closed it behind him, replacing
the Talent-lock. He stood in a small foyer, lit by single light-torch, with a
second door before him, also with a Talent-lock. A moment later, he released
that lock and stepped into the Table chamber, replacing the second lock behind
him as well.