“But they all come from beyond Cyador,” Lorn says. “That is right,” Eileyt says patiently. “But… if the Imperial tariff were a gold on Kyphran dun cotton, then people would use carts and smuggle it along the beaches below the lower Westhorns, and some dishonest merchanter in Fyrad would mix it with his real Kyphran stock and it would be hard to tell without counting every bale, and the Imperial Enumerators don’t have the bodies or the days to do that. At a silver a bale, and the tariff is the same for a bolt of the finished cloth, it’s cheaper and faster to ship the dun cotton, or any cotton from Kyphros, than smuggle it. Hamorian white cotton goes for five golds a bale these days… and dun for one. So… on this shipment, the trader could pocket nearly eighteen golds, just by changing one word on the lading bill. And he can claim, if he gets caught, that it was a mistake. If the Hamorian seal’s intact, and a magus can see that, then all he’ll get is a three-gold fine, maybe ten-. But most won’t catch something like this.”
“But the finished cotton… that’s more like ten a bolt, and they’re easier to carry,” Lorn says, recalling his early trading adventures with Ryalth.
“Why would anyone import the bales all the way from Hamor? They’re bulky.”
Eileyt nods. “Good. That’s another reason to suspect this. Anyone can look at a bolt of finished cotton and see the difference between Hamorian white and Kyphran dun, but raw cotton-that’s another story. Might even be something hidden in the bales, as well.”
Lorn shakes his head, but he has asked Ryalth and her people to show him what they can about forbidden trading practices, even though it is unlikely he will be directly involved, except when called in by the Emperor’s tariff enumerators, if he ever is. The more he learns, the more small references tell him how intertwined everything is-such as Bluoyal’s involvement in the consorting between Syreal and Veljan that, because of Lorn’s killing of Veljan’s older brother Shevelt, has led to a greater possible influence by the Magi’i in the affairs of one of the leading merchanter houses. That underscores why he would like to know enough to be able to ask his own questions should such arise. His experience with patrol tactics and the Accursed Forest was enough of an example of not knowing enough, to confirm his decision to learn what he can in the few days he has in Cyad. He is also coming to realize that it is far better-and less costly to all involved-to act before others act… rather than when it is obvious to all that one must act.
So he might as well learn what he can, since Ryalth cannot give up work, especially since spring is far busier for Ryalor House than Lorn ever would have imagined.
He looks back through the bills of lading again, looking for odd spacing, improbable goods, anything.
On the next to last, he finds something-or thinks he does.
“A hundred stone of zinc tools?” he asks. “Is this a cover for iron blades? It’s a metal and almost the same number of letters.”
“That’s more dangerous, because iron-bladed weapons carry high tariffs, and selling them in Cyad or failing to declare them for shipment elsewhere can send a trader to prison,” Eileyt says. “But some traders like to buy Hamorian blades and sell them elsewhere in Candar.” The enumerator hands Lorn another set of lading bills.
It is nearly midday when Lorn walks into Ryalth’s inner study. She looks up from a ledger.
“You have a nice study here,” he observes.
“Merchanters call them ‘offices,’ dearest… remember?” She smiles. “But if you want traders to think you know less than you do, just call them ‘studies.’ ”
“Thank you. That might be wiser. I can see why you’re the trader, and I’m not.” He shakes his head again.
“We work better together,” she says.
“Do you have to work all day?”
“Zerlynk is coming in midafternoon. He had made an offer on cordage. I picked up some raw hemp from a Sligan trader last year, and got some peasants near Desahlya to turn it into rope. It’s not top-line, and I’ll not try to sell it as such, but we should make some silvers on it. After he goes, I can leave.”
Lorn nods. “You’re busy. I’ll see what else I can learn.”
“You might talk to Kutyr. He knows more than he’ll tell me.” Ryalth smiles again.
“He might not tell me, either.”
“If you flatter him…”
Lorn shakes his head ruefully, then smiles, and turns.
