Scion of Cyador

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Lorn takes a sip of the wine-Alafraan-and glances at Ryalth, murmuring, “You had this sent here.”

  She smiles. “It was the least I could do, after all your parents have done.”

  “It was most thoughtful,” Nyryah adds.

  Lorn’s lips curl into a rueful smile.

  “You are not here long, are you, Lorn?” asks Ciesrt.

  “No. I’m between duty assignments, and I’ll be leaving on oneday.”

  “Where will you be going?” Ciesrt follows up.

  “To head the port detachment in Biehl.”

  “You’ll be the one in charge?” asks Mycela. “The head officer?”

  “That’s what my transfer orders say.” Lorn smiles and passes the nut bread to his mother, after taking a slice for himself. “The port detachments protect trade and ensure that the tariffs are collected fairly.”

  “I imagine it will provide a respite after fighting the barbarians and the Accursed Forest,” suggests Kien. “And it is somewhat closer to Cyad.”

  “What of the Accursed Forest?” asks Vernt. His brow furrows. “What exactly do lancer patrols do there?”

  “We ride along the walls to see that no wild creatures escape. We also maintain order and guard the Mirror Engineers while they repair any walls that the Accursed Forest has damaged.”

  “The Forest damages walls?” asks the wide-eyed Mycela.

  “Some of the trees that fall across the ward-walls are more than twenty cubits thick and nearly as hard as stone. They occasionally damage the wall and the wards that contain the Forest creatures.” Lorn glances at Ciesrt. “I understand that the Forest project is coming along.”

  “I believe so, but that is not something that I do.” Ciesrt shrugs. “There are rumors, but your father would know far better than I.”

  Vernt and Lorn glance at the oldest magus.

  Kien smiles wryly. “I, too, must plead silence, except to say that there is a project, and if it works as it may, Cyad will need far fewer lancers to patrol the Accursed Forest.”

  After a moment of silence, Ciesrt looks across the table at Ryalth. “Myryan has said that you are head of a trading house.”

  “Ryalor House,” Ryalth confirms.

  “And you are truly the head of it?” Ciesrt asks. “Did you come to that because your parents had no sons?”

  “Actually, Ciesrt,” Lorn says smoothly, “she created it and built it from a clanless trading room into one that rivals many full houses. She is most skilled, and I was quite fortunate to prevail upon her to be my consort.”

  “Oh.” Ciesrt frowns.

  “There are not many lady merchanters who head houses, are there?” asks Myryan, her eyes twinkling.

  “I know of only one other,” Ryalth admits. “She is much older.”

  “Did she not inherit her position?” asks Jerial.

  “I believe such, but I do not know for certain.” Ryalth’s words are cautious.

  “So… Lorn is right,” Jerial says. “You’re the first woman in generations to head a trading house by your own ability, and perhaps the first to build one.”

  “I have had assistance. Those who work for me are good.” Ryalth smiles. “And Lorn has been a great inspiration.”

  “He usually is,” adds Kien, with a dry laugh, “even for those who have not wished such inspiration.”

  “Father!” Myryan mock-protests.

  Kien finishes his fowl breast before looking at his younger daughter and raising his white eyebrows. “Your brother makes an impact wherever he goes. He always has. Talk to his friends, like Tyrsal and Dettaur.”

  “Where is Dettaur these days?” asks Ciesrt.

  “The last we heard he was second-in-command or something at Assyadt,” Jerial answers. “He writes occasionally, but he does not write of what he does.”

  “He still writes?” Lorn asks.

  “He has hopes,” Jerial says.

  “He must be an important officer,” offers Mycela. “If he is in charge of something, that is.”

  “He approaches women like a campaign,” Jerial adds, “as if we were to be assaulted and captured. That is difficult.” She smiles at Mycela. “At least for those who are healers.”

  Lorn looks across the table at Myryan. “How is the garden coming?”

  “This year it’s much better. Ciesrt powdered some limestone, and Ryalth had a cartload of stable manure delivered last fall. We still have jars and crocks of things, and I’m hoping that this year will be even better.”

