Soarers Choice (45 page)

Both
the younger alectors had to concentrate to keep from displaying a combination
of astonishment and disbelief.

“I
have the feeling,” Lystrana said dryly, “that the actual circumstances were
worse. I don’t believe you mentioned losses.”

“Six
Myrmidons and pteridons from our forces. Somewhere over a hundred on their
side, almost all of that from backlash from the explosion of the lightcannon.”

“But...
why?” asked Garatyl.

Dainyl
looked to Lystrana, wondering if it would be better if she or if he explained.
She nodded to him.

“Ifryn
is dying. There are more alectors on Ifryn than Efra and Acorus can take, even
combined. The more knowledgeable junior Myrmidon officers on Ifryn have come to
realize that they will not be included in those allowed to make the long
translations. Faced with certain death, they attempted to force their way
here.”

“That...
it can’t be,” protested Garatyl.

Dainyl
had forgotten how sheltered some of the younger alectors were.

Dyena
looked hard at the other assistant. “Didn’t you believe Silyrt? About the Table
guards? About all the shimmersilk garments that they carry away? Why is every
Table heavily guarded?”

Garatyl
shook his head. “But they must have known it would come to this. They must
have. How could they not?”

“What
makes you so certain that they didn’t know?” Lystrana’s voice was both cool and
sympathetic. “Even Views of the Highest alludes to it, in talking about there
being too many alectors over time.”

“That
makes it worse.”

Dainyl
agreed with that, but then, after Dramur, he’d seen that was how the High
Alectors thought and acted.

Abruptly
Garatyl turned his eyes to Dainyl. “Marshal, sir... ?”

“You’d
like to know how I could possibly kill all those innocent alectors?” Dainyl’s
eyes fixed on the young alector. “My choices are limited. If too many alectors
flee here, Acorus itself will die in a double handful of years, if not less.
Some of the recorders have been allowing the best of the unauthorized refugees
to remain and live. That’s charitable, but it has reduced the additional
numbers that can be accepted from Ifryn. Also, the weapons they were using
would have destroyed so much lifeforce that, within years, Acorus might die. I
cannot be merciful to a few hundred, even a few thousand alectors, if it will
doom Acorus and everyone now living here.”

“There
must be ...”

“I’ve
discussed it at length with the senior lifeforce alector in Lyterna and with
the Duarch of Elcien, as well as with the knowledgeable recorders. None of them
see any alternatives. Neither do I.” After a silence that continued to grow,
Dainyl cleared his throat. “I must apologize for being so blunt.”

“You
might also consider, Garatyl,” Lystrana added, “that Dainyl has been marshal
for less than a season, and submarshal for less than a year before that. He had
no knowledge of what was planned, nor any way to affect it. As a matter of
fact, neither did the Duarches. What was planned was determined by the Archon
in Illustra centuries ago. All we can do is manage the situation as we can.”

“It’s
... horrible.”

“We
can all agree on that,” Lystrana said. “Will you refuse to have children so
that, thousands of years from now, this will not happen again? Or ... who will
you order not to have children? On what grounds? How will you punish those who
have too many children? And if you do not, how well will you sleep, knowing
that each additional child shortens the time before what you are hearing about
happens again?”

Garatyl
looked haplessly from the RA to the marshal, and then to Dyena. Finally, he
just shook his head.

“I
think we should defer any more discussion on this until tomorrow,” Lystrana
said. “It’s best if you have some time to think it over.”

Dyena
nodded strongly.

“I’m
sorry ...,” Dainyl mouthed silently to Lystrana.

“Don’t
be,” she said quietly.

Garatyl
merely looked bewildered, while Dyena covered a brief but knowing smile with
her napkin.

“Now...,”
declared Lystrana, “it’s time for you two to talk. Dyena ... where did you grow
up?”

“I
was born here in Dereka, only three months after my mother translated here from
Ifryn ...”

Dainyl
took a larger swallow of wine than he should have, far larger, as he sat back
to listen to what the two assistants had to say.

The
remainder of dinner was far more cheerful, if forced at first.

Two
glasses later, Dainyl sat on the
e.g.
of the
triple-width bed. “I’m sorry about dinner. One thing led to another.”

