Corean Chronicles 3 - Scepters

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

Wendra propped herself into a sitting position on the bed that was narrow indeed for two and an infant. Her head tilted quizzically. Her face stiffened. Then, abruptly, tears began to stream from her eyes.

  Alendra began to wail even more loudly, almost despairingly, and Alucius looked from his daughter to his wife. "What is it?"

  "She's gone. They're gone. All the soarers. Can't you feel it?"

  Alucius stopped, letting his Talent extend into the tower. The mistiness of the ley lines to the mirror-portals remained, but the greenish gold was gone. And for the first time, his Talent was not blocked by the tower. Beyond the walls, there was not a trace of the lifeforce energy that might have been a soarer. Not the smallest trace remained.

  Not a trace, as if all of the greenish gold lifeforce that had always been part of the soarers had been removed from the world, as if an entire part of Corus had vanished. And it had.

  The soarers had always been there, always a part of Corus, especially of the lands of the Iron Valleys. How could they be gone?

  Yet, even as he asked himself the question, he knew that Wendra was right. The emptiness of the hidden city was like a gaping hole in what his Talent sensed. The soarers were gone. Or had there been only the single soarer at the end? Was the wood spirit of Madrien gone as well? "They were here last night. She was." His words sounded empty.

  He swallowed. The soarer had been dying the night before, and she had known it. Alucius should have known, should have guessed. But… soarers were soarers, not herders. They had always been secretive and private, and there was no way that a soarer would have allowed anyone near. That he understood, even as it saddened him.

  "She didn't want us to know." Wendra tried to blot the tears from her face, but they kept flowing. "I think… she was the last. She had to be." Several sobs convulsed her. "She didn't want us to know… so sad… to be so alone…"

  So alone. Alucius found it hard to imagine what it must have been like, soaring through an empty city, trying to hold on, trying to impart knowledge to others not even of the same race, so that part of the legacy would live on, trying to remember, to tell what was important.

  As Wendra's sobs subsided, Alucius kept patting Alendra's back, and her wails subsided into something more like sobbing cries. After a time, looking at Wendra, he spoke again. "She said it was up to us. I knew there weren't very many. I just didn't know that she was the only one. Or that it would happen… overnight."

  "She was so tired," Wendra said. "So tired. And lonely… I didn't see it. I should have."

  Alendra whimpered.

  "You can hand her to me. She's hungry," Wendra extended her arms.

  Alucius eased Alendra into them. "I'm going to wash up and dress while you feed her. Then I'll take care of her while you dress."

  Wendra nodded, wincing slightly as Alendra began to nurse, greedily. "Don't be quite such a little piglet… that's hard on your mother." She shook her head. "About some things, she's like you. When she gets something on her mind, she's not good at listening."

  "You expect her to listen at less than three months old?" Alucius asked.

  Wendra forced a grin, despite her tear-streaked face. "In some matters… of appetite… age doesn't matter."

  Alucius could feel himself flushing. "I think I'd better get washed up." He turned to the washstand, realizing abruptly that he needed to be frugal with the remaining water—unless he wanted to try soaring down the narrow shaft that was the only way up and down the tower, and he had his doubts about his success there after his earlier experiments with soaring.

  When he had washed and dressed, he turned to Wendra.

  "It will be a bit," she said, looking down at Alendra.

  Alucius smiled. "I'm not going anywhere without you."

  "I should hope not. You get into trouble."

  "You got into trouble not going anywhere," he countered.

  "Where do we start the search for the scepters?" she asked.

  "I have some ideas where they aren't. I think I would have sensed them—I hope I would have—if they'd been in Blackstear or Soupat or Hyalt or Dereka… or Tempre."

  "The soarer gave us an idea," Wendra pointed out. "If the ifrits can only travel where there are Tables, don't the scepters have to be where there is a Table—or where there was one?"

  "The map would show the old locations of the Tables where I haven't been." Alucius nodded. Where had he put the map? He glanced around, then realized it was on the narrow lower shelf of the washstand.

