Alector's Choice

Alector’s Choice

The Corean Chronicles Book 4

L.E. Modesitt, Jr

Proud towers rise to
challenge sea and sky, Green needles that capture the dullest eye, and palaces
and halls with columns strong and true with glory, song, and pleasures for the
few.

So seemly are those
soaring spires That few remember the fierce desires and fewer still the price
Acorus pays for each alector’s unending days.

Yet towers unseen in
the higher chill, hold ancients with a different will, who also ask a price,
more long delayed, but still upon your living spirits laid.

Landers, which fate
and bargain will you take? Which deadly compromise is left to make?

Colonel Dainyl looked
down at the stack of reports on his desk. He was almost afraid to take his eyes
off them. The moment he looked away, more reports appeared. He knew that wasn’t
so, but it was the way things felt. Although he was the number four Myrmidon
officer on Acorus, when he studied all the reports, he felt more like a
glorified lander clerk.

He pushed the
resentment aside. He’d had his years as a flying officer, more than most
Myrmidons, and he’d been rewarded for long and faithful service. He could have
easily been one of the rankers who spent decades or longer in service, yet who
never became more than a squad leader or an undercaptain—if that.

He brushed back a
lock of shimmering black hair, hair that needed to be trimmed, he reminded
himself, and glanced toward the window that looked out on the headquarters
courtyard. There, on the raised stage, a pteridon had just landed, folding back
its long blue leathery wings. The Myrmidon rider vaulted from the saddle and
handed the dispatch case to the headquarters duty squad leader. So early in the
morning, it had to be the incoming daily message run from Ludar.

For a moment, Dainyl
just watched the ranker and pteridon. Then he looked down at the report he had
been reading—the quintal operations report from the Seventh Myrmidon Company at
Dulka.

At the sound of boots
on marble, he looked up once more, this time toward the open study door that
allowed him a view, such as it was, of the main corridor of Myrmidon
headquarters. Submarshal Tyanylt walked quickly past Dainyl’s open door toward
the one remaining study on the corridor—that of Marshal Shastylt.

Dainyl could sense…
something, and Tyanylt looked determined—or worried. That was unusual for any
alector, and especially for Tyanylt, who never showed emotion other than a calm
pleasantness—even when Dainyl used Talent-senses, although Dainyl had always
been careful only to use those senses to receive.

Not that there was
anything that Dainyl could have done to alleviate Tyanylt’s worries. The
Submarshal was his direct superior and had always maintained a certain reserve,
more so than the usual for an alector. Tyanylt was well respected, and well
connected to both the Duarch of Elcien and the Duarch of Ludar—and to the high
alectors who surrounded both Duarchs.

The colonel forced
his attention back to the report, noting that Majer Faerylt had cited the loss
of a skylance and the receipt of a replacement from Lyterna. Dainyl paused,
then reread the section. How could a Myrmidon have lost a skylance without
losing both rider and pteridon? That had not happened in centuries. He jotted
down a note to ask for a fuller explanation.

As he turned to the
section summarizing Seventh Company’s flights for the last two-month quint, the
slightest flash of purpleness—something sensed by his Talent, not seen by his
eyes—flared before Dainyl.

Almost without
thought, he was on his feet and out of his study, nearly running toward the
marshal’s closed doorway. He came to a halt outside the door, but he could
sense nothing through the heavy wood. Usually, he could sense something.

“Sir?” he called.
“Are you all right?”

There was no answer.

“Sir?”

With still no answer,
Dainyl opened the study door, his hand ready to grab his holstered sidearm as
he stepped into the chamber, closing the door behind him. Marshal Shastylt lay
half-sprawled on the floor beside his wide desk. Several papers lay strewn on
the green marble floor, as if the marshal’s hand had knocked them from the desk
as he had fallen.

Once inside the
study, Dainyl could sense the marshal’s lifeforce—weak, but steady—and that he
was breathing. Submarshal Tyanylt was not breathing. As Dainyl watched, his
lifeforce and aura finished fading, then vanished. Within moments, all that
remained on the smooth green marble floor of the study were Tyanylt’s uniform,
sidearm, and boots.