V
Because the core of a fully-functioning tower maintains an isochronic/isotemporal barrier of approximately 1,000 nanoseconds, this temporal “dislocation” effectively provides not only the points of energy polarity which generate the raw power, as described above, and an insulation from the local temporality, but what can also be loosely described as a recharge impact on local spatio-temporal random-amplitude “chaotic” energy events…
Observation indicates that proximity to the tower engenders a sensitivity to and an ability to impact and/or manipulate local spatio-temporal random amplitude events… Such sensitivity, if not disciplined and trained, could adversely impact the continued operation of the towers.
…Oversensitization and disciplined training must be rigorously monitored in view of the macular cellular degeneration already observed among personnel with high exposure within the operating confines of the basic tower system. This is, as noted previously, in contravention of previously established principles and tolerances…
In addition to degenerative effects caused by excessive proximity to the towers, similar effects have been observed in those individuals among the non-technical cadre with an aptitude for manipulating such local spatio-temporal random-amplitude events. It is recommended that such individuals be placed so that they also can be monitored, and, if necessary, disciplined, in order to assure maximum operating continuity for the remaining tower cores.
Establishment of a hierarchial social structure may prove necessary, should these effects persist, since the conditions and infrastructure for continued technical education and understanding may be limited…
Recommendations
Personnel Manual [Revised]
Cyad, 15 A.F.
VI
Tyrsal and Lorn are seated in the garden at the rear of the sprawling and massive two-storied dwelling that overlooks the harbor from the western bluffs of Cyad. The air is cooler than in Cyad itself.
“You have a good view of the harbor here,” Lorn says.
“Not so good as that of your parents,” answers the redheaded mage. “And it was a long walk to the academy. Mother was not sympathetic to my riding or using the carriage. That’s why I stay with my sister and her consort most nights these days-out of habit, I suppose.” He shakes his head. “I dislike mornings.”
“The house is yours, isn’t it?” Lorn asks.
“I suppose so, but it’s really Mother’s, and it wouldn’t be right to take it from her.” Tyrsal smiles. “Besides, I can just claim I’m a poor junior magus, and that way, none of the Lectors will push me into consorting with someone I don’t like.”
“Like Aleyar or Syreal?” asks Lorn, with a grin.
“Syreal’s sweet. What she sees in that block Veljan, I don’t know. I don’t know Aleyar.”
“So you’d still consider her?” Lorn pursues. “They say she’s sweet and pretty, too.”
“Are you trying to complicate my life? Or just end it?” asks Tyrsal. “I don’t think it would be good for my health to deal with Liataphi all the time.”
“What about Ciesrt’s younger sister?” Lorn’s eyes twinkle.
“You want Ciesrt as…” Tyrsal shakes his head. “I’m sorry. It’s hard to believe. Myryan is so nice. Ciesrt doesn’t deserve her.” He pauses. “Anyway, Rustyl has asked Ciesrt’s sister, and she’ll say yes to him. He’s ambitious and a favorite of Chyenfel. So while she’ll put him off for a time, in the end, she’ll agree.”
“Kharl’elth will give her no choice,” Lorn suggests.
“You were so smart not to consort into a Magi’i family,”
Tyrsal says.
“As if I had much choice,” Lorn points out.
“You could have had your pick of the lancer girls.” Tyrsal grins. “But you did much better. Ryalth is beautiful, and she’s smart.”
“You’ve scarcely talked to her, except at dinner the other night, and I don’t think you said a dozen words.”
Tyrsal draws himself up in offended dignity. “I listened. You learn when you listen.” His eyes smile, and then he laughs. “You haven’t said much about your new duty. You don’t like going to Biehl?”
“It’s not the assignment. It’s what’s behind it. I’m too young to be an overcaptain, and I’ve too little service. Zandrey had almost eight years before they made him one, and I’ve had four, five if you count officer training.”
“They’re losing a lot of officers to the barbarians, Lorn.”
