Magi'i of Cyador (42 page)

"Yes, ser."

Lorn turns his mount back toward the ward-wall, gesturing for Kusyl to give the order for the patrol to resume.

The morning warms until the air is almost uncomfortably damp, and sweat collects under the edge of Lorn's white garrison cap.

The clop-clop-clop of hoofs offers a regular, almost soothing rhythm as the second squad continues in a spread formation that stretches from the road wall in a double line abreast, each rider a good fifty cubits from the next.

Lorn suppresses a yawn. He can understand why officers can get killed on Forest patrol duty, lulled into boredom by the endless sameness and suddenly confronted with the danger of a great cat or a giant stun lizard.

He has individual bits of information that should allow him to form a better image of the situation he faces. He just needs to look at them differently, but it is difficult to think after a day of painstaking and mind-numbing patrol, looking for any trace of the Forest's breakout.

Suddenly, he straightens, fully erect in the saddle. That, too, is another bit of information. He thinks about what the Engineer Gebynet had said, something about patterns... of immense breakouts following a shoot as vigorous as the one he and his squad had destroyed on the southwest side of the Accursed Forest.

Patterns? What are the patterns? He shakes his head. The other question is who knows what the patterns are? Who has all the Patrol records?

Lorn nods grimly.

LXIX

To Lorn's right, a good dozen kays northeast, high and white puffy clouds scud along, swiftly, in the direction of the Westhorns. Between the clouds, sunlight falls in shafts that angle toward that distant ground. Directly overhead, the early afternoon's green-blue sky is mostly clear. At times, the slightest hint of a breeze wafts by Lorn, but the air has been largely still, despite the fast-moving clouds above.

Beyond the deadland and the outer perimeter road, the grass, and even farther away, the fields and woodlots are slowly greening, with the winter-gray leaves returning to their spring colors and the new leaves and shoots showing a lighter and brighter shade of green.

Lorn looks to his left, along the line of the second squad lancers riding the deadland inside the perimeter road. Beyond them are the riders of the first squad. Lorn can even make out the rounded bulk of Olisenn near the ward-wall.

After nearly seven days on patrol, with a day's respite at Eastend-a virtual duplicate of Westend-Lorn will be happy when they reach the compound at Northend, although it is always called the compound or Jakaafra, just as the compound at Geliendra is always called by the name of the nearby town as well, rather than the official name of Southend. "Ser! Shoots ahead!"

"Shoots ahead!... ahead!" The report is echoed by the other lancers in the patrol line and relayed toward Lorn and Kusyl.

Lorn shakes his head as he uses his heels to nudge the gelding into a trot toward the lancer with the upheld firelance.

"Line halt! Line halt!" After barking the order, Kusyl turns his mount to follow the company commander.

Both the squad leader and Lorn rein up a good thirty cubits short of the shoots sighted by the lancer. At less than two cubits high, the twin green fronds are far shorter than the one Lorn had seen and has destroyed on his ride/patrol to Jafaafra, and they seem far more slender. He can sense only a hint of the black order that looms behind the ward-wall, but he studies the greenery for a long moment. "Ser?"

"Have them flame by duads," Lorn orders Kusyl. "Yes, ser. Form up!" Kusyl orders. "Prepare to flame by duads!" After the lancers of the second squad reform from their line into the standard column of twos, Kusyl looks to Lorn. The company captain nods. "Advance, and discharge lances!"

Under the warm afternoon sun, Lorn watches, but the shoots wither under the chaos flames of the firelances, leaving nothing but a black ash that disintegrates into a power, and then disperses under a light breeze that fades into stillness.

Lorn watches the ashes disperse, letting his chaos-order sense probe the ground, but there is no sense of any underlying well of dark order. Then he pulls out a message blank and turns his mount toward the ward-wall to note the ward location before dispatching a messenger to the Engineers at Eastend. He knows that the Engineers will find nothing, but he will not suggest that, not at all. He also adds the location in his own small notebook.

He erases the momentary frown from his face as he rides toward the ward-wall-and Olisenn. The frailty of the shoots bothers him, especially after he has sensed the incredible dark order that lurks behind the whitened granite stones of the ward-wall.