“I
told you not to be sorry. Garatyl is the youngest and newest assistant. He has
to understand how the world is, not how he thought it was. How else will he
learn?”

“He
didn’t seem to understand how much lifeforce a lightcannon consumes. It’s
terrifying, and so is the fact that Brekylt and Rhelyn seem willing to use them.
I have nightmares about it.” Dainyl looked at Lystrana in her nightgown, her
figure clearly showing her advancing pregnancy.

“How
could you not?” she said, drawing back the covers. “I do. I was so happy when
Kytrana was conceived. Now, there are times when I wonder if...”

“Don’t
even mention something like that. All people go through hard times.”

“Not
like facing the death of a world and asking how and why we are fortunate enough
to survive and they are not. Not like killing people so that others will live,
or knowing that if you do not, none will survive.”

Dainyl
slipped under the covers, putting his arms around her.

She
was even colder than he felt.

Getting
up the next morning was difficult, perhaps because the time was effectively two
glasses earlier for Dainyl. On the other hand, he consoled himself, he could
talk to Lystrana over breakfast and not hurry off. Unlike their house in
Elcien, the quarters did not have a sun porch or a courtyard, and the breakfast
room was a modest nook off the kitchen with but a pair of high windows that
offered no view. Even so, as he sat down across from her, he could see that the
sky was gray, and threatening snow or an icy rain.

Lystrana
held a mug of steaming cider up to her chin, inhaling the warm vapor. She
studied him. “You still have that greenish Talent aura about you. It’s faint,
but it’s still there.”

“It
is?” Dainyl hadn’t thought about it in weeks.

“Someone
would have to get close to you.” She smiled fondly. “Far closer than I’d
appreciate. I don’t think it’s going away, or not anytime soon.”

“All
because of Rhelyn.” He shook his head. The ancient’s weapon had started it, but
his own contacts with the ancients hadn’t helped any — except, without them,
he’d likely have been dead. Still, there wasn’t anything he could do about it,
and so long as it remained faint...

After
a moment, he asked, “How have things been going here?”

“Very
quiet. There was a backlog of decisions on land use, and I probably didn’t make
anyone very happy.”

“Oh?”

“I
limited additional croplands to those who wanted to build extensions to the
aqueducts and to those who could prove that their water usage would not deprive
anyone else of water.”

“Doesn’t
that reward those with golds?”

“Absolutely.
But it also requires them to spend them. The others didn’t want to spend a
copper but wanted the water. Nothing that creates crops or lifeforce is free.”
Her lips curled into a gently humorous smile. “I believe you made that point
last night.”

“Young
Garatyl was appalled.”

“At
his age, he should be. It’s hard to teach concern when people are older.”

“You
know I don’t like what I did at Soupat... but they were trying to send hundreds
of alectors here.” He poured a mug of ale. His stomach was slightly unsettled,
as it was more days than not in the morning. After a small swallow, he went on,
looking to the archway and lowering his voice. “Maybe the ancients are right.
Maybe we should look into changing how we link to Acorus. Wouldn’t that reduce
the lifeforce needs? Wouldn’t it prevent or at least delay what’s happening on
Ifryn?”

“I
don’t know.” Lystrana frowned. “There must be some reason why it hasn’t been
tried.”

“Asulet
said it was possible, but that anyone who tried it would end up as little more
than a Talented lander.” Dainyl shook his head. “And that one early alector
tried it and wanted to change back and couldn’t... and ended up as a wild
translation.” He paused, thinking. Majer Mykel was a Talented lander, as
Talented as many alectors, and he did not require the kind of lifeforce draw
that an alector did. But then, he would die within sixty or eighty years, a
mere fraction of an alector’s life span.

“That
shouldn’t have happened.”

“Oh,
it didn’t happen that way, according to Asulet. He couldn’t change back here,
and he tried a long translation to Ifryn and ended up wild.”

“I’m
certain that’s what they told Asulet,” Lystrana said.

“Oh
... of course. Any lander showing up on a Table in Ifryn would be destroyed
before he could explain.”

