Corean Chronicles 3 - Scepters

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Beyond the first wall rose dais upon dais of green eternastone, and upon each dais stood the blond ifrits, all in different garb—some bearing weapons and some empty-handed. Alucius realized, almost instantly, the "ifrits" were incredibly lifelike statues—except for the four pairs of guards stationed equidistantly around the lowest dais.

  "There!" said Wendra.

  Alucius turned, still holding his rifle ready, to see halfway up the daises in the middle of the long side of the oval an enormous scepter, shimmering purple, with light playing across it.

  He could sense no power, and no response from the scepter he carried.

  "It's false. It's not a real scepter."

  Alucius caught sight of movement and whirled.

  Two of the tall blond ifrit guards aimed their light-cutters toward Alucius and Wendra. An instant before the beams of the light-cutters slashed toward them, Alucius flung up a shield of greenish black.

  When the light-knife beams splattered away from the shield, Alucius was more surprised than the openmouthed guards.

  "There's no scepter here! We'll try the next Table," Wendra said.

  "Let's go."

  Light flashed around them as they dropped back into the darkness beneath the Table.

  The chill was greater, more oppressive, and Alucius could sense no Table arrow markers at all. None. Had all the Tables been deactivated? How could the tubes remain? Except they had to be ifrit world ley lines, and the master scepter had to lie along them… somewhere.

  In the chill darkness, Wendra blazed even more brightly, a figure of green and gold, and Alucius could also sense the purple pink brilliance of the scepters they carried.

  Ahead, or so it seemed, was a pinkish purpleness, not an arrow, not a marker, but something more like a portal, like the portal created by the scepter they had sought on Corns. Alucius would have laughed had he been able. The ifrits, believing that he and Wendra could travel only from Table to Table, had shut off the Tables, and that had revealed the location of the master scepter. Yet… would there be guards waiting there? How many? With what kinds of weapons?

  Alucius forced himself to move faster to sweep in beside Wendra.

  The darkness was deceptive, for they seemed to move so slowly.

  Was the scepter like the portals of the soarers, outside the ley lines?

  Alucius reached beyond the webs of darkness, somehow off to the side, and the portal blazed brighter. Wendra… had she tried to pulse an inquiry? Alucius reached once more, and he could sense Wendra reaching with him.

  With that effort, Alucius and Wendra surged toward the purple pink portal, so quickly that they were through whatever barrier that might have existed even before they were aware of any such membranes separating the world lifeforce lines and the world above.

  Waves of pulsing purple light flashed over them, light so bright that Alucius could see nothing.

  Alendra shrieked, a thin cry lost in the silent light that was, impossibly, louder than thunder, a light that seemed to paralyze all thought, blind all vision.

  Alucius cast out a dark Talent-probe, sending it forth almost as a shade against the source of the light. That Talent-shade dimmed the intensity enough that he could see, through eyes streaming tears, and only perceiving blurry objects at first, that they were in an empty chamber—empty except for a silver scepter three times the size of those they carried, set in a framework of silver bars that descended through the solid stone floor into the depths of the earth below. Above the scepter was a massive spinning purplish crystal, easily a dozen times the size of the one that had powered the Matrial's torques.

  Alendras cries continued, but Wendra and Alucius exchanged a quick glance.

  "Someone's coming," she said. "How… what… do we do?"

  "What did the soarer say? Reunite the scepters… wasn't that it?" As he spoke, Alucius set down his rifle, reached down with both hands, and began to undo the clips that held the scepter to the scabbard.

  When he had loosened the first clip, the silver scepter snapped the second clip and surged toward the master scepter. All of Alucius's strength was barely sufficient to hold it. "Wendra. Drop your rifle and get rid of the scepter. Quick!"

  Wendra did not even look at Alucius as she bent and released the first clip. The second snapped.

  A roaring filled the chamber, and the intensity of the light began to multiply once more.

