Scion of Cyador

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Luss opens the door and motions for Lorn to enter. The sub-majer does so, and Luss follows him inside, closing the door.

  The study is the same length as that of the Captain-Commander, but wider, close to thirty cubits, and there are windowed doors that open onto a roof terrace that, Lorn can see through all the windows on each of the three walls before him, surrounds the study.

  The gray-eyed, gray-haired Mirror Lancer officer who stands beside his table desk is not so tall as either Lorn or Luss, and more slender, yet there is the strength of a tested sabre in his frame, and in the gray eyes that seem to take in everything.

  “Ser… Sub-Majer Lorn,” offers Luss.

  “Greetings.” Rynst looks at Luss. “And thank you, Luss. I will be talking to you later about the deployments.”

  “Yes, ser.” Luss inclines his head and slips back out of the study.

  Lorn stands waiting.

  “Come on… have a seat. It’s more comfortable than a firewagon. Tygyl said that you came almost directly here.”

  “Yes, ser.” Lorn steps forward, past the conference table that is more than twice the size of the one in the Captain-Commander’s office, and takes the seat opposite the left-hand corner of the polished table desk. Through the window before which Rynst sits, Lorn can see both the gray-blue waters of the harbor and the Palace of Eternal Light, the outlines of both blurred by the mist of the late-spring day.

  Rynst’alt surveys Lorn slowly. “You are indeed your father’s son. It’s too bad that he didn’t live to see it. I’m sorry for his death.”

  Lorn forces his himself to swallow and his face to turn blank. “His death?”

  Rynst frowns. “You didn’t know?”

  “No, ser. I did not know. I worried because there was no response to my scrolls home, and I have feared, but I did not know. I did fear the worst.”

  “You were sent scrolls.”

  Lorn offers a tight smile. “Majer Dettaur thought it best I should not be troubled by scrolls from my consort or from my family-only from my sire.”

  Rynst’s face tightens. “Those are harsh words about a fellow officer, and someone who has been close to your family.”

  Lorn meets the older officer’s eyes. “I do not trouble myself to lie, ser. He would have destroyed the outpost at Inividra to ensure my death. He put my men at risk with every order he issued in the name of Commander Ikynd.”

  Rynst raises his eyebrows. “If that be so… it might explain much. Yet I cannot see why he would do such. He had a bright future.”

  “Mine looked brighter to him, ser. That, he could not abide.”

  “You will have to deal with this…”

  “I already have. When I reported to Commander Ikynd, Dettaur attacked me with a sabre. I was forced to defend myself.” Lorn smiles. “I took the liberty of bringing his orders for you to examine.” The sub-majer extends the rolled bundle.

  As he takes the scrolls, Rynst sighs. “You are indeed your father’s son. Act quickly, and support your actions.” He pauses. “Your father was more than any knew, as you will discover.”

  Lorn lowers his eyes for a moment, trying to control the burning in them, even though his father’s death is not the sudden shock he has expressed. He swallows. “I’m sorry, ser. Even though I suspected…”

  “I can understand that.” Rynst nods. He reads through the scrolls, cursorily, then looks at Lorn. “You did not protest Dettaur’s actions?”

  “How?” Lorn’s lips twist. “By dispatching a lancer messenger for a three-day ride to post a scroll that would be read by the Captain-Commander?”

  Rynst frowns. “Do you really think you can wear Alyiakal’s mantle?”

  “No, ser. No man can wear another’s.”

  “That sounds like Kien.” The Majer-Commander shakes his head. “Such honesty is most dangerous in Cyad, young Lorn.”

  “Ser… dishonesty with you is far more dangerous.”

  Rynst laughs, a low rueful sound, shaking his head. “Chaos-light… you sound so much like your sire. The dry honesty…” He shakes his head again. After a long moment, the Majer-Commander pulls a pouch from his desk drawer and extends it. “You’ve been promoted. You’re a majer. I can’t afford to have aides who are less than majers. No one listens to them. Most don’t listen to majers, but you’ve enough background and a reputation for action that being a majer should be enough. Besides, too much rank right now would not be wise.”

