Scion of Cyador

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  He has to do something, but what he can do is little enough… for now. He stands in his small study, a floor below the Majer-Commander, feeling that he could do more. Yet his father advised against approaching the Emperor. Even if he goes against his father’s wishes, he has no way to gain access to the Palace of Eternal Light-except as an intruder, and that is not exactly to his benefit.

  Equally dangerous is the implication that there are reasons why the Magi’i have not offered another way to use chaos to replace the fireships and firewagons. Now it is clear that he must study his father’s papers once more, even more carefully, to see how he might advance the plans and suggestions contained therein. The papers offer solutions, yet his father could not advance them, even as Hand of the Emperor. Is there any way Lorn can?

  He looks at the stack of notes and takes a deep breath, then pulls out the chair and seats himself. First, he must write the report of the meeting.

  CXIV

  Once in his dwelling study, Lorn sets the box from his father on his desk and leafs through the stack of papers, his fingers fumbling as he scans the sheets, looking for a section he has read several times, hoping that the section says what he has recalled.

  “What are you doing?” asks Ryalth from the doorway, juggling Kerial on her shoulder. “You didn’t even try to find me. I was bathing Kerial. He’d spit up and made a mess.”

  Lorn lowers the papers. “I’m sorry. I’ve been thinking about this all afternoon. We had a meeting today. Maybe I have an answer. These papers. You remember we talked about the engines-the iron chaos-heat-transfer steam engines-they talked about it…” Lorn finds his words trying to tumble out faster than he can think about them.

  Ryalth laughs. “Wait… the papers will be there in a moment. I’ve never seen you trying to talk so fast.”

  Lorn takes a deep breath. “You remember we talked about why no one had tried to build the chaos-fired steamships? Why no one ever talked about them? At the meeting today, Commander Shykt asked a strange question. The others thought it was strange. He asked whether the Magi’i could use chaos to build a better warship or weapons. He wasn’t that direct, but that was what he was hinting at…”

  “Do you think he knows?”

  “No. He knows something else. What he understands is that the Magi’i don’t want to do things that might limit their power.”

  “That’s hardly strange. No one does. Traders don’t do trades that will cost them more than they make.”

  “There’s a difference,” Lorn points out. “Cyador will become far poorer, perhaps even fall to the barbarians, if the Magi’i do not use their powers. Shykt was suggesting that they would rather see Cyador fall than use their powers in a new way.”

  Ryalth laughs, still patting Kerial on the back, but the sound is ironic. “You are remarkable. You were thrown out of the Magi’i because you would not put their ways above everything. You are surprised that they will not change?”

  Lorn shakes his head. “I had hoped for better.”

  “Your father tried to make things better in his own way, and he was powerful. He could not even keep you in the Magi’i.”

  “Not safely,” Lorn admits. “When you put it that way… Still, it is hard to believe that they would let the land die.” He crooks his lips. “I should know better. It took the First Magus years, from all accounts, to get the Magi’i to agree to his plan for the Accursed Forest, and they only agreed to that when it was clear that nothing else would work and that they would lose those towers anyway.”

  “What did your father say?”

  “That was what I was looking for.”

  “You look, and I’ll tell Kysia to ready dinner. Then you can tell me. I think Kerial is going to go to sleep.”

  “I hope so.” Lorn smiles.

  The redhead shakes her head again, ruefully and lovingly.

  As Ryalth leaves the small upstairs study, Lorn returns to paging through the sheets in the old carved wooden box, slowly and more methodically, forcing himself to read at least enough of each page to ensure that it does not deal with the material he seeks.

  Roughly a third of the way through the material he stops.

  As it is described on the pages which follow, once the chaos-towers fail, all is not lost. Those senior in the Magi’i will claim that no other devices, such as chaos-steam transfer engines, can be constructed, because iron and chaos are not compatible. Too great a closeness between iron, order, and Magi’i is not desirable, but it is not necessary…

  …to fabricate such a device requires the extraction of order from the natural world, and its infusion into the iron as it is being forged. When I was young, I worked with a smith. He is long since dead, and he knew little beyond what his forebears had taught him, and yet we did indeed forge a blade out of iron-darker than most, and of inordinate strength.

