Alector's Choice

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Dainyl was certain that everyone he had talked to was telling the truth as they saw it. It would have been much simpler if he had discovered an ill-managed mine with brutal guards—except for four things. First, the kind of men sent to the mines weren’t the type to throw themselves off of bridges or cliffs or try to scramble over stockade fences with armed guards watching them. Second, the Cadmians he had seen and the ones he’d talked to weren’t brutal. Third, Devoryn had known far too much about alectors. Fourth, the marshal and the Highest had sent a battalion of Cadmians—and Dainyl—and neither the marshal nor the Highest had been in Dramur. Nor was there any record of any other alector having been there recently.

  And then there was the matter of the Submarshal’s death. That was hardly a coincidence, Dainyl felt, although he could not have offered a shred of proof as to why he felt that way.

  19

  The Duarchs’ Valor docked in Dramuria a good two glasses before dawn on Duadi, at the one pier large enough for deep-sea vessels, but it was well past dawn before Mykel and Bhoral led the troopers and mounts of Fifteenth Company down the ramp to the stone pier. Even so, the half-disc of Selena was still bright overhead, although Asterta had long since set.

  There on the pier, Fifteenth Company formed up behind Seventeenth and Sixteenth Companies, closer together than Mykel would have preferred. As the last mounts of Thirteenth Company formed up on the pier, Mykel looked back toward the ramp. Above and behind the ramp, cranes were swinging into place, preparing to off-load supplies, including ammunition, spare rifles, and fodder for the battalion’s mounts.

  Mykel was ready enough to head out. The vessel itself bothered him. The ship had no sails, and, unlike the lander river craft or the river tugs on the Vedra, it didn’t use coal or steam. There weren’t any stacks, and the vessel hummed its way through the ocean. Yet almost all the equipment abovedecks was powered by the crew, from the winches and the capstan to the water pumps. The engine compartments were sealed, according to what several crew members had told Mykel, and only the chief engineer or the captain and the exec ever entered them. One of the deckhands said it was the same on all of the Duarchs’ ships.

  “Another mystery,” he murmured. He’d never liked mysteries, especially ones that suggested great power being hoarded. While the ship itself had disturbed him, that unease was as much a symptom of the situation in which he was finding himself as the ship itself. The alectors had built a ship that could travel faster than a mount over all but the shortest of distances. They had pteridons and skylances, and weapons that could turn a man to ashes—and yet they needed a battalion of mounted rifles to deal with a few handfuls of rebel miners?

  Finally, Majer Vaclyn gave the order to the battalion. “Mount up!”

  Mykel waited before he relayed the order. He and his company still had to wait almost a quarter glass before the rear ranks of Sixteenth Company began to move out.

  From the saddle, riding off the pier at the head of Fif-teenth Company, Mykel took in what he could of Dramuria. He hadn’t been all that impressed with the view he’d gotten from the deck of the ship. There were but two piers in the harbor, and the Duarchs’ Valor had barely fit at the larger one, while the vessels at the smaller inshore pier had all been fishing vessels, most of which had cast off before dawn. His eyes took in the handful of warehouses, all of graystone, and looking ancient, just beyond the piers.

  A light wind blew out of the south, barely enough to keep the morning from being unpleasantly warm. Even so, he occasionally had to blot his forehead. There was also an acrid and unpleasant smell carried on the wind, something between manure, offal, and rotten meat.

  Mykel surveyed all that he could, taking in the stone gutters that separated the sidewalks from the street, deep enough to suggest that at least some of the time rain was heavy, and lingering on the signboards over the shops— with neat images and lettering, yet with faded paint.

  Early as it was, there were already a few people on the stone sidewalks bordering the wider street up which the battalion rode. Some looked at the riders, and some didn’t, but most of those who looked were children or younger adults, usually men. The young women might have looked, Mykel felt, but did so more discreetly.

  Very few of the buildings along the main street were of more than one story, but whatever their height, all had roofs of dull red tile, and most of the dwellings and structures lacked shutters. Even the main road itself was of the same graystone, with hollows worn by years of iron-tired wagons.

