Corean Chronicles 3 - Scepters

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  "What about Twenty-eighth and Thirty-fifth Companies?"

  "Your question does you credit, but it is, again, a measure of your abilities." Alyniat's smile turned crooked. "I cannot send them to the Iron Valleys. They will return with you so far as Tempre. Both companies have been recommended for commendation as distinguished units, and they will receive a month's furlough in recognition of that, and a half month's pay as an additional bonus. More than that, we cannot do."

  Alucius understood. "Thank you. They fought well, and they've learned much."

  "So have their officers." Alyniat paused. "Captain Deotyr observed that were you in command of the Northern Guard, Lanachrona would never have to worry about its northern borders."

  "I fear he rates me too highly," Alucius demurred. "He is young. There are many capable officers in the Northern and Southern Guard."

  "Capable, yes. Outstanding, no."

  Alucius didn't want to deal with that.

  "Just as a matter of simple justice," Alyniat added, "your back pay was adjusted to that of a colonel from the date Marshal Frynkel sealed your orders to Southgate. Under the circumstances, that seemed only fair."

  "Thank you, sir."

  "Thank you, Colonel. Without you and your men, we would be fleeing to Tempre this very moment. I am most happy to be able to reward those who have broken the threat of the Regent."

  Alucius decided against mentioning the repowering of the torques.

  "I will see you before long, and before you return to Tempre."

  "Yes, sir."

  With a friendly smile, the marshal departed.

  Alucius had sensed that most of what Alyniat had said was what the man felt, except that the marshal would also be relieved when Alucius left. Would it always be that way? That people wanted him to accomplish the impossible, then were glad to see him go?

  Alucius looked to the window. Would he really be able to return to the Iron Valleys? Without some other hidden "request" or obligation? Would the Lord-Protector honor his promise to promote Alucius to commander of the Northern Guard? Did Alucius really want that?

  He looked down at the history of Southgate that lay in his lap, then back at the dreary winter sky outside the window. He had no answers, none that were clear to him.

  Chapter 96

  Salaan, Lanachrona

  « ^ »

  The two men walked toward the building set in the low hills to the southwest of Salaan, a building of recent construction that half burrowed into a hill that was but one segment of a long ridge that extended vingts both to the northeast and southwest.

  "For all your efforts, the majer survived, except he is a colonel now," observed Trezun.

  "He barely survived, you said, and it will be weeks, if not a season or more, before he can leave Southgate," replied the white-haired and pale-faced Tarolt.

  "With his Talent, it will be weeks, not seasons, and he will be stronger for all that he has been through. That is one of the dangers of failing to eliminate him."

  "What is your concern? The injuries prove that he is but mortal. He has yet to face a fully translated Efran." Tarolt laughed. "The devastation and casualties he has created could not have been better. Hyalt is a shadow of its former self. The Regent is bleeding Madrien to a husk, and the Lord-Protector is doing little better with his own land. People are getting poorer and more dissatisfied, and none dare voice their anger. Neither ruler understands what is happening. That is as we had planned."

  "Majer… Colonel Alucius… he should have died more than five times. The last two, there were not even any ancient ones around."

  "My dear Recorder, the colonel is doing us far more good alive than were he dead. He raises hopes, and thousands have died. What will they do once he has departed? They will be bereft of that hope."

  "I question that." Trezun stepped into the front hall of the Table building. "Hyalt is rebuilding, and unless you are willing to send Sensat back there and find another Talent-steer to shadow-match, we will see no gain there."

  "Oh… but we have. Already, all of Lanachrona and much of Madrien wearies of war and of endless casualties. At the very least, who in Hyalt is left to oppose the new duarchy? All they wish is to tend their gardens in peace, and that we can give them." Tarolt followed Trezun into the room with the conference table. "And what of Waleryn? Has he located the scepters?" Irony tinged Tarolt's words.

  "He has moved most expeditiously. After he arrived in Prosp and cleared the fallen building from the Table, he reactivated the Table and added its power to the grid." Trezun smiled. "He just sent a message. We have shadow-matched the Praetor, and he is supplying Waleryn and dispatching him to Norda to rebuild the Table there."

  "That will take time. It is a three-week ride from Prosp to Norda in good weather."

  "You had said that we needed more Tables."

  "Lasylt has been pressing," admitted Tarolt. "And the duarchists of Dulka?"

  "That proceeds as well. Without another Table powering the grid, we will have to send someone there by the high roads."

  "Once the Table in Norda is operating…"

  "We may need one more, yet."

  "That will come… all is going well, and the colonel is not going anywhere in the next few weeks. Even were he recovered this moment, he would face a journey of weeks to return to the Iron Valleys."

  "Then what? What if Weslyn is right to fear that the majer will be placed in Northern Guard headquarters?"