  I could not touch the blade, not without suffering ferric poisoning, but there was no need to do so…

  Lorn continues to read, nodding as he does.

  The First Magus-the one two before Chyenfel-did not wish to consider such a means of finding an alternative to the chaos-towers, for none of the chaos-towers had failed, and there was seen no need to do such. He was also concerned about use of such a method when it could be used to forge blades and shields that might well prove a useful shield against chaos-bolts. Once the method was used, he said, all the barbarians would learn, and then Cyador would have defenses far less effective against the northerners.

  Now… the towers are failing, and so am I. Perhaps worse, because I once looked into the matter, the reference material was removed from the archives of the Quarter and burned. Most of it I had copied previously, and that is what follows this explanation…

  The Mirror Lancer majer shakes his head. “The idiots…”

  …do not attempt to bring this to light directly, but find one among the Magi’i who will see it for the salvation of the Magi’i, and not as a threat. For, if the Magi’i retain this as a secret, then they will retain a manner of power that they would not otherwise do…

  A voice calls from below. “Lorn… dinner is almost ready.”

  “I’ll be down.” Lorn looks at the notes, half smiling.

  He has some copying to do… a great deal… because he cannot let the originals into anyone else’s hands. Not when they are all that remain.

  Copying his father’s “memoirs” will be time-consuming, but certainly less risky than using a chaos-glass, for anyone who uses a glass to observe him will but see him writing, and that is certainly expected of a junior majer.

  He shakes his head once more as he thinks of Muyro and the First Magus his father had confronted. Then he closes the box and stands.

  CXV

  Lorn glances at the polished blond wood of Vernt’s table desk, the same desk that had been their father’s. Vernt has even left it in the same place in the study, and most of the books are the same. The chaos-glass is Vernt’s, larger and more prominently displayed on the left side of the desk. On one of the side tables, there is also a frame that contains a drawing of Vernt wearing the whites of a first-level adept. Where Vernt found an artist, Lorn has to wonder, unless perhaps that is one of Mycela’s hidden talents. Lorn feels the woman must have some.

  “I hear you are doing well over in Mirror Lancer Court,” Vernt says conversationally.

  “I’m very quiet.” Lorn laughs. “How are things going for you?”

  “As expected, I suppose.” Vernt frowns.

  “In short, everyone’s worried about the chaos-towers failing, especially the one in the Quarter, and no one has an answer.”

  Vernt shakes his head. “You know I shouldn’t say anything.”

  “You didn’t. I did, and it’s true. We have meeting after meeting. All too many deal with how we will handle the barbarians without firelances and firewagons, and what kind of ships can replace the fireships. I can’t imagine all those meetings with the Majer-Commander, the Captain-Commander, and all the senior comman
ders, not unless things are getting serious.”

  “Should you be saying that?”

  Lorn shrugs. “It’s a problem that concerns both the lancers and the Magi’i. I’m a lancer; you’re of the Magi’i. I’m not telling you anything those above you don’t know, and you’re not about to tell anyone else.”

  “I know,” Vernt replies. “Still…” He frowns.

  Lorn takes out the pouch with the papers inside, those it has taken him more than an eightday to copy-although he has taken the precaution of making two extra sets. “Here’s something that you’ll need.”

  “That I’ll need?” The taller man’s eyebrows rise.

  “A long time ago, at Father’s suggestion, I went through the Archives,” Lorn lies, offering a chuckle. “Except I didn’t tell him, because… well… you know… I didn’t want to admit he might be right.” The smile fades. “Then, of course, I couldn’t tell him.”

  “There’s always something I remember that I would have liked to tell him,” Vernt agrees.