  “Place seems worn-out,” said Bhoral quietly.

  “It’s hot here. It’s late in harvest, and nearly as hot as midsummer in Faitel or Elcien. I’d be worn-out working here, too.” Mykel offered a low and rueful laugh. He wasn’t looking forward to serving even two seasons in Dramur, al-though the winter might prove pleasant. He hoped it would, if it came to that.

  The sound of hoofs on stone echoed through the morning, loud enough that Mykel couldn’t hear if the people along their way were saying much of anything. The main street was straight as a quarrel, aimed northwest at the mountains, and Mykel wondered if the Cadmian compound happened to be in the hills below the jagged peaks. As his eyes traversed the higher peaks, a mix of red and black rocks, with intermittent greenery, he sensed something. What he couldn’t say, but he looked northward more intently.

  Two huge birds were circling a peak to the northwest. He looked again. “Those are pteridons.”

  “Does look like pteridons, sir.”

  There was no doubt in Mykel’s mind, none at all.

  Seventeenth Company turned onto a narrower but still stone-paved road that crossed over a stream, certainly not the main river, then headed uphill, presumably toward the Cadmian compound. Sixteenth Company followed, and so did Mykel and Fifteenth Company.

  He glanced back over his shoulder. He could only see one pteridon in the sky over the peaks, but there had been two. Why was Third Battalion being deployed to Dramur if the Myrmidons had already sent in pteridons?

  “You’re not liking the pteridons, sir?” asked Bhoral.

  “I have to wonder what we’re getting into,” Mykel replied cautiously. “No one mentioned pteridons.”

  “It’s always that way. They never tell us everything.” Bhoral laughed. “Me, I’m happier that they’re here.”

  Mykel wasn’t, but he smiled anyway, because he couldn’t have explained his feelings except in a general way. Any place that had problems requiring both Cadmians and pteridons was not someplace where the duty at hand was going to be easy.

  20

  A glass before dawn on Duadi found Dainyl standing with Quelyt and Falyna, between their pteridons in the courtyard of the Cadmian compound.

  “You want down on that little bluff below the peak, sir?” asked Quelyt. “I’ll land with you, and Falyna will circle. That way, I can cover you, and she can make sure nothing else comes up or down the peak.” He smiled ruefully. “She’s a better shot, too.”

  Dainyl had been about to suggest that, but, instead, he just nodded. “Good plan.” Although he was wearing his uniform tunic and padded flying jacket, another shot to his injured shoulder, and he’d be facing a good three weeks before he could move it without pain, if not longer. It was still sore and bruised from the single shot he’d taken.

  There was also the unspoken credo of the alectors, which applied especially to the Myrmidons: Alectors were invulnerable. There were so few that the steers could never be allowed to consider them vulnerable like other mortals. Too many shots, and Dainyl would find that image hard to maintain. If he showed vulnerability, he might well find himself removed from the Myrmidons and relegated to necessary menial work within the Duarch’s Palace, or at the Vault of the Ages in Lyterna—if not worse.

  He looked to Quelyt. “We’d better get flying.”

  “Yes, sir. It’s still cool and calm. No sign of clouds around those peaks.”

  Dainyl waited until Quelyt had mounted, then climbed into the second silver saddle. Th
e pteridon’s wings extended, and, with the sharp burst of Talent, they were air-bome, moving eastward into the wind off the ocean.

  Dainyl looked to the south, where he could see a large vessel moored at the ocean pier. That had to be the Duarchs’ Valor, with the Cadmian battalion. What the Cad-mian mounted rifles could do, Dainyl had no idea, but his orders were very clear. He was to observe, not to interfere… unless something went terribly wrong. If it did, he would have to act quickly; and then, if the situation got worse, all blame would fall on him.