Dainyl
took another sip of ale. Assuming Asulet was correct, and alectors could link
to Acorus directly, and not through the Master Scepter, but the cost was a
shorter personal life span. Just what was a longer life span for a few alectors
worth, compared to all the other lives, and the death of a world?

“What
are you thinking?”

“About
choices. About the costs of what we have.” Yet... what could he do? He couldn’t
force all the other alectors to link directly to Acorus — even if he knew how.
And that would only turn them all into landers, and more alectors would arrive
from either Ifryn or Efra, once the Master Scepter was transferred.

“It’s
not a choice we have, Dainyl. Even if it worked, we’d be Talented landers. How
long would we last? What about Kytrana? Would you do that to her?”

He
shook his head. “I’m not one for useless or empty gestures. But... how can I
not think about it?”

She
smiled sadly. “Knowing you, you can’t. But you can only do what you can. That’s
all any of us can.”

“I
suppose so.” He took a bite out of the omelet, not so tasty as those fixed by
Zistele and Sentya. “Brekylt is moving heavy road equipment to repair possible
damage to the Northern Pass.”

“Suitably
modified, I trust,” replied Lystrana, taking another sip of her hot spiced
cider. “Heavy weapons, in effect.”

“I’ve
ordered Third and Fourth Companies here.” Dainyl shrugged. “I have no
i.e.
what Noryan will do.”

“Noryan?
Or Brekylt?”

“I
think there’s a chance Noryan will follow the orders.”

“But
you think Brekylt will stop him somehow?”

“I
think Brekylt will try, if he finds out. I sent the orders by sandox. It’s
worth the effort to reduce his power.” He looked down at the half-eaten omelet
that he knew he would not finish. “Have you sensed anything like the ancients?
Have there been any reports of anything odd?”

Lystrana
cocked her head, then replied, “Some of the northern holders in Aelta reported
greenish lights on the top of the Aerial Plateau last week, but only for one
evening.”

“Do
you know if there’s been anything like that reported before?”

“No.
There’s no record of that. I had Dyena check. Jonyst has no record, either, and
his records go back farther than those of the RA. What do you think they plan?”

“I
don’t know. I only know that they do. I can still feel the sadness and the
finality of what the one ancient conveyed. And her words — that we would have
to change or die.” Asulet had also mentioned that the ancients were Talent
creatures, and that suggested that they could survive when alectors might
not... so long as there was lifeforce.

“I’m
sure that they would have acted before this, had they the ability to do
something that drastic.”

“I’m
sure you’re right, dearest.”

“Dainyl...
don’t humor me. You don’t believe that for a moment. I know that. I won’t
change your feelings, but I am asking you to consider the facts. They’ve been
here for longer than we have. Dereka was one of their cities, perhaps their
only great city, and it was abandoned. As individuals, they’re more powerful
than pteridons, but we can build weapons that can destroy pteridons. Don’t you
think that if they could destroy us — or force us to change — they would?”

“It
would depend on the costs, I suspect,” he replied dryly, before finishing the
ale. “I know that what you say makes more sense than what I feel, but you
didn’t feel the absolute certainty behind her words.”

“You
can’t do much until they act, if they do, or until you can discover what they
plan.”

“No.
But that’s another reason to bring Third and Fourth Companies here. If Noryan
will.”

“If
he can.”

Dainyl
nodded. “I’ll be checking on Fifth Company before I head back to Elcien.”

“Will
you be here tonight?” she asked.

“I
don’t know. I’m leaving what I wore yesterday.”

“I’ll
have them cleaned.”

“Thank
you. If nothing else happens, I should be here tonight, but Zelyert was in
Ludar yesterday, and that could mean more complications.”

“When
you’re ready to leave, I’ll have my driver take you around. I don’t have to go
anywhere until this afternoon.”

“Thank
you.” Dainyl just looked at her, trying to push away all the concerns for a few
moments, before he finished eating and dressing and began what might be a very
long day.

Quinti
morning, Mykel dressed himself completely, although getting on his boots
one-handed was a time-consuming effort, and his forehead was damp by the time
he finished. He sat on the
e.g.
of the narrow bed
and blotted his forehead, waiting until he cooled off some before heading to
the small officers’ mess for breakfast.