Cadmians Choice (63 page)

Rhelyn’s shields
shunted the short energy bolt aside.

Dainyl slipped the
unpowered weapon into the holster and drew the one from his tunic.

“Three lightcutters.
I must say that you come as prepared as you could. It won’t be—” Rhelyn broke
off his words and threw a Talent bolt at Dainyl.

The submarshal sensed
the feint, and, while blocking the recorder’s Talent-blast, directed his own
Talent-probe toward the pair of crystals within the Table, the ones allowing
the user to draw on the power of the translation tubes.

Both probes locked short
of the crystals, and that was more than fine with Dainyl, as he stepped off the
Table and fired another lightcutter blast at Rhelyn.

“A renegade recorder
as well... truly evil...” grunted the recorder.

Dainyl deflected
another Talent-blast and kept moving toward Rhelyn. The recorder drew a long
dagger, one whose slender blade shimmered amber-green.

“Talent won’t stop
this....”

Dainyl sensed that.
He stepped back, beyond reach of the long dagger, and clasped his shields
around the recorder.

Just before the
shields constricted, Rhelyn threw the dagger straight at Dainyl’s chest.

Dainyl jumped to one
side, but the dagger sliced into his left arm. He still slammed the shields
around Rhelyn and fired both lightcutters, but the fingers of his left hand
released the lightcutter.

“Too late ... you’re
dead ... too ...” Rhelyn smiled, then collapsed. In instants, he too was dust.

Dainyl glanced
around, then bent and grabbed one of the shimmersilk tunics—it might have been
the alectress’s—and wadded it inside his own tunic against the slash in his
arm. He thought about using another to bind around the outside of his sleeve,
but he couldn’t do that, not one-handed and in a hurry, and he could tell he
didn’t have much time. If he’d worn the flying jacket? No ... whatever the
knife had been, it would have sliced through the jacket as well.

He stepped back onto
the Table. His timing had to be perfect—or he’d be as dead as Rhelyn. First, he
used a quick Talent-probe to find the octagonal crystal. Then, as he fired a
full Talent-bolt into the crystal, he concentrated on dropping beneath the
Table, into the darkness below.

The world spun, and
he felt as though he had been turned on his head and driven through the surface
of the Table...

. .. into the
darkness that was far blacker than he recalled. Could that be because the Table
had failed? Or because he was weakening? The shimmering dagger had done more
than slice him . . .

He struggled to
concentrate on a location for his translation ... it had to be Elcien. Nowhere
else could he get aid quickly. But the white locator wedge kept retreating, as
if he could not grasp it with Talent. Why? What was he doing wrong?

Around him the cold
intensified, pressing in, possibly because he had been overheated and had used
all his Talent reserves. He had to get somewhere, or he’d end up dead or a
mistranslated wild Talent without sentience and short-lived. He thought of
Lysia, trying to call up the orange-yellow locator, but that, too, retreated
from his Talent-grasp.

What was the problem?

The dagger—it had
been amber-green, like the ancients. Was it an ancient weapon designed to be
used against alectors? Had it rendered his Talent useless?

Dainyl tried again,
this time seeking the crimson-gold of Dereka . .. and felt it too slip from his
grasp.

His thoughts were
slowing . . . he had to do something.

Green . . .
amber-green . . . seek that. Anything would be better than dying in the
translation tube.

Using what felt like
his last measure of Talent, he reached for the amber-green, for an oval somewhere
in the distance... that suddenly rushed toward him.

He staggered, but he
was out of the darkness, standing in a small chamber, so small that his hair
brushed the ceiling. The walls were of a green-tinged amber stone, and the
single window was framed in a silvery metal.

Dainyl wasn’t
anywhere he knew. He glanced down to find that he stood on square silver
mirror—like those in the tunnel of the ancient soarers. He glanced at his
poorly bound arm. Lifeforce-treated shimmersilk was a poor bandage.

His legs were wobbly,
and he looked for somewhere to sit down, to rest. There was a couch, low and
small, to one side. Perhaps it was a bed. He turned and ...