LXX

Lorn sets aside the bronze-tipped pen as he finishes the second of the two patrol entries, then lays the paper at the side of his study desk to dry. He turns in the chair and glances out the window at the clouds flowing from the south and building and darkening to the north. With the warm dampness of the morning and the clouds, he has little doubt that it will rain, perhaps for several days. But the Second Company will have to set out on patrol the next morning, rain or no rain.

He turns back to the desk, fingering his clean-shaven chin before he lifts the thin manual that Maran had given him, already showing smudges and scuffs. Inadvertently, he compares that to the ancient and spotless silver-sheened volume that Ryalth had presented to him, and he shakes his head, forcing his thoughts back to the patrol manual as he slowly searches for something he had seen-or thought he had-when he had first read it.

...a Lancer company captain cannot halt breaches in the ward-wall, nor can he prevent the inimical creatures of the Accursed Forest from escaping such breaches, but he must do all within his power to ensure such creatures are destroyed before leaving the deadland barrier and before they can inflict damage upon the people of Cyad or upon their livestock and lands.

A wise captain will manage his deployments in such fashion so as to assure that his lancers are exposed to no unnecessary danger and so that casualties are minimized while making sure that as many creatures as practicably possible are destroyed before they can create harm....

Lorn snorts as he sets down the manual. Destroy the creatures, but don't lose many men, and a wise captain will best know how to do that. Except that the manual offers no real tactics for such situations-just cautions.

After more time of silent contemplation, he stands and lifts the foot chest containing the Patrol reports. Those of the past five years, he reminds himself as he sets the chest on the clear side of the desk and unlocks it.

He re-seats himself, then begins to leaf through the older reports again, trying to check a nagging thought. He reads the last season of reports from Captain Dymytri, checking the events reported by the captain more closely, trying to focus on details that might just tell him something more.

...limb fallen short of guard wall from northwest mid-point Chaos tower... Casualties: 2....

...trunk [twenty cubit diameter] smashed through chaos cables and a single course of wall stones... attack by three giant cats and one stun lizard... one cat escaped... casualties: 4....

...long limb bridged ward-wall seventy cubits into deadland... night leopards attacked Engineers....

Lorn frowns. Night leopards? He has not seen references to such before. Or had he overlooked them? He continues studying the patrol reports, apparently showing more than a score of problems.

...double trunk breach... rendered five hundred cubits of ward-wall inoperable... Casualties: 15....

...limb fall in heavy rainstorm... casualties: 4....

Just as suddenly, the reports revert to the standard, "Patrol on schedule. No Forest activity."

Lorn sits back in his chair, thinking. From late spring to early summer, three and a half years earlier, Dymytri's reports chronicle an outbreak of limb and trunk fallings which claim scores of wards, nearly three score injuries to lancers and engineers, and at least a score of deaths. In that time period, several dozen wild creatures from the Accursed Forest escape. Then, the outbreaks cease. And shortly thereafter, with nothing on the record, one Captain Dymytri disappears or is killed.

Lorn replaces the records, then adds his own latest report, and closes the foot chest. He stands and replaces the chest on the floor before the desk, then walks to the window, looking at the thickening clouds, and at the Second Company banner that flies above the barracks. The green-trimmed pennant with the numeral two in the center is held out almost stiffly by the steady wind, whipping but little.

Thrap! At the knock on the study door, Lorn turns. "Yes? Come in."

Olisenn enters, leaving the door open. He bows. "A scroll for you, Captain Lorn. It arrived by private local messenger."

Lorn steps forward to take the missive that the senior squad leader extends to his captain. Although Lorn can sense that the seal has been removed and then reheated somehow, he accepts the scroll effortlessly and without hesitation, stepping back and sideways so that he stands over the desk. "Thank you." He breaks the blue wax without looking at it, even before Olisenn can move or retreat to the front study office, and lets the wax fall on the golden-aged oak surface of his desk.

Lorn begins to read.

Honorable Lancer Captain Lorn...

I am pleased to inform you that the goods you ordered from Ryalor House have arrived and that, once you have inspected them, we will be more than pleased to deliver them to whatever destination is your desire....

Lorn manages neither to smile nor frown.