“I’d bet I’ll only be there until I get set up to make some mistake… or until I get promoted again and sent to an impossible assignment against the Jeranyi or some such.”
Tyrsal laughs. “Nothing’s impossible for you. You’ll have it figured out before they send you. Didn’t you say you were studying bills of lading and the tariff rules? Did anyone suggest that to you?”
“It’s obvious. If you have to enforce trade rules, best you know something about them. I still won’t know the local situation, and that could be a mess.” Lorn takes a deep breath and holds up his hand. “I know. You’re going to tell me that while it’s obvious to me, it isn’t obvious to other lancers.” He offers a wry expression that is not exactly a smile. “I’m not other lancers.”
“That’s what I keep telling you. You’re always thinking ahead.”
“I try.” He pauses. “But that’s dangerous, too. People think you’re a plotter or a schemer. Or cold and calculating, and they watch you twice as closely.”
Trysal laughs again. “That’s why you never tell anyone anything.”
“Would you?” Lorn glances at the harbor and then stands. “I need to go. Ryalth should be almost done with the exchange-”
“And you don’t want to miss a moment with her!”
The overcaptain grins at the second-level adept magus. “It doesn’t take a chaos-glass to scree that.”
VII
The cool spring rain patters on the roof tiles, collects there, and then flows in streams over the eaves, collecting in the rain gutters that line the structures and the white granite roads and ways of Cyad. Within Ryalth’s rooms, Lorn and his trader lady sit side by side in the bedchamber, propped up on the bed with pillows. On the table beside the bed a single lamp is lit.
Lorn holds a narrow, green-tinted, silver-covered volume in his hands, the one Ryalth had given to him to keep for her, years before, and insisted he read. “I’ve carried it everywhere, and yet there’s still not a mark on it.” He turns the book in his hands. “I still wonder how it came to your mother.”
“She never said. She just said it was special.”
Lorn nods, wondering how special… and whether the book is another subtle indication of how unusual Ryalth is-and why. “You read from it often?” Ryalth asks.
“Not every night. I couldn’t when I was on patrol, and I didn’t want to take it with me.”
“Every eightday?”
“Usually.” He smiles. “Sometimes more often.”
“What do you think about the ancients now?”
“I don’t know about the ancients.” He frowns. “The writer was melancholy. They might not all have been like him.”
“Wouldn’t you have been, if you’d come from the Rational Stars to a wilderness? That’s what Cyador was, back then.”
“I’m not sure it still isn’t.” Lorn laughs.
“We have the prosperity of chaos, and the chaos-towers, and the roads and the harbor, all the things they built,” she points out. “People are still unhappy.”
“Not all of them.”
“Some…” he teases.
“Enough.” She takes the book from his fingers, closes her eyes, and then opens it at random, handing it to Lorn. “Read this one.”
“You haven’t seen it.”
“Read it, please.” Lorn clears his throat.
Chaos, and the promise of light,
Order, beckoning lady of night…
Should I again listen to which song?
We have listened oh so long.
Should I again fly on learning wings?
We have learned what yearning brings.
“That is melancholy,” she says. “Let’s try another one. You pick it.”
“And you read it,” he replies. She nods.
Lorn closes his eyes and lets his fingers riffle through the smooth and heavy pages, finally stopping and handing her the open volume.
“This one always puzzled me,” she says as she looks at the slanted and antique Anglorian characters.
“Read it,” he suggests.
Ryalth’s voice is low, almost husky as she brings forth the words.
Cyad is no home for souls of thought, who doubt the promises they have bought, for the Magi’i offer Chaos as a Step to all.
The lancers back with fire their call, their faces of cupridium’s silver-white reflect each other’s chaotic light.
Should Sampson pick this temple, here too, he would be blind, his eyes untouched, his simple trust lost in the reflections.
She closes the volume. “I always wondered who Sampson was. He had to be blind, but the words suggest he wasn’t always, and yet, that he would be in Cyad, because everything reflects everything else, and gets lost in the reflections.”