  "Majer… Colonel Alucius does not wish to be a Northern Guard. What motivated him to accept the Lord-Protector's request was fear that he would lose his stead to the Regent, not ambition to become a majer or a colonel. No matter what happens, we do not lose. If Alucius goes back to herding, the situation in the south will continue to worsen, and the conflict between the Lord-Protector and the Regent will seesaw back and forth with greater casualties and more unrest, and Alucius can and will do nothing. If he becomes the deputy to Weslyn, that will tear the Guard apart and create even more unrest in Dekhron. That will lead to less effective lancers in the north of Madrien. If he replaces Weslyn, Halanat will turn the traders against him, and that will create great discontent and a revolt of sorts here." Tarolt shrugged. "It matters not. The unrest will grow, and so will the support for the peace and prosperity of a new duarchy."

  "Led by our shadowed Praetor?"

  "That would be best, but the Regent would serve if something goes ill with Tyren. It is best to keep multiple options available. We will use whatever tools are at hand. If the majer ends up in the right place, we could even translate him and create a duarchy here."

  "I think that is unlikely."

  "Unlikely? Yes . . . but stranger things have occurred." Tarolt smiled. "They have indeed."

  Chapter 97

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  Another week passed, and Alucius had moved to a second villa, down the road from the one where he had first started to recover. The villa itself was on the outskirts of Southgate, perched on a low hill. From the writing desk in front of the narrow window in his room at the rear of the second floor, Alucius could look out at a large, walled courtyard, with a fountain that no longer held water, and vines and trees in planters adjacent to the walls. The lemon and lime trees seemed to be healthy, and there was fruit on their branches. The grapevines were bare and without grapes, but it was early winter, even if it did not seem to freeze in Southgate. From what Alucius could tell, the walls of both the villa and the courtyard were stone covered in stucco and painted a bluish white that had faded to grayish white in places. Gray dust had gathered in the northern corners of the courtyard.

  On another cloudy Tridi afternoon, he was seated before the small writing desk in the modest quarters, taking a short break and looking down at the courtyard, then out at the heavy gray clouds that were too high to deliver rain. After a time, he took a deep breath and dropped his eyes to the papers on the wood before him. He'd been writing out his own report to Marshal Frynkel and the Lord-Protector. No doubt the marsh
al already had reports, but there was some information that the Lord-Protector needed, and that Alucius doubted would be passed along—not from what he had seen. Still, necessary as reports might be, writing them was not something he enjoyed, especially at the moment. With his right arm still in the splint, while he was left-handed, writing was still slower with only one hand. His eyes began to look back over the key phrases and paragraphs of draft conclusions that followed his chronological report of what had happened to his force since they had left Hyalt.

  … Matrites try to avoid attacking fixed positions, and do so only when they have weapons or other clear advantages. This tendency has apparently been overlooked by many Southern Guard officers…

  "Letters? Or reports?" came a voice from the door.

  Alucius turned. Feran stood there, wearing a lancer riding jacket over his uniform.

  "Reports. I sent off a letter to Wendra yesterday."

  "At least you've got your priorities in order. You think you're up to riding?"

  "For a while, anyway, and it would be good to get out of here."

  "I thought it might, and it's easier if I just show up with a mount."

  Alucius stacked the sheets of the incomplete report and weighted them down with a book of Southgate history he had been puzzling through. Then he stood and moved to the pegs set into the white-plastered walls of the room where his few clothes hung and took down the nightsilk riding jacket, carefully closing it over the sling so that his right sleeve hung down empty. "Be glad when I can take off the splint."

  "Has the healer said when?"

  "Not before next week. I'll have to be careful and wear a brace."

  Feran laughed. "You look pretty good for a man who ought to be dead."

  "The ribs are still sore." Alucius walked toward the door. He followed Feran down the wide tile steps of the grand staircase that rose from the entry hall and out into the front courtyard. The afternoon was cool and moist, not raining or misting, but there were few scents in the air, just dampness and moldy vegetation.

  The mount Feran had brought for Alucius was a chestnut. Alucius glanced at the overcaptain.

  "Your gray," Feran said slowly, "he took as many bullets as you did. More probably, and mounts don't wear nightsilk."

  For a moment, Alucius just stood there. Then, he mounted, easily, even one-handed—another skill he could attribute to his grandsire. As he settled into the saddle, he couldn't help but consider that the gray had been the third mount he'd lost in combat, one way or another. He reached down and patted the big chestnut. "Where to?"

  "I thought you might like to see some of Southgate, since you almost died defending it."

  "Lead on. You have to know more about it than I do."

  The gates to the villa were of weathered timbers, but not ironbound, and had been left open. Neither of the two Southern Guard lancers on guard duty even looked in Alucius's direction as the two officers rode out. Feran turned right, heading southward along a road paved with square reddish stone.

  Alucius followed, glancing ahead. So far as he could see, every dwelling was like the villa he had left, in that each was surrounded by a white stucco-finished wall so that the street was, in effect, walled, with a raised space for walking on each side. But the sidewalks were only a yard in width and the street but five. With the walls for the houses almost three yards high, even in the saddle Alucius felt closed in. Cross streets were just as narrow, and seemed to be set about a hundred yards apart.

  "Are all the streets like this?"

  "Most of them, except in the center of Southgate, or out beyond the city walls."

  "How far are we from the high road?"

  "About two vingts. Both high roads end at the city walls. The closest is the southwest high road. That's about two vingts to the east of here, Your villa's less than a quarter vingt from the north wall."