The amber and green
and silver vanished behind a different kind of darkness that rose up and engulfed
him.

Dainyl’s eyes opened.
Overhead was an amber-green ceiling. He was lying on something hard— very hard.
Lines of fire ran up and down his left arm, and his vision of the ceiling
blurred, and then cleared, before blurring again.

Where was he? He’d
been unable to reach any Table— that much he recalled. Had that been because of
the weapon used by Rhelyn—he had the feeling it had been designed to kill
alectors—or because of his own failing strength?

His eyes flicked to
his right. He was lying on the floor beside a bed far too small for him, and
possibly even too tiny for the smallest of adult indigens. Without lifting his
head, he glanced the other way, to note a door in the stone wall—made of a
golden wood, with a single lever handle of a silvery metal. From where he lay
he could only see silver-green sky through the window, bright enough that it
had to be day. The window was set in casements of the same metal as that of the
door lever—a metal he had not ever seen.

After several
moments, his head cleared, and his vision sharpened. With his good arm, he
eased himself into a sitting position. With a start, he realized that his left
arm had been bound, and that his Myrmidon tunic had been neatly trimmed away
just below the shoulder, so evenly that it looked as if it had been sewn that
way— until he looked at his right forearm.

Who could cut through
that lifeforce-treated fabric that easily?

The light in the room
shifted, and he looked up from where he sat on the floor to see one of the
ancient soarers, hovering just inside the door he had not heard open.

“Thank you.” Whatever
else might happen, he owed them his life.

You were dying.

“I had that feeling.
Was that because of the weapon?”

Describe the weapon.

“It was a long
dagger, and it had an amber-green blade. It went right through my tunic. It
shouldn’t have.”

We thought as much.
It was designed for that, long ago. It was a long-bladed sword. It was not an
effective weapon. It was our responsibility.

A long-bladed sword?
Of course, long-bladed for an ancient. Their responsibility? “It was effective
against me.”

There was the sense
of an ironic laugh.

“Why did you save me?”

For reasons of our
own. Does not each act for reasons of her own?

“Do you expect me to
do something for you?”

Only if you come to
understand the way of all worlds. Only if you understand that it will benefit
you.

“What do you want
that could benefit me?”

If you do not change.
. . when the time comes you will die. You can support lifeforce and live, or
draw from it and die.

She was the second
soarer who had said the same thing to him, except this one had suggested more.

Before long you must
choose—the purple or the green. Now you must rest. Later, you will be strong
enough to return . . .

“Just how, exactly,
am I supposed to change?”

This time the sense
of laughter was far stronger. That will become clear when the time arrives for
your choice.

“How am I supposed to
return?”

The same way in which
you arrived. The soarer eased backward and the door closed, with a definite
click.

Dainyl blinked. Then
he slowly stood. His legs were wobbly, but he took two steps and tried the
silver metal lever on the door. It did not budge. The entire door felt as solid
as the stones that surrounded the frame in which it was set.

After a moment, he
made his way to the window. His fingers were clumsy, but he depressed the flat
bracket on one side. He barely started to slide the window open, when frigid
air surged through the tiny opening, colder than anything he had experienced.

Dainyl looked out
through the closed window, determining that he was in a tower. Well beneath him
were other buildings scattered over the space of a vingt or so from the base of
the tower. All were enclosed by a circular wall, and everything appeared to
have been constructed of the same amber-green stone. Farther beyond the wall
was white sand, and beyond that rose a rampart of dark rock, along the top of
which ran green-tinted crystal oblongs.

Standing at the
window, he felt weak. Was that because of the altitude? He had to be up on the
Plateau somewhere. It couldn’t be anywhere else, not when he had flown all over
the rest of Acorus.

Slowly, he turned and
made his way to the small bed, where he sat down. In the end he stretched out
on the floor, using the single green quilt of shimmering silk as a pillow.

He closed his eyes.

