Magi'i of Cyador (41 page)

Olisenn smiles. "Just one, ser. There are two sets of records." He points to the foot trunk beside his work table. "The ones I keep are the individual personnel records. There is one sheet on each lancer... the lancer's name and rank, a simple physical description, place and date of birth, his closest family, when the lancer joined, his term of service, and past duty stations, and expected date of rotation. The reverse side is used for remarks, either for commendations or disciplinary actions." Olisenn lifts his ample shoulders. "Now... I have to make a sheet on each new lancer."

"The ones who arrived yesterday?"

"Yes, ser. I'll start each sheet, and Kusyl will be here shortly to finish them. They all go here in this chest." His hand drops to indicate the foot chest to his right.

"And the other set?"

"Those are the patrol records in the chest in your study, ser. Those are the only records we keep. The bronze key Captain Meisyl gave you... it opens the lock on either chest."

"He mentioned that." Lorn nods. "Later today, or perhaps after the first patrol, I'd like to read through your records."

"Whenever you wish, ser. It would be better after we update the records."

"I'll try not to impede your work." Lorn turns and re-enters the smaller rear study. He closes the door, and then lifts the records' chest onto his desk. The key slides smoothly into the lock and turns easily.

As Olisenn has said, the trunk holds the patrol records, a report on each patrol, written and signed by the company's captain. Leafing through the most recent of these, Lorn notes that most of the time a number of patrols have been reported on a single sheet, with little more than the notation "Patrol on schedule. No Forest activity," followed by "Meisyl, Captain, Second Forest Patrol Company."

Others have more description:

...ward cube crushed by limb, north 45 east. Killed small stun lizard, seared seedlings, found giant cat tracks, but no cat. Sent messenger to First Engineer Company at Eastend. Held station on fallen limb until Engineers arrived. No casualties...

...two ward cubes destroyed by double limb, north 323 and 324 east. One giant cat attacked second squad. Cat killed. Two other cats fled as Second Company arrived. Stun lizard tracks noted. Sent messenger to First Engineer Company Eastend. Held station until Engineers arrived. Casualties: 2. Kyscyt killed by cat at ward-wall. Onymt slashed, will probably lose right arm...

Lorn leafs through the reports more quickly, more trying to get a feel for the pattern of what has happened with the Accursed Forest than deeply analyzing the reports. Roughly three years earlier, patrol reports for nearly three eightdays have been signed by Olisenn, as senior squad leader. Lorn picks up the report just before the first one signed by Olisenn, but, like so many of the others, it merely states, "Patrol on schedule." It is signed, "Dymytri, Captain, Second Forest Patrol Company."

After studying Dymytri's last report, Lorn flips through the papers more rapidly until he reaches Dymytri's first report-only three seasons before his last. Then he looks at the reports before that-four eightdays' worth, all signed by a senior squad leader named Fyondr. The previous head of Second company had been Undercaptain Zylynt, who had been in command only a few eightdays more than a year. Zylynt's demise, unlike Dymytri's, is listed in the first report signed by Fyondr: "...Casualties: 2. Undercaptain Zylynt, killed by giant stun lizard when firelance failed. Lancer Hyun, killed by lizard while supporting Undercaptain..."

Abruptly, Lorn comes to the end of the Patrol reports. After a moment, he nods and replaces the files in the small foot trunk and closes it. "Olisenn?"

After a moment, the heavy squad leader opens the door and lumbers into the rear study. "Yes, ser?" He bows slightly following his words.

"The Patrol reports only go back about five years," Lorn observes.

"Yes, ser. We just keep five years here, sometimes almost six, but since you were scheduled in, Captain Meisyl sent off the older ones last eight-day. They're all in Majer Maran's files in Geliendra." Olisenn nods. "It keeps matters easier here."

"I can see that." Lorn smiles. "Thank you,"

"That's not a problem, ser. It's what I'm here for." Olisenn nods and waits for a moment before asking, "Is there anything else, ser?"

"No, thank you." Lorn stands. "I'm going to inspect the compound, Olisenn. I'll be gone for a while."

Olisenn's eyes lift to take in Lorn. "Would you prefer me to accompany you?"