  “I copied these.” That is absolute truth, a truth even Vernt can sense. “I think now is the time, or it will be shortly, for them to reappear.”

  “ ‘Reappear’?” asks Vernt.

  “I asked Tyrsal to see if these were still in the Archives. He says they’re not.”

  Vernt frowns.

  “They’re the plans and the methodology for building a coal-fired, chaos-steam transfer engine.”

  “They say it can’t be done.”

  Lorn shakes his head. “Like many things, that’s a partial truth. Read through the pages and you’ll understand. A magus cannot build that engine, nor touch it, but a magus is necessary, and the engine can be built, and it will operate. Heat transfer isn’t that much different from chaos transfer when you look at it. It’s far simpler, in fact, on a practical basis.”

  “They’ll laugh at me-proposing a steam-chaos engine when we have chaos-powered firewagons that will do much more.”

  Lorn shook his head. “You don’t understand. You don’t propose anything. You wait.”

  “What good will that do?”

  “The Quarter chaos-tower will fail, sometime in the next year.” A lazy smile crosses Lorn’s face. “Six fireships have already had their towers fail.”

  “How do you know anything about the Quarter tower?”

  “Even a former student magus can sense that-I do visit Tyrsal now and again, and the tower’s not that far away.”

  “I can’t do anything, Lorn.”

  Lorn smiles again. “All right. You can’t do anything. Then you won’t need those.” He gestures toward the stack of papers he has left on the desk. “I would like to leave you with one thought.”

  “What is that?” Vernt frowns. “I know you. There’s more to this than a thought.”

  “No. There really isn’t. Not now.” Lorn pauses. “Right now, the Magi’i have power. While a few Magi’i-like Chyenfel and Rustyl-have the power to draw chaos from the natural world, most don’t. They have to draw and direct stored chaos. Once the towers are all gone, there’s no more stored chaos. Therefore, there’s much less need for the Magi’i, and their power in Cyador will be far less. The merchanters will gain power; the lancers will perhaps hold their power. If… if the Magi’i have a way of building engines such as these, there will be another form of fireship upon the oceans, and another form of firewagon upon the great highways-and the Magi’i will hold power.”

  “No one will believe me.” Vernt shakes his head.

  “First… you wait until matters are more desperate. Second, you say that the papers are something that your father developed, and that you have carried on his work. That’s true enough, in a way.”

  “Lorn…”

  “And don’t tell Ciesrt or Kharl. If this works, Kharl will take the credit. If it doesn’t, he’ll steal it and then blame you and Father. If you want someone higher to talk to, you might try either the First Magus or the Third.”

  “You don’t like Kharl, do you?”

  “I don’t like Ciesrt, and Kharl raised Ciesrt. For what it’s worth, most in Cyad outside the Quarter do not trust the Second Magus. They praise his intelligence, but do not turn their backs.” Lorn pauses. “If matters look desperate, and the Magi’i are looking for an answer, any answer… then, if the others do not listen, you can try Kharl.”

  “That’s the most persuasive thing you’ve said.” Vernt laughs. “When you would give something you believe to someone you dislike… you feel strongly.”

  “What can I say?” Lorn shrugs. “In the meantime… if you would humor me… brother… you might keep those in a safe place. If anything should happen, it might be wise for someone among the Magi’i to have a plan.”

  “I’ll read them, and keep them safe. I might even look in the Archives.”

  “You won’t find anything.”

  “I might find traces of what was removed.”

  “You might,” Lorn agrees.

  Vernt leans back in the chair, in a way that reminds Lorn of their father. “What is in this for you?”

  “I’d like to see Father proven right. I’d like to see Cyador remain strong.” Lorn purses his lips. “I’ve seen some of the rest of Candar, and I’ve seen how the barbarians treat innocents, and how they hate us. And there’s nothing like Cyad anywhere.”

  “You were the one who defended the barbarians, as I recall,” Vernt says.