  “Yes, ser.” Lorn takes the soft shimmercloth pouch.

  Rynst leans forward. “Your tasks are very simple. You do what I ask. You do nothing for anyone else, unless you are certain it is to accomplish what I have set before you.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  “You have not had any furlough or leave in close to two years. Is that not correct?”

  “Yes, ser.”

  “You need to see your consort and your family, especially after learning of your father’s death. You have the rest of this eightday, and all of the next. When you return, in addition to your normal reporting duties, your first task is straightforward enough. You write well, and swiftly. That is clear.” Rynst’s lips twist into a smile that is near-ironic. “Not all appreciate that. You know that the chaos-towers are failing. Otherwise you would not have gone to Jera. Draft a plan for dealing with the Jeranyi. For the first draft, do not consider the factions in Cyad. Once you return, you will draft what you believe to be the best lancer solution. Do not put a line to paper until you return. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, ser.”

  “I will see you an eightday from oneday.” Rynst smiles slightly as he stands, “And Majer… two matters: First, put on the insignia before you leave the outer study. And, second, it might be best if no other officers and enumerators disappeared-at least for a while. I don’t have officers to waste, even bad ones, and I’ve suggested, even to the Captain-Commander, that you’ll refrain from such if he will. Now… go and spend some time with your consort and family.”

  “Yes, ser.” Lorn stands.

  Rynst’s smile is fatherly-almost-as he watches Lorn leave his study.

  LXXXV

  Lorn wants to touch the emblem on his collar-the miniature crossed lances-as he sits in the carriage that conveys him back down to the Traders’ Plaza. The short trip seems almost a metaphor for his recent life, as he feels he moves from point to point with nothing exactly being settled, each action somehow not quite finished.

  He glances through the carriage window. A patch of blue sky has finally appeared over the harbor, spreading slowly as he watches, and mist begins to rise off the white sunstone piers where the warm sun strikes them.

  Lorn leaves the carriage driver with half a silver, and walks quickly across the Plaza. His steps are less deliberate as he climbs to the topmost floor of the building holding Ryalor House.

  This time, unlike others when he has arrived, his consort is not meeting with other factors or traders, and her smile is even warmer-and more relieved-as he opens the door to her private office. He closes the door behind him.

  Kerial in her arms, Ryalth steps forward. “What happened?”

  “I met with the Captain-Commander, and then the Majer-Commander. The Majer-Commander promoted me right there and said I had furlough until an eightday from next oneday.”

  “You have time to spend with your family?”

  “I was ordered to spend it with you.”

  “Maybe you should bend the rules more often.”

  “This is the first time I have ended up with more time with you,” he points out.

  “Let’s go home. We can talk there,” she says. “For once, I don’t have anyone coming by, and I don’t want anyone to show up.” She eases back toward her table desk and scoops up a blue leather bag. “Kerial’s things.”

  Then she opens the door and beckons to Eileyt, who sits at a small table a halfscore of cubits from her door.

  The senior enumerator stands and slips toward the three. “Yes, Lady?”

  �
�Eileyt, we’re leaving,” Ryalth says quietly. “If I come in tomorrow, it won’t be for long. I’ll be in on fourday to meet with the Austran.”

  “Yes, Lady.”

  “You know where to send a messenger if it’s urgent, but it had best be most urgent.”

  The senior enumerator smiles and bows his head. “I trust it will not be necessary.”

  “So do I.” Ryalth shifts Kerial-whose arms and pudgy fists have begun to windmill-from one shoulder to the other.

  As the couple and their son cross the front room of Ryalor House, Lorn is aware that all the merchanters watch them, if covertly, and he wonders exactly what has been said about him, for they see Ryalth every day.

  Several merchanters from other houses step aside as Lorn, Ryalth, and Kerial make their way down the steps and out onto the Plaza whose eastern side, in the late afternoon, is finally bathed in sunlight.

  On the lower level, another pair of younger enumerators freeze and watch. Lorn catches the words after they pass.

  “See… he’s real… Majer now… too.”

  “…better not offend Vyanat’mer, then. It’s too short a trip.”