"I don't think that's necessary. If I have questions, I'll ask you when I get back. You and Kusyl have more than a few records to update with all the replacement lancers that arrived."

"That is true, ser." The senior squad leader turns and walks back out through the door, closing it behind him.

Lorn replaces the Patrol reports in the foot chest and locks it, replacing it on the floor where it had been, then opens his door and steps out into the outer study.

"Ser!" says Kusyl, who has apparently just arrived. "Just keep on with getting the personnel records in order, Kusyl, Olisenn. I'm going to get more familiar with everything in the compound." Lorn nods and steps past the junior squad leader out into the short corridor that leads out to the courtyard.

The rain that had been falling earlier in the morning has given way to a fine and cold drizzle. Lorn readjusts the summer garrison.cap and steps out into the courtyard, heading toward the stables.

The mist-shrouded courtyard remains empty as Lorn crosses the damp stones to the stables, where he eases through the barely open sliding door into the warmer and drier air of the stable. He blots his forehead and glances around, then begins to walk farther back into the stable. The main corridors are swept clean, and each stall contains fresh straw. He glances upward, but he sees no cobwebs, or any piles of dirt in the corners.

"Ser? Is something wrong?" The thin-faced blond-haired stableboy appears, a worn broom in his right hand.

"Not a thing." Lorn glances toward the stall where the gelding is. "Since I'm new here, I'm just trying to learn about things. What's your name?"

"Suforis, ser."

"I'm Captain Lorn, Suforis. How long have you been here?"

"I only started here when Captain Dymytri was in charge... winter turn when I was twelve. Say the captain afore him was nice, too, but I didn't know him."

"Do you like it here?"

"Yes, ser. So long as I keep the stable clean and the officers' mounts and the spares groomed, and all of them fed, Clebyl doesn't look my way, and that's fine by me. Lesyna-she's agreed to be my consort next winter turn, and Clebyl says I can be the assistant compound keeper if I keep working good. Haven't had an assistant here in two years. Assistants get the second quarters with the kitchen." Suforis smiles brightly.

"How many stalls do you have?"

"Stable has two score and twelve-enough for two companies and a half score spares. Not that many, though, 'cause Undercaptain Juist only has a score and a half for the domestic patrol. Says he doesn't need that many, really, but I'm not supposed to know such."

"He must not have much trouble."

"Almost never. Towns north of here real peaceable, ser. Good reason to live here. They say some of the rankers settle down here when they get through."

"How are the mounts?" Lorn gestures toward the gelding.

"Yours be a good'un, ser. Most are. Have to rotate the mount the big squad leader rides, even if he gets the biggest...." Suforis shakes his head. "Other'n that, n' gettin' the farrier up here from Jakaafra regular like... well... take care of the mounts, and they take care of you. Get to ride the spares... make sure that they get exercise... it be a good life...."

"Good." Lorn smiles. "Anything I should know?"

"Well... ser... not that I'd be knowing, but I heard tell that if'n you run into a stun lizard best you stay leastwise fifteen cubits back. Cats don't matter much... have to get claws into you, and if'n they do..." Suforis shrugs.

"I appreciate the advice, Suforis. If there's any way I can help out... let me know."

"Thank you, ser." The young man bobs his head.

"Thank you." Lorn turns and slips back out into the courtyard and the drizzle. Looking up into the clouds, he nods abruptly and heads back to his quarters.

Once he crosses the courtyard and enters his quarters, Lorn locks the door, then opens the wardrobe and extracts the screeing glass Jerial had stolen from their father's study and given to him. Carefully, he sets it on the desk and studies it. Can he do what he knows can be done? What his father and the Senior Lectors can?

Finally, he pulls up the chair, seats himself, and concentrates on the circular mirror. His thoughts go to the enigmatic Olisenn. Lorn doesn't want to try Maran unless he becomes proficient.

The glass fills with a grayish mist, which silvers into a blank and bright surface reflecting nothing. Finally, a small image swims into view-two squad leaders at a table.

Lorn swallows, surprised, and loses his concentration. A blank glass reflects his own perspiring face back at him. A single drop of sweat falls on the glass.

He can do it!