  Alucius glanced at his wife, his vision blurring under the searing brilliance. The metal of the scepter was bending, yet she was holding it. He glanced down. He was also holding a scepter that was bending, the metal elongating as the crystal surged and struggled toward the master crystal.

  "On three," Alucius yelled. "Release it, and grab hands, and drop… all the way back to Coras. One! Two! Three!"

  He released his scepter, and his fingers closed around Wendra's wrist, even as he tried simultaneously to cast up a green black shield and struggled to reach the darkness of the ley lines beneath the chamber.

  A splintering impact rocked the chamber, and Alucius and Wendra were flung backward against the wall. Splinters of stone, of crystal, flew past and around them. Alucius could feel his shield crumpling as he/she/ they forced their way into the blackness beneath the stone, a blackness beneath the stone chamber.

  The blackness was neither totally dark nor chill. Lines of purple pink flared past them and around them, with waves of heat that alternated with a deeper chill. Alucius felt blistered and frozen by those waves, buffeted one way, then another.

  Wendra turned, seeking the long translation tube.

  Alucius followed, as much tracking the cold and sensing the tube as knowing where he and Wendra were headed. Behind them rippled waves of pink and purple. The scepter portal flared brighter, then fragmented into pink sections that disintegrated into smaller sections, and ifrit ley line after ley line began to shrivel.

  As if sensing the urgency, Wendra began to press, her thoughts pulling her, Alendra, and Alucius toward a darker, stronger, greener blackness at the end of the purple tube that they traveled, a tube that seemed to be cracking, letting in even deeper cold, and disintegrating behind and around them. The foreboding he had felt on the out-translation was stronger, the chill ever deeper, and Alucius focused on reaching the Corean end of the deep and long purpleness that stretched eternally beyond the reach of his Talent, a star-great distance that he knew they could cross, that they must cross. As in the outward journey, he sensed the warmth of Wendra and Alendra—joining in that combined strength against the star-deep chill as the tube walls, even as they began to separate—began to split—contracted, twisted, pulled, and pushed at the three of them.

  Instants, years, seasons, moments—measurements of time—meant little except that they passed so slowly, yet instantly, in the timelessness of the translation tube. As the timeless instants stretched out, Alucius focused his being on the stead, on the timelessness and the openness, and upon the Corns that could be, that would be…

  A huge convulsion ran through the tube, and Alucius felt that he and Wendra had been tumbled, head over heels, even though they had moved not at all, and he reached out, seeking the heavier, stronger ley lines of Corus…

  … and found them as they dropped into a greenish black chill that was steadier, and merely uncomfortable, a ley line that was of Corns. For all of that, there were no Table arrow markers, no portal markers, just the long darkness.

  Alucius concentrated, thinking about the "memories" of portals, and a faint image appeared, the faintest hint of maroon and green. He seized on that, and they sped toward that faint indication. As they traveled, Alucius began to sense what lay beyond the ley lines, above and beyond, a sensing he had never had before—the land, the River Vedra to the north, and the Plateau farther to the northeast. Had the ifrits' tubes blocked those senses?

  Then… they neared what had once been a Table, now only a block of stone framed in wood… and they stepped out of the blackness, without even a barrier barring the way…<
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  Chapter 159

  Norda, Lustrea

  « ^ »

  Waleryn slowly picked himself up, looking around the unfamiliar room, a room he knew he had never seen and yet knew. A pair of light-torches illuminated the stone-walled underground chamber, but while the room was similar to the Table room in Tempre, it was not the same room. There was something that looked like a Table, but the surface was dull black stone.

  He looked down. An angular tall figure, not quite like a man, lay beside the wall. As he watched, the figure and its garments shimmered, then dissolved into dust. After a moment, the dust vanished as well.

  "Engineer, sir?"

  Waleryn turned.

  A man in the uniform of a Praetorian Guard stood in the doorway, a doorway that showed a staircase behind it. "Sir? The whole building was shaking. Are you all right?"

  "I'm a little confused. Where am I?"