Dainyl swallowed.
While he’d seen more than a few Cad-mians, and other landers and indigens, die
over the years, he had only seen a handful of Myrmidons die, their bodies
vanishing into dust nearly instantly—in accidents and once after a death
sentence for gross negligence—but he’d never seen a high-ranking Myrmidon or
alector die. That just didn’t happen, and certainly not in the Myrmidon
marshal’s study.

The marshal groaned,
faintly, and Dainyl immediately knelt. He could sense no broken bones or severe
internal injuries. So he gently turned the marshal onto his back and waited.

Within several
moments, the marshal’s lifeforce had purpled into greater strength, and his
breathing was steadier. Shortly, his eyes opened.

Dainyl helped him to
his feet. With his shimmering black hair, unaging alabaster face, and violet
eyes, the marshal looked no different from any of the other most senior
alec-tors, save that he was a span or so taller than Dainyl’s two and a half
yards. Shastylt’s eyes flickered to the clothing and boots on the floor. His
lips tightened slightly, but he said nothing as Dainyl helped him into the
chair.

Dainyl waited while
the marshal caught his breath.

“Has anyone else been
in here?” Shastylt finally asked.

“No, sir. I sensed
something, and when no one answered, I came in and closed the door behind me.”

The marshal nodded
slowly, his deep violet eyes fixing on Dainyl.

Neither alector
spoke.

Dainyl waited,
holding his Talent shields, not certain how the marshal might react.

“You do understand,
Dainyl?”

“Yes, sir.” Dainyl
understood all too well. In whatever had transpired before he entered, Tyanylt
had crossed the marshal—and paid the price.

“You have always been
cautiously decisive. That is a good characteristic.” He swallowed, then
coughed, straightening in the chair. “You may not know this, but the
submar-shal was several decades older than I.”

There was no reason
Dainyl would have known. Alectors never showed their age, holding the same
appearance from early adulthood until death, until that time when they could
-no longer hold their lifeforce.

“He was deeply
concerned about some trends he was seeing all across Corus, and he could see
that his lifeforce was failing.”

Dainyl knew that the
marshal was lying, and that Shastylt knew that Dainyl recognized that. The
colonel nodded. “I just felt something and knew something had happened.”

Shastylt cleared his
throat. “Tyanylt and I have both known that Acorus faces a transition in the
next few years, one that will change everything.”

Every alector knew
that. Ifryn was failing, as its lifeforce was drained away, and in the next
decade the Archon of Ifryn—based on the recommendation of the Highest
Fieldmaster—would have to choose where to transfer the master scepter, either
to Acorus or Efra. That choice would decide the fate of two worlds. “That
choice does not have to be made that soon, does it, sir?”

“Preparations must be
made, one way or another, and how those preparations are handled may also
affect the choice.” Shastylt reached out and lifted the goblet of water on the
corner of the desk, taking a small swallow. “Submar-shal Tyanylt felt most
strongly about the decisions made by our High Alector of Justice. Tyanylt
reported his concerns to the Highest, and was told that, while he had
identified some valid problems, plans would have to go forth as outlined,
especially since Submarshal Alcyna in Alustre had no such concerns. Not many
are allowed to question the Highest. None are allowed to refuse the Highest.”

Since the Myrmidons’
prime function was to ensure and enforce justice, the High Alector of Justice
on Acorus was effectively the director of all Myrmidon activities. For a
Submarshal to refuse his duties… Dainyl shook his head. He could understand a
Submarshal’s resigning. It had not happened often, but there were precedents.
But to refuse without resigning?

“I see you
understand.”

“Enough, sir.” It was
all too clear that, in the contest of wills and lifeforce between the marshal
and the Submarshal, the marshal had prevailed. Dainyl also understood that it
would be foolhardy to oppose both the Highest and the marshal.

“A most cautious
response. That is fitting for these times.” Shastylt glanced to the uniform on
the floor. ‘There will be a week of mourning for the death of the Submarshal.
He served Ifryn, the Archon, and the Duarches long and well, but life-force
fails even the most powerful in time. I will have to meet with the Highest to
determine how he wishes to proceed.“

“Yes, sir.”

“For the moment, you
will remain as director of operations and maintenance, as before.” Shastylt smiled,
an expression not so much of triumph as one that showed the relief of someone
who had successfully passed a great trial. “That will be all, Colonel.”