He leans back in the chair and takes a deep breath. How can he develop and use the skill... without revealing that he possesses it, for revealing it will certainly create greater incentives for the senior Magi'i and Mirror Lancer officers to ensure his death-and the Second Company records illustrate a high mortality for company officers-a mortality higher than for the average lancer, and far higher than it would be reasonable to expect.

LXVIII

In the grayness of dawn in late winter, Lorn leads his white gelding from the stable in the first waystation on the northwest side of the Accursed Forest-exactly thirty-three kays southeast of the compound at Jakaafra.

Olisenn is waiting, standing by the oversized mount that will bear him.

"It looks like another cool morning, Olisenn," Lorn offers.

"Yes, ser. It won't be long before the Forest truly stirs."

"I wouldn't be surprised." Lorn waits for whatever the senior squad leader has in mind.

"You intend to keep riding with the second squad and Kusyl, ser?" asks Olisenn.

"It seems like a good idea for now," Lorn temporizes. "You have the experience to command the first squad, indeed all of Second Company, should anything happen to me. Kusyl does not."

"But I cannot offer easily any insights."

"That is true, but perhaps you can continue to share them in the evenings at the waystations. In that fashion, all can benefit." Lorn smiles easily.

"I will as I can, Captain."

"I'm sure you will, Olisenn, and we all appreciate your knowledge and experience." With another smile, Lorn mounts and then guides the gelding to his right, to where Kusyl has begin to form up the second squad.

"Ser?"

"I'll be riding with second squad today, possibly for the entire patrol." Lorn shrugs. "We'll have to see how things go."

Kusyl nods.

Once both squads are formed up and mounted, waiting in waystation courtyard under the heavy but formless gray clouds, Lorn gestures for Kusyl and Olisenn to bring their mounts nearer. He waits until they have reined up before he speaks. "This morning, second squad will ride the wall position; first squad will do the perimeter."

"Yes, ser."

"Yes, ser."

"Let's go."

The sound of hoofs on stone echoes for a brief time as Second Company rides through the gates and toward the ward-wall, each squad deploying into the spread line-abreast formation used for surveillance of the border of the Accursed Forest.

Lorn rides about twenty cubits to the right of Kusyl, closer than the normal spread of fifty. Despite the lingering dampness, the ward-wall is dry and sparkles in the indirect light filtering through the low-lying clouds.

The sun continues to struggle to burn through the mist left from the rain of the night before, but without complete success, so that the second squad rides along the ward-wall under a sky that shifts from dark to bright gray, then almost brilliant white, before it turns darker once more.

One stretch of wall looks precisely like another, white-gray blocks evenly matched, topped with crystal wards that flicker chaos. The wall stretches southeast, seemingly an endless line to the horizon.

ZZZZzzzzzpt! Lorn frowns as he turns toward the sound above the wall. At a second loud zapping sound, he glances toward Kusyl. "Kusyl?"

Noting Lorn's expression, Kusyl calls back an answer. "One of the big flowerflies, ser, the bloodsucking ones. Some reason, they can't cross the wall. Heard an engineer explain it once, something about the bloodsuckers coming with the firstborn, and that there aren't any in the Forest."

"I'm not sure how that makes sense," Lorn says slowly, his eyes still on the wall along which the gelding carries him. "The chaos barrier is there to keep the Forest in. So why would it choose an insect that's not part of the Forest?" Why would and how could the chaos barrier choose anything? He frowns. Does the Forest choose to destroy foreign insects? Why? Or would it destroy any foreign body that crosses the ward-wall?

Kusyl shrugs with both hands. "That, I'd not be knowing, ser."

The two continue to patrol, silently, since the distance between them makes conversation uncomfortable.

The second squad patrols another kay of wall and deadland, then another.

"Ser!... Ser... Ser!" The yell comes from near the end of the line, a good six hundred cubits to the northeast, relayed by nearer lancers.

"Line halt!" Kusyl orders.

As the lancers rein up to a halt, Lorn guides his mount away from the wall to the lancer with the raised firelance. "Yes, lancer?"

The lancer points to the ground. On the deadland soil is a single bone, and a line of giant cat tracks. The bone-looking like it might have come from a sheep or goat-has been there for a time. There are no other signs of the giant cat's prey, and the tracks are indistinct, blurred by the light rain of the night before.

"Just keep an eye out. It looks like that happened yesterday "