  “She is wonderful with the garden.” Ciesrt beams. “She coaxes the best vegetables and fruits from the land. I doubt any young magus has a consort so marvelous. And she cooks so well, too, and everything in the house is so neat, and clean.”

  “I will have to visit you, and learn your secrets,” Mycela says. “I would not wish Vernt to lack for anything.”

  Lorn swallows and takes refuge in another sip of wine as the domestic conversation continues. Ryalth smiles at him gently, taking a sip from her own goblet as well.

  “This time, we do have a proper dessert,” Nyryah announces, after all have finished what they would eat, “the special creamed pearapple tarts.” She looks at Lorn. “And there are enough for two apiece.”

  Lorn feels himself flush slightly in the dim light, hoping the others will not notice, and takes a sip of the Alafraan.

  Nyryah gestures, and Kysia and Quyal appear beside the table to remove the dinner platters and to place a small plate before each of the diners. Her plate, and that of Jerial, have but one tart. All the others have two. Lorn waits for all to be served and for Ryalth and his mother to begin before he takes a bite. He nods as he swallows. “They are good.”

  “You’ve always thought so.”

  “I think I’d best learn the recipe for this dessert,” says Ryalth, with a laugh. “My cooking is far simpler, but… his favorite dessert…”

  “Keep the cooking simple,” suggests Jerial. “You haven’t spoiled him yet. Don’t start now.”

  “My own sister,” Lorn laments, offering a sad face. “Brush the crumbs from your chin, if you wish to look truly sad,” Jerial counters.

  Lorn laughs. So does Ryalth.

  In time, the tarts vanish, and the conversation dies away. Lorn nods to his mother, then his father. “I thank you both, and everyone else here for coming. I would that I could stay longer, but I have been traveling for days, and a few nights’ sleep, I fear, has not made up for the travels and a long season with the Accursed Forest.”

  “It has been so good to have you and Ryalth here with everyone,” Nyryah beams. “But we will see you more, won’t we?”

  “You will,” Lorn promises. “As we can.” He smiles and extends his hand to Ryalth.

  The redhead stands, then bows to Nyryah, then to Kien. “Thank you both so much.”

  “I’ll come down with you.” Jerial slips away from the table and follows Lorn and Ryalth down from the table.

  As the three walk down the steps to the front door, Jerial says, “I’m glad you got to meet Mycela.”

  “What do you think of her?” Ryalth asks quietly.

  “She’s perfect for Vernt,” Jerial replies sweetly.

  Lorn winces.

  “I thought so, too,” agrees Ryalth.

  Both women smile.

  After they are well clear of Lorn’s parents’ dwelling and Jerial has closed the door, Ryalth turns to Lorn. “I like Jerial.”

  “She likes you. That is most clear.”

  “You noticed that all the outside consorts were placed at first on one side of the table?” Ryalth says as they walk slowly eastward through the still-warm evening.

  “I did what I could,” Lorn says.

  “I know.” She reaches out and squeezes his hand. “Mycela didn’t understand.”

  “Neither did Ciesrt. I’m not sure Vernt did. Jerial did. She smiled when we switched places.”

  “Was your mother displeased?”

  “I’m not sure. There w
as no other way to set up the table, not by lineage, but I didn’t like it.”

  “I’m glad you’re the way you are.”

  Lorn squeezes her hand, and they continue eastward along the Road of Perpetual Light, back toward the quarters that have become his as well as hers.

  III

  In the late, late afternoon, just before twilight, the Emperor Toziel’elth’alt’mer and his Consort-Empress Ryenyel stand on the uppermost balcony of the Palace of Light, ten tall stories above the gardens. His tall but slender frame seems stooped under the silver robes he has worn to the last audience of the afternoon and not removed once he has departed the small audience chamber. Ryenyel wears a tunic of vivid green shimmercloth, and flowing trousers of a lighter shade, colors which enhance her mahogany hair and lightly freckled complexion.