  He retrieved the map and opened it, studying it more closely, looking for a hint of something, anything. He smiled faintly, realizing that the tower room was about the only place where he'd actually been able to look at the map in anything close to full light.

  After a time, he finally saw what he had missed on his previous observations. There were two purple dots at the upper vertices of two of the octagons—the ones at Dereka and Lysia. He eased over beside Wendra and lowered the map. "See? Here and here. Those don't appear on any of the other Table octagons."

  "There are two scepters, aren't there?" asked Wendra.

  "That's what the soarer said." Alucius frowned as he studied the map.

  "What is it?"

  "I might already have found one of them—except it wasn't there."

  Wendra raised her eyebrows.

  "There was a hidden room off the old Table chamber in Dereka…" Alucius went on to explain what he had seen in the chamber, concluding, "… and I'd wager that the casket once held one of the scepters. But the scepter was gone."

  "There weren't any signs of anything else missing, were there?"

  "No one had been in the chamber in years. There was dust everywhere. Someone might have taken it a long time ago, but not recently."

  "So it was taken years ago. Could we travel there by the ley lines and see if we could sense where it might lead?"

  There was something, something, but Alucius couldn't quite recall what it was… and he felt that he should remember. "It's not there. Not now. We should try Lysia."

  "Have you been there?" Wendra eased Alendra from her breast and to her shoulder, patting her back.

  "No, but the map says that the colors are yellow and orange. We can concentrate on that."

  "Will it help if we hold hands?" Wendra lowered her daughter to the other breast. "She's still hungry."

  "I don't know. I don't see how it could hurt." Alucius frowned. "What about Alendra? Do you think… ?"

  "She comes with us," Wendra replied. "I'm not leaving her. Besides, we have to finish this soon. Alendra won't be able to travel with us for much longer. We don't know how long this will take. Besides, there are too many ifrits around."

  Alucius could have argued about that, but then, his wife's mind was clearly made up… and there had been far more ifrits in Corus than he'd thought about, and with the translation tubes open to the ifrits' world, there was always the chance that another might appear. Or a whole host of them.

  "I won't be that long. Or Alendra won't."

  Alucius straightened and walked to the window, looking down and out at the hidden city, a city that had once held much of a race… and now held but three herders… and the hopes of both soarers and herders.

  Chapter 144

  Salaan, Lanachrona

  « ^ »

  Purplish mist boiled away from the Table, and a tall figure emerged from the mist holding a case in both arms. In the holster attached to the wide maroon belt was a light-cutter whose discharge formulator had been half-melted, half-shattered.

  The ifrit slowly and carefully descended from the Table, easing the silver and black case into Tarolt's arms. "Careful… barely… made…"

  "Fieldmaster…"

  Lasylt sat down on the stone floor. Then his eyes rolled up in their sockets, before closing. He slowly pitched sideways. Trezun grasped his garments quickly enough so that he was able to keep the senior fieldmaster from slamming down onto the stone.

  Tarolt opened the hidden doorway a
nd carried the metallic case into the strong room at the end of the short corridor, returning quickly—empty-handed. He closed the hidden door.

  "What happened?" stammered Trezun.

  "Table strain. It's hard to carry something like that through the tubes," explained Tarolt. "He'll recover quickly. We'll just carry him up to his room."

  Effortlessly, the two picked up the larger ifrit and carried him up the stairs from the Table chamber, through the conference room, out into the foyer, and up yet another flight of stairs to a corner chamber, where a stove suffused the room with strong but gentle warmth. There, they laid him on the extra-long and extra-wide bed.

  Tarolt took the folded sheet of eternal paper from the fieldmaster's belt, opening it. He smiled as he beheld the map.

  "What is it?"

  "An ancient map of where all the Tables were." Tarolt fixed his eyes on Trezun. "I will wait. You must guard the Table. Should the Talent-steer appear, use a light-knife before he can use any of his weapons."

  "Yes, Fieldmaster."

  "Tarolt… still."

  "Yes, Tarolt." Trezun nodded and hurried back down the steps.