  He forced his concentration back to flying and their destination. As the pteridon’s wings moved, and they gained speed and altitude, Quelyt guided them back around to the northwest, setting a course toward the higher peaks opposite the smugglers’ cove. Unlike the afternoon before, the air was far calmer, and much colder. Despite his jacket and gloves, and the insulating properties of his boots and uniform, Dainyl could feel the chill seeping into his feet and fingers. Acorus was a beautiful world, but it was a cold one.

  Quelyt had clearly decided to gain altitude before they neared the peaks, climbing through the more stable air away from the mountains.

  “That one?” called Quelyt.

  “No! Farther north. The summit’s angled.”

  Quelyt had to circle several of the peaks with various outcroppings just below their summits before Dainyl located the one for which they were searching.

  “That one there! With the angle, and the flat space below.”

  “Be tight to land there, sir. Hang on.”

  The pteridon managed to make it onto the space, although its left wing tip seemed to graze the rugged stone escarpment above the cave.

  Quelyt sighed, then smiled. “Don’t want to do that often, sir.”

  “Let’s hope not.”

  After dismounting, Dainyl drew on lifeforce to hold deflection shields, then unholstered the light-cutter before stepping toward the irregular opening of the cave, which looked to be about three and a half yards tall at the highest point. Behind him, Quelyt had the skylance ready.

  Dainyl stopped well short of the entrance. Even from where he stood, as he had glimpsed the day before, a good five yards back into the darkness, there was indeed an archway—like no archway he had ever seen or heard described. The material looked to be stone, like the eternal goldenstone of the Hall of Justice, but the shade of gold was different, wrong, amberlike, but somehow holding green within it. The stone extended seamlessly from the blackish lava of the sides of the cave. There were no joints, no marks of tools. The base was narrower than the midsection, and the top rose into a graceful point level with Dainyl’s eyes.

  After a moment, he could sense there was no living creature nearby, except for some rodents and small birds. He glanced upward toward the summit, another fifty yards above. There was no sign of any other opening, and no sense of anything living nearby other than the Myrmidons and small creatures.

  “It’s all right,” he called back. “There’s no one here. I think this was one of the places of the ancients.”

  “Didn’t know they lived this far south.”

  “It’s old. Very old.” That he could also sense. He took another step forward and studied the entrance to the cave. The stone was lava, the hard black kind. Although the cave looked irregular, it wasn’t natural. He took another step, this time into the dimness of the cave, still holding the light-cutter at the ready. His boots left the only prints on the reddish sand.

  Abruptly, he paused and studied the floor of the cave. It was uneven where he stood, but just a yard ahead, it was smooth, far too smooth to have been created by any steer, even a lander. His eyes followed the floor to the archway.

  Beyond it, there was no sand, just the finest layer of reddish dust covering green tiles. Tiles, not smoothed rock, not the amber green stone, yet those tiles contained the same energy as the archway. Beyond the archway, a corridor extended farther into the mountain, with walls also of the featureless amber green. The small corridor, less than a yard and a half wide, and only two yards in height, ended abruptly only another four yards or so beyond the archway, not in the black lava that framed the archway, but in a smooth wall of the amber green stone.

  Dainyl stopped just before the archway and extended his Talent-senses. He could feel residual lifeforces, so faint as to be close to nonexistent, red-violet and golden green.

  He let his gloved fingers slide over the stonework of the archway, so smooth that the gloves could find no rough edges. Knowing he was being foolhardy, he still stepped through the archway, carefully lowering his head. Nothing happened.

  He bent down and studied the green floor tiles. They were not actually tiles, but a pattern impressed on greenstone, with indentations that formed simple squares. His eyes traveled to the end of the short corridor. Near the end, the floor changed so that there was a large square, almost, but not quite, the width of the corridor, a yard by a yard, roughly. The square was just a shade lower than the surrounding tiles.

  He took several careful steps forward until he was standing just short of the dust-covered square. His mouth opened. There on the floor was a perfect silver mirror, inset and made of some sort of stone. In the dimness and through the dust, Dainyl could see his own image looking down at the mirror. He closed his mouth, and so did the image.