  “You were right. I was wrong.” Lorn stands. “One way or another, I hope you find those useful.”

  “We’ll see. But none will know whence came these. That, I will promise.” Vernt stands. “I don’t know as I believe your dire predictions, but none can gainsay your devotion to Cyador.” Vernt glances. “Did you bring a mount?”

  “I walked. It’s not that far.” Lorn touches the hilt of the sabre. “Cyador is still safe at night, but… if not… I’m prepared.”

  “I’m sure you are.”

  The two brothers walk from the study and down the steps.

  CXVI

  Enough… That’s more than enough.“ Tyrsal puffs out the words, backing out of the roughened stone of the sparring circle.

  “That’s fine. I didn’t get that much sleep last night. Kerial is teething.”

  “You couldn’t… ?” asks Tyrsal.

  “I know enough about healing, but Jerial says it’s not good to use it on infants for normal things like teething-something about upsetting their chaos-order balance too early. It’s different if they’re really ill.” Lorn takes a deep breath and blots his forehead on the back of the sleeve of the exercise tunic.

  “You’re doing it all without vision, aren’t you? The sabre? No matter which hand you have the blade in?”

  “Most of the time,” Lorn admits. “Ha! I thought so.”

  “You’re getting better,” Lorn points out. “I have to work harder these days.”

  “I have to, sparring with you.”

  “So do I, working against you.” Lorn places the practice sabre in the rack. “You must have something on your mind.” He smiles. “A certain young lady, perchance?”

  “Aleyar does occupy my thoughts-more than I’d ever thought.” Tyrsal lowers his voice, his eyes going to the pair of merchanters sparring in the background. “Why don’t you walk partway back toward the Quarter with me?”

  Lorn nods. “All right. Then I’d better get washed up quickly. I do have to finish another meeting report.”

  The two walk toward the shower room adjoining the exercise hall. Lorn washes quickly, but Tyrsal is quicker yet, and waiting as Lorn finishes smoothing his tunic in place and clipping his cupridium-plated Brystan sabre to his green web belt. He feels safer with that particular sabre, especially in Cyad, and the cupridium shields the ordered iron beneath… enough so that only a very accomplished magus who is very close to Lorn would even have a chance of noting it, for order is far less obvious than chaos.

  Lorn’s hair is still wet as they walk along the paved walkway besi
de the road of Perpetual Light in the warm early-fall afternoon. He looks at the shorter, redheaded mage. “You have that worried look. Is it about being consorted?”

  “Chaos, no!” Tyrsal takes a deep breath, then glances over his shoulder, then lowers his voice. “Last night… Mother had asked if I would drop by. She asks so seldom that I hired a coach.”

  Lorn nods.

  “She had a message for you.”

  “For me?” The taller man frowns.

  “She wouldn’t tell me where it came from, and begged me not to ask. She did say that the person who sent it had never lied, and about that she was telling the truth.”

  Lorn feels his stomach churning, and a chill coming down his back, and a chill from premonition, not from being watched in a chaos-glass, although he has experienced more of that in the last few eightdays as well. His voice is even as he says, “That seems strange.”

  “The message wasn’t about lancers or Magi’i, either.”

  “Your mother was from a merchanter background, and so was your grandsire, though, didn’t you say?” Lorn asks.

  “I did say that.” Tyrsal glances back again before continuing. “The message was a request for you to inquire about what Tasjan has said about the lady head of Ryalor House, and his plans for the more than tenscore armsmen he is assembling.” Tyrsal glances at Lorn. “That was all.”

  Lorn suppresses a swallow. “That is more than enough. More than enough.”

  “When you sound like that… I wouldn’t wish to be Tasjan-or you.” Tyrsal’s voice is bleak.

  “We’ll have to inquire. That’s all.” Lorn offers a shrug he does not feel. “There’s always been something about you. You know… did it bother you to break Dett’s fingers all those years ago?”