  Tarolt seated himself in the overlarge straight-backed wooden chair and waited.

  Half a glass passed before Lasylt's eyes blinked, and another quarter before the ifrit coughed and looked around. He finally caught sight of Tarolt. "You… have… the scepter?"

  "It's locked in the storeroom. Trezun is guarding it and watching the Table with a light-knife."

  "Good." The senior ifrit slowly eased himself into a position where he sat on the edge of the bed and looked directly at Tarolt. He began to speak, his voice low and gravelly. "We must insist that Waleryn bring his Table up to full power and immediately bring the locator here to Salaan. We can lose no time in seeking out and recovering the other scepter, Then one of you must translate to that scepter. It will act as a portal."

  Tarolt nodded slowly. "I will have to make that effort. Trezun is limited to Tables."

  "That is not all," Lasylt continued. "As soon as you can, Tarolt, you must use my authority to order the translation of another ten Efrans here. Now."

  "Ten?"

  "As I was leaving with the scepter, I could sense your Talent-steer moving toward Lysia. We retrieved the scepter just in time. He is far stronger than the ancient ones, and he is searching for the scepters. He must know their purpose. If we have both here, and there are always two… or more guarding the Table…"

  "We cannot do that without more Efrans," Tarolt said.

  "We cannot. That is why we will order ten more here."

  "The translation is still dangerous with such a frail grid."

  "Order fifteen then, or twenty. Some may perish, but the Talent-steer must not be allowed to take either scepter."

  "I told Trezun to use a light-knife on him should he appear in the Table, even before he is fully translated."

  "Good. We will still need more Efrans. Go and issue the orders."

  "Yes, Lasylt." Tarolt inclined his head, then rose from the chair.

  "I will be down shortly." Lasylt paused. "The strong room is Talent-shielded, is it not?"

  "It is indeed, and the door is closed."

  Lasylt nodded again as Tarolt left the bedchamber and started down the steps.

  Chapter 145

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  Alucius and Wendra stood at the edge of the silver mirror in the amber-walled tower. Alendra was strapped firmly into the carrypack, and Alucius held his rifle in his left hand. All the cartridges in the magazine had been infused with the darkness of lifeforce, as had the ten remaining in the loops of his belt. He glanced at Wendra, and their eyes met.

  "Are you ready?" he finally asked.

  "No. But I won't be any more ready tomorrow or the next day." Wendra forced a grin. "And well be a lot more hungry."

  Alucius extended his right hand and took her left, and the two stepped onto the mirrorlike surface.

  "Yellow and orange—those are the colors, and they'll seem misty, almost not there. They might seem hidden behind the blackness," Alucius said.

  Wendra nodded.

  He began to concentrate on reaching the misty darkness of the ley lines, trying to match what he did with what he felt Wendra was doing.

  He began to sink into the silverness of the mirror and along a misty-dark conduit toward the deeper and more greenish black misty darkness beneath the hidden city. He could barely sense Wendra, but she was beside him, in that fashion of closeness that he could not touch or reach. The chill did not seem quite so intense as he recalled, and he tried to concentrate on the portal that was yellow and orange. Yellow and orange, he tried to project to Wendra as he focused his mind on traversing the misty blackness to the far southeast, almost as far from the Aerial Plateau as one could go and still remain within Corns.

  So slowly, the yellow and orange drew nearer, or they drew nearer to it, veiled by a purplish shadow of an ifrit tube, one that was but partly there. Alucius continued to send the image of yellow and orange toward Wendra, but he had no idea if she could sense what he tried to project. Finally, he concentrated on lifting himself out of the misty blackness, out of the chill, and back into the world of light through the yellow and orange.

  The barrier before him was one of silvered orange, and he formed himself into a spearhead of being…

  Orange, yellow, and silver mixed in slashing swirls of icy chill a swirl of chill that exploded away from him…

  Alucius stood in the Table depression—alone. He glanced around. There was no one in the Table chamber besides himself, not even Wendra. He swallowed. Should he try to go back into the darkness and chill to find her? Or should he wait a moment?