Dainyl nodded
respectfully.

“If you would summon
the duty officer on your way out?”

“Yes, sir.” Dainyl
half bowed once more, then turned and departed, closing the door most carefully
behind him, as he headed back down the corridor to the desk of the day’s duty
officer—Undercaptain Ghanyr. His steps were firm on the green marble floor.

Mykel ambled over to
the edge of the grape arbor that he could just touch without stepping out from
under the roof of the warm-weather dining porch. The golden red grapes were
perfect, ripe, but still firm, glowing in the orange-tinged light before
sunset. He eased one from the rear of a bunch, shaded enough so that it was
cooler, and taken from where its absence wouldn’t be noticed until his parents
harvested that section of the vine.

“I saw that.” His
father laughed, stepping through the rear archway with a bronze tray holding
six heavy goblets. “A captain in the mounted rifles, nearly twenty-six years
old, and you’re still snitching grapes.”

Mykel turned and
grinned. “Just one. They’re best right off the vine.” He popped the grape in
his mouth—slightly tart, but still sweet, and cool. He was careful not to let
any of the juice escape. The pale blue dress tunic was one of the few he had
that wasn’t a uniform, and he’d inherited it from his grandfather two years
earlier.

“Don’t let your
mother catch you. She wants those as ripe as possible for the holiday wine.”
Olent set the tray down in the center of the long table, then straightened.

“Has he been pulling
grapes off the vine again?” asked

Viencet, following
his father through the archway, carrying a large pitcher of wine drawn from the
cask in the cellar.

“Some things don’t
change,” replied Olent.

Viencet, who was
barely seventeen, shook his head. His flowing blond hair—darker than
Mykel’s—momentarily flipped away from his head. Mykel didn’t much care for his
youngest brother’s hairstyle, but had never said anything. Once Viencet joined
a guild, or became a Cadmian, the long locks would go. In Faitel, only day
laborers, small farm holders, peasants—all usually indigens—or students—
generally landers from the skilled crafting or larger land-holding families—had
long hair.

“The fowl will be
ready in just a bit.” Aelya announced from the archway, smiling at her husband,
and their sons. “Try to leave the grapes alone, Mykel.”

“I’m trying.”

“You always were.”
His mother smiled broadly before disappearing into the house.

Mykel blotted his
forehead with the back of his hand. Early harvest was hot in Faitel and even
warmer in Elcien, unless the westerlies blew hard off the ocean for several
days straight.

“You have to go back
on Londi, don’t you?” asked Olent.

“I have to be back
before midnight on Decdi. I’ll leave on the early coach.” That wasn’t quite
true, because Mykel really had until muster on Londi morning, but he wasn’t
about to wait until the very last moment.

All the same, Mykel
found it hard to believe that sixteen days of his two-week leave were already
over, and that he just had three more nights—and two full days—before he had to
head back on his return to duty. He was fortunate that he was stationed outside
Elcien, just seventy vingts from home.

“Will you get more
leave when you become an overcaptain?” asked Viencet.

“If I ever make
overcaptain. No. All officers get four weeks leave in a year, and that’s only
when we’re in quarters. There’s no leave when we’re deployed.”

“I can’t see being a
Cadmian, or even a city patroller,” offered Viencet. “I wasn’t very good in the
basic physical training. Not like you.”

“It’s not just
physical.” Mykel replied, trying to keep his voice even. Why did so many
people, even his brother, think that Cadmians were all muscle?

“No. You also have to
believe in things, like why you can’t cut too many trees, or plant too many of
the same crops, or use wood when stone or steel will do—”

“Viencet…” Olent drew
out his younger son’s name. “There are good reasons for those.”

“Oh, yes, I’m sure—”

“Viencet!” barked
Olent, turning his broad and muscular frame.

Viencet lowered his
eyes. “I’m sorry, Father.”

His voice wasn’t that
sorry, Mykel reflected, but, as the old saying went, Viencet listened to the
windsongs of the ancients. Not that anyone even knew if the ancients had even
sung. After an awkward silence, he asked, “What are you thinking of doing when
you finish your studies next Quintem?”

“I don’t know. I
don’t want to work for any of the artisans’ or engineers’ guilds. If you’re a
lander, you do the hard work that takes brains, and if you’re indigen, or if
the alectors think you’re stupid, you end up in the coal mines or as a laborer
and die young.”