  The warm and moist spring breeze comes from the east, whispering past them and past the fluted bars on the grillwork with enough force that there is a trilling and humming from the bars-a sound both pleasant and loud enough to foil eavesdroppers, as intended by the builders of the Palace some eight generations previous. While cupridium flowers might have served the same function, the Palace of Light contains no such fripperies, nor any statuary. All lines are clean, elegant, and without decoration, almost totally without even carved inscriptions.

  To the south, and downhill, beyond the trade quarter and the warehouses, are the white stone piers of the harbor of Cyad. Scaffolds rise around the two white-hulled fireships at the Mirror Lancer pier. One of the fireships the Emperor knows will never move again under its own power, and is being cannibalized to refit the second ship, the Ocean Flame. At the piers to the east of the scaffolds are tied two three-masted ocean traders, deep-sea vessels, neither of which is Cyadoran, and a pair of coasting schooners, one Sligan, one Spidlarian.

  North of the piers and below the Palace, the sunstone walks and white-granite paved streets shimmer in the late-afternoon sun. The shops and scattered cafes to the west sport immaculate green-and-white awnings.

  “Bluoyal’mer tells me that all is well with our trade,” reflects Toziel, his right arm around the waist of the Empress. “Yet few ships in the harbor fly our ensign. And the Emperor’s Enumerators report that tariff collections have declined each year.”

  “Perhaps not all the tariffs are being collected,” suggests Ryenyel. “Can the Hand of the Emperor-”

  “No. The Hand can send orders, but his effectiveness is lost once he leaves the shadows and is known.”

  “First Magus Chyenfel’elth must know who he is.”

  “He doubtless does, as we have discussed, but it is not to his advantage to reveal such.” Toziel laughs. “Nor to ours.” The Emperor shakes his head slowly, without taking his eyes from the City of Light spread out below him. “The chaos-towers are failing, and I am forced into supporting the plan of the First Magus to use all the chaos in those remaining around the Accursed Forest merely to confine the Forest so that it will not overrun eastern Cyador. That means those towers can no longer charge the lancer firelances or the chaos-cells of the firewagons.” Toziel shrugs. “Is this the beginning of the last long afternoon of Cyad?”

  “The chaos-towers in the Quarter of the Magi’i here in Cyad yet function,” the mahogany-haired Empress points out, “and will for some years yet, according to the First Magus.”

  “Some years is not that many, as we know, and, while he would certainly wish it so, I have some doubts about Chyenfel’s predictions.”

  “How could you choose otherwise, my love, even if he is too hopeful?”

  “I could not, for the Forest is worse than the barbarians of the north. They can be contained with cupridium lances and blades, if with greater losses, but only some form of bound chaos will contain the Accursed Forest.” A mirthless chuckle follows his words. “We know this, and yet, like a schoolboy, I must talk to soothe my soul over choices between evils. More Mirror Lancers will die. The merchants will lose more ships to pirates and raiders, and there will be unrest among the merchanters-”

  “There is already, with Tasjan’s plotting and his hiring of Sasyk to head his greenshirt guards,” Ryenyel points out.

  “Who could fault him for hiring a former Mirror Lancer officer?” Toziel’s words are light, but his eyes are dark. “Especially in these times. Tasjan will turn any questions about Sasyk against me. And, amid all the changes, most in Cyad, and throughout Cyador, will fault me, for they have neither seen nor experienced the power of the Forest.”

  “That is always so,” replies the Empress gently. “Folk care for but the removal of that which they know will harm them or for the addition of that which will benefit them. Few care for actions which benefit all, but slightly, if it means they receive less. Always it was so, and always will be. For that, there is an Emperor.”

  “Yet I must not seem to plan nor plot, for those who do are thought cold and calculating, no matter how they care for their peoples, no matter what benefits they bring, no matter how many lives they save.”

  Ryenyel nods. “That, too, is why there is an Emperor.”

  “Yet all these troubles would come to pass while I am Emperor?”

  “The Magi’i have warned of such for many years, that the towers would fail, that what the ancients built would not last forever.” Ryenyel places her hand over his-the one that rests on her right hip-and squeezes her fingers around his hand.