  Then, a swirl of dark mist appeared and Wendra and Alendra stood beside him.

  He reached out and squeezed Wendra's hand. "I was getting worried."

  "I had… a little trouble… breaking through."

  "I'm sorry. You have to imagine yourself as a spear or something sharp."

  A rueful smile crossed her lips. "I tried being a hammer. A spear would have been better."

  "Or an axe." Alucius studied the chamber more intently. Unlike the walls of the other Table chambers, those of the chamber in Lysia were cracked. In more than a few places, the walls appeared to have been splintered and broken by gunfire or shrapnel. The thinnest rays of light penetrated the chamber through cracks in the stone ceiling, providing a twilightlike illumination.

  "I'll get better," Wendra promised, patting Alendra on the back.

  Even as Alucius stepped out of the depression that had held a Table many years before, he could sense an aura of purpleness as well. It was the first time he had sensed an ifrit in a place where there was not a functioning Table. He cast out his Talent even farther, bringing up his rifle as he did… but there was no one else in the Table chamber, or in the open passageway that led up the stone steps to an upper level. "An ifrit's been here. He's gone, I think."

  "Is that the purple feeling?"

  Alucius nodded.

  "It feels cold… worse than a sandsnake or one of those Talent-creatures on the stead."

  "They're very strong, and their clothes are like nightsilk. Don't think they are, but they've pressed lifeforce into them, and they act the same way when they're hit with a sabre or a bullet. They might be even stronger than nightsilk." Alucius inspected the first set of holes drilled into the stone walls, where once a light-torch bracket had been.

  "I think it's this one," Wendra said from the other side of the chamber. "There are four holes here, and there are scuff marks in the dust on the floor."

  Alucius walked around the oblong Table depression and joined her. His eyes took in the holes. Again, his Talent revealed nothing. "Do you want to try to open it?"

  "Why don't you show me? That will take less time."

  He extended a thin Talent-probe, turning the leading end as sticky as drying honey, and sand-rough. He fumbled with what he could barely sense on the other side
of the stone wall. His forehead was damp with sweat when there was a click and the wall slid aside to reveal the passageway. A mist of purpleness drifted out of the passage and around the two herders, but Alucius could tell that the passageway and the chamber beyond were empty.

  Wendra wrinkled her nose. "I know it's something I sense with Talent, but it smells bad. Alendra doesn't like it, either."

  The two eased into the passageway, almost ten yards long and lit by the faint glow of an ancient light-torch. As Alucius had expected, at the end was another chamber—exactly five yards square. Large footprints stood out in the dust that had settled onto the polished stone floor. As with the chamber in Dereka, a table desk stood beside the wall in one corner, with a long-legged chair beside it. Against the wall to the right was a single-wide chest of drawers.

  Stretched on the floor in the corner beside the desk was a set of clothes, the green tunic trimmed in brilliant purple, with matching trousers and black boots. All the garb had a silvery sheen and held embedded lifeforce. On the wall adjoining the one closest to the table desk was an empty niche. Alucius stepped toward it.

  Unlike every other bit of stone in the chamber, the stone surface of the niche was rough and uneven, with deeper gouges at each end. Alucius could also feel heat emanating from the stone. He looked down at the rock droplets on the ancient stone floor, then up at Wendra. "The scepter was here. Not very long ago, either. The ifrits used one of their light-knives to cut it out of the stone."

  "Now what do we do?"

  Alucius stopped. "I think I know where the other scepter is… where it has to be…" He couldn't help frowning as the words left his lips.

  "Where?"

  "It has to be in Madrien, under the Residence of the Matrial. It can't be anywhere else. The soarer said that it was locked in pink and purple, and the entire residence—everything associated with the Matrial—has an energy that is pink and purple."

  "But… you said you destroyed the crystal." Absently, Wendra patted Alendra, as if to calm the infant.

  "I did… but what if the crystal was just something created by the use of the scepter? That's the only thing that explains it, and it would explain why the Regent of the Matrial was able to repower those torques."