“And that doesn’t happen?” Lorn laughs. “Think about the big dinner with my parents the other night, and the way Vernt and Ciesrt kept looking at each other. And Mycela, the way she just wanted to be a perfect consort, reflecting Vernt’s every wish.”
“That’s somehow sad, too.” After a moment, she adds, “You have to go the day after tomorrow. Would you read the one about pears now?” She hands him the volume.
He flips through the pages until he finds the words and begins, his voice soft in the dimness of the bedchamber.
Like a dusk without a cloud,
a leaf without a tree…
…to hold the sun-hazed days,
and wait for pears and praise
…and wait for pears and praise.
After he sets the book on the table by the bed, he turns down the lamp wick, and lets darkness fill the room. His arms slip around her, and hers around him.
VIII
The two most senior Mirror Lancer officers sit across a polished table desk from each other in the capacious study on the highest floor of the Mirror Lancer Court, two blocks west of the Palace of Eternal Light. A light drizzle falls outside the antique panes of the windows that date to the ancients, but the day is bright enough that none of the polished cupridium wall-lamps are lit.
His eyebrows lifting slightly, Rynst’alt looks at Luss’alt. “I understand that I as Majer-Commander of Mirror Lancers have transferred young Captain-pardon me, young Overcaptain Lorn-to the port detachment at Biehl, and that he is on his way there, or will be, most shortly.”
“Yes, ser. He was assigned to the northeast ward-wall, and he saw more fallen trees and creatures in little more than a year than most patrol captains do in a full tour.”
“So you decided he should be transferred to a duty with which he has no experience, not by his family, nor by his education?” Rynst smiles brightly at his Captain-Commander, then leans back in the chair upholstered and covered in green shimmercloth.
“The Emperor’s Enumerators are the ones who apply the tariff and port laws, ser, and Overcaptain Lorn need only support them.”
“An officer who has been commanding in combat and against the Accursed Forest will sit back on his mount or behind his table and accept their word? Do you think that likely?”
“Most officers would be pleased with such duty, ser.”
“Pleased or no
t, is it wise? With Bluoyal’s kin everywhere? How do we know that Bluoyal does not have some relative in Biehl?”
“I thought it wise, ser,” Luss replies stiffly.
“You mean that the Second Magus thought it wise?”
Luss does not quite meet Rynst’s eyes. “Overcaptain Lorn has also been seen walking with a lady merchanter-the head of Ryalor House,” Luss says. “She has suddenly become most powerful. Out of nowhere, one might say, and that seems rather odd, especially for a woman.”
“A woman who comes to power easily can be vanquished easily. Were he walking with the daughter of Liataphi, I would be concerned, Luss, but a merchanter? Even a wealthy merchanter cannot influence the Magi’i, and no merchanter can be more of an influence upon the Palace of Eternal Light than Bluoyal already is.”
Luss looks impassively through the light rain at the gray water of the harbor, and the darker water of the Great Western Ocean beyond.
Rynst points at the polished reflector of the lamp on the corner of the desk. “Cyad is like that reflector, Captain-Commander. Or like many reflectors set opposite each other. Each and every action is mirrored in every other. I know that you know what I do and plan, and you know the same of me, and each of us hides in the open behind those reflections.” A cold smile crosses the Majer-Commander’s mouth. “You are a good second-in-command, Luss, so long as you allow me to think for you. You allow Kharl to direct your thoughts… and there will be no one to protect you, for the Magi’i certainly will not. Nor will the merchanters. Especially Bluoyal.”
“He seems most capable, ser.”
“He is too capable for the merchanters, Luss.” Rynst pauses. “Rather, he is seen as too capable. Being seen as such is more dangerous than being so. As for young Overcaptain Lorn, I would watch what Kharl wishes of him. You know that Kharl’s son is the consort of the overcaptain’s younger sister, of whom young Lorn is most fond?”
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