  “At such times, I am almost glad we have no heirs,” he muses. “For whoever follows me… whatever scion there may be… if there is one…”

  “There will be… we have time,” she reassures him.

  “With a gaggle of Magi’i who plot, and a Majer-Commander of Lancers who believes them fools not to see the danger of the barbarians, and a Merchanter Advisor who doubtless abuses his knowledge and position to line his pockets and undermine Cyador, even as he protests that he maintains it?”

  After a moment of silence, Ryenyel replies. “Your Majer-Commander, the most honorable Rynst, has come to understand that Bluoyal only wishes the towers and the lancers in order to support the merchanters’ trading ships. Rynst also understands that while he cannot brook Chyenfel, the First Magus can be trusted far more than the Second. Or even Chyenfel’s protege, young Rustyl.”

  “Only because Rynst fears Bluoyal more than the Magi’i.” Toziel snorts.

  “Bluoyal treads a devious and deadly path. He would ensure that the Mirror Lancers and the Magi’i do not see that their interests are closer to each other’s than to his.”

  “Rynst and Chyenfel have always seen such. We have talked of this before. Neither can afford to trust the other allied to Bluoyal. Yet they know that both Magi’i and Mirror Lancers are few indeed outside of the three cities. They cooperate like a pair of giant cats against a pack of night leopards. Most carefully.”

  “And when the towers do fail?”

  “We will need far more lancers against the barbarians. Bluoyol’s successors will find they still need lancers, but not until many perish, and more than a few vessels are lost.”

  “Thus, all will continue as today,” she replies.

  “It will not seem so, not to most. The emperors to come will either be powerful Magi’i or inspire loyalty within the Mirror Lancers, because it appears that either lancers or Magi’i can destroy an Emperor.”

  “Bluoyal believes that the merchanters will purchase the Palace of Light in years to come, perhaps sooner. We need to watch him, more closely, far more closely, for a merchanter rising would bring down Cyador more swiftly than the Accursed Forest or the barbarians.”

  “So has said the Hand, but he has also advised that we have time, and that Bluoyal will overreach himself before such can occur.”

  “Would that I could take comfort in that,” says the Empress, leaning her head against his shoulder.

  “Seldom is he wrong… most seldom.”

  “If he is…?”

  “If he is, if we fail, then blood will stain the sunstone of the Palace so deeply
it cannot ever be lifted.” He looks down and studies her drawn face. “I tell you this often, but… You give too much to me.”

  “What else would I do, dearest? We know there is no one else.”

  “Not yet.”

  As he speaks, her fingers lift to rest lightly on his cheek.

  The orange glow of twilight floods from the hillside to the west, and the white stone piers of the harbor shimmer gold.

  The Emperor and Empress stand on the balcony and watch the gold fade.

  IV

  Sitting at one end of a long table in the corner of Ryalor House, in gray light of a stormy spring morning, Lorn reads through the stack of papers that Eileyt has set before him. The senior enumerator has assured Lorn that the papers have several examples of shady trading practices.

  Outside of several clear errors in addition, Lorn has found nothing. He finally beckons to Eileyt, and when the gray-eyed man nears, says, “I don’t think I’m seeing what I should be seeing.”

  Eileyt turns over the first three bills of lading, then points to an entry halfway down the fourth one. “Look at that closely.”

  Lorn looks at the entry: Cotton, 20 bales, dun, Hamor. “Hamor grows dun cotton, but all they usually export is the good white. Look at the parchment-and it is parchment, which is another clue.”

  “It looks like it’s smoother there, but just around the word dun.”

  “There’s more space around the word dun, too.” Eileyt nods. “With parchment, you can use it like a palimpsest, take a sharp knife and scrape off the letters, then write in dun instead of white.”

  “But why? Why don’t they just rewrite the bill of lading?”

  “It’s sealed below. A trader gets caught counterfeiting a seal, and he loses a hand. An ‘error’ in a bill of lading merely costs some golds in fines, but most of such ‘errors’ are never found. The tariff on white cotton is a gold a bale. It’s a silver on dun cotton, and you can get that from Kyphros or Valmurl or even out of Worrak in Hydlen.”