  Lorn wonders about the last words.

  Ryalth smiles. “You are the subject of some many rumors among the merchanters. Vyanat copied parts of the report you sent him. He suggested that he would send any traders who sold weapons to the Jeranyi to see you personally.”

  “I suppose he called me the Butcher of Nhais, or Jera?”

  Ryalth frowns. “No… he was more complimentary than that.”

  “That’s what Dettaur called me.”

  “From what I have heard from Jerial, I’m not surprised.” Ryalth says, turning westward as they leave the Plaza.

  “She liked Dettaur less than I did.” Lorn looks along the Road of Benevolent Commerce. “Where are we headed?”

  “Home.”

  “You have a better place?” He smiles. “I knew that from the glass, but I never got any scrolls…”

  Ryalth frowns. “Those were in the ones-”

  “-that Dettaur intercepted and destroyed.” Lorn laughs.

  “For that alone he should have been slain.”

  “It wasn’t just for that,” Lorn says quietly. “I killed him because what he was doing would have killed more lancers and because he would have done anything to destroy me-and you.” He shakes his head. “And mostly because he attacked me rather than explain.”

  “You had said he had tried to kill you.”

  “He still thought he was better with a sabre.”

  “Your brother Vernt-he said your friend Tyrsal told him that you could use a blade with either hand, and that no one in the lancers could match you.”

  “I doubt that,” Lorn protests. “There are probably a number.”

  “Zero is a number, too, my dear, and closer to the truth. After all, Dettaur was among the best, and he is dead.”

  Lorn cannot dispute that, although Dettaur’s death was aided by Lorn’s control of chaos-energies, and that, he cannot mention anywhere. “Why did you decide to move? Kerial?”

  “For that reason, and because this location is much better, and closer.” An amused expression crosses her lips.

  They turn down a narrow side way-narrow for Cyad, perhaps only twenty cubits wide-that was perhaps once intended as a service way for the larger mansions that front the Fourth and Fifth Harbor Ways. Halfway down the road is a wall that runs between two carriage stables. In the center of that alabaster wall is a heavy iron gate-a rarity in Cyad.

  “The gate came from Hamor. I felt it would prove… useful.” Ryalth’s lips curl, but the expression is not quite a smile. After extracting a key from her belt wallet, she unlocks the gate, then locks it behind them after they step around the privacy hedge of thornroses that blocks any view from beyond the gate. Beyond the hedge is a garden, with a fountain shaped like the trunk of a pearapple tree. Flanking the fountain are two teardrop-shaped flower gardens, each backed by a shoulder-high boxwood hedge. The green marble walk leads to the fountain basin, circles it, and then melds back into a single pathway leading to the dwelling beyond.

  “When it’s warmer and the water sprays, the fountain has the shape of a true pearapple-almost, anyway,” the redhead explains.

  Lorn takes in the dwelling on the far side of the garden. It is low, merely two stories, with a covered veranda supported by fluted green marble pillars. The house itself is also of marble, a shade of white, lightly tinted green. He can see the wide windows and the double doors. “It’s lovely.”

  “It should be.” Her words are light. “Let me show you.”

  Lorn follows her around the fountain basin and up the three wide marble steps. A polished wooden settee sits before the wide window on the left side of the doors, and is flanked by two low tables.

  “The cushions are inside. I don’t sit out here in the winter, and I’ve been so busy that somehow, the cushions never got out here.” Ryalth unlocks the heavy white-oak door and motions for Lorn to enter.

  He does, but once he moves around the inner ceramic privacy screen, he stops cold in the entry foyer.

  There are four steps down, so that the ceilings are far higher than they had looked from outside. The walls are a pale green stone, half-covered with gold-trimmed green hangings, and covering more than half the pale green marble floor is a six-sided woven green carpet, bordered in blue and edged in gold. Two archways lead from the foyer.

  “Kysia… Ayleha, I’m home!” Ryalth calls, shifting Kerial from her right to her left arm.

  A heavyset gray-haired woman appears in the left-hand archway and nods. She wears a tunic and trousers of pale green, and a darker green scarf covers her throat, almost to her chin.