“You’re anything but
stupid.” Viencet was bright—but lazy and stubborn, not that Mykel was about to
say that, although his grandfather had—often and loudly—before his sudden
death.

“Besides, in most of
the respected guilds, you can’t ever say a word about what you do.”

Mykel understood
that. He’d never liked the guilds’ si-lence rules, either. “There are still the
building crafts and trade, even factoring.”

Viencet shrugged.
“I’ll never be a master tiler like Grandfather or Father. When I see the
mosaics Father does… The head of the Structural Engineers had his last one
turned into eternastone.”

Mykel pursed his
lips. His father had never mentioned that. Supposedly, the transformation
process—kept to the recorders of deeds and the highest of alectors—cost
hundreds of golds and was used for great works of art, or for the most
important buildings, and, of course, the high roads of the Duarchy. He turned
to his father. “You never told me that.”

“It was good. It
wasn’t that good,” replied Olent. “They wanted it eternal because it’s in the
receiving hall of the artisans and displays their seal.”

“Does that make it
eternal?” asked Sesalia, Mykel’s older sister, who had stepped through the
archway carrying a large covered casserole on an enameled bronze tray.

“The Hall of Justice
in Elcien has been standing for more than three centuries, and it looks like it
was finished yesterday. I won’t be sticking around long enough to find out if
my poor mosaic will last that long.” Olent laughed. “Like my own da said, you
have to take pleasure in what you do, not in what people might think about it
years from now.”

Sesalia set the
casserole in the middle of the table. “Everyone should sit down. Mother and
Bortal are bringing the fowl and the bread.”

Olent took the chair
at the head of the table. Mykel slipped onto the chair to his father’s right,
across from Sesalia. Aelya appeared and set the serving platter in front of her
husband before taking her seat at the other end of the table. The squarish
Bortal hurried after her, setting a basket of bread on each end of the table, then
settling between his wife and Aelya. The last one to the table was Viencet, who
seated himself to Mykel’s right.

Olent looked at
Aelya, then cleared his throat. “In the name of the One Who Was, Is, and Will
Be, may our food be blessed, and our lives as well, in the times of prosperity
and peace, and those which are neither. Blessed be the lives of both the
deserving and the undeserving that both may strive to do good in the world and
beyond, and may we always recall that we do not judge our worthiness, but leave
that judgment to the One Who Is…” After a moment of silence, he lifted his head
and looked to Aelya. “You prepared it, dear.”

“Thank you, but it’s
in front of you.”

Mykel’s father took
three slices of the fowl, then nodded to Mykel. Mykel took two, before lifting
the platter and handing it to Viencet, who, in turn, held it while Aelya served
herself. Next came the lace potatoes, the steamed sprouts, and the bread. Aelya
had cooked and served the fowl the way Mykel liked it best—roasted and basted
with sesame oil, then served with a sauce of powdered groundnuts and mint. The
lace potatoes were crisp on the outside, but hot and moist inside.

“Excellent,” he said,
looking to his mother. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,
dear.” Aelya glanced at Sesalia. “I miss the children.”

“We don’t,” replied
Bortal, glancing sideways at his wife. “I might get to eat my entire supper.”

“Oh… they’re always
sweet,” replied Aelya.

“They are, indeed,”
suggested Olent, “but with four of them, I can see how Sesalia and Bortal might
enjoy a meal or two without them.”

Aelya sniffed.

“I’ll bring them by
tomorrow,” Sesalia promised. “You can feed them midday dinner and see how sweet
they are then.”

Mykel grinned. He’d
helped Sesalia the day before.

“Ah… how are things
going with you?” asked Bortal quickly, looking at Mykel. “You won’t have to go
off and fight anytime soon, will you, like with those raiders in the north?”

“The Reillies?” Mykel
shook his head. “Not for a while. They’ve been pushed back practically to
Blackstear. The land’s not bad there—it’s the northern part of the Vales of
Prosperity—and the Duarches have granted them the rights to use it, except for
timbering. If they raid anyone, they lose that right.”

“Raiding, that’s in
the blood,” suggested Olent.