  "In Norda, sir. Where else would you be? You and the Praetor ordered us here."

  Waleryn nodded slowly, but his expression was not one of comprehension, and his eyes did not meet those of the guard.

  Chapter 160

  « ^ »

  Alucius and Wendra stood at the end of the Table chamber in Salaan. Alucius turned and looked at her, but she was the Wendra of Corus, with brown hair and golden eyes flecked with green, with the same generous mouth. And yet… she was more, with a presence that radiated power and a lifethread that was both a more brilliant green and yet darker, more somber. He found her looking at him, equally intently.

  "We're us," he said.

  "Mostly. You look… more powerful… dangerous."

  "So do you."

  "I don't know if I like that," Wendra said.

  "It's who you are, who you were meant to be."

  Wendra cocked her head for a moment, thinking. Then her eyes fixed on the dark block of stone, framed in lorken, that had once been a Table. Now it was only dark stone surrounding shattered and vanished crystal. Whatever crystalline structures had once powered it were gone, gone with the ifrit transport tubes.

  "They're gone," Wendra said. "All of them."

  "But there are light-torches." Alucius walked to the light-torch bracket and turned it. The hidden door opened. He turned it again, and it closed.

  "Whatever was truly made here, that will remain. The soarers had light-torches. Maybe the ifrits took that from them, rather than the other way around." Wendra's nose wrinkled. "All this has taken a toll on our little friend here. Let's go upstairs and see if we can find some water."

  Alucius could only hope that there were no surprises waiting, or none that couldn't be handled by Talent, because both rifles were somewhere on the ifrit world, and his scabbard was empty. Still, as he stepped toward the doorway to the stairs, he could sense no one.

  He made his way up the steps carefully, but the main level was deserted.

  "I said that no one was here," Wendra offered with a smile.

  "I thought that was so, but… these days, you never know." From the outside light, Alucius thought the time of day was late afternoon, but while it could have been the same afternoon as the day they left, the light felt different, as though it were not. Given his instructions to Feran, it had to have been less than a month.

  He nodded and kept looking.

  There was a washroom in the rear, and before long, Alendra was cleaner… and hungry.

  Sitting in one of the chairs in the conference room, Wendra began to feed their daughter.

  Alucius walked over to the iron stove set against the wall. The metal was cold. In fact, the room was cool, almost chill, and with the heat that had filled the structure before they had left, the coolness was another indication that more than a few glasses had passed, that at least a day had gone by. Alucius doubted that it had been only a day.

  He took out his water bottle and offered it to Wendra. After she drank, he finished it, then fished out a package of travel bread and hard cheese. He alternated between eating some and feeding Wendra as Alendra nursed.

  "Our rifles… the bullets," Wendra said slowly. "They didn't act like that even against the dark sanders or the wild translations."

  "No. They didn't do that to Tarolt or the ifrits here. It must be the lifeforce. The ifrit world was dying—"

  "And we used the lifeforce from Corus," Wendra said. "But why didn't it work that way here?"

  "I'm just guessing," Alucius replied, "but the ifrits who came here were drawing on the lifeforce of Corus through the Tables, not that of their own world. All their lifethreads were tied to the Tables, and their tubes were linked to the ley lines. So they were drawing lifeforce all the time."

  "They would have bled Corus dry." She paused. "But… how could they think a mere handful could—"

  "They did once before," Alucius pointed out, "and against seemingly greater opposition."

  "But the arrogance…" Wendra paled. "How did you feel against those poor ifrits in the Table rooms? Strong? Almost invincible?"

  "Linking to power, the ley lines? Does it do that to everyone? Is that another temptation we face? Is that what you mean?"

  She nodded slowly. "They had so much… and it wasn't enough. There was so much beauty there, in just those few rooms. If we had seen their world…"

  "They created beauty here, too, before," Alucius pointed out. "That kind of beauty has a high price. Like the Matrial's order and beauty."