"Ser? Do you require me further?"

"Oh... no. I'm sorry, Olisenn. It's a private matter... not about the Lancers. It's about some things I ordered." Lorn smiles at the heavy senior squad leader. "You can go."

"Yes, ser." Olisenn bows deferentially, then leaves the inner study, gently closing the door behind him.

Lorn continues with the scroll.

We would suggest a slight haste in dealing with the case of Fhynyco and the two cases of Alafraan, but remain at your bidding, honored ser.

The missive is signed and sealed by one Dustyn, factor in spirits and liquids, with the phrase beneath the seal, "Off the main square, Jakaafra."

Lorn nods slowly to himself. Although he does not doubt that the wines are from Ryalth to make his duty easier, he wonders what else will come with the shipment... perhaps a scroll that has not been already read.

LXXI

The warm misting rain of spring enfolds the Palace of Light, and within the private study of the Emperor and his consort, Toziel stands by the wide window overlooking the harbor he can barely see through that mist.

He turns, but does not step onto the Analerian wool carpet of subdued green and gold geometric designs that has graced the study from the time of the Emperor Alyiakal. "I am troubled. I should not be troubled by this trifle, and yet I am. You have noted that my sleep has not been as it should be."

"That I do know." The Empress Ryenyel smiles knowingly, and affectionately. "What trifle?" she asks after a moment, looking up from the black oak desk at which she is seated, the sole item of furniture within the entire Palace of Light made of that dark oak.

"The murder of a trader." A thin and humorless smile crosses the Emperor's mouth.

"That is a trifle. Yet... if it bothers you, it may be the first shoot of a noxious vine. Tell me of it." She smiles warmly. "That is what you wish, is it not?"

"I have no secrets from you, my dear."

"Nor should you, not if I am to assist you."

"You... you have always been of great assistance, and without it, as both we know...." He shrugs and half-turns to study the mist.

"Enough of your flattery, my dear, welcome as it always is."

Toziel clears his throat. "Bluoyal'mer brought the matter to my attention several eightdays previous, and he mentioned it but once. Yet I have not dismissed it. The first heir of the Yuryan Clan of merchanters was murdered nearly a season ago. He was killed by a sabre tinged with chaos, a lancer's sabre, say the Magi'i. The day after the murder someone re-claimed an iron Brystan sabre that had been plated with cupridium. This merchanter used a stolen Dyjani trade plaque as authority and paid ten golds for the work. The cupridium master and his journeyman have been truthread by several Magi'i, and the truthreading confirms their tale. Both master and journeyman swear that the blade was in their care and not ready when the murder was committed. The journeyman also swears that the enumerator who picked up the blade was unfamiliar with weapons." Toziel turns back from the window and watches his consort.

"Who is the new heir?" asks Ryenyel.

"Veljan-a man far more suitable, according to all. Yet..."

"Yet, what?"

"His consort is the daughter of Liataphi, the Third Magus of the Magi'i. Liataphi has no sons and heirs. And this Veljan is honest and straightforward. Too honest and straightforward, from all I discover."

"That is far too obvious, dear one," observes Ryenyel. "Liataphi is too intelligent and too devious to have done such. He would see that such a ploy would illuminate him as if with a score of lamps."

"Then... who wishes to plant such an appearance? And why?"

"Who else would benefit, if far less obviously?" Ryenyel slips the cupridium-tipped pen into the holder on the left side of the desk.

"Rynst'alt, clearly."

Ryenyel shakes her head.

"Oh... Luss'alt, you think?"

"Luss'alt would benefit, but he could not have created such a scheme. I would guess that the one with the most to gain would be Kharl'elth."

Toziel nods. "When you put it that way..."

"What thinks your Hand?"

"He says but little, saving that it would appear to be a matter of trade and personal affairs, and trade rivalries best be solved by traders, and that using the Hand to meddle in trade or the personal lives of traders can lead but to disaster."

"Has he been right in what he advises?"

"More often than not."

"So it is unlikely to be a plot hatched here, though many here may seek to benefit by such." Ryenyel smiles but faintly. "Now, my dearest... that is the fashion in which it makes the most of logic, but not all plotters are of such logic. You must..."