  “Ayleha, this is Lorn… my consort, the one I have talked about. He is Kerial’s father. He hasn’t been able come to Cyad very often.” Ryalth waits for a moment. “Lorn is the only one who is welcome here when I am not. The only one. We owe him everything. Everything.”

  Ayleha bobs her head twice. Another figure appears in the archway behind Ayleha-Kysia, Lorn suspects, who had served in his parents’ house.

  “I’m going to show him around. We’ll have dinner when we usually do. Lorn and I have much to talk over.”

  The silent serving woman nods once, then smiles.

  Lorn realizes she has no teeth, but he smiles and says, “I’m pleased to meet you, Ayleha.”

  The woman nods, first to Ryalth, then to Lorn, before slipping back through the archway.

  “She doesn’t speak.”

  “She can’t. She was a slave in Hamor. To one of the merchant princes. They don’t like their secrets spread. She tried to escape. She finally succeeded, and someone who owed me a favor thought I might find her useful.” Ryalth sighs. “She is, and she’s grateful, and she cooks well, and it still bothers me.”

  Lorn touches her arm. “You can only do what you can do.”

  “Sometimes… that’s not enough.”

  Lorn is the one to allow himself to sigh. “I know.”

  Ryalth gestures to the short, muscular, gray-eyed woman who remains in the archway. “And you remember Kysia?”

  Lorn laughs as he recalls the servant whom Ryalth had paid surreptitiously to help his family and report to her. “I’m glad to meet you closely, and face-to-face.”

  “And I you, ser.” A mischievous smile appears. “You are difficult to avoid.”

  “You won’t have to, not anymore.”

  Kysia bows, the smile still on her face.

  “He hasn’t seen the house.”

  The gray-eyed young woman bows and slips back through the archway.

  Still wrestling with a squirming Kerial, Ryalth turns to Lorn. “We have much to talk about. But let me show you the house, first.” A smile dances across her lips as she moves toward the right archway from the foyer.

  “You didn’t have to tell Ayleha you owed me everything. You don’t.”

  “But I do.” Her thin eyebro
ws lift. “You deceived me, dear lancer. I thought there were but a few hundred golds in that chest you gave me, oh so long ago. There were also rubies and emeralds and close to another thousand golds beneath the lining.” She laughs. “So I deceived you, and used them.” She draws Lorn from the central foyer through the wide arch into the front sitting room. “A small portion of our ill-gotten gains.”

  The sitting room contains the bordered carpet that depicts the trading ship that had sunk with Ryalth’s parents aboard so many years before, and the settee from her earlier quarters, and a great deal more, including a tall and polished golden-oak bookcase and a matching sideboard set under one of the wide windows.

  From the sitting room, Ryalth leads Lorn into a dining room with a table that will seat almost a score easily.

  “For when we invite your family,” she explains.

  “Will Ciesrt even come?” asks Lorn.

  “Now that you are working for the Majer-Commander, I imagine he will be most ready to sup with us,” Ryalth says dryly. “If only to see what he can discover.”

  “Wahh!” interjects Kerial.

  “Hush, sweetheart, we’ll be just a bit, but your father hasn’t even seen the house yet.”

  Kerial sniffs, loudly.

  The kitchen, where both Kysia and Ayleha are laboring, chopping onions and other vegetables, is as large as the entire quarters Ryalth had occupied on the east side of Cyad.

  With Kerial squirming more and more, Ryalth hurries up the center stairs and toward the heavy oak door in the middle of the south side of the house. The master chamber-with a small balcony beyond-stretches a good thirty cubits along the middle of the front of the house, and is almost fifteen cubits deep.

  Lorn looks at the ornate, triple-width bed. “I’ve seen this so many times in the glass. I’m glad I’m here to see it in person.”

  “So am I.”

  “Wahh!” adds Kerial.

  “He’s hungry… and…”

  “That’s all right. I’ve been traveling for days. I can clean up while you feed him.”

  “By then, dinner for us will be ready, and, after that,” Ryalth says, “Kerial is usually tired enough to sleep.”