  "The high roads don't come into Southgate?"

  "Not that I know. Never thought about that, though. Wonder why they don't," mused Feran.

  Alucius wondered as well. "The walls are about ten vingts inside the ring road, and the roads end at the walls."

  Feran nodded.

  As they rode southward past dwellings that were far smaller than those around the villa, Alucius became aware of what he had sensed before—except the feeling was far more pronounced. Beneath everything was the pervading sense of deadness, the lack of life in the deeper soil.

  Under the gray clouds, the street was vacant. Alucius could sense people in the dwellings, but he saw only two people on the sidewalk—two white-haired women in shapeless gray coats and trousers—and no other riders. "Not many people out."

  "There never are. A few more in the early morning, and a bunch out on Septi—that's market day. Looks almost normal then."

  The street crossed a stone bridge that arched only slightly over a stone-lined and paved streambed. A trickle of muddy water meandered across the ten-yard-wide stone base of the oversized ditch. On the far side of the bridge, the houses were yet smaller, and their walls replaced the courtyard walls. No windows opened onto the street, only narrow wooden gates.

  They rode for at least another two vingts, past more of the small dwellings, interspersed upon occasion with rows of small shops. There, Alucius did see people, but they all avoided looking at the two officers.

  "Center of Southgate's ahead, across the inner ring," Feran announced.

  Inner ring? Alucius decided against asking, at least until he saw it.

  The street down which they had ridden came to a cross street, clearly the inner ring of which Feran had spoken, because Alucius could see that it arced in both directions. The pavement was smooth gray granite, and it was, unlike the other streets, a good thirty yards in width. Alucius looked both east and west, but he saw no riders on the inner ring.

  On the far side of the ring was what appeared to be a walled palace, with four graceful stone towers, each set at the corner of walls that formed a trapezoid. Alucius judged that the "base" of the wall facing him was roughly a half vingt long. He looked to the right, then to the left. From what he could tell, there were a number of such "palaces" set in a circle inside the inner ring. Alucius lost count at eleven. "How many are there?"

  "Thirteen, I'm told. They form a circle around the central square, except it's round."

  Feran and Alucius crossed the inner ring.

  As they rode past the four-yard-high stone walls, Alucius could sense no life within them. "Doesn't anyone live there now?"

  "No. They gutted them and stuffed everything on ships and went to Dramuria once it was clear that the Lord-Protector would take the city. Didn't leave a gold or a statue or much of anything. That's what Sholosyn said."

  "Just abandoned the people?"

  Feran nodded.

  Alucius studied the walls, definitely ancient, but not eternastone. He also realized that the grounds enclosed by each palace were enormous, because they rode almost a vingt before coming to the next turn in the wall. That meant that each trapezoid was roughly a half vingt across the larger base, a vingt in depth, and something like two-fifths of a vingt across the shorter base.

  "They all face onto the square. See?"

  The center square of Southgate was… different. That was the only word that came to Alucius's mind. To begin with, in the center was a circle of absolutely white stone, a circle that was a third of a yard above the surrounding gray stone paving and was roughly one hundred yards in diameter. Except for its dead-white color, to Alucius's Talent and eyes, the stone looked and felt like the harder gray granite. There were no decorations on the circle—just the circle itself. Ten yards out from the white circle there were four stellae of exactly the same dimensions, each also of the white granite, and each placed at a cardinal point of the compass.

  Alucius turned the chestnut. Feran was right. In the middle of the wall of each palace that faced the "square" was an arched gate. Most were now open or ajar. After slowly looking in both directions, overwhelmed in a way b
y the empty grandeur of the abandoned palaces, Alucius turned his mount back toward the inner area, conscious of the fact that they were the only ones in sight.

  Slowly, he reached out gingerly with his Talent to examine the whitestone circle. He shuddered. The stone, only the whitestone, was dead, dead in the same sense that the layer in the ground beneath Southgate was dead. He rode toward the nearest stele, noting that something had been carved upon it.

  "Southgate's been here for a long time, from what those buildings look like," observed Feran, keeping pace with Alucius.

  "A long time." Alucius rode closer to the stele, catching sight of a series of scenes sculpted into the stone. He reined up less than a yard from the stele and began to study the scenes. The bottom row showed men toiling—building a wall, building a ship, plowing a field, presumably set outside the city walls. The three images above that showed men riding, hunting, and fighting another force. There was a single wider image above those—it showed thirteen men seated at a table, each holding a scepter. Alucius looked more closely. Standing directly in the center, in back of the seated men, was a sculpted figure that resembled the ifrit in his infrequent dreams—the same features, although the stone did not convey the stark whiteness of the skin, the purple eyes, or the jet-black hair. That figure stood behind the center seltyr, the only one who sat on something resembling a throne. The ifrit figure was not threatening, not carrying a weapon, just there.

  Alucius frowned.

  "What is it?" asked Feran.

  "Just thinking. This is an old city, perhaps as old as Tempre or Dereka, or as old as Iron Stem or Dekhron."

  "Most cities in Corus are old." Feran laughed. "Who ever heard of a new city? "