After a glass passed
uneventfully, Mykel put half the Cadmians on standby and ordered them into the
shade of the gardens to the immediate south of the regional alector’s building.
He had the mounts of the men standing picket duty, including his own, moved
into the shade on the west side of the building and established a rotation of
those standing duty, with changes every glass, and orders to make sure that the
men drank their water regularly. As the white sun rose in the sky, approaching
noon, he summoned Undercaptain Matorak.

The Hyaltan officer
rode up from the eastern end of the plaza. “Yes, sir.”

“Undercaptain ... I
may be prejudging matters, but it is looking as though we’ll be in Tempre for a
time. I’d like you to take Second Company and investigate the compound to the
east. Secure it, and see how we could occupy it in the event we’re posted here
for a time.” He smiled. “Don’t forget to have everyone refill their water
bottles.”

“Yes, sir.” Matorak
turned his mount and rode back to Second Company.

Mykel watched for a
moment, but the undercaptain had his men and mounts moving before that long,
riding eastward along the boulevard that ran east to west in front of the low
granite wall before the complex.

Once Second Company
was out of sight, he studied the compound again, blotting his forehead. Tempre
was not nearly so hot as Hyalt, but it was summer, and he had been in the sun
all morning. He thought he heard more movement beyond the gardens to the south.
With nothing happening, he imagined that a few more of the braver souls in
Tempre might be venturing out. More than three glasses had passed since the
submarshal had entered the chamber underneath the building. The other Myrmidon
had not returned, either.

From what he had
sensed down in the lower depths, Mykel could only surmise that what lay behind
the door guarded by purplish power was some alector device of power—possibly
one of the mysterious Tables said to be able to view any place in Corus.
Another rumor about the Tables was that certain alectors could use them to
travel to other Tables. Had the submarshal used the Table to go elsewhere?
Where ... and why? Had the expedition to Tempre been solely to gain access to
whatever lay behind that door?

.;: He stiffened. The
Myrmidon with the skylance walked quickly down the steps from the main entrance
and across the gray paving stones toward the Myrmidon undercaptain. The two
talked in low voices for a time. The undercaptain’s face bore a frown that
remained, even after he looked up.

“Majer! If you would
join us?”

Mykel walked quickly
toward the two Myrmidons, stopping several yards short of them and the
undercaptain’s pteridon. “Yes?”

“I don’t believe we’ve
formally met. I’m Undercaptain Hyksant.” The undercaptain frowned again. “This
is a very difficult situation.”

Mykel understood.
Hyksant was an undercaptain in command of a squad, but a squad that had the
power to wipe out an entire battalion under certain circumstances, and Mykel
was a majer. Both had been left with definite orders to wait, and neither had
the slightest idea where the submarshal was, what he was doing, or when he
would be back.

‘The submarshal left
contingent orders,” Hyksant said. “I had hoped we would not have to implement
them, but it appears that will be necessary. We’re to hold Tempre for the next
three days. If he does not return by then, we are to withdraw to Hyalt and
regroup there.”

“We have done some
scouting and discovered that there is a new compound to the east,” Mykel said. “It
was apparently built to house the troopers we routed yesterday. One of my
companies is engaged in investigating and securing it. When we reported it to
the submarshal, he suggested that, since the forces that apparently used it
would no longer require it, we could use the new compound. I would imagine that
there would be space there for you. We should know if it is suitable within the
glass.”

“If you would inform
me, Majer, I would appreciate it.”

“I will.” Mykel
nodded politely.

As he walked back to
Undercaptain Fabrytal and the

Cadmians, Mykel
reflected that, in a way, Hyksant’s use of the word “return” had in fact
confirmed that the Table—or something behind that door—was a means of travel.
He also confirmed, by what he apparently could not do, that its use was
restricted to those of either rank or ability—or both.

Almost another glass
passed before one of Matorak’s squad leaders rode back into the paved plaza
before the building and reined up before Mykel.

“Sir, Undercaptain
Matorak reports that the barracks and quarters are secure and will be ready for
Third Battalion whenever you require them.”