  He probed it with his Talent, but, for all that he could tell, it was a mirror, nothing more. Except it was on the floor. An empty tunnel, exquisitely if simply constructed, near the top of a peak in the middle of nowhere, with a mirror set into the floor, one fashioned out of stone.

  He stepped back and studied the short corridor and the wall. He extracted his belt knife and tapped the walls with the butt, gently, listening. He even leaned down and tapped the mirror.

  Yet, for all his scrutiny, the walls seemed and felt solid. So did the mirror. The corridor tunnel appeared to be what he saw and sensed, and he had the feeling that he could have stood there for years and learned nothing more.

  Finally, he turned and walked out of the tunnel and the natural-looking, but artificial, cave. Once outside, he turned > and studied it again. After several moments, he turned once more and made his way back to Quelyt and the waiting pteridon. He sheathed the knife, but not the light-cutter, and kept his eyes trained on the cave entrance.

  “What is it, sir?”

  “I don’t know. I wish I did. It’s a perfect tunnel that goes back four or five yards, and ends. The workmanship and artistry are superb, and yet it’s all hidden away up here on a mountain peak where no one’s been in years, maybe in centuries. It just ends, as if it were meant to be that way. There’s even a mirror in there, but it’s on the floor. But why…” Dainyl shook his head. “They must have been able to fly, or had creatures like pteridons, because I can’t see or sense any other way in of out.”

  “You think, maybe it was some sort of observation post?”

  “It must have been something like that, and they weren’t too concerned about anyone else flying. It’s not that well hidden from a flier, but you couldn’t see it at all from above or below, and it’s located where climbing to get here would be almost impossible.”

  “Well… the ancients did leave things here. That’s what I always heard.”

  “I don’t think we’ll ever know why it’s here. It’s not as though there are any ancients around to ask.” Dainyl smiled ruefully. “We’d better get back. I imagine the Cadmians will be arriving at the compound before long, and I’ll need to meet with their majer.” He climbed into the second saddle, asking himself how he was going to report what he had found—and if he should until he knew more.

  21

  Dainyl wasn’t looking forward to meeting with the Cadmian battalion commander, not in dealing with such an unsettled situation. How he handled the situation would be evaluated by both the marshal and the High Alec-tor of Justice, and his own future in the Myrmidons was under consideration. It had to be. Otherwise, after the Submarshal’s untimely death, he should have been pr
omoted or moved out, but neither had occurred.

  He also didn’t feel it was wise to avoid the majer.

  At the eighth glass on Tridi morning he went to find Majer Vaclyn. It would have been simpler for Dainyl to have taken over Majer Herryf’s study. Certainly, as the senior officer present, and as a Myrmidon, he had that authority, but doing so would have tacitly stated he was in command of all operations in Dramur, effectively undermining his status as an observer. That would be all too obvious to the marshal and the Highest. Dainyl had to remain an observer—unless and until matters deteriorated badly. Despite the lack of evidence of such an incipient deterioration, Dainyl had few doubts that it would happen. He just didn’t know the particular path catastrophe would take, but, according to the Views of the Highest, it would occur, since both majers were steers seeking power beyond their ability. That was true of alectors as well.

  He found Majer Vaclyn in a small study at one end of the barracks on the east end of the compound, a space barely three yards by four with little more than a desk and several chairs. Foot chests were stacked against one wall.

  The ruddy-faced majer stood immediately as he caught sight of the Myrmidon uniform and the colonel’s stars.

  “Majer Vaclyn.” Dainyl smiled politely.

  “Colonel.” Vaclyn’s voice was measured. “What brings you to Dramuria? I understood that the operation here was a Cadmian effort, and one not involving the Myrmidons.”

  Dainyl could sense a combination of anger and consternation, but he continued to maintain a pleasant expression as he replied, “You are absolutely correct. It is a Cadmian operation. Because the marshal had to rely upon reports, he did decide to send an observer, to make sure that there were not events and situations that had been misrepresented.”

  “Misrepresented? The matter seems simple enough. The battalion has been deployed here to deal with a possible rebellion, or some other form of uprising.”