“That’s why I said it
would be a while,” replied Mykel. ‘They’ll try to settle down. Can’t do that
much anyway now. We killed half the men who could carry weapons.“

“I’d always thought
you’d become an engineer,” interjected Sesalia.

“Landers can only be
apprentice engineers. The real engineers are alectors,” volunteered Viencet.
“Even the head mining engineers are alectors. The ones at the mines just do
whatever the alectors in Ludar say.”

“Farlak is a real
engineer,” suggested Aelya.

“He’s Father’s age,”
countered Viencet. “He does twice the work of all the alectors, and has for
years. They made him an assistant engineer last year. That’s where they start
the most junior alectors.”

“It’s always been
that way,” Mykel pointed out.

Olent cleared his
throat, loudly.

“You think that Mykel
should be a colonel?” Aelya arched her eyebrows at Viencet. “Or a Myrmidon
captain commanding pteridons? Or that you should start as a master tiler?”

Viencet winced.

Mykel offered an easy
smile. “I’m just a Cadmian captain of mounted rifles. That’s good enough for
now.”

“Not that many become
officers,” Sesalia said.

“All my brothers
tried,” added Bortal. “Corylt was the only one they took. He’s only a squad
leader, and he’s two years older than Mykel.” The blocky tile-setter frowned.
“He’s in Zalt. That’s where they’ve just finished the high road between Tempre
and Southgate. His last letter said that they might see some action, but he
couldn’t say where. You heard anything?”

“Someone’s always
unhappy somewhere,” Mykel said. “Could be the Reillies in the north
Westerhills, or the nomads in the hills east of the DryCoast…”

“What about the
ancient ones?” asked Viencet.

“There aren’t any
left. Just a few ruins here and there.”

“How do they know?
The Ancienteers say they’re biding their time.”

Mykel laughed dryly.
“If the Myrmidons on their pteri-dons and the recorders of deeds with their
Tables can’t find any trace of them, there aren’t any.”

“Do the Tables really
exist?” asked Sesalia. “Have you seen one?”

“No,” Mykel admitted,
“but I’ve been ordered places where we’ve found exactly what the recorders said
we’d find, and there hadn’t been any alectors or pteridons anywhere near.”

“Maybe the Tables
don’t really exist,” suggested Sesalia. “Maybe the alectors just claim that
they do so that they don’t have to explain how they know things.”

Mykel shrugged. “That
could be; but however they know, they do know. I wouldn’t want to try to keep
anything hidden from them.”

“Who are the
alectors?” asked Viencet. “I mean… where did they come from?”

“Where did we come
from?” asked Olent. “We both came from the Great Beyond in the time before
time, and the alectors have been our guides and mentors.”

“You really believe
that?” Viencet gave a laugh that was almost a snort.

Olent gave an
embarrassed smile. “That’s what we’re taught, and I don’t have a better answer.
Do you?”

“They’re not that
much smarter.”

“Even a little brains
means a lot, Viencet,” countered Olent. “They’re also much, much stronger, and
I’ve heard that arrows bounce off them. If you have a better idea, what is it?”

“I don’t know. I just
don’t think all that’s true.”

“Then where did we
all come from?” asked Olent. “We’ve never found any ruins used by people or
alectors, and only a few things that were used by the ancients.”

Mykel tended to
believe Viencet was right, but he’d already seen enough of Corns to know that
what his father had just said was also correct. But unless or until he learned
more, he wasn’t about to step into the argument. Besides, what good would it
do? Viencet would just argue more, and his father would get his back up. From
what Mykel had seen, the Duarches ruled Coras, and they didn’t do it that
badly. In dealing with the Reillies, Mykel had seen what a mess both indigens
and landers made of things.

After a moment of
silence, Sesalia spoke. “Bortal laid the foundations for another bedroom.”

“Another bedroom?”
Mykel blurted.

“Congratulations!”
Olent beamed.

“Five mouths…” Mykel
bit off the words and forced a smile.

His older sister
turned. “With the Duarches’ stipend for a fifth child, we can build the new
room and still have silvers left over.” She smiled.

“I’m glad it will
work out,” Mykel offered as gracefully as he could. Five children? Even five
well behaved children? He reached for the fowl platter and took another slice,
followed by a healthy dollop of potatoes. He did like the way his mother
cooked.