  "We'll have to make sure we don't do that."

  "Avoid that sort of temptation," Alucius added. Yet that would be bittersweet, he knew, because he had been moved by those brief glimpses of surpassing beauty.

  Wendra eased Alendra to her shoulder, patting her back. "We'll have to be very careful with Alendra. She won't have seen and felt what we have."

  Alucius wasn't so sure that he wouldn't have to be careful with himself first. Another thought occurred to him. "I need to visit the Lord-Protector. It won't take long."

  "You've said that before." But she smiled.

  "It's not to another world," he countered, returning her smile with one of his own. "Besides, you're still guarded. I can feel the lancers out there."

  "If you won't be long…"

  "I don't think so. Not this time."

  She nodded. "Be careful."

  "I will."

  Alucius walked down the steps to the chamber that held what had once been a Table. He suspected he could have contacted the ley lines with his Talent from the upper level, but it was easier on the lower level.

  Almost immediately, he was in the misty greenish blackness, searching for the trace of the blue that had once been a Table in Tempre. At the same time, he was seeking other landmarks, knowing that in time, the portal/ Table traces would vanish as the ley lines healed from the imposition of the ifrit tubes.

  The blue shadow was located where three lines came together south of the flow of life that was the River Vedra—and Alucius could sense all three. Extending himself on a Talent-line from the ley line, he drifted shadowlike from the Table room to the private chamber off the audience hall—empty—to the Lord-Protector's private apartments. Through the green silver veil, he located himself in the foyer and stepped through the misty veil.

  His boots hit hard on the polished floor. Alucius smiled. He'd been a third of a yard above the tiles, and that was something he'd have to watch in the future. He stepped to the foyer archway, where he looked into the sitting room.

  The Lord-Protector sat in one of the chairs, facing Alerya. Her eyes widened at Alucius's appearance.

  "Talryn…"

  The Lord-Protector turned and rose, his eyes widening as well at the appearance of the young colonel in his private chamber. "Colonel… this… it's…"

  "Rather irregular. Yes, it is." Alucius smiled. "You'll pardon me if I'm quick and cryptic."

  "I thought you were… in Dekhron."

  "I was, and I'll be returning there after we talk. The Northern Guard had a few more problems than we'd thought. The Regent of the Matria
l had some hidden allies there. I wrote you about them before I knew they were working for the Regent. Among them were those traders who were overcharging the Guard and pocketing the golds. They were also promoting incompetent officers and trying to undermine the Guard's ability to hold the north. I ended up having to go to Hieron to take care of the problem at the source. The torques no longer work. This time, they won't be repowered. You should start to receive reports of greater success from Madrien in the weeks ahead, if you haven't already. And… one other thing… there are no functioning Tables left in Corus. There won't be any more, either."

  A faint smile crossed Alerya's lips, but she said nothing.

  "We've also recovered a fair sum of golds from those traders," Alucius continued, "and about a third of those are on their way here. The others we'll be using to move the Northern Guard to Iron Stem. That will solve several problems at once."

  "Ah… Your methods have always been…"

  "Controversial, but effective. That's true. After I return to Dekhron, you will be receiving my letter of resignation from the Northern Guard, and my recommendation for my successor. Unless matters have changed since I left Dekhron, it will be Majer Feran."

  The Lord-Protector frowned. "He's only been the deputy for less than a season."

  "I'd greatly appreciate that favor, Lord-Protector. Majer Feran can always call on me for advice." Alucius paused. "Besides, all your colonels and marshals will be much happier dealing with Feran. He's had a more… traditional background. He also believes it's time to move the Guard headquarters to Iron Stem."

  Talryn spread his arms and provided a helpless shrug. "It seems as though I have no choice, Colonel."

  "You have choices. They wouldn't be as good. And you'll still have problems, but they'll be more manageable." Alucius waited.

  After a pause, Talryn laughed brittlely. "And you?"

  "I'll go back to being a herder. I'm better at that."